Thanks to Paul S for sharing some of his excellent photographs from the August 16, 2010 debate between First Middlesex State Senate Democratic candidates Chris Doherty and Eileen Donoghue (pictured above). The debate was sponsored by Lowell radio station WCAP and was held at Lowell High School’s “Little Theater.” The…
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Tonight’s WCAP-sponsored and broadcast debate between Democratic State Senate candidates Chris Doherty and Eileen Donoghue was a spirited affair that touched on some of the major issues identified thus far. The format and the setting (Lowell High School’s “Little Theater”) both worked well and allowed the focus to remain on…
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In Lowell, there’s a debate about the future of the Pawtucket Falls Dam. There’s another debate about allowing alcohol to be served at a business adjacent to a temple. Behind the discussion are people’s feelings about the power of place, the meaning of certain special places. The concept of place is all…
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[youtube]WiQ9bd3t-fI[/youtube] I don’t play or follow golf, but all the stories about the controversial ending to yesterday’s PGA Championship caught my attention. A golfer named Dustin Johnson was leading by one stroke on one of the final holes. All he had to do was shoot par and he would win…
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Here’s the eighth installment of my Twitter “tweets” of Charles Cowley’s “Illustrated History of Lowell.” We’ve almost reached the city’s incorporation in 1826 (as a town). Much happened here before Lowell even existed. In 1819 Moses Hale + Oliver Whipple built a (gun) powder mill on Concord River in Lowell…
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To get from the feature stories in the Sunday Globe “Ideas” section to the editorial page, you have to flip through a couple of pages of want ads. One bearing the UMass Lowell logo caught my eye. Here’s the relevant part: “In order to reduce reliance on part-time instructors, UMass…
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Read this Toronto Star report about this month’s celebration of The Beatles in their hometown of Liverpool, England. The events include a special version of the annual Mathew Street Music Festival (Aug. 29-30), which is billed as “Europe’s largest free music festival.” That description should sound familiar to Lowell Folk Festival people,…
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Back in June at the Democratic State Convention at Worcester’s DCU Center, the speech by Vicki Kennedy during the tribute to her late husband, Senator Ted Kennedy, was the highlight of the convention, even eclipsing Governor Patrick’s very good nomination acceptance speech. At the time I remember thinking “is this…
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Another in my series on recent Massachusetts state elections. For other year’s results, check out our Elections page. 1992 was a presidential election year. The Bill Clinton-Al Gore ticket defeated George Bush and Dan Quayle nationally, in Massachusetts (1,318,662 to 805,049), and in Lowell (14,492 to 12,653). This election was…
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Support local businesses. Can I say this more plainly in the lingering Great Recession? I perambulated the immediate neighborhood late this afternoon, from the JAM district to the edge of Back Central and back to the South Common Historic District. I’d been meaning for a while to go to the Brazilian “bakery…
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