From the organizers of the Lowell Folk Festival: Weather change tonight. *The Ethnic Flag raising has been moved to the Lowell High School Auditorium at 6:45 p.m. *All Boarding House Park performances will be held inside Lowell High School in the Irish Auditorium. *The Dutton Street Dance Pavilion opens at 7:15…
Read More »
Here’s an update from the National Park about the Folk Festival concerning tonight’s weather: The Lowell Folk Festival goes on rain or shine! There are great acts, amazing food, and wonderful audiences at two stages tonight’s 24th Festival. For tonight only, the Lowell Folk Festival schedule has been shifted for…
Read More »
It’s always fun to get the SUN insert with the Lowell Folk Festival schedule, artist/group descriptions, and street map of the stage locations and other attractions. Looking at it this morning, I thought the community has done well in the past 30-something years building what is for all intents and…
Read More »
The entry below has been cross posted from Marjorie Arons-Barron’s own blog. Question 1: What has shed more heat than light? Select from: a) Massachusetts politicians b) Massachusetts media c) the public debate about replacing Massachusetts testing standards with new national ones. Answer: all of the above. Massachusetts’ education standards…
Read More »
The latest trend in sneaker sales is toning shoes – athletic footwear that has an other than flat sole. The Globe reports today that the sky rocketing sales of these shoes has revived the sagging sneaker industry. The theory is that the oddly shaped bottom – some are curved like…
Read More »
In a StateHouse News Bureau story reported in today’s Eagle Tribune, there are three legislator-perspectives on the current status of the Casino bill. From Senator Stan Rosenburg (D-Amherst), chief gambling bill negotiator for the Senate – still hopeful: Asked if he felt there might be an unbreakable impasse, Rosenberg said,…
Read More »
Globe staffer James Reed delves deeper into what the Lowell Folk Festival is really all about in today’s edition. It’s an obvious but overlooked fact about folk festivals: In the truest sense, they’re not just about singer-songwriters wielding acoustic guitars or dancers kicking up their heels to Cape Breton fiddlers.…
Read More »
The NYTimes today reports that the US is falling behind in college completion rates when compared to other countries. It’s good to note that UMass Lowell is bucking the worrisome national trend. Between 2007 and 2009, the student success rate increased by about five to eight percent in various measures,…
Read More »
One of the biggest questions in studying modern (post 1600) global history is why it was Europe and not China or India that became the dominant world power. From a purely statistical standpoint, the best money was on China up until even as late as 1800; it simply had greater…
Read More »
Scot’s Heather wins prize in 1861 Both Tewksbury weeklies – The Advocate and the Town Crier – are reporting plans for a summer search for any signs that the “Scot’s Heather” – that won a “New Native Plant” medal from the Massachusetts Horticultural Society back in 1861 – still grows in the Tewksbury town…
Read More »