RichardHowe.com – Voices from Lowell & Beyond

Seen & Heard: Vol. 10

Book Review: Burma ‘44 by James Holland – Popular historian James Holland of England has written a dozen nonfiction books on World War II and has appeared in twice that number of TV programs on the war. He’s perhaps best known these days as the co-host with Al Murray of the popular World War II podcast, We Have Ways of Making You Talk. (Coincidentally, his brother Tom Holland co-hosts another popular history podcast called The Rest is History.) This book, subtitled “the battle that turned World War II in the east,” was of interest to me because I know so little about the war in that part of the world. On the allied side, it was fought mostly by the British and Indians, but there was substantial US involvement, especially on the logistics side. Because that part of the world is both mountainous and impassable jungle, logistics meant air transport. Up until 1944, the allies were on the defensive in the China-Burma-India theater, seemingly unable to stop the Japanese who had attained a reputation of superior jungle fighters. Deciding to shake up their command structure, the English installed a young but experienced Naval officer, Lord Louis Mountbatten, as the Supreme Allied Commander for South East Asia Command, and General William Slim as the ground commander. With Mountbatten’s enthusiastic support, Slim emphasized training, logistics, and morale and turned a retreating demoralized force into a victorious army. This book is about a pivotal battle fought on the allied side mostly by support troops who were surrounded by the attacking Japanese but because they had been trained in infantry tactics and were adequately supplied by air, were able to not only fight off the attack but decisively defeat the Japanese in the first big allied land victory in that theater. The book tells this story in a dramatic, human way that makes for fast and enjoyable reading. 

Newspaper: “The Full Story of America” by Megan Marshall – This Op-Ed appeared in the Boston Globe “Ideas” section on February 22, 2026. Marshall, whose 2013 biography of Margaret Fuller won the Pulitzer Prize for Biography, is one of my favorite historians so I eagerly read anything she writes. This essay is a defense of U.S. historians in the past two decades in the face of the Trump Administration’s “flag-hugging, Bible-thumping” rewriting of the American story. Here, Marshall argues that the best way to fight back is to draw attention to the important contributions of historians in the face of this revisionism. This is a concern that directly impacts Lowell: It’s been widely reported that Lowell National Historical Park removed two films that depicted harsh labor conditions in the city’s mills and industrial pollution in response to a Trump order demanding the removal of content deemed “negative” or “disparaging” of American history. This is part of a larger, ongoing effort to remove various historical, social and environmental narratives, particularly those about slavery and civil rights, from our National Parks. 

Movie Review: Widow Clicquot – The Netflix algorithm suggested this 2023 historical drama to me so I clicked play. The first few minutes captured my interest and, because the film is just a refreshing 90-minutes long, I watched it to its conclusion over two nights. Set in the Champagne region of Napoleonic France, it’s the story of Barbe-Nicole who married an eccentric vineyard owner named Francois Clicquot who had some radical ideas about growing grapes and making wine. However, much of his eccentricity was the manifestation of mental illness which caused his early death leaving Barbe a widow and the owner of an underperforming vineyard. Immediately after the burial, the menfolk arranged to sell the property to the neighboring vineyard owner, Mr. Moet, but Barbe objected on the grounds she wished to carry on the business as a tribute to her deceased husband. In the face of rampant male chauvinism, Barbe combined her husband’s innovative ideas with her own and powered them with her determination to succeed which she did, running the business until her death at age 89 and creating the Veuve Clicquot champagne dynasty. Not being a regular consumer of champagne or even wine, I may have missed some of the movie’s references to that field, but I am well-aware of the historic obstacles that have constrained (and continue to constrain) the achievements of women, so I appreciated that aspect of the movie. 

Newspaper: “Taking a long, cold look at the harsh winter that was” By Ken Mahan in the Boston Globe on March, 5, 2026. If it’s 6am or 6pm, I’ll tune in a live TV weather forecast. Old habits die hard and the integration of someone explaining something with supporting graphics is a method of consuming information that works for me. But the rest of the time, I rely on the Globe’s Ken Mahan and his associate, former TV weather person David Epstein who is a regular contributor. In this article, Mahan reviews this winter. He points out that meteorological seasons are month-based, so for weather people, winter is December-January-February whereas “astronomical” spring doesn’t arrive until the equinox on March 20. He writes that this winter was colder than normal, mostly due to El Nina in the Pacific Ocean which altered the jetstream. That caused record-breaking warmth in the west but when that happens, extremely cold air from Canada leaks into the northeast. Consequently, we had the coldest winter in 11 years with average temperatures nearly four degrees below normal. As for snow, two big storms in January and February gave southern New England high snow totals for the season, but overall our total precipitation was lower than average which means that unless we have a rainy spring, we’ll face a drought this summer.

The Small Town Newspaper

The Small Town Newspaper – (PIP #100)

By Louise Peloquin

     “Peek into the past” of L’Etoile number 100 brings us full circle. The seven-decade newspaper never skirted its priority, placing Lowell happenings in the limelight, as the last seven centennial PIP’s showed.

The two editorials below offer food for thought about the role of a small town, foreign language newspaper. L’Etoile editorials were most often unsigned, demonstrating director Louis-A. Biron’s wish to promote teamwork and solidarity and not single stardom.

In the first editorial after acquiring L’Etoile, Biron shares his vision – PIP #2, “Judging us by our work.”(1).

     His gift for recognizing and encouraging talent is apparent in PIP #3, “Leo with Louis at L’Etoile.” Jack Kerouac’s father honed his printing skills as an active member of Biron’s team where he multitasked as gifted printer, translator, reporter, writer. (2)

     PIP #4,  “A little star dust caught”,  presents Biron’s daily routine at 24-26 Prince Street. (3)

In PIP #5, “Every day a star is born”, we can almost hear the hive of workers buzz with state-of-the-art Linotype machines as Queen bees. No single man in a cushy corner office ruled over others. They all breathed the same air, shared the same quarters, labored towards the same goal – putting out a local daily newspaper in French. In doing so, they actively contributed to Lowell’s development and are forever a precious part of its history. (4)

The “PIP’s” started in September 2023. We thank Dick Howe most warmly for continuing to include them in his blog.

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L’Etoile – April 16, 1925 editorial

THE SMALL TOWN NEWSPAPER

     In “The New Editor and Publisher” of New York, William Allen White has recently given small town newspaper editors interesting advice. He starts by stating:

“Treat local events and you will soon place opinions on international questions second in priority. Large metropolitan dailies are more qualified to talk about these things.”

     He continues:

“Indeed, the local editorial is the weak point of a small town newspaper in the United States. This is precisely the only place where there is never any contradiction.

Certain local issues for small town readers imperiously require the editor to express an opinion. However, some readers are interested in important events taking place across our borders or abroad. Therefore, if they want an opinion on these matters, they will be able to find it more precisely in large metropolitan dailies, weeklies and numerous widely-distributed press outlets. A few editorials each month on national topics will save the small town editor’s reputation and will give him the air of a national writer. However, he will have to simultaneously approach local stories, the ones most likely to attract and to touch the reader. There also will he command respect.

The most welcome editorial is the one which, concerning politics, adjudicates responsibilities and grants justice to two opposing parties. The political partisan enjoys reading the expression of a sound opinion but if the editor has a few good blows, he must go at them with fists flying. If not, he had better remain quiet.

If there is not the least shade of partisanship in the small town newspaper editorial,  it will certainly be noticed by both Democrats as well as Republicans and the editor will have the opportunity to be authoritative when read. May he seriously treat municipal and public utility affairs in no uncertain terms, setting aside all personal and individual concerns, but keeping only the public interest in mind….”

     Above is a summary of Mr. White’s advice. It is also a tad practical for the foreign language newspaper which, nevertheless, has vitally important topics to discuss, most especially concerning the readers whom Mr. White can hardly know or understand.

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L’Etoile – April 28, 1926 editorial

FOREIGN LANGUAGE NEWSPAPERS

     A draft of legislation presently in front of Congress aims at banning all foreign language newspapers. That is going too far. There is reason to believe that Congress will always have a majority of members with enough character and common sense to push back legislation which is so contrary to the principles of real democracy.

     There have been indiscretions in some foreign language newspapers published in America. In certain cases, there have been attempts to propagate communist doctrines but it is necessary to make distinctions. Banning the publications which sow tares and preach the violent reversal of the established order is very good but leave in peace those who demonstrate a loyal spirit towards American institutions. This would be the most elementary justice.

     The few existing foreign language newspapers with communist principles are well-known. No one harbors any illusions about them or takes them for what they are not. On the other hand, there is a mass of foreign language newspapers which never tire of giving lessons of the purest patriotism. The totality of foreign language newspapers in the country belong to this last category. Here is what we read on the topic in a National Press Service bulletin:

     “It is manifestly unjust to punish the innocent when attempting to reach a few guilty people. With the reduction of immigration and the little inclination of the second generation to read a language other than English, the problems of foreign language newspaper editors are already considerably complicated. But the foreign language newspapers persist and they should persist. There are a great many of foreign birth, loyal sincere United States citizens, who count on the foreign language newspaper to be informed about the progress of their adopted country. The number of these people is so significant  that it is impossible to consider other than with alarm any attempt to destroy the news outlets which are the only ones within their reach.”

     These remarks give the tone perfectly except that perhaps it would be necessary to have reservations about the tendency of the second generation to prefer reading in English, at least within the French language community. It is also true that, in certain cases our second generation is more familiar with English than with French and that is regrettable. However, there are a great many representatives of this generation who have fully maintained the use of their native tongue and this fact is remarkable even among many of the third generation. It could be the same for the following generations with our system of parishes and parochial schools and without abdicating their rights of using French at church and at school. (5)

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1) PIP #2 – Judging us by our work:  https://richardhowe.com/2023/10/03/judging-us-by-our-work/

2) PIP #3 – Leo with Louis at L’Etoile: https://richardhowe.com/2025/10/07/leo-with-louis-at-letoile-2/comment-page-1/#comment-107241

3) PIP #4  – A little star dust caught: https://richardhowe.com/2023/10/17/a-little-star-dust-caught/

4) PIP #5 – Every day a star is born: https://richardhowe.com/2023/10/24/every-day-a-star-is-born-2/

5)Translations by Louise Peloquin.

Trump’s Endgame: It’s Not What He Thinks It Is by Marjorie Arons Barron

The entry below is being cross posted from Marjorie Arons Barron’s own blog.

A week into Operation Epic Fury, the administration’s stated objectives have shifted by the hour and by the speaker: eliminate the nuclear program, roll back ballistic missiles, defang the proxies, respond to Israeli pressure, achieve regime change. The timeline is “four weeks or more,” with hints of ground troops “if necessary.” What constitutes a win has never been defined. But on one point, Trump has finally been specific. He told CNN this week that Iran would work out “like Venezuela.” He means it as a promise. It reads more like a warning.

The Venezuela he is describing is not the Venezuela of democratic transition. The “wonderful leader doing a fantastic job” he has praised by name is Delcy Rodríguez — Nicolás Maduro’s former vice president, a loyalist of the Chavez revolution who was sanctioned by both the United States and the European Union before U.S. military intervention made her Venezuela’s interim president. She told NBC News as recently as last month that Maduro remains the legitimate president of the country she now runs. She cooperates because Trump made the alternative explicit: “If she doesn’t do what’s right, she is going to pay a very big price, probably bigger than Maduro.” This is mob language. The democratic opposition — the figures who actually fought Maduro, who won the moral as well as arguably the electoral argument — were shunted aside. They lacked, Trump said, the “support to govern.”

This is the model. Remove the hostile leader. Install a compliant insider from within the existing system. Extract concessions. Normalize. Declare victory. Trump shockingly confirmed his religious flexibility when asked about Iran’s next government: “I don’t mind religious leaders. I deal with a lot of religious leaders and they are fantastic.” A secular democracy, it turns out, is optional.

The problem is that Iran is not Venezuela, and the conditions that make managed substitution even minimally workable there do not exist here. Venezuela had a single authoritarian whose removal created a political opening, however imperfect. Iran has a layered institutional architecture – a deep state, if you will – that was specifically designed to survive the loss of any individual. The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps controls an estimated 30 to 40 percent of the Iranian economy. The militia networks, the conventional armed forces, the clerical establishment — these are not a support structure for one man. There are, as yet, no signs of fracture among Iran’s security forces. Leaders at the top are replaced as easily as the head of a hydra.

Meanwhile, the opposition that would need to fill any vacuum is, in the blunt assessment of Foreign Affairs, “an archipelago of political islands divided by geography, generation, ideology, and exposure to repression.” The organized political opposition was largely dismantled after the 2009 Green Movement crackdown. What remains is decentralized, leaderless, and profoundly fragmented. Protest waves in 2019, 2022, and again in 2025-2026 — the last suppressed with catastrophic violence, with credible estimates of those killed reaching into the tens of thousands — have been spontaneous and broad but strategically incoherent.

Ethnic minority movements (such as the Kurds) have genuine organizational capacity but want decentralization and autonomy that no successor central government, American-backed or otherwise, is likely to grant. The exiled figures, including Reza Pahlavi, the former Shah’s son, have diaspora visibility and limited demonstrated domestic traction. There is no cohesive democratic alternative waiting in the wings. There was none in Iraq in 2003 either.

Last week, he told the Iranian people with a flourish, “the hour of freedom is at hand. When we are finished, take over your government. It will be yours to take.” Trump now says he wants to be involved in choosing Khamenei’s successor.

The United States has repeatedly demonstrated that it knows how to destroy regimes. Successful transitions are a different matter. Iraq was supposed to be regime change without nation-building — a welcome reception, rapid power transfer to exiles, early elections, troops home by summer. What followed was insurgency, sectarian fragmentation, and the expansion of Iranian influence across the Arab world. Iran is physically larger than Iraq and Afghanistan combined, with a population of 92 million, second only to Egypt in the region. The scale of what “next” means has not been addressed because it may not have been seriously considered.

There is a version of this that Trump can call a win without resolving any of it. Find an acceptable cleric or general from within the existing system who will make the right noises about peace with Israel and cooperation with Washington. Recognize him. Ease the strikes. Claim the nuclear threat is gone and the proxies are defanged. Let oil prices fall. Tell the base there will be no forever war. Meet Xi at the end of the month with something he can call victory.

Whether that settlement holds — whether a leadership installed under American military duress retains the domestic legitimacy to govern a traumatized and furious population, whether the IRGC accepts a new arrangement that threatens its economic empire, whether the regional proxy networks simply reconstitute under new management — these are questions the Venezuela approach does not answer. They are questions that will be answered eventually, at a cost that will not be borne primarily by Americans.

Ayatollah Khamanei’s Iran was the world’s greatest state sponsor of terrorism. No tears should be shed for his demise. The Iranians who spent January in the streets, who were killed in numbers that may never be fully counted, were not fighting for a friendlier theocrat who will negotiate oil contracts with Washington. They know what the Islamic Republic is. They have been living under it. What the Venezuela template offers them is the same bargain the United States has offered oppressed populations before: your aspirations are a logistical inconvenience. We have a deal to close.

Trump, eager for quick results, risks the quagmire he has railed against his entire political life. The questions he hasn’t answered beget questions he hasn’t even cared to ask.This is not a time for magical thinking.

Lowell Politics: March 8, 2026

The Lowell City Council met on Tuesday night (March 3, 2026). The meeting was dominated by a discussion of a joint motion by Councilors Corey Robinson and Rita Mercier requesting the city manager to “provide the city council with a detailed report on a pathway to secure independent legal counsel of our own choosing to review and advise concerns the council may have.” In the end, the motion passed by a large margin, but only because it requested a report on how to do it. The question of whether the council may hire an independent attorney is more divisive and will be fought out when the report comes back.

As for the “legality” of this request, clearly the council cannot hire a city employee beyond the city manager, the city clerk, and the city auditor, but this move does not try to hire a new city employee. Instead, it seeks what is essentially a consultant to advise the council. Procedurally, the council might request the city manager to issue a request for proposals for private legal work and then make the person or law firm so hired respond to the council. I don’t think that passes strict scrutiny under the limits of the Plan E form of government, but this council has freely blurred those limits before, and the city manager has chosen to acquiesce rather than take a firm stand in opposition and force the issue. The fact that other communities may have done this previously isn’t dispositive since if no one chooses to enforce a law, that precedent doesn’t make it legal or proper.

Setting aside the question of its legality, I don’t think this is a good idea for a variety of reasons. Hiring an independent attorney to advise the council is an issue that arises repeatedly, most often when the city solicitor renders an opinion that a block of councilors doesn’t like. In seeking outside counsel, they are looking for permission to do what they want to do in the first place even if that goes against the advice of the city’s lawyer. (The current trigger is the lease for the senior center.)

Legal issues are rarely black and white. This is my fortieth year as an attorney in Massachusetts and through those four decades my most frequent response to legal questions is, “it depends,” because so many variables come into play. The primary job of a lawyer is to be an advocate, to take a side and vigorously argue that side. In the setting of a trial, that zealous advocacy by the opposing sides allows the impartial tribunal – the judge or the jury – to reach the best decision. Because that’s the nature of the profession, it will be easy for the city council to find someone to render an opinion different than the city solicitor’s. But what then? The current city solicitor has always been clear that the council can do whatever it wants notwithstanding his legal advice, so this seems more about seeking political cover for councilors than anything else.

Another objection I have is a practical one: who gives the outside attorney direction? The mayor? A subcommittee of the council? A majority of the council? Or will this become 1-800-Dial-a-Lawyer every time a new idea pops into the head of a councilor? Knowing how much lawyers charge, that could get very expensive for the taxpayers of Lowell, especially considering that we are already paying for seven lawyers in the city solicitor’s office.

Back in 2008 when some newly elected city councilors began criticizing then City Manager Bernie Lynch for “failing to communicate” with councilors, Lynch presciently observed that such complaints are often a pretext for replacing a city manager. In that case, Lynch lasted another six years while the complaining councilors were gone in the next election.

In the present case, this quest for an outside lawyer could be a proxy for dissatisfaction with City Manager Tom Golden. He remains very popular so rather than firing him, which is what Plan E empowers city councilors to do, councilors express their dissatisfaction in more subtle ways.

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Last week I promised to revisit the February 24, 2026, city council meeting to discuss a couple of things. One was a joint motion by Councilor Belinda Juran and Mayor Erik Gitschier requesting the city manager “ask city solicitor to meet with rules/election subcommittee, as a follow-up to the November 19, 2024, rules subcommittee meeting, to discuss status, next steps and possible voting methods for the potential amendment of the city’s consent decree to allow the voters to elect the mayor.”

This is another recurring issue for the city council. Since the adoption of Plan E in the 1940s, the mayor of Lowell has been elected by the newly elected council by majority vote at the start of each term. Since then, the selection of a mayor has often been a divisive exercise that shatters the good feelings of the new council before it even takes office. In the aftermath of such an experience, some councilors would understandably feel, “there’s got to be a better way to do this.”

Allowing the voters to elect the mayor has come up before. The most recent proposal would allow anyone running for city council, either at large or in a district, to simultaneously run for mayor. Whoever won the mayor’s race would be the mayor, provided they also won a seat on the council.

This proposal was put to the voters in 2021 in a nonbinding referendum. The Yes side won overwhelmingly with 7,429 votes to 2,411 voting No. Of course, in that election, only 12,145 of 67,867 registered voters participated, so when councilors today say a “majority” supported this, it would be more accurate to say that a majority of the minority who vote in city elections support it. We don’t know what the vast majority of registered voters think about this issue because they didn’t vote on this referendum.

And that’s where the benign sounding “let the people elect the mayor” collides with the spirit of the voting rights lawsuit that led to the current hybrid method of electing councilors. The premise of that lawsuit was that in an all–at large system, a single neighborhood, Belvidere, decided the outcome of the election. The evidence must have supported that claim because the city settled the lawsuit and entered a consent decree granting the US District Court jurisdiction over future changes to the city’s election procedures.

The office of mayor is an important post in Lowell. The mayor automatically becomes a voting member of the school committee; chairs all council and school committee meetings; appoints all subcommittees of both bodies; and represents the city at public functions. A system that elects the mayor by a citywide vote would again be dominated by residents of that single neighborhood, an outcome that seems in conflict with the consent decree. Thus, a proposal dressed up as “letting the people decide” would instead represent backsliding to a less representative, less inclusive system.

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Some very good news from the February 24, 2026, council meeting is that MassDevelopment has designated Lowell’s Cambodia Town as a new Transformative Development Initiative (TDI) district.

Here’s how MassDevelopment describes the TDI program:

We commit intensive resources to a district for a defined time—simultaneously working on real estate development, small business stability and growth, arts, and cultural amenities, placemaking, and targeted technical assistance and strategic planning. This work is laid on a platform of community engagement and partnership development; we require that cities assemble a cross-sector partnership to apply in the first place, and over the course of the program we work to make the partnership more representative of the neighborhood and use it as a platform to grow sustaining, working relationships.

This is a very competitive process, and this is Lowell’s second TDI with the Acre having won that designation in 2022. It’s a three-year program so just as that one is coming to an end, this new one will begin. Much of the TDI work happens under the radar of public notice, but it’s critically important work done at the neighborhood level that yields great results for residents and business owners.

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Congratulations to Vanna Howard, our new state senator. In Tuesday’s special election (March 3, 2026), she defeated Republican Sam Meas and unenrolled candidate Joe Espinola. Here are the unofficial results with the district and then each community’s numbers, shown in order of finish:

Districtwide:
Howard – 4276
Meas – 1693
Espinola – 1370

Lowell
Howard – 2519
Meas – 545
Espinola – 504

Dracut
Espinola – 627
Howard – 485
Meas – 450

Pepperell
Howard – 645
Meas – 332
Espinola – 67

Tyngsborough
Howard – 382
Meas – 226
Espinola – 141

Dunstable
Howard – 245
Meas – 140
Espinola – 31

Because the senate seat is now vacant, I assume she will be sworn in as soon as the vote is made official after which she’ll immediately launch her reelection campaign since she’ll be on the ballot again this fall.

When Howard takes office as a state senator, she will resign her seat as state representative. There’s not enough time for another special election so that seat will be vacant until November. And because State Representaitve Rodney Elliott recently announced he would not seek reelection, that creates a second open state representative seat in Lowell which together should attract more candidates and greater interest among voters.

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The Pollard Memorial Library Foundation recently announced that submissions are now open for the 2026 Elinor Lipman Award for Writing. Born and raised in Lowell, Lipman is a prolific and much-loved author who graciously returns to the city each year for this contest’s awards ceremony.

More information about the rules and deadlines are available on the PML website.