Archive for August, 2010

August 31st, 2010

Tuesday political observations

by DickH

The big story today was the disclosure that Republican Congressional candidate Jon Golnik had been arrested in 2001 for Driving Under the Influence. I’m pretty sure that the Eagle Tribune broke the story. That paper’s latest is here and the Sun has a small piece here. The Globe also has the story with this detailed article on boston.com. The facts emerging from these stories are that Golnik, age 35 at the time, was stopped for driving on a flat tire while on his way back to his Carlisle home after attending an AC/DC concert in Boston. He blew a .18 on the breathalyzer and, according to the police report, admitted to smoking marijuana (although Golnik now denies having done that).

No candidate wants news of a prior DUI arrest to break two weeks before the election. I suspect that Republican primary voters will be in a forgiving mood and won’t penalize Golnik too harshly two weeks from today. Should he be the nominee, however, general election voters might not be as forgiving. Golnik is an unknown quantity and has thus far been defined to the broader electorate as someone who failed to vote in quite a few elections and now as someone who, at age 35, was arrested for driving with double the legal limit of alcohol in his system in addition to having smoked marijuana (if the police are to be believed).

Shifting focus to the First Middlesex State Senate race, another Chris Doherty flier arrived in today’s mail. In this one, Chris pledges to “protect our children” and to “support our schools” while at the same time attacking Eileen Donoghue for “voting to double her pay when our schools could have had more funding.” As I wrote in this post last week, this line of attack is misleading – the “doubled salary” was only $7500, a minuscule amount when compared to the school department’s $120 million budget. It’s also misleading in that during Donoghue’s 4-year tenure as mayor, she was a vigorous and aggressive advocate for increased funding for the public schools. But plenty of misleading attacks have proven to be very effective and this one might end up being just that, especially if Donoghue fails to respond or responds ineffectually as was the case last week when the attack was countered only with a press release from her Boston-based political consultants.

CategoryElection 2010 | CommentNo Comments »

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August 31st, 2010

Postcards Tell a Story – From Lowell and Elsewhere

by Marie

A note in today’s Globe about a vintage postcard exhibit at the Boston Public Library, reminded me of the value of post cards as historical and cultural documents.  While this exhibit focuses on early 2oth century Boston, the millions of cards in the hands of private collectors and in local historical societies and libraries have opened a door on the past. Images of pastoral and recreational scenes, cemeteries and gardens hold sway along with those of municipal buildings, bridges, schools, train depots, hotels, street scenes, waterways and much more. Some cards even have multiple images alongs with catchy greetings – all wanting to bring a touch of an area visited to home and family. According to the Globe article, Americans mailed more than 677 million postcards in 1908 alone. Many cards of traditional American scenes  were made  in Germany back then. Lowell collectors know that’s why the sand-colored stone of Lowell Tech buildings often appear red-brick in color post cards. The German artists must have thought all buildings were like mill buildings!

I wonder what the historical ”post card” resource will be for the early 21st Century. Do we even use postcards these days? What role could “Facebook-ing” greetings and images play? I don’t want to see  post card usage become so passe that they disappear!

The Lowell Historical Society has published two post card books that are windows into a past time. Check out these publications here: http://ecommunity.uml.edu/lhs/sales.htm

CategoryCulture, History, Lowell | Comment4 Comments »

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August 31st, 2010

UMass Lowell Convocation Features ‘Genius Grant’ Speaker

by PaulM

From the UMass Lowell Office of Public Affairs:

“First-year students are officially welcomed to the university community at Convocation on Tuesday, Aug. 31 at 10 a.m. at the Tsongas Center at UMass Lowell. The keynote speaker is Bill Strickland, winner of a MacArthur Foundation ‘genius grant’ and more than 10 honorary degrees for his work to combine the arts, job training and culture to fuel positive social change.

Bill Strickland (web photo courtesy of mcgyouthandarts.org)

“Strickland began his own personal transformation as an inner-city high school student more than 40 years ago when he saw a talented art teacher spin a mound of clay into a work of art on a potter’s wheel. Strickland, his creativity ignited, used art to inspire other youths from his Pittsburgh neighborhood through the Manchester Craftsmen’s Guild, an after-school program he founded while still a college student. Today, he leads the Manchester Bidwell Corp., a national model for education, culture and hope that works with both adults and youths to provide market-driven career education and training.

“Convocation also introduces the Class of 2014 to two of the 24 new student organizations founded since the same time last year, the UMass Lowell Gospel Choir and the new a cappella singing group, ‘Hawkappellas.’ A special presentation will be offered by ‘In Your Company,’ in which students will perform spoken word pieces about their life experiences as they navigate young adulthood and life at UMass Lowell. Their stories are used to make connections to the audience by providing avenues to appreciate difference while highlighting commonalities.

“Following Convocation, students are invited to a barbecue outside the Tsongas Center that features a club fair where they can find out about UMass Lowell’s 130 student-run organizations and how to participate.”

CategoryCulture, Education, History, Lowell | CommentNo Comments »

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August 31st, 2010

An Amazing Sight

by Tony

OK, so here I am driving North on Rt 95 with my wife last Friday. I’ve taken this trip many times before so I know the traffic patent well…what to expect,  where to expect it and when, including the time of year. For the most part the traffic flow that day was fine. We moved along at a steady 65mph until I approached Pease International Airport (the former Air Force Base) in New Hampshire.

All of a sudden traffic bogged down to a mere 20-25 mph.
“What the heck is going on”, I asked my wife.
“There must be an accident or road work up ahead. Just relax”, she responded.

I opened my car’s window, leaned my elbow on the door and rested my head on my hand…then gazed off into no man’s land. .. in disgust.
Within minutes my trance was broken by a loud roar that was moving closer and closer. This unexpected roar turned into a rumble, then the rumble quickly became thunderous.

I turned my eyes toward the drum-fire… In a split second a massive fighter jet bolted out of the horizon in a vertical climb almost directly over our vehicle.

My heart pounded…”Oh my God”, I  yelled to my wife, “did you see that?”
“Of course I did”, she yelled back
The first jet was followed by a second, then a third, then a fourth. The lead fighter banked right and the other three followed it in perfect alignment.

As the final jet began its turn the sun glazed off its tail revealing a bright blue, highlighted in yellow.
I knew what I was watching…the Blue Angels.

The four jets climbed upward beyond the vision barrier of my windshield. The traffic began to slowly roll again. Ahead I noticed cars parked and people standing on a small cross bridge…everyone, heads tilted upward, mesmerized by the dynamic symmetry they observed.
For about five hundred yards my Jeep crawled forward. My head bobbed between the vehicle in front of me an the sky above.
Suddenly, four small specks, easily identifiable by their wing shape came back in my sight. This time the Blue Angels began to descend.
“There they are again”, I called out. “Look at that. They’re coming straight down. I can’t believe it”.

Like thunder bolts the jets shot toward the ground. We both stared in total amazement at the performance…
and then they were gone. Gone beyond our horizon and out of our sight.

Note: I discovered that night the Blue Angels gave two public performance over the weekend at the Pease Air Force Base in Portsmouth.

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August 31st, 2010

Paul Wolfowitz in the New York Times

by DickH

I was astounded to find an Op-Ed by Paul Wolfowitz in today’s New York Times. The content of the piece is unremarkable – he suggests that we should use South Korea as a model for our future involvement in Iraq – but his mere presence in the newspaper is what I found shocking. Wolfowitz served as Deputy Secretary of Defense from 2001 to 2005. In that capacity, he was the prime architect of our disastrous incursion into Iraq and the shameful (and fictional) public relations scam that sold the American people on the necessity of that undertaking.

The ineptitude of Wolfowitz and his co-conspirators in failing to plan for the post-war occupation of Iraq, detailed by Thomas Ricks in Fiasco and George Packer in The Assassins’ Gate, was grossly negligent and led to the death and injury of thousands of brave American soldiers whose sacrifice salvaged the Bush-Rumsfeld-Wolfowitz mess in Iraq into the somewhat stable situation that exists today (stable for how long is another story). While Iraq may give the appearance of stability, the progeny of Wolfowitz’s destructive policies persist: if we had kept our focus on Afghanistan – the place where the terrorists who attacked us had come from – instead of shifting the bulk of our resources to the ill-fated occupation of Iraq, we might not be stuck in the quagmire that Afghanistan is today.

It probably should come as no surprise that the New York Times is assisting Wolfowitz’s rehabilitation. The Times, after all, completely abdicated its journalistic responsibility back then and became a willing participant in the Team Bush propaganda machine that so shamefully deceived the American public. All of this is an episode that Wolfowitz, the Times and countless others (especially the spineless Democrats in Congress who knew voting for war was a mistake but who couldn’t summon the courage to go against public opinion polls) would like us to forget. Please don’t.

NOTE: I’ve purposefully omitted a link to the Wolfowitz piece because I don’t want to reward him or the Times with a link. It’s easy enough to find if you want to read it.

CategoryHistory | Comment11 Comments »

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August 31st, 2010

Back to school

by DickH

School begins in Lowell today. Even if you don’t have someone heading to the classroom, the increase in traffic, particularly from school buses, will transform everyone’s morning commute. Drive carefully and good luck to all students and educators.

CategoryCurrent Events | CommentNo Comments »

August 31st, 2010

Our National Park in Wyoming

by PaulM

The National Park Service has opened a $27 million visitor center overlooking the famous “Old Faithful” geyser at Yellowstone National Park in Wyoming. Today’s NYTimes reports on the “cathedral to the shrine of nature.” We can be proud that Lowell is on the same distinguished list of important American places as Yellowstone, the Grand Canyon, the Statue of Liberty, Gettysburg, and the Lincoln Monument. Read Edward Rothstein’s article here, and consider buying the NYT if you appreciate the journalism. To see a slide show about the new visitor education center, click on this link from the NYT.

web photo by Shasta Greinier courtesy of Yellowstone Park Foundation via NYTimes

CategoryCulture, Education, History, Lowell | CommentNo Comments »

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August 31st, 2010

‘Pakistan Flood Emergency’

by PaulM

The headline above is the heading of a one-page appeal I received a few days ago from the United Nations High Commission on Refugees, whose work around the world is well known. The scale of this catastrophe is staggering. “The worst floods in 80 years have devastated the country….Over 20 million people have been affected. That is worse than the tsunami, the 2005 Pakistani earthquake, and the Haiti earthquake combined….vast regions of the country are under water….the UN Refugee Agency, the first relief organization on the scene, is working around the clock to distribute 80,000 tents to families in two of the worst affected provinces, giving at least 560,000 people a roof over their heads….”

Marjorie wrote about the flooding in an earlier post on her blog that we cross-posted. I’ve been following events there via evening radio reports from the BBC World Service. I’m continually impressed by the generosity of people in Lowell and the American people in general. Our community and our nation have their own people who need shelter, food, medicine, and relief from stress. Deciding what to give at home and what to share with others a world away is a personal test. Any of us might feel that what we are able to do is so little in the face of massive suffering, especially when the problems are abroad. In this case, however, the scale of the suffering seems to demand our attention.

When it comes to the United Nations asking for help,  I always think of Lowell’s man at the U.N., Brad Morse, who had such a distinguished career as an international leader after serving as a congressman from Lowell and the Fifth District. His humanitarian work around the world continues to inspire people. In Lowell, he is remembered with the Morse Federal Building at Middlesex Community College, the Morse Distinguished Lecture series co-sponsored by UMass Lowell and Middlesex CC, and a walkway near the city auditorium.

F. Bradford Morse

To respond to the emergency request from USA for UNHCR and donate online, visit www.UNrefugees.org

CategoryCurrent Events, History, Lowell | CommentNo Comments »

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August 30th, 2010

Monday political observations

by DickH

With the primary election just two weeks away, I’m more attuned to efforts by the candidates in the final stretch. Nothing arrived in today’s mail but late last week I received pieces from each candidate in the First Middlesex Senate race. Chris Doherty’s was a postcard thanking me for signing his nomination papers and asking for my vote. On the reverse side he repeats his “A Prosecutor, Not a Politician” theme. Eileen Donoghue sent a larger piece that promotes her experience in local government: In times like these, we can’t afford to waste any time. We need a Senator who knows how to get results – and that’s just what Eileen Donoghue did as Mayor of Lowell.

Last night I wrote about my experience at yesterday’s Billerica Democratic Town Committee cookout but I neglected to mention lawn sign sitings that I made. The race to fill the state representative seat being vacated by Bill Greene has the most attention in town. There are two candidates on the Democratic side: Kevin Conway and Jarrett Scarpaci; and two on the Republican side: Marc Lombardo and Brion Cangiamila. Former selectman Jim O’Donnell is running as an Independent. Along route 3A coming from Lowell, Lombardo had the most signs by far (and many of his locations also contained “Golnik for Congress” signs alongside). Conway had the second most followed by Scarpaci. Of course, signs don’t vote, etc.

Today I had a work-related meeting in Boston and I chose to driver rather than take the train. (The traffic was very light – my driveway to the Boston Garden parking garage in just 45 minutes). Zipping down Route 3, I caught a “Jon Golnik for Congress” spot on WCAP. Closer to Boston there was a (Republican) Mary Connaughton for State Auditor ad on either WBZ or WRKO. Coming out of the city there was a (Democrat) Guy Glodis for auditor commercial.

Eventually I tuned in to WRKO which I do sparingly because it’s “bash Deval Patrick and Barack Obama 24/7 radio” but today curiosity got the better of me. I was treated to a hour-long infomercial on the Jim McKenna for Attorney General campaign on the Charlie Manning show. Neither McKenna nor anyone else apparently cared enough about running to have obtained the nominations signatures required to get on the ballot so now he’s running for the nomination on stickers. He needs at least as many write-in votes as he did nomination signatures which is 10,000. What struck me wasn’t anything McKenna said or did but Manning’s unabashed advocacy of McKenna’s candidacy was really astounding. Over and over again he urged listeners to “get rid of Martha Coakley” by supporting this guy. I knew radio talk show hosts spare nothing to rip apart Democratic officeholders but I hadn’t realized they had become such overt supporters of Republican Party candidates. The main reason I kept listening was that I found the commercials to be so amusing: everyone of them was for some medical malady that afflicts aging white males or for ways to beat your creditors out of the money you owe them.

CategoryElection 2010 | CommentNo Comments »

August 30th, 2010

Koch Brothers: From private agenda to mass movement

by DickH

“Covert Operations: The billionaire brothers who are waging a war against Obama,” a story by journalist Jane Mayer in the August 30, 2010 edition of The New Yorker, details the political activities of Charles and David Koch, the billionaire owners of Koch Industries, a conglomerate that owns Brawny paper towels, Dixie cups, Georgia Pacific and a variety of other companies and interests in the oil and chemical industries.

The title of the article is a bit misleading because the Koch brothers, following in the footsteps of their father, have waged political battle against every phase of liberalism in American politics going back to the New Deal. Their father, Fred Koch, was one of the founders of the John Birch Society in 1958 who claimed that “Communists have infiltrated both the Democratic and Republican Parties.” Besides hundreds of millions of dollars, the father also bequethed his sons a distrust of government that bordered on the paranoid. Son David, in fact, became the Libertarian Party’s vice presidential candidate in 1980. He ran against Ronald Reagen – from the right.

But the Koch political candidacy was stillborn with his ticket receiving only 1% of the vote. From that drubbing the Koch brothers took away the lesson that politicians “are merely actors playing out a script” and so the Koch’s became the script writers. They did this by pouring hundreds of millions of dollars into seemingly independent organizations such as the Cato Institute and Americans for Prosperity. [The Kochs are also major funders of the Republican Governors Association, the outfit that’s been running attack ads against Deval Patrick and Tim Cahill here in Massachusetts all summer].

Not surprisingly, many of the causes championed by these Koch-funded think tanks benefit the financial interest of Koch-controlled companies particularly in the areas of pollution control, global warming, cancer research and countless others. Like criminal defense attorneys, the academic experts employed by these think tanks need not convince anyone of the truth of their positions; all they need do is raise doubts, doubts that paralyze our political system. By doing nothing, the polluters win. This is nothing new. It’s a tactic torn directly from the playbook of big tobacco.

The Kochs like anyone else are entitled to spend their fortunes however they see fit. What they should not be able to do is spend hundreds of millions of dollars influencing our political system in complete anonymity. As Mayer points out

The Kochs have long depended on the public’s not knowing all the details about them. They have been content to operate what David Koch has called “the largest company that you’ve never heard of.” But with the growing prominence of the Tea Party [of which Mayer details the Koch’s deep involvement] and with increased awareness of the Kochs’ ties to the movement, the brothers may find it harder to deflect scrutiny.

CategoryElection 2010, Politics | Comment2 Comments »

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