That is the first sentence of a wonderful entry about the famous author Charles Dickens’ visit to Lowell posted on the Middlesex Community College blog. Its titled… “The Dickens, You Say”.

I’ll be honest, when I read the opening sentence of the post, I asked myself, how could Dickens have visited MCC? It is a fascinating story: …during his visits, he was known to pop in to visit businessman John Nesmith, who was in the process of building his stately manor at 229 Andover St., the property now owned by Middlesex Community College and its Foundation and known as the Nesmith House! (MCC blog)

To read the entire Middlesex Community College entry on Dickens click here.

Take a look… What’s yours?

The Susan G. Komen Foundation’s move to eliminate its financial support of Planned Parenthood is a real losing proposition, for the people being served and for the organization’s reputation. Planned Parenthood was threatened with the loss of nearly $700,000 to expand breast examinations, and the Komen Foundation lost a huge amount of credibility.

This blunder shows that Komen Foundation executives are craven, dishonest, naïve and short-sighted. Craven, because their new policy [not providing grants to any non-profit under investigation] seemed to cave to a recent pro-life hire and selected donors already working with the legislator who triggered this investigation of Planned Parenthood. Dishonest, because they said that abortion politics had nothing to do with their decision. Naïve, because Planned Parenthood is almost always being investigated by Congress to ensure that no federal dollars are going for abortions either here or abroad. And short-sighted, because of the potential for immediate and damaging backlash.

Donations to Planned Parenthood immediately shot up, including a quarter of a million dollars from New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg. Many donors to the Susan G. Komen fund said they’d give elsewhere.

Now the Susan G. Komen fund, apparently realizing the blatant stupidity of its move, has just announced that it will “amend the criteria to make clear that disqualifying investigations must be criminal and conclusive in nature and not political. That is what is right and fair.”

“We will continue to fund existing grants, including those of Planned Parenthood, and preserve their eligibility to apply for future grants, while maintaining the ability of our affiliates to make funding decisions that meet the needs of their communities.” The announcement didn’t indicate what would be the basis of any future denials of Planned Parenthood requests for funding support.

Both organizations are concerned with women’s health, and it made sense for the Susan G. Komen to expand breast cancer screenings by tapping into the Planned Parenthood population of women seeking birth control, abortion and related women’s health services. There is clear complementarity in their missions. But,if you’re concerned about breast cancer, there are many other places to donate your money to besides the Susan G. Komen fund. And Planned Parenthood stands virtually alone in defending women’s reproductive rights. No doubt now about which of these two organizations is a better charitable investment.

I’d greatly appreciate your thoughts in the comments section below

No matter how much he accomplished, the late Boston Mayor Kevin White always wanted something more. His legacy is huge, from having kept the city from going up in flames following the Martin Luther King assassination, to continuing dramatically the urban renewal started under his predecessor John Collins. Look at the Quincy Market, Copley Place, Park Plaza, the Charlestown Navy Yard and more.

From a journalist’s perspective, he was very good copy, especially because in those days the Boston City Council and its colorful cast of characters were more assertive than today’s lot. And the Council and he were always at odds (except for councilor Larry DiCara.) Orchestrating big events like the Bicentennial, he wanted  people to think of Boston as a world class city, and always saw himself playing on a larger stage.

In 1970, he ran unsuccessfully for governor and stayed on as mayor. He contracted Potomac Fever in July of 1972 when George McGovern toyed with putting White on the ticket as Vice President. While White was kept hanging by a telephone, the idea was scotched by the Massachusetts delegation and Senator Ted Kennedy. Among those denying White the prize were the late Harvard economist J. Kenneth Galbraith and Congressman Bob Drinan, pictured here at the convention, who conveyed to their presidential nominee the strong anti-Kevin White feelings of his home state delegation.

For a while in 1975, White considered running not just as a favorite son in Massachusetts, but as a credible candidate in the New Hampshire primary. He hosted the national media at the Parkman House. He courted the presidential contenders right up to the New York nominating convention. How it must have stuck in his craw that Carter won the nomination and the Presidency!

In a 1976 article written for the Boston Phoenix by Jim Barron and me, a close aide to White observed, “The presidential bug is like syphilis. It’s a social disease. Once you contract it, you can’t get it out of your blood.” After he was passed over for vice president in 1972, and passed up opportunities to organize and run for president in 1976, he still angled for a spot for vice-president. But with Carter the outsider atop the ticket, there was no way that a mayor was going to be selected for number two.

Reporters covering him during the ‘70’s noted his restlessness, his seemingly preferring Parkman House dinners with national figures to meetings in Boston’s troubled neighborhoods. By 1980, they were calling him “Kevin Deluxe” and describing his “Olympian lifestyle.” According to writer Michael Ryan, late City Councilman Fred Langone likened him to Julius Caesar. But, from the Tall Ships to entertainment in neighborhood parks, he made the people dream larger as well and even to feel better about themselves.

In my last formal interview with him, in the plush Oriental-carpeted office at Boston University where BU President John Silber had provided him a post-mayoral home, he was still Hamlet on the Charles. Standing before the window, gazing out at the Charles River, with a furrowed brow, pondering that unnamed something more.

In 1994, at an overflow reception in the Copley Plaza ballroom for the First International Congress on the Atlantic Rim, celebrating Boston’s emerging leadership as an international city, White stood quietly to the side, an attendee, a spiritual father perhaps of the idea, but no longer an active player.

In the end, Kevin Hagan White will be remembered not only by how he changed the physical landscape of downtown Boston but by the generation of young, idealistic activists who worked for him in City Hall and went on to become the next generation of political and business leaders, leaving their own imprint locally and nationally. People like BRA chief Peter Meade, p.r. powerhouses Micho Spring and George Regan, Revenue Commission Ira Jackson (who left his mark on BankBoston and across academia), Congressman Barney Frank, Transportation Secretary and father of The Big Dig Fred Salvucci, Police Commissioner Bill Bratton, Boston Foundation President Paul Grogan and many others. His legacy is huge, even if he never got to move from the Charles to the Potomac.

Please let me know your thoughts in the comments section below.

1972 convention photo by Jim Barron

The timing of McDonough’s leaving coincides with recently released annual financial report for the fiscal year ending June 30, 2011. The January 26 report was accompanied by this statement from the Cardinal:

 ”The Archdiocese of Boston has greatly benefitted by the financial management of recent years that has achieved and sustained a balanced budget. The stabilization of our finances has led to increased confidence among our many generous benefactors, who provide us the means to invest in our parishes, schools, evangelization and the important mission of serving the poor and those in need. We are aware that there remain challenges to be addressed, but are encouraged by the progress being made in rebuilding our local Church. Going forward, we will maintain our commitment to be a sign of the presence of the Lord to the Catholics of the Archdiocese and the wider community.”

Among the highlights of the report:

• Central ministries, a component of central operations, achieved a balanced budget maintained for second straight year;
• Parish offertory increased 3 percent;
• Enrollment grew in over half of the Archdiocese’s Catholic schools and increased by 1 percent in Boston for the first time in 20 years.

Read the full financial report by linking here to The Pilot. The Globe story can be read here at boston.com.

This video is titled “Greetings From Lowell”.

It is National Catholic Schools Week! The theme for Catholic Schools Week 2012 is “Catholic Schools: Faith. Academics. Service.” The annual observance officially started yesterday –  the last Sunday in January and will run all week to February 5. Schools typically celebrate Catholic Schools Week with Mass, open houses and activities for students, families, parishioners and the community at large. Locally, we’ve seen newspaper ads, special coverage in The Pilot and talk about Catholic Schools in our weekly parish bulletins. Many schools celebrate by honoring a distinguished school alum as the Immaculate Conception School did last Saturday with its recognition of ICS grad Kevin Ahern.

Catholic schools have a long and rich tradition in Lowell and in the Merrimack Valley.  Of  those schools still open and active in Lowell: St. Patrick’s School in the Acre opened in 1852, the Immaculate Conception School in 1880, St. Michael’s in 1889, St. Jeanne d’Arc School in 1910, St. Margaret’s School in 1941, Franco-American School in 1963 (opened as orphanage in 1908) and Lowell Catholic High School in 1989 as the successor to its  legacy schools – Keith Academy(1926) and Keith Hall (1926), Keith Catholic, St. Patrick’s HS,  St. Joseph’s HS and St. Louis Academy.

Catholic Schools Week – a time for students to celebrate their unique path of learning within the parish, community and nation – will celebrate its 40^th anniversary next year.

What are your memories of Catholic schools in Lowell and the Catholic school experience?

Governor Deval Patrick yesterday proposed a state budget to back up the state-of-the-state address he delivered on Monday. That speech was competently, if not soaringly, delivered, and urged a modest, focused agenda, which the budget seems geared to implement. His list of state accomplishments was gratifying: students who lead the nation in test results; greatest percentage covered by health insurance; moving from 47th in job creation to 5th; greatest drop in automobile insurance costs. Other accomplishments in clean energy, pension reform, moving families out of shelters.

Some of those votes were uncomfortable for the legislature, he acknowledged. There’s a lot still to be done. MBTA indebtedness, wrong-doing in the probation system, the messy, possibly illegal relationship between his lieutenant governor and former Chelsea Housing Authority heavy Michael McLaughlin – all must be uncomfortable for the Governor. He did not mention them.

Even while he was congratulating legislators on their shared accomplishments, he was setting forth three areas most in need of work: dealing with the long-term unemployed, managing the costs of health insurance, and crime. He also wants to fill the jobs gap by closing the skills gap, working with community colleges and, in the process, controlling that system much more centrally and partnering with business in the process. In that, he’ll have to win over a group of community college presidents very comfortable with their current powers. Plus, it’s unclear whether more centralization will bring any benefits to a system that will rely on collaboration between community colleges and local businesses.

In the area of health costs, he wants nothing less than to end the fee-for-service system, reimbursing on the basis of quality care. Insurers and providers are already moving in this direction. It will be interesting to see where the state injects itself into the process. He also breathed words once unimaginable for an elected Democrat, “medical malpractice reform.”

His calls for reforming mandatory sentencing and punishment of habitual offenders have been around for years, as ways of reforming the reforms of yesteryear. These issues are cyclical, but it will be fascinating to see if he can make a dent in the challenge. And how big a dent will be meaningful? His previous “success” in replacing police details with civilian flaggers seems, unfortunately, to have yielded little more than tokenism.

The Governor’s budget would increase by three percent, which he justifies by citing the need to invest more in education. He would eliminate the sales tax exemption on candy and soda, while hiking certain tobacco taxes. All this is a way of investing in health, but will fall most heavily on those with the lowest incomes.

He proposes closing a state hospital and a prison, which would eliminate 400 state jobs. See the Mass. Budget and Policy Center for more details. But can you really close a prison before you change the sentencing structure?

Typically, a Governor’s budget proposal is either dead on arrival in the legislature or, at most, the first step in a long conversation. This one will be no different.

Where the President’s state-of-the union speech was aspirational and occasionally inspiring, a campaign tract more than a blueprint for action, the Governor was modest, grounded and workmanlike, the voice of a politician rounding out his second term rather than reaching for one.

Please let me know your thoughts in the comments section below.