Major League Eating applies some of the same principles as Major League Baseball: Play fair, keep your cool under pressure and don’t be a slacker in the off-season. Got what it takes? Let’s eat!

By Roz Cummins

It seemed like a good idea at the time. Cape Cod resident Matt Schultz saw a small item in the local paper – an ad announcing an essay contest for people who wanted to enter a peel’n’eat shrimp … CONTINUE READING

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By Alex Marie Lombino

Before we get to the good stuff, I just need to respond to something almost as depressing as an episode of Hoarding: Buried Alive. I’ve spent a lot of time on the internet this week, acquiring knowledge, watching adorable videos of sloths, that kind of thing, and I just want to take this moment to address Google Glass. Seriously, Google, from all of us ladies and gays in … CONTINUE READING

The post 40% Recipe, 60% Ranting, 100% Real: Orange & Almond Shortbread with Vanilla Citrus Glaze appeared first on New Paris Press.

The post

By Leslie Schultz

I’ve been thinking a lot about Mitt Romney’s shame-based presidential campaign. As a resident of Massachusetts, I cannot be duped by our former governor’s revisionist interpretation of his time here. I know who he is and I saw what he did. He reformed our state healthcare system to resemble a socialist plot, let stand a law granting gays the right to marry, and raised revenue through licensing fees to help pay down … CONTINUE READING

The post Why’s Mitt Romney so ashamed? appeared first on New Paris Press.

By Tim Stevens

One of the more interesting responses to The Susan Komen Foundation’s decision to pull  funding from Planned Parenthood was The National Review blog post by Daniel Foster entitled “You Should Find the Anti-Komen Backlash Disgusting, Even If You’re Pro-Choice.”

 While I urge you to check out the article for yourself, let me just give you the broad strokes. Essentially, Foster argues that Komen had the right to defund Planned Parenthood … CONTINUE READING

The post What?? Anti-Komen protesters are Bullies?? appeared first on New Paris Press.

“This Poem” appears in Anathalie Jean-Louis’s recent poetry collection She Speaks, © 2011, Books of Hope, a literacy empowerment program in Somerville, Mass., that brings creative writing workshops to at-risk urban and immigrant youth to foster and promote the next generation of young authors. Jean-Louis is currently a freshman at Bunker Hill Community College, where she is studying biology.  She can be reached at jeanlouisanathalie@gmail.com.

It’s gonna be the jump-off of … CONTINUE READING

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The post Running with Chris: Don’t Let Imbeciles Get in Your Way… appeared first on New Paris Press.

 

At the Big E fairgrounds this year, a cheese-making competition elevated milky cultures to a high art. But tasting 142 cheese varieties? No worries. NPP’s plucky reporter had an appetite for the challenge….

By Roz Cummins

 

“Cheese is milk’s leap toward immortality.” – Clifton Fadiman

Imagine you are standing before a Thanksgiving table laden with dish after dish but —   instead of turkey, mashed potatoes, and pumpkin pie — every plate … CONTINUE READING

The post Praise Cheeses! appeared first on New Paris Press.

By Leslie Schultz 

On February 26, in the lingering shadow of the bloated Academy Awards show, a handful of accomplished writers of prose, poetry, and song met at the JFK Library overlooking Boston’s harbor to honor two musical legends with PEN New England’s first-ever Song Lyrics of Literary Excellence Award. The committee vetting the award included Paul Simon, Elvis Costello, Salman Rushdie, Bono, Rosanne Cash, Smokey Robinson, and Paul Muldoon—all unassailable talents in their … CONTINUE READING

The post PEN New England deems Chuck Berry a literary lion appeared first on New Paris Press.

by John Persinos

The Great Meltdown of 2008 stripped bare all of the lies and pretense of what our society is really all about, and showed that we’re a system fueled by unbridled avarice. A country of private affluence and public squalor. A country where “conservative” ideology is really a rationalization for cruelty, bigotry and selfishness — a self-defeating selfishness, because in its extremism, it could bring down the whole capitalist system.

The Meltdown of … CONTINUE READING

The post Occupy Boston, Occupy Hartford, Occupy Providence, Occupy Burlington… appeared first on New Paris Press.

By Paul Lombino

For newly hired Red Sox General Manager Ben Cherington, job-one is to redefine the term “starting pitchers,” which took on an ironic context down the homestretch of Boston’s ignominious 2011 season.

While the Sox were busy losing a woeful 19 of their last 26 games to squander a once nine-game wild card-lead to the Tampa Bay Rays, the team’s Big Three hurlers — Josh Beckett ($17.0 million salary), John Lackey ($15.9 million), … CONTINUE READING

The post New Red Sox GM Needs to Redefine Meaning of “Starting Pitchers” appeared first on New Paris Press.

By Tim Stevens

As Former Senator Rick Santorum hangs in the Republican primary contest longer than all reasonability would suggest, it becomes increasingly more likely he will still be campaigning when the last states in New England  hold their primaries. A year ago, I figured he would close up shop sometime during the first couple contests. Now, even after Romney victories in Massachusetts and Vermont, there’s a strong chance he may be visiting the Nutmeg … CONTINUE READING

The post My struggle with Rick Santorum’s baby-talk about Isabella appeared first on New Paris Press.

Microfundo\’s Brad Powell
Author Steve Almond chats with Microfundo’s Brad Powell about the global mashup of music and microfunding. Click on the link above to listen.

The post Microfundo founder Brad Powell on the power of music fans appeared first on New Paris Press.

More than three decades before the Occupy movement launched, young people began to gather communally to huddle in uncomfortably crowded places, share inedible food, and ponder their political exigencies…….  

 

By Roz Cummins 

 

I FOUND the house through a friend. It was falling apart, but the rent was cheap so, on a warm June day in 1981, I became a summer resident of one of the last hippie communes in Somerville, Massachusetts, a … CONTINUE READING

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