Archive for the ‘Columns & Essays’ Category
Pleasure Island Remembered
Legendary Wakefield Amusement Park Opened 50 Years Ago Writing about my recollections of Pleasure Island on the occasion of its 50th birthday forces me to acknowledge that I am at least as old as the park. So let me stipulate up front that I was but a wee lad, still wet behind the ears, when […]
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Woodstock Meets Facebook
As soon as Swine Flu became the trendy disease of the week, you had to know that it was only a matter of time before it got its own Facebook page. Significantly, Swine Flu’s less hip cousin, influenza, isn’t on Facebook. (No, you can’t catch Swine Flu from the Internet.)
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Tags: Daily Item, Facebook. MySpace, flower children, hippie, hippies, Revere Beach, Swine Flu, Wakefield, Wakefield Daily Item, Wakefield Item, Wakefield MA, Wakefield Massachusetts, Woodstock
Oh, wow, man. Bummer about the new bylaw banning public consumption of herb. Dude, it’s another attempt to snuff out our Constitutional right to toke up anywhere, anytime. I’m pretty sure it’s in the Constitution, because George Washington grew hemp on his farm, man. And he was, like, the father of our country and stuff. […]
Filed under: Columns & Essays, Humor, Opinion, Wakefield | 7 Comments
Tags: ballot question, bong, bongs, bud, bylaw, cannabis, Colonel Connelly Park, Daily Item, decriminalization, election, ganga, hemp, joint, joints, marijuana, Massachusetts, pot, reefer, referendum, smoking, Town Meeting, Wakefield, Wakefield Daily Item, Wakefield Item, Wakefield MA, Wakefield Massachusetts, weed
Information Highway Robbery
It’s hard to say which made me feel more violated – having my car stolen or having my computer hijacked by an insidious virus. The car-theft happened over two decades ago, and time has a way of softening the edges and making offenses seem less egregious. (Just look at how many Americans seem to have […]
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I won’t say that last week’s public hearing on RCN’s request for a renewal of its cable license in Wakefield, Massachusetts brought back fond memories. There were, however, occasional moments of déjà vu that reminded me how little some things change. If I closed my eyes and listened to RCN Vice President Thomas Steel explaining […]
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Tags: cable licesnse, cable TV, community access television, Daily Item, John Carney, public access, public access television, RCN, renewal, Television, Thomas Steel, Wakefield Community Access Television, Wakefield Daily Item, Wakefield Item, Wakefield MA, Wakefield Massachusetts, WCAT
Breaking the Ice
Sometimes the hardest part of being a newspaper columnist is figuring out what to write about. Once a topic presents itself, I seldom have a problem producing the requisite number of publishable words before deadline. But as John Dewey said, “There is all the difference in the world between having something to say and having […]
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Mark Sardella 