Archive for the ‘Columns & Essays’ Category

Thoughts on the April 7, 2008 Wakefield (Massachusetts) Town Meeting Sometimes it pays to listen to our elder statesmen. But when we become caught up in a righteous cause, it’s easy to ignore the voices of experience in our midst. We dismiss them at our own peril. Advocates to fund the School Department budget did […]


Sisters of Swing at Stoneham Theatre through May 4 You don’t have to be a member of the Greatest Generation to enjoy Sisters of Swing, the tribute to the Andrews Sisters currently playing at Stoneham Theatre. But considering that the Andrews Sisters sold over 90 million records, had more Top Ten hits than the Beatles […]


The Cutting, at Stoneham Theatre Each act opens with the sounds of sea gulls, although their full significance will not be realized until much later. Currently at Stoneham Theatre, The Cutting is part mystery, part psychological study and part exploration of the honesty of silence – as it draws you into the mind of a […]


The best thing to come out of last week’s FCC hearing into Comcast Corp.’s Internet polices had nothing to do with the subject of the hearing. The purpose of the hearing was to look into the communications giant’s network management practices. But the thing that tickled me about the news story was the fact that […]


Every year at around this time, just as the shock of your holiday debt is beginning to set in, the telecoms (formerly known as the cable companies) send out their own Season’s Greetings – in the form of a rate “adjustment.” Somehow, the rates never seem to get adjusted down.


Snow from Comverse parking lots at Beal property dumped into Lake As Wakefield, Massachusetts resident Bob McLaughlin pulled off the Route 128 exit ramp on to North Avenue one day last December, he decided to take a slight detour en route to his Water Street home. The region had just been hit with the second […]


Clive Thompson recently wrote a piece for Wired.com called The Age of Microcelebrity: Why Everyone’s a Little Brad Pitt. “Microcelebrity,” Thompson explains, “is the phenomenon of being extremely well known not to millions but to a small group — a thousand people, or maybe only a few dozen. As DIY media reach ever deeper into […]


Now that the New Hampshire Primary is over, we in Massachusetts may get a very short break from the barrage of “approved messages” on Boston TV and radio stations that have been aimed primarily at voters in the Granite State. Any respite will be short lived, however, with the Massachusetts primary less than a month […]


I like vanity license plates in the same way as I like weddings and children. They’re lots of fun as long as they’re not my own. I would never have a vanity license plate on my car. It’s not just that I’m too cheap, although that’s part of it. And it’s not because of an […]


The whole silly story broke in the middle of November. A middle school in Winchester planned a December 19 field trip to Stoneham Theatre where 7th graders would be treated to a professional theatrical performance of the Christmas classic, Miracle on 34th Street. But then the principal abruptly cancelled the school trip after receiving complaints […]