Archive for the ‘Opinion’ Category
By now you’ve received the red booklet, Massachusetts Information for Voters: 2014 Ballot Questions, published by William Francis Galvin, Secretary of the Commonwealth. This handy booklet provides you with all the information on the four ballot questions that you could possibly need when you go to vote on Nov. 4. All the information, that is, […]
Filed under: Columns & Essays, Humor, News, Opinion, Politics, Wakefield | 1 Comment
Tags: 2014, Ballot Questions, bottle deposit, business, casinos, earned sick time, election, employers, gambling, gas, gasoline tax, juice, legislature, Mark Sardella, Massachusetts, recycling, taxes, Voter's Guide, Wakefield Daily Item, water
Trashing Automated Collection
For better or worse, automated trash collection started in Wakefield, MA on Sept. 29. And for better or worse, it’s here to stay – at least for as long as the current trash contract is in effect. I’m not interested in arguing the merits pro or con of automated trash collection. But I am fascinated […]
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Tags: automated trash collection, Bill Carroll, DPW, Facebook, Mark Sardella, social media, Steve Maio, Town Meeting, Wakefield Daily Item, Wakefield MA
What, me vote?
The 2014 Massachusetts State Primary Election was Tuesday, September 9 and if you are one of the 20 percent of registered voters who cast a ballot, congratulations. You are in an elite group. One week before the Primary, on Sept. 2, the Boston Globe surveyed 605 voters to see how many were paying attention. The […]
Filed under: Columns & Essays, Humor, News, Opinion, Politics | 2 Comments
Tags: absentee ballot, apathy, Boston Globe, early voting, election reform, elections, low-information voter, Mark Sardella, Massachusetts, Politics, primary election, Same Day registration, summer, turnout, Voter ID, Wakefield Daily Item
Social (Media) Security
Is there a “generation gap” in Wakefield? That’s what I’m hearing, especially on Facebook where all the cool kids hang out. The term itself sounds so last century. It used to be applied to the cultural differences between the ‘60s kids and their parents. But now, word on the street is that there are issues […]
Filed under: Columns & Essays, History, Humor, Opinion, Politics, Wakefield | 2 Comments
Tags: cheese, CVS, DeSoto, Dollar Store, Facebook, Family Dollar, generation gap, Hazelwood Cottage, Lake Quannapowitt, Mark Sardella, media, Mike's Gym, newspapers, Pleasure Island, social media, social security, Twitter, Wakefield Daily Item, Wakefield MA
Fences can be built and they can be torn down. They can keep people out, or they can keep them in. In August Wilson’s Pulitzer Prize winning play, “Fences,” currently at the Gloucester Stage Company, Troy (played by Daver Morrison) is a former Negro League baseball star, gifted with the same power to hit the […]
Filed under: Art, Opinion, Reviews, theater | Leave a Comment
Tags: August Wilson, baseball, Bezawit Strong, Daver Morrison, Eric Engel, Fences, Gloucester Stage, Gregory Marlow, Jacqui Parker, Jared Michael Brown, Jermel Nakia, Mark Sardella, theater, theatre, Wakefield Daily Item, Warren Jackson
Summer’s Big Chill
Summer is typically known as a slow period for news. The theory is that people are on vacation and therefore less likely to make news or to be paying attention when other people make news, so what’s the point of making news? Politicians know this. That’s why, despite a Sept. 9 primary and a Nov. […]
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Tags: ALS, Facebook, Galvin Middle School, Ice Bucket Challenge, Mark Sardella, Market Basket, News, Politics, summer, supermarket, Wakefield Daily Item
Amy Herzog’s funny, moving take on the human condition Amy Herzog’s 4000 Miles, currently at the Gloucester Stage Company, deals with some deep matters, including life, death, aging, coming home and moving on. But far from weighing it down, these universal themes emerge as organically as the fruit of a community garden in Herzog’s Obie […]
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Tags: 4000 Miles, Amy Herzog, bicycle, drama, Eric Engel, Gloucester Stage Company, Karl Marx, Manhattan, Mark Sardella, Nancy E. Carroll, play, Samantha Ma, Sarah Oakes Muirhead, theater, theatre, Tom Rash
School’s Out Forever
Galvin demolition conjures ghosts of schools past Watching the big yellow CAT’s giant claw rip through the old Galvin Middle School last week, one couldn’t help but wonder – if those walls could talk, what would they say? (Besides “Get that damn machine away from me!”) They don’t build them like they used to. The […]
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Tags: Baby Boom, Boston Red Sox, Cyrus Wakefield, demolition, Galvin Middle School, General John R. Galvin, Greenwood School, Junior High School, Mark Sardella, schools, Wakefield Daily Item, Wakefield High School, Wakefield MA
A Fistful of Dollar Stores
Economic revitalization of downtown areas is usually aimed at sprucing up what’s already here through things like improved, uniform signage and dressing up storefronts as well as attracting the kinds of new businesses that reflect the quaint, warm and homey small town feel that we either remember from our childhoods or have seen on postcards […]
Filed under: Columns & Essays, History, Opinion, Politics, Wakefield | 3 Comments
Tags: 5 and 10, Dollar Store, Dollar Tree Store, downtown, F.W. Woolworth, Family Dollar, Five and Dime, Five and Ten, J.J. Newberry, Main Street, Mark Sardella, Massachusetts, retail business, stores, W.T. Grant, Wakefield Daily Item, Wakefield MA
Mark Sardella 