Let’s be clear
To paraphrase the late, great Dan Hicks, “How can we miss them when they won’t go away?”
Just when you thought it was safe to go to the Post Office on Saturday morning, they’re back like a bad penny – or three or four of them. The Wakefield Civic League, those guardians of our local democracy, have returned to lecture us on the true meaning of government transparency.
What outrageous scandal has prompted their latest sermon?
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Filed under: Columns & Essays, Humor, News, Opinion, Politics, Wakefield | 1 Comment
Tags: Albion Cultural Exchange, Board of Selectmen, Boston Globe Spotlight Team, correspondence, Dan Hicks, Gov. Charlie Baker, government, Hallmark Health, Humor, information, Jean Nicholson, KENO, letters, Massachusetts, Massachusetts Lottery Commission, News, Opinion, Paul DiNocco, Politics, post office, Rep. Donald Wong, Rep. Paul Brodeur, town hall, Town of Wakefield, transparency, Wakefield Civic League, Zoning Board of Appeals
By MARK SARDELLA
We all know how social media has affected our own lives. We see it every time we check Facebook, Twitter, Linked-in and a host of new networks springing up every day. Even those who have succeeded in resisting social media can’t avoid it entirely.
But how is social media impacting the corporate world?
Wakefield native Catherine Turco decided to find out.
In her new book, The Conversational Firm: Rethinking Bureaucracy in the Age of Social Media, she looks at how one company adopted the open communications of social media as a model for its organizational structure.
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Tags: book, business, Carherine Turco, Christine Beagan, communication, Conversational Firm, dialogue, Diane Lind, economics, ethnography, Facebook, firm, Harvard College, Harvard University, High Tech, Joseph Neale, Mark Sardella, marketing author, MBA, organizations, Sloan School of Management, social media, sociology, Susan McDonough, Twitter, Wakefield Daily Item, Wakefield High School, workplace
Summer checklist
Have you looked at a calendar lately? It’s Aug. 18 already! Wasn’t the July Fourth Parade was just last weekend?
Summer’s slipping away, and we are rapidly approaching the point where even Daylight Saving Time will not be able to stave off the encroaching night. Even Saturday’s Festival Italia will conclude in darkness.
But if you’re like most people (and after all, who isn’t?) you still haven’t done most of the activities on your summer to-do list.
As for me, I didn’t make a list of things to do this summer. That’s what the internet is for. So with two weeks to go until Labor Day weekend, I figured I’d better Google a list of recommended summer activities and see where I stand.
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Tags: balloon, bicycle, Brightview Senior Living, calendar, camping, concert, crane, cycling, Daylight Saving Time, drive-in movie, drought, farmers' market, Festival Italia, fireflies, fracking, gasoline price, grass, hiking, Humor, July Fourth, Labor Day, Marco Polo, Mark Sardella summer, Martha Stewart, Mazda, mosquitoes, Olympics, Opinion, plastic bags, Politics, rain, Wakefield, Wakefield Daily Item, Words with Friends
High resolution
This week, the Wakefield Board of Selectmen passed a resolution opposing the legalization of marijuana, dealing a devastating blow to the local Cannabis Community.
On the bright side, most of them were too high to notice.
Dude, don’t the selectmen know that people have a Constitutional right to smoke weed? The Constitution was written on hemp paper, so its like, literally in the Constitution, man.
With arguments like that, how can Question 4 on the Nov. 8 ballot possibly lose?
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Tags: ballot, Bob DeLeo, bong, Boston, cannabis, David Njuguna, driving, drug abuse, drugs, edibles, election, ganja, Gov. Charlie Baker, hemp, herb, joint, legalization, Lt. Thomas Clardy, marijuana. pot, Mark Sardella, Massachusetts, Maura Healey, Mayor Martin Walsh, medical, prohibition, Question 4, Sen. Jason Lewis, THC, US Constitution, vote, Wakefield Board of Selectmen, Wakefield Daily Item, Wakefield MA, weed
Fine print
Lately, I don’t feel like my week is complete until I’ve been lectured by a millennial about one thing or another. Usually it’s about the evil of plastic bags or how many genders there are or how the Founding Fathers all smoked hemp, dude.
The usual venue for these sermons is social media, where I’m about as popular as a mosquito at the Olympics.
Recently, I was informed for about the 7 millionth time that young people don’t read newspapers.
Stop the presses, as we used to say in the dinosaur print medium.
It usually happens after someone expresses horror over hearing about some new development in town. Things quickly go downhill after I gently and politely point out that this “sudden” change has been in the news for months.
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Filed under: Columns & Essays, History, Humor, News, Opinion, Politics, Wakefield | Leave a Comment
Tags: Baby Boomers, citizenship, civics, education, Facebook, First Amendment, Founding Fathers, Freedom of the Press, Great Depression, Greatest Generation, hippies, Invasion of Normandy, Mark Sardella, media, millenials, mosquito, News, newspapers, Olympics, peace movement, Politics, press, schools, social media, Stephen Colbert, Twitter, Wakefield Daily Item, Zika
By MARK SARDELLA
Morgan Flynn is living her dream.
The 2012 Wakefield Memorial High School graduate is the Directing Apprentice for the current season at Gloucester Stage, where she is getting to work directly with a series of professional theater directors, a job that she aspires to.
“I went to school thinking I wanted to be an actor and then I sort of found directing about halfway through,” Flynn says. “Directing, I just feel really at home.”
Continue reading ‘Morgan Flynn’s theater career is just taking off’
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Tags: acting, actor, Commonwealth Shakespeare Company, Directing Apprentice, director, Gloucester Stage, Kennedy Center American College Theatre Festival, Mark Sardella, Massachusetts, Morgan Flynn, Paula Plum, play, Rick Lombardo, Robert Walsh., Salem State University, stage, The Last Schwartz, theater theatre, Wakefield, Wakefield Daily Item, Wakefield High School, Zoe Laufer
Where’s the Money?
Now that July 19 is behind us, can we finally admit that all the hand-wringing over the Special Election had nothing to do with it costing the town $10,000 and everything to do with politics and the person who filed for the Special Election?
After Phyllis Hull collected the 200 signatures needed to force the selectmen to call a Special Election, six people ran for a single nine-month term on the Board of Selectmen in a mid-summer election that people said was a waste of money.
Seldom have so many expended so much effort for so little.
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Tags: Ally Houghton, Betsy Sheeran, Board of Selectmen, campaign, candidates, Chris Callanan, Dan Benjamin, election, Galvin Middle School, Mark Sardella, Massachusetts, Mehreen Butt, money, Nate Gayman, Phyllis Hull, Politics, schools, special election, taxes, vote, Wakefield Daily Item, Wakefield High School, Wakefield MA
Nobody asked, but…
Things like the recent Independence Day celebration and the upcoming Festival Italia remind me that civic groups that actually do things are a lot more interesting (not to mention fun) than the ones that exist just air grievances and self-promote.
If it’s true that after July Fourth, the summer flies by, then why do I have the feeling that we’re in for a long, hot summer? 
At least we have the Democratic and Republican National Conventions to look forward to.
Not to mention our own Special Election on July 19.
Speaking of summer, since the Olde Towne Team has managed to get to the All Star break still in contention, is there any way that Wright and Porcello can pitch every other day?
And speaking of the local nine, why don’t baseball teams have cheerleaders – or hockey teams, for that matter.
Not that Senator Jason Lewis and Governor Charlie Baker care, but I’m willing to be a one-issue voter as long as they oppose marijuana legalization.
Call me old-fashioned, but I still think of cops as the good guys.
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Filed under: baseball, Columns & Essays, Humor, News, Opinion, Politics, Wakefield | 1 Comment
Tags: baseball, bomb dogs, Boston Red Sox, Charlie Baker, COPS, female, Festival Italia, genders, golf, hockey, Indepencence Day, Jason Lewis, Lois Lane, male, marijana, plastic bags, Pokemon, police, pot, price point, Rick Porcello, smart phone, Srop Sign, Steven Wright, Superman, tomato plants, weather girls, weed
All in the family feud
Deborah Zoe Laufer’s comedy ‘The Last Schwartz’ at Gloucester Stage
By MARK SARDELLA
GLOUCESTER — The Last Schwartz, by Deborah Zoe Laufer is a play about family ties – the ones that bind, the ones that bend and the ones that break.
In the opening scene, Herb Schwartz’s wife Bonnie (Brianne Beatrice) is describing to family members an Oprah episode about the strongest family tie imaginable, that of conjoined Siamese twins. Bonnie relates how on the show the twin girls each express their hopes and dreams. One wants to be a doctor. The other wants to be a mother and have a family.
But when the twins add that they would never want to be surgically separated, neither Oprah nor her studio audience betrays that their goals are unattainable.
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Tags: Andrea Goldman, Brianne Beatrice, Deborah Zoe Laufer, Family, Gabriel Kuttner, Glen Moore, Gloucester Stage, Gloucester Stage Company, Jewish, Judaism, Mark Sardella, Paul Melendy, Paula Plum, The Last Schwartz, theater, theatre, Veronica Anastasio Wiseman, Wakefield Daily Item
By MARK SARDELLA
The campaign to oppose a likely question on the Nov. 6 election ballot seeking to legalize marijuana for recreational use is picking up steam, as State Senator Jason Lewis appeared before the Board of Selectmen on Monday to present the case for voting “no” on recreational pot.
Lewis headed a year-long study by a committee of Massachusetts lawmakers on the impact of legalizing recreational marijuana in Massachusetts. Based on everything that he learned, Lewis said that he is strongly opposed to the ballot measure that will likely go before voters in November seeking to legalize marijuana for recreational use and allow it to be sold commercially.
Lewis has joined the Campaign for a Safe and Healthy Massachusetts, a bipartisan effort to oppose recreational marijuana. The campaign is spearheaded by Gov. Charlie Baker, Speaker of the House Robert DeLeo and Boston mayor Marty Walsh.
Continue reading ‘Senator Lewis: Just say ‘no’ to legalizing pot’
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Tags: >Massachusetts Association of School Superintendents, 4Front Ventures, AIM, alcohol, Association for Behavioral Healthcare, hemp, legalization, lobbyists, marijuana, marijuana industry, Mark Sardella, Massachusetts, Massachusetts Chiefs of Police, Massachusetts District Attorneys, Massachusetts Hospital Association, Massachusetts Medical Society, money profit, National Association of Mental Illness of Massachusetts, pot, Retailers Association of Massachusetts, SAMHSA, Sen. Jason Lewis, Substance Abuse and Mental Health Service Administration, Wakefield Daily Item, weed
Mark Sardella 