Posts Tagged ‘History’
By MARK SARDELLA GLOUCESTER – “Bringing history to life” is about as cliched as it gets, but it happens to be an apt description for what Gloucester Stage’s current production, The Agitators, succeeds in doing. Mat Smart’s play takes us into the 19th century world of icons of equal rights Frederick Douglass and Susan B. […]
Filed under: Columns & Essays, History, Politics, Reviews, theater | Leave a Comment
Tags: 15th Amendment, 19th Amendment, abolitionist, drama, equality, Frederick Douglass, Gloucester Stage, History, Jacqui Parker, James Ricardo Milord, Mark Sardella, Mat Smart, play, Rochester NY, Sara Elizabeth Bedard, slavery, Susan B. Anthony, The Agitators, theater, theatre, vote, Wakefield Daily Item, womens suffrage
Town Meeting Manual
Annual Town Meeting is over but November’s Regular Town Meeting will be here before you know it. Since there are always new people moving into Wakefield and new people reaching voting age, a few observations and helpful tips may be in order. You’ll of course want to bookmark this column for future reference. First, a […]
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Tags: Board of Selectmen, column, definitions, election, Galvin Middle School, History, homonym, Humor, Mark Sardella, New England, Opinion, pep rally, Politics, soccer, terms, Town Council, Town Counsel, Town Meeting, tradition, voters, Wakefield Daily Item, Wakefield MA, warrant
Board of Selectmen, 1647-2018
WAKEFIELD – The Board of Selectmen passed away with little fanfare this week after a bout with a virulent strain of political correctness. It was 371 years old. Born in 1647, the Board of Selectmen was the child of Lynn Village and Redding. It was later adopted by Reading, South Reading and Wakefield. The Board […]
Filed under: Columns & Essays, History, Humor, News, Opinion, Politics, Wakefield | 3 Comments
Tags: Amherst, Board of Selectmen, Brookline, Fire Department, History, Humor, New England, Opinion, political correctness, politically correct, Politics, Reading MA, selectmen, Town Meeting, Toxic Masculinity, tradition, Wakefield MA, Wakefield Police Department
Local media matters
Being a panelist on two local candidates’ debates last week got me thinking about the role that local media plays in town. Televised debates for political office in Wakefield go back to the days before WCAT, to what I call the Dark Ages of public access TV. That was my first brush with local media […]
Filed under: Columns & Essays, History, News, Opinion, Politics, Television, Wakefield | 2 Comments
Tags: Board of Selectmen, Boston Globe, cable TV, debates, election, gender, History, historym politics, Internet, League of Women Voters, LVW, media, News, newspapers, press, public access, Television, Town Council, town hall, voters, Wakefield Daily Item, Wakefield MA, WCAT, women
Happy traditional Columbus Day!
As every kid in America used to know, it was on Oct. 12, 1492 that Columbus discovered America. Most kids also learned the little poem that began, “In fourteen hundred ninety-two, Columbus sailed the ocean blue.” I learned it in kindergarten at Miss Hope’s progressive Studio School on Montrose Avenue. Do schools still teach that […]
Filed under: Columns & Essays, Community, History, Humor, News, Opinion, Politics, Wakefield | 1 Comment
Tags: America, Christopher Columbus, Columbus Day, explorer, Greenwood School, History, holiday, Hope Dillaway, Humor, Indigenous Peoples Day, Italian-Americans, Mark Sardella, Opinion, Politics, Studio School, United States, Wakefield Daily Item, Wakefield MA
Name shaming
Wakefield’s inexorable slide from a proud, blue collar, working class town to the precious PC world inhabited by communities like Cambridge, Concord and Lexington accelerated just a bit this month when the Board of Selectmen decided that it would, after all, like to change its name to one that does not have the word “men” […]
Filed under: Columns & Essays, History, Humor, Opinion, Politics, Wakefield | 1 Comment
Tags: Ann Santos, Board of Selectmen, Brookline, definition, dictionary, Ed Dombroski, election, gender neutral, History, Humor, man, Mark Sardella, Massachusetts, Mehreen Butt, men, name, Opinion, PC, Peter May, political correctness, Politics, Rena M. Colson, sex, Steve Maio, Tony Longo, Town Meeting, tradition, Wakefield Daily Item, Wakefield MA, women
Name that board!
Right on the heels of the plastic bags crisis, the latest issue to rock Wakefield is what name we should use for the town’s executive body. For the past 370 years, “Board of Selectmen” has done quite nicely, but no more. The position contains the word “man” (and in the plural, “men”). In 2017, this […]
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Tags: attorney, Board of Selectmen, Cyrus Wakefield, gender neutral, History, humpr, lawyers, man, Mark Sardella, men, Opinion, Politics, select board, selectboard, selectman, tradition, Wakefield Daily Item, Wakefield MA, Warriors, Xena Warrior Princess
