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Meet My Friend, Wallace

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  Meet My Friend, Wallace      As far back as I can remember, I have loved comics of all kinds.    My parents introduced me to comic books (Justice League, Avengers) when I got my tonsils out at age 5, and thus making superheroes my first love, but, I eventually found myself checking the Worcester Telegram and Gazette after my dad finished so I could read Snoopy, Garfield, B.C, and Wizard of Id.  As I got older and my sense of humor matured, I couldn’t get enough of The Far Side or Doonesbury.  But, the gold standard will always and forevermore be (drum roll please) the Sam Watterson classic, Calvin and Hobbes.      Calvin and Hobbes is the apex.  It is what comic strips were meant to be, in my opinion, because it was so relatable for both children and parents.  His take on the over-the-top dark side of a loveable little boy and the stuffed animal/imaginary friend that acted as his conscience, was geniu...
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DOGE; Dog or God

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     It’s safe to say that Elon Musk and DOGE (the Department of Government Efficiency) have occupied more of our collective conscious thought in the last month than could have ever been predicted.  Check out national news, there they are.  Local news, there they are.  Twitter (X), same.  Facebook, Instagram, etc.  He’s at CPAC, the Oval Office, the Cabinet meeting, Joe Rogan.  He’s ubiquitous, and for good reason.  Musk and the Department of Government Efficiency has been tasked with cutting the fat in the federal budget.      And for some reason, whenever I read about Musk and DOGE, this is the image that pops in my head:        A more apt analogy might be Freddy Krueger performing dental work. There are issues in your mouth that need to be taken care of, but the lack of subtlety and precision by Dr. Krueger’s scissor hands ultimately do more damage to the healthy parts of the mouth in or...
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The Price of Being Right

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  I made a mistake It is not the first (by a stretch), and it won’t be the last. It is not the worst, most uninformed, or most controversial mistake I have ever made.  But the consequences feel disproportionate to the decision I made at about 5:00 PM on Tuesday, May 14. I decided not to go to Town Meeting.       For one of the few times in decades I opted to stay home instead of carrying out a civic duty that, as a social studies teacher, should have known better than to ignore.  There were reasons that fed into the decision, but there is no blame.  It is my responsibility alone.      Why is this such a big deal?  Because a school budget that I knew little about (again, shame on me) was defeated by 5 votes. Added to this, due to an unfortunate bit of wrong information, without a passed school budget, the school system will shut down on July 1.      I am in the last couple years of a ...
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