Opinion - Marblehead Current

05 Jan

EVERYTHING WILL BE OKAY: An outbreak of optimism

Virginia BuckinghamColumns, Opinion, Virginia Buckingham

Something’s going around and it’s not just the flu. Everywhere I turned last week, there were lists and columns and stories of things to be optimistic about in 2026. That’s the one bandwagon I’m happy to jump on. What were some of the upcoming developments inspiring hope? They ranged from the very personal to the global economy to everything in between. Starting with health, several observers singled out mRNA technology as the probable answer to new, more effective treatments for all kinds of cancer. According…

05 Jan

COLUMN: ‘We all need this kind of pure joy’

Christine McCarristonColumns, Opinion

I have often said there are fewer greater feelings than someone speaking highly of your child(ren). It’s easy to like those people a little more, maybe a lot more, because they noticed in your kids what you notice and were kind enough to share it. I suppose the children should get credit for impressing or being extra kind, too, of course, but I always reflect on the messenger, and they become extra special to me. Lucky me, I have had this occur many times in…

04 Jan

LETTER: Trash talk

Letter to the editorLETTERS, Opinion

To the editor: Trash collected after a windy day on Washington Street. COURTESY PHOTO / SCOTT SNYDER My family has been Marblehead residents for six years, living on Washington Street, downhill from Abbot Hall toward town. During that time, there have been more than a dozen Tuesday mornings when we’ve woken up to trash scattered down our street after a windy night. This past Tuesday was a perfect storm. High winds overnight sent exposed trash — especially open recycling bins — into the roadway. It…

31 Dec

FROM THE VAULT: Party like it’s 1773

Leigh BlanderColumns, Local History, Opinion

On Dec. 16, 1773, Dr. Elisha Story snuck through the back door of Chase and Speakman’s Distillery in Boston, after its proprietors had closed for the night. He found dozens of men assembled there, including carpenters, shoemakers, blacksmiths and coopers. They organized into gangs to carry out a clandestine mission: proceed to Griffin’s Wharf and dump the East India Company’s tea into the sea. The men put on disguises inside the distillery. Story rubbed burnt cork on his face and placed a hump in his…

31 Dec

EDITORIAL: Looking ahead

The Current Editorial BoardCurrent Editorials, Opinion

On this page last week, we looked back at many of the stories upon which we have reported and opined in 2025. Now, as we publish our final issue of the year, we turn our eyes to 2026 to anticipate what may be some of the major events to come. We start with town financial matters. The budget: Town leaders seem united in the belief that a level-services budget will not be possible absent a general override of Proposition 2 1/2, and the numbers being…

30 Dec

LETTER: The best resistance is ‘kindness, caring, thoughtfulness and love’

Letter to the editorLETTERS, Opinion

To the editor: “We the people of the United States…to form a more perfect union…establish justice, ensure domestic tranquility…promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty…” These founding aspirations inscribed in the Constitution feel painfully distant. For many Americans, 2025 has been a terrible year, marked by a cascade of crises that demand renewed commitment to our constitutional ideals. We face a refusal to confront systemic racism; escalating attacks on racial, gender and immigrant communities; and the troubling rise of authoritarian impulses that…

30 Dec

FOOD 101: Soup traditions, resolutions for the new year

Linda BassettColumns, Food, Opinion

Here we are just before “Resolution Day” again. As always, I look to different cultures that cook some type of beans as a wish for prosperity and good health in the upcoming year. Many rely on beans, once used as money. Beans and rice. Black-eyed peas. Lentils and sausage. Beans were often dried to sustain people throughout the harsh winter. They gave rise to culinary superstitions, through generations. One year, I combined a few. Eating lentils while walking up a staircase backward was hilarious. So…

30 Dec

Lessons in journalism — and community — in Marblehead

Saoirse StallingsColumns, Opinion

My name is Saoirse Stallings, and I am a senior at Endicott College studying communications and digital journalism. For my senior internship, I spent the past few months working at the Marblehead Current. Gaining hands-on experience in such an engaged, historic town was the best experience I could have asked for. Current Editor Leigh Blander and Endicott College intern Saoirse Stallings speak to professors and students at a December event. COURTESY PHOTO With each assignment, I explored a new piece of the community. From pie…

23 Dec

EDITORIAL: In our opinion, a year to remember

The Current Editorial BoardCurrent Editorials, Opinion, Top Stories

Approaching the year-end holidays, we look back at many of the issues that dominated the Current’s editorial pages in 2025, motivated by our belief that Marblehead’s greatest asset is an informed and active citizenry. Civic engagement and civil discourse were two themes threaded throughout, joined by a lengthy list of topics we deemed worthy of editorial comment and, in many cases, a recommended action plan. The list included but was not limited to: · The MBTA Communities Act and whether Marblehead would…

22 Dec

LETTER: Hateful speech promotes more hate

Letter to the editorLETTERS, Opinion

Recent news is begging us to at least try to limit or end violence and hatred. It has become so horrible that it’s really difficult to bear. One sane and simple thing we could do as human beings is to refrain from using rhetoric comparing our president to Hitler or Nazis. Plain and simple, he is no more a Nazi or Hitler than my sweet grandmother was. If you want to see what Nazis do, go to Yad Vashem, the Holocaust Museum in Israel, and…