Since the day Triple Cities Carousel launched five years ago, it has been my whole life. Running a newspaper is not an easy task for anybody, but starting one from scratch in the 21st century is as Sisyphean as it gets. I have given my everything to Carousel, and that has more often than not come at the expense of my health, my relationships, my sanity, and my personal well-being. I cannot always tell where Carousel ends and I begin, because everything about the newspaper and the organization that has grown around it is so close to my heart.

I am incredibly proud of the impact Carousel has had on the local community, and I am forever grateful to the staff, advertisers, and readers who have gotten us this far. Together we have built something amazing. After this next issue goes to print, it is time for me to walk away and let Carousel continue on without me.

I’m very excited to announce that next month I’ll be stepping into the role of Marketing Director at Binghamton University's Anderson Center for the Performing Arts. This job is a dream come true for me, and I’m very much looking forward to starting this next chapter of my life.

As many of you know, Carousel was sold late last year to local media group Equinox Broadcasting. They’ve got a great team of creative, media-minded folks over there, and I have full faith that Carousel will continue on under their stewardship and grow to levels I never could have imagined. It’s not my place to announce the new editor-in-chief, but rest assured that the paper is in good hands. I, for one, am extremely excited to see what the future brings for Carousel, and for the local arts scene as a whole.

And so, friends, there is nothing left to do but party. Carousel's 5th Birthday Bash is coming up this weekend, and I hope to see you all there. We will toast, we will hug, we will cry, and we’ll dance like a bunch of maniacs.

–Chris Bodnarczuk, founder

                                         An unpublished op/ed submitted to Binghamton Press 

                                                                By Richard Masters

Sick people are still dying in the U.S. for lack of medical care or going bankrupt from medical bills. Thirty Million have no insurance at all. Only in America! Every other industrialized country in the world – EXCEPT the U.S. – provides its citizens with health care as a right. Even some Central American countries and Mexico provide government funded Health care. Polls show that a majority of our people would prefer a single payer system, but both major parties say it can't be done. We can't afford it. At the same time, both parties voted to increase the pentagon budget by $160 billion over the next two years. It seems that there's always money for war, while programs like food stamps are being cut, and single payer is, of course, out of the question. Right now, there is only one major party in the U.S. – the MONEY party. One wing is the Democrats; the other is the Republicans. Both are responsive only to their big donors: corporations and the 1%. Don't expect the Money party to embrace Single payer. It doesn't benefit the donors. The Green Party endorses Single payer. Don't waste your vote on the Money party. Vote GREEN!

The Jan 19 Press and Sun Bulletin article about failure of the NYS Commission of Correction’s response to inmate grievances is barely the tip of the iceberg. The public response to those they deem with multiple stigmas – inmate, mentally ill, and triple diagnosed developmentally impaired is to continually ignore or cut and reduce from