Saturday, January 06, 2007

i don't know if mr krayeske is a threat or not

i don't know if he was running to the parade to get into jodi rell's face OR if he, like he said, was running to get a PICTURE of jodi rell.

what i DO know now is hartford (or perhaps ALL of connecticut) has a WATCHLIST of "POLITICAL ACTIVISTS" whose photos appear on this watchlist. a political activist is NOT a terrorist by the way

Activist arrested at inauguration parade


(Hartford-AP) _ A political activist who ran the campaign of a Rell gubernatorial campaign opponent was arrested during this week's inaugural parade.
Kenneth Krayeske of Hartford was charged with breach of peace and interfering with an officer on Wednesday. Police say he ran up to the street and tried to step into the parade route near Rell.
He'd been the campaign manager last fall for Green Party gubernatorial candidate Cliff Thornton.
According to a police report, officers recognized Krayeske from pictures on a watch list of political activists who Homeland Security officials had labeled as a potential threat. ...............


the courant has a more thorough article

State Called Man `Threat' January 6, 2007 By MARK PAZNIOKAS, Courant Staff Writer

Gov. M. Jodi Rell's security detail only watched when a woman left the sidewalk and quickly walked toward Rell during the inaugural parade Wednesday. The woman shook Rell's hand and melted into the crowd.But a slightly built man who jumped off a mountain bike and ran into the parade route ahead of Rell was intercepted by a state trooper and arrested by a Hartford police officer.One difference in the way the two incursions were handled: A state police intelligence unit had previously identified the man, Ken Krayeske, as a political activist and potential threat.A Hartford police report released Friday by Krayeske says that state police had given them photographs of activists who might be "possible threats" to Rell, including Krayeske, a free-lance journalist and anti-war protester who managed the Green Party's gubernatorial campaign.His lawyer says Krayeske apparently came to the attention of state police by heckling Rell during a campaign stop in Glastonbury last year over her refusal to debate his candidate, Clifford Thornton."Are there little circles of law-enforcement officers who have lists of who is naughty and who is nice?" asked Krayeske's lawyer, Norm Pattis. "What is the criteria for inclusion?"Lt. J. Paul Vance, a spokesman for the state police, declined to comment on how Krayeske came to the attention of the state police intelligence unit or a regional police clearinghouse mentioned in the report, the Connecticut Intelligence Center."We share intelligence. We share information," Vance said..............

i got some good news and some bad news yesterday

yesterday afternoon west hartford animal control called me (i called them at about 9 am and left a voice mail about teeny mambo sven). they used teeny mambo sven's rabies tag to call her vet. the vet put animal control on the track of teeny mambo sven's human companions. it appears they just moved to the area. animal control had not gotten the human's new phone number yet, but they were working on it. so the good news is teeny mambo sven was well on her way to being reunited with her family. the bad news is teeny mambo sven will not be in MY life.

Friday, January 05, 2007

i don't really have to be at work at 3 am. i'm just a chronic insomniac

i don’t know why the west hartford police have to be sooooooooo mean! they just carted off, in a cruiser, the brand new LOVE OF MY LIFE.

(kidding). once again a SHOUT OUT to them. (whenever our paths cross, i have always had a positive experience with the west hartford police force).


on my way to work this morning, iwas mindin’ my own bid-nez as everyone knows i do. i stopped and got my coffee (just down the street from work) and for some reason or another, i decided i just had to quick head home again to get somethin’ somethin’. i got my somethin’ somethin’ and was headed back to work. no sooner than i was four blocks down the street and stopped at a light (yes, I DO stop at 3 am) this TINY little teeny weenie dog whose name was obviously mambo sven (please see:
this)
started to come up to my car IN THE MIDDLE OF THE ROAD. i flung open my car door and he or she (i never did check) jumped right in. mambo sven stayed by my feet because i had a butt in my hand and i could tell teeny mambo sven didn’t care for it. so i put it out (in my ashtray, i NEVER litter) and teeny mambo sven immediately jumped right into my lap and put her or his head on my neck (i fell in love right there and then). i’m stopped in the middle of the road mind you. of course it’s 3 am so thankfully there was NO traffic. i have my dome light on, my door open, the music going (robin trower whom teeny mambo sven seemed to like a great deal) and my flashers on. i decided to pull just around the corner to get a bit more out of the way. i tried to read the little tag on the dog hoping above all hope it was a name and phone number. no such luck. it was a vaccination tag. i couldn’t kick teeny mambo sven out of my car and i knew i couldn’t bring teeny mambo sven to work so i had to think of what to do. hey, i have an idea i says to myself, why don’t i call west Hartford animal control! so i did. hoping upon hope someone was there. guess what? at 3 am, NO ONE is there. you get a recording telling you if it’s an emergency to call the west hartford police (and they give you the number too on the recording). i had no choice but to call the police. they asked my name, my phone number and what kind of car i was in and of course location. within a couple of minutes a VERY CORDIAL (especially for that time of day) west hartford police officer arrived. i told him i just couldn’t leave teeny mambo sven wandering around the roads of the hood (i’m thinking coyotes now). the officer took down the same info (it’s a rule i believe. to give the same information you gave over the phone – in person now. i’m NOT complaining – i just think it odd indeed). then he tossed teeny mambo sven (well, he really didn’t TOSS the hound from hell, i used that word for dramatic effect) into the back of the cruiser. the officer advised me to make a follow-up call to animal control. "who knows", he said, "perhaps no one will claim little teeny mambo sven" (of course the officer also pointed out teeny mambo sven was groomed and looked well-fed). I’d love for mambo sven to be found by her or his family (at the same time, in my soul, i’d also like to be able to have mambo sven in MY life)

and now both my car and i SMELL LIKE DOG (and it’s been far too long since that was the case).

i love you teeny mambo sven

And thanks again to the officer for his kindness


mambo sven busted and in a west hartford police car

yesterday was january 4th

and i swear i saw a few mosquitoes and a bee. today is the 5th and it will be in the mid 50s out. tomorrow, the 6th, we are supposed to get up to the mid 60s.

and yes, the bulbs i planted a few weeks ago are in fact sending shoots up

Unseasonable weather brings out blooms


by News Channel 8's Tina Detelj Posted Jan. 4, 20065:45 PM
(New London-WTNH) _ If you didn't look at the calendar you might not know it's January. The balmy weather is bringing people outdoors and also fooling some flowering plants.
A cherry tree in the Harris Place Plaza in New London is getting a lot of attention. It first bloomed last week and has been spreading a spring-like feel ever since.
"Isn't it ridiculous," Diane Svenning of Mystic said. "I mean, I love it, trust me."
These warmer temperatures are welcome for many reasons.
"I love it," Mark Cornish of New London said. "Saving me a lot in electricity bills heating bills."
Folks are turning the heat down and leaving their heavy jackets at home............

i have always had a 'thing' for marsupials

the ONLY thing i remember from 4th grade is this:

are you a marsupial?
do you have a pouch?
if i pinch you on the outside
will someone inside yell ouch?

i even named one of my hounds from hell baby roo (as in kanga and...)

my (second) favorite 'growing up' show on animal planet is marsupial (man those tasmanian devils are cute)

this is a rather sad story but it was cool that this wallaby may have been on the loose in connecticut for a COUPLE OF YEARS

A Traveler's Sad Night On The Road, Mate A Long Way From Australia, A Wallaby Comes Out Where It Is Least Expected And Is Struck And Killed By A Passing Car

By TRACY GORDON FOX Courant Staff Writer January 4 2007 MARLBOROUGH -- Ellen Jagielo was heading home from a shopping trip Tuesday night when she saw an animal standing on its hind legs, trapped in the beam of her headlights, just before she struck it."Mom," her daughter screamed. "You just hit a kangaroo!""Don't tell anyone that," Jagielo told her daughter as she turned her car around on Route 66 to see what she had just hit. "They'll think you are insane."Jagielo and her daughter, 23-year-old Jillian Jagielo, had never seen anything like the grayish-brown plush animal that lay dead on the side of the road. Baffled, they called Jagielo's son, Neil Jagielo, 27, who lives with his wife just down the road from the mishap."Looks like a kangaroo," Neil said when he arrived.Actually, it was a wallaby, a kangaroo-like marsupial indigenous to Australia, according to state police and state Department of Environmental Protection officers who responded to the unusual call around 9:30 p.m. They had to look up pictures on the Internet to confirm it was a wallaby, a stubbier, stockier version of a kangaroo."I didn't know what it was," Ellen Jagielo said Wednesday outside her son's home on Route 66, where they still had the carcass of the beagle-sized animal in the back of a pickup truck. They are not sure whether they should offer the carcass to a museum or a university for study. "I feel terrible," she said. "He's beautiful."No one knows where the animal came from or why it was hopping out of a wooded area in Marlborough near Hebron."This is the weirdest car vs. animal call I've ever responded to," said Marlborough Resident Trooper Mark Packer. DEP officials suspect someone had been keeping it illegally and it escaped."The woods have been full of hunters and no one has seen it," said Capt. John Smutnick of the DEP police. "It leads me to believe it was a recent escape."But Jan Veilleux of Plymouth wonders if it was her "Joey" - a pet wallaby that escaped from her home in July 2004. She got calls from as far as the Midwest from people who said they saw him. She said a wayward wallaby could have easily hopped to Marlborough. "They move fast," she said............


Thursday, January 04, 2007

ring around the fairy moon




this morning 5:31 am

wow

orman has stones, you gotta give him that! i don't know much about him, so i don't know where he's going with this. i'll be following it though. that's safe to say!

Lieberman Party Now in Hands of Critic

By STEPHEN SINGER
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HARTFORD, Conn. (AP) - The party Sen. Joe Lieberman created to mount his independent re-election campaign has been seized by one of his critics, and the secretary of state's office said Wednesday that it won't challenge the takeover.
After the senator's Nov. 7 victory under the Connecticut for Lieberman Party banner, John Orman switched his party affiliation from Democrat to Connecticut for Lieberman and voted himself chairman.
Orman, a political science professor who ran briefly against Lieberman last year, said only critics, bloggers and anyone named Lieberman can join the party, which he said would be a watchdog of the senator's actions.
Ted Bromley, a lawyer for the secretary of the state's office, said it won't take a stance on the legitimacy of Orman's leadership. He said the issue could be settled by a judge, but only if it's challenged in court.
Lieberman campaign manager Sherry Brown did not immediately return a phone message seeking comment Wednesday.
Lieberman was defeated in the Democratic primary by Ned Lamont, a multimillionaire in his first run for public office who harshly criticized the incumbent's support for the Iraq war. But state election laws allowed Lieberman to run in the general election as an independent and ultimately win a fourth term..........


Wednesday, January 03, 2007

i know the holidays are over

BUT i wanted to post the christmas stockings i made for my nieces and nephews over the years. on their first christmas (and it's been a LONG time since we've had a first christmas for anyone in my family) they got a stocking.

auntie a rose is a rose worked hard on these and she just wanted to show off a bit. baby gina's (baby gina is NO LONGER a baby by the way, but she was the first born of the six) was needlepointed. that stopped immediately. the rest are appliqued and stuffed






Tuesday, January 02, 2007

ravings of a semi-sane madwoman: the faces of the dead-nyt interactive feature#links

ravings of a semi-sane madwoman: the faces of the dead-nyt interactive feature#links

surprise suprise

there is a BIG void when it comes to helping at-risk teenage grrrls. are you surprised? i'm sure not. we're second class citizens from the time we're born until the time we die. at least the state recognizes there IS a problem here

many of these grrrls do NOT belong in niantic. they belong where they can get not only help BUT KINDNESS and UNDERSTANDING and PROTECTION

Child advocates say services falling short for teen girls


(Hartford-AP, Jan. 1, 2007 8:45 PM) _ Connecticut child-welfare advocates say at-risk teen girls need better services and intervention programs.
That comes as more teen girls are being sent to York Correctional Institution in Niantic, the state's women's prison.
Authorities say many of those girls would be better off in treatment and intervention programs, but that there aren't enough available.
Also, they say many of the girls were abused or neglected, and that the current problems might have been avoided if the state could have helped them more when they were victimized.
Advocates have been calling for more services for troubled girls since 2003.
That's when the state closed Long Lane School, the state's only maximum-security program for delinquent girls. ............


Monday, January 01, 2007

talk about waking up from (to) a nightmare

i'm glad the spraggins are back safe and sound in connecticut and i'm sorry they had to go through that horror

Menacing Eyes, Shotgun In The Dark Connecticut Trooper Prevails In Ferocious Fight To Defend Family In Ghana

By TRACY GORDON FOX Courant Staff Writer December 31 2006 Trooper Scott Spraggins opened his eyes to the African darkness, awakened by a strange scraping noise. It was different from the crickets and the whir of central air conditioning in the gated, elegant home where he and his family had been staying during their trip this month to Ghana.He padded barefoot from the bedroom down a darkened hallway and opened a door that led to the living room.He saw three sets of eyes glaring at him. He also caught the outline of a shotgun in the hands of one of the intruders.Spraggins, a former U.S. Marine, and his wife, Angelica, a Ghanaian national, said they had been warned about a series of robberies in the suburbs of Accra, the capital where they were visiting her relatives. They were told the bandits would sometimes just take valuables, but frequently would shoot the men and rape the women before leaving with their booty.Spraggins wasn't about to gamble early that morning of Dec. 21, not when his wife, his mother, and his two daughters, Sophia, 5, and Sabrina, 15 months, were sleeping down the hall."I knew I was going to be the last one standing," Spraggins, 35, said.Scott and Angelica Spraggins, 39, and his mother, Lyla Mills, 63, now back home in Newtown, recalled how they fought with the three armed intruders. Scott Spraggins slashed one of the bandits in the abdomen and blinded another in one eye..........

a DAMN good idea for hartford

and it's about time. new haven should follow suit as well. seems like there is just as much if not MORE gunfire and crimes there

not that i went into downtown hartford much, but believe me, i wasn't planning any trips anytime soon. people getting shot in front of restaurants and robbed in broad daylight. NO NO and NO

New Foot Patrols Begin In Downtown Hartford

HARTFORD, Conn. -- A new police foot patrol began Sunday in downtown Hartford.
An officer will now be walking the beat in the central business district from 4 p.m. to midnight, seven days a week.
Hartford Police Chief Daryl Roberts said it's part of the department's goal of improving on the neighborhood policing plan and increasing the services

Ronald Morneault, president of Business for Downtown Hartford, said having an officer on foot patrol provides an increasing sense of security among the business owners and downtown residents.
He said it also makes sense with the opening of several new housing complexes...........