a shout out to wesleyan

and it's benefactors. i'm glad they're doing this. i hope ten veterans DO take advantage of this wonderful opportunity
Wesleyan to offer scholarships to military vets
MIDDLETOWN, Conn. -- Wesleyan University, a liberal arts school known for its liberal student body, plans to offer up to 10 new scholarships to military veterans.There are perhaps two students in the 2,900-member student body who have a military background, the school said.,,,,,,,,,,,,,,

a plea

does anyone in the greater hartford area know how to spin on a drop spindle OR support spindle (i have a drop AND just got the spindolyn which by the way is BEAUTIFUL)? i really need help.................i've looked at spinning videos a million times and i just can't 'GET IT'. HELLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLP

spindolyn from knitting any way

an experiment in avocado art

sounds kind of cool to me. we'll see........
Finding Art In Avocados
Hartford Artist Invites Help To Create A Living Sculpture From A Forest Of Plants
By JOANN KLIMKIEWICZ Courant Staff Writer
In the midst of the downtown dinner rush, the man stood in the candlelit dimness of the Mexican restaurant last week with a white plastic bucket and this unorthodox request: Can I have your avocado pits?On the spectrum of donation requests asked of Hartford's Agave Grill, Victor Pacheco's plea for pits had to be among the most unusual. Food platters. Monetary contributions. Restaurant manager Jonathan Sablon was accustomed to those kinds of community inquiries. Trash-bound avocado seeds, naked of their soft green flesh? That was a first."We go through so many avocados in a day. Well over 100," says Sablon. "We figured it's not that hard to save them for him. So we thought we'd help him out."..........
.............To find out more about the Avocado Tree Project, or to volunteer to grow a plant, visit the artist's website: www.webspawner.com/users/vpacheco/index.html. Or contact him at vpacheco62@hotmail.com.......................

should you happen to read this before going to work this morning

farmington avenue from sisson to sigourney is CLOSED. it happened yesterday. traffic was nasty on the surrounding streets AND it was rainy out. buses had to be diverted to side streets that really were NOT meant for buses. anyway, should be open some time AFTER rush hour this morning
Water main break closes major Hartford thoroughfare
Hartford (WTNH) _ Hartford Police closed Farmington Avenue between Sigourney Street and Sisson Avenue as over half a million gallons of water poured into the streets. The road will be closed through rush hour tomorrow morning.
Crews are now digging up Farmington Avenue, trying to find the leak. The broken pipe is sandwiched between gas and electrical lines, making the job that more tedious. ..........

tim nast and philllip titolo - TWO COOL DUDES

with a cool cause!

(if you're from town, i wonder if you ever noticed this - i sure did a while back - you either KNOW someone on maplewood, KNEW someone on maplewood OR YOU lived or live on maplewood. it's just that kind o' street). shout out to you both! it always makes my heart sing to hear stories like this, especially involving younger people (AND especially involving uconn LAW. i've not had pleasant experiences with most of the students i've come across)

Books For The World

By FULVIO CATIVO Courant Staff Writer

WEST HARTFORD - Phillip Titolo and Tim Nast's Maplewood Avenue apartment is a temporary home for a lot of books.Piles of books wait to be sorted. Boxes of books await shipping. The hundreds of volumes headed out the door are going overseas.Titolo and Nast - roommates, fellow Boston College grads and first year-students at the University of Connecticut School of Law in Hartford - want to help spread literacy in Africa. So this fall the duo built on their passion for reading and community service and launched an organization, Maplewood Books for Humanity, to provide tools to people learning to read in some of the world's most disadvantaged communities..........

maplewood books for humanity

photo: TIM NAST, left, and Phillip Titolo, first-year law students at UConn, have organized Maplewood Books for Humanity, collecting hundreds of books and paying to send them to schools in English-speaking African nations. They work with nonprofit groups, such as Minnesota's Books for Africa, to get the books to those who need them. They are actively seeking more books that meet their criteria for usefulness, as well as school supplies. (SHANA SURECK / November 2, 2007)

a new veterans advocacy unit

has been formed by richard blumenthal (due to channel 8's reporting on ryan riddle). it's about time! we MUST take care of our veterans.

Blumenthal launches new unit to help veterans
by News Channel 8's Alan Cohn
New Haven (WTNH) _ A Team 8 investigation has resulted in the creation of a new department at the Connecticut attorney general's office.
Richard Blumenthal says he created the new unit after watching News Channel 8 report the difficulties Southington veteran Ryan Riddle faced after he was injured in the Iraq War.
Riddle was shot in Baghdad and still has a bullet lodged in his thigh. He was repeatedly denied combat related benefits because his medical records were lost.
Team 8 obtained statements from Riddle's comrades in Baghdad who were with him when he was shot. After months of pressuring the VA, the department finally reversed its decision and gave Riddle the benefits he deserves.
Blumenthal says he created the new office to help other veterans. ......

(my last posting on ryan riddle which includes links to other ryan riddle postings) and of course a wicked LOUD shout out to channel 8 wtnh

an interview with justin goodman

in

herbivore magazine

By Josh Hooten
I saw Justin Goodman speak at the Becoming the Change conference in Durham, N.C. at the beginning of October. Justin is a Research Associate in the Vivisection Department at PETA. His talk about primates in labs and the campaign he waged against his alma mater, the University of Connecticut were riveting and left me with much needed facts about this subject. It also left me with lots of questions, as animal testing is one of the trickier issue we animal rights advocates have to deal with. Knowing how to speak about this very emotional issue (”but what if it cures cancer? what if it saves lives?”) with facts and clarity is vital if we want to change minds on this. I hit Justin up with some of the questions I had, his answers are below...........

CONNECTICUT FOR ANIMALS
connecticut for animals
uchkillsmonkeys

i DO think a public park is an acceptable place for this

mr walton. what's political about writing the NUMBER OF AMERICAN LIVES LOST and the NUMBER OF IRAQI lives lost each month this war has lasted? do you want us all NOT to know how many lives were lost? do you want to gloss it over? whether someone is "for" this war or not "for" this war (how the hell COULD anyone be FOR THIS war? iraq NEVER touched us NOR were they EVER any THREAT to us........but i digress) do you not want to remember those who served? THOSE WHO DIED so the imminent threat of saddam invading new haven would be stopped dead (so to speak) in it's tracks?
An unconventional protest of the Iraq War
by News Channel 8's Annie Rourke
New Haven (WTNH) _ A new Iraq War memorial is about to be unveiled in New Haven and it may stir up more than emotion.
Reclaiming the Prophetic Voice is an activist group made up primarily of clergy from all different religions. The group was created in response to the Iraq War and last September they stood on the New Haven Green and read aloud all the names of the American service people who have died in the war.
But the group has decided to do something more concrete and now their new Iraq War memorial will be erected in the Broadway Park.
"We had come up with an idea of marking it physically by having a cairn of stones, each one representing a month of the war so far," said Stephen Kobasa. .........

..............Approval for the display was granted by the New Haven Board of Parks Commission last month. Kevin Walton, the New Haven Parks commissioner, was the only dissenting vote. He says, it's not appropriate in a public park. ........

da liebs delcares

MISSION ACCOMPLISHED!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Lieberman says 'tide has turned in Iraq'

By: Adam Wittenberg, Record-Journal staff

WALLINGFORD -- Speaking before an audience of 350 Brad Davis listeners Monday at Zandri's Stillwood Inn, Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman felt right at home.

The mostly white-haired crowd met the independent Democrat's remarks with warm applause, particularly when he spoke on combating illegal immigration and furthering the war on Islamic terrorism."I'm proud to say that the tide has turned in Iraq and we're winning that war," Lieberman said. "And if we don't let down our troops, they're going to bring home a victory that will protect us here at home from today's threat -- totalitarian terrorist Islamism that's trying to take our liberty from us."The senator, who won his fourth term last November as an independent after losing the Democratic primary to political newcomer Ned Lamont, decried partisan politics in Washington, especially among the Democrats........

yet another

STUPID connecticut crime (i know other states have stupid crimes too, but for a small state, we sure seem to have MORE than our share)

Police: Man Arrested After Calling 911 For More Beer
A Hebron man was arrested Sunday after police said he called 911 several times, asking police to bring him beer.
Brian Poulin, 35, of 450 Church St., was charged with disorderly conduct.
Police said he called 911 numerous times and told police he was out of beer and asked them to pick up more for him..............

another update on ryan riddle

and it's GOOD news
(oh and thanks for serving ryan and the VERY BEST to you)

Southington veteran returns to 'normal' life
by Team 8 Investigator Alan Cohn
New Britain (WTNH) _ News Channel 8 has been following the struggles of a Southington veteran since last spring as he fought to get the disability benefits that he deserves.
At this time last year, Ryan Riddle was waging a very frustrating and lonely battle. Today, he is just like any other student on the campus of Central Connecticut State University.
But there is a huge difference between this 25-year old Iraq War veteran and his classmates, including the battles he has waged to get to the New Britain campus.
"It feels like a big boulder, a big weight, has been lifted off my shoulder. Things are starting to look positive. I can begin to start doing great things with my life now," Riddle said.
A year ago, Riddle found himself lost in the sea of bureaucratic red tape. His military medical records were lost when he was discharged from the Army. He was shot at a checkpoint in Baghdad and x-rays showed a bullet still lodged in his thigh. But every time he applied for service related benefits, he was denied. ...........

previous postings: finally

update

this is how we treat our war wounded

rick green writes a pretty decent

column about black and blue square. of course i was wickedly opposed to black and blue (and still am). mr green mentions a couple of times people walking more. so does that mean i am NOT going to be seeing all of those GIANT SUVs all over town taking up my parking spots? i doubt that. they (the they are the hep and happenin' west hartford, avon, simsbury in the center to see and be seen types and the like) are NOT going to WALK to the center. THEY will drive their horrid gas guzzling giant monstrosities (which they don't need because they either only have one or two children or one or two children and a dog) into town, park THEN walk into a few stores. several quotes on west hartford becoming urban in the story! urban??????????????? HARDLY. it will NEVER happen.



sit-n-knit is in the center. i'll continue to go there but attempt to go FIRST thing in the morning (when i have a day off that is). i just don't want to deal



again, i did think mr green's editorial was good. hit the nail on the head a FEW times.



In A Blue Back Minute
Like It Or Not, West Hartford Is The New Urban

Rick Green
November 4, 2007
I was there at the precious moment West Hartford became a city.It might have been in the town hall auditorium Thursday night. The connected and affluent raised their blue martinis, balancing small plates of apricot-glazed corned beef and sushi, in a self-confident celebration of the opening of West Hartford's trendy tableau of shopping and public life: Blue Back Square.Or was it Friday, when I bumped into a woman walking out of that large, new home furnishings store?
"I'm lost in West Hartford," she told me enthusiastically, standing at the busy new cobblestone corner of Isham and Memorial roads. She pulled a handful of movie tickets out of her pocket and informed me she was walking off to the new cinema with her kids...............

...................Blue Back's opening is a portentous snapshot in the history of West Hartford, perhaps the most self-analyzed, self-absorbed and over-debated suburb in Connecticut...................

..........Still, as I strolled back to Blue Back to meet my wife for her lunch break, I recalled the words of Rhea M. Lettiere. She looked at the new streetscape and proclaimed, "Gone is the dignity!"................

'we're coming back with problems'

problems AT THE VERY LEAST. army specialist eric trinidad brought back some amazing video. video from the snipers themselves, attacking specialist trinidad's unit (no one got hurt from that attack. although their medic was hit, he was wearing protective gear and was able to get up. click the link below for the video

A soldier's story
by News Channel 8's Annie Rourke
(WTNH) _ One Connecticut veteran is finding that a return to civilian life can be hard when scenes from war leave emotional scars.
Soldiers in Iraq have to deal with a hidden enemy that can strike at any time. The trauma of war can have long lasting psychological effects. Now, one Connecticut soldier is speaking out about his experiences in Iraq and how it has not been easy to come home.
Army Specialist Eric Trinidad shared some video with News Channel 8 that shows a viewpoint you don't often see. It is a recruiting tape made by terrorists who are targeting American soldiers.
After 13 months in combat the West Haven native says, "Sometimes I get angry for no reason. I can't even explain why I get angry. I just have a sense that people have forgotten. We're still over there and coming back with problems that it's hard to re-adjust." ...........

video (if this link doesn't work, click on the one above - there's a link to the video right in the wtnh story

i'm on vacation this week

what did i do monday, tuesday and wednesday? i helped my friends renovate (a bit) the half door. i painted, moved stuff, made a 'deep' (home depot) run or two, made a run to the music store to drop off some amps (not sure what exactly they were but they are part of the music system). i can barely move i am SO sore AND tired. the half door was supposed to open yesterday evening, but it just wasn't ready. it WILL open today at about 4:00 pm.

evil rotten souls

that if there WAS a hell would be burning in it (i know that is not a correctly structured sentence. so? i'm on vacation what do you want? )
Fake CNN Website Tries to Frame Hispanic Group for Wildfires
Posted by Lindsay Beyerstein
.........This post, written by Lindsay Beyerstein, originally appeared on Majikthise
Speaking of fake news... Someone registered the domain name "cnnheadlienews" on Oct. 25 2007, to run a bogus news story alleging that Hispanic separatist group had claimed responsibility for setting the California wildfires.
The page is dummied up to look like a CNN web page. There's no other content on the site. A WHOIS search reveals that the page is registered to something called "Bleach Boy Manufacturing."........................

keep your fingers crossed

fender doesn't SCREW with ovation (or kaman music in general).
i've played ovations and they're LOVELY instruments.


and a special shout out to the kamans for being so involved (well i don't know about now, i'm guessing they still are, i know they USED to be) in the fidelco guide dog organization


Kaman Selling Music Division
Fender Instruments To Take Over Business


By ERIC GERSHON Courant Staff Writer


In the colorful annals of Kaman Corp., this will be remembered as the year the music stopped.The Bloomfield maker of aircraft parts and helicopters is selling its 40-year-old Kaman Music Corp. division to Fender Musical Instruments Corp. of Arizona - maker of the celebrated Stratocaster and Telecaster electric guitars - for about $117 million.For Kaman - and American industry - the deal will end a long-lived and quirky business combination, one that blended the stone-sober practicality of aerospace manufacturing and industrial supplies with the whimsy, levity and creativity of musical instrument innovation............

kaman music

another story keeping with the time of year

i DO hope they are resting in peace now. i can only imagine the pain they endured during their lives if people DID think they were vampires

Vampires in Eastern Connecticut
by News Channel 8's Tina Detelj
Griswold (WTNH) _ A small Connecticut town has a creepy history of blood-sucking ghouls.
Lemuel and Elisha Ray were brothers and vampires according to Griswold's town historian, Mary Deveau. Mary says the brothers reached from beyond the grave to feed on their dying brother Henry who had tuberculosis.
"They were the living dead," Mary said. "These two were dead and they were supposedly feeding on his flesh."
To save Henry, relatives gathered at their graves determined to stop the disease by stopping them.
"They came and dug them up and the quote is, 'burned them on the spot,' Mary said.
But it didn't work and that year, 1854, Henry died. ...........

jewitt city vampires

an interesting story

especially for this time of year........

boo! (which is what i say to people who stare at me. and yes, stare they do. well, that is until i shout BOO to them)

Stones raining on tavern set stage for Salem witchcraft hysteria
NEW CASTLE, N.H. -- A 2-foot-high rock wall borders the elementary school near the spot where a satanic spirit purportedly showered George and Alice Walton's home and tavern with stones 325 years ago. It set off a wave of hysteria that foreshadowed the Salem witch trials.Could some of the rocks now neatly arranged outside Mabel H. Trefethen School be among those that came crashing down on Walton's property on the night of June 11, 1682, creating the belief that a stone-throwing devil was on the loose?
"Who knows where (the rocks) came from? Your guess is as good as mine," says historian Emerson W. Baker, whose new book, "The Devil of Great Island," uses the historical footnote as an opening to explore witchcraft and devilry in the Colonial New England mind-set.The moon was full that Sunday night when stones rained onto George Walton and several companions as they headed toward the tavern, according to an eyewitness. The rocks, some as large as a man's fist, continued to fly even after those targeted by the barrage took shelter inside. Some of the rocks were hot, as if they had just been pulled from a fire.............

from salem state, lithobolia

i'm happy

Champs again! Red Sox sweep World Series







photo: Jonathan Papelbon celebrated on the field as the Red Sox won the World Series. (Getty Images Photo / Jamie Squire)

thanks to jeff for sending me the link to

the wounded warrior project

wounded warrior project videos

Our Mission
To raise the awareness and enlist the public's aid for the needs of severely injured service men and women, to help severely injured service members aid and assist each other, and to provide unique, direct programs and services to meet their needs.
Wounded Warrior Project is a non-profit organization