adopt a classroom

there's only one in west hartford

sedgwick middle school

teacher emily genser says

.........My school is struggling to find funds to support good teaching. We have a large population of minority students, whose families fall into the lower and lower middle economic classes. Some of these students have learning disabilities, which makes writing very difficult. These students do not have access to technology at home, and it is a constant struggle to find an open day in our one computer lab. I want my students to have the same opportunities as those coming out of wealthier schools, yet they are falling more and more behind. Please support my teaching and help my students become competitive adults!...........

there are 40 in hartford to adopt
adopt a classroom


(via)

did someone hack into the

hartford courant website?

anything and everything you click on brings you to a yahoo error page?????????????????????????


hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm

some rather good news for (what was formerly) the park road playhouse

and more good news for park road in general. i HATE HATE HATE what has happened to my center. i wouldn't go to west hartford center on a dare. it's (more) full of idiots (if that's possible) than ever before. are cars allowed in the area or just suvs with only one or two people in the gas guzzling giants? why do people find it so necessary to show off anyway? not just the cars that substitute for little or no genitalia but sitting out on the sidewalk of let's say farmington avenue to eat? why the f**k would ANYONE WANT to sit on a busy fume-filled street to eat? (why indeed)




Former Park Road Playhouse In West Hartford Reopening
By BILL LEUKHARDT |The Hartford Courant
WEST HARTFORD — - The former Park Road Playhouse, closed last month after a nearly nine-year run, is reopening this month with new owners and a new name. Playhouse on Park will have its public opening with "My Show, A Choreographer's Story," by Darlene Zoller and her stop/time dance theater. Zoller of Vernon, Tracy Flater of Simsbury and Sean Harris of West Hartford are the owners of the new playhouse. Flater said the group signed a lease about a week ago. The Park Road Playhouse closed May 24 after staging its 50th play. Howie Hirsh, who founded it in 2001 with his wife, Linda, said their theater was a victim of the recession and rising costs.......

pic: Sean Harris, a theater director at Hall High School and one of three partners of Playhouse Theatre Group Inc., helps set up their new performance space, Playhouse on Park, taking over the old Park Road Playhouse. The theater opens June 25 with "My Show, A Choreographer's Story," by Darlene Zoller, another partner. The new owners hope to keep it active with "dance, theater, plays, musicals, youth activities, comedy, jazz to keep it vibrant," Zoller said. (RICHARD MESSINA / HARTFORD COURANT / June 10, 2009)

EXACTLY what we need

yet another shitty shopping plaza. apparently this one is going to be built on 'contaminated' land to boot! yippeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee

Developer looks to grayfields

By HANNAH VAHL
WEST HARTFORD - The contaminated former location of industrial and manufacturing facilities may be cleaned up and transformed into a commercial shopping plaza.
Winstanley Enterprises of Concord, Mass., is proposing to place three small retail buildings, an office building, a bank, gas station, supermarket, and free pad for a future building on the 16.1-acre parcel at 176 Newington Road owned by Crazy Bruce's Discount Liquors, Inc.
A Town Planning and Zoning public hearing and vote on the application was scheduled for May 4.
The plaza, if approved, will include a 40,000-square-foot Stop & Shop Supermarket and a Stop & Shop gas station, where shopping at the grocery store will translate into savings at the pump.
The building containing Crazy Bruce's Liquors, currently located at 178 Newington Road, will be demolished and the liquor store will become another of the shopping plaza's retail tenants...........

what up wit connecticut

judges and councilwomen getting busted for dui s and harrassing the police?





After DUI Arrest, Councilwoman Reminds Police Of Her Power Over Their Salaries
By GRACE E. MERRITT |The Hartford Courant
GLASTONBURY - A town councilwoman arrested earlier this month on a DUI charge warned police as they were booking her that she is a member of the town council and that she "approves [their] salaries."

Surveillance video obtained from the police department shows Barbara C. Wagner, 59, visibly upset and frustrated as she is being interviewed in the police station following her arrest on June 2.............

if you're in these hoods

(and i'm in one of 'em), take EXTRA care

i will say though, it is ALWAYS a good idea to NOT leave 'stuff' in your car. laptops, cell phones, even as they said in the article, brackets for your gps. just DON'T do it


Police Urge Caution After West Hartford Burglaries

The Hartford Courant
WEST HARTFORD - Police in West Hartford are urging people not leave anything of value in plain sight in their cars, a day after three reports of daylight car burglaries.

In all three cases, the burglars smashed windows to get into the cars, said Lt. Jeff Rose. The burglaries occurred in parking lots at Rockledge golf course on South Main Street, Bally's Total Fitness on New Britain Avenue, and the University of Connecticut on Trout Brook Drive.

"Don't leave anything in sight," Rose said. "Carry your valuables. And call the police if you see suspicious people."......

i'm all for free speech

except when it includes death threats or incites violence, harm or murder. one cannot THREATEN anyone without paying consequences. i'm more than pleased this gatsu piedi was arrested. although i must say i never listened to him. i did just listen to a bunch of stuff on youtube. i'm not going to post any of it though. just type in hal turner at youtube and a ton of stuff will come up. it's NOT pretty. i must add there are a LOT of crank callers out there getting in to him. that makes me smile a bit. he can fume and name call and say evil things all he wants. if you must listen to him, go on ahead. i don't understand it, but i won't stop you. HOWEVER if the threatens someone or asks someone else to cause violence or harm to others, HE MUST BE MADE ACCOUNTABLE.

Radio Host Hal Turner Charged With Inciting Injury To Two Connecticut Lawmakers
By DANIELA ALTIMARI |Hartford Courant
Radio host Hal Turner — accused of hosting a website that incited Connecticut Catholics to "take up arms" and singling out two Connecticut lawmakers and a state ethics official — was taken into custody in New Jersey late today after state Capitol police obtained an arrest warrant for him. Turner, who has been identified as a white supremacist and anti-Semite by several anti-racism groups, hosts an Internet radio program with an associated blog. Last week, the blog included a post that promised to release the home addresses of state Rep. Michael Lawlor, state Sen. Andrew McDonald and Thomas Jones of the ethics office. "Mr. Turner's comments are above and beyond the threshold of free speech," Capitol police Chief Michael J. Fallon said in an e-mail announcing the warrant. "He is inciting others through his website to commit acts of violence and has created fear and alarm. He should be held accountable for his conduct.".........


if his wiki entry can be believed, he sounds like a real 'prince among men dickwads


pic:

Radio host Hal Turner, shown during his broadcast over the Internet from his New Jersey home, was arrested in that state Wednesday on a warrant obtained by Capitol police in Hartford. Turner, who also hosts a blog, is accused of inciting his listeners and readers to "take up arms," and of singling out two Connecticut lawmakers and a state ethics official. (HANDOUT)

you can still take your road soda with you

if you so choose.

i don't. i don't ever have an open container of alcohol in my car but i COULD if i wanted to.

i don't think a lot of people realize you CAN have an open beer in a car in connecticut. a passenger can drink all they want. a driver can even have an open container. they just can't actually be DRINKING it and driving. nor can they be over the limit.

i'm not sure how i feel about all of that. i DO think it's ok to be drinking in a car if it's a hired car or bus with a hired sober driver (a limo for example).

oh one more thing. MOST OF OUR LAWMAKERS HAVE NO BALLS

'Open Container' Bill Dies
By JON LENDER |The Hartford Courant
A bill that would have made it illegal for anyone to have an open container of an alcoholic beverage in a vehicle on Connecticut roads was killed Tuesday in the state House of Representatives.

The bill, which would have made Connecticut one of about 40 states with open container laws, won approval last week in the Senate, and proponents in the House thought that they had the votes to pass it and send it to Gov. M. Jodi Rell for her signature.

But as the House's debate entered its third hour Tuesday, some legislators began hammering on the fact that the bill would make only drivers -- not passengers who were drinking -- subject to tickets beginning at $90 for the first offense and increasing to $500 for the third.

That, the opponents said, would penalize designated drivers who stay sober while others drink in the vehicle...............

lions and tigers and

bear OH MY!

(i watched a bunny in my yard yesterday for a while. the bunny was NO bear though)

Bear Captured in West Hartford
The Hartford Courant
WEST HARTFORD - A young black bear ambled through town for several hours today before it was captured by the Department of Environmental Protection and released at a state forest, said Police Chief James J. Strillacci.

"He was a little guy. The DEP said he was maybe 2 ½ years old," Strillacci said. "He was pretty cute."

The bear was first spotted between 8 and 9 a.m. in a yard on Sedgwick Road...........

the following nbc 30 site has cute video of the bear (i'm guessing it's the bear in question)

Tranquilizer Ends Bear's Day Out

By LEANNE GENDREAU

The daylong outing for a bear in West Hartford ended with a drowsy 10-foot slide down a tree behind a house on Boulevard Monday.

The bear’s day out got people’s attention Monday morning when someone spotted it near Sedgewick Middle School.

Since bears do not belong at a middle school, officials set off on the animal’s trail.

Later, the bear, which is about 150 pounds and 3-years-old, was spotted in the area of Boulevard, a tree-lined street of upscale homes where one is more likely to see a designer dog than a bear...........

he's 2. he weights 245 pounds

yes, i said 245 and his name is connor
sunday

oh connor's dad told me connor has a brother that's EVEN BIGGER (i think he said 270 or something unbelievable like that). anyway, connor was the perfect gentleman

the seamus el gordo

the

Seamus El Gordo by matt and andy (this one eaten by brian and photographed lovingly by a rose is a rose)

the half door

3 eggs scrambled, cheddar cheese, red onion, rasher bacon, and banger sausage wrapped in a flour tortilla, then deep fried. Topped with spicy hollandaise and served over corned beef hash.

looks like i'm in the wrong line of bid-nez

i wanna be a state marshal

holy shite is what i say....
One Connecticut State Marshal's Net Income Soars Above $1 Million
By MATTHEW KAUFFMAN and DAVE ALTIMARI |The Hartford Courant
John T. Fiorillo is the million-dollar marshal.

Boosted by his ties to the state's two major foreclosure firms, Fiorillo, a Hartford County marshal, reported a net income of more than $1 million for delivering court papers in 2008, according to disclosure forms filed with the Office of State Ethics.

Law firms paid Fiorillo more than $3 million to serve legal papers last year. But he reported spending nearly two-thirds of that on employee and office expenses, leaving him with a bottom line of $1,119,706. Fiorillo's take was more than double the next-highest-earning marshal.,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,

two MORE biting the dust in west hartford center

one of them has been in the center since the 40s. i thought black and blue square was supposed to be bringing throngs of shoppers down to the ENTIRE center? every article i read about b&b square says it's hoppin' and doing well. i can't say one way or another. i hope it is but i'm still sorry it's there. i hate the IDEA of it even.

one more time too - to the town of west hartford, BLACK AND BLUE SQUARE (which you used TOWN FUNDS to finance) was supposed to bring our taxes down and allow us townfolk MORE MORE MORE. well, WTF HAPPENED? not only haven't our taxes gone DOWN DOWN DOWN but we're losing services left and right

hey, YOU voted for it, i didn't

Allen Collins Clothing Store Closes In West Hartford
By BILL LEUKHARDT |The Hartford Courant
WEST HARTFORD — - The last sale at Allen Collins clothing store ended Friday and included deals on fixtures and furniture along with closing-sale prices on men's and women's business and casual clothes.

The iconic store at 8 Ellsworth Road, a source of quality clothes and service since the 1940s, closed its doors, done in by the recession and the prevalence of discount outlets that emphasize price, not assistance.

"Allen Collins has been a standard business in West Hartford where business men and women would go to buy suits. It's sad to see the store close," said interim Town Manager Ron Van Winkle, a town native. He walked across South Main Street on Thursday from town hall to wish owners Brian and Tina Rosso well.................

and japanalia is moving from farmington avenue west hartford center to:

JAPANALIA EIKO is moving from
West Hartford Center (May 30 is our last day) to 11 Whitney St. Hartford*, reopening June 2.

25% off SALE May 21-June 6

Phone till May 30, 860-523-7722
from June 2, 860-232-4677

* corner of Farmington Ave, formerly
LaMotta Fine Art, next to Japanalia on one!

talk about offshore

i saw the cover but i didn't actually read it yet. i absolutely WILL today - at brunch. i thought it was quite brilliant but i had NO idea the extent to which the the advocate went


hell, there was even an article about cake (written by someone offshore)! dang


Connecticut Alt-Papers Outsource Editorial Content to India
By Mark Fitzgerald
CHICAGO The Hartford (Conn.) Advocate and two of its New Mass. Media alternative weekly siblings outsourced all their editorial content to India for their issue that hits the streets Thursday. "It's been fascinating to me to see this go from a chuckle in an edit meeting to an entire issue," Group Managing Editor John Adamian said in a telephone interview. All the local news, arts and entertainment reviews, restaurant critiques in the Advocate papers in New Haven and Hartford plus the Fairfield County Weekly were written by Indian freelancers hired for the occasion using ads on Craigslist sites in Mumbai and Bangalore -- the two favorite spots for U.S. outsourcing to India. So Nilanjana Bhowmick writes about the Shad Bake the Essex (Conn.) Rotary Club holds, as well the Shad Derby Festival. Nidhi Sharma Kirti writes about a new exhibition of Pequot Native American art opening in Ledyard. Even the sex-advice column was outsourced to the land of the Kama Sutra. In one example, Vijayalaxmi Hegde writes about an upcoming concert by the California group Cake: "Perhaps, it is this versatility -- this ability to belong to many genres and not be constrained by one -- that is the key to Cake's longevity. It's been a decade and a half since the Motorcade of Generosity rolled by and close to two decades since 'Rock 'n' Roll Lifestyle' happened. If this is not durability for an indie band, what is?"..........

OUTSOURCE THIS

We hired Indian freelance journalists to write the paper this week. Here’s why we did it.

Last year, a news Web site in Pasadena, Calif., made headlines when they started outsourcing city hall coverage to reporters in India. Using simple webcams and e-mail, the site, Pasadena Now, would put journalists half a world away inside city council chambers to observe and file stories on local government. The site fired its staff, and replaced them with Indians who’d crank out 1,000-word stories for the rock-bottom rate of $7.50.

The media world was abuzz: American news outfit outsources local reporting to the subcontinent. Could we all be next?

We wondered too about the limits of outsourcing local news, particularly alternative journalism. Covering city council meetings via webcam is one thing. Producing entire issues of a local news and arts weekly is quite another. What started as a joke — "I’ve got an idea. Let’s outsource an entire issue to India just to see if it can be done" — has culminated in what you see here.
.....................

oh hell let's have MORE cake

congratulations to plan b tavern

for winning golden local best burger award
we stopped in yesterday afternoon prior to seeing cake. had NO idea they were going to be celebrating with free burgers and the like. i was there early so i sat at the bar awhile with jon (one hell of a bartender. you can find him at plan b monday, tuesday, thursday and friday afternoons and the half door for saturday brunches, then sat outside (they put a tent up) when my friends joined me. had a little bit too much to drink (ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhh - but i wasn't driving) but all turned out well.

shawn and al, congrats!

cake was amazing

(my favorite cake song is mexico. they played it and i was thrilled).

phenomenal

their recorded music doesn't even do them justice. one MUST see them live and i'm so glad i did. great rapport with their audience. hell, THEY GAVE AWAY A TREE. yes. a REAL LIVE TREE (of course it wasn't full grown).

i don't do well in crowds but i held my own. i separated from my friends so i could stand up in back against a wall. even then i was claustrophobic BUT i didn't totally flip. i kept running into people i knew - that was cool too.

a lot of the webster theater audience were assholes BUT they sure did know ALL THE WORDS TO EVERY SONG and hell, THEY SANG ALONG AT THE TOP OF THEIR LUNGS (me too a few times). as i said, they related to the audience and the audience sure related back to them. you could feel it in your soul and it made you feel warm and smiley inside.

come on now, cake endorses SOLID POTATO SALAD on their website:



stop by and check them out. great website, great songs, and seems like they sure are earth conscious as well. you go boyz!!! (and thanks for one wicked cool show) cake music

(shout out to julia, spiro, nate, allie, amy, eileen, brian, mike)

guess who's going to see cake tonight?

Cake Performs Webster Theater In Hartford
By DOUG WALLEN | Special to the Courant

You might not expect a band as iconoclastic as Cake to do a string of shows in the "Evening With" format, where there's no opening band and the headliner plays two long sets with an intermission. But then, consider how many songs the Sacramento band can choose from: five albums, a B-sides collection and the endless possibilities available to musicians who have no trouble covering Frank Sinatra, Black Sabbath, the Muppets and, most famously, Gloria Gaynor's "I Will Survive."

"We'd had a lot of people complaining that our sets were too short," says Cake leader John McCrea, "and that we didn't play this song or that song. I ignored those complaints over the years, thinking maybe less is more. But I agreed to play two sets [in one night], just as an experiment. It's worked pretty well and people are still paying attention until the very end, it seems."................

pic:

Cake performs at the Webster Theater in Hartford on May 28. (TIM JACKSON / July 18, 2004)

ravings of a semi-sane madwoman: sonia sotomayer

ravings of a semi-sane madwoman: sonia sotomayer

my point EXACTLY

the other day i posted this about a panel in ireland, the catholic church and the abuse of children. the following courant article was in today's paper

and oh, by the way, not for one second do i believe anything has changed in the catholic church

Connecticut Supreme Court: Unseal Priest Abuse Documents
By DAVE ALTIMARI |The Hartford Courant
For more than 15 years, some of the 23 lawsuits alleging sexual abuse claims against at least seven priests from the Bridgeport diocese have remained sealed, but on Friday for the second time the state Supreme Court ruled the public should have access to nearly all of the 12,675 pages.

As church officials criticized the court's decision and vowed to review all options to keep the files secret, victims' advocates hailed the ruling and questioned whether the documents will have a lasting negative impact on recently retired Cardinal Edward Egan, who ran the Bridgeport diocese as a bishop when many of the priest abuses were alleged to have occurred.

"Sadly, the history of this case has been about access by the secular media to internal church documents of cases more than 30 years ago to suggest, unfairly, that nothing has changed," the diocese's statement said.

"From the anti-church rhetoric of the first trial judge who proceeded to 'invent' an entirely new procedure to accommodate the press, to the lack of an impartial trial judge to reconsider the case on remand from the Connecticut Supreme Court, the history of this case raises issues that should be of concern to all. We are, therefore, currently reviewing our options in response to this decision."...............