sunflower blogging

at the half door

as i have mentioned, only ONE made it through this year but it's a HUGE one. bigger than i've ever grown

et tu connecticut?

where is all of this bullshite nazi facist socialist crap coming from anyway? if ANYONE put the law and the constitution aside, if ANYONE lied, if ANYONE tried to indoctrinate (i.e. suppressing global warming documents), if ANYONE didn't protect it's OWN effing citizens (i.e. katrina) it WAS KING GEORGE AND THE BIG DICK.

my posting on my other blog

Even In Blue State Connecticut, Obama's Speech To Kids Meets Resistance
By GRACE E. MERRITT The Hartford Courant
The firestorm around President Barack Obama's plans to address the nation's schoolchildren Tuesday in a webcast has made only a small ripple in Connecticut.

While elsewhere in the country, some conservative pundits and Republican leaders, including the chairman of the Florida Republican Party, have criticized Obama's speech and accompanying lesson plan as propaganda, Connecticut educators and others say they support or at the very least don't object to it.

The speech, to be broadcast at noon, is expected to encourage students to stay in school, graduate and go to college.

Some school districts in Fairfield County, including Bethel, have decided not to tune in Tuesday because they want to screen the speech first and decide how and when to integrate it into their curriculum.

"We've gotten a surprising number of phone calls from people who said 'This is Nazism, this is socialism or indoctrination.' That isn't it at all. We don't invite guest speakers in without knowing what the message is first," Bethel School Superintendent Gary Chesley said.......

i need to share this story

it's not mine, but it could be mine. i do believe in racial profiling. well i mean to say, i believe it happens. no, i KNOW it happens. i would like to think and believe it DOES NOT happen in west hartford. it seems i'm wrong though.

i have seen it in hartford and i have seen it in avon (witnessed first hand). i've not witnessed it in west hartford and i hope and pray this was a fluke
the blog the following came from hartford imc is published under a creative commons license. so i'm publishing ms lo bue's post in full. it is from august 26th

A Lesson in Privilege From the WHPD
by Lauren Lo Bue
Following the incident detailed below, I wrote this to share with friends. I realized, though, that other people might want to hear it and that it’s really quite relevant as a testimony to racial profiling in Hartford (and in general). So, here it is, in its unedited glory:

Last night, around 10 pm, Opton and I left Hartford for Queens. We passed a West Hartford PD car parked in the Deangelo’s parking lot on the way to the highway and he turned out on to the street behind us and followed us on to 84. About 15 seconds later, he pulled us over. Obviously Opton was going the speed limit; he’s Mr. Safety First. We both had our seatbelts on. He’d used his signals correctly. I couldn’t think of a legitimate reason for them to pull us over, and as my anxiety was building I looked over and saw a sort of resigned, knew-this-would-happen look on his face. The cop came up to the car and shined a flashlight directly into the car – on Opton’s lap, on his face, on mine, and told him that… you ready? The plastic frame around his license plate was obscuring the “Constitution State” on the bottom.

Yup. That plastic frame that nearly everyone has on their rear license plates. Go look at yours. Is it obscuring a bit of the bottom half of your license plate? Of course it is. It does that on nearly everyone’s vehicles. Other than that, the lights above his license plate were working and properly illuminating it, and the license number was completely visible.

He then collected his information, and asked for my identification.

He then asked Opton to get out of the vehicle.

He took Opton to the back of the car and began grilling him. Another cop car pulled up behind us. He had called for back-up. That officer came over to my side of the car and began grilling me. How do I know this man? Where did we meet? Where do I live? Where does he live? What does he do? What did I study in school? Where are we coming from? Where are we heading to? Remember now — the stated reason for being pulled over was the plastic frame on his license plate.

I find out later that he is being asked the same questions at this time.

Obviously, they were convinced that a white girl was being abducted by a black guy. They were trying to figure out whether he actually knew me or not.

After about a 15 minutes of questions, they had nothing left to ask us and no more reasons to detain us. They told him to “remove the frame around the license.” And they let us go.

I can’t say I’m surprised or shocked. But at the time it was the strangest feeling of reality truly matching my theoretical understanding of racism for the first time in my life. As a white girl, I’d never experienced a situation where racism seriously posed a threat first-hand. Last night I was terrified that my boyfriend was going to jail. And he would have if they’d searched the car — a friend of ours accidentally left his knife in Opton’s back seat. The knife didn’t have a latch — it was illegal, and we’d said that there were no illegal weapons in the car. We didn’t know our friend had left it there until Opton found it this morning. Insanely luckily, they did not search the car, but they could have easily contrived some bullshit pretense to do so. I mean, the reason we got pulled over to begin with is complete and total bullshit. (Side note: We have no rights. The police are the worst gang in town.)

I have been pulled over before — for actually doing something wrong. No one shined a flashlight in my face, and no one asked me to step out of the car. I didn’t even get a ticket.

I’m not telling you all this because it’s news to any of you. It shouldn’t be, and I know for most of you it isn’t. But it helps to have real-life experiences and stories from people you know to fuel the fire when it comes to anti-racist activism, so I decided to share this with you all.

i'm incensed

this is absolutely ridiculous. need i remind everyone of phillip garrido? i wrote about what i think about rapists here just the other day.

did campbell get a reduced sentence because the girl was 'challanged'? or was it because she was a girl and after all they don't matter as much as boys? i don't know the reason(s) behind this. there is nothing that could justify this to me. NOTHING

Suspended Sentence For East Hartford Man Convicted Of Sexual Assault

By DAVID OWENS The Hartford Courant
HARTFORD — - An East Hartford man whose trial on charges that he sexually assaulted a mentally challenged girl was to begin later this month was convicted of reduced charges Wednesday in Superior Court.

Shaun Campbell, 21, who faced a single count of first-degree assault, pleaded guilty under the Alford doctrine to three counts of coercion.

He admitted to Superior Court Judge David P. Gold that he induced the girl, beginning when she was 12 or 13 and until she was 16, to have sex with him by making her fear he'd commit a crime against her. The abuse came to light when the girl told a counselor at East Hartford High School about it.

With an Alford plea, a defendant does not admit guilt, but concedes that the state has enough evidence to win a conviction.........

what up wit connecticut mayors?

east haven and of course hartford's own

oh yesssssssssssssssssssss

arrest his ass! the king of the city is (i hope with all my heart and soul) going down. besides a general dislike of him, i think he really DOES think he's king of the city. the last straw was anointing himself as overlord of the board of ed. hey eddie YOU GOTTA GO. to the good peeps of hartford, this AIN'T providence and eddie AIN'T buddy cianci. why do you keep voting for him?


Perez To Be Arrested Again

By

Jeffrey B. Cohen

UPDATE: Perez says he will not resign, he will fight the charges against him, and that "the truth is on my side."

A state court judge has signed a warrant to arrest Mayor Eddie A. Perez, Perez's attorney Hubert Santos said today.

"I can confirm that a warrant has been issued for the mayor's arrest in connection with allegations involving former state Rep. Abraham Giles," Santos said. "He's going to complete his term as mayor."

Perez and Santos are holding a news conference today at 5:30 p.m.
John J. Kelly, Giles' attorney, would not say whether his client would be arrested. "I will be able to say something when something official happens," Kelly said.

Kelly has previously said in a document filed with the state Supreme Court that the grand
juror investigating the mayor had found probable cause that his client - who he did not name
- had committed two crimes........

When will enough be enough?
By

Helen Ubinas

For all the rumors that El Jefe was going to resign before being rearrested -- and man have those rumors been swirling -- it turns out that so far, it's nothing but wishful thinking.

In one of the shortest press conferences I've ever attended, Hartford Mayor Eddie Perez said he wasn't going anywhere because "the truth is on my side."

My question, whose truth? But I digress.
Here are some of the mayor's more telling statements :
"Let me be clear: I will not resign.

"I am confident that I will be acquitted of all charges and my reputation restored."

"I will continue to serve the citizens of Hartford as their mayor and continue to make Hartford a better place for all of us."
.............

'shroom

yes, PINK

julia and spiro got married saturday at

honora winery and vineyard in west halifax vermont. it was wonderful and beautiful and touching and fun. since most if not all of their friends are in the service industry (his from the half door and hers from max's, they got school buses to lug us from the the grand summit hotel at mount snow to the vineyard. wicked smart. it would have been a treatcherous drive even if we weren't a bunch of drunken assholes. dirt roads up and down the green mountains. wow wow wow. anyway we all got there and back to the hotel safely.

the hotel was very nice as well. giant fireplace in the front lobby. it was lit when we got back from the wedding. the fireplace at the vineyard was lit later on as well. both were the middle of the room ones, stone, open on all four sides.

i will say many people (not me this time believe it or not) turned into drunken monsters. i don't mind drunk (as long as you're not driving). i do mind monsters. i do mind when you do bad things or disrespectful things. 'nuff said

i'm not a person who gets star struck. julia has a famous uncle. her uncle happens to be in the rock n' roll hall of fame. we can't ALL say that. he was a genuinely nice and funny man. i know he'll never read this BUT i just wanted to apologize for not GETTING HIS JOKE. i am really not stupid and i really wasn't drunk either. the lightbulb just didn't go on till a day after. yes steven, I KNOW PINK IS YOUR FAVORITE COLOR

here are just a couple of photos.