the connecticut blues society

tuesday afternoon march 21st 4:00 pm

an empty keg

chris, (sorry i cut you in half) erin, pat and lisa

Sir Lacksalot: FOR ROSE..........

Sir Lacksalot: FOR ROSE..........

tuesday march 21, 2006 4 am

smoke and trees
moon and trees
mark twain house

dudleytown, connecticut

Dudleytown Road as it looks today


i came across this website and thought it quite interesting. some local lore......


Note from the Connecticut State Police: Those who go, or attempt to go to Dudleytown will be arrested for trespassing and/or parking. The fines start at $75.00 per person and rapidly increase.

In northwestern Connecticut within the town of Cornwall, in the shadow of three mountains, lies the remains of Dudleytown. The small hamlet holds accounts of ghostly tales, demons, unexplained events, and curses coupled with over 400 years of British and American history -- including ties to King Henry VIII, Horace Greeley, General Heman Swift, and General George Washington.Today, only the cellar holes and a few foundations remain. The roads have become forest trails that hikers and ghost hunters still traverse, regardless of warnings of evils spirits, and many claim the woods become strangely silent -- the birds and bugs that sing and call during a hike up to Dudleytown don’t follow into the hamlet.Dudleytown was founded by Thomas Griffis, who was the first to settle in the area, but it was three Dudley brothers who moved there a few years later for whom the land would be named. It was these brothers who also allegedly brought over a curse from England that has plagued the land ever since.The CurseAll Dudleys can trace their heritage back to a Saxon named Dudd, who was titled Duke of Mercia and died in 725 A.D. It was Dudd’s land that would eventually become the site of the Dudley castle.An old English word for land was “leigh,” so the area was called Dudd’s leigh. Many centuries later, when the taking of a surname became necessary, some people took a name based on their occupation (such as Smith or Baker) and others took their surname based on the land they came from, i.e., Dudley.The story and curse of Dudleytown actually begins in England in the year 1510. Edmund Dudley was beheaded for plotting to overthrow King Henry VIII. At the time of the beheading, a curse was allegedly placed on the Dudleys for their treason.The curse states all Dudleys from Edmund Dudley’s lineage would find themselves surrounded by horrors. Edmund Dudley’s son, John Dudley, Duke of Northumberland, followed in his father’s footsteps and also tried to overthrow the crown by marrying his son, Guilford Dudley, to Lady Jane Grey (the original “queen for a day”)..........

if you click on the story link (which is the title of the post) you will see the pictures is NOT mine. it comes directly from the site

shadows through a tent

(hartford saturday 3/18/06 6:15 pm)

spring is coming.................

for lily - next week monday-friday will be NO POLITICS POSTING WEEK

here at the nutmeg grater (and at ravings of a semi-sane madwoman

if i'm up to it i'll try to get up and around and take some pictures.

a great article on my home away from home: the half door

CHRIS GALLANT pours a Guinness the proper way at the Half Door on Sisson Avenue. (JOHN LONG)


Half Door Goes For Authenticity, 'Perfect Pour'
March 16, 2006 By LYNNE TUOHY, Courant Staff Writer

Shawn Skehan, co-owner of Half Door on Sisson Avenue in Hartford, said it takes more than Guinness on tap and an Irish flag out front to be an Irish pub."It's the feeling of being comfortable and at home and becoming a regular," said Skehan, who cut his teeth in the bar and restaurant business at this very location, in its former incarnation as the Cool Moose. He took it over nearly seven years ago.
The Half Door whispers comfort, from the cushions piled on a stone bench to the weathered booths and black-and-white photographs of Irish scenes. The bar rounds at one end to a circle, facilitating conversation. The pub is full of Irish knickknacks and artifacts from Ireland that friends and relatives have given Skehan, who has one set of Irish grandparents.He has yet to visit the island himself, but those who have tell him he has gotten it right......

the half door


A plate of Irish nachos at the Half Door on Sisson Avenue. (JOHN LONG)

(by the way, i've partaken of the irish nachos - sans bacon and cheese and they are STILL OUTSTANDING)

i thought this would be a very nice time to post a link to

Connecticut Historical Society Museum’s important Civil War collection, holds a rediscovered national treasure in the Lincoln assassination flag— the very same flag that Lincoln was verified to have clutched as John Wilkes Booth delivered the fatal shot at Ford’s Theatre on April 14, 1865. Photo courtesy of Connecticut Historical Society.

the connecticut historical society museum

it's a lovely building (i'll try to swing by after work today and take a picture or two) just off of asylum avenue on elizabeth street.

Society Director Takes On New Orleans Challenge

By OSHRAT CARMIEL, Courant Staff Writer
David M. Kahn, the executive director of the Connecticut Historical Society Museum, is stepping down in May to take a job in New Orleans as the director of the Louisiana State Museum.Kahn, who has headed the city museum for more than nine years, said that the opportunity to move to New Orleans and help a historic institution rebuild in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina was an assignment he could not pass up
I've had a long-term interest in New Orleans and Louisiana history and culture," Kahn said.He acquired a personal collection of 25 rare, first-edition books on Louisiana history, and said he has family there. "There really isn't any other circumstance under which I can imagine leaving Hartford," he said. Kahn begins his work in Louisiana on May 15, three days after leaving his post in Hartford..............

i'm a smoker

i'm not proud of it, but i am what i am.

i won't buy butts in walgreens any longer. they DEMAND an id. by the way, i am WELL over the age of 30 and YES they DEMANDED MY id on ALL of the occassions i bought cigarettes there. not only do they LOOK at the id, they enter the date of birth into their registers. so i'm just not going to stop at walgreens for ANYTHING. they have lost my bid-nez because they invaded my privacy (i understand the need to card people buying certain items. however, when one is MY AGE, ONE DOESN'T NEED TO BE CARDED. and no, i'm NOT flattered)

now it seems cvs will be doing the same using the age 27 as a cut off. now we'll see if i get asked for id or not. not only am i well over that age, i LOOK LIKE I'M WELL OVER THAT AGE.

CVS reaches agreement with 42 states on tobacco sales
By Ray Henry, Associated Press Writer March 15, 2006

PROVIDENCE, R.I. --CVS Corp. has reached an agreement with Connecticut, 41 other states and the District of Columbia by promising to strengthen practices that keep minors from buying tobacco products.
Under the voluntary settlement, the pharmacy chain agreed to check the identities of customers who attempt to purchase tobacco products if they look younger than 27.
CVS officials also agreed not to use self-service displays or vending machines to sell tobacco products and to train employees on state and local laws regulating tobacco sales.
The Woonsocket-based company also must hire an independent monitor to check its compliance at 5,400 stores nationwide. CVS officials did not disclose the cost of implementing the agreement.
"I applaud CVS' commitment to fight underage tobacco use," said Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal. "This agreement strikes a blow against underage smoking in Connecticut and nationwide."......

i was unable to attend ned lamont's declaration speech on monday

(due to circumstances beyond freedom and dignity) BUT he did it, he's in the running!
ned lamont

Lamont Opens Senate Fight Calls Lieberman `Republican Lite'
By MARK PAZNIOKAS Courant Staff Writer March 14 2006
Ending two months of exploratory campaigning, Ned Lamont debuted Monday as a full-fledged challenger to Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman, promising a debate on the war in Iraq and a fight for the soul of the Democratic Party.Lamont, 52, a Greenwich cable television entrepreneur with deep pockets and liberal politics, promised a hard challenge from the left for a Democratic nomination that has gone to Lieberman without opposition since 1988.Lieberman's support for invading Iraq may be the catalyst for a challenge to a three-term incumbent whose candidacy he once supported financially, but Lamont said his differences with the senator go deeper than the war.He described Lieberman - an iconic politician who was the first Jew on a presidential ticket as the Democratic vice presidential nominee in 2000 - as a "Republican Lite" and "George Bush's favorite Democrat," too cozy with the GOP and too distant from his Democratic roots."We're going to fight for the heart and soul of the Democratic Party," Lamont told more than 100 supporters at the Old State House. "With your passion, your enthusiasm, the grass roots, the Net roots - we're going to show people on a hot day in August that we can win. We can win not by being Republican Lite, but by being proud Democrats."A primary would be held Aug. 8. Lamont is expected to qualify for it easily, either by winning support from 15 percent of the delegates to a nominating convention May 20 or by gathering signatures from 2 percent of registered Democrats.Lieberman's campaign monitored the announcement and quickly accused Lamont of negative campaigning, signaling that the senator views Lamont as a serious threat in a Democratic primary, where the voters tend to be liberal........

follow up on the ('former') taliban member attending yale

i am FAR removed from the right, so you cannot classify me as 'one of those' BUT i still have issues with this man attending yale (and being able to FLY in the united states when some of our OWN citizens cannot and NO ONE WILL SAY WHY)

it is NOT because he is muslim either. it's because of his affiliation (former or OTHERWISE and i have my doubts about the former part) WITH THE TALIBAN

From Taliban To Yale Man Enrollment Of Group's Former Ambassador Draws Outrage
By KIM MARTINEAU And PENELOPE OVERTON Courant Staff Writers March 9 2006
NEW HAVEN -- As a former ambassador for the Taliban, Rahmatullah Hashemi was a spokesman for a hated regime. He's now a freshman at Yale University and depending on your politics, he is either a symbol of what Yale is doing right, in trying to build bridges to the Muslim world, or he's proof that the nation's elite universities have taken diversity too far.Two weeks ago, Rahmatullah appeared on the cover of The New York Times Magazine, in a long narrative that traced his life from minding his father's shoe store to becoming a Taliban ambassador and then traveling to Yale to better himself with an Ivy League education. The story humanized a man who had been an apologist for the Taliban's mistreatment of women and the destruction of Afghanistan's cultural heritage.Since Rahmatullah, now 27, was thrust in the national spotlight, political conservatives have been on the attack. Fox News has dubbed Rahmatullah the "Ivy League terrorist," and a columnist for The Wall Street Journal has compared him to Nazi propagandist Joseph Goebbels. A group of Yale graduates has taken their alma mater to task. Two have launched a campaign to "Give Yale the Finger," urging alumni to send press-on nails to Yale as a reminder of the fingernails the Taliban tore from women who wore nail polish."Yale is not a right," said Brian Wesley Cook, 22, of Fairfield. "Yale is a privilege. Not everyone is entitled to that privilege. We are talking about the mouthpiece of one of the most despicable regimes in history."Another alumnus, former Army Capt. Flagg Youngblood, has criticized Yale for welcoming a former enemy on campus while continuing to block military training. Youngblood works for Young America's Foundation, which promotes conservative ideas on college campuses...........

ned lamont will formally announce his candidacy on MONDAY

at the old state house 4:00 i believe. come on out and at the VERY least, hear what he has to say

Lamont to announce candidacy for Lieberman's Senate seat
March 8, 2006
HARTFORD, Conn. --Greenwich businessman Ned Lamont will formally announce next week that he will challenge U.S. Sen. Joe Lieberman in the August Democratic primary, his campaign said Wednesday.
Lamont, 52, who has already taken steps toward becoming an official challenger to the three-term incumbent, will make the announcement Monday at the Old State House in Hartford.
The founder and president of cable television company Lamont Digital Systems and former newspaper editor said he is dissatisfied with a number of issues, including the war in Iraq, access to affordable health care and economic policies that provide education and good jobs.
"This president plays on our fears, not our hopes," Lamont said in a written statement. "In too many ways our country is going off course. And Connecticut's Sen. Lieberman is doing nothing to stop it -- and is in fact supporting many of the president's misguided policies."
Lieberman has come under fire from members of his own party for his support of the war in Iraq.........

ned lamont

in order to be fair (re: the co high school teachers bush comments)....

here's something from the OTHER side

Settlement over peace letters
March 7, 2006
BRIDGEPORT, Conn. --A teacher who said she was fired from a Roman Catholic elementary school for refusing to have her students write letters protesting the war in Iraq has reached an out of court settlement.
Bonnie Allen Lazor sued the Diocese of Bridgeport after she dismissed in March 2003. She said her firing came after she refused to instruct her second-grade students to write letters to President Bush.
"It was settled to the mutual satisfaction of the parties," Lazor's lawyer, Anthony Pantuso told the Connecticut Post. He would not disclose the amount of the settlement.....

more on the victim advocate i mentioned yesterday

i think the lieutenant governor has said it all for me

Lieutenant Governor calls for resignation of victim advocate
By Susan Haigh, Associated Press Writer March 7, 2006
HARTFORD, Conn. --The state's victim advocate should resign over comments he made against an emergency contraception bill being considered by lawmakers, Lt. Gov. Kevin Sullivan said Tuesday.
Sullivan, a Democrat, said James Papillo crossed the line when he spoke at a public hearing in opposition to a bill that would require all hospitals, including the state's four Catholic hospitals, to offer rape victims access to the morning-after pill to prevent an unwanted pregnancy.
Papillo, an ordained deacon in the Roman Catholic Church, told the legislature's Public Health Committee that the bill is unnecessary and is an assault on religious freedom. He also accused victims rights groups that support the bill of having an anti-Catholic agenda.
The Archdiocese of Hartford has said it would oppose any legislation requiring hospitals to administer contraceptives in cases where an egg already has been fertilized or ovulation has occurred. Catholics believe life begins at conception.
"He can have all the strong opinions that he wants personally and privately, but he has an obligation to leave them outside the door of his office and to leave them outside of his job," said Sullivan. "Instead, yesterday, he abused his office, he abused the constitution that he swore to uphold."
Sullivan, joined by Rep. Denise Merrill, D-Mansfield, said Republican Gov. M. Jodi Rell should immediately replace Papillo....

once again i offer my apologies to mr hoy (for thinking the worst of him)

this certainly is one of THE most horrendous crimes i have ever read about. truly disturbing adult humans are capable of such acts.

Mother, boyfriend arrested in attack on 6-year-old
March 7, 2006
HARTFORD, Conn. --After wrongly implicating another man, a woman and her boyfriend were charged Tuesday with beating her 6-year-old daughter so badly that her lower left arm had to be amputated, city police said.
Yajaira Rodriguez, 24, and Jose Graciani, 23, were arraigned in Hartford Superior Court on six counts each of first-degree assault and assault on a mentally disabled person and one count each of risk of injury to a minor, police said. Bond was set at $750,000 for both.
Rodriguez's daughter, Natasha Santiago, was born with a rare defect that has left her mentally retarded, unable to speak and unable to walk on her own. The six assault counts were based on the number of fractures she suffered, the Journal Inquirer of Manchester reported Tuesday.
Police said Natasha was beaten in December. After the incident, police said Rodriguez lied in a sworn statement to authorities by implicating her ex-boyfriend, Jaime Hoy.
Authorities said Tuesday that they vacated the arrest warrant against Hoy, who had contacted police to say he had been deported years ago from Canada to his native Colombia and was not in Hartford when the girl was injured.
Rodriguez, a mother of four, was charged with falsely reporting an incident and other crimes in January and had been free on $10,000 bond since her arrest.
She had claimed Hoy broke into her apartment armed with a gun and refused to let her check on her children for three days..;..................

i am NOT attacking the church

i'm attacking archaic beliefs AND some people with a penis who can NEVER know what it's like to be pregnant and others who get in the way of MY VERY LEGAL DECISION to take a morning after pill or not. seems like a conflict of itnerest to have a 'victims advocate' who will NOT give you ALL of the choices. and by the way, MOST women do not want to see a man as their victim advocate while at the hospital after reporting a rape. believe me i know. (i do admire him for being an advocate though, don't misunderstand that please)

State victim advocate opposes morning after pill legislation
By Susan Haigh, Associated Press Writer March 6, 2006
HARTFORD, Conn. --State Victim Advocate James F. Papillo called on lawmakers Monday to oppose a bill requiring Connecticut hospitals, including Catholic institutions, to provide the "morning after pill" to rape victims.
Papillo, an ordained deacon in the Roman Catholic Church, also accused private victims' rights groups of attacking the church and religious freedoms.
He questioned any need for the bill and told the legislature's Public Health Committee that he has never received a complaint from a rape victim who was denied the pill from a Catholic hospital. Papillo has held the job for more than six years.
"What's being proposed here is a solution in search of a problem. Victims are not being denied services," he said, adding that Catholic hospitals refer victims to places where they can obtain the pills.
Papillo, who told legislators he was speaking as the victim advocate and not as a deacon, accused private advocacy organizations of using crime victims to further an anti-Catholic agenda.
"I see this for what it is. It is not a victims' rights issue. It is not a victims' services issue," Papillo said. "Victims here are being used as a hook to further an agenda they are hiding ... The issue is an attack on the Catholic institutions."
Officials from Connecticut Sexual Assault Crisis Services Inc., which is lobbying for the legislation, said they were shocked by Papillo's remarks. The 24-year-old group runs a rape crisis hot line and accompanies rape victims to emergency rooms, among other services, and is not a political organization, said Laura Cordes, director of policy and advocacy for ConnSACS.........

the morning after pill

DOES NOT CAUSE AN ABORTION. IT IS AN (EMERGENCY) CONTRACEPTIVE. it PREVENTS conception. if you ARE pregnant and take this pill it will NOT effect your pregnancy.

if you don't want to take a contraceptive DON'T. no one is forcing you. if a woman is raped and taken to the hospital, she is NOT going to be thinking 'oh don't take me here or there they don't offer the morning after pill'. she is going to be thinking HELP ME. that's all just HELP ME. part of that help is being allowed to have the morning after pill IF that is what SHE decides. it's up to HER not YOU.

Protest held in Waterbury over proposed Morning After Pill bill

(Waterbury-WTNH, Mar. 5, 2006 6:35 PM) _ Should a Catholic hospital be forced to offer the morning after pill?
That's a question generating plenty of debate.
This afternoon members of Connecticut's Right to Life group rallied in Waterbury.
They are opposed to a bill that would require Catholic hospital to provide emergency contraception victims of rape.
by News Channel 8's Jamie Muro
It stands to be one of the most controversial topics discussed during this legislative session in Hartford. Rape victims in the state may soon be able to obtain emergency contraception at any hospital, including Catholic hospitals, if a bill being considered is passed. ...........

Rivals Blast Rell Stance

Catholic Hospitals, Rape Victims At Issue
By MARK PAZNIOKAS Courant Staff Writer March 4 2006
Gov. M. Jodi Rell's defense of the right of Catholic hospitals in the state to withhold emergency contraceptives from rape victims was criticized Friday by the two Catholic mayors running for governor.Stamford Mayor Dannel P. Malloy held a press conference with his wife, who runs a rape crisis center, to denounce Rell's position as "completely unacceptable, unreasonable and, quite frankly, shocking."New Haven Mayor John DeStefano Jr. issued a statement equally critical of Rell's suggestion that rape victims could get the emergency contraceptive, known as Plan B, at a non-Catholic hospital."Patients don't always choose what hospital to seek care at, and to expect a woman who has been raped and examined and tormented to go from hospital to hospital to receive treatment is ludicrous," DeStefano said.Malloy and DeStefano, who are vying for the Democratic gubernatorial nomination, each endorsed pending legislation that would require all hospitals to offer emergency contraceptives to rape victims.Earlier this week, Rell said she was comfortable with the status quo..............

a taliban member (not sure if he still is or is a former member) at yale

i wonder how he got into this country when some of our OWN citizens are not allowed to fly (and there is NO apparent reason for it). yes, i do know the difference between the taliban and al qa'ida


From Taliban mouthpiece to Ivy League undergraduate
Tim Reid, New Haven, Connecticut March 04, 2006
SECONDS before meeting the Taliban's former spokesman amid the venerable towers of Yale, to talk about his astonishing journey from Mullah Mohammed Omar's adviser to Ivy League undergraduate, I wonder if I will recognise him.Suddenly, there he is, walking towards me, and it is unmistakably Rahmatullah. Gone are the dark turban, flowing beard and baggy trousers in which he travelled the world in early 2001 as the Taliban's "roving envoy", defending the Islamic zealots' treatment of women, their destruction of the ancient Buddha statues of Bamiyan, and their determination to keep Osama bin Laden as a guest of Afghanistan.
He is now wearing chinos and Nike trainers, with a trimmed beard and rucksack full of books, and looks worried. A man is filming him. Rahmatullah takes out his mobile to call the police.
It has been a stressful week for Sayed Rahmatullah Hashemi, 27, who met bin Laden in his native Kandahar in the late 1990s, having just become the Taliban's deputy foreign secretary at 22.
After eight months at Yale, in New Haven, Connecticut, where even his closest friends did not know his past, the US press has revealed all. Some of the reaction has been hostile. Rahmatullah fears for his wife and two children in the Pakistani border town of Quetta......