Comments (1) 
Travel lanes were recently reduced in the area of Flatbush Avenue to accommodate CTfastrak construction. Now motorists will be re-routed through a shopping plaza parking lot for approximately one week. The detour is set to start on April 8, 2013 at 5 a.m. Beginning on April 4, 2013, the traffic pattern within Charter Oak Marketplace will change to allow detours.
Frog Hollow residents began shoveling a path the width of a van down the middle of a one-way side street on Sunday morning. What started with a lone shoveler quickly snowballed into a community effort. Continue reading 'When the Plows Don’t Show'»
The takeaway from The Connecticut Forum on Saturday evening: if you want to be regarded as having vision and brilliance, you have to be given options in life.
Both Neil Gaiman and Neil deGrasse Tyson remarked that being able to work in the fields where their interests and talents could flourish is what enables them to be seen by others as visionaries. Though she did not say it, Neri Oxman‘s choices as a young adult exemplified this. She began pursuing one degree and was three years in before realizing that it was not for her. Had she not made the switch from medical school to architecture, her contributions may have been less groundbreaking.
Hearing this truth from these well-respected individuals, one is left to wonder– are all youth empowered by our society to explore their dreams and talents, or is their vision and brilliance potentially squashed by pushing them toward filling workforce demands?
Comments Off “If it’s something you really want to do,” said State Representative Penny Bacchiochi, “you’ll find a way.”
Bacchiochi was among five female members of Connecticut’s General Assembly participating in the Legislator Panel that was part of the Second Annual Women’s Policy Day on Tuesday. The goal of this event was to help participants better understand the political process on the State level.
Wedged between a General Assembly 101 session and a Mock Public Hearing, panelists advised the audience on ways they could get more directly involved in local or state politics. State Representative Linda Gentile urged participants with political aspirations to keep themselves informed. Continue reading 'Closing the Power Gap'»
By now, it should be obvious: supporting big box stores and national chains does not benefit our local economy. Besides pushing out the smaller stores, it leads to homogenization. Think about what makes special the places we enjoy vacationing: unique shops, landscapes, and cultural experiences. Think about the vast difference in service between the majors where employees are underpaid, mistreated, and told they have to work during major weather events, versus the service at smaller shops where owners at least attempt to pay above minimum wage and understand workers to be fellow humans. Coincidence? Please.
Shopping locally, especially in Hartford, is sometimes viewed as inconvenient, yet how convenient is sitting in the gridlock around malls and then circling the lot seeking a parking space? Is being pushed by harried, cranky shoppers convenience? What’s to be done? Vote for change by determining where you will spend your money.
Experiences
An experience is more memorable than an object. It requires no storage and no wrapping paper.
These basically break down into memberships and tickets, but can include class registration too.
The Kitchen at Billings Forge offers low commitment classes for those who can only peel themselves away for a few hours. Learn about pickling, canning, or baking pies.
What to get a gardener who has everything except a pot to plant in? Community garden spaces are cheap — around $25 per season. For those who are not satisfied by windowsill herb gardens, this is money well-spent. As a bonus, some of these gardens actually have potluck events and attempt to foster community. Folks who don’t garden might not see the value of securing space when the ground is frozen, but this is a great time to get this type of gift– when you can dream, plan ahead, and start looking through seed catalogs. Continue reading 'Local Holiday Shopping Guide 2012'»
Comments Off It’s not that complicated, but already, there are people managing to fail at something as simple as leaf disposal by raking these otherwise compostable materials into plastic bags. Continue reading 'Leaf Collection'»
On Tuesday, November 6th, as with every election, the polls are expected to be open from 6am-8pm on Election Day.
This year’s ballot question (yes or no) asks whether or not more funds should be appropriated for the massive MDC project. According to The Hartford Votes-Hartford Vota Coalition, the question — in layperson’s terms — reads:
Approval for the Metropolitan District Commission (MDC) to appropriate an additional $800 million for Phase 2 of the Clean Water Project, which is being implemented to comply with a Federal consent decree and State consent order requiring the reduction of sewage overflows. The appropriation is to be financed through grants, loans, and MDC issuance of bonds.
But on MDC literature, it is stated as follows:
Shall the appropriation of an additional $800,000,000, to be financed, in part, by the
issuance of bonds and Clean Water Fund grants and loans, for Phase II of the Metropolitan
District’s combined sewer overflow, sanitary sewer overflow and nitrogen removal programs to decrease levels of pollution in Metropolitan District member towns, the Connecticut River and its tributaries, and Long Island Sound to comply with a consent decree of the United States District Court of the District of Connecticut and a consent order of the Connecticut Department of Energy and Environmental Protection, be approved?
Currently, diluted sewage is sent into the Connecticut River and its tributaries. The Clean Water Project will deal with the “approximately 1 billion gallons of combined wastewater and storm water currently released each year to area waterways,” says the MDC. Residents of Bloomfield, East Hartford, Newington, Rocky Hill, West Hartford, Wethersfield and Windsor will also be able to vote on this question.
As for the candidates, voters should have taken responsibility to learn about their options by now; however, one’s choices might seem limited if a person’s total knowledge of the process comes from advertisements, commercials, and phone calls. Besides the choices listed on the ballot, it is possible to write in candidates. The Registrar of Voters is not required to have the names of all candidates listed on the ballot; in other words, it is up to the voter to know the names of write-in candidates when they enter the polling place. The Hartford Votes-Hartford Vota Coalition has provided a list of options:
In addition to the listed candidates for President, it is possible to write-in Stephen Durham, James E. Harris, Tom Hoefling, Raymond Sizemore, Jill Stein, and Gerald Warner.
Stephen Durham is an openly gay candidate running with the Freedom Socialist Party; his running mate is feminist Christina López.
Tom Hoefling is an America’s Party candidate; this party believes that abortion and euthanasia violate the U.S. Constitution.
Jill Stein, Green Party candidate, is running with Cheri Honkala.
Individuals do not need to vote along party lines. For example, a registered Democrat can vote for a Libertarian candidate if he feels so inclined. Voters can also choose not to vote, either in general or for any position or question. Even if only one choice is provided for a particular seat, there is no obligation to cast a vote for that candidate. While this seems like commonsense, less informed voters are sometimes given misinformation by cheerleaders standing outside of polling places, and worse, by poll workers. Continue reading 'Hartford Voting Guide'»
Dissent from Neighborhood
Not a single Hartford resident or business owner attending Monday’s special meeting of the Frog Hollow NRZ spoke in favor of the closure of Flower Street. Though the Connecticut Department of Transportation is required to hold a public hearing (August 23) regarding this street closure, the DOT spokesmen (the sole female never spoke) made it clear that they were uninterested in engaging the community in discussing the unilateral decision to further cut off Frog Hollow and Asylum Hill from one another. The viaduct began that job; the busway appears to be finishing it.
The meeting began with a presentation on the planned closure of Flower Street, though the DOT actually gave more overview of other parts of the project along with the planned construction on Broad Street, which they said could begin as early as next week. They explained, in detail not afforded to the Flower Street portion of the project, how the Broad-Asylum-Farmington intersection would be reconfigured. This segment showed serious detail to repainting lanes differently, but did not incorporate lessons from past failures with reconfigured turning lanes, as resident Jennifer Cassidy noted. This could be a metaphor for the DOT’s method of planning: be detail-oriented about one aspect while not investigating other angles whatsoever.
Outdated Studies
In their presentation, the DOT spokesmen (8-10 employees with the Department were present at the meeting, but only three spoke at any length) boasted that the Flower Street closure had been endorsed by the FRA/FTA administrations, though they did not say when this occurred.
Time matters.
They also said that they had traffic concerns regarding this area, yet the most recent traffic study completed for Flower Street was done by CRCOG — in 2006.
Cary Wheaton, the executive director of Billings Forge Community Works, along with David Corrigan, of the Frog Hollow NRZ, demanded a new traffic study be completed as there have been major changes in the neighborhood since 2006. The Firebox, a major draw, opened in 2007. The Kitchen at Billings Forge opened its doors only a few years ago. In that area, there have also been classes and events at the Studio, along with a farmers’ market — none of which were happening at the time of the CRCOG study. The Dunkin Donuts, formerly at the gas station on Broad and Capitol, moved into a space on Lawrence and Capitol. Continue reading 'Deflowering Without Consent'»
Comments Off 
Captain America / Photo by Helder Mira/Rabbit Ears Media
“I don’t spend much of my time worrying about getting sued,” author Margaret Killjoy told fanfic writers concerned with copyright issues. Fanfic is “not wrong,” he said, “but it’s very much illegal” unless the original work is in the public domain.
But “at some place, ” Michele Lang said, “you have to graduate from fanfiction [...] and develop your own characters.” Continue reading 'ConnectiCon: Publishing'»
Panorama theme by Themocracy
