Learning from Casinos
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Sat, 07/21/2012 - 10:04I've never been a big fan of casinos. I tend to look at most forms of gambling as a tax on the statistically challenged and worry about the negative impact casinos can have on a community. Yet when approached wisely, as a place of entertainment, where patrons go in with a fixed budget they are planning on spending on their entertainment casinos can add some value. When they treat their workers well and have good labor relations, they can also improve the employment situation in an area.
Unfortunately, casino executives, like too many other executives, only focus on the employment aspects or other positive benefits they might bring to the community when they are lobbying for tax breaks or other special considerations from the government. The rest of the time, they focus on profits at the expense of the broader stakeholders in their enterprises.
This was illustrated to me yesterday in a press release I received from State Representative Linda Gentile. Rep. Gentile is one of the two State Representatives serving the city of Derby. I am seeking to join her as the junior member of the Derby delegation. (My district also includes all of Woodbridge, so I hope to be the sole representative of the Woodbridge delegation, and part of Orange so I hope to be one of three representatives in the Orange delegation.)
A couple months ago, there was an article in the Boston Globe, Have Mass. casinos become a risky bet?.
It starts off
Scott Butera is nothing but blunt when it comes to explaining what casino operators want from their customers — “their wallet and their spend.”
The chief executive of Foxwoods Resort Casino is also candid about customers he can do without — for example, those stereotypical busloads of senior citizens who show up with walkers and oxygen tanks….
It’s because those darn elders don’t gamble away enough of their money to help Foxwoods reach its goal…
Sarah Muoio, the executive director of the Derby Senior Center sent a letter to Derby State Representatives Gentile and Klarides which ends off with
I hope we can urge Foxwoods to terminate Mr. Butera. Offending the fastest growing population in the country is not good for business nor is it very respectful. I think this heartless, insulting man should be terminated for his disrespectful comments.
In yesterday's press release, Rep. Gentile issued the following statement:
I’m outraged by these disrespectful remarks and encourage Derby and all seniors to boycott Fowoods until they receive a public apology
Besides looking for an apology, the State should reconsider the estimated $15 million in tax breaks that it gave to the casinos early this year.
Organizations need to be much more sensitive to the clients they serve, and, if they are receiving tax breaks, to all the taxpayers in the State.
The Great Electoral Adventure
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Fri, 07/20/2012 - 05:51(Another political blog post cross posted to the Bethwood Patch. There is an article in the Stamford Advocate that I wanted to include, but it will have to wait for a different post. Also, I really need to get some posts on other topics up soon. Orient Lodge is drifting into mostly just politics right now)
Yesterday, a friend posted a link to the trailer for 'The Hobbit' and it got me thinking about the great electoral adventure. You see, I like to think about stories, and the events of our daily lives in the context of great stories. Currently, I've been thinking about my campaign in a similar way.
In the trailer to The Hobbit, adventure comes looking for Bilbo Baggins, not the other way around. It seems like that is how adventure comes to many of our lives. Yes, I knew about the great electoral adventure, but I wasn't looking for it to be my adventure. When no one was stepping up to run against the incumbent in my district, I kept asking, who can we get to run against her. I was not looking for the answer I received, and it was with some reluctance that I took up the adventure of running for office.
The democratic adventure in the United States is not as action packed as the adventure in other countries. I've read about protesters being killed in the battle for democracy in other countries and am currently watching with horror as the battles unfold in Syria. I don't anticipate such threats. The biggest threat I expect is someone who disagrees with me calling me names after I speak up at some meeting.
I have always thought of our right to democracy as something of great importance, not to be taken lightly. I remember back in 1986 going to vote. I had grown up in a small town that used paper ballots. My new wife at that time, had never voted. The machine worked properly for me, but when my wife tried to vote, it wouldn't work. The poll worker said that she had lost her vote, and I waxed polemic. It was at the time of the fall of President Marcos in the Philippines. I spoke loudly to the poll workers about how they could not disenfranchise my wife like that. I pointed out that people in the Philippines were literally dying for the right to vote. My wife was mortified. She just wanted to slip out unnoticed. A police officer came over. The election moderator came over. We explained what had happened and the moderator discovered that the poll worker had forgotten to press a button necessary to allow my wife to vote.
My wife thought that my passionate defense of democracy was a bit over the top, as she later came to feel about other aspects of me, which is why she is now my ex-wife.
Recently, I also saw a cartoon of a student in school slumped over his desk. A teacher is standing next to him saying, "Yes, Tommy, it is your right not to stand during the Pledge of Allegiance, but let me introduce to you someone who can't stand because he defended that right". Next to the teacher is a Veteran in a wheelchair.
I think this applies to those exercising their right not to be informed about electoral politics and their right not to vote. Call me a bit over the top, but I believe that with our rights come important responsibilities. No, I didn't really want to run for State Representative. No, I didn't really want to serve on jury duty. No, I don't really like to pay taxes. Yes, I'd like to be able to act foolish and irresponsible at times. Yet with our freedoms, our rights, our liberties that we hold so dear, we have responsibilities to our country, and these include being informed, voting, being willing to serve as a candidate, elected official, or even just a juror, and paying taxes.
I don't know where this great electoral adventure will take me next, but having taken the first few steps on the electoral path, I intend to follow it to the best of my abilities, living up to my rights and responsibilities as an American citizen.
AN ACT CONCERNING THE PRACTICE OF KINDNESS AT IRREGULAR INTERVALS
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Sat, 07/14/2012 - 17:38Well, it's been quite a week. Last Sunday there was a fundraiser for my campaign for State Representative. Being a small local race, it was mostly friends from around town that stopped by to offer their support and share some lemonade and cookies. We sat around, talked about what is going on in town, and I gave a stump speech. I was pleased with the results. Some people could afford to give $100, which is the maximum I can accept as part of the Citizen's Election Program. Others, for whom the economic downturn has been more difficult could only afford $5.
A hundred miles away, across Long Island Sound, there was another fundraiser going on. This was the $50,000 a plate fundraiser for Mitt Romney at the mansion of billionaire David Koch. Local, State, and Federal authorities were on hand to protect the billionaires from the hundreds of protesters that showed up.
Yeah, my campaign is very different from the Romney campaign in a lot of ways. Sure, I'm just running a small campaign for State Representative in Connecticut. I'm not running to be President. I'm running to get people more involved in their local communities and to take a moment to help out their neighbors. While those $5 donations won't buy any airtime, they mean a world more than the $50,000 donations that Romney received.
This was brought home to me a few different ways during the following week. On Monday, hundreds of people expressed their hopes and wishes that that day would be happy for me. It is a great tradition made greater by social media. Monday was my birthday and hundreds posted on my Facebook wall 'happy birthday' messages in various forms. it was a happy day for me. I spent a bunch of time thanking people for their well wishes, and I thought, how nice it would be if we all spent more time wishing things would go well for others. When I was young, the clerks at the local stores would wish the customers, "Have A Nice Day". While for some wishing someone a happy birthday on Facebook, or wishing that someone would have a nice day might seem trite or insincere, what would it be like if we all took a little time out of our lives to try to make the lives around us a little better.
You see, I think this is the underlying issue in our current elections. For many it is about shrinking the size of government and reducing taxes. While everyone would like to pay is little as reasonable in taxes, the real question is, are we living up to our social contract of working together so that we are all better off? Are we practicing random acts of kindness?
These thoughts crystalized as I saw another post on Facebook. It is the old story of the cab driver who picked up an old woman to give her a ride to hospice.
For the next two hours, we drove through the city. She showed me the building where she had once worked as an elevator operator.
We drove through the neighborhood where she and her husband had lived when they were newlyweds She had me pull up in front of a furniture warehouse that had once been a ballroom where she had gone dancing as a girl.
Sometimes she'd ask me to slow in front of a particular building or corner and would sit staring into the darkness, saying nothing.
He wouldn't let her pay for the cab ride. You see, there are things more important than money. To paraphrase from the Christian tradition, no one can serve two masters…you cannot serve both kindness and money.
Now we must make wise use of our money and not waste it nor be pennywise and pound foolish, but when you get down to the nuts and bolts of governing we must seek to be kind to both the wealthy taxpayers and to people struggling to get by.
I don't expect the old saying Practice Random Acts of Kindness will ever get codified into legislation like An Act Concerning the Practice of Kindness at Irregular Intervals, but I hope that by representing the people of Woodbridge, Derby and Orange up in Hartford, I can get other legislators to think about whether the bills we will consider are really kind.
Perhaps, I can even encourage a little kindness in our political process as well.
A Summer Cold
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Thu, 07/12/2012 - 17:57I curl up in the blankets like a sick animal in a pile of dry leaves, hoping a predator doesn't come by. It is another beautiful hot summer day. It's in the upper eighties in the bedroom, and I alternate between sweating and shivering. Outside, the leaves rustle in the breeze. The dog wanders the perimeter of the property barking at anything that might dare breech the boarder. He doesn't know that a member of his flock is sick and barks with abandon.
If I had more of a headache, it might annoy me, but my headache is mild and the barking reassures me. I get a drink of water and roll over to sleep some more. It's been like this for twenty-four hours. Sleep. Wake up, drink some water and fall back asleep. The fever ebbs and flows based on the amount of ibuprofen in my system.
At times, I have enough energy to get up and check an email, but that's about it.
Now, it's time to go back to sleep.
No Taxation without Representation
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Sun, 07/08/2012 - 09:02As the Fourth of July celebrates wind down and we return to our regularly scheduled summer activities, I thought it would be useful to reflect on how the two should be related. One of the great slogans of the American Revolution was "No taxation without representation". While everyone wants their taxes to be as low as reasonable and taxes is always an issue in campaigns, I want to focus for a moment on the final words of the phrase, representation.
I am running to represent the people of Woodbridge, Orange and Derby in Hartford. To do this, I need to spend time getting to speak with and know as many of the people as possible. The fireworks in Orange provided a great opportunity to do this. As I walked around the crowd, I asked people where they were from to see if they would be in the 114th Assembly District. Orange is now split into parts of three different districts, so I asked people from Orange if they knew who their State Representative was. Many did not.
I had heard, years ago that as many as 80% of people don't know who their State Representative is, a disappointing number I found hard to believe. Yet as I talked to the people at the fireworks, it seemed that this may be accurate.
We have people represent us in our local government, up in Hartford, and down in Washington because most people are too busy with their daily lives to be fully involved with legislative processes. A representative democracy is a good way of governing, but to work well, we should at least get to know our representatives and share our thoughts with them.
At a minimum, we need to get out and vote, yet turnout in elections is horribly low. What we really should be doing is meeting those that wish to represent us at campaign events and town committee meetings. As part of my campaign, I've spoken at town committee meetings in Woodbridge, Orange and Derby. I've gone to campaign events for Rosa DeLauro and Chris Murphy. I hope many of you will consider doing the same. The next Woodbridge Democratic Town Committee meeting is Monday at 7 PM at the Senior Center in Woodbridge. It would be great to see more people attend.
As we look at the Revolutionary war slogan of "No taxation without representation" and seek ways to achieve the most reasonable tax rates, let us not forget the other side of the quote. Let's work together to make sure that we elect officials who will represent all of us.
