Connecticut
Post posts about what is happening in the State of Connecticut.
NCSL: Monday morning random notes.
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Mon, 08/06/2007 - 19:43Last night I went out to Moules and Frites at Central Kitchen. Kim had searched online and recommended it. My searches came up with similar recommendations, so I headed over and ate at the bar. I was down at the end of the bar where staff chatted and I had a good discussion with some of them. It was the birthday of one of the bartenders and his girlfriend came in and talked with the waitresses about different trips that they had been taking. It helped keep the annual meeting in context.
This morning, as I walked to the convention hall I passed John from Below Boston. He is passing out Obama stickers to anyone interested. He says that he has gotten a lot of thumbs up.
I sit next to a delegation of legislators from South Africa as I have some breakfast. During the morning networking, I run into Rep. Steve Fontana and Rep. Diane Urban. They are talking with former Norwalk Mayor Alex Knopf. Mayor Knopf’s name tag also has a green ribbon indicating that he is a member of the press. He disappears before I get a chance to find out which press outlet.
For the first session, I walk past the “Public Hearing on Internet and Electronic Commerce - Breakfast”. The program describes the event as follows:
The committee will conduct a public hearing to solicit the viewpoints of consumers and industry representatives regarding NCSL’s Internet and Electronic Commerce Policy Statement.
…
Presiding: Representative Phil Montgomery, Wisconsic
Speaker: K. Dane Snowden, CTIA – The Wireless Association, Washington, D.C.
NCSL gratefully acknowledges the sort of CTIA – The Wireless Association for breakfast.
I wonder which consumers they solicited viewpoints from. Most of the sessions you have to be a registered attendee of the annual meeting to enter. I had considered seeing if they would let me testify, even though I’m here as part of the press. In the end I decided not to engage. However, it does seem like the industry representatives are all over this and there isn’t a lot of consumer viewpoints being expressed.
Instead, I go to the session, “Capital Hill Tackles Climate Change”. There was a large turn out to the Climate change session, a couple hundred people. It was even better attended than the internet and electronic commerce session. Nikki Roy, from the Pew Center on Global Climate Change spoke about the chances of meaningful climate change legislation over the next few years. A staffer for Rep. Markey spoke about climate change, and Eric Holdsworth of the Edison Electric Institute (EEI) spoke about the industry’s response. EEI represents the shareholder owned utilities, which make up around 85% of the electricity generated in the United States.
He noted that in 1994 they signed a memorandum of understanding to voluntarily cut greenhouse gases. They went on to sign agreements with the Bush administration. He claimed that the EIA is projecting energy growth of 43% BY 2030. This is based on population growth and changes in energy consumption patterns. The numbers seem high to me, but I do know the assumptions that were used. Also, my assumptions are that we will see people conserving energy and finding new ways to be more energy efficient. As a side note, in the exhibition hall, America Electric Power was giving away compact fluorescent lightblubs. On the other hand, if we ever get plug-in hybrids or other electric vehicles, that could increase the demand.
He argued for an energy policy that included all the current sources of electricity. He mentioned that New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Oregon and Washington State all have CO2 regulations in effect. He spoke about Illinois, Texas and Wyoming having Carbon Capture and Storage systems in place.
During the questions and answers, one person asked about wind. He noted that the wind is always blowing somewhere and that by putting up windmills in places like North Dakota, Wyoming and Texas considerable renewable energy could be tapped. He talked about the need for a smarter grid to get that energy from the windmills to cities where the energy demand is greater. I hadn’t really thought about the grid issues. There are enough battles over simply the placement of windmills, such as you find with Cape Wind. The issues of transmission lines, as they’ve been fought over with new lines in Fairfield County or cables going under Long Island Sound only exacerbate the issue.
All in all, the session was long on speech making, a little short on details, but did have some bright spots.
What are we teaching our children?
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Fri, 08/03/2007 - 20:14As United States citizens, we hold dear the right to vote and the promise of free and open elections. If we do not hold ourselves to these standards, and the standards of freedom of information, the U.S. Constitution and the Connecticut Constitution, what are we teaching our children?
Last night during his keynote speech at YearlyKos, Gov. Dean spoke about the importance of reaching out to the youth. As people get into the habit of voting, they stay in the habit. This afternoon, I listened to a panel about problems with voting suppression. So, when I found the above quote, it caught my attention.
However, the quote wasn’t from an article about voting machines or requirements for photo ids. It was from a Freedom of Information (FOI) complaint filed in Burlington, CT.
A couple of weeks ago, I wrote about Avery Doninger. She was class secretary at Lewis S. Mills High School, but was not allowed to run for reelection because she had referred to the school superintendent as a “douchbag” in a blog post. Her mother is now suing the school.
The Cool Justice Report quotes a student at the school as saying,
"On the day of elections everyone (I mean everyone) wrote in the girls name next to 'Secretary' and circled it. At the end of the day when they had to tell us who won they said that the elections were so close that they were going to give kids who weren't there a chance to vote the next day. The girl who won only had like 7 votes because everyone voted for the girl who wasn't running."
Based on this, he is trying to get a copy of the ballots and there is a lot of legal wrangling back and forth. This was the context for the quote above.
Well, Andy is asking the right question. What are we teaching our children? Perhaps the folks at Lewis S. Mills High School are teaching the right message, after all, in a convoluted manner. They are teaching our children the importance of constant vigilance in defending things that keeps our country strong, like freedom of speech and free and open elections.
I wish all of the students luck in this most important lesson.
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Zachary Cohn
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Tue, 07/31/2007 - 09:27“I wouldn’t wish this on my worst enemy.” How often have you heard that phrase? How often has it come close to home? I try not to have any enemies, they just aren’t a useful thing to have. But over the years, there have been people that I’ve clashed with in stressful work situations, and they are perhaps the closest I’ve got towards enemies.
One person I had frequent clashes with was Brian Cohn. We both worked at S.A.C. Capital years ago. I haven’t spoken with him since I left over six years ago. A lot has gone on since then. I was going through my divorce while I was at S.A.C. I’ve remarried, and Fiona was born. Brian and his wife Karen had a boy named Zachary. Zachary was about half a year older than Fiona.
While we were listening to music at Falcon Ridge, a horrible pool accident happened at the Cohn’s house and Zachary drowned. The Stamford Advocate is reporting that the investigation includes drainage apparatus.
When I read about the pool drain, my thoughts went to John Edwards’ famous 1997 case against Sta-Rite. Sta-Rite has made pool products since the 1960 and according to an article in the Washington Monthly a dozen children had already suffered similar injuries from Sta-Rite drains before the trial.
Last month, there was another pool drain accident where the drainage system sucked out most of a six year olds small intestine. TwinCities.COM is reporting that the parents are contemplating legal action “against Sta-Rite Industries, which manufactured the pool's drainage system.”
I don’t know if the drainage system at the Cohn’s was made by Sta-Rite, but it does seem as if issues with pool drainage systems still haven’t been adequately addressed.
Brian is now President of S.A.C. Reports say that S.A.C. currently has $14 billion under management. S.A.C., like other hedge funds, has been making the news in political circles as Brian and others have made major contributions to Chris Dodd’s Presidential campaign. Brian, along with others at S.A.C. also contributed significantly to Dan Malloy’s Gubernatorial campaign.
Riches, political influence, all of that becomes pretty meaningless when faced with a horrible accident like the loss of Zachary. Brian and I aren’t likely to cross paths any time soon. If we do, I don’t know if any of the old conflicts will cloud our interactions. But I do know, that my heart goes out to him, Karen, and their whole family during their time of horrible grief. I wouldn’t wish this on my worst enemy.
Robocalls already!?!
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Mon, 07/30/2007 - 20:08The phone rang. Fiona rushed to it saying, “I’ve got it”. She picked up the phone. We asked who it was and she handed the phone to me.
“I said hi,” Fiona said. “I said, who is it. And it said stuff about the mom and the children. It was so weird. It’s like an advertisement. I think it was an advertisement.”
That is how Fiona described the phone call we just received. She handed the phone to me and I heard a woman’s voice saying something to the effect of “Press 1 on your telephone to hear what I will do as your President.”
“What possible good could doing Robocalls to Connecticut do?” Kim asked. “It’s July!”
Is anyone else receiving robocalls from Hillary?
(Cross posted at MyLeftNutmeg.)
Helping students find their voices, or not
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Fri, 07/20/2007 - 12:08Chris Powell’s editorial in the Manchester Journal Inquirer last Wednesday was entitled Forget Sheff: Take up the real city problem.
It starts off:
Some state legislators have noticed that the settlement of the Hartford school integration lawsuit is a sham. Tens of millions of dollars have been spent building and operating "magnet" schools and busing students around the Hartford area but the city's schools are less integrated than they were when the settlement was reached four years ago, and the performance of city students is no better either.
It raises interesting questions. How effectively is money being spent on education in our state? What are the real problems?
Stephen Wilmarth run the The Center for 21st Century Skills. The Center is “a semi-autonomous organizational unit of Education Connection to enhance and expand upon the efforts and collaborations of existing Education Connection staff and their work in the area of 21st Century Career and Technical Education.” Ultimately, I believe, some of the funding from legislation that came out of the Sheff v. O’Neill decision supports Steve’s efforts.
I sent him an email to ask for his opinion about the editorial. I expected Steve to talk about how our educational system needs major revamping, particularly in the areas of curriculum development to meet the needs of a 21st century workforce. Instead, he focused on economic disparity:
I think you're going to see some real issues and social unrest over the next several years, because the problem can not be contained in the long term by a policy of building schools and cutting ribbons for show. The problem is…a problem of economic disparity. And it is a problem that is creeping out of the cities and into what we might have called "middle class communities" like Seymour, Naugatuck, Middletown, and others. Either Westport and Greenwich accept Bridgeport's students in their schools, or work their political power to change the rules of the game and insure that every CT student have an opportunity to be educated in a manner that enables them to be productive members of society in this century. It's not a hopeless challenge, but it will take courage and commitment.
So, what are the issues that our schools are trying to address today? First, there is the case of “Voice in Conflict”, a play put together by a theatre class at Wilton High School. This was the play that was judged to be too inflammatory by the school’s superintendent to be put on in the $10 million auditorium, so instead the students were invited to perform the play in venues around the country.
Now, a new case has emerged. Lauren Doninger has filed a suit on behalf of her daughter Avery who had been class secretary for three years at Lewis S. Mills High School because she wrote a blog post calling the superintendent a “douchbag” for canceling a concert at the school.
What does any of this have to do with Chris Powell’s editorial about Sheff v. O’Neill? What we need is better education in our state, education that helps all people find their voices. By helping all students find their voices, we can engage in dialogs that truly bridge the racial and socio-economic gaps that plague us. Unfortunately, school administrations in Connecticut seem more concerned about making sure that students do not find a voice, especially if that voice criticizes the administration or presents opinions that not everyone agrees with.
