Connecticut
Post posts about what is happening in the State of Connecticut.
Insider/Outsider Politics in Connecticut
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Thu, 07/19/2007 - 15:31Over on MyLeftNutmeg, there is a post about an upcoming gathering of Young Democrats in Stamford. The attendees include several notable political figures from the area and my good friend Sal observed that it looked like a lot of insiders there.
This spawned a lengthy discussion about how easy it is to become an insider in blogs and in Democratic politics in Connecticut. It was noted that Sal is the State Coordinator for a Presidential campaign and is in many ways very much of an insider himself.
To me, it felt that some of the people who had crashed the gate and become insiders were defensive about their role on the inside and dismissive of those who remained outsiders. There was talk about the insider/outsider dichotomy as being divisive. This is unfortunate. There is nothing wrong with being an insider or an outsider and ideally we should embrace the insider and outsider aspects that we all have.
I am very much an insider. I am helping with the technology for Jim Himes’ campaign. I was Ned Lamont’s technology coordinator. I was John DeStefano’s blogmaster. I was campaign manager for my wife’s campaign when she was one of the first Dean Dozen candidates in the country. I was a very active volunteer with the Dean campaign and have been ask to write chapters for various books about the Dean campaign. I was credentialed to cover the Libby Trial in Washington this year, the Democratic National Convention in Boston in 2004, and numerous other events. Yeah, I’m very much the insider these days. I’m proud of what I’ve done and hope to continue doing it.
At the same time, I feel a tad uncomfortable. You see, I’ve always been an outsider, the outcast, pariah. I wasn’t one of the popular kids in high school or college. I never intended, nor particularly wanted to be an insider. It happened by accident. At the same time, even today there are special gatherings of bloggers that I am not invited to. There are ‘true insiders’ that I feel uncomfortable around and would say that I’m not a ‘real insider’. They dismiss whatever I say as self-aggrandizing.
I guess it is a good thing. I think it helps me keep my edge, my perspective. You see, I believe the most significant political moments have occurred when the outsiders and the insiders meet. What matters is the moment of crashing the gate and the mixing of ideas and energy that happens in the moment. Political groups often talk about their insider/outside strategies, and I think we need recognize the importance of these strategies.
Yes, it is very easy to become an insider here in Connecticut and within blogging. We need to keep it that way. We need to be aware of barriers we put up, intentionally or unintentionally which keep out people who feel like outsiders.
This is some of the reason I like to focus on non-political blogs. I like to visit, get into discussions and get ideas from people who are much further outside the political process then some of the self-professed outsiders in political blogs.
The Internet has broken down many barriers to communication, but many more barriers exist within each one of us and our interactions with those around us. Let’s take our gate crashing seriously, not to get inside, but to make it easier for everyone to get inside.
Farmers’ Market Redux
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Sun, 07/15/2007 - 20:16A few weeks ago, I wrote a blog post about our trip to a farmers’ market. Because we have signed up with a Community Supported Agriculture farm, we go back every week to get our basket. This week, Kim wasn’t feeling well, so Fiona and I went alone to the farmers’ market to pick up our box of produce.
Last time I was there, we picked up some fresh picked peas, which we ate on the grass surrounding the farmers market. The peas are gone now and string beans are in season. We got a nice bag of string beans in our box of produce and Fiona and I ate many of the string beans fresh, as we walked around the market. Later, we snacked on them at home. There were also four very fresh ears of corn, some nice tomatoes, more basil, and plenty of other great vegetables.
We signed up not only for the vegetable box, but also for fruit, and there was a basket of blueberries and several lodi apples. Lodi apples are one of the earliest apples to be available. King Orchards describes the lodi apple this way:
The earliest apple of the season, Lodi is an old-fashioned transparent-type apple. It is cross between Montgomery and Yellow Transparent, introduced by the New York State Agricultural Experiment Station at Geneva in 1924. Green to light yellow in color.
Like our previous visits, we stopped and bought some locally raised meat. This time, I picked up a kielbasa which would be part of our dinner. There was a man selling lemon aide and brownies to raise money for Discovery to Cure, a program at Yale to help fight ovarian cancer. I picked up a magnet for the National Ovarian Cancer Coalition, as well as brownies and lemon aide for Fiona and I to have for our picnic on the grass.
Raspberries are starting to come in, but they were pretty expensive, so I skipped the raspberries. However, on the way home, we passed some wineberry bushes that were loaded with berries. I pulled over to the side of the road, and Fiona and I hopped out of the care and picked a bunch of berries. As we continued home, we passed a few other wineberry bushes and hopped out to pick those berries as well.
We didn’t get enough wineberries for a wineberry pie, but we did get enough to be used with the lodi apples to make an apple and berry pie.
So, for dinner, we had fresh corn on the cob, locally raised kielbasa, some pasta with the tomatoes and basil, and a little cheese thrown in, and ended off the meal with the apple and berry pie.
Like the previous trip to the farmers market, this ended off a close to idyllic day. After Fiona had gone to bed, I sat down and tried to get a little closer to catching up on all my unread emails. Over on a mailing list of folks interested in media education, there is a discussion of how U.S. media covers Food, Fashion, Fitness and Finance. One person wrote:
Food is intensely political... By political I mean it directly affects our lives, human decisions in centralized bureaucracies of corporations and government shape this effect, and above all: we can together take action that influences these decisions or even moves the decision-making power into our hands... Food, fitness, and finance, meanwhile, are important parts of health, sustainability, opportunity, independence, freedom, and justice.
In a different part of the email, the person wrote, “It's not that these four Fs are covered, it's how they're covered.” He’s right. We need more discussions about how our food relates to our health; how we can live more sustainable lifestyles be eating more locally. It would be good to see more people talking about this. Until then, I’ll probably keep putting up blog posts here and there about the importance of eating locally, not only in terms of health and sustainability, but also in terms of how wonderful it can be.
News of the Day
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Tue, 07/10/2007 - 14:52Slowly, surely, I’ve been making my way through the emails that have piled up. I’m currently at around 1450 unread emails. Some, I can delete quickly, others require responses or mention things that I’d like to talk about here on the blog. Currently, there are several topics that I’d like to explore in detail, but probably won’t get a chance to write about, so here are a few summaries.
Wordless Wednesday
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Wed, 05/16/2007 - 13:30
Promoting the Urban Forest
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Wed, 05/09/2007 - 20:01When I was down at the Stamford Government Center the other day for peace rally, I noticed a sign on all the trees outside of the Government Center.
Public Notice
Tree RemovalIn accordance with the provisions of Ordinance No. 814- Article 1B Sections (4) and (5), NOTICE is hereby given of intent to remove this tree 30 days from the date of this posting.
When I took the picture of the sign, a security guard came up and told me the trees had to come down because they had termites. I knocked on the wood and it seemed pretty solid to me. The trees looked fairly healthy, so I wondered what this was all about.
Later, I started to receive emails from various people asking why the trees were being removed. People talked about sending letters to the Stamford Advocate, to the Tree Warden, and the Mayor’s office in order to get a public hearing about whether or not the trees should be removed. One person wrote that a person from City Hall said the trees were dead or dying and that was the reason they were getting cut down.
I figured I’d make a few calls myself to see what I could find out. I called the number listed on the form, and got an answering machine. I also called the number of a person on the environmental protection board.
Later in the day, I got a phone call from Erin McKenna, who is a Senior Planner at the City of Stamford’s Land Use Bureau. She provided lots of valuable information. The trees in question, honey locust, are not diseased. They are fine, although they are planted a little too closely together which has hampered their growth. They had been planned to be taken down as part of a project to install a sculpture donated by Rubin Nakian.
The plan is to install the sculpture as part of an overall redesign of the entrance to the Government Center. The new entrance is to be designed by Wesley Stout Associates. They are an award winning landscape design firm, whom I was told are very environmentally conscious. The design should be more attractive and provide better shade.
The current schedule is to wait until the plan is received from the design firm. The plan will then be reviewed internally and then publicly. There will be a public hearing about the removal of the trees, but they are hoping to wait until then plan is available to the public before holding such a hearing.
