Posts

An Open Letter to James L. Brinton, First Selectman of the Town of Washington, Connecticut

Image
Much ado has been made of late concerning the automated speed cameras that have been installed in Washington, Connecticut, the first of their kind in this state. I was happy to hear about these. People drive far too fast in Washington; in fact, people drive far too fast in most of the small, rural towns in this state. Giving people a reason to slow down even a little bit is a good thing. I have good reason to be invested in the well-being of Washington. Although I am not currently a resident, I work there and my family has deep roots in the town. My great, great grandfather was Headmaster at The Gunnery (back when they called it “The Gunnery,” at least), and I’m a former English teacher at the school. My mother was raised in Washington in a house that her father, my grandfather, built there. I’ve worked for years at one of the town’s small vegetable farms. I imagine that I’ll someday again be a resident, living in the house in which my parents currently reside, so I like the idea of pe...
Post a Comment
Read more

An Exceptional Cat

Image
Camembert (Cammie), Known Angel Lauren and I have been together for more than 10 years now. Her cats, Cammie and her brother Whit, were there from the beginning. I grew up in a household that only ever knew dogs. I didn’t outright dislike cats, but I did dislike the idea of an animal that had to relieve itself indoors and that relied on someone to clean the litter box, daily. One of the first substantial disagreements Lauren and I had was early on, when I said that I couldn’t possibly live in a house with cats. On that, I did more than relent. I came to dote on Cammie. I fixed up the extra blanket on our bed that she liked to sleep on, every night. (She liked to dig her way under it during the day, so it was always mussed up and needed rearranging.) I delivered her small plates of freshly chopped chicken whenever I was cooking some for the dog. (Among the few times she was vocal was whenever she saw me carrying one of those small plates.) If I was playing a computer game and she came i...
Post a Comment
Read more

Voting With Your Dollar

Image
"My own concern is primarily the terror and violence carried out by my own state, for two reasons. For one thing, because it happens to be the larger component of international violence. But also for a much more important reason than that; namely, I can do something about it. So even if the U.S. was responsible for 2 percent of the violence in the world instead of the majority of it, it would be that 2 percent I would be primarily responsible for. And that is a simple ethical judgment. That is, the ethical value of one’s actions depends on their anticipated and predictable consequences. It is very easy to denounce the atrocities of someone else. That has about as much ethical value as denouncing atrocities that took place in the 18th century."  ( Noam Chomsky ) I think the hardest part about really understanding what Chomsky is saying here is what anyone is to do about it.  The knee-jerk reaction is "go and vote and change things," but I think that after...
Post a Comment
Read more

Let's Abolish Marriage

The issue, as I see it, isn't with gay marriage, its with marriage. I find it ironic that soon-to-be presidential candidate Mitt Romney - a Mormon - is against gay marriage.  This despite the fact that his religion has a history of institutional polygamy.  So two guys getting it on is immoral, but a nightly, one-man orgy with ten women...that's cool.  (Incidentally, I DO think that'd be cool, but now we're getting into a different discussion, entirely.)  In fairness, though, Romney isn't trying to integrate his religion's views of marriage into the government's definition of it.  Why, then, do we continue to have a government definition of marriage that is based on a Christian understanding of the institution?  And if anyone thinks that our government's definition of marriage is not based on Christian directives, then why is it always preachers and deeply right-wing, pro-Christian officials that are the ones defending its current incarnation on the new...
Post a Comment
Read more

Cheaters Often Prosper

Image
Sharp lessons from youth stand out in my mind, a snap-shot reel of images that play out the crucial scenes from a formative moment.  Although I was only a small boy, I can remember the feeling of the chocolate bar in my pocket, flat and stiff, poking into my leg.  I can remember my mother's face, in the car, when she watched me start peeling back the foil wrapper.  And I most certainly remember her walking me down the checkout aisle of the grocery store I had stolen it from when she made me hand it back to the manager, who smiled at me from under a waxy, black mustache.  It was a stiff reprimand from my parents (my father had also been in the car) regarding the act of thievery, as evidenced by the clarity of the images that I recall.  But what if I had succeeded?  What if I had kept it in my pocket until I got home and opened it in secret?  What sort of reversed moral reinforcement would have imprinted itself?  My mother had, when I was young, oft...
Post a Comment
Read more

Song Spotlight: Descending (The Black Crowes)

Image
**Cross-posted from ADT Music ** Song:  Descending ( listen ) Album:  Amorica (1994) ( listen ) Artist:  The Black Crowes When it comes to using the blues as a modern rock influence The Black Crowes are not unique.  The Brits got there long before any white Americans did, under the guidance of bands like The Yardbirds and Led Zeppelin , infusing one of the few, truly original American music forms with pop, folk, and rock essences that made it accessible to mainstream listeners.  In doing so most of these bands brought the notion of riff-based song structures to popular music (a form that is at the heart of blues).  In some cases, the songs lifted the lyrics and riffs of blues staples directly, adding electric instrumentation, percussion, and decidedly more robust vocals.  (See, for example, Led Zeppelin's Bring It On Home ( listen ), which opens with a direct, musical homage to the original , offering song credits to Willie Dixon in the pro...
Post a Comment
Read more

Song Spotlight: Trinity Road (Michael Lee Firkins)

Image
**Cross-posted from ADT Music **  Song:  Trinity Road ( listen ) Album:  Chapter Eleven (1995) ( listen ) Artist:  Michael Lee Firkins I'm a sucker for a lot of things: baroque writing, painfully arduous hikes, and really, really hot salsa, to name a few.  Although this song is none of those things, it is something else that I'm an absolute sucker for:  melodic guitar music.  I tend to like music that was once cool (like 70's guitar rock), music that has never been cool (like progressive, conceptual rock), and most certainly music that would get any red-blooded male laughed at in a biker bar (like the sort of guitar balladry that Joe Satriani and Steve Vai have become semi-famous for). Michael Lee Firkins falls into step with this latter group of musicians for writing complex, guitar-based, instrumental music.  The origins of this "genre" are oftentimes attributed to Joe Satriani, who first made a ...
Post a Comment
Read more