Websites I like and am adding as permanent links:

 

Scary Bunnies - For the Hartford Lovers, the Hartford Haters and Everybody Else

 

Beat Bike Blog - they're even getting free schwag now. Hopefully, some of it will go the alley cat we are scheduling for July 26, 2008. Save the date. Hartford.

 

1,000 Friends Connecticut - an effective smart growth group.

 

Mira! Hartford - musings, photos and video clips from Helder Mira at Rabbit Ears Media.

 

Kung-Fu Monkey - Your monkey's kung fu is not strong, so says the tagline. Writer John Rogers has one of the great all-time posts, and his links are awesome, as are his Warren Ellis references. And I dream of being a television writer when not in law school

 

The Angry Arab News Service- listen to the other side for a while.

 

And it's Memorial Day. Send any soldier a package of love and care.

 

G ood thought: I am going to kick major ass on my law school finals this semester. I have been working and studying hard. Law school is opening doors for me. Hopefully someday I can get paid to think about the Constitution.

 

Bad thought: Law school sucks. The grind is killing me. It is outrageously expensive. I have limited time for friends, for blogging, for bicycling, for anything other than property law, the 14th Amendment and the National Labor Relations Board.

 

Good thought: Cornell West is awesome.

 

Bad thought: Media that keeps his message from being heard hurts us all.

 

Good thought: The City of Hartford is willing to invest heavily in employee development. The Courant recently revealed that the city will spend $60,000 for a two-month business management course at Harvard University for a lucky city worker.

Link to more good and bad thoughts...

 

H ope springs eternal. You wait all winter long for this one day. Sometimes it snows. Sometimes it rains. Sometimes traffic on the George Washington Bridge makes you miss Joe DiMaggio hoisting the World Championship banner. Sometimes Mark McGwire goes yard into the black seats in centerfield on Rivera in the top of the 11th. And the Yankees can't muster anything in the bottom frame, and you go home sad.

 

Sometimes, the sun shines gracefully on the Bronx, and you watch the players line up on the infield for the first pitch, and you sing the National Anthem. Sometimes you sit on the third base line because your dad got box seats and took you out of school for the special day. And in the bottom of the ninth, the Yankees have the bases loaded against the Rangers, and pinch hitter Bobby Murcer hits a grand slam to the cheers of 57,000.

 

Yep. Some days it's heaven to win. When people ask why I am a Yankees fan, it's because of moments like that when I was eight years old. The brand imaging got me as a youth. Thurman. Reggie. Lou. Goose. Lousiana Lightning.

TO More story and photos...

 

Don't get too drunk. Here's a photo from the Carrick-a-rede rope bridge in Northern Ireland. I have to get back to studying.

 

 

I t's too nice out to be in front of the computer. Get outside and live a little. But first, do yourself a favor. Power yourself up a big bowl of super sugar cereal, pull up a chair and dig into this classic Tom & Jerry number.

On the same YouTube page where this is, tons of other Tom & Jerry live, too. But this is among the best.

Link...

 

I have a dream. And I’m not stoned. I want to rent 2,000 square feet of ground level retail on Pratt Street, and in giant green neon letters above the storefront, advertise "Marijuana."

 

You’ll walk in, buy a coffee, a cup of tea, or a fruit smoothie. After you’ve wet your whistle, you can step to the other counter, where your friendly host will show you the evening’s supply of weed. Once you’ve selected an indica or sativa, you can retire with a few friends into comfy chairs and blow bong hits in peace.

 

Yep, I’m openly advocating the legalization of herb here in Hartford. Conservatives like Bill Buckley have been encouraging this for years.

Link...

 

Kurt Vonnegut gave the commencement address to the class of 1994 at Syracuse University. I was stoned and hungover in the audience (as a proper graduate should be). Luckily, Syracuse sent us all a register of graduates with the text of the speech.

 

He died yesterday. So, in honor of the passing of his great imagination, I will offer snippets of his speech.

 

It begins: "Four score and seven years ago," Woops. Wrong speech. Seriously, he said to us bright eyed graduates:

 

"There are three things that I very much want to say to the Class of 1994 in this brief hail and farewell. They are things which haven't been said enough to you freshly minted graduates nor to your parents or guardians, nor to me, nor to your teachers. I will say these things in the body of my speech. I'm just setting you up for this.

 

"First, I will say thank you. Second, I will say I am truly sorry - now that is the striking novelty among the three. We live in a time when nobody ever seems to apologize for anything; they just weep and raise hell on the Oprah Winfrey Show. The third thing I want to say to you at some point - probably close to the end - is, 'We love you.' Now if I fail to say any of those three things in the body of this great speech, hold up your hands and I will remedy the deficiency."

Link...

 

The Man in Black - some lyrics in honor of his Feb 26 Birthday - (and Victor Hugo, and my grandmother Nonne, and my friend Scott, and local guitar maestro Daniel Salazar, and Michael Bolton, and Erykah Badu, and Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayep Erdogan, and Jeanine's Dad, and hey, whaddya know - me too!).

 

Well, you wonder why I always dress in black,
Why you never see bright colors on my back,
And why does my appearance seem to have a somber tone.
Well, there's a reason for the things that I have on.

I wear the black for the poor and the beaten down,
Livin' in the hopeless, hungry side of town,
I wear it for the prisoner who has long paid for his crime,
But is there because he's a victim of the times.

Link...

 

W ay back, last fall, when Thornton for Governor ruled my existence, a crew of Green campaigners joined a team of Trinity College students for the Connecticut River Watershed Council's 10th annual Source to Sea cleanup at the Park River over by New Britain Avenue in West Hartford.

I wrote a column about it way back when, but never really followed up and described what we ended up doing.

In my mailbox today, I saw the CRWC's newsletter detailing the trash hauled from the mighty Connecticut by 1,685 volunteers at 68 locations from northern Vermont to southern Connecticut.

Yikes is all you can really say when you read the list.

Link...

 

Y ou say it's your birthday - hey it's Rubi's birthday too!

So for my sister who took me to my first concert (Simple Minds, 1986, the New Haven Coliseum), who helped me sail the East coast and who embroidered "Free Speech" on my tie for my Jan. 30 court date, I offer some birthday wishes:

May the goddess of ideas bless her with evolving and exciting new ideas every day for the needlepoint a dollar a day project

May the muse of graffiti bestow upon her adhesives and string with which to communicate her message, seen at Rubistudios.

May the construction work in her house finish soon.

May Billy Joel be wrong when he says Straight-A students think too much.

May the food be tasty, the wine rich and the chocolate sweet, and may rainbows always come her way. Link...

 

P rison houses people. Human beings live behind those walls and Trinity College professor Judy Dworin has applied her dance instruction skills to help the inmates communicate with those of us on the outside.

The Judy Dworin Performance Ensemble, in collaboration with the a cappella group Women of the Cross will perform “Time In,” an exploration of the chronological experience inside and out of jail, at Central Connecticut State University's Torp Theatre on February 1 and 2 at 7:30pm. Tickets are $10 each, and I can’t wait to go see it.

In honor of her work, I did a short Q&A with her.Link...