This week, historians and pundits will draw all sorts of conclusions about our world because of the sixth anniversary of something really big and terrifying.

 

I say we need to look back farther, say, 284 years, and let's see what dusty lessons September, 1721 holds.

 

This column comes from deep in the fourth floor stacks of the Berkeley Library on the lovely campus of Trinity College in Dublin, where large leather bound books contain royal British records and correspondence. Instead of studying for law school finals one afternoon this past summer, I examined the English Crown's perspective of the American colonies.

 

In the spring of 1721, fish merchants in Massachusetts were keeping the prize catches for themselves, on the authority of a local law called "For the Better Regulating of the Culling of Fish." The Massachusetts Assembly passed this in May, 1718.

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...