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.

 

Bad thought: The lucky city worker is Matt Hennessey, the Karl Rove-styled chief of staff for Hartford Mayor Eddie Perez. Typically, Courant columnist Stan Simpson praised the cronyism. It's that media thing, again.

 

Good thought: At four years old, Marla Olmstead already challenges the art world with her painting composition, and she expresses the human condition like an old soul, but is a mere toddler. This 4-year-old artist from Binghamton, NY draws comparisons to 20th-Century modern masters.

 

Bad thought: She is the Gary Coleman of the art gallery set.

 

Good thought: State Representative Tom Kehoe, a Democrat of Glastonbury, gets smart growth, balanced transit planning and the problems with the auto-centric society. In great detail, he explained to the audience at the Central Connecticut Bicycle Alliance annual dinner what the state needs to do and what people can do to bring about an end to our over-reliance on cars, pavement and highways.

 

Bad thought: Kehoe's a bit long-winded.

 

Good thought: UConn coach Jim Calhoun is a great educator who prepares young African-American men for life as leaders and citizens who contribute to their community. His student athletes promote learning, physical fitness, and healthy competition. It was a bummer that the Huskies lost in the first round of the NCAA tournament for the first time in Calhoun's tenure at UConn.

 

Bad thought: The son of a bitch deserved it. If I see another giant image of Calhoun's oversized head on a billboard pitching some cable conglomerate accompanied by a bad basketball pun, I'm going to puke.

 

Calhoun is the highest paid state employee, and he uses his status as a prominent mentor to cash-in on commercial endorsements, while less than half of his players ever graduate. It makes me physically ill.

 

Worse thought: Thank God I was on the toilet leafing through the day's mail when I found the direct mail brochure for said communications company featuring an image of the Coach, the edges of his face blurred like he's in motion, next to a wise quote: "My team's got what it takes."

 

Bad thought: Kurt Cobain committed suicide 14 years ago this month, April 5, 1994.

 

Good thought: Kurt Cobain left us work that belongs in the rich literary canon of English and American literature.

 

His textured work, like this line from his most famous anthem "Smells Like Teen Spirit": "a mulatto, an albino, a mosquito, my libido, a denial" conjures so many poetic allusions, seductions, and explorations that its hard to grasp he was but 22 or so when he wrote it.

 

Cobain calls reaches from Andrew Marvell to David Herbert Lawrence. Or even this verse from Bill Shepherd, which I found while googling, looking for another famous poem about a mosquito aiding a man's seduction of his mistress.

from Meleager:

Mosquito, swift herald,
go brush the tip of Zenophila’s ear
and murmur this message:
‘You sleep. The insomniac poet
is waiting. You neglect his love.’

Well, fly, little hummer, fly –
but buzz in a tiny voice
in case you wake her boyfriend.
Bring me my girl and I’ll kit you out
with a lionskin and club, mosquito

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