Just my luck - the best bicycling event to hit Hartford in five years and I will be out of town.

 

But don't let that stop you from riding to the Discover Hartford Bicycle and Walking Tour on Saturday, Sept. 8, 2007, organized by the Central Connecticut Bicycle Alliance (of which I used to be a board member, so this is a shameless plug for you to ride your bicycle, stop your carbon emissions and support this ride).

 

You can register online at Hartfordbiketour.org to do either a 10 mile loop, a 25 mile loop or a 2.5 mile walking tour. Register early, because costs go up from $37 to $42 after September 2. (Actually, it is less expensive if you are a CCBA member, so join and get the discount).

 

On event day, registration starts at 7 am, and the tour first leaves Bushnell Park at 9:15 am, and waves will continue depart every quarter hour or so until 10:30, according to website.

 

For those who are expecting the old Hartford Parks Bike Tour, think different. At first glance, the route passing through Colt, Keney, Pope, Elizabeth, and Goodwin Parks, as well as Riverfront Recapture makes it seem similar. But any bicycle tour has to include those because those are the gems of Hartford.

 

Tour organizer Allan Williams has changed the order, and thrown in some new twists and sights that showcase the bicycle friendly nature of the city of Hartford. For instance, he put riders in front of the redeveloped Colt building, the Learning Corridor and then Trinity College and its new hockey rink.

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If I use schadenfreude to describe my immediate reaction to the news that the state's attorney's office searched Eddie Perez's house, does it reveal too much about me?

 

Sitting here in Florida reading the comments after the Courant's article, a few things stood out. First and foremost, the judge who signed a warrant for the search didn't do it on a whim, i.e. - the prosecutor presented some credible evidence that a crime of some sort was committed.

 

I would like to think the judge was wise enough to consider that signing a warrant would impact the election. And then determined that the facts before the bench merited such judicial action.

 

Eddie's apology or explanation is crap. As my mom always said, excuses are like assholes, everyone has one. I understand that Eddie's wife's illness was a terrible thing, but to blame your inability to pull a permit on her aneurysm is wrong.

 

Once it comes out that law enforcement officers are rummaging through your belongings, the only reasonable thing to do is resign. Eddie's continued presence in the mayoral office can only harm the city, as we have seen with John Rowland, Phil Giordano, Joe Santopietro, Joe Ganim, etc etc etc.

 

I redid the bathroom in my condo a few years ago, and my plumber wouldn't even do the work unless I pulled the permit. I don't believe I ever closed out the permit with a final inspection from the building department, but I paid the fees and posted the paper on my wall.

 

So what kind of contractor does work without demanding a permit? One who thinks he can get away with it.

Link...

 

During my time in Northern Europe, I felt like I had to apologize for my country to everyone I meet. I felt like I needed to be an ambassador and say Americans aren't that bad.

 

But I tired of it. It made me angry, and ashamed, and I think I now have an idea of what South Africans on holiday must have felt like when Nelson Mandela was still in jail, when apartheid reigned.

 

The evidence of global disdain for America greeted me everywhere I went. I saw it when I sat in the audience of a comedy show in Brighton, England on Bastille Day, and Americans were targeted worse than the French.

 

Or when I was on bus in Dublin and I spied two Irishmen frowning over a tabloid with a giant picture of George W. Bush alongside banner headlines trumpeting deadly statistics from Iraq and the recent Congressional report calling the surge a failure.

 

Or when an English friend showed me a video of the crowd singing the national anthems at the LeMans 24-hour motorcycle rally in France, and the assembled masses booed from start to finish through Francis Scott Key's signature song.

 

Or when I was in West Belfast and I saw a giant mural calling mocking the imperial presidency of George W. Bush, calling for an end to his rule of terror.

 

But a little bit down the wall, there's a mural of Frederick Douglass, praising him as a great American. And it gave me hope, and an idea.

 

We can't wait for the federal government to fix our reputation overseas. We have to take action ourselves, as global citizens. We had the sympathy of everyone after Sept. 11, when banner headlines across the world blared "We are all Americans."

 

We squandered it by invading Iraq and spreading bloody bedlam. So when I walk into a Turkish chipper (fish-n-chips shop) in Brighton, and an Aussie says "I recognize that accent," I know what's coming next. We deserve the Aussie moniker of "seppo," short for "Septic-Tank Yanks."

 

Yeah, sure, the people who belittle us judge us, and they engage in behavior as childish as ours. But we all have to be mature enough as humans to attempt to deflate these stereotypes. Someone has to take the first steps.

 

We need to fan out across the globe in vast numbers to show our fellow Earthlings that Americans are not the stereotypical numbskulls portrayed in the Simpsons and South Park.

 

But considering that we started a war that no one likes, and that we are powerless to stop it, generating good will shall be a difficult feat.

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Hartford drew the short end of the stick in its sister city relationship with New Ross, County Wexford, Ireland, jested New Ross teenager Ciaran Lyng.

 

New Ross and its environs has maybe 27,000 people, Lyng said, compared to Hartford's 120,000.

 

"They're a small town, and we're a small city," said Hartford Town Clerk Dan Carey, who chairs the Hartford-New Ross sister city committee. "And a river runs through both of them."

 

Lyng was one of five Irish students from New Ross who spent July in Hartford as part of year-long festival commemorating the founding of New Ross in 1207.

 

New Ross is most famous for being the place where Patrick Kennedy, the great-grandfather of President John F. Kennedy, was born and emigrated from. In 1848, Patrick Kennedy set sail on the wooden ship Dunbrody, a replica of which sits docked on the river in New Ross.

 

The sister city relationship between Hartford and New Ross arose from this historical connection, according to Carey.

 

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A one-question poll about the Mayoral primary solicited by an inscrutable company made the rounds of prime voter phone lines last week.

 

My number came up in the queue last Thursday evening, and I happened to answer the ring ring.

 

“If the Mayoral election were held tomorrow, would you be voting for Mayor Eddie Perez or someone else?” the mysterious Polly Pollster asked me, identifying herself as an employee of TCG Independent Research Company.

 

“I’ll answer your question if you tell me who hired you,” I responded to Polly. She declined, I sought to speak to a supervisor.

 

“In order for us to remain as unbiased as possible, we have not been provided with the information as to who is paying for this,” said Antonio Stevenson, a supervisor at TCG Independent Research Company.

 

Can you tell me where TCG is located? I asked.

 

“For security reasons, I cannot divulge that information,” Stevenson said.

 

Well, then I won’t be answering your question, I told him, and terminated the conversation. If I don’t know who is going to manipulate my opinion for their gain, they can’t have my thoughts for free.

 

Link...

 

My regular posting routine has been interrupted seriously by this trip to Ireland and the U.K. And my publishing is going to get worse.

 

Internet access overseas is spotty, and when I haven't been in law school or maritime safety classes, I've devoted my free time to being a stupid American tourist or devouring fiction like American Tabloid by James Ellroy and The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexander Dumas (mentioned in James Joyce's Portrait of the Artist and Alan Moore's V for Vendetta).

 

So, this week I spent at Warsash Maritime Academy earning my STCW '95 basic marine safety certificate (hence the basic firefighting) in order to make my internet postings even more sparse. Yep, I am boarding a 46-meter yacht to work as a deckhand on a delivery to Thailand through the Suez Canal and possibly Sri Lanka. And I am certain there will be many other stops in between.

 

We don't have a precise departure date, but I am leaving for Florida on Aug. 6 to jump on board. I will continue to write my weekly column for the dead tree media known as the Hartford News. When and where I can post from ports, I will.

 

But traveling always makes me think. Like about Stonehenge, which I visited this past Sunday on my way to Warsash.

Link...

 

I. Charles Mathews has his own Sept. 11.

 

On Sept. 11, 1991, his political career crashed when the nominated Democratic Town Committee City Council slate he led as Deputy Mayor with mayoral candidate Robert Jackson suffered an electoral defeat at the hands of petitioning-candidate Mayor Carrie Saxon-Perry and her untested council team.

 

Mathews himself finished 11 out of 12 candidates in primary voting. It was a tough day for a man the New York Times once suggested might run for Congress.

 

But it was a different Hartford then. About 140,000 people lived there, and the deputy mayor ran the city under the council-manager form of government.

 

Now 16 years later, Hartford has about 127,000 people, and a strong mayor. Is I. Charles the man for that position?

 

A look at about 18 stories from the Courant (written by six different writers – oh for a fully funded newsroom!) and a few from the New York Times, ranging from 1985 to 1992, paint a picture of I. Charles and how he operates in a political landscape.

 

In a story on Sept. 13, 1991, Courant writer Anita Seline covered Mathews' defeat. She quoted I. Charles: "You grow weary of people calling you names in 28 different languages. It's like a cross has been lifted from me."

 

Link...

 

State representative Art Feltman and I sat down for lunch at Timothy's Restaurant back in December 2006, and he asked me to support his run for Mayor. I demurred, as I wasn't sure who I liked. I still am unsure.

 

I have friends calling me, telling me that I. Charles Matthews is the guy for Hartford. No one phones me in support of Frank Barrows, and that is enough reason for me to not consider him, no matter how good of a Senator he was.

 

Long ago I eliminated Eddie Perez from contention in my mind. So I think the race is between I. Charles and Art, both of whom showed up to the Free Kenny Legal Defense Fund Fundraiser back in January.

 

Feltman spoke out clearly against the police state abuse I suffered. Yet I. Charles has been more circumspect in his critiques of Chief Daryl Roberts, and I tend to suspect that I. Charles doesn't want to upset the African-American apple cart by attacking a black police chief, no matter how wrong-headed Roberts has been, on any number of issues.

Link...

 

Mayor Mike and I have never seen eye-to-eye, from the time I first started covering Hartford for the Advocate almost 10 years ago.

 

But a few weeks ago, Mayor Mike openly criticized the paranoid, post-9/11 Mayor Eddie Perez for having locks on the door of the Mayor's Office.

 

I couldn't agree with Mayor Mike more, and I am heartened that he brought that into the public debate.

 

Having determined that from dozens of reasons, Mayor Perez lacks the requisite skills and finesse to lead the city of Hartford, selecting a replacement stands before voters as a choice between the lesser of eight evils.

 

However, I must admit, that I am not as certain as Mayor Mike that I. Charles Mathews is the man to lead Hartford into the next decade.

 

Since the fantastic “None of the Above” option does not exist to send our local electorate back to the drawing board, Hartfordites must weigh the talents and faults of each candidate.

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