Blog Posts

Forgive me if I do not greet with open arms the Green Haven Cohousing project’s attempt to change zoning regulations for the Town of Bethany. The project proposal is, in fact, little more than a Trojan Horse that would, if approved, destroy what remains of Bethany’s rural character. It...

Soren Kierkegaard got it at least half right: "Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards." But does it follow from this that our sense of freedom is a mere illusion? Perhaps. Sam Harris thinks free will as an illusion. It is an error, he says, to "attribute agency" to...

Let’s not congratulate ourselves too much about having addressed gun violence. Yes, the General Assembly passed new gun control legislation. But the new law is merely a baby step on the road to meaningful reform. The fact is, we’re still armed to the teeth, and prone to violence. There...

Speak to me, Muse. Sing about a continent spawned in chaos, sustained by the wild and untamed hope of tomorrow. Tell me of the promises made to the tired, the poor, the weak. Rage about the day that never came, the night that beckons, how a city on a hill became a fortress, frightened, unable to...

Just whose life is now in danger in the wake of the mass shootings at the Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut? There is no reason to believe that there was a second shooter at the scene: Adam Lanza is believed to have killed all 20 school children, and six adults, before he took...

You can thank the Women’s Christian Temperance Union for the recent firestorm in Torrington involving two former football players on the high school team. Two eighteen year old students have been expelled from school, and face felony charges, for having sex with thirteen year-old girls....

The University of Connecticut School of Law turned a new page in its epic identity crisis last week. It snared a tip-top white-shoe lawyer to serve as its next dean. Folks at the law school can’t stop congratulating themselves on the significance of it all. Why, the new dean is no...

I have a homework assignment for you. Find a computer. Click onto YouTube, and then search for videos of the Otmoor starlings. When you’ve had a chance to watch the birds in flight, return to this column.
“How’d they do that?” you are wondering. So am I.
For those of...

If it is in fact true that one year in the life of a dog is equivalent to seven years in the life of a human, my dogs, Penelope and Odysseus, and I are now about the same age. That would be a good thing, I suppose, were it not for the fact that all three of us limp along most days showing signs...

How far was Clarence Darrow willing to go in support of his clients? The law requires a duty of zealous advocacy. We are required to make our client’s cause our cause. Happy the lawyer whose role as advocate in a case or controversy corresponds with his own deeply held political and...