Look, look out for "look"

When the honorable Senator Creepy Joe Lieberman speaks, as he did during a morning talk show on WTIC-AM this morning, watch out when he starts a sentence with "look." This verbal tic is a clue that either, he is about to spin, lie or scold. It often is an immediate chatisement of the questioner that, in a word, asks: "How could you ask such a stupid question, but fortunately, I, who have an answer for everything, am here to clear things up,"

So, this morning, he expounded on immigration where he talked about the New Haven ICE raids, and says that in the best possible worlds New Haven would not have proposed issuing special ID cards.

He also talks about threatening Iran, as he has for the past week, bring up the nuclear "smoking gun." He also blames the success of Hamas on Iran.

But listen carefully to his comments about Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid's criticism of General's Petraeus and Pace. Reid said the Pace had not been candid in his portrayal of our failures in Iraq and that Pace, in talking about the wonderful soccer stadiums in Iraq, "gives you a feeling that he's not in touch with what is really going on in Iraq or just trying to make the president feel good."

Lieberman trots out the ususal "support the troops" jingoism, saying that he called Pace "incompetent" which reportedly, he did not. He also says: "When you start to attack our top two generals, that's wrong."

No, what's wrong is continuing to support an unconscionable war which was foist upon us by a President who lied to get us there and continues to lie to keep us there.

And what's wrong is suggesting we should expand our "war on terror" by bombing Iran.

Look, Joe, look inside and see if you can find a spark of light in that shriveled soul.

On the FBI most-wanted list: The FBI

According to the Washington Post, the FBI is riddled with lawbreakers. What's at stake? Nothing important, just your civil liberties.

Hard as it is to imagine, it's making me nostalgic for G-man Hoover. And back then, few of us realized what G-man really meant.

From the great Van Dyke Parks album, Discover America:

G-Man Hoover

(public domain/arr.& adapted VDP)

A B C D E F G G-Man G-Man Hoover
Rat tat tat tat rat tat tat tat rat tat tat tat
Rat tat tat G-Man Hoover
Rat tat tat tat rat tat tat tat rat tat tat tat
Rat tat tat G-Man Hoover

Criminals come but they have one way to go
Gangsters are dumb for by now they ought to know
Stick with care or they gang you over there
Hoover will bring them to the electric chair
A B C D E F G G-Man G-Man Hoover
Young or smart, cruel
Had no heart, fool
You were bad he was smoother
What a lad G-Man Hoover
Rat tat tat tat rat tat tat tat rat tat tat tat
Rat tat tat G-man Hoover
Stick up a bank grab the dough get out of town
Guess the cops come for your love to mow them down
Shave off your beard change the color of your hair
Step out the door there's hoover waiting there
G-Man G-Man Hoovee
You can go now
Don't dare go now
It's a frame you're a loser
To that game of G-Man Hoover
Rat tat tat tat rat tat tat tat rat tat tat tat
Rat tat tat G-Man Hoover

Kidnap a child 'cuz to you he's just a brat
His mama's wild she's afraid you'll use your gat
Money's your aim then you'll take it on the lam
Mud is your name Hoover always gets his man
A B C D E F G G-Man G-Man Hoover

But at least we have Paris

The only television show I watch with regularity is Keith Olbermann's Countdown on MSNBC. While it makes an invigorating examination of topics most "news" shows would rather not consider, I'm afraid it piddles away its credibility by focusing huge hunks of airtime on gossip topics like Paris Hilton and American Idol. The show often spins the gossip ironically with an angle that says: "We don't like reporting this stupid stuff, but look what everyone else is paying attention too." Still the time and attention given these topics reveals a network's obsession with pleasing an audience, and achieving ratings, at whatever cost.

Jettison the junk news Keith, and your fitting homage to Edward R. Murrow will mean so much more.

Good night and good luck.

Tarred with the same brush

Back in the early 1980's I wrote a satirical essay about tourism in Connecticut that was published in the New York Times. I suggested then, that since we didn't have a National Park in Connecticut, one should be established. I suggested one called MacAdam State Park which would link all the blacktop highways and parking lots in the state into one seamless, easily traveled family playground.

As my hometown, Middletown, CT, muddles through a study of how to solve its parking problem, my fear of the shroud of blacktop only intensifies. It's a complicated problem. At important times in our core city, there simply are not enough parking spaces to encourage drivers to visit our Main Street retailers, restaurants and businesses.

The immediate impetus for these thoughts is a development which is currently moving through approvals in town. On the corner of Main and Liberty Streets a developer has proposed a retail and business development. The problem is that it while it has the benefit of bringing appealing retail and a handsomely designed building to an abandoned corner, it has the negative effect of displacing an historically significant building (9 Liberty St, which is fully inventoried building on the National Register of Historic Structures, and was the former Methodist Chapel), replacing it with blacktop surface parking, and placing a surface parking lot on Main Street where a building should be. In addition, the entrance to the lot creates a car vs. pedestrian hazard.

The are several factors which complicate our city's problems:

- a highway (Rte. 9) which runs alongside the Connecticut River, and which is the only such divided highway complete with two traffic lights, just West of downtown. This highway carries the bulk of auto traffic from the North, to our city and to the river and shoreline towns. It also separates the city from the river
- a state DOT determined to eliminate the highway traffic lights, and build an interchange which will likely have a huge negative impact on neighborhoods bordering downtown
- a state DOT, which has ruinously and recklessly widened a main city thoroughfare, Washington St. (Rte. 66), encouraging more cars to pass through our burdened Main Street
- a lack of efficient mass transit
- a foolhardy embrace of surface parking lots by planners, retailers, business owners and, yes, every citizen who loves his or her car (which is nearly every citizen)
- a citizenry which would rather amputate its legs than walk the 100 yards from a centralized parking lot
- a municipal, state and federal government that doesn't really have the resources to solve the problem the right way, so is satisfied to solve it the expedient way
- a neighboring university which seems to have a passion for asphalt and surface parking which matches its passion for education

I am no innocent. I drive on highways, and park in a surface lot in Hartford every day. So, this is where the "we" comes in. We all need to work together to find solutions. My friend, architect and city planner, Catherine Johnson is always whispering revolutionary design ideas in my ears. Others, I've stumbled on in my research of the issue.

Here are some thoughts:

- Less surface lots. Especially less surface lots facing main pedestrian walkways. They are visually unexciting, virtually useless for pedestrians and dangerous if entrances cross pedestrian sidewalks. Lots facing sidewalks should be reserved for retail and residential.
- Alternative to surface lots, like smartly designed garages, on-street parking, alley systems
- Pocket parking lots hidden in the center of city blocks behind buildings
- More streets - this one seems counter-intuitive but a greater number of narrower, streets with sidewalks help traffic flow, provide space for on-street parking (both sides), encourages foot traffic, and calms (slows down) existing traffic and it encourages bike traffic
- Alternative transportation - a lot has been said about this, but not enough done. From bikes to light rail, there are some many better ways to travel than by car.

Thanks to Catherine Johnson and Jennifer Saines for their efforts to prevent development which has an immediate positive impact, but creates bigger long-term problems.

And an order of fries

My friend Jeff, from Middletown, will be disappointed. For years he has quietly explained to friends how he converted his VW to run on leftover grease used to fry foods at restaurants.

"Japanese food grease is the best. The cleanest," he would say, and damned if there wasn't a slight aroma of tempura in the air as he drove off.

Tough to start on cold days, but completely free of the petroleum jones the rest of us are hooked on, Jeff knew that he had a source of fuel as long as we all liked crispy, tasty food.

Now some folks in California are about to corner the market on grease. One would suspect that the individual grease collector is out of luck.

Support the homeless troops

For all the tough talk, war hawks would rather forget that the troops they so frequently tell us to support, are often forgotten when they return to these shores, broken.

They're all around us, reminders of our mistakes, our pride and our misguided patriotism.

Next time you hear a chickenhawk squawking about giving the troops a chance to complete their mission, and ask them if they ever took a destitute veteran to lunch. I can almost guarantee the answer.

Chickenhawk Lieberman Squawks

Creepy Joe can't seem to get enough of any war he doesn't have to fight personally. But a few people have had enough of him.

It may be that Lieberman suffers from attention deficit disorder. That is, when he has a deficit of attention paid to him, it amounts to a disorder in his mind. Whatever the case, his saber rattling, carries the horrible sound of apocalypse.

A la maison

The Pine Leaf Boys dropped by WWUH to talk and play some music. You can find video of two songs they performed here:

I saw my first bee of this year

On a walk from a seminar at Trinity College in Hartford, passing a patch of clover, I spotted a honeybee on a flower.

I felt a bit of relief seeing this one worker, but in the entire patch of clover, it was the sole worker.

First go the bees. Then go the fruits and vegetables. Then us.

Part B:

Later in the day, on a walk in Middletown, and with the help of my boys, I saw six more bees, all on white clover. It seems irresistible to the bees which have survived Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD).

Who you calling a redneck?

Conservative radio ranter Jim Vicevich at WTIC AM has made it a practice of chastising Northern Liberals of looking down at Southerners. In one of his typical straw man generalizations he has spouted that elite educated East Coast yankees see Southerners as stupid hicks.

Strange then, when at the end of his show yesterday, he was talking about the sentencing of Mary Winkler by Tennessee Judge Weber McGraw and he lapsed into a simpleton's Southern drawl when speaking in the "voices" of Winkler and McGraw. You see, Vicevich disagrees with the jury's conviction on voluntary manslaughter, and the judge's reduced sentence because, Winkler based her defense on spousal abuse.

I guess when Buddy Vicevich disagrees with Southerners, they're stupid Rednecks. How delightfully inconsistent.