Zen and the art of motorcycle stories

Hello I Must Be Going

The Hartford Courant arrived on my doorstep this morning (though they have called and threatened that it won't be much longer if I don't pay my bill), and the vertical has become horizontal once again.

With the logotype at the top of the page once again, there won't be mistaking the front page for a section header anymore.

But the blue highlights and subheads are horrible (as if a single color was somehow going to hike The Hartford Courant's circulation). And, if it is possible, there seems to be fewer words than ever on the front page.

It's nice to see Roger Catlin's byline on the front page, but really, is a major headline and photo about a TV show filmed in the state really the most important news of the day?

Finally, that ridiculous, and insincere "thank-you" for participating in the selection of a new look for the paper is galling. Do the editors and publishers really expect us to believe that they made a decision about how the paper was going to look only after a week's reflection in which they actually considered what readers thought about the shift?

In my mind, it's more important for the editors to rededicate themselves to the pursuit of the truth at whatever depth it might be found (and find a design which reflects that), and not print some bogus "thank-you" which only reflects a public relations effort to make readers feel like they are somehow involved.

Nothing like fried pig

H/T Jane McMillan

The future looks shallow

What we can expect more of, god help us. From here in Maine, I don't recognize my home state.

But Joe Jackson is still alive

Thriller

Just call me prescient.

A face in the crowd

Countrier Than Thou

You don't really want to know, do you

I just want a lead weight attached to my Monday Courant so it doesn't blow off my doorstep with the slightest breeze.

Fool me once

Jon Lender has another eye-opener in the Hartford Courant today explaining the potential for double-dipping by highly-paid state employees who are set to take advantage of a proposed retirement package.

Two things occur to me. If someone is too valuable to send off to retirement, then shouldn't that position be excepted from the proposed package?

But more outrageous is the number of state employees earning six figures. Lender mentions three or four of those employees by name. But how many more employees make over $100 grand. When I was first looking for employment, during a recession in 1976, I worked temporarily for the state. The line of thinking then was, if you take a job with the state, you are trading away the higher potential salary of a private sector job (and the risks involved) for the security of long-term, steady employment with great healthcare and retirement benefits.

When did that line of thinking shift to include state jobs which pay more than the private sector?

One might understand a state deputy treasurer, with large fiduciary responsibilities, making more than $100,000 (though I blanch at salary of $163,000 and retirement of $114,000). But can we really stomach a PR man for UCONN earning $200,000 as Scott Brohinsky does? For god's sake, this is a guy who handles calls from the press for UCONN, not the president of UCONN, not the most noted scientist or poet at UCONN, but the lobbyist and public relations guy!

I hope Lender follows the line of reasoning and reveals just how many state employees have leveraged a steady, safe, risk-free employment situation into a life of riches and privelege.