Thank you very much. I can't believe I'm standing up here at this podium at the Worst Mom Ever awards!…
Posted: 06 May 2022 [12:23 PM] Column
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Posted: 06 May 2022 [12:23 PM] Recent Headlines
Friday 05/06/2022
FRIDAY FICKS: The gift of perspective Posted: 06 May 2022 [11:36 AM] Friday Ficks Column The Facebook post sounded pretty urgent. It read, in part, that “I have an immediate need.” Immediate is usually…
HEALTHY LIVING: Jill Bertolini Symposium helps breast cancer patients Posted: 06 May 2022 [11:33 AM] The statistic is startling – according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), breast cancer is the most…
Monday 04/18/2022
MAZADOORIAN: Commemorating the Armenian Genocide of 1915: Sainthood for the victims Posted: 18 April 2022 [10:33 AM] On April 24, the world will recognize and commemorate the tragedy of the Armenian Genocide of 1915, when more than 1.5 million Armenian men…
Friday 04/15/2022
Posted: 15 April 2022 [08:02 PM] Someday, if the governor and state legislators ever tire of coddling the state employee unions and if the president and Congress ever tire of coddling investment banks and military contractors, maybe they should note what happened recently at Silver Lane…
FRIDAY FICKS: Don't transmogrify the low hanging fruit Posted: 15 April 2022 [11:25 AM] Friday Ficks "Attorney Ficks has transmogrified the facts," said my adversary in his closing argument. "He did what?" replied the arbitrator. "He…
Friday 04/08/2022
Posted: 08 April 2022 [09:11 PM] Legislators of both parties in the General Assembly are congratulating themselves on the bipartisan juvenile justice bill that has come out of the Judiciary Committee, and well they should. For the legislation will do no more than provide the illusion…
Thursday 04/07/2022
Mayor's Corner: Charter revision needs involvement of all citizens Posted: 07 April 2022 [08:17 PM] The Charter of the City of Bristol, CT, acts as the constitutional document for citizens of our All Heart City. The Charter…
Monday 04/04/2022
Posted: 04 April 2022 [08:55 PM] By CHRIS POWELL Connecticut may be paying the Sikorsky helicopter division of military contractor Lockheed Martin as much as $250 million to keep its facilities in the state for the next 20 years -- an average of…
Friday 04/01/2022
Posted: 01 April 2022 [09:15 PM] Everybody in state government seems to love this tax-cutting stuff -- first the temporary suspension of Connecticut's 25-cents-per-gallon gasoline tax, and then a week of lifting the sales tax on most clothing purchases. The public will love it too. But…
FRIDAY FICKS: Hope is the best of things Posted: 01 April 2022 [09:24 AM] Friday Ficks I have a dirty four letter word that I want you to use right now. It is not a four…
Friday 03/18/2022
FRIDAY FICKS: How to avoid the tree trifecta Posted: 18 March 2022 [10:31 AM] Friday Ficks Tree. Swerve. Tree. Swerve again. A third tree. Swerve again. Oh shoot...too late. This was not a trifecta at the horse track, or…
Friday 03/11/2022
Posted: 11 March 2022 [04:09 PM] Journal Inquirer Announcing goodies for various municipalities and organizations lately, Governor Lamont has been using government money to win support for his re-election campaign, as any incumbent would. But all the goodies awarded so far don't come close to…
Wednesday 03/09/2022
Posted: 09 March 2022 [08:30 PM] Liberal Democratic members of the General Assembly again are pursuing what they call fairness in taxation, their euphemism for state government's raising and spending a lot more money. Governor Lamont, a Democrat, opposes increasing taxes while state government has a…
Monday 03/07/2022
MAYOR'S CORNER: City Hall renovations: What the community needs to know Posted: 07 March 2022 [09:15 PM] City Hall renovations: What the community needs to know The current City Hall building was constructed in the early 1960s –…
CHRIS POWELL: Putting a cap on car taxes won't really save any money Posted: 07 March 2022 [09:13 PM] Most people seem to like Governor Lamont's proposal to reduce from 45 to 29 mills the state's limit on municipal property taxes…
Friday 03/04/2022
CHRIS POWELL: Oil, not vodka, pays for war; and Sen. Cassano gets relevant Posted: 04 March 2022 [02:37 PM] Russia's brutal invasion of Ukraine has rocketed the United States into a whirlwind of pious but ineffectual posturing. In his State of…
FRIDAY FICKS: Don't be remembered as a tip miser Posted: 04 March 2022 [11:08 AM] Friday Ficks I called them tip misers (and probably other things too, but this is a G-Rated column). The tip misers on my…
Wednesday 03/02/2022
CHRIS POWELL: Blumenthal plans his escape as inflation threatens Dems Posted: 02 March 2022 [08:55 PM] Are things getting so bad for the Democrats that even Connecticut's senior U.S. senator, Richard Blumenthal, is worried about winning re-election this…
Monday 02/28/2022
CHRIS POWELL: Stand with Ukraine'? Funny! and Lamont's befuddlement Posted: 28 February 2022 [09:13 PM] From Connecticut's congressional delegation last week the watchwords of pious posturing were: "Stand with Ukraine." Of course no one was proposing to…
Friday 02/25/2022
CHRIS POWELL: Boost political competition: Dissolve congressional districts Posted: 25 February 2022 [08:58 PM] BOOST POLITICAL COMPETITION: DISSOLVE CONGRESS DISTRICTS By CHRIS POWELL While the redrawing of congressional districts in other states has become…
Wednesday 02/23/2022
CHRIS POWELL: Newtown dumps democracy, and Lamont worsens scandal Posted: 23 February 2022 [09:36 PM] Whatever one thinks about guns, this month's $73 million lawsuit settlement paid by the insurers of the former Remington gun manufacturing company…
Tuesday 02/22/2022
Posted: 22 February 2022 [04:15 PM] Republican state legislators around the country are proposing to require public schools to post all curriculum materials on the internet as an accountability measure, and the other day they got powerful if inadvertent support from Enfield’s school system. Enfield’s school…
Friday 02/18/2022
Posted: 18 February 2022 [09:19 PM] Nobody needs the federal investigation that is under way to grasp the basics of the racket that was being run from the state budget office – the Office of Policy and Management – by its deputy secretary, Konstantinos Diamantis, who…
FRIDAY FICKS: May you fly like an eagle Posted: 18 February 2022 [10:14 AM] It materialized out of nowhere, moving just above the Farmington River, right alongside me. And I knew what it…
Wednesday 02/16/2022
CHRIS POWELL: Governor needn't raise taxes since inflation did it for him Posted: 16 February 2022 [08:55 PM] Addressing the General Assembly last week, Governor Lamont touted state government's comfortable financial position, a reversal of the position he inherited when…
Tuesday 02/15/2022
CHRIS POWELL: State won't suppress crime without restoring deterrence Posted: 15 February 2022 [08:50 PM] Connecticut lately has generated more than its share of silly paradoxes. Having given up on the futility of criminalizing marijuana, state government…
Saturday 02/12/2022
CHRIS POWELL: Teenager's missing teeth indict neglect by parents and state Posted: 12 February 2022 [12:03 PM] How, in a wealthy and highly taxed state with scores of social programs and constant prattling about unmet human needs, does a…
Wednesday 02/09/2022
CHRIS POWELL: Population gains don't help if housing doesn't keep up Posted: 09 February 2022 [09:20 PM] Maybe all those people who in the last year or so have given up on New York City and its inner suburbs…
Monday 02/07/2022
CHRIS POWELL: Wooden, Hayes and Colangelo provide a seminar on 'ethics' Posted: 07 February 2022 [09:23 PM] Connecticut's best investigative journalism so far this year was probably the Jan. 2 report by the Connecticut Mirror's Andrew Brown and Kasturi…
Friday 02/04/2022
CHRIS POWELL: Democrats replace Republicans as the party of repression Posted: 04 February 2022 [09:12 PM] For most of the last 70 years in the United States, ever since the Red Scare of the 1950s, the Republican Party…
Wednesday 02/02/2022
CHRIS POWELL: We won't fight for Ukraine; so might as well make a deal Posted: 02 February 2022 [09:12 PM] Shall I join with other nations in alliance? If allies are weak, am I not best alone? If allies are strong with…
Monday 01/31/2022
CHRIS POWELL: Sheff ends, mocking the law and gaining little integration Posted: 31 January 2022 [08:54 PM] What has Connecticut gotten for the 33 years of litigation in the Hartford school integration case of Sheff v. O'Neill, which purportedly…
Friday 01/28/2022
CHRIS POWELL: So long, emergency powers; and is Bysiewicz libertarian? Posted: 28 January 2022 [09:52 PM] Maybe with an eye to the public’s growing skepticism of rule by decree as his re-election campaign begins, Governor Lamont has asked…
Wednesday 01/26/2022
CHRIS POWELL: Well-prepared Stefanowski quickly scares Democrats Posted: 26 January 2022 [09:09 PM] By CHRIS POWELL Maybe the best measure of Bob Stefanowski's vast improvement as a candidate for governor is how quickly he scared…
Monday 01/24/2022
CHRIS POWELL: Working at UConn is great but getting fired is better Posted: 24 January 2022 [07:38 PM] Another spectacular embarrassment for the University of Connecticut, and thus for the state itself, exploded last week -- the $11 million wrongful…
Friday 01/21/2022
CHRIS POWELL: Dem senators seem to want to get the US into a war in Ukraine Posted: 21 January 2022 [08:59 PM] Having supported the futile U.S. war in Afghanistan throughout their congressional careers, helping to flush $2 trillion down the toilet of that…
FRIDAY FICKS: Let's beat the storm together Posted: 21 January 2022 [10:43 AM] "Did you reset the odometer?" I asked. "Uh ... no ... it doesn't really work that way," he responded. A few months…
Wednesday 01/19/2022
CHRIS POWELL: Police transparency study is evasive and even nutty Posted: 19 January 2022 [08:28 PM] Despite its two years of painstaking effort, Connecticut's Police Transparency and Accountability Task Force last week recommended little to increase transparency and…
Monday 01/17/2022
CHRIS POWELL: Connecticut Democrats prize a huge tax break for rich Posted: 17 January 2022 [08:33 PM] Governor Lamont and state Attorney General William Tong, both Democrats, are pressing in federal court to restore a lucrative tax break for…
Friday 01/14/2022
CHRIS POWELL: On whom will Connecticut's epidemic resentments fall? Posted: 14 January 2022 [08:58 PM] Teachers and nurses in Connecticut who are government employees, along with employees of nursing homes, whose industry is mostly funded by government,…
Wednesday 01/12/2022
CHRIS POWELL: Tax cuts will achieve little without spending cuts, too Posted: 12 January 2022 [09:02 PM] Bribing people with their own money is a standard technique of politics, and with a state election coming up, Connecticut's Democratic and…
Tuesday 01/11/2022
Posted: 11 January 2022 [08:51 PM] My child’s education in uncertain times with the New Year To the Editor: Just as we thought things were returning to normal, we are faced with school closings yet again! My child’s education is back in limbo, and I wonder…
Monday 01/10/2022
CHRIS POWELL: Vaccine definition changed as covid-19 shots weakened Posted: 10 January 2022 [08:57 PM] How, some readers ask, can this column, written by a mere layman, assert that the COVID-19 vaccines aren't very effective? First, it's…
Saturday 01/08/2022
CHRIS POWELL: Treasurer's ads should have exposed the ripoff he runs Posted: 08 January 2022 [09:05 PM] Connecticut occasionally sees state Treasurer Shawn T. Wooden touting state government's college savings program in television commercials with two young actors impersonating…
Friday 01/07/2022
FRIDAY FICKS: Be careful about a supersized imagination Posted: 07 January 2022 [09:06 AM] "Will Carl Ficks please report to the Principal's office. Carl Ficks to the Principal's office." Sixth grade and a reckoning with Sister…
Wednesday 01/05/2022
CHRIS POWELL: Epidemic might not benefit governor politically anymore Posted: 05 January 2022 [08:50 PM] For months the prevailing view about the forthcoming election for governor has been that Governor Lamont's handling of the virus epidemic in…
Tuesday 01/04/2022
CHRIS POWELL: Much better ways to spend epidemic emergency money Posted: 04 January 2022 [01:52 PM] Suggested text Hi KaitlynConversation opened. 1 unread message. Skip to content Using Central Connecticut Communications LLC Mail with screen readers 4…
Friday 12/31/2021
CHRIS POWELL: Amid most infections ever, do epidemic policies work? Posted: 31 December 2021 [08:47 PM] Connecticut doesn't audit the performance of any of its major and expensive state government policies – not education, not welfare, not urban…
Wednesday 12/29/2021
CHRIS POWELL: Devaluing public education has become the state's policy Posted: 29 December 2021 [09:54 PM] From Connecticut and Washington last week came more strong signs that higher education isn't worth the expense to many students. The Connecticut…