Friday Ficks Jimmy Buffett once sang "We all got 'em, we all want 'em. What do we do with 'em?" Although he…
Posted: 16 September 2022 [11:42 AM] Column
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Posted: 16 September 2022 [11:42 AM] Recent Headlines
Friday 09/02/2022
FRIDAY FICKS: The dash between the years Posted: 02 September 2022 [11:58 AM] Friday Ficks A lifelong friend from Berlin died in June at the age of 59. A California resident at the time he…
Friday 08/26/2022
FRIDAY FICKS: Riding on the surface of the sun Posted: 26 August 2022 [10:35 AM] Friday Ficks I rode my bike on the surface of the sun. The heat index was well over 100 degrees on the day…
Friday 08/05/2022
FRIDAY FICKS: Of waterfalls, wellness and anvils Posted: 05 August 2022 [10:08 AM] FRIDAY FICKS: Of waterfalls, wellness and anvils Friday Ficks There’s an ultra distance running book called “Relentless Forward Progress.” It popped to…
Thursday 08/04/2022
BRISTOL BITS: Bristol resident looks back on Camp Wangum Posted: 04 August 2022 [02:11 PM] Bristol Bits I’m assuming that Jeff Twombly, who emailed me about Camp Wangum, has been an outdoors enthusiast since he was a…
Tuesday 08/02/2022
CAGGIANO: Making room for new development Posted: 02 August 2022 [04:33 PM] Bristol Mayor This month I want to highlight a few business openings, closings and demolitions in our city. We will also highlight…
Friday 07/15/2022
FRIDAY FICKS: Create your own medal-worthy moments Posted: 15 July 2022 [10:42 AM] Friday Ficks Every moment of your life can be a medal-worthy moment. If you embrace failure, stay resilient, and control the controllable.…
Friday 07/01/2022
FRIDAY FICKS: Heads up, phones down Posted: 01 July 2022 [11:58 AM] Friday Ficks The bear saw me before I saw it. Hammering along the spine of Avon Mountain, I spotted a large pile…
Friday 06/17/2022
FRIDAY FICKS: Stay connected to, and involved with, your community Posted: 17 June 2022 [04:08 PM] Friday Ficks He died five weeks before the race. But I needed him that morning. I needed his encouragement. I needed his…
Monday 05/30/2022
Posted: 30 May 2022 [02:54 PM] CHRIS POWELL Connecticut's 5th Congressional District, encompassing the northwest part of the state, running from Danbury north to Waterbury with eastward extensions to New Britain and Meriden, is generally considered the state's most politically competitive. So one might think…
Friday 05/27/2022
Posted: 27 May 2022 [09:00 PM] CHRIS POWELL As recently as 50 years ago Connecticut politics still had traces of the old ethnic, racial, and religious resentments and rivalries that had arisen through the state's long history, resentments and rivalries that political party state tickets…
Friday 05/20/2022
Posted: 20 May 2022 [08:21 PM] CHRIS POWELL Four months after the now internationally infamous "pizza sex" assignment was given to eighth-graders at Kennedy Middle School in Enfield, the town's Board of Education has not yet figured out how it happened. Instead the board purportedly…
Friday 05/06/2022
HASTINGS: Happy Mother's Day to all the best worst moms out there Posted: 06 May 2022 [12:23 PM] Thank you very much. I can't believe I'm standing up here at this podium at the Worst Mom Ever awards!…
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…