As Mercury crosses the Sun, it’s just a freckle, but loaded with history.
When I returned to my home state of Connecticut after several decades of living in south Florida, my husband and I made several house hunting trips to Litchfield County. We used all our frequent flyer miles and some donated by friends. We looked at every available home in our price range — C…
More electric car charging stations are on the way in Danbury-area towns. But for the more rural towns, they may not be cost-effective to install.
The issue: An increasing number of school-age children in Connecticut are not getting vaccinated against childhood diseases that if contracted could be physically debilitating or life-threatening. A rise in religious exemptions from the mandatory vaccines for measles, mumps and rubella has d…
To the Editor:
To the Editor,
Scientists have discovered a non-native invasive nematode has brought beech leaf disease to the state
The idea of offering economic incentives for companies to move to or grow in Connecticut has usually been viewed as a necessary evil. Even supporters of programs like former Gov. Dannel P. Malloy’s First Five, which lavished millions of dollars on companies that may have had no intention of …
Bears see our state as one big forest with houses, and bird feeders, here and there. we can co-exist.
Bats have been misunderstood, but are actually environmentally valuable.
I was very curious when entrepreneur and visionary Russell Barton took on the challenging task of turning the Litchfield jail, dating back to 1812, into a contemporary mix of retail, businesses and apartments. It wasn’t just the logistics of making the project happen, it was the fact that th…
Donald Trump said he believes the Constitution lets him do “whatever I want as President.” In over two and a half years, Trump has been a serial violator of the Constitution, unmatched by any president in American history. Just about every day he is a constitutional outlaw.
As if school districts did not have enough to worry about in the age of the active shooter drill, a threat rooted in the rise of technology has taken hold around the nation, including at Connecticut districts, that can grind activity to a halt unless a big-ticket ransom is paid.
Many factors go into creating spectacular — or so-so — colored leaves in the fall.
File this under “Who’d a thunk it” — Blackii is running for Governor of Kentucky!
Secret trials for murder, rape, and other atrocious crimes become the law in Connecticut on Oct. 1, an outrage getting less attention than a small tax increase on take-out meals from supermarkets.
The Trump administration’s plans to strip California of its strict auto emission standards have a direct effect on the air we breathe.
While state and federal efforts are beginning to deal with flavored vaping products, kids must be told of the dangers now.
By today’s sad standards, the criticism made about Gov. Ned Lamont at this week’s state Republican fundraising dinner by House minority leader Themis Klarides was only mildly rude. Lamont, Klarides said, deserves a grade of “F minus” for making state government less affordable, transparent, …
I watched the waning harvest moon in early morning swirling fog, my sneakers soaked in wet grass, trying to encourage two sleepy dogs to do their business.
A monthly increase in state jobs is welcome, but it’s the behind-the-scenes preparations that could mean the difference during the next recession.
Listening to Gov. Ned Lamont and U.S. Sen. Richard Blumenthal last week, Connecticut might have thought that government has roundly succeeded in all its important functions and now doesn’t have enough to do.
I made a quick coffee run one fine morning and on the ride home, I was so startled by an apparition directly overhead that I nearly spilled my mocha latte. A huge hot air balloon floated above the road. The colorful inflatable seemed to be moving slowly enough that I could follow it, so I be…
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Bushy-tailed and cute, able to leap from tree to tree in a single bound and raid any bird feeder ever invented, gray squirrels are omnipresent in our woods, backyards and city parks. There may be more mice in the grass, but squirrels are the rodents we see, and like.
Just like Charlie Brown perennially believing that Lucy will hold the football so he can send it sailing, we hoped to trust President Donald Trump but were let down once again.
College students face many challenges: peer pressure, difficult coursework, and for most, the responsibilities of living on their own for the first time. College students often struggle with the academic, extracurricular, and social expectations that come with the newfound freedom. Young adu…
You might think that moving back to the Northeast after living 25+ years in South Florida would have one advantage to offset the winter snow, but that one advantage was vaporized a couple years ago with the onslaught of Hurricane Sandy. Who would have expected that the deadliest and most des…
The bill of the American avocet curves up. The bill of a whimbrel turns down.
The ferocity and size of Hurricane Dorian, and devastation to the Bahamas, should leave no doubt in people’s minds that storms are getting more severe. They also are more frequent.
For decades, going back at least to the state Supreme Court’s decision in the school financing case of Horton v. Meskill in 1977, the big thinkers in Connecticut’s public life and the virtue signalers in the General Assembly have complained that municipal property taxes are too high. As a re…
I have been waiting until I lose 25 pounds before I post a new “selfie” on Facebook. I’m doing daily exercises, a combined hour-and-a-half of fast walking in two venues, eating veggie burgers and, Lord help me, kale salads. Nevertheless, it’s painfully slow, albeit measurable, progress. Then…
Black-legged ticks we know — the disease-spreaders, the bearers of bad bacteria when they fasten on for a blood meal.
The issue: Numerous measles outbreaks this year, including in nearby New York, generated alarm about the sometimes deadly disease that by the year 2000 seemed eradicated. But as parents sought exemptions to state laws requiring immunization before children can attend school, measles resurfaced.
Nearly every day, it seems, brings another example of Attorney General William Tong reaching far beyond Connecticut’s borders to take action on something national in scope. This has earned him a reputation early in his term as someone for whom — as was once said of a former longtime holder o…
One company I have been boycotting very successfully over the years is Hobby Lobby. My memory isn’t what it used to be, but I know they were involved in some kind of Supreme Court case that I would have been on the other side of, so I never go to Hobby Lobby.
Granted, summer is ending. But the goldenrod — brighter, more yellow than the sun — is letting loose across the countryside. Before the world gets all brown and gray, we get this blaze, amid the deepening shadows, to hold us over until spring.
“A rose by any other name,” the poet says would smell as sweet. However, we should never forget that naming is essential. No one appreciates this more than journalists and philosophers who are in the business of correctly naming people, things and ideas.
According to Wikipedia: “‘Carry That Weight’ is a Beatles song that was released on Abbey Road and part of the long, climactic medley that closes the album. It features vocals from all four Beatles (a rarity in their songs). The middle bridge, featuring brass instruments, electric guitar and…
Why can’t we have not-nice things?
Our vehicles talk back to us all the time, and newer models are particularly garrulous. Ding-ding-ding: You forgot to fasten your seat belt. Ding: You’re swerving, even slightly, out of your lane. Ding: Your emergency brake is on. Ding: Your trunk is not latched tightly.
Name an environmental problem and somewhere, wildlife suffers.
I see things differently than most people. Literally. I have a vision condition called strabismus which causes each eye to operate independently of the other. It causes havoc with parallel parking but otherwise I have no way of knowing how “normal” vision processes what it sees.
Congress can overturn the abuses of Big Pharma and its “pay or die,” subsidized business model for its drugs.
How disappointing that the leadership of the Republican minority in the U.S. House of Representatives has dismissed peremptorily Connecticut Rep. John B. Larson’s legislation to keep Social Security solvent for a century while improving benefits. Though the bill seems likely to pass the Hous…
Mass shootings are a part of American life. They occur with numbing regularity, and can happen at nearly any venue imaginable. The past few years have seen mass shootings at churches, shopping malls, outdoor concerts, restaurants and schools.
I don’t know who gave me this fanciful Asian-motif address book, but I have had it forever, it seems. Someone must have given it to me (my Aunt Mary?) Looks like something she would have gifted at Christmas or a late teen’s birthday, and most of the listings are after I left home in Connecticut.
Thank you for Tour success
Government is good at two things: waging stupid wars and distributing money. This should be examined closely in light of the clamor from Democrats for “Medicare for all.”
State environmental groups claimed some victories in the 2019 legislative session, though they weren’t as broad as advocates might have hoped. Connecticut has made progress on its many environmental challenges over the years, even as new dangers — or at least dangers that were not previously…
Sirius rises late in the dark, liquid sky
