I just finished reading part of the New York Times' science section. It had a column about what you can stop worrying about and enjoy your summer.
It included many of the things people around here tend to worry about and bother their elected officials about.
One that got to me was plastic bags. You know, the plastic bags the supermarket puts your groceries in and that set the worrywarts' teeth on edge.
Well, according to the Environmental Protection Agency, the plastic bags are better for the environment than paper bags. "They require much less energy -- and greenhouse emissions -- to manufacture, ship and recycle. They generate less air and water pollution. And they take up much less space in landfills," the Times column said.
It also debunked worries about cell phones and cancer, the total melt of the polar ice cap this year and toxic plastic bottles.
My question is: What are the worrywarts going to worry about? Seriously. New Haven considered a bill that would ban plastic bags. San Francisco and some Long Island communities have banned them. To what end? Didn't they research the problem, or was it the squeaky wheel theory of governance?
The supermarket chains are selling cloth bags for a buck. I have a couple, but must admit that I forget them more often than I remember them. But I do recycle bottles as often as possible.
That's worth something, right?
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I have been sickened reading comments in the New Haven Independent about the aftermath of the tragic death of Quinell Payne, 15, and the reaction by some of his friends. I also read New Haven Register Editor Jack's Kramer's Sunday column.
I talked about it last week. You can read those comments by going to the next post down.
Or you can go to
Many of the comments were mean-spirited, nasty. Some, like those of Kevin Ewing, were meant to heal, not divide. Good for you, sir.
Kramer said in his Sunday column that it wasn't clear whether his paper's decision not to give the race of the van driver who was savagely beaten by a gang of thugs was the right one. This is the African-American workingman whose only fault was being in the wrong place at the wrong time.
I respectfully disagree with Jack, whom I have known for the better part of 30 years.
I know that many papers have a policy not to reveal the race of a person in a story. With the racial overtones that were evidenced around town, the responsible thing to do was to nip them in the bud by letting people know race was not a factor in the assault. And let them know that fast, policy or not.
Sometimes, good sense has to prevail over policy.
In the meantime, the best thing people in that neighborhood can do is prevail upon their friends and neighbors who know the identity of the thugs who beat this driver to come forward with that information. This thing must end as soon as possible, before it really gets out of hand.
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What good is a blog if you can't use it for a happy purpose, such as to wish my daughter, Esther, a happy birthday today.
Esther, a graduate of New Haven's Sound School, Southern Connecticut State University and the master's program at Touro College in New York, is well known in town. While at school, she worked at Koffe? and Koffe? Too. She also knows many of the street people downtown, giving of herself to make their lives a little better.
She's now a resident of Manhattan, which is why you don't see her around so much anymore.
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Finally, it has really come to this.
We have sold many of our icons to people from other countries. The Chrysler Building in New York; the Empire State Building, for a while; Chrysler Corp.; Stop&Shop; many others.
But this really does it.
We sold Budweiser, for crying out loud. Budweiser. The brand that makes America America. For those who don't want to drink foreign beer like Heineken, Amstel, Bass Ale, we always had Bud. Had. What's next? Never mind, I don't want to know.
Well, at least Haagen-Dazs is still made in the good old USA. Owned by Pillsbury, but still made here. Maybe that's why the Pillsbury dough boy looks as he does.
Until next time...
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