Conspiracy theorists: You were right about oil prices

Before we get to the headlined matter, I want to lend my voice to those who are, or should be, shouting congratulations to the pilot who set down that crippled jet in the Hudson River yesterday (Jan. 15, 2009).

Despite the headline in the New Haven Register (for shame), it wasn't a crash or anything like it. It was a well-controlled ditching that kept the 155 souls on board that plane alive and, by the way, who knows how many on the ground from death or injury. Jets glide like rocks, and the pilot,  Chelsey "Sully" Sullenberger, deserves our praise and adulation for putting that plane, loaded with fuel, passengers, luggage and who knows what else, down in the river ever so gently.

It's said a good landing is one you can walk away from. The splash-landing was expertly executed and everybody got out safely. I hope the new president pins a great big medal on this guy. He deserves it. These people who fly us around deserve the big bucks we seem driven to give to people who can bounce a ball while running or can emote while spouting lines written by somebody else.

Page 2 -- Back to the conspiracy

Did you see" 60 Minutes" last Sunday? If you did, then you know that all of us who said the run-up in oil prices had little if anything to do with market forces were quite correct. The experts interviewed for that broadcast said that, if anything, prices of oil would have gone down last year if market forces alone were controlling the market.

The run-up was 99 1/2 percent due to speculation. One guy said it was like a fly on an elephant. Speculators were buying the oil, flipping it for huge profits and so on. It was all paper gains. Some companies, like Morgan Stanley, actually took possession of the oil and, according to CBS, are storing some of it in New Haven.

It's not like in the 1970s, when ships filled with oil were anchored in Long Island Sound to keep supply away from the market. This is all paper. You know, a Ponzi scheme like Bernie Madoff's, except the folks who got hurt were the ones who were holding to oil futures when the air went out of the market. Some people bought oil for $60 a barrel and sold it for $140. And some johnny-come-latelies bought it for $140 and unloaded for $50. If you can get hold of the "60 Minutes" segment, do so. It'll do your little conspiratorial heart good.

Page 3

I know this will do absolutely no good, but I have to get this off my chest.

I am upset about people who cross streets when and where they feel like it, and traffic flow and their own safety, it seems, be damned.

I have a little something to say to bicyclists as well. 

This seems to happen on Whalley Avenue east of the Fountain Street split.

People wander across the street in the middle of the block. I say wander because they saunter across the street, daring motorists not to slam on their brakes to avoid them.

If you are one of these people, or know one, please keep this in mind: It is the law in Connecticut that drivers have to stop at crosswalks to let pedestrians walk. In other words, genius, if you walked the few yards down to the corner, the cars would have to stop for you. It's the law. The pedestrian doesn't have the right of way otherwise. 

Just walk down to the corner to cross and everyone will get home safely.

I've noticed that some of our bicyclists riding during snowstorms. The letter of the law may be with you, but it's really a dumb thing to do. Riding on sand is tough enough, but snow and ice has to be exponentially harder. It's tough on drivers, too. It's just stupid. 

Yeah, yeah, I know New Haven wants to be a town where drivers, walkers and bikers can coexist, and most of the time I'm all for that. I used to ride from Westville to Sargent Drive in the dark when I worked at the Journal-Courier and Register.

Just because you can do a thing doesn't mean it's the right thing to do. 

Page 4

I have a question. There were news reports out of Gaza yesterday about how an Israeli star shell exploded over a U.N. warehouse full of food and medical supplies and set it on fire.

My question is: If the people in Gaza are starving for food and medical supplies, why is there a warehouse full of these things? Why aren't the U.N. people handing them out, or the Hamas people taking them and handing them out? Why are they still in the warehouse? Why is the U.N. complaining about not having supplies to hand out if there is a full warehouse?

Page 5

It looks like there will be some snow Saturday night and Sunday so, if you are out and about, please be careful.

Have a great weekend and, for those in the Tribe, a great Shabbos.

Until next time...

A few thoughts before the snow

Happy Friday. It's been a busy week around here, both with work and volunteer stuff. 

It's also been a worried week, what with the war in Gaza going on with no end in sight. In fact, at this point, it's probably better to let the Israelis clean up the mess the Bush democracy-at-any-price strategy made with getting the Hamas elected in the first place.

A letter writer to the New York Times had an interesting point. "The citizens of Gaza knowingly elected a gang of extremist thugs that opts for war at every turn and puts its own civilians on the front lines. With freedom comes responsibility. When the people elect war, they get war. The Israelis have been very clear that they would continue to maintain a blockade until Hamas recognizes the Jewish state's right to exist. Again, if Gaza elects rejectionism and belligerency, complaints against the logical consequences ring hollow," writes a person from New Mexico.

"If all children of refugees decide to take up arms because they do not choose to be where they have found themselves, most of the world would be at war," the writer said.

Another writer said:"Perhaps the fact that Israel looks to protect its citizens with sirens and bomb shelters while Hamas, in turn, shelters itself by hiding among innocent civilians has more to do with the resulting death tolls than the actual force used," writes another.

Page 2

It's late and I need to prepare for the Sabbath, but if I don't complain about something, my readers might think it's not really my blog.

Just a question: Why do cashiers at supermarkets insist on wrapping your change, coupons and receipts into around each other, hand this mess back to you while you are trying to put your grocery bags into your cart, and then look at you as if you are slowing down the line? 

I really do want an answer.

Page 3

I'll never forget the headline in the Journal-Courier of New Haven, "Brutal Weather Headed OurWay" I'll not identify the author because he's still laboring for a newspaper in the state (not New Haven). Of course, people who saw that headline were picking up their papers on a sunny, warm winter's day. 

So I won't carp too much about the weather headed toward New Haven. But those who care should know that the Our Place Cafe and the rehearsal of the Mizmor L'Dovid Boys Choir, both scheduled for Saturday night, are canceled. We're supposed to get up to 10 inches of snow, starting Saturday afternoon and ending Sunday morning.

The weather people haven't been too accurate lately...it was supposed to be warm Wednesday. And some of these people should be wearing red noses and large shoes. When you act like a clown, you should dress like one.

Anyway, stay safe, have a great weekend and for those in the Tribe, a great Shabbos. The snow should hold off until after services on Saturday, but you may want to daven Mincha early in the afternoon.

Until next time...

Some newspapers are saved; others are not

It looks as if a buyer has been found for the Bristol Press and New Britain Herald. That's a cause for muted celebration, muted not because of the success for the five central Connecticut papers included in the deal, but for those in the New Haven area not included.

The buyer, Michael Schroeder, said he will keep both papers running at their current schedules. The deal includes the weekly Wethersfield Post, Rocky Hill Post and Newington Town Crier.

What it doesn't include is the group of local weeklies in the New Haven area that were gobbled up by Journal-Register, the publisher of the Herald, Press and New Haven Register. The Journal-Register then just regurgitated them and tossed them into the trash when they proved too expensive for the company's reduced means. 

The self-serving release put out by Journal-Register about the sale didn't point that out. It said the company had tried really hard to sell the central Connecticut papers. That's like saying that a homeowner facing foreclosure tries really hard to sell the home rather than have to give it up for no gain. I hope the Journal-Register isn't too disappointed about not getting a gold star for its efforts.

I started out at the Wethersfield Post more about 40 years ago, back when it was owned by Chris Larsen, a son of Roy E. Larsen, one of the founders of Time, Inc. Daddy bought Chris the papers that would later be called Imprint, Inc., including the Post, Town Crier, West Hartford News and a couple of other papers and a printing operation in Hamden. Unlike Journal-Register, Larsen didn't bite off more than he could chew, at least not then, and took at vicarious delight in the lives and loves of the veritable children he hired to run his papers.

It was a good time and I learned a lot, not from Larsen, but from colleagues and competitors. 

It's a shame when any newspapers go down. It's a boon to the cities of New Britain and Bristol and to the towns of Newington, Wethersfield and Rocky Hill. I hope they can get the backing of their advertisers and, especially, their readers.

The author of a comment on the Bristol Web version of the sale story said he'd now have to start buying the paper rather than get his news free from the Internet version. A lot of his friends and neighbors will have to, and should, do the same. These papers may not be great, but they are a great deal better than nothing.

Page 2

Just how dumb are the Bushies, who now have less than two weeks left in their jobs?

We reported before that they turned down the request of the new president to move into Blair House, across from the White House, so his kids can start school on time. He had to move into a hotel.

Now it come out for whom he was turned down. The former prime minister of Australia. It seems our soon-to-be-former president will be giving the presidential Medal of Freedom to the former Aussie leader for sticking with us on Iraq. So, the Aussie reserved Blair House for a day. Instead of sending this former official to the Hay-Adams Hotel for a day, the Bushies told the Barack Obama family there was no room at the manse. 

So, Obama moved into the Hay-Adams. Laura Bush said Blair House also had some other events on the calendar. Right. So, on Jan. 21, the Obamas will be moved into the White House, the Bush family will head out of town and these former Bushies who turned down the Obamas will be seeking new employment. If they have any sense at all, they'll be seeking such employment in other than Washington or the federal government. 

Page 3

It's amazing how much I agree with New York Times columnist Thomas L. Friedman these days. Read his column in today's Times. 

Before New Year's, I wrote a posting about the war in Gaza. Some of you wrote back, mostly expressing horror at the growing casualties and saying that peace was better than war. I agree, but not when you are being shot at. 

Look, I know I'm not going to get many of you to agree that Israel is right in going after Hamas tooth and nail. One of you suggested that I talk to Gazans. I have. I have been to Israel a number of times and have spoken with Palestinians and with Jews there. 

Most of them just want to make a living for their families, just as we do. The problem is this Hamas has been placed in charge of a large number of them. The Bush administration must answer for that. It mindlessly pushed for democratic elections when the outcome was clear to anyone who knew anything about the Middle East. So now, Hamas is in charge and the other Palestinian group, Fatah, is weak. 

How about a few tips in following the war. For example, when you see a gun-camera shot of a bomb hitting a building, watch for secondary explosions. That means there is ordinance in the building, which is probably why Israel was bombing it in the first place.

If the United Nations or the Red Cross complains about Israelis bombing their facilities, find out if Hamas people were shooting from there or if they had hidden ordinance there and why the U.N. or other group didn't complain to them. A clue: If they did complain, they wouldn't be around to ask. Also, ask about the lack of tooth-gnashing about suicide bombings in Iraq that killed hundreds just in the past few days.

Or better yet, ask your friends who have served in Vietnam or Bosnia or Iraq or Afghanistan how less dead you are if you're shot to blown up by a 14-year-old kid or an old woman with a gun or bomb.

William Tecumseh Sherman said it best: War is all hell. If you keep throwing rockets at Israel, it's going to come down on you like the wrath of God. And that's what's happening. In the last 60 years, civilians have suffered and died in Germany, Italy, Japan, Russia, Poland, Hungary, Romania, Greece, Korea, Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, Bosnia, Serbia, Iraq, Afghanistan, Spain, Great Britain and the United States of America because of war or act of war. It's an incomplete list by half. 

In 2005, Israel left Gaza, hoping to prevent more casualties. The Gazan government, Hamas, reacted by tearing down much of the infrastructure left behind and throwing rockets and mortar shells at Israel. 

It's dangerous for the Gazans to get rid of Hamas. Some will be tortured and killed, It was dangerous for the Poles, Czechs, Yugoslavians, Baltic nations to get rid of the Soviets. Many died. But in the end, they won their freedom. The Gazans must do the same to the Hamas and their Iranian handlers.

Until next time...

 

A few hopes for the coming year

Here it is: New Year's Eve and the end of 2008, thank heaven.

First of all, a heartfelt thank you to the steady readers of this posting. The thanks go double to all of you who have taken the time to write a comment about what I've had to say. I've agreed  with many, disagreed with some, especially about Israel. But I appreciate the fact that most have been honest and express true feelings.

Last year, I set down some hopes for this year. Some of them actually came true -- such as electing a president and Congress who will actually have the good of the nation at heart. I know, I know, it's early, but at least Barack Obama and the Democrats are talking a good game.

We also may get smaller, more efficient cars and $45-a-barrel oil  actually costs less than that now. The Arabs still think they can push Israel into the sea, and the Palestinians, especially those in Gaza, are still willing to die for that forlorn hope.

Finally, those in the mortgage industry are not being punished, as I hoped they would. The government is giving billions to those who didn't care or messed up. Those who kept up with their payments, no matter how difficult that was to have become and how much sacrifice that would take, are left to their own devices. No good deed goes unpunished, I guess.

So, how about next year. 

Hope one: President Barack Obama is as good as his word and all the Democrats in the House and Senate, plus a few Republicans who love their country more than their party, will get together and start to clean up the economic and political mess left them by Bush-Cheney and the do-nothing administration. 

Hope two: The rest of the world will forget the last eight years and remember that the U.S. has stood for what is good. We can again be a force for right and justice. The America Firsters were wrong in 1917, 1940 and are wrong now. We need to be the moral compass of the world...the United Nations certainly isn't doing it.

Hope three: That this nearly-trillion-dollar shot in the arm we are giving the economy spurs some improvement and fast. Those who saved for their retirement found that much of their savings has gone away because of the flight from the equity markets. The Roosevelt maxim that "We have nothing to fear but fear itself," is as true now as it was during the Great Depression. If credit is loosened, people will begin to buy again. If the investors who run the markets stop being afraid of this or that or the other, maybe some of the people who saved their whole lives to be able to enjoy their retirement will be able to do that, rather than have to choose between food and medicine.

Hope four: People start to realize that Thomas Jefferson was right: you cannot have a functioning democracy without a strong, free press. The right-wing ideologues who inhabit the radio and Fox News Channel are not a free, fair press.  

We have allowed big business to take over the news business. The Tribune Co., with real estate mogul Sam Zell at the helm, is down at the head and sinking fast. While Sam Zell's losing a fortune is him getting his just desserts, taking some of the nation's, and the region's, premiere news sources down with him is dangerous. 

Ditto to the Journal-Register Co., a group who thought their house of cards would never blow over. Well, it has. While the New Haven Register, Middletown Press and Register-Citizen papers limp along, newspapers in New Britain, Bristol and a number of weeklies have but days to live. Sucking down  longtime nameplates like the Hamden Chronicle, West Haven News, Branford Review, Clinton Recorder and others down as it sinks is indefensible. 

Look, news is special, it's important and where you get it is important. You can't count on bloggers who don't know the difference between fact and rumor for news. News must come from sources like The New Haven Independent, where each story is vetted by an editor. Facts must be checked, fairness analyzed and importance determined. Weak as they are, the New Haven Register, Connecticut Post, Hartford Courant and New London Day are important.

Hope five: And thanks for staying with it this long. We need to expect more from our leaders locally. Is the mayor doing the job for New Haven and not pandering to what he feels is his base? Is the Board of Aldermen fulfilling its mandate as an independent check and balance on the mayor and the administration? Is the school board doing its job, not pandering to the loudest voices? Are those who pay the taxes being heard and fairly represented and not being bled dry? Ask yourselves these questions. If the answer is yes, then fine. If not, then do something about it. Attend meetings. Don't be afraid of being called an "ist". Talk up. Run for office. 

Again, thanks for reading. Let's hope that this year is not as bad as predicted so that those of us who have worked hard and done the right things can start enjoying the fruits of our labor and those who have not can find the way, through education, to begin. 

Happy new year to all.

Until next time in the new year...

When you defend yourself, you don't hold back

The Israelis have begun a long-overdue response to the unprovoked, dastardly and cowardly rocket attacks on its civilian population by Hamas from inside Gaza. 

For months, even while spouting propaganda about a ceasefire, the Iranian-backed Hamas has fired rocket after rocket into Israel. The latest bombardment used longer-range rockets that can target large population areas. Israel could not sit on its hands.

Most rational people will agree with those statements, but some are saying that Israel's response was disproportionate. Hamas fired off many rockets and mortars, and then Israel came back like an avenging angel, dropping bomb after bomb and firing missile after missile. It looks as if Israel will go back into the area that it left three years ago, at least for a little while.

Some people, however, say that Israel's response is disproportionate.

Let's look at that. 

Is it disproportionate to use whatever force you have available to stop an enemy from harming your civilian population? Isn't the protection of its citizens a primary duty of any government, be it city, state or national? 

A little runt goes after the big guy, kicking him in the shins, hitting him from the back, telling lies about him, making his life miserable or worse. When the big guy finally has had enough and hauls off and cleans the runt's clock, it is disproportionate?

When I was 16 and my sister was 10, she was being bothered by a kid a year or two older. He was bothering her at the school bus stop. One day, I made it my business to be at the bus stop because she had complained about this little twerp's bothering her. 

When I arrived, he was sitting on his bicycle and had her pinned up against a fence. I told him to knock it off. He asked what I was going to do about it. I told him I would throw him over the fence. He said he wasn't going to get off his bike, so I wouldn't be able to carry out my threat.

Well, it so happened that I had gone out for football that year and I was in pretty good shape. So, I picked up the bike, with him on it, and tossed both over the fence. As my sister and I walked away, he was crying and screaming threats. Needless to say, he never bothered my sister again.

Was that a disproportionate response?

The point is if you attack someone who can wipe up the floor with you, then you shouldn't be surprised if they do just that. 

What should Israel do? They tried talking. They used their own soldiers to pry its citizens out of their homes in Gaza and gave Gaza to the Palestinians. What did the Palestinians do? They used Gaza as a base from which to attack Israel.

Should Israel count the number of rockets and mortar shells fired from Gaza and fire only that number back at Gaza. Most of the rockets used by the Hamas against Israel are not guided. The gunners have no idea where the rockets will go and couldn't care less. They have killed their own people in Gaza with errant rockets. They don't seem to care? Should Israel do the same?

At the same time that Israel is targeting Hamas bases and rocket pods, it is allowing food, medical supplies and fuel into Gaza so the civilian population will be harmed as little as possible. This is not the action of a cruel tyrant state.

The Palestinian population must realize that its election of Hamas as the ruling entity in Gaza is the worst mistake it has made and  it must do something about it. It will take guts to toss out the ruling Hamas thugs. Until the Palestinians living in Gaza do that, however, they will continue to be the pawns in a chess game directed not by their elected representatives, but from Tehran and Damascus.

The Palestinians are the ones being hurt by the Hamas and its Iranian rulers. And they are being hurt disproportionately.  But only they can free themselves. 

Until next time...

Some hopeful signs for the new year

Happy Boxing Day. 

Well, Christmas is over, and with it those horrible Target ads with bad poetry and people gushing as if they swallowed too many happy pills. Target wasn't the only one with horrible ads urging people to give (read buy) for the holiday, but they were so frequent. I may boycott Target for a month or so.

It's part of what my friend The Rev calls the rank commercialism of a holiday meant to bring hope to the masses. 

The only hope we seem to read about is the hope by merchants that the weeks between Thanksgiving and the end of the year will bring in sufficient business to make up for a  lackluster year. Today, merchants are hoping that people will return gifts they didn't like, trade up for more expensive ones and buy things they had hoped to receive but did not. 

It looks as if those hopes will be dashed. In some cases, it's Darwinian -- extinction of those who are not fit to survive. Case in point: I was in a store buying a handmade gift for a Christian friend. I spotted something I didn't really need but would have liked to have. It was priced at $40...a bit rich for my purse, but within range. Three times, I mentioned that to the storekeeper...asking him how much the item cost. Now, this guy had a going-out-of-business sign in the back of his store. My wife and I were the only customers in the place.

In many societies, and in the minds of smart merchants, my bringing up the item and the price three times would have signaled a willingness to purchase the item, but for a lower price. It should have begun a bargaining process and likely would have resulted in a sale. But he didn't get it, and I didn't buy it. 

Page 2

In six days, it will be 2009. 2008 has been a horrible year for a lot of people, including those who were counting on investments to get them through their retirement years or enhancing their incomes. People with mortgages they could barely afford are finding that they can't afford them at all. People who had followed the rules, bought houses they could afford and who were struggling to keep up with their payments while paying $4-plus a gallon for gas, shelling out more for food and clothes and education for their families, are finding themselves left out of the freebie benefits pond. 

Money seems to be going to those who bought houses they knew or should have known they could not afford, or who took out the equity in their homes to buy cars, vacations or pay off credit cards with tax-deductible money, counting on the rocketing housing market to keep on going forever. 

But there is hope on the horizon. The election of Barack Obama should bring relief to those who don't own oil companies or know people who do. Fuel prices have come down, so you can now fill up your car for $20 (notice I didn't say SUV), heat your home without selling your eldest child and buy food at more reasonable prices (unless you need to eat kosher meat, then all bets are off.)

Among hopeful signs: The Lebanese Army found and dismantled eight Hisbollah rockets aimed at Israel. A couple of years ago, that would not have happened. One notices that the people at the nearby United Nations post did nothing. Useless United Nations -- that's a redundancy. 

Another very hopeful sign is the realization by banks and other mortgage holders that they need to be part of the solution after being a large part of the problem.

According to a friend who knows of these things, banks and others are taking the initiative to stave off foreclosures. In one example, a mortgage-holder lowered the interest rate on a trouble mortgage, lowered the payments and transferred the amount in arrears to the end of the mortgage period, bringing the loan current. That's not an isolated incident, my friend said. 

Congratulations to the banks involved. It's smart business. You should tell people you are doing this....it's great public relations and corporate citizenship.

Page 3

I have stopped sending e-mails or letters to the editor to the New York Times. But if I did, it would read something like this:

In your well-reasoned editorial on immigration in the edition of Dec. 26, you used the kosher slaughterhouse at Postville, Iowa, as an example of how the current immigration strategy hurts immigrants. 

The people who ran that operation should suffer the worst fate that could be imagined. No thinking person could debate that.

But why is this one business singled out constantly? There are many, many other slaughterhouses that transport illegal immigrants into this country, but them to work in hellish conditions, offer attractive women better working condition in return for sexual favors, assign children to dangerous work. None of these nonkosher businesses are mentioned in stories or editorials. Why are Jews mentioned as the only examples of these travesties? 

Page 4

In a couple of days, Len'sLens will offer its second annual hopes for the new year list. Stay tuned and rest up. 

Have a great weekend...rest up from the shoveling, the caroling, the gift opening and the commercial-watching retching. And to those in the Tribe, a great Shabbos, and a happy Hanukkah .

Until next time...

That was the week it was

Happy Monday and Happy Hanukkah (the official AP Stylebook spelling) to all in the Tribe.

This past week, friend wife has been a bit under the weather, and then the weather was a bit under the weather. More about that later.

On Monday, my wife began what she called her never-ending birthday celebration, which actually ended on Friday. 

As part of the celebration, we saw the Capitol Steps on Thursday at the Shubert. It turned out to be a fund-raiser for Christian Community Action (CCA), which made it that much more special. 

If you haven't seen Capitol Steps, try to catch their act. It's political satire with a beat, and these folks are funny with a capital FUN. They harpooned everything from the Clintons to Sarah Palin to, of course, W. 

But almost as funny was one of the introducers. 

The Platinum Sponsor of the event was the Stratton Faxon law firm, which, by the way, also is the prime sponsor of the Labor Day road race in New Haven. These guys give away more than 10 percent of their fees to charity. That's great and they should be commended for it.

They should, however, spend a little bit for communications consulting (at the Word Hive Communications LLC, we'd be happy to help). 

Stratton Faxon's business is plaintiff's law. Some of the practitioners of this are known, somewhat uncharitably, as ambulance-chasers, and the public tends to paint the entire industry with a broad brush.

One of the partners of Statton Faxon took the stage, before the Capitol Steps came on, to help introduce the troupe and take a bow for being the prime sponsor. That's fine. There was a banner hung in front of the background curtains with the firm's name on it, at least as big as CCA's banner. So far, no problem. You pony up the big bucks, you deserve to take a bow.

But the lawyer took it bit too far. He launched into a long defense of plaintiff's lawyers and tried to explain and justify the famous case of a woman who got a multimillion-dollar judgment from McDonald's  over spilled hot coffee. 

Look, if you need to justify your business, maybe you shouldn't be in it. Any firm that gives as much of its income to charities as Stratton Faxon doesn't have to justify itself. People that good-hearted aren't the type who go to accident scenes and hand out business cards. 

Everybody knows, or should know, that plaintiff's lawyers have a purpose and the good ones do a service to people who are getting stepped on. 

A little free advice. Next time, take your bow, say you were happy to do whatever it was that you did, smile and sit down.

If it ain't broke, don't fix it. 

Page 2

Another raft of news sources have been stilled and another diminished this past week.

The weekly newspapers owned by the Journal-Register Corp. will close, its staff out of jobs and another source of oversight over the doings of local government is or soon will be gone. 

No matter how weak they had become, these weeklies were a source of news people needed to know and news people wanted to know. You'll notice comments at the end of the Independent story, much of which is a lot of carping about the lack of hard news in the papers. 

Some of it, I'm sure, is justified, but a lot of it translates to, "they didn't report the news I'm interested in in the way I want to see it." Many Independent readers are local-news junkies who aren't interested in the chicken-dinner events that, like it or not, are what many if not most weekly-paper readers look for. 

The watchword in most newspapers, aside from the New York Times and national publications of that ilk, is for local-local news, and that's what weeklies give. Staffs work long, long hours for low pay and few benefits. There used to be satisfaction, but most of that is gone because so many weeklies are owned by chains that shouldn't have bought them in the first place. The chains bring in some hotshot from Kansas who tells you how to cover local news in Branford or Hamden or Guilford or Milford.

In addition, Channel 8, the local ABC affiliate that also does news shows for My9, a station that shares facilities with WTNH and does a 10 p.m. newscast, has laid off a number of  news staffers. The Late 8, as they have been known for decades, has been doing what many local TV stations do. The programming is: If It Bleeds, It Leads; Press Releases; Read the Local Paper; Localize Feeds From Network.

Add this to the problems being faced by the Tribune Co., which owns The Hartford Courant and the New Haven Advocate, as well as WTIC-TV, Channel 61 in Hartford, and you have a bleak future for news in Connecticut. 

Page 3

I know this is going to sound petty, especially for those who live on streets that have hardly seen a plow or evidence of one's passage, but I would like to thank all the plow drivers who work on wide streets such as mine. 

In fact, there was one who was so dedicated that he stopped his plow in front of my house, backed up, ran his plow the length of my yard, then backed up another time, just to make sure that enough snow and huge chunks of ice were dumped on my freshly shoveled sidewalk and driveway.

My street is as wide, if not wider, than major thoroughfares such as Fountain Street, Whalley Avenue, Whitney Avenue and The Boulevard. Why, in this time of restricted budgets, curb-to-curb plowing is necessary is beyond me. I once stopped a plow driver who had just dumped a bunch of snow into the driveway I was shoveling out and asked him that question. He said he was ordered to plow from curb to curb and told he could lose his job if he failed to comply.

I know the fact that my street is one that the mayor drives on his way home has nothing to do with this situation. 

Anyway, I just wanted to say thanks. 

Until next time...