Terry Cowgill

Raining on Ford’s Funeral

[Photo of President George W. Bush with President Ford and his wife Betty on April 23, 2006, courtesy the White House. According to Wikipedia, it is the last known public photo of Ford.]

Amid the copious accolades being heaped upon President Gerald Ford during the period of mourning following his death earlier this week, here is a dissenting view.

Hitchens has a pretty good reputation for getting his facts straight (even if he is a persistent and vociferous supporter of our involvement in Iraq).

Of course, Hitchens’ piece comes on the heels of the release of an embargoed 2004 interview with Bob Woodward in which Ford disagrees with Bush’s justification for marching into Iraq (even while publicly supporting it). Hmm … I wonder if Hitchens felt inspired.

Full disclosure: I happen to like Ford and have even revised my long-held view that his pardon of Nixon was a travesty.

Theatre Groups Gets $

Note: I have been unable to get my story on the theatre group up on the news section of our website and so (for the time being) am posting here.

FALLS VILLAGE — Many questions were raised about the deal, but voters gave overwhelming approval at a town meeting last night to a $25,000 donation from the town to a nonprofit children’s theatre group interested in finding a home.

By a margin of 72-8, taxpayers gave the go-ahead to the Board of Selectmen to make the donation to the Falls Village Children’s Theatre Company, which wants to buy the old Emerson building for use as a theatre and as a community center for town activities.

Still, skeptics asked pointed questions to First Selectman Pat Mechare about the town’s long-term commitment to the theatre group and what happens to the money if the deal to buy the 100-year-old building falls through or if additional funds cannot be raised for the needed renovations.

The town will not have ownership of the building, but the selectmen have been told that the theatre group will approach the board for a yearly grant of several thousand dollars to help maintain the building, Mechare said. In response to another question about operational costs, she added that “at this point we have not been asked to pay the utilities.”

Continue reading Theatre Groups Gets $…

A New England Holiday Event

Update 8:55 p.m. The motion to give the theatre company the $25,000 passed by an overwhelming margin, 72-8. The naysayers asked some tough questions but First Selectman Pat Mechare was ready. Check tcextra.com tomorrow for a full news story.

I’m just about to take off to cover a town meeting in the Northwest Corner during my vacation. It’s not exactly how I envisioned spending the holidays, but this should be interesting.

The Falls Village Children’s Theatre Company has its eyes on the old Emerson building smack in the center of town. Click here to read a news story I wrote on it last week.

The theater company would like to use the building as a theater for its own productions and as a community center that could be used by other organizations in the town. That sounds great, of course.

But the potential controversy lies in the fact that the town’s Board of Selectmen and Board of Finance want to give the company $25,000 toward the $150,000 purchase of the 100-year-old building. Hence the need for a town meeting to approve the allocation.

Continue reading A New England Holiday Event…

You Don’t Need A Wedding Like This

A friend posted this video scene on his blog. Strangely, I had never seen Four Weddings and a Funeral. If you’ve already enjoyed the 1994 British comedy, then you might want to refresh your memory. If you haven’t, be prepared to laugh out loud.

Region One: No Future Without Kids

Nice column today by Hartford Courant writer Rick Green, who has picked up on the shrinking school age population in the Northwest Corner and the need for affordable housing.

When he first embarked on his new career as a columnist earlier this year, Rick visited The Lakeville Journal and got an earful about our concerns. And Rick and I have exchanged emails on the topic over the last couple of months.

To his credit and unlike most people in Hartford, Rick has shown a great deal of interest in the exodus of the working class from Litchfield County. Maybe this will help get the attention of the Capitol focused on our problem here. We can only hope.

Can Sandy “B” Saved?

[Photo of President Clinton conferring with Sandy Berger and Secretary of State Madeleine Albright in 1999 at a summit in Istanbul, Turkey, courtesy Ralph Alswang]

Update 12.23.06: The inspector general’s report on Sandy Berger is now available online.

Wednesday the inspector general of the National Archives basically concluded that Millerton native Sandy Berger did what we already knew he did.

The former national security advisor to President Clinton visited the archives in 2003 in preparation for an appearance before the House and Senate intelligence committees, stuffed classified documents down his pants (and perhaps his socks), went outside for a break and hid them under a construction trailer. It was like a scene out of a French farce (minus the door slamming).

Continue reading Can Sandy “B” Saved?…

The Devil Is In The Packaging

You think being a soldier in Iraq or Afghanistan is dangerous? Then be careful when you open a holiday gift.

P.S. And speaking of shopping … Are you a greenie looking for last minute ideas? Reader Dick Paddock has alerted me to a nifty shop. The only catch is it’s in Hartford.

The Connecticut Department of Envrionmental Protection (DEP) has a store and The Hartford Courant’s Steve Grant wrote an interesting piece on it a couple of weeks ago.

“I have visited it twice and found myself fascinated with the variety of books, maps and miscellaneous merchandise they have there,” said Paddock, a local history buff and author of a Lakeville Journal series on railroads called Rail Tales.

The store is located near the state Capitol. Fortunately, you can also shop at the DEP’s online store. Hopefully, you won’t injure yourself opening any of the products. Enjoy.

The Blog Mob

“Written by fools to be read by imbeciles.”

Some people (particularly this guy from the Wall Street Journal) don’t care much for blogging or bloggers.

First of all, I will concede that Rago makes some good points about “instantaiety” and the lowering of standards. But no longer do people have to go through conventional channels (letters to the editor, a guest column, carefully screened calls on talk radio) to be heard. And that, on balance, is good for America and the world.

Note that he largely ignores the interactive quality of blogs and the ability of readers to comment, giving them a voice and a role in shaping the blog. Far from simply “gratifying the mediocrity of the masses,” blogging is an infinitely more egalitarian and less elitist form of journalism (and you know how I feel about elitism!).

I guess he’s saying we should leave it to the ponderous professional journalists and pundits to tell us what they think and give us our fix of opinion produced according to their deadlines. I think the benefits of “This is my opinion now” outweigh any problems associated with accuracy or excessive emotion.

As for blogs only attracting like-minded readers, one need look no further than Fred B and Paul B, who (happily) challenge me (and each other) on these pages at every turn. Hey, there are good blogs and bad blogs. I’d like to think this is a good one.

So blog and comment away, America!

Deanoland

Salisbury Central School 1st-grader Jacob Burcroff can’t decide whether he wants to eat the building or whether he expects a pizza to come out of it.

The hungry Jacob was at the second-grade gingerbread village last week at the school. He was presumably unaware of the controversy surrounding the planned opening of Deano’s Pizza, which is depicted (albeit with a different spelling) on the table.

Deano’s, which is located on Millerton Road next to an art gallery in Lakeville, opened last month. As my fellow LJ blogger Patrick Sullivan pointed out, only in Lakeville would the opening of a pizzeria cause a stir.

But all seems well. As predicted, art lovers also eat pizza. Or maybe not. Judith, has Deano’s had an adverse impact on your gallery?

Mew, Mew All The Way

Evidently Marshall Miles did not like my last post mentioning the inanity of the Christmas music we are beseiged with on popular radio.

“You have gone too far,” Miles said this morning on News and Views, his drive-time show on WHDD (1020-AM). “You have besmirched the name of the barking dogs.” It was a reference to my annoyance at the annual ritual of playing one of the worst Christmas songs ever to hit the air.

What did Miles do? He proceeded to play one that’s even worse. Somewhere in the bowels of his hard drive, Miles found a version of Jingle Bells performed not by barking dogs but by mewing cats.

Now you’ve gone too far, Marshall. Putting jolly canines on the air is one thing, but (with the possible exception of Blackie) cats are just pure evil. What’s next? A chorus of cobras hissing “It’s the Most Wonderful Time of the Year?”

You have ruined my Christmas. Now I will seek redress in the courts.

NP Air

Speaking of my favorite radio stations, I hear Air America and NPR are merging. Well, at least they have a similar business model: neither can stay afloat without a subsidy from like-minded benefactors.