Romeo & Juliet in Library Park

Shakesperience Productions' Second Annual Shakespeare in the Park.
Picnic on the lawn with the timeless tale of love, action, and family feud, Romeo and Juliet. Resident artists join with actors in our community to bring this classic work to life.

A unique sound design, the Waterbury Clock Tower, and a warm summer evening provide the perfect backdrop for our innovative and visceral production. Bring your own picnic or reserve a box dinner from the John Bale Book Company & Café by calling (203) 591-1801.

Library Park, Grand Street, Waterbury
Thursdays - Saturdays, June 22 - July 1st
6:30pm
Free Admission
($5 Suggested Donation)

Minimum Wage

This isn't really local news, but it certainly affects a lot of people in Waterbury. Congress voted against raising the minimum wage in the US. Minimum wage has been stuck at $5.15 an hour for nine years. Nine years. Think about it. The price of gasoline has doubled in the past three years. Over the past nine years, the cost of living overall has increased. Nine years ago, a nice two bedroom apartment in this area could be rented for $500 a month. Now it's more like $800 a month. Electricity costs more. Heating fuel costs more. I think it's safe to assume that costs will continue to rise, yet our Congress thinks it's acceptable to keep people at $5.15 an hour. If you work 40 hours a week at minimum wage, your annual income is just over $10k. Guess what? That's officially poverty! Kind of makes you wonder why anyone would bother getting a legitimate, legal job.

Meanwhile... this same month, the same Congress decided that it was perfectly okay to take their automatic pay raise of $3,300. In the past ten years, their salaries have increased 26% (according to USAToday). They give themselves 26% more, while giving the struggling poor nothing.

Flood Damage

I'm sure there's more to the story than I know about, but as I've driven through Waterbury since June 2, especially in the days immediately following the flooding, it seems like the trouble was with the city's sewer system. The places where I've seen parts of the road washed out look like the wash-outs occured along the drain system. On some streets, it was almost like sinkholes developed every place where the road had a patch (in other words, places where utility crews had opened up the road to do maintenance work). Earlier this spring, before the big June 2 storm, other heavy rain storms were pushing the sewer system past its capacities. I saw a lot of manhole covers with water bubbling out of them. This season's rains didn't seem to be particularly worse than any other year (not counting 1955!), so why was there so much damage?

Make Way

I went to Walmart about a week ago, and took the road entrance that slopes around and down, taking you directly to the Walmart. As I drove down that road, I suddenly saw a mother duck and her babies crossing the road. I stopped my car so I wouldn't risk running them down, and then I watched while the babies tried to get up over the curb. It's a relatively high curb, not a problem for the mother duck, but the little ducklings had a hard time. There were maybe a dozen of them, and for the most part they were able to swarm up over the curb by jumping up on each other's backs. The last duckling, however, had to make it up over the curb on his own. The mother duck and her swarm started walking away, but then she realized that one of her babies wasn't there. The poor little duckling was distraught and panicky. He kept jumping, but couldn't make it up over the curb. At one point, it looked like he was going to run back across the road, where they had come from. I honked my horn, and he went back to the curb next to his mother. The mama duck, realizing what the trouble was, settled down on the grass to watch and wait, while the rest of her babies squirmed around next to her. Finally, after many, many tries, the little duckling managed to scrabble up over the curb and rejoined his family.

If only I'd had my camera with me!

Deployment

Waterbury's National Guard unit is having a send-off ceremony on Thursday before they leave for Fort Dix and then Iraq. Also on Thursday, there will be assorted ceremonies in Waterbury to commemorate events from the Revolutionary War (someone dressed as George Washington will show up at the Green on horseback and give a speech, wreaths will be laid on the graves of two soldiers buried at East Farms Cemetery, etc.).

Sort of a weird coincidence of events.

Guard Deployment

About 70 National Guard members from Waterbury are about to be deployed in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom.

A send-off ceremony for the 143rd Combat Sustainment Support Battalion is scheduled for Thursday at the Waterbury Armory. The soldiers are expected to be deployed for up to 18 months.

The battalion, which deployed to Bosnia, provides support to combat-ready forces such as personnel administration support and operational and logistical support.

More than one thousand Connecticut National Guard soldiers are deployed in the U.S.-led coalition's war on terrorism.
(from WTNH)

Good luck!

Last day...

Today I move to my new apartment. Earlier in the week, AT&T assured me that my internet connection would work as soon as I moved in. A couple days ago, a different rep from AT&T called to say that DSL service is not guaranteed and that they weren't sure if I would have DSL at all in the new apartment. It's in Waterbury! in the city! not out in the boondocks! Because someone at AT&T filled out the wrong form, or punched the wrong button, or maybe because they're crazy, the earliest I will have my service restarted is on the 14th. So today is my last day with internet access at home. I'm already having withdrawal pains. Yes, I am addicted. Maybe a few days without internet will help me beat the addiction. Probably not, though. I'll just get hooked again as soon as I have DSL again.

Power Outage

Portions of downtown, most noticeably around the intersection of West Main Street and Thomaston Avenue, are without power today. I'm guessing this is why there aren't any copies of the Republican-American available anywhere in town, and why their website is down. Normally I don't buy the paper, but today is the first day I start apartment-hunting, so I was really eager to pick up a copy. Hm. Maybe if I drive up to Torrington I can find one. I think they have a separate press there.

Just before the storm...

Storm clouds rolling in from the right... lightning, thunder, torrential downpour about five minutes after this photo was shot.

First Thursday Music at John Bale

Ahab



Black Hole of Calcutta



Bela Kiss

"Civilized Disobedience"

Outdoor dining & drinking on West Main Street, courtesy of Main Street Waterbury, La Cazuela and Boru's. It started at 5pm. This photo was taken at 7:45, as a thunder storm slowly rolled up the river valley.

Intersection Improvements?

Someone from the city has marked up the area around the Willow-Pine-Johnson intersection with white spray paint. It looks like they might finally be moving forward with installing traffic lights. Or they're about to tear up the streets and sidewalks for some sort of maintenance... I hope it's traffic lights. This intersection needs help. It annoys me that the intersection of Willow and Calumet Street (way up Willow Street, in the Overlook neighborhood, with very large, expensive single-family homes) is a three-way stop, even though there's never any traffic and visibility is fine, while down on lower Willow (where it's all multi-family housing and low-income residents) where all-way stops are desperately needed, there's nothing.

I'm not convinced that traffic lights are the best solution. Given the way people drive in this city, it might make the intersection more dangerous. Drivers coming down Willow Street are going to speed up as soon as they see a yellow light. Instead of cruising through the intersection at 40mph, they'll be doing 60mph. Stop signs would be better. And cheaper. But, I suppose, traffic lights will cut down on the number of accidents and the overall frustration.

And while I'm on the topic, there are a few other intersections in Waterbury that need help. The intersection of Willow Street and Hillside Avenue is pretty tricky. The intersection of Wood and Walnut Streets is awful. If you're trying to make a left turn from Wood onto Walnut, you have to pull out far enough to get hit in order to see more than 10 feet down the road. And the intersection of Walnut Street and East Farm Street is a nightmare. If you're headed west on East Farm, it looks like you go straight onto Walnut, which means cutting across the eastbound traffic on East Farm, because they don't have a stop sign (even though it looks like they should).

I'd also like to see Waterville Street get repaved. The pot holes are so large and numerous that everyone treats the street as an obstacle course. They paved part of it this spring, but they didn't even try to patch the holes on the section of the street that gets the most usage.

Miracle Weight Loss Cure - Lose 5 Pounds Overnight!

Simply expose yourself to the stomach flu currently making the rounds. An hour spent late in the afternoon with your small niece will probably be sufficient. Wait 24-28 hours for the germs to become active in your system, then settle in for a long night with the toilet and a bucket. After 12 hours, you should see a significant drop in weight. Guaranteed! CAUTION: Miracle Weight Loss Cure can cause severe discomfort, pain, agony, loss of appetite and sleeplessness. Dehydration is a serious risk. Miracle Weight Loss Cure should not be undertaken by anyone who has a weakened immune system or is otherwise not in peak physical health.

Cookie-Cutter Politics

Thursday there was a big article in the paper about the young mayor of Torrington being pressured into removing his MySpace profile because it was deemed "inappropriate". Friday there was an article by a Torrington writer about MySpace. The writer, Bill Dunn, wrote "Mark my words, I predict that someone running for public office in the year 2036 will be forced to withdraw from the race when embarrassing comments and photos surface, comments and photos that were posted on MySpace.com during 2006."

What does this say about expectations for public officials? That they are required to fit into a tight, conservative mold? That they should never allow their private lives to be public knowledge? That they should be expected to present a public persona which is an outright lie? It's sort of like Bill Clinton saying he never inhaled--we all knew he did, and the very lame lie was far worse than the youthful exploit.

Or maybe it's like John Kerry and Al Gore modifying their public images on the advice of consultants, and then losing the elections anyway. A lot of people don't like politicians because they are viewed as being self-serving and dishonest. This certainly has been my opinion for a while. I'm beginning to understand that there are people who expect and desire that politicians lie about who they really are as human beings. This is not a healthy system, and it might very well be one of the causes of the widespread voter apathy we have in this country. Our politicians tend to all look the same, because they are all trying to fit into a mold instead of just being themselves. (Apologies for the gross generalization!)

MySpace

The local media, including the Republican American and especially WFSB (Channel 3), have been focussing a lot of attention on myspace.com lately. WFSB seems to be waging a campaign against it. Public opinion seems to be that it is the root of all evil, or close to it.

There is an internet generation gap. I'm not sure exactly what age the gap happens at, I suppose it varies depending on the person, but certainly most people over 40 seem to have a deeply rooted fear or distrust of the internet. I'm 34, and I remember when computers were introduced into the schools. There was a general sense of nervousness on the part of the adults. We were cautioned to be very, very careful, because if you did one wrong thing, you would destroy everything on the computer and possibly end existence. As far as I know, none of my classmates ever encountered any computer catastrophe worse than losing the paper they had been working on.

Most people younger than me probably can't remember a time before computers. Computers are as familiar and friendly to them as the television is to older generations. The leading complaint against MySpace seems to be the supposed preponderance of sexual predators stalking all those naive young girls. I'm pretty sure that sexual predators were around long before computers. If they weren't prowling the internet for victims, they'd be stalking them some other way. MySpace seems to do a good job of preventing crimes and/or catching perpetrators.

Personally, I really like websites like MySpace. I can't speak for everyone who uses them, but they're great for keeping in touch with friends who have moved away, or finding and reconnecting with friends you haven't seen in years. This is one of the real strengths of the internet: communication. Despite the fears of certain older people, the internet is not replacing face-to-face communication, it is supplementing it. My life is much richer and my friendships are much stronger because of sites like MySpace, Blogger, LiveJournal and just plain old email. (okay, I have to giggle here -- "plain old email" -- the newfangled becomes old hat so quickly!).

Truancy

There have been a couple of articles in the paper this week about students skipping school. The school system is now asking the police department to get involved. It sounds like skipping school will be treated as a crime. Kids can't be convinced to stay in school? send the cops after them!

When I was a kid, I think there was only one day when I flat out skipped school (that I remember... there might have been more.) I love learning and education (and I love being a teacher), but the public schools were misery. I hated going to school. It was drudgery. You were trapped in a room with a large number of other kids, and the teacher would drone on and on about the subject at hand, most of the time ignoring you, but every now and then you would suddenly be expected to provide an answer. I remember endless hours of watching the second hand spin slowly around the face of the clock on the wall. School was boring and sometimes emotionally painful. I used to fantasize about the school blowing up, imploding, or otherwise ceasing to exist so that we would all be free.

So. Based on my experience, I would guess that kids are skipping school because they think it is a waste of their time. Getting the police to force them to attend school is not going to help. I'm willing to bet it will make things worse. Now, instead of empty seats in the classroom, we'll have angry, sulking students in those seats. Fining the parents isn't going to help either. That's just going to create a more hostile home environment.

If the school system really wants to keep the kids in school, make school more interesting. Get better teachers. Find a way to reduce the classroom size to twelve students per teacher. I know it's expensive, I know everyone is moaning about high taxes (myself included), but this is important. If the public schools had a class size of no more than 12 students, the kids would be getting a better education.

If a teenager really doesn't want to be in school no matter what, then check up on their home life and make sure there aren't any serious problems. If the home life checks out okay, then let the kid drop out of school. They can always go back later if they decide they want to. It might be harder later, but they'll get more out of it. As a teacher, the last thing I want in my classroom is a student who doesn't want to be there. At best, that student is going to sleep through class or sit quietly and doodle. At worst, that student is going to disrupt the classroom and interfere with everyone else's education.

Sex Arrests Update

Police Superintendent Neil O'Leary expects that police will, by the end of this week, finally complete arrest warrants for ten men caught having sex in massage parlors (today's issue of the Rep-Am). They were busted April 27. It takes two weeks to write up an arrest warrant?

The thing that bothers me most about all of this is my personal experience with disgusting old men who harrass me when I walk down the street. There is nothing more creepy than having some skanky perv pull his car up alongside me and gesture at his groin in an effort to solicit me. I think it definitely qualifies as sexual harrassment, but I have the feeling that the police don't care. If I complain, would they be more likely to arrest me than the perv? I am not now, nor have I ever been, a prostitute. And yet I still feel like the cops would side with the perv. Or, at best, they'd say something to me like "that's what you get for walking down the street." A lot of cops working in this neighborhood definitely have an attitude that nothing can be expected to improve, so why bother. I can understand that they might be burnt out, but they still should be polite and at least pretend to not expect the worst from someone.

Stinky Trees

According to the Republican American, the trees lining Grand Street are being replaced with ginkgo trees. The old trees were faulted for getting "too big". Maybe they've selected a variant of ginkgo I'm not familiar with. I've lived in two places that had a ginkgo tree. Both trees were enormous. Both trees had the smelliest fruit I've ever encountered. Once a year, for about a month, they smell AWFUL. Like something dead and rotting. The paper says the new trees have already been delivered, so I guess it's too late to do anything. And, like I said, maybe it's a type of ginkgo that doesn't stink and doesn't grow large.

Focusing on the Sex

Today's headline news, complete with a photo of a lithe young woman in a bikini and handcuffs, was the raid of 10 massage parlors and the arrest of 29 women who work in them. The vice squad has been working on this bust for a month (according to the Republican-American), and there has not yet been a decision on whether or not to prosecute any of the men caught having sex with their masseuses. The women are all Asian and speak little English, suggesting that they are recent immigrants. The paper reported that the women slept in the same rooms in which they worked. To me, this certainly suggests that they have extremely little control over their lives. I would have liked the reporter, Ben Conery, to have focused more on this issue. The article contains far more information about the details of paying to have a masseuse double as a prostitute. The large photo of the woman in a bikini borders on the titillating, and is extremely offensive and inconsiderate if it should turn out that the woman in question is an immigrant forced to work as a prostitute.

The men who were found in the massage parlors are "cooperating" with the police and might not be charged with any illegal activity. The Waterbury police department has a track record of not charging men who solicit prostitutes. This is a horrible double standard. If exchanging money for sex is so terrible an act that it must be illegal, surely the men are just as guilty as the women. Indeed, aren't the men more guilty? If they did not go looking for the prostitutes, then the prostitution would never occur.

Worse still, if any of these women were forced into prostitution and were, in my opinion, being held in a form of slavery, then the men who frequented the massage parlors are among the lowest of the low and deserve jail time.

Given the possibilities of this case, the newspaper should have been much more balanced in its coverage.

Property Sales

On Monday there was an article in the Republican-American about properties being sold at auction by Waterbury's Office of Revenue Collection. The focus of the article was the difficulty the city has selling these properties. Some of the reasons for the difficulty include the high price of the back taxes and interest due on the properties. This is certainly a valid problem for many properties. There's not much incentive to buy a property worth $25,000 when you have to pay $75,000 in back taxes on it.

Personally, I think the main problem might be lack of information. The article in the paper mentions the difficulty that the city has in "getting the word out" about the properties for sale. Nowhere in the article is there a listing of the properties for sale this week. D'oh! A great big article about how there is a property auction this Thursday, and a complaint about how no one knows which properties are for sale, but no list of the properties. I decided to follow up by visiting the city's website to see if the properties were listed there. For a brief moment, I became optimistic -- there is a link on the Tax Collector's page to a listing for a Tax Lien Sale. The link takes you to the listing for a property sale held June 23, 2005. Good grief! Is the city so short on funds that they can't pay someone to spend five minutes uploading a document? We already have a corruption hotline; maybe it's time for an incompetence hotline....