Woodstock CT Café

by Taxpayer

I thought that the meeting went very well. It was nice to see the new Headmaster of Woodstock Academy and I was glad that he saw the issue of Woodstock education funding as a mutual K-12 concern and not an “us vs. them” situation (WA vs. WPS). I asked a few questions and got some very solid answers. One is that the Woodstock Academy field expansion is on hold (pending some zoning and environmental issues) and will not impact this year’s education budget. Other concerns I had are longstanding problems that have haunted us and Ct. education funding for years, but nonetheless, are important to raise.

So pretty much the same old same old, but compounded by a terrible economy which will make for a “perfect storm”, as Headmaster Caron called it. As Kevin can attest, this year’s budget will thus be a tough one. The BOE will continue discussing spending priorities and budgeting strategies again on this Thursday’s meeting.

 See the full analysis at JenRan Realty.com. You have to register to read Jennifer Esposito’s monthly news letter which contains a monthly Northeastern CT housing market analysis.

Sunday February 7, 2010
Woodstock East Congregational Church, 220 Woodstock Rd

Pot luck luncheon 12:30-1:30         
Business Annual Meeting 1:30-2:00

Program at 2:00 - Cordwaining:  The history and art of making shoes by hand

Sponsored by the Woodstock Historical Society
Free and open to the public

        About the Speakers:   Daphne Board, honorable cordwainer, and Lisa Davidson, honorable beginning cordwainer.  Davidson will provide a brief introduction (with photos) on the history of shoemaking in Woodstock, CT.  Board will speak about the process of making shoes by hand, and will bring along hand tools and examples of her work.

Board crafts custom-made shoes, from soft-rounded kitten heels to knee-length studded leather boots. Her mother taught her to sew when she was in her early teens.  Board spent seven months learning the almost lost craft of shoemaking from two theatrical shoemakers in Canada.  After graduating with a degree in Textile Design from Rhode Island School of Design, she spent several years making costumes for regional theatres in New England.  She also had a short apprenticeship with a milliner in London.  She now makes shoes by hand in her small studio in Holyoke, MA, under the name El Diablo Shoes.  See examples of her work online at zerkahloostrah.etsy.com. Davidson is one of Board’s students, and is also a resident and businesswoman in Woodstock.

Woodstock’s shoe manufacturing business began in 1833.  By 1845, it employed 9,825 men and women who produced more than 5 million pairs of shoes, according to The History of Windham County, CT, 1889.   In the 1930s and ‘40s, even factory-made shoes came in different widths, but modern shoes are now sized to fit a generic foot that seldom exists.  Board focuses on comfort and style that cannot be achieved on factory scale.  She values the process of creation — every shoe is made to measure for a client’s foot before a stitch of leather is sewn onto the last. The process involves cutting a pattern to fitting to a “last” (a wooden model of a foot). 

Douglas Zimmerman

Program Chair

Woodstock Historical Society

from Con

Unfortunately for supporters of Scott Brown I think because of several factors he is bound to disappoint or fail outright.

1) The pendulum always swings, it’s only the speed which changes - now it’s really moving fast. A month before election he had ‘no chance’, but Voters are fickle and demand instant gratification. This can all backfire on him - if Voters are that tough to predict and change so much so fast, what’s to prevent them from pouncing on him at first screw-up like they do with Sox players who fail?

2) More importantly, he represents something that is too big for him. That is, just like Sarah Palin, he rode to the national stage faster than most any national political figure - that is not an equation for success. He would have to be both brilliant and perfect just to live up to expectations and NOT fail. He’s neither (no one can be that perfect). Like Palin, he’ll have a lot of very smart journalists and ‘pundits’ intent on tripping him up - I would not want to be in that position. How can he win?

3) There is another team of smart and highly effective investigators who are ‘vetting’ him and his past. Again, I would not want that! Who would be comfortable - especially in this information age - knowing that every single aspect of your life and your past is under the most intense scrutiny literally in the world? The Party does not want to be surprised by some bad fact coming out; opponents would love it - BOTH have huge incentive to dig deep and find absolutely anything that exists. Again, only someone perfect could survive this.

Most Senators get to that position slowly and they learn the game through years and years of it, each year getting incrementally more challenging and both obstacles and rewards growing apace. Brown has arrived at ‘Year 12? without having gone through 12 years of ‘Senator School’ AND he is not someone like Obama who basically set out at age 3 to be President and knew what to do and what not to do.

Too much has been placed on Brown’s shoulders or coat-tails and he’s not the type to be able to handle it. November is 8 months away - that is 10 times as much Time that Brown needed to go from obscure little fish in little pond to Hero for an hour. Voters, with their tiny attention span, will turn away from him in droves and in exactly the fashion with which they turned TO him…

from Con

Thanks Con, We will heed your advice. What you say below regarding Taxpayer’s behavior is bothersome to the admins who enter the Cafe more than anyone else. It’s come down to the fact that when readers see Taxpayer’s obnoxious statements, they just pass over them with out reading them. Unfortunately, we have to read them for liability sake. Taxpayer submitted a long winded rant which he asked me not to post. This meant that we were relieved of the responsibility of having to read it. Since he said not to post it, it’s gone. You’ve said everything that is needed to be said below. Admin

To Admin, I object to your proposed action regarding Tax - you state: ” (In your typical back handed way you are mis-characterizing people. Keep it up and you will no longer have a voice at the Cafe. Admin)” [Parenthesis are sic]

It may well be that Tax mis-characterizes people, misquotes statements and otherwise manipulates the truth, but what you threaten smacks of prior restraint and I find THAT far, far more objectionable to anything Tax can offer. Of course, the answer to what Tax is accused of is to EXPOSE his actions at every turn - to challenge Tax relentlessly if he is doing any of those things. By doing so, it is the ‘free exchange of ideas’ which will expose him, punish and correct him because his credibility will drop, his ’standing’ will diminish like the shrinking man and soon his comments will not be taken seriously by ANYONE. Allow us to take care of it. Read the rest of this entry »

from Kevin

I’ve for many years struggled with a similar question (to Newcomer), how to get people to the polls? I believe that a democracy works best when the full measure of the people express their will. I don’t think that has to have anything at all to do with political parties, indeed I have never been a great fan of them.

I occasionally think on the Australian system of compulsory voting. They may not be able to force anyone to submit a valid ballot, but they have to show up at the polls. Part of me thinks this is a great thing for democracy. But the other part, the one based in strong civil libertarianism, says “Nuts to that!”

I’m left with the real question of how do we bring people to the polls to express their views? As many as we can. I’m still working on that one but no one else has it figured out either… If you come out and vote, you’re alright in my book. I know Taxpayer does and I bet we don’t always vote the same but his voting makes him OK in my book too despite our other disagreements. But I don’t think any particular party affiliation is nessesary.

I do think there is the reality that in order to be elected to any type of high office that you most likely will need to be a member of a party and Mr. Brown saw that. Even at our town level it is the town committee’s that select the people that have the best chance of winning. So in that I can see Taxpayer’s point. But at the end of the day I’m just happy to see people come to the polls and become involved, party affiliation not required.

In less than four years my service to the town will be over; you can always run for my seat then But even if you don’t that’s OK, I just hope that you continue to make your voice heard, and of course vote. I’m 100% for my political opponents voting, in fact the true test of a democracy is to let them speak and all of us decide who is right. I’ll of course be shouting out that I think they are wrong all the way…

Thanks,

Kevin

This post represents my personal opinions and in no way should be considered an official act of the BoE or that I am speaking on behalf of the BoE in any way.

This is what Cafe visitation looks like for the month of January 2010 (graphs below). The most deceiving statistic is the number of “unique visitors”. This is every unique IP (Internet path/protocol) that visits the Cafe. I am able to look at the visitors to the Cafe who have turned the most pages (by clicking the title, “more” or the comments). The thousandth visitor turned 6 pages in January. Thus, this could be a legitimate visitor from Senegal who actually reads something, or it could be someone down the road who only has a causal interest in reading at the Cafe. The point here is that this class of visitors is not ‘in and out’. The more telling stats are the total number of visitors and total page turns in January which are for-the-most-part due to repeat visitors.

The table that shows where most of the visitors came from shows a large Russian contingent. While we can dismiss these visitors as being Woodstock relevant, they are turning pages and their page turns are not due to spam (which is tallied separately as “non-viewing”). Almost 40,000 of the 72,000 page turns in January came from the USA (mostly CT); but we have visitors from most of the countries of the world accounting for the other 32,000 page turns.

We are getting referrals from non-search engine URLs like Rich Green’s page at the Hartford Courant and other CT websites such as CT Local Politics. Most of our visitors are from the US and Connecticut, but visitors come from other parts of the country to see what’s happening in Woodstock, including my son Drew in Dallas and Mariah in Virginia Beach. Then, of course, there’s the Aussie who went back to Australia and the Horse eater in southern France.

Internet traffic has declined to blogs over that last year. This is a general phenomenon not exclusive to the Cafe. As you can see in the lower set of graphs, total page turns have been steady for the last ten months with the exception of a busy June 2009 because of the referendums. Five pages is the average per visit but >1000 are turning 6 pages per visit.

I am continually amazed by the stability of Cafe visitation. If the Russians, Germans, Canadians, and others are turning pages, then I’m okay with that; but it’s the Woodstockians and surrounding communities that matter the most and we will never forget this!

by Newcomer

Your first statement (in your post #38) summarizing how I feel about this is a bit off (this is to Taxpayer). On a National level, I do feel that the political parties have separated themselves from the people they are supposed to represent. However, your second thought is not my conclusion about this; namely that “therefore the people can somehow be vanquished from taking any responsibility for their government.” This is an incorrect characterization about my position on this. In fact, I feel completely that the opposite is true. Because there is such a disconnect between the political parties and society at large, the people who are not part of this machine must come together collectively to exert their influence upon their elected officials and the political parties whom those officials represent.

Politicians like to tell us all about how they represent us when they are campaigning. But then they get into office and owe their party and so many special interests favors for getting them elected that the people end up at the bottom of the totem pole. The people need to stop tolerating this. We need to stop allowing our elected officials to put our interests last instead of first. And, no, I do not have much confidence that this can be done from the inside out (from within a political party). It’s too late for that. Both parties have grown too wealthy and too powerful and they are now locked in a power struggle with one another. This can only be done at the grass roots level, in my opinion.

You mentioned the tea party movement in a different post elsewhere in this thread. I think that movement needs to exercise caution at this point. Read the rest of this entry »

From teachref09: “Sounds like Mr. Walker could use a quick dose of “Boardsmanship 101.”  Where are all the CABE (Connecticut Association of Boards of Education)representatives who advise BOE’s? Aren’t they providing any training for new board members these days? Oh, right, you have to “request” training. And if you already know it all, what good would any expert advice serve? … Just an observation.”

from John 

I read with some amusement Anthony Walker’s Letter to the Editor of the Villager (January 29th) entitled “Walker:Education board introduces new initiatives.” But according to Walker, he’s pretty much acting on his own by writing the story in this egocentric way.

The first paragraph

…I wanted to write the town… (what about the rest of the Board)
…I was elected to the Board… (uncontested)
…I was elected chairman… (there’s another story here that I won’t go into because it would embarrass another board member)

paragraph 2:

“…I first wanted to tell everyone…” (goes without saying)
“…I have taken several steps…” (are these revolutionary?)

paragraph 3:

“…comments I heard repeatedly…” (probably from the same nay sayer minority group that repeatedly attacked and sued the BOE over the last few years).

paragragh 4:

“…I have taken…to re-engineer…” (engineering citizen participation? this will be interesting to see and hear)

“…I will also add…one additional citizen’s participation…” (this will be interesting - hopefully Powers will be taping)

paragraph 5:

“…I have taken in my role as Chairman…” (one man show?)

“…I have modified two of them (subcomittees) and created a new one…” (weren’t you in favor of less members and shorter term lengths - that referendum you lost)

paragraph 6: no “I”s

paragragh 7:

“…I felt it was important…” (what about other board members?)

paragraph 8:

“…I felt that this was…much needed…” (maybe the board should expand its size)

paragraph 9 and10:

How gracious. There were some things that the board did together (or is he just acknowledging that these other members exist).

paragraph 11:

“…I wanted to briefly mention…” (re: the $19,000 windfall from the State)

“…I encourage you to attend…” (to hear about progress in securing this 0.1% of the budget)

last paragraph:

“…excited…as I am…and that I see you…” (I think the rest of the board could also claim this)

provided by Dave Brown

See the History of Bowen’s Garage at http://www.bowensgarageinc.com/history.html 

Their dealership was sold to Oliver Bowen by Henry Ford himself!