Woodstock CT Café

from Newcomer

(I have) a completely different experience that poses what I feel is an interesting question about human behavior in our society. Hopefully others here will find it interesting as well.

It might be akin to what Becky was referring to in her post #6 above when she says, “To wax philosophical for a moment… our culture has, for the better part of the last half century, bit by bit, instilled in each of us how ’special’ each of us are. Special people needn’t bother with the rest of us. Not only is everyone special, we have also done almost everything we can to avoid explaining how things work in real life. There is no awareness of how each of us fits into the fabric of life – the structure of society.”

My family, like so many others, is having to tighten up the wallet in these tough economic times (not whining, just setting the scene here). About a week ago, a very close relative emailed me a video about a business opportunity. I dragged my feet and didn’t watch it until yesterday when her persistance got the better of me. To me, it sounded like a pyramid sales scheme veiled as a “MLM” (multi level marketing) model. I do not have a business background so I only had a vague idea that such things exist, but did not know particulars. I googled and researched these terms in an attempt to educate myself.

I came upon a very interesting article in which the author first educates the reader as to what these “business models” are and how they work. But at the end of the article, the author discusses how they are illegal and are being allowed to permeate our society anyway from politics to Wall Street, to the average Joe on the street.

Here’s the link to the article if anyone else cares to read it:

http://www.falseprofits.com/MeaningofPyramids.html

Here’s a link to the author’s website also:

http://pyramidschemealert.org/category/news/

So yesterday, as I was settling in back home after being out on a long road trip out of state for a legitimate job interview, this “too good to be true” offer falls squarely into my lap. My relative tells me how she’s making money hand over fist because she got into this early and very near the top of the pyramid. Two men co-founded the MLM in question and my relative is close friends with a friend of theirs so my relative is probably in the second or third tier of the pyramid.

So here I am, minding my p’s and q’s, trying to get a job the old-fashioned way, the kind where I get paid an honest wage for an honest day’s work, and then this whole MLM thing comes out of nowhere and clubs me in the head.

I have decided not to participate.

So the question is, what would you do if you were me? And more for public discussion, what do you think most people in my shoes would do? If you had a chance to get in to a business opportunity early, when there’s still money to be made, but you know it’s probably shady and immoral, do you toss your values and principles aside in favor of keeping a roof over your head? Or do you hold tight to your values, even if it lands you in the poorhouse?

These pyramid schemes, dressed up as legitimate business opportunities (in the form of MLM’s) are becoming mainstream. Yet the only ones who profit are those at the top few tiers and those few profit at the expense of others’ losses. Amway has been cited as one example of this kind of company. Is the founder of Amway the successful business genius he’s purported to be, or is he a carnivorous criminal? What about Usana vitamins? I know someone right here in town who got sucked into selling those and is in debt to the person one tier above her to the tune of $800.00 while the CEO’s sitting pretty.

Our culture has evolved with a “kill or be killed” mentality toward survival. So am I an idiot to take the moral high ground and not jump into this scheme near the top where I can profit off others’ investments? Am I a whimp for not getting into this dog-eat-dog scheme when I’m near-guaranteed to be the predator and not the prey? I hope I’ll at least get brownie points toward Heaven for this!

Below are three thumbnail Cafe visitor maps. Many are coming to the Cafe to read articles like my article on Gene Doping published two years ago. The map of Finland shows the location of a group of visitors from Finland all of which came to read the full article. The refering link suggests that the URL for the article was posted on Facebook … in Finland. In fact the Gene Doping article is the most read article at the Cafe followed by A Student’s article on speeding in Woodstock. Watch out for this problem at the next Olympics in London. I drove through all of these Finnish cities in 1985 and felt like I was driving through upper New England in the 1950s on the wrong side of the road. And going above the Arctic Circle was an interesting experience. In Turku at the southern tip of Finland there’s a great castle to tour through.

The global map on the right shows that most of the very recent visitors are from the US. I found out that I could expand the map in regions so the third map in the center shows the concentration of visitors in the Connecticut area. The fact is that most of our visitors come in from Woodstock which would be represented by only one balloon. We have many visitors from surrounding towns as well.

Click each map to expand and get the full picture.

This is the last film in the Zflix film festival.  It’s also the best one in my opinion.

Be there or be square!  No excuses – drag yourself there, like Doug dragged me to so many things!

BONUS!  MOVIE IS PRECEDED BY A LIVE RAPTOR SHOW!

No Kenny, raptors are not dinosaurs  (like Velociraptor.)  They are birds.  There will be a half hour educational program with live raptors, courtesy of Horizon Wings wildlife rehabilitators of Ashford, CT. They will probably bring a Kestrel, Red-Tailed Hawk and an owl. See sample of shows they do here. The raptor show is GREAT for kids.

• LOCATION: Palmer Hall, 523 Route 169, Woodstock CT 06281 (yellow brick building, past the Woodstock Fairgrounds, near the “hill”)
• TIME: 7:30 p.m.  Raptor show from 7:30 – 8, movie begins at 8.  There will be a brief intermission.
• Each film will have a brief introduction by the Woodstock Historical Society, and Larry or Bet Zimmerman. Discussion follows for those who want to stick around.

Friday July 30, 2010, 7:30 p.m.

TOUCHING THE VOID Read the rest of this entry »

Two nights ago Becki and I had dinner at Bella’s in Putnam CT with Danielle Frate and our daughter Mariah. Danielle will be 24 in September and Mariah will be 22 in October. Danielle graduated from the Academy in 2005 and Mariah graduated in 2006. Danielle is a graphic design artist for a company in Worchester MA and Mariah is Director of Social Network Media and a hostess for Guadalajaras, a chain of restaurants and nightclubs in Virginia Beach VA. Danielle is the daughter of Bill Frate who owns the Darien News in Darien CT. Her mother, Phoebe, lives in Kennebunkport ME. Danielle and Mariah have been close cousins from the beginning. The bottom picture shows them together when we visited Connecticut from California in 1991.

from A Student 

I drove out to the post office today. I turned right on to Center Road from Route 197. As I was coming off of 197, a white or silver F-150 was tailgating me as I was doing the posted speed limit (40). Once I got on to Center Road and started doing the speed limit (30), the tailgating continued, and the truck started driving in the middle of the road as if it wanted to pass me. As I came to a stop at the 3-way intersection of Bradford Corner and Center, I flashed my right turn signal for a moment, but then remembered that I was going straight, and turned it off. The driver of the truck decided he didn’t want to be behind me any longer, and as I came to a complete stop as usual at the stop sign, the idiot decided to swerve to the left, drive around me as I was at the stop sign, and blindly barrel through the intersection and go flying up Bradford Corner. This driver could have had a collision with another vehicle turning left towards me, a bicyclist/pedestrian/animal crossing the intersection, etc. And, if I hadn’t realized what they were doing, I would have started moving straight as they tried to turn right in front of me, and I would have collided with them. Of all the dimwitted actions other drivers have done to me, this one takes the top of the stupidity list.

If the driver of this truck reads this site, please pipe up. What was your motive? Where were you going that you had to perform such a dangerous stunt like that, potentially risking my life, your life, and the lives of others in the intersection, in order to save a minute or two to get to your destination? Read the rest of this entry »

Monsanto went after companies in Argentina that were growing Round-Up Ready soybeans and selling soy meal in Europe. They tried to make their case by detection of the DNA residue of the plant-engineered gene that confers resistance to the herbicide glyphosate in the exported soymeal. Monsanto is well known in the agro industry for its litigious stance in protecting its patented Round-Up Ready technology. But they have no patent protection in Argentina.

Ruling:

“Since 1996 Monsanto has held a European patent relating to a DNA sequence which, once introduced into the DNA of a soybean plant, makes it resistant to the herbicide glyphosate, which is commonly used in agriculture. Farmers can thus eliminate weeds without harming soybean plant cultivation.

This genetically-modified soybean plant, known as the ‘RR soybean plant’, is cultivated on a large scale in Argentina, where there is no patent protection for Monsanto’s invention.

In 2005 and 2006, European companies imported soy meal from Argentina into the Netherlands. Tests carried out at Monsanto’s request revealed the presence of traces of the DNA characteristic of ‘RR soybean’, which indicated that the imported soy meal had been produced using that type of soybean plant. Read the rest of this entry »

 Although the sign says “elementary school, the new Union School is a K-8 school according to the town website. The picture below was taken by Becki on Monday. It’s a better picture than Union displays. At the Union website it is stated that Stafford High School is the preferred high school by the Academy is also an option. Transportation is provided to Stafford HS but not the Academy.

The students of Union and their parents must be thrilled to have a new school for September.

Pamela Santerre grew up in Thompson and graduated from Tourellotte in 2003. She then graduated from Assumption College in 2007 where she majored in English with a focus on secondary education. Pamela currently lives in Thompson and is conducting research toward a graduate Masters degree. She has exhausted the written history on her thesis subject and now would like to find people she can interview to complete her thesis work. She has asked the Café for help in finding local people (Northeastern CT) who experienced the flood of 1955, especially in the Putnam area. She would appreciate hearing of any contacts that might be willing to speak with her on this subject. Her contact info is given below. Admin

from Pamela

My name is Pamela Santerre. I am currently in Graduate School (Lesley University-Cambridge, MA) and am working on thesis/memoir of my grandparents’ rocky marriage before, during, and after the Flood of 1955.

Local history is my passion, and I am well aware that there is more to the history of Northeastern Connecticut than can be found in any history book. It has long been my dream to capture the rich oral histories of Connecticut permanently.

I would love to talk to anyone with first-hand accounts of what it was like during the Flood of 1955. While I am currently focusing my research on the below topics, I would welcome any and all experiences.

I know there are many “old timers” that might be homebound or in nursing homes and would appreciate the chance to talk to someone about their younger selves. Feel free to pass along my contact information.

While you would not be paid for the interview, you would be compensated with an acknowledgment in the thesis/published book and my eternal gratitude.

Topics/People currently researching:

* Victor LaPointe (my great grandfather)
* Norman LaPointe (my grandfather)-worked for GI Taxi (1951-?), New Haven RailRoad (1944-1945), and Putnam Mills.
* Anthina Leasca Lapointe Sylvester (my grandmother)-worked for the Putnam mills and American Optical in Putnam.

* Belle’s Barn- dance hall- Thompson, CT
* New Haven Railroad
* GI Taxi
* Doc Waldron swimming across the flooded Quinebaug to get to his patients at Day Kimball
* South Meadow Street, Putnam, CT
* Centennial Celebration of 1955

I may be reached at (860) 234-5288 or psanterr@lesley.edu.

I (and my thesis) thank you!

It took a long time but now things are happening. The first picture is where the salt barn was barely standing at the edge of the pavement. The second picture is to the right where the dog pound was and a line of trees leading over to the Wetzel Memorial Radio Tower. We will update these pictures as progress is made.

For those who forgot what happened read “The Salt Fairy” published in December 2006.

This quote was in the Norwich Bull on Friday at the bottom of an article on improvements being made to the Salt Barn and Highway Facility in Woodstock.

Alberts said, “What we’re doing to improve the facility is long overdue.”

Sure Mike  Thanks for making it happen

We found the 2008-2009 Per Pupil expenditures in a non-sortable spreadsheet so we have added that data to the original Table. The source of the non-sortable spreadsheet is given at the very bottom.

In light of the test scores below we thought we should remind readers of the state of funding of the Woodstock School System with these figures from the Strategic School Profiles District Data Table 2007-08.

This source appears to be the most recent source of data on Per Pupil Expenditures by Districts (it gives the 2006-2007 expeditures) budgeted before the Great Recession.

 ’doubtful’ asked how Woodstock compares to Fairfield County? ‘After all our kids are going to have to compete in the ‘real world’ although some would argue that Fairfield County is not the real world. So I decided to take a look. This also gives me an opportunity to talk about where I grew up, Rowayton CT. The Rowayton kids of the 40s, 50s, and 60s feel so good about Rowayton that we decided to set up RowaytonKids.com to reminisce about those years. We were surrounded by wealthy communities like Darien, New Canaan, Westport, and Wilton. Heck our Darien neighbors all drove Corvettes to high school while I had a dark blue 10-year-old 1950 Ford coup with 100,000 miles on it. The map to the left (click to enlarge) shows my address (balloon) on the waterfront of Wilson Cove and identifies Darien, New Canaan, Westport and Wilton with red arrows. These are all very special communities in yesteryear and today.

How did this year’s Woodstock Middle School 8th Grade compare with these communities in CMT scores. At least in Math and Reading we almost look comparable, but we still have some work to do in Writing. Nearly 50% of Woodstock 8th Graders were “Advanced” this year and close to 85% of Woodstock 8th graders were at Goal or higher in Math. We were not much lower in Reading either. In Writing we were slightly above the state average whereas the four Gold Coast towns excelled in Writing. In Math and Reading it looks as though our 8th Grade Class is competitive with these four brainiac towns in Fairfield County and next year’s 8th Grade class also looks promising.

Read the rest of this entry »

The same progressive improvement described above for this years 8th Grade class is also found for this year’s 7th Grade class. Since data is only available from 2006 to 2010 we can only provide the trend for the last three years for the 7th Grade and no three or four year trends can be provided for earlier kids in the same advancing classes.

Math Scores

Reading Scores

Writing Scores

Read the rest of this entry »