Woodstock CT Café

Becki and Mariah are enjoying a few days off. This pict was taken last night at Guadalajara’s in Virginia Beach where Mariah works.

from Jon Crane

Shujaa Graham will speak on the issue of wrongful convictions and the death penalty at University of Connecticut in Storrs on February 23rd at 7:00pm.

Shujaa Graham was framed in the 1973 murder of a prison guard at the Deul Vocational Institute in Stockton, California.

Despite the local community’s involvement and support, Shujaa and his co-defendant Eugene Allen were sent to San Quentin’s death row in 1976.

Rather than being protected by the United States’ criminal justice system, Shujaa often points out that he won his freedom and affirmed his innocence, “in spite of the system.” Shujaa was released in March 1981 after being found ‘not guilty’ in a new trial. “I stand here wounded by the blows of the death penalty of racism, trying to end this awful reality,” said Graham.

Mr. Graham comes to Connecticut as lawmakers prepare to debate a repeal of the state’s death penalty. “We need a government that would be so sensitive to the needs of the people that its every endeavor would be towards building peace and happiness and not preying on the misery of people,” Graham said. “And that’s really how the death penalty goes – it preys upon people’s fears.”

WHAT: Talk by Shujaa Graham, Former Death Row Inmate
WHEN: Wednesday, February 23rd, 7:00pm
WHERE: University of Connecticut, Dodd Center 405 Babbidge Road, Storrs, CT
Contact: Ben Jones, CNADP Executive Director 860-231-1489 ben.jones@cnadp.org

from January 20th 2006 when we were anonymous OMG!

Raucous protests in Bahrain; students in Iran clashed at a funeral; police fired on protesters in Iraq; unrest was reported in Libya; police tried to end clashes in Yemen. “Egypt Leaders Found ‘Off’ Switch for Internet” “In a span of minutes just after midnight on Jan. 28, a technologically advanced, densely wired country with more than 20 million people online was essentially severed from the global Internet.” Just a few years ago something similar happened in Woodstock under the repressive regime of Margaret Wholean.

“Freedom of expression is something you have to take, not something that will be granted to you!”

Ahmad, this town’s most notorious blogger, sat in his cave-like office of his ramshackle house in a backwoods section of the town dotted with cow pies and rock walls, trying to log onto the widely popular Web site that he and his compatriots founded, www.WoodstockistanCTCafe.com.

The governing clique in this flyspeck of a Town, home to the Woodstockistan Fair, recently renewed its effort to block opposition Web sites. So Ahmad, with plenty of time on his hands, had to spend about 10 minutes whipping through various computer servers around the world before finally pulling up his Web site.

It was Woodstockistan Day, a celebration of the founding of the Town, and some five miles away, the beautifully landscaped boulevards of Woodstockistan were packed with revelers enjoying bands and speeches by Town officials. Pictures of the ruling Selectmanni blanketed the city, which was also awash in the Town colors, blue and gold and, of course, our national red, white, and blue flags. Blue and gold lights were even wrapped around the oak and maple trees lining the main thoroughfares. But most of the hundreds of people reading at the Café or posting messages in the political section of WoodstockistanCTCafe mocked the idea of celebrating the Day when the ‘old guard’, ascended the throne to rule over their majority constituency – the CPS’ers, Swamp Yankees, and lazy electorate – a constituency known as the CPSSYLE.

“In Woodstockistan, glorifying the Board of Selectmanni (BOS) and the Board of Penny Pinchers (BOPP), that pays the Selectmanni off with slush funding, means glorifying the Town, and opposing the BOS, the BOPP and the CPSSYLE that props them up, means betraying the homeland and working for ‘alien’ interests … like education (god forbid),” wrote one online participant, noting that the formula is a sign of a decaying society. “Should we be loyal to the BOS, the BOPP, and their cadre – or to Woodstockistan and its future?” Read the rest of this entry »

This was last posted on April 17, 2009. It’s timely to bring this back given the news about postal service cut-backs.

by Anonymous (for obvious reasons) 

Last fall I read in the news that the US Postal Service lost $2 Billion in the fiscal year that ended in 2008. The Postal Service employs close to 700,000 people and they are looking to cutting 40,000 jobs. The fact that there are three post offices in Woodstock, 2 more than needed, I wonder how many towns across the country have this kind of duplicative bureaucracy (triplicative?). The US postal service better clean up its act before everything goes electronic. Otherwise 700,000 will lose their jobs.

We used to have four post offices in Woodstock (quadruplicative?). When I visited our place in the Valley in the 1980’s, we’d drive over to the Woodstock Valley Post Office often because it was fun to shoot the bull with Postmaster Roland Demers. It was nice that the US Postal Service provided us with this entertainment. Then the Woodstock Valley Post Office closed, I think because Roland retired. Since then no one has heard from anyone in Woodstock Valley. How do those people survive with no ‘local’ post office? People tell me that there are settlers over there especially clustered around the lakes. Some say there’s more people over there than around here, but they are too remote to know about; they probably are the ones that don’t vote because of the distance to the Town Hall.

I think Alan Walker ought to organize an expedition to explore who’s over there … sort of like the Lewis and Clark expedition… Delia Fey could lead this expedition. There may be lots of squatters that are not paying taxes, and possibly Woodstock ex-patriots who were at one time elected town officials; I think there are several former First Selectmen … and who knows, there may be gold over there too.

To get back on track, Read the rest of this entry »

from Con

Whomever chopped that lovely property up simply for profits have completely neglected the so-called ‘Lot’ they created across the street from the house, separate from the house and left to simply deteriorate, overgrow, crumble and fall apart on it’s own (including an excellent, very large Barn built, I believe, by Colonel Bradford (not the one that is pictured). Does anyone know the name of the current owner of that Lot on which sits all Barns? I know it’s public knowledge, I just haven’t looked it up.

They ought to be ashamed for letting it deteriorate as they have — that may not be the reason for the so-called ‘Pole Barn’ type barn that is pictured as having roof collapse, but it sure didn’t help matters. Inspections and regular upkeep can avoid this kind of thing. The barn whose roof collapsed had several stalls, an open area and tack room all with what looked like a corrugated aluminum roof.

Long before the Wetzel’s purchased it, that entire Property on Brickyard USED to be quite an excellent piece, until whichever temporary owner (I think some questionable Southbridge, MA ‘property investment’ type business) interested solely in profits decided to chop it up such that the Barns, Garage, etc. all located across the road from the house were SEPARATE from the house Lot itself, having a ridiculous result of seperating even parking from the main house.

I think they reckoned they could get a good price for the ‘lot’ created by dividing like that – leaving all barns and non-house structures on a separate lot for sale. It not only backfired on them, but they decided to not spend a dime on property upkeep resulting in all barns built during any ‘circa’, slowly being reclaimed by mother nature. It appears that they literally didn’t do a thing at all in the over 10 years (it seems) since they chopped up the property into it’s present form.

from John

This is one year of stats at the Cafe from our StatCounter – Feb 13th 2010 – Feb 12 2011 (the graphs are the page loads or clicks). The biggest day was election day and day after. The gap at the right is when our StatCounter stopped working for a while.

Stats from Feb 13 2010 to today:

Our RNAi litigation site is active only when court documents are posted or when Becki or I report on a hearing. This Blog was started April 19th 2010. The Plaintiffs, Defendants, lawyers, scientists, and investors come to this site. Whenever something is posted investors are notified at Investor Village by those interested in the case and visitation jumps. The trial is scheduled for March 21st and I will be reporting on the testimony of the witnesses.

Stats from April 19th 2010 to today: Read the rest of this entry »

from Dorinda

On Sunday morning, Feb 6, our 150+ year old barn could no longer hold the snow and ice load and it too collapsed. It was like loosing an old, dear friend. In case anyone is keeping track of weather related problems, our barn is located on Smith Road in Woodstock. I do hope it can be salvaged and reconstructed.

Our barns are rapidly disappearing, and this winter seems to have accelerated the process of destruction. While our barn no longer served an agricultural purpose, it will be so missed. It was a awesome magical place that held memories of a rural way of life within its graceful, hand hewn arms.

Sherman Barn on Route 169 near the Mass border. Thanks George.

Reynolds Barn on Route 169 heading toward the Post Office. The Christmas Barn was unaffected.

As ‘doubtful’ pointed out, this news article on Christopher Mark the owner of the Woodstock castle showed up in our newsfeed.

from John

Looking for someone who can translate the conversation in German between Thomas Tuschl and Klaus Weber in this 4-minute video. www.youtube.com/watch?v=O32sYM7acME . This is for one of our other blogs http://blog.nerac.com/rnailitigation/  which is tracking the progress of an important Biotech lawsuit.

from Change is Coming

On the ice dams, finally found a solution on Sunday and I believe the warm weather aided the removal. Our ice dams were appx 16″ thick and about 12″ wide and ran the entire length ouf both sides of our two story home. After shoveling snow off we got on the roof with ice fishing cleats. We used a heavy 5′ wrecking bar, chipped at about every 3′. Each 3′ section was stabbed with the wrecking bar and the ice dam was easily pried off the gutters with a thunderous crash below. I would estimate the weight of the ice chunks to be 30lbs a piece. We were unable to do this before because the leaf guard system was part of the ice dam. Saturday’s rain and mild temperature made it possible for the removal. We have plenty of free ice if anybody needs some .

One section of ice dam caused complete ceiling destruction of sheetrock. Some of the falling ice dam broke parts of new deck actually snapping 1×4″ (wood) pieces like a broken pencil. The snow on the roof was very heavy and took longer to remove than what we would have thought. Being on the roof was dangerous and we used ropes to secure me to the wife sitting on opposite down pitch of roof. I had several slips that would have made me fall off the 20′ high plus roof if I wasn’t hastily secured by ropes. The only fun part was jumping off the roof into massive snow pile from driveway and roof snow .

from Laurie Eldredge

Click to enlarge

HI. Went out to the 100×100 antique barn that houses our chickens and goats this am to find the building collapsed most of it anyway. My concern. The animals..are on the side of the barn that seems stable but Im not an engineer…no one to help me..husband and I recently seperated..3 girls…I dont believe the barn has insurance. What type of help can I get or where can I turn to for help. I noticed in my kitchen last night the picture window and up to the ceiling has moved away from the house 3 inches and looks like the kitchen will cave. Again…I dont want to be a pain to anyone but I do need some type of help.What do I do?

thank you,
Laurie, 371 Mashamoquet Road Pomfret Center CT

From Newcomer

Laurie,

I’m no expert in these sorts of things, but if I was in your shoes, trying to manage alone with 3 children and unsure if the house is safe, and especially on a weekend when it’s not easy to get help, I think I would first try to contact the Red Cross. If they can’t be reached for some reason, I would try the State Police in Danielson. Call the routine phone number and ask the dispatcher if he/she has contact info for someplace locally that he/she can refer you to for assistance.

The ph# I could find for the Red Cross (this could be a national number to direct you to a local number – not sure) is: 1-877-287-3327, 24 hours a day. That’s from the American Red Cross website. Here’s the link:

http://www.ctredcross.org/general.asp?SN=7386&OP=7388&IDCapitulo=T832P9HY64

The routine ph# for the CT State Police, Troop D in Danielson, CT is: (860) 779-4900

With our local fire dept. being volunteer, I don’t know if that’s something they handle or not. Maybe if any firefighters come here to the Cafe, they can tell you much better than I’m able to. Certainly if an emergency develops, I wouldn’t hesitate to call 9-1-1. But if you’re looking for alternative shelter for you and your children, which sounds like a possibility if it looks like your kitchen is about to cave in, and you have no access to immediate safe shelter, I would go ahead and try the Red Cross.

I’m so sorry that you’re going through this and I’m even sorrier that I don’t have any better info for you. I will keep you and your daughters in my prayers. Please stay safe.

Cause of an Ice Dam
1. Heat collects in the attic and warms the roof, except at the eaves.
2. Snow melts on the warm roof and then freezes on the cold eaves.
3. Ice accumulates along the eaves, forming a dam. Meltwater from the warm roof backs up behind it, flows under the shingles, and into the house.

Fast Fixes
Hacking away at ice dams with a hammer, chisel, or shovel is bad for your roofing—and dangerous for you. And throwing salt on them will do more to harm to your plantings than to the ice. Short of praying for warm weather, here are two stop-gap measures we recommend:

•Blow in cold air: Take a box fan into the attic and aim it at the underside of the roof where water is actively leaking in. This targeted dose of cold air will freeze the water in its tracks. “You’ll stop the leak in a matter of minutes,”says TOH general contractor Tom Silva.

•Rake it: Pull off snow with a long-handled aluminum roof rake (above) while you stand safely on the ground. A rake with wheels won’t harm the roofing.