Craziness in Connecticut

First up, Hartford Mayor Eddie Perez was found guilty of bribery and first-degree larceny by extortion, among some other charges. Nice!

Everyone loves a story about underwear-clad criminals, right?

Some West Hartford-related creepiness...

And finally, a story about a Meriden nail salon owner who was ordered to stop doing tattoo removals. Why, you may ask? Because she didn't have a medical license!!! See, in order to laser into people's skin, you apparently need to have some kind of medical credentials. Crazy, right?

What really kills me, though, is this part:

In April, a woman went to Nailtique to have a tattoo removed from her left ring finger, she wrote in a complaint filed with the state health department. Afterward, her hand hurt and swelled. Three days later, she was admitted to the hospital overnight and given antibiotics and pain medication. The woman wrote that she had third-degree burns and had seen surgeons because she was unable to close her hand completely.

"I now have complaints regarding the quality of care and question whether or not this establishment is licensed to perform this procedure and whether or not they should be doing this in the Meriden mall," the woman wrote.

You thought that a tattoo removal offered for $100 in a nail salon in the mall was legitimate??? Yeah, the lady definitely shouldn't have been doing tattoo removals, but I also don't think it constitutes victim-blaming to suggest that perhaps this complainant was a bit of a dumbass herself.

Ahh... I love my home state...

My $0.02 on the Blumenthal-Vietnam controversy

As some of you may know, Connecticut's Attorney General, Richard Blumenthal, was recently accused of lying about his military service after this NYTimes article. Essentially, they're saying he said he was in Vietnam when he wasn't. Blumenthal is running for Chris Dodd's Senate seat, and he's up against a clusterfuck of Republicans, including Linda McMahon and Rob Simmons, and Peter Schiff, who is... Well, who knows what the fuck Peter Schiff exactly is. The Tea Party endorsed him, even though he's not really a raving nut, but I probably still won't vote for him, although part of me strangely kind of wants to vote for him. (Of course, I'm moving to New York in about a month, so I may not vote in this thing anyway.)

So anyway, back to Blumenthal. I want to stress that I have no opinion on this, but I do want to share this little anecdote. I was covering the Memorial Day parade in Enfield last year, and there I happened to spy Mr. Blumenthal. I ambled over and started talking to him, so I could get a few quotes for my story. Mostly happy horseshit like, "This parade is great" and "We should honor our veterans."

He said something to the effect of "When I was in the Marines during Vietnam," and I off-handedly followed that up with, "Oh, did you go to Vietnam?" to which he replied that, no, he had not gone to Vietnam. He had simply served in the military while the Vietnam War was happening. I thought so little of that remark that I didn't even put it in my story. (I also thought it might sound kind of stupid to write, "Blumenthal, who served in the military during the Vietnam War but never went to war...")

So... There you have it: My Dick Blumenthal-Vietnam story. Make of it what you will. Or don't. Whatever.

Eating healthy has made me into a food snob, apparently.

The Hartford Courant reports that today is the ground-breaking for Connecticut's first Sonic restaurant, to be located in Wallingford.

On the one hand, it's about damn time, since they've been airing their commercials for years in this state with the nearest Sonic being in New Jersey.

On the other hand, I have a really hard time getting excited about another shitty fast food establishment.

Are you good without god?

My buddies in the Connecticut Valley Atheists recently erected this year's display on the Vernon town green. For those of you not in the know (or not living in North Central Connecticut), the CVA first began doing this in 2007. For years, the town had been displaying a creche on the town green around this time of the year. While the CVA really wanted no displays at all (either for or against religion) on town property ('cause it violates the establishment clause and all that fun stuff), the town decided to allow other groups to put displays up, as well, so that's when the atheist display went up.

There was quite an uproar about it, too. A lot of people felt the atheists were wrong to put up their display or felt they were attacking religion or religious folks. We had angry letters to the editor pouring in, angry comments left on local news web sites, you know the deal. I remember one letter writer criticizing atheism as a "philosophy of despair." (Despair? Hardly! I'm quite happy with my life, thank you very much!) I don't believe their display was ever vandalized, though.

Now, I know a lot of people tend to be of the opinion that "it's OK to not believe in God, but geez, why do you have to go and broadcast it all over the place??" Some people don't "get" why atheists put up displays and billboards and posters and things like that, or they view it as proselytizing, or as an attack on people of faith. I've often heard this opinion coming from other non-religious folks, the "don't rock the boat" types.

But in a society where we're constantly bombarded with religious images and viewpoints, where our political and military leaders consistently invoke God in speeches, where one president even said atheists should not be considered American citizens, it is so important to put an opposing point of view out there. Essentially (and this is just the way I see it), it's about making sure that your voice gets heard, too, amid the din of shouting and arguing. Honestly, why not have that viewpoint out there?

For me, this happened at a pretty pivotal point in my life. I was agnostic for years. Maybe about a year or so prior to CVA's first display, I had come to terms with the fact that I was an atheist. I was carving out this very crucial part of my identity, and seeing that display there on the Vernon town green reminded me that I wasn't alone and reaffirmed that it was absolutely OK to be upfront about my atheism.