Mitt Romney’s decision to pick a budget-slashing bad bay zealot from Wisconsin as a running mate didn’t surprise me. That’s the Romney brand: technocracy and a focus on the bottom line. Romney’s gamble is that we will trust him to manage the economy much like he was trusted in his life as a private management consultant: Study the problem, kick some ass, move on.
I am so fed us with partisan bickering that Romeny almost looked like a hold-your-nose alternative to more blundering. Obama promised change, and did not deliver. We’re fractured, divided and...
August 12, 2012
You decide one night to go to the movies. So you trundle off to downtown New Haven for a late-evening showing of the new Batman flick, "The Dark Knight Returns." Because it’s New Haven, you decide you better be armed to defend yourself. Who knows, you might get mugged by your parking attendant. So you pack your trusty pistol in the back of your trousers and wade bravely into the movie theater. Although you have a permit to carry the gun, fellow moviegoers don’t know that. They see the gun and freak out. The police are called.
Soon the theater is swarming with cops....
August 8, 2012
Here’s a one-word review that sums up my reaction to Gillian Flynn’s Gone Girl (Crown Publishing, New York, 2012): Wow! I liked the book so much I am inclined to pick it up and read it all over again. Now. If you are looking for a perfect end-of-the-summer read, this is it.
Amy and Nick have been married for five years. Indeed, it is there five year anniversary, when suddenly, Amy disappears. Suspicion turns to foul play quickly enough. Divergent perspectives on the marriage unfold in competing narratives presented in alternative chapters. We read entries from Amy’s diary,...
August 7, 2012
The prosecution of those behaviors we commonly call vice strikes me as pointless. Consider, if you will, the war on drugs. Prosecutors can lock up drug peddlers by the prison full, but no sooner are one set of dealers taken into custody, than another set appears. The demand for some products is so high that sellers will always be found. That’s just the way it is.
Theodore Roosevelt learned that the hard way during his brief tenure as a police commissioner in New York City during the 1890s. Roosevelt decided to try to shut down prostitution and to enforce blue laws prohibiting...
August 6, 2012
August 5, 2012
If you are going to stand up in the well of the court and demand accountability on behalf of the people of the State of Connecticut from some poor...
July 31, 2012
A client of mine is in the process of being tarred and feathered, and I don’t much like it. Dr. Tory Westbrook has been accused of multiple...
July 30, 2012
Good grief. Was James Bond the inspiration behind the latest escapade in the Danbury State’s Attorney’s office? Or was it just lust gone...
July 28, 2012
I tried to catch the Olympic spirit last night. I really did. Instead I got little bored and antsy. After watching the opening ceremony for little...
July 26, 2012
News that Superior Court Judge William Holden faces discipline by the Judicial Review Council caught me by surprise. What had the man done to...
July 25, 2012
Every lawyer has a case or two in the “What happened?” bag. Those are cases you were sure would win, but a jury did not share your...