Blog Posts

“Cowardly. “Evil.” “Beneath contempt.” I heard these words over and over and over again in the days following this week’s bombing at the finish line of the Boston Marathon, an attack which left, at last count, three people dead and more than 100...

I just don’t get it. A man is presumed innocent. He is put on trial. When the state fails to persuade all members of the jury that the man is guilty, the judge declares a mistrial. How come the judge didn’t just dismiss the case? The state failed to meet its burden of proof; it failed...

The words of Thomas Jefferson: “No free man shall ever be debarred the use of arms. The strongest reason for the people to retain the right to keep and bear arms is, as a last resort, to protect themselves against tyranny in...

If you doubt the law’s capacity to transform almost anything into a farce, look no further than the case of Disabled Americans for Firearms Rights, LLC, et al., v. Dannel P. Malloy. It alleges that Connecticut’s new ban on assault weapons discriminates against the disabled, and...

Forgive me if I do not greet with open arms the Green Haven Cohousing project’s attempt to change zoning regulations for the Town of Bethany. The project proposal is, in fact, little more than a Trojan Horse that would, if approved, destroy what remains of Bethany’s rural character. It...

Soren Kierkegaard got it at least half right: "Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards." But does it follow from this that our sense of freedom is a mere illusion? Perhaps. Sam Harris thinks free will as an illusion. It is an error, he says, to "attribute agency" to...

Let’s not congratulate ourselves too much about having addressed gun violence. Yes, the General Assembly passed new gun control legislation. But the new law is merely a baby step on the road to meaningful reform. The fact is, we’re still armed to the teeth, and prone to violence. There...

Speak to me, Muse. Sing about a continent spawned in chaos, sustained by the wild and untamed hope of tomorrow. Tell me of the promises made to the tired, the poor, the weak. Rage about the day that never came, the night that beckons, how a city on a hill became a fortress, frightened, unable to...

Just whose life is now in danger in the wake of the mass shootings at the Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut? There is no reason to believe that there was a second shooter at the scene: Adam Lanza is believed to have killed all 20 school children, and six adults, before he took...

You can thank the Women’s Christian Temperance Union for the recent firestorm in Torrington involving two former football players on the high school team. Two eighteen year old students have been expelled from school, and face felony charges, for having sex with thirteen year-old girls....