Eventually, the truth behind the Trinity assault story will emerge. An important detail surfaces today via my colleague Josh Kovner:
Trinity College security officers reported to the administration within hours of the March assault of a student on the edge of campus that a witness described the two male attackers as “preppy-looking white males” accompanied by three females “believed to be of college age.”
In internal reports obtained by The Courant, a security supervisor also reported that the suspects’ car never passed by responding officers on Summit Street, strongly suggesting that the car turned into the campus on Vernon Street, which is a dead-end that provides access to parking lots.
In the reports, the victim, Chris Kenny, and fellow student Tim Suspenski, who was with him, contradict the statement of the witness. They both said the attackers were “Spanish.”
From colleague Cloe Poisson’s camera, this morning:
From the gifted journalist, Buzz Bissinger, in his new book about his son, “Father’s Day.” Reviewed in the NYT today.
All writers silently soak up despair for our own advantage; like dogs rolling in the guts of dead animals, the stink of others makes us giddy. We deny it but we lie in denying it.
Does the Cheshire Democrat have the campaign legs to make a run for her party’s nomination in the the 5th District?
Right now, the odds look very, very long for the former state representative and town council member who has been running hard in the 41 towns that make up the district.
Chris Donovan, the House Speaker, is the hands-down favorite of the Democratic wing of the Democratic party. He won a resounding victory at the Democrats’ nominating convention for the 5th District in Waterbury Monday night. Donovan — with legions of traditional, liberal Democrats in his corner – will be almost imposssible to knock off in the Aug. 14 party primary. He showed impressive muscle among Democratic delegates from the district’s larger cities, including Meriden and New Britain.
Which is why the big question is Esty and whether she can muster enough center and independent-minded Democrats to challenge Donovan. She must show she’s the one who can hold on to a Congressional seat that may be more independent and Republican than it is Democratic.
Donovan smothered Esty and Democrat Dan Roberti Monday evening, raking in 216 of the available 336 delegate votes. Esty collected 66, about 19 percent. Dan Roberti won 54, giving him 16 percent. It takes 15 percent to force a primary.
“I have demonstrated the ability to win independents,” Esty told me during a break from working the crowd Monday evening, reminding me that more than 4 in 10 voters in the 5th District are unaffiliated. “I know I can reach independent voters.”
Esty’s chances also hang on Dan Roberti, the first-time candidate from Kent, who also vows to stay in the race, despite his poor showing Monday evening. Roberti is well-financed and energetic, but not as strong a campaigner as Esty. If he remains the race, Esty probably goes nowhere.
Meanwhile, Democrats have another questions they must ask themselves. If Chris Murphy cruises to the nomination for U.S. Senate, does the party want to reject a moderate female such as Esty in the 5th? The Democrats — including Donovan Monday night — have made much of the “Republican war on women.” If so, why not nominate a Democratic woman in the 5th district?
Esty has no shortage of wealthy backers. She has led all candidates in fundraising. She has about $800,000 in cash on hand as the candidates head into three months of campaigning before the August primary.
Donovan looks more than solid, for now. The campaign, however, has barely begun.
Esty and her staff watch the convention from the back of the room
Here’s the new ad. It grows on you.
Should West Hartford’s football fields have lights? A new group thinks so:
West Hartford High Schools Unite For Lights A group of West Hartford high school students, parents, teachers and community leaders have joined together in support of bringing lights to the turf athletic fields at Conard and Hall public high schools.
Check out their petition and the Lights for Hall and Conard FB page.
So this is the new I-Love-Connecticut brand. We can’t do better than this? I’m going to try and come around, but doesn’t it confirm all those dusty old reasons for not bothering with Connecticut? Old place, old ideas, nothing new? I get the “still revolutionary” irony here… but somehow I was expecting more from the Mad Men hired to rebrand Connecticut.
Alyssa Norwood has a pretty good excuse to drive her car to work.
His name is Eliot, and he’s talking a mile-a-minute about his handsome frog rain hat and show-and-tell plans as we walk from Norwood’s home near the Hartford line in West Hartford to his preschool a few blocks away.
Even with the morning rush of getting Eliot to preschool, Norwood makes time to ride her bike to work, rain or shine.
Norwood is part of an unexpected – and very, very small – development: she’s among the relative handful of folks who have figured out another way to get to work besides jumping in the car. For a working mom with a three-year-old in preschool and a toddler at home, she’s proof that it doesn’t always have to be like it’s always been.
Overwhelmingly, however, Hartford area residents remain gridlocked in their cars.
The numbers have nudged only slightly since 2000, when 82.5percent of area commuters drove alone to work, to 2010, when the average figure was about 81.5 percent, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. No wonder I-84 and I-91 seem worse than ever.
But since this is “CT Rides Week” — when the state Department of Transportation wants you to try, if only for a day, a different way of getting to work – and Friday is national Bike-to-Work-Day, (Google bikewalkct or CT Rides for more information) let’s take a moment to salute the commuting 
pioneers like the Alyssa Norwoods out there.
Because ever so slowly some of us really are looking beyond the cars that clog the roads, pollute the air and raise our blood pressure.
Read the rest of the column.
It’s a grim world out there. The latest in the presidential ad campaign:
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