The stories keep getting worse out of Torrington. Four different teenage boys affiliated with the Torrington High football program were charged in February and March with statutory rape. On the heels of that, some of their classmates took to social media to further humiliate the victims. And now there’s this:

Another incident surfaced in Litchfield Superior Court this week in which three other boys — two of whom were affiliated football team at the time — are charged with the 2011 gang-rape of an intoxicated 13-year-old girl. The Register Citizen reports details of the allegations unflinchingly and graphically in this harrowing read.

Continue reading "OP-ED | No More Excuses for Sexual Assault" »

Tags: Torrington, rape, Rape Culture, Steubenville, University of Connecticut, football, Susan Bigelow, dh

When my son registered to vote two years ago this month, he wanted to register unaffiliated. “Both parties are just corporate shills,” he said.

I had a hard time disagreeing with that point of view, but I talked him out of it with the same words my father told me thirty years earlier, when I was a new voter: “You should always join a party in a closed primary state so you can vote in a primary.”

My son listened to me, as I listened to Dad. So he was shocked when I told him that I’d gone to Town Hall this week and changed my registration from Democrat to Unaffliated in the final stage of my journey to disgust and disillusionment with the two party system.

“Welcome to my world,” he said.

Continue reading "OP-ED | A Woman Without A Party" »

Tags: education reform, Bill Finch, Paul Vallas, Stefan Pryor, Dannel Malloy, Arne Duncan, Democrats, Charles Valentino, Bridgeport, Sarah Darer Littman, dh

Gas taxes are going up again this July, and so once again I thought, briefly, about finding some other way to get around besides driving my car. I live and work smack in the middle of a busy, densely-populated valley stretching from Northampton to New Haven, so you would think that I would have several good transit options for getting to work. You’d be wrong.

Continue reading "OP-ED | Without Better Public Transit, Gas Tax is Simply Punitive" »

Tags: gas tax, Taxes, transit, buses, springfield, Enfield, car tax, Susan Bigelow, dh

As if we needed more evidence, yet another sobering nonpartisan report came out last week projecting a bleak economic future for the Nutmeg State.

Continue reading "OP-ED | Interested In The Truth? Listen To Carstensen and Lembo" »

Tags: terry cowgill, Pension, labor agreements, governor, economics, Fred Carstensen, David Walker, Malloy, cafero, McKinney, Lembo, Connecticut Center for Economic Analysis, dh

Connecticut continues to face the fiscal strains of a slowly recovering economy and persistent unemployment. That means lawmakers in Hartford face difficult decisions and new challenges to Connecticut’s already strained safety net.

Continue reading "OP-ED | Rebalancing Long-Term Care Offers Budget Bright Spot" »

Tags: Nor Duncan, Peter Gioia, AARP, CBIA, long-term care, nursing home, elderly

According to the arrest warrants, a 13-year-old girl said “no.” Not just once. Multiple times. But an 18-year-old football player had sex with her anyway.

By the law, by any normal, decent person’s standards, that’s called rape. It doesn’t matter if she snuck out of her house at 3 a.m.; it doesn’t matter if she smoked pot for the first time; it doesn’t matter if that 18-year-old football player plied her with alcohol first. She said “no.” More than once. And when a girl says “No, I don’t want to have sex,” then a man is supposed to respect that.

Otherwise, there’s a term for him: Rapist.

Continue reading "OP-ED | Rape Cases Highlight Need for Important Conversations" »

Tags: Torrington, Stuebenville, Yale, Republican American, Rape Culture, Cyberbullying, Sarah Darer Littman, dh

I got sick on Monday, the sort of sickness where my brain drifted off into delusion as I lay groaning on the bathroom floor, and I thought, Sure, I don’t need any help, I’ll be just fine.

Continue reading "OP-ED | For the Sickness of Fear and Violence, We Need a Cure" »

Tags: boston marathon, terrorism, fear, gun control, U.S. Senate, violence, Susan Bigelow, dh

I’m a reasonable guy. I’ve tried to be patient all these weeks. But the politicians and media organizations that have been exploiting the woebegone Newtown parents have tested my limits of tolerance.

Continue reading "OP-ED | Leadership: Separating The Men From The Senators" »

Tags: Richard Blumenthal, chris murphy, Dannel P. Malloy, gun contol, newtown massacre, Obama, terry cowgill, dh

Nearly 16 months remain until Connecticut Republicans will choose their gubernatorial nominee, but the race has already started. Keep track of who is winning with this handy scorecard.

Continue reading "OP-ED | 6 Ways to Score the GOP Governor Race" »

Tags: Election 2014, connecticut, republican, gop, heath w. fahle, scorecard, dh

A poll dropped this week suggesting Gov. Dannel P. Malloy is “in trouble” for re-election next year. So what else is new?

Continue reading "OP-ED | Malloy Stronger than Polls Suggest" »

Tags: Dan Malloy, Tom Foley, Election 2014, Susan Bigelow, dh