8/15/08: Tech has us sprinting to new kind of sports

I’ve been reading predictions lately, mostly by Ray Kurzweil, award-winning futurist, inventor and author.

Kurzweil has made amazingly accurate predictions about the past two decades, making his current theories all the more disturbing. Most recently, he published a book titled The Singularity Is Near: When Humans Transcend Biology. Coined by Vernor Vinge, the term "singularity" refers to a time when we will be able to reverse-engineer our brains using new technology, making us more or less immortal.

I’m hoping Kurzweil is wrong, and I could write a month’s worth of columns explaining why.
But Kurzweil’s thoughts on the future, and their implications for the way we think about our bodies, death and technology, sent my thoughts spinning in an unexpected direction: toward sports.

Other than medicine, professional sports is the one private-sector area in which I would expect the physical advantages of Kurzweil’s nanotechnology to hold intrinsic appeal. Pro athletes, or amateur athletes such as those we’re seeing in the Olympics these weeks, would have the most to gain from stamina- or power-enhancing augmentations of human biology.

We’ve seen some willingness to do whatever it takes to win with steroid-use scandals cropping up in professional athletics and past Olympics.

But we’ve also seen an outcry against steroids, which are dangerous, but which more relevantly violate the spirit (and law) of sporting events.

On the other hand, athletic gear enhanced by nanotechnology has been praised for everything from making golf balls fly straighter to shaving seconds off swimming records at Olympic trials. Some speculate that nanotechnology will allow gear to be designed for individual athletes, enhancing performances from the outside in.

Is the line between allowable and prohibited at the skin, then? Outerwear and specialized equipment are OK, but ingesting performance-enhancing drugs or technology is not?

We’ll have to wait and see on that one, I guess. Most professional sports have boards to regulate the rules of the game and actions of the athletes. They’ll have to navigate the ethics of each technology as it comes up.

What interests me more than how existing sports are relating to new technology is how our concept of sports has changed, thanks to technology, and what we can expect should the singularity come to pass.

Television, for instance, has already had a major effect on sports. Where before we would have had to be physically present to watch a sporting event, we can now cheer on our teams from a distance. This has had far-reaching consequences — just consider the inexplicable ubiquity of Dallas Cowboys fans. With a VCR or TiVo, we can record those performances and review them for errors or highlights at our leisure.

Thanks to national broadcasts, nontraditional sports can gather crowds large enough to popularize them. The X Games, Professional Bull Riders rodeos and NASCAR can be broadcast on noncable channels and pick up fans from across the country.

ESPN and its many subsidiary channels give us access to sports 24/7. This must have some effect on how we think about sports and ourselves as fans.

But perhaps most significantly, television has allowed for the next evolution of sports, it seems — the evolution predicted by Kurzweil’s emphasis on reverse-engineering the brain rather than the body as a whole: video games.

The evolution of computer technology, which has us sitting at desks straining our eyes rather than testing our physical limits, points to a continuation of the emphasis of mind over matter, and begs the question: If Kurzweil’s right, will there even be sports in the future?

8/8/08: Seeing the Olympics as the Chinese do

The Olympics begin today in Beijing, the luckiest of days in China: The word for the number eight in Chinese, "ba," sounds like the word for fortune, "fa," and so has good connotations.

Neat, right?

For those of us who can’t attend the games in person, here’s some more trivia to swap with friends during commercials, and a taste of what you’re missing.

Any phrase book can tell you what you would need to know to get around in Beijing, but here are a few extra phrases you can shout or mutter from your couch.

Jia you (jayee yo): "Go, go, go!" The literal translation is "add oil." You can chant this at any athlete you’d like to win. As with all sports cheers, the louder, the better.

Mei you ban fa (may yo bahn fah): "There’s nothing that could’ve been done," or literally, "there’s no solution." You may say this about an athlete who’s just lost or to a friend asking for more snacks after you’ve run out. Mei you ban fa is a particularly strong phrase in Chinese; my preferred translation is "the universe is against us in this."

You may wonder what carb-loading athletes are eating before their events. While China has plenty of rice, and northern China specializes in noodles and dumplings, there are more familiar options for foreigners with some time to roam the city.

You can get pizza in China, but don’t be surprised if topping options include tuna and corn. (It’s better than it sounds.)

Cake, especially birthday cake, has become popular in China, but not for eating — the elaborate frosting sculptures atop spongy, dry angelfood makes these pastries perfect for food fights rather than consumption.

If you order a "hamburger," be prepared to accept anything put between two slices of bread. My Chinese college students patiently explained to me at a KFC in Yinchuan that a chicken sandwich could also be referred to as a "hamburger," despite my protests.

Athletes shouldn’t expect the food in China to be the same as the version of "Chinese food" we get here, but the intrepid sort of diner will find unfamiliar vegetables such as garlic shoots or rape (canola) delicious stir-fryed.

The extremely intrepid may find themselves ordering delicacies such as duck tongue or jellyfish ... once.

A good rule of thumb for spectators and athletes looking to get good, authentic, cheap Chinese food — without getting sick — is to seek out a hole-in-the-wall restaurant packed to the front door with Beijingers. Any restaurant not boasting a healthy crowd of locals should be avoided.

Visitors should also be careful when paying the bill. I asked for what I thought was a receipt in Qingdao once and ended up winning five yuan in the Chinese lottery.

If you find yourself wondering in the midst of an American athlete spotlight what Chinese coverage of the Olympics is like, the answer is "completely different."

During the last summer Olympics, I watched half of the coverage on U.S. soil and the other half in China. While American coverage focuses on "familiar" events at which we excel, coverage in Beijing focuses on what Chinese are good at — including weight-lifting, volleyball (particularly against Japan) and pingpong.

When you’re looking at medal count tallies, remember this. Chinese golds will likely be in sports we never see, and in which we hardly compete.

So go ahead and root for China, too.

Comment from Cindy in Fairfield, and response

This comment was posted on the newbritainherald.com Web site, which now supports comments.

Always Negative

Second column in a row that you are focussing on what the area DOESN'T have! The last thing in the world that the New Britain/ Plainville region needs is more negative publicity. How about trying to find some bright spots? PS Why in the world did you move to Plainville in the first place?

Cindy, Fairfield CT


------

First of all, thanks for commenting. I really love getting feedback -- that may sound facetious, but it's not.

Secondly, it's the third column in a row in which I'm focusing on what the area doesn't have.

The first column (in what I was thinking of as a series) was about regional parochialism; the second was about how that has worked out in terms of people leaving the state, or not moving to Connecticut, between the last censuses (1990 and 2000); the third, which was the week on which you commented, was about the need for public transit that allows CT residents -- and MA and NY residents -- to get to Boston or New York City easily, and my suggestion for the formation of a citizens' group or panel that could advocate for that.

I don't see my columns as particularly negative, though. In fact, I view them as positive suggestions for the future. I touted Middletown's downtown, for instance, as a good example for New Britain and Bristol.

It's clear, as you imply with the comment that "the last thing the New Britain/Plainville area needs is more negative publicity," that central CT could use some sprucing up in terms of outsiders' views of our area. Plans to rebuild the downtowns of New Britain and Bristol show that city governments are also aware of the need for an overhaul.

The state economy may or may not be entering or in a recession, but it's clear that New Britain has never recovered from the recession of the 80s. Bristol Chamber of Commerce president John Leone spoke in an interview of Bristol's last downtown renovation in the 50s and the need for an updated look and feel for that district now. I applaud both city governments for attending to the needs of their communities, particularly in terms of attracting new businesses to our area.

My intention in this column series was to point out that while we do this, we also need to improve access to the downtowns soon-to-be-improved. This needs to be part of the process, or our improvements will be meaningless.

The communities surrounding these downtown districts are currently supporting the businesses available to them, and no more; we need investment from those currently outside the area, whether they're tourists passing through or young families looking to settle down, to sustain the development we're planning.

To attract new people to the area, we also need to jetisson the "keep it in the family" mentality I've experienced in much of central Connecticut, some of which I read into your comment -- though perhaps you didn't intend it to read that way, Cindy. (We know New Britain is in need of improvements, but we don't want bad publicity to get out to others.)

This brings me to the third part of my response: my view of myself as a columnist. (How meta!)

I write about stuff I have opinions on. It's as simple as that.

I'm a big fan of debate, and I would love to see a letter to the editor printed on behalf of the central Connecticut area or any other topic I've written on, especially if it contradicts my stated views. As I said, I really love comments; it makes my day to see that someone's paid enough attention to what I've written to write back.

I can see that my views frustrated you, presumably leading to your questioning why I live in Plainville. It may seem to you that I've said something so negative about central Connecticut that it's unbelievable that I would choose to live here -- or that you would choose to live here, if you held the same view.

But please don't think that what I write in my column -- 600 words or less, once a week -- is the entirety of my opinion, or that my personal life (my decision to live in Plainville, in this case) can be discerned through what I've written. We're all much more complex than that...even columnists.

Please feel free to comment again, here or on the Herald, Bristol Press or Middletown Press Web sites. I would love to hear from you again.

8/1/08: Ticket out of Connecticut can be way to save it

Confession: I don’t plan on living in Connecticut forever.

But I might stay if I felt I could get to Boston or New York with no hassle, and without having to drive.

Forbes magazine calls Boston and New York the second- and fourth-best cities for young professionals, respectively. Both draw international attention for their residents’ accomplishments in science, education and the arts.

It’s easy to see why someone, particularly someone my age, would want to live in cities such as Boston or New York. But increasing opportunities to telecommute also mean that young professionals willing to work from home can live almost anywhere. In theory, we could settle down here, equidistant from two major metropolitan areas, and have the best of both worlds: the small-town, know-your-neighbor sensibilities of much of central Connecticut and the hubbub and high life of the city.

So make it easy for us, Connecticut.

Start with buses.

Farmington has Greyhound bus pickup and ticketing in a Park and Ride lot. Hartford, of course, has a regular bus terminal right off the highway. And New Britain has Jimmy’s Smoke Shop.

Jimmy’s is half Smoke Shop, half bus station, with a walk-through connecting the two. The Greyhound waiting room has a few seats, a ticket counter that doubles as a cashier’s station for the Smoke Shop side and a window that looks out onto the bus depot — a curve in the curb just large enough to let a bus pull in and out without getting in the way of local traffic.

There’s only room for one bus at a time in front of Jimmy’s, and no room for unmetered parking for people who drive into New Britain to catch the bus.

It’s hardly the glittering gateway to the city I might prefer — but worse is that it’s not even practical.

Jimmy’s is an independently contracted agency for Greyhound rather than a Greyhound-run bus terminal, and so falls under the jurisdiction of the Smoke Shop owner and city rather than the bus company.

The bad news is that this means Greyhound won’t do any development work for the bus stop.
The good news is that we can. The city of New Britain, for instance, could designate free parking for bus riders — and there’s no better time to begin thinking about and planning for this than now, with the New Britain-Hartford busway in development.

On a regional level, the busway, the extension of Route 72 into Bristol, the current Metro-North plans to extend commuter rail from New Haven through Hartford to Springfield and plans to increase rail passenger service along Route 7, Norwalk to Danbury, will all contribute to the creation of a workable public transit system, especially if they are able to work together.

Ken Shooshan-Stoller, deputy director of the Central Connecticut Regional Planning Agency, which handles central Connecticut transportation planning and concerns, says many of these major projects should help with connecting central Connecticut residents to New York and Boston, eventually. "We’re looking for ways to improve transportation by transit within the region, and if we improve it, those should help improve those interstate options, too," Shooshan-Stoller says.

But the agency only has jurisdiction over a portion of central Connecticut.

So here’s my big idea, the punchline to the past three weeks of columns: Let’s designate a special committee or board or form a citizen’s group advocating for a comprehensive, efficient system of public transit reaching from Faneuil Hall to Times Square — with a stop in our neighborhood.

Let me know what you think.

7/25/08: If only Connecticut had someplace to go

Last week, I accused central Connecticut of parochialism. I suggested that the town-by-town loyalties characterizing our region are no longer appropriate in a global society. I mentioned bus-riding chickens.

This week, the big reveal: Why did I insult us all and naysay everything we seem to care about?

The short answer is that I did it for our own good.

The longer answer is that things are about to change, and we need to prepare ourselves to take advantage of those changes. The only way to do that is to begin thinking outside our borders, asking ourselves what we have to offer to people who are new to Connecticut, or who are considering relocating — particularly young people.

We have been losing the battle to keep Connecticut residents in the state for awhile now. Connecticut’s population of young adults 20 to 35 years old declined significantly between 1990 and 2000. The median age in Connecticut, 37, is higher than the national median age by two years.

This may not sound like much, but it reflects the fact that the state’s 3 percent growth in that time is only half the national average, landing us at 47th on the list of fastest-growing states. In other words, we’re the third slowest.

Clearly, we’re doing something wrong.

I’m not an economist, and I’m not a sociologist, but I can say from personal experience that the trouble with Connecticut is that it’s boring.

As high schoolers, my friends and I spent most of our hang-out time driving back and forth between malls. As a college student on break, I found myself staying in most nights and watching PBS or checking movies out of the library.

You may be thinking, "Well, you sound like a boring person, Alicia. Why should Connecticut be blamed for that?"

True. No state can be blamed for my lack of imagination.

But what if being in Connecticut made it easier for me to engage my imagination, instead of harder? What if, instead of imagining some place I might like to hang out with my friends — centrally located, with shops that interested me, coffeehouses and restaurants that served food I liked, that I could get to easily and cheaply by walking or taking a bus — this place actually existed?

From what I can tell, it does. It’s called Middletown.

Middletown’s Main Street seems to be doing well by any casual observer’s standards. With Wesleyan and Middlesex Community College in town, Main Street can count on an influx of college students looking for entertainment — restaurants, a movie theater, shopping and coffeehouses run the length of the street. It’s no wonder New Britain’s downtown development plan uses Middletown’s as a model.

But trying to recreate Middletown’s apparent success isn’t as easy as following its lead in the types of retail or restaurants they offer. After all, New Britain has Central Connecticut State University, and Bristol is between Briarwood College and Tunxis Community College, but this hasn’t meant automatic success for downtown Bristol or New Britain retailers. Something else is missing.

And when it comes to figuring out where to live and work, even the entertainment, dining and employment options of Main Street seem anemic in comparison with New York City or Boston. But that’s fine. We’re not New York or Boston. We never will be.

We will always be exactly what we are, which is located right between New York and Boston.

This is our advantage over every other state, and central Connecticut’s advantage over other counties. This is what we have to offer newcomers and college students who consider staying. All of our planning and development should focus on this advantage.

More on that next week.

7/18/08: It's time Nutmeggers became global citizens

Los Angeles Times columnist Gregory Rodriguez recently noted in an editorial that the global-citizen mentality of intellectual elites has meant less investment in local communities. "We should remember the beauty and strength of parochialism," he said, and be sure to invest ourselves locally.

"Well," I thought to myself after reading his column. "He should come to Connecticut and see parochialism in action."

Connecticut is the most parochial place I’ve lived — and that includes a small city in China where farmers carried chickens onto the public buses. (Chickens rode free.)

I’m not comparing our state to Dujiangyan to say Connecticut is a backwater or a hick state. Parochialism isn’t about chickens. It’s a worldview.

Dujiangyan, in Sichuan province — if you’ve read any coverage of the recent earthquake, you’ve seen the photos of my Chinese hometown in rubble — is surrounded by farms. But provincial leaders won’t let Sichuan be the "hillbilly province" of China forever, and I’d bet the physical devastation of the earthquake will be cleared up by the end of next year.

China, even agrarian Sichuan, is ambitious. It’s going places.

Connecticut, by contrast, has not gone anywhere in awhile.

This is as literally true as it can be in some cases. Route 72, now between New Britain and Plainville, was originally planned to extend to Route 8 in Thomaston, passing through Bristol and surrounding communities.

After completing an environmental impact study that found no fault with the proposed route through Bristol, town officials were ready to follow through. But the plan was stymied by residents who in 1999 continued to object (as residents had objected in the ’60s and ’70s to all previous plans) that the new controlled-access highway extension would generate more traffic and create noise — ignoring that it would also generate more economic opportunity and an increased likelihood of Hartford commuters choosing to live and invest in Bristol.

The plans are now, after more than 50 years, finally resolved. Bristol will get a Route 72 extension next year. It’s just amazing that it’s taken this long.

I didn’t know much about Bristol’s plans or controversies before researching Route 72, despite living in New Britain and Plainville, the town next door, most of my life.

Almost anywhere else, that would be strange. Anywhere but central Connecticut, the insularity and isolation of town-by-town identities would be a cause for head-scratching.

It makes some sense that we would be so bounded by our town lines. Cities and towns in central Connecticut represent a shockingly diverse set of subcultures, ethnicities and histories.

But this diversity, which should be our greatest regional asset, is neutralized by parochialism.

Investment only in our immediate, local communities — extending to stereotyping others towns (i.e., Farmington is rich, New Britain poor) — robs us of the ability to cooperate as a region, to learn from each other and combine our strengths. It makes us seem cliquish to outsiders, who will be less likely to want to invest in our area.

The days of to-the-town-line culture are over.

The days of interdependency and cooperative effort, spurred on by the Internet that allows us access to people and ideas across the world, are just beginning. We need to learn the "beauty and strength" of being global citizens.

I’m for local investment. I like knowing where I am without resorting to maps and street names. I like shopping at local stores. I like having a "New Britain accent."

I liked riding the bus with chickens.

But I was riding that bus in China.

7/11/08: Newshounds: It's time to embrace the Internet

Le Monde, the French newspaper of record, went on strike April 14, and did not publish a Tuesday edition, in response to planned staff cuts.

The New York Times cut its staff by more than 100 earlier this year.

The Los Angeles Times just cut 150 editorial staff.

The Hartford Courant cut 50 newsroom positions.

The Boston Globe is making cuts, and the Boston Herald has said it plans to eliminate 130 to 160 jobs this summer. The industry as a whole lost 1,000 jobs in a week.

Most newspapers can’t resist publishing editorials on their own cutbacks. The Hartford Advocate published an editorial by Alan Bisbort when it made cuts from its staff in April. The New York Times published word of its own layoffs. The World Association of Newspapers wrote about nationwide cuts in a series of blog entries. [For example.]

The whole industry is navel-gazing at this point.

Small wonder, considering how little guarantee there is that reporters and editors will be able to keep their bellies full over the next few, likely severe, rounds of cutbacks.

But it’s the wrong approach. The right one is to get back to work.

I say good riddance to Le Monde if its reporters have such a deep sense of entitlement that they assume they are invulnerable. Stopping the presses, after all, only works if people actually miss the paper when you do.

It’s not the same as the New York City transit strike. People needed to get to work. People needed to cross the Brooklyn Bridge.

It’s not like the Writers Guild of America strike that left us Christmas-episode-less and almost finale-less. We’re addicted to television. We need our fix of "House" or "The Office" or "Lost."

How long will people continue to need print newspapers, though? And how many are addicted to newspaper-format information?

It’s not newspapers’ fault that the format may be becoming obsolete, and it’s not out of line for seasoned reporters, editors, publishers and readers to be upset with the still-nebulous changes appearing to be forced on the industry. A thousand jobs lost in one week is nothing to sneeze at.

But it doesn’t seem like anything to strike at, either.

Imagine if oil-industry workers on the verge of losing their jobs to a new technology — solar power, let’s say — responded by going on strike. People would pay attention, true; they would complain; then they would speed up the transition to nonfossil-fuel power. A strike would have the opposite of the intended effect.

Those workers would be better off building on the expertise they already had, learning the ins and outs of the new technology and marketing themselves as advocates for change.

Newspapers, and more particularly the human elements making up newspapers — the reporters and editors and people who "do" newspapers — need to do the same thing.

The industry isn’t dying; it’s in transition. The change won’t happen overnight, and it will require some major adjustments, but out of the ashes of print-version papers should come something innovative and incisive, cutting to the quick of what people want from their information.

There’s so much to be done online — the lack of organization is staggering — and who would be better equipped to do that work than people who have been presenting us with information since "Common Sense" hit the presses?

Even if reporting and editing became freelance endeavors, we’d still need them. We still need gatekeepers, and we’ll need them exponentially more as our dependence on the Internet increases exponentially.

So let’s get going. Leave the husk of the old ways behind, Le Monde, and be a part of forming the new ones.

7/4/08: To those flag wavers, wearers, even eaters

The first year I lived in China, my Canadian co-worker announced that he wanted a T-shirt with the Chinese flag on it as a souvenir. He asked the rest of us, American and French, to let him know if we saw one. He asked this in September, but at the end of the school year, no one had found what he was looking for.

We asked Chinese colleagues why we couldn’t find any Chinese flag paraphernalia — no buttons, bags, accessories or clothing — for sale in the markets or malls. Most stared at us blankly in response.

One teacher looked confused, but answered. "We don’t do that," she said.

It may change when the Olympics, and Western demand for the usual souvenirs, come to Beijing, but the Chinese don’t sell their flag. And they certainly don’t wear it.

Americans do. With the Fourth of July comes an explosion of flag-related clothing, car magnets, buttons — lapel pins — and other items meant to show support for America. Small flags are passed out at parades and waved vigorously. Department stores set out little bouquets of flags at checkout counters as national-holiday impulse buys.

Doesn’t this strike anyone else as strange?

Of course, the point of the American flag, of America, is that it’s for everybody. It should be widely available, as ubiquitous as our civil rights; I can understand this stance.

What confuses me is that the people who wave these flags, often discarding them hours later, and who buy flag merchandise, are mysteriously often the same people who insist that "respect for the flag" is a fundamental American value.

But it’s not "respectful" to wear a picture of the flag. We’re not showing our respect when we put flag decals on our cars or spin flag-colored pinwheels.

We’re showing enthusiasm. We’re associating ourselves with the nation. We’re declaring ourselves "American."

We’re showing that we choose to participate in American society — that we are members, for better or worse.

And that’s fine.

In fact, that enthusiasm, the decision to participate, is worthy of our respect — more so than a flag, which represents a lot but is, ultimately, just a piece of cloth.

The flag is a symbol. We salute it, we pledge allegiance to it and at baseball games most of us take our hats off to it. But the flag is not our right to bear arms or to speak freely. The flag is not our right to vote.

The flag is not our right to buy and sell flag merchandise.

We who live in the 50 states are allowed to consider the image of the flag our own. Unless you live in the District of Columbia, you’re allowed to buy and sell flag souvenirs. You’re allowed to discuss the flag. You’re allowed to put it on your porch in a flag holder or to stick it to your car bumper. You’re even allowed to burn it in protest.

Democracy is the reason we’re allowed to put the stars and stripes on whatever we want — from Independence Day cakes to boxer shorts and handkerchiefs.

The Chinese would never think of eating their flag, even a frosting version of it. The Chinese flag is a symbol of the state, of government, and Chinese people generally leave it to the government to deal with their flag.

The American flag is a symbol of us, the people. As with most things in our government, it’s ours to interpret and appropriate.

Celebrate that however you wish — T-shirts and cupcakes included.

6/27/08: If there's a chance of bias, let's root it out

Prison reform is a tough nut to crack, and frankly, I’m surprised I even brought it up.

I wouldn’t have, in fact, if it hadn’t been for one of my GED students in Washington, D.C.

He came into my office every evening after class to make a phone call. I got to know him as a polite, unassuming gentleman, soft-spoken and genuine.

I was mildly surprised, then, when I found he had spent time in prison. I was surprised because he was such an upstanding student and parent; my surprise was mild because he was undereducated, male and black. Statistically speaking, he was a member of the key inmate demographic.

In the early 1990s, black men between 25 and 29 were more likely to be in prison than in college.

Those convicted of violent felonies in 2000 served an average of 63 months in jail. Those convicted of drug felonies served an average of 75, a year longer.

Again, African-Americans are far more likely to serve time in prison for drug-related convictions than white Americans.

It’s an old refrain, the claim that our system is systemically racist, but it’s been getting more press time in Connecticut lately.

Superior Court Judge Stanley T. Fuger Jr. ruled in March that a challenge brought by seven Connecticut death-row inmates — a challenge claiming the state’s application of the death penalty is racially and geographically biased — should be allowed.

He ruled this even though the Supreme Court ruled in 1987 that systemwide bias was not an acceptable defense against the death penalty.

In his comments on his decision, Fuger cited the "extraordinarily high" stakes for the prisoners who brought the challenge, saying the charge would "merit the closest of scrutiny." He pointed out "that the Connecticut Constitution affords defendants greater legal rights than the U.S. Constitution, and as a result, they have the right to present the kind of systemwide bias evidence that the 1987 ruling barred."

This is a good start. Whether or not you agree states should wield the power of life and death, scrutinizing our practices in terms of whom we’re willing to put to death can’t hurt. If there’s even a chance of bias, we need to root it out.

Let’s go a step further and do the same thing with life-in-prison sentencing, I say.

In all other cases, where we expect those we convict to re-enter society after serving their sentences, we need to focus on reform.

Those who claim prison time is not playtime — that prisoners should be denied access to self-improvement programs such as GED classes, library access or even health care — should consider the effect on society of the "you’re in timeout" mentality.

If we truly expect former inmates to return from prison reformed and ready to make positive contributions in their neighborhoods, we need to equip them to succeed.

Many prisoners are just looking for a chance, and we owe it to ourselves to give it to them.

I was frustrated watching my student, a hard worker with on-the-job experience, get turned down for jobs — probably because of his felony conviction — for which he was eminently qualified.

Thanks to his dedication to family, community and values, and to some help from staff at our school — the sort of minor personal attention that would benefit all former inmates if it could be applied federally — he found a job.

And three weeks ago, after years of steady work toward his goal, he graduated.

I’m proud to be his compatriot.

You should be, too.

Comment from David A., and response

Dear Alicia,

I want to commend you on the article you wrote "When it comes to justice, it's personal." I also don't believe in the three strikes becoming a law.

I am a convicted felon, and my crimes were due to my addiction to pain medication. The crimes were possession of narcotics and larceny(a bad check). Already having a felony for possession when I issued a bad check, I was willing to pay restitution and any court costs. When I went to court the sentence was one year suspended sentence and pay back restitution, one year probation and not to enter the grocery store where the check was used. I would have gone to jail for life because it was my third offence.

I had a good work history, twenty years service with the state of Connecticut and seven years at a food processing plant. Now I can't find employment because of my past record.

I wish that Connecticut was like a few other states,where you don't have to put down in your application that you have a felony. There are a lot of people like myself that have been in recovery and have changed our lives around and have corrected the destruction due to our active addiction. The laws of this state act as a stumbling block for those of us that have made a bad choice, and corrected that choice and have become productive members of society. We do need another chance to prove ourselves.

David A.

*****

David,

I'm so glad you commented here. I've been watching the three-strikes law strike out for the past few months here in Connecticut and groaning every time it comes around again.

Maybe if I were a baseball fan, I would "get" what people are talking about when they say they're for this law -- but I doubt it.

You're not the only one who would have been bizarrely convicted under the three-strikes felony law: according to attorney Michael Fryar at Lawisfun.com,

"[The three-strikes law] has had some odd results in California – Gary Ewing shoplifted golf clubs (Strike 1. Burglary, Strike 2. Robbery with a Knife), Leandro Andrade stole video tapes (Strike 1. Home Burglary, Strike 2. Home Burglary), Jerry Williams stole a slice of pepperoni pizza from some children (four previous non-violent felonies)."

So men have been sentenced under the three-strikes law in California for stealing videos and pizza. That doesn't sound like a strong recommendation to me.*

I wrote this column, and the one that will appear this Friday (6/27) in part because it seemed obvious to me that three-strikes laws are arbitrary (why three? Why not two or four or seven or ten?) and lazy (since it allows us to sentence each other to life in prison by the numbers, without using our heads) and against what we should focus on as a society that's supposed to be free.

But it was a letter to the editor published in one of the Herald-Press papers (I think The Herald, but I'll have to check on that) on April 18, written by a state representative and saying that after a certain point, enough is enough -- that some people are "simply evil" -- that made me actually sit down and write about three strikes.

I'm thinking about the adult students I taught in D.C., many of whom have multiple felonies on their records, and all of whom were trying to get their lives back on track -- to get an education, provide for their families and set good examples for their children. Some of them had been addicted to drugs, and some were raised in neighborhoods that encouraged criminal activity. None of them were "simply evil."

(And again, even if there were people who could be labeled as "simply evil" and cast off, there's no reason to believe that they suddenly reached the point of no return when they committed that third felony.)

I would like to see legislation dealing with the sorts of difficulties that you're describing in finding a job, post-conviction, though I'm not sure what form that would take. Most of my experience has been with people who had limited skills or education before their convictions, so most of their efforts were focused on getting the diploma or apprenticeship or certification that would help them break into a trade. For people like you, who already have skills and a strong work history, I'm not sure what the next step could be.

Ultimately, though, I'm not sure that legislation will help us. You can't write laws that force people to care. It seems to me that the best you can do is pass laws that don't discourage caring. And elect leaders who do care.

If you haven't already, David -- and anyone else who might be interested one way or another in the three-strikes laws, and the recently passed laws that step up sentencing for violent offenders (as an alternative to a traditional three-strikes law) -- I encourage you to write to your state representative or to Governor Rell about your experience, too.

I'm hoping that next time they propose three-strikes laws, or anything similar, they'll remember your letter and think again.

Thanks for sharing your experience here; please comment anytime. (And I wish you luck, and a job that suits you, soon.)

Alicia.

*Anyone looking for more information on how California's three-strikes laws have gone awry may want to start here. If a 35-page essay doesn't seem like a particularly accessible starting point, read the abstract on page 2. (You'll need Adobe Acrobat Reader to see this .pdf file.)

6/20/08: When it comes to justice, it's personal

Three-strikes laws are out, as far as I’m concerned.

Forget that a three-strikes law would not have prevented the heinous home invasions perpetrated in central Connecticut over the past year. Forget that they would not have prevented reportedly depressed, 76-year-old Leon Malicki’s alleged attack on his wife.

Consider instead the unreasonableness of basing social policy — especially criminal law, which immediately and permanently affects the lives of perpetrators, victims and their families — on the arbitrary rules of baseball.

Legally speaking, there’s no reason for three to be the magic number, according to attorney Michael Fryar, owner of Lawisfun.com.

So why should the commission of three crimes not warranting life in prison add up to more than the sum of their parts?

I tend to agree that repeat offenders continue to offend thanks to some innate impulse to do so, whether personally or socially instigated. But assigning a number to the times they may offend before being written off as "simply evil" is dismissive of mitigating factors and ultimately demeans us and our justice system.

Our justice system is a personal one.

We are not an authoritarian society, allowing elite judges to decide whether one of our members is innocent or guilty when he or she appears to have erred; we convene juries and decide among ourselves.

We give the benefit of the doubt. Our fellow citizens are considered innocent until they’re proven guilty.

As a people, we are interested and invested in seeing justice done, and done properly — only look at the proliferation of "Law and Order"-type television shows as proof.

Why, then, are we driven to add legislation to make sure our system is working properly, rather than driven to a renewed insistence on our responsibilities as a population?

And why is the sort of law we want to add the increasingly impersonal sort, the kind that reduces people — offenders, perhaps, but also citizens — to being judged by formula rather than by a jury of their peers?

Judgment by the numbers is lazy. It allows us to abdicate the responsibility that is ours as American citizens. It allows us to forget, in our understandable frustration at criminal activity, that we are passing judgment on other Americans — other human beings — and that we are obligated to respect them and ourselves by applying ourselves diligently to the question of this particular (alleged) crime at this particular time.

But for those who like the clean, clear-cut efficiency of numbers, here are a few:

America is the only developed nation to incarcerate one in every hundred citizens.

As of June 2006, black men were 6.5 times more likely to be incarcerated than white men.

Of the convicted citizens in state prisons in 2006, almost 20 percent were there on drug charges.
Many of these are not dealers, but addicts.

Black Americans, again, are much more likely to be imprisoned (33 percent of convicted white drug defendants were sentenced to prison versus 51 percent of convicted black defendants), though a federal Household Survey indicates that most illicit drug users are white.

Felons lose the right to vote. They often have difficulty finding jobs when they return from prison thanks to little or incomplete education and applications requiring reporting of felony convictions.

These are the people who would be most affected by three-strikes laws.

Perhaps instead of mindlessly assigning them lifelong prison sentences, we should consider the kind of systemic reform we really need.

More about that next week.

My response

I am delighted to have been referenced in Alderman Salvio’s letter to the editor, posted below, and to have a chance to respond.

Alderman Salvio and I have exchanged emails on a past column of mine; I found the exchange engaging, and Alderman Salvio himself to be friendly and pleasant, in person. In addition, I’ve watched Alderman Salvio in action at the council meetings I’ve been to, and read several of his letters to the editor over the past several months.

Here's my reply to this one.

I readily admit, as I admitted in my column, that I am a resident of Plainville and not New Britain – thus, I'm not a New Britain voter or taxpayer and have no claim on a particular alderman’s attentions. This makes it all the more fascinating to me that New Britain aldermen and women have been willing to address each of my questions promptly and thoroughly. (I mention this near the end of my column, making no distinction between parties, and I make no distinction here.)

The implied question of my fitness-to-judge – buried in the statement that I go to “the occasional council meeting,” which is true – is a relevant one, or would have been if I had been making a point particular to the meetings of May 30 or June 5, neither of which I attended. (I did attend the full council meeting of May 28, following which I wrote last week's column.)

As it is, I think Alderman Salvio’s letter to the editor coincides rather well with my characterization of the Republican aldermen as firebrand minority voices. His oppositional tone, not out of place in politics or in a politically motivated letter to the editor, fits my experience of the three or four council meetings I’ve been to, confirming that my experience was no fluke.

Alderman Salvio’s response also makes clear the depth of the divisions between the two Republican aldermen and mayor, and the Democratic aldermen (and alderwomen). His letter agrees tacitly with my suggestion that the Republican aldermen are a put-upon minority voice, rising above the fray to speak truth to power.

He does not, however, complicate his argument by citing the fact that I wrote this in my column.

This makes sense to me, as Alderman Salvio’s main point does not appear to have been to respond to me or my column, but to inform voters – in an entertaining, albeit incendiary way – of how several particular meetings and votes went over the course of the last two months. Including my complete message would have distorted his purpose.

But here is a reiteration of my complete message, anyway, clarified in response to Alderman Salvio’s letter.

I actually have a rather multifaceted view of New Britain’s Common Council. I never claimed perfection for one side or the other. (I wouldn't claim perfection for superheroes: Even Superman is not without a certain dark side -- imagine his x-ray vision or super strength used for evil purposes!)

I did not claim that Democrats do not disparage their Republican colleagues; I claimed that when they did so, it was in polite, politic ways. “Polite” and “politic,” of course, are relative and open to interpretation, and a person – especially, perhaps, a politician – can say impolite things in a civil tone. It has been my experience of New Britain Common Council’s Democrats in general, even in the case of Majority Leader Michael Trueworthy’s accusations of mismanagement in the full council meeting I attended a few weeks ago, that they tend to speak civilly to one another and to Republicans. On the other extreme, although I did not attend the meeting in question, there were references in the full council meeting to Alderman Salvio having told Alderman Sherwood, a Democrat, to “rot in hell” the previous week – a rude thing to say by any standard.

But this is what makes the meetings entertaining. The extremity of the views and how obviously council members care about their positions make this not only good politics, but also captivating to watch.

As captivating, I would say (and have said), as an action movie.

Superheroes are, of course, caricatures. My characterizations of both the Democrats on the council and the Republicans were also exaggerated. I do not believe that Democrats should come to council meetings dressed in Spandex and capes, or use their laser vision to cow their foes – or even that they’re always right in their positions or evaluations, or preternaturally polite. Similarly, I don’t believe that Republicans are the God-chosen Davids designated to fell Goliath-like Democrats. I took pains in my column to positively portray both sides of the aisle because my point was not to make a political endorsement.

My point, of course, was that more people should go to more Common Council meetings.

Too many people see local politics as irrelevant, when local politics are the most relevant. As a friend recently pointed out to me, “that’s where your vote counts most.” Decisions affecting our cities and our lives get made at these meetings. That has to concern us.

I'm sure Alderman Salvio would agree with me there.