Author Archives: cxpowell

By Chris Powell How racist is Enfield? Town government’s overreaction to a recent disgraceful but trivial incident is giving the impression that the town has become the northern headquarters of the Ku Klux Klan, even though the incident could have happened anywhere. It occurred as members of the Enfield High School football team were knockingContinue reading “‘Community conversation’ on race fails to get relevant”

By Chris Powell Reactions last week to the inadvertent confession of the Greenwich assistant principal who admitted hiring only young and liberal teachers and excluding Catholics, the better to propagandize students and induce them to grow up voting Democratic, have been just as revealing as the confession itself. State Attorney General William Tong seemed moreContinue reading “‘Vigilante’ journalism nails what the regular kind missed”

By Chris Powell News organizations in Connecticut lately have turned their attention to the shortage of housing in the state, which is especially oppressive to the poor as rents rise not only because of the shortage but also because of inflation. People increasingly are confined in small, uncomfortable, and even unsanitary apartments in unsafe neighborhoods.Continue reading “Irresponsible lifestyles are a big part of the housing problem”

By Chris Powell No one who closely follows “public” education — with its secrecy, deception, political correctness, pretension, contempt for parents, unaccountability, declining standards, financial excess, and steadily worsening performance — can be surprised by the confession of Greenwich elementary school vice principal Jeremy Boland, surreptitiously video-recorded by a seductress working for Project Veritas. Boland’sContinue reading “Political propaganda is policy in schools beyond Greenwich”

By Chris Powell During his travels around the state distributing goodies in pursuit of re-election in November, Governor Lamont might perform a valuable service by pausing for a moment here and there to examine the performance of ordinary management in state government. Two weeks ago the big failures were in education, where a state technicalContinue reading “Stop campaigning for a bit and examine what’s happening”

By Chris Powell Another protected species made news in Connecticut last week when a venomous timber rattlesnake attacked two dogs in their yard in Glastonbury. Their owner rushed the dogs to the Pieper Veterinary clinic in Middletown just in time for them to be saved with snakebite antidote, what is called antivenin. The dog ownerContinue reading “Bears, bobcats, and now rattlers: How many more do you want?”

By Chris Powell August’s Titanic Deck Chairs Rearrangement Award seems likely to be won by the Education Committee of New Haven’s Board of Alders (aka the city council), which, according to the New Haven Independent, in the face of catastrophic student performance data, spent much of its last meeting debating reading instruction techniques even asContinue reading “Education disaster in cities is all child neglect by parents”

By Chris Powell More than a million dollars were lost this month in a couple of incidents of state government’s mismanagement, and in full view. But, from the governor on down, no one in authority took notice. There wasn’t a peep or even a shrug. First, Connecticut Public, the broadcasting outfit, reported that a teacherContinue reading “Two management failures cost state another $1 million”

By Chris Powell Long ago a Sunday installment of the newspaper comic strip “B.C.” depicted a caveman mischievously watching a sleeping dinosaur from behind a boulder. The caveman pulled a thorn off a bush, crept up to the dinosaur, jammed the thorn into its foot, and rushed back behind the boulder. The dinosaur awakened inContinue reading “Hidden state tax is behind high medical insurance costs”

By Chris Powell Languages belong to those who use them. Dictionaries standardize language on the basis of prevailing usage. If users want to be clearly understood, they will follow those standards pretty closely. But the transgenderism craze that is sweeping politically correct circles, which include many news organizations, is upending and mangling the English languageContinue reading “It’s easy to avoid silly pronouns; and let Ganim taint the law”