“Mom’s place & my northshore neighborhood”
From Post-Katrina, posted by Dan Malo on 4/10/2009 (46 items)
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(Post-Katrina; 46 photos)
GALLERY: My Post-Katrina
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Category Archives: History
Connecticut: Counties, But No County Government
Originally published at Global Site Plans
Most of New England is made up of counties that predate the Declaration of Independence. However, these counties exist largely as geographical regions, with few reminders of their former county governments besides old courthouses, maps, and online administrative forms. The neighboring state of Rhode Island abandoned their county governance over 100 years earlier than Connecticut. Vermont and Massachusetts maintain a weak county government similar to what Connecticut once had, but theirs, too, is growing weaker.
At its height, Connecticut’s county government was responsible for liquor licenses, and services such as roads, jails, and courts. At the time county level government was abolished in Connecticut, it had little power, and was considered an ineffective “patronage” system of appointed commissioners. Many services that define county governance in other states were delegated to the state or towns.
In 1959, a Democrat-controlled legislature voted to end county government, and serving no other purpose but to manage county jails, the last elected position of county governance, the sheriff, was finally discarded in 2000. It’s a popular opinion that county governance is unnecessary because Connecticut is a small state.
It is often said that “Connecticut is split up into 169 little fiefdoms,” meaning that local governance is the responsibility of the separate 169 cities and towns. Each town provides its own services through taxation. If a small town is unable to operate an expensive service like a high school, it coordinates with surrounding towns for that service to be provided. To keep local tax rates as reasonable as possible, periphery services such as ambulances, animal control and tree maintenance are managed by multiple towns. This coordination is facilitated by Planning Regions, or “Regional Councils of Government,” commonly referred to in Connecticut as COGs.
In Connecticut, COGs have developed as a way to help towns and municipalities looking for ways to reduce their operating costs. Regionalism is now a focus of state government and in an effort to perform more efficiently, the number of COGS has been reduced from 15 to 9 within the past few years. Interestingly, this is nearly the same number as counties, with similar geographic boundaries. In lieu of cost pinches, decreased town-level civic participation, and other considerations, I often wonder if regionalism could further be applied to school boards. In many states, school boards are the dominion of county government.
Occasionally, proposals to re-enact county government come forward, and given the fact that the COGs perform many of the functions of county governments elsewhere–and receive more responsibility every year–it might be worthwhile to ponder their need in Connecticut and what they should look like.
What does county government look like where you live? Does your county government have a large decision making role?
Credits: Images and Data linked to sources.
Heliocentricity: A Hard Pill to Swallow
Copernican heliocentrism
Copernicus theorized that Earth and the other planets orbited the sun. He believed that God wouldn’t create such a disorderly universe, as “messy as Ptolemy’s”. He saw his work in heliocentricity as fix for much of the bad math of the Roman Calendar.
The prevailing wisdom of the time proclaimed that the planets and sun orbited the Earth. The earth was the center of things, and there was no reason to doubt that, according to the layperson—common sense showed celestial bodies moving across the sky.
The vast majority of peasants of Copernicus’s time had no understanding of heliocentricity. Most people rely on the work of scientists to form their understanding of the universe, much like today. I don’t “know” heliocentricity…it has been taught to me. It is my chore to observe.
Thomas Newcomen’s Steam Engine
Newcomen’s steam engine design.
The steam engine has been the catalyst for probably the greatest number of economic, social, and political changes in human history. It provided an opportunity for fast growth, fast travel, and circumvented much of the longstanding problem of food spoilage during transportation. It can also be said that the steam engine is where all the jobs went, as many labor consuming tasks eventually became mechanized from technology.
A Seuss-ish Butter Battle Cold War
The Yook Chief made deals with other like minded spreaders. At first for their resources, the Yooks found new friends, ‘ventually forcing a decision ‘bout best bread-buttered ends. Their tropical friends had their own customs too, but elected new Chiefs to try something new. These new leaderoos, figuring “never enough butter,” buttered both sides of bread, sending Yook hearts afutter. The Chief Yookeroo thought they had been swayed by the Zooks, and the media attacked them, calling them kooks. The Giperoo was young and a hero on the tube. He would reassure the Yooks on what was best to do. There would be no Zook nonsense, no it must be contained. The radical Zook ideas would need to be shamed. “This can’t go on”, the Chief would say, to this heathen idea they could not fall sway. He picked his best men, and lied of their hypocrisy, and installed puppet leaderoos in the name of yooocracy. Far flung places were picked from a hat to engage the Zooks by proxy in geopolitical spat. The boom-eroo complex moved along with great speed, Yooks were once again drafted according to need. Yookeroo young began to line up for war; no one was really sure what they were fighting for.
Still all of this time, with fingers on triggers, more boom-eroos were planned and made and delivered. More silos and spending to match that of the Zooks, no money was spent educating the Yooks. More taxes were collected, but less money was made, and Yooks ducked and covered and were always afraid. Each Yook Dollar spent went to straight to the cause, pushed through Yookongress with patriotic applause. There would be more boom-eroos, and boom-eroos meant more jobs, for the out of work masses that had turned into mobs. Sound bites would tout the creation of work, from Yook leaderoo mouths with a wink and a smirk. But not all Yooks knew booms or even –eroos. The ones that did had numbered in few. So no “real” jobs would gainfully employ, but yooocracy would cheapen the cost of Yook toys. With no money for schools, more Yooks wound up in jail. Idealistic Yooks yearned for this old way to fail. And just for a glimmer, fail it did, a stand-in Chief was elected and Yooks looked within. The Gipperoo waited from his Hollyook home, four years out west while a stand-down was sown. Tired of shilling and starting to age, he could barely contain his zeal for the stage. When he’d get his turn, the Zooks would be crushed; out on top would be bread, with the butter-side-up.
By this time the boom-eroos were biggered and baddered. Bitsy Big-Boy had no longer mattered. The potential for carnage had gadzupled by far, and the Gipperoo was anxious raise up the bar. If only he were Chief, the Zooks would retreat. There would be no butter spread on bread-underneaths. The Zook “question” should be pushed to the top concern. The Yooks would get the number one spot they deserved. Because the Yooks were tired of settling for less, the old showman decided to perform the show he knew best. A deal was arranged, and some Yooks came home, and the dovish Chief Yook was removed from his throne. The Gipperoo rode into power on a wave of support, to a “new dawn for Yooks” and more building of forts. We would make more bombs and profits would trickle down, to the poor Yooks living in the poor side of town. This scheme was a myth, making more Yooks broke, and ever more weary unlike wealthy Yook folks. Weapons were passed on to fight Yook wars, to shady new friends quick to offer support. Monies were funneled through third world regimes, and the discovery of this: a Gipperoo bad dream. There even was a Yook financial crash, but this had nothing to do with the inevitable Zook collapse. The Zook walls that went up a while ago, came down because the Zooks demanded it so.
Based upon the Butter Battle Book, by Dr. Seuss
Huey P. Long: A Unique Presence
A man of the people, Huey P. Long, Governor of Louisiana would travel the state, and eventually the entire country. He spoke with an energy and populism that was supported by policy designed to help the working class. He had a unique charismatic presence that made him an effective orator.
Senator Huey P. Long of Louisiana, warms up for a radio speech from his Washington, DC office on March 7, 1935.
He would gesticulate wildly, with emotion to emphasize his points. He was poetic, and his speeches flowed well, telling a story. He would literally yell at a large audience, carrying his voice before the regularity of teleprompters, sound amplification, and sound bite television coverage. His spontaneity and energy would build many supporters. His effectiveness in selling the need for roads in rural Louisiana–which at the time the need was hotly debated–still, today, makes him the patron saint of road building in the state.
His “antics” would eventually, to put it mildly, earn him less praise. His speeches, though effective, would be labeled as buffoonery in the national media. Because of his popularity as a speaker, he would endure many partisan smears and attacks on his character. Eventually, Governor Long went to Washington, bringing his popularity with him. He had large support, and was a strong contender for the presidency. His speeches continued to make him popular, and there was fear that, if elected President, he would bring about a wave of social policies at the national level.
Combined with corruption allegations and charges of running a dictatorship back home in Louisiana, Huey Long would never get the chance. He was assassinated at age 42, with his last words being “God, don’t let me die. I have so much left to do.”
a great article: Huey Long: A Man of the People
WW1: Spanish Flu Pandemic
The flu pandemic of 1918 is called the Spanish Flu because the Spanish media were the ones reporting it. Coverage of the flu was censored elsewhere, and the Spanish Flu was likely to have started in the United States.
It had a high mortality rate and its victims were usually between the ages of 20 and 40. It also spread quickly, infecting 1/5 of the world’s population. People died from it died very quickly.
The battlefield conditions of WW1 were ideal for the spread of this flu.
The close proximity of soldiers along with the confining nature of trench warfare allowed the spread of the Spanish Flu among beleaguered soldiers. A side effect of war is disease, and the “mass movements of men in armies and aboard ships probably aided in its rapid diffusion.”
“The Great Stink” & Cholera Containment
The prevailing scientific theory the time of the cholera outbreak in London was that cholera was transmitted by foul odor (miasma theory). The concept of ‘bacteria’ wasn’t understood—many people thought if they couldn’t “see” illness causing bacteria, it wasn’t really there. People trusted the advice of “medical quacks,” instead of common sense cures to tackle the dehydration.
Faraday testing the waters of the Thames, 1855 Punch Magazine, volume 29 Westminster City Archives
It was felt that cholera was a socioeconomic disease, associated with those of lower morality and the “poor, stinking masses.” As cities grew in population, the pre-industrial waste infrastructure was unable to handle the excess excrement. Cities lacked the modern resources we take for granted, such as recycling and safe sewage removal. Leaky cesspools were the standard method of waste disposal, and these compromised fresh water sources.
The Great Stink ushered in new sanitation laws. In part because the Parliament could no longer tolerate the smell of the Thames River, a new sewer system was constructed which is still in use today. Public spending increases, which brings new parks into cities to provide fresh air. By 1875, the Public Health Act would require all houses to have their own sanitation and water.
Baseball: A Game of Statistics
Being a slow-paced game that lends itself to easy record keeping, statistics have been kept since the beginning of professional baseball. Baseball’s first record-keeper, Harry Chadwick, created The Beadle Baseball Guide in 1861. It was the first modern sports journal.
Chadwick listed totals of games played, outs, runs, home runs, and strikeouts for hitters on important clubs. Because of his efforts, records existed in baseball before the turn of the 20th century.
Chadwick’s goal was to come up with numerical evidence that would prove what players helped or hurt a team to win. In a sense, modern baseball statistics are interpretations of data.
Baseball Card Stats
Hitting
G – AB – R – H – 2B – 3B – HR – RBI – BB – SO – SB – CS – AVG
Pitching
W – L – ERA – G – GS – CG – ShO – SV – IP – HA – ER – R – BB – SO
Hitting Formulas
- AVG—Batting average: hits divided by at bats. (H/AB)
- OBP—On base percentage: times reached base divided by at-bats plus walks plus hit by pitch plus sacrifice flies (H+BB+HBP/AB+BB+HBP+SF).
- SLG—Slugging average: total bases divided by at-bats (TB/AB)
- OPS—On-base plus slugging: on-base percentage plus slugging average ([H+BB+HBP/AB+BB+HBP+SF]+[TB/AB]).
Pitching Formulas
- ERA—Earned run average: earned runs, multiplied by 9, divided by innings pitched (ER*9/IP)
- H/9—Hits per nine innings: hits allowed times nine divided by innings pitched (H/9)
- K/BB—Strikeout-to-walk ratio: number of strikeouts divided by number of base on balls (SO/BB)
- WHIP—Walks and hits per inning pitched: average number of walks and hits allowed per inning pitched (BB+HA/IP)
Modern baseball statistical analysis is often referred to as Sabermetrics, and draws from a breadth of player performance measures and playing field variables. For example, hitters who hit left-handed pitchers well may receive more opportunity to face left-handed pitchers; or, some hitters or pitchers might play better against certain other players or in certain ballparks.
This ability, is measurable through statistics, and using stats to make managerial decisions is referred to as “playing the percentages.”
1600’s Chesapeake Tobacco Cultivation
The Chesapeake Bay was home to the earliest English colonies. Charter companies brought hundreds and eventually thousands of people to these new colonies. Beginning with the Jamestown settlement of 1607 and hopes for gold, poor location and disease would afflict early colonial settlers. While there was no gold to be found, the cultivation of tobacco eventually made the colony profitable.
To cultivate tobacco, planters brought in large numbers of English workers, mostly young men who came as indentured servants. The Chesapeake region offered little economic opportunity to indentured servants who had completed their term of obligation. Even with the small amount of capital needed for tobacco cultivation, former indentured servants at best became subsistence farmers, a class ripe for such calls to rebellion as those proposed by Nathaniel Bacon.
Virginia and Maryland were characterized by large plantations and little urban development. The emphasis on indentured labor meant that relatively few women settled in the Chesapeake colonies. This fact, combined with the high mortality rate from disease—malaria, dysentery, and typhoid—slowed population growth considerably. Because tobacco had become the mainstay of the Virginia and Maryland economies, plantations were established by riverbanks for the good soil and to ensure ease of transportation. Wealthy planters built their own wharves on the Chesapeake to ship their crop to England, slowing town development.
As the number of new indentured laborers declined because of limited chances for advancement and reports of harsh treatment, they were replaced by African slaves. The Chesapeake colonies enforced laws that defined slavery as a lifelong and inheritable condition based on race. This made slaves profitable because planters could rely not only on their labor but that of their children as well. The slave population, which numbered about four thousand in Virginia and Maryland in 1675, grew significantly to the end of the century.
The Virginia colony made it’s fortunes through the cultivation of tobacco, setting a pattern that was followed in Maryland and the Carolinas, but eventually, fluctuations in Chesapeake tobacco prices caused a prolonged economic depression from 1660 into the early 1700s.