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will's "Short Notes" | diary pages
ARCHIVES: may - sep 99 | nov - dec 99 || jan 2000 | feb 00 | mar 17-31 00

16 mar 00 | "historic plausibility" | In my role as Chair of the town's Historic District Commission I'm occasionaly reviewing plans and ideas for new structures, not all of which are really a comfortable "fit" into one of the town's historic districts.

East Haddam is not, after all, anything like Philly's Elfreth's Alley or Williamsburg, VA. Parts of the town had mills (twine, wire) and mill industry housing. During another part of our growth there were over 50 summer resorts here as well. Yet much of this is gone. Where does this leave the township? How can we maintain a series of historic districts when many of the artifacts of an historic nature no longer exist? Reconstruction.

Enter the concept of historic plausibility. Design and construction of structures and physical features which are either replacements for what had been or, based on study and review, buildings with period design that were typical of other things that had been there. Thus (for example) in a mill town area, it would be reasonable to find housing that was "mass produced" and of a style close to the time when the mills were running profitably and looking for workers to come to the region. Likewise, with resorts in the area, it would be conceivable that a resort that closed down could have had its cottages refurbished to house longer term residents. ...and so on.

To be sure, I am not talking about reconstructed villages like Williamsburg. Nor would I allow for the "Disneyfication" of an area to be considered as part of this perspective. I would instead consider the example of construting a new building that could have been a barn or warehouse which went through a series of changes over the years (from barn to dry goods store to 1930s vintage garage to conversion into a home for example).

Such an idea would incorporate different architectural styles and concievably have a variety of different (and possibly aysymmetircal) windows and door frames. It would be eclectic. Other new structures would be built with consideration given to similar structures in a given area and if that area's history shows that nothing was built between -say 1830 and 1910~ then any new structures designed should reflect this gap.

Now clarification of this concept is (for me) still in infancy, so you can expect my thoughts on it to pop up now and again. And I don't know what "purists" would think of it. Feedback welcomed on this.

15 mar 00 | "queer teens" | This section on the gay/lesbian rights page has enough new links to warrant a page of its own.

Included on the page are several links about difficulties faced resulting from institutional abuse and domestic violence. One interesting link comes from a Roman Catholic online publication documenting suicides committed by teenagers who are gay, well, were gay before they killed themselves. Working on the page also gave me the chance to check the gblt page and make certain links were up-to-date. ...and gave me the chance to start TARGETING the links to open as separate browser screens.
| Governor's Committee on Mental Health | Went to the second meeting for the "expert panel" of advocates in the adult and juvenile mental health systems. Compared notes on what each "system" has in place, how to access services, common struggles. The "kid systems" advocates were impressed and amazed about how much adult sysetms already has in place with regard to cogent advocacy. One noted that they have always had to settle for crumbs while it sounds as though adult systems has "cake" (though ~keeping to the metaphor~ I remarked as to that the cake was still stale). A decent start nonetheless.

12 mar 00 | site updates | I've gone and finally changed the opening design of the personal home page's opening. I think it's a cleaner look. Also added a search engine to the main and the contents pages. Now, I hope that some numbos won't come around and try to find a lot of smut; you'll be wasting yer bandwidth if you do, cuz it just ain't here. (when such does go up, if at all, interested viewers will have to write for a password). Fair enuf?

barney's birthday | "I'm not queer or nothin!"

Such is my friend Barney's stock opening line when coming to parties at my house. He's absolutely obsessed about homos and blacks (though I can assure you what he calls the latter group I won't repeat online or in person. Well a couple of weekends past was one of his milestone birthdays. And his wife completely surprised him by having a house full of people over. The photo to the left is one of the tables with a spread out to eat; but ..look closely at the flowers in the little bud vase they are sold at a chi-chi little gift shop in the area. Novel use of the material, I must admit.

Seriously, while he disparages just about every minority you can think of (imagine Jack Nicholson in As Good As It Gets and the picture becomes clearer) he has a fairly diverse group of friends and acquaintences and probably does a great deal to raise awareness about accepting diversity than some of the more humorless nose-to-grindstone politically correct types I've met.

All that said, I am not gonna take him to either a racial equity or gay pride gathering any time soon. Happy birthday Barney

(oh yeah, here's the picture of him kissing me. I told him I'm gonna put it up on a gay porno site with his home phone number, heh heh).

forced treatment redux | Another hectic work week. Trips to Hartford to testify against a forced community psychiatric treatment ("IOC" from this point on) bill proposal; followed by two busy days in a training on HIV/TB/Substance Abuse networking with service providers. Then I learn I'm appointed to a Governor's Commission to review mental health services, so three hours of that.

Curious thing is that -in Connecticut at least- those of us who have long rallied against involuntary intervention, have even gotten to clinical administrators to admit that force won't work. Those who favor IOC maintain that if legal drugs are forced on people living in open society, then such people could be less violent. There is not a shred of proff to confirm this allegation. Moreover, if someone is so prone to violence then why put that person in amongst the general population? Incarceration has its problems too, but if we're truly talking violence against people or "a danger to self or others" then, if the person is so imperiling others, he or she ought to be behind bars. My testimony was more concrete than this. Among other critiques I noted that declaring someone dangerous and justifiably forciby drugged, the responsibility would go to a Probate Court Judge for making the decision, while also "hold harmless" clauses exist in the proposed statute that would exempt clinical teams who were really the forced treaters and decision makers from any legal responsibility in the event something goes wrong (like if the drugee actually does get violent or, worse, if he or she DIES from a misprescribed drug dosage). Stupid! stupid! stupid! Fox watching the henhouse stuff, really!

archives: may - sep '99 | nov - dec '99 | jan 2000 | feb 00 | mar 17-31 00
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Catch you on the rebound!

~Will Brady

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about "Short Notes"

"Short Notes" was the title of a column I wrote while working for a newspaper in the Adirondack Mountains some years ago. The format was similar to what you'll find here, except augmented with pictures and maps. The subject matter shall sometimes be personal, at other times comments on events or situations of which I am aware. Comments, suggestions welcomed but not always acted upon.

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