Connecticut's budget crisis solved: eliminate UConn, save $1.35 billion

Group support

Clearly, the school has been an abject failure at preparing students to live in the real world, so let's try vocational training, or ship out our students to the military.

Happy New Year and Welcome Back for the Spring Semester!

I hope you all had an opportunity to spend quality time with family and friends during the break and you are ready to hit the ground running to make the spring semester your best yet!

I wanted to make you aware of a situation we have recently learned about. There has been a request received for Ben Shapiro to come to campus as the guest of the College Republicans. Ben Shapiro is an American conservative political commentator, columnist, author, radio talk show host, and lawyer. There has been no confirmed date, location or time at this point and the University will be following the new event procedures as outlined in early December, which includes holding an event review which a member of the ODI team will be a part of. We understand that even the thought of an individual coming to campus with the views that Mr. Shapiro expresses can be concerning and even hurtful and that’s why we wanted to make you aware as soon as we were informed.

In the meantime, please utilize the many campus resources available to you should you want to talk through your feelings about this issue, including my office, the Cultural Centers, the Dean of Students Office, and CMHS, if necessary.

While the event is not finalized (some external reports have indicated Jan 24 in Laurel Hall though that is not confirmed), we will be sure to keep you up to date as we learn additional information, particularly after the event review is held.

Should you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to reach out to us at diversity@uconn.edu or 8604862422.

Wishing you a productive semester,

Joelle Murchison

Associate Vice President and Chief Diversity Officer

A tale of two parties — Obama shut down the national parks, Trump keeps them open

Naturally, the tale's moral differs according to who's telling  it. 

There's this: Interior Secretary Zinke Will Spend The Government Shutdown Ensuring The WWII Memorial, National Parks, Stay Open

The government might be shut down Saturday morning, but that did not stop Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke from doing his job. 

Early in the morning, Zinke could be found cleaning up trash on the National Mall and welcoming tours of schoolchildren to the World War II memorial with a smile. 

“We’re not putting up barricades,” Zinke told The Daily Caller in an interview. “Absolutely not. We’re passing out [park] brochures until we run out of brochures. I’ll be out here every day.”

Zinke, and much of the federal government, has had the vast majority of staff furloughed due to the government shutdown. 

The last government shutdown was in 2013 under the Obama administration. For that shutdown, the Department of Interior made the controversial decision to close public parks, monuments and battlefields. The decision led to some comical and ultimately sad stories of children having their D.C. school trips canceled and veterans not being able to visit monuments built in their honor. 

 In the early hours of Saturday morning, Zinke met with public affairs and maintenance staff to run through a plan to keep memorials on the National Mall open. He then spoke with garbagemen who will be picking up trash on the Mall one last time before the city of D.C. takes over for them.

Zinke then got into his car and drove to the WWII memorial to greet visitors and hand out maps and helped with directions. “I spent the morning walking around, giving brochures out,” Zinke said. “I got a lot of thanks from both sides of the aisle. We will not weaponize our public lands.”

“The visitor experience will be diminished,” Zinke admitted, noting that some museums and public service will take a hit during the shutdown. “But to the degree possible, we will keep our public lands open. They should not be used as a political weapon.”

Zinke said public parks, monuments and the battlefields “belong to the people and not the government,” and noted that people will see a “significant difference” between the Trump administration and Obama’s in the way public lands are managed during a shutdown.

Heather Swift, the official spokesperson for Interior, said in a press release:

National Parks and other public lands will remain as accessible as possible while still following all applicable laws and procedures. The American public and especially our veterans who come to our nation’s capital are finding  war memorials and open air parks open to the public.

We are prioritizing access to the most accessible and most iconic areas of parks and public lands. Each park, monument, recreation area, etc will have different plans in place.

Zinke greets kids on their school trip

And from the left, "Trump puts politics ahead of public safety [!!!!] Huffington Post. 

Look who built a wall!

Former Interior Department officials warn the move endangers both visitors and America’s priceless resources.

WASHINGTON — As a government shutdown grew increasingly likely this week, the Trump administration scrambled to find a way to keep America’s national parks and monuments open — albeit without rangers, restrooms and other visitor services.

While the federal government appears woefully unprepared for a shutdown generally, the motivation for this particular exception seems clear: President Donald Trump and his team are looking to avoid the fiery backlash that the previous administration [Editor's note: and whose administration was that?] faced when it shuttered parks and monuments in 2013.

It’s a move that puts natural and cultural resources at risk, critics warn.

Jon Jarvis, the former director of the National Park Service, dubbed it “incredibly idiotic.” The park service is not going to be able to live up to its stewardship responsibilities, he told HuffPost on Friday.

“The great thing about national parks is that when visitors come, they have a certain expectation of the experience,” Jarvis said. “That there will be rangers on duty. There will be information at the visitor center. … If they get lost, we’re going to find them. If they get injured, we’re going to rescue them.” [So you shut down the Washington open-air memorials because you feared that tourists would get lost, and require helicopter rescue? I've visited not only the Washington memorials, but Antietam, and Gettysburg, following some of my great-grandfather's battles, and, although I suppose I might have twisted an ankle in the Devil's Den (I didn't), I never felt that a rescue team should be on call. ]

What makes the U.S. park system the best in the world, he said, “is a professional corps of managers in the field that provide for that experience and protect the resource.”

The Trump administration has notified National Park Service officials across the country to maintain public access at parks “unless access presents a serious and imminent threat to human life, safety, or health, or a serious and imminent threat to the condition of a sensitive natural or cultural resource.”

During a 16-day shutdown in 2013 — in the first year of President Barack Obama’s second term, when Republicans controlled the House of Representatives and the Senate [editor - latest version corrected to admit that Democrats controlled the Senate]  — national parks and monuments were closed across the country. Barricades were erected around the National Mall in Washington. Signs were put up that read “Because of the Federal Government SHUTDOWN, All National Parks Are CLOSED.” Vacations were ruined. TV news aired footage of military veterans busting through blockades to access war memorials.

With the Republican-controlled Congress  proving unable to fund the government by midnight Friday [because they needed the vote of at least 10 Democrats, and got none] visitors to U.S. parks, monuments and memorials are expected to face bare-bones operations — open access without those welcoming uniformed professionals. ["welcoming, uniformed professionals" — how can any modern American possibly survive a visit to the Lincoln Memorial without those? Oh, the humanity!]

Interior spokeswoman Heather Swift said in a statement Thursday that those public places would “remain as accessible as possible” in the event of a shutdown.

“The American public and especially our veterans who come to our nation’s capital should find war memorials and open-air parks open to the public,” she said. “Additionally, many of our national parks, refuges, and other public lands will still try to allow limited access wherever possible.”

But former Interior officials warned that the administration’s attempt to save face could backfire.

“With this new direction — where some things are open, some things are not, some things are going to be maintained, some things are not — and you’re asking them to figure this out on the fly in 24 hours,” Jarvis said. “That’s where it’s going to be a great deal of chaos.” [So in 2013, Jarvis just shut down the entire show, to save muddle-headed citizens the torment of uncertainty]

Sally Jewell, who served as secretary of the interior during the 2013 shutdown [see below] , told The Atlantic that clearly the administration is trying to “reduce the heat,” but it’s “naive” to think that a few police officers can protect these sites.  

“It’s not realistic,” she said, “and I think it’s a lack of understanding of the roles that so many people play in the parks and, frankly, what [roles] volunteers play in the parks as well.” [Is there a reason volunteers can't continue volunteering? In 2013, yes: the parks were shut down. In 2018, no.]

And Kate Kelly, public lands director at the Center for American Progress and an Interior official during the Obama administration, [thank you President Trump and Secretary Zinke for cleaning house] accused Zinke of “using the national parks as pawns in some political game.” [Hahahahaha]

“The National Park Service’s mission shouldn’t be held together by duct tape and bailing wire in order to lessen the public’s blowback on the party that controls Congress and the White House,” she said in an email.

The oldest trick in the bureaucratic kit bag is to cancel highly visible services when they're threatened or, in the case of 2013, ordered to by Obama. On a local level, our police department, told to cut its budget some years back, eliminated all school crossing guards, paid at $6 an hour. It saved a mere mite of the dollars called for, but naturally, people noticed, and cried out. If memory serves, it also served its purpose, and the budget cuts were restored. Obama used the same tactic, Trump won't, and as usual, it's driving the left completely batshit crazy.

I'm not tired of winning yet; are you?

Mansion owner loses $2 million on resale. Probably because of the low-income housing Greenwich plans to put in next door

11 Skyridge Road sold for $13 million in 2012. Ogilvy put it back on the market in 2017 at  $13.5, but it sold yesterday for $11.1. Somewhere in Brooklyn, Bill De Blasio is smiling. 

Love it, love it, love it: DeBlasio to install 150 drunks, drug addicts and the mentally-muddled (probably redundant) right smack in the middle of "Billionaires Row" — all males, too.

Coming soon to 58th Street

And aren't the existing residents, almost certainly all Democrats, howling. Why, these new people will turn their neighborhood into a shithole!

Indeed they will.

Mayor Bill de Blasio blindsided Manhattan’s “Billionaire’s Row” with a quietly announced plan to open a men’s homeless shelter in the former Park Savoy Hotel.

Residents at posh tower One57 are fuming over this planned hotel-turned-homeless shelter.

The building at 158 W. 58th St. — which stands back-to-back against the city’s most expensive apartment building, One57 — is being converted into housing for 150 residents and is scheduled to open in March, the city’s Department of Homeless Services said Wednesday.

Hizzoner’s plan — part of a program to create 90 new shelters across all five boroughs — was revealed last week in letters to local elected officials.

“Are you kidding me?” said a resident of the landmark JW Marriott Essex House hotel and condo building on Park South.

“I am in shock. You just shocked the s–t out of me.”

Victoria Bader, a dancer who’s been living on West 58th Street for the past two years, said, “How does this happen? We had no warning.”

Patricia Jenkins, who works in marketing and lives nearby, expressed frustration that “the city has a homeless epidemic and there seems to be no solution.”

“I don’t have an answer, but I know I do not want a homeless shelter in my neighborhood,” she said.

Rich Montilla, director of security for One57 and the adjacent Park Hyatt hotel, said he was “concerned for our guests going out in that area — we have an exit and entrance there for guests and condo owners.”

“I don’t know if these gentlemen are violent, I don’t know what to expect,” he said.

Oh yes you do, but lighten up, fella: these are just friends you haven't met yet, just like the new imports from Senegal y'all been demanding.

UPDATE: Found this amusing tidbit in a New York Magazine article on the Construction of One57. While the developer surely has no regrets about not buying the decrepit former hotel slated for the homeless — he's long gone — I imagine his customers are sorry, now.

Considering the scale, construction at One57 has moved relatively quickly. In 2005, this stretch of 57th Street comprised a handful of brownstones, a parking garage, and a once-grand hotel, the Park Savoy. Extell bought out the owners of the brownstones and the parking garage, and Barnett told me he was willing to pay a bit north of $10 million for the Park Savoy. The owners asked for $80 million. So Extell simply built around the hotel, which is now wedged into the dank armpit of One57. (I recently suggested to Barnett that the hotel might benefit from its proximity to his skyscraper. He waited a beat and then grinned. “Nope,” he said.)

In a sane world, Fire & Fury author would have just lost all credibility with his latest "bombshell"

"Absolutely sure" that Trump is currently conducting an affair, though "he has no proof". But it's in his book, so it must be true, at least to TDS sufferers. 

These are not the days of Democrat hero JFK, when an adoring press was only too glad to cover up his affairs with Hollywood starlets and anyone else who could be charmed out of her (his? Don't want to appear trasnsgender phobic here) dress. 60 years after Kennedy, a huge contingent of Secret Service agents, even more aides and flunkies, and a swarm of reporters follow Trump wherever he goes. Bill Clinton received his blowjobs in the Oval Office and (almost) got away with it, but like Kennedy, he had a Democrat press to help hide his proclivities; Trump has no such allies. 

In short, Wolff's absurd claim is as false as his other inventions, but for Trump haters, who require a new daily fix of allegations to replace the one they lost the day before (in just the past five days, he's been described as psychotic, senile, and about to die from a heart attack), any lie in a storm will do.

The Wikipedia bio of Wolff has this to say about his credibility::

In the fall of 1998, Wolff published a book, Burn Rate, which recounted the details of the financing, positioning, personalities, and ultimate breakdown of Wolff's start-up Internet company, Wolff New Media. The book became a bestseller. In its review of Wolff's book Burn Rate, Brill's Content criticized Wolff for "apparent factual errors" and said that 13 people, including subjects he mentioned, complained that Wolff had "invented or changed quotes".[13]

"Well that was twenty years ago", Wolff told FWIW. "I'm a changed man, believe me".

Hamptons decline?

One more good hurricane should really make this direct waterfront, if it survives at all. Dummies.

Jerry Seinfeld's weekend cottage has sold for $5.7 million — nice money, but $3 million below (original)  ask.

Obviously you can't tell the health of a market from a single sale, but this jibes with what a reporter told me last week: he'd been hearing that the big ticket homes in the Hamptons were lagging, and he called me to see how things were going here in Greenwich. I told him, naturally; I'm not part of the town's PR effort.

This should boost sales considerably

Bad english, and they made sure that the white model towers over the black maid. Ah, the 50s!

Police uncover huge stash of cocaine hidden in pineapples

Fire sale available on Byram Shore Road?

207 Byram shore road. "Hey, kids, let's put on a show!"

A reader has asked how much I think 207 Byram Shore Road, originally listed for $32 million in 2013 and now down to $19.750, might eventually sell for. That's hard to say, because while on the plus side it has direct waterfront, the downside is that it's owned by Harvey Weinstein's brother Bob, and in light of what's happened to the two brothers' film company, he might be willing to sell off cheap and focus on other things.

Weinstein paid $16.4 million for the place in 1999, after it had been on the market for just 90 days (the same agent had both sides  of the deal) and performed what the current listing describes as a "top to bottom museum quality renovation", so this shoreline property is already underwater at $20 million, but I'm guessing there's still room for it to sink further. 

Toss a lowball bid at it, is my suggestion, and see what you get. But no rush: at this point, it's obvious that both time and tide have waited for you.

Hmm. Usually direct waterfront sells faster than this, even in Byram

Of course, when it doesn't, it's the price that's to blame. 71 Byram Shore Road has closed at $5.950 million. That's a nice sum to put in one's pocket, but it started in 2015 asking $9.250. It's not a home I'd prefer were I looking for a contemporary, but what's more personal than taste? 

How quickly things change: less than a year ago, Mike Pence was excoriated for his refusal to dine with women alone

What a fool!

From the Atlantic March 30, 2017: The vice president—and other powerful men—regularly avoid one-on-one meetings with women in the name of protecting their families. In the end, what suffers is women’s progress.

Pence is not the only powerful man in Washington who goes to great lengths to avoid the appearance of impropriety with the opposite sex. An anonymous survey of female Capitol Hill staffers conducted by National Journal in 2015 found that “several female aides reported that they have been barred from staffing their male bosses at evening events, driving alone with their congressman or senator, or even sitting down one-on-one in his office for fear that others would get the wrong impression.” One told the reporter Sarah Mimms that in 12 years working for her previous boss, he “never took a closed door meeting with me. ... This made sensitive and strategic discussions extremely difficult.”

Social-science research shows this practice extends beyond politics and into the business world, and it can hold women back from key advancement opportunities. A 2010 Harvard Business Review research report led by Sylvia Ann Hewlett, the president of the Center for Work-Life Policy think tank, found that many men avoid being sponsors—workplace advocates—for women “because sponsorship can be misconstrued as sexual interest.”

Hewlett’s surveys, interviews, and focus groups found that 64 percent of executive men are reluctant to have one-on-one meetings with junior women, and half of junior women avoid those meetings in turn. Perhaps as a result, 31 percent of women in her sample felt senior men weren’t willing to “spend their chips” on younger women in office political battles. What’s more, “30 percent of them noted that the sexual tension intrinsic to any one-on-one relationship with men made male sponsorship too difficult to be productive.”

And that’s too bad, because according to the Harvard study and some others, women prefer male sponsors, perceiving them to be better-connected and more powerful. And they’re right: According to some analyses, men hold more than 85 percent of top management positions in big companies.

Because of that, when men avoid professional relationships with women, even if for noble reasons, it actually hurts women in the end. “The research is irrefutable: Those with larger networks earn more money and get promoted faster. Because men typically dominate senior management, there’s evidence that the most valuable network members may be men,” wrote Kim Elsesser, a  research scholar at the UCLA Center for the Study of Women, in the Los Angeles Times recently. “Without access to beneficial friendships and mentor relationships with executive men, women won’t be able to close the gender gap that exists in most professions.”

Establishing cross-gender mentors, or even just office buddies, can be awkward. One study found that when mentors and their proteges are of different genders, they socialize less outside of work and their work relationships are harder to initiate because they worry others will misconstrue their friendliness as sexual interest. In a 2006 paper, Elsesser found that 75 percent of men in her sample worried about sexual harassment issues when interacting with woman at work, and 30 percent of participants had co-workers question them about the true motives behind a cross-gender friendship. In research Elsesser conducted for her recent book on the topic, some professional men and women told her they avoided dining with the opposite sex because they worried about the situation being misunderstood or didn’t want to upset their spouses.

Today, as the MeToo movement has metastasized from the outright sexual abuse  of Weinstein, Spacey, yet all to "he said things to me that I consider to be sexual harassment", a professional male (or, possibly any male, professional or not) would be insanely incautious were he to hold a closed-door meeting with a woman alone, or, worse, share a meal with her. Which, according to this article, is harmful to women. Hah!

Spence was ridiculed then; he looks like a very wise man today.