{news} RE: [newhavengreens] Re: [VoteThornton] "Pot" shots at G.P. & Thornton-GOGOLA STRIKES AGAIN!

[allan brison]

I disagree (with Ralph). I think this article should be responded to, 
honoring Cliff's call to avoid disparaging remarks. The Advocate should not 
be printing such ad hominem attacks on our candidates, or anybody else's for 
that matter.

As always the main purpose of such letters is more print space, more 
publicity. A second purpose might be to curtail the left-bashing that is 
Gogola's trademark.

But Gogola himself is not the target audience of our letters. He is not 
likely to reform, certainly not as a result of our criticisms. Rather the 
target audience in the reading public, first, and, perhaps, other Advocate 
staff, second. In other words it is how the reading public responds to our 
letters that matters, not whether or not Tom gives a shit.

Allan
----------------------------------------------------
From:  ralph ferrucci
Reply-To:  newhavengreens at yahoogroups.com
To:  VoteThornton at yahoogroups.com, voteferrucci at yahoogroups.com, 
newhavengreens at yahoogroups.com, CTGP-candidates at yahoogroups.com
Subject:  [newhavengreens] Re: [VoteThornton] "Pot" shots at G.P. & 
Thornton-GOGOLA STRIKES AGAIN!
Date:  Thu, 20 Apr 2006 23:50:30 -0400
I know Tom. He would get off on the .criticism. I think what all the 
candidates need to do is write on letter to the advocate thanking them of 
the article and tell them how funny they think it was. It would actually 
hurt Tom more if no one was offended by the story.
Ralph


On Thursday, April 20, 2006, at 08:26 PM, daniel sumrall wrote:
>For what it's worth--
>
>The banality of Gogola's humor and the utter lack of creativity in his 
>'satire' warrant a response no better than disdain. In this case, ignorance 
>deserves to be ignored if for no other reason than all of the Green Party's 
>candidates have earned the respect and votes of more citizens of 
>Connecticut than this 3rd rate Hunter S. Thompson devotee could ever 
>muster.
>
>Any outrageous complaints will only provide him with another 'story' idea. 
>That said, everyone should write the Advocate and express disappointment in 
>the paper's journalistic stupidity.
>
>just thoughts daniel sumrall
>
>Green Party-CT wrote:
>
>I SHOULD HAVE KNOWN BETTER -THIS SOMETIMES COMIC WRITER DID QUITES A JOB ON 
>US. HOW DO YOU RESPOND TO THIS WEIRD ARTICLE? WE HAVE A SENSE OF 
>HUMOUR,,RIGHT?
>
>I URGE YOU TO ALL WRITE TO THE PAPER,,WITH YOUR VIEWS. 
>letters at newhavenadvocate.com
>
>Tim McKee 
>------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>
>A Green Machine The Green Party is poised to name a slate of candidates for 
>statewide office. Tree-huggers of the Nutmeg, unite!
>
>by Tom Gogola- April 20, 2006
>
  Imagine yourself living in a Green state. Imagine that by this time next 
year, a full slate of Green Party candidates has been elected to statewide 
office. Imagine a world of Green, where naught but Earth-friendly policies 
are foisted upon Connecticut voters. . .
>Imagine what an interesting and off-beat government we'd have if the 
>handful of candidates on the Green ticket were actually to win the higher 
>offices they're seeking. . . Ladies and gentlemen, we're here with 
>drug-policy reformer and governor Clifford Thornton, who is just now 
>meeting in the governor's mansion with a quarter pound of marijuana and a 
>coalition of pot-puffing cancer patients. They're gathering to test the 
>state's first bumper crop of the kind medical bud. One is heard to say, 
>"That's good stuff, guv'nor!" to which Thornton responds, "Don't Rowland 
>that joint!"
>
>Down the hallway, Attorney General Nancy Burton is explaining to a reporter 
>how her being disbarred by a vengeful judge from practicing law in 
>Connecticut for five years was actually a good thing for Connecticut 
>residents. "It's my badge of honor," she had previously told the reporter. 
>Burton's ban on practicing law in the state ended just a few days before 
>the election, and she's now applying to be readmitted to the Connecticut 
>bar. It's a peculiar scenario, to be sure: an AG who can't even argue a 
>case in state court. (She's good to go in federal court and in New York, 
>however.) For now, the longtime anti-nuclear activist is poised to chain 
>herself to the Millstone power plant, she says. Proudly litigious lawyer 
>that she is, Burton declares that she'll sue you if you don't report that 
>she'll sue you if you don't say nice things about her suing you. The 
>reporter decides it's a good thing to have an attorney general who likes to 
>sue, disbarment be damned, so long as he doesn't get sued by her for having 
>some harmless fun with her rich and litigious history. Plus, Burton once 
>successfully sued to save millionsand maybe billionsof winter-flounder 
>larvae from getting sucked into the Millstone intake pipes. A friend of the 
>flounder is a friend to all, the reporter concludes.
>
>Senator Ralph Ferrucci, meanwhile, is hosting the first annual senatorial 
>grammar class at his Hartford office. The senator is using as a teaching 
>tool one of the mangled-syntax press releases he unloosed on the public 
>during his campaignthat's very Mao of Ralph, in the "speaking bitterness" 
>sense of the expression. He's reading from the gibberish sheet he released 
>in opposition to the notorious Dubai ports deal: We must make it our own 
>responsibility to keep the terrorists out without the friends of our allies 
>, he reads, adding, "though even I have no idea what the hell that means 
>and I wrote the thing! Discuss! " Even though he's now a United States 
>senator, Ferrucci hasn't quit his day job as a deliveryman for Pepperidge 
>Farm products. His reasons are as strategic as they are savory: He's got 
>some baked goodies from the truck for Thornton's stoned cancer pals. For 
>his part, Ferrucci needs the governor's support if he's to declare Rudy's a 
>national historic landmark, his signature legislative initiative to date, 
>besides his call to, you know, end the war.
>
>Secretary of the State Mike DeRosa, meanwhile, has not stopped talking for 
>317 straight days. The logorrheic voting-reform specialist and Connecticut 
>Green Party founder ignores Gov. Thornton's entreaties to "have a couple of 
>puffs and shut up already," and DeRosa has just repeated himself for the 
>17th time in 16 minutes to an Advocate reporter about the evils of the 
>two-party system. He's just getting warmed up to tell a story about the 
>campaign-finance-reform miracle currently unfolding in Moodus. Dude, you 
>won , the reporter cries, but to no avail. DeRosa just keeps on reforming, 
>and reforming, and reforming. He's the Energizer Bunny of reform.
>
>Finally, State Treasurer David Bue, pitched to voters as a "socially 
>responsible investment adviser," is meeting with a cabal of unrepentant 
>Socialists. "How does one square social responsibility with sound 
>investment strategies?" he is asked. "All I can tell you" responds Bue, 
>with a cryptic glimmer in his eye, "is that the only color that matters is 
>green ." Heads bob. Bue's made the case. Whether it's cash, pot or 
>politics, green is good.
>
>It would be thrilling were the above scenario to play out. Sign me right 
>up: Executive bongs, maverick AGs, workingman bloopers, et al. But the 
>purpose of this year's big statewide Green Party push isn't actually to get 
>these people electedit's to grow the state party into a viable alternative 
>in future elections. It's to ramp up the debate on controversial issues 
>like decriminalizing marijuana (Thornton) and mothballing Millstone 
>(Burton). And for that the party must be cheered; this is the first time it 
>has fielded a full slate of candidates for statewide office. You can grouse 
>over what might be perceived as a preference for quantity over quality, but 
>the heck with thatfor good or ill, the Green Party isn't a top-down 
>organization, at least not yet. Migosh, it's downright democratic! And this 
>Saturday, the party convenes at the AFL-CIO Labor Hall in New Haven to 
>formally announce its platform and nominate its slate of candidates. (See 7 
>Days, page 22, for details.)
>
>Tim McKee, the state's Green Party national committee member and Thornton's 
>campaign manager, is blunt about the upcoming election. There is no spoiler 
>role for the Greens to play, he says, because "Rell is going to win very 
>strongly." Since 1992, McKee says, he has been almost continuously asking 
>people to run on the Green Party ticket; he says about 500 people have been 
>approached during that time, including the Ralphs, Nader and Ferrucci. "A 
>lot of people have only known us as the Nader party, and vice versa," he 
>says. "Some people have only seen us at the local but not the statewide 
>level."
>
>McKee is quick to point out as well that "each candidacy is still an 
>independent entity, and what we are doing now is not going to be the 
>finished product."
>
>The Green Party must now collect 7,500 signatures so that its candidates 
>can be on the ballot come November. So far, says McKee, they've got about 
>1,000, and he's angling to collect 12,000, just to be on the safe side. The 
>deadline for submitting the signatures is Aug. 5. That leaves plenty of 
>time to hire a copy editor for Ralph Ferrucci. A couple boxes of Mint 
>Milano cookies ought to do the trick.
>
>Use our contact form to write to Tom Gogola.
>
>
>
>
>
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