Was Buddy In A Hurry To Get Back To Woodstock?

Thursday April 23, 2009

Anyone with a certain amount of time in the Capitol halls, say maybe 10 years, knows that state Rep. Buddy Altobello, D-Meriden, is the last of the lawmakers who, in their youth, attended Woodstock in August of 1969.
It’s with this knowledge that the Blogster wondered why Altobello, who was deputy speaker last night during some of the debate on same-sex marriage, was in such a hurry to force Rep. Jack Thompson, D-Manchester ,to finish his remarks. It was only about 10:30, which is early for the House. The bill was only pushing three hours of debate and Rep. Bruce Morris, D-Norwalk, had already taken most of the oxygen from the room.
Thompson, in his 12th term, is the social conscience of the chamber. He noted that all the energy and deliberation and hours spent fighting over civil marriage and the private lives of state residents, could have been better spent tackling poverty and the 600,000 state residents without health insurance.
“We should really be talking about those things,” Thompson said. “We are the third richest state within the richest nation and we have pockets of poverty that aren’t being addressed. Perhaps it’s a greater moral issue than what we’re doing tonight.”
Altobello, who left Morris alone during his speeches, gaveled several times while Thompson was speaking in attempt to speed him up and keep him on point. So, the Blogster asks: was Altobello in a hurry to get back to the garden? (to take a line from Joni Mitchell’s tune about the music and arts fair).
Or maybe he wanted to get to the XL Center a few days early for the arrival of the Grateful Dead. See you there, Buddy. Maybe they’ll do Dark Star!