Health, Safety & the Environment

John Mariani, a writer for Bloomberg.com, provides his ten predictions for wine in 2010, in a piece titled “For Wine in 2010 Expect Price Drops, Screwtops, Thirsty Chinese“.  Among the predictions: continued price drops for wine across the board; more on-line wine buying at sites such as wine-searcher.com and vinfolio.com and an increase in the popularity in wines costing $10 or less per bottle. Ominously, for this author, he also predicts an increase in wine blogging and cautions that readers should be wary of these bloggers’ recommendations.

I subscribe to  a couple of  internet wine buying sites.  One of my favorites is winestillsoldout.com.  The Los Angeles Times published an article in June that described how winestillsoldout and other similar sites work.  Winestillsoldout sends subscribers blast emails on a daily basis offering  wines at an incredibly steep discount and offers the wine for sale until the supply of that wine is gone–usually within a few hours.  The price per bottle includes the cost of shipping.  The prices of the wines may vary from anywhere between $9 to several hundred dollars for a bottle of discounted Chateau Petrus!  I have puchased some very nice Italian, Californian and French wines on the site and have been pleased with my purchase and the price I paid.  As with all good things, there is some marketing hype at winestillsoldout.  On the plus side, wines offered for sale are painstakingly described.  If the wine has been reviewed by Parker, the Wine Spectator or the Wine Enthusiast, the review is reported verbatim.  On the negative side, some of the wine reviewers quoted are not as well known as others.  For example, if a wine scores a 94/100 from “Bill’s mother-in-law” who says to “steal this wine” you may want to raise a skeptical eyebrow.  If you are not personally familiar with a wine, you should take the raves of lesser known wine experts with a grain of salt.  There is also the familiar pressure sales tactic that combines scarcity, price and a limited time in which to make a decision.  It is easy to pull out a credit card and make a purchase of a “must have” wine on the internet. Resist that urge!

Stephen H. Devoto, writing for the Middletown Eye Blog, offers a cognent analysis about the lack of transparency and accountability among our legislators in the State Capitol.  Mr. Devoto, in the course of discussing the release of the Connecticut League of Conservation Voters‘  long awaited scoreboard on the environmental voting records of our legislators, states as follows:

Commentary:

As Greenwich residents went to vote at Riverside Elementary School this morning, they were greeted by political advertisements for Lin Lavery the entire length of the driveway. Standing just outside the school gymnasium where the voting takes place, political candidates and their supporters harangued voters and passed out political literature. I found the signs and the politicking just outside the voting venue offensive and boorish. This view was shared by virtually every Riverside resident with whom I discussed this matter. One of my neighbors asked a candidate standing by the school entrance whether it was legal to politick within feet of the polling place. His response was “Are you a lawyer?” My neighbor isn’t a lawyer, but he made sure not to vote for the candidate who gave him the waspish response. I leave to others the legality of placing signs on public property and forcing literature on voters immediately outside the polling precinct on Election Day. If the candidates seek a captive audience, I would encourage them to meet Riverside residents at the train station waiting for their Metro North train. There, I would even accept a free cup of coffee from the candidate, if offered.

After the tragic death of his son, Reid, Tim Hollister, a Hartford attorney, launched a blog to provide an educational forum to enhance parent awareness of the risks involved with teen driving. The blog, From Reid’s Dad, is written  purposefully by a parent for parents of teen drivers and focusing on good, safe, parent decision-making about when and how they should supervise teen driving, as opposed to providing instruction on how to handle a vehicle.  The blog provides the grim statistic that driving fatality is the leading cause of death in the United States for people under twenty years of age.  If you are the parent (or friend) of a teen driver, this blog is an excellent source of practical information concerning accident prevention and driving safety.  Tim Hollister discusses how the loss of his son resulted in his becoming involved in teen driving issues in an article appearing in the October 12, 2009 edition of the Connecticut Law Tribune.

Whether or not the the present influenza season becomes as severe as some medical experts are forecasting, many colleges and prep schools are adopting prudent health policies, which are worth examining and emulating.  Choate Rosemary Hall in Wallingford, CT, for example, has provided to parents via email its published policy for dealing with the flu. Cornell University recently emailed to students, parents, alumni, faculty and staff a statement of condolence from the University’s President concerning the tragic death of an undergraduate due to H1N1 influenza complications.  President Skorton’s letter provides a link to a bulletin from the campus health service alerting students to the risks of influenza and how to recognize the warning signs of a potentially severe illness.  President Skorton’s letter also provide a link to Cornell’s newly launched web-site, You & the Flu, which provides additional detailed information concerning the University’s response to H1N1 influenza from the standpoint of transportation, dining services, dormitory life, the Cornell work place and class attendance.  In summary, these Cornell web-based resources and associated links provide an excellent model for any educational institution in Fairfield County that has yet to devise a comprehensive policy for combating H1N1.

Not all of us are great outdoors adventurers, but all of us–particularly our children–like to walk and enjoy nature.  The Connecticut Forest & Park Association has brought to Connecticut residents an exciting new initative–WalkCT, an interactive website that launched today.  CFPA has a long and illustrious history of imaginative initiatives to connect people to the land and help conserve our resources.  This initiative is outstanding!  Among other things, you can insert a zip code into the site and you are immediately taken to prime hiking locations in that area or apprised of community events–a bird walk, a Diabetes fundraising walk or WalkCT Family Ramble.  I encourage all of my readers to explore this new site.

Connecticut’s Council on Environmental Quality (“CEQ) is a state agency that works to improve environmental enforcement in Connecticut.  Significantly, it investigates citizen complaints that some individual or a state agency may be violating environmental laws.  Martha Phillips, the co-chair of the Connecticut League of Conservation Voters, recently warned that the CEQ (and other watchdog agencies) is receiving zero funding in the Governor’s recently unveiled proposed budget and many of its functions being transferred to the very agencies that CEQ is supposed to keep tabs on!  Ms. Phillips writes in a recent CTLCV blog post : “Surely we are not expected to imagine that the Department of Environmental Protection will blow the whistle to call attention to itself when it falls down on the job or has a less than stellar performance. Worse, these watchdog agency cutbacks are occurring at a time when the news media is retrenching and there are fewer knowledgeable reporters and investigative journalists than ever. How are citizens to find out when things are amiss? CEQ will no longer be there — its responsibilities will have been subsumed (submerged?) under the agency it formerly monitored. And we won’t read about any shortcomings it in the press either-because most of the reporters who knew the beat and had contacts and news sources have been laid off.   If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound? Evidently we are expected to believe that if environmental programs are mismanaged or environmental laws go unenforced, it won’t matter since we will hear nothing about it.”