Local Round-Up: Obama, Artists & Cougars Visit CT

If you’re on or near campus for break, now is a great time to check out the various cultural venues around town. The Buttonwood Tree’s calendar is well-stocked with music and art shows – such as the ongoing “Through Her Eyes” Collective Women’s Art Show and the Sean Clapis concert on March 15 – in addition to free yoga and a Poetry Potluck. You can also support the city’s budding artists by touring the Middletown Public Schools Art Exhibition at the CFA’s Zilkha Gallery before Sunday March 16. If you’re looking to impress someone after break with a few new dance moves, Vinnie’s Jump and Jive offers everything from Ballroom to B-Boy/B-Girl.

A mountain lion (or a bobcat or some other beautiful, terrifying creature) has been spotted in Durham! This is particularly surprising since mountain lions haven’t been native to Connecticut for at least a century, although one expert suspects that Canadian cougars could be traveling south to feast on the area’s booming deer population. Be extra wary of strange sounds in and around your house at night because, for once, it might be something worse than your drunken roommate rummaging through the fridge.

In much more upsetting news, a Middletown resident had her car vandalized with a racial slur for a third time since November this Monday. Removing the spray paint has cost Ms. Perry thousands of dollars, and she is particularly upset that her children, ages 8, 9, and 15, have had such an appalling introduction to the neighborhood. 

Do you like art and children and making art with children? Kids Arts 2014, a 5-week enrichment camp for youth ages 4-14, is hiring counselors and artists-in-training! Summers in Middletown are notoriously fun, so consider completing an application by March 21.

Middletown is hosting a half-marathon next month! Thousands of runners will swarm campus and the streets of downtown on April 6 to compete in four- and 13ish-mile races to benefit the amazing Amazing Grace Food Pantry. Registration will remain open through race day, and runners are encouraged to bring non-perishable food items.

This year’s “One Book, One Middletown” will commence with a reading and signing by Rita Leganski, author of The Silence of the Bonaventure Arrow, on Saturday March 22 from 2 pm to 4 pm at Broad Street Books. This is a great opportunity to meet Mtown folks and read something more amusing than your Organic Chem or Art History textbook.

President Obama spoke at Central Connecticut State University last Wednesday to discuss plans to raise the federal minimum wage from a measly $7.25 to $10.10, an increase that would directly affect 200,000 people in Connecticut alone. The speech also addressed the pressing need to increase access to job training and higher education. Protesters from a variety of causes gathered on the CCSU campus, namely to address the Keystone XL Pipeline and the President’s policies in the Middle East.

Middletown is officially joining the Mattabassett Sewer District! This deal might not sound exciting to anyone but civil engineering enthusiasts, but it will allow the city to phase out its old facility, an essential step toward redeveloping the riverfront. Other development projects include the plan to transform Metro Square into an attractive destination with better parking. Several neighbors to the north are also investing heavily in their downtown areas, such as in Hartford, where the addition of 1,000 new apartment units will hopefully lure in young people (That’s us!) and babyboomers.

Wednesday was “Humane Lobby Day” in Hartford, and animal advocates met with state legislators to try to ban the use of immobilizing gestation crates in Connecticut. The crates are currently illegal in Florida, California, Arizona, and Rhode Island, and are being phased out of five more states.