Connecticut Commentary: Red Notes from a Blue State

Please join us members of the Connecticut’s 7th Senatorial District as we honor the 2019 Republicans of The Year.  Enfield’s honoree is none other than Town Councilor for District 1, a family man, a small business owner and someone whose passion and common-sense approach is well-deserving of recognition: Joseph Bosco. Our keynote speaker is Don Pesci .  Mr. Pesci is a political columnist of 35 years who has written for various state newspapers and is moderator of the blog “CT Commentary: Red Notes from a Blue State.” Tickets and/or Ad Book opportunities can be purchased online or via mail. There are a variety of advertisement sizes available for the dinner program booklet. Please note, businesses and organizations are limited (by CT State Statute) to $250 worth of advertising contributions per calendar year. The limit on individuals is $50. Dinner tickets DO NOT count towards this limit. Purchase Online  |  Purchase By Mail

The reader should note the quotations marks around the word “plagiarism.” The quote marks are intended to bracket the word in doubt because plagiarism often lies in the mind of the accuser. Note to the reader: I borrowed this thought from someone else, changing it slightly from “beauty lies in the mind of the beholder,” a sentiment some have traced to Plato. Was Shakespeare plagiarizing when he borrowed heavily from Montaigne and Boccaccio? Or, as seems more likely, was he merely capturing their bright flags? We are not the inventors of the words we use to encapsulate our thoughts. In fact thoughts themselves have a parentage. C. S. Lewis put it this way: You cannot invent a new primary color. The attribution game is, in some cases, a tangle that has ensnared many an “expert.”

Below is an address given to the Westbrook Republican Town Committee on the occasion of the 15th annual John A. Holbrook Awards Dinner It’s wonderful having the opportunity to speak with you. Lee wrote to me back in February inviting me here. I told him it would be a great honor for me and that the title of the talk would be something on the order of “Whither The Republican Party? And he wrote back a note: “Gee Don, I hope you don’t plan to whither us too much.” I knew then we could have a little fun tonight. However, I do want to advise everyone that to forestall confusion the title of this talk has been changed to “The Connecticut GOP And The New Democratic Progressives.”

I’ll be the guest speaker at the 2014 Holbrook Awards Dinner, a yearly event put on by the Westbrook Republican Town Committee. The Dinner will be held on Friday, May 9 th  in Westbrook at Water's Edge Inn and Resort. This year the Republican Town Committee will honor Lester Scott and State Representative Marilyn Giuliano. For details, click on the invitation here .

This is a self interview Q: I’ve now read everything you’ve written about the Sandy Hook mass murders, quite a lot [ Here sorted by date ]. I’ve noticed two things: You have not weighed in on what some people might consider the central legislative issues, the “should” questions – should certain weapons be banned, that sort of thing; and throughout your commentary, you manage to sound like a Jeremiah on what some grey heads in the journalism business use to call “freedom of information.” Is that a right reading of the main thrust of your commentary on Sandy Hook?