Connecticut Commentary: Red Notes from a Blue State

The distance between Windsor Locks, just to pick a suburban Connecticut town at random, and Hartford may be measured in more than miles. In Windsor Locks awhile back, there was a triple murder, an affair of the heart, some think. A Lothario who held dual citizenship both in the United States and Italy contracted with a third party to have a husband put out of the way because he had a fancy for the man’s wife, according to early press reports. The wife perversely refused to leave her husband for the star-crossed lover, and so the duel citizen purchased the services of a fellow of low wattage to bump off the husband. When the bullets stopped flying at the scene of the murder, three people were dead, and the person accused of arranging the contract killing was overcome suddenly with a hankering to visit the Old Country, at which point prosecutors in Connecticut began extradition proceedings. Like most fastidious Euro countries, Italy will not surrender those accused of murder to other nat...

A good part of Ken Krayeske’s adult life has been one of provocation. There is nothing unseemly in this; the same is true of some journalists and other adult provocateurs – artists, for example. Andres Serrano who, several years back, dipped a crucifix in a vial of his own urine, dubbing the final product “art,” was robustly provocative. Serrano, implausibly, was surprised at all the fuss he had caused. Sometimes, when you provoke, the provocation is successful. There is nothing alarming in all this; it’s simply the way the world works. You set out to insult Catholics; your provocation is successful; Catholics are insulted. So then Serrano, non-artists and people with ordinary sensibility said, you are surprised? Come off it. On Sunday, in front of the courthouse in Hartford, the Ken Krayeske show was in full flower. A picture in the Hartford Courant – there have been dozens in Connecticut newspapers since Krayeske was detained by the Hartford police, shuttled off to a holding pen and ...