Remember last year’s Easter weekend?

That was a text from my sister-by-choice (mine, maybe not hers) Sara Capen Salomons this morning. A little, I texted back, but I didn’t, not really. I mean, it was Easter this time last year, right? Chocolate bunnies, kids’ baskets? But then she reminded me, Sara who has more soul than I ever will. This time …

So right about now, Sal’s interviewing for a job

At 9 a.m., Sal Pinna has a job interview in Hartford, and he’s nervous but excited. This is another step toward Sal’s independence. Let’s send powerful Batman thoughts his way, OK?

Can you help a sister out?

This is a picture of what was once a perfectly respectable garage owned by my friend, Sara Capen Salomons, one of the movers and shakers behind Great Hartford’s 100-day challenge to greatly reduced the number of people who are chronically homeless. As people get housed — and they are getting housed at a pace you …

Can we talk about mental health now?

Lucy Steigerwald at Reason suggests the Aurora shooting might be our opportunity to talk about mental health in America. She writes: Maybe the problem isn’t Hollywood, a lack of Christian ethics, guns, Occupy Wall Street, nerds, or the Tea Party. Maybe the problem is crazy people sometimes shoot other people. And maybe what is most surprising …

The homicide rate dropped, mass killings continue, and other Dark Knight news

This Washington Post article explores the strange juxtaposition of a homicide rate that has dropped in the last 20 years, while the number of mass killings (like the one last week in that Aurora, Colo., movie theater) have pretty much stayed steady. From the article: The United States experienced 645 mass-murder events — killings with …