We can assume there are bigger things ahead for Connecticut in the coming presidential campaign than Sarah Palin stopping for gas at a Sunoco station in Berlin on the way to somewhere else.The great self-promoter was ostensibly touring historic places in a bus with her name on the side in marquee-size letters but not running for president. Her Northeast itinerary took her from the Gettysburg battlefield to the New Hampshire battlefield, with the Sunoco station her only stop in Connecticut. But these days, Connecticut must take its presidential candidates, real or imagined, where it can find them. 2012 will not be a banner year for presidential politics in Connecticut. With Chris Dodd and Joe Lieberman passing from the scene, no Connecticut politician will be the subject of presidential or vice presidential speculation, for which the state and nation may give thanks, given their successes. Palin’s pit stop will be followed by more conventional appearances by real Republican presidential candidates, but probably not many. Connecticut won’t have its primaries until the end of April and things could be settled for Republicans by that late date. As for the Democrats, President Obama isn’t expected to be challenged, which means his appearance at the Coast Guard Academy in May could be his last in Connecticut for a while.And what about the general election campaign? In 2008, 99 percent of the presidential campaign visits by candidates Obama and McCain were to just 17 states and Connecticut was not one of them. However, both candidates were kind enough to accept contributions from Connecticut residents, with Obama raising $9.7 million in the state and McCain, $3.9 million. Obama obligingly spent $700,000 of it here while McCain spent nothing, a wise decision, as it turned out. The sad truth is Republicans pretty much concede the state to Democrats in presidential elections and Democrats pretty much take the state’s electorate for granted. And so, except for occasional drop-ins for those fundraisers — closed events — in Greenwich and environs, neither party’s candidates see a compelling need to visit us.The national Democratic and Republican Parties have been valiantly trying to restrict primaries to the year in which the president is to be elected but some states can’t resist trying to push New Hampshire out of its first-in-the-nation position. New Hampshire achieved this lofty status years ago by simply passing a law mandating that New Hampshire goes first. In past elections, the primary season began with New Hampshire in March, but in 2008, Florida and other states forced New Hampshire to move its primary to January. That year, 24 states, including Connecticut, held their primaries on Super Tuesday, Feb. 5, and Republican McCain had the nomination clinched by March. Hillary Clinton managed to stay alive until June, making nearly all the Democratic primaries somewhat important but this sort of thing is extremely rare. The national Democratic and Republican Parties were actually embarrassed by these too early primaries, which give the greatest advantage to the wealthiest candidates and it looks as if this year will be better. Only the Iowa Caucus and primaries in New Hampshire, South Carolina and Nevada will be held in February, with the rest spread out over the next four months. Connecticut had originally intended to move its February primary to next March 6 but that’s the date of the Mastery Tests in the public schools. Since voters wandering the halls wouldn’t be conducive to quality test taking, the date was changed to April 24, the same day as neighboring New York, Rhode Island and sort of neighboring Pennsylvania. Is there a better way to nominate a president? How about the regional primary plan recommended a while back by a commission headed by Jimmy Carter and James Baker and endorsed by the nation’s secretaries of state?The states would be divided into four regions, logically situated in the East, South, Midwest and West with a lottery determining the order they’d hold primaries in the first presidential year. After that, the first would move to fourth and the others would move up each election cycle. The regional primaries would be held in March, April, May and June. It makes too much sense to ever happen. Simsbury resident Dick Ahles is a retired journalist. Email him at dahles@hotmail.com.
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Meg Sher, executive director of the David M. Hunt Library in Falls Village.
“I was a library kid. I walked to the library after school,” she said.
For Sher, the library is as much about the people as it about the books.
“Part of the job I love so much is that running the library is such a community,” she said.
She treasures the relationships she has built, whether recommending books, celebrating accomplishments or helping patrons through difficult times.
“I am thankful that our community is so supportive of the library, unlike what is happening in some other places where librarians are villainized,” Sher said.
Sher takes pride in the Hunt Library’s reputation for being “open and welcoming to everyone. People come in and see things and get pulled into things they weren’t expecting. Our library is seen as a positive force.”
Sher came to Falls Village after being awarded a fellowship at Adamah Farm, then a program of the Isabella Freedman Jewish Retreat Center. She worked at pickling, in the greenhouse and later in the development office. She also worked as a nanny.
At the same time, “I was in the library all the time,” she recalled. “I’m a voracious reader. The library is where I met a lot of my first friends in Falls Village.”
She became assistant librarian at Hunt and worked in that position for almost a decade before becoming the executive director four years ago.
Meg Sher, executive director of the David M. Hunt Library in Falls Village.L. Tomaino
Sher met her husband, Adam, while working at Adamah. They had their wedding there in 2012. He now emcees many events which she co-organizes with the Falls Village Recreation Commission.
Sher and her family live near the library.
“It’s an easy commute,” she said with a smile. “My kids run back and forth. I can go home to walk the dog if I need to.”
“My kids have grown up here.” Her oldest son, Eli, “loves volunteering. He helps with Augustfest and often helps set up chairs for ArtWall gatherings.” Her younger son, Noah, is often at events and was eager to taste cookies at last year’s holiday cookie swap.
When she is not at the library, Sher likes to hike with her family. Bella, their Portuguese water dog, often accompanies them.
Sher enjoys seeking out people to offer events at the library.
“I do a lot of different community programming. It is one of my favorite parts of the job.”
Augustfest, featuring food, music and an auction, is the library’s biggest fundraiser.
“This summer we had a record 152 attendees, which was pretty incredible.”
Yonah Sadeh, a filmmaker from Falls Village, inaugurated the VideoWall this year, Sher explained.
“I’ve known Yonah since he was two. It’s wonderful to work with him as an adult.”
The VideoWall complements the library’s ArtWall, which showcases a new artist each month. Sher praised the ArtWall committee for its work and highlighted December’s popular “12x12 Show,” featuring works by local artists, each measuring 12 by 12 inches and priced at $150.
Sher added that some of the artists who exhibit at the ArtWall offer workshops to students at Kellogg School, next door to the library. In September, artist Danielle Mailer worked with the children. Vincent Inconiglios taught a class last November.
Being next to the school, said Sher, is a great advantage.
“Kids are coming after school, to see friends, work on projects, find a great book. Kids that love the library end up using the library as grownups.”
This past year, in partnership with Adamah, the library and school created a garden, with excess produce made available at The Center on Main.
This year is Sher’s second year participating in the Troutbeck Symposium in Amenia with James King, director of the library at Salisbury School. The Troutbeck Symposium is “a gathering of a year of student historical inquiry across the region” in which students “uncover stories that have been overlooked, forgotten, or never recorded.”
Last year, Sher and King began a project with a group of students researching Irish immigrants in Falls Village, exploring ancestry and creating small magazines about their findings.
They continued this year, visiting St. Patrick’s Catholic Cemetery on Dublin Road, cleaning seven gravestones and even righting one with the help of stonemason and gravestone restoration expert Karl Munson. Paul Kozeazny, a representative of the Catholic archdiocese, helped secure access to the site.
A film documenting their activities will be shown at the symposium in spring 2027.
A full schedule of programs and events, ranging from tech help to ceramic mug-making, can be found on the library’s website.
Despite spending her days surrounded by books, and a busy schedule of programming, Sher still loves to settle in with a book at home.
For more information on library programs and events, visit huntlibrary.org
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Touré was born in northern Mali in 1981. His father, the renowned guitarist Ali Farka Touré, came from a family of soldiers and wanted his son to join the army. The younger Touré studied drums and the calabash and practiced guitar in secret. He earned his father’s blessing to pursue music shortly before Ali died in 2006, and they played two tracks together on Vieux’s debut album.
Touré is known for his deft, polyrhythmic playing, and his songs grow out of riffs that repeat and layer to hypnotic effect. He draws on rock, blues, Latin music and various African traditions. This distinctive blend builds on his father’s work adapting the sonic traditions of Mali’s arid north to the guitar.
Vieux’s album “Mon Pays” (“My Country,” 2013) honored Mali’s culture after Tuareg separatists and extremist groups seized the north in 2012. “Samba” (2017) was recorded before about 50 listeners in Woodstock, New York. In 2022 came “Les Racines” (“The Roots”), a return to his father’s desert blues, and “Ali,” on which he and the trio Khruangbin reworked eight of the elder Touré’s songs.
Touré leads the Ali Farka Touré Foundation, which focuses on cultural and educational work in Mali. Around the anniversary of Ali’s death, it holds a festival in Bamako, Mali’s capital. Bamako has been under blockade for much of the past year, besieged by JNIM, an al-Qaeda affiliate. Against this backdrop, Touré continues to carry the music of Mali to audiences abroad.
At the Nov. 5 concert, Touré’s desert blues will share the bill with Gnawa, the music LanGus plays, which developed in Morocco among West Africans who were brought north across the desert as enslaved people. Gnawa is religious music traditionally performed at all-night healing ceremonies called lila, intended to carry participants into trance.
Samir LanGusProvided
LanGus was born and raised outside Agadir, Morocco, and began learning Gnawa from its masters at age 8. He plays the sintir, a three-stringed bass lute made of wood and camel skin. The player strikes a low string with the thumb to create a deep, resonant pulse. Iron castanets clatter over the sintir’s bass line, and vocalists trade call-and-response refrains.
LanGus infuses the tradition with jazz and improvisation. In New York, he founded the ensemble Innov Gnawa. His first solo album, “Gnawa Love,” came out in February.
Touré and LanGus’s Nov. 5 concert is one of the last public events at Race Brook Lodge, which is for sale and ended full-service operations at the end of 2025. The lodge’s final scheduled event, on Nov. 6, is an evening of Rumi’s poetry with translator and vocalist Haleh Liza Gafori, cellist Isabel Castellvi and ceremonial bard James Bird.
For tickets, visit rblodge.com.
James FitzGerald is a student at Yale Law School, where he focuses on ecological restoration and international environmental cooperation. He splits his time between Lakeville and New Haven.
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