A Class in Tolstoy To Help You Sled Through the Winter Months
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The winter hasn’t been that bad yet (even though it is 2020 and one might have expected this to be the worst early winter in decades). But soon it will be very cold and snowy and we will be quarantined and the conditions will be just perfect for reading the work of Leo Tolstoy.
For anyone who is intimidated by the lengthy works of the Russian novelist (and all those complicated Russian names), help is at hand in the form of well-known American novelist Roxanna Robinson, a Cornwall, Conn., resident who has donated her time and talent during the quarantine to leading literature workshops online for the Cornwall Library.
Some of the authors and titles discussed in the Cornwall Reads Great Fiction series over the summer were Honor Moore (“Our Revolution: A Mother and Daughter at Midcentury”) and Tessa Hadley (“Bad Dreams and Other Stories”). Those were single sessions; Robinson did a deeper dive on Gustave Flaubert’s “Madame Bovary.”
Starting on Jan. 12 and continuing until March 2, Robinson will dig into Tolstoy’s tragic love story, “Anna Karenina.”
“We’ll talk about vital, electrifying Anna and her handsome and mysterious lover, Vronsky,” Robinson said. “We’ll talk about Tolstoy, who he was and what he represented in 19th-century Russia, what Russia was like at that time, what the novel was doing, how Tolstoy prefigured modernism, what his intentions were in writing the book, what its factual origins were, how his family played into it, and anything else that comes in to my head.
“It is a fabulous, moving, fast-paced novel, not at all ponderous or weighty, and it is one of the greatest novels ever written, so this is the chance for everyone who’s been meaning to do so to read it, and the chance to re-read and savor it for those who already have done so.”
Robinson, a novelist with 10 books to her credit (including “Dawson’s Fall,” which came out in 2019), is also a teacher and has taught “Anna Karenina” for nearly 15 years in the MFA Program at Hunter College in New York City.
Locally, she is a member of one of Cornwall’s oldest families, descended from the Scoville clan, who first settled in Cornwall in the 18th century.
“My great-grandfather, Samuel Scoville, married the daughter of Henry Ward Beecher. Beecher and his family — Harriet Beecher Stowe among them — lived in Litchfield,” she said.
“The Scovilles have been ministers, farmers and lawyers, and have taken care of the North Cornwall church since it was built in 1812. I live in the house my grandparents built — Samuel Scoville Jr., who was a lawyer and writer.”
Scoville’s unexpectedly amusing writing was read aloud by Robinson in the library’s Cornwall Reads Cornwall over Thanksgiving weekend.
Participation in the eight-week “Anna Karenina” class is open to everyone at no cost (donations to the library are appreciated, however). The class will meet by Zoom on Tuesdays at 4 p.m., beginning Jan. 12 and ending March 2.
The edition to get for the class is the paperback version of the acclaimed translation by Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky (a photo of the cover is above, on this page) from Penguin Classics.
Participants should plan to read 100 pages every week — however, there is no requirement that you come to class having read the material, Robinson promises. “I hope you’ll come to the discussion anyway, so as you finally finish the book you’ll have thoughts from the class in your mind.”
To register, go to the “events/programs” page on the Cornwall Library website at www.CornwallLibrary.org.
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Telecom Reg’s Best Kept On the Books
When Connecticut land-use commissions update their regulations, it seems like a no-brainer to jettison old telecommunications regulations adopted decades ago during a short-lived period when municipalities had authority to regulate second generation (2G) transmissions prior to the Connecticut Siting Council (CSC) being ordered by a state court in 2000 to regulate all cell tower infrastructure as “functionally equivalent” services.
It is far better to update those regs instead, especially for macro-towers given new technologies like small cells. Even though only ‘advisory’ to the CSC, the preferences of towns by law must be taken into consideration in CSC decision making. Detailed telecom regs – not just a general wish list -- are evidence that a town has put considerable thought into where they prefer such infrastructure be sited without prohibiting service that many – though not all – citizens want and that first responders rely on for public safety.
Such regs come in handy when egregious tower sites are proposed in sensitive areas, typically on private land. The regs are a town’s first line of defense, especially when cross referenced to plans of conservation and development, P&Z regulations, and wetlands setbacks. They identify how/where the town plans to intersect with the CSC process. They are also a roadmap for service providers regarding preferred sites and sometimes less neighborhood contention. In fact, to have no telecom regs can weaken a town’s rights to protect environmental, scenic, and historic assets, and serve up whole neighborhoods to unnecessary overlapping coverage and corporate overreach. Such regs are unique to every town and should not follow anyone else’s boiler plate, especially industry’s.
Connecticut is the only state that has a centralized siting entity for cell towers. The good news is that applicants must prove need for new tower sites in an evidentiary proceeding and any decisions have the weight of the state behind them. The bad news is that the CSC used to be far less industry-friendly and rote in their reviews, which now resemble a check list. There is an operative assumption at CSC that if an applicant wants a tower, they must need it, otherwise why spend significant money to run the approval gauntlet? This reflects a subtle shift over the years at CSC from sincere willingness to protect the environment toward minimal tweaking of bad applications with minor changes. The bottom line is that towns really cannot rely on the CSC to do all the work for them.
What CSC issues telecom providers is a “certificate of environmental compatibility” after an evidentiary proceeding (not unlike a court case) with intervenors, parties, expert witnesses, and the service provider’s technical pro’s sworn in and subject to cross examination. Service providers get to do the same with any opposition from intervenor/party participants – like towns and citizens -- and their experts. It’s an impressive process whose ultimate goal is the fine balancing between allowing adequate/reliable public services and protecting state ecology with minimal damage to scenic, historic, and recreational values. They unfortunately often fall short of their mandate – like approving cell towers with diesel generators over town aquifers -- evidenced by CSC only rejecting about five cell towers in the past 15-20 years.
The CSC was founded in 1972 and clarified its mission in the 1980’s to prevent the state from being carved up willy-nilly by gas pipelines, high tension corridors, and broadcast towers. With the sudden proliferation of cell towers beginning in late 1990’s, it became the most sued agency in Connecticut by both an arrogant upstart industry if applications were denied and by towns/citizens when bad sites were forced on them. CSC gradually formed a defensive posture that drives their decisions toward industry with deeper pockets and attorneys on retainer.
For citizens, nothing can wreck one’s day like the CSC. It behooves towns to protect what little toolkit they have, and understand the legal parameters of the CSC’s playing field. The CSC is not a “normal” government agency where municipal/citizen redress is based on logic and local support. Their process is largely immune to everything but specific kinds of evidence – like town regs with setbacks/fall zones, radio frequency transmission signal strengths, sensitive areas identified, and detailed wildlife inventory, among others.
There is a current cell tower fight involving two intervening towns -- Washington and Warren; both with good cell tower regs – over a tower site within 1200’ of a Montessori School, near Steep Rock’s nature preserves with comprehensive geology/wildlife databases that include endangered, threatened and special concern flora and fauna, on established federal/state migratory bird flyways, within throwing distance to a historic site capable of being listed on the Underground Railroad, and with an access road on a blind curve entering a state highway that will permanently damage wetlands, vernal pools, and core forests. There are well credentialed environmental experts, including Dr. Michael Klemens, former chair of Salisbury’s P&Z, as well as the former director of migratory bird management at the US Fish and Wildlife Service, and an RF engineer testifying to alternative approaches, plus three attorneys representing intervenors. It is the most professional challenge I have seen at CSC since Falls Village successfully mounted one that protected Robbins Swamps several years ago.
The hearing is ongoing, with uncertain results. To see what it takes today to stop an inappropriate tower siting, see Docket #543 under “Pending Matters” at https://portal.ct.gov/csc before removing local cell tower regs – the lowest hanging fruit that any town can possess in case it’s needed.
B, Blake Levitt is the Communications Director at The Berkshire-Litchfield Environmental Council. She writes about how technology affects biology.