Having an African-American president is convenient. It boosts U.S. credibility in the Global South and makes us look like we’re making progress toward wiping out racism when we’re not.

But it will take more than President Barack Obama’s tenure to vanquish American prejudice and racial injustice. Four years after he took office, it remains perilous to be black or brown. Racial profiling remains rampant. Schools are, if anything, becoming even more segregated. The Voting Rights Act, under attack at the Supreme Court, is as necessary as ever.

Over the past several months, much of Town Hall’s staff effort, including Finance Director Robin Manuele, Colleen Garrity, Janet Closson, Arlene Boutin and Ross Herzog, has been focused upon addressing the difficult circumstances related to the town’s finances. Ms. Garrity and Mr. Herzog, especially, have spent endless hours reproducing documents for the forensic auditor to assist with the current investigation. Other staff members have assisted those two when even more help has been needed. Ms.

Having attended a number of White House Correspondents’ Dinners back in the last century without ever hearing a serious word spoken over drinks, dinner and after dinner parties, I’m truly impressed that Gov. Dannel P. Malloy was able to do so much important state business amid all that frivolity. I hope he had time to eat.

Having attended a number of White House Correspondents’ Dinners back in the last century without ever hearing a serious word spoken over drinks, dinner and after dinner parties, I’m truly impressed that Gov. Dannel P. Malloy was able to do so much important state business amid all that frivolity. I hope he had time to eat.

President Obama has unveiled a serious program for support of basic science as it applies to the human brain. First, let’s understand that $100 million is a poker player’s ante, a sort of pilot or planning grant to decide on projects to tackle and to do initial research. Over the next 10 years the price will be perhaps $3 billion in addition to the $5 billion or more a year we now spend on neuroscience research. Some of this will come from wealthy foundations, some from taxpayers. BRAIN, by the way, is an inane acronym for Brain Research through Advancing Innovative Neurotechnologies.

While a solid majority of voters gave their approval to a proposed $33.7 million budget at Monday night’s annual town budget meeting, the usual small but vocal minority spoke out against the proposal. While the voices of the budget opponents were loud, their message was unclear.

Facial hair is back in a big way among men. That is nothing new, but the time, effort and expense of looking so scruffy might surprise you.

In 1958, the American Bar Association proposed that May 1 be designated as Law Day as the peaceful answer to the traditional May Day military displays in Communist countries, particularly the former Soviet Union. President Eisenhower agreed and thus, the Law Day tradition was born.