Good morning. I’m Billy Baker, guest-writing Starting Point to offer this modest proposal: It’s time for Connecticut to leave New England.
But first, here’s what else is going on:
- The Israeli government approved a plan to take control of Gaza’s largest city, but stopped short of endorsing Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s pledge to take over the entire Gaza Strip.
- The FBI will help find Texas Democrats who fled the state to block a GOP redistricting bill, one of Texas’ US senators said. Separately, the Trump administration ousted an FBI official who resisted naming agents who investigated Jan. 6.
- More Massachusetts beaches are failing bacterial tests as old, overflowing sewers threaten beachgoers’ health.
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TODAY’S STARTING POINT
Is it lame for Connecticut to try to change the fact that everyone thinks it’s lame?
Last week, a man who owns a marketing agency and didn’t like how everyone was always so down on Connecticut, both inside and out, announced something called The CONNection.
I know.
And you can probably guess what it’s going to try to do, which is gather the Nutmeg State’s finest and have them talk into a camera about its rich arts and culture and scenic Hartford.
Bryn Tindall, the guy pushing the collaboration, thinks positivity will win the day. But his concept of pitting influencers against “influencers” commits a cardinal sin, which is to take a joke seriously. You need to have a comeback, especially if you want to call yourself a New England state.
The main joke about Connecticut, and the one from which all others stem, is that it’s just a boring drive-through state on the journey between Boston and New York. It’s such an easy joke that it’s almost hacky, but it works every time because in all jest there is truth. Connecticut has always been stuck in a sort of limbo between the two fierce rivals.
And that drive through Connecticut is excruciating. If you take the inland diagonal, there is nothing interesting to see, and that includes the unobstructed, elevated view of the Hartford skyline. Or you can take the coastal route and drive through a string of small cities whose names you forget, but you want to say some of them used to have jai alai.
Hacky, like I said. So let me give Connecticut a genuine compliment, which is that it really might have the best pizza in the country. The apizza coming out of the coal-fired ovens at Sally’s and Modern and Frank Pepe’s in New Haven is inarguably great. But that secret is long out, so you’re adding two hours to your drive easy.
Enter a man named Anthony Anthony. (Did I tell you I’ve written four stories about Anthony Martignetti, the “Anthony! Anthony!” kid from the Prince Spaghetti commercials? Because I definitely told Anthony Anthony.) The Connecticut Anthony is the head of marketing for the state, and the person responsible for a campaign earlier this year where they put up provocative billboards in New York, Chicago, and Detroit proclaiming Connecticut as the home of the nation’s best pizza. A bit of trolling, but well done, and gently on the offensive, which is not a Connecticut thing.
That campaign was preceded by signs erected at its borders last June by Governor Ned Lamont. If you enter from Massachusetts, the signs welcome you to the home of the Basketball Capital of the World. This for people leaving the state where the game was invented, which houses the Hall of Fame, and which has the winningest NBA franchise. Is this because you won a couple of college games? You’re so cute I could eat you up. But just for that, we’re taking your WNBA team.
The New York border is now guarded by signs welcoming you to the Pizza Capital of the United States. And if you cross into Connecticut on I-95 from Rhode Island, you are welcomed to the Submarine Capital of the World. Does that mean they’re arguing over that? Should I know this? Is that what’s off those exits?
Anthony said the pizza campaign cost the state $220,000, but generated more than $10 million in media impressions, and while it was running it led to a staggering 22 percent increase in day trips to New Haven. I guess you have to start somewhere.
“I like where we’re at,” Anthony said of his attempt to reshape the Connecticut brand. “I like that people don’t think we’re part of New England and people don’t think we’re part of New York. That’s a strategic advantage to have people think of us differently.”
But is it possible to think differently about The Land of Steady Habits, perhaps the most-apt of all state nicknames, if they don’t make a big move? The chief reason it gets picked on is because it has never really chosen a side in the Boston-New York rivalry, but has stuck to this bland middle-ground.
Connecticut needs to secede from New England and finally, officially, go all in on the Tri-State. It’s a move that would immediately strengthen each side. New England would get rid of a minor-leaguer who was kinda quiet and blah, and New York would suddenly have a murderer’s row of rolling hills and skyline and rest areas named for famous people from New Jersey.
In terms of New England-ness, Connecticut has always felt the least like the rest. It’s hard to place, but in an instant it could go from being the least pretty part of New England to the prettiest part of New York. Where Anthony sees a free agent, I see a potential blockbuster signing. For the other team.
When I pitched Anthony about my secession treaty, and what it could do for the brand, he didn’t shoo me away. Instead, he told me I think like a marketer, and I think he meant it in a good way.
It solves so much, including the slight guilt I feel picking on Connecticut, and that’s because it’s never fought back. Aren’t you tired of being just below the surface, unnoticed? It makes sense that you make a mean submarine, but isn’t the point to pop out and fire when no one is looking? Officially join the Evil Empire and launch at everyone in New England that’s been mean to you. I feel like you’ve earned that. We certainly deserve it. The least we can do is set you free.
🧩 4 Down: Genealogy charts | ☀️ 82° A sunny, dry weekend
POINTS OF INTEREST
Lithium: The metal can help protect your brain against aging and Alzheimer’s, researchers found. Here’s what to know — and how to get more lithium in your diet.
Care concerns: Patient deaths, government investigations, and a new lawsuit. What’s happening at Saint Vincent Hospital in Worcester?
‘Betrayed and devastated’: The Air Force will deny retirement benefits to longtime service members who are transgender as the Trump administration forces out trans troops. (AP)
The downside of arbitration: Such agreements are legal and common in the assisted living industry, but severely restrict residents from holding facilities accountable when something goes wrong, according to experts.
Not excessive: Massachusetts’ highest court let the state Retirement Board take away a $1 million pension from a former state trooper convicted in an overtime fraud scandal.
More ballot initiatives: Massachusetts business groups are backing measures to lower the state income tax rate and return more revenue to taxpayers. Critics say they’d cut funding to key services.
Murder mystery: A former Maine man named Michael Kelley is suspected in the murder of an Irish farmer who took him on as a farmhand — and ended up dismembered. Kelley says he had nothing to do with the death.
Good news: Cases of deadly mosquito-borne diseases in Massachusetts are down this year compared to last summer. These maps show whether your town is at risk.
In charge: The Medievalist scholar Pierre Terjanian was, by his own admission, an unlikely choice to become the MFA’s next director. With the arts under attack, he must now lead the museum through a tricky moment.
Manatee hunt: Wildlife officials want the public’s help locating an ailing manatee spotted last month on Cape Cod so that it can be returned to Florida.
VIEWPOINTS
Crossover event: Two Opinion columnists turned over their newsletters to the other for a no-holds-barred interview. Renée Graham talks about interviewing Prince and building Legos; Marcela García discusses freezing in front of a Supreme Court justice and the right answer to the infamous trolley problem.
Tell me about it: On the latest “Say More” podcast, the Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist Viet Thanh Nguyen spoke to Opinion editor Jim Dao about the role of the writer amid political turmoil. Watch the conversation here.
BESIDE THE POINT
By Teresa Hanafin
🧒 Parenting: Do you want to raise terrific kids in “terrifying” times? A new book has some strategies.
🐰 Pets to prey: A Denmark zoo wants pet owners to donate their elderly guinea pigs, rabbits, etc. to be fed to the zoo’s predators such as lions and lynx — after first being humanely euthanized. This apparently mimics what they would eat in the wild. (CNN)
💵 No tax for you: Massachusetts’ annual sales tax holiday is this weekend. Here’s what that means.
💘 Blind date: He likes movies and script writing; she’s into film photography and civic engagement. Will they click?
⭐️ Solved: Scientists believe they have figured out what has killed more than 5 billion starfish off the Pacific Coast of North America over the past decade: A bacteria. (AP)
📺 Streaming: “Freaky Tales” with Pedro Pascal, Stephen King’s “The Monkey,” Adult Swim’s “Common Side Effects,” and more thnigs to watch this weekend.
Thanks for reading Starting Point.
This newsletter was edited by Teresa Hanafin.
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Billy Baker can be reached at billy.baker@globe.com. Follow him on Instagram @billy_baker.