The Mid-Point of Another Three Day Weekend

Columbus Day is almost the perfect American holiday because Christopher Columbus is like us. He didn't know where he was going when he was going there, didn't know where he was when he got there, had no idea what to make of what he found where he ended up, and squandered all that he received for his troubles and effort.

When we were kids, Columbus Day was a big deal in New York City. The Department of Public (almost dropped the L off that; awkward) Works used to paint the white line on Fifth Avenue purple for the annual parade that was always held on the real date of the holiday, October 12 (no Monday holiday laws back then).

 

In light of so much, I, as a man of seventy-three years now, know that as a boy of twelve, I didn't know about the Rape of Paradise which ensued after Columbus' arrival, perhaps blood-red might have been a better choice of colors.

As a youngster, all I ever cared about was the day off, just like kids across the country. We all recited the rhyme because that's how we knew what we did know about Columbus, and since there wasn't a snappy couplet about genocide, we didn't hear anything about that aspect of discovering the New World (I also don't remember the Arakawa natives part, but some of my little gray cells have had some rough days).

Looking at the world as it is and how all settlements and civilizations have developed, I'm not sure it's just Old Chris we should be putting in the defendant's docket and charging. I'm thinking a look in the mirror, as well as a glance out a window, might increase our catch significantly.

And to compound the cacophony of facts clashing with opinions is the realization that not only did Columbus not discover the New World, but he also wasn't the first. We've spent hundreds of years observing a historical event that is neither historic nor an actual event. 

And now, as it's the dot on the "i" in Monday holiday, we have another excuse (and sale opportunity) to buy bedding, or is that just me in the last couple of days? Sandwiched between the 'My candidate is on the special advisory committee to Gawd while yours eats bugs" commercials have been a steady stream of ads selling mattresses. I'm not sure there's any more of a connection between one to the other than there was to India from Bermuda back in the day.

Speaking of which, you have to cross an ocean from a basement warehouse at Bertramstrasse 6 in Frankfurt am Main to get to a certain city in Ohio. That's as may be. All I know for sure is such a journey can take decades and cost you more than you ever believed you could pay when you first started. But it's worth every penny, for your thoughts and otherwise. 

-bill kenny

Too Bad "Climate Change Is a Hoax"

Today's title is my homage to the guy who failed to pronounce acetaminophen correctly before spelling it T-Y-L-E-N-O-L at the White House spelling bee.

And this news story from CNN leads me to suspect the woods were all full.

But, Good News! The Pope is not only still Catholic, he's an American.

-bill kenny

A Murder of Crows

We are a culture that celebrates ourselves as unique individuals, except that, for the most part, we don't define ourselves by our humanity, but rather by our utility. We are what we do. Our unique specialness is tied to our place in the world instead of the other way around. In essence, we already know what we are; all that remains is agreement on the price.

In economic hard times which, despite some political leaders insistence to the contrary, are still going on for many in our country and for many others around the world (when America gets a cold, other nations are in intensive care), a hidden cost harder to recover from than a bank statement or a bottom line, is the injury to that part of ourselves we can't put a price tag on, our pride in who we are.

We have a lot of people who have done nothing wrong and who are losing their jobs, perhaps their families and homes, places in their local circle of friends and acquaintances, who end up losing themselves. I knew a German in one of the places I worked in the Federal Republic who  teased that "Americans are people who buy things they don't want with money they don't have to impress people they don't like." We're near the point, as a nation, where the bills are coming due. Wer soll das bezahlen? Wer hat das bestellt? Wann man nur wusste.

In the frenzy of election season, where there's more action than date night at Piranha High, the highs are higher and the lows are deeper, at least when the other side is telling the story. But the thing to NOT lose sight of when the edge is off the rhetoric on Wednesday, November 5th, when we realize there is no revolution, just power changing hands, is a few more of us have become the walking wounded. That old coaching admonition to just 'shake it off' only goes so far.

An adult without hope or dignity hurts and then, in turn, hurts others, usually those closest to them, so what began as a personal tragedy too often becomes a community calamity. Sing a song of sixpence for your sake, and take a bottle full of rye. Four and twenty blackbirds in a cake and bake them all in a pie. Crow, too often, tastes the same.

-bill kenny

Somewhere Hilton Kaderli Smiles

For many years, on one of our local television stations, we had a meteorologist, Hilton Kaderli, from Oklahoma. Never understood/learned how he ended up in Hartford, Connecticut, but I've watched The Wizard of Oz often enough to respect high winds.  

Whenever we had heavy rain, and I do mean heavy rain, he'd call it what he told us it was called in Oklahoma, a gullywhumper. I always appreciated expanding my vocabulary.

Yesterday, we made up all of our rainfall deficit for this year and maybe some more.

Sdeah reiht edih dna nur yeht. Semoc niar eht fi.
-ynnek llib

Stuck Between Stations

I’m impressed at election time with how signs for candidates appear on lawns and vacant lots across Norwich, much like wildflowers after a spring rain. Between the signs for supporting “Working for Norwich’ and ‘Making Norwich More Affordable,’ I almost can’t see the most prevalent lawn sign of all, For Sale signs on residences and commercial buildings.

My taxes increased by three hundred dollars a month last fiscal year due to re-evaluation and nearly one hundred more a month this year, which revealed two things. We don’t have enough money for any Board of Education to fund our schools to enable our children to compete in the Information Age, and we have negative commercial growth, dooming us to repeat this cycle endlessly.

Tomorrow night at six in NFA’s Slater Museum will be a debate among (I assume) three mayoral candidates, followed by a debate among City Council candidates. There's still time to submit questions at info.lwvsect@gmail.com.

Make the candidates articulate their vision for attracting and revitalizing our commercial and industrial sectors; how they will create spaces and places in our historic downtown that attract new residents, and artisan businesses to populate and reinvigorate our abandoned buildings, with specific targets, goals, and milestones so that we can assess our progress.

Ask them if they support a higher assessed value of a commercial building based on its potential, rather than its current use, resulting in a higher rate and collection of property taxes and mitigation of blight. If not, why not? And if so, how would they implement it? 

Roundabouts seem to be a solution that nobody likes, so what's theirs? How would they mitigate/alleviate traffic flow on Route 82?

Would they support a mill rate stabilization fund, and how would they finance it?

Do they support enhancing and enlarging the collaboration and cooperation between the paid firefighters and the volunteer companies? If not, why not; if yes, how would they facilitate and expedite that interaction?

What do they see as Norwich’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats when marketing our city to new businesses, industries, and families looking for a new home?

And don't let ANY of the candidates leave the stage before they answer the questions fully.

If you don't choose, you lose. And not voting is still a choice. We, the voters, hold the growth of our city in our hands with our ballots. We hear the same bullshite every election. It's like we're stuck between stations. Change channels and make informed choices, maybe for the first time in decades.
-bill kenny

The New Romantics

I spotted the toddler first-I think because I liked being a dad when our kids were young, so even today I scan the two feet from the ground first. And there he was. About three with a Mohawk dyed a shade of sunshine yellow so bright it hurt your eyes, and because he wasn't visible enough from space yet, add alternating electric red stripes the length of the Mohawk. We're talking a thing of beauty.

He was notionally on the hand of his Dad, who was pushing the shopping cart. I say it like that because he was jumping around like maybe a pallet of cane sugar had fallen on him in the store and he'd eaten his way out of the pile that threatened to bury him.

Alongside Dad was Mom, pushing a stroller with a little tiny person who (Dad's perspective again) didn't look old enough to be sitting up in the first place. I chose to NOT say anything to the Mom because I am a mellow fellow. That, and her husband being about six and a half feet tall and no more than 1% body fat, may have influenced my desire to be silent.

The pair had been shopping, I would guess, for most of their lives at Animal Skins R Us, and I smiled, thinking how big a frownie face the PETA folks would have if they could see this pair. But that's not the best part, and when I say best, I mean not best.

Just below the shoulder blade on his left arm, and of course, when you're styled and shaped like he is, it's a sleeveless shirt, he has a tattoo in jet black ink, "Her Stud." 

As the late Billy Mays used to say repeatedly, 'But wait, there's more.' 

On Mom's right shoulder, and she is as slender as the chances of pony rides on my birthday, in very much the same place in the darkest of tints, she has a tattoo with "His Bitch." Hopeless Romantics. And somewhere Norman Rockwell is suddenly not so sad he shuffled off his mortal coil at the moment he did.

-bill kenny

The Upside to the Shutdown

Having endured it on too many occasions, as a federal employee, the kabuki theater that is Washington, D.C., during a government shutdown, I don't have a lot of good to say about it.

Except a plague on both your houses.
-bill kenny