A Nation and an Experiment

I'm sharing something I wrote not long ago for this holiday. I called it:

America Is a Dream the Whole World Owns

There are a lot of traditional activities for Independence Day, not that reading these words is in any danger of becoming part of that, and if you've heard me write some of this before, you've been standing too close to the keyboard. 

Before it gets really crazy busy over the next few days, perhaps each of us should look in the mirror and then take a look around at the country we received from our parents and their parents, and which we hope to give to our children and theirs. 

There’s been as much gained as there has been lost through the tears and years, and some of what has changed has been better, and some of it has only been different. The dilemma is in deciding which and what.

By many accounts, the heat was oppressive, and tempers were hot in Philadelphia two hundred and fifty years ago as malcontents and troublemakers (in the eyes of His Majesty, George III, King of England) gathered to refine, define, and catalog their grievances and complaints with the most powerful empire the world had ever seen.

Articulating what they called our ‘unalienable rights’ to include ‘life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness’ the founders of our republic, who did not agree on very much except that the present state of affairs such as they were in 1776 could not continue, concluded the only way forward as a people on this largely unexplored, new continent whose size and wealth was not yet known, was to break with the past and declare independence from King and Crown.

And out of all of that has come all of this. 

And along the way, the original magic and meaning have been muffled by backyard pool parties, holiday car sales, and chicken-fried steaks on the barbecue.

Our politics is spirited even if our interest isn't; we confuse partisan and patriot far too frequently, and our understanding of issues is muddled and muddied because too many of us have created media echo chambers where all we ever hear/see and read is what we choose, not what we should. 

And, again, it’s not that we all agree with who we are and what we are doing. It’s been reported that we haven’t been this divided morally, politically, and socially as a country since the Civil War. And that should frighten us more than it does and galvanize us into redoubling our efforts to reach out to one another, and yet we continue to shrug our shoulders.

Some say never have so many had so much of life’s material rewards, but others contend that never have so many struggled to hold on to what they have. There's a lot to be said on both sides of that argument, and there’s even more that we're not hearing because we’re just not very good anymore at listening to one another.

What may be missing in our nation is our sense of self, our confidence, and belief in our own abilities to forever adapt, adopt, and overcome. We had those traits at our Founding, and I would hope each, in our own way, might again rediscover them, both for those whose inheritance we are and for those whose promise is yet to be.
-bill kenny

Benjamin Franklin Speaking

This Independence Day holiday finds us as a nation and a people going in different directions, seemingly heedless of others with differing perspectives and beliefs. 

We've forgotten, or seemed to, the United in the name of our country. Too often, we see people with different values as some kind of awful, if not some kind of enemy.

Maybe after the barbecue, and before the softball game sets us up for the fireworks we all always look forward to, we can spend a moment thinking about what we have, who gave it to us, and how we can better safeguard it for those who will follow us. 

Just a thought, or more like a Happy Birthday wish.
-bill kenny

Hear the Drummers Drumming

In the coming days, we'll mark the 250th anniversary of the founding of our nation with the signing of the Declaration of Independence. I'm still pondering Thomas Jefferson's words about "...certain unalienable Rights... Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness. (and) That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted." I think we form governments, regardless of the manner of actual governance, to do for us collectively what we cannot do for ourselves as individuals.

But maybe I'm missing something, or maybe we all are when we elect/select those who represent us and our interests at all levels of government. Still, the education of our children seems to me to be one of those basic services for which we created government. 

Except, too often we seem to have created governments that most closely resemble a self-licking ice cream cone requiring increased infusions of tax money to explain why less is accomplished. How about for the next two hundred and fifty years, we stop doing that? Deal? 

Our two children are grown and gone, so my experience's 'best used by' date might be a problem for you, but the point won't be. Their first language was other than English when they started school here. They succeeded in both school and life because of their own talents and efforts, and in no small part because of a remarkable public school system of programs and teachers who created an ecosystem that allowed them to grow into who they are today.

But in the decades since our children attended, programs have withered, been eliminated, improved out of existence (pick one) and funding is often more of a rumor, and rather than look at the causes of the financial instability and insolvency that forces decisions like this, and be inspired and incited to demand long term solutions which create real systemic change and reform, we idly and angrily wonder 'gee, what happens to our tax dollars' and continue doing what we've always done, growing angry when the result never varies or improves.

What is permitted is what will continue.
If you want a better place wherever it is you live, you need to make it yourself and join together with the rest of us right now.
-bill kenny

The End or the Beginning?

I have no idea how I lived before the internet. I've checked my birth certificate, and I was around for decades before any of this stuff that we take for granted had ever been thought of. 

Maybe like you, I can go online to look up a particular topic or event, and hours, if not days, later, I will look up to realize I'm still at the computer. Every click becomes a revelation, if not a revolution, and more often than not, the original reason for the search is forgotten. 

Just the other day, I found something online that I had to tear myself away from to tell you about, knowing that when I do (and you try it out), we may never see one another ever again.

Are you ready? Go. 

See you in the next life.
-bill kenny  

Talk about a Short Trip

You may not have yet started to notice, but the days are getting shorter--yes, I know, hot summer nights and all that, but since we've had the solstice, we're already on the downside of the slide to the longest dark day of the year in December. 

I guess the good news might be if you want Santa to bring you a sled, you only have to wait one hundred and seventy-nine days.

And you thought I'd say something chirpy and perky to start your week? Silly rabbit!
-bill kenny

Sunset Doesn't Last All Evening

It happens every summer in the parts of New England that aren't actually parts of any part of New England. When we think of Massachusetts, we think of Patti Page and Old Cape Cod, but for an hour's worth of your drive out to the Cape, it looks more odd than Cod.

Same for Southeastern Connecticut. People think Mystic (curse you, Julia Roberts, and those great cheekbones!) and other touristy locales, but a lot more of the area is quite a distance from having any mystical qualities at all.

I think the weather has caught up with me and cast me down a bit. We get this every June. It rains like the dickens, then it stops, and the clouds part; the sun comes out, and then the cycle starts all over again. Like the Itsy Bitsy Spider has been left in charge and found the keys to the liquor cabinet.

I've started to get a lot better at looking and seeing (physical and cognitive functions together) small strokes and nuances instead of looking at the big picture and struggling for meaning. Something Harry J taught me in video editing some forty-five years ago, 'watch the whole frame,' has uses beyond the box, but I suspect he knew that and just wanted to start small. 

"Know your audience" was another thing he used to say, usually when talking to me. I have a sneaky feeling he was laughing up his sleeve when he said it.

Out walking the other day, I looked overhead, and I smiled to myself. It was early, and maybe nobody else saw the brightness in the day before it was overtaken by the clouds that had chased it across the heavens, but I had seen it. And I knew, proof positive again that all things must pass. But in so doing, they leave a little bit of themselves for all to enjoy. 

-bill kenny

Raising Our Voices Instead of Elevating Our Arguments

Driving through Taftville the other day, heading to the post office, passed a house with three or four lawn signs all reading "Norwich City Council Sucks." Brevity being the soul of communication, I understood almost instantly what the signs meant. The owner still had a 'Get Fired Up-Support Your Volunteers' lawn sign as well, and to my eyes, didn't have a lot of lawn left (which is a clever way to avoid mowing, I guess).

There's been a months-long argy-bargy involving our City Manager and the Chief of the paid fire department, and three of the four volunteer fire departments, about what, I'm not quite sure. It started out as a shouting match of sorts, 'I'm the Boss!' 'You're not the boss of me!' 'Oh yeah? Yeah!' and is now 'We'll see you in court.'    

There is no happy ending to any of this, and that is more than a little sad, as we're doing great things as a small city in Southeastern Connecticut, and I think the only direction we're heading is up. 

We're conveniently forgetting, as is so often the case, not everyone gets everything--it's true in government as it is in any other relationship, so perhaps we might spend a moment and define what our relationship with our city government is, and/or should be.

We form governments, local, state, and national, to do for us collectively what we, as individuals, are unable or unwilling to do for ourselves alone. Some of the tasks are easy--provide for the national defense. Some are harder to define and execute, providing a quality education for our children to enable them to be productive members of our society as they become adults.

The challenge is in the details. Compound all of that by putting a price on each action, and every step of each action, until the municipal budget exceeds one hundred and sixty-seven million dollars. That's a lot of money and a lot of responsibility. 

I voted for neighbors, known and unknown to me, who volunteered to do their best as they saw it on my behalf, no matter how I felt, personally, on any given issue before them. And I believe with possibly two exceptions, all of them are trying to do just that. The open question, regardless of the issue, is: do you do something right, or do something right now?

Politics is often called 'the art of the possible', but we, the people (at all levels of government), can make that art impossible by elevating our expectations and the volume of our voices when speaking about our expectations.

Not helping matters is our representational form of government, where, from the speaker's podium at a city council meeting to and through the curtain at the voting booth, we can drown out one another if we work at it.  

No one wants to have fewer policemen, or more children in a school classroom or a library that can't be open to serve the general public in need of its services, or gaps in our fire protection and public safety.

A lot of us remain very unhappy at the state of affairs in The Rose City and the rate and pace of change and improvement still needed. But we have to work together. To discover and then celebrate the commonality of our shared vision of what we want Norwich to be, and decide how important our differences are in pursuit of a common goal. To stop saying 'this is the way,' and start saying 'let's find a way.' 

Hurling invective at people with whom we disagree will benefit no one. We can disagree without being disagreeable. Sadly, I fear that won't fit on a lawn sign.
-bill kenny