If You Can Believe in Something Bigger than Yourself

Between now and Election Day, we will hear every single person seeking office in the United States of America invoke the flag in support of whatever it is they are advocating.

That is their right, just as it is mine to arch my right eyebrow and aim a caustic comment or two (I get them by the gross, they're much cheaper that way) in their general direction, certainly no longer in the hope of dissuading them or any adherent from pursuing a particular course of action I'd rather they not, but because it's hygienic and perhaps therapeutic for my own mental state.

I, along with millions of others since before this nation was a nation, have served in its armed forces, worn its uniform, followed the lawful orders of those placed in leadership positions, and done as best I could what was expected of me in defense of my country and my family. In recent days, we've had headlines that might cause some to wonder about the importance of defining and defending both.

The American flag is a symbol of our nation and means to each of us what we wish to see in it every time we look at it. Today is Flag Day and we will hear a lot about 'the flag' and 'our country' before we make decisions this November about who we are and who we shall continue to be.

I'd remind you of the words of Carl Schurz, words about "my country" and how far too often pseudo-patriots have selectively edited and condensed/corrupted his words to support their own agenda. Here's all of it in one place: "(O)ur free institutions and the peace and welfare of this and coming generations of Americans will be secure only as we cling to the watchword of true patriotism: ‘Our country—when right to be kept right; when wrong to be put right.’”

It doesn't fit in a post on Truth Social or other social media so you rarely, if ever, hear the whole quote in much the same way as we use the flag to cover a multitude of venalities. Today, Flag Day, it's good to remember our flag shouldn't be a prop for personal or political posturing but rather a symbol of our nation's resolve and unity.
-bill kenny

Happy Birthday, US Army!

And....

For those who observe.  
-bill kenny

Jeff and Rod Touch (Ron) Wood

Interestingly, there are so many more concerns about, today, Friday the 13th in a nation of fifty states, founded from thirteen original colonies than just about anywhere else on earth 

From the notion of seven years of bad luck if you break a mirror while crossing the path of a black cat and not throwing salt over your right shoulder, to dozens of local and regional variants, we all know people who, today, are as quiet and immobile as they can, 'just in case...'

Here's a puzzler, filed under 'Things from England', that suggests if you worry enough about anything, you can, and will, get sick. Like the old saw about how paranoids are convinced people are out to get them and when, because they alter their behavior, people are indeed out to get them, does this mean they are cured?

I visit the snopes.com website to debunk junk I see online or TV. That's where I can check out topics ranging from 'tariffs are paid by the country exporting goods to the United States," 'Amelia Earhart was Barack Obama's Secret Santa' and just about any combination of either of those we could think of. But Friday the 13th is a slippery slope even for snopes. 

After I've suggested you not step on a crack, or do anything else with it, or have any interaction with a ladder of any kind for any reason, I'd offer, in a half-full glass kind of world, perhaps we're all better off if we consider today as the second coming of Thursday the 12th, only supersized.
-bill kenny

Nine Years On...

It's obscenely ironic in an age of instantaneous communication how much of what is important doesn't survive beyond a single news cycle. There is so much information and so many vehicles to share it, that we are inundated and ultimately overwhelmed, as news and events just wash over us. 

Nine years ago, today, the Pulse Night Club in Orlando, Florida was The News for all the worst and wrong reasons. What follows are words I offered a year after it happened knowing that somewhere events just like it would keep happening. At the time, I called it: 

Collateral Damage in the Age of Style

There's been so much killing and carnage since it happened I'd almost forgotten. It was one year ago that an impotent, life-long loser murdered forty-nine people in the Pulse Club in Orlando, Florida.

Murder in the Name of the Lord has practically become a daily occurrence and was so even before Pulse but no matter how often it happens, and how great the death and damage, it never, ever starts to feel "normal" or a part of any kind of 'just another day at the End of the World.' 

Pulse nightclub victims 

As a card-carrying First Worlder, without ever knowing it or knowing of it, I helped create the world order that has hundreds of millions living in squalor and penury so profound and institutionalized they will never escape it. The world, as they know it, has conspired to leave them with nothing.

The institutions I have created and support have, in turn, constructed protections and insulation for me so that I have as much, or as little (preferably) interaction with or even knowledge of their existence. I'm not indifferent to their struggle and plight; I am oblivious to it. And they have no personal contact of any kind of me and mine. We are on parallel but separate planets.

Except, of course, we share this one. And because we are our own closed system, one with the other, we guarantee that this dance of death and doom will go on until no one is left standing. 

When you have nothing to live for it makes death as deliverance attractive. And with nothing to live for, it's easier to find something to die for which is only partial solace unless and until you can make someone else die for it, too.

I'm never sure if God created man in His image and likeness (some things you must take or leave on faith alone), but I'm very sure we created God in ours, leaving me to wonder who will forgive us.
-bill kenny   

Keep the Dog in the Basket

I love rock and roll music and have a very expansive definition of what I consider it to be (hint: does not include any Rastafarian country and western or any variation of crunk polka). I do not play a musical instrument, and I cannot sing, though that doesn't mean I won't try. Forewarned is forearmed.

For me, music sounds like what feelings should be and I applaud any and all who make it, and I most definitely include in that number, Peter Bence.

Treat yourself to this eargasm, and enjoy!
-bill kenny    

Waiting on a Dial Tone

I just realized as I was typing the title for today's epistle that I am truly a fossil. 

I'm not sure how many, if any, of the people I've known and or worked with in all the years we've been back in The Land of the Round Doorknobs, have a landline telephone (we do) so my reference to waiting on a dial tone might be as inappropriate as characterizing someone's complaints as 'sounding like a broken record.' 

It's okay, I suspect I'd look good in high-button shoes and a waistcoat with a handle-bar mustache (channeling my inner Ben Davidson). Despite having a cellphone for (guessing here) about twenty years, I still have difficulty making or receiving calls, especially the former as I wait for a dial tone that is never coming. Some day in the not-too-distant future, no one on earth will know what a dial tone is.   

I made my livelihood with words in one form or another for about fifty years. Spoken or written, I threw them against walls and sometimes they stuck, and sometimes no luck. But the words I seem to return to in search of solace and closure (?) are the words I never shared.  

We all get busy or lose sight of someone who once meant the world to us. Sometimes the dynamics change and what was once a friendship devolves into an acquaintanceship or even less. Sometimes there's collateral damage on the human highway and after we've slowed down to look at it, we resume normal speed and never think about it again.

In recent days, mutual friends shared the sad news that someone I'd known and worked with over four decades ago, and who had reintroduced us through a social media platform a few short years ago, had passed away. Our online relationship had been both thoughtful and thought-provoking (all thanks to him as I certainly couldn't contribute a meaningful thought on a bet).

Just the day before receiving the news of his passing, I sat down to drop him a line and what passed for thoughts in my case and got distracted by the hurly-burly of the day and never finished my note and now, of course, I never shall.

And then, perhaps because there is a Master Clockmaker in our universe, I came across an article that reduced me to tears and also offered me a comfort that I hadn't expected or intended. If you've never encountered a Wind Phone, now you can say that you have. 

And you needn't journey to Japan to use it. Just a reminder from me to you that 'Hello' is the first step in a journey we start anew every day. 
-bill kenny 

Forty Years Runnin' Down the Road

Forty years ago this month, Bruce Springsteen released his seventh album, Born in the USA. He's been in the news quite recently because, as far as I can tell, significant numbers of people who didn't understand the album or the title track back then still don't understand him now.

I think he and Samuel Clemons would have gotten along famously or at least better than Elmo and Donny Dorito. 

Happy Fortieth.
-bill kenny