The Gunner Sleeps Tonight

This isn't anything you've not read before at this time or in this space. If absence makes the heart grow fonder, I sometimes wonder what repetition causes? Still working on an answer.  

This is a rather difficult time to be an American, I think. Lots of us like to wrap ourselves in the flag, and this is an almost ideal opportunity to do that. Today is Memorial Day, another holiday we've moved to a Monday so we can have a three-day weekend with plenty of time for a barbecue, a run to the beach, and some laps at the Brickyard. 

If we work it right, we don't ever or even have to think of those with whom we grew up and with whom we went to school but who never, themselves, grew old, or whose parents and grandparents, having survived the Depression battled fascism to its knees in a worldwide war and their children and their children who have been engaged in a dozen "smallish" wars for the last half a century that all seem to cost lives.

Every town across the country has observances, as do we here in Norwich, Connecticut. The first, as is tradition, is at Taftville's Memorial Park, starting at 10, this year honoring Herman A. Duhaime, who was listed as Missing In Action on December 2, 1950, during the Korean War, and declared deceased in 1954.
And though I'm not a resident of Taftville, I'm always welcomed as you will be.

 

Later in the day, assuming the weather cooperates, there is a parade organized by the City of Norwich and the Norwich Area Veterans Council that will conclude with speeches and moments of silence at half-past two in a memorial ceremony at Chelsea Parade.

On a day usually filled with backyard barbecues and family softball games, the remembrances help us realize war is not an abstract geopolitical game played out on a grand stage by dominant personalities-it is very local, extremely personal, and heartbreakingly private. Those of our neighbors who choose military service have as many reasons for so doing as there are those who so serve. 

And while today we should mark the ultimate sacrifice of those who have served, we can also spare a thought or prayer for those who have survived as well. They bear scars, often invisible and painful, of their struggles that take a lifetime to heal.

We must never lose sight of all of those whose service makes us who we are and to whom we owe a debt more than we can ever repay. They are a call to arms for each of us to be better than we are for ourselves, our children, and our nation.
-bill kenny

Kyrie Eleison

Memorial Day.

Rex tremendae majestatis. Requiem aeternam, Requiem aeternam.
-bill kenny

Repeat as Needed

I offered this last year as the Memorial Day weekend began and people wished one another 'a happy weekend,' ignoring the solemnity of the occasion. Yeah, I can be a horse's behind on things like this.

Maybe just me, but I think sometimes on Memorial Day weekend, we get a little lost with the mattress sales and such. This is from quite  a few years ago and was called:

 

Only the Dead Have Seen the End of War

I couldn't find a picture of a barbecue grill with a rack of ribs and some burgers, so this will have to do, I guess.

Memorial Day 2026.

-bill kenny

Shouting in a Movie Theater

It's been an intense, if not productive, spring here in The Rose City (a/k/a Norwich, Connecticut) as we make our way towards a final, approved municipal operating budget for the fiscal year starting 1 July. 

If we could focus on that, I'd be happy, but we have distractions like the ongoing and very heated dispute between some, part, or all of our volunteer fire companies and the Chief of the City of Norwich Fire Department and the City Manager. 

Everyone has an opinion, and like noses, they all smell. Mine? I live in the Consolidated City District and am protected by the paid fire department. I've not made a study of fire-fighting, but I'd be willing to bet that the average (or even above average) home fire doesn't care a fart to a pfenning who extinguishes it. Ditto for the homeowner. 

My concern is that we allow these 'issues' fanned into blazes by one or more self-serving alderpersons on our City Council because they enjoy and benefit from the acrimony and aggravation that are the results of their actions, to cause us to lose focus on the core functions of, and reasons for, government, at whatever level you'd like to take this discussion. 

Despite the machinations on Wall Street, here on Main Street, times, as seemingly always, are tough. We have more will than wallet, and maybe that's where we should concentrate and let the side shows take a break for a moment. 

Many Norwich homeowners across the city (present company included; my property taxes have gone up 45% in the eight years we own our home) feel they are at the end of their financial rope and insist the City Council hold the financial line, whatever that is being defined as on any particular day, with 'not one more cent' anywhere in the budget.

We're a funny lot, we really are (though it's probably hard to see the humor right now through the pain). We prefer problems that are familiar (and the more general the description of the problem, the better) rather than solutions or ideas that are not. 

I have changed a lot in the nearly thirty-five years since I nad my family arrived here from Germany. And so has where I live, with about forty thousand others who've also had their share of changes. Sometimes change is hard to see, because it's subtle and gradual, and other times we choose to close our eyes because we are comfortable being blind. 

Some of our Brave New World looks a lot like the old one that technology, access to tools, equality of opportunity, and enhanced diversity were all going to change. The gap between the promise and the performance has grown not only exponentially but also obscenely. 

Everyone talks about 'the children,' like maybe that should be capitalized, but the reality is we've got more children having free or low-cost breakfast in schools than ever before because how we live with one another has shifted from when you and I were school-age. 

We also have health clinics in schools because we need to have them somewhere and can't figure out where else they could be located. And that's just two examples that impact our municipal budget and have feck all to do with fire engines and who gets to drive them.

We've spent, literally as well as figuratively, a generation using government to accomplish programs that have little to do with why we created government in the first place, offering the argument to one another that 'someone has to do it!' 

Unless and until we can agree to define and then refine those tasks our government should be doing and which ones are our responsibilities, we can hold budget hearings until the cows come home (and guess who'll pay the dairy subsidy?) and never fix the fundamental problems. And to finish my opening point, we'll continue to put out our political fires with gasoline and take solace that our mileage may vary, but sadly, never the outcome.

-bill kenny

Everyone's Shadow Is the Same Color

Last November, in our municipal elections here in Norwich, Connecticut, we elected Swarnjit Singh as Mayor by a rather wide margin. Even though Norwich is in the less-than-populous Southeastern Connecticut portion of the state, we are, according to late-2024 census estimates, very cosmopolitan.

I'm sure we're not the only place in Connecticut, to say nothing of the rest of the country and world, where sometimes the things we do speak so loudly I can't understand what we're saying. 

I voted for our current Mayor because he promised to bring new impulses to a city I've called home for almost thirty-five years, which cannot seem to get out of its own way in entering the twenty-first century.

Other people cast ballots for the other candidate, which is their right and duty. But shortly after the election and swearing-in, small-minded, big-mouthed, noise-making generators who disagreed with Mayor Singh's tenure in office (and, in some instances, his existence) surfaced across a plethora of social media platforms.

The mayor is a Sikh, part of a population that is no stranger to prejudice and animus. I've lost count of the number of posters who fear 'sharia law,' which has nothing to do with Sikhs. The tenor and tone of the comments in the seven months since our elections have darkened and deepened and have long since abandoned any pretense of policy disagreement, instead, heading straight for racial and religious prejudice and hatred. 

Earlier this week, finally, an online poster was held responsible for his own actions and (I hope) is now learning that freedom of speech doesn't mean freedom from the consequences of that speech. I learned he isn't even a resident of Norwich, causing me to wonder about many things, including the 'nooks and crannium knowledge' he claims to possess (and I think the Thomas' English Muffin guys may want a word as well with him).

From space, we all look alike. We should try harder to remember that.
-bill kenny

Dominus, Go Frisk 'em

I think all of us have, or did have at one time, a copy of The Bible. After the Harry Potter and Twilight Saga novels, it's the most popular book in the history of the world. 

OK. That comparison is a little unfair since the Bible has been around a whole LOT longer than the Chronicles of Hogwarts. Any comparison of the battle between God and the Devil and that of Jacob and Edward always results in the latter two getting their asses kicked.

I still remember enough from my catechism classes to get a little bit weirded out by the contention that more than half of the Old Testament's fulfillment is bogus, according to many scholars. I mean, if that's God's will, I'm not going to criticize Her/Him. I mean, look at what happened to Jesus-and He was a relative. I'm thinking about Stake Your Claim and that's never a good sign. I'll bet Michael Moorcock would agree with me.

Yeah, I know, I'm erring on the side of caution. Could it be true? Yes, I guess; or no, of course not. How come the more we know, the less we're sure about? I'd be a lot better off with two forms of ID, and I'll tell you now that the prayer card you're offering me looks a little hinky. Can't say I recognize that face in that picture that you keep. It's too high, it's too wide. You're so low, you don't know how to get through, you go around.
-bill kenny

Not the E-Mail Kind

I'm a picky eater (and as my wife can attest, a pain in the butt in terms of what I eat and won't eat). High up on my list of latter foods would be SPAM.

When cornered, I'll concede I cannot explain my reticence about eating SPAM, and at seventy-four years of age, I'm quite comfortable going the remainder of my life without having any.

SPAM Musubi a/k/a 'Nope.'

In the interests of full disclosure, I should note I have NEVER eaten a bite of SPAM. My wife, on the other hand, very much enjoys it in all of the variations in which it is offered. I suspect she'll be very interested in the latest addition to the SPAM assortment.   

Say what you will, those bloody Vikings are culinary geniuses. Pass the mustard.
-bill kenny