There's a Time for Meditation in Cathedrals of Our Own

I know several people purse their lips when I tell them I watch/listen to PBS/NPR for my evening national news fix, when I feel brave enough to even watch the news (which I usually don't). 

I can't help it-I grew up in a large household where everything, no matter where in the house it started, spilled over to everything else to the point that I'm not sure how my mom and dad or any of my brothers and sisters could hear one another think. Television news in our house as kids was like going to church.

That's why I enjoy being able to put the noise on pause and simply sit and listen to a grown-up report the day's events with straightforward words and unadorned visuals in reports that last a lot longer than those who've grown up on US commercial broadcasters are used to seeing and trying to follow.

No one shouts at me or yells at anyone else elsewhere in the video frame. It's not peaceful or bordering on soporific, just calm and reasoned. I can hear and listen (the former a physical function and the latter a cognitive process) and make up my own mind in my own time.

You and I have lived for over two decades in the shadow of the Great Nothing, the War without End, the Same As It Ever Was and The Plague, but we can remember another time, a different one-one that was better or one we believed (in hindsight) to be so. 

Those exulting in the efforts to dismantle and defund our Public Broadcasting System still haven't shown, in their explanation of why, what they'd replace it with. For people with so much to say so loudly and so often, they are strangely and sadly silent. Perhaps out of shame? I suspect I shall never know.

"And I believe there is a time for meditation in cathedrals of our own... For we are always what our situations hand us- it's either sadness or euphoria." And on some days, perhaps an equal mixture of both.

-bill kenny

Just Below the Police Calls

A lifetime ago, I was part of a group of young Turks (we called ourselves 'the Marconi Mafia'; no one else ever did, though) who took it upon themselves to inflict their version of radio on an unsuspecting military audience across Europe who had done nothing to deserve our undivided attention, and yet there we were.  

We, or at least I, thought we were right (and righteous). With the benefit of over forty years of hindsight, it's entirely possible I was less than correct, not that you will ever get me to admit that now. 

I've spent much of the three-plus decades since returning to the USA trying to find radio I could listen to without throwing up. It hasn't been easy. Where we live in Southeastern Connecticut, it's slim pickings, with talk radio on the AM and FM bands being the market leader. Some folks enjoy it; not me, not now, not ever.  

I spend most of my time on Sirius or, as it's known now, Sirius XM, happy for the most part without ever being delirious. But as of this morning, I found 'human-curated radio,' no algorithms, no consultants, no paid blocks, just non-stop, "I wonder what they'll play next?"

It's not coincidental that it's called Radio Paradise.

Enjoy! 
-bill kenny

They Put Jesus on a Cross

You don't have to watch a lot of news, on whatever platform you choose, to assume, as I have, that  America's #1 blood sport is Stomp the Leaders. I'm not sure when the game started, but I don't remember it being as vicious when I first came back to the USA in 1991 but then again I wasn't as callous myself as I am now. 

I confess to not paying much attention as the tone heated up through the years-especially when so many public figures, whom it was fashionable to mock, proved to be so filled with frailties and foibles. Maybe it was just coincidence that the Good Ship Lollipop started taking on water and the dominoes started toppling. Maybe.

When the dust had momentarily cleared, we had a black person as the President and a lot of (other) angry middle-aged white guys unelected to anything other than the big chair in a TV studio. Just me, but we went downhill right after that and still haven't yet reached the bottom. 

Not really surprising that the news cycles all head in the same direction as water down the plynth, especially as the countdown to this year's mid-term elections draws closer. It's physics, really: for there to be an inside there has to be an outside, and if there isn’t, we make one up. 

We no longer have to make any effort to avoid being partisan. As a matter of fact, our corporate media insists and assumes we be even more so. I think I once was the most cynical man on earth. I've since gotten schooled so often by the real wizards I should be buying lunches for the pompous stuffed shirts on the Big Screen.  

There’s safety in numbers when we learn to divide—we are, as a nation, very uncomfortable in our skins these days and we should be. Many of us weren’t getting an especially heaping helping of the Promised Land when times were good-but all of us got something. When the bottom dropped out, and the well-to-do chose to help themselves rather than anyone else, those already at the bottom discovered, gravity be damned, there is farther to fall. 

We naturally assume someone has to be to blame for what happened to our country in these last three or so decades. When what really happened was we traded the red, the white, and the blue for green, a little bit at a time every day-not even consciously or deliberately all the time it just worked out that way. 

We’re sure as hell not gonna ever cowboy up and admit that we did this to ourselves and to one another.
-bill kenny

Shaken, but Not Stirred

Are we the only species on the planet who become as unhappy when we get what we want as when we're denied it? No wonder visitors from other galaxies steer clear of us. We can't even get along with each other when we have agreed that we want the same thing. The devil, and a reasonable amount of turbulence, seems to be in the details.

Have you ever been, or watched an American in a foreign country? From the way many of us behave, it seems we Americans think people in other countries are deaf and stupid, so we SPEAK ENGLISH VERY LOUD and S-L-O-W-L-Y. News Flash: They can hear us fine. They just don't understand us. Can you blame them?

As persnickety as we are, might we also be the only ones on the block who can appreciate who we are and where we are? I have a hard time imagining a dog, purebred or pound puppy, admiring a sunset. Or encountering a box turtle who enjoys cloud watching.

We are capable of many emotions, some perhaps not very admirable (I can't imagine wolves shunning one of their own because 'his den isn't from around here' but they haven't gotten to that on Animal Planet yet) and others so profound you have to assume it's what helps define us.

Yes, we behave crazily sometimes, but that insanity is a component of our humanity just as much as our thumbs and an appreciation for Goethe are all part of the package.

Maybe that's why we seem so fragile and should be handled with care.
-bill kenny

More True Now Than Ever

"Show me an upright, respected man.
I'll have him licking my boots when I put money in his hand."

"There's no one alive who can't be purchased or enticed.
There's no one alive who won't sell for a price.
Money Talks." 
-bill kenny

And the Stars Look Very Different Today

Our lives and times seem much harder than they once were (and getting harder all the time), and I'd suggest they are. But being the Crown of Creation is a full-time job, and like it or not, we are up to the task, despite occasional setbacks and slip-ups...

In case you think we're losing our touch, cast a look and give a listen to this revisited video that NASA has created. I found it years ago, fell in love with it, and then forgot all about it until just a moment ago.

Lilies of the Field? Nice. Selected primates' use of primitive tools. Okay.
We may be lonely, but we are not alone, except with our thoughts......  
-bill kenny

Picture This

Like almost everyone on the planet (seemingly), I have a smartphone as a cellphone. I have no idea how to make or answer calls should the need arise (and when it does, I look around frantically for someone to help me with the technology, usually to no avail).

It's chock-full of applications to facilitate accomplishing the most amazing of feats, most of which, despite all the years of having a smartphone, remain a complete mystery to me. I can sort of use the calendar, given enough time, and, I'm proud to note, can actually use the search function, though I've had no success when I Google 'how does my smartphone work?' 

Truth to tell, I have the phone for the camera. I have delusions of photography. I'm not really a photographer, though I take a metric butt-ton of pictures just about every place and every time I go and post them all over the place. Volume over quality, I guess.   

Ansel Adams, am I not, and while practice makes perfect, it's actually perfect practice that makes perfect, and that's not happening, at least not in my case. However, I fell across a cheat sheet of sorts, with a title seemingly written for me: "How to take better photos on any smartphone."

They say a picture is worth a thousand words, and I don't doubt that; I'm just unclear on the pixel-to-picture exchange rate.
-bill kenny