First World Problems Have a New Zip Code

Where ever you are living in the world, unless it's as my neighbor here in The Land of Steady Habits, Connecticut, you have my sympathy. I've only been here about twenty-two and a half years so it had escaped my notice but we have, it seems (obviously), solved all the major, and minor, challenges facing us as a small, aging population with mostly obsolete skills, state in the Northeastern part of the United States.

I mean to say, we must have if our (part-time) state legislators have decided to take on Hollywood and be the first state in the country to turn down the volume of movies at cinemas across the state. I cannot make this stuff up, though technically the Associated Press' John Cristoffersen could I suppose, though why is another question entirely.

I confess my first reaction was WHAT? You or I might look at a legislative agenda where an item like this pops up and wonder 'why not just stay home that day rather than burn daylight on this?' Bearing in mind, not just in my state but in yours as well, many of those in state legislative chairs will be there until they decide to NOT seek re-election or die in office.

Seats at the state legislative level across this nation are like chairs on the New York Stock Exchange or personal seat licenses at an NFL stadium. Once you're in, you're in. Forever.

I mention that because the Connecticut state government has (almost) criminally been pooching municipalities since the late 1980's and passage of the Teachers' Enhancement Act in how much of the costs of paying our public school teachers are borne by the state and how much locally. Ideally, the split is 50/50 but it has never been that and it continues to skew south in favor of the state with each page turn of the calendar. Every two years there's a lot of talk about 'fixing the math' but all we do is talk and never fix.

The rate of reimbursement for Payment in Lieu of Taxes, PILOT, continues a slow, downward spiral and don't talk to public employees about how much or well of their pension plan is funded, per state law, by the same legislature (and Governor, sometimes of the same majority party in the state house but sometimes not) who has mastered the art of magic bookkeeping so brilliantly that the last gubernatorial election here sort of turned on a pledge by one candidate to tell the truth when it came to accounting and reporting the budget.

We voted him in but then learned his pledge was to tell his truth and for the most part, we shrugged as taxes were raised again on items that in may other places on earth aren't taxed at all. Between turning down the movies and expanding the 'returnables' list of of glass and plastic containers for which (in theory) a consumer pays a deposit that s/he collects when recycling the containers, we are, as an older generation once suggested, 'farting through silk' because we just don't have anything more serious to worry about.

Aging and aged transportation infrastructure that makes riding a local bus nearly a pipe dream and has rendered regional rail non-existent while our highways and bridges crumble and commuter rail like Metro North plays hooky for mechanical failures three times and more a month....

But we're getting a handle on the volume of movies in our local theaters. Thank goodness. When it comes time to make a documentary on The Nutmeg State in the 21st Century, I'm thinking a title like Silent Scream, perhaps narrated by Marcel Marceau.
 -bill kenny