Vanilla Twilight

This new year, 2021, which arrived with such hopes and high expectations is already almost a month old or will be by the time we reach next Monday morning. How did that happen and when? Perhaps the good news is, if you've been holding off buying a calendar, you should start to see some great prices on them as the deep discounts kick in. That's an economic stimulus we can all get behind.

If all government is the result of social contracts we make with one another then I'd suggest municipal government works only as hard and as well as we, the people who live in our millions of towns and cities across the country, help make it work.

Everything from picking up trash as you go for a walk around the block, testifying at a public hearing on a zoning change, or offering yourself as a candidate for an office, each a small step by itself, adds up to a larger way forward. And yeah, as I've pointed out before, democracy is a contact sport, so when you decide to get off the bench make sure you're wearing a cup. 

I fear we've spent too many years in this Experiment Called the United States getting too comfortable referring to others as 'them' so that 'we' will have someone (else) to blame. The danger of finger-pointing is that three of the fingers point back at yourself. Perhaps if instead of balling our fingers into fists we offer them as a hand up to someone else in need, together we can make where we live better for all of us. 

If we don't at least try, we'll automatically fail and we've long since passed the point where failure can be allowed to remain an option.
-bill kenny