Enough?

Now that Labor Day is in the rearview mirror and we've gotten the kids off to school again (seeing all those yellow school buses prowling the streets does take a little getting used to, doesn't it?) if we are the mature adults we tell one another we are, we could start looking at this fall's elections and issues. 

Or we can do what we tend to do so often, go with the flow, and busy ourselves with so many of the things we thought we'd get done over the summer that somehow just never got accomplished. 

Besides, what would you rather do? Ask candidates for city council exactly how they intend to grow the grand list to ease the property tax burden on homeowners or repair that gutter in the back of the house? 

Retile the bathroom or ask someone on the Board of Education about the impact of state mandates on local education budgets. Requires research and dedication for both questions and answers.

Thank goodness it’s pro football season, as well as college! (As a Yankees fan, the less said about baseball the better). The attraction of distraction grows greater as the importance of decisions mounts. We wait for someone somewhere to do something, so we don’t have to.

This is my favorite ‘Get involved’ speech; it’s from HBO’s The Newsroom. It gets me pumped up and I hope it works for you too. The question is asked of the character, Will McAvoy, “Why is the United States the greatest country in the world?”  

"…there's some things you should know, and one of them is, there's absolutely no evidence to support the statement that we're the greatest country in the world.

"We're 7th in literacy, 27th in math, 22nd in science, 49th in life expectancy, 178th in infant mortality, 3rd in median household income, number 4 in labor force, and number 4 in exports.

"We lead the world in only 3 categories: number of incarcerated citizens per capita, number of adults who believe angels are real, and defense spending, where we spend more than the next 26 countries combined. 25 of whom are allies. Now, none of this is the fault of a 20-year-old college student.

"But you, nonetheless, are without a doubt a member of the worst, period, generation, period, ever, period. So, when you ask, "What makes us the greatest country in the world?' I don't know what the f*ck you're talking about. Yosemite? [Pause] 

"We sure used to be. We stood up for what was right. We fought for moral reasons. We passed laws, struck down laws for moral reasons. We waged wars on poverty, not poor people. We sacrificed, we cared about our neighbors. 

"We put our money where our mouths were. And we never beat our chests. We built great big things, made ungodly technological advances, explored the universe, cured diseases, and we cultivated the world's greatest artists and the world's greatest economy.

"We reached for the stars, acted like men. We aspired to intelligence, we didn't belittle it, it didn't make us feel inferior. We didn't identify ourselves by who we voted for in our last election. And we didn't...we didn't scare so easy. 

"We were able to be all these things, and to do all these things, because we were informed. By great men, men who were revered. The first step in solving any problem is recognizing there is one”.

 [Pause]

“Enough?" 
-bill kenny