Cut the Crap!

It has, so far, been a relatively quiet election season in Norwich. I realize we're still transitioning from summer to autumn, so for a lot of people, it hasn't been the right time to think about elections or what comes after them (governance, or attempting it), but it's time to turn to the task at hand.

I have no idea what the format for any future candidates' forum will be if held (the one at NFA could have been better organized), but I'd hope there'll still be opportunities to meet the people who are offering to help out by holding elected office and if not really "get to know them" then perhaps, "get to know them a little bit." And for them to get to know us a little better. 

I used to attend a lot of City Council meetings (and now watch them on public excess television), so my interest in getting to know the candidates is perhaps (selfish and) based, in part, on my understanding of how our political dynamic here works (or doesn't, as I sometimes despair).

If there's a chance to discuss particular topics, I'm very interested in learning more about how the candidates feel about our city budget but what I really will listen for from each person is how he/she envisions working to build our municipal grand list so that my personal property taxes go down (and yours, too, if you live in Norwich, Connectciut). So far, all across social media is a lot of vitriol and vicious comments about others who are running for office. Lots of heat but no light.

I'm tired of office seekers telling me 'Norwich needs economic development.' Newsflash: I already know that. I want people who wish to be the Mayor or Alderpersons to tell me, in detail, how they will grow the Grand List, attract new business, and create additional revenue streams for our city government.

I have a box of cliches at home, under the bed: 'pull together', 'work as a team', 'check our egos at the door', 'work across party lines', so we can skip all of that and cut to the chase.

I'd like to hear the candidates' thoughts on how the Council could be more effective and efficient in the accomplishment of their duties (and come to think of it, maybe they can help me understand what exactly the City Council does, and what they think it should do). But to be honest, I'm not holding my breath as we continue to choose new brooms to sweep old dust and pretend it's progress.

-bill kenny

Good Advice If Heeded

Someone once told me, 'Never Trade Luck for Skill' and cretin that I am often (with reason) accused of being, I thought about the tens of thousands if not hundreds of thousands of small and quiet decisions that households across this nation make on a daily and weekly basis as the economic tides continue to threaten to pull so many of us under.

A non-economist acquaintance once said, 'When you're out of a job, it's a recession; when I'm out of a job, it's a depression,' and I suspect there's more to that than meets the eye. At the end of last week and intermittently this week, the Dow Jones Industrial Average has been 'flirting with 45,000 points'. I have absolutely NO idea what any of that preceding sentence means, but I've heard it repeatedly and parrot it like I know what I'm talking about.

All of us do. We all assume, or did until the whole house of cards decided to reshuffle itself, that someone somewhere knew and understood what it was we were doing. Like Wimpy, offering to gladly pay you Tuesday for a hamburger today, knowing full well we would have no money on Tuesday, we just kept adding days to the calendar and hoped Tuesday wouldn't arrive.

I didn't really understand and, like so many, haven't been as successful as I'd like in appreciating the larger picture and fuller impact. Conversely, with Jerome Powell in the Seventh House and Scott Bessent aligned with Mars (or something like that) am I alone in detecting a tone of barely-controlled euphoria by broadcast and print news reports about economic growth? Except I'm still not "getting" it.

Why isn't it all this Accidental Excellence? When we got it right, we had no idea what we did to produce those positive results, so, not surprisingly, we couldn't duplicate them. When things started to go south, we went with them. It's hard not to be very superstitious. 

In times of stress, we rely more on routines; they offer us the appearance of the familiar, the known, and the comfortable while serving, in their way, as a mantra against a world we cannot otherwise manage.
-bill kenny

Words Are Pouring Out

I've made my living with words for more decades than I'm comfortable admitting. I suspect, though I've never tried to calculate it, that my written vocabulary is larger than my spoken word vocabulary, but I have no idea why or how. 

I fell across this nugget of (k)nowledge the other day on the interweb about the average adult's vocabulary and felt I was among friends, though they probably use a multi-syllabic word for that. However, I suspect none of us uses many or any of these.

Child of Warner Brothers cartoons growing up, my favorite of these is wabbit, though in recent days I've found myself leaning towards Snollygoster. 

Sorry, Elmer.
-bill kenny 

If Ernest Thayer Could See Us Now

I wish we had a Mighty Casey because between our City Manager and City Council, we're close to having a Mudville Nine. 

We have a baseball stadium from thirty+ years ago, Dodd Stadium, when we attracted (lured is a better word, and bribed even better) a minor league team, an affiliate of the New York Yankees, based in Albany, New York. After four years, they left and were replaced by an affiliate of the San Francisco Giants. 

Then they left, the minor leagues reorganized, and we hosted a Single-A affiliate of the Detroit Tigers. And then, stop me if you've read this before, they left because the minor leagues were radically reinvented. There was no room at the table for anyone in Norwich until the Norwich Sea Unicorns of the Futures Collegiate Baseball League (a college summer league) took up residence. 

Meanwhile, the meter on costs and expenses kept ticking, and the current operating deficit for the stadium is over three hundred and fifty thousand dollars. Monday night, the City Council (unanimously) and City Manager signed a one-year extension with an 'increased lease payment', from 22K to 35K, that will do close to nothing to fill the deficit in a city where children are shortchanged at budget time, public safety needs more funding than the city can offer, and the roads and sidewalks need repair everywhere

I'd be curious to know how large the operating deficit of Dodd Stadium was when the Norwich Baseball Stadium (NBSA) was still functioning (and why, at the Council meeting on October 6th, when 'inactive boards and commissions were dissolved,' the NBSA wasn't among them) and how much additionally has been thrown into the hole created by all the lease agreements negotiated by Mayor Nystrom and City Manager Salomone.

Dodd Stadium long ago devolved from a Field of Dreams to a Field of Schemes. Nothing in a one-year lease agreement with a summer collegiate baseball team that averaged (in 2024) 1,648 attendees will do anything other than exacerbate the current fiscal situation for the city of Norwich.

The mantra being voiced by City Council members and the City Manager is that somehow, in some way, Dodd Stadium (with a tenant) can help spark the continuing economic development of Norwich. This is well beyond wishful thinking and borders on abject bullshit.

The stadium, for a variety of reasons, was built as far from downtown as possible, snuffing out the hopes to use it as a fulcrum for downtown development as Hartford has tried to do with Dunkin Donuts Field (It results in an annual loss for Hartford. In fiscal year 2023, the stadium generated about $915,000 in income while the city's debt payments for the stadium were about $4.6 million, leaving a deficit of nearly $3.7 million that year. )

"Minor league baseball team owners maintain ex ante that ballparks increase employment, tax revenues, and other private economic development in the host municipality. The presence of a team or a stadium leads to neutral or negative changes primarily due to leakages and substitution. 

"Crowding out can take the form of locals not venturing near a stadium when a game is taking place, normal business or leisure travelers avoiding a local economy when a large event is occurring, or local area residents purposefully leaving the local economy to avoid a mega-event.

"In all of these cases, normal local economic activity is reduced below its regular level, meaning any gains from an event must offset the loss for the community to simply break even. Cities compete for teams and contribute millions of dollars for facilities without any evidence as to whether minor league teams and stadiums are wise investments or not." -The Economic Impact of Stadia and Teams: The Case of Minor League Baseball

When Dodd Stadium had minor league affiliations of Major League baseball teams, the NBSA broke even (I would know, I was on it), but those days are long past, and while the City Council and City Manager can hope all they want for a change of fortune, hope is not a plan, and there is no plan.

Have a commercial realtor sell the grounds and the stadium and let the purchaser do with it what they wish. Even if all the city gets is a dollar for the sale, the flow of red ink, to the current tune of 350K, will be stanched.
-bill kenny

Napkins Optional

There was at the turn of the century a marvelous if disquieting book, and later a movie, called Fast Food Nation.  In recent years/decades I've scaled way back on my McDrivethru habit though I will confess to having breakfast burritos at Mickey D's earlier this week because I had time, was near one and had a hankering (a word not often found in mixed company anymore).

I have no idea how many fast food places there are in the USA or even in just where I live, Connecticut, and I haven't yet lost any sleep over which states might be considered to have the most fast food places per capita. But as is the case in information-rich-but-knowledge-poor America, somebody knows.

And now you do, too. (You got a little schmutz on your chin there.)
-bill kenny

Confirming Your Suspicions

Whenever I get my car washed, one of two things happens within three days. 

It rains, and even though the car wash I go to has one of those 72-hour guarantees, I'm not comfortable about going back to them and getting the car washed for free this time. It just doesn't feel right.

The other thing that happens is that a bird poops on it. This is a personal insult, as we have three feeders at our house and I keep all of them stocked with food. A little reciprocity would be nice.

I've lived my life accepting bird poop on cars as part of the natural order. However, as it happens, some colors attract more alimentary action than others, to say nothing of brands. 

You'd think one of the auto sales websites would make a bigger deal out of that than they are.
-bill kenny

Two Hearts Are Better than One

This is one of my favorite days of the year, up there with the birthdays of our two children and that of my wife. All three are way cooler than the traditional holidays we all know, including some of the newer ones like 'Let's Get Dad a Pony Ride', which is thisclose to sweeping the nation.

Today is our 48th wedding anniversary. I used to say 'my' instead of 'our' because I saw marriage as a 'you and me, kid' against the world dynamic, a notion about which Erich Fromm had far too few kind words. I was wrong, and Erich is an ass.

My best man, Chris H, sometimes drops by this space, and if this is one of those sometimes, thank you. It was Chris and I in "Old Smugglers" the night I met my wife, come to think of it; he was present for both take-off and landing. Sigrid may have a few words for you (along the lines of 'why didn't you stop me?')

Sigrid's maid of honor was Evelyn of RickandEvelyn, who is now a part of a different double play combination but is still a good sport, I'm sure. And I think back to all those with whom I worked, to include my boss at the time, who asked forlornly the day before the ceremony in the Rathaus 'Do you really need the whole day to get married?' He contended for years afterwards he was joking. I assured him my response at the time was not intended as humorous, just anatomically challenging.

Sigrid remains married to me (I suspect) because she enjoys a challenge. And I am all of that, everyday and in every way. If I have any talent at all, and I think it's the most important one, I make her laugh. I am not handsome, tall, fast, smart, athletic, polybendable (wanted to see if you were still reading), or even healthy anymore, I just am (at least most days). Sometimes good is good enough.

I was a junior enlisted man when we met, requiring approval by my Detachment Commander to wed. I still recall him reviewing the paperwork and offering 'So you're marrying a foreigner?' "No, sir," I responded with alacrity. "This is her country, she's marrying a foreigner."

Dewey W, wherever in this or the next world you may be, thank you for using your influence as the Captain's personnel clerk to distract him long enough to sign the permission, despite my being a wise-ass (but he started it). And that's why Dewey received a homemade cake from my wife once a month for all the months he had left in Germany.

Thank you to Sara, now Sara J on the Other Coast, and Rik D, then in Frankfurt and still in Berlin, and Roger W, now in Virginia with Dar, and Marge L, out of sight but not my mind, for enfolding the newly weds in the embrace of your friendship when all one of them knew was that she was going have her hands full with this knucklehead she found. And the knucklehead didn't know what he didn't know-and after all this time, still hasn't found out.

Except...she's my first thought when I awaken and the last before I close my eyes. I know love must be a gift freely given because I have all of hers and could have never possibly earned it myself. I had resigned myself to going through this life alone, and she saved me from being someone not even I would have ever liked. She has made a lot out of very little so often during our lives together that she can consistently make something out of nothing as a matter of course.

I would wish for you, if I had such power, to find and keep your special someone to better appreciate my sentiments and circumstances today when I wish the love of my life Happy Anniversary and so many more to come.
-bill kenny

Frankly Speaking

Frank Zappa was more than an amazing musician. 

There's no way to delay that trouble comin' every day.
-bill kenny

Simple Solutions

Local election season is in high gear, and there's a tendency to slap labels on those seeking office, which may be a help but can also be a hindrance. Remember in high school, with too much homework due at the same time, you'd grab a Cliff's Notes version of one (or more) of the mandatory reading assignments and rationalize it with 'what's the harm?' 

Let's face it, it's not like they made cheat sheets for trig or chemistry like they did for Tolstoy, right? I look back and realize some (or more) of my English teachers had to know I was dialing it up and phoning it in. 

They figured, correctly, I'd argue, that the guy getting the short end of the deal was I, since I was depriving myself of actually enjoying and learning from some of the best of 20th-century American Literature. I'm probably still not caught up.

My point? That's the danger of the label and the drive-by analysis. All ducks are birds, but not all birds are ducks. If you can reduce the world in which we live to a one-word political perspective that guides you, or how you would lead if chosen, I have a very different word to describe you, and it's a lot more accurate than you'd like. 

My point is that nobody eats just chocolate ice cream, or just vanilla, or just any single flavor at all. We see the world through a perspective developed by everyone we've ever met and ever known. We are all of those people, just not all at the same time.

We are the most complex organism on the planet, the crown of creation (with apologies to Marty and Paul), so it's silly and stupid to restrict yourself to one-dimensional thought, especially in a world as complex as the one in which we are living. 

We owned all the tools ourselves, but not the skills to make a shelf with. The Never Ending Now becomes a prison and not a sanctuary. Too late, we recognize the face of the jailer as our own.

-bill kenny

If Not Now, When?

There is a rally at Norwich City Hall this morning starting at 11. 

There's also a rally this afternoon starting at 2 on the Norwichtown Green on West Town Street.

Find an event where you live.
-bill kenny

One and Two

I'm not channeling my inner Lawrence Welk, though I do appreciate the champagne bubbles. The U. S. Constitution is a funny thing. Much like the Bible, it can be read to support an amazing variety of positions in the modern United States that the landed gentry white guys who wrote it might never have envisioned.

But make no mistake, they had a pretty good idea of what they were doing when they approved the Bill of Rights to lead off the document. 

The First Amendment: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."

And perhaps surprising a few of my single-issue ammosexual acquaintances, the Second Amendment: "A well-regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed."

The former establishes, among other things, our freedom of the press, while the latter is the foundation for our armed forces. The drunken jackal who leads the Department of War and the convicted felon whose boots he licks should read our founding documents and not just the Heritage Foundation's condensed version.
-bill kenny 

John J. Jingleheimer Would Blush

It was Shakespeare who asked, "What's in a name? That which we call a rose / By any other name would smell as sweet." Never figured out how Juliet felt about that, but Romeo saved a lot of time at the vegetable counter, I assume.

Do you remember that riddle as a kid, "What's yours and yours alone but everyone else uses more than you do?" The answer, as I recall, was, "Your name."

Don't use that riddle with Larry Watkins unless you have a half-hour or more.

Shirley Ellis would die of exhaustion.
-bill kenny 

Further Down the Road

I began mucking about in this corner of cyberspace eighteen years ago today. I screamed to prove my existence, but was also afraid someone would discover I really had nothing to say. So far, so good. So what? I understand enough of the world and the technology that drives it to appreciate that I was yelling theater in a crowded fire and might very well happen to catch the eye and ear of those whose native tongue is other than my own.

I make no apologies for or to you if you have stopped by. I appreciate the notes that crop up and pop up either here at the bottom of the page or via an email link that I still don't understand (I am consistent) but a suggestion like 'walk east until your hat floats' isn't especially useful since while I occasionally wear a Kickers ball cap, more often than not, I'm bare-headed (and mostly bald-headed).

My point, although not precisely at this moment, is that I write this for myself. It is therapeutic, perhaps equal parts Jung and Fromm (more hopefulness in the latter) or maybe not. This space serves as the wall against which I fling handfuls of, well, you can guess what I fling, and no matter what you choose, you'd be right. But make sure you're wearing gloves, should we meet, because I like to shake hands. And if you are, I'll try to lick the side of your face, because that's how I roll (over and fetch).

I've gone back and looked at this stuff from the start through here and now. It must be artistic or autistic because I don't get it. Would that I did, and pretty arrogant of me to then hope/assume it would mean something to you. That does sound like me, to be honest. I think 'sound' is the operative word.

Having spent most of a lifetime in people's cars and houses on and in the radio, I'm used to working things out in a semi-private manner, more because I have to than because you want me to. And the beauty of radio over face-to-face is when you give up and walk away, I don't know it, and continue on like that tree in the forest.

The bigger the world has gotten in scale and scope, the more intimate it has become through connectivity that was created for other reasons but upon which I have now hitched my wagon. I started writing this because I had no voice where I lived and even less where I worked. I had, like so many of us, freedom of speech as long as I didn't use it.

In my part of the enchanted forest, we were being rendered invisible, and if I learned nothing from my father, and the jury's still very much out on that, I learned to wield words as weapons that could wound and hurt those who would harm mine. "Let the bastards thrive, for all I care. Since I can do nothing to stop them except embarrass them by running away."

It should be sobering, all these years after starting to clean out the stables, there's still as much once processed equine output as there is everywhere. Most, far too much, of it comes from the biped variety. I live in a target-rich environment, and so do you. We can complain or we can clean up, but we can't do both, at least not at the same time. I've opted for the latter.

I've chosen macro and micro to witness who we are and how we are with one another when we think no one is watching (actually, especially when we think no one is watching). I'm not better than others because I know I'm fatally flawed.

When I say I do not forget, I don't mean I'm single-minded (though I am two-faced). I remember everything that has ever happened to me, who was there, what they wore, what they said, and most importantly, what they did (and didn't). When I say I don't forgive, that's when I'm vengeful and vindictive. I have seven-plus decades of scores, real and imagined, to settle, as futile as that really is. Leave it to God? Please. He crucified His own Son-He couldn't care less about my injuries.

For the kindness of your company all these years, I thank you. I wasn't always aware you were here, when you arrived, or when you left. Thank you nevertheless. I suspect I was not the best company, but you're not all that surprised, since you knew that when you picked me up. 

I started this as a cyber shout to prove how different I was and have, to this juncture, more often celebrated how similar we are. I think that part has been mostly your doing, and thank you for that as well. 
-bill kenny 

Won't You Stop and Remember Me

The season after summer arrived in New England, suddenly, over the latter part of last week. Not too hot, light breeze, no humidity, glorious skies, a deeper blue than the ocean, and the realization that Autumn will not last until Spring next year.

I had little use for winter even as a kid. I remember living in Belford, New Jersey, with snow in our backyard so deep that it was over my head. I was also a runt, which had something to do with that, I realized (years later). 

We had a dog, Sandy, a cocker spaniel that absolutely hated me. It was a present from Grandma and Grampy, my Mom's parents, and we always pretended how much we loved the dog when they came to see us (neither of my parents liked the dog; I stayed away from it to the point that months after we stopped having it, I noticed it was gone).

The house we live in has a front lawn and a backyard. They were both great to have when our two children were younger, as it gave them and their friends someplace else to play. Our kids are adults now. This time of year, we watch the leaves pile up as the season changes, but there are no trees on our property to speak of.

I love finding propeller pods everywhere. Do you remember those from when we were kids? Another great invention by nature to better assure the perpetuation of all the various species of trees, not that we ever saw it that way when we were smaller. There are so many again this year, and so many of them land on the walk leading to the house that every footfall sounds like you're walking in Rice Krispies.

The squirrels in the neighborhood love the pods and can tear through them in a blink to get to the seed in the center. The pods are so numerous that the squirrels have actually been leaving the peanuts we throw to them for later while they gorge themselves on the pods. Unfortunately for them, the blue jays are quite happy to eat their share of the peanuts.

It was very cold last Thursday morning. Crisp is a word my father would use, and so do I, in his honor, and that's the signal that the next phase of the journey has started. The darkness comes earlier now, and the shadows lengthen sooner as the afternoons move on. I promised myself this summer was the one I was finally going to enjoy, but then things came up healthwise, and promises turned to ash. 

Soon, the winds will shift and more often come out of the north and pick up in speed and intensity, and the simple joy of crunchy sidewalks will be gone as the animals and birds spend more time gathering and storing food with one eye fixed on the fall skies as a hazy shade of winter creeps inexorably closer.
-bill kenny 

Decisions, Decisions

This one?

Or this one?

It's the thought that counts, I guess.
-bill kenny

The Mid-Point of Another Three Day Weekend

Columbus Day is almost the perfect American holiday because Christopher Columbus is like us. He didn't know where he was going when he was going there, didn't know where he was when he got there, had no idea what to make of what he found where he ended up, and squandered all that he received for his troubles and effort.

When we were kids, Columbus Day was a big deal in New York City. The Department of Public (almost dropped the L off that; awkward) Works used to paint the white line on Fifth Avenue purple for the annual parade that was always held on the real date of the holiday, October 12 (no Monday holiday laws back then).

 

In light of so much, I, as a man of seventy-three years now, know that as a boy of twelve, I didn't know about the Rape of Paradise which ensued after Columbus' arrival, perhaps blood-red might have been a better choice of colors.

As a youngster, all I ever cared about was the day off, just like kids across the country. We all recited the rhyme because that's how we knew what we did know about Columbus, and since there wasn't a snappy couplet about genocide, we didn't hear anything about that aspect of discovering the New World (I also don't remember the Arakawa natives part, but some of my little gray cells have had some rough days).

Looking at the world as it is and how all settlements and civilizations have developed, I'm not sure it's just Old Chris we should be putting in the defendant's docket and charging. I'm thinking a look in the mirror, as well as a glance out a window, might increase our catch significantly.

And to compound the cacophony of facts clashing with opinions is the realization that not only did Columbus not discover the New World, but he also wasn't the first. We've spent hundreds of years observing a historical event that is neither historic nor an actual event. 

And now, as it's the dot on the "i" in Monday holiday, we have another excuse (and sale opportunity) to buy bedding, or is that just me in the last couple of days? Sandwiched between the 'My candidate is on the special advisory committee to Gawd while yours eats bugs" commercials have been a steady stream of ads selling mattresses. I'm not sure there's any more of a connection between one to the other than there was to India from Bermuda back in the day.

Speaking of which, you have to cross an ocean from a basement warehouse at Bertramstrasse 6 in Frankfurt am Main to get to a certain city in Ohio. That's as may be. All I know for sure is such a journey can take decades and cost you more than you ever believed you could pay when you first started. But it's worth every penny, for your thoughts and otherwise. 

-bill kenny

Too Bad "Climate Change Is a Hoax"

Today's title is my homage to the guy who failed to pronounce acetaminophen correctly before spelling it T-Y-L-E-N-O-L at the White House spelling bee.

And this news story from CNN leads me to suspect the woods were all full.

But, Good News! The Pope is not only still Catholic, he's an American.

-bill kenny

A Murder of Crows

We are a culture that celebrates ourselves as unique individuals, except that, for the most part, we don't define ourselves by our humanity, but rather by our utility. We are what we do. Our unique specialness is tied to our place in the world instead of the other way around. In essence, we already know what we are; all that remains is agreement on the price.

In economic hard times which, despite some political leaders insistence to the contrary, are still going on for many in our country and for many others around the world (when America gets a cold, other nations are in intensive care), a hidden cost harder to recover from than a bank statement or a bottom line, is the injury to that part of ourselves we can't put a price tag on, our pride in who we are.

We have a lot of people who have done nothing wrong and who are losing their jobs, perhaps their families and homes, places in their local circle of friends and acquaintances, who end up losing themselves. I knew a German in one of the places I worked in the Federal Republic who  teased that "Americans are people who buy things they don't want with money they don't have to impress people they don't like." We're near the point, as a nation, where the bills are coming due. Wer soll das bezahlen? Wer hat das bestellt? Wann man nur wusste.

In the frenzy of election season, where there's more action than date night at Piranha High, the highs are higher and the lows are deeper, at least when the other side is telling the story. But the thing to NOT lose sight of when the edge is off the rhetoric on Wednesday, November 5th, when we realize there is no revolution, just power changing hands, is a few more of us have become the walking wounded. That old coaching admonition to just 'shake it off' only goes so far.

An adult without hope or dignity hurts and then, in turn, hurts others, usually those closest to them, so what began as a personal tragedy too often becomes a community calamity. Sing a song of sixpence for your sake, and take a bottle full of rye. Four and twenty blackbirds in a cake and bake them all in a pie. Crow, too often, tastes the same.

-bill kenny

Somewhere Hilton Kaderli Smiles

For many years, on one of our local television stations, we had a meteorologist, Hilton Kaderli, from Oklahoma. Never understood/learned how he ended up in Hartford, Connecticut, but I've watched The Wizard of Oz often enough to respect high winds.  

Whenever we had heavy rain, and I do mean heavy rain, he'd call it what he told us it was called in Oklahoma, a gullywhumper. I always appreciated expanding my vocabulary.

Yesterday, we made up all of our rainfall deficit for this year and maybe some more.

Sdeah reiht edih dna nur yeht. Semoc niar eht fi.
-ynnek llib

Stuck Between Stations

I’m impressed at election time with how signs for candidates appear on lawns and vacant lots across Norwich, much like wildflowers after a spring rain. Between the signs for supporting “Working for Norwich’ and ‘Making Norwich More Affordable,’ I almost can’t see the most prevalent lawn sign of all, For Sale signs on residences and commercial buildings.

My taxes increased by three hundred dollars a month last fiscal year due to re-evaluation and nearly one hundred more a month this year, which revealed two things. We don’t have enough money for any Board of Education to fund our schools to enable our children to compete in the Information Age, and we have negative commercial growth, dooming us to repeat this cycle endlessly.

Tomorrow night at six in NFA’s Slater Museum will be a debate among (I assume) three mayoral candidates, followed by a debate among City Council candidates. There's still time to submit questions at info.lwvsect@gmail.com.

Make the candidates articulate their vision for attracting and revitalizing our commercial and industrial sectors; how they will create spaces and places in our historic downtown that attract new residents, and artisan businesses to populate and reinvigorate our abandoned buildings, with specific targets, goals, and milestones so that we can assess our progress.

Ask them if they support a higher assessed value of a commercial building based on its potential, rather than its current use, resulting in a higher rate and collection of property taxes and mitigation of blight. If not, why not? And if so, how would they implement it? 

Roundabouts seem to be a solution that nobody likes, so what's theirs? How would they mitigate/alleviate traffic flow on Route 82?

Would they support a mill rate stabilization fund, and how would they finance it?

Do they support enhancing and enlarging the collaboration and cooperation between the paid firefighters and the volunteer companies? If not, why not; if yes, how would they facilitate and expedite that interaction?

What do they see as Norwich’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats when marketing our city to new businesses, industries, and families looking for a new home?

And don't let ANY of the candidates leave the stage before they answer the questions fully.

If you don't choose, you lose. And not voting is still a choice. We, the voters, hold the growth of our city in our hands with our ballots. We hear the same bullshite every election. It's like we're stuck between stations. Change channels and make informed choices, maybe for the first time in decades.
-bill kenny

The New Romantics

I spotted the toddler first-I think because I liked being a dad when our kids were young, so even today I scan the two feet from the ground first. And there he was. About three with a Mohawk dyed a shade of sunshine yellow so bright it hurt your eyes, and because he wasn't visible enough from space yet, add alternating electric red stripes the length of the Mohawk. We're talking a thing of beauty.

He was notionally on the hand of his Dad, who was pushing the shopping cart. I say it like that because he was jumping around like maybe a pallet of cane sugar had fallen on him in the store and he'd eaten his way out of the pile that threatened to bury him.

Alongside Dad was Mom, pushing a stroller with a little tiny person who (Dad's perspective again) didn't look old enough to be sitting up in the first place. I chose to NOT say anything to the Mom because I am a mellow fellow. That, and her husband being about six and a half feet tall and no more than 1% body fat, may have influenced my desire to be silent.

The pair had been shopping, I would guess, for most of their lives at Animal Skins R Us, and I smiled, thinking how big a frownie face the PETA folks would have if they could see this pair. But that's not the best part, and when I say best, I mean not best.

Just below the shoulder blade on his left arm, and of course, when you're styled and shaped like he is, it's a sleeveless shirt, he has a tattoo in jet black ink, "Her Stud." 

As the late Billy Mays used to say repeatedly, 'But wait, there's more.' 

On Mom's right shoulder, and she is as slender as the chances of pony rides on my birthday, in very much the same place in the darkest of tints, she has a tattoo with "His Bitch." Hopeless Romantics. And somewhere Norman Rockwell is suddenly not so sad he shuffled off his mortal coil at the moment he did.

-bill kenny

The Upside to the Shutdown

Having endured it on too many occasions, as a federal employee, the kabuki theater that is Washington, D.C., during a government shutdown, I don't have a lot of good to say about it.

Except a plague on both your houses.
-bill kenny

Upcharge for OJ

I was in my neighborhood Mickey D's yesterday morning for breakfast. I always smile when I hit these joints not because I'm happy to be in the places, but rather the contrast between the television portrayal and the reality always cracks me up. 

Do you remember when we were kids and how the cafeteria ladies always wore hairnets if they were on the serving line? What happened to those rules, and who decided a ball cap (if we're lucky, otherwise a visor for the most part) offers the same protection from hair in my food as the old school hairnets? 

When I sat down at my table and looked up, there were two women seated across from one another at a table near a window, heads bowed, hands clasped, saying a prayer before beginning their meals. From their age and attire and the simple silver bands on their left hands, I realized I was looking at two nuns in mufti and not folks who were seeking Divine Help for the Breakfast Burrito.

I flashed on a childhood recollection of 'saying grace' at our family table before tucking in; a prayer that, as we grew older in my parents' house, became more of a race to see who could finish first and get started while the food was still hot since Mom always made a big deal about letting things get cold as you picked at them. I can only hope the Lord grades that kind of behavior on a curve, but fear I know better.

I smiled, here in the present, to realize that it was good that someone (in this case, TWO someones) remembered to say thank you as the rest of us were oblivious to the gift we were receiving on a lovely Saturday morning in Southeastern Connecticut. 

Later I learned that Saturday, is Saint Francis of Assisi Day (the Hallmark store has no cards; I checked) and smiled again as I thought of the two witnesses on their pilgrimage through the world and why, for more reasons than are between Heaven and earth, breakfast is still the most important meal of the day.
-bill kenny

Re-Open the Federal Government

There's some $hit not even Mikey will eat. And the arguments for why our federal government remains closed are currently #1 on this list.

To summarize the 'debate':

Congress/White House: get the feck back to working for all of us.
--bill kenny

Why Wasn't This an E-Mail?

Before I retired, I used to spend a frightening amount of time in meetings. I wasn't the subject of them but more like a prop or part of the G(r)eek chorus. Truth to tell, I spent much of my meeting time wondering why it had been called, since most of what went on could have been a phone call or a group e-mail. 

I thought about those meetings the other day while watching Pete "Hollywood" Hegseth, the Secretary of War on a first-name basis with Johnnie Walker, offer a TED-talk to the most senior career military leadership of the United States.

It was pretty goofy, and his "F. A.....F.O." closing did almost nothing for me except set the tone for the Pumpkin Dotard who followed. 

Seriously? Who voted for these morons?
-bill kenny

Vote for Me ....And I'll Fix Everything

Election season is like Trick or Treat for adults, except we registered voters seem to end up with a lot of Mary Janes and salt water taffy and way too few Dove Bars and Reese's Cups. 

Thirty-three days from now, we'll be knee deep in big muddy hitting levers, blackening circles, chopping chads (sorry, Florida) as the will of some of the people (at party nominating conventions this summer) is transformed into the will of all the people. The miracle of democracy, coming to a ballot box near you. Unless you are someplace that can still vote absentee.

"Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want and deserve to get it good and hard ." Sing it, H. L.. I'll hold the hymnal while you turn the page. Of course, in this country for the most part, hardly anyone has an opinion on how well democracy works since we rarely get above thirty percent turnout by registered voters in an 'off-year' (= non-Presidential) election.

Living in one of the thirteen original colonies (I still think we should get silk jackets, have colonial colors and maybe a secret handshake; just to shut up those ba$tards from the West Coast with their nice weather and fresh fruit all year round), I'm watching the wheels as I'll have the opportunity to vote for members of the Board of Education, a Mayor, City Council, three french hens, two turtle doves and a porridge in a print tee. Plus, in my town, Norwich, Connecticut, we'll have local referendum questions, though the pygmy pony initiative failed to make the ballot. Again.

You'll have about the same range and scope of choices where you live-but only if you choose to vote. The same folks who'll sit on hold for twenty minutes for a call-in show can't take ten minutes to go vote on Election Day. We may have neighbors who believe you must pay a fee to cast a ballot, or lack a calendar that informs them when Election Day is. 

The same people who call DWTS hundreds of times to get their favorite to the next round don't think it's appropriate to have an opinion on the direction their city, state, or nation should take.

If you don't choose, you lose. And don't tell me you don't have enough information. In this country at this time in our history, if there's one thing we have TOO much of, it's information. The trick is to turn it into knowledge you can use to make an informed decision. Because that's what we're lacking....
-bill kenny

An Enigma Walking

I know none of this is real. Or, perhaps better phrased, it exists as a reality in a manner (ones and zeroes) I could not deconstruct into its present shape on your screen (or mine). It's all vapor and electrons with a heaping helping of whimsy but when I sit in front of the monitor (and there's a reason why they look like windows) and see a note from someone about whom I was just thinking, or just NOT thinking about, I marvel at the sequence of discoveries that had to happen when they did and how they did for all of that to become all of this.

We can use technology to track terrible and terrifying weather to provide otherwise helpless people with the advanced notice that will save their lives. We can see and say greetings to friends and family halfway and more (oh?) around the world from our desktop and develop relationships in cyberspace that rival any we have on terra firma. It's all the same and, yet, very different.

"We can't play this game anymore, but can we still be friends?" Despite, or is it because, the answer is contingent on conditions that are never defined, we often never know. The other day, a note from a FBF, Facebook Friend, whom I shall never in this life meet, who attended a family celebration and met another (mutual) FBF whom I have met only once and will also probably never meet again.

We three are a galaxy, without a sun or a moon, revolving around one another even as we are components of a larger movement comprised of many and more just like, and also unlike, us, to include you.

The only thing we three have in common is...wait for it, one another. And, here's the part that makes me smile, it's true for each of us and for all of us. Based on their posts, adventures, shared photos, and comments, they live out loud and enjoy their lives at max vol. Maybe that's you? 

Or perhaps you are me in your galaxy, the flavorless gelatin guy, not because I do not deserve a flavor but because I don't want to make trouble. But I'm only saying that while building a towering rage at being overlooked/underheard, even as I assure others all is well. There's one in every crowd.

Look at yourself and those around you and see if you too aren't part of a tripod-possibly the most stable and flexible construct we have in our arsenal of social structures. The shades of gray and nuances across the color spectrum are a subset of the larger issue and not essential to the discussion. 

I contend neither white nor black are actually colors at all, since the latter is the absence of light while the former is the absence of color. But like so many who so believe, I see my world only in those two.

It's the mingling with colorful people, some of whom I'm related to by blood and marriage, others via keyboards and mouse clicks, and still others by a variety of means and in a manner defying description, that helps me maintain and retain the fiction of human credentials. All the while, I marvel at those who drink like it's water and dance like no one is watching.

-bill kenny