We've got some time between now and the Inauguration-another relic of our agrarian past. For voters in Western Europe, elections were and, for the most part, still are, held on Sundays. We've been using the first Tuesday in November since practically the Founding of the Republic, I've been told, out of deference to how we worked the fields and had to struggle to get to polling places where we could make our marks. Heck, it wasn't until the Twentieth Century (you remember that, right? That was when we won the Cold War and waited for the Dawning of the Age of Aquarius. Wait until we rewrite the history books, my friend-heck with that, wait until someone tries to read those history books) that we moved the Inauguration from March back to January.
Now things happen at double-click speed, especially mistakes and second guessing. It hasn't been a week since the Presidential election and the only reason we don't technically have any Monday-morning quarterbacking yet is we haven't had a Monday. I can't wait, how about you?
So how do you get one of these elected leader gigs, anyway? If you decide to become an engineer, for instance, there are formalized courses of study, curricula of skills development, proficiency examinations and board reviews and certifications before you're street legal, so to speak. You just don't buy yourself a pocket protector and a slide rule (I'm old-it predated a calculator, trust me on this one).
If you desire to be a surgeon or a lawyer, the same situation applies. Let's face it, you don't go to a physician and NOT read the diplomas on the walls in the examining office-that's why they're posted. You don't have an attorney who hasn't studied the law help you draw up a will or draft a contract. Hey, here's a joke one of my doctors told me: what do you call the med school graduate who finished last in his class? Plaintiff. Shecky Greene called-he wants that joke back.
Yes, there's much to be said in all walks of life for enthusiastic beginners, but when we come to the place where the road and the sky collide, the discouraged experts always go home with the milk money from those just "want it real bad and don't know how to get it." The poor, if the Beatitudes are to be believed, will inherit the earth-assuming those currently in charge of it have left anything.
Politics is the art of the possible sounds vaguely reassuring until you realize who said it and what happened when he applied it. But to return to my not too subtle point, what's the path for learning the process of politics and how do we decide who, as a person, or what, as a party or ideology, is the one-and why do we choose to use the definite article when an indefinite one may be more appropriate? Where do we begin and where does it end, and how will, or would, we ever know? Here in Norwich, CT, we can, in season, go see Double A farmhands of the San Francisco Giants who toil in the summer sun of Dodd Stadium-all in the hopes, sometimes realized, sometimes not so much, of making it to the Major Leagues.
How we do this for the leader of the Free World, the most powerful person in the history of the planet, the President of the United States? And while you're thinking about that, here's something perhaps the President-Elect has already started to wrestle with and will every day he is in office: how does the President of the United States, in light of the hopes, dreams, expectations and demands each of us has invested in him, hope to succeed?
"Our preachers preach of evil fates
Teachers teach that knowledge waits
Can lead to hundred dollar plates.
Goodness hides behind its gates
But even the President of the United States
Sometimes must have to stand naked."
-bill kenny
Friday, November 7, 2008
Thursday, November 6, 2008
Wal-Mart Comes to Walton Mountain
I was shopping with my wife in a Wal-Mart Super Center. It really is America, no matter how many people hate the idea of having one in their town (Brooklyn, CT, are your ears burning?), they still shop in them. I shop as I suspect most men do, in one of two modes and the modes are 'alone' or 'with significant other'. Alone, I am a hunter/gatherer bestriding the aisles as if I were from Bentonville, Arkansas, with the deed to the property in my vest pocket. I push the cart with one hand-and it's always a cart that steers to one or the other side, not straight or has the wobbly wheel or all of the above-as I grab the items from the shelf and pile them high in the carriage. Shopping list? I don't need no stinkin' shopping list! I know what I like and I like what I know and coupons are only something I shop with when I'm in the other mode.
When I'm in 'significant other' shopping mode, if I'm lucky, I get to push the cart (with a bad and ever worsening left knee I appreciate it, but sometimes in a crowded aisle I'm too timid for my wife and she takes control) and generally feel like the tail on a kite, albeit a raggedy tail with a scruff of a beard, a bald spot and grey hair. If we were an A. A. Milne story, I'd be the worst silly old bear imaginable.
The up-side to all this embarrassing shunting to the side is I live in a house that has actual food you can eat at meals and not just Triscuits and cheese squares, which is the FIRST thing I always buy, and lots of both when shopping alone. I also get grapefruit cups by the half-dozen, pink grapefruit, mind you, no matter when I last bought them, so we always have more grapefruit than the Del Monte themselves on their plantation on the Big Island in Hawaii or where ever grapefruit comes from.
Sigrid has the component concept of meal planning and preparation down perfectly-she can buy vegetables and meats and other items and incorporate them all into a 'meal'. For me, a meal is a thing I got in the freezer case and put in the micro-wave. That and Lipton's Chicken Noodle Soup-all you need, when you're me.
Last Saturday, I was the tagalong on the shopping expedition which meant I had to do almost nothing except walk behind the wagon as my wife made sure we would continue to remain alive by buying meal ingredients that she would prepare at home. Her list is organized by aisle and she has coupons and knows what we need and doesn't purchase things that have a 'nice looking box' or 'that sounds pretty good' which is how I shop and explains why we end up giving the charity food pantry in town some of the most exotic canned and dry goods they've ever seen, because by the time I get some of these treasures beyond worth out of the car at home, I've lost interest in ever eating them.
As the tagalong, I get to watch the scenery within the machinery. I watch the old married couples (not us, mind you; yes, it's been thirty-one years but I like to think we're still newlyweds and am confused at the face of the old guy in the mirror on weekday mornings when I go to shave), but the old people, Meryl and Earl (I like to call them) and how they crab shuffle along on fixed and finite incomes in precarious times. I sneak a peek in their shopping cart to see if they have cat food and to wonder if they really have a cat or are trying to save enough money to be able to afford his meds this month.
It's been a little tight since the company he worked for after he came back after his hitch in the Army forty-seven years ago went into receivership and sold off all the assets after the raiders had liquidated everything to include the pension fund. That's an issue, Mr President-Elect, among many that we've danced around for too many years, Sir, and there may never be a better time to devise a solution than right now as you and your party are still basking in the glow of victory and before us pesky ingrates demand that you validate our hopes like we believe you promised to do.
Anyway-I saw a couple with two children, one still sitting in the carriage and the other skipping ahead like a scout before the cart as the mom fussed with the little brother (or sister; it's hard for me to tell sometimes) and dad, or boyfriend (these are Modern Times in which we live my brave friend so never assume anything) looked like an unabashed abject idiot. I was embarrassed for him and I have no sense of style but am redeemed because I have a sense of irony. Some of us, it seems, fell from the very top of the Stupid Tree and hit every branch on our way to the ground.
Unless you're a stevedore, a hod carrier or a house painter, I don't get the purpose behind wearing a bandanna or doo-rag. The pro football morons, the ones who are in for three plays at a time at ten million dollars a season while announcers call them 'warriors', wear them under their helmets and they look stupid, so I'm not sure why this fellow in his late Twenties/early Thirties had one on. It may have been to complement the baggy pants-a look that, since my late Uncle Paul used to call me Droopy Drawers when I was six as he yanked down my dungarees as I screamed in pure impotent anger and fury, I have always hated.
Thank heavens for underwear, but I'd prefer being permitted to staple low hanging trousers to people's bodies up at the hips or perhaps the armpits (I am not without a sense of taste, I can watch Tim Gunn after all (I don't, but I can)) and have contacted the Swingline Corporation asking about an expansion of their product line, but they're still hung up on not making red staplers and have so far been unresponsive.
But it was the shirt, an extravagantly printed tee-shirt, THUGLIFE, that caused me the most head shaking. Meryl and Earl didn't get it-even if they saw it, they didn't get it. And Chris Cretin, the wearer, didn't get it, even though he bought it. All Eyez On Me, indeed. Sure hope the estate sees something from the sales of the shirt, icon status or not. The man left kids and kids gotta eat, though I think even he'd find it funny that you can save money live better, though no one seems to wonder "better than what and when?" Fine line between Sugar Mountain and Walton Mountain. What is it Jason said to Grandma, "I'll rise but I sure won't shine." That's what I'm afraid of.
-bill kenny
When I'm in 'significant other' shopping mode, if I'm lucky, I get to push the cart (with a bad and ever worsening left knee I appreciate it, but sometimes in a crowded aisle I'm too timid for my wife and she takes control) and generally feel like the tail on a kite, albeit a raggedy tail with a scruff of a beard, a bald spot and grey hair. If we were an A. A. Milne story, I'd be the worst silly old bear imaginable.
The up-side to all this embarrassing shunting to the side is I live in a house that has actual food you can eat at meals and not just Triscuits and cheese squares, which is the FIRST thing I always buy, and lots of both when shopping alone. I also get grapefruit cups by the half-dozen, pink grapefruit, mind you, no matter when I last bought them, so we always have more grapefruit than the Del Monte themselves on their plantation on the Big Island in Hawaii or where ever grapefruit comes from.
Sigrid has the component concept of meal planning and preparation down perfectly-she can buy vegetables and meats and other items and incorporate them all into a 'meal'. For me, a meal is a thing I got in the freezer case and put in the micro-wave. That and Lipton's Chicken Noodle Soup-all you need, when you're me.
Last Saturday, I was the tagalong on the shopping expedition which meant I had to do almost nothing except walk behind the wagon as my wife made sure we would continue to remain alive by buying meal ingredients that she would prepare at home. Her list is organized by aisle and she has coupons and knows what we need and doesn't purchase things that have a 'nice looking box' or 'that sounds pretty good' which is how I shop and explains why we end up giving the charity food pantry in town some of the most exotic canned and dry goods they've ever seen, because by the time I get some of these treasures beyond worth out of the car at home, I've lost interest in ever eating them.
As the tagalong, I get to watch the scenery within the machinery. I watch the old married couples (not us, mind you; yes, it's been thirty-one years but I like to think we're still newlyweds and am confused at the face of the old guy in the mirror on weekday mornings when I go to shave), but the old people, Meryl and Earl (I like to call them) and how they crab shuffle along on fixed and finite incomes in precarious times. I sneak a peek in their shopping cart to see if they have cat food and to wonder if they really have a cat or are trying to save enough money to be able to afford his meds this month.
It's been a little tight since the company he worked for after he came back after his hitch in the Army forty-seven years ago went into receivership and sold off all the assets after the raiders had liquidated everything to include the pension fund. That's an issue, Mr President-Elect, among many that we've danced around for too many years, Sir, and there may never be a better time to devise a solution than right now as you and your party are still basking in the glow of victory and before us pesky ingrates demand that you validate our hopes like we believe you promised to do.
Anyway-I saw a couple with two children, one still sitting in the carriage and the other skipping ahead like a scout before the cart as the mom fussed with the little brother (or sister; it's hard for me to tell sometimes) and dad, or boyfriend (these are Modern Times in which we live my brave friend so never assume anything) looked like an unabashed abject idiot. I was embarrassed for him and I have no sense of style but am redeemed because I have a sense of irony. Some of us, it seems, fell from the very top of the Stupid Tree and hit every branch on our way to the ground.
Unless you're a stevedore, a hod carrier or a house painter, I don't get the purpose behind wearing a bandanna or doo-rag. The pro football morons, the ones who are in for three plays at a time at ten million dollars a season while announcers call them 'warriors', wear them under their helmets and they look stupid, so I'm not sure why this fellow in his late Twenties/early Thirties had one on. It may have been to complement the baggy pants-a look that, since my late Uncle Paul used to call me Droopy Drawers when I was six as he yanked down my dungarees as I screamed in pure impotent anger and fury, I have always hated.
Thank heavens for underwear, but I'd prefer being permitted to staple low hanging trousers to people's bodies up at the hips or perhaps the armpits (I am not without a sense of taste, I can watch Tim Gunn after all (I don't, but I can)) and have contacted the Swingline Corporation asking about an expansion of their product line, but they're still hung up on not making red staplers and have so far been unresponsive.
But it was the shirt, an extravagantly printed tee-shirt, THUGLIFE, that caused me the most head shaking. Meryl and Earl didn't get it-even if they saw it, they didn't get it. And Chris Cretin, the wearer, didn't get it, even though he bought it. All Eyez On Me, indeed. Sure hope the estate sees something from the sales of the shirt, icon status or not. The man left kids and kids gotta eat, though I think even he'd find it funny that you can save money live better, though no one seems to wonder "better than what and when?" Fine line between Sugar Mountain and Walton Mountain. What is it Jason said to Grandma, "I'll rise but I sure won't shine." That's what I'm afraid of.
-bill kenny
Wednesday, November 5, 2008
A Man of My Mind Can Do Anything
All politics is local, so forgive me if, just for a moment, I'm local and vocal in congratulating soon-to-be former Norwich Alderman Christopher Coutu on his successful campaign to be elected state representative from the CT 47th District. Congratulations to him and to his opponent, Representative Jack Malone, for a well-argued, hard-fought, informative campaign.
Congratulations to all of us who voted! Those who didn't need to be quiet. You have, for now, forfeited your chance to criticize and carp by choosing to not take part in our reindeer games. Feel free to listen to your crybaby talk-radio whiners with their infantile rants and, when so moved, go ahead and call them up and join in. That's why God, or Intelligent Design, created 1-800 numbers, to give you something to occupy your time. You'll excuse the rest of us if we go about our business, I hope. The dogs bark, but the caravan moves on.
I'm happy Senator Obama was elected, but I would have been happy had Senator McCain prevailed-I'm sort of a process over product guy. One of the the things I find disquieting is how long the national races seem to go on-just me, or this time around did folks start running for President about an hour after the last Swift Boat left John Kerry far from Victory's shore?
How many and how quickly will the next crop of contenders spring up, I wonder. And for how long do you suppose is it socially acceptable to ignore them--until the Inauguration, at least? Or the first session of the next Congress? And what are the chances of all of us getting that far?
I don't really have much to say about the election yesterday because, for me, I'm not sure what changes, and concomitantly, what changes for the better. And that, when you get down to it, is what all of this is always about. WII-FM, "What's In It For Me?"
Dutch Reagan captured that sentiment perfectly decades ago and in each succeeding election, the interval has gotten smaller-now we're down to "ask yourself if you're better off now than you were four nanoseconds ago.' And we've forgotten the question by the time someone answers.
Despite the rhetoric of the last eighteen months, it really makes, and made, no difference who was elected to the office of the President-and that's not just sophistry when I assert that. The problems are the same--it's what we make of the possible solutions and how those solutions are arrived at that will define who we are and why we are here.
"Can you hear the evil crowd, the lies and the laughter? I hear my inside, the mechanized hum of another world. Where no sun is shining; no red light flashing. Here in this darkness, I know what I've done, I know all at once who I am."
-bill kenny
Congratulations to all of us who voted! Those who didn't need to be quiet. You have, for now, forfeited your chance to criticize and carp by choosing to not take part in our reindeer games. Feel free to listen to your crybaby talk-radio whiners with their infantile rants and, when so moved, go ahead and call them up and join in. That's why God, or Intelligent Design, created 1-800 numbers, to give you something to occupy your time. You'll excuse the rest of us if we go about our business, I hope. The dogs bark, but the caravan moves on.
I'm happy Senator Obama was elected, but I would have been happy had Senator McCain prevailed-I'm sort of a process over product guy. One of the the things I find disquieting is how long the national races seem to go on-just me, or this time around did folks start running for President about an hour after the last Swift Boat left John Kerry far from Victory's shore?
How many and how quickly will the next crop of contenders spring up, I wonder. And for how long do you suppose is it socially acceptable to ignore them--until the Inauguration, at least? Or the first session of the next Congress? And what are the chances of all of us getting that far?
I don't really have much to say about the election yesterday because, for me, I'm not sure what changes, and concomitantly, what changes for the better. And that, when you get down to it, is what all of this is always about. WII-FM, "What's In It For Me?"
Dutch Reagan captured that sentiment perfectly decades ago and in each succeeding election, the interval has gotten smaller-now we're down to "ask yourself if you're better off now than you were four nanoseconds ago.' And we've forgotten the question by the time someone answers.
Despite the rhetoric of the last eighteen months, it really makes, and made, no difference who was elected to the office of the President-and that's not just sophistry when I assert that. The problems are the same--it's what we make of the possible solutions and how those solutions are arrived at that will define who we are and why we are here.
"Can you hear the evil crowd, the lies and the laughter? I hear my inside, the mechanized hum of another world. Where no sun is shining; no red light flashing. Here in this darkness, I know what I've done, I know all at once who I am."
-bill kenny
Tuesday, November 4, 2008
Sour Grapes Make for a Bitter W(h)ine
Disclaimer: the person I wanted to see elected President today, barely got out of the starting gate, Governor Bill Richardson of New Mexico. This is not the time, space or day to talk about that.
If the polls have opened where you live and you're registered to vote-why are you reading this? This can keep. Put on your socks and shoes and pants (I guess. The Constitution says something about the right to bare arms, but not a word about trousers) and get thee to a polling place. We have over one hundred and forty five thousand of our very best and brightest people in military uniforms in places around the world where folks with guns who hate us are shooting at them to defend, among other things, our 'right' to vote and you're sitting here reading this noodling!
C'mon--up and at 'em, Adam Ant! (A story for another time about one of the brothers with whom I slept). If you still haven't made up your mind, it's possible you're one of those people who likes unflavored gelatin or who wears a lot of plaid clothing and drives a beige car. Or, perhaps you really don't have a feel for one or the other folks at the top of your ballot.
Here's a side-by-side tear and compare that seems to be reasonably non-partisan (all of us have agendas, some more secret than others), so if you're undecided "not that there's anything wrong with that", maybe you'll find it useful.
If you're a Nutmegger, native or a transplant (one of the nicer things I've ever been called) here's a reminder that there's a WHOLE ballot to look at in your town, wherever your town is. Across the state, and nation, there are 435 members of the House of Representatives to be chosen. Many of us have state senators and representatives and please don't forget to look at, and decide about, the TWO state-wide Constitutional amendment questions (calling a constitutional convention and allowing seventeen year olds who'll be eighteen by Election Day to vote in primaries). Here's what the Secretary of State's office has put together as a handy reference.
As I said at the top, if the polls are open, go and vote. If they're not open yet, go and wait, and when they open, then vote. As we used to say in New Jersey, 'vote early and often'. I don't think we were kidding. And, when it's all over tonight and the polls close and the talking heads tell us what it means until whatever "it" is is now meaningless, don't lose sight of the real meaning.
Our democracy works only as well and as long as we want it to.
Slogans aren't solutions. Politics isn't policy. No matter who wins, if we voted, we win. I don't care who you vote for and you don't want to know about my choices, either. Whoever is elected will have a plateful and will need a mess of help from all of us. I'm fine leaving 'the post-mortem' to nothing more than that. As that little orphan girl sings, the sun will come up tomorrow. Now get these mutts away from me.
-bill kenny
If the polls have opened where you live and you're registered to vote-why are you reading this? This can keep. Put on your socks and shoes and pants (I guess. The Constitution says something about the right to bare arms, but not a word about trousers) and get thee to a polling place. We have over one hundred and forty five thousand of our very best and brightest people in military uniforms in places around the world where folks with guns who hate us are shooting at them to defend, among other things, our 'right' to vote and you're sitting here reading this noodling!
C'mon--up and at 'em, Adam Ant! (A story for another time about one of the brothers with whom I slept). If you still haven't made up your mind, it's possible you're one of those people who likes unflavored gelatin or who wears a lot of plaid clothing and drives a beige car. Or, perhaps you really don't have a feel for one or the other folks at the top of your ballot.
Here's a side-by-side tear and compare that seems to be reasonably non-partisan (all of us have agendas, some more secret than others), so if you're undecided "not that there's anything wrong with that", maybe you'll find it useful.
If you're a Nutmegger, native or a transplant (one of the nicer things I've ever been called) here's a reminder that there's a WHOLE ballot to look at in your town, wherever your town is. Across the state, and nation, there are 435 members of the House of Representatives to be chosen. Many of us have state senators and representatives and please don't forget to look at, and decide about, the TWO state-wide Constitutional amendment questions (calling a constitutional convention and allowing seventeen year olds who'll be eighteen by Election Day to vote in primaries). Here's what the Secretary of State's office has put together as a handy reference.
As I said at the top, if the polls are open, go and vote. If they're not open yet, go and wait, and when they open, then vote. As we used to say in New Jersey, 'vote early and often'. I don't think we were kidding. And, when it's all over tonight and the polls close and the talking heads tell us what it means until whatever "it" is is now meaningless, don't lose sight of the real meaning.
Our democracy works only as well and as long as we want it to.
Slogans aren't solutions. Politics isn't policy. No matter who wins, if we voted, we win. I don't care who you vote for and you don't want to know about my choices, either. Whoever is elected will have a plateful and will need a mess of help from all of us. I'm fine leaving 'the post-mortem' to nothing more than that. As that little orphan girl sings, the sun will come up tomorrow. Now get these mutts away from me.
-bill kenny
Monday, November 3, 2008
Monday, again?
If you haven't made up your mind for President and you like Monday Night Football, sell your clothes, you're going to heaven! Chris Berman will interview both Senators, McCain and Obama at halftime tonight on MNF. Tell me the line between cereal and surreal isn't growing ever more narrow. MNF ain't had this kind of electricity since Howard Cosell interviewed John Lennon and Yoko had no understanding at all of the single wing. Ruth is stranger than Bridget. Tomorrow is Election Day, why else would Boomer be hanging with the Senators, which means any attempt to 'preview' this week's meetings in Norwich will now seem a bit presumptuous, but life goes on within you and without you (I know which side of that equation some of my Norwich Neighbors are rooting for, but so far, today, no joy).
The Executive Committee of the Southeastern CT Council of Governments meets this morning at 8:30 in their offices in the Stanley Israelite (Norwich) Business Park, at 5 Connecticut Avenue (one of the few buildings there that isn't an apartment house, condominium, assisted living facility or baseball stadium.). If you slept in, you may have already missed the meeting.
Here's what they talked about last month as the agenda for today's meeting isn't posted. I grew up in a state, New Jersey, where county government was (at least) the equal of state government and I'm fascinated how in Connecticut this doesn't happen. SCCOG is as close as we get (no offense intended, but the acronym sounds like some kind of a growth you used to have removed from a private part of your body before the advent of sulfa drugs).
One of neat things on their website is the opportunity to read about the Regional Intermodal Transportation Center and/or to download the study itself. Heck, you can even make a note now on your calendar of events about the public meeting, a week from this Thursday, the 13th, at 7 PM in the Community Room of the New London Public Library, 63 Huntington Street. I'm waiting for it....there it is: New London? Yeah, you see, the Whaling City already has rail, ferry and bus connectivity concerns and issues in search of a solution, unlike another city I can think of.
Also, this afternoon at five in City Hall, Room 209, is a special meeting of the Volunteer Firefighters' Relief Fund Committee. Volunteer public safety people are a vanishing breed for many reasons across our country. We are fortunate in the Rose City to have both a paid fire department and dedicated volunteers working together for all of us. I'm not likely to spontaneously combust (despite wishes to the contrary), admittedly, but (I'm always) touched by your presence, dear.
Wednesday afternoon at 4 in the basement conference room of 23 Union Street is a special meeting of the Building Code Board of Appeals. You'll find their agenda in a drop down window on the city's website, and the (draft) minutes of their last meeting (in August) right here.
First things first on Thursday, or perhaps better said, "Fore!"
At 2:30 in the afternoon, the Norwich Golf Course Authority (what did you think all the buses, ferries and trains were coming here for? The Semisepcentennial?), actually their budget subcommittee, meets at the golf course which is a perfectly logical place. Not that I'm suggesting the Inlands Wetlands, Water Courses and Conservation Commission follow suit when it comes to picking a location at seven when they meet (in Council Chambers at City Hall). On their agenda is a public hearing on the proposed active adult community on Scotland and Hansen Roads-you might want to come a little early to get a seat for this one-and wear a light sweater as I suspect it will get warm soon enough.
Technically, this isn't a municipal meeting, but it's important (to me and millions like me) and maybe of value to you and yours as well. From five until seven Thursday night the Backus Hospital's Diabetes Management Team is sponsoring "Understanding Current Issues in Diabetes Management". There's no charge but they suggest reservations, so call them at 889-8331 extension 4092. Here's the thing--it's NOT at the hospital, it's over on Salem Turnpike, Route 82, in what (in my house) we still call the Ames Plaza. And if you call me to ask for directions from the New London Regional Intermodal Transportation Center, I will tell you to walk east until your hat floats.
Since I already gave you advance notice on an item for the 13th, here's another, a bit closer to home: it involves Rose City Renaissance, who do not make headlines every morning like some people I know, but who do make a difference every day. They're sponsoring a "Quality of Life on the Streets of Norwich" forum with downtown business officials and city leaders to discuss the city's response to recent criminal activity and other issues facing businesses and residents at their Community Information Center at 2 Cliff St. from 5 to 7 p.m. You've read the headlines-here's a chance to learn the back story behind the front page. Yeah, I'll mention this again next week, but it's okay to make a note now.
I don't have to remind you to vote tomorrow, right? Should be like breathing or blinking, except you can do it while doing the other two. Is this a cool world or what?
-bill kenny
The Executive Committee of the Southeastern CT Council of Governments meets this morning at 8:30 in their offices in the Stanley Israelite (Norwich) Business Park, at 5 Connecticut Avenue (one of the few buildings there that isn't an apartment house, condominium, assisted living facility or baseball stadium.). If you slept in, you may have already missed the meeting.
Here's what they talked about last month as the agenda for today's meeting isn't posted. I grew up in a state, New Jersey, where county government was (at least) the equal of state government and I'm fascinated how in Connecticut this doesn't happen. SCCOG is as close as we get (no offense intended, but the acronym sounds like some kind of a growth you used to have removed from a private part of your body before the advent of sulfa drugs).
One of neat things on their website is the opportunity to read about the Regional Intermodal Transportation Center and/or to download the study itself. Heck, you can even make a note now on your calendar of events about the public meeting, a week from this Thursday, the 13th, at 7 PM in the Community Room of the New London Public Library, 63 Huntington Street. I'm waiting for it....there it is: New London? Yeah, you see, the Whaling City already has rail, ferry and bus connectivity concerns and issues in search of a solution, unlike another city I can think of.
Also, this afternoon at five in City Hall, Room 209, is a special meeting of the Volunteer Firefighters' Relief Fund Committee. Volunteer public safety people are a vanishing breed for many reasons across our country. We are fortunate in the Rose City to have both a paid fire department and dedicated volunteers working together for all of us. I'm not likely to spontaneously combust (despite wishes to the contrary), admittedly, but (I'm always) touched by your presence, dear.
Wednesday afternoon at 4 in the basement conference room of 23 Union Street is a special meeting of the Building Code Board of Appeals. You'll find their agenda in a drop down window on the city's website, and the (draft) minutes of their last meeting (in August) right here.
First things first on Thursday, or perhaps better said, "Fore!"
At 2:30 in the afternoon, the Norwich Golf Course Authority (what did you think all the buses, ferries and trains were coming here for? The Semisepcentennial?), actually their budget subcommittee, meets at the golf course which is a perfectly logical place. Not that I'm suggesting the Inlands Wetlands, Water Courses and Conservation Commission follow suit when it comes to picking a location at seven when they meet (in Council Chambers at City Hall). On their agenda is a public hearing on the proposed active adult community on Scotland and Hansen Roads-you might want to come a little early to get a seat for this one-and wear a light sweater as I suspect it will get warm soon enough.
Technically, this isn't a municipal meeting, but it's important (to me and millions like me) and maybe of value to you and yours as well. From five until seven Thursday night the Backus Hospital's Diabetes Management Team is sponsoring "Understanding Current Issues in Diabetes Management". There's no charge but they suggest reservations, so call them at 889-8331 extension 4092. Here's the thing--it's NOT at the hospital, it's over on Salem Turnpike, Route 82, in what (in my house) we still call the Ames Plaza. And if you call me to ask for directions from the New London Regional Intermodal Transportation Center, I will tell you to walk east until your hat floats.
Since I already gave you advance notice on an item for the 13th, here's another, a bit closer to home: it involves Rose City Renaissance, who do not make headlines every morning like some people I know, but who do make a difference every day. They're sponsoring a "Quality of Life on the Streets of Norwich" forum with downtown business officials and city leaders to discuss the city's response to recent criminal activity and other issues facing businesses and residents at their Community Information Center at 2 Cliff St. from 5 to 7 p.m. You've read the headlines-here's a chance to learn the back story behind the front page. Yeah, I'll mention this again next week, but it's okay to make a note now.
I don't have to remind you to vote tomorrow, right? Should be like breathing or blinking, except you can do it while doing the other two. Is this a cool world or what?
-bill kenny
Sunday, November 2, 2008
Counting the Headlights on the human highway
Did you remember to set your clocks and watches back last night? Yeah, "spring forward, fall back" finally arrived and not a moment too soon for some of us. I've always thought Wimpy came up with this back and forth of the clock. "I will gladly pay you Tuesday for some daylight today." Maybe just me, but it's so 'cut six inches off the back of the blanket and sew it on the front and claim the blanket's a foot longer', it's painful.
And at some point today, or tomorrow (if it's your first day back at work), you'll find the one timepiece somewhere you didn't reset and be surprised and a bit chagrined as if you are the only one on earth to whom this has happened. Don't worry-I do it every time we do the Time Warp Again (Tim C dreams he could get anywhere near into that outfit these days).
I have a watch that 'automatically knows the date' (says the brochure) but not the day because it's the perpetual calendar model. I think the altar boy in me bought it just for the model name. I have never understood how it tracks the months with their different number of days and compensates. It is uncanny. I've been known to look forward to the end of February just to catch my watch, and Curse Your Black Heart Timex!, foiled again and always. This might be where my Catholic upbringing comes in handy since I'm comfortable believing in things I can't see and I sure can't see how my watch knows when a Leap Year is and when it's not. (And why aren't all the months the same length in the first place? Those darn calendar-makers and their D. C. lobbyists, I'm sure.)
Is it possible, do you suppose, to strike a deal with God to save up all these hours we so heedlessly and needlessly fritter and fret away while moving the big hand on the clock and cash them in at, or near the end of our lives? Sort of a rebate or a bonus. I mean how many of all the hours of our lives have we spent waiting and wishing for time to pass more quickly? Perhaps someone is storing them in a box with our name neatly written in block letters, for future retrieval. It could even be in joined up writing as long as there's no second E in my last name, and come to think of it, correct spelling is so overrated.
Remember when you were eight and a half, and that fraction was so important. Neil next door is still just eight, but I am 'and a half' and Bobby isn't even eight until the middle of next month. I just realized as I type, I've been 56 and a half for a whole week--could've gone a whole year NOT admitting that, or wanting to. And now, I keep half an eye on the doorway, in case I'm the next one called to the exit. The time is gone, the song is over, thought I'd something more to say.
-bill kenny
And at some point today, or tomorrow (if it's your first day back at work), you'll find the one timepiece somewhere you didn't reset and be surprised and a bit chagrined as if you are the only one on earth to whom this has happened. Don't worry-I do it every time we do the Time Warp Again (Tim C dreams he could get anywhere near into that outfit these days).
I have a watch that 'automatically knows the date' (says the brochure) but not the day because it's the perpetual calendar model. I think the altar boy in me bought it just for the model name. I have never understood how it tracks the months with their different number of days and compensates. It is uncanny. I've been known to look forward to the end of February just to catch my watch, and Curse Your Black Heart Timex!, foiled again and always. This might be where my Catholic upbringing comes in handy since I'm comfortable believing in things I can't see and I sure can't see how my watch knows when a Leap Year is and when it's not. (And why aren't all the months the same length in the first place? Those darn calendar-makers and their D. C. lobbyists, I'm sure.)
Is it possible, do you suppose, to strike a deal with God to save up all these hours we so heedlessly and needlessly fritter and fret away while moving the big hand on the clock and cash them in at, or near the end of our lives? Sort of a rebate or a bonus. I mean how many of all the hours of our lives have we spent waiting and wishing for time to pass more quickly? Perhaps someone is storing them in a box with our name neatly written in block letters, for future retrieval. It could even be in joined up writing as long as there's no second E in my last name, and come to think of it, correct spelling is so overrated.
Remember when you were eight and a half, and that fraction was so important. Neil next door is still just eight, but I am 'and a half' and Bobby isn't even eight until the middle of next month. I just realized as I type, I've been 56 and a half for a whole week--could've gone a whole year NOT admitting that, or wanting to. And now, I keep half an eye on the doorway, in case I'm the next one called to the exit. The time is gone, the song is over, thought I'd something more to say.
-bill kenny
Saturday, November 1, 2008
Changing of the Guard
We edge ever closer to Tuesday's general election and I'm wondering what will be in our newspapers after all the letters to the editor have been printed or on our televisions when the last commercial has faded to black. My interest is more casual than those who own printing presses and broadcast towers, but semi-sincere nevertheless because that's just the kind of guy I am.
Actually, I'm not alone as that guy. Me and my Casual Cohorts are about thisclose to our last hurrah in terms of politics, perhaps, on the national stage. For those of us who put the boom in the term Baby Boomer, the time for surrendering the place of preference in terms of national priorities has arrived in more ways than we may care to think about.
Those born in the nearly two decades spanning 1946 through 1964 have had our moment and more than a little of those who came after us, for quite some time. Despite Andy Warhol, on the night the clocks all quit and the government failed, it turned out the next generation of Americans didn't wear so many of them or wear them so often. I pick up phones to hear my history-I think of all the calls I've missed.
My generation are the folks who got our brains bashed in by Richard Daley's cops in Chicago in 1968 as we chanted 'the whole world is watching' (but it wasn't). We elevated hallucinogenic drugs to a religion (Dear Groucho and Karl, opiates are the opiates of the masses and Catholics go to Mass). It gave us something to do while listening to tens of thousands of folks whose music, politely put, was unlistenable without the assistance of pharmaceuticals. It was/is my generation who, in a history yet to be written, may be judged guilty of reverse engineering the American Way of Life and Values System so that hard work was ridiculed while hedonism became the Greatest Good.
My parents' generation produced Jonas Salk, who found a cure for polio. What should my generation take credit for? Platform shoes, pogs, AIDS and crack? Would seem to be Game, Set and Match. As we prepare to become the people we strove to avoid for decades and turn over to our children, and theirs, a world so worn that many of its promises have patches on their patches, we'll have the rest of our lives to ponder the gap between the promise and our performance. And to work to NEVER answer perhaps the sole remaining question, "did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage?"
-bill kenny
Actually, I'm not alone as that guy. Me and my Casual Cohorts are about thisclose to our last hurrah in terms of politics, perhaps, on the national stage. For those of us who put the boom in the term Baby Boomer, the time for surrendering the place of preference in terms of national priorities has arrived in more ways than we may care to think about.
Those born in the nearly two decades spanning 1946 through 1964 have had our moment and more than a little of those who came after us, for quite some time. Despite Andy Warhol, on the night the clocks all quit and the government failed, it turned out the next generation of Americans didn't wear so many of them or wear them so often. I pick up phones to hear my history-I think of all the calls I've missed.
My generation are the folks who got our brains bashed in by Richard Daley's cops in Chicago in 1968 as we chanted 'the whole world is watching' (but it wasn't). We elevated hallucinogenic drugs to a religion (Dear Groucho and Karl, opiates are the opiates of the masses and Catholics go to Mass). It gave us something to do while listening to tens of thousands of folks whose music, politely put, was unlistenable without the assistance of pharmaceuticals. It was/is my generation who, in a history yet to be written, may be judged guilty of reverse engineering the American Way of Life and Values System so that hard work was ridiculed while hedonism became the Greatest Good.
My parents' generation produced Jonas Salk, who found a cure for polio. What should my generation take credit for? Platform shoes, pogs, AIDS and crack? Would seem to be Game, Set and Match. As we prepare to become the people we strove to avoid for decades and turn over to our children, and theirs, a world so worn that many of its promises have patches on their patches, we'll have the rest of our lives to ponder the gap between the promise and our performance. And to work to NEVER answer perhaps the sole remaining question, "did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage?"
-bill kenny
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