Humoring the Rumorists and Rumoring the Humorists

It's been exactly ten days since the election of Senator Barack Obama to the office of President of the United States and Silly Season has already started. Actually, I'm oversimplifying it by calling it 'silly season', but that's because I continue to 'never attribute to malice that which can be explained by ignorance.' If you lend any credence to the broadcasts of Rush Limbaugh, the good news is (I suppose) I don't think he's malicious. But I do have to wonder if this guy and the others in their pods have the philosophic stamina to keep up their respective jeremiads every day for the next four years. On the other hand, I can remember the marathon while William Jefferson Clinton was getting mail (and some female, too, rumor has it) at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

There's impossible-to-categorize "news" stories like "Planning Underway for Obama Holiday" which, after the laws of gravity and logic are repealed, will make sense (but making sense isn't a requirement for the tribal water cooler of the Internet to pick this 'story' up and run with it-I'm afraid to imagine what this will look like by this time tomorrow) that I find disheartening because it means we may even earlier and faster than at any point until now be descending into the depths of demonization of those whose views differ from ours..

I hope I'm being unnecessarily alarmist-but almost anywhere you look on line, regardless of media outlet or its purported political/ideological orientation, you come across reader reactions that can only, at their most charitable, be called 'off topic.' It's not just disaffected supporters of those NOT elected who are angry--I think many of would have difficulty identifying specifically with whom we're upset, invoking descriptors such as 'them', or 'those, or 'the others'. And it's okay for 'us' to hate 'them' because 'they' did it to 'us' for all those years (or months, days, hours and seconds).

I mention this because very quietly in the US media (or mainstream media, MSM, as it now gets called within and without the blogsosphere) this previous Sunday passed unremarked upon for the most part the most horrible instance of intolerance in our history as a species on the planet, Kristallnacht, a moment of orchestrated insanity that set the tenor and tone for what was to be a perfect storm of intolerance meeting the assembly line producing the horror most sentient humans now, and forever, call "The Holocaust." That, too began with words, and ended with blood on everyones' hands. And to show you the link from the Southside of Chicago to Saxony, feel free to read this.

We have the most powerful resources on the planet in our history to best examine contentions and positions for accuracy and veracity and yet, far too often, because we are lazy (?), angry (?), foolish (?), afraid (?) we repeat without question whatever we have heard or read, no matter the source or agenda. For too long, I think we have been too polite in not calling those to account who offer less than accurate information or who play a little too fast and loose with their facts. No one benefits from allowing less than the truth to serve as a touchstone and benchmark. We all agreed before last Tuesday's election that we would have change in our national government--how is it that so many of us seem to have forgotten so much, so quickly? Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it--but what of those unable or unwilling to repeat their remembrances?
-bill kenny

A Simple Desultory Phillippic

Across the country, this week and next, at all grade levels, children, youngsters, high schoolers, Friends, Romans, Countrymen are trudging home with report cards. I've always admired the savage sense of timing that our education factories display, just in advance of that celebration of all we think of as The American Family, Thanksgiving. Well played, ladies and gentlemen. Do you think for a moment Norman Rockwell's grades in art ever came up as his dad was carving the turkey? Draw your own conclusion.

And every day we read about the Dumbing Down of America (you'll thank me for the download), though I wonder how oxymoronic that idea is. If we're too dumb to read about it, are we (still dumb)? If a number two pencil breaks while filling in the oval on a PSAT, does it help our kids get into college? Proving perhaps, the Lord has a sense of humor and we are His punchline, Atlantic Monthly worries, "Is Google Making Us Stupid?"

Everyone, without exception, over the age of forty with whom I've shared the article agrees with its premise. And everyone, again without exception, under the age of forty with whom I've shared it, has yet to read more than the first five paragraphs of it. Get Wally Kelly's Pogo in here. We've found the culprit and he/she sure looks familiar......

Is it okay if, instead of the students, we look at the educational assembly line we've created? I guess I should point out I am the son of a schoolteacher--never to be confused with Dad of the Decade, but well-regarded for what he did despite who he was. Disclaimer ended.

We've created a school and value system that rewards effort as much (if not more than) as achievement. The problem with this Brave New World (Order) is that evolution doesn't work that way. The species on the planet now have figured out how to stay alive, and thus, have 'won'. No one awarded prizes to the dodo bird for looking forlorn. It failed to adapt and thus didn't survive the final exam that it never even knew it was taking.

We've raised one or more generations of kids who have been told it's not important to 'get the answer right' or to even understand the process behind how to get the answer. Just show up and be pleasant--you must be present to win. Unfortunately (for us), the rest of the world didn't get the memo and aren't dumbing down their kids which may be why more and more Nobel prizes are going offshore and not to homegrown talent and why more technological innovations are 'from elsewhere'.

Interestingly, many of the award recipients live on our shores because of the personal freedoms our society and culture offers to all and to everyone regardless of merit and effort. They, however, understand these values and intangibles come with a cost-sometimes I'm not sure our children and their classmates do. Meanwhile we are world-beaters at rap videos and reality TV. It's what else we beat that makes me nervous.

I watched Lou Holtz, the venerable (and occasionally less than completely lucid) former college football coach on ESPN TV the other night with 'a viewer's question.' It was great TV and the setup was perfect. All I could do was flop on the dock with the hook still in my mouth.
The question, Coach told us, was:"did your generation have a drug problem?"
YES, Coach Lou said-we sure did. We were drug to church on Sundays. We were drug out of bed every weekday morning to go to school. We were drug by our dads when we didn't do homework to a place out behind the barn, etc......it was funny, but it was true! And true enough that there was or should have been an edge to the laughter, at just that moment before it turns to tears.

Our parents held us to higher standards than those we held our children to (exceptions of course, but I'm in a rant on a roll and heck with specifics!), which is why the wheels fall off so much so often.
When Johnny/Jenny can't read what happens? Instead of doing EVERYTHING all of us can to help the child learn to read, we hire a paraprofessional for the classroom because Lord knows a student-teacher ratio of 12.8 to 1 certainly isn't conducive to learning (I can remember 52 kids in Mrs. Hilge's 3rd grade class at ST Peter School in New Brunswick, NJ; I was one of them).

When Johnny/Jenny STILL can't read, we give their teachers and schools MORE money and when STILL nothing happens, we hire a psychologist to speak to Johnny/Jenny: 'You can't read, kids. How does that make you feel?'
Insanity is doing things the way we always have and hoping THIS TIME the answer will be different.

We went from no-fault auto-insurance to no-fault divorce to, now, no-fault lives. And nine days ago, we elected a man who spoke of change as both a product and a process of national renewal. We want him to save us from ourselves, again, but we don't want to have change anything we're doing. We'll learn more during the 7 O'clock News--Silent Night.
"I been rolling stoned and beatled till I'm blind. I been ayn randed, nearly branded Communist, cause I'm left-handed. That's the hand I use, well, never mind!"
-bill kenny

Stage Fright

I suppose Loudon III, with Rufus, could relate to Billy Ray's situation. His daughter, Miley, did "boffo box office" in the early fall, as Variety might write (spice of life or not, there's no business like show business), and the difference between the Fox Theater and the MGM Grand Ballroom is more than the number of seats.

In other lifetimes, LIII and I were in the entertainment biz (of sorts). I worked as a clerk in a record shop (AD, but BCD; anno domini but before compact discs) when Album III was released and hit the fan(s). He and I at the time bore, for many, a startling resemblance to one another, so much so that when someone purchased the album and brought it to the counter, there was always a moment when their eyes went from the cover to the clerk and back again. No word of wondering why ever passed their lips.

When you tear and compare him and me now, all I can conclude, LIII, is a little less Kate and a little more German, either the language or a very beautiful native. It worked for me, bro. But I guess all of us can take a page from Albertus Magnus who recognized The Dumb Ox who would write Summa Theologica long before he wrote his first word.

Wordsworth was right, really, about it all, but hand on my heart, sometimes I think Robertson was talking about more than Dylan, Zimmerman and Thomas.
-bill kenny

From Flanders to Strawberry Fields

In Flanders Fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly.
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead.
Short days ago We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow.
Loved and were loved,
and now we lie In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep,
though poppies grow In Flanders fields.
-LTCol John McCrae, MD (1872-1918)


Let me take you down,
'cause I'm going to Strawberry Fields.
Nothing is real and nothing to get hung about.
Strawberry Fields forever.

Living is easy with eyes closed,
misunderstanding all you see.
It's getting hard to be someone but it all works out.
It doesn't matter much to me.

No one, I think, is in my tree,
I mean it must be high or low.
That is you can't, you know, tune in but it's all right.
That is I think it's not too bad.

Always know sometimes think it's me,
but you know I know when it's a dream.
I think, er No, I mean, er Yes but it's all wrong.
That is I think I disagree.

Let me take you down,
'cause I'm going to Strawberry Fields.
Nothing is real and nothing to get hung about.
Strawberry Fields forever.
Strawberry Fields forever.
Strawberry Fields forever.
-John Lennon and Paul McCartney

Thank you to every man and woman whose service and sacrifice made, and makes, this day, and all the days that remain, possible.
-bill kenny

Take Back the City

This is a week of quiet work for lots of volunteers across the Rose City underscoring the idea of many hands make light work, which is much better than my original understanding of the expression, 'Mandy Hanz is a big jerk'.

Be advised, perhaps because there's holiday, Veterans Day on Tuesday, but the City of Norwich website isn't especially accurate on this week's municipal meetings, imho. I, too subscribe to 'trust, then verify' philosophy so I tend to analyze the meetings announced on the municipal website through the filter of news and notes from other sources to develop this. I know, 'smells like a disclaimer' and it is for this first group at least:

Tuesday's meeting at 8:30 AM of the Youth & Family Service Advisory Board at Norwich Free Academy (and before you ask, municipal meetings must be accessible to the public, not necessarily held in municipal buildings. Sometimes that's more a nuisance than a nuance, but not in this instance). The City's website also says there's a meeting of the Zoning Board of Appeals (sorry, no agenda posted), at 7 PM in the basement conference room of 23 Union Street. But as I mentioned, I couldn't find any third-party confirmation on them. Conversely, here's a meeting that shows up in the newspapers, but not on the city's website: Downtown Neighborhood Revitalization Zone Committee which meets at 6 PM at the Buckingham Memorial, 307 Main Street. That hyperlink takes you to a draft of the 16 October meeting minutes but nothing will offer you an idea of this meeting's agenda or committee membership.

There's a ton of goings-on all going on on Wednesday. I'll pause while you diagram that sentence.

Not sure about too much in connection with the S.E. CT Enterprise Region (Loan Committee) meeting at 8 AM in New London at 190 Governor Winthrop Boulevard, except it's part of the Southeastern CT Enterprise Region and there are some fine folks involved in this effort.

If you like rise and shine meetings but don't make the trek to New London, you might want to attend the Rehabilitation Review Committee which meets oh-bright-early at 8:45 in the basement Conference Room at 23 Union Street. If you go, ask someone who came up with a meeting start time on the quarter hour, vice at the half or top of the hour. Here's the minutes of their 16 October meeting.

The Southeastern CT Regional Resource Recovery Authority meets in Preston at their building Wednesday afternoon at 2; Norwich has two members on this regional body. The authority doesn't have a website (yes, there are some people not as fortunate even in this land of unfettered self-aggrandizement. They can't even afford an agenda or a posting of their previous meeting's minutes) but here's a place to start on the over one point two million mentions about them and others like them (let's hope Carly Simon doesn't get wind of this, okay?)

The Public Works & Capital Improvements Committee (one of the standing committees of the City Council, along with Public Safety and ---never mind what the third one used to be) meets at 5 PM in the Public Works Director's Office at 50 Clinton Ave. There's no agenda on the city's website but there is a note that meeting minutes are available at the City Clerk's office which is an amusing, but incorrect, interpretation of the public law mandating they be posted on a municipality's website. It's mooted by the fact that their October meeting was cancelled.

The Greenville Neighborhood Revitalization Committee meets at six at the New Asia Buffet, 680 Boswell Avenue. I'm trying to figure out why the name of the neighborhood school is spelled differently from the Revitalization Committee for the neighborhood it serves. Don't tell me the sub-prime crisis has affected the number of vowels in the alphabet and we're now rationing "E"s?!?

"Batting left and playing for the home team..." it's the Baseball Stadium Authority, who meet in room 210 at 6 PM. There's no agenda posted, but when you review the October minutes you'll read the CT Defenders, between back rent and past utilities, may owe about 240,000 dollars to the city. I am assuming that's American money. If you attend, perhaps you can find out for the rest of us as I imagine that might still be a topic of interest. In fairness to all sides, there's a lot of mad math skills needed about who owes whom what, especially since I don't know if the team has been reimbursed for its public safety expenses, which normally reduces the rent. But I'm calling my landlady and broaching the topic, 'tolerance of arrears' just to see what happens. You might want to contact your mortgage company and we can compare notes later when we're living under a bridge trestle, or maybe in a vacant parking spot at the Regional Intermodal Transportation Center.)

The Public Safety Committee meets at 7 PM, this time at the East Great Plain Fire Department . Their minutes aren't on the city's website but are always available at the meetings, as are the agenda. I've attended two of these in recent months, and the participation by all the activities within the city's public safety community is very encouraging. If I brought dog treats this time, maybe one of the fireman would let me pet the dalmatian, unless the dog, too, wants a development grant.

The Zoning Board of Appeals meets at 23 Union Street at seven PM and, just reviewing the minutes of their October meeting, you can develop an appreciation for their efforts.

On Thursday, the Mohegan Park Improvement & Development Advisory Committee meets in room 210 of City Hall 5:15 PM (did somebody get a deal on quarter hour meeting calendars?). I was unable to locate either an agenda or meeting minutes which is one of the many reasons why I'm always picked last for Marco Polo.

This isn't a meeting-but fun, admittedly more for my age than you probably. There's a benefit for the Norwich SemiSeptecentennial (say that three times fast; it's hard enough to type it one time real slow!) with Rick Derringer rocking the NFA Slater Museum, starting at 6 PM.

And one other item, but NOT for this week. Considering the brouhaha on some matters of zoning earlier last week (next door in the Chambers of City Council), I'll talk about it again NEXT Monday, but let me mention here and now, an informational session the Norwich City Council will conduct on zoning next Tuesday, the 18th, at 7:00 pm in Room 335, City Hall. Joseph Hazlewood, whose ears are still burning from Jon's impassioned importunings last week, called me to ask if he could moor in the Norwich Harbor near the 20 story hotel. I suggested he dock in New London and take a ferry or a train to get here.

That's the week to come. Lots to do and more to be. Better eat your Wheaties.
"It's a mess, it's a start. It's a flawed work of art. Your city, your call. Every crack, every wall. Pick a side, pick a fight. Get your epitaph right."
-bill kenny

Hopefully NOT Corinthian Leather

Huge news week for many of us across the nation and around the world and bit more turbulent, perhaps, than desired or necessary for one of us from Stonington, Connecticut. Admittedly a small item that may have escaped your notice, glad that I'm here.

This AP news story popped up in the pages of Thursday's Hartford Courant (motto: "We think of ourselves as the NY Times for people who read the NY Post") and opened up a myriad of possibilities for me and judging from the readers' comments, for more than a few of the rest of us as well.

I'm assuming the nude dude was operating an automobile as opposed to a motorcycle (the article is a model of laconic communication with a recitation of 'just the facts, ma'am' that would make Joe Friday smile (almost)) but I'm unclear as to what led to his apprehension. We have, I believe, a yellow sun, Dylan's contention to the contrary, so I'm unsure that a law enforcement officer from Krypton could see through a car or truck door.

Perhaps the manner in which the fellow was driving led to his being stopped. Power steering is a wonderful accessory, often included in the regular package of options for many vehicles, leading me to wonder if he was weaving because he had forgotten The Lizard King's admonition and was only using one hand. Of course, it should be pointed out, Jim himself forgot that advice. (Tangent alert: if President Ford could (and did) pardon Richard Nixon, why not ask President George W. Bush to pardon the late Jim Morrison, as a last 'thank you' gesture to the state of Florida? Show of Hands? Not so fast, Stonington Guy.)

CT's Department of Motor Vehicles is very specific on attire while operating a motor vehicle--no shower shoes and no bare feet, you must wear shoes. Not a word about socks, or any other article of clothing, so I hope the motorist had the appropriate footwear on. Perhaps is arrest was just a misinterpretation of the same notion that gave us Casual Friday?

I do wonder if he had cloth or leather seats. Early November in Connecticut is not a day at the beach in terms of temperature (though it's been 'unseasonably warm' in recent days) and Interstate 84 is a high-speed roadway where wind shear can drop temperatures and cause shrinkage, I would assume. For fans of Mapquest I should note it goes nowhere near The Hamptons.

And where, do you wonder, he was reaching to retreive his license and registration when the officer requested it? And aside from a smile, what did he wear for the mugshot? Do you suppose he had a Tattoo or other visible scar?
-bill kenny

(More) Thoughts on the First Tuesday in November

All the spin-meisters have packed up and taken their three card monte tricks to wherever it is pundits go when they're not punditing (call the Guinness World Records book folks, I'm not sure anyone has ever made that word into gerund before today. You are witnessing history! Or not....) We are alone with the consequences of those decisions we made, or chose to NOT make, on Election Day. That's how this nation works and when you look at our history, our heartaches and our triumphs, it has been, and is, a remarkable process of new beginnings and unending hopeful horizons.

Since my Mom and Dad taught me manners (and the set I have is still in pretty good shape because I seemingly hardly ever use them) let me start on an appreciative note: To all of those who sought office and campaigned tirelessly in the last weeks and months, thank you for your generosity of spirit. Congratulations to those of you who were elected and for those who weren't, there's still a role for you in all of our communities so thanks in advance for lending a hand. We have some rough days before us all, not just the Red States or the Blue States, but the United States. There's a reason why we call ourselves that-sometimes, it seems, we forget.

We, the voters, have expectations of those whom we elect and those men and women, in turn have responsibilities to us. We all also have obligations to one another: to speak clearly in articulating our wants, needs and desires (and our ability and willingness to pay for those), and to listen to one another and the explanation for why, sometimes, a particular course of action was chosen (or not chosen). We have two ears and one mouth in that particular ratio for a reason: perhaps we should listen more and shout less.

In recent years, there's been far too little civility in our civic discourse with one another (the opponent always eats bugs, and often worse) as we've opted to impugn character and denigrate integrity instead of debating, developing, evaluating, implementing and improving one another's ideas. We've turned elections into popularity contests that no one seems to win. I can't help but believe if John Hancock and the Founding Fathers could see what we've made of this nation that some of them gave their lives for (even before we were a country), he'd insist on a bottle of Wite Out while reaching for a copy of the Declaration of Independence.

Right now, the days after a national election, are traditionally the most hopeful time in the political calendar. At all levels of government, the past few mornings have been a little brighter because of the perception and belief in possibilities created Tuesday evening. But we don't dare do more than pause before continuing on our joint journey to build the nation regarded as a beacon by so many around the world.

As that nation we may not, in the last decade or so, have been especially good at narrowing the gap between promise and performance. As we continue in this, our third century, as a democracy, we need to be mindful we may be approaching a critical moment when our "Missed Opportunity" becomes our "Last Chance".

We all have too much at stake to leave government to "somebody else"--we each need of us to become that somebody. Democracy is a contact sport-it's time to suit up and get in the game.
-bill kenny