Symmetry Meets Justice

It's not without reason I think that this week began with news (very late in the day Sunday) that the most hated man in the world had been found and killed by US Forces. Osama bin Laden didn't invent hatred or religious intolerance or xenophobia or antisemitism though historians may well argue he was a unique blend of each of those and other toxins and poisons, proving yet again that the whole is far too often greater than the sum of parts.

Winston Churchill once observed, "a fanatic is someone who cannot change his mind and who will not change the subject." He'd had first hand experience with just such a person, Adolf Hitler, whose death, as was bin Laden's, was announced on the first of May, sixty-six years earlier. Hitler and his National Socialists had harnessed centuries old ignorant hatred to the technological innovation of the Industrial Age to create Hell on Earth, the Holocaust.

Language is one, if not the greatest, of our species' triumphs and yet in no language can the totality of the hatred and destruction that was the Holocaust be adequately captured. The Jewish faith, who were targeted and ticketed for wholesale eradication, refer to the Shoah (שואה) in Hebrew. In German, with chilling precision, it's the Endlösung der Judenfrage, the "Final Solution of the Jewish Question."

The origins of racial/religious/ethnic/tribal/political intolerance and hatred of the other that lead to, and end in, mass murder didn't start in Central Europe in the 1930's. Genocide has a history that's no mystery, just its actual beginning is lost in the mists of time. It has been practiced, if that's the word you can become comfortable using, in every corner of the globe in every era and epoch of our stay on this planet. The ebb and flow of the tide of fanaticism has a rhythm and rhyme independent of reason and rational thought.

Events earlier this week serve, in their way, to underscore the importance of The Days of Remembrance which began last Sunday and continues through tomorrow. This link won't take you to the #1 box office smash in cinemas everywhere, but it is helpful, only if you wish.

I want to believe, because I almost have to, it wasn't an accident that a scourge of humanity was removed from us just as we examined the question, Justice and Accountability in the Face of Genocide: What Have We Learned? We availed ourselves of an opportunity to impose accountability, in a manner I feel Martin Niemöller might have accepted if not approved.

History's lessons don't learn themselves and sometimes we are too distracted to make them our own. And it's the persistence of our insistence in not gaining enough knowledge from our trials and travails that makes we worry and wonder how many more cycles we have yet to endure.
-bill kenny

And Curse Sir Walter Raleigh

I stopped smoking on 30 September 1996-I can remember the day and the time (twenty minutes after one in the afternoon) because I was paying an office call on the elected head of the city government where I live, Norwich CT, back in the day when the office was 'City Council President' (but dinosaurs no longer roamed the earth).

I was looking to enlist his support on a bond initiative to spend millions on technological infrastructure in the public school system. Despite what I had been told, he was a more than willing ear and a strong ally in what proved to be a successful referendum. Calming myself down as I waited outside of City Hall before our appointment I chain smoked as I had done since taking up the habit at some point in my sophomore year at Rutgers (when dinosaurs did roam the earth).

Interestingly enough, I don't recall when I started smoking--just that I started with Pall Mall (Red) as I'd watched our Dad smoke for many years. I'd always end up with a piece of cut tobacco on my tongue or lips or between my teeth, which was part of the incentive to move to a filter cigarette and through the years I was never what you'd call a brand loyalist.

Overseas in the military, buying tax-free cigarettes in the commissary was perceived as a benefit of being in the Armed Forces. We paid for a carton what a German might buy a pack of cigarettes for so controls were established to discourage a black market (sounds so The Third Man, doesn't it?). In Germany, before reunification, we had ration cards for cigarettes (I think four cartons a month; you could request and receive permission to buy more), as well as for coffee and tea and my personal favorite, 'Solubles.'

The ration cards grouped the latter three together as CTS and I liked to think that it allowed me to consider drowning people I didn't like (assuming there were enough oceans) since, technically, if you hold anything under water long enough it becomes soluble, right? No need to get excited-it's a hypothetical question. So far.

I was tirelessly lobbied by our children, most especially our daughter, to stop smoking and decided as I stubbed out a cigarette just before my City Hall meeting that it had been my last one. I never slipped though I miss smoking every day. I don't miss what I have reason to believe it was doing to me medically though in light of my health since I stopped I sometimes wonder if the nicotine addiction wasn't the lesser of two evils.

I mention all of this because there's been recent news about an upturn in hookah use, and I know Lewis Carroll would chortle at this and paralleling that news note is this discovery I made on-line of these folks with some spooky news of their own. As we used to say after falling out after morning muster, 'smoke 'em if you got 'em' (Cub, who has a best girlfriend anyway?) but don't get too many of 'em, okay?

-bill kenny

Two Paths, One Journey

One hundred and fifty years ago during the American Civil War, Union and Confederate forces squared off against one another in York County, Virginia near Williamsburg. In what became part of a series of battles known as the Peninsula Campaign, there was no victor but the loss of life on both sides was staggering and, more ominously, a harbinger of what was to follow.

I mention this, because today is Cinco de Mayo which many think is Mexican Independence Day but it's not. I tend to compare it to Flag Day or more like the morning after at Fort McHenry which inspired Francis Scott Key to write the Star-Spangled Banner.

Mexico declared its independence from Spain about thirty-five years after their Northern neighbors suggested HRH George III go pack sand and when you read the earliest days histories of the two New World fledgling democracies, it was no picnic for either of us.

By 1862, the USA was knee deep in the gore of a fratricidal war and European powers were shaking down the Mexican government attempting to collect on debts owed by, shall we say, the previous management. No nation in Europe "recognized" the Confederate States of America, but no one would have been upset had they succeeded in their secession.

It was that desire to smash and grab that set the stage for the Battle of Puebla, which is what Cinco de Mayo is all about. French Emperor Napoleon III placed Maximilian on the newly created throne of what he hoped would be a monarchy and started to create a logistics base to supply the Confederate States in contravention of the Union naval blockade.

Marching from Vera Cruz to capture Mexico City and force the capitulation of the government, the much larger French army and cavalry was, instead, smashed to pieces in the mud at the Battle of Puebla, abruptly ending the dream of another French empire and also effectively cutting off the Confederate States from their chief, and clandestine, provisioners.

A little more than a year later, at Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, the high water mark of the Confederacy was reached when its assault was turned back by Union forces and the inexorable end of all hostilities at Appomattox, Virginia on April 9, 1865, though not yet visible on the horizon, became inevitable.

You don't have to be a Civil War buff to see the connection between our two nations--though it's a damn sight easier if you are so inclined. This is a good day to wish our neighbors to the South who celebrate, all the best on a day whose impact is nearly as great for both of our nations for entirely different reasons.
-bill kenny

The Art of the Possible in an Improbable Age

Germany's 19th Century Iron Chancellor, Otto Von Bismarck, once observed politics is the art of the possible, and it was Tip O'Neill who said all politics is local. Put both of those thoughts together and we really should have swarms of registered voters every time we have an election for City Council or the Board of Education.

While a great deal of newspaper and television coverage of Politics with a capital "P" tends to fixate on the statehouse and Governor's Mansion or on Capital Hill and the White House, for most of us it really is those closest to home, our local elected officials, whom we see as having the greatest impact on our community and our quality of life. Yes, the President is the Commander in Chief but I'm not asking him about a cracked sidewalk at the house on the corner.

We're a little more than six months away from City Council and Board of Education elections. If you want it to feel (even) longer, let's call it half a year. Lots of time for incumbents to make (more) progress on those projects they took on as their terms began. And plenty of time for those who are contemplating a run at elected office to measure at least twice before cutting once.

I don't care how you vote so much as that you do. If you're registered to vote, make sure you do and if you're eligible to vote but aren't registered, make sure you do-click here for the Registrar of Voters or here's the Secretary of the State's Web Portal. Democracy is a contact sport and we cannot win if you do not play.

Let's face it, the current terms of office of members on both bodies have not been a walk in the park for anyone on them. Some say we should regard a problem as an opportunity to excel and in that context those currently in office have been spoiled for opportunities. So, too, have we even when on more than one occasion I've disagreed with decisions the neighbors who serve in elected office have made.

There's a temptation when you're not Teddy Roosevelt's Man in the Arena to speculate about how well someone else might do in a particular office. Hypothetical solutions always seem to lend themselves to much happier endings, whether those endings are real or not. I've often contended had my mother married a Kennedy, I might be living in the White House-but she didn't, so I'm not. See how much more attractive fictional lives can be?

But in the here and Norwich in which we live, between now and November look at where we are as a city and where you see us heading. Nothing is eaten as hot as it's served and nothing's so marvelous it cannot be improved. We can always use another great idea and the energy to implement it and no one in any party has a monopoly on either.

Many of us believe we're starting to rebuild our downtown and enhance our community's quality of life as well as our grand list. Many others are not so sure. There's room enough for both the hopeful and the skeptic. What we are now is what we were at the last election and the election before that. What we are to be is limited only by our willingness to find out. It's not how you start, it's how you finish and we're far from done.

-bill kenny

The World after Let's Roll

Perhaps lost in all the relief and other emotions after the President of the United States shared with the world that Osama Bin Laden had been killed in a surgical strike in Pakistan, might be the direction we now take and how the road we have been on becomes the road we're now on.

For those in the New York City area there may have been some (though probably not much and certainly not enough) hoped-for closure, shared by those at the Pentagon who were targeted almost a decade ago as well as by friends and families of United Airlines Flight 93.

The singing of the Star Spangled Banner, the U-S-A chants and even reports of renditions of We Are the Champions all washed over many of us in the last thirty-six hours (Queen, seriously? Seriously) all somewhat obscuring and distracting us from the process of redefining what we do next.

Many of those in our armed forces whom we've sent into harm's way in the endless war following 9/11/01 were in middle school when all of this became all of that. Do you remember what the national headlines were in whatever news source you relied on the Day Before? Did you think then that you'd live to see now?

Will who we are and how we carry ourselves in the world change as a result of the death of a mass murderer? How well will we remember that we have lived though the end of a chapter, but not the end of the novel. What that looks like has yet to be written and the strength to continue to grasp the pen and make the sacrifices needed hasn't yet been measured.

Edmund Burke very neatly summed up our present situation and so it's down to us. "No one has the answer, but one thing is true. You got to turn on evil when it's coming after you. I know I said I love you; I know you know it's true. I got to put the phone down and do what we got to do." And do what we got to do....
-bill kenny

Happy Ever After in the Market Place

I'm told you can learn a lot from your children. Considering how dumb I am, but how much dumber I was before we had kids, I guess that's true. The education in understanding others that started when I married and deepened with the birth of our son, developed that much more with the arrival on this day, an undisclosed number of years ago, of our daughter, Michelle.

I realized very quickly almost none of what I had learned from life with her brother, Patrick, would be of any use with her-except as a means of comparison. I also learned that while our two children are related to one another and to us, their parents, they are very different people. Acknowledging they are people, with their own minds, decision and lives, is a quantum leap for me and it's one I make neither easily nor gracefully.

Michelle has always been here but also somewhere else at the same time. Her pleasure at meeting you for the first time is genuine but there's a wariness to how she interacts with you until she gets to know you that makes you realize you will need to prove yourself worthy of her friendship.

As an infant, it wasn't unusual to check on her while in her crib and discover she was wide-awake, lying there silently looking at her surroundings and taking everything in. You could see the wheels turning even if you had no idea about the thoughts they were producing.

I think it was in third grade she started violin lessons and quickly demonstrated an aptitude for being able to pick up any instrument and make music with it. It wasn't that long ago her mother and I visited her while she was an undergraduate at Eastern Connecticut State University (motto: No, dammit, we're not UCONN) for a brown bag lunchtime concert she and classmates staged. She surprised and delighted us with a short piano piece played as adroitly and expertly as she plays the viola (and all her other musical instruments).

Michelle is a recent graduate of ECSU, working on a half dozen side-projects to include a community orchestra, while seeking a full-time job in a growthless recovery. She lives with us which could help me better realize she is a grow-up and not the infant I used to hold in the crook of my arm all those years ago, if I so chose. She is not the only stubborn person under our room, if you follow my drift.

Those days as my snuggle-bunny are forever gone, but I still have my memories. I'm hoping she would be the first to enjoy the irony of a dad who too often (for her taste) still sees her as a child, who wishes her, the confident and talented adult, the Happiest of Birthdays because she's shown me how Life Goes On.
-bill kenny

Rocket J: I am NOT a Role Model

First things first--my brother Adam is running his first marathon today. And will kick ass doing so because he does not do things halfway. Consider yourself warned should you encounter him. This concludes the public service announcement of our program.

This is possibly futile. The beings who most need to read this today will not and not because they don't have the time or access to the Internet but because they can't. They're squirrels. Some would suggest squirrels are rats with bushier tails and better press clippings and if you've ever had to replace internal engine parts from where they've eaten the rubber gasket, tubing or insulation from a car you've parked on the street, you'd probably agree.

We would in all likelihood not get along very well since in my house we buy probably six or more pounds of peanuts a week (walnuts and other types around the holidays; don't judge me) to feed to the ones who live in our neighborhood. Our squirrels (nice use of the plural possessive pronoun) are more than a little spoiled, I concede. When you go out the back door, one or more materializes and behaves as if you should have peanuts to throw.

One of them, Chocolate Nose, named by our daughter The Squirrel Talker who has a birthday tomorrow, actually bars your way down the sidewalk and stares up at you, unmoving, and forcing you (me, at least) to always go back into the house to get some peanuts. S/he (who knows, not me) will actually take the peanut from your hand. I feel like Jack Hanna out on the Savannah.

This time of year as the young animals are born and either adapt and survive or become another species' lunch, I'm already tired of watching the sides of the road on the lookout for young squirrels who are doing their version of the chicken joke. Almost all of them never look both ways before starting across and more than a few of them are on their way in good order across the street when, for some reason, they stop completely. (I almost said "dead" but that's what happens next after the stop).

I swerve, or another driver swerves, and there's a moment of automotive ballet on a state highway or a city street and if we're all lucky, nothing happens, not that the small rodent in the grey sweat suit has a clue in the first place.

Squirrels of all colors, please: we are not a bad species (okay, we are, but mostly towards one another) and we try very hard for the most part to not injure or otherwise harm you and the other birds and beasts of the woods, but you've got to meet us half way. I know you can't necessarily reach the walk/don't walk buttons on the traffic signals and at your height, crosswalks are difference without distinction. But you've got to get smarter about coexisting with our cars and trucks or you're over. As in run over.

I know the tight rope act on the power and phone lines overhead is more of a circus stunt than I'd be willing to do and I understand your reluctance to keep doing it but it's either that or learn to look both ways and run like the wind, or at least a good breeze. Because, let's face it, that you're able to read this today (and learn from it) may be the only way to make sure you're here tomorrow and not some crows' lunch over on Newton Street.

-bill kenny