Sadness or Euphoria

Monday evening at 6:30 we in Norwich have a second bite of the proverbial apple at the Second Public Hearing on the City Manager's proposed fiscal year 2014-2015 budget.

In a world where silence is interpreted to mean consent, I cannot encourage you strongly enough to use this forum to make your voice heard because (and I'm amazed how often we lose sight of it) this is our city.

The budget creation process is very straight-forward and transparent, if you're willing to look at it. Part of our unhappiness as we struggle to understand the results of a long process I fear is that we want to cut to the chase and have no patience for prologue or explanations. We all want to go to heaven but nobody wants to die. I'm pretty sure that's not how it works.

The professionals who manage our municipal departments made their cases for funding to the City Manager last fall and into the winter with crunch time in the early Spring.

The City Manager, in turn, evaluated the requests and reviewed past performance and results in crafting his proposed budget which he presented to his bosses, the City Council, the men and women we each elected to the City Council. There's not a one of them who doesn't pay taxes for the same goods and services we all expect and receive from the city in which we live.

No one likes their taxes to be increased, by any amount, at any time or for any reason. You know both the City Manager and City Council are keenly aware of this already but by all means go ahead and remind them of that again on Monday evening if you're so inclined. You're entitled to tell them how and why (and where if we're being technical) you agree and/or disagree with the expenditures and appropriations they are considering.

But between today and then go over the budget and do your own math. As Sister Mary Jean used to tell us in math class, "show your work." If you have a proposal or an alternative for a budget item, show how you're paying for it and be specific and realistic. Measure (at least) twice before cutting once-that's what they used to say in New York's Garment District-good watchwords for those creating municipal budgets.

Speaking of which, copies of the budget are available on line and also in the Otis Library (and you thought all they had were book sales?). More than a few of us were unhappy that copies aren't available for free at City Hall but I suspect others of us would be unhappy if tax dollars were 'frittered away' on something you can print at your own home. Like everything involved with budget, not everyone is happy with whatever solution is offered.

Despite news reports nationally of an economic upturn, around here these remain hard times in the land of plenty. Someday, we may come to regard these as the best of times, but not today and probably not Monday either.
-bill kenny

Now We Can Sneeze in Public

I admire the sense of timing the folks in the black robes in DC exercised yesterday in using Cinco de Mayo as air cover for offering an inventive, albeit convoluted, interpretation to the First Amendment in the Bill of Rights, or what's left of it, of our Constitution.

As you've possibly read, the same Supreme Court of the United States that sees no reason to maintain or retain any form of Affirmative Action because we is all so equal there's no need for a sequel, which has also decided money is free speech so the more you have the louder you can be and happens to be wildly in love with the Second Amendment has now determined prayer to start a public meeting (in a town in New York State, specifically) is not religious expression and as such is neither prohibited nor regulated.

If you don't believe in God or in any form of a Divine Being ("Hairy Thunderer or Cosmic Muffin") just stand outside municipal meetings until the grown-ups are done or stare at your shoes and keep telling yourself that when your rights aren't respected, no one else's are either. Of course you should realize the rest of us will think you're a Whiner and probably not much of a patriot no matter how many flag decals you have on your windshield.

With spring busting out all over these United States, and pollen and allergy season sure to follow, how fortuitous! I have no idea what you say when someone sneezes but rest assured unless that person is someone of another race, the Supreme Court is cool with a simple "God Bless You." Somewhere Kate Smith is smiling, though from a distance it looks like she has gas.

Please rise for the Benediction and remain standing for another national anthem.
-bill kenny

¿Tiene Francia una mayo Quinta?

Today, as you probably know if you've been pricing limes, is Cinco de Mayo.  I'm not sure if you prefer Miracle Whip if you are required to stay indoors and I'm not sure whom to ask for a ruling.

I find it somewhat telling that we do more celebrating of this holiday here, North of the Border, than reportedly in most of Mexico. I think that means we were more desperate to find a holiday that would tide us over from Saint Patrick's Day, where everyone is Irish (more or less) to Memorial Day, where we're all so patriotic we have to have barbecues to prove it.

Lost in all the superficial celebrations across the USA today is a grimly serious and incredibly important milestone in the history of the Republic of Mexico, and by extension, the USA and (to a more limited extent) Western Europe as well but one that is far more quietly celebrated in Mexico.  

Freedom is a process as much as a product-we know that from our own War of Independence and should realize that other nations have parallel experiences.
You needn't have a margarita today to observe Cinco de Mayo-just recalling that your freedom is worth whatever price you are willing to pay for it is often more than remembrance enough.
-bill kenny

Jetzt bin Ich ein Country Maus.....

I settled us in Norwich as the first one who arrived from Germany back in the early fall of 1991.  I've always liked living here even though I'm not from here-perhaps liking it more than many who were born here.

I'm not a nester but I am a slow to relinquish kind of guy, meaning once I have something, I have it. When I rock, I rock and when I roll, I roll. Here's one of the reasons why I like living here.

The Uncas Leap is about a four minute walk from our house and is beautiful every single day of the year and I don't know a lot of things you can say that about, so I count that as a Plus One for my team.

Here's another reason why I like living here.

This is the Upper Falls and I walked across that railroad trestle you see at the end of the clip to get to where I shot this video. Technically, I'm standing in the middle of the Upper Falls Heritage Park but it needs a lot of work and that costs money that we don't seem to have, at least for a place as beautiful as this.

Wherever you live, you have places of which you can and should be proud if you take care of them. Don't be the reason you don't have nice things.
-bill kenny

One Less than Advertised

We had a bustle in the hedgerow here in The Land of Steady Habits earlier in the week and I smiled as a fellow child of the Sixties who is a decade older than I (talk about how good that felt, youbetcha!) had his reach exceed his grasp, in more ways than either of us care to think about.

Paul Simon and Eddie Brickell made like the other Tom and Jerry which may have upset Artie if he found out, at their home right here in The Nutmeg State and both ended up with some 'splainin' to do to the Men in Blue. Koo-koo-ca-chew.

I still find it hard sometimes to realize "stars" are people, too-somebody's husband or wife, a parent, a sibling, just like the rest of us. Maybe they're flying first-class, metaphorically, but it's the same plane, astral and otherwise.

To me, the big part of the story was finding out they lived in New Britain. I'd have pegged them for somewhere in Litchfield County but then again, I live on the Rhode Island side of Connecticut, so what do I know about marital relations. Well, for starters when I and my my wife disagree, I count to ten, Paul, five times.
-bill kenny

Another Pause for Reflection

Today is the birthday of our baby girl, Michelle. She was the smallest and most perfect person I had ever seen on the day of her first birthday. When I held her head in my right hand as she slept when she stretched out, her feet almost touched the bend of my elbow.

She was and will always be my Itty-Bit, my Ichy-Michy even though I concede neither of those nicknames plays well these days (so I hardly ever use them and never in public. Well, except for you on the Interwebs).

At two days old

I have a memory of my father and his first daughter, my sister Evan, that I just recalled as I typed this because, like him, I have a song that captures the dynamic of the relationship. I'm smiling as I type this because his song was and remains part of the soundtrack of the film of his life and I suspect Evan, if she reads this, knows exactly what song I mean.  

Michelle no longer can sleep in the crook of my arm-there are times her pace is so frenetic I'm not sure when she does sleep. I more often than not read about her exploits and adventures on things like Four Square when I get up in the morning only to have forgotten any questions I wanted to ask her by the time she comes home from work. That amnesia may be the secret of our success.

She is her mother's daughter-Thelma to her Louise and I marvel at the self-assured and confident little girl who is a purposeful young adult striding through life equipped, or so she believes, to handle whatever is around the next bend.

"She was wide-eyed, now she's street-wise to the lies and the jive talk. But she'll find true love and tenderness on the block." Happy Birthday, Michelle!
-bill kenny

The Frog and the Scorpion

I could have been a professional playing member of the National Basketball Association, NBA, if I had different parents contributing to my genetic inheritance, different upbringing, any ability or aptitude at all for the sport combined with the training to cultivate the aforementioned skills and abilities. In other words, we could have all had ham sandwiches, if we had ham (and bread). Hold the mustard, especially if you can't cut it.

And in terms of cutting it, I am physically unqualified for the sport-ask anyone, I don't even have the legs for the shorts. I can barely stand to buy sneakers (that high-pitched whiny voice going 'is that American Dollars?" yep, that's me) and there's been no stampede among anyone who makes shoes to have an Air Kenny grace the store shelves (I actually prefer Luft Willibaldo but that would mean making the sneakers longer to accommodate the extra letters; I tend to trip over my own feet, so that's a non-starter).

Speaking of non-starters on the matter of Donald Sterling being voted off the NBA Ownership Island, you've read and heard I'm sure the polished polemic of Al "Super Narc" Sharpton and his polar opposite, Romulus to his Remus, chubby cubby wide-body buddy, Rush Limbaugh. Looking at both of them (though Al's done a nice job of slimming down, sadly without yet vanishing), all I can think of is The Band.

(Aside to Al: I would respect you more as a fellow-traveler on the Big Blue Marble if you'd explain the 'totally' part of 'totally outraged.' As opposed to what, partially outraged?)

This is who you need to read because if anyone knows whereof he writes from his days at Power Memorial in New York City through UCLA to an epoch-defining career in the NBA, it's Kareem Abdul-Jabbar in Time Magazine. We are Here at the Western World and it's Sterling's turn to be the madman, with a world of witnesses. Jabbar's diagnosis of IPMS deserves to be part of our permanent vocabulary and is truly masterful.

I guess, with all the reading I've been doing on this since Friday, maybe the only thing I don't understand is why so many people who saw the signs chose to not read them. Sterling has always been That Guy.

This is not a new news story but an old one, as old as time itself. It's a variation of the frog and the scorpion who both needed to cross a stream. The frog, despite assurances and promises, feared the scorpion would fatally sting him while they were both in the water.

Halfway across that is exactly what happened and the frog, with its dying breath, begged the scorpion to explain. The scorpion as it,too, was drowning smiled at the frog and replied, 'why are you surprised? You knew what I was when you picked me up.'
-bill kenny