Sugar in the Evening

For thousands of years (seemingly), all across the Interwebz on every social platform has been some variant of the slogan, "Everything Will Kill You, So Pick Something Fun." 

I don't expect or suspect that many of us picked aspartame, but like Banquo's Ghost, it showed up anyway.  Bingo, I guess.

Or, according to the report, maybe only kind of?
"The designation means that some of the research reviewed by WHO’s International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) shows that there may be a possible link between aspartame and liver cancer, but that science is by no means conclusive like it is for a substance like asbestos or tobacco." 

Up next could be a study on the effects of putting asbestos or tobacco in your coffee or favorite dessert recipe. 

Science Marches On! Even if its direction is often a circle.
-bill kenny

Tie(s) Go to the Runner

More and more we live in a wordless world. I don't mean a silent one but rather, a world in which you can scrape by with pictures and symbols. I love looking at the tags on shirts--it's like a graduation from Semaphore University. There's no bleach, hang-dry only, wash in cold water, dolphin-free, dry-clean only, etcetera.

I thought it reassuring that no matter where in the world you travel those symbols are the same until I realized it has a lot to do with the manufacturing process and that almost all the clothes we buy, no matter where in the world we live, are made in the same third-world sweatshops. That's more likely the reason why the care symbology at the collar is the same. 

What I am intrigued by is how our technology, not knowing where in the world we will use it, has created its own language which we have universally adopted. Do you remember when you used to yell for 'Help!'. Our machines' clocks do the same thing, sort of, except they flash 12:00--we all know that means there's trouble at the mill and are now conditioned, when we see it, to look around for a cause.

One of my first smartphones did a weird little vamp when it was loading an application. Maybe yours did or does the 'gimme a minute jitterbug', too.

It looked like a vertical bow-tie and then it started to whirl and twirl in a clockwise direction. Someone told me it's NOT a bow tie at all, it's an hourglass. That actually makes more sense to me, since that would have something to do with time, which is what the device is wasting, and not neckwear, of which I have a closetful though I have no idea of its purpose (or didn't) even though most workdays for four-plus decades I wore one.

Every time I see posters for raffles, there's always a disclaimer at the bottom, 'duplicate prizes awarded in the event of ties' and I keep thinking, today's the day. Good fortune, here I am! Luck be a Lady tonight. And yet all I ever win is a dry-clean only dolphin two sizes too small, no bleach only.
-bill kenny

Maury Weeps

I realize each of us is fighting battles that perhaps no one else can see. 
Or should, in this case. 

Joel Santiago's pain, as the article reports, can only be assuaged by the judicious application of millions of dollars to the affected area. I very much enjoyed the nearly purple and somewhat prolix prose describing his suffering since he was and is, of course, the real victim who, "lost his opportunity to see his baby girl born, or to bond with her in her earliest stages of development … lost the joys of the many firsts associated with parenthood, including seeing his daughter’s first steps, hearing her first words, and participating in her first birthday and holidays."

I'm imagining Joel will have a brand-new top-of-the-line car, or better yet, sports Ute, the next time he swings by the house of his daughter, Mackenzie, and her mom, whom he shunned.

Depending on the options package he purchased, he could perhaps let her have a peek at the interior and marvel at the life she missed having.
-bill kenny  

Hear the Echoes of the Centuries

"One of the revolutionary days in Paris and now a national holiday, the 14th of July ("Bastille Day") is celebrated with a mixture of solemn military parades and easygoing dancing and fireworks. The storming of the Bastille on July 14, 1789, has been commemorated in France for more than a century.

"Paris was in a state of high agitation in the early months of the French Revolution. In the Spring of 1789, the Estates-General refused to dissolve, transforming itself instead into a constituent National Assembly. In July, King Louis XVI called in fresh troops and dismissed his popular Minister, Jacques Necker. 

"On the morning of July 14, the people of Paris seized weapons from the armory at the Invalides and marched in the direction of an ancient Royal fortress, the Bastille. After a bloody round of firing, the crowd broke into the Bastille and released the handful of prisoners held there.

"The storming of the Bastille signaled the first victory of the people of Paris against a symbol of the "Ancien Régime" (Old Regime). Indeed, the edifice was razed to the ground in the months that followed."
-bill kenny

Fast Food for Even Faster Times

When I was a wee slip of a lad, as a treat, and boy did we have to be super-extra-well-behaved, my mom and dad would take us to McDonald's. You pulled up to the place and Dad got out of the car and talked to somebody on the other side of an order window and came back, in seemingly no more than an eyeblink, with a tray stacked with sodas, small bags of fries, and cheeseburgers and/or hamburgers. 

That was the WHOLE menu. Maybe they had coffee. We were kids, what did we know. Then we discovered they had shakes and that was the extra treat. 

Fast forward about sixty (yikes!) years and we have artisanal, gluten-free, beef-tallow-free fries, espresso as well as lattes, and what seems to be about one hundred and forty-five thousand items on their menu. The actual number varies not only from state to state but from Mickey D's to Mickey D's, The only constant is as will always be the case, the McFlurry machine is broken. 

Now, here in the New Frontier, we are a fast-food nation, if not world. It seems to me there are few places on earth, looking at you Antarctica, where there isn't a Mickey D's and across the street, a BK or a Wendy's squaring off against each other.  

But for me and my generation, the benchmark will always be McDonald's. But you can learn something new every day, or at my age every other day, and yesterday I learned that at one time in Germany, McDonald's and the German Rail had a partnership, and Ruth is stranger than Bridget because that wasn't the only oddity in that period involving the Golden Arches.

And all this time you were thinking Grimace's Birthday was a big deal? <sigh>
-bill kenny

Channeling Oscar Wilde

I’ve mentioned I do a lot of walking across Norwich, not as much anymore as when I had younger socks and shoes and I’ve become a semi-expert on what neighborhoods have the best sidewalks, or any sidewalks in some cases, and smoothest pavement. 

When you’re zipping along at a top speed of two sneakers an hour, you pay attention to where you’re walking and are careful of what you might step in. One of the things I keep an eye out for (and used to carry one of those plastic grocery store bags, especially for) is what I call the “curious containers.”

Quite simply, a “curious container” is a box, a bag, a cup, a nip bottle, or a can that at one time had food or drink. When it did, it was being transported by someone on their way somewhere. Curiously, when empty, or nearly empty, it suddenly became too heavy to be carried any longer and the person dropped it like a stone. 

I haven’t read a lot in many, or any, scientific journals lately about how the specific gravity of fast-food containers increases as the contents diminish so I’m excited about the ground-breaking paper on that subject I’ll be authoring as soon as I finish collating my sidewalk strolling research notes.   

I used to do a lot of walking with our children when they (and I) were younger, but they’re both grown and gone and sometimes I think I continue to walk to help me ease the pain of being an empty nester. But now, and this is of interest even if you’re NOT an empty-nester, I have adopted a storm drain just down the street from my house on Lincoln Avenue (and I’m not alone so stop backing away and looking around), and so can you. 

As a matter of fact, the more the merrier. Don’t worry, there are no detailed qualifications, specialized training, or unique skills required to adopt a drain. So far, all I’ve needed are some rubber gloves, a back that lets me bend over, and a bag to put stuff in.

Coinciding with Earth Day, on April 22, our Department of Public Works started its “Adopt A Drain” campaign. You may have read about it in the pages of  The Bulletin, or not, based on the large number of storm drains still looking to be adopted.  

Over last weekend, the program’s coordinator, Emma Robinson, shared a progress report that, as a walker, confirmed many of my impressions about how much ‘stuff’ was removed from around our city’s storm drains. In just the two months the program has been around, we (us drain adopters) have kept over forty pounds of YUCK from entering our waterways and storm drain system. 

Since you were going to ask: YUCK is my term that any of us can use and encompasses everything from a discarded campaign sign, cigarette butts, food wrappers, nips, plastic cups, leaves, fallen branches, and a partridge in a pear tree (just checking to see if you were still paying attention).  

I have no idea how many storm drains Norwich has or how many are still available for adoption (the goal is to have 100 adoptions) and you won’t see any TV commercials with Sarah McLachlan’s “Angel” playing in the background, but you can do your part by calling Emma at 860.823.3798 or go online and fill out the form. 

We all know litter hurts, but every little bit helps so how about you do your little bit? 
-bill kenny

It's on America's Tortured Brow

 Little did The Thin White Duke know...

"Sailors fighting in the dance hall

Oh man, look at those cavemen go

It's the freakiest show

Take a look at the lawman

Beating up the wrong guy

Oh man, wonder if he'll ever know

He's in the best selling show

Is there life on Mars?"

In his defense, he wasn't The Thin White Duke then, and none of us could have ever even imagined what we all just saw. 

Sometimes life imitates art and other times surpasses it.
-bill kenny