Edison Set the World on Fire

How many cartoons did we watch as kids where, when one of the characters had an idea, a lightbulb lit up over their heads? As of last Tuesday, that image will eventually find itself in the 'Whatcha talkin' 'bout?' Museum of Unshared References Across the Generational Divide, a few exhibits down from 'You sound like a broken record!' Yeah, don't start with me on that one.  

Last Tuesday, August 1st, was the start of the ban on sales of incandescent light bulbs. The same people who want to take away your gas stoves, your guns, your light beer and whatever else is woke wandering around and about, did manage to ban sales of new incandescent bulbs. I know, the rest of the planet will thank them, and by extension, us, but you will hate them for their interference with your conspicuous consumption lifestyle.

And if we can all live a little better in a slightly less imperiled world, isn't that worth the changeover to LED bulbs (and standby, up next will be fluorescents). What do you think? I'm staring at the space just above your head, pilgrim, and ain't nothing shaking but the leaves on the trees.
-bill kenny

Zero Would Be Nice

As a child learning American history (I think it's part of something called 'civics' now for reasons surpassing my understanding) I was always struck by how World War II began for America with airplanes. Actually with swarms of planes, low over the horizon, out of the sun over Pearl Harbor Naval Station in Hawaii.  

Today, seventy-eight years ago, from the belly of the Enola Gay, a B-29 Super-Fortress, the US Army Air Corps dropped the world's first atomic weapon on the Japanese city of Hiroshima and while a second bomb was dropped a matter of days later on Nagasaki to 'seal the deal' the harnessing of the atom into such a terrible weapon of destruction delivered by an airplane effectively ended the second World War. 

As a fan of symmetry, even as a wee slip of a lad, I was struck by the bookend of beginnings and endings.

I've read accounts where some of those who worked on the devices were relieved that the first actual use did not trigger, as they had feared, an unfettered chain reaction they could not stop, destroying the planet. 

Except, as I look around a somewhat beaten and battered world that's lived in the Atomic Age (and in dread of its consequences) even longer than I have been on earth, I wonder about that road to perdition, the slippery slope, and the law of unintended consequences. 
-bill kenny 

Says She Talks to Angels

I stopped scrolling the other day on the PBS website to read a story headlined, "Nearly 7 in 10 Americans Believe in Angels." Considering how fervently American Evangelicals embrace a serial philanderer, liar, and attempted insurrectionist in the person of former President and future felon Donald J (for Genius) Trump, I cannot claim to be surprised though I am disappointed.  

Reading that story in light of this one, from NBC News, "71% of GOP Voters Stand with Trump" I was struck with a quote that I suspect could be applied to both stories, "People are yearning for something greater than themselves."

Real or imagined, sekt oder Seltzers. Accept no substitutes, either ethereal or totally synthetic. Too often we get the heroes we deserve and then complain about them.
-bill kenny

Not My Words

Found this online from A. J. Picard. It's brilliant!  

Every minute someone leaves this world behind.

We are all in “the line” without knowing it.

We never know how many people are before us.

We can not move to the back of the line.

We can not step out of the line.

We can not avoid the line.

So while we wait in line -

Make moments count.

Make priorities.

Make the time.

Make your gifts known.

Make a nobody feel like a somebody.

Make your voice heard.

Make the small things big.

Make someone smile.

Make the change.

Make love.

Make up.

Make peace.

Make sure to tell your people they are loved.

Make sure to have no regrets.

Make sure you are ready.

-bill kenny

Vogelfrei

If I were a bird with the gift of flight, I'd never walk again. 

This is breathtaking. 

"The cold season is coming round
Flocks of birds are homeward-bound.

They are swirling, turning, wheeling
They invade the evening sky
Changing shape and mesmerizing
Safe in numbers; rustling by.

A cloud of starling
Graceful flapping of their wings
Murmuration."- Paul Callus

-bill kenny 

A Mid-Summer's Simmer

We are at a strange place in this our Summer of Way Too Much Heat and Humidity.

I’m not talking about the impact the actions we, the Crown of Creation here on the Big Blue Marble, are having on climate change and the environment because we’re still a couple of years decades away from getting more than a grudging acknowledgment from many that it’s anything other than ‘all politics.’

Besides, if we can’t ’own the libs,’ we can always parboil them, right? As a meme I saw last week on social media noted, “People moaning about the weather; at least it’s not snowing. Imagine shoveling snow in this heat?!?”

No. What I’m talking about is this time a month ago we were all readying three- and four-day holidays (fingers crossed!) for Independence Day and in just about a month we’ll be doing the back-to-school shuffle with thousands of children as we prepare to mark or mourn the end of summer with Labor Day.

Things move so fast; we spend more time looking forward to moments big or small than we do enjoying them while we have them. Show of hands:  At Memorial Day, who had plans for what “we’ll be doing this summer.”? Keep ‘em up, I want to do a quick count. As I thought, just about all of us.

And now as we round the clubhouse turn into the first week of August, how many of those plans (personal, professional, vegetable, or mineral) have come to fruition? Where are those hands now? Is that the sound of crickets I’m hearing?

George Santayana once observed, "Those who forget history are doomed to repeat it." I’m not sure what he’d make of our headlong rush to embrace whatever is new and next without ever wondering if it’s a good fit for our families, our neighborhoods, or our city.

Maybe it’s the high temperatures or the times in which we live, but we’re very quick to judge others’ perceived mistakes while always justifying our own. We want the world, and we want it now, but we never take or make the time to thoughtfully consider all the efforts being made by various agencies and departments across the city to make where we live a better place for all of us to come home to.

Instead of applauding those efforts and initiatives and offering to roll up a sleeve and lend a hand, we point out missteps and shortcomings as if someone was giving prizes to whoever finds the most (Present company very much included).

We can only aspire to get better, by whatever unit of measurement you choose to define it, when we all succeed. The critical skills I believe needed to succeed, communication, cooperation, and collaboration are sometimes hard to find because we’re not good at practicing them. Instead, I see a lot of ‘for me to look good, someone else needs to look bad.’ How about you?        

Those skills aren’t just for use with big projects, like economic development-well, yes, they are but also for smaller steps. Maybe not one of us can persuade Dunder-Mifflin to relocate to the Business Park, but each of us can patronize the businesses we already have across the city and maybe, start making the street where we live a better, nicer, cleaner, and saner place than it was before the summer started.

It’s worth a try.
-bill kenny 

Rhymes with Luck

When we were kids and grown-ups would forget we were around and about (and always underfoot) every once in a while in conversation one of them might slip up and use a Bozo No-No word. Before George spelled it out in detail, we all knew them, no matter the language. To some degree, the song remains the same.  

When that happened, dollars to donuts, the offender would say 'Pardon my French.' I was halfway through the second day of my first-ever visit to France before confirming that not one of the words those grownups had ever said was French, not even in the littlest bit. Jeepers, Wally!

Actually, the biggest and most infamous offender of the not-really French words is, of course, 'the F Word.' But as is so often the case with a problem, there are solutions, or in this case alternatives.  

We can't cure poverty, stop hate, end war, or feed the hungry.
But Kayfabe is right in our wheelhouse.....
-bill kenny