I've Got Your Back Now

“Independence Day, often referred to as the Fourth of July, is a national holiday commemorating the July 4, 1776 adoption of our Declaration of Independence.  The Second Continental Congress voted for a resolution of independence on July 2, 1776.  The actual Declaration was debated, revised, and finally approved on the fourth. 

“Historians have long debated, and disputed, whether the Declaration was actually signed on July 4.  Many believe it was really signed on August 2.  An interesting coincidence is that both John Adams and Thomas Jefferson, the only signers to also serve as President, died on the same day: July 4, 1826, the Declaration’s 50th anniversary."

Independence Day is NOT about car sales, beach trips, beer-guzzling, barbecued gluttony, or chest-thumping jingoism though we have, through benign contempt, reduced much of today to variants of all of that shortsightedness. We focus on the fireworks and fail to see them as symbolic of the ordnance expended in deadly earnest that helps preserve our freedoms.

We too often are a nation of people who use our precious gift of free speech to tell others with whom we disagree to shaddup; who understand our freedom of association to mean we can dislike with impunity those with a different religion, sexual orientation, political ideology or skin color sometimes regarding them as somehow less than our equals.

Tomorrow between the grilled hot dogs, keggers, and marathon backyard softball games, should be an opportunity to enumerate and appreciate the blessings that nearly two and half centuries of selfless sacrifice have allowed each of us to regard as our birthright: The freedom to be whomever we choose to be. 
-bill kenny

Follow the Flag

 "You can stand alone

Or with somebody else

Or stand with all of us together

If you can believe

In something bigger than yourself

You can follow the flag forever

They say it's just a dream

That dreamers dreamed

That it's an empty thing that really has no meaning

They say it's all a lie

But it's not a lie

I'm going to follow the flag 'til I die."

"Into every life a little rain must fall

But it's not gonna rain forever

You can rise above--you can rise above it all

We will follow the flag together

We will follow the flag together."

Happy Birthday, USA.
Let's try every day to be better tomorrow than we are today.

-bill kenny

Got Plans for Today?

Yes?
Then change them.

No?
Excellent! Here's why:

See you there.
-bill kenny 

That Would Be a "Nope"

Some will have a long holiday weekend that started/starts today and runs until the beer and bbq runs out late Tuesday. Every Independence Day I try to imagine the Founding Fathers getting organized in Philadelphia to make a beer run after signing whatever it was TJ brought with him. Don't ever quite fully visualize it. I guess having big plans for the weekend can take many different forms.

And then you have this fellow free-climbing El Capitan in Yosemite National Park.

This is Adam Ondr, a Czech professional rock climber, specializing in lead climbing and bouldering. I don't pretend to know before today that one could be a professional rock climber much less have specialties within it. 

I don't think I need to add 'don't try this at home' over your holiday, right?
-bill kenny 

"Get Ready to Stumble..."

Wow is my face red or what? 

I had not heard/read/known about the Zuckerberg/Musk cage match, seemingly being organized by Dana White who brought us the Ultimate Fighting Championship, UFC, which differs from Mixed Martial Arts, MMA, by the amount of blood that gets shed, I think. Talk about FOMO.

I cannot imagine a more vanilla event since, well... ever. Just picture: A massive amphitheater, jammed to the gunwales with white guys, all wearing dress shirts with color-coordinated pocket protectors, with (of course) no ties and the top button buttoned, all neatly tucked into Docker pants with sensible shoes. 

Doubtful there will be any women attending as the Geek Mafia wouldn't know how to ask them out, assuming they knew any women in the first place. They can always get dating tips from Charlie Kirk, who really should sign on as a sponsor. And, maybe if we're all lucky, he can take on the winner. Unless Andrew Tate wants to step up, assuming he can make bail. 

I'd hope the throwdown, or up, is carried on every live stream imaginable and that all the Pharma Bros and the Crypto Bros put big coin behind each of the combatants. Perhaps we can have June Osborne and Serena Joy Waterford on the undercard as an "Incel Special."  

Hopefully, the wagering will generate enough winnings to buy everyone in the arena a blow-up doll so they can live happily ever after for the next forty-five minutes.
-bill kenny

Not Our Finest Moment

If you visit this space with any frequency and consistency, this will be a blinding glimpse of the obvious (BGO): I'm a really big fan of Norwich. I wasn't born here and I didn't grow up here but I settled here a skosh more than thirty years ago and have grown old here (still waiting for the wisdom to arrive). 

I strive very hard, some say 'too hard,' and they're not always incorrect in that assessment, to look on the bright side and be positive about what goes on here and why, as best as I can understand it. I do it so often that I'm perceived as a sort of cheerleader which explains those saddle shoes in my closet and that set of rather bedraggled pompoms, but I  try to applaud us whenever I can because I don't think we celebrate ourselves enough. And if I err on the side of excess, that's fine by me. 

All that said, we blew it last Monday. By 'we,' I mean all of us, and by 'it,' I mean the city's observation of  Juneteenth as the national and state holiday it now is. Yes, we had a sizeable crowd and glorious weather the morning of Friday, June 16th in the courtyard at City Hall for the unfurling of the Juneteenth flag, and by all accounts, there was a great deal of food, fun, and fellowship along Franklin Street Monday afternoon at the Juneteenth Community Cookout. (Some might say a 'Jubilee' in the original spirit of the word.)

But it was business as usual in municipal offices, just as it would be of course, for Independence Day, Memorial Day, Veterans Day, or Presidents' Day (as well as eight others).

Sorry, my mistake. 
On those national holidays, City Hall is closed (I never realized the 'Day after Thanksgiving' was a holiday but it is around here). But last Monday, when the United States was observing Juneteenth Day, we Norwicheans were observing our traditional third Monday of June. 

Yeah, I know Connecticut is called 'The Land of Steady Habits' and I do not pretend for one minute that negotiating, or renegotiating, labor agreements the City has with all the talented people in its employ is the easiest thing in the world (I know it isn't), but the kabuki theater that went on at the City Council meeting last Monday night (on the Council's agenda, a motion to cancel a scheduled meeting for July 3rd (y'know, the day before a national holiday); who says God has no sense of humor, right?) didn't just anger and annoy me (though it did both, sitting in my living room and watching it on public excess access television) but dismayed and demoralized me.   

Sometimes the things we do (or do NOT do) speak so loudly I can't hear what we are saying which is sad because, at the City Hall flag-raising, Mayor Nystrom had some terrific historical notes about Norwich's attitude towards the slave trade in New England and our first in the state embrace of Juneteenth through the efforts of Daniel Jenkins more than three decades ago. 

But by Monday evening, I could only conclude Friday's words were just that, words. The newspaper report I found on the City Council meeting read, with apologies to Dickens, almost like a Tale of Two Cities and underscores to me, especially when I read some of the readers' comments, just how great the growing divisions are becoming in our country. 

Juneteenth and July 4th are both part of our shared history, along with hundreds of other events, occasions, and moments that create and strengthen our national narrative. Respecting the significance and importance of Juneteenth must be more than a mere gesture because we have become a nation of citizens who far too often rely on angry gestures especially because brave words fail to be followed by bold deeds. 
-bill kenny

Weather or Not

We had another nearly-nice day yesterday around here. I'm treating June in Connecticut as if it were a chocolate layer cake, always moist. Seems to be more or less a national trend but I don't live in Indiana or any other exotic environment, so I don't know what it's like where you are. 

I do know when John Donne rings the bell around here, I'm the only one in my corner. And right now, even though summer has officially started, I'm not working on my tan, that's rust.

Of course, we had showers, not much just enough to get everything damp. If we were to NOT have showers, I'd fret something was wrong with the clouds. Oldest children worry about everything and when stuff is going great, we worry that we overlooked something. As I said, we didn't have torrents of rain (at least around here) but enough rain that you knew it was raining as if Gene Kelly could keep a secret if his life depended on it.

And as I walked from Point A to Point 2 (I majored in neither math nor phonics at Rutgers, nor orienteering (come to think of it) which must be why so many people tell me where to go) I passed a building where the sprinklers were on, making sure the lawn was getting watered. 

I imagine there's a schedule for this kind of stuff and a contract to regulate the relationship between the waterer and the wateree and yet, this is another one of those bridges that becomes a wall. Instead of an agreement that helps get things done, we have a starting gun in a footrace to see which side can come up with a faster reason for why something cannot be accomplished. 

Or, we have a variant of the Abilene Paradox in which one party is not willing to even attempt to change a relationship even though they say they want to change. Instead, they maneuver to have the other side come up with reasons for why change is bad so they are absolved of any responsibility to change.

Happens every day and more often than you'd imagine. Just watch the evening news and listen to what those who are our leaders say and then watch what they do. In Washington D. C. both Republicans and Democrats say they want to help middle-class voters with a responsible budget and balanced spending (not sure they care a fried rat's hindquarters about anyone else)

With both sides saying they want the same thing you could well ask what could be easier to accomplish? Yeah, right. Tell you what, how about you hold on to the umbrella, just in case, and I'll go get a yellow Macintosh and a rain hat. I already have the tartar sauce, so no pressure; but come Friday we'd all like a nice piece of cod, okay?
-bill kenny