My Favorite Waste of Time

I've mentioned, more than once in passing, that I am retired. What I haven't mentioned at all at any time, somewhat shamefacedly, is what I do with all the time I have in the day. 

Time to 'fess up.

I surf the Web. It does not matter what the topic is or could be. The search bar on Google is the Golden Ticket minus the Ompah lompahs.  

Here's what I'm talking about. 

Talk about Weird Scenes Inside the Gold Mine.
-bill kenny

Dip a Toe in the Ocean

The first full week of Autumn is approaching its end (which means, since I'm a half-full-glass kind of guy, winter is closer now than it was last Friday, BUT the end of winter is also a week closer) and with baseball playoffs nearing (not so fast Red Sox, Mets, and Yankees fans!), and high school, college and pro football all battling for our attention while the gridlock in Washington DC (Disruptive Contention) continues, there's the one-foot-in-front-of-the-other of daily life on this Big Blue Marble to which to attend.

And we're the ones who do it; and sometimes, inadvertently (and other times maliciously) do it to one another. I tried one day last week to count all the local elections going on this November across these fifty mostly United States and gave up as the number was staggering. That doesn't mean we shouldn't care or that we should become passive; on the contrary. "I am only one, But still I am one. I cannot do everything, But still I can do something; And because I cannot do everything I will not refuse to do the something that I can do."

Part of what makes this country this country and not somebody elses' are the tens of billions of hours of volunteer effort that we invest in making where we live a better place. Do you doubt my number? Go to your local town hall and see where the notices of meetings are posted-then find out how many of your neighbors are involved in the various groups that are meeting, and calculate the amount of time those meetings take (And don't forget to add the prep time and the follow-up time). How's that calculator doing now? Yeah, that's what I thought.

And there's always a need for more help, never less. I know, there's band practice after school and the falling leaves will not rake themselves, though how cool would that be? And there are a hundred other reasons for leaving all the lugging and tugging to someone else, but I suspect Washington had better things to do a long time ago on a cold winter's night when someone said 'There's a rowboat across the Delaware in ten minutes, George, be on it.' 

There will always be another river to cross so let's hope it's always standing room only in the boat as we all put our backs into the oars.

-bill kenny

So This Is Political?

I only have one of their albums, and technically (of course) it's not an album, it's a CD but I'm such a fossil I still package music in obsolete units of measure because it's inconceivable to me that you'd ever consider buying it like hamburger, but, rather than by the pound, by the download. 

I came from an era where people my age showed their devotion to music and musicians by naming their children, 'Dylan' and such. And the generation that followed us named theirs for fruits and vegetables (is the shoe a little tight, Gwyneth and Chris?)

The band is Flogging Molly and aside from the same biology that places us in the same genus and species, I have little in common with anyone within the band. They are considered an Irish and/or Celtic Band which does NOT mean Kevin Garnett enjoys them, but helps build the box we can put the label on, to help us not think about what an artist is or what they do-instead we can say 'do you like So-and-So?'

And then depending on the answer, we can then say, 'You really should try this guy/these people/that ringtone; it'll remind you so much of So-and-So.' One of those all 'ducks are birds but not all birds are ducks' if we can't be profound, let's be profane moments we cherish so much.

"Well it breaks my heart to see you this way.

The beauty in life, where's it gone?

And somebody told me, you were doing okay.

Somehow, I guess they were wrong."

Perhaps they're singing about a past lover, but, and I've listened to this song maybe three hundred kajillion times over the years but never really heard it until late yesterday driving on Water Street through what was once downtown Norwich, I think that they're singing about where I live.
-bill kenny

A Lot of Ghosts in a Lot of Homes

I wrote this for a local election season FOURTEEN years ago. Looking at our current campaigns for City Council and Board of Education, it's unnerving to me that it looks like it's pretty much the same movie with different characters. 

We're getting to that season, not just here in God's Little Corner known as the Rose of New England, Norwich, Connecticut, where the only space on your front lawn NOT covered by autumn leaves will have a sign urging others to vote for a specific candidate for City Council and/or member of the Board of Education.

Every two years, I'm overcome by a desire to pop a Literacy Volunteer right in the beezer. And don't get me started on the folks in the little wire frame leg business so the sign guys have someplace to put the sign. All you had to do was ask me-I could've told you where to stick them. I find myself wondering what Samuel Huntington would have made of all of this lawn signage or Benedict Arnold for that matter. Both are considered Norwich Native Sons, though we're still more than ambivalent about Arnold.

I'm waiting for debates between and among the candidates running for City Council as well as the Board of Education (BOE). Don't get me wrong, I support the notion that there's no such thing as a Republican or a Democratic Party method to educate third graders but here in Norwich, the operating budget for the Board of Education is in excess of 50% of our entire city's budget so we need to pay more attention to something we pay no attention to at all.

We had a City Council again this year making decisions on public safety and other city personnel staffing, infrastructure repairs, long-delayed investments, etc., attempting to balance the tax burden caused by a less-than-robust growth in the revenue stream and the escalation in municipal expenses. The Board of Education had to make decisions that changed, and not to the good, the location and size of classes and classrooms for practically our entire student body (among other unhappy choices).

I'd like to hear what those seeking seats on the BOE believe the priorities should be, and learn a bit more about what, if any, ideas for economies and/or enhancements (and how to pay for them) they wish to advocate during their tenure.

The first candidate who wants to organize the children for weekend redeemable-can-and-bottle drives to pay for field trips and administrator salary increases, I will applaud unreservedly (using your hands if necessary) knowing he or she will not get a second vote. I was obviously trying to be humorous with that observation, though you may have only gotten the trying part.

But right now, with less than seven weeks until Election Day, there's NOT a debate scheduled by anyone, anywhere on the horizon in Norwich and there should be one once a week, at least, everywhere around here because we have the blessings of choice and need to know as much as we can about the neighbors offer their time and talents in our service. 

Our gratitude for their generosity will be replaced, sadly, soon enough by anger and annoyance (immediately) after their election because of their obstinacy and short-sightedness when they dare to NOT see things the same way we do.

Because I have the time, I've walked around various Norwich neighborhoods and there are scads of lawn signs for various candidates seeking office. Bravo and well done. But let's consider that there also is, I'm guessing, at least one "for sale" sign for every political lawn sign. 

We're going to need boxcars of fallen leaves from trees the size of California Redwoods to cover the damage done to the neighborhoods in this city every day by those for-sale signs and the reasons they're up. And that's why I think we need debates now to ask all the candidates this: what are you doing to do to stop it?
-bill kenny

Saturate Before Viewing

We live in a corner of Connecticut without a lot of diffused atmospheric surface light in the evening so looking up at the sky at night is a treat because there are fewer pollutants and distractions between me and the stars. 

When I was a kid, the USA was catching up to the Soviet Union in the race to the moon, a race we won. I wanted to be an astronaut as well as the President of the United States as well as a baseball player and I knew I could do all of that at the same time because I'd worked it out. 

And rounding the curve and starting the back half of the seventy-first lap on the mouse wheel, I'm not sure anymore about any of those career goals.  

I still look up at the stars every night, even on overcast nights, because you never know. And I hit all the hippest websites on the web looking for photos from and about outer space, not that I'll ever get to go or would have the nerve if the opportunity presented itself. 

But then the other day, I came across images, the best images the article said, from beneath the waters of the oceans which cover slightly more than 70% of our planet. I think you'll agree, they are almost beautiful enough to make a Space Sojourner rethink his quest.

We live in a place of so much beauty it makes those of us who behave ugly far too easy to spot, but sadly, not easier to avoid.
-bill kenny

Just Because We Can

Should we? 

I mean it. Feed the poor, clothe the naked, or house the homeless? Somebody somewhere might ask 'What's the return on investment with that?' Especially...

When weighed against the time, talent. and treasure expended to do this.

Marketing uber alles. Including compassion and common sense.
-bill kenny

Turn Nighttime into Day

I've got a feeling...

...that today's the day. 
-bill kenny