Just Off the Norm: Published Opinions of American Politics and Culture by One of Its Most Trenchant Observers

In a media landscape flooded with ＂alternative facts＂ and outright lies, Norman Bender’s essays are islands of truth.

Bender has been an astute observer of American politics and culture for decades. His letters and opinions have been published in newspapers across the country, including the New York Times, USA Today, the Chicago Tribune, and the Boston Globe. He also takes pride in his local presence with the Hartford Courant and the New Haven Register.

This collection of some of Bender’s most pointed writings shows the struggles our nation has faced in the past quarter century, highlights the shortcomings of some of our leaders, and serves as a cautionary tale. It also encourages all Americans to fight to restore the ideals that the United States was founded on: liberty, equality, and justice for all. He writes quickly and literally shouts from the outset, and he freely acknowledges that he might not always be right, but that doesn’t inhibit him from always being sure.

Norman L. Bender was born the oldest of four children to a World War II army veteran who served as a sergeant major and to a wonderful, gracious, kind bookkeeper at the plumbing supply company where he was to learn his lifetime trade. They met and hit it off. Good thing for Norman.

As a third grader living in West Haven, Connecticut, he was beaten up for a crime he did not commit and for which he had an alibi. The crime was that of killing Christ. His mother had enough of that and the family moved to Westville in New Haven, where Norman went to grammar school, junior high, and high school. He also went to Yale in New Haven.

After serving in the US Army, he went into the business that his father had trained him for since age ten, which was the first time he’d been drafted. He had two marriages, from which he was blessed with three children, stepchildren, and a wonderful, unmatchable tribe of grandchildren.

In the summer of 1995, his sports hero, Mickey Mantle, whom he was fortunate enough to meet fourteen times, died. The Connecticut Post ran a series of one hundred articles about Mantle’s passing, and his was the lead letter, picture and all. Norman was hooked. This addiction has led to the publication of hundreds of his letters and essays in a dozen local and national newspapers.