HERE WE GO…AGAIN

The more I learn, not that anyone has told us citizens much, about the new group taking over CentrePointe, the more unhappy I get.

The city granted the new group a 30 day extension NOT to fill in our most famous sinkhole downtown. Who knew such extensions were possible? I don’t remember that being in the first, euphoric announcement from city hall.

Or that the holdings group can get 3 more such extensions?

Meanwhile, the city says the new group is “making progress."  They are interviewing “construction managers” (didn’t Mr. Webb do a similar thing and aren’t his results available to us? Are we inventing the wheel again?) and “architects!” Meadow Muffins!  Another architect? Another plan for the hole?  (see comment earlier about what Mr. Webb did) —and the SEVERAL plans for the building.)

And, BTW, the new group hasn’t told the city (or us) about its financing! What banks are involved, if any? Doesn’t this sound all-too-familiar? Wasn’t this the festering stumbling block for Mr. Webb’s plans?

Are we being strung along and sold a bill of goods that just might come crashing down (again) IF the city decides NOT to include a new city hall as part of the CentrePointe plans, which is its right, but which might give these new people an excuse to wash their hands of the project entirely.

And, BTW, the city is spending $200,000 on a feasibility study...do we lease or build a new city hall? That report is not expected until after the first 30 day extension runs out. My first prediction for 2016:  LFUCG will grant a 2^nd 30 day extension because the timetables for these two projects don’t coincide.

We are being kept in the dark entirely too much here...and I’m afraid everything points to a repeat of the problems we had with Mr. Webb.

And we were supposed to have learned from that experience.

I'm just sayin'...

DEBATE, DEMOCRACY, AND DUMB

Saturday night’s debate among the 3 Democratic candidates for president was a far cry from similar GOP events. These 3 said things, substantial things, and while there is plenty of room to disagree, they didn’t demagogue—as several of their Republican counterparts have.

Local media screwed up...I saw several print and broadcast stories that did not mention at what time or channel the debate would air. TV Guide totally messed up...listing this as a Republican debate; sheesh!

And ABC opened with questions about the Sanders breach of voting data, a totally “inside the beltway” topic that doesn’t interest 90% of voters at all, and contributed to the lament that the “media doesn’t understand us” from citizens.  (Soon, however, the debate did get  into “real” issues.)

Congress passed a 2000 page spending and tax cutting program, amid cheers of a new “bi-partisan” atmosphere in Washington.

Meadow Muffins!

Lost in every news story I saw was that the legal deadline to pass these bills, and stop a government shutdown, was last October first—a deadline Congress under either party’s control, has missed for years.  And the “sequester”—that device held up a few months ago as the way to keep the government open—was reversed. Congress still doesn’t have its act together.  And just wait—there will be a slew of stories pointing out the hidden parts of these bills  (no one read them all before passage!) that will give the “special interests” what they wanted, whether the public approved or not.

Don’t get the idea that these people, for all their experience are “the smartest guys in the room.” Defense Secretary Ash Carter had to reveal that he used his private e-mail system for government business—the very thing HRC has been scorched for months for doing...and which may be illegal.

Dumb, Mr. Secretary, D-U-M, dumb!

Meanwhile a poll indicates perhaps we citizens DO get the government we deserve. 30% of Republicans supported bombing the kingdom of Agrabah. 13% said No. 19% of Democrats surveyed wanted to attack Agrabah, 39% opposed.

Agrabah doesn’t exist; it is fictional. As the USA Today report indicated, no one Googled it, which continued a trend of people being polled expressing firm opinions, 20 to 40% of the time, on fictional issues and legislation. The Margin of Error wasn’t given in the story I saw, but was probably very high, maybe 100%.

I'm just sayin'...

EXCERPTS FROM A CHIEF EXECUTIVE’S NEWS CONFERENCE

I know that not all these people are bad…but all the troubles we have had have stemmed from just this group.

They have beheaded our people.

They have killed innocent women and children in their offensive activities.

They have spread their diseases among us, resulting in many untimely deaths.

Some argue we should send all of them back to their homes…others that we should admit no more of them into our land.

I have decided to convene a conference of all our allies until we can figure out what- in -hell to do about these English.

SQUANTO,  Chief, Mass. Bay Tribal Council.

I'm just sayin'...

A SHORTSIGHTED DECISION

The city, thru the Civic Center, is pulling the plug on the small, twin spires RR station RJ Corman built behind the Civic Center. Some legal dispute I don’t have details on is responsible, and has gone on for some time. When the lease ends, the end of this month, Corman will be out of the property and also end the dinner train that originates there.

This is a bad situation all the way around.

I don’t mean to take sides, since I am not privy to the legal arguments, but I can put forth two ideas why the city and the Corman firm should settle their difference. Surely reasonable people can find a way.

One, the dinner train is a tourist attraction...and as much push as Kentucky and Lexington are  putting behind tourism, we can ill afford to give up on such a unique  attraction.

Two, but permit me to suggest another reason. Such a train station could serve as downtown Lexington’s point of departure for a  regularly scheduled train to Frankfort—a service decided in large part to appeal to state workers, delivering them to the old downtown Frankfort station, by the History Center, and getting their cars off the interstate during morning & evening rush hours.

Single diesel passenger cars exist, often double deckers, to handle such traffic...and a schedule of morning departures from Lexington, and evening departures from the capital could be arranged. (It would also serve shoppers in both cities, and tourists because our capital city is such a draw.) Although they fluctuate, I’m betting such a train could operate more cheaply than gasoline prices would allow state employees to drive round trip. City buses meeting the trains could get state employees to their jobs, but a lot of them work within blocks of the Frankfort  station.

BUT, hold on a moment. IF this plan works (with lower rates for those buying five day tickets, etc), then a similar system could be set up between Louisville (which has been pondering light rail for a while) and the Frankfort station to get River City state employees off I-64 (in good weather and in bad!) which would certainly help that beleaguered road—tied up so very frequently with accidents.

So NOW we have a passenger train system  that runs between Lexington and Louisville, via the Frankfort connection. Am I the only one who sees all sorts of possibilities and advantages in this? 

But it needs a station, a departure point in our city. Why tear down the logical place for that point, the Corman station..and build another one later when city and state work out the details?

Our two mayors are supposed to be co-operating on projects for the good of both towns. Here’s one.

I'm just sayin'...

SOME KENTUCKY BROADCAST THOUGHTS

The Courier-Journal recently ran a story that its market had the 7^th highest number of TV commercials for attorneys among top markets in the US.  When I mentioned this to a Lexington TV executive his answer was..."Only because Lexington wasn’t surveyed!”

My daughters tell me a local radio station, and one in Louisville, have  been playing nothing but Xmas music since the day after Halloween.  This is beyond stupid; it is UNAmerican. If true, (there is no way I will search the local dial to find out; sorry—maybe on 12/15…) I hope their staffs are getting hazard pay...and psychological counseling.

I was watching the PBS NewsHour tudder night when it was interrupted constantly by the loss of both video and audio.  I started counting the dropouts and when I got to 60 called KET. The receptionist said its picture was clear, so I called Time Warner cable, which I how I got the program.  A nice lady answered, in Florence, Ky., which means after business hours TWC appears to have NO ONE locally to answer our calls. She did NOT know of the problem, but checked and, in time reported “massive outages in N. Ky., S Indiana, Louisville and Lexington.” When I asked didn’t TWC monitor its channels for such problems the answer was “No, we depend on viewer calls to alert us.”

Which, IMHO, is a helluva way to run any business.

LFUCG, are you listening?

How many channels does the SEC Network have? I have seen references to: SEC, SEC overtime, SEC alternative, SEC secondary, and several more.  I THINK it only has two, but given the various references, by different names, on local TV and in print, I am not sure. Can our local media not get together (with the network) and agree on the same set of terms to avoid viewer confusion…and more watching for them?

I'm just sayin'...

THANK YOU KIM DAVIS

For helping us, once again, at least think about “nepotism”..the practice of hiring relatives for jobs, just because you can.

The Rowan county clerk, at the heart of the marriage license for same sex couples  issue, helped refocus on that issue. While elected, she got her start in the clerk’s office when her mother, the former clerk, hired her. Kim returned the favor by hiring her son.

A recent report by the Kentucky Center for Investigative Reporting, published in the Herald-Leader, points out no one keeps track of nepotism in the Commonwealth but its investigation showed 75 of our 120 counties allow it, and at least 50 have. State law gives local governments the power to set their own rules here.

That’s a baddd idea.

In too many cases there are obvious conflicts of interest, the building up of local political dynasties, and in four cases, outright stealing of public funds was found to be the case. In a dozen other counties, some variation of violation of state laws took place by those hired in a “family way.”

The report quotes one of our better legislators as pointing out some poorer counties use nepotism as a “state sponsored jobs program.”  And thus each hire is at least one vote keeping this obsolete practice.

Given the “real” problems the state has..pensions, roads, education, etc..I’m not holding my breath for any changes in the next legislature…indeed, Kim Davis may well spark bad changes in our laws..as the popular heroine she is to some.

But it’s a bad tradition, and Kentucky will just not come into its full potential until it’s eliminated and by a statewide law banning the practice.

I'm just sayin'...

OUR OLDEST ALLY…SOME HISTORY

Yes, France is our oldest ally, and we Americans share the Paris tragedy, too.

Back in the days of our Revolution, France came to our aid at a crucial time. Wise old Ben Franklin, the colonies representative in Paris, had worked years trying to get France, Britain’s arch enemy, to enter that war on our side.

The king finally did so, and as British Gen. Cornwallis faced Washington’s troops at Yorktown, up sailed the French fleet, cutting off Cornwallis’ retreat or resupply.  He surrendered; the war was effectively over and America was a new nation.

We have repaid that debt during WW I & II, as allies should and over the years France and the US have often stood united..in war but also in times of tragedy and need.

“I am Charlie!”  Remember those signs during another Paris terrorism event earlier this year.

France has been attacked more than any other nation because it is free and open. “Liberty, equality, fraternity”—it’s national motto means something, but it has made France an easy target for the disaffected, and the barbaric.

Lexington has a direct connection to France. Our Sister Cities program, 2^nd oldest in the US, has been “twinned” to Deauville, for over 50 years. You can’t have travelled there, as I have a half dozen times without going thru Paris. And you discover in Deauville, a part of Normandy, people still remember the Yanks who liberated them. Deauville students place flowers on GI graves every June 6^th, D-Day.

France’s culture and love of Liberty speaks to many of us. As one guidebook said, on my first trip there, “France is everyone’s second home.”

Vive La France!

A FEW POST ELECTION THOUGHTS:

1—The utter dependence of the major state media on polls, and the utter failure of those polls was never more clear than in Bevin’s win over Conway.
In recent weeks in Canada, polls got wrong the election of their Prime Minister (our President); in England polls got wrong the election of the new leader of their Labour Party (and possible future Prime Minister); in Poland polls got wrong the election of their new President.

And in Kentucky…

So the 4 major media outlets behind the Blue Grass poll thanked the polling firm, said “Goodbye” and we will now try to come up with something new (and  we pray that it will be better!) But they are still relying on polling despite the abysmal failure here.  Who was it who said something like “Insanity is to keep on doing the same thing and hoping for a different result?”

2---The grandfather of all modern political blogs is the old “Washington Merry-Go-Round” of Drew Pearson.  Mr. Pearson, a gentle Quaker, exposed the foibles of public officials, from minor to criminal. For newly elected office holders he gave them one free ride on his Merry-Go-Round for their first mistake.
In an interview with WUKY-FM I said I would do the same for Gov.-elect Bevin. It only took 24 hours.
Then, Mr. Bevin broke his promise, saying he wouldn’t release his tax returns after all.
That’s his free ride. Now, let’s wish him well as he struggles with the much tougher and more important problem of what to do with the needy people on Kynect.

I'm just sayin'... 

CNBC, WE GOTCHA!!!

If you didn’t watch the last GOP presidential debate on the CNBC cable channel, lucky you.

It was bad.

It gave journalism a bad name, and the GOP candidates are rightfully complaining, and want changes in debate rules.

Basically, the complaints center on the questions asked by the CNBC panel. Now, this channel specializes in business and economic news, not politics and it was obvious panel members were not familiar with things they should have known. There were questions asking one candidate to assess the “morals” of another!  Ho, boy.

Of course, the candidates complained about “gotcha” questions. Well, one man’s gotcha is another man’s legit news story...so count me out here..although a few of the questions here bordered on truly irrelevant, and at times even irreverent.

At one point, I loved it, Gov. Christie objected..."We’re talking about fantasy football?  Come on?” Yup, while immigration and tax policy were ignored.

Debates are important and different ground rules are to be expected...but there is a minimum level of competency required of sponsors and panelists…a level not found in the CNBC debate.

That said, let me object to several recent Kentucky debates, where one candidate for governor, Independent Drew  Curtis was excluded. Wrong. That is NOT the function of sponsors or journalists. The state sets the requirements, by law. If they are faulty, change the law. (Sponsors used polls to determine who would be in..flying in the face of 3 recent major polls in Canada, England, and elsewhere that were totally wrong…here one point would have made the difference whether Mr. Curtis was admitted or not..and that one point was well within the margin of error of all the polls used.)

At the same time, I have to be sympathetic to sponsors who blanche at candidates like the late Fifi Rockefeller or Jerome Hamlin...who entered the race for governor for the most spurious of reasons...and to the Toledo TV station who, last week, did an interview with a legal candidate  for mayor...whose answers indicated she was certifiable, and ended by talking in tongues.

Somewhere between CNBC and Drew Curtis there is a happy medium. We journalists need to seek it…NOW...and not wait til the next election shows up OUR problems..or by abdicating our responsibilities, we let the candidates take over.

I'm just sayin'...

HAS IT COME TO THIS?

A story in the Cincinnati Enquirer reports children in Northern Kentucky are being trained to administer an OD  reversing drug…and it’s not the first time.

The paper calls it “an indication of how entrenched heroin is” across our nation.  An 8 year old, whose family is deep into that drug will be first in the new program..and a doctor who specializes in addiction treatment is “OK” with her doing it...even at her young age.

So too is a company that manufacturers the “pen” that will be used to administer the drug. It’s donating kits for the training program.

Nor is this the first use of Kentucky’s children in such a program.  The paper reports in May, 2014, 9 kids from 13 to 17, were trained in such devices.

It wasn’t  as if Kentucky didn’t  have a warning this epidemic was on the way...but the question may fairly be asked...did we prepare? Did our medical community—and our public officials—do what they could have done to head it off?

Hindsight, as we know, is usually 20-20...but to now train an 8 year old to practice medicine, for that’s what it is, just seems as if a lot of public and private agencies fell down on the job.

Maybe we should ask that of our candidates for state office, all of them ,for  this epidemic (and addiction) surely won’t be our last.

I'm just sayin'...

EXPERIENCES, EXPERIENCES

When the president broke his campaign promise last week and agreed to keep many more troops in Afghanistan after this year, many “experts” cited one word as the reason: Iraq.

It’s commonly agreed, and by me, that Iraq was NOT ready for the pullout of US troops and the rise of ISIL “proves” that.

But I would cite another word: Vietnam.

There, after so many years and so many dollars and so many lives lost, our military kept advising JFK and LBJ: "just 10,000 more troops, sir, and we can win this.”  Well, we couldn’t and we didn’t.

In Afghanistan at 14 years, a war even longer than ‘Nam, and $638 BLLIONS spent, we may well see a repeat of Iraq. That would prove the Afghans aren’t ready to save their own country..and if that be true, why should we—at the cost of American lives and dollars???

I do not begrudge the military advising presidents as they do, that is their job, but sometime, someday America had to stop...and put those billions into our own roads and schools and needs here.

Neither solution the president faced was a good one. But not increasing our troops staying there has at least two advantages:

1—he kept his word, and

2—no more “collateral damage” as in the tragic killing of 21 children, patients and staff at that hospital we bombed “by mistake.”

I'm just sayin'...