Pardon-moi -- Frankfort French

Predictably, the state’s two largest newspapers, left-leaning to the extent that they make the leaning Tower of Pisa look ramrod straight, have begun their long-term program of Fletcher-castigation, now that that the short-term program has been short-circuited by the governor’s pardons of a gaggle of guys who should have done business the same way former democrat-patronage czar “Doc” Beauchamp used to do it – by phone, stupid! The intent is to make sure that Fletcher is degraded on a daily basis, beginning immediately, to guarantee his non-reelection in 2007. They may succeed in this, but the citizens who pay attention see Fletcher’s move as perfectly reasonable, and may consider him preferable to a member of the same-old, same-old bunch that has run the state for as long as anyone can remember.

Attorney General Stumbo made it plain a while back that he would not consider running in the 2007 gubernatorial sweepstakes unless Fletcher became “wildly unpopular.” Obviously, he has made every possible effort – and then some – to make Fletcher look at least somewhat unpopular. He doubtlessly will continue to work on his pet project until he either decides that Fletcher is wildly enough unpopular for him to take the chance, providing, of course, that he can outflank State Auditor Luallen, or stay where he is, assuming that he is not picked up for drunk driving again (or is that for having lost his “designated driver for the evening”) or for refusing to pay child support for his illegitimate offspring, no matter where he/she/they are or how many there are. And, palimony can be a drag, too.

Perhaps someday the truth in the merit mess will out. For instance, what was the connection between Stumbo and the so-called whistleblower, Doug Doerting, for the weeks, months, and even years preceding the breathtaking disclosures by Doerting, whose job it presumably was to see that merit violations didn’t occur? Both men had been in one democrat-controlled bureaucracy or another for decades and were bound to know each other, probably quite well. Doerting’s complaints or those of the allegedly mistreated, it would appear, should have gone for hearings before the machinery set up to make decisions regarding personnel matters. Instead, he just happened to stroll into the AG’s office with a bunch of e-mails that might have involved something as serious as a misdemeanor. A MISDEMEANOR! Does the august office of the AG go after convictions of misdemeanors? Former AG Ben Chandler went after felony stuff when he brought about the indictments of Patton protégés who actually attempted to – and probably did – rig an election. That’s a far sight more serious than misdemeanor stuff, and Patton pardoned those four guys, with never a backward look.

Appearing on one of the morning talk shows in Lexington the other morning was St. Julian Carroll, the Dragon-Killer – look out, all you sinners! – to whine about the pardons, dastardly deeds that they were. St. Julian headed one of the more corrupt administrations back in the 70s, and certainly knows sin – political and otherwise – when he sees it, since he produced enough of it himself. He was one of those, like the BopTrot gang of the 90s, whom the feds saw fit to investigate. He endured the slimy insurance scam of his tenure, but his fair-haired boy (also former legislator and party chairman) went to the Big House, and the “Warehouse Deals” come fast to mind, not to mention that beautiful boulevard in Woodford County that a cabinet buddy just happened to live by. What garbage! Much has been made of the fact that Fletcher has just hired high-profile lawyer James Neal. In Kentucky, Neal once represented former state Democratic Party Chairman Howard P. "Sonny" Hunt. Hunt went to federal prison for refusing to answer federal grand jury charges about activities in the administration of former Governor Julian Carroll. And the folks in Frankfort elected him to the State Senate. That should tell everyone what to expect from a grand jury or any jury in Franklin County, where the pardoned ones would have been butchered.

Ah well…this is Kentucky, where politics are probably the damnedest of any state in the nation. Kentucky democrat leadership doesn’t care a fig about merit employees – it just hates Fletcher, like the democrats everywhere despise George Bush…because they’ve turned the same old same olds out of office.

And so it goes.

Jim Clark

Venality & College Sports

Ah…the life and times of athletics coaches. University of Cincinnati basketball coach Bob Huggins, responding to an ultimatum from the university president, has just quit his job and raked in $3,000,000 for his trouble. Recognized as a good coach (sometimes driving drunk, however), he was nevertheless known as the guru of teams known, fairly or unfairly, as groups of thugs setting graduation rates in the 1990s that were practically nonexistent…shades of former basketball coach/god/guru Nolan Richardson at the University of Arkansas, who also signed a resignation worth $3 million a few years ago, and then sued the university for something or other. Egad…where do these guys get off? They seem to be setting a trend, to wit, get a contract covering a number of years, then figure out a way (not too hard, actually) to get fired and be set for life without ever working another day.

Retired University of Kentucky athletic director C.M. Newton was retained after retiring a few years ago at a cool $75,000 per year for doing essentially nothing. Former Eastern Kentucky president Robert Kustra drew $170,878 plus benefits after resigning a few years ago for doing absolutely nothing, while going on the payroll of something called the Council of State Governments, apparently a "consulting" organization. These guys were in the catch-all category of consultant, a euphemism for "profiteer," although Newton called it some kind of deferred payment left over from 1989. One wonders who, if anyone, is telling the truth.

Much was made of the fact a short while back that former University of Kentucky president Charles Wethington, just before leaving office, increased UK athletic director Ivy's contract by 10 percent to $192,500 per year while the NCAA was furiously in the process of condemning the athletic department, and the rest of UK's employees could eat cake. Nothing new there. When he announced his resignation, Kustra extended basketball coach Travis Ford's contract and increased his salary by 25 percent to $100,000 a year after one losing season (7-19). These men did this because coach's contracts are not handled by regents, but by presidents who can do anything they like. The average professor's salary at Eastern was $53,061 and the average salary of an instructor (Ford's classification) was $34,779.

Earlier this year, Ford, under contract at Eastern until 2007, just signed on with the University of Massachusetts in a five-year deal worth a base salary of $200,000 per year plus additional incentives and bonuses, thank you, and apparently expected to just walk away. Eastern claimed Ford owed $225,000 for the privilege of quitting and not honoring his contract, but agreed to settle for $150,000 instead, guarding the taxpayers’ money negligibly, but, surprisingly and unlike other institutions, actually demonstrated that a contract means something.

Consider the case of Tom Jurich, athletic director at UL. When hired in 1999 to a 13-year contract, he started at a paltry $183,000 a year with yearly bonuses up to another $120,000. It gets better. If he stays ten years, he gets a deferred payment of $400,000 plus accrued interest. At six percent compounded annually, that payoff will amount to more than $716,000. Counting the usual salary increases, this amounts to about a possible $4,000,000 over the ten years. The corruption comes from the top down and the legislators and university officials are the perpetrators. They lead by example. UK’s AD, Mitch Barnhart, rakes in a cool $500,000 plus each year, and the list of goodies that make this possible, though too long to list here, challenges belief. Of course, he skipped out on a previous contract, owing $100,000, but has it fixed in the UK contract so that the “loan” he receives of $100,000 (surprise!), plus interest, will be forgiven entirely if he stays at UK for five years. Another term for this is “stealing from the taxpayers,” never mind all the balderdash about the UK Athletics Association in the mix.

Then, of course, there's the $1,000,000 paid to UL football coach Ron Cooper in 1999 (one of Jurich’s first acts on the job) for quitting and the $1,000,000 paid to UK football coach Hal Mumme for quitting and the $600,000 paid to UK football coach Bill Curry for quitting. UK assistant coach Bassett, the perpetrator (but not the lone cowboy) of much of UK's recent NCAA mess, was paid $10,000 a month until the summer following his resignation (or firing) in November of 2000.

The stench of these arrangements is overwhelming, but is the constant companion of the college/university sports scene today. Is it wonder that athletes learn early that cheating or some sort of con game is always in order, but that they must be careful to cover their tracks?

And so it goes.

Jim Clark

Boy Columnist and Erring

Boy Columnist (aka Larry Dale Keeling) of the Lexington Herald-Leader brought forth a column on Sunday last (the 21^st) headlined thusly: To err is human; to pardon, ill advised. Interpreted, Boy Columnist’s message: Everyone – especially Governor Fletcher – is likely to make mistakes, but to forgive alleged partners in error is a mistake. Applying the same logic, Boy Columnist would have expected the proofreaders and editors at the H-L to be fired immediately upon any misspelled word, grammatical gaffe, or (horrors) outright misstatement rendered by him in the course of the perfectly respectable profession of pontificating as normally uncorrected/unrevised by proofreading/editing. That he and these fellow wretches remain at the paper (at least at last count) means that they have either been forgiven his/their transgressions by his employer or that he has, indeed, never committed a miscue.

Concerning the former and assuming that Boy Columnist belongs to homo sapiens and is therefore human and thus, by his own admission, susceptible to and guilty of making mistakes (prone to err), his advice to the governor appears a bit hypocritical, since he and the Giddy Gang (editors, at least) are still employed (or were, at last count) at the H-L. Of course, it may be that the latter applies to Boy Columnist, in which case all bets are off and anyone accepting that premise as valid is invited to apply here in order to buy the Brooklyn Bridge for 79 cents. Item – Boy Columnist’s third paragraph: “Suddenly, conventional wisdom has been born.” The definition of conventional wisdom is the generally accepted belief, opinion, judgment, or prediction about a particular matter. In other words, Boy Columnist wrote an untruth, to wit, that something already existing has just been brought into existence. This is a direct violation of the first law of journalism, to wit, that only the truth is acceptable. Keeling would be declared guilty in a court of law. So…okay, no takers for the bridge at a huge discount.

Consider a hypothetical: A fellow columnist of Boy Columnist (or even [gasp], an editor) at the H-L, seeking to advance Boy Columnist’s career – maybe to a position at the Miami Herald – actually rewrites a column by Boy Columnist, who, upon noticing such an exercise in skullduggery, is faced with “going with the flow” and keeping quiet in order to protect his colleague…or turning in his would-be benefactor. In other words, should his friend be pardoned?

Consider a further hypothetical: A jealous and competing fellow columnist, who only gets to write obituaries, actually sabotages a column by Boy Columnist – for instance, calling the governor governor, instead of Boy Governor, the preferred and prescribed term of endearment for Governor Fletcher at the H-L, and does so at a time too late for editing to correct this profoundly unforgivable miscue. The obit-writer goes directly to the publisher/editor and demands that Boy Columnist be summarily fired, as well as his partners in error (editors, etc.) and that he (the obit-writer) be instantly installed in his place at the next meeting of the Knight-Ridder Board of Trustees, perhaps known as the Supreme Giddy Gang, that meets regularly in Grand Ju…oops Fashion.

Thus may be seen some similarity between the circumstances herein noted and those prevailing in Frankfort. Perhaps it is well to remind those who live in glass houses to be wary of throwing rocks.

And so it goes.

Jim Clark

LOTA/GOTH Redux II

Here is a paragraph from a Muckraker piece of 10 July: “The saga of the lady of the afternoon (hereinafter referred to as LOTA) is on again after having been interdicted by LOTA herself. Readers of MUCKRAKER of June 20 or the Lexington Herald-Leader may remember the details. If not, that article is in the Archives for perusal and may even be interesting to those who haven’t been aware of this strange happening. The other player in the affair is a god of the hardwood (hereinafter referred to as GOTH, naturally, with all the potential meaning involved), who dallied with LOTA on an April afternoon in a university dormitory housing mostly the august and much revered basketball players. She called the hanky panky rape some 24-36 hours after the fact, while GOTH called it consensual – through his lawyer, of course. Later after making her charge, she stopped cooperating, so, without a victim, the matter was ended. GOTH, a high-profile player, was named, of course, especially in Sports Pages all over the land, but LOTA, a 29-year-old mom, was spared that notoriety, at least in the city of its circumstances, the better to protect her good name, even though the local daily knew it early on and actually contacted the woman a few times, even to the point of writing her a letter.”

Now, the plot has thickened again. LOTA has filed a complaint of rape with the office of the County Attorney, thus reestablishing the charge, only to have said official dismiss it. LOTA’s lawyers now have recourse to the Commonwealth Attorney for his decision as to whether or not perhaps present evidence, if any, to a Grand Jury, or maybe arrest or not arrest GOTH on criminal charges on the evidence, if any, he receives. Muckraker is not entirely clear on this, but those seem reasonable assumptions. GOTH, of course, is probably nowhere near Lexington, since this is the time that all former Goths are angling for a spot on an NBA team or perhaps one in Germany or maybe one in Japan. GOTH is in apparent good health, at least as far as HIV is concerned, since GOTH’s attorney has furnished proof to LOTA that his man does not possess that particular malady. One wonders, of course, if LOTA has furnished similar information to GOTH, but perhaps that is beside the point, since it isn’t illegal, though immoral, to have un-marital consensual sex in a college dormitory on an afternoon in April. In any case, since GOTH tested negatively, one may assume that LOTA is HIV-negative. There was a time when hanky-panky was a rather simple event, but now things are complicated.

So…the case is out of the hands of the county attorney, and the prosecutors may try to sort things out. This won’t be easy, since, as the Herald-Leader reported on July 10, LOTA has a history of drug use, at one time had problems with an estranged boyfriend, the father of her daughter, and statements have been made to police by a man who said LOTA was smoking marijuana the evening before the April afternoon. Presumably, all the initial documents regarding the matter, as well as physical evidence, are still in the hands of the police, who had considered the case closed when LOTA stopped cooperating earlier. The date-rape drug was not found in her system.

Why does a rape victim need attorneys? Isn’t it the job of the local police and/or commonwealth’s attorney to prosecute rape cases? She has produced for the Herald-Leader records showing she had other drugs in her system, ingested unknowingly by her, of course, on that fateful afternoon. LOTA has lawyers, so is she thinking of, by either going the court-system route (civil action) or the possibly consequent easier way of negotiations, sweating some cash out of the university? A rape conviction was not necessary in the Kobe Bryant case in order for the alleged victim to effect an out-of-court settlement with Bryant. The university is doubtlessly well-insured, perhaps even against damages claimed as the result of a sexual encounter in a dormitory. LOTA claimed to have a bruise on her thigh, after all.

And so it goes.

Jim Clark

Lewdness in Lexington

Lexington hit the headlines some three years ago with the amazing news that a woman had been paid $9,000 to have a baby by one of two homosexual partners so “they” (not the woman) could be parents. The births were reported to have been accomplished, using the sperm of one of the men, through artificial insemination, but there were four babies instead of the one which was expected, if luck held. About a year and a half later and for another $9,000, the same woman, married and with three children of her own, went through the same process for the other “parent,” who, according to the first guy, somewhere along the way invited a third guy into their living arrangements, homosexual lifetime commitments being what they are, perhaps a rather generic sort of thing.

The Lexington Herald-Leader played the stories for all they were worth, the birth account occupying a huge part of the front page (as most any newspaper would have done), making another huge display, for instance, when the quads were baptized. However, there has been a seamy side to the story from the very beginning, as one might expect besides the fact of the matter itself, and the two “parents” have had at each other in the courts, one even getting an emergency-protective order against the other at one time. Indeed, another male paramour of the “second parent” even had a finger chewed once during a fight, according to the paper, apparently masticated by the “second parent” a la the Mike Tyson ear-chewing exercise. There’s at least a 50% chance a guy won’t get bopped by an opponent in a fight if he has at least one of the other guy’s hands in his mouth…just plain common sense.

To its credit, the Herald-Leader, also in a front-page, above-the-fold account, has laid out the whole sorry mess in a recent edition. All has not been Camelot in what was once accounted to be a wholesome, family-type atmosphere, and, indeed, the parent of the quads has removed himself and his four babies to Atlanta. There have been visitation-rights battles between the men, the appeals court telling the “second guy” that he had no legal standing to bring a custody action with respect to the quads. Imagine…custody battles between those two guys when the mother actually has legal custody of all five babies. She, in turn, has petitioned the court to be legally separated from any connection to the quads (therefore having no responsibility for anything pertaining to them), but was denied that little perk, the attorney appointed to represent the babies claiming that the quads needed a mother and father. A little old-fashioned, huh?

Where does the surrogate mother’s husband figure in all this? He seems to be content with the arrangements, although $3,600 per child seems an awfully small amount for the sale of a human, especially considering the tens of thousands of dollars that childless couples routinely pay in order to adopt just one child. As for the mother, she has sullied the concept of motherhood so profoundly as to make reasonable people wonder how she can even think of five members of her flesh and blood being raised by perverts…indeed, normally, a mother would not sit still for anyone else, whether normal or not, raising her children. The initial glorification of these arrangements by the politically correct is now seen for what it is – at least by reasonable people – a degradation of what has been called through the ages by civilized people as virtually sacred…marriage and the family. Lewdness in Lexington. Disgusting.

And so it goes.

Jim Clark

Anyone for Pardons?

Much has been said in the media and on the street corners of the state lately with respect to the possibility/probability of Governor Fletcher pardoning the people caught up in Attorney General Stumbo’s all-out war on the administration with respect to the “merit mess.” One wonders how many investigators and prosecutors have been tied up in this affair as the drug problems intensify in the state, and investigations into serious criminal behavior have had to be put on hold. Without question, there have been some mistakes made by the administration, as the governor has attested, but the obvious malice connected with Stumbo’s action, most likely precipitated by the election of a republican to the top spot in 2003 and the probability that Stumbo is gunning for that spot in 2007, is way over the top.

Running down the misdemeanor charges are not the usual area of endeavor for the attorney general, so some felony charges have now been returned by the Grand Jury looking into the matter. This opens the door, as noted by Brian Goettl, for a look back at previous administrations, since, while there’s a one-year time limit on misdemeanor action, there’s no time limit on investigations/charges regarding felonies. There was enough hanky-panky in the Patton years to make a hard look necessary, but it’s not likely that this AG will make the effort. He was House majority leader during those years, and might on that basis alone not be inclined to go poking around. A majority leader in the early 1990s was sent packing by the fed prosecutors to the Big House, along with a gaggle of other elected officials and bureaucrats who were selling their services (votes, for instance), with payments under the table, of course.

For their part, Fletcher’s appointees should have had far more savvy with respect primarily to the use of e-mails as a safe method of correspondence. And, it doesn’t take a genius to understand that signed documents, whether mere memos or weightier missiles, constitute a paper trail that if not shredded immediately upon use will lead to destruction. They should have known, also, that simply deleting anything from the e-mail niche is not sufficient and that personal computers, with every damning thing intact, can be confiscated. This use of e-mails didn’t originate with them, of course, but those employed in the previous administration – probably just as damning in the same “merit” area – may be beyond recall by now, either by action then or by design recently. In any case, no democrat AG will be interested, never mind, for instance, that Patton’s patronage apparatchik for a part of western Kentucky was also his mistress, the inference being that she could move people here and there without so much as a “by your leave,” just the result of “pillow talk.”

Perhaps the best case for doling out pardons could be made by former governor Patton, since he was quick on the draw in pardoning two of his top dogs and two union leaders who were their partners in alleged crime in Louisville in the “vote scam” many think cost Larry Forgy the election in 1995. When the U.S. Supreme Court refused to hear the case involving their indictment, Patton immediately engaged the pardons since a trial would be a certainty, with himself most likely subpoenaed as a witness, at least, and maybe eventually as a party. He pardoned those guys in June 2003 when he could have waited until after the November election or before leaving office in December and pardoned them along with others just before leaving office. Why the rush? Guess.

Particularly galling is the fact that Stumbo is the driving force behind this whole caper. A four-star U.S. Army general headed for retirement in November has just been relieved of his command, an almost unheard of happening, because of evidence that he had committed adultery with a civilian. Yet, the attorney general of Kentucky has been fighting with a former mistress over whether or not he will furnish proper support (or perhaps any support) for an illegitimate child he fathered with her in an obvious act of adultery. While the army won’t stand for known adultery (at least for officers), the state of Kentucky winks and nods over such a peccadillo for one of its highest elected officials. Some years ago, the current AG was found drunk in his pickup and told the authorities his “designated driver” had disappeared, or something like that. These are just some things that have been made public because of their being so obvious. One wonders at what else may be in Stumbo’s background.

Fletcher’s folks – maybe he, too – have not served well if they have broken laws, and the proper adjustments should be made, notwithstanding that the conduct described so far is generally conceded to be the same as what has been going on through previous administrations wherein virtually all constitutionally mandated officials have been democrats for at least the last 32 years. Fletcher has done some good things, and it is a shame he is being barbecued over what is hardly more than just “business as usual” in Frankfort and throughout the state in general, particularly in the state Transportation Department, which is probably the most corrupt of any state government agency. It may be that those around him, not having been in state government before, simply were in over their heads and therefore vulnerable to slick operators like Stumbo and his ilk, who have been working the system for decades.

Ironically, it was then-Attorney General Ben Chandler (now U.S. representative) who pursued the investigation into the antics of the four men pardoned by Patton, and then called for Patton’s resignation upon the pardoning action. Patton claimed Chandler was using the whole thing to help in his lost bid to Fletcher for the governor’s seat. Sound familiar?

And so it goes.

Jim Clark

No Child Left Behind?

The big news of the week has to do with the results of the testing in the public schools last spring with respect to the No Child Left Behind standards set by the government accruing to a federal statute enacted soon after President Bush took office. Remember: Bush and Senator Kennedy played extra-nice to each other in that process. Now, Kennedy makes it plain that Bush is roughly on a par with Satan with respect to most everything. In going through the material related to this subject, one is struck immediately by the fact that there have been enormous bright spots along with some abysmal failures. Those interested in the subject can gain access to it by heading for the Ky. Dept. of Education Web-site.

It’s unfair in many ways to get too specific about most things, since everything from demographics to weird entities such as school-based councils that set their own curricula and hire their own principals enter the picture. For starters on the basis of testing throughout the 12 grades, the state was successful in meeting 16 of the 25 target goals, or attaining a mark of 64% – maybe a D- average. An amazing circumstance is that the goals for the percentage of students gaining proficiency in reading and mathematics, the two subjects upon which students were tested, are unexpectedly low, though they are considerably higher for the overall 12-grade system than for its individual parts. For instance, the overall reading-proficiency goal statewide for 2005 was that 45% of students would be proficient readers at grade-level, huge segments of students actually exceeding that mark, while the same goal for students at local Bryan Station High was set at only 29%, but was un-reached. These unbelievably low goals, especially at Bryan Station, will also obtain for the next two years. After 2007, the goals will rise precipitously each year until 2014, when the goal will stand at 100%, a pie-in-the-sky figure that is too unrealistic to take seriously.

Amazingly, the goal for proficiency in mathematics in all grades statewide for 2005 through 2007, including Bryan Station, was that just under 30% of students would be expected to function at grade level. Statewide, the goal was exceeded, as was the case with the reading goal, but still missed at Bryan Station, though just barely. The yearly gains after 2007 are pegged at about 10 points a year, an apparently hopeless endeavor unless the standards for testing and grading are adjusted to make the goal attainable. This is not an effort to single out Bryan Station, since only one of Lexington’s five high schools, Lafayette High, met its overall goals. Despite good scores by many segments of students in these areas, the state system, on the basis of federal standards, has not made adequate yearly progress for the last three years.

One of the most alarming elements in NCLB is the seeming admission by educators that individual progress is expected to regress as the student works through the system. Currently and through 2007, about 53% of elementary students are expected to be proficient readers and about 32% in mathematics. In middle school, the numbers are 52% and 27%, respectively; for high school students, only 29% are expected to be proficient readers (down from 53% at the elementary level), and just under 30% are expected to be proficient in math. The question: Is the system designed to “dumb-down” the student, or is the student expected to “dumb himself down,” notwithstanding whatever is done about the system, which obviously begins deteriorating at the middle-school level and continues to crumble through high school.

The Kentucky Education Reform Act of 1990 (KERA) had some strange features such as combining kindergarteners with third-graders (this feature long since rescinded, thankfully). The most damning of all, however, was the institution of the School-Based Council, made up of the principal, three teachers and two parents and directly responsible for curriculum, hiring of principals, schedules, materials, recreation – just about everything, leaving the superintendent and school-board virtually powerless, at least with respect to pedagogy, the most important element of all. This meant that within a system students arriving in middle school would come from totally different elementary-school backgrounds and that students arriving in high school would come from the same middle-school circumstances. In other words, the lawmakers legislated against any sort of standardization and control by elected officials, whose only important tasks are the hiring of a superintendent occasionally and setting up a budget, largely controlled in Frankfort. This is where the disintegration of the process starts, even though curriculum coordinators, though not the final arbiters, have doubtlessly done much to hold the system together. Much of KERA has been dismantled; it remains for the complete dismantling to take place and the sooner the better.

In Fayette County, 23 schools (not quite half) failed NCLB. One result is that the superintendent collected a bonus of $18,000 to add to his base salary of $180,000, or $198,000 in wages for his first year, in addition to all the fringes. Not having much power anyway, he probably did no harm and so perhaps earned the bonus. Since his contract calls for a 10% bonus each year, if earned (and it will be if he just does no harm), by the end of his fourth year he will be paid $263,538, representing a 46% increase in basic wages over the period. This represents the thinking of the legislature in 1990 (the notion that anything can be bought) when it installed the “rewards system” designed to pay teachers and administrators for just doing their jobs. All this miserable legislation accomplished was wholesale cheating by teachers and administrators throughout the state. While lots of things can be bought, education is not one of them. This is not to speak disparagingly of the Fayette superintendent. He simply has little with which to work, but one wonders what the teachers (the people in the trenches) think, in light of his circumstances, after struggling through the day with a system that is, at best, merely dysfunctional.

Perhaps the most important mitigating factor in the scoring process has to do with the demographics. At Lafayette, 711 white students and 118 African Americans took the test; at Bryan Station, the numbers were, respectively, 281 and 212. Proficiency percentages for whites at Lafayette were 66 and 60 for reading and math, respectively, and 37 and 25 for blacks, who raised their reading scores by eight points from those of 2004. At Bryan Station, the numbers, respectively, were 35 and 30 for whites and 25 and 13 for African Americans. Blacks at Lafayette did better in reading than whites at Bryan Station and only five points less in math. Bryan Station is a Title I school because it serves a high percentage of poor students and therefore receives federal money. Lafayette is not. The learning gaps are obvious, both that between whites and blacks and that between more affluent and less affluent students. The answers to this problem, since the students are exposed, at least in their respective schools, to the same elements of education endeavor, may lie in the social area, which neither the superintendent nor the school-board nor even the teachers can significantly affect. Therein lies the real tragedy.

And so it goes.

Jim Clark

Comic Relief...and How!

Okay…newspapers are supposed to be deadly accurate and inordinately politically correct these days. Just check out any part of the paper. Whereas reporters once just wrote news accounts for the “news” pages, they now add their comments to the accounts, the better to inform the great unwashed as to the “true meaning” of the facts just presented. Editorial pages are filled with profoundness, especially with respect to government, multiculturalism, diversity, the unfitness of public servants, corruption (although depending a bit upon whose ox should be gored), morality (again, same), and such things as free speech (again, same), etc. Occasionally, there’s even a bit of humor – but only occasionally. Seriousness is the order of the day.

Enter an offering in the Comics section of the Lexington Herald-Leader of Aug. 31 entitled “Mother Goose and Grimm.” It features a being with a form of Strabismus, the term used to refer to “crossed eyes” or “outward turning eye,” in this case the latter. It’s certain the author of the comic strip meant no disrespect or harm when he called attention to the fact that the owner of the problem didn’t have to look both ways before crossing a street, since he could see both directions anyway, actually not a bad feature, though maybe a problem when reading. The object was not to hurt but to show the relationship between two beings, one of whom DID have to look both ways, and the humor of the whole situation. I had a high-school history teacher, a good one, who had a form of Strabismus (outward turning eye) in one of her eyes, meaning that nobody in the class could get away with anything, since she saw “all around.” I doubt that she would have been offended by the comic strip.

The piece de resistance, however, was achieved in a strip entitled “NON SEQUITUR.” This term is defined dictionary-wise as “a statement (as a response) that does not follow logically from or is not clearly related to anything previously said.” In the strip, two prehistoric beings in business suits, one a bespectacled bear-like Evangelical and the other an obvious dragon wearing a fez and therefore a Muslim, engage in a mighty argument as to whose faith in a merciful and loving god is the one, true religion. The argument finally ceases and calm seems to prevail, but in the last panel only the spectacles and the legs and feet of the Evangelical are shown, just before they, too, join the rest of their body in being cannibalized by the fez-wearing dragon…shades of a pre-reincarnation of evil as personified in Saddam, Osama bin Laden, a Saudi prince, or maybe Louis Farrakhan, or even (gasp) Mohammad Ali.

So…where does one look for a bit of profoundness these days? Look in the Comics. Admittedly, I haven’t read the Comics regularly for many years, but looked at NON SEQUITUR because my wife showed it to me. From now on, though, I will take a look. After all, Trudeau, in his “hate all republicans on general principles” perspective, has been making his venomous statements for years through “Doonesbury,” so why not have some stuff from the other side, especially when the Muslim religion is depicted truthfully on the basis of its absolutely binding and inordinately sanguinary requirement…kill the infidel? The most profound truth presented, contrary to what many well-meaning people believe: simply that God of the Holy Bible is not the same as Allah.

And so it goes.

Jim Clark

Make the Guv Walk!

At first blush, it appeared that the main editorial on July 29 in the Lexington Herald-Leader would cover something besides the so-called “hiring scandal” in Frankfort. The subject was the unthinkable notion that the state needs to significantly upgrade its fleet of aircraft, never mind that in a news article of the day before there ran an account in the H-L of the state’s fleet, averaging between 32 and 34 years in age. Alas, in the next-to-last paragraph – right out of the blue, as they say – the editorialist threw in this line: “That hiring scandal's not going away, Governor.” That’s all…no connection with any part of the subject at hand. That line constituted the whole paragraph. So…maybe the hiring thing is losing a bit of its sting, and the paper is, albeit somewhat behind the curve, beginning to realize that most folks read about the terrible scandal, yawn, mumble something about business as usual and let it go at that.

The paper can’t seem to understand that the air fleet is getting a bit long in the tooth. Indeed, it’s doubtful that anyone on the editorial staff drives a car that’s even 20 years old (on solid ground), much less one as old as the 34-year-old plane (10,000 feet up) that, because of faulty equipment, was flown into restricted Washington, D.C., airspace last year. More’s the pity for the Transportation Department, since its plane is 39 years old, probably older than some of the editorialists.

The editorialist heaved and groaned and did the usual resuscitation maneuver in order to come up with this profound truth: “Voters might get the idea that the perks and patronage that come with being governor matter more to you [Fletcher] than the responsibilities.” So…for no discernible reason, the writer goes right back to the point that actually drives the paper’s editorialists/philosophy, to wit, that a republican won the guv’s seat in 2003. It’s the same mentality as that of Senators Durbin, Kennedy, Schumer, Biden and their ilk with regard to the Roberts SCOTUS nomination – sheer hatred of Bush and resolve to hurt him because he won again in 2004. Disgusting! They couldn’t care less about Roberts or the SCOTUS…they just hate Bush at all costs. The H-L, as well as the Louisville Courier-Journal, just hate Fletcher at all costs.

The editorialist threw in the usual red herring – education, never mind that under democrat governors and legislatures (republican senate, however, since ’98) in the 90s right through 2003, education improvement didn’t happen under the Education Reform Act of 1990; indeed, education has been tanking in the state since then, no matter how much money has been thrown at it. Fletcher inherited a state in virtual bankruptcy and has refused to throw dollars at that which obviously is not working. Until the state Department of Education is relieved of the social-engineering baggage and idiotic entities cursed into existence in 1990, such as the Family and Youth Service Centers and the School-based Councils, throwing more money at the system is foolish. The F&YSCs drain millions from the system for social services not connected to education, while the SBCs have helped throw districts into academic chaos.

As for the planes…what’s wrong with securing a new plane that, considering the extant situation with regard to the age of the fleet, could be expected to require minimum maintenance in the short term but last for at least 25 years, long-term? A lot of people would call it smart business-sense to make that kind of investment. Considering the barrels of pork that the legislature routinely uses to grease the skids for anything that slides through Frankfort, this is chicken-feed…but it makes great cannon fodder for sharp editorialists with a quite recognizable agenda, namely, get even with Fletcher and the repubs in the state senate for just breathing.

And so it goes.

Jim Clark

Exceptions: Dr. Clark's Positions

It’s always dangerous to naysay anything a famous or highly respected person has supported vocally and/or financially or affirmed in other ways, but no one is perfect, and, in any case, no one is above being criticized, whether or not the critic is right. The recent accolades upon his death, as well as many of the same through decades of his service to the citizens of Kentucky, have been richly deserved by historian Dr. Thomas Clark, so nothing here is designed in any way to denigrate the person or accomplishments of this great Kentucky asset.

There’s no argument with the documents, such as histories or other writings having to do with factual material, that have been delivered by Dr. Clark. A reliable researcher and chronicler of events, he has always had impeccable credentials. There can be exceptions taken to some of the conclusions he has made with regard to his studies, however. The three noted here are: (1) his consistent call for a constitutional convention to rewrite the Kentucky Constitution, last rewritten in 1891 as the fourth installment, the previous ones dating 1792, 1799, and 1850; (2) his unmitigated support for the Kentucky Education Reform Act of 1990; and (3) More recently, his support, both vocal and financial (loan to the Urban-County Council), for Lexington’s acquisition of the water company that serves Lexington, Ky., and surrounding counties, even to the point of condemning it under “eminent domain” laws.

Perhaps the best argument against the rewriting of the State Constitution is simply that the U.S. Constitution has stood ever since it was enacted officially in March 1789. It has been amended 27 times, of course, the first 10 amendments (Bill of Rights) enacted in 1791, and the last 17 since 1795, for an average of just over one addition every twelve years since 1795. It’s probable that this argument of “credibility accruing to longevity” has been accepted by most Kentuckians since the current Constitution has stood for 114 years.

With the rapid improvement in communications over the last century, politics and political efforts by individuals and political parties have come more and more under the scrutiny of the people, who, having seen the artificiality of much of what passes for efforts at both achieving and maintaining the reins of government, have become wary of monumental changes, such as a complete rewrite of the state’s document of governance, particularly as they’ve seen the effectiveness of the amendment process, the latest such example being the absolute definition in November 2004 of what does and does not constitute a marriage.

Given the bitter partisanship that has marked Kentucky politics throughout recent memory, but especially in the last 6-8 years, the notion that fairness and balance could be achieved in a constitutional rewrite is silly in the extreme. In at least three recent legislative sessions, lawmakers could not or would not even pass a budget, leaving the governor to run the state as he saw fit (such action on his part actually unconstitutional). They would never be able to handle anything as complicated as re-doing the Constitution, even if they had no vested interests, an impossibility.

The Education Reform Act of 1990 was probably the worst legislation of the century, the incorporation of the “outcomes-based/self-esteem” approach that was DOA on arrival, as already proved elsewhere. In an August 2003 speech at the 20^th anniversary celebration of the Prichard Committee for Academic Excellence, Dr. Clark said, “I can think of nothing that had the potential, has the potential, and will have the potential of turning this state around more than the passage of House Bill 940 (the Ed. Reform Act of 1990).” In an article a year ago in The Kentucky Post, Dr. Clark said, “Tragically, there have ever been the blighting incidents of fiscal ‘shortfalls,’ which have thrown governmental operation into retreat. By contrast, there have been great landmark advances, as revealed in the history of public transportation and in the 1990 Kentucky Education Reform Act.”

To their credit, legislators have already dismantled much of this disastrous approach to education, and in the process have indicated the total lack of competence of the legislature in 1990 in matters of pedagogy, a subject they shouldn’t have touched with the proverbial 10-foot pole. Indeed, in 15 years, the state education bureaucracy has not even developed a viable system of accountability – testing, in other words. By the late 90s, elementary teachers/principals had already deserted the K-3 approach, leaving the legislature little choice in eating crow and axing that KERA provision. The eight hugely expensive Regional Service Centers have been dismantled, one gathers, with no detrimental effects.

Also dismantled has been the Rewards System – perhaps the most egregious of all – that was set up to pay bonuses to teachers/administrators for merely doing their jobs. All that this unbelievable outrage ever achieved was widespread cheating on the part of school personnel in order to reap the rewards they saw other teachers receiving. In many of the schools, reward money was never a possibility simply because of the demographics, so teachers in those schools were always slated to be left out in the cold, and they knew it, thus the cheating. The saddest part of the whole mess was that the students knew precisely what was going on.

The average ACT score in the nation in 2003-04 was 20.9. Kentucky’s score was 20.3, and the scores in only ten states were lower than Kentucky’s. This circumstance obtains after 15 years of KERA, the system that was supposed to make Kentucky a bellwether state in education. By comparison, Utah, which spent $4,899 per pupil in 2002 while Kentucky spent $6,523 per pupil, had an ACT score of 21.5, or six percent more than Kentucky’s. In 2003, 72% of Kentucky’s 4^th-graders scored above the basic level in national math tests, while the Utah figure was 79%. The reading scores were virtually identical, 65 and 66, respectively. For 8^th-graders, the figures for Kentucky and Utah in the math tests, respectively, were 66% and 72% while the reading scores were, again, virtually identical, 78 and 76, respectively. In three of the four areas, Utah outdid Kentucky, but spent 33% less across the board. These figures come from the U.S. Dept. of Education. In Kentucky, it appears that 23% of 10^th-graders, according to the results of the 2004 tests, read at the Proficient level – not very good.

Kentucky’s expenditure per pupil was below the national average of $7,731, but that average was artificial in that in the District of Columbia, in which is located the worst school system in the nation, the expenditure per pupil was $13,330, thus pumping up the average. In New York, the per pupil figure was $11,218, but the New York City system, one of the largest in the nation and a huge drain on its state finances, is among the worst in the nation. KERA is patently a failure, and it is expected that the legislature will see the wisdom of rescinding that part which mandates school-based councils and puts the power of standardization, the purse, and the curriculum back where they belong, as responsibilities of the school-boards and the appropriate agencies.

Dr. Clark’s position with respect to the city’s acquisition of the water company was puzzling not least because of the inconsistency of that stand with that which apparently obtained regarding the other utilities such as electricity, gas, and communications. This was particularly puzzling regarding the electricity utility in that the company providing that commodity was/is foreign owned, as was/is the water company, and, without the service of which not a teaspoon of water could be pumped from the Kentucky River, purified, and delivered throughout the area. One would expect an advocate of local ownership of the water-service company to also insist upon local ownership of the suppliers of electricity, gas, and phone/communication service, since these, too, have directly to do with the quality of life and, in some cases, even survival. Yet, Dr. Clark did not give evidence of pushing for these changes.

Nor was his position one that would be expected of an advocate for the main element endemic to having personal property, maintaining productivity, and private enterprise in general. His insistence that education be given priority surely had as one of its reasons the simple fact that educated people can be successful entrepreneurs, own businesses, pay taxes, do skilled work for others, and contribute to the welfare of the state. The city’s purchase of the water company would not be a problem for most people, including Dr. Clark. The condemnation of it, however, is another matter, never mind that a sum of money would be exchanged. The crux of the matter lies in whether or not for any reason a government should cannibalize an operation performing adequately and fairly and even regulated by the state, thereby changing the nature of that facility from one of private enterprise to one of socialism. A historian should look upon this type of governance as oppressive.

In summary, People can have honest differences about these three things. Most of the state’s citizens, disagreeing with Dr. Clark by simply noticing the chaos in both the administrative and legislative processes now and for the last 20 years, probably look askance at a constitutional convention, realizing that exponential mischief could be achieved in such an undertaking. For example, it was a terrible mistake for the legislature to undertake either the administration of or the pedagogy connected with the education system. It simply lacked competence for these things. Prior to that, the lawmakers, at the urging of the then-governor, ran all but one of the suppliers of medical insurance out of the state. It is a given that vested interests and not the welfare of the state would drive the lawmakers’ efforts at changing the Constitution.

While being a uniquely gifted historian, Dr. Clark perhaps didn’t have the background for recognizing the pitfalls many saw in outcomes-based education, with self-esteem perhaps being the linchpin of the whole mess. Using the schools as vehicles for social change is as wrong as using the military for that purpose. It is a matter of record that much of the reform act was pork, the element that greased the skids for its passage, and the best school systems, far from being rewarded, were shortchanged as huge outlays of cash went to systems in counties where taxes were levied and collected haphazardly at best, those very systems that engineered the court decisions leading disastrously to KERA. Strangely, even as he saw the system being dismantled, Dr. Clark continued to support it.

With regard to the water-company condemnation, Dr. Clark joined a sort of elite, generally wealthy group giving as a reason for their efforts the need to cadge the company’s profits for the citizens rather than for the company’s stockholders. This elitism would probably show up in the other two areas mentioned here, as well, driving a mind-set generally accorded to the majority of faculty members of universities throughout the nation, the area of endeavor in which Dr. Clark was engaged. It’s the “Big Brother” approach that is anathema to individualism, and is the opposite of what this nation is about.

And so it goes.

Jim Clark

Boy Columnist and His Flog

Here is a direct quote from Boy Columnist (Keeling) in the Lexington Herald-Leader of July 20: By the way, as someone who loves to play golf (although the backward spelling of the word more accurately describes my game), let me say that I do not begrudge Boy Governor one moment of the mid-week hours he has spent on the links lately. I just wish I was fortunate enough to have a job that demanded as little of my time as his apparently does.

Well now! Especially since the subject of his columns has been the same for months now, it would seem that two columns a week should not be too taxing. After all, Brammer, Cheves, and Alessi do the research, and Boy Columnist can check the TV for further facts from Stottlemyer and Peel. He can also listen to Al Smith’s Comment on Kentucky every Friday or Sunday on KET to further be elucidated, unless, of course, his “flog” takes up too much time for that.

Admittedly, BC also has a commitment to the L-H editorial board, known as the Giddy Gang, made up of eight people; therefore, he is at least one-eighth responsible for what that entails, not that anyone probably knows, since even the head honchos get in on the act once in a while with a screed about something or other usually having to do with things or people such as the Great Satan, otherwise known as Karl Rove, or something more important, like the new license plates or the fact that downtown is being ignored by the general public. Sometimes the editorials make sense, like the one about the plates not being needed at this time; sometimes the offerings are too off the wall to be taken seriously, such as when the editorialists in 2001 extolled the closing of the second-most important street in town – Vine, or, more recently, cannibalizing the water company, a private enterprise just as is the newspaper. Go figure.

In any case, Boy Columnist and the GG should be aware of any possible trauma that could be occasioned by overwork, especially with reference to BC, who, besides his editorial-writing, has to deliver those two columns on the same subject every week. Since the subject is the same, BC must figure a new way to approach it each time, and that could mean a mind-bending effort trending even toward physical impairment, especially since things are slow in the summer anyway. It would be mean-spirited to suggest that BC can’t think of anything else to write about, so it’s easier to just assume that he’s been assigned to write about the same thing twice a week by the powers-that-be and let it go at that.

Added to the problem could be possible mental strain brought on, as BC described it in a recent rant, by the exhaust fumes from his lawnmower. It may well be that the L-H should spring for the fee required to have BC’s lawn mowed by a third party, the better to save his strength, with the added factor that failing to do so might put the paper at risk from a BC lawsuit premised upon mental damage and physical fatigue due to the fact that he is both too underpaid to afford grass-cutting relief and too overworked in having to write about the same thing twice a week in columns while sometimes having to write editorially about it yet again, at least on one day out of eight. One might suggest that columns could be at least sketched in BC’s mind while he’s either mowing or flogging, but there’s that awful exhaust on the one hand and the total mental and physical concentration required for a score even as bad as 100 on the other.

Since everyone is writing a book baring all these days, BC perhaps should consider a tell-all book about the Giddy Gang…or maybe the Giggly Gaggle…whatever. In the diversity-sensitive, multiculturally humane, politically correct society of today, especially as espoused by the very hallowed Herald-Leader itself, he could be the penultimate whistle-blower, accusing the paper of traumatizing an overworked, lawnmower-damaged (to the paper’s certain knowledge) employee to such an extent that he has become permanently flog-impaired. What a deal!

And so it goes.

Jim Clark

The Muslim Problem - WWIII

The USA is in World War III, which, besides being a conflict between nations and/or groups of nations, is based on wildly differing “religious” philosophies, the coveted territories being both tangible and mental. While perhaps not deriving completely from the “Crusades” affairs of centuries ago, WWIII comes close. The main difference is in the ability of nations to do very quickly now what demanded years in the long ago. Those who try to connect the USA with the Crusades do so in error because this country did not become a nation for centuries after the bloody battles of the long ago. The Muslims love to cite the fact that we are the reincarnation of the Great Satan of those times, but reasonable people, including the Muslims, know better.

Despite all protestations to the contrary by peace-loving Muslims, whether real or imagined, pagan Islam premises as its evangelizing tool the physical overcoming of infidels – better still, their deaths. This is being cruelly carried out through much of the world today, particularly that part including the Middle East, North Africa, and the western Pacific between latitudes 10 degrees north and south. Africa and Asia are critical. In terms of religion, Muslims and Christians are about evenly divided in Africa. In Asia, Muslims outnumber Christians by 2.6 to 1. Worldwide, there are 2.1 billion Christians and 1.3 billion Muslims. The number for Christians is misleading, however, since the number of Christians who actually practice their faith is much smaller than noted. For instance, Christianity in Europe is totally dead and not a prominent issue in this country, notwithstanding all the ballyhoo to the contrary. Muslims have little choice. They practice, or else.

It seems improbable that there will be large land-armies again. There will have to be enough personnel to maintain occupancy for relatively short periods, such as in Iraq. That period of occupancy, despite what anyone says about “staying the course,” should be greatly shortened after the beginning of 2006, if not before. The sooner the USA leaves now, the sooner the Iraqis will settle all their issues, one way or another, and they may not go for an America-style democracy. If so, so be it. They are not now a world threat, as was the case under Saddam. People in this country do not think in either global or historic terms, so the lessons of other periods and wars are lost on them. People in this country can’t find the wherewithal to face less than three deaths a day in Afghanistan and Iraq since 2001, so they have no capacity for understanding how the nation could have stood for losing between 320 and 330 Americans a day during the 4.5 actual years of combat in WW I and II. In Vietnam, the number was 20 deaths per day (using the figure of 8 years), and in the Korean conflict 34 Americans died each day over a three-year period. Rumsfeld knows that a draft is not acceptable any time soon. Besides, it’s only in the army that recruitment goals have not been met this year. Once the caterwauling has stopped, enlistments will pick up, young people being what they are.

The Muslims intend to “drive us into the sea.” They have said as much, and their holy writ demands it. The best weapon is the one that looms largest – the ability to completely wipe out any nation’s military capability. This can be done with current weaponry. Removing the threat of Islam is all that matters. The nations such as Iran, Syria, Saudi Arabia, and Egypt, which countenance terrorist activity, either de jour or de facto, need to understand that we can and will destroy every military installation and utility network they have, always hoping for the minimum amount of collateral damage. In 1992, the USA was still geared up for war, right after Kuwait…quite strong. When the WTC was bombed the first time, in 1993, the hammer should have fallen, probably on Egypt, from where it was easily and quickly proven the destructive impulse had come. This would have meant no more aid and the unmistakable message that Egypt would stamp out its terrorism program or see all of its military installations, as well as other facilities, blown into ashes. That didn’t happen. It didn’t happen when the African embassies were bombed in 1998, or at other times in the 90s when Americans were butchered, but by that time the military was not an important tool of government. Now, the military is by far the most important aspect of government.

Bush said in 2000 that the USA would not indulge in nation-building. He went back on his word in Iraq, but is finding out that Muslims do not nation-build the way Americans do. Americans do it by law. Muslims do it by the sword. In any case they, relatively uneducated and totally ignorant of democracy, cannot do in 24 months or so what it took this nation years to do, despite its fairly well educated population. It seems clear that the USA will not occupy another country. It doesn’t actually occupy Afghanistan with some 17,000 or so troops (that figure not available, actually, though compared to 40,000 in both South Korea and Japan), and America will not occupy Iraq. The notion that it would ever occupy China or India is too wild to comprehend. Destruction of infrastructure is the key that will scare nations into clamping down on their terrorists. The USA must be overwhelmingly superior in the technology of destruction…breaking things, killing people…but land wars are out.

In the meantime, not one person of Middle-East descent or from any Middle-East country or known to be an adherent of Islam from anywhere should be allowed to enter this country any time soon, even temporarily, and all who are still here illegally should be shipped out ASAP, as has happened to many already. There are enough Muslims here now, augmented by African-American Muslims. It was seen on 9/11 what Muslims who lived and were trained in America can and will do, as well as in the Muslim bloodthirstiness in Madrid and in the American Embassy bombings in Africa. It was seen just this week what Muslims born and educated in England will do to innocent people, particularly as ambassadors of Islam in their own country and brainwashed to the extent that they will blow themselves up in order to draw blood. They are the same as the kamikaze pilots in the Pacific in WWII (to whom Japanese Emperor Hirohito was god, in whose name, therefore, one should commit suicide/homicide), and how many of them are living right now in this country (to whom Allah is god, in whose name, therefore, one should kill)? Those who are taught self-immolation as glorification in the killing of the most vulnerable are both uncivilized and taught by the uncivilized. If it is determined that a mosque is the center of terrorist activity (as often seems the case (witness London and the “shoe-bomber”), the mosque should be shut down, notwithstanding all the caterwauling by the politically correct. That would not be an abridgment of religious freedom, but an act of self-defense.

Those who blame American and coalition forces for bringing on terrorist attacks because of the Iraqi war are blowing smoke. Three thousand Americans were brutally murdered on Sept. 11, 2001, and that was long before the Iraqi war, as was all the butchering of the 90s. Those who blame USA support for Israel for the carnage are also loony-tunes. The Islam-induced terror derives from the incessant drive of militant Muslims to own the world, as was the case with the Soviet Union during 1945-90. Whether driven by pagan worship or hedonistic greed, the result is the same – butchering in the name of a godless ideology. For the majority of Muslims, who desire peace, these statements seem harsh, but if they will not take control of their own fellow-worshipers and stop the bloodletting, then so be it.

Though USA society is gradually rotting from the inside out in its obsession with entertainment, obesity, sex, perversion, and political correctness accruing to the notion that “anything goes if it feels good and the state should guarantee it,” it is not yet ready for the taking. It may implode at some point, but it wont be brought to its knees by a bunch of monsters who think a couple of beheadings is just an afternoon of fun.

And so it goes.

Jim Clark

Farrakhan in Lexington

One could try, but might find it impossible to handle this conundrum: Representatives of Minister Farrakhan were in town on the 12th whipping up support for something called the Millions More rally to be foisted off on the nation’s capital Oct. 14-16. Farrakhan is the head honcho of something called the NATION OF ISLAM. Should anything more be said? Imagine: at a time when people all over the world are murdering other people in the name of ISLAM’s Allah (god) in places such as restaurants, commuter trains, and on other forms of public transportation, not to mention those warriors of god who perpetrated 9/11 and murdered 3,000 Americans in cold blood, the term ISLAM (religious setting of Allah) is actually used as a tool encouraging support for anything.

MILLIONS MORE is the sequel to the MILLION-MAN MARCH of 1995, also in D.C., which the National Park Service said was attended by 400,000 people. Obviously, most of the attendees were African-American men, the group for whom the one-day affair was designed. The Nation of Islam spearheaded this event, to which men traveled from all over the nation, some bringing their sons with them. Minister Louis Farrakhan, born Louis Eugene Walcott on May 11, 1933, in Bronx, N.Y., embarked on a "World Friendship Tour" a few months after the 1995 event, visiting radical Muslim regimes in Iran, Nigeria, Sudan, Libya, Iraq, and Syria, where he hobnobbed with the likes of Moamar Qaddafi, at that time a sworn enemy of the United States.

Jeff Fort was once the leader of the Black P Stone Nation gang (sometimes known as El Rukn, Arabic for "The Foundation"). Here is an excerpt by William Grigg in the NEW AMERICAN of December 2002: In 1987, while serving a federal prison term in Texas, Fort learned that "Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan had received $5 million from the Libyan government," notes a 1997 Justice Department report. Accordingly, "Fort developed a plan to perform acts of terrorism within the United States in return for an annual payment of $1 million from Libya. In telephone conversations from inside prison, Fort discussed destroying a federal building, blowing up an airplane, killing a Milwaukee alderman, and committing a ‘killing here and there’ with his fellow gang members. Fort instructed gang members to meet with representatives from the Libyan government, which the gang members did on two occasions. Fort also instructed the gang members to purchase a hand-held rocket launcher, which they also did." According to USA Today of November 7, 2004, as of Dec. 31, 2003, about 44% of all prison inmates were black, while only 12.3% of the population is African American. In a 1994 speech, Farrakhan referred to Hitler as a very great man. So much for Minister Farrakhan, and this is but the tip of the iceberg. He purports to be prominent in MILLIONS MORE, but his presence alone is enough to warn off those whose intentions are noble.

It is interesting that women will be invited to the October occasion, unlike the situation in 1995. This may not be designed to increase the size of the crowd, but one wonders. Concerning Louis Farrakhan, about as anti-American as one can get, CNN’s Charles Bierbauer had this to say on October 17, 1995: Minister Louis Farrakhan called for "a million sober, disciplined, committed, dedicated, inspired black men to meet in Washington on a day of atonement." The African-American community -- and much of the white -- found the idea admirable. So…what was the fallout from this memorable gathering designed for African-American men to atone for their sins, become committed and sober, and dedicated to whatever? Maybe the women who have been invited this year would be especially interested in this. In the process, of course, they would be forced to face the possibility that their possible/probable dereliction in the past with respect to discipline, dedication, and atonement would be called into account. After all, it takes two to tango.

Whereas in 1970 59% of black children lived with both parents, by 1994 that statistic had dropped to 33%, cause for the actually interested participants in the 1995 march to be alarmed and consequently seriously hoping to reverse the trend. Four years later, in a 1999 study reported by the Urban Institute, 6.5% of poor black children lived with both parents, while only 3.1% of poor black infants lived with both parents. The 1995 event might hopefully have helped with the matter of illegitimate births in the black community, which stood at 69.9% then, up from 37.5% in 1970. However, in 2002, the figure was only slightly lower at 68.2%, but may be higher today. Percentage-wise, the statistics are far more condemnatory concerning white illegitimacy, the number of births out of wedlock in the white community standing at 5.5% in 1970, but rising to 28.5% by 2002, for an unbelievable 418% increase, whereas in the black community the increase was by 82%. Something actually serious akin to MILLIONS MORE wouldn’t hurt the white men/women in the country (if actually effective – highly doubtful), but that’s not likely to happen, social mores being what they are today, marriage becoming more of either an interesting anachronism or something with which to dally since divorce is so easy…and who gives a damn about the children anyway?

The 1995 affair was addressed by some speakers who either at that time or later gave the lie to the whole effort. A speaker and the chief organizer of the march was Ben Chavis, the former executive director of the NAACP who was kicked out of that office amid sexual-harassment charges before 1995. With his background, what was he doing by even being there? Marion Barry, former D.C. mayor who had served a prison term on drug charges (caught on FBI videotape smoking crack well before the march) was a speaker – why? Congressman Charlie Rangel was a speaker and, though not being slammed here for anything in 1995, made the statement last month comparing the Iraq War with the Holocaust – the Holocaust, with its 6 million Jews and 5 million others murdered? Rangel introduced a bill in 2003 mandating a draft for military service. Will he be back for MILLIONS MORE?

Perhaps the most egregious of all as a speaker or even as a man was the Rev. Jesse Jackson, who three years after the march helped conceive a child as a result of an affair with a Rainbow/Push staffer. From funds of his organization, which is tax-exempt, she was given $40,000 to relocate to California, with $3,000 a month as income, and furnished a whopping $365,000 to buy a house. At the time, he was some sort of spiritual adviser to then-President Clinton, who was up to his neck (literally) in the Monica Lewinski Affair, semen on the blue dress and all the other sordidness connected to that mess. This was the stamp left on the MILLION-MAN MARCH.

Anyone (certainly any Christian) who connects himself/herself to MILLIONS MORE, unless Minister Farrakhan removes himself entirely from it, will be sullied. Part of the belief system of his sect is acceptance of the Koran, upon the basis of which Muslims turn themselves or others into suicide/homicide murderers of innocent women and children. If speakers of the caliber of those mentioned here – and there are bound to be some rappers, devotees of rape and police-killing, in the interest of attracting the young – show up at Farrakhan’s party, the stamp of ten years ago will remain ingrained. In any case, just as the MILLION-MAN MARCH seems to have amounted to nothing, MILLIONS MORE will follow in its train. Atonement and commitment are individual matters not effected or affected by large celebrations of the human condition, whether as is or as should be.

And so it goes.

Jim Clark

LOTA Redux

The saga of the lady of the afternoon (hereinafter referred to as LOTA) is on again after having been interdicted by LOTA herself. Readers of MUCKRAKER of June 20 or the Lexington Herald-Leader may remember the details. If not, that article is in the Archives for perusal and may even be interesting to those who haven’t been aware of this strange happening. The other player in the affair is a god of the hardwood (hereinafter referred to as GOTH, naturally, with all the potential meaning involved), who dallied with LOTA on an April afternoon in a university dormitory housing mostly the august and much revered basketball players. She called the hanky panky rape some 24-36 hours after the fact, while GOTH called it consensual – through his lawyer, of course. Later after making her charge, she stopped cooperating, so, without a victim, the matter was ended. GOTH, a high-profile player, was named, of course, especially in Sports Pages all over the land, but LOTA, a 29-year-old mom, was spared that notoriety, at least in the city of its circumstances, the better to protect her good name, even though the local daily knew it early on and actually contacted the woman a few times, even to the point of writing her a letter.

It has already been determined that GOTH’s coach was contacted by the police chief, not unusual in high-profile cases, according to the chief, and anything having to do with a UK basketball player is so high-profile that mere things like terrorist attacks pale into insignificance by comparison. According to the Herald-Leader of July 8, the university president didn’t know the coach had been involved in conversations with LOTA, according to a spokesman for the prexy. The plot thickens. According to the H-L, LOTA told the paper that she and her attorney had been involved in – negotiations – with GOTH, GOTH’s attorney, and the coach.

NEGOTIATIONS??? Precisely how does a rape victim and her attorney negotiate with her attacker and her attacker’s coach and her attacker’s attorney? If a crime has been committed – and now the lady has turned in a formal complaint – who’s supposed to negotiate what and with what and with whom – if anyone? Seems the “negotiations” ended when it was determined that LOTA didn’t have the “date rape” drug in her system, though she had complained about strange stuff she ingested on that afternoon. LOTA told the paper she did not want money from the player (probably a dry well there, anyway – no Kobe Bryant deep pockets), but that she asked the coach and GOTH for increased security at the dormitory and counseling for GOTH, and that GOTH’s representatives (presumably the coach and GOTH’s lawyer) were agreeable. Does that mean a rape charge was traded for two things that amounted to nothing? In any case, GOTH has been out in California sweating out the NBA draft since then, but may be somewhere else now.

Now, LOTA has new attorneys. Why does a rape victim need attorneys? Isn’t it the job of the local commonwealth’s attorney to prosecute rape cases? She has produced for the paper records showing she had other drugs in her system, ingested unknowingly by her, of course, on that fateful afternoon. This apparently is the new evidence upon which the case can be restarted. GOTH’s attorney provided LOTA proof that GOTH is not HIV-positive…at least one bright spot in this quagmire. So…the case is in the hands of the county attorney, and the prosecutors will try to sort things out. This won’t be easy, since, as the H-L reported on July 10, LOTA has a history of drug use, at one time had problems with an estranged boyfriend, the father of her daughter, and statements have been made to police by a man who said LOTA was smoking marijuana the evening before the April afternoon.

The university prexy found out about the whole mess from the athletic director on the day the story broke back in April. What happened during the eight days between the event and the reporting of it? Negotiations? So, who told the athletic director…and when? At present, both the prexy and the AD are out of town, and one is left wondering exactly what has happened and when…if anybody cares to say anything. The coach apparently doesn’t respond to the newspaper’s calls. Keep listening. This is cruder than any soap opera.

The whole mess represents tragedy for everyone involved, as well as the university, which, because of the well-publicized peccadilloes of a number of its athletes for decades, has had enough grief. LOTA has lawyers, so is she thinking of, by either going the court-system route (civil action) or the possibly consequent easier way of negotiations, sweating some cash out of the university? A rape conviction was not necessary in the Kobe Bryant case in order for the alleged victim to effect an out-of-court settlement with Bryant, but O.J. Simpson lost the civil case after being acquitted in the criminal action. Where does all this leave the university president and the athletic director (better than a half-a-million-a-year guy) and the coach (never mind the inflated 7-figure income statistics for him in Kentucky, where basketball trumps everything and the coach is considered just next to Michael the Archangel)?

And so it goes.

Jim Clark

Whither the Church?

While the family is the most important unit in the social fabric of a nation, it’s axiomatic that the most stabilizing institution in any country is the church, and for purposes of this essay the collective branches of the Judeo-Christian church. In this country, the church has always stood as a bulwark against the encroachment of social ills, not as an arm of government, certainly, but as a primary influence in the lives of the citizens who run the socio-economic machine and determine the mandates and parameters of government. As the nation slips and slides toward more and more coarseness (denoted in such things as TV entertainment, inordinate obsession with sports, intolerable weakening of education systems, deplorable antics of politicians, an “anything goes” attitude about sex), it would be expected that the church would put on the brakes and then reverse the trends. This is not happening.

On Independence Day in Atlanta, the governing body of the United Church of Christ officially sanctioned the marriage of men to each other and the wedding of women to each other, thus approving as perfectly normal the consequent homosexual practices regarded as unnatural, unseemly, and sinful in holy scriptures and, on merit and by definition, perverted as a common-sense matter. Though hard to believe in the raucous atmosphere of today, there once were “sodomy laws” (fairly recently declared unconstitutional by the Supremes), and, though they were virtually unenforceable, they at least made a statement, to wit, that perversion was not acceptable even in private. The UCC, disregarding its own scriptural foundation, has done spiritually what the SCOTUS did legally, a far worse violation of the being made in God’s image. Thus, the UCC joined the slipping and the sliding, rather than dig in its heels.

Not all churches/denominations have been willing to join in the journey to oblivion, a la the licentious journeying of other social orders throughout history. Was it the Romans who thought pedophilia a perfectly normal pastime? The so-called evangelical groups and Roman Catholics have dug in their heels and are roundly and consistently criticized by the sophisticates, both secular and sacred, for their insensitivity to the fact that no one’s psyche should be disrupted by an absolute; rather, they insist that all things come in shades of gray or that everything is relative or that there is no such thing as perversion per se, since all is in the mind of the practitioner of whatever.

The evangelical groups, while not racking up huge increases in membership, are at least not losing members, though they tend to adopt “worldly” standards and methods (rock bands, alternate worship styles, casualness, etc.) in an effort to hang on at a time when secularism increases in intensity, and churchgoers seem more interested in entertainment and feeling good than in serious worship and sacrifice. Not so with the “mainliners,” the old-line Protestant groups that were once the bedrock of U.S. Christianity. In their constant bickering especially about homosexual marriages and ordination of homosexuals to church offices, they have leaned toward political correctness to the point that they face the total loss of spiritual correctness, turning on their respective heads the centuries-long and time-tested doctrines that have obtained during the time the church has been strong. As a result, while many evangelical groups have sort of stagnated at worst, the mainline denominations have been losing membership consistently for years, even as the population has grown.

During 1996-2004, the UCC has lost 13% of its membership while it has catered to political correctness. The Christian Church (Disciples of Christ), United Methodist Church, Presbyterian Church USA, and the Episcopal Church have lost, respectively, 11, 4, 8, and 8 percent of their memberships while all of them have argued over the homosexual question and seem increasingly to lean toward doing what the UCC has officially done. Indeed, the Episcopal Church, a part of the Anglican worldwide community, probably would already have done what the UCC has done, absent the ferocious opposition of fellow communicants in Third World countries. The nadir was reached recently when an openly, practicing homosexual was ordained a bishop in New Hampshire. The average loss in membership 1996-2004 of the five mainline denominations noted here is nine percent, the obvious conclusion to be drawn simply that they are withering on the vine.

At least in part, this explains why the so-called religious right (evangelical folks) is so much in the news and so venomously attacked by those who claim it forms a threat to the well-being of the nation, i.e., that it opposes the “anything goes” insistence declared by the sophisticates to be politically, and therefore spiritually, correct. These evangelicals form a large voting bloc, not just in the South but throughout the nation, and, of course, are logically found predominately to be conservative voters (therefore republican-oriented), never mind their party affiliations. They see the movement in the mainline churches as not just disruptive of sacred canon, but as totally destructive of it. Since destruction of what they consider their personal moral compass is operative, they go toward the church-think that most nearly comports with their think.

Despite all the noise about the marvelous superiority of those who recognize diversity, multiculturalism, political correctness, and “entering the real world” as infinitely more to be desired than the stodginess they see connected with traditional Christian principles, reasonable people are loath to embrace or have forced upon them as normal and desired what amounts to pernicious perversion, no matter from the church, government, PACs, or any other entity. The UCC has laid down its marker, and it appears that its fellow denominations mentioned above are about to deploy the same marker. More’s the pity as their actual worth and work are sacrificed on the altar of conceived expediency, when the marker laid down by Jesus Christ had to do with sacrifice and a hard swim up the stream…another way of saying “digging in one’s heels.”

And so it goes.

Jim Clark