The Tale of Two Hurricanes

Witnessing two dangerous hurricanes within weeks of each other in essentially the same part of the country, but in quite different circumstances, both demographically and geographically, furnishes the opportunity to make comparisons between the reactions and actions with respect to the behavior of citizens, local and state officials, federal-government officials, and the military. Whereas tens of thousands of people were un-served and virtually abandoned with respect to Katrina/New Orleans, such was not the case with Rita and the Texas/Louisiana area, where the worst problem occurred in the malfunctioning of a bus, causing 24 deaths. Otherwise, there was plenty of flooding and physical damage in both places, though nowhere in the country could be compared to the “bowl” of New Orleans, situated as it was/is well below sea level and the water level of huge Lake Pontchartrain on its north side and still providing a monstrous threat to a city newly flooded.

Perhaps the key to understanding why the New Orleans episode was such a complete debacle lies in the answer to a question posed by a reporter to a FEMA representative regarding preparations for helping folks face Rita, with the least amount of disruption. He asked what FEMA (the federal government) had done in the matter of evacuating the threatened localities. The answer by the official was simply that FEMA had pre-positioned its resources at strategic locations from where help could be quickly dispatched, but that evacuation was the sole responsibility of local officials. Thus, it is easily seen why two million people evacuated the areas threatened by Rita, with virtually no loss of life, not that there weren’t considerable problems with traffic, gasoline shortages, etc. This problem will have to be addressed in future emergencies, and much was learned through dealing with the traffic tie-ups in Texas. Local officials in Texas simply made it plain that the best way to face a hurricane is not to face it at all, but to “get out of Dodge.” The citizens listened.

Contrast this with what happened at New Orleans. FEMA had pre-positioned its resources in that area as well. The president even declared a state of emergency well before Katrina hit. During the Friday night of 26 August, permission was asked of Louisiana Governor Blanco by federal officials for National Guard troops to enter the picture, and she refused. On the next night, the 27^th, the head honcho of the Weather Service warned New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin that he should get everyone out of the city because Katrina was a category-5 hurricane capable of wreaking unspeakable damage and hardship. With fleets of school-buses and city-buses at his disposal from the get-go on the Friday before, he still had all day Sunday the 28^th to work on this, as well as most of the night. About all he did was to tell folks to go to the Superdome and take some supplies. The hurricane came in early Monday morning, and the rest is history…a history of suffering that was totally uncalled for and could have been avoided if local and state officials had exercised even a slight degree of common sense. Nagin had not even bothered to stock the dome with food, water, etc.

This, however, is not to say that individual citizens must not take primary responsibility for themselves and their families. They are the first responders in every situation. The ones who exercised sound judgment got in their cars or used other conveyances and left the city. According to figures of the U.S. Census Bureau for 2004, only 8.6% of housing units in New Orleans were not represented by an available vehicle. The national average was 8.7%. The numbers for Mississippi and Alabama were 7.7% and 6.4%, respectively. So much for the lie that black folks were too poor to leave the city. All they needed was the price of a tank of gas. If they could afford the car, surely they could have afforded to drive it. As for where they would stay, that would have been settled anyway, just as it has been because they couldn't get back home. The most vulnerable – old people in nursing homes and hospitals, as well as children – suffered because they were treated to almost criminal neglect by their own families and/or local governments. Many of the for-profit nursing homes arranged to have all their patients evacuated. One even chartered a plane to get them away from the action.

Even as the storm hit, Governor Blanco had not yet given permission for the federal government to take action, and it’s a wonder that literally thousands more did not die because of this negligence. For his part, Mayor Nagin did little more than wring his hands, try to place blame on anybody but himself, and scream for somebody to do something. Without any doubt, he should be impeached at the earliest opportunity, as should the governor, their apparent political jealousies taking center stage when they should have been thinking of the enormity of the problem. In the final analysis, though, people cannot be driven from their homes. They must leave willingly, even if ordered to do so. Perhaps the people in New Orleans were convinced that if they left, their properties would be looted…and they were right…but so what! What’s more important – life and limb…or “things?”

This leads to another matter, that of civil order. The levee breaches were not noticed until well after Katrina had hit, so it seemed that New Orleans had been spared the worst of the storm and that its inhabitants had been wise to stay and protect their properties. It had been spared. The worst of the storm was experienced in Mississippi, where people’s “things” were literally blown away, but where, compared to New Orleans, there were hundreds fewer deaths. Once it was discovered that folks in New Orleans actually had to head for higher ground, the looters took over, ransacking every establishment they could, actually wading through water to steal everything from TVs to sneakers. In the process, the hard-core criminal element simply committed mayhem, deadly in a city from which a third of law-enforcement officers had fled. By contrast, Mississippi Governor Barbour and local officials in Texas put out the word early that lawbreakers would be treated with the most severe consequences necessary, up to and including being shot on the spot.

Without question, there has been enough blame to go around, but the bulk of it belongs to the local and state governments. The contrast between the reactions to the two hurricanes makes this unmistakably plain. There has been little outcry in Mississippi and Alabama, where there has been considerable destruction – total in many places. The people are putting things together or relocating as they see fit, with the help of FEMA. The same will be true in Texas and southwest Louisiana in the wake of Rita’s destruction. The feds, though blamed for being late in responding to Katrina, saved people by the thousands, and were helped by private citizens/institutions contributing financially and with everything from motorboats to helicopters. Using military planes, thousands of people have been relocated by the government all over the country, many, if not most, of them never to return to New Orleans for reasons that should be obvious to anyone. Who wants to live in a place as vulnerable as a city that not only has been gradually sinking farther below sea level for years, but which is bordered all around by levees that could again fail if, indeed, they are ever rebuilt to stand even a category-4 hurricane?

There are other lessons to be learned, but a major one is that it is both dishonest and wildly unpatriotic to categorize anything that happened or didn’t happen as the result of either racism or bigotry, with respect to the poor or blacks or both. The Nagins and Jesse Jacksons and Al Sharptons and various and assorted elected officials (particularly congresspersons) who certainly know better have played the race card, especially, for all they thought they could get out of it…mostly money or position or 15 minutes of fame. A plague on all of them! They should understand by now that a caring nation has dug deeply to help, and that they would do far better to express appreciation, help with finances and relocations, and, if nothing else, just shut up.

Fletcher's Time To Go?

I remember e-mailing Ernie Fletcher while he was occupying a practically permanently safe seat in the U.S. House, asking him not to run for the governorship of Kentucky but to stay where he helped maintain a republican majority in that body. The Kentucky Senate has been republican since 1998, the House will probably not be republican in the foreseeable future, and all of Kentucky’s Washington cadre could have been republican, a tremendous asset to the state. The governor’s job was anything but attractive in 2003, especially with a legislature so incompetent/partisan that more than once it couldn’t produce a budget, and a governor so weak he wouldn’t force the issue, as Fletcher didn’t either, displaying the same degree of weakness.

Whether as part or not of the merit mess, Fletcher is now too flawed to do much more than make appearances. It’s hard to believe he was naïve enough to simply be done in by those around him, but if so, ignorance is no excuse for breaking the law, as any traffic cop will attest. The fact that Fletcher’s gang was not more corrupt/perfidious than the gangs of other governors, or Fletcher than other governors, means nothing, since by his own admission “mistakes” have been made. It is ironic that Fletcher’s republican lieutenant governor was the federal presence in the lawsuit against Patton’s democrat lieutenant governor (Medicare fraud), not least because Patton’s democrat Speaker is now the tormentor of his republican successor…an eye for an eye, etc.

I suggest that Fletcher consider stepping aside, provided Pence is free of any connection with the hiring scandal and after establishing that he (Fletcher) will not be indicted (if possible) or pardoned if he is. Pence may or may not be willing to go that route, remembering the Gerald Ford pardon tragedy concerning Nixon. Both Fletcher and Patton have taken government-by-pardon to a new level. This would allow Pence to get a running start on the top job in 2007, with an added advantage in his being the federal prosecutor of Henry, who seems now to be the strongest contender. Stumbo has said he would not run, of course, but that means nothing. Luallen can probably be linked to plenty of instances in merit misdeeds during her time in Frankfort, if anyone cares to look. Besides, both of the latter have been around Frankfort long enough to have plenty of other kinds of baggage.

Whether as victim or not, Fletcher, as he has indicated, is the ultimate recipient of the buck, now stopped on his desk. The selective firings only added to the confusion, and recent news of the budget director’s little windfall and Nighbert’s latest indictment has not helped, though other directors have probably reaped the same rewards and other bureaucrats have stuck their feet in their mouths. The governor should have told his people that there almost certainly would have been 8 good years to win back some jobs, especially in the 2^nd term, but either they or Fletcher, or all of them, couldn’t work the system logically. Now, there is total gridlock for everyone, including those who voted for Fletcher. The use of e-mails, or any printed or recallable material was simply too naïve for words.

The governor is a man of decency and of many talents, governing not being one of them. Perhaps it is time for him to change directions. In the process, he may restore respect and credibility to the entire party. This mess in Frankfort has hurt.

And so it goes.

Jim Clark

Race-baiting Redux II

[The resident race-baiter at the Lexington Herald-Leader is a lady named Merlene Davis. In her Sunday column of Sept. 4, she was at her best, accusing everyone she could think of – of every bad thing she could think of – of every bad motive she could think of – of course, especially if they happened not to be African Americans. In her Sunday column of Sept 11, Ms. Davis, still at her best, explained all about why hip-hopper (whatever that is) Kanye West said in the wrong venue that the president hates black folk. She even gave a lecture on freedom of speech. In her column of Sept. 15, she kept up the attack. Below are some excerpts (in black) from this most recent column, with some comments (in red):

I think the slow response to the needs of the poor black people in New Orleans -- who withered on highways under the unforgiving Southern sun or died waiting for help that didn't come for days -- was due to their financial situation and skin color. Since you used “and” instead of “or” in your description (financial, skin color), what about the dead or withering who were white?

Even if those black people were on welfare or if the single mothers had far too many children with far too many fathers, they deserved to be treated with dignity. They deserved to be treated with compassion, not dignity. You will not agree with this if the Bible means nothing to you, but the Bible is my source for this assertion, although natural law for the civilized militates against indiscriminate breeding, which is characteristic of animals. Fornication and adultery are categorically condemned in scripture, as well as by an ordered society, and those who practice either are neither dignified nor morally eligible to expect respect. The children born of these unions (7 of 10 in the black community and far too many in the white) are virtually doomed to be behind, right from the start. Legally, they have no fathers of record, thus no mandated (who can afford a palimony suit?) paternal support, either financially or morally. Too often, they exist on welfare, a minimal, short-changing condition. Far from demanding dignity for these people, you should take the lead in setting them straight. In the Danville paper the other day was a picture of an evacuee family in Lancaster – mother (50), daughter (maybe 20), the “fiancé,” and their two children, with a third due in November. The grandmother said they had it better there than in New Orleans, but why weren’t the daughter and fiancé married, at least after the first child, if the child actually was his? In the black community, it’s the fiancé who is the sire, and in the white community it’s the live-in boyfriend. The former just deserts sooner or later, while the latter often beats the child to death, with the silly mother as an accomplice, and they go merrily off to the Big House. This is the reason Roe/Wade should stay intact, and I’m quite conservative. Until you and your folk get hold of this problem, you will fall steadily behind. Dignity? Like esteem, it must be earned.

Poverty is suffering enough without being treated like disposable animals. Poverty doesn’t suffer; people suffer because of poverty. The “disposable animal” thing is beneath contempt, and you should be ashamed. Disposable animals are the ones that are eaten. You have heard of hamburgers, I presume.

Thank God for the news media during this tragedy. I'll bet if you ask any of the survivors who suffered needlessly after Katrina was long gone, they would say that if it were not for the unflinching eye of the worldwide press, the days of inaction might have stretched into a week. Consider the interesting information the media furnished, to wit, that the poor New Orleans folk didn’t get out because they were too poor to own cars. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, in 2004, on average, only 8.7% of housing units nationally did not have a car attached to them. In New Orleans, the figure was somewhat better – only 8.6%. The figures for Mississippi and Alabama, respectively, were 7.7% and 6.4%, meaning that in all three areas the car situation was better than in the rest of the country. Or, have you noticed the inordinate numbers of cars all over New Orleans pictured by the media every day, that have been under water? Did you notice the five-lane traffic out of New Orleans before the hurricane hit? Did you notice that some 60% of New Orleans folk, when polled in the week before the hurricane hit, flatly said they would NOT leave. The smart ones left. The others didn’t, and the availability of cars had nothing to do with it.

I have never been prouder of my fellow journalists. Are you kidding? They all became editorialists on the spot, grandstanding in the water and blowing smoke. Journalism was not their bag. Whining and screaming marked their performance, even in print, and they looked hopelessly ignorant in the process.

And the Bush administration has never been shown to be more naked than during those dreadful days. Obviously, the emperor with no clothes was New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin. A more inept, pathetic creature than this guy didn’t and doesn’t exist. Either he was too dumb to have a clue, or too egotistical to know how self-serving and dumb he was…or both. In any case, multiple deaths are on his hands, and you don’t have to be told why. Every school-bus and city bus, all available (the no-driver thing just won’t wash) days before the storm, that went under the water stand awash now to condemn him as a virtual criminal.

Our government, Democratic and Republican, closed its ears and eyes to the Gulf Coast disaster. And the mere fact that some of you sent e-mails blaming those left behind for their situation instead of blaming those who could have saved them is a sign of something truly wrong with this country. No government closed its eyes and ears. You don’t seem to understand, especially in light of the extensive damages caused in Florida alone during the last two years by lesser storms, that a category 5 will, by definition, cause effects beyond any human ability to foresee, except that it will wreak absolute havoc. New Orleans suffered, not primarily because of Katrina’s immediate impact, but because of the levee-rupture, which was not even noticed until 24 hours after the storm hit. The wonder is that, considering the absolute failure of both Nagin and Governor Blanco, rescuers accomplished what they did in as short a time as they did it. It was amazing.

Why is $2,000 good enough for the folks in the gulf when hundreds of thousands of dollars were handed to the families of those lost in the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11? That’s a fair question. Stay tuned. You haven’t seen yet what the total outcome will be, but, while Katrina may not produce millionaires, the people will be cared for, as dislocated families are after every hurricane. But relocating and settling 150,000 families is something so off the level of consciousness of average people or of any government that overnight miracles simply will not happen, though many miracles have already been seen. A lot of them were wrought by white guys hanging off helicopters or slopping through the toxic waters of the city, trying to save people from an actually unimaginable disaster.

Just how much more must the poor give up before we realize the compassionate conservative, a theme our president espoused and liberals went right along with, does not exist? They haven’t been called upon to give up anything, and they certainly will not be called upon to give up anything else. Hurricanes do not call for giving up anything. They just take, thank you very much.

During the reign of Louis XVI of France, his wife, Marie Antoinette, was accused of saying the poor should eat cake if they had no bread. The French Revolution soon followed. Surely you’re too smart to go down that road.

It would be better to acknowledge the approaching train than to walk on the tracks in denial. Amen, sister! I used to be a locomotive engineer in another life, and I can attest to that.

And so it goes.

Jim Clark

Race-baiting Redux

[The resident race-baiter at the Lexington Herald-Leader is a lady named Merlene Davis. In her Sunday column of Sept. 4, she was at her best, accusing everyone she could think of – of every bad thing she could think of – of every bad motive she could think of – of course, especially if they happened not to be African Americans. In her Sunday column of Sept 11, Ms. Davis, still at her best, explained all about why hip-hopper (whatever that is) Kanye West said in the wrong venue that the president hates black folk. She even gave a lecture on freedom of speech. Here is an open letter to Ms. Davis]:

“It was magnanimously enlightening of you to tell everyone why Kanye West scared a lot of folk (custom-made AK-47 maybe?) and said that George Bush doesn’t care about black people. He was hurting, so naturally he had to say George doesn’t care about black people. Wouldn’t anyone who is hurting say that Bush II doesn’t care about black people? After all, when one is hurting, one simply must say something. Of course, since he didn’t do anything substantial to help any folk in New Orleans, some of whom are (gasp) white (betcha didn’t suspect that), could some white rapper say that Mayor Ray Nagin doesn’t care about white people? No-o-o, that simply wouldn’t do…that might be thought of as (double gasp!) racist, and the columnists would skewer an idiot like that, ruin his reputation, maybe even call him names…might even accuse him of having no history of diplomacy. As you will agree in any case, white folk don’t hurt, so they have no right to say anything about anybody any time.

Kanye watched all those folk frying in the unforgiving sun (need to speak to God about that backsliding and otherwise sinful sun that won’t even forgive whatever needs forgiving) or slopping around in the Superdome and apparently thought those white folk hanging from those helicopters or slogging around in waste-deep toxic waters slipped in from Cuba, maybe, during the storm – just sorta blew in – and knew they’d be shot at for their trouble, but went on anyway. Of course, all those rapes and murders in the Superdome were done by white folk because the mayor didn’t send any help. White folk have to do something to pass the time of day or night, and they might just as well rape and bludgeon as anything else. Makes perfect sense, especially since white folk don’t hurt and therefore probably can’t scream, either, like Howard Dean, to let off a little steam.

West should have consulted you. If he had, he would have known it was okay to say what he did about the prez, but that he had to say it in the right venue, not out where people suspected of having brains might hear him and consider him a nincompoop. It’s in the Constitution – the freedom of venue. It’s right there in one of the articles: “When an unfeeling cad is president, he may be called such, but only in a state-approved venue,” presumably the nearest press conference or photo-op, but not where teleprompters are used.

Maybe you can help me understand why you mentioned the proper venue for railing against a cad-president, and then rambled on about folk having the freedom to speak their minds anywhere, and that soldiers (surely you didn’t mean in Iraq) are fighting for that – not just A venue, but ANY venue. Otherwise, all us other folk that are never gone before the cameras never would get to say anything. Gotta give you credit where it’s due…if freedom of speech is good enough for Afghans and Iraqis – presumably even women – it’s good enough for us back home. Astonishing!

Speaking of Teflon, do you think there’s anything to the rumor that Dubya, unfeeling cad that he is and hater of black folk, had Halliburton to mix some of it in the latest levee filler, so the levee would be sure to slip and slide and let the waters roll? I bet Kanye and the Dixie Chicks would give at least one vocal chord to know. The Chicks were mad because prexy is a Texan and West is mad because he’s a cad (your description, at least), so how can the poor president win? All the same, would even a Texas cad be mean enough to sabotage a levee? I wonder. That old levee had been there for a long time. Maybe the French booby-trapped that ground before selling it to old Thomas Jefferson. I’m betting that old Aaron Burr did the deed when he tried to steal it for himself and be the king of a brand-new empire. Alexander Hamilton thought he was a cad, and Burr burned him for that, so put two-and-two together.

In the meantime, watch out. If you see water rising on Midland, call Kanye and the Chicks, get an AK-47, and head for high ground. You can be sure Dubya’s formed a tsunami on the American Water reservoir and headed it right for the editor’s desk. A Texas cad, especially if he’s unfeeling, can be mighty mean.”

And so it goes.

Jim Clark

Race-baiting at Its Best

The resident race-baiter at the Lexington Herald-Leader is a lady named Merlene Davis. In her Sunday column, she was at her best, accusing everyone she could think of – of every bad thing she could think of – of every bad motive she could think of – of course, especially if they happened not to be African Americans. Here is an open letter to Ms. Davis:

Thanks so much for your Sunday column, with its revelations about the refugee problem. Not to put too fine a point on your definition of refugee, these persons do come into being as a result of natural disasters. Those who ran for their lives last winter in the face of the tsunami returned to their homes only to find no homes, thus becoming refugees, so refugeeism does often happen that way.

What you may not know is that president Bush called in Karl Rove, Dick Cheney, and Rush Limbaugh during the first week of his recent vacation in Crawford. They decided that a hurricane was needed to punish democrats and that New Orleans was the best place for it to happen, since the city existed on only pure luck anyway and had almost no republicans, if any. They took up a collection and paid Castro’s top scientist and three smart taxi drivers to cook up a hurricane far out in the Atlantic, head it weakly toward Florida to provide cover for the big show, just touching Miami as a category one, but then turn into a beautiful monster in the Gulf to bear down directly on New Orleans as at least a category five, guaranteeing the destruction of the levee that everyone, especially those in New Orleans, knew was built just to handle a category three, not to mention blowing the buildings away in the bargain.

The president announced early on that everyone should evacuate New Orleans, Gulfport, and Biloxi, but knew that a poll taken that week in New Orleans indicated that 60% of the citizens would not leave, no matter what category. He then sent a note to the New Orleans mayor indicating that the poll showed that everyone would leave on their own, thus setting the stage for a real blast. The mayor, who apparently had never read the evacuation plan devised years before, anyway, didn’t furnish any buses or other transportation, didn’t stockpile any provisions, didn’t empty the nursing homes or hospitals, didn’t set up triage centers, didn’t mobilize his emergency forces, didn’t plan for looters, didn’t do anything, in fact, except practicing the “Dean Scream” in case he had to be heard over the noise, and certainly didn’t expect the levee to break, simply because it never had, at least seriously.

Castro, who hates Governor Barbour of Mississippi because he’s a republican and has a nice house, got wind of all this, arrested the scientist and the taxi drivers and tortured them for five seconds before the scientist turned the hurricane toward Biloxi, where another hated man, republican Senator Trent Lott, also had a nice house and even a late-model car, not to mention a pickup with two gun racks, and had once suggested that Strom Thurmond was actually human. That, alone, was enough to waste any republican.

The president knew that nothing could be done during Monday and Monday night, and not much of anything on Tuesday and Tuesday night because the roads would be flooded, the power out, the phones down, the bridges gone, and the mayor would be eating crab-cakes and drinking good wine. He was mad, of course, because of the Cuban double-cross, but took hope when the levee started breaking anyway. At that point, the mayor and his whole gang (mayor, police chief, city council, all of them African-American, as well as most of the policemen), having done nothing to prepare – well, come on, they had had only three or four days of warning – began screaming for somebody to do something, and sent out word for Louis Farrakhan to consult Qadaffi and start a revolution somewhere, preferably in Montana, so folks’ attention would be diverted elsewhere and not on them.

There was an eight-day plan to take care of an event like Katrina, and, even though the president had to be dragged along, the city was evacuated in only six days. The president knew that the mainstream media would work the public like a fine violin in whipping up angst against him, but knew when the inevitable hearings were held and the truth came out, his administration and the American citizens who carried the day, most of whom are white and hundreds of whom risked their lives, would be seen in a different light, thus impacting the elections in 2006.

I know this would sound incredulous to most folk, but you have the sophistication to understand the president and his seeming insensitivity to anything because you’re on the record as noting that white, Anglo-Saxon Protestant males are direct descendents of Lucifer, the wicked angel cast out of heaven and winding up in the serpent to tempt Adam and Eve with a bowl of gumbo. The president is, of course, a WASPM.

If you should have an attack of reality, try this site: Center for the Study of Public Health Impact of Hurricanes. It’s about 51 pages long, was prepared a few years ago for New Orleans and should have been in the mind of the officials there, and predicted precisely what did happen. One of the most interesting statistics to come out of this document was the fact that roughly one-third of NO citizens insisted they would not evacuate even in the face of a category four hurricane (think hurricane Andrew) and only 55% of those on public assistance would leave. By simply using school-buses and city buses, everyone could have left, and the fact that the mayor did not see to the evacuation of the sick and other vulnerable people, even though he had plenty of time, makes him a sort of passive murderer, since he left them – in your words – like animals…to die.

And so it goes.

Jim Clark

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