Commentary
For enslaved people, the holiday season was a time for revelry – and a brief window to fight?back
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article. During the era of slavery in the Americas, enslaved men, women and children also enjoyed the holidays. Slave owners usually gave them bigger portions of food, gifted them alcohol and provided extra days of rest. Those gestures, however, were […]
Palmer’s House of Toys: A Kentucky Christmas memory
At 17 I was the Santa Claus for the Walkertown section of Hazard. Rick Rosanova, the news guy at Channel 4, was Santa at the new Sears in the old bowling alley in another part of town, Lothair. And Bill Douglas was the city’s main Santa from Backwoods to Big Bottom. He had a $1,000 […]
Al Cross’ annual ‘gift’ guide for Kentucky’s politically prominent
FRANKFORT — Ed Ryan wasn’t the first political commentator to “give Christmas gifts” to political figures, but he and his successors as Courier-Journal Frankfort bureau chief, Bob Garrett and Tom Loftus, affirmed it as a tradition that I’ve been happy to continue for 25 of its 44 years. It may seem like an anachronism at […]
Citizens have the right to safety and fair hearings
One year ago, on Dec. 15, Kentuckians concerned about the epidemic of gun violence packed a committee room and overflow spaces at the Kentucky Capitol to witness the last Interim Judiciary Committee meeting of the year. The main item on the agenda: public presentation and discussion of the CARR (Crisis Aversion and Rights Retention) bill […]
Gable’s death is a call for truth bells to ring
Robert Gable, who died at 90 on Nov. 29, will be remembered by the Kentucky political world as the man who kept the state Republican Party in business from 1986 to 1993, while Sen. Mitch McConnell was on his way up and planning a mostly friendly takeover of the state GOP. Before that, Gable was […]
Revenue growth through tax cuts is a mirage
Kentucky lawmakers are poised to repeat a policy misstep that history and economic theory warn against: cutting taxes during a period of expected revenue decline. As the saying goes, “when you’re in a hole, stop digging.” The proposed reduction of the state’s individual income tax rate from 4% to 3.5% comes despite forecasts showing a […]
The helpmeet’s tale
Many, many years ago when I was aimlessly wandering around Little Rock, Arkansas, in my early 20s — sans job, sans degree, sans boyfriend, sans husband, to paraphrase Shakespeare — two older women who were born before women could vote took me under their wing(s).? One day at lunch they suggested I just needed to […]
A Kentucky chaplain exhorted sailors to ‘Praise the Lord and Pass the Ammunition’
The Japanese surprise attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, 83 years ago Dec. 7, spun off “Praise the Lord and Pass the Ammunition,” one of the most famous American war songs. But the tune’s Kentucky connection is largely unknown. The “ripsnorting battle hymn of the Navy” was inspired by Chaplain Howell Forgy, 34, who left the […]
McConnell’s influence goes underground
“We’re in the personnel business,” Sen. Mitch McConnell has said ever since he concluded the biggest piece of business in Donald Trump’s first administration, a massive tax cut — and argued that a bigger legacy of that Congress was going to be conservative judges. Now Trump is about to become president again, and McConnell can […]
A Thanksgiving memory
Frankfort’s small army of state workers, fresh from four days off for Thanksgiving on Dec. 1, 1997, slipped from their cars in normal morning sun and almost as one looked to the sky with twisted, stricken faces. The Capitol Annex parking lot seemed misted with some indelible flesh-rot that despised humankind. It wasn’t just a […]
This Thanksgiving, let’s break bread — and break the silence on mental health
Thanksgiving is nearly here, a time when many of us will gather with loved ones to share a meal and reflect on the year. For many of us, however, this season, this year, has the potential to stir up tension. The recent election has heightened existing divides, and for some, irrespective of political affiliation, the […]
A plea to restore public participation in Kentucky’s lawmaking process
Our representative democracy rests on a fundamental principle: We, the people, have a right to participate in decisions that affect us.? One year ago, a League of Women Voters of Kentucky report described how Kentucky’s General Assembly has increasingly fast-tracked legislation in ways that weaken that principle.? In our newest report, “How Can They Do […]