Thursday, December 29
Merry Christmas!
So many adventures, so little time. I'm nestled in with a good book and ready to write again soon. My New Year's resolutions include updating my blog--not that anyone's reading it, but just for me--kind of like cleaning out an old closet. More to come...
Sunday, September 4
Refugee
Shading his eyes from the September sun, 8-year-old Zachary kicks a ball around the cul-de-sac in front of his aunt's house in Georgetown.
Zachary used to live in a neighborhood much like this one, in Slidell, a suburb of New Orleans.
Until Sunday, when he and his mother, Megan, packed whatever they could fit in their mid-sized sedan and left the rest of their belongings, their family, and their lives behind them and headed north.
It took days to arrive at Megan's sister Christy's house in Kentucky, traveling inches at a time, it seemed. They don't know how many people they knew and loved are among the dead. Megan knows that several of her friends and coworkers didn't make it, but the death toll is just beginning. She cannot allow herself to begin mourning just yet, she says.
Mostly, Megan is angry.
Angry that officials didn't make earlier efforts to evacuate threatened areas. Angry that sufficient relief wasn't mobilized and ready to roll before the hurricane made landfall, despite days of warnings of the magnitude and potential impact of the storm. Angry that mothers had to watch their children die for lack of water.
Megan isn't sure if there will be anything to return to, or whether she will be able to continue working for the Fortune 100 company that employed her in New Orleans. The sisters haven't seen their parents yet, either, since their hasty departure from the city, but sporadic phone calls have assured them that they are secure in a friend's home in upstate Louisiana.
It's early September, and Zachary had just started third grade. It may be several weeks before Megan will be able to assess the damage at her home, so she has started checking into local schools. She has no way to access his records and the other paperwork usually necessary for such a transition. She hopes the school district will understand.
Her sister is ready to help as long as necessary. For now, they're coping a moment at a time. Tonight, they're cooking a baked chicken recipe. Last night, it was spaghetti. For Zachary, sanity comes in kicking a ball in the street as the sun sets on the Bluegrass.
Zachary used to live in a neighborhood much like this one, in Slidell, a suburb of New Orleans.
Until Sunday, when he and his mother, Megan, packed whatever they could fit in their mid-sized sedan and left the rest of their belongings, their family, and their lives behind them and headed north.
It took days to arrive at Megan's sister Christy's house in Kentucky, traveling inches at a time, it seemed. They don't know how many people they knew and loved are among the dead. Megan knows that several of her friends and coworkers didn't make it, but the death toll is just beginning. She cannot allow herself to begin mourning just yet, she says.
Mostly, Megan is angry.
Angry that officials didn't make earlier efforts to evacuate threatened areas. Angry that sufficient relief wasn't mobilized and ready to roll before the hurricane made landfall, despite days of warnings of the magnitude and potential impact of the storm. Angry that mothers had to watch their children die for lack of water.
Megan isn't sure if there will be anything to return to, or whether she will be able to continue working for the Fortune 100 company that employed her in New Orleans. The sisters haven't seen their parents yet, either, since their hasty departure from the city, but sporadic phone calls have assured them that they are secure in a friend's home in upstate Louisiana.
It's early September, and Zachary had just started third grade. It may be several weeks before Megan will be able to assess the damage at her home, so she has started checking into local schools. She has no way to access his records and the other paperwork usually necessary for such a transition. She hopes the school district will understand.
Her sister is ready to help as long as necessary. For now, they're coping a moment at a time. Tonight, they're cooking a baked chicken recipe. Last night, it was spaghetti. For Zachary, sanity comes in kicking a ball in the street as the sun sets on the Bluegrass.
Friday, September 2
Thursday, September 1
I had new photos to post, but tonight that seems rather insignificant in the face of such raw suffering close to home.
Please pray for all the victims and their families and for our nation as we rally to the cause. Four National Guard units from Kentucky will deploy soon; one is from my hometown. Remember these rescuers as well and hope for their safe return. I will say prayers as well for my dear friend Michelle and her family in Mississippi.
To see how you can help, visit:
Week of Compassion
American Red Cross online.
Please pray for all the victims and their families and for our nation as we rally to the cause. Four National Guard units from Kentucky will deploy soon; one is from my hometown. Remember these rescuers as well and hope for their safe return. I will say prayers as well for my dear friend Michelle and her family in Mississippi.
To see how you can help, visit:
Tuesday, August 30
Singing chef
Over the usual restaurant din, a single voice rises.
“How many times must I prove my love to you?” Joseph sings in his soulful baritone. “How many ways must I show you?”
His nightly stage is the hot food bar at the buffet restaurant, where Joseph serenades his customers with gospel ballads while he serves up their roast beef or turkey, cooked up and cut just right.
“The songs just come out,” said Joseph between verses and servings of macaroni and cheese. “Singing, it keeps me. There’s no fear in me now.”
Joseph used to sing the blues before he came the the antique and restaurant district neighboring the city of Ashland, the birthplace of more noted entertainers such as Ashley Judd and her mother and sister, Naomi and Wynona, as well as a slew of other famed country crooners along this stretch of U.S. 23 known as the Country Music Highway.
Joseph didn’t know anything about the history of the place before he hitched a ride down Interstate 75. He just wanted to get away from the streets of Detroit.
“That’s where fear is, on the street,” Joseph said.
(More)Thursday, August 25
Pigskin stitches
(Note: I met this lady by chance, and couldn't resist telling a snippet of her story.)
Margery doesn't know much about football--and as a semi-retired seamstress, she doesn't care to learn about it now. Yet, heaped on the floor in Margery's otherwise fastidiously clean living room is a pile of football jerseys.
Margery doesn't know much about football--and as a semi-retired seamstress, she doesn't care to learn about it now. Yet, heaped on the floor in Margery's otherwise fastidiously clean living room is a pile of football jerseys.
Margery has been stitching the names and numbers on the jerseys since the NFL team first brought their annual training camp to her town in 1997. She's meticulous about every stitch.
"It's not the sort of thing you do while you're watching tv at night," she told me. "It's a lot harder than it looks."
But despite all the attention Margery gives the black-and-orange jerseys--as important as it is to her that they look just right--she has never seen the jerseys on the playing field.
She readily admits that she has never watched the team on tv--or in person. She says that the team has never offered her a ticket--but that's fine by her.
"It wouldn't matter if they gave me a pile of tickets this high," she said, indicating something about waist-high. "I still wouldn't go. I don't like football."
She says her granddaughters would like to go see a game sometime, though--along with their dad. As for Margery, she's content seeing those numbers up close every summer--on her sewing machine.
Wednesday, August 24
Venturing into the eye of the hurricane
This is the photo we should send at Christmas. Instead, we send the PR version: combed hair, neatly dressed, sitting still. I think I like this one better. :-)
Tuesday, August 23
Monday, August 22
Around the house
From the 3-corner chair that's so odd, it's a work of art.
Sadly, not the real thing. Hint, hint.
Another look at the mystery.
It's a vase!
A break in the weather?
Aaah...a breeze.
Chris Bailey's weather blog:
http://www.wkyt.com/Global/story.asp?S=2672921
Sunday, August 21
Hunter's gone, but 'Gonzo journalism' remains
Thompson's send-off
Thompson's obit
As a journalism student, I had a professor who adored Hunter Thompson. I had three more who despised him.
Learning he was a fellow Kentuckian ("I haven't had a milkman since I was 10 years old. I used to ride the route with him, back in Louisville."--Fear and Loathing in the Bunker), I was interested in how this fellow's break-all-the-rules style of journalism helped shape--and was shaped by--the cultural changes of the 1960s and 1970s. He even found a place in the 1980s and beyond, though I think he resonated differently with my generation--the kids who grew up with Reagan's jelly beans and Rocky vs. the big cold-war Soviet guy. We're the flag-waving generation (sandwiched between bell-bottoms and grunge), and darn proud of it.
I suppose what unsettled those journalism profs and journalism purists--and me, too-- most about Thompson, was his seamless mingling of opinion and fact. As a journalist, I strove to be impartial. It was a lesson I learned in particular from one of those college professors who warned us against the evils of the Gonzo journalist. If your personal feelings lean to the right, try to write as if you agree with the folks on the left, and your story should come out somewhere in the middle. Not exactly a carefully measured, scientific way to balance a story, but over the years, I found it worked. It forced me to pick up the phone and call or go visit people I ordinarily would prefer to avoid, people whose points of view made me cringe. But I tried to be fair and balanced, long before Fox News or Al Franken. I avoided the ad hominem attack, Thompson's favorite method of arguing a case (i.e., Thompson's main argument against Nixon seemed to boil down to this: Nixon was evil, so everything he said or did was wrong, and anyone who defended him was evil, too.)
What I learned from Hunter Thompson, though, was storytelling. The man knew how to take you there, though the journey was often difficult, sometimes distasteful. I learned to look for those subtle elements and weave them into the fabric of the story in descriptive detail. (I avoided some of Thompson's favorite adjectives, however.)
I am concerned about his legacy, however, and how it has been misapplied within the ranks of journalism. I see this across the Bluegrass as well as the national news outlets. It seems that increasingly, reporters are no longer separate from commentators, which is what Thompson was. He never claimed to be an impartial news source. One never questioned where he stood on an issue.
It is dangerous when those lines are not clearly drawn. One of the roles of a journalist is to be a watchdog--not an attack dog. In the rush to shed light on the dark corners, or, in some cases, merely to be first with the story, or present some new angle, journalists should stop to consider whether they are casting a particular tone on the issue. In the effort to stand out, to write with flair, to compete in the marketplace, it's easy to slip a little "Gonzo" into "journalism."
Granted, a journalist isn't a robot or a scribe. He or she is a person with a set of values and experiences. It is not the job of a journalist to simply regurgitate the facts as spoonfed to him or her. That's where you have to be smart. Use your head. Know how to balance a story--and to be fair. The two aren't always the same.
It makes me extremely uncomfortable when reporters write editorials about the subject they are assigned to cover. Makes me wonder how many impartial facts I'm getting. Leave the pontificating to the editorial board (and the countless bloggers and talking heads) and the authors.
And what's the point of my little speck on the floor of the court of public opinion? I suppose it is this: There's a place for the Hunter Thompsons of the world, and it isn't the front page.
Even if I don't like what he had to say, by gosh, I'm glad he could say it. We should all be so bold as to fearlessly ask questions of the world (though one might argue that Thompson's interrogations were more fearsome than fearless). Let's just make sure we are able to clearly define where "journalism" ends and "Gonzo" begins.
A taste of Thompson
Thompson's obit
As a journalism student, I had a professor who adored Hunter Thompson. I had three more who despised him.
Learning he was a fellow Kentuckian ("I haven't had a milkman since I was 10 years old. I used to ride the route with him, back in Louisville."--Fear and Loathing in the Bunker), I was interested in how this fellow's break-all-the-rules style of journalism helped shape--and was shaped by--the cultural changes of the 1960s and 1970s. He even found a place in the 1980s and beyond, though I think he resonated differently with my generation--the kids who grew up with Reagan's jelly beans and Rocky vs. the big cold-war Soviet guy. We're the flag-waving generation (sandwiched between bell-bottoms and grunge), and darn proud of it.
I suppose what unsettled those journalism profs and journalism purists--and me, too-- most about Thompson, was his seamless mingling of opinion and fact. As a journalist, I strove to be impartial. It was a lesson I learned in particular from one of those college professors who warned us against the evils of the Gonzo journalist. If your personal feelings lean to the right, try to write as if you agree with the folks on the left, and your story should come out somewhere in the middle. Not exactly a carefully measured, scientific way to balance a story, but over the years, I found it worked. It forced me to pick up the phone and call or go visit people I ordinarily would prefer to avoid, people whose points of view made me cringe. But I tried to be fair and balanced, long before Fox News or Al Franken. I avoided the ad hominem attack, Thompson's favorite method of arguing a case (i.e., Thompson's main argument against Nixon seemed to boil down to this: Nixon was evil, so everything he said or did was wrong, and anyone who defended him was evil, too.)
What I learned from Hunter Thompson, though, was storytelling. The man knew how to take you there, though the journey was often difficult, sometimes distasteful. I learned to look for those subtle elements and weave them into the fabric of the story in descriptive detail. (I avoided some of Thompson's favorite adjectives, however.)
I am concerned about his legacy, however, and how it has been misapplied within the ranks of journalism. I see this across the Bluegrass as well as the national news outlets. It seems that increasingly, reporters are no longer separate from commentators, which is what Thompson was. He never claimed to be an impartial news source. One never questioned where he stood on an issue.
It is dangerous when those lines are not clearly drawn. One of the roles of a journalist is to be a watchdog--not an attack dog. In the rush to shed light on the dark corners, or, in some cases, merely to be first with the story, or present some new angle, journalists should stop to consider whether they are casting a particular tone on the issue. In the effort to stand out, to write with flair, to compete in the marketplace, it's easy to slip a little "Gonzo" into "journalism."
Granted, a journalist isn't a robot or a scribe. He or she is a person with a set of values and experiences. It is not the job of a journalist to simply regurgitate the facts as spoonfed to him or her. That's where you have to be smart. Use your head. Know how to balance a story--and to be fair. The two aren't always the same.
It makes me extremely uncomfortable when reporters write editorials about the subject they are assigned to cover. Makes me wonder how many impartial facts I'm getting. Leave the pontificating to the editorial board (and the countless bloggers and talking heads) and the authors.
And what's the point of my little speck on the floor of the court of public opinion? I suppose it is this: There's a place for the Hunter Thompsons of the world, and it isn't the front page.
Even if I don't like what he had to say, by gosh, I'm glad he could say it. We should all be so bold as to fearlessly ask questions of the world (though one might argue that Thompson's interrogations were more fearsome than fearless). Let's just make sure we are able to clearly define where "journalism" ends and "Gonzo" begins.
A taste of Thompson
Saturday, August 20
Scenes from the Kentucky Horse Park
What would a Bluegrass blog be without horses? Especially this one--Secretariat. Not the real one, obviously, as he is expired.
Wow!
I believe these are pre-Renaissance sculptures. Beautiful detail.
If you thing the horse's armor looks fierce, check out the spurs at the bottom. Those things were meant to do more than prick the skin. Ouch.
A stagecoach scene--a bit chaotic, but oh-so-interesting. Too bad I couldn't pipe in the old-West background music.
A riding trophy from the mid-1800s.
Vibrant colors.
A scene from the Crusades. Oh, the irony.
One amazing sight after another.
Imagine the weight of the armor...and that's just the horse's. Consider the knight and his gear, and that's gotta be one strong horse.
Part of an early Royal Canadian Mounted Police uniform.
First pony ride. The pony survived.
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