Opinion

Letter to the Editor

On May 16, we had the privilege to help in our county by picking up trash on Greenup Road. We had several of our youth help in the clean-up. They worked very hard and vowed not to ever throw trash out of their cars. It was quite a learning experience for each person who helped. Some questions that were asked were, “Where does all this trash come from?” and “Why do people throw trash out on the side of the road?” It is sad to say, but most of the trash is thrown out by people who do not realize the impact it has on our county.

After 43 years of experience in printing and marketing I have no problems spotting a marketing scare tactic when it appears. On May 29, I received a mailer from the Kentucky Equine Education Project stating that the horse industry was struggling and therefore is leaving the state of Kentucky. I ask you, fellow Kentuckians: Who isn’t struggling in these artificially created hard times? This slick promotional piece concluded that the remedy to this problem was to allow slot gambling at the race tracks.

Late last month, Gov. Steve Beshear announced he will call the General Assembly back into session to tackle what is one of the most underappreciated stories in several years.

While George Bush and Barack Obama were handing out billions and billions of dollars in bank bailouts and economic stimulus packages, somewhere along the way we apparently lost track of exactly how much money we are talking about.

Kentucky is facing a nearly $1 billion shortfall for the next fiscal year.

It’s almost an unfathomable amount of money.

“The past is never dead. It’s not even past.”

William Faulkner wrote that. I’m not sure I know what the line means. Faulkner’s mind was complex and his words nuanced and layered. But he was born in Mississippi in 1897 where the Civil War could break loose at the turn of a prepositional phrase over supper most any night of the week. And I was born in Owen County, Kentucky, where we identify the names of fields on our farm by the names of men a century dead.

As I was driving to Frankfort one Sunday afternoon, May 17, I saw two groups of dedicated people picking up trash on the side of the road.

I would like to say a huge thank-you to those people for caring enough to take the time to help make our country a better place for everyone. I’m sure that they were not the ones who put the trash there, but yet they took the time to clean it up.

My book club was planning to read Barbara Kingsolver’s new book “Animal, Vegetable, Miracle” – the one about eating locally grown foods exclusively and only those in season – and so the discussion leader turns to me, and says, “And so Georgia, why don’t you make Kingsolver’s ‘Month of May’ recipe for Rhubarb Crisp on page 89 for our refreshments next month.”

Growing up in the 1990s, there were cigarette ads everywhere. I can plainly recall the dazzling young women who showed off the fact that they were smoking a Misty Light on the back of my mother’s endless supply of home and garden magazines. I remember Joe Camel at the pool, playing a mammal who wore sunglasses and was always suavely dressed. And oh, how I remember the Marlboro Man – that handsome guy on horseback who just happened to always have his picture taken in the middle of he desert – firing one up.

There is a lesson to be learned in the firing of University of Kentucky Basketball Coach Billy Gillispie.

If you don’t succeed at your job, you will be fired.

With the failure to reach the NCAA tournament, Gillispie’s fate wasn’t hard to guess. There have been rumblings around the Big Blue faithful for weeks that Gillispie’s time should come to an end.

Everyone has an expectation of success. Some teams would be excited to make it to the National Invitational Tournament but none of those teams are headquartered in Lexington.

Although I consider myself current with pop culture, this is the first season I’ve watched “American Idol.”

In years past, I’ve seen the last 15 minutes of some of the final shows to see who wins, but not knowing who’s who, I didn’t really care one way or another.

This season, mostly because I hate being left out of the water-cooler conversation, I decided early on to watch every episode – from first auditions to finale – and I even hope to buy tickets to see the Top Ten Idol contestants when they go on tour this summer.