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Columns

  • Memories of a brother taken too soon

     By BURT LINDSEY

    The first rich memory I have of my brother is him coming home from the Army in 1964. He was 20 and I was 13, a teenager looking up to his big brother.

    Twenty-eight years later, my brother was dead at a too young 48.

    A lot happened in those years. You see Willie was an alcoholic. I guess that’s what eventually killed him, in a roundabout way.

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  • Three strikes and you’re out, EPA

    The crowd that traveled to recent public hearings in Frankfort and Pikeville for showdowns with the visiting Environmental Protection Agency overwhelmingly supported the home-team coal miners.

    The home team was determined to resist the EPA’s assault on coal and Kentuckians’ right to mine it. They aimed their “pitches” specifically at an injustice perpetrated two years ago when the EPA unilaterally rejected 36 state-approved coal-mining permits and threatened more than 70,000 industry jobs.

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  • How should the winners govern?

    When I first went to Washington in the 1960s as a novice congressman, the Democratic Party was clearly in control. It held the White House and enjoyed big majorities in both houses of Congress.

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  • Facing life with Bible and newspaper in hand

    Pick it up and read it. No, I don’t mean the Bible, although I read it every day.

    But for now, I’m referring to the newspaper.

    Despite rumors of its demise, the newspaper is surviving and in some instances, thriving.

    I know that’s reading the paper is the exception and not the norm. According to a 2010 Harris Poll, 1 in 10 American adults say they never read a daily newspaper and only 2 of 5 read a daily newspaper, either online or in print.

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  • New road creates new perspectives

    Standing on the fresh pavement of the Ky. 313 extension awaiting a dedication ceremony Wednesday, the new road directed my mind to a distant past.

    As the summer sun beat down, the smell of hot asphalt became obvious. That's the odor of opportunity and it triggered memories.

    Just about a mile from the dedication site is the plot of ground where I grew up. On many similar summer days a lifetime ago, the same scent of blacktop filled the air.

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  • Producing 'standardized' workers

    By PETER WEDDLE

    Since former President George W. Bush amped up standardized testing throughout the nation in 2002 with the No Child Left Behind Act, critics say results have been negative.

    The bottom line is that there is no clear correlation between standardized testing and the knowledge and skills kids will need to prosper in the 21st century world of work. It seems we’re more interested in creating a homogenized workforce than a nation of individuals who have learned what their talent is and how to bring it to work with them.

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  • Natural leader and career educator offered direction to many

    He was always getting up a game of some kind, usually sandlot football.

    Mark had a knack for gathering my friends and me, most of us 10 years his younger, for a game of football in the fall or baseball in the spring. And he was my own personal trainer, throwing me thousands of football passes or hitting me countless groundballs, trying to make me better.

    But there was more to it than the game. Something much larger than that. The sport was only an avenue enabling Mark to do something far more important than catching or throwing a ball.

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  • Flag Day celebrates important symbol of freedom

    “Our flag says, ‘I am what you make me, nothing more.  I swing before your eyes as a bright gleam of color, a symbol of yourself.” – Franklin K. Lang, secretary of the interior speaking at a Flag Day Ceremony in 1914.

    On June 14, we will mark a holiday that is sometimes overlooked: Flag Day. It was on that date in 1777 the Second Continental Congress adopted the flag of the United States of America.

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  • Graduations remind us to focus on the future

    My family recently celebrated a milestone shared by families throughout Hardin County and across Kentucky — my son graduated from high school. We enjoyed a formal dinner and dance, the graduation ceremony and a blow-out of a party with family and friends.

    As I told those gathered to rejoice on Caleb’s behalf, our celebration was not merely backward-looking as we reflect on 12 years of education and investment. It also was forward-looking as we count the blessings of opportunity that await him in the months and years to come.

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  • What I heard while tending the vegetable garden

    By now you’ve heard the news: We’re growing, at least physically. The average American male is 17 pounds heavier and the average female 19 pounds heavier than in the late 1970s. And the percentage of overweight children and adolescents in the U.S. has nearly tripled in that same period of time.

    One of the most overlooked and effective ways to fight our growing weight problem is to grow a vegetable garden.

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