Rural Thoughts

A fireplace, a nice bottle of wine, beer, or bourbon, some musical instruments, and good songs go along way toward that!

The Paducah City Council decided to not issue any kind of reprimand to the Paducah Police Chief as a result of his violating Dept. policy by using his handgun to bust out a window during a raid. The reason given in the paper was that it would require a formal charge and a formal type evidentiary hearing.

Uh, isn't that called "due process?" The question I have is whether or not the field officers who have been cited negatively for doing the same thing or something even less had the same kind of "due process" in the adjudication of the claims against them?

Kristi and I went to the Bluebird Café recently in Nashville and heard, for the first time, a wonderful young woman singer named Annie Sellick. She was backed up by a band called “Hot Club,” which was an awesome band. We had the best seats in the house in my opinion, Table 11, which is directly behind two smaller tables that are right in front of the stage. Table 11 seats 6, so a date of two will have to sit with other people, which is usually fun.

Below is, in reverse chronological order, is the better part of an email exchange I’ve been having recently with the Illinois Department of Natural Resources (IDNR) regarding a relatively minor FOIA request that I’ve recently made with them and which they are not responding properly. It has shed some light with me on some of the IDNR’s latest shenanigans to avoid public scrutiny on their activities.

Well, it appears that Steve Beshear has won the governor's election in Kentucky handily. He is the Democrat. I have to say that the Democrats planned perfectly for this. It's just too bad that Ben Chandler, who was running for governor when Patton did his totally disgusting crying confession about his indiscretions with a West Kentucky political floozy. It ruined Chandler's chance to be governor at that time, and opened the door for Fletcher.

One of the old growth trees in Smoky Mts. National Park

There wasn't anything really earthshaking on the Sunday news shows that I watched.

The most interesting part was an interview with Stephanopolous and Joe Biden on the presidential campaign trail in Iowa. Biden comes off as knowledgable, caring, reasonable, and experienced. However, neither the polls nor the media treat him as a "top tier" candidate. I really don't see that changing, although, as he definitely touts, he is one of the most experienced candidates in foreign policy, and foreign policy is what is eating us up.

What a day today was. Everyday gets to be more and more of an amazing phenomenon in our country. I can't believe that Clarence Thomas actually had the gall to hawk his book on national TV, trying to take down Anita Hill while he did. How unbecoming of a Supreme Court justice. But I lost my respect for him when he vote in Bush v. Gore. The 5 justices responsible for putting Bush into office didn't care if everyone that was eligible to vote and wanted to got to vote and had their votes counted. What could be more fundamental to human rights and democracy?

Today the Sunday news shows were full of discussion on the heels of Bush's speech this week about Iraq. I listened to his speech. I have a really hard time listening to the dude...he just comes off as...well...dishonest...and he's mean spirited and his vision of the U.S. is so far from my vision that we just can't relate to him. Nevertheless, we do our civic duty and listen to him when he makes a national speech.

We don’t live too far from Nashville. Although We are rural people, and not inclined to love cities, we do like a lot about Nashville. For one thing, it isn’t monstrously big like Chicago, and for two, it truly is Music City. When you got to Nashville, your waitress, your checkout person at the store, even your street person, are probably thinking about writing a hit song. And, you never know where you may encounter a star - in the same restaurant, walking down the street, shopping. There’s an excitement in the air about it all that isn’t in other cities.

First, now that I have a few minutes to think about this, I want to put some more information about us on this website. I only have the capability to post on the blog at the moment, so I will use the blog to post links to some other places on the web that have material related to Kristi and I.

http://www.soundclick.com/bands/pagemusic.cfm?bandID=354837 (This is a link to songs of the Rhythm Women and Groove Daddies. We both play in this band. The songs are all original songs of the RWGD)

Attorney General Alberto Gonzales resigned today. Why today after so many calls for his resignation? I think, combined with the Rove resignation, that they know that the "other shoe is going to drop" with regard to one or another of the investigations that is closing in on them.

I just got home from watching Michael Moore's "Sicko" documentary. Michael Moore, as a character in his own movies, isn't my favorite character. His brand of sarcasm and his physical appearance doesn't jive that well with what really gets me going. Nevertheless, he usually hits the nail on the head with the content of his documentaries, and this one is no exception.

Mitch McConnell, yeah the one that is minority leader of the U.S. Senate was in Paducah today speaking at the Rotary club, which meets every Wednesday in Paducah at the Hotel Irwin Cobb. You can always tell cause there's a lot of suits around the Irwin Cobb on Wednesday around noon.

Kristi and I watched the Democratic debate yesterday on George Stephanopolous' show on ABC. It was interesting. Kristi and I are regular viewers of Steph's show. We only get network, antenna TV at our place.