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Columns and Editorials

  • Guest Column: Rick Rand

    While the just-completed legislative sessions will likely be remembered for two things – averting a crisis within Medicaid and enacting a far-reaching reform of our penal code – that should not overshadow the fact that quite a few other prominent bills are also now law.

    Since this was not a budget year, and we’re still recovering economically, most of the changes made by the General Assembly during the last few months do not involve much, if any, money.  Still, these laws will positively affect the public in ways large and small in the years ahead.

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  • Maybe I am just a little bit crazy

    It occurred to me somewhere around midnight Saturday, when I woke up for the umpteenth time in less than a couple of hours. I tugged the double layer fleece blanket, wool blanket and sleeping bag down from my face and squinted at the top of my tent.

    I sat up, and realized I wasn’t imagining things. There was snow. And not just a few flakes. A bunch. I slapped and shook the tent sides to knock the snow off, while Rufus (the Mallowmar dog) kindly stole the warm spot I left behind on my sleeping bag.

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  • Guest Columns - Rick Rand

    During the legislative session that ended earlier this month, Kentuckians saw a textbook example of what positive things can happen when both parties in the General Assembly come together and work toward the Commonwealth’s greater good.

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  • Guest Columns - Geoff Davis

    The average price for a gallon of gas in Kentucky is now almost $3.60 a gallon.  The price is more than twenty cents higher than it was only a month ago.

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  • Slow down and put the kettle on

    It was a seemingly innocuous comment. “I bought one of those Hot Pots,” a friend said. “I got tired of waiting for the tea kettle to boil water.”

    It was a sign of many things, not the least of which is how my friend and I have changed, or how our ways have parted, in the last 10 years.

    Waiting for a tea kettle to boil is among my favorite things in the morning.

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  • Cell phone users should take it outside

    Let me say first (to paraphrase the ultimate authority) “let she who is without sin cast the first iPhone.”

    So, in the interest of full disclosure I’ll admit I have forgotten to turn off my cell phone in public venues. I’ve been embarrassed a few times when the strains of “Incense and Peppermints” emit from my handbag.

    But, it was an oversight.

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  • Cut spending and avoid a shutdown

    Congress is currently working to come to an agreement on funding the government through the remainder of the fiscal year ending in September before the current stop-gap measure expires on March 18.  Just as urgent is the need to begin to cut out of control spending, reduce the deficit and address our national debt which will increase confidence in the economy, and make room for the private sector to grow and create jobs.

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  • GUEST COMMENTARY

    Long after a legislative session is in the history books, it is often remembered by just one or two of its most prominent bills.  Early last week, the General Assembly gave its overwhelming approval to the one that will almost certainly top this year’s list.

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  • GUEST COLUMN

    Before the global economic crisis, most will remember that we experienced an energy crisis in the summer of 2008.  A gallon of gas cost more than four dollars and the price of oil reached nearly $150 a barrel.  During those months, families, seniors, businesses and schools experienced substantial hardship as a result.

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  • Prayers are with families who lost homes

    When I got the news that a house in Eminence had been flattened, possibly by a tornado, Monday morning, my heart leapt into my throat.
    There’s never a good time to have a tornado, but 5 a.m., when most folks are still asleep, certainly is among the worst times it could happen.

    And when I arrived on the scene and saw the devastation for myself, I was stunned that there were as few injuries as there were. That Gregg Williams and his family escaped their home mostly unscathed is simply incredible.

    Likewise for Janet Spies and her family.

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