News opinion 2008-04-24 Andanh.com

Water projects will benefit our community Thu, 24 Apr 2008 11:21:46 -0500
It was good news for our area that the General Assembly approved state funding for two major county water projects and allowed for an alternative water supply study for Bowling Green Municipal Utilities. The Warren County Water District will receive $1.45 million to install a 2 million gallon, elevated water tank and water line on Three Springs Road. This is good news for this area and its residents considering the rate at which this area is growing. Over the past few years, the district has added 600 to 800 new customers a year. Currently, the district has 23,600 customers, 1,600 of which are commercial and industrial users. The tank will help improve water pressure for residents south of Natcher Parkway in Hidden River Estates and other neighboring subdivisions, as well as allow treated water to keep flowing to customers in cases of power outages or other situations. The tank will take care of this area for the next 40 to 50 years. The district has also received $500,000 to increase transmission capacity in the Nashville Road area. Area legislators and others deserve praise for getting funds allocated for this important project. The funding is still not immune to a veto by Gov. Steve Beshear, but we hope that he realizes the importance of this project to our community and doesn’t veto it. Without the funding from the state, the water district would have had to raise customers’ rates. We are hopeful that won’t be the case. Bowling Green Municipal Utilities was also received funding from the state. BGMU will receive two allotments of funding for a water study, one for $150,000 and another for $200,000. The study will look at the feasibility of saving some water behind the Barren River Lake dam for BGMU. In times of need, BGMU would be able to call upon the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to release some of its allotted water. This would definitely come in handy if we were to experience a drought like much of the Southeast endured last summer.

Debates in peril Thu, 24 Apr 2008 11:21:26 -0500
There may not be any more presidential debates between Sens. Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, partly because of the bad aroma that ABC’s interrogation prior to Pennsylvania’s primary left behind in many noses. In fact, when you consider the rising risks that televised debates pose in the age of YouTube, especially for frontrunners, we’ll be lucky to see any more presidential debates at all. North Carolina’s Democratic Party has cancelled the debate that CBS had hoped to broadcast on April 27, in advance of the state’s May 6 primary. It was expected to be the last of what seems to be an endless string of primary face-offs. Clinton had agreed to it, but Obama wouldn’t commit. Clinton’s campaign criticized Obama for that, but he shrugged off the criticism. He told reporters that he would rather spend his time meeting directly with voters. Considering the pummeling he took on ABC, who could blame him? Besides, he said, after 21 debates the two candidates can recite each other’s lines by heart. Right. That’s the trouble. If they did recite each other’s lines, the two liberal Democrats wouldn’t sound all that different from how they sound now, at least, not on the big important issues. As a result, they almost invite questions about the small stuff, the hot-button “gotcha” questions that make exciting television. Obama looked like he’d rather be anyplace other than the Pennsylvania debate, a heat-seeking scandal probe moderated by ABC anchormen Charles Gibson and George Stephanopoulos. For about half of its 90 minutes, Obama faced questions that gave more importance to whether he likes wearing American flag lapel pins than how he would deal with job losses, health care, the Iraq war or rising fuel prices. Clinton seemed only slightly more at ease as she pushed herself through yet another explanation and apology for exaggerating the sniper fire she never actually encountered in Bosnia. E-mails of complaint poured into ABC and later into North Carolina’s Democratic Party. State Chairman Jerry Meek, quoted in the Wall Street Journal, said many of the messages he received “felt the ABC debate didn’t touch on the most important issues and they were concerned that might happen again.” Gee, do ya think? That ominous possibility was revealed by a guy who really ought to know. In a New York Times interview, CBS producer Don Hewitt, who directed and produced the John Kennedy-Richard Nixon debate in 1960, explained that debates entail “a big dose of show biz” and “trying to keep an audience.” “When you’re in television,” Hewitt said, “that’s your job.” Indeed, a lot of Democrats are angry at ABC for doing what they do best, which is to put on a TV show. That’s like inviting yourself into a bear’s cave and being surprised that you are mauled. Republicans were just as unhappy when their candidates were asked in an MSNBC/Politico.com debate, “Is there anybody on the stage that does NOT believe in evolution?” The half-dozen candidates stood stunned for a moment before three of them raised their hands. Gotcha! In entertainment terms, the moment made great TV. But it was not really fair to the candidates or their audience. The ABC debate exposed an uncomfortable truth: TV and other new-age electronic media don’t just cover election campaigns. They have increasingly become the campaign. Contrary to popular belief, presidential debates are not written into the Constitution. They did not even begin with Abraham Lincoln. He was a former congressman running for Sen. Stephen Douglas’ seat when the two toured Illinois in a famous series of debates in 1858. No, the first presidential debate was also the first televised debate, the 1960 Kennedy-Nixon face-off in the studios at WBBM-TV, the CBS-owned station in Chicago. “That night,” Russell Baker of The New York Times, later wrote, “image replaced the printed word as the natural language of politics.” The image has only become more important since then - and more easily distorted. Of course, candidates have responded by feeding an industry of spin doctors that has grown since the early 1960s from the dozens into the thousands. If debate formats do more to diminish their client-candidates than to get their campaigns’ messages out, don’t be surprised if more candidates stop showing up. And, if voters feel more insulted by the debate questioners than the candidates, they won’t object. If so, presidential debates could face an ironic end. They could be wiped out by the medium that created them.

Who won what? Thu, 24 Apr 2008 00:42:00 EST
What should be the easiest question in politics after an election -- who won? -- somehow can be devilishly difficult in presidential primaries.

Why tuition taxes? Wed, 23 Apr 2008 23:49:00 EST
The Council on Postsecondary Education should do what its president, Brad Cowgill, suggests -- focus seriously, and skeptically, on the tuition increases being promoted at Kentucky's public colleges and universities.

Americans continue to be bamboozled about the Iraq war Wed, 23 Apr 2008 23:50:00 EST
Anyone offering to follow George W. Bush into the White House should probably have his or her head examined; at least that's what I think. But somebody has to do it.

Gas price gouging Wed, 23 Apr 2008 23:53:00 EST
On April 22, the price of oil futures increased from $117.48 to $119.37. Simple math shows this to be a 1.61 percent increase. On the same day the price of gas at stations in my area rose from $3.41 to $3.69, an increase of 8.2 percent -- five times the increase of the cost of crude!

Will "twists" Galbraith's ideas Wed, 23 Apr 2008 23:52:00 EST
George Will and I must've read different editions of "The Affuent Society"; John Kenneth Galbraith's classic book on economics in the age of plenty.

Gasoline prices: reaping what Democrats have sown Wed, 23 Apr 2008 23:53:00 EST
For years, Democrats have systematically refused to consider opening up federal lands for oil exploration, they won't allow new oil refineries to be built and they've thrown up road blocks to the construction of additional nuclear power plants.

The Democrats' nightmare Wed, 23 Apr 2008 23:54:00 EST
For battle-weary Democrats, the big news out of Pennsylvania is pretty simple: Their nightmare continues.

Osama crashes the party Wed, 23 Apr 2008 23:54:00 EST
What was so shocking, terrible and unfair about flashing Osama bin Laden's ugly mug on a political advertisement? Hillary Clinton's TV spot was the first Democratic ad to make pictorial reference to the al-Qaida terrorist. It was about time.

Meet John 'Dubya' McCain Wed, 23 Apr 2008 23:55:00 EST
John McCain knows a lot less about foreign policy than he'd have us believe. This, anyway, is the impression that's been growing in recent weeks, not least because of a much-discussed New York Times story published recently that painted a growing divide in his campaign between "pragmatists" and "neoconservatives.

Pologomy vs. Foster Care Wed, 23 Apr 2008 23:40:00 EST

Readers' views Thu, 24 Apr 2008 08:10 EDT
PUBLISHING LAWSUIT DETAILS RUINED NEW PRINCIPAL'S MOMENT

I am at a loss as to why the Herald-Leader found it necessary to include information about why Booker T. Washington Academy was looking for a new principal in an April 18 news brief.

The Herald-Leader should have simply announced the appointment of Wendy Brown as the new principal. This was done in the March 9 issue when Leestown Middle School announced its new principal.

Bringing up problems from the past takes away from the excitement that Brown deserves in accepting this position. The Herald-Leader stained her moment.

I hope that the staff, parents and, more important, the students know that Brown will be a wonderful addition to their school.

Older women's wants, voting habits not a mystery Thu, 24 Apr 2008 02:04 EDT
What Women Want, the 2000 comedy starring Mel Gibson and Helen Hunt, has been on TV recently. "What Women Want" was a Newsweek's cover story in March and "what women want and how they will vote" is gist for political discussions on CNN's Inside Politics.

As an older woman, I know a bit about what we want and don't want.

We don't want TV commercials and sitcoms to continue to stereotype us.

We don't want commercials that undervalue us and underestimate our intelligence by portraying us as simpletons who talk to our medications.

"Thank you, Aleve!" women in ads say as they hike up a mountain or frolic on a beach.

Make utility cut high leakage rate Thu, 24 Apr 2008 02:04 EDT
Around the world, the search is on for ways to use resources more efficiently. Even oil companies preach conservation.

But in Lexington, millions of gallons of treated water are wasted because of leaks in Kentucky American Water's distribution system.

This unaccounted-for water loss is about 17 percent, while the national average is 12 percent, according to records on file with the state Public Service Commission.

Simply by reducing its leakage to the national average, Kentucky American could capture about half of the 6 million gallons a day that would initially be produced by a treatment plant that the utility wants to build on the Kentucky River north of Frankfort.

"Prior to saddling the ratepayers with a 50 percent increase in rates, it might be prudent to require (Kentucky American) to fix its leaky pipes," attorney Tom FitzGerald writes in a brief filed on behalf of a citizens group opposing the utility's plans.

Sewer agreement needs oversight Wed, 23 Apr 2008 02:05 EDT
When the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency sued Lexington in November 2006 for violating the federal Clean Water Act, it seemed an end was in sight after years of filthy streams, sewage in basements and flooding every time we had a big rain.

Now, after more than a year of negotiations under Mayor Jim Newberry and this Urban County Council's courageous vote to increase the sewer fee to pay for the work, we're getting close to addressing the problem.

Monday was the deadline for comments to the EPA on a proposed $300 million consent decree. The EPA will consider those comments and either renegotiate parts of the deal or ask U.S. District Judge Karl Forrester to approve it as it now stands.

Both the EPA and Forrester must guarantee that the consent decree has the proper oversight to assure Lexington will solve, not just address, this critical public-safety problem.

The Fayette County Neighborhood Council, the citizens group that has advocated longest, loudest and most knowledgeably for fixing our sewers, is concerned that the consent decree may fall short in that area.

Democratic presidential nomination Thu, 24 Apr 2008 08:22 EDT

Publisher’s Notebook: History Channel has dim view of the future
Producers of The History Channel evidently have a pessimistic outlook for the future of man.

Direct Kick: Stepping away from sports for a minute

Politicians are disconnected
On Wednesday morning, Hillary Clinton awoke with a new sense of determination after winning the crucial Pennsylvania Democratic primary.

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