News opinion 2008-05-21 Andanh.com

Transit plan would help area students Wed, 21 May 2008 10:58:15 -0500
With gas prices continuing to soar, it makes a lot of sense to initiate a program that would give area students the chance to ride a city bus to get to destinations after school. Warren County schools and GO bg transit are working on this joint option that would allow students, with written permission from their parents and school’s approval, to get off the school bus at GO bg transit stops along the school bus route. The students will then board a GO bg bus to get to their destination. So, if a student has a after-school job or if he/she needs to go to events after school, the bus would take them to these places. The program is open to all students. Planners say the program will mainly benefit middle and high school students, who are involved in the most activities. This program has a lot to recommend it. Instead of paying high prices at the pump, students can choose to save money by riding the transit system. It would be especially beneficial to younger students who don’t have their driver’s licenses and students whose parents work and aren’t available to pick them up after school. It would also help parents who do work from having to take off work to take their kids to appointments outside of school. Warren Central has riders who can use GO bg transit buses to get to doctor’s appointments or jobs. In fact, a new bus shelter will be put up at the school in case of inclement weather. We believe comprehensive groundwork has been laid and we would urge that planners consider adding the Bowling Green Junior High and Bowling Green High schools to the list.

Are you serious? Wed, 21 May 2008 10:57:43 -0500
In their litany of American presidents who met with hostile dictators, supporters of Barack Obama cite John F. Kennedy and his meeting with Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev in Vienna in 1961. They leave out how it went. The earnest, young American president wanted to forestall any possibility of misunderstanding and to win Khrushchev’s commitment to the international status quo. The blustery, risk-taking Soviet premier wanted to bludgeon Kennedy into making concessions that would further the Soviet goal of global revolution. With such clashing objectives, the two leaders didn’t exactly hit it off. When Kennedy thought he was being accommodating, Khrushchev thought he was being weak. He pocketed rhetorical concessions by Kennedy and demanded more. Afterward, Kennedy called it “the roughest thing in my life.” Kennedy adviser George Ball later said that Khrushchev had perceived Kennedy as “young and weak,” and Kennedy confidant Gen. Maxwell Taylor thought Khrushchev concluded he could “shove this young man around.” Vienna was the backdrop for Soviet assertion in the Cold War flash points to come. Not all talking is created equal. Which is why it’s folly for a presidential candidate to make a blanket promise to negotiate personally with adversaries. Asked last year at the YouTube debate if he’d be willing to meet “without precondition, during the first year of your administration ... with the leaders of Iran, Syria, Venezuela, Cuba and North Korea,” Obama said “yes.” Since then, he’s tried to elevate his ill-considered improvisation into foreign-policy gospel. So when, in a speech in Israel, President Bush characterized trying to talk adversaries out of their hatreds as appeasement, Obama and his supporters reacted as if he had been skewered to the core. The Obama Doctrine had been attacked! On foreign soil! They countered that the act of talking is, in itself, not appeasement. True enough. But neither is talking a substitute for strategy. Consider President Reagan, another president invoked by Obama supporters. Reagan believed in personal diplomacy, but concluded upon taking office that it was pointless to talk to Soviet hard-liner Leonid Brezhnev. In stiffening U.S. defenses and pursuing the Strategic Defense Initiative, his administration sought to convince Moscow, in the words of Secretary of State George Shultz, that restraint “was its most attractive, or only, option,” while pressuring the tottering Soviet economic system. When Mikhail Gorbachev came to power, the administration thought it had the strategic upper hand, and a man it could work with. Reagan met with his counterpart in Geneva and Reykjavik. Keenly aware of his inability to keep pace in a high-tech arms race, Gorbachev wanted any deal contingent on prohibiting SDI. Reagan said “no.” Out of his weakness, Gorbachev eventually gave the Reagan administration the kinds of arms cuts it wanted and openings in the Soviet system. The Cold War was about to end. If a President Obama handles relations with Iran as deftly, maneuvering the clerical regime to its doom, he’s worthy of his hype. Nothing suggests that he even conceives of his desire to talk in these terms. To do so, he’d have to develop some appreciation for the concept of leverage. Has the Bush administration been too diplomatically inflexible? Maybe, but it has allowed the EU-3 (Great Britain, France and Germany) to take the lead with Iran, and the Europeans have offered incentives for the suspension of its nuclear program. It has engaged in prolonged negotiations with North Korea, winning the (dubious) promise of the suspension of its nuclear program. It has relentlessly promoted Israel-Palestinian negotiations. We have a recent example of even more active Middle East diplomacy. President Clinton had Yasser Arafat to the White House more than any other foreign leader, and his secretary of state, Warren Christopher, spent long, bootless hours with then-Syrian President Hafez al-Assad. When Clinton tried to pressure Arafat and Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak into a deal that wasn’t there near the end of his second term, the second intifada erupted. It wasn’t appeasement; it was just foolish. Obama beware.

Save the Vogt mansion Tue, 20 May 2008 22:18:00 EST
Although Louisville has done a good job in historic preservation efforts, especially several decades ago when the movement really got its start, there are some parts of town that have precious little of their architectural heritage intact.

Dialing for Hitler Tue, 20 May 2008 22:18:00 EST
President Bush, reflecting the intellectual exhaustion of his failed administration, played the appeasement card again the other day.

New radiation center Tue, 20 May 2008 22:19:00 EST
I have practiced medicine in Louisville for 20 years and know how devastating cancer can be for patients and their families.

Clinton, misogyny and an editor's warning Tue, 20 May 2008 22:20:00 EST
I was surprised to see Marie Cocco's column about misogynist behavior toward Sen. Hillary Clinton by some of the supposedly most respected names in journalism. It's a long overdue piece.

The debate over marriage America ought to have Wed, 21 May 2008 04:13:00 EST
The new California court decision advancing gay marriage will reignite "the debate," the headlines read. What impact will the issue have on the presidential campaigns?

What Clinton has achieved Tue, 20 May 2008 22:23:00 EST
Hillary Clinton isn't going to be elected the first woman president -- not this year, anyway. The reasons for this outcome have gratifyingly little to do with her gender.

Obama: lay off Michelle Tue, 20 May 2008 22:23:00 EST
Chivalry is still charming, as Barack Obama proved when he recently warned Tennessee Republicans to leave his wife alone.

King WAS confrontational Tue, 20 May 2008 22:24:00 EST
We should all be able to agree that the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. was "confrontational." He was also wise, measured, visionary, good-natured and generous of heart -- like most great figures in history, he was complicated.

More woes for veterans Tue, 20 May 2008 22:26:00 EST
The comment was outrageous, but it was not the least bit surprising. A psychologist responsible for assessing returning war veterans for post-traumatic stress disorder.

Onward, green soldiers Tue, 20 May 2008 22:27:00 EST
A preventive war worked out so well in Iraq that Washington last week launched another. The new preventive war -- the government responding forcefully against a postulated future threat.

Readers' views Wed, 21 May 2008 08:33 EDT
EDITORIAL'S LABELS DIDN'T DESCRIBE EVERY VOTER

The Herald-Leader's May 16 editorial endorsing Sen. Barack Obama for the Democratic presidential nomination implied that anyone who would vote for Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton is lower-income, less-educated, older, rural and white. As a longtime reader of the Herald-Leader, I have almost come to expect such. However, this newspaper is, alas, "the only show in town."

I am older, college-graduated and white. I live in town and have an adequate income, so I do not fit all of the derogatory adjectives the editorial used. Couldn't the writer think of any more?

I voted for Clinton on Tuesday because, after careful consideration, I deemed her the better-qualified candidate. For that, the editorial board may hang any label on me it likes, but labels won't alter my decisions as I exercise my dearly bought privilege of voting for the person of my choice.

I note, too, that the Herald-Leader did not print the editorial until it precluded many publishable responses such as this before the election.

Think about small business before you cast ballot Tue, 20 May 2008 02:03 EDT
Listen to the news coverage of this year's presidential race, and you'll hear a lot about the importance of different voting blocs, about how groups of people, clustered by age, gender or some other demographic are going to tilt the election in favor of one candidate or another.

But there's one bloc of voters that politicians and pundits tend to overlook: people who own or work for small businesses.

That's a mistake.

Small business is the soul of Kentucky's economy. Small businesses account for 97 percent of the state's employer firms and 51 percent of the state's non-farm work force, according to the latest numbers from the Small Business Administration. By any measure, small-business owners and employees are a significant voting bloc.

But according to a recent National Federation of Independent Business survey, it's a voting bloc that thinks it's being ignored.

State can't afford coal propaganda Wed, 21 May 2008 02:05 EDT
The coal industry is booming. State government is busted. So why is state government picking up the coal industry's public-relations tab?

Even in years when the state isn't cutting education and raiding consumer-protection funds to balance the budget, you could question the wisdom of diverting $400,000 from tax coffers into public education efforts by Kentucky coal industry groups.

This year it makes no sense at all.

The price of coal has tripled in recent years to $100 a ton. The industry can afford to put out its message without any help.

And that's exactly what it did during former Gov. Ernie Fletcher's tenure. Fletcher and the legislature channeled the $400,000 for "coal education" into more urgent needs.

More addicts than treatment Tue, 20 May 2008 02:03 EDT
We humans are programmed to crave a happy ending. The story in Monday's paper about the expansion of the Men's Hope Center in Lexington tempts us into the satisfied feeling of a job accomplished.

Don't go there.

The Hope Center's growth -- adding about 50 spots for people in treatment -- is a huge and worthy accomplishment, one that will allow the successful program to reach more men trying to recover their lives from addiction.

But standing in line behind them are tens of thousands of Kentuckians. Last year, an estimated 375,000 Kentuckians needed substance treatment, but only one in 12 would get it.

The other 11 aren't just personal tragedies.

Mitch's presidential support Wed, 21 May 2008 08:49 EDT

Chinese Dir