tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-70636309233565629412024-03-13T06:28:02.466-04:00Lucy's Lease on LifeThis blog chronicles the life and times of Lucy Jett Waterbury. Lucy is a full time Realtor and all around geek. She is the mother of 2 small children and for the most part, maintains some semblance of sanity on most days.Lucy Waterburyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00997988016871227949noreply@blogger.comBlogger21125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7063630923356562941.post-66582602135107233712017-01-18T11:19:00.001-05:002017-01-18T16:52:18.456-05:00Dear Betsy DeVos, I Can Get You a Great Price on an Ark in Kentucky, to build your...ahem, "God's Kingdom"<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Enough with the rain already. And when I say enough, I mean we haven't seen the sun since God did the math and realized the days until inauguration were quickly approaching and he began crying. It has been cloudy and/or raining for so many days straight in Kentucky, I have run out of fingers and toes to count them. On my drive to check on a real estate listing in an adjoining county yesterday, I noticed we have had so much rain, newly created ponds now exist in the middle of horse farm fields. This is Kentucky, horse farms are what we do here and rain is evidently what God does here.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">I have a district level PTA meeting this morning. It is 7:05am and I just put my kids on their school bus. I love their bus driver & bus monitor; these kind folks are the district's first ambassadors to my kids, and I am thankful for them and the bus service they provide. They greet my kids and me with smiles and waves every day. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Attending PTA meetings and putting my kids on the bus is nothing new for us, but it is important. We are folks who show up; it's what my people do. We show up to serve and to learn; these are two actions that define me as a person and I hope to instill and distill in these small humans. We show up and we learn...always...and forever, for the rest of our days. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">I serve as my public school district's PTA By-Laws Chairwoman, serving local units by advising them on by-laws questions and helping to form the governing by-laws document for new local units as we open more public schools in this county. This district serves over 40,000 very deserving kids, who will win your heart in not a New York minute, but a Kentucky second. The least I can do is help their parents </span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">(not enough, but we will take as many soldiers in this fight for public education we can get)</span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"> govern their parent and teacher associations, whose main purpose is to advocate for the public school children in their buildings.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">So back to the rain. But fear not my fair weather friends (see what I did there?), if this rain continues for 40 days and 40 nights, there is an Ark in Kentucky! And when I say Ark, I don't mean a painting of an Ark on a church nursery wall, although we have lots of those here too (more than I can count on my fingers and toes, in fact). Yes that's correct, we have a to scale, life size Ark. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Fortunately for Kentucky....ahem, this is the "Year of the Bible" (as declared by our Tea Party Governor Matt Bevin...but then again he declared 2016 the year of the bible too). As such, apparently our Governor's mansion has a high speed internet connection to God (shhhhh, don't tell Pope Francis) and Noah's blueprints were provided to the developers on a thumb drive. Meanwhile in Moscow, those same blueprints were hacked, were then given to President Elect Donald Trump, and a nice stipend was paid to Moscow by the Koch Brothers. While watching the Ark rise like Phoenix in Kentucky, these brothers also realized that there was a great opportunity to use the Kentucky Tea Party Governor to unseat the Board of Trustees at the University of Louisville, putting the state University's accreditation at risk. Licking their wounds, after their failed attempts at controlling hiring at the University of Kentucky's </span><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">John H. Schnatter Institute for the Study of Free Enterprise in the Gatton College of Business and Economics, the Koch brothers then decide to turn their attention to destroying the Affordable Care Act, in their master plan to make America sick again.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Okay, I am kidding (sort of) about all of that, but it wouldn't surprise me that any of them would claim that they had a dream (clearly </span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">nothing like the dreams of Martin Luther King Jr.!)</span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">, Noah came to them in this dream and told them to build the Ark, unseat the UofL Board of Trustees and declare it the Year of the Bible in 2016 & 2017, because at this point God, so disappointed in their behavior, refuses to speak to them.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Anywho...back to the Kentucky Ark. I am a Real Estate professional, so I like to talk in terms of square feet. At 51 feet high, 85 feet wide, and 510 feet long, with 3 decks, it is over 120,000 square feet (just take my word for it, but please don't ask me to measure it as with all those curves, you would need my real estate appraiser husband's expert skills to meet the ANSI measurement standard). An Ark, just like Noah's. Let that sink in. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Perhaps some of my gentle readers </span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">may have forgotten the details of the biblical story of Noah's Ark or they may </span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">not share my liberal, progressive Christian beliefs (I am a real inconvenient truth to my conservative, regressive Christian brothers and sisters) so here is Lucy's abridged Version:</span></div>
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<li><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">God created men & women...and a whole lot of animals.</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Creation was going along swimmingly until it wasn't.</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">God got mad at his people who were acting like fools (like nominating Betsy DeVos as US Education Secretary )</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">God looked around for anyone who seemed to be behaving.</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Noah was pretty good at getting his kids on the school bus everyday, so God chose him. </span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">He told Noah to build an Ark large enough to hold a male and female of every animal on earth, his wife, his three sons, their wives, and a Tesla. </span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Noah is skeptical but obedient and figures he has no other choice as he is not a member of the Carpenter's Union. </span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">It took Noah a few years, like 120, to build the Ark.</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Noah turns 600 years old (this part is true), begins drawing Medicare (most likely not true) and corrals all those animals, not to mention his wife who was probably thinking...<i>"I should have married that other guy from my high school Algebra Class" </i>onto the Ark.</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">God makes it rain 40 days and 40 nights and floods the entire Earth, killing all living things, except Noah, his wife, his sons Eric & Don Jr. & Barron (who was cranky about leaving his Xbox One in Mid-town Manhattan) and those animals who I am sure at that point were logically eating each other. God realizes that this plan is brilliant, achieving post-Creation Take 1 natural selection goals and avoiding the US Fish & Wildlife Animal Extinction protocols that had become a bit cumbersome before he wiped the planet.</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">The rain stops, the land dries, the Ark "lands" in Grant County, Kentucky, costing Kentucky tax payers $18.25 Million in tax rebates, but creating 350 of a promised 20,000 jobs. (Okay, the last part didn't really happen, unbelievably the Ark Encounter in Kentucky was built in 4 years and opened in 2016. Opened in 2016...let that sink in. The tax rebates and relatively small number of jobs is just one example of the Tourism "Vaporware" coming to a theater near you.)</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">God had great hope for the offspring of Eric, Don Jr. & Barron. </span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Noah joins the Carpenter's union, lives out his days on Medicare, and a defined benefit pension set up for Noah by God, thankfully not relying on the unbelievably underfunded Kentucky Public Pension system.</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">God comes to earth in the form of man and his name is Jesus.</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Jesus is a really good dude. He heals people, demanding no co-pays. Leprosy is not a pre-existing condition to Jesus. He clothes and feeds the poor. He becomes friends with prostitutes. He loves the little children, even the Muslims and Jews. In the form of Jesus, God tries to show his people what to do and has bracelets made with WWJD on them so when they begin to act foolish it will remind them "What Would Jesus Do?"</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">God's most "devout" people, sitting in their Penthouse towers and sprawling mansions think they know better what God's Kingdom really looks like, chronically reducing funding to public schools & social support programs, thereby harming "the least of these", gilding everything in Gold and hoarding the rest in hedge funds, instead of giving it to the poor. Clearly, this is not what Jesus would do.</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">God watches the 2016 United States (& Kentucky) Election Results in horror, he cannot imagine how his words and teachings have become so misconstrued.</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">President Elect Trump nominates Betsy DeVos, (a billionaire heiress who has never attended a public school, nor put a child of hers on a school bus) for US Education Secretary. DeVos declares that in her role as US Secretary of Education, as she irrevocably destroys public education, she will use it to advance God's Kingdom. </span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">God begins crying in Kentucky, conveniently close to the Ark (coincidence...I think not!)</span></li>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">So Betsy DeVos, as God continues crying, my training in Economics and my professional experience as a Real Estate professional, tell me that the price on that Ark is going to rise dramatically. So we have to get on this Ark now!</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">I have some serious doubts that you will be considered the best behaved as it seems as though What Jesus Would (Actually) Do is pretty irrelevant to you. So go ahead and list that $10 Million dollar House that Amway built of yours in Michigan. Then, just drop a dime and give me a ring on the phone, text if you prefer, and I can set up a showing of the Ark. But I suspect before long, we will be in a multiple offer situation with your own President Elect and the Koch Brothers. After all, they already know their way around Kentucky.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">When we win the multiple offer situation (my multiple offer winning track record is HUGE!), if you are feeling frisky, you could even use your billions to move it here to Lexington and we will see if we can get your grand kids on a school bus route with my fabulous school bus driver and bus monitor. Wait, never mind. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">If it is God's Kingdom you seek to build, do us all a favor, start with your own billion (with a B), and not that of the struggling working poor & middle class United States tax payer.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">It is now time for me to grab my umbrella and head to my PTA meeting.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">A good person leaves an inheritance for their children’s children, but a sinner’s wealth is stored up for the righteous.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"> — Proverbs 13:22</span></div>
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Lucy Waterburyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00997988016871227949noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7063630923356562941.post-4474814948267535462016-02-20T09:54:00.001-05:002016-02-20T09:54:54.758-05:00Justice Scalia...If You're Gonna "Play" in Texas, Please Pack Your Glass Slippers, 'Cause Cinderela is on Speed Dial<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">In an unbelievable stroke of something, Justice Antonin Scalia, died in his sleep a week ago. Was it divine intervention, with some fortuitous timing thrown in? Was it his heart? Did he choke on the mint left on his pillow </span><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">by his Billionaire homies </span><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">at a luxurious ranch? Was the unbelievable stroke of something literally a stroke? </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Just like the number of licks it takes to get to the center of a Tootsie Roll pop, the world will never know his cause of death because another type of Justice, of the peace, chose to not have an autopsy. No autopsy done on the body of a Supreme Court Justice that dies unexpectedly. Seems kind of nuts, right? Well apparently Scalia enjoyed his cigarettes and suffered from many chronic health concerns, so logically it was assumed he died of nature causes. So I get it, but still, this is a big deal that went down in Texas while he was being hosted at a luxurious ranch, owned by a Billionaire, whose case was conveniently denied a hearing by the Supreme Court. You are thinking, surely this case was from years ago. Nope, this case was denied a hearing in 2015! As they say, the devil is in the details but damn don't you think those details tell us something!</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">So back to the scene of the lack of the crime (okay, not the crime you are thinking of anyway) in Texas....</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">If you pay any attention to the ridiculous shenanigans that go on in most state legislatures, you know that in Texas they have some pretty crazy laws and "goings on" in their legislative chambers. (Don't get me started on the concealed tampon restrictions of 2013...truth is stranger than fiction! Did you miss this? Click -----> <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/she-the-people/wp/2013/07/12/tampons-threatened-during-texas-abortion-debate/" target="_blank">Texas Tampongate</a>) </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">One of those crazy Texas laws allows for a Justice of the Peace, to declare someone dead, over the phone, without actually laying eyes on the body. In </span><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">this case our Justice of the Peace lead roll is played by Judge Cinderela Guavera (truth is stranger than fiction...AGAIN! And as if having a name like Cinderela isn't strange enough, apparently her parents made up a new spelling of the name Cinderella!) </span><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Maybe I am an old fashion kind of girl, but actually checking for a pulse seems like a logical requirement to declare someone dead. Okay, so obviously Texas has some challenges related to geography, and on an average day this law probably makes sense, but seriously?! A Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States passes away unexpectedly and no one (</span><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">including and especially Cinderela) </span><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">thinks, hmmmm....these circumstances are a little extraordinary, so perhaps A. Burning some gas, seeing the body in person, & checking for a pulse, and B. ordering an autopsy is in order here? This kind of lack of judgement is not one you want to come back and bite you in the ass, you know like something that could get you denied a promotion to the Court of Appeals or something.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Not surprisingly, two other Justices of the Peace were called before the local authorities "dropped a dime" to Judge Cinderela. Conveniently, those other two justices of the peace were "out of town" and unavailable to declare the death. Well, as we all now know from the paragraph above, whether you are out of town in Texas, does not diminish your ability to declare a death. In fact, a Justice of the Peace in Texas could be scuba diving in the Great Barrier Reef with their IPhone secured in a waterproof case and declare somebody dead from a diving boat on the other side of the world. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">I think, which is merely speculation on my part, finding a Justice of the Peace to declare Justice Scalia dead last Saturday, went something more like this....</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><b>BFE Texas dispatcher </b></span><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-style: italic;">(For my readers who are unfamiliar with internet slang translations, here is a tip: BFE is "Bum F#$% Egypt" meaning in the middle of nowhere)</span><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">: "Hey Justice of the Peace Judge Walker Texas Ranger, this is Billy Joe Jim Bob at Presidio County 911 Dispatch. You are never gonna believe this but... I just heard from Jack from EMT rig #666 that we got a very cold Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, out at Poindexter's ranch out there on Highway Contract Route 67. Yeah, you know the place...where all those rich, famous, & politically connected people who could easily afford to pay for their own stay, are hosted for free in exchange for political favors. Anywho... could you head on out there, or better yet, just save yourself a trip, and give 'em a ring-a-ding-ding, and declare Scalia dead? If you could, I would really owe you one 'cause the first Justice of the Peace I called just came down with a spontaneous case of laryngitis and I'm in a pickle here."</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><b>Justice of the Peace Judge Walker Texas Ranger</b>: (throat clearing heard over the headset) "Sorry Billy Joe Jim Bob, you know I am normally up for declaring people dead over the phone, like we do here in Texas, but unfortunately, I am out of town."</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><b>BFE Texas dispatcher</b>: "Well I hear ya Judge, but seeing as how you can declare him dead over the phone, couldn't ya..."</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><b>Justice of the Peace Judge Walker Texas Ranger</b>: (vocally fabricated static sounds heard through the dispatcher's head set) "Can you hear me now, Billy Joe Jim Bob?! I think I'm losing my cell signal (more vocally fabricated static sounds that gradually fade heard through the dispatcher's headset)....." Click.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><b>BFE Texas dispatcher thinking to himself</b>: <i>Hmmm, well that was my second unsuccessful attempt to get somebody, guess I better call Justice of the Peace, Judge Cinderela. But for the life of me I can't figure out why her parents didn't use the typical Disney princess spelling of her name....</i></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">If you haven't been following the news story...here is the spoiler. Judge Cinderela declares him dead over the phone, does not order an autopsy and goes on about her weekend with her Prince Charming (I would suggest a Princess Charming, but ya know this is rural Texas, Scalia's version of "God's Country" we are talking about, so statistically unlikely). The rest, as they say, is now history.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Speaking of history, Antonin Scalia was the only child of an Italian Catholic immigrant father and 1st generation American Italian mother who was a school teacher. He was a product of the New York public school #13 through 8th grade and obtained a scholarship to attend a Jesuit military high school. Given his father's immigrant status and his attendance to New York public schools in Queens, NY in the 40s, it is hard for me to understand what I perceive to be a 30 year track record of a lack of empathy for Americans that do not share his race, ethnicity, gender, religion & political ideology. Did he never leave his block in Queens?! Come on now, he grew up in a burough of the immigration melting pot of America for our God's sake! </span><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">Well, in fact he did leave his block in Queens, and he never looked back.</span><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"> </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">From what has been written about him, he was an extremely intelligent, charismatic, and gregarious guy. In my mind, those are God given attributes and how you put those talents to work for those who you took an oath to serve, is where the devil is in the details. The oath he took was this: </span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 20px; text-align: justify;">"I, Antonin Scalia, do solemnly swear or affirm that I will administer justice without respect to persons, and do equal right to the poor and to the rich, and that I will faithfully and impartially discharge and perform all the duties incumbent upon me as Supreme Court Justice, according to the best of my abilities and understanding, agreeably to the constitution and laws of the United States. So help me God."</span></blockquote>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">He will need the help of his God, my God, and everyone else's at this point, but speaking of the devil....</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">In 2013, Jennifer Senior with <i>New York Magazine</i> interviewed Justice Scalia. The transcript of this interview is very enlightening indeed. You can read the entire interview here: <a href="http://nymag.com/news/features/antonin-scalia-2013-10/" target="_blank">In Conversation: Antonin Scalia</a></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">There were two telling exchanges that I find pretty staggering in terms of his impact of administering justice on the Supreme Court and the repercussions for all of God's Children, believers and non-believers. One is his unapologetic refusal to consider the fact that hundreds of millions of Americans that look different, worship Gods of different faiths or perhaps none at all, loving whomever their heart desires, and living relatively peaceably in one country, might actually be what the Founding Fathers intended all along. </span><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">That is my brand of "Originalism". </span><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Instead of hiding behind a veil that our government of 50 United, yet politically divided State, has a perfect system of passing Constitutional amendments, why don't we try and see legislation for how it was intended and then do no harm. </span><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">Many of those founding fathers were Presbyterian and they fled the same religious persecution that Justice Scalia felt compelled to uphold, through his own religious beliefs, dissents from the majority, and his opposition to civil rights. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">But back to the devil.....</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><b>Justice Scalia</b>: I even believe in the Devil.<span style="background-color: transparent;"> </span></span></blockquote>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><b> Jennifer Senior: You do?</b><span style="background-color: transparent;"> </span></span></blockquote>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><b>Justice Scalia</b>: Of course! Yeah, he’s a real person. Hey, c’mon, that’s standard Catholic doctrine! Every Catholic believes that.<span style="background-color: transparent;"> </span></span></blockquote>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><b>Jennifer Senior<i>: Every</i> Catholic believes this? There’s a wide variety of Catholics out there…</b></span></blockquote>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><b>Justice Scalia</b>: If you are faithful to Catholic dogma, that is certainly a large part of it.</span></blockquote>
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<b><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Jennifer Senior: Have you seen evidence of the Devil lately?</span></b></blockquote>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><b></b><span style="background-color: white; color: #232323; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20.02px;"><b>Justice Scalia</b>: You know, it is curious. In the Gospels, the Devil is doing all sorts of things. He’s making pigs run off cliffs, he’s possessing people and whatnot. And that doesn’t happen very much anymore.</span></span></blockquote>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><b style="background-color: white; color: #232323; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20.02px;">Jennifer Senior: Isn’t it terribly frightening to believe in the Devil?</b></span> </blockquote>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><b style="background-color: white; color: #232323; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20.02px;"></b></span><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #232323; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20.02px;"><b>Justice Scalia</b>: You’re looking at me as though I’m weird. My God! Are you so out of touch with most of America, most of which believes in the Devil? I mean, Jesus Christ believed in the Devil! It’s in the Gospels! You travel in circles that are so, </span><i style="background-color: white; color: #232323; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20.02px;">so</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #232323; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20.02px;"> removed from mainstream America that you are appalled that anybody would believe in the Devil! Most of mankind has believed in the Devil, for all of history. Many more intelligent people than you or me have believed in the Devil.</span> </span></blockquote>
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Oh, and on how he will be perceived by history.....</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><b>Jennifer Senior:</b> "Fifty years from now, which decisions in your tenure do you think will be heroic?" <span style="background-color: transparent;"> </span></span></blockquote>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><b>Justice Scalia:</b> "Heroic?"<span style="background-color: transparent;"> </span></span></blockquote>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><b>Jennifer Senior: "</b>Heroic."<span style="background-color: transparent;"> </span></span></blockquote>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><b>Justice Scalia: </b>"Oh, my goodness. I have no idea. You know, for all I know, 50 years from now I may be the Justice Sutherland of the late-twentieth and early-21st century, who’s regarded as: “He was on the losing side of everything, an old fogey, the old view.” And I don’t care."</span></blockquote>
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Speaking of the Gospels.....</span><br />
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<span class="text Matt-25-40" id="en-NIV-24049" style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; box-sizing: border-box;"><i>“The King will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.’ Matthew 25:40 (NIV)</i></span></blockquote>
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<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">Justice Scalia, the gospels do speak of the devil but they also speak of how we are to live our lives as Christians and how we are to treat all of God's children.</span><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"> When you read this gospel in the book of Mark, were you confused that The King it was referring to was Elvis? Nope, The King is Jesus, The Prince of Peace. But that's how our King works, pushing us to try and understand each imperfect human as such, meet each and every one where they are, and love them anyway. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">They say the road to hell is paved with "good intentions", but I think that road is paved with old views that become judicial and legislative platforms when used to withhold action, or when put into action, harm "the least of these" in our society. What "good intentions" would those be...Well you know like some historic "originalist" old views would protect things like slavery ownership, overt or covert discrimination, population segregation, and disenfranchisement of minorities through the lack of suffrage, just to name a few. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">Justice Sutherland that he refers to in the interview is another Justice that is viewed on the "losing side of everything", including Roosevelt's New Deal legislation. Sutherland holds the record of having the most decisions overturned of any Justice in the history of the United States. Let's hope we can break that record overturning Justice Scalia's decisions. </span><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"> Change is painful but nothing truly trans-formative happens without pain.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Make no mistake, T<span style="background-color: white;">he</span></span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"> Affordable Care Act is not exactly the New Deal but it is Scalia's equivalent of such. And repealing it, as Scalia would have done, would have caused considerable pain, especially for the "least of these". Ironically, as our society continues to evolve into a world were the acceptance of diversity and doing for the "least of these" is legislatively mandated, the old view looks a lot like the devil's work, and not What Jesus Would do at all, or I guess that's just how I see it. </span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">But again, there is that Presbyterian USA coming out in me again; truth be told, unlike Scalia, I don't really believe in the devil or hell, per se. I believe that humans are imperfect children of God that are tempted by our weaknesses and faults. How we respond to those temptations, like I don't know... consuming free vacations at ranches with billionaires who conveniently avoided an appeal against them before the Supreme Court, defines our moral character. </span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">How we treat "the least of these", those who can never repay us, but from which we never expect anything other than paying it forward, is my benchmark. But perhaps when you spend the vast majority of your life among the most of these, you fail to recognize the least of these, and the necessity of protecting those who cannot protect themselves as they are too busy trying to feed their kids and keep their lights on. </span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">Justice Scalia, it seems this luxury resort trip, which if you hadn't died we would know nothing about, will be the cherry on top of your legacy. A legacy of failing to recuse yourself when a conflict of interest arose, or accepting gifts, hunting trips and benefits from people who would come before your court, when your impartiality might be in question. Fortunately for you, as you have said, you don't care. But there are many of us in this life, including the leader of your own church, Pope Francis who care immensely about our legacy in this life. </span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">Speaking of Pope Francis.... now he is a guy I can get behind! Kudos to the Cardinals for picking this Pope; he is such a phenomenal living example of exactly what Jesus would do! </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Regardless of the fact that our politics and interpretation of the teachings of Christ could not be more diametrically opposed to each other, I believe that he is in a better place. And I believe he is there not because he was a Supreme Court Justice, not because he was a protector of, what he perceived to be, Christian (Catholic) values, and I am sure he felt like his old views made him a good Catholic. (Justice Scalia, I hate to break it to ya, but when Pope Francis stops washing poor people's feet long enough, he may have an issue with your definition of a good Catholic, but you will have a long wait as this Pope just keeps washing feet & making Christ's love known in this broken world). </span><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">No, I believe he is there simply because he is a child of God, nothing more, nothing less. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">I don't believe in a faith that preaches that one "earns" their way into heaven or conversely</span><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"> to hell. I pray to a God that hates the sin but loves the sinner, rewards love not vitriol, and motivates me by faith instead of paralyzing me by fear. </span><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">It isn't his God that he should be concerned about judging him, but the lens of history and the respect of his grandchildren. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">My fellow Americans, I hope that when he metaphorically "turned into a pumpkin" last Saturday, after Cinderela herself declared him dead via her mobile phone, that the "glass slipper" he left behind was shattered into a million pieces so no one can fill his shoes.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">And for the record Justice Scalia, as I am sure you recognize by now, the Prince of Peace looks nothing like Cinderella's Price Charming but a whole lot like a Middle Eastern Jew. So, help you God.</span><br />
<br />Lucy Waterburyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00997988016871227949noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7063630923356562941.post-76845461468419516222015-11-26T08:50:00.000-05:002015-11-26T21:02:01.050-05:00Amy Louise Parrish Jett: My Grandmother, the Change Agent, and My
Constant<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">She died in the same way she lived, with a lot of grace and on her terms, in her time, and in her space. She died at home, 90 seconds after we stopped singing to her in 3 part harmony, and 98.666667 (decimals, then rounding.....really, who besides me calculates that but you know, when I am approaching 99, I want the credit for every day I could get for hanging around this planet for so long!) years after being born at home. Of the myriad of lessons her life taught me, this lesson has become part of the fabric of my being; the lesson that birth and death, can and when medically possible, should happen at home, making sacred space even more sacred.</span><br>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">There is so much I could write about my amazing Grandmother. It is odd to me now that I think about it, that the eulogy that I wrote for her is her first substantial "appearance" in my blog. But that is the way it always is, right? We never truly honor other individuals of such substance during their lifetimes as we should. So it is after their death, when they ostensibly can't hear us, that we speak of them the most. </span><br>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Although I have to say...I was constantly mindful of the time falling through the hour glass as she advanced in years, so I chose to be in her physical presence as much as possible, knowing how intensely I would miss her when she was gone. There are really no words to describe how it feels, now that the sand has run out. But that is a blog post for another time.</span><br>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">We had her Celebration of Life ceremony on November 15th. Although she died on October 27th in Richmond, Kentucky, she donated her body to medical research at the University of Kentucky,in Lexington, Kentucky, so we weren't pressed for time. She lived in Richmond her entire life & I have lived in Lexington for over 20 years now, making it feel more like home to me than my own hometown. Honestly, it is strangely comforting to have her in Lexington with me. I never said I was normal. </span><br>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Interestingly, although she has 3 living children, & 7 living grandchildren, of which I am the youngest at 40, I wrote and delivered her eulogy. I was given 5 minutes. Her service resembled more of a music concert, than a funeral. It was 65 minutes of music and 10 minutes of homily and eulogy. I was given 5 minutes because w</span><span style="font-family: 'trebuchet ms', sans-serif;">e are not Catholic, nor Episcopal, we are Presbyterians. Presbyterians get a bit antsy when we breach the 60 minute mark for any service. Always mindful that we are charged to be the hands and feet of Christ, that there is pain and suffering to be tended to, and good works to be done outside of that building, long after the last notes of the music have faded. But we just couldn't get it all in under an hour. </span><br>
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<span style="font-family: 'trebuchet ms', sans-serif;">At the end a friend of mine overheard a comment from another congregant saying, "You would have to pay $1000 to hear this music performed in New York City!" </span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Only the musical repertoire of Amy Jett would include handbells, 2 choir anthems with</span><span style="font-family: 'trebuchet ms', sans-serif;"> </span><span style="font-family: 'trebuchet ms', sans-serif;">a flute accompaniment,</span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"> 3 hymns beautifully sung in 4 part harmony, <i>Amazing Grace</i> sung a capella by a close friend, a spiritual, <i>Precious Lord, Take My Hand</i>, Faure's <i>In Paradisium, </i>Bach's <i>Sheep May Safely Graze,</i> and conclude with </span><span style="font-family: 'trebuchet ms', sans-serif;">Widor's <i>Toccata </i>from the Fifth Organ Symphony in F, Op 42 #1</span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">. </span><br>
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<span style="font-family: 'trebuchet ms', sans-serif;">It was only fitting that we requested that everyone remain seated to experience the <i>Toccata</i>. If you have never experienced it, do yourself a favor and click on this link and watch and listen as it is played in the National Cathedral in Washington D.C. : <a href="https://youtu.be/pdrwazpZvAQ" target="_blank">Widor's Toccata</a>. It is over 6 minutes long, so pull up a chair, get your ear buds, pour a cup of coffee, & commit to the<i> Toccata. </i>It is life changing. My kids made it through the entire service, including sitting quietly and contentedly through the <i>Toccata, </i>so you can too. But, if you must fast forward, go to the 3:30 minute mark and listen to the end. (And if you must fast forward...perhaps slow down a bit, the truest beauty of this life is happening around you, become a part of it. If you have the time to watch the SNL Thanksgiving skit rendition of Adele's <i>Hello</i>, you have time for the <i>Toccata. </i>Speaking of Adele's <i>Hello</i>, if I were Lionel Ritchie, I would be saying the same thing...<b>Hello?!</b>) </span><br>
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<span style="font-family: 'trebuchet ms', sans-serif;">Everyone said it was perfect. It didn't feel like it. I paused to find my voice time and again, as it cracked under emotion and I struggled to finish. They said it didn't seem like that, but public speaking is a bit surreal by nature and when you are speaking about a recently deceased loved one, it is a surreal factor of 10. Once I was seated again, after singing in the second choir anthem, <i>Abide with Me</i>, I found my zen place. But when the <i>Tocatta </i>filled the acoustics of her church (and mine) I lost it, sobbing into my hands, as the reality hit me that her favorite instrument was so masterfully played in her honor. Does is surprise you that it was played by her favorite organist who gladly traveled 100 miles to be there and play in her honor?</span><br>
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<span style="font-family: 'trebuchet ms', sans-serif;">It was the most fitting tribute to her that was imaginable. She lived and left this life as masterfully as the <i>Tocatta</i> was played on "her" organ that day. The symbolism quite honesty, broke me. It is now 11 days after I delivered this eulogy and while I am no longer broken, I am honestly not fixed either. But that is how it is with grief, you are never really fixed, just eternally different.</span><br>
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<span style="font-family: 'trebuchet ms', sans-serif;">So here it is....my eulogy to Amy Louise Parrish Jett.</span><br>
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<span style="font-family: trebuchet ms, sans-serif;"><i>Welcome to Amy Jett's Sacred Place. She would be so pleased to share this amazing instrument behind me, that will be expertly played by a good friend. There was no greater protector of this Tracker Organ, than she. She would tell you that it is one of the finest pipe organs of it's size east of the Mississippi River.</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'trebuchet ms', sans-serif;"><i>A little over a month after Amy Louise Parrish was born on a day so snowy that the doctor was required to ride on horseback to deliver her, the Unites States sent combat troops into France and declared war on Germany during World War I. This was the first of 2 world wars that would take place during her lifetime. </i></span></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">War was not the only source of death and casualties that year as a flu pandemic also struck in 1917, claiming the lives of 500,000 Americans, including the life of my husband's great grandfather only 100 miles north of Richmond, Kentucky. How frightening it must have been for my great grandmother Lucy, whom I am named for, to realize that a flu pandemic was yet one more medical threat to the life of her newborn born on Mule Shed Lane in Madison County, Kentucky.</span></i></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">She was 3 when women were given the right to vote 55 years prior to the day of my own birthday, August 18, 1920. </span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">The first motion picture with sound was released, the Federal Bureau of Investigation was created, the first transatlantic flight took place, and the Stock Market crashed which instigated the Great Depression....all before she turned 12.</span></i></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">She would tell me stories of her childhood, growing up on the farm in Kirksville, Kentucky, when an orange would be her only Christmas gift, and for that one orange, she was abundantly thankful. I am sure that this attitude of abundance served her well as she faced the rations that all Americans endured during the </span></i></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">She was the greatest of the Greatest Generation and came of age in the era of the New Deal. </span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Franklin D. Roosevelt would serve an unprecedented 4 terms of office, being inaugurated when she was 15 and serving until she was 28.</span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"> </span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">And it was during this time that she started her family, giving birth to her own version of the Silent Generation. If you know my father and his sisters, you will recognize the irony, as these three are rarely silent about anything. They learned from their mother that using your voice, whether for advocacy or for soul soothing activities such as a vocal performance, is important.</span></i></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Her mother & father realized that she had a brilliant mind, that never stopped, and made the monetary and considerable logistical sacrifice to make sure their daughter received an education. She graduated from high school at the age of 16 and proceeded to fall in love with a man many years her senior. Paul Jett also recognized her intellectual ability and always encouraged her to be herself, allowing her to live her passions for music, gardening, Cecilian Club, National Federation of Music Clubs, church, Project Read, the list goes on and on, but most importantly her family, during almost 6 decades of marriage.</span></i></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">When my Grandfather was no longer able to do so,</span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"> s</span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">he went to work at Jett & Hall (what my family refers to as "the stores") assisting my mother and father in continuing the Jett & Hall legacy. She stayed mostly in the clothing store, with my Dad, making custom alterations to suits, pants and sport coats. What she didn't finish while in the store, she would often carry home to finish after dinner and bring back the next day. If asked, she could have quoted the measurements of many in this room today as she performed your alterations over the years. I have fond memories of spending Saturdays with her in the stores as she taught me how to match a men's tie to a latent thread color in a suit, how to rectify my cash drawer, build displays of accessories, credit and debit charge account statements, make night drops, and wrap gift boxes. </span></i></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">She taught me how to interact with customers and close a sale because that was ultimately put food on our table, but she also taught me compassion and kindness for the "characters" who sometimes wandered in off Main Street. </span></i></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Included in the inventions that revolutionized the world during her later years, were the personal computer, satellite television, e-mail, and the internet. She embraced all of them. In her 80s, she bought a new computer & paid a tutor to teach her how to use the computer. She was over 90 when she began using facebook, years before some of her own grandchildren did, and she used e-mail to communicate with her network of friends and family that stretched throughout the country and other countries.</span></i></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">And in all of this change that occurred during her lifetime, in my lifetime, she was simply my constant. After the deaths of my mother and brother, she was my constant source of strength. She was my constant and incessant cheerleader. </span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">During my teenage years, many of which were spent living with her and my grandfather, she was my constant source of guidance and governance.</span></i></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">One salient memory I have is the loving care she provided when I came down with mononucleosis. As part of my treatment, I had to have round the clock oral antibiotics. In the weeks of my treatment, she would set an alarm in the middle of the night, and bring me my medicine, along with something to eat as this medicine could not be taken on an empty stomach. To give you some perspective, she was 72 years old at this time, raising a 4th teenager. </span></i></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">She was my sage, in the 40 years I was blessed to have her, she was a constant mentor to me drawing on her experience as a talented musician, master gardener, skilled cook, concerned citizen, caring mother, loving grandmother, & compassionate friend.</span></i></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Based on the outpouring of condolences that I have received since her passing, it is obvious how many lives she touched and the difference that she made in the lives of so many. The overwhelming message from all of them was that their lives were made better, just by knowing her. </span></i></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">But her greatest gift to me was teaching me to live an authentic life. She taught me to never take a day for granted and live each one like it might be my last. </span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">She taught me to use my voice, both musically and intellectually, but s</span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">he also taught me to say what I mean and to mean what I say. </span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">She taught me to live fully, love deeply, care passionately and trust my instincts. She taught me that you are never to old to learn and you are never too old to change.</span></i></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Thank you, Amy Louise Parrish Jett, for being a change agent </span></i></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">for so many but for being my constant. </span></i></div>
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Lucy Waterburyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00997988016871227949noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7063630923356562941.post-91080184102773124082015-06-27T12:12:00.000-04:002015-06-27T12:14:17.407-04:00Memo to our next FCPS Superintendent....It's about a lot of things, but it's not the kids<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Source: Fayette County Public Schools<br /><br /><span style="font-size: large;">Legal Disclaimer: <br />This is not an official FCPS memo, this is my personal blog. <br />This is not letterhead, you are reading a computer screen.<br />If you are confused by this, you are not the intended user.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">Stop reading now.</span></span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">Memorandum</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">Date: Saturday, June 27th, 2015</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">To: Our Next Fayette County Public Schools Superintendent</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">From: Lucy Jett Waterbury, Member, Parent Interview Panel</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Let me start by thanking you for spending 45 minutes with me and the panel of 37 incredibly passionate, intelligent, well spoken and diverse parents. We were chosen to represent an exceptionally diverse population of kids, with needs that vary dramatically. The parent selection part of this process was done brilliantly, as this group of parents was phenomenal! But </span><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">I would like to state that I, and most of the parents serving on our panel, found the interviewing process protocol to be unbelievably maddening. </span><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"> If you think that Lexington is full of passive parents that gladly sit there silently, and not engage with you in follow up discussion, this is an incorrect picture that was painted before you. But alas, w</span><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">e didn't get to make the rules, we just had to "tow the line" or resign from the panel. Getting to hear your responses to the "cleansed & newly improved" questions was worth it to us, so we stayed. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">The 11 questions you were asked, of the 65 questions that were submitted, were not ours. Okay, well they started out as ours but then they were run through a sterilization system of hiring consultants, human resource professionals, legal counsel & district staff before they were spit out on the other end, barely recognizable. They needlessly made sausage out of our filet mignon questions, to use an analogy. </span><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">I considered "going rogue" and actually asking you my question, as it was written, but figured that I might get removed by security.</span><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"> (After this blog, they may not even let me back in the FCPS headquarters!)</span><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"> If you want to know how my original question read...here you go:</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"> <i>"</i></span><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><i>Given a lack of Federal funding and minimal state funding of Gifted & Talented programs, as a transformational educator/leader of a district with higher than national average percentages of gifted & talented students, how would you meet the unique needs of all gifted and talented students, in every school, remedy the inequities that currently exist regarding the under served, yet identified gifted/talented students, generally, and more specifically in high poverty, under identified and lower achieving G/T student populations and schools?" </i><span style="font-size: x-small;"> (Shout out to my education guru, first grade teacher, 6th grade English teacher, assistant principal @ Model Lab & Sunday School teacher, and grandparent of FCPS kids and stakeholder Jackie Vance for helping me formulate this question!)</span></span></blockquote>
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">So you say you don't recognize my question, that was supposedly chosen as one of the 11 that were actually asked, from the one above? Yep, I don't recognize it either.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">While we wanted to be able to engage in a dialogue with you, you know, like a real interview, we were told that all we could do was listen, take notes, and then when you left the room, talk amongst ourselves.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Regardless of which candidate actually receives this memo, there were elements of the parent interview process that I believe put each of you at a disadvantage, and for that let me apologize on their behalf. </span><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">That sucked and hopefully we have learned something this time around. </span><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">We were told that the board didn't have to let us interview you at all, as this is their decision, not ours, which is true, so we should just be happy. I don't sound happy, do I? I will work on that. </span><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">But once you read the rest of this memo, you will begin to understand.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">A bit about me....</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">For better or worse, and richer or poorer (just ask my husband!), I am a change agent. Call it a disease, call it a form of madness, call it what you will, but it is not a quality that I have chosen, it is just in the fabric of my being. Fundamentally, I just can't keep my mouth shut when my voice is needed. (You could blame my mom for this, but she is no longer of this planet, but watching from heaven and laughing her ass off)</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">I believe in public schools. Let me continue by saying I am not the product of the Fayette County public school system (or any public school, I attended Model Laboratory School in Richmond, KY, which explains a lot), but my 2 children will be. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">You only know me as the head nodding blonde sitting in the second seat down on your right side, but I am not a kick 'em while they are down kind of gal, preferring to see the best intentions in people and I try to be part of the solution, not a thorn in their side, but if taken that way, so be it. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">After having had a child in the Fayette County School system for the last 3 years, I have received my own public school education in what it seems to be about in this district,and at the district level, it's not about kids. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">I would like to share just a few of my observations from being a parent in the system, a PTA member, a newly elected PTA board member, a newly elected Site Based Decision Making Council (SBDM) member, a school board meeting survivor (watch for the alliances to be able to Outwit, Outplay and Outlast these folks!), & finally a member of the 2015 superintendent screening parent interview panel. Here are my observations:</span><br />
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<li><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">It's about keeping up appearances, not keeping up best practices</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">It's about investing in buildings, not in brains</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">It's about covering collective asses, not covering the bases</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">It's about the dog and pony show, not the talent show</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">It's about the bond rating, not the school rating</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">It's about cleansing the message, not sending the right one</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">It's about hiring the familiar, not the fantastic</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">It's about who is in charge, not who are the leaders</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">It's about resting on laurels, not fighting for Laurels</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">It's about budget gaps, not achievement gaps</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">It's about saving gas, not saving lives</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">It's about passing the buck, not multiplying the dollar</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">It's about speaking in hushed tones, not speaking up</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">It's about saving money, not saving children</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">It's about making excuses, not making gains</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">It's about regressing to the mean, not reaching for the stars</span></li>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Here's the thing, in the Fayette County Public School system, we do well in spite of ourselves. As your research would indicate, we have some of the highest achieving schools in the state but we also have some of the worst. Lexington, KY is a community full of highly dedicated, educated, and passionate people, who care deeply about kids, many of whom they don't even know. In case you missed it in your research, if you would like an example, you can read about yours truly in last Saturday's Lexington Herald-Leader article:<a href="http://www.kentucky.com/2015/06/20/3910338_parents-raise-concerns-about-fayette.html?rh=1" target="_blank">Parents Raise Concerns about Fayette County Schools' Handling of Gifted and Talented Students</a></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Here is what I know after hearing your responses to our diluted questions, in a bastardized process. Both of you care deeply about kids. Both of you are qualified to lead this district. Both of you are capable of being change agents.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">I wish you the best of luck in your Skype interview this morning. You have to be thinking WTH?!, why are they doing this interview via Skype when I was just in town! </span><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">It's like they didn't know you were coming or something!</span><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"> Don't ask me how a school board fails to call a school board meeting to interview you in person. While you were being received with light refreshments, paraded around town, being "interviewed" in a sterile environment for hours by students, staff and parents, somebody let the dog and pony show get in the way. (From what I am hearing it had something to do with an unread e-mail sitting in a staff inbox. People make mistakes, I get it, but we have emergency board meeting protocols for a reason but I digress...) Instead of admitting the mistake, and calling the emergency meeting to remedy the oversight, they decided eh, let's just Skype 'em and make it look like it was supposed to happen like this all along. It's like Keystone Cops around here but perhaps the bullets above are helping distill in your mind why we need you so badly.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">Should you and my best friends on the board (ha!) decide that Lexington, KY is your next home (speaking of homes, I know a great Realtor, as I don't get paid for this change agent gig!), don't say I didn't warn ya. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">You heard it here first. </span><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">Don't let the logo fool ya. </span><br />
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Lucy Waterburyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00997988016871227949noreply@blogger.com0Lexington, KY, USA38.0405837 -84.5037164000000337.640337699999996 -85.149163400000035 38.4408297 -83.858269400000026tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7063630923356562941.post-60505284233893834522015-04-04T08:37:00.000-04:002015-04-05T08:00:40.254-04:00Begging for Polio in a Modern World<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">I don't remember a time when I didn't know brain cancer. In the same way that most people cannot remember a time when they didn't know there ABC's or when they couldn't read, I cannot remember a world that didn't include glioblastoma multiforme (GBM) brain cancer. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">My mother, Genie, was diagnosed at 38 in 1981, when I was 6 years old. She had two brain surgery resections, she endured enough radiation and chemo to take down two elephants and she fought valiantly for 3 years, when the average life expectancy remains stuck at 18 months, even 30 years later. She fought because a. she was a fighter by nature (guess you are seeing now that this apple didn't fall far from that tree) b. she had three children that she simply couldn't bear to leave behind in this world. But she was forced to leave us behind three days after Christmas in 1984.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">My brother, Stephen, was also diagnosed with the "beast" in February of 2009 at 38, when I was 33 years old. He did not have any children but he did have one amazing, life sustaining, wife Carin. While Stephen endured two complete surgical resections, radiation, chemo, and a new drug called Avastin, he unfortunately left this world in August of 2011, 8 days before I turned 36. If the brain cancer world has gained anything between 1981 and 2009, it is that for many, the treatments are not as horrifically difficult to endure. Stephen led, as reasonably as one can with a terminal cancer diagnosis, a relatively "normal" life until the last few months of his battle. I like to believe that it was through my mother's generosity of donating her body to the University of Kentucky Markey Cancer Center for research, that her youngest son was given the gift of a high quality of life, that she did not enjoy during her own battle.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">So while the medical community attempted to tell my family that we were simply struck by lightening twice, I called shenanigans on that preposterous notion. Some crazy shit has gone down in my family, make no mistake, but two brain cancer diagnoses in the same immediate family, at the same age, is not a lightening strike, it is called a familial glioma. Good Lord, do I wish I was blissfully unaware of this reality, but I digress.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">To make a long story short, my family has been participating in the International Gliogene Study out of MD Anderson Cancer Center in Texas since Stephen's first tumor was diagnosed. Were we notified about the study by his team of doctors in Louisville? Nope. Stephen's little sister, yours truly, that can't turn her brain off, decided that someone must be studying this type of thing. In the billions of people in this world, my family couldn't possibly be the only one facing this nightmare in the modern medical era. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">And his little sister was right. </span><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">Turns out that there were over 14 study sites throughout the world, studying these "lightening strikes" for families just like ours. </span><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">So my poor brother endured extra blood draws and my mother's medical records were resurrected from a limestone cave in Central Kentucky (I am not kidding folks! Baptist Health, aka Central Baptist Hospital, was able to find my mother's hospital records from the 1980s to send to Texas!). My Dad, my older brother Neal, and I all had our blood drawn and sent to MD Anderson to see if we could be part of the solution. And I have to say that I believe that we were as they are getting very close to mapping the familial glioma gene, in the same way that other cancer genes have been mapped for years (think Breast Cancer, Ovarian Cancer, etc.) </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">(This whole being part of the solution thing is Genie's legacy in me. I swear it is like it's own disease, a good one I suppose, that I keep trying to pass on to my kids.)</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">They are most likely years away from providing definitive testing for folks to tell them if they have the gene and would you really want to know?! Speaking from experience, I wouldn't. Until brain cancer is no longer a death sentence, knowing just makes you a ticking time bomb. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">I have well meaning, caring, folks ask me all the time if I have routine MRIs to see if I have a brain tumor like Mom and Stephen. I try to be gracious and explain that even if I had an MRI this morning, showing no tumor, a tumor of the worst cancer known to mankind, could begin growing tonight (after my University of Kentucky Wildcats take the Wisconsin Badgers out of this March Madness which is really April Madness, as an astute friend of mine pointed out to me this week). And I could be dead in 6 months, before the next "preventative" MRI even happened. And just think, in August I will turn 40 so I made it past 38, so that's something (or so I tell myself).</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">For the record, if I have brain tumor right now, I don't want to know. It will rear its ugly head very quickly, as the size of the "beast" doubles every 2 weeks, so I will take 2-6 weeks of being blissfully unaware as I promise that small amount of time of not knowing I had cancer will be the best gift I could have been given as when you know, it changes EVERYTHING yet ironically, nothing changes at all. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">And check it out, even if I knew I had the familial glioma gene, it's not like I could pull an Angelina Jolie, and have my brain removed (obviously a brain transplant might have remedied stupid mistakes for her like Billy Bob Thorton, but apparently the brain started working when Brad Pitt came calling!) And do not think I am making light of what Jolie has done in mitigating the risk in losing her own life and educating others about familial breast and ovarian cancer genes. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">If I had her genes, you better believe I would have my breasts and ovaries removed, like yesterday. I don't care what the doctors or research says, breasts and ovaries may be required to bring life and sustain the life of a new human, but to the current owner, they are let's say, inconvenient on their best day. If having them is risking my long term survival, and I had her money to buy me a new fabulous pair of breasts, where do I sign?! U</span><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">ntil you have walked a mile in these "cancer pervades my immediate family" shoes, don't even talk to me. You don't get it...and this "it", you don't want.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">And you are thinking, Lucy, what in the world does any of this have to do with polio?!</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Well, glad you asked. As you see, just last Sunday, the TV news program "60 Minutes" aired a segment regarding an experimental treatment study for glioblastoma multiforme that is being conducted at Duke University, the nation's leading research center in brain cancer. Apparently the researchers at Duke are injecting brain tumors with, you guessed it...the polio virus. Okay, it is a form of the virus that has been rendered harmless to the rest of the body but apparently eviscerates brain tumors when injected straight into the brain. Craziness, right?! </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">(If you would like to watch the 60 Minutes segment you may watch it here: <a href="http://www.cbs.com/shows/60_minutes/video/jlj4E0D3vFdLQRTgQRcAhPY8qYEyLlM_/killing-cancer-part-two/">60 Minutes: Killing Cancer Part 2</a>)</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Does the premise of this treatment completely blow your mind?! The hypothesis here is astounding and unbelievable. But for me, the mere timing of it had me in tears and very conflicted. Stephen died in 2011 and this study began in 2012 and as those tears were brimming in my eyes as I processed what this trial could have meant for our family, I remembered a cruel reality of this life. Close only counts in horseshoes and hand grenades. Close doesn't deliver my brilliant, witty, kind, caring, and loving brother, one of the only human beings on this planet that shared my history, back to me.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Does it tell you how determined some folks are to stick around this planet that they willingly sign up to have their brain injected with Polio? And would it blow your mind to know that while there are two long term "survivors", at 3-4 years post treatment, and that half the participants died anyway. So these people are leaving their homes, risking what little time they have left, driving and flying from all over the country, heading to Duke, and having their brain injected with polio when there is a 50% chance they will die anyway. But, 50% beats the 100% chance of death that comes with a "beast", so who could blame them? </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">So while this die hard University of Kentucky Wildcats fan will adamantly cheer against the Duke Blue Devils tonight in the NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament. And will do the same, if given the chance, on Monday in the National Championship, I am a huge fan of one Duke team. The team that is saving lives with a virus that for decades, we tried to eradicate, and has ironically plagued the lives of so many others with immense pain and suffering. If the definition of desperation is begging for polio to be injected into your brain then using the polio virus to eradicate brain cancer is the definition of making lemonade when life hands you lemons.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">This life is so strange. We are guaranteed no tomorrows. Embrace the fact that today you are not begging</span><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"> for one horrific virus to be injected into your brain, to save your life. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">And then do what Genie would do, go be part of the solution.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">(If you missed my blog post remembering my mom, just click here-------> <a href="http://lucysleaseonlife.blogspot.com/2015/01/remembering-genie-jett.html">Remembering Genie Jett</a>)</span><br />
<br />Lucy Waterburyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00997988016871227949noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7063630923356562941.post-79611831234642438842015-02-15T11:47:00.002-05:002015-02-15T11:47:14.146-05:00Love is....<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Yesterday was Valentine's Day. It is a day that is intended to recognize expressions of love between people, but like most "holidays" has turned into another commercialized, Hallmark-laden, economic engine. Just like has happened with Christmas, the expectations, guilt, and stress that are associated with perfect gift giving, have replaced the true meaning of the day, which is love. But if your expressions of love are defined only as chocolate, jewelry, flowers (only on a holiday, not an average day), expensive dinners out, or the like, you are missing it.</span><div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">I spent my Valentine's Day cleaning up vomit and cleaning my house, for the 15th time this week. Of course having two children hit by a stomach virus in one week will incentive a parent to deploy all disinfecting means to make this shit go away, literally, without claiming the large humans. Because as any parent knows, the only thing worse than taking care of a sick child is doing it while you yourself are sick. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">I also had the privilege of spending my Valentine's Day assisting a wonderful couple in finding their new dream home on a day whose weather quickly dissolved into hazardous road conditions. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">But to me, that is what love is. It is cleaning up vomit and scheduling tours of homes to make sure everyone is home before the dangerous weather your clients weren't even aware of...hits. It is making a relatively healthy dinner for your kids when feeding them a bag of Oreos would be so much easier and make everyone happier, but not healthier. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">So my dear readers, I will take a stab at how I define love and I invite you to return this kind of love to those who need it so desperately in this life, whether they are those closest to you or those who currently are the most foreign. And let's not wait for Valentine's Day to show others that we love them as we all need it, year round. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Love is....</span></div>
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<li><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">installing a whole house humidifier on a 10 year old furnace, after years of filling a portable one from the tub faucet</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">changing and laundering vomit covered sheets at 2:30, 3:45, & 5:07am</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">caging tomato plants to protect tomatoes you will never eat</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">wiping noses, tears, bottoms, etc.</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">holding vigil at a hospital bed for hours and days at a time</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">changing diapers, infant and adult</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">brushing the teeth of tantruming children</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">spending your own money on needed classroom supplies</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">donating organs</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">finding a new pair of my favorite 5 year old Levi jeans on ebay</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">stopping to help change a stranger's flat tire</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">helping a laboring mother breathe through natural childbirth, giving her the time and terms she needs</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">baking decorated cakes for needy kids whose parents are unable to afford them</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">donating a warm winter coat </span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">serving in a soup kitchen & serving the homeless wherever they are</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">reading that last bedtime story when you desperately</span><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"> want your own bed </span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">shopping for tylenol, humidifiers, cough syrup, milk, bananas, or goldfish at 3am</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">playing one more game of Uno</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">saying "yes", when everything in you is saying "no"</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">saying "no", when it would be so easy to say "yes"</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">building the 8th sandcastle</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">applying the sunscreen for the 5th time</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">holding the hand/leg/arm of a child for a vaccine while staring in their eyes that show disbelief & betrayal</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">running behind the bike without training wheels with your hand on the seat</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">keeping the epi-pen at the ready, always</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">sharing the organic green beans that you raised from seed & canned yourself</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">using your powerful voice, when it needs to be heard, when there is nothing in it for you, and you would rather stay silent</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">starting and scraping your spouse's car on a cold & snowy winter morning</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">programming the coffee pot the night before</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">buying my organic half & half because you notice I'm running low</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">plugging my phone into the charger when you notice it needs it</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">unclogging a slow drain </span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">cleaning the cat litter, for the 20th time in a row, when it's everybody's cat</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">insisting on the extra layer of clothing when the complaining ensues</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">providing complimentary child care to weary and worn out parents</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">making and taking homemade chicken noodle soup to a sick friend</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">replacing the burned out bulb in the left turn signal</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">shoveling your neighbor's walk</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">serving on the school accreditation committee</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">being a shoulder to cry on</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">going back for "blankie" when you are already running late</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">handing down your children's clothes to little ones not far behind</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">putting yourself "out there" when the risk is real and palatable</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">ignoring your own discomfort to lessen the discomfort of another</span></li>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">If you find yourself living a life without love expressed in ways similar to the above, but instead only filled with boxes of chocolate and with Kisses that only "begin with Kay", life is going on around you and you should become a part of it. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">In my mind Valentine's Day should be renamed, Sacrificial Love Day, but then that wouldn't sell much stuff would it? But then again, </span><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">as they say,</span><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"> the best things in life are free.</span></div>
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Lucy Waterburyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00997988016871227949noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7063630923356562941.post-37976374443229051662015-02-05T07:18:00.000-05:002015-02-05T09:07:53.226-05:00Dear Alan Stein & Co....you are blurring the lines, quite badly.<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Well, Tuesday was the day. I enrolled my daughter, the last of the Waterburys, in Kindergarten to begin her education journey in public school, more specifically Lansdowne Elementary. </span><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">On that cold February morning when parents of the "have" schools lined up out the door on the first morning of Kindergarten registration, to make sure that Thurston Howell the 4th is enrolled at a public school where 9%-13% of the population receives free or reduced lunch, I experienced no lines at Lansdowne where our free lunch population trends around 56%.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">There should have been lines, hell people should have been camping out to register their children in this amazing school. But in this town, people camp out for basketball tickets, not Kindergarten. (And #BBN, don't be hatin', for those who know me, I love me some UK basketball, and because I am a glutton for punishment, football as well). </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">Because if you look close enough, you will see that this amazing school is simply getting it done for those that show up, often unregistered on the first day of school, speaking one of many different languages. Although violations of the over capacity policy and "Out of Area" policy are common in some schools, using it to cherry pick some students while conveniently deploying the policy to keep the less desirables at bay, at Lansdowne they simply follow the rules. They are achieving amazing things with the kids that show up to be loved as much as they show up to learn. They don't break the rules, they don't spend precious school or PTA resources on branding their own drinking water (yep, this is happening!), but when asked, they ask the United Way for new underwear and socks for our kids.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">I can't say that I blame these well intention-ed parents for wanting what they perceive to be the "best" elementary experience that Fayette County has to offer, in their own neighborhoods. But we have a capacity problem and an achievement problem here in Fayette County. They don't know that there are other many wonderful schools in this county, because it is all they know. They "know" it is because it is what they have been told by their Realtors (don't even get me started on how this shouldn't be happening!), by their new neighbors, and if they grew up in Lexington, what they just "know" about the "have not" schools. They don't realize that if you actually look at the data, that these "have" schools, although distinguished, should be absolutely killing it in achievement as the deck is stacked completely for them. They should have amazing scores and they should be held to a different standard. How do you truly normalize achievement between schools with high percentages of children of affluence against those with high percentages of ESL, hunger, abuse, & neglect? You simply can't. But when you do, don't even begin to act like it is the same. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">But I digress...and just like with anything in life, when the exception to the rule becomes the rule, the whole system balloons with inequity, favoring the "haves" even more. It is the few bad apples, spoil the entire public school barrel analogy. And if no one is truly watching or policing, it just continues. They can say that policies are being followed but I have a real estate client that has been repeatedly lied to about the over capacity & "out of area" policy by two different "have" schools and a district representative that misrepresented the continuation policy that you were yourselves were "schooled" on in the grandfathering meeting this week. What is supposed to happen with these policies and what truly happens depends on, well, who you know. Not that this is unlike real life either. But when it is tax dollars that are supporting these endeavors, is being held accountable to policies wrong?</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">I realize that most of you don't know me, and you don't know my daughter. You don't know my son, and from your poorly considered and hastily crafted, proposed attendance boundary change to the Lansdowne/Southern Elementary southern Wilson Downing boundary and grandfathering suggestions, you don't understand what is truly going on in your school district or how the approach to elementary redistricting and grandfathering should be considered differently than that of middle and high. But who can blame you? After all, your committee elementary representation has been shamefully absent with the exception of one parent representative from a "have" school. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">And on an afternoon when I considered not attending your committee meeting since it was high school free lunch percentages that were the "soup du jour", I knew better and went anyway. Our buddy Scott in California was otherwise occupied so understandably, grandfathering was the topic of the day. I knew that there was a certainty that 2 of the 3 elementary voices on your committee would not show up and sadly the 3rd, the ONLY elementary school principal on the committee, didn't show up either. So I got to watch as one educator at the high school level proclaim that she wasn't even sure her child even realized he was attending Kindergarten at the time (Yes, she actually said that!) and another member use her own personal experiences dominate the policy suggestions for grandfathering at the elementary level. And in your infinite non-elementary wisdom, you decided that only 5th graders and one trailing sibling that are the recipients of your boundary changes will be allowed to remain in the building. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Just so we are all on the same page...our small humans spend twice the number of years in elementary as they do in middle school and 1.5 times as high school. In these first 6 years of public school, Parent/Teacher Relationships are built, habits for success are formed, trust is established, routines become sacred and achievement is assessed and tweaked. Why is it that I keep hearing "kids are resilient" when little kids are discussed but when middle school and high school kids are discussed well, they need to be protected above all? </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Do any of you have a child with an IEP?! Do you know what IEP stands for? or why these children and families will be disproportionately damaged by school boundary changes? If you answered no to two of these questions,<b> please refrain from making grandfathering decisions for small humans until you understand the ramifications of your decisions. </b></span><b style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">Will you not consider grandfathering back to 3rd or 4th grade?!</b></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">So here is my suggestion, to bring to life a great line from a movie... "help me, help you" Because you see, I know Lansdowne Elementary and from where I sit, it is the perfect example, of how you are in fact violating your guiding principles in this bastardized process, instead of understanding why you should be protecting it. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">I have watched almost all of your elementary committee meetings in person and if you think that what you are doing is hard work, you have no idea. These Lansdowne educators are doing the hard work of transforming a child who showed up at school without supplies, in some cases may not speak English nor write it, NOT Kindergarten ready, hungry, and many times needing love and compassion. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Let me break it down for you very simply, here is what I know that you evidently do not:</span></div>
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<li><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">Taking two schools with roughly the same socio-economic balance currently but now raising Lansdowne's free/reduced lunch 20 percentile points to 76% and lowering Southern Elementary's to 42% is a clear violation of your socio-economic balance guiding principle. You are purposefully creating more INEQUITY!</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">The neighborhoods of Southpoint and Pickway are not close to either Southern or Lansdowne. NO ONE CAN WALK, NO ONE IS WITHIN A MILE TO EITHER SCHOOL. Their children MUST be bused somewhere and the schools are less than 1 minute drive time away from each other. Lansdowne has been the "neighborhood" school to these neighborhoods for 20 years and there is a huge sense of pride and love for this school in these neighborhoods, yet you are destroying a powerful school culture to make a map look "pretty". </span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">It has been brought to my attention that unbelievably, the school board did not ask your committee to consider achievement levels in your redistricting. I don't even know where to start about how stupid it is to ignore achievement when crafting school boundaries. But in any case, you didn't write the guiding principles, you are just charged with following them. But, your newly proposed, only 5th grade is a protected class grandfathering policy ignores the incredibly unfair reality you are creating in achievement measurements in 2016. 3rd grade scores are the first measure we have of "official" school achievement and as such the ramifications to Lansdowne Elementary of losing these Southpoint and Pickway 3rd graders in 2016 that they have educated since Kindergarten, and against which they should be measured, will create a disparity in achievement scores for this school which will be counter productive and unfair and will take many years to remedy, if it ever rebounds. </span></li>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Being held accountable for the scores of large numbers of children, they have had no role in educating, and disproportionately more disadvantaged in demographic, is just adding insult to a potentially life threatening injury for this particular school. </span><b style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">Will you not consider grandfathering back to 3rd grade?!</b></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">I realize that life is simply not fair. I share this reality with my children quite often, but when the policies of a committee charged to create a more equitable school system, while protecting neighborhood schools are flagrantly violated, is goes beyond unfair, it begins to appear incompetent at best, and intentional at worst.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">If you won't fight and use your guiding principles to protect, and not endanger Lansdowne Elementary and others such as Julius Marks, Dixie, Picadome, & Harrison Elementary, you should be asking yourself why you are serving. If the reasons you are serving are truly altruistic then carry on with your bad self but if you can't bother to show up to meetings, advocate for kids when you are qualified to do so, and use your voice when you have something educated to say, and more importantly realize when you should keep your mouth shut when you aren't qualified to speak, do us all a favor and stay home.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">One thing is for certain, I will be at the public forum on 2/16 at Tates Creek High School. Hopefully, there will be a line. </span><br />
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Lucy Waterburyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00997988016871227949noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7063630923356562941.post-70669158355990807842015-01-23T06:43:00.000-05:002015-01-23T06:44:54.721-05:00Remembering Genie Jett....<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Well, it's 5:00am and here I am again. Can't sleep and even worse, I can't turn off my brain. And hey look, it isn't even a holiday, maybe I can get these blogs off the virtual press more frequently from now on.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">As I mentioned in my last blog post, I have been advocating for my son's school in the redistricting planning that has been going on in Fayette County. I had a meeting with my son's school principal yesterday. She had been to another school for a meeting and came back with a water bottle branded with the name of the school across the front. So you are aware, some schools are branding their own drinking water and our school is asking the United Way for underwear and socks. Did I mention that these two schools are just 2 miles apart in my community? So yesterday these kids needed my tenacity and data junkie talents to politically navigate an attendance boundary debate, but today they need my willingness to wrangle coats. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">You see, our school has been having a coat drive since November because many of our kids don't have warm enough coats to endure Kentucky winters. While we have had a pretty mild January, February and March may have different plans for us. So anyway, we have been collecting coats from our kids whose families are financially faring better in this world and we will have those coats laundered and then bring them back to school and make sure that each of our less fortunate kids has a coat that they need to protect them against the elements as most of them walk to school. It's a pretty cool recycle, reuse effort if you ask me. Fayette County does NOT provide bus service if you live within a mile of the school. Most of our financially struggling families live within that one mile boundary, so to add insult to injury, these kids don't have sufficient protection against 10 degree windchills. And my job today is to wrangle the donated coats at school, call around to try and find a dry cleaner or laundry mat who might be willing to donate the laundering services. If I don't find one, I will be blocking off a few hours in my schedule next week to wash them at a laundry mat myself. Most likely some of of my phenomenal Lansdowne parent counterparts will join me to lend a hand at the Loads of Suds.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">And when these coats are handed out to these very needy & very deserving kids, my Mom will be smiling. I'm not unconvinced she wasn't responsible for my 5:00am wake up call this morning. </span><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">My constant self-assessment of how much I am giving back to my community stems from my parents. Instead of being a nature vs. nurture consideration, I am convinced it is a nature & nurture argument. I mentioned my Dad's school board service in my last blog post. And that was merely one board of the dozens that he and my mother served on throughout my life. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">My entire childhood was spent watching my parents serve on various community boards, give of their time and talents to the less fortunate, serve as Scout leaders, and make a difference in the lives of those who needed it, while holding public officials accountable. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">While my Dad is highly intelligent, he is a relatively quiet analytic observer who uses his voice selectively. My mother was quite different in her approach. She was a politically savvy, brilliant & witty, sharp tongued firecracker who never backed down from a fight. Did I mention she was raised by a US Army Colonel? </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Before she had children, and even a few times after that, she and one of her best friends would listen to the police scanners and show up in areas of town less fortunate than ours, and they would witness how the police handled the situation. Who does that? Genie did. And this was soon after the civil rights era and if I am anything like her, I know what was going through her head. The thought process was probably something like this: <i>Well, just because they have achieved more rights under the law, it doesn't mean that anyone is policing the police to make sure these rights are being protected. </i>So...she did something. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"> She was a huge advocate for public libraries and when garbage collection was not happening in the less fortunate part of town, well, she fixed that. She was politically liberal and was a force in the League of Women Voter's. Yet...she was also a member of the garden club, the homemaker's club, foreign foods group, and she was my brownie troop leader as long as she could physically manage it. And did I mention that she was self-employed & worked full time, along side my dad, managing Jett & Hall Shoes in downtown Richmond?</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Unfortunately my mother was diagnosed with a brain tumor in 1981, when I was only 6 years old. So I have had to rely on others to tell me about most of these civic heroics that she performed. And to say that I miss her and grieve the tremendous impact she would have had on my life over the last 30 years, and the loss of the grandmother my children will never know, doesn't begin to explain it. She passed away on December 28th 1984, at the age of 41, so this last holiday season marked 30 years that she has also been missing from her community, my hometown of Richmond, KY. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Soon after my mother passed away, the President of the Richmond League of Women Voters wrote an editorial to the Richmond Register entitled "Remembering Genie Jett", recognizing the great sense of loss in the community that was felt after the death of my mother. It is an amazing tribute to her. I hope you will read it. My favorite excerpt is "<i>It is remarkable what "ordinary people" can do when they work with heart and commitment. Then again, with such commitment, "ordinary people" are no longer ordinary, they become special. Genie has left us with a challenge. With her commitments as a mother, a wife and her business, she still had time to get involved. That's special."</i></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Mom, I am answering your challenge as best I can. When I am not, I trust you will continue with the 5:00am wake up calls. So as I quickly approach 40, I have to hope that my ordinary advocacy attempts honor someone so desperately missed and so special.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">I miss you Mom.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Now, I need to go wrangle those coats.</span></div>
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Lucy Waterburyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00997988016871227949noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7063630923356562941.post-62113340661508114902015-01-21T06:12:00.000-05:002015-01-21T06:41:08.929-05:00Dear Fayette County Schools Redistricting Committee....When the going gets tough, I stick around<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Holidays seems to trigger blogs in my brain. Can't say why, they just do. I am sure that for those who enjoy my rants and musings, the wait between holidays is longer than you would like but I am raising small humans, selling real estate to feed my family, nurturing my marriage of 18 years and trying to live the life that I believe I was meant to live. In other words, my dance card is full but for reasons that I don't fully understand it seems to be holidays that force me to reconcile where I am in my life and whether the ways I choose to spend the limited time I have on this planet is being spent judiciously.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">As such, for those that are friends of mine on facebook, you may have noticed that I have been "checking in" at the Fayette County Public School Headquarters, attending redistricting meetings, sometimes twice a week, since early December. Please make no mistake, I am not a member of this committee, merely an innocent bystander seated in the public seating area, closest to the TV monitor displaying the raw data. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Beyond being an Economist by training with a strange hankering for data analysis, for reasons I can't completely explain, I continue to make myself endure this torture. Attending these meetings is pushing my sanity to its brink while I witness my son's elementary school's diversity and socio-economic balance become decimated for no good reason. So evidently I must be a glutton for repeated punishment. I have this obviously misguided sense that by being there, I am somehow impacting their decision making. But since the videos of these meetings are posted on a very, very delayed basis, that I am not unconvinced happens intentionally, the only way you can keep up with the madness (in real time to affect change) is by being there. And being there is something that I am really good at. When the going gets tough, I stick around, even to my own detriment.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">I often leave these meetings wishing that the Men In Black will jump out of the corner office and zap my memory to put me out of my misery. But if you follow me on facebook you also know how often I am at my son's school, trying my best to make a difference in the lives of children (from over 30 different countries) many of whom come from homes and families that look nothing like my own but deserve everything in this life that a good education, in a democratic country, has to offer. And it is for these kids, that I am fighting the good fight, but most days it doesn't feel like a good fight at all.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">This is me in my fabulous Academic Challenge Coaching T-Shirt</span></h3>
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<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">Below you will find my submission to the Fayette County Redistricting Committee that I submitted on Monday morning (yes, the morning I was supposed to be just laying around in pajamas with my kids, eating waffles, before we left for a play date with a wonderful friend who is also giving of her time and talents for this wonderful school.) If I were a mystic, I would swear that Martin Luther King Jr. woke me at 5am with my Let's Talk response on the tip of my brain. (For my Lansdowne Elementary friends, you may follow this link to voice your own concerns about the changes in Lansdowne Elementary school boundaries: </span><a href="http://let%27s%20talk/" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;" target="_blank"> http://www.fcps.net/letstalk</a><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">)</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">These new boundaries are very, very bad for Lansdowne Elementary!</span></h3>
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<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">I can't say that I am winning in this particular battle, as Lansdowne Elementary's new 76% free/reduced lunch metric was not mentioned even once this evening, although many of the questions that I raised about what they are </span><u style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">not</u><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"> considering in this whole process were vaguely voiced this evening. So maybe I am winning just a little, but not for my own kids or their school specifically. But it makes me feel better that I am using my God given talents to try and affect change for all of these kids. Public schools are worth fighting for and I am beginning to see that my path may one day include serving Fayette County on the school board, as my father served for many years in Madison County, Kentucky back in the early 80s. Evidently he had a hard time sitting back and watching others make these decisions like I am now. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">He won in 1982 and served many years! </span></h3>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">This is my Dad in 1982</span></h3>
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<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">So here it is...consider yourself warned, it's a pretty long. And at the end, I'll be honest, I lied. I don't really look forward to seeing them at the next meeting on Thursday. But when the going gets tough, I stick around.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Dear Fayette County Redistricting Committee,</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">I have been in attendance at all elementary redistricting meetings, with the exception of the meeting on 1/8. What I have witnessed is startling and I truly believe that while your hearts are in the right place and your intentions are great, you are missing some key considerations in the elementary redistricting process.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">We shouldn't approach elementary redistricting in the same fashion as middle and high schools. As the first 6 years of education investment, elementary schooling is critical to either establishing habits of success and high expectations for achievement or losing the trust and excitement for learning in children and families. This is where it starts. Why are Kindergarten readiness percentages not being considered? Some schools are seeing less than 50% Kindergarten readiness for in-bound students. We have data that could tell us historical transient rates in particular schools, or in other words we should be looking at metrics which tell us if particular schools see higher or lower rates of student "churning" which is disruptive to all parties involved but when concentrated in certain schools is devastating. You might be surprised what you find. If we are not paying attention to these metrics, which Lisa and Bob could provide for you, and current achievement levels (i.e. are some schools somehow overcoming these disparities over time?), you could be unknowingly and unfairly placing a burden on some schools that become insurmountable. Perpetuating that is not only detrimental to achievement but it lacks compassion for not only these children and families but our dedicated teachers and administrators. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">It seems that while building capacities, free lunch percentages, walkability, and neighborhood cohesiveness is rightfully being considered, current achievement levels seem to be IGNORED?! Is this simply an exercise in logistics with no consideration of the end goal, which should be a quality education for all children. We have 35 existing schools which can provide value achievement and demographic metrics that can give us clues about what is working and what is not working and how we can better serve ALL kids in this county. We have UK College of Education Professors that I am sure would be happy to attend a meeting and answer questions the committee may have. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"> It seems that understandably loud voices of some neighborhoods are protecting high achieving/low free lunch schools and that understandably loud voices of those advocates for poorly performing schools are being considered but the schools where we are doing a good job of balancing relatively high achievement with diverse populations are being ignored and even harmed by this focus on the opposite ends of the achievement spectrum. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Why is the committee not first looking at the schools and talking to the administrators of these schools that are expertly striking the balance with more socio- economic diverse populations and achievement to see what percentages they feel work in their schools instead of throwing around arbitrary numbers such as 80/20? Why not send an anonymous survey to the teachers and administrators of these schools to find out their true thoughts and opinions on transient rates (or level of student churning), Kindergarten readiness percentages, English as Second Language Percentages, free/reduced lunch percentages, and what they think is working in their school? Some of these educators bring their own children to work with them and some leave them in the schools where they are district-ed, creating its own burden that they are willing at accept for their own kids. What could we learn from this? These are the educators that can be so helpful in giving guidance on what is working and what doesn't work! Schools like Lansdowne, Picadome, Julius Marks, Glendover, Sandersville, Dixie, & Harrison should be studied to see if they can be demographically re-created in other areas but they should also be protected so that the positive momentum and quality educations they are providing to all of those kids is protected! </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">For example, at the 1/8 meeting, the attendance boundaries of Southern and Lansdowne were completely redrawn. Years ago, these attendance boundaries were crafted the way they are for a reason. Instead of redrawing these boundaries, what should be evaluated is why there is currently such a disparity in achievement between these two schools with very similar demographics, not just moving people to just appear to be fixing something that is perceived to be broken but IS NOT. The latest re-alignment of the Lansdowne/Southern attendance boundaries is unnecessary, disruptive, and makes no sense as neither schools are walkable nor neighborhood schools to any neighborhood south of Wilson Downing. Contiguous areas are not a magic bullet and in this case they will cause more disparity. This is a unique area of town where we can actually try and keep a balance! And although under the latest proposal you are reducing the free lunch population at Southern, you are increasing it at Lansdowne. But because you have not truly investigated why Lansdowne is performing as they are, you are willing to roll the dice and put their achievement momentum at risk without any guarantee that Southern's achievement will rise in any statistically significant way. And sadly, given the seemingly unavoidable higher free lunch percentages in other parts of the county, the new free/reduced lunch percentage of 76% at Lansdowne will most likely be well within the "tolerance" levels of most vocal committee members. This is a very, very bad change that is unfair to educators, families, and students that have been working so hard at this school to become a proficient/progressing school under challenging circumstances.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Making the same assumptions that affluent neighborhoods with very low concentrations of free lunch and high performing schools, or conversely the preferences of the extremely poor have about neighborhood schools, is a very dangerous and unfair slippery slope when applied to more socio-economically balanced areas of town with good performing schools that require unavoidable busing. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Home ownership is powerful. Having "skin in the game", over the long run is critical to parent engagement. Parent engagement is critical to success. Similarly, one key metric that needs to be considered in Scott's GIS overlays is the concentration of multi-family housing in any one school. The populations in multi-family housing units is understandably transient in nature. To ignore the concentration of multi-family housing and Section 8 housing, as a percentage of households, in any given school is unwise and shortsighted. Similarly there are typically large numbers of children in many of these developments, some have more children located in them than entire neighborhoods send to public school. You should be treating large multi-family housing developments as neighborhoods, within themselves. What you are looking for is a student density metric to be added as an overlay.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Sadly, the elementary changes that have been made so far will simply cause more "educational poverty" concentration, as opposed to solving it. Elementary redistricting done incorrectly will yield greater achievement gaps and inequity of opportunity in the future. However, when done correctly will pay dividends that will enhance and enrich the lives of children and families and improve Lexington for a lifetime. Take the time to do this with great consideration and care. Dedicate the energy and attention it deserves. You are changing our corner of the world!</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Thank you for your service to the committee and your consideration. I look forward to seeing you at the next meeting!</span></div>
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Lucy Waterburyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00997988016871227949noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7063630923356562941.post-32746750062557650462014-11-26T09:28:00.001-05:002014-11-26T10:19:25.848-05:00Putting the "Thanks!" back into Thanksgiving, and taking the Black Friday Out<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">As I sit here at 5:15 am on Thanksgiving Eve, trying to put into words what has been floating around in my head for weeks, I find it a bit ironic that I am awake earlier today than I would be on a school day. On a day I didn't have to be up at a certain time to get my two small humans into the care of those that do the hardest job (and get paid the least) in our society, I was awake at 5 am. Waking after 7 am is as elusive in my life as a sighting of a Sasquatch (Bigfoot or Yeti, if you prefer). But fundamentally, even though I am sleepy, I have been given another day to grace this planet, and for this, I am thankful.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">So I hear a lot about how we need to put the Christ back into Christmas. Now make no mistake, I am a Christian (Presbyterian to be more specific) and I agree we could all use more Christ in our lives, but in my mind, it is impossible to take him out of ANYTHING! He's tenacious that way, always all up in my business, making me a better Lucy, ever present with his unending grace and expecting me to love others...just BECAUSE! So this premise that we can take Christ out of Christmas, or anything else is a bit ludicrous, in my humble opinion</span><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">. And don't get me wrong, it's not that we are getting Christmas "right" in our society, but to me you have to start with fixing the "Thanks" in November before you can get on with fixing the "giving" in December.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Thanksgiving has ALWAYS been my favorite holiday. In fact I like it so much that in 1996, when planning my wedding, I initially tried to schedule our nuptials for Thanksgiving weekend but the US Army decided that Ethan Waterbury would be in Panama. And the US Army didn't give a rat's ass about my love for Thanksgiving so we made do with August. </span><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">And 18 years later, </span><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">tomorrow is go time in this house as my husband and I host family and friends here at our house for Thanksgiving. My Turkey is swimming in brine, my homemade cornbread is drying for the dressing and a pumpkin pie will be born into this world around 11:18am (depending upon when I publish this fine literary specimen). </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">So why is Thanksgiving my favorite holiday? Well hell, what's not to love? It is a day off from work (<i>for most</i>) built around the premise of giving thanks, eating wonderful food, & visiting with the ones you love. Historically speaking, there are many politically laden versions of how Thanksgiving originally went down (much of which makes this bleeding heart liberal proud and cringe at the same time) but in 2014, I just feel like we are missing it. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">It seems like so many in our culture are "going through the motions" to get to the Black Friday part of Thanksgiving, which in my mind, should be no part of it at all. </span><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">While sightings of Sasquatch may be rare, sightings of Christmas trees the day after Halloween have become common place. There is a radio station in Lexington that converts to Christmas music on November 1st, subscribing to the 55 days of Christmas model which seems to have become pervasive in our society. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">We blow past the Thanks! to get to the giving. And that folks, is just plain sad. We think that giving people material things makes up for not giving them our thanks, time, love and affection. Our souls have been eroded by Black Friday retail "deals" and our collective concern for humanity has been replaced by a concern for keeping up the the Joneses (and the Smiths too, or so it seems!)</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Occasionally I will run across folks in my facebook newsfeed that will take the time to express an attitude of gratitude about the simpler things in their lives and I find this encouraging. So on this Thanksgiving Eve I am publishing my own attitude of gratitude list in an attempt to set an example of how to get the "black" out of this sacred day. Here goes...</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">I am thankful for...</span><br />
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<li><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">those who enrich my life by their presence</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">those who love and serve others who are so desperately</span><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"> in need of love and services</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">those who put themselves out there to affect positive change in their community</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">those who use their voice to speak their mind for the voices that have been silenced</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">those who sacrifice their lives to protect mine</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">the innocence of children and the wonder in which they approach life</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">an appreciation for all that is beautiful in this life, the ordinary and the extraordinary</span></li>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">While this is by no means a comprehensive list of everything for which I am thankful, it is a pretty good start. And, money cannot buy any of the above. For those who will get up from their Thanksgiving table tomorrow to go "cash in" on those material goods, the reality is that it is your soul you are selling. Life isn't found in what is bought and sold, it is found in experiences and memories and those are not for sale, they are for the taking and making.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">May your Thanksgiving table be filled with an abundance of food and those you choose to spend it with be filled with an abundance of love and thankfulness for all that is good and beautiful in this life.</span></div>
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Lucy Waterburyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00997988016871227949noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7063630923356562941.post-2541621437449605092014-11-08T07:42:00.000-05:002014-11-08T08:55:11.736-05:00Dear Mr. President...there isn't enough bourbon<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Dear Mr. President,</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">This is your future Ebola Czarina checking in. You've been pretty busy lately, so if you missed my blog about Ebola, you can read it here: <a href="http://lucysleaseonlife.blogspot.com/2014/10/how-do-you-solve-problem-like-ebola.html" target="_blank">How Do You Solve a Problem Like Ebola?</a> Seems like we have Ebola under control at the moment, so kudos to the current Czar, but if you would like to write in a succession clause, I'm your girl. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">But I digress, Ebola is not why I am writing. Earlier this week, exactly 56.2% of the 46% of Kentuckians who even bothered to show up to vote sent Mitch McConnell to represent them in the United States Senate. (Note: </span><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">let's be fair, Lexingtonians and Louisvillians are excluded from this statistic, they actually voted to send Alison to the Senate in the same proportions)</span><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"> </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">I have to believe that a certain percentage sent him back, not because they liked him, but to bring home the "pork" to Kentucky, as Senate majority leader, because after all, it's the American way. I'm not sure how I feel about those people as it is this logic that has completely bastardized the resource distribution of our democratic government but that's a letter for a different day.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Those Kentuckians didn't send him to represent me, as I promise you that the votes he will cast will never reflect anything that I stand for. And you know that saying, "You have to stand for something or you'll fall for anything". Yeah, well let's just say that too many Kentuckians will fall for anything, and evidently that disease is pretty contagious among the voting electorate in the mid-terms of 2014. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">On Wednesday, after those Kentuckians who cannot see that they are being lied to and their votes and souls are being bought by fear mongering billionaires, decided that Mitch McConnell, after 30 abysmal years of legislating, was yet again their man, you invited him over for some food, fun & fellowship at the White House. You said, I quote, </span><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 16px; line-height: 23.2000007629395px;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">"<i>I would enjoy having some Kentucky bourbon with Mitch McConnell.</i>" Now Mr. President, I will take you at your word that you meant what you said, but I have to assume it would be the bourbon that you would enjoy with Mitch McConnell, rather than the discourse. </span></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; font-size: 16px; line-height: 23.2000007629395px;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">In this state, bourbon flows like water. We drink it in any manner you can imagine, we've built a trail around it, we make candy out of it, we have even been known to light it on fire when served as part of a decadent dessert or two. In a few hours, I myself will be tailgating with it at the UK vs. Georgia game, but I think you get my point. </span></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 23.2000007629395px;">But Mr. President, this Kentucky girl is here to tell you...there isn't enough bourbon. You could push Bourbon through the veins of Mitch McConnell intravenously and he still wouldn't see what you and I see.</span></span></span><br />
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<li><span style="background-color: white; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; line-height: 23.2000007629395px;">To see that people are people, and Corporations are NOT</span></li>
<li><span style="background-color: white; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; line-height: 23.2000007629395px;">To see that inconvenient truths not addressed for decades, could become species ending nightmares at the end of the </span><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; line-height: 23.2000007629395px;">millennium</span></li>
<li><span style="background-color: white; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; line-height: 23.2000007629395px;">To see that legislation passed in his name is often exactly what Jesus WOULDN'T DO! (not WWJD!)</span></li>
<li><span style="background-color: white; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; line-height: 23.2000007629395px;">To see that choosing "Pork" in Washington, in the long run, harms the men and women bringing home the bacon</span></li>
<li><span style="background-color: white; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; line-height: 23.2000007629395px;">To see that profit maximizers don't self-regulate</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; line-height: 23.2000007629395px;">To see that ending the "War on Coal" fuels a war on clean drinking water and irreversible environmental</span><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; line-height: 23.2000007629395px;"> damage</span></li>
<li><span style="background-color: white; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; line-height: 23.2000007629395px;">To see that access to healthcare makes us all healthier</span></li>
<li><span style="background-color: white; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; line-height: 23.2000007629395px;">To see that Student Loans are as important, if not more important, as Business Loans</span></li>
<li><span style="background-color: white; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; line-height: 23.2000007629395px;">To see that Planned Parenthood serves low income women in ways they will never understand </span></li>
<li><span style="background-color: white; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; line-height: 23.2000007629395px;">To see that birth control pills are used for dozens of women's health concerns, only one of which is preventing birth</span></li>
<li><span style="background-color: white; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; line-height: 23.2000007629395px;">To see that being Pro Life should mean feeding, clothing, and nurturing these children long after the birth is over</span></li>
<li><span style="background-color: white; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; line-height: 23.2000007629395px;">To see the importance of funding Sesame Street instead of Wall Street</span></li>
<li><span style="background-color: white; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; line-height: 23.2000007629395px;">To see that tomorrow's criminal is today's abused, neglected, and broken child</span></li>
<li><span style="background-color: white; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; line-height: 23.2000007629395px;">To see that neediest children come to school to be loved as much as to learn</span></li>
<li><span style="background-color: white; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; line-height: 23.2000007629395px;">To see that Head Start isn't just an academic start, it is the ONLY start for many of these children</span></li>
<li><span style="background-color: white; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; line-height: 23.2000007629395px;">To see that choosing butter over guns is not only the right thing to do but the smart economic thing to do</span></li>
<li><span style="background-color: white; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; line-height: 23.2000007629395px;">To see that love is defined by the heart, not the type of genitalia</span></li>
<li><span style="background-color: white; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; line-height: 23.2000007629395px;">To see that government can and should reduce suffering, instead of inflicting it</span></li>
<li><span style="background-color: white; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; line-height: 23.2000007629395px;">To see that as Americans we are, and should be our brother and sister's keeper</span></li>
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; line-height: 23.2000007629395px;">So now that the Bourbon Summit is over, keep fighting the good fight, please get back to doing what you have gotten really good at, rebuilding a country and economy you inherited 6 years ago that was decimated by 8 years of the policies of the same party that just dropped by for a bite of lunch. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 23.2000007629395px;">And while these next two years are going to be a nightmare of preventing the passing of legislation that will undo the economic growing, deficit & governmental fraud reducing and consumer protecting accomplishments of your presidency, please know that history will be kind to you. </span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 23.2000007629395px;">And Mr. President, if Mitch didn't bring the Pappy Van Winkle, he brought the wrong stuff.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 23.2000007629395px;"><br /></span></span>Lucy Waterburyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00997988016871227949noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7063630923356562941.post-52863521648203019412014-10-21T13:17:00.001-04:002014-10-21T13:28:35.712-04:00How do you solve a problem like Ebola....<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">(Maria is not the problem we need to solve at the moment, and in all reality was she ever really a problem?! I mean she was a dream of a nanny who ended up loving those children like her own. Have I mentioned <u><i>The Sound of Music </i></u>is my favorite movie OF.All.TIME?)</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">I am not a doctor. I don't play one on TV. Hell, I don't even want to cut my husband's toenails. Okay, maybe when we are octogenarians I will, but even then it will be reluctantly. Additionally, my only forays into politics, outside of being President of my high school class (have I mentioned there were only around 50 of us so even that wasn't too difficult to achieve) are two failed attempts at running for the Site Based Decision Making Council at my son's elementary school. So I guess what I am saying is the chances that I will be appointed the next Ebola Czarina are remote. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Having said all that, my degree is in Economics & Sociology and everything I learned while pursuing my relatively inexpensive University of Kentucky college education (compared to what it would cost in 2014...by the way, in Econ, we call this secondary education hyper-inflation) tells me we are getting this Ebola thing all wrong.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">But majoring in Econ and Sociology is a bit like living in two worlds at the same time; the world of studying supply vs. demand, rational vs. irrational behavior, correlation vs. causality, & nature vs. nurture. Where these two disciplines intersect is the study of when the chickens come home to roost, so to speak. So on my diploma it should really read:</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><i>Lucy Jett Waterbury</i></span></h3>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><i><b>(yes, I was married before I graduated!)</b></i></span></div>
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<i style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><b>When The Chickens Come Home To Roost</b></i></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Even if you are not the fear mongering type (Fox News viewers among us, stay with me here), this virus should be on your radar screen, but perhaps not for reasons that you may think. Although there are those in our society that choose to live life in fear, I am not a card carrying member of this crowd. (Have I mentioned I have experienced a statistically significant number of frightening life experiences including watching my mother and brother die around age 40 from fatal brain tumors and living in the familial aftermath of the murder of my uncle in a random convenient store robbery? I am only 39 folks.) Obviously the brains tumors are in my DNA, and my uncle was murdered by random evil that existed in 1986 and still exists in this world. So yeah, fear could be something that defines me, but I simply don't let it. But let's be real, if you aren't the slightest bit concerned about a horrific virus with a 50% mortality rate, that has already reached our shores, I am sure I can find a good suicide hotline phone number for you, as this is serious business.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Fortunately, we are now at the end of the quarantine period of those nearest and dearest to the first victim of Ebola in America, Thomas Eric Duncan, and his medical support team. And for the most part, we can breathe a sigh of relief but it is now are duty to investigate "WTF just happened?!" and how do we respond when it happens again, because it will.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">As I mentioned, this strain of Ebola, Ebola-Zaire, has a mortality rate of 50%. Yep, you have a 1 in 2 chance of meeting Jesus if you become a card carrying member of this group. Medically, we seem to THINK that we understand how it is transmitted (we will revisit this point later). But this assumes it does not mutate as viruses have a propensity to do (I hate it when that happens!). We also seem to think that we know how to contain it but we have a major, modern medical facility and the CDC that cannot adequately explain how two nurses, using the proper protocols and wearing haz mat suits, contracted it. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">For those who have been living in a cave over the last couple of months or so, let's do a little Ebola 101. According to the <a href="http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs103/en/" target="_blank">World Health Organization (WHO)</a>:</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">"First symptoms are the sudden onset of fever fatigue, muscle pain, headache and sore throat. This is followed by vomiting, diarrhoea, rash, symptoms of impaired kidney and liver function, and in some cases, both internal and external bleeding (e.g. oozing from the gums, blood in the stools)."</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">What that WHO fact sheet fails to do a very good job of explaining, is what dying of Ebola really looks like. Our own <a href="http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/ency/article/001339.htm" target="_blank">National Institute of Health</a> (NIH) does a better job of explaining this in bullet points (Americans are all about their bullets so this not surprising...)</span><br />
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<li>Bleeding from eyes, ears, and nose</li>
<li>Bleeding from the mouth and rectum (<a href="http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/ency/article/003133.htm" style="color: #990066; outline: none;">gastrointestinal bleeding</a>)</li>
<li>Eye swelling (<a href="http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/ency/article/001010.htm" style="color: #990066; outline: none;">conjunctivitis</a>)</li>
<li>Genital swelling (labia and <a href="http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/ency/article/002296.htm" style="color: #990066; outline: none;">scrotum</a>)</li>
<li>Increased feeling of pain in the skin</li>
<li>Rash over the entire body that often contains blood (<a href="http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/ency/article/002373.htm" style="color: #990066; outline: none;">hemorrhagic</a>)</li>
<li>Roof of mouth looks red</li>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Sounds fantastic, doesn't it? Bleeding from your eyes makes pink eye look appealing, huh?</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">(Have I mentioned that according to the CDC, the budget cuts from "The Sequestration" hampered the NIH's development of a vaccine for Ebola? How do you like the Sequestration now? How does that thought process go exactly, "Hmmm, wow, I am really glad we cut government spending to a point where it may have put millions of tax payers lives at risk for the most deadly epidemic since the 1918 Spanish Flu outbreak. After all, we handled the <a href="http://www.healthline.com/health/worst-disease-outbreaks-history#AsianFlu7" target="_blank">1977 Mexican Hot Sauce Botulism Outbreak</a> just fine. History will treat us kindly, don't ya think?") </span><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">Chickens roosting folks, chickens roosting! If you are a geek to the level that I am, you can check out the Bipartisan Policy Center's "The Sequestration Explained" fact sheet </span><a href="http://bipartisanpolicy.org/sites/default/files/BCA%20Sequester%20Fact%20Sheet.pdf" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;" target="_blank">here</a><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">. But how we got here is somewhat irrelevant, what counts now is what are we going to do about it and what have we learned, right? </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">Let's talk about the continent that has been hosting this plague of 2014, Africa. But let's get more specific, shall we? The countries that are currently cesspools</span><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"> of Ebola are Sierra Lione, Guinea, & Liberia. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Source: <a href="http://www.vox.com/cards/ebola-facts-you-need-to-know/this-ebola-outbreak-started-in-the-rainforest-in-west-africa-and-its" target="_blank">www.vox.com</a></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">Most of my readers would not be surprised if I suggested that Africa has issues...lots of them. But when you consider Africa in the context of a deadly virus outbreak it has some things going for it. Intuitively this may seem awful that I am calling these positives but compared to the complexities of containing a deadly virus in the US, these are positives. Many times these outbreaks are contained in small, remote villages. And let's </span><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">just say that </span><u style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">most</u><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"> Africans do not have the means or method to leave the cesspool village. Sadly, it takes years for the village to raise a child but in Africa, they can unintentionally kill that same child in a matter of days. Secondly, protecting basic human rights isn't exactly priority #1 in these countries so to be a human there is pretty awful and you are at the mercy or abuse of whomever dictates your quality of life, or lack there of. Just as the politics of famine are complicated in Africa, so are the politics of disease. When competent to do so, the local folks will do what it takes to try and contain the disease but alas, even with limited mobility, denial of human rights, and governmental attempts to regulate travel, Ebola-Zaire landed in Dallas, TX on September 20th.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">How does this happen? Well, you show up at the airport without a fever, tell security what they want to hear and then board the plane for the promised land. Can you really blame him? After all, your fiance' is in Dallas, you have other family in the States, you already quit your job, and basically YOU CAN. This post is not intended to demonize anyone and evidently Thomas Eric Duncan was a pretty darn good example of a kind, compassionate human as his willingness to transport a dying pregnant Ebola victim earned him his own ticket to meet Jesus.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">To say that any of us would act differently is a self serving stretch. Now many of us would have NEVER answered the call for help to move the dying Ebola patient, that is a given. But most Americans, when afforded the opportunity to better his life and see his loved ones, would do what he did and the same would happen here. You would get on that plane to go "home" to see your loved ones and choose a better life, whatever that means in your circumstances and locale. If you say you would not, you are lying to yourself. He acted <i>rationally</i>.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">Did you know that the person responsible for the Nigeria outbreak was a Liberian-American (yep, those pesky Americans who think they can travel the world as they please) who traveled to Nigeria and infected 19 people. Nigeria has since been declared Ebola free but it was an American who brought it there. Does that make you think about things differently?</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">The key to containing this virus here in the United States is controlling it before it reaches anywhere near what we call in Econ, the tipping point, which is a mind boggling low number of infections. Because if you let it reach the tipping point, containing this virus here will be far more difficult. I don't care what epidemiologists say, I don't care what the CDC says, when you have a critical mass of Americans exposed to this virus, the cows are out of the barn folks. Why, you ask? Because the devil is in the details, as they say.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">Here are some details:</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">1. Most regional hospitals and small community hospitals are not prepared adequately, nor is their staff trained to handle even a single highly contagious Ebola victim that stumbles into the closest ER, bleeding from every orifice. What are most going to do with them once they have them? They will assess them for disease and do what medical professionals do every.single.day, put their own lives at risk to save others (This assumes that at this point in the epidemic that enough doctors and nurses have decided it is worth it to keep coming to work...a big assumption for some that went into medicine for the wrong reasons).</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">2. If this virus reaches anywhere close to a tipping point, people will have no idea they even have the virus or were exposed to anyone with it, as they may think they just have the flu, decide to work anyway or send their sick children to school anyway. Remember the onset of Ebola is very much like that of the flu. In a country where medical costs are outrageous, the working poor will do what is rational which is continue working and sending their infected kids to school. It doesn't matter what they should do, or would like to do, they like to eat and put a roof over their head and there is no back up child care available to them. When the going gets really rough, like bleeding from the eyes, rough, they will eventually seek medical treatment, but far too late to prevent a potential public health nightmare created by their <i>rational</i> behavior.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">3. We do not have sufficient ways to contain the virus in a population where human rights are at least in the top 10 priorities of our Constitution (okay, let's be real it is not #1 and if you believe that I can guess your race and socio-economic status in 1.5 seconds flat, remember, I am an Economist and Sociologist by training). On any given day, I can jump in my car in Kentucky and I can put my foot down on the soil of most of the 48 contiguous states within 3 days, 5 of them within 3 HOURS!. I don't have to ask for permission, I don't have to be screened by anyone, I just CAN. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">4. Quarantines work when people cooperate, choose honesty when facing unknown repercussions, and make their medical condition known to authorities. We can quarantine citizens but by then, how many have already been put at risk. These numbers start to get out of control quickly. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">5. Dogs can become infected with Ebola-Zaire and produce antibodies and excrete the virus in their stool and urine. Can they transmit it to humans? Are you ready....WE.DON'T.KNOW! In a country where you are far more worried about where your own next meal is coming from,having a canine mouth to feed is highly unlikely and completely irrational. How about in America where dogs are members of the family that sleep in the same beds with their owners?!</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">6. Tens of thousands of American lives are lost to the flu every year, and we have a vaccine for it that many people refuse to take (albeit for many and varied rational reasons)! You could say that many would more willingly take a vaccine for a disease that has a 50% mortality rate but remember we still have hundreds of millions of Americans to vaccinate which is a logistics challenge, in an ideal set of circumstances, much less during mass chaos and hysteria. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">So what do we do now? We can rejoice that it seems we dodged the bullet this time. We can dig deep, talk to professionals in many and varied disciplines outside of the medical profession and we can make sound public policy decisions and allocate adequate resources. Some of these policy decisions will test our resolve and make us feel very uncomfortable. But being uncomfortable beats being dead.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Any when BioProcessing, the company located in Kentucky, has produced enough <a href="http://www.courier-journal.com/story/news/2014/08/05/ebola-fighting-compound-created-kentucky/13620155/" target="_blank">Ebola fighting compound</a>, a suspected cure for Ebola ,made from....(wait for it)...tobacco, we can all breath easier, both literally and figuratively. Fortunately, the land of my birth and where I choose to call home, is exceptionally good at growing tobacco and we could really use the jobs. </span><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">(And if you are registered to vote in the land of my birth, for the love and anything and everything, please Ditch Mitch & vote for Alison!)</span><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"> </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Perhaps now that the potential cure to this horrific virus can be found in a previous delivery mechanism of death, we will think differently about a lot of things. Maybe we have just been using tobacco wrong all of these years?! In an ironic twist of fate, perhaps it took the deaths of millions of Americans from tobacco smoke, and a potential epidemic to realize the life saving mechanism of tobacco was under our nose, literally and figuratively, all along.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">So when Sequestration rears its ugly head again, and it will, just think of all the potential medicinal uses of Kentucky Bourbon we might be missing?! Okay, and in all seriousness, as the 101st Airborne Division out of Ft. Campbell, Kentucky is mobilized in a last ditch effort to try and keep Ebola-Zaire in Western Africa, ask yourself why bullets are funded more often and freely than the National Institute of Health. One funds death re-actively, the other funds life proactively.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">And according to Maria, the Reverend Mother said, "When the Lord closes a door, somewhere he opens a window". It is our job to look for that window and not break the damn thing with our efforts. </span><br />
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Lucy Waterburyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00997988016871227949noreply@blogger.com0Kentucky, USA37.8393332 -84.27001789999997131.422797699999997 -94.597166399999963 44.2558687 -73.942869399999978tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7063630923356562941.post-83894740423283523542014-09-11T17:33:00.002-04:002014-09-11T17:33:48.828-04:00Rainy Days, My Congressmen, and ISIS Really Get Me Down<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Enough already! Could the torrential rain please stop in Kentucky? Flash flood warnings, impassable roads, and flooding basements (including my own) have become so common, we have forgotten what a normal rain event feels like around here. We smashed some daily and monthly rainfall records in August, last night, and every day, or so it seems. It is getting a bit moldy and mildewy as everything is a bit soggy around here. My garden is full of tomatoes that never got their time to shine, pun intended, and rot claimed them. For a gardener, food rotting on the vine is pretty depressing, let me tell ya.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">And I have a confession to make. Okay, let's be real, I have a lot of those but I will let you in on just one of them today; I did not watch Obama address the nation about ISIS last night. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">And make no mistake, it is not that I think that ISIS, whom I refer to as "It's Satan!,It's Satan!", isn't worthy of my attention and concern </span><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">(did I tell you I am a Presbyterian and we don't talk about Satan much, although we probably should, but let's just say that <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8U1Jv5JoxaM" target="_blank">Dana Carvey and the Church Lady</a> were </span><u style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><b>not</b></u><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"> Presbyterian). </span><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">ISIS is truly a horrifying nightmare to everyone on this planet, not just Christians and democracies. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">It's not that I don't like Obama, in fact the contrary it true, I proudly cast my vote for him twice and I sing his praises to anyone who will listen (</span><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">did I tell you I am a classically trained soprano? so it isn't my singing that is the problem). But those that want to hear the truth, or talk about substantive topics at all, are </span><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">few and far between these days. Our society has little tolerance for serious discourse and as a result of this, those chickens will come home to roost one day, typically in the form of a world war. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">And while many of you have most likely not watched a live Presidential address to the nation in years, I RARELY miss them. I am ashamed of myself. Instead of listening to the leader of the free world explain his plan of dealing with this hell on earth, I went to bed. Yep, I did, I went to bed at 9pm (and my 4 year old joined me 30 minutes later, and my husband put the 4 year old back in her bed, and came to bed himself most likely around 11 but I digress...). </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Fear not, I told myself, fortunately we live in the digital age, right? With 24/7 media coverage, not only could I find 10 different replays of his address this morning, if I looked hard enough on YouTube I could likely find a parody of it to the tune of the latest Taylor Swift song, <i>Shake it Off</i>. This song is kind of catchy. You can watch the video on YouTube here ----->, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nfWlot6h_JM" target="_blank">Shake it off </a>. (did I tell you there were 12 years of my life that I wore tutus and danced en pointe like the ballerinas in that video? Don't believe me, here's proof!) </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Anywho, fundamentally you have to understand that I am am one of those "<i><b>Be the change you want to see in the world</b></i>" kind of gals. And last night, all I was concerned about was when the sheets were changed last and that is shameful I tell you, shameful. What has happened to me?!</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">I think what has happened is I am a tired mother of small children who pays attention and can't turn her brain off. And because I was raised by liberals, and am a card carrying one myself, I care deeply about not only my corner of the world but every corner of the world (did I tell you some of my best friends are conservative Republicans, including the guy I have been sleeping with for 18 years?).</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">I am not one to typically bail when the misery index of the world reaches outrageous levels but the sadness of 9/11, the legitimate fear of "It's Satan!, It's Satan!", my Congressional representation </span><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">in Washington (did I tell you that Kentucky really needs to ditch Mitch?), and the continued flash flooding in Kentucky is making me crazy. And when the going gets tough, the crazy go to bed, or she did last night.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Eh, in time I am sure I will just shake it off as the "<i>haters gonna hate, hate, hate, hate, hate, but I'm just gonna shake, shake, shake, shake, shake</i>" (if you are lost, watch the video!). And if you are a Kentuckian, for the love of anything and everything, vote for Alison. </span>Lucy Waterburyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00997988016871227949noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7063630923356562941.post-76806806348948523862014-07-04T19:27:00.000-04:002014-07-04T23:11:33.105-04:00Dear Ann Coulter...if you are looking for moral decay, look no further than your own reflection in the mirror<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">On June 25th, just days before the US World Cup Soccer team played their hearts out representing the United States of American in a single elimination round match against Belgium, Ann Coulter, a well known right-wing, conservative talking head, made an ass of herself. This wasn't the first time she has done this, and I promise you it won't be the last.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">If you missed it, or would like to waste precious minutes of your life reading her nonsensical, hatred filled ranting you may read it here: <a href="https://www.blogger.com/%C2%A0http://www.anncoulter.com/columns/2014-06-25.html" target="_blank">Ann Coulter's Hate Speech about....Soccer?!</a></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">While I refuse to waste precious time out of my life to do point & counter point on each of her ill conceived rantings, I have chosen a few that I would like to address.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">According to Coulter, </span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 16px;"><i>(1) Individual achievement is not a big factor in soccer. In a real sport, players fumble passes, throw bricks and drop fly balls -- all in front of a crowd. When baseball players strike out, they're standing alone at the plate. But there's also individual glory in home runs, touchdowns and slam-dunks. </i></span><br />
<i><br style="background-color: white; font-family: 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 16px;" /><span style="background-color: white; font-family: 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 16px;">In soccer, the blame is dispersed and almost no one scores anyway. There are no heroes, no losers, no accountability, and no child's fragile self-esteem is bruised. There's a reason perpetually alarmed women are called "soccer moms," not "football moms." </span></i><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">This woman has obviously never actually PLAYED soccer or she would realize how ridiculous she sounds here. Perhaps Ms. Coulter is unaware that goals are scored by individuals and defended by individuals. When goals are missed wide or high or right, they are also missed by the individual and in the case of the World Cup, in front of a WORLD audience.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">And Ms. Coulter, the number one job of a goal keeper, such as Tim Howard , the new United States "Secretary of Defense" is to prevent the ball from going into the goal, making sure that <i>"no one scores anyway"</i> If the amount of points scored defines your value of a sport, are you sure you have even watched a major league baseball game?! </span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 16px;"><i>(2) Liberal moms like soccer because it's a sport in which athletic talent finds so little expression that girls can play with boys. No serious sport is co-ed, even at the kindergarten level. </i></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white;">I am a liberal. I am a mom. I like soccer. Not only that, I am a liberal mom of one son and one daughter, who coaches soccer. Ms. Coulter, you are none of these! Until you are raising even one member of the next generation of Americans, you cannot pretend to tell me why I enjoy the game so much that I have both children playing it on gender separated teams, and take the time to coach the ALL BOYS team of second and third graders that I do. And Ms. Coulter before you disparage your gender any further, it is the girls who dominate the boys at this age, as their coordination and ability to focus are more developed.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white;">And Ms. Coulter, I coach like a girl and I am proud of it. And although I was the only female coach in our age division, we won, A LOT. We won because I taught my players that team work is exceedingly important but I also tried to develop each player to their own set of strengths as an individual. </span></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 16px;"><i>(7) It's foreign. In fact, that's the precise reason the Times is constantly hectoring Americans to love soccer. One group of sports fans with whom soccer is not "catching on" at all, is African-Americans. They remain distinctly unimpressed by the fact that the French like it. </i></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white;">Ms. Coulter, perhaps if you or I were African-Americans, we might be able to speak to this, but neither of us qualify here. But, </span></span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">I can assure you, they could give a rat's ass whether the French like it or not. My education in economics would suggest that most likely it comes down to opportunity cost, earnings potential and specialization of "labor", in regards to your beloved football and basketball, but that would bore my readers so I will leave it at that. The bottom line is that the above statement is in poor taste and divisive, not that I should be surprised. </span><br />
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<i><span style="background-color: white; font-family: 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 16px;">(9) Soccer is not "catching on." Headlines this week proclaimed "Record U.S. ratings for World Cup," and we had to hear -- again -- about the "growing popularity of soccer in the United States." </span></i><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 16px;"><i>If more "Americans" are watching soccer today, it's only because of the demographic switch effected by Teddy Kennedy's 1965 immigration law. I promise you: No American whose great-grandfather was born here is watching soccer. One can only hope that, in addition to learning English, these new Americans will drop their soccer fetish with time. </i></span><i><br style="background-color: white;" /></i><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><span style="color: #333333;"><span style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 21px;">Ms. Coulter, 28,000 fans attended just 1 viewing party at Chicago's Soldier Field. They gathered together to watch it on TV, nothing live was even happening in the stadium for goodness sake! And this was only one of such viewing parties that drew tens of thousands of Americans together around the country to cheer on their national team. Additionally, the largest demographic that has grown up playing soccer in this amazing country caught on to soccer just over a decade ago. It is the demographic that chooses to consume your hate speech that would benefit from "catching on" to a sport that the entire world adores.</span></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 21px;">I have great, great, great-grandfathers that were born here and I awoke yesterday to find my 7 and 4 year old watching the replay of the US vs. Ghana World Cup game ON DEMAND. I have to believe that I am doing something right when they chose a soccer game over Disney Junior.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white;">Coulter begins her tirade with the statement below:</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: normal;"><i>I've held off on writing about soccer for a decade -- or about the length of the average soccer game -- so as not to offend anyone. But enough is enough. Any growing interest in soccer can only be a sign of the nation's moral decay. </i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">I will end my tirade with this. Please Ms. Coulter, do us all a favor, quit writing all together. I agree, enough is enough. If you are looking for a sign of this nation's moral decay, simply look at your own reflection in the mirror. Fortunately, the raising of the next generation of Americans is not in your hands.</span></div>
Lucy Waterburyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00997988016871227949noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7063630923356562941.post-72951207586902215652014-06-28T14:50:00.000-04:002014-06-28T14:50:09.324-04:00Making lemonade from Corvettes and Sinkholes<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">On this day in 1953, the first Chevrolet Corvette rolled (literally) off the Corvette assembly line in Flint, MI. Since 1981, these highly priced yet highly sought after American made sports cars have been manufactured in Bowling Green, KY. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Evidently an unbelievable number of people have 1. the desire and 2. the disposable income and time to travel (many times in the Recreational Vehicles that are now their permanent residence!) throughout the United State paying entrance fees to stroll through museums featuring American inventions such as Spam (the canned meat kind, not the equally as undesirable e-mail kind) and Corvettes. If you are going to have one at all, logically and logistically I'm sure it made sense to make Bowling Green the home of the Corvette Museum. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">For my readers who are not as familiar with the virtues of the Commonwealth of Kentucky, Bowling Green, KY is located only 35 miles from Mammoth Cave, a massive underground cave system that is recognized as one of the 7 Natural Wonders of the World. Well, what happened at that museum, on a seemingly random day in February, was a wonder of a different kind.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">On February 12th, just a few hours before the Corvette Museum opened for the folks with massive amounts of time and a reasonable amount of cash, a 30 X 40 foot wide sinkhole opened up and swallowed 8 Corvettes. Yep, just like that. Here is link to the Youtube video footage from the security camera: <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k05VvKHsWaw&list=PL5Syfif2eF-PwKw8EkYQ3hW12km1LzacC&index=6" target="_blank">Corvette Drops Into Sinkhole</a> </span><br />
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<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-3ULW-hLQP1k/U673BtwlL2I/AAAAAAAAADo/oTFzVg9mSnE/s1600/Corvette-sinkhole-005.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-3ULW-hLQP1k/U673BtwlL2I/AAAAAAAAADo/oTFzVg9mSnE/s1600/Corvette-sinkhole-005.jpg" height="213" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">(photo source: Reuters, Corvette Museum)</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">In what I choose to believe is a sign from the universe that our culture is valuing all.the.wrong.things and spending our disposable income similarly, these high performance vehicles valued at a total of almost $1 million became scrap metal, in an instant. The timing was fortunate and spared all human life. In fact, the museum found out about it via a call from the security company monitoring the museum. Wouldn't you love to hear a recording of that phone call to the facilities manager of the museum?! Maybe it went something like this....</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><b>Security company dispatcher</b>: <i>"Hi, is this John Doe, the facilities manager of the Corvette Museum located in Bowling Green, KY?"</i></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><b>John Doe</b>: <i>"Yes it is."</i></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><b>Security company dispatcher</b>: <i>"Well, it seems that our security sensors have lost the security signal response on 8 of the Corvettes in your museum, you better get over there STAT! It's the strangest thing, it's like they just fell off the face of the planet"</i></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><b>John Doe</b>: <i>"Wow, okay, I am on my way, thanks for calling."</i></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><b>Security company dispatcher</b>: <i>"Sure, no problem, hope you figure out what's going on over there, but I have to run as our system is detecting a plague of locusts carrying off a '68 Mustang Cobra over at the Ford Mustang Museum" </i></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><i>(Note: there is currently no Ford Mustang Museum in existence, but the author took some creative license because there is one opening in Birmingham, AL in spring of 2016. Evidently this country needs more venues for these people with time, money and recreational vehicles on their hands.)</i></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">But the story doesn't end there. At this point, if you are like me, you are thinking "Wow, that really sucks for that museum. I can't imagine anyone is going to want to go near that place any time soon!" Well, we would both be wrong. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">If you happen to be the proud recipient of a driver's license and spend any time exercising the privileges that come along with it, you know Americans love to "rubber neck" when they drive by an accident scene, many times causing another one. But our tendencies to rubber neck extend beyond car accidents, and extend into natural disasters. And apparently the tragic sink hole has become big business for the museum. A USA Today article by Jolie Lee states, "<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-size: 14px; line-height: 22px;">The museum, located in Bowling Green, Ky., saw a 59% increase in the number of visitors from March to June, compared with the same period in 2013....</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-size: 14px; line-height: 22px;">There was also a 58% increase in gift store sales, a 72% increase in membership and a 65% increase in revenue overall in this four-month period over last year's." </span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><i>(Note: I will spare you how my mind would analyze the business metrics found in the above paragraph. This brain of mine is a blessing and a curse. I mean, who spends a Saturday afternoon, after a 60 hour work week in real estate, writing a blog post about the demise of Corvettes, which she thinks are an unbelievable waste of precious economic resources?!)</i></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">So people are now attending the museum to see... wait for it....the sinkhole. And according to a news release from yesterday, the museum's board has now decided to keep a part of the sink hole in the museum permanently. And....they are going to put 2 cars that have been retrieved from the sink hole, BACK IN! (<i>head seen shaking in the background</i>)</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Let's think about this, shall we? People are now making the conscious decision to enter a building whose foundation dissolved, instantaneously swallowed 8 sports cars, and put the structure of the museum at risk. Even more mind boggling is that they are more likely to do this and pay an entrance fee for the privilege, than when it was a completely structurally sound building with luxury sports cars on display. I would have to verify this but, that karst topography, on top of which that museum was built, has NOT filed a change of address form with the United States Postal Service.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">There is a saying, "When life hands you lemons, make lemonade". While the economist in me can understand the financial reasons behind the museum board's decision to keep part of the sinkhole (but putting 2 previously retrieved cars back in, is entirely ludicrous under any circumstances, IMO), I truly struggle to understand those who desire a taste of that very strange lemonade. Of course, maybe that is all part of the order of the universe, perhaps also serving as a perverse form of natural selection, as if that hole opens up even more, it will take those who just can't deny those rubber necking tendencies, right along with it.</span><br />
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<br />Lucy Waterburyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00997988016871227949noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7063630923356562941.post-84779655155063964352014-05-27T14:22:00.000-04:002014-05-27T14:22:18.192-04:00Don't drink the water and if Katmandu calls...hang up!<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">In what I have to believe is part of the design of natural selection, it seems to me that those that are blessed (?) with an inherent assumption of immortality are also the least blessed with common sense.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Maybe assuming only other people are the victims of an untimely death comes from living a life where no one they cherish has been taken from this planet, decades before the average. Or maybe they are just dumb.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">While I can understand there are many in this world that would never be happy living an average, ordinary life, why must they subject themselves to situations that pose incredibly high probabilities of death? Like say, Himalayan peak mountain climbing. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Never in my life has it seemed like a good idea to climb to heights that require you to bring your own oxygen. I am a big fan of oxygen and I prefer to stay in conditions where carrying my own is not required. The chances of dying an an attempt to summit Mt. Everest is staggering. According to Wikipedia, "Curiously, 1996 was statistically a safe year for Everest climbers. Before 1996, one in four climbers had died making the ascent; 1996 saw huge numbers of people attempting the climb and the statistics for 1996 revel that only one in seven died" So in an average year, you have a 25% chance of dying. Dying!</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Any who, so last week, this professor from Western Kentucky University, Dr. John All, fell through a crevasse on Mt. Himlung in Nepal. Haven't heard of Mount Himlung you say? Well, when access to Mt. Everest is understandably shut down last month due to an avalanche that took the lives of 16 sherpa </span><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">you have to make do. Given there are few employment opportunities in the higher elevations of Nepal, these sherpas feed their families by</span><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"> risking their own lives to schlep the crap of citizens of industrialized nations (okay, most of them Americans and Europeans!) to the top of a mountain. In an ironic twist, that I consider to be a sign from the universe, one of the sherpas that perished in that avalanche was on All's team. Did that deter him from making this attempt? Nope.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">In what appears to be another unbelievable part of this story, the professor (sounds a bit like Gilligan's Island, doesn't it, but I have to believe that the professor on Gilligan's Island would never have attempted these shenanigans) appeared to be climbing by himself. Who in the hell does this?! At what point does one make the decision that climbing one of the highest peaks in the tallest mountain range in the world by yourself, is a rational idea?! Hasn't he heard of the buddy system?! </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Well, it doesn't go so well for the professor as his 240 lb. human body plunges into a 70 foot deep crevasse. After dislocating both shoulders, sustaining internal injuries, and breaking 5 ribs and one arm, what did he do next you ask? Well, logically he pulls out his smart phone to make a video of the scene. Folks,I.am.not.lying. Locating and dislodging his smart phone out of his pack or pocket, or wherever it was at that point, with two dislocated shoulders and a broken arm would seem to be a logistical miracle at that point but he did it. For those smart phone users out there, you know how much battery power is consumed while creating a video. If I were stuck 70 feet below the surface of a Himalayan mountain peak (I think I just laughed out loud just now) I can tell you for certain, using my battery power making a video for posterity would be down there on the list with playing a game of Bejeweled at that point. I'm thinking preserving the battery for things like the flashlight app might have been wise, but I'm no mountain climber!</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">But I digress, you've got to hand it to this guy, he somehow climbed out of the crevasse, and crawled back a significant distance to his tent. After using satellite technology to send a SOS text to the rest of his team who were two days away from reaching him, he does the next logical thing, posts a plea for help on....wait for it....facebook! </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">What was the title of this post? "bad shape, need help". Ya think?! I have lots of friends on facebook and I often catch up on my newsfeed while waiting to pick up my son in car line. Can you imagine scrolling through your newsfeed to find a friend of yours posts a plea for help from a peak in the Himalayans? So you are thinking something like "well, if you had posted 5 minutes ago, when my phone had more than 10% battery power before videoing this idiot in front of me in car line, I could have reached out to that Nepalese foreign exchange student, who I'm friends with on facebook that attended my highschool 20 years ago, whose father is a sherpa on Mount Lohtse, oh wait, no, he died in that avalanche...hmmm guess I will just go back to playing Words With Friends"</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Here is the link to his video. If you suffer from virgin ears and are offended by the f-bomb, this is not a video for you: <a href="https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?v=793296994027755&set=vb.100000423863016&type=3&theater#storylink=relast" target="_blank">Facebook Link to Dr. All's Video </a></span><br />
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<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-8KVRRg3oyrw/U4TJTL3VGKI/AAAAAAAAADA/LbFH7SR72iw/s1600/IMG_3436%5B1%5D.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-8KVRRg3oyrw/U4TJTL3VGKI/AAAAAAAAADA/LbFH7SR72iw/s1600/IMG_3436%5B1%5D.JPG" height="239" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Now that I have you all wondering what happened next, the rest of the story doesn't get any more logical. After putting even more lives at risk to rescue his dumb ass off that mountain in a helicopter, he is taken to an intensive care unit at a hospital in Katmandu. So you are thinking, finally this guy will come to his senses and do what most logical human beings would do, stay to recuperate in the hospital. Well, you would be wrong. He checked himself out of the hospital, against doctor's orders, and decided to check himself into a Katmandu hotel instead. I guess the mints placed on the pillows of the ICU weren't up to his standards. Granted, I cannot speak to the living conditions of a hospital intensive care unit in Katmandu but it seems that they would have significant practice at saving the lives of these dumb people and it would be preferable to most hotels in Katmandu, but what do I know? </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">So my suggestion to you professor is this...the next time Katmandu calls, hang up. Or most likely it will be your dead body they will be pushing off the main trail to join the body of University of Louisville graduate, Francys Arsentiev who sadly ran out of oxygen (not.making.this.up) on Everest in 1998. Or just quit drinking the water, as perhaps it is something in the water at institutions of higher learning in Kentucky? </span><br />
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<br />Lucy Waterburyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00997988016871227949noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7063630923356562941.post-37711622130726463122014-05-07T12:30:00.001-04:002014-05-07T12:30:04.642-04:00Ripped from the Headlines....When Truth is Stranger than Fiction<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">My life reads a bit like a Faulkner novel, seriously. In fact, I have had several people tell me that I should write a book about it. I consider myself to be a prime example of a statistical anomaly. I mean, who loses both their mother and brother to brain cancer before 40? {both were diagnosed at 38. Guess what? I'm 38!} Less than two years after my mom died, I had an uncle that was shot and killed in a convenient store. His crime...stopping by for his morning coffee and chat with a friend after working a double shift as an engineer, both his shift and one for a friend with Cancer who couldn't afford to miss a paycheck. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">The way I see it, life is seemingly strange and random and I have been on the receiving end of more than my fair share of tragedy in my first 3 decades, but similarly, more than my fair share of blessings as well. </span><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">I have an amazing 97 year old grandmother with a facebook account and e-mail address who routinely engages me in political and social conversation. So if I won the genetic lottery, as opposed to my mother and brother who both lost it, I may have almost 60 years left to grace this planet.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Anywho...I am also a statistical anomaly these days in that I receive the daily newspaper at the age of 38. And...I have received a copy of the <i>Lexington Herald-Leader</i>, everyday, for over 17 years (ok, give or take a few days where my carrier decided that his/her warm bed was far more desirable than the snow and ice of a -15 below February morning, but who can blame them, right?!)</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Very few of my friends...okay, only one that I can think of at the moment, "take the paper" as they say, every day. And, isn't that saying "take the paper" a bit strange? First of all, I don't take it, they bring it {and drop it in my yard at the point geometrically farthest from my front door}. Secondly, I pay for it, it's not like I take it and run, which is what that saying implies to me. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">I can't say that I read it cover to cover everyday, or any day for that matter. My husband is better about laying his eyes on every page, but it is astounding how many times, upon reading it myself, I will ask him about an article I read and most of the time he didn't read it. Now, articles about asparagus or composting, those are very popular in this house and both of us will voraciously read those. {I didn't say I live an exciting life, just a statistically crazy one, but when you and your husband can geek out together about anything, much less asparagus, after 18 years together, we must doing something right.}</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">So why am I writing this blog post today? Over the past few days, I have actually had a few minutes to look through the entire paper. And I am telling you, what was in there was stranger than fiction. Here are a few headlines:</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><b>"Stowaway in wheel well of plane 'lucky to be alive'"</b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><b>"Mummified body in storage unit ID'd; daughter accused of stealing benefits"</b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><b>"Man kept mother's body in freeze: for 3 years, he spent her Social Security"</b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><b>"Poll: Most Americans skeptical about many of scientists' truth"</b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><b>"Christie named Father of the Year"</b></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">The first three article headlines, blow.my.mind. The last two make me laugh out loud.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">In the interest of keeping this blog post readable before you head out to vote in the primaries (hopefully most of my readers do this!)I will give you a cliff notes version of these articles and why I think this is just stranger than fiction. Here we go...</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><b>"Stowaway in wheel well of plane 'lucky to be alive'"</b> - Okay, so evidently a runaway teenager in San Jose, CA scaled the airport fence and stowed away in the wheel well of a plane headed to Maui. Teenagers do crazy, seemingly illogical shit, but it was a Hawaiian Airlines, so we should give him credit for picking a plane headed to Hawaii, as opposed to an Alaska Airlines plane, right? Tragically, it turns out that this teenager is a Somalian refugee now living in California with his father, that was attempting to get to Somalia to see his mother. He evidently had no idea where any plane was going he just wanted to get on one going anywhere (sometimes I feel like doing this myself!) CNN quoted his father as saying "</span><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 19px;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">"My son, like many immigrant children, is struggling adjusting to life in this country," he said. "Our situation was aggravated by our displacement in Africa for many years after fleeing our home country of Somalia because of war conditions. As a result, my son was not able to receive any formal education before we immigrated to the United States. Yahya is a good kid who I love dearly."" My heart breaks for the teenager, the father, and mostly for the mother. Having lost my mother, I can understand his mania, and honestly there are days that I could imagine </span></span><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">depriving my brain of oxygen and exposing my body to -50 degree temps to see my mother again. There must be big things in store for this dude, in the order of the universe, as instead of turning into a human Popsicle, he lived to tell the tale, as they say.</span><br />
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<b style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">"Mummified body in storage unit ID'd; daughter accused of stealing benefits" </b><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">- There are so many sick and wrong things to this story that it is practically unimaginable. In a nutshell, a daughter allegedly stored her father's dead body in a storage unit in Lexington for practically 2 decades and drew his social security benefits. Times are hard for many Americans, no doubt. Based on the decay of her father's body, they say that she drew $150,000 from the Federal Government between 1997 and 2011. </span><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">In addition to the Social Security benefits she was erroneously drawing, this women earns $270 a month working from the National Psychic Network. </span><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"> So how did the authorities finally figure out her father was no longer of this world...The Social Security Administration Centenary Project. If you become a centenarian, you can look forward a call from your government. This heinous woman received one of these calls, attempted to imitate her father's voice, and officials became suspicious when she sounded much more like a woman than a man. You have to give them credit for attempting to protect our tax dollars. Low and behold, somehow the trail led from Texas to Lexington and there they found him. So I guess we can safely assume that this woman does not work in the capacity of a psychic for the National Psychic Network as ostensibly she would have seen this coming, not answered the phone, and moved the body, don't ya think? You know what is the most disturbing in all of this, her elderly mother has not been seen alive since March! I am not making this stuff up folks!</span><br />
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<b style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">"Man kept mother's body in freezer: for 3 years, he spent her Social Security"</b><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"> - Here we go again, but unlike the heinous woman above, this guy at least had enough respect for his mother's body that he kept it in a freezer, okay, as least for awhile. How did they find out what this loser was up to? Federal investigators noticed that his mother, who would have been 96 this year, did not file a medical claim for three years. Statistically speaking, this is...an anomaly. So, they engaged the services of the Pulaski County, Kentucky Sheriff's office to help locate her. To make a long story short, the son was the caretaker for his bedridden mother and she died in 2011. After she died, in order to keep receiving her benefits, he put her in a deep freezer. And in that freezer she remained until the son lost the home they were sharing so then he took her with him to another house but just left her in the yard for the winter. Authorities suspect that the long, cold winter in Kentucky allowed for this frozen state to continue until the son waltzed into the Social Security office to get his own benefits. At that point, the authorities had a lead on him so they went to find him at his new residence, where he committed suicide while the deputy stood just outside the door. Can you imagine?! Again, I am not making this up folks!</span><br />
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<b style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">"Poll: Most Americans skeptical about many of scientists' truth" </b><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">- In reality, instead of laughing at this, I want to cry. In a study conducted in late March of 2014, respondents were asked about their confidence levels in reference to what Nobel Prize winning scientists call "settled scientific facts". There was almost complete buy in that smoking causes Cancer and that a genetic code exists. Those suffering from mental illness will be happy to hear that only 6% respondents questioned that mental illness is a medical condition that affects the brain. But when it comes to global warming, the age of the Earth, natural selection, and The Big Bang Theory, we are a distrusting bunch. Believe what you want about how we got here and in what manner we have evolved as a species, as it really doesn't make a damn bit of difference moving forward. But I am sorry people, the alarming rate at which glaciers are melting and man-made heat trapping gasses are forcing our planet temperatures to rise, puts the entire planet and our existence on this planet in jeopardy. Being blissfully unaware, or I guess in this case blissfully unbelieving, is a really dangerous thinking pattern. So maybe natural selection isn't real because you would think by now, the human species that is here would be using their brains!</span><br />
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<b style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">"Christie named Father of the Year"</b><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">- In no way do I pretend to be Mother of the Year, so you know that saying, "those who live in glass houses, shouldn't throw stones", applies here, but how in the hell does Chris Christie, the Governor of New Jersey, or any other Governor of any other state in America, qualify as Father of the Year?! You know those Governors.... they have copious amounts of time to spend with their children, never missing the school play, rendering life size robotic recreations of Thomas Jefferson out of household recyclables, coaching baseball teams, and manning the grill at the teacher appreciation cook outs. I'm sure after Christie left the staff meeting that effectively shut down a major bridge commuting route in New Jersey, he went straight to the local supermarket to help his daughter sell her girl scout cookie quota. Who bestows this award you ask? That would be The National Father's Day/Mother's Day Council. What in the world is that? Are people actually paid to serve on this Council? Do they have a national headquarters? This Council just smells of major greeting card stench! I am not really picking on Christie here, it is the premise of this that just boggles my mind. I am sure he is a good father, and parenting is the hardest job in the world, but come on now, let's be real.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">I just might write that book about my life some day. In reality, writing this blog is doing just that, over time, and in small doses, and I hope that you find it worth reading. And hopefully when the</span><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"> </span><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">Social Security Administration Centenary Project calls someday, it will be my voice that answers.</span><br />
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<br />Lucy Waterburyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00997988016871227949noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7063630923356562941.post-87108770483263261112014-04-14T16:55:00.000-04:002014-04-15T10:00:22.290-04:00The Certainty of Taxes Beats...death.<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">There are two phenomenal quotes regarding a topic that is guaranteed to squelch my enthusiasm for every April's arrival...taxes.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; font-size: 14px; line-height: 23.100000381469727px;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"> "The only things certain in life are death and taxes." - Benjamin Franklin</span></span></blockquote>
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 23.100000381469727px;">"The hardest thing in the world to understand is the income tax." -- attributed to Albert Einstein</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">So as to the first quote, while death is certain in this life, the how & when are fortunately a bit sketchy for most people. You have some control as to your risk seeking behavior, i.e. how much pork belly you consume, if you limit your smoking habit to one pack a day as opposed to two, if you enjoy base jumping in your spare time (if you are not familiar with base jumping, do your life expectancy a favor and pass on Googling this one). Regardless of how or when it comes, it will certainly come eventually.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">The how and when of tax day, on the other hand, are certain and stand at April 15th (alright, alright, alright, you are correct, occasionally this is a Saturday or Sunday so it technically could fall on the 16th, 17th, or 18th, but you get what I am saying here). Now one could say that filing an extension is an option to try and finagle your way around the infamous April 15th deadline, but regardless of whether you file for the extension, if you owe, the money is due on April 15th. That is of course unless interest and penalties are your cup of tea.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">The second quote, however is the one that boggles my mind. While technically this quote is only attributed to Albert Einstein, let's apply some suspension of disbelief, for my sake, and say that he indeed did say this. Assuming this is the case, what chance in hell do I have of trying to understand the income tax code in 2014 when Einstein couldn't understand it in the 1950s?! Here's the kicker, it is likely that not a single human being on the planet understands the ENTIRE United States tax code. Is it just me, or does this bother anyone else? </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Fortunately, I have Turbo Tax. The complexity of the computer code that drives this software miracle is most certainly one of the world's less appreciated wonders. Of course Turbo Tax is a suspected victim of the recent Heartbleed encryption computer code virus (Have no fear, I have changed my password!). This means that ostensibly there could be a computer hacker attempting to file a return in my name but I am pretty sure any refund filing submitted would result in an automatically rejected transmission to the IRS system with a display something like this "Error 404: Lucy Waterbury does not receive refunds from the IRS. Please try resubmitting your return, this time with some cash behind it. That is all". They may not have a single person in the place who understands their own code they are enforcing, but they do understand that Lucy Waterbury never gets refunds. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">This brings me to my next point. Evidently the IRS is in a bit of a bind this year when it comes to answering their own phone. According to an AP article "Risk of audit by IRS lowest in years" written by Stephen Ohlemacher, as published on the front page of today's <u>Lexington Herald-Leader</u>, "Last year, only 61 percent of taxpayers calling the IRS for help got it." Okay this blows my mind, who calls the IRS to ask them for tax guidance?! How does that phone conversation (assuming they answer!) go exactly? Maybe something like this....</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">(phone ringing heard in the background....)</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">(call answered with recorded message "Your call may be recorded for training purposes", but not "quality assurance" because really, the government doesn't care about that!)</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">-"Hi, is this the IRS?"</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">-"Yes, this is Cheryl, an IRS tax adviser, how may I assist you?"</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">-"Here's the thing, I am a self-employed business man & I bought myself a houseboat to use on Lake Cumberland last year so I could entertain clients and write it off as a deduction even though I will be the one really using it with not a client setting foot on that beauty. So anyway, how do I calculate the mileage on Lake Cumberland to take the mileage deduction for this bad boy or do I have to depreciate the damn thing?"</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">-"(silence briefly ensues) Well sir, it is a difficult question for me to answer, as you basically just asked me how to take an illegal tax deduction, but since you called from your personal cell and we have a souped-up, NSA programmed, caller ID program that links directly to your tax filing records, I'm going to wonder why you called your government to ask that question." (<i>for the record, I have no idea if this is true but given what the NSA is monitoring these days, it seems logical to me that this could be the case</i>)</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">-"Okay, I will just tell the missus we need to leave the boat in the slip this year and party like it's 1999 with the other Ohio Navy sailors who never take their house barges out. Oh and miss, you should really come down to Cumberland this year, they are putting all the water back in and it's going to be good times down there in the Bluegrass!"</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">-"Thank you for the tip sir, have a lovely evening."</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">Please note: If your taxes are so complicated that neither you nor Turbo Tax can figure them out, you need a CPA folks. Don't call the IRS.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">To make matters worse, the self-reporting nature of our tax code, makes those of us that are self-employed dig deep to find the center of their moral compass at tax time. Elizabeth Maresca, who is a former IRS lawyer turned academician, is also quoted in the article. According to Maresca, "Anybody who's an employee, who gets paid by an employer, has a limited ability to take risks on their returns...I think people who own their own business or are self-employed have a much greater opportunity (to cheat), and I think the IRS knows that too." Ya think?! </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">The article also states, "the IRS could scrutinize more returns -- and collect billions more in revenue -- with more resources....the IRS would collect $6 for every $1 increase in the agency's enforcement budget." Evidently Congress has no appetite for fully funding the IRS to get a return of six times their investment. And this my friends, along with an inordinately complex tax code, is what is wrong with the government today; p</span><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">assing new and complex laws that no one truly understands and while not enforcing the ones we have on the books already. </span><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">I don't care what your politics are, I think we can agree on this point. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">My husband and I are both self-employed. I do not cheat on my taxes, as lying isn't in my repertoire, and I am in favor of liking the person who stares back in that mirror every morning. According to the Turbo Tax algorithm, my chances of getting audited are low. But on this eve of the 2014 tax filing deadline, just hours after emptying my bank account to fulfill my complex tax burden, I will gladly accept this uncertainty of a potential audit over the other certain thing in this life. </span><br />
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<br />Lucy Waterburyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00997988016871227949noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7063630923356562941.post-33762705472880281102014-04-06T08:47:00.000-04:002014-04-06T08:47:09.609-04:00Won. Not Done. Shocking & Tweaking Our Way to the Top. #BBN<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Dear 2014 NCAA Selection Committee, You're fired. Why you ask? Well, Monday evening the entire City of Lexington, Kentucky, and approximately 1/4 of the world's population (including 9 UK fans that will be gathered in one home in Beijing, China) will watch #7 seed UCONN play #8 seed Kentucky in a basketball game. Now by the seeding numbers, if you know much about bracketology you would infer that this game would most likely be a Sweet Sixteen game (hint: it is impossible for a #7 seed to play a #8 seed before then!) played by a couple of scrappy teams that were just thankful to be playing in the tournament and trying on some Cinderella slippers for size. Well, you would be wrong, as on Monday, these teams are playing for THE NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIP. </span><div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">I know people hate math, but hang in here with me, and let's do some. That's right, according to the NCAA Selection Committee, at best the 28th best team is playing the 32nd best team to win it all; at worst it would be the 32nd best team playing the 36th best team. (I would show my work, as math teachers love that, but most people reading this blog are Kentucky fans who started filling out brackets when they were filling out diapers, so I will move on). The statistical significance of this gross misappropriation and ranking of talent this year is MIND BOGGLING at best, but potentially EPIC.</span><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">Now it doesn't take a PhD in math (which in an ironic twist, my brilliant brother lacked only his dissertation to attain a PhD in MATH from WISCONSIN) to see what I am saying here. My point, both Kentucky and UCONN came into this tournament misunderstood, underestimated, and forced into more than their fare share of March Madness to get here.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">So anyway, there is a silver lining in all of this. While unfair, UK's 8 seed created a road to the Final Four that is a bit like a Roman Gladiator being forced to run a gauntlet of vipers, then lions, then tigers, then bears, then hippos (oh, make no mistake these animals are "stone cold killers", I know, I learned that at the Louisville Zoo this week with my kids! Okay in reality, we faced another species of Wildcats, some grain tops, some Cardinals, some Wolverines & then some Badgers but those mascots don't illicit the imagery for this analogy, although meeting a Wolverine in a dark alley is not on my bucket list) Since we played the Shockers of Wichita State (did I mention they were undefeated until meeting my C-A-T-S in the tournament?), every game has been the making of a cardiac event. Baptist Health (oh, whose kidding, you will always be Central Baptist Hospital to me) and St. Joseph Cardiac units have been doing a brisk business the last few weeks, of this, I am sure. I hope the Big Blue Nation has some aspirin for these types of events.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">Additionally, because the Big Blue Nation follows their CATS in like lemmings to a cliff, all CATS fans are also suffering from sleep disorders as they keep scheduling our games as the last prime time</span><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"> game on the schedule EVERY.SINGLE.TIME(perpetually in the Central Time Zone). For parents of small children this is like cruel and unusual punishment, I swear. Although I am supposed to be preparing a Sunday School lesson instead of writing this blog, it was I who was in bed at 1:30AM listening to Matt Jones and KSR (Kentucky Sports Radio), 2 hours after the game is over, because it is just craziness to win another late prime time game at the buzzer and then just go to sleep. I need my couch, so burning it to pass the time was not an option. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">If you haven't been following along, Aaron "Stone Cold Killer" Harrison nailed a 3 point shot (from a spot damn near in downtown Dallas) with 5.7 seconds left in the game to put the CATS in a winning position. Now 1 of these clutch shots in the last 2 minutes of a game during this tournament is the making of legends but to make 3 of these in 3 back-to-back buzzer beating, cardiac challenging games is EPIC I tell you. Matt Jones of Kentucky Sports Radio is a big fan of the Harrison twins and he coined the phrase "Stone Cold Killers" to describe their basketball prowess. As they mentioned on the IMG Wrap up show last night, the boy must have ice water running in his veins because that shot took balls folks. According to the media, the "tweak" that Cal put into place before the tournament involved getting his brother Andrew to pass the ball more. I say the tweak has been using the bench that has allowed us to win with our Willie out, but in any case, it is just insanely fun.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Folks what I am telling you is this...this tournament has not been an easy road but it has been something AMAZING to watch. Lock up your couches people, these CATS have 9 lives.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">I gotta go teach Sunday School.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">#BBN</span></div>
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Lucy Waterburyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00997988016871227949noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7063630923356562941.post-86568921247134258532014-04-04T08:13:00.002-04:002014-04-04T08:13:37.720-04:00Tornadoes, Basements, & Bears, Oh My!<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">My son Wyatt is showing signs of becoming a future meteorologist. Since he was old enough to figure out how to use the television/cable box remote combo, (a skill set that is elusive to many Americans on a good day and most real estate agents stuck in homes hosting Open Houses on days when their University of Kentucky Wildcats are playing in a SEC Championship!) he has often chosen the Weather Channel to fill time until Mom decides to join the land of the living. Although only in 1st grade, he will leave the Cartoon Network and Disney Channel in the dust to consume Locals on the 8s, at 8 minute intervals for hours. (Oh, and</span><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">, he could probably provide an up-to-the-minute count of babies born to the female meteorologists</span><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"> as I swear for a couple of years there, there MUST have been something in the water down there in Atlanta.) Anyway, h</span><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">e watches it with an intensity that is mind boggling, not missing a single report by any one of their weather desks, like the hurricane desk or the severe weather desk. Now that he is older, he will provide up to the minute projections of when severe weather is imminent. Having said that, he has a more than healthy respect for tornadoes. Honestly, since the 40 year old maple came down in our backyard, in 70 mile per hour winds last fall, he has an intense fear of them.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Fortunately for Kentuckians, until enough glaciers melt to make my husband's family in Ashland, Kentucky proud owners of oceanfront property, hurricanes are something we just monitor from afar on the news or on Wyatt's beloved Weather Channel. But tornadoes in Kentucky, my friend, are what I call, kamikaze hurricanes. Unlike in Kansas, because of our hilly topography, it is difficult for Kentucky tornadoes to sustain themselves & cause several miles of damage. So here is what they do, they drop out of the sky in an instant, rendering surgically precise devastation, on those that are in its path, albeit for a brief few seconds, and then return back into the sky. Just like that. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">I am a native of Madison County, Kentucky which recognized a grim anniversary yesterday, the death of 7 people as a result of a tornado outbreak that struck 30 years ago. Not unlike when JFK was shot, or when 9/11 happened, most Madison County folks can tell you where they were for those terrifying minutes in 1974. In the last few years, mother nature has unleashed a few deadly tornadoes that wrecked havoc in both the Kirksville area of my native county, the Masterson Station area of Fayette County, and one in 2012 that damn near wiped West Liberty, Kentucky off the map. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Having grown up in Kentucky, tornado drills in schools were a part of life, and we were taught the skills necessary to determine where to seek shelter in ANY building, should the sirens go off indicating that a kamikaze hurricane was imminent. In fact, I have no memory of NOT knowing what to do in the event of a tornado, much like I have no memory of NOT knowing how to swim. In Kentucky, these are survival skills, both hunkering down for tornadoes and swimming, as Kentucky features 49,100 miles of rivers, creeks, streams and tributaries (we are second only to Alaska in the miles of navigable water but whose counting?!)</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">A few years ago, I had the privilege of working with a Mainer when I worked for a photogrammetry firm (if you are unfamiliar with what a photogrammetry firm does, I would explain it but this blog post is long enough, so go Google it) For those of you who may not know what a Mainer is, it is one who is a native of the great state of Maine. So on one of his trips to our Lexington office (he worked in our Bangor, Maine office) my friend Mike, the Mainer, asked me how I dealt with the fear of tornadoes. To be quite honest, it struck me as an odd question at the time but it was a great question coming from someone who lives where tornadoes are far less common. My answer was, "Well Mike, to be honest, I have never really thought that much about it, it is just part of living in Kentucky"</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">To me, the threat of kamikaze hurricanes is a lot like the risk of a massive heart attack. Most likely I will see the signs coming and I will have made choices along the way that either will increase or decrease my chances of survival. When I bought my "forever" house, I made sure it had a basement where my family could seek shelter when those sirens start wailing and the voice of the siren "God" starts telling me what to do. Which reminds me...I need to ask my friend Shelley, who works for the Fayette County Dept. of Emergency Mgt., if we have a siren setting for an alien invasion, because if we do, I would love to hear the script for that warning! Instead of advising me to seek shelter it probably says something like "Fellow citizenry, I wish this was a siren for a kamikaze hurricane, but nope the aliens are here and we are TOAST!" Similarly, my home is located within a 3 minute ambulance ride to a major cardiac care unit. I can't say that I keep a set of defibrillators in the house (as most likely my 3 year old would find a way to get to them and try and use them on her brother!) but I do keep aspirin in the house. I also keep a weather radio in the house (but in reality I rely on my severe weather IPhone app for that).</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">But having said all that, here is what I have noticed about Kentuckians, they have a love/hate relationship with basements. They either love them, or they hate them (mainly because of leaking concerns), but then again those that hate them have probably never really needed one when the sh*t gets real around here. Isn't it astounding how accurate these Doppler Weather monitoring systems have become?! When Bill Meck, our local meteorologist, starts shouting your street name through the television, you are going to wish you had a basement. I'm afraid these complex detection systems, that can be precise as to the street addresses where the tornadoes are heading, have also given us a false sense of security. Soon you will see parents with 80 inch flat panel televisions mounted in their basements, sending their children outside to play because Bill said the tornado was two streets over so they could come out of their basements.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">In my years of showing houses, I feel like it is my fiduciary duty to remind my buyers, especially those from out-of-state, that kamikaze hurricanes are a reality here and that running around your house trying to drag a mattress into your interior, windowless bathroom is not an Olympic sport in which most people hold a medal. After I share my thoughts about that, then I shut up (well, for a few seconds anyway).</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">To me basements are like guns, it is easy to be against them and all of the potential problems that owning one can cause (and in both cases these problems are very real), until your life is at risk and you realize the choices you made along the way, may cost you your life. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">The saying goes that March comes in like a lion but goes out like a lamb. In my experience in the springtime in Kentucky, April can be a bear, period. But fear not, Wyatt's addiction the the local on the 8s should give me at least an 8 minute window to head to my basement. Grab the aspirin too folks, because when you hear the train a comin' (tornadoes sound like trains...I know this from school tornado drills), you just might need it in your basement as well.</span><br />
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Lucy Waterburyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00997988016871227949noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7063630923356562941.post-43987952775272812172014-04-03T16:19:00.003-04:002014-04-03T18:52:28.397-04:00Congratulations to me, it's a blog!<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Why would I be congratulating myself on the birth of my blog? Well, it has been gestating in my head of a few years now but until recently, I did not have the emotional energy or unstructured time to dedicate to bringing it to life on the computer screen. Now that I am self employed in real estate, I will have more flexibility to tend to the feeding and pruning of this thing. When I named this blog, I chose a play on words that I hoped would make it meaningful in regards to my life in general and relate it to what I do for a living as experiences in my work often fill my head. As a real estate agent, real estate investor, former mortgage banker, & the wife of a certified KY Real Estate Appraiser (yes, I sleep with an appraiser!) we pretty much live, sleep, eat and breathe real estate around here. But when I am not working (which when you are a real estate agent is a bit hard to determine), I am a parent of two small children who appropriately dominate every other minute of my life.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">So, here it is, a permanent record (seems a bit scary, right?) of my observations on such topics as living, parenting, real estate, finance, politics, religion, grief, etc. as I spew them out into the world. As those closest to me can attest, you never know what I might say next, so sometimes it will be serious, sometimes silly, just like my life.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">If I create nothing more than a journal of sorts (maybe for my kids to read someday), I will consider it a win. </span><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">In any case, if I can keep the proverbial</span><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"> wheels on this cart, it should be an adventure. I hope you will stick around for the ride. </span><br />
<br />Lucy Waterburyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00997988016871227949noreply@blogger.com3