Let's talk Pike County! A friendly place to discuss Pike County, KY. If you live in, have visited or if you are a former resident of Pike County....let's reminisce, discuss issues or whatever is on your mind.
It's Monday and that means I'll be the master of ceremonies in Xanadu Chat & Stream tonight at 10 pm. Finish off your hellacious Monday on a fun note with the Xanadu gang.
We have been busy updating the Haysi High School Memorial board trying to list everyone of our classmates who have died. Please visit the board and if you think of anyone else who has passed away, please email tenestreasures@optidynamic.com with the details. She needs the graduation year if possible, or the year the student would have graduated.
Go here to read who they still need info on, and click the Memorial Pages link to see the listings.
Where had Ms Gerri and Big Man been so long? Are they ill or just busy. I know Big Man has alot of medical problems but I'm beginning to worry about Ms Gerri.
I reckon she is fine now..Gerri had an abcessed tooth
by ccg
back a couple weeks ago..is busy with stuff around the house & business but far as I know she & hubby are doing okay. I know that her hubby went to Ashland for a check-up and had a clean bill of health. I saw her truck in town one day but didn't get to talk to her. I haven't posted in a while - summer stuff..ya know how that goes.
know about all this summer work. Maybe this winter we can all get back on and catch up. Thanks for the info sure glad Mr. Gerri checked up fine. Catch ya later
Well, I don't know about everyone else but I've been hiding after reading Hals post..actually its a busy time all over mostly sickness with the older people around here.
Effective 08/15/03 at 12:00 HRS Local... Most of Blount County is without power. County seat is Maryville, TN. The outage began about 12:00 PM. No 'official' explanation has been forthcoming. A rumor flying around locally is that a squirrel shorted the Alcoa sub-station. Oh...those naughty rodents. (-:
Yours truly still has power with the diesel generator on standby.
Later...
Haillbilly Hal
No... just learned the power outage here was directly associated with problems at an Alcoa, TN sub-station nearby.
Tomorrow, [08/16/03] check out the details/reasons concerning the outage at: www.thedailytimes.com
"My opinion concerning the blackout?" Let me say it this way; 'sometimes' it's dangerous to propagate the TRUTH...This, IMHO, is no exception.
Clue= "Crisis managers love crisis management.
Often times, a crisis is 'induced' to 'deflect' public attention from more crucial issues.
History is replete with such political chicanery.
On has to look no further than Hitler burning the Reichstag and blaming it on the Communist to further his evil agenda.
there's more than what meets the eye with the Blackout situation! I called a dear elderly aunt in Toledo last night. She was without power for about an hour, but was scared earlier on that would be much longer.
There was so many conflicting storeis, and just like the Kennedy murders, we'll probably never know in our lifetime.
Insulators fell into a transformer at this switching station near Foothills Mall, causing the blackout.
Repair Restores Power in Blount Co.
August 15, 2003
ALCOA (WATE) -- The repair at a switching station has restored power Friday for almost all the 50,000 people affected in Alcoa, Maryville and other portions of Blount County.
A spokesperson for Alcoa utilities said that when insulators fell into a transfomer at the switching station near Foothills Mall, it blacked out power early Friday afternoon.
Utility crews are working to restore power to the few customers who remain affected by the outage Friday evening.
The Maryville firefighers helped Maryville police officers with traffic control at the major intersections.
The ALCOA plant was not affected. Operations there ran normally because the plant is outside the power grid supplied by the utility.
Managers closed the Foothills Mall late Friday afternoon, saying it would re-open Saturday at 10:00 a.m.
Blount County schools stayed open, holding classes in the dark. Generators provided power at the hospitals.
The Alcoa Fire Department called in eight off-duty firefighters during the blackout. They visited schools to make certain everything ran smoothly.
Alcoa Utility officials said the outage was not related to Thursday's massive blackout in several northeast U.S. states and Canadian provinces. There are plans in progress to create a back up systems in case of further incidents.
_______________
6 News Reporters Steve Gehlbach and Tim Miller contributed to this report.
Is that the sequel is several months away. I am almost finished, but undecided about the ending and expecting to shop for a publisher. The sequel is already more than twice as long as the first. I am working on three other books ( a nonfiction about this area, a real life bio, and a book about cancer) so I am having trouble focusing on the sequel.
Thank you for taking the time to update me on your busy schedule. I will be waiting I was just wondering if you were writing or was that the first and last. Keep up the great work,
and follows both sets of family through the past century and how we were affected by certain events and changes in Pike County. It's as much a historical nonfiction for this area as it is a personal story. I have been working on it for several years. I have to do it justice because it is the story as far as I'm concerned. I'm really trying to do to many things at one time.
Gals I tell you I love the receipe that Diana gave me last year for her fudge(on the receipe board)I just can't make it often because it's like that commerical with chips you can't eat just one. Thanks Diana I've made it often and shoot who cares about calories anymore. I stopped counting long ago.
One of the great sketch comedians of the 1960s was The Carol Burnett Show's Tim Conway. His persona, presented with flawless comic timing, was almost always that of a man whose reactions were, to put it kindly, a little slow. "Don't tear that," he'd say, his brow suddenly contracting in alarm after he'd spent several seconds placidly watching a bratty kid shred a document into tiny bits. In one memorable skit in which his character took a fall from a fifth story window, the audience saw Conway disappear over the sill and heard a series of horrendous crashes ending in a sickening thud. Only then, after a moment of silence, came the despairing wail, "I'm FAAAAAALLLLLLING!"
And that, in a nutshell, describes mainstream American press coverage of the rise of the far right.
What brought all this to mind was a recent piece in Salon about a rally of young Republicans in Washington. In her article, Michelle Goldberg makes what Salon apparently considers the red-hot revelation that many in the upcoming crop of young Republicans are not only callous, jingoistic, and overtly racist, but regard Democrats and liberals as enemies practically on a par with Mid-East terrorists. She quotes speaker Paul Erickson describing a liberal as "someone who at their root, at their core, hates everything this country stands for but doesn't hate it enough to leave," and the next speaker, right-wing lobbyist Jack Abramoff equating Democrats with "the ascension of evil, the bad guys, the Bolsheviks'"
It's hardly surprising that the young Republicans attending this rally and lapping up such garbage denounce Clinton as more dangerous than Osama bin Laden and boast about a contempt for liberals that seems more personal than political. As Goldberg observes midway through the piece, "Ann Coulter's latest book, Treason, which tarred virtually all Democrats as traitors, may have been denounced by conservative intellectuals, but its message has pervaded the party."
I have no problem with the concern Goldberg expresses in her account. I agree with her that the quotes she's offered, from both the speakers at this rally and the attendees, go beyond the kind of rivalry one would expect in a two party system. In fact, these conservatives' equation of Democrats with treason, bolshevism, evil itself, veers dangerously close to an outright rejection of the American conception of political diversity. What does annoy me quite profoundly is that the "troubling dark side" to modern conservatism Goldberg describes has been around far too long for her piece to qualify as a revelation.
None of the ugly remarks quoted in it are likely to surprise anyone who has frequented online conservative chat-rooms or Internet bulletin boards for the past three years. Nor should they be news to anyone who has read and noted the popularity not just of Ann Coulter, but the likes of Bill O'Reilly, William Bennett and Rush Limbaugh. The time for the mainstream press to notice that a great many conservatives reject, not just the ideas, but the very legitimacy of liberalism and/or the Democratic Party was three years ago when rioting Republicans shut down a legal vote at the Miami Dade Courthouse. Or, at the very latest, well over a year ago, when Coulter made her famous comment about the need to "physically intimidate liberals" to an enthusiastic crowd at a Conservative rally.
For roughly two decades our mass media has covered the standard bearers for the far right's current revival of McCarthyism as if these pundits operated in a vacuum. The religious right's insinuation into mainstream politics, the popularity of Rush Limbaugh, the bestseller status of Ann Coulter's nauseating books, have been treated as amusing sideshows or at worst, gross breaches of taste, their troubling implications ignored. Important questions about the agenda these people represent, and the extent to which it has been tacitly embraced both by a major political party and a significant portion of the American public have gone largely unasked and unanswered.
Mainstream journalists seem intent on overlooking the fact that when someone equates being a Democrat with treason, or being a liberal with depravity, they are not talking about abstracts. They are talking about individuals. They are describing American citizens who work, vote, fight in our wars, raise families, and teach in our schools and universities. They are declaring that these American citizens are, by virtue of their beliefs, evil, disloyal, even criminal. And when they say these things to cheering throngs, publish them in best-selling books, and form committees intent on acting on these assumptions, they warrant far more serious and thoughtful attention than the current press seems willing to give them.
It's nice that Michelle Goldberg is concerned. It's nice that Salon published her article. It would have been even nicer if, in the course of researching her article Goldberg had actually asked the conservatives at this rally a few of the questions that positively screamed to be asked, like "If Democrats are traitors, should they be treated as traitors? Should they be arrested for treason?" or "If you want to bring back the blacklist, what form would it take? Do you want to drive all liberal teachers out of public schools and universities? All liberals out of government? All liberals out of any position of trust?"
Nowhere, of course, is there any indication in the article that Goldberg posed any of these important and potentially revealing questions, even though she describes attending a hotel-room bull session with some of the attendees that would have offered her a dandy opportunity. It would be an interesting question in itself to ask her why she didn't or, if she did, why she didn't consider the answers she got worth sharing with the rest of us.
If sometime in the future the "beautiful young shock troops" Goldberg describes start acting on their visceral hatred for liberals/Democrats with blacklists, legal sanctions or even occasional vigilante violence against such "traitors," it's not hard to foresee the American press' reaction. In that event, we can expect articles from some mainstream journalists evincing a bland astonishment, as if this repression from the right were a development that no knowledgeable watcher of the political scene could have foreseen.
Her article in today's News-Express is so touching, if you're a pet lover and even if you're not. Anyone who thinks about getting a pet please do as she did go to the pound. They are so many animals that need tender loving care like all humans. YES I'M A PET LOVER!!
HIGH NOONS
3/4 CUP PEANUT BUTTER
3/4 CUP POWDER SUGAR
1 TBS MELTED BUTTER
1 BAG CARMELS
1 BAG CHOCOLATE CHIPS
ALWAYS DOUBLE THIS RECEIPE FOR A 9 x 13 PAN.
MIS ALL THE ITEMS EXCEPT FOR THE CHOCOLATE, MELT THE BUTTER AND CARMELS IN THE MICROWAVE POUR IN PAN SRAYED LIGHTLY WITH BUTTER COOL. CUT INTO SQUARES AND DIP IN MELTED CHOCOLATE.
The Kingness of Mad George
July 30, 2003
By B. Rehak
The Founding Fathers wanted this democracy to last forever because they understood that mere empires come and go.
To that end, they established an intricate system of historic checks and balances to make sure the sort of tyranny they'd just fought to defeat never rose up again. They gave us the Constitution and the Bill of Rights to guarantee our freedoms.
Americans would never have a king, but instead a popularly elected President, and they'd always be free to openly express their opinions, especially about the government and its policies. The people would be the master of their own rulers. It was a unique experiment in liberty which evolved and endured for more than two centuries, until one day in November 2000.
The Founding Fathers never figured on the Imperial Presidency of George W. Bush, and his court-appointed "Government of the neo-cons, by the neo-cons, and for the neo-cons." A self-righteous minority of ruthless profiteering ideological extremists was never supposed to dominate all three independent branches of the American Democracy. It's in your old high school civics book. Look it up.
While we were all busy with the breathless search for the elusive Iraqi A-Bomb, Mr. Bush and his handlers have apparently secretly passed the 'Freedom of Disinformation Act,' under which the Republican-controlled Senate and House have finally issued their long-delayed and heavily rewritten version of the '9/11 Report,' laying blame on everyone but the White House. Imagine that.
Imagine also that 28 key pages in that report related to Saudi Arabia were blacked out. Mr. Bush's people apparently thought that redaction was the better part of valor, considering that the bin Laden and Bush families and the Saudi Oil Princes all go back so profitably for decades. The Presidency is temporary, but big oil money is eternal.
Do you like political intrigue?
Take a moment now to envision the Republican response if a Democratic president who allowed 3,000 Americans to be murdered and never caught the man behind the plot after promising to do so, issued a softball report carefully produced by a totally Democratic Congress with key clues to the actual people responsible missing - especially those that might impact his own long-time business and political associates.
Are you envisioning?
Now envision that back on September 12, 2001, the day after the mass murder, that Democratic president had reportedly allowed a private jet to collect the closest relatives of the key man behind the murderous attack so they could leave the country ahead of any untidy FBI questioning. Imagine that same Democratic president had then tried to block an outside independent probe of the worst U.S. terrorist event in history demanded by the attack's own victims and their families.
Are you following this so far?
Now imagine that to divert attention from his botched domestic economy and his failed quest for the killer of those 3,000 Americans that this Democratic president instead invented reasons to attack a whole different country and got us stuck in a pointless holy war there costing a billion dollars and seven dead U.S. soldiers a week.
Got the picture? Can you see it?
It's a good thing the Republicans were totally in charge when all this actually happened. If it had been Mr. Clinton, we'd have never heard the end of it.
Can you imagine the bleating on neo-fascist Talk Radio across the land? Can you see Rush Limbaugh's head explode? Ann Coulter would go postal. Can you hear the calls for impeachment? Fox News would brand it treason, with good purpose. Matt Drudge would be up all night dishing online dirt about the idiot Democrats who'd foolishly allowed 9/11 to happen, covered it up, and then created Saigon on the Tigress. Bill O'Reilly would have kittens, and cable news ratings would go through the roof.
Actually, few folks seem upset. Can you really imagine the American people are so stupid they'd buy all this without question? The Republicans are banking on it.
The regents behind King George the 43rd realize that voter apathy and ignorance have become increasingly critical to their neo-conservative re-election game plan. A majority of Americans polled even mistakenly think that Saddam Hussein was behind the 9/11 attacks. The Bush folks must figure that as national policy, stupidity works. That includes the man currently serving as President.
It's not just that the Emperor Bush has no clothes, he has no clue.
If we leave it to the enfeebled Democratic Party, Mr. Bush and his handlers will probably get away with all this, but thankfully there are good people in Washington ready to act. The Republican monolith, which had seemed invincible, is starting to show some cracks. The Cheney-Halliburton Administration is quietly running scared. This is due to a growing revolt in the single constituency that the Bush folks can't dominate: their own Republican Congress. The neo-cons apparently thought they'd bought it, but it appears now they only leased it.
On November 2, 2004 (66 weeks from today) all the members of the U.S. House and one third of the U.S. Senate have to stand for re-election, and they represent the one group that will dump Mr. Bush if they sense he's spoiling their chances to keep power. As a national Republican candidate in 2000, Mr. Bush had very short coat tails.
If you seek political change in this country, here's the key. The Republicans are the only people who can effectively defeat George W. Bush. The Nixon years ended with a coverup, but the Bush years began with one, and it apparently continues to this day.
When this is all sorted out, the original crimes will doubtless pale in comparison to the misdeeds of those trying now to rewrite reality into a winning patriotic saga. When it starts to go bad all the 'good' Republicans will book. The smart money never goes down with the ship. Never.
Consider the following. Over the weekend, two key conservatives went public as they calculated the diminishing electoral potential of the Cheney-Halliburton Administration.
Richard Shelby, Alabama's senior U.S. Senator and Chairman of the powerful Senate Banking Committee, is a top Republican investigating intelligence failures before 9/11. He's openly criticized White House pressure to censor the 9/11 report. Mr. Shelby said he'll dig into the financial connections between governments and terrorist groups. You can reach him at http://shelby.senate.gov/.
Even more telling were the words of Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Richard Lugar of Indiana on NPR Saturday, who said the White House knows there's a big price tag for rebuilding Iraq, "But they do not wish to discuss that." Lugar supported the war but now admits U.S. post-war planning was inadequate, and he estimates the rebuilding alone might cost $30 billion. You can reach Senator Lugar at http://lugar.senate.gov/.
These two men are hardly lefties, and their public shift away from Mr. Bush is something of a sea change in conservative willingness to distance the President's actions from those of other Republicans. Interesting.
Meanwhile, the "father" of the stalled Iraq war, U.S. Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz was all over TV on Sunday defending the invasion as a prime example of how the Administration must be prepared to act on "murky intelligence" in the war on terrorism. Odd that many inside the CIA reportedly think the Bush people are a lot more "murky" than the Intel, which was apparently extensively "refined" until it "made" the case for war. More than 200 American kids have thus far died for "murky."
Also, there's one other place the dreaded Iraqi WMD is missing: from Mr. Bush's new speeches.
Rising to Mr. Bush's defense is Ed Gillespie, the new GOP chairman who reportedly told the 165-member Republican National Committee that the Democrats are feeding Americans "a steady diet of protest and pessimism" in absence of real solutions to the economy and Iraq, according to Reuters. If you're the parents of a U.S. soldier who was killed in Iraq or one of the over 3,000,000 people who've lost their jobs in the 919 days of the Bush reign, perhaps you are getting a little pessimistic.
This brings us to Admiral John M. Poindexter, Ronald Reagan's former national security adviser, a principal in the Iran-Contra Affair, and the resurrected head of something called the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), which is reportedly setting up an online futures trading market, where speculators could bet on forecasting terrorist attacks, assassinations and coups. In response to growing howls of laughter, the White House has since apparently altered the Web site at http://www.policyanalysismarket.org. Mr. Bush sought $8 million through 2005 for the project. This is a real story, although we must admit that the Admiral's adventures always sound like something written for 'The Onion,' or 'The Daily Show.' [Editor's note: the Pentagon announced yesterday that the plan for a "terror futures market" has now been scrapped.]
Finally, there are press reports today that indicate Al-Qaeda, those same great folks who helped bring you 9/11, and whom Mr. Bush never quite found time to actually defeat on his way to Iraq, are openly planning more high flying mischief. Maybe they have the WMD.
Let's face it. It's becoming very clear that Dick Cheney and his ilk are really running the show. To be charitable, Mr. Bush, were he the son of anyone other than George Herbert Walker Bush of Midland, Texas, who got him a legacy admission to Yale, would be lucky to rise to middle management at Wal-Mart.
As more of the blood of our brave, believing, faithful kids irrigates the fields of Babylon, a lot of folks are starting to ask some very untidy questions. We've sent our best young people to fight and die for oil in Iraq, while many of their young families at home subsisted on food stamps, and got screwed out of a child income tax credit that Mr. Bush gladly gave other Americans.
We now have the best Government corporate money can buy, and that's the problem. The people behind Enron and WorldCom and Halliburton are encamped along the Potomac and fully in charge. It's good the folks who fought for and set up this country are all dead. An hour watching America today as reported by Fox News would kill them anyhow.
If any of this bothers you, the solution is available 66 weeks from now. Get organized. The people who don't care and never bother to vote must be motivated to go to the polls. If we give the neo-cons four more years, the Canadians will have to fortify the border to keep all of the impoverished refugees out.
This is no longer about liberal or conservative, or party, or ideology. If the American people want a country to come home to, they'd better take it back for themselves.
Our favorite observer of the Bush Imperial Presidency is the great Roman Historian Publius Cornelius Tacitus (55-120 AD). He had an eye for this sort of thing and two thousand years hasn't dimmed his vision. He said, "In stirring up tumult and strife, the worst men can do the most, but peace and quiet cannot be established without virtue."
If you think the search for the WMD is tough, try finding virtue in any of this.
B. Rehak is a writer in California, and can be reached at mail@columnleft.com.
There's rumors around that there is to be a museum in Pikeville in the not-too-distant future. Supposedly, it is to be in the old train depot/bus station which fronts Hambley Boulevard. Those in the know say it will cover the Big Sandy region from the time of pre-Columbian Native Americans to the newest developments.
If this is true, do you think the public will support it or will it be just another pipe dream in the category of more light industry and coal gassification? Would you pay your hard earned money to see what it has to offer? Would it succeed as a tourist attraction?
I don't think the depot is large enough for a museum and at the moment the Chamber of Commerce offices are located there. I haven't heard anything about this, but then I don't get out much.
In response, I hear the museum will be in the old train depot, not the chamber of commerce in the railroad car. The train depot faces the boulevard at the end of Caroline Avenue and is a good size for a beginning museum with one large central room and a smaller room on either end.
Don't know what happened to Kitty White, but she certainly isn't in the depot building. It has contained nothing but dust and discarded cardboard boxes for the past several months. There are signs of life, however. A peek in the windows reveals a newly painted interior and most of the junk removed. There's also a dumpster outside on the Boulevard!
I haven't been here in a while...too busy eating and playing Sims this summer. Trying to relax as much as possible before school starts back next week. Losing my position at Mullins turned into a great opportunity for me (even though I really had a fantastic year there.) I'm going to be an itinerant technology resource teacher. It should be a great position. A lot of perks, but no children. I won't be spending long hours grading papers, planning, fixing up my classroom. I will miss the room and the kids, but it's really a better deal for me. I won't be spending so much money on students. Last year I averaged $50 to $100 each payday on supplies and treats for my class. Can you tell I'm trying to talk myself into not being sad about having no children (except of course my daughters) next year? Wish me luck.
BTW, I responded to an old post by Waver on downt the page about ANE.
I think that darn Sims stuff is "addicting" don't you?? Got your email earlier and was pleasantly surprised. Always look forward to reading your column in the ANE..AND you are NOT supposed to be playing that video game ..you are "supposed" to be working on the sequel to "Rooster Creek Girl".. Glad you are enjoying your girls..and while this postition may not be the one you "really" wanted ..there is always a reason for everything..you'll do greeeeaaattt!!! Have a good "rest of the summer vacation" (which is only about what - 3 more weeks? My oldest graduated (Top 10 of her class)..starts UVA the last of August..the other one is a junior! Enjoy yours while they are still "little"..and DON'T BE A STRANGER!!!
it turns out this position is better than I'd dreamed of. Although I do miss "my kids." Today was their first day back. This job has a lot of bonuses that a regular classroom does not. I am very excited about it.
From you. I know you've had a busy summer but you better get back on that sequel.LOL. Congratulations on your new position will you be at the pentagon or in a school environment? Take care
I'm at the Board for the first month and then going out to the schools as a technology resource teacher (sort of a cheerleader for teachers but some people have referred to the Board as the Pentagon in the past.
I haven't been on too much lately myself. I had a few things going on that has otherwise occupied my thinking....and the older I get the less I try to think. It's not always pleasant!
Anyway, I know your girls are enjoying their Mom for the summer. How quickly time does fly!
"Of course the people don't want war. The people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism, and exposing the country to greater danger."
Mix in a baggie or small plastic bottle, set in cup of hot water. Wet hair, apply (I put a plastic bag over my hair and left this on while I enjoyed a nice long bath.
Rinse with warm water and shampoo lightly
Use your regular conditioner if you want.
My hair has become very dry and fly away as I age sigh
but this worked wonderfully and I had all the ingredients in the kitchen.
after a few months of coloring and highlighting that I had NEVER done before recently. I noticed my hair wasn't shiny like before.
The work sure wasn't done by me either!!!!! I'm too big of a chicken for that....and it was at a place that actually cost about double what the locals charge....
Want to send a message over the 'airwaves' 
?
, a laugh 
, or even your wrath 
, or to just hear your name over the net 
?
