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Opinion

  • Two weeks plenty for absence option

    As red roses and helium balloons rotated in and out of the middle school doors last Friday morning, I found myself in a vicious conversation cycle.
    Again.
    I fought so hard not to talk about the snow, the ice, the salt, the weather: conversation starters so common as to bore everyone to tears by now. (Sorry, board members, teachers and other Anderson County district staff. I’ll try to be a better conversationalist in the future.)

  •
    Best wishes, Ben!
  • Share your ‘meet cute’ love stories...

    In the movies they call it a “meet cute.”
    The beautiful ingénue drops her stack of papers and bumps heads with a stranger as they both kneel to pick up the mess.
    They look up and their eyes meet.
    A relationship, and the plotline of many a romantic comedy, is born.
    Meeting our loved ones for the first time is usually not as adorable, simple or extraordinary as television and the silver screen depicts those moments.

  • Snow days much more complicated...

    Time stops for no one, and no one is more aware of this than Anderson County administrators looking to make up snow days.
    Sure, snow days come with hot chocolate and marshmallows, warm fires and sledding, cabin fever and movie marathons.
    They also involve questions about funding formulas, continued compliance with state law and strong opinions about which days are the best days to recover classroom time.

  • Letters to editor best legacy of all

    Column as I see ’em (for the last time) …
    The graveyards are full of irreplaceable people.
    A former co-worker told me that God knows how many years ago after a much younger version of me proudly announced that I was leaving my job for greener pastures.
    I did my best to be humble and gracious when I announced I had taken another job, but the fellow who made the graveyard quip obviously saw right through me.

  • Like it or not, pipeline grants are...

    Column as I see ’em …
    Is it because it’s viewed as blood money?
    That was one response when folks in our office were debating why on earth no public agency in Anderson County has applied for a Bluegrass Pipeline grant.
    I guess the blood money scenario is a possibility, but given the stated state of financial affairs around here, it would seem they’d take money from nearly any source.
    After all, it’s not like they’re taking a one-week loan from Tony Soprano, you know?

  • How I feel about January, and a...

    A new year brings a new fixation on loss.
    We tell ourselves: yes, this is the year we’ll lose, and we’ll lose triumphantly for the better.  
    Shed those hated pounds, chop off your hair and slough away the stress for a fresh, scrubbed outlook on life.
    This is extremely difficult to do in January.
    No offense to everyone who celebrates birthdays (sorry, Dad and Martin Luther King Jr.), anniversaries or other memorable occasions during the month, but I hate January.

  •
    Do you know who owns these welcome...

    Two welcome signs are in need of, repairs or simply need to be taken down.
    You may have seen them on North Main Street or Broadway. They’re old and faded, and a little worse for wear.
    In my opinion, they’re in need of some tender loving and care. And I’m not even sure that would solve the problem.
    I thought it was the city’s responsibility to maintain these two welcome signs, so I dashed off a quick email to City Clerk Robbie Hume.  

  • Leaky oil pipe better than more...

    Since it first popped up as an issue last year, I’ve been asked time and again when I will take an editorial stance on the proposed Bluegrass Pipeline.
    In fact, there are several folks who have flat-out demanded that I do so, either to draw me out as a pipeline proponent or hold me aloft as yet another member of the media to fall in line by opposing it.

  • New year, same old public library

    Column as I see ’em …
    I sometimes feel like Al Pacino in the third (and worst) “Godfather” movie. You know, the one where aging mafia Michael Corleone boss laments, “Every time I try to get out, they pull me back in.”

  • Columns that stuck in 2013

    Since I started writing opinion columns for The Anderson News, I spend the last week of the year ripping those same columns to shreds.
    I retroactively go over the sentences I loved writing and the people that inspired them. The ill-conceived, awkward sentence constructions I wish died on the keyboard as I typed them. The brilliant, sophisticated prose I dreamed only after our Monday deadline.
    I don’t mentally review every single one of the nearly 52 columns I wrote in 2013.

  • Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa...

    Editor’s note: The following was written by Francis P. Church and was first published in The New York Sun in 1897. Church married shortly after the editorial appeared. He died in April, 1906, leaving no children.
    Virginia O’Hanlon went on to graduate from Hunter College with a Bachelor of Arts degree at age 21.
    Virginia O’Hanlon Douglas died on May 13, 1971, at the age of 81, in a nursing home in Valatie, NY.

  •
    Engaged couple runs to spread...

    Here comes Santa Claus, here comes Santa Claus —
    Running down Broadway?
    No, really.
    I know — I was as skeptical as you when I got the call from one of our advertising representatives, Tamara Smith, last Friday afternoon.
    The conversation on the phone was one of those where I repeated everything she told me incredulously because, really.
    “Santa? On Broadway? OK … ”
    A Santa and his partner-in-crime Mrs. Claus running down a Lawrenceburg street?
    Sure. Why not?

  • Nightmares before Christmas

    Now that my transformation into a gingerbread man was complete, the battle for Christmas supremacy began.
    As soon as my head hit the pillow and my eyes closed Sunday night, dreams of sugarplums did not dance in my mind.
    More like bloody, violent dreams of sugarplums warring against a native tribe of gingerbread people.

  • City council approves Election Day...

    Column as I see ’em …
    If the above headline sounds familiar, it should. It’s nearly identical to one I wrote a few weeks ago on the front page, and one that apparently got a few city council members in a bit of a snit during their meeting Monday night.
    Councilman Ken Evans demanded a retraction from News Editor Meaghan Downs, who was covering the meeting, and said she spoke with both Evans and councilman Tommy Vaughn about the headline after the council adjourned.

  • Six tips on how to go crazy finding...

    The writer O. Henry once wrote a short story called the “Gift of the Magi.”
    You may have heard of it.
    If not, here’s the plot: Young, poor husband sells watch to buy wife expensive hair comb. Young, poor wife sells glorious tresses to pay for husband’s watch accessory.
    Irony ensues and we all get warm and fuzzy about the “true” meaning of Christmas.  

  • Check out these Bondville Road...

    Raise your hand if you traveled all the way to Alabama to buy special Christmas lights for your outdoor holiday display this year.
    Robert James did.
    But James, who lives on Bondville Road, says he loves to “go all out” for Christmas.
    And he wants others to enjoy the free lights, er, fruits of his labor.
    “We’re just two kids at heart and we just like setting up for Christmas,” James said of himself and his neighbor, Gordon Brandenburg, in a phone interview a few weeks ago.

  • Stay home for Thanksgiving

    Stay home.
    Lock your doors. Put an iron chain across your threshold if you think you won’t be able to resist incredible Thanksgiving deals tomorrow.  
    Because there is absolutely no reason, none at all, to drag your family members out into the cold to save a few precious bucks.  
    I suppose I could use this column to vilify the retail giants and other businesses that decided to open early on Thanksgiving. I don’t think that’s necessary.

  • Losing to Taylorsville simply...

    Editor’s note: Should any of our friends in Taylorsville happen to read this column, please understand it’s all in good fun and for a good cause. The people of Taylorsville, its high school teams and politicians are all perfectly fine. However, if you have a limited sense of humor, please find something else to read. If not, just know you’ve been warned.

    Remember Shannon Brock? She was a staff writer and former news editor here before being promoted to editor at the Spencer Magnet in Taylorsville.

  • School district should live within...

    We’re hoping that the Anderson County Board of Education already knew it had spent $660,000 more than it took in during the 2012-13 budget.
    We doubt it, though, and are fairly certain it took an auditor to let board members know.
    If the board knew it was spending so far beyond its income level, why didn’t that problem come up even once earlier this year when board members discussed the district’s budget?