By Jonathan Miller, on Mon May 13, 2013 at 3:00 PM ET
From Tom Eblen of the Lexington Herald-Leader:
Each time I have visited West Liberty since the devastating tornado, people have expressed determination to rebuild. But they didn’t just want to put things back the way they were; they wanted to use the disaster to reposition their community for the future.
The Morgan County seat had been hurting for years before the twister, which killed six people on March 2, 2012. West Liberty was like so many other small towns that have struggled to adapt to the loss of cash crops and factories.
Last week, after more than a year of study and work, West Liberty leaders unveiled a new strategic plan for their community. It is a creative, forward-looking plan designed to attract national attention and support. If successful, it could serve as a model for struggling small towns throughout Kentucky and across America.
“I’m very excited about it,” said Hank Allen, CEO of Commercial Bank in West Liberty and president of the Morgan County Chamber of Commerce. “There is such a will to rebuild, to not only get back to where we were but to be better than we were.”
One key aspect of the plan follows the lead of Greensburg, Kansas, which was wiped out by a 2007 tornado and attracted national attention by rebuilding using the latest energy-efficient technology.
West Liberty’s energy-efficient reconstruction plans include replacement houses with “passive” design and construction, which can cut energy costs as much as 70 percent over conventional construction. Habitat for Humanity has already built several such homes in the area.
The downtown business district also would be rebuilt using energy-efficient construction, including a geothermal loop that many buildings could share to lower their heating and cooling costs.
Allen says he thinks that will be one of the biggest factors in recreating a viable downtown. Rent was cheap in the old buildings the tornado blew away. But reconstruction will be expensive, pushing rents beyond what many mom-and-pop businesses can afford.
Commercial Bank is kicking off the geothermal loop as part of its headquarters reconstruction. Allen said designs are almost complete for a new bank building that should be certified LEED Gold. The pre-tornado bank building cost about $4,000 to $5,000 a month to heat and cool, but Allen estimates the new one will cost about $1,500 a month.
The bank building will include about 1,800 square feet of incubator space on its first floor to help small local businesses get back on their feet, Allen said.
The strategic plan also calls for encouraging downtown to be rebuilt with mixed-use structures housing businesses, offices, restaurants and apartments. That would create a more lively downtown with lower rents because of more efficient use of space.
Plans also call for installing free wireless service downtown to attract businesses and people in a region where wi-fi availability is now limited.
The strategic plan’s economic development initiatives have a big focus on eco-tourism, built around Morgan County’s natural beauty and local assets such as the Licking River, Cave Run and Paintsville lakes, and nearby destinations such as the Red River Gorge.
There would be encouragement for entrepreneurs to start businesses focusing on kayaking, rock climbing, hiking, canoeing, fishing and hunting. Plans also call for developing walking and biking trails along the Licking River through West Liberty.
Other economic development ideas in the plan also focus on existing strengths, such as trying to use the local ambulance service and hospital to develop new methods for rural health-care delivery.
The strategic plan grew out of a partnership among the city, Morgan County, local businesses, Morehead State University’s Innovation and Commercialization Center and the nonprofit Regional Technology and Innovation Center.
Midwest Clean Energy Enterprise LLC of Lexington was a consultant on the process. Jonathan Miller, a clean-energy advocate and former state treasurer, has been retained to help raise money nationally for the effort by promoting it as a model for small-town revitalization.
The Morgan County Community Fund, an affiliate of the Blue Grass Community Foundation, has been set up to help collect and distribute donations for the rebuilding effort.
These efforts got a big jump-start in February, when Gov. Steve Beshear and U.S. Rep. Hal Rogers announced a package of about $30 million in federal, state and private money for various rebuilding projects.
“That really opened people’s eyes to what is possible,” Allen said of the financial package. “As a community, we must think really, really large. But we have a long way to go.”
By John Y. Brown III, on Mon May 13, 2013 at 12:00 PM ET
My “Unfilled” Bucket List of things to do before turning 50 (in 3 weeks)
1) See the Grand Canyon
2) Be an author (I kind of did that but with an eBook, which is only partial credit)
3) See some other national historic site in the West but can’t recall which one.
4) Get down to “HSW +15” (high school weight plus 15 lbs).
5) Learn to paint
6) Learn to dance
7) Learn to play an instrument
8) Become a millionaire (or at least stop asking my mom for loans)
9) Make a second contribution to IRA. (After I start one and contribute once.)
10) Run the mile in under 4 minutes. (Oops! I meant, run for 4 minutes nonstop)
11) Watch the entire Godfather trilogy in sequence
12) Clean out my closet
13) Change the light bulb in the basement storage closet
14) Read a Gentleman’s Guide to Etiquette to my son. (Or have my daughter read it to me. This was an either/or bucket list item)
15) Fix something in the house without using duct tape or super glue
16) Learn to sing
17) Take a foreign language (Ok. This was on and I took it off and then put back on and took off again for good.)
18) Don’t qualify for any new 12 step programs
19) Don’t shrink in height because you are close to not being able to round up to 5 ‘9 as it is.
20) Turn 49 ( I did that! Yay me!!)
I still have 17 to go after dropping foreign language and only partial credit for eBook and stopping asking my mother for loans.
It’s going to be a very busy next 3 weeks trying to complete my “Bucket List before 50” right?
Nah!
My new Bucket List for the second half of life is going to include not having a Bucket List and just live each day relatively well and not worry about stuff I won’t get to do before I die. I’ve done a few. Like turning 49. And it was overrated anyway.
The world is still waiting for an unpredictable take on George W. Bush, whose dedication of his presidential library has spawned mostly commentary that can be pegged from knowing the writer’s pedigree: liberals who downgrade Bush for a war he could have declined and a recession he arguably could have avoided, but cite his relative moderateness as proof that today’s Republican Party is caught in a fever; hard-core conservatives lamenting that Bush spent promiscuously and short-changed social issues, and appointed the Obamacare-saving John Roberts; and center-right conservatives observing that Bush at least understood the value of a conservatism that appealed beyond the Republican base. (a point that I have made in past columns on Karl Rove and Jeb Bush).
I’ll forego those arguments for now to make another observation that Bush’s admirers and detractors gloss over: Bush happens to be the rare president who made a practice of being indifferent to the legacy building implications of his office. He said as much on several occasions (and was ridiculed for it) and his comments reflected a mindset which governed largely in the moment with no pretense of a signature governing vision. Consider the many plays this ad hoc style played out.
Where Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan had specific and in their case diametrically opposed conceptions for the long term relationship between the world’s military superpowers, Bush’s foreign policy was really just a stop-gap. He bought into the intelligence that Iraq was a budding security threat, wiped its leadership out, and spent five years massaging the results with little trace of a broader strategic design (the neo-conservative rhetoric about democratizing the Middle East never got much more than lip service from Bush, who easily accommodated the region’s other autocratic regimes). While Ronald Reagan actively sought to dismantle the framework of liberalism, and Bill Clinton and Barack Obama openly attempted to redefine their party and their opposition, Bush seemed notably uninterested in weaving a long term or even distinct short-term ideological blueprint. His signature domestic victory, No Child Left Behind, was technocratic and did not lean hard to the left or the right; the prescription drug benefit was similarly ambidextrous: insubstantial and loophole filled on one hand, the first expansion of Medicare in forty years on the other. And once the drug benefit passed, he barely mentioned it, much less tried to expand it into a template for how a conservative reformer might tackle health care in its broader dimensions.
Even when Bush overreached, as I argued then and would still argue now, in the way he waged the war on terror, it should not be forgotten that the bulk of what he sanctioned happened in the shadows, without Bush ever outlining in any concrete way a new formulation of American interrogation or surveillance policies. When “caught”, the Bush team, more often than is remembered, either reined themselves in or minimized the scope of their departure from preexisting laws. And Obama’s wholesale adoption of those same techniques, only substituting drones for torture, makes them already look more like another chief executive pushing for more authority than some uniquely Bush based doctrine.
It’s worth remembering that Bush actually tried to preserve an assault weapons ban, but never spoke of it; tried to roll back farm subsidies while doling out new oil subsidies; pinched pennies in specific agencies without even faking a grand deficit reduction strategy. The absence of any memorable Bush speeches on domestic policy is not entirely a function of his famous inarticulateness, but reflects the fact that so few Bush initiatives kept his own administration’s attention.
Read the rest of… Artur Davis: Yet Another Way of Looking at George Bush
By John Y. Brown III, on Thu May 2, 2013 at 12:00 PM ET
For my entire adult life whenever I would walk past a noisy bar with young intoxicated people and catch their eyes, I have always felt very intimidated—and dismissed —by the rowdy unrestrained “cool” types hanging out at places like that.
Until a few years ago, that is. I’m wearing a blue blazer and slacks and maybe even a tie. It’s not like I fit in. But I was thinking maybe I’m getting cooler with age I’m not as intimidated either. And my our eyes lock with these younger types, it doesn’t feel like they are being dismissive of me anymore.
I really liked the possibility that of the “I’m getting cooler with age” theory, until it happened again last night. And I looked a little deeper into the glazed over eyes of the 25 year old unshaven young man with tattered jeans and a hipster air.
His look of “respect” toward me wasn’t because he thought I was “cool.” It was because I reminded him of someone who could be his boss —and could fire him.
So, I’m not getting cooler with age. I’m just looking more like someone who could fire you.
And after letting that sink in a little bit, I decided, it was even cooler than being cool.
Anthony Weiner and Mark Sanford are both trying to re-assert their power on the political stage, but is there a difference between forgiving and trusting? What are the limits to political redemption and where do we draw the line?
Huff PostLIve: Originally aired on May 1, 2013
Hosted by: Abby Huntsman
Guests:
Jeff Smith @JeffSmithMO (New York, NY) Assistant Professor in the Urban Policy Graduate Program at the New School; Former State Senator for Inner City St. Louis
Caryl Rivers (Boston, MA) Professor of Journalism at Boston University
Jeff Kreisler @jeffkreisler (New York, NY) Comedian and Author
Jordan Barowitz @jordanbarowitz (New York, NY) Former First Deputy Press Secretary for Mayor Bloomberg, Director of External Affairs for The Durst Organization
Krystal Ball is someone that we can all learn from. At 29, she ran for Congress in Virgina’s first district. She would have been the youngest woman to serve in Congress ever, if elected. She didn’t win though. During her election, she faced a sexist smear campaign by her opponents on the right who leaked salacious college photos of Ball. (We covered this 2010 edition of sexist double standards here too.) Throughout the whole thing, she held her head high. When others might’ve crawled away from the spotlight, Krystal used that moment to shed light on the inequalities women face in the public sphere. In her response, she wrote:
I don’t believe these pictures were posted with a desire to just embarrass me; they wanted me to feel like a whore. They wanted me to collapse in a ball of embarrassment and to hang my head in shame.
Despite the people that wanted her to hang her head in shame, she did just the opposite. And she’s still speaking up and ruffling feathers. She’s currently one of four hosts on the MSNBC showThe Cycle, where she not only brings a progressive spin to current events, but also, at times, creatively uses her 5-year-old daughter to highlight the need for marriage equality (much to many on the right’s chagrin). She is a great example of someone bravely pushing boundaries, taking risks, and doing things her own way. And most of all, instead of letting negative experiences break her spirit, she uses them to lift herself higher.
And now, without further ado, the Feministing Five with Krystal Ball.
Anna Sterling: Looking back on your experience running for Congress, would you do it again?
Krystal Ball: Absolutely! Was I scared? Yes. Was it hard? Harder than childbirth. Were there some low moments? Of course. But overall, it was actually a fantastic and rewarding experience that made me stronger and that is a source of tremendous pride. I also think it’s incredibly important that as women we share stories not just of our successes but also of our failures. I ran. I lost. And not only was it not the end of the world, but it actually created the opportunity for me to do what I’m doing now. I think a lot of women don’t run for office because they’re afraid of losing. I’m here to say winning is fantastic but even in a loss, nothing is truly lost and much is gained.
AS: What steps do we need to take to end this double standard placed on women? And what advice would you give young women looking to possibly run for office, who are afraid to take that leap because of what could leak in this social media age?
KB: To end the double standard, we have to be willing to call out our friends and our opponents. To me the recent conversation about the President’s calling California Attorney General Kamala Harris the “best looking” Attorney General was quite interesting. There were a lot of men and women who considers themselves to be feminists who defended the President. Now look, there are worse things in the world than being called good looking and I’m not mad at the President or even really offended. But the fact remains that any sort of focus on a woman candidate’s appearance or clothes does in fact undermine her credibility with voters. There’s a brand new “Name it. Change it.” research from the Women’s Campaign Fund, Lake Research Partners, and the Women’s Media Fund that proves this point. So even though this President has in many ways been great for women, it’s still up to us to educate people about the impact even well-intentioned comments can have.
As for young women looking at public office, my advice would be two-fold. First, and this goes for men and women, be thoughtful about what you put out on social media. But second, if there is some stupid party photo from your youthful days out there, don’t let that put fear in your heart or stop you from running. In my race, while it was painful and embarrassing when party photos of me were posted, there was also something beautiful about the number of people of all political persuasions who rushed to my defense. Many told me that the photos just made them feel like I was a real human being. In the final analysis, based on our polling, they didn’t end up hurting me electorally one bit and may have actually marginally improved my vote totals.
By John Y. Brown III, on Mon Apr 29, 2013 at 12:00 PM ET
Is my son simply growing up or am I being “downsized” and “strategically redeployed” in my own home?
Or both?
My son turned 19 yesterday.
I remember as a teenager my best friend and his father would wrestle with each other in their home. It was a way of interacting in a fun and friendly way but could also get intense at times.
My friend told me later that the intensity was caused by his father being challenged that he was being displaced as the “man of the house” or the “stronger man between the two” and that all fathers had ego challenges when this natural turning point occurred with a son. (His father was a psychologist so he got deeper explanations for things than I did)
I thought it made sense but assured myself I wouldn’t display such insecurities when I experienced this phenomenon with my son.
As I hugged my son good night last night, I noticed he was taller than me. Finally. I mentioned this to him and he said matter-of-factly, “Yeah, I know.” And didn’t show the slightest bit of remorse or need to reassure me of my dominant male role in the family.
I felt like asking him if he wanted to wrestle me. But just didn’t have the energy at that moment.
By John Y. Brown III, on Thu Apr 25, 2013 at 12:00 PM ET
I am 49 and turn 50 in less than 2 monthsMy mind is racing this morning to come up with a few final reckless behaviors I can engage in over the next few weeks.While I can still blame the bad behavior on being a “youthful indiscretion.”
… I mean, there have got to be some things you can get away with at 49 that you just can’t get away with at 50.
Right ?
I want to find out what they are. And do them. While there is still time. While I am still young enough to get away with it.See More
By Jonathan Miller, on Fri Apr 19, 2013 at 1:06 PM ET
This week’s awful events provide a somber reminder about the critical role volunteers can play in aiding law enforcement and medical practitioners in the wake of a horrible human tragedy.
Your thoughts and prayers for the victims are important, but each of us can and should do a whole lot more when disaster calamity — we can all play a constructive role in protecting our friends and neighbors against an act of terrorism or a natural disaster.
The Red Cross offers some amazing programs that help train average citizens in first aid and emergency preparedness.
