Recent morsels

Mary Welp's Crab and Mushroom Soup

Mary reviews Life Class by Pat Barker and My Brilliant Career by Miles Franklin.

Spring Bellarmine Magazine (PDF)

Summary of My Discontent
A Cry for Secession

What a Week, 4/16

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Fallout from the new state budget began settling on the Kentucky dystopia like a Harry Moberly White-Castle fart in a crowded movie theater. Public universities announced 9% tuition increases, the Cabinet for Health and Family Services went begging for donations and 54 public defenders got pink slips. Mental-health agency Seven Counties Services will close its southeast Louisville office, which serves 1500 people. School districts decried cuts to school safety and teacher professional development, announced increased class sizes, and warned of layoffs.

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Coal, that stuff that makes it possible for Gnarls Barkley to rock your iPod, took the lives of 47 miners in 2006, prompting Congress to demand more stringent safety measures. Big Coal, that stuff that makes it possible for Republicans to get elected, has naturally resisted. Two years later, many coal mines still lack a way to bring air and wireless communications to underground miners, prompting California congressmen George Miller to lash out at Elaine Chao’s Mine Safety and Health Administration, which is clearly mailing it in.

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Bypassing "Pope of Pollution," “Greaseball of Global Warming,” and other colorful Italian-slur-themed nicknames, The Leage of Conservation Voters chose "Don of the Dirty Dozen" to refer to Mitch McConnell in a campaign to expose the senator's horrendous environmental record. His lifetime achievement score of7% is the lowest in Congress and he won a special citation for consistently voting with Big Oil.

+5
If you’re one of thousands of Jefferson County homeowners facing foreclosure, here’s some good news: this newspaper is free! But wait, there’s more: Last week, the feds awarded an extra $1 million to The Housing Partnership to hire counselors to help people avoid the repo man. To contact a counselor, call the city’s mortgage hotline 211.

What a Week, 4/9

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Stupid schtupped ugly in Frankfort, resulting in a bouncy biennial budget that is both stupid and ugly. A brave citizenry clenched its collective sphincter and fretted over basketball without wondering breathlessly: Would the Senate approve the House's stingy budget or would the House settle for the Senate's even stingier budget? 10 negative points if you said the latter. Bypassing a no-brainer (and no-lung-er) cigarette tax, the Senate won and so now Kentucky will struggle with deep budget cuts in all the usual programs that fight poverty, illness, and ignorance.

-5
In a grubby side deal, oily David Williams and slimy Greg Stumbo lubed up and rolled around together before agreeing to rural construction projects at the expense of the state's deepest needs. Recognizing that, as bad as things are, they could always be worse, Governor Beshear threatened a special session if the Bush/McConnell war economy continues to tank.

0
Here's what passes for progressive politics in ol' Kaintuck: On April 1, a law went into effect mandating that cigarettes sold in Kentucky must be "fire safe," meaning they must contain a special paper that makes the cigarette go out if you don't toke like mad.

+7
Sure, Thunder's awesome, but if you're tired of curling into the fetal position and urinating on yourself when Mother America's death planes uncloak and soar into the waterfront terrordome, why not consider an alternative? The Silence Over Thunder Coalition is again sponsoring its "Peaceful Skies" picnic at the Americana Center soccer field on Saturday. The picnic features art, music, and kite flying, in an atmosphere free of weapons of mass destruction.

World-classness:
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