UK basketball’s problems are always more mental than physical
Over-coaching
It is obvious that UK men’s basketball needs help. It’s mental, not physical. UK basketball coach John Calipari is a super coach — his salary is testimony to this. Therein lies the problem. This UK team is over-coached and is always looking to Cal for approval, instead of the roar of the fans when UK scores.
Cal also is a super recruiter! Therefore, his players are super scorers. Can Cal and his assistant coaches improve upon perfect-form shooters like Booker and Murray and Herro? No! Let the coaches back off and let the players play their style of ball. Let them score.
After all, the team with the most points at the end of play wins.
Pat Rooney, Georgetown
Republican bragging
How smug the bragging by the Kentucky GOP Chairman Mac Brown about his party’s 2022 “banner year.” He didn’t mention his party gerrymandered districts to retain, gain its “supermajorities” (state legislature, congressional delegation). Nor was it mentioned how Kentuckians voted down Amendment 1, a power grab by Republican legislators to co-opt executive powers of the Democratic governor.
Brag: Republicans “ ...made historic investments in public education...” The Kentucky Supreme Court rejected and corrected that privateer claim.
The Herald-Leader reported about abortion bans imposed by the GOP supermajority, affecting the very privacy, health, lives of women — the chairman neglected to mention that Kentuckians also rejected the Republican’s anti-abortion Amendment 2.
Alert: Senate Majority Floor Leader Damon Thayer (R-Georgetown) is proposing partisan school board and city council races to further weed out local Democrats. The Republican Party holds 93 of the 120 county judge-executive posts.
Question: When do the GOP supermajorities become a totalitarian state? -- “ ...a form of government in which the political authority exercises absolute and total control over all aspects of life, the individual subordinated to the state...”
Totalitarian tea, anyone, with killer bee honey?
Ramona Rush, Lexington
Committee conflicts
Congressman Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) has been given the derogatory nickname “GYM Jordan” because he claims he never noticed a predatory doctor molesting the members of the Ohio State wrestling team where he was assistant coach. A few decades later and Jordan was one of the many co-conspirators in the planning of Donald Trump’s attempt to overthrow the 2020 election. Jordan again pretended not to notice anything wrong and refused to testify about his role to the congressional investigation. This time he refused to honor a subpoena to testify, unlike former President Bill Clinton and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton who honored all subpoenas and testified willingly to congressional investigations.
Now he is chairman of the House Judiciary Committee. Ironically, he wants to investigate the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) and the FBI for their roles in investigating crimes. This could backfire for Jim-Gym. The DOJ and FBI may choose to bring the evidence of his crimes to the hearings.
Unfortunately, in his position it’s unlikely Jordan would ever be indicted and prosecuted. But these hearings may give his investigatory targets a chance to present all the evidence against him in his own hearings. And let the public be Gym’s judge.
Kevin Kline, Lexington
Supreme Court
Recent U.S. Supreme Court decisions defy logic.
Thanks to the U.S. Supreme Court, women are currently denied reproductive rights, e.g., control over their bodies; and children and adults are now more likely to be slaughtered in schools or public spaces. Add to this the assault on our free and fair election processes, especially in states dominated by Republicans supporting former President Donald Trump.
Now, we’re facing the two most recent, equally shocking, Supreme Court rulings on states’ gun laws and abortion bans.
Trump’s uniquely, extremely conservative, Supreme Court Justices seem blind to the injustice visited on the “already born” children (and adults) being slaughtered as evidenced by the ruling on denying states the right to implement gun restrictions.
Then there’s Trump himself, and most Republicans, who nearly destroyed our democracy after the 2020 election, and continue to undermine democracy and trust in the electoral process today! The shocking Jan. 6th hearings showed how close we came to losing our right to free and fair elections.
Republicans and conservative extremists are demonstrably hypocrites: States now cannot pass laws restricting guns, but the states can enact laws that ban abortions.
What’s the solution? Vote for Democrats, who will restore sanity and safety, and women’s rights, and enact laws to help protect us from this epidemic of violence by emotionally disturbed 18-year old men with hand guns or military assault rifles.
Elizabeth Wallen, Springfield
Egg-free substitutes
Egg prices have tripled in some states in the past year, largely because of the slaughter of nearly 58 million birds sickened by bird flu.
Yet, no price can possibly justify the cruelty inherent in egg production. When chicks are hatched, all “useless” males are ground up alive or suffocated in large plastic bags. The “lucky” females are crammed five to a wire cage the size of a folded newspaper where they are unable to spread their wings or display other normal behaviors. The wire floor cuts painfully into their feet, as the walls tear out their feathers. When their egg production drops after 18 months, they are simply ground up for pet food.
But there is more. Eggs contain saturated fat and cholesterol, key factors in incidence of heart disease, stroke, cancer, and diabetes. They frequently carry food-borne bacteria, including Salmonella, Campylobacter, Listeria, and Staphylococcus, which account for 1.3 million U.S. illnesses and 500 deaths annually.
Entering “egg-free” in a search engine returns tons of recipes for delicious, compassionate, healthful, eco-friendly egg substitutes and egg-free food products.
Lyle Rutter, Louisville
Qualified sources
In response to Ray Davis’s letter of Jan. 15, 2023, If I asked the opinion of two neighbors, two family members or two people on the street, I would have plural sources. However, I would not reference them as being authoritative on hardly anything. Your unwillingness to identify your sources indicates, to me and I suspect most readers, a lack of confidence in their ability to sway.
You may have a point, however, regarding the volume of drug traffic and number of illegals trying to enter across the southern border. For some reason I cannot understand, both drop significantly when there is a Republican president. Should I ask some of my sources?
Bennie Patton, Berea
Continue the fight
As a disciple of Martin Luther King, Jr. beginning with civil rights, I joined the efforts for the integration of Adolph Rupps’ basketball team, by making phone calls to many of Kentucky’s GREAT black high school basketball players.
King’s opposition to the discriminatory draft and Vietnam War led to my spending almost two years in prison. After my release, I became a single dad to one biological daughter, then later to 65 foster girls and boys (and adopting two), and I felt strongly I needed to continue protesting bad, corrupt government(s) or business.
Sadly we still need to continue to fight for our RIGHTS and to protect the EARTH! MLK, Jr. Day should not be “feelgoodism” with marches and phony events. In Lexington’s early days, I called for marches to integrate our racist, elitist country clubs, not marching in a circle on empty streets. March now to Walmart and stop what becomes another Shopaholics Day.
Sadly we still need to continue to fight for our RIGHTS and to protect the EARTH!
Don Pratt, Lexington
Compiled by Liz Carey
