As world leaders gather Monday in Copenhagen to rewrite energy policies to reduce future carbon emissions, Lexington business leaders have rewritten their energy policy to try to help the coal industry cling to the past.
Commerce Lexington announced a policy revision last week that dropped a reference to “encourage the [...]
Sen. Robert Byrd, the West Virginia Democrat who last month became the longest-serving member of Congress in history, has a long record of supporting the coal industry.
But as world leaders prepare to meet in Copenhagen to discuss climate change policies, Byrd, 92, today issued some frank [...]
An invitation to perform at the Midwest Clinic in Chicago is one of the biggest honors a high school orchestra can receive.
It’s also one of the biggest challenges.
The name might make it sound like a regional hospital, but the clinic is the largest annual gathering of school band and orchestra [...]
Serving on an organization’s governing board can be an honor, a status symbol and a networking opportunity.
It’s also work, responsibility — and liability, if things go wrong.
There’s a lot of focus now on the responsibilities of boards and board members, thanks in part to increased government oversight. Not to mention [...]
Having seen too many disappointing Kentucky-Tennessee football games, I decided the best show in town Saturday night would be at historic Floral Hall at The Red Mile. I was right.
Lexington’s Ben Sollee, an amazing musician and songwriter who is going to be really famous one of these days, [...]
There’s more energy in two long-neglected corners of downtown Lexington than there has been in decades, and Monday night will be a good chance to glimpse some of it.
The East End Holiday Celebration is from 5:30 p.m. to 6:30 p.m. at Isaac Murphy Park on the corner of East [...]
James Agee was born 100 years ago today, Nov. 27, 1909. He died only 44 years later, from a heart attack in a taxi while on the way to see his cardiologist.
You don’t hear much about Agee anymore, although you occasionally see one of the classic [...]
As many of us prepare a big Thanksgiving dinner, it’s worth thinking about neighbors who won’t be so lucky.
There are more of them than usual.
In fact, food bank directors across Kentucky say there are more of them than they’ve ever seen before.
A report last week from the U.S. Department of [...]
In a media environment where the public seems to prefer ideology, opinion, speculation and outrage over fact and reason, Bill Sparkman seemed to think he could find plenty of suckers.
He was right.
Authorities said Tuesday that their investigations had determined the part-time Clay County census worker committed suicide in an [...]
People love labels: black, white, Democrat, Republican, Protestant, Catholic, conservative, liberal, Jew, Christian, Muslim.
Labels tell who is similar to us and who is different.
Human conflict — from ancient wars to the terrorism that dominates today’s headlines — has often resulted from people focusing on their differences, rather than their similarities.
For [...]
Have you ever wondered where the money goes when Kentuckians choose to pay a little extra for one of those pretty Share the Road license plates?
Some of it goes to pay for the reminder signs you see on roads. And $9,300 of it will soon be used to [...]
I’m worried about the financial state of journalism.
Digital technology has given news papers more readers than ever. Ironically, though, that technology means newspapers no longer are the dominant force in advertising, from where the money to support journalism has always come.
To make matters worse, most newspapers are owned by big [...]
This is Global Entrepreneurship Week, and it couldn’t come at a better time.
We’re just beginning to climb out of the biggest economic slump since the Great Depression. Bad economic times beg for good ideas, and the only way those ideas can make a difference is when entrepreneurs turn them [...]
At the Kentucky Long-Term Policy Research Center’s conference last month, people talked about how much more economic progress this state could make if cities and their surrounding counties worked together.
Jim Host thinks they’re right — but that they’re thinking too small. That’s no surprise; few Kentuckians think as big as [...]
There was a remarkable public forum at the University of Kentucky on Thursday. The moderator began by saying it reminded him of the old song Which Side Are You On?
Florence Reece, a miner’s wife, wrote that song about the economic controversies surrounding coal in Harlan County in the 1930s. Thursday’s [...]
It’s astounding when you think about it: Lexington Mall has been dead or dying since before this year’s high school graduates were born.
It’s even more astounding when you realize that the 30-acre site could be one of the hottest pieces of real estate in Lexington if it were redeveloped by [...]
When people in Lexington talk about great high school marching bands, the names Lafayette and Paul Laurence Dunbar always come up.
But as with many things in Kentucky, there is a lot of greatness beyond the big cities, out in the small towns and rural counties that so often define this [...]
The preliminaries of the Kentucky High School Marching Band Championships have concluded, and finalists will gather tonight at Papa John’s Cardinal Stadium in Louisville for judges to decide the best bands in the state.
Preliminaries in the five divisions, based on school size, were held earlier today around Louisville.
Here are more [...]
The Kentucky High School Marching Band championships are under way today with perfect weather at Papa John Stadium in Louisville. Here are some photos from morning competition of Tates Creek, Henry Clay, Marshall County and George Rogers Clark High Schools.
Click on each thumbnail to see entire photo:
[...] Kentucky doesn’t just produce writers; it celebrates them.
The biggest annual celebration is Saturday, when about 200 writers — 150 of whom are Kentuckians — will gather at the Frankfort Convention Center for the 28th annual Kentucky Book Fair.
Authors will sit behind long rows of tables so thousands of readers [...]
Maybe creating a vibrant downtown isn’t so much about grand plans as small spaces.
One small space with potential is the block of North Mill Street between West Main and Short streets. It retains most of its old buildings, which now house places to eat, drink and work. Developer Nick Ebbitt [...]
In case you missed them, the Herald-Leader carried two excellent op-ed columns Sunday and Monday from two of Lexington’s most knowledgeable and passionate advocates for smart growth and preservation of what’s special in the Bluegrass.
Here’s the Sunday piece by Knox van Nagell, executive director of The Fayette Alliance.
I wrote Sunday about last week’s Shakertown Roundtable, which featured former Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker and included more than 50 of Kentucky’s most influential leaders in business, government, academia and philanthropy.
Given the complexity of the topic — economic crisis and recovery — and the caliber of the panel and [...]
Paul Volcker, who was chairman of the Federal Reserve under presidents Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan and is a top adviser to President Barack Obama, has earned a reputation as one of the rarest of creatures: a straight-talking economist.
Volcker was true to form Thursday, when he came to Kentucky to [...]
Readers of Conde Nast Traveler magazine recently voted the 21C Museum Hotel in Louisville as the nation’s best hotel.
It was in the news last week and discussed on NBC’s Today Show this week.
“It sounds like the idea behind this is brilliant,” said Today Show host Matt Lauer, who seemed barely [...]
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Tuesday is the National Day on Writing. Do you have a sentence or [...]
I’ve always found it ironic that Kentucky was considered more innovative and successful in the early 1800s, when it was on the edge of the American frontier, than during the past century, when it was at the geographic center of a booming nation.
Maybe success isn’t so much about where you [...]
The old building doesn’t look like much, standing across East Third Street from a demolition site and the King Cobras motorcycle club. A small sign in a window behind a steel-bar security door says: LOT Parrish Rash.
Since early this year, it has been the Land of Tomorrow, an occasional [...]
Remind me never to schedule an overseas vacation again during the annual Idea Festival in Louisville. There are just too many interesting things going on there to miss.
Idea Festival founder Kris Kimel sent me this photo today, which was taken during the festival late last month. It shows a [...]
Our plan was to ride Kentucky from top to bottom, but Mother Nature had other plans.
Storms on Friday forced organizers of the Governor’s Autumn Bicycle Ride Across Kentucky to cancel the first day’s journey — 60 miles from the Ohio River at Carrollton to Frankfort.
A few brave souls did [...]
When Brian and Sara Turner finished their first concert poster in 2003, they wanted to sign it with the name of their studio.
Trouble was, the Lexington couple didn’t have a studio, although it was a dream beginning to form.
What they had was a small workspace in their damp basement, which [...]
Earlier this year, there was a national celebration of the 200th birthday of Abraham Lincoln, the most famous of all Kentuckians.
But this is also a landmark year for perhaps the second-most famous Kentuckian — Daniel Boone, who was born 275 years ago this month.
Like many Kentuckians, I’ve always been fascinated [...]
At least 104 of Kentucky’s 120 counties will close a major street for several hours Sunday afternoon and invite people to come out and exercise: run, bike, walk, jog, skate — whatever they like.
In Lexington, Main and Short streets between Rose Street/Elm Tree Lane and Broadway will be closed from [...]
Martha Jane Stone was a freshman at Transylvania University when a prominent professor asked if she could be the substitute organist on Easter Sunday at the small country church where he preached.
Stone was on a music scholarship, so she felt obligated.
The job seemed to suit her. Within a few months, [...]
It’s no wonder people are frustrated by the debate over health care reform.
The issues are complex. None of the proposed solutions is perfect. And, more often than not, the arguments seem to dissolve into emotional oversimplification.
Besides, there’s a lot of money at stake. Whole business models have been built around [...]
For a little boy in the early 1960s, a shopping trip in Lexington could be an adventure.
It was a world of big buildings filled with interesting things and friendly faces, from the elevator operator at Hymson’s Tots & Teens to the A&P manager who always took time to chat with [...]
I returned to Lexington this week after a long vacation to find that CentrePit had been transformed into a grassy meadow, and workers were installing a classic horse-farm fence around the perimeter.
The past half-century of Lexington’s growth has been defined by grassy meadows and horse-farm fences giving way [...]
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Non basta una vita - Italian for “one life is not enough” - was the late John Regis Tuska’s motto to describe his artistic ambitions.
Now, his son is discovering that two lives may not be enough, either.
For the past dozen years, Seth Tuska has worked to [...]
FRANKFORT — Margaret Robinson Robertson lived in the Old Governor’s Mansion in the early 1840s, when son-in-law Robert Letcher was the governor. Legend has it that her ghost appears whenever evil befalls the house.
The way the place looks now, don’t expect to see her any time soon.
The 211-year-old mansion has [...]
Here are some upcoming bicycle events, sent to me by Kenzie Gleason, Lexington’s bicycle/pedestrian coordinator (859-258-3605, kgleason@lfucg.com):
Town Branch Trail Benefit Concert & Bike Rally - Sept. 11 & 12
Town Branch Trail Inc has organized a benefit concert Friday, Sept. 11, at the new Busters in the Old Tar Distillery on [...]
With all of the public attention focused on President Barack Obama’s speech to the nation’s school children, I had to wonder: Did the adults learn anything?
Obama urged kids to study hard and not give up, even if they don’t like some classes or things are tough at home. He [...]
I was interviewed last week by Horse Radio Network, an Internet radio venture that is covering the 2010 Alltech FEI World Equestrian Games and other horse sports for an international online audience.
Hosts Samantha Clark and Glenn “the Geek” Hebert talked with me and Niki Heichelbech of [...]
Lexington was born and grew up around the Town Branch of South Elkhorn Creek, but over the past century we’ve done our best to pollute it, bury it and forget about it.
Water finds its way, though, even if it sometimes needs help.
Town Branch Trail Inc. has been working for [...]
With Second Sunday a little more than a month away, 100 of Kentucky’s 120 counties have plans to participate.
Each county plans to close a street or highway for a few hours Sunday afternoon, Oct. 11, and invite residents to come out to walk, bike, run or jog — and [...]
Here’s a piece of my interview with bourbon industry legends Elmer T. Lee, Jimmy Russell and Parker Beam that I didn’t have room for in today’s column:
Considering their combined 150-plus years of experience in bourbon distilling and tasting, I wanted to know how they judged one bourbon to be [...]
FRANKFORT—These guys don’t look like rock stars at first glance.
Or second glance. Or third.
Yet, they travel the world making public appearances, posing for photographs and signing autographs, usually on bottles of Kentucky’s best bourbon, some of which have their picture on the label.
This is officially Bourbon Heritage Month in [...]
A followup to my Friday column:
Pedal Power bike shop’s sale Saturday to benefit Shifting Gears didn’t last long. All 200 used bikes were sold well before noon.
“We were able to put money into an account to keep the program going and still write Kentucky Refugee Ministries a [...]
The national debate over health care reform is clouded by ideology, distortion, old myths and misinformation, especially when it comes to the way health care works in other countries.
T.R. Reid, who for many years was a foreign correspondent for the Washington Post, tries to cut through [...]
State Rep. Darryl Owens has a good idea; he just hasn’t taken it far enough.
The Louisville Democrat proposed legislation last week that would end a 160-year-old requirement that Kentucky state officers, legislators and lawyers swear they haven’t been dueling.
The state constitution requires them to swear that: “… (I) have not [...]
