http://www.kentucky.com/750/index.xml News, sports, and entertainment from Kentucky.com en-us Copyright 2008 Kentucky.com Mary Sanchez 60 Tue, 28 Oct 2008 03:24:36 EDT http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss McClatchy Interactive's Workbench webmaster@kentucky.com http://www.kentucky.com/750/story/525092.html http://www.kentucky.com/750/story/525092.html Mon, 15 Sep 2008 21:36 EDT
Dare to criticize Sarah Palin and you'll find yourself back in high school, with all the petty taunts.

"You're just jealous!" is the refrain filling my e-mail and voice mail in-boxes, and no doubt other female skeptics face a similar barrage. As if the presidency is about who has the hottest wardrobe, the best-coiffed hair and the attention of the hunky quarterback.

For men who question Palin's credentials, it's different. They're just sexists.

Sorry, but neither jealousy nor sexism has anything to do with the well-founded doubts about the Republican Party's choice for vice president. Anybody who cares about the future of this country had better take a long, hard look at her qualifications. ]]> http://www.kentucky.com/750/story/491763.html http://www.kentucky.com/750/story/491763.html Fri, 15 Aug 2008 21:25 EDT
To all those who fear the invasion of our shores by foreign languages . I'm speaking to you, stalwarts of the .English only. movement . seriously, you need to travel more.

Perhaps they simply have not experienced signage such as these doozies from China: Deformed man toilet (disabled-access restroom).

Airline pulp (airline food).

The slippery are very crafty (slippery when wet). ]]> http://www.kentucky.com/750/story/484339.html http://www.kentucky.com/750/story/484339.html Fri, 08 Aug 2008 17:48 EDT
The proverbial question for men has long been, .What do women want?.

Well, I'm here to reveal the carefully guarded secret . at least to two men, Sens. Barack Obama and John McCain. The rest of you fellas will have to keep guessing. (OK, I'll throw a bone here: Recognize in women the things they value in themselves.)

Back to more substantial matters for our presidential hopefuls: Women voters, especially the unmarried ones, are the demographic key to this year's election. If you want their votes, you will have to approach them with respect and insight. Drop the reductive labels that diminish women into voting blocs . recall .soccer moms.? Few women can be packaged so neatly.

So far, neither Obama nor McCain has garnered a strong majority of potential female voters. A recent poll of women found 49 percent were for Obama and 38 percent were for McCain. Presumably, at least some of those women's minds might be changed either way before November. Add the less adamantly loyal voters to the other 10 percent of women polled who labeled themselves as undecided. (The poll was part of the Every Woman Counts campaign done by Lifetime Networks.) The votes of these women are enough to decide the election. ]]> http://www.kentucky.com/750/story/479814.html http://www.kentucky.com/750/story/479814.html Mon, 04 Aug 2008 11:47 EDT
Pray that you never need an advocate as much as those caught up in the Agriprocessors immigration raid in Postville, Iowa.

A lot of people are feeling soiled by the raid, which officials at U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement initially bragged was the largest such operation in immigration history. Nearly 400 people were scooped up and shuffled in shackles to a fairground designed to hold cattle.

Now, three months after the raid at the kosher meatpacking plant, more details are emerging . and attorneys, clergy, members of Congress and labor officials are decrying a major miscarriage of justice. Translators and even townspeople say they were duped into participating in a federal government plan to railroad exploited workers.

And state labor investigators complain that ICE overran an ongoing investigation into horrible working conditions in the Agriprocessors plant. And for what? So that ICE could make its numbers look good. So that it could claim it had deported more .criminals.. ]]> http://www.kentucky.com/750/story/476017.html http://www.kentucky.com/750/story/476017.html Wed, 30 Jul 2008 18:45 EDT
People say that Emmett Till never got justice.

The fact that two men responsible for his savage, racially motivated 1955 murder were able to go to their graves free men would most certainly support the contention.

And yet, it can also be argued that if the federal government goes ahead with plans to create a civil rights cold case unit to solve murders like Emmett's . while the few remaining witnesses and possibly the guilty are still alive . well, I'd say Emmett will gain a far more suitable legacy.

The Emmett Till Unsolved Civil Rights Crime Act would have the Justice Department and the FBI investigate civil rights murders committed before Jan 1, 1970. Till's case may help push the country past images of such horrific violence so we can deal more readily with our issues today. ]]> http://www.kentucky.com/750/story/456360.html http://www.kentucky.com/750/story/456360.html Wed, 09 Jul 2008 08:38 EDT
Barack Obama is channeling JFK these days. Oddly, he's doing it through one of George W. Bush's more controversial policies. .I won't just ask for your vote as a candidate. I will ask for your service and your active citizenship when I am president of the United States,. Obama told audiences in conservative Colorado Springs, Colo.

Sounds a lot like that famous quote of Kennedy from his 1961 inaugural address: .Ask not what your country can do for you . ask what you can do for your country.. And, just as Kennedy established the Peace Corps as soon as he took office, Obama has promised to establish new citizens corps to make it easier for Americans to volunteer. Of late, Obama has tried to re-position himself as the .more patriotic than you thought. candidate. He needs to convince voters stuck on whether he wears a flag lapel pin or not that he is red, white and blue enough to be their president.

Now, for extra leverage, he also seems to be cozying up to so-called values voters. That makes a certain amount of sense. Only a political fool would cede the evangelical and Catholic vote to the Republicans without a fight.

He is embracing . planning on expanding, even . a controversial program of the Bush administration that invited religious groups to provide social services. Bush's first executive order was to create the White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives. All cabinet agencies were ordered to eliminate barriers that could prohibit religious groups from tapping government coffers for their social service programs. ]]>