Your Weekly Reeder: Ethics Center should honor the Binghams
The death of Barry Bingham Jr. inspired a lot of bittersweet remembrances of things past, especially for those of us old enough to remember when The Courier-Journal was annually ranked as one of the nation’s top 10 newspapers, when WHAS-AM radio was a 50,000-watt beacon of class and civility, and when WHAS-TV could brag about…
A legacy of progressive good works and ethics
BY BOB SCHULMAN The name Bingham was linked for 90-plus years with progressive advances in Louisville and Kentucky government, politics, health, culture and the arts.The death of Barry Bingham Jr. brought a wrenching end to that legacy, achieved through print and broadcast journalism and the community good works that the journalism financed. But there was…
A personal and professional commitment to social justice
BY KENTUCKIANS FOR THE COMMONWEALTH Members of Kentuckians For The Commonwealth mourn the passing of one of Kentucky’s most prominent citizens, Barry Bingham Jr. When KFTC was organized 25 years ago, Kentucky’s coal industry was even more politically and economically dominant than it is today. Across the coalfields, landowners were mistreated, the local environment was…
A standup guy
BY MILTON METZ I once asked Barry Bingham Jr. whether he remembered any shouting in his house during his growing-up years. (My house was no stranger to shouting, and I was curious.) He looked at me quizzically and said, “No-o-o, we didn’t do any of that.” As a matter of fact, I can’t picture Barry…
A joyful man of the arts
BY ALEXANDER SPEEREXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, ACTORS THEATRE OF LOUISVILLE I first met Barry Bingham Jr. when I joined Actors Theatre in 1965. Two years before, at the age of 30, he and a handful of other Louisvillians had joined with Richard Block in founding the city’s first professional theater company, Theatre Louisville, and served as its…
A keeper: Working for Barry Bingham Jr. was a true honor
Whenever Barry Bingham Jr. read something in The Courier-Journal or Louisville Times that he particularly liked or disliked, he would cut the story out of his paper and send it to the reporter or editor with a note that he typed personally and signed with a flourish in orange ink. I got a few of…
A visionary who led by example
Thirty years ago, I was planning the first issue of Louisville Today magazine, my first venture in the publishing business, and I had only one idea for launching it with great fanfare: get Barry Bingham Jr. to sit for an interview. Fat chance, I thought. But I did not know Barry then the way I…
The Tear Sheet: The good news, and bad news, about AIDS
by Michael Lindenberger Twenty years ago, when Owensboro native Bill Cox resigned as managing editor of Hawaii’s largest newspaper, he wrote a surprising farewell column. He told readers he was one of 24,000 Americans who had contracted AIDS. It was the kind of news that, in 1986, evoked fear, and a great deal of discomfort…
Voters get chance to elect new state judiciary
Guest Commentary by Al Cross Kentucky voters have a historic opportunity to put their stamp on the state’s judiciary this year, because every court seat will be on the ballot, except two on the State Supreme Court, and the candidates will be running under new rules that allow more freewheeling campaigns. As members of the…
Bluegrass Report: Horse racing in Kentucky – two different worlds
Last week, I got to deliver my very first thoroughbred foal on our small Kentucky horse farm. Our mare gave birth to a healthy and adorable chestnut filly, and within an hour, she was running around, learning to manipulate her gawky limbs. If all goes well, she will hit the race track in 2008 right…
Which lessons will be left behind? What has No Child Left Behind wrought in Kentucky, and beyond?
The universal joke of No Child Left Behind, President Bush’s major education initiative that’s been law for four years now, is in its rhetoric: the very title carries such an impossible, absurd implication, particularly when you consider how the act has come to manifest itself in American public schools. Its major contribution to the cultural…
Rumor & Innuendo: Rumblings From the World of Sports
Save the sob story. Truth is, the Cards had an underwhelming season. Really? Yeah, really. More than a few Card fans are p.o’d. Not so much at how the season went but about how The Rick dealt with it. Truth: U of L was mediocre. The Rick had an off year coaching. No more excuses,…
What a Week
Texas teaThe steady gurgle of cash bubbling from consumers’ pockets into Big Energy’s bank accounts continued unabated in DubyaDick’s Merka. Gasoline prices lurched higher an inexplicable 40 cents per gallon, just in time for locals to begin their SUV parade down I-65 to the Redneck Riviera. Meanwhile, natural gas rates tumbled 30 percent after a…
General Assembly winners, losers
With a few days left in the session, lawmakers have a tentative budget, and the winners — the University of Kentucky and public school teachers, chief among them — are coming into view. Organized labor was the first big winner, as House leaders pronounced Gov. Fletcher’s trouble-twin initiatives — (1) to allow employees to join…
Erosia
LEO welcomes letters that are brief (250 words max) and thoughtful. Ad hominem attacks will be ignored, and we need your name and a daytime phone number. Send snail mail to EROSIA, 640 S. Fourth St., Louisville, Ky. 40202. Fax to 895-9779 or e-mail to leo@leoweekly.com. We may edit for length, grammar and clarity. CorrectionLast…
Five Important Questions with One Small Step
Ah, love. Remember how innocent and pure it can be, how candy-pop crushes and discovering other peoples’ body parts can turn rational thought into buttery, syrupy ga-ga, and how every single bit of your world will come to revolve around this person to whom the aggregate sum of your emotional parts is dedicated? It’s a…
Club Directory
19th Green 1740 Williamsburg Dr., Jeffersonville (812) 284-9088 19th Hole Pub 5603 Greenwood Rd. 933-4858 316 Ormsby 316 Ormsby Pl. 637-9899 717 Studios 717 Market St. 609-9317 1135 S. 7th St. 1135 S. 7th St. 589-4978 A Little Peace Café 1860 Mellwood Ave. 895-3650 Air Devil’s Inn 2802 Taylorsville Rd. 454-4443 Akiko’s 1123 Bardstown Rd.…
Comedy/Karaoke
WEDAPRIL 5 Akiko’sKaraokeBrewskees Karaoke w/ TriciaBrickyard Sports Bar Open Mic/DJ TerryComedy CaravanMike LukasCreeker’s Bar & GrillKaraoke w/ Dirty DanGaslite Tavern Karaoke w/ LarinsoGood Times Pub Karaoke Jim Porter’sKaraokeJoker’sKaraokeJT’s Variety Club Karaoke, The Summit Bros.Mac’s HideawayKaraoke w/ Swift Ent.Main MenuKaraokeMonon Station KaraokeNew ViewKaraoke w/ JoePhoenix HillKaraoke w/ DJ Big KahunaR Place Pub KaraokeReflections Lounge KaraokeRo-Joe’s Karaoke…
The Blue Umbrellas will touch you all over
For a readily calculable number of years now, I have been holding on to my copy of the 30th Anniversary Issue of Rolling Stone, dated Nov. 13, 1997, which features the “Women of Rock” as its cover. I have gingerly moved this thing from house to apartment and apartment to house. The postage label is…
You’ve never heard this before: Ben Sollee claws the cello into a folk instrument
The cello is not an instrument people are used to hearing as a solo instrument. Ben Sollee is on a one-man crusade to change the cello’s image and give the instrument the recognition he thinks it deserves. “When you think of cello, you think of an orchestra or maybe a small chamber group,” Sollee said.…
Staff Picks
Thursday, April 6 & Friday, April 7‘Aesthetics of Large Format Photography’ As part of the show “AZO>CONTACT>PRINT,” photographers James Shanesy, Scott Killian, Steve Sherman and Joe Freeman (fellow exhibitor George Provost is unable to attend) will present the history and process of large format photography at U of L’s Ekstrom Library auditorium Thursday from 7-9 p.m.…
He can’t say that, can he?
Writer and humorist David Sedaris has become Ira Glass’ poster boy for what’s wrong with the newly (over)zealous Federal Communications Commission. Glass, producer of public radio’s “This American Life,” cast Sedaris in that role, along with shock jock Howard Stern, a couple of years ago after the FCC fined Clear Channel Communications $500,000 for on-air…
Can 60 million Baby Boomer women save the world?
BY JOSELLE VANDERHOOFT Like many writers in Kentucky Author Forums before her, former non-fiction author Sue Monk Kidd — who wrote best-selling novels “The Secret Life of Bees” and “The Mermaid Chair” — chose a fellow writer to interview her. Her pick: Jean Shinoda Bolen, a Jungian analyst whose work shares themes with Kidd’s writing.…
Arts & Entertainment Listings
Special Events ••UofL English Department — “Exploring Kentucky’s Sense of Place,” with topics from an aerial view of Kentucky to music’s place in Appalachia, April 5, 3-9pm, April 6, 12-5pm, Ekstrom Library Aud., 852-6171.Southern Kentucky Bookfest — three sessions discuss writing process and getting published, April 6, 11-11:50am, 12-12:50pm, 1-1:50pm, free; Kentucky Writers Conference offers…
Community Listings
Special Events New Albany Public Library — Mother & Daughter Makeover featuring skin care basics and application tips from a 10-year beauty consultant, April 5, 6pm, 180 W. Spring St., (812) 949-3523.IU Southeast Alumni Association — reception w/ IU President Adam W. Herbert, April 6, 5:30-7pm, University Center Breezeway at IUS, RSVP 941-2415. ••UofL Public…
Aftertastes
Quality of Meal: 3 = Good; 4 = Very good; 5 = Extraordinary. Price Range: $ = $10 or less; $$ = $20 or less; $$$ = $30 or less; $$$$ = more than $30. (Per person for a meal without tip or tax.) HA = Wheelchair accessible. Descriptions are summaries of previously published dining…
Nibbles
Brendan’s opens The former site of Maier’s Tavern, at 3921 Shelbyville Road in St. Matthews, is now home to Brendan’s, a fully redesigned modern pub with a mahogany bar and an Irish flair in its decor. Sporting a robust beer selection and a menu with sandwiches and entrees ranging from $7.50-$14.99, Brendan’s is open until…
Dixie Highway A&W: last of a dying breed
From a simple root beer stand that opened in 1919 in Lodi, Calif., A&W Root Beer and A&W Restaurants spread across the nation throughout the 20th century. A&W (the name derives from the last names of founder Roy Allen and his eventual partner, Frank Wright) opened what some think may have been the first “drive-in”…
Video TapeWorm: New releases through April 11
THIS WEEK’S TWIN PEEKS: THE SCORNED2006; DVD $19.95, URAn overlooked and bloody indie vengeful-ghost story with lots of flesh. A secluded Malibu beach house is home to a savage murder when a woman finds her fiancée in bed with her maid-of-“honor.” Later, other infidelities in the house lead to death. Is it co-inky-dink, or is…
