WHAT A WEEK: THE CITY”S WEEKLY ZEITGEIST RADAR
-10An anti-tax Democratic governor calls for sweeping education cuts, while a Republican Senate leader calls education our “best economic development tool.” Bizarro World? Well, yes. But also Frankfort. Gov. Beshear asked both higher education and K-12 to prepare for worst-case cutbacks, while Sen. David Williams denounced the idea of cutting universities’ budgets. Meanwhile, House Speaker…
No beating this spread: The foreclosure crisis hits the ”burbs, a new study says
Foreclosures are no longer just the business of cultural minorities, poor people and urban neighborhoods, a new study by the Metropolitan Housing Coalition has found. And one reason for that could be a dramatic rise in mortgages with adjustable interest rates. The study examined foreclosures in Louisville between Jan.1 and June 30 of last year,…
Cluster buster? Lawsuits delay Shawnee liquor sales ban; judge”s decision expected soon
At its heart, September’s wet-dry vote in the Shawnee neighborhood — part of the 5th Metro Council district, which had the fourth-highest percentage of issued liquor store licenses in the city, as LEO reported at the time — was a frustrated community’s attempt to find a direct-action strategy to deter crime and ameliorate poor living…
Imaginary Conversations
Scene: Metro Councilman Doug Hawkins, R-25, and state Sen. Perry Clark, D-Louisville, bump into one another at the grocery, a day after Hawkins announces he’ll run for Clark’s seat in the November election. Perry Clark: You really wanna do this?Doug Hawkins: Wow, your daddy taught you well. I mean, you know how to read the…
Representin”: Another Bullshit Night in Possibility City
I was pretty sure we’d reached the apex of the puerile whining over 8664 late last year, just before the pair behind the proposal finally delivered a professional study and brought to Louisville the highway engineer who devised it — known and respected for his innovation — to deliver the results. After all, it was…
Ballz: SPORTS COMMENTARY AND ANALYSIS: Cards” extreme makeover
When it comes to adding value, nothing fills the bill like an Extreme Makeover. Ask the family of Patrick Henry Hughes. He’s the locally renowned, blind and disabled member of the U of L marching band. Thanks to “Extreme Makeover: Home Edition,” the family is enduring extreme tax addition. Their real property assessment is thrice…
¡Ask A Mexican! Are Mexicans a boozier people?
Q Dear Mexican: The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration reports that Mexican-Americans have the highest proportion of D.U.I.’s and alcohol-related traffic fatalities of any ethnic group (60 percent as opposed to 40 percent for Caucasians — they’re even substantially higher than any other Latino group). I apologize that this question isn’t wisecracky, but that statistic is…
The LEO Interview: Mayor Jerry Abramson
If 2007 was the year when big ideas finally got on the make in Louisville — Museum Plaza, a downtown arena, the Bridges Project, the smoking ban, a workable dog ordinance, a ban on trans fats, Liberty Green, and more, more, more downtown development — then 2008 will be the gritty, brutal year when Metro…
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. Gibberish…
Connected Diss: Electoral dysfunction, Round 1
As we ushered in 2008 earlier this month, it occurred to me that I am deeply grateful for the good fortune not to live in Iowa. While the rest of us were returning gifts from Aunt Mildred and slugging back eggnog, those poor, crazed caucus goers were all but overwhelmed by the first attack of…
Cable Boxing: The Great TV Debate: “L Word” keeps soap on tight rope in S5
Editor’s Note: Welcome to Cable Boxing, LEO’s weekly rehash of some of our favorite shows. Associate Editor Sara Havens and Music Editor Mat Herron have, shall we say, different tastes in television programming. So instead of listening to them duke it out in the newsroom, we made them put their fists to the keyboard and…
Louisville film entities ”dance again in Utah
In the movie business, it’s called a sequel.Hart-Lunsford Pictures and The Group Entertainment, two entities with Louisville ties, return to Sundance this week promoting four new films between them. With luck like theirs, they should handicap Derby races or lotto tickets.Just how lucky? Every year, Sundance judges receive about 4,000 entries. From those, they select…
B-Sides: MUSIC & OTHER EPHEMERA: Another political column? In LEO? Imagine that
New Hampshire’s lesson: Laugh and the world laughs with you; cry and you win a presidential primary. OK, so Hillary didn’t cry, per se; it was more of an — what’s the word? Upwelling.Normally, I leave politics to LEO’s news department, but since it’s an election year … A couple of days ago, a colleague…
New Blood courses through Ricci”s veins
Saturday, Jan. 19Zach Deputy is a not-quite-one-man band. He’s got his childhood friend Paul Kearns bouncing around bongos and congas and any number of percussion instruments. But prepare to be amazed at the fullness of the blues/folk-cum-Caribbean fusions that’ll take over Tailgaters on Saturday. “I play synthesized guitar, so I can get any sound. Sounds…
CD Reviews for 1-16
DistortionThe Magnetic Fields(NONESUCH)The group that feted you with 69 Love Songs still has its tongue planted firmly in its own cheek, and their latest work of art is just as deadly. For the Magnetic Fields, hope, heartbreak, loss and the occasional debaucherous evening are part of what makes life worth living, and if you meet…
Staffpicks
Jan. 16-27Comedian Etta May Etta May, in all her blue-collar comedic splendor, returns to one of her favorite clubs in the country this month. During her two weeks at the Caravan, she’ll be featured on CMT’s “20 Greatest Redneck Moments” (Jan 18, 10 p.m.), and on the 23rd she celebrates her birthday! (If you’re a…
Video TapeWorm: Released through Tuesday, Jan. 22
THIS WEEK’S TWIN PEEKSSWAMP THING: THE SERIES2008; DVD $39.95, GIf you were a fan of Superfriends or spent as much of your adolescence reading DC comics as we did, then you surely remember this creaky, syndicated monster-series. Dick Durock recreates his squishy, titular rubber-suited role from the “Swamp Thing” movies as a formerly human super-soldier/plant-creature…
We put on that ole Southern drawl at Limestone
Louisville, it is said, is the only Northern city that chose to declare itself “Southern” only after the South had lost the Civil War. This odd decision, some say, led directly to 100 years of stagnation, no major-league sports teams and a slow decline that eventually took us to the bottom of the nation’s top…
Aftertastes
SEVICHE — A LATIN BISTRO, 2929 Goose Creek Rd., 425-1000, www.SevicheRestaurant.com. Save for the few meat-and-potatoes additions, this suburban Seviche location is all but indistinguishable from the Bardstown Road operation in food and mood and price point. The lunch menu, introduced this month, is one of the best around. (Reviewed 12/26/07; Rating: N/A) CORBETT’S “AN…
The Bar Belle: New bars, familiar spots
When I asked Santa last month for more bars in more places, he met me halfway. He delivered three new bars to town, but they merely fill in for defunct establishments. Say goodbye to Jimmy’s On The River, Willy’s and Mac’s Point. And give a grand ol’ River City welcome to The Menu On The…
Louis CK is “chewed up” in Louis-ville
LEO Presents A Little Off Center — Comedian Louis CKSaturday, Jan. 19 Bomhard TheaterKentucky Center584-7777$28-$35; 8 p.m. Comedian Louis CK found the fine line between shock-comedy and giving his audience pause with insight into their own lives. Which is why he’s on the list of the Top 100 comics, ever. While low on the list…
Booksmart – Poem
Last Call: Campari and Soda*By Lynnell Edwards Make it like the Italy you’ve alwaysImagined. Think: piazza. Think: ciaoBella. Think: garnet alchemyof root and herb and time. Ignorethe cocktail crowd, hot and rumpled;ignore the hangers-on beginningto stagger and slur; ignore the jerkin the stained tie who wants to know:What’s the red stuff sweetie?Think: tiled verandas, slim…
Booksmart – Book Reports
“T” is for TrespassBy Sue Grafton. G.P. Putnam’s Sons; 387 pgs., $26.95. “‘T’ is for Trespass” is the 20th installment in Sue Grafton’s “Alphabet Series” of mystery novels, which follows the professional and personal life of female private investigator Kinsey Millhone. The story is set in December 1987/January 1988 in the fictional town of Santa…
Booksmart – Booksellers” meeting looks into local and green business issues
The American Booksellers Association is hosting a “Winter Institute” downtown next weekend (Jan. 25-27). The three-day meeting is likely to have bookstore owners and operators thinking about much more than what product they’ll have to push. A lot of the program focuses on sharing information and building alliances for alternative and green marketing. Publishers see…
Gee”s Bend quilts: vibrant, bed-sized works of abstract art
Gee’s Bend, Ala., is one of the most isolated areas in America. This small bump of land, five miles long and eight miles wide, is surrounded by the Alabama River on three sides. Yet there has been an amazing discovery of art treasure there: the quilts of Gee’s Bend. Like most discoveries, the quilts and…
