So you’re an ex-journalist. What do you make of the feud between Bevin and the Kentucky media?
That nutter in Montana has raised the bar, but Bevin will be keen to catch up and turn our local spat into a blood feud. Must doff my cap to all the outlets that’ve earnt Bevin’s scorn, though, and sick burn about his origins in The Courier-Journal.
I’m conflicted. On one hand — great job to piss him off. On the other, The CJ has been ruined by those tosspots at Gannett, so perhaps he has a fair point about its current moribund state.
Right now, the papers here and in Lexington are doing their best work in years. A reflection of the media at the national level. In crisis, perhaps, but Christ, what a time to be a journalist.
Therein lies the rub: It’s a great time to be a journalist at a network with a spine, but probably a pretty miserable time if you’re a reporter with a conscience and a family to support.
That’s a fair distinction. Regardless, I’m confident most of the press wanted Clinton to win from a personal standpoint, but subconsciously they were all rooting for Trump and the rich pickings his administration would provide.
I think I’d put myself in that camp, too. I stopped reading HuffPo once the election was over — but now one of the highlights of my day is lying down on the settee after work and watching videos of Trump humiliate the third of the country that elected him. He’s done more to promote the downfall of capitalism than Marx, Guevara and Ayn Rand combined.
Nice one. Anyway, sticking to Bevin, if he was actually confident in his ability to argue about policy he’d talk to the press. But he can’t. Also, a shout-out to Attica Scott for her response to that absurd video Bevin posted following that poor kid getting shot last week.
Filmed off the cuff in a playground. What the fuck? I’m not sure if that was symbolic or shambolic.
Weird about him and race. African-American kids, African-American lieutenant governor. Hard to believe he’s a racist.
Au contraire, mon brave. I find it very easy to believe he’s a racist. As I wrote recently, he doesn’t do anything decent if it isn’t about demonstrating his chops to the only body that matters in this state — the all-white congregations at Southeast Christian and every tumbleweed church in every tumbleweed town in the Commonwealth. At least Attica called him out for what he is.
Attica needs to keep on at him about his master plan to end violence. Call me a cynic, but I suspect it’ll end up in the same drawer as Trump’s plan to defeat ISIS in 30 days.
You’re a cynic. But you’re not wrong. Speaking of which, grim news from home last week. Reminds me of my salad days. Bombs going off all the time, I mean.
I suppose a lot of younger people back home have forgotten just how much of an everyday occurrence terrorism was back then. Bombs, kneecappings, one atrocity after another. One of my clearest memories of childhood is of my father, a sweet, kind, and generous man, swearing nonstop at the television news. It wasn’t a one-off event, either. It’s a constant memory, like going to school or lusting after Felicity Kendal.
And yet, weirdly, last week was also a moment that made me proud to be British. (And I mean the nation’s reaction... not my solidarity as a patriot of the Empire.) And it’s not just a British thing; it’s increasingly a European thing. Have disaster inflicted on you, hold a vigil, get together and hug each other, vow to prevail as a culture made of sterner stuff, and then move on. I find it hard to imagine Americans behaving with a similar fatalistic resolve — although, that said, I quietly admire their optimistic expectation that the future is in their control and that they can actually staunch terrorism.
Well, some locals were excited because they heard that ICE agents were rounding people up at the Derby, and nary a word was said by anyone, including in the newspaper, so I think that tells its own story.
As gently-aging Brits, we’re both aware of what happens when you fight fire with fire or wave your colours in front of a motivated enemy. I remember how disappointed I was when Beckham banged on about the British not having enough pride to display the Union Jack publicly, the way they do with the Stars and Stripes over here. If he was a bit older, a bit wiser, a bit closer to the suffering, he might have kept his Chav chops shut.
And yet many Americans would say that it keeps on happening precisely because we react that way. That rather than get together and hug it out, we should be rounding up everyone who looks suspiciously exotic, putting them in a field, and bombing their helpless brown families into oblivion.
Sadly, there are an awful lot of Brits who’d wholeheartedly agree with that. And presumably one governor of Kentucky, too.
