Transcript of secret NRA tape recording hints at future initiatives

 Features  Tagged with: , ,
May 082013
 

The Leek: a satirical take

By Horace Heller Hedley, IV

Image by Christopher Epling.

Image by Christopher Epling.

A confidential source has provided The Leek with a surreptitious tape of a strategy session held by senior officials of the National Rifle Association (NRA). The recording was made on April 18, 2013, the day after measures banning assault weapons and extending gun buyer background checks were defeated in the Senate.

The confidential source told The Leek that he entered the meeting with a recording device concealed in an oversized ammunition clip attached to an AR-15 semi-automatic rifle. The weapon did not arouse suspicion and was not searched.

The Leek took no direct part in making the recording. Therefore, whatever the legality of the recording, The Leek is exercising its First Amendment right to publish the manuscript, and is held harmless from legal liability under Supreme Court precedent set in the case of Bartnicki v. Vopper.

The participants in the NRA meeting appear to have been senior policymakers and legal specialists within the organization, but could not be identified.  Continue reading »

Ensuring terrorists succeed

 Neighborhood  Tagged with: , ,
May 082013
 

By Marcus Flores

I spent my honeymoon in Curacao, an island in the southern Caribbean quite near Venezuela. Flying by commercial airline in the post-9/11 era entails security procedures that, while mildly inconvenient to some (my wife, for example), constitute civil rights infringements to others. As a libertarian, I think I needn’t bother saying to which camp I belong.

Perhaps it comes with the ideology, but I am also not scared shitless of the .00000004% chance of dying in a terrorist attack. No, what unnerves me is the chance that some drunken airline mechanic fails to notice a leaky hose, or that a recently divorced pilot brings his distractful personal baggage with him into the cockpit. (I am not at all reassured by the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) report on the Comair Flight 5191 disaster, which listed small talk among the factors that led the pilot down the wrong runway at Bluegrass Airport in 2006.) In short, I hope that more attention is directed at preventable dangers rather than the guy with the beard. Continue reading »

BUILD presses on

 Neighborhood  Tagged with: , , ,
May 082013
 

By Ellen Deatrick

Crowds gather to hear local politicians at the tenth-annual Nehamiah Action Assembly. Photo by Dustin Pugel.

Crowds gather to hear local politicians at the tenth-annual Nehamiah Action Assembly. Photo by Dustin Pugel.

Many people can’t stand to leave things unchecked on a to-do list. Lexington’s BUILD (Building a United Interfaith Lexington through Direct-Action) is not like that. Tuesday, April 16 at their tenth-annual Nehemiah Action Assembly, 1659 people showed up to address three items on the to-do list. The same three that were on there the year before. And the year before: payday lending, affordable housing, and barriers to ex-offender reentry.

BUILD keeps issues on the list until they can rightly be checked off. Such an approach has kept pressure on community officials and has made significant progress on solutions proposed for some of the community’s most pervasive social justice concerns. As Reverend John List put it: “We [BUILD] will drive you crazy with our persistence.” Continue reading »

Sexual entitlement: three vignettes

 Neighborhood  Tagged with: , ,
May 082013
 

Misadventures in the city

By Beth Connors-Manke

Sometimes persistence is not a virtue. And this guy had it. The first time, he pulled up next to me in a way I could easily ignore as coincidence. When he then did a U-turn and honked at me, I started to get it. My ire flared, but I figured that the complicated maneuver of following me the wrong way down a one-way street would deter him. The issue would be finished. Continue reading »

Happy and healthy backs yoga

 Announcements  Tagged with:
May 082013
 
Paid for by a Community Supported Journalism share.

Paid for by a Community Supported Journalism share.

Common Good in the community

 Neighborhood  Tagged with: ,
Apr 052013
 

Youth talent show April 19 at Embrace Church

By Taylor Riley

1, 2, 3… Jump!

I walk past a group of enthusiastic jump-roping children as I search for John and Laura Gallaher.

There are at least 20 kids outside North Limestone’s Embrace United Methodist Church around four p.m. this particular Friday. If I didn’t know any better, I would think these kids were at recess.

School is over for the day, though, and the kids are involved in an after-school program.

I walk inside the church and spot John and Laura rounding up a couple kids for snack time in the basement home of Common Good, the north Lexington non-profit the Gallahers opened last year. Continue reading »

Happy and Healthy Backs Yoga

 Announcements  Tagged with: ,
Apr 052013
 
Paid for by a Community Supported Journalism share.

Paid for by a Community Supported Journalism share.

Human trafficking, film and media talk at BCTC

 Announcements  Tagged with: , ,
Apr 052013
 

Bluegrass Community and Technical College is happy to have Dr. Yana Hashamova of Ohio State University speak on human trafficking, film and media.

According to most recent research, media environment influences the viewer’s emotions, attitudes, and behavior; establishes opinions on given social issues; and shapes young people’s perception of reality to a considerable degree. Various media venues are the main source of information about trafficking in people. This presentation examines cross-cultural and transnational media products on trafficking as well as attitudes toward trafficking, utilizing U.S. and Balkan media and social attitudes case studies.

The talk will take place Thursday, April 25, from 6:30-7:45 pm in the Oswald Auditorium.

The Lexington Central Public Library is a home

 Features  Tagged with: , ,
Apr 052013
 

By Tony Stilt

The print version of this piece included poems by Eric Scott Sutherland and more photos by Brian Connors Manke. Follow the link to see the Sutherland poems and more Connors Manke images.

“The heavy anchor of the Foucault Pendulum hovers lazily over a blue and gold map of the United States.” Photo by Brian Connors Manke.

“The heavy anchor of the Foucault Pendulum hovers lazily over a blue and gold map of the United States.” Photo by Brian Connors Manke.

Everyone who knows the Lexington Central Public library knows that the fifth floor doesn’t matter—it is comprised of administrative offices, board rooms, et cetera. But the other four floors have a life of their own…

Floor One

The heavy anchor of the Foucault Pendulum hovers lazily over a blue and gold map of the United States, its golden pointer aiming one moment at Ohio, the next at an area I assume to be Missouri, but it doesn’t matter. It is swaying and it is the centerpiece and it is ignored, largely. Across from it a congregation is forming: people in ragged-looking coats and winter hats stand before a set of metal doors, watching them. Ding. The noise echoes through the building, its high pitch ringing into the creases of the New Releases; it rustles the protruding slips of names hanging from items on the “Requests” shelves; its persistence breezes lightly its neighbor, the pendulum, towards Georgia. Continue reading »

Local cannibal praises Kentucky House Bill 279

 Neighborhood  Tagged with: , , ,
Apr 052013
 

The leek: a satirical take

Illustration by Christopher Epling.

Illustration by Christopher Epling.

Guest editorial by Wilbert Trooghspoon

Socrates. Henry David Thoreau. Mahatma Gandhi. These giants of moral courage inspire us to follow our own deepest convictions, braving even the wrath of the State when integrity puts forth its most exacting demand. Yes, history narrates the battle between the individual human conscience and the State’s gunpoint demand that its subjects march lock-step in its arbitrarily-chosen order. Only in rare moments do we behold a government so enlightened that it elevates its people to their rightful place as free moral agents.  Continue reading »

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