Caitlyn Jenner, who as Bruce Jenner was a Drake Relays champion in 1976, was in Des Moines visiting the university campus with her reality show producers. Although a Republican, she asked for a ticket to the debate. The request went all the way up to CBS News President David Rhodes.
“Our person told her person that we don’t have any tickets left, which happens to be factual.” Rhodes said.
(Jenner told The Times that she did not get into the debate hall but that she was able to watch it on television with students on the Drake University campus. She said she still planned to vote Republican. “They didn’t convince me,” she said.)
The UK GUARDIAN is beginning a series of special reports about the poorest places in the United States.. they begin in the state of Kentucky, a coal town named Beattysville, that they label America’s poorest white town.. abandoned by coal and swallowed by drugs. That headline gave me the interest needed to go forward–interest because the place I was born and raised, the coal region of Pennsylvania, has also seen the same insanity.. poverty rising and drug abuse gaining..
Karen Jennings patted her heavily made up face, put on a sardonic smile and said she thought she looked good after all she’d been through.
“I was an alcoholic first. I got drunk and fell in the creek and broke my back. Then I got hooked on the painkillers,” the 59-year-old grandmother said.
Over the years, Jennings’ back healed but her addiction to powerful opioids remained. After the prescriptions dried up, she was drawn to the underground drug trade that defines eastern Kentucky today as coal, oil and timber once did.
Jennings spoke with startling frankness about her part in a plague gripping the isolated, fading towns dotting this part of Appalachia. Frontier communities steeped in the myth of self-reliance are now blighted by addiction to opioids – “hillbilly heroin” to those who use them. It’s a dependency bound up with economic despair and financed in part by the same welfare system that is staving off economic collapse across much of eastern Kentucky. It’s a crisis that crosses generations.
More from the same woman who was profiled for the article:
It was at the local food bank that Jennings spilled out her story.
“There are lots of ways of getting drugs. The elderly sell their prescriptions to make up money to buy food. There are doctors and pharmacies that just want to make money out of it,” she said. “I was the manager of a fast food place. I used to buy from the customers. People could come in for a hamburger and do a drug transaction with me and no one would ever notice.”
Even as Jennings related the toll of drug abuse – the part it played in destroying at least some of her five marriages, the overdose that nearly cost her life and the letter she wrote to her doctor begging for the help that finally wrenched her off the pills – she spoke as if one step removed from the experience.
On the death of coal:
People in eastern Kentucky still call it “coal country”, even though the decline continued largely unabated and the number of jobs in the industry fell with the passing of each presidency. There were 31,000 under Bill Clinton but fewer than 14,000 by the time George W Bush left power.
The number of people employed in mining in eastern Kentucky has fallen by half since Barack Obama came to power, although the long history of decline has been conveniently set aside in the clamour to blame the current president. The more cautious critics say Obama is anti-coal because of his environment policies. But a no less popular view in the region is that it is part of president Obama’s war on white people.
The employer:
The largest employer in the county is now the school system. There are five times as many healthcare workers in eastern Kentucky as miners. “Coal country” is today little more than a cultural identity.
The office of Ed Courier’s Sturgeon Mining Company is on the high street. Its few remaining mines involve people digging coal out of hillsides. “I’ve been in the coal business since ’78 and the last five years I’ve been trying to get out of the coal business. There’s no future for it here,” he said
You may be from a town next profiled by the UK media.. you may be a part of the great unraveling of American society.. the “Great society” turning into the land of the addiction…..
It’s now. It’s real. And you cannot deny it..
Now we just have to wonder if anything will actually fix it.
If you think about it, the majority of victims last night are music fans,“ he said in a Saturday phone interview with Irish radio host Dave Fanning. "This is the first direct hit on music that we’ve had in this so-called War on Terror. And it’s very upsetting. These are our people. … The cold-blooded effect of this slaughter is deeply disturbing and that’s what I can’t get out of my head
I went to an auction today.. a bit of an emotional roller coaster sort of began and ended at the right time in my life.. at the moment when I understand things better than before.. at a point where I can forgive, forget, and focus nostalgic memories when needed for perspective.
To give a quick history.. the school was once for all women. It changed to a Catholic high school later.. it housed my antics… and the diocese of Allentown PA chose to close the school in 2007..
Years later–this year–North Schuylkill, the district the vacant building resides in, bought it .. some considered it sold for pennies on the dollar. Others felt it was an investment gone wrong.
Today there was a public auction.. and a Betsy Ross piano was included. I just about walked away bidding on this for $1 … My failure become notable when I got into a bidding war with a fellow piano lover.. I gave up after the price went too high ($120, however.. perhaps not too high for a baby grand) .. Nonetheless, before I left the building, I had one last shot to dish out a song.. And what better one to choose than the Cardinal Brennan high school Alma Mater..
I am proudly boasting and will always relish in this fact: I was the final person who had the chance to blast out the school alma mater on a piano in this building. Forever. It will never happen again. The ghosts of the past perhaps had one last chance to sing their praise.. or maybe those ghosts have been gone for a long time anyway.
We sing our praise to alma mater the school we all love. We raise heart and voice in joyous acclaim. We cherish you and all you teach us. Blue and gold your colors our fame. We will be true to the ideals that are strong heritage. From on high you reign our true beacon light; Now let’s sing out in happy chorus. Praise to our dear school, Cardinal Brennan High!
Nonetheless, that is this video.. that is this song.. That’s the show, folks. School is out. Forever.
CBS brought in the second Democratic debate seven minutes under time, giving Iowa Democrats the chance to catch the end of the No. 5-ranked Hawkeyes’ game against the Minnesota Golden Gophers.
The candidates began their closing statements with more than 10 minutes to go until the scheduled 11 p.m. conclusion, with Bernie Sanders finishing his at 9:52 p.m. local time. Moderator John Dickerson cut to a commercial break, returning with final thoughts from the panel and a teaser for the next debate on CBS for the Republicans on Feb. 13 in South Carolina.
Sian Jameson is a little breathless as she describes her first night of passion with her lover, an amorous apparition of an artist who had died more than 100 years ago.
That’s right.. The UK DAILY MAIL goes ‘deep,’ exploring the ‘20 somethings’ who are NOT crazy, but just longing for the touch of a spirit from another world..
More.. Greek police on Saturday said at least one man with a possible connection to the Paris attacks had registered as a refugee with Greek authorities earlier this year…
France will not provide any soldiers for Pope Francis’s security if he goes ahead with the visit on 29-30 November, sources told Wednesday’s Le Monde newspaper.
The 900-strong Sangaris contingent has a clearly defined mission, they say, and that is to provide security for the airport and help evacuation if necessary.
Officials have told the Vatican that the visit is “high-risk”, French defence officials at the Africa security forum in Dakar told the paper.
and this
Not only do the French fear that the Pope’s visit could revive sectarian tensions, they also believe that the arrival of hundreds of thousands of Christians from neighbouring countries would be too much for the country’s ruined infrastructure.
The Pope hopes to open a “holy door” in Bangui’s Notre Dame Cathedral to show that the Church is standing by an “afflicted and tormented” people.
There have been longstanding warnings to the Pope about the threat from ISIS.. and there is no doubt that any Pope, but especially this one, is the target of terror attacks. However with the recent Paris attacks being increasingly close to the heart of Catholicism, these new fears and warnings should be taken seriously..
“You have to understand that Swedes are really scared when an asylum house opens in their village. They can see what has happened in other places.” — Salesman for alarm systems in the nation
News networks in the United States have gone wall to wall with coverage–as have international news sources like the BBC, SKY NEWS, and French sources..
There is a CBS presidential debate TONIGHT (Saturday 11/14) .. Hillary Clinton will be joined by Sanders and O’Malley. The network is rethinking its questions based on the terror attack. This is going to be a major moment for Hillary Clintonand a time to shine as the leading presidential contender..
Some of the best coverage and series of photographs relative to the Paris attacks comes from the UK DAILY MAIL, linked here..
One World Trade Center is lit in the Blue, White and Red colors of the French flag in honor of the victims of the attacks in Paris, in the Manhattan borough of New York November 13, 2015. New York, Boston and other cities in the United States bolstered security on Friday night after deadly gun and bomb attacks on civilians in Paris, but law enforcement officials said the beefed-up police presence was precautionary rather than a response to any specific threats. REUTERS/Carlo Allegri
Just think of the history..
9/11.. Bush.. anti war protests all over Paris .. “Freedom fries” and French hatred.. Years later, a rebuilt trade center with colors in solidarity with Paris after a series of terror attacks in that nation.. How things change.. or how they stay the same..
