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TERRY’S TIDBITS

By Terry Gray

Humanitarian. 

I was watching the news recently when an item came on that featured a man climbing up to the balcony of his burning apartment.  There seemed to be a lot of firefighters standing around, getting out equipment, and otherwise occupied with the routine of putting out a fire.  So what was this man doing climbing up on his balcony?  He was rescuing his dog.

It seems that preparations for firemen to put out a fire, at least in this case, are far more important than doing the job.  While firefighters milled around, the dog owner grabbed a piece of firefighter equipment, climbed up the balcony, smashed the sliding glass door and grabbed his dog.  For his efforts he was arrested and charged with disorderly conduct. 

What’s the deal here?  It seems to me that it boils down to authorities being peeved that someone did the job that they weren’t doing.  It also infringes upon personal freedom.  If I want to run into a burning building I’ll do it thank you.  If it had been a person in the apartment and this man had saved that person, he would be a hero.  Of course, by today’s standards, the person being rescued would be a hero even more.

Employment office.

I recently had a meeting with the Department of Veterans Affairs at sixth and Cedar downtown.  They have some space in the Employment office (unemployment office for those not enlightened).  There are 4 entrances to the parking lot but all but one are for employee parking.  The only customer entrance is off of Cedar.  I couldn’t find an open parking spot.

At the end of both aisles of customer parking was a vast open parking area, almost devoid of cars.  The heavenly parking haven that I could see beyond the area designated for customers was blocked from my use by a cable stretched from one end to the other.  I longingly backed away and tried to turn around to leave the customer lot.  There is no place to turn around once you have found no places to park.  You can’t even get from one side of the customer lot to the other without going back to where you came in.  You just have to back up, pull up, back up, pull up, over and over until you get your vehicle pointed back out of the lot. 

I pulled out onto Cedar and turned south on 6^th street.  There was an entrance to the “Big Parking Lot In The Sky” but it had a big sign stating, “Government Parking Only – Tow Away Zone.”  I continued on to the next light and made a right.  Again there was an entrance to the land of parking aplenty but the same sign warned me.  I turned right on 7^th and was once again teased with an entrance and the same sign.

Back on Cedar, I turned right again and right into the customer parking lot.  I smiled when I saw an empty parking spot but was still fuming about the ado, so I counted sort of, the customer parking spaces.  There were about 100.  I took in the size of the Government parking lot and estimated the parking spaces there.  By my count there were over 200 spaces.

What kind of government do we have when there needs to be twice as many parking spaces for employees as for customers?  I’m sure glad that Wal-Mart is privately owned.

The Primary

There has been a little hoopla about Tuesday’s primary election.  In Louisville only 10% of the voters are expected to make the scene.  I agree it is a shame.  The reason, as touted by the media is lack of interest.  Let’s take a second to think about that.

If voters have so little interest in who will represent them in government there must be a reason.  Could it be that we have succumbed to apathy?  Could the apathy be the result of being lied to, being left out of the decision making process, being reigned over?  Could it be that the people have no faith in the system anymore?  Could it be that the voters lump all politicians in one big heap and look at the heap with contempt?  Could it be that the people are getting tired of status quo politics and actually wising up?  Boy, am I being optimistic.

The media paint the picture however it best serves them, but I have my own ideas on the issue of voter apathy.  I believe that voters don’t see any of the candidates as viable representatives.  Again, maybe I’m giving the public at large too much credit, but one can hope.

How many of the voters are wealthy?  How many politicians are?  How many have degrees and white-collar jobs?  How many politicians do?   How many “working people” get elected to represent our mostly working class society?  How many politicians are “working people”?  I think for the most part that we are not represented, and the system is self-perpetuating.  We elect politicians, not representatives.  Put a good mechanic, bricklayer, or electrician on the ballot, and I bet you that turn-out would increase.  We cannot relate to the people who spout about things that we know they don’t mean or couldn’t change if they did mean it.  I’ll take a man or woman who speaks his mind any day.  And a true representative with the intention of only representing us has my vote regardless of his political affiliation, unless he’s a Democrat.

Terry Gray

Kentucky House of Representatives

2004 

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