how it rolls
Letcher County, KY has a lot of charm. It is small-town fun and games, with big-time drama.
Our Election Returns party ended on a very somber note despite the upset of a pro-MTR, pro-gun, and generally very hateful state representative Howard Cornett. While that was a plus, the minus was that the good ol boys got control of the fiscal court and have it in their polyester-suited power to override much of the wishes of the people for the next two years. It’s kinda like Bush, though: things gotta get worse before everyone realizes what really needs to change. It goes without saying that many of the ‘boys have it in for KFTC and progressives in general.
Then this morning, we discovered that our office had been cement-glued shut by some disgruntled someone. All I could do was remember the conversation I’d had with one of the candidates a few weeks ago where he informed me shutting KFTC down was the first thing he was gonna do when he got elected. An empty promise or a veiled threat?
It’s such a testament to how things go around here, mostly the fact that it’s such a small town we are all aware of the dirty politics (instead of having them hidden by city bus-smog and skyscrapers). The day before the election, half the special Election-Edition newspapers in town were bought up in bulk by one of the town’s monopoliers, and burned. All the KFTCers are disheartened, some talking about leaving this area for good, moving away cause they feel so beat down. Me, I wanna fight but need a better idea of how to do it. It could be all the rain but I’m no longer sure exactly what I’m railing against here.
It was posited that maybe it’s actually selfish of me to expect to spend two months here and see real change. That’s not how it rolls, I know that. What I don’t know is why east Kentucky coal supplies the whole nation with luxury but we go by unnoticed every time…just the nature of the system, to focus on the product not the process.
