When Impeachment Happens, It Must Be Multiple And Simultaneous!

During the so-called "Alaska Summit" between Russian President Vladimir Putin and TRAITOR Trump, it should have become apparent to most rational Americans that TRAITOR Trump is owned and controlled by Putin, cannot take any definitive action on any subject which remotely involves Russia without the approval of Putin, and will do literally anything and commit any crime in order to appease Putin and attempt to legitimize a man who has open arrest warrants from the World Criminal Court as a result of his war crimes in Ukraine. Actually Putin is the second person TRAITOR Trump has held "summits" with who has open arrest warrants from the World Criminal Court also. Various journalists from every legitimate American media company have stated clearly after that so-called summit that the event was a disaster for both Ukraine and for TRAITOR Trump. It was immediately referred to by several journalists who are experts on war journalism as a "nothing burger", an old expression from the world of Hollywood gossip columnists in the 1950's to describe an event which has no worth, no significant importance, and is of little consequence to anyone. But it also signaled once again that TRAITOR Trump will do anything to appease and legitimize Putin, will do literally anything to harm Ukraine, and will stoop to any crime which will, in his twisted brain, give him some kind of advantage over anyone alive. Sooner or later, TRAITOR Trump must be impeached, removed from the White House by military force if necessary, indicted in federal criminal courts of at least part of his recent crimes, arrested, tried, convicted, sentenced, incarcerated, and left in federal prison until the day he dies before being buried beside Osama Bin Laden. But this blog post is really intended to impress on the world that simply removing TRAITOR Trump from the White House is not sufficient and could actually endanger the country and the world even more. He is surrounded and supported by a hand picked conglomearation of criminals, TRAITORS, and Russian Agents who are all equally as dangerous. There is no one in the current line of succession who is fit to serve in any position of public trust at any level all the way down to potentially becoming a local magistrate or constable. Several of them have already been convicted of crimes or accused of serous crimes including TRAITOR Trump himself who has been convicted of 34 of the 82 felonies for which he was indicted; held legally responsible for the rape of E. Jean Carroll in a monetary sense; held responsible for stealing money from a New York based "charity" and barred from being an officer of any corporation licensed in New York. For those 92 felony indictments, he was indiced in fur jurisdictions by five seperate grand juries. Charles Kushner, Jared Kushner's father, who is now the Ambassador to France has previously pled guilty to several counts of tax crimes. Peter Navarro who is not in the direct line of succession in a position which doesn't require senate confirmation was found guilty of contempt of a congressional sub poena. Kristi Noem has admitted in her autobiography to killing at least two animals, her hunting dog, and a goat which had done nothing at time she chose to shoot it after killing the dog did not fully satisfy her rage. She is in the line of succession. admittedly, Noem is in last place in the line of succession;but if everyone who is disqualified for legal, moral, or ethical reasons from succeeding an impeached TRAITOR Trump, she could be the last dog standing, if you will excuse that turn of phrase. The one person in the line of succession who is not directly under the thumb of TRAITOR Trump is Chuck Grasley who is President Pro Tempore of the Senate but also already 91 years old. If he is the only rational replacement for TRAITOR Trump, God Help Us All! Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth has been proven to have disclosed highly classified information to an unsuspecting journalist who had the patriotism and moral conviction to report the offense. First in the line of succession is J. D. Vance who has proven time after time that his entire life and career are built on lies, yet, if TRAITOR Trump should be impeacheed and removed after the 2026 congressional election theoretically gives the Democratic party a majority in both houses of congress, Vance would suddenly find himself in the position of power which he lusts after and proves on a daily basis he is tragically unfit to ever hold. Several years ago, he was summarily removed from the board of AppHarvest which has since failed, gone bankrupt, and been sold. There is only one remotely viable choice to succeed to the office TRAITOR Trump now holds, and that person is 91 year old Chuck Grasley. If and when the day comes, as it must, and TRAITOR Trump is impeached, removed, and criminally charged for at least part of his crimes, Grasley, must be the successor. To ensure that succession, Vance must also be impeached simultaneously with TRAITOR Trump. The Senate will find it necessary to hold the impeachment vote of Vance first, refuse to consider the possibility that the vice presidency could be filled instantly with another unfit subject, and vote to convict and remove TRAITOR Trump immediately after removing Vance. After the impeachment by a new House of Representatives majority in 2027, convicted by a new Senate majority, and removed from the White House which, based on the TREASON of January 6, will most likely require military intervention, we would be faced with the need to pray constantly that President Grasley be allowed to live and remain rational until January 20, 2029, when the new Democratic President, whomever that might be, could be sworn in.

Mass Population Movements And William Faulkner

I am in the process of reading "The Unvanquised" by William Faulkner. As I sometimes do, I found a quotation in the middle of the book which I am compelled to write about today. This is that quotation below:

"...he nor they could not have known what it was yet it was there--one of those impulses inexplicable yet invincible which appear among races of people at intervals and drive them to pick up and leave all security and familiarty of earth and home and start out, they don't know where, empty handed, blind to everything but a hope and a doom."

"The Unvanquised" the book from which I drew that quotation is a fairly well known book by William Faulkner which was published in 1934, minety-one years ago, long before anyone on earth imagined that Russia and Ukraine would now be more than three years engaged in a war of aggression which was started, perpetrated, and perpetuated by Vladimir Putin and Russia, no one else. As a result of that war, hundreds of thousands of Ukrainian citizens have been forced to feel one of "those impules inexplicable yet invincible which appear among races of people". As a result, just as Faulkner in his book was describing the mass exodus of African American slaves from the defeated south after the Civil War had ended. But Ukraine is not now, and has never been defeated in the last three plus years of this war. Yes, many of their people have become refugess for a variety of reasons within the greater reason of having been faced with the possibility of death if they remained in Ukraine. They have picked up and left all security and familiarity they have ever known, started out empty handed and blind to everything except a hope of a safe future in some other peaceful country and the overwhelming and inexplicable doom they have known quite well ever since the day Putin declared his war of aggression and invaded their country. They have traveled to dozens of other countries around the globe, some simply to cross the borders of Ukraine into Poland or another much safer European nation. Others have traveled across the planet and hundreds of thousands of them have come to America over the years of war chasing that hope. From January 20, 2021, until January 20, 2025, those people who came to America had that hope while living in a country which was compassionate, welcoming, and rational in its approch to them and their forced exodus from home. Now, from January 20, 2025, their hope has been destroyed and, once again, all they can see is that doom which they fear so justifiably. America is now in the hands of the worst TRAITOR in the history of the world, TRAITOR Trump who is working daily to attempt to force Ukraine and its democratic government to surrender to their attacker and surrender much of their country, their land, and their hope to that attacker, that dictator Vladimir Putin and to his Russian Agent, the TRAITOR Trump.

I was stunned as I read that quotation above from William Faulkner and realized just how applicable it is to the treachery of TRAITOR Trump who has abandoned ever promise the United States made to the Ukrainian people and their democracy in order to support his Russian master. Just a few days ago in Alaska, the world watched as TRAITOR Trump kowtowed to Vladimir Putin and his design to destroy Ukraine and its democracy. We watched the world's worst dictator being welcomed to American soil by the world's worst TRAITOR and would be dictator, TRAITOR Trump. We watched as the two of them attempted to decide the fate of a sovereign nation and its people without a single representative of their interests in the room. We watched the attempted murder of the nation of Ukraine in order for TRAITOR Trump to appease and attempt to legitimize his Russian owner. Just yesterday, we watched the President of Ukraine being ignored by TRAITOR Trump as he disembarked from his plane at the airport in Washington, DC, after TRAITOR Trump had rolled out a red carpet for their would be destroyer and dictator in Alaska. But Ukraine does have allies across Europe in several countries, the European Union, and NATO. But can Ukraine and their supporters actually win this conference room war against them? We don't know. But what we do know that they cannot win it if the American people also surrender to Putin and TRAITOR Trump. We must not do that. We must support Ukraine and their fledgling democracy. We must be the nation our Founding Fathers intended us to be.

Let's Hold A Nationwide One Day Strike To Oppose TRAITOR Trump!

Ever since August 5, 1981, the date when Ronald Reagan was allowed by the AFL-CIO and the American people to fire 11,359 professional air traffic controllers, I have said the same thing when that subject comes up. What I said was this: "If the AFL-CIO and all the other components of the organized labor movement in America had stood up to Reagan, refused to allow the air traffic controllers to be fired, and staged a one day nationwide strike, he would have had no choice except to back down, reverse those firings, and negotiate with the air traffic controllers. His War Against The Working Class would have been dead in the water, and today America would be a very different and more successful nation. The same holds true for TRAITOR Trump and every crime he and the Criminal Syndicate which poses as a "cabinet" in support of his TREASON have committed and will commit in the future if they are not held responsible for their crimes. If they are not held responsible for those crimes, you can bet your sweet ass that worse is on the way, already being plotted, perpetrated, and dreamed of by the worst TRAITOR The world has ever seen and the other lesser TRAITORS who support him. On No Kings Day, June 14, 2025, roughly 5million people participated in more than 2,100 hundred separate protests from sea to shining sea. But what would it have looked like if, instead of peacefully standing out in public holding protest signs and chanting slogans, those 5million of us had just waited until the following week during regular working hours from 8am to 5pm from sea to shining sea for one day and stopped working. If 5million of us had gone on strike for one 8 hour day, stopped driving trucks, delivering products, making those products, mining or manufacturing the individual components of those products, never unloaded a single ship at a single of our international ports, stopped teaching in the nation's classrooms, stopped nursing patients in our hospitals, and stopped doing whatever it is that each of us does for a living. That would change the face of the battle against TRAITOR Trump, his Russian Owner Vladmir Putin, and their ultimate goal of destroying the United States. What we need to do now is to call that one day nationwide strike, carry it out on a weekday, preferably a Wednesday so the work week is clearly broken into two disparate halves,and the general public is clearly told that it is purely and solely in protest of the crime spree being perpetrated by TRAITOR Trump and his supporters. And it should also be made clear that unless he and his entire Criminal Syndicate are removed from the halls of government that such a strike will occur at least once a month until they are gone. If one day strikes don't work, then expand them to two days, three, four, or five until the truth is realized all over the world. I am not in a position to organize and coordinate such a strike. But I will always be in a position to support such a strike by doing everything I can to promote and defend it. This is just one grandiose, but realistic, idea for saving the America most of us love. This ideas is free for the taking by anyone with a network of support large enough to bring this strike to fruition. Let's schedule it! Let's make it happen! Let's make it absolutely clear that we are tired of TRAITOR Trump, his Fascism, his TREASON, and all his crimes against this country. Please share this post with everyone you know until someone steps up to take the ball in hand and carry out the planning, scheduling, and organization to make this Strike In Defense Of Democracy a reality!

"That Far Paradise" by Gene Markey

This is the second of Gene Markey's novels I have read lately and written about on this blog. The first was "Kentucky Pride" which I reviewed at this link. This novel, "That Far Paradise" is actually a prequel to "Kentucky Pride" with its protagonist being the grandfather of "Kentucky Pride"s protagonist, Aidan Kensal. The grandfather is named General Jared Kensal, a former revolutionary general who fought for American independence and is the first Kensal to settle in Kentucky on the land which becomes the setting for "Kentucky Pride". Jared Kensal is the holder of Revolutionary War land grants for several thousand acres of land near Lexington, Kentucky, and as the novel begins is preparing to relocate his family from his Virginia plantation,along with more than fifty slaves, to a fabulous home he has built on his Kentucky land. He has deeded the Virginia plantation to his brother Carter Kensal who is a heavy drinker and man of little consequence. Jared Kensal is married and has five children with his wife Ardath who is from Old Virginia upper class stock, hates the idea of moving to Kentucky and is very far removed from any positive feelings she might have had about her husband in the early days of their marriage. The husband and wife have effectively divided their children between themselves in terms of loyalty and affection. Jared has close connections to his younger son Harry, middle daughter Lexie, and the youngest daughter who is only a young child and a minor character in the novel. Ardath has close ties to the oldest daughter and son, Elizabeth and Garland who is attempting to become a doctor. Ardath attempts persistently to control all five children and prevent them from being closely attached to their father. Like most generals in most armies, Jared Kensal is a man of his own mind and forces the family relocation to take place. As the move becomes imminent, Carter Kensal meets a British spy and his wife, Polly Blayden, who has nearly killed her husband and abandoned him in possession of a letter he has from his British commander which proves that he is a spy. I nlight of their lack of intimate relationships with their spouses, Jared Kensal and Polly Blayden are immediately attractedto each other. Polly asks to join Jared's wagon train so she can travel to Kentucky to visit her sister in Paris which was a tiny Central Kentucky village in 1794, the period in which the novel is set. Jared has put together a massive wagon train for his trip to Kentucky, comprised of his family, an old Kentucky woodsman friend, Ab Caiton, about 65 slaves of all ages, a small detachment of militia whose purpose is to provide security for the group. He has a plan for taking the train across a route which is rarely used through what is now West Virginia, down the Little Kanawha River to the Ohio, and down the Ohio to Maysville, where they will go overland to Lexington through the area where in real life Daniel Boone and a party of his were engaged in the Battle of Blue Licks. Although Boone is a minor character in the novel, Blue Licks is never mentioned. The trip is an incredibly arduous effort requiring the hiring of mule skinners and ox drovers to drag the many wagons across mountains, the buying of several flat boats to haul the party, livestock, and plunder down the Ohio. It is a trip which most observers in the novel see as a doomed venture. But Jared Kensal and his team manage the feat as he and Polly fall in love, engage in a torrid affair along the way, and ends with battles with warring Indians along the Ohio, a final battle with Blayden himself, the death of Ardath Kensal. Gene Markey was a devoted student of Kentucky history during his life as the husband of Lucille Wright Markey, the owner of famed Calumet Farm in Lexington. The book is well researched with a cast of purely fictional characters, and is well worth reading. It leaves a gap of several years between "Kentucky Pride" and "That Far Paradise". It is my belief that Gene Markey had intended to write a third novel to cover the gap between General Kensal's trip to Lexington and the Civil War and Reconstruction novel, "Kentucky Pride", which tells the story of his grandson who was a Confederate officer who returns to find his plantation in Lexington has been seized by the government due to his support of the Confederacy. I fully realize that many readers will dislike the novel because of the fact that General Kensal is a slaveholder and his Kentucky woodsman friend Ab Caiton hates Native Americans and scalps a few in the course of the novel. But it is my position that fiction which is labled as "historical fiction" has a serious responsibilty to accurately represent the times which it purports to describe. Any attempts to either ignore, rewrite, or misrepresent the history being portrayed is not historical fiction. It is simply fiction, inaccurate fiction, and not worthy of an intelligent reader's time.

TRAITOR Trump's Attempted Appeasement And Attempted Legitimation Of An International Terrorist And War Criminal

This meeting in Alaska is all about APPEASING and ATTEMPTING to legitimize an INTERNATIONAL TERRORIST and WAR CRIMINAL who has an arrest warrant from the World Criminal Court at The Hague. It is also phase two of the TREASON which occurred when TRAITOR Trump in 2017 brought a Russian ambassador and a purely Russian film crew not just into the White House but into the Oval Office. There were no American media crews at that meeting. There are at this meeting, but just think for a minute that this is the military base where Russian flights into US territory are monitored and intercepted. Putin is being accorded full treatment as a foreign leader on a diplomatic mission which means he will have a full detail of Russia's finest with him. You can bet every one of them is an expert on Russian intelligence gathering practices, probably all are FSB officers. The big Q is just what will they know about that military base which they have been unable to learn from satellites and communication monitoring. He's being set up to commit further spying just as he was when the ambassador and his crew were allowed into the Oval Office.

"A Driving Tour of Elliott County Kentucky" by Sharon Boggs

This is a little book originally published by Kindle and written by Sharon Boggs, a neice of Appalachian folk artist Minnie Adkins who also lives in Elliott County Kentucky where she was a teacher for many years. The book gives a very detailed driving map of the county and includes at least a basic mention of most of the roads in the county. For myself, the best piece of information I got from the book was the story of how seven Civil War soldiers, whose loyalties were not known apparently, were murdered near Sandy Hook after the Civil War had ended. There is a state historical marker a couple of miles west of Sandy Hook on Kentucky Route 7 which I believe marks the spot where those men are buried. It is on the side of the road without a decent parking space without either parking some distance away and walking to the marker or simply imposing and parking in a nearby driveway to a home. I admit I have considered doing one or the other several times but have never done so in order to actually read that marker. The book also gives a basic explanation of the Laurel Gorge Cultural Heritage Center site which is one of my favorite hikes in Eastern Kentucky although I don't hike there regularly. There are also a large number of historical photographs of people and places in Elliott County but the reproduction quality is poor. The book also gives a basic history of the small local post offices whch used to be operarting in the county, nearly all of which are now defunct. The book is available on Amazon for $10.00. If you want to know more about Elliott County Kentucky, it could be worth your time and money.

Hiking At The Minor E. Clark Fish Hatchery, Morehead, Kentucky, August 2, 2025

After attending the Artisans Harvest event in West Liberty, Kentucky, yesterday, we decided to travel to the Minor E. Clark Fish Hatchery so I could get in a hike. I parked Candice in the van in the shade and began my hike. Shortly after I started hiking, I met a local man, (recently relocated to Kentucky from elsewhere) who happens to be a biologist employed in a federal government job. He also happens to be a very experienced birder and we struck up a conversation. I am choosing not to name him in light of the extremely oppresive and destructive nature of what is happening to thousands of federal employees all over the country. Our conversation was initially about birds and I told him about my recent experiences around the visit on our property by a large flock of Evening Grosbeaks. While we were talking, he pointed out a pair of mated Bald Eagles which were soaring over the fish ponds and told me they are nesting on a distant ridge within sight of the hatchery. This was my first sighting of Bald Eagles at the hatchery but I have to admit that I might have missed them soaring in the distance. As our conversation progressed, we got into an enlightening discussion of the ongoing decimation of the federal government by TRAITOR Trump. The man was open and honest about his feelings, stated he is just a few years from possible retirement, and might be willing to retire early if another opportunity is presented to employees in his department to take voluntary early retirement. Our conversation was mostly about the horrible attacks on government employees, immigrants, and humanity in general which is happening by TRAITOR Trump and his Criminal Syndicate which poses as a "cabinet". Yes, it was a sad conversation in many ways. But it was also honest, open, enlightening, and, in some ways, stress reducing. After our conversation broke up after about 20 minutes, I walked back to my van to let Candice know that I had been talking and would just then be starting my hike so she would not be alarmed by my lateness in returning. Then I got into an area of the hatchery property which I had never been in before, saw a large amount of birds of several species, and had a great hike in an area I had never been in before. As I was preparing to leave the hatchery, both Candice and I were able to watch an osprey swoop into a pond and capture a large goldfish and fly away with it. I suspect that a pair of ospreys are raising young somewhere near the hatchery. It was a great experience from several viewpoints: political conversation, hiking, new experiences at the hatchery, and bird watching with two great species, one of which I had never documented before, the osprey actually taking a fish. And I got my sixth sighting of Bald Eagles, a mated pair in flight.

"Artisans Harvest" At Morgan County Wellness Center, August 2, 2025

Yesterday, my wife and I attended Articans Harvest at the Morgan County Wellness Center in West Liberty, Kentucky, which was originally called "Art In The Park" and held at Old Mill Park. But a few years ago, the location was changed due to rainy weather and it has been held at the Wellness Center gym ever since. When it began in the park, it was more a folk art show and sale than what it has become since the move. It is now heavily oriented toward crafts rather and folk art. Minnie Adkins, the famous Elliott County folk artist still attends and Brent Collinsworth from Wolfe County was there last year but did not attend this year. Steve Sargent, who makes nice lamps from whiskey bottles had attended last year but was there only as a spectator this year. There also is a small number of local vegetable farmers who attend to sell a few vegetables. It is not what it used to be. I do understand that since it is organized by the local Agricultural Extension Service office that their funding source probably requires that it include the vegetable farmers and some others such as users of the Extension Service food preparation trainings they sometimes do. But I go primarily to see, and sometimes buy, folk art, and I prefer to see it more heavily oriented in that direction which I am afraid might not happen again. This also reminds me of what used to be called Morgan County Farm, Home, and Family Day which was more oriented toward individual presenters who taught small groups in a classroom setting about a wide variety of topics oriented to life in a rural community. It hasn't been held in several years. But this event now known as Artisans Harvest is a great place to go to meet a few people in the community whom we don't get to see on a regular basis. We ran into Steve Sargent whom I've known for years; Minnie Adkins who is one of my favorite folk artists, and whom I had seen two weeks ago at Minnie Adkins Day in Sandy Hook; Sarah Fannin, the local Extension Agent who was there no doubt in her official capacity; Danny Joe Gevedon, who is a retired banker and friendly acquaintance who also plays Bluegrass bass; Austin and Kathy Shaw, from whom I buy farm fresh eggs; and several others whom I might have forgotten to mention. Since there was only marginal interest in Minnie's somewhat expensive folk art, I was able to spend some time talking to her and got Steve Sargent to take a photo of us. I try to always get a photo with Minnie when we run into each other. Minnie was in a generous mood yesterday and offered to give one of her famous roosters to a female who said she makes handmade brooms. But she declined and insisted on buying one of Minnie's unpainted roosters, staing that getting the rooster was the only reason she had attended the event. Just before we left, Candice happened to drive her wheelchair past Minnie's table, and Minnie promptly stood up and carried Candice a hand carved and painted cardinal which she gave her. It is proudly displayed on a shelf with my two hand painted and carved Evening Grosbeaks from Minnie's cousin Tim Lewis. It was a very community oriented event for us since we saw so many of our friends and acquaintances, got to look at some good crafts work, visit with Minnie, Steve, and Danny. We left the event and chose to drive to the Minor E. Clark Fish Hatchery near Morehead so I could hike. But I will discuss that in a separate post.

Visiting With Tim & Lola Lewis, July 25, 2025

I had an interesting and fun visit with Appalachian Artist Tim Lewis and his wife Lola yesterday, July 25, 2025, in their home in Elliott County Kentucky. I have known Tim for a couple of years and known about his art for a bit longer than that. Tim is a cousin of the famed Minnie Adkins but his art work is his own and his reputation as an artist is perfectly capable of standing on its own two feet. Tim has primarly been a sculptor in stone for many years but also does wonderful carved and painted wooden birds. I am proud to say that I now have two of those Tim Lewis birds in my own collection. They are actually representations of the Evening Grosbeaks which visited our home for about two months nearly two years ago. Tim had recently completed those two birds for me and we had talked at the recent Minnie Adkins Day celebration in Sandy Hook. But we had also spoken about getting together sometime soon for a while and I decided to take a hot summer drive to Tim's house for a visit.

That drive to the visit was an adventure in itself. Tim's house is not easy to locate even for a person like me who has spent his life in the mountains of Eastern Kentucky and Southern West Virginia. It is located on a back road, up a sizeable hill, and situated in a tree shaded location where it is not possible to see it from the road. But I finally got there and it was worth the trip.

I had also taken a photograph of both grosebeaks together near a wall outlet in order to be able to show them as a pair and to give an indication of their size. This is that photograph.

While I was at Tim's house, he and Lola and I talked about a variety of topics including a lot of art, mostly art actually, and they also showed me several pieces of art from their collection including a small piece by the famed folk artist Howard Finster. They have an excellent carved and painted Native American Chief which Tim created many years ago, a nice little piece of a carved alabaster angel which was Lola said was the first piece Tim ever carved and gave to her when their relationship was young. The house is full of art, exhibition catalogues, and excellent memories. In a wonderful act of generosity, they gave me a copy of a catalogue from a series of traveling exhibitions of Tim's work from 2008 and 2009. Yes, they did have a few extra copies of that catalogue from the past. It contains a wonderful group of photographs of Tim's works from that time period, several very interesting and insightful articles about Tim and his work, and it is truly enlightening to study if you are into the stone carvings of Tim Lewis. It was a truly great visit!

"Nowhere Else On Earth" by Josephine Humphreys, One Helluva Novel!

This is a tremendous novel! This is one of the best novels I have ever read! This is, by far, the best novel I have read since I read "Wilderness" by Robert Penn Warren. I haven't had enough time to read everything I have ever wanted to or should have read. But it still amazes me that I never heard of Josephine Humphreys until I blundered into this novel by accident. The novel is a story of the late Civil War and Reconstruction just as is "Wilderness" and a couple of other things I have read and written about on this blog lately. But I have not set out on any conscious effort to read a lot of novels about the Civil War. It just happens by accident when I am not deliberately reading for a research based purpose. But I have never been more pleased to find a great writer by accident. Humphreys novel is a masterpiece of southern literature. Her plot work is astounding in this book. Her character development is tremendously detailed, written into the flow of the novel with purpose and without visible intent. It just happens which is what great writers do when they are writing at their best. The novel is set in the late years of the Civil War in coastal North Carolina and the heroine is a daughter of a Lumbee Indian woman and a Scotsman. She is intelligent, hard working, committed to her family and her place in the world. She is in love with a fellow Indian man who is becoming the leader of the local resistance to both the Union and the Confederacy in a community which they call Scuffletown. Scuffletown is one of the great names ever created for a place where poverty is king, starvation common, discrimination a daily reality, and the development of what we victims of discrimination like to call "backbone" is the one essential quality which will keep you alive. In those ways,Scuffletown is a sister to every impoverished coal camp in Appalachia, every row of slave cabins on every plantation in the Deep South, and every ghetto in a northern metropolitan area. The people of Scuffletown know how to survive, how to adhere to each other in tough times which are guaranteed to get tougher, and how never to mistake collusion with an enemy as cooperation. Most of the people in Scuffletown live in one room cabins scattered throughout a pine woods swampy world where turpentine making from pine trees is the one way to make a living in a better way than just being a hunter gatherer or scavenger or robber. Scuffletown is located not far from Hell but always has a bit of Heaven in it. It is a place where Love of Place, loyalty to your peers, and generosity no matter how poor you are is a fact of life.

Rhoda, the heroine, falls in love with Henry Lowrie, a young man her own age who grows up to lead the local resistance to both the Union and Confederate forces neither of which has any respect for the locals. As the war degenerates toward Lee's surrender, times just keep getting harder and Henry and Rhoda's two brothers become key members of the resistance with Henry assuming the top position. They are opposed by a local sheriff, his top deputy, and a group of their henchmen who will stop at nothing to maintain control of the populace and pillage as much as they can. The resistance fighters leave home to live in the swamps and strike whenever and wherever they can in order to feed both themselves and those who are dependent upon them. The novel is regularly improved by an event of such striking oppression, suppression, and sometimes resistance to the other elements just mentioned that the reader is spellbound. It is realistic and true of nearly every war of oppression ever waged in the world. In the end, Henry is branded as an outlaw and a reward of $20,000 is placed on his head with the production of himself or his dead body as necessary to collect the money. The war ends before the novel but it does not improve conditions in Scuffletown. Bad goes to worse! One of Henry's loyal men is hanged and Rhoda takes her children to proceedings where she stands in front of the gallows with the condemned man's mother as he falls to his death. But that is not the end of the story. I have never seen a novel I am more happy to recommend. It is a beautiful and often chilling piece of work. This author, Josephine Humphreys is a tremendous writer. I realize full well that one novel is not sufficient platform on which to build monuments to a writer, but this novel is a fine start of the foundation. If her other work is as strikingly wonderful as this novel, she deserves to have her name mentioned in the same breath as Flannery O'Connor, Hemingway, Pearl Buck, and Steinbeck.

"Poems To Ponder" by Alva Rice

Alva Rice produced one small, self-published collection of poetry to my knowledge which was printed in 1965, two years before his death. The printing company was Young Publications in Appalachia, Virginia. The book contains roughly 30 poems about life in Eastern Kentucky with some leaning toward being nature poetry and others which are reflections of family life including one which talks about young boys playing, most likely at some family affair. Rice used a lot of rhyme and sometimes exercied a bit of poetic license with regard to his rhymes. None of the poems are remarkable for the level of talent they show but they are a good look into every day family life in Johnson County Kentucky in the middle of the twentieth century. In particluar, Rice mentions a place called Little Mine Creek. I found the copy of the book which I own in a local Goodwill Store and bought it since I have a great deal of trouble ignoring anything which can be said to be autographed and this one is inscribed "Your Frien, Alva", and in the same handwriting contains the name Escom Chandler. The fly leaf of the book also contains the names of his wife Erma Maxine and three daughters Alice Evelyn, Mary Kathryn, and Betty Lou. As I often do when I encounter such self-published books, I did a quick internet search and located the burial place of Alva Rice and his wife in the Price Cemetery in Johnson County Kentucky. I also located a Find A Grave memorial for a fourth daughter, Phyllis Deane Rice, who died in a car wreck according to her tombstone at the age of 13 in 1957, ten years before the publication of his book of poems.

"Lilly The Cat" by Destiny Conley, An Early Reader Book With A Kentucky Connection

Recently I strayed into a copy of an early reader book for K-2 or so readers with a strong Kentucky connection. The title of the book is a bit confusing since there is another more widely known book for children by the same title and written by a different author. If you go hunting for a copy of this book online, be sure that you are locating the book which has been written and illustrated by Destiny Conley and published by STARS Publishing. It was also an outcome of a project by Kentucky Valley Educational Cooperative. But a search of the websites of both the publisher and KVEC failed to locate any information about the book. And to further complicate any history or sales information about the book, it was actually printed by a third organization, Minutemen Press in Lexington, Kentucky. The publication date was 2016. The information I was able to find about KVEC identifies it as "...one of eight education cooperatives in Kentucky consisting of 27 member school districts. The organization serves 161 schools with over 53,000 students and nearly 4,000 educators." The website shows a mailing address of 412 Roy Campbell Drive, Hazard, KY. It's listed members serve a large geographical area in the watersheds of the Big Sandy, Licking, and Kentucky Rivers. The book appears to have been chosen as a result of a contest for students being served by KVEC, and it seems that the author and editor was actually a student in some program served by KVEC. The primary character in the book is a cat named Lily who loses her favorite ball of yarn and finds it in the possession of a mouse. When the mouse refuses to surrender the ball of yarn "Lily comes up with an idea" and asks the mouse if they can share the ball of yarn. The story ends with both Lily and mouse remembering "that sharing is caring". It is nice little book written in age appropriate language for early learners, and the author/illustrator was apparently at roughly the same age as the target audience when she wrote the book. It is a nice little book for both teachers and parents to utilize in the effort to teach and reinforce sharing behaviors in young children. However, considering the fact that I found it difficult to learn more about the book, it might be a bit of stretch to locate more copies. But the internet is always a great place to find almost anything. Good Luck!

Minnie Adkins Day in Sandy Hook, KY, July 19, 2025

Today, July 19, 2025, my wife Candice & I traveled to Sandy Hook, Kentucky, for Minnie Adkins Day, an annual folk art event which is intended both to honor the great Appalachian folk artist Minnie Adkins and to bring together some 100 or so other folk artists and crafts persons along with folk art lovers and collectors from several states. We try to attend this event every year and I have written about both this event and Minnie Adkins a few other times on this blog. Although Minnie is past 90, she is still able to work effectively and uses the event to both sell her most recent works and to meet both her long time followers and new folk art lovers she has never met. Personally, I love to attend any event Minnie is at. She is a joy to talk to and is a real giant in both the Appalachian and American Folk Art movements. I also use the event to search for good folk art which I can afford to collect, meet other folk artists and collectors whom I know, and to renew numerous relationships which I might only benefit from on unpredictable schedules. One of my favorite artists and a man I consider to be a friend in the great Appalachian folk artist Brent Collinsworth who lives just a few miles from my home. But due to our busy schedules, we don't see enough of each other. I love Brent's work and we have collected several of his pieces which are among my favorites. This year, I happened to encounter Brent at the booth of another of my favorite artists and people, Tim Lewis, who is a fine folk artist also, a great bird carver in particular, and a great worker in stone which is less common than it could be among folk artists. I actually bought two of Tim's carved and painted birds today and I love them. We had discussed more than a year ago the fact that Candice and I had been visited by a large flock of relatively rare birds in Kentucky, the Evening Grosbeak. These birds I bought today from Tim might not have been painted as actual representations of the Evening Grosbeak but they are, if we allow for a bit of artistic license, decent approximations. But, above all, they are simply great bird carvings by an Appalachian folk artist who has work in the Smithsonian.

We also encountered and spent time with our friends Misty Skaggs and her mother, Bonita Parsons, who are both folk artists also. Both of them gave small pieces to Candice which is typical of the kind of generosity they tend to show to the entire world.

Altogether, it was a wonderful day at Minnie Adkins Day and we had a ball.

"The Time Bike" by Jane Langton

On many occasions in this blog, I have said that I sometimes like to read childrens' literature, especially that which has been recognized as being worthy of public recognition such as winning or being nominated for major awards. This book did not win any major awards in the field of adolescent literature so far as I know. But the author, Jane Langton, was previously nominated for a Newberry Award for her book, "The Fledgling", so I decided to take a chance on reading "The Time Bike". Since it borders on being science fiction which I have read for years and even written on this blog about a few science fiction books, I also found this book interesting. It is about a blended family but gives on explanation about why the two children, Eddy and Eleanor, are living in the home of their Aunt Alex and Uncle Freddy who run some loosely described school for adults out of their home. Uncle Freddy wins a seat as a town supervisor early in the book which increases the local banker and now defeated town supervisor's animosity toward Uncle Freddy and the entire family. Early in the book, Eddy receives a new, fancy bicycle as a birthday gift, leaves it on the porch at night, and has it stolen. But shortly thereafter, another member of the extended family sends Eddy an old fashioned looking, used bicycle which he really doesn't apprectiate until he accidentally discovers that it is a time machine. In the meantime, the banker has set out to steal the family home which is a very unique, perhaps unusual house with odd features such as a bust of Henry David Thoreau in the hall. Thoreau is also an icon in the eyes of the entire family. Eddy discovers that his second bicycle is a time machine and has both adventures and misadventures learning how it works and how to keep himself out of trouble during the times he is using it. The author died at 95 in 2018 after having an extensive career as an author of both children's literature and mysteries. She obviously had a great creative imagination. This book was published in 2000 when she would have been about 77, an age when most of us have already abandoned science fiction even when writing for young people.

The book progresses along two paralell lines of conflict, the one being Freddy's foibles with the Time Bike, and the other being Uncle Freddy's desperate attempt to find the deed to the house in time to prevent the banker from seizing it revenge for his lost election. But, in a mild twist, Eleanor uses the bike and, on her time trip, accidentally returns with the missing deed and saves the day. For many adolescents, this will be an interesting read and will also provide a much needed diversion for adults like me who are looking for a bit of light reading as a break from too much back to back heavy reading. It's worth giving to the avid childhood readers in your life.

"Flooded...Yet Knott Alone" by Miriam Moyer.

With the massive flooding and steadily rising death toll from the flood in Texas on July 4, 2025, I am certain that quite a few people might be interested in this book by Miriam Moyer, a Mennonie woman and writer who lives in Knott County. The book contains nearly fifty short chapters, which Moyer describes in the subtitle as "short stories of what Knott County people experienced in the July 28, 2022, flood." In spite of the large number of what I have called "chapters" and Moyer calls "short stories", the book is only 303 pages and is a fairly fast read if you don't allow yourself to be overcome by the constantly repititous stories of near death and survival by only a hairsbreadth. I met Moyer and bought the book in October 2024 at the Alice Lloyd College Appalachia Day where she was selling the book. Although I have numerous friends in the conservative Mennonite congregations in Knott, Johnson, and Morgan counties in Eastern Kentucky, I had never met Miriam Moyer until that day at Alice Lloyd. As a native of Knott County, I was interested in reading about the floods even though I had no direct contacts among the hundreds of victims who survived or the 19 dead from the flood. I always have a large "To Be Read" shelf of books and it is pure coincidence that I had started the book in time to complete it during the week of the Texas flood. The book is based on recorded interviews with numerous victims of the flood, local officials, recovery workers, and others in the county. I firmly believe that if Mirian Moyer still owns the recordings of those interviews they deserve to be placed in a legitimate historical library setting such as the Special Collections Department at Berea College in Berea, Kentucky. Those interviews will be of significant interest to writers, researchers, and family members of victims for the entire foreseeable future. But I was disppointed to see that Moyer did not use a lot of direct quotations from the interviews in the book. Instead, she used very minimal direct quotes and paraphrased parts of what I assume were the recordings to compose the individual chapters. The book also has a strongly religious focus as does all writing I have ever read from members of conservative Mennonite congregations. I have no issue with that religious aspect of the book since it is universal in Mennonite books. But the book lacks a great deal of information of a first person historical nature from the interviewees themselves. The maanner in which the interviews were utilized to write the book leaves a great deal to be desired in the final product. But I give full credit to Miriam Moyer for the massive amount of time she spent traveling the county, interviewing the subjects, and making an attempt to preserve their stories of the disaster as it affected them. I would love to listen to the tape recordings or read transcripts of them. They deserve to be preserved in a stable setting where general access could be granted to researchers and the general public under controlled conditions. One other shortcoming of the book is that there is very limited information from survivors of the dead victims and no full listing of the Knott County dead. But the book is worth reading from most of the general public. It can be purchased directly from Miriam Moyer at this address which is published in the book: Miriam Moyer 4589 Possum Trot Road Leburn, KY 41831 606-497-6527

"Pink Flamingoed" Book 1 Aylesford Place Series by Steve Demaree

Steve Demaree is a writer in Lexington, Kentucky, who has self-published a pile of books, generally on Amazon as far as I know althought I believe he does sell his books on other websites. I believe he has somewhere between 30 and 40 self-published books on his personal page on Amazon. He tends to write books in series with common charcters and common locationis. This particular book, "Pink Flamingoed", is book 2 in a series called "The Aylesford Place Series". I found an autographed copy of book number 2 in that series on a used bookshelf which belongs to the University of Kentucky Hospital Auxillary at the hospital. I bought that book, autographed, for 75 cents. When I got it home and my wife found that it was book 2 in a series, she insisted that I buy book 1, this book, before we read book 2. My copy of book 2 had an address and phone number listed for Steve Demaree so I called the number hoping that I could buy an autographed copy from him since I like to collect autographed books. He answered the phone himself and we had a nice ten minute or so talk about his writing and our common memories of the area in Lexington where we had both lived and, in particular, of Aylesford Place, a little one block residential street near the UK campus. The book series is a use of the street name and the actual book has little to do with actual Aylesford Place as I have known it for the last 50 years or so. But any author is required to invent or appropriate a lot of names especially if they write a lot of books as Steve Demaree does. This book is not quite 350 pages and has a group of characters who, for the most part, live on the fictional Aylesford Place. Their relationships among themselves are much like a large extended family. They all attend the little church on the street, visit each other's homes, and know an awful lot about each other's lives, likes, dislikes, and unsettling habits. They can all be said to be protagonists of a sort to one degree or another. The book does not contain a genuine villian or antihero. Steve Demaree can write in a style to satisfy the heart of most high school English teachers. The book moves on from one very minor crisis to another in the lives of one or more of the primary characters. It lacks real conflict of any consequence and, therefore, lacks any significant conflict resolution. It is readable and every fifty or so pages Steve Demaree will construct a sentence of some consequence or a humorous line which can make you actually giggle. But the book would be far better if it contained a decent and decidedly effective villian. There are no train wrecks, violent deaths, nasty divorces, or crimes of stature to keep one awake at night. The characters live happy, fulfilled lives and no ever seems to break a leg or a more. But I was pleased to see that Steve Demaree did insert a female,wheelchair bound character into the book who is generally realistic and worthy of respect. As a man who has been married to woman who has been in a wheelchair for more than 25 years, that was important to me. That female character, Allison, is the friend of the primary female character, Amy, who is in love with the primary male character, Brad Forester, who is a successful author of mystery novels who has decided to move to Aylesford Place after inheriting his grandparents home on the street. They meet in the first few pages, are still together and apparently in love at the end of book, but conveniently for other characters who enjoy being a part of their lives they are not married at the end. But there is hope for that marriage in book 2. There is also hope in book 2 for the marriage of Allison and her new school teacher boyfriend Chuck. But nothing really dramatic, tense, or dangerous happens in the book. It was a relief to make it to the end.

"Introducing The Short Story" Edited by Henry I. Christ & Jerome Shostak

It has always been my belief that the short story is the ultimate form of written fiction. Yes, I love novels, plays, and poetry but the short story has the most elements to recommend it for long term literary pleasure. The short story can be read in a minimum amount of time since most are less than 5,000 or 6,000 words in total, although some can be as much as 20,000 words but that is a fairly rare event. But my ultimate reason for loving the short story is that it is a very unforgiving form of literature to write. In 5,000 words or even less, there is little room for error. A literary mistake on the writer's part in a short story represents a far greater percentage of the entire story than such a mistake in an 80,000 or 100,000 word novel. What might be a forgiveable error in a medium to long novel can completely alter the short story of a reasonable length. What does a writer have to provide in a short story? The key elements in a short story are Plot, Characters, Character Development, Confict, and Conflict Resolution. Many respected authorities on short stories disagree as to the minimum key elements of a short story. But most of those authorities list at list five elements and some as many as nine or ten. The elongated list then grows to contain Plot, Character, Conflict, Conflict Resolution, Setting, Theme, Point Of View, Character Development, Tone, and Style. Some authorities might disagree about one or more on that elongated list, but they would generally agree that a good to above average short story must contain most of those elements. The editors of the book in question, "Introducing The Short Story", list Plot, Character, Setting, and Theme. I chose to buy and read this book more because of the twenty-eight short stories it contains as examples of the seven qualities of short stories which they editors list. The seven sections they chose to list are Plot, The Magic Of Imagination, The Surprise Ending, All In Fun, Short Shorts, Fellow Creatures, and World Of People. For each of those seven sections, the editors included 4 short stories as examples of the qualities in stories. The book is presumbly intended as a high school level text in a class on the short story, and that class would most likely be considered an Advanced Placement course in most high schools. I bought it simply to read the twenty-eight examples and not for the introductory and closing material attached to each section. When I scanned the book's list of stories, I found only five stories which I had read before and I have been reading short stories for something in excess of 65 years. I found almost a dozen authors listed among the stories whose names and work I knew above and beyond the actual five stories I had previously read. But in the stories I had not read, I found I liked nearly all of the editors' choices and came to love two or three of those previously never encounered stories. In "The Most Dangerous Game" by Richard Connell, I found one of my favorie stories of all time. I had first read and loved it in my freshman year of high school, and I have been recommending it ever since. It is one of the best action and suspense stories ever written anyone. "The Secret Life Of Walter Mitty' by James Thurber is also one of my personal favorites which also crops up in my life from time to time. "Lonesome Boy, Silve Trumpet" by Arna Bontemps is a wonderfully written story about a little African American boy in New Orleans who loves music, learns to play the trumpet against his mother's adivce, and finds himself the featured musician at a most unusual party. Two of the stories in the "Surprise Ending" section of the book are fine examples of the work of Guy de Maupassant and Ambrose Bierce. No one can say they fully comoprehend the lenght breadth and depth of the short story who has never read anything by either of those two masters. Maupassant was a French master of the short story who wrote several hundred during is lifetime along with a few novels which are less remembered and lauded than his short stories. Ambrose Bierce's "A Horseman In The Sky" is a masterpiece only slightly less well known that his "An Occurence At Owl Creek Bridge" which was turned into one of the best loved of all "The Twilight Zone". And Bierce's own demise in the Mexican Revolution which he was covering as a journalist is a story in itself. He simply disappeared and to this day no one knows where or exactly when he died. If you are a high school or even college level English, and especially Short Story teacher, this book can be a valuable resource for you in the classroom. But if you are simply a reader of the short story, and find a copy of this book lying in a junk store for a dollar or two, it is well worth the money to buy and simply read the stories and totally ignore the supporting writing from the editors. But even better, if you are a lover of the short story who wants to know more about how that form of fiction works internally, this is a great place to start learning.

July 4, 2025, A Major Political Announcement For Kentucky's 5th Congressional District

On July 4, 2025, my wife Candice and I traveled to Prestonsburg, Kentucky, to attend and support the announcement by Ned Pillersdorf that he is running against Congressman Hal Rogers in Kentucky's 5th Congressional District. It has been far too long in this district since a viable Democratic candidate has run against Rogers. The event was held in Rosenberg Square, a small, but beautiful park at the corner of West Court Street and North Lake Drive in Prestonsburg. The event was attended by somewhere in excess of 100 people which, in my opinion, is a good turnout for a political event on a major holiday which is often saved for family reunions and yard sales. And the heat was in the low to mid 90's all day so it was somewhat oppressive which probably depressed attendance to one degree or another. Ned gave a speech after being introduced which is roughly what is conained in the text of one of his blog posts this morniing which can be found by scrolling down his Facebook page which is found listed as "Ned Pillersdorf". Or you can go to this link on Facebook and watch or simply scroll to the point Ned starts speaking and see this video of the event which lasts in total for slightly more than an hour. I am actually completing this post on July 7, 2025, and some of the media responses to Ned's announcement have now been deleted from their companys' websites. But I remember one in which the writer stated roughly that Ned had given a "blistering speech" about TRAITOR Trump's "Big, Vicious, Ugly Bill". I was somewhere between surprised and shocked by that coverage of the speech I had seen in its entirety. I had thought that Ned had given an honest, accurate, and measured response to the "Big, Vicious, Ugly Bill". You can bet that if I had been asked to speak to a crowd of a hundred in Kentucky or anywhere else in the nation, even Texas, Alabama, or Mississippi, the speech I would have given would have been far more derogatory of TRAITOR Trump than anything Ned Pillersdorf said in Prestonsburg on July 4, 2025. Yes, Ned's speech was accurate, tasteful, mild in my estimation, and a lot less than anyone deserves to have been accused of who voted to support that 900+ page attack on America, her citizens, and the world in general. Ned Pillersdorf is the first viable, electable, and deserving candidate for congress in Kentucky's 5th Congressional District in at least twenty years. Ned has done more for the people of the district in the last forty years than Hal Rogers ever attempted to do. Vote for, support, and elect Ned Pillersdorf to the US Congress from the 5th District of Kentucky.

"Alligator Acatraz" Is TRAITOR Trump's First Concentration Camp!

The Holocaust Encyclopedia tells us that:

"The first concentration camps in Germany were established soon after Hitler's appointment as chancellor in January 1933. In the weeks after the Nazis came to power, the SA (Sturmabteilung; commonly known as the Storm Troopers), the SS (Schutzstaffel; Protection Squadrons—the elite guard of the Nazi party), the police, and local civilian authorities organized numerous detention camps to incarcerate real and perceived political opponents of Nazi policy."

TRAITOR Trump's first concentation camp, known as "Alligator Alcatraz" was opened in South Florida on July 1, 2025, in South Florida with TRAITOR Trump and Rod DeSantis present and happily touting its existence as if they had just funded an actual day care center, community college, or hospital. The only term I find adequate to describe TRAITOR Trump's emotional response to this concentration camp is "masturbatory glee". This isa term I have used once or twice before in reference to some of his most egregious and criminal acts. When TRAITOR Trump is able to do anything which creates havoc,makes the world a more dangerous place, or worsening the living conditions for a major segment of America's population, his responses are always a public exhibition of strutting like a rooster in a chicken lot in which he is the only male of the species. His face becomes exactly like of the high school bully who has just slapped a non-consenting freshman girl on the hindquartes and gotten away with it. When he stood in front of the press at the opening of this hell hole,his experssion was exactly like that of an insecure 13 year old boy who has suddenly discovered that he has one black hair on his chest or crotch. TRAITOR Trump delights in the suffering of others, especially if he is the perpetrator of that suffering. There is no word or expression in the English language that better describes his reactions in these instances than masturbatory glee.

We are teetering on the edge of the greatest disaster any civilized country can perpetrate or ignore as it is being perpetrated. We are facing the onset of what will become an American Holocaust if TRAITOR Trump is not stopped by the US House, Senate, and Supreme Court. It is unlikelyh at this time that any of the three are willing or morally able to do that. The razor slim margins which votes on his "Big Vicious, Ugly Bill" is being defeated by are not based on strength or moral courage. They are based on the dissent of a small handful of the worst elected officials in America whose oppostion is due to their desire to make that "Big, Vicious, Ugly Bill" even bigger, more visious, and uglier. The United States is sitting at the cusp of being host to a Second Holocaust. More concentration camps are going to be built. More people will be incarcerated unjustly, denied due process, deported, suffer from inhumane treatment, and many of them will die in the process or because of hte long term effects of that process. The question has now become "what will you as an idividual citizen do in response to this sought after Second Holocaust? Will you sit silent or even assist as thousands of German citizens did in World War II? Will you simply stick your head deep within your shell of compliance while blaming other under your breath as many other German citizens did in World War II? Will you ignore this Second Holocaust as much of the so-called civilized world did in World War II? Or will you be a real participant in the resistance to this Tyrann, this Racism, this Second Holocaust? Will you even join TRAITOR Trump in his masturbatory glee?

July 4, 2025, Stand Up With Ned Pillersdorf And Kentucky's 5th House District

On July 4th 2025, at 5pm, in Prestonsburg, Kentucky, Attorney Ned Pillersdorf will hold his formal announcement of his candidacy in the Kentucky 5th US House District in the upcoming 2026 election. He is opposing long term Right Wing Radical Repugnican Hal Rogers who has just voted to support TRAITOR Trump's Big, Vicious, Ugly Bill which will be highly likely to force the closure of 23 hospitals in the district due to the vicious, widespread cuts to Medicaid. The Announcement will be held at Rosenburg Squre in Prestonsburg about one block from the Floyd County Judicial Center. I am asking all my readers of this blog to make an honest effort to attend the announcement. Ned Pillersdorf is the most legitimate opposition to Rogers to arise in the district in twenty years or more. He is a nationally known and respected attorney who won more than 1,000 appeals of the cuts of Social Security benefits which werel levied against a vast pool of the former clients of attorney Eric C. Conn. Ned is also the attorney who represented the former employees of Blackjewel Mining when their jobs were cut and they were not paid for their last weeks of work. For forty years, Ned has represented the poor, needy, disabled, infirm, and elderly of the 5th district when they were engaged in tough fights against a plethora of agencies, prosecutors, and corporations who were determined to make the lives of those people even worse by their actions. Ned is also the spouse of former Kentucky Supreme Court Justice Janet Stumbo who has also devoted her career to the improvement of the human condition in the 5th district. Please attend the announcement and join in the huge show of support for Ned and his candidacy. Bring your family! Bring your friends! Join all of us who will be attending in a show of support for change in the US House, protection of constitutional rights in America, and common human decency around the world.