Biased Political Survey In The KY Governor's Race

 About an hour ago, roughly 5pm today May 31, 2023, I received a call for what was described as a political "survey" directed toward the Kentucky general election this year.  After the first qualifying questions such as "Are you registered to vote in KY?" and "Are you registered as a Democrat or a Republican?", I quickly realized that this particular "survey" was not an ethical, unbiased, empirical survey but was using numerous inflammatory statements which were being posed as questions but actually being only followed by the question "Does this make you more or less likely to vote for Andy Beshear?" All those negative prefatory statements were intended to create negative opinions of Andy Beshear and many of them were outright lies. I absolutely hate this kind of fake campaigning which is disguised as a survey since the typical poorly educated respondent is not very often skilled enough to understand that they are totally biased and goal directed instead of being intended to elicit and document accurate responses in order to compile legitimate statistical data without the survey administrator having done anything to create bias either intentionally or accidentally. They are not statistical instruments. They are campaign tools.  I immediately began to respond to all these inflammatory "questions" with the response that "This is a biased survey intended to create negative opinions of Governor Beshear by using outright lies about him and are doubtless being paid for by some Right Wing Radical Repugnican organization."  To the callers credit, she managed to get through the "survey" and at the end I left her somewhat unable to respond by saying "Now, if you consider yourself to be a decent human being, go out and get yourself an honest job."  She literally didn't know what to say.

These kinds of fake "surveys" are frequently used by candidates who know they are significantly behind in whatever actual legitimate polling they have access to and are far more often used by Right Wing Radical Repugnican candidates than by Democrats.  They are one of the worst aspects of modern election campaigning and are never used by honest, ethical candidates or political consulting companies.  They are based on lies.  They are intended to change the voters' opinions, not to gain knowledge of the voters' opinions.  They have absolutely no merit or value in a truly democratic election since their objective is to change an election from being democratic and honest to one that is undemocratic and dishonest.  They are not used by candidates who want to win on their own virtues.  In fact, they are generally used by candidates who have little or no political virtues and that is definitely the case in this election.  This poll was being used in support of Daniel Cameron who has supported a great deal of legislation intended to destroy individual constitutional rights in Kentucky.  They are truly the mark of an unqualified, unethical, and unworthy candidate at a time when Kentucky has the best governor in America, Andy Beshear, and that governor is holding a roughly 60% approval rating across all voter blocks.  Every voter in Kentucky should do the same thing I did if they receive one of these "survey" calls and confront the "survey" and the caller by calling them exactly what they are, dishonest and based on lies.  

Reflections On Reading "Accordion Crimes" by E. Annie Proulx

E. Annie Proulx, or Annie Proulx as she is sometimes known, is one of America's best known and most successful authors.  She is the author of the short story on which the movie "Broke Back Mountain" was based and won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction and the National Book Award for her novel "The Shipping News" in 1994.  This is actually the third of her works which I have read and yet I have not yet written about any of them on this blog which is an unjustifiable error.  At times, she is a wonderful writer and her prose can flow smoothly, interestingly, and in a manner which consistently draws the reader deeper into her works.  But, in my opinion, at times her work falls measurably short of her best.  I like this book as much or better than either of her others which I have read.  But I have to admit that I enjoyed the earlier reads enough to go back for another dip in this one. Perhaps part of that higher level of pleasure on my part comes from the fact that, as a child in grade school in Knott County Kentucky, I was exposed on a monthly basis to live gospel accordion music from Alma Heibert, of the two "Bible Women" who were allowed to visit each small, rural grade school in the county on a monthly basis as a part of their missionary work with Camp Nathaniel in the county.  As always when I mention my experience with these two women and that fact that missionaries were allowed to visit public schools in the county, I am morally and ethically bound to state that the fact that they were allowed to do so in public schools was a clear cut violation of the Separation of Church and State and never should have been allowed to happen. But, yes, I do have fond memories of having known those women and of accordion music.  

The main character in this novel is not a person but an accordion, hand made by a native of an Italian native who emigrated to the United State with the instrument he had made and eventually sold it.  The human characters come and go in the novel as the accordion passes from hand to hand, being used by members of different ethnicities to play the particular music of each culture as the instrument passes along its life.  The accordion is variously owned and played by Mexican Americans, African Americans, Polish Americans, Irish Americans, and other members of other cultures. Along the way during the story, Proulx weaves in a great deal of historical and musical information about accordions, their instrumental relatives, and many of the cultures which are historically connected to accordion music.  along the way, the instrument is loved, played, admired, and sometimes abandoned much as a human character might have been.  It is an interesting and unique method of constructing a novel and, I believe, is some of Proulx's best work.  In my opinion, the language and written structure of the novel is more skillful than that in either "The Shipping News" or "That Old Ace In The Hole" both of which I have also read and will, perhaps, also write about on this blog.  The accordion becomes a living, breathing character in the book.  It is more than just a musical instrument.  It is a delivery vehicle which deposits musical and cultural history at the reader's doorstep. It becomes the glue which brings all the other characters, cultures, and histories together.  And those histories are both documentations of cultures and of people, families, and individual and shared lives.  It is a book well worth reading, especially if the reader is not familiar with the work of Proulx it is a fine place to begin a relationship with the author and her work. 

Things In Kentucky Politics Which Make Me Puke!

 1) In Kentucky, registered Repugnicans now outnumber Democrats.  

2) All statewide elected officials in Kentucky other than the governor and lieutenant governor are Right Wing Radical Repugnicans. 

3) In Kentucky, we simultaneously have the best governor in America and one of the 3 or 4 worst state legislatures in America. 

4) In the past 8 to 10 years in Kentucky, we have seen more repressive, regressive, and repulsive laws passed than we had in the previous 231 years of our statehood.

5) In the last 6 presidential elections in Kentucky, the state has voted for the Right Wing Radical Repugnican in each of those elections.  In 13 of the last 15 presidential elections, Kentucky has voted for the Right Wing Radical Repugnican.  Bill Clinton is the last Democratic presidential candidate who won Kentucky.   

6) In Kentucky, 5 of our 6 congress members are Right Wing Radical Repugnicans and so are both of our US Senators.  

7) The Right Wing Radical Repugnican state legislature has been allowed to gerrymander congressional districts to the point that no reasonable, well qualified Democrat can be expected to win over even the worst Right Wing Radical Repugnican such as Thomas Massie.  The maps of the congressional districts in Kentucky make districts 1 and 4 appear as if they were laid out by a drunk. 

8) In Kentucky, most elections have voter turnouts of less than 50% of registered voters year after year.  

9) The current Secretary of State in Kentucky has promoted numerous laws intended to bring about extensive voter suppression with little or no public opposition from most of the groups the suppression is intended to harm such as minorities, the poor, the poorly educated, the elderly, the young, the medically fragile, and other at risk groups.