Tea

Visitors to Ridgefield Shopping Center on the Danville bypass may have noticed a small, flag-festooned booth Tuesday and Wednesday as the Tea Party movement merged with merchandising. John Lang of Nicholasville, a Tea Party supporter who put up the booth in the old Kmart parking lot, sells T-shirts and bumper stickers, many of them emblazoned with his own slogans, and small copies of the country’s founding documents. Lang, who has a similar booth in the Peddler’s Mall in Danville, said he is a self-employed house framer who lost substantial business when the real estate market collapsed.

Dear Editor, I’d like to point out that America’s founding was the best possible illustration of the tea party’s ideology in action. The ideas of equality and democracy, at the time, were incredibly revolutionary concepts, and the Founding Fathers undoubtedly raised the bar for moral philosophy, especially compared to their predecessors of dictatorial monarchism. But even with these revolutionary geniuses constructing the rubric of the nation, and even with the tea party’s ideology being at the podium, it was short lived — like a firework finale that turns out to be a dud. My point is to stress that small government isn’t sustainable, any more than a large government is. All governments, in the history of governments, have grown in size to either the point of collapse or the point of totalitarianism.

Dear Editor, I attended my first field hockey game at Centre Saturday. When the teams took the field it looked like wood nymphs dancing about the flag pole. These pretty little everybody’s daughters were carrying what looked like short golf clubs. They danced and cavorted around warming up, and I thought, “Isn’t that sweet?” The bright smiles on the pretty little faces of these dainty little girls were precious. Then the whistle blew. The looks on the faces startled me with the change to a concentration reminiscent of a hawk attacking a field mouse.

Whether a genuine misunderstanding, or collusion and conspiracy, the mainstream media continues its false portrayal of the grassroots movement known as the Taxed Enough Already party as a bunch of angry, racist rednecks. In Kentucky, the mischaracterizations seem limited to large media relics — primarily the largest newspapers. A Lexington Herald-Leader columnist’s infomercial-column (published free of charge, I’m certain) about the upcoming Coffee Party convention in Louisville confirmed this.

After the mixed results of last Tuesday’s primary elections in three states, one has to wonder whether the tea party movement is starting to steam or going stale. Tea party candidates made gains in Florida and Alaska on Aug. 24, but the incumbent the true believers really wanted to defeat won by a landslide. Sen. John McCain, R-Arizona, won by a 2-to-1 margin over J.D. Hayworth, the conservative talk show host and former congressman, who was the tea party favorite, although he had to spend $21 million to do it. If Hayworth had succeeded, it would have been the biggest victory yet for the anti-incumbent, libertarian movement that has swept the country in the past year.

Dear Editor, A small group of volunteers has formed called "Friends of KSD" with the express purpose of fundraising to stretch the very small operating budget of Kentucky School for the Deaf. On Dec. 12, the Friends partnered with the Jacobs Hall Museum Board to present our very first event, a "Christmas Tea at KSD. " KSD was proud to share the deaf, Kentucky and American history in beautiful Jacobs Hall, an Italiante structure built in 1855 by John McMurtry and his son-in-law, Major T. Lewinsky, the architect also for Ashland and White halls, the homes of Henry Clay and Marcellius Clay.

Staying focused is the single, most important ingredient of any successful movement. The Tea Party movement must regain its focus, or lose its momentum. On March 21, I helped organized the first Tea Party in Kentucky in downtown Lexington. No paychecks from any hidden conservative group, just a collection of grass roots local conservatives who saw the political writing on the wall. Twelve hundred angry voters showed up and told our current political establishment that it was time once again for them to "fear our vote.

Staying focused is the single, most important ingredient of any successful movement. The Tea Party movement must regain its focus, or lose its momentum. On March 21 of last year, I helped organized the first Tea Party in Kentucky in downtown Lexington. No paychecks from any hidden conservative group, just a collection of grass roots local conservatives who saw the political writing on the wall. Twelve hundred angry voters showed up and told our current political establishment that it was time once again for them to "fear our vote.

Kentucky School for the Deaf will host a Christmas Tea and Tour from 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Dec. 12 at Jacobs Hall Museum, 303 S. Second St., on the KSD campus. Admission is $8 for adults; $6 for children ages 6-12; and free for children 5 and under. Tickets may be puchased at Jacobs Hall the day of the event or in advance at the Heart of Danville and the Convention and Visitors Bureau. The KSD Alumni Association, the Jacobs Hall Museum Committee and the KSD staff will recreate many moments in the history of the school, which was founded in 1823.

While tens of thousands of protesters converged on the nation's capital last Saturday, a crowd of about 75 gathered on the Jessamine County Courthouse lawn to stage a freedom rally. "This is a freedom rally/tea party," event organizer Adam Malik said. "It's going on across the country today. " While protesters in Washington, D.C., blasted President Barack Obama's policies, the Nicholasville rally's purpose was to educate the public. "It's just to get people out here to be engaged, to see what's going on," Malik said.