louisville

louEVIL is l'vile!

a commentary from the belly button of the bible belt


I have resided in this towne off and on since December, 1992; although more often than not my modest travels have kept me elsewheres.

I live here now because I hate this towne, hate the people here, hate everything it represents- which is to say everything inherently wrong with this country today. The handful of present corporate powers that be run the towne, namely the international Hub for UPS, the corporate HQ for Yum! brands trash food, and the Ford plant (currently laying off a few hundred more employees). Nothing big happens here without their active participation.
Best known as home for the Kentucky Derby, in which the towne gives itself a temporary facelift every year (refunneling resources to do so while neglecting basic public services such as garbage pick up) just to milk as many tourist dollars as possible for the reward of watching animals run around in a circle. To paraphrase the great Gonzo journalist who was born and raised hereabouts and who had the sense never to return (aside from a select number of unannounced and so unpublicized visits to his aging mother)- "the Kentucky Derby is decadent and depraved". Indeed.
Due largely to the actions of the crackdealer mentalities of said corporate boards, as well as the recurring ineptitudes of the local Republican Party, Louisville is among the forefront of the ongoing and increasingly dire economic recession; only here- we are entering the fringes of an all-out Depression.
Over the last three months of this last year, seventy-seven restaurants alone closed up shoppe. The city (whose current government consists of a merger from just a few years ago of city and county governments) has been cutting budgets for both the police department and the fire department, to the point of half a dozen fire station houses closing their doors for good. The local schoolboard as well has had over a million dollars cut from its budget for this year.
All of this is further confounded by the utilities monopoly held by LG&E, the prime source for the county's gas and electric power. Board members of LG&E have been (privately) major contributors to the assorted and sordid campaigns of Republican senator Mitch McConnell. Make of that what you will.

Then you throw in the wrath of Mama Nature...
In September of '08, violent windstorms swept through the city, knocking out power of a third (if not more) of its residents for a solid two weeks (if not more). The fact this news was not more fully acknowledged at the national level says something for which embarrassed Party actually controls the Media/Beast of the Apocalypse. Reconstructions from those damages, in some parts of towne (curiously, the ones primarily inhabited by minorities) are still continuing.
In January of this year, icestorms knocked the city back to its collective knees; some are still living without utilities. A few days ago, a late-winter's windstorm rubbed our faces in the mud some more. The city of Louisville's incapacity to deal with the crises in any but a codgerly spendthrift and hypocritical manner is revolting. People are beginning to move, hoping to find a "regular" life somewhere, anywhere else.


On a personal level, my elder sister was brutally murdered here in September of 2000. I have since followed disgustedly the weekly, at times daily, public examples of a police force ill-equipped in dealing with problems in any evolved way other than excessive usages of gunfire towards unarmed citizenry. Generally, as with the case of the cop car which sped without lights or sirens through not only a red light, but through the eleven persons then crossing the street, such incidents are "resolved" by giving said officer seven to nine months of paid leave before eventually being found not guilty of criminal charges. I was an eyewitness at that case, and if interested I can quote over four dozen incidents of similar distaste of the past nine years.
Until a couple of years ago, I tried actively to organize and participate in demonstrations and rallies for everything from spreading awareness of Domestic Violence-related issues to solemn protesting of the multitude of examples of police brutality. Because of my actions, I have had both jobs and homes taken away from me. I have been harassed on countless occasions. Vehicles and homes of friends have been suffered by illegal searches as well, so of course the number of current local friends can easily be counted on one hand, leaving enough digits to give the city of Louisville the bird.

As much as I hate this setting, as much as I have tried to find ways to honestly better it by the meager blue-collar means barely at my own disposal, to see the state of things today is actually a very frightening thing.
I wish I could share the youth-like idealism of some of my confidants. I really, truly do.
As much as I believe, that if inbreeding led to Centaurs- then how fantastic would this city be! You can just smell the darkness of times to come.

and it smells like a funeral pyre.