Thanks for Reading
This has been one of the hardest years of my life and I assume yours as well. But one of the bright spots for me has been trying to grapple with some of these hard issues through my journalism in this space and then hearing from you in response. So I really do thank you for reading and reaching out to me with questions/comments/suggestions. I am particularly grateful to you super-readers (you know who you are) who really do read every one of these and often engage with me through email or on Twitter. I am most grateful to the original copy editor of the Bluegrass Beat, Ann, who I am also married to. Her thoughts have helped shape some of the best work in this space—-and she has largely succeeded in blocking some of the worst ideas from being published, with this one exception.
I am mostly wrapped up for 2020, but I am looking forward to continuing with some of this work in 2021. The presidential election is over, but the topics that have been the dominant issues of this newsletter I think will remain relevant:
1. How are we dealing with COVID-19?
2. How are we dealing with the economic challenges that people both in Kentucky and nationally have long faced but were exacerbated by the virus outbreak?
3. How are we dealing with the racial inequality that was always there but made more clear by both COVID and the police killings of Breonna Taylor and George Floyd and the resulting protests?
4. Is America becoming less democratic?
And I will continue with the same approach:
1. A focus on evidence (polling, election results data, studies);
2. Examining which policies might be power-balancing versus privilege-defending;
3. Emphasizing uncertainty over prediction; and
4. Trying to be less focused on what happened this week/yesterday (we have plenty of news outlets for that) and more on what is happening gradually, the longer-term trends.
But I have said enough for now. For the last Bluegrass Beat of 2020, I would like to feature the voices of readers. So if you have time, send me an email (perrylbacon@gmail.com) in which you answer at least one of these four questions:
1. What, in a politics/government/policy context, either nationally or in Kentucky, were you very happy or satisfied with? (So the rapid development of COVID-19 vaccines might be an example.)
2. What left you really sad or disappointed? (So perhaps that elected officials in California can’t stop going to restaurants even as they tell residents in the state not to because of COVID.)
3. What are you really curious about in 2021, either in terms of your hopes or your fears? (I gather Bluegrass Beat readers really want to see Charles Booker run against Rand Paul.)
4. What are some questions you have that I can try to answer around politics/government/policy either here in Kentucky or nationally?
Ideally, keep your answers somewhat short and be aware I might clip them some. If you are comfortable with it, I will include your first and last name and where you live (so include that.) If you want to be “Henry from Frankfort, “a reader from Frankfort’ or “a reader” (so no identification at all), that is also fine. I know lots of people’s jobs don’t allow them to speak publicly about politics and I know some of you might just be a bit shy.
Happy Holidays! Thanks for reading.