The Bluegrass and Beyond

Wendell Berry, right, joined conference attendees on a tour Saturday of the farm at St. Catharine College in Washington County. Photo by Tom Eblen

SPRINGFIELD — Wendell Berry is a true conservative. He believes in conservation, the idea that God gave us the Earth to sustain our lives and the responsibility to care for it so it can sustain the lives of future generations.

Four decades ago, the writer and farmer was alarmed by the methods and economics of modern farming and mining, which were (and still are) destroying land, water and rural communities. So he wrote his 1977 book, The Unsettling of America: Culture & Agriculture, which has become an international classic.

That book and Berry’s subsequent work did much to spark the sustainable agriculture and local food movements, just as Rachel Carson’sSilent Spring in 1962 helped spark the environmental movement.

So it was no surprise that 300 people from 35 states and several foreign countries came to Louisville and Springfield last weekend for a sold-out conference revisiting the book. Well-known speakers discussed both progress and challenges, and they pondered this question: What will it take to resettle America?

The conference was organized by the Berry Center in Henry County, which is run by Mary Berry Smith to promote the philosophy of her father, as well as her uncle and late grandfather, both farmers, lawyers and conservationists named John Berry.

On Saturday, the conference was at St. Catharine College in Springfield, where the Berry Center has just begun a partnership to create undergraduate degree programs in ecological agriculture. The Catholic college campus includes an 800-acre farm the Dominican Sisters of Peace have operated since 1822.

The conference included an on-stage interview of Berry by veteran journalist Bill Moyers, who will use it on one of his Public Broadcasting System programs. Other speakers included Bill McKibben, the best-selling author and climate change activist; Wes Jackson, a MacArthur “genius” award winner and founder of The Land Institute, a leading sustainable agriculture organization; and Vandana Shiva, a renowned author, scientist and environmentalist in India.

In his interview with Moyers, Berry blamed many of today’s ecological problems on industrialization, unbridled capitalism and political systems that favor wealthy corporations, which make big political contributions to reap far bigger returns in taxpayer subsidies and lax regulation.

“There’s no justification for the permanent destruction of the world,” Berry said. “It’s not economically defensible. It’s not defensible in any terms.”

Berry, 78, lamented that the three and a half decades since his book’s publication have been marked by further environmental degradation, from strip mining and soil erosion to water pollution and accelerating climate change.

“It’s mighty hard right now to think of anything that’s precious that is not in danger,” he said.

Berry noted that black willows no longer grow beside his Henry County farm on the banks of the Kentucky River, 13 miles from where it empties into the Ohio River, but still flourish just upriver on the Ohio. There seems to be something in the Kentucky River’s water they can no longer tolerate.

“If the willows can’t continue to live there, how can I be sure that I can continue to live there?” he asked.

Berry, a lifelong Baptist, said the unholy alliance between corporate capitalism and many conservative Christians is “a feat which should astonish us all.”

“A great mistake of Christianity is speaking of the Holy Land as only one place,” he said. “There are no sacred and unsacred places; only sacred and desecrated places.”

But Berry noted that many faith communities are beginning to heed the Bible’s call to environmental stewardship and justice. That gives him hope, as does the growing popularity of organic food, local farmers markets and the sustainable agriculture movement.

“I don’t like to talk about the future, because it doesn’t exist and nobody knows anything about it,” Berry said. “The problems are big, but there are no big solutions.”

Berry said he thinks “resettling America” will require enough people living on and being able to earn a living from the land to take care of it. That will take individual initiative, better government policies and the political will to deal with urgent global threats such as climate change. Can it succeed?

“We don’t have a right to ask whether we’re going to succeed or not,” Berry said. “We only have a right to ask what’s the right thing to do and do it.”

Journalist Bill Moyers, left, and writer Wendell Berry autograph books after Moyers filmed an interview with Berry. It was part of a two-day conference revisiting Berry’s landmark 1977 book, “The Unsettling of America.”  Photo by Tom Eblen

Kentucky’s new “religious freedom” law sure looks like an attempt by conservative Christians to justify discrimination against gay people and get around local “fairness” ordinances.

That is why many people were puzzled when Jim Gray, Lexington’s first openly gay mayor, was the most muted voice in the choir of opponents who urged Gov. Steve Beshear to veto the bill.

Beshear did issue a veto, but the General Assembly overturned it by a wide margin last week.

Beshear’s veto came at the urging of dozens of organizations and individuals — liberal churches, gay rights groups, the American Civil Liberties Union, the Kentucky League of Cities, the Kentucky Association of Counties and Louisville Mayor Greg Fischer, who said the bill would “take us backwards as a city and Commonwealth, hurting our strategic position in an increasingly global economy.”

Gray, however, issued a tepid statement that stopped short of urging a veto. He has declined to elaborate publicly.

“The legislation’s stated goal is to encourage religious freedom. That’s a worthy goal,” his statement said. “However, many citizens are concerned the bill may unintentionally open the door to discrimination. Last Thursday, I talked to the governor, shared these concerns and urged him to consider these issues carefully.”

Gray took a beating in social media from some gay people and their supporters, but gay rights leaders were more circumspect. Lexington Fairness chairman Roy Harrison, in an interview Friday, avoided any criticism of Gray.

“We are really happy that he brought more discussion to the bill,” Harrison said. “Everyone has their own political calculus.”

The General Assembly’s political calculus was clear. Most opponents of the bill were lawmakers from progressive urban districts. Legislators from more conservative rural, small-town and suburban districts voted for it.

In a conservative district, there is nothing more dangerous in the next election than having an opponent claim you voted against “religious freedom.” Rural Democrats, especially, are feeling the heat.

Gray is seeking re-election to a second term as mayor next year, so he may have wanted to avoid alienating conservatives. But few people expect Gray to get serious opposition. Former Police Chief Anthany Beatty floated a trial balloon about running, but it hasn’t gotten much lift.

Gray seems to be widely popular in Lexington, even among former critics. As mayor, he has had significant accomplishments and has made few missteps.

Besides, voters knew Gray was gay when they elected him to council in 2006 with enough votes to make him vice mayor. His sexual orientation wasn’t really an issue when he unseated incumbent Mayor Jim Newberry in 2010. Since then, Gray hasn’t tried to be “the gay mayor” — just “the mayor.”

Gray’s political calculation may have been that everyone, including the governor, knew where he stood on this subject, so he had little to gain by being vocal on a statewide controversy where he had no real influence.

Gray did come out strong a year ago on a Lexington controversy, when Hands on Originals cited religious objections in refusing to print T-shirts for a gay pride festival, sparking an ongoing investigation by the city’s Human Rights Commission.

A more important political calculation may have been that Gray didn’t want to anger the bill’s sponsor, Rep. Bob Damon, D-Nicholasville, an influential member of the Central Kentucky delegation. Rep. Sannie Overly of Paris may have unseated Damron as chair of the House Democratic caucus this year, but the way this bill sailed through the General Assembly showed Damron still has plenty of clout.

For all the huffing and puffing on both sides, nobody seems to really know what this legislation will do. The stated intent is to make it easier for Kentuckians to ignore state laws or regulations that conflict with their “sincerely held” religious beliefs unless there is a “compelling governmental interest.”

Bill supporters such as The Family Foundation, which could be more accurately called the Foundation for Families Just Like Ours, insists it is not a vehicle for discriminating against gay people. But a spokesman also has argued that the Hands on Originals case wasn’t really discrimination.

The law’s uncertainties and unintended consequences were a big reason Beshear said he vetoed it. “As written, the bill will undoubtedly lead to costly litigation,” he said.

Don’t forget the hundreds of thousands of taxpayer dollars that have been wasted on defending clearly unconstitutional attempts by some local governments to post the Ten Commandments in public buildings.

Harrison, the Lexington Fairness chairman, said gay rights and civil liberties groups will be watching to see if this new law is used to try to justify discrimination. If so, they will aggressively challenge it.

Rep. Kelly Flood, D-Lexington, a Unitarian Universalist minister and opponent of the new law, mused that one unintended consequence of it could be to advance gay rights.

Unitarians support gay marriage. Could not they use this law to challenge Kentucky’s 2004 constitutional amendment banning gay marriage and civil unions as an infringement of their “sincerely held” religious beliefs? Might the state then be forced to show a “compelling governmental interest” for banning gay marriage?

One thing is for sure: this bad law will keep the culture warriors battling for years to come.

Carol Neal started Little Elks Pre-School at South Elkhorn Christian Church. Photos by Tom Eblen

As a trained educator, Carol Neal was picky when it came time to look for a pre-school program for her son and daughter. When she couldn’t find one she liked, she convinced her church to let her start one.

Now, after working with 33 fellow teachers and more than 3,000 students, Neal is retiring as director of the Little Elks Pre-School at South Elkhorn Christian Church.

“It was my calling, but I never thought I would be doing it for 43 years,” she said. “I tell people I’ve never been smart enough to get out of pre-school.”

All of those former students and teachers are invited to a reunion honoring Neal from 1-3 p.m. on April 14 at the church, 4343 Harrodsburg Road.

After months of searching for addresses, the staff has sent reunion invitations to 1,400 former students and teachers, but is still looking for more. RSVPs for the reunion are requested by April 7 to Littleelkspreschoolreunion@gmail.com.

“It has been a big part of my mother’s life for as long as I can remember, obviously,” said Neal’s son, Rick, who is a lawyer in Louisville. “My wife’s a pre-school teacher, too, and I know it’s hard work and you take a lot of it home with you.”

The school has about 30 3-year-olds in four classes on Tuesday and Thursday mornings and about 65 4-year-olds in six classes on Monday, Wednesday and Friday mornings. About 10 current students are second-generation Little Elks — one of their parents attended pre-school there.

“I had gone there, my niece had gone there and I wanted my son to go there,” said Carolyn Sandusky Slone, whose son Grant turns 4 next month. “The education they provide is outstanding. It’s a loving and caring environment.”

Slone works with medical data, but when she was studying early-childhood education at Midway College in 1993, she did an internship at Little Elks.

“At least three of the teachers I worked with are still there,” she said. “I think that says a lot about the program.”

Neal agreed that the pre-school’s strength has been being able to hire and retain good teachers. The current staff members, who all have education degrees, include Marsha Salmon (28 years), Kim Wemyss (26 years) and Vicki Garrett (25 years).

“Kim Skidmore, who’s taking over for me, is the newest kid on the block; she’s only been here seven years,” Neal said. “I have never advertised for a teacher in all those years. They just magically appear when I need a teacher.”

Although many of the teachers attend other churches, Neal has been an active member of South Elkhorn Christian Church, which knows a thing or two about longevity. Founded on the present site in 1783 as a Baptist congregation, it affiliated with the Disciples of Christ in 1831. The current sanctuary was built in 1870.

“A lot of people know about Little Elks and have a positive impression of our church because of it,” said the Rev. Mickey Anders, the fourth senior pastor at the church since Neal started the pre-school. “She has led it with such expertise.”

Neal plans to remain active in her church, but retirement will give her more time to spend with Bill, her husband of 47 years, her son and daughter, Missy Watts, and her five granddaughters.

Still, Neal said she will be available as a substitute teacher at Little Elks, where she has seen big changes in both children and parents over the years.

Parents are often more involved with their children, but less demanding of them. They also are more protective — sometimes too protective. Children often come to pre-school now with less discipline and a shorter attention span, but more academic knowledge and comfort with technology.

“Kids are like sponges. They’ve always been smart, but they are exposed to so much more,” she said. “They can pick up the iPhone, they can pick up the iPad. That’s the way they’re used to learning.”

Neal said one thing that hasn’t changed in 43 years is the bond that forms between a young child and his or her first teacher.

“They think you are wonderful, that you rule the world,” she said. “They’ll just be walking by and grab you and hug you on the leg. Where do you get that kind of unsolicited love other than from a 3 or 4 year old?”

Greg Dike, right, executive director of the Morehead Area Habitat for Humanity group, helps build an interior wall for a house near Morehead with a group of volunteers from Lexington on Jan. 19.  Photos by Tom Eblen

MOREHEAD — When Greg Dike became the director — and only employee — of Habitat for Humanity’s Rowan County unit more than two years ago, he thought he knew the mission. Then that mission got a whole lot bigger.

A cluster of tornados tore through Eastern Kentucky last March 2, killing 22 people. Eight died in neighboring Morgan and Menifee counties and dozens more were left homeless.

“When the tornadoes came, we decided to expand our service area,” said Dike, 61, whose previous careers included electrical engineer, United Methodist minister and emergency room nurse.

Dike figured that Habitat could provide valuable help in storm recovery for a couple of reasons. Habitat, an ecumenical Christian ministry, builds houses that low-income working people can afford to buy, in part through their own labors. Plus, the three-county Morehead Area unit of Habitat specializes in super energy-efficient housing.

Morehead Area Habitat’s most common house has 1,100 square feet of living space on one floor and costs about $45,000 to build. Through smart design and lots of insulation — including a foundation insulated below the frost line — each house has an average heating and cooling cost of only about $12 a month. A poorly insulated house or mobile home often has a monthly utility bill of $200 or more.

So far, in addition to its regular work in Rowan County, Habitat has built one house each in Morgan and Menifee counties for storm victims, Dike said. Six more are under construction in Morgan and two more in Menifee, with seven additional houses planned in those counties.

Judge Executives Tim Conley in Morgan County and James Trimble in Menifee County have been very supportive, and have helped Habitat identify building sites.

“They see Habitat as a way to get people into quality housing,” Dike said.

Because some people who lost their homes in the storms were elderly, disabled or otherwise unable to take on even a small mortgage, as typical Habitat clients do, the Kentucky Housing Corp. and other organizations and foundations have provided several hundred thousand dollars in grants to build homes. The state Habitat organization also has been very helpful, Dike said.

Materials for each house cost about $35,000, so the total price is kept low largely through volunteer labor. While Habitat is always happy to receive cash donations, Dike said, his biggest need is regular construction volunteers.

Dike is working with Diane James of Lexington, a longtime Habitat volunteer and former construction manager, to recruit and organize groups of regular volunteers from Central Kentucky, which is only an hour or two away by car.

The ideal volunteers are men or women who can gather several friends together and commit to one or two work days a month, ideally on the same house so they can become familiar with it.

“I think there are a lot of people out there with skills,” Dike said. “We’re not looking for award-winning carpenters; just people with some skills and common sense.”

Dike and James hopes to hear from churches, businesses or just groups of friends who think they could commit to a series of work days over the next few months. Those interested in volunteering can email James at buildwestliberty@gmail.com or call Dike at (606) 776-0022.

“It’s an easy trip, and we get a lot of work done in a day,” James said. “Most people have really enjoyed it.”

That’s certainly what I found earlier this month, when I accompanied James, Dike and a group of volunteers from several Lexington Disciples of Christ churches who were framing interior walls on a Habitat house near Morehead.

“I just love doing it,” said Bettye Burns, a retiree who volunteered through her church for a women-only Habitat build in the early 1990s and has been doing it ever since.

“It’s fun, and I’ve learned so much,” Burns said. “I credit Diane for me not getting empty-nest syndrome when my kids grew up. I was so busy helping her build houses, I didn’t have time for that.”

Steve Seithers, who began volunteering through his church in 1992, said he enjoys the fellowship and sense of accomplishment he gets from Habitat work. “Plus, it helps make a difference in people’s lives,” Seithers said. “This is something I can do, so I’m doing it.”

Click on each photo to enlarge and read caption:

When I was a child, many white Americans, and most of them in the South, considered Martin Luther King Jr. and other civil rights activists to be radicals and trouble-makers. Some even called them “communists.”

Almost everyone now considers them heroes. Ideas about racial equality and justice that were then controversial are now common sense.

Segregationist leaders such as George Wallace, Lester Maddox and Orval Faubus are now remembered with contempt, when they are remembered at all. We pity the average people who enabled the bigots, either with their actions or their silence.

On Monday, we mark the 27th annual holiday honoring King, as well as the second inauguration of the nation’s first president of African descent. Looking back, it is amazing how much changed in so short a time. Racism still exists, to be sure, but it is no longer acceptable in mainstream society.

It makes me wonder: What controversial ideas today will seem like common sense in just a few years?

The first that comes to mind is gay rights. It is today’s most controversial civil rights issue, yet the nation has clearly turned the corner. You can tell it the same way you could tell by the early 1960s that we had turned the corner of black civil rights. The groundswell of support wasn’t just coming from the victims of discrimination, but from others who realized it was wrong and found the courage to say so.

If there has been a consistent theme of social progress during my lifetime, it is this: discrimination against any group of people because of who they are is un-American.

We saw an example of that last week when the small Perry County town of Vicco became the fourth municipality in Kentucky to ban discrimination against gays, joining Lexington, Louisville and Covington. Vicco officials said they weren’t endorsing homosexuality; they just thought discrimination was wrong.

Most opposition to gay rights comes from religious conservatives. During King’s lifetime, many white Christians found Biblical justification for segregation and discrimination, just as their great-grandfathers had for slavery. Everyone is entitled to their religious beliefs. What is problematic is when they try to impose them on others.

Wendell Berry, the renowned Kentucky writer and lifelong Baptist, made that point and many others to Baptist ministers meeting at Georgetown College on Jan. 11. Coverage of his talk has attracted a lot of attention. (Read more about what he had to say on my blog.)

When I think of other controversial issues that will seem like no-brainers in a few years, the reasons for our clouded judgment have more to do with economics than religion.

Kentuckians’ disregard for the environment reminds me of our willful ignorance about the health and social costs of tobacco just two or three decades ago. Only after the price-support system that made tobacco an economic mainstay of family farms was abolished did we stop trying to deny the obvious and defend the indefensible.

More than 30 local governments in Kentucky now have public smoking bans, and some legislators are pushing for a statewide version to curb soaring health-care costs. Restricting smoking in most public places is now common sense, yet it would have been unthinkable in Kentucky a generation ago.

Sit back for a moment and try to imagine conventional wisdom a few years from now. For one thing, I think, discrimination based on sexual orientation will be as unacceptable then as discrimination based on race, gender or national origin is now.

I also can imagine hearing comments like these:

Why did people back then allow the beauty and future economic viability of Eastern Kentucky’s mountains to be destroyed just so coal companies could extract the last measure of profit in return for a declining number of short-term jobs?

How could people back then have denied the scientific consensus about climate change and refused to act when the signs — melting glaciers, the increasing frequency of killer storms and droughts, year after year of record-high temperatures — were so obvious?

What were they thinking?

As we honor civil rights heroes Monday, and pity the bigots and their enablers, let us also give some thought to the future. Who will people honor then, and who will they pity?

And ask yourself: which side of history will I be on?

Wendell Berry, at his home near Port Royal, Ky., December 2011. Photo by Tom Eblen

As an elder statesman of American letters, Wendell Berry is being given some good platforms to speak his mind. He isn’t letting these opportunities go to waste.

Chosen last year by the National Endowment for the Humanities to deliver the annual Jefferson Lecture, the Kentucky author gave a thoughtful indictment of corporate domination and the industrial economy, saying it has abused the land and people and threatens our very survival.

On Jan. 11, Berry spoke at Georgetown College to a gathering of Baptist ministers. The lifelong Baptist used the forum to sharply criticize his denomination’s opposition to the legalization of gay marriage.

Berry’s writing doesn’t lend itself well to sound bites. So here are some extended excerpts from his remarks, which created an Internet stir after Bob Allen of Associated Baptist Press News reported them:

“My argument … was the sexual practices of consenting adults ought not to be subjected to the government’s approval or disapproval, and that domestic partnerships in which people who live together and devote their lives to one another ought to receive the spousal rights, protections and privileges the government allows to heterosexual couples.”

“The Bible … has a lot more to say against fornication and adultery than against homosexuality. If one accepts the 24th and 104th Psalms as scriptural norms, then surface mining and other forms of earth destruction are perversions. If we take the Gospels seriously, how can we not see industrial warfare — with its inevitable massacre of innocents — as a most shocking perversion? By the standard of all scriptures, neglect of the poor, of widows and orphans, of the sick, the homeless, the insane, is an abominable perversion.”

“Jesus talked of hating your neighbor as tantamount to hating God, and yet some Christians hate their neighbors by policy and are busy hunting biblical justifications for doing so. Are they not perverts in the fullest and fairest sense of that term? And yet none of these offenses — not all of them together — has made as much political/religious noise as homosexual marriage.”

“The oddest of the strategies to condemn and isolate homosexuals is to propose that homosexual marriage is opposed to and a threat to heterosexual marriage, as if the marriage market is about to be cornered and monopolized by homosexuals. If this is not industrial capitalist paranoia, it at least follows the pattern of industrial capitalist competitiveness. We must destroy the competition. If somebody else wants what you’ve got, from money to marriage, you must not hesitate to use the government – small of course – to keep them from getting it.”

“If I were one of a homosexual couple — the same as I am one of a heterosexual couple — I would place my faith and hope in the mercy of Christ, not in the judgment of Christians. When I consider the hostility of political churches to homosexuality and homosexual marriage, I do so remembering the history of Christian war, torture, terror, slavery and annihilation against Jews, Muslims, black Africans, American Indians and others. And more of the same by Catholics against Protestants, Protestants against Catholics, Catholics against Catholics, Protestants against Protestants, as if by law requiring the love of God to be balanced by hatred of some neighbor for the sin of being unlike some divinely preferred us. If we are a Christian nation — as some say we are, using the adjective with conventional looseness — then this Christian blood thirst continues wherever we find an officially identifiable evil, and to the immense enrichment of our Christian industries of war.”

“Condemnation by category is the lowest form of hatred, for it is cold-hearted and abstract, lacking even the courage of a personal hatred. Categorical condemnation is the hatred of the mob. It makes cowards brave. And there is nothing more fearful than a religious mob, a mob overflowing with righteousness – as at the crucifixion and before and since. This can happen only after we have made a categorical refusal to kindness: to heretics, foreigners, enemies or any other group different from ourselves.”

And those are only the highlights. Read APB’s full story here.

Alex Cox holds a bag of steel wool on a string, which is drawn by the powerful magnetic force of an MRI machine used to diagnose horse injuries at Hagyard Equine Medical Institute. Cox is part of the school’s Equine Academy, which tries to prepare students interested in pursuing careers in the horse industry. Photo by Tom Eblen

Alex Cox has been riding horses since he was 11 and hopes to be a jockey in a few years. But he wants to know a lot more about horses than just how to ride them.

So Cox, 14, decided to become one of the first 17 students in Lexington Catholic High School’s Equine Academy, a new four-year program designed to introduce young people to career opportunities in all aspects of the horse industry.

“I want to learn all about horses, how to keep them healthy and how the business works,” the freshman said. “It’s my favorite class by far. It’s really fun. When I grow up, I want to do something fun for a living.”

The program seemed like a natural for Lexington Catholic, said Steve Angelucci, the school’s president. Many students already were interested, because they rode or were from horse-industry families. Plus, the Lexington area offered an unparalleled opportunity for exposure to and partnership with major industry players.

The school has formed academic partnerships with the equine programs at the University of Kentucky and Georgetown College, as well as relationships with more than 20 local farms, organizations and companies, including Keeneland, the Kentucky Horse Park, Alltech, and two of the nation’s largest equine medical practices, Rood & Riddle Equine Hospital and Hagyard Equine Medical Institute.

“We’re trying to create well-rounded professionals to be the next generation of leaders in the equine industry,” said Sarah Coleman, the academy’s director. The Ohio native previously was executive director of Georgetown College’s Equine Scholars Program.

“There are so many jobs out there involving horses,” Coleman said. “Being raised here, I think kids forget the novelty of this area. For a horse lover, it’s like being a kid in a candy store.”

Freshman Adriana DeCarlo, 14, doesn’t come from a horse industry family, but she has always loved them and has been riding since she was 4 years old. She thinks she wants a career involving horses, perhaps either in science or the Thoroughbred industry, but the academy has already been helpful.

“I’ve learned a lot,” she said. “It has helped me take care of my own horse.”

The program calls for students to take eight equine courses over four years, including horse anatomy and physiology, health care, nutrition and management, reproduction and farm management, and equine business and marketing. Those classes are taught by Shannon White, general manager of Fares Farm and former hospital supervisor at Rood & Riddle.

The program includes many extracurricular lectures, field trips, speakers and shadowing, and mentoring opportunities. Students participate in service projects and must do a senior project.

On a recent field trip to Hagyard, the students got a tour of the horse hospital and spoke with several young veterinarians.

“Veterinary medicine is not a career,” Dr. Ashley Craig, a field care intern, told the students. “It’s a life choice.”

Dr. William Rainbow said he became a veterinarian after growing up in the industry and participating in Darley Flying Start, a two-year Thoroughbred leadership development program that allowed him to travel all over the world.

“I never thought mucking stalls would get me that far, but it did,” Rainbow said.

Perhaps the highlight of the tour for this group was Hagyard’s super-size, high-tech medical equipment — a walk-in hypobaric chamber for high-oxygen healing therapy and the huge MRI machine, with a magnet powerful enough to cause a bag of steel wool on a string to fly across the room.

Other extracurricular activities have included visits to Keeneland, Alltech and the Red Mile, as well as basic lessons in polo, vaulting and driving.

Coleman said horse industry people have been very welcoming to the students and supportive of the Equine Academy.

“Everybody I talk to says they wish they had had that when they were in school,” she said.

Online auction benefits program

Lexington Catholic’s new Equine Academy is having a fundraising “non-event” — an eBay auction — later this month.

Items for sale include an acoustic guitar signed by country music stars Carrie Underwood and Blake Shelton; VIP events at Three Chimneys and Jonabell farms; a backstage pass to the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival; and a Storm Cat halter.

The auction site will go live at 8 p.m. on Dec. 9 at: Myworld.ebay.com/lchsequine. Bidding ends at 8 p.m. Dec. 16.

Click on each thumbnail to see larger photo and read caption:

It didn’t take long for a couple of fringe preachers to proclaim that Hurricane Sandy was God’s retribution for homosexuality and other aspects of society they don’t like.

Such freakish, attention-seeking claims have become as common as the freakish weather that inspires them. But that doesn’t mean God or the forces of nature aren’t trying to tell us something.

There are a couple of obvious lessons in this pre-election hurricane, which killed at least 40 people and caused perhaps $50 billion worth of damage in the Northeast.

The first lesson is that Americans and their leaders should stop ignoring climate change and its increasingly disastrous effects. As the new cover of Bloomberg Businessweek magazine says in bold letters above a news photo of a flooded cityscape, “It’s global warming, stupid.”

Scientists say climate change can’t be directly blamed for any particular storm, or even hurricanes in general. But there is strong scientific evidence that man’s carbon emissions have increased the frequency and severity of destructive weather.

Global warming has caused sea levels to rise, and that magnified the storm surge responsible for so much of Sandy’s destruction.

Yet, climate change has barely been mentioned during the presidential campaign of 2012, which may end up being the warmest year on record. You can attribute that to willful ignorance and complacency on the part of a large segment of the population — and the encouragement of that ignorance and complacency by powerful business interests and the politicians who do their bidding.

You can find some of the most blatant examples of this in Kentucky, where the coal industry and its favored politicians have waged a “war on coal” propaganda campaign, which in reality is a campaign against clean air, clean water and public health.

Appalachian coal reserves are dwindling and cheap natural gas has eroded coal’s markets, but the industry seems determined to extract every last bit of profit from Kentucky, no matter how much damage it does.

The lack of action to address climate change underscores a failure of leadership in both government and business.

President Barack Obama rarely spoke about climate change during this campaign, because he knew it would hurt him politically. Instead, he trumpeted domestic oil drilling and “clean coal” technology, which is still more oxymoron than reality.

Challenger Mitt Romney was even worse. At the Republican National Convention, he mentioned climate change only mockingly. “President Obama promised to begin to slow the rise of the oceans and heal the planet,” he said. “My promise is to help you and your family.”

There is strong scientific consensus on climate change, but acknowledging and addressing it remains politically controversial. That is because fighting climate change would threaten economic interests invested in the status quo — and because it would require citizens and businesses to make some sacrifices. Heaven forbid that any American should be asked to sacrifice, even if the future of mankind may depend on it.

And that brings us to a second obvious lesson from Hurricane Sandy.

For at least three decades, many political leaders — especially Republicans — have won elections by offering simplistic and unrealistic solutions to increasingly difficult problems. Tell voters what they want to hear, then blame the consequences on the other guys.

Storms such as hurricanes Sandy and Katrina underscore the inadequacy of our aging national infrastructure — and the likelihood that climate change will force us to repair and rebuild it more frequently in the future.

Rather than cutting taxes, piling up debt and wasting money on unnecessary weapons systems and wars of choice, we should be investing in the physical and human infrastructure that will keep America safe, secure and economically prosperous in the future.

Natural disasters remind us that sufficient and efficient government is essential. During the GOP primary, Romney suggested that the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s work could be turned back to the states, or even privatized.

Since Hurricane Sandy, though, he has ignored reporters’ questions on the subject.

If religious leaders are seeking sermon topics from this pre-election hurricane, here are a few possibilities: greed, selfishness, complacency and why leadership matters.

Mayor Jim Gray often talks about Lexington aspiring to be a “great American city.” But two centuries ago, that is exactly what it was. Many visitors hailed Lexington as the most vibrant and cultured city in what was then Western America.

The reality and myths surrounding Lexington’s so-called Athens of the West era are explored in a new book of essays published by the University Press of Kentucky, Bluegrass Renaissance: The History and Culture of Central Kentucky, 1792-1852.

The book is already in stores, but it will be formally launched at a signing party Sunday, Sept. 16, at 4 p.m. at the Hunt Morgan House, 253 Market Street. The event is free and open to the public.

Bluegrass Renaissance grew out of a series of lectures in 2007 organized by the University of Kentucky’s Gaines Center for the Humanities and others. Book editors James Klotter, Kentucky’s state historian, and Daniel Rowland, a UK history professor and former Gaines Center director, compiled essays by 15 historians and writers, including my older daughter, Mollie, and me.

The book begins with essays by Klotter and Stephen Aron that place Lexington in the national context of the time and discuss the city’s quick transition from frontier outpost to cultured metropolis.

Gerald Smith and the late Shearer Davis Bowman write about slavery, the “peculiar institution” that built the region’s wealth and would eventually play a big role in both economic and moral bankruptcy.

Randolph Hollingsworth writes about the role women played in early Kentucky, while Maryjean Wall looks at the origins of the signature horse industry. Mark Wetherington and Matthew Clarke profile several influential characters, while John Thelin explores the role higher education played in development and civic pride.

Nikos Pappas writes about musical culture, and Estill Curtis Pennington explains how outstanding portrait painters helped bring artistic culture to Central Kentucky and left what little visual evidence we have of that era’s key players.

Patrick Snadon writes about how Lexington’s leading citizens embraced early America’s most accomplished architect, Benjamin Latrobe. He was commissioned to design six Lexington buildings. Only one survives: Pope Villa, one of the most avant-garde pieces of architecture built during America’s Federalist period.

Mollie and I wrote about Horace Holley, a minister lured to Lexington from Boston, and his role in transforming Transylvania University into one of early America’s most highly regarded universities. Transylvania played a central role in Kentucky’s early education accomplishments and Lexington’s “Athens of the West” reputation.

The book’s dates are somewhat arbitrary: 1792 is the year Kentucky became a state, while 1852 is when Henry Clay, Lexington’s most famous citizen, died. In reality, Lexington’s heyday didn’t begin until after 1800, and its economic, if not cultural, fortunes started waning around 1815. By the end of the 1830s, Lexington had begun a long slide into mediocrity and provincialism.

Lexington’s early prosperity was the result of rich soil, slave labor and the city’s prime location as a hub for early Westward migration and trade. But the city began to struggle after the invention of steamboats allowed two-way commerce on the Mississippi and Ohio Rivers, which favored river cities such as Cincinnati and Louisville.

Slavery became a huge economic and social liability for Lexington beginning in the 1840s, limiting economic innovation and sparking increased social and racial strife. By clinging so long to slavery, a huge amount of Lexington’s economic capital was wiped out by the Civil War; racism and violence that followed stifled growth and new ideas.

Lexington had lost its economic edge and pioneer spirit. With a few notable exceptions, such as the creation and growth of the University of Kentucky, the city remained intellectually and economically stagnant for nearly a century.

In a short essay that ends the book, Gray makes the point that the past informs the present, and history provides valuable lessons for those who seek to shape the future.

Mollie and I certainly discovered that while researching and writing our chapter. The spectacular rise and fall of Holley at Transylvania in the 1820s reflected issues and attitudes that have shaped two centuries of Kentucky history.

Holley saw huge potential in Kentucky and its people, but was bedeviled by religious disputes, power struggles and petty politics. He finally gave up and left Kentucky, frustrated by an anti-intellectual governor who saw more political advantage in building roads than investing in education.

This book’s title is something of a misnomer: “renaissance” means “revival.” The Athens of the West era was actually Lexington’s “naissant” period. Achieving renaissance is our challenge, and we would be wise to learn lessons from the past.

Discrimination has a price, and Hands On Originals, the Lexington T-shirt printer, could pay dearly for it.

The Gay and Lesbian Services Organization of Lexington filed a complaint against the company last week with the city’s Human Rights Commission. It alleges that Hands on Originals bid to print shirts for the 5th annual Lexington Pride Festival in June, then refused the job because it is “a Christian organization.”

The T-shirt design shows a stylized number 5 and the words “Lexington Pride Festival” on the front and the event’s sponsors on the back.

“Hands On Originals both employs and conducts business with people of all genders, races, religions, sexual preferences, and national origins,” owner Blaine Adamson wrote in a statement. “However, due to the promotional nature of our products, it is the prerogative of the company to refuse any order that would endorse positions that conflict with the convictions of the ownership.”

Since 1999, city law has forbidden discrimination in employment, housing and public accommodation — including the sale of goods — on the basis of race, color, religion, national origin, sex, disability, old age, sexual orientation or gender identity.

This complaint is unusual, both because it involves sexual orientation and because it was made by a group, said Sandra Canon, who chairs the commission. Most complaints come from individuals and involve gender or race discrimination in employment or housing.

The Human Rights Commission will thoroughly investigate the complaint and, if it is substantiated, offer to mediate a resolution, Canon said. If mediation fails, the commission could take the company to court for violating city law.

“I’m against discrimination. Period,” Mayor Jim Gray said in a statement after the complaint was filed. “It’s bad for business and bad for the city. I support the Human Rights Commission in a full and thorough investigation.”

City government has done more than $53,000 in business with Hands on Originals since June 2010, most of it related to downtown festivities during the Alltech FEI World Equestrian Games. The law prohibits the city from doing business with companies that discriminate.

Another big customer also has expressed concern about the complaint. A University of Kentucky spokesman said the school was reviewing the matter before deciding whether to renew a contract with Hands on Originals that recently expired.

I am sure Hands on Originals will have plenty of support from Kentuckians who either don’t like gay people or believe that homosexuality is a sin. Others will argue that a private business should be able to choose or refuse customers at will, regardless of what civil rights laws say.

Christianity’s view of homosexuality is open to broad interpretation. The way I read the Gospels, Jesus Christ never specifically addressed homosexuality, although he had a lot to say about self-righteous people who are eager to condemn others.

People have always tried to use religion to validate their beliefs, desires, prejudices and economic interests. With enough twisting, you can justify almost anything with scripture. Before the Civil War, many Southern ministers used the Bible to justify slavery.

Despite what many politicians say in campaign speeches, this is not a Christian nation. It is a nation where people have freedom of religion and freedom from religion. In recent decades, this nation has developed a strong tradition of protecting the rights of minorities.

Lexington, Louisville and Covington are the only places in Kentucky where anti-discrimination laws specifically protect gay people. Attempts by other cities to pass similar laws have been blocked, often by church folks.

Opposition to equal rights for gay people was at the heart of legislators’ shameful refusal last month to pass a law that would strengthen protections for children who are bullied at school.

Equal rights for black people was controversial in the 1950s and 1960s. Equal rights for women was controversial in the 1970s. Equal rights for gays and lesbians is controversial today, although legal support for anti-gay prejudice is rapidly disappearing.

When you look at this 235-year-old experiment in democracy that we call the United States of America, a couple of things are apparent. One is that discrimination of all kinds has become less acceptable with each passing year. Another is that history has not looked kindly upon those who discriminate, no matter how they justify it.

One of Lexington’s most significant black-history landmarks would become a concert hall, a cultural center and a museum if a new non-profit foundation can raise several million dollars to buy, restore and operate it.

The First African Foundation has reached a tentative agreement with Central Christian Church to buy the former First African Baptist Church building at the corner of Short and Deweese streets. A final agreement must be approved by Central Christian’s leaders and congregation, said James Hodge, a church trustee. He declined to disclose the purchase price or terms.

William Thomas, a Lexington native who moved back in 2008 after retiring as music department chair at the prestigious Phillips Academy Andover in Massachusetts, said he was inspired to organize the effort after reading about the building’s amazing history two years ago.

The Italianate-style sanctuary, which is on the National Register of Historic Places, is a handsome building. What makes it amazing is that most of the people who built and paid for it in the 1850s were slaves.

First African Baptist Church and Historic Pleasant Green Missionary Baptist Church trace their roots to Peter Durrett, a slave who in 1790 started the first black church west of the Allegheny Mountains. Durrett died in 1823 and was succeeded by London Ferrill, a slave who gained his freedom and was widely respected by blacks and whites alike.

In 1833, Ferrill became a local hero when he risked his life to minister to victims of a cholera epidemic that killed 500 of Lexington’s 7,000 residents. That same year, he moved his congregation to the corner of Short and Deweese. Construction of the present building began about 1850. Ferrill died in 1854, and his funeral procession attracted 5,000 mourners. The sanctuary was completed in 1856.

Ferrill was a powerful preacher who baptized thousands. Because slave families were often split up by sale, many walked miles each Sunday to attend services at First African Church — and have their only opportunity to see each other.

First African Baptist Church added a Tudor-style addition and a columned portico on the sanctuary in 1926. The congregation moved to Price Road in 1987 and sold its historic building to Central Christian. A child-care center now in the building would be relocated if the sale is approved, Hodge said.

Architect Gregory Fitzsimons, who developed a renovation plan for the foundation, said the building is in good condition. Still, it would take about $4 million buy, renovate and enlarge the building for the foundation’s proposed uses. Thomas also wants to raise several million more dollars to operate and endow the building and programs.

The old sanctuary, now used as a gymnasium, would become a 400-seat concert hall. Thomas would like the proposed concert hall to host local musicians and visiting ensembles that highlight African-American music. One such group is the American Spiritual Ensemble, a Lexington-based international touring company founded by Everett McCorvey, director of the University of Kentucky’s Opera Theatre program.

“It’s something we would certainly consider,” McCorvey said. “I was very impressed with the potential of what that facility could become. The church has a wonderful history. It’s certainly worth preserving.”

Thomas, who taught at Phillips Andover for 36 years, spent three years as artistic director of Project STEP, a classical music academy for gifted minority students in Boston run by the Boston Symphony and the New England Conservatory of Music. Thomas would like to start a similar program here.

Yvonne Giles, who started the Isaac Scott Hathaway museum of Kentucky black history, is on the foundation’s board. The building could eventually house that collection and host a variety of cultural programs, Thomas said.

The 10-member board includes Dan Rowland, a UK history professor; Lisa Higgins-Hord, UK’s vice president of community engagement; Urban County Councilman Chris Ford and architect Van Meter Pettit.

First African Baptist Church leaders support the project, and several were among about 50 people who attended a fund-raising reception Saturday at a home near Nicholasville. The event included a string quartet that played classical music by black composer William Grant Still.

“Fiscally, we’re in tough shoes, but this building is a national treasure,” Thomas said of the foundation’s ambitious fund-raising goal. “To know that folks in bondage committed their resources, which were so limited, to build such a remarkable structure inspires us to do great things with it.”

Click on each thumbnail to see complete photo:

As University of Kentucky diplomacy students follow Egypt’s attempt to transition from dictatorship to democracy, they can get some behind-the-scenes perspective from one of their teachers.

Stacy Closson, below, a visiting lecturer at UK’s Patterson School of Diplomacy and International Commerce, spent eight days in Egypt last month as an official observer during recently completed parliamentary elections.

An academic with years of international field experience, Closson found the experience fascinating, inspiring and, at one point, frightening. She left with a better understanding of the Middle East’s new political complexities — and why her fellow Americans should pay attention.

“Even after 30-plus years of dictatorship under (Hosni) Mubarak, people don’t lose their taste for freedom,” Closson said. “They seem very excited about the future prospects for their country.”

Closson is a Truman National Security fellow who worked six years for the U.S. Defense Department. She was among 33 observers from the National Democratic Institute who watched the second of three rounds of parliamentary voting Dec. 14 and 15.

Other observers were there from two more U.S.-based organizations, the International Republican Institute and the Carter Center. (Despite their names, the National Democratic Institute and the International Republican Institute are non-partisan.)

Closson and another American woman — a congressional staffer — went to 25 polling stations in the Beni Suef region with an interpreter. Voting seemed to be orderly, with each polling station run by a “judge.” Each political party also had poll observers.

Because election turnout was low during Mubarak’s reign, voting was a new experience for many Egyptians.

“There was this initial excitement and pride that they could vote and know their vote could count,” she said, adding that the main issues for most voters were freedom, dignity and jobs.

New liberal parties were much less organized than the Muslim Brotherhood, which is expected to end up with a majority of seats in parliament, Closson said. But one surprise was the strength of a more conservative Islamic party, Salafi al-Nour. It seemed highly organized, with plenty of cars, computers, cellphones and operating funds, reportedly from Islamic interests in neighboring gulf states.

When the polls closed, Closson and other observers followed election officials as they transported ballot boxes through busy city streets to a central counting center. There, they found perhaps 200 rowdy Salafi partisans creating a chaotic scene.

Only a few international observers were able to get inside the center to witness the counting. Closson wasn’t among them.

“I still regret it,” she said. “I think we would have gotten pushed and shoved, but we would have gotten in. But when the two-star general said he couldn’t guarantee our safety, we decided not to push it.”

The third and final round of parliamentary voting was last week, and results could be announced this week. “There are a lot of mathematical shell games in how they’re going to allocate seats,” she said. “I think it’s going to be a political decision as much as a mathematical decision.”

Egypt has scheduled a presidential election for June. But without a constitution, it remains unclear how the president and parliament will function and relate to powerful military officials.

Egypt is likely to end up with a government dominated by Islamists, but the faction that comes out on top will have a big influence not only on foreign relations but on internal economic recovery.

Tourism is one of Egypt’s biggest industries, and last year’s revolution has all but brought it to a halt.

“The hotels were empty except for us,” Closson said. “You have more people in downtown Lexington than at the Giza pyramids. Even the camels where bored.”

If Islamists carry through with threats to ban alcohol sales to foreigners and require tourists to dress conservatively, Egyptian tourism might not recover.

Once all the voting is done, Closson said, “The question now is how they’re going to govern.”

Why should Americans care? Egypt’s transition could affect oil prices, Closson said. It also could have a big effect on Israel’s security and what happens in other unstable Arab countries, especially Libya, Yemen and Syria. But she is hopeful.

“Egyptians are pretty steadfast people,” Closson said. “They see this as the first step of a long process of getting more freedom.”

Central Bank President Luther Deaton, right, was roasted by attorney Bill Lear, center, attorney Terry McBrayer, left, as well as Alan Stein and Wayne Martin at the Salvation Army's kettle campaign kickoff. Photo by Tom Eblen

If people in Lexington don’t have much respect for you, they make fun of you behind your back. If they have a lot of respect for you, they fill a hotel ballroom for a charity fund-raiser and make fun of you to your face.

Since 2005, breakfast roasts have become an annual kickoff for the Salvation Army’s Christmas Kettle Campaign. The event Wednesday packed the Hyatt Regency’s Patterson Ballroom with more than 430 people.

This year’s honoree and victim was Luther Deaton, chairman, president and CEO of Central Bank. Deaton is an influential businessman and colorful character — a smart and savvy good ol’ boy with a big heart.

Deaton’s roasters were fellow good ol’ boys: Alan Stein, recently retired head of the Lexington Legends baseball team; Wayne Martin, head of WKYT (Channel 27); and Bill Lear, head of the law firm Stoll Keenon Ogden. Emcee Terry McBrayer, a lawyer, lobbyist and former politician, took shots at them all and received plenty in return.

“What can you say about a man who is admired, who is revered, who is loved by everyone?” Stein asked the audience. “Well, that’s for the Jim Host roast next year. It don’t think it applies to Luther.”

Deaton was born and raised near Haddix in Breathitt County, and he has lost none of his Eastern Kentucky accent after more than two decades in Lexington. So there were plenty of jokes about his mountain upbringing and the way he talks.

“He was raised so far back in the country, he had to go toward town to go hunting,” McBrayer said.

There were jokes about Deaton’s short stature, his giant houseboat on Lake Cumberland, his golf game, his politics, and his fondness for pretty women and strong drinks.

“Luther likes to cover his bases in politics,” said Stein, husband of state Sen. Kathy Stein, a Lexington Democrat. “He will tell you at the drop of a hat who he’s supporting in a political race, and he will come to you the next week and ask for a contribution — more often than not for the other guy.”

But all of the roasters’ jabs at Deaton quickly turned to praise. “He’s honest, he’s honorable. If he’s your friend, he’s always your friend. And if he’s your enemy, you’d better get the heck out of the way,” Lear said.

“The world needs more Luther Deatons,” Martin added. “Honorable, passionate people who understand that the best decisions are made not only with the head but with the heart.”

When it was finally Deaton’s turn to speak, he offered a few jabs back at his roasters. But he mostly wanted to thank sisters Joan and the late Jane Kincaid, who in 1996 put him in charge of their bank and allowed him the success that has enabled him to give back to his community and state.

Deaton and his roasters also praised the work of the Salvation Army, and they encouraged attendees to do everything they could to help the organization reach its Kettle Campaign goal of $450,000, a small increase from last year’s collection.

They urged people to give to the Army’s bell-ringers outside stores, volunteer their time as bell-ringers and set up “online kettles” to collect donations by going to OnlineRedKettle.org or SalvationArmyLex.org.

The Salvation Army said that last year in the Bluegrass it provided 142,918 meals for homeless people, 48,576 nights of lodging for women and families, emergency assistance for 42,227 people and gave Christmas gifts to 7,024 children.

The Salvation Army is often the safety net of last resort for people in crisis. As unemployment remains high and the economy slow, more people are in crisis than ever.

Deaton told the crowd that while visiting the Salvation Army’s Lexington shelter a couple of weeks ago, a woman approached him and said, “Luther, how are you doing?”

“I had known this lady for a long time, and I had no idea she was at the Salvation Army,” he said, his voice cracking with emotion.

Deaton said he was glad the Salvation Army was there to help her and so many others. “What these people do is unbelievable,” he said.

Soon after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, Dr. Nadia Rasheed met a co-worker at the Veterans Administration hospital in Lexington for the first time. The woman asked the anesthesiologist if she was Muslim.

“I said yes, and then she said, ‘Are you going to kill me?’” Rasheed recalled, still shocked by the question. “I said, ‘No, why would you say that? And she said, ‘That’s all I see on television.’”

Mohammed Nasser has a different memory of that terrible day a decade ago. The retired IBM engineer, a Muslim from East Africa, was so upset that he went for a walk in his Jessamine County subdivision.

“People kept coming up and asking if there was anything they could do for us,” he recalled. A few days later, Christ Church Cathedral reached out to him. “They were so nice,” he said. “They said you can even come and stay in the church if you have any problems.”

I talked last week with several Lexington Muslims, both immigrants and native-born Americans, about what their lives have been like since the 9/11 attacks by terrorists claiming to act on behalf of Islam.

Non-Muslims are generally friendly toward them, they said, but they get more questions — and stares — and they wonder about subtle discrimination. More than anything, though, they worry about misinformation and hatred being promoted by right-wing extremists and the media outlets that give them a voice.

“For everybody, the world has gotten a lot smaller,” said Shahied Rashid, an Ohio native and religious leader, or imam, at Masjid Bilal Ibn Rabah, a Muslim congregation on Russell Cave Road.

Generally, Rashid said, Lexington has been “very welcoming” to Muslims. “Not only as an American, but that’s the only thing I have heard from the immigrant community who have relocated to Lexington,” he said.

Mehmet Saracoglu, a Muslim from Turkey and a graduate student in mining engineering at the University of Kentucky, agrees. He came to Lexington in 2004, and two years later helped start UK’s Interfaith Dialogue Organization, which recently has broadened its mission and changed its name to the Intercultural Dialogue Organization. The organization’s work has been embraced throughout the community, he said.

“I honestly feel pretty comfortable here,” said Fatimah Shalash, 25, who was born and raised in Lexington and wears hijab, a traditional Muslim head scarf. “You’ll get the curious looks and sometimes the not-so-kind looks. But, overall, I’ve felt pretty safe and treated well.”

Shalash, who recently finished a master’s degree in marriage and family therapy, said many non-Muslims are curious about her faith and why she wears hijab.

“It has bridged a lot of conversations, and that has been a positive experience,” she said. “The way I act in general is hopefully going to show another side of Islam; someone who’s educated and friendly. It’s not what you see in the media.”

Rasheed, the anesthesiologist, was born and raised in New York, went to medical school in Iraq and has lived in Lexington for 20 years. She does not wear hijab, but she has noticed more stares in restaurants when she dines with friends who do.

Many Muslim friends have told her stories of rude comments made to them and perceived, if not overt, discrimination.

“Nine-eleven was not caused by Islam, but people want to say it was,” Rasheed said. “There are some bad Muslims, yes. But there are some bad Christians and Jews, too. None of the religions say you can kill and attack.”

Rasheed said she speaks to many community groups about Islam. “I have noticed that there is a lot of misinformation, misconception, mistrust,” she said. “But when I am one-on-one I am able to answer them and it clears things up.”

While many Americans blame Islam for the terrorist attacks, many Muslims blame Islamophobia for the 2003 invasion of Iraq.

“Muslim Americans and Arab Americans are patriotic, we love this country, but we have freedom of speech like everyone else,” she said. “We might see things differently because we know how people in other countries are suffering.”

Jenny Sutton-Amr, who also speaks about Islam to community groups, said she hasn’t experienced any bad treatment or discrimination, but is alarmed by increasing misinformation and organized anti-Muslim activities.

“People for the most part are respectful, but they come with a lot of loaded questions,” she said. “I can usually presume where they get their information.”

A recent public opinion poll by the Public Religion Research Institute and the Brookings Institution found that Fox News viewers were more misinformed about Islam and expressed more anti-Muslim sentiment than those who got their news elsewhere.

And a report issued last month by the Center for American Progress identified seven right-wing foundations that are spending millions of dollars fomenting anti-Muslim sentiment across the country. Some of them are behind legislation introduced in 29 states that would ban Muslim sharia law — even though nobody has ever tried to impose it.

“We have a slander campaign that’s being spoon-fed to a large population of this country, and they are lapping it up,” Sutton-Amr said. “I’m hoping that reason will prevail and the vast majority of Americans will see through this.”

Many readers were touched when I wrote about the “extreme makeovers” that a Lexington modeling agency owner and her friends gave to 47-year-old twin sisters Hilda Bevins and Wilda Bryant.

The new hairstyles, clothes and makeup were great. But the most valuable help Bevins received was for her health, not beauty. Untreated tooth decay had left her in constant pain; a dentist and an oral surgeon donated their services to make it go away.

Oral health is a national problem, but it is worse in Kentucky than in most states. Untreated dental disease causes other health problems, hurts performance at school and on the job, and can make life miserable. Perhaps the biggest barrier to adequate dental care is cost.

“What do you do if you don’t have insurance and you’re barely making ends meet?” asked Dr. Robert Henry, who practices dentistry at the Veterans Affairs Medical Center in Lexington.

That question led Henry and others from Faith Lutheran and Calvary Baptist churches in 2006 to renovate a building at 216 South Limestone and open Mission Lexington Dental Clinic.

Since then, three more churches — Good Shepherd Episcopal, Maxwell Street Presbyterian and First Presbyterian — and local organizations have joined in support of the volunteer work by 28 dentists, other dental professionals and students from the University of Kentucky College of Dentistry.

“Dental pain can be devastating, and our true mission is to get people out of pain,” said Henry, whose wife, Donita, a dental assistant, is the clinic coordinator. “This has been the hardest thing I’ve ever done — and the most rewarding.”

Mission Lexington is one of several local organizations, including Southland Christian Church’s Refuge Clinic, that provide dental services to low-income people without insurance. But the need is far greater than the services available, and it is only getting worse as treatment costs rise and fewer jobs offer affordable dental insurance.

Mission Lexington’s waiting list exceeds 600 people. Patients must be at least 18 years old, live in Lexington, lack dental insurance and have income below the federal poverty level.

“If we had six times the resources, we could see six times the patients,” said Christopher Benham Skidmore, executive director of Mission Lexington, which also operates a medical clinic at 1393 Trent Boulevard for uninsured working adults whose earnings are no more than 185 percent of the poverty level.

Mission Lexington will have a fund-raiser at 7p.m. July 23 at the Barrel House, 903 Manchester Street, with food, music and a silent auction. Tickets to the Taste of Grace event are $35 in advance, $40 at the door. For more information, call (859) 273-5077.

The Mission Lexington Dental Clinic is in a building owned by Calvary Baptist that was restored with volunteer labor. Thanks to donations, a clinic worth about $300,000 was furnished for about $50,000. The clinic’s annual operating budget is about $140,000, Skidmore said.

Care is free except for dentures, which are made for dental surgery patients at a fraction of the normal cost, thanks to volunteer work by dental technician Laurie Eads.

The high cost of dentistry kept Wyvitta and Grover Brooks from seeking treatment for years, until their painful mouths led them to Mission Lexington in 2009.

“These people are a godsend,” said Grover Brooks, 55, whose restaurant cooking jobs never included dental insurance. “They’re good, man; really thorough.”

Wyvitta Brooks, 51, said she has always struggled with dental care because of her small mouth, a partial cleft palate and other birth defects. She hasn’t had dental insurance since she took a buyout from a telecommunications company several years ago. Dental care wasn’t affordable until she found Mission Lexington.

“I was so used to being turned away and going through so much pain,” she said. “You don’t realize until you get it fixed how much it affects your life. The people here are just wonderful.”

Henry, the dentist, said that is typical of Mission Lexington patients. “Most of the people who come here have been in pain for months, if not a year, and this literally changes their lives,” he said. “We’re a very small answer to a major problem.”

Click on each thumbnail to see complete photo and caption:

America has a tragically bad track record when it comes to understanding the political dynamics of the Middle East.

So what should we make of the popular uprisings now sweeping the region? How will they affect the United States? What about oil?

I posed those questions to John Stempel, a career foreign service officer who is now a senior professor at the University of Kentucky’s Patterson School of Diplomacy and International Commerce, which he directed from 1993 until 2003.

Stempel’s 24-year diplomatic career included a dozen years overseas, five of which were at the U.S. Embassy in Tehran just before the 1979 hostage crisis. He wrote a book, Inside the Iranian Revolution, based on the experience. A former naval officer, he also held senior Middle East policy jobs with the Defense and State departments.

While the turmoil is likely to continue for some time, Stempel is hopeful that change could be good for America — if we play our cards right. “Understanding how the Muslim world functions politically is our basic problem,” he said.

The Internet-enabled uprisings point to an age divide in the Middle East. Young, educated people there tend to be more sympathetic to American ideals, such as democracy. Still, there is less separation between church and state than in Western societies. “Whatever comes out of the governments will involve a religious element,” Stempel said.

Those are just some of the things Americans must keep in mind, he said. Another is the distinct cultural and political differences among nations in the Middle East, which are the results of unique histories of tribal, religious and political strife.

The king of Jordan will likely be able to pacify unrest, because that nation has a political system in which many people feel they have a voice. On the other hand, Libya’s Moammar Gadhafi is probably on his way out.

Iran remains “a serious problem,” Stempel said, “But we should back off and let China and the European countries deal with Iran.” China could be especially influential because it has a multibillion-dollar oil deal with that nation.

Stempel thinks America would be wise to maintain good working relationships with all factions in the Middle East as societies change and new governments emerge.

“It doesn’t have to be perfectly democratic, as long as you don’t have ayatollahs screaming ‘death to the infidels,’” he said. “If you see people who want reasonable popular participation dominating the dialogue over the fundamentalists, then things will be going our way, I think.”

The best thing American government and business leaders can do is try to create partnerships that are mutually beneficial, Stempel said. That is especially true with oil. The United States has 4.5 percent of the world’s population, but consumes 40 percent of its gasoline.

“There’s always going to be a shortage of oil,” he said. “The demand is growing so much in India and China, we’re never going to be in a soft market.”

There’s no way America’s domestic oil production can be increased enough to make more than a dent in the increasingly international market, despite what the “drill baby, drill” crowd thinks. America needs oil from the Middle East, but those nations need Western technology and expertise to maximize the value for their oil reserves, Stempel said.

That creates fertile ground for consortiums of American and international oil companies to do business in a reshaped Middle East. Stempel thinks deals could eventually be done with some of the biggest producers: Iraq, Algeria, Iran and Libya.

He also sees opportunities for America in helping the region develop agriculture and, perhaps, even nuclear energy, with proper safeguards.

Stempel, who was very critical of the Bush administration’s disastrous Middle East policies at that time, gives good marks so far to the Obama administration for keeping dialogue open with all factions in the region. He thinks Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is doing an especially good job.

A self-described “radical moderate,” Stempel said he fears that the right-wing elements that have seized control of the Republican Party will make it harder for America to forge good working relationships with these new and changing Middle East governments.

“The important thing is to get people to understand these countries,” Stempel said. “We do have people who understand the Middle East, if they’re allowed to function properly. That’s been a problem since 9/11.”

Sts. Peter and Paul Regional Catholic School, a fixture in downtown Lexington for 98 years, is inviting the community to see its $12 million renovation and expansion.

The school will be a stop Friday night during Gallery Hop, with an exhibit of student art chosen from the region’s Catholic schools. Then, on Feb. 24, Sts. Peter and Paul will launch a monthly concert, “Series with the Saints,” in the school’s elegantly restored 250-seat theater.

The first concert in this series is special: a recital of songs written by the late Kentucky folk music legend John Jacob Niles in collaboration with Thomas Merton, the famous author and Trappist monk who lived at the Abbey of Gethsemani near Bardstown until his death in 1968.

The recital, “Written in the Stars,” will feature mezzo-soprano Sherri Phelps and pianist Rachel Taylor, with special guest Jacqueline Roberts, who was Niles’ performance partner from 1967 until his death in 1980.

Using Merton’s poetry, Niles wrote 22 songs specifically for Roberts’ voice, seven of which are included in this recital. The show will feature photographs, audio and video recordings about Niles and Merton, with commentary from Roberts.

“In many ways, this is an evening to honor Jackie,” Phelps said. “She’s the primary source for the material, and she has been passing on the performance practices, teaching them to me.”

Both Phelps and Taylor have doctorates in music. Taylor teaches piano at Eastern Kentucky University. Phelps is an opera singer who has performed throughout this country and Europe. But this material, which blends Niles’ folk music with Merton’s poetry, has special appeal for them.

“When I was studying at Juilliard in New York, this was the only Kentuckian’s music I ever heard at the school,” said Phelps, a Morgantown native. “I felt a special need to champion this music.

“And Thomas Merton is so intimately connected with Kentucky’s Catholic heritage,” she said. “This is the only song cycle he ever collaborated on with a composer.”

This spring, the recital will begin a national tour with a performance at Mission San José in California.

Phelps said Sts. Peter and Paul’s restored W. Paul and Lucille Caudill Little Theatre will be the perfect place for the show’s premiere. It is a large but intimate space with great acoustics and lighting, and a new grand piano. It is a hidden gem on the second floor of the school that serves students from throughout Central Kentucky.

The original school was built in 1913, on West Short Street between historic St. Paul Catholic Church and the Lexington Opera House. In a major commitment to downtown, the school has been more than doubled in size, with a new classroom addition and gymnasium, said Jeanne Miller, a school parent who helped to organize the project.

So far, the school project has attracted 550 donors, including the Lucille Caudill Little Foundation, which helped to restore the theater. Alltech donated science labs, and the Knights of Columbus helped pay for the gymnasium.

The 1913 building was carefully restored to make it modern, while retaining its original architectural beauty. Sts. Peter and Paul reopened in August with 490 students in grades one through eight at the renovated Short Street campus and younger children at a school beside St. Peter Catholic Church on Barr Street.

As with the new gymnasium, now used by many Lexington youth teams, Sts. Peter and Paul wants the renovated theater to be well used. Children from nearby Harrison Elementary School and residents of Ashland Terrace retirement home have been brought in to see school performances. The school also is partnering with Lexington Children’s Theatre, its neighbor across Short Street, on a summer theater camp.

“This was such a community space in the early 1900s,” Miller said. “The goal is to recreate that today, to make it not just an asset for the school but for the entire community.”

Spend a few moments today watching this video of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s most famous speech. It is an eloquent call for brotherhood and justice. We have come so far in 47 years, but we still have far to go.

If you have time, also listen to this fascinating NPR interview with Clarence Jones, a King aide who helped draft the speech. He tells about it in a new book.

One of the most remarkable people I got to know as a young reporter in the 1980s was Myles Horton, whom Rosa Parks called “the first white man I ever trusted.”

Horton helped start the Highlander Center in Tennessee, which became a cradle of the civil rights movement. He was a confidant of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., whom he told me he first met when King was a student at Morehouse College in Atlanta.

As Horton and I sat outside his hilltop cabin at Highlander one afternoon, enjoying a view of the Great Smoky Mountains in the distance, he talked about King and his legacy.

In focusing on King’s work for racial justice, Horton said, many people ignore the fact that he was equally passionate about economic justice. “What does it profit a man to be able to eat at an integrated lunch counter,” Horton quoted King as saying, “if he doesn’t earn enough money to buy a hamburger and cup of coffee?

Economic justice was at the heart of King’s career as an activist, from the Montgomery bus boycott that thrust him into the national spotlight in 1955 to the Memphis sanitation workers’ strike where he was assassinated in 1968.

Conservative extremists last year called President Barack Obama a “socialist” for pushing through what had been a Republican plan for healthcare reform. But some of the things King advocated five decades ago, such as a government-guaranteed minimum income, really did approach socialism.

The public was scared of communism in King’s day, so his enemies often called him a “communist” for challenging America’s status quo. A photograph of King with Horton at Highlander was posted on billboards around the South with the headline, “Martin Luther King at Communist Training School.”

“I’m not talking about communism,” King later replied. “Communism forgets that life is individual. Capitalism forgets that life is social. And the kingdom of brotherhood is found neither in the thesis of communism nor the antithesis of capitalism, but in a higher synthesis.”

Many of King’s proposals for achieving economic justice seem quaint, even far-fetched, today. He was a minister, not an economist. A half-century of history since then has underscored the power of entrepreneurial capitalism to improve society. But it also has shown the pitfalls of corrupt, monopolistic capitalism and unchecked corporate power.

This is a good time to review some of King’s thoughts about economic justice. The King holiday Monday comes at a time when Wall Street has recovered from the Great Recession, but Main Street still has a long way to go. Meanwhile, politicians talk about making drastic cuts in America’s social safety net.

“The well-off and the secure have too often become indifferent and oblivious to the poverty and deprivation in their midst,” King said in accepting the Nobel Peace Prize in 1964. “The poor in our countries have been shut out of our minds, and driven from the mainstream of our societies, because we have allowed them to become invisible. … In the final analysis, the rich must not ignore the poor because both rich and poor are tied in a single garment of destiny. All life is interrelated, and all men are interdependent.”

In a 1967 speech, King said: “True compassion is more than flinging a coin to a beggar; it is not haphazard and superficial. It comes to see that an edifice which produces beggars needs restructuring. A true revolution of values will soon look uneasily on the glaring contrast of poverty and wealth.”

Because King was a Christian minister, his words often echoed those of the Biblical savior worshipped by both liberals and conservatives. In a speech only days before he was murdered, King had this to say: “One day we will have to stand before the God of history and we will talk in terms of things we’ve done. Yes, we will be able to say we built gargantuan bridges to span the seas, we built gigantic buildings to kiss the skies. Yes, we made our submarines to penetrate oceanic depths. We brought into being many other things with our scientific and technological power.

“It seems that I can hear the God of history saying, ‘That was not enough! But I was hungry, and ye fed me not. I was naked, and ye clothed me not. I was devoid of a decent sanitary house to live in, and ye provided no shelter for me. And consequently, you cannot enter the kingdom of greatness. If ye do it unto the least of these, my brethren, ye do it unto me.’ That’s the question facing America today.”

While much has changed since King’s time, much else has not. That is why his words remain so powerful and relevant. King had a gift for bringing America’s strengths and weaknesses into sharp focus and inspiring us to do better than we have.

Pastor Nancy Jo Kemper, right, greets Dan Rosenberg, left, State Auditor Crit Luallen and Mehmet Saracoglu after an interfaith service Sunday at New Union Christian Church in Woodford County. Photo by Tom Eblen

If a tiny church in Florida could inflame religious strife around the world, the Rev. Nancy Jo Kemper figured that her tiny church in Woodford County could help heal it.

So the pastor of the 176-year-old New Union Christian Church held a special service Sunday to promote interfaith understanding. She invited a Muslim to read from the Quran and a Jew to read from the Torah.

“This church is unashamedly Christian, but we try to be good listeners,” Kemper told her two dozen parishioners. “We shall overcome hate and bigotry and narrow-mindedness.”

The Disciples of Christ congregation is one of several Kentucky groups that have spoken out against the Rev. Terry Jones of Gainesville, Fla. His threats to burn the Quran on the anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks by Muslim extremists sparked deadly protests in Afghanistan and international condemnation.

Georgetown College, a Baptist-affiliated school, sponsored several well- attended events last week to promote understanding between Christians and Muslims. “I saw students from many backgrounds open themselves to learn from members of a faith community that differs from their own,” said Emily Brandon, who helped organize the events.

Lexington’s Christian-Muslim Dialogue, which meets monthly, will have a special speaker Saturday. Monica Marks, who grew up as a Jehovah’s Witness in Carter County, is a Fulbright scholar and a Rhodes scholar who studies Islamic law and reform movements in modern Middle Eastern culture. Her free lecture, “The Interfaith Issue in America and Abroad,” is at 10 a.m. in Lexington Theological Seminary’s Fellowship Hall. The public is encouraged to attend.

Kemper, retired executive director of the Kentucky Council of Churches, began her Sunday morning service by telling the congregation, “A church not much larger than our own sent shock waves around the world with its threat to burn the Quran. We decided to read from it and learn more about it.”

She then introduced Mehmet Saracoglu — a Muslim from Turkey, a graduate student in mining engineering and founder of the University of Kentucky’s Interfaith Dialogue Organization. He told the congregation that the Quran clearly forbids killing innocent people, as terrorists have done.

Among the Quran passages he read was this one: “O mankind! We created you from a male and a female and made you into nations and tribes that you may know and honor each other (not that you should despise one another).”

Saracoglu was followed by Dan Rosenberg, a Thoroughbred industry consultant and retired president of Three Chimneys Farm. He read from the Torah’s book of Leviticus, including this passage: “When a stranger resides with you in your land, you shall not wrong him. The stranger who resides with you shall be to you as one of your citizens; you shall love him as yourself, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt.”

Afterward, Rosenberg said he was pleased to participate in the service. “I think it is always important for people to speak out against intolerance and injustice,” he said.

The service emphasized beliefs that Christianity, Judaism and Islam have in common as the three religious traditions that trace their origins to a covenant between God and Abraham, described in the Hebrew Bible. In all three religions, love of God and of neighbor are inseparable.

In her sermon, Kemper asked God’s forgiveness for having called the headline-seeking Florida minister an idiot. “I think it is not for us to judge, but it is for us to act on our own values,” she said. “Too often we all let our prejudices get hold of us and lead us in ways that are not helpful.”

Jones’ stunt followed well-publicized protests over plans to build an Islamic center in New York, a few blocks from the former World Trade Center site, and mosques in towns including Mayfield and Murfreesboro, Tenn.

Kemper noted that Christianity, as well as Islam, has been perverted throughout history by zealots. People can honor their own religion and still respect others’ beliefs, she said. “All across America, people are saying ‘no’ to the Terry Joneses of the world, and for the most part they are doing it gently and kindly,” she said.

In addition to scripture, Kemper read several quotes from the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. But she left out the one that keeps popping into my head each time I see another news story about religious intolerance.

“We must learn to live together as brothers,” King said, “or perish together as fools.”