Today the U.S. Supreme Court heard arguments about whether or not long term detainees at Guantanamo Bay prison in Cuba had a right under the U.S. constitution to a hearing under accepted rules of evidence over whether the government had a right to continue to detain them indefinitely without having to ever present in any court verifiable evidence that the person had committeed some kind of misdeed. Let's hope that they don't rule that the government can detain people indefinitely with no evidence. That's just what they are doing in Pakistan, and we certainly don't want to follow their model of government do we? Just the fact that we have coddled a military dictator for so long and allowed him to to abuse the human rights of the citizens of Pakistan that disagree with him is horrible. How can we, as a nation, with a straight face, stand up to the world and talk about supporting democracy on the one hand when we are supporting a military dictator, and then invade another country because they had a military dictator on the other is beyond me. It's downright embarassing.
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There is a somewhat local connection to the Guantanamo challenges that probably most people don't realize. I am not sure whether this is still happening, but at one time, Steven Truitt, the grandson of the "Veep" (and apparent coiner of the phrase), Alben Barkley, U.S. Vice President under President Truman, was representing some Guantanamo prisoners in their attempts to get justice through the U.S. judicial system. At least at one time a couple years ago, Mr. Truitt, now a Washington D.C. attorney, was representing Guantanamo prisoners in their court challenges.

Speaking of which' I can't let the recent proposal floated by the Paducah Sun for the city to move the Barkley Museum from the run down house in Lowertown, where it is like never open, to a wing of the McCracken Co. library, which would probably require the construction of an addition, go without commenting. Back a couple years ago, I, along with other concerned citizens, started inquiring into why the Barkley Museum was becoming so run down, why a Vice Presidential museum wasn't being properly managed and promoted, and whether or not Vice Presidential documents have been properly inventoried, preserved, and filed, and presented to the public.

We were told of a "board" of directors, but a little research into the museum found that there was no "not-for-profit" organization that was registered with the KY Sec. of State to manage the museum. Noone involved could present any evidence of how this organization, the "Young Historians" or something like that, actually ran the facility.

The "caretaker" of the museum wasn't necessarily well respected in the community, and he, and his predecessor were collectors of political memorabilia, which put them in a position to know what was valuable and what wasn't. There's concern that the collection of memorabilia has been compromised since the beginning of the museum. While I have hinted around to various people for a long time that I would like to be able to look at what the Museum has in it's archives, I haven't ever been invited to look, and I don't know what is there. But I would suspect that there are some important documents. I have been through the public displays in the museum, and there are some fine historical resources.

Now, after years of neglect, and after a number of inquiries by interested people, the city now says that it is taking the museum seriously. I'll believe it when I see it. But just about any other city in the nation would give it's "eyetooth" to have a favorite son become Vice President of the U.S. It's a very exclusive club. But Paducah just brushes it off like it is nothing at all. Stupid if you ask me.

I think the fact that Paducah is now run by Republicans accounts for a lot of the neglect of the museum. Republicans don't want to promote the accomplishments of Democrats. But apparently the Republicans have gotten what they needed to nudge funding some kind of upgrade of the museum forward, and that is an endorsement (in a TV ad apparently) of, dare I say it, Mitch McConnell, for reelection to the senate by none other than Alben Barkley the youngest. Big time OUCH for the traditional Democrats left in the Barkley family -and I know they are there. There's definitely some grave rolling over going on here, also. Whatever, the fact is that these imporant historical resources need to be identified, inventoried, preserved, and presented tastefully to the public. And I'm not saying that everything done by that administration was good, but I'm saying that it is important history, and a local community, as caretakers of a certain aspect of history, have an obligation to do their part to maintain, preserve, and present that history. I'm just don't think Paducah is doing a good job of it in regard to the Barkley Museum.