Author
Teri Carter
So many prayers. So little action.
I woke at 5 a.m. last Thursday thinking about the victims of the Old National Bank shooting in Louisville and googled their names so I could say a specific prayer: Thomas Elliott, James Tutt Jr., Juliana Farmer, Joshua Barrick and Deana Eckert; plus the six who were injured, James Evans, Julie Anderson, Dana Mitchell, Darrin […]
In my small town, our librarian now carries a gun
LAWRENCEBURG, KY — The library director swiveled her chair to the right, reached into a desk drawer, and showed me her gun. “Have you always carried a gun?” I said. “No,” she said, demonstrating how she tucks it up underneath her arm when she walks to and from the library parking lot. “I started carrying […]
A library board appointment speaks volumes
On Friday, July 28, after learning that a man named Bobby Proctor had been appointed by Anderson County Fiscal Court to our public library’s board of directors, I stopped by the library and asked to see a copy of Proctor’s application.? His application does not exist.? He did not apply.? Library director Demaris Hill told […]
3 months after Louisville massacres, GOP silence echoes as gun violence keeps killing Kentuckians
Today, July 10, marks three months since the Old National Bank shooting in Louisville that killed five and injured eight, including a young police officer who was shot in the head.? And yet when was the last time you heard elected Kentucky Republicans, the ones who love to brag about their powerful supermajority, mention this […]
Kentuckians to ‘Wear Orange’ in hopes of saving lives
Gun violence is preventable. And yet, when there is a mass shooting — or any shooting — we mostly hear the same tired, do-nothing messages: It is too soon to talk about it, thoughts and prayers, and then comes the next shooting or mass shooting and it’s wash, rinse, repeat, and move on.? I am […]
Pro-life Cameron needs to tell Kentuckians what he values most: no gun regulations or children
The morning after Kentucky’s primary elections, when all talk centered on newly-minted GOP nominee Daniel Cameron and whether or not he would pick Agriculture Commissioner Ryan Quarles as his running partner, I was sitting on my back porch, reading about the recovery of Louisville Police Officer Nick Wilt. Wilt was shot in the head five […]
When did the American gun become untouchable?
In January 2020, a standing-room-only crowd gathered in Anderson County Fiscal Court to debate our becoming a Second Amendment Sanctuary. The comment I most recall from that morning was made by the brother of a man who had died by suicide with a firearm. He argued on the side of guns. His brother, he said, […]
How many more AR-15 massacres?
About 48 hours after a mass shooting in a Louisville bank left five victims dead and eight injured, including a young, newly sworn-in police officer fighting for his life with a gunshot to the head, I was standing in the Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky airport security line, witnessing massive waste in the name of safety. The frail, […]
You call that love?
Since I was giving a favorite book of poetry, Adrienne Rich’s “The Dream of a Common Language,” to a young friend for their birthday, I re-read it to make sure it was appropriate. It was. The 1978 collection of poems opens with this epigraph by H.D. (Hilda Doolittle’s nom de plume): “I go where I […]
This is how we live.
LAWRENCEBURG — About the same time a person opened fire inside The Covenant School, a Christian elementary and preschool in Nashville, Tennessee, killing three nine-year-old children and three adults, I was sitting at a stoplight behind a blue Chevy truck with a bumper sticker that read, “No airbags. We die like real men.”? That’s a […]
Can’t find the word? Try ‘bigotry’
In the penultimate courtroom scene in 1993’s “Philadelphia,” Denzel Washington’s character demands the court acknowledge the subject they have danced uncomfortably around throughout the trial. “Your honor, everybody in this courtroom is thinking about sexual orientation, sexual preference, whatever you want to call it,” he says. “Who does what to whom and how they do […]
In the room when politics tries to erase people
Five days before Christmas, I was in an Anderson County government meeting I had been attending regularly for a year and a half. We stood for the prayer. We pledged allegiance to the American and Kentucky flags. The meeting was called to order. As elected officials made motions and went through basic procedure to approve […]