Louisville Magazine

MAY 2014

Louisville Magazine is Louisville's city magazine, covering Louisville people, lifestyles, politics, sports, restaurants, entertainment and homes. Includes a monthly calendar of events.

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5.14 LOUISVILLE MAGAZINE 1 5 HAIKU REVIEW Beatlemania with headliner the Beach Boys. At Yum! next month? Paul. CITYsentence. in a Sniffe, sniffe — ah-ahh-ahhh-chooo! — sniffe, sniffe, sniffe. In U of L We Trust When a March story in the Courier-Journal revealed that the University of Louisville had secretly fattened early-retirement packages for three administrative employees in return for signing "muzzle clauses," many of us knew there wouldn't be any consequences — even though most of the hush money was rooted in state taxes and steadily rising student tuition and fees. It's very difcult to hold an entity as large as U of L, which employs more than 6,000 people and provides great sports entertainment for the community, accountable for minor shadiness. Te benefciary of much public support for its professed urban mission, U of L is both a sacred cow and the elephant in the room, controlling an annual budget of nearly a half-billion dollars. Given the half-dozen times in the past decade it has been victimized by and has shrugged of sizable embezzlements, you might want to add another animal idiom: Answerability sticks to this univer- sity like water to a duck's back. Here's the plot, in brief: To help raise revenue in the face of decreased government funding, U of L ofered early-retirement incentives to faculty and administrators/staf — a year's salary to the for- mer and a half-year's salary to the latter. Trouble is, the three administrative employees in question got the better faculty deal for signing contracts that stipulated they couldn't sue U of L, disclose confdential information, or make statements that "disparage, demean or impugn the university or its senior leadership, including, without limitation, any statements impugning the personal or professional character of any director, ofcer, employee or consultant for the university." Other early-retiring staf members were not ofered and were not privy to the special deal. Tis is where the "common business practice" excuse comes in. Te C-J story quoted U of L spokesperson Mark Hebert calling the agreements to buy silence a "mutual afrmation of good will," adding that such clauses are "fairly commonplace" among universities and "certainly com- mon" in business circles, redundancy notwithstanding. I mean, there you have it. What's the big deal? No crime was committed, and as a voluntary self-gagging on the part of the retirees, no breach of constitutional rights. Sure, it makes people feel a touch curious as to what president Jim Ramsey & Co. have to hide, but if this is the way matters are handled among other publicly founded, funded and trusted universities, I'm kinda on board. Aren't you? — Jack Welch WE L OVE JUST SAYIN' The state of Kentucky on The Daily Show is just the best. Over the summer, one of the Comedy Central show's correspondents visited the commonwealth and, long story short, the segment ended with him smoking a cigarette and glugging a can of cheap beer while pumping gas into his Silverado, then screeching out of the parking lot with a baby in a car seat…in the bed of the pickup. Never thought The Daily Show would top that. Until: #McConnelling. Quick backstory: Republican Kentucky Sen. Mitch McConnell (who'll be up against Matt Bevin in the May 20 primary) released a nearly two- and-a-half-minute-long campaign video. With. No. Words. The corny-but-peppy soundtrack played as McConnell smiled while sitting next to his wife, received a manila folder from a staffer, patted two silver-haired women on the shoulder — "Frisking some of his younger voters," Daily Show host Jon Stewart said. "I guess what he's doing is he's making that (video) available to Super PACs that he cannot legally coordinate with, so I guess then they can take pieces of it and use it in their pro-McConnell ads," Stewart said. Pause. "Or he just put it out there so we could have fun with it." The Daily Show used the footage with, um, different music: "Baby Got Back," "Whatta Man" by Salt-n-Pepa, "(Everything I Do) I Do It for You." Then the show's viewers started doing the same. It went viral. #McConnelling. Can you imagine The Daily Show clips leading up to a McConnell-Alison Lundergan Grimes general election? Also: Stewart's McConnell impression sounds like how a turtle would sound if a turtle could talk, and that's funny, too. — Josh Moss Illustration by Carrie Neumayer 12-23 BIT.indd 15 4/21/14 11:23 AM

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