For the past six months, articles to be written or researched for the West Kentucky Journal have been on an irregular basis. I, Ivan Potter, want to take this space and time to say to our readers that, “I am sorry for dropping the ball on covering the news that impacts West Kentucky.”
In March of this year, I suffered heart and lung problems. This meant eight days in hospital with five doctors. I had worn myself out. Trying to move several nonprofits forward to impact the future of my small town simply proved too much time, wear, and intense exhaustion.
Thus, as my body was shutting down, all of my energy went to fighting for life. At this point, my beloved West Kentucky Journal, and you, faithful supporters and readers, were all pushed away.
My doctors were kind to me. They didn’t lecture me about 40 years bad food habits or lack of exercise or too much stress in my life. They and I all knew that I was a perfect male baby boomer- making many bad choices with my life and not understanding that, at some point, these choices had to come to a halt. These men and women of medical science worked with me. They brought me back.
Below are some of the issues that I worried over, wrote about or tried to lead others into action.
- War weariness and the loss of the first decade of 21st Century to global violence.
- Rise of the machines. Drones, as the warrior of the future.
- The book 1984 coming alive as America adds over 1 million new national security jobs.
- Our Kentucky governor as a new era spymaster.
- Decline of rural America.
- Growth of mega City-states.
- King Coal ruling Kentucky politics.
- Farmers ripping out whole tree lines and watersheds for a few more acres. (Never mind the constant threat of extreme climate change or drought.)
- Whole rural small towns going dark.
- Loss of 100 year old brick buildings in my downtown at the rate of one every two years.
- Isolation of rural regions from national news and issues.
- Limited community vision as people become comfortable with the corporate status quo (what’s good for the wealthy 2 % is good for America).
- Rule of Wal-Mart as a way of rural regional economic slavery.
- Food deserts.
- Death of middle class Kentucky.
- A court system that allows big corporations to destroy worker pensions.
- The end days of FDR’s social contract with American families and workers.
I worried over how all of these would impact my Kentucky, my West Kentucky, my Jackson Purchase Region, and my Clinton.
By my training and work experience, I could connect all of the dots into a strategic stream of history and current events flowing into near term futures.
Part of my professional life as a geographer, regional strategic planner, and futurist trained me for this way of life. I have worked for and given advice to four Kentucky Governors and two Presid ents.
However, long term exposure to the energy demands of wrestling with trying to bend the arc of history and frame the dimensions of new futures has a way of draining one of energy and sometimes, life itself.
That was then. This is now.
I took the month of August to seriously re-examine my public life.
In these past six months of recovery, I feel like I have abandoned you, my readers and supporters, as the world goes into near term chaos. For this, I say to you again, “I’m sorry!”
I hope you will give me another chance.
The near temporal event lines flowing through 2013, 2014, 2015, and 2016 will set the stage for how America is positioned for the 21st Century. The American Experiment is yet again to be defined by the actions of a few of us who have the spirit, talent, and the vision for keeping our great America the land of the free.
Thank you for caring! |
