When you chanted “Green Bay sucks” at farmers markets, your nephew’s birthday, Cubs/White Sox games, the art museum, and even your grandma’s funeral, but realized it was you all along that sucked.
In 1988 Dolly Parton pulled every 7th and 8th grader in Sevier County into a room and told them to pick a buddy.
She made them sign a contract.. if BOTH graduate, she hands you both $500. One fails, nobody gets paid.
The county dropout rate went from 35% to 6%.
She handed out the checks herself.
In 1989 she offered $500 to every kid in the county who wanted to go to the local college.
When Gatlinburg burned in 2016, she sent 900 families $1,000 a month for six months.
You've probably heard that part.
Here's the part you haven't:
The fund raised more than expected, so she showed up in May and handed every one of those families another $5,000 on top.
Then she quietly put $3 million into the recovery group that handles the years after the news trucks leave.
She built her county an entire hospital.
She played a benefit concert in 2007, Dollywood and the Stampede matched it, and LeConte Medical Center opened in 2010 with a birthing unit and a women's center in it.
In 2022 she started covering 100% of tuition, books, and fees for Dollywood employees.
Full-time, part-time, AND seasonal.
In 1991 she paid for a bald eagle sanctuary because the birds couldn't be released back into the wild, no press release.
And when Hurricane Helene came through here in Western North Carolina, she wrote a personal check for $1 million and her companies matched it.
She didn't owe North Carolina anything, but she helped us anyway.
She started the Imagination Library because her daddy couldn't read or write. Before he passed, he told her it was the most important thing she ever did.
Rest in Peace, Dolly 🇺🇸
"Women are just as bad as men."
Show me 3 examples of a man being gang r@ped by women.
Show me one instance of women trafficking men at scale. Name one law women drafted specifically to oppress men. Name one country that systemically discriminates against men more than women.
Show me men with melted faces from gender based acid attacks.
Show me men being killed for rejecting a woman's proposal.
When you find those examples We can talk about "just as bad."
Until then. Stop pretending.
I walked off of death row exactly 15 years ago this morning. Thank you. It wouldn’t have happened without you.
One of the biggest lessons I learned is that there will be times when every piece of available evidence tells you that something is impossible. That the door is closed, and the odds are against you. You can’t see a way forward. But not being able to see a way through is not the same thing as there being no way through. We have a habit of treating our present circumstances as if they were permanent, when life is constantly changing. Sometimes the only thing required of you is to stay on your feet long enough for something you cannot yet see to become possible.
You don’t need to know how the story ends. You only need to deal with what is directly in front of you and refuse to surrender your will to circumstances. Take the next step. Then take another. There will be times when continuing seems irrational, when nothing appears to be working and there is no evidence that it ever will. Keep going anyway. An impossible situation only becomes a final one when YOU decide there are no more moves to make.
Yes, in fact, I do think the guy flipping burgers at McDonald’s should be able to afford rent, bills, and groceries with his paycheck alone. That’s kind of the whole point of having a job and I can’t believe this is considered a radical position for me to take.