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The Rural Blog Archive: April 2007
This Web log of rural issues, trends and events is regular reading for hundreds of journalists who cover rural issues and need story ideas, sources, comparisons and inspiration. Rural journalism is important because 21 percent of Americans, some 62 million people, live in rural areas. Let us know what items are helpful, and send stories, links and suggestions, to al.cross@uky.edu. Use of items from The Rural Blog by news outlets is encouraged and hereby granted, on the condition that clear credit is given to the original source of the material. If the blog provides information for a story, please let us know.
Monday, April 30, 2007
Rural areas, key source of troops, are lacking in health care for veterans
The Department of Veterans Affairs has been criticized for providing inadequate access to health care for rural vets though a disproportionate number of soldiers come from rural areas. “Realigned in the 1990s to concentrate specialized care in urban areas, the system now finds itself overwhelmed by the wounded from wars in Iraq and Afghanistan -- engagements that have, even more than other modern-day conflicts, been fought by soldiers from rural America,” writes Charles Sennott of the Boston Globe.
Research by the National Rural Health Association found that about 44 percent of recruits have come from rural areas, while these areas make up only about 20 percent of the national population. “There is evidence the VA has known for some time about the need to focus more on rural care,” Sennott writes. “A 2004 VA study of 750,000 veterans found that those living in rural areas tended to have more serious and costly health problems than their urban counterparts.”
Jeff Hall, the VA's rural outreach coordinator for Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans in Wisconsin and Minnesota, has seen a close in the urban-rural gap in care, but the system is complex, reports Sennott. “There is, Hall said, a disconnect between the military and the VA computer systems that can confound efforts to coordinate treatment, or even to simply identify those veterans living in areas far from the VA hospital centers.” Rural vets may find themselves unenrolled in the VA health care program if they fail to fill out the proper forms. “Another common complaint among veterans is that rural medical care providers, tired of the paperwork and long delays involved in the federal benefit system, often do not accept TRICARE, the military's health insurance for active-duty soldiers and their families.” (Read more)
Sunday, April 29, 2007
The map of hate: Old Confederacy, Calif. remain hotbeds; others, too
The number of hate groups in America grew 5 percent last year, marking a 40 percent increase in a six-year period, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center, which raises money to fight such groups.
The center identified 844 hate groups last year, compared to 602 in 2000. "Much of the expansion has been driven by hate groups' exploitation of the issue of illegal immigration, which most Americans see as a pressing concern," according to the center's Web site. In addition to hate groups, it says, there are anti-immigration groups "that are xenophobic but mostly stop short of the open racial hatred espoused by hate groups."
The center says the Ku Klux Klan comprised 34 named groups with 164 chapters last year, 15 fewer chapters than in 2005. It estimated that the groups have 6,000 to 8,000 members. "The Kentucky-based Imperial Klans of America (IKA), the largest Klan group in 2005, dropped by almost half to 23 chapters last year. It fell behind the Illinois-based Brotherhood of Klans (BOK), which had 30 chapters in 2006."
Investors from outside Iowa own most of the state's ethanol plants
The Des Moines Register reports that investors from outside Iowa own 57 percent of the ethanol plants in the Hawkeye State, “and they’re likely to acquire more, though farmers triggered much of the state’s ethanol boom” and “Studies show local ownership assures more dollars churn through Iowa communities.” The state leads the nation in production of renewable fuels, reporter Paula Lavigne notes.
Lavigne cites a 2006 study by Iowa State University economists, which found that a plant with 75 percent local ownership adds three times as much to household income in the area near the plant as one with 25 percent local ownership. “Instead of the one guy who works at the ethanol plant going to the hardware store or the lumber store, you’ll have a bunch of people who have money to spend at the hardware store, and the car dealership, and for putting up a new house,” said Chris Petersen, president of the Iowa Farmers Union.
“In addition, experts and advocates say local investors who resist the temptation to sell might fare better in the long term,” Lavigne writes. “More young people may be drawn into farming and reap the benefits of their families’ investments over time.” The argument for outside ownership, Lavigne writes, is that “The state will have more plants overall if it draws investors from other states and nations.” She notes, “All plants, regardless of ownership, will put money into the community through payroll, supplies, taxes and buying farmers’ grain. Profits vary, as do payments to investors.” (Read more) For the Register's interactive map of Iowa's ethanol plants, click here.
UPDATE: The executive director of the Iowa Renewable Fuels Association says the story left the false impression that an increasing share of plants are owned by individuals or companies from outside the state, when seven years ago all of them were owned by out-of-staters. Monte Shaw told Brownfield Network's Peter Shinn that the story didn't account for minority local ownership of some facilities. (Read more)
South Carolina county makes rural developers pay utility, road costs
Jasper County, at the southern tip of South Carolina, has fewer than 30,000 people but “could become the site of 40,000 or so new homes in the coming years,” Lisa Chamberlain writes in The New York Times. “Rather than allowing development to overwhelm the county, officials have collaborated on a plan that tries to guide growth and preserve the region’s natural beauty,” inland between Savannah and Hilton Head Island.
Development is limited to a five-mile radius around the county seat of Ridgeland and another around the fast-growing town of Hardeeville, where about 30,000 new homes have already been approved. “Any landowners who fall outside of each town’s boundary and want to build have to petition to be annexed and, if they are approved, pay for the installation of sewers, water, and roads. After extensive research, the joint planning committee determined that every new residential unit costs about $6,200 in services,” Chamberlain writes. Land outside of the two boundaries “is regulated by the county, which currently has a moratorium on development until an updated zoning plan is put into effect, which is expected to happen in June.”
“In areas like ours, where people are starved for development, they’re willing to give away the farm,” said Kevin Griffin, Hardeeville's assistant city manager. “But we’ve really tried to get ahead of the growth, rather than being five years behind and having to catch up. . . . People talk about smart growth, but this is more like fiscal growth. We don’t say you can’t develop here; it’s a pay-to-play environment. Suddenly, that cheap land doesn’t seem so cheap anymore. But the good developers, the ones who want to be stewards of the land, they are the ones who can adjust their plans and create a quality product.” (Read more)
Friday, April 27, 2007
Tenn. may use higher cigarette tax to boost urban schools' share of budget
Tennessee policymakers are discussing "a plan to give a larger share of state education dollars to Metro Nashville and other big, urban districts, leaving most rural schools, city schools and many in between with a smaller share," reports The Tennessean. The idea "revives decades-old questions about how to fairly spread state education dollars, an issue that led 66 rural school districts to sue the state in 1988 and win." At East Hickman (County) Elementary, Mary Jane Chapman read to a class. The school's poverty rate is 57 percent. (Tennessean photo by Dipti Vadiya)
The new money would come from Gov. Phil Bredesen's proposal to raise the cigarette tax from 20 cents a pack to 60 cents a pack."Officials in large urban districts say they deserve that bigger share because they have more disadvantaged and non-English-speaking students to educate," Sheila Wissner reports. "On the flip side, many people in the small school districts worry that, over the long haul, the change will erode their ability to provide students the same educational opportunities as those in large school districts." That was the issue that drove the successful lawsuit by Tennessee School Systems for Equity. (Read more)
New Pulitzer co-chair wants to encourage entries from smaller papers
Mike Pride is editor of New Hampshire's Concord Monitor, circulation 20,000, which has never won a Pulitzer Prize. But now he is co-chair of the Pulitzer Prize Board, along with former Seattle Post-Intelligencer editorial page editor Joann Byrd, and he wants "to see more small and medium-sized newspapers involved in the annual prizes," reports Joe Strupp of Editor & Publisher.
"The way that a small paper generally wins is if there is some massive disaster in their circulation area and that is not the only way they should be able to win," Pride told E&P. "We are going to look to see how to entice them." He said this year's renaming of the "beat reporting" category to "local reporting" was designed in part to attract entries from smaller papers, but failed to do so. "None of the winners or finalists had a circulation below 100,000," Strupp notes.
"Pride cited the fact that many of the winning entries this year, as well as all three local reporting finalists, were honored for investigative work. He said most small papers do not have the staff or resources for such efforts," Strupp writes, quoting Pride: "I don't know how we will deal with that, but I think that is an area we will look at. For many small and medium papers, that is not their strength. Small papers around the country don't have spotlight teams. It is a difference in employees, priorities, and resources."
Strupp adds background: "Pulitzer officials have often stressed that the awards are aimed at honoring the best journalism of the year, and if that is from larger papers, so be it. The awards have purposely avoided creating categories based on circulation. Pride said he is not advocating circulation-level prizes. But he said having only larger papers win is not necessarily a good thing." We agree. (Read more)
Small weeklies win kudos for environmental reporting in Alaska contest
The ennvironmental reporting category in the Alaska Press Club's annual contest had no winners among large newspapers or broadcasters, but a full complement among smaller papers. "Given the astounding challenges on virtually every aspect of the environment in Alaska – and the exemplary efforts extended to cover them by the state’s small-market papers – this dearth of quality reporting from Alaska’s papers of record is inexcusable," wrote the judge for the category, Douglas Fischer of the Oakland Tribune. "Kudos to Alaska’s smallest papers for aggressively and ambitiously tackling the environment in 2006. Had any of these stories appeared under the masthead of the state’s largest papers, I would have been thrilled."
The first-place winner was “Global warming threatens Northwest Arctic coast,” by Susan B. Andrews and John Creed of The Arctic Sounder of Barrow and Kotzebue, a weekly with a circulation of 2,400. Fischer called it "a stellar example of how an amorphous, difficult-to-report issue like climate change can be made extremely relevant for local readers." In second was “Tanker flow long noted as risky,” by Carey James of the Homer Tribune, which Fischer called "a clear-eyed analysis" of a looming issue. Taking third was “Humpback spends six hours caught in gillnet” by Klas Stolpe of the Petersburg Pilot, a weekly with a circulation of only 1,834. "Stolpe did a marvelous job describing the urgency, confusion and anxiety among fishermen and rescuers alike as they struggled to free a humpback tangled in 75 fathoms of gillnet, lead and cork line," Fischer writes. He also handed out some honorable mentions Ben Stuart of the Homer News, circulation 3,300, and Sarah Hurst of Petroleum News, a trade weekly based in Anchorage.
To read the Press Club's full account of its newspaper awards, click here. In the broadcast category, no environmental awards were given by the judge, National Public Radio producer Jessica Goldstein.
Thursday, April 26, 2007
Tainted pet food hits hog farms; some fear human food supply threatened
After an outbreak of contaminated pet food a little over a month ago, similar problems may face hogs being fed salvaged pet food. Some fear the toxic chemical responsible for the pet death could circulate into the human food supply. Hogs on a farm in North Carolina tested positive for melamine, a chemical used to make plastics and foam. The 1,400 animals are being quarantined, and none have entered the food supply. “The U.S. Department of Agriculture's Food Safety and Inspection Service has said fewer than 10 hog farms in six states received contaminated feed. The feed came from a Diamond Pet plant in Gaston, S.C., and contained a rice concentrate that has been recalled by its manufacturer in California,” writes Mike Baker of the Associated Press.
At least two Chinese vegetable proteins used in pet foods have been found to contain melamine, reports Baker. (Read more) Chinese officials have invited the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to help investigate the cause of the contaminated exports. (Read more) Hogs are being tested in New York, South Carolina, Utah and Ohio that may have also eaten the tainted food. “The FDA also said it planned to begin testing a wide variety of vegetable proteins at firms that imported the ingredients to make various items including pizza dough, infant formula, protein shakes and energy bars. The ingredient list includes wheat gluten, corn gluten, corn meal, soy protein and rice bran,” reports the Salt Lake Tribune. (Read more)
One in three Native American women are raped, study concludes
"One in three Native American women will be raped at some point in their lives, a rate that is more than double that for non-Indian women, according to a new report by Amnesty International," report Darryl Fears and Kari Lydersen of The Washington Post.
Among the reasons: "In 1978, the Supreme Court ruled in Oliphant v. the Suquamish Indian Tribe that tribal governments have no criminal jurisdiction over non-Indians. When a crime is committed, tribal police and their non-Indian counterparts must hash out whether the suspect is Indian or not. Tribal governments lack the funds and staffing to patrol their lands," the Post says, citing the report.
Sparse law enforcement is also a factor. "At the million-acre Standing Rock Sioux Reservation, which straddles North and South Dakota, seven police officers are on duty," the Post reports." In Alaska, where state and native police patrol a vast landscape, officers took four hours to reach the village of Nunam Iqua, during which time a barricaded suspect raped a 13-year-old girl in front of her siblings." (Read more)
Survivors, public school bar non-local journalists from memorial service
"Hoping for solace in tragedy, the family and friends of Emily Jane Hilscher came together on Saturday for a memorial at the Rappahannock High School to recall 'special memories and special moments' of a promising young life that ended too soon. Eighteen-year old Emily Jane Hilscher was one of the victims of the April 16 tragedy at Virginia Tech," writes Richard Lykes of the Rappahannock News. "Although emotions overflowed at times, there still seemed to be recognition that life must return to normalcy and remembering the life and dreams of this exceptional young lady would help in the healing process."
Lykes' 1,232-word story and accompanying photographs gave details of the service, from the opening prayer to tributes from family members to the closing prayer. (To read it, click here.) But only local journalists were welcome at the event, from which the family barred all others, with the zealous enforcement of local school officials. That brought objections from noted journalist James Gannon, who retired to the county of 7,100 and publishes an online newspaper called The Rappahannock Voice.
"An event ceases to be a private event when it is held at a public place, in a public building or on public grounds, such as a public school, a court house, or a public park," Gannon wrote. "Further, all meaningful traces of 'privacy' are removed when the public school serves as host for the event, and when a public servant, paid for by the taxpayers – such as a county superintendent of schools – becomes the person in charge of the event, the one who announces it to the public and who issues rules and regulations regarding the event. . . . A public official does not have authority to temporarily suspend rights because they happen to be inconvenient in a certain set of circumstances."
Gannon continued, "I am fully aware of the dim view that much of the public takes of the media. The press pack can be an ugly thing, and the behavior of the media horde covering high-profile events can be disturbing. But disturbing behavior can be controlled, and reasonable limits can be placed on press access at public events, and the conditions of the coverage. The press can be confined to a certain area, limits can be placed on numbers involved, or on use of cameras or electronic equipment. The horde can be tamed, if necessary. But an outright ban on the presence of journalists is so over-reaching that it boggles the mind."
Hilschler's father, Eric Hilscher, replied online, "We never meant to exclude our local media. When we were asked about excluding all media by our clergyman, we indicated that our local community news media were welcome because, as locals, we felt they could be sensitive to the needs of our community, and would he please get that word to the right people. ... I am sorry you seem to think you were called for some other reason." Gannon wrote that after he raised objections, he received calls welcoming him to the event, "but I noted that there were no exceptions stated to the announced press ban, and that there was a principle involved here that was important – not simply a matter of personal consideration." (Read more)
Gannon was a reporter for The Wall Street Journal, editor of The Des Moines Register, Washington Bureau Chief for The Detroit News and a national affairs columnist for Gannett Co. newspapers.
Rural West Virginia faces an influx of out-of-state drugs from big cities
Out-of-state drug dealers have become a problem across rural West Virginia. Officers say that dealers are trying to access a new rural market where they have less competition and can charge more for drugs. Dealers from as far south as the Carolinas and as far north as Detroit have been arrested in the state. The most prevalent drugs have included cocaine, marijuana, methamphetamine and prescription pills, reports Kelly Holleran of the Charleston Daily Mail.
Rural Braxton County was one of the leaders in the state for meth lab busts in 2004, reports Holleran. While the meth problem has gone down, dealers have come into the county to sell prescription pills. Officers say that out-of-town drug dealers may have ties to people in the local community. These dealers have easy access to the county because Interstate 79 runs through it. Also, a high unemployment rate is making residents of the county vulnerable to drug abuse, Sheriff Howard Carpenter told the Daily Mail: “We're looking at fourth and fifth generations of people on welfare and food stamps."
The shortage of law officers in rural counties can make it difficult for them to keep up with drug investigations and all their other duties. Braxton County has eight members in its department. “We can conceivably have anywhere from two to four people tied up in court. It's like a dog chasing his tail. Plus working cases and 911 calls,” Carpenter said. (Read more)
Clot-busting drug treatment, guided by phone, saves rural stroke patients
"Stroke patients in rural hospitals can get safe, effective treatment with the use of a clot-busting drug when a doctor from a larger hospital is on the telephone guiding the treatment," reports Newswise, a research-reporting service." These new findings have important implications for overcoming barriers to optimal stroke care in rural settings," using a clot-buster that must be administered within three hours of the stroke.
“Expert guidance of this treatment over the telephone appears to be safe, practical, and effective,” said the author of the study, Dr. Anand Vaishnav of the University of Kentucky Medical Center.
The study evaluated 121 stroke patients who were treated with the drug tissue plasminogen activator (tPA) at a rural community hospital by a stroke neurologist who was on the telephone guiding the treatment. It found that 2.5 percent of rural patients treated by telephone had symptomatic bleeding in the brain, and 7.5 percent died, compared to 6.4 percent and 17 percent, respectively, in an urban study several years ago.
Vaishnav will present his research May 2 at the meeting of the American Academy of Neurology in Boston. (Read more) For more information about the academy, visit http://www.aan.com.
Wednesday, April 25, 2007
USDA Rural Development responds to story about not-so-rural projects
The Washington Post's April 6 story about the U.S. Department of Agriculture spending more than half its Rural Development money in "metropolitan regions or communities within easy commuting distance of a midsize city" illustrates the need for more standard definitions if what "rural" is when it comes to federal programs, USDA Under Secretary for Rural Development Thomas Dorr said today.
"We agree that some standardization would be useful. In fact, the Administration is proposing the consolidation and retargeting of a number of rural development programs in our budget and in our 2007 farm bill proposals. Consolidation would lead to simplification and greater clarity," Dorr said in a guest editorial e-mailed to news outlets.
The Post's object examples of not-so-rural development were the coastal resort of Provincetown and the island resorts of Martha's Vineyard and Nantucket, in Massachusetts. "All of the projects highlighted by the Post's story met the statutory definition of rural as defined by Congress and all were successful projects," Dorr wrote. "In addition, many of these investments involve loans or loan guarantees in which the USDA Rural Development commitment leveraged additional private funds and will over time be repaid."
The post story, by Gilbert Gaul and Sarah Cohen, reported that "In some programs, awards are limited to towns with populations of less than 2,500. In others, it's 5,000, 10,000, 20,000 or 50,000. In still other cases, the USDA bases its decisions on individual streets or blocks, using census data." That can mean witde variations " from one community to another," Dorr wrote.
"USDA Rural Development does indeed support economic and community development in small New England towns where tourism and recreation may be the primary economic drivers. It also works aggressively in the colonias, on Indian reservations, in the Mississippi Delta, across the northern plains and throughout the farm belt. Some rural communities are quite affluent. Others are economically distressed. Most are middle-American and middle-income in character.
"This diversity unquestionably gives rise to definitional challenges. In many places, the urban-rural boundaries are blurred by modern communications and transportation, the increasing regionalization and diversification of the rural economy, and its closer integration with urban hubs. Individuals in these areas, however, still live in rural communities as defined by law and as understood by the residents themselves."
Tuesday, April 24, 2007
National Summit examines the future of rural America and its journalism
"The Shaker Village of Pleasant Hill near Harrodsburg, Ky. was the ideal setting for a gathering to discuss rural journalism," writes Mary Jo Shafer, a Knight Community Journalism Fellow at the University of Alabama. "With lambs frisking in the fields nestled among buildings of the historic site, donkeys peering over the fence rails and ducks swimming in a pond, attendees at the National Summit on Journalism in Rural America were greeted by an environment that mirrors many of their hometowns — the rural counties where they practice their craft."
Journalists, academics, policy experts and others with an interest in rural journalism were invited to the Summit. "They heard from a wide range of panelists and engaged in a robust discussion about the present state and future of journalism in rural America," Shafer writes. "They talked about the challenges facing rural newspapers, policy and politics that touch their corners of this country, ownership trends, how to adopt digital culture and how to cover rural issues."
Topics included training backgrounds and needs at rural newspapers, the challenges faced by rural news media and rural Amercia, academic centers for rural and community journalism, newspaper chains that provide good journalism on rural issues, and a group strategy session on the future of rural journalism.
The Summit, hosted by the Institute for Rural Journalism and Community Issues, was made possible by a grant from the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, with additional support from the Ethics and Excellence in Journalism Foundation and Farm Foundation. To read Shafer's report, click here.
Following are links to Friday's presentations. Saturday's will be posted later. Research: A Survey of Training Backgrounds and Needs at Rural Newspapers in the United States and Threats Faced by Rural Newspapers (click here for video of both presentations) Issues Facing Rural America: Policy with Brian Dabson and politics with Brian Mann (video)
How three newspaper chains meet the bottom line and provide good journalism on rural issues (video) Covering rural issues and exploring alternative ownership forms with an independent publisher who sold to, and works for, a new kind of chain; and three independent editors and publishers (video). Also: "Thriving in a world of box stores and chain papers," by John Wylie, who was scheduled but couldn't attend.
Monday, April 23, 2007
Survey shows many rural papers lack training, but have a desire for it
A survey of rural newspapers in the United States found that almost half offered no training opportunities to their employees in the last year, and that the most common form of specific training mentioned was in layout and design, not journalism. The survey found that most such newspapers are willing to support mid-career training in journalism, and are more likely to do so if it deals with issues of concern in their coverage areas.
The survey was the opening presentation at the National Summit on Journalism in Rural America, at the Shaker Village of Pleasant Hill and Lexington, Ky., last weekend. The survey and the summit were projects of the Institute for Rural Journalism and Community Issues, and sponsored by the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation. The summit received additional support from Farm Foundation and the Ethics and Excellence in Journalism Foundation.
The survey found that state newspaper associations are the most common and important source of training for rural newspapers, followed by on-site training by vendors, company staff or hired presenters. At papers where training was offered, either directly or by allowing employees to attend off-site training sessions, the most common form of specific training mentioned was layout and design. When some unspecified responses were added, journalism training as a whole was a more common response than layout and design. But design “unfortunately, is a news staff issue these days,” one respondent said, because stories are entered into systems such as InDesign, a popular software program mentioned by several newspapers.
“If design is at one end of the newsroom training spectrum, it could be said that training on specific issues is at the other end. If so, the spectrum is skewed,” said Al Cross, director of the Institute and the chief author of the survey report. Only seven of 137 papers responding to the survey reported training for coverage of specific issues or subject areas.
Asked to name three issues in which they would like their news staff to have more background, training, and expertise, most replied with broad topical areas (government, courts, sunshine laws and business were the top four) rather than specific issues. Among specific issues, the leaders were education and agriculture, the latter suggesting that rural papers may not have kept up with changes in agribusiness. Also receiving several mentions were environment, development and land-use planning. To read the survey, click here.
Women rural editors share their experiences and advice at Summit
Two women editors, one who is fiercely independent and another who has kept her spunk after selling to a chain, shared their personal observations about the challenges and joys of doing journalism in a small community at the National Summit on Journalism in Rural America on Friday.
"For both, it is a story that is closely intertwined with family, roots, and tradition. Passion and public service play a role, too. A deep understanding of the important role journalism can play in a community also plays a part -- with equal helpings of commitment and stubbornness, kindness and courage," writes Mary Jo Shafer, one of the Knight Community Journalism Fellows at the University of Alabama.
The editors are Laurie Ezzell Brown of The Canadian ( Tex.) Record and Jenay Tate of The Coalfield Progress in Norton, Va. Brown and her mother, Nan Ezzell, in photo at left, were honored Friday night with the Tom and Pat Gish Award from the Institute for Rural Journalism and Community Issues for courage, tenacity and integrity in rural journalism, recognizing the crusading attitude established by her late father, Ben Ezzell. Nevertheless, Brown had caution for would-be crusaders. To read Shafer's story, click here.
Veterans in rural South Texas travel hours for care, want local hospital
Veterans in rural South Texas as pushing for their own Department of Veterans Affairs hospital, after enduring long waits and traveling far to receive care. Veterans may end up taking five-hour trips in government vans to receive treatment in San Antonio. The number of patients in the area’s VA facilities has grown 31 percent since 2001. South Texas has several local clinics, but for more complicated procedures vets must go to the big city, writes David McLemore of the Dallas Morning News.“Nationally, VA’s medical system has experienced unprecedented growth, ballooning 22 percent since 2001 when it had 4.1 million veterans registered,” writes McLemore. “It now has 5.3 million, including 1.7 million in Texas. And while the largest single group is Vietnam-era vets, the number of Iraq and Afghanistan vets is growing. The Texas Veterans Commission reports it has received about 2,000 discharge documents a month since 2001.”Vietnam veteran Homer Gallegos told the Morning News that the VA system was not prepared to handle the load of vets from his war and that Iraqi vets may encounter the same problem, reports McLemore. Young vets are also facing an increasing number of head and brain injuries and amputations as well as emotional problems and strain from time spent in war zones, he said. Of the 320 Texans killed in Iraq and Afghanistan about 10 percent were from South Texas. (Read more)
Rural Georgia high school has its first racially integrated prom
In Georgia, a small-town high school has had a prom that included both black and white students for the first time. Turner County High School in Ashburn, Ga., has no segregation policy, but students created their own divide. “Each year, in spite of integration, the school's white students had raised money for their own unofficial prom and black students did the same to throw their own separate party, an annual ritual that divided the southern Georgia peanut-farming county anew each spring,” reports Greg Bluestein of The Associated Press. This year, students decided to have an official, school-wide prom. (Photo by Carmen K. Sisson, Christian Science Monitor)
“The rural county seat of 4,000 people has been in need of uplifting news,” AP reports. “Although a candy packaging plant employs hundreds, as does the up-and-down peanut industry, many of the better-paying jobs are in larger towns in the region. The high school is one of the few things that give Ashburn a sense of community. ‘The school is making changes, and they're long overdue,’ said Aniesha Gipson, who became the county's first solo homecoming queen last fall as it abandoned the practice of crowning separate white and black queens.” The county's paper is the weekly Wiregrass Farmer, which is not available online.
In spite of a significant step forward, segregation issues linger. About two-thirds of the school’s 160 upper-class students purchased prom tickets, but there were significantly more black attendees than white attendees and many students went to a private white party a week earlier. (Read more) Ashburn is on Interstate 75, halfway between Cordele and Tifton. For the Christian Science Monitor story by Sisson, click here.
W.Va. weeklies consolidated by native who worked at Washington Post
A former Washington Post executive is expanding the online paper he created for his hometown in West Virginia, as well as acquiring three other weeklies. Dan Butcher, publisher of the online Lincoln Standard, started printing the publication on paper earlier this month, reports West Virginia Media. The Standard, which calls itself "A Citizen's Newspaper," is based in Alum Creek, a town of about 1,800 along the Coal River. Butcher has acquired the nearby papers, the Putnam Post, the Putnam Democrat and the Cabell Record, consolidating them under P.C. Publishing.
Last week, Butcher raised questions about pollution from a big strip mine in the county. "The Lincoln Standard has adopted an editorial stance that will support efforts to keep the county clean and green," the editorial said. "It bothers us when Lincoln County residents tell us stories of businesses conducting business in a way that damages our appearance." (Read more)
Butcher, who developed a group of community papers for the Post in suburban Maryland, told West Virginia Media that he wants his papers to provide news at a very local level. “A community paper is about the community and the people in the community,” he said. “It’s about what’s going on in the churches, it’s what’s going on in the schools and down to the elementary school level.” Butcher is a native of Lincoln County, and president and founder of Lincoln County Friends of the Arts, a nonprofit organization started last year. He runs a landscaping business in Florida but travels to the county monthly to tend to his ventures.
Friday, April 20, 2007
National Summit on Journalism in Rural America opens in Kentucky
The National Summit on Journalism in Rural America began last night at the Shaker Village of Pleasant Hill, Ky., and continues through midday tomorrow. From left: Dee Davis of the Center for Rural Strategies; John Rosenberg, former director of the Appalachian Research and Defense Fund; Brian Mann of North Country Radio, Bill Bishop of The Daily Yonder and Courtney Lowery of New West.
In opening remarks, Al Cross, director of the Institute for Rural Journalism and Community Issues, said the Summit is aimed at creating a national community of rural journalists and helping them serve their communities. For a copy of the program, click here. Following are links to Friday's presentations.
Research: A Survey of Training Backgrounds and Needs at Rural Newspapers in the United States and Threats Faced by Rural Newspapers (video of both presentations)
Issues Facing Rural America: Policy and politics (video)
How three newspaper chains meet the bottom line and provide good journalism on rural issues (video)
Covering rural issues and exploring alternative ownership forms with an independent publisher who sold to, and works for, a new kind of chain; and three independent editors and publishers (video) Also: "Thriving in a world of box stores and chain papers," by John Wylie, who was scheduled but couldn't attend.
Following are most of Cross's remarks:
As far as we can tell, this is the first event of its kind, and it comes at a critical time for both journalism and rural America. Why are we calling it a summit? You were invited to this gathering because we thought each you had something to contribute to a critical deliberation – on how to address the needs of rural America through journalism.
Most of you are in journalism, including the academic side, but many of you labor in the field of research and public policy for rural areas. We think this interesting mix of people -- from 20 states and organizations that touch all 50 states -- will help us all learn some things in the next day or so, and collectively come up with ideas about helping journalism address rural issues.
The summit is needed because the communities of rural America face many challenges, and are often not well served by journalism. Chain ownership is increasing, and that’s not always bad, as some speakers this afternoon will show, but it’s not always good, either. Metropolitan newspapers are cutting back on their circulation and coverage in rural areas, most recently in Georgia and Texas, and rural news outlets often have difficulty helping their communities deal with issues that come at them from state capitals, Washington, other cities, and sometimes halfway around the world, in our increasingly globalized economy.
Globalization has made rural economic development more difficult; lack of broadband has kept the promise of the Internet unfulfilled in many places; the No Child Left Behind Act has presented new challenges for rural schools; increased activity by extractive industries has heightened concerns about the environment; and rural health still suffers from issues of accessibility and affordability.
I’ll leave the policy details to Brian Dabson of the Rural Policy Research Institute, and the politics to Brian Mann and Bill Bishop, who will moderate their panel. Before we proceed, though, a few words about rural journalism.
When we brought this brainchild into the world three years ago, “rural journalism” was an unfamiliar term. Is it the same as community journalism? No, because there is community journalism, and lots of it, in the cities and suburbs – and metropolitan papers are becoming more community-oriented as they scramble to maintain readership and turn the Internet into their friend.
Is rural journalism what you might think of first, the country weeklies? Yes, but not solely. By our count, there are 740 daily newspapers published outside metropolitan areas of the United States, ranging from the Bisbee Daily Review in Arizona, circulation 738, all the way up to the Northeast Mississippi Daily Journal in Tupelo, circulation 35,000, and represented at the Summit by Joe Rutherford, the Journal’s editorial-page editor, from whom you will hear later today.
And is rural journalism just in newspapers? No, because despite the recent concentration of ownership in radio, many rural stations still have news departments – and some of them are even getting putting that news into print, as well as online. And increasingly, public radio is providing much of the broadcast journalism for rural areas.
So, that is rural journalism. But what is rural journalism about? Overwhelmingly, it’s purely local. My friend Larry Timbs, who teaches journalism at Winthrop University, wrote a good book on rural and community journalism, called The World Ends at The County Line.
Because that reminds editors to maintain their local focus, which is their franchise, it’s a snappy title. But the world never really ended at the county line – and especially does not now, when American workers compete in a globalized economy and American youth are sent to all parts of the world to risk and lose their lives defending the nation's interests, real or perceived.
So, one thing we try to do at the Institute for Rural Journalism and Community Issues is help rural reporters and editors grasp those economic, environmental, educational and health-care issues that some at them from afar. We also try to point out examples of good rural journalism, in our Rural Blog and the Good Works section of our Web site, RuralJournalism.org. And that’s why we established the Tom and Pat Gish Award to honor folks who demonstrate the courage, tenacity and integrity that is so often needed in rural journalism in order to render necessary public service through. You will hear from a winner of that award later today.
Most of us in this room know that it is more difficult to be a forthright, diligent, independent and ethical journalist in a rural community than an urban one, because, as my compadre Chris Waddle likes to say, community journalism is relationship journalism. Those of us who have worked in rural radio and newspapers know that our readers and listeners often don’t separate the personal from the professional when it comes to relationships.
And in much of rural America, there are threats to the economic underpinning of its journalism. Liz Hansen and Deborah Givens of Eastern Kentucky University will talk about that in a few minutes.
Folks in rural communities are accustomed to obstacles, but it’s a trade-off for natural beauty and laid-back lifestyle. That’s one reason we’re meeting at the Shaker Village of Pleasant Hill. It’s not the easiest place to get to or to navigate, but it evokes the beauty and spirit of rural America.
Those who are able to overcome the obstacles in rural journalism, and provide good public service to their communities, don’t really have a community of their own. There’s an International Society of Weekly Newspaper Editors, but that leaves out the dailies, and the main editors’ groups don’t admit the weeklies. Maybe there needs to be a Society of Community Newspaper Editors, because I know lots of weekly and small daily editors – and some of them are in this room – who could hold their own with metro counterparts.
I often say that there are plenty of good journalists in rural America, and many who could be better, but they suffer from the isolation that defines rurality. They don’t get enough opportunities to rub elbows and share experiences. Technology now makes that more possible, but there’s no replacement for personal contact. We hope this Summit will be a catalyst to help create a national community of rural journalists, and help them help each other to serve their communities and rural America as a whole.
Finally, we must say thanks to the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, which made the Summit and the Institute possible; to the University of Kentucky, which gives the Institute a home; and to Farm Foundation and the Ethics and Excellence in Journalism Foundation, which are providing additional support for the Summit.
Wednesday, April 18, 2007
Edwards, other Democrats go rural; are there 'taters where they dig?
"Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards may come across as more Southern preppy than down-home, but this week he's playing up his small-town roots in a major pitch to capture rural votes," reports Rob Christensen of the News & Observer in Raleigh. The former North Carolina senator is making several rural-oriented stops and proposing new spending for for rural small businesses, education and health care. "Rural America has been ignored for too long," Edwards said in Nashville, where he turned a planned political rally into a remembrance for Virginia Tech victims. "Across America, too many small towns have turned into ghost towns." (Photo by John Partipilo, The Tennessean)
Meanwhile, Sen. Hillary Clinton, who has many rural constituents in upstate New York, is stumping in rural Iowa, as pictured in The Rural Blog recently. Edwards trailed Clinton in a Tennessee poll 18 days ago, but his message resonated with small farmers in the Nashville area, reports Jared Allen of the Nashville City Paper, an alternative daily. (Read more)
"Bolstered by polls and midterm election results, Democrats think for the first time in a decade they can be more competitive in the countryside, long a President Bush stronghold," Christensen writes. "Starting in 1994, rural voters began voting Republican in ever-increasing numbers. Republicans say it is because their platform is in keeping with the conservative values of rural America." But the trend was nearly reversed in 2006, when the rural vote was 51 percent Republican and 48 percent Democratic. The GOP's 3-point margin was far less than the 19-point edge it had in 2004, so rural areas may have gained leverage, said Dee Davis, president of the nonpartisan Center for Rural Strategies in Whitesburg, Ky.
Davis told Christensen that Democrats have written off rural America because they didn't think they could win, and Republicans have taken it for granted. Thus, rural America has been largely ignored in national politics, though "Rural areas lag behind most of the country on a broad array of statistics -- poverty rates, education, income, growth and health. Of the 250 poorest U.S. counties, 244 are rural," Christensen notes. He adds that "Edwards has long emphasized his small-town rural roots," but says his strategy also makes political sense because "Rural voters make up 40 percent of the voters in the key caucuses in Iowa and the first 2008 primaries in New Hampshire and South Carolina." (Read more)
Ethanol may increase ozone, but also help reduce global warming
Ethanol is all the rage, but it may create more ground-level ozone than gasoline, creating negative health effects, according to a Stanford University study. Ozone, a major ingredient of smog, harms lungs and weakens immune systems even at low levels. Increased ozone from ethanol would create more deaths, particularly in areas that already have heavy air pollution. The study looked at E85 ethanol, 85 percent ethanol and 15 percent gasoline, which emits less greenhouses gas than other types, some researchers say.
About 5,000 premature deaths occur each year because of ozone exposure, Mark Z. Jacobson, author of the study, told the Los Angeles Times. “Ethanol is being promoted as a clean and renewable fuel that will reduce global warming and air pollution. But our results show that a high blend of ethanol poses an equal or greater risk to public health than gasoline, which already causes significant health damage.” His study predicts a 4 percent increase in ozone-related deaths nationwide.
Jennifer Wood of the Environmental Protection Agency told the Times that the agency's experience contradicts the study. “The increased use of renewable fuels, like E85, will significantly reduce greenhouse gas, benzene and carbon monoxide emissions while strengthening our nation's energy security and supporting American farming communities,” she said. “The pollutants that contribute to ozone, which may slightly increase as a result of additional ethanol use, can be managed by the suite of effective tools available under the Clean Air Act.” (Read more)
A separate report by the Natural Resources Defense Council argues that biofuels can do more good than harm. “On average a gallon of ethanol produced by the corn-based industry in the U.S. today reduces global warming pollution by 18 percent for every gallon of gasoline displaced. And newer technologies will allow for ethanol production that cuts emissions by more than 80 percent. On the other end of the spectrum are inefficient, environmentally unfriendly production practices such as cutting down rainforests for biomass or burning coal to power ethanol plants that could potentially increase global warming pollution,” the report says, calling for the creation of a “green index ” to measure environmental impact of each fuel. (Read more)
Columbia professor apologizes for 'Appalachian inbreeding' remark
"A well-regarded Columbia University linguist" has apologized for saying "Appalachian inbreeding" in The New Yorker magazine, writes Lee Mueller, the Lexington Herald-Leader's Eastern Kentucky reporter.
"Interviewed by writer John Colapinto for an article titled The Interpreter, Columbia assistant professor Peter Gordon defended the intelligence of an Amazonian tribe he had been studying: 'Besides ... if there is some kind of Appalachian inbreeding or retardation going on, you'd see it in hairlines, facial features, motor ability. It bleeds all over. They [the Piraha] don't show any of that.' The quote splattered against academic computer screens in Appalachia this week like a large cud of chewing tobacco."
Jack Wright of Ohio University wrote, ""Appalachia has long been fair game as the nation's whipping boy. . . . In Appalachia, we call this cultural strip-mining." Penny Messinger, a history teacher at Daemen College in Amherst, N.Y, wrote Gordon,"I eagerly await your 'evidence' documenting the tradition of Appalachian inbreeding/incest." She told others that the episode was ironic, because "These stories continue unabated, even as Don Imus is finally shown the door for his well-documented bigotry."
Gordon told Mueller he did not mean to offend anyone. "It was just a reference," he said. "I'm really sorry. I really was just talking about a tribe in Brazil." But that and other apologies didn't stop the objections.
Rodger Cunningham, a history teacher at Alice Lloyd College in southeastern Kentucky, wrote a letter to The New Yorker asking, "How can a professor at Columbia in the 21st century use such a stereotypical ethnic reference so casually it doesn't even register consciously, and how did the remark then pass unchallenged both by Mr. Colapinto and by the editorial staff of The New Yorker?" (Read more)
Mueller, a native of the region, reports that "Skins were thicker in Pike County, where the 31st Hillbilly Days festival begins Thursday. The festival, a spoof of the region's backwoods heritage, shares half of its proceeds with Shriners children's hospitals." He quotes Chamber of Commerce President Brad Hall: "No one wants to be called a hillbilly by an outsider. But people who grow up and live here call ourselves that, warmly."
Groups file suit to put gray wolf back on endangered species list
Three groups are fighting to put the gray wolf back on the endangered species list after it was delisted in the western Great Lakes states in March. The Humane Society, Animal Protection Institute and Help Our Wolves Live claim the gray wolf is still endangered in Minnesota, Wisconsin and Michigan, where last month management of the species was turned over to state natural resource agencies and tribal governments, reports Bob Meyer of Brownfield Network. (Read more)
“The lawsuit alleges that federal officials have misinterpreted environmental laws and crafted a flawed recovery plan.” With gray wolves off the endangered species list, their population could be decimated by hunters and farmers shooting the animals to protect their livestock, the groups said. The gray wolf was put on the endangered species list in 1974 because it was “persecuted to the brink of extinction,” they said, reports Bob Von Sternberg of the Star Tribune in Minneapolis-St. Paul.
“Removing a plant or animal from the federal endangered species list has been an exceptionally rare event,” writes Von Sternberg. “Before gray wolf (also known as the timber wolf) was removed, in the 33-year history of the list, only 16 species had recovered enough to be removed, most notably the peregrine falcon and the American alligator.” (Read more)
Libertarian group calls for an end to government farm spending
The Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank, has called for an end to all farm programs though a single government buy-out. In spite of the massive cost, savings would offset it long-term, Cato argues. It also says an end to subsidies would create better domestic farm productivity and be more economical though use of cheaper imports, reports Peter Shinn of Brownfield Network. “What we are suggesting in terms of the buy-out is purely a political solution. We do not see on a moral standpoint that we should provide money for farmers -- this is a bribe, pure and simple,” Sallie James, co-author of the proposal, told Brownfield.
American Farm Bureau Federation Chief Economist Bob Young told Brownfield that the kind of buyout suggested by Cato would be too expensive -- plus, current farm programs don’t cost as much money as critics think. “‘We're going to talk about spending less than $25 per capita per year for a safety net for what I would view as being a critically important feature of our nation's economy,’ said Young, adding that the Cato Institute's farm program buy-out recommendation is another example of how agriculture has become ‘a favorite punching bag’ of those looking to cut federal spending.” (Read more)
Farm Service Agency offers farm loans to socially disadvantaged in Ind.
The federal Farm Service Agency in Indiana is encouraging socially disadvantaged groups get into farming though its farm-ownership loans. It is seeking ethnic minorities and women who want to buy or lease land in the agency’s inventory or get a loan to buy land in the open market. The FSA is also offering other sorts of loans and technical assistance to help these individuals get started. All Indiana counties are eligible for the service, reports the Rensselaer (Ind.) Republican. (Read more)
“FSA programs are available to all producers but we would like to increase participation by traditionally underrepresented groups in all program areas,” Kenny Culp, the state’s executive director, told Brownfield Network. “These loans help to encourage and assist them in owning and operating their own farms and ranches, participate in agricultural programs, and become integral parts of the agricultural community,” Culp said. (Read more)
Tuesday, April 17, 2007
Weekly serving Blacksburg finds awful, international story at its door
Journalists descended upon Blacksburg, Va., yesterday to cover the deadliest mass shooting in U.S. history. The closest thing to a local, traditional, non-campus newspaper in Blacksburg is The News-Messenger of nearby Christiansburg, which normally publishes on Wednesdays and Saturdays.
The News-Messenger's Web site has a story by Editor Amanda Bolen, Heather Bell and Don Cash that begins, "Joining Monday's howling winds were the piercing sirens from emergency vehicles rushing to and from the Virginia Tech campus. Booming over both these sounds were the words, 'This is an emergency. This is an emergency. Seek shelter indoors,' repeating every few minutes over loudspeakers on the VT campus. By the end of the day Monday, there were 33 confirmed fatalities." (Read more)
The story made more than most of the possibility that the mass killings were not related to a double killing in a dormitory about two hours earlier: "As of Monday evening, police would not say definitively if the deceased gunman was also responsible for the shooting deaths of a male and a female victim in Virginia Tech's West Ambler Johnston Hall dormitory approximately two hours before the shootings in Norris Hall." Officials announced this morning that one of the guns found on the mass killer was used in the dorm shooting.
Blacksburg has a population of 40,000, but is only 30 miles from Roanoke, and its daily paper is The Roanoke Times, circulation 100,000. The News-Messenger has a circulation of 7,000, in combination with the Radford News Journal, an edition for the other college town (home of Radford University, a small, liberal-arts state school) in Montgomery County. The papers are part of Main Street Newspapers, which publishes weeklies in the area around Roanoke. For more about the company, click here. For a rundown of larger papers' coverage, from Editor & Publisher, click here.
Banks oppose wider financial-services authority for Farm Credit System
The two main lobbying organizations for bankers are fighting the Farm Credit System's request to Congress for more lending authority, reports Sara Wyant of Agri-Pulse Communications.
"The American Bankers Association and the Independent Community Bankers Association made it perfectly clear during the House Subcommittee on Conservation, Credit, Energy and Research hearing Tuesday that they do not want any additional lending power granted to the Farm Credit System," Wyant writes. Bankers dislike FCS's “Horizon project” to expand ways Farm Credit Banks can make loans.
The Farm Credit System's lobbying arm, the Farm Credit Council, says it is hamstrung by "decades-old law" and "pointed out that community banks have earned record profits in recent years at the same time the Farm Credit System has grown," Wyant writes. "In fact, Farm Credit often works with commercial banks to finance large projects. As of Feb. 15, there were $14 billion worth of loans in which the banks collaborated with Farm Credit institutions. As Farm Credit has financed many ethanol plants in rural areas, community banks have benefited from the growth that’s developed in small towns, FCC noted."
Wyant opines, "With all of the new growth opportunities that could develop in rural America, you would think there would be plenty of borrowers to go around for both bankers and farm credit institutions. And in many cases, local banks already cooperate with Farm Credit to launch or expand rural businesses. But you’d never know that from listening to some of the rhetoric." (Read more)
Weekly editor in Calif. thinks his reporting may have put him in danger
Early in the morning of March 7, Sanger (Calif.) Herald Editor Dick Sheppard "was nearly hit by a car. The editor believes the incident could be retaliation for reporting on city officials' ties with local developers," and the police chief says it appears to have been intentional, says The Fresno Bee.
"Sanger authorities asked the Fresno County Sheriff's Department to look into the . . . incident," saying an outside agency should do the investigation, Tim Eberly reports. "Sheppard, 70, said he believes the incident was not an accident. Since he took the job two years ago, he said, he has been threatened in other ways. He says he has fielded two threatening phone calls, and his office was broken into and ransacked, although nothing was taken. He reported one of the calls and the break-in to police." (Bee photo by Kurt Hegre)
Sheppard said in a March 22 story, headlined "A drive by message to the editor of the Sanger Herald," that the incident "might have been an intentional act of intimidation in response to aggressive reporting in the Herald . . . investigating city officials' involvement and relationships with developers." He told Eberly that some stories have bene publushed and some are still being reported.
Sanger is a town of 19,000 on the border of the urbanized area east of Fresno and the farmland that borders the foothills of the Sierra Nevada in eastern Fresno County. Sheppard, a former broadcast reporter, said he is the only full-time journalist at his newspaper, circulation 17,000, but employs some Fresno State University journalism students. (Read more)
Environmental group issues annual list of Ten Rivers at Risk
American Rivers, which says it exists to "protect and promote our rivers as valuable assets that are vital to our health, safety and quality of life," each year names a list of 10 endangered rivers. The list varies widely from year to year, and its empirical basis seems rather limited, but the list serves as a reminder to the nation and the areas involved, most of them rural, of the varied threats to streams and the wider environment.
The streams on this year's list are the Santa Fe River in New Mexico, San Mateo Creek in California, the Iowa River and a main tributary, the Cedar River; the Upper Delaware River in New York, the White Salmon River in Washington state, the
Birmingham News wins Pulitzer for community-college corruption series
Brett Blackledge's series of stories on corruption in Alabama's community colleges, many of them in rural areas, won The Birmingham News the Pulitzer Prize for investigative reporting yesterday.
The 14-month series began with reports by Blackledge on the resignation of the head of the Alabama Fire College in Tuscaloosa. The paper quickly revealed that the chief "helped set up tens of thousands of dollars in contracts and scholarships for his children and those of administrators who run the state's two-year college system," and that led to other reports on the system and its colleges, and to the firing of its chancellor.
"Blackledge's entry had been a finalist for the Pulitzer prize for public service. The Pulitzer board, which administers the award, moved the entry into the investigative reporting category, where it was awarded the prize." Jeff Hansen of the News reports. Publisher Victor Hanson III "announced that The News would match Blackledge's Pulitzer Prize award of $10,000." (Read more)
Blackledge, 43, a graduate of Louisiana State University and a native of Baton Rouge, told his celebrating colleagues, ""What's remarkable about this award is it basically affirms what we do every day. There's nothing magical about this," he said. "It's 98 percent of the stuff we do every day. It's extraordinary, yet very ordinary." He gave credit to the sources who tipped him off to corruption in the system.
"An hour after the news of the Pulitzer, Blackledge got another call -- one of the kind that had led to his remarkable Monday afternoon," Hansen writes. "It was from a new source in the two-year college systems. The source hadn't heard of the Pulitzer. He was calling to tell Blackledge about a questionable land deal he had heard about at one of Alabama's community colleges." Here are excerpts from Blackledge's stories:
May 21: The chancellor "and his immediate family received more than $560,000 for jobs and contracts they held last year with the state's two-year colleges." ... June 14: "Half of the eight elected state school board members who are reviewing jobs held by relatives of the chancellor . . . also have relatives paid by the system." ... July 14, with Kim Chandler: "At least 14 college presidents, deans or other administrators have relatives employed within the two-year college system." ... July 23: "Contractors who received work from two-year colleges helped former Postsecondary Chancellor Roy Johnson build a $1 million home."
Monday, April 16, 2007
Kentucky's unique fine-arts extension program places second local agent
"When most people think of an extension agent, they think of someone who can offer advice about the right kind of soil to grow corn in, or the best way to can green beans. Cora Hughes is a different kind of agent. She knows a lot about opera and theater but not much about tractors and crops," writes Mike James of The Independent in Ashland, Ky., reporting on the new fine-arts extension agent in adjoining Greenup County.
Hughes is the second fine-arts extension agent placed in a county office by the University of Kentucky, in a two-year-old, cooperative effort between the land-grant school's College of Agriculture and College of Fine Arts. There is no other program quite like it; some other states have fine-arts extension programs, but Kentucky's is the only one that locates agents in county offices. The first was in Pike County, at the state's eastern tip; Greenup County is at the state's northeastern extremity.
The agents are liaisons and coordinators for arts with schools, artisans and arts councils. Hughes "has been here for a month and has done more than I've seen done (for the arts) in the past five years," David Deborde, a Greenup County High School language arts teacher, told Josey Montana McCoy of The Kentucky Kernel, the student-run campus daily. (Read more)
James reports for the Ashland daily that Hughes is discussing with the Ashland-based Jesse Stuart Foundation a possible play about Stuart, who was a beloved Kentucky author from Greenup County. "The goal is to have it ready for production at the Greenbo Lake [State Park] amphitheater next fall," James writes. "Countywide choruses for children and adults are in the planning stages, too." (Read more)
Clean Coal Opportunities for Appalachia conference is next week
The Appalachian Regional Commission will hold a "Clean Coal Opportunities for Appalachia" conference April 24 and 25 in Lexington, Ky. Hosted by the Commonwealth of Kentucky, ARC says the event will explore "the potential of clean-coal technologies to stimulate business development and job creation in Appalachia, "and "review the latest research and thinking associated with the clean-coal industry."
Conference speakers will include Mike Eastman of the U.S. Department of Energy’s National Energy Technology Laboratory, who will address global and national trends in clean coal; David Conover of the National Commission on Energy Policy, who will discuss the congressional landscape regarding national energy policy in a carbon-constrained world; Richard Bajura, director of West Virginia University’s National Research Center for Coal and Energy, who will speak on generating electricity with clean coal technologies; John Rich, president of Waste Management and Processors Inc., who will provide strategic perspectives on coal project financing; and John Novak of the Electric Power Research Institute, who will speak on Appalachian clean coal technologies and carbon sequestration.
Other session topics will include coal-mine safety, mine modernization and environmental management; the coal-industry supply chain in Appalachia; and "Emerging Climate Change Policy." The conference will be held at the Radisson Plaza Hotel in downtown Lexington. Complete agenda, registration, and lodging information is available by clicking here. The registration fee is $150. For more information, contact ARC at cleancoal@arc.gov or 202-884-7754.
Saturday, April 14, 2007
Free-land schemes in Kansas attract newcomers, but also some 'locals'
More than a dozen communities in Kansas are giving away land to people who will build a house on the property and live in the community. The programs are aimed at stemming population loss by attracting newcomers, but in many cases they attarct people from the local area, reports Rural Policy Matters, the monthly newsletter of the Rural School and Community Trust.
"Housing stock is tight around here, so the program has helped people who were already here or nearby build a new house. That in turn has freed up existing housing. We've seen some of our growth in people who have moved in and bought existing housing that became available because of this program," said Roger Hrabe of the Rooks County Economic Development Office in Plainville. "It doesn't cost that much less to build a house here than most other places, so the free lot is incentive to local people. But our existing housing is much less expensive than comparable homes in high growth places, so that's appealing to people who want to get out of the rat race" and move from more populated areas.
Requirements vary among communities. "Most want applicants to make a physical inspection of the lot or meet with the town council," the newsletter reports. "That requirement helps screen out people who are not all that interested, but whose application might keep a lot tied up for several months," said Brian Garrels, city administrator of Eureka. "However, for people who want to participate, the city is willing to join with them to make it work," the newsletter reports, quoting Garrels: "We want to increase our population, so we'll be creative in helping people make the move." (Read more)
Virginia towns seek to be new home of the Museum of the Confederacy
The city council of Lexington, Va., voted 4-2 late Thursday night "to ask the Museum of the Confederacy in Richmond to consider moving to Lexington . . . despite unified opposition from the black community" in Lexington, reports Rex Bowman of the Richmond Times-Dispatch. Lexington was "among a dozen Virginia localities to formally invite the museum to consider moving from its cramped quarters in downtown Richmond," reports Jay Conley of The Roanoke Times. Bowman, however, reports only that more than a dozen, including some outside Virginia, have "expressed an interest." Sunday is the deadline for proposals.
Marilyn Alexander (left) and other opponents at "a spirited public hearing" in Lexington said putting the museum there "would open racial wounds in the city's small black community. About 10 percent of Lexington's 7,000 residents are black," Bowman reports. "Others, though, argued that it would be a major economic boon to the city's downtown."
"In the end, economic realities triumphed over emotions," writes Roberta Anderson on the Web site of The News-Gazette, Lexington's weekly paper, circulation 8,600. She focuses on history teacher and senior Councilman Jim Gianniny, whose motion "was accompanied by an emotional statement stating he had spent many sleepless nights considering the positions of those both for and against the MOC. . . . Gianniny said he has always tried to educate his students about the failures and injustices committed by the country, the state and Rockbridge County when it came to granting equal rights to African Americans. But the harsh economic realities of the future financial obligations of the city, including millions that must be spent on a new school, new courthouse, upgrades to the sewage treatment plant, additions to the jail and upgrades to the water system, as well as a downtown currently with many empty storefronts, swayed him." (Photo by Geoff Dudley, The News-Gazette)
Anderson's story conveys the tension at the hearing, centering on the Confederate battle flags that are sold at the museum and for many people are a badge of racism and slavery. One man "wondered if the MOC has been honest about its verbalized intention to drop its image as the museum of the Lost Cause and take on a broader historical perspective," Anderson writes of George Pryde, without revealing his race.
“They seem to be telling us one thing and their members another,” Pryde said. “This flag has become the divisive point. It has become the lightning rod. If you bring the museum to Lexington, don’t bring this flag with it.” Anderson reports, "Somehow, that flag ended up on the floor and was retrieved by Michael Pursley, who identified himself as the commander of the local unit of the Sons of the Confederate Veterans. 'I am graciously going to pick this sacred flag off the floor,' Pursley said, a comment that caused an African American man sitting in the front row to declare 'I gotta go,' and abruptly left."
The Times story and graphics describe the museum's collection of Civil War items, the world's largest; and its current location, surrounded by the medical center of Virginia Commonwealth University. "Richmond officials say the city has no money or alternative location for the museum," Conley reports.
Friday, April 13, 2007
Southern attorneys general discuss meth, including Mexican imports
Southern attorneys general met in Richmond, Va., yesterday to discuss the problem of methamphetamine coming from Mexico. AGs from Virginia, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Maryland, Mississippi and Tennessee attended a National Association of Attorneys General meeting to discuss a plan for fighting creation, distribution and abuse of the drug, reports Pamela Stallsmith of the Richmond Times-Dispatch.
“Many states -- including Virginia -- have enacted laws to restrict over-the-counter sales of cold medicines containing pseudoephedrine, a key ingredient of meth, to crack down on home labs where people cook the illegal concoction,” writes Stallsmith. “However, that has resulted in an increased amount of the substance being smuggled across the border from Mexico -- as much as 90 percent coming from outside the country.”
Virginia Attorney General Bob McDonnell described meth as “a poor man's crack” and said, “This is probably the ugliest drug to come down the pike in 40 years.” He told reporters how meth creates brain damage, harms internal organs, damages skin and causes teeth to fall out, reports Stallsmith. While the nation’s efforts are largely focused on drug enforcement, one lawyer said that treatment of those with drug abuse problems is also essential. (Read more)
Pa. trying to track, pay dairy farmers to control runoff into Chesapeake
The state of Pennsylvania is trying to get dairy farmers to reduce manure runoff into the Chesapeake Bay watershed "by letting them apply for pollution credits that can be sold to developers needing to build sewage treatment plants," reports Felicity Barringer of The New York Times.
Virginia has a similar program. Pennsylvania's has started slowly because "It has been difficult to track agricultural runoff from specific farms," Barringer writes. "The state wants farmers to do things like build barriers to contain runoff and plant crops year-round so their roots will prevent the soil from washing away in big storms. The state will then estimate how much pollution is eliminated through the changes."
The bay "has been in biological decline for three decades, in large part because of manure and other agricultural pollutants," Barringer notes. "In March, the Chesapeake Bay Program, a federal-state partnership, reported a 25 percent decline from 2005 to 2006 in the underwater grasses that are the anchor of the bay’s ecosystem. Algae thrives on the nitrogen in manure and other waste products and the phosphorus in fertilizer, becoming so abundant that it blocks sunlight and, by consuming oxygen as it decays, threatens to suffocate the grasses and other underwater life."
Runoff in the bay's 64,000-square-mile watershed "is largely from urban and suburban sources rather than from farms," Barringer reports. "It is much easier to track reductions from those sources — for example, filtering out the harmful nutrients at sewage treatment plants — than it is to measure the benefits of a farmer’s planting his crops or grazing his cattle farther from streams." (Read more)
Small dairy farmers struggling in the Northeast bank on new protection act
In the last year, farmers have spent $16 to $18 producing each hundredweight of milk, while being paid an average of $12 for the product. The price to feed their cows has also risen because of a spike in grain prices, due to ethanol demand. Freshman representative Kirsten Gillibrand of New York is pushing for her first piece of legislation, the American Dairy Farmer Protection Act, to be attached to the Farm Bill. Although not well known for it, her state produces 7.2 percent of the nation’s milk, third behind California and Wisconsin. The Northeast also consumes more milk than any other area of the country, reports Sarah Sutton of the Post Star in Glens Falls, N.Y.
“While her long-term goal for the dairy industry is to facilitate a complete overhaul of the dairy pricing system, the congresswoman's initial attempt to improve conditions for dairy farmers includes increasing the floor on the price of milk, extending the federal Milk Income Loss Credit program and doubling the base amount of milk farmers can produce to be eligible for subsidies,” writes Sutton.
Gillibrand also plans to support sources of biofuel that do not use animal feedstock. She says her bill would support small dairy farms, and that she expects it to be resisted by large agribusinesses in the Midwest and West. She said small farms are essential in case of a bioterrorist attack, because large amounts of food could easily be compromised by hitting large farms. (Read more)
Nebraska must move fast to stem rural areas' decline, expert advises
"Nebraska towns that want to buck the rural decline must make sure they remain or become great, affordable places to live and have great places to visit nearby. And their community leaders must act now lest the statistical tide of depopulation overwhelm their efforts," reports The Associated Press, rewriting a Lincoln Journal Star story on a presentation by Larry Swanson, director of the O'Connor Center for the Rocky Mountain West, at the Grassland Foundation's annual talks about conservation and sustainability.
Swanson "said Nebraska cities with fewer than 10,000 residents have the best chance of reversing trends -- if they move with great dispatch," AP reports. "He also said growth potential exists for a few smaller communities that are near such truly unique natural amenities as the Sandhills," the Journal Star reported.
"Swanson blitzed his listeners with a series of slides showing population, aging, income and other trends in the central Great Plains," wrote the Journal Star's Joe Duggan. "Forty-two of Nebraska’s most rural, isolated counties have lost population since the 2000 Census, he said. Such counties are not only seeing people leave, they’re experiencing death rates that are higher than birth rates. That means that by 2015, many of those counties will see growth in just one age group: 65 and older." (Read more)
Flyover of mountaintop-removal strip mines postponed, group says
A series of flights over mountaintop-removal strip mines, scheduled for April 21 from an Eastern Kentucky airport, has been postponed because of disagreement about new Federal Aviation Administration regulations, says Kentuckians for the Commonwealth, which opposes the mining.
"Because of a complicated set of circumstances that involves new FAA regulations that may or may not govern events of this type and pilot certification, a difference in interpretation of those regulations by the FAA and pilots, the unwillingness of pilots we had contracted with to meet these guidelines and some unclear reporting requirements, the Flyover Festival has been postponed until we can get these details worked out and new pilots lined up," KFTC said today. "We are committed to having this event and are seeking clarity about the regulations and working with qualified pilots on their available dates. We are working to have the event soon and hope that we might have a rescheduled date within a week or so."
The flights were to have been from the Big Sandy Regional Airport, on a reclaimed mountaintop-removal mine site between Prestonsburg, Paintsville and Inez, Ky. More information can be found on the KFTC web site, www.kftc.org.
Gannett sells four dailies to GateHouse for $410 million; both clustering
Gannett Co. Inc. is selling the Rockford Register Star (circulation 65,000) in Illinois, the Norwich Bulletin (26,000) in Connecticut, the Observer-Dispatch (43,000) in Utica, N.Y., and The Herald-Dispatch (30,000) in Huntington, W.Va., to GateHouse Media for $410 million.
GateHouse, based in Fairport, N.Y., owns 84 daily papers in 19 states. "The company went public in 2006 and is winning praise from Wall Street even as other newspaper companies see their share prices fall because of declining circulation and weak advertising sales.," reports the Reuters news service. "Analysts see GateHouse, with papers located mostly in smaller communities, as being safe from those problems."
Gannett, the largest U.S. newspaper publisher, said it is selling the papers as part of a plan to emphasize regional clusters that save money. The clusters typically include both daily and weekly newspapers. Jim Ross, community conversation editor of The Herald-Dispatch, writes that GateHouse "has operated under the radar, collecting small-town newspapers that focus on 'hyperlocal' news," and that Fortress Investment Group, a private equity firm that owns 56 percent of the company, "discovered that newspaper readers in small towns and suburbs are loyal and plentiful. It goes after publications with little or no competition and consolidates them into regional clusters." (Read more)
"The Register Star is Gannett's only paper in Illinois. Not counting the pending purchase of the Connecticut papers, the Norwich paper is Gannett's sole property in that state," reports Reuters. GateHouse said current executives will remain in place. (Read more)
Thursday, April 12, 2007
Cartoonist at 18,500-circ. paper in Georgia wins Sigma Delta Chi Award
Mike Lester of the Rome News-Tribune in Georgia, circulation 18,500, won the Sigma Delta Chi Award for editorial cartooning for 2006, the Society of Professional Journalists announced today.
Few papers with circulation under 20,000 have editorial cartoonists, a point noted by the judges. "We felt Mike Lester's editorial cartoons for the Rome News-Tribune showed a unique, breezy and consistent style," they wrote. "Each panel was strong and wry while commenting on important social issues. There is humor but it is not disrespectful. The cartoons have broad appeal. We applaud the Rome News-Tribune, a small newspaper, for having a full-time editorial cartoonist on staff."
The News-Tribune is part of News Publishing Co., owned by the Mooney family of Rome. It also publishes seven editorially independent weeklies in northwest Georgia and Cherokee County, Alabama. It hired Lester as its first cartoonist in 2002, and he tackles local, state, national and international topics.
"Being able to do cartoon commentary on purely local matters adds a dimension otherwise missing from syndicated offerings," the paper's editorial-page editor, Pierre-Rene Noth, said in an e-mail interview. "Promoting and sparking reader participation in the day's topics is very much a function of a newspaper editorial page and cartoons are great way to get something going quickly, at a glance. Besides, word editorials poking fun at life's foibles are far more difficult to do than a sketch … and harder to plow through. Cartoons are a tool born in newspapers and still largely unique to them."
The Sigma Delta Chi Awards were established in 1932 by the organization now known as SPJ. The current program began in 1939, when Sigma Delta Chi presented its first Distinguished Service Awards. When Sigma Delta Chi changed its name to SPJ in the 1980s, the original name was retained for the awards and SPJ's foundation. The awards will be presented July 20 during the annual Sigma Delta Chi Awards banquet at the National Press Club in
Poverty doesn’t make bad parents, say critics of child-welfare services
Statistics show a strong correlation between poverty and child neglect, but those who have come out of poverty and those who live in it say being poor doesn’t necessarily make a person a bad parent. According to data from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, children living below the poverty level are 20 times more likely to be maltreated. “The work raised a fundamental question: At what point, if any, does poverty itself become a form of neglect?” asks the Spokesman-Review in Spokane, Wash.
Donna Beegle grew up in a family of migrant workers, picking fruit and bark for a living, but now has a Ph.D. She told reporter Benjamin Shors that stereotypical views of the poor as unintelligent, lazy, and criminal can threaten families. “The isolation of poverty perpetuates it,” Beegle said. “There is a huge fear of people in poverty. But just because someone doesn't do things the way you do, it doesn't mean they don't care about their child.” Critics of the child-welfare system say it spends money taking children away from their parents that could have been better spent reducing the poverty that is causing the problems. Only one in four children that were not found to be victims of maltreatment received help from child welfare, according to a study reported by federal officials four years ago.
Child-welfare services are seen as a threat by many poor families, rather than an institution that can help them, reports Shors. The Bonagofski family of Rapid Lightning, Idaho, live in a small trailer without running water. Nine people live there, including six children. State law says that their children can't be taken away from them because of poverty alone, but they are constantly under investigation from social workers, whom they have come to resent. “I'm tired of fighting with the government,” the father, Jerry Bonagofski said. “Instead of helping you, they want to hassle you.” (Read more)
Rural institutions should cooperate regionally for economic success
A new report outlines recommendations of what rural areas must do to survive in today’s global economy. “Unlocking Rural Competitiveness: The Role of Regional Clusters,” a federally funded study conducted by Purdue University, Indiana University and the Strategic Development Group Inc., says that rural decision makers should take advantage of nearby urban areas, cooperate within regions to group local industries into clusters and realize that more than agriculture drives their economies.
Rural business succeeds through creating industry clusters, “broad networks of companies, suppliers, service firms, academic institutions, and organizations in related industries that, together, bring new products or services to market,” according to the report. Through this system, educational institutions create knowledge, businesses use that knowledge to create services and products, suppliers provide necessary equipment to create them and marketing distribution brings the product to the consumer. The authors advise that contrary to how some think about rural areas, few are dependent on agriculture. Of 2,000 non-metropolitan counties, only 420 get 15 percent or more of their earnings or employment from farming.
“The researchers created a database, analytical tools and processes to help rural regions throughout the United States assess their economic competitiveness and create developmental strategies. The study also created the Index of Relative Rurality, a numerical value calculated for each of the nation's 3,108 counties. This value shows where each county falls on a rural-urban continuum and helps to identify locations where rural and metro areas connect,” said a press release. For the 227-page report, click here.
Corps finally releases maps of areas that would flood if Ky. dam breaks
After first refusing to release maps that predict flood damage on the Cumberland River if Wolf Creek Dam in Kentucky failed, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has posted the maps online.
The maps were previously displayed at public meetings and in public libraries in communities along the river, but the Corps had resisted posting them online or releasing them to newspapers, citing security concerns," notes The Associated Press. Last month, the Corps said it would post the maps online because "The public's need for knowledge and understanding of the situation partly outweighs the need for security," according to the Corps' Web site.
The dam creates Lake Cumberland, by volume the largest impoundment in the Eastern U.S. The leaky dam is being repaired in a project that will take several years, and the lake level has been lowered. "The maps predict different ranges of inundation, based on variations in how badly the dam would fail and drain the reservoir and how quickly water levels would rise downstream," AP reports. (Read more)
Wednesday, April 11, 2007
Internet helps journalists, including rural ones, compare notes worldwide
What does a speech arguing that journalism must develop a global perspective have to do with rural journalism? They're both about making connections through the Internet -- connections that are creating a global perspective among millions of people around the world and can help rural journalists and their communities find approaches and solutions to their common problems.
"If you have issues in your community, it's not the only community that has those problems," freelance photojournalist Molly Bingham told a crowd last night at the University of Kentucky, where she delivered the 30th annual Joe Creason Lecture -- named for a journalist who connected the disparate parts of Kentucky through his writing in The Courier-Journal when Bingham's family owned the newspaper.
"To present a global perspective, we need to realize that our own global identity is often more important than our national identity," Bingham said. "We have to be aware of our individual narrative and put that aside during reporting. Step out of your narrative and give voice to others' narratives."
Bingham said she supports the new emphasis on local coverage in major media, because it underscores good journalistic values and encourages "good old basic reporting skills. However, I think something beyond that kind of journalism is required. If you get your nose too close to the grindstone, too local, you can miss the big picture. I think this is the time for grappling with the big picture. This is the time for a supra-national journalism that recognizes our identity as global citizens as much – or more - than our national identity."
To read Bingham's speech, click here. For a tribute to Joe Creason, rural journalist, click here.
Ken Ward Jr. explains how he reports and writes about coal-mine safety
If coal-mine safety is an issue in your area, perhaps the best reporter to learn from is Ken Ward Jr. of The Charleston Gazette, circulation 48,000. His series on safety, focusing on individual fatalities rather than disasters, won a medal in the annual contest of Investigative Reporters and Editors. In an interview with Leann Frola of The Poynter Institute, Ward told how he did the series and offered many tips, including several that apply to media outlets of all sizes, even weekly newspapers and small radio stations.
Reporting: The Mine Safety and Health Administration posts the fatality reports on every death in every mine on its Web site, and Ward examined every report for 10 years -- 1996 to 2005. "I read through all of those three times. One to get a feel, two to look for common trends to investigate further and three to build my own database," which he did by filing Freedom of Information Act requests for "data that was behind the online look-up system. Then I put it on Microsoft Access and played with it for a while. I looked at cases where miners were killed and how often those produced citations -- and if the mine had violated some rule that led to the deaths, what kind of fines were paid. No one had done that before in terms of fatality cases. . . . It's not really heavy lifting computer-assisted reporting. I just used Access and Excel."
Ward also examined lawsuits stemming from fatalities and used West Virginia's interlibrary loan system to get specialized information on a host of coal-mine safety issues. "I've always thought one of the first things editors should do when a new reporter walks into a newsroom is say, "Do you have a library card?"
Interviewing: "We really felt that our paper did not intrude on privacy and felt for what they were going through. My personal policy is I didn't call [families]. They knew how to get in touch with the media, and if they wanted to talk, they knew people would listen. I didn't go out of my way to try to bother them. I let the lawyers of the families know we were interested. Some folks wanted to talk and some didn't. It's kind of a difference between the national media folks who parachute in to West Virginia. It doesn't matter if people trust them, because they're doing one story and moving on. But we live here and work here. ... It's just a matter of listening to what they have to say. Usually the folks that want to talk have something to say, and just listening rather than trying to get them to say something that helps your story really works better."
Writing: "The Gazette's writing coach, Kate Long; my editor, Rob Byers; and I made a deliberate decision to smack people in the teeth with the way these guys die. It's often very gruesome. But we just thought it was important to see how brutal it was. We had pictures of miners and their families so that people would have to see them. I think that that's really, really important." (Read more)
Monday, April 9, 2007
It's local budget time, and that means policy decisions; paying attention?
All over the United States, local governments are drafting their budgets for the coming fiscal year. The budget is the basic policy document for a government, but in many cases the budget decisions are made with little or no local news coverage, even though state laws typically require public hearings on local budgets.
We did a survey of newspapers in the East Kentucky Coalfield and found that the majority of them published only one or two articles about their county’s budget during the budget-adoption period in 2005, and some published no stories at all on the subject. The survey found not one comprehensive story about a county budget and how the policy decisions being made might impact citizens of the county. While the quality of news coverage is not necessarily a function of quantity, and budget situations differ widely, as a whole the survey shows the need for closer news-media attention to budgets. To read about the survey, click here.
Sometimes, that attention needs to be extraordinary, such as when the budget requires major cuts or a tax increase. In Eastern Kentucky's Morgan County, where a payroll tax has been proposed, The Licking Valley Courier took the unusual step of publishing a front-page commentary about the issue, which included an explanation of the payroll tax and an analysis of county services. To read it, click here.
Rural areas may be prime for gangs; activity on the rise in rural Florida
Gang activity in rural Florida is on the rise, and experts say that rural areas of the United States may serve as strategic outposts for urban gangs. Small, local “wannabe” gangs have been in these areas for years, but residents fear escalating violence from the groups because of their contact with larger gangs. Areas such as Gadsden County, on the northern panhandle of the state, have begun to see tags from violent national gangs such as the Bloods, Crips, Sur 13 and Mara Salvatrucha, reports John Lantigua of the Palm Beach Post.
Rusty Keeble, of the Orange County Corrections Department and president of the Florida Gang Investigators Association, told Lantigua that rural areas are a prime target for gang recruiters. “They show up in Sleepy Hollow and start talking to kids about the kinds of gangs they see on TV or hear about in rap music,” Keeble told the Post. “Those kids have little or nothing to do, and they get interested real fast.” Rural areas present gangs a new market where they have little or no competition. These places have less sophisticated police forces less able to identify and deal with gang activity. Also, interstate highways are often an important part of drug running and the surrounding areas are largely rural.
The incidents of drug dealing and beatings reported in small towns thus far may seem like minor issues compared the murders and shootings of notorious urban gangs, reports Lantigua. “But gang investigators insist that ‘small potatoes’ can become big trouble rapidly in the world of gangs, teenage testosterone and easily available guns.” (Read more)
Biofuel boom looks likely to raise food prices, and not just corn and meat
The ethanol boom has driven up corn prices, raising the prospect of higher costs for meat and other foods for which corn is a feedstock, but less attention has been focused on a spike in prices for soybean oil, a key ingredient in many foods, including replacements for trans fat, and the source of a major alternative to diesel fuel. Also, "Economists say the diversion of acreage from soybeans to corn is shorting supply and raising prices," reports Alicia Karapetian of MeatingPlace.com, a news service for the red-meat industry.
"The price of soybean oil has shot up more than 50 percent since last fall. That, coupled with a dramatic doubling of corn prices during the same period, has left companies throughout the food chain feeling the pinch," Karapetian writes. "Prices for soybeans, wheat, cotton and rice will go up as we plant more and more acres out of those crops and into corn," Ron Plain, an agricultural-economics professor at the University of Missouri,