Dec. 27-30, 2005

Small Okla. daily scrambles to cover fires, deliver papers and stay safe

The Seminole Producer of Seminole, Okla., is throwing its all into covering the wildfires that are devastating parts of Oklahoma and Texas, including about 10,000 acres in its circulation area, east and southeast of Oklahoma City, leaving 50 families homeless, reports Editor & Publisher.

"With a newsroom staff of four and one part-time photographer[, the paper] has basically put all other reporting aside to cover the biggest story in years, according to Managing Editor Karen Anson," Joe Strupp writes for E&P. "The family-owned daily, which publishes Tuesday through Friday and on Sundays, has averaged between 10 and 16 pages this week, a slight increase over most days, with the fire coverage all but replacing sports and events pages."

The 5,300-circulation paper has "produced its first-ever color photos, but only for its Web site [and without captions]. Since the paper publishes in black and white, color shots could not be used in print."

Anson told Strupp that fire lines had been a block away from the paper's downtown office. "The fire department told us that if the wind had not shifted, the whole downtown would have been destroyed, including us," she said. "We just stood here and hoped and hoped." Anson's yard caught fire twice. "It rekindled on Thursday, 15 minutes before deadline and my husband was an hour away. I had to go home and help some neighbors who were already hosing it, and then come back and get the paper out," she said.

Reporter Jennifer Pitts was trapped in her car Tuesday while reporting on a pasture fire. "Within seconds, I couldn't see two feet in front of my face," she told Strupp. "It was smoke and ash. My eyes started burning and watering and I was coughing." Strupp writes, "Pitts, who suffers from asthma, said a water truck pulled in front of her at the same time, blocking her exit for several minutes." The paper has maintained carrier delivery despite road closures in the area. (Read more)

Editor of a Kentucky hill country paper writes frankly about her divorce

Even at newspapers in rural communites, where profesional and personal lives often intersect and overlap, the really personal stuff usually doesn't get written about. Angie Brockman, managing editor of The Sentinel-Echo in London, Ky., broke new ground there this week by writing about her divorce.

"In the last couple of editions, you may have noticed my last name has changed," Brockman began her column. "After nearly 10 years of marriage I have now joined the statistical ranks of all the millions of other Americans, one statistic I never thought I'd be: Divorced."

Later in the piece, Brockman writes, "My ex-husband Adam -- wow, that's weird -- and I were luckier than most people who get divorced. We had no children and we really had no bills to pay other than our house and one car. So, getting an amicable divorce was easy. Actually, so easy it's scary. I've signed more to buy a car than what I had to sign to get divorced. Kentucky makes it easy if you have no children. You just have to be separated for three months before you file, wait 30 days after you file, and then get a court date for the final hearing."

Brockman goes on to explain that her ex is "a wonderful man with many good qualities," but "We were going in opposite directions and had virtually no common interests. That became very obvious after I took the job as managing editor of The Sentinel-Echo in July. I was working a lot and 40 miles from my house. I was not home a lot and it's awful to say, but I really enjoyed it."

She concludes, "So for all of you people about to get married, I say go for it. I loved being married and having the happy homemaker life. I enjoy doing all those crazy things like cooking and cleaning for a man. I think it's great. Just make sure your husband isn't just your friend. Make sure you keep him close to your heart because you don't know how quickly he can drift away." (Read more)

S.C. judge says state's schools are unconstitutionally unfair to rural kids

A trial judge in South Carolina ruled Thursday that the state's school-funding system fails to give students in eight rural school districts the opportunity to receive a minimally adequate education because it does not sufficiently fund early-childhood education, The Associated Press reports.

Judge Thomas W. Cooper Jr. rejected two main arguments of the plaintiff districts, saying their facilities, curriculum standards and the system of teacher certification are adequate, but he said they lacked "effective and adequately funded early-childhood intervention programs designed to address the impact of poverty on their educational abilities and achievements."

The ruling is the latest in a series in several states over the last 20 years, usually in cases brought by rural school districts with meager property-tax bases. The South Carolina case was filed in 1993, began trial in 2003, "and saw more than 100 days of testimony from state lawmakers, education experts and education officials," AP's John Drake writes. "Both sides have indicated they likely will appeal the verdict."

Cooper said that a combination of poor test scores and a high poverty rates in the districts make clear that their students "do not have the opportunity to receive a minimally adequate education," Drake writes.

The lawsuit was filed by 36 districts. Cooper dismissed it, but the state Supreme Court overturned him, saying that the state must provide students with a "minimally adequate" education. Click here to read more from AP. For a local take from Morning News Online of Florence, S.C., click here.

Fraud I: Cheating in bass tournaments increasing along with prize money

If a big-money bass tournament is coming to a lake near you, be alert for cheating. "It's not a matter of if there's going to be another cheating incident. It's only a matter of when the next controversy tumbles into a glittery bass boat," reports Ed Zieralski, outdoors writer for the San Diego Union-Tribune.

Zieralski cites anglers who were disqualified from the Red River Bassmaster Central Open in Louisiana and the National Bass West Team Tournament at San Vicente, Calif. The fishermen "have been banned for life for fishing those particular circuits and others, likely." (Read more)

In Louisiana, where top prize was "a fully-rigged Triton boat and Mercury motor along with $10,000," six bass were tied to stumps before the tournament began, Zieralski reports. In California, where top prize was $3,254, a team was videotaped snagging in a popular feeding area where fish usally won't bite lures.

Al Tompkins of the Poynter Institute originally posted this story in Al's Morning Meeting.

Fraud II: West Virginians say vote buying is common, but less so near them

About two-thirds of registered voters in West Virginia think vote buying happens in the state often or somewhat often, according to a poll sponsored by The State Journal, a Charleston weekly.

"About 21 percent of voters say they don't think it happens very often, and 2 percent say it never happens," writes Beth Gorczyca. "When asked whether voter fraud occurs in their home county, voters are a little more optimistic. About 9 percent said it never happens in their county, while 31 percent said it doesn't happen very often. A combined 49 percent said votes are bought either somewhat or very often."

The poll was conducted from Nov. 22 to Dec. 1 by RMS Strategies, a Charleston research firm, which interviewed 400 registered voters, creating an error margin of plus or minus 4.9 percentage points. Mark Blankenship, senior vice president of the company, noted significant regional differences.

"Southern West Virginians are more likely to believe vote buying and political corruption happens very often in their county, while people living in the Northern Panhandle are less likely to believe its happening," he said. In the south, 35 percent said corruption occurs very often -- a much higher number than in other areas of the state. The lowest was 11 percent in the Northern Panhandle. (Read more)

In recent months, elected officials from southern West Virginia have been investigated for alleged election fraud, bribery and other charges, and several from Lincoln and Logan counties have gone to jail. In one FBI sting, a former mayor ran for the legislature, withdrawing a month before the 2004 election.

Vote fraud is more common than Americans would like to think, and it usually pays, University of Kentucky historian Tracy Campbell says in his new book, Deliver the Vote: A History of Election Fraud, and American Political Tradition, 1742-2004. The book was the subject of a story in the Lexington Herald-Leader this week and is to be reviewed in the paper on Sunday.

Houma, La., newspaper gets recognized for telling a story not widely heard

"Each day and every week, a great mass of print journalism is produced in this country -- something all too easy to forget when reading a mere sliver of that output in your local paper or scanning the links on your favorite blog. . . . At the same time, each week smaller papers across the nation quietly publish compelling, thought-provoking pieces of journalism, stories that inform and illuminate."

That's how Edward Colby introduced his "Five Great Stories You Didn't Read" piece in CJR Daily, the online edition of Columbia Journalism Review. Colby said it was "our way of focusing some attention on outstanding work done this year that was largely overlooked on the national stage." His first example was the hurricane reporting of The Courier of Houma (pronounced "HO-ma"), La., circulation 17,000.

Colby cited The Courier not for stories on Hurricane Katrina, the center of which struck about 50 miles northeast of Houma, but those on the later Hurricane Rita, which the paper called "the stand-out of the 2005 storm season" after it "crept south of the Louisiana coast for days, pushing water up Terrebonne's five bayous, topping every levee on the parish's southern end and flooding an estimated 9,000 to 10,000 homes and businesses." To read the Courier's season-ending Nov. 30 story, click here.

Colby writes, "One of journalism's tasks is to shine a light on the forgotten, and the Courier's Kimberly Solet performed that job well with her Sept. 29 report, Rita deals Pointe-aux-Chenes a catastrophic blow. Nearly a week after the storm, when no relief agency or help had arrived for the remote villages of Pointe-aux-Chenes and Isle de Jean Charles, Solet published a subtly powerful story about the despair and destruction residents there faced."

Solet wrote, "[S]tagnant water still sits in most yards on this finger of land, and for most the tedious ritual of cleaning up has just begun. . . . On Island Road, the only way in and out of Isle de Jean Charles, the widespread destruction is breathtaking. On one section of the street once populated by American Indian families such as Sandy's mother, Velma Naquin, and Johnny's mother, Mary Danos, five homes in a row are vacant, as if the people who lived in them up and left and never looked back. The island where native families settled centuries ago to take advantage of once-lush forests full of mink and muskrat and water brimming with shrimp, crabs and oysters is surrounded on all sides by the Gulf of Mexico, which creeps ever closer." (Read more)

Film on Buffalo Creek coal-dam disaster added to National Film Registry

What do Cool Hand Luke, Hoop Dreams, The Music Man and Miracle on 34th Street have in common with a documentary on an Appalachian coalfield disaster? They were all among 25 films added to the National Film Registry by the Library of Congress this week.

The library describes The Buffalo Creek Flood: An Act of Man, directed by Mimi Pickering and produced by Appalshop, the media arts center in Whitesburg, Ky., as a “powerful documentary” that “represents the finest in regional filmmaking, providing important understanding of the environmental and cultural history of the Appalachian region.” The registry now has 425 films.

The film documents the February 1972 collapse of a coal-waste dam in the valley of Buffalo Creek of southern West Virginia. "A wall of sludge, debris and water tore through the valley below, leaving in its wake 125 dead and 4,000 homeless," Appalshop said in a release. The Pittston Company, owner of the dam, maintained that the disaster was an act of God. Fearing the company's influence “would lead to a whitewash investigation and absolve it of any corporate culpability . . . local citizens invited Appalshop to come to the area and make a film of the historical record,” the library release said. Newsweek called the film "a devastating expose of the collusion between state officials and coal executives."

The film is currently undergoing preservation with assistance from the Women’s Film Preservation Fund and Cineric Laboratory. In the spring it will be released on DVD along with Buffalo Creek Revisited, Pickering’s 1984 film about lingering effects of the flood. The films will be screened and discussed throughout West Virginia in 2006, thanks to a grant from the West Virginia Humanities Council.

Pickering is a California native who came to Eastern Kentucky 34 years ago to learn filmmaking at Appalshop. "Her documentaries often feature women as principal storytellers, focus on injustice and inequity in the Appalachian region, and explore the efforts of grassroots people to deal with community problems as they work for social change," the release said. It quoted film critic Pat Aufderheide, director of the Center for Social Media at American University’s School of Communications, as saying, “Appalshop’s work has been a cultural beacon, for the people of the Appalachian region, for independent filmmakers, for media arts leaders, and also for people who, like me, celebrate and study the role of independent media in a democratic society.”

Oldest continuously owned farm selling development rights for preservation

"America’s oldest continuously owned family farm is in the process of being permanently protected through
transfer of development rights," reports New Hampshire Agriculture Commissioner Steve Taylor in his Weekly Market Bulletin. (To sign up for his reports, click here.)

"The 142-acre Tuttle Farm on Dover Point has been in the Tuttle family for more than 300 years, and is currently operated by an 11th generation farmer, William Penn Tuttle III. The Dover city council has put up $1.5 million in conservation funds toward a $3.3 million land protection project being put together by the Strafford [County] Rivers Conservancy," Taylor writes.

"Situated between the tidal waters of the Bellamy and Piscataqua Rivers, the farm includes prime agricultural soils, streams and wetlands," Taylor writes, noting that it is familiar to folks along New Hampshire's seacoast "for its landmark upscale farm market doing business as Tuttle’s Red Barn," on heavily traveled N.H. 16 between Dover and U.S. 4, about eight miles northwest of Portsmouth.

Paper changes tune, welcomes federal aid for broadband in isolated areas

"A $3 million infusion of federal funds will speed the deployment of a high-speed Internet pipeline to some of the most geographically isolated parts of southwest Virginia," reports the Bristol Herald Courier.

Locals hope the expansion will help attract good-paying, high-technology jobs, such as the 700 in Russell County, at the state’s backup data center and a software-development company, that are to eventually employ about 700. "Both the state and the private company, CGI-AMS, say access to broadband Internet service was a factor in their decision," the paper says in an editorial.

"Their glowing testimonials lend credence to arguments in favor of a government hand in broadband development in rural areas where the service is largely unavailable now, or in areas where it is offered but the redundant fiber-optic lines preferred by some technology-dependent companies don’t exist," the editorial says. "In the past, we’ve been reluctant to support municipal broadband – particularly in the Bristol metro area, where it duplicates services already offered by two or three other private industry providers. That isn’t the case in far southwest Virginia. The big cable and phone companies offer broadband in some towns, but seem disinclined to do so on a broader basis. This isn’t the government competing with the free market; it is the government supplementing it in an area facing topographic, demographic and economic challenges."

Only time will tell the real impact of broadband, the editorial concludes, but "For now, it seems the best shot that many communities in our region have at an economically vibrant future." (Read more)

Power companies, others join to bring broadband to northeastern Vermont

When policymakers began discussing extension of the Internet to remote areas more than a decade ago, a term they often used to describe it was "the information superhighway." Now, high-speed "broadband" service has finally come to the woods of northeastern Vermont, evoking comparisons to the advent of the Interstate highway system 50 years ago, says an Associated Press report.

Broadband is being offered by the Cloud Alliance, “a group of Internet service providers and power companies,” in areas where Internet service is not offered by telephone and cable-TV companies, AP reports. “They are all using a combination of state grants, bank loans and personal investments.”

AP's primary anecdote came from Pat Cole, who got more inquiries from potential renters of a vacation home in Westmore when she added “broadband access” to her Internet ad: “One guest, an architect, first stayed for 10 days, but now that he can download large files quickly he can bring his work with him. He’s planning to stay the entire month of February, Cole said.”

“There’s nothing like it. I feel fortunate to have electricity most of the time,” Cole told AP. “To have high-speed Internet in such a remote area is absolutely incredible. It’s good for business, it’s good for pleasure, it’s good for Christmas shopping.” The story also said, “High-speed data transmission will enable people to live in the most remote areas of Vermont and, like the architect heading to Westmore this winter, do work from there that previously required them to live in or commute to cities.” (Read more)

New Hampshire weekly says feds need different focus on rural education

Just across the border from Vermont, in New Hampshire, the news that the U.S. Department of Education had created a Center for Rural Education was underwhelming to a weekly newspaper publisher Karen Ladd, who says the feds need to put their money where their mouth is.

"How very nice, how comforting, to know that we have a task force assembled to address our education issues in the sticks," Ladd wrote in the Colebrook News and Sentinel. "According to Department of Education figures, 42 percent of the nation’s public schools are in rural areas or small towns. Unfortunately, the biggest issue facing the school districts in our rural area is one about which the federal government does not want to hear: its utter failure to meet its own funding levels" -- special education.

"The feds are supposed to fund 40 percent of special education costs, which according to this year’s figures would be $23.1 billion. Instead, the proposed federal budget offers only $10.7 billion," the editorial noted, quoting local Supt. Bob Mills. "Mills, and no doubt many others in education, wish the feds would either fund these initiatives or leave education in the states’ hands, where it belongs." (Read more)

Can manufacturing co-ops keep rural people rooted in the high plains?

In the high plains of North Dakota, "more and more wheat farmers call it quits," writes Dustin Solberg in High Country News. "They succumb to wheat prices that have fallen to under $3 a bushel and the phaseout of government price supports in the ironically named Freedom-to-Farm bill signed by President Clinton in 1996. From 1992 to 1997, North Dakota farm income dropped 37 percent, while farm expenses rose 17 percent."

Some, like Virgil Anderson of Leeds, survive by buying farms of those who quit. "Yet getting bigger doesn’t guarantee survival, which is why a few years ago Anderson and his neighbors decided to do something radical: They built a factory" to make pasta from their durum wheat, an $8 million project backed by 300 investors, mostly farmers.

"Farmers Choice Specialty Foods is one of 12 cooperatives that have been built on the North Dakota prairie in the last five years. The Dakota Growers Pasta Co. in Carrington makes dry pasta such as spaghetti and fettuccini. In Hebron, dairy farmers bought their local cheese factory. The North American Bison Cooperative of New Rockford is marketing bison across the continent and into Europe. A Carrington company called AgroOils squeezes the oil from oilseed crops that are increasingly popular on the plains," Solberg writes. "These cooperatively owned businesses have a common denominator: They knock out some of agriculture’s many middlemen: grain buyers, shippers, processors."

Solberg adds, "While these cooperatives offer jobs and hope for small rural communities, they are not a sure bet. Some are thriving and seem to understand how to compete in a global marketplace; others are struggling and don’t have a clue. Plains co-ops marketing beef, carrots and beans have already failed. But no one denies that cooperatives represent an important attempt at survival for an economically bleak region. Not only do they offer jobs that keep people in these remote small towns, but they make a case for those who believe that 150 years of farming the Great Plains is more than a failed experiment."

Click here to read more of Solberg's story. The Dec. 27 issue of High Country News also includes two stories of environmental interest. The magazine's descriptions: "A conservation movement is stirring on the Great Plains, but local farmers are stuck with a harsh reality: It still pays to plow up virgin prairie," and "Ten years after Frank and Deborah Popper proposed turning depopulated Great Plains counties into a 'Buffalo Commons,' their once-controversial ideas are getting more respect." (Read more)

States band together to cut pollution, global warming, address other issues

Seven states in the Northeast announced Dec. 20 that they woud sets up "a market for about 180 power plants in the region to buy, sell and trade credits for emissions of carbon dioxide, a heat-trapping gas that climate scientists say is one of the main causes of global warming," writes Brian H. Kehrl in a special report for Stateline.org. "The agreement among the governors of Connecticut, Delaware, Maine, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York and Vermont comes after two years of laborious discussions, including the last-minute withdrawal of Massachusetts and Rhode Island."

The Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative breaks new ground, "but it is just the latest example of states’ increasing use of a team approach to environmental problems," Kehrl reports. "From the North to the Midwest to the West, states are pooling their efforts to devise regional solutions to problems that know no political boundaries – from air pollution, to energy, to water use. While individual state actions can seem like a drop in the bucket of a worldwide issue, regional efforts allow states to parlay their size to a greater effect without relying on Washington, D.C., to take the lead."

Other examples of regional efforts by states include: California, Oregon and Washington are trying to cut greenhouse-gas emissions with hybrid cars and more efficient appliances. The eight Great Lakes states , which have been cooperating since the 1980s, on Dec. 13 announced a plan Dec. 13 to control use of the lakes and their watershed. Eighteen states in the West agreed last year to set goals to increase energy efficiency and use of cleaner energy sources. Officials from five states in the Midwest and Northern Plains are studying biofuels, wind power and other sources of alternative energy and plan to present the results in June 2006. Thirteen states in the West are working with the federal government and several Indian tribes to address air-quality issues, including haze in national parks.

"Binding regional agreements come with their share of hurdles," Kehrl writes, noting that Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney "publicly backed the regional initiative in November . . . then reneged on his support in December. A spokesman said Romney’s hesitation was over fear that the pact will increase energy prices, echoing the concerns of business groups and industries in the region."

Romney announced his own plan to cut carbon-dioxide emissions. A regional approach might be easier on businesses than individual state efforts, which "can prove difficult for businesses to navigate," Bill Becker, executive director of the State and Territorial Air Pollution Program Administrators and the Association of Local Air Pollution Control Officials, told Kehrl. (Read more)

North Carolina prepares to sue TVA to force cuts in air pollution

North Carolina officials are following through on their threat to sue the Tennessee Valley Authority to force cuts in emissions from its power plants, which are causing pollution in western North Carolina.

"State attorneys are expected to file a lawsuit as soon as this week . . . seeking a court order to force the agency to reduce emissions from smokestacks it operates," reports J. Andrew Curliss for the McClatchy newspapers, including the News & Observer in Raleigh. " TVA officials plan to fight the action, saying they have taken more steps than North Carolina to cut out dirty air."

Attorney General Roy Cooper said the state would rather compromise than go to court, but TVA "has been pretty stubborn about not moving any further than they are made to move." Curliss explains for readers outside the Tennessee valley, "TVA is a federal agency that operates the nation's largest public power system, including 11 coal-fired power plants in Alabama, Kentucky and Tennessee.'

A 2002 state law cited TVA as a polluter and ordered the attorney general to "use all available resources and means" to reduce pollution from out-of-state sources, and "Cooper said cleaning the air is vital to the region's health and tourism industry," Curliss writes. "Gov. Mike Easley is supportive and has said that unless the air in the west is cleaned up, the state will have a hard time adding new roads in the west."

Jack Brellenthin, manager of TVA's environmental policy and strategy, told federal regulators that plants in North Carolina: "It is Tennessee, not North Carolina, that can make a case for requiring additional emission reductions at sources in other states, specifically, North Carolina." (Read more)

Universities trying to get more doctors to set up practices in rural Arizona

As Arizona's population continues to surge, and expand into rural areas, the state's rural hospitals are hard-pressed to find enough doctors and nurses, reports The Arizona Republic.

Reporter Laura Houston files from Kingman, where "We have people out in the middle of nowhere come here and are on death's doorstep," medical resident Jason Taylor tells her. Taylor is a student in a Midwestern University program to place doctors in rural areas. The university is based in Downers Grove,. Ill., but has a campus in Glendale, Ariz.

"Despite attractive loan-repayment programs for medical-school graduates, rural medical rotations by the University of Arizona and Midwestern's residency program, one of the most difficult challenges that rural communities face is finding and retaining primary-care physicians," Houston reports. Most rural areas also lack specialists, "placing the burden on rural doctors to fill in the gaps of knowledge and develop an eye for the subtle nature of life-threatening ailments," she writes.

Alison Hughes, director of UA's Rural Hospital Flexibility Program, told Houston that medical schools need to recruit more from rural areas, because students from such areas are the most likely to set up rural practices. Houston also notes, "Arizona ranks among the states with the lowest number of working nurses and physicians per capita." (Read more)

Tennessee legislator urges advertisers to shun weekly that exposed his affair

A state legislator in southeast Tennessee is warning advertisers to stay out of the Bradley News Weekly, which has long been his nemesis and recently "reported he is dating a woman while waiting for his divorce to come through," reports The Associated Press. The Dec. 13 letter from Sen. Jeff Miller, R-Cleveland, not only made an implied threat that some advertisers resented, but was lacking in grammar and style.

Miller's letter to advertisers read, in part: ''Myself (sic) and many others are going to be watching in the next several weeks to identify and remember those in this community that (sic) wish to subsidize the destructive nature of this type of publication in our community.'' In an interview with the AP, Miller didn't take issue with the weekly's report about his dating, "but said he and his wife are working toward a divorce settlement" and his personal life should remain personal. It's fair game, the Bradley News Weekly said, because Miller has campaigned as an advocate of "family values.''

Editor Barry Graham said in an open letter to Miller in the Dec. 21 edition, "We don't normally report anything about the personal lives of our elected officials (and we know plenty about them). We don't judge people's lifestyle choices. And we don't put them in the paper for other people to judge. But you, Jeffy, put your chosen lifestyle out there for the public to judge.Your platform is that of a guy who believes in the sanctity of marriage, and that marriage should be between one man and one woman. And your behavior doesn't support your platform. So, we report it.''

Graham added, "You're such a fraidy-cat, Jeffy, that when you heard that we'd come to your office to ask you about your threats, you sent us a letter saying that if we ever came back there it would be considered trespassing." The editorial called Miller a liar, a weasel, a bully, a philanderer, a coward and "a silly, irresponsible little boy." It said Miller "once tried to sponsor a bill to put us out of business."

A news story (also written in the first-person plural) explained that Miller had "legislation that would have made us pay for the privilege of being allowed to distribute papers." The story said the paper has reported that Miller "is alleged to be in negotiations with the U.S. attorney's office over whether he will plead guilty to a misdemeanor" or be tried on federal bribery charges. The paper also has questioned Miller's attendance as senator and his performance as delinquent-tax attorney for Bradley County.

Publisher Susan Shelton told the AP's Bill Poovey that no businesses have told her that they will stop advertising. "In fact, she said, she has been approached by business people who want to buy new ads just because of the dispute with Miller." (Read more from AP) In her "Blonde Bomber" column, Shelton writes, "We don't try to please our friends or antagonize people we may not like. We don't play favorites. We have one thing in mind - to write about this city and county as it actually is, not as politicians, boosters and spin doctors want you to believe it is."

Rural topics are among the subjects for 2006 Alicia Patterson fellows

Eight journalists have been selected to receive American journalism’s oldest writing fellowship, an Alicia Patterson Foundation grant. They include John Fleming, editor-at-large of the Anniston Star, who will examine "Social and Economic Justice in Alabama's Black Belt;" and reporters Ken Ward Jr. of the Charleston Gazette, who will look at "The Curse of Coal" in Central Appalachia; and Mitchell Tobin of the Arizona Daily Star in Tucson, who will write on "Endangered Species of the Southwest."

Patterson fellows get $17,500 for a six-month grant and $35,000 for a 12-month grant. They travel, research and write articles for the APF Reporter, the foundation's quarterly magazine. "Their articles and photo essays are reprinted in newspapers, magazines, textbooks and websites worldwide and have led to award-winning articles, books and documentaries." the foundation said in a news release. "The winners were selected through a highly competitive process of screening by two panels of judges, as well as submitting detailed proposals, examples of past work, and references." (Read more)

Rural Calendar

Dec. 31: Appalachian Studies Association Weatherford Awards nominations

The Appalachian Studies Association gives two Weatherford awards: one for books of fiction and poetry; the other for nonfiction works. The only requirement is that the subject matter of the books be Appalachian or that they be set in Appalachia. All nominations for Weatherford awards must be made by Dec. 31. The entries must be originally published in 2005. The nomination and seven copies of each book should be sent to: Gordon McKinney, CPO 2166, Berea College, Berea KY 40404 For more details on any of these awards, please visit http://www.appalachianstudies.org.

Thursday, Dec. 22, 2005

Texas district adopts conservative Bible-study guide; lawsuit promised

The Ector County Independent School District in Texas decided this week that high-school students will use a conservative guide for studying the Bible as history and literature, rejecting a guide with broader perspective and probably sparking another court battle about religion in public schools.

The board voted 4-2 to use the National Council on Bible Curriculum in Public Schools guide, rejecting the ecumenical guide published by the Bible Literacy Project through the non-partisan, non-sectarian Freedom Forum and "endorsed by a group of religious organizations," reports The New York Times. "The council is a religious advocacy group in Greensboro, N.C., and has the backing of the Eagle Forum and Focus on the Family, two conservative organizations." (Read more)

"Critics say the book promotes fundamentalist Protestant Christianity," Barbara Novovitch writes in the Times. Members of Life Challenge Pentecostal Church in Odessa asked for the guide, reported David J. Lee in yesterday's Odessa American. (Read more)

Supt. Wendell Sollis told Novovitch, "I felt like the National Council was a better fit for Odessa, because they're on several campuses here in Texas and because of their longevity." David Newman, a professor of English at Odessa College, told both newspapers he would sue the district, telling the Times that the curriculum advocates a fundamentalist Christian point of view. For an earlier, broader Times story on the North Carolina group's activity in Texas and elsewhere, click here.

Intelligent-design supporters vow to take battle to nation's highest court

The battle over intelligent design in Dover, Pa., schools won't go to an appellate court because voters ousted the school board, but supporters say they plan to take the fight to the U.S. Supreme Court.

"Some politically influential backers of intelligent design warned that U.S. District Judge John E. Jones III, who was appointed by President Bush, so overreached that his ruling will outrage and inflame millions of conservative and religiously observant Americans," writes Michael Powell of The Washington Post.

Richard Land, who is president of the Southern Baptist Convention's Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission, told Powell, "This decision is a poster child for a half-century secularist reign of terror that's coming to a rapid end with Justice Roberts and soon-to-be Justice Alito." Land is a political ally of White House adviser Karl Rove. "This was an extremely injudicious judge who went way, way beyond his boundaries," added Land. Judge Jones ruled that intelligent design could not be taught in biology classes because it is a religious-based teaching disguised as science. (Read more)

NPR series reports one-room schools still learning fortresses in rural America

A National Public Radio series on one-room schoolhouses shows the old bastions of a bygone era still use limited resources and student and community support to offer a rural education.

"They are a legacy of a less mobile, more rural time in American history. Mostly serving isolated communities, the remaining schools require one teacher to educate children of varying ages at the same time in a single classroom," reports independent producer Neenah Ellis. Most of the remaining one-room schools, reports Ellis, are concentrated in a few states in the western United States. Montana has the most -- between 85 and 100. Nebraska is number two, with roughly 75 one-room schools, she reports.

The schools have lower student-teacher ratios, Ellis notes, and she reports, "It's also not unusual for students to have the same teacher for many years. [And she notes] The older students often help the younger ones." The series, begins today and will include a story a month through June. (Read/Listen)

Appalachian school district answers parents' pleas, drops four-day week

The school board in Jackson County, Ky., voted unanimously last night voted to abandon the four-day school week it adopted in September, "after pleas from parents who said cutting a day of classes would harm children in the rural county," reports the Lexington Herald-Leader.

One of the 200 parents who attended the board meeting, Jackie David, said the parents' victory should be the first against other problems in the school system. "Now we need to win the war," she said.

"The four-day school week was approved by the school board Sept. 5 for financial reasons, becoming the fourth school district in the state to implement a four-day week, but the first to do so primarily for financial reasons," the Herald-Leader reports. "Beginning Oct. 17, students have gotten every Friday off, while teachers have worked half a day. The district will return to five-day weeks in January."

For the newspaper's story about the board's initial decision, click here.

Deaths despite Tamiflu treatment raise fears of drug-resistant avian-flu strain

Two bird flu patients in Vietnam have died, apparently from a virus resistant to Tamiflu, the key drug governments are stockpiling in case of a large-scale outbreak.

"Experts said the deaths were disturbing because the two girls had received early and aggressive treatment with Tamiflu and had gotten the recommended doses. The new report suggests the doses doctors now consider ideal may be too little. Previous reports of resistance involved people who had taken the drug in low doses; inadequate doses of medicine are known to promote resistance by allowing viruses or bacteria to mutate and make a resurgence," writes Alicia Chang of The Associated Press.

Dr. Anne Moscona at Weill Cornell Medical College called the deaths frightening and told AP, "People who stockpile will naturally share or take drugs at the wrong dose, and that's really a bad idea." Moscona has written a commentary on this subject for New England Journal of Medicine. (Read more)

Iowa groups announce legislative plan to boost ethanol use, production

Two interest groups plan to push the Iowa legislature to replace 25 percent of all gasoline sold in the state with renewable fuels, such as ethanol and biodiesel, reports The Associated Press.

Iowa Renewable Fuels Association President Bernie Punt said the proposal could quadruple renewable fuels use over the decade. The proposal calls for 10 percent of gasoline sold in the state to be replaced by renewable fuels by 2008 and 25 percent by 2015. For additional details, see GrainNet.com.

Iowa Corn Growers Association Government Relations Director Mindy Larson Poldberg told reporters, "The 25 percent renewable fuels standard ... is both aggressive and achievable.'' Sam Cogdill, president of Amazing Energy, said that under the proposal, "A good chunk of money spent on fuel would stay in Iowa, creating jobs and boosting our economy." (Read more)

University of North Dakota study of Native American vets' health to fill void

The University of North Dakota Rural Health Center will begin assessing the health-care needs of American Indian military veterans in January.

"Researchers from the center will start by studying the needs of American Indian veterans in North Dakota. They'll survey veterans on four reservations and one tribal service area in the state over the next year," writes David Dodds of the Grand Forks Herald.

Five hundred randomly selected veterans will be asked about health risk behaviors, health screenings, health-care access, and chronic diseases among veterans using face-to-face interviews, writes Dodds.

Dr. Leander McDonald, head of the project, told Dodds, "Increased coordination of services between the [Veteran's Administration] and the Indian Health Service is needed to address our veterans' health needs. We hope the information ... will ... help to close that gap." (Read more)

Crooked Road bluegrass groups to tour Scotland, return to Celtic roots

Bluegrass musicians from Southwestern Virginia will play in Scotland as part of a 10-day tour in May.

"The group is planning to leave the highlands of Southwest Virginia next year to promote the region's music in the highlands -- and lowlands -- of Scotland. Organizers hope the series of performances in Scotland will lure Scottish tourists to the hills of Virginia. The group of musicians is sponsored by the city of Galax and by the Crooked Road," a group of bluegrass venues in the state's Appalachian region, writes Rex Bowman of the Richmond Times-Dispatch.

H. William Smith, executive director of the nonprofit organization, told Bowman the tour is "to take the Crooked Road into the international market." The musicians are from Virginia and North Carolina and include Wayne Henderson, the No Speed Limit band, Montana Young, Anderson & Strickland, Laura Boosinger, Ginny Hawker and Tracy Schwartz. They have agreed to perform at Crooked Road sites to raise money to pay for the trip, writes Bowman. (Read more)

NNA study shows community papers leading news sources in small markets

"While circulation of the biggest dailies continues its long decline, a new study finds that 81% of adults in small markets read a newspaper every week, and 50 percent say the local paper is their primary news source," reports Editor & Publisher.

The National Newspaper Association, which has about 2,500 members, 87 percent non-dailies, commissioned the study by the Center for Advanced Social Research at the University of Missouri School of Journalism. "Researchers surveyed adults 18 years old and up in markets with fewer than 100,000 residents," reports E&P.

Fifty percent of respondents listed the local newspaper as their "primary source of information about local communities," followed by television at 16 percent; radio, 9 percent; and the Internet, 2 percent. Readers of community papers spend an average of 38 minutes with each issue, and about a quarter said they keep the paper in the house for six days. The study also showed community-paper readers have a fairly high opinion of their local paper. Some 67 percent rated the accuracy of their community paper as good to excellent, and 64 percent rated the writing quality as either good to excellent.

NNA Executive Director Brian Steffens said the report is a needed contrast with recent news about the decline of metropolitan papers. "Virtually all of the research has been focused on large daily newspapers serving the top 150 markets," he said. (Read more)

American Profile magazine founder starts community newspaper group

American Hometown Publishing, which says it is "focused on preserving the integrity and autonomy of community journalism," announced its creation today with the purchase of two small daily papers in Oklahoma, following purchase of a three-paper, non-daily group in southwest Virginia this month.

The latest additions are the Blackwell Journal-Tribune, circulation 2,690, and the Guthrie News Leader (2,750), sold by Family Media Inc. They join The Coalfield Progress of Norton, Va. (7,180), a twice-weekly, and weeklies The Dickenson Star of Clintwood (7,000) and The Post (4,500) of Big Stone Gap. The three were sold by Norton Press, one of whose owners, Jenay Tate, remains publisher.

American Hometown Publishing's CEO is L. Daniel Hammond, who started Publishing Group of America and American Profile, a weekly magazine that began in 2000 and is targeted to small dailies and large weeklies. American Hometown Publishing says it “acquires and manages community newspapers of 25,000 circulation or less by forming partnerships with local publishers and growing their newspapers through proven revenue and market expansion efforts.”

“We believe in the importance of community newspapers, their local editorial focus and keeping our publishing partners involved in the local leadership, while offering them financial interest in a growing company,” Hammond said in a news release. “We focus on strengthening our partner newspapers by helping them improve their business operations, increase their revenues and profits and build their readership through additional resources and expertise.”

Hammond's partner in AHP is Steve Young, who helped start American Profile. Other principals include Operations Vice President Ron Fryar, who recently managed the Morris Newspapers in Tennessee. The company, based in Nashville, says it is "funded by a group of investors led by The Solidus Company (Townes Duncan, president); including Petra Capital Partners (Michael W. Blackburn, partner); the Burch Investment group and others.

UPDATE: Tap-water report details communities with unregulated pollutants

The Rural Blog reported yesterday that the Environmental Working Group lists communities in 42 states where tap water is contaminated with more than 140 unregulated chemicals. The item included a link for local editors to check to see if their communities are included. The link had technical problems, so we try again. Click here for the EWG study report.

Wednesday, Dec. 21, 2005

With Cheney's vote, Senate passes budget-cutting bill, sends it back to House

The Senate passed a bill to cut federal spending by $39.7 billion this morning, with the decisive vote coming from Vice President Cheney. The Associated Press reports, "The measure, the product of a year's labors by the White House and Republicans in Congress, imposes the first restraints in nearly a decade in federal benefit programs such as Medicaid, Medicare and student loans."

Because Democrats forced minor changes before the bill passed 51-50, it must be re-passed by the House before going to President Bush. "Passage is all but certain, but the timing remains in question, since most House members have returned home for the holidays," AP reports.

Cuts in the five-year bill would reduce the projected $1.6 trillion deficit over that period by merley 2.5 percent. "Republicans said the significance lies in more than mere numbers," AP reports, "adding that programs such as Medicare and Medicaid threaten to consume an unsustainable amount of federal revenue if their growth is not trimmed quickly." (Read more)

Tap-water impurities rankings suggest widespread problem in rural areas

Rural residents know water, instead of being life-giving, can be a major source of illness or even death. Now, the Environmental Working Group reports tap water in 42 states is contaminated with more than 140 unregulated chemicals, which should prompt rural editors to do some checking on their own systems.

"North Carolina ranks fifth-highest in the nation for the number of contaminants in tap water, an environmental group reported Tuesday. The [EWG], which used state data to compile its report, blamed federal authorities for not establishing health-based standards for scores of common water contaminants. Those contaminants are linked to cancer, reproductive problems and immune-system damage," writes Bruce Henderson of the Charlotte Observer.

The group reports most Americans could be exposed to health problems from contaminated water, even if their suppliers meet existing standards, notes Henderson. The EWG says more than 195 million people in 42 states drink contaminated water, and it charges the Environmental Protection Agency has ignored deadlines to set standards for hundreds of unregulated contaminants, writes Henderson.

The report said N.C. water systems detected 107 contaminants between 1998 and 2003, behind only California, Wisconsin, Arizona and Florida. Thirty-nine of the 107 don't have maximum legal limits in tap water. S. C. systems, with 52 detected contaminants, was 36th-highest. Seven of those contaminants have no legal limits, writes Henderson. To look for contaminants in your community's water, click here

Benjamin Grumbles, who heads EPA's Office of Water, told The Associated Press, "For the chemicals the agency regulates, nearly 100 percent of the community water systems ... are meeting clean drinking water standards. We also have a process to continuously identify new contaminants for which regulation could reduce risks." (Read more)

It can be cheaper to fly to London than to some small towns in the U.S.

In rural America you often hear, "You can't get there from here." But, with airfares, it might be said of smaller towns, "You get here [cheaply] from there."

"Low-cost carriers have brought low fares to big and medium sized cities across the USA, but those living in the country's smallest cities have not yet seen the low-fare phenomenon arrive in their neck of the woods. Most isolated from the low-fare expansion are travelers flying out of small-city airports that have
little competition," writes Ben Mutzabaugh for USA Today.

So, how expensive is it to fly to those smaller airports? To get an idea, USA Today ran a snapshot of fares from six big cities to three smaller airports that are served by just one airline. In some cases, it was
actually cheaper to fly to London or Cancun than it was to the closer one-airline airports. Read more and check out the full results in the latest Fare Compare feature: click here.

Broadband bill would revamp Universal Service Fund for rural telecoms

"As part of a planned update of a 1996 telecommunications law, Congress will consider a new proposal that starts with a simple premise: The government should be minimally intrusive when enacting regulations, writes Anne Broache of CNET News.com.

Sen. Jim DeMint, R- S. C., has introduced a 50-page bill (click here to read it), "adding to a medley of proposals Congress will likely take up next year as it attempts to update the 1996 Telecommunications Act," writes Broache. She notes that politicians and industry representatives have criticized the law for failing to account for booming Internet, wireless and broadband technologies.

The bill would make the FCC overhaul the Universal Service Fund, financed by fees on subscribers to fund services in rural, high-cost and low-income areas, as well as schools and libraries, notes Broache. The bill proposes creating a single Universal Service Fund at the federal level, getting rid of the state-level funds and placing a cap on the amount of money the fund can distribute each year, she writes. (Read more)

Coal booming, but not in E. Ky.; miner shortage, permit delays blamed

Eastern Kentucky is known as coal country but isn't riding high in the nationwide coal boom because of a shortage of miners and a delay in processing mine permit application, says an industry official.

"Coal production declined by 1 percent over the past year in the Eastern Kentucky coalfields, bucking overall state and national trends that show an increase in mining activity. The U.S. Energy Information Administration reported an increase of 1.5 percent in coal production nationwide over the period, thanks in large part to more mining in West Virginia and Wyoming," reports The Associated Press.

Total production from all coal-producing states was 1.1 billion tons. Kentucky Coal Association President Bill Caylor told reporter Roger Alford that coal prices have more than doubled to $50 a ton over the past two years, but labor shortages and delays in getting regulatory permits to open new mines in Kentucky are taking a toll.

The production decline in Eastern Kentucky was more than offset by a 16.7 percent increase among mining companies in the separate Western Kentucky coalfield. The state overall coal production rose by 2.6 percent over the past year.

The U.S. Department of Labor has awarded $6 million to train new coal miners in Kentucky and West Virginia and to equip community colleges with simulators to expedite training of would-be miners. Labor department officials said Kentucky currently needs 3,500 new coal miners. (Read more)

Ten Commandments display OKd; federal court sees no religious intent

"A federal appeals court has upheld a Ten Commandments display alongside other historical documents in the Mercer County, Ky., courthouse," reports Peter Smith of The Courier-Journal.

The opinion by a three-judge panel of the Sixth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals -- which covers Kentucky, Ohio, Tennessee and Michigan -- blasted the American Civil Liberties Union. Judge Richard Suhrheinrich said the organization brought "tiresome" arguments about the "wall of separation" between church and state, and did not represent a "reasonable person."

Identical displays were judged unconstitutional in Kentucky's McCreary and Pulaski counties by the U.S. Supreme Court earlier this year because of religious intentions, and because they were posted only after previous ones were challenged, In the Mercer case, the appeals court said there is no evidence of a religious purpose and that the Ten Commandments document is not more prominent than the others.

Bardstown lawyer Francis Manion, of the conservative American Center for Law and Justice, told the Louisville newspaper, "It's a big win for the people of Mercer County who've been told for a long time they don't know what they're doing when it comes to this type of issue."

David Friedman of the ACLU of Kentucky said he will consult with the plaintiff about a review of the ruling by the full Sixth Circuit or the U.S. Supreme Court. He also said the Mercer County display is "thinly disguised" as historical. Friedman said, "At this point in this circuit, it means that this particular display is lawful without proof of (religious) intent," writes Smith. (Read more) For the Lexington Herald-Leader version of this story, by Beth Musgrave click here.

Kentucky legislation on Decalogue displays could define politics in 2006

Two Kentucky lawmakers, one a Democrat and the other a Republican, have filed bills to allow Ten Commandments displays on public property, competing moves that could spark competition between the two parties as to which is the stronger on this hot-button issue.

"Kentucky Republican Party chairman Darrell Brock said "the bills would show whether Kentucky Democrats can separate themselves from the national Democratic Party, which he perceives as too liberal for most Kentuckians, writes Elisabeth J. Beardsley of The Courier-Journal.

Brock told Beardsley, "I believe this will be one of the first tests of the liberal wing of the Democratic Party, who seems to be running the state House." But Democratic Chairman Jerry Lundergan told her the "golden rules" shouldn't be the subject of political partisanship, and the "days are over" when Democrats allow themselves to be painted as lacking in moral values, she writes.

Lexington Republican Rep. Stan Lee's bill would allow posting of the Ten Commandments at the state Capitol in Frankfort in a broader display including other historical markers. Middlesboro Democratic Rep. Rick Nelson proposes a constitutional amendment to allow the Ten Commandments in any public building, but is rewriting it to add the provision about other historical markers. (Read more)

Dover, Pa., in the intelligent-design lawsuit spotlight, seeks return to normal

A federal judge's decision yesterday barring public schools in Dover, Pa., from teaching intelligent design as an alternative to evolution has brought international scrutiny to a town that would just as soon not be the center of attention.

The ruling "seemed to do little to change entrenched opinions. But locals hoped that with the case resolved, stereotypes of this town as a place of nonstop cultural warfare between liberal atheists and Bible-thumping fundamentalists would at last be dispelled," writes Gary Gately of The New York Times.

Saundra Roldan, a preschool teacher at the YMCA, told Gately, "I hope it is a time for healing now. I hope people will see it's not that we're a bunch of atheists and liberals," she said, "but that we're just trying to protect what America's about, really." Glenda Lentz differed. She told Gately, "Children should not be taught that we came from monkeys when that's flat-out not true."

Carol Thomas, an assistant at the Dover library, told Gately, "We're not walking around glaring at each other. We just have different political views on this." The Rev. Raymond Mummert, an evangelical minister, stated, "It wasn't like anybody made a big thing about it," and added, "We said to one another, 'Let's not let this divide our friendship," writes Gately. (Read more)

States have revenue surpluses; report shows bright spots in U. S. economy

Hawaii, Delaware, Colorado, Illinois, New Jersey and Pennsylvania are among a growing number of states experiencing something they've haven't experienced in a while: revenue surpluses!

The results include "a $300 million tax refund in Hawaii. A full day of kindergarten for every 5-year-old in Delaware. A light-rail line from Denver's airport to downtown. Cheap health insurance for middle-class families in Illinois. Property tax cuts in New Jersey and Pennsylvania. A new tram lift for Wyoming's biggest ski resort," writes T. R. Reid of The New York Times.

A survey issued yesterday by the National Governors Association and the National Association of State Budget Officers noted, "Revenues improved notably in fiscal 2005, enabling many states to begin restoring funding to programs cut during the previous economic downturn."

The survey showed even with revenues strong, half the states passed additional tax increases. Fourteen states cut taxes, but overall state taxes went up $2.5 billion, writes Reid. The result, he notes is "a dramatic reversal of fortunes in most of the 50 capitals. A recent National Conference of State Legislatures survey found that 48 states -- all but Rhode Island and Louisiana -- expect revenues to improve or remain stable for the next fiscal year.

Maryland's tax revenues have increased $1.4 billion over the past three years, the biggest jump in state history. Economists say states, most of which are constitutionally blocked from deficit spending, "have become one of the few spots in the U.S. economy to generate savings," Reid writes. (Read more)

Anti-poverty advocates urge Rhode Island governor to protect state's poor

Anti-poverty advocates, propelled by national budget trimming that critics say will shift costs to states and recklessly cuts human services, are urging Rhode Island Gov. Donald L. Carcieri and state lawmakers to protect the poor as they work out the next state budget. Advocates want state leaders to refrain from making cuts that would affect the poor and to invest in affordable housing and energy assistance.

"The advocates are holding a press conference today at Crossroads Rhode Island in Providence to outline their concerns. They say stagnant wages combined with rising costs of housing and utilities will put a record number of people at risk of homelessness and hunger this winter," reports The Associated Press from a story originally in The Providence Journal. (Read more; subscription required)

Landmark Community Newspapers editors: Skip the ham, give us books

Employees of Landmark Community Newspapers' 54 publications are shunning that big, juicy Christmas ham in favor of what might be called brain food.

Benjy Hamm, editorial director for Landmark, based in Shelbyville, Ky., reports in the December issue of the International Society of Weekly Newspaper Editors newsletter that the chain gives employees books, not hams, for Christmas.

"The newspapers like it a lot. We probably hear most comments from the newer newspapers in our group because it's unexpected," Hamm says. "Offering books to newspaper editors and other journalists, rather than a ham or a box of candy, is one way Landmark trains its employees."

Hamm added, "We're dealing with community newspapers, and we want to emphasize training. We do that by providing books we thing are important for them to have in their newsroom libraries." Blogger's Note: Click here and scroll down the page for Emily Dickinson's poetic tribute to the special vessels known as books in her poem, "There is no frigate like a book."

Santa's pretty much a rural guy, but he used to live in New York City

Here's a Christmas story rarely told: Did you know that Santa Claus, or the modern version of St. Nicholas, was originally a resident of Manhattan, at a time when as the island was losing its last rural areas? And that the British have moved Santa form the North Pole, to rural Sweden or Finland? We didn't, either, until we read Jeremy Seal's piece in yesterday's New York Times.

Seal, author of Nicholas: The Epic Journey From Saint to Santa Claus, informs us that when "A Visit From St. Nicholas" (now known as "The Night Before Christmas") was written in 1822, "The poem's landscape mirrored the winter view from Moore's study window in Manhattan," which still had some areas unspoiled that produced a backdrop of "new fallen snow" for Santa's sleigh and reindeer. (Seal educates us about reindeer, too, but that's a tangent.)

"As New York's street grid pushed northward starting in the 1830's, the rural landscapes that had inspired Clement Clarke Moore's enchanted whimsy transformed into slum tenements where liquor dens and flophouses proliferated," Seal writes. "The transcendent Santa could not be accommodated indefinitely by this increasingly urbanized space. A New York residency further required an actual address, entailing convoluted explanations to the children. It was time for Santa to leave the city, not for Brooklyn or the suburbs, but for the North Pole. It was a time when the frozen north pressed hard against the public imagination . . . "

After explorers reached the pole, confirming that it was "utterly uninhabitable," the Brits "relocated Santa Claus to Lapland, with its appropriate backdrop of snow, trees and reindeer, and in doing so have turned the resorts of northern Finland and Sweden into December destinations," Seal writes in a sort of rural tourism report. "The Americans have persisted with the North Pole, but by name rather than by latitude. The creation from the late 1940's of settlements called North Pole near Fairbanks, Alaska, and in the Adirondacks of New York, complete with visitor attractions, means that Santa can be visited every year, though largely in the summer months." (Read more)

Tuesday, Dec. 20, 2005

Federal judge in Pennsylvania bars intelligent design from biology classes

The idea that life on earth was created by undentified but intelligent design is "a religious alternative masquerading as a scientific theory" and cannot be mentioned in biology classes in a public school district in Pennsylvania, a federal judge ruled today "in one of the biggest courtroom clashes on evolution since the 1925 Scopes trial," The Associated Press reports.

The Dover Area School Board ordered in October 2004 that intelligent design be mentioned in biology classes. Some parents sued, saying that is an unconstitutional overlap of church and state. The board said it was trying to improve science education by teaching students that there are alternatives to the theory of evolution, which they say "cannot fully explain the existence of complex life forms," AP notes.

U.S. District Judge John E. Jones III, appointed by President Bush, said in his 139-page decision, “We find that the secular purposes claimed by the Board amount to a pretext for the Board’s real purpose, which was to promote religion in the public school classroom,” he wrote. "Several members repeatedly lied to cover their motives even while professing religious beliefs," AP reported, citing Jones.

The policy "was believed to have been the first of its kind in the nation" and "divided the community and galvanized voters to oust eight incumbent school board members who supported the policy in the Nov. 8 school board election," AP reports. "The board members were replaced by a slate of eight opponents who pledged to remove intelligent design from the science curriculum. . . . The case is among at least a handful that have focused new attention on the teaching of evolution in the nation’s schools." (Read more)

House passes cuts in Medicaid, Medicare and agriculture; Senate vote looms

As House Republicans celebrate a return to fiscal conservatism, Democratic governors are asking the Senate to oppose the final budget conference bill, saying it shifts costs to states and recklessly cuts human services." Meanwhile, agriculture and senior-citizen groups are attacking cuts to their respective programs.

The Democratic Governors Association cites cuts in the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program, and opposes proposed restrictions on child welfare eligibility. It says the budget conference report would cut funding for child support enforcement by $4.9 billion, and result in $8.4 billion in child support going uncollected, over the next 10 years. The estimated cost to states of complying with new requirements is $8.4 billion over the next five years, according to the Congressional Budget Office.

This is the first time since the 1995-96 budget standoff that Congress has to tried "to curb the growth of federal entitlement spending that rises automatically according to set funding formulas," notes Jonathan Weisman of The Washington Post. "Republican leaders hailed House passage of the budget as proof that they were finally getting a handle on the federal budget after a five-year binge of new spending and tax cuts that turned record budget surpluses into a stream of deep deficits." (Read more)

"Tens of thousands of low-income Americans are likely to lose health coverage under the measure, and many millions will face premiums, deductibles and co-payments for the first time, said Jocelyn Guyer, senior program director of the Georgetown University Center for Children and Families," Weisman reports. Senior Journal.com reports the bill would make significant cuts in Medicaid and Medicare: "Total Medicare cuts are anticipated to reduce the budget about $8 billion, and Medicaid will be cut about $5 billion." (Read more)

Agriculture.com reports, "The reconciliation package calls for $934 million in cuts from farm bill conservation programs, $400 million in cuts from rural development programs and a $620 million reduction in funding for research programs, as well as cuts to advance payments to commodity producers," according to the National Farmers Union. (Read more)

Texas getting broadband over powerlines; DSL gaining on cable modem

Broadband-over-powerline (BPL) technology is set for deployment across a broad swath of Texas, according to Current Communications Group and TXU Electric Delivery.

The firms said the service, called Smart Grid, will be offered next year to some 2 million homes and businesses in the Dallas-Fort Worth metropolitan area and some other communities, writes W. David Gardner of TechWeb News. Current teamed up with Cinergy Corp. to test BPL in Ohio.

Google, which has moved in recent months to offer broadband services of its own, has invested in Current, notes Gardner. William H. Berkman, chairman and co-founder of Current, said, "This agreement is a milestone for Current as well as for BPL." In October the first citywide BPL service was introduced by Communications Technologies in Manassas, Va. (Read more)

Meanwhile, Red Herring, a California-based business and technology news service, reports DSL is gaining subscribers faster than cable, but cable still leads in broadband services.

"Leichtman Research Group, a research firm based in Durham, N.H., reports the 20 largest broadband providers in the United States acquired a record 2.6 million net additional subscribers in the third quarter of 2005. The top DSL providers added 1.42 million subscribers, representing 54 percent of the net broadband additions for the quarter, while cable providers added 1.2 million subscribers," writes Red Herring. (Read more)

Poverty is the grinch that steals Christmas for millions, says rural scholar

While statistics show a robust economy, it isn't "Christmas" if you're poor and live in rural America, writes rural scholar Thomas D. Rowley, a Rural Research Policy Institute fellow.

Rowley cites New York Times columnist Paul Krugman, who pointed out recently, “It’s hard to convince people that the economy is booming