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INSTITUTE FOR RURAL JOURNALISM & COMMUNITY ISSUES



 

The Rural Blog Archive: March 2005

Issues, trends, events, ideas and journalism from the Institute for Rural Journalism and Community Issues

Thursday, March 31, 2005

West Virginia bill would keep local agencies from doing broadband on their own

The West Virginia Senate, under pressure from telecommunications companies, toned down a bill intended to encourage public-private partnerships to bring broadband Internet service to small towns and other underserved areas. In some states, localities have taken the lead in providing high-speed broadband service, but in others, legislatures have prohibited them from doing so.

The West Virginia bill calls for a study of the best way to bring those services to the regions of the state that lack broadband Internet, writes Phil Kabler of The Charleston Gazette. It was a compromise after the Senate Finance Committee amended the bill to allow public-private partnerships only if the state commerce secretary said there was no likelihood that a private company could offer comparable services in the future. The bill’s lead sponsor, Sen. John Unger, D-Berkeley, said of the compromise, “We decided to back off and do the study. I think we should be sure the public sector doesn’t step on the private sector.”

The Associated Press reported that the Finance Committee also "removed a provision that would have allowed municipalities to issue bonds to finance broadband infrastructure development."

In rural Arizona, where tourism is king, capital is scarce; 'great divide' with cities

Thousands of retirees are helping much of rural and small-town Arizona grow at a time when much of non-urban America is losing people.

"Living in much of Arizona's wide-open spaces means settling for per-capita income that trails both the state's urban centers and the national average -- and it's losing ground. Also, industry is scarce in these regions where tourism is king, and traditional sectors of mining, ranching or farming are in decline," reports The Arizona Republic. Joe Yuhas, deputy director of the state Department of Commerce, told the Phoenix newspaper, "When you talk about problems in the state economy, a big contributing factor is the reality of rural Arizona. The health of rural Arizona has a huge impact on the state's economic health."

The department is the spearhead of efforts to improve rural opportunities. Lower incomes, higher poverty and the decline of traditional industries are common themes in the intermountain West, the newspaper reports. These rural Western regions are tethered to tourism, and capital for new businesses is scarce. In addition, schools are starved for resources and higher education options are limited. As in other Western states, the federal government is a force, controlling nearly 45 percent of the state. This brings jobs and tourism, but also limits land uses, they write.

The phenomenon has long drawn the attention of state leaders, although action has been limited. A University of Arizona report cited "the great divide" between Maricopa and Pima counties and the rest of the state. As a result, rural Arizona is hungry for jobs created by projects that are shunned by cities, such as power plants, mines and prisons. One county, for example, is seeing construction of a $75 million private prison, they report.

Jackson, Tenn., newspaper awarded court fees in open-records lawsuit against city

A Tennessee judge has awarded The Jackson Sun more than $6,000 in attorney fees for an open records lawsuit the newspaper brought against the city of Jackson.

The newspaper's attorneys will receive $3,085 each for work when the Sun sued the city for disclosure of documents related to the Diamond Jaxx minor league baseball team and Jackson police field interviews. The Sun filed the lawsuit in January, also suing for the disclosure of the 911 tape or transcript of the tape from a shooting at a state garage that left three dead. The court ruled that the newspaper should have access to the field interviews and the baseball team's financial records but denied access to the 911 tapes. The release of the field interviews has been delayed until an appeals court reviews the issue.

The city plans to appeal the ruling on the baseball records, though they have been released. Sun Executive Editor Richard Schneider said, ''We realize that this is the first round.'' He said he believes the case shows how difficult and expensive it is for private citizens to obtain records a government wants to keep secret.

Wal-Mart beats other companies with technology; smaller businesses must catch up

If smaller companies want to stay competitive against retail giants like Wal-Mart, they must understand and develop their use of computer technology, writes business columnist Don McNay, in a column that was first published online and is to appear in Sunday's Richmond (Ky.) Register.

The column was prompted by the closing of a grocery in nearby Berea. "The loss of IGA was like the death of a friend," McNay writes. The store "sits across the street from a vacated Wal-Mart," abandoned for the supercenter that probably forced the IGA out of business. "Most of Berea's new businesses are near the current Wal-Mart location, while the former Wal-Mart location is surrounded by older and often empty buildings."

McNay references In Sam We Trust, a book by Bob Ortega, which explains how Wal-Mart spent millions on computers in the early 1980s to track inventory, trends and prices. Wal Mart doesn’t know the names of any customers, he writes, but it knows their purchasing habits. “If small-town businesses are going to compete against Wal-Mart, they are going to have to know their customers on a personal basis … and get up to speed with market research and technology," he writes. "They need to find their markets and niches."

Tennessee war on meth official; measure signed into law limits cold-drug sales

Tennessee Gov. Phil Bredesen yesterday signed a law intended to fight the state's methamphetamine problem, and its affect is immediate on small stores: They must stop, within 24 hours, selling cold tablets used to make the drug.

"I hope this collective action sends a clear signal to the people of Tennessee that we are serious about tackling this problem," Bredesen said as he signed the measure, which raced through the legislature a little more than a month after he proposed it, writes Matt Gouras of The Associated Press.

The biggest changes included in the law are restrictions on some cold medicines that contain pseudoephedrine, a major component in making meth. The medicines will be sold only from behind a pharmacy counter in limited amounts, with each purchase recorded. Small stores that don't have pharmacies won't be allowed to sell drugs that contain pseudoephedrine, writes Gouras. Bredesen said, "This new law strikes the right balance between public safety and consumer convenience. We appreciate pharmacies' and retailers' support and cooperation in the war against meth."

The drug is "cooked" using cold medicine and easily obtainable items such as lye, matchbook striker plates and iodine. Much of the new law takes effect immediately. Pharmacies have 30 days to move restricted cold medicines behind the counter -- excluding liquid or gelcap medicines, which can't be used to make meth. For the Tennessean version by Leon Alligood, click here. For a more detailed look at the law itself, in The Tennessean, click here.

Minnesota governor's tribal casino plan declared unconstitutional; challenge expected

Minnesota Attorney General Mike Hatch has declared in a legal opinion that Gov. Tim Pawlenty's plan to let Indian tribes from entirely rural Northern Minnesota have a multi-tribal casino near the Twin Cities would be unconstitutional without a voter-approved amendment to the state charter.

Hatch and his chief deputy, Kristine Eiden, did not offer a formal opinion on a second casino plan, a "racino" proposed for Canterbury Park racetrack in Shakopee, but Eiden told Patrick Sweeney of the St. Paul Pioneer Press their legal analysis would apply to the Canterbury plan.

Pawlenty's chief of staff, Dan McElroy, said Pawlenty had always expected a constitutional challenge, and still thinks it will survive a court test. McElroy said courts in four other states with constitutional provisions substantially similar to Minnesota's have allowed casinos such as Pawlenty proposed. The Senate Agriculture, Veterans and Gaming Committee. The Senate committee is expected to vote on the bill Monday.

Kentucky counties closing small jails; larger counties house inmates for a fee

With action by Breathitt County, 32 of Kentucky's 120 counties have closed their jails since 1983, when the state began enforcing new standards on the facilities, some of which had been compared to medieval dungeons.

"That was then. Now officials in counties with small jails say they're closing their doors because they can't afford to keep them open," writes Lee Mueller of the Lexington Herald-Leader. Breathitt Judge-Executive Lewis Warrix, in referring to costs, told Mueller, "Every one of us has got a bigger pipe going out than we've got coming in." He told Mueller the expense of maintaining the 12-bed jail in Jackson -- remodeled and reopened in 1996 at a cost of $1 million -- "had just gone out of sight."

"Breathitt County's facility is the second small Eastern Kentucky jail to close during the last three months -- and a third could be in jeopardy. Knott County, which spent $1.2 million two years ago to refurbish its 14-bed jail, shut it down in December," Mueller writes. Estill County Judge-Executive Wallace Taylor told Mueller the fiscal court is considering closing it again. The county's finances forced it to shut down its 15-bed jail to briefly in 2003.

Even as the number of inmates in Kentucky jails has increased by 13 percent since last March -- swollen by a flood of drug-related arrests -- the closing of small facilities comes as no shock to most corrections experts. "Every county needs a jail," said Knott County Sheriff Ray Bolen. "But they're just too costly."

John Rees, commissioner of the state Department of Corrections, told the newspaper, "Basically, it really takes a facility of 400 to 500 beds for economies of scale to start taking place. The state and federal mandates for operating a jail are expensive." Kentucky still has 78 full-service jails and 15 so-called "life-safety" jails for misdemeanor offenders. Those facilities housed 14,629 inmates on March 4, 2004, and 16,536 on March 4 this year, he writes.

Low-carb donations feed the needy in Appalachia; diet craze fades, benefits the poor

A surplus of diet food for the overweight is helping feed the hungry in Appalachia. "Unsold crates of low-carbohydrate energy bars, shakes and breakfast mixes have been pouring into the Christian Appalachian Project to be distributed in mountain communities. For people who otherwise might go hungry, diet food beats no food at all," writes Roger Alford of The Associated Press.

Ken Slone manages the charity's warehouse some 25 miles from the spot where President Lyndon Johnson declared war on poverty in 1964, Alford writes. Slone told him, "When you're feeding people, you're doing a good thing." Since September, the charity has received 14 truck-loads of food from Atkins Nutritionals, the New York company famous for the low-carb diet. Slone said each truckload contained about 1,300 cases of energy bars, shakes and breakfast mixes that are being distributed to churches and other organizations that minister to the needy.

Rev. Brooks Kerrick, founder of Extended Hands Ministries, which serves residents in a rural area that has double-digit unemployment rates, told Alford, "The Atkins products have really been a lifesaver for us. They'll sure keep your belly button from rubbing your backbone." Atkins Nutritional said it routinely provides free foods to charitable organizations. A recent study by the independent marketing company NPD Group found the percentage of American adults on any low-carb diet in 2004 peaked at 9.1 percent in February and dropped to 4.9 percent by early November.

R.J. Reynolds Tobacco president defends marketing practices; feds say youth targeted

The president of R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co. said her company tightly restricts its marketing to reach only adult smokers, but a government lawyer questioned that claim yesterday in a racketeering lawsuit against cigarette makers.

"A Justice Department lawyer pointed Lynn J. Beasley to advertisements for Reynolds products in recent editions of two magazines -- Stuff and Smooth -- that also featured a comic strip, articles on video games and a rap music star, and pictures of largely undressed women," writes Hilary Roxe of The Associated Press. Beasley replied, "Were the advertisement in the publication then it would meet our criteria, and I'd be happy to go through those criteria with you.".

Reynolds' marketing policies include using available readership data to ensure product ads are not placed in magazines that target people under 21 or that have a readership of more than 15 percent youths, Beasley said in written testimony. And, Beasley added, that tightening the company policies since 2000 led Reynolds to stop placing ads in several magazines, including Rolling Stone and Allure. Beasley's testimony, which was expected to continue Thursday, comes in the sixth month of the trial in U.S. District Court.

In a lawsuit filed under a 1970 civil racketeering law designed to prosecute mobsters, the government alleges that tobacco companies engaged in a five-decade conspiracy to hide the hazards associated with smoking. The defendants in the lawsuit are: Philip Morris USA Inc. and its parent, Altria Group Inc.; R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co.; Brown & Williamson Tobacco Co.; British American Tobacco Ltd.; Lorillard Tobacco Co.; Liggett Group Inc.; Counsel for Tobacco Research-U.S.A.; and the Tobacco Institute.

Wednesday, March 30, 2005

Georgia bill requiring voter ID stirs furor; critics say hurts blacks, elderly, rural voters

Legislation to require Georgians to show photo identification at the polls has advanced over passionate objections from lawmakers who said the move could disenfranchise many black, elderly and rural voters.

The Senate approved the bill which must go back to the House for approval of minor changes. But, the Senate action moved the legislation much closer to becoming law, write Sonji Jacobs and Carlos Campos of The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. It also left hard feelings, especially among black lawmakers. Senate Minority Leader Robert Brown (D-Macon), an African-American, told the newspaper, "This is spitting on the grave of Martin Luther King Jr." Black lawmakers argued the measure would turn back the clock on civil rights. Some compared the bill to a poll tax or other measures from the past that were meant to prevent blacks from voting.

Republicans argued the measure would help prevent voter fraud and protect the integrity of the ballot. The bill would reduce the number of acceptable forms of identification for voting from 17 to six forms of government-issued photo identification. Sen. John Wiles (R-Marietta) told Jacobs and Campos, "This bill reassures the voting public the election process is a fair and honest process."

The bill allows poor people to obtain a free state photo ID. But opponents said there are only 50 places in Georgia's 159 counties where such IDs could be obtained, and it would be inconvenient or impossible for some people to get them. Groups such as the AARP of Georgia, the League of Women Voters of Georgia and the American Civil Liberties Union of Geogia opposed the measure. Meg Smothers, executive director of the state League of Women Voters, said the restrictions would hamper voter turnout, they write.

Federal drug official tours Tennessee meth burn unit; children, families often victims

A top federal drug official yesterday toured a regional burn center in Nashville where a third of the patients were injured by fires and explosions in clandestine methamphetamine labs.

Joseph Keefe, deputy director of the Office on National Drug Control Policy, toured the burn center, where seven of the 20 patients were admitted with what law enforcement authorities believe were meth-related burns, writes Bill Poovey of The Associated Press. Doctors say such cases are showing up every day and driving up the medical costs for everyone. The costs of treating critically injured burn victims typically exceed $10,000 a day, and most meth patients don't have health insurance.

Dr. Jeff Guy, director of the Vanderbilt University Medical Center regional burn center told AP, "As bad as this may sound, as a burn doctor I almost wish another drug, one less volatile that doesn't regularly explode during the manufacturing process, would come down the pike to overtake the popularity of meth." Guy told Keefe of one man who has been in the burn unit about 30 days and his medical costs to date total about $240,000. He said, "We are seeing kids in meth labs." Keefe, who was in Nashville to attend a state conference on meth, described what he saw in the burn unit as "devastating," writes Poovey.

Between October 2003 and August 2004, the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration broke up about 1,200 clandestine meth labs in Tennessee, a nearly 400 percent increase from 2000. And, the state removed an estimated 750 children from the custody of meth abusers last year, up from 2003. Even when labs don't explode, AP writes, the toxic vapors contaminate property and can cause health problems. Keefe commended Gov. Phil Bredesen and state lawmakers for approaching the drug problem with tougher criminal laws, public education and addiction treatment.

Iowa casinos, bankruptcies, more crime linked, disputed study indicates

Preliminary findings of a study, that looks into the impact of gambling on Iowans, indicate counties in the state with casinos have more bankruptcies and higher crime rates.

The University of Northern Iowa study was commissioned by the state legislature last year as lawmakers considered expanding the number of casinos, reports The Associated Press. The report says there are more bankruptcies in counties that have casinos than in comparable counties that don't. The report also says the 10 counties that have gambling also have more crime, but the report's authors said they weren't ready to say crime was worse because of gambling. They said more study is needed.

Deepak Chhabra, an assistant professor at UNI , said, "We don't know what the reason is." The study found that gambling generated $3.5 billion and created 35,000 jobs in Iowa last year. It was unclear whether the study would sway state leaders. Senate Republican President Jeff Lamberti of Ankeny told reporters, "Based on what I'm seeing, it's about what we expected. So I don't think it will have a huge impact."

Senate Democratic President Jack Kibbie said some rural counties already are losing jobs and population, and he doesn't see any greater risk of bankruptcies because of gambling. Bob Miller, president of the anti-gambling group Truth About Gambling Foundation, said the study was inadequate. Wes Ehrecke, president of the Iowa Gaming Association, said the study shows gambling is good for the state's economy. Ehrecke told reporters, "It is adding to Iowa's entertainment and tourism industry." A final version of the report is due by July 1, AP writes.

States, Native American tribes put gaming on the table; say economic benefit to all

Representatives of 23 Native American tribes gathered in Denver yesterday for a summit with western state governors to discuss Indian gaming and potential changes to the federal law that oversees the industry.

With Congress pondering increased oversight, tribal leaders were eager to point out the benefits of gambling — not just to their own people, but also to surrounding communities, writes David Kelly of the Los Angles Times. (Site requires free registration.) Keller George, president of the United Southern and Eastern Tribes told reporters, "In New York, we have created 5,000 jobs for Indians and non-Indians. In Florida, they have created 15,000 jobs in and around Miami. Indian gaming has helped everybody."

The summit, sponsored by the Western Governors Association., was designed to look at the 1988 Indian Gaming Regulatory Act, which allowed tribes to open casinos. Republican Govs. Bill Owens of Colorado and Michael Rounds of South Dakota expressed concerns about casino expansion, decrying the practice of tribes putting land in trust so they could use it for off-reservation gambling. Owens is battling the Cheyenne-Arapahoe tribe of Oklahoma, which has laid claim to nearly 30 million acres of Colorado. The tribe has said it will relinquish the land for the right to build a casino east of Denver.

Ownes told reporters, "While the growth of Indian gaming clearly has benefits for the tribes, it also raises questions for states," Owens warned against back-door attempts by Congress to attach riders to bills that gave tribes permission for gaming without state consent. "No one wants to see the federal government locate casinos on our land without the approval of the citizens." Congress recently has taken up the issue of Indian gambling, Kelly writes.

Ohio tax on beer, tobacco may rise; prompted in part by Kentucky cig tax hike

Ohio state legislators are set to approve a proposed $51.3 billion, two-year budget plan, that includes tax increases on beer and tobacco products, prompted in part by neighboring Kentucky's increase it its cigarette tax.

Just who will benefit from the upcoming budget that begins July 1 isn’t certain, but as it stands, Ohio manufacturers like the proposal while Ohio retailers don’t, writes David E. Malloy of The Herald-Dispatch.

Tim Gearhart, owner of Tim’s News and Novelties in Ironton, expects to see a drop in sales if the Legislature approves sin taxes on tobacco and alcohol, writes Malloy for the Huntington, W.Va. newspaper. Gearhart told him, "We’re already at a tremendous disadvantage with Kentucky. If the tax on a pack of cigarettes increases by another 75 cents as is proposed, "it could put somebody like me out of the cigarette business."

"I heard the tax on beer could double," Gearhart continued. "If this happens, it will be doom on cigarette dealers in border areas. It just makes it impossible for small businesses to compete." Gearhart said About 25 percent of his sales, comes from tobacco and beer. He told Mallory he had a glimmer of hope when Kentucky raised its cigarette tax from 3 to 30 cents, but any benefit, he says, will be lost if Ohio raises its tax to $1.30 per pack.

Japan plans to ease mad-cow tests; move could let U.S. beef back in lucrative market

Japan's food safety panel has recommended the government stop testing cattle younger than 21 months for mad-cow disease, a step toward making U.S. beef eligible for import after a 15-month ban, reports the Chicago Tribune.

Tokyo, seeking to soothe worries about a domestic mad-cow outbreak, has refused to reopen its market to U.S. beef until Washington adopts blanket testing for the disease, the Tribune writes. However, the Food Safety Commission's scientific experts said research has shown rogue proteins linked to the disease don't show up in tests on cattle younger than 21 months, and easing the testing standards would not put consumers at risk. (Site requires free registration.)

Contract growers hoping chicken offers steady nest egg may be trapped by debt

In 1999, former high school physics teacher Susan Martin became one of the country's 30,000 contract growers responsible for much of the chicken Americans eat. She had dreams of succeeding in agribusiness working with Sanderson Farms, a large Mississippi poultry processor with more than $1 billion in annual sales, dreams that became a nightmare.

Two years after starting, writes Barry Shlachter of the Star-Telegram, Martin was losing money and carrying $460,000 in farm debt. She discovered under the terms of her contract, she couldn't sue Sanderson, which she accused of misleading her. And, she could not afford the $23,000 cost of binding arbitration. The American Arbitration Association's Dallas office rejected Martin's request to waive the fees, writes Shlachter for the Fort Worth, Texas newspaper.

Sanderson's chief financial officer, Mike Cockrell, denied the company has misled its contract growers in Texas. But poultry companies like Sanderson, Tyson and Pilgrim's Pride have increasingly come under criticism for their half-century-old system of contract growing, through which about 90 percent of U.S. chickens are now produced, Shlachter writes. Under contract, the poultry companies own the flocks and supply the feed. Growers, who get a guaranteed price per pound, provide the labor, chicken houses, water, electricity and gas. But many find themselves deep in hock and unable to make a profit.

Wes Sims, president of the Waco-based Texas Farmers Union, told Shlachter that predictions of growers' earnings are overstated, that they risk being cut off from fresh flocks for refusing costly upgrades demanded by companies, and that their heavy farm debt ensures they renew unfair contracts, creating a system akin to modern-day serfdom. Poultry companies say contracts are a boon to farmers, insulated from fluctuating market conditions by a set price.

Texas, unlike Iowa, Kansas, Illinois and Georgia, has no specific law protecting contract farmers from unfair practices by poultry integrators. And farmers like Martin who have tried to organize growers' associations in Texas say company pressure brought such efforts to an end after one or two meetings, he writes.

Something's fishy in the water; sea lice can be spread to wild fish, researchers say

There has always been disagreement among fishery experts about the extent to which sea lice, a pest on fish farms, can spread to wild fish.

But, Canadian researchers now say that fish farms are “prodigious producers” of sea lice, and juvenile fish can become infested, and in fact could become a secondary source of infestation for wild fish, writes Cornelia Dean of The New York Times, with ominous consequences for consumer popular salmon.

The researches began their fieldwork in 2003 after trapping 5,500 juvenile salmon, all free of parasites until nearing fish farms. Once they passed the fish farms and headed to sea, the scientists concluded the salmon were so infested that they spread the lice as they went, Dean writes.

Sea lice live in salt water, and young salmon first encounter them when they swim down river toward the sea. The lice feed on the fish’s blood and create open lesions, disturbing the fish’s natural balance with the water, writes Dean.

Several briefs on U. S. Supreme Court’s docket involve First Amendment issues

The Supreme Court has had several cases on its docket this year with First Amendment implications, at least one related to the free press and two other cases affecting free speech.

One case appealed a Pennsylvania Supreme Court ruling which forced a newspaper to pay damages after it “reported a city councilman called the mayor and council president ‘liars,’ ‘queers,’ and ‘child molesters,’” writes the Chicago Tribune. (Site requires free registration.) The Supreme Court refused to hear that case.

Two other cases relate to file-sharing software and regulating "monopolistic" Internet Service Providers, writes the American Civil Liberties Union. In the first case, the high court will decide whether makers of peer-to-peer software can be held liable for any illegal uses of the software, including the sharing of copyrighted material. In the second case, FCC v. Brand X, the Court will decide whether cable broadband Internet providers can be forced to provide access to other ISPs. (To see the previous blog item about Brand X, check the March archive.)

Barry Steinhardt, Director of the ACLU’s Technology and Liberty Project, told reporters, "This case is about free speech, because if the forums where speech take place are not themselves free, and the Internet may be the greatest forum of them all, then the First Amendment becomes nothing more than a dry, meaningless abstraction."

No movement in Kentucky lawsuit that sparked debate on overweight trucks

Lawyers have made no moves yet to restart a lawsuit that sparked debate among Kentucky legislators about whether truckers should be allowed to haul heavier loads of sand, oil, gravel and other natural resources.

Pike County Circuit Judge Eddy Coleman left the lawsuit in limbo more than four months ago to give the state legislature time to deal with the issue. However, legislative efforts stalled earlier this month, shortly before the General Assembly adjourned for the year, writes Roger Alford of The Associated Press.

Jon A. Woodall, a Lexington attorney representing D.R.T. Trucking of Pikeville, told Alford he plans to meet with his client next week to discuss what action to take. The company claims in the lawsuit that Kentucky's weight limits unconstitutionally favor coal haulers. Woodall said, "I suspect when we sit down and talk about this a decision will be made one way or the other. Frankly, my gut feeling is we will go forward with it."

Kentucky Justice and Public Safety Cabinet is a defendant in the case. Spokesman Chris Gilligan declined comment. Bill Caylor, president of the Kentucky Coal Association, told AP, the next step in the case is up to the trucking company. He said. “ For the record, I'd like to see the plaintiff not pursue this lawsuit."

States sue after EPA weakens Clean Air Act for power plant mercury emissions

Nine states have filed suit against a new federal rule, released by the Environmental Protection Agency earlier this month, which loosens the Clean Air Act’s strict controls on power plant's mercury emissions.

The suit was filed by New Jersey and California, Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Mexico, New York and Vermont, writes Anthony DePalma of The New York Times. It says the rule doesn’t do enough to control dangerous mercury emissions, often found in fish. Mercury emissions are considered a neurotoxin that can cause brain damage. “Instead of having to apply cutting-edge technology to reduce mercury, power plants will be given the option of using a system called cap and trade,” DePalma writes. “Under that system, operators can purchase pollution credits from other plants that have managed to lower their mercury emissions.”

Power companies say once the system begins, some operators will begin reducing mercury emissions almost immediately, DePalma writes. Scott H. Segal, director of the Electric Reliability Coordinating Council, told DePalma,"Facilities that can make cost-effective reductions early, so they can generate credits they can trade, have a big incentive to do it quickly." The New York Department of Health listed 51 water sources last year where people were advised to limit their consumption of fresh-caught fish, DePalma writes.

Mine worker drug tests bring mixed results; accidents cut, hiring harder, say owners

Efforts to help combat accidents in coal mines with more stringent drug testing have brought pluses and minus, say industry officials.

Coal mine owner Greg Damron credits drug testing at his Eastern Kentucky mines for reducing accidents nearly by half over the past three years, to about 15 minor injury incidents. But he said that pre-employment, random and post-accident screenings at his Cheyenne Elkhorn Coal Co. are also why he cannot hire enough people, writes Alan Maimon of The Courier-Journal. Damron told Maimon, "We could use 15 more miners, but we won't get them because of our drug tests."

Industry, labor and government representatives met in Hazard to discuss drug use in mines and whether the state should legislate drug testing. Kentucky Environmental and Public Protection Cabinet Secretary LaJuana Wilcher created the task force to, "eliminate substance abuse in Kentucky coal mines." Wilcher said the group would try to compile data to quantify the extent of drug use in mines. She said the state has had difficulty collecting reliable statistics on accidents caused by drug use because state and federal agencies lack the authority to test miners for drugs, he writes.

Currently, coal companies voluntarily create their own drug-testing policies. But not all do so. The meeting came after the General Assembly adjourned without getting to consider draft legislation that would have empowered the state Department of Mine Safety and Licensing to test miners after fatal or serious injury accidents. The bill did not get a sponsor, writes Maimon.

Horse Cave pollution costs Michigan company $325,000; Sierra Club applauds fine

A Michigan company that owns a manufacturing plant in Horse Cave, Ky., will pay the state a $325,000 settlement, 65 times larger than one it previously agreed to for allegedly dumping pollution in a sinkhole.

"In the waning weeks of Gov. Paul Patton's administration, state environmental regulators had reached a settlement with the Dart Container Corp., whose Kentucky plant makes foam and plastic cups and eating utensils, to pay $5,000," writes James Bruggers of The Courier-Journal.

The settlement was reached after inspectors had discovered a pipe sending wastewater from a production line to a sinkhole that flows into the Green River and Mammoth Cave National Park. But after Kentucky Attorney General Greg Stumbo's office reviewed the case, Stumbo obtained the larger settlement. Dart denies any wrongdoing. Corporate counsel Frank Liesman, told Bruggers, "To avoid any further cost, and a lot of problems, we feel it was appropriate to put this matter behind us." He said no one told the company the discharge had resulted in environmental harm. Liesman acknowledged discharge occurred but he believed water was being poured into the sinkhole.

A Sierra Club activist was pleased Stumbo found a way to increase the settlement, saying the earlier penalty was likely too small to be felt by the company. Aloma Dew, a Sierra Club representative, told Bruggers, "Five thousand dollars is a pitiful amount of money if there was pollution going into the water from an industrial operation. It wouldn't make them think twice."

Rural dating services match country folks seeking country mates, country loving

"Rural guy seeks country lady," appears to be the mantra of dating services who are expanding their services and marketing efforts, seeking to enhance romance beyond city limits.

Match.com now offers a specialty dating service for those whose dating predilections mirror their love for all things country. MyCountryMatch.com specializes in matching up available singles who are “ready to focus [their] efforts on someone with real country values—integrity, honesty and family.”

According to promotional material on the site, the premise behind MyCountryMatch.com starts “with the fact that most of our members are drawn to today's country music artists.” “Country music,” the Web site claims, “speaks to your heart. You relate to the lyrics, you appreciate the values, and the sexuality and romance make your heart pound.”

MyCountryMatch.com offers a free registration that allows users to navigate much of the site. Full privileges start at $9.95. Of particular note, MyCountryMatch offers RSSReally Simple Syndication—feeds for prospective singles for each state. Men and women seeking members of either sex can add the feed appropriate for their state and dating interests to their news aggregator. Doing so brings a user a fresh batch of ads posted by interested singles as soon as the ads are updated.

The advantages of RSS extend beyond finding oneself a Martina McBride-loving sweetie. RSS feeds, coupled with freely available news aggregators like NewsGator and Feed Demon, allow users to receive a continuous news feed on specific topics of their choice. Check out James Lewin’s Introduction to RSS News Feeds for an in-depth introduction to the technology. (IRJCI Blog Research Assistant Josh Tucker wrote this story.)

Tuesday, March 29, 2005

Kansas research challenges happy home on the range; rural but dense, less happy

The notion of easy-going small-town life, with its picket fences and friendly neighbors, might only be true in the movies.

That's according to interviews of Kansans conducted in connection with a research project at the Kansas University School of Medicine's Rural Primary Care Practice and Research program, writes Terry Rombeck of The Lawrence Journal-World. The research showed that people living in sparsely populated rural areas and densely populated urban areas tended to be happier than those living in more densely populated rural areas.

Dr. Allen Greiner, who directs the program, told Rombeck, "I think part of it has to do with changes over time. What's happening in rural America is a consolidation of the agriculture industry. It's tougher for businesses that can stay afloat to be supported, and there's population shrinkage in those middle-sized counties." The 4,600 interviews were conducted in 2001 by the Kansas Department of Health and Environment. The KU project was based on the results of two questions, one asking how connected a person felt to their community and the other asking how they rated their communities as a place to live, Rombeck writes.

The study found people living in frontier and rural areas were the most involved in their communities, while those in the densely settled rural areas were the unhappiest. Those in the densely settled rural areas also were more likely to smoke and drink than their counterparts in other categories of counties. Nineteen Kansas counties fall into the densely settled rural population category.

Sex offenders and their registries make news in Iowa, Georgia, Kentucky

Iowa authorities have virtually stopped distributing fliers listing sex offenders' addresses, saying it's up to the public to check the searchable Internet database for predators in their neighborhoods, but a prominent Iowa legislator wants to toughen the state's registry law.

Unless Iowans check www.iowasexoffenders .com , which lists 6,400 names, they probably won't know. Police officers aren't going to come knocking on their doors, write Jennifer Jacobs and Madelaine Jerousek, of The Des Moines Register. Mark Klaas, who founded the Klaas Kids Foundation in 1994, told Jacobs and Jerousek, "That's the trend across the country. I've always been in favor of a screwdriver sticking out of the forehead as a way of handling this, but I don't think that's going to go over well. The main source for accessing information about sex offenders in America now is pretty much the Internet."

Iowa House Speaker Christopher Rants, a Republican, has promised an amendment that would prevent a sex offender from living within 1,000 feet of a child care center or school. Iowa used to prevent sex offenders from living within 2,000 feet of such places, but that law was ruled unconstitutional. Rants told the newspaper, "If we are going to have a discussion about the registry, it's time we put that law back on the books."

A nationwide survey last fall by Parents for Megan's Law found that Florida and Maryland scored best in notifying the public. Vermont and South Dakota were lowest, and Iowa ranked in the middle. The survey found that Iowa and 21 other states don't require active community notification when offenders move into new neighborhoods, and that Iowa and 26 other states don't offer phone numbers to access registries. Unlike Iowa, 15 states don't require juvenile sex offenders to register.

For a story in today's Atlanta Journal-Constitution, headlined Public Rushes Sex-Offender Site, click here. Georgia's online sex-offender registry has drawn a record number of visitors this month — probably because the recent kidnapping and murder of a 9-year-old Florida girl has jarred people into wondering just who's living near them, a Georgia Bureau of Investigation spokesman told AJC writer Jill Young. For Georgia registry go to www.ganet.org/gbi. and click on sex offender.

For a story on three sex-offenders who've slipped out of Floyd County, Kentucky, click here for a story from The Floyd County Times. For the national sex offender registry clearinghouse, listing all states' registries, click here.

Georgia bill shields info on elected officials; 'lockdown' blocks union, public access

A broad new exception to Georgia's public records law could make it nearly impossible for citizens to learn where elected officials live or how to reach them by telephone.

The House bill would block disclosure of personal information about elected officials and employees of every state and local government agency in Georgia. Home addresses, telephone numbers and Social Security numbers would be among the protected data, writes Alan Judd of The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

Though the bill does not specify which documents would be shielded from the public, it could allow officials to keep their addresses secret even on their annual financial disclosure statements. Those filings, which can reveal conflicts between an official's public actions and private holdings, require hundreds of the state's top elected and appointed officials to list the real estate and businesses they own, Judd writes. Hollie Manheimer, executive director of the Georgia First Amendment Foundation, an open government advocacy group, told Judd, "It essentially is a lockdown. And it doesn't seem ...necessary in all, if any, cases. The broadness is the thing to fear. It can be manipulated to hide whatever the public employer wants to."

The bill, which is ready for Gov. Sonny Perdue to sign into law, is one of numerous secrecy measures introduced during this year's legislative session, including a measure which would allow government agencies to negotiate private development deals in secret and another which would allow state university foundations to withhold donors' names from the public.The public records exception bill, sponsored by Rep. Austin Scott (R-Tifton), could cloud the transparency afforded by numerous government documents filed by elected and appointed officials, he writes.

Minnesota newspaper appeals case; open meeting law, confidentiality request at issue

The Minnesota Supreme Court will again be asked to determine the power of local officials to close public hearings under an exception to the state's Open Meeting law.

A Court of Appeals panel ruled against the Brainerd Dispatch last week in a case that challenged the Brainerd City Council's use of the attorney-client privilege to discuss a threatened lawsuit, reports The Associated Press.

The Dispatch publisher, Terry McCollough, told the newspaper's reporters he will appeal the case to the state's highest court. The Supreme Court isn't required to review the appellate court's decision. That ruling upheld a district court's dismissal of the lawsuit against the City Council. The council met in closed session in July 2003 about a possible lawsuit from a peace group that had been denied permission to march in the local Fourth of July parade, writes AP

Judge Natalie Hudson wrote for the Court of Appeals, "The need to have confidential discussion with specifically appointed counsel and to discuss strategies to defend against potential claims and avoid financial damages outweighs the purposes of the Minnesota Open Meeting Law in this case."

Mark Anfinson, the paper's attorney, said the ruling could allow public bodies to go into private session more frequently when controversial issues arise and prompt threatened lawsuits. "It knocks a significant tooth out of the smile of the Open Meeting law." In 2002, the Supreme Court narrowed the ability of government bodies to close public meetings, ruling that the Prior Lake City Council broke the law when it met privately to discuss a legal threat on a pending matter. An attorney for the city said last week that the latest ruling was consistent with the Prior Lake case.

Tennessee House approves meth-free measure; similar to effective Oklahoma law

The Tennessee House has joined the Senate in unanimously approving the "Meth-Free Tennessee Act of 2005," aimed at ending the state's status as leader in the Southeast in illegal methamphetamine manufacturing.

The Senate concurred in a minor House amendment later in the evening, clearing the bill for a ceremonial signing tomorrow by Gov. Phil Bredesen. The bill was drafted by a task force the governor appointed last year, writes Tom Humphrey of The Knoxville News Sentinel. The bill is similar to a law in Oklahoma credited with reducing that state's illegal meth labs by 82 percent within a year. House sponsor Rep. Charles Curtiss, D-Sparta, said 1,594 meth labs were found in Tennessee last year, 75 percent of all those discovered in the southeastern United States.

The bill would move certain cold medicines behind pharmacy counters. The pharmaceuticals are a key ingredient in meth. It also would limit the amount of pseudoephedrine-based medicine that people can buy and requires identification to get it. The state Pharmacy Board will decide which cold medicines need to be restricted, Humphrey writes.

Curtiss told reporters if the 82 percent reduction in Oklahoma happens in Tennessee,"That means we'll be down to 319, and we'll have effectively cleaned up 1,200 meth labs without spending a dime.It's going to curb the clandestine labs in our state. It's not going to stop meth abuse. Meth is now coming out of Mexico into our country just like cocaine." For The Associated Press version of this story, click here. For a story on South Carolina's efforts to deal with a growing meth problem written by Brock Vergakus of The (Myrtle Beach) Sun, click here.

W. Va. Senate approves casino gambling; sponsor predicts 'excellent' chance of passage

Legislation to legalize casino-style table gambling at West Virginia’s four racetracks remained on a hot streak yesterday, winning passage in the state Senate.

The bill goes to the House of Delegates, where lead sponsor Sen. Andy McKenzie, R-Ohio, said of its chances for passage, “I think they’re excellent.” Senators rejected several Republican amendments, including one by Sen. Steve Harrison, R-Kanawha, to require a statewide referendum on whether to allow the four host counties to vote to authorize table games at their local tracks, writes Phil Kabler of The Charleston Gazette.

Harrison told reporters just before his amendment was defeated, “I don’t think anyone can credibly argue that casino gambling won’t have a statewide impact.” Also rejected were amendments to put the state’s share of table gambling profits into special revenue accounts, first to offset the sales tax on food, and second, to offset state gasoline excise taxes. The Senate adopted an amendment by Sen. Don Caruth, R-Mercer, to set aside a portion of the state’s profits to offset counties’ regional jail expenses. Senators also approved an amendment to raise the annual table game license fee for each track from $25,000 to $150,000. The additional $125,000 per track would be divided among the state’s Regional Economic Development Authorities. For The Associated Press version, click here.

N.C. tobacco farmers plot new course; some see same level but fewer producers

With the end of price supports and restrictions on how much they can grow that came with last year’s tobacco buyout legislation, Western North Carolina’s nearly 4,000 growers will have to decide what they’ll do.

Eddie Shelton, a Madison county farmer who usually grows about 50 acres of tobacco but is cutting back to 40 this year, told John Boyle of the Asheville Citizen-Times, “I’m just like everybody else — I’m really concerned about making a living the next 10 years. You’re afraid to spend any money on anything to be able to farm any better because you just don’t know what’s going to happen.” Shelton says he’s selling close to the same number of tobacco seedlings this year as in past years, an indication that growers will stay in the business. But he expects burley production to be more concentrated among fewer producers.

Shelton welcomes the end of having to lease land and pay quota holders for their pounds — usually 30 cents to 35 cents a pound. But production costs such as labor and fertilizer likely will not decrease, and the tobacco he grows will be totally dependent on the free market. Shelton told Boyle, “The only thing that really worries me, with the support price being gone, you’re really not sure you’re going to be able to sell the tobacco you grow. They may not take it all.”

Madison County had about 900 farmers who grew tobacco last year, a number likely to dwindle considerably, according to Charles Zink, county executive director for the Farm Service Agency, a division of the U.S. Department of Agriculture that has administered the tobacco program for decades. Zink told the newspaper, “The older ones are pretty much getting out. There’s others saying if there’s a market closer, they’ll stay in it.”

Aaron Martin, district director for the Farm Service Agency western region of 11 mountain counties, which includes about 3,500 tobacco growers, says it is the end of an era. Martin told boyle, “You’ll see the numbers shrink greatly. There will be far fewer growers, and the ones that do grow will grow a lot more acres. So tobacco production will be concentrated more in the Asheville, Buncombe, Madison areas. A lot of the older growers, the money they get, that’ll end (their growing careers).”

Judge fines British American Tobacco quarter-mill for 'egregious lack of candor'

A federal judge has fined a British tobacco company $250,000 for an "egregious lack of candor" in violating an earlier order in the Justice Department's lawsuit against the cigarette industry.

The fine, imposed by the judge, Gladys Kessler of the U.S. District Court, grows out of the efforts of the company, British American Tobacco, to keep a potentially damaging memorandum out of the racketeering trial of cigarette manufacturers, reports The Associated Press.

Judge Kessler said the company acknowledged last month that it had falsely claimed that an executive was able to answer questions from government lawyers about parts of the memorandum that had been publicly revealed. The judge had earlier ordered the company to make available an executive who could talk about the memorandum.

Justice Department lawyers have been seeking the 1990 memorandum for two years, believing it could strengthen their argument that tobacco companies committed fraud by lying about the dangers of smoking and hiding that information from the public. The memorandum by a London lawyer, Andrew Foyle, advises an Australian subsidiary of the company on whether it should keep or destroy internal paperwork in light of increasing litigation.

Six institutions receive grants to digitize historical twentieth-century newspapers

Six institutions will receive a combined $1.9 million in grants, announced the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Library of Congress, as part of the National Digital Newspapers Program, an effort to develop a free, Internet database of U.S. newspapers now in public domain.

"Newspapers are among the most important historical documents we have as Americans. They tell us who we were, who we are, and where we're going," said NEH Chairman Bruce Cole.

The institutions include: the University of California, the University of Florida Libraries, the University of Kentucky Research Foundation, the New York Public Library, the University of Utah, and the Library of Virginia. The institutions will each digitize 100,000 or more pages of the most historically significant newspapers from 1900-1910 in their respective states, writes the NEH. Once finished, the papers will be available through the Library of Congress’ website. “It will be available to the American public for free, forever,” said Cole.

The six awards were made as part of the We the People initiative, announced by President Bush in 2002. The initiative recognizes any project that seeks to advance understanding of American culture and history. The Digital Newspaper Program is an outgrowth of the U.S. Newspaper Program, an effort by individual states to microfilm local newspapers, which will soon be completed.

Wyoming's budget surplus tops states; energy-dependent states lag behind

Record budget surpluses in Wyoming have prompted an unprecedented spending spree by lawmakers the past two sessions.

Spurred by a huge windfall from mineral taxes, especially on natural gas, lawmakers boosted state spending on government operations from $1.6 billion to $2.5 billion in two years, an eye-popping 56 percent jump, writes Robert W. Flack of The Associated Press.

Wyoming is among a handful of states that are outperforming the rest of the nation, said Arturo Perez, fiscal analyst for the National Conference of State Legislatures. The others include Alaska, Montana, South Dakota, West Virginia, Delaware and Florida.

Perez told Flack, "States that are heavily dependent on energy, more so than other states, have gotten by to a much better degree, and the energy prices being the primary reason for that. But on a percentage basis, no other state came close to matching Wyoming's surplus this past year." Just six years ago, Wyoming faced a $127 million deficit budget. State officials were quick to point out that a significant amount of the extra money also was socked away in savings, allocated toward replacing dilapidated schools and public buildings and shared with income-strapped cities and towns for street, water and sewer repairs.

Humane Society asks Louisiana Supreme Court to uphold parish’s cockfighting ban

The Humane Society of the United States has filed a brief with the Louisiana Supreme Court, asking the court to uphold a Caddo Parish ordinance that bans cockfighting. Louisiana is one of two states in the union where cockfighting is not banned, but the Parish has banned it since 1987. Local promoters and operators of cockfighting pins are challenging the ordinance, saying local authorities can’t prohibit animal fights, writes the Humane Society.

"The plaintiffs are attempting to strip local authorities of their home rule authority, and to pave the way for the reintroduction of cockfighting in all of the Louisiana communities that have specifically outlawed this abhorrent practice," said Jonathan R. Lovvorn, vice president of animal protection litigation for the Humane Society.

“Cockfighting is an arranged fighting match between two specially bred roosters often enhanced with steroids and other drugs who maim each other until one is declared the winner,” says the Humane Society. “The birds are often fitted with specially designed knives that are attached to their talons. Roosters—winners or losers—often die as a result of their injuries from the fight.”

Va. gov. goes 'to Big-eared bat' to add flying rodent to 'state animals' ranks

Virginia, nicknamed the "mother of presidents," soon may be the father of bats.

Gov. Mark R. Warner made it official yesterday when he signed into law the bill making the Virginia big-eared bat the official bat of the commonwealth, writes Michael Hardy of the Richmond Times-Dispatch. In a statement accompanying his signing, the Democrat offered some doggerel to explain his decision. "We have a state dog and a fish and a bird. And of the fossil I'm sure you have heard. So why not a bat? What's wrong with that? The state beverage is no more absurd."

The endangered cave-dweller from Southwest Virginia won the votes of state lawmakers last winter when they added the critter to the state's pantheon of official flora and fauna, writes Hardy. There are about 1,500 to 2,200 big-eared bats in Virginia. The brown, fuzzy big-eared bat - smaller than a sparrow - also takes flight in the mountains of West Virginia, Kentucky and North Carolina. The legislation becomes law on July 1, making Virginia only the second state designating an official bat. Texas also has an official one: the Mexican free-tailed bat, he writes.

Monday, March 28, 2005

Environmental activists plan summer protests against mountaintop-removal mining

Environmental activists from around the country are being urged to descend on Central Appalachia this summer for a series of protests against mountaintop-removal coal mining.

Called “Mountain Justice Summer,” the four-month campaign is modeled after protests more than a decade ago against logging old-growth forests in Northern California, writes Ken Ward Jr. of The Charleston Gazette. The event is being sponsored and promoted by a Tennessee-based affiliate of the controversial group EarthFirst.On Thursday, Coal River Mountain Watch, based in Whitesville, W.Va., is hosting a kickoff rally. Group officials told Ward none of West Virginia’s major environmental organizations has signed on as a sponsor of Mountain Justice Summer, but they support the campaign's goal of stopping large-scale strip mining.

Judy Bonds of Coal River Mountain Watch, which supports the project’s goals but is not a sponsor, told Ward, “It is more a campaign than it is a coalition of groups.” J. John Johnson, a Knoxville, Tenn. resident and volunteer with EarthFirst, agreed: “Mountain Justice Summer is more of an amorphous movement than a tight organization.”

Organizers are asking for volunteers to protest mining operations. A notice on their Web site says, “We see our call to action as an emergency plea, in desperate circumstances — to ratchet up the resistance to the atrocity of mountain range removal before it’s too late. Mountain range removal is the ultimate theft of a people’s heritage, the destruction of entire watersheds and the annihilation of one of the most biologically diverse places on earth. And, the perpetrators are turning it into the biological equivalent of a parking lot.”

To view Mining Central Appalachia's mountains: Writers lament it, some residents praise it, an item in the March 25 Rural Blog on a Harper's article about the mining practice, written by University of Kentucky English professor Erik Reese click here. Reese was interviewed today on XM Satellite Radio by Bob Edwards. To listen, sign up for a free trial on the XM Web site, www.xmradio.com.

Mountain tourism on the map: National Geographic charts Appalachia’s best attractions

The Appalachian Regional Commission has helped states throughout the mountainous region build roads and other infrastructure, and provide high-speed Internet access. Now the agency is turning its attention to another economic development tool -- tourism.

As reported earlier by several local and regional newspapers, ARC paid the National Geographic Society to develop a "geo-tourism" map promoting a mix of more than 350 attractions reflecting the diversity of the 13-state region. Pam Ramsey of The Associated Press writes that the attractions range from the mainstream to the obscure, from the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum in Cooperstown, N.Y., to what's billed as the oldest continuous flea market, in Ripley, Miss.

Also featured, writes Ramsey, are Civil War sites, museums, parks, hiking trails, festivals, historic districts, spas and resorts, celebrity birthplaces, prehistoric Indian mounds and notable farms. The ARC said in a recent news release, "This map delivers a taste of Appalachia's distinctive culture and heritage to a wide audience, exposing this 'undiscovered national treasure' to many first-time visitors."

Anne Pope, ARC co-chairwoman, told the AP the goal is to spur economic growth by drawing tourist dollars to Appalachia. The region covers all of West Virginia and parts of Kentucky, Alabama, Georgia, Maryland, Mississippi, New York, North Carolina, South Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Tennessee and Virginia. In a 2003 report, the ARC said tourism's overall economic impact on Appalachia was $29.1 billion and the industry employed a total of 601,431 workers. The map was also the subject of Louisville Courier-Journal columnist Byron Crawford's Sunday column.

Denied state funding, Kentucky agency folds; aim was to brings jobs to the mountains

The East Kentucky Corp., created by the Kentucky General Assembly in 1990, is closing its doors after being shut out of the new state budget.

The purpose of the now defunct agency was to bring jobs to the mountains. But, executive director Tom Jones said in a news release, "We are out of money to continue operations. We have not received state funding for almost two years and did not receive funding in the recently enacted state budget." The agency will close on Thursday, writes the Lexington Herald-Leader.

East Kentucky Corp. was a mix of public money with private donations from several large companies that had made fortunes from Eastern Kentucky's natural resources. After a slow start, the agency recently boasted of recruiting 27 new companies with 4,130 jobs to 20 counties in the region. It also raised more than $1 million in private funds for small-business loans, writes the Herald-Leader.

EKC had mostly relied on state funds for its annual $500,000 budget. In 2003, however, the state Senate eliminated funding for EKC, which was saved from folding last year by donations from some member counties. Gov. Ernie Fletcher had renewed $480,000 in funding in his initial proposed budget this year, but the funds were not included in the final version. EKC board chairman Lewis Warrix expressed gratitude to counties, cities, private individuals and corporations who supported the agency, the Herald-Leader reports.

Meth-lab aftermath; 30 percent of meth-lab busts involve rural children, mothers

The spreading and profoundly destructive nature of methamphetamine is becoming more evident as social service agencies deal with jittery babies, mistreated toddlers and strung-out mothers in the aftermath of law enforcement crackdowns on the insidious substance.

"The meth epidemic took root on the West Coast and is worsening in many big cities nationwide. But its heartbreaking toll is evident in the towns and small cities of America's heartland -- Iowa, Kentucky, Missouri, Tennessee, Arkansas, Oklahoma and Indiana," writes David Cary of The Associated Press.

Nationally, authorities have dismantled more than 50,000 clandestine meth labs since 2001, writes Cary, including some 4,000 in Iowa. Roughly 30 percent were "mom and pop" labs in homes where children live. According to Holly Hopper, chairwoman of the Kentucky Alliance of Drug Endangered Children, Kentucky law enforcement officials found 110 children in 2003 in the same locations as meth labs. Seizures of meth labs soared from 66 in 1999 to more than 500 in 2004, according to Kentucky State Police statistics.

Thousands of children, nationwide, have been taken away from their meth-abusing parents, placed with relatives or shifted into already overloaded foster care systems, Cary writes. Scores have been injured, a dozen or more killed; thousands have been born with traces of meth in their bodies. Dr. Rizwan Shah, a pediatrician at Blank Children's Hospital in Des Moines, saw her first meth-exposed child in 1993 and has studied more than 500 of them since, becoming a respected expert on the phenomenon. Some of these children, she said, suffer serious brain damage .Others experience long-lasting development problems, while many will grow into adults without serious health consequences.

Texas official admits missteps that helped railroads in unsafe crossings lawsuits

The Texas official overseeing rail crossings has made comments in court proceedings that many in the rail industry "would consider me their friend." That may not be surprising given what the official, Darin Kosmak, has done to help railroads fight lawsuits brought by accident victims, reports The New York Times.

"At the behest of the rail industry, Kosmak on about 100 occasions over the last 11 years signed sworn statements about warning signs at railroad crossings, according to court testimony. The affidavits were mostly drafted by the rail industry, which then used them in case after case as a critical defense against claims that unsafe crossings had caused deaths and serious injury, court records show," writes Walt Bogdanich. According to his testimony, Kosmak recently admitted that his sworn statements misrepresented -- unintentionally, he says -- what he knew about those crossings.

The Texas case comes amid criticism of how the government oversees rail safety, as well as an increase in the number of deaths at grade crossings last year. An inspector general's report, made public last month, cited substantial safety problems at the nation's big railroads and raised questions about federal regulation of the industry, Bogdanich writes.

Carl V. Crow, a lawyer in Houston, told Bogdanich, Kosmak's admission could have repercussions for similar lawsuits in Texas, where more than 5,000 people have been killed or injured at grade crossings in the last 20 years. Kosmak acknowledged problems with the affidavits in several legal proceedings. Crow told him the affidavits, were "devastating" to accident victims. He said, "People get killed at their crossings, and they had this guy for 11 years who looked like a guy wearing a white hat out of Austin, just doing his civic duty."

North Carolina farmers get the goat: Leaner meat, better pasture management

Several farmers in Hendersonville, N.C., have started raising a type of livestock whose meat is considered to be the most popular meat in the world: goats.

Hendersonville farmers have started raising Boer goats after a rise in the immigrant population, reports Jennie Jones Giles of the Times-News. The latino and Muslim populations have both increased, and along with them the demand for goat meat, especially around religious holidays, said a retired high school agriculture teacher, Carroll Parker.

The meat is much healthier than beef because it’s leaner and has less cholesterol, Parker said. To better manager their pastures, farmers can place goats and cattle together and the goats will eat weeds and plants that the cows will not. Dairy goats can also be used for pasture management, but they require much more work than meat goats, he said. One difficulty in successful goat raising is fencing, Parker explained, especially if you raise cattle and goats together. "The fences have to be strong enough to keep the goats in and the predators out," Parker said.

According to the University of Kentucky's Department of Agriculture, Kentucky has also increased goat production and is ranked fifth in the nation. For The Associated Press version of the story, click here.

Earth to gas tank: Kentucky farmers filling up on soybean-produced biodiesel

Diesel fuel made with soybeans produced at a Union County farm is being pumped at a Paducah service station, the first site in Western Kentucky to offer the alternative fuel to retail customers.

Soybean Board spokeswoman Jamie Morgan said biodiesel has been sold in only six or seven other places in Kentucky, reports The Associated Press, including stations in Lexington and Northern Kentucky. Proponents say biodiesel costs about three to five cents more per gallon, but burns cleaner and improves engine lubrication.

Andy Sprague, a farmer in Sturgis, opened a small bio-diesel plant in January. Sprague each day produces about 2,500 gallons of B2, a blend of two percent biodiesel-fuel, AP reports. He sells the fuel to Mid West Terminal in Paducah, but before last week it had gone solely to farmers and select customers. Now the fuel is available at the Kentucky Tobacco Outlet, which recently starting pumping bio-diesel. The station's owner, Bob Hill, told reporters the fuel can be used in any diesel engine. The Mid West Terminal, Hill said, "wanted somebody to take the initiative to start retailing it. I said I'd be willing to do it because it's something that will help the farmers and the environment."

National Park Service fills holes, prepares abandoned rail line in Tennessee for trail

At what point is a mud hole more than a mud hole? The answer, writes Morgan Simmons of the Knoxville News-Sentinel, can be found along the abandoned Oneida & Western Railroad bed in the Big South Fork National River and Recreation Area, where pools of ink-black water collect after every rain like medieval moats.

This winter the National Park Service filled in the worst of these wet areas with $14,000 worth of gravel. In all, 13 mud holes were eliminated on almost five miles of the O&W between Zenith and the O&W bridge. At 100 feet long, 30 feet wide and three feet deep, the biggest of these resembled catfish ponds. At times, the nine-person crew had to wear waders, writes Simmons.

The O&W receives more use, and more varieties of use, than any other trail in the Big South Fork. In addition, it passes through one of the most historically rich river gorges in the park. The O&W stretches 15 miles through the southern end of the park, and being an old railbed, has a virtually flat grade. Horseback riders use it as part of the Cumberland Valley Loop, and the trail is popular among mountain bikers, hikers and all-terrain vehicle users, he writes.

Wally Linder, head of trail maintenance for the Big South Fork, told Simmons the compacted dirt and poor drainage of the sunken railroad bed helped to create the monster mud holes. "You can see where some of the holes were so deep, the horses have worn new trail to get around them," Linder said. "Putting this gravel down is one of the best things we've done for the park." The O&W runs parallel to North White Oak Creek, a major tributary of the Big South Fork of the Cumberland River. In addition to beaver and various game fish, North White Oak Creek also is home to a federally endangered mussel species known as the Cumberland Elktoe. Park biologist Steve Bakaletz said re-surfacing the O&W will significantly reduce the amount of sediment that washes into the stream.

Bakaletz told Simmons, "The mud holes were an environmental problem. The work here will help water quality and make the trail more accessible to nonmotorized use." Under the Big South Fork's new general management plan, motorized vehicle use on the O&W would continue from the east as far as the O&W bridge. West of the bridge the trail only would be open to hikers, mountain bikers and horseback riders, he writes.

Plan to wipe out exotic deer sparks debate; officials say endangering native species

Rare species of deer called fallow and axis deer, introduced for hunting six decades ago, are popular with tourists eager to see wildlife at Point Reyes (California) National Seashore. But park rangers see them as an invasive species threatening native deer and elk, devouring excessive amounts of vegetation, hurting agriculture and possibly spreading disease, writes Terence Chea of The Associated Press.

Now Point Reyes officials want to eliminate more than 1,000 nonnative deer, using shotguns and contraception, from the 71,000-acre national park about 40 miles north of San Francisco, writes Chea. Park Superintendent Don Neubacher told him, "We think the timing is pretty critical to control the population and keep them from spreading widely throughout the state of California." The park's draft plan calls for eradicating the two exotic species by 2020. After the 60-day public comment period ends on April 8, the park is expected to issue a final plan late this year or early next year, and start eliminating the deer in 2006.

But, the idea of killing these deer has prompted intense debate among wildlife biologists, conservationists, dairy ranchers and animal activists, Chea writes. Park scientists and some environmentalists say the invaders must be eliminated to protect the native ecosystem. Gordon Bennett, chairman of the Sierra Club's Marin County group, told him, "Protecting native species and biological diversity should be the park's prime priority. These exotic species are basically agents of genocide. They displace and occupy the habitat of native species."

But many nearby residents and animal rights advocates argue that the animals shouldn't be killed just because they aren't natives. Elliot Katz, president of In Defense of Animals, based in Marin County, told Chea, "I think it is being both cruel and insensitive to say just because they're not native we should kill them." Dozens of residents voiced their opposition to shooting the deer at a recent meeting at Point Reyes. Ilka Hartmann, who lives in the northern California coastal community of Bolinas, told officials, "I don't agree with killing the deer at all. I think it should not be an option. These are beautiful, majestic animals that were brought here against their will to be hunted."

Survey says many smokers still confused, uninformed about dangers of the habit

A recent study from Rutgers University and the National Cancer Institute has found that many smokers don’t understand the risks of developing cancer from smoking, says the American Cancer Society's web site.

The study, published in Tobacco Control, surveyed over 6,000 people, including 1,245 current smokers. About 21 percent of smokers thought their risk of developing lung cancer was a little higher than a nonsmoker, 23 percent thought it was twice as high, and 23 percent thought it was 10 times higher or more. In reality, a smoker’s risk of developing lung cancer is 10-20 times higher than a nonsmoker, depending on how many cigarettes the smoker uses and how long he or she has smoked. Around 36 percent of smokers thought that developing lung cancer depends on genes more than any other factors, but ACS statistics say tobacco smoking is directly responsible for over 87 percent of lung cancer cases.

Lead study author Neil Weinstein, PhD, wasn’t surprised. "It's a continuing challenge, not only in smoking but in all sorts of health behaviors, to help people realize the size of the risk, not just that there is a risk," said Weinstein, a professor in the Human Ecology department at Rutgers and an associate member of the Arizona Cancer Center.

The study shows that despite many public campaigns, people are still confused about the dangers of smoking. "One big issue is that even if we can get people to acknowledge that smoking is not healthy, we can't assume that smokers agree that it's unhealthy for them," Weinstein said. "They find various reasons for thinking that the way they smoke and the kind of cigarettes they smoke and all kinds of other pseudo-factors mean that it's not as bad as for other smokers."

Minnesota ranks No. 1 in high-school diplomas, among top 10 in college graduates

The U.S. Census Bureau will announce today that Minnesota -- rural, isolated and cold -- is the No. 1 state in share of residents with high-school diplomas, and has moved into the top 10 in percentage of adults with college degrees.

Minnesota demographer Tom Gillaspy told David Peterson of the Minneapolis Star Tribune the precise rankings are less important than the evidence that a "cold state at the end of the road" is still managing to attract the bright young minds that are key to a region's future prosperity. Other Midwest states know that's nothing to take for granted. Michigan has struggled, for instance, and so has Iowa, which drew nationwide headlines this winter for a proposal that would have offered young people tax incentives to live there.

The new data from the Census Bureau are based on an agency survey and aren't quite as rock-solid as the census itself, which takes place every 10 years, writes Peterson. There are larger margins for error, enough that Gillaspy doesn't put too much stock in a state's precise ranking. The results have less to do with the quality of any state's schools, he said, than migration patterns and a state's racial and ethnic mix.

Gillaspsy told the newspaper, "One reason we look as good as we do is that we're not very diverse." Nationally, the recent wave of Latin immigrants flooding Sun Belt states has been far less educated than native-born Americans. As for the state's apparent success in raising its collective education level so far this decade, Gillaspy told Peterson, "If we've seen big increases, it's wonderful news. I don't want to say I'm skeptical, but this is a small sample, and I'd want more data to reach a firm conclusion."

Progress and Freedom Foundation urges high court to support broadband competition

The Supreme Court will begin oral arguments this Tuesday on the regulation of broadband networks, which could help overturn a circuit court decision that rejected efforts to promote broadband competition.

The Progress & Freedom Foundation’s senior fellow, Kyle Dixon, writes that he hopes the court will overturn the decision in Brand X v. FCC and encourage businesses to invest in broadband networks: "Consumers benefit most when companies battle to build them the most sophisticated networks possible, not when regulators let companies free-ride on existing networks. . . . Should the FCC lose in Court or on remand to the 9th Circuit, the result would saddle broadband with regulatory costs, uncertainties and economic distortions, further delaying real choice for consumers."

Dixon is also highly critical of the Communications Act, and he and other PFF fellows are working to develop reform called the Digital Age Communications Act. The group’s goal is to have model legislation ready for Congress this fall.

Friday, March 25, 2005

Weekly newspaper in London, Ky., closes; competed with CNHI thrice-weekly

The weekly Laurel News Journal newspaper in London, Ky., abruptly ceased publication yesterday.

Publisher Melissa Newman said to the Lexington Herald-Leader that owner Terry Forcht told staffers of the decision at a meeting yesterday. Newman said, "It's devastating to the staff." There were nine employees at the eight-year-old paper, which had a paid circulation of 4,600, the Herald-Leader reports.

Forcht, who also has ownership interests in weekly newspapers in Corbin and Somerset and in banks and other businesses, was not available for comment. The newspapers compete with dailies owned by Community Newspaper Holdings Inc. The Laurel News Journal competed with The Sentinel-Echo, a 9,800-circulation CNHI paper that publishes three times a week.

Newspaper industry watching Greensboro's online experiment; next-wave reporting?

It's a journalist's job to ask questions, but they're usually aimed at outsiders. At The News & Record, a 93,000-daily circulation newspaper in Greensboro, N.C. area, reporters and editors are asking tough questions about the Landmark Communications Inc. paper itself, writes Ellen Simon of The Associated Press.

The biggest questions: If the paper needs to change to survive, what changes should be made? What can it do to make itself the electronic equivalent of town square? "Seeking the answers, the paper has launched an audacious online experiment," writes Simon, The News & Record's Web site features 11 staff-written Web journals, or blogs, including one by the editor to address readers' questions, criticism and to discusses how the paper is run.

That puts the paper ahead of even much larger news organizations, notes Simon. The newspaper's blogs range from "just-the-facts, ma'am," to slightly spicy. There's a page for reader-submitted articles, another for letters to the editor. The Web site hosts online forums on 23 topics, including safety at a local high school, FedEx Corp.'s move to the area and cameras at local stoplights. Cameras monitor road conditions. The site posts up-to-date public records on property ownership, marriages and divorce.

"When the paper's overhaul is complete, it may be a model for the sort of 21st-century paper that many journalism big thinkers have been talking about for the last few years," wrote the industry-watching magazine Editor & Publisher. E & P writes, "Greensboro will be the first place where this conceptually newfangled newspaper actually exists." The Houston Chronicle, The Oregonian in Portland, (Raleigh) News & Observer and USA Today have all called News & Record editor John Robinson to discuss what his paper is doing.

Simon asks, "Why the interest?" Declining circulation, criticism of everything from the obsession with celebrity trials to coverage of the 2004 election, plus a series of scandals involving reporters who made up facts has led to industry-wide soul-searching, she answers. For the Greensboro News & Record Web site, click here.

COAL

Mining Central Appalachia's mountains: Writers lament it, some residents praise it

The controversial practice of mountaintop-removal mining in Central Appalachia continues to receive attention in national publications, but the latest article, by a Kentuckian, notes what outsiders often miss or choose to ignore – that people in the region, where opposition to strip mining helped pass a federal law controlling it, appear to have embraced what the writer calls the practice’s most radical form.

The latest article is 19,000 words in the April issue of Harper’s magazine, not yet available online at www.harpers.org. It is written by Erik Reece, an English professor at the University of Kentucky, who runs a summer environmental writing program at UK’s Robinson Forest, a preserve in the Eastern Kentucky Coal Field. His piece follows a cover story in last month’s Washington Monthly by Clara Bingham about Jack Spadaro, the former mine inspector who has become a leading foe of mountaintop removal.

Reece’s narrative focuses on the now-aptly named Lost Mountain, which is being mined. He begins at a time in 2003 when the mining has been permitted but not started, and the mountain, Lost Creek and its tributaries are still home to the huge diversity of plant and animal species that distinguish the Southern Appalachians. But he also writes about a hearing on mining regulations at nearby Hazard, dominated by supporters of the industry.

The predominant opinion at the hearing was exemplified by Paul David Taulbee, a retired miner who said at a 2003 hearing on mine regulations that if local people could be freed of such rules and “develop to the fullest extent,” Appalachian natives who had moved north for jobs would come home. Taulbee won a standing ovation when he said, “The only way to stay in the mountains is to mine the mountains!”

Reece writes, “I could tell him that surface mining accounts for only 5,000 jobs in all 30 counties of Eastern Kentucky, averaging out to 167 jobs per county. I could tell him that the old deep-mining jobs aren’t coming back, and the people who left for Cincinnati and Cleveland might not want to, either, especially if they were coming back to wasted mountains and dead streams. I could tell him that if coal hadn’t brought prosperity to the mountains in the last 90 years, it isn’t likely to do so. But Taulbee isn’t going to listen to me. I’m an outsider, as he had said, the worst kind of elitist, who thinks a mountain is more important than someone’s job. The miner’s wife had asked, ‘When are you going to start thinking about us instead of the environment?’ But perhaps the harder question is this: When in Appalachia are we going to start thinking about both at once?”

Harlan County gets ATV tourism grant; boost for ailing coal-county economies?

Harlan County, Kentucky has received a grant to capitalize on a new breed of tourists flooding into the mountains to ride four-wheelers across seemingly endless miles of abandoned roads left behind when mining companies pulled out.

Local leaders have developed a plan to turn the roads that wind around steep ridges and mountaintops into an off-road paradise. Now state officials have stepped forward with a $50,000 federally funded grant to help with the cost of
the initiative, writes Roger Alford of The Associated Press.

Darrell D. Brock Jr., head of the Governor's Office for Local Development, went to the county to announce the Federal Highway Administration's recreational trails program. Brock said the hope is that the tourism initiative will beef up an ailing coalfield economy. Already, people from across the nation are coming to Harlan County to ride the rugged trails, writes Alford.

Brock, who went on a trail ride after the check presentation, told Alford, "It's awesome. You've got views for miles in every direction. It doesn't get any better than this." While many other places in Kentucky frown on off-roaders, Harlan County welcomes them, said Judge-Executive Joe Grieshop. He thinks the tourism potential could help spark an economic revival in the county where unemployment is rampant, Alford writes.

The grant will be used to develop a trailhead and recreational vehicle parking area in Evarts, the coal town closest to the mountaintop mines that are home to most of the off-road activities, writes Alford. The city council passed an ordinance a year ago to give ATV riders the freedom to "ride through the city and not be ticketed." Preston McLain, president of the ATV club Harlan County Ridge Runners, told AP some of the Eastern Kentucky back roads wind through the mountains for 100 miles or more, linked through a network of abandoned surface mines.

Extension of mine-reclamation tax being considered in West Virginia House

An expiring coal tax to fix a multimillion-dollar deficit in the state’s abandoned mine cleanup fund would be extended 18 months under a measure proposed by the West Virginia House Finance Committee.

Lawmakers increased the reclamation tax from 3 cents to 14 cents in 2001 to help reclaim strip mines abandoned or unreclaimed by bankrupt coal operators. Under the "7-up plan," half of the tax was meant to be permanent, while the remaining 7 cent tax was scheduled to expire in April, writes Erik Schelzig of The Associated Press.

"The plan was based on soft numbers because a thorough inventory hadn’t been done at the time," Department of Environmental Protection Secretary Stephanie Timmermeyer told Schelzig, "We feel that we have a valid number now because we’ve done formal engineering and design studies at the sites." About 255 of more than 600 abandoned mine reclamation projects remain to be addressed by the DEP, including 149 of those on land and 106 involving water.

The estimated cost to complete those projects by September 2008 is $46 million. But, Timmermeyer told AP, "There’s an estimate of $4 million worth of forfeitures that occur every year." The bill would have extended the tax for another 24 months, but, she said, "after 18 months the fund becomes stable and we can handle this backlog." The bill would require the DEP to determine whether it would be more efficient for coal operators to post reclamation bonds to cover the total cost of reclaiming sites instead of the per-ton tax, and will be asked to determine the feasibility of creating a water-quality trust fund for abandoned sites.

DRUGS

W.Va. counties creating meth-lab tip-lines; effective tool in meth war, say police

Hoping to tap into the eyes, ears and noses of local residents, Putnam County, West Virginia, Sheriff Mark Smith has announced a drug-activity tip line. Putnam County residents can leave anonymous tips for police to investigate methamphetamine makers or other suspicious drug activity, writes Charles Shumaker of The Charleston Gazette.

Smith said he hopes for the same success that adjoining Kanawha County police have experienced with their line. Since Smith took office, writes Shumaker, deputies have discovered and dismantled a dozen meth labs. The county lies between the cities of Charleston and Huntington.

Smith told reporters, “It’s probably going to overwhelm us at first. We’ll get calls that will be unfounded but I’m sure others will be good tips.” No one will answer or trace calls to Putnam County’s tip line. Only police officials will review the messages. Smith added, “We don’t need your name or your number. We just need your information.” A few days after introducing their own tip-line earlier this month, Kanawha County law enforcement officials reported more than 60 calls. Jackson County sheriff’s officials also announced a tip line this week.

Local Iowa meth laws in limbo; must choose to move ahead or wait for state law

About two dozen Iowa cities and counties that adopted their own ordinances restricting access to a common cold medicine used to make methamphetamine must now decide what to do before a new state law takes effect. Some local governments have meth laws scheduled to take effect in the next few weeks. Bob Brammer, a spokesman for the Iowa attorney general, told The Associated Press. The locals must decide whether to move ahead with enforcement of those laws or wait until the state law, which will supersede local ones, takes effect May 22.

The state law will allow stores to sell only single packages of liquid, and liquid gel, capsules containing less than 360 milligrams of pseudoephedrine -- about the amount found in packages of children's cold medicines. Retailers would have to keep the products locked up. Packages containing more than 360 milligrams and any non-liquid pseudoephedrine medications would have to be bought from a pharmacy.

All buyers would have to show identification and sign for their purchase. David Vestal, a spokesman with the Iowa State Association of Counties, said some local governments aren't sure what their next move should be. Vestral told AP, "There's a window there that there's some confusion of what will go on, or what should go on."

Lawyers, law students join to fight illegal drugs; interns will help prosecutors

University of Kentucky law students will team up with law professionals to help combat a growing drug problem in rural Kentucky, thanks to some special federal funding.

U.S. Sen. Mitch McConnell and UK President Lee Todd have announced $1 million has been earmarked for the UK College of Law Rural Drug Prosecution Assistance Project, writes Delano R. Massey of the Lexington Herald-Leader. Students will work as summer interns in offices for commonwealth's attorneys, U.S. attorneys, the state attorney general and circuit court judges. The program provides some stipends. The project also offers salary grants and tuition aid for graduates to work with the legal system.

McConnell told Massey he tries to help UK's law school from time to time by earmarking federal funds for projects that "seem to make a lot of sense." McConnell told him, "This rural drug enforcement effort seems like something the school feels will provide, not only an opportunity for students, but to actually fight a real problem out there that's a scourge to rural Kentucky -- that's methamphetamine and OxyContin."

In 2000, federal agents in Kentucky seized 104 labs that were making methamphetamine, according to a report from the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration. By 2003, the report said, that number had climbed to 476. Last year, 377 meth labs were seized. Meanwhile, the state continues battling with the misuse of prescription drugs. According to the most recent study, 19,366 dosage units of diverted pharmaceutical drugs were confiscated in 2003, he writes.

UPDATES

Family of shooting victim blasts tribal leaders for hospital absence, media ban

Relatives of two shooting victims have criticized tribal authorities on the Red Lake Indian reservation for not visiting injured students in the hospital -- and for imposing restrictions on media visiting the reservation.

The reservation is a sovereign nation, and outsiders are subject to the laws of the reservation's tribal council. Darrell Auginash, the uncle of recovering shooting victim Ryan Auginash, told Shannon Prather and Mara Gottfried of the St. Paul Pioneer Press about the five teens being treated at hospitals in Bemidji, Minn., "We need our tribal leaders to come here, too, to see these guys. They haven't been here yet, and there's other people hurting in Fargo."

Francis "Chunky" Brun, father of slain security guard Derrick Brun, defied a tribal ban on media and invited a reporter and photographer to the Brun home in Red Lake to show the community where his son lived, worked and died, write Prather and Gottfried. Family members have called the ban condescending, unnecessary and illegal. They said opening up the reservation to media scrutiny could lead to potential solutions. Tribal leaders said they have worked to balance the dissemination of information while guarding tribal customs and family privacy throughout the week. They have promised to allow more access to the reservation. Reporters, still limited in where they can go, will be allowed to be outside a few funerals and wakes as determined by the families.

Red Lake Tribal Council Chairman Floyd Jourdain Jr. also said the leaders have been in contact with victims and their families and have made trips to visit the five hospitalized boys. Jordain told Prather and Gottfried, "People want to blame the government or somebody. That's a natural part of the grieving process. It's a very complex situation. We have traditional customs. We have procedures we follow when we have deaths." For another Pioneer Press story on the shootings, headlined Despair, hopelessness a daily struggle for children of Red Lake, click here.

No hunting ruling, but Va. judge says preserve's shooting plans not zoning violation

Virginia hunters have won a minor victory in their fight with some county officials over whether they can shoot clay targets on a hunting preserve.

Nelson County’s circuit court judge yesterday rejected the county's argument that plans by a hunting preserve to target shoot before a pheasant hunt violated zoning laws, writes Carlos Santos of the Richmond Times-Dispatch. Circuit Judge J. Michael Gamble did not address the larger question in the ongoing dispute between the county and Orion Sporting Group LLC about the right to hunt, guaranteed under an amendment to the Virginia Constitution. The Nelson County Board of Supervisors had sought a temporary injunction against Orion to prevent the company from allowing clients to shoot clay targets as a warm-up before a driven pheasant hunt to be held tomorrow, writes Santos.

John W. Zunka, a lawyer for the county, argued that the "warm-up shoot and practice . . . is exactly a use of this land denied by the supervisors. It's an attempt to come through the backdoor." Orion is charging that the county's action infringed on the constitutional right to hunt, claiming that education, training and practice are all part of a hunt. That argument will be heard at a trial scheduled for next month, he writes.

Group wants Columbia, S.C. to consider smoking ban in restaurants, bars

You may not be able to light up in Columbia, S.C. bars and restaurants, if a group of health advocates and anti- smoking lobbyists gets its way, reports John C. Drake of The State.

Renee Martin, executive director of the South Carolina Tobacco Collaborative, told Drake, “We’re focusing on educating the community about the hazardous effects of secondhand smoke. Ultimately, we would like to approach Columbia City Council with an ordinance.” Dozens of cities and states have banned smoking in public places, particularly in bars and restaurants. In many places, the decisions have been controversial and spurred lawsuits, but the national movement to make public, enclosed spaces smoke-free, continues to expand, Drake writes.

Local restaurant and bar owners said the decision should be left up to individual businesses but said they understood the concerns. The local family-dining chain Lizard’s Thicket went smoke-free about two years ago. Bobby Williams, president, said it was a business decision. Few people sat in the smoking section, but there were times where no seating was available in non-smoking areas. Williams told Drake, “It was ridiculous to have a portion of my restaurant empty while there were people waiting to sit down. The smokers complained, but they all came back.”

Bluegrass farmers and their expensive equipment become targets of thieves

Police in Clark and Montgomery counties in east-central Kentucky are stepping up patrols in rural areas because thieves are targeting farms. "The thieves aren't just taking small tools of the trade. They're taking high tech farm equipment," reports WKYT-TV. Two-time victim David Adams "looked through his 75-acre farm and found much of his equipment missing." he told the Lexington station, "It's kind of devastating. Most of what you've worked for -- someone breaks in and steals it. . . . They stole about $30,000 worth of equipment. That's hard to replace."

Sheriffs in Clark and Montgomery counties consider the thefts a growing problem, and think the equipment is being sold out of state, the station reported. "Police say the thieves are bold, hitting some farms far off the main road," it said. "One question authorities are trying to answer is how thieves were able to get the tractors out seemingly so easily. Police tell 27 Newsfirst the thieves brought in trucks and loaded the tractors onto them in the middle of the night."

‘Sparrow hawk’ breached nuclear plant security; fed, cleaned and sent back to wild

A nuclear weapons plant facility near Oak Ridge, Tenn., doesn't welcome uncleared visitors, but a sparrow hawk defied the odds and lived to tell her feathered friends.

The American kestrel, a pigeon-sized bird of prey, was found a few weeks ago inside a World War II-era facility known as Beta-1. The building originally was used to enrich uranium for the A-bomb dropped on Hiroshima, Japan, writes Frank Munger of the Knoxville News-Sentinel.

Nobody knows how the hawk bypassed security, but apparently landed in an oil pan and got her feathers sullied to the point that she couldn't fly, Munger writes. Larry Brantley, an industrial hygienist, was first to spot the bird, and Ron Wilson, the building manager tracked her down. Wilson told the newspaper he used a welder's glove and managed to grab the bird and put her to a cardboard box with bedding. "She wasn't used to people trying to handle her, and she hissed a little bit. But she didn't try to bite me."

Brantley took the hawk to the Clinch River Raptor Center in Clinton, where she was given a few baths and de-oiled with citrus cleaner. The bird, nicknamed "Beta," feasted on mealworms and mice from Oak Ridge National Laboratory's genetics research facility. Beta was then returned to the site where she was found, and released to the wild. Wilson, who did the honors, told the newspaper "She perched on my finger for a couple of minutes, just kind of posed there and then took off. That was great. It was one of those things that helps your soul."

Thursday, March 24, 2005

'Sovereign nation' trumps First Amendment in Red Lake; local editor gets in

Out-of-town journalists covering the recent killings by a Red Lake, Minn., high school student have run into a harsh reality. They have to enter an Indian reservation, and thus are subject to the laws and limitations of a “sovereign nation.”

The Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press reports, “Photographers with The Associated Press and Getty Images were handcuffed, detained and had their photographic equipment confiscated by tribal authorities after taking pictures of a roadside memorial" for the nine killed and seven injured.

Tribal police thought a gun was in the photographers' vehicle and had their firearms drawn when detaining the photographers, AP reported. AP lawyer David Tomlin said the equipment was returned later. Tomlin criticized the detention as "over-the-top, dangerous and unprovoked." Tomlin said AP is considering legal action.

The First Amendment and federal laws are difficult to enforce on tribal lands because of tribes' political status as sovereign nation, AP reported. Richard Prince of The Maynard Institute for Journalism Education said reporters who arrived at the remote crime scene received a quick lesson in tribal sovereignty. "Red Lake’s status as a closed reservation gives the band unusual authority to restrict the movements of non-band members, including reporters."

Editor Molly Miron of the 10,000-circulation daily Bemidji Pioneer "was one of the few journalists allowed into the reservation before it closed its borders," Editor & Publisher reported, because, as Prince noted, "she had developed a relationship with the residents."

Survey finds many states worried about funding for No Child Left Behind goals

Many states have serious doubts about whether they can meet the full requirements of the No Child Left Behind Act, according to a new survey’s results.

Those doubts are the gravest when it comes to helping struggling schools reach proficiency, writes Greg Winter of The New York Times. The Center on Education Policy conducted the survey. It found that three-fourths of school districts said student performance on state exams was improving and that achievement gaps between students, especially between whites and minorities, was narrowing. However, four-fifths of the states said they weren’t receiving enough funding to accomplish the law’s other goals.

The law requires that each state make progress every year, in the hopes all students will attain proficiency by 2014. States set the benchmarks, Winter reports, and each year they are higher than the previous year. If the schools don’t meet those benchmarks for two consecutive years, they fall into the “needing improvement” category and students may transfer out of the school.

The director of No Child Left Behind for the Chicago public school system, Xavier Botana, said the city’s students have record test scores in for multiple grades and subjects, and that their results often outpace their counterparts in Illinois. But, 340 of the 613 Chicago schools are classified as “needing improvement,” because they fall short of Illinois’ academic benchmarks. "We've made what are remarkable strides, but that's the problem with N.C.L.B.," Botana said. "It assumes you're going to hit the same benchmark at the same time as everyone else, regardless of where you started. And we started a lot further back than other people."

For The Associated Press's version of the story by Ben Feller, click here.

Environment uniting left and right; can green be a bridge between red and blue?

Environmental issues are bringing together conservatives and liberals who agree on little else, providing common ground in an increasingly polarized nation, and some Republicans and Democrats see environment-related agreements as a way to build broader consensus writes Paul Nussbaum of the Philadelphia Inquirer.

Rep. James Saxton of New Jersey, one of the most pro-environment Republicans in Congress, told Nussbaum, "I have formed relationships with members of the other party based on our interest in the environment. I'm still on the conservative side, and they're still what I'd call liberal, but we now have a kind of bond." Pro-gun hunters and antiabortion evangelicals are making common cause with pro-abortion-rights, gun-control liberals on land conservation, pollution, and endangered-species protection, he writes.

Deb Callahan, president of the League of Conservation Voters, told Nussbaum, "We've heard a lot about the death of environmentalism, but I think what we're seeing is the rebirth of environmentalism. We're going back to where we were in the 1970s. We're building a populist movement." Ernest Cook, senior vice president and director of conservation finance for the Trust for Public Land, told Nussbaum conservative voters who typically oppose increased government spending or tax increases often support spending for land preservation because it "delivers tangible results, close to home." He noted 97 of the nation's 100 fastest-growing counties voted for Bush last November, but many of those same counties recognize "a great need to set aside land for conservation purposes."

Robert J. Brulle, associate professor of sociology and environmental policy at Drexel University, told the newspaper, "You have a new politics overlaid on the old that talks about the environment. About 70 percent of the issues still break down along the old lines, but for 30 or 40 percent of them, the traditional left-right dichotomy doesn't work anymore. The strangest bedfellows I've ever seen are Earth Firsters and evangelical Christians."

Coal firms want taxes repaid; West Virginia could pay $500 million if companies win

West Virginia could end up repaying hundreds of millions of dollars in coal taxes if a group of mining companies succeed in a case making its way through the state Supreme Court.

The coal operators say they should not have to pay West Virginia severance taxes on coal they export, writes Ken Ward, Jr. of the Charleston Gazette. Some of the state's largest coal producers, including subsidiaries of Consol Energy Inc., Arch Coal Inc. and Massey Energy, are pursuing the case. They are represented by Charleston lawyer and former state tax commissioner Herschel H. Rose III, writes Ward. Tax Department officials estimate the refund alone could add up to $400 million to $500 million. Katherine Schultz, a senior deputy attorney general representing the agency, told Ward, “This is a substantial amount of revenue. It would be devastating.”

Kanawha Circuit Judge Tod Kaufman previously rejected the industry’s effort to seek refunds for taxes paid back to 1997. The companies have appealed to the Supreme Court. The justices have agreed to hear the case, but have not yet scheduled an argument. If the companies win, the state could be on the hook for refunds and lose any future severance taxes on exported coal, writes Ward.

The U. S. Department of Energy says exported coal represents only about 10 percent of West Virginia’s annual coal production. The state accounts for more than a third of all U.S. coal exported. Generally, West Virginia mining companies pay a severance tax at a rate of 5 percent of the gross income from the sale of the coal. The state imposes a minimum severance tax of 75 cents per ton of coal, he writes.

North Carolina tobacco-tax hike may backfire; cut-rate outlets lure travelers

North Carolina, a sort of East Coast Cigarette Machine for travelers looking for cheap smokes, could lose millions of dollars in interstate trade if it increases its tax on cigarettes sevenfold, retailers warn.

“Interstate 95 stretches from Maine to Miami, and JR Outlet, halfway through North Carolina, is the smoker's filling station, a multimillion-dollar argument against raising the cigarette tax,” writes Mark Johnson of the Charlotte Observer’s Raleigh Bureau. “Smokers from all over ... wheel off the highway, (to) one of three JR locations in the state, drawn by white billboards with blue and red letters, ‘Cheap Cigarettes,’” he writes.

Of the estimated 78.5 million cartons of cigarettes to be sold in North Carolina this year, the three JR locations are expected to account for at least 6.1 million, writes Johnson. If the General Assembly raises the cigarette tax from a nickel to 35 cents a pack, as Gov. Mike Easley has proposed, no business will feel the pinch more than JR, he writes.

Pro-tax-increase lawmakers say it will generate more revenue and help reduce teen smoking. Businesses that rely on tobacco sales, however, warn that higher cigarette taxes will drive down purchases and tax revenue and give North Carolinians, who already buy lottery tickets in other states, another reason to cross the state line for shopping. Lew Rothman, president of New Jersey-based JR, told the newspaper, "Everybody talks about how much they'll raise in tax, but what they don't do is subtract what they're going to lose."

Agriculture regulation bill gutted in S.C. Senate; GOP claims 'liberal power-grab'

The South Carolina Senate Agriculture Committee gutted a bill to prevent local governments from passing regulations tougher than state rules to control or bar agriculture operations, including large hog and chicken facilities.

Local governments worried the legislation would take away their ability to regulate bars, strip clubs and other types of businesses, reports The State. Sen. Phil Leventis, D-Sumter, told the Columbia newspaper, it “is the most liberal power grab I’ve ever seen.”

Instead, the committee approved an amendment that would let local governments impose wider distances between poultry operations. The legislation means that those setbacks would more closely mirror what’s in place for hog farming operators. For instance, writes The State, a small poultry operator could not build a new facility within 600 feet of neighboring property lines if local governments adopt them. Sen. Chip Campsen, R-Charleston, told the newspaper existing facilities would be grandfathered. (The Associated Press contributed to the story.)

Tennessee surveyor employs helicopter to haul trees down mountain

East Tennessee logging has gone airborne. "It once was the job of mules and skids, but today the task of moving logs from the mountainside to the lumbering site is called 'heli-logging," writes the Knoxville News-Sentinel.

The use of a helicopter reduces the time needed to log a tract and also reduces the environmental damage, the newspaper reports. Joe Bible, a Newport surveyor, used a helicopter earlier this week to move hardwood logs from a mountainside to nearby site for several reasons. "Your logs come out clean, and that means they don't dull the blade when they are cut. Those logs bring a better price." Helicopter use also cuts the logging time for the 50-acre site to two days compared to a year if bulldozers and logging trucks had been used, he said. Bible paid $300 per thousand board feet to fly out the logs, compared to a cost of $175 to $200 if log trucks had been used, but, he he explained, "The old way meant building roads and water breaks."

Large hardwood companies have begun using helicopters because of the environmental impact left by road construction. To reach the site where Bible is working by logging trucks would have required the construction of three miles of road; two miles over private property and an additional mile through the Cherokee National Forest. "I was having trouble getting an easement from the government, so I decided to use a helicopter," he told the News-Sentinel.

TVA rate hikes likely from new board; chairman cites fuel, clean-air costs

One of the first tasks of a new, part-time Tennessee Valley Authority board when it takes office in May will be to decide how much of a rate increase to impose.

According to current board members, higher rates likely will be needed because of rising fuel costs and the increasing cost of cleaning emissions from TVA's coal-fired plants, writes Rebecca Ferrar of the Knoxville News-Sentinel.
TVA Chairman Glenn McCullough Jr, told Ferrar, "I'm sure the board will have to take rate action. This board has not raised rates this fiscal year. Being realistic, clean air comes with a price and utility rates are going up to pay for it."

TVA directors did not indicate how much rates could go up. The federal utility last increased residential and commercial power rates in October 2003 by 7.4 percent and lowered industrial rates by 2 percent. TVA Director Bill Baxter said another job of the new board will be to appoint an interim CEO. That candidate likely is Tom Kilgore, TVA's new president and chief operating officer, who has succeeded the retiring Ike Zeringue, Ferrar writes.

Virginia court hearing lawsuit over ‘constitutional right’ to shoot clay pigeons

A dispute over the ‘right’ to shoot clay pigeons as part of the state constitutionally protected ‘right to hunt’ in Virginia is being argued in a county circuit court.

A hearing on an injunction in the matter is set for today in Nelson County Circuit Court, writes Carlos Santos of the Richmond Times-Dispatch "What started out as an ordinary zoning tiff in Nelson County has turned into a yearlong emotional debate on the constitutional right to hunt in Virginia," he writes. The debate pits the county against Orion Sporting Group LLC over the right to practice shooting at clay targets before an upland game-bird hunt.

The controversy began to unfold early last year when Orion was denied a conditional-use permit by the Nelson County Board of Supervisors to operate a shotgun-sports center as part of its licensed hunting preserve. Neighbors of the hunting preserve, located near the small town of Wingina on the James River, had vented their concerns to the Board of Supervisors about noise, safety and other issues. The shotgun-sports center would have allowed clients to shoot at clay targets -- small platelike discs that simulate the flight paths of game birds, writes Santos.

Nelson County Supervisor Connie Brennan, who was then chairman of the board, told Santos, "The decision was made based on the fact it was not compatible with the comprehensive plan. It didn't fit in with the community. This is a land-use issue. It's not about guns. It's about land use." Orion disagrees. Morris Peterson, a managing director and one of the owners of Orion, told him, "We couldn't have found a more remote location in all of Nelson County. On top of that, we were enticed and cajoled by the Board of Supervisors to stay in the county."

Orion filed suit last March claiming the denial violated the right to hunt, guaranteed under a law passed in 2000 in a statewide referendum. The law states Virginia residents have the constitutional right to "hunt, fish and harvest game."

$30 million unfrozen for arms destruction preliminary work at Kentucky depot

The Department of Defense has released $30 million for design work and preliminary construction at the proposed chemical neutralization plant at Blue Grass Army Depot near Richmond, Ky.

The move will allow Bechtel Parsons Blue Grass, the contractor, to continue work through Sept. 30. An additional $40 million was released for the depot's sister site in Pueblo, Colo., and orders halting work on design and construction there were lifted, writes Peter Mathews of the Lexington Herald-Leader’s Central Kentucky Bureau.

But one prominent critic, Craig Williams of the Berea-based Chemical Weapons Working Group, called the day's events a sign the Pentagon has shifted its top priority from protecting the public to saving money. Williams, in describing the infusion of money to Matthews, said, "Basically, this is life support. You're buried alive in a 6-foot pit, and somebody drills a hole and puts a straw in it so you can breathe."

A Pentagon spokeswoman could not be reached for comment. In a memorandum announcing the release of the funds, acting Undersecretary of Defense Michael Wynne called for a redesign to shave hundreds of millions of dollars off the projected cost of the Kentucky and Colorado plants. Wynne wants their costs brought in line with estimates from 2002, which were derived before any design work was done.

Tennessee floating ‘hog-dog rodeos’ ban; animal rights advocates decry cruelty

Tennessee already outlaws dog fights, cock fights, bullfighting and bear fighting. Soon, the Volunteer State may add hog-versus-dog fighting to the list.

Animal welfare advocates are pushing a proposal in the General Assembly to outlaw hog-dog contests before they become widespread in Tennessee, writes Bonna de la Cruz of The Tennessean. In so-called ''hog-dog rodeos,'' wild pigs, their tusks blunted with bolt cutters, are put in a ring with ferocious dogs, often pit bulls or American bulldogs. Dogs are judged by how quickly they take down the hogs, she describes.

Ron Fox, assistant director of the Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency told the newspaper wildlife officials have heard rumblings of these contests in East Tennessee, where boar hunting is popular. Laurie Green of Nashville, founder of the Southern Alliance for Animal Welfare, told the Nashville newspaper, ''The object is to tear up the pig. People who find pleasure and fun in that, I would put on the same level as someone who would sexually molest a child. It's the sickest thing to find pleasure watching an animal suffer and die.''

Some East Tennessee hunters are afraid laws such as this one someday will lead to a hunting ban. Rodney Burris, 40, of Benton in East Tennessee, is vice president of the Cherokee Houndsman Association. Its members hunt wild boar in the Cherokee National Forest. He told de la Cruz, ''Our biggest fear is they keep adding animals to the list. That could lead up to non-hunting." Several thousand wild boar roam Tennessee forests from the North Carolina border to the Catoosa Wildlife Management area, Fox said.

Sherry Rout of Memphis, a southern representative for the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, told de la Cruz the blood sport stems from the still-legal pastime of hog hunting using dogs to find, chase, corner and sometimes take down the hog. The Tennessee bill would make it illegal to own or train a hog for the purpose of fighting, baiting or injuring another animal for amusement or sport.

Omaha tipster reports dogfight; three pit bulls confiscated in area 'crackdown'

Nebraska Humane Society officers recently found two pit bulls bleeding and seriously injured, a strong indication, they say, the illegal sport of dog-fighting is still a serious problem in the state.

"The pit bulls, found in pens ... with recent face and neck injuries, (but) are expected to live. Those dogs and another pit bull were removed from the home (where the pens were located)," writes Jason Kuiper of the Omaha World-Herald. Mark Langan, vice president of field services for the Humane Society, told the newspaper the owner explained to police and Humane Society officers the dogs accidentally escaped from their pens while being fed and he was trying to break up their fight. A caller phoned the society's tip line and reported the fight.

Langan told Kuiper, "This is an example of what can happen when the public calls in tips. At least these three dogs will not be fighting in the future." The Humane Society has been running ads for the past week to encourage citizens to call them with information about possible dog-fighting actvities as part of a crackdown. In the recent case, the owner couldn't provide proof of ownership and had no records of licensing and vaccinations. The owner was ticketed for three counts each of no proof of ownership and no vaccinations. Langan said more charges may be filed.

American Indians give 'warrior tribute' to former W.Va. soldier/POW Lynch

As the sun crept over a saguaro, and wildflower-studded mountain, near Phoenix, Ariz., named after her best friend and fallen comrade, Army Spc. Lori Piestewa, former POW Jessica Lynch was awarded a warrior’s medal of valor.

The Native American Veterans Council presented the award to Lynch as part of a ceremony to honor Piestewa and mark the two-year anniversary of the ambush of the women’s unit in southern Iraq, reports The Associated Press. Lynch, a former Army supply clerk from Palestine, W. Va., said of Piestewa, “She was a very strong-minded woman. Her strength rubbed off on me.’’

Lynch and Piestewa served together in the 507th Maintenance Company from Fort Bliss, Texas. Piestewa died and Lynch was captured when their unit was ambushed March 23, 2003, near Nasiriyah. When the details of the ambush were recalled during the ceremony, Lynch shook her head. Afterward, she told reporters, “It is hard because I think back, it reminds me of my last days with Lori.’’

Piestewa, a member of the Hopi tribe, is believed to be the first American Indian woman killed while fighting for the U.S. military. Lynch said she wouldn’t have survived if not for Piestewa. “She taught me to be an individual, to never give up.’’ Hundreds attended the ceremony and commended the women’s bravery, including members of area churches, American Indian officials and politicians.

Wednesday, March 23, 2005

Iowa becomes latest state to battle meth by restricting access to cold medicines

A law proclaimed to be the toughest in the nation against the rural scourge of methamphetamine -- and certain to bring changes to the sale of certain medicines in Iowa stores -- has been signed by Gov. Tom Vilsack.

Stores have a two-month grace period to comply with the new law regulating sales of pseudoephedrine, the main ingredient in the manufacture of methamphetamine, writes Jonathon Roos of The Des Moines Register.

Sen. Keith Kreiman of Bloomfield, Democratic co-chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee told Roos, "They have 60 days to get it off the shelves or face the penalties." Iowans will have to show identification and sign their names to buy any medicine containing pseudoephedrine, and they will have to go to the pharmacy for most products. Many stores and pharmacies have already moved medicine behind the counter. Some places will stop selling certain types altogether to avoid keeping customer logs, writes Roos.

Vilsack, who was joined by Attorney General Tom Miller, Des Moines Police Chief William McCarthy and other law enforcement officers from across the state at a bill-signing ceremony on the west steps of the Capitol on Tuesday, said, "The people of Iowa, in supporting the toughest and smartest bill in the country, have sent meth makers everywhere a clear message: ‘We will do whatever is necessary to protect our children and to protect our state.' "

State officials predict that Iowa will see an even larger reduction in meth labs than Oklahoma, which has seen a 50 percent drop in labs since enactment 11 months ago of a law curtailing sales of pseudoephedrine products. Iowa ranks second in the nation, after Missouri, in meth lab incidents. Last year, about 1,400 meth labs and dump sites were discovered in Iowa, a state record, he writes.

West Virginia Senate passes meth bill without major amendments; House action next

The West Virginia Senate has unanimously passed a bill that aims to control over-the-counter medicines and other items needed to manufacture methamphetamine, but the narrow defeat of amendments seeking to add some penalties may signal more debate when the legislation reaches the House, The Associated Press reports.

Senate Bill 147 seeks to halt the spread of makeshift drug labs in West Virginia by limiting the availability of cold medicines that contain pseudoephedrine -- a crucial ingredient of the illegal narcotic, writes Erik Schelzig.

Senate Minority Leader Vic Sprouse sought to add penalties for methamphetamine laboratories within 1,000 feet of a school, injuries suffered by first responders to a lab and possessing pseudoephedrine with the intent to manufacture drugs near a school, writes Schelzig. Sprouse, R-Kanawha, told AP, "Maybe I’m more passionate about this because Kanawha County has such a huge problem. But let me tell you this is coming everywhere."

Kanawha and Putnam counties have seen the majority of lab activity in the state, but law enforcement officials say manufacturing of the drug is spreading. Senate Judiciary Chairman Jeff Kessler argued the amendments were not specific enough and would create extra laws relating specifically to methamphetamine crimes.

Two media groups ask FCC require local broadcasters to identify pre-packaged news

A media reform group and media center have filed a complaint with the Federal Communications Commission, asking the FCC to investigate broadcasters who distribute government-sponsored news without identification.

The Center for Media and Democracy along with Free Press circulated a petition last week calling for broadcasters, the FCC and Congress to “stop fake news.” About 40,000 citizens have signed it, reports the Free Press. The groups also want to establish “citizen agreements” with local stations, to pledge to identify pre-packaged reports from the government. These efforts come after a March 13 report from The New York Times, which identified 20 federal agencies that use taxpayer funds to pro-Bush news segments, called “video news releases,” for local television news programs.

"Not labeling fake news produced by the government or corporations constitutes news fraud, plagiarism, and violates the most basic ethical standards of journalism," said John Stauber, the Center's executive director.

Former VP candidate Edwards starts 'Center on Poverty' job at UNC Law School

Former North Carolina U. S. Senator and vice presidential candidate John Edwards has a new job as head of the University of North Carolina law school's new Center on Poverty, Work and Opportunity. Edwards, who represented North Carolina for one term in the Senate, began work Tuesday by moderating a panel discussion on the importance of savings and assets in moving families out of poverty, reports The Associated Press.

Edwards, a Democrat, said, ``We have millions of Americans who work full time and still live in poverty, and that is absolutely wrong.'' The wire services reports Edwards will earn $40,000 from the state university to head the center and has made a two-year commitment. His salary is paid from private funds raised by the university.

Sale of unapproved corn seed secret for months; genetically altered but safe, say experts

The federal government kept it secret for three months that genetically modified corn seed was sold accidentally to some U.S. farms for four years and might have gotten into the American food supply.

The accidental use of unapproved seed became public when the scientific journal Nature published a story about it yesterday, writes Seth Borenstein of the Knight Ridder News Service. The corn seed was probably safe. America's food supply and plant and animal stocks weren't harmed and remain safe to eat, according to officials of the seed company and the federal government. But the government's secrecy about the mistake -- one affecting the public food supply -- raises concerns, according to one expert, writes Borenstein.

Spokesmen for the Department of Agriculture and the Environmental Protection Agency told the news service there was no need to notify the public because the government had determined that the altered seed was safe. In addition, the USDA is investigating the whole incident involving the seed company, which faces up to $500,000 in fines. Agriculture Department spokesman Jim Rogers told Borenstein, "We're gathering evidence that we may need in front of a judge. If there was a health risk, you would have heard about it and there would have been a recall."

Syngenta, a Swiss-based company, distributed the unapproved, genetically altered corn seed. It mixed the seed with a nearly identical and approved corn seed, company officials said yesterday afternoon in a news conference. The see was modified with a gene from a pesticide-like bacterium. Syngenta spokeswoman Sarah Hull told Borenstein, "Most of the corn is used for industrial and animal use. It may have gotten into the food supply, but regardless, the proteins are deemed safe and there's no food concern." Hull said remaining seeds have been destroyed or isolated.

Natl. Meat Assn. files appeal after injunction keeps border closed to Canadian beef

The National Meat Association has filed an appeal to intervene in a case that led to a preliminary injunction blocking the reopening of the U.S. to Canadian beef more than 30 months old. NMA said its members can’t buy the Canadian cattle but still must compete with those beef cuts. Beef packers won’t survive, with “as much as $38 million is being lost per week,” the group claimed. The brief is available on the NMA’s website.

“Scaremongering about beef safety, using distorted statistics and disregarding the thorough record contributed to by distinguished international scientific experts is unconscionable,” said NMA Executive Director Rosemary Mucklow.

Tennessee cigarette tax hike fails on thin margin; sponsor still hopeful 'tide changing'

Tennessee anti-smoking advocates had a brief moment to rejoice yesterday when they were told a cigarette tax hike had cleared the state’s powerful Senate Finance Committee, only to learn later that votes had been miscounted.

But Sen. Rosalind Kurita said she still thinks she might be able to get her 40-cent tax hike increase out of the committee later in the session, writes Matt Gouras of The Associated Press. Kurita, who is also running for the U.S. Senate next year, told Gouras, "We came closer than we ever have before and we're going to do it again. The tide has changed."

Advocates were clearly buoyed by the close margin and say they think the tax still might pass this session, writes Gouras. Chastity Mitchell, government relations director for the American Cancer Society, called the morning a "roller coaster ride," adding, "I think there is still a tremendous door open for going back," she told AP. "Now we have a real good idea of where everybody stands." The group is going to continue to lobby senators to pass the tax, last raised during a budget crisis that shut down state government in 2002.

Government, tobacco companies dispute possible penalties; suit moot if settled

The Justice Department and the nation's largest cigarette makers continue to dispute which penalties a judge overseeing a civil racketeering trial can impose, weeks after an appeals court barred the feds from seeking $280 billion.

But the dispute could be moot if the two sides settle the case, which is in its sixth month in U.S. District Court in Washington. The companies and prosecutors have met secretly at least once with a court-appointed mediator in an effort to reach a settlement, according to a report in Tuesday's Wall Street Journal.

The Justice Department has defended its request to include court-ordered supervision of tobacco companies -- including potentially removing misbehaving executives -- as one of the penalties sought against cigarette makers. The companies have asked Judge Gladys Kessler to strike from a list of government witnesses a Harvard professor whose testimony would back that request for court-ordered supervision. Tobacco companies contended the proposal was a "new and draconian remedy" sought too late in the trial, writes Hilary Roxe of AP.

The department has also asked a full panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia to reconsider a decision from three of its judges barring the government from seeking $280 billion in the case.

Supporters of the government's case urged the department to keep on pushing for sharp penalties and resist any calls to settle. Vince Willmore, communications director for the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids, told Roxe, "The government should continue to pursue the case aggressively with the goal of achieving these important public health remedies, and it should reject any effort by the tobacco industry to get off the hook with a weak settlement."

Pipe maker guilty of environmental crimes in Texas; facing probes in other states

A foundry owned by McWane Inc., a major manufacturer of cast iron sewer and water pipe, has pleaded guilty in federal court to committing environmental crimes in Tyler, Tex.

The foundry, Tyler Pipe, was fined $4.5 million, placed on probation for five years and required to spend an estimated $12 million on plant upgrades, writes David Barstow of The New York Times.

The plea is a significant development for McWane, which is facing a sweeping federal criminal investigation of its plants in several states. Based in Birmingham, Ala., McWane already faces federal indictments in Alabama and New Jersey, accused of conspiring to violate environmental and workplace safety laws.

David M. Uhlmann, chief of the environmental crimes section of the Justice Department, told Barstow, "This is the third criminal prosecution of McWane in the last 16 months, and the first time that McWane has pleaded guilty and accepted responsibility for criminal conduct." At a court hearing in Tyler, the company admitted two felony offenses. It said it knowingly violated the Clean Air Act by making major modifications at without installing the necessary air pollution controls, and acknowledged knowingly making false statements to environmental regulators, writes Barstow.

McWane said in a written statement, "The company assumes full responsibility for the past and is looking forward to its future as a leader in environmental compliance," The company also expects to pay a $1.5 million fine to Texas environmental regulators and a "substantial penalty" to the Environmental Protection Agency.

Arkansas arsenal to incinerate deadly chemical weapons 'safely' says congressman

The Pine Bluff Arsenal, in Arkansas, will begin chemical weapons disposal operations next Tuesday.

Operations will begin with the processing of two M55 rockets filled with GB nerve agent, also known as sarin. The GB M55 rockets will be moved from the arsenal's storage area to the Pine Bluff Chemical Agent Disposal Facility on Monday, reports The Associated Press. The arsenal is one of eight sites where chemical weapons are stored, and it holds 12 percent of the nation's stockpile. Weapons are also stored at the Blue Grass Army Depot in Kentucky.

Randy Long, the site project manager, told AP, "We have confirmed the readiness of our plant, processes and people to begin safe and environmentally sound disposal operations. Our plan is to start slowly, gradually increasing the rate of processing to ensure successful operations for the life cycle of the project."

U. S. Rep. Mike Ross, D-Ark., told AP he believes the incineration process will go smoothly. "I have been in numerous meetings with officials from both the Pine Bluff Arsenal and the Washington Group International, which is the organization that contracts to carry out the demilitarization process. Both have assured me they have carefully and cautiously completed all the testing and safety procedures necessary to safely carry out the demilitarization process," Ross said. Some 3,850 tons of nerve gas and blister agents are to be destroyed to conform to an international treaty.

Kentucky-bound sludge proposal reviewed; Nashville not sure of disposal plan

Officials in Nashville are looking into whether they want to allow partially treated sewage sludge from the city to be used for strip-mine reclamation in Western Kentucky.

Sonia Harvat, spokeswoman for Nashville's Metro Water Services, told James Bruggers of The Courier-Journal that the agency's attorneys are reviewing their contract with BFI, the company that hauls sludge from two wastewater-treatment plants, to determine "what is allowed and not allowed."

Louisville environmental attorney Tom FitzGerald, director of the Kentucky Resources Council, told Bruggers Nashville would share what could be potentially costly liability if the sludge were to contaminate groundwater in Hopkins County, Ky. In two letters to the state of Kentucky, FitzGerald has urged regulators to scrutinize the potential for the sludge to pollute groundwater.

At issue is a proposal by BioReclamation LLC, of Wickliffe, Ky., to truck as much as 500 tons of sludge a day to 300 acres about 14 miles south of Madisonville. It would be buried in unlined trenches there for final treatment and later dug up and used to help reclaim strip-mined land. Bacteria that do not need oxygen would eat pathogens that are in the sludge while it is buried, according to the proposal, writes Bruggers.

R. Bruce Scott, director of the Kentucky Division of Waste Management, told The C-J his staff is reviewing the proposal to see whether it has merit. If it does, Scott said, his staff would solicit public input before making a decision. He also said that he was not familiar with treating sludge in trenches. Don Bowles, who wants to use the sludge to help reclaim mining land he owns, told Bruggers the sludge isn't toxic.

Shooters leaving shell casings in Daniel Boone Forest; rangers say cleanup a problem

Kentucky gun enthusiasts, looking to sharpen their aim in the great outdoors, are inspiring a ruckus rivaling the sounds of target practice from forest rangers.

“An explosion of spring color has taken on a new meaning in the Daniel Boone National Forest. Green buds on the willow and yellow flowers in the meadow now include red, black and silver bullet casings across the forest floor,” writes Roger Alford of The Associated Press. Rangers in the forest, named for a famous marksman, say warm-weather target shooters are increasingly leaving behind heaps of shell casings and, in some instances, live cartridges.

U.S. Forest Service ranger John Strojan told Alford, as he sat near someone's favorite shooting spot, "It is a problem. I don't know how much time and resource we spend picking up areas like this." Empty ammunition boxes had been left on the ground. A few live rounds lay mingled among the spent cartridges, writes Alford. Soda cans hanging on tree limbs had been riddled by bullets. Strojan said people risk citations for leaving such messes behind. "If you target shoot, and you leave your targets, litter, bottles, shotgun casings, you are violating a (litter) regulation."

The Forest Service has opened four shooting ranges in the Daniel Boone National Forest to give people safe places to shoot. But, Strojan told AP, people too often drive in the forest, park on a ridge top, set up soda cans, and start shooting, without regard to what or who might be in the background. He told Alford, "We have people who shoot in areas that they think are safe, but quite often they're not safe."

Perrin de Jong, head of the environmental group Kentucky Heartwood and an avid hiker in the Daniel Boone, told Alford, that shooters aren't always as careful as they should be. He said he has heard bullets whiz through the air as he walked in the woods. He said, "It's definitely a dangerous situation for anybody. I have definitely been in life-threatening situations because of someone out there shooting and didn't realize we're out there."

School library book with sexually explicit content brings complaints from parents

Parents at East Middle School in Shelbyville, Ky., are complaining about a book in the school library, with some committee members calling for a book rating system and others saying the students should have the right to choose what they read.

The book in question, called “Alice on the Outside,” has a main character called Alice who asks adult family members serious questions about sex, including how intercourse feels and masturbation, reports Terri Miller of the Sentinel-News. Joe and Candy Riley complained to the East Middle School’s Book Challenge Committee. Members compromised to have the book still on loan, but only available through the librarian’s office with parental permission.

The Rileys say the book advocates lesbianism and multiple sex partners, Miller writes. Some committee members agreed they wouldn’t want their children reading it. Sandy Phillips thinks the story is good, but the author uses words and content she wouldn’t want her daughter to read. "We don't use those words in our home," she said. She also said she wished the library had a rating system so parents knew what their children were reading.

However, teacher Suzanne Guelda said the message is a good one, because Alice seeks advice from trusted adults for her questions. "That was the overall theme, and I really would hate to see it pulled," Guelda said. Librarian Louise Watts said the students should be able to choose what they read, Miller writes. "Reading is a choice, and as such, I think it should stay on the shelf," she said. "I think they have the right to make choices. It's called intellectual freedom. We don't want to get into rating books."

North Dakota restriction on judicial speech denied; First Amendment rights cited

A federal judge has ruled North Dakota's restrictions on what judicial candidates can say while campaigning violates their free-speech rights.

The rules limit candidates to discussing little besides their resumes, and state candidates may not promise anything other than to do the job faithfully and impartially, writes Dale Wetzel of The Associated Press. District Judge Daniel Hovland told AP the restrictions "pose a chilling effect" on efforts by judicial candidates to express their views on problems confronting the judiciary and how they propose to deal with them.

Hovland also told the wire service it was "clear that a judicial candidate's speech during an election campaign occupies the core of the protections afforded by the First Amendment." The decision follows a Supreme Court ruling three years ago that struck down some limits on judicial candidates' speech in Minnesota. Hovland said North Dakota's speech restrictions on judges were almost indistinguishable from those overruled in the Minnesota case, he writes.

The North Dakota Family Alliance, a group that advocates socially conservative views, challenged the rules in federal court after several state district judge candidates declined to respond to a questionnaire it distributed. The alliance's director, Christina Rondeau, praised the ruling. "The way things have been, it really made the whole idea of being able to elect your judges almost a farce, because you're trying to elect someone without having any real idea about their opinions or their philosophy."

Tuesday, March 22, 2005

Rural areas feel unprepared for attacks; resources lacking to counter bioterrorism

Rural health officials believe they are woefully unprepared to respond to a possible terror attack on food supplies, nuclear power facilities or other targets.

"A survey of health officials in 26 states also found that most rural areas would not be prepared for a bioterror attack or have the resources to handle a surge of people fleeing urban areas under assault," writes Lara Jakes Jordan of The Associated Press. The study, sponsored in part by the Harvard School of Public Health and the University of Pittsburgh, comes as the Department of Homeland Security is proposing to award federal aid to states and localities based on the level of threats they face, writes Jordan. Small and rural states fear such an approach would dramatically cut funding for their emergency responders.

Michael Meit, director of the University of Pittsburgh's Center for Rural Health Practice in Bradford, Pa., told Jordan, "We just want to make sure that rural areas aren't forgotten about, and that we're getting enough resources to be prepared at an adequate level.'' The survey looked at 26 states ranked among the highest and lowest in a 2003 assessment of bioterrorism preparedness. It also examined which states received funding from the Cities Readiness Initiative, a pilot program by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to respond to large-scale public health emergencies.

Of the rural states, 18 percent received high rankings for bioterrorism preparedness and 6 percent received the readiness funding. By comparison, 63 percent of the urban states ranked high on the preparedness list, and 75 percent got the funding. The survey noted that water supply and energy sources, including nuclear plants, usually are based in rural communities.

Rural areas contending with rise in homelessness; cities spilling over, say advocates

Homelessness is no longer just an urban phenomenon. It is spilling over into rural areas.

“When she moved into the homeless shelter in rural Ponchatoula, La., Nicole Henderson thought it was temporary. That was two years ago, when the House of Serenity opened. Henderson, now 22 years old, and her three children, have been living there on and off ever since,” writes The Associated Press. "The floors are unfinished. Mold is all over the bathroom ceiling. The refrigerators are chained and padlocked. But at least there are rooms, and a roof." The Hendersons, AP notes, are far from the only residents. Twenty-nine others live there too.

Advocates for the homeless say the rural shelter is an accurate barometer of a growing national problem. Brad Paul, executive director of the Washington-based National Policy and Advocacy Council on Homelessness, told the wire service it is even more hidden in rural areas. He says families double and triple up, or live in houses that would be condemned in bigger cities.

Flow of illegal immigrants ‘unabated,' says report; Maryland, Va., D.C. largest influx

Despite tighter border enforcement and an economic slump after Sept. 11, 2001, the number of illegal immigrants in the United States has continued to grow steadily, with many moving into states that traditionally have small foreign-born populations, according to a new report released yesterday.

Based on Census Bureau and other government data, the Pew Hispanic Center, a private research group in Washington, estimated the number of undocumented immigrants at 10.3 million as of last March, an increase of 23 percent from the 8.4 million estimate in 2000, writes Sylvia Moreno of The Washington Post. More than 50 percent of that growth was attributable to Mexican nationals living illegally in the United States.

Most of the overall growth has been in states that previously had small foreign-born populations, including Arizona and North Carolina, as well as the Washington metropolitan area. The combined population of illegal immigrants in Maryland, Virginia and the District increased almost 70 percent from an estimated 300,000 in 2000 to about 500,000 in 2004, said demographer Jeffrey S. Passel of the Pew Hispanic Center, writes Moreno.

The reason, Passel told Moreno, is simple. "What drives the growth in immigrant populations in general is employment opportunities," especially in fields that do not require formal education. The report comes on the eve of a mini-summit in Texas tomorrow during which President Bush, Mexican President Vicente Fox and Canadian Prime Minister Paul Martin are scheduled to discuss immigration, among other topics, she continued.

Johanns supports Bush, says big farm subsidies shouldn’t trump rural development

Agriculture Secretary Mike Johanns supported President Bush’s plan for the federal deficit, which proposes trims to some rural programs next year, at “The State of 21st Century Rural America: Implications for Policy and Practice.”

At the conference, sponsored by the W.K. Kellogg Foundation, Johanns said Monday that rural development and nutrition programs shouldn’t face further cuts as a trade-off for large federal crop subsidies, reports Jake Thompson of the Omaha World-Herald. (Site requires free registration.) "The president's got the right idea here," Johanns said. "You've got to deal with the deficit, or there won't be economic prosperity for any of us."

Bush’s cuts include stringent payment limits and cutting subsidy payments for crop farmers from $360,000 to $250,000, reports Thompson. He also wants to close loopholes for large Southern cotton and rice farming operations, which allow them to get millions of dollars of federal funds. Chuck Hassebrook, head of the Center for Rural Affairs in Lyons, Neb., said Johanns’ test would be whether he fights for the proposed payment limits. He expressed concern for funding in rural areas, because many people involved with rural development know the federal government has played a key role in shoring up small towns, Thompson reported.

Johanns touted Bush’s first-term record for rural investment, noting $14.7 billion federal investment in housing, which helped over 170,000 rural families. He added that $22.2 billion went to rural infrastructures like electricity, water and getting high-speed Internet access to over 1.3 million rural homes and businesses. This is one newpaper's perspective on the Kellogg conference. IRJCI Interim Director Al Cross filed his report in yesterday's blog.

ACCESS TO TECHNOLOGY

FCC could suspend regulations that force utility company to sell 'naked' DSL

The Federal Communications Commission could suspend four states' public utility regulations that force BellSouth to sell “naked” DSL, digital subscriber lines sold separately from local phone service, said a source familiar with the situation. Phone service and DSL have been inextricably linked in the past, reports Ben Charny of CNET News.com.

The possible ruling would affect millions of homeowners in California, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky and Louisiana. BellSouth’s supporters have previously warned of the possibility of different state regulations for naked DSL, which could slow the growth of broadband.

New broadband technology in Nebraska sparks debate in state legislature

New technology to bring high-speed Internet access to Nebraska has fueled a debate in the state legislature over whether or not it would succeed in bringing broadband to rural areas, and whether or not it would give an unfair competitive advantage to public utilities. If implemented, it could make Internet connection available by plugging a computer into an electrical outlet.

The service, called broadband over power lines, is being studied by the Omaha Public Power District to see if it works, according to OPPD spokesman Mike Jones. It may not be cheaper than other broadband services, writes Leslie Reed of the Omaha World-Herald, and in fact DSL prices in highly competitive markets are often lower.

Special equipment is needed to boost signals and route them around transformers, Reed writes, so it may not be the solution to getting high-speed Internet access to remote homes and businesses. It also may offer an unfair advantage to public utilities, which have tax advantages and public financing, over private companies, Reed writes.

ACCESS TO RECORDS

Governments want right to sue open-records seekers; libertarians strongly oppose

North Carolina cities and other government agencies want the authority to sue citizens who ask to see public records.

They are pursuing that authority in two ways, writes Martha Eisley of the News & Observer of Raleigh, Durham, and Chapel Hill, N.C., "First, lawyers for local governments and the University of North Carolina are talking about pushing for a new state law allowing pre-emptive lawsuits against citizens, news organizations and private companies to clarify the law when there is a dispute about providing records or opening meetings."

"Second," she continues, "the city of Burlington is appealing a ruling last year by the state Court of Appeals that said the government can't take people to court to try to block their access to records or meetings. Citizens can sue the government over records, the court said, but not the reverse."

North Carolina's League of Municipalities supports Burlington. Ellis Hankins, the league's executive director, told Eisley, "It makes sense to ask a court what the law is when there's a dispute about the Open Meetings Law, just like when there's a dispute about anything else." The cities say they are not interested in punishing people who criticize policies or demand information. They want to use an ordinary tool often deployed in other kinds of legal disputes, a "declaratory judgment," to let judges settle public access disagreements.

Urging the Supreme Court to forbid pre-emptive government lawsuits are news organizations and civil rights advocates on the political left, right and center, including the state's newspapers and broadcasters, the conservative John Locke Foundation, and the liberal American Civil Liberties Union. For The Charlotte Observer version click here.

Record 4 million FOIA requests filed in 2004; most to SSA for family histories

Americans made more than 4 million requests to the federal government under the Freedom of Information Act in 2004, a new high for requests in a single year.

Harry Hammitt, who publishes Access Reports, a newsletter on freedom-of-information laws, told Martha Mendoza of The Associated Press, "Four million requests in a year is pretty impressive, and it shows that the Freedom of Information Act is a vibrant and important tool.”

Most of the increase was due to the 1.5 million requests received by the Social Security Administration, which reported twice as many requests in 2004 than in 2003. Administration spokesman Mark Hinkle told AP, "The majority of our requests are for family members who are tracing their family tree." Hammitt told the wire service, because as many as 80 percent of last year's requests were routine queries for family, personal or medical records, the public should not assume they led to the release of the historic, political or declassified files people often associate with the act. Requests last year increased from 3.26 million in 2003, according to a survey of reports from more than 70 federal agencies and departments.

Open records copies: Many free, some costly and restrictive, Iowa investigation shows

Iowa newspapers and Drake University journalism students have found the cost of open government may vary from free to more restrictive but is cheap compared to the costs of governing in secret. “It costs 15 bucks to get a copy of a police incident report from the Des Moines Police Department. The same type of report costs 25 cents at the Denison Police Department,” writes Collene Krantz of The Des Moines Register.

An investigation by 15 Iowa newspapers and Drake University journalism students found 66 percent of the law enforcement agencies in the state charge nothing for their incident reports. Altogether, 58 percent of the offices provided small numbers of photocopies free of charge to office visitors. As the Des Moines and Denison police departments illustrate, however, when copying fees are levied, the range can vary widely.

The investigation found that when offices charged photocopying fees, the average per-page amount was 25 cents. When flat fees were charged for copies, regardless of the number of pages, the average was $4.86. Attorney General Tom Miller told the newspaper he was impressed that more than half of the offices visited by the newspaper provided copies of the records for free. "We think at most it should be 50 cents a page, and I think it's best to have much less than that," Miller told Krantz."We recommend to not charge if it's a few pages."

The investigation was conducted by the Ames Tribune, Burlington Hawk Eye, Cedar Rapids Gazette, Council Bluffs Daily Nonpareil, Des Moines Register, Dubuque Telegraph Herald, Fort Dodge Messenger, Iowa City Press-Citizen, Mason City Globe-Gazette, N'West Iowa Review of Sheldon, Ottumwa Courier, Quad-City Times of Davenport, Sioux City Journal, Storm Lake Times and Waterloo/Cedar Falls Courier.

FAITH AND VALUES

Church reverses ban on aid groups; pastor apologizes for stand on Catholics

The pastor of a Church of God announced from the pulpit Sunday that the Charlotte church will continue supporting two ministries it had decided to quit helping. He also later apologized for comments he wrote about Catholicism.

The Rev. Loran Livingston, though, had told Religion Editor Ken Garfield of The Charlotte Observer the church would no longer support Charlotte Rescue Mission, citing in part the involvement of three Muslim students who helped serve a meal there. "I'm apologizing. I'm telling all the people for the hurt, 'I'm sorry.'... As long as we can, we're going to help until the Lord tells us to redirect our wealth."

Livingston's apology, covered by Garfield in the church sanctuary, partially reverses an earlier church decision. The Pentecostal mega-church had recently decided to quit backing four local ministries over interfaith issues. In a March letter announcing plans to cut church ties with the food pantry, Central Church of God minister of evangelism Shannon Burton wrote, "We feel we should abstain from any ministry that partners with or promotes Catholicism, or for that matter, any other denomination promoting a works-based salvation." The charity targeted by the letter had received support from 10 to 15 Roman Catholic parishes, plus Jewish and other faith groups.

The Roman Catholic Diocese of Charlotte responded, in part, to Burton's letter: "This apparent attempt to divide the faith community is most unfortunate." The Rev. Tony Marciano, executive director of Charlotte Rescue Mission, told the newspaper that Burton said the church could no longer support the agency after it allowed the three Muslim students from UNC-Charlotte to volunteer at the uptown ministry.

Kentucky casino efforts get boost from legal opinion; church group cries foul

A new attorney general's opinion could give momentum to the movement to bring casino gambling to Kentucky.

"Attorney General Greg Stumbo reversed four opinions of previous attorneys general, finding yesterday that state legislators can expand gambling without amending the constitution," write Janet Patton and Jack Brammer of the Lexington Herald-Leader. A constitutional amendment would require voter approval. Stumbo's opinion, reflecting what he said when he was House floor leader, said lawmakers could institute casino gambling without voter approval.

The racing industry, which wants slot machines at race tracks, hailed the opinion. The Rev. Nancy Jo Kemper, executive director of the Kentucky Council of Churches, which opposes expanded gambling, criticized the opinion as "an attempt to let gambling interests buy the legislature with campaign contributions. It reflects Stumbo's own political ambition and willingness to defy the people of this state for greed."

The attorney general's opinion does not have the force of law. But, Stumbo said, "It is clear from this debate that the framers of the constitution did not intend for this language to prohibit other types of gaming." Stumbo says he expects the gambling issue to rise again during the 2006 session of the General Assembly. He told the newspaper, "This issue of expanded gaming is not going to go away, not when we've got those casinos on our borders, not when we're losing $400 million a year in tax revenue."

Gaming bill advances in West Virginia; opponents want statewide referendum

Supporters of legalizing table gaming at West Virginia’s four race tracks will roll the dice today, betting on a bill supporting gambling that's scheduled to be on the Senate Judiciary Committee agenda this afternoon.

Committee Chairman Jeff Kessler, D-Marshall, said, “I haven’t done a headcount myself, but [the bill’s supporters] think they have the votes.” The bill would authorize referendums to legalize table games such as poker and blackjack in the four counties with racetracks, writes Phil Kabler of the Charleston Gazette. Action on the bill has been anticipated throughout the session. It was delayed last week after Senate Democrats gave priority to a bill that would prohibit third-party bad-faith lawsuits against insurance companies, she adds.

That bill is expected to be up for a final vote on the Senate floor later this week. The lead sponsor, Sen. Andy McKenzie, R-Ohio, said he believes there are enough votes to pass the measure. He told Kabler yesterday, “I think there will only be two issues. One is local referendum or statewide. The other issue is how the revenues are divvied up between all of the people that want to grab some of the money.” Gambling opponents hope to amend the bill to require a referendum statewide, rather than in the four host counties.

LOGS & HOGS

Georgia may permit dive for old logs; enviros oppose; timber industry says it's rare wood

A century after loggers stopped using Georgia's rivers to move their product, the state Legislature is considering a bill to let divers extract sinkers: the lost logs that have been resting on river bottoms.

Environmentalists oppose the practice — called deadhead logging — which has been illegal in Georgia since 1998. They say removing the large logs will stir up massive amounts of silt, ruining fish habitats and polluting the water, writes Stacy Shelton of The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

Deadhead loggers and others who specialize in the rare, old-growth wood that once covered the Southeast say the submerged logs are buried treasure and that careful techniques can protect the environment. Some are willing to pay the proposed annual permit fee of $10,000 to search two river miles. That's equivalent to what developers pay to strip 125 acres of land to build a subdivision or shopping center, writes Shelton.

Ryan Lee of Riverwood Flooring in Cairo told the newspaper the submerged logs are worth it. "It's virgin-growth timber. . . . We'll never see trees like that again." His South Georgia company pulls logs out of Florida rivers, where deadheading has been legal since 1998.

It is a big pig, but not that big; National Geographic downsizes 'Hogzilla’s' legend

Hogzilla, the carcass, did not quite measure up to Hogzilla, the legend, made famous by a single, frequently e-mailed photograph, according to a documentary shown on the National Geographic Channel.

“But to fans of the supposedly 12-foot-long, 1,000-pound wild hog, shot on a South Georgia farm near the town of Alapaha last June, the important thing was that Hogzilla existed,” writes Shaila Dewan of The New York Times. They did not mind that a team of scientists who exhumed the carcass estimated that the pig was only about 8 feet long and 800 pounds, she continued. Darlene Turner of Jernigan's Trustworthy Hardware in Alapaha, which does a brisk business in Hogzilla T-shirts, said, "I was not at all disappointed. I actually thought it was about nine foot."

The owner of fish farm where the hog was shot and the employee, who downed the beast, had a rebuttal to the show, The Times reports, They say the hog shrunk after being buried for six months. Scientists tested and concluded Hogzilla was a mix of wild boar and a domestic breed. Its tusks, measuring nearly 33 inches together, set a North American Safari Club International record. John Mayer II, one of the scientists in the documentary, said in an interview that he believed Hogzilla had to have been pen-raised, because of its size and because its tusks could only have grown that long in a protected environment.

Monday, March 21, 2005

Johanns defends Bush’s rural policies at Kellogg Foundation seminar

Sharply divergent views of public policy about rural America were on display today at a Washington, D.C., seminar sponsored by the W.K. Kellogg Foundation. One came from Rick Foster, a foundation vice president; the other came from new Agriculture Secretary Mike Johanns, the two-day seminar’s keynote speaker.

Rural America has proven its political importance but is not getting the rewards, Foster said. “It has elected the president in the last two elections, and probably will elect the next two, and yet has a problem getting the rural agenda on the platform.”

But Johnanns said the Bush administration gave the country a rural policy and revived a rural dialogue “that had stalled for a decade.” He cited research showing that in some ways, rural economic growth is outpacing the rest of the nation.

Asked to explain Bush’s proposed cuts in farm subsidies and rural development, Johanns said the federal budget deficit “is a very serious problem,” noted Bush’s goal of cutting the deficit in half in five years and said, “For the long-term economic stability of our country, the president’s goal is the right goal.”

He said the administration has a strong commitment to rural-development programs, and said its rural proposals will help local communities use federal money more efficiently. Bush has proposed major cuts and consolidation of community development block grant programs, which Johanns said were “a tremendous resources” for his efforts to help rural communities when he was governor of Nebraska.

Asked how he could assure that the restructuring of those programs would be appropriate for rural communities, he promised to listen to specific complaints. “If you have concerns, head my direction,” he said, adding later that if his listeners took one message from his appearance, it should be “My door is always open.”

RADIO 

Real local news: Rarer but still there; some stations still do obituaries, birthdays

Rural ‘hometown’ radio stations, once prolific and profuse boosters of all things local, have, in recent decades, lost much of their 'homey' flavor, giving way to the wave of mega-chain-owned, often cloned, more packaged or networked programming with little indigenous content or interest. But, out there in the hinterlands, a few stalwarts remain, against the tide, and those faithful few are special. Tim Jones of the Chicago Tribune writes:

“Some days there are a half-dozen, while on others there might be only one or two. Some days there aren't any. But at 8:30 every morning, the newscaster at radio station KVFD-AM in Fort Dodge, Iowa sets aside time to read the local obituaries. These few moments usually draw one of the biggest — if not the biggest — audiences of the broadcast day.” Travis Reeves, KVFD's general manager told Jones, "A lot of people feel it's distasteful," but "When you live in this town and you see the same faces every day, when somebody's gone it makes a difference and should be noted."

In small, isolated communities across Iowa, at stations too tiny to draw the serious attention of giant, publicly traded radio conglomerates, the old ways of broadcasting defy the cookie-cutter realities of homogenized modern radio, Jones writes. While a growing number of stations are simply automated cash registers with antennas, small stations that did not get gobbled up in a corporate rush to enhance the earnings of distant shareholders maintain an ongoing conversation with their listeners. They read obituaries, sometimes as often as five times a day.

Mark Saylor, news director at KSIB-AM in the southwestern Iowa community of Creston, told Jones, "A lot of old people like to tune in to make sure they're not on the list." They make birthday announcements, including Dorothy Carrithers', in the tiny southeast Iowa town of Morning Sun, population 872. Carrithers turned 104 on Feb. 9. John Kuhens, general manager of KILJ-AM-FM in Mount Pleasant, Iowa, told Jones, "We're the closest thing to Hollywood that a lot of people in rural Iowa will ever see."

Every weekday, small stations read the lunch menus of the local public schools. They exchange pineapple upside-down cake recipes and pass along gossip from neighboring towns. Live coverage of local sports can mean junior high and high school volleyball, even wrestling matches, he writes.

FCC promises to address regulation concerns from low-power FM broadcasters

Low power FM broadcasters praised the Federal Communications Commission for its latest efforts to promote LPFM. Last February the FCC held a forum in which LPFM broadcasters explained how current FCC rules hinder the service’s development. Departing FCC Chairman Michael Powell promised to address the LPFM community’s issues “as soon as possible," reports the Free Press.

LPFM radio stations, which broadcast at 100 watts or less, are licensed to community groups, churches and schools, the Free Press reports. The Prometheus Radio Project worked with the FCC to get the radio stations approved in 1999 and 2000.

A chief concern among the LPFM community is the proliferation of FM translators, which compete for the same radio spaces, the Press writes. Translators repeat signals from full power stations or satellite feed, but LPFM stations provide local programming. Right now, FCC rules favor allotting radio space to whoever gets in first. In 2000, Congress cut the number of channels for LPFM, and required the FCC to see if its original rules would create interference with full power broadcasters. Congress is now considering restoring the channels, the Press writes.

COAL

MSHA chief sought private industry job six months before leaving government post

The Bush administration’s first federal mine-safety chief sought an industry job six months before he formally left the government just after last year’s election, according to records Ken Ward Jr. of the Charleston Gazette obtained under the federal Freedom of Information Act.

"Dave D. Lauriski, then-assistant secretary of Labor, discussed potential jobs with three different companies or industry groups, according to the records," Ward writes. Starting in May 2004, Lauriski recused himself from any actions involving the three firms, the records show. The Gazette filed public records requests for the recusal documents in December and again in January. Labor Department officials provided the records last week.

Department officials refused to name the two companies or groups where Lauriski did not end up taking a job. Lauriski did not announce he was leaving his $135,000-a-year job at the Mine Safety and Health Administration until Nov. 12, 10 days after the election, Ward writes. When Lauriski’s resignation was announced, labor department officials refused to provide any details of any recusal letters he signed while he was job hunting. Eryn Witcher, a department spokeswoman, would say only that Lauriski “followed all ethical requirements.”

A week before the election, Lauriski denied reports from government sources he had informed Labor Secretary Elaine Chao that he would not return if Bush won a second term. Lauriski said in an Oct. 26 statement, “I am busy continuing to lead this agency toward improved health and safety performance. I’ve made no decisions, nor have we discussed my future regarding the agency.” During the campaign, Democrat John Kerry and Kerry supporters within the United Mine Workers were critical of Lauriski and of his ties to the mining industry, Ward notes.

Ex-mine inspector wins community-service award from Appalachian Studies Assn.

Jack Spadaro, the federal coal-mine inspector who repeatedly took on his bosses and their political overseers, accepted the Helen Lewis Community Service Award at the annual conference of the Appalachian Studies Association Saturday.

The Mine Safety and Health Administration demoted and transferred Spadaro after he resigned from a team investigating the 2000 Martin County, Ky., coal-slurry spill, and said MSHA was trying to cover up its lack of action against previous violations at the Massey Energy impoundment. An internal review by MSHA “confirmed the allegations at the heart of Spadaro’s concerns,” but the agency’s inspector general has delayed a release of a report on the allegations, Ken Ward Jr. of the Charleston Gazette reported last year.

To a standing ovation from those attending the conference at Radford (Va.) University, Spadaro said his “only purpose in raising Cain” was to hold accountable a company that has “one of the worst environmental records” in the coal industry and “got away with” the spill, which the Environmental Protection Agency called the worst environmental disaster ever in the southeastern United States. Spadaro also railed against mountaintop-removal mining, laying out some statistics for the scholars and activists in the audience.

He said the mining practice has stripped 380,000 acres in West Virginia, 320,000 in Kentucky and 90,000 in southwest Virginia, created the largest earthen structures in North America (valley fills using the rock and dirt taken from the mountaintops), buried or severely damaged 1,900 miles of streams and increased sedimentation in 1,200 more miles. At current rates, he said, in the foreseeable future 2,500 square miles of land and 3,500 miles of streams “will be destroyed . . . and one of the most precious ecosystems in the world will be completely lost forever.”

Mining interests say mountaintop removal creates badly needed jobs in the region and provides land for other uses:

Horses feed in fields atop Appalachia's old coal mines; rivaling Bluegrass pastures?

Pastureland in Appalachian Kentucky sitting atop old coal mines is now providing another natural resource for yet another of the state’s signature industries.

“Horses stand at attention in grassy fields, heads held high in a warm breeze, while colts prance about in a postcard-perfect scene. What sounds like a description of Central Kentucky's Bluegrass country is actually in the heart of Appalachia, where mining companies in search of coal have turned once-rugged mountaintops into prime grazing land,” writes Roger Alford of The Associated Press.

Brian Combs, a University of Kentucky agricultural agent, told Alford, "The land is just so vast. Horses can just graze and graze and graze." Through the mining process, thousands of acres that were once dense forests, mountain peaks and steep valleys are now grasslands that provide a nearly perfect habitat for horses, writes Alford. The result is a fledgling equine industry in mountain communities where horses were once rare.

No one knows the exact size of Eastern Kentucky's mountain region horse population, but the American Horse Council estimates it is now home to about 12,000 of the state's 180,000 horses. Combs told Alford, "People are running horses on some of these reclaimed strip mines by the hundreds. If reclaimed surface mines are properly maintained, they provide more than enough forage. In some places, you have free-range grazers."

Coal companies have long been criticized for taking the tops off mountains in Eastern Kentucky and southern West Virginia. But, writes Alford, it's the process of restoring the land after the coal is extracted that has made the mountaintops a grazing haven. Coal company crews plant various grasses on the land in hopes of preventing erosion. In addition to horses, farmers are increasingly putting their cattle, goats and sheep on the mountaintop pastures. And among wild animals, coyotes, deer and elk have found a home there, he writes.

Minister, ex-miner, killed in overweight coal truck crash; echo heard in government?

The death of a minister and ex-coal miner, killed in a crash with an overweight coal truck near Inez, Kentucky has caused echoes in the halls of state government, more than 150 miles away.

Lee Mueller, Eastern Kentucky Bureau chief for the Lexington Herald-Leader, writes of Rev. Lonnie Preece, “He had picked up garbage from nearby relatives and hauled it to Martin County's collection center … just west of Inez. Then Preece, 55, pastor of the Bethel United Baptist Church, headed back home.” Charles Wiley Jr., 27, driving an overloaded, westbound coal truck, swerved suddenly into Preece's lane and collided head-on with his pickup.

Because the March 7 tragedy involved an overweight truck, the crash echoed loudly in Frankfort, 165 miles away, Mueller writes. Lawmakers were to vote on a controversial House bill that would have unleashed new fleets of heavy trucks hauling taxable "natural resources" on Kentucky's highways. The 2005 legislative session resumes today, when a House member could try to revive the bill.

If Preece's death influenced some legislators to change their votes, family members say he would be pleased. Ronnie Caldwell, a son-in-law who works for a Prestonsburg bank said Preece would be "Tickled to death." Diane Smith of Inez, a niece, told Mueller, "He was a very good preacher, but he was a great man."

Wiley was cited for hauling 150,150 pounds of coal on a highway with a 62,000-pound limit. Even though he was 88,150 pounds overweight, the coal was still a foot below the top of the bed. The coal company had loaded his truck and he told officials he did not know how much weight he was hauling. Appalachian Fuels official Carl Simmons in Ashland did not return a phone call seeking comment.

ENVIRONMENT

Smokies clearing the air with TVA help; park on 'right track,' still the most polluted

The air is a little cleaner and the view a little brighter in the Great Smoky Mountains, but it's still considered the most polluted national park in the country.

"Scientists monitoring the volume of man-made smog and soot in the Smokies ...are cautiously optimistic a turnaround is under way," writes Duncan Mansfield of The Associated Press. That means the more than 9 million visitors to this woodland playground on the Tennessee-North Carolina border may breathe a little easier at the height of summer and possibly see a little farther on the haziest days. Full recovery for this 520,000-acre environmental barometer for the region still may be decades away, but it doesn't seem to be curbing anyone's enthusiasm, he continues.

Jim Renfro, the park's air specialist, told Mansfield, "Hey, I can finally start saying one of the places that has had some pretty tough air pollution problems, and still does, is on the right track." The trend began in the late 1990s - attributed largely to milder summers and nearly $6 billion spent by the Tennessee Valley Authority on pollution controls for its coal-fired power plants in Tennessee, north Alabama and western Kentucky, writes Mansfield.

TVA has reduced ozone-forming nitrogen oxide emissions by 78 percent since 1995 and installed scrubbers that are removing thousands of tons of sulfur dioxide, a precursor to smog and acid rain. TVA accounted for a quarter of the 2,000 tons a day of nitrogen oxide emitted in Tennessee in 1999. By 2007, TVA's share will be down to a tenth of a much smaller total of some 1,500 tons a day.

Group battles plan to log West Virginia’s Cheat River Canyon; home to rare species

Allegheny Wood Products, a logging company based in Petersburg, is planning major logging operations in the scenic Cheat River Canyon, drawing opposition from an environmentalist group concerned about run-off pollution.

"Some trees to be cut are readily visible from Coopers Rock State Forest near Morgantown. Douglas Pence, a lawyer and outdoorsman, is a member of Friends of the Cheat, a local group that fought to control acid-mine drainage from coal mines in Monongalia and Preston counties for the past 20 years," writes Paul J. Nyden of The Charleston Gazette. Pence told Nyden his group is joining with the West Virginia Sierra Club to fight logging along the Cheat.

Allegheny Wood Products, which has been involved in another protracted battle over logging in pristine areas with Friends of Blackwater, recently acquired 5,000 acres of wooded land along the Cheat River. Pence told Nyden the area is also home to two federally-listed endangered species, the Indiana Bat and the Cheat Three-Toothed Snail.

The state of West Virginia tried to buy the property as a wildlife management area, but Allegheny Wood Products was able to outbid the state, Nyden writes. Pence told him AWP’s logging plans will upset a habitat “already heavily impacted by acid mine drainage” and create new problems. Pence told the newspaper, “Look at the impact logging and surface mining has had in Southern West Virginia. Every spring, (some places along the river) are flooded due to the inability of the hillsides to absorb the water runoff.” The newspaper was told Donna Record, AWP’s spokeswoman, was out of town and unavailable for comment. AWP President John Crites II, was not available.

Nashville wants to send sludge to Hopkins County, Kentucky; locals displeased

Kentucky regulators are considering a proposal to move some of Nashville's sewage sludge to Western Kentucky.

The proposal would allow as much as 500 tons of partially treated sludge a day to be sent from two wastewater treatment plants in Nashville to a remote area about 14 miles south of Madisonville, reports The Associated Press. The sludge would be buried for final treatment and later dug up and used to help reclaim strip-mined land.

Hopkins County sanitation supervisor Broc Oglesby said local residents won't be pleased about it. Oglesby said he has asked the county attorney whether local government has any say in the matter. Louisville environmental attorney Tom FitzGerald said a hearing isn't required, but he has asked state officials to conduct one. BFI spokesman David Hollinshead told reporters the company recently stopped taking the city's sludge to a large Tennessee landfill, where odor had been a concern. He declined to discuss the Kentucky proposal. BFI handles Nashville's wastewater.

Sonia Harvat, a spokeswoman for Metro Water Services in Nashville, said the agency is upgrading its treatment system to eliminate odor from the sludge. She said her agency allows BFI to determine the destination for the sludge. Kentucky got the proposal March 2 from a partnership including Greer Tidwell, a former Environmental Protection Agency regional administrator, and Charles Martin, a former deputy secretary of Kentucky's environmental cabinet.

Groups demand count of Chesapeake Bay fish, examination of environmental impact

Conservationists and fishing groups have demanded a closer look at the number of menhaden, aka bunker of fatback fish, in Chesapeake Bay, a fish so abundant its ground up for chicken feed.

But nobody knows how many of the fish actually live in the bay or if the harvest in Reedville, the third largest U.S. port in terms of landings, is big enough to harm the bay’s environment, reports Lawrence Latane III of the Times-Dispatch. To find out, the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission is expected to approve research money for Light Detection and Ranging technology. Lidar can quickly count the number of menhaden in a given area, the Dispatch reports. The study would cost about $550,000, said the commission’s executive director, John V. O’Shea.

Conservations say the fish are a chief source of food for other bay fish, and they have a chief role in maintaining water quality by filtering phytoplankton. However, Omega Protein, a fishing company that harvests the bay’s menhaden, said the groups are “inventing a crisis.” The company’s director of governmental affairs, Toby Gascon, told the Dispatch that last year, some 99,300 metric tons of the company’s 184,000-metric-ton menhaden harvest came from the bay. The rest came from the Atlantic Ocean. "Here we are," Gascon said, "a fishery without regulations whose catches are declining in the bay, and all of a sudden there's this 'sky is falling' attitude."

OTHER NEWS

Kentucky ethanol plant reaps profits; gasoline-price rise spurring demand

An ethanol plant near Hopkinsville, Ky., owned by two groups of farmer investors, has turned a quick profit amid strong demand spurred partly by rising gasoline prices.

"The Commonwealth Agri-Energy ethanol plant, which opened a year ago, has produced 24.3 million gallons of corn-based fuel. An expansion that should be completed by year's end will raise the production capacity to 30 million gallons," reports The Associated Press. Plant manager Kevin Smith told AP, "We did better than our projections. We figured in the first year we'd break even."

"Instead, the plant turned a $3.5 million profit that ...will pay the entire cost of the $5.5 million expansion," the wire service writes. The plant is owned by the 650 members of the Kentucky Corn Growers' Association and the 2,300 members of the Hopkinsville Elevator Cooperative. Part of the construction cost was financed with $9.3 million from the state's tobacco settlement fund that helps farmers find alternatives to growing tobacco. The wholesale price of ethanol is about $1.56 a gallon, equal to the current wholesale price of gasoline. "As the price of gasoline has gone up, so has the demand for ethanol," Smith said. "We are getting more and more inquiries … and more and more interest."

Ethanol is mixed with gasoline and helps reduce carbon dioxide emissions to meet federal clean air standards. Smith said about half the plant's ethanol goes to a large blending facility in Louisville. He said demand should increase as smaller suppliers learn the formula for blending. In its first year, the plant bought 8 million bushels of corn, mostly from Christian County farmers. "That is a brand-new market for them that didn't exist a year ago," he said, and added the market area will expand as the plant expands.

South Dakota Indian reservation faces water crisis; poverty complicating solutions

Some 14,000 residents of the Cheyenne River Indian Reservation, near Sioux Falls, S.D., could run out of water by August because of a drought along the Missouri River basin.

“The drought could cause the tribe problems with health care and firefighting. The reservation's schools and its only hospital and clinic would have to close,” reports The Associated Press. Wayne Ducheneaux, a tribal official and a member of a task force working to come up with a water plan, said, "It will be more than just running out of water for a couple of days. There will be 14,000 people that have no water." Rebecca Kidder, a lawyer for the tribe, told the wire service, “Poverty is complicating the matter.” The reservation lies in two counties, among the poorest in the state, with one of the counties among the poorest in the nation. Kidder said, "Any time you're dealing with that kind of poverty, there aren't as many options for moving, or even buying bottled water. People don't have the funds."

Gov. Michael Rounds said on South Dakota Public Radio, "This has now become a matter of, do we have enough water for the intakes for domestic water supplies?" Ducheneaux said heavy mountain snow is the only sure way to recharge the upper river basin, and that is not likely to happen.

Tribal, state and other officials hope they can keep drinking water flowing at least temporarily by extending the intake farther into the river. Both counties are served by the Tri-County Water Association. Kidder said one plan requires four miles of pipe to extend the system's intake into a deeper part of the river and an additional 18 miles of power lines to pump the water. The project could cost $6 million. Extending the pipe is not a permanent fix, however; a long-term solution could cost as much as $76 million and take at least five years to build, writes AP.

South Carolina tells residents to put our fish first, ask for local seafood in restaurants

To promote locally caught fish and shrimp in restaurants, the South Carolina Seafood Alliance has developed a marketing scheme to get customers to ask for “South Carolina Originals, ” reports The Associated Press.

Local fishermen said labor costs and regulations limit where and how much they can fish, driving up the price they need to make a living, AP reports. Restaurants who participate get marketing assistance so customers know those businesses are part of the project. The plan is similar to one in North Carolina, which tried to promote locally caught blue crab meat as “True Blue,” after foreign competition hurt the local industry, writes the AP.

Saturday, March 19, 2005

Major Virginia dailies wrap up strong effort for Sunshine Week

The national Sunshine Week observance to promote freedom of information got plenty of light in Virginia, thanks to the efforts of the Richmond Times-Dispatch and the Roanoke Times, both of which continued their work with stories today.

The Times had an interesting Page One story and sidebars by Tonia Moxley about the public nature of the e-mails of public officials, Vrginia law on the subject and the policies of Roanoke-area officials -- some of whom don't follow the law, which requires e-mails to be kept for three years but lacks a penalty provision.

The Times-Dispatch has a section-front story by Tom Campbell about America's long history of open trials and court records, along with questions readers asked in response to the paper's series of stories this week and answers from Forrest "Frosty" Landon, executive director of the Virginia Coalition for Open Government.

Tomorrow is National Agriculture Day, so here's a farm report

Thanks to the Agriculture Weekly Update from the Council of State Governments, we are able to inform you that Sunday, March 20, is National Agriculture Day. "In most places there will be little tribute, as the success of America’s farmers is taken for granted," CSG says. "Today’s urban population knows little about the origins of the food and fiber that stock store shelves. It is up to you, those with an interest in the future of American agriculture, to get the word out."

Among the items in this week's update was an item about the Agriculture Department allocating $6 million for a "Small-Scale/Limited Resource Farmers Initiative to help small farmers implement good conservation practices on their land. NRCS offices in Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia and the Caribbean will each dedicate up to $500,000 in program funds for the initiative. The funds will help farmers with 100 acres or less of cropland implement conservation practices. To be eligible, at least 10 percent of the cropland acres must be planted with alternative crops. Cost-share rates will be up to 90 percent for all practices."

The CSG update also includes items and Web links on develolpment of a home-grown slaughter industry in British Columbia, a court decision on confined animal feeding operations that exempts more CAFOs but increases burdens for those not exempted, and bills in Missouri to relax rules on CAFOs. To subscribe to the weekly update, go to http://www.csg.org or click here.

North Carolina tobacco growers finding out what the free market is like

Questions still remain for many tobacco farmers in the wake of the $10.1 billion buyout of their federal quotas and the end of federal price supports, but many in Western North Carolina are getting answers to help clear away some of their concerns.

“For tobacco growers, it’s a concept that’s going to take some getting used to — the free market,” writes John Boyle of the Asheville Citizen-Times after attending a presentation about the buyout from Keith Weatherly, state director of the Farm Service Agency, part of the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

“Starting with the 2005 crop, it will be a totally free-market economy, as far as the production and marketing of tobacco,” Weatherly told the farmers. “You can grow as much tobacco as you want on whatever farm you choose.”

Because the money is coming from tobacco companies, some farmers fear that the companies may go bankrupt or otherwise relieve themselves of the obligation to pay. Weatherly tried to reassure them on that point. For a recent report on Kentucky tobacco growers dealing with new realities, click here.

Community-development programs among those spared in Senate budget

U.S. senators "dealt a slap to President Bush and the Republican leadership" Thursday night, approving a budget for fiscal 2006 that would restore many of the cuts Bush requested in education, Medicaid, community development and other programs, The Washington Post reported.

The Senate added $5.4 billion for education, $2 billion for health research, $2 billion for community development, $855 million for first responders including law enforcement, plus lesser amounts for other programs. Then it snubbed the agenda of Bush and GOP leaders for deficit reduction, voting "to increase the size of the budget's tax cuts from $70 billion over five years to $134 billion," Jonathan Weisman wrote.

"We didn't know what we were doing," Sen. Pete Domenici of New Mexico, one of five Republicans to vote against the amendment expanding the tax cuts, told The New York Times. The amendment, which got five Democratic votes and passed 55-45, was sponsored by Sen. Jim Bunning of Kentucky (a Hall of Fame pitcher who made news earlier in the day with his testimony at a hearing on steroids in baseball).

In the House budget, also passed Thursday night, cuts "could come from agriculture, student loans, pension programs and environmental cleanup," the Post reported. House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi said cuts in anti-poverty programs would make way for $106 billion in tax cuts assumed in the House budget.

Meth-ingredient control bills moving in North Carolina, Tennessee

Bills to control access to ingredients used to make methamphetamine, increasingly a scourge in rural areas, are proceeding through the legislatures of Tennessee and North Carolina after passage of similar measures last year in Oklahoma and this year in Kentucky.

The bills "are moving easily through the Legislature" in Tennessee, the Knoxville News-Sentinel reports, but have just been introduced in North Carolina and "pharmacists worry the legislation is overkill," reports the News and Observer of Raleigh. Lobbyists for retailers are also complaining.

The meth problem is heading east, and North Carolina law enforcers are bracing for an epidemic, writes the N&O's Mandy Locke: "In 1999, officers in North Carolina busted nine labs; in 2004, officers found 322 labs. That number is expected to hit between 500 and 700 this year. Officials complained that children are being exposed to meth labs and that too many local firefighters and police are being exposed to dangerous chemicals when they bust up a meth lab. Darien South, a Watauga County firefighter, testified to the horrors of meth labs Thursday, describing how fumes at a meth lab fire he responded to scorched his lungs and temporarily blinded him."

Tennessee environmental commissioner leaving after a stormy two years

The boss of Tennessee's environmental, park and conservation programs "is resigning after a sometimes rocky two years in which a few of her actions galled environmentalists who backed Gov. Phil Bredesen when he ran for office," report Anne Paine and Natalia Mielczarek of The Tennessean.

Environment and Conservation Commissioner Betsy Child will become president of Geothermal Utilities LLC, a Livingston-based designer, supplier and installer of geothermal heating and cooling systems. Barry Sulkin, director of the Tennessee Chapter of Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility and a former employee of Child, told The Tennessean, ''I've gotten along pretty well with Betsy, but I've been disappointed with some of the personnel decisions.''

"One of those times was when Fran Baker, a longtime water pollution control employee in Cookeville, was put on administrative leave after complaints from the business community about his manner and aggressive enforcement actions on storm water rules," the paper said. "Child said yesterday that Baker, who was moved to the mining division of the water pollution office, never lost any pay. An investigation revealed he had done nothing wrong in terms of enforcement, but his communication skills needed improving, she said."

Some said Child, who like Bredesen came from the health-care industry, was not a good fit for the environmental job. "She had worked as a senior Tennessee Valley Authority vice president and senior vice president of philanthropy for Covenant Health, a Knoxville-based hospital system," the paper reported.

Friday, March 18: No blog because of technical difficulties

Thursday, March 17, 2005

Sociologists downbeat on rural economy; areas need advocates, says expert

Experts testifying in Washington, D.C. this week said people living in rural communities are struggling in an economy that offers little in the way of good-paying jobs.

"The loss of manufacturing jobs in many rural areas is leaving workers with few options besides part-time, minimum-wage jobs at Wal-Mart, Ohio University professor Ann Tickamyer said at a briefing on the state of rural America," writes Erik Lacayo of Stephens Media Group's Arkansas News Bureau in Washington. Tickamyer told Lacayo, "Many rural places have lots of low wage jobs and high poverty."

Sociologists highlighted poverty and health care problems facing rural America during a Capitol Hill briefing for congressional staffers and federal agency policy-makers, he writes. The event was organized by the Consortium of Social Science Associations and the Rural Sociological Society based at the University of Missouri.

Colorado State University professor Lou Swanson told Lacayo, "Too often we separate rural America from the rest of the country. Rural people and places have not had strong national policy advocates or champions." Cornell University professor David Brown said, "The government should work toward creating a national policy targeted to help small communities." The average yearly household income for rural Americans is $34,654 compared with $45,257, the average for the rest of Americans, while the cost of living in rural areas is not significantly lower, he writes.

Closing small, rural schools a death sentence for communities, study finds

The widespread notion that closing a small, rural school does great damage to a community is true, researchers at Cornell University say in a report for the Southern Rural Development Center.

"When a school goes in a rural community, it's a death knell," researcher Thomas Lyson said in the latest posting on Newswise, a daily report on newsworthy academic research. It said, "On almost every indicator of economic and social well-being, rural communities with their own schools fare significantly better than rural communities that no longer have schools."

The special report was issued with the help of Bureau of Economic Research of the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the Rural School and Community Trust. The full study was originally published in the Journal of Research in Rural Education.

Sales-tax switch in Kansas benefits rural areas; some seeing revenue increase

A new way of allocating sales-tax revenue in Kansas, based on where the product is delivered rather than where it is purchased, is benefiting rural areas of the state, and continued opposition to the change from merchants is going largely unheard in the state’s legislature.

“When a Kansas merchant delivers a purchased product to a home, the amount of sales tax charged is now based on the location of the delivery, writes Jim Sullinger of the Kansas City Star. Also, the city and county where that home is located gets to keep the local portion of that tax. It was called “destination sourcing” when Kansas lawmakers approved this collection system two years ago, he writes.

Before, the store's location would have determined the sales tax rate, and the city and county where the store was located got the local share, Sullinger wrties. The new system ignited a firestorm of protest from merchants, particularly those who did a brisk delivery business. Figuring out how much sales tax to charge became a lot more complicated and, for some, meant expensive new computer software.

Those complaints led to a major effort last year to repeal destination sourcing in the House and Senate. Lawmakers are back in session this year, but little attention is being paid to the issue. House Speaker Doug Mays, a Topeka Republican, said the issue has lost “critical mass.” He said, “The transfer of (sales tax) revenue from retail centers to outlaying small rural counties is a major reason." Some officials in those rural counties have seen sales tax dollars increase more than 20 percent.

AGRICULTURE

U. S. cattle industry expanding; beef demand up 20 percent over seven years

After eight years of cattle herd reductions, 2005 brings with it the whispers of expansion. Expansion marks the end of the longest cattle cycle in history but it should not mean the end of strong prices.

Kenny Burdine, livestock marketing extension associate with the University of Kentucky College of Agriculture, told UK writer Laura Skillman, "The cycle is a multiyear pattern of swings in cattle numbers that generally is tracked from low point to low point." But Skillman says new figures suggest the nation is entering an expansion phase. Unlike most past cattle cycles, this one begins the expansion stage with continued strong demand for beef. The last time cattle entered the expansion phase with increasing beef demand was in the 1960s. Beef demand is estimated to be up 15 to 20 percent since 1998, she writes.

Burdine told Skillman retail prices set a record high this past year and that means prices are signaling more beef is needed on the market. Beef producers are starting to respond, and expectations are that the cattle industry will have a steady expansion phase for the next few years. Producers are not expanding quickly, based on heifers held for replacements, he said. Slow, controlled expansion, Burdine explains, means smaller price swings from year to year once increased numbers of calves hit the market. In the 1960s and 1970s, cattle prices underwent dramatic fluctuations due to rapid expansion, he said.

The next U.S. Department of Agriculture cattle estimates will be released in July and should give another indication of how quickly herd expansion is taking place across the country.

Tar Heel wineries triple; farmers find grapes good money, but not tobacco scale

North Carolina’s burgeoning wine industry is the focus of a new sociological study that finds the increasing production of grapes and their resultant fermented beverage provide much needed farm revenue -- but are still a ways from replacing monies produced by the state's signature crop, tobacco.

"The number of wineries in North Carolina has more than tripled in the past decade. Ian Taplin and Saylor Breckenridge, sociologists, have documented this rapid growth of retail wineries and commercial wine production in a study to be published in the 2005 issue of Research in the Sociology of Work," reports Newswise.

The researchers looked at the quality of soil and climate conditions, the decline of tobacco, and how a few pioneering entrepreneurs have given the fledgling industry its start, the news service writes. The survey of 14 North Carolina winemakers in 2003 covered topics such as why they decided to make wine, how they learned to grow grapes, the size of their vineyards and the amount of wine bottled and sold. They included vineyards making wine from muscadine grapes, located mostly in the eastern part of the state. The study included only bonded wineries, those wineries actually licensed to sell alcoholic beverages.

Some small tobacco farmers have started growing grapes, a decision made easier by tax incentives for wine production. By switching to grape production, they can continue to extract high value from small acreage. “Growing grapes is a long-term investment, with new skill sets and a greater need for marketing the end product,” Taplin writes. “So, compared to tobacco, it will probably never be as profitable.”

Shrimp surprise: Kentucky budget included recipe for 'aquaculture' project

Fine print in the recently passed Kentucky budget details money intended to benefit a British corporation with hopes of reshaping Kentucky's landlocked agricultural economy by breeding saltwater shrimp.

Linda Blackford and Janet Patton of the Lexington Herald-Leader write: “The money was slipped at the last minute into the budget by Sen. Richie Sanders, a Republican from Franklin, which is where the research company, Sygen International, has its U.S. headquarters.”

The funding may expand to as much as $7 million in the future. Supporters praise the effort "as a new frontier of public-private collaboration in cutting-edge economic development." But critics say the project looks more like a corporate handout and question why the project didn't go through normal economic development channels, write Blackford and Patton. Normal procedures require proof that state-assisted projects will actually benefit Kentucky's economy.

Shana Herron, an organizer with the Community Farm Alliance, "It appears they got the money sort of through the back door, or without a real, public discussion . It's definitely a concern of ours when Kentucky farmers are struggling to diversify and find new markets ... when ag funds are going to multinational corporations that already have a lot of resources." So far, none of the shrimp production plans have been put in writing and none of the three schools listed -- the University of Kentucky, Kentucky State University or Western Kentucky University, has seen details of what they're supposed to do.

ENVIRONMENT

Mercury plan reverses other chemical cuts; language hidden in new reg

Hidden inside a rule regulating nationwide mercury air pollution, released this week by the Environmental Protection Agency, is a legal loophole that allows those covered by the regulation to pollute in other ways, the Charleston Gazette reports this morning.

"The Bush administration’s touted and long-awaited plan for the nation’s first cap on mercury emissions from coal-fired power plants contains legal language that frees those plants from strict limits on emissions of dozens of other toxic pollutants," writes Ken Ward Jr., the Gazette's longtome environmental writer.

EPA's action means utilities will not be subjected to tough emission limits on arsenic, lead and a variety of hazardous toxic gases, Ward writes. Technically, the EPA reversed a Clinton administration decision to list power plants as a major source of a long inventory of hazardous air pollutants. If the that action had stood, EPA would be required to limit power-plant emissions of all toxic air pollutants to those achieved by the best-performing 12 percent of facilities nationwide.

The Bush administration needed to reverse that action to implement its version of a mercury-emissions-reduction program. Under the Bush rule, power plants can evade required mercury emissions cuts by buying pollution “credits” from other companies. John Stanton, vice president of the National Environmental Trust told Ward, “The delisting is important, because it allows them to trade emissions of mercury. But, it also gives utilities a pass on all of these other toxic emissions.”

Last August, Stanton co-authored a little-noticed report on the issue called, “Beyond Mercury.” In it, the group Clear the Air — a coalition of anti-air pollution organizations — noted that coal-fired power plants emit more than 60 toxic air pollutants.

Environmentalists' lawsuit claims EPA not protecting Mammoth Cave

Environmentalists claim in a lawsuit that the Evironmental Protection Agency has failed to protect endangered animals and plants at Mammoth Cave National Park from power plant pollution.

Kentucky Heartwood and the Southern Appalachian Biodiversity Project filed the lawsuit, reports The Associated Press. The plaintiffs claim the EPA did not consult with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to determine the impact the proposed coal-fired Thoroughbred Generating Station in Muhlenberg County would have on the park's wildlife. A Berea woman, Elizabeth Crowe, also is listed as a plaintiff in the lawsuit, which was filed in U.S. District Court in Washington.

The plaintiffs contend that the Endangered Species Act requires such consultation before permits can be issued for power plants. EPA spokeswoman Laura Niles declined to comment on the lawsuit Wednesday, saying it would be premature considering the lawsuit had just been filed.

Tracy Davids, executive director of the Southern Appalachian Biodiversity Project, told AP, "We owe it to our children and our grandchildren to be good stewards of the environment and leave behind a legacy of protecting endangered species and the places they call home. For the wildlife at Mammoth Cave, this means protecting their air from more dirty coal plant pollution." For the Lexington Herald-Leader story, by Andy Mead, click here. For The Courier-Journal's version, by James Bruggers, click here.

OTHER NEWS

New Kentucky system tracks prescription drugs; new weapon in war on abuse

Doctors, pharmacists and law enforcement officials in Kentucky have a new weapon in the fight against prescription drug abuse, especially intense in rural eastern counties.

State officials said "Kentucky is the first state to put into operation a self-service computerized system for tracking prescriptions of pain pills and other potentially addictive drugs," writes Jack Brammer of the Lexington Herald-Leader. The system, Enhanced Kentucky All Schedule Prescription Electronic Reporting, or eKASPER, is the result of a $1.75-million upgrade of a manually operated drug-tracking system established in 1999. The old KASPER system, Brammer writes, has become overloaded by doctors, druggists and law officers requesting data to identify possible drug abusers and traffickers.

The new, all-electronic version will allow authorized users to request prescription data from their office computers around the clock and receive reports within 15 minutes. Before, requests and replies were exchanged by fax and took four hours or longer to complete. Although more than 20 states have prescription monitoring programs, no other state yet provides a self-service, Web-based system, he writes.

Robert J. Benvenuti III, inspector general in the Cabinet for Health and Family Services, told the newspaper the new system "is the most effective and efficient tool ever implemented to combat prescription drug abuse in Kentucky," About 1,300 pharmacies report all controlled substances they dispense, ranging from painkillers such as OxyContin to cough syrups containing Codeine. For the AP story, by Mark Chellgren, which raises some privacy issues, click here.

Retail giant facing likely no-go in Minneapolis suburb; rural peace cited

A probable Wal-Mart rollback has pleased some Minneapolis area residents, concerned about traffic congestion and disruption to their suburban lifestyle, but the retailing giant is not happy with the rebuke.

The Ham Lake "City Council is expected to deny a rezoning request, forcing a developer to change or abandon plans for a 200,000-square-foot (Wal Mart) store in the Anoka County community," writes Darlene Prois of the Star Tribune of Minneapolis, Minn. The action follows a town meeting that brought out hundreds of citizens to vent disapproval of the proposed store. An earlier planning commission meeting also drew a large and critical crowd, she adds.

Some complained about the chain's labor relations and business practices. Others feared disruption of rural peace, or felt the mega-retailer would jeopardize the future of a beloved local market. A few thought 10 Wal-Marts within 20 miles were enough, writes Prois. Council Member Jolynn (Joey) Erikson told her, "(residents) seem to want the city of Ham Lake to remain kind of like a park. They want a town center, with a clock tower. They want park land there. They didn't see a Wal-Mart." Mayor Gary Kirkeide told Proise, "the project is just too intense for a location adjoining a residential area and a city park."

Mankato editor 'at peace' with cut-driven resignation, CNHI, not overall trend

Executive Editor Deb Flemming, who is eliminating her own job at The Free Press in Mankato, Minn., to meet staffing levels ordered by Community Newspaper Holdings Inc., says she is "really, really at peace with this plan" and is not bitter at the Birmingham, Ala.-based corporation.

"This isn't a CNHI bad-guy thing, this is an industry thing," she told Mark Fitzgerald of Editor and Publisher. "It's not the company you're working for -- it's the bottom-line pressures the industry puts on newsrooms. ... This isn't unique to Mankato, and I'm concerned. . . . The increased pressures for profitability are coming at the expense of our newspaper product."

Flemming was asked to cut her 30-person news staff (including 13 full-time reporters) to the generally accepted industry standard of 1 to 1.2 staffers per 1,000 circulation, since the daily's circulation had declined to 22,032 from 25,449 nine years ago, Fitzgerald reports. She said the formula should be flexible, noting, as Fitzgerald put it, "The Free Press coverage area sprawls across eight counties that include three colleges that generate plenty of news."

"Every market is different," Flemming told Susan Stranahan of CJR Daily. "And whether you're talking newspapers, or some other profession, industry standards are just that, standards. There's higher [standards] and lower [standards]." CJR Daily offers this background: "In recent years, private equity firms have invested hundreds of millions of dollars in community newspaper groups because the papers' large cash flows require less up-front money, and they generate steady income." Sam Gett, who quit as Free Press publisher last year to become publisher of the Pocono Record in Stroudsburg, Pa., told Stranahan, "CNHI has to focus on short-term results, from quarter to quarter."

Flemming, 50, a native of Waseca, Minn., has been executive editor in Mankato since 1995. CNHI, which Fitzgerald says is "known for running a lean operation," bought the paper from Ottaway Newspapers, the community-newspaper division of Dow Jones & Co., in 2002.

Newspapers' reports resonate national survey on unsafe rural roads

Rural newspapers from Maine to Ohio have looked into the local ramifications of a recent nationwide survey indicating rural roads are disproportionately dangerous, with more than half of fatal accidents occuring on rural, non-interstate roads that handle just 28 percent of all traffic.

"The vast majority of Maine's deadly traffic crashes occur on rural roads, even though only about half of the motor vehicle accidents occur there," writes David Hench of the Portland Press-Herald. The high percentage of rural fatalities is largely because the state's road system is mostly rural and because other roads are comparatively safe - the fatality rate on non-rural roads is the lowest in the country, he writes.

Two-thirds of Maine's roads are considered rural and the study found that Maine has the highest percentage of rural traffic in the nation at 58 percent. According to state figures, half the 35,000 motor vehicle crashes in 2003 occurred on rural roads, writes Hench.

Safety officials say the report's call for making rural roads safer is welcome here. In many cases, the state's rural roads are not built or maintained for the level of use they get. Gerry Audibert, safety management coordinator for the Maine Department of Transportation, told Hench, "The design standards are much lower (than non-rural highways) and the maintenance and upkeep of those roads is also less significant."

Maine has invested more in rural-road safety during the past few years, dedicating $7.5 million each biennium strictly for safety improvements. Major road projects include safety upgrades as part of the project cost, he writes. The Bangor Daily News reported 81 percent of the state's highway fatalities occur on rural roads, the second highest percentage in the country, and the state's traffic fatality rate is rising. For a report on Ohio rural roads, by the Chillicothe Gazette, click here.

Sen. Byrd ‘inclined to run’ for re-election; GOP says veteran is vulnerable

U. S. Sen. Robert Byrd is "inclined to run" next year for the West Virginia seat he’s held since 1959.

Byrd, who is 87 and has spent 52 years in Congress, told Raju Chebium of The Associated Press, "I’m studying about it, thinking about it, talking about it with my friends and people in West Virginia." Byrd has been in the U. S. Senate longer than anyone currently serving. and has been considered virtually unbeatable in a state to which he has directed billions of dollars in federal money, Chebium notes.

The eight-term senator has been Senate majority leader and the chairman of the check-writing Appropriations Committee. He’s known for his deep knowledge of the Constitution. But normally Democratic West Virginia voted for President Bush in 2000 and 2004. Byrd has angered Republicans with his opposition to the Iraq war and with his sharp criticism of GOP efforts to change Senate debate rules.

Thursday, March 17, 2005

Sociologists downbeat on rural economy; areas need advocates, says expert

Experts testifying in Washington, D.C. this week said people living in rural communities are struggling in an economy that offers little in the way of good-paying jobs.

"The loss of manufacturing jobs in many rural areas is leaving workers with few options besides part-time, minimum-wage jobs at Wal-Mart, Ohio University professor Ann Tickamyer said at a briefing on the state of rural America," writes Erik Lacayo of Stephens Media Group's Arkansas News Bureau in Washington. Tickamyer told Lacayo, "Many rural places have lots of low wage jobs and high poverty."

Sociologists highlighted poverty and health care problems facing rural America during a Capitol Hill briefing for congressional staffers and federal agency policy-makers, he writes. The event was organized by the Consortium of Social Science Associations and the Rural Sociological Society based at the University of Missouri.

Colorado State University professor Lou Swanson told Lacayo, "Too often we separate rural America from the rest of the country. Rural people and places have not had strong national policy advocates or champions." Cornell University professor David Brown said, "The government should work toward creating a national policy targeted to help small communities." The average yearly household income for rural Americans is $34,654 compared with $45,257, the average for the rest of Americans, while the cost of living in rural areas is not significantly lower, he writes.

Closing small, rural schools a death sentence for communities, study finds

The widespread notion that closing a small, rural school does great damage to a community is true, researchers at Cornell University say in a report for the Southern Rural Development Center.

"When a school goes in a rural community, it's a death knell," researcher Thomas Lyson said in the latest posting on Newswise, a daily report on newsworthy academic research. It said, "On almost every indicator of economic and social well-being, rural communities with their own schools fare significantly better than rural communities that no longer have schools."

The special report was issued with the help of Bureau of Economic Research of the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the Rural School and Community Trust. The full study was originally published in the Journal of Research in Rural Education.

Sales-tax switch in Kansas benefits rural areas; some seeing revenue increase

A new way of allocating sales-tax revenue in Kansas, based on where the product is delivered rather than where it is purchased, is benefiting rural areas of the state, and continued opposition to the change from merchants is going largely unheard in the state’s legislature.

“When a Kansas merchant delivers a purchased product to a home, the amount of sales tax charged is now based on the location of the delivery, writes Jim Sullinger of the Kansas City Star. Also, the city and county where that home is located gets to keep the local portion of that tax. It was called “destination sourcing” when Kansas lawmakers approved this collection system two years ago, he writes.

Before, the store's location would have determined the sales tax rate, and the city and county where the store was located got the local share, Sullinger wrties. The new system ignited a firestorm of protest from merchants, particularly those who did a brisk delivery business. Figuring out how much sales tax to charge became a lot more complicated and, for some, meant expensive new computer software.

Those complaints led to a major effort last year to repeal destination sourcing in the House and Senate. Lawmakers are back in session this year, but little attention is being paid to the issue. House Speaker Doug Mays, a Topeka Republican, said the issue has lost “critical mass.” He said, “The transfer of (sales tax) revenue from retail centers to outlaying small rural counties is a major reason." Some officials in those rural counties have seen sales tax dollars increase more than 20 percent.

AGRICULTURE

U. S. cattle industry expanding; beef demand up 20 percent over seven years

After eight years of cattle herd reductions, 2005 brings with it the whispers of expansion. Expansion marks the end of the longest cattle cycle in history but it should not mean the end of strong prices.

Kenny Burdine, livestock marketing extension associate with the University of Kentucky College of Agriculture, told UK writer Laura Skillman, "The cycle is a multiyear pattern of swings in cattle numbers that generally is tracked from low point to low point." But Skillman says new figures suggest the nation is entering an expansion phase. Unlike most past cattle cycles, this one begins the expansion stage with continued strong demand for beef. The last time cattle entered the expansion phase with increasing beef demand was in the 1960s. Beef demand is estimated to be up 15 to 20 percent since 1998, she writes.

Burdine told Skillman retail prices set a record high this past year and that means prices are signaling more beef is needed on the market. Beef producers are starting to respond, and expectations are that the cattle industry will have a steady expansion phase for the next few years. Producers are not expanding quickly, based on heifers held for replacements, he said. Slow, controlled expansion, Burdine explains, means smaller price swings from year to year once increased numbers of calves hit the market. In the 1960s and 1970s, cattle prices underwent dramatic fluctuations due to rapid expansion, he said.

The next U.S. Department of Agriculture cattle estimates will be released in July and should give another indication of how quickly herd expansion is taking place across the country.

Tar Heel wineries triple; farmers find grapes good money, but not tobacco scale

North Carolina’s burgeoning wine industry is the focus of a new sociological study that finds the increasing production of grapes and their resultant fermented beverage provide much needed farm revenue -- but are still a ways from replacing monies produced by the state's signature crop, tobacco.

"The number of wineries in North Carolina has more than tripled in the past decade. Ian Taplin and Saylor Breckenridge, sociologists, have documented this rapid growth of retail wineries and commercial wine production in a study to be published in the 2005 issue of Research in the Sociology of Work," reports Newswise.

The researchers looked at the quality of soil and climate conditions, the decline of tobacco, and how a few pioneering entrepreneurs have given the fledgling industry its start, the news service writes. The survey of 14 North Carolina winemakers in 2003 covered topics such as why they decided to make wine, how they learned to grow grapes, the size of their vineyards and the amount of wine bottled and sold. They included vineyards making wine from muscadine grapes, located mostly in the eastern part of the state. The study included only bonded wineries, those wineries actually licensed to sell alcoholic beverages.

Some small tobacco farmers have started growing grapes, a decision made easier by tax incentives for wine production. By switching to grape production, they can continue to extract high value from small acreage. “Growing grapes is a long-term investment, with new skill sets and a greater need for marketing the end product,” Taplin writes. “So, compared to tobacco, it will probably never be as profitable.”

Shrimp surprise: Kentucky budget included recipe for 'aquaculture' project

Fine print in the recently passed Kentucky budget details money intended to benefit a British corporation with hopes of reshaping Kentucky's landlocked agricultural economy by breeding saltwater shrimp.

Linda Blackford and Janet Patton of the Lexington Herald-Leader write: “The money was slipped at the last minute into the budget by Sen. Richie Sanders, a Republican from Franklin, which is where the research company, Sygen International, has its U.S. headquarters.”

The funding may expand to as much as $7 million in the future. Supporters praise the effort "as a new frontier of public-private collaboration in cutting-edge economic development." But critics say the project looks more like a corporate handout and question why the project didn't go through normal economic development channels, write Blackford and Patton. Normal procedures require proof that state-assisted projects will actually benefit Kentucky's economy.

Shana Herron, an organizer with the Community Farm Alliance, "It appears they got the money sort of through the back door, or without a real, public discussion . It's definitely a concern of ours when Kentucky farmers are struggling to diversify and find new markets ... when ag funds are going to multinational corporations that already have a lot of resources." So far, none of the shrimp production plans have been put in writing and none of the three schools listed -- the University of Kentucky, Kentucky State University or Western Kentucky University, has seen details of what they're supposed to do.

ENVIRONMENT

Mercury plan reverses other chemical cuts; language hidden in new reg

Hidden inside a rule regulating nationwide mercury air pollution, released this week by the Environmental Protection Agency, is a legal loophole that allows those covered by the regulation to pollute in other ways, the Charleston Gazette reports this morning.

"The Bush administration’s touted and long-awaited plan for the nation’s first cap on mercury emissions from coal-fired power plants contains legal language that frees those plants from strict limits on emissions of dozens of other toxic pollutants," writes Ken Ward Jr., the Gazette's longtome environmental writer.

EPA's action means utilities will not be subjected to tough emission limits on arsenic, lead and a variety of hazardous toxic gases, Ward writes. Technically, the EPA reversed a Clinton administration decision to list power plants as a major source of a long inventory of hazardous air pollutants. If the that action had stood, EPA would be required to limit power-plant emissions of all toxic air pollutants to those achieved by the best-performing 12 percent of facilities nationwide.

The Bush administration needed to reverse that action to implement its version of a mercury-emissions-reduction program. Under the Bush rule, power plants can evade required mercury emissions cuts by buying pollution “credits” from other companies. John Stanton, vice president of the National Environmental Trust told Ward, “The delisting is important, because it allows them to trade emissions of mercury. But, it also gives utilities a pass on all of these other toxic emissions.”

Last August, Stanton co-authored a little-noticed report on the issue called, “Beyond Mercury.” In it, the group Clear the Air — a coalition of anti-air pollution organizations — noted that coal-fired power plants emit more than 60 toxic air pollutants.

Environmentalists' lawsuit claims EPA not protecting Mammoth Cave

Environmentalists claim in a lawsuit that the Evironmental Protection Agency has failed to protect endangered animals and plants at Mammoth Cave National Park from power plant pollution.

Kentucky Heartwood and the Southern Appalachian Biodiversity Project filed the lawsuit, reports The Associated Press. The plaintiffs claim the EPA did not consult with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to determine the impact the proposed coal-fired Thoroughbred Generating Station in Muhlenberg County would have on the park's wildlife. A Berea woman, Elizabeth Crowe, also is listed as a plaintiff in the lawsuit, which was filed in U.S. District Court in Washington.

The plaintiffs contend that the Endangered Species Act requires such consultation before permits can be issued for power plants. EPA spokeswoman Laura Niles declined to comment on the lawsuit Wednesday, saying it would be premature considering the lawsuit had just been filed.

Tracy Davids, executive director of the Southern Appalachian Biodiversity Project, told AP, "We owe it to our children and our grandchildren to be good stewards of the environment and leave behind a legacy of protecting endangered species and the places they call home. For the wildlife at Mammoth Cave, this means protecting their air from more dirty coal plant pollution." For the Lexington Herald-Leader story, by Andy Mead, click here. For The Courier-Journal's version, by James Bruggers, click here.

OTHER NEWS

New Kentucky system tracks prescription drugs; new weapon in war on abuse

Doctors, pharmacists and law enforcement officials in Kentucky have a new weapon in the fight against prescription drug abuse, especially intense in rural eastern counties.

State officials said "Kentucky is the first state to put into operation a self-service computerized system for tracking prescriptions of pain pills and other potentially addictive drugs," writes Jack Brammer of the Lexington Herald-Leader. The system, Enhanced Kentucky All Schedule Prescription Electronic Reporting, or eKASPER, is the result of a $1.75-million upgrade of a manually operated drug-tracking system established in 1999. The old KASPER system, Brammer writes, has become overloaded by doctors, druggists and law officers requesting data to identify possible drug abusers and traffickers.

The new, all-electronic version will allow authorized users to request prescription data from their office computers around the clock and receive reports within 15 minutes. Before, requests and replies were exchanged by fax and took four hours or longer to complete. Although more than 20 states have prescription monitoring programs, no other state yet provides a self-service, Web-based system, he writes.

Robert J. Benvenuti III, inspector general in the Cabinet for Health and Family Services, told the newspaper the new system "is the most effective and efficient tool ever implemented to combat prescription drug abuse in Kentucky," About 1,300 pharmacies report all controlled substances they dispense, ranging from painkillers such as OxyContin to cough syrups containing Codeine. For the AP story, by Mark Chellgren, which raises some privacy issues, click here.

Retail giant facing likely no-go in Minneapolis suburb; rural peace cited

A probable Wal-Mart rollback has pleased some Minneapolis area residents, concerned about traffic congestion and disruption to their suburban lifestyle, but the retailing giant is not happy with the rebuke.

The Ham Lake "City Council is expected to deny a rezoning request, forcing a developer to change or abandon plans for a 200,000-square-foot (Wal Mart) store in the Anoka County community," writes Darlene Prois of the Star Tribune of Minneapolis, Minn. The action follows a town meeting that brought out hundreds of citizens to vent disapproval of the proposed store. An earlier planning commission meeting also drew a large and critical crowd, she adds.

Some complained about the chain's labor relations and business practices. Others feared disruption of rural peace, or felt the mega-retailer would jeopardize the future of a beloved local market. A few thought 10 Wal-Marts within 20 miles were enough, writes Prois. Council Member Jolynn (Joey) Erikson told her, "(residents) seem to want the city of Ham Lake to remain kind of like a park. They want a town center, with a clock tower. They want park land there. They didn't see a Wal-Mart." Mayor Gary Kirkeide told Proise, "the project is just too intense for a location adjoining a residential area and a city park."

Mankato editor 'at peace' with cut-driven resignation, CNHI, not overall trend

Executive Editor Deb Flemming, who is eliminating her own job at The Free Press in Mankato, Minn., to meet staffing levels ordered by Community Newspaper Holdings Inc., says she is "really, really at peace with this plan" and is not bitter at the Birmingham, Ala.-based corporation.

"This isn't a CNHI bad-guy thing, this is an industry thing," she told Mark Fitzgerald of Editor and Publisher. "It's not the company you're working for -- it's the bottom-line pressures the industry puts on newsrooms. ... This isn't unique to Mankato, and I'm concerned. . . . The increased pressures for profitability are coming at the expense of our newspaper product."

Flemming was asked to cut her 30-person news staff (including 13 full-time reporters) to the generally accepted industry standard of 1 to 1.2 staffers per 1,000 circulation, since the daily's circulation had declined to 22,032 from 25,449 nine years ago, Fitzgerald reports. She said the formula should be flexible, noting, as Fitzgerald put it, "The Free Press coverage area sprawls across eight counties that include three colleges that generate plenty of news."

"Every market is different," Flemming told Susan Stranahan of CJR Daily. "And whether you're talking newspapers, or some other profession, industry standards are just that, standards. There's higher [standards] and lower [standards]." CJR Daily offers this background: "In recent years, private equity firms have invested hundreds of millions of dollars in community newspaper groups because the papers' large cash flows require less up-front money, and they generate steady income." Sam Gett, who quit as Free Press publisher last year to become publisher of the Pocono Record in Stroudsburg, Pa., told Stranahan, "CNHI has to focus on short-term results, from quarter to quarter."

Flemming, 50, a native of Waseca, Minn., has been executive editor in Mankato since 1995. CNHI, which Fitzgerald says is "known for running a lean operation," bought the paper from Ottaway Newspapers, the community-newspaper division of Dow Jones & Co., in 2002.

Newspapers' reports resonate national survey on unsafe rural roads

Rural newspapers from Maine to Ohio have looked into the local ramifications of a recent nationwide survey indicating rural roads are disproportionately dangerous, with more than half of fatal accidents occuring on rural, non-interstate roads that handle just 28 percent of all traffic.

"The vast majority of Maine's deadly traffic crashes occur on rural roads, even though only about half of the motor vehicle accidents occur there," writes David Hench of the Portland Press-Herald. The high percentage of rural fatalities is largely because the state's road system is mostly rural and because other roads are comparatively safe - the fatality rate on non-rural roads is the lowest in the country, he writes.

Two-thirds of Maine's roads are considered rural and the study found that Maine has the highest percentage of rural traffic in the nation at 58 percent. According to state figures, half the 35,000 motor vehicle crashes in 2003 occurred on rural roads, writes Hench.

Safety officials say the report's call for making rural roads safer is welcome here. In many cases, the state's rural roads are not built or maintained for the level of use they get. Gerry Audibert, safety management coordinator for the Maine Department of Transportation, told Hench, "The design standards are much lower (than non-rural highways) and the maintenance and upkeep of those roads is also less significant."

Maine has invested more in rural-road safety during the past few years, dedicating $7.5 million each biennium strictly for safety improvements. Major road projects include safety upgrades as part of the project cost, he writes. The Bangor Daily News reported 81 percent of the state's highway fatalities occur on rural roads, the second highest percentage in the country, and the state's traffic fatality rate is rising. For a report on Ohio rural roads, by the Chillicothe Gazette, click here.

Sen. Byrd ‘inclined to run’ for re-election; GOP says veteran is vulnerable

U. S. Sen. Robert Byrd is "inclined to run" next year for the West Virginia seat he’s held since 1959.

Byrd, who is 87 and has spent 52 years in Congress, told Raju Chebium of The Associated Press, "I’m studying about it, thinking about it, talking about it with my friends and people in West Virginia." Byrd has been in the U. S. Senate longer than anyone currently serving. and has been considered virtually unbeatable in a state to which he has directed billions of dollars in federal money, Chebium notes.

The eight-term senator has been Senate majority leader and the chairman of the check-writing Appropriations Committee. He’s known for his deep knowledge of the Constitution. But normally Democratic West Virginia voted for President Bush in 2000 and 2004. Byrd has angered Republicans with his opposition to the Iraq war and with his sharp criticism of GOP efforts to change Senate debate rules.

Wednesday, March 16, 2005

NPR, Kentucky paper cite group, gone national, helping Iraq Vet’s families

A National Public Radio (NPR) story on the debilitating effects on National Guard and Reserve units fighting in Iraq, and a story on a Radcliff, Kentucky-based support group, USA CARES, that helps veterans' families, first reported on by The News-Enterprise of Elizabethtown, Kentucky, provides classic examples of how local newspapers can put a very hometown face on the war’s wide ranging impact on the fighting units and especially the loved-ones left behind.

USA CARES, of Radcliff, reports The News-Enterprise, has helped 844 families and provided more than $282,000 in aid since it began in march 2003. The relieft group began as a regional effort, "Kentuckiana Cares.". NPR's Howard Berkes, in his series on the Guard and Reserve deployment, looks at the financial sacrifice some are forced to make. Berkes cites the organization, and talks with them, in his report.

NPR in its lead-in to Berkes story, says, “American forces still face violent resistance. Forty percent of the American troops there are from National Guard and Reserve units unaccustomed to repeated and lengthy tours of duty, putting enormous strains on their families.

The News Enterprise, in a January article, cited as just one example, Emily Dieruf, a member of the organization, who “understands that sacrifice as much as anyone,” writes Erica Walsh. Dieruf's husband, Marine Corporal Nicholas Dieruf of Lexington, Kentucky was killed in Iraq last year. Since his death, she and her family have worked to collect money to support families in Nicholas Dieruf's name, writes Walsh.

When they heard about USA CARES, she writes, the Dieruf family decided to join the organization to reach as many military families as possible. Emily Dieruf told Walsh, "It's so heartwarming to reach out to these families. It gives me a reason to get up in the morning."

Burley co-op suit becomes class action; $22.8 million center of dispute

A lawsuit brought by eight burley growers against the Lexington-based Burley Tobacco Growers Cooperative has been certified a class action on behalf of as many as 144,000 burley growers in five states, reports the Lexington Herald-Leader.

"But Fayette District Judge Bruce Bell denied the plaintiffs' request for a summary judgment on the lawsuit's core issue: a demand that the cooperative distribute to its members at least $22.8 million in reserves it has accumulated since 1992, writes business editor," Jim Jordon. No date for a trial has been set. Bell told attorneys "I think you guys need to get together and try to resolve this thing." The lawsuit was filed on Dec. 31, 2003, and contends that the burley cooperative had violated its own bylaws by not distributing the reserve to its member farmers in 1992 after it refinanced its debt to the federal Commodity Credit Corp.

Robert E. Maclin, attorney for the eight growers, told Jordon the co-op's board and management had acted in "an opportunistic way" to hold onto the money while paying fees to 25 directors, salaries to staff members and funding "trips and junkets all over the world." Co-op attorney John W. Bilby told the newspaper the alleged "trips and junkets" were actually necessary travel.

Bilby also argued the co-op had been required by the federal government to keep the $22.8 million reserve to protect the Commodity Credit Corp. from losses on other loans held by the co-op. Bilby told Jordon Cynthiana burley warehouse operator Hargus Sexton was behind the lawsuit. Sexton, he said, has been angry since the co-op bought a Cynthiana warehouse, now known as the Burley Marketing Center, and began charging lower fees than Sexton's United Tobacco Warehouse. For The Associated Press version, click here.

Georgia smoking-ban scaled back; measure gets 'minor' revision

Smoking would be allowed in bars and restaurants that don't serve minors under an amendment to the proposed Georgia Smokefree Air Act, approved by a House health committee. Stricter local smoking bans wouldn't be effected, reports The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

"Supporters of the smoking ban said the amended Senate Bill 90 is a good start," writes Patricia Guthrie. June Deen, who heads the Georgia Alliance for Tobacco Prevention, a broad-based coalition of more than 300 health and government groups, private businesses, the American Lung Association, the American Heart Association and the American Cancer Society, told Guthrie, "We're very happy. It sets a floor and not a ceiling [of restriction] and that's what we are after."

The original bill would have banned smoking in all enclosed public places in the state. In addition to allowing smoking in some bars and restaurants, the new version switches oversight from law enforcement to the Department of Human Resources. Should the statewide smoking ban become law, it wouldn't override existing or future local ordinances that are more restrictive, writes Guthrie. The bill, which has been approved by the Senate, goes next to the House Rules Committee. Committee Chairwoman Sharon Cooper (R-Marietta) said the amended version addressed the health concerns of second-hand smoke while preserving the Republican philosophy of less government intrusion.

Rep. Stacey Reece (R-Gainesville), one of the bill's sponsors in the House, compared the strategy to liquor laws. The state sets a policy prohibiting sales to people under age 21 and local municipalities can adopt ordinances — such as designating entire counties dry. About two dozen cities or counties have approved smoking ordinances.

Enviros criticize new EPA mercury rule; groups cite pollution, health risks

Environmental groups nationwide say new Environmental Protection Agency rules designed to cut mercury pollution from coal-fired power plants come up short in reducing the pollutant, and don't adequately protect the public's health. Meanwhile power companies defend the rules, saying the regs will help them meet the first EPA deadline.

“If you go fishing in Herrington Lake, or in Lake Cumberland, be careful about who eats your catch,” writes Andy Mead of the Lexington Herald-Leader, environmental reporter for the Kentucky newspaper The reason, he writes: "Fish in those and other Kentucky waters have accumulations of mercury in their tissue at levels high enough that more than one meal a week can cause nerve and brain damage in children under 6, and can be passed from mothers to unborn children. Mercury can also be transmitted to infants through breast milk."

The federal EPA yesterday announced steps to cut down on mercury emissions from coal-fired power plants, which are a major man-made source of the element. Overall emissions of mercury have dropped substantially in Kentucky, mostly because of changes in a couple of other industries. But Kentucky power plants release a little less than 2 tons of mercury a year, making the state eighth in the nation in emissions. Under the new EPA rule, the number would drop to just more than 1.5 tons by 2010, and to six-tenths of a ton after 2018.The rule was widely criticized by environmentalists, who said it would not take enough mercury out of smokestacks quickly enough, writes Mead.

Tom FitzGerald of the Kentucky Resources Council, told Mead, "Fishing ... should not be an activity where one has to pause and think of the long-term health consequences." The EPA should have stuck with an earlier plan that would have treated mercury as a toxic substance to be dealt with with the best possible technology, FitzGerald added. Instead, some utilities will be able to meet the 2010 level of mercury emissions by going ahead with current plans for scrubbers designed to reduce emissions of sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxides.

Both LG&E Energy, which owns Kentucky Utilities, and East Kentucky Power Cooperative said emission controls already in the works would allow them to meet the first EPA deadline. LG&E spokesman Chip Keeling told the newspaper, "Beyond that, we'll have to wait and see whether we will have to take additional steps." The new EPA rule also includes a "cap and trade" program that allows some power plants to buy or sell mercury emission credits. For details on the new EPA rules from the Knight-Ridder News Service, click here. For another report on environmentalists reaction, by James Bruggers of Louisville's The Courier-Journal, click here. For a national story on critics reaction by John Heilprin, The Associated Press, click here. For the West Virginia perspective, in a report by Ken Ward Jr. of The Charleston Gazette, click here. For the Virginia perspective, click here, for a story by Richmond Times-Dispatch reporter Rex Springsteen.

Prehistoric remains found near Mammoth Cave prompt call for further study

Activists who for years have fought the development of a new industrial park near Mammoth Cave National Park are renewing their call for a full environmental and archaeological study after prehistoric Indian remains were found on the site, reports The Associated Press.

The artifacts were discovered after workers accidentally punched an opening in a previously unknown 2,000-foot-long cave. Officials broke ground on the Kentucky Trimodal Trans-park last year and are hoping it could someday span 4,000 acres and include rail access and a new airport, writes AP.

Environmentalists say the find underscores the need for a large-scale environmental and archaeological study at the transpark. Some are calling for construction to stop. Roger Brucker, a board member of Louisville-based Karst Environmental Education and Protection, a group opposed to the project for years, told the wire service, "They ought to ... do the work they are required to do to protect Mammoth Cave National Park."

But officials from the group developing the industrial park argue the already completed studies are enough. Curtis Sullivan, chairman of the transpark authority board, called the Intermodal Transportation Authority, told AP, "I view this as a delaying tactic ... we've far exceeded what needs to be done." Top political leaders in both parties have backed the project, being developed by a partnership of three cities, eight counties and the Bowling Green Chamber of Commerce. Supporters say the park could create up to 7,550 jobs for the region. The fight could end up in court. For a story on developments at the Kentucky Trimodal Trans-park, from the Bowling Green Daily News, click here.

Federal complaint filed over N.C. school superintendent's race

The 4 1/2-month standoff over the state school superintendent's election jumped to the federal courts Tuesday when a Republican sued to keep two newly approved laws from applying to the race, reports The Associated Press.

Gary D. Robertston writes, “The complaint, filed in U.S. District Court in Raleigh, asks a federal judge to block the Legislature or state elections officials from declaring a winner in the race at least until 11,000 provisional ballots cast in the wrong precinct on Election Day are removed from the vote totals.” Democrat June Atkinson leads Republican Bill Fletcher by 8,535 votes, but no winner has yet been finalized due to Fletcher's protest about the provisional ballots.

The Republican-majority state Supreme Court agreed last month with Fletcher that those out-of-precinct ballots were unlawful and told a trial court to come up with a way to remove them from the count. But Democrats in the General Assembly have since passed two laws that order the provisionals included in the totals and set down rules by which the Legislature can decide the race, writes Robertson.

The lawsuit, filed by Marcus Kindley, chairman of the Guilford County Republican Party, argues that those laws "cannot be constitutionally applied retroactively to the elections of 2004." Doing otherwise "violates fundamental principles of due process and equal protection" guaranteeed under federal law and the U.S. constitution, according to the suit.

Kindley's lawyer, Marshall Hurley of Greensboro, told Robertson, "It's fundamentally unfair to tailor procedures after a contest has arisen." He also noted the laws aren't valid yet because the U.S. Justice Department must certify they do not violate the federal Voting Rights Act of 1965. No date has been set for a hearing on whether to issue a temporary restraining order against the defendants named in the suit, who include the State Board of Elections, Gov. Mike Easley, Attorney General Roy Cooper, legislative leaders and Atkinson.

North Carolina judge rules in favor of citizens trying to get town records

A North Carolina judge has ruled in favor of citizens of a Moore County town who sued to see public records they said officials kept under wraps, reports The News & Observer.

'Superior Court Judge Charles Lamm Jr. ruled the town of Whispering Pines had broken North Carolina's open meetings and public records laws,"writes Matthew Eisley, of the Raleigh, Durham, Chapel Hill area newspaper. Lamm ruled the Town Council kept improper minutes of three meetings in 2003, and failed to give proper notice of three meetings. He also said the council had illegally withheld several public records.

Businessman Joe Stout and four other Moore County residents have battled a local government they believe makes bad decisions in secret. They disagreed with the town's hiring of a police chief, which occurred without a public vote although the law requires it. They sought dozens of public records and eventually got all but a few, though often after unexplained delays.

Stout told Eisley, "I'm tickled to death with the ruling. This type of secrecy has to be stopped. Leaders of the town of 2,100 people just north of Southern Pines see it differently. Council members Don Delauter and George Pence said the protesters' win will keep good candidates from running for the body. Pence, the council's mayor pro tempore, told the newspaper, "There was never any intent to hide anything. "We're all human. We're all going to make mistakes. It's such a waste of time and money."

Vermont man loses custody of goats after trail of death in multiple states

A man who allegedly left a trail of dead goats through at least four states has lost custody of his 200-plus remaining animals pending the outcome of an animal cruelty case in Ohio, reports Kelley Schoonover, of The Associated Press.

"Christopher Weathersbee, 64, fled to West Virginia with 16 of his goats, including a dead one he'd been storing in a freezer, in late February amid an impoundment and seizure by Scioto County, Ohio, humane agents," writes Schoonover. Two weeks later, another goat was dead and the rest were taken by the Jackson County Animal Shelter. The West Virginia seizure was upheld by Jackson County Magistrate Tom Reynolds, who said "the animals ...are neglected, deprived and in need of medical care ..."

Weathersbee first came to the attention of humane officials in 2001, Schoonover wrties, while living in Corinth, Vt., when he started seeking assistance for his more than 300 goats. Dana Starr with the Central Vermont Humane Society, told AP, Weathersbee wanted to start a no-kill goat shelter where he could produce cheese and wool, and applied for loans, grants and even petitioned the governor for help.

Starr told AP, "He couldn't afford to feed them, and couldn't understand why others didn't aid him." In the meantime, she said, Weathersbee allowed the animals to breed and multiply. "Consequently, the animals started starving." The humane society seized 44 goats last year and Weathersbee was charged with multiple counts of animal cruelty.

Kentucky widow charged in 86 cattle starvation deaths; 30 others needy

A Lewis County, Kentucky woman faces 86 counts of animal cruelty for allegedly allowing her cattle to starve to death, reports The Associated Press.

Dorena Sue Hord, 61, of Tollesboro, was charged last week after someone called the sheriff's department to report seeing dead cows on her farm. Lewis County Sheriff Bill Lewis said an investigation found that the animals died from starvation, not disease. County officials have been scrambling to come up with enough food for more than 30 cattle still living on Hord's farm, AP writes.

Lewis said he-doesn't believe Hord acted maliciously to kill the cattle, which were valued at $70,000 to $80,000. He old AP, "It was unintentional. She's a widow woman, and she just couldn't handle that many cattle." The sheriff's office has coordinated with the Lewis County Solid Waste Department in bringing hay to the surviving cattle.

Season brings swans;' columnist paints portrait of winter's winged wonders

“Winter's swan song in Kentucky and Southern Indiana offers a picture of grace and tranquility to those lucky enough to see the show,” observes Byron Crawford in another masterful tone poem to Kentucky life, in his column for The Courier Journal.

“For nearly a month, Wayne and Ella Clements have been photographing a small flock of wild whistling or tundra swans that have taken up temporary residence on their two-acre lake just south of Danville, Ky, he writes. Wayne Clements told the Louisville newspaper's preeminent portraitist of all things Kentucky, "We had 14 in here, then they went to 11, and then dwindled down to four that I thought were going to stay," . "But I haven't seen them for three or four days." The swans may yet return for an encore, but might have already left for their permanent homes in the far North, notes Crawford.

Biologist Brainard Palmer-Ball of the Kentucky Nature Preserves Commission, told Crawford, "What the tundra swans do is come out of the prairie provinces of Canada and cut across the Great Lakes, then they cut across the bay areas of Delaware-Maryland-Virginia and into the Carolinas, and we get a little bit of the southern edge of that flight."

Crawford paints the tundra swan as having, "a black bill and feet and a straighter neck than its cousin, the more commonly seen, slightly larger mute swan -- which has an orange bill, bends its neck in a graceful curve and may have a wingspan of up to 8 feet." He also notes, "Although a few domesticated mute swans are sometimes seen year-round on lakes in cemeteries and parks, and at some private impoundments around Kentucky and Southern Indiana, the expanded breeding population of wild mute swans in the backwater marshlands of the Great Lakes has produced increasing winter migrations to (the area) since the late 1970s." (Bloggers note: A rare gift it is for those who escape the mayhem to witness these wistful winged wonders.)

Tuesday, March 15, 2005

EPA plan to cut mercury from coal-fired power plants draws fire

The U.S. government is expected to announce its first plan to cut toxic mercury pollution from coal-fired power plants today, reports the Duluth News Tribune. The U. S. Environmental Protection Agency rules are expected to allow power companies to trade pollution "credits" to meet a national goal of cutting emissions in half by 2010.

"The new rules are either the first step toward less mercury contamination ...or a major mistake that benefits the nation's coal industry," writes John Myers.The electric utility industry and Bush administration officials in the (EPA) are touting the regulations as a realistic way to reduce the mercury produced when coal is burned -- the largest source of human-caused mercury in the United States, he adds.

The plan is expected to reduce overall mercury levels by about 50 percent by 2010 and 70 percent by 2018. Frank Maisano, spokesman for the Electric Reliability Coordinating Council, a Washington, D.C. industry group that represents coal-burning power plants told Myers, "This will be the first regulation ever on power plant mercury emissions. It's a dramatic step forward in getting mercury under control."

The General Accountability Office says the new rule doesn't do enough to solve the mercury problem. The EPA's inspector general has said the administration overlooked health effects in developing the new rules. Sarah Welch, mercury expert for the Izaak Walton League of America, told the newspaper, "There are too many loopholes that will keep it from protecting people's health." Welch added, "Our own PCA commissioner said ...to the EPA it's time to stop burying our head in the sand and time ...to set an example on this. We can't wait for some global treaty or a real federal plan.... The health of our people and our fishing tradition and tourism economy depend on it."

Study grades nation's education schools as 'poor,' detached from local needs

American colleges and universities do such a poor job of training the nation's future teachers and school administrators that 9 of every 10 principals consider the graduates unprepared for what awaits them in the classroom, a new survey has found with nationwide, urban and rural ramifications, reports The New York Times.

"Nearly half the elementary- and secondary-school principals surveyed said the curriculums at schools of education, whether graduate or undergraduate, lacked academic rigor and were outdated, at times using materials decades older than the children whom teachers are now instructing," writes Greg Winter. More than 80 percent of principals said the education schools were too detached from what went on at local elementary and high schools.

Arthur E. Levine, president of Teachers College at Columbia University, told Winter, "I thought there were problems in the field. But I didn't realize the depth ofthe problems." In the report, Dr. Levine said he and other experts had focused their efforts on finding education schools capable of producing excellent principals, superintendents and other administrators. They found none in the entire country. Much of the problem, the report said, stems from what Dr. Levine called "the consumer mentality" dominating the nation's education schools., writes Winter.

The report concluded principals and superintendents need to be better trained which puts added pressure on already faltering education schools. Federal law is now demanding students make measurable academic progress, where local districts once set the bar, more states have adopted uniform exit exams that students must pass in order to graduate, and the population itself is changing, with more immigrants whose English is limited. For a reaction from the American Association of Secondary School Principals, click here. For a study on how higher education may buffer older adults from cognitive declines, click here.

Iowa House approves crop bill; local governments can't ban certain planting

The Iowa House of Representatives has approved a bill that pre-empts local governments from banning the planting of certain crops, such as seeds that have been genetically modified, reports The Des Moines Register.

The bill was introduced by Rep. Sandy Greiner, a Keota Republican, at the request of the Iowa SeedAssociation. It was approved by a vote of 70-27 and sent to the Senate. Greiner said the intent of the bill was simple: to give the Iowa Department of Agriculture and Land Stewardship final authority on seed grown in Iowa, writes Jerry Perkins.

Clarifying that the state is the final authority would prevent local governments from barring the planting of genetically modified, organic or any other type of seeds, Greiner told Perkins, "I can see where we could have corn planted specifically for use in ethanol production, and one or two people could get it banned in the whole township because they are worried that it would cross-pollinate with their crops."

Greiner said she's been accused of promoting large agribusinesses with the bill. But, she told the newspaper, "I'm standing up for small farmers." Critics of the bill are misrepresenting it, she added, by saying it would prevent the planting of organic or identity-preserved crops.

Kentucky county to study ban on hog farms; bureau calls for no more regs

Some farmers in Hickman County, Kentucky have asked officials to reconsider a ban on hog farms, reports The Associated Press.

Hickman County Judge-Executive Greg Pruitt said he's been contacted by about a dozen farmers who favor repealing the local ban. Pruitt said he also has received a request from the county's Kentucky Farm Bureau to not regulate the hog industry any more than the state regulates it, writes AP

Past hog farm deals led officials to pass a restrictive ordinance banning the practice, but Pruitt said that was before new technology made the farms less of a nuisance, writes the wire service. State regulations placeseveral restrictions on those who run hog farms, including a requirement that they inject chemicals into the soil to balance the pH levels caused by manure. The issue of allowing hog farms came up at a fiscal court meeting last week, sparked by a Henry, Tenn., businessman who said he is looking for farmers to raise hogs.

Jimmy Tosh of Tosh Farms said he wants to contract farmers to care for hogs and raise them in large barns until they are ready to be slaughtered and processed. Tosh said, "One of the reasons we're looking at Kentucky is it has a more favorable sales tax than in Tennessee." Plus, he said, hog farmers "are lots easier to recruit" in Kentucky. Other counties in western Kentucky that already have hog farms include Graves and Carlisle. For the original story in The Paducah Sun, click here. Site requires free registration.

Rural women,‘vanishing group,’ recall farm life; professor mines memories

A South Carolina college has begun mining a growing but rarely sought or stockpiled gem; the memories of elderly women raised on rural family farms and their experiences in a vanishing landscape, reports The State.

“Mary Webb Quinn, a daughter of Spartanburg County sharecroppers, decided at the age of 10 that there was a world beyond the farm, writes Carolyn Click of the Charleston newspaper. That moment came during the Great Depression when the school superintendent walked into Quinn's classroom and handed a paycheck to her fourth-grade teacher, Click writes. Quinn told her, “I remember he just opened my eyes, and I thought, ‘Well, for this you get paid, and this is what I want to do. I want to be a teacher.”

Ruth Hatchette McBrayer told the newspaper a different story. She decided to stay on her Cherokee County farm after the death of her husband in 1947. “All the men in the community believed that I would fail and they would own the property,” she recalled. But McBrayer said she “worked night and day” and became one of the region’s most successful peach growers,” Click writes.

Melissa Walker, a history professor at Spartanburg, S.C.'s Converse College, has mined what she believes is a rich vein of history in the oral accounts of rural, Southern women... that has largely disappeared from the South Carolina landscape, writes Click. Walker included interviews with McBrayer and Quinn in her book, “Country Women Cope with Hard Times: A Collection of Oral Histories,” published by USC Press in 2004. She said, “We tend to have a sense that life was much simpler then.”

Nature Conservancy protecting gorge; ‘ecological treasure trove’

A group of conservationists has put money behind their preservationist creed and purchased a scenic gorge in the Cumberland Plateau, land they say is ecologicallly rare and a part of the state’s history, reports The Knoxville News Sentinel.

“The wind howled and the snow swirled as icicles the size of walrus tusks crashed to the ground, writes Morgan Simmons. “It was weather like this that carved the sandstone in Pogue Creek. Every bend in the trail brought something new: a rock amphitheater the size of a four-car garage or a 200-foot bluff overlooking the Cumberland Plateau all the way into Kentucky.”

The Nature Conservancy recently purchased the 3,720-acre Pogue Creek tract as part of its efforts to protect biologically significant lands. The property consists primarily of a deep gorge carved by Pogue Creek, a tributary of the Wolf River, Simmons writes. A 1,541-acre tract of land near Jim Creek just west of Pogue Creek was also purchased by the group. That property has been added to Pickett State Forest, and the conservancy's goal is to place Pogue Creek under similar state management for public recreation.

The Nature Conservancy purchased the property from a group of investors for $4.25 million. Scott Davis, state director of the conservancy's state chapter told Simmons, ''Protecting this area is vital to Tennessee's natural heritage. Pogue Creek is an important part of the larger Big South Fork, Pickett State Park and Forest complex.'' Alex Wyss, Cumberlands program director for the conservancy, told the newspaper, ''You have to remind yourself you're in Tennessee and not somewhere in Utah.''

Neighborhood drowning in state regs trying to build water system

Homeowners in a rural Harlan County, Kentucky neighborhood have run afoul of state regulations by trying to keep clean water pumped into their homes, reports The Harlan Daily Enterprse.

Apparently, creating one of the state's smallest water systems, which serves 23 families, is more complicated than laying water lines and installing meters, writes Adrienne Steinfeldt. The Kentucky Division of Water informed residents last month the water district doesn't meet state regulations because it doesn't have a licensed manager to do water sampling.

Community members searching for a solution to their dilemma have asked the Cumberland City Council to annex their homes and operate the water system, Steinfeldt writes. Gilley Hollow hooks into and buys water from the Cumberland water system. Jewell Ison, who had to rely on foul-tasting well water before the water district was created 10 years ago, told the newspaper, "I'd rather not be annexed, but I'd do anything to keep my water."

Ison and her husband have been doing the chlorine testing, collecting payments and paying the city of Cumberland for water the homeowners buy in bulk. A company does monthly bacteria testing, with homeowners splitting that cost. However, Maleva Chamberlain, spokeswoman for the Division of Water, told Steinfeldt the water district is required to have a certified operator . That violation alone is punishable by a $25,000 fine and up to a year in jail. For the AP version, click here.

ARC promotes region’s history, culture to world with map of sites for visitors

The Appalachian Regional Commission, or ARC, is promoting the farm museum and 355 other Appalachian sites to a worldwide audience, reports The Herald-Dispatch.

"People grinding corn by hand and stitching quilts are among the sights visitors can take in at the Heritage Farm Museum & Village in Huntington, W.Va.," writes Raju Chebium of the Huntington newspaper. Visitors also can see farm animals such as cows, donkeys and roosters, walk through a re-created village from 1850s Appalachia and stay in one of the four bed-and-breakfasts on the 500-acre property, he writes.

The ARCH paid the National Geographic Society $180,000 to create the map and a Web site listing 356 sites of historic, cultural or natural interest. The map goes online soon and will be inserted in the April issue of National Geographic Traveler magazine. The idea of the map is to introduce tourists to the historic, cultural and natural beauty of the 13-state region, and pump much-needed tourism dollars into one of the nation’s poorest areas, Chebium writes.

Executive Editor Paul Martin told Chebium the magazine gets 5 million to 7 million hits on its Web site each month and is read by about 4 million people. Heritage Farm’s co-owner, Henriella Perry, told the newspaper, "Every kind of business would like to have that kind of shot in the arm. "It feels like a real honor to be in it." West Virginia Gov. Joe Manchin, a Democrat, said the map "will help tremendously," and, he added, "There is an awful lot we are doing. This is just one more tool."

Times-Dispatch columnist sees not so 'sunny' view in media understanding

"It has been fashionable - or perhaps just easy - to beat up on the news media for so long that we in the media still call an old friend for help: Thomas Jefferson," writes Ray McCallister in his "Point of View" column tribute to "Sunshine Week" in the Richmond Times-Dispatch.

T.J., notes McCallister, wrote: "The basis of our governments being the opinion of the people, the very first object should be to keep that right; and were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers or newspapers without a government, I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter.Unfortunately, he wrote that in 1787," he warns.

"It's been downhill ever since," writes McCallister. "But this is 'Sunshine Week,' declared by the news media to support attempts to develop and use so-called "sunshine laws" in reporting on the government. At least the news media will stick up for the news media, if no one else will."He writes, "We all may choose to hate the news media - more likely these days, we'll choose to hate some news media - but more than two centuries after Jefferson wrote the passage above, they are still the only real check on government mistakes. Or would you prefer the government calling the shots," he asks. "These days, some would," he answers his own question. McCallister cites recent nationwide survey of high school students that showed 32 percent think the press has too much freedom. "Worse," he adds, 36 percent believe newspapers should get "government approval" before publishing.

"The news biz isn't what it was in Jefferson's day," he writes, "First, radio and TV joined newspapers. Now cable networks and Internet sites are in. A poll last year found 21 percent of 18- to 29-year-olds said their primary source for presidential news was - ready? - 'The Daily Show' or 'Saturday Night Live.' About the same number, 23 percent, cited ABC, CBS or NBC combined. Many said they had no other source." (Bloggers note: How often can one quote Pogo's, "We have met the enemy and they is us.")

Newspaper's first editor dies; 'unmatched' knowledge of community, people

Oak Ridger founding editor Dick Smyser, whose mantra to legions of aspiring journalists he trained was "Accuracy! Accuracy! Accuracy!'' died Monday morning, reports The Knoxville News Sentinel. He was 81. The cause of death was congestive heart failure.

Connie Adams, daughter of Oak Ridger founding publisher Don McKay and a former copy editor at the newspaper told The News Sentinels Anderson County Bureau Chief Bob Fowler, "It's just a huge loss because I think his knowledge of the community and the people is unmatched.''

Smyser was 24 years old when he was named managing editor. The Oak ridger was the first privately owned newspaper in what had been a secret city during World War II. The paper's first edition rolled off the presses Jan. 20, 1949. For the next 44 years, the paper became the focal point of Smyser's life, writes Fowler. Retired physician and Smyser's longtime friend, Dr. Ralph Kniseley, told the newspaper, "He really bent over backwards to be unbiased in the community.''

Former Oak Ridger Publisher Tom Hill said "His devotion, his love for Oak Ridge guided him. You could almost say he was the conscience of Oak Ridge.'' Katherine "Katie'' Smyser McAleer, one of Smyser's two daughters, told Fowler, "I ended up being a journalist, and I never met a journalist I respected more than my own dad. He taught so many people how to be decent and caring reporters.''

Monday, March 14, 2005

Sunshine Week forum today; journalists hope to hold back ‘the darkness’

An organization of Kentucky journalists is observing "Sunshine Week," holding a forum today in Lexington, focusing on a lawsuit in federal court aimed at opening the state's juvenile courts and records to the public, reports The Associated Press.

The forum, open to the public, will be at 7 p.m. in the first-floor conference room at the Lexington Herald-Leader, 100 Midland Avenue. Sunshine Week, designated by a host of national citizen and journalism organizations nationwide, is intended to raise public awareness about openness in government. Organizers for the Bluegrass Chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists are hoping to increase public awareness of the lawsuit, writes Joe Biesk. State law has kept Kentucky's juvenile courts sealed from the public for about two decades. The Kentucky Press Association maintains that's unconstitutional and brought the lawsuit in July. It was dismissed in February, but is pending appeal in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit.

Jon Fleischaker, a Louisville attorney who represents the KPA, told him, "One of the things that we've accomplished already is we've opened up a lot of discussion in Kentucky about the mandatory closure law." KPA Executive Director David Thompson has compiled and printed copies of a statewide open records project series written and illustrated by member newspapers and The Associated Press. Each legislator is to receive a copy, while others are to go to universities and journalism classes.

The KPA has also formed the Kentucky Citizens for Open Government. Thompson told AP, "It's something that we want people statewide to be a part of. We want to ensure that open government remains available for all the public." Al Cross, interim director of the Institute for Rural Journalism and Community Issues, told Biesk, recent court decisions and legislative actions have made it more difficult for the news media to do its job. For more on 'Sunshine Week' click here. For the recent Kentucky Open Records Project Series - from reporters and newspapers statewide, click here. For the last part of a two-part series examining the use of the Freedom of Information Act by U.S. citizens and the government's willingness to make its records available, written by AP's Martha Mendoza, click here.

Pension benefit changes for Kentucky Legislators made 'in darkness,' says AP

The Kentucky General Assembly last week made several quick and quiet changes to enhance benefits for themselves in what has become know as “The Greed Bill,” that established legislative pensions benefits in 1982, reports The Associated Press.

"It was dark, as it usually is when these things happen. The General Assembly was shuttling dozens of bills between the House and Senate, notably tax and budget legislation and an especially contentious matter about increasing the weight limit for some trucks", writes Mark Chellgren.

A Senate committee passed a modified version of the bill, writes Chellgren. The proposal relating to university employees and purchasing retirement credit emerged as a hodgepodge of changes in retirement programs for some judges and all legislators, he writes. For 2004, taxable income for legislators ranged from about $33,000 to $52,000, with most in the range of $35,000 to $42,000, according to the Legislative Research Commission. The first pension was based on $27,000 a year.

Donna Stockton-Early, administrator of the legislative retirement system, told Chellgren, the changes are fair and provide more stability for the finances of the program. "Why should you be penalized when you're a legislator?" she said. She noted the circumstances of the bill rushing through from committee vote to full votes in the House and Senate all within a few hours of the last day for bill passage of the session. But, she noted, at least this change is pretty much straightforward, Chellgren writes.

Deaths at railroad crossings go up after decline, reports The Times

New federal figures show deaths at railroad grade crossings rose 11 percent last year and the government failed to meet its 10-year goal of no more than 300 crossing deaths by 2004, reports The New York Times.

"Crossing deaths had been falling steadily in recent years," writes Walt Bogdanich. "But last year, 369 people died at rail crossings, with three of the four major freight railroads reporting a rise in deaths. Norfolk Southern registered a 50 percent increase, the most of any major railroad, with 60 deaths. Morepeople, 77, died at crossings owned by Union Pacific, the nation's largest railroad."

More than 3,000 accidents occurred at grade crossings last year - about one every three hours. Some rail-safety experts say the figures suggest the railroads and the government are not doing enough to make grade crossings safer, writes Bogdanich. George Gavalla, a former top safety official with the Federal Railroad Administration, told him, "We worked hard to encourage railroads to invest in crossing safety programs, and looking at these statistics, I wonder if that level of investment was being maintained."

Tom White, a spokesman for the Association of American Railroads, told The Times, "We very much regret the increase, and we wish it had not occurred." The rail association and the Federal Railroad Administration said the rise in deaths needed to be viewed in the context of heavier rail traffic last year.

Montana governor’s call for Guard's return to fight fires sets off partisan blaze

Gov. Brian Schweitzer has touched off a political fight with Montana Republicans after calling for the return of the state's National Guard troops serving in Iraq to help out in what many fear will be a record-setting wildfire season, reports Reuters.

Mr. Schweitzer, a newly elected Democrat, infuriated Republican lawmakers who see his request as a way to criticize the Bush administration over Iraq, writes the wire service. Bob Keenan, the state Senate Republican leader, told them, "He's figured out how to use the wildfire season to protest the Iraq war. It's an antiwar statement and condemnation of Bush's actions."

The governor and his supporters deny those accusations as weather experts say a seven-year drought and a severely reduced snowpack could lead to a devastating summer of wildfires, writes the wire service. They also worry that limited resources stretched thinner by the National Guard's service overseas could make it hard to combat the kind of huge blazes that engulfed the state in 2000, when some 2,400 wildfires burned nearly 950,000 acres of mostly public land, they write.

Bruce Thoricht, meteorologist with the federal Northern Rockies Coordination Center , told the news service, "Everything right now is pointing to the possibility of a large and damaging fire season." Governor Schweitzer told Reuters Montana would disproportionately suffer the pain of proposed cuts in the federal budget, with money allocated for firefighting cut in half.

Slots in Florida may hurt Kentucky horse industry; bring expanded gambling?

Approval of slot machine gambling in one Florida county last week could have repercussions for Kentucky's horse industry and increase pressure on the Commonwealth to expand gambling, reports the Lexington Herald-Leader.

Voters in Broward County, Fla., approved a measure that will allow slots at pari-mutuel facilities there, writes Janet Patton. Richard Thalheimer, an economics professor in the University of Louisville's equine business department, told Patton, “The vote could have a ripple effect on Kentucky racing and breeding. It's going to have a serious, major impact on on-track revenue at Calder."

The Kentucky Equine Education Project (KEEP), got two of the three items it wanted passed from this session of the General Assembly. One item removed a tax that the group says encouraged racehorse buyers to take their horses out of state to be trained. The second was a breeders' incentive fund, which will use the sales tax from stud fees to keep mares from going out of state to foal.

Breeders are worried because the number of mares that stay in Kentucky to have their foals has slipped from a record 74 percent in 1998 to 69 percent last year. The foal births also generate boarding fees for local farms. Thalheimer told Patton, "Suddenly, horses bred in slot-states are selling for higher prices because they are eligible for more purse money." Claria Horn Shadwick, executive director of KEEP, said, "That's precisely what Kentucky breeders fear most. You're just going to continue to increase purses in another jurisdiction, which is going to lure away additional horses," she said. For the Associated Press version, click here.

West Virginia may need to boost gaming to keep edge in revenue fix

West Virginia has grown to be a mecca for risk takers in the gaming world, and with surrounding state’s eyeing expanded gambling measures, The Washington Post reports, the 'Mountain State' may have to up the ante to keep its elevated revenue fix.

“Just past the Maryland line, a little more than an hour from Washington, Charles Town Racing and Slots glows with the artificial light of the resurrected," writes Elizabeth Williamson. Ten years ago, the track was defunct, shuttered when county voters rejected slot machine gambling. A year later, persuaded by poverty, politicians and Penn National Gaming, which would buy the track only if slots won the day, residents reversed themselves, she writes.

For two decades, W.Va. lawmakers have passed legislation turning this poor and rugged state into a regional gambling destination. Next to income and sales taxes, gambling is the biggest contributor to the state budget, Williamson writes. Now with gaming initiatives in Maryland, Pennsylvania, Delaware and Kentucky, West Virginia wants to up the ante, she notes.

If a new bill is passed by the legislature as expected, West Virginia would rival Las Vegas in its variety of gambling options. Supporters say roulette and blackjack will keep out-of-town visitors coming. Opponents say gambling profits are not the way to bankroll a state. Sen. Andy McKenzie (R-Wheeling), who supports the table games measure, told The Post, "Once you start down the road, it's hard to stop." When as much as one-fifth of the budget comes from gambling, he added, "it's difficult to eliminate."

Rural New York hospitals try old style cures to keep themselves afloat

Rural hospitals in upstate New York are dipping into nontraditional medicine as a means of broadening their medicinal services and resulting revenues, reports the Rochester Democrat and Chronicle.

“To help ensure its future, Clifton Springs Hospital is dipping into its past,” writes Joy Davia. The hospital, founded in 1850 as a water cure facility, tapped into the sulfur springs running beneath its campus. This enabled the hospital to add the baths to The Springs of Clifton, its 5-year-old facility that has services you won't find at most hospitals, such as body wraps, acupuncture, hypnotherapy — even manicures and pedicures, she writes.

It's not a matter of nostalgia. Creation of The Springs is just one example of what rural hospitals are doing to stay financially afloat. All hospitals — big and small — operate on thin margins that make financial viability a struggle, especially with increasing costs and shrinking reimbursements for services, Davis writes.

But, she explains, rural hospitals face smaller volumes, have a harder time recruiting doctors and have an inability to offer the kind of surgical specialty services that are profitable. They are often a rural area's main source of emergency, pediatric and basic medical care, as well as its largest employer. When they struggle, or are at risk of closing, the whole community feels the pain, she writes.

Christian groups reach out to addicts, target drugs in Eastern Kentucky

The Christian Appalachian Project has announced plans to invest $1 million to open long-term rehabilitation centers in Eastern Kentucky to help drug abusers break their addictions, reports The Associated Press.

Bill Mills, president of the ministry that has fed and clothed the poor in Appalachia for 40 years, said churches and other Christian organizations are stepping forward to deal with the region's drug problem, writes Roger Alford. He told Alford, "Substance abuse is a plague upon our Eastern Kentucky communities. It is the most dominant and devastating of the problems we face today."

While Christian groups support the work of federal and state agencies that are working to combat the drug problem through law enforcement and government-funded treatment centers, writes Alford, the Rev. Doug Abner told him they're opening drug rehabilitation centers, taking part in anti-drug rallies, reaching into their pocketbooks to help pay for detoxification, starting neighborhood watch programs, monitoring drug cases from arraignment to sentencing in local courts, and working one-on-one with recovering addicts to encourage them to stay drug-free.

Abner said residents in Perry County opened Joshua's Dream Foundation, an organization that provides free rehabilitation for drug addicts, soon after prescription drug abuse reached "epidemic" proportions in the Hazard area.

Program targets rural teen drinking; adults' lax attitude blamed for high usage

A study done last year in a rural Pennsylvania area school district showed almost 29 percent of all ninth-graders used alcohol on a regular monthly basis. For high school seniors, that number jumped to 43 percent, reports the Pittsburg Post-Gazette.

Those numbers were enough to persuade Pennsylvania's Liquor Control Board to give the community part of a federal, $1 million grant to fight underage drinking in rural areas, writes Paula Reed Ward. Pennsylvania, with the largest rural population in the country, was one of four states chosen to participate in this program, made available by the U.S. Department of Justice. Illinois, New Mexico and Nevada also are included, she writes.

Carrie Bence, Indiana's enforcement project coordinator, told Ward, though underage drinking is a problem in every community there are some aspects of it that are unique to rural areas. Among those are the lack of safe alternatives for minors and permissive attitudes by adults toward underage drinking. P.J. Stapleton, a member of Pennsylvania's Liquor Control Board (LCB), told her, parents will allow their children to drink in their homes because they figure that at least then they know what their kids are doing.

The report shows minors in rural communities drink alcohol at rates 33 percent higher than their urban and suburban counterparts. They also have a 30 percent higher rate of binge drinking. Mary Beth Wolfe, a staff member of the LCB, said the program is to punish the children who use alcohol and those who provide it to them. She said, "Law enforcement is one of the best limiters of underage drinking across the country."

As family farms diminish, children's weight increasing, new study shows

New research appears to dispell a long-held belief in farm communities and other rural towns, that heavy chores, wide expanses of land and fresh air make for leaner, stronger, healthy children, reports The Associated Press.

“In the mountains of Western Pennsylvania and in other rural communities like it, many health officials say the tide of obesity is rising faster than anywhere else,” writes Charles Sheehan. Michael Meit, director of the University of Pittsburgh Center for Rural Health Practice, told Sheehan, reaction to this apparent contradiction, "Whatever the situation was, rural areas are leading the way. Nnow they're ahead of the curve. Something's happened." Researchers are not ready to point a finger at any one culprit for rural obesity, but they have some theories. For one thing, with fewer family farms and more mechanization, children are not burning many calories, but they're still eating high-calorie meals.

The Center for Rural Pennsylvania released the study that used state health figures to compare the body-mass index of seventh-graders in urban and rural communities - more than 25,000 students in all. About 16 percent of urban students qualified as obese. In rural school districts 20 percent of students were considered obese. Researchers found that during the years of the survey, between 1999 and 2001, the number of obese students in rural school districts rose about 5 percent, more than twice the rate of their urban counterparts. The same trends are being reported from New Mexico to Michigan to West Virginia. Dr. Darrell Ellsworth, director of cardiovascular disease research at the Windber Research Institute told AP, "It is accelerating." .

Iowa corn growers hope to turn fuel on its ear; ethanol, boom or bust?

Small-town residents and rural bankers are financing ethanol plants to rebuild their local economies, reports The Wall Street Journal. And, early signs indicate their investments may be growing.

"Last year, truck driver Dean Rogers, of Nevada, Iowa made the biggest investment of his life. He scraped together $25,000 for a stake in a plant that turns corn into a gasoline substitute called ethanol," writes Scott Kilman.

Rogers, 61, told Kilman, "It's a big chunk of change. I'm hoping it will be a big part of my nest egg." He's among thousands of farmers, teachers, merchants and retirees who've raided their savings to join the biggest investment movement in rural America for decades, he writes. Driven in part by hopes of reviving weak local economies, the investors and rural lenders are pouring billions of dollars into ethanol plants.

The financial results have been positive. With the price of gasoline up, ethanol has leaped 40 percent in two years. Meanwhile, the Chicago Board of Trade is poised to launch a futures contract in ethanol, writes Kilman. Midwestern plants built by farmer co-ops and private companies, at a cost of $50 million to $125 million, are showering their hometown investors with benefits.

Communities are offering tax deferrals, building roads to plant sites and floating bond issues for construction. Banks are offering loans to buy stock, sometimes not requiring investors to put up money. Twenty-five ethanol plants are under construction, adding to 83 in operation, a third of which are less than three years old. A single builder in Minnesota has 42 more plants on the drawing board.

With conservative tide and newsmaker, now 'everything's coming up Kansas'

What do you do when your state image is not only lacking, it's invisible? It helps when your state is centered in the tidal wave of shifting rural American political sentiments, and you get national focus from a few major news stories, good and bad, reports The New York Times.

“About 18 months ago, government, economic and marketing officials from around the state of Kansas gathered in a series of meetings to address what a top tourism official called the ‘volatile, emotionally charged subject’ of the state's national image. Their findings were exceptionally bland,” writes Jesse McKinley. Scott Allegrucci, the state's director of travel and tourism development, told McKinley "The image of Kansas wasn't negative, it was blank. The biggest response to Kansas was no response."

But, writes McKinley, now, thanks to the tide of attention turned toward conservative rural American support in the November election results, Kansas has been claiming a much greater place in the national consciousness: through its association with conservative politics, and, he notes, "through a bushel of headline-hogging news stories that came flying, twisterlike, out of the state over the last month."

One was the case of the B.T.K. killer, who the police say has confessed to murdering 10 people over nearly three decades, he writes. Then, Steve Fossett landed a glider-like aircraft called the Global Flyer in Salina, Kan., and became the first pilot to circumnavigate the globe solo in a single nonstop flight. At the celebration afterward, Gov. Kathleen Sebelius tapped into the rising Kansas-as-the-center-of-the-universe spirit by saying that the world begins and ends in Kansas.

Kentucky county school team,‘Rebels,’ picks new flag with no stars or bars

A new flag has been chosen as a symbol for the Casey County High School Rebels, in Liberty, Kentucky, reports The Advocate Messenger.

The old flag has interlocking Cs in the top left corner and "Rebels" written at the bottom divided by a red diagonal bar with stars. The new flag, chosen by the school council, replaces the Rebel flag that was designed when the school opened in 1963, writes the Danville newspaper. Principal Tim Goodlett told the newspaper the new design is "plain, simple and elegant."

The school's Culture and Climate Committee, recently formed to improve school spirit and pride, is in the process of getting new flags made to place in each classroom, they write. Goodlett told them, "The student body seems to be really enthused (about the new flag) and support it."

Friday, March 11, 2005

Bankruptcy-law reform has Iowans rushing to file ahead of new restrictions

More Iowans are rushing to file for bankruptcy before Congress passes legislation making it more difficult for people to rid themselves of debt, reports The Des Moines Registe With Senate passage of the most thorough overhaul of bankruptcy laws in a quarter-century, and passage expected in the House, President Bush's likely second victory this year on pro-business legislation has promoted a hord of consmers to run for protective bankruptcy cover, write Pat Johnson and Steve Dinnen.

The legislation seeks to cut down consumer use of Chapter 7 bankruptcy, used by about 95 percent of all filers in Iowa. Under Chapter 7, debtors can have financial obligations wiped out after relinquishing many assets, which are then sold. The bill would impose a means test, which would direct more debtors to Chapter 13 bankruptcy where they would repay more of their debt. The test would take into account the median income for a state, which is $41,985 in Iowa, and expenses permitted under IRS guidelines.

Iowa bankruptcy attorneys tolf the paper they have seen a marked increase in people wanting to file now rather than later. Des Moines lawyer Jeff Mathias said the number of people wanting to file for bankruptcy has doubled in the past few weeks. Between 30 percent and 40 percent of the people he works with are over the median income range, he said. He told the Register, "A lot of these people want to file before the law changes." Des Moines bankruptcy attorney John Miller has seen a similar increase. "We have sent out letters to people that have contacted us in the past warning them they ought to do it now," Miller said.

Mary Weibel, chief clerk of the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Iowa's southern district, said she anticipates a dramatic increase in bankruptcy filings if President Bush signs the legislation. For a similar story by The News & Observer, of Raleigh, N.C., click here.

Parties split over consumer responsibility vs. personal crisis in bankruptcy bill

Democratic U. S. Sen. Mark Dayton of Minnesota denounced the Bankruptcy Abuse Prevention and Consumer Protection Act, while Republican Sen. Jim Bunning of Kentucky outlined his support of the bill, both issuing statements on their Web sites. The bill passed the Senate 74-25 yesterday.

“The bankruptcy bill is an abomination," said Dayton. "It does nothing to protect consumers, as its title claims, nor does it reflect the urgent need to address corporate bankruptcy abuse and predatory lending practices.” He continues, “This bill attacks working Americans, many of whom have been thrown into dire financial straights, through no fault of their own, by uncovered medical expenses or loss of a job. While it professes to be a consumer protection bill, in reality, it is a credit card company profit assurance plan.”

Bunning said the bill will help restore “personal responsibility and integrity to the bankruptcy system." Bunning writes, “By passing this legislation ... we have taken a huge step forward in our ... effort to curb abuses in the consumer bankruptcy system and reduce the cost on America’s working families." He continues, "Over the last 25 years we have seen a rapid increase in individual bankruptcy filings that have proved very costly to our economy and this bill aims to fix that. It’s a solid victory for the American consumer.” Bunning urged House passage so President Bush can sign it into law.

New plant emissions limit to cut pollutants, says EPA; will raise rates, say utilities

The Bush administration yesterday finalized a regulation for the eastern United States that would cut power plant pollutants that cause smog, acid rain and soot by about two-thirds over the next decade.

Jeffrey Holmstead, the Environmental Protection Agency's assistant administrator said the rule will cost about $3.6 billion a year to implement but is expected to save $85 billion in annual health benefits, writes Seth Borenstein of the Knight Ridder News Service. He said it "will result in the biggest health benefit of any EPA rule in more than a decade."

The Courier-Journal reports residential electricity bills will rise by pennies for the typical LG&E Energy customer over the next three years. Chip Keeling, a spokesman for the utility, told the newspaper, customers could pay up to 14 cents a month more later this year, rising to 32 cents by 2008. Throughout the eastern United States, residential electricity bills may increase by about a $1 a month by 2020 because of the additional pollution controls, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency reported.

The regulation is designed to reduce pollution that travels across state lines.It applies only to 28 Eastern and Midwestern states and the District of Columbia. Unlike most past regulatory efforts, this rule doesn't tell power plants how to reduce pollution. Instead, it puts caps on emissions and lets the utilities decide how to get below those limits, writes the C-J's James Bruggers.

The following states are affected by the new rule: Texas, Florida, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Missouri, Minnesota, North Carolina, South Carolina, Kentucky, Georgia, Indiana, Illinois, New Jersey, Mississippi, Alabama, Arkansas, Connecticut, Delaware, Iowa, Louisiana, Maryland, Massachusetts, New York, Tennessee, Virginia, West Virginia, Wisconsin and the District of Columbia.

Phone billing vote blasted; consumers still pay hidden costs, groups say

In a decision it described as pro-consumer, the Federal Communications Commission has voted to extend its truth-in-billing rules to the wireless telephone industry, reports The Charleston Gazette.

"But state consumer advocates who asked the FCC to forbid misleading phone charges disagreed. The National Association of State Utility Consumer Advocates (NASUCA) and other consumer groups called the decision, ...a defeat in the fight to protect consumers from hidden fees and long-distance phone charges," writes Jim Barlow of the West Virginia newspaper.

In a case written by Patrick Pearlman, deputy consumer advocate with the W.Va. Public Service Commission, NASUCA asked the FCC in March 2004 to bar phone companies from adding monthly phone charges to customer bills that sound like government mandated fees. Those charges often go under names such as “regulatory assessment charge” or “regulatory cost recovery fee.” NASUCA said those charges hey sometimes aren’t mentioned in advertising, which makes it hard to compare rates among phone companies. Many customers agreed, and sent comments to the FCC, writes Barlow.

Janee Briesemeister, senior policy analyst at Consumers Union, said in a statement, “More than 18,000 consumers wrote in on the issue, but the FCC majority didn’t pay attention . The FCC clearly took the side of the cell phone companies who oppose state efforts to protect consumers.” David Bergmann of the Ohio Consumers’ Counsel called the decision a “lose-lose for America’s consumers.” He told Barlow, “The FCC’s decision blocks states from taking action while refusing to resolve a nationwide problem.”

Two of the five FCC commissioners who voted for the decision wrote partial dissent statements, Barlow writes. Commissioner Michael Copps noted that phone bills have become confusing. “It’s baffling how complicated they are. You need an accountant or a lawyer, preferably both, to root out what you’re being charged for and why. That’s what led NASUCA last year to file for a declaratory ruling.”

Virginia game unit shake-up sought; top managers told, 'resign or be fired'

The leadership of Virginia's besieged game department is under fire from a former board chairman, who has called for the agency's top managers to resign or be removed.

"J. Carson Quarles, chairman of the department's board from 1998 to 2002, said ... he is joining a group of former board members and chairmen in seeking the removal of the executive director, William L. Woodfin, and two other department heads who used state credit cards to buy gear for a personal safari in Africa last year," write Michael Martz and Gordon Hickey of the Richmond Times-Dispatch. Quarles also called on the Department of Game and Inland Fisheries board to replace its chairman, Daniel A. Hoffler, who led the safari and paid most of the trip's expenses for the game officials.

Quarles said in a written statement obtained by the Times-Dispatch, "From my 37 years in banking . . . I clearly learned that when situations exist that involve damaged public trust, negative press relations, deteriorating staff morale and questionable management decisions, it becomes impossible to right a ship without a management change." Hoffer told the Times-Dispatch he won't quit as chairman and questioned the motives of Quarles, a Republican campaign contributor who was replaced on the board by Gov. Mark R. Warner, a Democrat. Hoffler said, "I'm very disappointed that a former chairman would blindside the department in this manner."

Quarles, a retired Roanoke businessman, said he struggled with the decision because of his longstanding support of Woodfin's leadership at the agency and friendships with department officials. However, he said the agency's leaders had reacted defensively to criticism and failed to take steps to address legitimate concerns about the department's management.

West Virginia youth asks state to ban hunting albino deer; lawmakers respond

A young man’s ‘rite of passage’ and his conscience have prompted a call to West Virginia lawmakers to protect a rare specimen of wildlife, reports The Associated Press.

"Jared Stiltner likes to hunt. The 11-year-old bagged a doe during last fall’s youth antlerless deer hunt," writes Lawrence Messina. But a discovery in the woods near his rural Wyoming County home last spring has him asking state lawmakers to draw a line on killing albino deer.

Stiltner told lawmakers in the House of Delegates by letter, "It just seems wrong to kill something so rare." Game experts estimate that between one in 10,000 and one in 100,000 deer are albino. Stiltner’s cause has prompted introduction of a House Bill, which has some pretty potent co-sponsors, writes Messina, including his cousin, House Majority Leader Rick Staton, as well as the House Speaker, and the chairman of the House Judiciary Committee. Staton, D-Wyoming, told Messina, "I think it’s a really good bill. The letter that he wrote was very heartfelt. He was very affected by seeing this."

Stiltner said in his letter the lack of melanin, which gives skin its color, leaves albino deer with weaker eyes and ears. Stiltner learned without natural camouflage, the animals are more vulnerable to hunters and other predators. "I just decided, why not try to make a law," said Stiltner, who was on hand for the bill’s introduction as a House page, writes Messina.

West Virginia hunting laws do not address albino deer. Thirteen states have passed laws protecting them. The bill would make it a crime to hunt, trap, shoot, possess or attempt to kill an albino deer. Curtis Taylor, chief of the Division of Natural Resources’s wildlife section told the AP, "There’s no biological reason to prohibit the killing of an albino deer, and no reason within deer management."

'Total Vertical' pits kayak teams against each other, weather in the Smokies

Three kayakers from Team Tallboy brought a different kind of "March Madness" to the Great Smoky Mountains National Park this week by plunging repeatedly into icy rapids as part of a contest involving amateur athletes from across the Southeast, reports The Knoxville News-Sentinel.

"They braved freezing temperatures, whiteouts and Class IV rapids near the Tremont Institute in the hopes of seeing just how far and how hard they can push themselves over the next few weeks, writes J. J. Stambaugh. The month-long contest measures how many "vertical feet" that kayak teams can rack up on rivers in Tennessee, North Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Kentucky, Virginia and West Virginia.

Kirk Eddlemon, a 24-year-old University of Tennessee geology student, and teammates Adam Griffin and John Webb spent one morning repeatedly traversing a stretch of steep rapids on the Middle Prong of the Little River. 'Team Tallboy' launched its kayaks from beneath a narrow bridge at the foot of a path that leads to the Derrick Knob shelter on the Appalachian Trail, writes Stanbaugh.

Eddlemon told Stambugh the contest is called Total Vertical Feet March Madness and the idea was generated from within the close-knit kayaking community. Corporate sponsors of the competition include a number of companies that outfit kayakers, and some of the prizes will likely be samples of their products.

Rural Kentucky county courthouses to get refurbished or replaced

For many rural communities the epicenter of law, justice, commerce, community news and gossip is the county courthouse. Now some of these stately monuments will be getting a face-lift or replaced.

The Lexington Herald-Leader staff report states, "Eighteen Kentucky counties will receive money to build new courthouses or renovate old ones. Included in the 2005-2006 state budget is more than $217 million earmarked for capital projects for county courthouses."

Chief Justice Joseph Lambert of Rockcastle County told the newspaper that Kentucky courthouses handle more than 1 million cases each year. He said many of those courthouses are too old and don't have the space or the infrastructure to handle the caseload. Lambert said the Administrative Office of the Courts began lobbying state legislators for money for state courthouses in 2002.

Fourteen counties will get new judicial centers: Adair, Taylor, Laurel, Shelby, Pulaski, Green, Washington, Grant, Jackson, Grayson, Logan, Hart, Trigg and Boyd counties. Robertson, Gallatin, Pendleton and Livingston counties will receive money for additions or renovations. (Blogger's note: We hope the money assures comfortable benches outside, especially for seniors who want to rest a while and solve the world's problems, usually on spring and fall Saturdays.)

Media conscience Bob Edwards hears McCarthy Era echoes; says dissent stifled

Radio interviewer Bob Edwards said at Centre College in his native Kentucky that the U.S. is in a period like the McCarthy era of the 1950s, in which the government is stifling political dissent while the news media and the public fail to speak out in vigorous opposition, reports the Lexington Herald-Leader.

The newspaper reports, “Edwards, a host for XM Satellite Radio, said the "Bush administration holds reporters in contempt" and has become the "all-time champion of information control." He added, "There is no appreciation by this administration that the people have a right to know what is being done in their name and with their dollars."

Edwards built a theme based on a quote by Bush's former press secretary, Ari Fleischer, in the wake of 9/11: "People should watch what they say." He also said journalists "have done a terrible job explaining their role to the public."

Edwards quoted Edward R. Murrow's famous TV response to Sen. Joseph McCarthy's communist witch hunt: "We must not confuse dissent with disloyalty," and "we cannot defend freedom abroad by deserting it at home." He also cited Murrow's quotation from Shakespeare to end his report on McCarthy, 51 years ago this week: "The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, but in ourselves,” (From Julius Caesar, I, ii, 140)

Thursday, March 10, 2005

Tobacco county's paper reports on fight among farmers for settlement money

Turmoil is increasing on at least one of the Kentucky county councils that, collectively, spend 17.5 percent of the billions the state is getting from the 1998 national tobacco settlement. This week, the weekly Casey County News kept pulling back the curtain, and we encourage journalists elsewhere to do likewise.

”The gloves came off at the Casey County Agriculture Development Council meeting [last] Wednesday night as accusations of mismanagement and personal attacks flowed freely,” Editor Donna Carman reported in this Wednesday’s paper. “And it's not the first time.”

Under questioning by Board Chairman Marion Murphy, the president of the Casey County Cattlemen's Association, which administers three of the five programs the council has started for local farmers, acknowledged that only one person “evaluates the applications submitted by farmers,” Carman wrote. ”Murphy has questioned the distribution of funds, saying there are instances where certain people have received money in multiple programs while others who are waiting for funding have received none.” He also charged, and the cattlemen denied, that they had given money to some farmers who don’t even own cattle and that some recipients hadn’t received required training.

Council member Betty Lou Weddle said more programs are needed that could help more than a few farmers. “How can we help the tobacco farmer when people are getting money who’ve not grown a stalk of tobacco?” she asked. As the debate grew more heated, member Cheston Wilson told Murphy and the cattlemen, “Things are getting too personal and you should quit attacking each other. When we enter these doors, we’re supposed to be trying to do the best we can to help the farmers we represent.”

Murphy accused the cattlemen of mismanagement and tried to push through rule changes, such as requiring that all applicants be served before anyone can receive additional grants, but Steve Heightchew, the county extension agent for agriculture, said the council cannot change any rules on existing programs. Each county has an eight-member council. The councils are allocated 35 percent of the money the state has earmarked for agricultural diversification, a cause that gets half the settlement money.

Rural areas and small towns urged to keep identities, promote 'unique' festivals

South Carolina elected officials, chamber leaders and other community activists and leaders gathered at the Litchfield Beach & Golf Resort for seminars on increasing a rural community's work force, tips on tax credits for long- term homeownership, energizing entrepreneurship and developing thriving community festivals, reports The Sun News of Myrtle Beach.

Festival events in rural areas provide a springboard for economic growth and development, said experts who spoke during the first day of the 2005 Governor's Rural Summit, writes Tonya Root. Council Chairwoman Liz Gilland told her, "The majority of Horry County is rural, so to come to a rural summit is applicable. (It) has its own uniqueness to offer. Officials at the conference said the uniqueness of each small community can build an economic base. They told summit attendees that leaders must capitalize on what each community has to offer the world and promote it through various means such as a community festival.

Gayle Bivines of the state Department of Parks, Recreation and Tourism told the gathering, "With the economy the way it is today, communities are looking to develop their area and promote it as another funding source. We want the people to come into the community to have fun ...We want them to stay as long as they possibly can and spend as much as they can." Annually in South Carolina, there are more than 500 community festivals, writes Root.

Gilland said, small-town festivals are "looked on different than the festivals at the beach. We need to grow them and generate new festivals in the unincorporated communities." Festivals can provide the catalyst to grow a rural community's economic base," Bivines told the gathering. "Uniqueness is key to a local festival ...to draw people ...find the uniqueness of your community and not try to mimic another ...to be able to draw from outside of your immediate community."

North Dakota child population-drop leads nation; impacts state's rural schools

New census figures show North Dakota is losing more children than any other state. Richard Rathge, director of the State Data Center, told Washington Post writer James MacPherson, "What we're seeing is a tremendous loss of youth. Young adults and young families are leaving."

From 2000 to 2004, North Dakota's population of children ages 5 to 17 dropped about 14 percent and the number of newborns dropped about 8 percent. The number of newborns in one year alone, 2003 to 2004, dropped 1.5 percent - and the highest percentage in the nation, MacPherson writes.

Census Bureau figures show the state grew in population in 2004 for the first time since 1996. It added 966 people for a total of 634,366. But, Rathge said North Dakota's birth rate has declined nearly every year since 1982. Fargo, the state's largest city, has seen a 1.5 percent growth in young adults over the past few years, but most of them are not starting families, Rathge told MacPherson.

The town of Calvin, where Tony Nieman is mayor, exemplifies what is happening: Young adults and young families with children are moving away to escape the harsh farm economy, MacPherson writes. Starting this fall, the city's 25 elementary-age children will go somewhere else to learn. There aren't enough to keep the school open. Tom Decker of the Department of Public Instruction, told MacPherson three other schools in the county will be shuttered this year because of declining enrollment, and five other districts are consolidating their schools. Elroy Burkle, superintendent of the Calvin school, told the Post, "If you look at the schools that have closed or are closing, the bulk of them were based on an agriculture economy."

Georgia meth bust is largest in East; highly addictive form 'ice' found

Federal authorities have seized 174 pounds of the highly potent crystal methamphetamine and $1 million in cash in a Lawrenceville, Georgia drug-bust, reports The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

“It was the largest seizure of crystal meth, or ‘ice,’ on the East Coast and the nation's 15th-largest, writes Lateef Mungin and Bill Torpy. Police told the newspaper it points to another facet in the drug problem exploding across metro Atlanta. Sherri Strange, Atlanta's top Drug Enforcement Administration agent, told Mungin and Torpy, "The Atlanta area is seeing an onslaught of Mexican methamphetamine ...in its more addictive form, ice. I can't emphasize how dangerous ice is."

U.S. Attorney David Nahmias referred the constant flow of meth imported from Mexico to the area as "a rising tide in Georgia ...a tidal wave that will overwhelm us." In December, authorities seized 20 pounds of meth and 28 pounds of cocaine in what they called one of the largest drug busts in Cherokee County, Ga. history, write Mungin and Torpy. In January, authorities seized 125 pounds of crystal meth in DeKalb County. The bust at the time was called the largest such seizure in the Southeast. And last month, agents discovered a meth "super lab" in a Smyrna home capable of cranking out 10 pounds of ice a day.

Catherine O'Neil, who heads the Justice Department's Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Force in Washington, told the newspaper, The large busts indicate a migration of meth "super labs" from the West Coast. She said the major trafficking organizations, which are predominantly operated by Mexican nationals, "realize they can make huge profits [in the Southeast]." She added enforcement in the West "has squeezed the balloon and moved it East."

Federal funding cuts could curb local law-enforcement drug inquiries

Proposed federal funding cuts would hurt efforts by police to fight drugs in Kentucky particularly in smaller towns and rural areas where police have fewer resources and abuse of prescription pills and methamphetamine is rampant, reports the Lexington Herald-Leader.

"President Bush has proposed cutting the budget for the national High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area program by more than 50 percent. In Kentucky, 27 counties in the eastern and southern part of the state are in the Appalachia-HIDTA, which provides money for task forces of federal, state and local officers to investigate drug trafficking," writes Bill Estep.

Bush also has proposed eliminating money that supports local drug task forces and other crime initiatives. The Kentucky Justice and Public Safety Cabinet told Estep about a dozen drug task forces around the state, state police and Lexington and Louisville police, received more than $3.5 million total this year for drug initiatives from that Justice Assistance Grant (JAG) program.

Dave Gilbert, director of the Lake Cumberland Area Drug Task Force and president of the Kentucky Narcotics Officers Association told Estep losing that money would require some task forces to lay off agents, cut back investigations or even to shut down. Gilbert said his own agency, which has five agents for investigations in Pulaski, Wayne and McCreary counties, gets 75 percent of its budget from the JAG program. Gilbert told Estep the end of that funding would mean the demise of the task force.

East Carolina University, in major tobacco region, may limit campus smoking

A committee at East Carolina University chancellor will try to decide whether it is feasible to ban smoking on certain areas of the campus in the heart of tobacco country, reports The Associated Press.

ECU's Faculty Senate has passed a resolution seeking to ban smoking in front of building entrances, outside stairwells, elevator landings and partially enclosed corridors outside of classrooms. Catherine Rigsby, chair of the faculty said, "I think it's an important health issue for all of us. It's very difficult to walk in and out of some of our buildings without holding your breath," writes AP.

Smoking now is banned in academic buildings at the university. Some dorms have smoking areas inside. The task force, with faculty, student and staff representatives, is to study the logistics of the request. The faculty resolution proposed the university designate smoking areas well away from high-traffic areas. Georgia Childs, assistant director for peer health said a survey done by ECU's Wellness Education Department, showed 14 percent of 1,332 students polled were smokers. About 61 percent of those who smoke said they were thinking about quitting.

ECU would not be the only school in the University of North Carolina system to limit smoking. Limits exist at UNC-Wilmington, Appalachian State University, UNC-Pembroke and UNC-Chapel Hill.

The Daily Reflector originated this story. For a look at this rural newspaper, click here.

Public silenced at school board meeting over controversial administrator

A former West Virginia House Education Chairman may be the most talked-about man in Hampshire County, but not at meetings of the school board that employs him.

Hampshire County School Board attorney Norwood Bentley “successfully muzzled people demanding that Jerry Mezzatesta (who was the subject of ethics accusations in the legislature) be fired from his $60,000 administrative job earlier this week. Bentley said, "speaking is a privilege offered by the board, not a public right," reports The Associated Press. Bentley said, after stopping some residents from identifying Mezzatesta or Supt. David Friend by name or job title, “You can’t take an employee of a school board to task in an open session. It’s not the public’s meeting. It’s the school board’s meeting.’’

About 100 people packed a school cafeteria when resident Robert Lee began calling for Mezzatesta’s and Friend’s dismissal, reports AP. Lee was beginning his written remarks when Bentley intervened, saying Lee couldn’t mention specific people in his comments. Bentley warned the board it was “a libelous situation.’’ The decision stunned those who had planned to speak, including resident Jim Hott. “ There’s absolutely no reason to have an open meeting if we can’t voice our opinions.’’

Tennessee rangers, guard helicopter rescue four Appalachian Trail hikers

Four college freshmen on spring break in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park said yesterday they felt lucky to be alive after they were snowed in at a shelter on the Appalachian Trail, writes J. J. Stambaugh of The Knoxville News-Sentinel. The four, all 19, were rescued by park rangers and a National Guard helicopter after spending two wet, freezing nights huddled in the Derrick Knob shelter.

One was airlifted to the University of Tennessee Medical Center in Knoxville as a precautionary measure after falling victim to hypothermia. His three companions walked off the trail a few hours later with words of warning for anyone planning a trip into the mountains. One of the hikers told the newspaper, "We weren't prepared. We may have done a few things right, but we did a lot of things wrong. We were lucky."

The three from North Carolina State University and one from the University of Virginia set out Sunday from Fontana Dam to hike the 71 miles of the trail that run through the park. By Monday evening, writes Stambaugh, they found themselves in icy rain. Temperatures had plummeted and the rain changed to snow that blew into the shelter, at an elevation of 4,880 feet. By the next morning, more than 8 inches of snow had fallen and the group realized they didn't have much of a chance of walking out unassisted.

Tennessee legislation to limit sealing of court records faces more review

Guidelines to limit when records in civil court cases can be sealed from public view have been withdrawn in the Tennessee General Assembly for further review, reports The Associated Press.

The Tennessee Supreme Court issued the guidelines to restrict when judges should rule that civil court documents be kept confidential. The legislature had to approve the guidelines for them to take effect. Administrative Office of the Courts spokeswoman Sue Allison told AP, "Different legislators had different concerns about the guidelines, so they were withdrawn for further study."

There are no written guidelines governing when Tennessee judges may seal documents. Allan Ramsaur, executive director of the Tennessee Bar Association, told the wire service lawyers feared the guidelines would have an adverse effect on settling civil cases out of court. He said the guidelines may have made settlements and evidence not filed with the courts subject to public review. The bar association made those concerns known to the state Supreme Court in September.

Frank Gibson of the Tennessee Coalition for Open Government told AP the measure was a positive development that fell victim to "lobbying pressure" in the Legislature. He said the public's right to access information that affects it outweighs whether the guidelines might reduce the number of out-of-court settlements. "That's a very broad concern," Gibson said. "This rule was very specific in dealing with matters of public health, public safety and government operations." Allison told the wire service she did not know who would review the guidelines or when they might be reissued.

Ex-competitors' merger deal alters television landscape in Duluth market

Television news in northern Minnesota has been transformed as two former competitors essentially merged services, reports the Pioneer Press, a move another local station is opposing.

Sarasota, Fla.-based Malara Broadcast Group has purchased KDLH-TV, Duluth's CBS affiliate, for $10.8 million and entered a shared-services agreement with longtime rival Granite Broadcasting Corp., the owner of local NBC affiliate KBJR-TV, writes the St. Paul newspaper.

The Federal Communications Commission approved Granite's relationship with Malara earlier this year. But St. Paul-based Hubbard Broadcasting, owner of Duluth's ABC affiliate WDIO-TV, opposes the deal and has filed objections with the FCC.

Under the deal, New York-based Granite will provide most of KDLH's programming services, including local news. KDLH will now offer one 30-minute local news broadcast at 5:30 p.m. and an eight-minute news capsule at 10 p.m. John Deushane, Granite's chief operating officer, said it no longer made sense for KDLH to go up against the other local stations at 6 p.m. and 10 p.m. By offering a local broadcast at 5:30 p.m. and national news at 6 p.m., Deushane said, KDLH will broaden options available to viewers.

The Duluth News Tribune said the only on-air KDLH personalities retained were news anchor Pat Kelly, meteorologist Erin Jordan and sports anchor Chris Earl. Other KDLH news staff were terminated, said KDLH employees who lost their jobs. Deushane declined to say how many people lost their jobs. About 65 people were employed at KDLH under its previous owner, New Vision Television of Atlanta.

SPJ joins other groups is supporting federal law to protect reporters' sources

Directors of the Society of Professional Journalists voted yesterday to back federal shield law legislation. "A federal shield law has become essential now that prosecutors appear less constrained about hauling journalists before courts and grand juries," SPJ President Irwin Gratz, a radio anchor with Maine Public Broadcasting, said in a release today. "Courts are proving little help either, setting aside the partial protections recognized by the U.S. Supreme Court in its Branzburg v. Hayes ruling" of 1972.

SPJ, which has long been reluctant to seek legislative protection for something it considers to be a constitutional right guaranteed by the First Amendment, joins the Newspaper Association of America, the National Newspaper Association, the American Society of Newspaper Editors, the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, The Radio-Television News Directors Association, the National Press Photographers Association, The New York Times, The Washington Post, CNN, Court TV, Cox Enterprises, E.W. Scripps and Time Inc. in supporting the legislation.

"In the months ahead, the Society will work with other supporters of federal shield law legislation and members of Congress to craft a law that offers the maximum protection for journalism in all its varied forms," the release said. "The Society will also be making its case to the public. As Gratz points out, 'They are the ones who are served by a free flow of information and they will feel the chill if sources become less willing to speak and journalists afraid to listen.'"

Worms turn, churn out compost; wigglers whittle down county's organic trash

A Virginia county has added about 300,000 new employees to its payroll, but they work for food as part of the county’s waste treatment efforts, reports the Richmond Times-Dispatch.

“(The) workers have been on the job for the past few months, but likely won't wiggle their way onto the county payroll. The red wigglers -- a variety of worm -- are chowing down on discarded food products at the county's waste transfer station, providing a valuable service by helping divert about 200 pounds of trash a day from landfills,” writes Dena Sloan.

As the worms munch on discarded organic materials, such as rice and beans, they produce nitrogen-rich droppings, a valuable kind of compost. Steve Chidsey, Hanover County's solid waste manager, who started the program to reduce food refuse that winds up in landfills, told Sloan, "We always have fun here in the world of trash. We're one with our worms. Garbage is where it's at," he said.

The county began its worm composting program about six months ago. The most expensive part of the project was buying a large bin for $7,500 to hold the trash. The worms, cost about $800 for 100,000 of them. The worm work, known as vermacomposting, can be done inside year-round. The process must be monitored to ensure proper temperature, and moisture and acidity levels, it's mostly a hands-off procedure

Wednesday, March 9, 2005

Kentucky kills truck bill, raises and lowers various taxes, aids burley growers

The Kentucky General Assembly adjourned last night after passing a budget and tax-reform package that included heavy borrowing for construction projects and bonding of agricultural-diversification funds to make up for payments that tobacco growers had been expecting from cigarette companies last year.

The legislature also gave final passage to Gov. Ernie Fletcher's tax-reform package, which raises the state cigarette tax to 30 cents a pack from the current 3 cents, the nation's lowest. Satellite TV service will be taxed for the first time, income taxes will be cut, and alcohol taxes will rise slightly.

And in what the Lexington Herald-Leader called "a surprising and bitterly contested reversal," the House killed a weakened version of a bill it had easily passed -- one that would have legalized 120,000-pound loads of all "natural resources," not just coal, which has enjoyed the special weight limit on some roads for almost two deacdes. Some lawmakers told The Courier-Journal that the bill was hurt by a fatal accident Monday involving a overweight coal truck.

For the C-J's rundown of the budget and tax bill, click here. For its meth-bill story, click here. For a C-J column about the payments to growers, click here. For the Herald-Leader's story on a bill to limit sales of junk food in schools and take other steps to fight child obesity, which a nutritionist said could make Kentucky a model for the rest of the nation, click here. The legislature will return March 21 to reconsider any bills vetoed by Fletcher, who has voiced concern about the level of bonded debt

Meth legislation passes in Kentucky, moves forward in West Virginia

The Kentucky legislature also gave final passage to a bill to regulate Internet drug sales and restrict purchases of a key ingredient in making methamphetamine, as a legislative committee in West Virginia was advancing a similar bill in that state.

The Kentucky measure will take effect 90 days after the legislature adjourns, probably March 22, and will restrict access to pseudoephedrine, an ingredient in over-the-counter cold and allergy medicine such as Sudafed or Claritin D and also a key ingredient of meth, The Courier-Journal reports.

The C-J reported in December that meth has accelerated its spread through Kentucky and that state laws aren't adequate to stem the growth, Deborah yetter writes. The administration had designated the bill as a priority, but final passage was delayed until lawmakers could fix minor wording errors.

The Kentucky Retail Federation argued the bill was too restrictive. The bill will require tablets that contain pseudoephedrine to be kept in a secure location, such as behind the counter or in a locked case. The pills can be sold only at stores with a pharmacy, and customers will have to present photo identification and sign a log to obtain the pills from a pharmacist or pharmacist's technician, she writes.

Meanwhile, he West Virginia Senate Health and Human Resources Committee has moved to further restrict the purchase of certain over-the-counter cold medicines that contain ingredients for making meth. "Customers could only purchase up to three packages of medicines like Sudafed a month without a prescription. The proposal also reduces the number of controlled cold medicines from about 250 to less than a dozen by targeting medicines that contain pseudoephedrine and other ingredients," writes Erik Schelzig of The Associated Press. According to law enforcement officials, the yield of methamphetamine is about equal to the amount of pseudoephedrine used in the manufacturing process.

West Virginia State Police Lt. Mike Goff told AP fewer medicines are being moved behind pharmacy counters because cold remedies containing several active ingredients are more difficult to cook down into methamphetamine. "We’re happy with this provision because the bill would allow us to add medicines to the list if we find they are being made into methamphetamine," he said.

Mountain accents, class to change them, catch attention of NBC News

NBC News visited Pikeville, Ky., yesterday to film a segment on Eastern Kentucky's accent, reports the town's Appalachian News-Express. A newspaper employee was among the local residents interviewed about having the accent, and how it can effect someone's career.

Sales representative Stephanie Treap told the News Editor Rachel C. Stanley, "The main question they had for me was have I ever tried to change my accent. I told them I had thought about changing it, but . . . I've never tried to make myself sound like a different person."

NBC News correspondent Roger O'Neil, based in Savannah, Ga., said the story was inspired by news of a class that began yesterday at Jenny Wiley State Park aimed at teaching theater students how to drop their accents at will. O'Neil told Stanley, "What interested us were adults who feel they've either been stereotyped, or held back, or can't do as much business as their counterparts because of their accents."

O'Neil's report, which will air sometimes in the next few weeks, will include a Broadway actress from West Virginia who had to learn to drop her accent when performing. Martin Childers, managing director of the Jenny Wiley Theatre, told the News-Express, "That's something all professional actors must learn to do." It is an important skill for the Jenny Wiley Theatre, Childers told Stanley, because about 60 percent of the audience tends to be tourists, who may not be familiar with the sound of the Eastern Kentucky accent.

(Roger O'Neil worked at NBC affiliate WSAZ-TV in Huntingon, W.Va., one of the principal stations serving Eastern Kentucky, in the early 70s, as did News-Express Publisher Marty Backus.)

Press associations, AP offering state-oriented Sunshine Week material

State press associations and bureaus of The Associated Press are gearing up to give more localized information to support the national Sunshine Week observance coming up March 13-19.

The Kentucky Press Association will provide two columns to its member newspapers, even though it recently helped coordinate piublication of a major series on its first open-records audit. Many newspapers published the findings in a series that ran early February, giving Sunshine Week a head start, wrote KPA Executive Director David Thompson in a notice to newspaper editors.

Jon Fleischaker, KPA general counsel and chief author of the Kentucky open-meetings and open-records laws, has a column discussing the changes in the law between 1990 and 1992, and the importance of every citizen having a right to an open government -- an objective of Sunshine Week.

The second column is by Robert J. Freeman, executive director of the New York State Committee on Open Government. It focuses on federal freedom-of-information laws and analyzes and compares them to laws in other countries. "The time has come for Americans to realize that our FOI laws, while unquestionably valuable, are not as strong as they should be," he writes.

AP has stories on its national and state budgets for Sunday and Monday examining why freedom of information matters to the public, because non-journalists use it the most, how the government has tightened its controls on the release of information since Sept. 11, 2001, and other topics. AP's Kentucky bureau circulated editorials written in the wake of the open-records audit.

National forest power-line plan challenged; critics see threat to songbirds

Environmentalists say a proposal to cut another right of way for power lines through the Daniel Boone National Forest could open the forest to unwelcome species that would hurt migratory songbirds.

Kentucky Heartwood is asking the U.S. Forest Service to reconsider its decision to allow East Kentucky Power Cooperative to cut a 100-foot-wide swath through a section of the forest in Rowan County, writes Roger Alford of The Associated Press. Spokesman Perrin de Jong said invaders, including the brown-headed cowbird, which lays its eggs in borrowed nests, could use the passage to prey on migratory songbirds that now nest safely in the forest's interior.

Ben Worthington, manager of the forest, said last month that he found no need for an environmental impact statement because the project would not adversely effect federally endangered or threatened species. Worthington acknowledged that the project will increase the diversity of wildlife in the forest, but said similar power line rights of way cut through the forest in the past "have been without significant effect."

Environmentalists disagree, pointing to cowbirds to make their point. The birds, among the most abundant and widespread in North America, lay up to 40 eggs each a year in borrowed nests. In some cases, songbirds end up incubating larger cowbird eggs. The cowbird fledglings grab most of the food from the adults, causing other young birds in the nest to starve.

Senate GOP tries to avoid filibuster against drilling in Alaskan refuge

Senate Republicans say they are planning a legislative maneuver to push through President Bush's plan to allow oil drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, avoiding the threat of filibusters, which have killed the measure in the past, reports The New York Times.

The maneuver, which senators and Congressional aides said would be made public today as part of the Senate budget resolution, would open the door to drilling with a simple majority of 51 votes, instead of the 60 required to block a filibuster, writes Sheryl Gay Stolberg. The same move failed two years ago, but with 55 Republican senators -- four more than before -- drilling proponents of say they have fresh hope that Congress will approve the plan, a central component of Bush's energy policy, writes Stolberg.

Sen. Pete Domenici, the New Mexico Republican and champion of the drilling provision, told The Times, "The people who are for this, ANWR, have to have 51 votes," said "The people who are against it can take it out with 51 votes. All we're saying is, that seems pretty American, pretty fair."

The move will reopen one of the most contentious and long-running energy debates in Washington at a time when the Senate, under a newly strengthened Republican majority, is pushing through a variety of bills that opponents say benefit big business, Stolberg writes. A measure that changes the way the courts handle class-action lawsuits has already passed, and a second bill that would make it more difficult for consumers to use bankruptcy to escape paying debts appears headed for passage this week.

Country Music Highway Museum opens, noting Eastern Kentucky musicians

People know the land along U.S. 23 in Eastern Kentucky as the coal miner’s world, plentiful with spirit but impoverished after so long depending on natural resources to fuel the economy.

But as of last Saturday, it will be known for one more thing: the Country Music Highway Museum in Johnson County, an effort to boost the region's economy by using its musical heritage to build up tourism, writes Loretta Tackett in The Paintsville Herald. Paintsville Tourism has designated $45,000 a year for the museum, which will cost $70,000 and will need an extra $25,000 to open, its manager said.

The museum highlights 12 artists, two of whom were present at the ribbon-cutting: Crystal Gayle of Johnson County and Tom T. Hall of Carter County. Others are: Loretta Lynn (Gayle’s sister) and Hylo Brown, both of Johnson County; Gary Stewart of Letcher County; Patty Loveless of Pike County, Dwight Yoakam of Floyd County, Rebecca Lynn Howard of Magoffin County, Ricky Skaggs of Lawrence County, Keith Whitley of Elliott County, Billy Ray Cyrus of Greenup County and Naomi and Wynona Judd of Boyd County.

University of Missouri unveils new electronic newspaper; wave of future?

The world's oldest journalism school is introducing newspaper-looking content that electronically transcends ink and paper in a new way, reports The Associated Press. The experiment is called EmPRINT, and analysts say it could be what newspapers may look like in the future.

The University of Missouri's daily newspaper, the Columbia Missourian, will experiment on 10 consecutive Sundays with the page-turning serendipity of stories and advertising laid out like a newspaper but readable with clarity on computer screens, AP writes. EmPRINT stands for Electronic Media Print. Designer Roger Fidler also says with a smile that the spoken version, "M-print," evokes the host school, Missouri, and its new journalism institute, which nurtured the experiment.

EmPRINT's design is the realization of a dream Fidler had in 1981, and cultivated through years of pioneering new media for Knight Ridder and other sponsors. Considered a visionary in converging newspapers with evolving technology, Fidler is the first visiting fellow at the university's Reynolds Institute. He said his research on electronic papers "was a terrific fit" with Missouri's journalism program, including a daily newspaper that is a working laboratory for students with professional supervision and editing. To learn more about EmPRINT, click here. To contact designer Roger Fidler, click here.

Bath basks in 300th birthday; N.C.’s first town kicks off year-long party

The small town of Bath was North Carolina's first port, and produced the state's first shipyard and gristmill. It is home to the state's first public library -- and its oldest surviving church, reports the Raleigh News & Observer. Now Bath is celebrating its 300th birthday.

"It was even a haunt and hiding spot for the pirate Blackbeard, who married one of the town's daughters. But it was Bath's chief claim to fame -- as the first town in North Carolina -- that prompted the people of this colonial village to don old-timey costumes and brave windy weather yesterday. They were celebrating Bath's 300th birthday," writes J. Andrew Curliss.

The town of Bath traces its name to the times of Rome. The state's first town was named for John Granville, Earl of Bath, one of the later proprietors of the Carolinas colony, Curliss writes. He was from Bath in England. That town's name was given by Roman settlers, who enjoyed the public baths they found there on missions. Bath, N.C., was incorporated on March 8, 1705.

The first lots for the town were sold on Sept. 27, 1706. By October of that year, 25 people had bought lots. In 1708, the town had 50 residents and 12 houses. The 2000 census put the population at 275. You can find out more at www.historicbathnc.com.

Garden State moves to protect tomato’s ‘veggie’ status; cites court precedent

The humble tomato may technically be a fruit, but New Jersey lawmakers, who are seeing red in the debate, consider it a vegetable and are moving to official designate it as such.

A legislative committee has approved a measure designating the Jersey tomato as the official state vegetable. Sponsors of the measure get around the fact that the tomato is considered a fruit by using a century-old U.S. Supreme Court ruling that slapped a vegetable tariff on tomatoes, reports The Associated Press. Justices on the 1887 high court reasoned that if it's typically served with dinner, and not as a dessert, it must be a vegetable, AP reports. Sen. Ellen Karcher, who is co-sponsoring the Senate version of the bill told the wire service, "Botanically it's a fruit, legally it's a vegetable. Any of these bills that promote statewide pride is something we should embrace."

The Jersey tomato's ride through the Legislature began after a group of fourth-graders wrote letters urging lawmakers to adopt a state fruit. The beloved blueberry won out, and it - not the tomato - took its place last year as the official state fruit. There currently is no official state vegetable in the Garden State. (Your bloggers note all this attention is enough to make a tomato blush.

Tuesday, March 8, 2005

Days of high cotton ending? GOP, constituents caught in subsidies battle

President Bush's proposal to cut billions of dollars in subsidies to big cotton growers has struck at a core Republican constituency, setting off a battle in GOPl ranks that pits budget cutters and prairie-state populists against traditional agricultural interests, reports Dan Morgan of The Washington Post.

"The Bush plan threatens an elaborate government safety net that is the handiwork of such legendary southern Democrats as Lyndon B. Johnson (Tex.) and James O. Eastland (Miss.), as well as a new generation of Republican leaders from the region," Morgan writes. "The move reflects growing pressure to hold down soaring federal deficits and a recognition that even a business woven deeply into the history, economy and politics of the South must come to terms with dramatic changes underway in global trade."

Underscoring that reality, the World Trade Organization in Geneva has ruled U.S. cotton subsidies violate global trade rules because they exceed limits agreed to in 1944. If the United States does not correct the situation, Brazil, which brought the complaint, could retaliate against U.S. products.
As part of its 2006 budget proposal, the Bush administration would trim benefits for growers of most staple crops, including wheat, corn and soybeans, Morgan reports.

Economists and officials say the hardest hit would be big producers of cotton in Republican strongholds of Texas, Mississippi, Arkansas, Tennessee, Alabama and Georgia. Large-scale operators in California and Arizona would also be affected. The U.S. Department of Agriculture projects cotton farmers will gobble up a quarter of farm subsidy payments this year, with most going to a few hundred big growers.

Tobacco farmers deal with new realities of growing the golden leaf

“A fixture on the Kentucky landscape for nearly a century, tobacco will soon begin to disappear from many of the state’s fields, leaving an uncertain economic outlook for both farmers and the tobacco-dependent counties in which many live.”

That paragraph, written by Louisville senior Kyle Hamilton, begins a story reported and largely written by students in the Rural Journalism class at the University of Kentucky. They are examining the future of tobacco farming and tobacco-dependent communities in the wake of the end of the federal program of tobacco quotas and price supports.

“This is the biggest structural change of our lifetimes,” University of Kentucky farm management specialist Steve Isaacs told a crowd of wary growers in Shelbyville last month. The UK students covered several of the meetings held by Isaacs and colleague Will Snell, to see where tobacco and its growers are headed.

For 65 years, the federal program limited the amount growers could sell but set a minimum price for their leaf. “Now they can grow all they want, but the price will be about 25 percent less – about $1.50 a pound instead of $2,” the story says. “That and other changes in the tobacco market mean that some growers won’t be growing any more.”

Hand counts at growers’ meetings indicated that around half who attended and grew tobacco in 2004 would grow it in 2005. “Very few said they planned to increase production, but some of those increases will be large,” the story says. “Most who plan to increase production appear to be those who grew more than 10,000 pounds last year, according to UK student Phillip Stith’s survey of 41 growers at the Tobacco Farmer Day at the National Farm Machinery Show in Louisville.” To read the rest of the story, click here.

Patients, journalism students hope ‘Cancer Stories’ can help others

Cancer rates in Central Appalachia are not much higher than for the nation as a whole, but the death rate is higher – reflecting a lack of screening that leads to diagnosis and proper treatment. That was one of the major messages last month at the first conference held by the Institute for Rural Journalism and Community Issues, on “Covering Health Care and Health in Mid-Appalachia.” For a report, click here.

One of the main recommendations for journalists at the conference was to write stories about people who survived cancer because they got colonoscopies, Pap smears or other forms of screening that some people shun. And that could be a secondary impact of Cancer Stories: Lessons in Love, Loss & Hope, a project by a group of journalism students from West Virginia University.

The book tells the stories of seven cancer victims. “It is being released this month by WVU Press but it has already drawn national media attention, and a student-produced documentary of the three-year-long project released last year won a regional Emmy,” reports Michelle Saxton of The Associated Press. “Although much of that attention has been focused on the work as a product of student journalists, and the effect on them, the larger impact may be on the medical community.”

“These journalistic works will help offer physicians a primer on how to treat the ‘whole patient,’ who may be struggling with finances, family problems and emotional stress, in addition to fighting a life-threatening disease,” Dr. Eddie Reed, director of The Mary Babb Randolph Cancer Clinic where the patients were treated, says in the book's flyleaf.

Jennifer Roush, who wrote the story of a woman who is battling breast cancer that has spread to her liver, said of the physicians: “They don't get to go home with their patients. They don't get to sit at the dinner table with them. They don't see what happens after they walk out of the hospital doors.” Roush, who was interviewed by Saxton, is now features editor at the Times West Virginian in Fairmont.

The book also highlights the challenges that some patients in rural areas face, such as limited transportation, which can lead to a decision “for more severe treatments -- perhaps a mastectomy versus a lumpectomy -- because they require fewer follow-up visits,” Saxton writes.

Illinois utility to spend $500 million on cleanup; largest penalty imposed

The Justice Department has reached a settlement with Illinois Power over Clean Air Act violations that would require the utility to spend $500 million on new pollution controls and to pay $9 million in fines, the largest penalty imposed on a power company for excessive emissions, reports The New York Times.

The installation of control devices at five plants is intended to reduce overall levels of sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxides by 54,000 tons a year, writes Michael Janofsky. The company agreed to spend $15 million to work on the harmful effects of past emissions.

Thomas L. Sansonetti, assistant attorney general for environment and natural resources, told The Times, "The citizens of Illinois could not have asked for a better result." The settlement was the eighth since 1999 in cases in which the government has sued utilities for violating the "new source review" provisions of the Clean Air Act. Seven other cases are in litigation involving a requirement to install pollution-reducing equipment any time plants undergo major renovations or expansions.

The agreement was announced two days before the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee is scheduled to complete the Clear Skies Act of 2005, which would set new limits on pollutants and dates to meet them. Backers say it would eliminate the need for suits that use new source review rules to bring plants into compliance.

Rural Alaskans may get nation's first tiny nuclear reactor; hope for cheaper rates

Because they pay sky-high rates for electricity generated from barged-in diesel fuel, the 700 residents of Galena, Alaska, may turn to nuclear power. “But Galena's plant would be far different from other U.S. commercial nuclear power plants -- at 10 megawatts, it would be downright tiny,” writes Dan Joling of The Associated Press.

”City officials met recently with staff from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to discuss licensing a plant being developed by Toshiba Corp. that could be a test case for providing cheap power to rural communities,” Joling reports, noting that the smallest U.S. nuclear plants produce 470 megawatts. “If it's successful in Galena, there are likely to be applications elsewhere.”

“Few places are as rural in America as rural Alaska, and options for low-cost power are few,” Joling recounts. Galena electric customers pay 30 cents a kilowatt hour, “compared to a national average of 8.71 cents, so they cook with propane, turn off lights and limit television time.” The town concluded that “wind and solar power were impractical and that coal was too costly,” and that nuclear power would cost about 10 cents per kwh.

Toshiba officials said the reactor would be about seven feet tall, about eight feet around and be placed about 60 feet below ground, near the bottom of a concrete tube. Its fuel “would stay encapsulated for 30 years, unlike fuel at a conventional reactor that is routinely replenished,” Joling reports.

Kentucky cigarette tax going from 3 cents to 30; a penny for cancer research

Kentucky House Speaker Jody Richards says the adding a penny to a cigarette-tax increase in a closed conference committee should not complicate passage of a state budget and tax reform today.

Under the proposal, the per-pack cigarette tax would rise by 27 cents -- 30 cents total. The House and Senate earlier agreed on a 26-cent increase. Gov. Ernie Fletcher originally proposed a 34-cent total, writes Mark Chellgren of The Associated Press. Richards said money raised from the extra penny would be directed specifically for cancer research at the University of Kentucky and University of Louisville. Richards told Chellgren, "I think our members will understand how important cancer research is."

Even opponents of the cigarette tax increase said the extra penny is difficult to oppose, writes Chellgren. Rep. Rick Rand, D-Bedford, one of only four lawmakers to vote against the tax proposal the first time around in the General Assembly told AP, "I don't think it's going to create that much additional heartburn."

As for political issues, Richards said he was speaking about opposition from legislators and any fallout that might come from voters who object to any sort of a tax increase. The proceeds of the last penny will be equally split among the two schools to help them create nationally accredited cancer research centers and must also be matched with money raised by the schools, which could be $5 million to $8 million annually.

Kentucky wildlife chief retiring; restored habitat, elk; angered 'deer farmers'

After nearly 12 years as commissioner of the Kentucky Department of Fish and Wildlife Resources, Tom Bennett, who oversaw the return of elk to Kentucky and other successful efforts to expand wildlife populations, will retire, reports The Associated Press.

Bennett, known to friends and outdoor enthusiasts as “The Fish Commish,” said he plans to step down June 30. Fish and Wildlife Commission Chairman Doug Hensley of Hazard said Bennett's stewardship of the agency will shape opportunities for outdoor enthusiasts for decades, writes Bruce Schreiner. Hensley cited public land acquisition, youth hunts, urban fishing events, conservation education, public boating access and wildlife species restoration as among Bennett's accomplishments. Bennett, 52, told Schreiner that Kentucky's wildlife populations have reached record highs, allowing the commission to extend seasons. Bennett also leaves the license-financed agency in strong financial shape.

Bennett is not in the good graces of Kentuckians who want to raise cervids -- deer and elk -- in fenced areas, the Licking Valley Courier of West Liberty (no Web site) reported last week. Bennett says such operations can spawn chronic wasting disease, similar to mad-cow disease, posing a threat to wild cervids. The "deer farmers" told Courier Editor and Publisher Earl W. Kinner Jr. that the state has fewer than 100 cervid farms, down from 300 in 2002, because of Bennett. "Kentucky farmers need new methods of making a living with the loss from tobacco," cervid farmer Lou Ortega of Cumberland County told Kinner.

West Virginia county exempts bars, video-lottery sites from smoking ban

West Virginia, which has a relatively large number of localities that ban smoking in most indoor workplaces, has one fewer county with a smoking ban that applies to bars.

The Braxton County Board of Health voted recently to exempt bars and video lottery establishments from the clean air ordinance that went into effect January 1. The reprieve will expire January 1, 2007, reports the Braxton Citizens-News.

After two members of the five-member board left the meeting, citing other commitments, the remaining members voted 2-1 for the exemption. Earlier, the full board voted 4-1 against a proposed exemption for restaurants with a separate smoking section.

According to Americans for Nonsmokers Rights, West Virginia is one of the leading states with local smoking bans. The state has 19 counties with such ordinances, all but one of them applying to workplaces; that one, in Marshall County, applies only to restaurants. Now that Braxton County has exempted bars, only three counties (Lincoln, Tucker and Webster) now ban smoking in bars. For a list of local smoking ordinances from Americans for Nonsmokers’ Rights, click here.

Meth makers sentenced to life; appropriate punishment, says U.S. attorney

Two Kentuckians will serve life in prison for conspiring to manufacture and distribute methamphetamine.

Alan R. Mann, 49, and Tiffany Arnold, 34, were sentenced yesterday by U.S. District Judge Danny Reeves. U.S. Attorney Gregory Van Tatenhove told The Associated Press the punishment was appropriate: "I think we all understand how insidious this drug is, the effect it is having on our communities," he said, calling the cases "egregious," and noting that one person died after taking meth Arnold distributed.

Mann was convicted of conspiring to manufacture methamphetamine, distributing and possessing with intent to distribute the drug, possessing the materials to make the drug, possession of a pipe bomb and of being a convicted felon in possession of a firearm. Arnold was convicted of conspiring to manufacture methamphetamine, distributing the drug, and of possessing material to make the drug.

W. Va. House OKs removal of last segregationist language in state constitution

House of Delegates members unanimously passed legislation Monday wiping out the last vestiges of segregationist language in the West Virginia Constitution, sending the bill to the Senate for consideration.

Delegate Cliff Moore, D-McDowell, one of the bill’s three sponsors, told the newspaper, “It’s a great feeling. I think it’s something that’s long overdue.” Moore’s father, the late Del. Ernest Moore, tried to wipe out all such language in the early 1990s. A Yale University professor, however, contacted Del. Sharon Spencer, D-Kanawha, this year and pointed out the remaining language, writes Tom Searls in the Charleston Gazette. Moore praised Spencer’s diligence and said the language has remained in the constitution because of “oversights by many, many people.”

Another bill with racial overtones was introduced Monday by the senior member of the House: Delegate John Overington, R-Berkeley, writes Searls. His bill would do away with hate crimes in the state. State law allows for enhanced penalties for a crime committed as a hate crime for reasons of “race, color, religion, ancestry, national origin, political affiliation or sex ...” Overington told Searls, “A crime is a crime regardless of what the motive is and each person should be treated equally."

'Lizard-brain' TV: Placating the public rather than broadcasting news

Americans get most of their information about public affairs from local television news, which pulls in billions from advertisers and is one of the most profitable sectors of the entertainment industry, according to the National Association of Broadcasters. (Bloggers' aside: Note reference to "entertainment.")

But TV news is feeding us a diet of “sex, celebrity, novelty and melodrama,” to mesmerize us rather than educate us, writes Martin Kaplan, associate dean of the USC Annenberg School for Communication and director of its Norman Lear Center, which recently conducted a study that showed politics getting short shrift from television news departments in 11 of the nation's largest TV markets.

In his article in the Sunday Los Angeles Times, he talks about the "lizard brains" of the public and TV news’ failure to adequately cover politics and public issues. He cites KCBS-TV, which rather than airing a recent mayoral debate, decided to broadcast post-Oscar coverage from "Entertainment Tonight."

For years until the 1980s laws governed the radio and television airwaves, Kaplan writes, but then the Federal Communications Commission decided television should be treated like any other appliance. The deregulation argument at the time was based on the presumption that because consumers were gaining so many choices, the old rules from an era of scarcity no longer applied. The argument was that if people wanted public affairs, they could find it somewhere, he writes. Television news networks were no longer required to ask the public what programming they wanted and no longer had to log what they aired. Now all a network has to do to renew its license is fill out paperwork every eight years, he writes.

“It could be that we really are happy to see (the airwaves) strip-mined for all it's worth and to see voters — in Tuesday's mayoral election, for instance — divide themselves into the few who know much because they watch public affairs programming and read newspapers, and the many who think they know far more than they actually do because they watch local news,” he writes.

Kentucky town makes a Ten Most Wanted list; check bouncers, beware!

The Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Kentucky State Police both have Ten Most Wanted lists, including terrorists, murderers and burglars. And Winchester, Ky., has decided to follow suit, making its Internet version of the Ten Most Wanted list using a litany of felonies and misdemeanors that includes writing cold checks and receiving stolen property, reports The Winchester Sun.

Detective Shannon Stone told the daily newspaper that even though the people on Winchester’s list committed much less severe crimes, they are still fugitives. "These are people who are being sought," he told reporter Tim Weldon. "This is our way of informing the community of who we're looking for."

It wasn’t hard to find 10 people to post on the list, since no one actually knows how many people are wanted by the city police, Weldon writes. But finding 10 who face severe enough charges for the list and who have photos available is a little more difficult. "These are people who have active warrants on them," Stone explained. "These are the 10 people presumed by Winchester police to be the most wanted.

Saturday Special: March 5, 2005

Panelists at unique symposium discuss ways to improve rural Kentucky life

People from very different walks of life shared ideas on rural communities and economies Friday at “Growing Kentucky: New Directions for Our Culture of Land and Food.” The symposium, which continues today, is sponsored by the University of Kentucky’s College of Agriculture and Gaines Center for the Humanities, with assistance from Partners for Family Farms.

“Nowhere else can you find such interesting viewpoints to discuss rural life,” said Cindi Sullivan of Louisville’s WHAS Radio and WAVE-TV, who moderated the panel on rural communities.

The symposium was occasioned in part by the end of the federal program of tobacco quotas and price supports, which panelists agreed would be the largest change in Kentucky agriculture since the program was established more than 65 years ago. Some speakers said the end of the program, and the money that growers will be paid for their quotas, create the best opportunity yet to make realities of their dreams of a diversified agricultural economy that supports local communities – some of which have been very dependent on tobacco, a crop that kept many small farms in business.

"If we want to have diversified agricultire, we must have diversified ideas," LaJuana Wilcher, secretary of the state Environmental and Public Protection Cabinet, told the crowd at the opening session.

Some speakers expressed frustration that more has not been done in the last decade, despite warnings about the decline of tobacco and rural communities. The “right groups” get together and talk but haven’t gotten much accomplished because they want to protect their turf, said rural-economies panelist Lois Mateus, senior vice president of Brown-Forman Corp., major sponsor of the symposium. “Everyone seems to have their own noble idea,” Mateus said. She added that UK is best suited to lead change because it has “troops in the field,” primarily the Cooperative Extension Service, which has agents who work on community development as well as agriculture, 4-H and family and consumer topics.

Mateus and Michael Childress, director of the Kentucky Long-Term Policy Research Center, said the key to rural economic development is a regional approach, in which groups of counties use their existing strengths to build an economic niche. One example of that is the houseboat industry that has developed along Lake Cumberland, in the towns of Somerset, Monticello and Albany, said Al Cross, interim director of the Institute for Rural Journalism and Community Issues, who has lived and worked in the towns.

Cross noted that the industry developed without much government help, and Childress said regional cooperation faces obstacles because Kentucky has many counties where judge-executives and mayors fail to coordinate. He and others said a key to rural economic development is local leadership. Mateus called for “more imaginative action in Frankfort and Washington.”

Childress said the urgency for rural development is increasing, noting that Kentucky’s 58 most rural counties have become more dependent on transfer payments, which include all forms of government benefits. Such payments accounted for 25 percent of the counties; income in 1990, and rose to 30 percent by 2002, he said. That trend was a corollary to another troubling trend in rural Kentucky, a widening wage gap with urban areas. Childress said that trend continues to make rural people migrate to urban areas.

Cross urged those at the economies session to seek coverage and commentary from their local newspapers and broadcast stations of the issues discussed at the conference, making them relevant to local concerns. He and other speakers voiced concern that the decline of rural economies is leading to a decline in the sense of community in rural areas, as residents travel to larger towns and regional centers for shopping and services.

Kentucky's internationally reknowned poet, essayist and farmer, Wendell Berry attended both panels, which began in the morning and were repeated in the afternoon. During discussion in the afternoon panel on communities, he mentioned the importance of keeping the wealth of the country in the country. “We need to teach the country person how they can take back their wealth,” said Berry. (He and Kentucky authors Davis McCombs and Barbara Kingsolver read from their works at a Friday evening session.)

Cross said in concluding the economies panel that he hoped some of the tobacco growers who will be getting large checks for their quotas will invest their money in their own communities.

David Wagoner, a farmer from Nicholas County on the economies panel, said individuals hold they key to small-town economies. Samuel Stokes of the National Park Service said likewise during the communities panel, reminding attendees that agricultural community is more than just land. “It’s everything together that makes the rural community so special. But especially, it’s the people in the community that make it what it is,” said Stokes, who is chief of the park service's Rivers, Trails and Conservation Program.

Wagoner is trying “community supported agriculture,” in which community members sign pledges before the growing season to buy certain shares of a local farm’s production, and wants his farm to be both economically and ecologically sustainable. “We do well to be economically sustainable,” he said.

Jess Miller, a UK student and Gaines Fellow on the communities panel, said she is a member of Community Farm Alliance and is committed to eating locally grown food.

Environmental lawyer Hank Graddy, of the Cumberland Chapter of the Sierra Club, called for conservation and preservation during the communities panel. “Growth is both good and bad and it’s our job to determine the difference,” he said. “We need growth that enhances the quality of life.”

Several attendees said the College of Agriculture, which in the past has often been indetified with large farming interests, broke new ground by co-sponsoring the symposium. Mike Mullen, the college’s associate dean for academics, said during the economies panel that the college is considering a sustainable-agriculture curriculum and is moving 11 acres on its farm to “organic and sustainable production.” College Dean Scott Smith said in opening the conference that it was "critical to our planning and our ability to serve the future of the commonwealth."

Brittany Johnson of the Rural Journalism class at UK contributed to this report.

Friday, March 4, 2005

Traditional town meetings best form of government; every resident a legislator

Many aspects of life have changed over the past two hundred years, but one thing hasn’t changed in New Hampshire since 1805: True democracy in the form of a town meeting, writes New Hampshire Agriculture Commissioner Stephen Taylor.

In his Weekly Market Bulletin, Taylor summarizes the main points of Frank Bryan, a farmer and University of Vermont political science professor who lectured recently about the value of town meetings. Such meetings insure that everyone knows what’s happening in the community and what the community expects of each person, Bryan said. “Of all forms of government around the globe only the New England town meeting automatically makes all voters of a community into real legislators…” he said.

The pressure of growing communities has made many towns switch to council-manager forms of government, but “a well-run meeting (with) a strong tradition of public participation” is the best form of government anywhere, Bryan said.

To see a recent Washington Post story about the power of New England town meetings, check the Rural Blog item from Wednesday, March 2.

Minnesota Senate passes anti-meth bill; retailers protest medicine restrictions

Sweeping new restrictions on sales of a popular cold remedy that contains a key ingredient in methamphetamine have been unanimously approved by the Minnesota Senate, despite protests from some retailers, reports the Star-Tribune.

Beginning 30 days after enactment of the bill, sponsored by Sen. Linda Berglin, DFL-Minneapolis, only licensed pharmacies in Minnesota would be allowed to carry over-the-counter remedies containing pseudoephedrine or ephedrine, writes Conrad Defiebre of the Minneapolis newspaper.

The widely used nasal decongestants would be reclassified as controlled substances. Consumers still wouldn't need a prescription to buy the drugs, best known under the brand names Sudafed and Actifed, but would be required to sign a pharmacist's log and prove they are at least 18 years old. Buyers would be limited to two packages of the medication each month, writes Defiebre.

Such curbs on an over-the-counter remedy would be practically unprecedented in Minnesota. But proponents argued it is the only proven means of countering a methamphetamine epidemic that has shattered families and communities, especially across rural America. Berglin told the newspaper, "We want something that will work. This will save lives and reduce pain and suffering."

Pseudoephedine and ephedrine tablets are indispensable ingredients for methmakers, whose clandestine laboratories have become acute hazards for fires, explosions and environmental contamination. Minnesota police have raided more than 300 meth-labs in the past decade, he writes. For the Pioneer Press version, by Rachel E. Stassen-Berger, click here.

Federal meth site clean-up guidelines, funding for health effects research sought

Even as law enforcement cracks down on hidden labs cooking up methamphetamine across the country, there's no consensus on how to handle the drug's toxic byproducts, reports The Associated Press.

A U. S. House of Representatives bill, introduced by Reps. Sherwood Boehlert, R-N.Y., Bart Gordon, D-Tenn., and Ken Calvert, R-Calif., would ask the Environmental Protection Agency to set voluntary standards for cleaning such sites and to fund research on the health effects, particularly on children and first-responders, reports AP.

Experts say little is known about how long meth-related contamination lasts, how best to clean up, and how toxic byproducts effect people on or near polluted sites. Drug Enforcement Agency figures show that in Kentucky, the meth problem took root and grew fastest in poor, rural areas, where the number of lab seizures multiplied from 104 in 2000 to 579 in 2004.

Alleged meth lab shut down third time; close to school and day care

For the third time since 2003, an illicit methamphetamine lab near an elementary school and a day-carecenter in Oak Ridge, Tenn. has been busted, reports the Knoxville News-Sentinel.

Anderson County Sheriff Bill White said an active lab for manufacturing the illegal drug was found in the kitchen, writes Bob Fowler. White said in a media release, "(These) meth labs have been of particular concern due to the close proximity to (the school) and a day care center (with) the possibility of the students being exposed to the lab.”

Meth labs are considered explosive, toxic and environmental hazards. White noted 10 arrests have been made at the same house in recent months for numerous reasons, including drug possession. He said after the second meth lab bust at the same home, the home owner’s son, who was 15 at the time, was removed and placed in foster care. Law enforcement agencies are seeking federal indictments against three individuals, Fowler writes.

W. Va. racetracks push 'table games' as hedge against out-of-state competition

Representatives from West Virginia’s four racetracks and allies descended on the Capitol yesterday to urge lawmakers to legalize casino-style table games as a hedge against out-of-state competition, reports The Herald-Dispatch.

Bipartisan bills would allow the racetrack host counties to hold local elections on whether table games, such as blackjack, should be allowed at the tracks. Speaker Bob Kiss, D-Raleigh, was one of seven co-sponsors of the House version, writes the Huntington newspaper.

Several hundred racetrack workers, executives and local government officials rallied for the bills and lobbied lawmakers to support them. Advocates believe the games will stem the loss of gamblers and revenue to other states. Slot machines at the tracks last year netted the state $371 million in lottery revenue. But, The Herald-Dispatch reports, Pennsylvania is poised to switch on thousands of slots this year, and Maryland legislators are negotiating a compromise bill to legalize the machines there.

West Virginia Racing Association President John Cavacini told the crowd table games would give the Mountain State’s tracks an edge over Pennsylvania and other competitors. "We had the product, and the neighboring states had the population, but these other states have seen our success, and are now threatening our jobs and our revenue."

Delegate Kelli Sobonya, R-Cabell, opposes the table game bill, saying it strengthens the state’s reliance on an unstable source of revenue. She told the newspaper, "When citizens voted for the lottery amendment in the ‘80s, they never imagined it expanding into lottery machines and casinos opening next door." Some legislators want a statewide referendum on the table games. Del. Dale Stephens, D-Cabell said allowing table games in (the host) counties affects residents in all 55 counties. "That money is used in the state budget. I think it is a situation where the people of West Virginia as a whole should decide."

Robot explores fire-damaged coal mine; machine may help miners avoid risks

Federal mine safety officials gathered yesterday at a Pikeville coal mine, operated by Alliance Resource Partners, to tout the work of a robot used to explore hazardous conditions in mines and to speculate about the future of mining holds for such machines, reports The Associated Press.

Crews worked after the robot's exploratory tour to stabilize the mine following the fire that started Christmas Day before returning it to production on Feb. 21, writes Roger Alford. The robot maneuvered through dark portals, which had been deprived of oxygen in an effort to smother the fire, aiming onboard lights and cameras in all directions, scanning for flames, monitoring for explosive methane gas, and looking for rocks cracked and loosened by the heat. John Correll, assistant director of the U.S. Mine Safety and Health Administration told Alford the exercise marked the first time a robot was sent into a coal mine ahead of humans to make sure conditions were safe.

Alford asked, could the robot be the first of a long line of such machines working in underground coal mines? Correll told him, "I don't foresee a day when robots will replace miners, but I do foresee miners using robotics to mine coal." Correll said continuous miners, used to chew coal from underground mines, are operated by remote control. Other machines have been developed to dig coal from beneath highwalls without a miner ever setting foot underground, controlled from an above-ground computer console.

"You're never going to see total automation in mining," said Joe Craft, president and chief executive officer of Alliance Resource Partners, Kentucky's largest coal producer. Mining engineers have been exploring technology from the aerospace, manufacturing and nuclear industries to make a dangerous line of work safer. Since 1900, more than 104,000 workers have died in the nation's coalfields.

Kentucky legislative panel rushes heavy-truck bill; public shut out, says paper

A Senate panel yesterday rushed out a slightly modified bill that would put more overweight trucks on Kentucky roads, brushing aside for the second day people waiting to speak against it.

Rep. Ancel Smith, D-Leburn, who sat in the audience with a half-dozen of his Letcher County constituents told John Cheves of the Lexington Herald-Leader, "I've never seen a bill so bad, hated by so many people, get pushed through the legislature so hard." The full Senate is expected to vote today on House Bill 8, which would let gravel trucks rumble over the roads at 60 tons, 50 percent heavier than the state's general 40-ton limit.

The Courier-Journal reports that Tom FitzGerald, director of the Kentucky Resources Council, told the Louisville newspaper the bill is poorly written and could force coal haulers to start paying for maintenance on public roads. Currently, only coal trucks can travel at 60 tons, prompting complaints of inequity from politically powerful road builders who need gravel.

The Senate Transportation Committe, in a brief meeting, changed the bill in hopes of pacifying cities angry over the prospect of huge gravel trucks roaring through neighborhoods. But lobbyists for the cities told Cheves the hastily prepared changes solve nothing. The revised bill tries to limit 60-ton trucks to designated coal-hauling roads most common in Kentucky's rural counties, rather than allow new gravel-hauling roads to be established in cities, he writes. For the Courier-Journal version, click here.

National study says most traffic deaths occur on rural roads; 7 out of 10 in Ky.

A study by a private safety group says people are being killed on rural, non-Interstate roads at more than double the rate for all other routes, and it blames narrow roads, sharp curves and a lack of money for safety improvements, reports the Lexington Herald-Leader.

The Road Information Program (TRIP) says that 52 percent of traffic deaths nationwide between 1999 and 2003 happened on rural, non-Interstate roads and highways. Traffic on these roads accounted for only 28 percent of travel, writes the newspaper. In 2003, there were 2.72 deaths per 100 million miles traveled on non-Interstate rural roads compared with .99 deaths per 100 million miles on all other roads. The study was prepared by TRIP, a Washington-based group.

Seven out of 10 traffic deaths in Kentucky occurred on country roads even though bustling interstates and big city highways have more traffic, the study said. The death rate on non-interstate, rural roads and highways was three times higher than other state roads from 1999 to 2003, and the fifth highest in the nation. The report appears to counter claims by the Kentucky State Police and transportation officials who have maintained not wearing seat-belts is the major contributing factor in fatalities.

Only 44 percent of Kentucky's roadway travel occurred on these roads, which had a fatality rate of 3.32 deaths per 100 million miles driven. All other roads, by contrast, had a .95 rate. A partial explanation, the group said, is that rural roads are more likely to be poorly designed and have narrow lanes, limited shoulders, sharp curves, exposed hazards, pavement drop-offs and steep slopes.

South Carolina prosecutor defends decision to withhold 911 tapes from paper

This week a South Carolina prosecutor, who withheld 911 tapes for a shooting from the local newspaper, defended his decision to the state Supreme Court, reports The Associated Press.

One lawyer, Derk Van Raalte, said the tapes would have jeopardized the right to a fair trial for four men accused in 2000 of beating Edward Snowden before police shot him. The Charleston Post and Courier asked for the 911 tapes after prosecutor Ralph Hoisington declined to prosecute the officers who shot Snowden. Newspaper lawyer John Kerr said the tapes are public documents.

Big trees put down roots in Kentucky; foresters take stock of embattled giants

As winter melts away to spring, Kentucky's foresters will be checking many of the state's champion big trees to make sure they are still standing and healthy, reports The Courier-Journal

Diana Olszowy of the Kentucky Division of Forestry told columnist Byron Crawford, "Some of these big old guys can't take as much as they used to. We just remeasure these every five years from when they are listed and it could be that tornadoes, wind storms and ice storms have taken tops out. Some could have been harvested and some may have just died and blown over."

The longtime state and national champion Kentucky coffee tree in Morgan County was destroyed last year by arson, Crawford notes. A former state champion Osage orange in Madisonville was lost in a storm, and the giant Bourbon County state champion bur oak that measures nearly 27 feet in circumference has lost part of its majestic 103-foot crown, Crawford writes.

In some cases such damage may be enough to disqualify a big tree as a champion. Currently the Kentucky Division of Forestry has no champion Kentucky coffee tree, black oak, scarlet oak, shagbark hickory, Ohio buckeye, black maple, red mulberry, umbrella magnolia, pumpkin ash, swamp privet, water hickory, silverbell, sourwood or winged sumac. Six national champions More than 90 species are included in the list of reigning state champion big trees, and six of the Kentucky champions also hold the title of American Forest national champions. Do you have a 'champion tree?' To find out click here, or call (800) 866-0555.

Another official bans contact between public employees and the press

The mayor of Phoenix, Oregon, has forbidden any elected officials and public employees to discuss city business with reporters. All questions are to go to her office alone, reports The Associated Press.

In the same vein, Mayor Vicki Bear chided a reporter for trying to contact a city employee without going through her first. When a Daily Tidings reporter tried to keep a scheduled meeting with a city planner, Bear emailed saying: “"When I said that there is a contact person for media that is exactly what I mean. That doesn't mean that you turn around and contact the city's planning dept." Bear said her goal in the decision is to keep a single media contact, and that she as mayor was the most likely person.

Something similar happened in Baltimore, Maryland, when the Gov. Robert Ehrlich barred any state employees from talking to two reporters from The Baltimore Sun. His reason, he said, was that the reporters were not objectively covering his administration. The paper sued, saying the decision violated journalists’ First Amendment rights. A federal judge ruled in favor of Ehrlich, however, saying the paper “wrongly asserted a greater right to access to government officials than private citizens have,” AP reports.

‘Bubba,’ the leviathan lobster, to live on; zoo to immortalize colossal crustacean

A gigantic lobster that may have survived two world wars and Prohibition before being plucked from the ocean will live on - but only as a shell of its former self, reports The Associated Press.

The Pittsburgh Zoo & PPG Aquarium plans to keep the shell of the 22-pound lobster, named Bubba, and use its remains to educate school children, said Rachel Capp, a zoo spokeswoman. Typically, it takes a lobster about five to seven years to grow to a pound. Some estimated Bubba was about 100 years old, but Marine biologists said 30 to 50 years was more likely.

Some of Bubba's meat will be sent to labs for testing to determine why he died. Bubba spent a week at a fish market after he was pulled from the waters off Nantucket, Mass. He died Wednesday, after being moved from the fish market to a quarantine area at the zoo's aquarium. Plans were to send him to an aquarium at a Ripley's Believe It or Not museum. Randy Goodlett, a marine biologist and former curator and director of the zoo's Aqua Zoo, said Bubba likely died because something was slightly off in the salt water mixture it was living in and he suffered stress from being moved so many times.

Thursday, March 3, 2005

New York Times / CBS News poll finds Bush priorities 'out of step' with public

Americans in most of the country do not share President Bush's priorities on either domestic or foreign issues, are increasingly resistant to his Social Security revamp plans and are uneasy with his ability to make the right decisions about the retirement program, according to a New York Times / CBS News poll released today.

"The poll underscores just how little headway Mr. Bush has made in his effort to build popular support as his proposal for overhauling Social Security struggles to gain footing in Congress," write Adam Nagourney and Janet Elder. At the same time, there has been an increase in respondents who say that efforts to restore order in Iraq are going well, even as an overwhelming number of Americans say Bush has no clear plan for getting out of Iraq, they write.

On Social Security, 51 percent said permitting individuals to invest part of their Social Security taxes in private accounts is a bad idea, even as a majority agree the program would become insolvent near the middle of the century if nothing is done. The number who think private accounts are a bad idea jumped to 69 percent when respondents were told the private accounts would result in a reduction in guaranteed benefits. Forty-five percent said Bush's private account plan would actually weaken the nation's retirement system, write Nagourney and Elder.

A majority of those surveyed said they would support raising the amount of income subject to Social Security payroll tax above its current ceiling of $90,000. The survey indicates strong resistance to other stated options to repair the system, in particular to raising the retirement age or making participation voluntary. In spite of the president's argument citizens should be given more control over their retirement savings, almost four out of five respondents said it was the government's responsibility to assure a decent standard of living for the elderly.

The poll was the first conducted by The Times and CBS News since the president's inauguration. It comes after six hectic weeks for the administration, with successful elections in Iraq but also the toughest period Bush has encountered on Capitol Hill, as he has struggled to win support for social security reforms, the signature proposal of his second term.

Hearing canceled on 'greased' trucking bill; public input unlikely

A Kentucky Senate committee yesterday ignored requests from a crowd that came to speak and abruptly called off a widely anticipated public hearing on a bill that would put more overweight trucks on Kentucky roads, reports the Lexington Herald-Leader.

Sen. Brett Guthrie, R-Bowling Green, told writer John Cheves the Senate Transportation Committee will meet and vote on the controversial bill on short notice during a break in Senate floor activity sometime during the next few days. House Bill 8 could be put to a vote by the full Senate within minutes if it is approved in that impromptu meeting, making public comment on the measure unlikely.

Guthrie said he is talking to Transportation Cabinet officials about possible changes, such as limiting where overweight trucks could travel, so he was not ready for a vote yesterday. Guthrie told reporters after the meeting, which dealt with several unrelated measures, "We're running out of time."

Opponents of the bill, many from Eastern Kentucky who drove through snow to attend, said they were disappointed by the cancellation but they also expected it. The bill is backed by Leonard Lawson, a road builder reliant on gravel. Lawson's family has given $76,000 to state legislative campaigns, plus $96,000 total to the state Democratic and Republican parties. Lawson did not return a call from the newspaper to his Lexington office.

Letcher County Judge-Executive Carroll Smith told Cheves, "The wheels seem pretty well greased. Even if you could get your hands on this bill, it would probably squirt right out, like a fish." The bill would expand the number of 60-ton trucks on the road. Critics say the massive rigs threaten motorists and pedestrians and cost taxpayers millions of dollars a year in road repairs. Currently, only coal trucks are allowed to run at 60 tons, 50 percent above the usual limit. The bill would authorize trucks hauling other "natural resources" to do the same.

To see the list of road segments in the extended weight coal haul road system click here. To call and comment on the legislation to your state senator call 1-800-372-7181. For The Courier-Journal report on the trucking bill, click here.

Kentucky Senate may increase cigarette tax 1 cent to battle cancer

Top Kentucky senators from both parties say they support adding another cent to the cigarette tax to help pay for cancer research at the state's two largest universities, reports The Courier-Journal.

The House and Senate previously approved a tax-restructuring bill that would raise the cigarette tax from 3 cents per pack to 29 cents. That bill has been referred to a conference committee to resolve differences between the two chambers passed, writes Tom Loftus. The committee is scheduled to begin working on final versions of the bills today. Senate President David Williams, R-Burkesville, and Senate Democratic Leader Ed Worley of Richmond told the C-J they support raising the tax to 30 cents per pack.

The extra penny would, according to legislators, raise $5 million to $6 million a year for cancer research at the University of Louisville's Brown Cancer Center and the University of Kentucky's Markey Cancer Center. The House version sets out $2.5 million to each research center. But the Senate has directed that money to other parts of the budget. Dr. Alfred M. Cohen, director and chief executive officer of the Markey Center, told the newspaper both research centers would greatly benefit from the money.

"This approach of earmarking part of the cigarette tax for cancer research has been extremely successful in other states. For us to get a recurring source of state funding for research would be transformational in our ability to support young faculty committed to cancer research and improving the health of Kentuckians," he said. Sen. Tim Shaughnessy, D-Louisville, wants two cents added to the tax so that each center would get more than $5 million a year. For the Lexington Herald-Leader version of this story, click here.

Southern state senate proposes rural center to keep “bright minds” in Alabama

Alabama’s state Senate is considering a bill to help bring more jobs and a higher quality of living to rural areas, reports The Huntsville Times.

That bill would propose a Center for Rural Development to focus on rural economic growth, writes Taylor Bright. Sen. Lowell Barron, D-Fyffe is one supporter of the bill. "Rural Alabama is changing," he said. "It's falling more and more behind the urban areas of Alabama." Auburn University ranked all of Alabama’s counties with an economic vitality index, and 37 of the lowest 38 counties were rural, Bright writes. "We want to do something to keep bright minds in rural Alabama," Barron said.

Director of Finance for the Southwest Georgia Regional Development Center, Suzanne Angell, said the emphasis of the Georgia center is to deal with planning and zoning issues, historic preservation, and transportation issues. Angell sad the Georgia center had a $4 million a year budget. The Vice President of the North Carolina Rural Economic Development Center in Raleigh, N.C, Elaine Matthews, said that center also took about $4 million each year. The Louisiana Governor’s Office of Rural Development had a budget of $7.5 million a year, but that will be cut in half, Bright writes.

Minnesota smoking ban in ashes; house panel 'no' vote stops bill for now

A Minnesota House panel apparently has quashed a statewide smoking ban, reports The Pioneer Press.

"The measure, which would have banned smoking in restaurants but not bars, was voted down in the House commerce committee on a voice vote. Although no legislation is truly dead until the end of session, one of the bill's key House sponsors wasn't optimistic,” writes Rachel E. Stassen-Berger of the Minneapolis – St. Paul newspaper.

Rep. Doug Meslow, a Republican, told Stassen-Berger, "It is going to be very difficult to continue to bring it forward.” Meslow said ban backers have yet to assess their next steps. Proponents told her if the measure doesn't become law this year, it will be back. Sen. Scott Dibble, DFL-Minneapolis, the chief backer of a Senate smoking ban, told the newspaper, "The momentum is tremendous."

Two Senate committees have passed a more expansive smoking ban tp prohibit smoking in all of the state's bars and restaurants. That measure awaits a vote by the full Senate, but Dibble told the Pioneer-Press he is not sure if that vote will happen now. "We are taking some time to consider our options."

Current Minnesota law bans smoking in most workplaces but not bars and restaurants. Recently, many Minnesota cities and counties have passed smoking bans to close that gap.

Meth lab bill nears final passage; measure also goes after Internet drugs

A bill aimed at curbing Kentucky's growing methamphetamine problem and regulating prescription drugs sold over the Internet moved closer to becoming law yesterday, reports The Courier-Journal.

"Senate Bill 63 passed the House 97-0 and is expected to pass the Senate and receive Gov. Ernie Fletcher's signature. Originally two bills, the combination represents Kentucky's broadest drug-control bill in recent years, supporters said," writes Deborah Yetter.

House Minority Leader Jeff Hoover, R-Jamestown told Yetter, "This may be, in my opinion, the most important bill we pass this session." The bill will require pharmacies to keep cold and allergy medication with pseudoephedrine behind the counter or in a locked cabinet. Pseudoephedrine is a key ingredient for making meth. Customers will be limited to buying medications containing 9 grams of pseudoephedrine per month, or about 300 Sudafed tablets, and will be required to show an ID and sign a log.

The bill also will strengthen a law used to prosecute meth manufacturers, create a law making it illegal to make meth in the presence of children and hold meth makers liable for the cost of cleaning up labs. The measure also will help the state regulate Internet pharmacies that sell drugs without valid prescriptions. Felecia Peacock of Bowling Green, a former meth user who works at a halfway house for recovering addicts, told the C-J she thinks the legislation will help curb meth abuse.

But, Peacock told the newspaper, to combat the problem effectively, she said, the state must also expand resources for treatment. "This war on drugs is definitely something that we're losing," she said. For The Associated Press report, click here.

W.Va. law officers warn met labs use household items beyond cold medicines

Controlling access to Sudafed and other cold medicines could help slow the spread of methamphetamine labs in West Virginia, but law enforcement officials warn that several other commonly available household goods are also used to make the drug, reports The Associated Press.

The Kanawha County Prosecuting Attorney’s office is distributing a poster to retailers outlining some of the items, which purchased frequently or in large quantities could indicate they are being used to cook methamphetamine, writes Erik Schelzig. A state "Meth Summit" scheduled by law enforcement officials this spring will address other ingredients used in drug-making.

W.Va. State Police Lt. Mike Goff told Schelzig, "If someone (buys) gallon jugs of iodine or (hundreds of) boxes of matches, it’s a pretty good indication they are up to no good." AP reports, he strike plates of match boxes contain red phosphorous, which is a key ingredient in the state’s prevalent "Red P" method of making the drug .Police say they often find the piles of unspent matchbooks at clandestine lab scenes. Goff told the wire service, "Even if you are a heavy smoker, you usually don’t need this many matches. You’d probably invest in a lighter."

Legislation to curtail the availability of ephedrine and pseudoephedrine, which serve as the main ingredients for meth cooking, have been introduced in both houses of the W.Va. legsilature, writes Schelzig. A joint House-Senate committee is scheduled to hear a presentation on the proposal today. The legislation would create reporting requirements for certain cold medicines and cap the monthly amount of pseudoephedrine individuals would be allowed to buy at 9 grams, or about 15 20-pill packs per month.

Federal judge orders U.S. not to reopen border to Canadian cattle

A federal judge in Montana issued a preliminary injunction today blocking Monday's planned reopening of the United States to live Canadian cattle under 30 months of age, the Billings Gazette reports.

District Judge Richard Cebull ruled quickly after hearing from lawyers from the Agriculture and Justice departments and "attorneys for a national cattleman's group," Ranchers Cattlemen Action Legal Fund United Stockgrowers of America (R-CALF USA), which is based in Billings, the paper says.

Cebull "ordered attorneys to agree within 10 days to a proposed schedule for holding a full trial with testimony from experts and cross-examination on the cattlemen's request for a permanent injunction," Jim Gransbery writes. "Whether attorneys for USDA could or would appeal the injunction to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco was unclear at midday. . . . Cebull said that a request for stay to the Ninth Circuit would not affect his injunction. He said he wanted to hear testimony from experts in order 'to clear up some significant issues'."

R-CALF USA had asked Cebull to block implementation of a USDA ruling that found only a "minimal risk" of mad-cow disease, or bovine spongiform encephalopathy, from Canadian cattle. "Live cattle imports which were halted in May 2003 when a BSE-infected cow was identified in Alberta," Gransbery recalls. "In January, two other cases of BSE in Canada were reported."

Va. tax cut may affect West Virginia; state fears revenue loss in border counties

Only one of the states bordering West Virginia taxes food sales, and now that state, Virginia, is moving to lower its food tax, prompting concerns of a shopping money migration, reports The Charleston Gazette.

The Virginia House of Delegates agreed to lower that tax earlier this week. The Senate has already passed the proposal and the governor has indicated he will sign the legislation, writes Tom Searls. The move has West Virginia border counties, where food is taxed 6 percent, bracing for potential sales losses. West Virginia lawmakers say with gasoline already about 10 cents a gallon cheaper in the Old Dominion, state residents already drive across the border and fill up their tanks.

Starting July 1, when Virginia drops its state food tax from 4 cents to 1.5 cents on the dollar — local governments have the option of adding another 1 percent — they believe some folks will stock up on groceries, too. Delegate Eustace Frederick, D-Mercer, told Searls, “You can’t blame them. That’s quite a bit of money.” How much of a loss remains to be seen. Mark Meacham, president and CEO of the Greater Bluefield Chamber of Commerce told The Gazette, “It’s very difficult to say. The border counties, once again, potentially will be affected by it.”

An Ohio University study several years ago showed $36 million in sales in just one Ohio county came from a neighboring W.Va. county across the river. That equated to about 200 jobs. Sixty percent of the population of West Virginia lives in border counties with about 70 percent of the state's wealth, he writes.

Newspaper advertising rises 4.2 percent in fourth quarter, says N.A.A.

Newspaper advertising expenditures for the fourth quarter of 2004 totaled $13.7 billion, a 4.2 percent increase over the same period a year earlier, according to preliminary estimates from the Newspaper Association of America.

Additionally, writes Sheila Owens, advertising expenditures continued to grow rapidly on newspaper Web sites, totaling $416 million in the fourth quarter, a 24 percent increase from the same period a year ago. The combined print and online advertising expenditures for newspapers totaled $14.1 billion, a 4.7 percent increase from the same period a year ago.

Among the major print components, classified advertising led the way with a 5.2 percent spending increase to $5.1 billion. National ad spending increased 3.6 percent to $2.2 billion and retail spending rose 3.7 percent to $6.5 billion. Within the classified category in the fourth quarter, recruitment advertising jumped 19.1 percent to $1.4 billion. Real estate ad spending continued to be strong, increasing 7.7 percent to $1.3 billion. Automotive dipped 6.2 percent to $1.6 billion. All other classifieds were up 4.9 percent to $876 million, writes Owens.

NAA President and CEO John F. Sturm said, “Fourth quarter ad performance was solid across the three major categories in what has otherwise been a spotty advertising market recovery. Of particular note is the strong growth in newspaper Web site advertising, which we are reporting separately for the first time. Publishers are reaching longtime readers in new ways and attracting new readers by extending their trusted masthead news brands to the Internet."

Rural Nevada areas seek hunters' cash to ease seasonal blahs, boost economy

As hunters turn their sights on big game each fall, rural towns across the West look forward to a different kind of bounty - hunters' cash to ease fall through winter's economic blahs.

The annual spending infusion from hunters begins in sporting good stores and through catalogs and Internet Web sites, long before a single shot is fired or arrow launched, writes Sandra Chereb of The Associated Press. Ron Carrion, owner of the Owl Club in Eureka, a tiny, mountain outpost in the middle of Nevada, told AP, ``The impact is tremendous. Some of our best months have been October and November,'' when deer and elk seasons are in full swing.

The impact is felt across a wide swath of the nation's economy, according to a study by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Some 13 million hunters spent $20.6 billion on trips and equipment to hunt everything from big game to birds, squirrels and rabbits, according to the agency's 2001 national survey. It found hunting dollars had increased 29 percent from 1991.

A companion report by the International Association of Fish and Wildlife Agencies estimated the overall economic impact of hunting dollars at $67 billion, by factoring in the ripple effects of such spending through the economy. The reports, compiled every five years, underscore what every hunter knows: Bagging an animal isn't cheap. Bob Rudnick, an avid hunter from Gardnerville, Nev. conceded ``It's an expensive hobby.'' (Your bloggers note the AP article appeared in The Pahrump Valley Times, a worthy sounding name if ever there were one. The newspaper is published in Pahrump, Nevada.)

Native Americans didn’t do us any favors; writer claims corn a culprit in obesity

An author of a book on food and diet says corn, a mainstay in the country’s cuisine since colonial days, may be a central factor in the nation’s overweight problem, reports the Lexington Herald-Leader.

Michael Pollan, will be among an unusual mix of scientists and writers, farmers and chefs who will gather Friday for the start of a two-day symposium about the future of agriculture in Kentucky, writes Beverly Fortune. Pollan tells Fortune he thinks a lot about "why we are as fat as we are." It might sound simple, but he says it's all wrapped up in corn, she writes.

Pollan, a best-selling garden writer and environmentalist, told the newspaper, "If you follow the story of corn, you can figure out why we're eating the way we are. It explains why we eat as much processed food as we do. Why our animals are on feed lots." Pollan, author of “Botany of Desire,” will talk about the "cornification of America," writes Fortune.

Other speakers include chef Alice Waters, owner of Chez Panisse, the legendary restaurant in Berkeley, Calif., that helped create a modern American cuisine based on fresh ingredients. Best-selling Kentucky authors Barbara Kingsolver, Wendell Berry and Davis McCombs will read from their works, and New York garden designer and author Jon Carloftis will lecture.

Sue Weant, executive director of Partners for Family Farms told Forutne, "With the loss of tobacco as a major crop in Kentucky, we have to come up with new replacements. There's no silver bullet that's going to replace tobacco. It's going to have to be a lot of things." For more information, contact Dan Rowland, hisdan@uky.edu, or Lisa Broome-Price, lbroome@hotmail.com, at the Gaines Center, 859-257-1537; Tanner at bonniet@uky.edu or 859-257-3887; or Sue Weant of Partners for Family Farms at msdweant@aol.com or 859-233-3056.  

UFCW petitions for second unionization of a Canadian Wal-Mart

A Windsor, Ontario Wal-Mart will try to form a union for the second time, said the United Food and Commercial Workers. The UFCW filed on behalf of the Wal-Mart employees with the Ontario labor board, reports The New York Times.

A union representative who led the drive, Andrew MacKenzie, said the union delayed applying for two weeks when it found out that a unionized store in Jonquiére, Quebec, would be closing, the Times writes.

A spokesman for Wal-Mart Canada, Andrew Pelletier, said the company would challenge the union petition because, Pelletier says, the group wants to exclude 50 of the store’s 200 workers from the vote. The store had a union once before, but employees voted to remove it in 2000.

Wal-Mart has become a driving force in the economics of many American rural towns. A Colorado Wal-Mart Tire & Lube Express voted against a union last week, rejecting what would have been the first union inside any U.S. Wal-Mart store, Jon Sarche of The Associated Press reported.

‘Potty-mouth’ chicken puppet prompts recall, public squawk feared

It's a cute chicken puppet manufacturers planned for Easter baskets, but it has a 'fowl' mouth, reports the San Jose (Calif.) Mercury News.

“Put your hand in its head and squeeze the box. It's supposed to say 'cluck.'' What it says certainly rhymes with cluck, but the 'cl' part doesn't really come through,” writes Dan Reed

It sounds more like the word a construction worker might yell if he hit his thumb with a hammer. Or even what a chicken might say if it sees a farmer with a hatchet, Reed writes. The apparent 'speech slur' is why the potty-mouthed bird, which recently arrived with Easter shipments, was recalled this week from Safeway stores nationwide.

It's unknown who is behind the 'clucking,' writes Reed. The hand puppet was made in China for the Korean company Fine Toy. Safeway spokesman Brian Dowling told the newspaper the store "Out of an abundance of caution, removed it.'' (The full story - hot-linked above - features an audio link that allows you to judge for yourself.)

Wednesday, March 2, 2005

Federal judge orders U.S. not to reopen border to Canadian cattle

A federal judge in Montana issued a preliminary injunction today blocking Monday's planned reopening of the United States to live Canadian cattle under 30 months of age, the Billings Gazette reports.

District Judge Richard Cebull ruled quickly after hearing from lawyers from the Agriculture and Justice departments and "attorneys for a national cattleman's group," Ranchers Cattlemen Action Legal Fund United Stockgrowers of America (R-CALF USA), which is based in Billings, the paper says.

Cebull "ordered attorneys to agree within 10 days to a proposed schedule for holding a full trial with testimony from experts and cross-examination on the cattlemen's request for a permanent injunction," Jim Gransbery writes. "Whether attorneys for USDA could or would appeal the injunction to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco was unclear at midday. . . . Cebull said that a request for stay to the Ninth Circuit would not affect his injunction. He said he wanted to hear testimony from experts in order 'to clear up some significant issues'."

R-CALF USA had asked Cebull to block implementation of a USDA ruling that found only a "minimal risk" of mad-cow disease, or bovine spongiform encephalopathy, from Canadian cattle. "Live cattle imports which were halted in May 2003 when a BSE-infected cow was identified in Alberta," Gransbery recalls. "In January, two other cases of BSE in Canada were reported."

Eclectic bunch to probe future of Kentucky's rural culture Fri. and Sat.

Kentuckians concerned about the state's rural culture after the federal tobacco era can join educators, poets, novelists, chefs, artisans, economists, journalists, students, community leaders and several prominent thinkers and writers in a unique symposium at the University of Kentucky March 4 and 5.

"Growing Kentucky: New Directions for Our Culture of Land and Food" is the first joint effort by two parts of UK that most folks rarely say in the same breath: the Gaines Center for the Humanities and the College of Agriculture. Partners for Family Farms is also a co-sponsor of the symposium, which will explore future visions for Kentucky agriculture and rural communities within the context of rural economies experiencing transition and new directions.

Barbara Kingsolver, Wendell Berry, Michael Pollan and Davis McCombs are among the prominent writers who will share insights and participate in panel discussions during the symposium.  Other featured panelists are chef Alice Waters, designer Jon Carloftis, musician Mike Seeger, chef Ouita Michel, musician Ron Pen and the Reel World String Band will perform both traditional and new music.  The symposium's final event will be the Phyllis Pray Bober Memorial Feast created by the undergraduate Fellows of the Gaines Center for the Humanities, and presented by chef Ouita Michel and the staff of the Holly Hill Inn.  The feast will celebrate Kentucky food and music.

"When we think of Kentucky's rich cultural heritage of music, literature, and food it just makes sense that a conference exploring the future of agricultural communities should include the best and brightest minds from all these different areas," said Bonnie Tanner, assistant extension director for family and consumer sciences in the College of Agriculture.

"Food & Arts," "Land Use," "Food Marketing," and "Environmental Journalism" are some of the topics that will address an interlocking set of themes on improving local economies while integrating food systems into communities. In addition to presenting lectures and readings, speakers will engage with about 100 local and national participants to create a new vision for Kentucky's heritage of food and culture.

"Growing Kentucky" is the latest in a series of symposiums that each year honor the life and work of Joy Bale Boone, Kentucky's first poet laureate, who knew well the state's rural culture. "Our aim with this symposium is to consider all aspects of the state's rural agricultural communities - the economic, the environmental, the social, and the spiritual," said Dan Rowland, Gaines Center director. "By bringing together a broad spectrum of talent and expertise from both agriculture and the humanities we hope to achieve some innovative outcomes from this event, which is the first of its kind for Kentucky," said Scott Smith, dean of the College of Agriculture.

For more information, contact Rowland, hisdan@uky.edu, or Lisa Broome-Price, lbroome@hotmail.com, at the Gaines Center, 859-257-1537; Tanner at bonniet@uky.edu or 859-257-3887; or Sue Weant of Partners for Family Farms at msdweant@aol.com or 859-233-3056.     

Utah delays 'No Child' challenge; guv meets with Bush and education chief

Republican legislative leaders in Utah will delay action on a bill that has attracted nationwide attention as a bellwether challenge to President Bush's signature ‘No Child Left Behind’ education law.

The bill would order state officials to give higher priority to Utah's educational goals than to compliance with the federal education law, known as No Child Left Behind. The Utah House approved it unanimously on Feb. 15, and the Senate gave its unanimous support in a preliminary vote on Monday.

But, Sam Dillon of The New York Times writes that Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr., who returned from a Washington visit that included meetings with Bush and Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings, persuaded Republican legislative leaders to move final consideration of the bill into a special legislative session this spring. The delay will give Huntsman, a Republican who has sharply criticized the federal law but also is close to Bush, time to continue seeking more flexibility for Utah in enforcement of the law, his office said. The governor's staff has been negotiating with federal education officials since late January.

The bill is one of the most assertive of a dozen or more proposals before state legislatures that protest the federal law, arguing in various ways that its language and regulations have intruded on states' rights to control local schools. Aides to the governor told The Times the Legislature's consideration of the bill in recent weeks had been useful in persuading federal officials to reverse course in disputes over some aspects of the federal law, including teacher certification issues.

Clean-coal technology comes on line at East Kentucky Power Cooperative

The first coal-fired power plant in 15 years in coal-rich Kentucky officially goes on line today. East Kentucky Power Cooperative's $400 million E.A. Gilbert Generating Unit near Maysville has the capacity to produce 268 mega-watts of electricity, or enough to power the homes in 30 cities the size of Maysville, writes Andy Mead of the Lexington Herald-Leader. .

The new plant uses a clean-coal technology called circulating fluidized bed. The coal is burned at lower temperatures, and limestone is fed into the boiler. The result, East Kentucky Power says, is much less air pollution than conventional coal plants -- 98 percent less sulfur dioxide and one-fifth the nitrogen oxide, he writes. Spokesman Kevin Osbourn told Mead, "It will be the cleanest coal-fired unit in Kentucky."

Kentucky has 21 coal-fired plants. Many have more than one generating unit. (The new Gilbert unit, for example, joins two conventional coal-fired units.) The newest coal-fired plant in the state -- a Trimble County unit, the majority of which is owned by LG&E Energy -- started operating in 1990, he writes. Diana Andrews, assistant director of the Kentucky Division for Air Quality told the newspaper there probably are several reasons for the long stretch without a new coal-fired plant. "I would think need would be one reason. We had sufficient power, or thought we did. And I'm sure funding has a lot to do with it."

West Virginia to study aluminum in water; coal industry wary of enviros

Over the next two years, West Virginia’s Environmental Quality Board is expected to rewrite the state’s water quality limits for the toxic metal aluminum, reports the Charleston Gazette.

“But who will design the scientific study board members hope will guide their decision?
Who will pick the consultant who does the study? Who will attend meetings of a board committee that is examining the issue?” asks writer Ken Ward Jr.

If the coal industry has its way, he writes, the public will have little involvement in such matters. Jason Bostic, a lobbyist for the West Virginia Coal Association, said environmentalists should not take part, because they opposed any change in the aluminum limits. Bostic said following the last board meeting, “I’m a little concerned that we need to include people that were at the outset opposed to the idea that we needed to re-examine the criteria at all."

The panel has already held one meeting that was not publicly announced or open to citizens. Last week the group held a brief public meeting. Now board members are waiting for an Ethics Commission opinion they hope will free them from complying with the state Open Governmental Proceedings Act. The commission’s Open Meetings Committee will consider the matter Thursday.

Advocates say Virginia's largest power company destroying unique park trail

Virginia’s largest utility is facing angry accusations it's permanently scarring a cherished public park used by thousands of residents in Northern Virginia, reports the Richmond Times-Dispatch.

Dominion Virginia Power’s effort to clear trees and other growth from its right-of-way along the W&OD Trail -- about 45 miles, or one-tenth of 1 percent of the company’s property-- has stirred park advocates and residents who complain Dominion is engaging in overkill, writes Paul Bradley. Advocates say the company is felling healthy trees that pose little threat to power lines along the trail snaking from Arlington County through Fairfax County to western Loudoun County. Dominion has more than 4,500 miles of high-voltage transmission lines across the state, bringing electric power to its 2 million customers, he writes.

Jack Nelson heads a group attempting to persuade Dominion to scale back its work. He told Bradley, "There doesn't seem to be any balance. They are just cutting everything." The Times-Dispatch reports that Dominion is well within its legal rights to do the work unfettered. Dominion officials say the work follows the dictates and state and federal regulatory agencies intent curtailing power outages caused by trees coming into contact with power lines. But for some the work has become a moral question.

Barbara Hildreth, a longtime park advocate who heads a task force trying to devise rules for tree-cutting along the trail, told the newspaper, "This trail is unique for Dominion. It's the only co-located trail and utility in the country. It deserves to be treated uniquely." John Smatlak, Dominion's managing director for electric transmission told the newspaper they are already treating the trail differently than the rest of its transmission network. "We have an advance team that walks the trail with the park authority. We recognize that the trail is a unique asset and we are willing to leave more trees."

Iraq, Part 1: Vermont town meetings feature discussion, discontent, resolutions

Annual town meetings around Vermont are passing resolutions calling for the return of U.S. troops from Iraq, reports The Washington Post.

"In Norwich, a resolution calling for the return of U.S. troops from Iraq was the 31st item on the town meeting agenda. After a day of balloting, it passed," writes Jonathan Finer. In Strafford, it passed with hardly a whisper of dissent. And in Bethel, a mill town considered conservative by this blue state's standard, residents narrowly endorsed a version of the measure, against the urging of a Vietnam veteran and a soldier who returned last week from the war, he writes.

Town Meeting Day, a New England tradition that dates to the 17th century, has been hailed as a paradigm of representative democracy. Voters in 56 Vermont towns, more than one-fifth of the state's 246 municipalities, became perhaps the first in the country to participate in a formal referendum on U.S. involvement in Iraq, he writes. Thirty-nine towns passed a version of a resolution asking state legislators to study the local impact of National Guard deployments, the congressional delegation to reassert state authority over Guard units, and the federal government to bring U.S. troops home from Iraq.

Three towns tabled the resolution; four rejected it, including Underhill, where 53 of its residents out of a population of 3,000 are deployed with the Guard, according to the Associated Press. A petition drive by local activists placed the initiative before dozens of this year's annual meetings.

Frank M. Bryan, a University of Vermont professor told The Post, "Vermont's always had a penchant for shooting its mouth off, and I mostly mean that in a positive way.” Bryan is the author of the book "Real Democracy: The New England Town Meeting and How it Works." The resolution is nonbinding and carries no formal weight. Vermont has one of the nation's highest per-capita rates of Iraq casualties and National Guard deployment, and has paid a heavy price since the conflict began. Of the 11 Vermonters killed, four were serving in the Guard. For The New York Times version of the story, click here.

Iraq, Part 2: Armor saves four soldiers in Iowa unit from weekend blast

Armor on Humvees, a sore point earlier during the war in Iraq, is being credited for saving the lives of soldiers, including four from Iowa caught in an explosion Sunday, reports the Des Moines Register.

Iowa National Guard spokesman Lt. Col. Greg Hapgood told writers Erin Jordan and Colleen Krantz that one guard officer was killed when a homemade bomb struck his Humvee in Iraq this past weekend, but four other guardsmen survived the blast because the Humvee was protected with an armor kit like those produced at an Iowa facility.

Fred Smith, deputy director of the Ground Systems Industrial Enterprise, based at the Rock Island Arsenal in Iowa, has filled orders for more than 12,000 armor kits, which include a 165-pound to 175-pound steel door with bullet-resistant glass and steel panels for the back and sides of the Humvee.

The wife of one of those injured Sunday told the newspaper the situation would have been worse if the Humvee had not been armored. Army spokeswoman Nancy Ray told the Register that Humvees used in Army missions are now all protected with some degree of armor. This wasn't the case when the United States invaded Iraq.. The "up-armoring" process began in 2003, when the Army contracted with factories, such as the Rock Island Arsenal, to manufacture armor kits that could be added to the Humvees in Iraq.

Iraq, Part 3: Journalist Sy Hersh slams Bush and war at West Virginia stop

Standout investigative reporter Seymour Hersh told a standing-room only crowd in Charleston, W. Va., last night that President Bush and his administration are driven by an unyielding neoconservative ideology, and have repeatedly misled the public about their plans for war in Iraq and beyond.

The Pulitzer Prize winner said the president’s plans in the region go beyond Iraq and include bringing the administration’s brand of pro-American democracy to Iran and Syria. Hersh, 67, spoke at the Festival of Ideas sponsored by The Charleston Gazette and West Virginia University. The audience included Democratic Gov. Joe Manchin and his wife, the Gazette reported. Hersh told the audience the president’s stance, “You’re either with us or against us ... more than anything else has marked his regime.”

Hersh has won more than a dozen awards and prizes for his investigative reporting. His work uncovered the My Lai massacre in Vietnam, the CIA’s bombing of Cambodia, Henry Kissinger’s wiretapping and a CIA plot that helped bring down Chilean President Salvador Allende. His speech last night shared the topic of his most recent book, Chain of Command, based on articles he wrote for The New Yorker magazine about the Sept. 11 attacks, the Iraq war and the Abu Ghraib prisoner abuse scandal.

Hersh speaks at 7:30 tonight at Bellarmine University in Louisville.

Heavy trucks could enter Kentucky towns under bill reaching critical phase

A controversial bill that would put more overweight trucks on Kentucky roads, set for a Senate committee hearing and vote today, would affect cities and suburbs, not just rural counties, reports the Lexington Herald-Leader.

"Currently, only coal trucks are allowed to exceed the 40-ton weight limit on state roadways, by up to 50 percent, and only while hauling on a network of approved routes. So far, that web of highways is concentrated in the coal fields of Eastern and Western Kentucky," writes John Cheves.

But House Bill 8 would expand the weight exemption to other rigs hauling "natural resources" such as gravel, sand and oil. As a result, any road that carries at least 50,000 tons a year of those minerals in regular trucks could be added, almost automatically, to the network open to overweight trucks, Cheves writes. That has some urban officials worried about the prospect of 60-ton gravel trucks thundering down Main Street chewing up asphalt and threatening motorists and pedestrians.

Jackie Covington, road supervisor in Scott County told Cheves, "Rock quarries run trucks through here all the time. You let them add a lot of weight to their loads, and our side roads are going to get torn up just like those highways out in Eastern Kentucky." According to the Kentucky Transportation Center, 2,700 miles of roads could be affected. Only some are currently in the network.

For the Courier-Journal version of this story by Alan Maimon, click here. For a special report by Maimon and Elizabeth Beardsley on the potential impact of the bill click here.

Kentuckians attend high court’s commandments debate; nation watching

Nearly 300 southeastern Kentucky residents are in Washington, D.C. today for the U.S. Supreme Court arguments in a dispute that grew out of Ten Commandments displays in McCreary and Pulaski counties, joined with a similar case from Texas, reports The Courier-Journal.

The Kentucky dispute began in rural McCreary County, in the Daniel Boone National Forest on the Tennessee border, when two residents objected to Judge-Executive Jimmie Greene's decision to hang the commandments on a wall in the county courthouse and the Kentucky chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union filed suit, writes Michael A. Lindenberger of the Louisville newspaper.

A similar courthouse display in adjoining Pulaski County also was challenged, and the cases been merged. Greene has said he allowed the commandments to be posted as part of a general redecoration. The display offended Louanne Walker, now 57, one of the original plaintiffs. Walker, who is not going to the hearing, told Lindenberger, "I absolutely believe in the separation of church and state.”

David Howe, 69, the second plaintiff in the case, said he is not anti-religious but was offended when the county displayed the Decalogue. He told Lindenberger, "I have no qualms about religions whatsoever, but just don't push it in my face. And putting it up on a public building, that's pushing it into my face."

It is only the second time that the high court has agreed to consider whether public displays of the Ten Commandments are legal, writes Lindenberger. In the other case, the court ruled in 1980 that a Kentucky statute ordering all Kentucky schools to display the Ten Commandments violated the Constitution.

Reformers ask FCC to deny TV-newspaper combine in Columbus, Ga., market

Free Press, a national nonpartisan group seeking media reform, petitioned the Federal Communications Commission to turn down Media General’s request to avoid ownership rules. The company, based in Richmond, Va., wants to operate a television station and a newspaper in the same market, which ownership laws prohibit, writes Free Press.

The station, WRBL-TV, is in Columbus, Ga. Four months after buying the station, MG also bought the Opelika-Auburn News, the sole daily paper in Lee County, Ala., 30 miles away from the station.

Angela Campbell, an attorney with the Institute for Public Representation, which is representing the Free Press, said, "If one company is awarded a near-monopoly on local news, viewers will only get one point of view." IPR filed a similar challenge last year, when Media General wanted to operate a television station and daily newspaper in Florence, S.C. Free Press is also represented by the Media Access Project, a non-profit, public interest telecommunications law firm, Free Press reports.

Tuesday, Mar. 1, 2005

Democratic outsiders rise to power on grass-roots appeal in Southern states

There’s continued dissonance and disarray among some Democrats in Dixie, where gubernatorial winners in November have had their party-leadership picks rebuked in favor of populists with statewide, grass-roots appeal, reports The Washington Post.

“Democrats didn't have a lot to smile about in November, particularly in the South, where North Carolina Gov. Mike Easley was one of the party's few bright spots, easily winning reelection,” writes Terry M. Neal. But Easley found himself rebuffed by the state's Democratic Executive Committee recently. The governor's choice for state party chairman was rejected in favor of party activist Jerry Meek.

In the News & Observer of Raleigh, reporter Rob Christensen called Meek's election "a rebuke to Gov. Easley and party insiders." Meek accused the governor and the party's power structure of being unresponsive to local party activists. Meek reportedly told a packed room at N. C. State University after the vote, "I believe our party has lost touch with the local party. I'll create a party of inclusion where grass-roots workers have a real say and power isn't just limited to the Raleigh insiders."

A few weeks before Meek's election, Democrats in Arkansas bucked the system, too, writes Neal, by ousting two-term incumbent state chairman Ron Oliver for Jason Willett of Jonesboro. Willett, too, argued the party had ignored its grass-roots base.

Neal asks, “So why should anybody care about some inside politics stories from Arkansas and North Carolina? Because in some ways they mirror what happened on the national level with the election of Howard Dean as chairman of the Democratic National Committee. And, he writes, because they underscore a restive force that could reshape Democratic Party politics. Dean has called "for 'bottom-up reform' of the Democratic Party and the further empowerment of grass-roots activists," writes Neal.

Proposed changes stall Kentucky meth legislation; allergy pills sales at issue

A bill aimed at curbing the production of methamphetamine in Kentucky stalled in the House yesterday over two proposed amendments backers say would gut the legislation.

Deborah Yetter of The Courier-Journal.writes, “The delay prompted a rash of lobbying from sheriffs and police who say amendments to Senate Bill 63 would allow meth manufacturers to get more of the certain cold and allergy medications they need to make the illegal drug.”

Lt. Gov. Steve Pence told Yetter he is frustrated by the sudden appearance of the amendments. "We're so close here," said Pence, who also is state justice secretary. The bill could come up for a vote today after House leaders speak with Rep. Frank Rasche, D-Paducah, about whether his amendments would weaken Kentucky's battle against meth.

The bill seeks to limit the sale of Sudafed and similar drugs that contain pseudoephedrine, a chemical used to make meth, writes Yetter. Rasche's amendments that would allow the sale of cold and allergy medicine in more places and restrict sales based on the chemical composition of rather than the number of tablets.

Restrictions in the bill have been opposed by retailers and others, including the Schering-Plough Corp., which makes Claritin-D, an allergy medicine that contains pseudoephedrine. Rasche said he filed the amendments as a consumer advocate, although he said he has not been contacted by any consumers.

Putting a face on meth addiction: the story of one young man’s downward spiral

Matt Brown is facing a 20-year prison sentence for burglary and theft, crimes he committed while high on methamphetamine, writes the Ledger Independent. At an age when many people are starting their career or leaving college, Brown, then 22, was beginning his downward spiral after getting hooked on meth.

"I think it's worse than crack cocaine," Brown told the Maysville, Ky., paper's reporter Danetta Barker. "You get high and stay high for so long. It's the one drug I had the most trouble with; seems like you can't get off it." He was arrested for meth possession last April, but instead of being put in jail, he was turned over to the Buffalo Trace-Gateway Area Narcotics Task Force, said his attorney Bryan Underwood.

A task force representative said it receives permission from local prosecutors to work with people charged with drug crimes as informants. Brown never admitted to working as an informant for the agency but did say he felt used by the system. "I'm sure the task force knows what they do," Brown said. "They want to use you, then when you are used up, they lock you up." Brown will be eligible for parole in four years. If he is paroled, he said he would like to enter a rehabilitation center, Barker writes.

FCC to review decision on sale of radio stations over 'character test' issues

The Federal Communications Commission, in an abrupt about-face, has decided to reconsider a decision that allowed a prominent Oklahoma politician convicted of perjury and obstruction of justice to sell a group of radio stations, reports The New York Times.

“The decision to approve the sale was considered by some media experts to be a significant deregulation of the broadcast ownership rules,” writes Stephen Labaton, because the agency has long required those who fail a character test to forfeit their radio licenses to the commission. The test requires truthfulness in dealing with the government and is an integral part of the media rules, because owners of radio licenses hold a public trust and are obliged to act in 'the public interest,' he writes.

The FCC had never considered a conviction of perjury before a federal agency. But the commission has revoked licenses for a variety of other crimes, from sexual abuse of a minor to fraud to dealing in illegal narcotics, Labaton writes. The four radio stations were being sold for $2.2 million by companies controlled by Gene Stipe, who for many years was among the most powerful Democrats in Oklahoma. Stipe pleaded guilty in 2003 to three criminal counts in an illegal scheme to funnel more than $245,000 into a failed House of Representatives campaign. He was sentenced to five years' probation and six months' house arrest.

Commission chairman Michael K. Powell appeared to ratify the decision, when one of his senior aides told a lawyer who was critical of the deal that Powell would not seek a review of the decision by the full commission. Powell has announced his intention to leave the agency next month. Jonathan S. Adelstein, one of the Democratic commissioners, told The Times, "This deal demands a lot more scrutiny than it's gotten, and I now expect that it will get the review that it deserves."

‘Micro radio’ getting big attention in licensing race; churches buying up

In the airwaves race for low-wattage radio stations, churches appear to be the big winners in a grab for ‘micro radio’ station licenses, reports the San Francisco Chronicle.

“Community activists cheered when the federal government began offering licenses for low-power radio stations five years ago. But now, some are wondering what happened to what they envisioned as an end-around to big media domination of the airwaves,” writes Joe Garofoli.

After years of fighting legal battles for left-leaning "pirate" broadcasters, he writes, advocates pictured a sea of under-100-watt stations (many in suburban and rural areas) where low- income folks and communities of color could grab a tiny slice of a radio dial now dominated by conglomerates, forming a 'programming rainbow,' diverse community-focused formats rarely heard on big-city stations. But, Garofoli writes, low-power frequencies have been gobbled up by Christian organizations. Church groups make up roughly half the 344 applicants licensed by the Federal Communications Commission.

Kai Aiyetoro, chief financial officer with the National Federation of Community Broadcasters in Oakland, when asked about the apparent lack of diversity in licensing, told Garofoli, "The churches have been much more organized in applying for and getting these stations. There's no system of state organizations out there encouraging nonprofits and community groups to get their licenses. But the churches, if they hear about a frequency opening up, they spread the word to each other."

A bill introduced this month by Republican Sen. John McCain of Arizona and Democratic Sens. Maria Cantwell of Washington and Patrick Leahy of Vermont could make it easier for low-power stations to crack the big-city market by requiring less frequency space on the dial between stations.

New biotech corn gets close look; U.S. believes it's safe, will investigate anyway

The government is again investigating the safety of genetically engineered corn, reports The Des Moines Register. This time, the issue isn't a variety that spawned nationwide food recalls in 2000, but a variety developed by Des Moines-based Pioneer Hi-Bred International and Dow AgroSciences. The new variety produces corn resistant to rootworm, writes Philip Brasher.

The new product also contains a protein that takes longer to break down in a human's gut than many other proteins. That's a characteristic of foods that can cause allergic reactions, Brasher writes.

Doug Gurian-Sherman, a former Environmental Protection Agency scientist who doesn't believe the EPA should approve the new corn variety, told Brasher, "At this stage, any kind of reasonably cautious approach would say hold off on their protein until we get data that is more definitive." Gurian-Sherman is now senior scientist with the Center for Food Safety, an advocacy group critical of agricultural biotechnology. The EPA believes the corn is safe, as does the Food and Drug Administration. However, the EPA is convening a panel of scientific advisers to look into the companies' data.

Second house in Kentucky OKs cigarette-tax hike and aid to tobacco growers

The Kentucky legislature is poised to pass a budget and tax package that would raise the state's 3-cents-a-pack cigarette tax to 29 cents and redirect money earmarked for agricultural diversification to make up the possible loss of the final payment tobacco growers were expecting from cigarette companies.

Last night, the state Senate "left untouched the House proposal to tax cigarettes at 29 cents a pack," as well as a higher tax on another famous Kentucky product, whiskey, reports The Courier-Journal. "A half-gallon of whiskey would cost about $1 more, a $12.99 bottle of wine would go up by about 50 cents, and a 12-pack of beer by about 25 cents," Tom Loftus writes. "And lawmakers agreed to make permanent a 1-cent increase in the state gasoline tax." The bill now goes to a conference committee.

After some initial misgivings, the Senate also adopted the House plan to divert money from the Agricultural Development Fund, created with half the state's money from the national tobacco settlement, to cover the final payments tobacco growers were expecting from cigarette manufacturers in the "Phase II" settlement between the companies and tobacco-growing states. A North Carolina judge said the companies did not have to make the payments because the federal government has ended its program of tobacco quotas and price supports and will pay growers for quotas with money from the companies. The case is on appeal.

Newspaper editorials and commentaries said the legislature was being short-sighted. bill now goes to a conference committee. "If Kentucky wants the jobs and businesses of the future, it needs to get moving. As last week's events showed, it's not. Lawmakers were falling all over themselves to assure tobacco farmers that they would get payments of $114 million," a Courier-Journal editorial said.

The Kentucky Farm Bureau lobbied to keep funding for diversification and said the Phase II makeup money should come form the state General Fund, but President Sam Moore said in a commentary in the Feb. 15 Lexington Herald-Leader that the legislative plan would "provide a remedy for the . . . greed" of the cigarette companies, which sued "to reclaim money already pledged and paid into the (Phase II) trust." Moore said he hoped growers' anger "won't spill over into a blame game directed toward" members of the state's congressional delegation, who "gave their all" to win the buyout for growers.

Virginia justice says libel case could have 'chilling' effect on political speech

Virginia Supreme Court Justice Donald W. Lemons yesterday questioned what he called the "chilling effect" a rare libel suit could have on citizens' right to political speech and their willingness to participate in politics, reports the Richmond Times-Dispatch.

“Lemons' comments were in response to oral arguments in the Virginia Supreme Court involving a case in which a public official sued a private citizen for libel and won in a lower court. Legal experts believe this is the first lawsuit of its kind in Virginia,” writes Osita Iroegbu. Justice Lemons asked the attorney for Colonial Heights Mayor J. Chris Kollman III, "Are all cases of disgruntled politicians going to end up in the court system?" Kollman won a libel case in 2003 against a Colonial Heights resident.

Lemons also questioned whether the suit could discourage potential politicians, asking, "We talk about chilling political speech, but what about chilling people from joining politics if this is the kind of thing they are going to have to put up with the eve before the election?" He was referring to newspaper ads that ran just two days before city council election where Kollman said he was not given enough time to respond.

In 2003, Kollman sued resident Claude E. Jordan Sr. for $1.35 million for making false and defamatory statements in two newspaper ads. A jury awarded Kollman $75,000 in compensatory damages and $125,000 in punitive damages. Jordan, who argued that his ads were protected by the First Amendment, appealed to the Virginia Supreme Court. The court is expected to rule on both appeals next month.

Baptists rescind invitation to minister for controversial views on Christianity

The Kentucky Baptist Convention withdrew a speaking invitation to a well-known pastor and author after his latest book raised the possibility that people could be saved without becoming Christians.

“The convention had heavily promoted the planned speech by Brian McLaren of Maryland at an evangelism conference, which concludes today at Valley View Baptist Church in Louisville. But church leaders withdrew the invitation late last month,” writes Peter Smith of The Courier-Journal.

Convention executive director Bill Mackey said, "I respect Dr. McLaren greatly and have appreciated his insights on reaching people in today's culture." But, he told Smith, McLaren's "position diverges too greatly to be appropriate for this conference." McLaren, pastor of Cedar Ridge Community Church in Maryland, was listed in a recent Time magazine article as one of America's 25 most influential evangelicals.

McLaren is considered a leader of what is known as the "emergent church" movement, writes Smith. In a book published last year, "A Generous Orthodoxy," he wrote that not all people may need to be Christians to be followers of Jesus. Some people, he suggested, may be able to be "Buddhist … (or) Jewish or Hindu followers of Jesus." Convention President Hershael York, a professor at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville told Smith that view was "clearly out of line. The one thing Kentucky Baptists agree about is the exclusivity of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. That means Jesus Christ is the only way of salvation."

West Virginia reporter wins national award for corruption stories

News stories by Charleston Gazette reporter Eric Eyre, which led to the removal and conviction of a former West Virginia House Education Committee Chairman, have been ranked among America’s top education writing in 2004, reports the newspaper. The Education Writers Association announced that Eyre has won the organization’s top prize for investigative reporting at newspapers with circulation under 100,000. The award will be presented at a May 7 conference in St. Petersburg, Fla.

Eyre discovered last year that chairman Jerry Mezzatesta, D-Hampshire, was taking a large county school salary, funneling state money to his county school system in violation of an ethics agreement, and had taken part in a scheme to falsify letters to conceal his ethical misconduct. Mezzatesta was removed as chairman, defeated for re-election, and convicted of a criminal offense.

Eyre automatically becomes eligible for EWA’s grand prize, the Fred M. Hechinger Award For Distinguished Education Reporting. A native of Broad Axe, Pa., Eyre joined the Gazette staff in 1998 and has won 16 national journalism honors since then.

Tuesday, Mar. 1, 2005

Democratic outsiders rise to power on grass-roots appeal in Southern states

There’s continued dissonance and disarray among some Democrats in Dixie, where gubernatorial winners in November have had their party-leadership picks rebuked in favor of populists with statewide, grass-roots appeal, reports The Washington Post.

“Democrats didn't have a lot to smile about in November, particularly in the South, where North Carolina Gov. Mike Easley was one of the party's few bright spots, easily winning reelection,” writes Terry M. Neal. But Easley found himself rebuffed by the state's Democratic Executive Committee recently. The governor's choice for state party chairman was rejected in favor of party activist Jerry Meek.

In the News & Observer of Raleigh, reporter Rob Christensen called Meek's election "a rebuke to Gov. Easley and party insiders." Meek accused the governor and the party's power structure of being unresponsive to local party activists. Meek reportedly told a packed room at N. C. State University after the vote, "I believe our party has lost touch with the local party. I'll create a party of inclusion where grass-roots workers have a real say and power isn't just limited to the Raleigh insiders."

A few weeks before Meek's election, Democrats in Arkansas bucked the system, too, writes Neal, by ousting two-term incumbent state chairman Ron Oliver for Jason Willett of Jonesboro. Willett, too, argued the party had ignored its grass-roots base.

Neal asks, “So why should anybody care about some inside politics stories from Arkansas and North Carolina? Because in some ways they mirror what happened on the national level with the election of Howard Dean as chairman of the Democratic National Committee. And, he writes, because they underscore a restive force that could reshape Democratic Party politics. Dean has called "for 'bottom-up reform' of the Democratic Party and the further empowerment of grass-roots activists," writes Neal.

Proposed changes stall Kentucky meth legislation; allergy pills sales at issue

A bill aimed at curbing the production of methamphetamine in Kentucky stalled in the House yesterday over two proposed amendments backers say would gut the legislation.

Deborah Yetter of The Courier-Journal.writes, “The delay prompted a rash of lobbying from sheriffs and police who say amendments to Senate Bill 63 would allow meth manufacturers to get more of the certain cold and allergy medications they need to make the illegal drug.”

Lt. Gov. Steve Pence told Yetter he is frustrated by the sudden appearance of the amendments. "We're so close here," said Pence, who also is state justice secretary. The bill could come up for a vote today after House leaders speak with Rep. Frank Rasche, D-Paducah, about whether his amendments would weaken Kentucky's battle against meth.

The bill seeks to limit the sale of Sudafed and similar drugs that contain pseudoephedrine, a chemical used to make meth, writes Yetter. Rasche's amendments that would allow the sale of cold and allergy medicine in more places and restrict sales based on the chemical composition of rather than the number of tablets.

Restrictions in the bill have been opposed by retailers and others, including the Schering-Plough Corp., which makes Claritin-D, an allergy medicine that contains pseudoephedrine. Rasche said he filed the amendments as a consumer advocate, although he said he has not been contacted by any consumers.

Putting a face on meth addiction: the story of one young man’s downward spiral

Matt Brown is facing a 20-year prison sentence for burglary and theft, crimes he committed while high on methamphetamine, writes the Ledger Independent. At an age when many people are starting their career or leaving college, Brown, then 22, was beginning his downward spiral after getting hooked on meth.

"I think it's worse than crack cocaine," Brown told the Maysville, Ky., paper's reporter Danetta Barker. "You get high and stay high for so long. It's the one drug I had the most trouble with; seems like you can't get off it." He was arrested for meth possession last April, but instead of being put in jail, he was turned over to the Buffalo Trace-Gateway Area Narcotics Task Force, said his attorney Bryan Underwood.

A task force representative said it receives permission from local prosecutors to work with people charged with drug crimes as informants. Brown never admitted to working as an informant for the agency but did say he felt used by the system. "I'm sure the task force knows what they do," Brown said. "They want to use you, then when you are used up, they lock you up." Brown will be eligible for parole in four years. If he is paroled, he said he would like to enter a rehabilitation center, Barker writes.

FCC to review decision on sale of radio stations over 'character test' issues

The Federal Communications Commission, in an abrupt about-face, has decided to reconsider a decision that allowed a prominent Oklahoma politician convicted of perjury and obstruction of justice to sell a group of radio stations, reports The New York Times.

“The decision to approve the sale was considered by some media experts to be a significant deregulation of the broadcast ownership rules,” writes Stephen Labaton, because the agency has long required those who fail a character test to forfeit their radio licenses to the commission. The test requires truthfulness in dealing with the government and is an integral part of the media rules, because owners of radio licenses hold a public trust and are obliged to act in 'the public interest,' he writes.

The FCC had never considered a conviction of perjury before a federal agency. But the commission has revoked licenses for a variety of other crimes, from sexual abuse of a minor to fraud to dealing in illegal narcotics, Labaton writes. The four radio stations were being sold for $2.2 million by companies controlled by Gene Stipe, who for many years was among the most powerful Democrats in Oklahoma. Stipe pleaded guilty in 2003 to three criminal counts in an illegal scheme to funnel more than $245,000 into a failed House of Representatives campaign. He was sentenced to five years' probation and six months' house arrest.

Commission chairman Michael K. Powell appeared to ratify the decision, when one of his senior aides told a lawyer who was critical of the deal that Powell would not seek a review of the decision by the full commission. Powell has announced his intention to leave the agency next month. Jonathan S. Adelstein, one of the Democratic commissioners, told The Times, "This deal demands a lot more scrutiny than it's gotten, and I now expect that it will get the review that it deserves."

‘Micro radio’ getting big attention in licensing race; churches buying up

In the airwaves race for low-wattage radio stations, churches appear to be the big winners in a grab for ‘micro radio’ station licenses, reports the San Francisco Chronicle.

“Community activists cheered when the federal government began offering licenses for low-power radio stations five years ago. But now, some are wondering what happened to what they envisioned as an end-around to big media domination of the airwaves,” writes Joe Garofoli.

After years of fighting legal battles for left-leaning "pirate" broadcasters, he writes, advocates pictured a sea of under-100-watt stations (many in suburban and rural areas) where low- income folks and communities of color could grab a tiny slice of a radio dial now dominated by conglomerates, forming a 'programming rainbow,' diverse community-focused formats rarely heard on big-city stations. But, Garofoli writes, low-power frequencies have been gobbled up by Christian organizations. Church groups make up roughly half the 344 applicants licensed by the Federal Communications Commission.

Kai Aiyetoro, chief financial officer with the National Federation of Community Broadcasters in Oakland, when asked about the apparent lack of diversity in licensing, told Garofoli, "The churches have been much more organized in applying for and getting these stations. There's no system of state organizations out there encouraging nonprofits and community groups to get their licenses. But the churches, if they hear about a frequency opening up, they spread the word to each other."

A bill introduced this month by Republican Sen. John McCain of Arizona and Democratic Sens. Maria Cantwell of Washington and Patrick Leahy of Vermont could make it easier for low-power stations to crack the big-city market by requiring less frequency space on the dial between stations.

New biotech corn gets close look; U.S. believes it's safe, will investigate anyway

The government is again investigating the safety of genetically engineered corn, reports The Des Moines Register. This time, the issue isn't a variety that spawned nationwide food recalls in 2000, but a variety developed by Des Moines-based Pioneer Hi-Bred International and Dow AgroSciences. The new variety produces corn resistant to rootworm, writes Philip Brasher.

The new product also contains a protein that takes longer to break down in a human's gut than many other proteins. That's a characteristic of foods that can cause allergic reactions, Brasher writes.

Doug Gurian-Sherman, a former Environmental Protection Agency scientist who doesn't believe the EPA should approve the new corn variety, told Brasher, "At this stage, any kind of reasonably cautious approach would say hold off on their protein until we get data that is more definitive." Gurian-Sherman is now senior scientist with the Center for Food Safety, an advocacy group critical of agricultural biotechnology. The EPA believes the corn is safe, as does the Food and Drug Administration. However, the EPA is convening a panel of scientific advisers to look into the companies' data.

Second house in Kentucky OKs cigarette-tax hike and aid to tobacco growers

The Kentucky legislature is poised to pass a budget and tax package that would raise the state's 3-cents-a-pack cigarette tax to 29 cents and redirect money earmarked for agricultural diversification to make up the possible loss of the final payment tobacco growers were expecting from cigarette companies.

Last night, the state Senate "left untouched the House proposal to tax cigarettes at 29 cents a pack," as well as a higher tax on another famous Kentucky product, whiskey, reports The Courier-Journal. "A half-gallon of whiskey would cost about $1 more, a $12.99 bottle of wine would go up by about 50 cents, and a 12-pack of beer by about 25 cents," Tom Loftus writes. "And lawmakers agreed to make permanent a 1-cent increase in the state gasoline tax." The bill now goes to a conference committee.

After some initial misgivings, the Senate also adopted the House plan to divert money from the Agricultural Development Fund, created with half the state's money from the national tobacco settlement, to cover the final payments tobacco growers were expecting from cigarette manufacturers in the "Phase II" settlement between the companies and tobacco-growing states. A North Carolina judge said the companies did not have to make the payments because the federal government has ended its program of tobacco quotas and price supports and will pay growers for quotas with money from the companies. The case is on appeal.

Newspaper editorials and commentaries said the legislature was being short-sighted. bill now goes to a conference committee. "If Kentucky wants the jobs and businesses of the future, it needs to get moving. As last week's events showed, it's not. Lawmakers were falling all over themselves to assure tobacco farmers that they would get payments of $114 million," a Courier-Journal editorial said.

The Kentucky Farm Bureau lobbied to keep funding for diversification and said the Phase II makeup money should come form the state General Fund, but President Sam Moore said in a commentary in the Feb. 15 Lexington Herald-Leader that the legislative plan would "provide a remedy for the . . . greed" of the cigarette companies, which sued "to reclaim money already pledged and paid into the (Phase II) trust." Moore said he hoped growers' anger "won't spill over into a blame game directed toward" members of the state's congressional delegation, who "gave their all" to win the buyout for growers.

Virginia justice says libel case could have 'chilling' effect on political speech

Virginia Supreme Court Justice Donald W. Lemons yesterday questioned what he called the "chilling effect" a rare libel suit could have on citizens' right to political speech and their willingness to participate in politics, reports the Richmond Times-Dispatch.

“Lemons' comments were in response to oral arguments in the Virginia Supreme Court involving a case in which a public official sued a private citizen for libel and won in a lower court. Legal experts believe this is the first lawsuit of its kind in Virginia,” writes Osita Iroegbu. Justice Lemons asked the attorney for Colonial Heights Mayor J. Chris Kollman III, "Are all cases of disgruntled politicians going to end up in the court system?" Kollman won a libel case in 2003 against a Colonial Heights resident.

Lemons also questioned whether the suit could discourage potential politicians, asking, "We talk about chilling political speech, but what about chilling people from joining politics if this is the kind of thing they are going to have to put up with the eve before the election?" He was referring to newspaper ads that ran just two days before city council election where Kollman said he was not given enough time to respond.

In 2003, Kollman sued resident Claude E. Jordan Sr. for $1.35 million for making false and defamatory statements in two newspaper ads. A jury awarded Kollman $75,000 in compensatory damages and $125,000 in punitive damages. Jordan, who argued that his ads were protected by the First Amendment, appealed to the Virginia Supreme Court. The court is expected to rule on both appeals next month.

Baptists rescind invitation to minister for controversial views on Christianity

The Kentucky Baptist Convention withdrew a speaking invitation to a well-known pastor and author after his latest book raised the possibility that people could be saved without becoming Christians.

“The convention had heavily promoted the planned speech by Brian McLaren of Maryland at an evangelism conference, which concludes today at Valley View Baptist Church in Louisville. But church leaders withdrew the invitation late last month,” writes Peter Smith of The Courier-Journal.

Convention executive director Bill Mackey said, "I respect Dr. McLaren greatly and have appreciated his insights on reaching people in today's culture." But, he told Smith, McLaren's "position diverges too greatly to be appropriate for this conference." McLaren, pastor of Cedar Ridge Community Church in Maryland, was listed in a recent Time magazine article as one of America's 25 most influential evangelicals.

McLaren is considered a leader of what is known as the "emergent church" movement, writes Smith. In a book published last year, "A Generous Orthodoxy," he wrote that not all people may need to be Christians to be followers of Jesus. Some people, he suggested, may be able to be "Buddhist … (or) Jewish or Hindu followers of Jesus." Convention President Hershael York, a professor at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville told Smith that view was "clearly out of line. The one thing Kentucky Baptists agree about is the exclusivity of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. That means Jesus Christ is the only way of salvation."

West Virginia reporter wins national award for corruption stories

News stories by Charleston Gazette reporter Eric Eyre, which led to the removal and conviction of a former West Virginia House Education Committee Chairman, have been ranked among America’s top education writing in 2004, reports the newspaper. The Education Writers Association announced that Eyre has won the organization’s top prize for investigative reporting at newspapers with circulation under 100,000. The award will be presented at a May 7 conference in St. Petersburg, Fla.

Eyre discovered last year that chairman Jerry Mezzatesta, D-Hampshire, was taking a large county school salary, funneling state money to his county school system in violation of an ethics agreement, and had taken part in a scheme to falsify letters to conceal his ethical misconduct. Mezzatesta was removed as chairman, defeated for re-election, and convicted of a criminal offense.

Eyre automatically becomes eligible for EWA’s grand prize, the Fred M. Hechinger Award For Distinguished Education Reporting. A native of Broad Axe, Pa., Eyre joined the Gazette staff in 1998 and has won 16 national journalism honors since then.

Permission to reprint items from The Rural Blog is 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 ket us know by sending an e-mail to al.cross@uky.edu.

The Institute for Rural Journalism and Community Issues helps non-metropolitan media define the public agenda in their communities, through strong reporting and commentary on local issues and on broader issues that have local impact. Its initial focus area is Central Appalachia, but as an arm of the University of Kentucky it has a statewide mission, and it has national scope. Cooperating institutions include Appalachian State University, East Tennesee State University, Eastern Kentucky University, Marshall University, the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, the University of Tennessee-Knoxville and West Virginia University. To get notices of Rural Blog postings and other Institute news, click here.

 


 

 

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Last Updated: April 1,, 2004