Wednesday, Nov. 30, 2005

Out of reach: Location, loan requirements keep rural residents off Internet

Rural residents in Iowa and Illinois want high-speed Internet access, and their location is only one reason they cannot get the service.

After getting turned down by a federal loan program meant to bring high-speed access to rural areas in 2004, Prairie iNet could only use limited private funds to expand service to small businesses in the Des Moines suburbs. That left farmers and other rural dwellers out in the cold, where they may remain indefinitely, reports Vikas Bajaj of The New York Times.

"Across rural America, entrepreneurs, lawmakers and Internet company executives say they are frustrated with a loan program created by Congress in 2002 to help extend high-speed Internet service to rural areas. Run by the Rural Utilities Service, an arm of the Department of Agriculture, the program has been allocated nearly $3 billion but the agency has lent less than half that. As of Sept. 30, the end of the 2005 fiscal year, the utilities service had rejected 87 loan applications totaling $1.1 billion and approved 48 loans totaling $770 million," writes Bajaj.

Critics say the federal loan program's standards are so tough that some applicants are rejected if they do not have enough cash to cover a full year's operating expenses. "Department officials acknowledge that the program has had a slow start and agree that some of the financial restrictions may need to be revised. But the rules, those officials say, were meant to ensure that borrowers were financially stable and that the loans would be repaid in full." (Read more)

Do the math: Hydropower-backed senator kills center that saves salmon

A U.S. senator from Idaho, who is supported by the hydroelectric industry, has killed funding for a center that wanted to send less water through power turbines in order to save salmon in the Columbia River.

"Sen. Larry E. Craig (R-Idaho) has eliminated a little-known agency that counts endangered fish in the Columbia River. The Fish Passage Center, with just 12 employees and a budget of $1.3 million, has been killed because it did not count fish in a way that suited Craig," writes Blaine Harden of The Washington Post.

The Fish Passage Center has documented how the Columbia-Snake hydroelectric system kills salmon, and its analyses suggest one way to increase salmon survival is to spill more water over dams, rather than feed it through electrical turbines, writes Harden.

Harden notes, "The mathematics of protecting salmon swimming in the nation's largest hydroelectric system can hurt your pocketbook -- particularly in the Northwest, where dams supply power to four out of five homes." Craig received more money from electric utilities than from any other industry and was named "legislator of the year" by the National Hydropower Association. (Read more)

Growing pains: Virginia county seeks development czar to tackle challenges

"Bedford County is looking for a director of community development to help manage the large locality's range of growth issues. The county has a population of about 60,000 residents and 754 square miles of land, and it has been one of the largest and fastest growing localities outside of Northern Virginia for years," writes Jay Conley of The Roanoke Times. According to U.S. Census Bureau statistics, the county, where the population rose 5.7 percent between 2000 and 2004, was the only area in western Virginia whose population increased more than the state average of 5.4 percent.

Located between the region's two largest cities -- Roanoke and Lynchburg -- Bedford County faces two key challenges. One is balancing the increasing demand homes in the suburbs and preserving the county's rural scenery. The other challenge is attracting economic development to help pay the increasing costs for public services, notes Conley. (Read more)

According to the job description, the director of community development will oversee work in the county's planning, zoning, natural resources and Geographic Information Systems departments. "What we're hoping to accomplish with this position is systematic coordination of the various departments that affect or play a role in community development," Frank Rogers, the county's assistant county administrator, told Conley.

Kentucky wants to rid self of No Child Left Behind standards, avoid penalties

Kentucky public schools are asking for help in meeting No Child Left Behind's reading and math standards and avoiding penalties.

"The request would effectively replace a strict federal standard that requires all schools to hit the same annual testing goals with the state's more generous Commonwealth Accountability Testing System, or CATS, which rewards schools that show improvement. If approved, the changes could lead to a major reduction in the number of Kentucky schools deemed failing under No Child Left Behind. Last year, more than 800 of the state's 1,249 public schools failed to meet the federal standard -- but only 48 missed the state's goals," writes Nancy C. Rodriguez of The Courier-Journal. (Read more)

Some parents have applauded the request, but critics say schools just want the easy way out. It's unknown when the U.S. Department of Education will rule on Kentucky's request, reports the Louisville paper.

Desire for home heating energy leads consumers to seek out corn stoves

Biofuels are seen by experts as a means of lessening dependency on oil nationwide, from powering cars to heating homes in the dead of winter. Now, consumers are viewing corn as a heating source.

"Fearing that budget-busting heating bills are ahead, area residents are scrambling to find cheaper ways to keep warm this winter. Fearing that budget-busting heating bills are ahead, area residents are scrambling to find cheaper ways to keep warm this winter. With natural gas prices predicted to soar more, they’re turning to wood, and even corn, to keep cozy. But demand also is straining supplies of some alternative heating systems," writes Charles Slat of Michigan's Monroe News.

Keith LaLonde, who sells corn burners, told Slat, "I was doing fantastic for a couple of weeks, then the manufacturer got swamped with orders." The systems are now back-ordered by a couple of months. "I get calls from all over Michigan and Ohio from people trying to find a dealer that’s got a stash of the stoves," said LaLonde. (Read more)

School soda machines compared to cigarette dispensers by anti-tobacco group

Fresh from doing battle with big tobacco, some of the same attorneys are planning lawsuits against the soft-drink industry with claims that it hooks and hurts the health of school children.

Massachusetts law professor Richard Daynard, who worked as a consultant on class actions against tobacco companies, is working with private attorneys and non-profit groups to sue soft-drink companies for selling high-calorie drinks in schools, writes Caroline Wilbert of the Cox News Service. Attorneys expect to file their first suit as soon as next month.

Daynard likened the presence of soft drinks in school to "having a cigarette machine in a school," reports Wilbert. The plan is to file first in Massachusetts and then to use that case as a model in other states. Daynard is associate dean at Northeastern University School of Law, and has been president of the Tobacco Control Resource Center and chairman of the Tobacco Products Liability Project. He is also chairman of the Obesity and Law Project at the Public Health Advocacy Institute.

Susan Neely, president of the American Beverage Association, told Wilbert the plaintiffs' attorneys are "trying to paint a bull's-eye on a particular product and pass it off as a meaningful solution to a complicated problem." (Read more)

Big demand for fresh farm produce fuels boost for farmers markets

Farmers markets are popping up like mushrooms after a spring rain thanks to urban dwellers who want fresh produce, reports the Cincinnati Post.

This year's 98 markets in Kentucky mark an 8 percent jump for that state compared to last year. Janet Eaton, marketing specialist for the Kentucky Department of Agriculture, told reporter Stephenie Steitzer about 60 percent of tobacco growers are finding ways to replace their income through avenues such as the markets. Eaton called the increased popularity of farmers' markets "a customer-driven phenomenon." One farmers' market couple said on a good day, they could make $100 to $200, depending on what produce they were selling.

The Boone County Agricultural Extension District is building a $1.1 million, environmentally friendly lot and indoor facility for demonstrations at its farmers' market. Covington officials are looking for money to develop a $32.5 million regional public market that will be open year around and include retail shops, restaurants, loft apartments, an outdoor amphitheater and a park. (Read more)

Kentucky hunters bag 100,000 deer in big-bucks industry for the state

Foul weather may have reduced the number of deer killed in Kentucky this fall, a blow to the state's multi-million dollar hunting industry.

"The official count from the Kentucky Department of Fish and Wildlife Resources shows 100,359 deer had been killed as of Tuesday morning. That's despite a series of severe storms that brought high winds and tornados to parts of the state over the past month, the height of the fall hunting season," writes Roger Alford of The Associated Press.

Tina Brunjes, big game coordinator for the state wildlife agency, told Alford that Bow hunters and muzzleloaders still have opportunities to get deer, but the total harvest is expected to fall short of last year's 124,752. A total of 258,379 licensed hunters killed more than 10 percent of the state's total deer population, which is estimated at 900,000. Wildlife biologists say thinning the herds is necessary to keep the animals from becoming overly abundant.

State records show hunters have killed more than 100,000 deer during each of the past five years in Kentucky, where hunting of all types netted more than $21 million in sales of licenses this year.

Lynn Garrison, public policy director for the state wildlife agency, said biologists take their job of managing deer herds seriously because of the economic benefits to Kentucky. He said direct sales of hunting equipment, lodging, clothing, ammunition and other items associated with deer hunting total more than $202 million a year in Kentucky. (Read more)

The bread run: Students give back to humanity at one West Virginia college

At Wheeling Jesuit University, membership in one national honor society entails feeding the hungry every day. Alpha Sigma Nu members gather leftover bread and deli items from two area grocery stores for delivery through Catholic Charities to area needy.

"Membership in the National Jesuit Honor Society, Alpha Sigma Nu, differs slightly at each of the 28 Jesuit colleges and universities in the nation. At Wheeling Jesuit University, it entails feeding the hungry--every day," reports Newswise, which reports on research and other work at universities.

Rev. Michael F. Steltenkamp launched the project in 2001. “Father Mike” asked Richard Riesbeck, a 2003 alum of the university and president and CEO of Riesbeck Foods Inc., if Alpha Sigma Nu students could pick up clearance items from his stores and deliver them to Catholic Charities, now known as the daily “bread run,” notes Newswise.

The honor society continues the project with campus volunteers, and assistance has come from diverse niches of the campus community. University President Rev. Joseph R. Hacala does the bread run. A number of Jesuit Fathers were joined this year by the Physics Club, members of WJU's athletic teams, members of its sponsored programs and its librarian, reports Newswise. (Read more)

Is traditional journalism succumbing to the blogger generation?

"Chattering oracles are telling us that newspapers will die soon, as the Internet takes over. That may well be and the Internet does carry wondrous potential for improving life (as well as voluminous drivel that used to be written on the walls of public toilets). But the puzzlement is, where will the new digital providers of information get their fresh news?" asks Sydney H. Schanberg of the Village Voice.

"It is fresh news daily, or at least weekly news, that keeps citizens feeling connected to the decisions and events that alter their lives. And it is newspapers, and a handful of probing magazines, that provide most of the in-depth journalism that uncovers and analyzes those fast-moving decisions and events. Blogsters, please don't jump out of your pajamas;lots of you are doing valuable and admirable work keeping mainstream journalism on its toes. But serious journalism is labor-intensive and time-consuming and therefore requires large amounts of money and health benefits and pensions. The blogosphere has plenty of time, but as yet none of the other items," opines Schanberg.

"So if and when newspapers fade into darkness, as the all-seeing oracles foretell, what will happen? Perhaps, in a future time of airborne pigs, altruism will suddenly infuse our culture, and money will descend, like manna, on the Internet to pay for the reporters to do the intensive journalism needed as a check on abusive power. And if altruism or labor-friendly corporate ideologies don't magically appear? The oracles are mostly silent on that eventuality. Maybe they think samizdat is the answer. Maybe many of them don't care," concludes Schanberg. (Read more)

Tuesday, Nov. 29, 2005

USDA proposes to OK China poultry exports to U.S. despite bird flu fears

First, the Bush administration announced a $7.1 billion strategy to ward off an avian flu pandemic. Now, the U.S. Department of Agriculture has proposed to add the People's Republic of China, considered the principal source of bird flu, to the list of countries eligible to export poultry to the United States.

The announcement by the USDA comes on the heels of two new human deaths from bird flu in China. For the Reuters report on those deaths, click here.

The USDA's Food Safety and Inspection Service is inviting comments on the proposal. Mail, including floppy disks or CD-ROM's, and hand-or courier-delivered items should be sent to Docket Clerk, U.S. Department of Agriculture, Food Safety and Inspection Service, 300 12th Street SW, Cotton Annex 102, Washington DC 20250. Send e-mail comments to fsis.regulationscomments@fsis.usda.gov.

For the latest on bird flu in and around China: Study: Poultry vaccine stops flu spread from CNN, click here, Poultry culling ends in Inner Mongolia bird flu-hit city from China View.net, click here, Thailand says only one bird flu outbreak left from AFP via Yahoo, click here, and Singapore, US boost cooperation against bird flu, other diseases from AFP via Yahoo, click here.

BellSouth to improve online access for predominately rural, poor areas

The BellSouth Foundation, the charitable arm of the Atlanta-based communications company, is planning a $20 million effort to improve access to online learning for underserved areas in the South.

The campaign will cover Georgia, Louisiana, North Carolina, South Carolina, Alabama, Kentucky, Mississippi, Florida and Tennessee, and it will help fund state-led virtual learning programs while seeking to expand computer access to children in poor areas, reports The Associated Press.

Foundation President Mary Boehm said, "We wanted to be sure all kids, not just the privileged, could be part of the virtual learning movement." In addition to helping bankroll and coordinate state virtual schools, the foundation will target low-income neighborhoods. In Atlanta's Carver community, a pilot site for the effort, volunteers will help create a school of technology and work with middle and high school students on job shadowing and an online algebra course, AP reports. (Read more)

Rural Pakistani journalists need computers, other aid from U.S. counterparts

Pakistan journalists, who work in an atmosphere of fear and intimidation, are starting a Web site for stories on freedom of the press "as a basic human right."

"The Rural Media Network of Pakistan is announcing the publication of the freedom-of-expression newsletter Sadiq News. The newsletter educates rural journalists about freedom of expression as a fundamental human right, and helps to provide them with the necessary skills to cope more effectively. The Nawa-i-Ahmedpur Sharqia newspaper will publish and distribute it freely to rural press clubs, journalists and educational institutions," reports the International Journalists' Network.

The Sadiq News monitors press freedom violations and defends free expression in rural Pakistan. The publication also plans to share this information with international press freedom groups to help coordinate protests to government leaders and the media. For that purpose, the Rural Media Network wants to establish a Sadiq News Web site in both Urdu and English.

The project lacks the necessary computer equipment. American journalists can help by donating equipment. For more information, contact Ehsan Ahmed Sehar at ehsan.sehar@gmail.com or ehsanshr@hotmail.com, or write to this postal address: Ehsan Ahmed Sehar, Press Chambers, Opposite Canal Rest House, Katchery Road, Ahmedpur East, District Bagalwalpur, Pakistan.

'Regional divide' limits broadband access for small firms in rural Ireland

After its transformation from being an agriculturally based economy into a tech-savvy country, Ireland is encountering the same broadband access issues that exist in rural U.S. communities.

"Three out of 10 small and medium sized companies in Ireland have been unable to upgrade to broadband mainly due to lack of availability in their areas, according to a survey of 601 small and medium sized enterprises published by the Chambers of Commerce of Ireland. The e-business survey also showed 29 percent of companies access the internet via broadband with 33 percent still using dial up," writes Deirdre McArdle of ElectricNews.Net.

Broadband enables companies to access the Internet at greater speeds. The survey results showed "a regional divide," writes McArdle with 66 percent of Dublin-based companies having broadband while 41 percent have high-speed internet access in the Midlands and 44 percent in the Border region.

Researcher Sean Murphy said, "We must continue to invest in the promotion of broadband and re-position ourselves as a leader in the e-enabled and e-user league tables." The survey also found a direct link between broadband connections and increased usage of all e-business applications. Murphy told McArdle broadband is the key to the creation of a real digital marketplace. (Read more)

Native Americans, University of Washington to explore culturally based healing

"For thousands of years, Native Americans have believed that their culturally-based traditional methods of healing have helped them live healthier lifestyles," writes Tiffany Royal of the weekly North Kitsap Herald. In partnership with the University of Washington, the Suquamish Tribe at the Port Madison Reservation hopes to prove its ways can help Native Americans.

For the next three years, the partners will sponsor a project called "Healing of the Canoe," which will involve gathering information about the culturally-based traditions. Earlier this year, the National Institutes of Health awarded the university $1.4 million for the project, reports Royal.

The project's goals include implementing a community-based intervention or prevention program rooted in tribal values and traditions, and evaluating the program to see if it actually promotes wellness while reducing health problems. "The tribal canoe journey is the metaphor for the project, as it is an event that some Suquamish members have participated in and found to be helpful in getting their lives back on track after certain life struggles. It teaches members traditional protocol and helps members learn about themselves physically and spiritually and how to lead a clean and sober lifestyle," writes Royal.

"It's been very healing for our people," said Chuck Wagner, the tribe's lead administrator for the behavioral health portion of the tribe's wellness program. The canoe journey has "worked for tens of thousands of years but no one ever wrote it down," Wagner told Royal. (Read more)

North Carolina burley growers continue auctions despite end of price supports

A long tradition of tobacco auctions is continuing in western North Carolina despite the dominance of direct contracting with cigarette companies and the end of federal quotas and price supports.

"Asheville has been home to burley tobacco auction warehouses for more than a century. But with the upheaval in the industry caused by last year’s $10.1 billion buyout of tobacco producers, the tradition looked like it might end. For people like Yancey County grower Wendell Wilson, that would’ve truly been the end of an era," writes John Boyle of the Asheville Citizen-Times.

Wilson told Boyle, "I’m 44 and I started coming down here when I was 7 years old. I’m tickled to death the Owen family kept it open." The auction will run through Dec. 15. On the first day of sales, four tobacco companies sold about 170,000 pounds of leaf — about half of last year’s first-day sales. The average price was $1.56 a pound, considerably less than last year’s average, which hovered around $2.

The 11 westernmost counties of North Carolina had about 3,500 tobacco growers in 2004. At the Asheville warehouses, sales traditionally generate between $8 million and $10 million annually, writes Boyle. (Read more)

Virginia agriculture secretary backs program to preserve farmland

Virginia's secretary of agriculture and forestry wants the state to commit to agricultural preservation by supporting programs that will make sure farmland stays farmland. "Robert Bloxom spoke at the Virginia Farm Bureau Federation's 80th annual convention in Norfolk, where he received a task force's recommendations to provide state funds for local programs that pay farmers in exchange for giving up the right to develop their property," writes Sonja Barisic of The Associated Press.

Such "purchases of development rights" programs guarantee the land will remain farmland, forest or open space, instead of housing developments, malls, etc., notes Barisic. About a half dozen Virginia cities and counties have PDR programs, but they are locally funded.

Bloxom told Barisic, "Now it's the state's turn to join in ... to help the localities in this battle to preserve our farmland and our forest land." The Virginia Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services' Farmland Preservation Task Force report the state lost 23,360 acres of farmland and more than 22,000 acres of forest to development each year between 1992 and 1997. (Read more)

Drug crimes triple female inmate population in rural New Mexico county

One rural New Mexico county is seeing more female inmates because of an increase in drug crimes, according to an in-depth look at increased crime, illegal drug traffic and the space crunch in area jails.

"There were 26 female inmates housed in one pod of the Curry County Adult Detention Center on a recent late-November afternoon. Located about 20 miles away, the Roosevelt County Detention Center housed 12 female inmates. Those numbers fluctuate daily, but a larger trend remains. According to the Bureau of Justice Statistics, the number of women in jail nearly tripled from 1985 to 1996. Local jail officials also report a sharp incline in women prisoners," writes Marlena Hartz for the Clovis News-Journal.

A decade ago, the Curry County jail housed an average of less than 10 women; Roosevelt County, less than eight, according to jail officials. Now, women in bright, orange jail uniforms are common jail residents, accounting for about 10 percent of the population in Roosevelt and Curry County jails. (Read more)

Curry County assistant administrator Larry Sanders told Hartz, "It all boils down to drugs." Sanders said nearly 80 percent of the women are in on drug-related charges; about 60 percent are repeat offenders.

Federal grant to help rural Alaska deal with high criminal case load

A $2 million federal grant over three years will give rural Alaska two new prosecutors.

"The new prosecutors will operate out of Anchorage and assist 84 prosecutors in the state's 13 rural offices, handling everything from murder to minors consuming alcohol, said Susan Parkes of the state Department of Law's criminal division. "It is going to have a significant impact just to have that release valve," she said. Alaska's district attorneys are struggling with high case loads. In Kotzebue, one prosecutor handled 166 felony cases in 2003 and 212 last year, Parkes told The Associated Press.

Prosecutors have to rank cases and they lack the hours to prepare and go to trial on every case. "We try not to let caseload be a consideration when we look at high-priority cases - sexual assaults and violent crimes - but certainly when you look at property crimes or misdemeanors, it is really the only control you have as a prosecutor over your caseload," Parkes told AP. "Sometimes caseloads influence dealing a case." (Read more)

Copies of high school newspaper seized in Tennessee over birth-control story

"Administrators at Oak Ridge High School went into teachers' classrooms, desks and mailboxes to retrieve all 1,800 copies of the newspaper Tuesday, said teacher Wanda Grooms, who advises the staff, and Brittany Thomas, the student editor," reports The Associated Press.

The Oak Leaf's birth-control article listed success rates for different methods and said contraceptives were available from doctors and the local health department. Superintendent Tom Bailey said the article needed to be edited so it would be acceptable for the entire school. The edition also contained a photo of an
unidentified student's tattoo, and the student had not told her parents about the tattoo. Bailey told reporters, "I have a problem with the idea of putting something in the paper that makes us a part of hiding something from the parents."

Bailey said the paper can be reprinted if changes are made. Thomas wasn't sure about making changes. "I'm not completely OK with reprinting the paper," she said. (Read more)

Monday, Nov. 28, 2005

Rural youth still flock to the military; database available for local stories

The Detroit News is the latest metropolitan newspaper to localize a continuing national story, about disproportionate numbers of rural Americans joining the military, often as a path out of poverty. Now reporters anywhere can get access to a database to do their own, localized stories.

"Military records show that Michigan's military recruits come disproportionately from the state's most rural areas, where young people enlist at a rate double that in the most populous parts of the state. Last year, the slab of land around North Branch sent 30 people into the U.S. Air Force, Army and Navy," write the newspaper's Brad Heath and Norman Sinclair. In Michigan's 45 most rural counties about seven of every 1,000 young people ages 18-24 enlisted last year, compared to about four of every 1,000 young adults in the state's most populous counties.

Anita Bancs, research director for the National Priorities Project, told Heath and Sinclair, "I think it tells us that young people with limited opportunities are more likely to join the armed forces. If we're going to engage in war, we ought to know who the people are who volunteer, who are serving in the armed forces and who put themselves at risk."

Heath and Sinclair profile 18-year-old Eagle Scout Steven Letts who wants to join the Marines when he finishes high school. He will take his first entrance test today. Letts said his parents "are supportive, but they don't like the thought of me going to war." School counselor Carolyn Medford told Health and Sinclair, "There aren't a lot of careers here. A lot of people have relatives who've gone into the service already; they see (the military) as a viable way to start a career." (Read more)

The American Friends Service Committee sued the Department Of Defense to get a listing of all recruits and their hometowns, a valuable tool for newspapers to do sophisticated analysis for their readers. Click here for that resource. For a report on a Henryville, Ind., Silver Star recipient, the nation's third highest award for valor, by Larry Thomas of the CNHI News Service, click here.

Major discrepancies reported between state, U.S. student-achievement tests

The New York Times has disclosed apparent major discrepancies between the results of national achievement tests and what many states are reporting from their standardized tests, raising questions and accusations about alleged attempts to skirt the No Child Left Behind law.

"After Tennessee tested its eighth-grade students in math this year, state officials at a jubilant news conference called the results a 'cause for celebration.' Eighty-seven percent of students performed at or above the proficiency level. But when the federal government made public the findings of its own tests last month, the results were startlingly different: only 21 percent of Tennessee's eighth graders were considered proficient in math," writes the Times' Sam Dillon.

The national debate over testing and accountability has been intensified by the apparent discrepancies, notes Dillon. Some educators are charging states have created easy exams to avoid sanctions imposed on consistently low-scoring schools by No Child Left Behind.

In Mississippi, 89 percent of fourth graders performed at or above proficiency on state reading tests, while only 18 percent of fourth graders demonstrated proficiency on the federal test. Oklahoma, North Carolina, Alabama, Georgia, Alaska, Texas and more than a dozen other states all showed students doing far better on their own reading and math tests than on the National Assessment of Education Progress test.

Michael J. Petrilli, a vice president of the Thomas B. Fordham Foundation, which generally supports the federal law, told Dillon, "Under No Child Left Behind, the states get to set the proficiency bar wherever they like, and unfortunately most are setting it quite low. They're telling the public in their states that huge numbers of students are proficient, but the NAEP results show that's not the case." (Read more)

Stories on oil-and-gas boom offer lots of opportunities for local follow-ups

With oil prices high, the Kentucky Division of Oil and Gas expects to issue as many as 1,700 drilling permits this year, up almost 30 percent from last year. "It's the most activity in Kentucky in 20 years — and while it's profitable for the state, critics complain there's not enough oversight to ensure that the land is protected or people kept safe," The Courier-Journal reported yesterday.

The three-story package by Jim Bruggers, the Louisville paper's environmental writer, reported that state and federal regulations may be "too lax . . . to adequately address the environmental destruction caused by well drilling and construction of roads to the wells, including the pollution of waterways from erosion and contamination of water wells." For the main story, click here.

Well contamination is often caused by abandonment of wells that are no longer commercial producers but continue to leak oil, salt water and other contaminants into water-bearing strata. The series included a map showing the number of abandoned wells in each county with more than 100 such wells, providing a good story idea for local media in such counties. For that story, click here. For the map, click here.

For county information, go to www.dmm.ky.gov/oandg/Oil+and+Gas+Maps+and+Manuals.htm and click on the link to "view a list of Abandoned Wells as of October 2005" in an Excel spreadhseet. The Kentucky Geological Survey has much oil and gas data on its Web site, including interactive maps of wells in specific areas, which can be accessed at http://kgsmap.uky.edu/website/kgsog/viewer.htm.

Anti-depressant reduces meth cravings, may provide first drug treatment

A common antidepressant, bupropion, can cut methamphetamine cravings, which could mean there is finally a drug treatment for the addiction spreading across America, according to a new study.

"Dr. Thomas F. Newton, a psychiatrist at the University of California-Los Angeles, who led the study, found that subjects who were given bupropion reported a lesser high after treatment, as well as a less-intense craving after watching a video of actors favorably portraying meth use," writes Alex Raksin of the Los Angeles Times.

The four-week study involved only 20 patients, but it could provide the first known drug treatment for meth addiction. Bupropion, sold under the trade name Wellbutrin, is used to help people stop smoking, notes Raksin. (Read more)

Farming's future: Tapping into bio-diesel, hog production might spur success

"Drive less than 20 minutes from almost any crossroads in Indiana and you'll come across a feature of the Midwest landscape that we take for granted: namely, farm land. The vast open space that still exists in abundance between our state's urban areas remains dominated by the industry that once employed more people than any other -- agriculture. And while the sights of barns, crop land and animals grazing in pastures are familiar to us all, we should remember that looks can be deceiving," opines Pat Barkey, director of economic and policy studies at Ball State University, for the Marion Chronicle Times.

"Many of us who are waking up to the realization that durable goods manufacturing can't be depended on to propel future growth in the state think that the heyday of farming as an economic driver is long past. In a narrow sense, that's right -- we're not an agriculture based economy today, and we probably never will be again. But there's a lot more to food production than farming. And, besides, there's more uses for crops nowadays that just food. With so much healthy and productive farm land all around us, shouldn't we be thinking about ways that we capitalize on that proximity and take a bigger role in exploiting those opportunities?" asks Barkey.

"It's a question more Indiana communities are beginning to ask. The potential for higher value-added ag-related production processes - ranging from bio-diesel plants to hog production facilities - adding to the local economic base are nothing to sneeze at for the smaller towns and rural regions who have been standing on the sidelines watching larger cities grow," concludes Barkey. (Read more)

Florida farmworkers still awaiting aid more than a month after hurricane

"They are among thousands of Florida's uninsured farmworkers still awaiting help since Wilma thrashed South Florida on Oct. 24, in the nation's worst hurricane season on record. Wilma killed 35 people in the state, destroyed or damaged tens of thousands of homes, and caused widespread power outages across South Florida," reports Laura Wides-Munoz of The Associated Press.

Farmworker advocates say Wilma has underscored a larger problem: the state's failure to respond to the needs of the mostly Mexican and Central American workers who have reshaped Florida's agricultural communities, replacing many of the native black and Jamaican workers who once dominated the sector. Communication is a key factor, because in many parts of central and northern Florida, few public officials or staff speak Spanish, reports AP.

Palm Beach County has an estimated 190,000 Hispanics, 15 percent of the total county, up from about 140,000 in 2000, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. "The language can cause big problems for those most in need even if they are here legally," said Francisco Garza, an organizer with the Farmworker Association of Florida, an advocacy group with 6,000-plus members, notes AP. (Read more)

Energy mogul claims stake in West Virginia's future from a Kentucky office

Massey Energy Co. head Don Blankenship says he possesses a perspective of "living in the middle" of the Central Appalachian coalfields, mining mainly in West Virginia for a Virginia-based company, all while working from an office in Belfry, Ky., near the state's eastern tip.

Blankenship is active in West Virginia's political races, having spent $3.5 million to unseat a Democrat on the state's Supreme Court and already targeting another for ouster in 2008. Blankenship told reporter Erik Schelzig of The Associated Press he just wants to improve West Virginia, his home state:"I just have my view of what it would take to make the economy better and have more jobs and have a more normal place to live. Whoever supports that view, I'm in favor of. Anybody who doesn't have that view, I'm against."

His company is the nation's fourth-largest coal producer and owns one-third of all coal reserves in Central Appalachia. Massey expects to get half its production from surface mining next year, much of it from removing mountaintops, notes AP.

Blankenship's friends cite his often-quiet donations to charity, but a longtime foe, United Mine Workers of America President Cecil Roberts, told Schelzig, "Don has decided that he needs to be able to run the state like he runs his coal company and have control over everybody. He's trying to become the king of West Virginia." (Read more)

Work on mountain-protection rules continues in Georgia, creates controversy

White County soon may become the first in Georgia to pass a mountain-protection ordinance, which bothers some builders, real estate agents and landowners, who say restrictions are too stiff.

"We want mountain protection. The problem is the way the document is written up. It's going to kill construction in this county," Sandy Hanes, a realtor with ReMax, told Debbie Gilbert of The Gainesville Times. The White County Commission is slated to meet Tuesday night for a second reading of the ordinance.

Commissioners started work on the ordinance about two years ago in order to comply with the 1989 Georgia Planning Act's rules for environmental protection. Counties in the Appalachian foothills are supposed to have a mountain ordinance, but many counties have delayed adoption of any such measure, reports Gilbert. (Read more)

Ohioans in Appalachia struggle with poverty, few dental-care options

"Few dentists in the impoverished southeastern region of Ohio will accept new Medicaid patients. If they do, they often have months-long waiting lists," reports The Associated Press.

There is a statewide Safety Nets network for low income patients. The state budgeted $1.5 million this year for the state and federally funded network of free clinics. But the two-year budget reduced dental care funding for adult Medicaid recipients. Such clinics are rare in the state's Appalachian region, where medical care is scarce and tobacco chewing occurs more often than elsewhere in the state, according to the Ohio Dental Association.

Three clinics serve 14 counties in the region. Such clinics struggle with trying to balance care for new patients and emergency walk-ins with education for children and parents about dental hygiene, notes AP.

Also, dentists who treat Medicaid patients often take a financial hit because the aid doesn't provide the same payouts as regular insurance. Local health departments and nonprofit groups that operate clinics kick in money. "When Medicaid is your best payer, and a lot of your other patients are on a sliding scale that is not coming close to paying the bills, that's where we help," Dr. Mark Siegal, director of the state Health Department's oral health services, told AP. (Read more)

Mountain mirror? One in four children in British Columbia lives in poverty

An advocacy group reports that one in four British Columbia children lives in poverty, the highest rate in any Canadaian province.

"The report, by anti-poverty group Campaign 2000, paints B.C. as the worst offender in a country where the gap between rich and poor families is growing and where children of aboriginals and recent immigrants are hardest hit," writes Jonathan Woodward of the Globe and Mail . Campaign 2000 coordinator Laurel Rothman said the report was timed for the anniversary of a 1989 unanimous vote by the House of Commons to eliminate child poverty by 2000.

Michael Goldberg, a B.C. advocate who worked on the report, told Woodward the government has to increase the minimum wage, eliminate the controversial $6-an-hour training wage, and end restrictions on welfare rolls that he said have pushed people to low-paying jobs.

British Columbia's child-poverty rate is more than double that of Prince Edward Island, which had the lowest poverty rate, at 11.3 percent. And, the British Columbia rate jumped from 20 percent in 2001 to about 24 percent in 2002 and 2003. Rothman told Woodward that nearly half of the children of recent immigrants are poor, while 40 percent of aboriginal children and 33 percent of children in visible minorities live in poverty. (Read more)

U.S. Senate bill aims to increase ATV safety with mandatory standards

Major manufacturers of all-terrain vehicles are looking at safety legislation proposed by Minnesota's senators as a boon to the industry and consumers. Republican Norm Coleman and Democrat Mark Dayton introduced the proposal, which would for the first time regulate all ATVs sold in the U.S. by establishing mandatory standards, reports Aaron Blake of McClatchy News Service.

Dayton says the idea is a "trifecta" of safety, fairness and benefits for Minnesota's economy. Critics counter that the proposal would push an emerging import industry out of the market, notes Blake.

"As ATV sales have taken off in recent years, so have the numbers of injuries and deaths associated with the vehicles. The Consumer Product Safety Commission reports that an average of about 500 people died using ATVs each of the past five years, more than a quarter of them 15 or younger. The number of riders requiring emergency room care has climbed to more than 100,000 per year, about a third of them under 16," writes Blake. (Read more)

Does an East Tennessee cabin date to the 1760s? Answer may lie in artifact

A newfound page in the storied past of Blountville's Appalachian Caverns is creating a stir in the area, reports Rain Smith of the Kingsport Times News.

While excavating a cabin last week, researcher William Milhorn and site curator Roger Hartley may have found evidence that will show a colonial presence on the land as far back as the 1760s. "Everybody's been saying (the cabin) dates to about 1830," Milhorn told Smith. "Well, everybody's full of baloney. That cabin is a lot older."

The key artifact is a small metal button shank engraved with a crown and featuring the initials V and R. "If it's Virginia Regiment then it's a very, very, very important piece because there's not another one known of in the world," Milhorn told Smith. "I'm not saying that's what it is, but if it is, how did it get here?"

Milhorn said, "This place is the most historic caverns in East Tennessee, with more documented history and a documented presence than any hole in the ground between here and Memphis." (Read more)

Rural Calendar

Museum of Appalachia, Norris, Tenn., offers 'Christmas in Old Appalachia'

"Christmas in Old Appalachia" at the Museum of Appalachia, just a mile off Interstate 75 at exit 122, near Norris, Tenn., opened Sunday.

"Seasonal decorations will brighten the old-time cabins and other structures lovingly transplanted by museum founder John Rice Irwin to a 65-acre Tennessee hillside. Music will greet Old Appalachia visitors daily throughout December, except on Christmas Day, the only day of the year the museum is closed, " writes Jane Durrell, a contributing writer for the Cincinnati Enquirer.

Durrell notes that the museum's collections are Irwin's life work. There are more than 35 structures -- cabins, blacksmith shop, sawmill, schoolhouse, loom house, and and other artifacts -- on view in the Display Barn. Memorabilia of "notable, historic, famous, interesting, colorful and unusual folk from the surrounding region" are housed in the Appalachian Hall of Fame, writes Durrell. (Read more)

Nov. 30: Community Involved in Sustaining Agriculture, Amherst, Mass.

Community Involved in Sustaining Agriculture's (CISA) 12th Annual Meeting will be held from 6 to 9 p.m. Nov. 30 at The Red Barn at Hampshire College in Amherst, Mass. There will be a potluck supper and a keynote address. For more information visit www.buylocalfood.com/events.html.

Sunday special, Nov. 27, 2005

Cash, son of rural Arkansas, journeyed through the other side of virtue

Johnny Cash was a lot more than the character in the new movie "Walk the Line," and Nicholas Kulish reminds us of that today in an op-ed piece in The New York Times.

Cash wasn't all that handsome, sometimes sang off-key and knew few chords, Kulish writes, but "If performers could be weighed and measured like prizefighters, Cash might have left the oddsmakers in stitches. Yet there is a power and honesty to his music that few recording artists can match. In his most affecting songs, the gravelly, toxic rumble you hear is Johnny Cash locking horns with his dark side. It's one man's fight for his own soul, a timeless struggle to a rockabilly beat."

Kulish adds later, "If all Johnny Cash brought to the stage were his demons, we wouldn't need to remember him. . . . It is the angel on Johnny Cash's other shoulder that gives his music its depth and profundity. . . . Johnny Cash merges our seemingly contradictory American traditions of outlaws prone to wild gunplay and pious Christians singing hymns, without stopping to explain how you can be both at once.

" . . . In a world increasingly reduced to good and evil, to us versus them, Johnny Cash was a man unafraid to admit that he was both. We've somehow lost sight of the truth that there can be no redemption without sin. It's this kind of reductive thinking that makes it easy to reduce swaths of the country to color codes and political parties; to lock millions away in jails and prisons, then toss the keys without guilt.

"Johnny Cash sang that he wore black "for the poor and beaten down, livin' on the hopeless, hungry side of town." With hundreds of thousands displaced by Hurricane Katrina, layoff announcements dangling over the heads of 98,000 American auto workers, and 2.1 million men and women in prisons and jails across the country, we still need him.

"Cash's life was an American story that can never be repeated, one that began in the Depression-era cotton fields of Arkansas and continued through an auto assembly line in Michigan to occupied Germany with the United States Air Force. He then joined legends of rock 'n' roll like Elvis Presley and Jerry Lee Lewis at Sun and on the road. He stayed with us until the end, touring as long as he could and recording almost until his death. 'The way we did it was honest,' he wrote. 'We played it and sang it the way we felt it, and there's a whole lot to be said for that.'" (Click here to read more)

Friday, Nov. 25, 2005

Southern identity strongest in rural areas, AP reports in start of an opus

"Things are indeed changing in the South. So is the notion of what it means to be Southern," writes Allen Breed, southeastern regional reporter for The Associated Press, in a series on the South and Southern identity, beginning today in many newspapers and tomorrow or Sunday in others.

"We've had the Solid South, the Old South and the New South. But are we heading toward a "No South"? Breed asks. "In this most maligned and mused-upon of American regions, the term conjures a variety of images. Magnolias, front porch swings and sweet tea for some; football, stock cars and fried chicken for others; lynchings, burning crosses and civil rights marches for still others."

Projected to comprise 40 percent of the nation's population by 2030, the South has become more like the rest of America, Breed notes: "The South is now the nation's most industrialized region; though traditional textile employment and the like has largely moved offshore, the region has attracted high-profile employers such as automakers. About three-quarters of Southerners now live in metropolitan areas."

But that's still less than in the rest of the country, and a poll conducted for the series "found that people who live in rural areas are much more likely than their urban and suburban counterparts to consider themselves Southern," Breed reports.

Cassandra King, a novelist who grew up on a peanut farm in southern Alabama, told Breed that the South will always be "the agrarian South of the hardworking, reddened-neck farm family. . . . Southern identity comes from the red clay or white sand or black dirt which produces our peanuts and corn and okra and field peas and sweet potatoes."

Rural areas are more likely to be poor, and Breed points out that the South "is still set apart by its poverty, and some old stereotypes hold water. Eight of the top 10 states with the highest percentages of mobile homes are in the South, as are nine of the states with the highest rates of adult toothlessness."

In urban areas, Southern identity is less, and the poll founnd that in the region as a whole, "the percentage of people in the region identifying themselves as Southerners is shrinking." Conducted in October by Ipsos-Reid Public Affairs, the poll "found 63 percent of people living in the region identified themselves as Southerners," Breed reports. "That mirrors a trend from a University of North Carolina analysis of polling data that found a decline of 7 percentage points on the same Southern identity question between 1991 to 2001, to 70 percent."

The South has become "sort of like a lifestyle, rather than an identity anymore," James Cobb, author of the newly published Away Down South: A History of Southern Identity, told Breed. "The things now we would base Southern distinctiveness on are so ethereal." (Read more)

Mississippi victims see displacement and redevelopment, not recovery

In a long, sad story in today's Washington Post, Michael Powell reports that recovery is a distant dream for many victims of Hurricane Katrina -- many of whom may be permanently displaced, or worse. "The personal shock of it all hasn't subsided," Powell writes. "Locals say it's not uncommon to hear perfectly rational people talk of suicide." This is an important story, worth more space here than usual.

Powell's story deals mainly with the Mississippi coast, but he also reports from the rural, inland town of Pearlington: "There are twin devastations in Mississippi, and it would take Solomon to pick the worse of the two. There are the coastal cities and there are such places as tiny Pearlington, deep in the woods and marshlands along the Louisiana border. Here a 35-foot-high storm surge roared up the Pearl River."

"The local school remains shredded, its roof a spaghetti of metal beams. Everyone lost cars and trucks, and there's no money for replacements. Many people sleep in tents or shacks that have been roughly thrown together. The county's only supermarket is gone. Six shrimp boats still sit on the river bottom. There's a good bit of drug smuggling, but that isn't really a sustaining industry."

Powell's Pearlington narrative focuses on the Rev. James O'Bryan, a Catholic priest whose church the Diocese of Biloxi will not rebuild. He told Powell, ""The bishop tells me we were insured for [Hurricane] Camille but not for Katrina. I remember going for a walk just before the storm and saying to myself, 'Lord, you aren't going to take my little kingdom from me, are you?' I realized now that he was."

"Many people here harbor anger that the federal government has fallen short and that the nation's attention has turned away. At least 200,000 Mississippians remain displaced, and the Federal Emergency Management Agency is short at least 13,000 trailers to house them. 50,000 homeowners lack federal flood insurance and cannot rebuild," Powell writes. "Some officials are talking about surrendering [town] charters and becoming wards of the state."

"The response of the federal government is bewildering and deplorable," Bruce Katz, director of metropolitan policy at the Brookings Institution and author of two studies of the Katrina response, told Powell. Roy Necaise, a regional housing official, told the reporter, "Washington has totally let us down, and it's a disgrace." The story includes no comment from FEMA.

"The hurricane pushed tens of thousands of coastal residents north and west, spreading over four states. The longer it takes to rebuild houses and businesses, the more officials worry that the dispossessed, particularly the working class, may never return," Powell reports, and notes they they sometimes are chased away by local officials.

"This politically conservative state has a threadbare safety net," Powell writes. "Two weeks ago, county officials lifted an informal moratorium on evictions. Tenants cannot claim rent breaks for water-damaged apartments. One can sit now in housing courts in Gulfport and Biloxi and watch judges order the evictions of hundreds of tenants, often with a speed that startles the tenants." (Read more)

At the same time, developers are offering big money for devasated property and forecasting a boom in upscale development. "If that kind of rebirth happens, it will be on the backs of the lives of a lot of Biloxians. It's like talking bad about somebody at their funeral," Keith Burton, editor of the online Gulf Coast News, told Powell. This morning, Gulf Coast News sums it up: "The Coast is still in relief mode, not recovery, nearly three months after Hurricane Katrina."

Kentucky high court says rural electric cooperatives are limited to electricity

The Kentucky Supreme Court ruled Wednesday that rural electric cooperatives, "which were created to bring power to secluded areas during the Depression, are still restricted to generating, distributing and selling that electricity," reports The Associated Press.

"The divided court ruling overturns an earlier victory for the Jackson Energy Cooperative Corp." of McKee, formerly the Jackson County Rural Electric Cooperative Corp., "which wanted to sell propane gas and offer an array of other services, including such things as tree-trimming," AP reports, noting that the years-old case "has been closely watched in the utility industry."

"The statute authorizes only activities that are consistent with the operation of an electric cooperative," Justice Donald Wintersheimer of Covington wrote for the 4-2 majority. "The language which describes the purpose of the cooperative is abundantly clear, there is no ambiguity."

The court's newest justices dissented. Justice John Roach of Lexington (who is running to keep his seat and attended the recent annual banquet of the Kentucky Association of Electric Cooperatives) said a 1974 change in co-op laws "opened the door for other services that could include the sale of propane," AP wrote. Justice Will T. Scott of Pikeville said the majority ignored the wishes of the utility's 46,000 customers, as determined by a 1998 survey and limited competition with "a cold winter comin'."

In state where tobacco industry began, tobacco is no longer the No. 1 crop

Soybeans generated $124.3 million in cash receipts for Virgina farmers in 2004, ranking the crop first in the state. "The Virginia Agricultural Statistics Service says tobacco dropped to No. 2, with $112.9 million," The Associated Press reports.

"The toppling of tobacco," which was planted by settlers as early as 1619, was not a surprise," because Virginia acreage used for tobacco acreage has declined for decades, AP writes. "Production has spiraled downward in recent years for several reasons, including lower U.S. smoking rates, the federal tobacco-quota buyout and cheaper leaf from countries like Brazil and Africa." Note to AP: Africa's a continent, not a country.

Wednesday, Nov. 23, 2005

Texas town that took a promotional name dishes out news; others do too

"A small-town effort to avoid annexation by a voracious neighbor exploded into a row over dumpsters, a water hose and vote rigging. When the dust cleared, the mayor was bounced, the town changed its name, and media from around the world were calling to ask about a satellite-TV company that had agreed to provide the whole city with free service." That's the lede of Steve LeVine's story in today's Wall Street Journal about Dish, Tex.

The Denton County municipality -- "town" doesn't fit a place with no gas station or convenience store -- was created to block annexation by Fort Worth and was originally named Clark, after its main founder and first mayor. When Clark made Mitch Merritt, owner of a trailer park with most of Clark's population, "shut down an unsightly dumpster site [and] bury a water line," Levine writes, Merritt got citizens to call a referendum to take his property out of Clark, and his proposal passed. Then his son ran a write-in campaign for mayor and beat Clark, 40-39. Clark alleged vote fraud in both elections.

New Mayor Bill Merritt heard that Echostar Communications Corp., of Denver "was running a contest in which the winning city would receive free satellite-TV service for a decade for changing its name to Dish, the company's brand," Levine writes. "Mr. Merritt entered the contest, seeing it as a creative way to realize his immediate goal of discarding the detested Mr. Clark's name. Earlier this month, Echostar announced that Clark was the winner, and the switch was made last week. Mr. Merritt decided to make it all capitals to differentiate the town a bit."

The Journal followed the all-caps style for the town's name, but The Associated Press did not, and The Rural Blog abhors such typographical tyaranny. We also note -- or should we say "we also dish"? -- that there was already a Clark, Tex., a wide place in TX 146 in Liberty County, between Houston and Lufkin.

AP's Matt Slagle notes other name promotions: "Back in the 1950s, Hot Springs, N.M., was renamed Truth or Consequences, N.M., after a popular quiz show. During the dot-com boom of 2000, Halfway, Ore., agreed to become Half.com for a year. In September, the tiny [Western Kentucky] town of Sharer ... was offered $100,000 to change its name to PokerShare.com. . . . And in 2003, residents of Biggs, Calif., overwhelmingly rejected a California Milk Processor Board proposal to rename the city of 1,800 Got Milk? in exchange for a milk museum and money for the school." (Read more)

AP also reports that the water commisisoners of Santa, Idaho, "have voted to change the town's name for a year to SecretSanta.com at the request of a Philadelphia marketer. In return, the cash-starved water and sewer district — Santa's only official entity — will get at least $20,000 between now and next December. The town has to erect two signs, one at each end of town, bearing its new name. . . . The change is mostly symbolic; the post office will keep the name Santa." The town has about 100 people. (Read more)

Federal policies deplete the wealth of rural America, says scholar

"The phrase 'rural wealth' sounds like an oxymoron. Rural incomes are lower than urban. Rural poverty rates are higher — by 25 percent. And 450 of the nation’s 500 poorest counties are rural. Adding insult to injury, federal policies make things worse. According to the 2001 Consolidated Federal Funds Report (the latest available), $6,131 in per capita federal spending goes to urban areas; $6,020 goes to rural. That totals nearly $6 billion a year of rural disadvantage," opines Thomas D. Rowley of the Rural Research Policy Institute.

Of federal funds going to rural areas, 71 percent are transfer payments, such as Medicare, Social Security and farm subsidies, "rather than money that builds infrastructure, improves capacity and helps communities grow stronger. By contrast, only 48 percent of funds to urban areas are transfer payments," Rowley writes.

The federal government spent two to five times more per capita on community development in urban areas than in rural from 1994 to 2001. Rowley also points an accusatory finger at philanthropists. A May 2004 report by the National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy reports U.S. foundations gave out some $30 billion a year, with $100.5 million of that committed to rural development.

Rowley notes that 184 out of 65,000 active grant-making foundations in the U.S. gave to rural development. Two of those from the W. K. Kellogg Foundation and the Ford Foundation were responsible for 42 percent of the money to rural. (Read more)

Ky. extension offices helping seniors through Medicare Part D confusion

The University of Kentucky Cooperative Extension Service is coordinating a statewide effort to help
senior citizens clear up confusion about Medicare's new prescription drug coverage plan.

"The effort ... centers on helping county extension agents answer questions about the plan, known as Part D, and to help eligible Medicare participants locate local resources, including offices of the Kentucky State Health Insurance Assistance Program, which provides information, counseling and assistance to seniors and other Medicare participants," writes Terri McLean of the UK College of Agriculture communications office.

Deborah Murray, associate director of the Health Education through Extension Leadership extension program, told McLean that a look at the number of eligible Kentuckians and the size of the task at hand made extension leaders conclude that the service, with its offices in every county, "had a responsibility to help get the information out there." (Read more)

Enrollment in the new plan opened Nov. 15, coverage begins Jan. 1 and enrollment ends May 15, 2006.

Our daily bread: NPR takes a Thanksgiving look at hunger in America

As thousands of Americans rush to celebrate with family and feast in commemoration of this nation's founding, millions of others will have little or nothing to eat.

National Public Radio, in a special multi-part program, reports that 38 million Americans are "food insecure" -- they have trouble finding the money to keep food on the table. (Stories page) NPR profiles families who have faced hunger in three different settings: rural, suburban and urban America.

Yesterday, The Rural Blog reported on the first part, Rural Struggle to Keep the Family Fed, by Howard Berkes. (Click here to listen) The next part, The Causes Behind Hunger in America, is by economic geographer Amy Glasmeier of Penn State. (Click to listen) Rachel Jones reports on Hunger Hidden but Real in America's Suburbs. (Click to listen) Elaine Korry reports on Housing Costs Play Role in Urban Hunger. (Click to listen)

Midsize farms can survive with whole foods, seed money, opines writer

A column in The New York Times by Dan Barber, creative director of the Stone Barns Center for Food and Agriculture in Westchester County, N.Y., explores the idea that shopping at farmers' markets can preserve farmland. Are people who buy into that idea truly out of touch with agriculture today?

"These people are right. And they're also wrong. The bitter truth is that American agriculture -- its land and its immensely complex distribution system -- is no longer in the hands of the small farmer. Small farmers and farmers' markets, as much as we want them to, are simply not in the position right now to save American agriculture. Giant farms won't either, of course. For the most part, these are the farms that grow a single crop or raise large numbers of animals in close confinement. To sustain their unnatural existence, these megafarms, whether they're raising crops or animals, require enormous quantities of pesticides, fertilizers and antibiotics simply to survive," opines Barber, who is also a chef.

Barber considers the idea that a farm needs to get ever larger and more specialized to survive. The number of farms with annual sales of $500,000-plus has increased 23 percent from 1997 to 2002. Midsize farms, with sales of $50,000 to $500,000, have declined in number by 14 percent from 1997 to 2002, or about 65,000 farms. Now, the country's 350,000 midsize farmers, who are too big to sell greenmarkets but too small to compete with the giants, comprise two-fifths of our farmland, notes Barber.

Thomas Dorr, an Iowan who is undersecretary of agriculture for rural affairs, predicts 250,000-acre giants will rule the future, but Barber says midsize farms can thrive too. "After all, there's a large, existing market -- school systems, hospitals, local grocery chains, food service distributors -- for varied, healthier foods. These institutions, because of their size, cannot shop at the farmers' market. Even if they could, there would never be enough volume or consistency to meet their needs. Midsize farms can meet those needs."

"How do we do this?" Barber asks. "By shifting the money. Our government now subsidizes the commodity production of grain - mostly corn and soybeans. We need to pull farmers out of the commodity trap and help them make the transition to growing the kinds of whole foods - fruits and vegetables - that would benefit us all. This is not another subsidy, and it's not welfare. It's seed money for a new frontier (actually, an old frontier) in agriculture." (Read more)

California says no to 'traditional' coal power from Wyoming, wants it cleaner

Energy officials eager to connect California consumers with cheap coal power from Wyoming may need to rethink their approach, reports Dustin Bleizeffer of the Jackson Hole Star-Tribune.

"The California Energy Commission [has] unanimously approved [a report] which includes ... new greenhouse gas performance standards beyond the reach of traditional coal-fired power plants. Top energy officials in Wyoming regard it as a major setback to an effort to add several thousand traditional coal-fired megawatts here and a major new transmission line to power California," writes Bleizeffer.

Steve Waddington, executive director of the Wyoming Infrastructure Authority, told Bleizeffer, "The policy could preclude coal-fired generation from Wyoming, in a timely way, to meet the power supply needs of California." The authority told the California commission it may consider a legal challenge.

The Wyoming Conservation Voters Education Fund said investors may be compelled to finance zero-emission coal technologies, which could catapult Wyoming into a "next generation" coal economy with a longer and perhaps more profitable future, writes Bleizeffer. Jason Marsden, executive director of Wyoming Conservation Voters, said "Investors should think twice before risking their money on new coal-combustion power plants that can't capture global warming pollutants, since California, the biggest potential electricity customer, is no longer interested in buying dirty, coal-fired power."

California's new policy restricts purchases of out-of-state coal-based power to facilities working to reduce global warming pollution. "Any new coal plant that wishes to sell electricity to California must be as clean as the most efficient natural-gas fired power plant," Bleizeffer writes. (Read more)

Tomato fight: Florida farm workers pitching for more from McDonald's

"The Coalition of Immokalee Workers [has] urged consumers to pressure McDonald's Corp. to support a campaign to boost wages for more than 3,000 Florida pickers, who growers say provide about 90 percent of the nation's domestic fresh winter tomatoes," writes Laura Wides-Munoz of The Associated Press.

The campaign comes less than a year after the workers reached an agreement with Taco Bell's parent company, Louisville-based Yum Brands Inc., which said it would pay a penny more per pound of tomatoes. (Read more)

Gerardo Reyes, an Immokalee farm worker, told Wides-Munoz, "We are hoping McDonald's takes responsibility, the same way Taco Bell and Yum Brands did, and that it uses its power to demand a just treatment and decent pay for farm workers." Coalition organizer Julia Perkins said most tomato pickers receive roughly the same wage they did in 1978 -- 40 to 45 cents for every 32-pound bucket of tomatoes.

British man diagnosed with mad-cow disease marks second case in U.S.

The federal Centers for Disease Control has announced a British man has been diagnosed with the human form of mad-cow disease -- the second such case documented in the U.S.

"Health officials say the man most likely contracted variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease in the United Kingdom. However, he began to show symptoms while living in Houston, so he will be listed as a U.S. case," writes Yvonne Lee of All Headline News based on a report from The Associated Press.

CDC medical epidemiologist Lawrence B. Schonberger told reporters, "This case represents a continuation of the outbreak that is going on in the United Kingdom." After living in Houston for four years, the man returned to the UK earlier this year, and is receiving medical treatment there, notes Lee.

The disease is contracted by eating the brain or other nervous system tissue of an infected animal. The first documented U.S. case was a British woman living in Florida who was also believed to have contracted the disease in Britain. She died last year, writes Lee. (Read more)

County ministers association takes devil by the horns in anti-drug rally

Ministers in Powell County, Ky., are campaigning against drugs with revival-style fervor. "The crowd of about 700 passed up a University of Kentucky basketball game to pack [a] middle school's gymnasium. They were joined by U.S. Rep. Ben Chandler, dozens of other elected officials and law officers, and Powell's district and circuit judges," writes Peter Matthews of the Lexington Herald-Leader.

Rev. Bill Boldt of Stanton Baptist Church, backed by 30 other ministers, outlined a plan to create five 12-person task forces to deal with drugs in the hilly county, which is flanked by the Bluegrass Region and the Cumberland Plateau.

The ministers want to bring the federally funded anti-drug law enforcement organization, Operation UNITE, or something similar to Powell County. Two of the organization's leaders told the crowd how it had helped turn around the drug problem in Manchester, notes Matthews. UNITE operates only in the 5th Congressional District, which includes most of the Kentucky section of the plateau but not Powell County.

Joe Farmer of UNITE told Matthews, "We need some people with some backbone" to tell drug dealers "it is no longer acceptable to sell drugs to our children." Local law enforcement officials say nearly every c