The Rural Blog Archive Sept. 2005

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

Friday, Sept. 30, 2005

D.C. radio host tackles 'rural-urban divide,' says small-town stories 'unknown'

Rural America deals with issues of poverty, unemployment and substandard housing on a daily basis. Often times, those issues receive little if any national coverage until a natural disaster strikes.

"Scores of residents in the smaller towns from Texas to Alabama are dealing with the one-two punch of Rita and Katrina, yet their stories are largely unknown. Some observers say that's no surprise. They argue that the rural U.S. is rarely seen and more rarely understood my many urban dwellers. Yet rural America is home to 55 million people and makes up most of our land mass. So is rural America being forgotten by policy makers and the public, and if so, is there a fundamental rural-urban divide in the U.S.?" asked WAMU-FM host Kojo Nnamdi on Wednesday during his Washington, D.C.-based show.

"All too often what we're seeing in our studies is that these newsrooms in Manhattan, these newsrooms in Washington, D.C., if it doesn't happen in those urban areas, it barely happens," said Matthew Felling, media director at the Center for Media and Public Affairs. "It's like Mars and Venus just don't known how to talk to each other. Rural and urban America just don't know how to explain each other."

"The irony is that if you look at the New Deal or some of the major political movements in history, you see that rural and urban have found ways to work together. What we have now is this enormous chasm between the two and no immediate prospects of bridging it," said Dee Davis, president of The Center for Rural Strategies. (Click here for a link to the broadcast)

Post-hurricane rebuilding efforts should include rural America, says writer

As Gulf Coast cities start the post-hurricane rebuilding process, resource-depleted rural communities must be included, writes Thomas D. Rowley in his latest column for the Rural Policy Research Institute.

"According to a recent Associated Press story, Vidor, Texas — a town of 11,000 east of Beaumont — is unraveling decades of bigotry by welcoming and caring for black evacuees of Katrina. A town that was once a hub of Ku Klux Klan activity and routinely chased African-American people away is opening its arms," states Rowley. (Click here for AP story)

"Vidor is taking the opportunity to remake itself. And while that may be one tiny example, it’s an example well worth following. Remaking the Gulf Coast is strewn with obstacles just as the coast itself is now strewn with debris. It will require a monumental commitment of time, money and effort and no small amount of sacrifice from all Americans. Now, however, is the time," opines Rowley. (Read more)

Wal-Mart VP 'smacked around' by community newspapers at convention

After a day in public and private with publishers and editors of community newspapers, Wal-Mart's vice president for corporate communications said she couldn't promise they would get more advertising from the company, notorious among some in the industry for its scant spending with newspapers. But she suggested that new marketing strategies and tactics are in the offing as the company re-examines itself and tries to get over "an awful lot of bumps" that have hurt its reputation, revenue and stock price.

"You guys are really a big bump right now, because you're angry with us and you feel we're not good citizens in your community," Mona Williams told this morning's general session of the National Newspaper Association's 119th annual convention in Milwaukee. Earlier, she said of her session with NNA leaders the day before, "You guys smacked me around a little bit yesterday."

NNA President Mike Buffington said in introducing Williams yesterday that 67 percent of newspapers responding to an NNA survey this spring said Wal-Mart had had a negative impact on them, and that 28 percent rated their communication with the company negatively while 10 percent rated it positively.

Williams said when local store managers seek coverage of their hirings or charitable contributions but say they have no advertising budget, "You grit your teeth at that. That was the half of the story we simply weren't aware of." Many in the audience groaned. Williams said the company's headquarters last year spent $55 million on ad inserts in 900 newspapers with circulations of 100,000 or less.

While she wouldn't promise more, Williams said, "Clearly, we need to be doing a lot of things differently. ... That's why we're reaching out to all sorts of groups outside the Wal-Mart bubble to give us advice," including environmental and anti-sweatshop organizations. "Our challenge right now is to be the right kind of citizen, whether it's in factories around the world or in small communities . . . how can we do the right thing for communities while still building a vital, growing, stable business?"

A more detailed report on this morning's session, including questions by NNA members and answers from Williams, will appear in a later edition of The Rural Blog.

Middletown, N.Y., newspaper offers good example of policing preparedness

Wisconsin Gov. Jim Doyle told the National Newspaper Association convention yesterday that "fair, open and probing media" are needed to check on national, state and local preparedness in the wake of the responses to Hurricane Katrina. A good example of what Doyle describes comes from The Times Herald-Record (circ. 80,000) of Middletown, N.Y., serving the Hudson Valley.

The newspaper's Greg Bruno writes, "If disaster struck [in the paper's circulation area], three-quarters of the communities would be unprepared. The majority of municipal plans for protecting the public from ... disasters are outdated, incomplete and vague. Of the 75 communities that provided their plans for review, only 25 percent are updated or specific enough to be useful in a catastrophe."

The newspaper found that "55 percent [of those with plans] haven't included the most basic emergency planning information. Some haven't studied possible disaster scenarios, considered the No. 1 measure of preparation by the state Emergency Management Office. At least 20 of the provided plans are fill-in-the-blank or generic documents that offer few community-specific details. Of the 12 communities in the region with more than 15,000 people, seven are either 'unprepared,' or didn't make their plans available. Only 16 communities are in the process of reviewing and revising their plans. At least one said the federal government's failure to respond quickly to Hurricane Katrina pushed them to act."

"Four years after 9/11 and months after some of the region's worst flooding in decades, municipalities appear to have taken a hands-off approach to emergency planning," writes Bruno. (Read more) The Times Herald-Record's reporting caught the attention of Poynter Online's Al's Morning Meeting. (Click here)

Habitat land may return to farming; feds say move will help rural communities

The Bush administration has announced changes in a major conservation program that affects nearly 36 million acres of land nationwide used as habitat for diverse wildlife.

The protected areas in question are enrolled in the Conservation Reserve Program, where farmers, since the 1980s, have been paid to keep fragile land out of production. "The program is credited with producing huge increases in habitat for pheasants, ducks and other wildlife, but critics say it has hurt rural communities where farming had fueled the economy," writes Philip Brasher of The Des Moines Register's Washington Bureau. The administration said only 20 percent of that land will be enrolled for new 10- to 15-year contracts. Contracts on most of the land will be expiring during the next several years.

Owners of the rest of the conservation program's acreage will be offered extensions of two to five years which means 3.2 million acres of the 16 million acres due to come out of the program in 2007 will be eligible for long-term contracts. Agriculture Secretary Mike Johanns said millions of acres of environmentally sensitive land could return to farming, "but, we'll have to wait and see." Environmental groups want the government to ensure the land under contract is the most beneficial in providing wildlife habitat, improving water quality and preventing erosion, Brasher writes. (Read more)

Kansas and Missouri crimping meth labs; both show major decline in busts

Missouri Gov. Matt Blunt has said the state's new anti-methamphetamine law was largely responsible for a 55 percent drop in the number of meth labs shut down in August.

"In Kansas, raids are down nearly 64 percent from June through August, compared with the same period last year. This year there were 49 labs discovered in that period, down from 135 last year," reports Laura Bauer of the Kansas City Star. (Read more)

Both states have put pseudoephedrine and ephedrine, ingredients used to make meth, behind pharmacy counters. Kyle Smith, spokesman for the Kansas Bureau of Investigation, which released the seizure numbers, told Bauer, “We’re not doing complete cartwheels at this point, but we are doing handstands.”

Pennsylvania to be site of first U.S. plant to turn coal into no-sulfur diesel, oil

The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania plans to subsidize a proposed plant that converts waste coal into zero-sulfur diesel fuel and home-heating oil.

"Waste Management and Processors Inc. in Gilberton is to begin the $612 million project next spring ... about 50 miles northeast of Harrisburg," writes Peter Jackson of The Associated Press. Pennsylvania has an estimated 258 million tons of waste coal piled on more than 8,500 acres. Gov. Ed Rendell said the waste coal "produces nothing but environmental problems for us."

The state has agreed to buy 15 million gallons a year of diesel over the next 10 years to fuel its vehicles and oil to heat its buildings. "Most of the rest is expected to be bought by other consortium members, which include Worley & Obetz Inc., a heating-oil company, the Keystone Alliance, a fuel-purchasing group for the trucking industry, and other businesses," writes Jackson. (Read more)

Navajo president wants coal-mine reclamation law extended to clean up his land

Navajo Nation President Joe Shirley Jr. wants Congress to reauthorize coal mining reclamation laws enabling his tribe to clean up contamination left from mining operations.

Shirley urged the reauthorization of the Surface Mining Control and Reclamation Act of 1977 and the Abandoned Mine Land Reform Act of 2005, reports The Associated Press. Shirley told the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee that mining companies left more than 1,300 abandoned mines on Navajo land, and the laws have allowed the tribe to clean up the environmental and physical hazards.

"Mining companies have reaped the benefits of Navajo coal for decades but have given so little back to the communities which have been affected by their activities," Shirley said, adding, "They have polluted our water, soil and air and have not rectified the communities or the sites they have disturbed when they leave."

The Navajo Nation has contributed about $186 million to the Abandoned Mine Land Trust Fund. However; while the tribe is entitled to use an estimated $93 million from the fund, it has received only $62 million for reclamation and other projects, AP reports. (Read more)

Forest Service research would involve logging in Daniel Boone National Forest

A U.S. Forest Service research project in the Daniel Boone National Forest would involve logging an estimated 610 acres. Environmentalists, however charge it is a guise to use science as a reason to cut and sell timber from the federal land.

Forest research scientist Callie Jo Schweitzer told reporters trees have grown so thick in the Daniel Boone they are competing for nutrients and are at risk of being killed by insects and disease. She said the project will look at whether the forest can be made healthier by cutting some of the trees, burning ground clutter and spraying herbicides, reports Andy Mead of the Lexington Herald-Leader. (Read more)

The Cold Hill Silvicultural Assessment Project would be conducted in the forest near London, and be one of the first projects in the nation to use the Healthy Forest Restoration Act of 2003. That act allows up to 1,000 acres to be logged without an environmental impact assessment.

Kentucky Heartwood leader Perrin de Jong said the Forest Service is trying to use the forest as a test case. He told Mead, "It's just another justification for the same old logging." The project would cut trees on nearly one square mile of the forest. The project also calls for brush and saplings to be removed, ground into chips and burned in an electric generating plant. For The Courier-Journal version, click here.

Creationism museum says Earth 6,000 years old, man and dinosaurs coexisted

The nation's largest museum devoted to biblical creation science is under construction in Northern Kentucky, just outside Cincinnati, a place where dinosaurs and humans coexist.

"Set amid a park and 3-acre artificial lake, the 50,000-square-foot museum features animatronic dinosaurs, state-of-the-art models and graphics, and a half-dozen staff scientists. It holds that the world and the universe are but 6,000 years old and that baby dinosaurs rode in Noah's ark," writes Michael Powell of The Washington Post.

The $25-million Creation Museum expects to attract hundreds of thousands of visitors when it opens in early 2007. Kenneth Ham, president of Answers in Genesis-USA, which is building the museum, told Powell, "Evolutionary Darwinists need to understand we are taking the dinosaurs back. This is a battle cry to recognize the science in the revealed truth of God."

Ronald Numbers, a University of Wisconsin-Madison professor and author of The Creationists, told Powell, "The creationists have been very successful in persuading conservative Christians to abandon any non-literal interpretation of the Bible. There is a very large constituency of Americans who are quite comfortable with Young Earth Creationism."

Polls have shown 45 percent of Americans believe God created humans in their present form about 10,000 years ago and man is not related to apes. Twenty-six percent believe in evolution's principle that all life descended from a single ancestor. A recent poll showed 65 percent of Americans want creationism and evolution taught in schools, Powell writes. (Read more)

Canada's highest court clears way to seeking tobacco damages; billions at stake

The Supreme Court of Canada yesterday unanimously upheld British Columbia's legal right to sue cigarette companies for an estimated $10 billion in smoking-related costs of health care.

"The unanimous judgment applies to only one province, but paves the way for lawsuits by other provinces," writes Cristin Schmitz of CanWest News Service. Federal Health Minister Ujjal Dosanjh, attorney general of British Columbia when the province filed the suit, welcomed the decision but denied the province's move is to bankrupt the tobacco industry. The industry could face claims of $80 billion or more if all the provinces decide to follow B.C.'s lead, writes Schmitz.

The ruling declared constitutional British Columbia's Tobacco Damages and Health Care Costs Recovery Act, enacted in 2001. The tobacco firms claimed the province was exceeding its legislative power, undermining judicial independence and violating the fundamental rule of law. Canadians who want to claim personal damages from tobacco firms have long been free to file individual or class-action lawsuits and can still do so. (Read more) For The Associated Press version, click here. And, for a different perspective from a business publication, click here.

Rural Calendar: Appalachian Heirloom Seed Conservancy event Oct. 21-23

The second annual Fall Conference of the Appalachian Heirloom Seed Conservancy will be held Oct. 21-23 at the Sustainable Mountain Agriculture Center on Pilot Knob Cemetery Road in Berea, Ky.

For more information, contact Brook Elliot at (859) 623-2765 or KentuckySeeds@hotmail.com, or Roger Postley at (859) 278-4846 or RPostley@aol.com. Registration and charges: Pre-registered member $5, member at door $8, non-member $15 all or $10/day (fees will apply toward membership). Speakers pay no registration charge.

Thursday, Sept. 29, 2005

Wisconsin governor challenges and praises small-town papers at convention

At few times in America's recent history has a "fair, open and probing media . . . ever been more important," Wisconsin Gov. Jim Doyle told small-town journalists at the opening breakfast of the National Newspaper Association's 119th annual convention in Milwaukee this morning.

"We really need your aggressive instincts to come out" as the nation, states and localities consider their preparedness for disasters in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, said Doyle, a Democrat who previously served as attorney general. "You can't just let the government look at itself."

Doyle cautioned journalists to use judiciously the technology that makes it easier to find and publish personal information about individuals, particularly old information that could hurt those individuals' efforts to "geta fresh start" in life. "There really becomes a need for editing like never before," he said.

But Doyle said most politicians don't understand that the editing process is usually done by "smart people with good values." He fondly recalled his visits to community newspapers in Wisconsin, saying he had been in more newspaper offices in the Badger State than anyone. "I love these places," he said. "I love what they mean to our communities. They are the heart and soul of our communites."

Doyle's remarks were warmly received. NNA President Mike Buffington of Georgia told Doyle as he left that if he were interested in serving as governor in a warmer climate, he would welcome him to the Peach State for its 2006 election, in which Republican Gov. Sonny Perdue plans to seek re-election. "To my Georgia colleagues in the back, grab this guy on the way out. We need some help."

Rural communities, tired of waiting on firms, setting up broadband services

Recent studies show most rural areas of the United States lack affordable high-speed Internet access. Fewer than half of Arizona's rural residents have access to this "fast lane" on the information highway, reports Lisa Nicita of The Arizona Republic.

"Tired of waiting for big telecommunications companies to bring broadband access to them, small communities throughout the state are going after it themselves," Nicita writes. Arizona's Government Information Technology Agency told the newspaper about one-quarter of the state's towns with more than 500 residents have no access to broadband. And in those having broadband, only half of the residents are able to access it."

David Evertsen, a consultant with a company that specializes in rural telecommunications development, told Nicita, "There are several communities that don't have what they need for services. Some communities are just off the superhighway."

Several Western congressional leaders are working to improve broadband infrastructure and connectivity. Sen. Gordon Smith, R-Ore.,and Sens. Jon Kyl, and John McCain, both Republicans from Arizona, are backing the proposed Rural Universal Services Equity Act of 2005, which would designate funds to supply broadband access to everyone. More than 850 rural communities across the nation have established their own municipal high-speed systems, Nicita writes. (Read more)

Hurricanes may boost argument for more low-power FM radio stations

Five years after Congress killed a similar effort, the Federal Communicaitons Commission is considering a proposal that could put more low-power radio stations on the air, a move boosted by some high profile low-power stations that helped many hurricane victims.

"The politics of low-power FM may have shifted considerably ... particularly in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. Although the National Association of Broadcasters and National Public Radio scored a victory in crippling the LPFM push in 2000, low-power radio activists said new legislation in Congress, plus the urge for 'localism' in broadcasting, puts the momentum on their side," writes Drew Clark of National Journal's Technology Daily.

An experimental license the FCC granted to community activists could spotlight low-power radio's ability to reach segments of the population lacking other media options. Those activists started radio station at the Houston's Astrodome for Katrina evacuees and caught considerable national media attention, writes Clark.

Pete Tridish, founder of Prometheus Radio, a nonprofit organization that helps start low-power stations worldwide, told Clark , "The place that I hear the most fear about LPFM is from the lobbyists at NAB." Prometheus played a key role in starting the 6-watt station outside the Astrodome. (Read more)

The Oregonian calls for global anti-meth controls; cartels evade state laws

A leading newspaper in the Western U. S. called yesterday for a national effort to globally track and interdict the ingredients needed to make methampletamine, a highly addictive and deadly illegal substance that took hold first in and has wreaked havoc on rural areas and is now widespread.

In an editorial, Meth knows no borders; Congress must pair global controls with tough retail rules to slow down the drug cartels, The Oregonian of Portland said, "Oregon can take every last one of its cold pills and lock them up behind bulletproof glass, but no state alone can slow methamphetamine production without the help of tough federal laws to control the global flow of the key ingredient in meth."

The newspaper sent one of its top reporters, Steve Suo, to Oklahoma, one of the first states to pass strong anti-meth legislation which became a model. They note that Suo "reported [Oklahoma's] law ... has indeed reduced the number of home meth labs -- but has not made a dent in overall meth use." The newspaper notes that as "Oklahoma shut one door to meth ingredients, Mexican cartels started running more meth ... through another door. [And] the purity of meth ... is as high as ever, the number of users shows no sign of dropping, and drug-related crime is still rampant."

U.S. House legislation targets the international trade of pseudoephedrine, the main ingredient in meth. The bill "would finally use American foreign policy to take the fight against meth worldwide," writes The Oregonian, enabling, " U.S. officials to track sales of ephedrine and pseudoephedrine ... worldwide. [And] ... allow the Drug Enforcement Agency to set U.S. import quotas for the chemicals based on legitimate demand, just as the DEA does now for narcotic drugs," they conclude. (Read more)

Wisconsin alderman who opposed Wal-Mart loses seat in recall election

A Jefferson, Wis., alderman who helped block the coming of Wal-Mart to the town between Madison and Milwaukee lost his job in a narrowly dedcied, heavily voted recall election this week.

David Olsen, who voted against annexing land for a Wal-Mart SuperCenter, lost by 65 votes (3.6 percentage points) to Chris Havill, an automobile dealer who supported the annexation by the town of about 7,500. The effort was "begun by a group of citizens supporting Wal-Mart’s efforts to build a SuperCenter on Jefferson’s south side," reported the Daily Jefferson County Union. (Read more)

The recall drew 39 percent of the town's registered voters, high for such an election. Olsen "tried to turn the election into a referendum on whether Jefferson residents wanted a Wal-Mart," wrote Reid J. Epstein of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. He told the paper that, as Epstein put it, "large corporations can trample over local governments and politicians."

"The fraud, in Olsen's view, is that the stated reason for the recall was that he may have violated the state open meetings law when he allowed Wal-Mart opponents to speak at a public meeting at which public input was not included on the posted agenda," Epstein wrote. "The owners of the land on which Wal-Mart would have been built filed a complaint with prosecutors, but Olsen was cleared of any wrongdoing early this month." By then, however, the petitions had been spproved and the election had been scheduled.

"When the recall effort began in July, Olsen said he was convinced Wal-Mart was behind it though he had no proof. Wal-Mart denied the accusations and the local woman leading the recall said the company had nothing to do with her efforts." (Read more)

Agriculture in Calif. pollution debate; smog, particulates raise asthma rates

California farm life may be making growing numbers of farm workers sick. The San Joaquin Valley, with its almond groves, cornfields and orange trees, lay trapped between the Sierra Nevada and the Coast Ranges and its smog-filled air has fostered widespread respiratory disease, writes Juliet Eilperin of The Washington Post.

Fifteen percent of the region's children have asthma, three times the national average. The valley's biggest city, Fresno, has the third-highest rate of asthma in the country, and the valley rivals Los Angeles and Houston for the worst air quality in the nation, writes Eilperin.

Environmental Defense analyst Tim Searchinger told Eilperin, "Unless [farmland] is extremely well-managed, it's going to create serious problems. But with some tweaks and a few bold approaches, farmers and ranchers could do a lot of good." Michael Kleeman, an environmental and civil engineering professor at the University of California at Davis, estimates that agriculture causes half of the valley's air pollution.

State Sen. Dean Florez is pushing to abolish farming's exemption from state air-pollution laws. When the state was in danger of losing federal highway funds because of high levels of pollution, Florez argued farms must curb emissions same as factories and power plants. Florez told Eilperin, "They've got to be part of the solution, not part of the problem," Florez said. "It's a cultural change for them."

A state agency has ruled any existing farm with more than 1,000 milk cows had to apply for a permit on the grounds that large dairies -- which release volatile organic compounds and ammonia from cattle waste -- rank as major polluters. (Read more)

Colorado treasurer says tobacco settlement is unconstitutional tax collection

Colorado Treasurer Mark Hillman, less than four months into his new job, calling illegal the national tobacco settlement that provides hundreds of millions of dollars annually to 46 states.

"Hillman wrote a column for the Wall Street Journal arguing that the settlement, negotiated among state attorneys general and big tobacco companies, was unconstitutional because it set up a system to collect taxes without legislative authority," writes Steven K. Paulson of The Associated Press.

Hillman wrote in the column, published last week, "The billions generated by the tobacco settlement conceal the threat that activist attorneys general pose to taxpayers and to checks and balances on political power." Hillman told AP he is not saying states should give the money back, but agreed with a lawsuit filed in New Orleans federal court last month claiming the agreement was illegal.

The settlement requires tobacco companies to pay $206 billion to 46 participating states. In return, the states dropped lawsuits seeking health cost reimbursement. Many of the states have used the money for health, smoking-cessation and other programs. The Aug. 2 lawsuit, filed by the nonprofit Competitive Enterprise Institute, argues the "settlement created a government-protected cartel that keeps cigarette prices artificially high. It asks that states be prevented from enforcing it. Similar lawsuits have been filed in Oklahoma, New York, Kentucky, Tennessee and Arkansas," writes Paulson. (Read more)

Crackdown on overweight coal trucks in Ky. may have saved lives, official says

A top state vehicle enforcement officers says a crackdown has drastically reduced the number of overweight coal trucks in eastern Kentucky.

Greg Howard, commissioner of the Kentucky Vehicle Enforcement Division, told reporters yesterday that 77 percent of coal trucks checked in April 2004 were found to be carrying loads in excess of state weight limits, but similar checks in April of this year found fewer than 4 percent of trucks running overweight, reports Lee Mueller of the Lexington Herald-Leader.

In a news conference alongside U.S. 23 near the border of Floyd and Johnson counties, one of the major coal-carrying arteries in the heart of Kentucky coal country, Howard said, "At one time, if we weighed 100 trucks, 99 would be overweight. Now if we weigh 100 trucks, we might find 10 that are overweight." Howard contends lighter loads on the coal trucks make roads safer. "With this reduction in weight," he said, "these guys can control their trucks better." (Read more)

Appalachian coal producer purchases group's assets, operations in two states

A major Appalachian coal producer has agreed to pay $316.2 million for the coal assets of a privately held group with reserves and operations in West Virginia and Virginia.

The Nicewonder coal group is selling coal reserves and operations in southern West Virginia and southwestern Virginia, to Alpha Natural Resources Inc., ANR has announced, reports United Press International in a story datelined Abingdon, Va. (Read more)

The sale is expected to add about 4.3 million tons to Alpha`s coal output in 2006, an increase of some 20 percent over Alpha`s expected coal production this year, reports UPI . ANR and its subsidiaries operate mining complexes in four states, consisting of more than 60 mines feeding 11 coal preparation and blending plants. The company and its subsidiaries employ about 2,800 people, they report. For more details from an ANR news release on PRnewswire.com, click here.

Community journalism at all levels focus of Kansas University initiative

Kansas University’s School of Journalism and Mass Communications is beginning a two-year initiative aimed at helping journalists better cover their communities.

"The school is partnering with the Harwood Institute of Public Innovation in Maryland. Representatives from the Institute were in Lawrence this month," reports The Lawrence Journal-World.

The John S. and James L. Knight Foundation have given both the school and the institute $200,000 in grants for the initiative. The goal is to create "Web-based resources, including a community coverage handbook, information for journalism and newsroom trainers, and case studies of good community journalism," writes the newspaper. The school also will hold three symposia to discuss the relationship between journalists and communities and the conditions for credible coverage, they report. (Read more)

Rural Calendar: 'Helping Small Towns II' set Oct. 19-22; deadline Oct. 10

What do you want the future of your small town to look like? The Heartland Center for Local Development's Tools for Community Survival Institute could help answer that question.

Helping Small Towns II offers community development professionals and practitioners the basic skills to confront and control the hard work of community building. It runs Oct. 19-22 at the Snow King Resort in Jackson, Wyo.

Daily sessions run from 8:30 a.m. to 5 p.m., except for Saturday which ends at noon. Deadline for early registration has been extended until Oct. 10 at the early registration cost of $850, which pays for program fees and materials. Scholarships are still available on a limited basis.

To find out more about the Institute and registration, go to http://www.heartlandcenter.info and click on the Annual Institutes button. Or phone 800-927-1115 941 “O” Street, Suite 920, Lincoln, NE 68508 • (402) 474-7667 • Fax (402) 474-7672 • email: info@heartlandcenter.info

Wednesday, Sept. 28, 2005

Justices to hear tax-credit arguments; rural areas use them to attract business

The U.S. Supreme Court will use an Ohio case -- which also affects Michigan, Kentucky and Tennessee -- to decide next year whether the Constitution allows states to offer tax incentives to create jobs.

The justices will "hear oral arguments on whether Ohio officials acted constitutionally when they provided a $280 million package of tax incentives in 1998 to DaimlerChrysler to help finance a $1.2 billion Jeep plant in Toledo," writes Jack Torry of The Columbus Dispatch.

Ohio officials said the economic package helped persuade DaimlerChrysler to replace the antiquated Jeep factory with a new plant just north of downtown. Ohio law allows companies to take a credit by investing in new equipment and machinery, especially in economically depressed areas. In a ruling last year, the U.S. 6th Circuit Court of Appeals concluded that the 1995 Ohio law violated the Commerce Clause of the Constitution, which states that Congress has the sole authority to regulate interstate commerce. Ohio Attorney General Jim Petro appealed that ruling to the Supreme Court, reports Torry. The circuit comprises Ohio, Kentucky, Michigan and Tennessee.

The law's opponents say it discriminates against interstate commerce by forcing state businesses to invest in Ohio, since tax credits might not exist elsewhere. Toledo attorney Terry Lodge filed the suit against Ohio, and he hopes the court issues a ruling that hurts similar laws in virtually every state. "We want to federalize a decision that might curb some of this insane waste of billions of tax dollars in the name of this corporate gimmickry," Lodge told Torry. (Read more) subscription required

"This case could have implications for rural economic development because states often relies on such incentives to attract industries to rural areas," writes Torry.

Average American spends most of the day with the media, study finds

A new study from Ball State University shows the average American spends more time using media devices, such as television, radio, iPods and cell phones, than any other daily activity.

"The media 'ecosystem' surrounding Americans - not just TV, radio, and newspapers but also the Web, PDAs, MP3 players, cellphones, video games, and more - keeps getting more widespread, personal, and diverse. The world is seeing 'a Cambrian explosion' of media usage, says Paul Saffo, a director of the Institute for the Future, a think tank in Palo Alto, Calif.," writes Gregory M. Lamb of Christian Science Monitor. (Read more)

"The study also found participants are adept at managing their use of two or more types of media at the same time," reports Newswise.com, a research-reporting service.Ball State's Center for Media Design (CMD) researcher Robert Papper said, "As a society, we are consumers of media. The average person spends about nine hours a day using some type of media, which is arguably in excess of anything we would have envisioned 10 years ago." (Read more)

Research team members spent several months studying about 400 "ordinary" people, collecting and analyzing data on 5,000 hours of media use. The studies took place in Muncie and Indianapolis, Ind., and researchers measured participants' use of myriad media. Papper said, "Television is still the 800-pound gorilla ...however, that is quickly evolving. When we combine time spent on the Web, using e-mail, instant messaging and software such as word processing, the computer eclipses all other media with the single exception of television."

Rita's aftermath Vol. 1: Texas, Louisiana school districts remain closed

A lack of power and damage inflicted upon buildings are keeping students out of school in many of the districts hit hardest by Hurricane Rita.

"About 84,000 students from the southeastern region of Texas will be out of school for the foreseeable future, as cities such as Beaumont and Port Arthur and smaller towns surrounding those areas assess the damage caused by Hurricane Rita. The storm also forced schools to remain closed in parts of southwest Louisiana," write Christina A. Samuels and Erik W. Robelen of Education Week.

Several districts that had closed based on early predictions about Rita's path, including the 210,000-student Houston district and the 9,100-student Galveston district, plan to reopen this week. The Louisiana Board of Elementary and Secondary Education was scheduled to hold its first meeting in the wake of Hurricane Katrina last night, reported Samuels and Robelen. (Read more)

Aftermath Vol. 2: Rain to spread soybean rust spores as far north as Canada

"With rains from Hurricane Rita continuing, USDA's soybean-rust model is predicting an area of new spore transport and depositions from the Gulf Coast into eastern Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, the western Florida panhandle, eastern Georgia, northward to Arkansas, Illinois, the Ohio River Valley, the Appalachian states, New York, New England, southern Ontario, and southern Quebec," writes Cheryl Rainford of Agriculture Online.

Spores were expected to move east Tuesday to include land east of the Appalachian Mountains from Florida north to Canada. Today's forecast limited new soybean spore transport to eastern Texas, northern Florida, and southern Georgia, reports Rainford.

Don Hershman, an extension plant pathologist with the University of Kentucky, said Monday that no soybean rust has been found in the upper Mid-south or Midwest. (Read more)

Pennsylvania proposal aims to protect underground miners, punish violators

Pennsylvania Gov. Edward G. Rendell introduced legislation this week to strengthen standards for
protecting Pennsylvania miners.

The legislative package includes some of the most significant changes in decades to the commonwealth's mine safety laws, reports Newswire.com. "Pennsylvania's mine safety program is a national model, but we want to make sure we have in place the highest standards to protect our miners and maintain our leadership in mining operations," Rendell said.

Some 4,600 underground miners work in Pennsylvania, and nine of them recently escaped disaster with a rescue at Quecreek, the governor said. Among that workforce, one fatality has occurred in the past three years, reports Newswire. The governor's proposal includes changes to the state's Bituminous Coal Mine Act to improve permit reviews, increase corporate responsibility and increase the state's ability to impose regulations and penalties.

The changes eliminate obsolete language in Pennsylvania's statutes, which were written in the late-19th century and last updated in 1961. Rendell's proposal would set criminal penalties, civil enforcement actions and civil sanctions for coal mining act violations, states Newswire. (Read more)

Virginia scholar calls intelligent design 'bad science'; national debate rages

A Virginia professor is joining the debate over teaching "intelligent design" in classrooms, with plans to use it as an example of "bad science" for his students.

President Bush has called for equal treatment of intelligent design alongside the teaching of natural selection. The U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Pennsylvania is trying a lawsuit filed by parents challenging the insertion of intelligent design into the curriculum in rural Dover, Pa.

George Mason University origin of life scientist and researcher Robert Hazen, opposes teaching intelligent design (ID) alongside science with a unique twist, reports Newswise.com. Hazen writes, "Indeed, ID is a quasi-scientific brand of Creationism – the doctrine that life arose through miraculous intervention. The teaching of Creationism has been prohibited in the science curricula of public schools exactly because its precepts are based on faith, not reproducible observations. Creationism isn’t science."

"Like most of my colleagues, I’m troubled by the thinly-veiled anti-evolutionist subtext ... but I also see an educational opportunity in this debate. That’s why I’ll follow our President’s advice in my ... classroom next semester. One way to develop a critical understanding of what constitutes good science is to take a close look at bad science," writes Hazen. (Read more)

For the latest on the trial in Harrisburg, Pa., click here for Testimony: Creationism was pressed by Philadelphia Inquirer staff writer Amy Worden. For another perspective on the court case from the York Daily Record, click here for Witnesses testified that board members had a history of talking about creationism, by Lauri Lebo.

Tennessee legislator under fire for comparing state's black caucus to KKK

A white lawmaker claims he was excluded from Tennessee's black legislative caucus because of his race, and is drawing fire for comparing the group to the Ku Klux Klan.

"My understanding is that the KKK doesn't even ban members by race," Rep. Stacey Campfield (R-Knoxville) told The Associated Press, adding that the KKK "has less racist bylaws" than the black lawmakers' group. "I definitely think they should allow white people in as members. If we work together we might be able to pull things off and get things done."

Tennessee Black Caucus member Rep. Larry Miller (D-Memphis) said no white lawmaker has ever requested membership. Miller said the group's bylaws mention only black lawmakers, but that white lawmakers might be considered, excluding Campfield. "He is using this as a joke. This is an insult coming from him," Miller told AP. "Why he chose to focus on the Black Caucus, I have no idea other than he is crazy and a racist." (Read more)

Campfield has chronicled his attempts to join the caucus via his blog. The blog also contains various postings that slam abortion and gay adoption.

Cumberland Falls community votes to stay dry; supporters wanted tourism boost

Rresidents near Kentucky's Cumberland Falls have voted down a referendum on the sale of beer and wine in their community despite a push for liquor sales to boost tourism.

Residents voted down the referendum 114 to 86, representing half the precinct's registered voters. The referendum was sought by a local resort owner. A million-plus tourists visit the area annually.

"When the results were announced, about a dozen showed up to hear them. Those against alcohol defeated the referendum started by Eagle Falls resort owner Jimmy Vance, who wanted to open a winery and sell alcohol in his restaurant," reports WKYT-TV of Lexington.

Vance questioned the vote, telling the television station he had 127 people sign a petition to get the issue on the ballot. Vance said "people either didn't come out to vote or they changed their minds," WKYT-TV reported. His opponents said Vance didn't advertise enough. Vance says he is planning to try again, and will seek a countywide referendum. (Read more)

Broadcaster appointed to replace convicted felon as county judge-executive

A local broadcaster has been appointed to fill a Kentucky county's judge-executive seat, which will is being vacated by a convicted felon.

"Gov. Ernie Fletcher yesterday appointed a replacement for Knott Judge-Executive Donnie Newsome, a convicted felon who leaves office Friday. Fletcher picked Randy C. Thompson, 48, owner of Hindman Broadcasting Co.," writes Lee Mueller of the Lexington Herald-Leader.

Newsome will conduct his last fiscal court meeting tonight. "Newsome was convicted in 2003 of vote-buying in a 1998 Democratic primary and his administration has drawn the repeated attention of state auditors," writes Mueller.

Thompson's radio career started at Eastern Kentucky Broadcasting, and he recently became the Kentucky Broadcasters Association chairman. (Read more)

American Community Newspapers bolsters circulation with latest purchase

American Community Newspapers' total circulation is about to reach 1.1 million, following the purchase of Suburban Washington Newspapers Inc., reports The Associated Press.

The growing company is based in Eden Prairie, Minn., and publishes three dailies and 70 weeklies, almost all of which are in suburban locations. The most recent purchase adds 105,000 to American Community Newspapers' circulation total, according to the news service. Additions include two Sun Gazette papers that serve five communities in Virginia, according to AP.

"This acquisition furthers our suburban strategy to acquire strong community newspaper franchises in top 50 U.S. markets," Gene Carr, American Community Newspapers' CEO, told AP. (Read more)

Rural Calendar: Social scientists at Western Kentucky University, Sept. 30 - Oct. 1

Social scientists from Kentucky and Tennessee will visit Western Kentucky University this weekend for the 41st Annual Meeting of the Anthropologists and Sociologists of Kentucky (ASK).

The conference includes 11 paper sessions, two panel presentations, two film screenings and a keynote address. The paper sessions are on various topics, such as Religion, Distress and Recovery, Economy and Work, Youth and Tourism.

The meeting begins at 3 p.m. Friday and continues all day Saturday at Grise Hall. At 9:30 a.m. Saturday, the Kentucky Workgroup on Civic Literacy and Education will present the findings of its recent report, Rediscovering Democracy. The group is chaired by Secretary of State Trey Grayson and includes key members of his administrative staff, representatives of the Department of Education, the Administrative Office of the Courts and Northern Kentucky University.

The keynote address at 4:45 p.m. Saturday will be presented by Lionel J. "Bo" Beaulieu, director of the Southern Rural Development Center, one of four USDA-sponsored regional development centers. For additional details and an event schedule, click here. All times listed are in Central Daylight Time

Tuesday, Sept. 27, 2005

Federal critical-access designation keeps some rural hospitals in business

In some rural areas, the health-care system is on life support, and for many hospitals the key piece of machinery is the special federal status of "critical access hospital." Cumberland County Hospital is one of more than two dozen Kentucky hospitals with the designation, which increases Medicare funding for hospitals deemed essential to their communities, writes Peter Smith in the latest installment of The Courier-Journal's series on Kentucky's health.

Hospital administrator Chip Sandford told Smith, "We'll never do hand surgery here," but added: "One of the hallmarks of rural medicine is that it's very, very personal." Thinly populated areas often are medically underserved, and Sanford noted that without the federal program, "we would have closed."

Hospitals deemed essential, with 25 or fewer beds, receive Medicare reimbursements of 101 percent of their costs. Medicare normally pays flat rates, but rural hospitals often don't have enough patient volume to break even. They typically have older populations, so their hospitals often live or die by Medicare funding. Nearly 60 percent of Cumberland County Hospital's revenue comes from Medicare. In less than a decade, 24 Kentucky hospitals have received the critical-access designation, writes Smith. (Read more)

C-J health-care reporter Laura Ungar, lead writer on the series, said she got the idea for the story when she heard Sandford speak in February at the Institute for Rural Journalism & Community Issues conference on covering health and health care in Central Appalachia.

Today's main story in the series, by Ungar and Smith, says that in many parts of Kentucky, doctors, clinics and hospitals are sparse and many lack insurance, their coverage is limited, or they have trouble getting to a doctor, "so the sick get sicker." University of Louisville professor of surgery Dr. Hiram C. Polk Jr. said failure to teach good health habits is the biggest culprit ... made worse by a provider shortage, especially in rural areas. (Read more)

Louisiana newspaper turns to Web after storm knocks out power, presses

One a newspaper's jobs is to be resourceful in the face of catastrophic events that knock out conventional methods of churning out the news. The Lake Charles, La., paper provides yet another stubborn example.

"Without power following Hurricane Rita's hit on the southwestern Louisiana coast, The American Press of Lake Charles has gone to the Internet full time," reports Editor & Publisher. Editor Brett Downer told E&P that reporters stationed in the newspaper's DeRidder bureau to the north are filing stories to the newspaper's Web site from laptop computers powered by car batteries.

Downer told E&P editors are being stationed in Lafayette and DeRidder to handle the Web site on a 24-hour basis. Photographers, with a generator-fired computer in Lake Charles, are getting photos to the site by e-mailing them first to their sister newspaper, The Daily News-Sun in Hobbs, N.M. Downer also provided a blog for readers at http://www.americanpress.blogspot.com.

The American Press has a daily circulation of about 40,000. Printed editions have been suspended. Also, the newspaper's regular Web site, which reproduces an entire edition, is down. (Read more)

Rita's devastation: Cattle stranded; rescuers scour 'Louisiana's outback'

With rescue efforts for hurricane victims underway in Texas and the Louisiana Gulf Coast, news organizations report that livestock are on the loose in remote bayou areas inhabited by alligators.

"With Hurricane Rita’s floodwaters receding along the Texas-Louisiana coast Monday, rescuers pushed deeper into hard-hit bayous to pull out residents on skiffs, crews struggled to clean up the tangle of smashed homes and downed trees, and Army helicopters searched for up to 30,000 stranded cattle," reports Brett Martel of The Associated Press.

The stranded cattle were also mentioned at the top of the CBS Evening News last night. Click here to see their story Animal Search And Rescue. PBS NewsHour referred to far western Cameron Parish as “Louisiana’s outback.” Click here for PBS stories.

Shades of Scopes! In rural Pennsylvania, homo sapiens pedigree again on trial

The debate about our origin continues today in U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Pennsylvania. One side wants both evolution and "intelligent design" taught in schools, and the other side says stick to science. The court is trying a lawsuit filed by parents challenging the insertion of intelligent design into the curriculum in Dover, Pa., “a rural, mostly blue-collar community of 22,000,” CBS News reported.

"A prominent biologist testified on the opening day of the nation's first legal battle over whether it is permissible to teach the fledgling 'design' theory as an alternative to evolution [saying] intelligent design is not science, has no support from any major American scientific organization and does not belong in a public school science classroom," writes Laurie Goodstein of The New York Times. (Read more)

The local paper, the York Daily Record, has three stories by Michelle Starr, including one reporting the view of The Discovery Institute, "the leading proponent of intelligent design," which said it opposes "mandating a policy that it says appears religiously based and shuts down discussions, but also took jabs on Monday at the plaintiffs' expert witness." For that story, click here; for a quick look at the proceedings, click here; for her overall story, click here.

CBS noted in its report that national polling shows most Americans favor teaching both evolution and intelligent design. (See the report: Click on Intelligent Design In Court) The Washington Post notes a chimpanzee DNA study reported in The Rural Blog Sept. 2 under the headline Man and monkeys have a lot in common that can aid medicine, says MIT study.

County leaders cultivate smaller businesses, entrepreneurs to create jobs

States and localities have long courted mega-corporations to catch "The Big One" to boost sagging economies. Now, some court smaller fish on the belief that the risks are less and the rewards greater.

The government of Union County, Ky., and its Economic Development Foundation, "long suitors of larger, industrial-style firms, are doing greater outreach to smaller up-and-coming entrepreneurs," writes Adam Smith of the Henderson (Ky.) Gleaner.

As part of this effort to help cultivate new business, Murray State University's Small Business Development Center District Director Mickey Johnson will speak at a seminar Oct. 13. hosted at a Morganfield restaurant. Paul Monsour, director of the Union County Office of Economic Development and former editor of the Union County Advocate, told Smith, "It's the first time I can recall, at least in recent memory, that we've done something like this."

Smith writes that the effort is aimed at helping would-be entrepreneurs like Jean Marple, a nurse who wants to start a small business. "Marple had no idea how to write a business plan, how to obtain a tax ID number, or how to discover what business permits she needed. The Office of Economic Development and the Morganfield Chamber of Commerce were very polite, but in terms of specific resource guides, little help was forthcoming."

The Murray center covers 24 Western Kentucky counties. Johnson will speak to "entrepreneurs and would-be entrepreneurs on developing business plans, obtaining financing and navigating that dreaded first year," writes Smith. Johnson told Smith he doesn't expect everything to be covered in a one hour-long seminar, but hopes it will let small business developers know "they have an important ally in the wilderness of entrepreneurship." (Read more)

Anti-zoning stance hard to fathom, urban paper says; is rural heritage valued?

An editorial in Kentucky's largest newspaper said yesterday that a national recognition of a state historical area should make rural preservationists to put the money where their talk has been.

"The minset of rural people in Kentucky is hard to understand," opined The Courier-Journal. "Few rural counties have adopted planning and zoning. In a way, that's understandable: The commonwealth is not a wealthy place, and a strip mall or a Wal-Mart appears to have a lot more value than, for example, a historic building or a farm."

The National Trust for Historic Preservation has awarded Kentucky a grant for preservation efforts in Boyle, Green, LaRue, Marion, Mercer, Nelson and Washington counties. The effort will serve as a pilot program for the country. The hope is to develop a stronger rural economy, "so folks don't feel pressured to move away or to sell off their farms, which could destroy part of what Kentuckians like about living here," writes the Louisville newspaper.

David Morgan of the Kentucky State Historic Preservation Office told the paper, "Kentuckians value their heritage." The editors say, "Well, the truth is, sometimes they value it, and sometimes they don't. If all goes well, three years from now, maybe everyone will value it a little more." (Read more)

Public broadcasting chairman steps down; new one takes reins, states duties

The man who opposed what he called the liberal slant in public broadcasting, Kenneth Tomlinson, ended his two-year term yesterday as chairman of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and was succeeded by another Republican who suggested she would take a different attitude.

"'I've enjoyed about as much of this as I can stand,' said Tomlinson, dryly as he convened the last meeting of his tenure as chairman. He will remain on the board for at least a year," write Matea Gold and Johanna Neuman of the Los Angeles Times.

Two Republicans were elected chair and vice chair -- Cheryl F. Halpern and Gay Hart Gaines, respectively. Halpern signaled she would be different from that of her predecessor. She said, "We have a duty to provide the public an explanation for the kind of work we do -- and we must honor the principles clearly stated in our charter: to encourage objective and balanced programming." (Read more)

Rural Calendar: Mining teach-in starts tomorrow at University of Kentucky

Several organizations at the University of Kentucky will conduct a "teach-in" tomorrow through Friday titled "Lost Mountains: A Look at Mountaintop-Removal Coal Mining in Kentucky."

The name comes from "Lost Mountain," a peak near Hazard and the central subject of an article this spring in Harper's magazine by Erik Reece, a professor in UK's English department and environmental studies program, reports the Lexington Herald-Leader. (Read more)

Highlights of the teach-in include: Tomorrow, a panel discussion in Room 230 of the Student Center from 4 to 5:30 p.m. with Reece, citizens, lawyers and a mining engineer; Thursday, Judith Hensley of Wallins Elementary School in Harlan County, will tell how a student project helped prevent mining of Black Mountain, the state's highest peak, and Kentucky authors Anne Shelby, Erik Reece, Randall Roorda, Kayla Whitaker, Nick Smith, Anne Bornschein, Erik Tuttle and Gurney Norman will read; Friday, a combination panel-musical performance of "Lost Mountains, Found Voices" will conclude the series. For more information, call Shaunna Scott at (859) 257-6882.

Monday, Sept. 26, 2005

Rural health: TV series spotlights solutions, how journalists can spread word

"Kentucky’s harsh probabilities" are the focus of a new television series on health, which discusses the role journalists can play in promoting solutions.

The 13-part series called The Commonwealth of Kentucky will premiere at 8 p.m. Oct. 4 on Kentucky Educational Television. That first episode introduces viewers to The Foundation for a Healthy Kentucky, which promotes successful health programs through a "Models That Work" initiative.

The positive role media can play by spreading the word about such programs is discussed in footage from a conference held in February by the Institute for Rural Journalism and Community Issues at the University of Kentucky Center for Rural Health in Hazard. "Where you’re talking to someone who says they feel so much better because they’ve lost 30 pounds, they changed their regimen… personal testimonies mean a lot and the way we convey those testimonies is through the media," Institute Director Al Cross said at the conference. Part of the conference dealt with the high mortality rate of Appalachian residents, many of whom never get cancer screenings.

The KET series aims to provide "creative, innovative and common sense solutions." "It’s absolutely heart breaking to see someone who reaches an advance stage of disease with a problem like hypertension or diabetes only because they assume because they didn’t have insurance, they couldn’t be helped," says Judy Owens, of the UK Center for Rural Health, in the first episode. (Read more)

The Courier-Journal is publishing an ongoing series called Kentucky's Health: Critical Condition, which resumed yesterday as mentioned in The Rural Blog. Here's a link to today's coverage from the Louisville newspaper, Bad habits give birth to chronic diseases.

Rural communities rebounding from Rita; many devastated by one-two punch

The force of nature hits rural, urban and suburban communities much the same, but rural areas, often accompanied by higher poverty rates, can have the hardest time recovering.

"Hurricane Rita's floodwaters receded yesterday along the Texas-Louisiana coastline, revealing devestated rural communities. Along the central Louisiana coastline, where Rita's heavy rains and storm-surge flooding pushed water up to 9 feet in homes and into fields of sugarcane and rice, weary evacuees slowly returned to see the damage," writes Julia Silverman of The Associated Press. Tracy Savage, 33, whose house in rural Vermilion Parish was four feet underwater, told AP, "All I got now is my kids and my motorhome."

Helicopters helped with house-to-house searches. Chief Sheriff's Deputy Kirk Frith told Silverman an estimated 1,000 people were rescued in Vermilion Parish, and about 50 people remained on a 911 checklist. Frith said rescue operations should end today and they would then begin damage assessment.

In Cameron Parish, La. fishing communities were reduced to splinters. Debris was strewn for miles. Holly Beach, a popular vacation and fishing spot, was gone, Silverman writes. Shrimp boats steamed through an oil sheen to reach Hackberry, only to find homes and camps flattened. Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Blanco, who has asked the federal government for $34 billion to aid in storm recovery told reporters "In Cameron, there's really hardly anything left. Everything is just obliterated. We ask for God's blessings on them and their families." (Read more) For more, in Destruction spread across rural towns, by the Lexington Herald-Leader, click here.

High fuel prices force rural school system to cut schedule to four days

Record high gasoline prices have taken their toll on the nation's economy with consumers having to adjust to cope. But, the cutting has now extended beyond the home and into a rural Kentucky school.

Jackson County, "starting the week of Oct. 17, students will get every Friday off. Teachers will work half a day. With the move ... Jackson becomes the fourth school district in the state to implement a four-day week, and the first to do so primarily for financial reasons," writes Peter Matthews of the Lexington Herald-Leader. Jackson schools Superintendent Ralph Hoskins says people have reacted favorably. Some school employees and parents question the speed with which the district is moving.

In Kentucky, the pioneer of the four-day school week was Webster County, which made the change in 2003. Faced with a financial shortfall it studied a rural Colorado system which had moved to a four-day week. Webster officials say they realized the shorter week offered more planning time and training opportunities for teachers. In its first year, Webster has saved more than $150,000 in costs and pay for substitute teachers. It saved an additional $167,000 by cutting some jobs, eliminating some bus routes among other cuts, writes Matthews.

Kentucky Education Association Director of Communications Charles Main, told Matthews the KEA is concerned about teachers having adequate classroom time, and whether classified employees will be hurt by the changes. For more information on the Webster County Schools four-day week experience go to http://www.webster.k12.ky.us. (Read more)

Lawsuit seeks more study on Blair Mountain mining permit

"Aracoma Coal Co. wants to mine 12.5 million tons of coal from the hills around historic Blair Mountain, near Ethel in Logan County. In the process, the Massey Energy subsidiary would bury nearly 3 miles of streams. Over the next eight years, millions of tons of waste rock and dirt would be dumped into Camp Branch and Dingess Run," writes Ken Ward Jr. of the West Virginia Gazette.

When it approved the proposal in July, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers concluded that Aracoma’s plan “does not significantly affect the quality of the human environment.”

On Thursday, the West Virginia Highlands Conservancy, the Ohio Valley Environmental Coalition and Coal River Mountain Watch filed a lawsuit in U.S. District Court challenging the corps finding. In their suit, the groups argue the effects are massive and warranted a detailed environmental impact study before Aracoma was granted its permit, reports Ward. (Read more)

The 25-page suit launched another major legal attack on mountaintop removal coal mining in Appalachia. If successful, the case could force federal regulators to perform detailed and time-consuming studies before issuing any new mining permits. At the same time, it could require government agencies to more fully examine potential impacts on forests and streams, and consider those before deciding to allow mining.

For a story on the lawsuit by The Associated Press, click here. Blogger's note: Blair Mountain was the scene of bloody fighting between thousands of union miners and a force of coal mine guards and local law enforcement officers in 1921. U. S. Army forces, under the command of General "Black Jack" Pershing, were called in to put down the insurrection.

Co-op offers settlement to 200,000 farmers; growers could get at least $50 million

Attorneys involved a lawsuit against the Flue-Cured Tobacco Cooperative Stabilization Corp. report more than 200,000 tobacco farmers in six states would get a payout of at least $50 million - and potentially as much as $288 million - in a proposed settlement.

"The flue-cured growers' cooperative was created in 1946 to administer the federal tobacco program, and over the years it has accumulated substantial cash reserves. Farmers from southeastern North Carolina sued the cooperative [saying that with the ] buyout of tobacco quotas and the end of the federal tobacco program, [the co-op] had outlived its purpose and should be dissolved so that members could claim their assets," writes David Rice of the Winston-Salem (N.C.) Journal

The settlement must still be approved by a Wake County judge, but its main elements include: At least $50 million - but possibly more - would be paid over three years to growers who sold flue-cured tobacco between 1985 and 2005 from the sale of surplus leaf that was left to the Stabilization co-op with the end of the federal tobacco program; At least $26 million in "certificates of interest" that were issued to farmers in connection with the sale of leaf from 1967 to 1973 will be paid to growers or their heirs who apply to have them redeemed, and the cooperative will allocate $110 million of paid-in capital on its books for members who paid "no net cost" assessment fees for the 1982-84 crop years, writes Rice.

Dennis Worley, an attorney for the growers in Tabor City, said that the settlement would not require farmers to remain members of the cooperative to claim their benefits. The settlement should protect most farmers who contract directly with cigarette-makers, Rice writes. (Read more - registration required)

Special prosecutor to probe claims of votes for smokes, liquor, pork skins

A special prosecutor is investigating a possible case of election fraud in Appalachia, Va., where residents of the coal town claim votes were bought with cigarettes and alcohol.

"Wise County Circuit Judge Tammy McElyea on Friday appointed Norton lawyer Tim McAfee to direct a special grand jury, which is scheduled to begin hearing testimony Oct. 3. The allegations and the investigation has stirred this town of 1,800," reports The Associated Press.

Rick Bowman first sought an investigation after losing his town council race in May 2004, and he said someone recently slashed his car's tires right in his driveway. "People around here are a little bit scared, because things are getting fairly heated," Bowman said. Sheriff Ronnie Oakes told AP that other complaints of residents being harrassed led to increased patrols this week. (Read more)

The fraud allegation originates with theess residents from the government-subsizied housing complex Inman Volaage, who told The Roanoke Times they were approached a candidates's supporters priot to the election. The resuident said they werte offered such items as a fifth of liquor, a pack of cigarettes and even fried pork skins for their votes. (Read more) For additional background from Coalfield.com, click here.

U. S. Department of Agriculture might shut 713 offices; cutting jobs

More than 30 percent of the nation's Farm Service Agency offices would close under a plan released by the U. S. Department of Agriculture. The agency may also reduce its payroll by up to 655 jobs.

"The plan would close 713 of the 2,351 offices nationwide, according to a summary the department provided to the Senate Agriculture Committee. The biggest cuts -- 40 percent or more offices closed -- would come in Indiana, Connecticut, Georgia, Kentucky, Maryland and West Virginia. In Indiana, 36 of the agency's 80 offices are targeted for closure, " reports The Associated Press. (Read more)

The FSA offices are a network in local communities dating to the 1930s, and the chief connection between farmers and the department.

"Agriculture is dynamic, and it is constantly changing. FSA must also change," outgoing FSA Administrator Jim Little wrote employees in a letter released Friday. It's unclear how many jobs will be eliminated. The department this week offered an employee buyout aimed at reducing as many as 655 jobs, Little said in an interview. He wasn't sure how many more of the 15,000 to 16,000 office jobs would be eliminated.

The goal is to move as many workers as possible into consolidated offices, because the department wants better staffing. The department also wants to modernize a system with rustic technology and underused offices. However, the effort already faces reluctance on Capitol Hill. Senators earlier this week voted to delay the closures until the agriculture secretary does a detailed cost-benefit analysis.

Veterinarians shortage: Women vets staying away from rural America

A rural veterinarians shortage continues to worsen with more retirements, and industry officials say that hurts livestock producing states' abilities to detect animal diseases early, writes Roxana Hegeman of The Associated Press.

"The concern is that if an unusual disease were to arise, it could spread before it's caught. The shortfall of veterinarians is also affecting government agencies - such as the U.S. Agriculture Department's food safety inspection service - which are entrusted to oversee food production, said Ralph Richardson, dean of the College of Veterinary Medicine at Kansas State University," reports Hegeman

"It's not just a matter of a veterinarians in the rural community," Hegeman told AP. The shortage could keep getting worse since younger vets are being lured by lucrative practices in big cities. Many veterinary schools are teaching students from metropolitan areas.

Another contributor is that "most graduating veterinarians today are women - many with little interest in taking on the physically demanding and time consuming work involved with large-animal practices in rural areas, statistics show. Nationwide, women comprised more than 73 percent of students enrolled in 27 veterinary colleges during the 2004-05 school year, according to the American Veterinary Medical Association," reports Hegeman. (Read more)

Rural Florida development gets another OK; nearby residents fear crime, traffic

"Gramercy Farms, a proposed 1,000-home development off Old Hickory Tree Road, moved forward Thursday with approval by the St. Cloud City Council of planned unit development zoning for the project," reports Jason Holland of the Osceola News Gazette.

The development includes single-family and town homes, with one third of the land set aside for parks and wetlands. The single-family homes will be set on 40- and 50-foot wide lots. One-third of the land is designated for parks and wetlands, which has been offered to the city for apossible aquatic center. The Osceola County School Board has voted to fund a feasibility study on such a project, writes Holland.

Nearby residents oppose the Gramercy Farms project, saying it would disrupt their lives and create crime, traffic and drainage problems. (Read more)

Rural Calendar: Community Survival Institute Oct. 19 - 22; early deadline Oct. 10

The Heartland Center for Leadership Development Helping Small Towns II is offering Tools for Community Survival Institute, designed to give community development professionals and practitioners the basic skills to confront and control the hard work of community building. The institute runs from Oct. 19th through 22nd, at the Snow King Resort in Jackson Hole, Wyoming. Daily sessions run from 8:30 a.m. to 5 p.m., except for Saturday which ends at noon. Deadline for early registration has been extended until October 10, 2005 at the early registration cost of $850, which pays for program fees and materials. Scholarships are still available on a limited basis.

The Heartland Center for Leadership Development is an independent, nonprofit organization developing local leadership that responds to the challenges of the future. Heartland Center activities focus on training and facilitation for community capacity building nationwide. To find out more about the Institute and registration, go to http://www.heartlandcenter.info and click on the Annual Institutes button. The phone number is 800-927-1115. The address is 941 “O” Street, Suite 920, Lincoln, NE 68508 • (402) 474-7667 • Fax (402) 474-7672. You can e-mail your inquiry to info@heartlandcenter.info .

Sunday, Sept. 25, 2005

Newspaper series shows how persistent rural poverty causes ill health

"Poverty is the single biggest reason Kentucky is one of America's sickest states. Not only is Kentucky one of the nation's poorest states, but it also is plagued by a type of poverty that makes things even worse — rural poverty that has eroded health for generations," Laura Ungar writes in The Courier-Journal's latest installment of the Louisville newspaper's series on Kentucky's health.

People in rural counties "are less likely to have jobs or health insurance and more likely to live with severe doctor shortages and transportation problems. And they die at higher rates," Ungar writes. "Of the 20 counties with the highest overall death rates in Kentucky, 17 are rural and designated as persistently poor, meaning that at least 20 percent of their people have lived in poverty for 30 years."

Lower-income people "are more likely to smoke, have poor diets and not get enough exercise — three unhealthy behaviors that are pervasive across the state and contribute to an epidemic of chronic illness," Ungar writes, citing research. "They tend to have lower levels of education, which experts agree affects everything from how much people know about health and nutrition to how well they understand risk factors or doctors' instructions." More than a fourth of Kentucky adults over 25 lack high school diplomas.

Also, Ungar notes, "Poorer people also have fewer options when it comes to exercise. They have less expendable income for such amenities as exercise equipment and are more likely to live in places where exercising outside may be dangerous. And they have more trouble maintaining a healthy diet." According to Diana Cassady, an assistant professor at the University of California-Davis, lower income Americans "tend to eat at cheaper fast-food restaurants, where menu items tend to be higher in fat," Ungar reports.

"They also live in areas less likely to have adequate supermarkets. . . . Such privations lead to higher levels of disease. And the poor also lose out in getting medical care. They may not have the means to pay for doctors' visits or medications. Many are uninsured, underinsured or lack prescription drug coverage. And they may have difficulty taking time off from work or lack reliable transportation to get to a doctor. This means illnesses are often caught late, and ... bring greater dangers of disability and death."

The above factors and rural poverty are concentrated in Kentucky's Appalachian area. Near the area's heart is the state's poorest county, Owsley, which "also has the state's highest death rate of 1,535.4 per 100,000 — a rate 80 percent above the national average," Ungar reports.

The newspaper's series, which began in July, continues tomorrow, Tuesday and next Sunday, with a package of recommendations promised in December. Today's report also includes maps, charts and stories about the Mud Creek Clinic in Floyd County and the Cranks Creek Survival Center in Harlan County, and changes in Appalachia since the 1960s. The Features section has a story and sidebar about the Frontier Nursing Service in Eastern Kentucky, now 80 years old.

Artist tours U.S., documenting and discussing uses of empty big-box stores

Julia Christensen is an artist, not an architect or urban planner, but she "often speaks to people in those professions," and they are listening -- at places like Stanford and Yale, writes Chris Poynter, development reporter for The Courier-Journal.

"Driving nearly 20,000 miles, sleeping on friends' couches or camping, the 29-year-old artist discovered how communities are reusing stores left behind as retail chains super-sized to bigger buildings," Poynter reports. "In Pinellas Park, Fla., she saw a Wal-Mart being resurrected as The Calvary Chapel, people praising Jesus where ladies once shopped for lingerie. ... Her work has piqued the interest of urban planners -- and made Christensen an academic celebrity."

Christensen, 29, is writing a book, and her Web site, www.bigboxreuse.com, was a "pick of the day" on Yahoo.com last December. "I'm the go-to girl on big boxes," she told art students at the University of Louisville. Carol Norton of the university's Center for Environmental Policy and Management said Christensen's project can help any size community because "It's really hard to refill that big footprint. . . . We need that inspiration."

Christensen's interest in reuse of big boxes began in 1991, when the Wal-Mart in her hometown of Bardstown, Ky., moved to a larger building. "A hulking building suddenly sat vacant across from My Old Kentucky Home State Park," Poynter notes. "Nelson County eventually bought the property, razed the Wal-Mart and built a courthouse on the land." (Read more)

Northeast Wisconsin's rural counties in trouble; regional collaboration urged

"Northeastern Wisconsin’s rural counties are an outdoor paradise. A place to go on the weekends and to retire to. They also are places where people live and strive to raise families, and that’s become increasing difficult as factories have closed and budgets have become tighter," reports Richard Ryman of the Green Bay Press-Gazette.

“A number of things are happening in the counties north of Green Bay and many of those things are very traumatic economic changes,” James Golembeski, executive director of the Bay Area Workforce Development Board, told Ryman. The area's unemployment rate is nearly double that of the state as a whole, its poverty rate is half again as much, and its per-capita income is almost a fourth lower.

A recent study "suggests that regional collaboration will be more effective solving economic problems than local initiative," Ryman writes. But “One of the main things is just making people aware this is a region. Our work forces commute back and forth and our tax dollars commute back and forth,” said Don Clewley, executive director of the Marinette County Association for Business and Industry. The region crosses state lines; representatives of Menominee and Dickinson counties in Michigan have also been invited to an upcoming regional economic summit.

Kentucky officials say state is well on way to universal broadband access

"Kentucky officials expect more businesses to locate in rural areas as high-speed Internet service expands across the commonwealth," reports Bill Wolfe of The Courier-Journal. "The state is on target, they say, to meet Gov. Ernie Fletcher's goal for border-to-border broadband by the end of 2007.

Commerce Secretary Jim Host told Wolfe that the broadband expansion that "is going to cause a huge boom in rural Kentucky, especially where there are entrepreneurs who want to come home." Wolfe cites an example, Todd Atchison, who was able to move his StreamerNet Corp. to Kuttawa because BellSouth Telecommunications had made digital subscriber lines (DSL) available there. "My company is broadband," Atchison told Wolfe. "Everything about us is broadband, from our daily operations to delivering our product. … It's the raw material of what I do."

The state legislature agreed to deregulate broadband last year after BellSouth, the state's largest phone company, promised to make it availabe in all its Kentucky exchanges in a relatively short time. Ellen Jones, regional director for BellSouth, told Wolfe, "We would have expanded anyway, but it would have been at a much slower rate." She said about 80 percent of the company's Kentucky customers can subscribe to DSL, up from 69 percent two years ago.

Broadband was already expanding rapidly in Kentucky. Wolfe cites a Federal Communications Commission report that 261,638 high-speed lines were added in the state in 2003-04, giving it 264 percent more than it had at the end of 2002. "We have led the United States in percentage of growth in the past two years," Host told Wolfe. He said about three-fourths of the homes and businesses in the state have access to at least one broadband service, and the most rural areas are still "the toughest gap to bridge." (Read more)

Wyoming tribe allowed to run casino games without agreement with state

The Northern Arapaho Tribe received gambling rules from the U.S. Interior Department Wednesday, "making it the first and only tribe" to receive federal approval to conduct Las Vegas-style gaming without an agreement with its home state, reported The Ranger of Riverton, Wyo.

"Ordinarily, states oversee or regulate Class III gaming under terms of a gaming compact," Walter Cook and Bob Peck reported. "The tribe had been battling the state for the right to bring Las Vegas-style games to the Wind River Indian Reservation as far back as 2000, but the state refused to negotiate with the tribe." On July 8, a federal appeals court reaffirmed its earlier ruling that "the tribe could operate Class III games since the state allowed certain forms of gambling for charitable purposes." The federal Indian Gaming Regulatory Act allows casinos on reservations if the state allows gambling.

The tribe's Wind River Casino south of Riverton said it would add some Class III games immediately and have table games in a new casino to be built nearby. "Construction at the new casino site has been largely idled for the past year while the legal arguments were ongoing," The Ranger reported. "The Eastern Shoshone Tribe also is pursuing a casino operation." (Read more)

Friday, Sept. 23, 2005

Poverty, unemployment worsen HIV/AIDS burden on rural towns, says study

A report in the Journal of Rural Health shows how poverty, unemployment, lack of education and other barriers increase the burden of HIV/AIDS in rural areas in the United States.

"The burden of HIV/AIDS has not been described for certain rural areas of the United States (Appalachia, the Southeast Region, the Mississippi Delta, and the U.S.-Mexico Border)," write Doctors H. Irene Hall, Jianmin Li and Matthew T. McKenna in the abstract of their full report.

These regions are "where barriers to receiving HIV services include rural residence, poverty, unemployment, and lack of education," the authors say. The study used data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) HIV/AIDS Reporting System to find HIV and AIDS diagnoses rates for the four regions by demographic and residential characteristics.

The rate of HIV diagnoses in 2000 was lower in rural areas than in suburban or urban areas, the report states. The highest race-adjusted rate was observed for the U.S.-Mexico Border, followed by the Mississippi Delta and Appalachia. (The full report is available in .pdf form; click here.)

Volunteer firefighter numbers declining in rural towns; Maine reports shortage

Fire departments throughout Hancock County, Maine are struggling to find volunteers. “A lot of it is a matter of people being spread too thin and working as much as they can to pay all their bills,” Franklin Fire Chief Bob Grindle, president of the Hancock County Firefighters Association, told Tom Walsh of the weekly Ellsworth American (circ. 10,981).

The Winter Harbor Fire Department first encountered the problem when a Navy base there closed in 2002, writes Walsh. “Recruiting is always a problem,” said Fire Chief Robert Webber. “We’re now up to 13 members, but we’ve been as low as eight. While the Navy base was here, I had 16 to 18, and there were always more people in town.” Webber said four volunteers are fishermen who might be miles offshore when needed. “In a town of 500, where people may work 30 minutes away in Ellsworth, you can’t always rely on there being five or six volunteers in town," he said.

Of Maine's 432 fire departments, "all but five — Auburn, Augusta, Bangor, Lewiston and Portland — rely on volunteers totally or in part. The 8,300 members of the Maine State Federation of Firefighters include fewer than 1,000 paid firefighters. Of the estimated 1.1 million volunteer and paid firefighters across the country in 2003, 800,050, or 73 percent, were volunteers. That’s 10 percent fewer volunteers than there were in 1984, according to the National Volunteer Fire Council," reports Walsh.

Richard Cyr, president of the Maine State Federation of Firefighters, told Walsh that recruiting is hurt by a lack of young men and women. “We don’t have any more young people,” Cyr said. “Young people in Maine get out of high school, go to college and don’t come back. The ones who do stay, if they’re married, usually have kids, with mom and dad working two or more jobs. There’s just no time, and it’s hard to find people willing to take two weeks off, using vacation time, to do the training.” (Read more)

Online poker site offers Kentucky hamlet $100,000 to change its name

"An online poker site has offered $100,000 to the tiny Western Kentucky hamlet of Sharer to change its name to PokerShare.com. Sharer, located in the southeastern corner of Butler County near the Warren County line, is a wide spot in the road with no city council, no grocery and no post office. The whole idea has Butler County Judge-Executive Hugh Evans scratching his head. He doesn't know whether to hold 'em, fold 'em or call PokerShare.com's bluff," writes Greg Kocher of the Lexington Herald-Leader.

"I can't speak for everybody, but certainly speaking for myself, this isn't going to happen," Evans said. "When you talk about poker and gambling, we're not for that in our county. It's very conservative."

Darren Shuster, who is employed by a California public relations firm working on publicity for the site, said, "If they say no, that's OK. We can go to another city," Shuster said. "Let them tell their constituents that they're going to turn down that kind of money. For what? Civic pride?" Shuster picked the hamlet during a MapQuest search on Yahoo because its name resembled PokerShare.com, writes Kocher.

Evans, who first heard from Shuster a week or so ago, said, "He told me, 'We're trying to get hold of the mayor.' And I said, 'They don't have a mayor.' And then he said, 'Well, we need to get hold of the board,' and I said, 'They don't have a board. That's a rural community.'" Evans told the Herald-Leader he is hesitant to connect Shuster with anyone in the Sharer community. "I'll tell you right now, there won't be nothing about poker in Butler County," Evans said. "We're a dry county, too, and we've got a lot of churches." (Read more)

First Katrina, now Rita: Emergency declarations helping states cope this time

"If it seems as if the whole country is in a 'state of emergency,' that’s because most of it is. And that’s before Hurricane Rita makes landfall," reports Stateline.Org.

"Fully 45 states, plus the District of Columbia, are now in a federally recognized state of emergency as they take in the Gulf Coast residents displaced by Hurricane Katrina. President Bush also declared four of those states, where Katrina came ashore, 'disaster' areas. By comparison, only Virginia and New York were declared federal disaster areas following the terrorist attacks in 2001," writes Stateline.org's Daniel C. Vock. The story includes a complete list of Katrina-related emergency declarations.

This year, states are using emergency and disaster declarations to deal with problems ranging from hurricanes to drought to rampant crime. "The governors of New Mexico and Arizona issued state emergency declarations in August because of widespread crime, damaged livestock and other problems in border communities beset with illegal immigrants and drug traffickers," writes Vock. Peter Olson, a spokesman for the New Mexico Department of Public Safety, said, “The declaration … helps free up red tape; it makes money easier to use.”

A gubernatorial order usually allows a governor to mobilize the National Guard, suspend state laws, spend state money and order an evacuation. Such declarations are also the first step in a process that allows states to recoup costs from the federal government for post-disaster cleanups or short-term evacuee housing. The U.S. government promised to cover 100 percent of the cost of housing evacuees from Hurricane Katrina in states not hit by the storm. (Read more)

FCC goes pro-active in Rita communications following Katrina lessons

Lawmakers and telecommunications executives said in a Senate hearing yesterday that Hurricane Katrina has reshaped the upcoming recovery efforts for Hurricane Rita.

"At the hearing [called] to review recovery efforts in Katrina's wake, Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., voiced his frustration at the slow progress. He said the storm bolstered the argument that first responders should get additional ... communications capabilities, as well as ways to [more easily] interconnect their wireless networks," writes Mark Rockwell for Wireless Week.

McCain said language in his Save Lives Act has repeatedly been watered down or sidelined. The legislation sets a deadline of Jan. 1, 2009 for the turnover of spectrum from broadcasters to emergency service providers, writes Rockwell.

FCC Chairman Kevin Martin said as Hurricane Rita bears down on Texas, he is s reaching out broadcastering and telecommunications contacts, rather than waiting until after the storm to see how they're preparing and what they need. "Martin said with the magnitude of the storm, it was hard to anticipate what kind of damage Rita might inflict on the Texas coast's wireless network," writes Rockwell. (Read more)

Gearing up for an insurance battle: Hurricane victims want floods covered

Hurricane victims, regulators, politicians and consumer advocates are gearing up for a contentious battle over insurance coverage responsibilities with billions of dollars in property claims on the line and possible nationwide ramifications. "Similar battles may take place in Texas if Hurricane Rita causes similar havoc when it rams the coast line this weekend," writes Duncan Mansfield of The Associated Press.

The battle hinges on whether homes and businesses in Katrina's path were battered by the 145 mph winds or a storm surge that shot Gulf waters up 30 feet high and beyond designated flood zones. Insurers are making a distinction in coverage based on wind damage versus flood damage, and many victims only have the former, reports Mansfield.

Mississippi Attorney General Jim Hood argued in a lawsuit filed last week against Allstate, State Farm Insurance Cos., Nationwide Mutual Insurance Co., Mississippi Farm Bureau Insurance and others that "they should pay for all Katrina damages, whether caused by wind, wind-driven water or storm surge flooding," writes Mansfield.

The lawsuit contends homeowners bought their insurance policies "for ... insuring against any damage that could possibly result from hurricanes originating from the Gulf of Mexico." "This wasn't Flood Katrina. This was Hurricane Katrina," attorney generals spokesman Jacob Ray said. (Click here to read more)

Maine turns down federal sex-ed funding; abstinence vs. information

Maine has stopped taking federal funds for an abstinence-based sex-education program, in part because federal guidelines don't allow the money to be used to teach so-called "safe sex" practices.

Gov. John Baldacci's decision comes amid debate over whether government should promote abstinence only or give students information on birth control and other aspects of sexual activity. Maine is the third state to turn down the federal money, following California and Pennsylvania.

"Maine accepted federal abstinence funds annually from 1998 through last year. But officials said the state did not apply for $165,000 in funds during the current federal fiscal year and it will not seek $161,000 for the fiscal year starting Oct. 1," writes Paul Carrier of the Portland