Letterman's 'Small Town News' sites not so small

David Letterman calls it "Small Town News," but often the newspapers that provide grist for his occasional feature on The Late Show aren't so small. Tonight, four of the seven were metropolitan dailies. Perhaps Dave should stick to the truly small towns, since the big ones get plenty of attention already. Or maybe including the big ones helps avoid rural stereotypes.

Now that we've sucked our thumbs on that issue, we're obliged to pass along the funny papers, so to speak. Here they are in the order Dave gave them; at least he started with the rural papers. The Lassen County Times of Susanville, Calif., advertised a yard sale with "free rabies." The Biddeford-Saco-Old Orchard Beach Courier in Maine reported that a shoplifter put "pork chops down her pants." The Challis Courier of Idaho ran an ad offering to trade an old clothes dryer for two unopened packages of Oreo Double Stuf cookies.

In non-rural news, the Lincoln Journal Star in Nebraska reported that a Rapid City, S.D., man charged with robbery listed his occupation as "robbery." In the Toledo Blade, a bar advertised "free toothpick with ad." The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported that a man in a nursing home "drove scooter too fast in dining room ... in a hurry to get to the sweet rolls." And a police item in The Washington Post said a woman had reported that a dog was going without food or water, but the canine turned out to be "a statue of a beagle."

Coal company boycotts Tennessee tourist sites because Alexander opposes mountaintop mining

A subsidiary of St. Louis-based Arch Coal Inc. is boycotting Tennessee and its tourist sites because one of the state's U.S. senators, Republican Lamar Alexander, right, is sponsoring a bill that would outlaw mountaintop-removal strip mining, Jessica Lilly reports for West Virginia Public Broadcasting. (PBS photo)

Coal-Mac Inc. of Holden, W.Va., said in a July 6 letter to chambers of commerce in Gatlinburg and Pigeon Forge, and the Tennessee Chamber of Commerce and Industry, that its sister companies in Kentucky and Virginia (Cumberland River Coal and Lone Mountain Processing) had canceled their annual company picnics for 780 employees and 2,340 family members at Dollywood in Pigeon Forge, and that it had asked its 300 workers, who "usually travel monthly to your state for entertainment, shopping and recreation" to do those things in the company's home states.

The letter, written by Human Resource Manager Richard Phillips, concluded, “If you want our industry’s business, we suggest you let your representatives know that the industry they are trying to destroy is a major source of your tourism money.” The Citizens for Coal group told Lilly that it is also asking members to avoid Tennessee. Her story concluded, "Sen. Benjamin Cardin (D-Md.) is also a co-sponsor of the bill. Coal-Mac is not boycotting Maryland."

Host of lobbying interests oppose extending milk-promotion fee to importers of dairy products

"On its face it looks like a slam-dunk: Imports of dairy products should be paying for promotion just the way milk produced in the United States is subject to a mandatory assessment to build markets," and the Department of Agriculture proposes to do so, Steve Taylor writes for Lancaster Farming. But in Washington and the dairy business, change is almost always complicated.

"Not so fast, say a mix of foreign governments, cheese importers, U.S. food manufacturers, global agribusinesses, anti-government waste groups and individual dairy farmers, some of whom have long opposed all mandatory promotion checkoff schemes," Taylor writes. The opponents "raise constitutional issues over the lack of a referendum for importers such as was provided for domestic producers, among many other concerns."

Wisconsin dairy interests fear the change would end the state's "long and successful history of promoting Wisconsin cheese," because the new rule "would prevent any U.S.-specific promotional element that would seem to discriminate against any import. The state’s cheesemakers would have to accept that their products were no better than generic cheeses from anywhere," dairy farmer Pat Boettcher told Taylor, former agriculture commissioner in New Hampshire. (Read more)

Chairman of broadcasters' group says he's looking out for his fellow small-town station operators

While the National Association of Broadcasters looks for a new president, it is being overseen by its board chairman, an owner of small-town radio stations, Steve Newberry, right, of Commonwealth Broadcasting of Glasgow, Ky., had small markets in mind as he discussed his NAB role with TVNewsday:

"We are looking for somebody who can be a great spokesperson for local broadcasters, someone who has the ability to navigate Washington and advocate for our needs there. At the same time, we want someone who understands the nuances of our business and can relate to a small-market broadcaster as well as one of our publicly traded members."

A commenter identified as John Salov wrote, "It would be nice if they represented all broadcasters. Perhaps the next level of management will bring into the NAB the community broadcasters. These mainly lower-power stations spend almost 100 percent of their broadcast day covering the communities they serve. I have heard that the lower-power stations are not in favor with the full-power station base at the NAB due to the cost of the license. Lower-power stations do not have must-carry protections or, for the most part, network affiliations. They do, however, have a base of female and minority ownership and have no voice at the NAB. Could this be the time to reach out to the community broadcasters and work with them to advance the cause of all broadcasters?" (Read more)

One of the most rural and obese states could be national model for limiting junk food in schools

For 15 years, federal lawmakers have tried to limit junk food in schools, only to be thwarted by food-industry lobbies. Things may be different this year, partly because one of the more rural and obese states, Kentucky, is showing the way, Jane Black reports for the Washington Post.

"Conventional wisdom has long held that such snacks are a necessary evil because they provide key revenue to supplement the federal school-lunch program and help pay for sports and arts programs," Black writes. But in Kentucky, where the legislature passed one of the nation's strongest anti-junk food laws four years ago, some school food-service directors are proving otherwise. Black cites one high school in Kenton County, where revenue rose 61 percent between 2005 and 2007 without any price increase for school meals. Similar success came in Hardin County, where the nutrition director was Janey Thornton. Now she is undersecretary of agriculture for food and nutrition services, and would play a role in writing new rules for the nation. (Photo: The Associated Press)

Only 12 states have comprehensive rules for foods sold outside the lunch line, but one virtue of the federal system is experimentation by states. Kentucky is the seventh fattest state (fourth among children), the sixth most rural, and has 172 separate school districts, so its experience could be persuasive for lawmakers worried about the effect on rural schools' revenue. And the lobbying landscape is changing, Black reports: "Even the food industry is supporting tighter standards in the face of reports that obesity rates have tripled in children and adolescents over the last two decades." Here are the latest data by state, from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. Here is an animated map of state obesity rates since 1985.

Black notes that a study by the National Bureau of Economic Research concluded that one-fifth of the increase in teenagers' average body mass index was attributable to an "increase in availability of junk foods in schools." Other studies have found that rural students are now more likely to be obese than their urban counterparts. But the food lobby has changed for other reasons; food companies now sell bottled water and low-calorie snacks, and "would rather deal with national standards than patchwork of state and city regulations, which make it difficult for companies to standardize nutritional content and serving sizes," Black reports. (Read more)

Arsenic has no place in chicken feed, Md. AG says

A chicken dinner laced with arsenic might be what major poultry producers ordered, but Douglas Gansler, the attorney general of Maryland, vehemently disagrees in a column for The Washington Post. Arsenic, he argues, runs rampant in the United States, infecting our ice water, coffee, air and chicken -- much to the shock of citizens.

In 1944, the Food and Drug Administration approved the feed additive roxarsone, an arsenic compound. Poultry producers used the additive to increase growth in chickens and fight off parasites. Gansler says that exposure to roxarsone -- a Class A carcinogen that has been linked to heart disease, diabetes and declines in brain function -- has been harmful to the population. Findings indicate that most Americans are exposed to between 3 and 11 times the EPA’s safety limit of such chemicals, and those most at risk include small-scale chicken farmers and their neighbors.

The European Union outlawed the use of roxarsone in chicken feed in 1999, and some American producers have followed suit. But in 2006, 70 percent of the broiler chickens produced in the U.S. were fed roxarsone, and the compound has environmental repercussions too. Gansler says more than 1.2 billion pounds of chicken waste is generated in Maryland alone, and the run-off contaminates crops, lakes, rivers, lawns, and potentially drinking water. “Meanwhile,” he writes, “The poultry industry labors under the legal fiction that although it owns the chicken feed and the chickens that eat the feed, it has no responsibility for the chicken manure.” (Read more)

'Organic' to USDA might not be organic to you

The ambiguity of the Department of Agriculture’s “organic” label has many up in arms about the future of what The Washington Post calls the “fastest growing segment of the food industry.” Consumers may not always be getting what they think they are when purchasing organic, and relaxed federal standards for producers mean the label might be losing its luster, Kimberly Kindy and Lyndsey Layton report.

In 2008, the organics market pushed $23 billion and a survey by Harvard University found that half of U.S. adults buy organic. But products with the "USDA organic" label are not necessarily produced free of pesticides or chemicals, and standards have eroded. The original organics law, passed in 2002, and allowed 5 percent of a USDA-certified organic product to be made of some 77 listed nonorganic substances approved by the National Organic Standards Board. Today, 245 substances are on list and only one has been replaced by an organic alternative.

Food production has fast become a corporate industry with most major companies like Kraft, Kellogg and Coca-Cola owning the bulk of small, independent organic companies, and “that corporate firepower” has pressured the government to expand the definition of organic -- since big industry processed foods “often require ingredients, additives or processing agents that either do not exist in organic form or are not available in large enough quantities for mass production,” Kindy and Layton write. So, some question whether “USDA-certified organic” is being eroded in an effort to suit big-business demands.

The efficiency of USDA's National Organic Program has also come into question. In 65 instances since 2002, the standards board has made recommendations that have not been acted upon, Kindy and Layton report. And that makes for a very uneven playing field. The NOP’s failure to interpret a law requiring that dairy cows have “access to pasture” has led to some farms selling milk as organic from cows who spend little to no time grazing in open spaces, and the victims are farmers who offer actual organic milk, Alexis Baden-Meyer, national political director for the Organic Consumers Association, says. “The truly organic dairy farmers, who have their cows out in the pasture all year round, are at a huge competitive disadvantage compared to the big confinement dairies."

Barbara Robinson, who runs the organics program, has been called out by organic advocacy groups as part of the labeling haze. In the past, she has reversed board decisions that outlawed certain inorganic materials, and has a history of making organizational decisions individually. Three of her moves were rescinded by then-Agriculture Secretary Ann Veneman. An NOP board member, Joe Smillie, told Kindy and Layton that restrictive standards advocated by organic advocates would limit the growth of the market. "What are we selling?" he asked.
"Are we selling health food? No. Consumers, they expect organic food to be growing in a greenhouse on Pluto. Hello? We live in a polluted world. It isn't pure. We are doing the best we can." Smillie also serves as vice president of the certifying firm Quality Assurance International, which is involved in certifying 65 percent of organic products found on supermarket shelves.

So far, the Obama administration seems to have made few if any changes in the program. Sam Welsch, president of the Nebraska-based OneCert certification business, told Kindy and Layton that so far this year, his company has lost as many as a dozen farmers who wanted certifiers that allow the use of certain liquid fertilizers. "The rules should be clear enough that there is just one right answer," he said. (Read more)

Florida law to cap 'pill pipeline' too late for several drug-overdose victims in Eastern Kentucky

Florida recently encated a law to regulate and monitor pain clinics that have become the start of a "pill pipeline" to the north, particularly to Appalachia, where prescription-drug abuse is rampant in many areas. Some national news outlets are paying more attention to the problem because of the death of Michael Jackson. The latest major story comes from Mark Potter of NBC News, who tells some heartbreaking stories about promising young people in Eastern Kentucky who died of overdoses.

"While the problem exists in every state in the country, Kentucky led the nation in the use of prescription drugs for non-medical purposes during the last year, according to the state's Office of Drug Control Policy." Potter reports. "Officials said prescription drug abuse is particularly acute in the cities and rural areas of Eastern Kentucky. Last year alone, at least 485 people died in Kentucky from prescription drug overdoses, according to the state's Cabinet for Health and Family Services." Circuit Judge Beth Lewis Maze of Mount Sterling, who holds court in four east-central Kentucky counties, told Potter, "It's an epidemic and I'm afraid we're losing a whole generation."

Potter notes that the Florida law "won't be fully implemented until late next year. Kentucky and most other states already have such monitoring laws in place, making it much more difficult for addicts and dealers to buy large amounts of prescription medication by going from clinic to clinic – a common practice in Florida."

Coal lobbyists hope to slow pace of cap-and-trade as Senate starts hearings on climate bill

As a Senate committee begins hearings today on the massive bill written to slow and mitigate climate change, some in the coal industry see it as a life-or-death battle, reports Anne Mulkern of Greenwire for The New York Times: "Although the House bill includes some help for coal, it also creates incentives for utilities to move away from polluting fuels. Industry advocates and independent analysts say that leaves coal with few options for a sustainable future." The story explains the basics of how the bill would affect coal: initially helpful, but in the long term discouraging its use, and perhaps catching it in a squeeze where technology fails to keep pace with markets.

"The industry's hope is that it can find a commercially viable way to capture carbon emissions and sequester them underground or underwater," Mulkern writes. "But putting the pieces of that technology together and getting them running before the carbon cap tightens could be difficult. . . . It is through that narrow window that the industry sees a potential valley of death. If utilities switch away from coal, coal-fired plants won't be built, coal production will stop, coal miners will lose their jobs and the ancillary businesses around coal will shut down, said Luke Popovich, spokesman for the National Mining Association. Then, even if carbon capture and sequestration comes online, Popovich said, it will be too late."

So, the coal industry is lobbying "to slow down the pace of any cap-and-trade system," Mulkern reports. "The House bill would reduce greenhouse gas emissions from 2005 levels by 17 percent by 2020, 42 percent by 2030, and 83 percent by 2050. Coal advocates are not revealing what numbers they are willing to accept, only that the ones in the House bill are unrealistic for the industry." But environmental lobbyists say the timetable has been weakened too much already, and alternative energy sources eventually can fill in the gap if they get enough government incentives, Nick Berning of Friends of the Earth told Mulkern. "And energy efficiency alone can make a big cut in greenhouse gas emissions. But it could be tough to win that argument in the Senate, he said, where coal potentially has a strong influence." Berning told her, "Ultimately, the way Congress operates is, unless the public gets really interested in an issue, special interests get what they want."

For an advance look at the Senate hearings, from Darrell Samuelsohn of Greenwire, click here. For excerpts of Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack's testimony about the role of rural America in combating climate change, click here.

Oregon, Rhode Island join trend toward marijuana decriminalization, industrialization of hemp

Rhode Island has already legalized the sale of marijuana to sick individuals and now the state has authorized a nine-member commission to further study decriminalization of the drug. Meanwhile, Oregon last week joined 15 other states with legislation that permits the growth and sale of industrial hemp.

Rhode Island lawmakers are hopeful that the commission will shed new light on the “experience of individuals and families sentenced for violating marijuana laws” and the experience of people in places where marijuana sale and possession has been largely decriminalized, Katherine Gregg reports for The Providence Journal. The panel is examining whether marijuana use among youths and adults in the state has decreased since it was made illegal in 1918, and to see how imposing a “sin tax” of $35 per ounce of marijuana could increase state revenue.

California and Massachusetts have already passed legislation supporting what state Sen. Joshua Miller, a backer of the Rhode Island panel, calls “a national trend toward decriminalization.” In oregon, the growth of hemp for marijuana had been outlawed since 1970, but state Sen. Floyd Prozanski said in backing the recent bill, "Industrial hemp is an innovative crop that is regaining its popularity across the globe," the Statesman Journal reports. (Read more on Rhode Island here, on Oregon here)

UPDATE: Al Tompkins reports for the Poynter Institute that some states are looking at potential revenue from marijuana use. In California, the Marijuana Policy Project says the legalization and taxation of recreational use of the drug is a way to mitigate the state’s $26.3 billion budget deficit. Advocates estimate that a marijuana tax would raise $1 billion – enough to pay the salary of 20,000 teachers. (Read more)

Obama picks former UMW official for mine-safety chief, Pa. regulator for Office of Surface Mining

President Obama said today he plans to nominate the United Mine Workers' former health-and-safety director to head the Mine Safety and Health Administration and Pennsylvania's chief mine regulator to head the Office of Surface Mining Reclamation and Enforcement. The appointments are likely the most important personnel actions Obama will take in regard to coal mining, and are of particular interest in the Appalachian coalfield.

Joe Main, left, is a familiar figure in the coalfields. Now a private mine-safety consultant, he ran the UMW's health-and safety department from 1982 to 2004. The White House press release says he "is internationally recognized as an expert in mining health issues." If confirmed by the Senate, he would be assistant secretary for mine safety and health in the Labor Department.

The strip-mine office is in the Interior Department. Its new boss would be Joseph G. Pizarchik, who has been director of the Pennsylvania Bureau of Mining and Reclamation since 2002 and with the state Department of Environmental Protection since 1991. The release calls him "a pragmatic innovator." In choosing Pizarchick, Obama and/or Interior Secretary Ken Salazar avoided candidates proposed by environmentalists in the major strip-mining states of Kentucky and West Virginia, where Obama was not competitive in the November election, and the proposed choice of acting director Glenda Owens, who drew fire from the environmental community.

UPDATE, July 7: Mine-safety advocates were jubilant about Main's appointment, but coal-industry leaders were noncommittal or even skeptical. National Mining Association spokesman Luke Popovich told Jim Carroll for a front-page story in The Courier-Journal of Louisville that Main is "certainly knowledgeable and experienced and that can only help all of us continue the mine safety progress we've made over the past couple of years," but Bill Caylor of the Kentucky Coal Association told John Stamper of the Lexington Herald-Leader, "It's going to be frustrating having somebody with an agenda that is pro-union." No UMW members mine coal in Eastern Kentucky, though some do work at one preparation plant there, and some UMW miners work in the state's other coalfield, part of the Illinois Basin. (Read more)

W.Va.'s Blair Mountain coming off historic register

Blair Mountain, "the 1,600-acre site of a bloody battle in southern West Virginia over union organizing in 1921," and now the site of proposed strip mining for coal, will likely be removed from the National Register of Historic Places next month because a majority of property owners in the tract objected to the listing, P.J. Dickerscheid reports for The Associated Press. The register accepted the site in March, but "efforts to remove it began after the number of objecting property owners was corrected from 22 to 30 out of 57." (Encarta map)

"Following a published legal notice and a 30-day public comment period, the Logan County battlefield would then be designated only as eligible for listing," AP reports. The change "will still require affected property owners seeking federal permits or funding to go through a historic review process." Opponents of the listing included Massey Energy, which wants to mine nearby. (Read more)

Unmarried couples with children more common in rural areas; also more likely to eventually marry

Rural children are more likely than their urban counterparts to live in households with unmarried couples, according to a new report from The Carsey Institute at the University of New Hampshire. Authors William O’ Hare, Wendy Maning, Meredith Porter and Heidi Lyons also found correlations among poverty levels and economic stress that may contribute to the increasing rates of rural cohabitation.

In 2007, the Census Bureau’s American Community Survey counted 4.8 million children in cohabitating households – 1 million of whom live in rural areas. The most recent report indicates that the number of rural children living in a cohabitating household has grown by almost 50 percent since 2000 and now surpasses the ratio of urban children living in cohabitation situations. Among those rural children living with a cohabitating couple, the poverty rate is approximately 10 percent higher than those in married-couple households.

Factors that may contribute to the increased numbers of cohabitation in rural areas are higher economic stress caused by a larger deficit in employment and education. Thus, cohabitation may be a more economically-motivated decision for some rural single parents. And in contrast to their urban counterparts, the authors found that rural cohabitating couples are more likely to marry eventually, and cohabitation may be “perceived as a stepping stone to marriage in rural areas.” (Read more)

Social networking and other Internet connectivity catching on among farmers

Twitter and Facebook may seem alien to the agricultural world, but experts say the tide is turning. Farmers are beginning to give into the appeal of ‘tech gadgets’ and online social networking, and many are finding them a welcome companion in the fields, Jeff Caldwell reports for Agriculture Online.

Among the most coveted devices are smartphones, whose applications are increasingly finding more uses on the farm. University of Illinois extension soybean specialist Vince Davis says the smartphone has shifted how he handles weather and crop data with field-station transmitters. "It allows me to get better and more timely information for me to make decisions," he told Caldwell. "Better info equals better decisions. Also, because it is seamless, I do not need to 'go to the office' to check e-mail -- this helps to free up time to keep me in the field."

Social networking can provide information for marketing and farm practices. Andy Kleinschmidt, who runs his own agriculture blog, sees an almost limitless partnership growing between farmers and technology. “I see a neat opportunity for a farmer to snap a photo of a weed, bug or plant lesion and immediately e-mail to their agronomist for ID and recommendation from the field.” (Read more)

Horse crisis shows no sign of abating, and could be getting worse; it sure seems to be in Indiana

Experts say horses are facing dire circumstances as a result of the recession, unwise breeding and the closure of the last horse slaughterhouse in the U.S. In Indiana, several new rescue organizations are fighting for space and funds to keep abandoned animals, Rosa Salter Rodriguez reports for The Journal Gazette in Fort Wayne. Michelle Heitz, right, started Shadarobah Horse Rescue less than a year ago and is currently at full capacity with 32 horses. (J-G photo by Clint Keller)

State laws, federal legislation and court rulings left the U.S. without any abbatoirs to provide horsemeat for European and Japanese markets. That “changed the economics of horse ownership” to the point where “owners are now faced with the expense of euthanizing their animal and disposing of the remains – usually at a cost of hundreds of dollars,” Rodriguez writes, citing Jamie Price, a horse-population researcher at Purdue University. In addition, horses can outlive their owners and develop medical problems that require temporary or chronic care.

Some owners try to keep caring for their animals, but the latest economic downturn has left people with limited resources and a likely growing number of abandoned animals. Rodriguez reports that so far this year, courts have turned 42 horses over to Indiana Horse Rescue Inc., way up from 19 in 2008. “The world is full of unwanted horses right now because of the economy,” Vuanetta Barnhill, founder of Chocolate Box Horse Rescue, says. But, experts still agree that integral to the solution are breeders being more vigilant and not falling victim to the pressures of the economy. “Don’t breed, don’t breed, don’t breed!” Barnhill says. “If you can’t afford one horse, don’t make more you don’t have homes for.” (Read more)

Bush marks July 4 in town on the Oklahoma plains

Former President George W. Bush spoke yesterday to more than 9,000 people, "the largest crowd to see him speak since he left the White House," at a July 4 celebration in Woodward, Okla., reports Steve Painter of The Woodward News:

“This is a little different from the last eight years,” Bush said about being in Woodward. He said he had spent each Fourth of July during his presidency on the Truman Balcony watching fireworks over the Washington Monument. He did say, however, that he was happy to be in “the middle-of-nowhere oilfield town of Woodward” as The Associated Press had deemed the city on Thursday. “No wonder I feel comfortable here,” Bush said to applause when he quoted the article.

Bush was once in the oil business in Midland, 400 miles to the south-southwest. In his speech, he compared himself to Temple Houston, who was the son of Texas' first governor, Sam Houston, and made his fortune in Woodward, "saying Temple grew up in the governor’s mansion in Texas learning the family business just as he did while his father was a politician," Painter writes. (Encarta map)

Bush had another local angle, Painter reports: "Besides military patriotism, Bush said there were other forms of patriotism. He mentioned some local forms such as Meridian Owens, an 8-year-old Girl Scout who saved several people from a burning building in Woodward this past year." For the rest of Painter's 783-word story on the event, which also marked a $25 million renovation of a local park, click here. The News, a daily paper with a circulation of 5,000, is owned by Community Newspaper Holdings Inc. For an AP report, click here.

In search of the elusive and fearsome alligator gar: part fishing, part tracking, part target shooting

John Paul Morris needed help from three other men to get this 8-foot-3-inch long alligator gar out of the Trinity River in Texas. "Fishermen despise the gar because they believe the fish devour prized bass and crappie," Tom Benning reports for The Wall Street Journal. "But in recent times, alligator gar have experienced a kind of trash-to-trophy renaissance as sportsmen discovered the thrill of hunting the beasts. . . . In the rural South, the prospect of bagging a trophy gator gar inspires a special brand of enthusiasm." (Bass Pro Shops photo; Morris is son of CEO Johnny Morris)

A gar expedition is "part fishing, part tracking and part target shooting," since the preferred method of bagging the fish is with crossbow and "stainless-steel, prong-tipped arrows that can pierce the gar's thick scales," Benning writes. The pursuit has become so popular, Texas has imposed the first limit on the fish, one per day. "The limit has infuriated commercial fishermen, who catch gar by the hundreds to export to Mexico, where they are a popular menu item," Benning reports. "After September, every Southern state with gar populations except Louisiana will have some kind of alligator gar fishing limits." (Read more)

Kentucky Baptists shun youth group from church ejected from Convention for gay-friendly policies

A youth group from a gay-friendly Baptist church in Texas has been disinvited by a Baptist college and church in southeastern Kentucky, where the youths were going to help build homes for the poor. The reason? The church "Broadway Baptist Church was 'disfellowshipped' from the Southern Baptist Convention last week because of the church’s tolerant stance on homosexuality," reports The Times-Tribune of nearby Corbin.

The group was to stay at the University of the Cumberlands in Williamsburg and sing at Main Street Baptist Church in the town of 5,000, reports Deborah Yetter of The Courier-Journal. (Encarta map) "Youth minister Fran Patterson said the group is leaving by bus Friday and she had to scramble to line up another mission project — in Nashville, Tenn., where the group already was scheduled to spend this weekend. Patterson said the youths were disappointed when told of the change." She told Yetter, "They said this is about wanting to help poor people — it's not about politics.'' (Read more)

Pipeline firm says it shipped first blended biodiesel

"The first commercial pipeline load of blended biodiesel fuel ever shipped in the United States was sent to Roanoke and Athens, Ga., last week," Jeff Sturgeon reports for The Roanoke Times, citing a spokeswoman for Kinder Morgan Energy Partners, a Texas pipeline company.

"The shipment traveled from Mississippi in the Plantation Pipeline, which routinely carries gasoline and conventional diesel fuel. The special shipment consisted of 15,000 gallons of B5, a blend of 5 percent biodiesel made from plant material and 95 percent petroleum-based diesel, the company said, adding that it was responding to a customer's request.

"It's a very positive development," Jenna Higgins, spokeswoman for the National Biodiesel Board, told Sturgeon. "Biodiesel transport through pipeline has the potential to open new and growing markets for biodiesel." Biodiesel usually moves by truck but sometimes by rail, Sturgeon reports.

W.Va. coal regulators admit not properly applying rules meant to keep mines from causing floods

"West Virginia regulators and coal operators have not properly implemented state rules meant to keep strip mining from contributing to flooding during heavy rains over narrow mountain hollows, according to a new federal report," Ken Ward Jr. reports in The Charleston Gazette. "Mine operators have inconsistently applied computer modeling in permit applications, and state regulators have approved those applications anyway," according to the report from the Office of Surface Mining and Reclamation.

Also, Ward reports, "The state Department of Environmental Protection does not do follow-up studies to see if permit models were accurate," and doesn't require long-term monitoring of runoff from surface mines. DEP officials concurred with the findings and "agreed to hold an industry seminar and better train its employees to try to fix some of the problems." Ward notes, "Coalfield residents have pointed to mountaintop removal as a contributing cause for this spring's heavy flooding in southern parts of West Virginia." (Read more)

Judge rejects Bush-era rules for national forests

A federal judge has thrown out rules the Bush administration adopted for managing national forests and grasslands because they "failed to analyze the effects from removing requirements guaranteeing viable wildlife populations," Noelle Straub reports for The New York Times' Greenwire blog. "The decision "marks the third time a court has rejected revisions of the regulations over the past decade."

"Conservation groups hope the Forest Service will reinstate the 1982 rule while coming up with new regulations," according to Marc Fink, attorney for the Center for Biological Diversity and one of the attorneys representing the plaintiffs in the case. "Forest Service spokesman Joe Walsh said the decision is under review," Straub reports.

Healthiest daily newspapers are the smallest

Smaller newspapers are generally doing better than those in metropolitan areas, but are "also feeling the effects of the economic downturn and Internet competition," writes Eric Sass of MediaPost, reporting on a study by the Inland Press Association. "The study's findings temper the optimistic view evinced by many publishers in smaller markets, who take pains to distinguish their properties from the big metro dailies." Sass makes a point to remember: "In the future, any discussion of the fortunes of small newspapers will have to specify how small."

The biggest profit decline was among papers with circulations of 25,001 to 50,000, "one of the segments that was supposed to be faring better than the big metro dailies," Sass writes. "If this trend continues, bankruptcy and sale or closure could follow for scores of newspapers, as the plague afflicting big metro dailies infects smaller markets. Their fate will largely be determined by indebtedness, which has proved the bane of big publishers, especially with the global credit crunch."

But the study also showed that the smallest daily papers, those with circulations of 15,000 or less, were bucking the trend. That category "showed a 2.5 percent growth in gross revenues during the five-year period ending in 2008," Adolfo Mendez writes for Inland. And despite "all the widespread coverage of newsroom layoffs and cutbacks, the Inland study found that the majority of participating papers with less than 50,000 circulation reported an increase in news and editorial expenses over the five-year period." (Read more)

The findings are based on data from more than 160 newspapers that participated in the organization's annual National Cost & Revenue Study for Daily Newspapers. For a copy of the full report, contact Tom Mather, Inland's financial studies director, at 847-795-0380.

Rural-oriented stocks doing better than others

Two years ago today, the Daily Yonder began tracking the stock prices of 40 diverse, publicly traded companies that do much of their business in rural America. The record shows that the "Yonder 40," as it is called, was doing better just before the economic downturn and is coming out of it more quickly. (Yonder chart)

"The Yonder 40 stock index has lost 27 percent of its value since July 1, 2007," Co-Editor Bill Bishop reports. "The Dow [Jones] Industrials — 30 of the nation’s largest corporations — have lost 37 percent. And the S&P 500 — a broader index of large companies — has lost 39 percent. The only common index that comes close to the Yonder 40’s performance has been the NASDAQ listing of smaller firms. The NADAQ has lost 29.5 percent in the last two years."

Bishop adds, "The Yonder 40 was an experiment of sorts, so it is not exactly clear why these rural stocks are doing better than the broader stock indices. In much of mid-America, unemployment rates have been lower than in the rest of the country, especially in agricultural counties. However, rural manufacturing has been particularly harmed during the recession and unemployment in these counties is running well above the rest of the country."

The story mentions several individual companies, including those that have been dropped from the index for various reasons. One is newspaper publisher Lee Enterprises, which was dropped "because its stock prices dropped so low the company was in danger of being delisted by the New York Stock Exchange," Bishop reports. "It is now trading for considerably less than a dollar," after starting the index at $21. The best performer has been coal producer Walter Energy, "up 25 percent from July 1, 2007, even though it has taken a huge tumble from its highs." The best so far this year has been Cabela's, the chain of huge sporting-goods stores. It's up 107 percent since Jan. 1, to $12.30 a share on June 30.

Feds make minumum speed for broadband faster, but slower than expected due to rural obstacles

The terms "broadband" and "high-speed Internet" are used interchangeably, but there is no standard definition of how much speed the service must have to be considered broadband. The latest definition will have special meaning to those without the service, because it applies to projects to be funded by the $7 billion for broadband in the economic stimulus package.

The prevailing definition, by the Federal Communications Commission, has been a speed exceeding 200 kilobits per second in at least one direction: from the Internet to the user’s computer (downstreaming) or from the user’s computer to the Internet (upstreaming). The FCC's definition has been criticized as being too slow. The latest one, by the Rural Utilities Service and the National Telecommunications and Information Administration, moves it up, to a minimum of 768 kbps downstreaming and 200 kbs upstreaming. But some still think that's too slow.

"The choice of 768 kbps will seem like the broadband Stone Age to many, though the ability of some technologies to reach remote and rural areas likely factored into the decision," Dan O'Shea writes for Fierce Telecom. He refers readers to an non-bylined story in Telephony, which says, "Although these speeds are lower than some might have wished, a senior administration official for the NTIA told reporters that this definition was influenced by geographic realities. Because it is difficult to deliver speeds above 10 Mbs over certain types of terrain, he said, the lower data rate was chosen. But in awarding funds, he said, preference would be given to higher-speed projects." (Read more)

Though the speed threshold is lower than some expected, the agencies are ensuring neutrality among service platforms, "and that likely means an unusual opportunity for wireless providers, especially in rural areas," reports Gary Kim, a contributing editor for 4G Wireless Evolution, which follows WiMax wireless broadband for Technology Marketing Corp. at TMCnet.

Legislation makes catching Colo. raindrops legal

Two new laws permit Colorado residents to legally collect rainwater. Growing population, drought and declining groundwater have forced Colorado and other states like Arizona and New Mexico to re-examine water laws and encourage people to collect the runoff, Kirk Johnson reports for The New York Times. “I was so willing to go to jail for catching water on my roof and watering my garden,” Tom Bartels, pictured, told Johnson. “But now I’m not a criminal.”(New York Times photo)

Initially, laws were enacted to protect the public from exploiting community resources, but a 2007 study found that in an average year 97 percent of the precipitation did not even approach a stream. The old law giving downstream owners water rights “created a kind of wink-and-nod shadow economy. Rain equipment could be legally sold, but retailers said they knew better than to ask what the buyer intended to do with the product.” (Read more)

Map shows 'hot zones' for accidents on rural roads

The University of Minnesota’s Center for Excellence in Rural Safety has updated its rural safety road map in time for the holiday weekend, The Associated Press reports.

Launched last year, the nationwide map shows the 100 rural accident “hot zones” in each state, in addition to a list of the top ten state offenders for rural road safety. The most dangerous states include Arkansas, Florida, Indiana, Texas and Virginia.

Entering a ZIP code, city name or street address will allow users to see the fatal crashes that have occurred in the past five years. (Read more or view the map)

Rural doctor does it all, or most of it, and says urban patients' care is fragmented by specialists

The trials and tribulations a rural doctor faces every day make those who volunteer for the job stand out among the crowd. In the midst of physician shortages, economic disparity and little monetary and administrative support, these doctors have heeded the “calling” to work in rural medicine, Stephanie Desmon reports for the Baltimore Sun.

In Oakland, Md., Dr. Ken Buczynski (Sun photo by Amy Davis) is the saving grace of the 1,856 people who live in the town about 200 miles west of Baltimore. Since applying to medical school, Buczynski has felt a calling to serve the rural poor, but the sacrifices of such a life are acutely felt. In “the hamster-wheel life of the country doctor in Garrett County,” pop. 30,000, at the western end of Maryland, Buczynski works 14-hour days that include everything from baby deliveries to skin biopsies.

Buczynski’s experience puts him in a distinctive position to judge the shape of the health-care system. He says patients' care is being fragmented "by seeing an endocrinologist for their diabetes and thyroid and the cardiologist for their high cholesterol, their gynecologist for their Pap smear. When you start seeing all those doctors, often times the left hand doesn't know what the right hand is doing. In our community that patient with those problems is likely coming to their primary care doctor 90-plus percent of the time ... and if specialty care is required, we help patients get that. I think that's a good model."

As Congress debates health reform, some see Buczynski’s approach as successful bedrock for the system. Don Battista, the CEO of Garrett County Memorial Hospital, says urban patients who rely on unnecessary and costly visits to specialists are worse off than rural patients. A family doctor forced to customize care in underserved areas usually has better results. "For the first time, people are realizing that more intensive, more specialty care may not give you better outcomes," says Dr. Roger Rosenblatt, vice dean of family medicine at the University of Washington.

The skills rural doctors are quickly forced to learn can be a tempting benefit to the job. “It doesn't get boring," Buczynski tells Desmon of his work. "If I were in suburban Baltimore, seeing patients with hypercholesterolemia, hyperlipidemia between the ages of 55 and 75 all day, I'd go nuts." But the thrill of such a job is heavily weighted by the sacrifices: family, money, free time and a social life all suffer. “To go to a recruiting fair and say, 'Come to rural America where everyone will know your car, your business, your house, what kind of chicken you buy at Wal-Mart, and you'll take call 168 hours at a time and there's no mall for an hour and a half,' … When you start talking about those things, it's a real detractor to a lot of physicians," Buczynski says.

The solution, Rosenblatt says, is not simple. "We have these extraordinary doctors but they're sort of dying on the vine,” he said. We have to make this a profession people can do and enjoy and have something else besides medicine." (Read more)

Partnership aims to transform algae into ethanol

A demonstration plant is being developed to perfect a new process that uses algae to turn carbon dioxide into ethanol. The partnership between Dow Chemical and Algenol Biofuels plans on producing 100,000 gallons a year, Matthew L. Wald reports for The New York Times. (Algenol Biofuels photo: Algae grows in saltwater troughs.)

Algae has long been an appealing energy substitute because it does not require farmland, and scientists at the University of Kentucky have been conducting their own research on the topic. Wald reports that the process of using the algae could be more environmentally friendly and cost effective with a target price of $1 a gallon. Paul Woods, chief executive of Algenol, told Wald, “The process also produces oxygen, which could be used to burn coal in a power plant cleanly.” The majority of the waste from such a plant would be carbon dioxide, which could then be reused to make more algae. Peter A. Molinaro, a spokesman for Dow, said the algae method is intriguing because the chemistry is so simple. “We’re looking at options, and this is one.” (Read more)

R.I.P.: James Baker Hall, rural poet-photographer

"While the nation has been swept up with the recent passings of Michael Jackson and Farrah Fawcett, many of us regionalists and cultural workers lost a great friend and artist this past week. He was a friend and inspiration to all he touched." So writes Jack Wright of Ohio University about James Baker Hall, and poet and photographer who retired in 2003 after for 30 years director of the creative writing program at the University of Kentucky.

On UK's Appalnet list-serve, Wright refers readers to a tribute by Bellarmine University English Department Chairman Frederick Smock in The Courier-Journal of Louisville. "Jim's poetry (he published seven volumes) is admired for its humor, crisp imagery and deep feeling. He delighted in life's little moments, and he caught them absolutely in his lilting lines," Smock writes. "His poetic method was photographic, which comes as no surprise, for he was also a talented photographer, publishing three books of photographs and showing his work, recently, at 21C and Actors Theatre in Louisville, and at the UK Art Museum." His last major photo book was Tobacco Harvest: An Elegy, published by the University Press of Kentucky in 2004.

USDA starts announcing state directors for Rural Development programs and Farm Service Agency

After some delay, the Department of Agriculture has started announcing appointments of USDA's key political positions in each state: director of the state office of the Farm Service Agency and director of Rural Development programs. "So far the administration has announced 18 FSA executives and 16 Rural Development directors," Farm Futures reports.

When we interviewed Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack on May 27, we asked him about the delay. He said he had hoped to announce all 100 appointees at the same time, but had been delayed partly because consultations with senators, House members and other officials had taken longer than expected. "Some members of Congress are quite timely," he said. "Others have taken their time." Also, he said, clearance of appointees may be taking longer because of the administration's strict ethics rules.

The USDA Newsroom Web page has releases on appointees for Alaska, Colorado, Delaware, Hawaii, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Kansas, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi, Montana, Nebraska, New York, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, Texas, Virginia, Washington and Wisconsin. We were happy to see our friend Colleen Landkamer, a county commissioner in Blue Earth County, Minnesota, named RD director. She has been president of the National Association of Counties and has worked on rural development with local, national and international organizations, including the Institute for Rural Journalism and Community Issues, speaking at the week-long workshop we programmed for the Knight Center for Specialized Journalism at the University of Maryland in 2005.

Other notable RD appointees include Philip Lehmkuhler of Indiana, who has been manager of economic development and member services for the Indiana Municipal Power Agency, serving 52 rural towns; Francisco Valentin of Texas, former director of USDA's Rural Utilities Service; Mario Villaneuva of Washington, director of Catholic Charities Housing Services in Yakima. Notable FSA appointees include Kansas Secretary of Agriculture Adrian Polanski, Michigan Racing Commissioner Christine White and Mississippi farmer Michael Sullivan, executive director of the National Furniture Market in Tupelo.

Boom in wind and solar power requires new lines that can pit environmentalist vs. environmentalist

An old source of controversy in rural areas, high-voltage power lines, has a new impetus: the need to run lines from major electric-consuming areas to the usually remote and less populated areas that are sources of wind and solar power.

"There are tens of thousands of miles of new transmission lines planned or under construction, most traversing ranch and farm land," Co-Editor Bill Bishop writes on the Daily Yonder. "Some estimate that the country will spend up to $200 billion dollars building out a new electric grid. Most of that money will be spent in rural America, as new transmission lines are strung to connect the wind turbines on the Plains to the cities." (Photo: John Curley via the Yonder)

Bishop reports that rural residents are turning out for meetings to voice concern about projects in Texas, Northern California, Southern California and New York. "The oldest story in the country is that rural America pays the largest price for producing the power used in the cities," he writes. "But the massive investment in transmission lines now underway is immensely complicated. The construction of new lines and the lease payments they bring will benefit some rural residents, while others see it as unmitigated destruction. Landowner is pitted again landowner, environmentalist against environmentalist and region against region." The story has lots of information and many links. Read it here.

EPA poised to scuttle deal for Plains power plant

A rural electric cooperative that wants to build more generating capacity in the Great Plains will probably have to go back to the drawing board despite a compromise brokered by the new governor of Kansas. The Environmental Protection Agency is expected to tell Sunflower Electric Corp. to "start over," reports David Sassoon of Solve Climate.

When Gov. Mark Parkinson succeeded fellow Democrat Kathleen Sebelius two months ago, he brokered a deal to let Sunflower build one 895-megawatt plant instead of two 700-MW plants that Sebelius, now federal secretary of health and human services, had blocked in the face of strong opposition from utility and coal lobbies at the state legislature. The site is at Holcomb, near Garden City. (Encarta map)

But in late May, "EPA told Sunflower that the company would have to submit a new permit application, provide refreshed technical analysis on whether its plans meet the best available technology, and hold new public hearings before EPA could give it the green light to break ground," according to unnamed "state and federal officials" cited by Sassoon. "Another meeting is planned for today. ... If the talks are conclusive, an official announcement could be forthcoming."

The case could be nationally significant because of the climate bill moving through Congress, which "would set performance standards for coal plants initially permitted after Jan. 1, 2009," Sassoon writes. "By 2025 the plant would have to reduce its emissions by 50 percent. It would add a further large expense that would have to be passed on to Kansas ratepayers," though most of the electricity generated by the plant would go to Colorado and Texas. (Read more)