Coal guys play rough with Ashley Judd over speech

When actress and University of Kentucky graduate Ashley Judd called mountaintop-removal coal mining "the rape of Appalachia" in a National Press Club speech last month, she probably knew there would be some pushback from the coal industry and its allies. But it may have taken a form she didn't expect, and it's making news in Eastern Kentucky.

This sign was displayed today at a golf course built on a reclaimed strip mine in Prestonsburg during a golf tournament related to the coal industry. "An anonymous donor paid for and made the sign in response to Judd's recent comments," reports Angela Sparkman of WYMT-TV in Hazard. "The sign is hanging at the same golf course Judd referenced regarding reclamation," telling the press club, "I'm not too keen on reinforcing stereotypes about my people, but I don't know many hillbillies who golf."

"She's not an Eastern Kentuckian," David Gooch, president of Coal Operators and Associates, told Sparkman. "A real Eastern Kentuckian never would have degraded the people here by saying hillbillies don't play golf." Judd was born in California but grew up mainly in Ashland, Ky., near the northeast tip of the state. Sparkman concluded, "We are are hoping for a response from the actress." (Read more) Here is News Director Neil Middleton's blog item on the topic.

The station did not show the sign's photo of Judd on air "because it might be offensive to some viewers," Sparkman said, but made it available through a link at the bottom of its online story. Its sister Gray Television station, WKYT-TV in Lexington, showed the whole sign but pixelated Judd's chest area in a report that led its 11 p.m. news. For coverage from Prestoinsburg's Floyd County Times go here.

UPDATE, July 9: Judd told WYMT in a statement that she expected criticism from "cunning, callous and greedy" coal companies. "They use people on the ground as their front, and pit us against one another," she said. "It is time to retire the cynical and superficial coal company-created argument that we must choose between people, their jobs, and our mountains," Judd said. "That is simply false, fear-based and fear-mongering." (Read more) Mimi Pickering of Appalshop in Whitesburg writes, "The true response to the coal industry 'topless' attack on Ashley Judd can be heard in 'Topless,' an amazing poem from Virginia Tech student Morgan Cain Grim. Listen to her reading it." Grim, of Floyd, Va., won the university's award for best undergraduate poem this year.

UPDATE, July 10: Celebrity-oriented media have picked up on the story: The New York Daily News and Hollywood News, and Auto Racing Daily; Judd is married to driver Dario Franchitti. (Hat tip to Penny Messinger of the Appalnet list-serve.)

UPDATE, July 11: Appalachian Kentucky author Silas House says in an op-ed in The Courier-Journal that WYMT's coverage has been biased and sexist. "Most of the controversy it's reporting on is being created by the station itself," he writes. "The sign is sexist, ignorant and infantile. ... Nudity is sometimes a part of acting, yes. But to imply that Judd has made her living off that is ridiculous. If George Clooney, another Kentuckian, had made the same speech, would they be putting up a sign about him taking off his clothes, since he, too, has appeared nude on film? Of course not. Because he's a man." (Read more)

UPDATE, July 15: Judd's mother, Naomi, Judd, has joined the "Music Saves Mountains" effort of the Natural Resources Defense Council.

UPDATE, July 16: In an op-ed, Ashley Judd explains her opposition to mounatintop removal and views on the region's future.

Meth lab count way down, but that's not whole story

Methamphetamine labs, once the scourge of many rural areas, "have become scarcer and their federally funded cleanups cheaper," thanks to federal and state laws that have made it more difficult to buy meth ingredients, Michael Doyle of McClatchy Newspapers writes, about a Department of Justice inspector general's report on the agency's Drug Enforcement Administration.

"The report, however, doesn't indicate whether meth use has declined in the U.S.," Doyle notes. "In recent years, the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime noted late last month, meth production "was displaced over the border to Mexico." The amount of methamphetamine seized near the U.S.-Mexico border nearly doubled from 2007 to 2009, the annual U.N. drug report stated."

Also, it should be noted that meth is now commonly made by the "shake and bake" method, in 2-liter bottles that are much easier to discard. This report from the Casey County News in Kentucky suggests that's what was going on in the cab of a truck there when an explosion occured.
 
The inspector general's report said DEA funded the cleanup of 3,866 meth labs in fiscal 2008, a 67 percent decrease from the record 11,790 cleanups it funded in 2005. "Contract improvements and other revisions also cut the average cost per lab cleanup from $3,600 in fiscal 2007 to $2,200 in fiscal 2009," Doyle notes. His story has year-by-year and state-by-state lists.

FFA has record membership, looks to the future

Could agricultural education and the FFA Organization (formerly Future Farmers of America) continue to "draw record numbers of students at a time when 'farm life' and farming are thought of as bygones?" asks Mary Schulken, new rural-education blogger at Education Week. Yes, says Dr. Larry Case, above, who will end a 25-plus-year run as national FFA advsier in January.

First off, FFA has a record number of members, 520,000, all of whom must be involved in ag education. "Urban kids find it relevant, too," Case explains. "When I was young, I had a blue corduroy jacket that had my name on it and the name of my school, I had an FFA pin, and I had a manual. I looked at that manual and read it and I looked at that jacket with my name on it and said, "Me, little old farm boy me, is a part of something bigger. I don't think basic human nature changes from that standpoint. When you get a sense of belonging, a sense of achievement and self-worth, it's appealing. I think FFA creates community, and think that's important. Kids get excited about it, and it makes their education fun when they can work with their hands and get rewarded for it." (Read more)

State, local budget cuts undermine rural recovery

Budget challenges for state and local governments pose a serious threat to the revitalization of rural America, says a report from the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City. "Rural communities depend heavily on intergovernmental transfers from the states to provide local services. Many people in rural communities rely on the state or local government for their jobs and on Medicaid as a part of their income," write economist Alison Felix and bank Vice President Jason Henderson. "Thus, rural economies are highly susceptible to state budget shortfalls."

The writers say local governments in many rural areas have been insulated from state budget cuts because theior real-estate markets have remained strong, maintaining or increasing property-tax revenues, but "As state budget problems deepen, rural governments could suffer further from reduced intergovernmental transfers. Local governments receive, on average, 31 percent of their total revenue from state governments, making them sensitive to state budget cuts." Here's why:

Government cuts to the Medicaid program for the poor and disabled have more effect in rural America, where Medicaid accounts for a larger share of personal incomes. State and local government staff cuts also have a marked effect on rural areas where 14 percent of employment and 18 percent of earnings are accounted for by government jobs. (Kansas City Fed maps)

Such economic pressures will force rural governments to make tough decisions in the coming years, the economists predict. "Rural government authorities can choose to raise revenues, cut services, or improve efficiency of service delivery through consolidation, cooperation, or privatization," Felix and Henderson report. "Tough times present tough choices, but carefully crafted solutions may not only alleviate current fiscal strains but also create a more efficient service delivery system for rural America." (Read more)

Farmers plant more herbicide-tolerant crops amid concern about herbicide-resistant weeds

New data from the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Economic Research Service shows U.S. farmers planted more biotech corn, soybeans and cotton in 2010 than ever before. "For all the reported problems with Roundup-resistant weeds in the South, the USDA survey shows little evidence that farmers are shying away from herbicide-tolerant crops," Philip Brasher of the Des Moines Register reports on the Green Fields blog. In Iowa 90 percent of the corn planted in 2010 was biotech, up from 86 percent last year, and 96 percent of the soybeans, compared to 94 percent in 2008, Brasher writes. (USDA chart)

We have reported the rise of Roundup Ready-resistant weeds in the South, which also showed increases in biotech crops. "In Mississippi, 98 percent of the soybeans are herbicide-tolerant this year, up from 94 percent last year. Arkansas is at 96 percent this year, compared to 94 percent in 20008," Brasher writes. "The story is similar in cotton. Seventy-eight percent of the cotton seed planted this year contained the herbicide-resistant gene, up from 71 percent in 2008."

Pennsylvania cattle quarantined after contact with gas-well wastewater leaking from pit

Concerns about wastewater with natural-gas drilling chemicals have seeped into agriculture, as Pennsylvania officials have quarantined 28 beef cattle after water from a nearby well leaked into a field and came into contact with the animals. "The state Department of Agriculture said the action was its first livestock quarantine related to pollution from natural gas drilling," Nicholas Kusnetz of ProPublica reports. "Although the quarantine was ordered in May, it was announced Thursday." Carol Johnson, who along with her husband owns the farm in north-central Pennsylvania where the contamination took place, said she noticed fluids pooling in the pasture, killing grass, in early May.

The farm sits above the Marcellus Shale formation, whose vast natural gas reserves recently became accessible for the first time by using hydraulic fracturing. "Fracking" injects thousands of gallons of water, sand and chemicals into the well to create small cracks in the shale, releasing natural gas reserves to be collected above. Reports of contamination from drilling wastewater have popped up around the country.

The state Department of Environmental Protection said "In the Johnsons' case, a mixture of fresh water and wastewater that had been injected into the well leaked from an impoundment pit on the farm," Kusnetz writes. Tests performed for East Resources Inc., which owns the well, "found hazardous chemicals and heavy metals, including chloride, barium and strontium," Kusnetz reports. No adverse affects have been observed in the cattle, and East Resources told Kusnetz that tests of the leaked fluid did not show unhealthy levels of any contaminants and that the quarantine was unnecessary. (Read more)

Deficit concerns complicate incentives for biofuels

The biofuels industry is lobbying Congress to renew or start several subsidies it says are needed to protect the industry's future, but as lawmakers look for ways to trim the federal deficit those incentives may be in jeopardy. The $1-a-gallon biodiesel tax credit lapsed at the end of 2009, and Senate has been unable to agree on a bill that would revive the subsidy and extend it to the end of the year."The biodiesel subsidy itself isn't controversial, but Senate Republicans and some Democrats have objected to other spending in the bill that would add to the budget deficit," Phillip Brasher of the Des Moines Register reports. "The legislation includes money for state Medicaid programs and an extension of unemployment benefits."

"Congress must renew the 45-cent-per-gallon tax credit for ethanol or else the subsidy will expire at the end of the year," Brasher writes. "At the same time, the industry is seeking subsidies to install new pumps at service stations and fund the development of biorefineries that can make biofuels from crop residue and other new feedstocks." Salo Zelermyer, a former U.S. Department of Energy lawyer who now lobbies for some renewable energy firms, told Brasher any new biofuel measure that has a cost to taxpayers "is going to be difficult unless there's a clear mechanism to pay for it."

"Companies that want to make the next generation of biofuels claim they are close to making it economically but need more help from the government," Brasher writes. "None of the projects has yet to qualify for a federal loan guarantee." Iowa Sen. Chuck Grassley, who has long protected the industry from his seat on the Senate Finance Committee, told Brasher he was optimistic Congress wouldn't let the subsidy expire, but he wasn't sure anymore after the biodiesel credit. "If you were asking me this question a year ago about biodiesel, I would have said there's not a problem," Grassley said. "We would have gotten it passed by the end of the year." (Read more)

Massey stops work on its first mine in Western Ky.

"Controversial coal-mining giant Massey Energy Co. had been quietly developing a new underground mine in McLean County in what would apparently be its first operation in Western Kentucky," Chuck Stinnett writes for The Gleaner in Henderson. "But the company recently suspended development on its Delaware Mine, according to the federal Mine Safety and Health Administration."

An MSHA spokeswoman told Stinnett, "The mine was projected to start production sometime in 2012, but the recent delay may push that date into 2013," and a Massey spokesman said, "The company is still evaluating the reserves and has not finalized a potential mine plan." (Read more)

EPA issues tighter pollution limits on power plants

Amid all the talk of a climate-and-energy bill that now seems unlikely to pass, and the alternative of a carbon-dioxide regulation by the Environmental Protection Agency, EPA is moving ahead with stricter limits on "old fashioned" air pollutants from power plants, such as sulfur dioxide (SO2), oxides of nitrogen (NOx) and particulates, or soot.

Assistant EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy said the proposed rule would reduce SO2 emissions by 71 percent and NOx emissions by 52 percent from 2005 levels, reports Gabriel Nelson of Environment & Energy News. Labeled a "transport" rule, it is aimed at reducing accumulations of the pollutants in the northeastern U.S., making "it harder for those states to meet federal standards for particulate matter and ground-level ozone," Nelson writes. (Subscription required)

Rural migration alters landscape of rural states as 'sponge cities' grow; media partly to blame?

Reports of rural outmigration are nothing new, but new research suggests many of those former ruralites may not be moving to sprawling metropolises like Chicago or New York. Instead these migrants may be moving to urban areas withing predominately rural states like North Dakota, creating so-called "sponge cities," Debora Dragseth, a associate professor of business at Dickinson State University in North Dakota, writes in NewGeography. "North Dakota’s four largest cities, Fargo, Bismarck, Grand Forks and Minot, are growing in large part due to the young adults who for decades gone elsewhere to other regions," Dragseth writes. "In the process, rural North Dakota is facing a protracted population crisis as significant numbers of its small communities are on a slow slide to extinction."

A survey of 111 North Dakota high school juniors last month revealed this growing trend. NewGeography chart). "Although roughly four in ten were raised in communities of fewer than 2,000 residents, out of more than 100 students surveyed, only six wished to live their adult lives in the a town of fewer than 2,000," Dragseth writes. The largest Great Plains cities, like Minneapolis, may not end up being the ultimate sponge cities, Dragseth writes: "Minneapolis has experienced a 1.4 percent drop in population since 2000. Demographers are beginning to observe that for many of us there is a point where diseconomy of size becomes real."

"A dozen young adults moving from Edgeley, N.D. (population 637), to Fargo is irrelevant to Fargo as it absorbs the new residents with barely a nod, but to Edgeley, the shift represents significant and chilling loss of young, skilled, educated workers that will have a detrimental impact on the town’s future prosperity or even survival," Dragseth writes. Mark Stephens, a young college graduate who left his small town of fewer than 400 for Fargo, explained, "The first thing people throw out as an excuse is increased opportunity, but let's face it, 18- to 20-something adults are not thinking long term. For the most part, kids in that age group are really pretty shallow. In truth, I think it comes down to one word: jealousy. They are walking down a gravel road in their tiny town with a link to massive amounts of media right in their back pockets. It's no different than when they were little kids—they see someone with ice cream and they want some too." (Read more)

Utah study points to backyard chickens as source of elevated arsenic levels in two children

Backyard chickens are growing in popularity, but a study has concluded that they are to blame for elevated levels of arsenic in two children in Utah. "The trail eventually led [Christina] McNaughton, a toxicologist for the Utah Department of Health, to the family’s backyard chicken coop — along with the eggs that came out of it, the feed that went into the hens that laid them and, finally, widely used animal-feed additives containing arsenic," Judy  Fahys of The Salt Lake Tribune reports. "For everyone who has backyard chickens, this is an issue," McNaughton told Fahys.

"The Utah study goes far beyond a Mapleton chicken coop," Fahys writes. "The use of roxarsone and other arsenic-based additives in poultry and swine feed is at the center of a national controversy." David Wallinga, director of the Minneapolis-based Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy, an organization that is petitioning the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to ban the arsenic additives, told Fahys, "Because we’ve turned a blind eye to what we put in our animal feed, we’re putting our children at risk." The American Chemical Society reports about 70 percent of U.S. broilers were fed roxarsone, the most widely used arsenic-based additive, but "the poultry industry and regulators insist that virtually all of the additive is excreted," Fahys writes. McNaughton noted they "tested regular grocery store eggs, and they did not have any arsenic."

The Utah health agency has no position on the Institute's petition to ban arsenic additives, but "does stand by its findings — the first of their kind — that arsenic from feed is winding up in eggs and the people who eat them," Fahys writes. The two children in the study showed no signs of arsenic poisoning, but one had double the arsenic level deemed toxic and the other was 75 percent above the limit. Studies of the water and soil revealed they were within legal parameters for arsenic but examination of eggs from the backyard chickens revealed the likely source. After the chickens were given arsenic-free feed and the children stopped eating their eggs contamination levels declined. (Read more)

Research questions cost-savings claims of private-prison industry, a familiar rural employer

Supporters of for-profit, private prisons say they are cheaper and safer than those run by government, and are at least as accountable to the public, but a growing body of research has cast doubt on those claims. Michele Deitch, a University of Texas professor who was part of an American Bar Association task force that drafted proposed national standards on the treatment of prisoners, says it's a "myth that private prisons can provide services better and more cheaply that those run by the government," R. G. Dunlop of the Courier-Journal of Louisville reports.

"The facts are that private vendors compromise safety and security to keep down costs," Deitch said in an address to a criminal-justice conference in Honolulu last October. "They save money by hiring inexperienced staff at the low end of the wage scale. When you've got inexperienced, poorly trained staff, you've got a recipe for security and safety problems in a prison." A spokesman for Corrections Corp. of America, the nation's largest operator of private prisons, asked the Courier-Journal to submit a list of written questions for the story then did not respond to them. CCA cites a study on its website which revealed private prisons are more cost effective, but notes it partially funded the research.

Kentucky Department of Corrections spokeswoman Lisa Lamb acknowledged to Dunlop that "private prisons are not less expensive than all of our institutions," but noted the department "does continue to assert that the private prisons are a cost-effective option in housing Kentucky's felon population." She said it was "very difficult" to determine whether Kentucky's private prisons actually comply with the state-mandated 10 percent savings required compared to state-run facilities. "Since the mid-1990s, at least 10 studies, including several by researchers at the federal Bureau of Prisons, have questioned the private prison industry's claims, especially with respect to cost savings and security," Dunlop writes.

"I'm not anti-privatization," Gerald Gaes, formerly of the Federal Bureau of Prisons, who in 1999 released a report for the bureau questioning many of the cost-saving claims made by the private prison industry, told Dunlop. "But I don't think the case has been made that (private prisons) are superior in cost or quality. Quite the opposite, in fact." One area private prisons seem to have a clear cost-saving edge is in employee compensation, especially in rural areas, which are popular locations for prisons. Starting pay at CCA's Otter Creek prison in Eastern Kentucky is $8.25 an hour, $3 an hour less than two nearby state-run prisons. (Read more)

Not all the jobs go to locals. Jessica Lilly of West Virgnia Public Broadcasting reports that at a new prison in McDowell County, residents of the county have "landed very few of those rare jobs" filled so far. Meanwhile, Newsweek reports that the recession has been hard on corrections companies. "State corrections agencies are crowding prisoners into more facilities as they do in California, or trying to change legislation to make sentencing less harsh for nonviolent criminals," Nancy Cook reports.

Gun owners from all over get permits in Utah, which has waived residency and other requirements

A growing number of gun owners across the country looking for the most bang for their buck are hoping to be permitted to carry a weapon in Utah despite never visiting the state. "With the Supreme Court ruling last week that the Second Amendment’s guarantee of an individual’s right to bear arms applies to state and local laws, Utah is a popular player in Americans’ efforts to legally obtain firearms," Dan Frosch reports for The New York Times. Thirty-two other states recognize or have formal reciprocity agreements with Utah's gun regulations.

"Fifteen years after the Utah Legislature loosened rules on concealed firearm permits by waiving residency and other requirements, the state is increasingly attracting firearm owners from throughout the country," Frosch writes. The Utah Bureau of Criminal Identification, which issues gun permits, reports just under half of the 241,811 permits granted by the state are now held by non-residents. In 2004, Utah received 8,000 applications for permits, but by last year the number was up to 73,925, with almost 60 percent coming from non-residents.

"By passing the class and the background check, and paying a $65.25 fee, the applicant receives what many consider to be the most prized gun permit in the country," Frosch writes. "Permits are good for five years and cost $10 to renew." Of the 1,097 course instructors certified by Utah, 706 are in other states. Still some question the safety of the practice as Utah does not require permitees to ever fire a weapon to receive certification. "I think it’s absolutely shameful and ludicrously irresponsible to say that anybody anywhere who wants one of our concealed-carry permits, and thus will be able to carry legally in dozens of states, can just log on to our Web site and pay 60 bucks and that’s all she wrote," Peter Hamm, a spokesman for the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, told Frosch. (Read more)

Experts coming to E. Ky. agri-tourism conference

A conference in Eastern Kentucky on agri-tourism hopes to redefine the region's economic future by highlighting many of its unique opportunities to attract visitors and their money. "It’s Your Idea: Make it Pay!" will be held July 28-30 at Morehead State University's Regional Enterprise Center in West Liberty. The University of Kentucky is co-sponsoring the conference with the Eastern Kentucky Foothills Eco-Agri-Tourism Corporation.

The event will feature presentations from Peter Hille, director of Berea College’s Brushy Fork Institute, Vaughn Grisham, right, director of the George McLean Institute for Community Development at the University of Mississippi, and Todd Comen, founder and manager of the Institute for Integrated Rural Tourism. "We want people in Carter, Elliott, Menifee, Morgan and Wolfe counties to think differently about their communities and economy," Gwenda Adkins, Cooperative Extension agent for family and consumer sciences in Elliott County, told Aimee Nelson of the UK College of Agriculture. "We’re offering free registration to people in those counties to come and learn about making their ideas pay. We’ll emphasize eco-agri-tourism and related businesses." Other registrants will pay $30. Participants will also "tour local farms and businesses including Vertical Acres Farm, a nationally known farm where deer are raised for breeding and research," Nelson writes. (Read more)

False notion about Jones Act waivers and oil cleanup just won't subside

Paul Rubin, an economics professor at Emory University in Atlanta, has a column in The Wall Street Journal today that ranks as the paper's second most e-mailed item. Rubin makes several strong points about the need for a stronger federal response to clean up the oil from BP's continuing blowout in the Gulf of Mexico, but he repeats an off-base talking point that has become myth.

"The Obama administration can waive the Jones Act, which restricts foreign ships from operating in U.S. coastal waters," Rubin writes. "Many foreign countries (such as the Netherlands and Belgium) have ships and technologies that would greatly advance the cleanup. So far, the U.S. has refused to waive the restrictions of this law and allow these ships to participate in the effort."

You've probably heard this assertion before, but it's wrong, according to FactCheck.org and a story from McClatchy Newspapers, written by William Douglas.

FactCheck, a service of the Annenberg Public Policy Center at the University of Pennsylvania, reported June 23: "No waiver has been needed. The Jones Act requires goods carried between U.S. ports to be shipped aboard U.S.-flagged vessels built in the U.S. and owned by American citizens. The law doesn’t apply to ships operating far from the U.S. coastline, skimming oil or performing other such chores and not hauling cargo from one American port to another. In the case of the BP oil spill, the Jones Act hasn’t prevented several foreign-flagged ships from delivering resources and skimming oil. And the administration says it’s prepared to expedite requests for waivers, should any be needed." (Read more)

A week later, McClatchy published a story saying much the same thing, and citing FactCheck, with a tough headline: "GOP's false talking point: Jones Act blocks Gulf help." It reported a State Department announcement "that new offers of aid would be accepted from 12 foreign countries and international organizations, but spokesman P.J. Crowley noted that booms donated by Mexico, Norway and Brazil had been in use since May 11, and that 24 foreign vessels from nine foreign countries already have been helping with the cleanup." (Read more)

FactCheck has other "whoppers" related to the blowout.

An American summer: The rivers are full, the grasses are lustrous and the animals are sleek

Verlyn Klinkenborg is an editorial writer for The New York Times, and also a small farmer. From time to time, he writes short columns that are labeled "The Rural Life." His latest, after a drive across the northern half of the United States, is labeled "Editorial Notebook" but still merits our attention. And if you have a current photograph that would illustrate this item, please send it to al.cross@uky.edu. Thanks to George Ferrell for this one from Kentucky (US 421 in Madison County).

"I didn’t solve any problems, for all my thinking, but I did a lot of looking," Klinkenborg writes. "And, to use the wonderful old phrase, I will tell you what.

"In America the rivers are full — the Yellowstone, the Cheyenne, the Missouri, the Rock, the Mississippi. They reach up into the boughs of the trees that overarch them and sweep their shadows away downstream. And everywhere I looked, all across the mountains and the plains, I saw grass of a kind you see only perhaps once in a generation, so thick and lustrous that it looks as though it had the texture of a beaver pelt. The high-pressure dome above me scattered the winds, sending the sunlight skittering over the grasses as though they were ripples on the waves at sea.

"The cattle and horses were sleek and almost fatigued with good feeding. In western South Dakota, cows stood belly deep in a ranch pond, doing their impersonation of the kind in Constable’s paintings. In the eastern part of the state, I came across an old barn sinking, prow high, in the ocean of grass. I wanted to pull over and lie down in the thick of those pastures, watching the seeded heads of the grasses bending deeply in the wind above me. But I drove on, and noticed that northern Iowa, where silos were once the only tall landmarks on the horizon, has now given itself a certain grandeur by building towering windmills, mostly in pods of six." (Read more)

Theaters give anchor to life in Great Plains towns

In an age of streaming online video and massive multiplexes, one-screen movie theaters might seem to be a thing of the past, but across the Great Plains they are making a comeback, Patricia Leigh Brown of The New York Times reports. "The small-town, Main Street movie theater is thriving in North Dakota, the result of a grass-roots movement to keep storefront movie houses, with their jewel-like marquees and facades of careworn utility, at the center of community life. The revival is not confined to North Dakota; Main Street movie houses like the Alamo in Bucksport, Me., the Luna in Clayton, N.M., and the Strand in Old Forge, N.Y., are flourishing as well." (NYT photo of theater in Langdon, N.D., by Fred R. Conrad)

"If we were in Los Angeles or Phoenix, the only reason to go to a movie would be to see it," Cecile Wehrman, a newspaper editor who, with members of the nonprofit Meadowlark Arts Council resuscitated the Dakota in Crosby, N.D., told Brown. "But in a small town, the theater is like a neighborhood. It’s the see-and-be-seen, bring everyone and sit together kind of place." Brown writes, "In the Great Plains, where stop signs can be 50 miles apart and the nearest multiplex is 200 miles round trip, the town theater — one screen, one show a night, weekends only — is an anchoring force, especially for families."

Tim Kennedy, landscape-architecture professor who has traveled to small theaters across North Dakota for a book, says "The communal will of rural towns that keep theaters going represents 'buildings as social capital,' forged 'outside the franchise cinemas and their ubiquitous presence at the malls,'" Brown writes. Some point to baby boomers as the source of the revitalization. "They are the last picture-show generation on the plains," Tom Isern, a professor of history at North Dakota State University Fargo, told Brown, "who can remember that movie theater experience and want to transmit that to their kids." (Read more)

Horses pulling buggy bolt in parade, kill 1, hurt 23

Here's a cautionary tale for parades using horses and buggies: "Two horses running out of control trampled children collecting candy and other onlookers along a Fourth of July parade route" today in Bellevue, Iowa, population 2,350, The Associated Press reports. "A 60-year-old Iowa woman died and 23 others were hurt, including at least two children who were in critical condition, police and hospital officials said."

The horses bolted "after one rubbed its head against the other, removing that horse's bridle, police said. The horses, with a wagon in tow, galloped for several blocks, running over children and adults who sat and stood along the streets watching the parade in Bellevue. At one point, the wagon flipped, ejecting two people in it," AP reports. The Dubuque Telegraph-Herald calls the vehicle "a black buggy."

"Five people were critically injured, five others severely injured and 14 suffered minor injuries, police and fire officials said in a statement," AP reports. "The victims were as young as 2 years old and suffered injuries ranging from multiple fractures to collapsed lungs and abrasions, officials said." Bellevue is on the Mississippi River, about 25 miles south of Dubuque. (Photo by Mike Burley, Telegraph Herald)

Berry: Might not have given papers to university anyway, depending on its support of small farmers

Author Wendell Berry, who decided not to donate his personal papers to the University of Kentucky after the school named its basketball dormitory Wildcat Coal Lodge in return for $7 million from Alliance Coal CEO Joe Craft, said in an interview published today that he might not have given the papers to the university anyway, because his initial condition was that it serve the interests of small farmers.

Berry told Charlie Pearl of The State Journal in Frankfort that when the school asked him to donate his papers that it had on loan, "I said I have two children farming and these papers have a value, and if I come to feel that the university is really serving the interest of people like my children who hope to prosper on small farms, then I may consider donating them. But until they’re secure and I’m assured of the university’s interest in people like them, I’m not going to do it. And I’m not naïve. I was not at all inclined to make an issue of the university’s manifest lack of concern about surface mining in Eastern Kentucky and its ecological implications, its implications for the forests, for the survival of the wild creatures and maybe preeminently for the rural people there that a land-grant university is mandated to look after and help. . . . I understood that it was probably too much to expect, even a land-grant university, to take an interest in those things.

"But when the university accepted that gift ... that meant they had passed over from indifference to a manifest alliance with the coal industry. I don’t think a university ought to make an alliance with any industry. I know that’s going on at other universities, and I think it’s always a breach of intellectual integrity and reputability and a breach of public obligation. That is a public university. It ought not to be allying itself with a private interest of any kind. When that happened, that made it impossible for me to tacitly accept that in terms of my own relationship with the university. So the question I had to answer was whether I wanted to be associated with the university on its terms, and the answer I had to give is that I don’t." (Pearl photo)

Berry, who will be 76 next month, also talked with Pearl about how he writes (without electricity), farms (with horses) and lives (without television or a computer). "I use a spiral notebook, and I write on the right-hand page," he said. "Anything I want to add I put on the left-hand page. If I don’t like what I’ve done, I rip pages out and start all over again. It’s pretty good technology. I have a pencil and eraser. It’s wonderful new technology, that eraser is." (Read more)

National Guard members with rural backgrounds help farmers in Afghanistan

As American forces mark their ninth straught Independence Day in Afghanistan, here's a feel-good story for the Fourth, by Jim Warren of the Lexington Herald-Leader: "About 60 Kentucky National Guard members returned home Friday, after spending the last year fighting the war in Afghanistan with bee hives instead of bullets, and soybeans instead of shells."

Guard members from about eight states "showed Afghan farmers how to prevent soil erosion and irrigate more efficiently; helped veterinary students sharpen their skills; and empowered Afghan women to start their own agribusiness ventures," Warren reports. "Guard members from across Kentucky were selected for the team because they had skills in areas related to agriculture, such as biology, entomology or veterinary science." (Army photo: Lt. Col. Ruth Graves of Franklin worked with the Kentucky Agribusiness Development Team to demonstrate how to hook up an automatic seeder to a tractor at Al Biruni University in Kapisa province.)

The Kentuckians implemented an idea from their counterparts in Nebraska, "a women's empowerment project that called for distributing hundreds of bee hives to Afghan farm wives" and showing them "how to manage the bees and increase the number of hives as the bee populations grew. The women then collected honey from the hives for sale at local markets and bazaars." They also introduced soybeans as a protein source. Another team is now in Afghanistan, "and a third will deploy there early next year," Warren reports.

Permit ruling shows how EPA allows mountaintop mining to continue, with new techniques

In its conditional approval for a new mountaintop-removal coal mine in southern West Virginia, the Environmental Protection Agency has illustrated how the practice can continue under stricter regulations and different engineering, mining and reclamation methods.

EPA said it would allow the Army Corps of Engineers to issue a Clean Water Act permit for Arch Coal Inc. subsidiary Coal-Mac Inc.'s Pine Creek Surface Mine near Omar, Ken Ward Jr. of The Charleston Gazette reported: "EPA officials praised the company for taking steps to reduce downstream water pollution, but said they also want the company to agree to build its valley fill waste piles one at a time. Coal-Mac cut its stream impacts by 22 percent, agreed to haul waste rock and dirt for disposal on an adjacent mine site rather than in streams, and increased the deck of its valley fills in another move to reduce the length of waterways buried."

A key word in the regulatory process is "practicable." EPA's regional environmental assessment director, John Pomponio, told orps District Engineer Robert D. Peterson in a June 21 letter, "Where practicable, the applicant has maximized the amount of spoil returned to the mine bench and minimized the amount of excess spoil that must be disposed of in streams." But Ward also reports that a recent study by EPA and University of Kentucky scientists "found that ditches mine operators build to channel runoff do not replicate the important ecological functions of headwater streams." (Read more)

EPA rules for Chesapeake Bay watershed are tougher than expected

The Environmental Protection Agency has proposed tougher-than-expected pollution limits for Chesapeake Bay that would force the six states in the watershed, below, to "double the pace at which they've been removing nitrogen, one of the two nutrients fouling the bay," Timothy Wheeler of The Baltimore Sun reports, calling it "a regimen likely to require costly upgrades to sewage treatment plants, expensive retrofits of storm drains in urban and suburban areas, and major new curbs on runoff of fertilizer and chicken manure."

EPA Regional Administrator Shawn Garvin said the target of a 15 percent nitrogen reduction over seven years "would not be easy for the states to achieve, but they represent federal scientists' best estimates of what's needed to restore fish-sustaining oxygen to the waters of North America's largest estuary," Wheeler writes. "Dead zones form every summer in the Chesapeake from algae blooms that are fed by sewage plants, farm and urban and suburban runoff and air pollution."

Wheeler reports, "The limits represent the first major step toward putting the Bay states on a "pollution diet" aimed at restoring the Chesapeake's water quality by 2025. Maryland and other states must tell the EPA by Sept. 1 how they intend to curb nutrients and sediment enough to reach their goals." (Read more)

Senate chairman doubts passage of carbon limit

The Senate is unlikely to pass any limit on carbon-dioxide emissions this year, says Sen. Jeff Bingaman (D-N.M.), right, who as chairman of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee has been working on a cap-and-trade bill that would apply only to power plants. (New Mexico Independent photo)

Bingaman told Environment & Energy News that he is "somewhat dubious" that his bill could get the 60 votes needed to overcome a Republican filibuster. He also said he doubts that congressional leaders would use a House-Senate conference committee, even after the Nov. 2 election, "to ratchet up the climate regulations past what the Senate agreed to and beyond what Democratic House centrists want," Robin Bravender, Noelle Straub and Josh Voorhees of E&E write for Greenwire.

"Bingaman's comments contradict those made previously by key members of the Democratic caucus, which suggest they plan to anchor their climate and energy efforts to the spill response legislation and then dare Republicans to vote against it," the reporters write. (Read more, subscription required)

Clinton: Byrd Klan episode evoked rural background

Sen. Robert Byrd's membership in the Ku Klux Klan as a young man was a function of his rural background, former President Bill Clinton said at Byrd's funeral on the steps of the West Virginia State Capitol today. (Video from Talking Points Memo)


Near the end of what The Washington Post called "a rousing tribute," Clinton said Byrd joined the Klan because "He was a country boy from the hills and hollows of West Virginia. He was trying to get elected. And maybe he did something he shouldn't have done. And he spent the rest of his life making it up. And that's what a good person does," Clinton said, waving his index finger and winning applause. "There are no perfect people. There are certainly no perfect politicians."

"In defending the compromises Byrd made to attain power, Clinton could just as easily have been defending his own." Steve Kornacki writes in Salon's War Room. "The usual excuse for his Klan association is that he had been young and naive, and that as the years went by, he saw his error, repented, and went on to rack up a laudable legislative record on civil rights issues," Kornacki writes of Byrd, and then of Clinton: "The important thing, he seemed to believe, was to be in office and to make as many right decisions then as politics would allow." (Read more)

President Obama, delivering the final tribute of the 140-minute service, including the formal eulogy, recalled that Byrd referred to the brief Klan episode the first time they met, telling him "There are things I regret in my youth. You may know that." Obama said he replied, "None of us are absent some regrets, Senator. That's why we seek and enjoy the grace of God." Obama told the crowd, "As I reflect on the full sweep of his 92 years, it seems to me that his life bent toward justice."

Byrd joined Southern Democrats' filibuster against the 1964 Civil Rights Act, but not many years elapsed before he changed his views. As Vicki Kennedy, the widow of Massachusetts Sen. Edward Kennedy, told the crowd, "Robert Byrd moved with our country and he moved  our country forward." For all the speeches, transcribed by The Charleston Gazette, click here.

Farmers use social media to fight negative portrayals

The battle between animal-rights activists and agriculture has taken a new turn in the world of social media. When angry animal rights groups recently released a YouTube video of dairy cows being abused by farmers, the video led to much outrage online, but not just from those appalled by the images, Juliana Barbassa of The Associated Press reports. "It also raised a flurry of outrage from another corner of the Internet," Barbassa writes. "Farmers fought back, blogging, tweeting, uploading their own videos and chatting on Facebook to defend their industry and explain the abuse did not represent their practices."

"Growers aren't usually thought of as a wired, social-networking bunch," Barbassa writes. "But frustration at being the targets of tech-wise environmental or animal rights groups has inspired them to get involved with social media and answer in kind." Ray Prock Jr., a second-generation Central California dairy farmer whose blog posts and tweets relay information on everything from emergency drills for handling manure spills to lactose intolerance, explained, "There is so much negative publicity out there, and no one was getting our message out."

"This is where my family lives — I care for the air, and the water, the environment, the cows," Prock told Barbassa. "This is what I wish I could show people." Nathan Runkle, director of Mercy For Animals, the organization responsible for the video, can likely relate to that feeling as he told Barbassa animal rights groups first embraced social media because they didn't have the budget to combat the ag industry's advertising campaigns. Farmers like Prock have learned from the groups and now have taken their marketing into their own hands. "We weren't part of the conversation," Prock said. "And if we aren't telling our story, other people will, and they'll tell it the way they want to." (Read more)

$795 million in rural broadband grants announced

President Obama today announced $795 million in rural broadband awards for 66 areas with little or no high-speed Internet access. The White House said the money will create around 5,000 construction and installation jobs in the short term and will affect more than 685,000 businesses, 900 health care facilities and 2,400 schools, David Jackson of USA Today reports. "Broadband can remove geographic barriers between patients and their doctors," Obama said. "It can connect our kids to the digital skills the 21st-century education requires for the jobs of the future, and it can prepare America to run on clean energy by helping us upgrade to a smarter, stronger, more secure electrical grid."

Don Stewart, a spokesman for Republican Senate Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, was quick to qualify the announcement by noting House appropriators have voted to rescind $602 million worth of stimulus plan broadband funding and redirect it to funding for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. (Read more)

Projects in 37 states received at least a partial award; Iowa led all states with seven. Four projects encompassing more than one state were awarded funding. The largest local award went to Wilkes Telephone & Electric Co., which received $48.1 million to enhance broadband communication options in Lincoln, Taliaferro and Wilkes counties in Georgia. One nationwide project, administered by the University Corporation for Advanced Internet Development, got $62.5 million to create a nationwide high-capacity network between 30 existing research and educational networks. You can see the entire list of awards here.

Humane Society, Ohio Farm Bureau strike controversial agreement on animal welfare

The Humane Society of the United States and Ohio Farm Bureau reached an eleventh-hour compromise Wednesday to keep a referendum on animal cruelty off the fall ballot in exchange for stricter animal-welfare regulations. "The deal-maker apparently was [Gov. Ted] Strickland's agreement to support two new laws and sign an executive order," Alan Johnson of The Columbus Dispatch reports. "The laws relate to regulation of so-called puppy mills and toughening existing penalties for cockfighting."

"The new agreement made few strides on the most contentious issue that the ballot issue would have covered: restrictive confinement standards for egg-laying hens, pregnant sows and calves raised for veal," Johnson writes. Strickland said at a news conference, "I just did not think it was in Ohioans' best interests to have an acrimonious ballot issue debated. This is something that is good for Ohio agriculture and good for animal welfare in this state." Wayne Pacelle, president and chief executive officer of the Humane Society, told Johnson the governor was "very persuasive." (Read more)

The announcement was met by outrage in much of the agriculture community. "'Dismayed' and 'betrayed' are two words being used being used by farmers and ranchers in Ohio—and across the entire U.S.—in reaction to the compromise agreement between Ohio’s ag and livestock organizations and HSUS," Ken Anderson reports for Brownfield. Ohio Farm Bureau spokesman Joe Cornley said he understands the hurt feelings, but the group still agrees with detractors who think HSUS eventually wants to abolish animal agriculture. "I could not agree more with those people," Cornely says. "We at Ohio Farm Bureau fully recognize and believe that is the ultimate goal of the Humane Society of the United States—just as our ultimate goal is to not let that happen. We haven’t given up the battle—we’ve just changed the rules of engagement." (Read more)

New York considers law to count prisoners at home

In April we reported Maryland had become the first state to pass legislation requiring prison populations be counted in their hometowns instead of the districts they are housed in, and now similar legislation in New York is starting to gain steam. On Monday The New York Times editorial board endorsed a measure to count prisoners in their hometowns for drawing legislative districts. Advocates for counting prisoners at their last home say it’s a civil rights issue, Newsweek reports, while representatives from prison districts say counting them at prison sites rewards constituents for the inconveniences they incur. (Newsweek graphic)

The New York's proposal's "prospects are good in the Democratic-controlled Assembly, but it may not get through the nearly evenly split State Senate, where seven districts, including those of two Democrats, would need to be redrawn due to insufficient population if they lost their prisoners in redistricting," Newsweek reports. "Senators from those districts contend that their constituents are absorbing a public need, not just government dollars, because the prisoners exact a toll on the surrounding areas."

"Upstate communities accepted prisons for the economic benefit, but there’s also other impacts, both positive and negative," Sen. Joe Griffo told Newsweek. "The fire department, police department, and hospitals all have to respond to the prison and the inmates." State Sen. Betty Little, whose district includes 11 prisons, notes many locals fear that prisoners’ families will move to the area with the prisons but there is little evidence that actually happens. "Although the New York proposal, like the new law in Maryland, would affect only legislative redistricting, not state funding for social services, Griffo argues that political power always translates into government funding, so prison-heavy districts upstate have a real financial stake in preserving their claim on prisoners in redistricting," Newsweek writes. (Read more)

School consolidation center of Ark. political battle

Six years ago Arkansas enacted a law requiring school consolidation if a district has fewer than 350 students two years in a row. The law has been a common target of politicians hoping to gain traction among rural voters, but so far no serious challenge has been mounted to it, Andrew DeMillo of The Associated Press reports. The latest district on the merger block is the Weiner School District in Northeast Arkansas, which had just 313 students last year and is set to be merged with neighboring Harrisburg this week, though an advocacy group has filed a lawsuit seeking a last-minute reprieve.

Republican gubernatorial candidate Jim Keet is the latest politician to campaign against the consolidation law, but even he was reluctant to embrace the Weiner district's cause. "If I thought this was a good political issue for me, I would probably need to have my head examined," Keet told reporters last week. Keet said he favors a law that considers school performance. "I would rather have a school district that has 342 students and is doing an excellent job than one that has 400 students in it that is doing a poor job of educating our children," Keet said. "I think it's all based on performance."

"The consolidation law was enacted as part of the state's response to a long-running school funding lawsuit that ended in 2009 when the state Supreme Court said that Arkansas had adequately funded its schools," contrarry to the suit's contentions, DeMillo writes. State Rep. Buddy Lovell held up the Education Department's budget last year in hopes of amending the law to give rural schools more time to boost their enrollment, but his proposal died in a Senate committee. Now advocates for changing the law hope Arkansas' term limits will improve their chances, as fewer lawmakers who were around for the original battle remain in the legislature. (Read more)

Writing in the Daily Yonder, Timothy Collins, assistant director of the Illinois Institute for Rural Affairs at Western Illinois University, argues, "Conditions across rural America now make the case for small, community schools even more compelling." (Read more)

Publisher's novel celebrates community journalism

Tim Spitzack, editor and publisher of an urban community-newspaper publishing company in Minnesota, St. Paul Publishing Co., has a written The Messenger, a novel that he says is designed to "pay tribute to those in all communities who quietly go about their lives making a difference in the lives of their families and others around them."

The protagonist is John Jenkins, a young journalist marking time at the Marquette Messenger until he can get into a larger market. He thinks nothing significant ever happens in a farming community, but one day he is told to write the obituary of an elderly local farmer. The remarkable, untold story Jenkins uncovers through his investigation, happenstance encounters with people who knew the man, and covert visits to his farm, challenge everything the young reporter holds dear. "The Messenger is a poignant glimpse of the heart wounds of WWII vets on both sides of the line," says the Southern Newspaper Publishers Association Bulletin.

"There's a popular phrase in community journalism that says there are no bad stories, only bad writers," Spitzack says. "What this means is that there are a multitude of interesting stories about our fellow citizens to discover if we are willing to scratch below the surface. I wrote The Messenger to pay tribute to the people who live quiet lives, but through their acts of love and compassion influence the lives of so many others." Published by OakTara, the first chapter and a half are in the media kit at http://www.timspitzack.com/.

Mainer brought more than an award back from weekly editors' annual conference

Mo Mehlsak, editor of The Forecaster of Falmouth, Maine, attended last week's International Society of Weekly Newspaper Editors conference to accept the annual Golden Quill award for editorial writing, but he took away much more from the event than his award, he writes in an editorial. "Although I've been a member of ISWNE since shortly after joining The Forecaster six years ago, I'd never attended the annual meeting," Mehlsak, right, writes. "This one, based at Eastern Kentucky University in Richmond and organized by EKU's Communication Department and the Institute for Rural Journalism and Community Issues at the University of Kentucky in Lexington, left me feeling sorry I've missed the others." (Forecaster photo)

Mahlsak wrote of the eclectic group of editors from six nations and 21 U.S. states, "Our area codes and circulation numbers may be different, but we face common challenges. Workshops on the impact of the Internet on weekly publishing and journalism ethics, the use of video on the Web and competition from online-only news providers provoked thoughtful discussions and provided plenty of food for thought."

The trip to Kentucky's Bluegrass region and Eastern Kentucky mining communities also left its impression on Mehlsak, but perhaps no event had more lasting impact that meeting with the editor of The Mountain Eagle in Whitesburg. "I was honored to accept my award for editorial writing on the same evening that ISWNE presented Ben Gish (and his parents) with the 35th annual Gene Cervi Award, named for a Colorado editor who exemplified the conviction that "good journalism begets good government," Mehlsak writes. "It was an inspiring conclusion to an inspiring week." (Read more)

You can read Mehlask's acceptance speech at the bottom of his story above, and see The Rural Blog's previous reporting on the conference here and here.

Vilsack takes issue with media portrayal of farmers

The American public owes farmers gratitude for how little it pays for food, and farmers have been unfairly villianized by the media, says Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack. "You may never need a police officer. I hope you never need a police officer. But every day, two or three times a day, you need a farmer," Vilsack told a Senate committe Tuesday.

The former Iowa governor also took issue with a recent segment of MSNBC’s Morning Joe talk show featuring Spencer Wells, a geneticist, anthropologist and author of  Pandora’s Seed, which argues that growing grain crops "made humans more sedentary and unhealthy and made the planet more crowded," Phillip Brasher of the Des Moines Register reports on the Green Fields blog.

Vilsack said he was so annoyed by the segment, which he said portrayed agriculture as "the worst thing that ever happened to humankind," that he asked the network for equal time to rebut the position. A spokeswoman for NBC Universal told Brasher the network had received no such request.

Part of the blame for negative portrayal of farmers goes to newspapers, Vilsak said, explaining they are "reducing staff and reducing it in agriculture at a time when agriculture is so fundamentally important." (Read more)

As oil blowout continues, Southern Baptists support stronger environmental regulation

The Gulf of Mexico oil blowout has led many in the Southern Baptist Convention to reverse their long-held distrust of government regulation by calling for more government protection for the environment. A seminary dean who helped push through a convention resolution calling for more regulation says "the catastrophe has the potential to galvanize conservative evangelicals just like the 1973 Supreme Court decision that legalized abortion," Peter Smith of The Courier-Journal in Louisville reports. The resolution, which called on "governing authorities to act ... with undeterred resolve to end this crisis," passed overwhelmingly.

"In many ways, this ecological catastrophe can provide the exact same awakening for evangelicals," said Russell Moore, dean of the School of Theology at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville and chairman of the resolutions committee at last week's convention in Orlando. The resolution called for the government to "fortify our coastal defenses; to ensure full corporate accountability for damages, clean-up, and restoration; to ensure that government and private industry are not again caught without planning for such possibilities; and to promote future energy policies based on prudence, conservation, accountability, and safety."

Southern Baptists have generally favored private stewardship of the environment. In 2006 the convention "charged that some unspecified government policy proposals were based on disputed claims of  'extremist' and 'neo-pagan' environmental groups," Smith writes. Moore, who supported a 2007 resolution that cast doubt on the ability of proposed carbon-emissions regulations to stop global warming, told Smith his views were altered after a recent trip to Biloxi, Miss. Jonathan Merritt, a Southern Baptist and author of the book Green Like God, told Smith he hopes this is a sign of things to come. "My hope is if this kind of transformation can happen with a conservative dean at one of the most conservative seminaries in the United States, then this type of experience can easily happen in the churches and pews and universities ... in even the most conservative places in the United States," Merritt said. (Read more)

Rural communities support libraries in referenda, even in hard economic times

Rural libraries continue to boast strong local support at the polls but must adapt to remain relevant, writes one Kansas library director. A report from the Library Journal reveals last year "voters in communities of fewer than 10,000 people approved 85 percent of the library operating referenda that came up for a vote, as well as 55 percent of the building referenda," Marcel LaFlamme, library director of Independence Community College of Independence, Kan., reports for the Daily Yonder. "Meanwhile, rural communities like Seldovia, Alaska, (pop. 241) and Capitan, New Mexico, (pop. 1510) are operating municipal libraries staffed entirely by volunteers."

"The fact that rural communities across the country continue to support their libraries, even in these grim economic times, speaks to the esteem rural communities hold for these places," LaFlamme writes. But for rural libraries to maintain this type of loyalty they must adapt to become "platforms for the civic activism and engagement that are needed to revitalize rural America," she argues. LaFlamme outlines a five-step process for accomplishing that goal: creating public space, promoting information literacy, embracing open access, toeing the line on "free" and remembering it's about the people, not the stuff.

"There's no one way for rural libraries to fulfill their promise," LaFamme writes. "Some will consolidate services at the county or regional level, while others will continue to maintain a footprint on Main Street. Some libraries will actively position themselves as agents of social and economic development, while others will hew to a more traditional definition of library service. And that's a good thing. In fact, it is precisely this obstinate localism, this exuberant, country-fried messiness that makes rural America strong." (Read more)

'1 for All' campaign for First Amendment launched

1for All, a nonpartisan program to build understanding and support for First Amendment freedoms, officially launches today with publication of advertisements like the one at right. The program offers teaching materials to schools, supports educational events on college campuses, "and reminds the public that the First Amendment serves everyone, regardless of faith, race, gender or political leanings," its website says. "It is truly one amendment for all."

The program is headed by Ken Paulson of the Newseum, who announced it a month ago in a column published here. "For all the poetic flourish of the Declaration of Independence, the most powerful passage in America’s history can be found in the First Amendment to the Constitution," Paulson wrote. "The five freedoms guaranteed there gave Americans the right to speak out against injustice, to report about inequality, to protest and petition, and to draw strength from freedom of faith. . . . Yet despite its pivotal role in making America what it is today, there are no fireworks celebrating the First Amendment. The anniversary of its ratification on Dec. 15 goes largely unnoticed."

There's a better reason for the campaign, and for journalists to support it. "Most Americans have no idea what the First Amendment says," Paulson wrote. "Surveys indicate that only one American in 25 can name the freedoms of the First Amendment and that a majority – when pressed – can come up with only one, typically freedom of speech. It’s Constitutional illiteracy of the highest order."

The campaign offers ads and other messages that are nonpartisan and will remain so, Paulson says: "At a time of deep political polarization, we choose not to take sides. In fact, a shared commitment to freedom of speech, press and faith should unify this nation. . . . We need a little help from our friends: Marketing is expensive and an organization determined not to engage in political advocacy or take a partisan position faces an uphill battle in raising the funds needed to spread the word. So we’re not going to try. Instead, we’re going to provide the ad campaign to news media, First Amendment groups, educational organizations, performing arts groups and anyone else who believes in this cause. We ask that these 1 For All partners use one of the ads on the July 1 launch date and then publish additional ads whenever space allows. 1 For All is not asking for money; we’re asking for media."
For more information about “1 for All,” and how your to join the campaign, visit http://1forall.us/.

Calif. weekly, 1 of 4 in county, goes to e-mails and texts; publisher says print no longer viable for it

Many rural newspapers have had trouble adapting to the Internet, but one Northern California weekly is going digital-only without a website. The Pioneer Press of Siskiyou County, Calif., which borders Oregon, will now publish only via e-mail and text messaging, Jamie Genter of the Siskiyou Daily News reports. Editor-Publisher Daniel Webster said he and two staffers will continue to provide news to subscribers via email and text message for a fee of $2 per month. "I believe the news we produce is worth 50 cents a week – give or take a quarter or two given the week’s headlines and opinions," Webster said in a letter to readers published in the final print edition of the newspaper.

Webster told Genter the response has been overwhelmingly supportive, with many readers already sending him their e-mail addresses for the new service. "My subscribers and my readers have been probably the most loyal of any media readers in Siskiyou County," Webster said. "I have intensely loyal subscribers. They have, en masse, stuck with us and signed up. It’s been a real encouraging couple of days." In addition to the Pioneer Press and the Siskiyou Daily News, Siskiyou County (Wikipedia map) has three other weekly newspapers: the Dunsmuir News, the Mount Shasta Herald and the Weed Press.

Webster filed for bankruptcy over a year ago. Webster said he is currently working on a unnamed news project which he will announce at a later date. "This wasn’t a matter of a bank issue," he told Genter. "The bankruptcy was hoping to save the Pioneer Press and get ‘The Project’ launched. The timing was wise to cut the print edition now. It’s a choice that every single newspaper will have to make at some point in time. It is no longer a financially viable business. For some it is right now, but at some point it won’t be." In his final print edition Webster described the project as a "worldwide news project" that will bring people their news by phone, television and computers. The Pioneer Press was founded in 1972 and termed itself the "official newspaper of the State of Jefferson." (Read more)