Farm Bill passes House with the support of most Democrats and farm groups, in face of veto threat

"The House of Representatives passed its version of the farm bill Friday by a vote of 231 to 191," reports Brownfield Network. "The vote was closer than it otherwise would have been because of the funding mechanism used to pay for additional spending on nutrition and other programs included in the farm bill. Democrats decided to end a tax exemption for foreign companies that employ U.S. workers, describing the move as 'closing a tax loophole,' and many Republicans balked, characterizing the move as a 'tax increase'."

Most agricultire and commodity groups, including the more liberal or populist National Farmers Union, supported the bill. The 19 Republicans who backed included Rep. Adrian Smith of Nebraska, who told Brownfield he did do "in large measure, because his constituents wanted him to," Peter Shinn reports for Brownfield.

But as Smith acknowledged, "Chances are, the farm bill will end up quite different than how it stands right now." Senate Agriculture Committee Chairman Tom Harkin said Friday afternoon that the House bill "did serious damage to conservation," which he promised to correct. And Agriculture Secretary Mike Johanns said at the National Press Club that the House bill is unacceptable. (Read more) For an analysis from Washington by Michael Smith for the Council of State Governments, click here.

The bill "devotes more money to conservation, renewable energy, nutrition and specialty crop programs than in the past but leaves in place - and in some cases increases - subsidies to producers of major crops such as corn and soybeans at a time of record-high prices," reports Julie Hirschfeld Davis of The Associated Press. "It reflected a delicate straddle for Democrats writing their first farm bill in a decade, who struggled to balance the needs of first-term, farm-state lawmakers against the demands of liberals seeking more money for environmental and nutrition programs." The bill would stop payments for multiple businesses owned by the same farmers.

The bill "includes requirements for country of origin labeling on meat. It curtails payments to farmers with incomes over $1 million," down from the current $2.5 million, reports the Daily Yonder, which has a story about "the revolution in national farming attitude and allegiances that's taken place below all the skirmishes on the surface." It also has the map above, from the Agriculture Department, one snapshot of the geographic distribution of farm subsidies.

Rural philanthropy is getting a fresh focus that could make a big difference

Rural areas fare poorly in getting grants from foundations, but foundations are paying attention to the issue, and responding favorably to a challenge from Sen. Max Baucus, D-Mont., to do more. Next month representatives of more than 100 foundations will meet with the Senate Finance Committee chairman in Missoula, Mont., "to consider ways to meet his challenge," reports The Chronicle of Philanthropy.

While rural problems differ around the country, almost all rural charities "have a harder time getting foundation money than their urban counterparts," writer Suzanne Perry reports. "Many operate on shoestring budgets, cover vast geographic areas, and are located far away from big urban foundations." Shannon Cunningham, president of the West Virginia Grantmakers Association, told Perry that travel issues forced the state chapter of the Association of Fundraising Professionals to disband.

In Montana, the recently created Big Sky Institute for the Advancement of Nonprofits in Helena got foundation money to help improve charity operations, and for research that showed a "philanthropic divide" between states that have large foundation assets and those that do not. (Perry's story is accompanied by a state-by-state chart listing foundation assets in each state.) That research prompted Baucus to issue his challenge at last year's Council on Foundations meeting, and led to next month's conference.

"Rural advocates say the time is ripe to carve out a strategy to revitalize rural areas, many of which are suffering from problems such as population loss and poverty, because an enormous transfer of wealth is expected to take place over the next half century as people die and leave money to their heirs — a projected $41 trillion, according to one study," Perry writes. "If even a fraction of that money could be tapped, they say, it could help transform rural America. In fact, the W.K. Kellogg Foundation, in Battle Creek, Mich., is considering a major grant of $30 million to help community foundations across the country convince people in rural areas to leave a small percentage of their estates to their towns."

Rick Foster, Kellogg's vice president for programs, said at last month's National Rural Assembly that the foundation has discovered "bipolar" views of rural areas: (1) "People living there are hard-working people, they're self-sufficient, self-reliant," and turn to neighbors when they need help, too proud to accept outside aid. (2) "Everybody's name is Bubba, and they're not intelligent at all." They run meth labs, have high rates of teenage pregnancy and youth drug abuse and "really don't deserve our help."

A 2004 study of rural philanthropy for the Center for Rural Strategies found that foundations were unsure how to define "rural" and preferred regional grants for particular missions. "Many questioned whether rural groups had the capacity to manage grants and carry out programs effectively," Perry writes. "And some were troubled by the absence of a 'critical mass' of donors in rural areas. Despite the obstacles, momentum is growing in some quarters to devote more attention to rural issues." (Read more)

Brain drain: Rural states struggle to keep single, college-educated youth

Well-educated young people continue to emigrate from "a number of states in the Midwest, Great Plains and Northeast, taking high tax revenues and economic potential with them," reports Stateline.org.

"To reverse the loss of such a valuable asset, states are trying solutions that veer from granting financial incentives to stay, to trying to create jobs to keep and attract new workers, to improving the quality of life for young people," Pauline Vu writes. "The problem for states is there's no sure-fire solution."

"There is an argument of what comes first — the businesses who hire the graduates, or the graduates who lure the businesses? I don't think the research on that is definitive," Dan Hurley, director of state relations and policy analysis for the American Association of State Colleges and Universities, told Stateline.

"Maine will become the first state to give future college graduates a hefty tax credit to help pay back their student loans if they stay and work in the state. The incentive could amount to a yearly tax credit of just under $5,000 a year over the course of 10 years," Vu reports. Such programs "usually have been targeted at specific jobs such as doctors or math and science teachers or directed at rural areas," and several states recently rejected proposals for broader incentives.

Bruce Vandal, the director of post-secondary education and workforce development for the Education Commission of the States, told Vu that if jobs aren’t there for college graduates, "there’s no reason … they would stay, even with the financial incentives." Vu notes, "Many rural states have a natural disadvantage when it comes to a quality of life that appeals to the young." (Read more)

A Census Bureau report says that from 1995 to 2000, the states that lost the biggest percentage of single college graduates aged 25 to 39 were North Dakota, Iowa, South Dakota, West Virginia and Montana. The biggest gainers were Nevada, Colorado and Georgia, with Atlanta being a major national magnet.

States put belts on school buses; new guidelines, rare crash video may spur more to do likewise

"Texas just decided that school kids should be strapped into buses equipped with lap and shoulder belts. California, Florida, Louisiana, New York and New Jersey require seat belts on new school buses, too," reports Tony Lang of Gannett News Service.

"Yet most school districts across the country don't require seat belts on school buses -- largely because of cost and low fatality rates that say the big yellow bus already is safe. But sentiment may be changing. New federal guidelines due this fall are expected to propose voluntary standards for the use of belts. That's a shift in long-standing policy."

Each year, U.S. children suffer about 17,000 injuries related to school buses, "a rate up to three times more than expected," Lang reports, citing research by Columbus Children's Hospital in Ohio. And he suggests that "rare crash video from inside a Grant County, Ky., bus" could spur states to require belts. The video "shows little kids being flung to one side then the other, as drug-impaired driver Angelynna Young swerves. No one was killed in the crash. But all 17 kids were sent to hospitals . . . " (Read more)

Young pleaded guilty last month to two counts of assault, eight counts of drug possession and 15 counts of wanton endangerment. She tried to withdraw her plea this month, and denied she was high at the time of the crash, but the judge refused her request and sentenced her to 22 years in prison. The video was played at the sentencing, reports Jamie Baker-Nantz in the Grant County News. For her story and photos, click here.

Dolly Parton's brother aims to tourist-ize old mill town of Roanoke Rapids, N.C.

Jonathan Cox of the News & Observer in Raleigh writes from Roanoke Rapids, N.C., just south of Virginia: "This border city has visions of Branson. Or at least Myrtle Beach. Long known as an interstate pit stop at North Carolina's northern entrance, Roanoke Rapids aims to become an entertainment destination. Leaders envision a showcase with a water park, live shows and restaurants to grab tourists along Interstate 95 and rev up a sputtering economy. What they have is a name, Carolina Crossroads; 123 acres carved with roads such as 'Music Way' . . . and a theater bearing the name of a man best known for being his sister's brother."

That's Randy Parton, sibling of Dolly Parton, who turned a theme park in her home Sevier County, Tenn., into Dollywood and made it the premier commercial attraction of the Great Smoky Mountains. "His theater, built with $21.5 million borrowed by the city, opens today. Officials project as many as 300,000 patrons the first year, a forecast some consider optimistic. In the community, excitement mixes with uncertainty," Cox reports, quoting one woman: "I think it's going to work out. We hope so, anyway." (N&O photo shows the siblings singing the national anthem at the 2005 groundbreaking.)

Hope is an important word these days in Roanoke Rapids, an old textile-mill town hit hard by foreign competition. Halifax County's unemployment rate was "as high as 11.9 percent in January 2002. It's now 6.5 percent," Cox writes. He reports the city of 17,000 is using aggressive tactics "similar to those adopted in the state's other ailing manufacturing towns, but it's playing out differently. In Kannapolis, near Charlotte, leaders are betting on a new biotechnology hub backed by billionaire octogenarian David Murdock and top universities. Lenoir won Google, which is building a computer facility. Roanoke Rapids got Parton."

And to some, that is not a favorable comparison, Cox reports: "Many residents are skeptical that Parton, who is virtually guaranteed $750,000 a year, plus a house and car, will be a big enough draw. His last hit was in 1983 -- "A Stranger in Her Bed," which was No. 92 on the Billboard country charts -- yet, he's the only name on the playbill through year end. The project is unfolding slowly. Plans called for the theater to open as early as March." (Read more)

Politicians rediscover newspapers, especially smaller ones, as media for advertising messages

"At a time when many categories of newspaper advertising are declining, the political message is making a comeback," reports Kevin Helliker in The Wall Street Journal today. As overall spending on campaigns doubled to $3.1 billion between 2002 and 2006, the amount spent on newspapers, including their online editions, tripled to $104 million, according to PQ Media. The rate of growth appears to be highest in races for local posts, such as mayor and state legislator, because newspapers boast greater penetration and influence in small- to medium-size markets."

Newspapers still have less than 5 percent of the political ad market, but "a growing number of political consultants say newspapers can offer distinct advantages over television and other media," Helliker reports. "Newspaper readers vote at above-average rates. Even amid circulation declines, newspapers in many markets reach an audience that is competitive with any single broadcast channel, a strength that online editions are bolstering. Online editions also are reaching a demographic group that their print editions have been losing -- the young reader."

Here's the part of this story we really liked: "Newspapers also allow for more sophisticated arguments than are delivered in the typical 30-second television campaign." Helliker cites the print ads by Republican consultant Arthur Haney for Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski in 2004, making an argument perhaps too complex for a TV ad. Hackney told Helliker that newspaper ads helped "turn the tide" in several campaigns he ran.

Helliker suggests that newspaper sales staffs aren't as aggressive as they could be in selling political ads, but notes: "The nation's fourth-largest newspaper chain, Lee Enterprises Inc. of Davenport, Iowa, has appointed a corporate sales executive to drum up political advertising at Lee's 50-some papers in mostly small- to medium-size markets." (Read more)

Agriculture secretary says he'd recommend veto of House ag committee's Farm Bill

Agriculture Secretary Mike Johanns said yesterday that he “and the President’s entire team of senior advisors will recommend that he veto this bill,” the Farm Bill approved by the House Agriculture Committee.

“Johanns says the measure as sent out of the committee is too pricey and will require tax increases to be implemented,” reports Tom Steever of Brownfield Network, a Midwest farm news service. Johanns called the bill's loan-rate and target-price provisions as a step backward in farm policy and said it would bring intense scrutiny from the World Trade Organization. “The loan rates that exceed market prices create an incentive to plant one crop over another regardless of market demand,” the secretary said.

Dan Morgan reports for The Washington Post, “Farm-state Republicans had been lining up with Democrats to defend the bipartisan bill but changed course when notified that a proposed increase in nutrition programs would be funded partly by tightening the rules on U.S.-based foreign companies that avoid U.S. taxes by using offshore havens. Republicans quickly picked up on a White House statement branding the funding plan as an unacceptable tax increase. . . . Democrats said the tax proposal would merely close a loophole that the Bush administration itself has decried in the past."Who is surprised that the administration takes the side of CEOs who hold beachside board meetings at the expense of programs to feed the least fortunate here at home?" asked Rep. Lloyd Doggett (D-Tex.), a senior member of the Ways and Means Committee. The furor added a new element to an increasingly heated debate over whether the bill would provide meaningful reforms to the sprawling farm-subsidy system.” (Read more)

The New York Times' David Herszenhorn, catching up to previous coverage by the Post, reports the politics: “Faced with fierce opposition from the House Agriculture Committee, [House Speaker Nancy] Pelosi and other Democratic leaders lowered their sights and are now backing the committee’s bill, in part to protect freshman lawmakers from rural areas who may be vulnerable in the 2008 elections.” (Read more) A Congressional Budget Office report said the bill would increase spending by $5.8 billion through 2012.

Committee Chairman Collin Peterson, D-Minn., defended his work: “This Farm Bill is supported by a broad spectrum of agriculture, conservation, nutrition and renewable energy advocates,” Peterson said in a prepared statement. “(The bill) represents a carefully crafted compromise that includes substantial reforms and new investments in programs that matter, including fruit and vegetable production, nutrition programs, conservation and renewable energy. Our bill implements Country of Origin Labeling, improves food safety, and paves the way for energy independence while preserving the safety net that our farmers and ranchers need.” (Read more)

Clinton, Obama square off in the Quad-City Times, bewildering NBC's political editor

"The two Democratic front-runners have finally engaged, rather than simply allowing their staffs to go back-and-forth," NBC News Political Editor Chuck Todd says in this morning's "First Read," analyzing the back-and-forth that Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama had in the Quad-City Times of Davenport, Iowa. (Can you name the four Quad Cities? See the bottom of this item for the answer.)

The Democratic candidates "tangled Tuesday in some of their sharpest terms yet over how to deal with countries that are antagonistic to the United States," reports the QCT's Ed Tibbetts. "In an interview with the Quad-City Times, U.S. Sen. Clinton, of New York, labeled as “irresponsible” and “naive” Obama’s statement that he was willing to meet, without precondition, the leaders of five countries hostile to the United States during the first year of his presidency. U.S. Sen. Obama, of Illinois, countered in a separate interview with the Times, accusing the Clinton campaign of hatching a “fabricated controversy” and suggesting that her position put her on the same track as the Bush administration."

Tibbets notes, "The exchange sprang from a questioner on a YouTube/CNN television debate Monday night asking whether Obama would be willing to meet in the first year of his presidency, without precondition, with the leaders of Iran, Syria, Venezuela, Cuba and North Korea. Obama said he would." Clinton said she would not without an understanding of what any such meeting would be about, to avoid being used for propaganda.

NBC's Todd writes, "The only thing that strikes us odd about yesterday’s skirmish is that the candidates launched their attacks and counterattacks via such a small media venue (the Quad City Times). It's like two major deciding to go to war . . . over the Falkland Islands. Yesterday our producers in New Hampshire tried to get Clinton to say her criticism on camera and she demurred. And neither candidate granted an interview to any other media on this issue. If neither candidate chooses to put their words on camera today, does this mean the skirmish is over?" (Read more)

No, Chuck, it doesn't. Folks in Iowa do care about foreign policy and how the president deals with those who are our foes or cast themselves as such. What we see here is a measured escalation by the candidates, willing to go at it in print but not in the hotter medium of TV, or even radio. Sound bites hit harder. Hats off to Ed Tibbets for getting the story. (The Quad Cities are Davenport and Bettendorf, Iowa, and Moline and Rock Island, Ill.)

Daily newspaper war going full steam in Mayberry -- er, Mount Airy, N.C.

"What would Sheriff Andy Griffith think about the newspaper brawl going on in his old Mayberry?" asks Jock Lauterer, director of the Carolina Community Media Project at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He reports on a visit to Griffith's hometown, Mount Airy, N.C., which after decades of conflicted feelings and sharp declines in its traditional industries (textiles, tobacco and furniture) has embraced tourism and the "Mayberry" monicker:

When Heartland Publications LLC of Old Saybrook, Conn., bought Mid-South Management of Spartanburg, S.C., last month, and began to cut staff and consolidate operations at the daily Mount Airy News and weeklies in Elkin, Yadkinville, West Jefferson and Stokes County, leaders and staff of the Mount Airy and Elkin papers started The Messenger, a five-day-a-week newspaper for Surry County.

"After securing financial backing of a local investor who is said to have deep pockets, they set up shop in a local shopping center and went about the adventurous business of creating what Publisher Michael Milligan claims is the first daily start-up in North Carolina in 40 years (although I’ve just learned there a new daily in Fayetteville that may have beat the Messenger to that claim). Be that as it may, the Messenger is pretty unusual," Lauterer reported on his blog July 17. "And another thing the new paper’s leaders wanted me to know, the Messenger is an investor-employee owned paper. That’s a different breed of cat, and accounts for the energy I witnessed at the Messenger office during my visit today."

The Messenger reports a free, home-delivery circulation of 8,973, with rack sales making the figure around 10,000 -- more than the Mount Airy News' 9,200. Heartland is fighting back with a lawsuit accusing the former publishers of “raiding” key personnel, circulation records and computer passwords. Lauterer writes, "I’m not going to stick my foot in this legal donnybrook. . . . My job is to try and help ALL community newspapers of this state. That’s what I was trying to do last month when I phoned the new editor of the Elkin Tribune, and when I began chatting about the change in ownership, he abruptly hung up on me. In my publisher’s playbook, that is an unforgivable sin. You don’t hang up on people no matter what. So excuse me if I’m not feeling very charitable towards Heartland Publications LLC right now."

Lauterer notes his "decades-long relationship with many of the folks at the old News and Tribune," and his placement of "one of my most outstanding community journalism students, Meghan Cooke, at the News for an internship there this summer, never suspecting that the rising junior from King might get caught up in the teeth of this newspaper slugfest. Visiting and counseling with Meghan today, I was relieved to hear her say that the experience, though harrowing, has been valuable. With the News staff down to a skeleton crew, her workload (and number of clips) has increased tremendously, making her all but indispensable to the News."

Lauterer got a better reception in Mount Airy, where Heartland Publisher Gary Lawrence gave him some time."I left the News feeling a little better about Heartland," he writes. "At the busy office of the Messenger, I watched an impromptu newsroom jam session where publisher Milligan delivered a stirring pep talk. “We’re on the cutting edge!” he told his staff with the vigor of a high school football coach dishing out a halftime locker-room pep talk." He calls Editor Rebel Good (yes, that's his name) "the wise old civics teacher. Their chemistry works. . . . And the Messenger is on the cutting edge. In a country where most all dailies are distributed by paid subscription, starting up a daily and offering it for free is a bold and risky business model.
But if anybody can make it work, these folks can. Their online edition should be up and working some time in late July. Go to www.surrymessenger.com."

North Carolina seems likely to ban new waste lagoons on hog farms, raise standards for them

The North Carolina House voted without dissent yesterday to prohibit new waste lagoons on hog farms, a source of much water pollution, and set higher standards for new waste disposal systems. The House made changes in a bill passed by the Senate, which will now consider the changes and seems likely to concur.

"Lawmakers are moving to pass the legislation before a 10-year-old moratorium on construction of new hog farms expires in September," reports Wade Rawlins of The News & Observer of Raleigh. "The measure fell short of a phase-out of existing lagoons that environmental groups initially sought. But it does provide aid to farmers to help them voluntarily convert to more environmentally friendly waste disposal systems. . . . Farms with existing waste lagoons could continue to use them and, in certain circumstances, could replace failing lagoons that pose an imminent hazard with new ones. Environmentalists said that change weakened the bill. But the hog industry contended that farmers could be put out of business otherwise."

Rawlins notes that North Carolina is the nation's No. 2 hog producer, and writes, "State leaders have been struggling with how to reduce the water and air pollution caused by the factory farms, which produce huge volumes of manure and urine that sit in open-air waste ponds. While the solids are broken down by bacteria, the liquid waste is sprayed on fields as fertilizer. During rains or floods, the waste can wash into streams, degrading water quality and promoting conditions that can cause fish kills." (Read more)

Newspapers in Charleston, W. Va., seek dismissal of federal anti-trust lawsuit

The owners of The Charleston Gazette and the Charleston Daily Mail want a federal judge to dismiss a U.S. Justice Department lawsuit alleging that the Gazette bought the Daily Mail's half of the papers' joint operating agreement (JOA) in 2004 to put the Mail out of business.

The response denied that, noting the deal required the Mail’s previous owner, MediaNews Group, to control editorial policies of the paper. “The Gazette Co. and MediaNews had no such plan to close the Mail, nor do they have any such plan now,” the reply said. A staff story in the Gazette said the suit “cited cutbacks in Daily Mail operations — but Monday’s response said these have been only normal cost-saving steps, common to any newspaper facing competition from the Internet and other news media.”

The newspapers’ reply said the Justice Department was mistakenly assuming that papers in a JOA, which the department must approve, are in economic competition with each other. “In reality, it said, JOAs eliminate financial competition, letting papers pool costs and split profits,” the story said. “The only competition that remains is ‘the competition of “thoughts and ideas” that is beyond the scope of the antitrust laws,’ Monday’s filing said. ‘And, as any casual reader can attest, the two [Charleston] newspapers are fiercely independent.’” The Gazette's editorial stance is generally liberal, the Mail's generally conservative.

The response asked for “swift dismissal of the Justice Department case to avoid the extreme legal cost of the antitrust discovery process,” the non-bylined story said. (Read more) For a later story, carrying the byline of Daily Mail Business Editor George Hohmann, with a link to a PDF of the motion, click here.

Film on PBS tonight examines effects of building three prisons in one rural county in California

Many rural areas hungry for jobs turn to prisons, private or public, as reliable, good-paying employers. But many residents object, for many reasons. The debates get a lot of coverage, but once the decision is made to accept a prison, there is less coverage of the ramifications. Local journalists might see that as beating a dead horse, and stirring up hard feelings, but what about other rural communities facing the same question? They could use some background, and they can get at least a taste of it tonight on PBS, with the documentary “Prison Town, USA,” part of the public network's series “P.O.V.,” which stands for for “point of view.” (Some local stations air the series at a different time or on a different night, so check your listings.)

The film is about Susanville and Lassen County, Calif., populations 13,500 and 34,000, respectively. They "underwent a substantial makeover with the construction of three huge prisons" about 10 years ago, Neil Genzlinger writes for The New York Times. "The hopes were that the complex would take the place of lumber and other major businesses that were fading. The fears were — well, myriad. The film . . . looks at the big-picture issues Susanville now confronts through a collage of small stories. There are no documentary-style talking heads or charts here, just some very ordinary-looking people trying to find their places in a changed community. . . . The film is light on specifics, beyond the intriguing factoids interspersed in stark white-on-black lettering between scenes." (Read more)

The archives of the weekly Lassen County Times offer more specifics, almost all negative. A search for High Desert State Prison, one of the three correctional facilities in the area, produced 14 stories about riots, murders, shootings, escapes and conspiracies. A search for "prison" produced some articles about economic benefits, including an editorial by General Manager Pete Margolies endorsing construction of the newest prison, a federal facility -- but also other problems. A March 13 story detailed how Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger wants to use the county jail to house convicts sentence to three years or less, instead of the current year or less. It also reported that the state had finally become current in reimbursements to the county for trials of cases stemming from the two state prisons. (Map from MSN Encarta)

Giuliani, Romney lack rural platforms, records; are they relying on social issues for the rural vote?

The two leading Republican candidates for president, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney and former New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani, have little if anything to say about rural issues, writes Bill Bishop, co-editor of the Daily Yonder, the new rural-news sit with a political bent. And he wonders why.

“When you look for ‘rural’ or ‘farm’ at either the Giuliani or Romney websites, there’s very little,” Bishop writes. “When you search back issues of newspapers for what these leaders have said about crop supports, rural housing or small schools, you don’t find much. Well, really, you don’t find a thing. Neither candidate has an ‘issues’ section dedicated to rural America. Neither candidate has a history of working on rural problems.”

Bishop says one reason may be that the candidates believe Republican voters are not as responsive to rural issues as they are to social issues, gay marriage being the latest and hottest example. He says political scientist Peter Francia of East Carolina University “controlled for every other demographic factor (age, race, income),” and found that rural voters' support for George W. Bush was 10 percentage points above the rest of the nation, and the most important factor in how they voted in was gay marriage.

“Of course, 2004 isn’t 2007 or 2008. But it may be that leading Republican candidates are pretending as if it is (and will be),” Bishop writes. “No wonder Republican candidates mention rural less often in their debates. Maybe they figure that opposition to gay marriage is a rural platform.” (Read more) For the Yonder's early take on former Sen. Fred Thompson, who's doing well in polls but has not declared his candidacy, click here.

Agriculture Department paid dead farmers $1.1 billion over seven years, GAO audit says

"The U.S. Department of Agriculture distributed $1.1 billion over seven years to the estates or companies of deceased farmers and routinely failed to conduct reviews required to ensure that the payments were properly made, according to a government report," writes Sarah Cohen of The Washington Post. In a selection of 181 cases from 1999 to 2005, the Government Accountability Office found that officials approved payments without any review 40 percent of the time."

Cohen explains: "Most estates are allowed to collect farm payments for up to two years after an owner's death, giving heirs time to restructure their businesses and probate the will. After that, local USDA officials must certify every year that the estate is still farming and has remained open for reasons other than simply collecting subsidies. But the GAO report found that the Agriculture Department depends on heirs and businesses to alert the agency to deaths and does not use other sources, such as Social Security records, to confirm eligibility." The report is to be released at a Senate Finance Committee meeting tomorrow.

"In a letter responding to the GAO report, the Agriculture Department said that the payments were not necessarily examples of fraud or abuse and that auditors did not prove any specific cases of cheating," Cohen reports. "The department's field offices defended the practice of routinely paying dead farmers' estates without fully investigating the claims, citing staff shortages and competing priorities." (Read more)

New tractors, education, end of tobacco program help slash rollover deaths in Kentucky

Kentucky once led the nation in tractor deaths, 82 percent of them from rollovers, but only one Kentucky farmer was killed as a result of a rollover last year, "the lowest tractor rollover death toll in the state in recent memory," Jim Warren of the Lexington Herald-Leader reports today.

Warren got the story idea from information presented at "Children and Agriculture: Telling the Story of Risks and Safety," a workshop held this month in Kentucky by the Institute for Rural Journalism and Community Issues and the National Farm Medicine Center and the National Children's Center for Rural and Agricultural Health and Safety at the Marshfield Clinic Research Foundation in Wisconsin. While the workshop focused on children's safety, broader information about farm safety was presented.

"Tractor rollovers traditionally have been a leading cause of farm deaths," Warren writes. "When Kentucky led the nation in 1994 with 28 tractor-related fatalities, 23 of them were caused by rollovers. "Safety officials think two main factors are behind the downward trend: Farmers are buying new tractors, which come with roll bars and seat belts as standard equipment, and they're following safety recommendations and putting rollover protection on more older tractors. And there are fewer small farmers, say the experts," because the federal tobacco program of quotas and price supports was abolished in 2004.

Melvin Myers, an associate professor in the University of Kentucky College of Public Health who works in farm-injury prevention, told Warren that American tractor manufacturers made roll bars standard on new tractors around 1985, but many farmers took the equipment off. "Also, many older tractors that lacked roll bars or seat belts remained in use on farms," Warren writes. "Now, that's beginning to change as old tractors wear out and farmers replace them with models equipped with roll bars." (Read more)

Terror fears, immigration debate keeping foreign doctors from rural America

Efforts to bring more foreign physicians to rural America are hampered by "restrictions from the war on terror and the immigration debate," reports The Associated Press. "Many believe the process will become more difficult after the attempted terrorist bombings in Britain that have been linked to foreign doctors."

Foreign physicians already make up a considerable share of the doctors in poor rural areas that are classified as medically underserved. Physicians who immigrate to such areas can get J-1 visa waivers to work there for three to five years, "with a shot at eventually obtaining permanent residency," AP's Chris Talbott writes. But since the 2001 attacks, a Department of Agriculture J-1 program has ended and the Department of Health and Human Services has changed rules so that fewer counties are designated as underserved. "The number of physicians in training with J-1 visa waivers has fallen by almost half over the past decade."

"The government estimates that more than 35 million Americans live in underserved areas, and it would take 16,000 doctors to immediately fill that need, according to the American Medical Association," Talbott writes. "And the gap is expected to widen dramatically over the next several years, reaching 24,000 in 2020 by one government estimate. A 2005 study in the journal Health Affairs said it could hit an astonishing 200,000 by then, based on a rising population and an aging work force." "And that will mostly be felt in rural America," U.S. Sen. Kent Conrad, D-N.D., told Talbott: "We're facing a real crisis." Conrad sponsored a program that authorized 30 J-1 visas per state per year. The program is up for reauthorization next year. (Read more)

Obama going after rural voters; schedules forum Friday, policy summit next month in Iowa

U.S. Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois is turning his presidential campaign toward rural voters, who make up more than a third of the population in Iowa, where the first votes will be cast, and even more -- about 40 percent -- in the early-voting states of New Hampshire and South Carolina.

"Obama plans to host a rural policy forum on Friday in Dallas County, Iowa [just west of Des Moines], where he said he will gain insights directly from rural voters. He will also host a rural policy summit in Iowa in mid-August, which will focus on rural economic development, quality of life in rural communities, agriculture and renewable energy," Mike Glover of The Associated Press bureau in Des Moines reports on an interview with the candidate. "Obama isn't known as a candidate with much rural expertise, but he said his background in Illinois had given him insight into the challenges facing rural America."

Obama said rural and urban people share problems of health care access, failing school systems and lack of livable wages, but some issues are unique to rural, such as "spotty rural broadband and wireless coverage, underfunded community colleges and a need to make the most of the growing alternative energy industry," Glover writes. "Some candidates, including former Sen. John Edwards, already have released plans for rural development, and others will likely do so in coming months. While Obama gave no specific date for rolling out his rural policy plan, he said he has put together a team of experts to assist in the effort." (Read more)

North Dakota farmers, looking for more crop rotation to fight wheat fungus, sue to raise hemp

David Monson, looking at his canola field in photo by Dan Koeck, is "at the leading edge of a national movement to legalize growing hemp, a plant that shares a species name, a genus type and, in many circles, a reputation, with marijuana," Monica Davey reports for The New York Times from Osnabrock, N.D.

Monson "listens to Rush Limbaugh in his tractor . . . is the high school principal in nearby Edinburg, population 252 . . . [and] is a Republican representative in Bismarck, the state capital, where his party dominates both houses of the legislature and the governor is a Republican," Davey writes, with just a hint of wonder. The legislature "has passed a bill allowing farmers to grow industrial hemp and created an official licensing process to fingerprint such farmers and a global positioning system to track their fields," she reports.

"This year, Mr. Monson and another North Dakota farmer, with the support of the state’s agriculture commissioner, applied to the Drug Enforcement Administration for permission to plant fields of hemp immediately." But the DEA has not acted, and "hemp is considered the same as marijuana," Steve Robertson, a DEA agent at the agency's Washington headquarters, told the Times. Monson and another farmer have filed suit against the drug agency. Robertson told the Davey that the DEA was still reviewing their applications, but "he could not say much beyond that because of the litigation," she writes.

Hemp contains tetrahydrocannabinol, the substance that produces a marijuana high, but its advocates "note that it contains mere traces of THC, and that hemp (grown in other countries) is already found here in clothes, lotions, snack bars, car door panels, insulation and more," Davey writes. "Maine, Montana, West Virginia and other states have passed bills allowing farmers to grow industrial hemp, Alexis Baden-Mayer of Vote Hemp, a group that lobbies for legalization of it as a regulated crop and is helping with the lawsuit, told Davey.

In North Dakota, the hemp movement took off when wheat farmers like Monson saw their fields attacked by a fungus and needed to practice more crop rotation. "Its tall stalks survive similarly cool and wet conditions in Canada, just 25 miles north of here, where it is legal, Davey reports. Monson told her, "This is not any subversive thing like trying to legalize marijuana or whatever. This is just practical agriculture. We’re desperate for something that can make us some money." (Read more)

Federal judge in Virginia accepts plea deal, big fines for OxyContin makers -- but no jail

After asking why three executives of Purdue Pharma shouldn't go to jail for their marketing of the painkiller OxyContin, which became the scourge of the Appalachians, U.S. District Judge James Jones accepted a plea agreement that requires the company to pay $600 million in fines. "While this may not be a popular decision, my job is not to make popular decisions but to follow the law," Jones said in court at Abingdon, Va.

"Jones said it would be improper to send someone to jail for something they didn't actually do," reports Laurence Hammack of The Roanoke Times. The executives "were held criminally accountable for misbranding committed by other company officials. In order to obtain convictions, prosecutors did not have to prove they even knew that crimes were being committed under their watch. Not only were the convictions based solely on the executives' positions of responsibility, there was also no evidence to link the misbranding to rampant abuse of OxyContin." The executives will pay $34.5 million in fines.

The executives "sat impassively through emotional statements by people who blame them for the overdose deaths of their loved ones. Other speakers recounted their own near-death experiences," Hammack reports. "Fifty people from around the country . . . held a vigil near the courthouse in a steady rain before going inside." Hammack cites the staggering statistics: "In far Southwest Virginia alone, more than 200 people have died in the past decade from overdoses of oxycodone, an opium-based narcotic that is the active ingredient in OxyContin. Police have also reported dramatic increases in crime as addicts turn to fraud, theft and violence to support their habits." (Read more)

Sigma Delta Chi Awards have rural connections, including cartoonist -- and publisher who sees provocative editorial page as circulation booster

There were several winners with rural connections at last night's Sigma Delta Chi awards banquet at the National Press Club in Washington, but none so rural as Mike Lester of the Rome News-Tribune in Georgia, circulation 18,500, who won the for editorial cartooning in 2006. Few papers with circulation under 20,000 have editorial cartoonists, a point noted by the judges, who said, "We applaud the Rome News-Tribune, a small newspaper, for having a full-time editorial cartoonist on staff."

Publisher Burgett Mooney III said in an interview that he wanted a cartoonist because he sees a "provocative" editorial page as a way to build and maintain circulation. "It gives us a place to really drive people to the newspaper," he said. Lester has been cartooning for the paper for five years. He was living in Rome and doing cartoons for an online news service until the dot-com bubble burst, then Mooney recruited him.

Lester tackles local, state, national and international topics, but said in an interview that he tries to make two of five cartoons a week have some local connection, often through a setting that is not identified but that local will recognize as a locale in the town of 35,000. Lester is generally conservative, but has an independent streak. The newspaper "tends to be what is considered conservative on economic matters and liberal on social issues," said the editorial-page editor, Pierre-Rene Noth.

The News-Tribune is part of News Publishing Co., which also publishes seven weeklies in northwest Georgia and Cherokee County, Alabama. The Sigma Delta Chi Awards were established in 1932 by the organization now known as the Society of Professional Journalists. The current program began in 1939, when Sigma Delta Chi presented its first Distinguished Service Awards. When Sigma Delta Chi changed its name to SPJ in the 1980s, the original name was retained for the awards and SPJ's foundation. Its board includes Al Cross, director of the Institute for Rural Journalism and Community Issues.

Several awards were handed out last night for coverage of rural issues by urban media. Marx Arax of the Los Angeles Times won in the magazine-writing category for a series of stories on a California raisin picker. Todd Melby and Duane Richard of Chicago Public Radio won in radio documentary for "Flatlined: How Illinois Shortchanges Rural Students." Two awards were given for coverage of the Sago Mine disaster: to NBC Nightly News, for breaking news coverage on TV, and Mine Safety and Health News, for public service in newsletter journalism. For a complete list of this year's and past winners, click here.

Coal miner's video of leaking seals leads to citation for company, which denies it's related

At last week's U.S. Mine Safety and Health Administration hearing on proposed new regulations for seals in coal mines, miner Charles Scott Howard played a video that showed seals cracked and leaking water in Cumberland River Coal Co.'s Band Mill No. 2 Mine in Letcher County, Kentucky.

This week, MSHA cited the subsidiary of Arch Coal Inc. for failing to conduct a pre-shift examination of the seals. "MSHA spokeswoman Amy Louviere said Tuesday that inspectors visited the Band Mill mine last Thursday and Friday to check the seals," reported Jim Warren of the Lexington Herald-Leader. "Mine seals, which shut off abandoned portions of coal mines from areas where miners are working, are supposed to be checked before each work shift begins." (Read more)

Today, Arch Coal said the citation was not issued for "unsafe conditions," such as the water leaks. Kim Link, a company spokeswoman, said it was "MSHA’s interpretation of the regulation that required a pre-shift exam daily, rather the weekly exam that was currently in place." She said five daily inspections, rather than the three required by law, were made when the seals were leaking in April and May, and the mine recorded more than 178,000 employee-hours of operations last year with no accidents or injuries. (Read more)

Savannah Morning News is latest metro paper to curtail circulation in outlying counties

Another metropolitan newspaper is reducing the size of its circulation area, continuing a trend that can put more pressure on rural news outlets to cover the issues and hold local officials accountable. The Savannah Morning News announced today that it is "discontinuing home delivery along with store and rack deliveries to 17 outlying counties and portions of three others," the paper reports. "Under the plan, 95 percent of the newspaper's circulation will be within a 60-mile radius" of Georgia's main coastal city. (Map from MSN Encarta)

"Market conditions, rising fuel prices, additional taxes, postal rate increases and advertiser pressures have combined to affect newspaper distribution costs and have forced the Savannah Morning News, like many other newspapers, to reconsider its delivery processes," Morning News reporter Christian Livermore writes. He quotes Publisher Julian Miller: "Right now, we're delivering out about 120 miles - places where we have just a few subscribers and single-copy customers. With the cost of gasoline, labor, paper, trucking, everything has combined to make it impossible to recoup your investment that far out."

While many counties are affected, the change affects relatively little of the paper's circulation of 52,000. "About 1,025 subscribers are in the affected area," Livermore writes. "The Morning News will continue to distribute in 14 counties, including Chatham, Bryan, Effingham and Liberty counties in Georgia and Beaufort and Jasper counties in South Carolina." The story notes that the Atlanta Journal-Constitution "cut Alabama, Florida, South Carolina and parts of Georgia from its circulation territory" this year. (Read more)

Edwards tour wrapup: Coverage from the mountain papers to the metropolitans and networks

The purely rural day of presidential candidate John Edwards' "poverty tour," officially titled "Road to One America," produced much coverage in Central Appalachia and beyond. Here are tidbits and links:

The official end of the tour was in Prestonsburg, where the weekly Floyd County Times ran the photo above (by Ralph Davis), posted video on its Web site and YouTube and reported: "Edwards' speech focused on strengthening the lives of American workers, through higher wages, education and tax cuts. Although he spoke frankly about the broad spectrum between 'the very rich' and "everybody else," Edwards also said, 'People who are highly educated do very well.'" (Read more)

Jodi Deal of The Coalfield Progress in Norton, Va., said "Edwards didn’t make a speech when he visited the Wise County fairgrounds Wednesday. He didn’t outline the changes he’ll make if he’s elected as the country’s leader. Nor did the former North Carolina senator take questions from the dozens of local, regional and national press representatives who covered the event. Instead, on the last day of a three-day tour aimed at highlighting the plight of poverty-stricken Americans, he listened. At an hour-long roundtable discussion conducted outside at three picnic tables, Edwards asked organizers of the annual Remote Area Medical outreach, which provides free health services, to tell him stories about healthcare problems in Southwest Virginia. He asked for it, and he got it, and so did the crowd of about 200 spectators who turned out to see a presidential candidate." (Read more) Deal also has a good "behind the scenes" story.

The nearest daily paper, Pikeville, Ky.'s Appalachian News-Express, focused on Edwards' appearance in adjoining Letcher County. Reporter Loretta Tackett wrote that the overflow crowd at the Appalshop media and arts center was nevertheless "small," and didn't give a number, but said "The stopping place was fitting for Edwards' tour, as Appalshop was founded in 1969 per President Lyndon B. Johnson's declaration of the 'War on Poverty.'" (Read more)

Carrie Kirschner of The Independent, a daily in Ashland, Ky., focused on an Edwards challenge to the current president, quoting the former North Carolina senator and vice presidential nominee: "I want to invite George Bush to come here. I want President Bush to see the other America and the challenges the people are faced with. I want him to understand what’s happening out here." (Read more)

The Lexington Herald-Leader highlighted youth concerns about drugs. Cassondra Kirby wrote, "They told him that teens and young adults are overdosing at an alarming rate, while others are trapped in a vicious cycle of daily drug use. Young people described common images of high school students crushing and snorting pills on desks at school, and babies born addicted to drugs." (Read more)

For The Courier-Journal of Louisville, political reporter Joe Gerth wrote, "Tracing the steps of the late Sen. Robert F. Kennedy, Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards issued a call yesterday for economic and social change in America," and quoted him: ""This country needs a movement to restore our values. We need a movement that actually embraces work again, not just wealth. … We need a movement to provide hope and opportunity." (Read more)

On PBS NewsHour, Roger Simon of Politico.com said Edwards is following a "risky" strategy by focusing on poverty, because poor people are a small part of the electorate, but "He plays well in rural America." Susan Saulny of The New York Times reported in a story summarizing the three-day tour that Edwards "suggested that [his] 'two Americas' theme . . . was an appeal for help not just for the poor, but also for all working Americans bypassed by the nation’s prosperity." (Read more)

Last night, Edwards was in Roanoke -- not part of "official Appalachia," as defined by the Appalachian Regional Commission boundaries -- but the event had that theme, because it starred bluegrass-music patriarch Ralph Stanley. The Roanoke appearance wasn't part of the official tour, but Edwards' 17-minute speech was punctuated by his recent travels," The Roanoke Times' Mason Adams reports. (Read more)

Edwards is scheduling at least one more stop in rural Kentucky. The Mississippi River town of Columbus, population 229, won an online competition for an Edwards town-hall event, beating out "cities such as Dallas and Los Angeles," thanks to Columbus native and University of Kentucky graduate Shawn Dixon, Herald-Leader Political Writer Ryan Alessi reports on the paper's PolWatchers blog.

Edwards concludes his anti-poverty tour where Robert F. Kennedy did, in Prestonsburg, Ky.

Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards concluded his three-day poverty tour this afternoon at the old Floyd County Courthouse in Prestonsburg, Ky., where Robert F. Kennedy concluded a similar tour as he prepared to run for president in 1968. "This country needs a movement to restore our values. We need a movement that actually embraces work again, not just wealth," he said, according to The Courier-Journal's Stephenie Steitzer.

Samira Jafari of The Associated Press bureau in Pikeville wrote: "Edwards said he wasn't trying to mimic his 'political hero.' 'I don't deserve to be compared to Bobby Kennedy,' Edwards told the crowd that spilled across the courthouse lawn. He added, 'I want America to remember what he did decades ago. I want you to join us to end the work Bobby Kennedy started.'"

AP put Democratic candidate Barack Obama in the same story, saying he "made his own speech for the nation's poor on Wednesday, speaking at a recreation center in the nation's capital, and in a jab at his rival, argued that combating poverty was hardly new for him, a one-time community organizer in Chicago. Edwards, coming off criticism for getting $400 haircuts and building a new 28,000-square-foot mansion, repeatedly tapped into his own humble roots in an effort to connect with the coalfields."

Jafari reported that Edwards "heard firsthand accounts of the problems plaguing the region" and "was especially moved" by Wise, Va., coal miner James Lowe, 51, "whose cleft palate kept him from talking for five decades until a dentist last year volunteered to perform a $3,000 orthodontic procedure for free. Edwards shared the story ... at his other stops, saying Lowe and other low-income workers 'deserve better.'"

In Whitesburg, Ky., Edwards said the only solution to such problems is universal health care, and said that Lowe, "instead of being angry at living 50 years with such a condition in the world's richest nation, "was thankful and appreciative" for his treatment. "When are we going to start treating people like him … with the dignity and respect that they’re entitled to?" he asked.

Tennessee looks to Kentucky for example of how to plan rural water lines

When Tennessee legislators saw that Gov. Phil Bredesen had budgeted money to run a water line "up a mountain in Warren County for residents who don't have water, tempers flared as legislators demanded to know why one county got money when others needed it, too," Sheila Wissner reports in The Tennessean of Nashville.

Rep. Mike McDonald of Sumner County, just north of Nashville, "gathered more than three dozen signatures on a bill that would have authorized the Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation to develop a statewide water plan and loan fund to help communities extend more water lines. It would have been patterned after the Kentucky Infrastructure Authority, which requires all projects using state or federal funds to be vetted through an organized chain of local and regional councils. The bill didn't pass this session, but McDonald says he'll push the issue again next year." he told Wissner, "We need a statewide comprehensive plan to get water to people, and then we wouldn't have these arguments."

A study the department did for McDonald in 2004 "estimated that 5 percent of Tennessee households didn't have municipal water. It would take 18,470 miles of lines to get water to 112,000 households, at a cost of $1.7 billion, the study estimated," Wissner writes. "The study did not delve into the number of households with no clean, reliable alternative water source. That number remains unknown. The problem is most evident in Middle and East Tennessee, where well drillers fight the rocky terrain" and drill dry 10-20 percent of the time.

Sometimes, existing wells go dry. That happened to Tammy and Wayne Blatt, who live on a farm near Carthage in Smith County. In photo above, by Shelley Mays of The Tennessean, Tammy Blatt washes dishes outside near the drums of water her family must buy and haul twice a week, at considerable expense.

Massachusetts lags in rural broadband, as studies show economic impact of high-speed Internet

Massachusetts, often on the cutting edge of many things, has left much of its rural population far behind in access to broadband, or high-speed Internet service. "State officials have yet to develop a comprehensive policy for fixing the telecom time warp. But this fall, three Western Massachusetts towns will participate in an experiment to test wireless networks in rural settings," reports Carolyn Y. Johnson of The Boston Globe.

"We are creating a new kind of ghetto," said Don Dubendorf , president of Berkshire Connect Inc., which works to bring broadband to businesses and institutions in the Berkshires of western Massachusetts. "It's morally wrong. It's stupid economically, it's dangerous from a public safety point of view, it's absurd from a public education point of view." This fall, Dubendorf's company and Pioneer Valley Connect "will create WiFi hot spots in the towns of Florida, New Salem, and Worthington, with funding from the quasi-public John Adams Innovation Institute," Johnson writes. "The idea is to use radio transmitters to spread the signal from high-speed lines to create square-mile wireless broadband networks for homes, businesses, and municipal buildings, without the massive investment needed to wire every home."

The main argument for broadband is economic. Johnson cites a study by Gov. Deval Patrick's cable commissioner, Sharon Gillett, last year as co-chair of the Broadband Working Group of the Communication Futures Program of the Massacusetts Institute of Technology. It "found that among 22,390 ZIP codes, communities with broadband access recorded greater growth in jobs, businesses, and property values. The report said communities with broadband access experienced an additional 1 to 1.4 percent in their job growth rate between 1998 and 2002. Those communities also saw an added 0.5 to 1.2 percent growth rate in the number of businesses." (Read more)

Another study, reported today by the Center for Media Research, found that broadband use is "strongly correlated with household income." The study, by Leichtman Research Group found that:

• 68 percent of all households with annual incomes over $50,000 now get broadband vs. 59 percent last year; 39% of all households with annual incomes under $50,000 get broadband vs. 27% last year.
• While 81 percent of all US households have at least one computer, only 56 percent of those with annual household incomes under $30,000 have a computer at home. Just 45 percent of households with annual incomes below $30,000 subscribe to an Internet service at home, compared to 92 percent of households with annual incomes above $75,000.
• Overall, only 7 percent of all Internet subscribers say that broadband is not available in their area.
• Nearly three-quarters of households in the US now subscribe to an Internet service, and broadband has grown to account for over 70 percent of all online subscribers at home. LRG forecasts the total number of broadband subscribers will increase by over 40 million over the next five years. (Read more)

Edwards tells Appalachian coalfield audience he's for a carbon limit, lower each year

Deep in the Central Appalachian coalfield this morning, presidential candidate John Edwards said the U.S. should put a limit on its emissions of carbon and reduce the limit each year so that emissions of carbon dioxide, the main gas that causes global warming, are reduced 80 percent by 2050. A carbon limit is anathema to the coal industry, the region's major employer, but the industry's safety and environmental records make it controversial, and Edwards' remarks won applause from the crowd at Appalshop, the media and arts center in Whitesburg, Ky., and its Appalachian Media Institute for young people.

Edwards' comments came in response to a question from Nathan Hall, a Berea College student from Floyd County, who said he plans to return to the area to start a bio-fuel company. Edwards said the government should require permits for carbon emissions and auction them to “the polluters pay. … That money should be used to fuel your biofuel work” and other alternative fuels. “I’m glad you’re doing work on biofuels,” he told Hall. “That is the answer, ultimately.” Biofuels are big in Iowa, the first presidential voting state.

Edwards said a biofuel industry “can create at least a million new jobs” and the government can “direct the jobs to the places where they’re most needed,” with grants to train at least 150,000 a year, he said. “This is a great economic opportunity, and an opportunity that I think could have a real impact on this area,” he said. That would appear to require the commercial scale-up of technology to create ethanol from cellulose; Appalachia is heavily forested and raises little biofuel feedstocks such as corn and soybeans.

Stephenie Steitzer of The Courier-Journal reports that there was room for only 150 of the 300 people who showed up, so Edwards stood on top of a picnic table to address those who had waited outside and listened. "We so badly need Americans to understand that level of dignity and respect that people are entitled to," he said. "I don't know about you, but I actually believe in a country where everybody is entitled to the same level of respect. My father didn't go to college and worked in cotton mills all his life and is worth every bit as much as any president of the United States. I believe that, I will always believe it." (Read more)

Edwards is a former senator from North Carolina who was the Democratic nominee for vice president in 2004. He is on three-day tour to highlight his goal of eliminating poverty, and his final day retraces the steps of a poverty tour conducted by New York Sen. Robert Kennedy before he declared his presidential candidacy in 1968. His final stop is in Prestonsburg, Ky. (See previous blog postings.)

Some in the region "have mixed feelings" about Edwards' visit, reported Danielle Morgan of WYMT-TV in Hazard, the region's only commercial television station. Those feelings were also reflected in a story by Samira Jafari of The Associated Press bureau in Pikeville. At his first stop today, in Wise, Va., Edwards appeared conscious of concerns about how his trip might reflect on the area: “These challenges do not define the people of this area; It’s their strength and resilience, and continuing to show courage, that defines them.”

The Lexington Herald-Leader says today that much has changed in the region since Kennedy's visit: “Gone are the tar-paper shacks that dotted hillsides -- barely enough to ward off the cold of winter, even with coal stoves blazing inside. Outhouses are no longer the norm. And one-room schoolhouses are unheard of,” writes Cassondra Kirby, the paper's new reporter in Hazard. “Today, four-lane highways cut through the mountains, connecting residents with regional hospitals, community colleges, chain restaurants and retailers such as Wal-Mart. But poverty has not been whipped. High school dropout rates are still higher than in the rest of the state; per-capita income is comparatively low; and many lack access to public water and sewer systems.” Kirby's story, with help from Somerset reporter Bill Estep, focuses on ideas people in the region have for improving it. To read it, click here. (Thanks to the Herald-Leader for the photo of Edwards in Whitesburg, by Charles Bertram; and to Appalshop's WMMT for streaming coverage on its Web site.)

Rural wireless users to get break on roaming fees, but not as much as rural telecom companies want

The Federal Communications Commission is about to enact new regulations allowing customers of rural wireless companies "to roam in more cities and at lower rates," reports Paul Davidson of USA Today.

"Rural carriers complain that the large national carriers often charge them exorbitant roaming fees and sometimes refuse to let them roam on their networks," Davidson reports. "The strategy has squeezed many rural providers out of the market, says the Rural Telecommunications Group," a lobby for small carriers.

While the new FCC rule would require carriers to offer roaming agreements at "just and reasonable rates," it would not grant rural companies' request for a firm limit on roaming fees. "Perhaps more significant: It does not cover roaming for broadband services, a fast-growing market," Davidson writes. And if you think those cell towers along rural interstates are good news for customers of rural cell companies, not necessarily. By erecting those towers, the big firms are "reducing their reliance on small companies for coverage." (Read more)

Here are the best community papers in America, says the National Newspaper Association contest

The National Newspaper Association has announced the top placers in the general-excellence competition of its annual Better Newspaper Contest. The general-excellence awards are based on placement in detailed contest categories, which include both news and advertising. NNA has about 2,500 members. More than 85 percent are weekly papers, but its contest also has categories for dailies. The first-, second- and third-place winners will be announced at the NNA Convention and Trade Show in Norfolk Sept. 25-30.

Among dailies with circulation of 16,000 and larger, the top three papers in the contest (in no particular order here or in any category) were the Antelope Valley Press of Palmdale, Calif., and two from Colorado: the Greeley Tribune and the Daily Times-Call of Longmont. Under 16,000, the top three were the Lebanon (Mo.) Daily Record, The Journal Review of Crawfordsville, Ind., and The Daily Record of Baltimore.

NNA listed six winners among non-dailies with circulation over 10,000, indicating that the judges gave three honorable mentions in the category as well as first, second and third places. The six are The Taos (N.M.) News; The Ellsworth (Me.) American; the San Francisco Bay Guardian; the Idaho Mountain Express of Sun Valley; The Independent Weekly of Lafayette, La.; and The Peninsula Gateway of Gig Harbor, Wash. We're most familiar with the Ellsworth paper, which acts like a daily; it covers the state capital and regularly does project reporting, currently on Maine's program to give all students laptop computers.

Among non-dailies with circulations of 6,000 to 9,999, two of the three winners are from favorite spots for recreation and second homes: The Eastern Edition of the Southampton Press, which serves the Hamptons area at the end of New York's Long Island; and the Jackson Hole News & Guide of Jackson, Wyo. The other winner was a perennial, the N'West Iowa Review of Sheldon, Ia. The paper carves its own niche in many ways. It is a regional weekly that is famous for publishing scores of special sections each year, it doesn't put content online, it doesn't spell out "Northwest" in its name, and would like us to put "Review" in all capital letters, but we don't approve of such typographical tyranny. However, we do approve of the job that Peter Wagner, his sons and staff do with the Review and their local weekly, the Sheldon Mail-Sun.

The winners among non-dailies 3,000 to 5,999 include some well-known, quality papers: The Hutchinson (Minn.) Leader, the Litchfield (Minn.) Independent Review and the Hood River (Ore.) News. Under 3,000, the winners are the Curry County Reporter of Gold Beach, Ore.; The Community News of Aledo, Tex., just west of Fort Worth; and the Mount Desert Islander of Bar Harbor, Maine, a paper that has the same ownership as The Ellsworth American. They make quite a pair Down East.

It's another poverty tour for this advocate, who wishes all would-be presidents would take one

As a teenager, Dee Davis (right) saw Robert Kennedy visit his hometown of Hazard, Ky. Thirty years later, he drove another liberal senator, Paul Wellstone of Minnesota, around the Eastern Kentucky Coalfield to see miners suffering from coal dust. Tomorrow, he will be part of the final day of former Sen. John Edwards' anti-poverty tour, to Wise, Va., and Whitesburg and Prestonsburg, Ky. He says today in an essay on National Public Radio:

"I wish they were all coming. These things matter. It is not about party; it's about eyeballs. And there are sights that need seeing. When no one shows up to witness the obliteration of mountaintops — vast hillsides being shoved into creek beds — then desperate mining practices flourish. When the rest of the country never sees the broken families and children cut adrift from addiction, then a pharmaceutical company can get off with a fine and a pat on the rump for years of dumping pain drugs like OxyContin into these rural communities." (For a report on the case, see The Rural Blog archive for June 20.)

"People will tell you government doesn't work. But I've seen it work. It starts with somebody showing up and making an effort. I have also seen it fail. Mostly that happens when no one's paying attention." (Read more) Davis, a filmmaker by trade, is president of the Center for Rural Strategies in Whitesburg and a member of the advisory board of the Institute for Rural Journalism and Community Issues.

Perry Bacon Jr. of The Washington Post reports on the tour's first day: "The 37 million Americans in families that make less than $20,000 a year, the federal definition of poverty, are not the kind of group that can push Edwards to victory. Poor people vote at lower percentages than their wealthier counterparts, by definition don't have much money to give to candidates and aren't an organized political constituency like the elderly."

"He undoubtedly knows it's an issue without a real constituency that votes," Matt Bennett, a Democratic strategist and co-founder of the Third Way think tank, told the Post. "It's brave and bold, or brave and foolhardy." But Edwards said in New Orleans, "I think the country cares" about the poor. His wife, Elizabeth Edwards, said the tour will "put a face on the working poor," beyond statistics. (Read more)

Scrap metal prices make farm eqipment a bigger target for thieves

Jennifer Hemmingsen of The Gazette in Cedar Rapids reports, "As scrap prices cause metal thefts to soar, thieves are increasingly looking to Iowa farmsteads for heavy payloads like hog feeders and other equipment, police say. Already this year, Iowa law enforcement departments have identified 105 metal thefts, items that were stolen to sell for scrap, instead of for their own sake, according to the Iowa Department of Public Safety. Last year, there were 96 . . . up from 34 in 2005." (Read more)

The department's Jim Saunders tells Pat Curtis of Radio Iowa, "The thieves are expanding their thefts to rural farm locations. They're stealing metal hog feeders or other equipment made of galvanized and stainless steel." Saunders urged owners of valuable metal objects "to consider installing motion-sensitive lights and surveillance cameras to deter potential thieves," Curtis reports. "He says it's also a good idea to secure buildings containing tools or metal objects with quality locks. Saunders adds that placing unique markings on metal items can help in identifying the stolen material." (Read more)

Edwards tour prompts reminiscence from reporter who covered Kennedy for an Appalachian weekly

As former U.S. Sen. John Edwards of North Carolina takes his 2008 presidential campaign on an anti-poverty tour, ending it by retracing the steps Sen. Robert F. Kennedy made on a similar tour in 1968, Thomas N. Bethell remembers. Bethell covered Kennedy for The Mountain Eagle, the Whitesburg, Ky., weekly newspaper, and later was research director for the United Mine Workers and managing editor of The Washington Monthly. He wrote about the Kennedy and Edwards tours for today's edition of the Daily Yonder, the new rural-news site with a political bent. Here are some excerpts:

“Are we really expected to believe that a candidate with a net worth on the high side of $60 million, a brand-new 28,000-square-foot house, and an apparent addiction to $400 haircuts wakes up every day obsessed with the goal of ending poverty in America? . . . Maybe the charitable thing to do is wait and see. After all, it was only after Robert Kennedy was martyred, a few months after his Appalachian tour, that we all decided he was genuine in his determination to battle poverty. . . . He might have been a wonderful president, the first since Franklin Roosevelt to offer real and lasting hope for hard-pressed people, rural and urban alike. Or not. In the winter-spring of 1968 it was much too soon to tell, and the summer never came.” (Photo by Paul Gordon)

“It’s a measure of how desperate some of us were that we suppressed private doubts and wrote glowing accounts of his tour. Over the ensuing decades that tour has acquired the aura of something more spiritual than political, and it’s not surprising to see John Edwards striding along the pilgrim’s path, hoping that some fragment of the enshrined Kennedy mystique will adhere to his campaign. But skepticism and cynicism, although arguably unavoidable, aren’t very useful. There would seem to be intriguing parallels between 1968 and 2007, especially in the apparent fact that the candidates’ great wealth and good fortune failed to blind them to the needs of those less lucky or gifted. And the fact that both were more wedded to well-meaning rhetoric than to far-ranging policy proposals shouldn’t be held against them, not at this point at any rate. No one, least of all Roosevelt, knew what he would do for the downtrodden until he was actually in the White House. No one, early in 1968, knew what Robert Kennedy would do: It was too soon to know, and then it was too late. No one, in mid-2007, knows what John Edwards would do or whether, if elected, he would actually have the leverage to enact the initiatives, far-reaching or otherwise, that he might deem essential to redirect and revitalize the mostly afflicted and largely outsourced economy of Appalachia. So, rather than being a time to render some sort of judgment, it seems to be a time to watch and listen … maybe even to hope.” For Bethell's entire article, click here.

Today, a voter in New Orleans asked Edwards on ABC's "Good Morning America" how he could justify a $400 haircut. “I don't,” he replied with a smile. He said that in a busy campaign, such things are arranged by others, and “I should have been paying closer attention and it shouldn’t have happened.” When host Diane Sawyer broadened the inquiry, implicitly questioning the sincerity of Edwards' anti-poverty campaign, he replied, “A completely fair question … If you look at the arc of my life, I came from having very little to having a lot. … I want that chance to be there for everybody.” He said he was involved in urban ministries in North Carolina, helped organize union workers, pushed for raising the minimum wage (which he said could be the single most important solution to eliminating poverty), and started a program for poor kids in eastern North Carolina that gives them their first year of college free if they work. To watch, click here.

Rural children are more likely than urban kids to be obese, study finds

“Here’s a surprise,” writes Geri Nikolai of the Rockford Register Star in Northern Illinois. “Children growing up in rural areas are more likely to be overweight or obese than their city counterparts. That’s the conclusion drawn by researchers at the University of Illinois College of Medicine at Rockford after reviewing Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data on 46,000 children.

“Of those, nearly 8,000, or 18 percent, were overweight or obese. And rural children were 25 percent more likely to have weight issues than city children, said Dr. Martin Lipsky, regional dean of the college and co-author of the study.” Lipsky told Nikolai, “Rural children may have less access to healthier foods. There may be a fast-food restaurant in small towns, but not other types of restaurants. They may lack diversity in fresh fruits and vegetables in their markets. Sometimes there is less opportunity for physical activity like sports, a sidewalk to walk on or even having to park far away from an event and walk.”

A box with the story summarizes other findings: “The study showed that overweight rural children are more likely than their urban counterparts to be white; live in households at 200 percent below the poverty level; have no health insurance; have not seen a doctor for preventive care in a year; be female; use a computer for non-school work more than three hours a day; and watch TV for more than three hours a day.” (Read more)

Politico.com, Institute director take a closer look at John Edwards' upcoming anti-poverty tour

"A controversial war rages abroad, having claimed the lives of thousands of American troops. In the White House, an increasingly unpopular president limps to the end of his term. And out in some of America's poorest precincts, a telegenic candidate who hopes to replace him calls on the nation to put an end to poverty. Bobby Kennedy in 1968? Yes, and consciously echoing him this week, John Edwards in 2007," writs Richard Allen Greene of Politico.com, the new, well-staffed, Washington-based Web site for political news.

We're not usually in the business of quoting ourselves, but think in this case to refrain would be hiding our little light under a bushel, so here's a section of Greene's story:

Al Cross, the veteran Kentucky political writer who now heads the Institute for Rural Journalism and Community Issues at the University of Kentucky, said there could be political capital in the poverty tour, which Edwards is calling "The Road to One America."

"This is not about Appalachia, it is about all the poor regions of America: the black belt, the Rio Grande, the small towns of the Great Plains that are emptying out. He is trying to tap into the part of the base that is still sensitive to these social equality messages," Cross said.

Edwards is not polling noticeably better among poor people than he is among Democrats at large, according to a recent Washington Post-ABC survey, which showed him at 10% support in Democratic and Democratic-leaning households with incomes below $20,000. Hillary Clinton drew 55% and Barack Obama 20%.

Cross dismissed that result as meaningless: "You can't put any stock in national polling of poor people. Poor people have got a lot of other things to worry about other than an election more than a year away."

For the rest of Greene's article, and some uninhibited comments from readers, click here. For a look at advance stories and editorials from the Appalachian stops on Edwards' tour, go to The Rural Blog for Saturday, July 14.