A lesson about community journalism and blogging

The news director of a public radio station in western Alaska is out of a job after local residents discovered she had a blog that began last fall in part, "I love living in a place where I can be treated as a respectable personage simply by dint of being sober, employed and totally uninterested in having sex with relatives or children." Another referred to residents of Dillingham, population 2,400, "passing drunk women around like poorly rolled joints."

Eileen Goode "figured she was mainly writing for herself and her friends back in New England," reports Kyle Hopkins of the Anchorage Daily News. But she should have known that the searchable nature of the Internet would eventually bring the blog Chilly Hell to her neighbors' attention and endanger her job at KDLG, owned by the local school district.

Goode told Hopkins that the station manager told her last Friday afternoon that he wanted her off the job. "Over the weekend, a man pushed her in a ditch, but later apologized, Goode said. A local bar refused to serve her. On Monday morning, she resigned," Hopkins reports. Goode told him, "The first rule of living in a small town is, No. 1, be polite. And I wasn't polite." (Read more)

Health-care reform must be bipartsan, expert says; editor says debate reflects long cultural divide

Nothing in the current debate about health coverage "offers any promise for better days for any of us, but particularly for those living in rural America," former Kentucky state health commissioner Robert Slaton writes in the Daily Yonder. "The health care debate should be about health care, not health insurance."

That, Slaton writes, means "We should be talking about how to ensure that adequate services are available to rural America, about how to streamline the systems and processes and thereby lower cost and improve quality, not just how to “cut costs” (which usually means more regulation, more complexity and more hassles for providers, particularly doctors)."

Slaton faults President Obama and liberal Democratic committee chairs in the House for identifying villains and allowing the fight to become partisan, and compliments the conservative Blue Dog Democrats for their July 9 letter calling for bipartisanship. He says any plan should "address access, affordability, accountability and personal responsibility." Slaton is chair of the Kentucky Chamber of Commerce's health-care committee and member of the executive committee of the advisory board of the Institute for Rural Journalism and Community Issues. He was health commissioner under Democratic Gov. Brereton Jones, a health reformer, about 15 years ago. (Read more) Slaton's article is slated to appear in The Ledger Independent of Maysville, Ky., which has been setting a good example by running such articles.

Yonder Editor Bill Bishop writes for Politico's Arena section that competing approaches to health reform reflect a lomgstanding and "fundamental difference in worldview. It’s a division in what people expect out of life," starting with the split among Protestants in the late 19th Century, defined by theologian Martin Marty. "Private Protestants promoted individual salvation and personal morality," while Public Protestants promoted political action to resolve failures of society.

Since then, the Private Protestants have defined themselves as fundamentalists and entered the public sphere. One major marker of that was the addition of "under God" to the Pledge of Allegiance in 1954. Then, as the courts and Congress made public certain spheres that many fundamentalists had long considered private, with rulings on school prayer and abortion, for example, they became actively involved in politics. That reversed the longstanding aversion to politics of the largest Protestant denomination, the Southern Baptist Convention. In the health debate, Bishop writes, "Public Protestants and their nonreligious heirs favor a government mandate" to buy health insurance and a public option to provide it. "Private Protestants see those provisions as a 'D-Day for freedom'."

Obama visits Appalachia to promote health reform days after annual free clinic draws thousands

President Obama held a rally for health-insurance reform at a Kroger grocery store in Bristol, Va., today, "just days after more than 2,700 poor people from Appalachia were treated at a free clinic" in a coalfield town 50 miles to the northwest, Duncan Mansfield reports for The Associated Press. But despite the need for health care and coverage in the region, "more than 200 protesters" came to the event to oppose Obama's reform efforts. (Photo by Kyle Green, The Roanoke Times)

"The protesters, who came from the tri-state area of Virginia, North Carolina and Tennessee, were focused on who will get to make health care decisions," Mansfield reports. The 10th annual Remote Area Medical clinic in Wise "drew a turn-away crowd of desperate men, women and children from Virginia, eastern Kentucky and northern Tennessee."

Howard Berkes of National Public Radio called it "a Third World scene with an American setting. Hundreds of tired and desperate people crowded around an aid worker with a bullhorn, straining to hear the instructions and worried they might be left out." The Coalfield Progress of Norton reports that almost 5,600 medical services were provided.

David Hawpe retiring after 40 years at Louisville paper; fought to keep its state, rural coverage

"David Hawpe, an unrepentant liberal who spent much of his professional life railing against what he considered to be the coal industry's excesses and as an advocate for the underprivileged, especially in his beloved Appalachia, is retiring after 40 years with The Courier-Journal," effective Aug. 14, R.G. Dunlop reported for the Louisville newspaper.

Hawpe, 66, started working for the paper in its Eastern Kentucky Bureau at Hazard and rose to become editor, but kept paying close attention to the region, where he spent his preschool years. He "regularly wrote with passion about the complex mix of beauty, poverty, challenge and opportunity that is Eastern Kentucky," wrote Dunlop, another veteran of the Hazard bureau, now closed. Executive Editor Bennie Ivory called Hawpe "an iconic figure at the newspaper and in the state and region" and "the voice and conscience of The Courier-Journal." (Read more)

In 1996, Hawpe became editorial director, overseeing the editorial pages, but as a company vice president was the point man for efforts to maintain the paper's rural coverage and circulation. The C-J was one of the last papers to abandon statewide coverage, about three years ago. Its state circulation gradually dwindled, starting before Gannett Co. Inc. bought the paper from the Bingham family in 1986. It would be hard to thank David enough for all he's done for Appalachia, Kentucky, journalism, the newspaper and this writer, who once worked there and still writes a column, begun at David's invitation. May the road rise to meet you, old buddy.

Health reform battle helps TV station budgets, but will stations spend money on news coverage of it?

"Local television stations, suffering from steep declines in ad spending, are getting a much-needed shot in the arm from lobbying groups trying to sway the national debate over health care," The Wall Street Journal reports. "Altogether, groups on various sides of the debate have spent an average of about $1 million a day in recent weeks, analysts say."

Evan Tracey, president of the Campaign Media Analysis Group at TNS, a research firm owned by ad holding company WPP, told reporters Suzanne Vranica and Alicia Mundy that $41 million has been spent this year on local spots about helth care. "If the debate over health-care legislation drags into the fall, as now seems likely, the figure could rise to $250 million, Mr. Tracey says." (Read more)

We hope the news departments at local stations will realize they have an obligation to give their viewers more than paid, misleading sound bites. But given our research on similar situations, we're not very hopeful. As James Rainey noted in the Los Angeles Times yesterday, even CNN cut off coverage of a key senator as he was about to explain details of a potential compromise. Anchor Tony Harris said Democrat Max Baucus of Montana was "a little bit in the weeds," then cut to an update on Lance Armstrong's tiff with a fellow bicyclist. Many outlets, particularly Fox News, over-emphasized "the potential failure of President Obama to make this week's deadline," which he set, for Congress to act.

"America has a health-care crisis, yes, and so do broad segments of the media, particularly television news," Rainey opined. "They have transformed the story of how to fix an overpriced and inadequate care system into an overheated political scrum, with endless chatter about deadlines and combatants and very little about the kind of medical care people get and how it might change." He cited findings of the Project for Excellence in Journalism that the coverage has been dominated by politics and legislative strategy. (Read more)

A trip to Arkansas helps health reformers understand why Blue Dogs oppose liberals' bill

UPDATE, July 29: Rep. Mike Ross announced today that Blue Dog Democrats and Rep. Henry Waxman, chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, have struck a deal that will reopen committee deliberations on the bill. "The legislation will now exempt small businesses with a payroll less than $500,000 from paying for any government-sponsored health coverage - double the $250,000 in the initial draft," Patrick O'Connor reports for Politico. "The new version of the bill also has a breakthrough on the concept of health care 'co-ops,' seen by some as an alternative to a public plan. States would be allowed to create co-ops for residents to buy private insurance. But the Waxman-Ross deal will also keeps the 'public option' of government-sponsored health care." (Read more) Across the Capitol, there is "an emerging consensus among a bipartisan group of senators" on a bill, The Washington Post reports.

In Prescott, Ark., population 3,600, many residents are forced to go uninsured because of skyrocketing health care premiums. They also suffer from physician shortages, caused in part by limited reimbursements for federal programs like Medicare. Health-insurance reform bills in Congress aim to address those problems, but Prescott's congressman, Democratic Rep. Mike Ross, says other parts of the legislation steer him to vote against it.

Ross is skeptical whether a public option for coverage will benefit his rural constituents in the long run, Eric Pianin and Ann Carrns report for Kaiser Health News. Ross and other fiscally consertvative Blue Dog Democrats say the various bills would not solve many problems unique to rural areas, and until changes are made, they will vote against it. "What we’re talking about is containing the cost, slowing the rate of growth of health care down where it can grow at the rate of inflation,” Ross said in an interview, “If we don’t, it’s going to bankrupt this country.” But at the same time, Ross and other Blue Dogs are calling for changes to hospital and physician reimbursement rates – tactics that will likely drive up the cost of Medicare and Medicaid, the writers note.

The only hospital in Prescott’s county closed in 1995 partially due to low federal reimbursement rates and the number of underinsured and uninsured residents in the town continues to grow. But while most Blue Dogs agree on rural health care equality, they say the funding cannot compromise rural employers already facing a poor economy and rising health costs. “You know, it’s easy to provide everybody a shiny new insurance card,” Ross said. “But what’s important here is they actually have access to a doctor once they get the insurance card.” (Read more)

Private rural wells at higher risk of water pollution

Private wells are not subject to the same scrutiny and regulations as public water supplies, a lesson some families in Wisconsin are learning the hard way. More than 750,000 private wells do not undergo state-ordered tests and can be contaminated with pesticides and sewage, Ron Seely reports for the Wisconsin State Journal.

Although the state Department of Natural Resources has records of private wells being built, testing is left to landowners. In 2008, only 10 percent of private wells were tested, but it cost more than $150,000 to replace structures poisoned by bacteria, nitrates, arsenic and herbicides like atrazine. Ken Bradbury, a hydrogeologist with the Wisconsin Geological and Natural History Survey, said the lack of awareness surrounding well pollution is appalling. “If you own a rural home, next to your house, your well is the most valuable piece of the property,” Bradbury told Seely. “It’s almost shocking to me how little people know about their wells. And it’s your responsibility. Nobody from the government is going to come out and test it for you.”

Some agricultural areas have a higher risk of water contamination due to increased use of liquid manure, Mark Putra, section chief of private water supply for DNR, told Seely. In a 2007 survey of 49 groundwater samples, 31 were contaminated. For many landowners, water pollution is out of sight, out of mind, but water filters don't block bacteria, and septic systems can contaminate a private supply. Bradbury says people shouldn’t be fooled by the “assumption that the water is good.” (Read more)

Alaska towns ban plastic bags, Styrofoam vessels

Alaska's largest rural town has voted to ban plastic bags and Styrofoam takeout containers, hoping to put an end to the thousands of “white birds” that sweep across the state’s tundra on any given day. Restaurants and grocery stores targeted by the ban will offer reusable bags and recyclable plastic, Kyle Hopkins reports for the Anchorage Daily News. (Wilson Naneng photo)

Advocates of the ban in Bethel (pop. 5,700) say education about plastic waste has earned the support of many since a first attempt was overturned eight years ago. The waste often ends up on the ocean floor and last spring, Hopkins writes, “the spongy tundra around the dump looked like a tossed-plastic salad.” The local Alaska Commercial Co. in Bethel estimates that the average 1,700 sales a day use two bags each.

Bethel is the latest Alaska town to ban plastic bags, joining other remote villages like Hooper Bay. The ban will take effect in September 2010, but the opposition argues that the environmental benefits are still unclear and the ban will drive up the cost of groceries. But advocates, like Bethel’s recycling center manager David Stovner, are simply fed up with the tundra covered in plastic snow. "It looks like white geese out there. Eight million of them," he said. (Read more)

Justice Dept. anti-trust unit looks at food industry

The antitrust division of the Department of Justice is beginning to look into the food industry despite resistance from other parts of the Obama administration, Stephen Labaton reports for The New York Times.

Independent Sen. Bernard Sanders of Vermont wants to know if small farms are being hampered unfairly by large food processors, particularly in the milk industry. But using the power of the antitrust division would be a dramatic policy change from the Bush administration, which limited actions against large corporations who used market dominance to reduce competition.

The current debates “get to the heart and soul of exactly what the competition policy of the Obama administration will be,” Mark Cooper of the Consumer Federation of America told the Times. (Read more)

W.Va. strip mines not restored to approximate original contour, as 1977 federal law requires

Despite a federal law, many coal operators in southern West Virginia are not restoring strip mines to their ‘approximate original contour,’ as required by federal law Ken Ward Jr. reports for The Charleston Gazette. Environmental advocates say the Office of Surface Mining Reclamation and Enforcement is partially to blame, since it has failed to clarify what AOC really means.

Under the 1977 federal strip-mine law, “mine operators must put rock and dirt back so that the site ‘closely resembles the general surface configuration of the land prior to mining’," Ward writes. But that language of the law has not been clarified much by regulations, unlike many other parts of the law. Recent investigations cited eight areas where mining made land was 24 to 205 feet lower.

The federal mining office has said the West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection needs to do a better job tracking mining so it can better enforce the law, but advocates like lawyer Joe Lovett, director of the Appalachian Center for the Economy and Environment, say the problem is more profound. He says Compliance with AOC regulations would minimize the environmental effect of mountaintop removal, but Lovett told Ward few mines in Appalachia abide by them.

More federal studies are being conducted in Kentucky, Tennessee and Virginia, and supporters of mountaintop removal like the National Mining Association and House Natural Resources Committee Chairman Nick J. Rahall of West Virginia are anticipating the results. "Thirty years, and we are still looking for a definition of AOC," Rahall said reflectively last year. (Read more)

Study links coal dust and emphysema, says current standard not enough for long-term exposure

A new study by the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health says coal dust exposure is directly linked to emphysema severity in smokers and non-smokers, Ken Ward Jr. reports for The Charleston Gazette. The study, published in the American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine, provides more evidence about the negative health effects of an industry that has nearly doubled worldwide in the past 25 years.

More than 700 autopsies were performed on miners and non-miners whose lung tissue was examined for emphysema. The researchers found emphysema in miners was significantly more severe than in non-miners among both smokers and never-smokers. Although the miners examined worked prior to the 1972 federal standard limiting legal coal dust concentrations to 2 milligrams per cubic meter, NIOSH says a full working lifetime's exposure under current law would produce a cumulative exposure similar to those autopsied. The results called for more research about the possible relationship between coal dust and other heart and lung diseases. (Read more)

Outdoor theatre competes with outdoor denizens

"As the summer performance season enters full swing, nature is invading outdoor stages around the country," Ellen Gamerman reports in The Wall Street Journal. (Art by Ross McDonald) "A group of wild turkeys started gobbling from stage right during a recent performance of Noël Coward’s “Private Lives” at the California Shakespeare Theater in Orinda, Calif. A bear ran across the lawn at the Jacob’s Pillow dance festival in Becket, Mass. Workers nervously kept an eye out for alligators that lurk around a venue used by the Spoleto Festival USA in Charleston, S.C."

There's more: "Some actors struggle to coexist with their natural surroundings. Theatre of the Big Bend, in Alpine, Texas, stages its outdoor shows near a natural spring on a hill dotted with cottonwood trees, scrub oak and prickly pear cactus. During a recent rehearsal, an actor spotted a scorpion just as the group was about to run through a dream sequence in a Spanish-English comedy. Amid screams, a cast member who’s from the area stomped over in his cowboy boots and squashed it."

And the Journal, of course, has a business angle: "Though attendance is down at some outdoor venues—crowds at the first summer performance at Tablerock Festival of Salado, in Texas, were down 17 percent compared with last year’s opening night—other events are seeing a spike in interest." (Read more)

Calls to farmer suicide hotline up 20% this year

An increasing frequency of farmer suicides, driven partly by the dairy crisis, natural disasters and other troubles, has focused new attention on the paucity of mental health care in rural America, Lynda Waddington reports for the Iowa Independent.

The nation’s largest crisis help line for agricultural workers is the Iowa-based Sowing the Seeds of Hope hotline, sponsored by Iowa State University and Agri-Wellness. It serves rural people in Iowa, Wisconsin, Minnesota, the Dakotas, Nebraska and Kansas. Calls to the line are up 20 percent over this time last year, and “The callers are reporting much more severe economic turmoil, more mental health symptoms and significant increases in mental stress,” Agri-Wellness Executive Director Mike Rosmann told Waddington.

"Experts say Midwestern states like Iowa are better prepared to deal with rural mental health problems," Waddington writes, but many other states offer little help to troubled farmers. "Further complicating the access issue for rural Americans is that there are very few medical educational tracks currently available that train health care professionals about the specific concerns that are often seen in more rural settings. And, outside of the rudimentary knowledge provided within those few agricultural medicine courses, there is no national curriculum in place for behavioral health professionals who intend to service rural areas." (Read more)

Ala. program is a model for rural online education

A three-year-old online education program in Alabama, which has given rural students opportunities they once only dreamed of while increasing Advance Plaement course offerings and graduation rates, is being extended to all schools in the state. The standard limitations of education in rural America – small schools, fewer teachers and less funding – has been transformed by the project, The Economist reports.

Alabama governor Bob Riley began the Alabama Connecting Classrooms Educators and Students Statewide program in 2005 to connect students in one town with teachers in another. ACCESS, which costs The $10 million, faced skeptics, but by 2008, students enrolled in more than 22,000 courses, and now educators are finding more innovative ways like “virtual field trips” to keep the program rolling.

Students in rural Alabama no longer have to choose between courses or are limited by scarce course offerings with ACCESS. Alabama’s superintendent of schools, Joe Morton, told The Ecomomist that Advanced Placement courses, once limited to less than half of the state’s schools, are now available with ACCESS. The success rate of the program is particularly high for black students in Alabama, who had the highest increase in AP coursework in the nation from 2003 to 2008. “That makes it all worthwhile right there,” Morton said. (Read more)

Rural cell telcos unhappy with latest Verizon offer

To appease its rural critics, Verizon offered last week to “allow any carrier with fewer than 500,000 subscribers to offer devices it sells after a six-month exclusivity window” but the Rural Cellular Association isn’t yet impressed, Marin Perez reports for Information Week.

In a statement, the association says Verizon’s commitment excludes popular handsets like the BlackBerry Storm and neglects a large part of the rural consumer base, and "More than 180 million of the nation's wireless customers are unable to benefit from the new policy.”

Big carriers promoting exclusive handset deals are facing more scrutiny from lawmakers and advocate groups like the association, who say they limit choice and provide an unfair advantage over smaller wireless phone companies. But major mobile companies are fighting back, arguing that exclusivity deals benefit consumers by encouraging healthy competition, and have generated products like Verizon’s Storm and Sprint’s Palm Pre. (Read more)

GOP senators say farmers will lose on climate bill

The Agriculture Department says climate legislation would help farmers more than hurt them, but skeptics like the American Farm Bureau Federation disagree, arguing that the bill would increase the cost of fuel, fertilizer and pesticides, Charles Abbott reports for Reuters.

At the forefront of the debate are Republican Sens. Mike Johanns of Nebraska and Pat Roberts of Kansas, who are questioning how much farmland would be transformed into forestry if a carbon offset market is created. Johanns, a former agriculture secretary, says those farmers who choose to maintain their current crops will face higher energy costs under the bill with no compensation. "Unless you can quantify this, you can't sell the plan," he said. (Read more)

Three wise men, planting ideas where it counts

Author-farmer Wendell Berry, right, geneticist Wes Jackson, center, and sustainable-agriculture advocate Fred Kirschenmann, left, lobbied the Obama administration and senators this week "for a new kind of food policy," The Washington Post reports. The trio wants "a 50-year-farm bill, a proposal for gradual, systemic change in American farming. The plan asks for $50 million annually for plant breeding and genetics research. But it also puts forward a new vision of agriculture, one that values not only yields but also local ecosystems, healthy food and rural communities."

Jackson is president of the Kansas-based Land Institute, Berry farms and writes at Port Royal, Ky., and Kirschenmann is a fellow at Iowa State University's Leopold Center for Sustainable Agriculture and president of New York's Stone Barns Center. They are looking for allies in urban America, not just in Congress.

"We're building a constituency, an urban agrarian constituency that is devoted to farmers' markets and community-supported agriculture," Berry told the Post's Jane Black. "You've got a farm population that's too small to count. So should we delude ourselves that we represent a politically significant population? No farmer thinks that. We're not going to get anywhere if we don't have urban allies." For the Q & A with Black, published in the Food and Dining section of the Post, with the same headline as above, click here.

Vilsack: Climate bill would probably help farmers in short term, certainly in long term; few specifics

Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack told senators today that U.S. agriculture would probably gain more than it would lose from House-passed climate legislation "in the short term, and the economic benefits from offsets markets will easily outpace increased input costs over the long term," writes Rita Jane Gabbett of Meating Place, a meat-industry journal.

"But under questioning from both Republicans and Democrats, administration officials declined to provide several specifics about the projections, including how much commodity or food prices would rise as a result of crop acres switching to forestry," Jon Harsch and Sara Wyant report for Agri-Pulse. "The analysis also does not include implications for specialty crops." (Read more)

In his remarks, Vilsack did not guarantee the bill would be a net plus for farmers, saying, "The economic opportunities for farmers and ranchers can potentially outpace, perhaps significantly, the costs from climate legislation." Though he said "can potentially" and not "would," he then gave USDA estimates to back up his statement. "We believe these figures are conservative because we aren't able to model the types of technological change that are very likely to help farmers produce more crops and livestock with fewer inputs," he said. "Second, the analysis doesn't take into account the higher commodity prices that farmers will very likely receive as a result of enhanced renewable energy markets and retirement of environmentally sensitive lands domestically and abroad." For the USDA's full report, click here.

Drilling stories win environmental reporting prizes

Stories on natural-gas drilling won both top small-market awards for environmental reporting from the Society of Environmental Journalists. This year's only prize for small-market TV reporting went to Jim Parsons, Kendall Cross and Michael Lazorko of WTAE-TV in Pittsburgh for "Drill Baby Drill," which the judges called "the kind of outstanding environmental journalism that every newsroom should commit to report." First prize for small-market print reporting went to Lowell Brown amd Peggy Heinkel-Wolfe of the Denton Record-Chronicle for reporting on the effect of gas drilling in residential areas of the Dallas exurb. The 13,000-circulation paper is a sister of the Dallas Morning News.

The second- and third-place winners in the small-market category, both writers for High Country News, were more rural. Florence Williams won second for "On Cancer's Trail," which SEJ describes as "the story of a young Navajo biologist studying breast cancer so that she can understand the high incidence of the disease in her family and community." Williams spent a year reporting this story as a Ted Scripps fellow at the University of Colorado. J. Madeline Nash won third for "Back to the Future," a story about a global warming that lasted about 150,000 years around 55 million years ago. She asked, "What does that tell us about our current climate dilemma?" SEJ says, "The answer she provides is terrifying."

Stories on gas drilling by Abrahm Lustgarten of ProPublica won third place for investigative reporting. Second place for explanatory reporting went to Stefan Milkowski and John Wagner of the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner, circulation 14,500, for "Alaska's Changing Climate", which SEJ calls "penetrating examination of the state's shrinking ice cap, starving sea mammals, melting permafrost, beleaguered spruce forests and ailing fish stocks." For descriptions of all winners and links to their work, click here.

Grassley is key Republican senator on health care

If President Obama achieves his biggest goal, reform of health care, he will have some Republicans to thank, and despite some recent tension, the chief one may yet turn out to be Sen. Charles Grassley of Iowa, one of the few farmers in Congress and one of the most plain-spoken senators we've ever interviewed. (Photo by Lauren Victoria Burke, wdcpix.com)

Grassley and another rural-state senator, Democrat Max Baucus of Montana, have been negotiating for weeks on the issue, as ranking minority member and chairman, respectively, of the Senate Finance Committee. "Getting Mr. Grassley's imprimatur meant getting moderate Republicans, maybe even a sizable chunk of the GOP. It meant shoring up nervous Dems. It meant a health reform that might last," conservative columnist Kim Strassel writes, accurately we think, in The Wall Street Journal.

However, liberal Democrats have "cavalierly ignored" parameters Grassley set early on, "vexing him greatly in the process," Strassel reports. "There are growing signs the Republican may exit the table." The key issue is Obama's desire for a "government-run health insurance program -- the public option," which Grassley warned in March would not fly. He moved toward a compromise proposed by Democratic Sen. Kent Conrad of North Dakota, for a nonprofit cooperative like those created in the 1930s to provide electricity in rural areas, but said it should not depend on public funds.

"Left to their camaraderie, Messrs. Baucus and Grassley might hammer this out. But Senate liberals, who never wanted compromise, are forcing Mr. Baucus to choose between their bread and Mr. Grassley's butter," Strassel writes. And she opines, "The sight of the Republican most committed to getting a deal being dissed by the White House and a maniacal Senate leadership will dissuade further GOP compromise." (Read more)

As many cities and towns debate whether to allow keeping of chickens, a council meeting turns fowl

Local debates over whether to repeal ordinances banning chickens and other small animals in residential areas are occuring all over the country, as Nick Timiraos of The Wall Street Journal reported recently, but we doubt they have reached the level seen last week at the city council meeting in Bardstown, Ky., where one citizen brought one of his birds and asked council members to pet it.

"Cissell asked City Council to give him a license or special permit, but Mayor Dick Heaton said even if the councilmen voted to do so, chickens still would not be allowed on Cissell’s property because it is not zoned agricultural," Stephanie Hornback reported in The Kentucky Standard. (Photo from video by Standard's PLG-TV)

Cissell told the council he has had chickens since he moved to his current residence eight years ago, and no one complained about them until now, Hornback wrpte. "Cissell said he doesn’t know who complained, and he had signatures from all of his neighbors saying they were OK with the chickens. The neighbors understand the value of having the birds in the neighborhood because they eat ticks and other insects, Cissell said, adding that some neighbors even ask him to let the chickens into their yards for pest control. Cissell also eats the eggs from his nine hens, and when their offspring reach a certain age, he has them processed for meat. He doesn’t like eating store-bought eggs or chicken."

After Cissell spoke for about 20 minutes, Heaton said he "had made his point, but the laws of the city had to be upheld," Hornback reported. "Cissell was determined to not give up. 'Would you all like to rub little Charlie?' he said, taking the chicken around to the City Council members. Some stifled chuckles, and no one took him up on the offer." But after Cissell said others in the town of 11,000 kept chickens, Heaton no action would be taken against him while his claim is checked out. Council members "also want to hear feedback from the community on the ordinance" banning chickens and other livestock, which was enacted in 1950, the Standard reports.

Rural hospitals say health-reform bill is 'too urban'

Urban teaching hospitals are among the biggest benefactors of Medicare reimbursements, but in as Congress debates health-care reform, rural lawmakers are pushing to change the disparity, Susan Milligan reports for The Boston Globe.

Government policies pay more to big hospitals associated with medical schools for maintaining things such as trauma centers and burn units, and providing training for future doctors. But that rationale is being tested by lawmakers with rural constituents who say the bill is ‘too urban’ and neglects the impact and challenges of rural hospitals. Alan Morgan, chief executive of the National Rural Health Association, told Milligan that rural hospitals serve higher percentages of elderly and low-income patient populations, and therefore rely more heavily on government reimbursement.

Opponents say stripping Medicare money from teaching hospitals could have a big impact on the medical field, especially in hospital-rich states like Massachusetts. Nationally, about 18 percent of patients are referred to teaching facilities, but in Massachusetts that figure is closer to 50 percent. John Erwin, executive director of the Conference of Boston Teaching Hospitals, said it is important to see what teaching hospitals bring to the table. He argues that they provide crucial services for the entire country and not just regions, and not only train physicians, including those who go to smaller communities to practice, but conduct research and cutting-edge medical procedures that help everyone. A bill that ‘levels the playing field’ could have some “real, unintended consequences,” Erwin warned. “It could have the impact of stifling innovation.” (Read more)

Prof's Midwest economic index slips as bankers in 11 states see little impact of stimulus package

The economic stimulus package does not appear to have helped rural communities in the Upper Midwest so far, and many residents are still hesitant about health care reform, according to the latest monthly survey of small-town bankers in 11 states by economist Ernie Goss of Creighton University in Omaha.

Goss said his Rural Mainstreet Index declined for the second straight month. “None of the bankers, and that's zero, reported large and significant impacts. In fact, most of the bankers report that the impacts thus far have been none to very, very modest ... so, we're not seeing much of an impact from the stimulus package," Goss told told Pat Curtis of Radio Iowa.

Results indicate a shift from the ‘growth neutral’ trend of the index, which Goss attributes to low crop prices. “The RMI has remained below growth neutral for 17 consecutive months,” he said in his report. “After appearing to bottom out earlier in the year, the index, which gauges overall economic activity, is now trending downward.”

Survey recipients were also asked about proposed taxation of the wealthy to pay for a reformed health-insurance system, and 70 percent disagreed. Goss said that means rural Americans have "some real concern about how the new health care plan is funded and where that money comes from." (Read more)

Dentist shortage, made worse by difference in Medicaid and private fees, grows in upstate N.Y.

Shortages of physicians and specialists rural areas have long plagued rural America, but a growing number of areas are also facing a dwindling number of dentists. Patti Singer reports for the Democrat and Chronicle in Rochester that the trend has reached the Finger Lakes region of New York, where at least 10 rural counties face below-average ratios of dentists to patients, exacerbating the problem of few dentists accepting Medicaid for the poor and disabled.

The dentist shortage and limits on Medicaid payments mean residents may go for years without dental care, putting them at risk for gum disease, heart disease and difficulty managing diabetes, among other conditions. Mobile clinics have offered some relief, but residents also face limited transportation for appointments. Singer reports that the solution will likely require higher reimbursement rates and loan forgiveness.

Andrea Haradon, a consultant/coordinator of the S2AY Rural Health Network, worked with the Finger Lakes Health Systems Agency to quantify the problem in New York and says part of the issue is low Medicaid reimbursements. Only 20 percent of dentists in the rural counties studied will accept Medicaid. One, Dr. Michael Keating, works in Cayuga County and says Medicaid pays one-half to one-third the fees paid by private insurance, forcing him and his colleagues to cut off patients."We have to be selective about how many people we can take," he said. "Other people in my area do the same." (Read more)

Concealed-weapon permittees kill 44 in two years; measure would make states honor others' permits

UPDATE, July 22: Though 58 of the 100 senators (including 20 Democrats) voted for the concealed-carry amendment today, it needed 60 votes to be added to the bill. Also, it should be noted that there are many reciprocity agreements between individual states.

Just as new research indicates holders of concealed-carry gun permits are killing more people, Congress is close to approving legislation that would allow anyone with a permit from one state to carry a concealed weapon in any of the 40 states that issue them.

Permit holders were involved in 31 fatal shootings of 44 people in 17 states from May 2007 to April 2009, the Violence Policy Center found. Florida had the most shootings, 10, including one of a law-enforcement officer. Other states with multiple killings were Ohio, four (one officer); Pennsylvania, two officers; North Carolina, two private citizens; and Utah, two. States with one shooting incident were Alabama, Colorado, Idaho (an officer), Kentucky, Minnesota, New York, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee and Virginia. (Read the study)

"Critics, including police organizations, big-city mayors and gun-victims groups, decried the legislation as creating 'a new national lowest common denominator' for ownership of firearms," Shailagh Murray reports for The Washington Post. "But twice this year, Republicans have succeeded in rolling back restrictions on guns with substantial backing from moderate Democrats, many newly elected from Western states with strong Second Amendment traditions." (Read more)

Meanwhile, a law passed this month in Tennessee will allow the state's 237,750 handgun carry permit holders in the state to take their weapons into places that serve alcohol unless the establishments specifically ban them – arguably forcing the hospitality industry to tell their patrons ‘No,’ Michael Cass reports for The Tennessean. Perhaps surprisingly, 80 percent of the businesses are banning guns. (Read more)

Cookes expand newspaper holdings from Fla. Keys by buying 13 Cox papers in North Carolina

In a testament to the relative health of the community newspaper business, Cox Enterprises Inc. will sell three daily and 10 weekly newspapers in North Carolina to Cooke Communications LLC, a privately held firm headed by John Kent Cooke, son of the late billionaire Jack Kent Cooke, for an undisclosed price. (UPDATE, July 27: Tom Heath of The Washington Post estimates a sum of $30 million to $35 million.)

The dailies are The Daily Reflector of Greenville, circulation 21,000; the Rocky Mount Telegram, 14,000; and The Daily Advance of Elizabeth City, 10,000. The weeklies are the Beaufort-Hyde News of Bellhaven, the Bertie-Ledger Advance of Windsor, The Chowan Herald of Edenton, the Duplin Times of Kenansville, The Enterprise of Williamston, the Farmville Enterprise, Perquimans Weekly of Elizabeth City, the Standard Laconic of Snow Hill, the Times-Leader of Ayden-Grifton and the Weekly Herald of Robersonville.

Cooke's eldest son, John Kent Cooke Jr., "will move to the Greenville area to become president of Cooke Communications North Carolina and publisher of The Daily Reflector," the Telegram reports. His company "owns The Key West Citizen – 8,900 circulation daily, 9,749 Sunday – a number of weekly newspapers stringing the Florida Keys and Internet publishing business floridakeys.com." The elder Cooke was "part owner of the Los Angeles Daily News, the Washington Redskins and The Chrysler Building in New York City, among other businesses."

(Neil Johnston of Cox, John Kent Cooke and John Kent Cooke Jr. in the Reflector newsroom. Reflector photo by Greg Eans) The elder Cooke told Reflector employees, "Newspapers are not dead. They’re not even ill. ... I’m not worried in the least about the future of this business, particularly here in North Carolina. It’s going to be difficult at times, but we will be successful because we have the same attitude that the Cox people have and that is we’re going to concentrate on our local news,” the Reflector reports. Meanwhile, "Paul A. Clarin, who has served as Cooke Communications corporate chief financial officer since 2001, has been named publisher of The Key West Citizen and accompanying weekly community newspapers in the Florida Keys." Heath writes, "Because there are no local TV stations, Cooke has the turf to himself. He said his 425 employees, including reporters and editors, can outhustle the radio stations and anyone else trying to muscle in." And he quotes leading industry analyst John Morton: "Going forward, it's going to be the smaller papers that do reasonably well."

Atlanta-based Cox said last year that it would sell most of its newspapers in Colorado, North Carolina and Texas, The Associated Press notes. The company announced last week that it would sell the Grand Junction Sentinel and the Waco Tribune-Herald, and is still trying to sell others in Texas. It previously sold the Lufkin Daily News and The Daily Sentinel of Nacogdoches. UPDATE, Aug. 5: Cox takes its Austin paper off the market.

New Web site will help journalists cover poverty

A Web site to guide journalists through the often-difficult tasks of covering poverty and its ramifications has gone live. Created by the Grady College of Journalism and Mass Communication at the University of Georgia, the site has tutorials on covering aspects of poverty such as education, financial services, health, housing, politics and race, and incorporating poverty into coverage of those subjects, as well as general advice on covering poor people.

The Resources section of the site includes several "tip sheets" including top Web sites, books and policy organizations to consult; the "top 10 places to mine for story ideas in your community;" and the top four myths about poverty, one of which is that most poor people don't work. In fact, the site says, "The majority of people living in poverty actually have jobs. But you can work two minimum-wage jobs and still not make above poverty wage." A corollary myth, the site says, is that if someone has "full employment" he or she isn't poor. "The term 'full employment' erroneously suggests a kind of comfort. It tends to mask minimum wages and inadequate health care coverage."

The driving force behind the site is John Greenman, the college's Carter Professor of Journalism and an academic partner of the Institute for Rural Journalism and Community Issues. Greenman and the college's director of public service, Diane Murray, invite journalists to use the site and tell them what they think about it.

European 'farm' subsidies often aimed at rural development, non-farmers, new public data show

In debates over farm subsidies in the United States, global trade and European subsidies sometimes come up, but we bet few Americans know much about European farmers and their subsidies, details of which have been obscured by a veil of secrecy. Here's a chance to learn.

"This year for the first time, all of the 27 nations in the European Union were forced to disclose how they distribute the money from farm subsidies," Stephen Castle and Doreen Carvajal report for The New York Times and the International Herald Tribune. "The data underscore the extent to which the subsidy program has evolved beyond its original goals of increasing food production and supporting traditional farmers as they dealt with market fluctuations. It also illustrates how the European Union has moved to emphasize rural development instead of price support and production incentives, and in the process has decentralized the system, giving countries more discretion over the dispersal of subsidies."

The E.U. hands out 50 billion euros(€), or $71 billion, a year in farm and rural subsidies. Three-fourths of the money goes to farmers and landowners, but recipients also include a Spanish construction company, €1.59 million for rural roads; a German candy manufacturer, €332,000 for the sugar in its gummy bears; and an Italian caterer that serves cruise ships, €148,000. The story has many more examples of how the system works.

"European officials and some economists believe that much of the cash from those subsidies ultimately trickles down to local farmers, since without them companies might buy cheaper food elsewhere," Castle and Carvajal report. "But the rebates have a powerful effect on global trade by depressing world prices and undercutting poor farmers outside Europe, whose incomes are damaged. It is another form of price support, economists say, a vestige of an old system that encouraged overproduction of food and one that the E.U. authorities hope to end by 2013." (Read more)

In Va., Obama team's 'Rural Tour' touts biofuels; energy chief offers critique of local plant process

Energy Secretary Steven Chu, right, said the United States' agricultural base gives it an advantage for a more independent energy future, and gave some technical advice to an alternative-energy company, at the latest stop on the Obama administration's "Rural Tour" yesterday in Southside Virginia.

“What this country has, perhaps more than any other country in the world, is an agricultural resource,” Chu told a crowd in the Pittsylvania County town of Gretna, population 1,250. The town is the site of Piedmont BioProducts, which says it hopes to commercially produce "petroleum replacement products" from switchgrass and other crops.

Matt Tomsic of the the Danville Register & Bee reports, "The men were in the plant looking at the production equipment when Chu made a comment about the silver pipes that turned at right angles. He said the sharper angles required more energy to push the contents through the turns." Chu, a physicist, said, “The bends cost the most amount of money. Big circles reduce the resistance a lot. These are all the wrong bends.” The firm's owner, Ken Moss, laughed and replied, “They’re the only ones we could afford at the time.”

Chu, Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack and freshman U.S. Rep. Tom Perriello "thoroughly" answered questions from the crowd, Tomsic reports. Perriello, who narrowly ousted Republican Virgil Goode last fall, is one of several first-term Democrats whose districts are part of the tour, on which Vilsack is making all stops. UPDATE, July 21: Perriello, who voted for the climate-change and energy bill, "is a test case for whether President Barack Obama's energy agenda will help or hurt vulnerable Democrats in next year's midterm elections," Stephen Power reports in The Wall Street Journal. "Skirmishing on the climate bill in Mr. Perriello's conservative district, which voted Republican in the 2008 presidential election, has been particularly fierce," with broadcast ads attacking and defending the Democrat. (Read more)

Ash spill has far-reaching effect, from coal's future to plant neighbors who still have to live with it

The risks of environmental and personal disaster from coal-ash ponds are made clear and compelling by the reporting and writing of Arian Campo-Flores of Newsweek, in a Web-only story about the Dec. 22 collapse of storage ponds at the Tennessee Valley Authority's steam plant at Kingston, Tenn., which the magazine calls "the largest industrial spill in American history."

"The cleanup effort, which the Environmental Protection Agency is overseeing, could cost as much as $1 billion (though estimates continue to climb) and take years to complete," Campo-Flores writes. "Meanwhile, the released ash—which is packed with toxins like arsenic, lead, and selenium—threatens to poison the air and water. Congressional committees are investigating the failure, some lawmakers are calling for greater regulation of utilities, and the EPA is probing about 400 other facilities across the country that store ash in similar ways. Yet the debacle has had another, potentially more far-reaching, impact: it has displayed in the most graphic manner imaginable just how dirty coal is." (Read more)

TVA's cleanup project has been shipping the ash by rail, but now the federal utility is about to use trucks as well, and that does not suit Terri Likens, editor of the Roane County News, the local weekly. "Shipping by truck will only result in further problems — damage to our roadways, more air pollution just from the truck fumes alone, more impact on traffic and safety and more concerns for local residents," Likens says in an editorial. "We’ve been through enough as a result of this disaster. Let’s keep the ash and the trucks that will be carrying it off of our highways." (Read more)

Coal interests say boycott of Tenn. tourist sites to protest Alexander's support of bill is spreading

We reported more than 10 days ago that subsidiaries of Arch Coal were boycotting Tennessee tourist sites because Republican Sen. Lamar Alexander of that state is sponsoring a bill that would greatly limit or ban mountaintop-removal strip mining for coal. The boycott is spreading, others in the Appalachian coalfield told Roger Alford, a Kentucky correspondent for The Associated Press.

Roger Horton, director of Citizens for Coal, which started the boycott, "said some 5,000 coal miners already have joined the week-old boycott, which he hopes will spread to involve all of the nation's 81,000 coal miners," Alford writes. "Kentucky Coal Association President Bill Caylor said he expects the boycott to grow. ... Democratic state Rep. Fitz Steele, a former miner in the eastern Kentucky coalfields, said the boycott is gaining steam beyond the miners themselves. Store clerks, waitresses, even politicians whose livelihoods are affected by mining are taking part."

On the other hand, "TECO Coal, with headquarters near the Tennessee border, initially announced that it had joined the boycott, saying the legislation hurts miners and businesses in the region. Days later, however, the company relented, and spokesman Jim J. Shackleford issued a statement of apology." (Read more)

Book traces history of methamphetamine in the Midwest through Oelwein and Ottumwa, Iowa

The rise of methamphetamine, that most rural of manufactured drugs, began in part because of "the crumbled local agricultural economy" around the southeast Iowa town of Ottumwa in the late 1980s, Nick Reding writes in the new book Methland: The Death and Life of an American Small Town. Or so says reviewer Charles Homans in the latest issue of The Washington Monthly.

"Falling tax revenues had left local law enforcement underfunded, understaffed, and unable to stop" Lori Jane Arnold, who built the first midwestern meth lab in Ottumwa and set up a distribution system, Homans reports. "Hard-up fertilizer suppliers and farmers were happy to cut deals on large volumes of anhydrous ammonia, a fertilizer ingredient that is also used in meth processing."

Reding "wants to situate the meth phenomenon as part and parcel of the broader economic and social forces that transformed the rural Midwest, in often wrenching ways, in the late twentieth century," Homans writes. "The drug’s Middle American evolution, he argues, was a basically rational product of a global economy that in many respects has not been much more forgiving to rural America’s residents than the drug trade."

The small town in the book's subtitle is not Ottumwa, population 24,000, but the former meatpacking town of Oelwein, pop. 6,700 and 150 miles north. "Reding’s group portrait of Oelwein’s residents is nuanced and complex in a way that journalists’ depictions of the rural Midwest rarely are," Homans reports. "Unfortunately, Reding pushes the big-think conceit of Methland a bit too far, trying to fit drug traffickers in a geostrategic context as a sort of geographically dispersed 'disconnected state,' drawing strained parallels between Mexican drug cartels and American pharmaceutical companies, and generally struggling for a unified theory of 'the meaning of meth'." (Read more)

UPDATE, July 21: Tim Egan, Outposts blogger and "op-extra" writer for The New York Times, likes the book and quotes Reding as saying meth is “the only example of a widely consumed illegal narcotic that might be called vocational, as opposed to recreational.” It's a stimulant, not a narcotic, but the point seems well taken. (Read more)

Rural airports get big share of stimulus money; ProPublica has help, networking to track spending

The Federal Aviation Administration has finished allocating the $1.1 billion Congress gave it for airport improvements, and rural projects are getting much of the money, Michael Grabell reports for ProPublica, a nonprofit investigative news service that is paying much attention to stimulus spending. (For its pages on how to track the spending and join its stimulus reporting network, click here.)

"The biggest winners aren't the busiest airports. And more than $100 million is going to airports that have fewer than one flight an hour -- airports that cater to recreational fliers, corporate jets or remote communities," Grabell writes. "The stimulus was designed to supplement infrastructure funding, not supplant it. Projects weren't eligible if they had already received money from federal, state or local governments, or from private sources such as landing fees, and that ruled out many bigger, busier airports. ... The government also waived the usual requirement that airports put up some of their own money, making the stimulus grants attractive to smaller airfields."

A version of this story was co-produced with CBS News, which aired it on the CBS Evening News With Katie Couric. Here's a map of the airports that got money. To enlarge it, make it interactive and check individual airports, click on it.

Rural Democrats push leverage in health reform

As health-reform legislation begins to take shape in bills marked up by committees, and the Congressional Budget Office warns that no version it has seen so far would rein in costs, rural Democrats are having an impact and figuring in negotiations for a final product.

Fiscally conservative Blue Dog Democrats, many of them from rural areas, "joined Republicans to provide the winning edge for an amendment aimed at preventing the creation of duplicative government health programs," notes Alex Wayne of Congressional Quarterly. The amendment in the House Energy and Commerce Committee passed 29-27 and got seven Democratic votes, six from Blue Dogs. On the other two House committees with jurisdiction, "four of the five Blue Dogs who have had a chance to pass judgment on the bill have voted against it, with only Mike Thompson of California, a close ally of Speaker Nancy Pelosi, supporting it in committee," CQ reports.

Meanwhile, President Obama today aligned himself with West Virginia Sen. Jay Rockefeller, "suggesting that a new independent board make the decisions on how Medicare pays hospitals and doctors," Noam Levey reports for the Los Angeles Times.

"Until now, the president has carefully deferred to lawmakers developing healthcare legislation, in part because many believe that the Clinton administration's decision to write its own healthcare bill 15 years ago alienated Congress and contributed to that initiative's failure," Levey writes. "But pressure has been growing on the administration and its congressional allies to do more to restrain the nation's $2.5-trillion healthcare tab. And many specialists believe one key to curbing costs is to remove reimbursement decisions, which are now made by Congress, from the political process."

For the House Education and Labor committee summary of the bill, click here. For a good roundup of increasing party and interest-group advertising on the issue, much of it targeting individual House members and senators, click here.

Iowa journalist Jay Wagner dies of cancer at 45

Our friend Jay Wagner died yesterday at 45, after a long battle with cancer. We quote Chase Martyn of the Iowa Independent: "A journalist for all of his adult life, Wagner grew up in northwest Iowa and edited his family’s award-winning newspaper, The N’West Iowa Review. He also worked for the Des Moines Register, The Iowan magazine and Business Publications Corp. in Des Moines. Often eager to joke around with colleagues, Wagner was known as a straight shooter in print but a witty, independent-minded conservative around friends." (Read more)

Jay covered the 2008 presidential caucuses and legislative session for the Independent, an online publication. “Jay was a terrific writer and an important early member of our Iowa team,” said David Bennahum, president and CEO of the Center for Independent Media, which funds the Independent. “His coverage of the Iowa caucuses was incisive and astute. We are very saddened by the news of his death, and send our condolences to his family and friends.” After leaving the Independent, Jay started a blog, the last posts on which were about cancer.

We valued Jay as a friend of The Rural Blog and the Institute for Rural Journalism and Community Issues, and as one of the relatively few journalists who took on the daunting mission of covering and interpreting state-level news for rural readers. And we will always remember rooting online for our respective teams, Drake and Western Kentucky, in that epic 2008 NCAA Tournament game ended with Western's three-pointer. Jay e-mailed, "Well, shit." But then he wrote, "I am numb. What a finish. I will be rooting for you. Shoots my brackets to heck AND kills the story I was writing for the Christian Science Monitor on Drake. I want a rematch."

Dairy crisis takes an emotional toll on farm families

The dairy crisis has farmers grappling with record low prices and the prospect of losing their livelihood, and the situation has taken a deeply emotional toll, Lynda Waddington reports for The Iowa Independent, an online publication. If you're looking for a good example of how to to a feature story on the crisis, here's one. (Iowa Independent photo)

Near Stockport, Ia., the Lunsford family runs a small dairy farm, L & L Ayrshires, where cows and calves are known by names, generational history and personalities. A daughter, Jennifer Lunsford, told Waddington, “This is a family farm. It isn’t just because we run and operate the farm, but because all aspects of what we do and how we treat the herd is as family. We give them the same considerations that other people give to pets or extended family.”

That bond is beyond an industry gone awry, says clinical psychologist Mike Rosmann, executive director of AgriWellness. He says consumers have become disconnected from the food supply and take too lightly the connection farmers and livestock share. “Our understanding of where food comes from deteriorates because we kind of take it for granted.” Facing foreclosure, Rosmann told Waddington, is when farmers are most vulnerable. “These farm families become very afraid that where they get meaning in their lives will be removed from them.” (Read more)

Bill Clinton tells foundations their philanthropy in rural America is 'woefully inadequate'

Foundations' help for rural America is "woefully inadequate," but rural advocates need to make better arguments to get more foundation help, former President Bill Clinton said today at a conference on rural philanthropy at his library in Little Rock, sponsored by the Council on Foundations.

Clinton said the national poverty rate can't be reduced without focusing on rural development, and suggested that alternative energy, anti-obesity and reforestation programs should be included in the mix. "We can beat up on people and say they should give more money in rural America, but we should give them some new ideas," he said, adding that rural and urban charities should find ways to cooperate.

Andrew DeMillo of The Associated Press reports: "The 42nd president, who was born in Hope and raised in Hot Springs, said that he believed that charities that work in rural areas should find more ways to work with charities that work in urban areas. When asked about the state of rural areas, Clinton said that charities in those areas should find ways to create hope for the people living there." (Read more)

The legacy of meth: Contaminated homes, unwary homeowners, sick children and huge costs

Anna Holt, 2, needs breathing treatment because of an illness that began in the family home contaminated by methamphetamine. Her mother, Rhonda, "developed migraines. She and her husband, a factory worker, had kidney ailments," The New York Times reports. "More than five years after they moved in ... the couple discovered" that their home in Winchester, Tenn., had housed a meth lab. "The Holts’ next realization was almost as devastating: it was up to them to spend the $30,000 or more that cleanup would require." (Josh Anderson photo for NYT)

Reporters Shaila Dewan and Robbie Brown write, "Federal data on meth lab seizures suggest that there are tens of thousands of contaminated residences in the United States. The victims include low-income elderly people whose homes are surreptitiously used by relatives or in-laws to make meth, and landlords whose tenants leave them with a toxic mess. Some states have tried to fix the problem by requiring cleanup and, at the time of sale, disclosure of the house’s history. But the high cost of cleaning — $5,000 to $100,000, depending on the size of the home, the stringency of the requirements and the degree of contamination — has left hundreds of properties vacant and quarantined, particularly in Western and Southern states afflicted with meth use."

The problem is expected to grow because meth-lab seizures are increasing, by 14 percent last year, and meth makers are adopting a simpler method. Meanwhile, the Environmental Protection Agency has missed an end-of-2008 deadline to establish standards for meth contamination and cleanup. "Without standards, professional cleaners say, it is easy to bungle a job that often requires gutting and repeated washing," the Times reports. "About 20 states have passed laws requiring meth contamination cleanup, and they use widely varied standards." (Read more)

Aug. 12 is deadline to apply for expenses-paid seminar on energy issues at Ohio State in Sept.

Journalists reporting on energy costs, trends in the global energy market, the cap-and-trade system in the climate-change bill, and the impacts on their communities, are invited to apply for the expenses-paid McCormick Specialized Reporting Institute on Energy Solutions Sept. 20-22 at The Ohio State University in Columbus.

The conference is designed to provide a small group of journalists with direct access to national leaders and the time to delve deeper into energy research and policy analysis. Confirmed speakers include Dr. Steven Koonin, newly appointed energy undersecretary for science; Richard Sandor, founder of the Chicago Climate Exchange; and Don McConnell, president of energy technology at Battelle Laboratories, the world's largest nonprofit research and development organization.

The conference will be hosted by the Kiplinger Program in Public Affairs Journalism, the John Glenn School of Public Affairs, Battelle, and Ohio State's Institute for Energy and the Environment. Funding from the McCormick Foundation will provide meals, lodging and a travel stipend for journalists selected to attend. To apply, go to www.KiplingerProgram.org and fill out the online application by Aug. 12. For additional information, contact Jessica Barnes at 614-247-8796.

FDA opposes 'non-therapeutic' livestock antibiotics

The head of the Food and Drug Administration told Congress Monday that the agency favors banning the use of antibiotics in livestock except to prevent disease. FDA commissioner Joshua Sharfstein said "Purposes other than for the advancement of animal or human health should not be considered judicious use,” and added that the FDA believes all medications used for prevention and control of livestock should only be administered by veterinarians.

Critics have said overuse of the drugs, usually to encourage animal growth, has led to increased antibiotic resistance in humans. Activists groups like the Union of Concerned Scientists estimate 70 percent of all antibiotics sold in the U.S. are used on food animals, typically to promote weight gain or improve food consumption; others say the bulk of animal antibiotics are used to fight disease.

Sharfstein testified at a House Rules Committee hearing on H.R. 1549, sponsored by Rep. Louise Slaughter, D-N.Y., the committee chair. "The bill generally would eliminate the use of 'non-therapeutic' antimicrobials in food-producing animals unless they can be proven to pose no danger to human health. These 'non-therapeutic' uses are defined in the bill as 'any use of the [critical antimicrobial animal drug] as a feed or water additive for an animal in the absence of any clinical sign of disease in the animal for growth promotion, feed efficiency, weight gain, routine disease prevention or other routine purpose'," Tom Johnston of MeatingPlace reports. Slaughter's press release on the bill is here. A 2:49 video clip of Sharfstein's testimony, from Slaughter's site, is here.

Charles Abbott reports for Reuters: Last year, Denmark voluntarily banned its use of antibiotics for livestock growth promotion. The Pew Environment Group told Abbott that the ban had little or no effect on farm productivity, and human antibiotic resistance decreased, but the American Veterinary Medical Association says resistance in Denmark was unchanged while hog disease increased. (Read more)

Power-grid plans prompting regional competition

Creating a national power grid for renewable energy has become a high priority for the federal government but catching the wind for it is exposing some rifts in the plan, Matthew L. Wald reports for The New York Times.

The strongest potentials for wind and solar energy are in the Great Plains, but “An influential coalition of East Coast governors and power companies fears that building wind and solar sites in the Midwest would cause their region to miss out on jobs and other economic benefits,” and is trying to block a mandate for such lines, Wald writes. East Coast governors are suggesting that New England farms should get a piece of the economic benefit of hosting wind turbines and new transmission lines. They wrote in a letter to House and Senate leaders in May “this ratepayer-funded revenue guarantee for land-based wind and other generation resources in the Great Plains would have significant, negative consequences for our region.”

The energy and climate-change bill passed by the House would allow the federal government to overrule state objections to new power lines, but only west of the Rocky Mountains. Dan Reicher, an energy initiative leader at Google, told Wald the issue is both simple and complex. “The areas with the most attractive renewable energy resources often don’t overlap with the places where the push for job creation is strongest,” he said.

The debate deepens when critics say proposed power lines could also be used to transfer coal-fired power. Coal plants unable to sell power because of congestion in the current power grid would be helped, but at a cost to the ‘renewable’ standard. The issue includes cost-supply questions, economic development concerns and environmental sustainability, Branko Terzic, a former Federal Energy Regulatory Commission member, told Wald. “Those three goals are not always concurrent and could be in conflict.” (Read more)

News-Gazette, University of Illinois J-school unveil project to report on local economic disparities

Champaign County, Illinois, population 171,000, "is home to a world-class university, chic new downtown lofts and more than 350 restaurants. It is also home to more than 58,600 residents – nearly one in three – who are impoverished or near poverty, according to 2007 Census Bureau data."

So report freelance writers Shelley Smithson and Pam G. Dempsey for The News-Gazette of Champaign-Urbana, in the first of a series "to engage citizens, educators and other media in an ongoing examination of poverty and its related issues in Champaign County," an editor's note says. The project director is Rich Martin of the University of Illinois School of Journalism, and journalism students will be involved. The project will include an interactive Web site "where citizens can access and contribute information about these issues," overseen by Brant Houston, the school's Knight Chair in Investigative and Enterprise Reporting and former executive director of Investigative Reporters and Editors.

"While news stories will be a significant part of this project, a major goal will be to provide access to information about the community to those citizens who seldom get that access," the editor's note says. "The project is funded by the Marajen Stevick Foundation, a News-Gazette community foundation; a matching grant from the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, a journalism foundation based in Miami; and contributions from the University of Illinois." (Read more)

Farmers slow to sign up for alternative subsidy that would cut direct payments but might pay off

"Would-be reformers of farm programs should take note: Farmers won't easily part with the subsidies they've been getting, even if they make more money from a new program," writes Philip Brasher, Washington correspondent for The Des Moines Register. His example: lack of signups for a subsidy designed to supplant one that President Obama has tried and failed to cut, direct payments.

The new program is Average Crop Revenue Election, which Congress created "to better protect producers against losses in farm revenue, either through poor yields or steep drops in commodity prices," Brasher reports. "In return for a guaranteed floor under farm revenue that the program would provide, growers must give up a portion of their annual direct payments." As of July 7, only 1,434 of the nation's 1.8 million farms had signed up for ACRE.

Experts say some farmers are waiting to see how commodity prices behave before the Aug. 14 signup deadline. "Recent declines in corn prices makes it more likely that corn growers would get subsidies under the ACRE program," Brasher explains. Other reasons: The program is complex, signees must stay in it until 2012, and renters must get landowners' permission to enroll their acreage. And, of course, there's that 20 percent cut in direct payments. "It's giving up the direct payment that is the primary factor," Kyle Phillips, who farms near Knoxville, Iowa, told Brasher. He is "waiting to see what happens to corn prices." (Read more)

Obama picks rural physician for surgeon general

A woman who established a rural health clinic in a fishing community on the Alabama coast, then rebuilt it twice after hurricanes, is President Obama's nominee for surgeon general of the United States.

Regina Benjamin, right, is founder and CEO of Bayou La Batre Rural Health Clinic. She won a "genius grant" from the MacArthur Foundation last year and "has never sought the spotlight, but instead dedicated her medical career to helping underserved populations in a rural area of her home state," Marrecca Fiore reports for Fox News. "The under-the-radar Benjamin is certainly a contrast to Obama's first pick for surgeon general, CNN TV doctor Sanjay Gupta, who turned down the job."

Lynda Waddington of the Iowa Independent writes, "Benjamin came to the small village when she was just out of medical school, as part of a national program that forgave tuition for doctors who would agree to serve in an impoverished area. When her commitment was met, she stayed. Even as she gained national notoriety and higher-profile job offers, she stayed." She was the first African American woman president of a state medical association, and "the first black woman and the youngest doctor elected to the American Medical Association's board," Fiore reports.

Waddington writes, "It remains to be seen exactly how much influence will be afforded to the office by the Obama administration, but having an individual in the post who has intimate knowledge of doctor drain, the nursing shortage and other basic barriers to access in rural areas can only benefit under-served areas throughout the nation. Benjamin is poised to be the third woman to serve in as surgeon general, and the first woman from a non-military background." (Read more) For reports on the nomination from The Associated Press and Benjamin's local newspaper, the Mobile Press-Register, click here.

Rural Democrats demand changes in health-reform bill, delaying its unveiling

Rural, conservative Democrats have forced leaders of the House's Democratic majority to delay unveiling of President Obama's health-care bill. Their concerns "include the need for more cost containment measures, protections for small businesses and a focus on rural health care," Erica Werner reports for The Associated Press.

The rural Democrats are part of a group of moderates and conservatives, domimated by the fiscally conservative Blue Dogs, who have millions of rural constituents. Their message to party leaders: "Don’t model public coverage on Medicare. Don’t force doctors or small businesses to participate. And don’t shut out Republicans," Patrick O'Connor reports for Politico.

O'Connor writes that a Friday meeting of members and leaders "centered on Medicare’s already controversial reimbursement rates for health care providers. Moderates echoed long-standing complaints from doctors and private insurers that the current rates are too low, particularly in under-served, rural communities. Authors had already taken steps to remedy this perennial problem, one Congress addresses each year by approving tens of billions to reconcile the annual shortfalls. But they need to go further before many of these disgruntled moderates will sign on."

However, O'Connor notes. "Giving more money to rural states would either make the entire system more expensive or divert money from other communities that will make their own arguments for funding. One of the ideas floated late last week, according to an aide, was to use whatever savings lawmakers can muster from these public plans into more money for rural communities that are struggling to recruit sufficient doctors and nurses."