'Friday Night Lights' lets viewers look 'through the looking glass of rural America'

"Between cartoonish reality shows and grotesque game shows, there isn’t much dramatic television giving big, clear windows into America," David Masciotra writes for the Daily Yonder. "However, on the rare occasion that TV does get it right, it is often the stuff of pure emotive and intellectual brilliance."

Masciotra's first example, his urban one, and the one he considers best, is "The Wire," which ran on HBO from 2002 to 2008. His next, and his main topic, is "Friday Night Lights," which recently began its fourth season on NBC. The show lets viewers look "through the looking glass of rural America, allowing them to explore family, faith, and of course, football with sociological savvy and emotional maturity," Masciotra writes. "It is about small towns in modern America, and what their families do to maintain communal strength, familial love, and individual excellence under unfriendly economic conditions, intense social divisions, and limited local opportunity." (NBC photo: Connie Britton and Kyle Chandler play Tami and Coach Eric Taylor)

Masciotra concludes with other comparisons: "'Friday Night Lights' doesn’t have the artsy guts of 'The Sopranos,' the suspense of '24' or the political relevancy of 'The Wire', yet it still belongs in the company of those innovators. It has more heart than the three of them, and tells its seemingly ordinary stories so well that viewers will have no choice but to give into the powerful urge that all art seeks to inculcate: the urge to care—to care about the characters of the fictional drama and then channel that concern into real life struggles in which the consequences impact actual human beings." (Read more)

The scent of a woman ... oh, I mean a horse

The anonymous author of the blog When Pigs Fly, who lives in Minnesota near the Twin Cities, writes at the intersection of old and new, rural and urban, natural and engineered, animal and human: "We all have those days that serve as a wake-up call. You know the ones. ... They force most of us to reassess the pattern of our lives. For me, that day came yesterday," in a grocery after horse work.

"It had been cold and raining. Wearing my muck boots, Levis, baseball cap and black jacket that had turned a conspicuous shade of dark grey from the hours of use around dust and dirt, I'm sure I projected frumpy hobby farm enthusiast at best, ageing unkempt hipster at worst. But, being in a hurry and obviously not caring about my appearance or previous whearabouts before embarking on an excursion through the produce aisles, I moved through the market without any thought to those I may be offending. Yes, dear friends, offending I was."

After being told bluntly that she smelled, the author realized the source was her jacket: "I wash all of my clothing and bits and pieces whenever coming home from the barn with the exception of my jacket. This article only sees the washing machine once in a blue moon, taking residence in the garage when not keeping me warm. Apparently, it has a musk and a life all its own." For the rest of the story, republished in Open.Salon.com (from which we stole our headline), go here.

Studies show immigrants help the economy, but may limit wages of the lowest-paid workers

One of the most common arguments for tighter control of immigration is that immigrants take American jobs, but a growing body of research reveals that is likely not so. "Study after study has shown that immigrants grow the economy, expanding demand for goods and services that the foreign-born workers and their families consume, and thereby creating jobs," Viveca Novak of FactCheck.org reports. "There is even broad agreement among economists that while immigrants may push down wages for some, the overall effect is to increase average wages for American-born workers."

The Harper’s Index in this month's Harper's magazine cites Giovanni Peri of the University of California-Davis in reporting that for every 1-percentage point increase in foreign-born workers in the U.S. labor force, the nation's average wage goes up 0.5 percent.

Nevertheless, groups like the House of Representatives Reclaim American Jobs Caucus argue that with 8 million illegal immigrants working in the U.S. and 15 million unemployed American citizens and legal immigrants, the country could cut unemployment in half by removing illegal workers. "The numbers are simple," California Republican Rep. Gary Miller, a member of the caucus, said in the video announcing the group's formation. An advertisement from the Coalition for the Future American Worker even advocates limiting legal immigration to counter job loss. Upon further review though, the math is anything but simple, Novak writes.

The prevailing results of research examining the economic impact of immigrants was summed up by David Griswold, director of the Center for Trade Policy Studies at the libertarian Cato Institute, in a recent article for the magazine Commentary: "The addition of low-skilled immigrants expands the size of the overall economy, creating higher-wage openings for managers, craftsmen, accountants, and the like," he wrote. "The net result is a greater financial reward and relatively more opportunities for those Americans who finish high school." Griswold does acknowledge that "low-skilled immigrants do exert mild downward pressure on the wages of the lowest-paid American workers," though the overall impact on jobs and the economy is positive. (Read more)

Small nonprofits now must file with IRS; many at risk of missing deadline tomorrow

Small non-profit agencies may lose their tax-exempt status Monday if they haven't adhered to new Internal Revenue Service regulations that were passed in 2007 and go into effect next week. "In years past a nonprofit organization with gross receipts under $25,000 had only to prove to the federal government upon startup that it was what it claimed to be, intent on doing what it said it would do," Sehlia Hagar of the Walla Walla Union-Bulletin reports. "That's no longer the case. Now every nonprofit agency, regardless of monetary size, must file a special tax filing form called a 990. That lets the IRS know what's going on with staffing, mission and money."

Previously these non-profits never had to check back in with the government after their initial approval, so no one really knows how many groups are affected by the new regulation. The National Center for Charitable Statistics reports there are 7,663 organizations in Washington state alone at risk of losing tax-exempt status if they miss the Saturday deadline, but many are relatively unknown and several may not even be operating, Hagar writes. "Basically, the feds are trying to shrink the size of the database, the master file," Lawson Knight, executive director of Blue Mountain Community Foundation, told Hagar. "They never had a way to track the smaller ones before, this is a cleanup. It's like all of these accounts sitting on the books and not sure of some of then are still alive. So the government will send a 'ping' and see if they ping back."

If still-active organizations miss the deadline they could face serious consequences. "Losing tax-exempt status means starting over from scratch," Hagar writes. If an organization's tax-exempt status lapses it is so longer able to accept charitable donations. "This is going to wake up organizations that thought they could just continue doing things as they've always done them," Sandra Gill of Spokane-based Northwest Nonprofit Resources told Hagar. Churches are exempt from the new regulation, but local groups like youth baseball organizations and 4-H clubs are affected. (Read more)

EPA issues final greenhouse-gas rule, with no exemption for carbon emissions from biomass

Congress may not pass limits on carbon dioxide, but the Environmental Protection Agency keeps moving that way. It announced Thursday its final "tailoring" rule for greenhouse-gas emissions, targeting the emitters that release at least 100,000 tons of the gases per year. "EPA's rule 'tailors' permitting programs to limit the number of facilities that would be required to obtain New Source Review and Title V operating permits based on their greenhouse gas emissions," Robin Bravender of Greenwire reports for The New York Times. "EPA said the threshold would cover power plants, refineries and other large industrial plants while exempting smaller sources like farms, restaurants, schools and other facilities."

"Beginning next January, facilities that must already obtain New Source Review permits for other pollutants will be required to include greenhouse gases in their permits if they increase their emissions of the gases by at least 75,000 tons of carbon dioxide equivalent per year," Bravender writes. "On July 1, 2011, EPA will extend the requirements to new construction projects that emit at least 100,000 tons of greenhouse gases and existing facilities that increase their emissions by at least 75,000 tons per year, even if they do not exceed thresholds for other pollutants."

The new rule specifies that no sources that emit less than 50,000 tons per year will be subject to permitting requirements until at least April 30, 2016. The rule met praise from the environmental community, but industries were critical of the EPA's use of the Clean Air Act for greenhouse-gas regulation. "The Clean Air Act is not designed to regulate greenhouse gas emissions, and this tailoring rule doesn't fix the problems with the Clean Air Act doing it," Howard Feldman, director of regulatory and scientific affairs at the American Petroleum Institute, told Bravender. (Read more)

Massachusetts Democratic Sen. John Kerry seized on Thursday’s announcement to argue for the urgency of passing his climate bill, Sindya N. Bhanoo of the Times reports. "Today we went from 'wake-up call' to 'last call,'" he said. Alaska Republican Sen. Lisa Murkowski introduced a resolution in January that would strip EPA of its power to regulate greenhouse gas emissions. (Read more)

The EPA rule does not exempt emissions from biomass power, which has rung alarm bells in the nascent industry. The final languiage "came as a bit of a surprise to us," said David Tenny, president and CEO of the National Alliance of Forest Owners. the industry argues that when wood or other biomass is burned, the carbon dioxide that is released had been absorbed from the atmosphere by the trees, an analyst for the Natural Resources Defense Council said it's not that simple. "The science around biomass continues to make clear that not all biomass is good from a carbon footprint perspective," Franz Matzner told Robin Bravender of Greenwire. "Chopping down a swath of forest that then gets turned into a parking lot and burning it puts carbon in the atmosphere that's not going to regrow." (Read more)

Feds plan vast pesticide spraying to counter predicted grasshopper outbreak in West

In March were reported fears from Western farmers of record summer grasshopper swarms, and now the Bureau of Land Management is bracing for them by spraying pesticides across hundreds of thousands of acres in northern Wyoming. Some fear this summer "could become the largest outbreak of grasshoppers and Mormon crickets in 30 years," Scott Streater of Environment & Energy Daily reports. "BLM manages 18 million acres in Wyoming, covering nearly a third of the state, and the destructive bugs could decimate the state's agricultural economy."

"We're trying to do the best we can to cooperate with and work with the landowners because their livelihood is at stake here," Ken Henke, BLM's weed and pest coordinator in Cheyenne, told Streater. Henke said cool, wet weather can prevent hatching or kill many of the insects, and therefore "spraying would not be done until regulators observe large numbers of insects hatching, and there is no guarantee that will happen," Streater writes. "If the weather works in our favor, maybe the hatch is significantly damaged and all the preparation we've done goes for naught," Henke told Streater. "But history shows us that's not likely to be the case."

BLM has responded to environmental fears, including the plans' effect on the threatened sage grouse, in its 127-page environmental assessment of the plan. The bureau plans to "include minimum 500-foot vegetation buffers around most water bodies and instructions that pesticides 'would not be applied near water bodies under high wind conditions to minimize the potential for drift,' the assessment says. "While some impacts may be unavoidable, BLM makes clear in its EA that a 'no action' alternative would cause far more damage if grasshoppers and Mormon crickets devour the landscape," Streater writes. (Read more, subscription required)

Arkansas high court blocks coal-fired power plant

Arkansas's highest court Thursday upheld an appeals-court ruling that reversed a regulatory panel's decision to approve a $1.7 billion coal-fired power plant. "Justices unanimously reversed the decision by the Public Service Commission to grant a permit for the Southwestern Electric Power Co.'s John R. Turk Plant in southwest Arkansas," Andrew DeMillo of The Associated Press reports. "The ruling sent the case back to the PSC." The court agreed with opponents of the plant that the "commission violated state law by considering the need for the plant in a separate proceeding before considering whether to permit it."

In a concurring opinion, Justice Robert L. Brown also voiced concerns about the plant's environmental impact, writing, "preference given to coal over natural gas seems arbitrary in light of cost and the higher toxic emissions associated with coal." A SWEPCO spokesman told AP the company was reviewing the decision and had no further comment. Chuck Nestrud, an attorney representing opponents of the plant, said that SWEPCO, a subsidiary of American Electric Power, would have to reapply for the permit to allow the plant to proceed. (Read more)

UPDATE, June 2: AEP and the commission filed a motion with the high court, asking it to reconsider and clarify its ruling. "AEP said it is continuing construction [which began in late 2008] during the rehearing process," Mark Peters of Dow Jones Newswires reports. "The state certificate for the plant was challenged by property owners and hunting clubs near its site." (Read more)

Study: Local smoking ordinances ineffective in Appalachia, so statewide laws are needed

A new study from Ohio State University reveals local ordinances that restrict smoking in public places in six Appalachian states do not offer most residents adequate protection against second-hand smoke. The study, scheduled to be published in the July edition of the American Journal of Public Health, led researchers to conclude that smoking-ban efforts "should be focused on enacting strong statewide clean-indoor-air laws rather than relying on local ordinances to make public places smoke-free in some of these states," says a Newswise release. Each of the six states studied, Alabama, Georgia, Kentucky, Mississippi, South Carolina and West Virginia, have weak or no statewide smoking regulations but allow localities to pass regulations of their own.

"Overall, ordinances were considered weak based on analyses of the extent of public areas they covered, the severity of punishment and how they were enforced," the release says. Places with higher education levels and lower unemployment were more likely to pass strict smoking ordinances. "A 1 percent increase in the high-school completion rate was associated with a 9 percent increase in the odds of a restaurant policy and a 10 percent increase in the odds of a workplace policy," the release says. "In contrast, a 1 percent increase in the unemployment rate translated to an approximate 50 percent decrease in the odds that a community had passed a policy for workplaces or restaurants."

Researchers rated ordinances based on how extensively they applied to different types of indoor areas: government or private work sites, retail or recreational spaces, restaurants, bars, schools and childcare facilities. Strength of penalties imposed on violators and enforcement were also considered. "The possible scores ranged from 0 to 13, with higher scores representing more comprehensive laws," the release says. "On average, the communities as a group achieved only 43 percent of the possible points." The lone exception was West Virginia which "clearly had the highest proportion of communities with comprehensive ordinances, all passed at the county level." Unlike most of the other states, West Virginia has little history of tobacco production. (Read more)

Obamas' anti-obesity plan includes more fruit and vegetables, more breastfeeding, no price tag

The Obama administration has unveiled its comprehensive plan to deal with childhood obesity. "The 124-page plan sets targets for reducing obesity and benchmarks for improving child nutrition," Philip Brasher of the Des Moines Register reports on the Green Fields blog. The plan includes "70 recommendations on a wide range of issues, including ways to increase breastfeeding, a call for food companies to change the way they advertise to kids, a suggestion that Congress use the next Farm Bill to increase food and vegetable production significantly, and proposals to enroll more families in food stamps and to sign up 2 million more kids for school lunches," Brasher writes.

"For the first time, the nation will have goals, benchmarks, and measurable outcomes that will help us tackle the childhood obesity epidemic one child, one family, and one community at a time," said First Lady Michelle Obama, who has been leading the administration’s anti-obesity effort. The plan's overall goal is to reduce the child obesity rate, now 17 percent nationwide, to just 5 percent by 2030. Intermetidiate goals are to reduce the overweight and obesity rates by 2.5 percent by 2015 and 5 percent by 2020.

"The targets show a real commitment to making a difference," Margo Wootan, who follows nutrition policy for The Center for Science in the Public Interest, a consumer advocacy group, told Brasher. "They seem to be planning to measure their progress." The plan includes goals to increase breastfeeding rates by 5 percent every two years and boost U.S. fruit and vegetable supplies by 70 percent by 2020, Brasher reports. The proposal does not include a price tag for the program. (Read more)

76% in poll want laying hens to be more free

We've been following the ongoing battle between animal rights activists and big agriculture, most recently here and here, and one common complaint raised by animal-rights groups is treatment of caged hens by the egg industry. Now research conducted for the United Egg Producers reveals a plurality of those surveyed want hens raised without cages, Philip Brasher of the Des Moines Register reports on the Green Fields blog. Of 1,000 registered voters surveyed, 24 percent favored keeping hens in the current cages, 44 percent want hens raised cage-free and 32 percent prefer an alternative cage system similar to one used in Europe.

"UEP spokesman Mitch Head says that the survey shows producers who are thinking about changing their operations that there is 'notable support' among American consumers for the colony-type housing," Brasher writes. The survey also tested several different possible names for a European-style system, including including "colony housing" and "enriched colony housing," and found the least favorable name was "chicken coop." (Read more)

Ohio turns to black-lung fund for regulatory financing lost with failure of coal-extraction tax

After successful lobbying by coal interests led to the removal of a coal-extraction tax from the last Ohio state budget, Gov. Ted Strickland wants to use $2.28 million from the state black-lung fund to pay for oversight of new coal mines. The idea, suggested by the Ohio Coal Association to Strickland administration officials, was approved as part of an otherwise unrelated coal bill by the House's Agriculture and Natural Resources Committee Wednesday, Aaron Marshall of The Plain Dealer in Cleveland reports. The removal of the 8-cents-per-ton extraction tax in 2009 placed a $1.8 million hole in the state's coal-mine regulation and inspection program.

"We would prefer our fee proposal that would put us on a dedicated funding stream, but given the short legislative timeframe, we are fine with a one-time maneuver to cover the next fiscal year," Ohio Department of Natural Resources communications chief Mike Shelton, told Marshall. Shelton said the black-lung fund generates about $8 million a year in interest and in premiums paid by coal companies into the worker's compensation account. A Bureau of Workers Compensation spokeswoman said "there were 339 claims made on the fund in 2009 with an average payment of $130,000 per claim," Marshall writes.

"We may not be very happy about it, but we're not opposing it," Babe Erdos, Ohio political coordinator for the United Mine Workers, told Marshall. "A one-time transfer we're not objecting to -- even though it's kind of a stretch what they are using it for." Nachy Kanfer, who heads the Sierra Club's Beyond Coal campaign in Ohio, was more direct in her disapproval: "It's being held in escrow for black-lung victims. It's not for the purpose of helping coal companies fund their own oversight," she told Marshall. "In the aftermath of the coal mining tragedy in West Virginia, we need more money going for mine safety and health, not less." (Read more)

Vermont's shipping of prisoners to other states may bring racist views back home

Vermont was the first state to prohibit slavery in its constitution, allow civil unions and legalize same-sex marriage, but some of the state's criminals who are housed in out-of-state prisons are bringing back to Vermont a way of life contrary to its progressive reputation. Timothy Dufresne, right, first began adopting radical white supremacist behavior when housed in an out-of-state prison, which he used to help start the gang Hitler's Henchmen upon his release, Neal P. Goswami of the Bennington Banner reports. (Banner photo by Peter Crabtree) Just days after his interview with the Banner, Dufresne allegedly seriously wounded a neighbor in a fight by beating him with a broomstick, though court documents offer no indication that the attack was motivated by his white supremacist beliefs. Dufresne said his interest in joining a gang arose from self-preservation while in prison in Virginia, and Hitler's Henchmen was created as an offshoot of the Aryan Brotherhood, the largest white supremacist prison gang in the country.

Vermont has a contract with "Corrections Corporation of America to house many of its long-term inmates in Kentucky and Tennessee, although previous contracts have sent inmates to facilities in Alabama, Virginia, Texas and other states,' Goswami writes. "There are certainly pros and cons to sending offenders out-of-state," Vermont Agency of Human Services Secretary Robert Hofmann told Goswami. "In the con category would be the opportunity to meet offenders out-of-state who would have a negative influence on them. ... "I think 49 other states would trade their problems with Vermont in a heartbeat."

Steve Owen, a spokesman for CCA, which operates 65 prisons in 20 states, says the companies prisons are not incubators for radical views: "I don't think that's been our experience, to be honest with you." Vermont saves around $30,000 per inmate by housing them in CCA facilities. Virginia Department of Corrections officials say Dufrense's descriptions of the group's membership are vastly overestimated and report to the best of its knowledge the group has only five members. "I wouldn't necessarily say serious, but they're making an attempt," Dominic Damato, the DOC's security and compliance auditor, told Goswami.

There is reason for concern, Mark Potok, director of the Southern Poverty Law Center's Intelligence Project, told Goswami: "This is a phenomenon we see quite a lot of. Very often, people go to prison for crimes that really have nothing to do with race, but they find themselves very often in extremely racialized prisons. For their own safety they seem to join race-based gangs." (Read more)

New novel Hazard takes readers through a coal seam, and a mystery

"Hazard, the first novel by Gardiner Harris, is about a location and a state of mind. Set in the mountains near Hazard, Harris’s Eastern Kentucky has gun toting, coal mining, marijuana growing, and nerve pills, which do contribute to a tremulous life. But Harris, a New York Times reporter who covered Eastern Kentucky for The (Louisville) Courier-Journal, has a more complicated story to tell."

So writes Lu-Ann Farrar of the Institute for Rural Journalism and Community Issues, in her review of the book. "The book opens graphically, with a grisly mine explosion that kills eight miners." Inspector Will Murphy and miner Amos Blevins are protagonists. "Life underground is told through Will’s investigation and Amos’s experiences. Especially claustrophobic is a description of Amos crawling into a coal seam just large enough to lean on his elbows, under an unsupported roof of coal, to set dynamite. Harris has been in such mines and knows it’s one mighty hard way to earn a living."

Farrar concludes, "The book is probably most effective for those of us who know little of the reality of underground coal mining and know Eastern Kentucky only from TV. A novel about mining, crazy pot growers and women on nerve pills may seem like a trip to another planet. But life in Eastern Kentucky is more than those things, and Hazard is an intriguing glimpse into that world." (Read more)

Rapid City TV anchor, taken off air after speech to tea party rally, quits

We reported last month that a TV news anchor in Rapid City, S.D., had been suspended from on-air work after making a featured speech at an April 15 tea party rally. Now Shad Olson has resigned, "to pursue hosting a radio talk show and to work as a paid political consultant," reports Kevin Woster of the Rapid City Journal. "He has begun a new Web site, shadolsonshow.com, which he said reflects the philosophy and content of the planned radio show."

KOTA news director John Petersen told the newspaper that some of Olson’s supporters were confused about the extent of the suspension. "Initially both Petersen and Olson indicated that they expected him to return to the anchor spot," Woster writes. "KOTA didn’t require news employees to sign an ethics policy before Olson’s suspension. Now the station will require it and public speaking at political events will clearly be deemed out of bounds, Petersen said." (Read more)

Coal lobby dislikes new climate bill, but big question is whether the bill is going anywhere

The new Senate climate bill being officially unveiled today would not end the battle between coal and natural gas for the country's energy future. The bill would provide coal with help to develop carbon- capture and -sequestration technologies, but also give "advantages to the natural gas industry, including an incentive for some power plants that use coal to switch to natural gas," Anne C. Mulkern, Katie Howell and Josh Voorhees of Environment & Energy Daily report.

The bill also would provide free carbon emissions permits for gas distribution companies that serve consumers and "a program to encourage companies with large vehicle fleets to switch to liquefied natural gas," E&E reports. While the summary obtained by E&E pledges political devotion to coal, including the headline "Ensuring coal's future" near the top, one trade group classified the bill as problematic. "On balance we believe it hurts us," Carol Raulston, spokeswoman for the National Mining Association, told E&E.

The American Petroleum Institute, the trade group for oil and natural gas companies, declined to take a position on the bill, and said efforts to change the measure may be unnecessary due to its uncertain prospects for passage. "We think perhaps ... it's lost a lot of its momentum," Lou Hayden, API's senior director of federal relations. "This may be a conversation for next year." (Read more, subscription required)

Kerry's and Lieberman's "biggest challenge will be selling the notion that the bill has any chance of passage," Jim Tankersley of the Los Angeles Times reports. "There is no guarantee the bill will even be debated this year and it is unclear whether a massive oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico will hamper the legislation or prompt a more urgent look at U.S. energy and environmental policy," Reuters reports. Democratic co-sponsor Kerry was adamant about the need to pass the bill this year, since November elections are likely to weaken Democrats' power in Congress. "Everyone knows this is Congress's last, best chance to pass comprehensive climate and energy legislation," he told Reuters. If it fails, he added, "Congress will be rendered incapable of solving this issue." (Read more)

Chesapeake Bay Foundation and EPA settle lawsuit over bay cleanup

The Chesapeake Bay Foundation announced Tuesday a settlement with the Environmental Protection Agency to improve bay waters by pressing state and local governments to crack down on polluters. Foundation President William C. Baker "said the agreement settles a lawsuit brought in the waning days of the Bush administration accusing the federal government of neglecting its legal responsibility to restore the bay," Tim Wheeler of The Baltimore Sun reports. "This agreement is a game-changer," he said. "This agreement is going to lead to pollution reductions, and if it doesn't we'll be back in court."

Wheeler writes, "The settlement requires the EPA to issue a stringent pollution 'budget' for the Chesapeake by the end of the year and to hold Maryland and the other five bay states accountable for reducing pollution enough to meet the new limits. The agency will review all new or renewed permits held by sewage plants and factories to ensure discharges are not fouling streams and rivers leading to the bay."

Not all were impressed. "I for one will withhold my excitement until the EPA actually follows through on its threats," Howard Ernst, a political science professor at the U.S. Naval Academy and a critic both of the government's bay cleanup and the foundation, told Wheeler. "Until they prove they are willing to deny permits to polluters, this is all bark and no bite, and it is all too familiar." (Read more)

Pension-fund coalition asks Massey shareholders to oppose re-election of 3 board members

A coalition of pension funds in eight states is opposing the reelection of three Massey Energy board members in wake of the April explosion that killed 29 miners at the company's Upper Big Branch Mine in West Virginia. A letter signed by the groups, which together own 1.57 percent of Massey's shares, "urged shareholders to oppose the May 18 re-election of Massey President Baxter F. Phillips and outside directors Richard M. Gabrys and Dan R. Moore," report Joann S. Lubin and Kris Maher of The Wall Street Journal.

Retired Adm. Bobby Inman, the board's lead independent director, is campaigning for the three members' re-election, telling the Journal that if Gabrys and Moore get fewer than half the votes cast, "It will make it extremely difficult to find competent people" for the board. The coalition pointed to conflicts of interest among the three members as reasons they shouldn't be reelected, specifically the disaster and their service on the board's safety committee. Gabrys was recently appointed to head the board's investigation into the explosion. (Read more)

The coalition includes the California State Teachers’ Retirement System, the Connecticut state treasurer, the Illinois State Board of Investment, the Maryland State Pension and Retirement System, the New York State Common Retirement Fund, the New York City Employees’ Retirement System, and the Connecticut, North Carolina, Oregon and Pennsylvania state treasurers, reports Ken Ward Jr. of The Charleston Gazette on his Coal Tattoo blog. "Massey Energy has an extensive history of persistent and serious safety violations. We believe the three board members who serve on the Safety, Environmental, and Public Policy Committee have failed to address these concerns," North Carolina Treasurer Janet Cowell said. "Ultimately, that has consequences for long-term shareholder value." (Read more)

The same coalition last month called on the board to direct Massey CEO Don L. Blankenship to step down as chairman. In recalling her time as editorial page editor of the Gazette, Susanna Rodell, writing in The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, says the isolation of the region helped Blankenship. "For years it seemed no one outside the state cared that he had succeeded in buying his own justice," she writes. "It also helped the man to believe in his own mythology. For a few years, he seemed invincible." Now that the tide has seemingly turned against Blankenship, she concludes "the least we can do, as participants in this drama, is to remember who’s risking their lives to keep our lights on, and encourage our lawmakers to keep up the pressure on Big Coal and its enablers to clean up their act." (Read more)

Society of Environmental Journalists creates fund for reporting and entrepreneurship

The Society of Environmental Journalists has a new program offering grants of up to $2,500 to support environmental reporting projects and entrepreneurial ventures. "In an era of diminishing newsroom resources, the Fund for Environmental Journalism provides incentives and support to qualified journalists and news organizations to enhance the quantity and quality of reporting on environmental issues," SEJ writes on its website. In January the SEJ Board of Directors set aside $10,000 to fund two rounds of grants in 2010.

"We wanted to help somehow, without competing with our own members," SEJ President Christy George said. "The idea that emerged from months of discussion was the Fund for Environmental Journalism. These grants will help environmental journalists struggling in the current media environment to redefine themselves or their platform." Grant money from the fund may be used for project-relevant travel, training, research materials, database analysis, consultants, and other direct expenses related to the applicant’s reporting project or entrepreneurial venture.

Applicants are not required to join SEJ, but must meed the requirements for membership. You can read the over page for details about the fund here. "The Fund is meant to be an incubator for new ideas, projects and training," George said. "While the grants may not add up to a lot of dollars, each one is meant to provide that critical bit of capital needed to launch something new, or reinvent something old." (Read more)

Black bears migrate into Central Kentucky

Black bears have migrated out of the hills of the Cumberland Plateau into Central Kentucky, reports Bob White of The News-Enterprise in Elizabethtown (star on MapQuest image).

A state Department of Fish and Wildlife biologist told White that bears are being found throughout the watershed of the Rolling Fork River, which flows into the Salt River at Boston, a few miles east of Elizabethtown. The Rolling Fork flows through the heavily forested Knobs Region, which runs south from Louisville (the large gray area at upper left center of the image) and east to the even more heavily forested plateau (at bottom right center).

Yes, we could have PhotoShopped a better map for you, but we didn't have time. To further orient yourself, note the Ohio River separating Kentucky and Indiana at upper left.

At least nine states might count inmates, for redistricting, where they lived before prison

At least nine states are dealing with legislation that would direct the Census Bureau to count collect previous addresses for prison inmates in the localities where they last lived freely, instead of their prison localities, which are often rural. Maryland recently passed such a law, and "Lawmakers in Connecticut, Florida, Illinois, Minnesota, New York, Oregon, Texas, Rhode Island and Wisconsin have proposed changes similar" to the Maryland law Kathleen Miller of The Associated Press reports, citing Peter Wagner, executive director of the Prison Policy Initiative.

This census is the first in which states can direct how inmates are counted ask for previous addresses for the purpose of redistricting. "Urban lawmakers across the country say their counterparts in rural areas have gotten an unfair advantage" from having prisons, Miller writes from Annapolis. "New York Assemblyman Hakeem Jeffries says 'inmate-based gerrymandering' there has given enough power to rural parts of New York to kill bills supported by the majority of residents elsewhere. "Tallying inmates as residents of their prisons, Jeffries says, has given conservative regions enough votes to kill bills to strengthen rent protections for low and moderate income tenants, reform the criminal justice system and enhance rights for low-wage farm workers."

Rural representatives argue that counting inmates where incarcerated is fair. "They most certainly impact our medical resources based on trips to hospitals and dentists' offices," Maryland House Republican Whip Chris Shank, whose rural district is home to three prisons with about 6,300 inmates, told AP. "They have a tremendous impact on our judicial system, the number of court filings, the workload of our state attorney's office." (Read more)