Appalachian Solutions: What the Government Can Do.

81 thoughts on “Appalachian Solutions: What the Government Can Do.”

1. One more word, I think three big things have combined to bring all of us to this point. Walmarts, NAFTA, and computers. Three big things powered by greed. We had to have the lowest price instead of good quality made by or grown by your neighbors and friends. We rode the wave for awhile and now we have swooped down into the sand.

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2. All of this really grieves me. I am an East Kentucky native, daughter of a coal miner who grew up in a holler during hard times in a faithful Baptist family of seven. This beautiful place gets in your blood or maybe it’s just genetically in there after so many ancestors have worked and died in it. In spite of the hard times we grew up without resorting to moonshine, marijuana, tobacco, or welfare. There were still proud and independent people there when I left. By the way, we now live within two hours of home–close enough to stay connected without suffering from its failing economy. I don’t know who said it but they were right that we don’t want factories and tourists swarming all over the land. We have been to Dollywood. Would any of you want to live anywhere near there and fight the traffic everyday? To be gawked at and made fun of, taken advantage of? That would be the equivalent of selling your soul to the devil for a little extra cash. Outsiders who have come in here in the past have come to exploit, to take the land and leave us with nothing, the same thing that was done to the Indians. Look at Daniel Boone’s example. After he opened up the Cumberland Trace and lead people here to share the fertile land and good hunting, in just a few years it was overrun with people who contested his claims and drove him out. He wound up moving to Missouri to try to pay his debts after he had done so much work here.

   I have no idea how the young people there today feel. The ones whose parents were on welfare and grew up watching them work the system may be all for a factory or anything to get them out of their cycle. I don’t doubt there comes a point when you can no longer help yourself and have to have someone reach out to you. I want to help them myself but it really has to be done in a way that will leave them with some self respect and a sense of participating in their recovery. To just hand them federal money will start the cycle all over again. Some will have more children just for the tax breaks. Make sure that the reward comes after work has been done. The people I grew up with were great people for the most part. Their hearts are in the right place.

   We have relatives who moved away to northern factories back in the 60’s and though they made enough money to live the average American dream they were not happy.

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3. Yes, there are folks in EKY who do not want “outsiders” but that is normal for many portions of the country, any serious look at any large city will make it clear that people group themselves into “tribes”. Why else would there be a Little Italy or Chinatown in just about every large city. Why else do most churches, no matter the size have a majority of one particular ethnic group. Speaking of churches, what can churches do? They can preach the gospel and follow those practices established in the NT regarding polity and care for the imprisoned, widowed, orphaned and genuinely needy as described in the NT, nothing more.
   Regarding government, the best it can do is establish programs that get the government out of the way of individuals and small businesses trying to make life better for themselves. In EKY, coal is everywhere, power plants and mines should be encouraged and monitored appropriately with the endstate being a safe, clean working environment so that more high school grads can earn $60K a year. Those who whine about the evil coal industry are not interested in progress or in the overall status of the environment, they are simply anti-industrial. Just look at what they drive, drink, and the resources they consume to get their psuedo-green message out. You go to any “green” rally in the world and you will see garbage on the ground to rival any EKY creek.

   Getting back to “tribes” and their dislike for outsiders. Yes, it would take time to build a tourism friendly population, but a local government system with the proper ethics would be able to accomplish that. Hence the only increase in government jobs should be in the state and federal attorney’s general offices. Oh, and park rangers.

   I deeply dislike the “use to be from there and won’t go back, thus it is a horrible place” type of posts. I have traveled all over America and worked with Soldiers from all over America and people like that are from every state, city and ethic background.

   KY is a beautiful state and quite diverse. The two political parties are forced to work together, neither one has a lock on the state, just look at the results for Federal and statewide offices. We do not have the problems of “progressive” CA or FL. We have an incredibly low standard of living and I mean that in a good way. A young man earning $15 an hour can live just fine in most of our counties and not worry about gangs, rampant drugs or the sex industry trying to get a grip on his kids. One can drive to most of the country in a day and enjoy all types of cultural activities within a 2 hour drive of home. There is a plethora of colleges and trade schools. Several of our counties have been recognized in national publications as being the best places to live.

   I am an 8th generation Kentuckian and hope that my descendants will call this place home and work to make it a more Godly, ever safer, ever cleaner, better educated place to raise a family.

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4. JimBob, Ky Boy:

   Check out the Oh-so-Green couple in this example from Christian Monist. I’m sure Mother Gaia will Rapture them when She finally expunges the cancer of humanity infesting Her…

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5. Around here, the majority of people sending their kids to a PS couldn’t care less about the quality of education. What’s important is the tribal loyalty to the sports program. — IMonk

   It’s not just Clay County, KY, IMonk. Around 1970, I spent four years in high school hell on the east side of Los Angeles County, CA, where the only reason for the school was Football, Football, Football. Football jocks and cheerleaders were The Master Race, and guys like me were the Untermenschen.

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6. I work at a private school in Clay Co Ky where any local student can attend free. That’s a pretty good voucher.

   Around here, the majority of people sending their kids to a PS could care less about the quality of education. What’s important is the tribal loyalty to the sports program.

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7. I believe the problem of any sort of alleged competition in public education is that the judges are the wrong people: elected officials, rather than the parents and students themselve or the employers who may ultimately hire them or not.

   Who honestly cares what a congressman who likely went to private schools and who sends his own kids to one thinks about public schools. He has no vested interest other than votes in the next election.

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8. “I don’t doubt that there is dead wood, but I wonder if some of that is due to burn out, and lack of support by management.”

   Yes. There’s dead wood. Burn out. Bad management. (We’ve dealt with several principals who are more concerned with paperwork than kids), and everything in between. My point is that the system of no competition allows it to proceed. And the entire union and system bureaucracy keeps the dead wood from being removed and the bureaucracy from being fixed. There’s no incentive. There’s a lot of yelling but at the end of the day everyone still has their job unless they royally mess up.

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9. Ky Boy,

   I read newspapers from various areas, and at least one blog by a teacher. The biggest complaints about “No Child Left Behind” and some teacher accountability issues are the parents and the student’s environment are not taken into consideration. The impression that I get is that good teachers may NOT be able to overcome the other issues.

   I don’t doubt that there is dead wood, but I wonder if some of that is due to burn out, and lack of support by management.

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10. “Mike, do you think the solution is as easy as choice and vouchers? How should schools be measured against each other? What about schools that lower standards so everyone looks better?”

    I’m not Mike but you don’t need to measure much. The word gets around. I don’t advocate much except for vouchers and charters. And if you want to limit the amounts to expenses and not capital well so be it. It works well for charters here.

    Our charters are formed by groups who want to start a school. There’s a state wide cap on the total so just now you have to wait for one to disband before another can start. You fill out a plan including goals and if approved you’re on the way. Part of the plan is how you plan to raise money for buildings and equipment. Expenses are paid by the state & county at the same rate as the public schools. Lines to get in are long. And it’s a lottery.

    But there are some great teachers in the public schools here also. But it seems 1/3 to 1/2 or more is dead wood. Serving their time until they retire. How do you propose to fix this attitude unless they might loose their job if not enough students show up?

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11. iMonk and Mike,

    I’m not going to stand up and say that our current system of public schools is as good as it could be, but I’m curious as to your take on alternative models.

    iMonk, you talk about schools as a “serious business,” but what exactly do you mean here? Do you think schools should be for-profit endeavors?

    Mike, do you think the solution is as easy as choice and vouchers? How should schools be measured against each other? What about schools that lower standards so everyone looks better?

    I’m not wanting to push buttons. This is just a topic I enjoy discussing and trying to learn more about so I love asking questions and prodding things along. 🙂

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12. I really appreciate you sharing your perspective on things in your neck of the woods, Michael.

    Some people have touched on it in the comments, but while I have strong opinions about what it is right for the goevernment to do, I think that the mindset is an obstacle, that if not overcome, will make any opportunities worthless.

    I’ve seen a bit of the mentality in other parts of the country and it is the idea that success is a sort of betrayal and/or insult to the people of your community. It is like saying that they are not good enough by trying to be better. Other’s success becomes like a mirror people don’t want to look into.

    Having your whole “tribe” fail is a validation of your own position while doing better brings into question things like choices and effort.

    It is troubling that our society as a whole cannot make healthy distinctions between failure and special talents. People should be encouraged to be comfortable with differing degrees of talent, intellegence, ect., but not be ok with self sabatoge.

    The way it seems we are dealing with it at large is to give evryone a blue ribbon no matter how they perform. Soon we’ll give them to people that don’t even participate.

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13. “Like that Animal Rights activist I heard of who kept chowing down on burgers. When asked where the meat for the burgers came from, he answered “The Supermarket”.”

    That’s awesome.

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14. I can think of only one reason, in today’s electric-poor market, why plants aren’t getting built there: threat of litigation & opposition by activists of a movement that rhymes with “screen”. Too bad.” — JimBob

    But it’s doublepluswarmfeelies for all the Greenie Celebrities and Concerned/Compassionate Activists before their next $10 latte at Starbucks, and that’s what’s important. Mother Gaia must be pleased by such devotion, and as for the people who need the electricity and jobs, well, The Planet is overpopulated anyway…

    (I’m from California. I work in a Yuppieville. This isn’t much of an exaggeration. You’d be amazed how much yuppies embrace such fashionable causes. I really think they ought to try Objectivism instead.)

    And where do folks advocating electric cars think all that power will come from? — Ky boy but not now

    Mother Gaia will send Her Faithful prancing unicorns farting rainbows of power, of course.

    Like that Animal Rights activist I heard of who kept chowing down on burgers. When asked where the meat for the burgers came from, he answered “The Supermarket”.

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15. “In Appalachia, with the coal reserves you still have available, there should be all kinds of opportunities for power generation using up-to-date environmental technology. I can think of only one reason, in today’s electric-poor market, why plants aren’t getting built there: threat of litigation & opposition by activists of a movement that rhymes with “screen”. Too bad.”

    The climate and geography here makes a difference. Really it does.

    But we’re going to have coal for 50 years or more. Or a massive shift to nuclear. Switching out light bulbs will not change trends. Just adjust them a little bit. And a lot of folks refuse to admit that. And where do folks advocating electric cars think all that power will come from? That’s NEW power, not reusing “old” power.

    Oh, well.

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16. Tribalism? Interesting that it’s within the culture there. You might come visit New Mexico sometime and see tribalism in the literal sense, along with all the evils that Government can possibly foist onto a culture (cultures?). What you describe about the pressure to fail, basically, is much paralleled here in Navajoland. Culturally, it’s very, very hard to break away from family and succeed in education or business. And if you do, what’s there to come back to?

    Don’t even get me started on corruption in local government… You just gotta live near a rez for a while to get a real education in that.

    The best jobs available are in the coal mines (like where I work) and the power plants, and these don’t usually require much education. Not that there aren’t well-educated Navajos here, but it’s a pretty small proportion of the population. People who get on here and are wise, never leave, so there’s not much turnover.

    So, what can government do? Well, perhaps stop actively opposing the development of new energy initiatives that would create a ton of new jobs. We have a new, clean-coal-technology power plant (and mine )on the table, and Gov. Richardson et al are doing everything they can to fight it. Sure wish they’d actually do their environmental homework, instead of quoting 20-year-old studies and pandering to their base. But I digress.

    In Appalachia, with the coal reserves you still have available, there should be all kinds of opportunities for power generation using up-to-date environmental technology. I can think of only one reason, in today’s electric-poor market, why plants aren’t getting built there: threat of litigation & opposition by activists of a movement that rhymes with “screen”. Too bad.

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17. A bit more on the issue of the “tribe”.

    I grew up in the mid-west and have visited and know folks from other parts of the country. The tribal feelings are strong in a lot of areas. It seems to me to correlate to isolated ethic groups. Scots-Irish, Hispanic, African-American, whatever. I didn’t go home after college as there was no real work in the area that excited me. One brother the same. My other brother left just to not get stuck in the ruts. Our home had some tribe but not enough to catch most people.

    I’ve lived in Lexington, Pittsburgh, Hartford, and Raleigh. And traveled for business all over.

    Pittsburgh was in many ways an Appalachian culture. Incredibly hilly (small mountains really). 140+ cities in the county. The top of each hill was a boundary and the bottoms split into a new town every few miles. Many of these towns are ethnically based. Croats, Slaves, Greeks, Armenian, etc… I was there from 80 till 87. I had to leave. It was too depressing. The entrenched work force was spending their Sundays in the bar drinking shots and a beer while working at their make work job waiting for the mills to re-open. And totally refusing to deal with the facts such as the mill was being dismantled while they waited. As an outsider I used to explore and was amazed at 5 miles of steel mill shut down and never to open again. Lots of them. And mini Main Street USAs boarded up except for the pawn shop or a vendor or two staying open till they died. And malls from the 50s sitting vacant.

    And now Pittsburgh is hailed as being in a renaissance. But it’s based on younger and many new folks. The Sunday bar crowd, and many of their kids, are not a part of it. I imagine many of the plans to bring Appalachia into the 21st century would have similar results. IF IF IF you could get folks to move there. It’s not like they have airports, world class universities, etc… down the street.

    As to the corruption in Appalachia, it’s not the same as in the mid west or bigger cites. It’s just different.

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18. you say you want a revolution?

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19. “ethnography” – sorry, it was late.

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20. On Short Term Missions Trips:

    We have hundreds and hundreds of short term missions volunteers work at our school. Many others come to help other ministries and local churches.

    It makes a big difference to those churches and ministries.

    If someone hears the Gospel, it changes their life, obviously.

    But if a church wants to change Appalachian culture, short term mission trips are inefficient.

    Use them to listen and learn. Ask ministries and churches what they need.

    For example, our ministry has needs that no church will ever anticipate on their own. Ask us, and we can plug you in.

    Breaking a cycle of poverty from outside? I don’t see much of a way to do that. Build a house, provide a scholarship. That’s helpful.

    But what we need are good people to come and live here, planting new churches and making this culture your home.

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21. Speaking as a former hill billy, and still one through and through at heart, thanks.

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22. I live in the rural midwest, and it’s the same here. The unemployment rate in my county is 10% and rising, with many working half-time just to keep their insurance. There are empty storefronts everywhere, and lots of Section 8 housing. One elementary school teacher commented to me that she had only two kids in her class living with both parents, and that at the end of the year, she had the same number of students as at the beginning, but about 40% of them were different students than at the start. We have kids from the high school every year head off to college on athletic scholarships, but many return within a year. They are overwhelmed, under prepared, and often go with no concept of where they rank with the rest of the competition (“I’m the best at my high school, so I must really be THE BEST!”) We don’t seem to have terribly corrupt government officials, but they don’t seem to grasp the enormity of the problem, so they carry on as they did 30 years ago. I don’t know what the solution is, but it’s sad to watch the area go even further downhill…

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23. I’m from West Virginia. I was raised in Charleston. My father worked in the chemical industry, and we lived a typical middle class lifestyle. I look at these issues not as someone who has experienced poverty, but who has seen a lot of it.

    I concur that the relationship between the coal companies and the people is complex. I’ve lived all over the country (after WV, Idaho, Virginia, Dallas, Florida, Pennsylvania) and very few people have an emotional connection to the land as do mountain people. We love the mountains, but we need the coal. We need the money, but we hate the health risks. We love the land, but the one of the largest land owners in the state is Consol Energy. Take a drive down I-79 and you’ll see a barn with words, “Consol Energy, legalized thieves!” painted on it. Love and hate.

    The spiritual issues are also significant. There is still great suspicion of anything that seems to be “foreign”. The history of WV people has been one of exploitation, and so anything that isn’t familiar must be dangerous. This is true in areas of church life and theology. Most “new” ideas are always “too” something. Too RC, too Presby, too northern, too wealthy, blah, blah blah. Like lobsters in a bucket, ain’t noboby getting out because someone else is going to put you in your place. As a minister, I would love to go home again, but I know that if I’m in the wrong situation, I wouldn’t last 6 months before they wanted to run me out. I guess that’s my love/hate.

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24. I’m east Tennessean; it’s pretty similar in my home county.

    To me, it’s a vicious circle; the economic mess reinforces the tribalism, and the tribalism continues to make the economy unworkable.

    I’m of the opinion that what is needed is better tribes. The Mennonites have done quite well in Kentucky–but we too are fundamentally a tribal society.

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25. Forgive my spelling errors. Blessings

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26. This thread is titled, “Appalachian Solutions: What the Government Can Do.” If appropriate I would like to ask the question and address the question, “What can the church do?” Also, IMonk (and others), What is you opinion on churches that do short term mission trips to your area, i.e. Building and repair, VBS and backyard Bible clubs, evangelism, benevolence etc.? Do they help or hurt? What about the attitudes of those coming in and ministering for a week or so? What is the responce of the people in the Appalachian area? Jusat curious as to responses and wanting to developmy own mission ideology.

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27. You’re describing a terrible situation, but surely it’s one quite beyond the reach of either private or federal jobs, isn’t it?

    Getting rid of welfare makes dropping out of college to live on welfare a lot less attractive.

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28. Capn Noble
    I think the point about education was. Look at the mess it is now. Government run schools suck. A nuance that imonk could have explored a little more was a heavier emphasis on school choice and vouchers. Competition always works.
    Mike

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29. imonk,
    I will say that you guys have one thing that most do not, and that is Mennonite Dounuts!!!

    Those were the best donuts I have ever tasted. I don’t know if they are still in business, but when I brought my wife back to visit your school in ’07 we stopped there to get some. We ate the whole box in a matter of hours. I am not proud to say it, but it’s true.

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30. It’s worth noting that the US has one of the highest levels of income equality in developed countries.

    According to Wikipedia, “Between 1979 and 2005, the mean after-tax income for the top 1% increased by 176%, compared to an increase of 69% for the top quintile overall, 20% for the fourth quintile, 21% for the middle quintile, 17% for the second quintile and 6% for the bottom quintile.”

    and

    “Americans have the highest income inequality in the rich world and over the past 20–30 years Americans have also experienced the greatest increase in income inequality among rich nations. The more detailed the data we can use to observe this change, the more skewed the change appears to be… the majority of large gains are indeed at the top of the distribution.”

    Interestingly, it’s not education that drives this rising inequality, but public policy. Our system is set up to transfer and redistribute wealth from the lower and middle classes to the upper class.

    The rich have never been richer and that wealth has come from the pockets of the working man and woman living from paycheck to paycheck.

    Health care and the current real estate crisis are both good examples. We’ve founded the American way of life on dog-eat-dog capitalism and the idea that if you’re poor, it’s your own fault.

    It is ironic indeed that more secular nations treat the “least of these” far better than this so-called Christian nation.

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31. If anyone comes up with workable solutions, I will be glad to share them with inner city Cleveland.

    The problems are basically the same; corrupt and untrustworthy government, tribalism, low views of education, and no manufacturing work. I am specific about manufacturing work because that is the ONLY way to get decent paying jobs.

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32. I live in Stockton, CA, the city with the highest foreclosure rate in the country, one of (if not the) highest crime rates, and yeah, some pretty extensive drug use, poverty and welfare. And the church presence in this blighted city is dwindling, so I have half an idea what you’re talking about.
    A friend and I have been visiting local churches, trying to get the “lay of the land”, hoping to see what there is to see, and maybe find some ways to deal with some serious underlying issues. And we’re both glad you’re out there, helping show that all is not well in the church today. Thank you.

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33. The Flannery O’Connor reference above makes me think of her famous quote: “The South is not so much Christ-centered as it is Christ-haunted.”

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34. iMonk,

    You say, “I could take you to 15 kids right now that left our school with full scholarships to local colleges, and they are dropped out and back here living “the life:” welfare, drugs, illegitimate children, pot, 4 wheelers.”

    You’re describing a terrible situation, but surely it’s one quite beyond the reach of either private or federal jobs, isn’t it?

    Such broken people will never fill places at Walmart or on federal road crews. It seems a hopeless situation, truly, and I certainly have no solutions at all.

    Living here in southwestern Ohio, we have sections of this dead-end culture, but they are not the majority. These hopeless attitudes might spread, though, as our factories close and head for Mexico.

    But I do agree with Ed that (re)building the infrastructure is a good thing not only for the jobs it brings (short-term though they be, and certainly *not* make-work), but for the way it opens the area to industrial possibilities: “Good infrastructure is an absolute must for attracting manufacturing. Why would I want to build a factory in a remote area, with insufficient utilities, poor industrial sewage, and nothing but winding narrow roads filled with overloaded coal trucks?”

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35. Yeah . . . but it seems that the fallen broken world takes on different flavors in one place over another (not that one is worse).

    Here in the San Juan Islands, I’m sure people would see themselves as better off than how I described Appalachia. However the Fall here takes on the form of no-church association, new-age spiritualism, materialism, workaholic-ism and the drugs of choice here (although Vicodin and meth have there place) would be all-natural-organic, Asian herbals to prevent or cure all known diseases, give you energy and focus.

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36. Wow – not sure exactly what to say, but I’m a Harlan County native, a child of natives of those mountains for nearly 200 years. I’m not a big political person. I purposely stay out of it. Just a couple of thoughts…

    – The culture of the deep mountains of Eastern Kentucky would require a very lengthy historical ethnology written by a team of very talented and dedicated Anthropologists to even begin to explain to anyone who isn’t from there or hasn’t lived there for some length of time. And “from there” is huge – to be born into a family who carries that living culture and passes it on to you. It’s a long, hard, complicated story. That story is alive in the bones of those who are born in the shadow of those hills, and especially in those who continue to live there.

    – Infrastructure: This is HUGE. Have you ever driven to Harlan? There really is only one significant way in. It’s much better than it used to be, and coming in from Virginia through one of three or four routes – forget that. Factories? Ain’t happnin’. Not until there are very significant roads in and out. Pikeville is at the end of the Interstate-like Mountain Parkway. I-64 runs through to the North-East. Harlan? Not so much – even less, Clay County and some others.

    – The Coal Mines are there because, well, of the coal. The Coal mines – wow – the change of a world, oppression, slavery, revolution, war, depression, again – deeply complicated. Oh, and coal miners are not poor. If you watched the special, you saw the story of an 18 year old who went to work in the mines at a starting salary of $60,000 per year. Sure, it’s dangerous – so is fishing on a crab boat, so is being a fireman, so is timber work and a number of other things. It’s a little different now than when my Grandfathers worked in an 18″ hole with a carbide light on soft mining hats with no breathing masks. Anyway, it’s the complex interaction of the Coal Mining industry with the area and its people that is more important than trying to spin that it’s somehow “sad” that an 18 y/o is making 60k a year.

    – My father was the first of his family to go to college. He became a high school English teacher, a good one, for 30+ years. He could’ve made more, at least these days, working in the mines, but teaching is a stable job in the area. My mother was a nurse (nursing school paid for my the UMWA) for 40+ years, again, a stable job. I grew up as many of my friends did in Harlan, “middle class”. There is certainly poverty in the Mountains, but perspective is huge. Anthropology again (this is what I do with that pesky degree in my head): definitions of “poverty” please, relative definitions would help. “Need” vs. “want” – how the region’s own view of itself has changes over time since it began to watch itself being portrayed on television – all very interesting things to consider in all this.

    OK, way more than I intended to say – may not be much connected to what many of you are talking about, but I thought I’d lay a little Mountain blood on the table here. Peace.

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37. The answer is yes, at least on some level.

    God is at the center of everything, but I think the answer is multi-leveled. Churches here are as deteriorated as anything else. Preachers have a high profile, but the gospel is rarer here than on some mission fields. There was a a lot stronger church presence in the immediate postwar. You can see that with all the major denominations here, even the Catholics. Today, it’s just becoming pagan. It’s still “churchy” in a Flannery O’Connor kind of way, but the life here is increasingly about the immediate: food, money, drugs, survival, finding a place to live, some way to make money.

    Listen, here’s my problem. I could take you to 15 kids right now that left our school with full scholarships to local colleges, and they are dropped out and back here living “the life:” welfare, drugs, illegitimate children, pot, 4 wheelers.

    I mean, it’s a fallen, broken, sinful world. And it needs the gospel, churches, etc. But it’s a complex, deteriorated area. It’s like post war decadence.

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38. I know that this discussion has mostly been focused on the sociological, political and economical issue of Appalachia but I wonder if there is a theological or Christ-o-cultural (is there a better word for this that they teach in seminary?) facet that was unique to the Bible Belt?

    I was born in the heart of Appalachia, in N.E. Tennessee. I moved to Lexington for graduate school but I’ve lived outside the region since 1982, now living in the Pacific NW. I do go back once a year to visit my dear old mom.

    On my last visit my sister (who lives in Fl) and I were making some observations. Virtually everyone on my mother’s street (some of whom we grew up with) are; 1) morbid obese (300LBs +), 2) on some type of disability-usually fibromyalgia, 3) on lots of Vicodin and some still attend the missionary Baptist church nearby.

    The little missionary Baptist church has gone from scandal to scandal over the decades. When I was a kid it was the Sunday school director who was a pedophile (but kept secret). The latest thing was a 25 year old married girl, who was competing with a much older woman to be the official church pianist supposedly slept with the 58 year old, married, head deacon to secure the post of pianist. But the real problem, according to my mom, is that the new pastor made a big deal about it. “It was none of his business” according to my mom and most of the church agrees. They are trying to run the new pastor off (as they have the others).

    So a honest question (not rhetorical at all) was there something intrinsic within the Bible Belt culture, the way they looked at God, or life, that made them especially vulnerable to this plight? I have some ideas but not a certainty and maybe there isn’t a one simple answer.

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39. There seems to be a cycle regarding poverty and education, and I don’t know which is the chicken and which is the egg. What we see in our rural area is a growing number of second, third, fourth generation low-income families who do not value education for their children–who do not want their children to aspire to success. Industries do not move here because there is not a large enough population base to provide high-quality, dependable workers.

    We perhaps don’t have the widespread corruption that you talk about in Appalachia, but certainly drug problems, crime, lack of jobs, school consolidation all echo your experience.

    Do you ever get tired of being treated like a problem that needs to be solved?

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40. Oh well.
    “doesn’t work”

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41. As to the issue of a better school system.

    First off my kids have been in the public schools for the past 13 years. 1 more to go. I fully support a public school system. But we succeeded in spite of the mess. It was a fight all the way to get our kids educated in spite of the system.

    I’ll offer a different take on what iMonk said about running the schools. They don’t need WalMart or Cisco or Google running them. What they need is an incentive to do better at educating kids. Almost the entire system is not designed this way. No “Child Left Behind”, NC’s ABC system, and almost every other government program don’t work because the metrics are all based on other public schools. They are trying to come up with a better mediocre system. Not the best system they can.

    I’m convinced that charter schools and vouchers need to be in place. Even the flawed system we have here in NC with charters where they only get operating expenses and not capital funds is working great. But it is capped at the current size and the NEA and most of the education institutions are fighting tooth and nail to keep it this size or reduce it.

    There needs to be an incentive in place where if the public schools don’t perform, other options are available.

    I could write a 10 page essay on details but I’ve lived it first hand and the current system is falling down flat. My son’s 2008 graduation class was missing 1/3 of the seniors due to them not getting the grades and courses needed to graduate. And this school is a “Leadership and Technology” magnet school in what is considered one of the best school systems in the country. The admin and teachers to a large degree just don’t care. There are exceptions, some wonderful, but they are exceptions.

    And based on my past experience growing up in KY and living in Lexington for a while talking to folks from the eastern end of the state, iMonk is living with a much worse situation. I grew up in the other end of the state and most of our high school away basketball games were played in gyms that could have been used in the movie “Hoosier’s” And we were MUCH better off than iMonk’s end of the state.

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42. Ed:
    One final point on infrastructure. The temporary jobs associated with infrastructure projects to me are insignificant compared to the longer-term impact on industry. Good infrastructure is an absolute must for attracting manufacturing. Why would I want to build a factory in a remote area, with insufficient utilities, poor industrial sewage, and nothing but winding narrow roads filled with overloaded coal trucks? All these things ultimately impact my costs, and in this economy, there are plenty of other options.

    Bingo! We have built and constructed but rarely maintained and improved. I work for a public school district. Maintenance is the first casualty of budget cutting and the last to be restored.

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43. iMonk-
    Be careful in advocating local/regional tax breaks for companies to move into an area and hire employees for a specified amount of time. Many companies go searching for those tax breaks and become “gypsy” companies moving from tax break to tax break. Local business start ups tend to stay in the area where they are founded. Just a thought.

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44. Pikeville is doing well. Medical school. Rural Development Center. Pikeville College. Clay Co is getting a new Community College center, for which we are extremely grateful.

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45. I spent a few months in Pike county KY doing engineering consulting at a large food plant some years back With the exception of this one plant (and coal) – I didn’t see much else, and iMonk would probably say this area has a booming economy compared to Clay county. In all my travels as a consultant, I’ve not seen this kind of poverty except in some areas I’ve worked in India and Nepal.

    The clannish, corrupt, even violent behavior of many in eastern KY is ingrained in the culture. Some, like Malcolm Gladwell in his book “Outliers”, make a strong case that this goes all the way back to the early Scots-Irish settlers and the often hazy land-ownership issues of this once frontier area.

    Free money, make-work jobs, and more computers in classrooms will not change the culture. I believe it starts with a well educated populace (and agree with many of iMonk’s thoughts on incentives to create motivated students) and decent jobs for them to move into as adults so that they can become self-sufficient.

    One final point on infrastructure. The temporary jobs associated with infrastructure projects to me are insignificant compared to the longer-term impact on industry. Good infrastructure is an absolute must for attracting manufacturing. Why would I want to build a factory in a remote area, with insufficient utilities, poor industrial sewage, and nothing but winding narrow roads filled with overloaded coal trucks? All these things ultimately impact my costs, and in this economy, there are plenty of other options.

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46. “There are a lot of good people in Eastern Ky, but …. combined with the tribal nature of life here touches almost everyone.”

    As to the tribal bit.

    My brother’s wife comes from Sturgis Ky. While not Appalachia it’s similar. Her dad was a miner and much of what has been discussed about attitudes applies to her family. The area in general is fairly poor. She and my brother moved to SC and he works for BMW. It was a long slog for them with him working (closing?) in various small textile mills in the 80s and 90s till he got with BMW. She’s been telling her extended family she’ll not move back to Sturgis for 30 years. They still keep telling her she “should”.

    Two of her cousins would couldn’t find work in Sturgis moved down near them and got work as painters. Could work as many hours as they wanted and were putting money in the bank. But eventually the family pressures to move back to Sturgis overwhelmed their good sense. And their wives never did move so they moved back to be fed and housed by their poor but somewhat better off extended family.

    The tribal issues run deep and cause a lot of the problems.

    As to the people suggesting that tourist income would go a long way I don’t think you get the depth to which a lot of Appalachia folks don’t want ANYONE in their business. They’d rather be poor than have to deal with outsiders.

    Disclaimers I’ve not lived in KY in 28 years but there’s different mindset in the entire state, especially Appalachia, which is just alien to most of the country. Rural NC has a lot of it once you get away from the 1/2 dozen or so urban areas.

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47. Kevin,

    I’m going to say this once:

    I did not post about the stimulus. You’ve hijacked the thread and had 4 posts not posted because you’re bizzarely angry at people in Ky. I’m really sorry that you’re angry, but I’m not going to provide you a forum to vent about it.

    Saying that Appalachia is the cause of the various stimulus items you’ve posted is patently ridiculous. The law applies to every state and every American. If you don’t like it, look up your congressperson.

    If you use the term “You” again as you have in your other posts, implying that I and other people in SE Ky are your problem, I’m going to ban you permanently. I’m pretty close to that anyway, because you’ve destroyed a good conversation.

    ms

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48. As “they” would say, I “growed up” in KY, but further North. Your comments generally square with what I “knowed” of Eastern KY, but even in the Northern Bluegrass area where I formerly resided. All I would add is that those who discount “systemic” sin or evil had better look again. Your comments and those of several others reveal this. Walking down an aisle to pray the infamous “sinner’s prayer” so that you know you’re going to heaven when you die or doing so to “rededicate” your life doesn’t begin to touch the depth of sin there and everywhere. Paul wrote about “the principalites and powers,” and they are very much alive and too well these days in Eastern KY and all other places.

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49. Have I read it? You betcha. : [MOD Edit]

    “Making Work Pay” credit. The new law provides an individual tax credit in the amount of 6.2 percent of earned income not to exceed $400 for single returns and $800 for joint returns in 2009 and 2010. The credit is phased out at adjusted gross income (AGI) in excess of $75,000 ($150,000 for married couples filing jointly). The credit can be claimed as a reduction in the amount of income tax that is withheld from a paycheck, or through a credit on a tax return.

    Economic recovery payment. The new law provides for a one-time payment of $250 to retirees, disabled individuals and Social Security beneficiaries and SSI recipients receiving benefits from the Social Security Administration and Railroad Retirement beneficiaries, and to veterans receiving disability compensation and pension benefits from the U.S. Department of Veterans’ Affairs.

    Unemployment compensation exclusion. A provision temporarily suspends federal income tax on the first $2,400 of unemployment benefits received by a recipient in 2009.

    Expanded earned income tax credit. The new law provides tax relief to families with three or more children and increases marriage penalty relief. The changes apply for 2009 and 2010.

    Expanded child tax credit. A measure increases the eligibility for the refundable child tax credit in 2009 and 2010 by lowering the threshold to $3,000 (from $8,500 in 2008).

    Expanded and revised higher education tax credit. The new law creates a $2,500 higher education tax credit that is available for the first four years of college. The credit is based on 100% of the first $2,000 of tuition and related expenses (including books) paid during the tax year and 25% of the next $2,000 of tuition and related expenses paid during the tax year, subject to a phase-out for AGI in excess of $80,000 ($160,000 for married couples filing jointly). Forty percent of the credit is refundable. The new credit temporarily replaces the Hope credit.

    Expanded first-time credit for first-time home buyers. Last year, Congress provided taxpayers with a refundable tax credit that was equivalent to an interest-free loan equal to 10% of the purchase of a home (up to $75,000) by first-time home buyers. The provision applied to homes purchased on or after April 9, 2008 and before July 1, 2009. Taxpayers receiving this tax credit were required to repay any amount received under this provision back to the government over 15 years in equal installments (or earlier if the home was sold). The credit phases out for taxpayers with adjusted gross income in excess of $75,000 ($150,000 in the case of a joint return). The new law enhances the credit by eliminating the repayment obligation for taxpayers that purchase homes on or after January 1, 2009. It also extends the credit through the end of November 2009, and bumps up the maximum value of the credit from $7,500 to $8,000.

    Tax break for new car purchasers. The new law allows taxpayers to deduct State and local sales taxes paid on the purchase of a new automobile, including light trucks, SUVs, motorcycles, and motor homes. The tax break phases out starting with taxpayers earning $125,000 per year ($250,000 for joint returns). The deduction is allowed to both those who itemize their deductions as well as to nonitemizers. However, the deduction cannot be taken by a taxpayer who elects to deduct State and local sales taxes in lieu of State and local income taxes.

    Incentives to hire unemployed veterans and disconnected youth. Businesses are allowed to claim a work opportunity tax credit equal to 40% of the first $6,000 of wages paid to employees of one of nine targeted groups. The new law expands the work opportunity tax credit to include two new targeted groups: (1) unemployed veterans; and (2) disconnected youth. Individuals qualify as unemployed veterans if they were discharged or released from active duty from the Armed Forces during 2008, 2009 or 2010 and received unemployment compensation for more than four weeks during the year before being hired. Individuals qualify as disconnected youths if they are between the ages of 16 and 25 and have not been regularly employed or attended school in the past 6 months.

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50. To those of you not being posted:

    If you think that the stimulus is coming to Appalachia, does this mean you’ve actually read it?

    And if you keep inviting me to leave Appalachia, I may turn up on your doorstep. Now there’s Appalachia coming right to your house to mooch off you. That would be annoying.

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51. Oh, yes, local graft.

    We don’t quite have the stage of politicos using arson, but old-boys’-networking and you scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours? Tell me about it.

    We’ve just come out of about a decade of public tribunals, costing millions upon millions, about allegations of corruption and bribery in regard to development involving both local and national government. Result? Only one guy so far ever saw the inside of a jail cell for a very limited time, and he’s since died in a car accident. Everyone knows there was graft but there’s no prospect of anything being done about it.

    That’s the problem: when the people in charge of the system are milking it for every cent they can get, then the honest idiots like you and me who pay our taxes and do our jobs are the ones who lose out. And those who need help don’t get it, and for generation after generation it goes on – businesses won’t come into the area because there’s nothing there to attract them; if there are government grants alloted to attract them, there’s a queue lined up to stick their fingers in the pie and pull out the plums for themselves, and meanwhile Joe Public can go whistle.

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52. Just to clarify, I had no intention of saying bad things about Mississippi. It’s a common joke here, but I realize that it could be hurtful and I apologize.

    However, I don’t mind if the people in Mississippi say “Thank God for Arkansas.” We deserve it. We brought our current situation on ourselves.

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53. I grew up in the Ozark Mountains in one of the poorest counties in Arkansas, which so lags the nation in just about everything that our state motto ought to be “Thank God for Mississippi.”

    I don’t know anything about Appalachia but here the educational problem is two-fold. Of course the facilities and teachers aren’t world class, but the deeper problem is cultural.

    Education just isn’t a value. Schools exist to provide sports teams to the local community. Parents seem to see nothing wrong with a mediocre education, because if someone gets too smart, they’re liable to leave the state.

    Moving back here put a severe strain on my marriage. I had absolutely no desire to raise my child in this environment. It’s sad, but part of the deal I cut with my wife is that my daughter would attend the best private school in the state. That way 100% of her peers are headed to college, unlike my high school, where people who went to college were aberrations.

    Now distance education is beginning to spread, offering children access to first-class instruction from anywhere. A large emphasis of mine, before I retired from the corporate world just in time to have my nest egg shredded, was a similar strategy for work – telework.

    In a knowledge economy it matters not where you live because the work comes to you over the internet. My wife was able to pursue her career from state to state because I worked at home through 6 different bosses, 4 different jobs and 3 promotions. I made it work.

    I have flirted with the idea of starting a non-profit here to work on it, but the missing link is education. If a company can now hire the best workers from anywhere, then the competition for those jobs is going to be fierce. The best bet may be to convince those Arkansans who have moved away to move back, along with their jobs, and bring their good taxable incomes with them.

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54. I’m glad that the TV knows who you are, Michael.

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55. I’m going to moderate this post very narrowly. If you folks want to talk about the stimulus bill, I won’t post it.

    I know everyone is upset, but Appalachia isn’t the cause of America’s banking and credit woes, believe it or not.

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56. Timothy

    About 20% of Kentucky’s tobacco comes from Appalachian counties that the ARC has labeled as “economically distressed.” As you point out, Western KY produces a large amount of tobacco, but this does not mean that many farmers in Appalachia do not rely on tobacco. They have relied on tobacco for so long, because as you have pointed out there is not a ton of acreage on which to farm. There were also government measures to make tobacco financially rewarding for such farmers. Therefore, in most cases farmers can find the highest profits by growing tobacco on limited acreage. This is why I suggested that limited government intervention might be beneficial for Eastern KY agriculture by making it more financially rewarding to diversify. The success of farmers growing things besides tobacco for local consumers will positively benefit the community. People will begin to take ownership for their local land, and seek to clean it up from the litter problems, and ultimately protect it from coal abuse. Also, as a greater sense of community grows, we can hope that education, and retention of college grads will also improve. I do not believe that successful agriculture means the 500 acre farms I grew up seeing in Ohio.
    Many crops can be grown here, and they have for 200 years. Also, with the growing interests in PawPaws and ginseng there are countless possibilities. Some farmer’s markets thrive right now in my county, and I have no reason to believe that more wouldn’t.

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57. You are right. I am angry at how ungrateful the recipients of this Stimulus Bill are.

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58. Kevin: You said some good things, but by making “YOU” the subject of every sentence, you’re insulting me- I don’t throw my trash in a creek, etc- and everyone else reading. You also seemed to be really angry, and I’m not promoting a brawl or shouting contest.

    As for your tax money, I’d be happy to give my portion back to you? How much can I send you, along with a copy of all the New Testament verses about paying your taxes.

    And you are right- no one owes us a living. Great point.

    Thanks to you, I’m turning on comment moderation. Everyone will be waiting a few minutes before their comments appear.

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59. I agree, Martha. I don’t believe that schools (and churches) can’t be run like businesses. I think we are all seeing the outcome of that with healthcare. In a business, one can calculate how long it takes to make a widget, how much the material and labor costs, and how much marketing and other things will cost. With education, how long and how much effort it takes to get a kid to write well, or understand algebra, or comprehend why the Civil War was fought is not so easily measured. Each widget is the same, and is made the same; each child is not. I have a sibling that is a nurse, and she is seeing the results of running healthcare under a business model and it’s not pretty.

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60. In the Blue Ridge section of Appalachia, where I live, The Government is a big part of the problem. The FBI is very busy at our courthouse,I just blogged on two judges who sold out the future of juveniles. Our Congressman for life funded his family in a failed government sponsored business, nobody cares. We have the remnant of Coal mine mentality.
    30 more Catholic churches are closing, that must be a bad sign when Rome gives up on you.
    The Answer? Somebody has to make widgets. We need manufacturing here, not in Mexico or China.

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61. H. Lee:

    There are almost NO factories in Clay Co.

    Factories don’t come here. 17 years I’ve been here. No factories. You want a job? They get ready to drive an hour, because there are no factories here, because local culture and local government, addicted to government benefits and the illegal economy, don’t care.

    40 Miles away, they are everywhere.

    50 miles away, medical centers of every kind.

    But in Clay Co., a government welfare state where government jobs have been promised as the savior for at least 50 years, NO FACTORIES.

    Same with almost all private business. And this in an area where labor is cheap. Wal-Mart has a small unit here, but refuses to open a large one because they won’t be able to find enough skilled local people to run it. That’s us.

    Government jobs? No. Private industry that comes and stays. Not government make-work jobs.

    Will short term jobs “boost” the economy? Maybe. Will it attract other businesses? No. Absolutely not.

    ms

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62. Patrick Rowe is right, btw. And the reason that isn’t happened is, again, a combination of the local culture and corrupt leadership.

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63. I see *no* evidence that “private industry is much better at working within economic constraints to achieve a positive outcome than is the public sector.” We are in this current economic disaster precisely because private industry was left to do its thing, completely independent of government or any other type of interference. The result: economic collapse followed by bailouts of Wall Street, the banks, and the automakers by *us,* the taxpayers, and our grandchildren.

    “Infrastructure: Again, if you can build roads, bridges and sewers in such a way that local governments will do what they should do to get private sector jobs to locate here as a result, great.”

    I’m not sure why we have to go all around this convoluted path to get jobs to the area (get local governments to get private sector jobs to locate here…) Why not provide federal jobs that can start now, al la Roosevelt’s WPA. We are still using those roads and bridges these 70 years later; they were built well. But they need upgrading or replacement. The jobs of building the roads and bridges and so forth would go to local people and be paid for by “the government” — which is to say, us. I’d gladly have my tax dollars go there. Yes, it might be “short term,” only several years, but it would greatly boost the local economy, thus attracting that “private sector” investment like new stores and other services.

    And I don’t see why the federal government (= us) and the “private sector” have to be bitter enemies. Why not have them cooperate? As Michael said, “The owner of a garage I used to patronize told me that he couldn’t pay his help as much as they would make on welfare and government benefits…” I agree this is a real problem. Well, then, reduce the government benefits for those who can work but aren’t working, and add in some benefits for those who are working at the local garage or the corner store.

    It doesn’t seem to me this would take a rocket scientist to figure out. Therefore, I’m afraid that Michael’s speculation may be true: “You live in some of these counties long enough, you have to wonder if local leaders really want factories, etc to come here.”

    I’m sure they don’t. They’d lose their power base. If you haven’t already, read “Night Comes to the Cumberlands.”

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64. I’ve written on the culture of poverty in previous IM pieces. Do a search on “Appalachia” in the site search. I wasn’t doing an analysis of that issue in this post.

    The corruption in government and education in the poorest of SE Kys counties can’t be appreciated by those of you in other areas. You have no reference point, trust me. Example.

    The mayor of our county seat had local thugs burn down a house so a police station could be built with his name on it. A local 911 coordinator was convicted of selling drugs.

    There are a lot of good people in Eastern Ky, but the temptation of easy money and government money combined with the tribal nature of life here touches almost everyone.

    ms

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65. Timothy:

    Ryan lives in South Eastern Ky. He won’t need Google.

    Tobacco is a large cash crop here in Clay Co Ky. There are hundreds of large tobacco fields within 10 miles of where Ryan and I live. There are several farms raising nothing but tobacco. We drive past the largest tobacco fields I’ve ever seen every time we go to Wal Mart. And I grew up in western Ky.

    Eastern Ky is not all mountains/flood plain. It isn’t entirely friendly to agriculture, but then ag hasn’t been very innovative here either. I agree that Eastern Ky isn’t Nebraska farm country, but Eastern Ky could be doing a lot that it isn’t currently doing, esp on a smaller scale. We’ve had University of Ky ag staff here many times and they have a lot of great ideas- goats, catfish, hemp etc- that can be successful in smaller scale agriculture.

    Tobacco’s appeal in Ky is that it’s a cash crop that can make a return far beyond the investment. Same reason we have a lot of marijuana being grown here.

    ms

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66. No one in the world is “providing the best education possible”. No one in the real world can operate without financial constraints. What many of us see is that private industry is much better at working within economic constraints to achieve a positive outcome than is the public sector. If you give the government enough money they are capable of a good outcome but “enough money” may be impoverishing for everyone else.

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67. So, IMonk, are you considering a run for public office?

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68. I should reveal my bias; my brother is a teacher, and my Lord, the teachers have the best union in the country (actually, this being Ireland, land of “after we form the society, the first thing on the agenda will be the split”, they have the three best unions in the country) so I get what you’re saying about entrenched practices.

    But my brother also taught for a while in England, where the governments of various stripes have been messing about with the education system in response to perceived failures and “it’s not turning out the kind of school-leavers that businesses want”. End result? You would not *believe* the paperwork involved. All the boxes to be ticked that the teacher is hitting the targets – I genuinely do not know how they get the time to teach.

    Yes, it’s a disgrace that pupils are leaving school unable to read fluently, write legibly, or do basic maths, but it’s just as bad to go back to the “Hard Times” model of Mr. Gradgrind where the pupils are to be stuffed with useful facts then churned out like sausages for work in the box factories.

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69. Sounds like you have the same problem as the west of my country: “You can’t eat scenery”.

    Yes, it’s picturesque, but it’s poor, so the solution for the past two centuries has been emigration.

    I do get your point about corruption and waste in the school system, and the folly of throwing good money after bad. But as regards running schools like businesses, what is the profit? That’s what a business is for – to create profit for its owners. Not to create jobs, not to provide a service to the local economy, but to create profit (that’s what was hammered into our heads when we were being trained about looking for work – ‘a business is not a charity’).

    Now, if the ‘profit’ is turning out ’employable people’, then yes. But being connected with local education here, and having family members who were involved in teaching in the neighbouring island, there’s a lot of things that can go on.

    With the points race and league tables, having school A down the rankings in the low hundreds as against school B which is up in the top ten, that means school B is a better school. Doesn’t it? Not necessarily. For one, there will be ‘cherry-picking’ of the better students for certain schools, and the ones who are less able will be left to sink or swim. If school B gets the more able, and school A gets the less able pupils, then you would expect school B to do better in the state exams. For school A, having pupils who get Cs and Ds in their exams may be a great result – since these are pupils who are less able, who would have dropped out instead of staying in school, who would never have sat exams ordinarily.

    I’ve seen this stratification here in our own town – the very able go to school A, the middle go to schools B and C, and the less academically able (including those with emotional and behavioural problems, and with special needs) come to our school D, while the mentally handicapped go to school E.

    We’re never going to have the star pupils who got seven “A*”s in their Leaving Certificate (though we had one boy who got very, very good results and walked into an apprenticeship with the national Electricity Generating company no problem), but we do as good by our pupils as we can. We depend a lot on government money. We’re always going to have the kids who throw chairs in class, who swear, fight, walk out in the middle of the day, are mixing with bad company and in danger of getting involved in petty crime (drugs, shoplifting, so on), who come from difficult home circumstances, and a certain percentage who *do* drop out in spite of all we can do (though we then do our best to steer them to the early-school leavers’ services available).

    Run our school as a business, and you’re going to purge all those undesirable elements. And where do they go then?

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70. Having performance based accountability is the bottom line, but not necessarily a private sector model. Look at health care. Let the business guys run the show and the only thing going up is the price and the bonuses. Competition, my…..

    The rewards for academic performance need to be stronger and need to include family based incentives. In addition, the professions of teaching and school administration need to be made more respectable in society’s mind. Schools have a mission, they cannot be used as an employment program for poor communities. This can only be achieved with accountability.

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71. What the original piece did not cover, and your follow-up really does not address, is the core reasons for the poverty and everything else that comes with it. Very rarely does “culture of poverty” fit better than it does in relation to Appalachia. I live in SE Ohio, and my particular county (Gallia) is not nearly as bad off as Meigs or Vinton, or counties in KY (Clay, Greenup, Floyd, et al), or the (near) entire state of WV, but it is already trending in that direction. Throwing money at the problem, whether by federal grants or “welfare” or private sector capital will not fix the problem. What needs to be addressed, and what has really been completely ignored, is what in the culture and the earliest socialization causes these attitutes and norms to develop. I have my own theories, but I’d like to see a definitive study done, like the studies that have been done on inner city and urban cultures of poverty. And, unlike those studies, I’d like to see the findings actually met- head on- so that meaningful solutions can be crafted and implemented. But most people can agree that the problem begins at home.

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72. >Ryan CordleL: “I think a lot of good would come from making it financially more rewarding for Appalachian farmers to grow crops to sell”

    While this sounds good, exactly just what crop and where is the farmland on which to grow it?

    Appalachia is mountainous, with steep forested hillsides and little bottom land. Most bottom land is flood plain including the existing towns. Have you ever looked at Eastern KY with Google Maps and Google Street View? Feel free to point out the farmland. Note the flood walls.

    >”Besides the fact that growing tobacco is ridiculously hard work.”

    Um, tobacco is by and large not grown in Appalachia. You may have confused Western KY with Eastern KY. You won’t find much tobacco, if any, in any of the Google links to the area. I spent a week driving the hollers of Eastern KY where my people once lived and don’t recall ever seeing tobacco, which is a big plant and hard to miss. There may have been some over by Bowling Green, but not in the backbone of Applachia.

    The imonk’s ideas are spot on. We went out of our way to spend our money at mom and pop diners and motels. I’d encourage others to come visit and leave some of your cash in local hands.

    God bless the fine people of Appalachia…

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73. Having lived in Appalachia for 10 years I noticed that it is one of the prettiest places in America. I have been to both coasts and at least 20 states. There is a vast potential for outdoor recreation and resorts there. A system of trails, navigable rivers, hunting, fishing, camping, and eco-tourism opportunities should be provided. Private landowners should be provided with incentives for allowing their land to be accessed for those activities. For example, the Dept of Fish and Wildlife Resources in KY charges a nominal fee (last time I checked it was $10 or $20) just to apply for a quota hunt for Elk. Thousands of instate and out of state hunters applied even though only 40 or 50 licenses would be offered. I recall hiking on a plateau in Clay County that was absolutely beautiful and rivaled any other view I have seen in America. Any successfull organization in America will tell you that the reason they are successful is because they emphasize their strengths and improve thier weaknesses. Another example, McDonalds is doing great in this economy because it has emphasized the marketing of its basic products, Wal-Mart is doing the same. The Dominican Republic is taking this same idea and building a huge tourism business. Ky is within a days drive of most of the population.

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74. Preach on, preach on.

    I agree with all of your points, especially the need for jobs. That is my major concerns about our economy right now. All the manufacturing jobs are going to where they pay less, and have less regulations for safety and the environment.

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75. Having done home/public/private/religous schooling for my kids, I agree with mr. imonk.

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76. Captain Noble:

    I obviously was being hyperbolic in saying that I’d like UPS and Wal Mart to run schools. And I didn’t mean simply for profit. I meant like a serious business.

    ms

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77. Scott M:

    >9) Give a full state tuition scholarship to every student fulfilling a list of requirements including: 3.5 GPA minimum, community service or employment, clean legal/driving record, graduation from high school. Make the scholarship 4 years contingent on maintaining a similar record in college. Pay all college expenses for students coming back to Appalachia to work in a helping profession.

    >3) Wipe out all college loans for people who work for five years in Appalachia in a helping profession.

    And I don’t believe I said anything about “returning” anyone to anything. I said here’s some things the government can do.

    If you mean am I against public education, then the answer is no. I’m the most outspoken advocate of public schools you’ll find among other conservative evangelical bloggers. But the public schools here are awash in horrible graft and corruption. Dumping Federal money into these schools is not the right thing to do.

    ms

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78. 2) Get out of the education business and get the private business sector into it. Make Appalachia a showplace for school systems run by private, not public, corporations. I’d love to see a school system run by Wal-Mart or UPS. End the competition for the federal money trough. Reward businesses for investing in- even starting and running- school systems.

    Really? The big problem with a company like Wal-Mart running a school is that Wal-Mart is focused on profit. Running a school is (or should be) about providing the best possible education for every student there. There is a difference in these goals and if push comes to shove Wal-Mart (or any other corporation) will come down on the side of profit because they are required by law to do so.

    Now, if you want to talk about a non-profit entity running a school, I think you may have something there. Of course, I think insurance companies should be non-profit, too, so what the heck do I know?

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79. I think a lot of good would come from making it financially more rewarding for Appalachian farmers to grow crops to sell at local markets and small grocery chains rather than tobacco. As the number of small farms continue to increase in the Mid-Atlantic and Midwest, people are growing accustomed to buying from local farmers. Besides the fact that growing tobacco is ridiculously hard work, selling vegetables and fruits locally would benefit agricultural and community pride. Corruption, damages from coal (strip mining, especially), some of the bad education here I think are in many ways perpetuated by the dependence Appalachians have on the government. Creating and sustaining a more practical agriculture will once again allow Appalachians to really own their land.

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80. Hmmm. So do you want to return to the era where only those who could afford it could get an education? Or do you want to invite the sort of graft and corruption and poor performance we’ve certainly seen in Texas charter schools and which you seem to recognize is inevitable in other industries. I couldn’t tell from your post which path you were advocating for education.

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81. Nice piece. Thanks.

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