Another rurality-as-muse story

It is here, in this NPR story about the latest album from Over the Rhine.  The album is called "Meet Me At the End of the World," and Karen Bergquist and Linford Detweiler say it's named after their farm, an hour outside their former home, Cincinnati.  (Over the Rhine is, in fact, named after a Cincinnati neighborhood).  In the interview with David Greene, they say they're making "untamed music ... found in the rough edges of land around their home."  Here are some other rich excerpts from the story:  

The couple says the music they've made of late has grown from their deep roots in their home state — be it a tree on their property that often provides flashes of songwriting inspiration ...

This is a quote from Detweiler:

Yeah, it feels like we have roots here in Ohio. I was born in Ohio. Karin grew up in Barnesville, Ohio, near Wheeling, W.Va. And I guess we maybe thought, you know, as young aspiring songwriters, that we would eventually relocate to Nashville or New York. That would have been great, but we were always kind of haunted by the idea of staying here, staying put where we had some roots. I think some of these other American writers that we immediately associate with place — people like Robert Frost or Flannery O'Connor or Wendell Berry or whoever, there's sort of a particular piece of earth associated with their work. I guess for us, that's Ohio. And we've stayed here. 

* * *  

Both Karin and I grew up around a lot of gospel music and we're grateful for that. I have been known to say there could have been no Johnny Cash or Elvis Presley without the music they were exposed to in their mother's hymnals. Those old hymns are just a part of the American musical tapestry; they get in your bones and they never leave.

White supremacist puts down roots in North Dakota

John Eligon reports in today's New York Times form Leith, North Dakota, population 16 (or 24, depending on your source), where white supremacist Craig Cobb has been buying up parcels of land since last year.  Eligon reports that Cobb plans to turn the place into a white nationalist center, and that he has transferred some of the lots he has purchased to fellow white nationalists. Eligon writes:

In the past two years, Mr. Cobb, a longtime proselytizer for white supremacy who is wanted in Canada on charges of promoting hatred, has bought a dozen plots of land in Leith (pronounced Leeth) and has sold or transferred ownership of some of them to a couple of like-minded white nationalists. 

He is using Craigslist and white power message boards to entice others in the movement to take refuge in Leith, about two hours southwest of Bismarck. On one board, he detailed his vision for the community — an enclave where residents fly “racialist” banners, where they are able to import enough “responsible hard core” white nationalists to take control of the town government, where “leftist journalists or antis” who “come and try to make trouble” will face arrest. 

* * * 

It is all people are talking about, in bars and in their homes, at funerals and at church. They are poking around on the Web to read Mr. Cobb’s positions for themselves. A stream of cars creep through the streets where horses occasionally trot, their passengers hoping to catch a glimpse of some action or take a peek at Mr. Cobb’s peeling, two-story clapboard home. Sheriff’s cars, too, are making more rounds.

Cobb said he was working in the state's booming oil fields until last week, when he lost his job after the story broke regarding his plans for Leith.  

Amazingly, Leith is large and organized enough to have a mayor, Ryan Shock, who says he and the city council have put in place a "suicide pact."  Well, Eligon calls it a "doomsday plan":  

If enough of Mr. Cobb’s friends move in to gain a majority that could vote out the current government, the Council would immediately dissolve the town.

Leith is in nonmetropolitan Grant County, population 2,394, in southwest North Dakota.  The population is 97.3% white, and the poverty rate is a shockingly low 12.4%.  One of very few African Americans in the county lives in Leith, and he features in Eligon's story, as do religion and community.  It's worth a read in its entirety.  

Making art from coming of age in small-town America

Robin Hilton reviews Okkervil River's new album, The Silver Gymnasium, on NPR today, and the piece begins like this:

I grew up in a town of about 6,000 people in rural Kansas back in the '70s and '80s. I've never romanticized it much, though it was certainly a simpler time and, for better or worse, it's where I learned to make some sense of my life. The world you inhabit when you come of age in your teen years has a way of digging its claws in you. As the years pass, no matter how far you try to get away from it, it stays with you. The people, the places, the sounds and even the smells become a part of your DNA.

That second sentence--to track Hilton's physiological metaphor--grabbed me by the throat. (A similar sentiment is expressed by an Appalachian writer here).  As I have aged and become a parent, I have seen just how deeply embedded those claws are.  Those claws are manifest in my writing about my hometown, which I do a lot--here.  I rationalize recording even the mundane by saying I am looking for trends relevant to my scholarly work, but I know the exercise is about more than that.  

Today's NPR review is accompanied by this multi-media feature, that includes a map of Meriden, New Hampshire, the home town of Okkervil River's Will Sheff.  It also features photos of Meriden, Sheff, and his family, along with some of Sheff's reflections from his childhood years, when he dreamt of running away from his parents but got only as far as a tree top he climbed.  

A few days ago, NPR did this story on The Silver Gymnasium, including this lede, which echoes some of the same themes as today's story and feature.  

It's human nature to romanticize a specific time and place in the past — a moment when everything felt just right, or opportunities were laid out like a banquet. For Okkervil River's Will Sheff, it's been impossible to let go of Meriden, N.H., circa 1986: That tiny town is where he spent his childhood (he turned 10 that summer) and where his parents taught at an area boarding school. Meriden is where Sheff's visions of youth and innocence reside, even as he's gone on to live in Austin and Brooklyn, and to tour the world. 

Sheff sets Okkervil River's seventh album, The Silver Gymnasium, square in the heart of his own childhood; in the specific spot that produced his most sepia-toned memories. As such, the record captures not only his own autobiographical details, but also musical cues from the era.

P.S.  On August 30, the New York Times ran this feature on the new Okkervil River album.  Jonathan Meiburg, an early member of Okkervil River who participated in making The Silver Gymnasium calls the project “an elaborate and stylized exercise in nostalgia.”

Law and Order in the Ozarks (Part CXX): Still trying to open that jail

Various issues of the Newton County Times this summer reported on several "law and order" issues, including ongoing efforts to get funds to open the new jail, which was dedicated about year ago, but which remains closed due to lack of operating funds. (Read related posts here and here). The Newton County Quorum Court (essentially the County Board of Supervisors) is seeking a $400K grant from the Arkansas Rural Development Commission "using $1,050,000 in community cash and in-kind services used to build the facility as the local match."  The $400K would fund operations and purchase equipment and furnishings.

The Mt. Sherman Historical Community Center also applied for an Arkansas Rural Development Commission grant for $14.435.  If granted, the funds would be used to make the front porch handicap accessible, build a back porch, replace doors, construct a handicapped ramp and fad and finish the interior with drywall and paint.  

The Newton County Fair Association requested $15,000 from a General Improvement Fund County Fair Grant.  The funds would be used to build a fence around the grounds with "6-foot-tall 11 gauge chain link fence with two 12-foot rolling gates and a six-foot-tall walk-in gate.  I note that some vandalism of the fair grounds has occurred in recent years.  Earlier this summer, the Fair Association sought a $4k grant to assist in adding air conditioning to the main concession stand.  The Association raised $4,258 through "community case and in-kind donations to be applied to the project as a local match."  

The Quorum Court also noted receipt of the following unanticipated funds:  

• $9,800 from the state to purchase voting equipment.
• $37,854.50 from the Federal Emergency Management Agency for payments due from previous years' disasters
• $361.20 in restitution appropriated into the county road and machinery fund. 

In other news, the Newton County Volunteer Fire Association wants access to an old tower, once used by the U.S. Army Corp of Engineers and located between Bass and Lurton.  They need access in order to attach a radio repeater which would improve communications between the country's rural fire departments.  The Association and the Quorum Court are investigating how to gain access, because it is unclear whether the Corp of Engineers still has an easement since the tower was decommissioned in 2003.    

An auction of four parcels of land on which taxes are overdue has yielded $61,189.95.  The State Land Commissioner's office conducts one tax-delinquent land sale per county per year.  Seventeen bidders attended the sale on July 16.  The owners of the property on which taxes had not been paid were given the opportunity to pay those taxes before the properties were auctioned.  

The county coroner has announced the need for deputies to help carry out duties on a part-time basis.  The deputies would be paid per call, plus mileage.  Anyone interested in helping carry out the duties of corner "in a respectful manner" should contact coroner Cody Middleton, who is in his first term in this elected office.  

NPR highlights role of elite Native American firefighters

Kirk Seigler reports today on the Geronimo Hotshots' participation in fighting the Rim Fire, the massive wildfire raging outside Yosemite National Park in central California.   The Geronimo Hotshots are based on the San Carlos Apache Indian Reservation in nonmetropolitan Gila County, Arizona.  Seigler notes that fighting fires is one of few ways for young men here and on similar reservations to earn a living.  Members of these elite crews, who are hardly home at all over the summer as they are dispatched from fire to fire around the West, earn up to $40,000 a year.  As Seigler notes, that goes a long way on a high-poverty Indian reservation.  Seigler provides this vignette:

The only restaurant in town is the San Carlos Cafe. It's in a worn stone building built by the U.S. government at the turn of the 20th century. The menu on the wall features the hot shot breakfast burrito. The owner, Jo Lazo, says the firefighters are looked up to here. 

"I like to say our Apache men are the strongest of all firefighters. I think it just goes down through genealogy and the struggle that we had many, many years ago. We never go down without a fight," she says. 

Lazo is proud and pragmatic. The Hotshot crew members are regulars here, and that's good for business. But the tribe and the Bureau of Indian Affairs also employ hundreds more seasonal firefighters. During a big fire year, everyone has more money in his or her pocket, including Lazo. Her cafe caters all the meals for the crews if there's a wildfire near here. 

"And it's sad when there is a fire because we do lose a lot of vegetation, but it's essential and it's been essential for years," Lazo says.

Seigler quotes Jose Alvarez Santi, Jr., 25, who says the work is rewarding, but being away from home can be tough.  Santi has a three-year-old son.  

I don't really see it as a job.  Being out away from my family — that's the part that I'm down about, is just being away.

Rural entrepreneurs strike it rich with duck stuff

See the New York Times story today, on the front page of the Business Section, about the family featured on "Duck Dynasty," one of the most popular shows on TV right now.  Of the Robertson family of West Monroe, Louisiana, journalist Bill Carter writes that their "conscious dive into the entertainment world has lifted a regional business into an international phenomenon":

They certainly are stars now — the subjects of the biggest reality show hit in the history of cable television, “Duck Dynasty,” which has shattered ratings records this summer, reaching a high of 11.8 million viewers for the season premiere this month. 

But in the more contained world of ducks, guns and camouflage gear, the Robertsons were already celebrities thanks to the family’s core business: sales of duck gear, especially duck calls. 

Now the range of merchandise attached to the Robertson name is so vast — shirts, caps, coolers, books, edibles, hunting gear of every kind — that keeping track of it has become almost impossible, said Willie Robertson, scion of the Robertson clan and president of the Duck Commander company.

Carter depicts Willie Robertson as quite the wheeler-dealer, quoting him in relation to his father, Phil, who founded Duck Commander.  Willie returned to the family business after several years running children's camps, at which point he

realized his father had created a strong brand, but 'he had pretty much run out of ideas.  

He didn’t know how to take it to the next level, and it might have started a downward slide, like a lot of family businesses do. 

* * *  

I was able to watch the family business from afar.  I was able to come in with a lot of energy and a vision for growing it even bigger.

"Bigger" includes so much Duck Dynasty paraphernalia that it sells in six different departments at Wal-Mart.  Apparently, women like Duck Dynasty shirts as much as men do.  

One of the most interesting parts of Carter's story is the tale of how a little outdoor show "tailored more specifically to actual duck hunting" on A & E was turned into the "Duck Dynasty" viewers now know and (many) love. Carter reports that "Duck Dynasty" was envisaged as a "cross between ‘The Beverly Hillbillies’ and ‘The Waltons.’" The family dinner at the end of each episode would be like "Goodnight, John-Boy."
West Monroe, Louisiana, population 13,065, is in metropolitan Ouachita Parish, population 155,363, in northern Louisiana. 

Rural wildfire creates a state of emergency for San Francisco?

We awoke this morning to the news that Jerry Brown had declared a state of emergency in San Francisco.  (Read NPR coverage here and NYTimes coverage here).  Why, you might ask?  Has there been an earthquake?  No.

The state of emergency is because of a wildfire burning more than a hundred miles away, in a decidedly rural part of California--just outside Yosemite National Park and, more recently, also inside the park.

But rural communities are more directly affected by the fire.  They include Groveland, population 601, which is 25 miles west of the park entrance.  Under even more imminent threat are Tuolumne City, population 1,779,  Ponderosa Hills (which media are reporting has a population of a couple hundred), and Pine Mountain Lake, population 2,796, a private gated community very near to Groveland.  All of this is in nonmetropolitan Tuolumne County, which has a population of 54,008 and a population density of 24.9 persons/square mile.

The New York Times gets credit for noting (in the last two paragraphs of its story) the impact of the fire on Groveland's economy:

Usually filled with tourists, the streets of Groveland are swarming with firefighters, evacuees, and news crews, said Doug Edwards, owner of Hotel Charlotte on Main Street. 

“We usually book out six months solid with no vacancies and turn away 30-40 people a night. That’s all changed,” Mr. Edwards said. “All we’re getting for the next three weeks is cancellations. It’s a huge impact on the community in terms of revenue dollars.”

But the big story here--what seems to be garnering national headlines and Jerry Brown's attention--is the threat to San Francisco's water and power supply, much of it linked to Hetch Hetchy Reservoir.  The New York Times reported this morning:

The wildfire had already done some damage and threatened more to the lines and stations that pipe power to San Francisco, so Mr. Brown, who had declared an emergency for the fire area earlier in the week, extended it to the city. 

San Francisco also gets 85 percent of its water from the Yosemite-area Hetch Hetchy Reservoir that is about 4 miles from the fire, though that had yet to be affected. But it was forced to shut down two of its three hydroelectric power stations in the area.

At least the rural area was declared a state of emergency earlier in the week ... though that didn't make national news.  

The Los Angeles Times reports this evening:

Firefighters were able to gain containment of an area Saturday near the Hetch Hetchy water and power system, which supplies electricity and water for San Francisco. The San Francisco Public Utilities Commission has been forced to shut down two of its three hydroelectric power stations because of the fire.

The Times has also labeled the fire "one of the largest wildfires in recent California history." So far, the fire has burned more than 125,000 acres.  It is what is called a "crown fire," which means it is spreading tree-top to tree-top, rather than burning along the ground. 

This story provides yet another illustration of urban dependence on the rural.  But coverage of the story suggests that it is a dependence that urban interests stubbornly continue to acknowledge.  See a related post about other natural disasters in rural places a few years ago here.

P.S.  Nearly a week later, the New York Times is running this, "Wildlife Chokes Off Tourist Towns' Livelihood," on August 30, 2013.  The focus here is much more on the impact of the fires in closer spatial proximity to where they're occurring--in rural California.  

ACA will raise cost of farm labor--and food, too

The New York Times reported today about the consequences of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) for the cost of farm labor and, in turn, the cost of food.  Sarah Varney's story is set in California, where farm laborers are typically employed year round rather than seasonally, as the case in many other places.  (Another post about year-round ag workers is here).  Employment of full-time workers means farm labor contractors cannot easily put the "workers on a 28-hour workweek like Starbucks, Denny's and Walmart are considering" doing to avoid the ACA mandate.  It also means that the contractors, who operate on very small margins--around 2%--will have to raise the prices they charge farms, which will in turn push up food prices.

Varney writes:  

Insurance brokers and health providers familiar with California's $43.5 billion agricultural industry estimate that meeting the law's minimum health plan requirement will cost about $1 per hour employee worked in the field.     

The minimum health plan under the new law will is expected cost about $250 a month in California’s growing regions, a premium which includes a high deductible--$5K a year.  With the following vignette, Varney explains why it is not feasible to pass this insurance costs onto the workers:  

On a recent morning, Jose Romero pulled weeds from a row of lush tomato plants. Mr. Romero, 36, arrived at the field around 5 a.m. and worked until sunset. Like many of the other workers in the tomato field, he was surprised to learn that his employer, Mr. Herrin at Sunrise Farm Labor, would have to offer him health coverage, and that he could be asked to contribute up to 9.5 percent of his wages to cover the costs. 

“We eat, we pay rent and no more,” Mr. Romero said in Spanish. “The salary that they give you here, to pay insurance for the family, it wouldn’t be enough.” 

I am relieved that Varney reports a "widespread agreement among agricultural employers, insurance brokers and health plans in California that low-wage farmworkers cannot be asked to pay health insurance premiums."

On this point, Varney quotes a labor contractor, Chuck Herrin, the owner of Sunrise Farm Labor in Huron, California:  

He’s making $8 to $9 an hour, and you’re asking him to pay for something that he’s not going to use? 

The most interesting thing about this quote is the "something that he's not going to use" part.  Are Mr. Herrin's assumptions based on perceptions of Latino culture?  On the age and perceived health of the workers and their families?  

Or maybe the assumption that farm workers won't use health insurance if they have it is based on immigration status.  Varney notes the complication that immigration status poses for many of the workers because they may be in the country without papers. As one farm labor contractor in Napa Valley noted, the workers are "[n]ervous they’ll be tracked and then somehow the possibility of being identified, and the fear of being deported or not being allowed to work."

Cross-posted to Agricultural Law.

Unthinkably tragic consequences flow from teens' boredom in nonmetro Oklahoma

This tragic story out of Duncan, Oklahoma got a lot of media attention yesterday.  Apparently, the shooting death of a 22-year-old Australian by teenagers in the central Oklahoma town has been front-and-center of Australian news since it happened last Friday.  Here's the lede from NPR's report:

The killing of an Australian man who was in the U.S. on a baseball scholarship has brought grief to his hometown and to the small Oklahoma town where he was shot to death. Three teens have been arrested for the crime; one suspect says they simply had nothing better to do, the police report. 

Christopher Lane, 22, was reportedly shot in the back as he jogged down a road in Duncan, Okla., in the middle of the afternoon last Friday. He was a victim of random violence, police say, after three teens — ages 15, 16 and 17 — saw him pass a house they were in. They allegedly got in a car, followed Lane and shot him.  

The Duncan newspaper quotes the city's police chief as saying that the boys were bored and "just wanted to see [someone] die, or kill someone." Wow, that's some response to "boredom." NPR notes that the teenagers have led tragic lives.  

In Australia, former Deputy Prime Minister Tim Fischer made this statement:

Tourists thinking of going to the USA should think twice. ... This is the bitter harvest and legacy of the policies of the NRA that even blocked background checks for people buying guns at gunshows. 

People should take this into account before going to the United States. 

I am deeply angry about this because of the callous attitude of the three teenagers [but] it's a sign of the proliferation of guns on the ground in the USA. 

There is a gun for almost every American.

Meanwhile, a correspondent for an Australian broadcast station, in Duncan to report the story, stated:

In Australia it's waking up and finding that a nice young man with a lovely American girlfriend is gunned down and his body was found on the side of the street.  In the Bushland that's frightening.

I find interesting his labeling of Australia--apparently in its entirety--"Bushland."

Law and Order in the Ozarks (Part CXIX): Environmental coalition sues federal agencies over hog farm

The Newton County Times reported in the August 14, 2013 issue that conservation and citizens groups have filed suit in federal court against the USDA Farm Service Agency and the U.S. Small Business Administration for what the "plaintiffs contend is the agencies' inadequate review and improper authorization of loan guarantee assistance" to an industrial hog farm in the Buffalo National River watershed.  The suit was filed on August 6 in U.S. district court for the Eastern District of Arkansas, Western Division.  I have written here, here, here, here and here of the C & H Hog Farm, which received more than $3.4 million in loan guarantee assistance from the federal government.

Plaintiffs are the Arkansas Canoe Club, Buffalo River Watershed Alliance, National Parks Conservation Association, and the Ozark Society, and they are represented by Earthjustice, Earthrise Law Center, and Hank Bates, a Little Rock attorney.  The plaintiffs' complaints were articulated in a June 6 letter to the defendants.  According to a press release by Earthjustice, a non-profit, public interest law firm, the suit was filed only after the defending agencies made clear they will provide no remedy.  An earlier post about the contemplated lawsuit is here.

The plaintiffs contend that the federal government agencies failed to provide public notice and to undertake the environmental review and consultations that relevant laws require.  The story includes quotes from various plaintiffs.  From Debbie Doss of the Arkansas Canoe Club:

Local residents will suffer the most from this absurdly located factory farm.  Residents of Mt. Judea will be exposed, downwind, to the smell and adverse health effects of methane and hydrogen sulfide.  A swine facility this large will put children at the Mount Judea School at high risk of health impacts including asthma and other respiratory conditions.

Emily Parks of the National Parks Conservation Association is quoted, too:

We're asking the court to set aside the loan guarantees and instruct the agencies to comply. 

Rural disadvantage finally considered in lawsuit over Alabama's school choice law

Debbie Elliott reported today for NPR on a lawsuit filed by the Southern Poverty Law Center on behalf of rural and poor children who, the suit claims, will be harmed by Alabama's new school choice law, the Alabama Accountability Act.  More precisely, the allegation is that rural and poor students will not be helped by the law, while other groups of students stand to gain from the opportunity it provides for students attending a failing school to choose a different school or to have the state help pay for their attendance at a private school.  The story's lede follows:

Parents in some rural Alabama counties are asking a federal court to block a new state law that gives tax breaks to families who transfer out of failing schools. They argue that their children aren't getting a fair shot at a quality education. 

The law, passed in a controversial last-minute move by the state's Republican-controlled Legislature this year, provides a $3,500 tax credit for private school tuition or to offset the cost of transferring to a nonfailing public school. Tax breaks are also offered to people and businesses that donate to private scholarship funds to help students who can't otherwise afford to transfer.

Problem is that if you are at a "failing school" in a rural area, you probably don't have the means to get to the nearest non-failing school.  It's just not feasible.  As Elliott points out, most failing schools are surrounded by other failing schools, especially in rural areas.

Elliott quotes Mariah Russaw, whose seventh grader grandson, J.R., attends a failing school.  Russaw says she can't avail herself of the opportunity presented by the Alabama law.  

Lord have mercy. I would have to probably borrow money to get gas and I'd probably have to travel over 30 miles or longer, and I don't have the transportation to do that.

J.R. is in school in Clayton, Alabama, population 1,475. Clayton is in Barbour County, population 27,457, in southeast Alabama.  The county's poverty rate is 24.7%.

Richard Cohen, president of the Southern Poverty Law Center explains the basis for the suit:

The problem with the act is that it creates two classes of students: one group of students who can escape failing schools and another group of students who cannot by virtue of their poverty or where they happen to live.  

* * *  

They go to schools or they're in grades where there are no nonfailing schools in their counties. They also don't have the means to send their children to private schools. Many of the private schools aren't even participating.

Of the 56 private schools participating in Alabama, most are in urban and suburban areas.  

As Elliott points out, the equal protection argument being made in this case is new among suits that have challenged these sorts of school choice laws.  Most suits challenging school choice laws--which have been pushed by legislatures in many states--have been based on the first amendment establishment clause because the laws the wind up supporting parochial schools.  A total of 21 states and the District of Columbia have enacted private-school-choice policies.