"Park That Thought:" No Driving To the Inaugural and a Roundup of Southern News

The US Capitol, Washington, DC

(reprinted under creative common license)

Here's a snapshot of Southern trends. The South is one of the nation's most dynamic regions for population growth and has a unique opportunity to assume national leadership in job development, educational reform, lower energy costs, new infrastructure materials, and green home building. But the region also faces the age-old problems embedded in human genetics and society that stick to the American flypaper: crime, poverty, job losses, personal conflicts, and attitudes that are the mantras of times past. Here's a roundup of stories from this remarkable American region.

• Almost one out of ten residents of Florida are receiving food stamps, according to a newspaper report. Over two years, this is an increase of 40 percent, the nation's highest. The number of residents totals more 1.7 million people.
  
  

• Black bears have exploded in population in South Carolina since 2004, and seen in 36 of the state's 46 counties. But the bears better be wary. Despite their size of 600 pounds and their gentle presence, one recent comment remarked, "if he's (a bear) in my yard, and I can get my weapon, his head will adorn my mantle." And of course, another comment reminded everyone, "if not for hunters and fishers, there would be no deer, ducks, bears, etc." Go figure the logic of that for yourself.
  
  

Black bear (ucumari's photo/flickr; reprinted under the creative commons license)

• The sheriff of Morgan County in northern Alabama made over $200,000 in the last three years operating the food service for the county jail; every penny legal and reported on his taxes. But the cold grits got him in trouble. Or maybe it was the undercooked chicken. The sheriff shaved his bologna slices to shave costs, and after hearing complaints from half-starved prisoners, a federal district judge ordered the sheriff arrested and put in lock-down in his own jail. The sheriff's profit margins were generated on the $1.75 per day the state alloted for prisoners meals. The executive director of the Alabama Sheriffs Association said that the Morgan County arrest "will be real far reaching."
  
  

• The Tennessee toxic spill of coal ash (the national media simply calls in "sludge") is a window that America needs to stare through. The country will be shocked and appalled by what it sees. Not only does the spill contains arsenic, chromium, lead, nickel, selenium and thallium, tests show that coal ash is more radioactive than nuclear waste! The spill is over 50 feet tall, and contains more than 5.4 million cubic yards of wet coal ash which spilled when its dirt retaining wall give way in Kingston. Over one billion gallons of toxic sludge spilled into three Tennessee rivers- three times the size of the oil spill from the Exxon Valdez! The coal ash was generated by TVA coal-fired electric generating plants. Thirteen states have unlined retaining ponds for toxic coal ash, and the TVA has six of the EPA's annual "Top Fifty" for levels of concentration for toxic chemicals. Many of these ponds are leaking waste into the ground water and soil of their surrounding areas.
  
  

• The southern axiom that "fish is brain food" has now been certified by the Healthy Babies Coalition, a organization of a 150 parent, pediatric, medical, and scientific groups concerned with child health and natal nutrition. Twelve ounces a fish a week is the required consumption for expectant mothers. The fear of trace mercury from polluted waters appearing in fish produced a scare that often resulted in pregnant women eliminating fish from their diets.
  
  
• 
  
  
  
  (reprinted under fair use for educational purposes)
  
  

• For Barack Obama's inauguration next Tuesday, the US Secret Service has announced a complete ban of personal automobiles driving into DC from VA bridges and from the beltway and interstate in MD. During the day, all lanes will be open to traffic leaving DC. If you were thinking of driving to the inauguration, park that thought.
  
  

(reprinted under fair use for educational purposes)



The Iowa State Capitol (reprinted with permission under creative commons license,

Jon Favel, www.flickr.com/photos/jfravel)

• Two juvenile suspects face charges for a plot to kill students and faculty at the Virginia School for the Deaf and Blind, whose campus is located in Staunton, and was established in 1838 by the state assembly.
  
  

• One good thing to come out of New Orleans since the devastation of Katrina, is the "Silence is Violence" campaign. The organization, whose purpose is to change the community climate that has resulted in 580 murders in New Orleans since Katrina, rallies today at noon on the steps of City Hall. The noon rally will proclaim to the city that citizens "will not accept conditions that are unacceptable." The names of each person murdered in the last year will be read aloud at the rally. Twenty-five businesses are donating five percent of today's business receipts to public safety organizations. Later in the day, a motorcade will visit the sites of many of the slayings, and a vigil is planned for tonight. Add your prayer for the success of their mission and work.
  
  

• Also from New Orleans is the report of the swearing-in of US Representative Anh Cao, the first of member of Vietnamese descent to win election to the US House. Cao, whose father was a South Vietnamese Lieutenant sent to a "re-education" camp after the South's fall, was in the House gallery along with Cao's mother, wife and four year-old daughter. Cao represents the majority black district of former Rep. William Jefferson who is under federal indictment.
  
  

Do some good today, somewhere, for somebody. Also go out and help restore common sense, the grandest and most basic of Southern traditions!



(reprinted under the creative commons license)