High water everywhere

As the week draws to a close, Bob Dylan's song High Water is going through my head. I like the song, but it's a bit too real at the moment. The ongoing rain has mucked up the barn, is filling up the creek, and is likely to cause the mighty Mud River to rise up in its wrath. This is one time I'm hoping for snow.

Like Dylan said, it's gettin' rough out there. High water everywhere.

 MORE ON THE MINIMUM WAGE. Here's coverage from yesterday's action in Charleston. Speaking of fast food, it looks like the article fed a couple of trolls.

GOOD NEWS BAD NEWS. The good news from the world of corrections is that WV Governor Tomblin's decision to expand Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act could save the state millions in inmate health costs. It could also reduce the size of the pipeline to prison and make reconnecting to community life easier.

On the other hand, it looks like a prominent private prison profiteer is looking longingly on the WV "market."

GETTING REAL. Here's Paul Krugman on President Obama's inequality speech and why it matters.

SAIL ON.  Finally, here's a fond farewell salute to Nelson Mandela. By coincidence, today I finished listening to Joseph Ellis' His Excellency: George Washington. This passage from the end of the book seems fitting. I hope I'm getting it right:

"Unlike Julius Caesar and Oliver Cromwell before him, and Napoleon, Lenin, and Mao after him, he understood that the greater glory resided in posterity's judgment. If you aspire to live forever in the memory of future generations, you must demonstrate the ultimate self-confidence to leave the final judgment to them. And he did."