Thought for the day

I thought I was pretty familiar with the writings of Frederick Douglass, but I came across another good one today that was new to me. The context was a press conference I attended whereat some heavy hitters, including legislators and a US attorney, called on WV Gov. Early Ray Tomblin to fully restore cuts to domestic violence and early childhood programs.

The governor partially restored funding to some programs yesterday, but this was one-time money taken from other revenues targeted for children. Those at the press conference wanted a full restoration of around $1 million in funding to be divided between several programs. One speaker pointed out that $1 million amounts to "a rounding error" compared with the size of the whole state budget. Specific sources of funding were identified as well.

But I digress...the quote was cited by Booth Goodwin, US Attorney for the Southern District of West Virginia., who talked about how much cheaper it is to help kids get a good start in life than to deal with them once things have gone wrong.

Here's what Douglass said: "It is easier to build strong children than to repair broken men." I think that would apply to women as well.

I WISH I'D WRITTEN THIS item on the water crisis, coal, climate, WV politics and all that mess.

SPEAKING OF WV, workers die on the job here at twice the national rate.

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED