Talking addiction

Here's the latest edition of The Front Porch podcast by way of WV Public Broadcasting. This week we talked about West Virginia's heroin/opioid/prescription drug problem and some possible solutions. 

Today in coal

How's this for randomness: a court decides that Alpha Natural Resources needs to pay for former Massey CEO Don Blankenship's legal fees. I'm not sure about the legal niceties but I think I'm with Alpha on this. I'm guessing the court ruled this was part of the deal for assuming Massey's liabilities.

Then there's this: WV coal production has been projected to drop by nearly 40 percent over the next 20 years from its 2008 high point. Most of that drop is expected to occur in southern WV, while production in the northern part of the state is comparatively stable.

I'm not sure how WV's ruling class will be able to blame all this on you-know-who but I'm guessing they'll find a way.

A road to nowhere

Want to get there fast? As in nowhere? Keep cutting corporate taxes and slashing job training and higher education. The sad part is the newish WV legislative majority may want to go nowhere even faster.

A little reality therapy-UPDATED

Note: sorry, but the earliest version of this post had a fault link. It's corrected below.

Memo to WV Republicans who want to deform I mean reform WV's taxes: if you really care about our future, fix the roads and help the schools.

Memorial Day

I have discovered over the years that my appetite for reading and learning about the Civil War era is pretty much boundless.There's always another angle to explore. I write that shortly after finally finishing Eric Foner's The Fiery Trial: Abraham Lincoln and American Slavery.

Appropriate for today is the belated acknowledgment of the Civil War era African-American roots of this holiday. For more, check here and here. Here's to putting more memory into Memorial Day.