You get what you pay for

West Virginia is dry as a bone right now, although it may rain tomorrow inshallah. It's so dry that dust springs up when our dogs walk across the field. The creek is dry except for a few holdout holes for the first time since 2012. Oh yeah, and fire season is  approaching.

Fall brush fires around here are not as catastrophic (for now) as those in California and other places, but they can be pretty scary. I remember one year when you could see long lines of fire snaking along the mountains of Logan County. In fact, the one on-duty injury I sustained in my short, happy and inglorious career as a volunteer fire fighter happened during a brush fire.

(Actually, it was a burn from a flare, but the flare started it.)

Anyhow, fire season and managing woodlands has gotten a bit harder lately, since the state had to lay off 37 foresters due to legislative inaction. Come to think of it, those guys might have been useful in reducing the impact of severe flooding in the future by monitoring the damage done by corporate clear cutters.

Holy hashtag failed state, Batman!

Meanwhile, the state's opioid crisis keeps rippling out. This WV Public Broadcasting story explores how it's impacting the foster care system in the state.

And, while we're at it, here's an op-ed by my friend the Rev. Matthew J. Watts about what might happen politically if all of the state's convicted felons voted. They can in WV, but many don't vote or even realize that it's legal here.

Finally, a little over a year ago I was part of an AFSC delegation to Palestine. I have many grim and sad memories of the trip. However, I have nothing but fondness when I think back on hanging with comrades and drinking Taybeh, a primo Palestinian beer.

Nothing funny about it

Arcadia S. Venus, pictured above, is another admirer of Brother Larry.

Last week I was asked to participate in the retirement roasting of Larry Matheney, a good friend who has served for years as secretary treasurer of the WV AFL-CIO. At such events, one is generally expected to say something funny about the occasion…which was precisely the challenge.

 As a rule, I can find the humor, however grim, in just about any circumstance. When my late father was full of wires and tubes in intensive care, I told him not to bother getting up when I visited him. (He marshaled the strength to perform an obscene gesture in my general direction.)

My daughter recently reminded me that when I was being wheeled away to open heart surgery, I could be heard saying “They’re not gonna get my uterus.”

I have made jokes about any number of misfortunes and disasters.

But I could find absolutely nothing funny about the retirement of Larry Matheney. He is irreplaceable. Larry is a fierce and fearless voice for social justice. Coming from the United Steelworkers, Larry is a social unionist cut from the same cloth as that other native West Virginian labor leader Walter Reuther.

 He’s the kind of person you want on your side in any serious fight for justice, whether it takes place in the streets or the halls of the legislature. He has always stood on the side of the disadvantaged, downtrodden and oppressed and he has always done whatever he could not just to make oppression bearable but to end it.

 I’m not the only person to feel this way. I know plenty of people who as irreverent as myself who view Larry as a hero.

I wish him all the best in retirement. But mostly I wish he was still in the thick of the fight.

SPEAKING OF BROTHER LARRY, here's his latest rant in the Charleston Gazette. I love the cat food bit.

ONE GOOD RANT DESERVES ANOTHER. Here's another friend, the Rev. Matthew Watts on prison overcrowding.

AND HERE'S ANOTHER from the Rev. Jim Lewis. There's a great pun in there about generals and privates.

IN THE SPIRIT OF FAIR PLAY, here are a few words in praise of parasitic worms.

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED

Full house

Earlier this year, I worked with several allies on a report about prison overcrowding in West Virginia. We were hoping that the report might nudge the WV legislature into passing a pretty decent bill to begin addressing the problem.

Things looked pretty good until everything fell apart on the last day of the session. As a fallback, state leaders contacted the Justice Center of the Council of State Governments to study WV's system and make suggestions for addressing the problem. Some of those were released yesterday (and echo some of the points we made in our report).

The Justice Center has done similar work in other states, including some very conservative ones, so maybe their work can help provide political cover for state politicians to finally take action on this issue. It's all about reducing mass incarceration and saving money without compromising public safety. Here's hoping we can move this along.

On the same subject, here's an op-ed by my friend the Rev. Matthew Watts on mass incarceration and how it impacts the African-American community.

CALLING BS. Here's Media Matters for America on the whole "war on coal" thing.

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED