Another plus

Believe it or not, there are a lot of good things going on in West Virginia (he said, to reassure himself). One of them is the growth of the local food movement and the spread of community gardens and farmers' markets.

Disclosure: we have a garden and I actually planted a good bit of it and it actually grew, but working in it is not my favorite thing, I'm sad to say. I like them better conceptually than when you have to do weeding.

Anyhow, this story from WV Public Broadcasting tells how some folks in Charleston are using community gardens built on vacant lots on the West Side to build their entrepreneurial skills.

I'm all for that and wish them well. But based on my experience at Goat Rope Farm, I wouldn't advise anybody to quit their day job.

YOU KNOW IT. If there's a news story about Neanderthals, you'll find it here.

One good, one bad

I've tried to blog a good bit lately about good things happening in WV. One such is the growth of community gardens and local food in former industrial areas such as Wheeling.

AS FOR THE BAD, libertarian delusions cover that pretty well.

Two more good things

For the sake of my own sanity, I've been blogging lately about things that are going right in West Virginia these days. One has got to be Medicaid expansion and the growth in health insurance coverage under the Affordable Care Act.

I was informed by a friend in the know that over 129,800 people have been covered through Medicaid expansion alone. Around 25,000 have coverage through the exchange and around 15,000 were found to be eligible for other programs. Prior to passage of ACA, folks I know estimated the number of uninsured in the state to be around 240,000. The number of people who gained coverage this year alone is equal to 70 percent of that.

MORE GOOD. Mingo County in southern WV has its share of economic problems, but it has become a leader in promoting child nutrition, physical activity and wellness generally. Mingo just got an award from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation in recognition of its progress. Read more here.

A growing movement

It's really not all bad news these days. One encouraging trend is the growth of the local food movement, which can be a way to rethink our relationship to the basics and to revitalize our communities. An AFSC program run by my co-worker in Logan WV gets young people involved in a community garden. The kids are even becoming junior master gardeners.

Two recent items in the Charleston newspapers provide some other examples. The Daily Mail recently reported about the Growing Jobs Project of KISRA (Kanawha Institute for Social Research and Action), which teaches former prisoners gardening skills while also providing fresh and healthy produce for the community.

In an article from today's Gazette, there's a story about an ordnance moving to Charleston city council which would encourage urban farming. Among the features of the ordnance are provisions allowing city residents to own up to to six laying hens as well as backyard beehives. It also encourages community gardens.

It didn't, alas, make any provision for goats.

THE RACIAL WEALTH GAP just keeps getting bigger.

LOCKING THE BARN AFTER....retired US Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor now seems to think the Supreme Court's decision to take up the Bush v. Gore case may not have been the best idea to roll down the pike. As the Spousal Unit likes to say in such cases, what was her first clue?

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED