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

A wild night and day

With headlines spilling over the media and web about the disaster in Texas and the chaotic times in Boston, I'm not even going to try to comment. I can't even keep up with events. My friend Ken Ward at the Charleston Gazette made a couple good points on Twitter that can help put headlines in perspective. Here's one:

...Saw comparison of gun deaths vs terrorism deaths-30,000 gun deaths per year in US, 3,400 terror deaths since 1970.

Here's the accompanying link.

He added the following:

...Keep in mind: 4,500 deaths per year in workplace accidents, 50,000 per year from occupational diseases.

And here's that link.

Speaking of Twitter, when I first heard of it, it made no sense at all to me. However, when there's something going down that you want to follow, there's probably no quicker way to get information, even though some of it is going to be noise rather than signal.

Here's hoping for some slow news days. Meanwhile, here are some things to check out:

UPPER BIG BRANCH. Also from Ken Ward, here's an interesting article that suggests former Massey Energy executives and board members may be targets of criminal investigations.

A GOOD PIECE ON GUNS from someone who knows a thing or two about them here.

MEDICAID EXPANSION. It looks like Arkansas is going to do it, albeit with publicly subsidized private insurance. Better than nothing though. Still waiting to here about WV...

THAT "OBAMACARE" TRAIN WRECK dissected here.

ON A STRESSFUL DAY FOR THE COUNTRY AND WORLD, it might be good to look at some calming images. Check out these of bat-eating spiders! Who loves you?

DON'T EVEN ASK ABOUT THE GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL