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I guess their editors must have attended the same cocktail party, and overheard someone say "I bet the recession is hitting the poor states, like West Virginia, really hard." Anyway, both the Washington Post and the Atlantic Monthy sent reporters to travel along Rte 219 recently, no doubt to drum up proof that we need another trillion or two of stimulus to make things better for those poor folk up in the mountains.
The Atlantic Monthly visited Hillsboro (nice picture of the Hillsboro General Store, by the way). The Washington Post went to Union.
By the way, I found these links thanks to Rebecca Clayton's Pocahontas County Fare blog. Rebecca lives somewhere on Droop Mountain, a mile or two from where we plan to move in a few years.
Why didn't they look down on 8th Ave in DC...they could have saved the government the cab fare...did they have to 'cook a story and use old footage out of the '60's?
My favorite is the dirty little boy on the porch holding the dog...
We are missing a 'gold mine here...a production company grinding out the news stories that the REAL america wants to see.
Snorpus:
I know that there would be federal grant money for this...what do you say? Money in 'them thar hills and the authentic, down and out hillbillies we could hire through casting...
We could diversify and hire some latino and asian hillbillies...just to keep things kosher....
speaking of food, I'm dining on fried green tomatos (to-mah-toes) as I write...go ahead...get some of this...feel like a kid in the wilderness, eating manna....chiao!
I'm sure that, tucked away in the Stimulus Package, or TALP, or TARP, or maybe the GM Bankruptcy bill, there are funds for "documenting" the turnaround. Didn't Frank Capra get his start in film that way, making films for the WPA or the CCC back in the '30s.
I'm just glad that our brethren were able to set the minds and hearts of the readers at ease, so they can sleep tonight without worrying about the hillbillies. I bet after their interviews, Ethel and Bertha and Junior went back inside, tuned in HBO on the 55" flat-panel, and sipped some Grey Squirrel 'shine, chuckling all the time at how reporters are still as gullible today as they were in the '60s.
Thinking back to my visit in Pocahontas Co. in April, what I remember is the new look of the old River Place, now the Greenbrier Grille, and Grandpa's Attic, sort of a deli located half a mile up a dirt road off 219, but doing a nice steady business in a brand new building.
They'd find more poverty if they drove 219 north through PA and NY. But the coastal reporters haven't even *heard* of the Appalachian region of NY State.
Since my journey is not simply a poverty tour, but intended specifically to document how people are adjusting to dramatically changed economic circumstances
Common sense is being rationed in this country, especially where the writer is from. People in poverty don't "adjust" to poverty. And if she had really sought out the poverty in West Virginia, she would've been afraid to get out of the car.
Quote:
Valuable recession lessons can be gleaned from the West Virginia experience: Never buy what you don't need.
I never thought of that. Wow!
Last edited by red.ochre; 07-09-2009 at 11:46 PM..
A friend of 40 years ago phoned us yesterday...they were moving out of Maine because of the 'poverty and the expensive nature of the state", as Nancy put it..."hah, had enough of everything and the cold."
They were over in the EP and remarking about how lovely Harpers Ferry was and to kayak on the Potomac there...
I said, "The entire state is like this, and we are keeping it a secret...we need to get you a little farm here."
She said, "In a year we will come back. We are committed to a job in Tacoma for a year...then we will come back...West Virginia is not what we expected it to be."
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