APRIL KENTUCKY SNOW
Poor families left out in the cold
Loretta Tackett
As temperatures dip into the single digits this weekend, nearly 2,000 poor Pike County households may be left without heat.
A Pike County program that helps low-income families pay their heating bills has been out of money since last Thursday. But emergency money handed down by the state yesterday might help the situation.
Energy Programs Director Dan McKenzie of Community Action Kentucky said the reason why 18 of the 23 programs are out of funds is two-fold. The program has received more than $20 million each of the past three years, McKenzie said, compared to the nearly $7.5 million in federal funding this year.
“The other side is the more need with the economic situation as higher prices for fuel, food and medicine all combined pose economic difficulty for people already poor,” McKenzie said.
COAL MINE POLLUTION
Poverty and suffering stare us in the face while the Neo-Cons which plotted our nations unjust war in Iraq are busy concocting mad schemes against Iran. Conservatives blasted The War on Poverty as being too expensive yet they replaced it with the far more costly War on Drugs. Nero fiddled while Rome burned but Bush spends billions on endless wars while poor children are very cold and hungry.
SHOELESS KENTUCKY CHILDREN
The early settlers came to Kentucky because they wanted land to grow crops. In 1796, Nathan Burrowsinvented a machine for cleaning hemp, a native Kentucky plant. It quickly became the most important crop in the area bringing in an estimated half million dollars a year in the early 1800's. Hemp was needed for bagging cotton & making baling rope.
As early as 1775 hemp was produced in Kentuckyfor making homespun clothes, rope, twine , and sacking. The rigging and cables of Admiral Perry's fleet on Lake Erie in 1812 were made from Kentucky hemp, as was the rope of all New England ship builders used on the Yankee Clippers.
Many of these people made Moonshine for a living during the Depression especially after their number one cash crop which was HEMP was prohibited by the Marijuana Tax act of 1937. Tobacco is now their number one legal crop although Marijuana is by far the largest and most profitable one. The illegal Moonshine business still employed 200,000 persons as late as 1963.
The federal welfare system was slashed by Reagan to supposedly save money. GOP's claim they are about smaller Government although Reagan wasted billions building the prisons that now hold more people than any other system in world history. Heartless GOP's want to blame the homeless for the situation they live in. What a tragic delusion it is that poverty will be conquered simply by blaming and punishing the poor themselves.
During the War on Poverty the government only spent what amounted to only $10 per year per person. Today the failed war on drugs costs each citizen $500.00 each year. The failed War on Drugs is a publicity stunt for Politicians who have ran out of ideas but are looking to stay in office sadly it has turned into a trillion dollar police state nightmare for the American people.
ROAD & CREEK MERGE IN KY
This nations huge drug problem will never be solved by moralizing , by propaganda , or by punishment. The failed War on Drugs is a glaring reminder that problem's cannot be solved just by throwing more money at it . The central problem is that too many Americans still support the drug war this sadly reveals a citizenry dumbed down by the rhetoric of the drug warriors whose careers depend on this drug war continuing forever. Calls for harsher penalties for drug users & more money for prisons are heard everyday despite the overwhelming evidence that prisons are the problem not the answer to drug addiction. If they really wanted to reduce drug use and protect children then the drug warriors would do their fighting with Drug Treatment & Drug Education. War creates both poverty & misery this includes our Drug Wars here at home as well as conventional wars fought on the battlefields abroad.
ONE ROOM KENTUCKY SCHOOL