I am prefacing some excerpts from a newspaper article with some comments of my own. The article below, an account of drug and hunger crises in Scioto County, Ohio, paints a bleak picture of the landscape in far too many places in this country of ours and how "hope" is little more than a platitude to the people of Appalachia. You won't hear too many of their stories on the nightly news because, well, it's an ugly and unglamorous tale about an America so few really know or want to know and tucked away on hillsides and hollows, it's much easier to turn away our eyes.
Yes, this is yet another story of how poverty and despair are destroying families and communities. In this instance, it's a small town in SE Ohio, situated in the Appalachian foothills where I was born. One in four to five persons in the county lives below the poverty line (see
http://quickfacts.census.gov/qfd/states/39/39145.html and
http://74.125.93.132/search?q=cache:UVuP2VRX9ScJ:www.doleta.gov/Programs/2007ReportsAndPlans/Economic_Analysis_Reports/OH.pdf+military+recruitment+rates+in+scioto+County+Ohio+a&cd=14&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us&client=firefox-a ). The statistics for the county's children is even worse, with nearly 30% living in poverty (see
http://datacenter.kidscount.org/data/bystate/stateprofile.aspx?state=OH&loc=5250 ) It's hard to tell these folks that education will be the key to their success, with a county graduation rate of nearly 95%, substantially higher than the state and national average. Among Ohio's counties Scioto ranks #1 in number rate of dependency on income supports such as retirement and disability payments, unemployment and worker's comp, SSI, etc). To add to the misery, the risk of some Scioto County residents contracting cancer is nearly 20 times higher than the national average, according to a new study by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. (see
http://www.dispatch.com/live/content/local_news/stories/2009/06/25/Air_Toxics.ART0_ART_06-25-09_A3_64E9IOF.html?sid=101) Good thing they can't pay for the health care plans they will need to survive, eh?
With poverty and hopelessness come drug use, violence and hunger. While reading the online edition of the county's local newspaper, I saw that children who have been the recipients of a weekend backpack feeding program are now being taught how to hide their food from parents who would sell it for drugs. For the love of God, what country is this?
Mr President, and members of our Democratically-controlled Congress, please tell me how in the hell you sleep at night as you fatten the accounts of Wall Street execs while children starve. Explain to me just how much more you plan to spend on neverending wars abroad when the greatest threat to our freedom is poverty and ignorance right here at home.
http://www.portsmouth-dailytimes.com/pages/full_story/push?article-Prescription+Drug+Problem+-To+Be+Addressed+At+Town+Hall+Meeting%20&id=4547613-Prescription+Drug+Problem+-To+Be+Addressed+At+Town+Hall+Meeting&instance=secondary_news_left_columnPrescription Drug Problem To Be Addressed At Town Hall Meetingby Frank Lewis
According to information presented Oct. 21 at the Prescription Drug Overdose Epidemic regional meeting held at the Scioto County Welcome Center, in 2008, Scioto County was number two per capita in prescription drug overdose deaths out of 88 Ohio counties. The 45694 zip code (Wheelersburg) is in the Top 10 in the United States in the number of prescriptions written for a certain prescription pain medicine.
<snipping>
Griffiths will be sharing a story about a program set up at Portsmouth East High School that feeds children who do not get enough to eat at home.
Griffiths said she began to hear about students who get nothing to eat from their noon lunch at school on Friday until the school breakfast on Monday morning.
“That group sends food and hygiene packets home with children who have nothing to eat over the weekend. And they have to teach these children how to hide food from their prescription-drug-addicted parents who sell the food,” Walton said. “And it needs to stop.” MORE
Finally, as we approach the holiday season, a familiar message for America and our leaders in Washington:
The chimes were ringing the three quarters past eleven at that moment.
``Forgive me if I am not justified in what I ask,'' said Scrooge, looking intently at the Spirit's robe, ``but I see something strange, and not belonging to yourself, protruding from your skirts. Is it a foot or a claw!''
``It might be a claw, for the flesh there is upon it,'' was the Spirit's sorrowful reply. ``Look here.''
From the foldings of its robe, it brought two children; wretched, abject, frightful, hideous, miserable. They knelt down at its feet, and clung upon the outside of its garment.
``Oh, Man! look here. Look, look, down here!'' exclaimed the Ghost.
They were a boy and girl. Yellow, meagre, ragged, scowling, wolfish; but prostrate, too, in their humility. Where graceful youth should have filled their features out, and touched them with its freshest tints, a stale and shrivelled hand, like that of age, had pinched, and twisted them, and pulled them into shreds. Where angels might have sat enthroned, devils lurked, and glared out menacing. No change, no degradation, no perversion of humanity, in any grade, through all the mysteries of wonderful creation, has monsters half so horrible and dread.
Scrooge started back, appalled. Having them shown to him in this way, he tried to say they were fine children, but the words choked themselves, rather than be parties to a lie of such enormous magnitude.
``Spirit! are they yours?'' Scrooge could say no more.
``They are Man's,'' said the Spirit, looking down upon them. ``And they cling to me, appealing from their fathers. This boy is Ignorance. This girl is Want. Beware them both, and all of their degree, but most of all beware this boy, for on his brow I see that written which is Doom, unless the writing be erased. Deny it!'' cried the Spirit, stretching out its hand towards the city. ``Slander those who tell it ye! Admit it for your factious purposes, and make it worse! And bide the end!''
``Have they no refuge or resource?'' cried Scrooge.
``Are there no prisons?'' said the Spirit, turning on him for the last time with his own words. ``Are there no workhouses?''
The bell struck twelve.
Scrooge looked about him for the Ghost, and saw it not. As the last stroke ceased to vibrate, he remembered the prediction of old Jacob Marley, and lifting up his eyes, beheld a solemn Phantom, draped and hooded, coming, like a mist along the ground, towards him.
-- Charles Dickens 
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