By Frank Kilgore

Speak Your Piece: How Virginia Gov. Tim Kaine Lost His Progressive Mojo

editor — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 11:39:08 -0700

Gov. Tim Kaine with Sen. Barack Obama. Kaine is on Obama's short list for Vice President.

Nearly three years ago Virginia’s Governor, Democrat Tim Kaine, came from behind to beat favored Jerry Kilgore, a conservative Republican attorney general whose roots in the state’s deep southwest mountain section both helped and hurt his candidacy.

Rural Virginians across the state liked Kilgore’s farm upbringing and his parents’ sacrifices to see their twin boys and younger son well educated and nurtured for public service. Jerry Kilgore’s steadfast conservatism was a click or two to the left of George Allen and Jim Gilmore, but obviously well to the right of Kaine’s liberal leanings. Jerry never hid his conservative credentials and resisted urgings to head to the middle and compromise his long held views, some say to the detriment of his electability.

Northern Virginia, having changed demographically and politically over a short number of years as Yankees flocked to the state’s nicer weather and high tech jobs, rejected Kilgore’s law and order stance, his mountain culture and dialect, his support of strict gun rights and what they perceived as his anti-environmental position (although as attorney general he amped up the enforcement of all laws, including those protecting land, air and water).

To Grow the Coalfield Economy, Plant a College

editor — Thu, 22 May 2008 14:07:08 -0700

Members of the first graduating class of the University of Appalachia's College of Pharmacy sing at commencement exercises May 17, 2008, Oakwood, Virginia.
Photo: Eric McCarty

The Appalachian coalfields have suffered and benefited from coal mining over the past century. The environmental impact of all forms of mining and the wanton deaths of and injuries to coal miners until federal laws finally took hold, are well documented. Debate still rages over the use of mountain-top removal mining methods to strip away thousands of acres of forested watersheds for cheaper access to coal.

The less documented downside to coal mining is its impact on communities that depend almost solely upon it for economic survival. When times are good and the demand and price for coal are high, miners and their communities prosper. When the demand for coal declines or the worldwide coal supply is glutted, coalfield communities feet the effects almost immediately. Miners are laid off, businesses that depend upon them close, residents move away and public schools bleed students and revenue. The people who stay behind own businesses or work in professions that are necessary to meet the needs of the remaining population; much of the society then consists of people without the training, education or physical abilities successfully to procure other employment outside the region.

Speak Your Piece: Throwaway Lives?

editor — Wed, 30 Apr 2008 07:13:27 -0700

Cheap smokes in Letcher County, Kentucky, 2008.

Photo: Andrew Stern

Several national publications, including Time Magazine, The Washington Post and the New York Times Magazine, have highlighted the abysmal health of the people of Central Appalachia, and of the Virginia coalfields in particular. Federal and state authorities have spent significant funds verifying the same statistics over and over, but little has been accomplished to ameliorate the problems so thoroughly documented.

(Look here for the rural counties that have had a significant decrease in longevity over the last 20 years.)

Some small portion of the heart and respiratory problems ravaging the mountain population might be due to congenital factors or, in specific locations, to air and water quality. But the overwhelming majority of the chronic health problems are self-inflicted, the consequence of tobacco, drug abuse, fatty and sugar-laden foods, lack of exercise and a fatalistic outlook on life that relieves individuals of responsibility for their own health.

Speak Your Piece: States Should Pass Smoking Bans

editor — Mon, 25 Feb 2008 09:05:08 -0800

Editor's Note: Rural teens smoke more than their urban counterparts. So it may be of interest to Yonder that the Virginia House of Delegates recently defeated a proposal to ban smoking in public places. An Alabama state senator has proposed the state ban smoking in most public places. (For a contrary view, visit the Daily Dixie.) St. Paul, Virginia, attorney Frank Kilgore makes the argument for the ban.

Declines in smoking among teens have levelled out.
Photo: Coyenator

If you have ever wondered if youth, smoking, illegal drug use and littering have anything in common, wonder no more. The following findings should cause the most radical smokers’-rights fanatic to shiver:

"Results of this study deliver a strong cautionary message that those who smoked cigarettes before the age of 15 were up to 80 times more likely to use illegal drugs than those who did not," said lead author Shenghan Lai, MD, MPH, associate research professor, Epidemiology, Johns Hopkins School of Public Health.

What have most states done with the huge tobacco settlement funds that were originally touted for preventing smoking among young people? Most have spent those funds for anything but education and prevention, including general expenditures in order to keep taxes down. Meanwhile, the hard-earned smoking decline among teenagers has leveled out and shows signs of spiking as some Hollywood actors and megastar singers sink to new lows by using tobacco in every movie and public appearance they can.

Speak Your Piece: Democracy and Hypocrisy in Virginia State Capitol

editor — Fri, 22 Feb 2008 08:27:35 -0800

Editor’s Note: The Washington Post notes that the “veneer of gentility that once marked the proceedings of the Virginia General Assembly has faded badly,” and now the state faces an impasse over the budget. St. Paul, Virginia, attorney and Yonder contributor Frank Kilgore explains.

The Virginia state capitol.

Photo: stgermh

Two wrongs do not make a right, but they at least deserve to be reported. That revised axiom is particularly true when reporting the abuses of political power. Recent news articles have scathed the Republican House majority in Virginia for failing to record sub-committee votes and the related media reports and editorials also seem to imply that the Democrats, when they held the majority, were more benevolent and transparent with political power.

First of all, any political body in America that fails to record a public vote is wrong, period. While it is true that the sub-committee hearings and votes are open to the public and usually well attended, it should not be Joe Citizen’s job to count the raised hands or voice votes.