Courtney Lowery at NewWest has collected a number of comments from Eastern commentators questioning the fitness of U.S. Senators from largely rural states to write a decent health care plan for the rest of the country. (above), Conrad from North Dakota, Enzi of Wyoming, Collins of Maine and Bingaman of New Mexico. An imperious Matthew Yglesias writes that "in a democratic system of government" these people from sparsely populated states "would have almost no power."  Gail Collins in the New York Times took aim at Max Baucus, "whose vast authority stems from the fact that he speaks for both the Senate Finance Committee and a state that contains three-tenths of one percent of the country's population." 

"Should it really matter where Baucus is from?" Lowery asks. Increasingly, according to the largely liberal press, it does. We've noted here at the Yonder that there is an increasing tendency for urban policy-makers to marginalize rural areas because they don't have many people. (Well, duh!) Lowery shows that according to some writers being rural means you aren't qualified to make policy for the nation.

Lowery quotes Bozeman blogger Bridget Cavanaugh:

I’d like to point out that Ms. Collins and I commonly live by the same constitution whose Founding Fathers purposefully skewed political power to favor rural America by giving all states equal representation in the Senate.  So why is she angling on Montana’s lack of population?  It’s a non-issue and completely irrelevant in these matters.  It’s funny, but is politically ignorant. Which should be surprising coming from a newspaper serving 6% of the entire US population. What’s uncommon between us is that I don’t have a chip on my shoulder about Senators from highly populated urban areas who assert their influence for policy making. 

Verizon has agreed to limit its exclusivity agreements with popular super-phone makers to six months – after which time small rural carriers can make their own deals.

As ECommerce Times reports, some think this concession may be what rural consumers have been waiting for: “the ability to buy any feature-rich phone from any device maker and tie it to any wireless provider they choose.”

Rural phone companies have been lobbying against the giant phone companies, alleging that their exclusivity agreements with racy smartphone makers like Apple (the iPhone) violate anti-trust laws. Verizon communicated its six-month compromise plan to Rep. Rick Boucher of Virginia, Sen. John Kerry of Massachusetts, and Sen. Jay Rockefeller, of West Virginia, all of whom lead strategic oversight committees.

Renay San Miguel reports some advocacy groups contend that Verizon’s compromise doesn’t substantially restrict the big companies or change the phone industry game. Chris Riley of Free Press told San Miguel, “It's all just an attempt to forestall legislative or FCC efforts to regulate them.”

Is corn being demonized, and the corn farmer, too? Baby powder and ethanol, hog feed and the futures market -- Richard Oswald looks at the controversies behind his mainstay crop.

'Sustainable development' is the new name for an old idea; a group commissioned by Teddy Roosevelt tied rural prosperity to conservation a century ago.