Free Republic

China's urban population now exceeds the number of rural dwellers for first time in its history, the country's National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) said on Tuesday.

Join Popcorn Sutton and J.B. as they do what they do best, one last time. This film is unavailable ANYWHERE as it was Mr Sutton's to distribute personally and I felt that it was worth sharing. Film maker NEAL HUTCHESON- 2009 Emmy Award winner- created this outstanding work of art. I own no copyrights to this film. Credit goes to the film maker, Neal Hutcheson, and Popcorn Sutton. R.I.P Mr. Sutton.- You are missed. - WildlifeSeriaLKiller

(Excerpt) Glendening, who has long been a smart growth advocate, said the tension has resulted from the traditional reliance on local decision making and concepts of private property."That worked fine for several hundred years," Glendening, who was governor from 1995 to 2003, said.

For a generation American manufacturing has been widely seen as a “declining sport.” Yet its demise has been largely overplayed. Despite the many jobs this sector has lost in the past generation, manufacturing remains remarkably resilient, with a global market share similar to that of the 1970s. More recently, the U.S. industrial base has been on a powerful upswing, with employment climbing steadily since 2009. Boosted by productivity gains and higher costs in competitors, including China, U.S. manufacturing exports have grown at their fastest rate since the late 1980s. In 2011 American manufacturing continued to expand, while Germany, Japan and...

OAKLEY, Utah -- When the Tiede family headed off to spend a snowy Christmas at their remote family cabin, they had no idea what the trip would bring. Two sisters who survive a harrowing home invasion share the terrifying story in their first extended television interview. Linae Tiede: My family owns a beautiful cabin in Oakley, Utah. The sound of the river, the horses that are down in the pasture, the birds -- it's absolutely heaven on earth to me. My mom had given it a name: "Tiede's Tranquility," because of the serenity and peace. Trish Tiede: The cabin was...

HUMPTULIPS, Wash. - When heading north on Highway 101, the first house you come to in Humptulips is the Aldrich's place. The manicured yard is a trademark of the family that's been here for decades. "Just nice, older people," said Karen Willis. Neighbors are just sick about what happened to Ralph and June Aldrich. Prosecutors say 31-year-old John Chase was walking down the highway when he saw Ralph Aldrich, 88, in his back yard. Detectives say Chase shot and killed Aldrich with a crossbow and then went inside the home and repeatedly hit 83-year-old June Aldrich with a hatchet.

President Barack Obama is headed to the Midwest after a summer of discontent over a debt showdown with Republicans and the downgrade in the nation's credit rating. Obama's bus tour begins Monday. It's his first as president and will take him to prairie communities in Minnesota and through Iowa and Illinois. There are stops in the farmland and rural towns that launched his first White House bid. Obama won a clean sweep in 2008 of Iowa, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Illinois and Michigan. But Obama's standing in these states, like elsewhere, has grown precarious as the economy has slumped.

My parents live in the middle of ten acres of woods in a small community in central Alabama [not shown]. Since they moved there, houses have sprung up all around them as people who want to “live in the country” have migrated there from nearby cities. A few years back a developer put a “manufactured housing developemnt” (a.k.a., a trailer park) in a field across the road from them. Enter my brother and his collection of firearms . . . For years he’s been target shooting whenever he’s visited the ‘rents. There’s a natural berm on the backside of the...

WASHINGTON (AP) — Rural America now accounts for just 16 percent of the nation's population, the lowest ever. The latest 2010 census numbers hint at an emerging America where, by midcentury, city boundaries become indistinct and rural areas grow ever less relevant. Many communities could shrink to virtual ghost towns as they shutter businesses and close down schools, demographers say. More metro areas are booming into sprawling megalopolises. Barring fresh investment that could bring jobs, however, large swaths of the Great Plains and Appalachia, along with parts of Arkansas, Mississippi and north Texas, could face significant population declines. These places...

Where, exactly, does the U.S. Constitution authorize the federal government to create "sustainable communities" in order to: "... expand access to the capital necessary for economic growth, promote innovation, improve access to health care and education, and expand outdoor recreational activities on public lands." Clearly, the Constitution provides no such authority, and the Tenth Amendment prohibits the federal government from engaging in activity not explicitly enumerated and authorized in the Constitution. This fact meant nothing to Bill Clinton, who created the President's Council on Sustainable Development by executive order. Nor does this fact have meaning to Barack Hussein Obama. On...

The White House Office of the Press Secretary For Immediate Release June 09, 2011 Executive Order - Establishment of the White House Rural Council By the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America and in order to enhance Federal engagement with rural communities, it is hereby ordered as follows: Section 1. Policy. Sixteen percent of the American population lives in rural counties. Strong, sustainable rural communities are essential to winning the future and ensuring American competitiveness in the years ahead. These communities supply our food, fiber, and energy, safeguard...

Ran across this Web Site: http://vintageaerial.com/

On June 9, 2011, an Executive Order established the White House Rural Council with 25 executive branch departments including Defense, Justice, Homeland Security, National Drug Control, Environmental Quality, Labor, Commerce, Interior, EPA, Housing, Health, Education to name just a few. The order covers 16% of the American population who lives in rural counties because they “supply our food, fiber, and energy, safeguard our natural resources, and are essential in the development of science and innovation.” “Strong, sustainable rural communities are essential in winning the future and ensuring American competitiveness in the years ahead.” What kind of future are we supposed...

Community gardens are gardens that more than one family plants, weeds and harvests together. They were called Victory or war gardens in the past because they were planted when the country was at war and helped provide AdChoices food for Americans. Rising grocery prices,recalls and health and environmental concerns have brought them back. Does a community garden fit rural and small towns? Like a gardeners glove!

You might be a redneck if…you create a dues-paying society and a scholarship fund? And that's what a Virginia man did last week, launching the “American Redneck Society.” “I really felt that American Rednecks are an under-served, but large population that could benefit from a formal membership organization structure,” said American Redneck Society Executive Director Rob Clayton.

A dingy floral print peels from the walls, and sheets of plastic are taped over some of the windows. But for Harka Rai, the sagging trailer home he bought in rural Oregon is his piece of the American dream. Rai, who is married with a 4-year-old son and another child on the way, was just a boy when new citizenship laws forced his ethnic Nepalese family out of Bhutan. For 18 years, they waited in a refugee camp in Nepal, hoping to return home. "We built a bamboo house," he said. "The dust comes inside. The rain comes inside. And...

Paved roads, historical emblems of American achievement, are being torn up across rural America and replaced with gravel or other rough surfaces as counties struggle with tight budgets and dwindling state and federal revenue. State money for local roads was cut in many places amid budget shortfalls.

Here's the challenge: certain words and phrases characteristic of Appalachian English in eastern Tennessee and elsewhere can be traced back to Scottish English. Some of these are disappearing; others have spread throughout the South; a few seem to be making it into widespread usage. How many do you know? 1. backset; 2. let on; 3. bonny-clabber; 4. palings; 5. redd up; 6. creel; 7. kindling; 8. hull; 9. nicker; 10. whenever. (I knew 5 of the 10, so that makes me 'bout half smart . . .)

In 1875, writer Edward King published a travel memoir, "The Great South: A Record of Journeys in Louisiana, Texas, the Indian Territory, Missouri, Arkansas, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, Florida, South Carolina, North Carolina, Kentucky, Tennessee, Virginia, West Virginia, and Maryland." The book contained numerous illustrations by James Wells Champney, including drawings of log cabins of Backcountry folk. [Vintage illustrations]

The Shenandoah Valley of Virginia is above all a land of farms and farmers. Since the firm Pennsylvania Germans crossed the Potomac with horses, oxen, pigs and tools, the fertile lands along the Shenandoah River have beckoned to those who love the country life. Although areas of the Valley have developed and there are cities here and there, a drive along the old roads will provide a multitude of pastoral views. [Vintage pictures]

Here's the challenge: certain words and phrases characteristic of Appalachian English in Eastern Tennessee and elsewhere can be traced back to Scottish English imported to this country by Scotch-Irish settlers. Some of these are disappearing; others have spread throughout the South; a few seem to be making it into widespread usage. How many do you know? 1. piece; 2. beal, bealing; 3. mend; 4. airish; 5. chancy; 6. muley; 7. bottom; 8. discomfit; 9. singlings; 10. fireboard . . . .

An order of the Virginia Colonial Council dated May 4, 1725, concerned an allegation that "divers Indians plundered the Quarters of Mr. John Taliaferro near the great mountains [i.e., the Blue Ridge] . . .[and carried off] some of the Guns belonging to and marked with the name of Spottsylvania County . . . ." The Council concluded: "It is ordered that it be referred to Colo. Harrison to make inquiry which of the Nottoway Indians or other Tributaries have been out ahunting about that time . . . ." Now, the Colonial Council was an august body and its...

Are yous up for a few more words on the subject of Appalachian English? The words for today being "yous" and "you'ns," along with variant spellings like "youse," "yooz," "you-uns," and "youens," and their Scotch-Irish roots. The traditional speech of the Backcountry is not a "corrupt" dialect, as is often assumed by those from "yonder" and “away,” and its roots can be traced to the places from whence the Backcountry settlers originated. "Yous" or "youse" as the plural form of "you" is of ancient origin and came to America with Scotch-Irish settlers in early colonial times.

ANCHORAGE, Alaska -- An autopsy conducted Thursday shows that wolves likely killed an itinerant teacher in the southwest Alaska village of Chignik Lake, according to the Alaska State Troopers. Village residents found the body of Candice Berner, 32, a short distance from town on Monday. Multiple injuries due to animal mauling caused Berner's death, trooper Col. Audie Holloway said, referencing a report from the state medical examiner's office.

Kentucky lays claim to the most famous of log cabins -- the one in which Abraham Lincoln was born. In the early days of Kentucky, log cabins were abundant throughout the state, and a few of these survived to be photographed in the early 20th century. Also in this collection of vintage images -- two log cabins under construction in 1940 in East Kentucky, where the old ways die hard.

Tennesseans are proud of their frontier heritage and have preserved quite a few vintage log cabins and farm buildings. After the Great Smoky Mountains National Park was established in the 1930s, mountain communities were displaced but some of their habitations were preserved. This article presents an archive of monochrome photographs which documented these historic structures.

The Shenandoah National Park displaced some 450 families from the northern reach of Virginia's Blue Ridge Mountains. The Park meant the end of a generations-old way of life for the mountain folk, many of whom didn't want to leave. [numerous vintage photographs]

Life in the mountains of East Kentucky has been demanding since the early days of European settlement. In the many isolated valleys and hollows, it is a hardscrabble life, even today, yet many of the mountain folk wouldn't trade that life for the city, even when they could -- isolation and self-sufficiency being primary reasons why the first settlers came here to put down roots.

Two major Federal projects, the Great Smoky Mountains National Park and the Tennessee Valley Authority, brought the outside world irrevocably into the Tennessee high country, displacing whole communities from ancient abodes and altering forever the way of life that had endured from the Colonial period. Among the archives from that time are a scattering of photographs which recall an independent, hardy, resourceful, and industrious people, worthy descendants of the Backcountry settlers of long ago. [Many vintage photographs.]

For women, looks may matter more if they live in the city than in rural areas, a new study finds. The results, which are based on body shape rather than overall beauty, showed that in cities the most attractive gals had higher social and psychological well-being. That same link wasn't found for country residents. The researchers suggest with higher population densities, cities offer more potential friends and sexual partners, allowing city folks to be choosier and so theoretically able to select the cream of the crop to associate with. Though the study is based on women, the researchers suspect similar...

Wisconsin's rural hospitals hope to offset a state Medicaid cut with a tax that would bring more federal money to the hospitals. The proposed tax on the state's 59 "critical access" hospitals, all in rural areas, would prevent the hospitals from closing important services, officials say. The tax would be similar to a tax adopted in February on the state's 72 non-rural hospitals, said Eric Borgerding, a lobbyist with the Wisconsin Hospital Association. The proposed rural hospital tax, in a bill to be introduced in the Legislature soon, would make up for a 10 percent Medicaid cut that started Friday,...

Norma Clark, 80, slipped on the ice out by the horse corral one afternoon and broke her hip in four places. Alone, it took her three hours to drag herself the 40 yards back to the house through snow and mud, after she had tied her legs together with rope to stabilize the injury. A dutiful farm wife, Ms. Clark somehow even got to her feet to latch the gate. And her first call when she got to the house was not to 911, but to a daughter 30 miles away. “I told her she’d better come feed the horses,”...

In June, 40-year-old Shane Dawley and his 36-year-old wife, Rhonda, uprooted themselves and their four boys from their suburban Atlanta rental home and bought an old five-acre farmhouse in Ogdensburg, Wisc. Their goal: Flee the rat race and adopt a more self-reliant lifestyle amid the troubled economy. While urban and suburban real estate is still generally under pressure, the rural market is holding up better in many areas, thanks in part to buyers such as the Dawleys. Sometimes dubbed "ruralpolitans," these city and town dwellers are looking at land as their new safe investment, one they hope could prove more...

They represent a migration that turns conventional wisdom on its head. Urban planners have until now proceeded on the assumption that retiring baby boomers will downsize to a high-rise and spend their days lapping lattes and taking the streetcar to the art museum. A lot of them will. But new data from the U.S. Department of Agriculture says baby boomers will head to the country in big numbers, in the Northwest changing the face of rural Oregon, Washington and Idaho. And it's not just because the 83 million boomer generation is the largest in U.S. history and all of their...

Most of the mobile homes in the U.S. are located in the south, where land is more plentiful, the weather is warmer, and rural poverty is higher. The region is home to over 56% of the mobile housing units in the U.S., according to the U.S. Census Bureau's 2008 American Community Survey data released Monday. Specifically, two cities outside of Jacksonville, Fla., had the country's highest concentration of mobile homes, which are generally about 12-feet wide and include a kitchen, a living and dining area, and one or two smaller bedrooms. While mobile homes make up only 6.17% of the...

WALSENBURG, Colo.-Don't tell Dorothy J. Tenorio that Washington is nearing a deal to improve her health care. A former grocery clerk, Tenorio's been scraping by on disability benefits for more than a decade. The 60-year-old, and many of her neighbors, are skeptical health care overhauls pending in Congress will change much in Colorado's rural San Juan Valley. "I would tell Congress, they need to get out here to Huerfano County and see how bad it is, see what we're living with," said Tenorio, who suffered a neck injury in 1979 and hasn't worked since 1996. In rural America, many like...

The Crab Orchard Museum and Pioneer Park in the small town of Tazewell, Virginia, sponsors a July 4 festival every year, filling the Park area with displays, demonstrations, and re-enactors. For those who prefer the traditional ways, pictures have been posted.

Angered by White House decisions on everything from greenhouse gases to car dealerships, congressional Democrats from rural districts are threatening to revolt against parts of President Barack Obama’s ambitious first-year agenda. “They don’t get rural America,” said Rep. Dennis Cardoza, a Democrat who represents California’s agriculture-rich Central Valley. “They form their views of the world in large cities.” Cardoza’s critique was aimed at Obama’s Environmental Protection Agency, but it echoes complaints rural-district Democrats have about a number of Obama administration decisions. “I wouldn’t say it’s a complete strikeout, but they’ve just got a few more bases to it when it...

As goes Michigan's crumbling economy, so go some once-paved rural roads now being turned back into gravel. About a quarter of the state's county road agencies largely left out of the federal stimulus package, which focuses on highways and other major thoroughfares, say they can't afford some costly repaving projects and have crushed up deteriorating roads. Montcalm County alone estimates it saved nearly $900,000 by converting almost 10 miles of pothole-plagued pavement into gravel this spring. Reverting to gravel on low-traffic roads has been done to some degree for years and long-term savings and maintenance costs vary widely. But it...

THE RULES OF RURAL N.B. ARE AS FOLLOWS Listen up City Slickers & out of province Tourists 1. Pull your droopy pants up. You look like an idiot. 2. Turn your cap right, your head isn't crooked. 3. Let's get this straight; it's called a 'dirt road.' I drive a pickup truck because I want to. No matter how slow you drive, you're going to get dust on your Lexus. Drive it or get out of the way. 4. They are cattle. They're live steaks. That's why they smell funny to you. But they smell like money to us. Get...

Doug King publishes his keyboard music online and his wife, Marjorie, sells home-made pottery to customers in Iceland, China and New Zealand. But doing business from their rural Dane County house is virtually impossible without high-speed Internet. "We got to the point where we’re simply unable to do business" using the dial-up Internet their phone company provides, King said. The couple finally signed up for a wireless modem from Verizon, which in the last year has sought to build nine cell towers in rural Dane County to keep up with growing demand. But wireless service isn’t available everywhere, either, leaving...

http://www.whitehouse.gov/the_press_office/President-Obama-Selects-Top-Rural-Health-Care-Advocate-to-Oversee-Key-HHS-Agency/ Note: The following text is a quote: THE BRIEFING ROOM Friday, February 20th, 2009 at 3:45 pm President Obama Selects Top Rural Health Care Advocate to Oversee Key HHS Agency THE WHITE HOUSE Office of the Press Secretary ________________________ For Immediate Release February 20, 2009 President Obama today announced the appointment of one of the nation’s top rural health care professionals as Administrator of the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA). Dr. Mary Wakefield, Director of the Center for Rural Health at the University of North Dakota, will oversee this critical agency, which helps to deliver health care to...

BRINKLEY, Ark. - Wayne Loewer's truck reveals a lot about his life. A 12-gauge shotgun for duck hunting rests on the floorboard. A blue thermal lunch bag containing elk meat is shoved under the seat, left in haste that morning by his teenage son rushing to catch the school bus. Binoculars in the console help Loewer scan his 2,900 acres of rice, soybeans and corn. The dashboard radio is set to classic rock, playing the same Lynyrd Skynyrd tunes from Loewer's high school days, when Brinkley was still a thriving small town with stores and a movie theater. His muddy...

On election eve I re-post my personal analysis and prediction for the 2008 election.

CARLISLE, Ky. -- Tabbatha Tubbs laughs at the thought of Washington politicians decreeing her hometown Appalachian. After all, there's not a mountain in sight from this gently rolling countryside best known for its thoroughbred horse farms. This is picturesque Bluegrass country: Black wooden fences surround grazing thoroughbreds. Golden stalks of tobacco hang from tiered barns. And herds of fat beef cattle mow their way across fields of green grass. It's hardly the heart of Appalachia, the rugged hills where President Lyndon B. Johnson declared war on poverty some 44 years ago. But like it or not, Tubbs and her neighbors...

While millions of American families struggle with falling house prices, soaring gasoline costs and tightening credit, some environmentalists, urban planners and urban real estate speculators are welcoming the bad news as signaling what they have long dreamed of -- the demise of suburbia. In a March Atlantic article, Christopher B. Leinberger, a visiting fellow at the Brookings Institution and a professor of urban planning, contended that yesterday's new suburbs will become "the slums" of tomorrow because high gas prices and the housing meltdown will force Americans back to the urban core. Leinberger is not alone. Other pundits, among them author...

CHESTER, Ill. -- The rookie state senator from Chicago had driven 340 miles to explore southern Illinois, but Barb Brown could muster only 20 Democrats in this small town on the Mississippi River to have breakfast with him. She asked her niece and sister-in-law, who were helping in the kitchen, to come out to pad the audience. "We tried to convince people that they needed to come out and meet with this senator from Chicago, who on top of everything else was African American," Brown, a circuit court clerk, said of the 1997 gathering. "We had people looking at us...

TCHULA, Miss. — Gasoline prices reached a national average of $4 a gallon for the first time over the weekend, adding more strain to motorists across the country. But the pain is not being felt uniformly. Across broad swaths of the South, Southwest and the upper Great Plains, the combination of low incomes, high gas prices and heavy dependence on pickup trucks and vans is putting an even tighter squeeze on family budgets. Here in the Mississippi Delta, some farm workers are borrowing money from their bosses so they can fill their tanks and get to work. Some are switching...

Driver's would love these pumps if gas goes through the roof, except human ingenuity has trumped technology. Junek's has the pumps set for half the price you'll actually pay, so if the meter reads you've filled up $20-worth, you'll still have to pay $40. duh

Texas Gov. Rick Perry wants to build a big highway through the Lone Star State. No, make that a really big highway, as in a monstrously big highway. The exact route hasn't been determined. The mega-highway would run roughly from Laredo on the Rio Grande River through the Hill Country and the Piney Woods and then through Texarkana in that tiny portion of the state that borders Arkansas. Imagine for a moment if that thoroughfare would be pointed in the other direction - from the Valley, through the South Plains and then through the heart of the Panhandle, right past...