Saturday, January 24, 2009

Two posts/No easy answers

Hey Guys!
I'm catching up on blog posts, too. I really enjoyed Margot's lecture last week; she was fun to listen to because she clearly really knew her stuff but also had interesting facts that I hadn't hought about before. (Like the Dakotas etc.)

I felt like watching the movie gave us a lot of new information about the Appalachian area to process. The most interesting part for me was learning about the way that the major coal mines succeeded in completely screwing over the local economies. The movie made it seem like the blame for poverty lay almost entirely in the hands of these companies, so I'd be interested to think more about this: did anything else contribute to it? Why is it that Appalachia didn't recover as easily as other areas faced with similar issues have? Is it because the economics of coals been such a roller coaster ride and the economy in the area has been tied almost solely to coal for so long? Another thing I found interesting was when the movie talked about how the people in Appalachia hated it when the public eye turned to the area with LBJ and JFK, and was thinking about how this adds to the complexity of the issue. The more we learn the more complex this issue seems to become. The biggest, glaring, and unsolvable question being how the economy in the area can be strengthened if the country is to transition away from coal--their major resource? What would be the best policies to help the area without seeming like it is out of pity and offending some?

In terms of preconceived notions, I'd say the thing I'd heard of most about Appalachia was the extreme poverty coupled with a lack of education, which makes it hard for the area to lift itself out of rural poverty.



Also, heres an article on coal you guys might be interested in:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/23/opinion/23fri3.html?emc=eta1

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