[imgbelt img=+larnedkansas.jpeg]The truck driver was diddling with his cell phone when he plowed into a line of stalled traffic near St. Louis. The wrecked killed three and injured a dozen more.Among those involved in the wreck were Anna Eicher and others from an Amish community in northeast Missouri who were being driven to a funeral in Tennessee. Kim Bell of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch tells the story of how Eicher’s religion dealt with this tragedy — and how society reacted to a woman of faith.Eicher was taken to a hospital after the crash. She said that “English people” (the Amish term for outsiders) with the trucking company told her not to worry about the bills, that they would be taken care of. She believed them, and since Amish don’t believe in lawsuits, she didn’t join any of the multiple actions spawned by the wreck. Instead, she followed her faith and forgave.Then the bills arrived. Read the story. • The way of modernization is for rural people to move to cities, where their labor can be put to more productive use. But what happens when that is taking place in India?The New York Times reports that by 2030, 70 percent of India’s jobs are likely to be created in cities. If that happens, the nation will have to build a city the size of Chicago every year to house the people flooding in from rural communities.The story is about how that might be accomplished. Another question might be whether India (and others) need to rethink what it means to modernize. h• The federal mine safety agency said a Kentucky coal mine owned by Massey Energy is too unsafe to mine. So Massey simply closed the mine and laid off 132 people. • AP writer Roxana Hegeman notes the building boom underway throughout mid-America. Not houses or condos, but grain elevators. (Above, in Larned, Kansas.) Storage capacity is at an all time high, but there is still not enough room for all the grain that is piled up outside elevators. • A jeweler in Duluth, Minnesota, (not rural, but what the heck) is holding a Second Coming sale. Fifty percent off during the time just before the return of Jesus Christ to Jerusalem. • Coal firms say thousands of jobs have been created on flattened mountaintops. They’ve been saying this for years.Coal Tattoo checked into these claims in West Virginia and finds fewer jobs than promised and not many plans for future development.