[imgcontainer right] [img:lynch1.jpeg] No town in Kentucky has done more to save itself than Lynch, a coal camp. Now the state intends to grant a permit to strip mine the land right above the community. [/imgcontainer]
•Turns out that 25% of all employed, college-educated adults work in jobs that don’t require a college degree. If you look at only recent graduates, it jumps to 40%.
• Another Civil War battle with Walmart is brewing, this time near the site of The Wilderness battlefield in northern Virginia.
Historians have asked Walmart to walk away from the site, which lies outside the protected battlefield area. Some 30,000 soldiers were killed or wounded in The Wilderness over three days in 1864.
• The editorial page of the Lexington Herald-Leader says the old coal camp town of Lynch “is in a fight for survival. So far, all it’s getting from its own state government are knives in the back.”
Kentucky has approved a permit that would allow a coal company to strip mine 1,105 acres above the town. Across the mountain in Virginia, this kind of mining has resulted in widespread damage. A boulder was dislodged by the company in 2004 and it rolled into a house below, killing a child in his sleep.
Lynch is a wonderful town, a gem of an old style coal camp, and residents are proud of their community. The town council has asked the state to declare the area unsuitable for mining. The paper wrote:
These hamlets, in the shadow of Kentucky’s highest point, hold a special place in our history. Built by U.S. Steel and International Harvester, they were company towns, where immigrants from Europe and African-Americans from the deep South dug out a future for themselves in underground coal mines.
• The Washington Post this morning reviews new requirements that make most food swiftly traceable to its source.
• The U.S. Postal Service is losing money and in March it will begin the process of closing as many as 2,000 post offices. Most will be in rural communities.
The USPS closed 421 offices last year and it is reviewing 16,000 offices that run at a deficit. That is half the post offices in the country, according to the Wall Street Journal.
• The new leader of the New Hampshire Republican Party is a major Tea Party figure. The state party picked Jack Kimball as their new leader, rejecting the establishment candidate.
“We are in a war and we are going to win it,” Mr. Kimball said. “We are going to pull ourselves from the brink. We are going after the Democrats the whole time.”
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