The Catholic Committee of Appalachia (CCA) is distributing a DVD, “Climate Change: Our Faith Response,” to all 27 Catholic dioceses in the Appalachian region. The 10-minute DVD is intended for religious education classes and comes with a study guide to underscore the Church’s teaching about the care of creation and humanity’s responsibility for stewardship.
The message […]

With the recent spike in gasoline prices, politicians and pundits have begun calling again for energy independence for America. Ethanol refiners continue lobbying Congress for massive subsidies while electric utilities and coal producers promote clean coal and a nuclear renaissance.
Oil executives, complaining that U.S. restrictions have hampered developing new sources of oil, advocate opening the […]

The U.S. spends more on defense than all other nations combined. Considering the basic budget for the Defense Department — that covers salaries, operations, equipment and the supplemental budget that pays for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan — defense spending bests the second military spender by nearly a factor of 10. The supplemental itself, […]

Not since the Gilded Age of the 1890s has the wealth gap between the rich and poor in the United States been wider. With 469 American billionaires, the richest 1 percent of Americans own 33.4 percent of all U.S. wealth measured as stocks, bonds, cash, real estate and personal possessions. The bottom 90 percent of all Americans divide only 30.4 percent of the wealth among them. While 37 million Americans live in poverty, most breadwinners among them have jobs and some have two or more. The numbers seemingly measure only the economic gap, but on deeper reflection they indicate a disturbing trend: the diminishing of America's middle class.

Because Congress failed last year to pass comprehensive immigration reform, 2008 began with a patch quilt of state laws and local ordinances that reflect a national confusion about dealing with immigration. On the one hand, Lake Havasu, Arizona, like a number of other cities, struck an agreement with federal agents to train local police to […]

A row of identical signs arranged like landing lights at an airport repeat the appealing offer: "Borrow $200, Repay $203." This modern spider-to-fly invitation displayed in front of the office of payday lenders appeals to hard-strapped workers who just need a boost till payday. What's three bucks? Technically, since the loan spans only 14 days, […]

Nothing quenches a thirst like cool water, whether it's Pepsi Co.'s Aquafina (13 percent of the bottled water market), or Coca-Cola's Dasani (11 percent of the market), or a specialty water from Nestlé. Every day, millions of Americans grab a clear plastic bottle of water from the cooler at a convenience store, or pull a […]

Falling refrigerators dropped from planes plus old car chassis and kegs of nails raining down on innocent civilians during aerial bombardments are cited as some of the Sudanese government's weird war tactics in the "Unity Statement" of Save Darfur, a coalition of over 100 groups including the U. S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.
The bizarre bombings […]

Last Labor Day agents from Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) swooped down on a poultry plant in Stillmore, Ga., arresting 120 people with false papers and scattering another 300 in all directions. ICE agents also raided several homes in town, breaking windows and entering forcibly. As people scattered, one family hid for two nights in […]

The Grameen Bank, literally in Bangla "Bank of the Villages," began by extending small unsecured loans to the poor in Bangladesh. Its founder, Dr. Muhammad Yunus, who earned his doctorate in economics at Vanderbilt University, discovered the power of credit in the 1970s when he loaned $26 to 42 skilled able-bodied people without collateral who […]

The story about the assault on ten Amish girls at the West Nickel Mines School in Pennsylvania started with horror at the assailant, but continued with wonderment at the response of the Amish community. Five children died, five were severely wounded and the perpetrator committed suicide. Tragedy all around, yet the Amish parents almost immediately […]

Every hour of every working day news commentators announce the NASDAQ and the Dow Jones averages. To the average listener the number fluctuations have little relevance. Few investors rush to their brokers unless the news indicates a clear, long-term trend. Even during a highly volatile day, the exchanges have circuit breakers and curbs in place […]

Before Miguel began working Georgia’s onion fields, he earned a modest living in Mexico where he raised nine children. He cultivated seven acres of orange and coffee trees until global forces dramatically depressed produce prices. Unable to earn enough money to fix his house and replace his roof, he contracted with a coyote (a smuggler […]

Erik Reece explains that the liverwort, with no obvious use to humanity, combines with other modest flora throughout the Appalachian mountains to help hold the rich soil in place, purify water downstream and provide habitat for small animals such as salamanders. Appalachia boasts over 70 species of trees and 250 species of birds in the […]

The United States had never experienced destruction in recent times so wide and intense within its borders. But a hurricane does not equal a nuclear bomb. With a hurricane, no radiation lingers for decades at ground zero and not every tree and house is vaporized.
Before TV images of the hurricane's rubble fade from mind, […]

This summer I’m wearing a special cap that reads, “NAFTA, CAFTA, Do We Hafta?” The slogan comes from the Rural Coalition, an alliance of small community groups throughout the United States working to build a more just and sustainable food system.
For over 10 years, family farmers have felt the negative effects of the North American […]

When the 27-year-old man finally came to the free clinic, he had one eye shut and his jaw severely swollen from two abscessed teeth. He had had the toothache for two weeks, but without health insurance, he decided on home remedies.
First, he tried aspirin, then whiskey, then lukewarm saltwater. The pain persisted. He remembered his […]

After multiple sclerosis crippled my father, making him quit work, the family drew Social Security Disability Insurance. Some years later my father joked about how the government finally cured him.
He showed me a letter he got from the Social Security Administration that read, “Dear Mr. Rausch, With your 65th birthday, you are no longer disabled. […]

Photos of women draped in bright sarongs leading children through a sandy barren landscape capture the plight of the refugees in the Darfur region in western Sudan. Stories of rape and pillage told to aid workers through translators underscore the trauma and despair of a farming people forced from their land.
About 100,000 civilians have been […]

Kentucky just spent $92 million building a 961-bed correctional facility in Elliott County. Touted as a vehicle for economic development, the prison promises several hundred jobs for the sluggish economy of eastern Kentucky, plus a multiplier effect throughout the region for vendors and local shop owners.
But, Kentucky now faces a growing budget deficit, so some […]

The plant launders bed linens and uniforms especially from hospitals and nursing homes plus fire retardant garments from heavy industry. Started as a family business, it was sold years before to a national firm. The family atmosphere of the early days changed to more standard and impersonal work rules.
The testimonies at the hearing ranged […]

When Susan Pace Hamill received the first bill for her property tax after moving to Alabama, the amount was so low she thought she got a monthly assessment rather than the annual one. Conversely, her grocery receipts showed a high sales tax of 8 percent for bread and milk.
An article in her local newspaper comparing […]

“We are caught in an American culture that says violence is the way,” he said, “but the way of Jesus is different. I could not kill anyone according to the words of Jesus.”
Mark appeared before his draft board in Pontiac, Michigan, and received the classification of 1-O, “conscientious objector available for civilian work contributing […]

In the rolling hills of southern Indiana, the Oldenburg Franciscans converted their 300 acre farm into a center for organic food production, environmental education and spiritual renewal. They initiated a farm renewal program and dubbed it “Michaela Farm,” to honor an early mother superior.
By combining spirit and soil they hope to grow crops while raising […]

“Use only phosphate-free detergents.” That’s the suggestion for June 6. “Sit with children and discuss the details,” urges April 29. Then, “Clean drains with soda and vinegar,” instructs November 24. For the last 27 years Appalachia-Science in the Public Interest (ASPI) has produced a calendar with 365 simple lifestyle suggestions.
Besides filled with stunning black […]

Eula Hall is expecting 1,500 for Christmas dinner. Founder of the Mud Creek Clinic, Eula raised $5,000 to purchase 25 hams, 40 turkeys plus toys for the kids. She organized her friends and volunteers to start cooking a day early and fill take-home bags with fruit, nuts and candy stretching the dinner into area homes.
Mud […]

Founded in 1778, Abingdon, Virginia, the state’s oldest town west of the Blue Ridge, numbers among the approximately 100 communities in the United States currently resisting a Wal-Mart superstore. For over a year the town council and concerned citizens collaborated to address the zoning and architectural issues that would make that possible.
Abingdon residents wanted to […]

Francisco, a man in his mid-40s, hobbled painfully to the van and sat on the step. Removing his shoe he exposed a raw blister the size of the palm in his leathery hand. He had walked for five days through the southwestern desert to enter the U.S. after paying his smuggler and guide, a.k.a. the […]

Although the temperature outside hovered in the low 30s, the stoked potbelly stove turned the make-shift classroom in the old railroad depot into a torrid July afternoon. A.L. rose to crack a few windows to avoid falling asleep during my lecture on the GDP deflator.
I was teaching a three-hour night class on economics in mid-winter […]

Before Joel Schrader ran for public office in Kentucky, he toured the eastern part of the state to better understand the issues. He joined a dozen people for four days visiting folks engaged in community development, environmental work and especially healthcare. Two vans in tandem wound down back roads to find small health clinics tucked […]

(Fr. Rausch is a Glenmary priest who lives, writes and organizes in Appalachia. This article courtesy of the Arlington Catholic Herald.)

Still, capital punishment remained remote, involving nobody she knew.
Then in her later 60s a death penalty case grabbed her attention. Volunteering for office work at St. Agnes Parish in Springfield, Miss., she learned that a […]

This true story from a safe house in rural Appalachia demonstrates what many women fear, and some face, when a horror movie turns real.
The husband comes home drunk and has a gun. Frustrated with the world he wields his power over the people he can more easily control, his wife and family. In a […]

The World Economic Forum, convening at the same time in New York, attracted movers and shakers from world governments and transnational corporations paying $25,000 each, and got the spotlight.
The WEF, founded in 1971 by a Swiss business professor to discuss the challenges of world trade, drew 3,000 invited delegates to the Waldorf-Astoria. With instability from […]

For two months he faced the grim life of captivity and privation. In the prison camp one guard beat him daily with a crude wooden baton the size of a baseball bat, and with bad food and poor treatment he developed a stomach problem that lasted till his death.
Weeks later when the war ended the […]

(Fr. Rausch is a Glenmary priest who writes, teaches and organizes in Appalachia. This article courtesy of the Arlington Catholic Herald.)
This month when their hot water heater quit and they had a minor accident with the car, it meant financial crisis.
April works full time at a convenience store in a small Appalachian community. After five […]