Latest Bigfoot Sighting on Droop Mountain (Or Is It the Mothman?)

Our game camera pictures have been plentiful, and much alike. These deer visit regularly. However, Monday morning, the camera caught this:

Seconds later, whatever it was, it was gone.

Was it a bear having a bad hair day? Was it the the Mothman? (If so, he's a long way from Point Pleasant.) We decided it was probably Bigfoot. After all, the BFRO's 2006 sighting on the Greenbrier River Trail was so convincing that they mounted a return expedition in 2008. Of course, we can't rule out the possibility that it was the Yayho, as described by Burl Hammons.

Some Shale Gas Links

• EQT chief speaks on fracking, coal, greenhouse gases at UC   - News - The Charleston Gazette - West Virginia News and Sports -: The question of what chemicals are used in hydraulic fracturing are "overstated," Porges said. Many still ask for companies to reveal them, however, he said they're available on frackfocus.org, which is run by the Groundwater Protection Council.
• Ohio agency says fracking-related activity caused earthquakes | Reuters: An Ohio state agency said on Friday there is evidence that the high-pressure injection of fluid underground related to fracking caused a series of Ohio earthquakes culminating in a New Year's Eve tremor in any area not known for seismic activity.
• Natural born drillers: Why shale gas won't end our energy woes | Grist:
  

  Talk about a dangerous echo chamber: A government agency relies on industry data to calculate "independent" estimates, then industry proponents point to the government figures to bolster their rosy outlook.

  This echo chamber is one powerful explanation for how federal energy officials have, wittingly or unwittingly, become peddlers of the so-called "crack cocaine of the power industry."

  Has the agency cleaned up its act? It has lowered its numbers. But only time will tell whether it has changed how it does its research.

  In the meantime, we'll all have to live with a natural gas boom that may turn out to be a lot more expensive--for both the environment and consumers--than the industry and regulators first believed.

  Drilling Down - Fighting Over Oil and Gas Well Leases - NYTimes.com

  
  

State launches gas-drilling database for public

State launches gas-drilling database for public  - News - The Charleston Gazette - West Virginia News and Sports -: "CHARLESTON, W.Va. -- West Virginians interested in oil and gas drilling plans can now study permits and get other details online. The Department of Environmental Protection's Office of Oil and Gas has launched a website with information on horizontal drilling operations. The site was mandated under legislation passed in December."

'via Blog this'

New USDA Plant Hardiness Zone Map

This week the USDA Agricultural Research Service released its new Plant Hardiness Zone Map. Strangely, I discovered this, not through the agriculture and gardening sites I follow, but through Mother Jones magazine's Blue Marble Blog. Julia Whitty points out:

The new map is interactive, which is cool, and based on a much finer data scale than the old one, which is great. And guess what. It shows that things are getting warmer. The USDA managed to pretty much bury that fact in Bureaucratese in their press release...Compared to the 1990 version, zone boundaries in this edition of the map have shifted in many areas. The new map is generally one 5-degree Fahrenheit half-zone warmer than the previous map throughout much of the United States. This is mostly a result of using temperature data from a longer and more recent time period; the new map uses data measured at weather stations during the 30-year period 1976-2005. In contrast, the 1990 map was based on temperature data from only a 13-year period of 1974-1986.

The interactive USDA Plant Hardiness Zone Map lets you select a state and "zoom in" to see surprisingly fine-grained detail. I've already zoomed in on every place I've ever tried to garden.

JSTOR Limited Free Access for Unmoored Scholars

jstor opens limited free access option non-subscribing scholars | Inside Higher Ed: "The depletion of the traditional professoriate has produced a new demographic of unmoored scholars who might not have “the consistency of access that they want,” says Heidi McGregor, a spokeswoman for JSTOR. The goal of Register & Read would be to better serve that population — as well as others that the organization might not have even known about."

Good news for us "unmoored scholars." The institutions that employ me as an adjunct faculty member don't subscribe to JSTOR.

'via Blog this'

Digitization Policies for the Web

Apropos of the SOPA/PIPA controversy last week, I've revised my short paper on digital copyright issues written for a local history project a few years ago. The website where it was posted has since been shut down, so I'm re-posting it here for my own reference. Even without SOPA/PIPA, modern copyright law has a stifling effect on preserving genealogy and local history, while profiting no one. "Orphan works" still under copyright, are being lost because they cannot legally be curated or shared on the Internet.

Pocahontas County Historic Preservation Project: A First Draft of Digitization Policies

Goals of the Digitization Project

• To facilitate preservation of historic materials through digitization.
• To make freely available as much material as possible, over the web and through local libraries, museums, and historic sites.
• To behave in a scholarly, courteous, and responsible manner to those who create or donate historic materials and to those who wish to access such material for noncommercial purposes. This must include acting in accordance with copyright, property, and privacy laws.

Digitization has tremendous potential to enhance preservation of historic materials, and to make all types of information available to interested parties around the world at little cost. However, it also presents novel problems in intellectual property rights. Who owns the rights to reproduce materials, and what may be done with the digital copies? There have been many changes in intellectual property rights law in the last 20 years, and there are few simple, straightforward answers to these questions.

I believe there are some cases in which we can use materials without fear of infringing anyone's rights.

• Text and photographs published prior to January 1, 1923 are considered in the public domain. At least one item of interest to our project, William T. Price's Historical Sketches of Pocahontas County, has been scanned by the Google Books Project, and is freely available at their website in pdf and ascii text files.
• Works of the United States Government, and other government-generated writings, as described by the West Virginia Division of Culture and History.
• Any work that was neither published nor registered as of Jan. 1, 1978, and whose author died before 1933 entered the public domain on Jan. 1, 2003, unless it was published on or before Dec. 31, 2002. (U.S. Copyright Office, see passage in Appendix.)
• Unpublished works that have been donated, along with their copyrights, to the Historical Society, the Genealogy group, or the Library system. (See the "Deed of Gift" references in the Appendix.) For example, if a diary and some family snapshots are donated by the creator's heir, along with explicit permission to share and reproduce, we may legally digitize and post these on the Web site.
• Our own photographs of three-dimensional artifacts, with the permission of the artifact owner.
• Descriptions of the materials in our local collections, using the Archon archive content management system to list our holdings on the Web, even where we cannot find the copyright owner or obtain permission. We can display excerpts of text or images as long as we comply with the Fair Use Doctrine. (Described by the Copyright Office, see Appendix.)
• Digital copies of unpublished works under copyright protection can be made (up to three copies) by a library for preservation purposes, but they cannot be posted on the Internet, or otherwise displayed or distributed. (Section 108 of the U.S. Copyright Code, see Appendix for a link.)

Items that may not be available for digitization or publication on a Web site include:

• Studio and professional photographs where the photographer was still living as of January 1, 1933. The person who commissioned the photo did not get copyrights at purchase. These remained with the photographer, unless explicitly surrendered.
• Photographs and papers found and donated to the Historical Society. Although these organizations have legal ownership of the physical objects, copyright does not automatically convey with the object.
• Published materials under copyright protection where the copyright holder is unidentifiable, unavailable, or unwilling to give permission for digitization.

To proceed with the digitization project, we need to identify which materials we have legal right to digitize, obtain permission to use materials where necessary, and determine how we want to share our own materials.

• We need to identify copyright holders for materials already in possession of the Historical Society, the Pearl Buck Birthplace, and the libraries. Where this is known, we can request permission to digitize and share materials.
• As we gain access to new materials, we need to get permission in writing to digitize and share the materials. There are several "Deed of Gift" templates available for us to use in developing our own permission form. (See "Deed of Gift" in Appendix.) It will be important to make sure this form does not sound ominous, intimidating, or excessively technical, lest it have a "wet blanket" effect on offers of information.

• We need to spell out our copyright for the Web site. I suggest a Creative Commons Attribution-Non-Commercial license, but this will only apply to materials where we own the copyright (for example, things the Historic Preservation Officer writes while "on the clock;" new photographs of historic locations and objects taken specifically for the digitization project, etc.) Where we use materials by permission with attribution, we have no authority to grant permission to another party.

• The possibility of print publications such as books, calendars, and recordings has been discussed, especially as a form of fund raising for the support of the various institutions involved. Copyright issues must be considered especially carefully for such projects, as they are more carefully examined in for-profit situations.

Appendix: Quotations From Pertinent Sources

Copyright Office On Protection of Digital Rights

Pertinent information from the United States Copyright Office Frequently Asked Questions:

It is illegal for anyone to violate any of the rights provided by the copyright law to the owner of copyright. These rights, however, are not unlimited in scope. Sections 107 through 121 of the 1976 Copyright Act establish limitations on these rights....One major limitation is the doctrine of "fair use," which is given a statutory basis in section 107 of the 1976 Copyright Act....

A party may seek to protect his or her copyrights against unauthorized use by filing a civil lawsuit in federal district court. If you believe that your copyright has been infringed, consult an attorney. In cases of willful infringement for profit, the U.S. Attorney may initiate a criminal investigation....

If you use a copyrighted work without authorization, the owner may be entitled to bring an infringement action against you. There are circumstances under the fair use doctrine where a quote or a sample may be used without permission. However, in cases of doubt, the Copyright Office recommends that permission be obtained....

....Uploading or downloading works protected by copyright without the authority of the copyright owner is an infringement of the copyright owner's exclusive rights of reproduction and/or distribution. Anyone found to have infringed a copyrighted work may be liable for statutory damages up to $30,000 for each work infringed and, if willful infringement is proven by the copyright owner, that amount may be increased up to $150,000 for each work infringed. In addition, an infringer of a work may also be liable for the attorney's fees incurred by the copyright owner to enforce his or her rights.....

....Photocopying shops, photography stores and other photo developing stores are often reluctant to make reproductions of old photographs for fear of violating the copyright law and being sued. These fears are not unreasonable, because copy shops have been sued for reproducing copyrighted works and have been required to pay substantial damages for infringing copyrighted works. The policy established by a shop is a business decision and risk assessment that the business is entitled to make, because the business may face liability if they reproduce a work even if they did not know the work was copyrighted....

....In the case of photographs, it is sometimes difficult to determine who owns the copyright and there may be little or no information about the owner on individual copies. Ownership of a "copy" of a photograph the tangible embodiment of the "work" is distinct from the "work" itself the intangible intellectual property. The owner of the "work" is generally the photographer or, in certain situations, the employer of the photographer. Even if a person hires a photographer to take pictures of a wedding, for example, the photographer will own the copyright in the photographs unless the copyright in the photographs is transferred, in writing and signed by the copyright owner, to another person. The subject of the photograph generally has nothing to do with the ownership of the copyright in the photograph. If the photographer is no longer living, the rights in the photograph are determined by the photographer's will or passed as personal property by the applicable laws of intestate succession.....

Materials In the Public Domain

When U.S. Works Pass Into the Public Domain provides a chart to clarify the rules. The simplest entry indicates that works published prior to January 1, 1923 are in the public domain. Complexity increases from there.

The Copyright Office explains how unpublished works may enter public domain: Certain Unpublished, Unregistered Works Enter Public Domain.

Certain works that were neither published nor registered for copyright as of Jan. 1, 1978, entered the public domain on Jan. 1, 2003, unless the works were published on or before Dec. 31, 2002.

Under the 1909 Copyright Act, works that were neither published nor registered did not enjoy statutory protection, although they were protected under common law in perpetuity as long as they remained unpublished and unregistered. But under section 303 of the 1976 Copyright Act, works that were created but neither published nor registered in the Copyright Office before Jan. 1, 1978, lost their common law protection and acquired a statutory term of protection that was the life of the author plus 50 years, amended in 1998 to life plus 70 years.

As a result of the 1976 Copyright Act, any of the works in question whose author had died over 50 years prior to 1978 would have entered the public domain after Dec. 31, 1977. To provide a reasonable term of copyright protection for these works, and in light of the fact that these works had enjoyed perpetual protection under common law, Congress extended their term by at least 25 more years. Congress also encouraged publication by providing an additional 25 more years, extended in 1998 to 45 more years, of protection if the work was published on or before Dec. 31, 2002.

That first 25-year period expired on Dec. 31, 2002. Any work that was neither published nor registered as of Jan. 1, 1978, and whose author died before 1933 entered the public domain on Jan. 1, 2003, unless it was published on or before Dec. 31, 2002. If the author died in 1933 or later, the work will be protected for 70 years after the author's death, due to the passage of the Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act in 1998.

Fair Use Doctrine

A discussion of the Fair Use Doctrine, by the U.S. Copyright Office

Section 107 contains a list of the various purposes for which the reproduction of a particular work may be considered “fair,” such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, and research. Section 107 also sets out four factors to be considered in determining whether or not a particular use is fair:

1. the purpose and character of the use, including whether such use is of
   commercial nature or is for nonprofit educational purposes;
2. the nature of the copyrighted work;
3. amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole; and
4. the effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work.

The distinction between "fair use" and infringement may be unclear
and not easily defined. There is no specific number of words, lines, or notes that may safely be taken without permission. Acknowledging the source of the copyrighted material does not substitute for obtaining permission.

The 1961 Report of the Register of Copyrights on the General Revision of the U.S. Copyright Law cites examples of activities that courts have regarded as fair use: quotation of excerpts in a review or criticism for purposes of illustration or comment; quotation of short passages in a scholarly or technical work, for illustration or clarification of the author's observations; use in a parody of some of the content of the work parodied; summary of an address or article, with brief quotations, in a news report; reproduction by a library of a portion of a work to replace part of a damaged copy; reproduction by a teacher or student of a small part of a work to illustrate a lesson; reproduction of a work in legislative or judicial proceedings or reports; incidental and fortuitous reproduction, in a newsreel or broadcast, of a work located in the scene of an event being reported.

Privacy and Publicity Issues

Library of Congress Privacy and Publicity Issues:

While copyright protects the copyright holder's property rights in the work or intellectual creation, privacy and publicity rights protect the interests of the person(s) who may be the subject(s) of the work or intellectual creation. Issues pertaining to privacy and publicity may arise when a researcher contemplates the use of letters, diary entries, photographs or reportage in visual, audio, and print formats found in library collections. Because two or more people are often involved in the work (e.g., photographer and subject, interviewer and interviewee) and because of the ease with which various media in digital format can be reused, photographs, audio files, and motion pictures represent materials in which issues of privacy and publicity emerge with some frequency....

While copyright is a federally protected right under the United States Copyright Act, with statutorily described fair use defenses against charges of copyright infringement, neither privacy nor publicity rights are the subject of federal law. Note also that while fair use is a defense to copyright infringement, fair use is not a defense to claims of violation of privacy or publicity rights. Privacy and publicity rights are the subject of state laws. What may be permitted in one state may not be permitted in another. Note also that related causes of action may be pursued under the federal Lanham Act, 15 U.S.C. P 1125 (a), for example, for unauthorized uses of a person's identity in order to create a false endorsement.

While an individual's right to privacy generally ends when the individual dies, publicity rights associated with the commercial value connected with an individual's name, image or voice may continue. For example, many estates or representatives of famous authors, musicians, actors, photographers, politicians, sports figures, celebrities, and other public figures continue to control and license the uses of those figures' names, likenesses, etc.

How Libraries Manage Copyright Issues Pertaining to Their Digital Collections

Library of Congress

How the Library of Congress handles copyright issues on its Web site, as explained by the United States Copyright Office FAQ's:

I saw an image on the Library of Congress website that I would like to use. Do I need to obtain permission?

With few exceptions, the Library of Congress does not own copyright in the materials in its collections and does not grant or deny permission to use the content mounted on its website. Responsibility for making an independent legal assessment of an item from the Library's collections and for securing any necessary permissions rests with persons desiring to use the item. To the greatest extent possible, the Library attempts to provide any known rights information about its collections. Such information can be found in the "Copyright and Other Restrictions" statements on each American Memory online collection homepage. If the image is not part of the American Memory collections, contact the Library custodial division to which the image is credited. Bibliographic records and finding aids available in each custodial division include information that may assist in assessing the copyright status. Search our catalogs through the Library's Online Catalog. To access information from the Library's reading rooms, go to Research Centers.

Library of Congress "Legal" Page

Whenever possible, the Library of Congress provides factual information about copyright owners and related matters in the catalog records, finding aids and other texts that accompany collections. As a publicly supported institution, the Library generally does not own rights in its collections. Therefore, it does not charge permission fees for use of such material and generally does not grant or deny permission to publish or otherwise distribute material in its collections. Permission and possible fees may be required from the copyright owner independently of the Library. It is the researcher's obligation to determine and satisfy copyright or other use restrictions when publishing or otherwise distributing materials found in the Library's collections. Transmission or reproduction of protected items beyond that allowed by fair use requires the written permission of the copyright owners. Researchers must make their own assessments of rights in light of their intended use.

If you have any more information about an item you've seen on our website or if you are the copyright owner and believe our website has not properly attributed your work to you or has used it without permission, we want to hear from you. Please contact OGC@loc.gov with your contact information and a link to the relevant content.

West Virginia University Libraries

How West Virginia University University Library regulates use of its archives, physical archives: Rules for the Use of Library Materials in the West Virginia and Regional History Collection

Some materials in the WVRHC are protected by copyright laws and other restrictions. The researcher assumes all responsibility for possible infringement of copyright and/or other literary, artistic, property or privacy rights in the act of copying or in the subsequent use of the materials copied....The reproduction of any collection in its entirety is prohibited.

Any publication, exhibition, or other public use of materials reproduced must properly credit the source from which a copy is made. The basic credit line is "West Virginia and Regional History Collection, West Virginia University Libraries"....Researchers are not permitted to photograph any materials in the WVRHC. To order photographs, users may inquire at the reference desk about policies, forms and fees.

West Virginia History Online Digital Collections has rules that offer us a model on proper usage: Notes on Rights and Reproductions. Their West Virginia History OnView: Photographs From the West Virginia & Regional History Collection is the sort of online archive we hope to produce.

West Virginia History OnLine digital resources are available for use in research, teaching, and private study only. These materials may NOT be used for publication or exhibition, downloaded and placed on another server where they can be publicly accessed, or utilized in any other public manner without the express written permission of the West Virginia and Regional History Collection. Such permission may be granted only by a curator of the WV&RHC or by the Dean of WVU Libraries. Any reproduction of materials from this site must properly credit the source of the materials. For archives and manuscripts, the proper credit line includes the full name of the collection, plus "West Virginia and Regional History Collection, West Virginia University Libraries." For works of art, the proper credit line includes the names of the artist and artwork, plus "West Virginia and Regional History Collection, West Virginia University Libraries."

Some Materials in the WV&RHC and on this web site are protected by copyright laws and other restrictions. The researcher assumes all responsibility for possible infringement of copyright and/or other literary, artistic, property or privacy rights in the act of copying or in the subsequent use of the materials copied.

Deed of Gift Forms

Local history research organizations such as libraries, museums, and historical associations, can protect themselves against inadvertent copyright violations by obtaining permission to display and use material at the time it is donated. If your organization accepts gifts (items), then it needs a Deed of gift form.

Here are two other sources for Deed of Gift formats:

• Wisconsin Historical Records Advisory Board Best Practices Project, 1997-98
• A Guide to Deeds of Gift

Copyright Concerns For Libraries

There are special rules for libraries and digital copying. Section 108 of the U.S. Copyright Code is a graphic presentation of these rules, provided by Copyright advisory network, a site about the latest developments in digital collections and archives.

Modes of Managing Copyright Issues

• Creative Commons
• The Public Domain: Enclosing the Commons of the Mind by James Boyle
• DigitalKoans--What Is the Sound of One E-Print Downloading?

Online Resources for Further Reading

• United States Copyright Office
• Fair Use, explained by the U.S. Copyright Office
• Rules for the Use of Library Materials in the West Virginia and Regional History Collection
• West Virginia History Online Digital Collections
• West Virginia History OnView: Photographs From the West Virginia & Regional History Collection
• Notes on Rights and Reproductions
• A Guide to Deeds of Gift
• Copyright advisory network
• Section 108 of the U.S. Copyright Code--rules especially for libraries
• Creative Commons
• The Public Domain: Enclosing the Commons of the Mind by James Boyle
• The Public Domain--explained by the Copyright Office
• DigitalKoans--What Is the Sound of One E-Print Downloading?
• WHEN U.S. WORKS PASS INTO THE PUBLIC DOMAIN
• Library of Congress Homepage legal issues, including copyright, privacy, and publicity
• Intellectual Property Rights Server--Copyright page--provides information about intellectual property law including patent, trademark and copyright. Resources include comprehensive links, general information, space for professionals to publish articles and forums for discussing related issues.
• A Look Back at Canarsie, Clouded by Copyright Woes --a case study from the New York Times, describing how Brooklyn Historical Society was unable to give permission to a local historian who wanted to include two photographs from their collection in his forthcoming book.
• COPYRIGHTS AND OTHER RIGHTS IN PHOTOGRAPHIC IMAGES
  A detailed discussion of 20th century photographs, copyright law, and licensing

What will we do about coal’s ‘crisis in the making’? « Coal Tattoo

What will we do about coal’s ‘crisis in the making’? « Coal Tattoo: "As a society, we do not plan well for economic transitions; nor do we tend to plan for the long term. Our elected officials have a vested interest in helping businesses and industries that are here now, not imagining future businesses and industries. Coal companies focus only on this year’s profits. Unions protect current members’ jobs. Planning the future of Boone County is too important to leave up to the president of the West Virginia Coal Association, the CEO of Alpha Natural Resources, the president of the United Mine Workers, or even government officials like Sen. Manchin and Gov. Tomblin."

'via Blog this'

Wind Turbine Mufflers

Mineral County wind farm owner seeks to reduce noise  - News - The Charleston Gazette - West Virginia News and Sports -: "KEYSER, W.Va. -- The owner of a wind farm in Mineral County is working to reduce turbine noise after neighbors complained that they can't sleep. Edison Mission Energy has asked the turbine manufacturer to develop a turbine muffler system."

If I Were a Poor Iowa Kid--Oh Wait, I Was

Art of the Rural has a complete and interesting recap of the Stephen Bloom kerfuffle in "The Atlantic." I wasn't really curious about it until I read Matthew Fluharty's blog post. He includes a link to this interview with Bloom, in which Bloom characterizes his article as "satire" and "parody."

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

I read the article, and couldn't identify what, specifically, Bloom was parodying or satirizing. What I read was, mostly, an unsympathetic description of rural poverty. Why he (and The Atlantic) thought that another disdainful description of white people at economic and cultural disadvantage would be useful and informative is puzzling. There's been so much of it, ranging from the nineteenth century Hatfield--McCoy feud's national newspaper coverage to Bill O'Reilly ranting that drunken Appalachians should move to Miami and "get a job".

The Iowa article was so mean-spirited and so much in the mood of "white-trash" bashing that it reminded me of the appalling Gene Marks article, If I Were a Poor Black Kid, on the Forbes website. (Originally published as "If I WAS a Poor Black Kid"--I guess Mr. Marks is not quite as well-educated as he thought.)

"If I Were a Poor Black Kid" unleashed a flood of angry and funny responses, including Poorblackkid.com. Similarly, Bloom's Web article is now accompanied by a variety of responses, and helped inspire this much-viewed video:

Because of the vehement response to the Forbes article, several people have suggested that it is actually an Internet troll tactic, and that the outrage has raised Gene Marks' profile and readership. Perhaps that explains why The Atlantic published Bloom's grouchy and tired critique of his adopted home. Willie Geist's NBC interview above notes that Bloom is "in hiding" because he has received harassing phone calls. I certainly hope no harm comes to his family because of his flame-bait. That kind of behavior only reinforces Bloom's clue-less disdain.

Marcellus Shale Extraction in West Virginia

The Charleston Gazette blogs recently featured this link: The industrialization of rural West Virginia caused by the Marcellus Shale gas play. It's well worth a look. There's been some speculation on mineral rights in Pocahontas County recently, and this slideshow has some practical information on what hydrofracturing the Marcellus shale looks like from the surface.

A few years ago, Marcellus Shale gas was unrecoverable, and West Virginia was a relative backwater in the oil and gas industry. The new techniques of high-volume hydraulic fracturing and horizontal drilling have made a sea change in all of that. The Marcellus Shale is now the second largest field of gas -- in the WORLD. It is twice the size of the gas fields in Saudi Arabia. Major oil companies like Exxon are buying up gas resources here. Conventional shallow wells that cost $300,000.00 to drill have given way to 6 to 8 horizontal wells drilled from one well site. And each horizontal well costs $3 Million or more to drill. This drilling causes an exponential increase in surface disturbance, water use and waste disposal. It also requires compressor stations and staging areas and greatly increases demands on roads and other infrastructure.

The slideshow is on the WV Surface Owners' Rights Organization (WV SORO) Website. They introduce their resources with this:

West Virginia is second only to Texas in the number of active oil and gas wells in the country. New drilling permits have more than tripled in recent years and West Virginia surface owners have very few rights to protect them from drillers unless they also own the minerals beneath their land. If you live in one of the state's oil and gas producing counties you know about the polluted streams, needless destruction of timber, lost home sites, careless road building and ruined pastures caused by drillers.

On(line) to Grafton: A Civil War Journal

For the last few months I've been scanning documents from the Pocahontas County Historical Society's archives. I'm still working my way through the William T. Price family collection. The oldest material I've worked with is from the 1840's, and it does give a glimpse of our local area at that time--not an easy or comfortable time and place.

This week, Reverend Price's Civil War journal, which he published in 1901 as "On to Grafton," is "serialized" on our Pocahontas County History web site. Rev. Price was a Virginian, and like most of the people in this area, approved of secession. Here's what he had to say about "The Cause" on his second day out on the Grafton campaign:

Early in the afternoon I reached Huttonsville in Randolph County where I found the people much excited and worried, and wearied to the verge of exhaustion by attention to soldiers a day or two before. Some persons seemed very desponding of the final outcome....I tried to cheer them up by saying to them that the cause of Virginia is a just one, such as the God of Hosts would approve. We might be slain in battle but never conquered....The question then was whether we should sustain the usurption of power and draw the sword against our friends, or whether it should be resisted and stand on the defensive. If let alone no blood would be shed, but if assailed then battle for all that is near and dear to the noble heart.

Moreover in my table and fireside conversations I tried to impress the minds of all that the question now is whether Virginia shall have the privilege of self government and regulate our taxes according as our interests and social institutions require, or whether we are to have our laws made for us, and enforced by rulers, whose popularity at home is in direct proportion to their hatred of us and abuse of our social and political institutions.

As a seminary trained minister, Rev. Price's opinion on which side the Lord of Hosts would approve must have carried some weight. I find myself anachronistically despondent reading (and transcribing) all the pre-battle puffing up. I want to tell them, "No! Don't! Just stay home--it's going to be worse than you can even imagine." There is, of course, no talk of slavery at all. It appears that it was not considered polite to mention it. Rev. Price and all the other writers of this time use the word "servant" when they must talk of people owned as chattel. It's a nicer word, and it's in the Bible, so it must be OK.

Clark Kessinger Video

A few weeks ago, Larry Ayers, of "Riverside Rambles" posted a link to Norman Blake's version of "Done Gone". I started gathering URL's about my own experiences with that tune (including how it helped me get my banjo fixed for free), when I came across this video of West Virginia's Clark Kessinger, performing at the Newport Festival. I have a number of his recordings (including "Done Gone"), but I'd never seen him in action before.

Whatever I meant to say about Larry, Norman Blake, "Done Gone," and Clark Kessinger has vanished from both brain and hard drive, but Mr. Kessinger's fiddling is well worth a link.

More Journalists Seek Recession Along West Virginia Route 219

It's beginning to look like our part of West Virginia is a required stop on Washington D.C.-based journalism's "2009 Poverty Road Tour." Last week, "The Atlantic Monthly" visited Hillsboro, while the Sunday Washington Post hit West Virginia a few miles south of us, in Union, WV. They report: 'Country' Folk Say Hard Times Not So Tough a Row to Hoe.

The Post's account is archived in their Half a Tank Blog: Half a Tank is part of a summer-long quest to find the stories of lives altered by a flattened economy. Reporter Theresa Vargas and photographer Michael Williamson left Washington June 1 to cross the country and post a daily online journal of the characters and scenes they encounter. If you're looking for a recession road trip, I would recommend this one over the rather amateurish blog that mentioned Hillsboro. Here's a quote.

It's hard to tell whether Union has been slapped more softly by the recession or if its residents are just able to grin and bear it more than elsewhere....

When Michael and I spoke to most people here about the economy, they described subtle changes between their pre-recession and post-recession lives.

"We're country boys," said Robert Ferguson, 90, a World War II veteran who well remembers the Depression. "We can survive better than these city boys when something like this happens."

City folks, said Oswale Yates, 86 and also a World War II veteran, "wouldn't know which end of the hoe to get hold of. We live more simple. In other words, we don't live as high on the hog as some people."

Hillsboro Makes the Atlantic Monthly

Hillsboro, my mailing address, got a brief feature last month in The Atlantic Magazine online: Taking Comfort in Small Joys. The series, correspondent Christina Davidson's "Recession Road Trip," has this mission:

For the next four months I will travel the back roads and State highways through the 48 contiguous United States, uncovering stories of economic survival and endurance. In diners, bars, bingo halls and coffee shops, I seek those Americans who have lost everything--except hope.

The tone of the Hillsboro piece is complementary--

...within the state, the ruggedly self-sufficient culture that endemic poverty has engendered represents strength and independence--a thing of pride for residents. Most importantly--for the purposes of this project--that natural state of being for West Virginia has acted as a kind of buffer against some of the heartbreak and despair the recession has visited upon wealthier parts of the country.

One hopes that the accuracy of her subsequent articles will be better. She has several errors of fact (one per paragraph, by my count), such as mistaking the West Virginia household income for the per capita income, making West Virginia sound like a financially flush place. Still, I do like her take-away message:

Valuable recession lessons can be gleaned from the West Virginia experience: Never buy what you don't need. And learn how to can.

Historical Sketches of Pocahontas County In the 21st Century

The last few weeks I've been spending a lot of time with Historical Sketches of Pocahontas County by William T. Price (1901), which is now available on Google Books. You can download the pdf file, and for a while you could also grab the unedited OCR version of the text, although this doesn't seem to be available anymore.

About 400 pages of this tome record are genealogical records, interspersed with short reminiscences about the early settlers in Pocahontas County. Because so many people are looking for this information, I'm converting it into html on our website, Pocahontas County History. Over the years, I've encountered unattributed quotes from Reverend Price's book on many different genealogy websites, and last summer I discovered that WPA employees had typed out long passages from the 1901 book in the late 1930'a and early 1940's. Some of these typists identified their source, while others did not, but these typescripts have been appearing here and there on the Internet as well, never with proper attribution.

I must confess, the more time I spend with the late Reverend Price (pictured above), the more exasperated I become with some of his bad editorial habits; however, I don't want his work floating around the Interwebitubes without proper attribution. Besides, with Drupal set up for decent search engine optimization, more people should be able to find their ancestral names and places once the worthy reverend's words are rendered into hypertext markup language. (Worthy ancestors being the only kind he bothered to catalog.)

Bill O'Reilly Confused About Appalachia

State politics blog West Virginia Blue informed me last month that "Bill O'Reilly Hates You." Now, I already knew that Bill O'Reilly hates me, as a woman, and as a person with more learnin' than him, but I was quite surprised that he hates Appalachians. (I'm not pretending to be an Appalachian--I'm an Iowa farm girl, and wouldn't dream of putting on airs. Still, I feel offended on their behalf, and on behalf of all put-down rural people.) I thought that my neighbors were part of "Real America," and that they had Bill's approval. I know a majority of West Virginians voted for George W. Bush twice, and many of them watch Fox News regularly. Turns out, Bill runs with the inbred, toothless, drunken hillbilly story, (just like the Yankee newspapers did in Hatfield and McCoy days!) and thinks Appalachians should all leave home for Miami.

I think Bill may be a little confused about Appalachia's geographical identity. Living in New York City as he does, he's probably confusing it with "The South." Or perhaps he doesn't know about the "Hillbilly Highway."

The bona fide Appalachian member of our household believes that negative stereotypes should be encouraged, as they serve to discourage annoying tourists and the sort of people who move here and want to make it like the place they moved away from. He only regrets that Bill didn't go for "inbred hillbilly cannibals," as seen in Wrong Turn.

For a serious response to Bill's nasty rant, see Betty Cloer Wallace's essay on Dave Tabler's excellent blog, Appalachian History. She is eloquent, but I have mixed feelings about campaigns against "hillbilly" stereotypes because I believe the real problem is a matter of social class, not ethnicity. Poor whites are especially hated by the well-to-do classes because their existence reminds the wealthy that privilege can be lost--it could happen to them. Believing that poverty is "their problem," because of some racial, ethnic, or regional identity keeps that fear at bay. I expect this sort of labeling to get worse with increasing fears of hard economic times.

Marcellus Shale Developments

The Marcellus shale natural gas extraction business has made the news in West Virginia lately. One company has decided not to build a regional corporate headquarters here after all, while local and state government are moving toward regulation of hydrofracture extraction's use of water resources.

Chesapeake takes parting shot by George Hohmann Charleston Daily Mail Business Editor

Chesapeake Energy Corp. on Thursday not only announced it will downsize its Charleston office, it sent the state a stinging message: West Virginia's legal system hurts business. The company said the jobs of 215 of its Charleston-based employees will either be moved to Oklahoma City or eliminated in the reorganization.

Chesapeake co-founder and CEO Aubrey McClendon said in a prepared statement that downsizing the Charleston office from a regional corporate headquarters to a regional field office follows an operational model Chesapeake has used successfully elsewhere....Then he took a parting shot at West Virginia's legal system.

It was just four years ago that Chesapeake made its presence known in the Mountain State in a huge way. In 2005, it bought Columbia Natural Resources for $2.2 billion cash. The deal instantly made Oklahoma-based Chesapeake the largest natural gas exploration and production company in West Virginia.

Little noticed at the time was the fact that Chesapeake inherited a role as defendant in a class-action lawsuit known as the Tawney case. The lawsuit charged Columbia Natural Resources and NiSource Inc. with cheating landowners. In early 2007 a Roane County jury said the companies should pay $134.3 million in allegedly unpaid gas royalties to landowners plus $270 million in punitive damages....

In October, McClendon was forced to sell 33.4 million shares of Chesapeake - essentially all his stock in the company - to meet a margin call in a $570 million fire sale.

Chesapeake's Appalachian Basin operations stretch from the Finger Lakes region of western New York to central Alabama. Chesapeake is one of several oil and gas companies drilling in West Virginia's underground Marcellus Shale reserves.

Chesapeake's stock plunged from a high of $74 last summer to a five-year low of $9.84 in early December. The company's shares were trading at $16.32 Thursday....

Last week, a New York law firm filed a class-action lawsuit against Chesapeake, alleging that company officials violated federal securities laws by issuing false and misleading statements about Chesapeake's business activities and finances.

This cancellation of regional corporate headquarters does not mean that Chesapeake will give up its existing natural gas extraction sites, or quit buying ad developing leases in West Virginia, as some people around here have speculated. Their operation in Jane Lew, along Interstate 79, is hiring now. Here are a couple more analyses of the court verdict, the unsuccessful appeal, and its putative effect on the natural gas industry in West Virginia:

• Chesapeake slashes 215 jobs--Company blames natural gas slump, court decision
• Hoppy's Commentary on Chesapeake by Talkline Host Hoppy Kercheval

A "Marcellus Shale water pollution control" bill was introduced last week: West Viginia Legislature House Daily Journal for March 5, 2009:

H. B. 2960 - "A Bill to amend and reenact §22-11-4 of the Code of West Virginia, 1931, as amended, relating to water pollution control; and requiring the West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection to develop specific standards to control levels of total dissolved solids in the state's rivers and streams"; to the Committee on Government Organization then the Judiciary.

By Delegates Fleischauer, Manypenny, Marshall, Mahan, Doyle, Martin, Beach, Shook, Lawrence, Longstreth and Hatfield

Last month saw some local government action, described in this article: Morgantown City Council Passes Marcellus Shale Resolution by John Christensen, WVEC Lobbyist.

In order to express major concern over the possible hazards to water supplies due to drilling for natural gas in the Marcellus shale, the Morgantown City Council adopted a comprehensive resolution calling for the Legislature to adopt stricter standards and "emergency measures" to prevent water contamination resulting from that activity. The resolution also asks for the Legislature "to petition Congressional leaders to amend the (2004) federal Safe Drinking Water Act" which "exempts hazardous chemicals used in hydraulic fracturing--even diesel fuel--from limitation."

...The three page resolution addressed the hazards of the 300-odd chemical compounds used in the fracturing process developed by the Halliburton Corporation in which a pressurized brine solution is injected along with one to six million gallons of water for each well to explain their heightened response for safety....

WVEC Green Legislative Update tracks West Virginia state legislation on environmental and energy issues.

Relaxing With the Rokon

We love our all-terrain utility vehicles here in West Virginia. Ours is a two-wheel drive motorbike called a Rokon. (Years ago they were manufactured as "Tote Goats.") I've never mastered keeping it upright even on level ground, but it navigates steep, roadless places well, and doesn't tear up the ground like a conventional dirt bike.

Princess doesn't care for anything motordriven, unless it has a comfortable seat, and is safely turned off.

Wasilla Hillbillies and Self-Loathing

Throughout the presidential campaign, I was perfectly positioned to be insulted by both parties--I grew up on a farm and live in the country, which makes me racist white trash on one hand, and I have an education, which prohibits me from living in "real America" on the other hand. Just when I thought the dual dose of contempt was over, we have fresh insults in Newsweek's "special election project" (Nov 5, 2008):

...While publicly supporting Palin, McCain's top advisers privately fumed at what they regarded as her outrageous profligacy....One aide estimated that she spent "tens of thousands" more than the reported $150,000....An angry aide characterized the shopping spree as "Wasilla hillbillies looting Neiman Marcus from coast to coast," and said the truth will eventually come out when the Republican Party audits its books.

"Wasilla hillbillies!" I don't see the connection to the southern Appalachians. (West Virginian's official nickname is "Mountaineers.") The Palins look more like wannabe-yuppies run amok. The term snowbilly has been coined for them, apparently one more "white trash" synonym. It's just not an accurate application of our beloved/despised ethnic slur. If a real hillbilly were to loot a department store, wouldn't it be Cabela's, rather than Neiman Marcus? (At least, that would be my personal preference.)

This sort of discourse puts Republicans in an awkward position. For years, some of them have heaped contempt on the "liberal elite" and metropolitan populations, but now, it turns out that small town people are "hillbilly looters." I guess the Republicans are the party of self-loathing.

Recycling a Satellite Dish

Another Recycling Idea: Our neighbor made a small gazebo out of an old satellite dish. It's just large enough to keep the rain off a small table and chairs. I've seen them used for bird baths and planters, too, but the readers of /. (slashdot) offered some Alternative Uses for an Old Satellite Dish that really fascinated me, including parabolic microphones, speakers, and antennas. Here are the links I've archived....

• How-To: Build a WiFi biquad dish antenna
• Amateur Radio Astronomy Project Page and Amateur Radio Telescope Plans. How cool, to have your own personal radio astronomy telescope!
• Constructing a solar cooker from an abandoned satellite dish.
• Lyngsat--C band satellite channels; Free to Air satellite