Does Create WV Really Think They Can Privatize Culture Change And Innovation?

"...but we might be doing all of this just for our kids."

That quote from Jeff James of Create WV are the words with which reporter Bill Lynch of the Charleston Gazette chose to close his recent story about the upcoming Create WV conference.

Bill Lynch is a good reporter but I think he buried the lead.

If the goal of Jeff James and Create WV is to "help West Virginians participate more in the Innovation Economy which thrives on a creative class made up of artists, musicians, technology workers and entrepreneurs" as the article says, we need to start with understanding why our children have left West Virginia and why they continue to leave and how to make West Virginia the kind of place where the creative class wants to buy a house, start a business, invent something and raise a family. It is my contention that until we have that conversation we cannot change the culture that makes West Virginia repel rather than attract the creative class.

As long as West Virginia continues to elect city council members, mayors, state representatives, state senators, governors and other office holders who watched their own children leave the state and didn't try to understand why they left, we will continue to be a state that loses its talent to geographies with a culture that is inviting to the creative class.

Teenagers, twentysomethings and thirtysomethings know and understand why their creative contemporaries leave West Virginia. We need to ask them to explain it to us. Current office holders don’t. Study after study shows that creatives flee monochrome, parochial, insular and misoneist environments for more diverse and stimulating environments. Creatives want to live in places with artsy, independent film theaters and the kinds of “third spaces/third places” where they might engage with other outside-the-box thinkers. Young creatives who might invent something want raise their families in stimulating places. Young creatives tire of trying to explain “the culture thing” to city council members, mayors and other elected officials who think economic development is all about luring companies here with tax breaks or “selling” West Virginia’s natural beauty. Titular leaders who don’t understand why young creatives leave can’t turn on the magnet that makes them stay.

James is right when he says that "most people in the state look toward established businesses, like the mining industry or state government" rather than entrepreneurship or innovation but let us not pretend that the culture change we need can come from the private sector alone. 

If the current elected leaders will not start the conversation about why our kids leave and why they won't be here to benefit from changes Create WV wants to bring then we need to elect people whose own kids haven't left yet, people who will ask their kids how they would change the state to make it the kind of place in which they would like to raise a family, start a business or invent something. Private industry cannot overhaul the culture of West Virginia without the help of government. Until we are electing office holders who want to change the culture of our state, conferences aimed at budding entrepreneurs will be little more than networking events where the same people who have been swapping business cards for 5 years do it yet again.

Yes, Mr. James, what we do we do for our kids but the question is, without the culture change we need to keep them in West Virginia, will our kids be here to benefit from the changes we seek to make? You said in your Gazette interview that in its first 4 years Create Wv sought to engage leaders but now you wish to focus "on the individual level with people who want to be entrepreneurs". Does that mean it's OK with you if elected leaders don't show up for the conference or if elected leaders don't understand why our future leaves the state when they graduate from college? Do you really think West Virginia can privatize the change we need? I know it's fashionable to pretend that we don't need government and that government doesn't create jobs or anything else  but the truth is that government still controls most of the institutions and programs and most of the money and must be part of the solution to West Virginia's brain drain.

St. Albans Peoples Party In Need Of A Ward 2 Council Rep For The Second Time In Under 2 Years

A few weeks ago St. Albans City Councilman, JD Adkins resigned from his Ward 2 seat because he has moved out of his ward. It was less than 2 years ago when Ward 2 lost their previous council rep, Xris Hess, for the same reason. Hess and Adkins were members of the St. Albans Peoples Party so at last night's (1 October 2012) council meeting Mayor Dick Callaway asked the St. Albans Peoples Party to submit three candidates for the empty seat. City Council will then vote to install one of those three candidates to fill Adkins' unexpired term.

After a September council meeting Adkins told me "some people don't like change". I was dying to know what he meant but he seemed in a hurry to get to his car so I didn't press him. Here's what's interesting about that parting remark: Adkins doesn't know me from Adam. When he made his comment about some people not liking change, he had no idea to whom he was saying it which gave me the impression he has something on his mind that he'd like to talk about. Perhaps he read my 12 April 2011 post in which I called St. Albans a city a "Callagarchy" where apathy is always on the ballot. 

 Perhaps the reporter who covers St. Albans City Council for the Charleston Gazette, Kristin Ledford, will try to get him on the record. 

In other St. Albans City Council news, there will be a public hearing at 7:15 October 15 at which stakeholders can comment on the management-led buyout of Suddenlink and how this sale might affect St. Albans' Suddenlink TV, internet and phone customers.

I have a comment: Since the West Virginia Public Service Commission does not have oversight of cable TV providers, the City of St. Albans and other affected cities should insist that Suddenlink seat a community action panel where Suddenlink customers can interact on a regular basis with Suddenlink management.

Here is the link to my 12 April 2011 post:: http://higginbothamatlarge.blogspot.com/2011/04/new-words-for-old-problems-in-st-albans.html
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Breaking Bad Season 5 : Predictions

When the Charleston Gazette's Amy Robinson wrote her Breaking Bad season 5 tease, she inspired me to offer some Breaking Bad season 5 predictions.

Warning, if you are a new Breaking Bad addict and you're trying desperately to watch seasons 1-4 before the season 5 premiere (10PM Sunday July 15) this is a spoiler alert. I can't make my season 5 predictions without mentioning things that happened in seasons 1-4.

First, we're going to find out that, despite killing Gus Fring and destroying his superlab, Walt's season 4 finale declaration that he has "won" is premature. The Germans,  the people at Madrigal Electromotive GmbH  who bankrolled the superlab, are not going to be happy that Walt destroyed their superlab and killed their drug kingpin. If Walt has "won", where's the season 5 tension? No, Walt hasn't won. The Germans are coming.

Second, I predict that Walt's brother-in-law, DEA agent Hank Schrader, will figure out that the elusive "Heisenberg", maker of the 99% pure blue meth, is Walter White and, I predict that Hank will NOT arrest Walt. He'll look the other way because, Breaking Bad's recurring theme was summarized in a flashback scene from Season 3 episode 7 when Tio Salamanca horrifyingly taught future cartel hit men, Leonel and Marco Salamanca , that "family is all". 

I have a running argument with some of my friends about this last prediction. Some Breaking Bad addicts don't think Hank is smart enough to figure out that "Heisenberg" is Walter White. But while it's true that Hank isn't exactly an intellectual, he has shown that he is a pretty good investigator - and he already has all the clues he needs to put the puzzle together. I mean, the season one "break-in" at the high school science lab gave Hank reason to suspect Walt but Hank simply can't follow the clue trail to Walt because, well, Hank can't see Walt as a criminal. I predict that in season 5 Hank will amass such overwhelming evidence that Walt is the elusive “Heisenberg” that he will have to decide whether to arrest Walt or look the other way. I say he will look the other way because “family is all.”

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Nobody Would Ever Guess That WV Public Broadcasting Is Governed By An "Educational Broadcasting Authority"

Perhaps West Virginia Public Broadcasting's executive director, Dennis Adkins, could solve  WVPBS' financial problems - reported by Phil Kabler in the 7 June Charleston Gazette - if he spent less time finding ways to alienate the kind of people who comprise public broadcasting's natural constituency. 


With its Catholic preaching shows, shows that promote "intelligent design" (Journey Of The Universe) and its shows that feature dozens of fat,  semi-famous gospel singers sitting around singing and crying with each other, nobody would ever guess that West Virginia Public Broadcasting is governed by something called "The West Virginia Educational Broadcasting Authority".


Because I am old enough to remember when we actually called public TV "Educational Television", I'm probably not in Dennis Adkins' target demo, but I should be. People like me have a natural desire to support public broadcasting but can't bring ourselves to write a check when we turn on WVPBS and see some globetrotting Catholic preacher yammering about  how God "jammed the cross into the machinery of sin" and separation from God and how the resurrection of Jesus conquered death and so on.


When I go to the West Virginia Public Broadcasting's website and look at the makeup of the EBA board, I count at least 3 professional educators (Jorea Marple, Bruce Berry, Priscilla M. Haden). I hope these 3 professional educators will actually tune in to WVPBS some time and ask themselves if WVPBS makes them proud.


To be fair, WVPBS also airs some outstanding shows, but people like me who remember when separation of church and state was actually taught in 9th grade Civics, are offended when WVPBS, which receives some taxpayer support, airs preaching and gospel singing when it could be airing something educational.

Remembering L T Anderson

Instead of watching Mad Men last night I read the packet of old L T Anderson columns Gazette Editor, Jim Haught, was nice enough to send me. I got to chat with Haught at the "Textbook Wars" discussion at the Culture Center and mentioned to him that I was a huge L T Anderson fan and that I was looking for any collections of the late columnist's work. Jim graciously mailed me a huge packet of Anderson's stuff - mostly from 1971, 72 and 73, the same period in which I was a Gazette delivery boy in St. Albans and started every day reading the Gazette opinion pages before I delivered my papers.

I had forgotten how many anti-war columns Anderson wrote and how many of his columns held up what passes for Christianity to ridicule because of its failure to oppose war, indeed, for its Old Testament style eagerness to cast America in the role of Old Testament Israel - the good guys - and anybody some American president happens to declare war on in the role of Philistines or other Old Testament bad guys. And L T didn't just excoriate what passes for Christianity these days for its failure to oppose the Vietnam war until practically all the godless opposed it first, L T knew that what passes for Christianity these days is an enthusiastic military recruiter and PR department for the old, white, rich politicians who send poor young men off to war by invoking God and justifying their sacrifice by assuring grieving parents that their children died "defending freedom" or "defending their country" and were not sacrificed in vain.

I had also forgotten how much fun L T Anderson had with faith healers like Charleston's "Lacy The Stranger" and with "Honk If You Love Jesus" bumper stickers.

And I had forgotten that L T shared my love of Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.

What I had not forgotten was that L T Anderson was, in Jim Haught's words, "a genius". Haught told me he used to send Anderson's columns, ten at a time, to the Pulitzer Prize Committee. Twice a finalist, Anderson never won the Pulitzer though his many fans think he was robbed.

Anderson died in 2004 at the age of 83. I wish he could have lived long enough to lampoon today's version of what passes for Christianity but the absence of Andersonian theological commentary on what passes for Christianity today is less tragic than it would have been had Anderson not predicted that paunchy, red-faced Baptist preachers would still be lap dogs for old, rich, white politicians who want to send their parishoners off to be maimed and killed.

The columnist whose sardonic wit made me giggle with every folded paper I threw in the 70s, would not have been the least surprised that the church of the 21st century campaigned for a president who used a terrorist attack as a pretense for attacking a country that had nothing to do with attacking the US.

Why Becoming A News Snitch May Save Your Local Newspaper (From Itself) and Save You Some Tax Dollars

I was lucky enough to grow up in a great newspaper town - Charleston, WV, one of the few 2-newspaper towns left in America - and in a household that, for much of my childhood, took both the "Democrat" paper, the Charleston Gazette, and the "Republican" paper, the Charleston Daily Mail. By the time I was in high school, I was a total newspaper junkie. I couldn't get enough of LT Anderson's columns and James Dent's political cartoons. Each morning before I delivered the Gazette, I had already read most of it.

It's a wonder I didn't become a newspaper man myself since, as a kid, I could imagine no nobler profession, no higher calling, than keeping elected officials and other scoundrels accountable - which is what great newspapers do.

As I write this post, Sue Wylie is on her WVLK radio show asking if the Lexington Herald-Leader made a mistake when it ran a sports column on the front page of today's paper. Yes. When newspapers start putting opinion columns on the front page where only hard news belongs, they relinquish their raison d'etre and demonstrate why newspapers are going out of business and why the experts are saying that even major cities may awaken one morning to find that they must now get all their news from TV, radio and internet.

But please note: without the Lexington Herald-Leader, Sue Wylie didn't have a show from 10 to 11 today.

I once heard WLAP's talk shows do 6 hours of locally-originating talk radio on one op-ed that was published in the Lexington Herald-Leader.

What would blowhards like Glen Beck and Rush Limbaugh talk about if newspapers didn't report the news?

We're dangerously close to raising an entire generation of people who don't know the difference between news and commentary on the news, between facts and opinions, and it doesn't help when newspapers run sports columnists on the front page.

If newspapers have forgotten how to be great, there's something you and I can do to help them remember: we can become snitches.

It was a snitch who helped Woodward and Bernstein bring down the Nixon administration.

Lack of a snitch made Lexington Fayette Urban County Government a safe haven for a child molester who was using his city job and city resources to gain access to the children he molested. You can't tell me somebody in city government didn't know something that, if leaked to a newspaper reporter, may have saved dozens of kids from molestation.

And if you're not morally outraged by the knowledge that a Lexington city worker used his cushy job to victimize children, maybe you'll be outraged by the increased tax bills you're going to pay as Lexington pays $millions in legal costs.

I can't prove it, but I suspect the Herald-Leader's exposes on misuse of taxpayer money at the airport, the public library and the Kentucky League of Cities benefitted from insider information.

These whistleblowers have dislodged these abusers of the public trust from our wallets and saved us a lot of money.

What I'm saying is that even a newspaper that runs sports columns on the front page has enough sense to do investigative journalism when "average citizens" point them in the right direction so help newspapers keep the scoundrels accountable. Go to your local newspaper's website and look up the fax number of the news room or the email addresses of some reporters and start leaking news. Not only will you save your local newspaper from itself, you'll save all of us taxpayers some money and occasionally put some bad guys in jail where they belong.