What Feudalism Looks Like

In my last post, I claimed that feudalism was alive and well in the Commonwealth of Kentucky. If you want details, you need to look no further than the actions of former governor Bevin as he left office this month. He issued 428 pardons. Many of them for violent offenses.
He pardoned a child rapist, because he didn't tear her hymen. That sounds like something a medieval lord would say, doesn't it?
Why would he do something like this? Well, aside from his total disregard for the people of Kentucky and as an example of psychopathic behavior. One need look no further than the following picture.

This image shows the home of the parents of one of the people Bevin pardoned for murder. It turns out that they had donated $21,500 to Bevin. We now know what Bevin considered the peasants under his care to be worth. Can you say feudal lords who are above the law boys and girls? This is why rural Kentucky will always fail and be filled with poverty and misery.
The lesson here is that if you can afford a house like the one shown here, and if you are close to the local lords and ladies, then you can do no wrong. You can do whatever you want and the legal system works as your personal enforcement arm. Sounds good, if you have the money and the consent of the local nobility. If you are missing either of these, your stay here will not be so pleasant.
Now, if you have nothing, are addicted to meth, and have a large extended family, rural Kentucky has a place for you. Kentucky seems to enjoy bringing people like this into the Commonwealth. The last two homes I've had here have had dwellings with outhouses within a mile of me. No they weren't there when I bought, but Kentucky seems intent on spreading impoverishment areas.
If, however, you want to buy a 60 acre farm and retire peacefully, I'd advise you to forget it. Survivability comes from money (and I don't mean middle class here) and connections with the local powers that be. If you just have the money, the local nobility will take it from you. Remember, the law works for them. You will find your property repeatedly stolen and vandalized. You'll find law enforcement who won't respond to your calls, but will be there in five minutes if anyone calls on you, and if you've never dealt with the drug crowd, be advised that they like lying and trying to get people into court. It's fun for them. You'll need to have witnesses and proof of your actions 24/7 to survive this. You'll find yourself suddenly surrounded by meth houses. You'll find your property value drop to near zero. The purpose of this is to get you to sell at a loss. If you can deal with all this, Appalachia just might be for you.
I've even seen members of the local nobility loose everything in the course of power struggles, but that's rare. There are usually enough non-locals to sate their appetites. 

Feudalism

Feudalism is alive and well in Kentucky. I know, it's widely known that connections are what matters in getting ahead, and the value of a degree from a school like Harvard is mainly valuable in terms of the connections that you make, and not in the knowledge gained from your courses. Hillbillies carry the concept to a new level, like they do with everything else they touch.
To the hillbilly, kin is everything. When you first arrive in hillbilly land, one of the things that the more observant notice is that there are family names that run all the way to high offices in Frankfort. These same families have kin that are in and out of the local jail on a regular basis. Now, in a normal place, this wouldn't be a big deal. You'd have two branches of a family that took different life paths and the family branch that "made it" would be rightly embarrassed of the branch that didn't. That's not quite the case in Eastern Kentucky.
In Eastern Kentucky, kin is everything. So the drug dealing branch still has connections with the political office class. It's kind of like the mob, only they control law enforcement and the courts. That, boys and girls, is called feudalism.
I should have known the first time I called law enforcement here and the first question they asked was, "whose kin are you, and whose kin are you calling on". You see, without knowing the family connections, how could anyone be expected to know which law applied. Silly me, I always thought that there was one set of laws, but you soon learn differently in Kentucky.
If you want to witness feudalism first hand, come to rural Kentucky.

More On The Welfare Crowd

In the last installment, the welfare crowd was breaking into my vacant house, squatting there, and stealing things. I went back there yesterday to fix the hole in my wall that they left when they pulled out the air conditioner and found a new level of insanity had started.
First, they are very cleanly squatters. They always pick up after themselves. There is just enough movement of the items in the house, so that you know someone has been there. They even fold and replace the blankets on the bed they are sleeping in.
The really strange thing, is that items are now reappearing in the house. Not the expensive stuff like the air conditioner or the bicycle, but little things. Specifically, the dog bowls they stole and 3 pieces of firewood. Seriously? Why would anyone return those items?
The freaky part is the fact that when I returned home, my realtor called and told me that someone had put an offer on the house for $22,000. Now, since the house has been on the market for over 2 years and has only had one other offer, and since similar houses in the area are selling for around $70,000, the timing and the amount just seem suspicious. 

Welfare People

The welfare people of Appalachia form a unique and distinctive breed. They also form a violent cancer in society. I'm not speaking of city folk on welfare here. I know little of them. I'm talking about their country cousins.
It looks like I'm headed into bankruptcy soon, because the local welfare types have decided that the house I have up for sale is theirs, and I can't afford to pay $600 a month to give them a place to squat.

Here is a view from my driveway of a standard hillbilly welfare cluster. No, I didn't buy into this neighborhood. When I bought the house in 2005, it had older people and young families. Then the patriarch of the family died, the young families all divorced, and the drug/welfare crowd arrived. It happened over the course of a couple of years. I never realized that hill families relied on their patriarchs so much, but here's the proof. 

Anyway, it's all about clan for these folk, like it's all about gang for their city cousins. Let me explain what you are looking at. The mobile homes you see are owned by some relative or other. You see, everyone is related to everyone, and if you have land, instead of selling or renting, you let your welfare relations live there. You arrange a payment schedule from their welfare check under the table and it's win-win. You get tax free money and an army of minions. The minions get a really cheap place to stay, and with their welfare checks and benefits, free food and utilities, a pretty good lifestyle. You can't really see it, but the cars in the driveway are all late model. 

Now comes the fun part. There are probably at least 8 adults living in these buildings. And no, you're not going to get a count. Aside from the fact that they lie, this is the area where the census worker was found dangling from a tree. These people don't like questions. Welfare will pay you more for each child up to a maximum of 6. So, since they are unwilling to work, each pair of adults can be counted on to have 4 - 6 children. That adds up to a lot of people. 

Now for the part that would be amusing if it weren't happening to me. I went to check on the house the other day, and found that it had been broken into and an air conditioner had been torn out of the wall. Every time I go there, they seem to show up the next day and do enough damage to let it be known they are there. Naturally, my realtor is afraid to go there anymore. It's annoying and no one is going to buy a house that is constantly being robbed by the neighbors. 

I called the local sheriff, and not getting a response the state police. When I arrived, the neighbors all stood there and glared. When I called the sheriff (and understand these people all have police scanners) they stood there and glared. When I called the state police, within 10 minutes, 3 different cars sped up to first house, filled up with people and drove off. They left a preteen boy. You can't see him, but he's under the tree in the center. He went and sat under the tree with a cell phone and watched the house until I left about 90 minutes later. And, no, he wasn't alone, there was an adult watching him from inside, so he had backup. I swung back 5 minutes later just to see  and the neighbors were coming back. So, I have about 20 people, with no jobs and nothing better to do, just watch my house and see what damage they can cause. That puts them at a great advantage. Of course, if I even try to talk to them, I'll get 20 people swearing that I'm violent and the sheriff will be there within 5 minutes. And people wonder why I'd rather live in a world without police. They are really counter productive at the moment. 

The state police called after a half hour and took a statement,. They weren't willing to come out and take fingerprints either, but that's understandable. They can't really get a conviction unless the value is over $500, and they were 1 trooper, who was 70 miles away. I wasn't willing to wait 4 hours until he could get there, and he wasn't to keen on the idea either. At least he called back. 

The sheriff? About 7 hours later, my wife posted about the incident and lack of response on facebook. Remember, everyone is related to everyone in the county and connected via facebook. The sheriff called and took a statement within 5 minutes. 

Really? The sheriff responding more quickly to facebook than a call to dispatch. That pretty much tells you what you need to know about him.

So I have the sheriff, who will only respond to the calls of the welfare people. The state troopers, who are rare and busy, and 20 people who are out to seize my property and have nothing better to do. What chance do I have?

By seize I mean get the house into forclosure. Then the bank sells the house at auction. The only bank that will really give a loan on the house is run by the rich part of the family, so, they will set the price. Thus the usefulness of minions. 

More On The Death Watch

A couple of posts ago, I wrote about how there were some "important" families around here and that things tended to always happen to benefit their clans, including the deaths of their opponents.

Here is an old story along the same lines. It also shows how the press here obfuscates the truth. It concerns the death of the sheriff one county over.

https://www.odmp.org/officer/16249-sheriff-samuel-wilson-catron

What the news story tells you is that an assassin shot and killed the sheriff, one of the deputies who was running against him was indicted, and two of the people involved got life sentences. It's like they're trying to avoid telling the truth on the issue.

The local story fills in the blanks. The deputy really wanted to be sheriff, but he didn't have a chance of winning the election. He therefore hired a criminal to shoot the sheriff and since he was the only other person running, he gets the job. He would have gotten away with it too, except he hired someone who was stupid enough to actually show himself after the assassination to see if he really got the sheriff. Then when he was caught, he squealed on the deputy immediately. The speed at which the local criminal class around here turns snitch is amazing. If the deputy had hired a more intelligent hit man or hired him through a third party, he would have gotten away free and clear.

Imagine a place where law enforcement acts this way, then imagine how the rest of Kentucky acts. Is a death watch surrounding the top families really so fantastic?

From the Mouths of Babes

One of the nice things about having connections in the educational establishment is that students say the most amusing things. I was talking to a middle school teacher the other day (middle school consists of grades 6 - 8, about age 11 - 13) who related the following story:

They were discussing the government and were explaining that they lived in a dry county. A dry county is one where the sale of alcohol is forbidden. Why a state that is famous for whiskey production has more dry counties than any other in the United States seems hypocritical, but it is typical Kentucky. Anyway, the teacher was explaining that they lived in a dry county, so you couldn't buy alcohol there. One of the students immediately replied, "Sure you can. Just go to the trailer park down town and go to the third trailer on the left".

The really amusing part was that a lot of the students seemed to know about this. Now if 11 - 13 year olds know this, you'd expect the police to as well. Especially since a trailer park in the South is hardly a private space. But that's Kentucky. The law can be incredibly blind depending on who your are and whose interests are served.

Kentucky Colonels

The above is the license plate of a Kentucky Colonel. What is a Kentucky Colonel, you may ask. The Colonels are listed as a voluntary, philanthropic organization. In order to become a Colonel, you must be nominated by a current Colonel and then appointed by the governor. The appointment is supposed to be for some philanthropic work that has benefited the people of the state.
Personally, I don't know of any philanthropic works actually done by the Colonels I run across. Rather, it's more of an I'm connected and important type of thing. Now I ask you, in a state that has been nominated for most corrupt in the country, is it a good idea to give one class of people a special license plate that proclaims them politically connected all the way up to the governor? It sounds more like a get out of tickets plate than anything else. 

Hating Ohio, part 2

Recently, I came across an article in the news about neighbors being up in arms in a certain part of New York because the local mosque blared the call for prayer so loudly that it could be heard for 20 blocks. That's a little over a mile. Now, I'm all for putting restrictions on the mosque. After all, America isn't a Muslim country, and one must try to be polite to the neighbors. If you read back over my blog, you'll see that I've complained about Christians doing the same.
But the tale here is about hating Ohio again. This last weekend, I got to listen to horrible, top 40 country music coming from the boats racing along the river. Yes, I do mean racing. You see, when an 18 foot boat tows a water skier, the noise isn't that bad. Now, double the size of the boat. The noise more than doubles. Now, instead of one boat, make it 4 or 5. Now, since they all like music, put on speakers you can hear over the engine so the skier gets to listen to the music. I live a mile from the river, and I can hear the songs at the same volume as I play my TV at.
The only difference is that the mosque broadcasts 5 times a day, while the idiots on the lake run for 16 hours straight.

Kentucky Efficiency

It's now time to spread the net to the entire state of Kentucky. The shocking thing is that there haven't been more Kentucky posts given the current governor and attorney general. Today we delve into the world of health insurance.
Kentucky state and state affiliated employees have the option to sign up for "livingwell" insurance. This allows you to save a bit over $1000 a year in premiums. In order to receive this benefit, you need to fill out a questionnaire about your health. That's it. No doctor visit. No actual checking on your health. Just answer a few questions once a year and you are good to go. Of course, this is administered by Humana, that quintessential  Kentucky company. Of course, as an insurance company, they are very concerned about security. Also, you need to complete the questionnaire by July 1st, of you get to pay an extra money next year.
I recently went to fill out my questionnaire and found I was locked out. Of course no one told me I was locked out. There were no warnings. I was simply put into an endless loop. I then had to go through the long and annoying call center process to get my password reset where I was told that since I hadn't been on the site for about a year (Duh, I only go there to fill out my annual health assessment, like almost everyone else), that I'd been locked out for my own protection. No real problem for me. The call center was so inept that I was laughing for most of the call. But what about everyone else? What about all those people who wait until the last 48 hours to fill out their assessment, only to find they are locked out and need a call center to give them access? I'd hate to work in that call center in a couple of weeks.
The question is, is this an attempt to force people to pay more, or just total stupidity on the part of Humana's administration. Since Kentucky is know for both corruption and stupid, we will never know.

Buford T. Justice Lives

It is time once more to poke fun at the government of Clinton County Kentucky. As the title implies, I am casting aspersions on the local law enforcement community. The community that had me fill out a complaint on a post it note. But that was two sheriffs ago, and believe it or not, it has been downhill ever since.
This time I tried to report a theft, but it didn't go well.
Going to check on the house, the door was open. Of course the sheriff was called. It took 3 hours to respond. That would be understandable if I lived in Alaska or Montana, but 10 minutes from the courthouse? They said he was busy leading funeral processions. I thought a theft and a possibility of the intruder still on the premises would have been more important. I guess I was wrong. Three hours wrong seems a bit excessive though. And Europeans wonder why the people in Middle America will never agree to limits on firearms. Would you, if you had such stellar enforcers of the law to protect you?
Anyway, no thieves were there, but a gun safe had been professionally drilled into and opened and everything of value had been taken. A bit of a backstory, never use US Bank. Once they find that you aren't living there, they get worried about protecting their investment, and their property protection teams are less then professional and don't hesitate to seize the property with no notice. If you want the situation resolved, then you get to try to get two call centers to talk to each other. It's great fun. Anyway, at the time of this incident three people had keys to the property; myself, my realtor, and the bank's property protection contractor.
The door was opened with a key. There was no breaking and entering. The safe was professionally drilled into and everything of value was taken.  The sheriff replied that it was the work of squatters. Apparently, there are a lot of empty houses in Clinton county (I wonder why), and the sheriff can't spare the manpower (be bothered to) remove them or check on the houses. The fact that the door was opened with a key didn't seem to register. Neither did the fact that the beds weren't slept in and there was no trash in the house. Just an entry with a key and a professional clean out job. It was squatters. Of course, no fingerprints were taken. It was claimed that the county couldn't afford a fingerprint kit. Of course, the sheriff wouldn't call on the sate police to take fingerprints either, even though he retired from that force (makes you wonder about them to). The annoying part is that everyone who had key, has fingerprints on file, being bonded in some service or another. The door was opened with a key. It seems like a slam dunk. But I guess such things aren't important to law enforcement in Clinton County Kentucky.
Of course, although one shouldn't judge by appearances, I think the sheriff's photo says it all.

Just remember, this is the photo he provided the local newspaper when they did his welcome aboard article. 

If you want to buy a 19th Century farmhouse in rural Kentucky, just let me know. I can get you a good deal on it.

Reproduction Without Sex

In the last post, I complained about Ohio. It's time to move back to Kentucky.
The question is, how do you father a child without having sex. If you're a hillbilly it's easy. You start by going on a double date with your buddy and realizing that you're the only one who brought a condom. The hillbilly solution? No problem. Take turns. Since it's your condom, you get to use it first. Then turn it inside out, give it a quick wipe down and hand it to your buddy. What could go wrong?
Florida man has nothing on Kentucky.
The question is who's more pissed. The guy paying child support when he never had sex with the girl, or the guy whose best friend knocked up his girlfriend? 

Ohio People

It is well known that Kentuckians hate Ohio people on principle. There is even a radio talk show host that has mentioned blowing up the bridges over the Ohio river to keep them out. Said host is from one of the major cities, so his main complaint is that they drive 20 miles an hour under the traffic flow in the left hand lane. If he lived in the hills, in the place called lake country, he'd hate them for other reasons.
I was asked the other day, why I had such an attitude toward Ohio people. For some reason, people whose lives don't intersect with them don't have a knee jerk reaction of revulsion, so I will explain why Kentucky would be much better off if the border were sealed.
A few posts back I posted on the Beavis and Butthead mobile home transport company closing the main road for a half hour. The point to remember is that as the local communities have grown, people have moved out to places along roads like this to avoid the city lifestyle. Of course, there is no money to improve the roads, so the locals have to deal with a 25 minute drive on a narrow winding road with no place to pass in order to get to work, but they accept this for a more peaceful lifestyle. Then the Ohio people arrive. They come in two categories. The first is amazed at the farms along the road, so they drive at 30mph in a 55mph zone and occasionally come to a near stop to discuss the cows they are seeing. News flash, this isn't a safari drive set up for your benefit. People here actually have to get places, you self-centered twits. The second category drives the speed limit, but you wish they wouldn't, because they're towing a cabin cruiser behind them. It's a rare street sign that hasn't been battered by a boat during the summer, or a local who hasn't been forced off the road. Now, not all Ohio people drive like this, but when you meet a couple a day in one of the above categories, you tend to judge them all and not make distinctions.
They are noisy. Ohio people like to yell a lot. Once they move into their summer homes, they talk to each other. The problem is they talk to each other from across the neighborhood. It's annoying. They also do the same in the local Wal Mart. They'll hold conversations with each other from across the store by yelling at the top of their lungs. They honestly don't see a problem in doing so. Did I use the words self-centered twits yet? If their voices aren't enough, you haven't learned annoyance until you've had one of the Ohio families try and fix their boat next door to you. This usually consists of a week of revving up the engine for 8 hours a day. When this fails to achieve the desired results, they have a boat party with the speakers and the loud music right in their yard. They claim it's because they are in the country, but they are idiots. They do these things in subdivisions were the average lot size is half an acre.
Then, since they are in the country, they need to travel in a country fashion. Did I mention subdivisions with half acre lot sizes yet? So, they get four wheelers to travel on. It's like a geriatric version of the Wild Ones.
Of course, you can't forget the dogs. Since they're going to the country, they must bring their dogs and dogs in the country must run free. Let me mention the half acre lot size subdivision again. Of course, their method of controlling said dogs is to stand in their yard and yell at them. Get off your lazy backsides and go get your animal. I suppose I am lucky. Even though I am in a subdivision, there are farms across the street and farmers who have to worry about their livestock.
And finally, once the summer ends comes hunting season. Wild protein now being the latest craze among the hipsters. Living in Kentucky, hunting is normal. During hunting season, you'll hear an occasional gun shot, sometimes a follow up. It's the country. Then the Ohio people get into the act. Now at sunrise, you get the "mad minute". Seriously, 3 or 4 different semi auto weapons each firing 4 or 5 rounds. The deer doesn't stand a chance. This is repeated a half dozen times each morning. Normally, hunting over bait is illegal, but the Ohio people all hunt on rented land, so who's to know. Besides, the Ohio people know Kentucky exists to serve their desires.
When I moved to my current home 2 years ago, I usually saw a half dozen deer and the same number of turkey a day. The Ohio people started harvesting the wildlife last year. This year I have seen 4 deer and 2 turkey, all year. Thanks Ohio.
I think the above are ample reasons to be prejudiced toward Ohio.

The Clinton Death Count

Most conspiracy theorists know about the Clinton Death Count. Basically, it refers to the number of mysterious, yet useful deaths that have occurred around the Clintons. There have been quire a few deaths that were convenient to the Clintons. The number is in the triple digits. Does this mean there is nefarious activity afoot? Of course not. It's just curious.
So why bring this up? Because the same happens in the hills of Appalachia on a regular basis. When someone gets in the way of one of the first families here, death is not an uncommon outcome. The main causes are heart attack and car accident, and neither of those is particularly uncommon around here, so maybe it's all just a coincidence. It's still amazing that when one of the first families is ready to move into a position, a way is usually opened for them. Of course, they may just have picked a likely target and waited, like an evil insurance company. I've heard locals speculate that they had a demon working for them. Whatever the reason, it is curious.
My personal belief is that the shunning has a lot to do with it. If you want to know what shunning is go out one day and have normal relationships with everyone around you, and then go out the next and have trouble buying groceries. Then realize that everyone, friends, co-workers, and the people in the grocery store are all acting the same. Then realize they will keep it up for years if need be. Then realize that it's nothing you've done. Someone, somewhere told them to act that way, so they did. And since there's nothing you have done to create the situation, there's nothing you can do to fix it. If you're predisposed to heart problems or bad driving in the first place, the odds are the situation will reach critical levels under this treatment. 

A Tangled Web

I've written a lot in this blog about selective justice in the hills of Appalachia. It shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone. After all, everyone is familiar with Smokey and the Bandit, Billy Jack, and The Dukes of Hazard. Everyone knows how these small towns and counties get, and it comes as no surprise that Person A can be caught doing 90mph in a school zone and get a talking to while Person B get caught doing 30mph in a 25mph zone and gets hit with a $150 fine. Just par for the course in Appalachia. Everyone gets it. The worrisome part is that there are levels above the corrupt county level. The "first family" concept gets spread across entire regions. The even more worrisome part is that at the county level, you can tell who the "first families" are. At the regional level, there is a lot of guesswork involved. I guess because cockroaches hate the light or something.

This brings me to today's story. You see in the image, the Clinton Center of Somerset Community College. It was built in 2004 to help stimulate economic growth in the area. It's an impressive building for the area. It had up to date classrooms, state of the art nursing labs, a training center for day care workers, a cosmetology lab, and shops for vocational careers. In short, it has everything that a community college needs to help improve the educational and economic level of a depressed area. Naturally, it couldn't be allowed to survive.

The web starts with the construction of the center itself. The money for the center was obtained through the hard work of then state senator David Williams. Of course, he insisted that the center be placed in his own district. This did not go over well with Somerset Community College. They has a center already operating out of an abandoned elementary school 30 minutes north. It was centrally located, and Somerset wanted the center to be put there, but David Williams was adamant, his county or nothing. Somerset agreed. At first glance, nothing to see here. Just a politician getting pork for his district.

The next thread of the web occurs a couple of years after the center started operation. At first, there were a lot of non-locals there. You see, no locals were qualified to run the place, so foreigners were brought in (foreigner in a hill context means someone from outside the county). Never the less, the center thrived and all was well in the world, well, with the exception of the vocational programs. For some reason, the local Board of Education wanted a monopoly on that, so no tech programs for Clinton Center. Then the "first families" obtained the required degrees to reach critical mass at the college, arrived on the scene, moved into management positions (often over others), and things changed rapidly. They might have had the power to kill vocational programs before, but their power was limited. Now things were different. Through an interesting refusal to provide support for the center, moving the scheduling to two days a week, and farming out classes to local high school teachers, the administration of Somerset Community College managed to destroy the center, which they promptly sold to the local Board of Education.

Now there might be nothing to see here. It might just be a tale of pork and bad administration. But consider: First we have an time of unprecedented educational growth, which starts the first families getting the degrees needed to move in and take over. Then we have a state senator putting a state of the art facility, which his county wants, in his district, even if they don't have control of it yet. Thirdly, we have the "first families" moving into positions of control at an amazing rate and then handing the senator's county exactly what they wanted all along. It may be coincidence, but too many coincidences at once all moving in one direction tends to indicate a Quid Pro Quo, especially since all the actors who have created the situation are from the power broker families.

Summer at the Lakes

Summer has arrived in Kentucky. The time when everyone wants to head to the lakes in order to enjoy the great outdoors. The above doesn't look to great to me. It looks like a typical overcrowded beach area. Why exchange a small house in the suburb to a houseboat in a marina where your neighbors are even closer, noisier, and more drunk? Who can tell. Tourists are a blight wherever they go. 

Anyway, that is not the point of this post. The point is that many people live in and move to Kentucky to enjoy the rural lifestyle which includes fishing and time at the lakes. That's why the tourists come here on a temporary basis after all. Now, while you are thinking that there should be room for everyone, bear one thing in mind. KENTUCKY HAS NO WASTE TANK LAWS. Yes, that needed to be in bold. All those houseboats that you see, mostly filled with tourists, because Kentucky is one of the poorest states and the locals can't afford such toys, will soon empty its septic system straight into the river. Makes you want to go fishing and swimming, doesn't it. And the locals need to let themselves get crapped on by tourists because it benefits the local nobility. That should be Kentucky's new motto:

VISIT KENTUCKY AND CRAP ON THE LOCALS. NO ONE CARES.

Death by Dog

It was bound to happen eventually. An 88 year old woman from the next town south was killed by a pack of dogs.

http://www.waff.com/2019/03/01/woman-mauled-death-by-neighbors-six-dogs-tn/

After all of my trouble with the neighbor's dogs, I'm surprised that it didn't happen sooner or more often. After all, when I called, I was promptly ignored. Of course, I was also told to get a goat and just claim a livestock attack, but I tend to doubt that most people think in terms of setting up a situation that allows them to kill things and instead tend to rely on the law. I've learned that in Appalachia, that's a big mistake.
Apparently, the law had been out there numerous times on the dogs in question, but did nothing. Surprise, surprise. The county attorney is bringing criminal charges against the dog's owners, but my question is: Since they are the one tasked with maintaining the peace and have the responsibility and the ability to lay charges every time the law was called on the dogs, why didn't they? Aren't they therefore responsible for the death? Hopefully the family will find an attorney who sees things that way, but they'll need to leave the county to do so, and many Appalachians are afraid to do so.
It sounds like law enforcement and the county attorney were just letting things play out so they wouldn't lose any potential votes. Now that there has been a fatality, they're doing what they need to do to keep from losing more votes. Of course, a woman's dead, but what's a fatality compared to maintaining the social order of the hills.

Hillbilly House Movers

The other day, I got to sit in traffic for 45 minutes. I would understand if I were in a major city, but in rural Kentucky? Kentucky has had a lot of rain and flooding over the past couple of weeks. Not letting such things as wet ground get in the way, a group of hillbilly house movers decided they had the skills and equipment to put a mobile home in the middle of a field.

They did manage to move is a bit during this time, but that just resulted in the trailer getting unstuck from the ditch, only to get bogged down in the field. 

Eventually, they managed to get the mobile home out of the road, but it took about 45 minutes. The road you are looking at is the only road serving a couple of hundred structures. During this time, there was no law enforcement presence and no traffic control. Understandably, things happen. It just seems a bit troublesome that a group of hillbillies can come along and close a road for several hundred people for 45 minutes. It makes you wonder what else happens.

Legalized Theft

Kentucky is not the place to be if you want common decency or common sense. Today, I want to talk about the laws of adverse possession. Basically, this means someone taking land that belongs to you and getting a court to say that you don't own it anymore.
Now, I understand the need for such laws. After all, if the last deed to the property had references like the old oak tree, and Uncle Bille's outhouse, I can understand how the property lines would get a bit confused. And, if after a generation or two of working the same piece of land, it's found that one party has been using the same couple of acres as their own, then it only seems right to adjust the property lines accordingly.
Then we have Kentucky. Kentucky not only lets you claim the land after 15 years, but requires that you had knowledge that the land wasn't yours. That's right, under Kentucky law, you must show intent to deprive the other party of their land for 15 years before the state will give it to you. A simple mistake of the property line means no land for you.But, show intent to steal someone else's land, and Kentucky will give you title to it. Of course, all state, county, and city lands are exempt from this. I wonder why?