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?

Cave People

A lot of the people in Appalachia live in trailers. With the warm weather, you'll notice an interesting thing about a lot of these trailers. They keep their doors open. I understand being poor and not having air conditioning, but in that case wouldn't you open a window, or put in a window fan? No, the windows stay firmly shut with the curtains drawn. The only source of air into the house is the open doorway, which for some reason is never used with a screen. When it gets really hot, the occupants of said dwelling will wander out onto the porch, and it's a common sight in the summer months to see the locals sunning themselves on the porch.

It reminds me of a nature show with the animals sunning themselves in front of their cave. Than or a caveman movie. You have to wonder whether these people are just so crime conscious that they are uncomfortable with windows that open (closer inspection would reveal a lot of them nailed shut), or whether they really can't handle more than one opening in a dwelling and they are trying to recreate a cave. It just seems so primitive.

Hillbilly Law

I like that title. Hillbilly Law. There should be a reality show with that name. It would probably be a huge success.

Apparently, Clinton county, Kentucky, has a new deputy sheriff. Sheriff Jim Guffey took his 10 year old son with him to serve an arrest warrant. I can understand taking your 10 year old son on a ride along. Clinton county isn't that dangerous. Dressing him up like a deputy and taking him to serve an arrest warrant on drug charges seems to be crossing the line of common sense. Letting him sign the prisoner into the local jail seems to imply a lack of any brain activity whatsoever.  I really don't know why the jailer deputy who let the paperwork get signed and the sheriff aren't out of work, but this is Kentucky and no one cares. Then they wonder why all the drug dealers move to Clinton county. I keep imagining officer Cartman on his Big Wheel.

Respect my Authoritah!!!

The news story can be accessed here:

http://www.wkyt.com/content/news/Clinton-sheriff-took-his-10-year-old-son-to-work-let-him-sign-jail-paperwork-377491201.html