macrolocal

this is what it's like out here. and maybe there.

[nationaljournal]

“We send our kids home with food in their backpacks on the weekends because we know they don’t have much at home,” said Sharon Manson, a school-board member in the county’s biggest city, Waverly. “We still have people with dirt floors and no technology.”

Obama and Romney Are Ignoring America’s Hardest-Hit Places

Despite the troubled economy, neither President Obama nor Mitt Romney has visited 99 of the 100 counties with the highest unemployment rates. Blame the modern campaign.

(via nationaljournal)

[thingsthatgoon-blog]

1 hour drive to the next town #oklahoma (Taken with Instagram)

[macrolocal]

The company says its pre-registration model helps it keep construction costs down by only bringing the service to areas showing demand ... To pre-register, residents needed to be willing to pony up $10. They also needed a credit or debit card, a Google Wallet account, and a Gmail account, which are harder to come by if you never had internet access in the first place.

...

“The challenging part is there has been a digital divide before Google got here. They didn’t create this,” Chambers says. “But in their attempt to bridge it, they may end up widening it.” (via Google Fiber Could Exacerbate Kansas City's Digital Divide | Wired Business | Wired.com)

[macrolocal]

Missouri 'Right To Pray' Amendment Allows Students To Reject School Assignments That 'Violate His Or Her Religious Beliefs'

But critics are skeptical. A New York Times editorial notes that the clause will "create confusion and wreak havoc in classrooms" by giving students the power to refuse completing or participating in any assignments that they claim violates their religious beliefs. It permits students who believe in creationism, for instance, to decline any assignments on evolution.

...

The move in Missouri is in part seen as one of several pieces of state legislation nationwide that allows for more room for religion and intelligent design in public schools.

[thinkingdeepthoughts]

Iowa is an ironic place;  I don’t know of any other state where so many people leave but remain loyal.  One particularly smart friend who abandoned it for Seattle referred to it as “an example of what a few quiet, smart people can do when they’re left to their own devices”.  Other reviews are always similarly glowing.

[caitohno]

Is this «really» the World’s Largest McDonald’s?! #mcdonalds #worldslargestmcdonalds #oklahoma #willrogersturnpike (Taken with Instagram at World’s Largest McDonald’s)

[vincenzof-deactivated20151019]

If only they had asked for ID or identified as black; then there would be talk of disenfranchisement.

[damned-marsh-yankee-blog]

I hope you guys didn’t think I was kidding about Missouri.

[macrolocal]

"These poor, dense and unincorporated communities on county land – which uniformly lack some combination of sewer systems, clean drinking water, sidewalks, streetlights and storm drains – have been the victim of years of government neglect. " (via Neglected for decades, unincorporated communities lack basic public services | California Watch)

[macrolocal]

Fairs, Like Crops, Are Drooping With the Heat

Across the nation’s middle, it is fair season — the time of year when rural life is on proud display, generations of farm families gather and deep-fried foods are guiltless. But at county and state fairs across corn country this year, the most widespread drought since the 1950s is also evident. While the fairs are soldiering on, dousing themselves in Lemon Shake-Ups and Midwestern resolve, the hot, dry, endless summer has seeped into even the cheeriest, oldest tradition.

[macrolocal]

Nearly a third of Texans are obese. A lack of access to healthy food options in some areas, particularly poor communities, compounds the problem. Options can often be limited to fast-food restaurants, convenience stores and other inexpensive, unhealthy choices. If a local economy cannot sustain a grocery store in an urban area it's referred to as a food desert.

[macrolocal]

Some 41 states have government bodies that oversee and enforce state ethics laws. But an examination by the Center for Public Integrity reveals that many of them do little more than provide a false sense of security. In fact, the State Integrity Investigation — a first-of-its-kind probe of accountability in state government — gave grades of either D or F to 28 of those state ethics panels. The problems and challenges are many. In some states, it boils down to a question of resources — short-staffed agencies with dwindling budgets, outdated, crumbling technology and an increasing workload. Other agencies face restrictions in the law; they can only investigate a complaint if the complainant is willing to be named, or if a majority of commissioners, who may be divided along party lines, agree to pursue a case. Beyond those obstacles, though, is a more basic and troubling common thread; many of these state ethics watchdogs sport no real teeth.

[cordsecrest]

Downtown #Davenport #Iowa (Taken with Instagram)

[macrolocal]

While Maryland has been celebrated for the high percentage of students taking advanced classes, our analysis shows enrollment in such classes at high-poverty schools is much lower. Or take Mississippi: Richer and poorer schools there provide roughly equal access, but that masks the reality that very few students are enrolled in the classes overall. (via Some States Still Leave Low-Income Students Behind; Others Make Surprising Gains - ProPublica)

[macrolocal]

As a result, suburban municipalities — once concerned with policing, putting out fires and repairing roads — are confronting a new set of issues, namely how to help poor residents without the array of social programs that cities have, and how to get those residents to services without public transportation. Many suburbs are facing these challenges with the tightest budgets in years. (via A 53% Surge in Poverty Rate Is Reshaping Suburbs - NYTimes.com)

[tweetingatoddhours]

It may be a small, mostly empty city, but it’s kinda endearing. #OKC #oklahoma (Taken with Instagram)

[macrolocal]

"Penn Hills is a bedroom suburb and like other bedroom suburbs, poverty ... is relatively invisible to the casual observer or resident who commutes through town on main roads." Murphy says this is because "housing and where the poor live is distinctly zoned away" -- in places such as Lincoln Park -- "from commercial areas." People may feel the effects of poverty when they see the closing of businesses or schools but rarely do they actually see poverty or the people who are poor firsthand. (via 'We Buy Houses': Decline and Opportunity in Pittsburgh's East Suburbs - Neighborhoods - The Atlantic Cities)