Yes, We Could…

 

"Country Roads," by Ian Bode

Hello citizens of the Transcendent New Nation of Appalachia.  I know it looks as though I’ve abandoned my station, and the truth is, I’ve been awfully discouraged by the fool’s parade to which we’ve been subjected lately, so discouraged that I haven’t been able to bring myself to write. ‘What’s the use of yet another rant?’ my darker self says. And as so often seems the case these days, the dark side wins, and I am silent.

 

Today, November 2, is an important day. When the mid-term election results are in, there may be more reason than ever to decamp to the Transcendent New Nation.  

 

I was ever so slightly encouraged today when I read Debra Dean Murphy’s blog, Intersections: Thoughts on Religion, Culture, and Politics.  Murphy sees the same dreary scene I see, but she declares that we’re not all drowning—yet. She describes a vision of a place where “We could practice the politics of partnership and collaboration. We could turn off the TV and get to know our neighbors. We could participate in local economies that free us from dependence on self-interested corporations. And we could pursue the interests of our hurting neighbors above our own, confounding the candidates who expect our one and only question always to be “what will you do for me?”

 

Yes, we could.  But will we? 

Been down so long, bottom look like up.

Is this you? (Photo of our Kentucky cousins by Shelby Lee Adams, copped without permission from the Internet.)

“We are going to a new world… and no doubt it is there that everything is for the best; for it must be admitted that one might lament a little over the physical and moral happenings of our own world.”
- Voltaire, Candide, Chapter 10,  Written in 1759

It’s fun to dream of a Transcendent New Nation of Appalachia where bright, optimistic people create opportunities for themselves, and aren’t reliant on somebody else—government, for the most part—to take the lead in every aspect of their lives.

West Virginia, in central Appalachia, is often described as the ultimate Appalachian state. It’s the only state that is entirely within the region the federal Appalachian Regional Commission defines as Appalachia. The word Appalachia has been stigmatized, made synonymous with poverty and ignorance, and West Virginia, as far as many observers are concerned, epitomizes Appalachia. If you don’t believe that, simply Google the word and see what you come up with.

Wikipedia defines Appalachia as a cultural region, mentioning that popular media continue to perpetuate the image of Appalachia as a culturally backward region, and that poverty continues to blight our prospects. The list of resources that pops up on the first page of Google includes Images of Appalachia, four thumbnail photos of toothless old men (all white, by the way), hound dogs, and shacks surrounded by debris.  ‘No, no,’ we Appalachians who think of ourselves as middle-class, protest. ‘That’s not an accurate picture of who we are,’ and we hasten to show images of gleaming, mirrored towers of commerce in the state capitol of Charleston.  Some real estate companies try their darndest to depict a West Virginia that looks like Everywhere Else, USA.  The photos in Wonderful West Virginia magazine, a state publication, show lovely locales in the state.  ‘That,” say we indignant West Virginians, ‘is more like it.’

Or is this you? (Photo of happy diners somewhere in the Transcendent New Nation of Appalachia by unknown photographer, shamelessly copped from Google Images of Charleston, WV.)

But recently it has come, irrefutably, to my attention that activities in the gleaming towers of commerce in Charleston are directly related to the stereotypical images of poverty that is the Appalachian brand throughout the world.  And the activities in the gleaming towers are inextricably connected to what transpires under the ornate gold-plated dome of West Virginia’s capitol building. 

Lately I have hesitated to write a report from the Transcendent New Nation, as I am bogged down by the realities in the Current Nation of Appalachia. One way of dealing with reality is to ignore it.  Another is to deny it, and yet another is to accept it and build a life around what is. The latter, it seems, is the tactic most often employed by West Virginians and others in the central Appalachian region.  

That tactic no doubt contributes to fatalism, the infamous characteristic most often ascribed to us as a people, and the characteristic that leaves us at the merciless disposal of tyrants.

My usual Panglossian optimism has been severely challenged lately, as I share office space with a new organization called WVGreenWorks.com.  Every day, as I observe the executive director of WVGreenWorks endeavoring to bring opportunities to West Virginia that are commonplace in other areas—opportunities such as fast, convenient access to excellent training in weatherization and energy efficiency—I marvel at systems entrenched here that are designed to firmly anchor West Virginia at the bottom of the socio-economic scale, and to crush any fledgling opportunity. 

The images of West Virginia that we so often protest are in fact only the tip of an iceberg of inertia and ineptitude compounded by avarice. That’s right, folks.  Supposedly well educated people in well paid positions work every day to see that West Virginia doesn’t budge an inch from the status quo. Thirteen thousand nonprofit organizations are out there supposedly striving to improve the lot of West Virginians—three thousand more than in Haiti. Yet things remain very much the same here in Wild & Wonderful, as an editorialist in the Daily Mail also observes, quoting Henry Harmon, president and CEO of Triana Energy, as saying, “It seems we ask the same questions decade after decade.”

Perhaps the truth is that life ain’t all that bad for the folks in power, and the rest of the populace has learned to cope with their reality.  “We just sing about Jesus and drink wine all day,” to half-quote Randy Newman.

I’ve colored a lot of the front page of today’s Charleston Daily Mail bright yellow, highlighting passages that strike me as ironic, outrageous, shameful, or all of the above. 

For example: 

New life for old schools not easy—The East End’s Roosevelt Neighborhood Center, housed in the former Roosevelt Junior High that closed in 2000, has gas and electricity bills that often top $8,000 a month in the winter.

Note that millions of dollars have come to the State of West Virginia earmarked to train people in weatherization jobs, and there are no training programs to show for it. 

Or how about Disability numbers on rise—that entire item is neon yellow with highlighter, but this passage stands out:  Another 14,835 West Virginians were listed as dependent spouses or children of those (91,273 persons) on disability, bringing total beneficiaries to 106,108.  More than five per cent of our state’s population is considered disabled.  State Senator Dan Foster says our high ranking can be attributed to poor health habits.

Note that, during the 2009 legislative session, a group of chortling state legislators were shown on the evening TV news sucking down biscuits and donuts as they defeated a bill designed to improve their constituents’ health.

Today’s Charleston Gazette didn’t provoke as much highlighting, except for Ken Ward’s story on a WVU study linking C8 with unhealthy levels of cholesterol in children in the Parkersburg region of the Ohio Valley, and the oddly comforting quote on the editorial page from former U. S. Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan, “If a person goes to a country and finds the newspapers filled with nothing but good news, there are good men in jail.”

And so the Transcendent New Nation disappears once again albeit temporarily, obscured by current issues in the Land as We Know It. 

Check back tomorrow for thoughts on “If you’re smart and you ain’t here, why you should be.”

See how responsible I am?

Sorry I’ve been absent so long.  I never lack for subjects to write about; the big problem is time.  It just occurred to me that time management is more likely the issue, but this week, it’s definitely a lack of hours in the day exacerbated by a lack of sleep.

I have been debating all day:  should I write, or should I seize the moment of opportunity to nap before the next onslaught of fun? 

The reality of the Transcendent New Nation of Appalachia first occurred to me one evening in the late 1990s when I was standing on the porch of Halliehurst, a magnificent remnant of the Gilded Age that stands on the campus of Davis & Elkins College, in Elkins, West Virginia.  The final week of five devoted each summer to traditional music, dance and craft was in progress then, and a more congenial, fun-loving, talented bunch of folks I had never encountered.   Augusta, short for Augusta Heritage Workshops, takes its name from the proposed 14^th American colony that never was.  The story goes that George Washington was planning to decamp to this region if the Revolutionary War had not gone his way.  A substantial number of Washingtonians and their neighbors, along with others from a wide variety of places around the globe, escape regularly to Augusta now.

I’ll be back on the porch of Hallihurst this evening at some point, where multiple music jams will be occurring simultaneously, and singers will be forming in ad hoc groups to share harmonies.  If you’ve never sung harmony and have no frame of reference for understanding the total body experience that harmony singing produces, think of it as a full body buzz that’s a combination of massage and…well, let’s just say that it’s an intense physical as well as aural pleasure. 

So I’m at Augusta once again for a week that is packed full of singing and music and dancing and laughing.  I’ll post photos, and maybe even some video if I can get it together. 

It’s 7:18 p.m., and I’m on my way to a “student” show, where the folks who have paid to come here for a week to hang out with master musicians and dancers will strut their stuff.   Many of the students are accomplished musicians and dancers who have come to expand their repertoire.  At 10:30 the grand do wop begins in the Ice House.  More about that later, too.

My nap time is gone, but I feel better now that I’ve checked in with you.  Stay tuned for more reports from Ground Zero of the Transcendent New Nation.

Nation Building, Part 2

Tired? Poor? Yearning to catch a clean breath?  Come on over.

I was having more fun than usual on Saturday, July 17, when I wrote that day’s entry, but as is so often the case when I’m having too much fun, I am one of the few who’s thoroughly entertained. The First Document was supposed to be a mere draft (and was, in fact, a mere draft).  I thought that you, my brilliant readers, would chime in to add to the draft and amend it, or would engage me in debate over the founding ideals of the New Nation.  Can it be that everyone is actually satisfied with their current lot in life and thus has no need to move, ideologically or otherwise?  Or are these ideals so perfect that they inspire no argument? 

One reader did privately upbraid me for following Ideal 8, We love other people no matter who they are as much as we love ourselves, with Ideal 9, You can’t be boring, which she argued was not only a jarring, clumsy way to phrase Ideal 9, but also contradicted Ideal 8.  “I would stop reading immediately,” the reader said, “and would dismiss the writer as a nincompoop.”   I asked that gentle reader to please say that in writing, but she said it was too much trouble.

Well, we want no trouble in the Transcendent New Nation, or as little as possible. 

Perhaps I should have said, “No one is boring,” but that’s certainly heading down a prickly path. For some people, nearly everyone and everything is boring. Those people should strongly consider making an ideological move, but not to the Transcendent New Nation. We’re one of the few nations on the planet that is presently considering an open immigration policy, but I’m wondering if we ought not set some standards, so as to avoid an invasive element of arrogance.  On the other hand, some argue that standards smack of elitism. And yet, to my mind, all residents of the Transcendent New Nation are elite.

One dear reader commented via Facebook that he read the query about governance with interest, especially Tenet 10, People find ways to accommodate themselves without poisoning the garden: 

“I refer to the practice of ‘etiquette’ in musical jams,” said my Facebook friend. “I think of music not as an end in itself, but as the (oh, so satisfying) sound of the essential activity, which is the group consciousness, the cooperation, collaboration and mutual support, which is expressed in the ceremony (sacrament) of music making. The balance between satisfying our own individual tastes and talents, and being flexible and courteous in building the collective, is the accommodation of self without poisoning the garden. That is to say, respect for musical civility.”

This is an important point to establish, I think, as the Grand Annual Reunion of the 12 Tribes of the Transcendent New Nation is about to transpire. The first council (see Richard’s July 18 comment on Nation Building, Part 1) of the New Nation is sure to convene at some point during the Appalachian String Band Music Festival at Clifftop, West Virginia, August 4-8. 

My friend also asked me if Banjerland is a province of the Transcendent New Nation, and of course, it is.  More about that later.