Return to the moon

At home the other night, I found a book on the planets. Included was a chapter on the moon. Several pages dealt with the color of the moon. Astronauts who have walked on the moon say the surface looks brown when you're looking toward the sun and gray (I think) when you look away from the sun. Back inside the oxygen-rich atmosphere of the Lunar Excursion Module, moon dust gave off the smell of burning gunpowder.

The next morning I looked around the newsroom and had a feeling-old moment. The last moon walk was in December 1972. Very few people in this building were alive then. They have no memory of anyone walking on the moon.

Remember the excitement of Mercury, Gemini and Apollo? I sure do. I remember building one of those dime-store models of the Gemini capsule.

With the space shuttle scheduled to launch tomorrow, I have to wonder why we don't try to get back to the moon. Yes, it would be expensive, but the technology exists, and we could do it better now. Instead of a space station orbiting the earth, we could have some sort of station on the moon. It would be a new source of excitement for at least two generations that have never seen live photos from the moon.

The space shuttle fleet is due to be retired soon. Let's build some more rockets and put people up on the top of them, not back where the fuel is. Let's go back to the moon.

Whatever happened to the Chevrolet Chevette?

On the way in to work this morning, I got behind a Chevy Chevette. I hadn't seen of those in a while. Lucky for me, traffic was sparse, so I spent some time thinking about cars that used to be all over the road but are gone now.

The Chevy Vega. The Ford Pinto. The AMC Gremlin, Matador and Pacer. The Dodge Omni/Plymouth Horizon. The Ford Maverick. The Dodge Dart. The Dodge Aspen/Plymouth Volare. The Ford Mustang II. You know, the cars that drove loyal American consumers to Honda, Toyota and Nissan.

I don't know if "Pimp My Ride" has ever touched a Chevette, Vega, Gremlin or Maverick, or would even want to.

My dream car is still a new Ford Mustang. Maybe after the kids are grown.

On a related topic, we were on U.S. 60 a few months ago and saw a Porsche 924 with a "for sale" sign on it. I stopped and looked at it. When I got out of college, I really wanted one of those bad. A few years later, a friend who had one let me drive it a few miles. Thrill for thrill, it wasn't any better than my much less expensive VW Scirocco, and less than what my 1986 VW GTI would be.

But I still want that Mustang. Or a new GTI. Whichever one I can get for free.

Marshall doing something different

Sometime this afternoon, Marshall University officials are to gather at the Drinko Library to open bids on a new wellness center, dormitory and parking garage. The difference between this project and others is that private entities are to build and operate these structures on land owned by Marshall. After a certain number of years, ownership would revert back to Marshall.

Marshall President Stephen Kopp said private universities have done this for years, and this would be the first time a state university in West Virginia would follow this pattern.

Sounds good from here. Marshall's resources are limited. A few years ago, a member of the board of governors said the school's bonding authority was just about exhausted. Every cent paid in tuition at that time went toward retiring debt, he said.

So if this plan works, so much the better for Marshall.

That is, if Marshall gets any bids.

J. Wade Gilley's new career

Former Marshall University President J. Wade Gilley seems to have embarked on a new career now that he is retired from being a university administrator. Gilley has just published his third book. It's called "Blackie's Adventures" and became available earlier this month.

This is what Amazon.com says about it: "Blackie was adopted by the Gilley family. This cat soon became part of the family and provided hourse of entertainment."

No reviews were available on the Amazon site.

Brad Pitt makes America great?

So Brad Pitt is one of the 15 people, companies, agencies, etc., who make America great, according to Newsweek magazine.

Too many things go through my head when I think about this. Some involve words I do not allow my children to use in my presence. They're not profane, crude or vulgar words, just words that are unnecessarily hurtful.

I know Newsweek wants to be noticed, but this. . .

Thoughts on a gloomy Monday afternoon

West Virginia has 55 counties. Ohio has 88. Both numbers can be divided by 11. And wouldn’t you know that 11 counties in Ohio have the same names as counties in West Virginia: Fayette, Harrison, Jackson, Jefferson, Logan, Mercer, Monroe, Morgan, Putnam, Wayne and Wood.

I can write the word “sugar” with either hand. Does that mean I’m ambidextrose?

Why do some people in Huntington pull the front half of their car out into the intersection before deciding if it's safe to cross the street or make a turn? Did you ever have to consider swerving into the other lane to keep from hitting these people?

Every dog has its day, but one with a broken tail has a weak end.

If kids go to school for 13 years, then why are grades 6 through 8 labeled as middle school when numerically the middle years are 5 through 7? We’re off by a year.

According to someone who actually figured this out, the 13th day of the month is more likely to fall on Friday than on any other day. It has to do with the way the calendar resets itself every 400 years, or something like that.

Please don't tell anyone this, but I watched an episode of "So You Think You Can Dance," or whatever it's called, last week and found it interesting. The best part was watching the choreography. I can dance about as well as I can sing, and you notice I don't do that for a living. This show was enough to make me stop searching my DirectTV channels for another "Law and Order" or "Law and Order: Criminal Intent" rerun. The only reason I watch "Criminal Intent" is for Vincent D'Onofrio, who did a great job in the first "Men in Black" movie. If I ever want to annoy my wife, I imitate his Edgar character from "MiB."

CEO pay

An organization called the Economic Policy Institute regularly issues news releases about the state of the American economy. If we need simple label to describe the EPI, let’s use “labor friendly.”

Here are two news releases issued by the EPI this week, with the most recent one first:

“Today’s snapshot, by Economic Policy Institute President Lawrence Mishel, shows that today’s CEO-to-worker compensation ratio (262:1) is the second-highest level ever recorded. The typical worker’s compensation averaged just under $42,000 for the year, while the average CEO reaped almost $11 million. In fact, the average CEO is paid in just one day of work about what the average worker has to put in a full year (260 work days) to earn.”

“ Because of congressional inaction, the inflation-adjusted dollar value of the minimum wage has reached its lowest level since 1955, according to a new joint report from the Economic Policy Institute and the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. What’s more, the value of the minimum wage has also fallen to a new low compared to average workers’ pay: it now stands at just 31% of the average hourly wage of nonsupervisory workers. Since September 1997, when the last raise took effect, the minimum wage has lost 25% of its value to inflation.
“The report’s authors Jared Bernstein (EPI) and Isaac Shapiro (CBPP) warn that another negative landmark is on the horizon, as well. Unless Congress acts soon we will, before the year is out, surpass the record for the longest period without an increase.”

The part about the minimum wage doesn’t anger me as much as it once did. The part about CEO compensation does. I feel sorry for someone who makes only $42,000 a day. I mean, it would take such a person nearly a week to earn what Britney Spears spends on one vacation.

Tobacco production, part 2

So here are the numbers comparing the decline in burley tobacco production in our three states over the past 10 years.

West Virginia: In 1995, 2,000 acres planted. Crop value $4.8 million. In 2005, 400 acres planted, crop value $1.1 million.

Kentucky: In 1995, 166,200 acres planted, value $615.2 million. In 2005, 79,700 acres planted, value $293.9 million.

Ohio: In 1995, 7,700 acres planted, value $27.9 million. In 2005, 3,400 acres planted, value $10.6 million.

Will West Virginia even have a viable tobacco growing industry in 2015? If so, it likely will be smaller than what exists now. Current events work against tobacco growers, so in a few years even Mason County's tobacco fields could be put to other uses.

Nick Rahall and the foot bridge

Is Nick Rahall running scared?

OK, "scared" is too strong a word.

Is Nick Rahall worried? Concerned? Taking no chances?

First, he announces he wants a summit of local, state and federal drug enforcers in Huntington to discuss what can be done about the city's problem with illegal drugs. And yesterday he says he will try to get $500,000 to build a pedestrian bridge connecting Pullman Square to Harris Riverfront Park.

Maybe the person who has represented southern West Virginia in the House of Representatives for nearly 30 years thinks Cabell County Sheriff Kim Wolfe poses a serious challenge in this fall's election. Or maybe we're imagining things.

In any event, there's something that would work better than a bridge, and it would be a lot cheaper. That's a light and a crosswalk on Veterans Memorial Boulevard at 10th Street. There's no safe way for people -- especially families with small children or people with limited mobility -- to cross VMB safely. Traffic goes too fast. The 10th Street entrance to the park needs pedestrian-friendly access. A good crosswalk would probably work better than a foot bridge.

Tobacco production, part 1

The Ashland Board of City Commissioners is considering enacting a ban on indoor smoking similar to the one in Cabell County. That got me wondering about tobacco farming in this region.

Here are some numbers I came up with comparing production in 1995 with 2005. I hope to post more numbers later, but these are the early results of what I found:

In 1995, Cabell County farmers planted 360 acres of burley tobacco and harvested 470,000 pounds. Last year, they planted 88 acres and harvested 161,000 pounds.

In Mason County, W.Va., acreage in that same period dropped from 470 to 112, and production from 690,000 pounds to 191,000 pounds.

Gallia County, Ohio, produces more tobacco than Cabell and Mason counties combined, but production is down sharply there, too. That county’s production has fallen from 1.68 million pounds on 950 acres in 1995 to 588,000 pounds on 300 acres last year.

The difference a year makes

A year ago, Taylor Hicks was singing in bars in Alabama. An unknown. Now he's won American Idol and, according to People magazine, is the sexiest bachelor alive.

There's a moral in that somewhere. I can't find it, but I know it's there.

Domestic auto makers

Ron Gettelfinger, president of the United Auto Workers, gave an interesting speech Monday at the UAW convention in Las Vegas.Some highlights of his speech:

> The Big Three (GM, Ford and DaimlerChrysler) continue to lose market share. Ten years ago, they owned 74 percent of the U.S. market. That’s down to 58 percent now.“Shedding workers and shrinking production capacity is not a winning strategy,” Gettelfinger was quoted in USA Today. “It’s all about product, and the emphasis must be on Main Street, not Wall Street.

He’s right about that. Other than a few specialty vehicles, such as my beloved Jeep Cherokee with 209,000 miles on it, there are few cars designed and built by the Big Three that really excite a person such as me. And they don’t make the Cherokee anymore.

> He criticized companies that use bankruptcy court as a weapon to destroy the union’s collective bargaining agreements.It’s not like we would have any experience with that around here, would we? Special Metals Corp. and Horizon Natural Resources come to mind.
If there’s any consolation, both those companies have been acquired and are no longer independent operations.

The domestic auto industry has a lot of problems, but the lack of product that attracts new buyers has to be the main one. The problem is, the Big Three are so far behind the rest in design and quality that it will take a long time to catch up.

Routing I-64 through downtown

You know how people in Huntington used to complain every other week about how Interstate 64 should have been built downtown, perhaps along the Ohio River, instead of just south of town? About how not having I-64 downtown has hurt the city?

As it happens, I-64 was built through downtown Louisville, along the river, effectively separating much of that city’s downtown from the Ohio. And now there is a debate over whether billions of dollars should be spent moving the road to another location.

Don't look here for a profound or pithy comment. It's just that what some in Huntington want, Louisville has, and vice versa.

Future of West Middle School building

A couple of weeks ago, I was at a concert at West Middle School here in Huntington. A parent in the audience recognized me, and we started talking about West. He told me a group in the West End is trying to have West Middle School saved as a community center after it closes in about three years. A nonprofit would run it, he said.

Also, the West gym is not air conditioned, and West End folks hope the school board installs the equipment before it moves out of the school. A local nonprofit probably would have no chance raising the money to air-condition the building, he said. I told him something would have to be done before the Cammack kids move into West in a couple of years while the new school is being built.

It's good that some folks in the community are thinking ahead to life after West closes in the fall of 09, but they will need some help from somewhere. West is nearly 100 years old. School buildings from that period might not be suitable for today's use, as they have too many stairs and not enough handicap access, but their architecture is unequaled by anything that has been built since.

The future of Puerto Rico

A sort of interesting e-mail popped up on my screen a little while ago. It was from a group that wanted us to know that on June 12, the Decolonization Committee of the United Nations looked into the matter of a certain place, as "there is tremendous and lasting interest in the case of Puerto Rico and its political status." According to the e-mail, Cuba and Venezuela sponsored a revolution calling for an end to the American colonialization of Puerto Rico.

Draw your own conclusions. If you have any, I'd like to hear them.

As for me, it's, uh, nice that our friends in Cuba and Venezuela are looking out for their neighbors totally free of any agenda regarding the United States in general.

Lawyer advertising

Truman Chafin, majority leader in the West Virginia state Senate, is a trial lawyer who does not like to see other lawyers advertise. According to The Associated Press, a subcommittee of the House-Senate Judiciary Committee has been assigned to study limits on lawyer ads.

Chafin, according to the AP, says lawyer advertising has helped sink public opinion of lawyers "into a doleful chasm wherein lawyers are equated with used car salesmen, moneygrubbers and shysters."

You mean they weren't already? Then why are lawyer jokes so popular? (If you have a good clean one, please send it my way. I'm running dry.).

Also, Chafin forgot to include televangelists, snake oil salesmen and newspaper editorial writers in his list of despised occupations. And Congressmen and legislators, too. One of my favorite one-liners is Bob Hope's "It was so cold in Washington yesterday, Congressmen were standing around with their hands in their own pockets."

A WV city needs a new ZIP Code

A few months ago, I wrote a piece saying Berkeley County by now has overtaken Cabell County as the second most populous county in the state, based on population estimates by the Census Bureau and rates of growth since the 2000 Census.

Now here's another tidbit pointing to what's going on in the Eastern Panhandle, via The Associated Press.

It seems the U.S. Postal Service has added three ZIP codes to Martinsburg to handle the influx of new residents. According to the AP, Postal Service officials say the number of people moving to the area was close to overwhelming sorting equipment at the Martinsburg Post Office. Postal Service sorters can handle only 25,000 addresses per ZIP code, and Martinsburg’s 25401 ZIP code recently moved past the 24,000 mark.

When was the last time something like that happened around here?

Summer vacation

With tomorrow being the last day of school in Cabell County, someone asked me last week what my best memories of summer vacation were.

I can't say what my "best" memories were, but I can say what my strongest ones were. On Labor Day, the last day of summer vacation, I would go down to the Ohio River by myself. With some flat stones to skip across the water, I would think about the three months since Memorial Day... Of riding walking behind a pickup truck, throwing bales of hay into the bed, and walking to the barn to help put them in the loft... Of walking the riverbank looking for interesting rocks, driftwood and tennis balls... Of having gone to the county fair and seeing a lot of my school friends outside a school environment... Of tasting the apples, tomatoes and other produce we grew, and going it with my father to sell it at the old produce market where the Big Sandy Superstore Arena now stands... Of riding bikes miles from home... Of walking miles from home...

Speaking of which, I was out and about yesterday. It was a beautiful day, and I saw nary a kid outside. Not shooting hoops or sitting on a guardrail talking or riding a bike or doing anything. Back when I was young, being outdoors was a lot more fun and a lot more comfortable than being indoors. Compared with those days, I hardly ever see kids outside anymore. My own kids can't stand being in the house, even when the air conditioner is running and the temperature outside is 90 degrees. What's going on?

Shorten the school year

How much education goes on in public schools after Memorial Day?

So much has already wrapped up, and from listening to my kids talk, several teachers are just killing time until school ends next week.

So let's end the school year on the Friday before Memorial Day. And while we're at it, let's not start school back up until the day after Labor Day.