News, Notes, and Notions for 21APR24
Outrage, that kind you can't put into words because folks aren't listening to you anyway, plus things worth reading, watching, and listening to from the week that was
What you don’t know won’t hurt you, goes the saying. It is utter nonsense, of course, but folks say it anyway. What you don’t know can kill you, or could kill others, or damage, injure, destroy, and wreak havoc far and wide. Not knowing is not an excuse, I was told over and over again in the military, and saying “I didn’t know” just makes you yourself look foolish & unprepared at best and liable at worst.
Allow me:
Boone County is the very heart of coal country. The landscape is endless hilltops and valleys, blanketed with green except where roads cut through, rivers and creeks wind through, or coal has been ripped up to leave open earth scars. Every stereotype of West Virginia can be found along the mostly 2-lane curvy roads going around and between the 3,000-foot mountains. The good parts of West Virgina, the enduring folks who just keep getting by no matter what, are there in the areas where people do live. Geographically, Boone County is mostly mountainous wilderness. Outside of the traffic up and down US Route 119/Corridor G, Boone county isn’t somewhere you accidentally wind up. You don’t go to Madison, Danville, Whiteville, or Sylvester unless you mean to, have a kid playing sports, visiting kin folks, or are truly lost.
And this past week Boone County gave those of us who have been desperately trying to get attention on the endangered children in West Virginia the worst-case scenario:
Boone County Sheriff Chad Barker said deputies were dispatched to a home in the Morrisvale community Wednesday to investigate a reported death. When deputies arrived they found the body of a 14-year-old girl on the bathroom floor. Investigators described the girl’s body as “emaciated to a skeletal state.”
Authorities arrested Julie Anne Stone Miller, 49, of Morrisvale. She’s charged with felony child neglect causing death.
A criminal complaint filed in Boone County Magistrate Court described the details of the discovery of the victim identified in court records at “K.M.”
Chief Deputy Mark Abbot wrote in the court document they interviewed the victim’s grandmother who said the girl had an eating disorder which dated back for several years and had not been eating in the last four to five months. She further told investigators the child’s health had been in decline for months or years and in the past four to five days her physical condition had become so bad she was unable to function on her own.
“K.M.’s physical appearance was shocking with an obvious emaciated, skeletal state,” read the complaint.
The grandmother also said, according to investigators, the teen had not attended school since late 2019 or 2020 and hadn’t been outside the house more than a couple of time in the last four years.
“With the overwhelmingly visible conditions of K.M.’s body and the clear and distinct physical problems, Miller failed to obtain any medical treatment for K.M. for at least the last four years,” Abbott wrote. “It is believed this neglect caused the death of K.M., a 14-year-old child.”
You just run out of words at some point.
Decades of the child protective system in West Virginia being various shades of incompetent, corrupt, and ineffective combined with a state government obsessed over giving attention and spending money on anything and everything else lest attention be paid to the crisis of endangered children has perpetuated the problems. Nothing seems to break through to the public, and in a time where outrage drives news cycles and “for the children” is attached to every policy, there doesn’t seem to be anything that can make the public or government give a damn about the actual children that need outrage on their behalf. Losing track of kids all together during the pandemic did nothing to get public sentiment going about the crisis. Even headlines about kids found living in a locked shed came and went with the ever-shortening viral news cycle with nothing really happening.
Those of us who have been writing, talking, begging, screaming, for anyone anywhere to pay attention to what is happening to the endangered children in West Virginia over the last few years now have a worst-case scenario to point to as to why we have been doing so. The soul crushing part, I fear, is the disgusting scene of the skeleton-ized corpse of a 14-year-old teenager who starved to death over the course of years won’t up the give-a-damn quotient from the people and government enough to do more than we are doing.
What does that say about us as a people? God forgive us. But now you can’t say you didn’t know.
From me:
Since we are on the topic, I had Kelli Caseman of Think Kids West Virignia on Heard Tell back in the fall where we cover some of the background on why the situation with child protection is so bad in the State of West Virignia. Video below:
Or, if you want the podcast version”
My Latest for The Fayette Tribune:
Tornadoes are rare in my beloved West Virginia. A few weeks ago a storm system dropped a record 11 in the Charleston NWS area of WV and slivers of Kentucky and Ohio that are adjacent. One EF2 hit Hico, WV, where I spent a lot of time growing up and where the church my family went to is located. So, in working with the local paper I write for, The Fayette Tribune, I told them I didn’t want to just do “disaster porn” of people I know standing in front of homes I’ve been in. Instead, I talked with the 911 dispatchers that took the calls and coordinated the responses:
Then there is the human element. During something like a major storm system, the dispatchers must set aside the fact the next call coming could be someone they know, someone they love, could be about their own house, or a family member, or friend. “It happens,” McMullen explains. “It's one of those things we tell people before they are hired, not to turn them away or discourage them from the job, but so they know. We tell them in the interviews “this (calls from people you know) really happens and it’s hard.”
The tornadoes on that Tuesday are a fitting example of how first responders in the area care for their own friends and family. “You had the Nuttall (Volunteer Fire Department) chief’s house hit and he’s out there responding...”
McMullen trails off, goes quiet for a moment.
“I hate to keep saying it, but you just don’t expect a tornado here, it really is unbelievable…I know a lot of those people, it was chaos, and just so many calls to be dispatched in a timely manner.”
The role of a 911 dispatcher to get that timely response has never been more critical. Even with the advancements in the CAD systems and other technology, nothing replaces the decision making and critical thinking skills of a well-trained dispatcher to get the right response to the situation at hand. As of 2019, West Virginia is one of the states that officially reclassified 911 dispatchers as first responders, replacing the previous classification as “clerical staff” like other telecommunication employees. “The dispatchers got left out…I hated they didn’t get recognition,” McMullen reflects. “Now dispatchers are eligible for EMS benefits.”
Not that the clerical part of being a modern 911 dispatcher has lessened. The CAD system and other programs and databases also makes the 911 center the central node to endless information and data needed by emergency response and law enforcement. “These calls are official government records. Everything has to be done just so. I have to go to court and testify that the recordings are accurate and were properly recorded. Background checks for the Sheriff’s Department go through our system, we look folks up that don’t show up for court or are wanted, live cameras on Route 19…all that goes through us.”
The folks dialing 911 and expecting help on demand are not thinking about the complexities and carefully choreographed responses, or the legislative fights over funding and requirements, or whether the 911 dispatcher is having a good day. The caller just needs the complete system to work to get them help in a timely manner. Especially when the sky falls and nature itself is trying to destroy the people and property the dispatchers are tasked with being ready to assist.
“They really did well under the circumstances,” McMullen remarked about the dispatchers and administrative staff of the Fayette County 911 center. “It was a really long day. I came in at 8 a.m., it was supposed to be a regular day, working an admin shift of 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. I finally went home at midnight.”
Read the whole piece here, and please do share it:
Worth Reading
Wow, what a read, shared by our friend Dr. Keith Humphreys
A man passes away without a word in the mountains of North Carolina, and his grandson sets out to write about the importance of a seemingly unimportant life. Essay by Jeremy B. Jones
“Would you write your papaw’s obituary?” she asked, ever practical even amid the loss of the love of her life.
There was plenty to tell. He’d stolen a school bus as a teenager and backed it over a teacher’s car. He’d been shipped to Germany with the Army in 1950, where he flew up the ranks despite accidentally firing artillery through an empty house. He’d led the union at the textile mill where he worked most of his life. But he never talked much about any of that. What he set out to do was build a small life in Fruitland, North Carolina, to raise up his daughters and do the dishes and fix the broken garage door. He set out to live quietly — and then pass away just the same.
When I sat down to write, I found myself dropping details into a template — son of, survived by. The obituary form puts a particular pressure on what matters, on what should be remembered and praised, but what does one say about a life that aimed to carry on in the background, that had no interest in a name in newsprint or an award on the mantel? Ray Harrell, son of Jim and Cora, was content to sit still and watch the breeze scatter the leaves? Ray Harrell, sergeant first class, arranged the bills in his wallet in descending order? Ray Harrell, survived by Grace, whistled the same invented tune year after year while searching for the right nail in the shed? I filled in the expected details and sent the obituary to the newspaper, but I knew it wasn’t right. It captured nothing of the life he lived. What I returned to in the days after he passed, as the ladies from church covered the table in casseroles and Grandma slept in a bed alone for the first time since she was 19, was the sheer audacity of a quiet life.
Fascinating: On Himalayan Hillsides Grows Japan’s Cold, Hard Cash
“A shrub in impoverished Nepal now supplies the raw material for the bank notes used in Asia’s most sophisticated financial system.”
Japan’s supply of mitsumata, the traditional paper used to print its bank notes, was running low. The paper starts with woody pulp from plants of the Thymelaeaceae family, which grow at high altitude with moderate sunshine and good drainage — tea-growing terrain. Shrinking rural populations and climate change were driving Japan’s farmers to abandon their labor-intensive plots.
Kanpou’s president at the time knew that mitsumata had its origins in the Himalayas. So, he wondered: Why not transplant it? After years of trial and error, the company discovered that argeli, a hardier relative, was already growing wild in Nepal. Its farmers just needed tutoring to meet Japan’s exacting standards.
A quiet revolution got underway after earthquakes devastated much of Nepal in 2015. The Japanese sent specialists to the capital, Kathmandu, to help Nepali farmers get serious about making the stuff of cold, hard yen.
I wish I could write like Sally Jenkins when I grow up. What a story, expertly told:
Late in the day, after the cowboys have left, it is evening feeding time. Mauney heads to the upper pasture to tend to the black bull on the horizon, the inevitability he always knew he one day would have to surrender to, given all the things he jumped off of and ran into, the things hazarded rather than held back. Arctic Assassin was loaded on a trailer and delivered to Stephenville in late January. Mauney gave him his own broad, quiet paddock on the hillside, well away from the bucking ring, which Arctic Assassin will never see. As Mauney likes to say, “He retired me, so now he gets to retire.”
As Mauney steps into his pasture, the black bull wanders over and noses him. The bull bends his head, conciliatory, as Mauney gently strokes his back with a peculiar half-smile on his face. What happened between the two of them, after all, was only life.
“Of all the mean son of guns I got on in my career, and this dog-gentle one is the one that ended it,” he says.
Worth Watching
Shared by our friend Molly McCluskey a short film:
A whimsical, warm hearted feel-good short film, featuring Adrian Dunbar (Superintendent Ted Hasting in Line of Duty), and written and directed by Ian Beattie (Game of Thrones). You'll want to pay attention to the Attendant. Frankie is a car park attendant at the spectacular Giant’s Causeway in Co. Antrim, one of Ireland’s natural scenic wonders. However, he has his eye on the future. Cathy is his friend and work colleague and she and her husband Paul are in trouble. Nevertheless, as Frankie always says: something will turn up!
I really, really, can’t stand Zach Snyder’s CGI sensory assaults, so I really enjoyed Erik Kain taking apart the hot mess that is Rebel Moon Part 2:
Zack Snyder needs to hire three people: One to write him better scripts, one to stop him from using so much slow-motion and one to give him a hug after all these bad reviews. Snyder's films are ones I wish I could like, but he makes it so damn hard. "The Scargiver" is an absolutely preposterous mess of a movie.