It was billed as a press conference and pep rally, a chance for community leaders to respond to negative national media coverage. On a recent Thursday evening, high school cheerleaders and beauty queens lined the back wall of an amphitheater alongside the Ohio River. Shawnee State University’s mascot, Shawn E. […]
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Last week, Axios announced the latest in a series of D.C. conversations that have become somewhat of a staple in the Capital. This week, they hosted what was billed as a conversation on the nation’s “biggest health care issues and how to tackle them,” pointing specifically to the opioid epidemic […]
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Every single resident of Bracken County, Kentucky, is “rural,” according to the Census Bureau. So why does this county of 8,500 people generally get lumped in with the nation’s largest metropolitan areas when we study economic trends? A “rural” resident of the “major metropolitan area” argues for more nuance in […]
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The economic disruption of artificial intelligence (AI) and robotics could steal jobs and wealth from American communities. To make sure more than just a few people prosper from the change, we need a technology training program like the Extension Service to give communities more control of their own economic future. […]
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An audio project set in Appalachian Ohio expands the idea of “listening to each other” to include natural soundscapes and audio archives. Composer and artist Brian Harnetty says such listening is one way to bridge differences in perspectives, politics, and place. I spend a lot of time listening to Appalachian […]
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Rural “news deserts” are anything but arid. But the steady stream of information that flows into rural America isn’t the kind that waters the roots of democracy. Back in the analog era, I had two newspaper boxes at the end of my driveway, a blue one for the Lexington paper, […]
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