Al's Morning Meeting

But barns are disappearing nationwide.

MSNBC reported in September:

In 1920, Iowa boasted 300,000 barns. Because of suburban sprawl and the growth of corporate farms, only 50,000 barns remain here; and every year, 1,000 of them are disappearing.

AmericanProfile.com ran a story in 2003 about a guy who rescues old barns from being destroyed.

The piece says:

The American barn is an endangered species. In 1920, there were more than 6.5 million barns in the United States; now the number is less than half that. Victims of decay, fire, collapse, bulldozers and suburban sprawl, barns are no longer a taken-for-granted part of the American landscape. Many children have never seen a barn, except in books or on television. But a few people are striving to preserve a part of Americana that for more than 200 years has stood for harvest, hard work and the American spirit.

Nearly two dozen states have preservationists cataloging and saving barns. A few states have even set aside barn-preservation money. The National Trust for Historic Preservation has a program called "Barn Again!"

Click here to see national award-winning "Barn Again" preservation projects.

The National Barn Alliance wants to make it easier to place barns on the National Register of Historic Places.

Some builders are making their living now turning old barns into houses.

Here is a Wisconsin barn that the owners turned into a lodge.

The Pennsylvania Barn Company, for example, has been restoring old barns for more than 20 years for use as modern buildings.

Here is a map of old Wisconsin barns that have been turned into other things, from a flower shop, to a tavern, to an environmental classroom. Wisconsin Public Television has a nice collection of wonderful barn images.

South Dakota loves it barns so much there is a Web site dedicated to them.

Different regions of the country have different kinds of barns. The old Pennsylvania-German and Wisconsin barns are very different from the big tobacco and livestock barns I grew up with. Fulton County, Ind., says it is the "Round Barn Capital of the World." One Web site claims that Indiana once had more round barns than any other state:

At one time Indiana had about 225 round barns. Now there are fewer than 100 left in the state.

By the way, it turns out that Vernon County, Wis., actually has MORE round barns -- 20 -- than Fulton County, Ind. (which had 15 at last count), but never pressed to be named the "Round Barn Capital of the World." (Although 2003 was declared "The Year of the Barn" in the state of Wisconsin.)

Don't know a crib barn from a bank barn? Here is a site that gives you the background you need to get you up to speed and talk and write knowledgeably about the different types of barns in America.

I was so impressed with the barn featured in the new "Charlotte's Web" movie. My wife and I even hung around after the film to see where it lived -- the movie was set in Maine. We were surprised to find the barn is in Australia! And they constructed the barns as soundstages, not as real barns. Is that a statement about how few picturesque old barns are still left in the States?

When World Media Come to a Small Town

Now, Miss USA not only admits to drinking and using cocaine, but she hints she was abused when she was younger. This is sure to start round two of the media flurry that invaded her rural Kentucky hometown. The Rural Blog recently interviewed the editor of Tara Conner's hometown paper to see how a small paper covers a big unfolding story.

Al's Morning Multimedia

Every morning I share examples of multimedia journalism with you, and today I point you toward The Herald Journal in Logan, Utah. This small paper is regularly producing multimedia -- mostly audio slideshow -- pieces to complement their print stories. I really like this one about a guy who is obsessed with collecting superhero and Star Trek stuff.

Jan Stephens has filled more than 3,000 VHS tapes with his favorite television shows, editing out all of the commercials. He has also memorized every "Alley Oop" comic strip since 1975. The print story gives you a sense of the man, but the pictures and sound provide so much more insight.

Outing the Earmarkers

This should be sweet. The White House is planning to drastically reduce federal budget earmarks [PDF], those 13,000 budget lines that nobody debated but added nearly $18 billion to the budget. The president said in his State of the Union address that he wants to cut earmark spending in half within a year. See this Washington Post story for background on earmarking.

A quick civics lesson might be in order. Normally, the feds collect taxes, the money goes into a general fund and Congress writes budget bills that dictate how the money will be spent. But earmarking bypasses that process, redirecting certain money away from the general fund and toward specific spending initiatives. For example, the feds could say revenue from federal parks could only be used for upkeep of those parks.

Earmarks usually don't show up in budget legislation. Instead, they appear in "reports" issued before appropriations debates begin. Makes them darn hard to track.

Last year, the Congressional Research Service tried to put its arms around how big earmarking has become.

The report [PDF] found:

• The Department of Agriculture budget contained 689 earmarks for $504 million. Forty percent of that was for ag research projects -- many of them at universities.

• The Defense Department budget included 2,847 earmarks worth almost $9-and-a-half billion.

• Homeland Security's 2006 budget included 21 earmarks worth a quarter of a billion dollars.

• The Interior Department budget included 825 earmarks worth $894 million. It went for stuff like a project in the Everglades and other regional interests.

• The Labor Department budget included a whopping 3,014 earmarks worth $1.2 billion.

Congress loves earmarking because it allows elected officials to secure money for local projects. Earmarks muck up the normal process, in which Congress passes a budget for a department -- i.e. the Environmental Protection Agency or defense -- and the department determines how the money gets spent. One of the most infamous earmarks is the so-called "Bridge to Nowhere" in Alaska.

The president's opposition to earmarks could have something to do with their popularity among members of Congress.

The Post points out:

Earmarks have exploded in number in the past decade -- climbing from 4,126 in 1994 to 12,852 in 2006, according to the Congressional Research Service -- and this has led to abuses. Former representative Randy "Duke" Cunningham (R-Calif.) is serving a prison sentence after pleading guilty to bribery for steering government money through earmarks to defense contractors that gave him expensive gifts in return.

Citizens Against Government Waste, which publishes an annual "Congressional Pig Book" cataloguing pork barrel spending, considers an earmark to be "a project inserted by a member into legislation without debate or hearings, usually to serve someone or some special interest," said Thomas Schatz, president of the group. By that definition, CAGW identified 9,963 earmarks in the 11 appropriations bills in 2006 that cost taxpayers $29 billion.

Federal Computer Week is reporting that the White House is directing departments to catalogue earmark spending. The White House will post that information online by March 12. Oh yeah. This should be yummy.

Oh, but wait -- here is an extremely cool smashup that already plots earmark spending on an interactive map, letting you see where it is being spent in your community. Keep in mind, this is just for one spending bill. There is more, lots more, and that is what the new White House list should help collect.

Growing Up Near Freeways Damages Lungs

The Sacramento Bee reports:

Growing up near a freeway stunts a child's breathing capacity for a lifetime, significantly increasing the risk of serious lung and heart diseases later in life, according to researchers who monitored thousands of Southern California children for up to eight years.

The landmark study, led by a team of University of Southern California scientists and released Thursday, delivers a sobering answer to a long-standing question about the health effects of being raised near a busy roadway where air is chronically polluted. These children not only are more likely to develop asthma, but their lung development can be permanently cut short, increasing their odds of having a heart attack or a life-threatening respiratory condition, starting as early as their 50s.

"It's a big risk factor," said James Gauderman, the author and principal investigator of the study by researchers at USC's Keck School of Medicine.

"If you've got less lung capacity, and you get hit with the flu or pneumonia, you've got less reserve to fall back on," Gauderman said.