Word: heartlanders
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...ticktock of farm auctions and foreclosures in the heartland, punctuated by the occasional suicide, has seldom let up since the 1980s. But one of the malaise's most excruciating aspects is regularly overlooked: rural pastors are disappearing even faster than the general population, leaving graying congregations helpless in their time of greatest need. Trace Haythorn, president of the nonprofit Fund for Theological Education (FTE), says fewer than half the rural churches in the U.S. have a full-time seminary-trained pastor; in parts of the Midwest, the figure drops to 1 in 5. "It's a religious crisis, for sure...
...creativity isn't the problem in places like this gorgeous, wind-strafed corner of Minnesota, where clergy are trying out several innovative ways to keep God in the heartland. The fertile, Scandinavian-settled farm towns in the Red River Valley were the models for Garrison Keillor's Lake Wobegon; for decades, thousands of farmers comfortably worked 80-acre lots and prayed in small, ethnically uniform churches. But starting in the 1970s, Wobegon was hit with sinking commodity prices and job-cutting farm technology, a combo that sharply reduced the population. Churches foundered. But only in the past few years have...
...somehow perfect that Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich would begin his media self-justification-and-jury-pool-influence tour at the same time that American Idol has returned to TV. Like the bad auditioners who spring anew from city and heartland every winter, Blago inspires the same questions every time he opens his mouth: Does he really have no idea how he sounds to other people? It's gotta be an act, right...
...sudden plunge in exports has taken its toll on China's industrial heartland - southern Guangdong province. Jing Ulrich, chairman of China equities at JP Morgan in Hong Kong, believes some 60,000 businesses closed in the region, and the government estimates about 10 million migrant workers are unemployed. The downturn has put "huge stress on the job market," says Credit Suisse economist Dong Tao, which "could cause some social unrest. That's my worry...
...America where I grew up is vanishing today, left behind by a Washington, D.C., that has lost touch with what is important to the people of the heartland. I fear that rural Colorado, like the rest of rural America, has become 'the Forgotten America.'" -In his first speech to the Senate, March...