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Heart disease is high because of the diet, not the stress.

In Logan, in southwest WVA it's hard to find a young man between the ages of 18 and 30. They all left the state for school or the army. Plenty of young women on the stoop with a baby drawing food stamps.

In NYC we toured the Fricke museum. Fricke owned coal mines. He gave the money to NY charities and bought ecpensive paintings for his home, now a museum. Great man in NY, raped WVA. The stories of the coal mines and the wealth going out of state, while the companies owned the capitol city, is the real story of WVA.

"They all left the state for school or the army."

And here is Byrd railing against our troops in Iraq when a goodly proportion of them are from the state that idiot represents! What's wrong with this picture?

WV is truly a state of opposites. Haves and have-nots, run down, no-plumbing shacks and the mansions of the trial lawyers on top of the hills in Charleston, Republicans that work for change (Shelley Moore) and demogogues (Byrd, Manchin, Mollohan, Rahall)whose views are outdated and do nothing for the state, the ugliness of ghost town downtowns (Wheeling, Huntington) and beauty of Monroe County.

I left. I have no regrets because there was no opportunity there. I love the state and return often. But I cry for it, too.