Route 10's Judicial Pothole Swallows Constitution

When engineers design a new highway, they try to balance the quantity of excavated dirt and rock (the cuts) with the quantity of dirt and rock needed to fill in the valleys (the fills). Needless to say, our hills and valleys are never in direct proportion with one another.

Usually there is an excess of dirt from the cuts, and that excess is "wasted" in an off-site waste pit. When cuts fail to provide enough dirt and rock, dirt and rock are "borrowed" from an off-site borrow pit. Oftentimes, waste pits are needed for disposing unsuitable material, such as clay, marl, very thin coal or slate seams and other such material that you cannot use to build a road.

Ever since time began, it was up to the highway contractor to secure waste pits from landowners near the highway right-of-way. The system has worked very well because the landowner ended up with a few acres of level land as well as some income from what had been unproductive land. It goes without saying that, in nearly all cases, the land appreciated in value.

And in return for the waste pit rights, the landowner also had the flexibility to work with the contractor and negotiate for improvements, such as straightening a creek bed, building an access road to the ridge top and so on. It doesn't cost the contractor much to make these improvements with heavy equipment, but it would cost the landowner a tidy sum if he had to hire the work separately.

One other note applies here: Waste pits are designed by engineers and approved by the contracting owner. The land, therefore, is not laid to waste. But the excavated material placed in a waste pit is said to be wasted because it will not be used in the future.

This all changed on Dec. 15, 2006, when someone at the Division of Highways got the bright idea to have the state condemn private property for a waste pit. Ostensibly, the state wanted to provide a waste pit for the construction of state Route 10 in Logan County. However, to skirt federal law, the state could not mandate contractors to use the waste pit.

The feds have been down this road before. In every state, at one time or another, the politically connected just happened to own land in the path of a new highway. Need I say more as to why the feds frown on state-mandated waste pits? If I do, then let me call the applicable federal law a coincidence-management measure.

On Nov. 14, 2008, the West Virginia Supreme Court of Appeals issued its approving opinion of the Logan County property condemnation (West Virginia Deptartment of Transportation v. Contractor Enterprises Inc., et al). The court relied heavily on established state law that allows the highway commissioner to condemn property for a variety of purposes to build highways. In this case, the purpose is that the commissioner can condemn property for the storage of road-building materials.

What puzzled me was that the court's opinion equated wasted dirt with stored materials. To drive this point home, the word "storage" is emphasized in italics so as to make it interchangeable with waste.

Waste is "damaged, defective or superfluous material produced by a ... process" or "to expend idly or without return." Store means "something that is kept or stored for future use" or "to place or leave in a location for later use."

There can be no confusion that these words (whether as nouns or verbs) are opposites, and, further, that based on these definitions, state law does not even contemplate the highway commissioner condemning property for waste pits let alone authorize the commissioner to do so.

Former State Highway Commissioner Fred VanKirk gave expert testimony in this case. VanKirk, a civil engineer who spent a four-decade career with the Division of Highways, testified that he knew of no instance of the state condemning private property for waste pits and explained (rather lucidly) that the state had no bona fide reason for making such a condemnation. His testimony alone would convince any reasonable person as to why the Division of Highways need not be in the waste pit business.

VanKirk also pointed out that the state's ownership of waste pits may result in some future liability, albeit unknown and undeterminable, that any landowner faces and that state ownership of waste pits removes that property from the tax rolls.

The Supreme Court of Appeals has erred in this matter. In reading the court's majority opinion, it was obvious to me that the justices misunderstood the issue at hand and misinterpreted state law concerning highway condemnations. The two dissenting opinions offered to rebut the majority lack the passion necessary to describe this outrage.

This decision allows for the unjustified taking of private property by the state for non-public use and should be reversed immediately.

West Virginia is not a Judicial Hellhole. No, it is a Judicial Pothole -- a condemned waste pit in the making.

Majority Opinion; http://www.state.wv.us/wvsca/docs/fall08/33869.htm

Dissent (Maynard); http://www.state.wv.us/wvsca/docs/fall08/33869d.htm
Dissent (Benjamin);  http://www.state.wv.us/wvsca/docs/fall08/33869d2.htm

The Nation's Press Can Do Its Job -- If It Wants To

We are soon to celebrate the anniversary of the first report of a scandal that brought West Virginia University to its knees. Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reporters Len Boselovic and Patricia Sabatini broke the story that WVU had awarded an MBA degree to a student who lacked nearly half of the required credits for the degree in "MBA Mystery in Morgantown." The story hit the streets on Dec. 21, 2007.

At the outset, there was no story. As a matter of routine reporting, Boselovic and Sabatini called WVU to verify that an officer of Mylan Pharmaceutical had an MBA as her official resume stated. Then came the surprise answers. At first, the university said, "No, she didn't." A few days later, WVU was saying "Yes, she did."

What followed was an investigative reporter's dream come true.

The Post-Gazette's reporting by Boselovic and Sabatini stands as a great example of why a free press is so important. As the mystery in Morgantown deepened, it was apparent from reading articles in the Chronicle of Higher Education that universities across the nation were looking inward to see whether they had awarded bogus degrees.

One did not have to look far to see the reporters' impact. Pittsburgh's prestigious Carnegie Mellon University, while never a target of the Post-Gazette's reporting, announced in August that it had forced the resignation of one of its academic deans because of an improperly awarded master's degree in 2004.

While WVU bore the brunt of the Post-Gazette's criticism, the entire academic community took itself to task to examine the issue of bogus degrees. As a result, colleges and universities across the land are better off for doing so, even if their only motive was to avoid bad ink.

Another example of why a free press is so important came to light a few days before the November general election. The Times of London broke a story that Zeituni Onyango, a Kenyan, was living illegally in Boston.

The Times set about to do a human interest story after reading "Dreams Of My Father," a memoir written by President-elect Barack Obama. Reporters went to Kenya to interview family members named in the book. Upon learning that "Uncle Omar" had moved to the United States, The Times' reporters decided to track him down. And that is how Barack Obama's aunt, Zeituni Onyango, came into the picture.

Apparently, not a single American media outlet bothered to do what The Times did -- read Obama's book and then report facts. Instead, American journalists sought political cover, hoping that Aunt Zeituni's expose' by a foreign newspaper would evaporate quickly.

It didn't.

On Nov. 3, The Times (somewhat incensed) reported, "The Democrat campaign has implied that the story might have come from Republican sources - 'the American people are ... pretty suspicious of things that are dumped in the marketplace 72 hours before a campaign,' said Mr. Obama's chief strategist David Axelrod yesterday."

As reported since the election, we now know that Zeituni Onyango has lived in Boston public housing since 2003, that she attended Barack Obama's swearing in to the U.S. Senate in 2004 and that she was instructed to leave the U. S. in 2004 by an immigration court. Zeituni Onyango is neither a phantom living in the shadows nor was she an instrument of political subterfuge.

Imagine how the presidential campaign would have turned had this story broken before the New Hampshire primary. Obama's Democratic opponents would have had a field day when debating him on immigration policy.

During the campaign, we saw that journalism in America is changing from being an honorable trade to being an art -- the art of swallowing a press release whole without developing even the hint of indigestion.

And, in time, we shall see the results of the media's failure to properly scrutinize the selection process and the candidates for America's presidential search. We may have to read about it in The Times, but we will read about it.

Whenever it is that a judge tries to force a reporter to divulge sources, journalists rally around the flags of free expression and freedom of the press. I would submit, however, that freedom of the press never will be endangered because a reporter dared to report the facts.

Quite the contrary.

Freedom of the press is in danger only when the press becomes biased, self-censoring or just plain lazy. The free press will lose its protected franchise only when it chooses to no longer pursue it.

Undergrads' Fundraising Is Reminiscent of Dickens

When Oliver Twist dared to ask for more porridge, the parish workhouse master swiftly reprimanded the lad for not being satisfied with the sustenance provided him.

Times have changed since Charles Dickens wrote of the plight of poor boys forced to work long hours at the parish workhouse for not much more than room, board and a taste of the three Rs.

Today, colleges and universities are the parish workhouses for our youth, though a lad or lass need not be poor to enter the campus barracks, for he or she will assuredly be on the debtor rolls when the experience ends -- if not as an outright debtor, then as an eternal taxpayer.

With the increasingly popular practice of using undergraduates to solicit funds, institutions of higher education have turned Dickens' masterpiece of institutional budgeting ridicule on its ear. The main sources of college operating funds -- grants, student loans, scholarships, charity and government revenue -- continue to fall short in the annual quest to balance college budgets that year to year outpace the general inflation rate.

Thus, more and more schools are employing students to staff the call centers or make road trips to stage dog-and-pony extravaganzas at alumni gatherings. The waif's message nonetheless is still the same: "More."

Oliver Twist's plea for more gruel is not a perfect analogy of today's youth asking for more institutional funding, but the comparison is lacking only in the sense that your alma mater's foundation board knows that a student's plea for charity from the community will receive a more sympathetic ear than will a cold call from a foundation staffer.

And the skeptic in me must ask whether the practice of having students call donors during the evening supper hours is more by sublime design than professional fundraisers might want to admit.

When it comes to donating money to colleges, I am an easy mark. I have never made a large donation (for the obvious reason), but I feel that my continuing support for academics and athletics is a necessary act of kindness if I expect the next generation to lead society onward and upward.

The college experience remains, I believe, the greatest test tube ever invented precisely because we cannot predict the results of the multitude of experiments known more familiarly as students.

Fundraising should be an ethical endeavor. In this regard, I strongly believe that the employment of undergraduates, whether they are paid a stipend or not, falls outside the ethical boundaries of fundraising. In my view, the practice of using student solicitors strains even the pleasant etiquette of panhandling.

It is quite one thing for alumni to promote their alma maters. After all, they have had years to reflect on the value of their college experience. To the contrary, undergraduates cannot know the value of the college experience because the experience is incomplete.

Did we not warn these students when they were children about the consequences of counting chicks before the eggs hatch? Are we somehow allowed to simply withdraw that sage advice in the interest of fundraising?

Our public school system is inadequate in preparing young people for today's job market. The associate or bachelor degree, then, is considered almost a necessity even though college degrees do not guarantee success in any endeavor.

Whereas in the past an apprentice would work for several years to gain journeyman credentials, modern society looks to college to prepare journeymen (and women). And, of course, college is still viewed as finishing school for the upwardly mobile. But woe be to the college failure -- the dropout.

We can debate whether "dropout" is still the stab in the back that colleges coined it to be, but it is worth noting that the first footnote on Bill Gates' Wikipedia page refers not to his birth but to his status as a 1975 Harvard dropout.

Whether colleges deliver the goods or not, their parchments have become cultural indentures. Thus, I argue: It is unethical to employ indentured servants, in this case students, as beggars.

I will give credit to college and university foundations for employing only the brightest students to make cold calls. These kids are polished, polite and know how to close the deal. When it is my time to receive a student's cold call from foundation headquarters, I often throw the caller a curve or two just to see how he or she responds. Let me just say that they keep their eyes on the prize.

For this reason, and out of respect for their individual soliciting skills, I have come to call these students artful dodgers, and to them I offer this as a compliment with my right hand. And with my left, I offer said same to the Fagins who employ them so cheaply.

Dreaming Ahead, the Names Never Change

I had a very strange dream last night. I dreamed that I had awakened in 2048, exactly 40 years into the future.

My surroundings were fairly familiar, but cars and storefronts looked quite different -- definitely futuristic. Wal-Mart and McDonald's were pretty much the same, only bigger. McDonald's, for example, had a food section chock full of ready-to-eat meals. All the customers had to do was bring plates or trays and fill them with whatever entrees and sides they preferred.

In the future, there are no refrigerators. Irradiation and preservatives are so effective that food won't spoil for at least three months. One shopper told me that she preferred some dishes, like corned beef and cabbage, to get "tangy" before she served them. She was shopping for Easter (2049) dinner when I met her at Mickey D's.

Politics had changed a little, but there were still plenty of familiar names on the ballot. Ruprecht Gainer Jr., son of the esteemed Wirt County proctologist, was running unopposed for state auditor, thus making 80 consecutive years of somebody named Gainer holding that office.

West Virginia had lost population, so much so that we were down to one congressional district. In 2048, Shelley Capito-Underwood (granddaughter of Shelley Moore Capito) was unopposed. However, she would only serve until 2050, when Charles Mollohan (grandson of Alan Mollohan) would take over. And then in 2052, Glenn Bob Rahall (grandson of Nick Joe Rahall) would return to serve for a term.

The voters had approved the Ambassador Amendment in 2016 to protect the three political families who had so dominated House of Representatives races. In their off years, the Congressmen served as official ambassadors to Washington, were paid a generous stipend and allowed to maintain a district office.

It was no surprise then that "Rocky 7" (John D. Rockefeller VII) was the favorite to win the Senate seat previously held by Rockies 4 through 6.

Gus A. Douglass was still the incumbent agriculture commissioner, although he had threatened to retire a decade earlier saying the job was too much work for him. The voters responded by approving the Agricultural Stabilization Amendment, which reduced the duties of agricultural commissioner to maintaining the grassy areas around state office buildings.

Commissioner Douglass was running unopposed in the general election. He had survived a challenge in the primary election from Devil Anse "Jesco" McGraw, an itinerant leaf-blower from Mingo County.

Sen. Robert C. Byrd had unexpectedly retired in 2047, which left the state's Democratic Party in a quandary. Because the name "Byrd" was so synonymous with the Senate seat, the party chairman, Ralston P. Caperton, insisted on appointing someone named Byrd to it. After an exhaustive search of coalfield Democratic voter rolls, no Byrds turned up. The closest match was Kermit Bird from Glen Jean, and he received the appointment to fill Robert Byrd's seat until the next election.

Now this race was interesting because Piper Palin, the youngest daughter of former president Sarah Palin, had moved to West Virginia in 2025 and was running well ahead of Sen. Bird. Piper Palin was best-known around the state as a champion ATV racer. She lived in a tent on Spruce Knob.

During the summer, Piper Palin had scored points by running a negative ad that featured background music from the movie "Dumb and Dumber." Voters apparently took a liking to Jim Carrey and Jeff Daniels singing "Mockingbird" because most of them referred to Kermit Bird simply as "Ing."

Joe Manchin Il was certain to win the governors race. He defeated Joe Manchin V (grandson of former Gov. Joe Manchin III) in the primary election.

It came as a shock to me when the lady I was talking with at Mickey D's explained that Joe Manchin Il was actually Kim Sam Il, a Korean immigrant who changed his name. Voters had mistaken "Il" as "II" and assumed that they were voting for the elder Manchin.

I asked the lady if Kim Sam Il was from North Korea, and she replied: "No. It's even worse. He's a successful businessman from South Korea!"

In 2048, West Virginia is not ranked 50th on the economic indicator lists. Unfortunately, West Virginia drops to 56th behind the new states of Iraq, Bahrain, Kuwait, Cuba, Puerto Rico and Grenada.

I am now awake, and I know it's 2008. I am writing this column from Mickey D's in Clarksburg. My Egg McMuffin tastes a little tangy, but I am not sure if it's the food or my imagination.

Re-Examining the Bread Standard for 2008

Comparison of Bread  1957-2008 
.

Sunbeam Bread    '57 Fresh (3)    '57 Day Old         2003 (4)      2008 (4)
Price per loaf             0.16                0.08            1.59 (5)        2.09 (5)
Sales tax (1)               .01                  .00              .10              .07
Mileage (2)                 .00                  .00              .73            1.17
Totals                      0.17                 0.08            2.42            3.33
 
Footnotes to table:
1.  1957 rate equals 3¢ per $1.00, beginning at 14¢.  2003 rate equals 6¢ per $1.00.  2008 rate equals 3¢ per $1.00
2.  IRS Mileage allowance of $0.365 per mile (2003);  $0.585 per mile (2008)
3.  Sunbeam bread baked in Clarksburg
4.  Sunbeam bread baked by Flowers Baking Co., North Carolina
5.  Kroger, Clarksburg.  Sept. 2, 2003; Aug. 14, 2008 _________________________________________

Five years ago in this column, I compared the cost of a loaf of bread in 1957 with its adjusted cost in 2003; I called it the “Bread Standard.”  The comparison, updated for 2008, appears in the accompanying chart.

In 1957, Sunbeam bread was baked daily in Clarksburg and delivered to the neighborhood grocery stores.  There were two grocery stores within a short walk of my house.  Grocers discounted day-old bread by half, because most homemakers would only buy fresh bread. 

In making a like comparison, we must use the discounted price of day-old bread because Sunbeam bread is now day-old bread when it arrives at the grocery store.

If we needed bread, I was allowed to walk or ride my bike to the neighborhood grocery but not to the nearest supermarket, which was one mile distant on a heavily-traveled thoroughfare.  Thus, the comparison chart includes the cost of a two-mile automobile trip for 2003 and 2008.

In determining the purchasing power of one dollar, most economists opt to compare commodity prices such as oil or gold.  Throughout history, however, the daily ration of bread has been the most consistent measure of nutrition for all people, whether they lived in the ancient Nile valley or now live in Kansas.

While not every civilization ate wheat bread, most of the world’s farmers could grow a cereal grain of some kind.  Our daily bread, whether made from wheat or corn, has its nutritional equivalent in rice, other grains, or non-grains such as potatoes (E.g.: the Incas).

Human civilization managed for a long time without need of oil or gold but never a day without bread.

In 1957-58, only the wealthy drove Cadillacs; the behemoths retailed for about $7,000.00.  Or put another way, if you could afford a new Cadillac, you could also afford 87,500 loaves of day-old bread.

Today, a Cadillac retails for about $50,000.00 and is considered nice middle-class car.  And why shouldn’t it be?  Its worth is only 15,000 loaves of day-old bread.

To match the social status of a 1958 Cadillac owner, you would have to spend $290,000.00 for your automobile and a whole lot more for the house, swimming pool, gardens, driveway and garage to go along with it.  And don’t forget to add in the associated property taxes and insurance policies.

Along the way, we have seen depreciation in more than just the dollar.  The old neighborhood groceries provided free delivery service, and credit-worthy customers could run a tab and pay every two to four weeks.  A housewife could also call her grocery order in if she didn’t have time to shop.

Fifty years ago, grocery shoppers demanded quality.  This was due to the fact that even city folks were not far removed from growing their own food, and they knew what fresh food looked and tasted like.  June Cleaver would absolutely scream if she had to fry a “fresh” egg from today’s supermarket. 

Fifty years ago, people knew what fresh-baked bread tasted like because they were probably raised on home-baked bread.  Homemakers in the 1950s would try to do without something else on the grocery list before they would stoop to buy day-old bread. 

In terms of food, the dollar has become worth a lot less for two main reasons.  The first is that government deficit spending for food stamps and agricultural subsidies have skewed the marketplace with inflationary pressures.  Import tariffs have done likewise.  And the ethanol-for-fuel mandate (ethanol is alcohol made from grain) is piling even more inflation on top of that.

Secondly, Americans have lowered their food quality standards.  Shoppers will pay a grocer for a dozen eggs that are a month or more old but will balk at buying truly fresh eggs from the local farmer because those eggs aren’t USDA-inspected.  This is but one example of how food-ignorant Americans are. 

Ignorant people make ignorant spending decisions—distilling corn for Cadillacs being just one.

American Voters Face Familiar Choice

For those of you who are younger than 50, you have a unique opportunity to learn American history. The election of 1976 is being restaged with Barack Obama as Jimmy Carter and John McCain as Gerald Ford. This is not a virtual election; this is for real, and your vote counts.

It's important to remember 1976 for another reason -- the economy. If you are younger than 50, then you haven't lived through a real economic recession. Today's economy is taking its licks from the sub-prime mortgage spree. But 30 years ago, U.S. Treasury notes carried interest rates as high as 14 percent. Try borrowing mortgage money at 15 percent or 20 percent and see what your house payments are. Then watch gasoline double in price as it did in 1979. It was heck.

You can fret all you want about today's high gasoline prices, but the economy is healthy when compared to 1976, and this is why you should be concerned about the upcoming revival of Ford vs. Carter. You are going to vote for the man who loses control of the economy.

Gerald Ford was a good man, but he couldn't inspire an angel to do a good deed. He neither had a command of economics nor did he have the best of economic advisers. Ford's solution to the economic woes of his day was to ask people to wear "WIN" buttons--WIN stood for Whip Inflation Now.

Compare this lame message to Margaret Thatcher's during that era. When she visited Lech Walesa during Poland's uprising, she gave him a copy of F.A. Hayek's book "The Road to Serfdom." That small gift inspired a trade unionist to lead his nation out from under the yoke of Soviet communism.

I can still hear Maggie Thatcher saying, "WIN buttons, indeed."

Gerald Ford also was viewed as a continuation of the Nixon White House, although nothing could be further from the truth. Ford tried to do the best thing for the nation by pardoning Richard M. Nixon, and however noble were his intentions, he lost the election primarily for this one act. People hated Nixon. George W. Bush is merely disliked by comparison.

John McCain is viewed as nothing more than a continuation of the Bush administration although nothing could be further from the truth. John McCain is Gerald Ford.

Enter Jimmy Carter, the candidate for change. Do you recall the motion picture "Being There" in which Peter Sellers plays Chance, the mentally disabled gardener, and through a series of misunderstandings, he becomes a national guru? This describes Jimmy Carter -- the boy who ran away from a traveling idiot circus and then demonstrated a knack for growing peanuts, and the rest, as they say, is history.

Jimmy Carter edged out better-known candidates for the 1976 Democratic nomination. The field was very crowded that year; his opponents only had regional appeal. Carter used his born-again, come-to-Jesus message to give him an advantage in every state. Though he was personally unable to explain the demands of the Good Book to his own family (Do you remember his brother, Billy?), Jimmy Carter was charismatic. Jimmy Carter was as charismatic by his humility as Barack Obama is charismatic by his arrogance.

Barack Obama is Jimmy Carter, right down to having a mean, vindictive wife.

Like Ford and Carter, McCain and Obama share a complete lack of aptitude for economics. And worse, we don't know who their primary economic advisers will be. Remember for the moment that Bill Clinton started his first term by appointing Sen. Lloyd Bentsen as Treasury secretary. When that proved a Texas-sized joke, Clinton made amends by appointing Robert Rubin. Bill Clinton's economic success was due solely to the confidence that the financial markets had in Secretary Rubin.

If there is an exception when comparing Ford vs. Carter to McCain vs. Obama, then it would be that the major parties have nominated two senators who serve in a Congress that has an overall approval rating of just 14 percent. How pathetic is that?

Offsetting this minor difference is the fact that the Republicans and Democrats once again are telling voters they have a clear choice when it comes to selecting the next president. If we do have a clear choice this time, then it will be defined by degrees of failure.

I don't know about you, but I will not let the major parties railroad me into choosing between Ford and Carter again. On Nov. 4, I am writing in "Ricky Bobby" for president, and I will do so, knowing in my heart, that if he ain't first, he'll be last.

Earmarked Funds Often Miss the Mark

Charles L. Miller stepped down as highway commissioner in 1984, and Fred VanKirk was appointed acting commissioner. At the changing-of-the-guard ceremony, Mr. VanKirk accepted the position by saying, "Everyone else in West Virginia acts like he's the highway commissioner, so I might as well act like it, too."

West Virginia enjoyed a long run of qualified highway commissioners beginning in 1969 with Bill Ritchie and continuing with Charlie Miller and Fred VanKirk. The number one priority of each man was completion of the Interstate system, and they should be remembered for finishing the job.

Today, motorists take the Interstate system for granted. And that is a shame. For example, before I-79 was built, the trip from Charleston to Morgantown took six hours, and every mile had its share of grueling curves and blind passing zones. The drive now takes a little over two hours and can hardly be called challenging.

In the 1960s, Interstate construction was spotty. The main reason for this was the sad fact that highway commissioner Burl Sawyers (1961-1968) and his deputy, Vincent Johnkoski, were extortionists, crimes for which they were later convicted.

West Virginia is a tough place to build high-speed highways. Our terrain is notoriously unforgiving; our weather limits the construction season. The cost of building a mile of Interstate in West Virginia was comparatively one of the highest in the United States because of the quantity of earth that had to be moved and the numerous stream and river crossings.

I always have felt that our Interstate highways are a remarkable engineering achievement that have been overlooked and underappreciated. That's especially so because the three aforementioned highway commissioners protected the highway budget and stayed with the plan to finish every mile of Interstate in timely fashion.

We are now living in a different era -- the earmark era. Every politician in the land tries to earmark funds for a pet project. The drawback to this hodgepodge of earmarks is that there is no plan for the public good -- there are just scattered pet projects, such as Alaska's proposed bridge to nowhere.

Were it just Alaskans earmarking Alaskan funds, we wouldn't care. But earmarks are now the preferred passion of every legislator and executive. Twenty-four years ago, Fred VanKirk could joke about everyone acting like a highway commissioner. Now it's not a laughing matter.

My congressional district has a very visible earmark project -- the Gateway Connector highway at Fairmont. The project connects I-79 to the High Level Bridge and will assuredly save downtown Fairmont from further deterioration after it opens in 2010 or 2011.

The highway is only 1.5 miles long, but it carries an estimated price tag of $155 million. The roadway also features two traffic circles. Many people refer to these circles as "roundabouts," but I prefer "circles" lest I infer the road is a roundabout way to get to downtown Fairmont.

I think the traffic circles were engineered to provide holding patterns for westbound traffic waiting for a green light to cross the bridge. And further, I guess that stoplight is the "gateway" in "Gateway Connector."

I am taking this potshot to make a point. The $155 million could have easily finished Morgantown's 705 to I-68 connector -- a road that has been desperately needed for two decades. The Gateway money could have provided seed capital for 100 machine shops. The money could have built more than 700,000 square feet of new office space in Software Valley.

But no matter how earmark money is spent, it generally is wasted because it neither furthers the completion of an overall plan nor does it contribute to a coordinated, meaningful infrastructure.

The native sons of Marion County, whose ranks include our governor and First District congressman, undoubtedly will feel that I am picking on them personally. But I am not. I am criticizing the whole notion of earmark spending as being irresponsible.

When the Interstate highway system was laid out, it was planned from coast to coast with a purpose for each and every mile. Had Congress designed the Interstate system using the earmark method, then every congressional district would have a few miles of four-lane highway, and none of it would be interconnected.

If you don't hear from me for a while, please don't worry as I will be writing my next column from the tropics. A Fairmont travel agency is planning my vacation stay at a Guantanamo Bay resort hotel, where I will be learning a new sport called waterboarding.