Story about Oelwein Iowa and Meth on NPR today.

[progressoid]

The small town of Oelwein, Iowa, is home to 13 churches, a refurbished Main Street and a new library with free high-speed Internet.

It is also home to Roland Jarvis, a former meatpacking worker who burned his house down in 2001. Jarvis, who had a methamphetamine lab inside, was hallucinating that he saw black helicopters hovering overhead and, in a panic, dumped chemicals down the drain. The home went up in flames, and Jarvis was burned so badly that he begged the police to shoot him.

Author Nick Reding tells Jarvis' story — and that of Oelwein and the infiltration of methamphetamine — in his new book, Methland: The Death and Life of an American Small Town.

etc...

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=106388550

[Sal Minella]

1. When your meatpacking job goes from paying $18/hr to $6/hr, the options

seem pretty limited. Meth lets you work double shifts. And I'm sure the corporate suits see nothing at all wrong with that -- A business needs workers who hustle.