The real economy of the mountains is too difficult to describe in a sound-bite or a 700-word piece. Try explaining that there are people in my hometown trying to make food out of kudzu. First, you have to explain what kudzu is, where it came from (well-meaning outsiders who decided they knew better than the ignoramuses who'd farmed the land for hundreds of years), why Southerners resent it, what it does to farms and trees, etc. etc.

Or try explaining that poor rural America has a "dirt-eaters" tradition. Or try explaining gypsy moths, or why slavery never took hold in the mountains due to steep, rocky terrain (large-scale farming is impossible when the crops wash right down the hillside each spring). Or try explaining that the Virginia Department of Health waged a eugenics campaign against minorities in the hills in the 1910s to 1930s.

See what I mean? Easier to say "coal." Not as sad to say "coal."

You're right about the prisons. And the remote areas of rural Virginia, West Virginia, and North Carolina have another problem that's barely noticed -- trucks with northeastern license plates dumping toxic crap from barrels into rivers in the wee hours of the night.