Aid Geared for Poor Musicians
Austin prides itself on being the "Live Music Capital of the World," and the music industry generates more than $616 million in economic activity there every year. But a lot of musicians remain dirt poor and without health care.
So the Sims Foundation, a grass-roots mental health provider for musicians, and two major Austin hospitals have created the Health Alliance for Austin Musicians to offer low-cost mental health and primary medical care and dental coverage to musicians. The only other city with a similar program is New Orleans.
The new program was announced during the height of Austin's South by Southwest Music Festival last week.
"Most musicians are at the poverty level," said Austin musical legend and Alliance board member Ray Benson. "The next superstar is playing for tips tonight. . . . Musicians just can't afford health insurance."
-- Caroline Keating
N.J., Delaware in Border Dispute
New Jersey to Delaware: Hands off our mud flats!
A border war has broken out between the two states, fueled by a map drawn by the Duke of York in 1680. The Duke ceded control over the Delaware River -- which is the border between the two states -- almost entirely to Delaware. Then he leased the whole thing to a business ally, William Penn, for 10,000 years.
New Jersey long has groused that its mud flats and marshes should not be under Delaware's control. But annoyance bloomed into anger these past weeks when the energy giant BP announced plans to build a natural-gas terminal in New Jersey.
The catch? Delaware environmental officials denied BP permission to build a 2,000-foot pier into the Delaware River. This has infuriated New Jersey legislators, who say that, in olden times, this would have been "tantamount to an act of war."
"We need," Assemblyman John J. Burzichelli (D) said, "to bring Delaware to its knees."
Delaware sounds unimpressed. Delaware Gov. Ruth Ann Minner (D) declined to relinquish any claim to her watery domains.
"I am no more inclined to allow New Jersey to regulate Delaware property," she wrote recently, "than I would be to allow . . . Maryland to regulate several thousand feet of land with Delaware's border."
-- Michael Powell
