When I lived in Ohio, and I don’t remember where I learned this, the poorest county in the state was always said to be Vinton, and sometimes Meigs, both in the southeast part of the state. Both rural, both coal country, both sad, sad Appalachia. If you grew up in either one, you either got out or you stayed and grew weed.

I’ve since learned that I’m wrong, the the poorest counties are Adams, Pike, Scioto and yes, Meigs. You can look at this data in either map or table form, but I prefer the map. You can see where it concentrates — along the Ohio River and in the Mahoning Valley, up in what used to be steel country.

Anyway, long way around to a story that may have crossed your radar, probably fated to go wide based on heinousness alone, a case of 16 abused children found in a single squalid Vinton County house, attended by four adults. I’m sure every editor found the mugshots irresistible:

I’m paywalled out of the Columbus Dispatch, so I have to rely on shitty TV-newsroom coverage, but here we are:

All of the children, who range in age from 1.5 to 18 years old, are being medically evaluated. Wilson said several of the children are in serious condition and two had to be flown to hospitals due to the severity of their conditions. Seven of the children were taken to hospitals in Columbus.

“This is pure evil,” Wilson said during the press conference.

He added that they were living in “deplorable conditions” and that it was one of the worst environments he has seen in his career. During an update on Wednesday, Cain said the county keeps its livestock in better living conditions than what the children were living in. He said there was a high presence of bacteria and human feces.

Cain said the kids were living in what he believes was a 12×12 area of the residence.

Wilson said the children are all safe now, but one was placed in an intensive care unit and intubated at one point. Wilson said he believes that if authorities waited another 24 hours, there may have been multiple deaths.

Wilson is the new acting attorney general, and he’s got the patter down, for sure. “Pure evil” is prosecutor talk, but it’s hard — for me, anyway — to look at those four faces and see evil. They are said to be the parents and grandparents of the brood, but more details are hard to come by. Evidently the younger woman birthed 16 actual children, or maybe she didn’t, before anyone noticed. Noticed anything. How does this happen? The family had moved several times, but they’d been in Vinton County for four years. At least two of the children were younger than four.

I don’t see evil. I see mental illness, probably some dementia issues and certainly poverty. Poverty, the fertile ground from which ignorance grows, although I’ve known some whip-smart poor people in my time. Generational poverty, that’s the real killer. I cannot look at the woman on the far right and not think: IQ of 90, tops, probably abused as a child, certainly abused by her husband, man hands on misery to man, that’s the way the world goes.

I recall a line I ran across in a news story once: “pity house,” a social worker’s term for places like this. Pity houses become horror houses. I’m sure Jeff Gill has some thoughts about it. Also, the grandma? She’s a year younger than me.

So, moving on. What’s ICE up to these days? Snatching nuns, in their habits, off the street, that’s what. She was freed after the usual “bipartisan outrage,” but still. “The Department of Homeland Security did not respond to requests for comment about her immigration status.” You don’t say.

Finally, I don’t know how I missed this earlier, a piece on the generation gap around location-sharing. I do not share location, except perhaps when trying to find someone in a crowded environment, like a street festival. I’m amazed at how younger people think it’s no biggie, but then again, I am Old.

OK, then. Time to head into the weekend. Enjoy yours. Let’s hope it cools down a bit for our nation’s big 2-5-0.