Nina Katarina @ 40

I heard Rudy Giuliani spent more time in that mine than the miners did.

That’s just too funny.

i am trying very hard to smile
at this one — i know how ironic

make that moronic. . .

rudy’s comments were. . . but it
is people like rudy, and c.e.o. murray,
we have to thank for three dead rescuers,
and six still-missing coal miners — all
buried 300-feet-beyond the point considered
structurally safe, just a mere 20 years ago. . .

great riff, though!

keep ‘em comin’. . .

p e a c e

I heard Rudy Giuliani spent more time in that mine than the miners did.

That’s just too funny.

i’m posting tonight as
miner’s brass ID tag number 4733,
from long-ago high school/
college summer stints as a
hard-rock miner in a non-union mine. . .

first — excellent stuff tula and scarecrow!

next — this tragedy just claimed
the lives of three more miners — these
ones being rescue workers, in the drift. . .

i will wait until morning, to hear
c.e.o. murray’s reaction, and his
demeanor — but it better be pretty
damned contrite.

there is a fairly compelling scientific
case –- from a geological/mining engineeering
point of view — that at 1,800 feet of
overburden/cover, these miners were simply
sent, by their superiors, to a depth BEYOND
the structural limits of such a mining
operation — either the pillars were too
thin, or the drifts were correlatively
too wide — but in either case, coal
seams are simply prone to collapse under
the sheer weight of 1,800 feet of overburden.

it used to be that 1,500 feet was considered
dangerously “too deep” in this region — and
the missing six men were reportedly last known
to be working almost 300 feet below that.

this is an unfolding — and nowhere
nearly ended — tragedy. . .

if you believe in a higher power, ask for
some “mo jo” for these rescuers/miners — the
ones actually doing the work — and the ones
still missing — they’re gonna’ need it,
come tomorrow morning. . .

post scriptum: a missing miner is still
missing, until his or her brass ID tag
is found — it matters not whether any
of these workers were documented; it matters
that they are missing. and we need to
force c.e.o. murray (and the mines div.
of o.s.h.a., if need be) to go get them.

either rescue — or recovery. no one
wants a family member to be left
entombed at 1,800 feet.

p e a c e

George Bush longs for the Gilded Age of Robber Barons. The Carnegies and Rockefellers accumulated their wealth by being more ruthless than their competitors, by breaking what few rules of the game there were (and getting away with it), by paying no taxes, and by treating their workers like driftwood, incurring no liability for endangering them, and breaking them bodily when they formed unions to demand better pay and conditions. (That was a “danger” they responded to swiftly.)

George Bush has done all he could to return American business – especially energy and extraction industries – back to its Gilded Age, no- or low-tax, no- or low-liability past. He has stuffed his government with hacks and lobbyists who rewrite the regs they can and who don’t enforce the ones they can’t, most especially when it comes to collecting fees and penalties.

“Voluntary” efforts are his creed, since the criminal law, by his definition, seems to have no application to bidness. Except that workers don’t volunteer to work; they have no choice and they do essential jobs, providing essential goods and services. Mr. Bush will never reconsider his views; Congress shouldn’t be so hesitant to grow up and do its job.

The Bush appointee Stickler is a murderer and belongs in prison.

I have zero tolerance for anyone who knowingly jeopardizes the lives of working Americans in the way this mine owner has (and the tragedy is – he will continue to do so!).

I urge everyone to revisit the excellent Barbara Kopple documentary:

Harlan County, U.S.A. (1976)