WEST VIRGINIA MINING DISASTER 2006

When I first heard about this, I was transported back to being a 12 year old listening to the Bee Gees greatest hits vol. I ( pre deconstruction into disco whores ) and the song "New York Mining Disaster 1941"...and in particular the words :

I keep straining my ears to hear a sound.
Maybe someone is digging underground,
or have they given up and all gone home to bed,
thinking those who once existed must be dead.


I don't know how many of you have been in a mine, but I have. The Molly Kathleen mine in Cripple Creek, Colorado...inactive and a tourist attraction at the time, but the set up original, right down to the claustrophobic elevator that bounced from side to side as a red light passed for every hundred feet we descended packed in like sardines. narrow tunnels littered with the tools of the trade. It was an experience. And looking at the "widow maker" gave visual creedence to the old blues standard.

Mining has always been dangerous work...my uncles on my moms side were miners, as was my grandfather...it was a family tradition, apparently. A dangerous tradition.
WWII provided all the danger my uncles needed so they fell prey to the germans before the mines got them. But anyway, back to the point.

This particular mine had been sited many times for safety violations, as this
CNN report hints at. From what I heard on Air America today it's a lot worse. But here's the worse part...family members were initially told that 12 of 13 had survived. There was much celebration and joy over this but it turned out that 1 of 13 had survived...the media has the families on tape singing the praises of the rescuers and GOD and then berating both with profanity and recriminations, obviously stunned by the reversal of fortune, described by some some as a "miracle taken away".
The mining company is attempting to downplay this unfortunate outcome by mumbling about a "miscommunication" between rescuers in the mine and support staff on the ground. Some media are blaming other media for trying to beat the news cycle and break a feel good story to distract the country from the crime in progress that is the war in Iraq.

Please...
12 people died trying to make a living in a dangerous trade working for a company that, according to record, could give a shit about safety or the people working for them.
My heart goes out to these people who were told one thing good and then one thing very very bad.
I can't imagine how I would feel, but I wouldn't let the media steer my grief regardless of the end of the spectrum.

In the event of something happening to me,
there is something I would like you all to see.
It's just a photograph of someone that I new.

Have you seen my wife, Mr. Jones?
Do you know what it's like on the outside?
Don't go talking too loud, you'll cause a landslide, Mr. Jones.

Indeed.