Two more mining familes have lost their loved ones.

To paraphrase Governor Manchin, now is the time for morning. Later, after we put mourning aside, that is the time for righteous anger, and for questioning why such things are happening.

As I am not completely oblivious to the world around me because of my own whining…

There’s a mine fire in Logan County, and two miners are still unaccounted for.

The only good news is that it appears the mine rescue teams got there quickly.

Michael’s office is closing March 1st.

Anyone who knows of any jobs in the Morgantown area for someone who is four classes away from his CS degree, has a CCNA, and is currently working as a technical support person, lemme know.

ADDENDUM the First:
By the way, he already has a Bachelor’s degree. However, it is in Forestry.

The bad news that was here will reappear tomorrow.

Unfortunately it didn’t go away permamently.

I am in search a copy of the Plumber skit from the Electric Company.

It was my all time favorite bit from the Electric Company, and I was reminded of it by a recent news bit on a gray parrot tattled on a girlfriend’s infidelity.

I especially loved the last bit of the CNN story:

(The ex-girlfriend) added to The Guardian newspaper: “I am surprised to hear he got rid of that bird.

“He spent more time talking to it than he did to me.”

But I still want to see that bit from the Electric Company again.

“Who is it?”
“It’s the plumber, he’s come to fix the sink.”

When machines and computers, profit motives and property rights, are considered more important than people, the giant triplets of racism, extreme materialism, and militarism are incapable of being conquered.

A true revolution of values will soon cause us to question the fairness and justice of many of our past and present policies. On the one hand, we are called to play the Good Samaritan on life’s roadside, but that will be only an initial act. One day we must come to see that the whole Jericho Road must be transformed so that men and women will not be constantly beaten and robbed as they make their journey on life’s highway. True compassion is more than flinging a coin to a beggar. It comes to see that an edifice which produces beggars needs restructuring.

A true revolution of values will soon look uneasily on the glaring contrast of poverty and wealth. With righteous indignation, it will look across the seas and see individual capitalists of the West investing huge sums of money in Asia, Africa, and South America, only to take the profits out with no concern for the social betterment of the countries, and say, “This is not just.” It will look at our alliance with the landed gentry of South America and say, “This is not just.” The Western arrogance of feeling that it has everything to teach others and nothing to learn from them is not just.

A true revolution of values will lay hand on the world order and say of war, “This way of settling differences is not just.” This business of burning human beings with napalm, of filling our nation’s homes with orphans and widows, of injecting poisonous drugs of hate into the veins of peoples normally humane, of sending men home from dark and bloody battlefields physically handicapped and psychologically deranged, cannot be reconciled with wisdom, justice, and love. A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death.

America, the richest and most powerful nation in the world, can well lead the way in this revolution of values. There is nothing except a tragic death wish to prevent us from reordering our priorities so that the pursuit of peace will take precedence over the pursuit of war. There is nothing to keep us from molding a recalcitrant status quo with bruised hands until we have fashioned it into a brotherhood.
— Martin Luther King
Beyond Vietnam — A Time to Break Silence

As much as I appreciate cough drops, I really hate the way they make my back teeth feel fuzzy.

29,522 via Word’s Word Count
32,250 via Double Space Courior font pages times 250

And that is your completely worthless information for the day.

I have to admit that I voted for Joe Manchin only because I saw him as the lesser of two evils, and I really didn’t want to take any chance that a Warner (and part owner of Morgantown’s own McCoy 666) would be elected. (Like I had anything to worry about. Apparently his business practices spoke for themselves, and the election was a rout.)

I have to say, however, that for the past several weeks Joe Manchin has really impressed me.

In response to the Sago Mine disaster, I thought that he was compassionate, understanding, and also willing to take responsibility, even if the fault was not his.

Add to that, last night’s State of the State address.

After remembering the miners who died, and discussing his plans to help their families, one of the top items he addressed was health care. Specifically, he spoke of the need to provide health care to the working poor, and proposed a combination of preventative care clinics and private insurance to help cover those who are do not currently have health insurance.

If he keeps this up, I may end up actually liking him.

Text of the Governor’s speech
Charleston Daily Mail
Charleston Gazette

(I’ve always loved the term “State of the State” it’s so wonderfully redundant without actually being so.)

I’m pretty sure there was a Star Trek episode about this.

Hunter’s Oath (1995) Michelle West

I had a strange time reading this story. I liked the characters, I enjoyed the story, I loved the writing, I wanted to know what happened. But I wanted to finish it so I could read something else. I just wasn’t in the mood for this story.

Read More about Hunter’s Oath

In other news, according to an article in the Washington Post, “health care costs…now consume 16 percent of the nation’s economic output.”

One interesting point made in the article: Defenders of increased drug spending have often argued that those added costs would keep people healthier and reduce the amount spent on hospitals and doctors…however, (there was) an increase in doctor costs of 9 percent from 2003 and an increase in hospital costs of 8.6 percent.

Unsurprisingly, the report also found racial and ethnic disparities.

There’s an article in the NY Times on Mine Safety that discusses some issues that may not be familiar to those who don’t live in mining states/areas.

As I mentioned previously, the fines that mine operators in violation pay, are often far less than the costs of fixing the violations. And eve worse, according to the Times article, some mines don’t even bother to pay the small fines that they receive.

Additionally, MSHA inspectors are supposed to be able to close mines that are in serious violation, yet, according to a report I heard on WV Public Radio, MSHA inspectors have been discouraged from closing down mines. According to the NY Times the Sago mine had “16 blatant violations that were considered immediate hazards to miners safety” (The times article lists the Sago violations at 202 for last year. West Virginia public radio lists the violations at 208.) This shift under the Bush administration was also mentioned in several reports on West Virginia Public Radio. (See here. No idea how long the page will last.)

Additionally, the Charleston Gazette talks about MSHA lapses regarding the Mine Rescue system.

Every coal mine in the country is supposed to have at least two teams, either on site or on contract nearby. As of 2004, there was only one team for every four underground coal mines in the country. (Charleston Gazette)

Why is the important?

The explosion was around 6:30 a.m. At 1:30 p.m., the first rescue team was still waiting outside the mine. Safety rules prevent one team from entering until a back-up team is standing by. The second team did not arrive until after 5:30 p.m. (Charleston Gazette)

The thread that runs through most of the reports I’ve heard recently has been that it doesn’t matter that mining is a dangerous occupation, in many areas it’s the only occupation that pays a decent salary. And when you have people who are desperate for decent paying jobs, you are at risk for other sorts of problems.

According to the NY Times, “workers who complain about unsafe conditions are sometimes fired or penalized.”

Think about that for a bit. We’re talking about a job where people put their lives at risk. Where people still die every year extracting coal from the ground.

Safety regulations are there to save lives. Let’s hope that this disaster helps people to realize that regulatory agencies are important for a reason.