Fierce anger, possible fighting reported in church.

Only one survivor CNN 11:56 PT

We are called to speak for the weak, for the voiceless, for victims of our nation and for those it calls enemy.... --ML King, "Beyond Vietnam"

and why....but our MSM has once again exposed itself for the "National Enquirer" that they have all become.  This is so sad!  They called the election for George W in Florida and everybody followed like sheep.  Someone spreads a rumor that all the miners were found alive and every single one of them went right on the air claiming that.......and it also didn't happen!

PMS Purchase More Shoes

The poor families and firends of the miners. I can't begin to imagine the shock and grief they experienced through this calllous media coverage and disinformation by the mining company and their enabling ambulance chasing "reporter" partners.

It all went to hell when Reagan was elected President. -- DinStL

I was watching it unfold too.
Anderson Cooper was talking and a lady and her children ran up to him. Said they had just come from the church and they had just been told all the miners were dead but one. I didn't want to believe her. You could tell Anderson didn't either.

According to the mining company official Hatfield, the initial report from the rescue crew was that they were alive. Other people overheard the traffic ad began spreading it, and it travelled like wildfire.

I could understand the confusion, especially if the miners died of carbon monoxide poisoning, because your face turns bright red instead of the usual blue paleness of death. It also would have taken time to evaluate each person, and the one who did survive was in shock and hypothermic. Meaning they wouldn't have been able to immediately be sure if they were alive. (The old emergency adage is: "They are not dead until they are warm and dead". Due to mammalian diving reflex etc.)

Anyway here's where the real problem begins. Within twenty minutes the company officials knew that the men were dead. They waited two or three hours to tell the families. Their reasoning was that they didn't want any more erroneous and confusing information.

So when they did announce it, the families had been celebrating for hours. Some went home and went to bed thinking their loved one was alive.

I understand why the mining company wanted to get the facts straight. Yet it really seems that as soon as they learned there had been an error they should have let the families know, and let them know they were investigating and wanted to make sure that the next time they spoke it was accurate.

This is such a tragedy compounded by another tragedy. It makes me heartsick.



If you are going to walk on thin ice you might as well dance.

My wife's grand parents spent their lives in coal mines in Pennsylvania.  Both died very young of black lung disease. My Father spent a few years of his youth in West Virginia coal mines.  His father spent way too much of his adult life in mines from northern Michigan, to South Dakota, to West Virginia.  The coal mines did him in.  He died too early from TB.  His lungs were a mess the last ten years of his life.  Folks who work those deep mines, have a very hard life indeed.  This kind of story was all too common 60-70 years ago, when deep shaft mines were the rule.  I feel for the survivors of these men.  If they don't shut the mine down, can you imagine being the first group of miners to go back to work there?

We need to push for Progressive change, now more than ever.

Thank you, susanhu. Amazing. I, too, hope they're relatively well.

OMG Susan I'm going to turn on the television now. Wow!

"We have always known that heedless self-interest was bad morals; now we know that it is bad economics;" - Franklin Delano Roosevelt

Thanks Susan, going to go fire up the tube.

It all went to hell when Reagan was elected President. -- DinStL

Good news!

Visit Notes From Underground: red state rebel scum since 2003.

Who else is old enough to remember David Fellin and Henry Throne?

We'll have many more exciting nights like tonight if we continue to bust unions and restore the working grunts to their proper station with the other beasts of burden.

We are called to speak for the weak, for the voiceless, for victims of our nation and for those it calls enemy.... --ML King, "Beyond Vietnam"

  Only one survivor and he's in critical condition. There was some misunderstanding as information was relayed up from the rescue crew evidently. It appears the miners survived the initial blast for an undetermined period of time.

.
CNN :: BREAKING NEWS
Despite earlier reports, family members in West Virginia now say only one trapped miner brought out alive. All 12 others dead.

PEACE and Condolences to all family and friends.

"Treason doth never prosper: what's the reason?
For if it prosper, none dare call it treason."  

▼▼▼ READ MY DIARY ▼

but does Michael Brown have any relatives working for this company?

My prayers go out to the families of the victims...

I'm gonna tell all you fascists, you may be surprised People all over this world are getting organized -- Wilco

I can't imagine the scene inside that Church when the second announcement was made. What a horrible, devasting event.
Mining is still such a risky and dangerous way to make a living, especially when there is little else available to these people.
As bad and dangerous as it is though, nothing compares to the losses suffered by Chinese miners. This one story caught my eye because of the similarities in the numbers of miners lost. Not to imply any wrongdoing on the part of the American mining company, but there are certainly many examples throughout our own history and into the present of miners lives being expendable and worth only what they can produce for the company.

Chinese mining deaths

The mine's management planned to cover up the accident by reporting that the mine gas explosion on June 3 resulted in the death of only one miner and not the eleven that actually died. Then in a bizarre move they proposed to secretly cremate the bodies of the other 10 and negotiate quietly with the miner's relatives, mainly poor rural families, for a compensation payout requiring an agreement as to their silence.

The motivation for this bizarre plan was fear of the mine being investigated and closed by Chinese Mine officials and the resultant loss of income.

China's coal mining industry is officially responsible for thousands of deaths each year. In 2003 the official tally was 7,200 but many informed observers believe that this is grossly underestimated and may, through deceptions such as this, actually be upwards of 10,000 per annum.

 

 

Green Grass and High Tides Forever

Mega-Financier Wilbur Ross Owns the Mine
Where Disaster Occurred

Chances are, most of the people in any small West Virginia mining town, this one included would not agree with many of us on a lot of subjects.

Different opinions, different beliefs, a different culture. Chances are many if not most would not even want me to set foot in their house. Some might have an even stronger view.

None of that matters to me. They are human beings. They love their sons, their brothers and fathers and husbands and uncles just as much as people living in Baquba or Bethlehem or Baghram or Birminham or Bismark.

I don't know, it is unlikely that anybody will know exactly how that "12 alive" started.

Just as the opinions, attitudes and beliefs of the families do not matter, that does not matter.

They are human beings.

Even though they are poor. So poor that they are obliged to do one of the worst jobs in the world because the alternative is Wal-Mart and that doesn't pay for housing and medical treatment, not even in West Virginia.

Even though the company that owns the mind prefers that their mine be kept free of collective bargaining.

It is the responsibility of both mine and government officials to inform these human beings of the status of their loved ones, loved ones whose fate they have been waiting forty hours to learn.

To tell that lady who ran barefoot over the freezing ground to the church because she heard her brother in law was alive. To tell the lady who met her husband when she was a child of thirteen, and married him not too long after that, whether she is a widow, whether her children are fatherless.

These officials made the decision to withold that information, to allow these families, this community, these human beings, to rejoice and give thanks to their God, to call distant relatives and friends, to plan simple but joyous homecoming celebrations. For three hours after they knew that those loved ones were dead, they sat there in their "command center," possibly watching those human beings crying tears of joy on CNN.

Yes, the mine officials and the politicians are also human beings.

Just not very good examples of the species.

one man's conspiracy is another man's business plan
Blog updated as needed

  If my guess is right, then this ICG knows more about each of us than anyone realizes, although this fine minded blogger has seen it too.

So let me get this straight, this company has possibly been hired by my ISP to parse my emails, compare the content in them to various data sources, some of them being PRIVATE public records, and determine if I'm a threat, all based on a recommendation from the FTC? Whoa. Can we say Big Brother?

  My guess is the financing has been helped along with the CIAVenture Capital funding, but that's just speculation. It could all be more coincidences. I am in no way making any connection to deliberate intentions but I want to stress, again, that all of these influences are connected and usually for profit at the expense of all of us.

Time to convene another panel on blogger ethics.

Christ, what a journalistic fuck-up.

My condolences to the now-doubly-bereaved families.

"If Adolph Hitler flew in today, they'd send a limousine anyway" -- Joe Strummer