Polycarp was required to be at the scene of the West Virginia coal mining explosion yesterday.
His work is just beginning.
Coal miners are often seen as intellectually impoverished, backwards, backwoods, but coal miners are the heart and soul of West Virginia. These men are coal dust covered, colored, knights, soldiers, embattled on every side, and yet, those men who stood in the shop last night, in the rescue team staging area, cared not for sleep or necessary sustenance, but to be ready, on deck, to head into a generations old mine, taking hours to get to the search area and spending hours – perhaps days – looking for their fallen comrades whom they never met.
I left, nothing more to do – I haven’t done anything – but pray and rest and get ready to investigate – God, I don’t want to go into that mine – perhaps by sitting in on the hearings. It will be the men and women of MSHA and West Virginia’s mining enforcement agency that as to do the real work, God be with them.
Men of the Deeps is a Canadian Cape Breton mining choir.
If the revelations espoused on both the Canadian and American news channels can be verified, it would appear that some responsibility lies with the owners of this mine, who have had frequent safety violations.
While I cringe reading about the mining disasters in China and the seeming indifference to that country’s attitude towards the value of life in general, it would seem that profits before people is a well established attitude in America as well.
This is heart-breaking for the families and friends of the miners who have already perished, and a dreadful and painful waiting game for those waiting on word for the ones who are trapped. As I have had family members engaged in the mining profession, I applaud the courageous and resourceful men and women who risk their lives daily in these occupations. May the morning bring better news.
In China, 7 dead, 31 missing, rescuers falling ill because the mine is so toxic.100 found alive days after the collapse.
2600 Chinese miners died on the job last year.
Relatives still not being told whether their loved ones are dead or alive…
If you watch the WV mine owner on ABC, you’ll see a side of him shortly after a state election and a mine court case that is really ugly.
All the pr, governance and penalty in the state isn’t going to change his standards of practice.
Much of the problem in West Virginia is the legacy of
the Bush administrations. Deregulation of industry is
one of the preoccupations of the GOP.
Republicans like to have less government and regulation
than Democrats and the relaxed regulations in mining
are such that the industry is almost setting its own terms
rather than the government.
Shareholders–not miners and their families–are the
prime beneficiaries. Venality–that everything and
everyone has a price–seems more prevalent that
anything to do with the common weal.
Much of this can be put right but it will require co-operation
from both parties and a lot of spadework late into
many nights for a meaningful change to come to America.
Another case in point is the cheapening of the air transport
and airline passenger industry. That matter started with
Reagan. It’s another story not in the scope of this comment
but it is proof that labour has been cheapened so greatly
that individuals feel powerless against the “system”.
And people wonder what’s wrong with America.
If only they read the papers and examined the news
more thoroughly instead of being spoon-fed vile
and deceiving talking points from talk radio hosts whose
only stock-in-trade is the “jolt”.
Oh, to bring back the days of informed comment
like the Alsop brothers and Walter Lippman.
Thanks, Bene. Keep praying for us.