Bottom Line: Ya Gotta Have It

"You stick your head between two rocks to make a living, you know you're taking a chance." 

-- Massey miner Kevin Lambert

It's very hard for me to blog anything this morning.  The explosion at a nearby coal mine has shaken everyone and everything in my state.  So many dead, some so young, some leaving little children behind, wives, relatives, friends.  It gives the word "devastating" a real, gut-wrenching meaning.

And then there is all the (highly political) finger-pointing and the demonizing of the coal industry in general and Massey Energy's CEO, Don Blankenship, in particular.  I've met Don and as far as I could tell, he's a perfectly human, sweet man, not at all the Master of Evil he is portrayed to be.  I can only assume that right now his anguish is among the deepest.  So leave it to the "liberal" enviro sect to exploit their opportunity in this crisis and really pile it on.  I even saw one comment at a local paper comparing Blankenship to Hitler and Hussein.  Like he blew up these folks on purpose. 

So I continue to vacillate between mourning and anger.  Seeing Rep. Nick Rahall out there in the limelight -- not promising (the people) but threatening (the companies) that he's going to bring all the Forces of the Big-G Government down here To Investigate -- well, it just makes me sick. 

I have an idea -- how 'bout the Big-G investigates Rahall's ties to terrorists ? Argh. We all know that's not gonna happen (with one exception: WV Watchdog).

Amazingly, I did find one account of the accident in the Enemedia that didn't put my blood pressure through the roof -- and it was at CBS of all places.  This surviving miner reflects much of my own thinking as well... which is not to say that he and I are necessarily right, only that this point of view is sadly missing from most of the public conversation, and p.s. the demonizers should hold their vicious tongues, at least until the proverbial (and actual) dust... settles.

(CBS)  Coal miner Kevin Lambert says he and his co-workers knew something was very wrong when they noticed that the fan that propels air underground at the Massey Energy Company's Upper Big Branch Mine in Montcoal, W. Va. had reversed, and was blowing dust out as they were about to start the evening shift there.

"There's only certain things that can make that fan reverse," Massey told "Early Show" co-anchor Harry Smith Wednesday. "We knew it had to be something big."

They were right. A major explosion had killed 25 miners and left four missing.

Lambert, who's mined for Massey since 2001, suspects methane gas. "We know it's gassy coal," he said. "We know that when - you're gonna hit methane. You don't know where it comes from. Could come from a crack. Could come anywhere. All it takes is a spark. I can't see how they can point a finger at just anybody. It's just methane."

Does he feel Massey, whose safety record has come under scrutiny, is a safe operator?

"They treat me alright," Lambert replied. "There's no safe mines. I don't care where you go. You're not gonna find a safe mine. They could do whatever they want - make all the laws.

"When a man goes (into a mine), he knows that could be it. … You stick your head between two rocks to make a living, you know you're taking a chance. These 25 guys … they died for a cause. Every time you turn your lights on at home … you should think about them guys.

"Everybody overlooks West Virginia. They never think about coal. We need coal. We gotta have coal. Ya gotta have it. Gotta have it. Bottom line - gotta have it."

 

 

Comments

[Mannie Sherberg]

I suppose Kevin Lambert has never thought of himself as a theologian, but when he said, "I don't see how they can point a finger ... it's just methane," he was stating, in the plainest possible English, the idea that lies at the heart of the Book of Job: For all our vaunted knowledge and sophistication, we still can't answer the most basic questions: Why is the world the way it is? Couldn't the Creation just as easily have contained methane-free coal, or -- for that matter -- coal that lies atop the ground rather than beneath?" Job agonized over questions like these -- not about coal but about the loss of his children and the boils that afflicted his body -- and finally admitted that the answers were beyond him or indeed any human being. The world is the way it is because that is part of God's plan. Judaism has always understood that life and pain and suffering are intertwined and inseparable; it is one religion that has never pulled its punches, never sugarcoated, and never indulged in feel-good make-believe. The Chofetz Chaim said that "The only whole heart is a broken one." That sounds paradoxical, but anyone who's lived to adulthood -- and many who never reached adulthood -- knows its truth. Genesis Rabbah, a portion of the Midrash that focuses on the Book of Genesis, puts it as starkly as it can be put: "If you wish to live in this world, make sure your heart can endure suffering." Those three words of Mr. Lambert's -- "It's just methane" -- are enough to provide a talmudist with a lifetime of cogitation. In the words frequently intoned just before the recitation of the Kaddish, "May God comfort the bereaved."

[Yael]

Ameyn.