Someone with time and skills...can you make this post? April 5, 2010 7:11 PM   Subscribe

I'd like to encourage someone to make a thoughtful post about the West Virginia Mine accident this afternoon. I would do it but I'm pretty much out the door and I JUST heard about it.

I usually dislike this kind of post, but I want to encourage someone to link articles, as well as links to Massey's history and Don Blankenship's stances on, well, everything. His twitter can be pretty funny.

Sorry for a post like this.
posted by TomMelee to MetaFilter-Related at 7:11 PM (8 comments total)

I didn't realize it was Massey again. Same guys as the lovely slurry spill here in KY a few years ago. But I have no time to do this tonight, either.
posted by dilettante at 7:20 PM on April 5, 2010


speaking of recent mining incidents, there's this one in china that I thought was interesting...
posted by yeoz at 7:21 PM on April 5, 2010 [2 favorites]


interesting... I saw the news, and also explored the china incident... it deserves a post, but the gravity of it was beyond what I felt I could afford...

Now I'm thinking about what that means....
posted by HuronBob at 7:50 PM on April 5, 2010


If anyone is going to do this and wants more on Massey's history, what little I know about Massey Coal comes from Caperton v. Massey, which (to really over-simplify) involved Massey CEO Don Blankenship's close relations with the West Virginia Supreme Court of Appeals. You may be familiar with a fictionalized version of the case from John Grisham's The Appeal.

Massey's Wikipedia page also has a nice big Controversy section full of prior mine disasters, environmental violations, and lawsuits.
posted by sallybrown at 7:53 PM on April 5, 2010


Here is the website for the WV Coal Association.

The Charleston Daily Mail has reporters and photographers currently at the scene as does the leading news station WSAZ if someone wants local media rather than CNN.

Here is a fairly recent op-ed Don Blankenship wrote for The Hill.

A lot of West Virginians are currently having flashbacks to the 2006 Sago Mine incident.

Full disclosure: I grew up in W.Va., know people who work in the coal industry (including my mom!) and I hate Massey Energy. The end.
posted by kerning at 8:27 PM on April 5, 2010


but... are the mining disasters caused by SUNSPOTS!!!?

Sorry... sorry.. someone on the radio today was trying to blame recent earthquakes on sunspots and the guest was polite enough not to laugh, me...not so much.
posted by edgeways at 8:29 PM on April 5, 2010


I live about 65 miles away from Whitesville, where this accident happened. They've been talking about it on the news all evening (WSAZ, as Kerning mentioned above). They were talking at one point to someone who was supposed to be some sort of official in the area, not sure whether it was a cop or someone affiliated with the mine or what, but after talking to him for about five minutes he made some joke about the size of his dick and hung up. The anchor handled it really well, but I was shocked. Seven people are dead, two dozen are in the hospital, and twenty-odd more are missing, hopefully trapped rather than dead, and this guy's getting his rocks off punking the local news. Unbelievable.
posted by Captain Cardanthian! at 9:05 PM on April 5, 2010


There's a post there now [single link, wsj]. I'll close this up.
posted by jessamyn (staff) at 9:20 PM on April 5, 2010


« Older How does mefi make dough.   |   Tick. Tick. Tick.png Newer »

This thread is closed to new comments.