Don Blankenship is no mystery
Don Blankenship has written a piece for the Wayne County News explaining who he is and what he's up to.
The only place I can find the essay on the Internet is on
Don Surber's Blog. He may have transcribed it directly from the newspaper and I appreciate that.
First and foremost, I wouldn't want to stop Blankenship from trying to upset the political power structure in West Virginia. It's his right and, after reading his essay, I believe it's his cause.
He really beleives that politics is West Virginia's downfall, that everything can be laid at the feet of the people who write and enforce the rules.
I believe that the people we put in office is a reflection of the people who put them there. If so, we are in sad, sad shape in West Virginia and thus our problems can be laid directly at the feet of those who go to the polls, or don't go to the polls as the case may be.
I have news for Don. Things won't change, particularly in his native region of Southern West Virginia, until the people change. And his campaign which intends to tell the people just how corrupt some of our politicians are won't work until the people change.
Changing people's hearts and minds is damn near impossible. He's asking folks in Mingo COunty to give up any chance of getting their gravel roads and even their driveways maintained by the state every election year for a system that treats everyone fairly. Too many of these folks don't want fairness. They want their share of government resources and to hell with everyone else.
My dad was much like Don Blankenship, althouigh he wasn't rich and vertainly not famous. I don't know how many times he told me "Can't never did nothin' until he tried." I wonder if that same saying was told to Don when he was a kid. It sounds like it. That's what his essay is all about.
The same things that bother Blanksnehip about West Virignia, at least those stated in his essay, bother me as well. I am a bit concerned about what else bothers him, things that he's not saying he wants changed.
What blankenship has undertaken essentially is an "educational campaign." What's needed in West Virginia, particularly Southern West Virginia, is a long term grass roots educational campaign to make basic changes in a culture that allows political corruption.
And that cost much more than the few million Blankenship intends to commit.
And no one even said "whoops!"
Jessica Lynch is pregnant.
An AP story says it's so. They're congratulating her on TeeVee. After all, she was wounded badly in Iraq. Who knew she could ever get pregnant? From the words of Jessica in the report, it sounds as if she is as surprised as anyone.
I wonder if her boyfriend is surprised?
Yes, I said boyfriend. Jessica is not married and the story doesn't indicate she and her boyfriend, a factory worker from Vienna, W. Va., will ever get married.
I'm happy for her. I'm happy she believes she has found someone she loves and who loves her. Of course, the chances of this relationship continuing till death they do part is about 50 percent, or maybe less. Sorry. Those are the stats.
If Jessica and her boyfriend are surprised, what surprises me is the turnaound we have made in this country and this state about conceiving children out of wedlock.
Hell, when I was a kid, I never knew which of my young female relatives got pregnant, even if they were married. And if they weren't, they'd disappear for a few months, then return, sometimes with a baby and sometimes without. But the mention of a child conceived out of wedlock? It never happened. In fact, I was led to believe that conceiving bastard children was not the only sin. Talking about it was another sin.
The fact things have changed so much in such a short time gives me hope that we will soon get over our fear of same sex marriages. It will happen, I believe, as will the elmination of other silly taboos.
Meanwhile, all I can say is that I hope both Jessica and her boyfriend had earth-shattering, hit-me-with-your-best-shot simultaneous orgasms at the moment of conception. And a thousand more in the future.
Good luck, Guys.
An Angry State
Charleston is not the happiest place to live according to a national magazine.
Men's health ranked the 100 most angry cities in the country-- the Capitol city is on the list. Charleston takes 46th place.
The September issue based their anger-meter on the percentage of men with high blood pressure, FBI rates of aggravated assaults, Bureau of Labor statistics on workplace deaths from assaults as well as traffic congestion and speeding tickets.
I've thought a lot about anger recently and I ahve concluded that not only is Charleston an angry place, West Virginia is an angry state.
People drive like demons because of anger, I beleive. They die on four-wheelers because they are angry. They fight in the streets and on rural roads because they are angry. They are generally mean drunks because they are angry.
My theory is they are angry primarily because of enormous frustration in this state. I can offer no other reason.
Anyone else believe West Virginia is angrier than the average state? If so, why?
America will save the world (?)
I have already introduced you to Bob Rogers in a previous post. I have been reading the amazing journal of his bicycle trip along the Silk Road. An entry from western China caught my attention:
How many other oppressed people believe that America will someday rescue them as our role as policemen to the world?
Scary. Really scary.
He is a large Uyghur man of 47. He says he was a boxer and basketball player. He is fat now, in a successful businessman sort of way; proof of prosperity. He orders the Han staff around like the stereotypical Ugly American, though he is a Chinese citizen. However he is not Han,
Being Uyghur is his identity; he knows the bounds of his ethnic identity and chafes at the loss of autonomy at the hands of the Chinese and Russians. "Peejo. peejo!" He waves his arm ordering more beer, and another Uyghur dish, both of which he pushes on us.
He says something else, raises both hands high into the air, lifting up an imaginary something to great heights. "America," he sighs. "America." Then his beatific smiles turns to a snarl, "China!" He turns up a little finger and spits on it, ultimate insult. "China bad." Spit. "America! "his voice softens again,
He frowns again, "Saddam. Bad!" He is showing his solidarity with another small ethnic minority, the Kurdish in northern Iraq. We listen. He of course assumes we agree with him completely.
There is no use trying to communicate that these questions are more complicated than perhaps he sees from his perspective. We smile. I try to drink just enough beer to please him, without getting drunk. I feel sorry for the poor man. He really thinks (he is not alone among Uyghurs) that America will someday restore the Uyghur homeland of western China to them.
Poor man. Even an ego as big as George W. Bush would not consider attacking China. The commercial dragon is awakening, and that is generally good for the world economy; the sleeping dragon of the Chinese military might is not something to be awakened; not for a few million Uyghurs; sheepherders, horse and camel wanderers of the steppes and deserts of China. No, the Uyghurs will be free when they free themselves, and the Han will probably never allow that. They will dominate and eventually overwhelm with sheer population numbers, as they have done to the Tibetans. The dragon sleeps, but is still a dragon none-the-less.
Strip Mining? What Susanna said......
Susanna Rodell left as the editorial page editor of the Charleston Gazette last week. Her parting shot was a column explaining why she, a liberal, isn't 100 percent behind the tree-huggers who oppose strlip-mining.
You'll find the column
here.
I have lots of tree-huggers I consider my friends, whether they consider me their friends or not. And I wouldn't stop them in their attempts to end strip-mining in West Virginia if my life depended on it. But I won't join them in a whole-hearted movement to ban stri-mining for the same reasons that Susanna states in her column.
About 30 percent of West Virginia's coal is mined by strippers. To reduce West Virignia's coal output by 30 percent would have a dramatically negative effect on this state's tax income. And that would mean cutbacks that would directly affect the poor.
Besides, to elminate coal as a major supplier of energy in this country would drive energy prices much higher. Who would that hurt? The poor mostly.
I hate to see the results of strip-mining. Beautiful second-growth forests are being destroyed daily. I have four acres and recently, a 100-year-old pin oak on my property died, apparently from oak wilt. I was bummed out for days. I hate to see any centernarian die, be it human or oak. Imagine what it's like to kill a thousand 100-year-old trees every day. Bad karma, if you ask me.
But what happens if coal isn't available to fuel the power plants? Old people would have to pay more for electricity to run their fans and air conditioners in the summer and their heaters in the winter. That's the irony in this controversy.
I have no answer, no replacement for coal mining of any kind. All we can do is make sure the coal barons follow the rules when they strip and fine them when they don't. Meanwhile, we must believe that coal can be mined and burned with zero environmental damage. And someday, maybe not in our lifetimes, we'll have cheap, non-polluting energy sources.
Meanwhile, all I can do is try to maintain balance on my four acres. And the fact I have no coal, strippable or otherwise, lets me do that.
Woking for God: The Ultimate Bulletin Board
There's a guy who says that all Democrats are Satanists.
There's another guy, who says he's a preacher from northern West Virginia, who sometimes calls himself "Hatedorn." He's a trip.
Another high-toned old Christian lady loves to quote biblical scriptures containing graphic examples about how God is going to tear the scrotums off men who reject Him.
Another likes to call poor women who live in the projects "brood mares," and loves to talk about all the cars he owns. He apparently has bootstraps longer than his pecker and he claims he has picked himself up by them.
When the
HuntingtonNews.net Bulletin Board began a few years ago, I had high hopes that it might bring about some solidarity among caring folks in Huntington and that they would come up with ideas about how to change Huntington for the better.
I was wrong as I usually am. It has only brought more confusion to an already confused city.
Most online bulletin boards are awash with grammatical and spelling errors and this one is no exception. One guy, who claims he's more godly than I am, started a thread called "Woking For God." I think he meant "Working for God," and I asked the question" If one is woking for God, what kind of wok does one use?" No one saw the humor and the guy who originated the thread didn't change the thread's headline.
I read the BB to remind me that there is little hope of changing things, either in Huntington or West Virginia or the Middle East.
You might want to do the same, if youi want to abandon all hope.
