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The progress of man?
I just saw an ad on TV for GE Energy, touting coal as a "more attractive" energy source. I found the ad offensive, and disturbing on so many levels. The ad is shot in black and white, very atmospheric, and starts with this great beat... The music is "Sixteen tons" and that's bad enough, if you know the words and know the history of coal mining in regard to labor practices. Yep, the song has a good beat and makes you want to snap your fingers and sing along. Very catchy. You load sixteen tons and what do you get? Another day older and you're deeper in debt. Saint Peter, don't you call me 'cause I can't go; I owe my soul to the company store. That didn't come out of nowhere; it wasn't some elegant songwriter sitting around his Manhattan apartment being whimsical. The company paid the miners in scrip, which was only good at stores owned by the companies themselves. Lots of incentive for the companies to keep the prices down, huh? Supply and demand, baby.
Back to the ad. The "miners" in hard hats are walking through a tunnel, supposedly a mine. It's very spacious, though, with lots of head room. (Unlike the real height of a typical mine, which is 4' to 6.') The men all have very well defined muscles and gee whiz, half the work force is composed of beautiful women. The women are wearing tight tank tops and smiling seductively while running their jackhammers. Riiiiight. When I last lived in Kentucky, women were just starting to go into the mines. The existing miners were really not happy about that. It was considered very bad luck- the superstition was that if a woman went into the mine, a man died. I guess if your life is spent underground hoping the mountain doesn't fall in on you, you latch onto whatever you can that will make you feel safer. That knowledge is so ingrained in my consciousness that all the women in the ad really bothered me, quite irrationally. I know we're supposed to suspend disbelief, but damn. (Oh, wait, we're supposed to be so busy ogling the sexy models we don't notice there's anything unusual about the scenario.)
There's a good reason the miners don't feel safe-- they aren't. Growing up in a coal-mining state meant that hearing about cave-ins was part of life, though it doesn't happen nearly as frequently as it used to. The coal companies are so financially powerful that they essentially own eastern Kentucky, West Virginia and most likely the coal-mining areas of Pennsylvania as well. I expect that explains why mine safety laws are federal instead of state laws. And it's true, the number of cave ins has dropped dramatically. Black lung is still too common, though.And what a lovely way to die that is. You escape having the mountain collapse on your head so you can suffocate over a period of several years because your lungs are too clogged up to work anymore.
I guess we're also not supposed to think about the huge environmental damage coal mining does. In West Virginia, all those mountains that John Denver sang about can be, and are being, strip mined and bulldozed into the streams and valleys that surround them. Who needs streams? In Kentucky, it used to be that the coal companies didn't (couldn't?) strip mine within sight of, say, I-75. Bad for business if you're trying to sell the state as a beautiful place to visit and the mountains the tourists are supposed to see are denuded of trees and have brown stripes around them, or are flattened. It is true that in Kentucky laws were finally passed requiring the companies to "reclaim" the land, by ensuring that the slopes of the spoils piles were shallow enough they could plant grass on them and have it grow. In West Virginia, though, no such luck.
Most of the ad just has music with no words. When they finally did speak, though, it confused the hell out of me. The guy was talking about what if we discovered that America was on top of a great source of energy and I hope I misunderstood, because I thought he said something about "clean." Ummmmm... excuse me? Nope, I must have misheard that. Whatever I heard, though, my first thought was It sounds like he's talking about solar and wind power, so why are they showing these people in a dark tunnel digging something? Because the whole scene was so ludicrous that I couldn't even tell it was supposed to be a coal mine until he started rhapsodizing about coal and all the sexy models in the tight tank-tops and wife beaters held up handfuls of coal and smiled lasciviously at the camera. But now coal has become a "more attractive option." And the models wiggled some more.
John Prine did a great job of writing how I feel about coal companies in his song (known to many of us by the name "Muhlenberg County.")
Paradise
by John Prine
When I was a child, my family would travel
Down to western Kentucky where my parents were born.
And there's a backwoods old town that's often remembered
So many times that my memories are worn.
Cho: And Daddy, won't you take me back to Muhlenberg County,
Down by the Green River where paradise lay?
Well, I'm sorry, my son, but you're too late in askin';
Mr. Peabody's coal train has hauled it away.
Well, sometimes we'd travel right down the Green River
To the abandoned old prison down by Adrie Hill,
Where the air smelled like snakes and we'd shoot with our pistols,
But empty pop bottles was all we would kill.
Cho.
Then the coal company came with the world's largest shovel,
And they tortured the timber and stripped all the land.
Well, they dug for their coal till the land was forsaken,
And they wrote it all down as the progress of man.
Cho.
When I die, let my ashes flow down the Green River,
Let my soul roll on up to the Rochester Dam.
I'll be halfway to heaven with Paradise waiting,
Just five miles away from wherever I am.
Back to the ad. The "miners" in hard hats are walking through a tunnel, supposedly a mine. It's very spacious, though, with lots of head room. (Unlike the real height of a typical mine, which is 4' to 6.') The men all have very well defined muscles and gee whiz, half the work force is composed of beautiful women. The women are wearing tight tank tops and smiling seductively while running their jackhammers. Riiiiight. When I last lived in Kentucky, women were just starting to go into the mines. The existing miners were really not happy about that. It was considered very bad luck- the superstition was that if a woman went into the mine, a man died. I guess if your life is spent underground hoping the mountain doesn't fall in on you, you latch onto whatever you can that will make you feel safer. That knowledge is so ingrained in my consciousness that all the women in the ad really bothered me, quite irrationally. I know we're supposed to suspend disbelief, but damn. (Oh, wait, we're supposed to be so busy ogling the sexy models we don't notice there's anything unusual about the scenario.)
There's a good reason the miners don't feel safe-- they aren't. Growing up in a coal-mining state meant that hearing about cave-ins was part of life, though it doesn't happen nearly as frequently as it used to. The coal companies are so financially powerful that they essentially own eastern Kentucky, West Virginia and most likely the coal-mining areas of Pennsylvania as well. I expect that explains why mine safety laws are federal instead of state laws. And it's true, the number of cave ins has dropped dramatically. Black lung is still too common, though.And what a lovely way to die that is. You escape having the mountain collapse on your head so you can suffocate over a period of several years because your lungs are too clogged up to work anymore.
I guess we're also not supposed to think about the huge environmental damage coal mining does. In West Virginia, all those mountains that John Denver sang about can be, and are being, strip mined and bulldozed into the streams and valleys that surround them. Who needs streams? In Kentucky, it used to be that the coal companies didn't (couldn't?) strip mine within sight of, say, I-75. Bad for business if you're trying to sell the state as a beautiful place to visit and the mountains the tourists are supposed to see are denuded of trees and have brown stripes around them, or are flattened. It is true that in Kentucky laws were finally passed requiring the companies to "reclaim" the land, by ensuring that the slopes of the spoils piles were shallow enough they could plant grass on them and have it grow. In West Virginia, though, no such luck.
Most of the ad just has music with no words. When they finally did speak, though, it confused the hell out of me. The guy was talking about what if we discovered that America was on top of a great source of energy and I hope I misunderstood, because I thought he said something about "clean." Ummmmm... excuse me? Nope, I must have misheard that. Whatever I heard, though, my first thought was It sounds like he's talking about solar and wind power, so why are they showing these people in a dark tunnel digging something? Because the whole scene was so ludicrous that I couldn't even tell it was supposed to be a coal mine until he started rhapsodizing about coal and all the sexy models in the tight tank-tops and wife beaters held up handfuls of coal and smiled lasciviously at the camera. But now coal has become a "more attractive option." And the models wiggled some more.
John Prine did a great job of writing how I feel about coal companies in his song (known to many of us by the name "Muhlenberg County.")
Paradise
by John Prine
When I was a child, my family would travel
Down to western Kentucky where my parents were born.
And there's a backwoods old town that's often remembered
So many times that my memories are worn.
Cho: And Daddy, won't you take me back to Muhlenberg County,
Down by the Green River where paradise lay?
Well, I'm sorry, my son, but you're too late in askin';
Mr. Peabody's coal train has hauled it away.
Well, sometimes we'd travel right down the Green River
To the abandoned old prison down by Adrie Hill,
Where the air smelled like snakes and we'd shoot with our pistols,
But empty pop bottles was all we would kill.
Cho.
Then the coal company came with the world's largest shovel,
And they tortured the timber and stripped all the land.
Well, they dug for their coal till the land was forsaken,
And they wrote it all down as the progress of man.
Cho.
When I die, let my ashes flow down the Green River,
Let my soul roll on up to the Rochester Dam.
I'll be halfway to heaven with Paradise waiting,
Just five miles away from wherever I am.