To Don Blankenship, just the cost of doing coal business
On Thursday, a Senate committee took testimony on coal mine safety after the explosion last month at a West Virginia operation run by Massey Energy that killed 29 men.
In his first testimony since the accident, the worst coal mine disaster in 40 years, Don L. Blankenship, the chairman and chief executive, came out swinging. The 23 miner fatalities at Massey mines in the decade before the Upper Big Branch explosion made his company “about average,” he said, and Massey was a leader in safety innovation but had been forbidden by the Mine Safety and Health administration from making some safety improvements….
At the hearing, another witness, Cecil E. Roberts, president of the United Mine Workers of America, challenged Mr. Blankenship’s assertion that Massey’s safety record was average.
“I can’t come up with another coal company that’s had 23 miners in 10 years die,” Mr. Roberts, seated next to Mr. Blankenship at the witness table, said. “This isn’t average. This is deplorable.
“This is the worst fatality rate in the industry either way you look at it, either before the explosion or after the explosion.”
… Robert C. Byrd, the 92-year-old West Virginia Democrat, took a tough stance with Mr. Blankenship. “Twenty-nine men are now dead, dead, dead, simply because they went to work that morning,” he said.
The very next morning:
CHARLESTON, W.Va. (AP) – Another Massey Energy coal miner has died as a result of on-the-job injuries.
State of West Virginia spokesman Hoy Murphy says 55-year-old James Erwin of Delbarton died about 6 a.m. Friday.
Murphy says Erwin was pinned between a piece of heavy equipment and the wall at Massey’s Ruby Energy mine in Mingo County on May 10.
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548 comments Add your comment
Curious Observer
May 22nd, 2010
8:01 pm
Just Sayin’
May 22nd, 2010
7:44 pm
Coal mining even has the potential to change one’s perspective over what a landscape can look like.
Well, I’ve played the Twisted Gun golf course, in the extreme southwestern portion of West Virginia and about ten miles from the Kentucky border. It is built entirely on the site of an abandoned strip mine, and while the course is gorgeous, a quick glance at the rock walls across the way will also reveal the utter ruin that comes to land where strip mining operations have occurred. And we won’t even talk about the heavy metals that have ruined the streams below.
josef nix
May 22nd, 2010
8:08 pm
curious observer
“And we won’t even talk about the heavy metals that have ruined the streams below…”
No we won’t. Not unless you happen to live there and read the Beckley and Charleston papers…
@@
May 22nd, 2010
8:17 pm
Does it bother you that I speak out against these things.
No.
Moderate Line
May 22nd, 2010
8:19 pm
Another issue is complaining about coal companies appealing fines. Do you not believe in due process?
If your principles change depending on who is negatively or positely affected then your not a liberal or a conservative. That is more akin to being in a tribe and anyone in the other tribe is your enemy.
Normal
May 22nd, 2010
8:21 pm
If the corn won’t grow…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1BlKN4lleAk&feature=related
Curious Observer
May 22nd, 2010
8:26 pm
Not unless you happen to live there and read the Beckley and Charleston papers…
Read ‘em every day, jnix. Georgia became my residence for 47 years out of economic necessity, but West Virginia will always be my home. You can access the online editions at http://www.wvgazette.com and http://www.register-herald.com.
You’ll learn a lot more about what’s going on between Massey and the home folks than you’ll ever learn by reading blogs or national publications.
Hillbilly Deluxe
May 22nd, 2010
8:30 pm
Another issue is complaining about coal companies appealing fines. Do you not believe in due process?
They should get due process but as it is now the appeals system can be abused. The system needs to be fine tuned. Maybe a limit on how many appeals a company can have going at one time.
Normal
May 22nd, 2010
8:31 pm
Curious,
You a Hatfield or a McCoy?
Dusty
May 22nd, 2010
8:33 pm
Well, the game was delayed. Braves are just getting warmed up.. Gives me a minute to straighten out RedNeck (as if that were possible). I was born in Georgia. My mother went across the Savannah River from South Carolina to deliver her bundle of joy. ME, that is. But out home was always in the proud state of South Carolina. So I have dual Southern citizenshiip. How lucky can one be??? Amd no swamps. Sand hills. Getalife is the one who lives in the swamp.
I do believe we have some members of the Sierra Club amongst us. Also the WildLife people. NO, not liberals. The ones who try to save poor animals. Now, neither group is bad but when they start chasing whaling boats in canoes and that sort of thing, I get a mental picture of some real wildlife.
Oops…la subjection…….coal mines! Yes! Burn charcoal! It is made from wood. That is why there are no trees in Haiti. All cut down to make charcoal. But they don’t use that awful COAL!! No sirree. And charcoal grills hamburgers the best. Soooo…to tree or not to tree. Is that the question?
Normal
May 22nd, 2010
8:36 pm
All you Viet Nam Vets…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ltDMr7IVg9A&feature=related
Normal
May 22nd, 2010
8:37 pm
Another Papa John Creach…Remember, you are what you drink…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pgy6AVkZmeo
Curious Observer
May 22nd, 2010
8:37 pm
You a Hatfield or a McCoy?
McCoy, Normal. You ought to drive the Hatfield-McCoy trail in southwestern West Virginia at some time. As you drive by the Guyandotte River and the dangerously washed-out roads, you’ll gain some insight into the people who fought that decades-old war.
I Report (-: You Whine )-: mmm, mmmm, mmmmm! Just sayin...
May 22nd, 2010
8:37 pm
Liberals won’t let us drill for oil on land so we have to go to the deep seas to get the energy they use, and whammo, giant disaster, sure enough.
We could have switched to nuclear power back when the sane world did, but no, are beloved hysteritics wigged out and how many men have died in the coal mines since then?
WTF do we still listen to liberals?
Duh, just askin….
AmVet
May 22nd, 2010
8:38 pm
“If your principles change depending on who is negatively or positely (sic) affected then your not a liberal or a conservative.”
Agreed moderate, but I believe there is a bigger point.
If your principles change depending on who is or is not disregarding American laws and legal codes that force them to operate responsibility, then it doesn’t really matter much.
There is much made of how many places are cleaner now. Absolutely true. But still much too little to offset the overall ongoing damage.
But it is because of the tree huggers. The liberals. The progressives. The Greens. Who have loudly demanded that Hooker Chemical and other business interests be held responsible for that nice little neighborhood right across the highway from the Niagara Falls Mall – Love Canal. (They sold it to the NF School Board but were not “contractually” responsible for the contamination. Niiice.)
josef nix
May 22nd, 2010
8:40 pm
curious observer..
I don’t read them every day, but I do read them. As Hillbilly oftens says, “all politics are local.” As for Atlanta being your residence but West Virginia being your home…I understand that. We were up in Johnson City once and when Unmentionable made a comment about who his family was, there was a “clam up.” It went back to a “feud” nearly 200 years old. Atavistic? Perhaps, but at the same time a sense of rootedness, of “belonging.” a powerful anchor in trying times.
I Report (-: You Whine )-: mmm, mmmm, mmmmm! Just sayin...
May 22nd, 2010
8:41 pm
Windmills are probably the stupidest and most wretched idea a hysteritic has ever had, right now, with calm to no wind in the ATL, a windmill would be idle, just like the mind of an average liberal.
And solar? They can stick it where the sun don’t shine, and they probably will, just sayin…
Curious Observer
May 22nd, 2010
8:41 pm
But out home was always in the proud state of South Carolina. So I have dual Southern citizenshiip. How lucky can one be??? Amd no swamps. Sand hills. Getalife is the one who lives in the swamp.
After my hospitable three-month stay at Parris Island, Dusty, you can have South Carolina. The only good news I’ve received from that state in decades is the appearance of a particularly despicable and abusive drill instructor in the Social Security Death Index. I hope he’s roasting comfortably about now, much like the chicken you had for dinner.
Normal
May 22nd, 2010
8:43 pm
Curious,
My people are familiar with that feud. Angus was a distant relative…
josef nix
May 22nd, 2010
8:48 pm
curious
A McCoy…d*amned Scallywag!
AmVet
May 22nd, 2010
8:52 pm
Well, since the Saturday Night Movie theme lasted about 15 minutes, I’m joining in with Normal and playing some sweet tunes….
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RVMuhUBvpbk
kayaker 71
May 22nd, 2010
8:52 pm
Bed Wet,
Your disgusting attempt at legitimacy is wearing pretty thin. Do you have your chin in the air like your hero or do I have to ask that? Your continued bashing of corporate America is also wearing a bit thin. I have a suggestion for you. Why don’t you leave your beloved America and seek solace someplace else. Maybe they would lend you a camel so you can explore the vast reaches of some Islamic paradise until they realize that you are a gringo and cut off your head. Or perhaps you could cross the border of Mexico. It’s nice this time of year. A couple of of years in a Mexican prison might just change your perspective a bit. If that is not to your liking, maybe a one bedroom apartment in some Muslim country so you can preach the evils of America and what it stands for. Who knows, you might even get in invitation to join the Taliban and really give America what it deserves. You have your head up your fat arse about as far as it can go but the sad part of this story is that you don’t have a clue. Your vision of America seems to be the same as Bozo and he is about the most dangerous thing that America has confronted in the last 100 yrs. Thanks to people like you and Bozo, we probably do have a limited life span to the America which we have grown to love and respect. But you wouldn’t care about that, now would you. As long as the evil corporate demons who have made this country what it is go down in flames, your mission will be accomplished. Then perhaps government will be there to solve all of your problems, make all of your decisions and see to all of your needs. I bet you can’t wait.
Normal
May 22nd, 2010
8:53 pm
AmVet,
Too Cool!
@@
May 22nd, 2010
8:57 pm
They WERE trying to stick solar where the sun DO shine…The Mojave. Senator Feinstein (D) said “No can do!.”
Not in Anyone’s Backyard
Protect the environment or create renewable energy? A new bill shows they’re far from the same thing.
NEWSWEEK-California has other lands, both federally and state owned, on which solar producers could relocate their projects. But no place is perfect; the sun doesn’t shine as brightly in California’s Central Valley and the desolate areas of Arizona or Utah are either too mountainous or too far from consumption centers to make transmission viable. Get too close to populated areas like San Bernardino and people complain that the infrastructure ruins the landscape. “There’s a compelling case that any land in the Southwest is too environmentally rich to develop on; but the fact is, if we want renewable energy, they have to go somewhere,” says Jim Baak, director of utility-scale policy with California advocacy group Vote Solar. Speaking at Yale in 2008, Schwarzenegger was more blunt: “They say that we want renewable energy, but we don’t want you to put it anywhere.I mean, if we cannot put solar power plants in the Mojave Desert, I don’t know where the hell we can put them.”
Good point!
Just Sayin'
May 22nd, 2010
8:58 pm
Why don’t you leave your beloved America and seek solace someplace else.
Talk about your “worn thin” lines. Come up with some new material. How about, “I dare you to cross this line… and this one… and this one.. this one…”
Dusty
May 22nd, 2010
8:58 pm
Josef
If the Braves don’t win tonight I will be going atavistic, anachronistic and plain hog wild.
Ok, so much for intelligent conversation. I just can’t get into it tonight. Maybe it is going to rain tomorrow. Rain does make grass grow, curls to fall and starch to fail. Why not communication?? Rain is an indigenous damper and doldrum producer. So there, I am raindrop prejudiced!!!
Will this game EVER get going???
AmVet
May 22nd, 2010
9:03 pm
“back when the sane world did”
Like France? (chuckle)
Normal, you’ve picked some killin’ stuff.
“Lawyers” everywhere.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ReM_mtvOno0
Hillbilly Deluxe
May 22nd, 2010
9:06 pm
For Dusty
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z7QrPJcLBZA
Scout
May 22nd, 2010
9:06 pm
@@:
“herd of turtles” ?
Also known in the military as “standby to commence to begin” ………………
larry
May 22nd, 2010
9:09 pm
Speaking of nuclear power , where are we going to put nuclear waste ? That is the danger with nuclear power, along with possible nuclear meltdown. Chernobyl , anyone?
Dusty
May 22nd, 2010
9:13 pm
@@,
Please don’t mention that Mohave Desert thing. Next they will try to stick those huge wind turbines in the Sonoran Desert in Arizona where I have had so many good summers. The desert is beautiful and the Sonoran has the seguaros that grow in very few places. Every kind of cactus blooms along with agave and many unique plants. Roadrunners and jack rabbits are at home. At night, the stars are brillliant without haze. It is beautiful and pristine. The thought of wind turbines whirring away or large solar systems is not a happy thought.
I Report (-: You Whine )-: mmm, mmmm, mmmmm! Just sayin...
May 22nd, 2010
9:14 pm
Oh yeah, the Frenchies all glow in the dark, come out from under your beds, Nancy.
AmVet
May 22nd, 2010
9:15 pm
It ain’t all doom and green glowing gloom.
Possibly junk science, but what the hey.
http://www.cnn.com/2010/TECH/science/05/22/biodiversity.new.species/index.html?hpt=C2
@@
May 22nd, 2010
9:15 pm
Scout:
“standby to commence to begin”
Is that the same as “hurry up and wait”? My husband said there was a lot of that goin’ on when he was in the Army.
Hillbilly Deluxe
May 22nd, 2010
9:18 pm
“standby to commence to begin”
I’ve never been in the military but that phrase makes perfect sense to me.
Scout
May 22nd, 2010
9:19 pm
@@:
Ask him about the square needle in the left ________
@@
May 22nd, 2010
9:21 pm
Dusty:
I love the Mojave too, but the panels have to go somewhere. It’s a BIG desert.
Talk about animals that can adapt to the most harsh conditions, the desert’s creatures are among the world’s best.
Normal
May 22nd, 2010
9:21 pm
Git Fiddle
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FM6RgtUbWRU&feature=related
“standby to commence to begin”
It just means the same thing as “I’m fixin’ to fixin’ to do it.”
TaxPayer
May 22nd, 2010
9:22 pm
Time for some Horace Wimp.
Mike
May 22nd, 2010
9:23 pm
Some jobs are dangerous, Bookman. Jobs like going a mile underground in a one-way shaft to use high-explosives and heavy machinery to wrest deposits from earth’s rocky grip, or riding a small, thin capsule mounted atop millions of pounds of rocket fuel just to catch a glimpse of the earth’s curvature. Or sailing into the maw of a nasty storm to bring home the crab you might eat at Joe’s. Or even, say, donning a flak jacket, helmet and notebook and walking the dusty streets of Afghanistan with an Army patrol.
In other words, the kinds of jobs you’ve never had and probably couldn’t handle.
Coal miners know what they do is risky. So do astronauts, fishermen (so un-pc of me!!!) and war correspondents. Yet they do it anyway. Some do it *because* it is dangerous. Should we ban those professions, or make them so burdened with safety regulations that it’s impossible for them to be practiced?
For instance, it was pretty dangerous of the AJC to send people to Iraq … as I recall one almost got shot. Is a life just a “cost of doing business” for the journalism industry, too, or is that somehow more noble and worthy?
All that being said, I can’t or won’t excuse a company’s inattention to the best practical safety policies and procedures available. But I won’t damn an industry simply because those who work in it sometimes die.
AmVet
May 22nd, 2010
9:25 pm
Larry, that is the $64 question. It is a huge concern. And potentially infinitely worse than the Deepwater Horizon.
Some sweet contraltos…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lppPiUyIyt8
@@
May 22nd, 2010
9:26 pm
Scout:
My husband said to tell you he’s not so easily fooled, but others can be. He laughed.
I have no idea what you two are talking about.
Atlantan
May 22nd, 2010
9:26 pm
How many thousands of Americans have died due to higher CAFE standards?
Dusty
May 22nd, 2010
9:27 pm
Thanks, Hillbilly, for the music. Kinda smoothed over my rain prejudice for the moment. Also I kept my eye on the guiltar player. My guitar is still in rehab but I am reading the how-to book. Just call me mrs. maetro. Segovia, here I come. Well, in a little while …
josef nix
May 22nd, 2010
9:28 pm
Okay, the linguist’s nerve…standby to commence to begin makes good sense to me…to comence and to begin being the infinite processes and stand by being the finite action bringing it about…
Larry
Chernobyl anyone? Point to consider and, quite frankly, I don’t care for the odds…
@@
May 22nd, 2010
9:29 pm
Normal:
“I’m fixin’ to fixin’ to do it.”
With all the personal information you’ve shared lately, it’s probably best you not say things like ^^^ that.
Hillbilly Deluxe
May 22nd, 2010
9:31 pm
“standby to commence to begin”
It just means the same thing as “I’m fixin’ to fixin’ to do it.”
To my ears, it sounds more like “I’m fixin to get started, d’rectly”
josef nix
May 22nd, 2010
9:32 pm
normal
“fixin to be fixin to do it…” pretty good translation, that!
Dusty–
Ssh! Can’t mention Segovia here…he was one of them Gypsies and Sister Cynthia and Company don’t like them a whole lot…
josef nix
May 22nd, 2010
9:34 pm
Hillbilly
Another good translation! See how subtle our dialect is? Love it!
@@
May 22nd, 2010
9:37 pm
Alright, and please don’t take this wrong.
“I’m gettin’ ready to jump right on it.”
I am sooooo gonna regret this, but you hear it all the time in the workplace.
I’m gonna regret that workplace comment too.
AmVet
May 22nd, 2010
9:38 pm
Moderate,
As I suspected, The MHSA data is not altogether without dispute. A great article that should be read in its entirety.
http://www.npr.org/templates/transcript/transcript.php?storyId=5165554
Another fine song for the Hillbilly in all of us…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7mU2lJKkQ04
Hillbilly Deluxe
May 22nd, 2010
9:39 pm
Another rain song.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZJiDHA4CNmk
Dusty
May 22nd, 2010
9:40 pm
Atlantan,
I don’t know what you mean by higher standards of CAFE causing thousands to die. All I know is that CAFE sets higher miles per gallon for certain vehicles. What do you mean?
Hillbilly Deluxe
May 22nd, 2010
9:47 pm
Josef @ 9:34
And in my world, “d’rectly” doesn’t mean right now. It’s later than “right now” or even “right shortly” but sooner than “adder while”.
Don’t even get me started on the differences between afore daylight, daylight,sunrise, morning, afternoon, evening, sunset, dusk, dark, after dark and night.
Dusty
May 22nd, 2010
9:50 pm
HillBilly, a nice soothing rain song. Enjoyed it.
I meant to tell you that my nasturtiums are blooming, all three of them. The rest never came up. But the little orange blossoms over the light green round leaves are pretty. I have also been proud of a pink l;ily that surprised me. I stuck it in the ground last year after it wilted following Mother’s Day. Did not think it would grow. It has two big pink lillies. I’d forgotten about it.
DoggoneGA
May 22nd, 2010
9:52 pm
“Don’t even get me started on the differences between afore daylight, daylight,sunrise, morning, afternoon, evening, sunset, dusk, dark, after dark and night”
Well…I was born and raised in PA, and I know the difference between all of those!
@@
May 22nd, 2010
9:53 pm
Seth Borenstein? Now there’s someone whose credibility has been shot to hades. Even environmentalists know he’s gone over the edge.
Heraclitus? Not so much.
Hillbilly Deluxe
May 22nd, 2010
9:56 pm
Dusty
All the lillies up here look like they’re fixin’ to pop out soon. The ladyslippers are about done blooming. Getting to be fewer of them every year. I guess before long they’ll be just a memory like the Bobwhite quail. Don’t think I’ve heard one since I was a teenager. They used to be all around.
josef nix
May 22nd, 2010
9:56 pm
Hillbilly
Do you use “a right fer piece?” Further than over, up, or down yonder. But then, down yonder a fer piece is not quite so far as a fer piece but is futher than closer than over yonder…and then there’s way down yonder a fer piece…
Words for things that matter to a society…one of my favorites is the Spanish “la madrugada.” It’s that time roughly between say three or four a.m. and dawn…an important time for a social culture that has to deal with intense heat during the day and which saves these hours for such special things as the seranade under the balcony of the beloved…
I Report (-: You Whine )-: mmm, mmmm, mmmmm! Just sayin...
May 22nd, 2010
9:59 pm
With Con chicks like this, why would anyone ever become a liberal?
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2010/05/21/coulter_on_ice_refusing_to_process_illegals_calderon.html
Oh yeah, they like men, eewwwww!
josef nix
May 22nd, 2010
9:59 pm
Hillbilly
Was over home last summer and heard the Bobwhites…nothing like them for that, je ne sais quoi of peace and harmony with the universe in a sad, introspective way…good for navel contemplation…
TaxPayer
May 22nd, 2010
10:00 pm
Hillbilly,
I have a small patch of five pink ladies slippers in my front yard and a big patch of mayapples out back, amongst other plants that you don’t see too many of these days.
josef nix
May 22nd, 2010
10:00 pm
IR/YW
I like men? What’s wrong with that? Don’t you like yourself?
Hillbilly Deluxe
May 22nd, 2010
10:01 pm
Doggone
About 1/4 to 1/3 of the settlers who wound up in the Southern Blue Ridge were PA Germans. Many from around Lancaster County (I think it was bigger then than now). Maybe that’s why Daddy loves cabbage and kraut so much.
AmVet
May 22nd, 2010
10:01 pm
What I can’t understand is how a friend of mine says he’s never had supper in his life.
What the?
It is not be confused with dinner. Or supper-time.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supper
I said *read* the NPR article! Jeezoo, some people’s kids.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h3h–K5928M
@@
May 22nd, 2010
10:02 pm
I still haven’t gotten the hang of…Monday week, Wednesday week, so on and so on.
We always called it this and next.
And the half past time thingy? To me there’s 9:00, 9:30, 10:00 and 10:30. Half past is fifteen minutes or a quarter. I know I’m wrong, but it’s just the way my mind works. There’s no half ’til, but there is a quarter ’til.
DoggoneGA
May 22nd, 2010
10:03 pm
“About 1/4 to 1/3 of the settlers who wound up in the Southern Blue Ridge were PA Germans”
Yes, indeed…and a lot of people don’t know that. And they don’t know how far North things like particularly “Southern” Styles of houses (for example) are found. One of my Great-Uncles lived in the PA mountains in a large “double cabin” – something that is almost always associated with the South, not the North.
Curious Observer
May 22nd, 2010
10:04 pm
The ladyslippers are about done blooming.
Oh, how I’d love to see a ladyslipper again! When I was growing up, they would appear in the woods—pale purple, amid those huge, grey dead chestnut trees. It’s been better than 48 years since I saw one. And has anyone here ever dug ginseng? It was easy to spot, when berries would appear on the plants. You could make a small fortune by storing the roots in a granery and letting them dry.
I Report (-: You Whine )-: mmm, mmmm, mmmmm! Just sayin...
May 22nd, 2010
10:06 pm
Easy, yosef, just sayin…
Dusty
May 22nd, 2010
10:07 pm
Well, folks, the Braves are leading three to one in the bottom of the fifth. I hate to leave the game but I have to get up early tomorrow. To tell the truth, there is nothing I hate worse than getting up early. Guess I’m not very Spanish, huh, Josef? You go getters can have the mornings. I’ll take evenings (night, dusk, dark).. Until tomorrow……..zzzzz
Moderate Line
May 22nd, 2010
10:08 pm
AmVet
May 22nd, 2010
8:38 pm
“If your principles change depending on who is negatively or positely (sic) affected then your not a liberal or a conservative.”
I was speaking mostly about due process.
Here is an interesting article on Love Canal. Although “Reason” has a liberterian bias take it for what it is worth but there are at least two sides to every story.
Hold harmless clauses are not unuasual. Where I work we do a due dillegence audit before aquiring any property through purchase or lease. We require the other parties to sign hold harmless clause. The reason article has a copy of the hold harmless clause in the contract.
Here is some of the excepts from the hold harmless clause.
———-
Prior to the delivery of this instrument of conveyance, the grantee herein has been advised by the grantor that the premises above described have been filled, in whole or in part, to the present grade level thereof with waste products resulting from the manufacturing of chemicals by the grantor at its plant in the City of Niagara Falls, New York, and the grantee assumes all risk and liability incident to theuse thereof.
——————–
http://reason.com/archives/1981/02/01/love-canal
A better example would be TVA dike bursting in Tennessee. Much more difficult to dispute liabilty.
Hillbilly Deluxe
May 22nd, 2010
10:10 pm
Josef
When I was a kid, I could whistle to the Bobwhites and they would answer me.
And I use all those things you mentioned.
Taxpayer
Pink ladyslippers like to be near pine trees. The yellow ones, which I’ve never actually seen, like to be around oaks.
josef nix
May 22nd, 2010
10:16 pm
@@
Monday week..the week to come….Monday last, the week gone by. Half past? Well, after half it’s til…If the woods are 40 miles across and a bear is running 20 miles an hour how far can he run into the woods in an hour and a half?
AmVet–I grew up with dinner being the “big meal” or “hot meal” of the day, regardless of whether it was served at noon or at night. A light, maybe cold, meal at midday was “lunch” and at night, maybe leftovers from noon, it was “supper.” Then, at Granny’s, there was “tea,” served at around 4 in the afternoon and a somewhat genteel, formal affair. “Coffee” could be either morning or afternoon and was informal.
Curious Observer–
I have been with Granny to dig ginsing.
josef nix
May 22nd, 2010
10:21 pm
IR/YW
Easy? No even in my loose-caboose days was I that!
Hillbilly–
Yep, can still do the bob-white whistle…I can still in my mind’s eye see the momma bob white leading her little ones across the dirt road…heard my first whipporwill of the season the other day when we were with the schoolkids out in the country…the looks on their faces,,,sheer joy for me…
@@
May 22nd, 2010
10:21 pm
josef:
Monday week..the week to come….Monday last, the week gone by. Half past? Well, after half it’s til…If the woods are 40 miles across and a bear is running 20 miles an hour how far can he run into the woods in an hour and a half?
Shut-Up, I’ve got it all squared away in my mind. There’s no room for your chaos.
(ISH)
josef nix
May 22nd, 2010
10:24 pm
Dusty–
Not a morning person myself. The only way to see a sunrise for me is from the night before…my best time is the madrugada…I can get my best creative work done at that time…
josef nix
May 22nd, 2010
10:25 pm
@@
10 miles, After that he’s running OUT! ISH
josef nix
May 22nd, 2010
10:26 pm
oops
Make that 20 miles, after that he’s running OUT…math ain’t my strong suit!
godless heathen
May 22nd, 2010
10:27 pm
I’m kinda late in the discussion – I have another life – but a factor in the deaths at the coal mines and other workplaces for that matter, is the manner in which OSHA and MSHA are run. Because I have been involved in construction and mining, when I read a news report after a disaster that says “Company X has been issued xx safety citations by OSHA (or MSHA) I know this is meaningless information. An OSHA inspector could visit Jay Bookman’s desk and write him up for a dozen violations if he were in the mood. The regulations, like most things run by the Federal Government are so wrapped up in minutia that real problems are hidden in all the crap. Owner/operators spend so much effort filling out the forms and conforming to absurd regulations that they have no time to think about safety.
Curious Observer
May 22nd, 2010
10:30 pm
When I was growing up, dinner was lunch. Supper was the early evening meal. No one even considered having dinner later than 6 p.m., unless it was a special occasion, like a ramp supper held by a local civic club or other fund-raising organization.
Ramps–now there’s an interesting topic. These variations of the wild onion were an interesting repast. They seemed to penetrate the skin. During ramp season, the only defense against a ramp-eater was to eat ramps yourself. In school, you couldn’t stand to be in a school in the early spring if you weren’t a ramp-eater. Otherwise, you couldn’t stand the smell. There are still ramp suppers in the Appalachians, notably in the area of Richwood, West Virginia, which has a ramp festival every spring. You can even order ramps via the Internet. I’ve gone into the woods as a child and picked ramps myself.
The regional variations in terminology for meals are interesting.
@@
May 22nd, 2010
10:31 pm
math ain’t my strong suit!
Neither is it mine. You’re beginning to remind me of my Dad!
Make that 20 miles, after that he’s running OUT
Outta what….wind?
Hillbilly Deluxe
May 22nd, 2010
10:33 pm
I hear a whipporwill, out the back, window every night. When I was a kid, the night air would be filled with them.
I never heard of lunch until I started school.
@@
May 22nd, 2010
10:36 pm
It was breakfast, lunch and supper on the West Coast. When I first met my mother-in-law, it was midday and she said dinner was ready. I turned to my would-be husband and whispered…
“You guys only eat two meals a day? Don’t you get hungry before bedtime?”
AmVet
May 22nd, 2010
10:37 pm
“Although “Reason” has a liberterian bias take it for what it is worth…”
Sorry Moderate, this even too cryptic for me! Do expound though.
Yes, “two sides” to the same numbers. But the devil is in the details.
And my suspicions were correct.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q04_ClDxRsk
Hillbilly Deluxe
May 22nd, 2010
10:37 pm
Is it just me, or does the newsreaders saying, “in a wooded area” get on your nerves? They could stop being so pretentious and uppity (I’m using the U card) and just say, “in some woods”.
j$
May 22nd, 2010
10:38 pm
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d5qGhqbXsLM
josef nix
May 22nd, 2010
10:44 pm
Hillbilly
Funny you should say that about lunch and school…Granny, being of the leisure class (ha!) served lunch since she didn’t have to worry about dinner for the workers…! The neighbor ladies, wives of farmers, thought she was “uppity” and I learned real early that it was not in my best interest to refer to the midday meal as “lunch” in certain social circles! Among my the kids at school, they eat “almuerzo” at home, but “lunche” at school!
RW-(the original)
May 22nd, 2010
10:46 pm
If we’re going to discuss bird calls from our youth on a music weekend…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FvW6_-TP5cs
…get with the program.
@@
May 22nd, 2010
10:48 pm
Helloooo, JayNot.
Goodnight, JayNot and everyone else, except Heraclitus.
Couples are wholes and not wholes, what agrees disagrees, the concordant is discordant. From all things one and from one all things.”–Heraclitus
josef nix
May 22nd, 2010
10:49 pm
Hillbilly
A “wooded area” in my mind is one where the trees have been cut! A “woody” area, maybe, but even that just don’t mean what “the woods” means…and, to you, what’s the difference between the woods and a forest? Do you use “copse” and if so, what distingues it from a “stand?”
Scout
May 22nd, 2010
10:52 pm
@@:
It’s a “man” thing ………………
Taps !!
AmVet
May 22nd, 2010
10:52 pm
Goodnight Irenes…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eCf60f_sAA0&feature=related
josef nix
May 22nd, 2010
10:52 pm
RW
Ain’t that song just the way a whipporwill makes you feel?
RW-(the original)
May 22nd, 2010
10:58 pm
josef,
I’ve got to confess I like the version by the Cowboy Junkies better, but yes. I was messing around in my garden today and ran across a squirrel with a tail like a rabbit. The poor thing couldn’t jump a lick but it could find all sorts of ways to climb something and mock me. It gave me a few shivers of awe about the beauty of nature.
Hillbilly Deluxe
May 22nd, 2010
10:59 pm
Hmm…to me a forest would be a very large area, stretching across miles. There’s an area behind me, which is about 2 miles deep and 2 miles wide that I refer to as woods. It’s actually a bit bigger but that just counts this side of the river.
I don’t use “copse” but a stand to me would be at least several acres. Big enough to go in and cut it, as in, “a stand of timber”. A stand by my definition might be bigger for me than others because I was raised to not believe in clear cutting. So it takes a bigger stand to be worth cutting.
j$
May 22nd, 2010
11:02 pm
Good one RW.
Hi/Bye @@.
night night all
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2WW9T6mRkQA
RW-(the original)
May 22nd, 2010
11:03 pm
The wood(s) is a hundred acres, or so says Christopher Robin.
RW-(the original)
May 22nd, 2010
11:06 pm
Here’s a map.
josef nix
May 22nd, 2010
11:07 pm
RW
A few years back we had a bobtail squirrel in our yard. We started out feeling sorry for the “poor little thing” as he tried to negotiate the limbs with his siblings…by the end of the first season he was the best leaper of the lot…It’s fascinating to me to watch so many of nature’s creatures adapt to the urban environment…here we are smack-dab in the city and we have ‘possums, ‘coons, hawks and there was even a fox in the park last year…
Hillbilly Deluxe
May 22nd, 2010
11:08 pm
A square mile is 640 acres. A 160 acre lot is a half by a half and a 40 acre lot is a quarter by a quarter (these are common lot sizes in north Georgia, although there are other sizes, too). That would give a little perspective to Christopher Robin’s view.
RW-(the original)
May 22nd, 2010
11:10 pm
josef,
There’s a fox in every park I’ve ever been to and sometimes that’s the sole reason for visiting.