[Spam] RE: [Vision2020] Aggressive Audit of Poor Par for Course (Molly Ivins)

[Michael Curley]

Phil:
I know you responded to Keely, but having had a minute today to look 
at email, I happened to have read both her post and yours, and I was 
puzzled.  It seemed to me you saw something I didn't.  So I re-read 
the Molly Ivins column that was part of Keely's post.  It didn't say 
that the miners were bad guys, that they didn't love their jobs, that 
they weren't dedicated, weren't generous, or weren't well paid.   

The clear intent of the single paragraph about the mine incident was 
that the mine had been cited over 200 times in one year for safety 
violations and that the MSHA might not have done its job fully.  Yet, 
it didn't suggest that MSHA field people were not dedicated either.  
It asked the questions, who was running the show, had the funding 
been cut, and how many MSHA jobs were unfilled.  It pretty clearly 
suggested that the Administration was at fault, not MSHA employees, 
miners, or even those consumer-oriented coal companies you cite (who, 
coincidentally, also knew about the 200 plus violations).  

You seem to not like Molly Ivins.  Fair enough.  And you seem to like 
miners, coal companies, and the MSHA officials.  Fair enough.  But 
your statements that Ms. Ivins "demonized" them is not fair in my 
opinion, at least from what Keely posted for us.  Whether Ivins wrote 
a fair criticism of the Adminstration, I'll leave for others to argue 
if they so choose.

Regards,
Mike Curley

From:           	"Phil Nisbet" <pcnisbet1 at hotmail.com>
To:             	kjajmix1 at msn.com
Date sent:      	Mon, 16 Jan 2006 11:31:40 -0800
Copies to:      	vision2020 at moscow.com
Subject:        	[Spam] RE: [Vision2020] Aggressive Audit of Poor Par for Course (Molly Ivins)

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Keely

All I have to do is read Molly's routine that turns Miners into 
demons
to stop bothering with getting further.  Her standard is to pick
somebody and dehumanize them while singing a soft song for somebody
else.

MSHA has a dual mission.  They have to do mine inspections, but they
also are the only ones left who can also carry out the work of the
Bureau of Mines.  They are not the enemy.

The coal companies are trying to mine and sell coal to the power
industry for turning out electrical energy.  They fight to keep costs
down so that the consumers do not pay higher electric bills.  They 
pay
their workforce higher wages than most industrial jobs do, for what 
is
a very hazardous profession.  They are not the enemy.

Miner's love their jobs, which is why they work in an industry with
such high hazards.  Its a job that has a built in culture very
different than that on the street.  Its why the older miners would
give their self rescuers to keep the young guy alive.  They are not
the enemy.

Not one of the people involved in that tragedy was a stooge.  They
were all hands who knew the risks and did a job that others find
distasteful or frightening.  They are not demons from hell, bent on
destroying the environment or dollar hungry slime balls uncaring 
about
worker safety.  No doubt Molly typed her report on a computer powered
by the coal that those men dug, but instead of celebrating their 
lives
and the gift that their labor gave her, she terms their culture one 
of
stooges.

She can never know the generosity of those miners, guys who will give
their last dollar to worthy causes with nothing more than a shrug. 
She will never be as close as a team working on a face to any other
person she knows.  Molly's worse fear is a paper cut on the job, not
the clear understanding that one day the rock with your name on it is
going to get you.

Mine safety is better now than it has ever been and hopefully it will
get better still.  But mining will always be a risky job, as anything
involving millions of tons of rock and high explosives and heavy
machinery is bound to be.  And there will always be men and women who
love the work and are willing to do it for the resources that you all
enjoy.

Phil Nisbet
Just another stooge I guess, Molly Ivers told me so.

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