I missed a small gathering of Charleston Area Bloggers this morning. I’m not sure that I technically qualify, since I live almost an hour from Charleston, but I work about a block from the location of the gathering, so I would’ve crashed regardless if I’d known about it.
Too bad… maybe next time.
Some of the comments I’m hearing about the deaths of 12 coal miners in a West Virginia mine are worrying to me. I hear a lot of people demanding that we “clean up the coal industry”, people who’re already deciding that the cause of this incident is a complete lack of concern for miners from the coal company in question (and coal companies in general, to a lesser extent).
The incident is only a few days old at this point, and any investigation is still in its infancy. We need to make sure that we get a fair investigation of the facts, not just lash out at the best available scapegoat. While the latter may make some people feel good, it does nothing to serve the causes of justice or the safety of future miners.
While this investigation is ongoing, we need to remember to pray for the families of these thirteen miners (including the one who survived). Just as we don’t need to be lashing out against the coal companies, I find it disheartening to have people lashing out at these people in their time of grief. If, in a year or so, some of these people are still claiming that their families died because of the miscommunication that originally led them to believe that all of the miners had survived, then it’s going to be time to speak up and point out how flawed that argument is. Now, though, we need to have compassion (and maybe stick fewer cameras in their faces; it makes for good TV, but it’s exploitative).
Young man jumps on stage with his guitar cocked like a pistol
Fires anger like twenty years have earned him wisdom
We don’t need to stay here and be assaulted
With his pain‘Cause the best of songs are always played beneath the porchlight
The best of love is in the middle of the day
Now look, my soul is not at war now
For a change
- Shane Jackman, “Uncommon Eloquence”