2006 – Issue 3 (June)

images/voice_uploads/18_Mother-Jones.gif To the commissioners of Jefferson County, West Virginia it looked like a slam dunk. All they wanted to do was level the 80-year old former Jefferson County jail that sits on the main street of the sleepy community of Charles Town and has not housed any creatures except rats for years. The commissioners planned…

I am a child of Appalachia, and I say that with pride. I was born and raised in a coal camp up Cabin Creek Hollow near Kayford, West Virginia. As was often the practice then, my family shared a house with my paternal grandparents. The home in which I was born is still standing; but…

images/voice_uploads/C.-chasmodactylus.gif You get a line and I’ll get a pole; We’ll all go down to the crawdad hole, Ho-ney, ba-by, mine. “The Crawdad Song,” southern American folk song Growing up in western North Carolina, I have two distinct memories related to crawdads- The Crawdad Song, a popular children’s tune sung by family members; and the…

Citizens and friends of the West Virginia mountains remembered more than veterans on Memorial Day by paying their respects to the land and people. Standing with long-time mountaintop removal activist Larry Gibson near his home on Kayford Mountain in West Virginia, over 60 community members and activists traveled to the top of a mountaintop removal…

A set of bitter lawsuits has erupted around the question of who is responsible for contaminating the drinking water in Rawl, WV. and even what can be said about it. In late April, a Massey Energy subsidiary filed a libel suit against attorneys representing citizens who believe they were injured by chemicals in the water…

Mining and logging companies are responsible for flooding damage that occurred downstream of their projects in 2001, a West Virginia jury ruled in May. It is believed to be the first time in recent memory that a verdict against the coal or timber industry for damages has been returned. The flooding of July 8, 2001…

Riverhead Books. New York. 2006 250 pages. $24.95 The removal of entire mountain tops merely to extract coal is such a staggering idea that it’s often presented in religious metaphors – to move a mountain, after all, is an act most often associated with religious texts. The environmental devastation wreaked by mountaintop removal is so…

Harlan County USA Rounder 11661-4026-2 Protest songs are a time-honored method of American political expression. From Woody Guthrie’s Depression-era union anthems up through current fare by Neil Young and the Dixie Chicks, politics and music have long intermingled. Songs serve as vehicles for stating opposition, rallying support, and spreading news in a fashion more potent…