Blackbird Pie

by: One Citizen

Thu Nov 12, 2009 at 20:12:26 PM EST

Sing a song of sixpence,
   A pocket full of rye.
   Four and twenty blackbirds,
   Baked in a pie.

   When the pie was opened,
   The birds began to sing;
   Wasn't that a dainty dish,
   To set before the king?

   The king was in his counting house,
   Counting out his money;
   The queen was in the parlour,
   Eating bread and honey.

   The maid was in the garden,
   Hanging out the clothes;
   When down came a blackbird
   And snapped off his nose.

Last week one of Don Blankenship's political handmaidens publicly claimed that

"Coal severance taxes make up 60 percent of our state's budget".

Really, Mr Hubbard? "Sixty percent"? Why not just go ahead and claim that the coal extraction industry altogether accounts for 120 percent of West Virginia's economy?

Which is practically what he did, when in the same article he also stated,

"With each mining job, there are eight more jobs created. This means there are 112,000 West Virginia residents going to work, every day. From the doctors and schoolteachers, right along with the cashier at Kentucky Fried Chicken taking your order, all these jobs are a direct result of West Virginia coal."

When I read that, I fought off the sudden urge to light bituminous and pine-scented incense in front of the tiny carved coal owl figurine my father bought for me at a bait, tackle and souvenir stand near White Sulfur Springs back in the fifties. I still treasure the bamboo fly rod he purchased for our camping/ fishing trip as well. Anyway Carl Hubbard almost had me believing that the tiny statuette proves beyond all doubt that coal operators are entirely responsible for West Virginia's burgeoning tourist industry. Almost.

Speaking of birds, Hubbard's mention of the Colonel's Original Recipe® reminded that during our father-son fishing trips, my dad insisted that he cook every meal. But that'd be dangerous today, because the Department of Health and Human Resources has since posted cautions against eating fish caught in any WV streams.

I've never savored any meal more than the fresh trout cooked over campfires that I proudly built as a young lad. It could have been due to the pure air, sunshine, and wading in the cold Greenbrier whetting my appetite, rather than my father's skill at cooking over an open fire.

Anyway, Hubbard is dead right about doctors making a killing thanks to the coal industry. West Virginia's entire medical profession is urgently needed to treat coalfield children for cancer and other serious health problems. It's almost as if he's proud that his industry has leaking coal waste from impoundments and toxic slurry injection sites all across our rural coal fields. He's boasting that doctors are cashing in from the lead, mercury, arsenic, selenium and other metals caused by his industry. Although the thought of that made me a little nauseous, his suggestion that teachers owe him a debt of gratitude is what inspired me to "bake" the digital pie chart below.

direct image link   http://tinyurl.com/Black-Bird-Pie

It was either sheer gall or pure ignorance that Hubbard displayed when he implied that teachers should be grateful, after a coalition of coal patch legislators kept the Recht Decision mandate unfunded for over a decade. But that really doesn't matter. At that point Hubbard's hype actually escalated into pure hypocrisy because Mingo's school district (where Hubbard's own coal-related business is located) bankrupted and was taken over by the State TWICE due to local underfunding. What's most despicable is that Mingo's operators were raking in record profits from the amount of coal they were extracting per man-hour during that same period of time.

Below the jump is the paradigm used to support the use of data in my chart above.

At the very least, please be prepared to cite the peer-reviewed reports by independent researchers which reveal that coal has long cost us far more than it has ever given back to us.

Though there are plenty of other sources, the most recent research exposing the dire cost to West Virginia can be found through this link and a good overview of the cost to us nationally by the National Academy of Science can found at this link.

Not that it'll do much good to convince most of the coal zombies now trolling the internet. In an open forum like the newspaper comments section, the usual reaction is to be brushed off as a 'libtard' for daring to question why coal is and forever will be king of the mountains. And when I persist (which I always do), some challenge the validity of the research.

It is notable that the propagandists never offer any solid source to back up their numbers as to why their word should trump that of my experts. But what's most frustrating is that the news media never bothers to question the bogus claims of the likes of Hubbard or Gillenwater, which effectively abets their lies. One example is when the Charleston Gazette and Bluefield Telegraph newspapers recently carried Mingo County's Carl Hubbard dogwhistle op/ ed calling coal operators to rally in defense of their industry. Which was just fine, and quite understandable. Until he went completely overboard.

To my knowledge, neither newspaper has commented on his claims.  So to many, even though it was an op-ed piece, that number - 60 percent of West Virginia's economy - will stick in many people's minds.

Although it is notable that Mr. Hubbard is the president of a political action group founded by Massey CEO Don Blankenship, the same group which has purchased an impressive amount of advertising from both newspapers in the past, the newspapers never made mention of it. It is also notable that the State Journal recently quoted a report by the nonpartisan Tax Foundation which concluded that

West Virginia generated more than 12 percent of its revenue from fees and from severance taxes on coal mining and other natural resource extraction from 2006 to 2007.

Since Hubbard's 60 percent claim is five times the actual sum, wouldn't it be fair to apply that margin of error to the number of people he claimed whose jobs depend upon those employed in the mines? In other words, if Hubbard estimates eight additional jobs per each mine worker, the likelier number is less than 1.5, a figure which is arrived at by simply taking Hubbard's claim (8) and dividing it by his margin of error (5).

All I can say is that it takes a lot of crust to shove those numbers under West Virginia news editor's noses. It's almost as if Hubbard somehow knew that none would dare challenge him.

No doubt Hubbard was assured that the Gazette would play ball after the paper obligingly published Gillenwater's claims that 100,000 showed up at Blankenship's Labor Day Liars Fest - even though one Gazette employee who was there has since that time privately confided that it looked like no more than 10,000 attended, including the vendors!

For as long as I can remember, highly paid shills for coal operators have always been able to cook up this crapola and then rely upon their news pals to faithfully serve it to the public without any push-back.

I openly admit that my numbers aren't any more accurate than those served up by Don Blankenship's paid handmaidens. But they aren't any less accurate, either.  At least I have the integrity to publish a sardonic disclaimer along with my data.

As for justifying the bastardization of a classic nursery rhyme, I did it not just "For The Sake Of The Kids", but because the Gazette failed to disclose that Hubbard, Gillenwater and Kirkendoll are more political handmaidens than they are responsible business or community leaders.

Finally, regarding the queen in the nursery rhyme, please do NOT assume that I'm suggesting that Elizabeth "Betty" Chilton, president of the Daily Gazette Co., even likes bread and honey.