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.

Boss Kirkendoll: The early years

by: heath_harrison

Wed Nov 11, 2009 at 04:20:37 AM EST

Seeing as how he can get a meeting with Governor Manchin and the congressional delegation on a whim, a good deal of people in West Virginia are probably left asking,  "Just who is Art Kirkendoll, the man who is working so hard to build a career off the panic stirred up by the coal barons?"

The late, great OVEC organizer Laura Forman knew who she was dealing with when she wrote about how Kirkendoll was appointed to a $53,000-a-year job as southern West Virginia constituency coordinator by Governor Bob Wise, despite the fact that he was among a mob that attacked Ken Hechler and others who were commemorating the Battle of Blair Mountain (She was there with Hechler's group when the attack took place).

In the May 2001 edition of  E-Notes, Forman gave us some background on Kirkendoll:

According to a Charleston Gazette editorial, "Kirkendoll is a courthouse politico who has managed to get jobs in Democratic and Republican administrations alike. Back in the late 1980s, corrupt Gov. Arch Moore put Kirkendoll on the state payroll working for the Department of Energy. But DOE's Logan chief told reporters he didn't know what Kirkendoll's job was." In 1998, Kirkendoll, unemployed, except for his part-time commissioner's job, was hired by State Treasurer John Perdue. Kirkendoll made $25,000 a year to be a "local government specialist," whatever that is.

Following all the citizen pressure and media attention about the appointment, Wise changed the name of Kirkendoll's position to "southern coordinator" for addressing constituent services. Whatever that is.

So, basically we have a guy who has a history of using political ties to get cushy jobs, where he does...nothing. And now he wants West Virginia officials to also do nothing, as far as preparing the state for a diverse economic future.

The issue, with Forman's account of the attack and controversy, is well worth going back and reading.