Shear nonsense

Just when I think I know all I need to know about how Big Coal operates, something happens to prove me wrong. Take Alpha Natural Resources, a fairly large coal operation whose name I became aware of only recently.

How recently? Try in the harrowing months following the disaster at the Upper Big Branch mines in Montcoal, WV, that took place on April 5, 2010 and claimed the lives of 29 miners at a Massey Coal subsidiary that had been repeatedly cited for failure to ventilate properly or keep coal dust under control.

Everyone took some heat as a result of this catastrophe, but Massey was the main recipient. And the company that came to their rescue by acquiring them was Alpha Natural Resources. There are many of us who believe the whole idea behind this was to take Massey off the hot seat after a lot of experts concluded it was their failure to adequately see to safety measures at Upper Big Branch that lead to the disaster in the first place.

Alpha was out some $7.1 billion in taking control of Massey in a deal that gave former shareholders of Massey 46% of the new company, and Alpha shareholders the remaining 54%. And that answers another question: How big is Alpha Natural Resources now? Considerably bigger than before they swallowed the gargantuan Massey whole.

Consider that the new version of Alpha now has the second largest reserves of coal in the country. That would be some 5 billion tons spread out from the Appalachian coal fields to the Powder River Basin in Wyoming. Their assets include 150 mines and 40 prep plants. Alpha’s pro forma revenue in 2010 was around $6.9 billion. It’s 14,000 or so employees can produce around 120 million tons of coal annually.

All of which makes me wonder why such a large company would come to Pike County with hat in hand, looking for money from local governments that are barely able to keep the wolves from their doors.

Pike County, for instance, was willing to put up $3 million dollars to build an office for Alpha at Scott’s Branch Industrial site just a little after considering, but then rejecting, an occupational tax on county residents so it could break even. County workers got laid off and needed services were curtailed, but this money was approved because word was the County had only a week or so in which to act.

Alpha ultimately rejected Pike County’s offer of cash, but Pikeville is now in line to donate some funds to them. The city is willing to loan $170,000 to this billion dollar corporation so they can renovate an office building. The city is also willing to forego a sizable chunk of their occupational taxes for a few years.

In the Old Testament, the Prophet Nathan was charged with getting David to see the wrong he’d done when he sent Uriah the Hittite to his death in battle so he could marry Bathsheba, Uriah’s wife. Nathan told David of a rich man who had many sheep and of a poor man who had but one lamb. When the rich man wanted to prepare a feast for friends, he took the poor man’s one possession.

That’s how Alpha must view local governments; as sheep, ready, and all too willing, to be fleeced.

Thanksgiving away from home

Thanksgiving is the one holiday everyone wants to spend at home, and that is perfectly understandable because the turkey never tastes as good anywhere else.  Unfortunately, that isn’t always possible.  Military personnel, for instance, have to stay away and for a good reason for the most part, so it’s important that we remember those who put themselves in harm’s way for the sake of the nation when we celebrate this day devoted to counting our many blessings.

Sometimes you are able to do pretty well for yourself, though, while you have your Thanksgiving dinner in exile.  Way back in 1981, a whole three decades ago, while I was serving in the U. S. Army, some buddies of mine and I managed to literally hit the jackpot and were able to feast at a Holiday Inn located on Emerald Beach in Corpus Christi, Texas.

Our group was, at that time, en route to a new permanent duty station, a transition that was interrupted by some four months of additional training, some three months of which would be spent in a now closed Air Force base in San Angelo, Texas. 

Up until it was our turn to move on to greener pastures, the service members were always considered permanent party at the training stops, which meant you got to eat free.  You could show your military ID at the chow hall, or sign in, or something.  But someone in the Army decided it’d be better if their people were classified temporary duty, which meant that you paid for your meals in cash, and at the end of each month, the Army would cut you a check to reimburse you.

That would have worked out just fine if that someone had told the Air Force of this change of status, but whoever came up with that plan must have been too busy patting their own back to take care of this little detail.  So, when the end of the month came, just a few weeks before Thanksgiving, members of our group were all surprised by a fairly substantial check from the Army.  We were told when we got it we had to use it to pay the Air Force for the grub we’d done et.

When the Air Force was told we were ready to pay, that whole gaffe of not telling them we were no longer classified as permanent party came out and the Air Force had to admit they had no idea who’d eaten what or when, so we got our first month’s rations free. 

Now there’s a situation you didn’t mind finding yourself in; lots of cash and not much to spend it on, except a good time.  So a small group of us decided to go to Corpus Christi and have our turkey on the beach.  Now none of us had cars so we did the next best thing, we took a Greyhound, and on Wednesday we all had a good time looking at the Texas countryside from the air conditioned comfort of our coach.

We checked in at the Holiday Inn, and on Turkey Day, we all had a Thanksgiving dinner that couldn’t be beat, then, that night, we went to a Chinese place and had Peking duck for dessert. 

All in all, one of the more memorable late November feasts ever.

What if they held an election and nobody voted?

Yes, that is a rhetorical question. This happens in Kentucky pretty much every election cycle. Funny, because the candidates on this year’s ballot-all for state-wide office, by the way-covered pretty much every issue except for the poor turnout pretty much everyone anticipated.

We all know that Kentucky toyed with the idea of doing away with the off-year elections to increase voter turnout, but wound up using the American resolve to convert to the metric system as its model. And we all know how that went, because we all have to buy two sets of tools now.

I believe the logic behind keeping state-wide elections in its off-year spot was maybe to keep local elections from being influenced by the presidential politics. That makes about as much sense as whatever counts as logic behind our switch to the metric system, and I’m pretty sure even the ones came up with that aren’t sure what it is.

Those voters who did turn out did one thing right: They chose Democrat Alice Lundergan Grimes over Republican Bill Johnson for Secretary of State. It seems like Johnson thought too many Kentuckians were voting, as he took up a GOP cause celebre by announcing he would push a bill that would require all voters to have a state-issued photo ID available before they’d be allowed to vote.

Current law requires some proof of identity, but allows recognition of the voter by precinct officials to count. In small rural precincts, this is very often how the system works. People know their neighbors.

In Tennessee, where such a law was passed, it resulted in a 96-year old being denied the right to vote. Okay, it was a technicality, but still, for someone who’s voted almost every time she could, that is hardly comforting news. It does sort of prove a contention many of us have, though, and that is the law is meant not to curb fraud but participation by those who’d vote for the opposition party.

Well, Kentucky doesn’t need such a law to curb participation, now, does it? I mean, we have closed primaries to do that, don’t we? You know the drill, you ain’t registered as a Republican or Democrat, and you ain’t votin’, you know what I mean?

And still, I have to ask the question, why is the Commonwealth of Kentucky required to do the parties’ work for them? Why are we perpetuating two entities that should have no official standing in our state or national constitutions?

Why? Because the two have colluded on laws that ought to be thrown out as unconstitutional; laws that give them preeminence where they should have none.

Don’t look for that to change anytime soon, either. Not only are the two parties content with the status quo; the state legislature is the only way any law can be proposed in Kentucky. Yes, if the Constitution is amended, the voters must approve that, but the voters cannot directly or indirectly propose laws nor have laws enacted by the state assembly put on the ballot for approval or rejection by the voters.

But then again, we don’t allow for recall elections in this state either. And that’s too bad, too; nothing like the prospect of a recall election to get a politician in the listening mode.

Progress and Progressives

Today is Election Day. Yes, today those individuals who either hold or seek to hold state-wide office come before the state’s hiring board- those who compose the electorate- asking for a job for the first time or asking that their employment be continued, based either on their resumes or their on-the-job record.

Oh, incidentally, if you’re reading this and the polls are still open and you haven’t yet voted, then you have time to get out and do the dirty deed. That’s a good chap! Off with you then!

Almost without exception, those who seek to lead the state have differing ideas on how to do the job they’re seeking. Each wants to portray their opposition as a group that has not or cannot contribute to the progress the state needs in order to be competitive.

The key word here is progress. Everyone from those who head their party’s ticket on down are constantly reiterating their message that only they can lead the state in its drive to progress. Of course, everyone is careful not to use the word progressive, because the one deadly sin you can commit in Kentucky is to identify yourself with anything liberal; ergo the constant refrain of conservative values and progress.

And that, of course, leads to an interesting question: Why the reluctance to be identified as a progressive? In order to progress, a leader needs to look at every option in order to be sure nothing is overlooked that could possibly bring about progress and that necessitates that the decision maker show some attributes of a progressive.

One of the attributes of a progressive is the willingness to question anything and everything that could be an obstacle to progress. This means seeing the need to delve into matters sometimes long thought to have been settled. Sadly both major-party candidates for Governor, Steve Beshear and David Williams, have failed this test, miserably.

In a story in the Weekend Edition of the News-Express, entitled “Ky. gubernatorial candidates mull industrial hemp”, only independent Gatewood Galbraith threw caution to the wind and whole-heartedly endorsed allowing the state’s farmers to once again grow a crop that would be beneficial, both to them and to the state overall.

Showing themselves to be ones who fall back on old, tired, outdated ideas and questionable reasoning when presented with new ideas, Beshear and Williams responses showed that in their mind, hemp should remain illegal because the federal government says that hemp and marijuana are the same thing, and marijuana is after all, a schedule one narcotic, and that puts both in the same class of drugs as heroin and makes it worse than even cocaine, a schedule 2 narcotic.

Both suggested further discussion on industrial hemp. Gatewood alone noted it’s already been talked to death.

The difference between schedule one and schedule two narcotics? While both have high potential for abuse, schedule two drugs can have recognized medical benefits.

Beshear and Williams assume that marijuana has no medical value. The California Medical Association says otherwise. Both also assume that a hemp crop can be used to hide a pot plant when hemp would greatly reduce the pot plant’s potency.

Research would show potent marijuana became available only after hemp was outlawed. But that would mark Beshear and Williams as progressives, and God forbid that should happen.