While bouncing around, reading the news this weekend, we came across an article by Jason Linkins, over at the Huffington Post. Titled “Almost Forgotten, West Virginia: Your Sunday Morning Conversation,” and we have to say, it’s a good read. Sadly, he’s correct. So many things happen that people forget quickly, not to mention the way our media handles reporting of those happenings.
However, there’s one paragraph that struck a chord, and it references the work of the National Geographic to bring the story to the masses.
As one woman in that National Geographic article put it, “Welcome to our world.” From there, you start to think about West Virginia’s troubled history of chemical accidents. And you start to remember its troubled history of corporate mining accidents. And you start to remember the widespread rural poverty. And you start to understand that somewhere, at the nexus of corporate power and the regulatory regime set up to provide public safety, there is something rotting — and it’s a rot fueled by a certain amount of corruption and incompetence. And you realize that the words, “life is returning to normal for the residents of West Virginia,” actually conceal a multitude of sins.
While that paragraph certainly hammers home the aching reality of West Virginians for generations, we realized that you could replace certain words and phrases, and you have the overall national picture. West Virginia is just a micro-snapshot. Perhaps our President should touch upon these issues (fat chance of that happening) in his upcoming State of the Union Address (January 28, 2014 at 9pm ET).
If you haven’t heard, the company responsible for the incident has since filed for bankruptcy protection.
All of this need not have happened. Truly sad.
