Search results for: “"Thunder on the Mountain"”
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Buy Bacon’s Book
By Peter Galuszka This is a shameless advertisement. Jim has written an excellent book and you should buy it and review it. While some of Jim’s focus is at odds with a similar book I wrote eight years ago, “Maverick Miner” is a really well put together effort at research and writing. In my reporting,…
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The Lies in “Hillbilly Elegy”
By Peter Galuszka A 2016 memoir by J.D. Vance, a former Ohio resident, drew praise from conservatives for its laud of self-reliance and disciple and criticism from others for its long string of debunked clichés about people from the Central Appalachians. The book, “Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis,”…
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And Now For Something Completely Different
By Peter Galuszka Dear Baconauts, As you know, people like me have been described by a B.R. commenter as those who submit “scorch and burn, mock and smear writings encased in scornful, supercilious, opinionated, and shallow rhetoric.” I freely admit this and am damned proud of it. But instead of dishing out the usual sarcastic…
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Blankenship Convicted
Bacon’s Rebellion readers will remember that former long-time contributor Peter Galuszka devoted much of his time and energy to chronicling the activities of former coal mogul Donald L. Blankenship. Although Blankenship was better known in West Virginia where he lived and worked, he had a Virginia connection as CEO for many years of Richmond-headquartered Massey Energy. Blankenship…
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So Long, Bacon’s Rebellion
By Peter Galuszka For that past six (or is it seven or eight?) years, I’m been pleased to pound away posting my peculiar views on Bacons Rebellion. My stance has typically been that of a liberal or progressive albeit one of the near and not the far left. My opinions have been honed by 41…
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So Long, Bacon's Rebellion
By Peter Galuszka For that past six (or is it seven or eight?) years, I’m been pleased to pound away posting my peculiar views on Bacons Rebellion. My stance has typically been that of a liberal or progressive albeit one of the near and not the far left. My opinions have been honed by 41…
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New Film Documents Horrors of Coal Mining
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in Business and Economy, Crime, Corrections, Law Enforcement, Demographics, Disasters and Disaster Preparedness, Economic development, Education (higher ed), Education (K-12), Electoral process, Energy, Environment, Government workers and pensions, Health Care, Housing, Infrastructure, Insurance, Labor and Workforce, Land use & Development, Media, Money in politics, Planning, Politics, Poverty & income gap, Property rights, Public safety & health, Race and Race Relations, Regulations, Gov’t Oversight, Science & Technology, Social Services and Entitlements, UncategorizedBy Peter Galuszka Several years in the making, “Blood on the Mountain” has finally premiered in New York City. The documentary examines the cycle of exploitation of people and environment by West Virginia’s coal industry highlighting Massey Energy, a coal firm that was based in Richmond. The final cut of the film was released publicly…
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Blankenship’s Incriminating Tapes
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in Business and Economy, Consumer Protection, Courts and law, Crime, Corrections, Law Enforcement, Disasters and Disaster Preparedness, Economic development, Energy, Environment, Federal issues, Infrastructure, Labor and Workforce, Media, Money in politics, Politics, Public safety & health, Regulations, Gov’t Oversight, Science & Technology, UncategorizedBy Peter Galuszka It may sound like something out of the Nixon White House, but embattled coal baron Donald L. Blankenship regularly taped conversations in his office, giving federal prosecutors powerful new ammunition as he approaches criminal trial in July. According to Bloomberg News, the former head of Massey Energy taped up to 1,900 conversations…
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Blankenship's Incriminating Tapes
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in Business and Economy, Consumer Protection, Courts and law, Crime, Corrections, Law Enforcement, Disasters and Disaster Preparedness, Economic development, Energy, Environment, Federal issues, Infrastructure, Labor and Workforce, Media, Money in politics, Politics, Public safety & health, Regulations, Gov’t Oversight, Science & Technology, UncategorizedBy Peter Galuszka It may sound like something out of the Nixon White House, but embattled coal baron Donald L. Blankenship regularly taped conversations in his office, giving federal prosecutors powerful new ammunition as he approaches criminal trial in July. According to Bloomberg News, the former head of Massey Energy taped up to 1,900 conversations…
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The Fifth Anniversary of Upper Big Branch
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in Business and Economy, Courts and law, Crime, Corrections, Law Enforcement, Disasters and Disaster Preparedness, Economic development, Energy, Environment, Federal issues, Government workers and pensions, Health Care, Immigration, Labor and Workforce, Land use & Development, Media, Money in politics, Planning, Politics, Poverty & income gap, Property rights, Public safety & health, Regulations, Gov’t Oversight, Science & Technology, Social Services and EntitlementsBy Peter Galuszka Five years ago this morning, miners near Montcoal, W.Va. clambered into low, truck-like vehicles called “mantrips” for a nearly-hour-long ride to their positions at Upper Big Branch, a coal mine owned by a subsidiary of Richmond-based Massey Energy. Some of the miners were queasy because the mine, known as UBB, was especially…
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My Drive Through Two West Virginias
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in Business and Economy, Courts and law, Crime, Corrections, Law Enforcement, Demographics, Disasters and Disaster Preparedness, Economic development, Education (K-12), Energy, Environment, Federal issues, Infrastructure, Labor and Workforce, Land use & Development, Media, Money in politics, Planning, Politics, Poverty & income gap, Public safety & health, Regulations, Gov’t Oversight, Science & Technology, Social Services and Entitlements, Taxes, UncategorizedBy Peter Galuszka It was a biting eight degrees when I hit the road in Beckley, W.Va. last Wednesday morning having held a book signing and given a talk in Charleston the night before. I wanted to drive two hours up to Harrison County, where my family lived from 1962 to 1969, and see what…
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Kudos: U.S.-China Climate Pact
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in Business and Economy, Children and Families, Consumer Protection, Demographics, Disasters and Disaster Preparedness, Economic development, Energy, Environment, Federal issues, Government Finance, Government workers and pensions, Health Care, Infrastructure, Labor and Workforce, Land use & Development, Media, Money in politics, Planning, Politics, Property rights, Public safety & health, Regulations, Gov’t Oversight, Science & Technology, Taxes, UncategorizedBy Peter Galuszka President Barack Obama’s trailblazing pact with Chinese leader Xi Jinping to limit greenhouse gas emissions through 2025 is welcome news and could do much to reduce carbon dioxide emissions since the two countries are responsible for about 40 percent of the globe’s total. China is an economic powerhouse so energy hungry it…
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Sticking it to the Chinese
By Peter Galuszka This is a review of “Factory Man,” a book about the Virginia furniture business and dealing with the inequities of Chinese trade by Beth Macy (Little Brown, 451 pages). This was first published in the October 2014 Bulletin of the Overseas Press Club of America in New York of which I am…
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RAM, Coal and Massive Hypocrisy
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in Business and Economy, Demographics, Disasters and Disaster Preparedness, Economic development, Energy, Environment, Federal issues, Government Finance, Health Care, Infrastructure, Labor and Workforce, Land use & Development, Media, Money in politics, Planning, Politics, Poverty & income gap, Property rights, Public safety & health, Regulations, Gov’t Oversight, Social Services and Entitlements, TaxesBy Peter Galuszka Sure it’s a photo op but more power to him. Gov. Terry McAuliffe is freshly arrived from the cocktail and canape circuit in Europe on a trade mission and is quickly heading out to the rugged and impoverished coal country of Wise County. There, he, Attorney General Mark Herring and Health and…
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An Ex-Coal Baron’s Strange Movie
By Peter Galuszka Almost four years after 29 miners employed by then Richmond-based Massey Energy were killed in a West Virginia mine explosion, its former chief executive under federal investigation for widespread safety violations has come forward with an apparently self-funded “documentary” proclaiming his innocence. Donald Blankenship released the film “Upper Big Branch, Never Again”…