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NPR's Marketplace On Blankenship and the Supreme Court
Muck This! Gates' Mountaintop Removal Film in Huntington Tomorrow
Tomorrow, Tuesday Jan. 11 at 7 p.m. in Student Center room 2E10 of Marshall University, former OVEC staffer Dave Cooper and OVEC member Denver Mitchell will present the documentary "Mucked -- Flash Flooding in the West Virginia Coalfields." This film, by the West Virginia Highlands Conservancy's Bob Gates, chronicles the devastation of the 2001 and 2002 coalfield floods. Using eyewitness accounts of the floods, the film builds the case that mountaintop removal mining and deforestation are largely responsible for the deadly flash floods in Wyoming, Boone, Raleigh and other coalfield counties.Mitchell is a resident of Island Creek, Logan County and an outspoken activist against mountaintop removal mining. His community was hit hard by flash flooding in May 2004. The event is sponsored by MAPS--Marshall Action for Peaceful Solutions. Read more in the Huntington Herald Dispatch.
YES! West Virginia Clean Elections Bill Moving Forward
Our chances for real election reform never have been better! Even elected officials seem offended by the obscene amount of money special interest groups spent on the 2004 elections. Blowing the top right off the offense-o-meter was Massey Energy's CEO Don Blankenship, who spent $3.5 million of his own money to oust Supreme Court Judge Warren McGraw. Mix that in with sleazy campaign ads and some flagrant ethics violations, and we have an ideal climate in which to press forward with fair and clean election reform. So it was that during yesterday's (Jan. 9) legislative interim session, a committee tentatively approved a pilot project for public funding of legislative races. OVEC's co-director Janet Fout coordinates Citizens For Clean Elections, which is advocating for this real campaign reform--the reform which makes all other reforms possible!
According to the Charleston Gazette :The committee chose a plan that would provide public financing for two state Senate and three House of Delegates races. The House of Delegates races would have to be in single-member districts.
The estimated cost of the pilot project is $375,000. To qualify, a candidate would have to raise a certain number of $5 contributions: 200 for the Senate, and 75 for the House of Delegates.
Supporters of the proposal say it will encourage more people to run for office, and decrease the influence of special interests in the election process (click here for entire story).
Please contact your state legislators and ask them to support the Public Campaign Financing Act. You can find out who your legislators are, as well as their contact information, by clicking here. We ask that you also write letters to local newspapers in support of this Act. To easily send letters to the editors of West Virginia newspapers, click here. Learn more about this issue by going to OVEC's campaign finance reform web page.
NPR's Marketplace on Blankenship's and the Supreme Court
On January 17, tune in to National Public Radio's Marketplace to hear a story about Massey Energy CEO's Don Blankenship and the West Virginia Supreme Court race. If you can't get the radio show in your area, you can listen on the web. Click here for info.
Join OVEC as we March in Honor of Martin Luther King, Jr.
OVEC will once again march as a group in the annual Huntington-area march to honor Martin Luther King, Jr. Join us at 5 p.m. on Jan. 17 at the Ebenezer Community Outreach Center at 1660 8th Ave. Huntington, WV. The grand marshal is our friend and former WV Secretary of State Ken Hechler. The march ends at the 5th Avenue Baptist Church, 1135 5th Ave in Huntington, in time for a memorial service for Dr. King.
The march and service are part of the The Martin Luther King, Jr. Annual Symposium, which is designed to encourage students, teachers, and community residents to identify and address issues and questions about inequality, human rights, and social justice; to increase knowledge and perspectives about Martin Luther King, Jr. and his value to society; to encourage commitment to social justice and new efforts to promote social justice for all and to improve inter-group relations. For information on all the programs, click here.Victory--Thanks for Your Help!
Victory! In mid-December, we learned that the Mine Safety and Health Administration's library at the national academy in Beckley will stay in-house and will not be privatized. Thanks to all who made calls on behalf of this library, which provides extensive information to those doing environmental research, especially related to coal sludge impoundments.
Appalachian Voices, Kentuckians for the Commonwealth and Sierra Club in West Virginia all have positions open now. Follow the links here or reply to this e-mail if you would like to see the job descriptions.
In December, the Akron Beacon Journal hosted a live web chat on The Appalachians and mountaintop removal. An OVEC Action Alert! reader e-mailed, "I read the transcripts after the chat. I thought it was great. Very informative. I learned a lot, I think. Maybe you could forward the transcripts out to your e-mail addresses. This is a great way to condense a lot of information down to what is really on people's minds, to find out what they are really thinking, the issues that are bothering them and what they feel are the solutions. My eyes usually glaze over when listening to speeches, but this was different, I felt totally immersed in the conversation and picked up a lot of information that I haven't been able to absorb until now." If you would like to read the transcript from the chat, reply to this e-mail with "transcript" in the subject line.
The reader added, "I am going to go back and read the transcripts again from time to time just to keep my frontal lobe saturated. This is something that ought to happen on a regular basis, like an MTR chat room...to keep people thinking...to keep it fresh...to share info...there might be one out there already?" Indeed there are forums out there! Just go to the OVEC homepage and follow these links: Join A Discussion On The Appalachians and Mountaintop Removal and Web Forum on Mountaintop Removal.
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