Down in the Coal Mine

Coal mines tend to be a long way from where the folks who use their products live, and the miners tend to be ethnic minorities or the underclass.

Famous coal miners include Nikita Khrushchev: compared to going down the mine what was the Czar going to do to him?

One of the things about The Hunger Games: Catching Fire movie that broke my suspension of disbelief (Hey, mag-lev trains? I’m good with that! Kids forced to fight to the death for the entertainment of the masses? Sure, why not? The upper class’s hair styles? Seen worse….) was when the Evil Government sends armored vehicles along one-lane dirt roads, in mountainous forested terrain, without infantry support, against miners. Miners. These are guys who (a) know all about, and have access to, explosives, and (b) have nothing to lose. If I were telling that story….

More people die in coal mines every year than have died in nuclear power plants–ever.

Anyway. Jolly miners.

(The group is Bawn in the Mash, from Tennessee.)