Word: appalachia
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...pressure to conform. This is a far more diverse country than it was in 1892, when the Supreme Court declared, "This is a Christian nation." Millions of Americans attend worship services each week, but the locales range from Hindu temples in California to churches of snake- handling Pentecostalists in Appalachia. Baptist parents might like their child's school day to start with a Bible reading, but could a Muslim teacher choose a passage from the Koran instead? Do Satanists have the right to distribute materials at school? Would a santero football coach be allowed to sacrifice a chicken before...
...store is an inventory of broken dreams. From VCRs to old pocket watches, the lost possessions give testimony to the legacy that coal mining has left upon Appalachia: unemployment, a ruined economy, crippling injuries and early deaths. For Logan County -- and for much of Appalachia -- coal has been a blessing and a curse. It provided generations with work, solid wages, a source of immense pride and a tax base for schools, hospitals and roads. But the mines have exacted a high price in return. Many miners spend their lives crawling on their hands and knees in tunnels sometimes no higher...
...able to read or write. Communities staked everything on King Coal, neglecting to diversify. And still they cling to it, with vain hopes that the men will be called back to work. But tens of thousands of mining jobs have been lost as the process of extracting coal from Appalachia's deep seams has been transformed by cheaper, automated methods and by the development of surface mines in the Western states. Of the 20 most productive mines in the U.S., not one is in Appalachia. As a result, the number of coal miners in the U.S. has plunged from about...
...county's misery testifies to the tragedy of Appalachia's mines...
GoodFellas, the homicidally funny fresco of a Mafia family that Scorsese has made from the Nicholas Pileggi book Wiseguy, is the centerpiece in a new rogues' gallery. Mob movies are gathering, like capos at the Appalachia conference, from all over America. You want Italian-American hoods of the New York City stripe? We got 'em by the hundreds in GoodFellas. In My Blue Heaven, written by Pileggi's wife Nora Ephron as a kind of comic coda to the Scorsese picture, Steve Martin plays a Mafia rat in a Witness Protection Program out West. At Christmas, Paramount has The Godfather...