Word: coal
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...many Laborites regard Jenkins as a cultural snob with no taste for the rough give and take of either domestic or international politics. The son of a Welsh coal miner who became parliamentary secretary to Prime Minister Clement Attlee, Jenkins was a student at Oxford's Balliol College, where he took first honors in politics, philosophy and economics. He also acquired an upper-class "mandarin" accent, excellent French and a taste for claret and opera-none of which are especially valued by the party's old guard...
...switchblade thin elbows sticking out of a white shirt? Coat slung over her shoulder? Pale translucent cheekbones? Suspenders, providing that hint of a man's outfit? That casual elegance of the working man with sleeves rolled up--a takeoff on the cover of an early Frank Sinatra album? Coal black hair? The picture is all still, the energy curiously becalmed. A woman reed thin, when quiet just a sparkler in storage, but when she begins to sing or yell it's Bastille Day and all the pecan shops in Georgia have contributed M-80 cherry bombs to the chaos...
...ventilated section by section as the teams painstakingly made their way to the victims. The day before the blast, the mine had been cited for three violations of federal ventilation laws-and only two of the violations had been corrected. But 11 of 36 sprinklers used to dampen inflammable coal dust were not operating. There is no indication, however, that this was in any way connected with the explosion. Nor do officials know how the fatal quantity of methane gathered in the passageway-or what ignited...
...methane-and fears of yet another explosion-prevented their immediate removal. Funerals for men who died in the first explosion were going on when the second occurred. Since then, church bells have tolled continuously in memorial services throughout Letcher and Harlan counties, the two impoverished Appalachian areas steeped in coal-mining history...
...victims in the second explosion was James Sturgill, 48, a 14-year veteran of the area's bituminous coal mines. His cousin Jimmy, 20, had died in the first blast, and Sturgill readily volunteered to join the group that went down to investigate. The blast was "a fluke," Sturgill had said. "I'm no more afraid to go into the mine than I ever was. This is a fact of life that coal men must live with. If you thought about the dangers, it would drive you out of your mind. I don't think about...