Word: minerly
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...virtues and many of the faults. The first half of Neal Bell's script seems wayward, slow and sometimes cute, in part because director Sharon Ott opts for a too stylized manner of acting. The second half is riveting. This is a story of downward mobility, about a miner turned dentist (sans diploma) who winds up defrocked and doomed in an abandoned mine. In a stunning coup de theatre, the multipurpose set ends by dropping chutes, heaving dust and becoming the industrial hellhole that he struggled, and failed, to escape. W.A.H...
...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 than a yardstick, wading through mud and water, burrowing through unutterable darkness. Nearly every miner can name a friend or family member who has been killed, maimed or stricken with black lung disease. "You die quick...
...than coal. But the most popular courses in the school are those on mining. One is taught by David Thompson, 33, who went into the mines at 18. "The only thing I could see was dollar signs," he recalls. For the next eight years, the 6-ft. 3-in. miner worked in spaces little more than 3 ft. high. "I was on my knees eight hours a day -- crawling, bending, twisting," says Thompson. By age 27, his knees couldn't take it anymore. Since then he has had six operations on his knees and all the cartilage removed...
...pressing their claims for compensation, miners are at a distinct disadvantage. Most lawyers decline to accept black lung cases because they know that claimants have little chance, says Dr. Mohammed Ranavaya, a West Virginia physician who has examined thousands of black lung patients. "It's not an even playing field, because you have a small-town coal miner vs. a big, resourceful company. It's David and Goliath...
...February 1990, a 39-year-old miner named Millard David Frye was killed in a Logan County mine. Corruption did not cause his death, but just days earlier inspector Massey had been recorded telling the mine's consultant, Phil Nelson, that Massey might be able to influence the inspection of the mine. As for other mines, Massey suggested he "could cut down on where the inspectors...