Kentucky Straight

Carl Pope has a nice posting on his blog about the growing ecumenical movement in opposition to mountaintop-removal mining. For those who aren't familiar with it, mountaintop removal is exactly what it sounds like; i.e., they're literally blowing the tops off the Appalachians to get at the coal seams, then dumping the rubble in the river valleys. So, along with the mountaintops go the forest (among North America's most diverse woodlands) and the riverbeds, not to mention many small communities which have been hammered in the process.

The coal industry likes to say it's just 'reclaiming' the land; or as the president of the Kentucky Coal Association put it: "To imply that we're flattening Appalachia is so untrue. We're creating level land for Appalachia." Very few people are buying that line, however.

When most of us look at mountaintop removal, we see an affront to god, nature and human decency. Those aren't terms most journalists allow themselves, but Bob Edwards (the old beloved voice of NPR) has apparently made an exception. Carl reports that Edwards told the folks assembled at Louisville's Festival of Faiths, "I'm still a journalist, but I don't believe that you put a lie on the air to balance the truth. There are some stories -- not many, perhaps, but this is one of them -- on which truth is on one side, and we shouldn't be afraid to let that show."