DEMOCRATIC CANDIDATES FOR GOVERNOR AGREE TO MTB DEBATE
Meet The Bloggers will host all three Democratic candidates for Governor in a three-way podcast debate on Sunday, March 19.
Ted Strickland, Eric Fingerhut and Bryan Flannery have agreed to the joint appearance, which is undoubtedly a blogospheric first.
BFD says: "Format? No format. Same as always. Everyone has been told to pretend they’re in a coffeeshop, talking." Of course, they might not have to pretend... the place is TBA.
1.30.2006
CHANDRA MEETS THE BLOGGERS; DANN ON DECK
Last Wednesday's MTB session with Ohio Attorney General candidate Subodh Chandra is on line in four parts. Participants included Pho, Gloria, McKala, Tim, George and me.
Chandra, the former Cleveland City Law Director, was eloquent on the issue of defending local home rule, though not quite so definitive on Senate Bill 82, which he said he hadn't read. All in all it's a strong interview and worth a listen, especially because...
Chandra's rival for the Democratic AG nomination, State Senator Marc Dann, is scheduled to Meet The Bloggers on February 9. Dann was one of four Democrats who voted for Senate Bill 82 when it narrowly passed the Senate in June. I can hardly wait to ask him why.
Last Wednesday's MTB session with Ohio Attorney General candidate Subodh Chandra is on line in four parts. Participants included Pho, Gloria, McKala, Tim, George and me.
Chandra, the former Cleveland City Law Director, was eloquent on the issue of defending local home rule, though not quite so definitive on Senate Bill 82, which he said he hadn't read. All in all it's a strong interview and worth a listen, especially because...
Chandra's rival for the Democratic AG nomination, State Senator Marc Dann, is scheduled to Meet The Bloggers on February 9. Dann was one of four Democrats who voted for Senate Bill 82 when it narrowly passed the Senate in June. I can hardly wait to ask him why.
MINE SAFETY, DONE RIGHT
From this morning's Toronto Star:
On proposed requirements for wireless communication and monitoring equipment, Murray told Crain's that "the will is there...Unfortunately, the technology isn't."
Hmmm. Maybe it's only available in Canada.
If Crain's asked Murray for his opinion about better emergency air supplies and pre-installed airtight safe areas -- like the ones that saved 72 miners in Saskatchewan yesterday -- his replies are not reported.
P.S. Just in case you're inclined to give some credence to Mr. Murray's line that "the technology isn't there" for effective mine communication, let me recommend:
From this morning's Toronto Star:
ESTERHAZY, Sask. — All 72 miners have been brought to the surface safe and sound from a potash mine after spending more than 24 hours trapped by fire deep below the earth’s surface.Meanwhile, this morning's Crain's has a subscription-only article about proposed mine safety legislation in the Ohio General Assembly -- an article which consists mostly of quotes from the CEO of Murray Energy Corporation of Pepper Pike, explaining his "strong opposition" to any such legislation. Robert Murray, who runs two of the state's largest underground mines, wants a 'blue ribbon panel" to propose changes in Federal, not state, mine safety rules, including mandatory fire training and drug testing.
Greg Harris, one of the miners, said he was never really concerned about his safety as he played a makeshift game of checkers with colleagues in an airtight refuge room waiting to be rescued.
He and his friends drew the checkerboard on the back of a map and used washers as playing pieces.
“Everything is good,” said an exhausted Harris from his home.
“Communication was excellent. We had no problems whatsoever.”
The miners were trapped when fire broke out in polyethylene piping nearly a kilometre underground at about 3 a.m. yesterday.
They quickly retreated to so-called refuge stations — spacious chambers that can be sealed off and are equipped with supplies of oxygen, food and water.
... Shannon Reitenbach, an industrial mechanic at the mine who was not underground during the fire, said employees hold routine fire drills and are trained to keep in constant contact with people on the surface.
Employees also have detailed maps of the labyrinth of mine shafts and are told which shafts have fresh air and which ones are filled with exhaust, including smoke.
He said the fact the mine has two main shafts makes it more safe than single-shaft mines used in some coal fields.
On proposed requirements for wireless communication and monitoring equipment, Murray told Crain's that "the will is there...Unfortunately, the technology isn't."
Hmmm. Maybe it's only available in Canada.
If Crain's asked Murray for his opinion about better emergency air supplies and pre-installed airtight safe areas -- like the ones that saved 72 miners in Saskatchewan yesterday -- his replies are not reported.
P.S. Just in case you're inclined to give some credence to Mr. Murray's line that "the technology isn't there" for effective mine communication, let me recommend:
this informative piece from Confined Space (a blog about workplace health and safety) on why wireless Personal Emergency Devices and radio trackers weren't available to the miners trapped at Sago; and
this description of a fiber ethernet system installed in Pacificorps' Deer Creek Mine in Utah.
1.24.2006
Meet The Bloggers Fundraiser -- Thursday evening, January 26, 2006, from 5:30 p.m. to 9:30 p.m. at Pearl of the Orient, Beachcliff Market Square, 19300 Detroit Road, Rocky River.
DEWINE PROPOSED BILL TO LOOSEN WIRETAPPING STANDARDS IN 2002; JUSTICE DEPARTMENT SAID "NO THANKS, NOT NECESSARY"
From Unclaimed Territory today...
DEWINE PROPOSED BILL TO LOOSEN WIRETAPPING STANDARDS IN 2002; JUSTICE DEPARTMENT SAID "NO THANKS, NOT NECESSARY"
From Unclaimed Territory today...
The Administration's new FISA defense is factually false(Thanks , Geoff.)
In light of Gen. Hayden's new claim yesterday that the reason the Bush Administration decided to eavesdrop outside of FISA is because the "probable cause" standard for obtaining a FISA warrant was too onerous (and prevented them from obtaining warrants they needed to eavesdrop), there is a fact which I have not seen discussed anywhere but which now appears extremely significant, at least to me.
In June, 2002, Republican Sen. Michael DeWine of Ohio introduced legislation (S. 2659) which would have eliminated the exact barrier to FISA which Gen. Hayden yesterday said is what necessitated the Administration bypassing FISA. Specifically, DeWine's legislation proposed:to amend the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978 to modify the standard of proof for issuance of orders regarding non-United States persons from probable cause to reasonable suspicion. . . .So, in June, 2002, the Administration refused to support elimination of the very barrier ("probable cause") which Gen. Hayden claimed yesterday necessitated the circumvention of FISA. In doing so, the Administration identified two independent reasons for opposing this amendment. One reason was that the Justice Department was not aware of any problems which the Administration was having in getting the warrants it needed under FISA...
1.23.2006
Meet The Bloggers Fundraiser -- Thursday evening, January 26, 2006, from 5:30 p.m. to 9:30 p.m. at Pearl of the Orient, Beachcliff Market Square, 19300 Detroit Road, Rocky River.
OHIO, NORTHEAST OHIO JOBS STILL FLATLINING
It's Monday morning... let's pop a few downers.
From Policy Matters' monthly Job Watch:
Note that the graph compares employment figures only for the first quarter of each year. As it happens, the little 2005 uptick in the NEO line (first quarter 2005 compared to first quarter 2004) may not be there when 2006 is included.
Finally, here's my own chart (based on figures from the Bureau of Labor Statistics website) showing two years' worth of 12-month percentage changes in employment for the U.S., the state, and the Cleveland-Elyria-Mentor SMSA:
Note that break-even (0% job growth) is the fourth line from the bottom. The twelve-month job growth figures for the Cleveland-Elyria-Mentor area have been negative since May.
Have a great day.
OHIO, NORTHEAST OHIO JOBS STILL FLATLINING
It's Monday morning... let's pop a few downers.
From Policy Matters' monthly Job Watch:
Ohio added just 3,600 jobs during 2005, a gain that amounts to less than a tenth of one percent in a job market that includes more than 5 million Ohioans. Manufacturing employment, the source of most of the state’s job losses during the decade, failed to gain traction last year. Growth in some service sectors, such as professional and business services, was partly offset by decline in others, such as trade, transportation and utilities. At this point after the end of the early 1990s recession started, 395,100 jobs had been created in Ohio, an increase of 8.2 percent. By comparison, since the official end of the recession in November 2001, the state has lost 68,200 jobs, or 1.2 percent of its total.Next, from CSU's Center for Economic Development comes a new "Economic Brief" on jobs and wages in the fourteen-county region (Cleveland-Lorain-Akron-Canton-Youngstown) which features this graph:
Note that the graph compares employment figures only for the first quarter of each year. As it happens, the little 2005 uptick in the NEO line (first quarter 2005 compared to first quarter 2004) may not be there when 2006 is included.
Finally, here's my own chart (based on figures from the Bureau of Labor Statistics website) showing two years' worth of 12-month percentage changes in employment for the U.S., the state, and the Cleveland-Elyria-Mentor SMSA:
Note that break-even (0% job growth) is the fourth line from the bottom. The twelve-month job growth figures for the Cleveland-Elyria-Mentor area have been negative since May.
Have a great day.
1.22.2006
JOHN WOLFE MEETS THE BLOGGERS: An Akron attorney who's running (in a crowded field) for the Democratic nomination to replace Congressman Sherrod Brown was interviewed Thursday by George, Tim, Jill, Gloria and me.
Meet The Bloggers Fundraiser -- Thursday evening, January 26, 2006, from 5:30 p.m. to 9:30 p.m. at Pearl of the Orient, Beachcliff Market Square, 19300 Detroit Road, Rocky River.
DO DEMOCRATS STILL CARE ABOUT DEMOCRACY? There's a very humorous Letter to the Editor in the PD this morning, from an Anthony Gorsek of Cleveland. Mr. Gorsek has somehow gotten the idea that Ohio Statehouse Democrats opposed SB 82, the bill to abolish local home rule on the residency issue. He writes: "How ironic that it was mostly Republicans who sided with labor and the colloquial blue-collar man and that it was mostly Democrats who sided with employers and big-government intrusion in the lives of its citizens."
Unfortunately, Mr. Gorsek is misinformed. The House passage of SB 82 on Wednesday was a solidly bipartisan attack on local democracy, with 25 Democrats voting to preempt home rule and only 14 to preserve it. As many Republicans as Democrats voted "no".
Among the "yes" voters was Rep. Chris Redfern of Port Clinton, the newly elected chair of the Ohio Democratic Party. Meet The Bloggers interviewers, take note!
Also worth noting: Ten of the fourteen Democrats who voted to preserve home rule are African-American. They are Key, DeBose, Smith and Mason (Cleveland), Sykes (Akron), Patton (Youngstown), Beatty (the new Minority Leader, from Columbus), Yates (Cincinnati), and Allen and Strahorn (Dayton). Only four of the House's twenty-five white Democrats stood with them: Koziura from Lorain, Otterman from Akron, Skindell from Cleveland/Lakewood, and Ujvagi from Toledo.
So, here's the question on my mind: In 2006, where exactly do Ohio Democrats stand on the principle of municipal home rule?
Do Democrats still care about democracy?
(Pictured: A poster from Democrat Tom L. Johnson's 1902 campaign for re-election as Mayor of Cleveland, from Johnson's autobiography, "My Story", at clevelandmemory.org.)
DO DEMOCRATS STILL CARE ABOUT DEMOCRACY? There's a very humorous Letter to the Editor in the PD this morning, from an Anthony Gorsek of Cleveland. Mr. Gorsek has somehow gotten the idea that Ohio Statehouse Democrats opposed SB 82, the bill to abolish local home rule on the residency issue. He writes: "How ironic that it was mostly Republicans who sided with labor and the colloquial blue-collar man and that it was mostly Democrats who sided with employers and big-government intrusion in the lives of its citizens."
Unfortunately, Mr. Gorsek is misinformed. The House passage of SB 82 on Wednesday was a solidly bipartisan attack on local democracy, with 25 Democrats voting to preempt home rule and only 14 to preserve it. As many Republicans as Democrats voted "no".
Among the "yes" voters was Rep. Chris Redfern of Port Clinton, the newly elected chair of the Ohio Democratic Party. Meet The Bloggers interviewers, take note!
Also worth noting: Ten of the fourteen Democrats who voted to preserve home rule are African-American. They are Key, DeBose, Smith and Mason (Cleveland), Sykes (Akron), Patton (Youngstown), Beatty (the new Minority Leader, from Columbus), Yates (Cincinnati), and Allen and Strahorn (Dayton). Only four of the House's twenty-five white Democrats stood with them: Koziura from Lorain, Otterman from Akron, Skindell from Cleveland/Lakewood, and Ujvagi from Toledo.
So, here's the question on my mind: In 2006, where exactly do Ohio Democrats stand on the principle of municipal home rule?
Do Democrats still care about democracy?
(Pictured: A poster from Democrat Tom L. Johnson's 1902 campaign for re-election as Mayor of Cleveland, from Johnson's autobiography, "My Story", at clevelandmemory.org.)
1.20.2006
Meet The Bloggers Fundraiser -- Thursday evening, January 26, 2006, from 5:30 p.m. to 9:30 p.m. at Pearl of the Orient, Beachcliff Market Square, 19300 Detroit Road, Rocky River.
CLEVELAND STATE REPRESENTATIVES AGAINST HOME RULE -- MILLER, WOODARD, YUKO
I was in Columbus today, so I went to the State Capitol and picked up a copy of the House Journal for Wednesday's session. The following State Reps whose districts include parts of Cleveland voted for Senate Bill 82, prohibiting local governments and voters from imposing local residency requirements on any permanent full-time municipal employee:
Since so much attention is on the police and firefighters whose unions led the campaign for this anti-urban, anti-democratic measure, let me point out that safety forces are only a small part of the municipal workforces which will be affected if SB 82 holds up in court.
At one end of the spectrum, the many Ohio villages who require their hired village managers to live locally, or even in the same county, will no longer be allowed to do so.
At the other end, in Cleveland, all of the City's more than 7,000 civil service employees -- only 2,800 of whom are uniformed police, fire and EMS -- will be "free to flee", despite the fact that they accepted their jobs knowing city residency was part of the deal. This includes the white-collar managers and professionals (up to the level of Commissioner) who actually run the city's services and utilities, and who can now spend their days at City Hall and their evenings and weekends in the suburbs, nicely insulated from the consequences of their performance.
Will political appointees like department directors -- or even mayors and council members -- be freed from residency rules, too? It depends on the courts' interpretation of the word "permanent", in the section of SB 82 which allows residency rules for "volunteers"... defined to include employees who are paid but not on a "permanent, full-time" basis. Are mayors, councilmen and cabinet members "volunteers" under the new law? Or are they covered employees, free to live anywhere they want while running the city? What an interesting approach to regionalism.
Unless the courts just throw SB 82 out -- which is quite possible, and devoutly to be wished -- it's going to create a mess that we've only begun to imagine.
Don't forget to thank Reps. Miller, Yuko and Woodard -- along with Senators Brady and Prentiss -- when that mess appears.
CLEVELAND STATE REPRESENTATIVES AGAINST HOME RULE -- MILLER, WOODARD, YUKO
I was in Columbus today, so I went to the State Capitol and picked up a copy of the House Journal for Wednesday's session. The following State Reps whose districts include parts of Cleveland voted for Senate Bill 82, prohibiting local governments and voters from imposing local residency requirements on any permanent full-time municipal employee:
Dale MillerRepresentatives Mike Skindell, Annie Key, Shirley Smith, Michael DeBose and Lance Mason voted against Senate Bill 82, choosing to preserve home rule and local democracy.
Claudette Woodard
Kenny Yuko
Since so much attention is on the police and firefighters whose unions led the campaign for this anti-urban, anti-democratic measure, let me point out that safety forces are only a small part of the municipal workforces which will be affected if SB 82 holds up in court.
At one end of the spectrum, the many Ohio villages who require their hired village managers to live locally, or even in the same county, will no longer be allowed to do so.
At the other end, in Cleveland, all of the City's more than 7,000 civil service employees -- only 2,800 of whom are uniformed police, fire and EMS -- will be "free to flee", despite the fact that they accepted their jobs knowing city residency was part of the deal. This includes the white-collar managers and professionals (up to the level of Commissioner) who actually run the city's services and utilities, and who can now spend their days at City Hall and their evenings and weekends in the suburbs, nicely insulated from the consequences of their performance.
Will political appointees like department directors -- or even mayors and council members -- be freed from residency rules, too? It depends on the courts' interpretation of the word "permanent", in the section of SB 82 which allows residency rules for "volunteers"... defined to include employees who are paid but not on a "permanent, full-time" basis. Are mayors, councilmen and cabinet members "volunteers" under the new law? Or are they covered employees, free to live anywhere they want while running the city? What an interesting approach to regionalism.
Unless the courts just throw SB 82 out -- which is quite possible, and devoutly to be wished -- it's going to create a mess that we've only begun to imagine.
Don't forget to thank Reps. Miller, Yuko and Woodard -- along with Senators Brady and Prentiss -- when that mess appears.
1.19.2006
A FUNDRAISER FOR MEET THE BLOGGERS
In an effort to raise money to pay for interview transcripts, Northeast Ohio bloggers are holding a fundraiser for Meet The Bloggers, to take place Thursday night, January 26, 2006, from 5:30 p.m. to 9:30 p.m. at the Pearl of the Orient restaurant, located in Beachcliff Market Square, 19300 Detroit Road, Rocky River, OH.
Please distribute this information widely. We’ve got 4 or 5 outstanding transcripts and at least that many interviews scheduled already.
A tremendous thanks to Scott Bakalar for donating his time and arranging this opportunity for us.
(This post adapted from BFD.)
In an effort to raise money to pay for interview transcripts, Northeast Ohio bloggers are holding a fundraiser for Meet The Bloggers, to take place Thursday night, January 26, 2006, from 5:30 p.m. to 9:30 p.m. at the Pearl of the Orient restaurant, located in Beachcliff Market Square, 19300 Detroit Road, Rocky River, OH.
The creators of Meet the Bloggers will act as celebrity bartenders for the evening and will be glad to answer any questions about blogging, podcasting, and the blogosphere. Drinks will be offered at a reduced price for the duration of the event and all gratuities/tips earned by our celebrity bartenders will go toward funding future Meet the Bloggers interviews and projects.Hey, now I'm a celebrity. Aren't you curious to see if I can pour a drink?
Please distribute this information widely. We’ve got 4 or 5 outstanding transcripts and at least that many interviews scheduled already.
A tremendous thanks to Scott Bakalar for donating his time and arranging this opportunity for us.
(This post adapted from BFD.)
1.18.2006
HOUSE WILL VOTE ON RESIDENCY TODAY; WATCH DALE MILLER
Ohio Senate Bill 82, which would void employee residency requirements created by voters in more than a hundred Ohio municipalities, is up for a vote in the House of Representatives today.
It will pass despite the fact that it's almost certainly unconstitutional (see the "Comment" in the Legislative Service Commission's analysis). It will pass despite the overwhelming opposition of Ohio municipalities of all sizes. It will pass, because Republicans don't really give a crap about preserving the rights of local communities against centralized government power, and too many Democrats have promised their votes to the police and firefighter unions in exchange for campaign support.
I don't often agree with the PD's Brent Larkin, but this column gets the issue exactly right.
Most Cleveland legislators will vote against SB 82, unlike our two Senators. It's strongly opposed by Mayor Jackson, City Council, and the large majority of Cleveland voters. Required residency for city employees was voted into the Cleveland City Charter in 1982 and clearly remains the will of the people... which is why its opponents had to go to Columbus to try to get rid of it, instead of repealing or amending it by going back to the ballot.
The one Cleveland Representative who's likely to vote for Senate Bill 82 is Dale Miller, term-limited out of his House seat and running for the Senate seat of his term-limited friend Dan Brady -- who was Senate Bill 82's co-sponsor in the Senate. Like Brady and East Side Senator C.J. Prentiss, Miller is a loud, proud "progressive" who would have been horrified, earlier in his career, at the idea of joining with Republicans to thwart grassroots democracy in his own community. But there are lots of city employees living in southwest Cleveland who'd rather be living in the suburbs, and lots of cops and firefighters throught the Senate district (Parma, Lakewood, Brooklyn, Brook Park, Linndale, Middleburg Heights, and Parma Heights as well as Cleveland) for whom residency is Issue Number One. So Miller will vote for their idea of "fairness" and hope the majority of voters won't notice, or care that much.
Is he right? Stay tuned.
Ohio Senate Bill 82, which would void employee residency requirements created by voters in more than a hundred Ohio municipalities, is up for a vote in the House of Representatives today.
It will pass despite the fact that it's almost certainly unconstitutional (see the "Comment" in the Legislative Service Commission's analysis). It will pass despite the overwhelming opposition of Ohio municipalities of all sizes. It will pass, because Republicans don't really give a crap about preserving the rights of local communities against centralized government power, and too many Democrats have promised their votes to the police and firefighter unions in exchange for campaign support.
I don't often agree with the PD's Brent Larkin, but this column gets the issue exactly right.
Most Cleveland legislators will vote against SB 82, unlike our two Senators. It's strongly opposed by Mayor Jackson, City Council, and the large majority of Cleveland voters. Required residency for city employees was voted into the Cleveland City Charter in 1982 and clearly remains the will of the people... which is why its opponents had to go to Columbus to try to get rid of it, instead of repealing or amending it by going back to the ballot.
The one Cleveland Representative who's likely to vote for Senate Bill 82 is Dale Miller, term-limited out of his House seat and running for the Senate seat of his term-limited friend Dan Brady -- who was Senate Bill 82's co-sponsor in the Senate. Like Brady and East Side Senator C.J. Prentiss, Miller is a loud, proud "progressive" who would have been horrified, earlier in his career, at the idea of joining with Republicans to thwart grassroots democracy in his own community. But there are lots of city employees living in southwest Cleveland who'd rather be living in the suburbs, and lots of cops and firefighters throught the Senate district (Parma, Lakewood, Brooklyn, Brook Park, Linndale, Middleburg Heights, and Parma Heights as well as Cleveland) for whom residency is Issue Number One. So Miller will vote for their idea of "fairness" and hope the majority of voters won't notice, or care that much.
Is he right? Stay tuned.
1.17.2006
PETE DRAGANIC MEETS THE BLOGGERS: The extremely longshot candidate for the GOP nomination for Governor talks about leadership, state spending cuts, biodiesel, school spending. Jill posts at length about the interview.
For the record, Draganic never answered my question about the source of his assertion that Ohio has the nation's fourth highest tax burden on businesses. The Tax Foundation (no friend to tax-and-spend liberals!) placed Ohio's business tax climate at 29th among the fifty states in 2005.
For the record, Draganic never answered my question about the source of his assertion that Ohio has the nation's fourth highest tax burden on businesses. The Tax Foundation (no friend to tax-and-spend liberals!) placed Ohio's business tax climate at 29th among the fifty states in 2005.
1.16.2006
SAGO: WHAT WOULD HAVE HELPED?
The Sago Mine disaster is almost two weeks old. The Plain Dealer (which still has not mentioned the involvement of local corporate hero Wilbur Ross) ran yet another generic "Aren't coal miners brave and tragic?" op-ed piece yesterday, complete with Merle Travis lyrics and accompanied by a chart of coal mining deaths from 2000 through 2005 (not on line). There was also an AP story from Tallmansville about International Coal Group workers weighing whether to go back to work in other local ICG mines.
The PD's chart is titled "Coal mine fatalities", and cites reports from the U.S. Mine Safety and Health Administration as its source. If you look through the "Statistics" links at the bottom of the right column on the MSHA page -- specifically this chart -- you'll realize that the PD's fatality numbers are for underground coal mining only, ignoring many deaths at surface mines. Even so, the chart shows an average of 19 deaths per year from 2000 through 2004.
What it doesn't show is the modest size of the workforce that's sustaining these losses. From 2000 through 2004, the Bureau of Labor Statistics says an average of 39,000 to 40,000 Americans were employed by the underground coal mining industry. So those 19 deaths a year work out to an industry fatality rate of 48 deaths per 100,000 workers.
John Ryan pointed out the other day that mining, at 28 annual deaths per 100,000 workers, is only America's second most fatal industrial sector... behind agriculture/forestry (which includes logging, an incredibly dangerous way to make a living). But that's "mining" of all kinds -- stripping, open pit, longwalling, all kinds of ores and all kinds of work including office and management. Deep coal mining is far more dangerous than the "sector" number suggests, indeed far more dangerous than the overall 48 deaths per 100,000 I cited a few lines ago.
The death rate that matters is the one you get by subtracting all the managers, all the office workers, the surface support workers and inspectors and drivers from the denominator, leaving only the actual miners -- the people who take heavy machinery down a two or three mile tunnel with only one way out, and use the machines to chew tons of combustible material out of the earth surrounding them, creating an atmosphere of explosive gas and dust that's poisonous if not constantly ventilated, in a structure supported mainly by pillars of rock and coal that they've left standing.
A close look at the workforce and fatality details from BLS and MSHA suggests to me that these underground workers account for only about 40% of all the people employed by underground coal mining companies, but that they suffer at least 80% of the industry's fatalities. If I'm right, that makes the recent fatality rate for underground coal mine workers (before Sago) at least 75 deaths per 100,000 workers per year.
Translation: Out of every thousand underground coal miners in the U.S. at the beginning of 2000, at least four died on the job by the end of 2004.
There are deadlier U.S. occupations --- loggers and airplane pilots, for example -- but only a few. It might surprise you to learn that firefighters and police patrol officers are significantly safer on the job than coal miners (with 11 and 19 deaths per 100,000 in 2004, respectively).
Why does this matter to the rest of us -- specifically to Clevelanders, far from the coalfields? Of course there are thousands of us who have family members mining coal back home in West Virginia, Pennsylvania, Kentucky, etc.. But why should the rest of us have coal mine fatality rates on our lists of things to worry about?
Well, it's simple: We're all burning that coal. As I write this, the electrical charges marching in binary formation around my computer's innards come mostly from coal combustion. So do the data bits coming and going over my DSL connection, the power stored in my handy cellphone, and the electrons making metal incandesce or gas fluoresce in the five light bulbs I can see from where I'm sitting. The essential commodity of the New Economy, the electrical bit that makes the byte that makes the code that is the Information, depends (in this community) on the archetypal 19th-century industry -- people digging coal out of the ground to burn under boilers to make steam to turn turbines.
Their mines and my computer are two ends of the same industrial ecosystem. And I don't know about you, but I want the systems I'm part of to kill as few people as possible..
This is why fatalistic literary reflections on "the miner's life" don't do much for me. The twelve guys who died of carbon monoxide poisoning in the Sago Mine's "2 Left" section were not Butcher Holler throwbacks. They were modern American workers, doing an ordinary job on an ordinary day for a very modern corporate employer. I don't really need to know about their tight-knit families, their church affiliations, their patriotism, their conflicted emotions about the job, their philosophical acceptance of death, etc., etc.
What I want to know is how their deaths could have been prevented... and how more deaths like theirs can be prevented from now on.
Now like most people, I know little about mining or mine safety. I have no idea how to judge the claims and counterclaims about violations and fines, ICG's ccompliance, MSHA's enforcement, etc. But reading news accounts of the disaster, and the narrative of the rescue effort on the MSHA website, I've been struck by three simple investments that might have saved those twelve miners:
1) A hardened, redundant communication network. The miners were trapped at the far end of a working section ("2 Left") a few hundred yards off the main corridor. Their only communication with the surface, two miles behind them, was a telephone wire. When gas exploded in a sealed-off section at the end of the main corridor, blowing out the seal and filling the area with carbon monoxide and smoke, the telephone wire was severed. They had no way of finding out what lay between them and the exit, and rescuers had no way of knowing their position or condition. As it turns out, the way out was not blocked, and there was breatheable air two thousand feet away -- but not knowing that, the miners put up a barrier, sat tight and waited for rescue that came far too late.
ICG's CEO admitted to USA Today that a wireless network could have gotten the miners out alive. He was talking about voice communication, but a carefully installed network, with both hardened wire and wireless pathways, might have helped in other ways -- e.g. by allowing real-time instrument mapping of gas concentrations along the exit path. Such systems designed for mines are on the market (see here and here, for example) but as ICG's Hatfield told USA Today, "the industry has not been quick enough to adopt the technology". You can say that again.
2) More hours of emergency air. Each miner had just an hour's supply of oxygen. They died when those supplies, and the good air in the pocket they tried to seal off, ran out. Remember, they were two miles from the mine entrance, with no other way in or out. Under what possible scenario could they have survived a forty-hour wait in a CO-filled area with the ventilation not functioning? Lacking communication with the surface, exploration for some kind of escape route was essential -- but the risk was so great, with so little breathing time, that they didn't dare try it. So they waited and died, two thousand feet from safety.
3) Multiple access points. 2 Left is two miles in from the portal but only two hundred feet down from the surface. According to MSHA's rescue narrative, a borehole was drilled from the surface into 2 Left between 2:45 and 5:35 a.m. January 3, allowing rescuers to test the atmosphere and do a video scan of the area. Presumably they could also have lowered a communication device or even an air hose. But the drill punched through nearly 23 hours after the explosion... far too late for the trapped miners. Here's my dumb question: Why wasn't there already a borehole there?!? If you're sending people two miles down a dangerous tunnel to a place where they're less than a hundred yards below the surface, every day for months or years at a stretch, why wouldn't you routinely drill a few emergency access holes, just in case?
A modern network, more oxygen, some openings to the surface. It seems to me that any one of these things might well have spared the miners at Sago. Together they almost certainly would have.
What would all three have cost ICG? A hundred thousand dollars? Maybe twice that? Maybe two dollars added to the price of a ton of coal that now sells for $25 to $35?
The current cost of Appalachian coal to the utilities that burn it is less than two cents per kilowatt-hour. How many of us would object to (or even notice) an electric rate increase of .2 or .3 cents per kwh, if it was earmarked to make work less deadly for the people who dig up the raw material of our illuminated, automated, networked lives?
Ohio politicians have been talking a lot about "Clean Coal". How about "Clean, Safe Coal"?
The Sago Mine disaster is almost two weeks old. The Plain Dealer (which still has not mentioned the involvement of local corporate hero Wilbur Ross) ran yet another generic "Aren't coal miners brave and tragic?" op-ed piece yesterday, complete with Merle Travis lyrics and accompanied by a chart of coal mining deaths from 2000 through 2005 (not on line). There was also an AP story from Tallmansville about International Coal Group workers weighing whether to go back to work in other local ICG mines.
The PD's chart is titled "Coal mine fatalities", and cites reports from the U.S. Mine Safety and Health Administration as its source. If you look through the "Statistics" links at the bottom of the right column on the MSHA page -- specifically this chart -- you'll realize that the PD's fatality numbers are for underground coal mining only, ignoring many deaths at surface mines. Even so, the chart shows an average of 19 deaths per year from 2000 through 2004.
What it doesn't show is the modest size of the workforce that's sustaining these losses. From 2000 through 2004, the Bureau of Labor Statistics says an average of 39,000 to 40,000 Americans were employed by the underground coal mining industry. So those 19 deaths a year work out to an industry fatality rate of 48 deaths per 100,000 workers.
John Ryan pointed out the other day that mining, at 28 annual deaths per 100,000 workers, is only America's second most fatal industrial sector... behind agriculture/forestry (which includes logging, an incredibly dangerous way to make a living). But that's "mining" of all kinds -- stripping, open pit, longwalling, all kinds of ores and all kinds of work including office and management. Deep coal mining is far more dangerous than the "sector" number suggests, indeed far more dangerous than the overall 48 deaths per 100,000 I cited a few lines ago.
The death rate that matters is the one you get by subtracting all the managers, all the office workers, the surface support workers and inspectors and drivers from the denominator, leaving only the actual miners -- the people who take heavy machinery down a two or three mile tunnel with only one way out, and use the machines to chew tons of combustible material out of the earth surrounding them, creating an atmosphere of explosive gas and dust that's poisonous if not constantly ventilated, in a structure supported mainly by pillars of rock and coal that they've left standing.
A close look at the workforce and fatality details from BLS and MSHA suggests to me that these underground workers account for only about 40% of all the people employed by underground coal mining companies, but that they suffer at least 80% of the industry's fatalities. If I'm right, that makes the recent fatality rate for underground coal mine workers (before Sago) at least 75 deaths per 100,000 workers per year.
Translation: Out of every thousand underground coal miners in the U.S. at the beginning of 2000, at least four died on the job by the end of 2004.
There are deadlier U.S. occupations --- loggers and airplane pilots, for example -- but only a few. It might surprise you to learn that firefighters and police patrol officers are significantly safer on the job than coal miners (with 11 and 19 deaths per 100,000 in 2004, respectively).
Why does this matter to the rest of us -- specifically to Clevelanders, far from the coalfields? Of course there are thousands of us who have family members mining coal back home in West Virginia, Pennsylvania, Kentucky, etc.. But why should the rest of us have coal mine fatality rates on our lists of things to worry about?
Well, it's simple: We're all burning that coal. As I write this, the electrical charges marching in binary formation around my computer's innards come mostly from coal combustion. So do the data bits coming and going over my DSL connection, the power stored in my handy cellphone, and the electrons making metal incandesce or gas fluoresce in the five light bulbs I can see from where I'm sitting. The essential commodity of the New Economy, the electrical bit that makes the byte that makes the code that is the Information, depends (in this community) on the archetypal 19th-century industry -- people digging coal out of the ground to burn under boilers to make steam to turn turbines.
Their mines and my computer are two ends of the same industrial ecosystem. And I don't know about you, but I want the systems I'm part of to kill as few people as possible..
This is why fatalistic literary reflections on "the miner's life" don't do much for me. The twelve guys who died of carbon monoxide poisoning in the Sago Mine's "2 Left" section were not Butcher Holler throwbacks. They were modern American workers, doing an ordinary job on an ordinary day for a very modern corporate employer. I don't really need to know about their tight-knit families, their church affiliations, their patriotism, their conflicted emotions about the job, their philosophical acceptance of death, etc., etc.
What I want to know is how their deaths could have been prevented... and how more deaths like theirs can be prevented from now on.
Now like most people, I know little about mining or mine safety. I have no idea how to judge the claims and counterclaims about violations and fines, ICG's ccompliance, MSHA's enforcement, etc. But reading news accounts of the disaster, and the narrative of the rescue effort on the MSHA website, I've been struck by three simple investments that might have saved those twelve miners:
1) A hardened, redundant communication network. The miners were trapped at the far end of a working section ("2 Left") a few hundred yards off the main corridor. Their only communication with the surface, two miles behind them, was a telephone wire. When gas exploded in a sealed-off section at the end of the main corridor, blowing out the seal and filling the area with carbon monoxide and smoke, the telephone wire was severed. They had no way of finding out what lay between them and the exit, and rescuers had no way of knowing their position or condition. As it turns out, the way out was not blocked, and there was breatheable air two thousand feet away -- but not knowing that, the miners put up a barrier, sat tight and waited for rescue that came far too late.
ICG's CEO admitted to USA Today that a wireless network could have gotten the miners out alive. He was talking about voice communication, but a carefully installed network, with both hardened wire and wireless pathways, might have helped in other ways -- e.g. by allowing real-time instrument mapping of gas concentrations along the exit path. Such systems designed for mines are on the market (see here and here, for example) but as ICG's Hatfield told USA Today, "the industry has not been quick enough to adopt the technology". You can say that again.
2) More hours of emergency air. Each miner had just an hour's supply of oxygen. They died when those supplies, and the good air in the pocket they tried to seal off, ran out. Remember, they were two miles from the mine entrance, with no other way in or out. Under what possible scenario could they have survived a forty-hour wait in a CO-filled area with the ventilation not functioning? Lacking communication with the surface, exploration for some kind of escape route was essential -- but the risk was so great, with so little breathing time, that they didn't dare try it. So they waited and died, two thousand feet from safety.
3) Multiple access points. 2 Left is two miles in from the portal but only two hundred feet down from the surface. According to MSHA's rescue narrative, a borehole was drilled from the surface into 2 Left between 2:45 and 5:35 a.m. January 3, allowing rescuers to test the atmosphere and do a video scan of the area. Presumably they could also have lowered a communication device or even an air hose. But the drill punched through nearly 23 hours after the explosion... far too late for the trapped miners. Here's my dumb question: Why wasn't there already a borehole there?!? If you're sending people two miles down a dangerous tunnel to a place where they're less than a hundred yards below the surface, every day for months or years at a stretch, why wouldn't you routinely drill a few emergency access holes, just in case?
A modern network, more oxygen, some openings to the surface. It seems to me that any one of these things might well have spared the miners at Sago. Together they almost certainly would have.
What would all three have cost ICG? A hundred thousand dollars? Maybe twice that? Maybe two dollars added to the price of a ton of coal that now sells for $25 to $35?
The current cost of Appalachian coal to the utilities that burn it is less than two cents per kilowatt-hour. How many of us would object to (or even notice) an electric rate increase of .2 or .3 cents per kwh, if it was earmarked to make work less deadly for the people who dig up the raw material of our illuminated, automated, networked lives?
Ohio politicians have been talking a lot about "Clean Coal". How about "Clean, Safe Coal"?
1.13.2006
WHAT DOES IT TAKE TO GET FIRED IN THIS TOWN? (2006 EDITION)
This is the 252nd day since CEOGC's "reform" board chairman George Forbes called for a "90 day cooling off period" in the case of Jacqueline Middleton, the executive director of the agency that runs Head Start for Cuyahoga County. Incredibly, she's still holding the reins, at her reduced salary of neary $150,000 a year. And apparently she and the board are still trying to paper over old debt with current years' operating funds -- money that they (i.e. we) are supposed to be using to pay for preschool for the county's poorest kids.
Yesterday the Plain Dealer editorial page called for a Federal takeover of CEOGC. The PD is correct. There's no other reasonable outcome to this agonizing mess.
Mayor Jackson and County Commissioner Hagan, each with two CEOGC board representatives, are the elected officials with the most direct responsibility for dealing with this. Hagan wanted to fire Middleton last May. I have no idea whether Stephanie Tubbs-Jones and Peter Lawson-Jones, two of Jackson's essential allies, think the requirements of "due process" for Middleton have been satisfied yet, but 252 days is more than enough for the rest of us.
If this is going to cause the new Mayor some political trauma, best to get it over with early. No good can come from putting it off, either for Jackson's mayoralty or -- more important -- for the Head Start staff, kids and families whose futures are being held hostage.
Jackson and Hagan should call in the Feds now.
This is the 252nd day since CEOGC's "reform" board chairman George Forbes called for a "90 day cooling off period" in the case of Jacqueline Middleton, the executive director of the agency that runs Head Start for Cuyahoga County. Incredibly, she's still holding the reins, at her reduced salary of neary $150,000 a year. And apparently she and the board are still trying to paper over old debt with current years' operating funds -- money that they (i.e. we) are supposed to be using to pay for preschool for the county's poorest kids.
Yesterday the Plain Dealer editorial page called for a Federal takeover of CEOGC. The PD is correct. There's no other reasonable outcome to this agonizing mess.
Mayor Jackson and County Commissioner Hagan, each with two CEOGC board representatives, are the elected officials with the most direct responsibility for dealing with this. Hagan wanted to fire Middleton last May. I have no idea whether Stephanie Tubbs-Jones and Peter Lawson-Jones, two of Jackson's essential allies, think the requirements of "due process" for Middleton have been satisfied yet, but 252 days is more than enough for the rest of us.
If this is going to cause the new Mayor some political trauma, best to get it over with early. No good can come from putting it off, either for Jackson's mayoralty or -- more important -- for the Head Start staff, kids and families whose futures are being held hostage.
Jackson and Hagan should call in the Feds now.
1.11.2006
BABIES AND BATHWATER
By now you know that Sherrod Brown won't be doing his Meet The Bloggers appearance this Saturday. BFD posted a voicemail Monday from Brown staffer Phil de Vellis calling off Brown's long-planned appearance because the Congressman "doesn't want to sit down with Tim, who's cursed at his wife and admitted it in public and done some other things as well".
"Tim" is, of course, Tim Russo, whose blog, Buckeye Politics, has coincidentally been off line since Monday morning. (No, I don't have the first clue what's going on there.) Tim, one of MTB's main organizers, has been engaged in a running controversy with the Brown campaign about who-said-what-to-who in an interaction with the Congressman and his wife, PD columnist Connie Schultz, at an Ohio Democratic Party meeting in December. Words like "lying" have been thrown around by both sides. Tim has taken a few nasty online pokes at Schultz ("Pulitzer wife") as well as Brown himself. Somebody in Brown's campaign office posted pseudonymous comments at another blog threatening retribution (sort of), giving the merry-go-round another spin.
I've never posted about any of this. So just to make all parties equally unhappy, I'll say here that I have no idea of what to believe about the ODP incident, and I don't much care. (Whatever happened, it seems unlikely that this was Schultz's first experience with profanity, or Russo's first experience being yelled at.) I'm pretty sure that someone at the Brown campaign did something reprehensible with a computer in his office, and should be found and punished for the good of the campaign, but beyond that I'm not much concerned about pseudonymous blog-comment threats. I've cringed at some of Tim's posts about Brown and Schultz, he's given them plenty of cause to be pissed off at him personally, and if either of them challenged Tim to a fistfight it wouldn't bother me at all -- but it's no worse than the trash talk that happens in the back of the hall in every community or political group I've been part of.
The point is, no matter what you think about any of this, being pissed off at Tim Russo is not a good reason for Sherrod's decision to take a pass on Meet The Bloggers.
Along with Tim and George, I've been part of every single MTB session except the last one (Bill Peirce last Friday). That's fourteen out of fifteen interviews, going back to Bob Triozzi on August 3rd. Tim, George and I have had a few frictions along the way and we certainly don't always agree about the candidates or their positions. But the three of us, and the growing group of NEO bloggers who've recently joined us, have stuck to four cardinal (if unwritten) rules that insulate MTB itself from the slants and quirks of our individual blogs:
I'm not much of a believer in the mystical powers of the blogosphere, especially in elections. I don't think we're about to replace the MSM (though lord knows somebody needs to replace Channel 19) and I don't think politicians really need to court us, fear us, or imitate us -- not yet, anyway. (Of course, this may just be because I'm familiar with my own hit count.)
But I do think Meet The Bloggers is proving to be a good and useful contribution to the civic process in this community. I hear the same thing from a lot of people around Cleveland who aren't blogging cultists.
Whatever you think about his personal writing, Tim Russo has worked hard to make MTB as good and useful as it is. He's been an essential organizer and a good, substantive interviewer. And he's helped get more than a dozen other bloggers with varied perspectives into the room -- most of whom would have been there on Saturday to ask questions about real issues that Sherrod Brown wants to talk about.
So I think Sherrod's decision was a mistake. Not a terrible political misstep or a moral failure, just a mistake. I believe what Phil de Vellis says about his reason -- being too indignant with Tim to sit down in the same room -- and I don't question its legitimacy from Sherrod's point of view, but it's still a mistaken response.
Sherrod, there was a baby in that bathwater. You should have looked harder before you threw it out.
By now you know that Sherrod Brown won't be doing his Meet The Bloggers appearance this Saturday. BFD posted a voicemail Monday from Brown staffer Phil de Vellis calling off Brown's long-planned appearance because the Congressman "doesn't want to sit down with Tim, who's cursed at his wife and admitted it in public and done some other things as well".
"Tim" is, of course, Tim Russo, whose blog, Buckeye Politics, has coincidentally been off line since Monday morning. (No, I don't have the first clue what's going on there.) Tim, one of MTB's main organizers, has been engaged in a running controversy with the Brown campaign about who-said-what-to-who in an interaction with the Congressman and his wife, PD columnist Connie Schultz, at an Ohio Democratic Party meeting in December. Words like "lying" have been thrown around by both sides. Tim has taken a few nasty online pokes at Schultz ("Pulitzer wife") as well as Brown himself. Somebody in Brown's campaign office posted pseudonymous comments at another blog threatening retribution (sort of), giving the merry-go-round another spin.
I've never posted about any of this. So just to make all parties equally unhappy, I'll say here that I have no idea of what to believe about the ODP incident, and I don't much care. (Whatever happened, it seems unlikely that this was Schultz's first experience with profanity, or Russo's first experience being yelled at.) I'm pretty sure that someone at the Brown campaign did something reprehensible with a computer in his office, and should be found and punished for the good of the campaign, but beyond that I'm not much concerned about pseudonymous blog-comment threats. I've cringed at some of Tim's posts about Brown and Schultz, he's given them plenty of cause to be pissed off at him personally, and if either of them challenged Tim to a fistfight it wouldn't bother me at all -- but it's no worse than the trash talk that happens in the back of the hall in every community or political group I've been part of.
The point is, no matter what you think about any of this, being pissed off at Tim Russo is not a good reason for Sherrod's decision to take a pass on Meet The Bloggers.
Along with Tim and George, I've been part of every single MTB session except the last one (Bill Peirce last Friday). That's fourteen out of fifteen interviews, going back to Bob Triozzi on August 3rd. Tim, George and I have had a few frictions along the way and we certainly don't always agree about the candidates or their positions. But the three of us, and the growing group of NEO bloggers who've recently joined us, have stuck to four cardinal (if unwritten) rules that insulate MTB itself from the slants and quirks of our individual blogs:
All NEO bloggers are welcome.In all fifteen MTB sessions to date, I don't think you'll find a single disrespectful question, a single instance of an interviewee being rudely cut off, or a single case of a blogger haranguing the interviewee (although I came close with one long, wandering question to Dave Abbott.) If you get your politics from cable, you'll find Meet The Bloggers unbelievably civil. God knows that's not because we're all boy and girl scouts on our own sites. It's because the format works for all of us, so everybody respects (and enforces) it.
Nobody hogs the microphone... you take your turn and pass it on.
Bloggers ask questions, interviewees answer them. We're there to get the candidates' voices on record, not our own.
Every word gets posted.
I'm not much of a believer in the mystical powers of the blogosphere, especially in elections. I don't think we're about to replace the MSM (though lord knows somebody needs to replace Channel 19) and I don't think politicians really need to court us, fear us, or imitate us -- not yet, anyway. (Of course, this may just be because I'm familiar with my own hit count.)
But I do think Meet The Bloggers is proving to be a good and useful contribution to the civic process in this community. I hear the same thing from a lot of people around Cleveland who aren't blogging cultists.
Whatever you think about his personal writing, Tim Russo has worked hard to make MTB as good and useful as it is. He's been an essential organizer and a good, substantive interviewer. And he's helped get more than a dozen other bloggers with varied perspectives into the room -- most of whom would have been there on Saturday to ask questions about real issues that Sherrod Brown wants to talk about.
So I think Sherrod's decision was a mistake. Not a terrible political misstep or a moral failure, just a mistake. I believe what Phil de Vellis says about his reason -- being too indignant with Tim to sit down in the same room -- and I don't question its legitimacy from Sherrod's point of view, but it's still a mistaken response.
Sherrod, there was a baby in that bathwater. You should have looked harder before you threw it out.
1.09.2006
LABOR PAINS AHEAD
When we last encountered Peter Kirsanow, the Benesch Friedlander partner and U. S. Civil Rights Commissioner was leading the petition drive to reduce Cleveland City Council ward representation by two-thirds.
Now he's a member of the National Labor Relations Board.
Kirsanow, a senior specialist in labor law for a firm that advertises its skills in maintaining "union free workplaces", was named by the Bush Administration last Wednesday as a "recess appointment" to the body that's supposed to enforce workers' right to join unions and bargain collectively. This means he gets to occupy a seat and vote on Board decisions without confirmation by the Senate for at least the next year.
Hypothetically Speaking has a great rundown of the history and issues raised by Kirsanow's appointment.
The PD relegated the story to a squib in yesterday's "Inside Politics" column. But Alison Grant covered Kirsanow's nomination at some length several weeks ago.
When we last encountered Peter Kirsanow, the Benesch Friedlander partner and U. S. Civil Rights Commissioner was leading the petition drive to reduce Cleveland City Council ward representation by two-thirds.
Now he's a member of the National Labor Relations Board.
Kirsanow, a senior specialist in labor law for a firm that advertises its skills in maintaining "union free workplaces", was named by the Bush Administration last Wednesday as a "recess appointment" to the body that's supposed to enforce workers' right to join unions and bargain collectively. This means he gets to occupy a seat and vote on Board decisions without confirmation by the Senate for at least the next year.
Hypothetically Speaking has a great rundown of the history and issues raised by Kirsanow's appointment.
The PD relegated the story to a squib in yesterday's "Inside Politics" column. But Alison Grant covered Kirsanow's nomination at some length several weeks ago.
1.08.2006
THE AMAZING INVISIBLE OWNER
Why do you suppose the Plain Dealer, in all its coverage of the West Virginia mine tragedy this week, has never once printed the words "Wilbur Ross"?
Ross, as you must know if you read about the Sago mine disaster elsewhere, is the billionaire board chairman of the International Coal Group, which runs the Sago operation through a recently acquired subsidiary, ICG Anker. He's also the guy who created the International Steel Group to rescue the bankrupt LTV Steel operations four years ago, then sold it to Mittal Steel last year.
(In the case of ISG, Ross partnered enthusiastically with the United Steelworkers. But in his more recent move into coal, buying out the bankrupt Horizon Natural Resources in 2004, Ross insisted on voiding United Mineworkers contracts as a condition of the deal; see stories here and here.)
Ross and ICG have been a prominent part of the Sago story (see here, here, and here for example) and Ross has been a public voice for ICG several times since the story broke. He was grilled by Brian Ross on ABC's Primetime Live Thursday evening, and his hands-on knowledge of safety issues at Sago was the subject of a Thursday story in the New York Post.
Yet if you only read the Plain Dealer, you wouldn't have one clue that Ross is part of the Sago mine story.
Given Ross' prominence in Cleveland economic news for the past five years, this is a gaping hole in the PD's coverage. What's going on?
Why do you suppose the Plain Dealer, in all its coverage of the West Virginia mine tragedy this week, has never once printed the words "Wilbur Ross"?
Ross, as you must know if you read about the Sago mine disaster elsewhere, is the billionaire board chairman of the International Coal Group, which runs the Sago operation through a recently acquired subsidiary, ICG Anker. He's also the guy who created the International Steel Group to rescue the bankrupt LTV Steel operations four years ago, then sold it to Mittal Steel last year.
(In the case of ISG, Ross partnered enthusiastically with the United Steelworkers. But in his more recent move into coal, buying out the bankrupt Horizon Natural Resources in 2004, Ross insisted on voiding United Mineworkers contracts as a condition of the deal; see stories here and here.)
Ross and ICG have been a prominent part of the Sago story (see here, here, and here for example) and Ross has been a public voice for ICG several times since the story broke. He was grilled by Brian Ross on ABC's Primetime Live Thursday evening, and his hands-on knowledge of safety issues at Sago was the subject of a Thursday story in the New York Post.
Yet if you only read the Plain Dealer, you wouldn't have one clue that Ross is part of the Sago mine story.
Given Ross' prominence in Cleveland economic news for the past five years, this is a gaping hole in the PD's coverage. What's going on?
1.07.2006
BILL PEIRCE MEETS THE BLOGGERS: I'm sorry to say I missed this one (prior obligation), but George, Tim, Jill, Gloria and Jeff were there yesterday to interview the Libertarian Party candidate for governor.
Here's the audio. I'm listening to the first section now, in which Gloria and George start out quizzing him on utility and telecom issues.
Here's the audio. I'm listening to the first section now, in which Gloria and George start out quizzing him on utility and telecom issues.
1.04.2006
JENNIFER BRUNNER MEETS THE BLOGGERS
The only (so far) Democratic candidate for Secretary of State met the bloggers this morning. George, Tim, Jim, Steve, Gloria, Roger, Jill and I asked the questions.
Brunner, who worked for SOS Sherrod Brown in the 80s, and then practiced election law before becoming a Common Pleas judge (she resigned to run for SOS), is a sharp lady, and this is one of the better MTB sessions.
It's not posted yet, and I don't think anybody live-blogged, but keep an eye out here for the audio and check out Roger's early comments.
UPDATE: Jill at Writes Like She Talks liked Brunner so much she's now applying a "Brunner threshold" to other candidates.
UPDATE: Brunner audio is now posted here.
The only (so far) Democratic candidate for Secretary of State met the bloggers this morning. George, Tim, Jim, Steve, Gloria, Roger, Jill and I asked the questions.
Brunner, who worked for SOS Sherrod Brown in the 80s, and then practiced election law before becoming a Common Pleas judge (she resigned to run for SOS), is a sharp lady, and this is one of the better MTB sessions.
It's not posted yet, and I don't think anybody live-blogged, but keep an eye out here for the audio and check out Roger's early comments.
UPDATE: Jill at Writes Like She Talks liked Brunner so much she's now applying a "Brunner threshold" to other candidates.
UPDATE: Brunner audio is now posted here.
1.03.2006
GLENVILLE BEATS NOTRE DAME
Huge congratulations to the Glenville Tarblooders for their Fiesta Bowl victory yesterday. Though I'm sure some folks in the neighborhood could have lived without this from the PD's Bill Livingston:
Huge congratulations to the Glenville Tarblooders for their Fiesta Bowl victory yesterday. Though I'm sure some folks in the neighborhood could have lived without this from the PD's Bill Livingston:
...Glenville, a Cleveland neighborhood known more for what it lacks than what it has.But since we've brought up the subject of "lacks", maybe some excited OSU alums -- or ABC Sports, or ESPN, or Tostitos, or somebody else who took home big bucks from yesterday's "amateur" athletic event -- could consider re-investing a few of those bucks in a textbook fund, so Glenville athletes and their classmates can have books to take home and study.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)