Warning - this post is pure rant.

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Something that pisses me off, people against wind mills. I’m talking about ignorance of the highest caliber. Especially the Cape Cod area. I mean give me a break - those people are protesting windmills that will be located five miles out to sea. They would rather use coal from West Virginia.

Here is what it boils down to - the very people protesting the windmills are the self centered we are the only people in the universe crowd. They would rather (not) see mountains blowing up in some godforsaken hillbilly land, 26 hard miles south of nowhere, than a windmill in the ocean. Who cares about the people of Appalachia (hillbillies)?

Remember the movie “Wrong Turn” or “Deliverance” we don’t need those people, they scare me.

I’m going to say it here because nobody will say it anywhere else. If we weren’t hillbillies, mountain folk, the people of Appalachia - mountaintop removal would have been over before it started. For instance what if our mountains, along with the coal they contained, surrounded Boston instead of the southern Appalachia’s? Don’t get me wrong I think the current administration would get it one way or another but I guarantee it wouldn’t be by mountaintop removal coal mining.

I’m getting tired of being stereotyped by a public that gets it’s news from Jerry Springer. I’ve been from one side of this country to the other and no where have I ever encountered the generosity and kindness as I have of the people in the mountains. And to be stereotyped on such a huge issue as mountaintop removal coal mining that just drives me straight to the padded room. Tunnel vision, can’t see the forest for the trees, narrow minded type of people. People hear mountaintop removal in West Virginia and think inbred, ignorant, backwards. When they should be thinking headwaters, forests, human beings.

We are hillbillies and we have not yet starred in our last movie.

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Adding - I wanted to talk a little about this post and decided to do it right here. This follow-up is in response to numerous e-mails relating to this post.

The good thing about a blog - I have control of what goes into the editor when I write a post. If my rants offend some people then - frankly - that’s just to damn bad. Regardless whether my post was true or not it is a perception here in the mountains and garnered by a lot more than just me. The difference - I have the ability to voice my opinion on the matter. I don’t expect anybody to agree with everything I say or anything I say for that matter. If people agreed with everything I said, mountaintop removal wouldn’t be a controversy.

Being a resident of mountaintop removal it is extremely difficult to write on the subject objectively. I have to keep my anger in check with every word I write. Sometimes that gets too overwhelming and a rant post is produced. Now - do I think I can stop mountaintop removal? Hell no, I’m not that naive. But if I work hard enough and piss enough people off then it will contribute to the winds of change - which are blowing right now.

I received an e-mail where coal truck drivers (friends of coal) were harassing a reporter and Larry Gibson as they tried to make their way to Kayford Mountain just a day or so ago. Tempers are running high in the coalfields on both sides of the fence. My rants will reflect that and I would say that if some of the other people in rant mode right now could rant on a blog - my posts would look like something out of a Bugs Bunny cartoon.

So if I pissed you off today - I would apologize, but I’m just liable to do it again tomorrow.

Have A Great Day!

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Notice - Opinions expressed by me in my posts are my opinions and do not necessarily reflect opinions of the other authors to this blog.