Reply #11: I know it first had as well TN....

[tlcandie]

From a former husband whose family gave many lives to the coal mines. It isn't a pretty picture. It's even uglier when you look at how the mining companies and such are making off like pirates while the workers die w/o health insurance, adequate health facilities, adequate living wages and more!

Most who work in the mines or live near them have not educated themselves to where they understand what is happening to them or what is being done to them and just accept it as part of their lot in life.

You can't even go barefoot in a house near the train tracks in the branches without them becoming black as coal soot in seconds. When I got out of the shower I immediately put my shoes on!

I would like to see some of us who have been fortunate in the US live in their conditions for one year.

EDIT: I grew up as an only child in a middle class family. When I went there and stayed at a home in one of the branches in eastern Kentucky and saw first hand how people lived I was shocked and my heart cried out with outrage for people who lived without windows, doors, running water and more.

To top it off, Kerry is following through with what * already implemented. THAT bothers me.