Anthracite America has fueled the Industrial Revolution and the rise of the United Mine Workers Union and powered WWII's energy needs, not to mention its deadly epidemic of Black Lung Disease. This week when local coal mining county leaders debated conversion to cleaner, cheaper gas for heating and cooking the specter of the coal miner rose.
Ghosts from generations of coal miners, still covered in soot and coughing their lungs up, have been seen all over Schuylkill Coal County. One fantasma testified at the County hearings chanting King Hamlet's ghostly invocation: "Remember Me!" Many local traditionalists argued for Black Lung disease as the only respectable way for our future generations to hack themselves to death.
Coal mining billionaires were rather neutral in their testimony, Muney Bagsgalore V told the County hearing officers:" I don't really care how the poor die. Black Lung Disease or the Gas Pipe...let them get AIDS for all our filthy rich family cares!"
