Missing Mountains: We went to the mountaintop but it wasn't thereForeword by Silas House
Afterword by Wendell Berry
edited by Kristin Johannsen, Bobbie Ann Mason, and Mary Ann Taylor-Hall
last friday nights several of us went to witness the launch of this book at Joseph-Beth booksellers. Here is a selection from Mr Berry's afterword:
Eastern Kentucky, in its natural endowments of timber and minerals, is the wealthiest region of our state, and it has now experienced more than a century of intense corporate 'free enterprise,' with the result that it is more impoverished and has suffered more ecological damage than any other region. The worst inflicter of poverty and ecological damage has been the coal industry, which has taken from the region a wealth probably incalculable, and has imposed the highest and most burdening 'costs of production' upon the land and the people. Many of these costs are, in the nature of things, not repayable. Some were paid by people now dead and beyond the reach of compensation. Some are scars on the land that will not be healed in any length of time imaginable by humans.more about the book here. Please buy a copy. All the proceeds go to Kentuckians for the Commonwealth.
2 comments:
Greetings from a lurker on your blog. I have enjoyed reading of your attempts to live in this world as Christ would want and applaud your efforts to do so. I am posting this because I too was at Jo-Beth Friday evening. Having been instilled with a love of and respect for the land by my grandparents, it saddened me to see what is happening to the land in eastern Kentucky. While I understand the need for coal, this does not appear to be an acceptable way of getting it (in my opinion). When I got home Friday evening, I pulled up Google maps (maps.google.com), went to Hazard, Ky. on the map, and clicked on the satellite images of the area. If one zooms in/out to where the scale is 10 mi (lower left corner of the map), one can see the bare spots on the map amongst the green around Hazard and Hindman and over east of Prestonsburg, Ky. among other areas. While the details are not as clear as they are in other areas of the country, one can still zoom in on these spots (I am sure not all are strip mines) and see where the trees and mountain have been stripped away. One day I may get to go to these places and see first hand what those authors saw. But for now, Google can provide us with an idea of what is happening in these areas. Blessings to you all.
thanks for your encouragement, kurt. and thanks for the tip about google maps...a great resource to allow people to see what is happening just a little way east of here.
peace to you.
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