Fifteen Years Ago

Fifteen years ago, a life-and-death drama was playing out in the Southwestern Pennsylvania coal fields. On Wednesday, July 24, 2002, nine coal miners were trapped in the Quecreek Mine when they broke through a wall that allowed massive amounts of water to flood the mine, barring their escape. Rescue efforts were begun immediately, although it could not be known whether the miners were alive or dead.

News of the accident and  attempted rescue was broadcast worldwide. Nowhere was the coverage more extensive than in Pittsburgh, the major market closest to the flooded mine. I spent several tense days checking often on the progress of the effort to reached the trapped miners. I went to bed hopeful on Saturday night and woke up Sunday morning to the news that all nine miners had been rescued and were, as they say, in good shape for the shape they were in. What could have been a tragic accident had a very happy ending.

The Quecreek Mine Rescue Foundation will be celebrating the fifteenth anniversary of the events in Somerset County over the next few days.

The anniversary also seems to be a good time to call attention to my poem about the accident and rescue, “The Quecreek Mine Disaster.” I was very moved by what happened fifteen years ago and sought to tell the story in verse. Here is a sample verse:

On Thursday afternoon, the big rig came
To drill a shaft a rescue cage could thread;
That job would take a half a day or more
To reach the barely living or the dead.

Rereading the poem, I think I did a fair job of conveying the anxiety and anticipation of those three days in 2002. See if you don’t agree.

A New Anti-Trump Button

Like so many peopele—a majority of voters, no doubt—I was distressed by Donald Trump’s winning the presidential election. I anticipated that his presidency would be a disaster for the country. Alas, I was mistaken. It promises to be an utter catastrophe.

Almost immediately, I thought of creating buttons with the slogan “Don’t blame me. I voted for her!” I waited several months to order buttons, however, and finally did so when I could stand our man-child president no longer.

I have decided to wear one of my buttons every day Trump is in office. I’ve received many comments on my button. No one has asked me for one, however, or tried to argue with the sentiment expressed thereon. Nevertheless, I persist.

The buttons shown in the photograph below are 2¼" in diameter. It isn’t clear whether I should have more made, but if you would like to purchase one or more, please send me e-mail from here. I am not seeking to make a profit, but I would like to cover as much of my cost as possible. If I lose money on this project, I will consider that it was done for a good cause.

Trump on Trade

I am not in the habit of reacting to every asinine tweet made by our dumb-ass president, but I feel compelled to do so now. As President Trump left on Air Force One yesterday to meet with foreign leaders and confirm their worst fears about his ignorance and stupidity,  our Tweeter-in-Chief wrote the following:

Once again, Trump demonstrates that he knows nothing of trade, politics, or economics. Why should we expect our trading partners to “help” us, the most powerful and richest country on earth? It is not their job—and perhaps, not even in their interest—“to make America great.”

Trump has a naïve mercantilist view of trade—he likely doesn’t even know the word “mercantilism,” of course—and appears to believe that trade between nations is a zero-sum game. The U.S. can “win” only by making our trading partners lose. He wants a favorable balance of trade with every nation on earth. The president simply does not understand that trade can benefit everyone. This is fortuitous because our trading partners want to benefit their own countries as much as we do ours.

The world has changed. Instant communications, computers, automation, and ubiquitous international supply chains have created the world in which we live today. Those changes have also created new problems, complex problems that challenge a President of the United States. Unfortunately, the present office holder is a person of limited imagination. He cannot see new solutions to new problems; he can only imagine a “better” world as the world used to be. Moreover, just as he is a narcissist on a personal level—he seems genuinely to care only about himself—he is a kind of nationalist narcissist. Trump cares, at some level, about the U.S., but really has no empathy for the rest of the world unless it enhances his commercial empire’s bottom line.

Trade agreements are necessarily less than perfect, as interests other than purely economic ones invariably have to be taken into account. But free trade—or something very much like it—have made the world richer. Let us hope that Donald Trump doesn’t screw that up.

Independence Day Fashion

For many years, I have purchased a patriotic T-shirt to wear on the 4th of July. Many stores stock such shirts at very low prices as the 4th approaches. Often, the year appears on the shirts.

I went shopping today for a 2017 shirt. My job was harder than usual. Given the present political climate, I was unwilling to wear a shirt that touted freedom or liberty. Wearing such a shirt wouldn’t seem sincere, given that we are led by an autocrat who is interested only in freedom from taxes for the rich and the liberty to die or go bankrupt for lack of medical care for everyone else.

The shirt I finally bought is shown below. The flag is a bit flashy for my taste, but the legend “MADE IN AMERICA 2017” is relatively innocuous. And the shirt is, in fact, made in America.