That guy up there is "Marcus B., lifeguard." His portrait is one of eight FACES of Coal "supporters" in the Astroturf campaign by Federation for American Coal, Energy and Security. Except that if you look at what the FACES group called the image when it posted it, he's "marcus_w."
You can tell a lot from the names people give photos when they post them online. When not generating anonymous fans out of iStock photos, FACES identifies most "supporters" with a first name and last initial, nothing more. And then there are the names of the pictures, which you're not necessarily supposed to see but totally can.
To see the filename of a picture, you can either right-click on the image and choose "Copy image location" or, my favorite, look under "VIew" for "Page Source." That's where you'll find the gears and gizmos that make the Web page go. In many cases, it's surprisingly easy to read.
For instance, the photo of Choskie H., teacher has a filename that includes "choskie_h." But consider the photo below. Its filename includes no proper name at all, just "farmerwithproduce." In the text FACES means for you to see, he becomes "Ronnie F., small business owner."
And "David. A, restaurant owner," lives behind the scenes as "wvguy:"
"Elissa M." is in fact called "elissa_m" behind the scenes, but she's got no occupation. Perhaps she's a professional supporter of coal, or an iStock model, or the Internet equivalent wallpaper:
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Boy, you know what else is really interesting? Arthur W., Farmer With Produce, WVGUY, and Elissa M. also all happen to have their photo tag history trace all the way back to its origination point. They all originated from...wait for it...drum roll please...TA DA-The American Petroleum Institute. Wow! Two big energy lobbying groups on the same photos tag history. Now, Rachel needs to find out who does their lobbying for them and she will have found the source of the pictures.
Of course, better faces of coal might be that woman clutching a picture of her son with tears running down her face and praying that he is going to come out of that Hell-hole alive.
Welcome to the true price of "cheap" coal. Coal isn't cheap, either in the lives it takes through mining accidents, the illnesses related to coal mining as well as the pollution and poison it produces. The people who labor in the mines get little compensation to the immediate risks of injury, and the long term health consequences of that labor. Then there's the mine owners themselves. Rachel pointed out on Monday's broadcast that the mine owners had been fined for all kinds of safety violations, including inadequate ventilation to prevent and accident just like this. Yet for over 500 violations, the fines were less than what the company (Massey) makes in a HOUR.
How do you get a company to spend money to comply with regulations? Easy, you jack up the fines to where it's cheaper to comply than it is to flaunt. As long as you allow human life to be so cheap to big corporations, they will treat it as such.
This isn't an anti big business or anti big energy stance. This is common sense. As corporations, they are going to do whatever they're allow to do in their best interest (at least in the short term). We need government to protect the less powerful (individuals) against the more powerful (corporations). It is supposed to represent we, the people. History is an endless replay loop of what happens when you allow any power to go unchecked, whether it's government, commerce, religion, or the angry mob.
Fines need to be scalable to the size of the corporation being fined. It's not anti-business to have regulation, it's not anti-business to give a fine that is substantial in relation to the size, income, or profit of a business. We have to have these things to prevent corporations from riding roughshod over people any more than they do now.
And I Wonder if the Educators at the University of Kentucky Have Anything to Say About This. Could you Imagine those Students who Live in the (Black Coal) Dorm? Very Un-Cool. I do Not think they will Have a Good , Proud Alumni Turn-Out One Day!
Interestingly, even a quick glance at the first two pictures leaves the impression of them being slightly "off," as if the human subjects were added in later.
Yes, they look "pasted in".
Rachel, I'm straying way off topic here, but I'm wondering if and when you're going to cover the topic of natural gas drilling; specifically, the deadly issues revolving around horizontal hydrofracturing (not vertical drilling, horizontal - important to note the difference because one of the gas industry's talking points is that hydrofracking has been around for decades, which is true, but horizontal drilling is an entirely new monster, altogether), and how Cheney's role in inking the Halliburton Loophole has been responsible for destroying countless households, state and federal forest lands, etc.
A friend close to the subject told me that MSNBC has been hit so heavily by Oil and Natural Gas industry ad dollars that the chances of the network touching the subject are ... well, it would be a cold day in Hades. I know ethics and integrity still exist in journalism (though it seems to be drying up fast), so I'm hoping this isn't the case with MSNBC.
A good go-to source would be a guy by the name of Josh Fox, who took it upon himself to investigate this technology. He uncovered so much that he made a documentary about it, which landed him an award at Sundance. You can check it out at gaslandthemovie dot com.
Natural gas drilling in the Marcellus Shale, particularly in NY State is a hot topic right now. It's dividing neighbors, politicians on the left and the right, and costing taxpayers billions of dollars.
Please, please look into this!
YES YES YES! Please Rachel cover this topic! The same folks who have brought us the debacle in the Gulf are wreaking havoc in PA (check out Dimmock PA) and are set to devastate half of NYS and down through WV.
There is a very funny website out there by a guy named Rob Cockerham that spots the same stock photography "girl" on a large variety of different product sites and weaves an entire narrative for her that tells the story of how she adopted all the different products she apparently "endorses." Wonder if the "faces of coal" folks have any similar stories.
But seriously, as a designer for a big corporation, I know there's a time to use stock art and a time to get real photos of folks who really work for you. These coal companies made the wrong decision.
I know this will not make some of you "progressives" happy, but you are not looking for answers which already exist. You see, the mines which seem to have the most problems (read: killing miners) are NON-Union mines. At a non-union mine, if there are unsafe practices, the workers must count on the benevolence of management to fix the issue. If the miners complain too much, they are fired. Clearly, the way some of these unscrupulous companies manage safety issues is to wait for a tragedy, pay a small fine, help with funeral costs, and keep going!
This is not a wage issue, as the difference between union and non-union workers pay is insignificant. The huge difference is the presence of a union led safety committee and grievance process which can call the poor operators on their unsafe practices, and they can contact an already too small government oversight group and force mine inspection AND compel corrective action. In a non-union mine this does not happen, company lawyers are always holding up sanctions in Court, and the workers are unable to stand up for the most basic of safety concerns out of fear for their jobs. At a union mine, workers can band together and STOP working if and when things get really bad!
So even if you are a union hater, and are one of the people who believe the unions and not poor management decisions have brought down American manufacturing, how about contacting your members of Congress and push for a MANDATORY worker led safety committee at every American coal mine? These committees should be made up of line workers and should be responsible to line workers and the mine regulators, and NOT the management.
Unlike coal companies, I am willing to pay a few extra cents on my power bill to pay for the lives of the amazing Americans who enter those mines every day to help keep America moving. I know I am not tough enough to do their jobs and am thankful that they are. They deserve respect, and their families deserve to know their hard working miners are safe when they go to work!
I'm astounded at the reaction congress has displayed concerning Toyota's issues with recalling their product(I've owned 6 perfectly performing corollas,one at 189k for miles)And yet they continue to just bury the miners and forget about them.Why in this day and age and with technology being what it is,are we allowing our fellow americans to die and suffer at the hand and profits of the coal mining industry?Is this the American dream that the Tea Party and their like wish to preserve?
That is a very good point.
As a former respiratory therapist I have seen the true faces of coal. They were usually lined and weathered, mounted atop wizened bodies that were thin and gaunt, and the faces were always somewhat cyanotic because of advanced interstitial lung disease from coal dust. Most folks walk around with an oxygen saturation of 94 to 96%; these guys walk around with saturations of 85% to 75% much of the time. I am reminded of the song Paradise made famous by John Denver... "Daddy won't you take me back to Mulenberg County, down by the Green River where Paradise lay; Well I'm sorry my son, but you're too late in asking, Mr. Peabody's coal train has hauled it away...."
Song was by John Prine not John Denver, but I get your point.
The coal industry has a culture of accepting that injury and death of their workers is a part of the cost of doing business. Until that changes, these sorts of entirely preventable accidents will continue to occur.
I work in the timber industry (you can flame me on that some other time), which also used to have a similar culture of accepting injury and accident. However, several companies have made safety their #1 priority and have seen injury (and death) rates drop dramatically.
To get this sort of change, it takes a change of culture right from the top of the company all the way down the hierarchy of the company, and it takes constant process improvement. It takes the recognition that accidents don't just happen, there is a cause of every accident, and it the cause can be prevented. I won't claim that this change was entirely out of the goodness of management's collective hearts. It turns out it is also more profitable to do business safely.
Ask me if I am surprised that the coal Industry would resort to this type of underhanded tactic... go ahead ask me LOL
Note that they measure safety in hours lost rather than in lost lives/limbs/medical costs/environmental costs. I am sure that the so called regulators have been through the revolving doors. We need a movement to create more awareness among avg ppl about the cost of using "cheap" fossil fuels
Does anyone recall the ad campaign for coal a few years ago that featured hot female models in low-cut denim, miner's helmets and "smudges" of coal dust on their perfect faces?
This campaign was brought to you by...wait for it...GENERAL ELECTRIC. I hate to say it, but Rachel's "bosses" are a huge part of the problem.
Well Madcow one thing is for sure, if you dummycrats have your way we won't mine coal, WV, Kentucky, and PA will be shut down. Electricity will triple, because the electric company is not going to pay for cap and trade; the costumers will. What good is an electric car if you can't afford electricity. I have a question, when are you going to quit saying that if someone doesn't agree with Obama that they are racist? Did you know that most tea party people are women? Just people who want to keep some of thier money, not send it to the government. Most people do not want the politicians to be the only people with money. As a matter of fact, all of this change has already cost me my job. It seems that the democrats want to kill all small businesses, because big businesses are the only ones who can afford to pay for all this "change".
Wow, which one of the oil/gas/petroleum "grassroots" organizations do you work for? You almost had me with the misspellings and down-home phrasing! If you were really one of the folks that lost their jobs, you wouldn't be using phrases like "cap and trade." Most of us look at that as environmental legislation, but you're well-trained to use the Republican talking points to create the impression that it's all about energy and folks losing their jobs.
Hey Rachel, if you ever find out that the Lifeguard is a real person, give him my email address, will you? I'm currently single. :)
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