On the morning of December 17 it was snowing to beat the band in many areas outlying Charleston. In some places roads were icy, and travel was hazardous. Regardless, stalwarts from the citizenry were present in attendance (Ken Ward said twenty-five, but I think I counted more than thirty) to give the people of West Virginia and their descendants one of the nicest Christmas gifts they could. Citizens with no ax to grind, with no promise of rewards either for now, the future or the Hereafter turned out in still another sacrificial moment to save West Virginia’s mountains for now and for posterity. For the citizens of West Virginia. For the citizens of the Earth Mother. For the creatures ranging from those threatened with extinction and those who are still common. For the ecosystems of which we along with our fellow creatures and other living things are a part of the Whole of Nature.

The occasion was to protest bureaucratic indifference and/or complacency and/or the corrupting influence of politics and Big Coal. The Bureau of Indifference, or Complacency, or Corruption was the Federal Office of Surface Mining in Charleston. The West Virginia top cheese for this office, Roger Calhoun, was said to have been in Pittsburgh that chilly day. It’s a shame, Roger, that you missed out on the festivities! In spite of nipped toes and cold air creeping under jackets, a good time was had by all in fellowship with aware and caring citizens everywhere.

Carol Jackson had not only braved the elements coming in all the way from Summers County, but she also had made – get this – well over 100 "tombstones," each one representing a stream, these stream with names that had been assigned them like people get names assigned, from wild and wonderful West Virginia, streams that had been annihilated by all-powerful Big Coal. Roger, in case your office workers or someone else haven’t told you, the beef was in that watered down, castrated report that emerged from your office – quite a different one than that which had appeared in August as a draft. I guess, they got to you – either from Bruce or Kathy’s office or Arch Coal’s office (or Underwood’s office if he has enough weight to matter). The people are sick of all this that has been going on for much too long – the domination of West Virginia by the Coal interests with the almost full complicity of state government. Whether it be Democrat or Republican, no appreciable difference.

Concerning the report, Nick Rahall says, "It pains me to say this, but once again OSM has shown that it has no backbone to aggressively fulfill its statutory mandate to coal field citizens.

Laura Forman, protest organizer from OVEC, made it more personal, Roger. She said over a hand-held amplifier for all to hear, "He has shown no backbone on mountain top removal." She continued, "We can’t trust regulators to do their job." It is being between a rock and a hard place, Roger, with the likes of Kathy Karpan and Bruce Babbitt, these two apologizers for greed breathing down your neck, and we hell raisin’ citizens wanting what the law says we should get. Even bureaucrats need jobs – we sympathize with your plight.

Even Santa showed up to dispense gifts of coal to you, Roger. I’ll bet there are times you wished you had never seen a piece of coal.

Anyway, I hope the new agreements worked out with the various bureaucracies will be fruitful, but we need to be ever vigilant because the Coal companies (and the bureaucrats, too, I’m afraid) can be very tricky!