Life in the Mine
Tags: Life in the Mine

The latest reality show will be called “Coal.” (See the film clip above.) 

Yes, joining fishermen (Deadliest Catch), Alaskan truck drivers (Ice Road Truckers) and loggers (Ax Men), West Virginia coal miners will be the next reality television stars. The first episode will appear March 30 on Spike TV.

• Republican Senators Mitch McConnell and Rand Paul of Kentucky, meanwhile, wrote Sunday that “an overreaching Environmental Protection Agency in Washington is blocking new jobs for Kentuckians by waging a war on coal.”

The senators believe the EPA is using its power to grant, deny or delay permits to restrict mining. McConnell and Paul had introduced federal legislation that would require the EPA to act on a permit request within 60 days of an application. 

• The National Pork Board has a new slogan: Pork Be Inspired. These are the same folks who came up with “Pork, the Other White Meat.” 

We read that “Pork Be Inspried goes beyond basic cooking education and health, promoting a deeper, more personal level of engagement with existing pork consumers.” It is aimed at those who are “passionate enough about (pork) that they’ll experiment with pork in the kitchen and tell others,” reports Brownfield

“Passion,” “deeper, more personal level of engagement” with pork? We like our country ham, but that’s as far as we’re willing to commit. 

• The new Republican member of Congress from South Dakota, Kristi Noem, didn’t get a seat on the Ag committee, the first time in some years the state doesn’t have a representative there.

Noem does say it will help rural America that she’s on the Education committee. “It’s important to have someone from a rural state talk about how education works in a state like ours, compared to California or Washington,” she said. 

• The National Center for Frontier Communities has moved to Silver City, New Mexico, where it has formed a partnership with Western New Mexico University. 

Creative Commons License

Republish our articles for free, online or in print, under a Creative Commons license.