"1913 Massacre" - Woody Guthrie

 

Take a trip with me in 1913,
To Calumet, Michigan, in the copper country.
I will take you to a place called Italian Hall,
Where the miners are having their big Christmas ball.

I will take you in a door and up a high stairs,
Singing and dancing is heard everywhere,
I will let you shake hands with the people you see,
And watch the kids dance around the big Christmas tree.

You ask about work and you ask about pay,
They'll tell you they make less than a dollar a day,
Working the copper claims, risking their lives,
So it's fun to spend Christmas with children and wives.

There's talking and laughing and songs in the air,
And the spirit of Christmas is there everywhere,
Before you know it you're friends with us all,
And you're dancing around and around in the hall.

Well a little girl sits down by the Christmas tree lights,
To play the piano so you gotta keep quiet,
To hear all this fun you would not realize,
That the copper boss' thug men are milling outside.

The copper boss' thugs stuck their heads in the door,
One of them yelled and he screamed, "there's a fire, "
A lady she hollered, "there's no such a thing.
Keep on with your party, there's no such thing."

A few people rushed and it was only a few,
"It's just the thugs and the scabs fooling you, "
A man grabbed his daughter and carried her down,
But the thugs held the door and he could not get out.

And then others followed, a hundred or more,
But most everybody remained on the floor,
The gun thugs they laughed at their murderous joke,
While the children were smothered on the stairs by the door.

Such a terrible sight I never did see,
We carried our children back up to their tree,
The scabs outside still laughed at their spree,
And the children that died there were seventy-three.

The piano played a slow funeral tune,
And the town was lit up by a cold Christmas moon,
The parents they cried and the miners they moaned,
"See what your greed for money has done."

Huguette Clark - Peace at Last

Huguette Clark, the copper heiress who became the center of a media frenzy, and who's estate came under state investigation last year, has died. I was going to take the day off from posting, though I do have something about the Battle of Malta, which took place 500 years ago this week. It was a pivotal battle, one which has had repercussions that last to this very day. But I'll get to that tomorrow.

I became aware of Ms. Clark, who has not been photographed for the last 70 years, like everyone else, when she became the object of a media investigation into her whereabouts. There was also some question as to whether she was really alive at all, and allegations that her death had been covered up for the benefit of her accountant's and attorney's. I couldn't keep my eyes off of the story. It had that Howard Hughes aura about it.

Here was a young woman, born into financial wealth and luxury on the scale of today's biggest media stars, who simply disappeared. Known to be extremely shy, she avoided the media, and a social life, for the sake of that privacy. She actually died under a phony name, in a room that didn't officially exist. What drove her to such an extreme way of living; pardon me, what made her choose to not live at all?

Her last days were reportedly marked by failed eyesight, poor hearing, and at times a disinterest in eating. She was 104- and would've been 105 on June 9th. I don't feel sorry for her, but I do for that little girl in the photo, who would never go on to live the dreams that you can see in her young eyes...

See also;

http://getlitsf.blogspot.com/

"33 Men" by Jonathan Franklin

On the morning of August 5th, 2010 thirty three men went to work in the San Jose Copper Mine in Copiapo, Chile. It was to be a 12 hour shift, an ordinary day in the mine, working one day on and one day off. Within a few hours that day would be extended for 69 days after the mine collapsed, trapping the entire workforce of 33 miners, who became known the world over as "Los 33", almost 2,000 feet below the surface, with much doubt about how they would be, or if they could be, rescued.

For the first seventeen days the world waited with bated breath for any signs of life beyond the massive 700,000 ton boulder which had sealed off the shaft to the mine. Experts from all over the world converged on the town of Copiapo, thrusting it into the world's spotlight for the first time.

If you think you got the whole story of this event watching the news, you're wrong. Some of the infighting between the trapped miners and the rescuers on the surface was never revealed at the time. The lead pyschiatrist, Dr. Iturra, attempted to exert so much control over the men, going so far as to read the letters going back and forth between the miners and their families, and even censoring them, that at one point the men went on a hunger strike!

Physicians from NASA, as well as the U.S. Navy, were brought in to deal with the prolonged period of isolation which the miners were enduring. No one knows as much about isolation, and what it does to groups of people, as do these two groups. NASA sends people into earth orbit for months at a time, while the Navy does the same thing beneath the sea in submarines. Their expertise was invaluable in dealing with the mental health of the trapped miners.

At times engaging, and even humorous, you will be amazed at what went on down below the surface, as well as the wrangling for control that was taking place on the surface.

Three palns were put into effect, using machines form all over the world to drill several rescue shafts. It became like a race to see whether Plan A, Plan B or Plan C, (these were the actual names of the operations) would reach the men first. The setbacks will have you just as concerned here in the book as they did when they occurred.

The daily rituals that the miners had in place to keep sane are of great interest, as is the methods they were forced to improvise in storing bodily wastes. The book leaves no subject unexplored.

Of comic relief is the story of "Barrios", the miner whose wife and girlfriend came to blows while keeping "vigil" at the rescue scene. At one point "Barrios" is thinking about staying in the mine...

Police sent down cameras and instructions for the men to film certain portions of the mine for use in the eventual investigation, and prosecution, of the mine owners. The mine had been a hazard for many years, with numerous violations.

A quick read, and surely not the last book which will be written on this subject, the author does a credible job of taking the reader behind the headlines, to where the real story takes place.