[ohioWfan]

Does anyone know what the “Appalachian infant” thing is all about? Very strange, I thought.....

[Mo1]

Does anyone know what the “Appalachian infant” thing is all about? Very strange, I thought.....

Almost the whole speech I didn't get and went waaaaaaaaaaaaay over my head

[Space Wrangler]

Obviously a swipe at Appalachian mining, because, you know, infants are routinely killed in their cribs by boulders rolling over their houses that were in turn dislodged by mining companies. Republican mining companies, of course.

[bpjam]

When you mine for coal in West Virginia (where she is most likely referring to), you can destabilize the ground and cause settling of the soil which can be a hazzard to buildings. Not exactly on the same level a threat as, say, global warming. Or killer asteroids. Or Duke Lacrosse players. Or Karl Rove (insert scary music here....).

But you are completely right to thing this is very strange. This woman is obviously a committed leftist and decided to hijack this ceremony to air her grievances about all kinds of crap nobody at VT has any input, control or ability to remedy.

[aculeus]

Does anyone know what the “Appalachian infant” thing is all about? Very strange, I thought.....

There was such a death in VA a few years ago. A strip mining operation loosened a boulder which rolled downhill, hit a house and killed a baby.

Someone else may have answered but I don't have time to read the thread.

[kalee]

destabilization of the land by strip mining

Giovanni is a nut.

[word_warrior_bob]

Does anyone know what the “Appalachian infant” thing is all about? Very strange, I thought.....

__

She needed to include white people, so the hick Appalachian infant is killed by a boulder rolling over thier shack, think Cletus from the Simpsons.

[Hugh Moran II]

ohioWfan asked:

"Does anyone know what the 'Appalachian infant' thing is all about? Very strange, I thought...."

bpjam replied:

"When you mine for coal in West Virginia (where she is most likely referring to), you can destabilize the ground and cause settling of the soil which can be a hazard to buildings. ...."

But . . . the January 6, 2005 issue of the Washington Post indicates that it wasn't in West Virginia that the half-ton boulder "...hurled like a cannonball into Dennis and Cindy Davidson's house, right through the wall of the bedroom and onto the bed where 3-year-old Jeremy was sleeping. ...and continued its path, crashing through a closet before finally stopping at the foot of 8-year-old Zachary's bed. Zachary would be fine. Jeremy was crushed to death."

That didn't happen in the State of West Virginia; and it didn't happen because the ground was destabilized by coal mining. It happened in southwestern, Virginia, where "A bulldozer operator widening a road at a strip mining operation atop Black Mountain unknowingly dislodged the half-ton boulder that August [2004] night."

See Anger at Senseless Death: Boy Killed by Flyrock; Va. Residents Cite Flawed Regs at the following URL:

http://www.ohvec.org/newsletters/woc_2005_02/article_215.html

----------------

Also: As a West (by God!) Virginia "hick" (?) whose own property was destroyed by irresponsible coal mining practices, I lose all sense of humour when a valid question receives an obnoxious reply such as the following (by word_warrior bob):

"She needed to include white people, so the hick Appalachian infant is killed by a boulder rolling over their shack, think Cletus from the Simpsons."

word_warrior bob's attitude tells me more about him (and what he "needed"!) than it does about Giovanni and/or her Thug Life-inspired rah-rah sis-boom-bah cheerleading style at a convocation for dead students and faculty members!