Ed Wiley Talks with Amy Goodman

The popular independent media program, Democracy Now!, featured an interview with West Virginian and long time activist, Ed Wiley today. Good news for the movement and lets hope some more hands are moved to support.

You can watch, listen or download the program here.

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Rethinking Mapmaking in Rock Creek, WV

One collective member has added a post about our research trip to her personal blog.

We're starting to switch gears: after several weeks of accumulating details and images and impressions into our notebooks and heads, we are feeling the urgency of putting pen to paper. How can we magically rearrange all this information into a poster that will convey both the enormous complexity of coal mining as experienced on the ground in Appalachia, and its place in larger systems of capital, industry and the global ecosystem? Among other sources, we are looking to the work of alternative cartographers and will soon be meeting with the Counter Cartographies Collective at University of North Carolina. They are contributors to an inspiring book: An Atlas of Radical Cartography.

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So what have we been up to?

From our Hive in Downeast Maine we first travelled to the Appalachian Studies Association (ASA) Conference in Huntington, WV. A powerful starting point and an influential pool of research and dialogue about Mountain Top Removal Coal Mining and the organizations and groups already engaged with the issues. We will surely be returning to the conference next year to share our gathered experiences from cross-pollination in the region.

From Huntington we have since travelled to:

• Appalachia, VA where we stayed and worked with folks from Mountain Justice Summer and the Office of the Southern Appalachian Mountain Stewards.

• Knoxville, TN where we worked with United Mountain Defense and spoke with staff at the Knoxville Environmental Field Office, the Office of Surface Mining and the National Parks Conservation Association.

• In Jellico, TN we spent time with the Clearfork Community Institute and local community members to listen and learn about their stories, struggles and inspiring methods of resistance

• In Harlan County, KY we stayed at the Pine Mountain Settlement School and spent time in Whitesburg with Appalshop and members from Kentuckians for the Commonwealth. We also spent a few days at the local Community College speaking with Professors and students.

• We are now in Rock Creek, WV working with members of Coal River Mountain Watch and learning a whole ton more than we could ever have anticipated.

The evening has come upon us, and we Bees slow down in the cooler temperatures of Night.

More to come in the weeks ahead.

In solidarity - the bees.

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Hello to all and Greetings from Rock Creek, West Virginia!

We Bees have been up to our wings in research and cross-pollination efforts this spring as we prepare for our upcoming campaign about Coal in Appalachia . We have neglected to sustain any sort of greater correspondence with the larger interweb community, but there is no time for apologies, as there is much to discuss and so little time to do it in!

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