Climbing out of the dark hole

I don't know what to make of the West Virginia coal mining disaster.

You could go after Wilbur Ross, the billionnaire who recently bought the Sago mine that has been described as the most dangerous in America--with ABC News citing 16 major safety violations, a dozen orders of partial shutdowns from the government, 20 roof collapses...

You could blame the Bush administration, whose cozy relationship with mine owners allows all involved to wink at safety violations; in the words of the man who until recently was responsible for training mine inspectors: "The inspectors have been forbidden from being as aggressive as they need to be.... They can't go ahead and close the mine and use the authority that they have to do the job that they've been charged to do."

You could blast Ross's on-the-spot management team, for their role in the safety violations, for the slipshod way they allowed rumors of 12 miners being found alive to slip out to desperate family members, for the hours they waited before correcting the false jubilation.

You could slam the news media for playing its increasingly commonplace role of cheerleaders--for the way reporters exulted along with the family members when the claims of a miracle came in, instead of doing the hard job of asking pointed questions; for acting, to borrow Maureen Dowd's withering dressing-down of Judy Miller, as stenographers instead of journalists in passing on rumor and feel-good wish fulfillment without qualifiers, both on-the-air and in cold print.

You could take the chance to slap at the Christian right and its corrosive me-centered faith and resultant attaching the word 'miracle' to everything as an in-your-face assertion of their position as God's chosen people... for if it was a miracle when 12 were thought saved, what is it when 11 turn up dead--a punishment?

But you know, I think that ultimately, the families who lost their loved ones in this disaster have had enough thrown on them the last few days without having to also see their personal tragedy turned into talking points for everyone's favorite stalking horse. That is not to say let's just chalk this up as an act of nature and go on--it was a man-made tragedy, and lessons need to be drawn and people fired if not indicted.

But for now, what's foremost in my thoughts are the people in that part of West Virginia. The miners and their families seem like such decent, hard-working, salt-of-the-earth people--unassuming, almost preternaturally good and honest and emotionally vulnerable. Their anger at being 'lied to,' at whooping and hollering for hours when their men were dead, at celebrating in church when they should have been mourning, had the hard edge of a people jerked around once too much.

You forget that people like that not only exist, but may even be the majority in this great country--people who drive hours to go down into a dark, hellish hole for 15 hours a day to put food on the table for their families, people who at the end of the day reserve whatever time and energy they have with their kids and loved ones, people who aren't always trying to work every angle and claw and scratch their way to the top, people who aren't any good at spin and pinning the blame, people who suffer great pain and hurt and don't allow each other to give up, people who staring death in the face hold fast to their faith in God and write notes telling their family not to worry.

As far as I can tell, all the people of Sago mine want right now is their men back. Barring that, for the next few days I'm not sure there's anything the rest of us can say or do to offer them true comfort.

Expect say we're sorry, and we grieve with you.

Photo: Daniele Bennett becomes emotional while speaking to the media after learning her father was one of the coal miners that was killed in the Sago Mine in Tallmansville, West Virginia. Photo and caption by Getty Images/AFP/Mark Wilson.