Friday, February 11, 2011

Coal foes start sit-in at Ky. governor's office

UPDATE, Feb. 13: A reporter and photographer from the Kentucky Kernel, the student newspaper at the University of Kentucky, are inside with the protesters and filing updates.

Opponents of surface mining in Appalachia are staging a sit-in at the office of Kentucky Gov. Steve Beshear, saying they will not leave his office and are willing to be arrested. They have been furnishing a live videostream here. (Video by Chad Berry, director, Loyal Jones Appalachian Center, Berea College)

Beshear met with the group, and as he tried to adjourn the meeting, he was told that the discussion had not been satisfactory, that the group was not ready to leave and would engage in an act of peaceful, civil disobedience. "I'm prepared to stay as long as the Lord spares me," author Wendell Berry told a reporter. For a report from coal critic Jeff Biggers on the Huffington Post, click here.

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