Nick Brisini has written the poem Appalachian Fire. Below is a video of him doing another poetry reading. Discarded snuff cans, empty beer bottles line back roads to a cold hell below. In the mines of Appalachia men and women worked and some died. Others spent their final days gasping for breath. Then the mines […]

Nick Brisini has written a review of the book Working Class Radicals: The Socialist Party in West Virginia, 1889-1920 by Frederick Barley. The capitalist brainwashing of works over time to convince us that socialism has no place in “our” country. It is, they proclaim, Un-American as if capitalism was synonymous with America. Reading Working Class […]

On day 2 of the 49th Appalachian Studies Association Conference at Marshall University I took video of 2 individual sessions. There were many that day. The first session I filmed is on Race and Health in the Appalachians. The second session I filmed is on emergency response to climate change disasters such as Hurricane Helene. […]

Exhibitors After viewing the Mine Wars Museum in Matewan, WV, Larry Blalock and I went to the 49th Appalachian Studies Association Conference at Marshall University in Huntington, WV. We were tabling for our site and took videos summarizing day 1 of the Appalachian Studies Conference. The above video summarizes the exhibitors at the conference. It […]

On the way to the Appalachian Studies Association conference, Larry Blalock and I took a side trip to the West Virginia Mine Wars Museum in Matewan, WV. They allowed us to take video of their display in the Museum which can be seen above. Striking minors endured violence by the mining companies for their efforts […]

This post discusses the Cambria County Commissioners 287g agreement with the bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement or ICE and the upcoming Appalachian Studies Association Conference in Huntington, West Virginia. Cambria County and ICE Last Thursday I went to the Cambria County Commissioners meeting. A group of local activists came to speak out against the […]

As a followup to my last post on legal deserts in Pennsylvania, I also filmed the above workshop on fascism and anti fascism in Appalachia. I filmed it at the 48th annual Appalachian Studies Association conference at Tennessee Tech University in Cookeville, TN. It was convened by Amelia Kirby, of the Foundation for Appalachian Kentucky. […]

Each year the Northern Appalachian Folk Festival is celebrated in Indiana, PA. Musicians, vendors and local activists were present. The video below is from the event. The first 8 minutes were livestreamed with my GoPro. I’m still getting the hang of it. First, I met activists from Friends of Yellow Creek State Park in the […]

One of the best panel discussions I heard at the Appalachian Studies Association Conference was on “Cooperatives and Sustainable Development in Appalachia.” Convened by Shaunna Scott of the University of Kentucky. It is seen in the video above. It included J. Todd Nesbitt of Lock Haven University, Hannah Scott of the CFAES Center for Cooperatives […]

Yesterday I gave a new media presentation at the 46th ASA Conference. The video of the presentation is above. A video that shown in the presentation is below. I am unable to embed the slides used in the presentation but you can view them here. Rural areas in the U.S. are at risk of becoming […]