Nick Brisini has written this piece on the great Cassandra coal strike in 1932. The battle for human rights in the Appalachian coal fields had a long history and, if studied, has a lot of lessons for workers today. One strike, barely known, was the great Cassandra coal strike of 1932. It was a yearlong […]

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 […]

Darcy Trunzo has written this piece on the 1889 flood legacy in Johnstown on her Substack. It is reprinted with permission. Though I was raised in Indiana County – I was born here. As was my mother. Her side of the family lived up the road a bit in another mining town called Portage and […]

Jackie Allison has submitted this article on how the Iran War and all wars are rackets. “War is a racket,” said Major General Smedley Darlington Butler USMC (1881-1940) in the book of the same name. Major General Butler received many outstanding medals and commendations during his years of military service including two Medals of Honor. The […]

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 […]

The whirlwind surrounding the death of conservative Charlie Kirk has made me think of historical parallels to this event. Jean Paul Marat was a firebrand journalist in the French Revolution. The martyrdom of Marat and Charlie Kirk have some eerie parallels, even though some might see them on opposite sides of the political fence. Marat […]

I recently attended 2 events locally and took some footage: Bardstock on August 23 and the Cambria Arts and Heritage Festival on September 13 and 14. Bardstock was a hastily organized literary festival by the group Poeming through the Dark, Flood City Fables, and Craftwork Studios. The video above is the footage I took at […]

Local writer Carl Schultz has written an article about the visit JFK made to Johnstown in 1960 through a child’s eyes. When I was a little kid, I once ran out into traffic in front of John F. Kennedy’s limousine. In October of 1960, Senator JFK made a campaign visit to Johnstown, Pennsylvania.  The junior […]

Last Monday I was interviewed by Kevin Farkas of Appalachian Beaver County. The interview was about storytelling with statistics. He is compiling an oral history of Beaver County. He saw my post on the poorest school districts in the Alleghenies and wanted some pointers. The video above shows the first half of the interview. The second […]