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- Dear Editor
Monongalia County, c1965Unpublished Today I saw the Humphrey mine belching large quantities of foul colored smoke into the air. It appears from their activities that coal companies in this area own the streams and the air. They are intent on destroying both the air and water and endangering those of us who drink and bathe in their acid mine water and breathe their smoke-filled air.Perhaps the air was stolen at the same time they stole the once beautiful Monongahela and killed its fish and began to feed us the acid mine water. They even told us that we were lucky because the mine acid was killing the bacteria in the water. It was as if they dumped the acid into the river in a spasm of civic responsibility. The coal interests take our coal almost free of taxes. They pollute our air and streams and seduce our politicians. Coal barons don’t build anything more lasting and beautiful than a rusted out coal tipple or a mountain top stripped bare of its natural beauty. They ask us to consider them our number one asset. Cecil Rhodes and Economic Advancement in Rhodesia
The settlers worked so hard for their own economic advancement that by 1957 the average per capita annual income for a white person in Rhodesia was about $2,000 compared to $40 for the average African. And the whites, comprising 9% of the population, controlled 50% of the land (which happened to be the most fertile 50%) while the Africans, comprising 90% of the population, were confined to 22%. The whites were only cultivating 2.5% of the land they held—the rest was involved in land speculation by absentee landlords. Enough for the economic advancement of Rhodesia. As for social advancement, the Europeans had done such a good job by 1958 that of three million Africans in Southern Rhodesia only about 1,695 could vote. The European Rhodesians were receiving fifteen times as much per capita for education than were the Africans. Your editorial sounded as if you thought the Africans of Rhodesia ought to be more grateful for the way the white settlers have taken their land, exploited their labor at below subsistence wages, and robbed them of their dignity. The part of Rhodesia now called Zimbabwe has descended into a hell that the former White settlers might point to with an “I told you so.” Mugabe’s government has taken revenge on the White settlers. He has turned the place into a police state dealing harshly with any opposition. By 2008 starvation and cholera were added to woes of the people of Zimbabwe. Aesthetic Idiots The Daily Athenaeum, November 10, 1966 Dear Editor, With little doubt in mind I believe that we have a bunch of aesthetic idiots destroying what physical beauty this university has. I bit my tongue when the horribly ugly physical plant building was set up on the Evansdale Campus, and when the bare asphalt parking lot at the Medical Center Apartments was enlarged. But today comes the revolution. A giant ugly asphalt parking lot has been place on the field in front of the Medical Center totally ruining the aesthetic quality of that building. Parking lots can be built with proper landscaping that will be beautiful to look at, such as the original lot around the Medical Center. However the new one has no landscaping within the lot and don’t be surprised if there is none put around it. Almost everyone to whom I talk about the subject of campus beauty is disgusted with what is happening. Students are disgusted because there is no place for recreation. There is plenty of asphalt for parking lots but none for outdoor basketball and tennis courts. We have 900 students in the Twin Towers and not one recreational facility—but baby we’ve got parking lots all over hell out there. We need large playing fields, parks, benches, sidewalks—but all we get are ugly parking lots that are fast chewing up the landscape. Towns-people are disgusted with how the beauty of their town is being ruined and they are wondering what horrors the University has in mind for the Morgantown Golf and Country Club property. If the University can do no better than this it ought to get out while there is still some semblance of beauty in Evansdale. The Evansdale Campus had a chance of being beautiful when the Medical Center was built and then it was ruined with the totally graceless engineering building. Now we have the “tin can” there and asphalt strips everywhere—next we will probably let someone build a junkyard. I’m sure that if there was a river running through the Evansdale campus that we would pollute it and brag that we have the only polluted river on any campus in the United States. I fully expect to see a strip-mine operation most any day begin on what is left of all that grass and stuff on our campus. Now [2010], the area around the WVU medical school is infested with gaudy fast food joints and a hodgepodge of cheaply built condos and apartments. The country club property mentioned in my letter now has a football stadium named for a man who gave the most money. Directory: julian julian -> Permanent Residence julian -> Juliana Ealy Mr. Williams Eng. 8 Pd. 1-2 julian -> Julian Opie Interviews and Texts – from his own website Guardian Online – 2003 Download 0.77 Mb. Share with your friends:
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