Speak Your Piece

Tell us what’s on your mind. No need to give your name.

E-m@il address In addition to the telephone and the U.S. Mail, The Mountain Eagle accepts comments to Speak Your Piece by electronic mail. Our address is: mtneagle@bellsouth.net ‘As an eastern Kentucky native, all I have heard is ‘Coal keeps the lights on.’ Well, if people looked at the whole picture, coal also kills. I find it a bit ridiculous that […]

Unacceptable



“I’m just taken aback by this,” author Homer Hickam Jr. told CNN on Tuesday when asked his reaction to the news that 25 coal miners had died in Montcoal, W.Va., in the nation’s deadliest underground mining disaster since 1984. “A methane explosion of this size in a modern American coal mine? This should not happen. We’ve got to get to […]

Hazzard? Really?



Republican Senatorial candidate Rand Paul and his campaign staff demonstrated again this week that they have a lot of catching up to do on their knowledge of eastern Kentucky and its geography. Paul is a Bowling Green ophthalmologist who is battling Kentucky Secretary of State Trey Grayson for the Republican nomination for the U.S. Senate seat now held by Jim […]

Political Cartoon



Obama, meet Sisyphus



WASHINGTON Toward the end of the health care battle, a beleaguered Obama staff member sent me an e-mail that ended with the words: “Sisyphus was a sissy compared to what we’ve been through!” Yes, the fight for health care seemed very much like the Greek myth: Every time the White House found itself on the verge of rolling the health […]

Doing better than one’s parents



If the new federal program to help homeowners pay their mortgage bugs you, read a Wall Street Journal article titled, “Bank of Mom and Dad Shuts Amid White- Collar Struggle.” It will make you even madder. The piece reports on six-figure earners who had taken out mortgages bigger than half a million dollars, then lost their jobs. In the meantime, […]

The right to a lawyer



If you were charged with a crime, would you rather be rich and guilty or poor and innocent? Every year, when I ask my students that question, rich and guilty wins by a mile. And who am I to say they are wrong? After all, over the years, I’ve had my share of success in securing reversals of the convictions […]

Impressed by students’ reactions



To the Editor: Last week, on Tuesday morning around 8:17 a.m., the events at Letcher County Central High School could have been much worse than they were. But as a staff member at LCCHS, I was greatly impressed with the response of the administration, my colleagues and especially the student body. As most were uncertain of the events which caused […]

Services are held for Mabel Gilliam



Mabel Ruth Sturgill Gilliam, 81 of Eolia died March 31, at Harlan Appalachian Regional Hospital. A daughter of the late Melton U. and Della Mae Caudill Craiger, she was the widow of August D. Sturgill, and later married Hurbert Gilliam, who also preceded her in death. She was a member of the Franks Street Free Will Baptist Church Surviving are […]

Brock infant dies



Eight-day-old Levi Brock died March 31 at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital in Cincinnati, Ohio. He was the son of Harold and Ashley Brock of Eolia. Surviving in addition to his parents are his grandparents, Harold Ray and Melissa Pearl Brock, and Richard and Janet Boggs, all of Eolia. Funeral services were held April 1 at the Millstone Primitive Baptist Church. Burial […]