I Love Mountains Day, an annual reminder in Frankfort

post #73
     which sadly means there is still the need to increase awareness of the urgency for clean water and air for the people who live in coal areas, and to mine coal in less destructive ways.  No one is saying coal doesn't need to be mined, but let's be visionary about how to do it better and cleaner.  The truth is WE ALL LIVE DOWNSTREAM. 

      I did take photos again this year, grateful that it wasn't raining as hard during the afternoon rally and march as it had been all morning during the drive there!   Even so, since I was wary of getting my faithful Canon camera wet, I did resort sometimes to my newish point and shoot designed for underwater.   However, inadvertently, its light setting was inaccurate....  The Yea and Boo story of that is how I end up learning something every time I shoot!!

      So here are some photos:  rally first on the steps of the Kentucky Capitol building, several speakers, music, and then a march around the Capitol to the front of the Governor's Mansion.  The Kentuckians for the Commonwealth (KFTC) estimates there were 1200 of us on this cold Valentine's Day. 

A great number of young people were there,

     

and older people

and families

and two ageless friends of mine, Kris and George Ella!

This speaker, Melina Laboucan-Massimo, is from the Cree First Nation in northern Alberta, Canada.  With great eloquence she shared her community's efforts to stop the devastation from the tar sands extraction going on there.  This includes sharing how tragic the building of the Keystone XL pipeline would be.  

Randy Wilson addresses the crowd, emphasizing that what we do to the land, we do to the people.

I include this photo as a tribute to Patty Wallace, in the red coat, for continually speaking up for justice in her home county in eastern Kentucky and for her years of sharing her sense of urgency with legislators in Frankfort.  She is an inspiration to us all.

marching around the Capitol

Yes!

If Governor Beshear was at home, he didn't come out to speak to us, either here or during the earlier rally at his workplace.  However, Senator Kathy Stein did speak to us at the rally, giving us her full support as citizens speaking up on a crucial issue.

 KFTC's indefatigable Teri Blanton is on Sen. Stein's left, and Sylvia Ryerson, with WMMT in Whitesburg, KY, on the right.  THANK YOU ALL.

    note: Since this is a photography blog, I want to share that the only photo I changed a person's location for was the one with my favorite sign, Clean Coal is like Dry Water.  Its designer was in the march, which was moving, and I really wanted a good photo, so I asked her to step out of the march briefly, which she did.  It is too hard making a photo of a moving target while running to keep up.  (Setting up in one location and taking what comes by is equally risky.  Might miss something.)  For an occasion like Tuesday's, I prefer seeing what I can find without a lot of manipulating, but sometimes I get a strong vision of what I want to be sure to record in itself.  Then I can't resist asking.

          FOR MORE INFORMATION ABOUT MOUNTAINTOP REMOVAL MINING, check out I LOVE MOUNTAINS.org