Feb. 6, 2012
- Animal Planet is broadcasting a television series, Snake Man of Appalachia, about Verlin Short, "an out-of-work coal miner, [who] struggles with the challenges of supporting his close-knit family on a severely limited income, while balancing his home life with his deep immersion in the potentially deadly serpent- handling religion." He lives in Letcher County where he captures, cares for and shares his rattlesnakes for religious services. The show is aired on Thursday evenings. A professor of psychology at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga who specializes in the psychology of religions is a consultant for the show. Ralph Hood said he helped facilitate interactions between the serpent handlers and the film production company, according to the Chattanooga Times.
- A documentary movie, Love Free or Die, was shown at the most recent Sundance Film Festival on the ordination and ensuing reaction of Episcopalian priest V. Gene Robinson. "Robinson is the first openly gay person to become a bishop in the historic traditions of Christendom. His consecration in 2003, to which he wore a bullet-proof vest, caused an international stir, and he has lived with death threats every day since," according to the movie Web site. Robinson grew up in Lexington, graduating from Lafayette High School. Robinson is speaking in Charlotte, N.C., this week and discussed the movie and his experiences with the Charlotte Observer.
- Peabody Energy Corp. is proposing to acquire 384 acres of the national forest just west of the Ohio River for possible development of a surface mine. In exchange, the company is offering the federal government 831 acres in three tracts that border the forest in Pope and Jackson counties, according to a report from the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. Environmentalists are worried about the land swap because federally endangered gray bats and Indiana bats are on the property the coal company wants to acquire. Peabody coal companies operate in Kentucky, as well as Southern Illinois and Indiana.
