tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-294955142024-03-07T10:48:24.797-08:00Joe's Stained Glass BlogJoehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08071346260864215736noreply@blogger.comBlogger23125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29495514.post-41750180194082977172012-07-27T10:52:00.001-07:002012-07-27T10:52:30.268-07:00From my friend Sam Avery re:Keystone Pipeline<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">Along
the Pipeline</span></b></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">July 12, 2012</span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>A
quarter inch of rain fell on this thirsty ground last night as I camped on the
shore of Pelican Lake, hardly enough to settle the dust.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I’m in South Dakota, on my way to follow the
route of the Keystone XL pipeline.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It’s
not as hot or dry here as back home in Kentucky, or in the state I drove
through the last few days.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The corn is
shriveled in Indiana, and worse in Illinois, with brown spots in some
fields.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Market reports tell of soybeans
at record prices and corn selling for over seven dollars a bushel.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Crop reports list wide percentages of “poor”
and “very poor” in several Midwest states.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>But things looked better in Iowa and Minnesota.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Iowa is its usual summer ocean of corn, just
beginning to tassel, and it looks fairly good for a bad year.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In eastern North Dakota, where the drought
has not reached, the cornfields are a dark healthy green.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A man with a quarter section of healthy corn
can make some real money in a year like this.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>I
spent the day yesterday with a farming family in North Dakota: Paul, Tammy, and
Elijah Mathews.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They have a beautiful
new home on a low hill overlooking 2000 acres of corn and soybeans – and, to
their chagrin, overlooking the TransCanada Keystone 1 pipeline.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The pipe itself is 4 feet below ground, but
the scars it has left on their lives remain on the surface.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This is a 30” tar sands pipeline, built in
2008.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Its diameter is 6 inches smaller
than the proposed XL, but the patterns of land acquisition, construction, and
operation are the same.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is already
pumping Canadian tar sands into the American economy.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It showed up at the Matthew’s home like a
bolt of lightning.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>An agent for
TransCanada came to their front door in early 2007, without notice, and spread
out a map on their table showing the Keystone 1 pipeline going right through
their living room!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">“We didn’t know anything
about pipelines, crude oil, or tar sands.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Paul said.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“We were shaken.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They took us totally by surprise.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They wanted us to sign right away, right
then.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>People who didn’t sign were threatened
with eminent domain.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They acted like
there was no choice – it was going to happen anyway, so why go to all the
trouble of resisting?”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>At first, they
wanted to move the right-of-way from right through the Matthew’s house to 150
feet away.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But North Dakota law requires
a pipeline right-of-way to be at least 500 feet from a house, so the company
offered Paul and Tammy money to sign a waiver.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>But they didn’t sign.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“When I
think of pipeline rupture, I think of a flame shooting fifty feet into the air,”
Paul said.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“The thought of that next to
my house kept me up at night.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Sitting
there listening to Paul, I wondered why the state would allow a waiver if their
own law required 500 feet.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The company
threatened condemnation, but Paul and Tammy held out, and the pipeline ended up
a full 1500 feet from their house.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">But the issue is not over for
them.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The water table is high in this
part of the state, and chemicals leaking from a pipeline can travel long
distances before seeping into well water.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>“Every time we draw water out of the faucet we wonder, ‘is there benzene
in it or isn’t there?’<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That’s a fear
they have thrust on me.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I belong to a
communal society in North Dakota that respects other people as equals:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>you’re a human, just like me, we can handshake,
and you wouldn’t put me in such a position just because you have the power to
do so. Corporate greed – that’s a whole new realm for me to deal with:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But let me tell you, there <i>is</i> a such
thing as corporate greed.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I didn’t know
what that meant before.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I’m God-fearing,
and when I go to heaven I don’t expect to see any of these major corporations
there.”</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">When I asked him what it was
like to suddenly become a critic of corporate America, he replied that he
considered himself something of an “accidental activist.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“But who was more of an activist than
Christ?”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“When all the dust settled,” he
went on, “Tammy and I decided we needed to put a voice to what had happened to
us.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>When Nebraska called, we went, (Paul
testified during the Nebraska legislative session) and when the Montana people
called, we talked to them.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But Paul is
lukewarm on environmentalism in general.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>“Unfortunately, I don’t think environmentalism is going to work in
American society where we judge everything in a financial decision mode.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There’s not enough money behind it.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The other problem he sees with
environmentalism is the environmentalists themselves.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They get too wrapped up in extreme issues,
like saving snails and lizards.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“This is
where environmentalism can get injured.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>If you’re trying to range out too far you can get attacked.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>When you start talking about big things like
the climate, that’s too far from my reality.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>I don’t want to think about it.”</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Tammy
walked in at that point, and I asked her the same questions.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">“We just felt we needed to
speak out.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We couldn’t just lie down and
let it happen.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That’s what TransCanada
wanted us to do: just sign the papers.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>They wouldn’t listen to us.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>How
can they do this to us?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They were
telling us how everything was going to happen.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>We had no voice; they didn’t listen to anything we said, and we were
supposed to take whatever they gave us.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>We decided to stand up.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It was
all planned out: they picked up the senior citizens and absentee landowners
first: then they could say ‘all your neighbors have already signed.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>You might as well, too.’”</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">But I sensed Tammy had a
slightly different take on what had happened.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>“Has this all changed how you understand things like climate change and
environmental protection?”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I asked.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">“When we first got into
this,” she answered, “We were thinking about our rights as property
owners.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Then, after we got into it for a
while, we started thinking, ‘What is flowing through this pipeline?’<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Then I heard about what is happening to the
land in Alberta.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I’ve become a lot more
aware now.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There really is a <i>huge</i>
planet issue and a fossil fuel consumption issue that we have to face in this
country.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We would have paid no attention
to any of this without the pipeline.”</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">“Tammy took us all to Washington.”
Paul added.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“We went to a protest last
November and stood in front of the White House.”</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">“350, Bill McKibben’s
organization, was doing this civil disobedience thing last August,” Tammy
continued.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“I had a lot of ‘get go’ in
me then.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I thought that would be great
to go to, but the timing was all wrong for us in August.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>So we went in November, without son, Elijah,
to surround the White House, reminding Obama what his campaign promises were on
the environment.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That was a big event
for us: thousands of people were there.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>But I felt like I missed an opportunity not going in August.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I’ve never been arrested for anything, I’m
kind of a quiet, shy person, but I really wanted to do it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I wanted our son to experience the feeling of
putting yourself out there for something you believe it.”</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">I complemented her for going
that far out of her way to show the world what she was beginning to see.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But there was a dark side to her growing
awareness.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“The oil and gas companies
are so powerful and influential: I kind of think they’re running the
world.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I have read books that predict an
apocalypse.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It’s sort of prophetic.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It’s a very dark future.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I think there will be an apocalypse.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I told her that it can look that way to me
sometimes, but that I see the future as a challenge and an opportunity for
creativity.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>After
lunch, Paul and I drove a few miles down the road to visit a neighbor, Bob
Bondurant.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>One morning last spring Bob
saw for himself what Paul and Tammy, and everyone else along the pipeline most
feared.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“I saw it first,” Bob’s daughter
piped in.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Meagan was out early in the
morning, bleary eyed, feeding her calf.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>“I saw this thing spraying up over the trees.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I knew what it was.”</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">“There was no mistaking what
it was,” Bob added.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“Those cottonwood
trees are a mile and a half away, just behind the pumping station.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It was way up above them.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I would have guessed it was a stream about
the size of a fence post, but it was a ¾ inch fitting that had ruptured.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They later said the pipeline was pumping 1100
pounds of pressure.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I called the
emergency number and told them what I saw, and they put me on hold for about
four minutes.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That was one of the
longest four minutes in my life.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">It’s a good thing Meagan and
Bob caught it as soon as they did.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The
line had been leaking for about a half hour, and it took ten minutes to shut
the pumps down.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“We heard the pumps
stop.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We can hear them from here.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But the plume of oil kept spurting for ten
minutes after that.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>About
20,000 gallons leaked into the containment area at the pumping station and onto
an adjoining field.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A small amount
flowed into a pond nearby.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The first
cleanup crew arrived five hours later.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>“There
was not enough of a pressure drop for them to detect it electronically,” Bob
said.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“Somebody had to see it, and
there’s nobody there most of the time.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>If we hadn’t seen it when we did, it would have leaked for hours, maybe
days or weeks.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This could easily have
been a major disaster.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>People don’t
realize how fragile this pipeline is.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>The
spillage added fuel to Bob and Paul’s concern about what the pipeline could do
to their property and their homes.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“I am
changing my mind,” Bob said, after a pause.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>“I probably wasn’t a big global warming person before.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Now I’m starting to consider the possibility
a lot more.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It’s changed me.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Even in the local community, some of our
neighbors look at Paul and me and start saying, ‘Oh, they’re talking pipeline again,’
but this whole thing has changed how I understand what is going on.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Bob
added, “Our story is going to mirror what happens on the Keystone XL.” </span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">As we finished up, I asked
both Bob and Paul how they would react to the possibility of civil disobedience
actions along pipeline.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“It won’t happen
in North Dakota,” I assured them, “But it may happen in Texas and
Nebraska.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There was a long, North
Dakota pause. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">“It wouldn’t be me,” Bob
said, “I would admire their tenacity, and it would depend on what they were
doing, but I can’t see them doing it for air quality or the climate.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I could see it if they were defending their
homes.”</span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">“What if they were defending
their home in the larger sense?” I asked.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">Paul thought for a
minute.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“For the general population,
getting arrested because it’s getting hot out might not go over well.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Bob and I might appreciate that kind of
effort, but our neighbors likely would not.”</span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">I was not a bit surprised by
this.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>When you’re talking climate,
you’re talking worldview.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>You’re talking
big picture.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The big picture comes from
church, from community and upbringing.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>There are always politicians, preachers, tree-huggers and talk show
hosts trying to get in on your worldview, for their own reasons – some for
votes and profit, some for do-gooder causes.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>But you don’t want to get pulled back and forth by the latest fashions
in religion, science, and political ideology.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>You don’t change your worldview if the world you see around you does not
change; you don’t take anybody else’s word for what is real.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>You have to see it for yourself.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Without a full vision of the purpose of human
life on Earth, changing a worldview can be a very scary, dark, and threatening
proposition.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We do not have a full
vision of the purpose of human life on Earth.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>I
was flicking through channels on the road today, trying to find something worth
listening as I drove through the wheat fields of northern South Dakota.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I’ve been taking the back roads, avoiding
interstate and avoiding my usual listening habits (NPR).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I chanced upon a Christian station with a
preacher describing a gathering of “over a thousand” young Muslim-Americans
somewhere in Wisconsin.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“This is a
religion that teaches that Allah is the only God and that God has no son.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It demands so much of one’s individual life
and commitment that it persuades young people to strap explosives to their body
and detonate them in a crowd.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">There is a long way to go.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">July 13, 2012.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>I
drove southwest across the Missouri this afternoon into the prairie lands of
South Dakota.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It’s much drier here than
in the eastern Dakotas.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There’s more
wheat, hay, sorghum, and pasture here, and less corn.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>John Harter, a landowner near Colome SD, has
several hundred acres of each.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The
Keystone XL will cross through the middle of his homestead acreage along the
northern edge of the Ogallala aquifer.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>“This place has a lot of meaning for me,” John said.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“See that old homestead there?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>My brother and I used to fight over who would
sleep next to the wall.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It was so cool
in the summer time next to that stone wall.”</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>“My
father had this land, and my grandfather before him.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We’ve had it since the thirties.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If that pipeline leaks on my property, it’s
done.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It’s junk.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Once that oil gets into this sandy soil and
starts moving, I’ve got nothing left.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The
land is worth around $1000 an acre, and I have 280,000 acres, and they wonder
why I won’t sign off on it for $13,000!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>I’ve asked bankers ‘Would <i>you</i> do that?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They said, ‘No, it doesn’t sound like a good
deal to me.’<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But none of them will stand
up for me, either.”</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>“If
the pipeline goes through, the outcome of this is going to get scary.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>When it starts spilling and leaking and
people start getting sick…<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It seems like
a dark hole I’m looking from, but we know these pipelines leak, and they’re
gonna’ leak, and they know they’re going to.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>We’ve put everything we’ve got into this place and now somebody is
coming to take it away from us.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In my
mind they might as well be taking it away, because to me, it’s going to be
worthless.”</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>John
has a strong sense of preservation for the land and water, and for passing down
to the next generation what has been given him.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>He wants to keep it in the family, and keep it healthy and
beautiful.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He also has a strong sense of
living in the heartland of America.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“A
big share of our community is built on rural people.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The people in rural America have been a pawn
of the government for a long time.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The
Keystone people are trying to make this an energy security issue.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But I think it’s a security risk.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They’re running this pipeline down the center
of the US.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This is our stronghold area;
this is our safety zone.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We’re 1500
miles from every coast.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We’ve got water;
we can raise food, and they want to put what I consider a terrorist target out
here.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Water and food – those are the two
things we need to live, so I think this is a matter of national security.”</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>John
knows the climate has changed, but he’s not ready to blame it on fossil fuel
consumption.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“I know how the climate has
been just since I was a kid.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We used to
have 5, 6, 10-foot snow banks every winter.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>This year we didn’t have any.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I
think we are in climate change.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I’m not
a hundred percent sure what’s causing it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>I’m kind of skeptical about whether these scientists are honest.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I don’t know if anybody is honest anymore,
after what I’ve been through with these TransCanada people.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It takes your faith out of having a decent
system.”</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>I
asked him if he gets any support from the community.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“Some people agree with me, but they won’t
stand with me.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I kind of understand – if
this wasn’t going through my land I wouldn’t be so worked up about it.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>When I asked him what he’s going to do about
it he answered, “They’re taking me through eminent domain court in November.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>You can’t go in thinking you’re going to win,
but you’ve got to give it your best shot.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>What really gets me is, I own this land, I pay taxes on it, and I have
to prove that they don’t have the right to it, instead of <i>them</i> having to
prove that they <i>do</i> have the right to it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>The burden of proof is on me!”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Then I asked about civil disobedience.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>“When you have all your rights taken away from you, you don’t have a lot
of power.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They’re going to have to put
me in jail.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Civil disobedience is
basically what I’m doing now.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I got
people that will go out there with me, mostly native Americans.”</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>John
is deeply wounded by this sudden intrusion into his world.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“The worst thing I’ve ever had happen to me
is watching my mother die from cancer, but this is worse in a way, because
there was an ending to that.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He is an
emotional person.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He cares, and does not
want to be left alone in defense of what was his from the beginning.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He’s a fighter, and a believer.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We are likely to hear from him again. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">“They will be judged for this
sin when their judgment day comes.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I
truly believe that, because it would drive you nuts if you didn’t have
something bigger than yourself to get you through this.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Who knows what God’s plan is, but this paints
a blacker picture for me.”</span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">“I think this is a time in
human history when we are being tested.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>I said.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“I don’t think there’s a
plan to the test.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We’re not going to fit
into something preconceived.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We have
minds; we have spirit, we have eyes to see.”</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">“That’s why God gave us free
will.”</span></div>
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<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">“Exactly.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>The plan is for us to make the plan.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>To do that, we have to see clearly what is happening.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Not what anyone says is happening, but what
we see happening.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And to do that we have
to clear our minds of the distortions money gives to how we think.”</span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">“Yes.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We have to clear our minds to the fact that
money is not the issue.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>My wife Tammy
and I decided that a long time ago.”</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">Along the Pipeline: July 16,
2012</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">Lincoln, Nebraska</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">July 17, 2012</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">1016 counties in 26 states
were declared a natural disaster last Thursday by the US Department of
Agriculture.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Parts of the Midwest have
seen the driest conditions since 1988, but what distinguishes this drought is
its geographic expanse: over one half the entire country, mostly in the
southern states.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Of the areas I have
driven through on this trip, only Indiana and Illinois are in the declared
area.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Nebraska is not.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The wheat crop here is mostly in, the corn
looks pretty good, especially where irrigated, but the hay looks like amber
waves of grain.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But it’s not grain; it’s
grass, and supposed to green.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Crossing
the Platte River two days ago I noticed it was completely dry.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The state has banned any further irrigation
from surface waters and there are no reports of significant rainfall in the forecast.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">A recent report from the
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration ties extreme weather events
such as prolonged heat waves and drought to the broader implications of climate
change. The past 12 months have been the warmest on record in the US since the
National Climatic Data Center began recording temperatures in 1895.<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=29495514#_edn1" name="_ednref1" style="mso-endnote-id: edn1;" title=""><sup><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><sup><span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">[i]</span></sup></span></sup></a><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I will be driving into some of the states
most affected by the drought later this week and next week.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">I have mentioned several
times in this book that I belong to a small, informal group in Louisville that
participates, and often initiates, climate-related actions on both the local,
national, and even global level.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We have
no dues, no membership list, no staff, no budget, and no regular meetings or
programs.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We just do things as they come
up.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We don’t even have a name, or at
least we did not at first.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We called
ourselves the Louisville Earth Affinity Group (LEAG) for a while, but ended up
with 350 Louisville, as many of our actions coordinate closely with the
distinctly global organization, 350.org.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>In 2009 we went to DC to shut down the coal-fired Capitol Power Plant
and later that year, as part of a global event, organized a large “350” human
formation on the Great Lawn in downtown Louisville.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>On October 10, 2010, we put together a
10-10-10 renewable energy workday that included a solar installation that I
directed, and in 2011 we organized another think-global-act-local 350 event,
“Moving Planet.” This last May we did a 350 “Connect the Dots” event at the
Kentucky Derby.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We also go to hearings
on Mountain Top Removal and coal ash pollution.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>The informal approach in our group avoids the burden of keeping the
organization itself going, and allows us to enjoy each other while we are
making a difference in the world.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We
like being together.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Sometimes we just
party.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Being together and knowing each other
well serves an important purpose in building solidarity when we do things.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Last August, when we to DC for the White
House sit-in, we gave each other emotional support as we stepped into the great
unknown of bodily arrest.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We are
teachers, musicians, dentists, carpenters, nutritionists, solar installers, and
nurses.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Some of us are old enough to be
retired.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We are not hard-core
politicos.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Individually, we belong to
the Sierra Club, Kentuckians for the Commonwealth, the National Audubon
Society, Move-On, and the Kentucky Solar Energy Society.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We are ordinary people who sense the Earth
slipping away beneath our feet and who feel compelled to take action.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We have hope.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">There are lots of ways to
organize, but I think this is an especially good model for environmental action
in the coming years.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is nearly
identical to what a group in Lincoln, Nebraska is doing.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I came to their meeting last Saturday.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They have no official name, and usually refer
to themselves as “the coalition,” “the group,” or “350.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A dozen or so people showed up at Mary
Pipher’s house with snacks, wine bottles, and covered dishes.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>After a half hour of small talk, Adam Hintz
reported on his outreach film presentations in small towns around Lincoln,
Aubrey Streit-Krug told of her work helping with Mary’s writing, Ken Winston
spoke of the latest on the legislative front, I reported on my experiences in
the Dakotas, and Mary read the introduction from her new book, <i>The Green
Boat: Reviving Ourselves in Our Capsized Culture</i>, due to come out over the
winter, just before this one.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>(If you’ve
just bought this book, go back and buy hers, too.)<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Her book is about the dynamics of this small
group and the larger coalition that includes Bold Nebraska, the Sierra Club,
the Nebraska Wildlife Federation, Audubon Nebraska, Nebraska Farmers Union,
Nebraskans for Peace, and University environmental groups.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It chronicles their struggles with the
Keystone XL pipeline.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Mary has written
several other important books, including the best seller: <i>Reviving Ophelia</i>.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">A key phrase I found in
Mary’s manuscript (She let me have a peek) is “…relationships always trump
agenda.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>She goes on to say “In fact,
what I came to realize from my work with the coalition is that in individuals,
families, communities, cultures, and even on earth itself, nothing good and
beautiful lasts unless it is grounded in loving, interconnected
relationships.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That sums up the group,
and Mary.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>She lives as she says.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I spoke with her at length after the meeting.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">“The politics in this country
are dead.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If we wait for politicians or
international bodies or corporations to make changes, it will never
happen.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The world will be gone.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The only way a democracy exists is when you
create it every day.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There’s no way going
to a voting booth gives people democracy.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>What gives people democracy is participating in a very engaged way in
the decisions of the day.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Democracy
isn’t just voting; it’s making decisions locally about resources, about land
and water.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>When I asked her how the
legislature could be so overwhelmingly in favor of the pipeline with so much
local and national opposition to it she answered “TransCanada gave our
legislators over $800,000, over $600,000 of it in the form of entertainment.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They were giving each legislator $42,000 in
“entertainment!”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>What does that
mean?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>What are they doing with all that
money?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The people who actually have pure
spirits and the common good in mind are almost never elected, and if they are,
they don’t last long.”</span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">The members of the group
decided never to have a meeting where anybody left without something to
do.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“You deal with a lot of information
– upsetting information – it’s very depressing if you have no way to act.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I’m a worrier, but if I act, I let it
go.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I can go on being happy.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We have all felt impotence, despair, sorry,
rage, confusion.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If each of us feels
those emotions individually, we’re whipped.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>But when we come together and realize we are all feeling this, there is
an immediate catalytic energy, an immediate power.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If someone has and idea, there are other
people who want to hear it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If you <i>think</i>
you have power; you have power, because you start acting like you have
power.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It’s so simple to empower people;
all you do is say ‘I think your idea is great, why don’t you go for it.’<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It’s like giving someone who’s thirsty a
glass of water.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">Mary is always helping people
through the heartache of witnessing the ecological destruction of mother Earth,
and soothing her own spirit in the process.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>And she is a good judge of character.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>“We all know each other pretty well by now.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We know strengths and weaknesses and who
would do what.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>When we go to speak, my
venue is the university, or the Unitarian Church.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If it’s speaking to ranchers, we want Randy
Thompson to go.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He looks like John Wayne
– he can really talk to those people.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>One thing everybody knows about me it I always think a lot more people
are going to show up at events than actually do.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I’ll think, “This is such a great thing we
have planned; 500 people are going to show up!” and only 50 do.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">“Churchill said something
like ‘Success is going from failure to failure with no loss of optimism.’<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That’s us.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>No matter what happens we just keep working, we keep showing up.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That’s the most important thing: just keep
working!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The opposition never goes away,
but they never wear us down.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>What keeps
us from being worn down is having a really strong social network, a lot of
validating each other.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I have a vehicle
here to hold my own anguish; something bigger than me.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If all the pain I felt about the world stayed
in me, it would be too much.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This has
been a way for me to put that pain into the care of a loving group of people.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This has been a transcendent experience.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The people who are most depressed are the
people who know the most about the situation and don’t do anything.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Others are in denial.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But what makes me a happy person is feeling I
have a sense of agency and control.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This
group is one way I can do that.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">Then I asked Mary what was
likely to happen when the construction begins.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>“The place to take a stand is in your home, you environment, in your
land:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It’s in Nigeria, its in Kentucky,
it’s in Pennsylvania, it’s everywhere.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>We feel part of people everywhere.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>We in Nebraska are at the hub of the universe; but so is everyone
else!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If this pipeline goes through, I
think there will be an enormous amount of organized civil disobedience all the
way from Alberta to Texas.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And I think
our group will be the organizers of that in our state.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In most cases, you get the usual suspects to
show up, but this one is going to be everyone.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Not everyone is going to lie down in front of a digger, but we’re going
to have walks across the state, demonstrations, and dramatic events.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We don’t know now what we’re going to
do.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It doesn’t make sense to plan too
far in advance.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>You’re much better off
having a tight team that works well together.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Whenever something happens they can come together quickly.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I would certainly be willing to be arrested
for this.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I think thousands of people
would be willing.”</span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">“Thousands?”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">“Well, maybe hundreds.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">I caught up later with
several others in the group.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Aubrey
Streit-Krug is in her late twenties and a graduate student in Great Plains
culture.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>She is currently learning a
Siouan dialect that very few people are still able to speak.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>She heard about the group through helping
Mary with the <i>Green Boat</i> manuscript.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">“I haven’t been part of an
organized group like this before.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It’s
exciting to meet people who share similar interests with me.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I grew up in north central Kansas where my
parents were dry land farmers (without irrigation).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We grow wheat, not corn.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Maybe a little for silage, but it’s not a
commodity crop for us.”</span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">“Having just driven through
Indiana, Illinois, the Dakotas, and eastern Nebraska,” I noted, “I saw full
sections, full square-mile fields of corn.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>I don’t think we need any more corn.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">“I’m actually quite
interested in corn, as a crop for indigenous people, and I’m interested in the
different varieties they grew.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">When I asked her about how
she likes the dynamics within the group she was upbeat.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“What I like about the coalition is its
informal nature – it’s social, it’s organic.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>They’re willing to shift interest and involvement depending on who’s in
the group, depending on what’s exciting, what abilities they bring, and what
they’re willing to do.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It’s fun, and a
lot less intimidating than joining a formal organization.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I can miss a meeting and that’s OK.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Mary invited me the first time – when somebody
you already know invites you to come, that’s a little different.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I would have a hard time going if I didn’t
know anyone.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There’s spontaneity; you
don’t feel like there’s a to-do list.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>And it’s inter-generational.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I
find that very rewarding.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Whenever you
can get people in their twenties involved with really experienced people, that
can be powerful.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">“We didn’t have that when we
were in our twenties.” I said.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“The
older generation couldn’t understand us.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>“What did we do wrong?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>You come
from good families, we gave you everything you could want, why are you turning
it down?’<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We would have benefited from
more intergenerational contact.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">When I asked her what
motivated her interest in the pipeline issue she said, “I feel a strong sense
of responsibility and commitment to the Great Plains region.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I don’t mean that in the abstract.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I have places and people I know and love that
drive my academic work and my teaching.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>I want to learn and be useful, and taking action keeps you going.”</span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">Ken Winston is the group
exert on the state legislature.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>By
profession, he’s a policy advocate for the Nebraska Sierra Club and spends a
long of time at the capitol building.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>His story is important because it was Nebraska that alerted the nation
to the perils of the Keystone pipeline, and people like Ken who alerted
Nebraska.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">“It goes back to the Gulf oil
spill in April, 2010.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Nobody was paying
much attention to the XL here, but all of a sudden people started thinking,
‘There’s oil in that pipeline, and it could spill out.’<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Senator Ken Haar, a real hero for us, asked
me what questions to ask TransCanada in their application to the
legislature.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Then, later on that year
there were oil spills in Michigan and the Yellowstone River in Montana.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That got people thinking.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">“Jim Pipher (Mary’s husband)
had written a piece about the pipeline in the paper, and I had heard that Mary
was interested in the issue, so I joined this group.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We decided to have a citizens hearing on May
12, 2011 at the state capitol.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Mary and
Randy Thompson spoke.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>About 100 people
showed up.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That same day the legislature
passed a bill requiring complete reclamation of the pipeline right-of-way.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It wasn’t a big deal, but it was a small
victory.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Then Senator Haar got 21 state
senators to sign a letter to Secretary of State Clinton saying they did not
want the pipeline running through the Sand Hills.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In May there was the leak in the Keystone 1
in North Dakota (the one at the pumping stattion near Bob Bonderant’s house),
so things were happening.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Haar called me
up and asked if I liked the idea of a special session of the legislature for
the purpose of moving the route out of the Sand Hills. The Sand Hills is
something very valuable and very vulnerable.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>It’s huge: the largest fresh water aquifer in the northern hemisphere,
all fresh, clean water, I’ve been told it has as much water as Lake Erie, and
it’s very close to the surface.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It’s
very important to Nebraskans, but nobody thought we would ever really get a
special session.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>So we wrote letters to
the editor, held art exhibits and rock concerts.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Bold Nebraska organized a “Shine the light on
(Governor) Heineman” event at the governors mansion.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There were around 700 people with flashlights
shining on the mansion, urging him to call the special session.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The Apple Pie brigade, several grandmotherly
ladies in our group, brought cookies to the governor every week with a little
message about calling the special session.”</span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">In March a dozen Nebraskans
went to DC and spoke to the EPA and the state Department.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“We asked to have a supplemental
environmental impact statement, which they gave us!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This would require hearings in September.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The demonstrations at the White House
happened in August before the hearings, and brought a lot of national attention
to the issue.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Nebraskans were arrested
there, (including Nancy Packard, who was at the meeting at Mary’s house.)<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The Dalai Lama and several Nobel laureates
wrote letters opposing the pipeline.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>On
the last day of August – I have never have quite understood this – Gov Heineman
wrote a letter to President Obama opposing the pipeline because of its route
through the Sand Hills.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I think he had
some big donors who were landowners along the pipeline.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We still didn’t think we would get a special
session, but the State Department hearings in Lincoln and Stewart Nebraska were
huge.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>1200 people were at the one here
in Lincoln.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>My daughter spoke there.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I wrote in my blog that day ‘The last week
has made me more proud than ever to be a Nebraskan.’”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">“So, momentum was building,
and there was all this focus on what’s happening with the pipeline, and a
barrage of messages were saying we needed the special session.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We still didn’t think it would happen, but
the Governor called it suddenly at a press conference in October.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That was a victory for us.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">“The Special Session started
Nov 1.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There’s a convergence of national
and local events.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Right as bills were
being introduced the “Hands around the White House” event took place in Washington.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It was crazy, but I went to DC – right in the
middle of the Special Session – but I had to go.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It was too important.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I came back to Nebraska and hearings started
the next day.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>On our local television
station we heard Obama say “We can’t sacrifice our water for a few jobs,” which
was exactly our message.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It was exciting
to hear my words come out of Barrack Obama’s mouth!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Then the State Department announced it would
delay its decision for a year in order to evaluate the Sand Hills route!”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">“The special session hearings
were overwhelmingly in favor of moving the pipeline out of the Sand Hills, but
TransCanada was not giving an inch.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>During the debate one of the leading senators asks me to come to his office,
wanting to make a deal.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I thought he was
going to chew me out for something I had said.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>But they wanted to make a deal.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>All the pipeline regulations we had come up with would not apply to the
Keystone XL, but they would take the pipeline out of the Sand Hills.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>So we thought, all right, we’ll take the
deal.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The downside is there was nothing
official defining what constitutes the Sand Hills.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">“Then, during the regular
session of the legislature this last January, they came up with disappointing
bill known as LB1161, which basically stated that the governor would approve
the pipeline, there would be an environmental quality review, and TransCanada
would have the right to use eminent domain.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>But this would apply <i>only to TransCanada.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></i>It passed 44 votes to 5.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This undid much of what we had accomplished
in the special session.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We’re claiming
now that it’s unconstitutional because it is “special legislation” that applies
only to one legal entity.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">“So, overall, we won round
one of the Keystone XL battle, but they’re coming back at us.“ </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">When I asked Ken what was
likely to happen if and when the pipeline is approved, he said, “Maybe we will
get to a point where there is civil disobedience or worse, but right now I
don’t want to go there, I want to think in terms of how we stop it through the
legal process.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It’s like Kung Fu: we
take the opponent’s mass and we allow them to damage themselves.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They’re very prone to overreact – to using
sledgehammers to kill flies.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>So I thing
we have to exhaust all our legal procedures.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>I’m hoping we get to the point where mining the tar sands is as
unacceptable as apartheid in South Africa.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">A12<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Adam
Hintz, KZUM(.org) radio, Lincoln<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“Earth
to Lincoln” program, Meadowlark Café.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">B01 <span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Aubrey
Streit-Krug</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">B02,03<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Ken
Winston, policy advocate, Nebraska Sierra Club</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">Governor Hineman writes letter to Obama opposing
pipeline, Aug 31, 2011</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">State Department hearings Nov 2011</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">Special Session nov 2011</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">LB1161<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Jan
19, 2012</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"><br clear="all" style="mso-special-character: line-break; page-break-before: always;" />
</span>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 10.0pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">Along the Pipeline</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">Bold Nebraska<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">July 17, 2012</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>It’s
another scorcher here in Lincoln.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It
will be 100 degrees today, with a 30% chance of showers, but there is no other
rain in the forecast for the next ten days, and temperatures will range from
the nineties to one hundred.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>A
crop expert on the PBS News Hour said last night that draught and heat stress
during the tassel stage of the corn crop limits the number of grains
pollinated, so there is no chance of recovery later in the season no matter
what the weather does.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But he said that
Americans probably would not experience much difference in food prices because
so much of the retail cost of food is in packaging, transportation, and
advertising.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Only a small portion of
what we spent at the grocery store ends up with the farmer, so when commodity
prices go up, we don’t feel much of a bump.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Americans can afford to buy up the whole crop, which will push up food
prices all over the world.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The people who
do feel the bump are the poor in other parts of the world.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>When half of a family’s budget in Africa pays
for food, and world food prices double, the entire family budget pays for food.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">July 18, 2012<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
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<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">Randy Thompson is the public
face of Bold Nebraska, literally.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There
are bigger-than-life fiberboard statues at stores and Coffee shops around town
showing Randy the Republican Rancher in his big cowboy hat with the words:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I STAND WITH RANDY printed boldly across the
middle.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He’s tall and white-haired.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Mary says he looks like John Wayne, but his
manner is more Andy Griffith.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He’s not
only the poster boy; he speaks well in public and speaks well to the farming
public who most need to hear him.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He’s
famous for phrases like “Water is clean or dirty, it’s not red or blue.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He has been in Washington several times for
demonstrations at the White House and to testify at the State and the Energy
departments.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I caught up with him just
outside of Lincoln.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">“This is the biggest issue
that’s come along in our state for a long time,” He began.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“TransCanada ran ads at a Huskers football
game and they got booed out.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Their land
agents act like ‘We’re coming through whether you like it or not.’<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They gave us thirty days to accept an offer
before threatening eminent domain procedures.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>This intimidated a lot of people.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>The way Trans Canada has treated people is not the way we do business in
Nebraska.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They go to county boards and
offer to build something at the fairgrounds or buy baseball uniforms or
something – bribery, basically.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A lot of
people just accept their trinkets – We all know how it worked out for the
Indians.”</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">“How did your neighbors react
when you took a stand?”</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">“I get a lot of support.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>At cattle auctions a lot of guys come and say
‘hang in there, we believe in what you’re doing.’”</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">“I know your primary interest
is landowner rights, but does the climate issue figure into what you do?”</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>“Climate
change is a newfound awareness for me.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Up until I got involved in this whole thing I never thought too much
about it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I always took care of the
land, not overgraze, and that kind of thing.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>I didn’t think too much about the environment in general, but when I saw
what they’re doing up there with the tar sands in Canada and all, I began to
see the potential disasters we could have here with our rivers and
streams.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Yeah, it made me think about
it.”</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">“Does the word <i>environmentalist</i>
still bother you?”</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">“No!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I’ve come to admire them!”<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">“We’re not all communists,
then.”</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">“Yeah, (laughs).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Some people say we’re being manipulated by
Bold Nebraska – as if we couldn’t think for ourselves.”</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">“The climate is what’s
motivated a lot of us outsiders to pay attention to what you folks are doing in
Nebraska.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It’s what has put us behind
you in your work.”</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">“That’s true.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I’m just thankful as hell that we’ve got
environmentalist taking a stand with us.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>If we the people don’t stand up, who’s going to?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>For me it started out as an individual thing,
but when I started finding out about this whole tar sands thing, my opposition
became a lot more than just because it’s coming across my land.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But property rights is still a key issue for
me.”</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">“What about what we’re
experiencing here this summer?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We’ve had
draughts before, but this one is bigger in scope than what has happened
before.”</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">“I personally think climate
change is real.”</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">“What do you think things
will be like around here when construction begins?”</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">“It will be very
interesting.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>(Laughs.)<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There are a lot of folks pretty upset about
this.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They may make a physical protest.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I’m not talking shooting people, but a
protest.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A bunch of us went to the DC in
November for the ‘Hands Around the White House.’<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>John Harter (South Dakota) was there and we
got to talking: how it affects you.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I
mean I was getting up at 3 o’clock in the morning – couldn’t sleep.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And he was going through the same thing.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I talked to Paul Mathews, too.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Same thing happened to him.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I mean, it wears on you.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I don’t know, we might have 50,000 people at
the border in Montana.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I’d make a stand.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">“I wasn’t there in November,
but I went in August.”</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">”Did you get arrested?”</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">“Yeah.”</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">“Good for you.”</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">“And I don’t even live here.”</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>“Well,
this is a whole lot bigger than just Nebraska.”</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">“But you guys are on the
front line.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>You’re the ones who brought
it to national attention.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>You’re
organized.”</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>“What
about civil disobedience?”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I went
on.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“If it was done well, if people were
polite, gentle.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>How would it feel to you
if people came here from the outside?”</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">“I’m not in favor of
that.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I don’t think the people of
Nebraska would accept that; we can fight our own fight.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I don’ want you to think we don’t appreciate
the support, but people in Nebraska are going to listen to other Nebraskans….
But, you know,” He paused, with a laugh and a grin, “When it comes down to the
point of construction we might need all the help we can get!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Come on down!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Sam!”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He laughed out loud.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>As
I got up to leave and shake his hand, the last thing he said was, “You know,
this really grates my soul.”</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">July 19,2012</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Joe
Moller owns 88 acres west of Lincoln that looked to Trans Canada like a nice
place to put a pipeline.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He wore a
baseball hat and jeans, and spoke in a slow, deep, thoughtful voice.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The land came from his parents, and will pass
on to his kids and grandkids.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He leases
out part of it for grazing, but it’s mostly a weekend getaway for the
family.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It has a beautiful clear water
lake for fishing and swimming, and has become the center of extended family
life.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Joe’s daughter Kim is passionate
about saving it from the environmental uncertainties of the XL pipeline.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Both are members of Bold Nebraska.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">Joe worked for Northern
Natural Gas, a regional company that got bought out by Enron.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“Lost two thirds of my pension,” he
quipped.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“But that’s another story.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">“I know about pipelines –
they leak.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They might not leak for
several years, but they leak.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Tar sands
oil is corrosive and abrasive.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It’s not
like natural gas.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They get a lot of the
sand out before it goes in the line, but they don’t get it all.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That silicate will scrape the inside of the
pipe.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It’s abrasive and corrosive,
too.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Up in Canada they have these
gigantic shovels that mine the tar sands, and it’s so corrosive they have to
replace the steel teeth on the shovels every day.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The pipeline is made out of steel, less than
a half inch thick.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And they put all
kinds of chemicals like benzene in the tar to make it runny so it will flow.”</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">“The water table is about
four or five feet below the surface here in the sand hills, and the bottom of
the trench they have to dig is a minimum of seven feet, so this thing isn’t
going to be over the aquifer or above the aquifer; it’s going to be <i>in</i>
the aquifer.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It’s sitting in the
water.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They can detect a leak of 1 or 2
percent, but that’s still tens of thousands of gallons of tar sand.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Generally, where you have a leak is not on
the weld, but right next to it, where the metal has been heated and weakened.”</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">And Joe is looking ahead to
the day when the pipeline is no longer in use.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>“Once they determine the life cycle of the pipeline is over, the
landowner becomes responsible for any leaks!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>We they stop pumping, there’s still going to be residual oil in low
spots.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There’s no way to get it
out.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>So when the metal eventually
corrodes away, the landowner is stuck with the liability and for cleanup
costs.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That might be fifty years from
now, but that’s my family.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>“I’m
the future landowner,” Kim piped in.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>“This is something my grandparents worked hard for so we could enjoy it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We go out there to relax and there’s nothing
relaxing about this pipeline.”</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">“The pipeline was not part of
the original vision.” I joked.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">“No, Not at all!” she
giggled.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">She brought a four-inch thick
notebook collection of all the letters she had written to the legislature, the
Public Service Commission, Nebraska Department of Environmental Quality, the US
State Department, and the President.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>“This is one of three other binders I have back home.”</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">“Senator Avery wrote back to
me that all it takes is one teaspoon of tar sands to pollute a whole swimming
pool of water beyond drinking water standards.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">“That’s my name, too, but I
don’t think he’s any relation.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Sounds
like he is on your side.”</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">“He was, but then went LB1161
went through, he voted for it.”</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">When I asked her what
motivated her to work so hard against the pipeline, she said.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“Mainly, it’s my family.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I want to protect our land and our
water.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Some people don’t understand, but
I’ve gotten other people on our side just by telling them about the
consequences.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We know about this sort of
thing because we’re first responders.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>I’m a firefighter, with my dad.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>TransCanada doesn’t have to release any hazardous materials data sheets
on what they have going through the pipeline.”</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">“I don’t know how they get
away with that!” I blurted.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">“We don’t know if we need
hazmat suits.” Joe added.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“We don’t know
whether to go in or not.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Are there dangerous
fumes?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Do we need oxygen tanks?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They won’t tell us.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They call it ‘proprietary information.’”</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">“Do your neighbors support
your stand?”</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">“Some do, some don’t; most of
them are neutral.”</span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">“But the neutral ones sign
on.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">“That’s right.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I’ve got a neighbor to the south of us whose
all in favor of it.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">“I’d like to talk to him.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">“Curt Carlson.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I’ll give you his number.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">“Great.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I’ll find him.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But I want to know if this whole thing has
changed your understanding of things like the environment, or the climate.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">“It’s definitely making us
more aware of the environment.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Joe responded.
“This gives you a wakeup call.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I was
like 95% of the rest of the country. I thought climate goes in cycles, but I’m
thinking now that it’s changing.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">“We’re still going to have
cycles.” I said.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“But they will be
hotter than before; the storms will be stronger, the draughts drier.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Whatever the atmosphere was going to do
anyway is just going to be worse.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">“I would love to have a wind
farm on that land.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">“What will happen when
construction starts?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Do you think people
will physically resist it”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">“Yup, I do.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It could get ugly, really ugly.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There was a tense pause.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“I don’t want to see it come to that.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">Kim had been on her cell
phone, but perked up when we mentioned resistance: “I want to put that on my
resume!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I fight for my family!”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">I notice a mild generation
gap developing across the table.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“If it
gets violent,” Joe said, “Then everybody’s going to think we’re a bunch of
tree-hugger nut cases.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">“Usually when people call us
tree-huggers I tell them, yeah, maybe if I’ve had a few too many drinks…We went
to DC and surrounded the White House.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If
it weren’t for the August protests there I don’t know if we would be talking
here now.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">We met a lot of people there
who looked like professional protesters.” Joe muttered.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“But there were a lot of genuine people
there, too.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">“So what’s your status
now?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Have you signed anything?”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I asked as I stood up to leave.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Joe gave me Curt’s phone number, and Kim took
my email address to send me more information.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">“Have we?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>No.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Will we?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>No.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">Curt Carlson</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">“There are people here who
want Trans Canada to move the pipeline onto their land.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>‘Here – put it on our side of the fence row –
We’ll take the money!’<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It’s just the
Bold Nebraska group of individuals that are screaming the loudest.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Jane Kleeb’s husband got pounded in a senate
(congressional) race, and now they got to go around hollering about the
pipeline.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That’s all it is.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And Obama doesn’t like oil.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He doesn’t like coal.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He’s about to shut down the coal industry.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">“Yeah, I know, I’m from a
coal state.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">“Yeah, I saw your bumper
sticker.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>(Clean Coal is like Dry
Water).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">Curt has an answer for every
question.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There’s a little swagger in
his manner when he’s explaining himself, and he tends to answer before the
question is fully finished.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He often
interrupted toward the end of my sentences with an up-volume “Well… or “What
people don’t know is…”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It might have
bothered me, but he was always kind, polite, and never hostile.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He really wanted to have his say.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>His ready answers reminded me of some of the
anti-pipers I had run across earlier.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Curt turned out to be a really nice guy.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">“You see that corn over
there?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That’s food.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>You know what it needs?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Carbon.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>What are we going to eat?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Most
people don’t understand… that fire in Colorado created more greenhouse gases
than we’ve made in the last 40 years.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>God creates more carbon than you, me, and the neighbor creates with
coal, and oil… Even if we burn all the coal and oil, there are more trees in
the continental U.S. than there were in 1650, or whenever.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We’ve got more green now than we did then.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">“The pipeline will bring
jobs.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We’re running refineries at 70%
capacity now.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If we run another 30%,
that means more jobs and more refined product.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>And it’s national security.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If
they shut down the Straits of Hormuz, we’ve got Canadian oil.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">“Yeah.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It’s not ours, but it’s from a friendly
neighbor.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">“And it wouldn’t be real hard
for us to make it ours, if you know what I mean.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And I don’t mean to say we would do
that.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The other thing is, do you want
TransCanada building a pipeline to the east coast?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We’d rather have it through here.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">I thought it was time to try
my usual climate pitch.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“When we first
started burning coal, gas, and petroleum 150 years ago, there was about 280
ppm.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Now its around 393.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That’s 40% more carbon in the whole planetary
system than we had before.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That can’t
help but change the way the atmosphere works.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">“Yeah, but take Mt St
Helens.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That put more carbon, ash, and
soot into the air than since the beginning of the industrial age back in the
1880, 1890s.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And these people who talk
about carbon: they get in their cars and drive around, they get in their
private jets...”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">“There’s a lot of hypocrisy
out there.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">“Yeah, and I don’t think
carbon’s the problem.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The pipeline
doesn’t have anything to do with the amount of carbon.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Now, look at that pivot (irrigator) over
there. If you want to eat, we’ve got to generate the energy for that.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">“You can generate electricity
without fossil fuel.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I’m not just
talking off the top of my head.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I’m a
solar installer.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">“Not at night, you can’t”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">“Right.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>You’d need an energy storage system, or a
backup.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">“Come over here; look at
this.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He led me to a shed out back and
pointed to an inverter and charge controller mounted on the inside wall.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“Oh, I know all about solar.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This is a pure sine-wave inverter, only 600
watts.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I’m just playing with it here until
I find what I want to do later.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Back
outside he showed me a south-facing roof with the right pitch for a solar
installation.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“I’ll get around to it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But right now it’s not economically here.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">“It could be if we invested
in it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Pipelines and coalmines don’t
make jobs; investment makes jobs.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If we
invested in renewable energy we would have the jobs and the energy without the
pollution and climate change.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">“Yeah, but Obama tried that
already with Solyndra.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He dumped
billions of our dollars into…”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">“That was because the federal
government made a stupid investment.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>That’s not because the industry is bad.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">“Well, I’ll tell you what,
when it’s there, it will happen, and the government won’t have anything to do
with it.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">“I would hope so.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But the government is subsidizing fossil
fuels.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Over a hundred billion dollars in
the next ten years.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">“They lost that much with
Solyndra.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">“If they didn’t subsidize
fossil fuels at all, I could compete with coal and natural gas, even
petroleum.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I could install systems that
would be cheaper in the long run.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">“But the price of food would
go way up...<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Till somebody figures out
to make hydrogen cheap.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">It was time to change the
subject.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“Do you have any concern about
local environmental effects of the pipeline?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Are you worried about spills?</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">“No.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He answered quickly.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“There are already 200,000 miles of pipelines
and gas lines criss-crossing all over the aquifer.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>One more little pipeline isn’t gonna make any
difference.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They’re making a big deal
out of nothing.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">“Has TransCanada treated you
right?</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">“Yes.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They’re paying a fair price for
easements.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I met the president of
TransCanada.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Everybody’s been nice.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I went out there one time and there was a
crew digging around in one of my springs.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>I said, ‘You can come through here, but you’re not going through my
spring.’”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">“Did they listen?<br />
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">“Uh Huh.” One of the
engineers told me they were going to need 40 people right off the bat.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">“For construction?”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">“No: for Maintenance.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They need people to drive the line, manage
the station, welders: the whole nine yards.” </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>“What
do you think about this weather we’re having now?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Is this just a normal trend?”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We were still standing outside, and he was
sweating profusely.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">“It happened in 1988.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">“I remember it well.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">“We’ve had ups and
downs.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Three years ago we had so much
snow we didn’t know where to put it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>What people don’t realize is that God is in control – they’re not.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>God created this place.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>People are trying to humanize this world and
if they can say man is in control, then there’s no God and they can justify
their actions.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Until they get their arms
around God they will be fighting everything He created.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He created us.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We didn’t create this,” He said as he looked
up into the midday Nebraska sky, raising both arms above his shoulders.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I thought he had forgotten me for a moment,
but when he looked back my way his face said that I was in his world.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“God didn’t put us hear so we could screw it
up, too bad… but we might.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">“They’re atheists, and
through this global warming and everything, they gotta say… they got to
strangle out <i>God</i> so they can justify their homosexuality.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They’re a bunch of guilty little
suckers.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>9-11 was a shot across the bow,
just like what He did to the people of Israel before He sent them into
captivity.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>God was warning us to turn
from our evil ways.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">“Do you think we could have
some ways that we’re not seeing?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Maybe
not evil, but things we’re doing that are destructive of the creation God has
given us?”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">“He gave us dominion over the
world.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">“But dominion has
responsibility.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It doesn’t mean you can
do whatever you want.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I feel like we are
in God’s garden and we have to take care of it.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">“That’s why I’m satisfied
with what TransCanada did.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They had
bug-ologists, geologists – I’m not really all that miffed if we lose another
species – I hunt them and I eat them…<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Let me show you something over here…”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>We went to the barn to look at his horses.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“Got some thoroughbred in ‘em.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">As I headed back toward my
car he said, “It’s all about control.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>They want to control food, control oil. If they control food they
control you.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">“Who’s they?”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">“Part of it’s the UN, part
the Democratic Party.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It’s an international
deal.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">As I opened the car door,
Curt picked up a small gray kitten and stooped to look behind the tires.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“There are two of them, twins.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He said.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>“I just saw the other one around here a minute ago.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They’re not smart enough yet to stay away
from cars.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">I closed the door without
getting in.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“Let me see that little
thing.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I’m a cat person.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Curt grinned and handed her to me.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>She was strong and bright-eyed, and soon
relaxed in my arms.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“This cat’s well
taken care of.” I said.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>She was already
purring.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>“Yeah,
I really like ‘em.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Let me check under
the car again.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">“I’ll go slow,” I said,
handing back the kitten.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“Thanks for
your time.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">“Thank you.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Have a safe trip.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">Grand Island, Nebraska</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>I’m
back out on the road, west of Lincoln: fewer trees, more prairies.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And more irrigation: the ban on watering
applies only to surface water.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The
aquifer is getting low, but there’s plenty of water left.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Days like this bring into focus the vital
importance of Nebraska’s Ogallala Aquifer.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>I’m
camping for the most part on this trip, if you can call it camping.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>No tent, no RV: I just fold down the seat and
curl up in the back of my old Volvo wagon.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>This car’s a real camping machine: I have all I need: mat, sleeping bag,
cooler, food, beer.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I even have a little
inverter and power strip hooked up to the battery with all kinds of WiFis, cell
phones, computers and camera batteries plugged into it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I’ve driven this car through 280,000 miles of
interstates, gravel roads, puddles and potholes, (Eleven times around the
planet) and it still drives like a new Lexus.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>It has a few dents here and there, but no broken handles and no holes in
the upholstery.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I just hope it falls
apart in time to get my plug-in hybrid.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>I’d hate to miss the solar age because my Volvo wouldn’t bow out
gracefully.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">The park attendant came by
this morning to water the grass near my campsite.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“Any relief in the weather today? I asked.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">“Nope.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Gonna be around a hundred again.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>No rain till Monday or Tuesday, and that’s
only 20%.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This draught’s everywhere now,
all over the country.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I haven’t seen
anything like it for 37 years.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">“Do you think the climate’s
changing?”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I ask this of just about
everybody I meet, to pass the time and to see what’s floating through the
public mind. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">“Yup, I do.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Ever since we started flying up around the
moon, and so on.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He waved a hand in the
air over his head.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“We messed up the
atmosphere up there.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">“They gonna build this
pipeline through here?”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">“We, I dunno.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Haven’t heard anything lately.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I don’t see why they don’t just put the
refinery up in Canada instead of moving all that oil down to Texas and then
moving it all back here again.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It’s all
politics.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">Jane Kleeb</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>If
Randy is the face, Jane is the muscle of Bold Nebraska.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>She’s been in Nebraska less than five years,
which counts against you in these parts.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>“The Republicans – well not Republicans, but the Republican P<i>arty – </i>doesn’t
like me here.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There are blogs against
me; they call me ‘Insane Jane.’<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I had no
environmental background, no energy background.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>I founded Bold Nebraska in March 2010, focusing on Healthcare reform.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">In May of last year (2011) a
friend of hers, Duane Kavorka from the Nebraska Wildlife Fund, (who was at the
meeting at Mary’s), told her about a tar sands pipeline coming across the sand
hills and asked if she wanted to help organize against it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There would be a lot of local and national
attention around it, and a hearing was coming up in York, Nebraska the
following month. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">“I was thinking ‘who’s going
to go to a State Department hearing on a pipeline nobody had heard of?’<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But 150 people showed up, and every who came
up to the microphone was against it: farmers, ranchers, moms, grandmoms.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That’s where I met Ben (Goschall – a current
co-worker) and several others.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We kind
of huddled after the meeting and said ‘We’ve got to do something about this;
this is crazy.’<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We didn’t know what tar
sands were.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We didn’t even know there
was already a tar sands pipeline in our state.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>(Keystone 1)<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>When we started
talking to landowners we found out they didn’t know what was going through the
pipe on their land.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Many of them thought
it was gas.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Some of the landowners along
Keystone 1 had concerns about granting easements, but they had no one to turn
to.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They felt alone and powerless.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">“Was the initial opposition
just for landowner’s rights?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Or were
there any environment concerns?”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">“The initial concern was the
aquifer.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That’s an environmental issue,
of course, but folks don’t immediately talk about it that way.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They talk of protecting the land and water
that is their family heritage.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They
don’t think of it as ‘environmental.’<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>They know it’s environmental, but they don’t use that word.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">“But the primary fear is of a
leakage?”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">“Yes.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And of the construction process itself.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">“So maybe we just need a new
word.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Sometimes I feel the label <i>environmentalist</i>
is getting in our way.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">“Yeah.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It has a different meaning here.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Nebraskans consider themselves stewards of
the land, or conservationists.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">“But do you feel your
environmental awareness has opened up as a result of this issue?”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">“It has.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I knew about global warming before – I was
kind of your typical progressive – but it really means something to me
now.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There’s a story about a rancher who
was bullied by some politicians when he came to testify in the
legislature.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They were asking him things
like, ‘Who’s paying you to be here?’ He called me up on the way home and said,
‘Ya know, I just pulled over and hugged a tree!’<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>So I felt myself doing that, too.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Instead of running away from being called a
tree hugger, I’m proud of protecting our environment and our community.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I mean, Good Lord!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If you don’t protect the environment there’s
nothing to pass on to our kids and our kids can’t grow up healthy.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>When
I asked her about the status of the approval process, she said that the route
would be finalized and easements acquired by early 2013, which means that if
Romney wins, construction will be likely soon thereafter.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“What if Obama wins?” I asked, expecting the
usual cynical answer. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">“I think he will say tar
sands is environmentally safe, but that the pipeline is not in our national
interest because of all the new oil discoveries in North Dakota and
elsewhere.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He’s likely to say we have
our own oil to move – they won’t let our oil in the XL.” </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">“Huh,<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>I have been thinking Obama would approve it with the new route.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">“Another interesting thing
about this issue is you see folks talking about connection to native Americans
and tribal communities, how we took their land away from them, and now we’re
seeing it happen to us.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Ranchers seem to
have deep connections to American Indians.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">“Yeah, I was thinking about
that today.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Something Randy said about
the American Indian experience made me think how what we did to them was not
unique –genocide is a regular feature of human history – what’s unique is that
now we have reached a level of maturity as a society where we can look back and
see how wrong what we did was.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Now we’re
beginning to identify with indigenous people – they’re us!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We feel great pain for what they went
through.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That makes me proud to be
American.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">“Yup.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Me too.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">Then I asked Jane my usual
question about what was likely to happen here if and when construction begins.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">“There’s no doubt in my mind
that folks will lay in front of bull dozers, just like in the rain
forests.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I think you’ll have the same
images.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Instead of native people walking
in front of the bulldozers, it will be ranchers and farmers, with the urban
moms and grandmoms standing right next to them.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>There’s no doubt in my mind.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">“What about outsiders coming
in?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>People like me?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>What would you think of that/”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">“I don’t see you as
outsiders.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I think the landowners and
ranchers would feel the same way.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">“I’ve gotten a variety of
answers on that one.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I’m an outsider to
Nebraska, but I’m not an outsider to the atmosphere.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>I’m
leaving Nebraska tomorrow to see what people are up to in Oklahoma and
Texas.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This trip is different for me;
instead of going through the Great Plains the usual east-west route, I’m going
north-south.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I’m beginning to feel a
little more at home here – a little less like an outsider.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">Along the Pipeline</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">July 21, 2012<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Oklahoma</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>It’s
drier down this way.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The wheat crop is
in, and has probably done well.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A
cutting or two of pre-draught hay has been raked and baled into huge
plastic-covered rolls, scattered like giant Rollos across the gently heaving
prairie.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Un-irrigated corn looks bad –
real bad – especially at the edges of fields and corners where pivot irrigation
system don’t reach.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I saw some totally
browned-out fields that looked like corn in a Halloween decoration.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The rice goes up every day.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Randy Thompson told me the other day he sold
some partially irrigated corn for $ 7.45 a bushel, and Curt Carlson said he expects
the price to go up to $8, maybe $9.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>That’s good news, for people who have something to sell.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">I visited today with Harlan
Hentges of the Center for Energy Matters in Edmond, Oklahoma just north of
Oklahoma City.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The Center was originally
organized around a drive to stop a coal-fired power plant at Shady Point on the
Arkansas border.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It has a five-member
board and two staff: Harlan and Rosemary Crawford, whom I met later in the
day.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The organization is grant-funded
and its mission is purely legal assistance; it is not a membership
organization.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>So far it has been
involved in stopping three coal-fired plants in Oklahoma.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">Harlan is a round-faced,
robust, big-hearted man with a big Oklahoma smile.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He is progressive and open-minded, with a
strong conservative streak.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>His
background is in farming and ranching.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>He is especially concerned with the state legislature’s grant of eminent
domain to TransCanada.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“The Keystone XL
is not a public use facility, and eminent domain in this case is
unconstitutional.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I asked him whom he
contacts in his everyday work.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">“Whenever it’s eminent
domain, I team up with radical right-wing property groups; whenever it’s the
environment, I team up with radical left-wing environmental groups.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>As near as I can tell, they have the same set
of values.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The distinctions between
those two, and the knee-jerk reactions in opposition on an ideological basis, I
think is all divisive and fictional.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I
don’t think that division has any merit.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>If you look at what’s going on and say ‘Is this good? Is it just? And if
it’s not, why are we doing it?”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">“Environmentalists want to
protect the environment generally and landowners want to protect the
environment specifically.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They want to
protect a particular piece of the environment, and I think that’s how you do
it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If you can’t get those people to
protect their land then your attempts to protect the environment generally will
be thwarted.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If you want the government
to protect the environment… well, that isn’t going to happen, because the
government is largely influenced by corporate interests.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Corporate interests are <i>by law</i> the
financial interests of their shareholders.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>“But
something like the climate – the atmosphere,” I interjected.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“Cannot be specific.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It can only be general.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Do the climate effects of the XL pipeline
ever enter into your conversations with people about the pipeline?”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">“As a practical matter, I
never talk about climate change… unless I’m doing it to create conflict.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I’m somebody who’s relatively concerned and
interested in the impact of carbon on the climate, but I don’t talk to anyone
about it because there’s nothing to be gained.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">“Do you expect any actions to
oppose the pipeline?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">“Well, there might be a few
people.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But, generally speaking,
no.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Not in Oklahoma.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This state is the reddest of the red.” </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">The question was a
conversation stopper.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The “environment,”
as a state of mind, simply does not exist here.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>The issue here, to the extent that it exists at all, is the heavy-handed
approach of TransCanada in its dealings with landowners.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">“They act like they’re from a
British Colony,” Harlan said.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“They act
like the power resides in the sovereign.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">“George III.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">“Yeah.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">“Didn’t we win that war?”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">(Laughs).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“Yeah, I thought we settled that!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But you let a dispute like this go on long
enough and you end up fighting a war over it… Yeah,” he paused, re-thinking, “You
are going to have people opposing it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>When somebody comes here and tries to take away their rights you’ll have
left-leaning people who are well trained in direct action and you’ll have some
right-wing people who aren’t.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They’re
gonna’ have guns.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If you’re preparing to
do this stuff you ought to understand this possibility.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>“I
would tend to say to them ‘Good for you for standing up, now let’s figure out
how we can do this effectively.’”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">“That’s the ultimate
failure.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>As a lawyer, I have to say that
lawyers are the alternative to guts and soldiers.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Even direct action or non-violent protest is
a failure of the lawyers.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">“I think you’re absolutely
right that the legal system is the way we avoid confrontation, yet often it’s
through confrontation that consciousness changes, whether that’s violent or
non-violent.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In the American Revolution,
which was violent, we became Americans; we became something different from what
we thought we were, and in the civil rights movement, which was accomplished
non-violently but through direct action, we changed what America was.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I remember thinking at first that civil
rights meant we should be nice to colored people, but then, over time, as I
watched what people were doing, I started thinking “I’m the <i>same thing</i>
as those people sitting at the lunch counter.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>That’s <i>me</i> sitting there!”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">“Exactly.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I think I got goose bumps there… That’s
exactly right.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">“So sometimes confrontation,
even outside of the law – if it’s done properly, and with wisdom as to how to
engage, can create a different sense of who we are.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">“I look forward to that, and
I think it will happen.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We’ve got a real
poor concept of who we are.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>I
drove east and met Rosemary Crawford at Shawnee.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The area east of Oklahoma City is Indian
country: Cherokee, Shawnee, Choctaw, Chickasaw, and Kickapoo.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>With dark, straight hair, but light
complexion, I did not at first see Indian in her face.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Her mother is Cherokee and Choctaw, while her
father is Dutch.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>She was raised in this
area, but spent many years in California.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>She returned eight years ago for family reasons, but misses
California.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“People here don’t think
outside the box.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>She went to work for
Harlan in 2010 on the power plant issues, and later on the Keystone XL. “I
still try to help him when I can, but I’ve been in respite for a year now
because I have not been pleased with the negative side of the fight.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">“The negative side of the
pipeline or the opposition to the pipeline?”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">“Both sides.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I was feeling internally as if I just wanted
to escape.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I was doing everything at the
Center: talking to landowners, talking to media, driving around – there wasn’t
anyone else to delegate to.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>“Up
in Nebraska, people are bouncing off each other a lot.” I said.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“Sort of like my group in Louisville, they
have a strong sense of community.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They
party…”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">“And I was never able to form
a community.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I’m kind of out of my
element here, but I believe I was placed back here because there is a
need.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There’s an awaking that needs to
take place.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">We climbed in her SUV and
headed for the Red Mound Ranch where the XL will cross some time this
fall.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Jack Landrum and his wife own a
hundred acres or so on either side of Interstate 40 north of Wewoka in the
Seminole Nation.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Jack is a former oil
worker.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>After retirement he bought the
land to start a cattle-breeding business.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>The pipeline will run diagonally across his land and within 100 feet of
his house, with a large equipment yard up by the road.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The easement will compromise the utility of
the land to the point where he would have to move the operation, which he is
too old consider, so he will simply close it down.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>When I asked if we could talk to him,
Rosemary said that he was under a “gag order” by TransCanada.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Apparently, as part of the settlement
agreement, he was not allowed to speak to anyone about the company or the
pipeline.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He had made a statement on TV
last year opposing the XL, and was reprimanded by company representatives.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">“Their dreams are gone, their spirit has been
taken.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">Rosemary became emphatic as
she recalled Jack’s reaction when he found out they were going to take his
land.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“He’s in his 80s, and he’s in
tears because a private company from a foreign nation has come in and taken away
his ability to have free speech in the <i>United States of America.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></i>This is what we believed in, this is what
we were raised on, and I have seen people shaken with this to the core.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This goes against <i>who he is</i>, to the
point where he’s not going to choose to be here any more.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He was an oil worker; he believed in oil
companies.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He believed in <i>progress</i>.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Jack showed his emotion to me one time when
we were standing on a little hill outside his home.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He was looking at the cattle.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He was talking about his life, about being a
steward of the land.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I was telling him
that this was what it meant to be an environmentalist – loving the little piece
of joy and heaven that you have here.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>‘You’re
a steward; I’m and environmentalist,’ I told him – it’s the same.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>We
drove through the Seminole nation and into the dying town of Wewoka.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Rosemary.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Buildings were boarded up on either side of the main street.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Rosemary spoke of her childhood.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">“I was raised here.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>My ancestors walked the Trail of Tears.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Her grandfather was a Choctaw and grandmother
a Cherokee.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Her great grand mother,
Amanda Glass, actually walked the Trail of Tears from Tennessee as a child and
arrived in Oklahoma at the age of seven.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Not all of the family survived.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">“This is the courthouse.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This great big tree you see here is called
‘The hanging Tree.’<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>One time when I was
little I walked by here with my grandfather and he kind of shuffled me along
past it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Years before a local judge had
ordered a lot of Indians hanged right here.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>He said, ‘Now don’t ever tell anyone you’re an Indian, ‘cause they might
hang you.’<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I was born with fair skin.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>His side of the family was dark skinned, but
my grandmother was Cherokee so her skin was lighter and her eyes were lighter,
and I was born with blue eyes.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They
paraded me around this town like I was a prize.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">“You were able to pass.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">“I was able to pass.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">On the way back to Shawnee,
Rosemary was anxious to say more.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>She
wanted to get her story out.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">“We are moving towards a new
paradigm,” she began.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">“Did you now that word was in
the title of my book?”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">“No… well, I remember it now
in the proposal, but I wasn’t thinking of it.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>She was getting pumped up, so I backed off and let her have the
floor.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“And I believe the shift in our
consciousness as a planet is moving us truly into the Age of Aquarius and into
a feminine – more masculine-feminine – balance.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>There has to be a major shock happen in some form for the masses to get
it, and this is a part of it.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">“You mean the pipeline?”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">“Not just this pipeline, I
mean the extraction of fossil fuels as a whole in such mass – tar sands, oil,
mountaintop removal, fracking – and that the people who are benefiting
financially are in denial.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They want to
continue to be the rulers of the world.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>They think they are in control. But nobody’s in control.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Our existence on the planet is not going to
be any longer controlled by those people who have manifested the largest amount
of money.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>At the end of the day, how
much money you have means nothing.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>To
come back into balance on the planet, where this Earth is not <i>screaming</i>
at us, and we’re not living in a place of constant duality, this shift has to
occur and occur now.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is by design; none
of it is by accident.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>My personal work
is to raise the conscious level of the masses – the people who are not of high
level wealth and who suffer the consequences of the extraction of fossil fuels,
the burning of the coal, the fracking – the people who are suffering and are
considered of no value.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They are
expendable, they’re on a spreadsheet somewhere and their lives don’t
count.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I believe it’s those people that
we awaken and bring into consciousness that they are as important – as a spirit
and a soul – as the man with a million dollars who thinks he’s better than they
are.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>By doing so, by waking up and
equalizing the male-female energy, we will bring our planet to the place it
needs to be.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I may be naïve, and I may
be the only person who believes this, but that’s what I genuinely believe and
that’s what I’m here to do.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I believe I
was sent back her to do this work.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">“Opposing the pipeline –
that’s essentially negative, it’s opposing what somebody else wants to do –
it’s not really creating any new consciousness.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>So how do you see a new consciousness – a new paradigm – developing from
this struggle against the Keystone XL Pipeline?”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">“I don’t.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That’s the reason why I was so
uncomfortable.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">“Uh huh.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">“I was part of the negative
energy.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I was attracting negative energy
by focusing on the negative side of the problem.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>By doing so, I was <i>increasing</i> the
problem.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I became in turmoil.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I had this constant frustration and anxiety:
all those low-vibration energies just consuming me every day.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I was focusing on what I didn’t want, which
is what I was <i>attracting</i>.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The
universal law of attraction says what you focus on is what you get!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>So I’m attracting the pipeline because I’m
out verbally speaking my truth, telling the universe these “n” words and the
universe doesn’t know these “n” words, so it’s going to attract what I’m saying
I <i>don’t</i> want.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The universe is
going to read that I <i>do</i> want it.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">“What are “n” words?”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">“No, not, don’t, can’t… all
of that.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The universe doesn’t know what
they mean.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>So I needed to shift what I
was doing.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I felt internally the tipping
point has already been crossed – in the 80s – it’s not just tipping, it’s
dumping, over the edge.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">“My three grandchildren, as
long as they have a body, are going to need food to eat, water to drink, air to
breath, and right now that is not possible if we keep going down this
road.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>My great grandparents, when they
got to Oklahoma, had no money – they had each other and they had air and water
and land.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But my grand children won’t
have that.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The basics of survival on the
planet are being destroyed if we don’t make some conscious decisions to change
that.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>As we have a body, we have to feed
it, nurture it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Our minds, our bodies,
our souls: all are one, and we are all collectively as one.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">“Let me go on from there.” I
interjected.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“I follow what you’re
saying – but in your attempt to manifest your awareness of what’s happening to
the Earth you’re tapping into some negative energy.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">“Yes.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It’s huge.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">“I’m wondering if that has to
do with you’re feeling like you’re not doing this in community.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">“Yes, that’s exactly right.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>“You’re
feeling it individually; you’ve got your own shield out there, protecting
yourself individually, but you don’t have people on either side of you with
shields.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">“So I have been doing
visualizations – visualizations that the pipeline is not built, that it is
stopped, because we have enough Earth energy that shifts to a place where
digging a hole in the ground and laying a pipeline is no longer profitable, or
conceivable.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And I do visualization of
going up above the planet and backing myself out from the planet, and seeing
the planet spinning clearly with clean water and clean air, and vegetation.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I visualize new worlds and new growth and a
new spring for the planet, and the people who are still living on the planet
understand the needs not only of themselves, but of the Earth, and that the
seed – as you put it – continues to grow.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Everything goes back to being whole, healthy, and complete.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>How many thousands of years it takes for her
to revert back to the way she was, I have no idea.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The duality of male and female energy will
cease.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">“The Yin and the Yang.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">“The Yin and the Yang.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">The Texas Barricade: Abridged Version</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">July 22, 2012</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>I
woke this morning early at Murray Lake State Park is southern Oklahoma.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A short run through the campground and quick
dip in the lake, and I was ready to move on.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>I drove south through small trees, low hills, and browning
pastures.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There are virtually no row
crops in this part of the state.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The
cattle are huddling in patches of shade below cedars and post oaks, refusing
their work in the hot open pasture.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>There are not many of them, and there will not be much for them to eat
this winter.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The Agriculture Department
reports that there are fewer cattle on American soil now than at any time since
records have been kept.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Beef will be
cheap this fall as ranchers consider their winter feedstock, but prices are
likely to skyrocket next year.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>The
low trees and rolling hills made me feel I was arriving back east, but the land
soon turned flat and the trees thinned as I crossed the border into Texas.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A few scrubby oaks and pines persisted, but I
was back on the prairie.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Turning east
from Denton and traveling across the north Texas plain, I saw the worst crop devastation
I have ever seen.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Field after field of
corn was totally browned out.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I saw not
one healthy stalk of corn the entire way and many fields were already plowed
under.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Some north Texas mortgages will
not be paid this fall</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>I
met David Daniel, his wife, Clara, and four year old daughter, Naida, at their
twenty-acre homestead just south of Winnsboro.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>The XL will cut their land in half.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>The southern leg of the pipeline (from Cushing OK to the Gulf of Mexico)
has become a separate project from the northern leg through Montana, South
Dakota, and Nebraska.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It does not cross
a U.S. boundary, and therefore does not require State Department approval.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is set to go, while the northern leg waits
for presidential permission, and a presidential election.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The middle section of the southern leg –
through where I am now – needs final approval by the Army Corps of Engineers,
but TransCanada has announced that construction will begin in the sections
through Oklahoma and south Texas on August first.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That’s ten days from now.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The north Texas section will be approved any
day, and construction soon to follow.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">Ron Seifert</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">I met Ron at the kitchen tent
set up on the Daniel homestead.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He’s
tall and lean, with a short beard, dark hair, and sharp, handsome eyes.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Ron is a triathlon competitor, used to
sixty-mile foot races and two-hundred-mile bike races.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He met up with Tom Weis when Tom was
preparing his bicycle tour last year of the entire XL route from Canada to the
Gulf of Mexico.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Ron rode most of the
route with Tom, and acted as a backup, reconnoitering food and lodging, setting
up interviews, and shooting video.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>When
they met David in Texas, Ron stayed on to help David set up the barricade.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">Ron was raised in Madison,
Wisconsin and Charleston, South Carolina.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>After college, he to moved to Missoula, Montana, where he was in a graduate
program in law and environmental science.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>But the academic life was not enough.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>He wanted to be in “front line activism.” He became aware of tar sands
mining well before most people in the U. S. due to the shipment of huge 250 ton
mining trucks through Montana to Canada.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>“They wouldn’t fit under bridges or power lines, and took up two lanes
of traffic, so they had to shut down roads in both directions to let them
through.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There were no bonds for highway
damage and they didn’t care about inconvenience to locals.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They wanted to bring something like 300 of
these trucks through – the first one got stuck.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>So you start to ask, ‘What the hell are they doing up there in Alberta?’”</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">Ron became aware of the
extent of the tar sands issue the same time I did, and responded in the same
way.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We both got emails from 350 about
the D.C. Tar Sands Action in June of last year.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>“I got on board with that right away.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>I had a feeling I wanted to be more involved.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I was unfulfilled with what I was doing and
overwhelmed with this urgency that this has to be stopped.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He went to Washington and was arrested there
on the second week.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He is now
coordinator for the Texas Barricade here in Winnsboro.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He will be organizing the opening battles of
the struggle against the Pipeline.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">When I asked him what
motivates him to devote so much of his life to environmental work, he said that
he was brought up camping and hiking, and came to love the outdoors, but feels
that environmental work is not a choice.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>“Everyone in my situation ought to be doing what I’m doing – we have
to.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He feels it is a “lucky
coincidence” that he also has such a passion for the natural world.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“The fact that I enjoy it is fortunate for
me.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I have to do it and I want to do
it.”</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>“Stopping
tar sands extraction is a necessary condition for the future of the
planet.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The science is there.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If we don’t stop it, it will be ‘game over
for the planet,’ as the cliché goes.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>With the upgrading, piping, and refining of tar sands, its carbon
footprint ends up three times the size of conventional crude.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That’s just unacceptable.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They’re on track to destroy the planet if all
that reserve is exploited.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We will reach
the thresholds where we won’t be able to rein it back in.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It will be too late.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We’ll get into a feedback loop that will
continue to spiral higher and higher where even if the whole global economy
stopped it wouldn’t make a damn bit of difference.”</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>“I’m
a student of philosophy;” he went on.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“I
took courses on formal logic.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>So truly,
this is logically a necessary condition for our future.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It’s not a <i>sufficient</i> condition – it’s
not the only thing we have to do – but it’s a necessary one.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It has to be done in concert with a whole
host of other things.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If we don’t at
least stop tar sand exploitation – that’s it.”</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>“So
for someone like me – relatively young, doesn’t have property, doesn’t have a
family, isn’t married, doesn’t have <i>debt</i> – that has the ability to go
out there and be a defender of this planet: I don’t see that’s really a
choice.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>How many other Americans are
like me – that fit those criteria and have the passion and can actually throw
themselves into the fray.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It’s probably
less than one percent, maybe one tenth of one percent.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But that’s still 30,000 people!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We could stop almost anything with that many
people.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If you believe we have five
years, or at most a decade, to dramatically change the economy that exists –
the whole unfettered growth model – you’ve got to break it down into things you
have to do, and one of those things is to stop tar sands exploitation.”</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>“Are
you optimistic or hopeful?”<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>“I
call myself a <i>pathological optimist</i>.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>I will seek out the sunlight and the silver lining, where it
exists.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But there’s little reason to be
optimistic.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We have all these public
interest lobbies and big NGOs and they’ve done a great job mitigating the rate
of loss.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But the bottom line is we’re
moving toward the destruction of natural systems, we’re not moving toward
sustaining those systems.”</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>“I
don’t think we don’t have the worldview to do that.”</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>“Exactly
right.”</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>“So,
what have you and David been working on here?”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>I had already walked through the woods under the tree houses with David,
and promised him and Ron I would not reveal anything about them until after the
action.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There’s no big security issue,
it’s just that they want to delay construction as long as possible, and one way
to do that is to</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>“While
they’re busy re-routing easements through Nebraska they don’t want to be
aggressively attacking landowners in Texas.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>That’s in our favor.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They will
probably just </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“When do you expect this all to begin?”</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">“They say they can lay
between two and three miles of pipe a day.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>If they can, and they actually start near Paris on August first and work
south, they will get to Susan’s place on about the 35th to 40th day, and here
on the 40th to 45th days.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That’s mid
September.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>So we anticipate Susan’s
place to be first, and </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">July 23, 2012</span></div>
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">The Carbon Tracker
Initiative, a group of environmentally oriented financial analysts, published a
new number stating the total amount of carbon in the proven reserves of oil
companies and oil states like Kuwait and Venezuela.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The amount is 2795 gigatons.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This is the carbon that will become available
on the world market in coming years.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>565
gigatons, <i>one-fifth</i> that amount, is the maximum amount of carbon we can
burn to stay within two degrees of global warming.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">Bill McKibben writes in
Rolling Stone:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“Think of two degrees
Celsius as the legal drinking limit – equivalent to the 0.08 blood-alcohol
level below which you might get away with driving home.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The 565 gigatons is how many drinks you could
have and still stay below that limit – the six beers, say, you might consume in
an evening.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And the 2,795 gigatons?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That's the three 12-packs the fossil-fuel
industry has on the table, already opened and ready to pour.”<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=29495514#_edn2" name="_ednref2" style="mso-endnote-id: edn2;" title=""><sup><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><sup><span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">[ii]</span></sup></span></sup></a></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">This confirms what I read
earlier in Leonardo Maugeri’s <i>The Age of Oil</i>.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We will not kick the habit by running out of
substances to abuse.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We will have to do
it through the practical realm of consciousness unique to our kind.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">Susan and Gabriel Scott, Winnsboro Texas</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">“We’re in tune with nature,
like a blade of grass has got feelings. That’s kinda how I think.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Susan began.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>“But I’m not any kind of religion; I’m a free spirit.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I’ve always had the feeling that I was part
of the Earth.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I’ve always been the
protector, the giver, the Mother Earth, whatever you call it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>God Is infinite… It would take me a lifetime
to explain.”</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>“Well,
just take maybe an hour of your lifetime…”</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>“I
think we’re the keepers of the Earth, and this is all we’ve got.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This is it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>We don’t get to ride on a damn space ship and go to another one and
screw it up.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We’re supposed to be here
to maintain our own self-contained spaceship, OK?”</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>“Good
planets are hard to find,” I added.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>“And
if we don’t have enough sense to fight for and protect it, we don’t need to be
here.”</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>“We
need money, we need an economy, but that comes second,” I agreed.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>“Here’s
my opinion,” she said.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“Money is the
means to get what you need: It’s fine if you got it; it’s fine if you
don’t.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>You can’t eat it; you can’t plant
it and grow things from it; you can’t breathe it; it doesn’t bring you fresh
air like the trees does.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It’s a thing
you have in your hand to give somebody to get something in return.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But this Earth is going to be destroyed
because of it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I <i>feel</i> this
strongly.”</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Susan
and I were sitting in rockers on her front porch, enjoying the artificial
breeze from an old rusty electric fan.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>“Bought it at a yard sale from and old man – must have been in his
nineties.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He said his parents bought it
sometime way back before him.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Susan is
a collector.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Bird feeders and log chains
hung from the rafters overhead.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Road
signs nailed to siding and fence posts said <i>Bridge Out</i> and <i>Authorized
Personnel Only.</i> Susan is my age, strong and vibrant, with a friendly smile
that says, “You’re just plain folk like me.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Her son Gabriel stepped out from the kitchen to join us.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He was in a Signal Corp Battalion in Desert
Storm, working at Patriot missile installations.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“<i>Scud busters</i>, we called them.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He has two granddaughters.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">Ron showed up suddenly in the
driveway and rolled down the window.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>“The truck’s gone.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I imagine they
headed up to Clearwater Highway.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Susan
had seen surveying equipment that morning set up next to her fencerow along
route 11.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>She called David and Ron right
away.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“I might have to run up there and
see if I can find that truck,” Ron continued.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>“That will give us an idea of where they are.”</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">“Yeah,” Susan agreed.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“If they’re up there you know they’re fixin’
to come down across Youngman.”</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">David, Ron, Susan, and
Gabriel knew they could not stop the surveyors, but they could delay them.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They planned to make a stand at the border
and challenge the surveyors, firmly but politely, as they tried to cross.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The survey crew was just doing its job – they
were not the target – but they would have to back off and call the home office,
or go into town and get the Sheriff, or a court order, before they could
enter.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This was not to be a civil
action, just a delaying tactic.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Nobody
was going to risk arrest at this point.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>“I’ll call if I see anything,” Ron said as he backed around and disappeared
in a cloud of dust.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>“Ok,
we’ll meet you wherever you say.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Gabriel shouted.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“David is
heading this way, too.”</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Gabriel
sat down with us as Ron drove off. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>“I’ve
got this little voice recorder on, Gabe,” I said jokingly.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“So be careful what you say.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I’m not going to put you on the radio or
anything.”</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>“I
don’t care if you put us on TV,” Susan said.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>“I don’t care if you put us right in front of the President of the
U-nited States.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He needs to know.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I think he’s against it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I think he got bull dogged.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He got intimidated or bought out – one of the
two.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That’s my opinion.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He’s wishy-washy.”</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>“I
got goaded into signing by fear alone.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Susan went on.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“Pete Porter, the
land agent for TransCanada, was a slick talking man.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He could talk the horns off a billy goat and
sell them back to him.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He said they’re
coming, they’re going to take my land, and if I do anything they would sue
me.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I was going to have to pay lawyer’s
fees, court costs, and everything else.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>This farm is a natural land.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We
have big trees.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This is what we live
by.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We’re grateful to be here.”</span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>“It’s
your home – I can relate to that.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I have
a homestead in Kentucky.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I went there to
be with nature, and I feel for what you are going through.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Gabriel
sat forward.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“I think we are just going
to show everybody how peacefully we can tell them we don’t want them here,
without violence.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We’re not violent
people,” he said.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>“Your
role here is going to be absolutely essential here.” I assured him.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“You won’t be the only people the media talk
to, but they will want to hear what you, the landowners, think about what is
going on.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>“I
ain’t real good at talking,” Susan said in a low, dejected tone.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>“You
should just speak from the heart.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>People
will want to know what you are feeling.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>How you say it will just come out.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>But like Gabe was saying, how people understand this will be so
important.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It’s not about the
confrontation; it’s not just us against the cops”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>“It’s
about the Earth.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>“Yes”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>“You
take water,” she went on.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“They use
eight barrels of pure drinking water to clean just one barrel of that
stuff.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Then they dump it in a tailing
pond that birds land in and die.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>“We’re
not radicals.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I said.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“We’re just trying to let the Earth speak
through us.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I’m sure you can do that
with composure and calm.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I know you will
be firm.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">“You gotta stand your
ground,” added Gabriel.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“You know I’m a
Desert Storm vet.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They sent me to fight
for oil; I truly believe that’s what that was about.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But when I came back here, I just wanted to
relax, to enjoy my life here.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We got a
two-year old granddaughter we’re raising and I was looking at their map the
other day and see this big red line going down through there and I said, ‘What
is that?’<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It’s what they’re calling a <i>kill
zone.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></i>Even if there was a pin hole
in that pipeline, at 1400 psi, that’s like a bullet.” </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">“And they won’t be able to
detect it,” I said.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">“Like the Kalamazoo
leak.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They thought it was an air bubble
in the line; they increased the pressure to push it through.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">“What’s your understand of
what’s going to happen with the training this weekend?” I asked.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">“My taxes is paying our
government to protect us.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Susan
answered.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“They’ve bailed on us.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>These politicians come shake your hand, but
when you want to talk to them you can’t touch ‘em with a ten-foot pole.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">“These kids coming – I call
them kids,” Gabriel said.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“I’m forty-six
years old – a lot of people would look at them and classify them as misfits,
just by their appearance.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But there is a
lot of knowledge there, a lot of wanting for the Earth to be around for their
kids.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I see that in them.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They’re smart.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Every one I’ve talked to is smart.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">“Do you trust them to express
your interest?”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">“I do.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I do trust them.” Gabe assured me.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“They’re fact-to-face with you.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They’ll look you in the eye.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>My grandpa said if you shake a man’s hand and
he don’t look you in the eye, you need to look the other way.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">“They’re trying to save the
Earth.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Susan added.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“They’re going to be camping out here.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">“And if they’re doing
something you don’t agree with…” </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">“They’ll have to leave.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Susan said firmly.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">“They have to speak for <i>you</i>,”
I agreed.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“I think this is crucial –
what’s going to happen right here.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Not
only is this whole pipeline critical for the entire Earth system, you guys are
going to be the first ones.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>You will set
the tone for what happens elsewhere.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">“You know, I try to talk to
people I know about this, I try to get through, and even the trees answer
better than they do.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Susan said,
looking out over the porch to the woods.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>The air was hot and still beyond the fan’s range.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The birds were silent, and tiny black
butterflies fluttered through the weeds along the road in front of us.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">“I understand that,” I said,
after a long pause.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">“And all the dirty air they
make burning that stuff.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>You can’t put
it in a sack and tie it up.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And the
water, too”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">“If there’s no water, then
there’s no us.” Gabriel added.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">The phone rang and Gabe got
up to answer it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It was Ron.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>No sight of the surveyors.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">“You know, your heart breaks
in two,” Susan was saying in her soft dejected tone.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“Literally – I had a heart attack over
this.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I never took no medicine.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Now I have to take pills every day.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I don’t like conflict.“</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">“This is an opportunity for
you to get your word out.” I said, looking at her worried face.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I’m sure you can handle the conflict
peaceably.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">“I’m the most peaceablist
person I know on this Earth.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I’m plain
country.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">“You don’t have to do
anything special, but you will be speaking to the world.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It’s a time for you to have a voice.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">The three of us walked down
toward to the pond where the encampment would be.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Two large tents were already pitched and
ready for whoever would come.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A swarm of
large channel catfish boiled the water in front of us as Susan filled a bucket
with fish food.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">“They can hear us coming,”
She laughed, and threw a handful of pellets out to the hungry hoard.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The feeding frenzy began. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">“Yup,” Gabriel said.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“Our granddaughter just loves this lake.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We fed the cats yesterday and a big one
turned and splashed us all over.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>She
will never forget that!”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">July 24, 2012</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Susan
found the surveyors near her land this morning and called Ron.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He jumped in his car and made it to Susan’s
place in time to video the encounter and post it on the Stop Tar Sands website.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Susan had a tremble in her voice at first,
but seemed to gain confidence as spoke to the surveyor.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He was polite (the camera might have helped),
and agreed to stay off Susan’s land until the situation was clarified.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>David and I showed up as the discussion
ended.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>She smiled her “just plain folk”
smile to the crew chief and seemed to relax.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>I thought she did very well.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>We
also heard today that the Army Corps approved the middle section of the
southern leg, the section that runs through Winnsboro.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It’s full speed ahead now, from Cushing to
Port Arthur.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If they keep building north
to south, they should get to Susan’s land in early September, and the twelve
miles south to David’s a week or so later.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">David Daniel</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">It was a few days before I
got a chance to speak with David at any length.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>He’s busy preparing tree houses, caring for Clara and Naida, and
coordinating events at the training this weekend.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The Keystone pipeline has been a strain on
his emotions, his family, and his finances.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>He is a quiet, shy, soft-spoken man, but utterly determined to make a
stand, right here, on his own land.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Uncertainty surrounds every aspect of his life, yet he knows exactly
what he is doing.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I knew, well before I
came here, that the early tone of the movement against the pipeline would
depend largely on his character, and I was uncertain as to the maturity and
seriousness of that character.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I did not
know how long I would stay here or how involved I might become in the
Barricade.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But after meeting several
times with David, I decided to stay through the training.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It will be worth the stay.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I will have to hurry back home Monday to
catch my plane to Alberta.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">We walked to his home just up
the hill from the campground where Ron and I are staying.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He’s a carpenter, and like me, built his own
house.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A few unfinished touches remain,
as in all owner-built homes, but the space is airy, light, and tidy.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Slate and ceramic tiles line the floors, and
salvaged tin hamburger roasting pans cover the ceiling in the kitchen.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They give a well-sculpted, homemade look to
the room.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A foot or more of insulation
fills the space between ceiling and roof.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>David began with his legal struggles.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">“Eminent domain is a tool
industry uses, a big tool, a tool that is the destruction of our rights and our
use of the commons.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Right now industry
has a free-for-all.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>All companies have
to do is go to the Texas Railroad Commission and get the one-page T4 form
permit and literally check a box that says ‘Are you private or are you public?’
If they check <i>private</i> they have no right to eminent domain; if they
check <i>public</i>, then they have eminent domain.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>“They
just have to say they’re public.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>“That’s
all they have to do.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The Railroad
Commission has no oversight to check and see if the company is what it says it
is.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It’s a self-declaratory process by
the industry.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>“So
this has never been tried in court.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The
definition of public use…</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>“There
has been a recent case, the Denbury Green case.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>The Texas Supreme Court said that the T4 form permit does not prove that
a company is a common carrier for public use.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>So a landowner has the right to make that challenge, but do you have the
<i>means</i> to make that challenge?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Do
you have the million dollars it would take to bring it before the Supreme
Court?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Ultimately, the way I see it,
eminent domain is a big tool that industries can use to begin their destructive
projects that threaten our resources… and our rights.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>“You
got into this as a landowner.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>“Four
years ago this month, July 2008, my neighbor called and said people had been
trespassing on the property.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I got home
and walked the property and saw that it had been fully surveyed and staked,
cutting my land in half.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There were all
these orange stakes through the big hardwoods down by the creek that said <i>XLPL
36 inch</i>.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I didn’t know anything
about TransCanada, the Keystone XL, or anything about the proposed
project.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>“So
they came without your permission, or even notice, and staked out your land,
trampling right on top of your home.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>“Yes.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The <i>PL</i> led me to believe this was for
a pipeline.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A month and a half later I
got a letter from TransCanada.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Only
then did I know who the stakes belonged to.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“In that month and a half…</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>“I
had no idea.” </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>“What
were you thinking?”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>“My
heart sunk.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The area that was staked was
the reason we bought the twenty acres, because it has the springs and the
creeks, and the old-growth hardwoods.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>That’s where these stakes were.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>The letter from TransCanada had a phone number, so I called to ask why
the surveyors had come on my land without permission, and the guy said ‘They
probably got lost!’”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>“Ha!”
I laughed.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“Surveyors don’t get
lost.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That’s their job!”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>“Yeah,
with GPS and all – I didn’t buy it.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>“I
got another letter in November,” He went on, “They said they had the right to
eminent domain, and if I didn’t comply with their requests within ten days,
they were taking me to court.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>“Did
you talk to your neighbors about it?”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>“Nobody
knew anything about it – we all thought it was a gas pipeline.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>“Did
you know then that they would be cutting down your trees?”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>“I
assumed they would have to cut some trees, but the scale and scope I had not a
clue.” </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">David thought for a while, as if feeling again
what he had gone through.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“After I got
the letter threatening eminent domain I stayed up into the wee hours of the
night composing an email saying who I was and what my concerns were with a
series of question about what they intended to do.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I got a phone call the next morning from an
attorney saying he would forward my questions on to Houston.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>So he didn’t answer any of my questions.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Then he said, ‘All I need to know from you is
which pile to put you in: the compliance pile, or the f***ing un-compliance
pile.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>“He
said that?”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>“That’s
what he said.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>“Really.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>So he was already contentious.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>“Yeah,
in a <i>you’re-a-peon</i> sort of way – I am a peon up against a multi-national
corporation with lawyers that would just eat me alive.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I can’t afford an attorney.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>“You
never heard back on any of the questions you wrote the company?”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>“It
was actually two years later.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>“When
the surveyors came again, what was your interaction with them?”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>“They
were just people doing their jobs.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>They’re not responsible for all this.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>“That’s
probably true of the construction people, too.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>“Sure.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It’s just trying to keep that in perspective.
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Those are the faces you see that are
doing the trespassing.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>“I
think that’s important to keep in mind as we confront this project… to not look
at them as the opposition.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>“That’s
right.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Most of them don’t have a clue of
the overall project.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>“At
what point did you begin to find out about the tar sands?”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>“Four
years ago there was not much out there on tar sands.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>One of the letters said something about <i>oil
sands—</i>their PR word for tar sands – so at that point I started
researching.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In early 09, scouring the
internet late at night, I learned about the Keystone 1.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>At that point I realized the difference
between conventional crude oil and tar sands oil.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There’s heat involved in a tar sands
pipeline, and much higher pressure.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The
pipe is only .465 inches thick.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I’ve
done a lot of welding and worked with steel – that’s pretty stinkin’ thin for a
high-pressure pipeline… combined with the heat, combined with abrasion from the
quartz sand particles.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The high pressure
has to do with the nature of the bitumen.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Tar sands bitumen is virtually a solid at room temperature; conventional
crude oil is a liquid – it flows easier.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Bitumen has to be pressurized and liquefied with carcinogenic diluents
to flow.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They pipe it at 140-160
degrees.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Originally, I thought they were
heating it to make it flow, but it turns out the heat actually comes from the
friction.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>“So
that’s got to be abrading the inside of the pipe,” I added.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“If its producing heat, that’s resistance,
and if there’s resistance, that’s got to be abrading that steel.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>“Yeah.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>To me that seems common sense.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Later on, when we had our meetings,<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>(Stop Tar Sands: the Winnsboro group) we’d
have oil field workers and pipeliners showing up asking why we were opposing
the new pipeline, I gave them the information about the pressures, specific
gravities, and heat, and they started saying ‘Wait a minute, this doesn’t
work!’<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>So we had people who actually
built these things express concern.” </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>“So,
this was not going to be an ordinary pipeline.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>“Exactly.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>“What
was your environmental consciousness before all this happened, and how did it
develop as a result of it?”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>“After
I started reading the environmental impact statements, I began to realize how
toxic the bitumen by itself is.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And then
they add all these other chemicals.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>As
much as 1.7 million gallons a day can leak from the pipeline without triggering
any of their leak detection systems, and the leaks will be underground.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They could be leaking into our water supplies
without anybody knowing about it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The
Keystone 1 has had 14 leaks since it became activated – all <i>above</i>
ground, where they could be seen.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>What’s
happening below ground, we don’t know.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>We’re sitting on top of the Carrizo-Wilcox aquifer which feeds ten to
twelve million people in Texas, and on top of that is the Queen City-Sparta
aquifer, which is only a few feet underground.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>I drink out of the springs on my land now, but I won’t be doing that
anymore.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>“You
don’t know what you’re drinking.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>“And
testing your water is expensive.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That’s
the landowner’s responsibility.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>After
all the negotiations, I got them to agree to test my water one time, and had to
fight for that much.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And they threatened
to take that away from me if I didn’t sign with them.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>‘If you don’t take this offer,’ they said.
‘We’ll take you to court; you’ll have to hire an attorney and appraisers; so
what’s it gonna be?’”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>“I’ve
always been concerned about the environment,” he continued.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>”But I never did anything about it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I was a boy scout; I’ve always done a lot of
camping; but I never belonged to any organization.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I never became involved until this thing came
along.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I guess I had my head in the sand
and my fingers in my ears, but that’s no longer the case.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>What it took for me was to have it come banging
on my door.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Now I have a front row
seat.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>“How
did this project change your understanding of human life on Earth?”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>“You
do the math, and we’re in trouble.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>When
you consider the world’s most expensive, dirtiest and most toxic fossil fuel is
considered a <i>viable source</i>, that should be a clear indication that we’re
in trouble.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>“I’m
a father,” he went on, “And I have a responsibility to my daughter, and that’s
not just financial, that includes what kind of environment she’s going to have
to live in.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The World Bank has stated
that the next wars are going to be fought over water, and the climate
implications are right here in front of us.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Certainly, the Earth goes through cycles, but we’re speeding the climate
process along.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We have the knowledge as
a species to have a positive impact on the environment, but we choose to have a
negative impact.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This planet we’re
floating through space on is all we have.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>It’s like what I heard a tribal leader say, ‘The Earth is sick and has a
fever.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It’s a living thing; when
something is sick and has a fever, you take care of it.’”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">“But you can’t use the word <i>environment</i>
around here without, in some cases, risking your safety,” he continued.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“What we’ve done here with <i>Stop Tar Sands</i>
is learn to speak a language that people around here understand.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I can still walk through town and I don’t
have to worry about anything.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>“That’s
going to become more important,.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I
added.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>“I
believe in the environmental message, but the media still turns that message
into the environment versus jobs, and leaves it at that.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>So I want to come at it through all the other
doors that <i>have worked</i>, and get the support of people who normally wouldn’t
support an environmental message.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I’m a
little concerned about other people and other groups getting involved who don’t
understand the local culture… people who don’t speak the local language.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I’ve heard rumors that people might be sky
diving in or do some other sort of showboating that would not go over well
here.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>“So
the environmental message should be around the periphery of what you’re trying
to do.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Is that right?” I asked.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>“The
environmental message is the elephant in the room.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Everyone will see it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Every way into the room leads to that
message.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And people should know that we
did not start out with any sort of protest or civil disobedience – we’ve gone
through and exhausted every possible avenue that you’re supposed to go through
and this is what we’re left with.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>David,
it turns out, is a trained gymnast, and “ran away with the circus” at age
28.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This will prove important for what
follows here in Winnsboro.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">TransCanada might just be
messing with the wrong Texan.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">July 25, 2012</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">David showed up this morning
at the campground and asked if I would like to see </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">July 26, 2012</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>I
am sitting alone in David and Clara Daniel’s woods, down near the creek.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The cicadas are singing their summer
song.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Squirrels are cackling in the
trees and blue jays scolding in the distance.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>There are tall hardwoods here, like the ones I know back home: oak,
hickory, gum, and basswood.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A red oak
tree, thirty-inch thick, towers a hundred feet overhead.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This is the western edge of the great North
American deciduous forest that I have come to love, to feel at home in, and to
feel called upon to preserve from the biocide of mountaintop removal.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This is where I live.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is hot now, but shady; a soft summer
breeze stirs the limbs overhead.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">Seven feet below is the
bottom of the Keystone XL trench, now bedrock and undisturbed soil.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This is where the Earth will rise and make
her stand.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>As
I sit, I wonder what I would say if, like Susan, I could speak to the
trees.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>How would I explain to them why I
am here, and what we humans are up to?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Would they see me in my two-legged uniform – an arm of humanity – or
would they distinguish me, with Ron and David, and Susan and Gabriel, from
others of my kind?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Would they hold me
responsible for what is to happen?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Do
they see with eyeless branches, or only feel the communal presence of my
breath?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Their days are numbered, yet
they let me sit here, undisturbed, under their branches and over their roots.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They do not seem to mind.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If I could speak to them, would they
reply?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>What would they say to me, and to
my kind?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>The
woodpecker calls.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Do
they know they will die?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“Trees don’t
die; the forest dies,” I hear, but it is in the thoughts and words that hover
over breath.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In seeing there is
separation in space; in breath there is no space.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I am trying to listen, but humanity holds
me.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Words cloud my mind.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I am listening through the tangle of English;
they speak no English.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They breathe: in,
out; up, and down.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I feel them pushing
gently on my lungs – the other side of sensation.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The earth pulls down, and holds my body
up.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Is that for granted?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Will it always hold me here?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The Earth speaks.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Yet, again, I hear no words.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There are no words.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I listen to breath, to gravity, but do not
know what they say.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There is no doubt as
to their being here, with me.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There is
no question as to reality.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I wish to
calm my thoughts and learn their language, but then, could I speak to people?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Would they understand me?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Are there wordless words for people?</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>The
woodpecker calls from a distance – a quiet trill.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>I
sense the forest retreating to low places like this.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The tall oaks are dying on the hillsides,
parched from last year’s draught, and this year’s.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The heat and dry Earth are too much for
them.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The deer, the panther, and the
armadillo will have less space to roam.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Do the people who build pipelines breathe the quiet call of the
Earth?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Do they sense the forest?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Do they know they are piercing a stronghold
whence the trees may one day spr<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=29495514" name="_GoBack"></a>ead anew?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Does the life that is here show on their maps
of towns and roads and property lines?</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>The
woodpecker calls again, this time in a loud, raucous squawk.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>His home is the old trees that have had their
life.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He lives where I live.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I stand, a piece of my heart in David’s
woods, waiting for the chainsaws and bulldozers.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div style="mso-element: endnote-list;">
<br clear="all" />
<hr align="left" size="1" width="33%" />
<div id="edn1" style="mso-element: endnote;">
<div class="MsoEndnoteText">
<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=29495514#_ednref1" name="_edn1" style="mso-endnote-id: edn1;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">[i]</span></span></span></span></span></a><span style="font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;"> “USDA Declares
‘Natural Disaster’ in 26 States as Drought Devastates,”Common Dreams,” July 13,
2012.</span></div>
</div>
<div id="edn2" style="mso-element: endnote;">
<div class="MsoEndnoteText">
<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=29495514#_ednref2" name="_edn2" style="mso-endnote-id: edn2;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">[ii]</span></span></span></span></span></a><span style="font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;"> Rolling Stone
Politics, July 19, 2012</span></div>
</div>
</div>
<br />
Joehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08071346260864215736noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29495514.post-63768309865427735162012-05-31T11:49:00.002-07:002012-05-31T11:50:43.999-07:00Stained Glass Business/School For SaleDear friends of our are selling their business. Here is their notification:<br />
<br />
<div style="color: #080000; font-family: georgia,serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 21px; margin: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">
It
is with deep regret that we send you this announcement but it is necessary.</div>
<div style="color: #080000; font-family: georgia,serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 21px; margin: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">
</div>
<div style="color: #080000; font-family: georgia,serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 21px; margin: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: times new roman;">Avalon Stained Glass School For
Sale</span></span></span></div>
<div style="color: #080000; font-family: georgia,serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 21px; margin: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: times new roman; font-size: x-small;"></span> </div>
<div style="color: #080000; font-family: georgia,serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 21px; margin: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: times new roman; font-size: x-small;">Due to
Owner’s ill health Avalon Stained Glass School is selling the
following:</span></div>
<div style="color: #080000; font-family: georgia,serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 21px; margin: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: times new roman; font-size: x-small;"></span> </div>
<div style="color: #080000; font-family: georgia,serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 21px; margin: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: times new roman; font-size: x-small;">12 years
of Good Will</span></div>
<div style="color: #080000; font-family: georgia,serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 21px; margin: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: times new roman; font-size: x-small;"></span> </div>
<div style="color: #080000; font-family: georgia,serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 21px; margin: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: times new roman; font-size: x-small;">The
business name “Avalon Stained Glass School”</span></div>
<div style="color: #080000; font-family: georgia,serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 21px; margin: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: times new roman; font-size: x-small;"></span> </div>
<div style="color: #080000; font-family: georgia,serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 21px; margin: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: times new roman; font-size: x-small;">All its
Stained Glass school stock and equipment which includes student stations,
grinders, soldering irons, all kinds of rings saws etc, Morton boards, glass
cutters and more. We have 2 complete 4 student traveling set up kits for
teaching stained glass wind chime workshops and stained glass night light
workshops. We have other things and it is too much to list here.</span></div>
<div style="color: #080000; font-family: georgia,serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 21px; margin: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: times new roman; font-size: x-small;"></span> </div>
<div style="color: #080000; font-family: georgia,serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 21px; margin: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: times new roman; font-size: x-small;">We have a
whole warehouse of glass, hundreds of patterns, lots of retail inventory, cash
register.</span></div>
<div style="color: #080000; font-family: georgia,serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 21px; margin: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: times new roman; font-size: x-small;"></span> </div>
<div style="color: #080000; font-family: georgia,serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 21px; margin: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: times new roman;">Plus Glass Etching machine. Our computer
shows that we have over $29,000.00 into this part of the business at this very
minute. </span></span></span></div>
<div style="color: #080000; font-family: georgia,serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 21px; margin: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: times new roman; font-size: x-small;"></span> </div>
<div style="color: #080000; font-family: georgia,serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 21px; margin: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: times new roman; font-size: x-small;">We are
asking $23,900.00 OBO. You can pay for this with your credit card through
PayPal to our account </span><a href="mailto:avalonsg@scrtc.com"><span style="color: blue; font-family: times new roman; font-size: x-small;">avalonsg@scrtc.com</span></a><span style="color: black; font-family: times new roman; font-size: x-small;"> once you
have seen everything.</span></div>
<div style="color: #080000; font-family: georgia,serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 21px; margin: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: times new roman; font-size: x-small;"></span> </div>
<div style="color: #080000; font-family: georgia,serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 21px; margin: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: times new roman;">We can add a whole warm glass studio with
glass, kiln, equipment, molds and more. Asking $2,400.00 OBO and you can see
all info at this link. </span></span></span><a href="http://arlenewright-correll.com/nl/?nid=29138&type=html"><span style="color: blue; font-family: times new roman; font-size: x-small;">http://arlenewright-correll.com/nl/?nid=29138&type=html</span></a><span style="color: black; font-family: times new roman; font-size: x-small;">
</span></div>
<div style="color: #080000; font-family: georgia,serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 21px; margin: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: times new roman; font-size: x-small;"></span> </div>
<div style="color: #080000; font-family: georgia,serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 21px; margin: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: times new roman; font-size: x-small;">You can
pay for this with your credit card through PayPal to our account </span><a href="mailto:avalonsg@scrtc.com"><span style="color: blue; font-family: times new roman; font-size: x-small;">avalonsg@scrtc.com</span></a><span style="color: black; font-family: times new roman; font-size: x-small;"> once you
have seen everything.</span></div>
<div style="color: #080000; font-family: georgia,serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 21px; margin: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: times new roman; font-size: x-small;"></span> </div>
<div style="color: #080000; font-family: georgia,serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 21px; margin: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: times new roman; font-size: x-small;"></span> </div>
<div style="color: #080000; font-family: georgia,serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 21px; margin: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: times new roman;">We can add a whole China Painting studio
with kiln, paints, and more. Asking $699.00 OBO </span></span></span><a href="http://arlenewright-correll.com/nl/?nid=29127&type=html"><span style="color: blue; font-family: times new roman; font-size: x-small;">http://arlenewright-correll.com/nl/?nid=29127&type=html</span></a></div>
<div style="color: #080000; font-family: georgia,serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 21px; margin: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: times new roman; font-size: x-small;"></span> </div>
<div style="color: #080000; font-family: georgia,serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 21px; margin: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: times new roman; font-size: x-small;">You can
pay for this with your credit card through PayPal to our account </span><a href="mailto:avalonsg@scrtc.com"><span style="color: blue; font-family: times new roman; font-size: x-small;">avalonsg@scrtc.com</span></a><span style="color: black; font-family: times new roman; font-size: x-small;"> once you
have seen everything.</span></div>
<div style="color: #080000; font-family: georgia,serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 21px; margin: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: times new roman; font-size: x-small;"></span> </div>
<div style="color: #080000; font-family: georgia,serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 21px; margin: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">
<span style="text-decoration: underline;"><b><span style="color: black; font-family: times new roman; font-size: x-small;">Or you
can make us an offer on the whole kit and caboodle!</span></b></span></div>
<div style="color: #080000; font-family: georgia,serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 21px; margin: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: times new roman; font-size: x-small;"></span> </div>
<div style="color: #080000; font-family: georgia,serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 21px; margin: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: times new roman; font-size: x-small;">Not
included in the sale are any finished pieces of stained glass panels, etch glass
or fused or slumped glass.</span></div>
<div style="color: #080000; font-family: georgia,serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 21px; margin: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: times new roman; font-size: x-small;"></span> </div>
<div style="color: #080000; font-family: georgia,serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 21px; margin: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: times new roman; font-size: x-small;">This
information is subject to Price change, prior sale, withdrawal, errors and
omissions without any prior notice of any kind.</span></div>
<div style="color: #080000; font-family: georgia,serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 21px; margin: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: times new roman; font-size: x-small;"></span> </div>
<div style="color: #080000; font-family: georgia,serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 21px; margin: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: times new roman;">For viewing all this or any questions
please call Arlene at (270) 524 9567</span></span></span></div>Joehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08071346260864215736noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29495514.post-22441205112877289812012-04-18T07:43:00.002-07:002012-04-18T07:49:23.865-07:00<h3 style="font-family: arial;">Drawing your own patterns</h3> <p style="font-family: arial;">I think most of us start out copying the designs out of pattern books and I really don't think there's anything wrong with that. Dover publishes a wide selection of copyright-free designs, many of them from first rate artists, and in the beginning we copied all our patterns from sources like this. Now, of course, there are a wide range sources on the web and software that will guide you through the design process. We would also use these patterns in our commission work. It's just so easy to go to the potential client with ready made patterns from a book, especially if your own portfolio isn't very impressive and you're not very confident of your own ability.<br /> </p><span style="font-family: arial;">We would also do little craft shows here and there and our work sold pretty well, but we knew at some point we'd have to rely on our own creativity.</span><br style="font-family: arial;"> <p style="font-family: arial;">It's a scary thought, though, when what you draw doesn't look anywhere near as good as what you see in the pattern books. But it's a real thrill when you sell the first piece you've designed yourself.</p><br style="font-family: arial;"> <h3 style="font-family: arial;">Some thoughts on composition</h3> <p style="font-family: arial;">Neither of us have a degree in art but we're not untrained. We have taken many courses and training in various techniques and of course we have been doing this work for 30 years. But what I'm talking about now is not from any text book, just some quick tips for beginners from my own observations and experience.<br /> </p><span style="font-family: arial;">I think many beginners are thinking that the beauty of the glass is all that matters. And it's true that some glass is so beautiful, it's almost a shame to cut it. </span><br style="font-family: arial;"> <p style="font-family: arial;">But to me the most important thing is line. If the pattern is good it can make up for some poor glass choices.</p><span style="font-family: arial;">Look at your design and ask yourself these 3 questions.</span><br style="font-family: arial;"> <ul style="font-family: arial;"><li><b>Are all your pieces roughly the same size?</b></li><li><b>If it's not a geometric design, is the center of attention in the center of the piece?</b></li><li><b>Do you have a lot of cut lines?</b></li></ul> <p style="font-family: arial;"><b>All your pieces are about the same size?</b> This can tend to "confuse" the eye, as if it doesn't know where to look. All the pieces have the same size and therefore the same value, there's nothing to focus your attention on.<br /> </p><b style="font-family: arial;">The center of attention is in the center of the window?</b><span style="font-family: arial;"> Generally (but not always) this makes for a very ordinary looking piece. Your eye tends to stay in one spot not being compelled to travel over the entire composition.</span><br style="font-family: arial;"> <p style="font-family: arial;"><b>Too many cut lines?</b> This is one of the hardest things to control in designing for glass. Glass is not a very forgiving medium and if you don't allow for its brittle nature it will make you pay. But that doesn't mean you need to put a break line at the tip of every leaf. Rather than a cut line, the leaf can butt into some other element in the design.</p><span style="font-family: arial;">Of course rules were meant to be broken and great art, certainly great </span><em style="font-family: arial;">modern art</em><span style="font-family: arial;">, almost requires you to break rules. And these don't really qualify as rules exactly, they're more like shortcuts to good design. Things I've picked up over the years.</span><br style="font-family: arial;"> <h3 style="font-family: arial;">Process, not product</h3> <p style="font-family: arial;">Finally, while I don't feel qualified to teach design, I think I can offer some advice that could help those who are trying to make the transition from pattern books to designing on your own.</p><br style="font-family: arial;"> <ol style="font-family: arial;"><li><b>Redesign</b>. Not just a line here or there but try putting that flower on the left, or in a different position. Instead of straight up why not bending in the wind? or even wilted slightly. Maybe a petal has fallen off and is lying on the ground. Maybe a leaf is folded back across the stem instead of sticking straight out. Try moving away from the typical colors. Maybe you could put a dash of violet in that green leaf or some blue in that rose. Approach your work in a "painterly" manner.</li><li><b>Trust in yourself</b>, but don't get so attached to your drawing that you can't make changes. A friend of mine who <em>did</em> go to art school had a drawing teacher who would come and look at a student's work and sometimes reach out and tear it up and say, "That was very nice, now do another one". When I heard that I couldn't believe the guy could be such a creep. But now I think I know what his point was; Don't get so attached to your work that it becomes a manifestation of your ego instead of an expression of your soul. Art is a process, not a product.</li></ol>Joehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08071346260864215736noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29495514.post-32252033195676427272012-04-07T14:56:00.003-07:002012-04-07T16:14:12.891-07:00Women Still Rule<span style="font-family: arial;">In doing commissions over the years I've learned that there will be times when you'll need to be a mind reader. You will have jobs where a customer will want a Stained Glass window but have not a clue as to what she wants. In that case you've got to tell her. Well, not exactly, you'll have to come up with what she will convince herself later was what she looking for all a long.<br /><br />You do this by first looking for clues around the house. Obviously your first clue will be what sort of artwork is on the walls - modern, traditional, abstract, representational? What sort of House is it - colonial, ranch etc?<br /><br />One of my commissions was for a woman with a very nice, very traditional new Colonial Style brick house, the kind you'd expect to be filled with antique furniture from the 18th or 19 century. She wanted two transoms that were just waiting for a couple geometric designs with bevels and antique clear glass - the kind of thing I'd done a hundred times before. </span><span style="font-family: arial;">But this woman was an artist and had filled her very traditional home with very nontraditional art and although she couldn't have cared less, it simply did not match lines of the house. She was a free spirit and told me that she wanted me to just let my imagination run free, and we did.</span><br /><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: arial;">What sort of clothes does she wear? Are they bright and cheery or muted and conservative?<br /><br />I received a call from 2 ladies who wanted me to design a surprise going-away present for the keyboardist of their church. I happened to know the woman and knew that besides music her other love was birdwatching. I came up with a couple of designs I was very proud of. They were variations on an image of a piano keyboard in perspective and as the keys recede into the distance they become colorful and float up into the air to morph into the wing feathers of a bird in flight. I think she would have loved it. but I wasn't selling it to her, I was selling it to these 2 other </span><span style="font-family: arial;">very conservatively dressed </span><span style="font-family: arial;">women, and they hated it. I hadn't read the clues. They approved a depressingly ordinary Cardinal sitting in a Dogwood tree.<br /><br />What sort of person is she - quiet and reserved or funny and outgoing?<br /><br />I was called by a friend who was a sign painter. She's very high energy, very funny, to the point of sometimes being almost manic and she wanted a transom over the door of her shop. She didn't know what she was looking for but she said that being Irish perhaps a Celtic knot. I had not the least bit of interest in doing a Celtic knot and felt that even though this would fit her Irish heritage it would in no way match her personality and had nothing to do with her business. I eventually came up with an image of a splash of paint in a variety of colors that made an arch across the transom and morphed (I'm really into morphing) into a feminine hand holding an artist's paintbrush. She loved it so much that it became the logo of her business card. <br /><br />Can't get a handle on the personality of the buyer? Sometimes the clue is hidden in plain site.<br /><br />Our first big commissions was for a man who had just bought a very large very old home in town and each doorway in the home had a transom all of which had glass that had been painted over. He had no idea as to what sort of design we should use so we set about looking for clues. It didn't take long: every room had a fireplace and on each mantle was a scroll-work that made a perfect Stained Glass motif.<br /><br />Listen to the customer.<br /><br />One of my biggest mistakes was not listening closely. We did a bathroom insert for a woman and she was quite pleased with it and said that maybe since it was a very generic geometric type pattern that at some point <span style="font-style: italic;">in the future </span>she might want a more personalized piece. It would be a very large commission and I was excited to get it and so I sold her on the idea of getting the ball rolling. She sent me photos of things she wanted in the piece - her cat, a rock bridge - and I added my own ideas to it. I sent her several sketches and worked up color choices and</span><span style="font-family: arial;"> put in quite a few hours and all the while she seemed very enthusiastic, making suggestions and offering encouragement. All the way up until it was time to get started. That's when she told me she wasn't ready to do it yet. In my eagerness to get the job I had totally ignored the <span style="font-style: italic;">in the future</span> part of her plan.<br /><br />more later<br /></span><span style="font-family: arial;"></span>Joehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08071346260864215736noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29495514.post-59203427389779214682012-04-01T06:12:00.005-07:002012-04-07T16:27:16.455-07:00Women Rule<span style="font-family:arial;">Women rule the world and don't let anyone tell you different and you don't need statistics like these: women now constitute the majority of the work force; in many cities single childless women out-earn their male peers, to believe it. Just look around you. Yeah, I'm talking to you married guys. What color are your walls? What TV shows do you watch? Where'd you go on your last vacation? Need more? OK, lets take a look at your own bathroom. Did you have ANYTHING to do with the way it looks? Anything at all? Even one little thing? I walk into the bathrooms of some of my friends and I'm almost too intimidated to take a leak; the shower curtain is ruffles and frills, everything is pink or pastel blue with scented candles and pictures of flowers and birds, or maybe a little girl picking flower and talking to birds, and with soft lighting around the oval mirrors and I mean geez what guy would have the nerve to go in there and desecrate this shrine to femininity with his most disgusting bodily functions. I should just go out into the woods and dig a hole.<br /><br />And it's only going to get worse - or better depending on your viewpoint. And I'll tell you why: The characteristics that are generally considered masculine - strength, speed, aggressiveness, competitiveness, ability to focus on a particular task to the exclusion of all other inputs and to pursue it in a linear fashion - are simply no longer valuable in a world where machines do most of our work and a lot of our thinking. In the 21st century we are going to need people who have good communication skills, work well in groups, multi-task, are able to listen and not let their egos get in the way. In short: women.<br /><br />What does this have to do with Stained Glass? Plenty. In over 30 years of designing, building and installing stained glass windows I'd say 90% of my customers were women. 1% were heterosexual men. OK, I never really kept track and that's a complete exaggeration but you get the idea and if you're going to be successful in this business it's absolutely essential that you can communicate well with the feminine gender since they will be the majority of your customers.<br /><br />I've seen contractors and tradesmen in the home improvement business time and again ignore the instructions of their female customers. I've seen women having to tell their husbands to "talk to" the plumber or carpenter or roofer in order to get a point across; so many of them seem to have this "get out of my way, lady, and let me do my job" attitude.<br /><br />That attitude won't work in our business. Yes, there are going to be times when you should try to persuade a customer that maybe she doesn't really want to match her sofa or the wall paper or that doing an inverted star with skull inside just creeps you out, but for the most part, it's all about listening. Especially, and this is counter-intuitive, when dealing with someone who doesn't know what she wants.<br /><br />more later<br /></span>Joehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08071346260864215736noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29495514.post-29488477195545875462012-03-31T15:42:00.004-07:002012-04-02T08:26:37.735-07:00Officially Retired<span style="font-family:arial;">Well, I finally did it; I took the website down. Which was hard since I was damn proud of it, having gotten a book on HTML so I could write the code myself, then taking an extensive SEO course to get it to come up at the top of the SERPs. But jobs here have been nearly non existent for so long that I've been effectively retired for almost 4 years anyway. Kath has gotten a job at Mammoth Cave which she loves and I've started collecting my SS. I'm teaching guitar and banjo 2 days a week which keeps me as busy as I care to be, and we're taking some distributions from our IRA.<br /><br /></span><span style="font-family:arial;">But we've been at this since 1981. Much of that time was very rewarding both esthetically and financially. Being able to leave a customer literally speechless when she gets her first look at the installed project is a real high; one that we enjoyed many times. But much of it was also filled with anxiety: wondering if we were going to be accepted back into a show that we counted on; worrying about making pieces that were inexpensive enough to sell but were still artsy; worrying about bidding too high or - worse - too low, and wondering why when the phone doesn't ring. And nearly always that insecure feeling of not being good enough.</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;"><br />But now I've taken up painting again. When I was a kid, all I ever wanted to be - after Cowboy, Fireman and Policeman that is - was an artist. And I like to think that some of the glass work I did WAS art and I always tried to approach my glass in a "painterly" fashion, even learning to paint on glass to an extent. So I'm doing something I really love and I don't have to worry about whether someone else will like it or not.<br /><br />I'm also more involved in the day-to-day of the house and the garden, cleaning and planning meals and keeping things trimmed up.<br /><br />So I'm happy with my decision. Now I have to sell a ton of glass, glass supplies and tools. Anyone interested?<br /><br />j<br /><br /><br /></span>Joehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08071346260864215736noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29495514.post-15500903567648717192010-09-02T11:24:00.000-07:002010-09-02T11:50:06.760-07:00What Would You Do - Conclusion<span style="font-family: arial;">Under this title in a previous post I posed the question of whether or not it was ethical to reproduce one of your own pieces that you'd previously sold as one-of-a-kind. I read the responses and partly because of the them I went ahead and re-did the piece. I matched it pretty closely but I couldn't get the exact Rondel from Blenko glass that I'd used in the original:<br />http://www.homestudioartglass.com/images/2_rivers.jpg<br />(That company is so strange. I mean Blenko not Home Studio. Well, maybe we're a little strange too.) But I did manage to put together a piece that was nearly identical and when the check arrived I sent it off. </span><span style="font-family: arial;"> It was purchased as a birthday present for an executive director at the National Association of Clean Water Agencies.<br /><br />Well a few weeks later they sent me an e-mail and said they'd found something else for this coworker's birthday and would I take the piece back and refund their money. I did. I just thought I'd let you know how it turned out. Sooner or later you see everything.<br /><br />j<br /></span>Joehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08071346260864215736noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29495514.post-140288884237868422010-06-06T12:50:00.000-07:002010-06-06T12:53:39.555-07:00Can You Pick And Choose?<span style="font-family:arial;">A while back I had a potential customer offer me a commission to do a piece that I had absolutely no interest in doing. I've done them before, these 'match my sofa' commissions, and I've always gritted my teeth, held my nose, made the piece, collected my fee and moved on. But there was something about this one that just hurt my head.<br /><br />It wasn't obscene, satanic or blasphemous (now THAT would have been interesting! ha.), it was just mundane in the extreme. I knew it would just suck the life out of me.<br /><br />Yeah, I know what you're thinking; how pretentious, who does this guy think he is? Well, I'm nearly 65 and I've been doing this for over 30 years and I'm tired in a lot of ways. Physically, standing bent over a work table all day hurts and at the end of the day it's hard to walk. But even more, I've lost a lot of the enthusiasm I had as a young man. The thrill of making something beautiful out of nothing but your imagination and getting someone to not only agree that it is beautiful but to pay you for it could keep me going through some truly difficult jobs.<br /><br />Or maybe it's that I'm not doing art shows anymore. In the past they always charged my batteries. Meeting the public and doing a little selling was energizing, plus</span><span style="font-family:arial;"> I'd come home with lots of ideas and plenty of validation. But art shows are for younger folks.</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;"><br />So I blew him off. Actually, I handed him off to another shop. But in so doing I made a promise to myself to do interesting work whenever possible. How I'm going to accomplish this I don't know but it's got to be art or I'm just a hooker and in it only for the money.<br /><br />j</span>Joehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08071346260864215736noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29495514.post-77660248324069515762010-04-16T13:02:00.001-07:002010-04-19T09:40:02.294-07:00So, what do you do?<span style="font-style: italic;font-family:arial;" >Do you make one-of-a-kind stained glass pieces? Unique original works of art? Or do you think of your work as generic and decorative? And what exactly is the difference?</span><span style="font-family:arial;"><br /><br />I have always wondered about the "signed and numbered" phenomenon. Painters and photographers do this as a way of getting good prices for what are essentially copies of their work. It's an understood contract between buyer and seller that there are a set and limited number of copies and therefore each is worth more than just the cost of production plus profit; they have value as a "semi-unique" art work. But it's still a copy. So I've always thought there was something not quite right about that whole enterprise but I'm not exactly sure what it is.<br /><br />Several years ago I decided that I was no longer an artisan but an artist. I naively thought that what this meant was I would do only signed, one-of-a-kind pieces and I advertised them as such on the website. I eventually sold them, not on our site but at art shows where I did not claim any one-of-a-kind status for them. But I kept the photos up on the web as examples of my work.<br /><br />A few weeks ago I was contacted by someone who wanted one of the pieces on the web-page and I told her it had been sold. She asked me to make another one. Now, to be frank, this was our first possible commission in quite some time, so I agreed to draw up another pattern - I had thrown the original away - and recreate the piece. I felt that since the original buyer received no promise that I would never make a copy, I'm within my rights to do so. Or am I?<br /><br />So...what would/do you do? Would you tell them that it's impossible, you can't recreate an original? Or do you consider every piece unique and one-of-a-kind in it's own way?<br /><br />j<br /></span><span style="font-family:arial;"><br />http://www.homestudioartglass.com</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;"><br /><br /></span>Joehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08071346260864215736noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29495514.post-54339075512103764202010-03-04T09:53:00.000-08:002010-04-19T09:40:31.170-07:00"Go Back To The Drawing Board?"<span style="font-family:arial;">I may have created the impression that we're getting out of the business (Business? What business?) in my last post and that's definitely not the case</span>. <span style="font-family:arial;">And like David said there seems to be a slight warming trend lately, at least the phone is ringing (I was getting ready to call the phone company and see if they'd cut it off.)<br /><br />I was talking awhile back about designing with Photoshop and it's progeny like PhotoDeluxe, Photoshop Elements, Limited etc. Here you can take pics of your glass and "cut them out" on the computer and put them in your design to get a real accurate picture of what the finished product will look like, and eliminate that "what was I thinking" moment that occurs sometimes when you first see the light come through your piece. But what I was really excited about was that you could send the prospective client a virtual photo of what their window would look like before you scored the first piece of glass.<br /><br />I always found it amazing that a client would agree to turn loose of some large bills on the basis of a colored pencil sketch. Now I'm pretty good with a pencil and can come up with some real pretty sketches but still it always seemed like I was saying "use your imagination and give me 1500 dollars and I'll put this in your home"<br /><br />So the Photoshop stuff seemed to be the perfect tool for approaching design possibilities with the client.<br /><br />But here's the thing; I never lost a customer when I was handing them the finished pencil sketch. Once it got to that stage I had them. When I started doing computer design I began to loose some. Not many, but enough to make me wonder. Maybe it's coincidence. Or maybe it's just that our prices are higher now. But could it be that the customer likes to see the work of the hand rather than the microchip; to know that you're an artist first and a crafter second. I still do the Photoshop thing but I make sure my customer sees something I've sketched whenever possible.<br /><br />j<br /><br /></span><span style="font-family:arial;"><br />http://www.homestudioartglass.com</span>Joehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08071346260864215736noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29495514.post-74030036389448744812009-09-18T16:02:00.000-07:002010-04-19T09:40:53.945-07:00My, How Times Have Changed<span style="font-family:arial;">I know I haven't</span> <span style="font-family:arial;">put anything down in awhile, but it seems to me that my stained glass business is in a much different place than when I first started this blog. Back then I was talking about being 'covered up' and now it's as if someone threw a switch about a year ago and turned off my business. I've had a few small jobs that make me keep the doors open but really, It's never been this dry in over 20 years.</span><br /><span style="font-family:Arial;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:Arial;">I'm sure it's because Stained Glass is so dependent on the housing market and of course that's collapsed completely. And also when it's time to cut back on expenses well, who really <b>needs</b> the stuff I make anyway.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:Arial;">And that has always been the source of a certain amount of ambivalence on my part. As a carpenter I always knew that I was providing a necessary service. It's a noble profession, hell, Jesus was a carpenter. But no one in the bible, or anywhere else in literature as far as I can tell, was a Stained Glass artisan. </span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:Arial;">Of course I'm an artist, but I've never had that consuming artistic fire, that "I would die for my art!" attitude. It's always been something I enjoyed doing and was good at but I never felt I had anything to "say" in art.</span><br /><span style="font-family:Arial;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:Arial;">And Stained Glass artisans, with a few - very few actually - notable exceptions, are decorative artists at best. We decorate homes. We are often charged with reproducing a beloved scene, or a quilt pattern, or perhaps a family pet. We are constantly being constrained to match the carpet or the sofa or the bedspread for God's sake. The first time I was given free rein to design a transom to suit the home owner's personality, I was so intoxicated with the prospect that I was frozen into immobility for a time. OK, I know this only happens to us in the lower ranks; Narcissus Quagliata probably never gets the "Oh and I love peach, could you put some peach in it?" rap.<br /><br />But really this feeling that what I was producing was essentially landfill was at it's peak during art festival season. Now, we never did a lot of art shows 4 or maybe 5 a year at the most. But the stuff we had to crank out just depressed the hell out of me. In order to hit those price points below $30 we had to produce simple designs with few pieces that could be cranked out like an assembly line. I was always trying to reduce the number of cuts, usually degrading the design in order to keep pieces affordable. We never really got into the little suction cup sun catchers but still...</span><br /><span style="font-family:Arial;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:Arial;">Well now our situation has changed dramatically; we're much more financially secure and no longer do the art show circuit - thank God - and I'm looking to find a way to only do jobs that interest me. (not sure exactly how to go about that, can I just sniff and tell a client "So sorry, old chum, but this project bores me?") We have a few pieces in the Kentucky Artisan's Center in Berea and when - and if - the bug to produce items on spec hits I'll look to galleries to sell my work.<br /><br />j<br /></span><span style="font-family:arial;"><br />http://www.homestudioartglass.com</span>Joehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08071346260864215736noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29495514.post-78057062468752509822006-12-11T06:16:00.000-08:002010-04-19T09:41:32.321-07:00Stained Glass In The Bath?<span style="font-family:arial;">Does it sound silly, putting a gorgeous Stained Glass window in the bathroom where so few people will be able to see it? It's certainly not the first room that comes to mind when you're thinking about a decorative window is it? But homes are getting bigger, and bigger homes have bigger windows and a window in the bath presents a privacy issue. You want the natural light but you don't want people being able to see in.<br /><br />There are several window treatments that can solve the problem but many people are finding the most attractive one is Stained Glass. You can see some of the windows we have installed at: http//www.homestudioartglass.com/res and scroll down to Stained Glass in the Bath.<br /><br />j<br /></span><span style="font-family:arial;"><br />http://www.homestudioartglass.com</span>Joehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08071346260864215736noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29495514.post-1152389108463033052006-07-08T12:26:00.000-07:002010-04-19T09:41:56.393-07:00Custom Stained Glass II<h3>Odering a window</h3><p><span style="font-family:arial;">Generally, when asked to do a custom piece, I like to visit the site where the window will be installed. In this way I can get a feel for the style of the home and see how the client's tastes run. Occasionally, I'll pick up a design idea from a piece of the architecture or some of the furnishings.</span></p><p><span style="font-family:arial;">I'll also see how much light will be coming through and whether it is direct or indirect sunlight. </span><span style="font-family:Arial;">Many people prefer cathedral glass (see the following paragraph) because it lets in more light and doesn't look as "heavy" as opalescent glass. But in direct sunlight, the color of cathedral can look washed out as if it has faded.</span><br /></p><h3></h3><p></p><h3>Opalescent or Cathedral?</h3><p><span style="font-family:arial;">The term "Stained Glass" originally referred to the silver stain fired onto the back of a piece of glass which gave it a color anywhere from deep amber to bright yellow. Now, however, it refers to any decorative colored glass assembled with lead or copper foil as well as to the sheets of colored glass themselves.</span><br /><span style="font-family:Arial;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:Arial;">There are 2 basic kinds of colored sheet (stained) glass; Cathedral and Opalescent. Cathedral glass is glass that you can see through. The amount of the diffusion of the light can vary from completely obscure - where you can only perceive light and shadow, to glass that looks like clear glass with color. And w</span><span style="font-family:Arial;">hile a lot of cathedral glass will appear to have no particular color without light coming through it, like when viewed from outside during the day, opalescent glass will show a color with or without transmitted light.</span></p><p><span style="font-family:Arial;">All of these factors must be taken into consideration when planning a Stained Glass window. </span></p><p><span style="font-family:arial;">see also: http://www.homestudioartglass.com/your_window.htm</span></p><p><br /><span style="font-family:arial;"></span><br /></p>Joehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08071346260864215736noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29495514.post-1151765837324630202006-07-01T07:19:00.000-07:002009-10-04T09:28:36.965-07:00Custom Stained Glass I<span style="font-family:arial;">It would be so nice to deal with clients on a regular basis for whom money is no oblect, to have a customer who says "just build me a gorgeous window". But usually, one of the first things a customer wants to know is "how much will it cost?". Often this question is asked before the design has been chosen. </span><br /><span style="font-family:Arial;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:Arial;">There are so many factors that affect the price that it's impossible to say exactly what a window will cost until the design has been finalized and all the materials chosen. This is because; </span><br /><ul><li><span style="font-family:Arial;">The cost of glass varies wildly. For example; the cost of a sheet of hand blown flashed glass can be 10 times that of a machine rolled sheet.</span></li><li><span style="font-family:Arial;">Doing a window in lead is more difficult than copper foil and takes longer.</span></li><li><span style="font-family:Arial;">Special order items like custom beveling, faceted jewels or special came will be an extra cost.</span></li></ul><p><span style="font-family:Arial;">But the biggest single factor is the number of pieces. Obviously the more pieces the more work. Our final pricing formula combines the number of pieces plus the square footage.</span></p><p><span style="font-family:arial;">Still the client needs to have an idea of the price to know if he/she can afford it. And we need to know before we spend a lot of time designing a window that the customer will be able to afford it.</span></p><p><span style="font-family:Arial;">So we've come up with a ballpark figure of $75/ sq. ft. Admittedly, this is on the low side and would represent a fairly simple piece. We want to do every thing we can to get a window into a clients home. We've looked around and feel this is as low a price as you're going to find in the industry.</span></p><p><span style="font-family:Arial;">We put a cost calculator on our website at <a href="http://www.homestudioartglass.com/your_window.htm">http://www.homestudioartglass.com/your_window.htm</a></span></p><p><span style="font-family:arial;">You just plug in your window's measurements and the java script will calculate an estimated price.</span></p><p><span style="font-family:arial;">j</span></p><p></p>Joehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08071346260864215736noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29495514.post-1150985548485586802006-06-22T06:31:00.000-07:002010-04-19T09:42:37.518-07:00Designing with Bevels III<a href="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/2710/3089/1600/jsgb4.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center;" alt="" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/2710/3089/320/jsgb4.jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">So I find a picture of a rural scene since this home is out in the country (actually, if I'd been smart, I would have taken a picture through the window and the homeowner could have a very realistic idea of what the window would look like, if I'd been smart) and I make it a layer. I've made my drawing another layer on top of it. </span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">I'll start with the border. Since the upper facet reflects what's below, I'll place the target of the Clone Tool on a section of the scene below the bevel (A above). Then I'll place cursor where the upper facet would be (B above) and click and drag to the right. The target will move in a corresponnding manner. This effectively "paint's" what the target is moving over into the area covered by the cursor.</span><br /><a href="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/2710/3089/1600/jsgb5.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center;" alt="" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/2710/3089/320/jsgb5.jpg" border="0" /></a> <span style="font-family:arial;">You can hold the shift button down while dragging to get a straight horizontal, verrtical or 45 degree angle line. Another way; you can click and then hold the shift button down. Still holding the shift button move the cursor to the other end of where you want to "paint" and then click. The image gets wiped in nice and straight. This is useful where you want a straight line but it's on an angle.</span><br /><span style="font-family:Arial;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:Arial;">Well, like I said, I'm using a poor man's version of Photoshop but I'd bet it has a similar feature.</span><br /><span style="font-family:Arial;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:Arial;">j<br /></span><span style="font-family:arial;"><br />http://www.homestudioartglass.com</span>Joehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08071346260864215736noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29495514.post-1150750565870719862006-06-19T13:45:00.000-07:002010-04-19T09:43:00.105-07:00Designing with Bevels II<a href="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/2710/3089/1600/jsgb1.0.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center;" alt="" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/2710/3089/320/jsgb1.0.jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">The drawing above illustrates what I was saying; the upper facet</span> <span style="font-family:arial;">bends the light coming from below, while the lower facet bends the light coming from above. Almost as if they were angled mirrors. The program I use, Adobe PhotoDeluxe® is a poor man's Photoshop. It has something they call a "clone" tool. You place the target on a part of the picture you want to copy. Then you put your cursor on the spot where you want the copied image, click and drag and it will "paint" whatever the target is moving over into the area you're covering with your cursor.</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">More Later</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">j<br /></span><span style="font-family:arial;"><br />http://www.homestudioartglass.com</span>Joehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08071346260864215736noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29495514.post-1150583733256291442006-06-17T14:59:00.000-07:002010-04-19T09:43:58.899-07:00Designing with bevels<a href="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/2710/3089/1600/jsgb1.jpg"><img style="float: right; margin: 0px 0px 10px 10px;" alt="" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/2710/3089/320/jsgb1.jpg" border="0" /></a> <span style="font-family:arial;">I've always had a problem when designing beveled glass, how to show the client what it's going to look like. </span><br /><span style="font-family:Arial;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:Arial;">I would draw it up and use colored pencils to try to give some idea but my artwork never quite captured the beauty of the glass and I always wound up basically asking the client to use his imagination. And it's hard to ask someone to hand you what is sometimes a fairly large sum based on a image in their imagination. </span><br /><span style="font-family:Arial;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:Arial;">Well, I don't know what other software might get the job done more easily but I use a program called Photo Deluxe along with Photoshop Ltd. That's how I made the image here.</span><br /><span style="font-family:Arial;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:Arial;">When a piece of beveled glass is installed with the beveled side towards you, the flat surface will, of course be just like any other piece of clear glass, i.e. you'll see what directly in front of you. The upper surface will reflect what below it and the lower surface will reflect what is above it. Likewise the vertical surfaces will reflect accordingly. </span><br /><span style="font-family:Arial;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:Arial;">More later.</span><br /><span style="font-family:Arial;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:Arial;">j<br /></span><span style="font-family:arial;"><br />http://www.homestudioartglass.com</span>Joehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08071346260864215736noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29495514.post-1150294570367673422006-06-14T07:03:00.000-07:002010-04-19T09:44:19.725-07:00Covered Up<p><span style="font-family:arial;">It's a common expression here in South Central Kentucky, when you've got more work than you can handle you're "covered up".</span></p><p><span style="font-family:arial;">And they say that God invented time so that everything wouldn't happen at once.</span></p><p><span style="font-family:arial;">And just a few weeks ago I was whining 'cause things were so slow! We even started doing repairs! I hate repairs. Now we have so many irons in the fire I feel guilty spending this time on the blog.</span></p><p><span style="font-family:arial;">Be careful what you wish for. Heh heh heh</span></p><p><br /></p><p><span style="font-family:arial;">j</span></p><p><span style="font-family:arial;"><br />http://www.homestudioartglass.com</span></p>Joehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08071346260864215736noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29495514.post-1149896386108478582006-06-09T16:37:00.000-07:002010-04-19T09:44:34.116-07:00Blenko Glass<span style="font-family:arial;">We went to Blenko Glass in Milton W.Va. on Monday. I think they're one of the last American companies still blowing sheet glass. It's amazing the way they do it. They blow a bubble of glass that they form into a cylinder with either iron or wooden tools. They cut off the ends and score the open cylinder down the side and put it in a kiln where it opens to form a flat sheet of glass.</span> <p></p><p><span style="font-family:arial;">Usually, they use iron shaping tools to form the glass into a cylinder but they had 2 sheets of red that they'd used the wood shapers on and they were incredible! Looking at this glass you can really see it's true nature. Glass is a super cooled silicious liquid. In other words, a liquid that has become solid without having a freezing point. </span></p><p><span style="font-family:Arial;">Blenko is a very strange company. If you want to buy their sheet glass you have to order from them or go to their factory, they don't go through a distributor. But if you go, set a limit to how much you're going to spend, cause you'll be like a kid in a candy store; "I want this and this and this..." and first thing you know, you're way over budget.</span></p><p><span style="font-family:Arial;">I'll talk more about the nature of glass later, but check out Blenko glass at <a href="http://www.blenkoglass.com/">www.blenkoglass.com</a></span></p><p><span style="font-family:Arial;">j</span></p><p><span style="font-family:arial;"><br />http://www.homestudioartglass.com</span></p>Joehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08071346260864215736noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29495514.post-1149896231040766722006-06-09T16:36:00.000-07:002010-04-19T09:45:07.320-07:00Re: What Have We Been Working On?<span style="font-family:arial;">Re-reading that post I think it could be assumed that we are really depressed about losing several art shows and that's not the case at all. Granted, we - especially me, I don't deal with disappointment well - were very down for several days, but what I wanted to get across was that we are now much more energized and enthusiastic about our work. </span><p></p><p><span style="font-family:arial;">I saw on a TV show - it's terrible when most of your information comes from TV isn't it? - that the Chinese symbol for crisis is actually 2 symbols, one being the symbol for danger, and the other being the symbol for opportunity. I don't know if it's true or not, it doesn't even matter, I like the idea of it. And I think it's true that some of our best work comes under times of stress and crisis.</span></p><p><span style="font-family:arial;">So I just want to correct any impression that we're all down in the dumps with bleak thoughts and bad feelings. Life is good!</span></p><p><span style="font-family:Arial;"></span></p><p><span style="font-family:Arial;">j</span></p><p><span style="font-family:arial;"><br />http://www.homestudioartglass.com</span></p>Joehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08071346260864215736noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29495514.post-1149896065875687402006-06-09T16:33:00.000-07:002010-04-19T09:45:27.886-07:00Fish On a Stick<span style="font-family:arial;">Well, we came up with a new item. It's a free standing fish on a stick. It has a wood base and it rotates. You can see it at <a href="http://www.homestudioartglass.com/images/fishies.jpg">http://www.homestudioartglass.com/images/fishies.jpg</a>. We're going to try to get this item juried into the Kentucky Crafts Market.</span> <p></p><p><span style="font-family:arial;">I'm also finishing a church repair. We had a real bad hailstorm a few weeks back and it damaged a lot of windows. Even buildings with storm windows had quite a bit of damage. But this poor church didn't have any protective glazing and the 2 windows on the windward side of the building got really hammered. They had to be completely dismantled and rebuilt. I hope to get them installed by the end of the week.</span></p><p><span style="font-family:Arial;">j</span></p><p><span style="font-family:arial;"><br />http://www.homestudioartglass.com</span></p>Joehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08071346260864215736noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29495514.post-1149895860449133042006-06-09T16:30:00.000-07:002010-04-19T09:46:01.054-07:00What Have We Been Working On?<span style="font-family:Arial;">What have we been working on?</span><br /><span style="font-family:Arial;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:Arial;">Well, we lost 2 of our shows (almost lost a third) this year. It focuses the mind you might say. I hope to say at that it was the best thing that ever happened to us but that would be premature at this point. It definitely makes you take a long hard look at your work and where you want to go. There's no doubt when you do the same shows year after year and you get to know what sells and what doesn't, that you become complacent. </span><span style="font-family:Arial;">We've re-evaluated our work and added some new stuff that I hope to have on the website soon.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:Arial;">The thing is that you don't get any reason why you were rejected from most of these shows. all they'll say is "there were a limited number of booths available and the competition was strong". It's difficult in this business to really get any constructive criticism from qualified people. So we decided to try to enter the Kentucky Crafts Marketing Program, <a href="http://kycraft.ky.gov/">http://kycraft.ky.gov/</a> </span><br /><span style="font-family:Arial;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:Arial;">The program was started back in the 70s to get the work of Kentucky's craftspeople to a larger audience. The idea being to introduce artists and craftspeople to the owners of galleries and shops all over the country to whom they could wholesale their work. </span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:Arial;">We were in it either the first or second year, I forget, but the entire wholesale thing really threw us; you have to either cut your retail price in half to the shop owners or double it to the retail customer. We felt we had gotten our price as low as it would go for our retail buyers. And in our business, it takes just as long to make a particular piece if we're making 12 as if we're making 1. Mostly we want the feed-back. So we're going to Frankfort for their jury session on Monday. <span style="font-family:Arial;"><br />Hey, if anyone wants to comment on our stuff and tell us what's right or wrong with it, feel free. <a href="http://www.homestudioartglass.com/">http://www.homestudioartglass.com</a> <p></p><p>j</p></span><p></p><br /></span><span style="font-family:Arial;"></span>Joehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08071346260864215736noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29495514.post-1149895669900539972006-06-09T16:24:00.000-07:002010-04-19T09:46:46.706-07:00St James Court Art Show<span style="font-family:arial;">Well, we just got our acceptance letter from the St James Court Art Show, http://www.stjamescourtartshow.com/ This will be the 21st year we've done the show. </span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">"<em>The St. James Court Art Show is a juried fine arts and fine crafts show produced by a consortium of five non-profit neighborhood associations: Belgravia Court, South Third Street, 1300 South Third Street, St. James Court and South Fourth Street; and the West End Baptist Church. Always held the first full weekend of October, it hosts an impressive 650 plus artists from all over the Americas. Held in the heart of historic Old Louisville among the country's largest collection of Victorian homes, the St. James Court Art Show has for over four decades provided our neighborhood, city and state with a rich cultural and artistic legacy" -quote.</em></span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">For the first 10 years, we were on Belgravia Court. Then there was this big shake up and we moved to 4th Street. After 2 years we moved to 3rd Street and now, this year we're back on 4th.</span><br /><span style="font-family:Arial;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:Arial;">We only do about 3 or 4 shows a year but they are all high quality shows with excellent work being displayed. Each of our shows require you to be juried in, in other words, you have to submit your work for acceptance. Back when we were only making a few hundred dollars per show, it was no big deal - other than the blow to your ego - to be rejected. Now that we make a significant portion of our income doing them, it's pretty nerve wracking to go through the jury process and not know from one year to the next where your money will be coming from.</span><br /><span style="font-family:Arial;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:Arial;">But this is a very impressive show, both from an artist's and an </span><span style="font-family:Arial;">audience's perspective. The quality of work here is amazing. But be prepared to walk. And walk. And walk. </span><br /><span style="font-family:Arial;"><br /><span style="font-family:Arial;">So I hope to see you there.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:Arial;">j<br /></span></span><span style="font-family:arial;"><br />http://www.homestudioartglass.com</span><br /><span style="font-family:Arial;"><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /></span><span style="font-family:Arial;"></span><span style="font-family:arial;"></span>Joehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08071346260864215736noreply@blogger.com0