Mayor of Dish Texas leaves for children's health

If you watched Gasland, you will remember the interview of Mayor Tillman of Dish Texas about the effects of the drilling on the community.  The following account explains why he and his family are now moving from Dish.  This article is from Huffington Post.  Gramma Windy..

Do you think we could get the Mayor of Dish to testify at the senate hearing? His kids are suffering nose bleeds........

Fearing for his children's health, Mayor Calvin Tillman is leaving behind his government position and getting out of Dodge... or rather, Dish.
Dish, Texas is a town consisting of 200 residents and 60 gas wells. When Tillman's sons repeatedly woke up in the middle of the night with mysterious nosebleeds, he knew it was time to move -- even if it meant leaving his community behind. In an exclusive interview with The Huffington Post, Mayor Tillman reveals that when it came down to family or politics, the choice wasn't a tough one to make.
Tillman, first elected mayor of Dish, Texas in 2007, has spent his time in office fighting to regulate natural gas companies that are drilling into the Barnett shale, which holds up to 735 billion cubic meters of natural gas.
According to the Associated Press, residents of Dish have complained of nosebleeds, pain, and poor circulation since the first compressor station was built in their town in 2005, though there is no hard proof linking the health problems to the natural gas drilling. The air over the Barnett Shale near Dish was found to contain high levels of the toxic chemical benzene, shown to cause cancer. The town's mayor is leaving it all behind.
Last Memorial Day was the final straw. Tillman's 5-year-old son awoke in the middle of the night with a severe nosebleed. As Tillman describes to HuffPost, "He had blood all over his hands, blood on the walls -- our house looked somewhat like a murder scene." In the weeks prior, both of Tillman's sons had experienced severe nosebleeds. At the same time, the town was surrounded by a strong odor from their natural gas facilities.
While Mayor Tillman acknowledges there could be other explanations, he feels, "It's one thing if I'm exposing myself to something... but with our children, it's just a completely different story. We just couldn't take the chance after that." Around the country, similar reports of nosebleeds can be found among residents living near hydraulic fracturing, or "fracking," sites, though the energy companies insist that their methods are safe.

Tillman recently sold his house and announced that his family will soon leave the town. Tillman reveals to HuffPost that his older son, who has lived in their Dish home his entire life, is not thrilled with the move, although the boy has asthma that Tillman hopes will improve once they relocate.
The move doesn't only affect Tillman's family. His position as mayor is now in question, as the City Council can replace him before the upcoming May election, although he doesn't foresee this happening.

Story continues below

 

Mayor Tillman doesn't intend to involve himself in his new town's local politics, but he will continue work as co-founder of ShaleTest, a foundation that performs environmental testing for low-income families. But Tillman may not be out of the political arena yet. Regarding running for higher office, he tells HuffPost, "I certainly wouldn't rule that out. It has to be something where I could make a difference."
But when Tillman was faced with choosing between politics and family, the answer was clear: "I just couldn't risk the health of my children to stay here. I guess you could say that was the choice I felt I had to make. That's not a very difficult choice. My family is the most important thing to me."
According to Mayor Tillman, his small community understands. "They have been very supportive of me, and that's going to encourage me to stay involved in this little community and make it the best that it can be." Although frustrated with the situation, Tillman leaves his town proud that more controls are now set on nearby gas processing facilities.
While Dish may be supportive, Tillman admits that Texas as a whole can be a bit less encouraging. "I just went down to Austin... and you walk down the halls of the capitol, and you see people from the gas industry left and right. They have a strong presence; they have a strong lobby down there. You really see that when you try to take them on." Tillman continues that while he's never taken a position against the natural gas industry, he encourages increased regulations. "I'm not against drilling, but I am against being poisoned."
Thure Cannon of Texas Pipeline Association insists to HuffPost, "We've had a great working relationship with the mayor and the discussions we've had have led to some positive outcomes in the area." Regarding the Mayor's health-related claims, Cannon comments, "He needs to do what he thinks is best for his family."
Looking to the future, Tillman hopes for advancements in wind and solar power technologies. According to Mayor Tillman, "If we don't start truly weaning ourselves off of fossil fuels, then the manner at which we extract those fossil fuels is just going to get more risky." He cites hydraulic fracturing as a case in point.
Tillman worries, "I don't think that the oil and gas industry really truly wants to start that transition until they've pulled every single drop of hydrocarbon out of the earth."
Mayor Tillman isn't the first person to speak out about the dangers of natural gas drilling. Oscar nominees Mark Ruffalo and Josh Fox have both fought adamantly against hydraulic fracturing, much to the discontent of gas companies. Tillman is even featured in Fox's documentary, "Gasland." When Tillman's buyers signed their contract, Tillman included a stipulation that the buyers first watch "Gasland." He even included a DVD copy with the house paperwork. According to Tillman, the buyers never commented on the film, although they did return it to him a few days later.
Progress to improve natural gas drilling practices is being made by leaders like Calvin Tillman. But as the EPA proposes a plan to study the effects of hydraulic fracturing, and fracking bans pop up in cities ranging from Buffalo to Pittsburgh, drilling still continues in Mayor Tillman's small town of 200 people, whose population will soon be four less, as a result.




 

Big Coal and EPA Part II

Kentucky state legislature had a new take on nullification. Only days after celebrated author Wendell Berry and 13 other Kentuckians, including a retired coal miner and inspector, occupied Gov. Steve Beshear's office in a protest over the state's 40-year crisis of mountaintop removal mining, the Kentucky state legislature attempted to officially establish a "sanctuary state" for the coal industry that would be exempt from "the overreaching regulatory power.” This sanctuary for coal companies would reportedly cost the state of Kentucky an additional $115 million each year in state funds for maintenance and health damages.

"My friends, we Kentuckians are in a very sick family," responded Harlan County-raised author George Ella Lyons in the Lexington Herald-Leader. "Our government is owned by big corporations and the result is obscene. Sanctuary -- sacred protected space -- is declared for those who are abusing the basis of our survival. How long do you think we can live without clean water and air?"

Even the Herald-Leader editorial board lectured its legislature:

Smith's resolution would declare Kentucky a "sanctuary state" in regard to EPA regulation. Gooch's bill would exempt from Clean Water Act regulations mining operations involving coal that never leaves the state.

Since coal mining in Kentucky impacts rivers flowing into other states, thus making mining operations subject to regulation under the interstate commerce clause of the U.S. Constitution, neither measure would accomplish a single thing other than letting its sponsor preen and posture in public while wasting other lawmakers' time.

Wasting lawmakers' time, perhaps. But Kentucky state officials were already on overtime in their attempt to divert attention from a stunning circuit court judgment last week that granted citizens participation in the state's gross mishandling of indisputable acts of Clean Water Act violations by two coal companies in eastern Kentucky.

Last fall, clean water advocates from the Kentuckians for the Commonwealth and Appalachian Voices, among others, filed an intent to sue notice against Kentucky subsidiaries of International Coal Group and Frasure Creek Mining for "over 20,000 incidences of these three companies either exceeding permit pollution limits, failing to submit reports, or falsifying the required monitoring data. These violations could result in fines that may exceed 740 million dollars." Embarrassed Kentucky state officials rushed to slap a small fine -- less than 1 percent of the possible fine -- and limited "corrective actions" on the two companies' admittedly blatant violations, and sought to kick off the citizens groups in the suit as "unwarranted burdens."

Judge Phillip Shepherds summed up the key reasons for granting the intervention in his order, stating, "The Cabinet, by its own admission, has ignored these admitted violations for years. The citizens who brought these violations to light through their own efforts have the legal right to be heard when the Cabinet seeks judicial approval of a resolution of the environmental violations that were exposed through the efforts of these citizens. In these circumstances, it would be an abuse of discretion to deny those citizens and environmental groups the right to participate in this action, and to test whether the proposed consent decree is "fair, adequate, and reasonable, as well as consistent with the public interest."

The state's response? Kentucky is now appealing the ruling. Once unwarranted burdens, in essence, always unwarranted burdens to the state. Kentucky residents, meanwhile, are appealing for Gov. Beshear to spend a little more time in their region and keep his promise to the sit-in activists and simply visit affected residents in the mountaintop removal areas.

"Every time I'm at a particular place in Harlan County, Kentucky, in Appalachia, I go look at the junction of two creeks there," said Appalachian scholar Chad Berry from Berea, who participated in the sit-in. "One comes off a large mountain that is protected and is clear and looks to be drinkable. The other comes off a surface mining site and often looks like coffee with too much cream in it. Where they join is always interesting tangible proof of the toll surface mining is having on the Appalachian region's watersheds."

When the NRDC released a study last year that found that over 293 mountains and nearly 600,000 acres of hardwood forests had been destroyed by mountaintop removal, with reclamation efforts resulting in less than 4 percent of any follow-up economic productivity, fellow sit-in protest Mickey McCoy, from Inez, Kentucky, noted: "This research shows what a sacrificial lamb Kentucky has been for an industry that is not interested in any kind of restoration. Here in Martin County, more than 25 percent of the land has been leveled by coal companies yet we are among the poorest of counties not just in Kentucky, but the entire country."

Gramma Cutler

Shale Gas Drilling acc to NYTimes

This is a lengthy article of almost 4,000 words, so I am sending just the links, not the text.  The second link is to the print version, the first link has photos.   This is not encouraging.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/27/us/27gas.html?nl=todaysheadlines&emc=tha23&pagewanted=all

Print version http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/27/us/27gas.html?nl=todaysheadlines&emc=tha23&pagewanted=print

Gramma Windy

On Scapegoating Teachers

Stop Scapegoating Teachers for Fiscal Crisis By Susan Estrich The public school teachers in Wisconsin are not responsible for the credit collapse, the national unemployment rate, the fall of the industrial sector or the fiscal crisis. Allowing them to bargain collectively has not bankrupted Wisconsin. Its declining tax revenues have nothing to do with the fact that highly educated and trained professionals are earning a decent wage, albeit less than they would in the private sector. So why are they being blamed and scapegoated? Why are they in the center of the storm over our fiscal future? Where are the Wall Street banks for whom there was no limit to greed? And most important: Why should our children pay for this? Make no mistake: They will pay. I saw Fox News Channel's Megyn Kelly drag the president of the teachers union in Wisconsin over the coals and then some when he refused to condemn what is being reported as resorting to phony sick days to allow teachers to go to Madison to protest. Is it wrong to not show up for work so you can protest? Of course it is. The governor isn't paying for that; you're not getting even with him. It's the kids who sit staring blankly at a substitute who pay. But I can certainly understand the frustration of dedicated teachers at being the butt of bad politics. Everyone likes to talk about bad teachers. However many there are is too many, and they should be fired. But most teachers, the overwhelming majority of teachers, are dedicated men and women working against incredible odds to do right by their students. The teachers I know arrive early and leave late. They bring the school supplies that they buy out of their own pockets. They make themselves available to parents and students long after the school day ends. They are as frustrated by the bureaucracy in large school systems as anyone. Many of them, including many very good ones, give up within five years. How will taking away their collective bargaining rights change that? Did I miss the part in this debate where we thank teachers for taking on the social ills no one else wants to touch? The part where we express our gratitude to them for taking care of and trying to teach kids who come to school scared and hungry and unable to read or write? Was I not listening when someone made the point that teachers are the foundation of our nation's future? There's plenty of blame to go around for what's gone wrong with the economy. You can blame Bush or Obama, Wall Street or the regulators. You can blame Fannie and Freddie and Congress and the Fed. But how do we get off blaming public school teachers? People keep asking me how this will play politically: Will it help or hurt the Democrats in the next election? Will it help or hurt the union movement nationally? The truth is that I (and, dare I say, most of the people opining) have no idea. Those are not even the questions that trouble me most. What worries me is the fact that when you turn teachers into scapegoats for problems they had no role in creating, they're likely to do more than call in sick to go protest. At a certain point, like others who feel their work and commitment are neither recognized nor rewarded, they will simply quit. Frankly, I wouldn't blame them. But it means that whether it's the Republicans or the Democrats who gain, it will be the kids who pay. © Creators Syndicate Inc.

Good Morning

On the Passing of February

Can we believe that the back of winter is broken?  There is only a thin sheet of ice covering about half of my pond, visible from the window where I sit.  On the 13^th I was looking out over my snow covered lawn and lamenting that the pond was frozen solid, and was insisting that the ice was always broken up by Valentine’s Day.  Then I looked back through My Pictures and saw sets of photos taken during previous February’s depicting knee high snow and, yes, frozen pond.  No wonder we take pictures, it’s a check on our memories.

As it was, temperatures were rising on the weekend of the 13^th, the snow was gone from the lawn by the end of the day on Valentine’s Day, and I was able to break up a little of the thinning ice at the edge of the pond so that the ducks and geese could thrill to the coming of Spring.

How much more Winter?  Well, we watched for the groundhog on February 2, and depending on where our own groundhog lives, we knew that either we were in for six more weeks of Winter, or that Spring would be here in six more weeks.  We are already more than half way there in either case.  Ye-e-es!

In Old England February 2 was ‘Candlemas Day,’ and they rhymed thusly:  “If Candlemas Day be clear and bright/Winter will have another bite.”  Same thing, right?  They also said that a good goose should start laying near Candlemas Day.  Well, my old goose laid her first egg of the season on the 10^th, and my younger geese were laying by Valentine’s Day, as were the ducks.  The old English also believed that Valentine’s Day, being the day for love of course, was the day that birds start to mate and nest.  Indeed, my ducks began to behave amorously on Valentine’s Day; perhaps it was the breaking of the ice that inspired them.  Also, on that morning before I rose I heard that bird call that haunted me all last summer—the two note, high to low, almost as you might whistle to gain the attention of your dog.  And as well, a three-note call from another, all notes on the same line of the staff.  Thus inspired myself, I opened and cleaned out the bluebird nest boxes—I know, I know, I should have done that last fall, before the little deer mice made their nests therein.

A walk in my Arbor Garden shows that flower buds on my early blooming shrubs are already swelling and showing color—winter honeysuckle, winter spike hazel, and Daphne mezereum.  Daffodils are thrusting their green shoots above ground, and I am keeping a close eye on  my earliest bloomer, Rjinveld’s ‘Early Sensation,’ aptly named.

And every morning as day breaks, before I rise i can tilt my head to look out the window above my bed and watch the buds on the maple begin to swell.

So, just keep looking around that corner.

Gramma Windy

Fable for our Times Reprise

Cumberland Times News published my item, "Fable for our Times," (today, Friday, Feb 25) though they gave it a different name which I do not like as well.  I am surprised that they published it because I am not sure that people get the point, and may take the fable as a literal event, not recognizing Burton Outhuff as a caricature of Rep Barton and Sen Inhofe, those legislators famed as climate change deniers.   While this fiction that I wrote never actually occurred, it is true that when I moved to North Dakota, I was told that termites did not exist there because it was too cold, and that as well, intestinal parasites of livestock, fleas, and roaches did not exist, or at least, were not the problem they were in more southerly regions.  And people did indeed laugh about the newly built K-Mart in Bismarck having to pay $6,000 for termite prevention.  And indeed, I never saw a termite while I lived there.  So when I was doing a google search of my brain for some kind of analogy to the blindness of legislators and others who court danger and threaten the future of our civilization by denying the science of climate change, I thought up the story about a person denying the science of termites. 

Oh, by the way, after writing the story I googled (for real) "termites North Dakota," and found real articles about real termites in North Dakota!  Ah well, poetic license or something like that.

So then, did you get the point?

Gramma Windy

New belts for union members

There is a new belt invented for union members.   It is designed of a material that gradually shrinks while being worn.  This is to make it easy for union members to tighten their belts without any effort.

Gramma Windy

Big Coal vs EPA

[A great article at Alternet about Big Coal's thwarting of EPA's efforts to protect our air and water.   Because the article is lengthy, I am putting it here in four parts, but providing the link in case you wish to go there and read it all at one sitting.]

Big Coal's backlash over the EPA crackdown on future mountaintop removal operations went from denial and anger to the outright absurd last week, as state legislatures conjured their own versions of a sagebrush rebellion and the new Republican-controlled U.S. House of Representatives passed a sheath of regulatory gutting amendments to its budget bill.

On the heels of its Tea Party-backed coal rallies last fall, the dirty coal lobby couldn't have paid for a better show. As millions of pounds of ammonium nitrate fuel oil explosives continued to detonate daily in their ailing districts and affected residents held dramatic sit-ins to raise awareness of the growing health crisis in the central Appalachian coalfields, Big Coal-bankrolled sycophants fell over themselves from Virginia to Kentucky to West Virginia, and in the halls of Congress, to see who could introduce the most ridiculous and dangerous bills to shield the coal industry.

Their breathless message: "The EPA don't understand mining," as Kentucky’s House Natural Resources and Environment Chairman Jim Gooch, D-Providence, declared to his colleagues.

That misunderstanding dates back to last spring's breakthrough announcement by the EPA, following up a memorandum of understanding between the numerous federal agencies, including the Office of Surface Mining Reclamation Enforcement, on finally issuing guidance rules and cracking down on the irreversible and pervasive destruction of mountaintop removal mining operations to waterways. Based on government studies that conclusively demonstrate that "burial of headwater streams by valley fills causes permanent loss of ecosystems," the EPA issued new conductivity levels "to protect 95% of aquatic life and fresh water streams in central Appalachia" and effectively bring an end to the process of valley fills (and the dumping of toxic coal mining waste into the valleys and waterways).

After an eight-year hiatus of enforcement under the George W. Bush administration, in which an estimated 1,000-2,000 miles of the headwater streams were jammed and sullied by toxic coal waste, along with the destruction of hundreds of mountains and tens of thousands of hardwood forests and the depopulation of historic Appalachia communities, the EPA's return to its true role as enforcer of the Clean Water Act made it a convenient target for Big Coal outrage.

Not for coalfield residents.

"The actions of these state governments trying to circumvent federal law reminds me of the old, discredited tactic of 'nullification,'" Coal River Mountain Watch president Bob Kincaid noted. A resident in the Raleigh County, West Virginia coalfields, he added, "Kentucky's, Virginia's and West Virginia's bought-and-paid-for retro-confederate governments have completely forgotten the lessons of history. They want to pick and choose the laws they obey. Where the EPA is concerned, it's especially bad, since the EPA is all that stands between Appalachia and the utter ruin of what's left of it. As an air-breather and a water-drinker, I take offense to the notion that coal company profits are more important than my children's lives."

http://www.alternet.org/story/150028/%27sanctuary_state%27_for_coal_companies_legislators_are_going_to_unbelievable_lengths_to_sack_clean_water_laws_and_cozy_up_to_big_coal?page=entire

Gramma Windy

Class Warfare and the Governor

Class Warfare and the Governor

If the governor (Governor Scott Walker of Wisconsin) really wants to level the playing field and end the budget crisis, then why does he not look to his own house?  Literally.  Consider the Governor’s Mansion.  Is it fair that the governor should get publicly subsidized housing?  Since he believes so strongly in privatizing everything, then why doesn’t he privatize the Governor’s Mansion?  Sell it to a private entity, then he could rent it and pay the utilities on it like any other citizen would.  Or sell it to a private person to be used as a B&B, and go rent an apartment or house somewhere else. 

And how about his limousine/s?  How many state-owned vehicles do they have anyway?  They could privatize the entire fleet, and anyone using them could lease them out of their own pay, or pay a fee-per-ride much like with a taxi service.  Or they could just sell the entire fleet and everybody use their own vehicles for travel.   If it is legitimate business travel they could get reimbursed for their mileage.

And then there is the salary matter.  The Governor’s annual salary is $137,092; I don’t have information on his benefits—pension, health insurance--or on other allowances, such as for housing, vehicle, entertaining, etc.   Has he offered to take a pay cut, or to pay more for his benefits?  And as for the legislators, they each receive an annual salary of $49,943, plus $88 per diem; I suppose the per diem is for actual days in session.   How many days are they in session, anyway, for that salary?  What are their benefits—pension, health insurance, etc.  Have they offered to take a cut in salary or to pay more for their benefits? 

Jus’ wond’rin’

Gramma Windy

Class Warfare Going to the Dogs

Class Warfare Going to the Dogs

Watching my dogs eat.

I have three dogs of very diverse breed and temperament.  There is Bear, a huge dog who can’t make up his mind whether he is a Golden Retriever or German Shepherd, or perhaps, a lap dog.  Then there is Frankie, a blue-eyed mid-size Border Collie/Aussie, shy, not in any way demanding her own way as long as she knows someone cares for her.  Lastly, Tessa, a small Terrier/Dachshund cross, who thinks that because she is small she can still get by with acting like an exuberant puppy.  Feeding these dogs each according to its needs could be a challenge, but I am nothing if not fair, not to mention lazy.  No pampering here.  They all eat the same, except that Bear eats twice as much as each of the others.  Not to get into brands here, they get a basic dry food, in the morning one scoop each (Bear gets another scoop in the evening), and topped off with a forkful of savory canned food.   Neither complains about what the others get.  All are satisfied with their equal treatment.

But then along comes another dog, when my daughter moves in with her little Pekinese, Ming.  Ming has a finicky appetite and a delicate digestive system, so he gets a special diet, veterinarian approved.  His dry food is available through a local vet, and his canned food has to be special ordered through a local grocery store.  And of course, all of this is more expensive than what my dogs get.   My dogs are interested, and will check out his food dish if he wanders away.  But Ming is interested in what the others are eating, and becomes convinced that they are the ones getting special treatment, that he is the one being deprived.  Class Warfare indeed.  But still, Ming doesn’t demand that the other dogs be denied their special food; he doesn’t demand that they give up their food and eat the same as he does.  He does not want to bring them down, he just wants some of what they get.  And so, it is done.  Every morning and evening to top off his dish of special dry dog food and special canned dog food, he gets a sprinkle of the big dogs' dry dog food and a dab of their canned dog food.  And is content.  No one loses.  Seems just so simple.

Collective Bargaining and the Budget

Much of the controversy surrounding the budget bills of Wisconsin and Ohio (and perhaps others) concerns the insistence that banning collective bargaining would help the budget.  It is questionable how collective bargaining itself could affect the deficit, but the following item provides a comparison of budget gaps from states with and without collective bargaining for public employees.  Feel free to leave a comment.

Gramma Windy

Policy Matters Ohio: "The Right Of Public Workers To Unionize Is Not Driving The Fiscal Crisis Of States." From Policy Matters Ohio:

We found that on average, the budget gaps of states with and without collective bargaining for public employees are similar in 2011:

• The 9 states with no collective bargaining rights for any public employees face an average budget shortfall of 16.5 percent in the current fiscal year, while the 15 states (including the District of Columbia) with collective bargaining for all public employees face an average budget shortfall of 16.2 percent.
• For the 42 states (including the District of Columbia) with some (or all) collective bargaining rights for some (or all) public workers, the 2011 budget gap averages 16.6 percent.

• The 31 states (including the District of Columbia) with collective rights for state workers face an average budget gap of 17.6 percent while those without rights for state workers face an average budget shortfall of 15.1 percent. These numbers are all very close.

The point is, the right of public workers to unionize is not driving the fiscal crisis of states. [Policy Matters Ohio,12/30/10]

About Madison protests---jus' wond'rin'

Can anyone explain to me why the Wisconsin Democratic senators who walked out of the Senate and left Wisconsin in order to prevent the vote on the governor’s union busting bill, are evil and invidious and undemocratic, while the Republicans in the U S Senate blocked, obstructed, or filibustered virtually every bill that came before them in the last two years, and that seems to be accepted as normal?

And union members protesting the bill are branded as “thugs” while tea partiers who crashed townhalls, making sure that no one could be heard and breaking them up, and some even carrying guns, are branded as “patriots?”

Jus' wond'rin'

Gramma Windy

Luddites and Windmills

When Daniel Boone goes by at night/The phantom deer arise/And all lost wild America is shining in their eyes.  (Stephen Vincent Benet, 1898-1943)

Mineral County Montana, third smallest county in that state, yet larger than Rhode Island.  Population 3500, with 1500 of those in the county seat of  Superior, which is 60 miles west of Missoula and 47 miles east of the Idaho state line.  Where I lived in the 80s.  They tell me there were once tens of thousands of inhabitants, up those canyons, mining silver.  And that the first Gideon Bible was placed in a local hotel, no longer extant but with a plaque on the building where that hotel once stood.  What need here for this major dual-lane highway, I-90, to carry traffic east to west between the mountain ridges, which a traffic counter recorded as 6000 plus a few hundred, one busy day in June.  But it had to be built so people could get quickly from St Paul to Seattle, even though local residents could have continued to get along just fine with the old country road.  While I was exclaiming over the beauty of the terrain through which passed the highway, a local rancher pointed out to me how the highway cut through and divided farms and ranches, and he explained that when a civil engineer saw that same terrain, he saw highways and clover leafs.  To him, that would be beauty.

Just so would I, looking at property to buy for retirement in the country, immediately envision a given site for a garden.  If it wasn’t there, I moved on.  When I visited this place where I ultimately settled, I envisioned that garden, right there, on that level site above a gentle rise from the pond and creek and field, big enough to accommodate several square thousand feet of enclosed garden, good drainage and no frost pockets, sunny exposure, just the right distance from the house, beside the driveway so that it would be easy to access with tractors and loads of manure.  I could just see it—the fence, the corn and tomatoes and beans and apple trees, yes.  To me, that would be beauty.  

Just so would a large scale farmer or rancher look at a piece of land and picture pastures filled with cattle, fields rolling with grain, corn, and soybeans, barns and sheds for equipment and hay.  To him, that would be beauty. 

Just so would a timber industry owner look at a huge virgin forest and imagine it a landscape of tree stumps.  To him, that would be beauty.

Just so would a coal mining engineer look at a mountain and imagine it with the top 1500 feet removed.  To him, that would be beauty.

Just so would a gas industry engineer look over flat fields underlain by Marcellus shale and imagine wells and pipes and containment tanks and holding ponds, with roads adequate for an endless stream of trucks.  To him, that would be beauty.

So what are we, Luddites?  That we protest all this?   My electricity is provided by a coal-fired plant; I have a gas range in my kitchen to cook my food, and today a representative from a gas company is coming to give me an estimate on installing a propane gas wall heater to help heat my home, ‘cause my feet are cold.

What makes us think, anyway, that there is anything we can do or say to slay this monster?  Wendell Berry, now 76 years old, yesterday risked arrest in Frankfurt KY to join demonstrators against Mountain Top Removal Mining.  How many square miles of mountain tops have already been removed?  Soon our state will be “Wild and Wonderful” no more.  Gov Manchin was prescient when he wanted to replace those signs with “Open for Business.”  Are we like Don Quixote tilting at windmills?  Why are we agitating when we could be enjoying our elder years in peace and tranquility on our own little place in the sun?

But Berry says, “To accept that there is nothing to do is to despair.  It is to become in some fundamental way less than human. Those of us who are protesting are protesting in part for our own sake to keep ourselves whole as human beings.”

Just so.

Birthday Greetings for a Granddaughter

[Ava is my youngest granddaughter, and today is her twelfth birthday.  She lives in New York with her architect parents, is smart, talented, graceful, charming, a joy to know.  She is very tall for her age, in fact, taller than myself, which isn't very hard to do.]

Happy Birthday, Ava.  I hope you have a wonderful day and a wonderful celebration

Twelve years old.  WOW!!  I remember when I was twelve, even as I now approach my four-score.   We didn’t have birthday parties in those days, except our own immediate family, of which there were enough to have a party anyway.  My mother always made a three-layer yellow cake, frosted and decorated, and served with—not ice cream—jello, with whipped cream.  We didn’t have a refrigerator/freezer, only an ice-box, so we couldn’t keep ice-cream, and it was too far to run out to the store to buy some.   My parents gave me a birthday card that had pansies on it.  They gave me a scrapbook and an autograph book.  The first thing that went into the scrapbook was the card with pansies.  Through my high school years I filled the scrapbook with cards, letters, photos, and mementos, and kept it for 30 years, but unfortunately it was accidentally left behind when we moved to Montana.   Do young people today use autograph books?   This was a little, fat book that we carried around with us and got our friends to sign—some wrote little rhymes or wishes.   I only remember three of the autographs in mine—hmmm, all three from adults.  Maybe we do listen to the grownups.   My mother wrote:  “Good, better, best/Never let it rest/Until your good is better/And your better, best.”  My dad wrote:  “Now is the time/You are the girl/ Give me a kiss/And make my head whirl.”  I think my Dad must have had lots of practice writing that verse before he met my mother.  And my science teacher, Mr Yost, wrote: “May your life be long and happy/With just enough rain showers to make the sunshine always welcome.”  And now I will close with lyrics from an old song:  “Stay as sweet as you are/Don't let a thing/Ever change you./Stay as sweet as you are/Don't let a soul/Rearrange you.”

With love, hugs, and kisses,

Gramma Windy

Fable for our Times

A Fable for Today

When I moved to North Dakota back in the 80s, I was told that because of the cold winters there, there were no termites or roaches.  My observation in general bore this out.  I remember some friends joking about how Kmart in Bismarck had had to spend $6000 to termite proof their new store, because that was headquarters policy.  But here I would like to relate my neighbor’s experience, because I doubt he will ever admit to it.

Burton Outhuff was his name.  He lived in a large, older, two-story home on a few acres adjoining my own rented property.  Outhuff had invited a local exterminator to his home to rid him of packrats in his attached garage and in the crawlspace of his house.   I reflected when I saw the truck, Just Trust Us, drive up to his house that exterminators must have to have second jobs, as there couldn’t be much business for them here in ND.  Well, one did hear of occasional basement invasions by snakes or lizards, especially during droughts, and, as now, rodents.   But, as stated before, little of the problems that people in more moderate climates are accustomed to.

But the exterminator had other news for Outhuff this day.  He crawled out from under the house, dusty and covered with cobwebs, and announced to Outhuff that he had termites.  Outhuff expostulated, “Termites?  Hogwash.  There are no termites in North Dakota.”  “I didn’t think so either, but I assure you they are here.  Perhaps brought in with some lumber or firewood years ago, and keeping warm by your heat ducts.  Who knows how it happened?  But they are there.  In such an infestation that I doubt your house would stand more than another ten years, maybe as little as five years, if you don’t get rid of them.  Now I would suggest that you…”  “Oh, now I see.  You have your own special interests, you want to sell your products and service.  What are your credentials anyway?“  “Well, I have a degree in entomology from NDSU, so I can not only identify termites but prescribe treatment.  Now I am concerned that your termites could migrate to your neighbor, and from there spread all over the state, and so…”  “Oh, wait a minute, now I remember.  You’re a former congressman.  I seem to recall that you were trying to convince your fellow congresspersons that there was a potential invasion of termites in this state…”  “Indeed, but they didn’t really…”  “Right, I remember, they laughed you to scorn.  What a hoax you perpetrate.  Termites in ND, indeed…”  “Look, come down into the crawl space yourself…”  “I don’t need to do that, I would know if there were termites here.  Look, see that porch post?  Solid, no termites there.”  “But look, here I have photos that I just took under your house…” “Can’t prove it by me.  You could have taken those photos anywhere.  Copied them out of your textbook at NDSU no doubt.  And NDSU has always assured us there were no termites in this state.  You are just fearmongering in order to get rich off of us.  I shall make sure all my neighbors know of this fraud, this hoax, that you are perpetrating.   You won’t get any business off of any of us, you can be sure.  Now get off my property with your lies.”  Reluctantly, but with a shrug of his shoulders, and to the sound of Outhuff’s raucous laugh, Just In Time proprietor got back in his truck and drove away.  He soon had to give up his business because of the badmouthing of my neighbor, Burton Outhuff.

It is true though, as I am a witness, that after about 4-1/2 years, the posts on the front porch collapsed, and after another year an add-on room at the back of the house subsided into dust.  I moved away about that time, but I understand from another neighbor that it was another two years before the house itself just seemed to implode into its own footprint.  I wish I could have seen that.  But Outhuff maintained that it was because the house was old, that it was a natural process, houses do fall down in time.   Had nothing to do with termites.  There are no termites in North Dakota.

And there is no global warming.   So say Rep Barton and Senator Inhoff.

Introducing my baby daughter

when Valerie was a child, she did not like being called "the baby," but now, I think she even introduces herself thusly.  Anyway, I ran across this blog entry of hers from Fall 2009.  I happen to like it.  I hope you do too.  Please feel free to respond.

Valerie's 25 things

1. I have a love/hate relationship with my cat, Leo McGarry
2. I have a love/love relationship with my honey, Craig.
3. I don’t mind killing spiders, though I wish they wouldn’t come into the office and tempt me so.
4. I didn’t own pink clothes until I was 30, thanks to my best friend Kim for introducing me to that mad, mad color.
5. When I was little I was sure success meant I would own a machine that spit out cinnamon/sugar toast and bacon any time I wanted.
6. I love to go on cruises. I want to live on a cruise ship. They have wireless on cruise ships right?
7. I’m addicted to my laptop.
8. Google.
9. I am the youngest of 9 kids, 7 of whom are girls, the 4 youngest kids are girls. I would have had it made if I’d been a boy instead of another girl. I’m just another girl.
10. I make crocheted afghans that are art. Well, I think so anyway. Right now I’m doing plaid.
11. I have a “To Do before I don’t Care” list. I took swimming lessons, learned to type, learned first aid and CPR, I just realized all the things on my list are “Learn to do…” things. I have 10 more things on my list, including learning scuba, archery, and fencing.
12. I love big hairy beasts. Big crush on Worf and Chewbacca.
13. I finished growing in college. Imagine trying to keep a college freshman in clothes when she grows three inches.
14. Favorite shows are all about smart people: Eureka, Numb3rs, Big Bang Theory.
15. The things I love to do, I never get to do: golf, travel, fish, sleep at night…
16. When I am restless I will create a spreadsheet for something.
17. I have written 5 chapters of a murder mystery.
18. “Be careful or you’ll end up in my novel” Is one of my favorite quotes.
19. I am sure someday every conversation will merely be strung together quotes from movies.
20. I don’t know what I want to be when I grow up. Do I have to grow up?
21. I need a day off. Really off. No phone. No people but my boys. Or maybe no people.
22. I learned to type for real when I was 35. It was freedom. Amazing freedom.
23. I’m developing the “Symphony” theory of thought. There is a symphony in your head but when you speak only one instrument comes out. Think of that when you speak, sometimes your thoughts don’t translate well because no one else hears the whole symphony. One small example of this is when people use acronyms and jargon.
24. I think my husband has the nicest and best friends in the world.
25. I have had more hair colors than some people have hairs.

Dream Job or What?

How would you like this dream job?  Frequent breaks, work two or three weeks and have a week off, sometimes two weeks, as at Easter.  A month in August.  A month at Christmas.  Really, only work about half of the weeks in a year.  And at an annual salary of $174,000, almost half of which is paid vacation.

That is, according to the recent schedule published by U. S. Congress, which you can access here:  http://www.thecapitol.net/FAQ/cong_schedule.html  Really, is that what they mean by smaller government?   Okay, okay, in all fairness to them, they claim that that time off is so that they can go home and work for their constituents.  You know, reach out and touch them, ask them about their problems so they, the legislators, can go back to the capitol and pass legislation to help their constituents. 

Well, then, let’s hold them to it.  Check out the local offices of your legislators, senators and representatives.  Keep track of this schedule, and when your legislator is home, go visit  at h/h office or call  and if s/he is not available, request that s/he call you back, or you could make an appointment to go visit with h/h.   Do be polite, and do have an honest question or concern ready.  In all fairness now, these legislators may have more than one office so you may have to call around to reach them.  But it should be doable, because that’s why they are not in session.  So you can reach them.  Get in touch with other members of your political party, club, or executive committee.  Or any civic association.  Arrange to keep your legislator busy by taking turns with your visits and phone calls.  Perhaps you can even arrange for h/h to visit with your group. 

Of course, if you really, really want to talk with h/h, you may have to take up golf!

For tree huggers only

tree!! my tree! what have they done to you?
does it hurt? tree? say something!

Haunted by Genetic Engineering

The title above was suggested by my friend, Mike, who has posted this on his blog, so I thought it was time to post it on mine.  This post was prompted by recent news about the USDA approval of GE Alfalfa.  Here is a link to one such article: http://www.alternet.org/story/149716/why_you_can_now_kiss_organic_beef%2C_dairy_and_many_vegetables_goodbye?page=entire 

For me to begin any discussion, to express my views, of the GM/GE crop development controversy, I have to go back to the 1980s.  At that time, I was county extension agent in Mineral County MT.   It was probably in 1988 that I attended a conference of extension agents at Montana State University (land-grant university), in Bozeman Mt, where a major presentation was by a representative of United States Department of Agriculture, in Beltsville MD.  He wanted to introduce us to this amazing new process of genetically modifying crops to change their nature, their properties, their reactions to environment, according to the will of the scientists.  Specifically, they were working on modifying corn so that it would be resistant to pesticides.    I found it very interesting that this USDA representative also had an investment in the biotech firm, also located in Beltsville, which was actively working on this objective.

For the previous two decades, while living on small farms or homesteads in Virginia, Montana, and North Dakota, with my young children, I had endeavored to garden and raise livestock for our own use organically and naturally—free range chickens and grass fed beef and contented dairy cows or goats and happy hogs, along with vegetables, herbs, and small fruits.   No chemicals, no pesticides, no antibiotic or hormone- laced feeds for the animals.  I had subscribed to Organic Gardening and Mother Earth News and Countryside and bought books on organic gardening.   I was familiar with the history of USDA’s opposition to organic gardening, (it could mark the end of a USDA employee's career to even breathe the word “organic”,) but now in the ‘80s it seemed they were a little more encouraging of organic methods and alternative crops.  We extension agents had been attending workshops on how to use organic methods in gardening, how to reduce use of pesticides, etc.    I was pleased that we seemed to be entering a new era.

Now it seemed that was about to change.  This USDA person was explaining that corn could be modified so that it would be resistant to pesticides such as Roundup, so that the farmer could use more Roundup without damaging the corn.  What?  More pesticide?  I thought we were supposed to be trying to use less pesticide.  Of course, Roundup was, and still is, promoted as being less dangerous than other pesticides because it is less persistent in the soil. 

After this main session in the auditorium, we moved in small groups to small rooms for discussion and Q&A with extension staff.  Again, we were told of the great value of this modification of corn, how it would increase production and reduce labor, etc.  We were advised, moreover, that this could be a bonanza for our university.  Land grant universities were eligible to apply for grants and funds to research this process; that mean money, of course.  We were also exhorted to go home to our counties and inform our farmers and ranchers of this wonderful process and encourage them to support the research and to look forward to planting this corn themselves.  And other such products to follow.  It seemed to me that our discussion leader was trembling with fervor.  I know I asked some questions, but I was careful not to state my skepticism.  I do know that I felt a chill running down my spine.  It seemed to me this new science was not auspicious for our future.  And although, to be fair to USDA and the extension service, I did go home to my county and discuss this with the local farmers and ranchers, I could not in all honesty endorse it.  I was never sure why my position was terminated after another year.

I have seen nothing nor read anything in the years since then to make me change my mind about GM and GE crops, including the recent USDA approval of GE alfalfa.   I was devastated when President Obama appointed Vilsack as head of the USDA.  So what about the organic garden on the White House Lawn?  Was that just to be a distraction?  

The Pale Blue Dot Grows Smaller

Sagan Carl on Pale Blue Dot

A quote from Sagan:  We make our world significant by the courage of our questions and by the depth of our answers.

Carl Sagan had requested that the Voyager I turn about and take photo of our tiny, tiny planet from beyond Jupiter, then he wrote this about the photo.

"Look again at that dot. That's here. That's home. That's us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every "superstar," every "supreme leader," every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there--on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.
The Earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena. Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that, in glory and triumph, they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot. Think of the endless cruelties visited by the inhabitants of one corner of this pixel on the scarcely distinguishable inhabitants of some other corner, how frequent their misunderstandings, how eager they are to kill one another, how fervent their hatreds.

Our posturings, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the Universe, are challenged by this point of pale light. Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity, in all this vastness, there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves.

The Earth is the only world known so far to harbor life. There is nowhere else, at least in the near future, to which our species could migrate. Visit, yes. Settle, not yet. Like it or not, for the moment the Earth is where we make our stand.
It has been said that astronomy is a humbling and character-building experience. There is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world. To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly with one another, and to preserve and cherish the pale blue dot, the only home we've ever known.
-- Carl Sagan, Pale Blue Dot, 1994