From the by M.D. Fletcher |
April 2011 |
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There I was, hunkered down in my extra-cushy Fat Boy Relax-O-Matic, enjoying a cool and well-deserved sparkling beverage after yet another long and stressful day of bellowing seemingly random orders to my long-suffering and beleaguered subordinates, when the thought occurred to me that I hadn't recently caused any significant rancor among my many friends of the liberal persuasion. After some lengthy chin-stroking contemplation (during which I assured myself that this chin-stroking thing is what Hemmingway probably did all the time as well), I came to the conclusion that I had, despite all my intentions to the contrary, become alarmingly non-offensive to those among us who evidently count on me to periodically arouse their vast reserve of righteous indignation. It's not that I don't care. Indeed, aside from the sweet scent of cordite in the morning, nothing makes me feel more self-actualized than a long, vituperative letter questioning both my political views and my parentage, or a screaming voice mail insisting that my insufficiently enlightened world view lacks the proper rose-tinted hue and I should just shut the hell up. That's not it; I mean, c'mon, I live for that stuff. Sometimes, I almost even envy these folk's dedication to their Big Rock Candy Mountain ideas. I suppose seeing the world according to Magic Kingdom terms is pretty reassuring, particularly if you can manage to separate cause from effect and have little or no awareness of what just went around ever someday coming back around again. In a small, small world, there are only moral absolutes and everything is sharply defined in straight lines and crisp corners. Gosh, I wish I were that squared away. But I'm not. I see shades of gray in everything and everywhere. F'instance: The Department of Energy was created back in the 1970's for the sole purpose of reducing our national dependence on foreign oil. Back then, we imported 30% of our requirements. Today, we import 70%. So far, the only thing the Department of Energy has done effectively is create thousands of Federal jobs. Not that that's a bad thing, mind you, a Federal job, particularly in an economy currently being jerked all over the map by the price of foreign oil, is way better than hitting the Powerball. But as a Presidential Cabinet-level agency, it's pretty clear nobody ever thought about giving the Secretary an actual performance review. F'instance: Alternative energy is a wonderful thing. I love alternative energy. Given the opportunity, I would slow-dance with alternative energy. The development of alternative energy is going to reduce our national dependence on foreign oil. We are going to put a windmill everywhere the wind blows and a photovoltaic panel on every house, office building, school, billboard, chicken coop, hogan and wikiup in the country. We're going to recycle everything from shredded tires to pig droppings as boiler fuel and then we're going to clean all the underbrush out of the forests and burn that as well. We're going to do it up brown and then those Middle Eastern potentates can kiss our collective grits. I'm with you brothers and sisters. Cum Bye Yah Baby Boy Howdy. Of course, being politically enlightened and all, we must give some thought to just exactly where we want to install all these wonderful devices. The seashores seem a logical choice for windmills. The wind is very predictable at the seashores. So, we'll just stick these 140' |
towers at the seashores, right in front of these people's multi-million dollar seaside mansions. Just offshore of the Kennedy Compound comes to mind as a really prime location. They'll welcome the idea. After all, it's alternative energy, right? Everybody's got to do their part, right? (Answer: Fat Chance.) Mountain passes are another excellent spot for wind turbines. The wind really blows through mountain passes. All we've got to do is build some access roads and clear a bunch of pads and bolt the things into the ground. Since this is a national priority, we're sure the U.S. Forest Service is going to welcome us with open arms and the Environmental Protection Agency isn't going to make a big fuss over some silly spotted owls or peregrine falcons. They probably won't give much of a pookie-tookie about that old-fashioned Endangered Species Act given the fact that this is, after all, a national alternative energy priority, right? (Answer: Another Fat Chance.) But perhaps the best spot to put these enormous wind turbines is probably any place under the supposed control of the Bureau of Land Management. Could this be the most politically correct location? (Answer: You betcha Little Beaver.) You see, back in the old days, the BLM got control of all the land in the undeveloped western United States (except Texas) that the government couldn't sell and the Forest Service didn't want. This is generally land that was unsuitable for any other purpose than grazing cattle, so the BLM figured that they would sell leases to ranchers and the ranchers would build and maintain fences, protect wildlife, develop water resources, control erosion, help prevent wild fires and essentially assume day-to-day management responsibilities for the property, thereby relieving the government from most of their expense of ownership. So even though the wind is usually only marginally adequate for the purpose, ranchers represent the path of least resistance and become the designated sacrificial lamb for the sake of the profit- oriented alternative energy industry. Co-incidentally, most ranchers are members of rural electric cooperatives and rural electric cooperatives serve the areas the profit-oriented electric utility industry once refused to serve. Funny how that works, huh? It seems to me that although we may all be in the same national priority boat, it appears that only a few of us are doing any real paddling. And consequently, we ain't getting anywhere, either. History tells us that despite all the podium-thumping currently going on from the Oval Office on down regarding our so-called national energy priority, we as a nation periodically go through these times of resolution to achieve energy independence but predictably lack the necessary dedication, determination and attention span to get it done. Our own sacred cows get in the way of our resolve. Therefore, we settle for boutique demonstrations of the next greatest thing while we continue to increasingly rely on old and dirty but proven, technologies. Odds are, even your eco-sensitive electric car depends on a great big coal-fired generating station somewhere. Shades of gray are right in your driveway. There. That ought to get the juices flowing. No need to thank me, my liberal compadres. It's who I am and what I do. Peace out. |
