I’ll Warn You Now: Don’t Read This Post or Tommy Lee Jones Will Kill You
by Steve-O
Someone whispered this in a Panther’s Ear last week: “Three days since I saw the Tommy Lee Jones Friends of the Shale ads for the first time and not a single comment from W&C on this nauseating display? You guys are letting me down.”
Yeah, we kind of sucked a little last week. We really are sorry about that. We’re getting our act together this week. Really. Less sucking, more writing.
But before you read further, please consider your own safety. If you continue reading this post after the jump, Tommy Lee Jones will come to your house and kill you. And your family. And probably your dog. He’s angry. He’s serious. He has a gun.
So for the love of God, read no further.
You people just don’t listen. OK, keep reading. But you’ve been warned.
I guess if we’ve learned anything from Chesapeake Energy, it’s that you can create your own reality. If you repeat a message often enough and slap it on every billboard, city bus and newspaper within 100 miles of Fort Worth, the truth is pretty much whatever you say it is.
I’m actually a little more amused than sickened by the latest dose of alternative reality from Chesapeake Energy. Everywhere I go for the next few weeks, I expect to be greeted by Tommy Lee Jones’ glowering countenance exhorting me to “Get Behind the Barnett.”
This is supposed to make me change my mind about urban gas drilling? Really?! I don’t care how much you liked the guy in Lonesome Dove or Men in Black, what I’m really thinking is he looks like the crusty old fart who lived down the street when you were growing up. You know, the guy who said, “Get the hell off of my lawn when!” and sprayed you with the hose when you wanted to know if you could get your ball back.
I mean, I’m really trying to imagine the pitch meeting when all of the agency guys come in to Julie Wilson’s office and say, “We’ve focus-grouped this thing til we can’t sit down anymore, and the spokesperson everyone loves is a really, really old, angry-looking man.”
That’s the point in the meeting when Julie is supposed to say, “I’m paying you assholes $375 an hour for this shit! I can get better ideas at the World of Primates! Now, go get me Janine Turner! And I want to see cleavage. Lots of cleavage!”
Alas, no Janine Turner. Hell, not even Barry Corbin, the friendly old Texan. This is the best you could do, Julie?
Then there is the message: Get Behind the Barnett. Very subtle.
Here’s the subtext: Shut the F up.
Yep, this is merely a different spin on the same old argument: there are only two positions on the issue of urban gas drilling — you’re either for us or against us. Which is just another example of the death of nuance in post-911 America. You either support us or you support the terrorists. You are a patriot or a cheese-eating surrender monkey. You are either in favor of economic development or you are a granola-eating, tree-hugging hippie.
I’ve always had a problem subscribing to this Manichaean worldview. Maybe its because I spent more time in college using my copy of Augustine’s Confessions as a coaster for my can of Schaeffer Light than I did actually reading it. But I’ve always believed that the truth never exists at the poles, but rather somewhere in between.
I keep coming back to the line from W.B. Yeats that was cribbed by Joan Didion in her book Slouching Toward Bethlehem — the center cannot hold. When the center can’t hold, it’s a sign that things are falling apart.
But that’s where we are. You’re either Behind the Barnett or you are a “NIMBY” or a “hippie.”
Evidently in the past half century after Rachel Carson, Love Canal, rampant air pollution and that mythical global warming thing, the very idea that industrial processes might have some negative ramifications on human health is somehow controversial and subversive.
The idea that maybe we should want to know what kind of chemicals are being put into the ground underneath our feet, this is somehow obstructionist?
Tommy Lee tells me that when I know the truth, I’ll get behind the Barnett. Honestly, I’d like nothing better than to get behind the Barnett, as in find out what’s really going on. However, getting behind the tapestry of lies that our friends at Chesapeake, XTO, Devon have woven is next to impossible. Unfortunately, it doesn’t help that our Mayor has his own set of knitting needles.
Nope, there’s no transparency, and that’s mostly by design. Getting behind the Barnett makes good business sense to the gas drillers because asking questions means delays and regulations and ultimately, less money for them.
But if gas drillers and the Mayor want to give us some truth, let’s set the bar really, really low and ask a few basic questions.
I have as much hope in actually getting answers to these questions as I do that the City’s Gas Drilling Task Force will actually accomplish something. That is to say, not much.
The fix was put in on the task force when Mayor Mike handpicked its members and weighted the panel heavily in favor of gas industry and local development representatives. Task Force members like District 3 rep Gary Hogan and District 9 rep Jim Bradbury, who are really trying to look out for neighborhood interests and the safety of the people of Fort Worth, have effectively been stymied.
“I can’t believe that we’re this far down the road and we’re still on noise and can’t move forward,” said Bradbury when I spoke to him the other day. “The gas industry representatives have completely filibustered this process.”
So where do we go from here?
In spite of attempts to limit public input to this process, there will be a Public Hearing regarding the Task Force’s work on Monday, June 9 at 6:30 p.m. in the City Council Chambers. I would implore those of you who want a say on this process to get down there and express yourself. This hearing and another scheduled for August 11 may be the only Public Hearings where you can weigh in. Once the ordinance is approved, it will be too late to make changes.
I’ll be there. And not even Tommy Lee Jones could stop me.
Tags: Barnett Shale, Mayor Moncrief, Tommy Lee Jones
11 Comments, Comments or Pings
AndyN
And what about that Gas Drilling Task Force Public Meeting scheduled for June 9th and August 11th (tentative)? The original email message stated that the agenda included:
-Current noise provisions
-Pipelines
-Public notice provisions
-Definitions of public buildings and Trinity Trails
A new email was sent out a couple of days later stating that the dates were adjusted and the agenda was revised to include:
- Current noise provisions
- Definitions of public buildings and Trinity Trails
I would be curious what the explanation is for trimming the agenda. I don’t mean to sound conspiratorial, but has the scope of the committee been limited to a few minor issues?
AndyN
Stop the American Oil Embargo
Drill Here, Drill Now, Pay Less
May 29th, 2008
TXsharon
I just love life on the edge so I had to look.
I’m working on some truth for Tommy. A new project, I have. =)
May 29th, 2008
b kooistra
Yep, easy for ol Tommy Lee Jones to tell us to get behind the Shale. I doubt he’s even living in Fort Worth. If he owns property, there’s probably so much of it that he’s got a half-dozen wells sucking the life out from underground. . .and it doesn’t bother him a bit. I try not to let actor’s political beliefs influence how I feel about their work as actors, but, jeez, TLJ, you blew it here, whoring yourself out to these robber barons.
May 30th, 2008
BBob
Young’s Jonesin’ is an Old Script
It seems Don Young is a quasi-celebrity! He claims to know Tommy Lee Jones – by his movie roles!
No, they apparently have never met. In fact, I’d bet Young couldn’t even pick the academy award winning actor out of a crowd at the supermarket. No matter. Jones is appearing in Fort Worth television ads in support of development in the Barnett Shale.
And Young hates energy companies … and, apparently, he hates clean, affordable energy and less American reliance on foreign oil.
So he whined to the Star Telegram that, based on Tommy Lee’s film roles, Jones “… is not one who can be bought off …” by so-called “corrupt” energy companies exploring the Shale.
So, here’s Young’s logic — Based on movie characters Jones has been handsomely paid to portray … Young says the actor can’t be bought?
Does that include Jones’ portrayal, in the 1995 film “Batman Forever,” of the twisted, diabolical Two Face?
Get real, Young. Because you’re anti-American, anti-economy, anti-energy tripe is reading like a tired, old script.
And ignoring factual reports that Jones conducted his own research, prior to participating in the ads, is plain dishonest. And it impugns the character of Jones, a man you likely will never even meet.
Just for the record, I don’t know Tommy Lee Jones. Never met him. I never met Bob Hope, either. But I’d never call Hope a sellout for doing all those USO tours in Vietnam.
I’d never call Charlton Heston a sellout for leading the National Rifle Association or for leading the Hollywood contingent in the 1960s march for civil rights.
Jones has a right to support whatever he wants, including energy production in the Barnett Shale. We all have that right … even if Don Young wants to deny it.
BBob
May 30th, 2008
RidgeD
We’ve been invaded by the Visitors, aliens from Oklahoma who look human. I’ll call them OVs (Oklahoma Visitors) for short. At Mayfest this year, a young lady who’s afraid to disclose her identity, accidentally walked into an anteroom of the Chesapeake pavilion and saw an OV with its mask pealed back, exposing a reptilian creature snacking on a live rat, ass-end first with the rat squealing and most likely defecating in the OV’s mouth. For added flavor?.
I watched the V tv series twenty-five years ago no telling how many times. It was an allegory on fascist Germany. I doubted we would ever see nazis from outer space, but the thought never occurred to me that we would see a nazi-like regime descend on Tarrant County. The space aliens came offering their advanced technology to make Earth utopian. They used every available medium to promote their deceit. Earthling sycophants saw the Visitors as the new royalty and hooked their wagons to them for self gain. The OVs bring us a promise of a better life, but at what expense?
The greatest loss we are facing is our community identity. For example, Mayfest was founded with the purpose of improving our local environment. OVs come in and hijack it. Mayfest is no longer a community-sponsored event- it’s OV sponsored. Our mayor is their toadie and ironically gained office as a Democrat. Peal back his mask and you’ll find a GW Bushesque creature whose primary agenda is gain of power and more money for himself and his cronies.
The OVs are doing a good job of taking over the collective conscious of our community with its Goebbels-Karl Rovian style propaganda campaign. We must resist being identified with the Barnett Shale. Some of us will be better off financially because of it. But I wonder if anyone has figured-out what a typical homeowner can expect in the way of natural gas royalties. Maybe we are trading our community soul for something no more significant in the long run than a stimulus check from the IRS.
May 30th, 2008
Bernie
Thanks for your comment, Bob… I just have to correct one of your statements: the part where you say that Don Young’s expression of his views are anti-American.
There is NOTHING more American than speaking up for what you believe in. This country was founded on freedom of expression. Just because you don’t agree doesn’t make it “tripe.”
May 30th, 2008
Stenotrophomonas
“If Southlake and other cities do not relax their drilling ordinances or give variances freely, it could lead to litigation by operators or mineral owners to overturn the ordinances or even for the condemnation of mineral rights.”
http://www.star-telegram.com/804/story/673277.html
Better get behind the shale and bend over, ‘cuz Chesapeake is behind you.
May 31st, 2008
cozette
Another example of the politics of greed and envy. Those who have are hated by those who have not…
May 31st, 2008
Greg
BBOB, can you please point me to the “factual reports that Jones conducted his own research, prior to participating in the ads”? Because I would REALLY like to see some factual reports about this whole process. The propaganda machinery at work is an insult to the thinking people of Fort Worth. (But, as Adeli Stevenson said: “That’s not good enough, I need a majority.”)
And then, maybe TLJ would share his results with us. I would also expect his bona fides as one qualified to draw conclusions about the complex interactions of geology, chemistry, economics and ecology (not to mention politics and energy policy) at work in the Barnett Shale play.
And Cozette, that’s a really brilliant dismissal line. Too bad it has nothing to do with the discussion.
Or did you mean those of us who have a great quality of life here in Fort Worth are hated by those who live miserable lives somewhere else? And they want to come here and wreck things for us?
Probably not…
Jun 1st, 2008
Carroll
I think it’s great that the wealthy residents of Southlake are getting screwed out of their minerals by their elected government.! Kinda of like having to deal with with your HOA after moving into an exclusive gated community.
Jun 2nd, 2008
Jacko
Yeah, screw those Southlake people. How dare they be wealthy.
Jun 2nd, 2008
Reply to “I’ll Warn You Now: Don’t Read This Post or Tommy Lee Jones Will Kill You”