Field Journal #7 - 19 Aug 2008
by Anthony Marr
founder of HOPE
lead campaigner of GEO
“road warrior” of CARE-1, CARE-2, CARE-3, CARE-4, CARE-5 & CARE-6
Heal Our Planet Earth (HOPE)’s
Global Emergency Operation (GEO)’s
Compassion for Animals Road Expedition #6 (CARE-6)’s
Field journal #7
August 19, 2008
Dear HOPE-GEO team and all friends in compassion:
Today (Aug. 19) is the second day of the 4-day Animal Rights National
Conference (www.ARConference.org). I gave my first 3 of 12 speeches,
signed dozens of books, and collected a jarful of donations, but this
journal entry is about West Virginia, and is a story unto itself.
Before I go on to West Virginia, I should relate a little story from
a previous state (can’t recall which). When I pulled into one of the
toll booths, the big guy in the booth took a look at the magnetic sign
on the side of my car and said, “Global warming – what a load of BS.”
“Al Gore doesn’t share that opinion,” I said. “Al Gore is a nut job,” he
spat. “According to whom?” “George W. Bush.” “I rest my case,” I said as
I drove off.
I left the trailer park at Galena, Ohio, in the mid-morning of August
9th, and arrived at the UU Church in Charleston, West Virginia, in the
mid-afternoon, slightly ahead of time. I walked around the building, and
noticed a large caliber bullet hole in a window and another through its
inner pane, with the two holes lined up at the house next door. My host
Chris Higgins arrived shortly after, who introduced me to another man
from another car named Julian _____, who explained to me that the bullet
was fired by a young man next door while in a state of rage with his
mother, and who was now serving time. This was something not often heard
of in Canada, where almost no one owns a gun.
Julian then whisked me off to view one of West Virginia’s
mountain-top-removal open-pit coal mines. After a lengthy gravel road
traverse and a steep climb through forest, he parked the vehicle in a
parking area with a few uninhabited houses. From there, we walked
uphill, until we reached a rise. I topped it, looked down, and promptly
exclaimed, “HOLY SHIT!” It was partly surprise and partly disgust. It
was in fact a much smaller and drier version of the tar sands. Still,
the whole mountain-top had been leveled, and a deep crater had further
been dug into the plateau thus created. The general color of the near
moonscape was black, and there were thick and opague clouds of brown
dust enveloping the huge machinery. I don’t know how the workers could
see what they were doing, and just breath, much less maintain health
lungs. Surrounding the ex-mountain were so-called reclaimed land, and it
was no more than flattened ridges covered thinly with brown-green grass.
Julian pointed at the mountains all around (Appalachians) and said that
they would all meet the same fate in due course. Painful just to try to
imagine it.
As Alberta is the tar sands capital of the world, West Virginia could
be the coal capital, or one of them. I hope I’m not misquoting Julian,
but there are some 800 of these mines operating in West Virginia. John
Denver would weep. The debeautification of beautiful West Virginia. And
for what? More lung-wrecking jobs for young men who might otherwise have
gone on to university? A stock price rise of $10? 10% higher dividends?
Julian dropped me off at the UU Church and I gave him a copy of my
book, writing in it: “To Julian: Thank you for the Holy Shit
experience.” He burst out laughing upon seeing it.
After waving Julian good-bye, I drove to a restaurant called A Taste
of Asia for some veg noodles, then drove on up to the rural property of
Don Gartman with its steep driveway and two artificial ponds complete
with large coy fish and a protective net against heron predation. A very
hospitable couple, who also led me by car to the UU Church the following
day, the 10th.
The UU church event had two components. A 9 – 10:30 a.m. forum to
about 50 people, and an 11 a.m. sermon to about 150 people, both with
ovations. Many accepted the book with gratitude and volunteered
donations. In the forum audience were Capri and Mandy, university
students, both going to the AR conference. So, the connection overflows
into another state.
After the sermon, I drove on to Rebecca Goth’s home in Wheeling some
four hours due north, re-entering Ohio, then re-entering West Virginia
and almost entering Pennsylvania. There, you could walk from Ohio
through West Virginia into Pennsylvania within an hour or two. The only
way to beat this is to walk in a small circle around the 4-Corners – 4
states within minutes.
Rebecca’s home is of a log-cabin-type construction sitting on a
fairly steep slope overlooking a forested hillside well away from the
city. She received me warmly and treated me like a prince as all other
hosts do. When I first met her on myspace, I saw that her cover picture
showed her holding a horse. I half-jokingly remarked that what I missed
most while touring was horseback riding. Lo and behold, she had booked
me a trail-ride the next morning at 10 at a riding academy nearby.
Shortly after my arrival, her husband Helmut came home. Almost
immediately after our introduction, he said that thanks to the
interference of “environmentalists”, West Virginia’s economic
development had been negatively impacted. Then he bluntly said that
global warming was non-factual. Ensuing was a bluntness-versus-bluntness
verbal collision in which I in all these years and tours had never
engaged with a host. While I was telling him about the Alberta tar
sands, he was of the opinion that the environmental damage was not
important, since northern Alberta was by and large uninhabited. I said,
“The native peoples don’t count?” He said nothing. At one point, Rebecca
interjected, directed at Helmut, “Difference of opinion is one thing,
but you don’t have to be sarcastic about it.” This more or less ended
the debate. Some time later in the evening, I opened www.HOPE-CARE.org
and showed him a picture of the tar sands. He looked intensely at it for
a moment, then said, “This does look bad, but as I’ve said before, it’s
in the middle of nowhere. So what does it matter?” I said, “It matters
because it poisons the whole water shed as well as the aquifer for
hundreds of years and thousands of square miles, toxifies fish and moose
alike, besides causing cancer in the native people.” He ambled off,
saying nothing. Somewhere along the line, I asked him about his
profession. He told me that he was an accountant. This explains a lot of
what he was coming from – the world of numbers, numbers of dollars,
dollars of corporations. His clients are businessmen and CEOs, not
grassroots activists. On the other hand, in all his bluntness and
environmental insensitivity, and though he cannot exactly be said to be
bursting with warmth, he was not discourteous, and at no point made me
feel that I should not accept their hospitality. In the three days of my
stay at his home, he had never made me feel unwelcome or intrusive.
Whenever he returned from work, he always shook my hand in renewed
welcome. I hope to have gotten through to him a little. A note of
interest: Along with Rebecca, he is a vegetarian, and has lived in India
for several years, yet he says Christian grace before dinner, and talks
red neck talk about the environment. One strange combination.
The next day, the 11th was a bit of a rest day, as if I needed one.
It was the day of the equestrian outing. It was a gentle ride through a
West Virginian forest. Both Rebecca and I are “horse whisperers”,
meaning that our relationship with horses are diametrically opposed to
that of rodeo riders and horse “breakers”. Still some AR theorists
disapprove of any kind of equestrianism, on the ground that however
humane it is still human domination over animals. To these I usually ask
one question: “How many rats and cockroaches and deer and raccoons live
in your house, which has forcibly evicted them from their natural
habitat where your house now stands?” I don’t need to ask if they have
ever taken care of a horse. And it matters not to them that most private
horse guardians, except the real horse exploiters, treat their horses as
they would their own children. But to the rest, here is an example of a
definitive difference: Rodeo riders ride against their horses, and
humane riders ride with them. The former electro-shock their horses and
pinch their genitals to start the ride; the latter almost always pet
their horses on the neck at the end of each ride, our way of saying
thanks.
After the ride, Rebecca drove me to a huge “outdoor sport” store
named Cabela’s, which sits on a road named after it – Caleba - basically
just to shock me, and succeeding. I must say, even having checked out so
many hunting stores, such as Gander Mountain in Ohio near where Lane
lives, this one can be described only in superlatives. Bebecca told me
that hunters come from all over the country to pay it homage. Would you
believe that inside it is a 50’-high artificial mountain all over which
stand taxidermy-mounted North American fauna – bears, mountain goats,
Dall sheep, cougars, wolves, elks… All over the walls are mounted
countless more, including Asian and African animals. The gun department
alone is bigger than most sporting goods stores in their entirety. There
is a section displaying dioramas of African wildlife, and even a great
hall of the Whitetail deer, containing hundreds of magnificent
specimens, all lifeless of course. And there were groups of children
being led around by docents telling them how the hunting heroes brought
down such fleet-footed prey, while the children looked around in awe.
The poisoning of a generation at work before my pained eyes.
August 12 was a busy day. We had a 3:15 pm radio interview lined up,
and a library lecture to deliver at 6 pm. In the early afternoon,
Rebecca drove me to visit the Krishna Palace – easily the biggest Hindu
temple complex in North America, covered with black and gold paint in
every ornate corner, marble flooring and chandeliers in every hallway,
amidst a sea of green covering five private square miles. Wheeling, West
Virginia, is a city of contrasts and extremes – the largest hunting
store and the biggest Krishna temple in one small city of one small
state. How unlikely is that?
While Rebecca was driving me to the radio station, I asked her how
long the interview was supposed to last. She said anywhere from 15
minutes to 45 minutes, depending on how interested in the subject the
host was and how the interview went. 45 minutes was what the host gave
to Howard Lyman when he was in town, as organized by Rebecca herself. By
this measure, then the host must be enormously interested in our subject
matter, and the interview must have gone incredibly well, since it
lasted 1 hour 15 minutes. It was an open-line program, so a few phone
calls came in, and all said essentially that global warming was a hoax.
And while the host was open-minded, his side-kick wasn’t, who
interrupted me several times in mid-sentence. At one point, the guy
interjected, “West Virginia is having one of its coolest summers for
some time. So, talking about global warming is complete and utter
nonsense” I’ve about had it with this guy, and fired right back at him,
“We’re talking about global average temperature. Every time you name one
example of cooling, I can name you ten examples of heating. Are you
willing to bet your children’s future on an anecdotal anomaly?” He did
not respond. Near the end, he interjected again, this time loudly, “So,
you want us all to just stop eating meat and stop using our power
lawn-mowers tomorrow?” Without hesitation I found myself saying, “THAT’S
RIGHT!” The host wound up by saying that climate change is the most
perplexing subject he has encountered by far, add, “So many say that Al
Gore is wrong, then carry on business as usual. But what if he’s right?”
The library talk was attended by about 20 people, including a few
from the Krishna Palace whom Rebecca had invited (she had been
vigorously inviting everyone she came across), and maybe a few who came
as a result of the radio talkshow. As with almost every other speech,
this one was video recorded. So far, unlike the radio audience, I
haven’t had one live lecture audience member who dissented on global
warming.
Aug. 13 I drove the 7 hours from Wheeling WV to the place of
Charlotte Templeton in St. Michaels, Maryland, arriving in the late
afternoon. The most memorable part of the drive was the Bay Bridge,
probably the longest bridge I’ve ever driven over.
On the morning of the 14th, Charlotte went to her parents’ place to
exchange her small sedan for the a pick-up truck. I GPSed my way to it
at an agreed-upon time, and met her there at the Alternative Mini
Storage where 1650 copies of [Homo Sapiens! SAVE YOUR EARTH] lay waiting
in 45 cartons, 44 copies per carton. We loaded 20 cartons into the truck
and I led the way by GPS to the Hilton Mark Center in Alexandria VA 1.5
hours away. Upon arrival, I parked my car right next to the rear
entrance of the hotel on the lower level of the car park with “FIX
GLOBAL WARMING or kiss our children’s future good-bye” catching the eyes
of most conference attendees who entered through that entrance. One
woman said, “I LOVE this!”.
More later.
Return to
Care Tour 6
Since 