Still enough?

I am washing up the dinner dishes as Stephen and I are discussing the news.

We talk about our disappointment with the Sullivan County Legislature’s decision to simply allow the outgoing district attorney the car of his choice, a Ford Explorer, which is a V-8, gets terrible gas mileage and has leather seats.

Stephen is especially disturbed that the expenditure is going out of the county.

“If the funds are confiscated from criminal activities, why is the legislature even involved?” he wants to know.

I don’t know the answer and add that I think it strange that no one took legislator Dave Sager up on his suggestion to ask the DA whether he could make due with a smaller engine for the 10 months that he will be driving the car. In the end, Sager even voted for the questioned choice, opting not to make a fuss over it.

“It’s what the district attorney says he needs,” legislative chair Jonathan Rouis is reported to have said.

The conversation shifts to the Town of Callicoon and the town board’s desire to ask bidders to disclose their overhead in pricing out a solar system for the town barn. While some residents asked whether it was a ploy to discourage bidders, councilman Tom Bose said it was to get a better price from the lowest bidder.

These two bits of news, while on opposite ends of the spectrum, somehow form an endless circle of local and county leaders doing what they have always done: maintaining the status quo.

In a different world climate, the juxtaposition might be amusing.

I place an oversized pasta bowl in the wooden dry rack and it teeters a bit. I straighten it up and the edge doesn't sit squarely into the spaces. I place another one next to it. I add the one last dish, just as the two plates fall off the side of the rack and crash to the floor. One of the them breaks.

“I knew those weren’t stable," I say outloud to myself.

"Do we have six or four of these plates?” I ask Stephen as he heads off for the broom.

“Five, now,” he says.

It’s still enough for a dinner party for four, I think.

And then it hits me.

Is that what those elected officials are thinking? That's there’s still enough to accommodate their needs?

Stephen is sweeping up broken porcelain as I excuse myself to contemplate broken things, stability and when enough is enough.

Scratching my head

As more and more anecdotal stories pour in about methane gas coming out of people’s faucets in Central Pennsylvania, polluted wells and imbalanced inner-earth pressures, I am beginning to understand that gas drilling, especially those activities planned for the Upper Delaware River Valley, is a little bit like tooth decay. While you may religiously brush and floss, over time, the quality of your teeth deteriorates and there is an inevitable level of acceptance of fillings, root canals, bridges and false teeth.

When I mentioned the metaphor to one of my colleagues, she didn’t agree. “You can win over tooth decay,” she said vehemently.

By the end of the day, I had changed the metaphor.

“Natural gas drilling is like slavery,” I told another colleague. “There were many a good folk in New England, especially the early Unitarians in New England, who knew that slavery was morally bereft, but were too economically involved in the trade to actually have the will power to fight against it.”

I’m not sure he agreed.

What he did say in response was that he wondered whether we would wonder, ten years hence, when the area was a dark shadow of its pristine nature now, why we didn’t do more to stop its destruction.

And that question seems hard to reconcile in the face of our national policy and even stanch environmental groups who advocate that natural gas is a transition fuel.

Almost as an answer, the Word “office” assistant, that annoying "helpful" icon that answers questions, somehow turned on because of a inquiry that I had earlier today, scratches his head and raises his eyebrows. In this moment, he echoes my sentiments and seems almost prophetic.

So what do we do with these conflicting values, and how do we become totally clear about challenging our community to reconcile their willingness to sacrifice clean water and public health for economics and energy.

If I was cynical, which I don't think I am, I might ask the question, “What else is new?”