Apocalypse Kansas
February 22, 2010Henry Baum 1 Comment »Philip Heying, who I recently got in touch with again via a Facebook post about 2012, has a great post up on Reality Sandwich about his dispiriting stay in Kansas. I met him via a friend from Paris and we hung out a bit in New York. I remember a pretty strange birthday one year – me in the middle of a serious bout of isolation, him getting over a girl. I go through extended bouts of lonerness. Coming out of one now – book’s done, time to move into the world.
Anyway, that’s when I knew Philip, and now we’ve reconnected. From his piece,
I’ve made frequent work-related trips to the southeast section of the state, particularly to a town called Coffeyville, and seen such reckless toxic industrial waste it staggers the imagination. Whole cities and sections of cities have had to be evacuated (Treece, Kansas, Picher, Oklahoma, Galena and Coffeyville, Kansas). There is a refinery in Coffeyville that is owned by Goldamn Sachs, does $3 billion in sales every year, that dumps its waste straight into the Verdigris River and can be smelled throughout the town and, depending on the winds, from twenty miles away. A business called Safety Kleen (you can’t make this up), owned by Viacom, dumped enormous quantities of dioxin and PCB into the regional ecosystem. No one has yet figured out how to clean up Safety Kleen’s lethal mess. The populous of Coffeyville demonstrates a bizarre array of skin afflictions. The tap water tastes like something you would use to clean a rug.
It’s not entirely hopeless:
What can be hoped for?
Much of it can be resolved by simply stopping the destruction. The landscape has an unstoppable capacity for regeneration. If you don’t mow your lawn, in a few short months you’ll find yourself surrounded by jungle.
Once erosion stabilizes and wetlands renew themselves, they have a near miraculous capacity to filter and break down most toxins. Wildlife populations race into new niches, adapt quickly and thrive when relieved of the stresses of human encroachment.
Philip Heying’s responsible for this very great picture of William Burroughs and Timothy Leary. Other great photos on his site.
February 22nd, 2010 at 11:52 pm
I can imagine Spencer Tracy going in ala Bad day at black rock. That really is sad. My thought on the irony of greed and the wealth this destruction generates for a tasteless few is that the more you get the less you know what to do with. Thats what happens to these morons. If only they could see how much respect and free karma they would have (an extra 5 years of life perhaps?) they might stop? Its like the internet in a way???
No-one gives a shit….Theres just too many people talking and most of it is a toxic dump that lets us all down. Bomb Kansas? Obviously not but you wont stop them till they’ve bled it to a crisp!!!