Keep it Wild on Parade

As part of our continuing community outreach efforts, RDA entered a float in the Lycoming County Visitors Bureau's 2013 Grand Slam Parade on August 14 to welcome the Little League Champions from around the world. 

The Keep It Wild float featured a Save Rock Run theme and represented a beautifully recreated campsite, just like you might find in the Loyalsock State Forest. Thanks to the generosity of Bill Little of Fairfield Trailers and the team at Ft. Muncy Garden Center, the RDA float committee was able to put together a truly beautiful float.  

And let's not forget the overwhelming support of our members!  We sent out the call for riders and walkers and you responded in droves. Thank you so much for taking your time to show our community that there are a lot of people who care about our local special places and are willing to defend them.

Another Foul Ball From Anadarko

                                              By KEVIN HEATLEY, Guest Columnist  

We love the marketing folks from the natural gas industry!  Nothing is more fun than to watch them try to bury their talentless lack of creative energy under a pile of public relations cash. They are especially entertaining when they attempt to market to children.   

This year they were quite visible at the Little League World Series in Williamsport, Pa.  For those who have never experienced an 11-year-old male offspring, it is difficult to try  

and describe the Little League World Series. The event is a riotous mix of international accents from foreign and exotic countries like Japan, Panama, and Texas. It's definitely something to experience in person as opposed to watching on ESPN.  

Now, corporate marketing to kids is nothing new at the Little League World Series. Every year we are treated to Tony the Tiger encouraging proper childhood nutrition. Occasionally another furry corporate mascot, Jared from Subway, makes an appearance to demonstrate that even if you took Tony's message too seriously, you still have a chance to undo the damage through proper patronage of the appropriate chain restaurant.

This year our good neighbors from ANADARKO (a nightmare of a marketing name) PETROLEUM brought us another warm and fuzzy emblem of corporate indoctrination.  Emerging from a cloud of fugitive methane, the Anadarko "Energenie" made an appearance as a Little League pin this year.  While we applaud the Energenie for wearing his hardhat in accordance with OSHA regulations, apparently his exposure to concentrated volatile organic compounds from compressor station emissions has damaged the ability of his lungs to capture oxygen, hence his blue skin pigmentation. If so, we applaud Anadarko for reaching out to the sufferers of childhood asthma.

Of course, if we were cynical, we might suspect that Anadarko modeled the "Energenie" on the lovable Smurfs. If genetic testing does indeed confirm that the Energenie has Smurf heritage, a great irony emerges: Anadarko, the same company that is planning on destroying the ecological integrity of the Loyalsock State Forest in northern Pennsylvania, is apparently using forest-dwelling Smurfs as employees. Poor Smurfs!  Driven by a lack of employment opportunities (fueled by obvious racial discrimination), they are forced to destroy their own forest homes in order to find gainful employment.  Let us all hope Papa Smurf demonstrates the same intense concentration as the Energenie (note the tongue!) when he handles all the toluene and benzene on the frack pad.

So, two years after Stephen Colbert sent Talisman Energy's coloring book hero, Talisman Terry the Friendly Frackosaurus, into extinction by viciously skewering this corporate bit of childhood propaganda, we still have the natural gas industry pandering to children in a pathetic attempt to gain the public trust. While we understand the public relations desperation of an industry as brutally ugly as fossil fuel extraction, we do recommend they at least put some creative energy into their efforts. If they don't, we may just have to ask Colbert to help them along.