Mood:
don't askTopic: "Frack You" (7)
Lorne Green, Adama in the original "Battlestar Galactica," would have enjoyed the sequel, thinks Frodo. Rather than a cartoonish robotic dog for example, there was open sex between the now-feminine "Starbuck" and almost anyone not seated in the television audience. Despite his own deep-breathing, Frodo found himself entranced by the linguistic artistry wound into the everyday conversations of the cast, and the similarity to the dialogue of the reader. The term "Fracking" evidently meant exactly what it almost spells and sounds like, but the powers that be felt it could be interspersed throughout without any obvious corruption to sensitive ears.
Frodo was reminded of the show and the terminology as he absorbed himself in the scientific references to oil discovery in Middle Earth. "Fracking," it seems, is the name of the process whereby oil is reclaimed from a non-liquid state deep amidst the aquifer of the small blue planet. In the name of "alternative sources of energy" the water table is apparently threatened by the introduction of the extraction process. Additionally, the frequency of geologic shifts among the tectonic plates seems to bear some relationship to the increasing drilling, pumping, and draining far beneath the surface of the land.
North Dakota, which as best Frodo can determine is somewhere beyond the Mojave Desert and adjacent to Mordor, is the center of oil exploration and personnel recruitment. Desperate, out-of-work laborers are descending upon the desolation of the tundra and sleeping in their cars since there is not enough housing for the required number of workers.
Despite several generations of political leaders who have promised "energy independence," it appears to Frodo as if what we have is simply more of the same, just not with the intials "Made in the Middle East" on the packaging. The economic challenges are so great for nations and inhabitants alike, it is unsurprising that short-term thinking prevails. The results include, unfortunately, a continuation of the expenditure of fossil fuel into the atmosphere, and a re-working of the internal structure of the land itself which could include poisoning our water supply and all of that which it supports.
"Fracking" seems to be much more obscenity-laden in its current state than as the spreading genitalia of Adama's pilot. Say, do you think something more corporate may have been in mind by the usage of the name "Starbuck?"
