Holy Shit

Above is a picture of Sherry Vargson, of Granville Summit, PA, lighting her tap water on fire, which she is able to do because it has been contaminated by fracking.

Not only does The Market not, in fact, solve everything, but wanton deregulation to allow the Invisible Hand to conduct a symphony of corporate chaos actually tends to create a whole lot of pretty spectacular problems for people like Sherry Vargson. And me. And probably you.

I am reminded of a post Mannion published approximately one hundred years ago (get off my lawn), in which he wrote:

Americans have a habit of talking about politics as something apart from the normal doings of our lives. Kind of strange of us, considering that the normal doings of our lives are only possible because of politics. Turning on the tap to get a drink of water is a political act if only because the water flows and is relatively clean because of decisions made by politicians who owe their jobs to political decisions made by us.

And when we turn on the tap to demonstrate that our water is flammable, that is most certainly a political act, too.

Ultimately, this picture is less about fracking—although it's damn sure about that, too—than it is about the evident failure of the people elected to represent their constituents' interests to remember exactly who their constituents actually are.