Message to Daryl Hannah: Don’t Mess with a Texan’s Oil!
Living in a small town in Northeast Texas, you can imagine my surprise when the local headlines read “Daryl Hannah Arrested” because, trust me on this one, our headlines are always related to local news only. Turns out she was arrested in Winnsboro, TX, about 100 miles away from here I live along with a 78 year old “grandmother”, Ms. Eleanor Fairchild. They were protesting the Keystone XL pipeline (or the TransCanada pipeline as it is commonly known).
Now the story goes on that Ms. Hannah and Ms. Fairchild had never met, yet somehow they ended up on Ms. Fairchild’s land together, standing in front of heavy equipment and attempting to block progress. Landowner Ms. Fairchild is even quoted as saying about her new cell mate in Wood County jail, “I just met her; I didn’t even know her from Adam. I didn’t know her movies.”
After being booked with criminal charges the two were later released on bond. Oh, and did I mention that Hannah was arrested a little over a year ago in front of the White House protesting the same pipeline?
My point is not to educate you on the history of the TransCanada pipeline nor the executive intervention. That has all been in the news and any of you interested in reading this article already know the facts. But I do want to talk a bit about a Hollywood actress protesting on land in Texas.
To give Ms. Hannah her due, it seems she lives modestly when in LA in a one bedroom house and her main residence in Colorado is deemed green enough for the Jolly Green Giant and approximately 1000 miles away from the film industry. She is said to be a “keen” environmentalist. She is a vegan. She takes in neglected and abused animals and nurses them back to health. She reportedly drives a 1983 El Camino converted to run on leftover grease from fast food restaurants (hmm, she’s a vegan and fast food restaurants fry meat – doesn’t that make her car a carnivore?). Ms. Hannah has a compost heap and lives “off the grid” with private sources of water and power. In her own words “It’s not primitive, it’s simple and sexy; there’s under floor heating, a Japanese soaking tub, lots of light and space. Because I spend so much time on location, I need home to be relaxing and tranquil.”
Goodness, she sounds like the Pollyanna of Hollywood, doesn’t she? However, Ms. Hannah is not all that she seems and is definitely a mixed bag of contradictions. She turned down the role of Vivian in Pretty Woman (1990) because she felt it was “denigrating to women”, yet she went on to appear as a stripper in Dancing at the Blue Iguana (2000). (Maybe she just needed the money in 2000–after all that is why most women strip, for the money, right?)
In June of 2006 Hannah was arrested for protesting the bulldozing of the nation’s largest urban farm in South Central Los Angeles, then in 2009 she was again arrested (along with 31 others) in a protest against mountaintop removal in southern West Virginia. And now she has two more arrests under her belt related to the pipeline.
Despite being in show business since 1978 and appearing in one or more movies for 30 years, Daryl Hannah is often referred to as having “turned her back on Hollywood”. (That does not sound like she has turned her back on anything related to Hollywood to me…)
“As I get older I feel an increased sense of urgency about the global crisis. Each one of us has to reduce our impact on the planet,” Hannah stated in an interview.
Just what does that mean, “global crisis”? In my opinion we have way more than one “crisis” and not any of them are solved by the fact that you, Daryl Hannah, drive a 30 year old vehicle running with a heart-attack-in-the-making or that you own your own power and water sources. How are we supposed to reduce our “impact on the planet” when most of us can’t afford to own our own power and water sources, Ms. Do As I Say Hannah? If you are filming on location or in Hollywood, do you drive that carnivore El Camino of yours to the set? I think not. I am betting your preferred mode of transportation is a big ole jet airplane. Yet when you were arrested in Texas you said, “Sometimes it’s necessary to sacrifice your freedom for a greater freedom. And we want to be free from the horrible death and destruction that fossil fuels cause, and have a clean energy future.”
So which is it? You either support the use of fossil fuel or you don’t. You cannot have it both ways.
Recently the most clean coal burning power plant in existence was built in Southwest Arkansas about 25 miles from my home. It was delayed by attorneys and activists like Daryl Hannah for over two years, causing it to run a half billion dollars over budget (yes, that is billion with a “B”). This budget increase means nothing to Hollywood activists because they make millions-plus per year in the entertainment industry. But it means middle to lower class Americans sometimes have to choose between heat or food because their budget will not support the increase in electricity—and these increases are caused by stupidity and lack of concern for others by people like Ms. Hannah.
My advice to you, Daryl Hannah, is to take your happy butt back to Hollywood or Colorado or wherever it is you live and stay out of Texas and stay out of the oil business. Quit interfering with potential jobs to unemployed Texans. To a Texan, oil is always progress.
Don’t Mess with Texas.
