We no longer live life. We consume it.

If you live for having it all, what you have is never enough.

Americans used to be 'citizens.' Now we are 'consumers.

Consumerism: buying things we don't need with money we don't have to impress people that don't matter.

But I need to remember that the grief is the settlers’ as well. They too will never walk in a tallgrass prairie where sunflowers dance with goldfinches. Their children have also lost the chance to sing at the Maple Dance. They can’t drink the water either.

The creek that was once a fishery for Atlantic salmon, a swimming hole for kids, and a focal point of community life now runs as brown as chocolate milk. Allied Chemical and its successors deny any role in the formation of the mudboils. They claim it was an act of God. What kind of God would that be?