As the new year beckons, and the old one slips away...I wonder how we as a civilization have made it this far, especially considering some of the dumb things we have done. And here in Oklahoma, among the reddest of states, this event seems to qualify. Apparently the Oklahoma City PD seems to think glitter qualifies as a weapon of mass destruction, or the like...to me it seems rather hard to confuse, say, anthrax "white powder" with glitter. But listen to the story of how a couple of protesters came to be accused of a "bioterrorism hoax".
Stefan Warner and Moriah Stephenson are the culprits in question. Members of the Great Plains Tar Sands Resistance, they were protesting the Keystone XL pipeline (along with a dozen others) at the Devon Tower, headquarters of Devon Energy, one of the many actors in the Keystone saga. Just another run of the mill protest, until they unfurled their "secret" weapon...a glitter-speckled banner. As from the pages of the Mother Jones articleA Glitter-Covered Banner :
As other activists blocked the building's revolving door, Warner and Stephenson hung two banners—one a cranberry-colored sheet emblazoned with The Hunger Games "mockingjay" symbol and the words "The odds are never in our favor" in gold letters—from the second floor of the Devon Tower's atrium.
Police who responded to the scene arrested Warner and Stephenson along with two other protesters. But while their fellow activists were arrested for trespassing, Warner and Stephenson were hit with additional charges of staging a fake bioterrorism attack. It's an unusually harsh charge to levy against nuisance protestors. In Oklahoma, a conviction for a "terrorist hoax" carries a prison sentence of up to 10 years.
Apparently the glitter shedding banners spooked the folks working there, and thus Warner and Stephenson were charged with staging a terrorist hoax. Which is kind of serious...they each could face up to ten years apiece.
The Keystone pipeline is a huge lightning rod, the trunk of the elephant in the room that is our reliance on fossil fuel energy. It is still fresh on a lot of folks minds the Deepwater disaster that fouled the Gulf of Mexico...tarballs are still being dug out of the beaches, and BP is still fighting a battle both on the PR and legal front to "clean up" its image, while workers actually clean up its mess. Needless to say, tensions are high on both sides...but even preschool kids have played with glitter for years (without any ill effects that I am aware of), yet full-grown adults reacted as if the two protesters threw a dirty bomb.
I got wind of this thanks to the Care2.com petition site (where you can link here). One can only wonder what toxic substances our authorities were exposed to to come up with such a hare-brained charge. Hopefully cooler heads will prevail, and good will to men will carry the day.