This New England

Photo and caption by WILLIAM MORGAN

This detail of the Ze-gen experimental gasification plant in New
Bedford speaks of the potential of a new clean energy source for New
England, while being an object of beauty in its own right.

The United States produces a billion tons of waste each year --
agricultural, industrial, construction, municipal --and much of it
ends up in landfills. This machinery is part of the production of
synthetic gas that can be used in a variety of ways to create
energy. Or, put more simply, the city brings its garbage to the plant
to be turned into electricity.

How appropriate that the Boston company's prototype plant should be
in what was the energy capital of the United States more than a
century and a half ago.

Now instead of rendering the oil of leviathans
to light America's homes, New Bedford's waste fuels the hope for a
sensible power source as close as your trash. Waste not, want not.

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It is sad and squalid how the family of Martin Luther King Jr. has striven so much to maximize their personal profit off his name, and turn his legacy into a Hollywood-style branding industry.

Their greed, narcissism and lack of boundaries is emblematic of how American culture has been trending. Nothing seems to matter if you can make big bucks off it.

And a quiet dignity not longer seems to work.

 Tags  Martin Luther King Jr. whale oil William Morgan Ze-gen

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