Wayne King’s New Novel Echos New Hampshire’s Own Ongoing Battle Over Northern Pass

News Release

For Immediate Release

1/23/18

For more information: 603-515-6001

“Sacred Trust” Now Available in Bookstores and on Amazon

Wayne King’s New Novel Echos New Hampshire’s Own Ongoing Battle Over Northern Pass

If the cover of “Sacred Trust”, created by Mike Marland, doesn’t clue you in, it won’t take long to realize that this novel is written as a vicarious homage to New Hampshire’s own ongoing battle over the controversial “Northern Pass” project and other similar projects.

Author, former State Senator and 1994 Democratic Gubernatorial nominee Wayne D. King adroitly weaves a story with a familiar ring . . . the clash of ordinary people confronting money and power in an epic battle to protect the land they love.

“Sacred Trust” is the tale of a rollicking campaign of civil disobedience against a private powerline, pitting nine unlikely environmental patriots, calling themselves “The Trust”, against the “Granite Skyway” transmission line and its powerful, well-connected consortium of investors.

With an obvious deep fondness for both the people and the land, King weaves a fast-paced tale filled with both real and fictional stories from the political world and life in the Granite State.  In a rich tableau that includes sometimes hilarious and sometimes hair-raising stories of Senators driving North in a Southbound Interstate lane after a night of drinking at the Highway Hotel; Doctors sneaking a pregnant Llama into a hospital surgical ward for ACL surgery; A bear and a boy eating from the same blueberry patch atop Mount Cardigan as his father, the Ranger, watches helplessly from the fire tower, and more.

Among the heroes of the story is Sasha Brandt, an Iroquois woman from Canada. While hiking the Mahoosuc Range of the Appalachian Trail with her companion - a wolf named Cochise - Brandt meets Daniel Roy, a New Hampshire “boy” and now a guide and outdoorsman. After a unique first encounter they continue their trip together, eventually finding themselves camping with an unusual assortment of people including a former Olympic paddler, a conservative deer farmer, a retired spook, sidelined when he became the first US victim of Lyme disease; and an iconoclast and former Army Ranger named Thomas who lives in multiple backwoods abodes in the Great North Woods and rides a moose named Metallak – aptly named for the “Lone Survivor of the Megalloway” tribe, who in the late 1800’s was reputed to ride a moose himself.

The group quickly discovers that – despite their very broad range of ideological beliefs - they are united in their deep concern about the Consortium’s proposal to bisect the most beautiful parts of the state with massive 150 foot towers and clear cut forests for the sole purpose of transporting electricity from Canada to more affluent markets beyond its borders.  Like Oligarchs of the Gilded Age who minimized their costs by creating a legacy of polluted land and water, these modern Oligarchs stand to reap 100% of the benefits while passing off a large portion of their costs through the generations-long visual pollution of the public commons and all the economic shockwaves that result.

Determined to do more than shuffle papers and employ lawyers, the compatriots form a band of brothers and sisters - along with Cochise and Metallak. Armed with only their wits and a lot of heart they embark on a rollicking campaign of civil disobedience that would make Thoreau and Dr. King proud.

Although “Sacred Trust” is a work of fiction, King says that educators will find the novel a great classroom resource as well. Adding a new dimension and lively discussion to classes on the emergence of the renewable energy era, sustainability, and the American tradition of protest and its place in an “Era of Terrorism”.

“in the coming “Age of Electricity” “ King says, “a principal battleground will be over who controls the production and distribution of electric power. Across America today, the battle lines are being drawn. Utility companies, many in an existential battle for survival, are pitted against advocates of a new distributed energy paradigm where small, renewable power sources replace today’s large electricity generation plants.”

“Most Americans” King asserts, “notice that things are changing, but have yet to fully grasp what a sea change in life it will be for every American.”

“Sacred Trust” follows the trail of heroic citizens banding together to stop one especially egregious powerline. The citizens who stand to lose most are dead set against the project . . . but the political winds are against them. It is in this setting The Trust takes on the Consortium.

As the actions of The Trust gain traction and momentum, other citizens join in support including a wave of supporters on social media; “The Gazetteers”, a group of citizen activists writing in the style of the Federalist Papers; and journalists including one business writer who weaves together details of the historic record leading his readers through a virtual primer on the evolution of a post-carbon energy paradigm beginning with the 1972 election of Jimmy Carter and the passage of the National Energy Policy Act into which NH Senator John Durkin inserted an eight word amendment that rocked the world.

"Sacred Trust" is a hilarious and vicarious, high voltage campaign to stop the “Granite Skyway” leading the reader through the hijinks of The Trust, and the series of choices we all are currently confronted in the emerging “Age of Electricity”.

For each of the members of The Trust it is a sacred campaign fought against an impending legacy of steel towers and scarred lands - an existential threat to an entire way of life. The Trust is all that stands between the people and their worst fears . . . and they are willing to pay any price to prevail. 

                                                             

“Sacred Trust”

Paperback: 354 pages

Publisher: CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform

ISBN-10: 1981490302

http://bit.ly/STPaper

Price: $14.95*

Sacred Trust Kindle eBook

http://bit.ly/STrust

Price: $2.99*

https://thesacredtrust.blogspot.com/

* Special discounts are available to schools, libraries, and nonprofits. Please contact 603-515-6001

Trump Insults the Entire Native American Community

Trump insults the entire Native American Community

There are two things that are important to realize for those who are not "of" the Native American Indian community or familiar with it:

First, and most important: President Andrew Jackson was responsible for the "Indian Removal Act" that led to the "Trail of Tears" He is so reviled among Indian people that often at Pow Wows I attend, some merchants will not accept $20.00 bills as currency. For Donald Trump to hold his news conference with Navajo Code Talkers before a portrait of Jackson was either an example of complete incompetence or an intentional insult to Native American people everywhere. I hope it was not the later but I would like to know. Was the portrait moved to that position prior to the news conference; or did they simply not move the news conference to some less offensive location.

If you find yourself unmoved by this, or you have not taken the time to google "The Indian Removal Act" or the "Trail of Tears", consider that Davy Crockett gave up his seat in Congress over the injustice of the Indian Removal Act saying ‘I would sooner be honestly damned than hypocritically immortalized’. He departed for Texas and we all know what happened there.

The second thing, and less important but still offensive is that his reference to Sen. Elizabeth Warren as Pocahantas was not only inappropriate to the occasion but also another example of the tone deafness of the Trump administration. Pocahantas, despite the popularity of the Disney Movie, is not viewed as an heroic figure within the Indian Community. (if in fact any of the story is actually factual). As someone who has one foot firmly planted in each community, it is a little like paying homage to Benedict Arnold. Arnold did some very heroic things in his military career, but in the end he betrayed the revolution.

The Navajo Code Talkers not only saved the lives of countless American and allied soldiers but stepped forward to serve their country without the slightest idea of what they would be asked to do. They are among the most heroic figures in a time when heroes were not in short supply.

We have made tremendous strides in healing the long festering wounds associated with the genocide of first Americans, though we still have a long way to go. Donald Trump has done grievous harm to that journey.

When Merit Guides Governance The 1992 NH Senate was One to Remember . . . and Emulate

The Shadows We Cast
Haiku and Image

The third major snowstorm of the winter hit us hard in the shadow of Rattlesnake Ridge, dropping more than a foot of new snow Christmas day on top of several feet that had already fallen in December.

No one was happier about that than my neighbor Alan Hunter who over the years has built a network of ski trails around the base of Stinson Mountain where he, and a group of his friends, ski almost every day in the winter . . . No one, except maybe Kevin Maas.

Where he lives in Dorchester, Kevin bought himself an old rope tow from a fellow who had it sitting in his barn for decades since a local ski area had gone defunct. Kevin is a fellow who just can’t resist a challenge, mechanical. He was the first person in the region to take an old diesel car and convert it to run on veggie oil that he gathered from local pizza parlors and Chinese restaurants. When he taught our son Zach how to do the veggie car conversion, he was kind enough to give him a few restaurants for the needed supply of “grease” and at 15 years old Zach converted a big old red Chevy Blazer he had purchased on Craigslist from a former Fire Chief on Long Island. Other than the
grease slick in our basement and myriad plastic jugs scattered around the woods by bears who found Zach’s near-empty jugs too yummy to resist, the experience was on the whole, most satisfactory.

Kevin is also a wakeboarder. During the summer he and a group of his friends, including Micky Lewis – our plow guy – Zach when he’s home, and other friends go wakeboarding on Stinson Lake until late summer.

Longview Farm Cows

This year though Kevin fixed up a water heating system that took advantage of the fact that the engine in his boat cycles water through the engine to cool it. He added a line that the intrepid wake boarders would put down the front of their wetsuits and heat up the layer of water between their bodies and the wetsuit. This let Kevin and his group of merry men and women wakeboard well into November; whereupon he gave up the lake and turned his attention to the rope tow. He began readying it for winter including cutting some glades in his woods to allow snow boarders and skiers to make their way down the hill behind his house after ascending it via rope tow powered by an old engine he had taken from a car that no longer required its service.

By now you are probably starting to wonder how I’m going to make this column transition into politics but fear not, there’s a method to my madness. You see, we radical centrists are drawn to those who get things done . . . people who, in the face of ideologues and other extremists, persist.

There is a lot of talk lately about how 2018 is going to see a dramatic shift in the fortunes of both Republicans and Democrats . . . maybe so. But if that shift is nothing but to have one group of  ideologues replace another we will be no farther along on our new American journey than we are today and the divisions that plague our country will be just as stark. However, there is a third way and the model for it can be found in our own New Hampshire Senate, albeit some  25 years ago. It affords an example for every legislature that is closely divided or where people of good will in both parties are willing to challenge the established dogmas to create meritocracies where what you know is more important than who you know . . . where allegiance is to country and state, not to political party.

In 1992 the NH Senate elections left the body divided 13 to 11 with the Republicans holding a slight advantage. In the typical spoils system that has afflicted us all too often, this would usually have resulted in the election of a Senate President and the Senate leadership from the majority party. Likewise all committee chairs would also be of the majority party, no matter how little they knew of
 their assigned committee’s responsibilities.

Loon Island Misty Mindscape

Just after the election then State Senator Jeanne Shaheen and I, two Democrats, along with Concord’s beloved Senator Susan McLane and Ralph Hough of Lebanon, two Republicans, met quietly in Madbury to craft a bold plan: To create a Senate where party took a second seat to merit and where Democrats and Republicans worked together for the good of the state.

I honestly don’t remember who contacted whom with the idea and it doesn’t matter. Senator Hough had a reputation as a moderate to progressive Republican whose political hero was Teddy Roosevelt, Susan McLane was a progressive Republican, undeterred by the slings and arrows from the far right within her own party. Both represented the great historic tradition of pragmatic Republicans in the mold of Warren Rudman, Perkins Bass, Sherman Adams and Charlie Bass.

Senator Hough we surmised would not have won an election among Republican partisans, but if the 11 Democrats held together, along with at least 2 Republicans he could win. Ultimately, that is just what happened; but on that day in Madbury we asked ourselves the more fundamental questions. How would we create a legislative body where people worked together; where Chairs and Vice Chairs were chosen for their expertise and their leadership ability; where fairness, transparency and achievement were the rule and not the exception?

At first we toyed with the idea of dividing everything equally between Republicans and Democrats, but that just seemed to be the same old wine in a different bottle. We decided that parity would be considered a value but not the be-all-and-end-all. We obviously needed to have a Senate President as a presiding officer but what required us to have vice presidents, or other titles that established some kind of formal or informal pecking order within the Senate? So in our brainstorming –  and later after Senator Hough had won, we did away with all these titles.

Spring Colors in a Floodplain Forest

Since the goal was to create an atmosphere where Republicans and Democrats worked together for the common good developing consensus where possible and respecting differences where matters of personal  principle made consensus impossible, we considered completely eliminating the separate pre-session caucuses, an age old tradition that generally has been a partisan planning session. Senator Hough felt that he did not want to issue an edict preventing either party from gathering together when they felt it was important. Instead he announced that the entire Senate would be invited to lunch together before the session, in effect creating a bi-partisan caucus where we would have a final opportunity to develop consensus on contentious issues and if consensus were not possible to civilly alert one another that we were going to have a “floor fight.”


It was at these lunches that I developed a real and abiding respect for many of the Senators whom I had previously seen in a very adversarial way. Suddenly Senators, whom I had viewed only as adversaries, were no longer political enemies but colleagues with whom I often disagreed but who were human beings with whom I could break bread, talk, and, from time to time, compromise.


Senator Hough began the Senate term with a team building retreat for the entire Senate challenging us all to move beyond the constraints of party and to take risks for the good of our state. The retreat included not only Senators but staff members as well.

That year, as the country struggled to get its economy moving again the New Hampshire Senate – with a full sponsorship of both Republicans and Democrats passed five omnibus economic development bills creating an Office of International Trade; supported the creation of The Center
 for Earth, Oceans and Space at UNH, expanded the Port of New Hampshire, strengthened the Business Finance Authority, took the first steps toward development of a Community College system throughout NH among other things, all while balancing the State’s budget

By the end of the two-year term I considered many of my former adversaries among the finest, most principled people with whom I had ever served. They had not changed. The dynamic had.

Painted Sky Over Jericho Lake

In years past, legislators had opportunities to experience one another  as human beings, whether it was because they would gather together at the Highway Hotel for dinner or because they carpooled to legislative sessions. Today it is harder to find such opportunities but with some effort this small group of Senators upended years of partisan tradition to create what I believe was the most collegiate and
cooperative group of Senators that I had seen in all my 12 years in the NH House and Senate.


I will never forget what Ralph Hough said at the end of one of our early meetings. “They will probably throw us all out for this, but it will be worth the ride.”

I won’t represent that we changed the face of politics in New Hampshire – we didn’t. In the next election Republicans dominated the election and the Senate returned to business as usual, more partisan  than ever. It may have been the same if Democrats had dominated. But for one brief, shining moment, we glimpsed how things might be if change were built from the center out.

 I hope that Ralph Hough still thinks it was worth the ride. I know I do.

—

About Wayne D. King: Wayne King is an author, artist, activist and recovering politician. A three term State Senator, 1994 Democratic nominee for Governor, former publisher of Heart of New Hampshire Magazine and CEO of MOP Environmental Solutions Inc., and now host of two new Podcasts - The Radical Centrist (www.theradicalcentrist.us

) and NH Secrets, Legends and Lore (www.nhsecrets.blogspot.com). His art is exhibited nationally in galleries and he has published three books of his images and a novel "Sacred Trust"  a vicarious, high voltage adventure to stop a private powerline all available on Amazon.com. He lives in Rumney at the base of Rattlesnake Ridge. His website is: http://bit.ly/WayneDKing . You can help spread the word by following and supporting him at www.Patreon.com/TheRadicalCentrist .