is
a syndicated television series spanning one decade, 2040 - 2049
Chronicles from The Bakken
Starring Samuel "Oilman" Goshwin & Liam Nikolai Gjorkstad
with occasional appearances by Archie McCool
initial funding from Apple Prairie Broadcasting
and
matching grant money from The Legacy Fund,
and
continuing support from viewers like you.
In the last episode, Amtrak had cleared Minot, heading west, bringing Sam and Liam closer to Boomtown every hour.
Somewhere west of Ray, Sam asked Liam what kind of car they should buy
at Northstar. Liam was surprised Sam would ask. Wouldn’t they simply
replace the Lamborghini with another Lamborghini?
“I don’t understand. Aren’t we just going to get another Lamborghini?”
“I suppose. I was just thinking about an electric car. A Tesla. A Model XS.”
Charging stations were now ubiquitous across the US. Tesla and GE had
merged in 2030 after realizing they were pretty much in the same
business: making money off government subsidies.
GE-Tesla cars now had a 650-mile range on one charge.
“But this time, driverless.”
Driverless cars never were perfected. Funding for that research died out
when Congress realized that with 34% unemployment among the country’s
youth there was another solution to driverless cars. Uber-all and
Lyft-us received government contracts to train inner city youth, ages 14
to 19, to drive. Once they had their commercial small-vehicle driving
licenses (CSVDLs), they were matched with owners of cars who no longer
wanted to drive or were physically unable to drive.
Not only would the cars technically be “driverless” from the owner’s
point of view, the owner had his own personal valet who could drop off
the dry cleaning or pick up dinner-to-go. Pizza delivery companies like
Dominoes pretty much folded once “driverless cars” and Amazon drones
appeared on the scene.
“You know, if we got a driverless car, ….
“ … pizza delivery would be a snap.”
“Speaking of which, I’m hungry. What about you?”
“I’ve been thinking about pulled pork and a Dr Pepper when we get to Williston.”
“That’s right. There’s a Jimmy Deen’s Pulled Pork and Billiards at the mall.”
Williston was a “Pork Sanctuary City.” In 2015, federal prisons quit
serving pork with the explanation that it was a financial decision.
There just wasn’t much demand for pork in federal prisons, officials
said.
After the pork ban in federal prisons, the #PigsLivesMatter snowballed.
PETA stole the hash tag from some police union in Missouri confusing
donors. It was a fortunate turn of events. Over the next decade the
number of Muslim immigrants streaming into the US resulted in tense
situations in Detroit, Cedar Rapids, the Twin Cities, and Kansas City.
The Pork Party was using pork to instigate and incite demonstrations,
not always peaceful, by throwing pork at undocumented residents.
Things got so out of hand that by 2027, Congress felt there was no
choice but to ban pork across the continental US and Alaska. Due to the
popularity of Spam in Honolulu and the fact that Hawaii was now home to
the first presidential primary, Hawaii was exempt. Hormel’s Spam Museum
was moved from Austin, MN, to Makakilo, Hawaii.
The Pork Prohibition Amendment never passed; it became a state issue.
Forty-nine of the fifty-one states banned pork but no less than 65 major
metropolitan areas declared themselves pork sanctuary cities. Iowa
declared itself a “pork sanctuary state.” Iowa was punished; the “Iowa
caucuses” were shut down and Iowa lost its bragging rights as the
first state to vote in the presidential primaries. Texas banned pork but
the state claimed to have more pork sanctuary cities than any other
state, though Illinois was not far behind.
Pork wasn’t the only issue dividing America by 2025. Other Congressional
bans that resulted in sanctuary cities included urban rap (music),
automatic weapons (such as “machine guns”), NASCAR racing, curling, and
kite-flying. Most of these wedge issues resulted in multiple sanctuary
cities, with one exception. For inexplicable reasons, there was only one
NASCAR sanctuary city, Daytona Beach, and much of that was under water
much of the year due to rising sea levels due to global cooling. As the
polar sea water froze, it expanded, and earth’s oceans rose
precipitously. NOAA had tweaked its thermometers and moved them closer
to the tropics but to no avail. It was only a matter of time before
NASCAR racing would be a thing of the past. No one would notice.
Williston was one of five pork sanctuary cities in North Dakota. The
others were: Alexander, Watford City, Rugby, and New Ulm. Three of the
cities were in the Bakken; many of the roughnecks were from Texas and
there was a risk they would leave if pork was banned. New Ulm’s strong
German heritage explained why it was a sanctuary city. New Ulm, in fact,
boasted two "sanctuary" designations. In addition to being a pork
sanctuary city, New Ulm, located in south-central Minnesota, tired of
ever increasing utility rates, declared itself a "North Dakota sanctuary
city." The issue was tied up in court, but for all practical purposes,
"New Ulm, MN" was now "New Ulm, ND." The zip code did not change.
No one could ever explain why Rugby became a pork sanctuary city. Rumors
were that the city fathers hoped Harold Hamm would build a $4 billion
pork processing plant in the city. The city fathers did not know that
although Harold had the "right" last name, he had nothing to do with
pork.
The sanctuary cities were clear proof how Balkanized the United States
had become over wedge issues. One agency that seemed immune to this was
the EPA. No jurisdiction was able to successfully challenge EPA rules
and regulations, no matter how bizarre, in the early decades of the 21st
century.
The last straw was the EPA rule inserted into the 6,000-page omnibus
bill as a footnote designating oxygen as a toxic gas. An EPA bureaucrat
had noted that oxygen was toxic for anaerobic bacteria and, as they say
in the Smithsonian, "the rest is history." In general, most Americans
felt oxygen did more good than harm, but it depended on how the
pollsters asked the question.
The EPA had pretty much brought the US to an economic standstill by
2030. The states that did challenge the EPA found themselves in court
for years. It was at that point that Congress stepped in again, forming a
cabinet-level department to expedite the challenges: the Department of
Conflict Resolution, Arbitration, and Policing. If conflicts between the
states and the EPA could not be resolved within one year and a day, the
parties were referred to a Department of CRAP arbitration committee
which would impose a solution. [EPA rules did not apply to the Federal
government, the District of Columbia, or Hawaii.]
These arbitration committees were patterned after the North Dakota
Industrial Commission which had been so successful in managing the
boom-bust cycle of the oil and gas industry in the early 2020’s. Of
course, that was all in hindsight. Badda-bing.
Like the NDIC, the federal arbitration committees were composed of three
members, but the director did not vote unless there was a tie between
the two voting members. In the case of a tie, the director cast the
deciding vote. There was talk of eliminating the two other members who
seemed superfluous, leaving just the director as the only commission
member, but then it wouldn’t have seemed like a real commission. So, in
the end, the panels were left with three members. The commission was
given 45 days to come up with a decision. There was no appeal process.
Once a conflict was resolved, with or without arbitration, it was
DeptCRAP’s responsibility to police the decision, to make sure both
parties complied with the decision.
Sam and Liam were getting their stuff together. Amtrak would soon be pulling into Williston's Northstar Center.
[The
I-98 theme song crescendos as the camera pulls away with an
overhead shot. In the distant, the Bakken is coming into view. Rolling
credits.]
