Sometimes the most important part of a story is what it doesn't say. I was thinking that this week when I sat down to read another major story in the New York Times about hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, for natural gas. It was headlined, "New Value for Land In Rural Ohio," and the story struck me as more than a little naive about "the energy boom" that was coming to these small towns dotting the American heartland, about the sudden fortunes falling upon working class folks who've struggled their whole lives until the day the magical day that a man from the gas company rang their door. I almost felt like I was reading an ad for the Publishers' Clearinghouse sweepstakes, or maybe the lottery, as the Times interviewed the lucky winners who sold off their mineral rights:
Arthur and Sharon Stottsberry, who are retired from inspector and clerk jobs with the State Department of Transportation, received $280,000 for the right to lease oil and gas reserves beneath their 70-acre farm. “It doesn’t seem real,” said Mrs. Stottsberry, 68. “We haven’t planned much about what to do. The most important thing is I want to make sure my ...