off piste
May 25th, 2007, 08:04 PM
http://thetrack.bostonherald.com/moreTrack/view.bg?articleid=1002846&format=&page=1
Tilting at windmills Cape elites’ fave sport
By Gayle Fee and Laura Raposa (//trackgals@bostonherald.com/)
Thursday, May 24, 2007 - Updated: 11:10 AM EST
Memorial Day weekend is upon us and all the Muffys and Buffys sipping cocktails on their Cape and Islands verandas are crying in their G&Ts. “Cape Wind: Money, Celebrity, Class, Politics and the Battle for Our Energy Future on Nantucket Sound” has hit the shelves.
The book tells the tale of Jim Gordon’s quixotic quest to put a clean-energy, 130-turbine wind farm in Nantucket Sound and the rich, famous and powerful people who are hellbent to stop him.
“The more we learned, the more research we did, the more we discovered that the people fueling the opposition are a small but incredibly rich, arrogant, smug group. The opposition was, in effect, being run from the Wianno Club and Oyster Harbors,” said Robert Whitcomb, the editorial page editor of the Providence Journalwho co-wrote the book with Wendy Williams.
“It was quite shocking to me how separate these people are from the rest of the Cape and how arrogant they are.”
The list of opponents is a regular lawn party, starting with our own senior senator - and alleged ardent environmentalist - Ted Kennedy. His nephew, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. , who has made a career out of tree-hugging is also violently opposed.
Also aligned with the innocuously named Alliance To Protect Nantucket Sound, according to the book, is longtime Kennedy pal Bunny Mellon, the Listerine heiress who jets back and forth to her Osterville estate all summer in a gas-guzzling Gulf Stream; her former son-in-law, Virginia Sen. John Warner, who was once married to Elizabeth Taylor; ex-Gov. Mitt Romney (http://news.bostonherald.com/search/?searchSite=true&keyword=Mitt+Romney&mode=all&sorting=pubdate), doing the bidding of top GOP fundraiser Dick Egan; U.S. Rep. William Delahunt, doing the bidding of the Kennedys; Former Reebok head Paul Fireman, who has a summer place on the Sound in Osterville; and a deep-pocketed bunch of Fireman’s neighbors including, oil baron Albert Kaneb, Cape Cod Times publisher Peter Meyer, who has a $1.2 million house on Wianno Avenue and whose newspaper led a jihad against the project, and oil heir and ex-America’s Cup winner Bill Koch.
“The sight of them bothers me,” Sen. Kennedy is quoted as telling retired utility exec - and wind farm supporter - Jim Leidell.
When told that most of the time the turbines - which would generating enough energy to power Cape Cod during peak usage times - would be either invisible or barely visible from the Kennedy Compound, Ted reportedly replied, “But don’t you realize, that’s where I sail.”
The book contends that protecting the yachting class - and the view from their multi-million-dollar estates - is the driving force behind theso-called Save Our Sound movement.
“There’s this smugness, this sense of entitlement - all of it based on money. These are people who are used to getting their way - and if the lights go off on Cape Cod in the middle of January, what do they care? They are down in Palm Beach,” said Whitcomb.
The portrait of the opponents is not kind. Bunny Mellon calls one windmill supporter “a traitor to your class.” Jamie McCourt, co-owner of the L.A. Dodgers, tells a Cape Wind attorney, “I bleeping hate you.” “John Adams” author - and Vineyard resident - David McCullough rants and raves while ex-CBS newsman Walter Cronkite - who made an infomercial for the Alliance before reversing his opinion and deciding he no longer wanted to oppose the project - is portrayed as “a pitiful old man.” As for RFK Jr., Whitcomb calls him “a troubled person.”
“His reaction is so irrational and incoherent, there’s not much to say,” he said.
Naturally, the Alliance To Protect Nantucket Sound has blasted the book as a one-sided trivialization of the issues.
“The book completely obscures many of the critical issues surrounding the project,” said Alliance director Audra Parker. “It ignores the fishermen trying to earn a living on Nantucket Sound, the economic impact on a region heavily reliant on tourism, the human safety issues and the fact that a private developer will make millions of dollars building a project on public land.
“I find it especially hypocritical to, on the one hand, admonish the wealth of the area residents but ignore the profit motives of the wealthy private developer.”
Sen. Kennedy, who comes in for a real keel-hauling in the tome, will be sailing the Mya to Nantucket this weekend in the Figawi Race, we expect, free of the sight (so far) of those offensive windmills. We rang him up, but a spokesgal said he didn’t want to comment.
File Under: Tilting At Windmills.
Tilting at windmills Cape elites’ fave sport
By Gayle Fee and Laura Raposa (//trackgals@bostonherald.com/)
Thursday, May 24, 2007 - Updated: 11:10 AM EST
Memorial Day weekend is upon us and all the Muffys and Buffys sipping cocktails on their Cape and Islands verandas are crying in their G&Ts. “Cape Wind: Money, Celebrity, Class, Politics and the Battle for Our Energy Future on Nantucket Sound” has hit the shelves.
The book tells the tale of Jim Gordon’s quixotic quest to put a clean-energy, 130-turbine wind farm in Nantucket Sound and the rich, famous and powerful people who are hellbent to stop him.
“The more we learned, the more research we did, the more we discovered that the people fueling the opposition are a small but incredibly rich, arrogant, smug group. The opposition was, in effect, being run from the Wianno Club and Oyster Harbors,” said Robert Whitcomb, the editorial page editor of the Providence Journalwho co-wrote the book with Wendy Williams.
“It was quite shocking to me how separate these people are from the rest of the Cape and how arrogant they are.”
The list of opponents is a regular lawn party, starting with our own senior senator - and alleged ardent environmentalist - Ted Kennedy. His nephew, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. , who has made a career out of tree-hugging is also violently opposed.
Also aligned with the innocuously named Alliance To Protect Nantucket Sound, according to the book, is longtime Kennedy pal Bunny Mellon, the Listerine heiress who jets back and forth to her Osterville estate all summer in a gas-guzzling Gulf Stream; her former son-in-law, Virginia Sen. John Warner, who was once married to Elizabeth Taylor; ex-Gov. Mitt Romney (http://news.bostonherald.com/search/?searchSite=true&keyword=Mitt+Romney&mode=all&sorting=pubdate), doing the bidding of top GOP fundraiser Dick Egan; U.S. Rep. William Delahunt, doing the bidding of the Kennedys; Former Reebok head Paul Fireman, who has a summer place on the Sound in Osterville; and a deep-pocketed bunch of Fireman’s neighbors including, oil baron Albert Kaneb, Cape Cod Times publisher Peter Meyer, who has a $1.2 million house on Wianno Avenue and whose newspaper led a jihad against the project, and oil heir and ex-America’s Cup winner Bill Koch.
“The sight of them bothers me,” Sen. Kennedy is quoted as telling retired utility exec - and wind farm supporter - Jim Leidell.
When told that most of the time the turbines - which would generating enough energy to power Cape Cod during peak usage times - would be either invisible or barely visible from the Kennedy Compound, Ted reportedly replied, “But don’t you realize, that’s where I sail.”
The book contends that protecting the yachting class - and the view from their multi-million-dollar estates - is the driving force behind theso-called Save Our Sound movement.
“There’s this smugness, this sense of entitlement - all of it based on money. These are people who are used to getting their way - and if the lights go off on Cape Cod in the middle of January, what do they care? They are down in Palm Beach,” said Whitcomb.
The portrait of the opponents is not kind. Bunny Mellon calls one windmill supporter “a traitor to your class.” Jamie McCourt, co-owner of the L.A. Dodgers, tells a Cape Wind attorney, “I bleeping hate you.” “John Adams” author - and Vineyard resident - David McCullough rants and raves while ex-CBS newsman Walter Cronkite - who made an infomercial for the Alliance before reversing his opinion and deciding he no longer wanted to oppose the project - is portrayed as “a pitiful old man.” As for RFK Jr., Whitcomb calls him “a troubled person.”
“His reaction is so irrational and incoherent, there’s not much to say,” he said.
Naturally, the Alliance To Protect Nantucket Sound has blasted the book as a one-sided trivialization of the issues.
“The book completely obscures many of the critical issues surrounding the project,” said Alliance director Audra Parker. “It ignores the fishermen trying to earn a living on Nantucket Sound, the economic impact on a region heavily reliant on tourism, the human safety issues and the fact that a private developer will make millions of dollars building a project on public land.
“I find it especially hypocritical to, on the one hand, admonish the wealth of the area residents but ignore the profit motives of the wealthy private developer.”
Sen. Kennedy, who comes in for a real keel-hauling in the tome, will be sailing the Mya to Nantucket this weekend in the Figawi Race, we expect, free of the sight (so far) of those offensive windmills. We rang him up, but a spokesgal said he didn’t want to comment.
File Under: Tilting At Windmills.