If you go to The Dallas Morning News' Web site, you will see something shocking: Wade Phillips is the new coach of the Dallas Cowboys! No, wait. It's not that. No, among the ads there is one featuring a little girl whose face is covered in soot. The ad reads, "Face It. Coal is Filthy." If you were to click on the ad, you would be taken here, to a site featuring more of those images, an annoucement for a "Stop the Coal Rush" rally in Austin on Sunday and other information about the proposed coal-fired plants TXU wants to build throughout the state. And at the top, you will see your brower identifies the site as belonging to the "Clean Sky Coalition."
Funny thing is: There's been an Associated Press story circulating this week that says nobody actually seem to know who's behind the ads. Indeed, the version of the AP story that appeared on Dallas' Only Daily's Web site leads with this: "A shadowy coalition of business and energy interests has bought more than $1 million in newspaper advertising to speak out against proposals to build as many as 18 coal-fired electric plants in Texas." Shadowy. See, it's shadowy because the executive director of the Clean Sky Coalition won't say who the coalition's members are, and it's shadowy because the only member we do know (Chesapeake Energy Corp., a natural gas company from OKC) is a TXU competitor. But shadowy still pays the bills.
I just like the word: shadowy. Who knows what evil lurks, indeed. But, hey, the money's still good, right? And Unfair Park loves shadowy advertisers, especially if they're using, ahem, actual photos. (Hey, lookie there: It's on page 29 of the paper version of Unfair Park, how about that.) In other inevitable-death-by-coal news, Texas Baptists are against the proposed power plants as well. God and Rick Perry are stunned. --Robert Wilonsky
