Earl Hatley tells of a Cherokee prophecy that one day the whites will come to the Cherokee for help because Cherokee have retain the wisdom of ages past. I don’t think the Oklahoma poultry lawsuit is the fulfilment of that prophecy, but it may be time for the whites, or at least the State of Oklahoma, to go to the Cherokee for help.

When I was a kid, in the summers, I drove a tractor -- first discing, then plowing, then cultivating about a thousand acres in north central Oklahoma.  Day after day, year after year, there was a lot of time to think.  One thing to think about was a brownish rusty streak on the northern horizon.  It came from a coal burning power plant near Red Rock.  There's no coal in northern Oklahoma. It comes on trains from Wyoming.  Why coal?  It didn't make sense.  Now it does.