Sherwood resurfaces for air!

I just spent an hour on the phone with Sherwood this evening... he's been camping upstate New York, hosted a great tiki party for a hundred people... been riding around in a golf car with Shut Down Indian Point stickers all over it... he promised to post a picture to the blog. But that's not what I logged back on to write about.

Remember when the NRC wouldn't allow Sherwood to file his own contentions for FUSE USA because he'd gone and called the judges a bunch of pro-nuclear pricks? Well, the NRC allowed Sherwood to refile everything, doubling our labor and our cost of printing and shipping, under different names.

So guess whose signature sits at the bottom of the 500 pages of contentions Sherwood filed under the name of FUSE USA? Three people.

~ John LeKay who interviewed Sherwood, myself, Summer Rayne Oakes and May Lindstrom (aka Betcee, our Rock The Reactors girl) for his magazine Heyoka magazine.

~ Heather Burns-DeMelo, founder of CT Greenscene and co-founder of Fairfield County Greendrinks, ex-editorial director of AllGreen magazine.

and mine!

For all intent and purposes, until I find out any differently, these contentions are in good order, have been accepted by the NRC, giving John LeKay, Heather Burns-DeMelo and myself legal standing in the contentions process.

Ah... but would it only be that simple. When three board members of FUSE USA walked away with Sherwood's PDF files, then refiled them as their own for Clearwater, IPSEC and a couple other organizations, Sherwood was never compensated for the work he did, the computer he bought, the hours he put in.

Many of the contentions filed by these ex-FUSE USA board members were all thrown out by the NRC because of legal technicalities. (Don't quote me, I got no idea about any of this stuff... ask Sherwood!) Exactly which ones are still standing and which ones are dead is unknown to me, since these ex-members have not shared this information with either myself or the general public.

Sherwood suggested I call the NRC and find out, since I have legal standing as a filer in the proceedings. I have always tried as best I could to avoid talking to anyone from the NRC, because I just give myself away when I do, except maybe for Richard S. Barkley, who I happen to like as a person, who has been acting as moderator between the general public and the NRC at all the meetings held at Colonial Terrace in Cortlandt Manor, NY.

Why can't Sherwood call the NRC himself you ask, since this isn't my forte, I'm just the PR viral marketing guy in this operation? Sherwood tells me he's got a stack of NRC letters piling up in his house which he hasn't opened, and threatened to throw them all in the garbage, unless someone comes up with the resources to continue his fight, our fight!

I got into this to WIN! I started working with Sherwood because I beleived he was the best man for the job, because he knew his stuff. I didn't ask these other ex-FUSE USA board members to come and spoil all the work we'd spent months building. And now, I find out, we're still in the running, but Sherwood won't put anymore time or money into this effort unless someone comes up with some money.

Just so you know, I'm the one who originally talked to Gail Merrill and convinced her that investing into the creation of FUSE USA was a good tactical move. She wrote a check for $10.000 to Joe Mangano's organization, under the stipulation that the matching funds be turned over to FUSE USA, which used that money to secure the services of its nuclear expert.

Other monies necessary to pursue the process, the printing of the contentions, each time the NRC had us do it over and over again, costing over $700 for each set, the travel, the research, etc... ad nauseum, were going to come from a concert FUSE USA had been planning at Riverspace in Nyack, a concert I came up with the bill for, the idea to bring Ani DiFranco and Pete Seeger together for a duet!

But it wasn't to be. When these ex-FUSE USA members left the organization, they took the concert with them, which had been one of them's responsibility to book through the Guacamole Fund. The only thanks I got, was being dragged into court for telling her to go to ELLE, having to borrow $1500 from my family so I could afford a lawyer to defend myself.

Bottom line, FUSE USA ended up with none of the proceeds from Ani's concert, costing me a fortune, while all these other organizations, whose contentions have since been thrown out by the NRC, profited from all the earnings, only to pay the salary of a man who did little else than sit around while Sherwood did the bulk of the work.

My desperate attempts to reach Ani DiFranco, who often played a nightclub called Wetlands in New York I helped create, fell on deaf ears... I wasn't able to get through, everyone on her staff played interference, while three witches labeled me a crazy man. Ani needs to know she ended up raising all that money for all the wrong people!

Other things transpired off course, this isn't all there is to it... But I think it's necessary to get all this out in the open, once and for all, wash our dirty laundry in public, save the lawyers to fight against the NRC, not each other, otherwise we're just going to lose... Indian Point will get its new license, and we will walk away beaten!

Sherwood, because he's always talked me into going out and getting money for him, which I am not happy doing... is still right in the sense that he holds a winning hand, and is therefor playing it. If we want to shut down Indian Point, we need Sherwood Martinelli, his expertise, and all the contentions he filed under the name FUSE USA.

What Riverkeeper, Clearwater, IPSEC and other groups have filed is not enough to deliver a killer blow to Entergy, but with the additional backing of FUSE USA's contentions, and the supporting research of someone like Sherwood Martinelli who has been investigating the NRC for over ten years, we stand a chance to get the job done, to win... not simply force Entergy to spend 1.7 billion on cooling towers, which Sherwood says will pay for themselves in just over a year in profits, but to shelter the plant forever... give the people of the Hudson Valley, its farmers, and the residents of Fairfield County, a sigh of relief... and a dramatic drop in cancer rates!

So wake up people, give Sherwood what he wants so FUSE USA can get back in business, (we've already lost our website!) and finish the job it set out to do... Don't let me be the only advocate of this strategy. I'm exhausted dealing with all the egos, the temper tantrums, the theft of property, the bad faith, the lies, it's NOT what I got into this fight to do, to baby sit a bunch of whinners! We got work to do, and it's all about to come together thanks to the support of the fashion industry, people like Christie Brinkley, who even though she has her own problems at home, still comes out swinging with a beautiful smile when she's required.

I hope this didn't bore you, because we're all guilty of massive BS behavior here... and in the end, the NRC, Entergy wins! The new space I created in Norwalk Connecticut, The Aquarium, is hosting an Indian Point general strategy meeting on Wednesday evening with members of the Connecticut Green Party. Join us if you can, make the drive... lets pick this back up. Lets finish what we started. Let's finish the job. Lets raise some money for FUSE USA, since that's the name the last standing contentions are filed under!

But don't count on Sherwood... He won't help unless he's paid... because he's seen how much money Ulrich Witte has made at his expense! There's a viable organization there in FUSE USA for who has the talent to bring it back into focus. I'm not a lawyer, I don't know how to do these things. It's basically sitting in a pile of broken Lego bricks... that have been kicked to the ground by evil ways, jealousy and puerile imbeciles! Myself included I guess.

In the meantime, the Indian Point time bomb ticks on, and nothing much is happening... when we could get it all going again... and kill the dragon on the hill. This time, send ME the money... I'll make sure it's spent the way it should. I don't trust anybody anymore. Because even though we may still be able to take down a bunch of old nuclear reactors, human nature on both side of this issue stinks in equal measure.