The people are in a doc that's screening at Northwest Film Forum. It's called Windfall; it shows the power machines as monstrous, and the country people as little people; it's unbelievable. From my review of this doc:

There are few people in this world I could dislike more than farmers and other country types who see the continuation of their quiet way of life as more important than the loud improvement, advancement, development of their society. True, some people in this doc do see the social importance of wind turbines, but the most passionate and determined folks are squarely against them. They want peace, they want to live like the good old days, they want to retire and raise their barn animals. Unbelievable!

I recall an old lady in Tacoma once telling me that she did not mind the noise of the huge military airplanes approaching or departing McChord Air Force Base because it was “the sound of freedom.” As a city person, I do not mind the sound of the light rail or the noisy construction of a public transportation system because it is the sound of democracy. Those wind turbines the country people hate so much are the sound of the future. Get used to it or move out of the way.


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I lived above the train tunnel in downtown Seattle for four years. The constant rumble of the trains was music to my ears. Often, a very long train made "a journey to a land that seem[ed] to have bought an entire state." I always slept like a baby. Nor was I alone. This area was packed with sleeping and dreaming people.

So, you will not win sympathy from urbanists about "loud wind turbines." Seriously, the extent some people will go just to have a nice house, a piece of land, quiet neighbors, and all of that mythical, folksy nonsense. (To make matters worse, some of the loudest and most passionate haters of the turbines are city people who moved to the country to spend the end of their lives playing shepherds and shepherdesses—really, they should know better.) How I miss the sound of the train.