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The dustup soon spread to the U.S. Office of Pipeline Safety in Washington, which dutifully sent an investigator to Collinsville. Though the agent found nothing amiss. Baker remains unconvinced. He has now challenged pipeline companies' right to burrow on private property, a move that could have national repercussions for the pipeline industry. If the local hearings go against him, Baker says he will appeal all the way to the Supreme Court. His obstinacy has not come cheap; legal costs already have reached nearly $10,000; a Supreme Court appeal could run $3,000 to $5,000 more. But Baker intends to keep on fighting, even if he has to sell his farm "acre by acre" to get that pipeline out of his garden.
> Long before ecology became fashionable, a Finnish mink breeder named Emil Hoglund began his drive to protect spotted cats. Finding a mutant female mink with pale brown spots on its white fur, he carefully bred it with a normal mink. After nine years of inbreeding, Hoglund had produced a new strain: a deeply spotted mink with a strong resemblance to the jaguar, which has been hunted to near extinction for its luxurious pelt. Manhattan furrier Reiss & Fabrizio has received the first of the "Fin-Jaguar" furs from the Danish firm Keppo, and has the coats on sale (at $5,500 to $9,500 v. $8,000 to $13,000 for real jaguar). Buyers will be able to wear "jaguar" without having to worry about contributing to the cat's extinction.
> Henry Gibson, the diminutive, shaky-voiced poet, late of TV's Laugh-In, has become a full-fledged eco-centric. First it was some pro-ecology statements in the summer issue of Environmental Quality magazine. Last week he delivered his magnum opus, a poem cycle set to Saint-Saens' Carnival of the Animals, which was played by the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra at the Hollywood Bowl. As the music soared, Henry versed about news-wise kangaroos, pacifist elephants, and hens and roosters who have been brutalized by technology:
. . . egged on artificially, no place to run, Cocks crow at sockets to plug in the sun. If to such an Orwellian life I were fated, I would will myself never to be incubated.