Moon The Balloon
A Sarnia,Canadian wood carver is throwing his support behind the Moon the Balloon protest.
Gary Mason has carved wooden butts to commemorate the rally, which is slated to take place Aug. 15, 2009 in Centennial Park. People on the American side should have a good view of the proceedings…..even with the naked eye.
The Moon Mission as it is sometimes referred to as..
is our neighbor Canada’s peace_full demonstration.Seems to be doomed,
to end with merely showing off, their soft landing spot.
Taken 14 Aug. 2009 at 5:30 EST While the storm moved in………….
The 64-year-old said he thought it would be fun to do something different and lighthearted in support of the event.
“I thought I’d make it humorous,” he said.
The protest is against a 50-foot helium balloon that hovers 800 feet in the air above Port Huron with a $1 million camera able to read a ship’s name from nine miles away.
It is owned by the Sierra Nevada Corp., and it periodically is monitoring the international border on the St. Clair River. The company hopes to gain funding for the technology from U.S. Homeland Security.
More than 1,100 people have confirmed on a Facebook group dedicated to the cause they’ll drop drawers for the Moon the Balloon event.
Mason, who has carved for 20 years, has made seven wooden posteriors as hand_held souvenirs, and he intends to engrave the two he has left with the event name, date and place.
Each carving took him roughly five hours to complete, and he’s already sold three of them and given two away, although he said it never was his intent to make a profit. Mason mostly carves ducks and other birds.
He said he doesn’t plan to make any more Moon the Balloon carvings, but may carve some more if requested.
He said he’ll try to be at the demonstration in the south end of Centennial Park at 5 p.m.
“I support it 100% because (the balloon) is an invasion of our personal privacy,” he said. “What I do in my back yard should be my business, not somebody up in the air with a camera.”
Bradley Lott, a retired U.S. Marine Corps major general and the owner of True North Logistics, which operates the surveillance equipment, said there has been more positive reaction to the project than negative. Most of it is overwhelmed by media-driven negative attention, he said.
The balloon and protest have received international exposure.Time
will answer if the balloon will be grounded due to the
Canadian Moon Mission.
Sarnia’s mayor, Mike Bradley, recently sent a letter to Prime Minister Stephen Harper, asking him to intervene, and a Michigan man also recently sent a letter to U.S. President Barack Obama expressing his dismay about the balloon.
Brian Masse, a member of parliament for Windsor-West and the New Democratic Party’s border critic, also has called on Harper to pressure Washington into stopping the balloon from transmitting images until after an international consultation.
NEWS FLASH….THE BALLOON IS BACK
Back in the skies over Port Huron…the balloon that now has a name. It is called AEROSTAT.
Aerostat is here to stay …at least for a while. It will be off to Texas
and Pennsylvania for more testing and showing off to the US Army in hopes to get a
contract.The plan is for Aerostat to spend the winter at Vantage Point
high in the air with our winter weather. Will our brave Canadian bothers and sisters brave the cold and protest with Moon The Balloon Two? I will keep us updated…till the end shows true.Pun intended…….September 30,2009
