If one is making money from shale-gas drilling, one doesn’t want to say anything bad about shale-gas drilling — doesn’t want to “bite the hand that feeds you.”

Even if one should happen to notice something that doesn’t look or smell right with regard to this drilling, one just looks (or sniffs) the other way, for fear of interrupting that golden flow of money coming in.

And if one’s neighbors start asking questions, insinuating that the “gassers” may be responsible for certain local contamination incidents, one tells them that they are foolish, that they don’t know what they’re talking about, that they had best be quiet. Translation: “Don’t mess with my money!”

One doesn’t receive royalty checks; one receives loyalty checks.