the buzz log

There's a saying that you can't fight city hall. So imagine going up against a real bureaucracy like the Bureau of Land Management. Good luck. Except if you're Tim DeChristopher, the University of Utah student who foiled the bureau's plan to bid out land adjacent to popular national parks in Utah newly opened for oil and gas exploration.

The "land-auction meddler," as the Salt Lake Tribune dubbed him, called the act of showing up at the auction and waving his paddle in the air to land $1.8 million worth of land he had no way of paying for simple civil disobedience. Authorities called it fraud.

Now DeChristopher is trying to hold on to the land he "won" — and hold off being hauled away to prison — by raising a chunk of the money through donors who believe in his cause. He successfully raised $45,000 to hold on to his 22,000 acres. Not to mention making a dent on his legal fees.

The idea is to keep the bureau from holding another auction until President-elect Obama takes office - someone DeChristopher believes will be more sympathetic to keeping the drillers out of the desert.