Recent comments

My vote goes for letting the Blue Angels in and kicking the airport OUT.

This is a great place to visit. I love camping at Big Meadows Campground. Nice shot!

I'm not sure, if the Presidio of San Francisco should be a unit of the NPS, but the way they manage it, seems very well done. It was an US-Army base (1848-1994), and before one of the Spanish (1776-1822) and Mexican Army (1822-1848). Thousands of people lived there and worked there for several centuries. It includes a National Cemetery as well as a golf course, the former air field "Crissy Field", where a number of aviation pioneers reached records. The 9th Cavallery (Buffalo Soldiers, I might add) did their patrols of Yosemite National Park, Sequioa National Park and General Grand National Park (now Kings Canyon NP) out of the Presidio, before in 1916 the National Park Service was founded and took over. The soldiers for the Spanish-American War 1898 and the following war in the Philippins embarked there. First World War Commander of the European theater, General John Pershing, came from the Presidio, not long after he returned from the expedition against Pancho Villa. In Second World War the Presidio was the HQ of the 6th Army, and the school for military intelligence, where the Navajo "Wind Talkers" were trained. In the Cold War Nike-Rockets were installed.

This was always a hub of activity, on the forefront of technology. And it contains living quarters with a view on the bay, on the Golden Gate Bridge, and downtown San Francisco. They are among the most valuable places in the world.

You can't manage a place like this as a museum. It has to be used. With modern uses. Lucasfilm, Industrial Light and Magic and LucasArt are only so many of the tenants. There is Alexa Internet, the Internet Archive, there are about 30 non-profit-organizations mostly in the field of education and art (they get the space at a discount for non-profits), and a number of firms from finance to law. The living quarters are completely rented out, after a decent renovation.

And already in 2005 the Presidio Trust reached the break-even-point and was able to spend more on restoration of the landscape. Because there is "Crissy Marsh", a brack water marsh down at the bay. The next project it to restore a small watershed in the hills of the area. And there are the woods, that shall be turned to local species over time.

Again, I'm not sure if this is a job for the NPS, but they are doing it very well.

To avoid the precedent issue,, they just need a new unit designation so such activities would be restricted to those particular types. Let's see... National Hysterical Park and Playground?

-- Jon Merryman

To update you, anti-war protesters plan on being at the Visitor's Center ceremony in Grand Teton to protest Cheney and the war. They have some art to display but promise that it's not phallic, as had apparently been rumored.

You can read about it in the Jackson Hole News & Guide.

Jim Macdonald
The Magic of Yellowstone
Yellowstone Newspaper
Jim's Eclectic World

Bush and his administration will never allow the vandals of public land to be prosecuted.

Glen,

You're not really suggesting what I think you're suggesting with this comment about the Vice President, are you? "In fact, impeachment isn't enough for a man who has committed treason during war time. There was a time when that called for more dire punishment."

And you're insinuating my post was "vitriolic"? That's rich.

Dennis Patrick

Ok, heres why your pass doesnt cover the 8 dollar fee. When attendance to Mount Rushmore started to become more than the tiny lot could handle, obviously, something had to be done. A 17 million dollar parking structure was proposed, but federal funding wasnt approved for it. Instead congress granted a loan for it. Yes, loans have to be paid off. Hence, the 8 dollar fee.

but anyways.... its 8 dollars....and you can come back anytime you want to with however many people you can fit in your car. If you cant afford 8 dollars, maybe you shouldnt be on vacation.

Yes, but that's not the same as value neutral or postmodern or relativistic. Yes, I don't believe there is any case for speciesism at all. Yet, from the particular case that I don't think that there is a reason to value one species over another (though certainly, as a living and breathing person, I do assert myself) does not entail that one is value neutral on all questions. In fact, I have framed this issue in terms of what I take to be the highest value of all, which is reason. There is no reason to presume that a human being is worth more than any other being; there is no reason to presume less. That is quite far from what the postmodernist says; reason is more of a fad of convenient expression for the postmodernist, not value par excellence. I further claim that speciesism is dogmatism, that is a claim made without reason, an arbitrary assertion (essentially the kind of assertion that relativists and postmodernists make all the time; the reduction of value from reason to the human being was the modern revolution; the reduction of reason altogether was just the postmodernist extrapolation - a pox on both houses for usurping reason.)

Secondly, in a world where I as a human denounce anthropocentrism, denounce speciesism, does not mean that I therefore denounce humans or the value of human beings. That, I argue, is also speciesist. In fact, I hold humans to the highest value possible, one among many in a community of inter-related beings, a community where worth is determined not based on what something is but rather why something is done. I eat and breathe not because I am more just, not because I am more rightful on the basis of being human but rather because that is who I am and what I am inclined to do in relating with the environment we all inhabit. The value, then, exists in the actual senses, in the actual acts of beings, not because we are members of a class of beings, but because we are. What more profound thing does reason point to but Being itself (to God, if you will), and to the great dynamism and diversity of being.

You have spoken fallaciously because you took a particular instance where I denied a value and derived a universal about my stance about values. Your quote only confirms your fallacy.

My original intent on replying to what you wrote was not to disagree with you but to suggest that you raised an important point about misanthropy, to suggest that whatever one's beliefs about the value of people, that we gain little if we don't recognize the human role in the environment. It just so happens that I take misanthropy to be an extension of speciesism, not a valid consequences of my view, though many who have called themselves anti-speciesist have ended up being anti-human (that is an internal inconsistency in their view). I wanted to suggest that whatever side of that value continuum we are on, that the point you raised was important.

In any event, I don't think either of us really believe that the government should be pronouncing grand visions of what the Park Service's centennial is, though perhaps for quite different reasons. I don't believe that reason provides anyone with that kind of foresight and that the dogmatism that these kind of visions often lend themselves to is quite dangerous. In your case, you would not leave a vision to a group of people you've judged to be misanthropic, unaccountable, and incompetent. In effect, it's not terribly different. In truth, you are right, that there is a big difference, though you haven't said anything which makes me confident that I have communicated my actual view to you (do postmodernists talk about anything actual or real? I suppose like dogmatists they assert anything that fits into their arbitrary template from which they've pre-ordained the world)

Cheers,
Jim Macdonald
The Magic of Yellowstone
Yellowstone Newspaper
Jim's Eclectic World

You said "I don't believe that humans have any more intrinsic value than anything else, not as far as I have ever been able to prove to myself." In essence that means, in your estimation, a human has no more intrinsic value than, say a cockroach or a field mouse. There is no other way to interpret your statement. You can frame it any way you want to philosophically but that is the core message of what you said.

It's written there for all to read. Again, the sad part is that many others feel that way as well. There is no argument. You have stated your case.

Hang in there Frank. I think you're being more than civil.

My "insistence to personally attack other commentators": I apologize if anyone has felt personally attacked by me. Often, I feel that I am mostly under fire (if you look at the record, you'll see others personally attacking me and telling me they'll pay for my move to Canada). Under attack, I feel the urge to defend myself. I apologize for falling for the bait. However, I think some confuse attacking an individual's logic and experience (or lack thereof) and challenging an individual's bias with attacking the individual. Look through the last few weeks of comments and you won't find me calling other people names or otherwise attacking the individual.

I look forward to more constructive debate on the issues and hope we can all thicken our skins a little because debate sometimes get a bit heated.

Disgust with government and the corrupt politicians of every political leaning is understandable. As for the VP's trip, if we don't want the executive branch using the parks for political gain (photo op), we must separate government/politics and park management.

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Reform the National Park Service!
http://NPS-reform.blogspot.com