Recent comments

To answer your question parkaholic, NEITHER do damage...all you whacko tree-huggin' types need to get your heads examined...exhaust just floats away in the air...and those bison couldn't give a hoot about a little noise...heck, it probably breaks their boredom!! I'd say that the body odor of all the leftist hippies who visit the park contribute a helluva a lot more air pollution...some of those yungins are RIPE!!! Take a dang bath!!! Granma Sally- 86 years old and still kickin'!

The parks were forced into Fee Demo? If you dig you will discover the definition of what can be funded with Fee Demo money has been twisted and shaded more and more each year. But they can still complain about flat budgets...unless the new Bush budget passes intact. Like him or not...it is what it is...the largest base increase in decades.

Dave Obey sounds more than willing to tear down the Centennial Challenge. I would suspect maybe a little political posturing. Of course the only way for the Government to come up with $3 Billion in spending (over a number of years) is to cut other programs. Sen Obey may not be the best source for info on the Centennial Challenge....unless of course you ask him if he wants to support it. If he doesn't then does that make him anti-eco? I say he puts up or shuts up

"The best way to protect Yellowstone and ensure visitors can enjoy the natural, clean air and quiet that are intrinsic qualities of Yellowstone’s winter is through modern snowcoaches." I am not a scientist, but down the pipe, http://skyblu.wordpress.com/2007/03/26/yellowstones-invisible-smog/ , it looks like research will be showing that snowcoaches are also not clean for the air. Always, this is a question of values. I don't think we move the issue at all by calling out someone's more partisan values versus someone else's nonpartisan values. Something isn't right or wrong simply by virtue of it being more or less extreme. I relish the day when people aren't afraid to consider their value judgments seriously. I think it's right to call out the Park Service for the inconsistencies of their draft with the science; I don't think it's right to assume that that is the final word on the values side of the issue, or that because the science shows one course of action makes little sense that it necessarily entails that it shows that another course does.

MS Kennedy, your comments are well taken. However, under Bush's environmental policies it's strictly scorch earth. I can remember when President Kennedy was in office, he helped to stimulate physical fittest programs...remember those 50 mile certicate walks? Under this present "selected" President, he advocates nothing of the sort...except more bodies for the sickening Iraq war.

Perhaps ecology/environment/personal responsibility for public lands should be taught in all public schools? Seems like kids are ALWAYS turned on by being introduced to just about ANYTHING outdoors, if given the opportunity. Maybe also some kind of Vista-type program for the environment rather than urban areas? Wouldn't it be great if there was a universal draft-for-the-environment?

OK, Jim, I'm convinced and I agree that this is a class-based debate. I say that I will pay reasonable fees because I CAN pay some fees NOW, but I see those fees rising all the time and understand that I am being cut off from public lands because of lack of money. So what is the solution here? Only the rich should enjoy our crown jewel parks because they can afford to pay the fees? Or should those crown jewel fees go to support other not-so-crown-jewel parks that are more accessible to the rest of us? Or should some of our national tax dollars be dedicated to making ALL national parks, monuments and lands as accessible as possible to as many folks as possible? Seems like back in the 70's when I began my wanderings public lands were very open and affordable for me -- a sometime-gainfully employed destitute part-time student. I'm not that elevated in class-status nowadays, but really can't afford too many visits anymore. Yeah, there are other places and believe me, I've found lots of them. But they are definately not "crown jewel" status. Is this country willing to admit that taxes really DO pay for worthwhile things -- even if intangible, as Jim describes?

Most poor people will never see one of grand jewel national parks. I've been lucky in my life, and even then, though I planned for instance every year to go to Yellowstone between 1998-2005, I could not possibly scrape the money or the time to go back. And, despite years of debt, one year of unsteady work that at a couple times bordered on homelessness, I could hardly be considered even indicative of most poor if only because I didn't have a family to support, much of the time had access to a reliable vehicle, and even for some of that time paid vacations. Much of the debate about user fees in parks occurs, I think, between the middle and the upper class. Actually, because access to crown jewel parks has historically and is currently mostly for middle and upper class people, almost all the debate is on that class playing field. So, Matt will assume that we support user fees for basic public services like utilities, subways, etc. because at the urban level, user fees are a way of life that help keep a dividing line between middle and lower class people. There seems to be a presumption that an audience talking about parks must come from a middle class perspective, and where a user fee seems acceptable to the average middle class person in one instance, it should seem acceptable in the other. I know a lot of people in DC who won't take buses for reasons that amount to racism and classism; at a step higher, they won't take the subway. But, many who take the subway won't take the bus, and fees are higher for the subway. Where we are on the class ladder and who we are leaving out and whether we can afford something and what is gained by keeping out those who can't will often determine what a person thinks about user fees, whether for right or wrong. What is "reasonable" in one instance for one person is hardly so for another in another circumstance. The state park fees won't work for yet another class of people. Some can't even afford the $1.25 for a bus fare in my city. I remember talking with one homeless man by the Canadian Embassy; he was hoping to have a day on the town that day because he had enough money to ride on the subway. It was a burden for him to go anywhere even when he had the money because it meant leaving all his worldly possessions behind or finding a way to haul most of them. Now, we see in this area that corporations are attempting to privatize interstate highways and pay for new lanes by charging user fees so that people could opt in to the high occupancy vehicle lanes. This is a class-based solution to a community problem. That's really what user fees in the parks are. That's actually what the parks as constituted are; i.e., a place for "use" by a certain type of person - the mythical "the people", who have never meant "all people," (and even if they did, the anthropocentrism of the point of view still wreaks). But, of course, if you somehow decided that everyone must be able to see every crown jewel park, you'd run them over more than they already are; that's if the economy didn't collapse from the cost of such a subsidy program. The way to combat this is to deal with environmental and class issues everywhere. If people have access to basic services everywhere, if people care about the land everywhere, if people cut down on consumption and exploitation everywhere, the park won't need to be the place where people go to get away from consumption (while all the while consuming more ... just to get there and to stay there) but will again be the special place that is there for those who are drawn to it by nature (and not simply because they have both the economic privilege to go as well as a lack of other places to visit). People won't avoid going to crown jewel parks, then, because of class reasons but because there is much more in their local worlds to draw them in. They won't need to go off to the woods a thousand miles away to ease their spiritual crisis - their spirit will resonate for most in their communities. In my years in Yellowstone, I never met a higher concentration of people who seemed to be searching for something, alienated by life - philosophers, artists, writers, drifters of all kinds (perhaps, ironically, the internet is a place similar to Yellowstone in this very regard). That's a result of this process. So, I firmly believe the best way to preserve parks is to destroy what creates the need to preserve and protect them in the first place. Where we tell beings that they deserve to have only what they themselves can pay for, we will only continue the social disintegration. User fees in parks and elsewhere for services in common to us all only serve to further stratify society and keep us separated not only from nature and from each other, but from reaching the fullest potential of ourselves. I'm hardly an idealist, but I'm not willing to settle for the mediocrity sold to us by this class-based system. Cheers, Jim

Owen, I read your write-up before composing mine. I was also struck by the many similarities. I had figured that they had dressed up the first session in Gatlinburg for positive press, but would resort to the easier to manage break-out sessions at every other event. I was glad they didn't.

For others that are curious, here is Owen's listening session experience:
http://www.craterlakeinstit...

I'm guessing Ms. Spude does not mean, literally, "swear an oath". I believe that she is referring to a protocol that requires anyone being placed in a higher position to be first "vetted" by a political appointee. Similar to those seeking positions with the CPA in Iraq being vetted on their political views instead of on their substantive qualifications for the job, with predictable results . . .

Considering the other things these Bu$hies have done, why on earth would you want to give them the benefit of the doubt? I'm leaning toward believing the worst until it's proven different. The track record is horrible.