jsmacdonald

As you could find on my blog., Jim's Eclectic World, I have diverse passions ranging from philosophy to Yellowstone National Park to anti-authoritarian organizing and activism. What you might not get from the blog is a sense of my actual biography. I was born in Bowling Green, Ohio, on October 10, 1973, the day that Vice President Spiro Agnew resigned from office. Agnew was Greek, and I am half-Greek, and so you can imagine I had to compete with some other news the day I was born. I grew up all over Ohio as my dad bounced around with a career in retail store management and then dramatically into the ministry of the United Methodist Church. They were all from the Cleveland area, but as a kid I also had stints in the Columbus area, Morrow County, Youngstown, and finally in Cambridge where I grew up. I went to Ohio Northern University and received a degree in philosophy and history, moved to Seattle a couple of years, got married, moved back to Ohio to Toledo where I received a master's in philosophy, and then in 2000 moved to Washington, DC, where I lived for 7 1/2 years in eight different homes. In 2005, I pointed the organizing with the DC Anti-War Network on a counter-inaugural march against President Bush that drew 15,000 people (on a budget of less than $2,000 - a true grassroots effort organized in a de-centralized manner with dozens of other organizations). I've since been divorced, but fret not, I've been with a wonderful partner for the past 4 years. We had a beautiful boy born in October 2007. Where does Yellowstone fit in this? During my time in college, I worked for the now defunct Hamilton Stores in Yellowstone National Park. I worked there from 1993-6 and 1998 doing nothing more glamorous than wrapping bull horns. However, the obsession grew in the most amazing place I have ever known. In December 2007, we moved to Bozeman and love being close to Yellowstone again. I have now gotten involved heavily with the Yellowstone buffalo issue and helped found Buffalo Allies of Bozeman in April 2008.

Too much information? Perhaps! Not enough of my soul. I'd encourage you to check out a lot of stuff on the aforementioned blog, as well as my Web site listed below. Another way to get a sense of the things I think about is to see the news compilation project on Yellowstone, Grand Teton, and the surrounding ecosystem that I update all the time called the Yellowstone Newspaper. Sometimes, you can get a sense of me just by reading about the place I live for.