A Clean Slate

A clean slate
for '08

Stupid little rhyme -- sounds like a campaign slogan -- but it's kind of where I'm at here at the end of the year. It's time to ponder things for a few days. Taking the time to regroup and rethink and refocus and to question one's self never hurts. What am I about on this site, anyway?

The quote up there under the title speaks my heart as well as any I've found. That's what I'm about. That was my main reason for starting this blog in the first place, and that still needs to be the main focus of what I do. Wilderness. Protecting our home. The most worthy battle there is in my book.

It's easy to get side-tracked doing a blog. Other things enter in. Other issues, important issues, invariably creep in, and you find yourself talking about those too. Elections. Politics. War. Social issues. Economic issues -- you name it. You find yourself trying to address all those things and soon enough you find out that you're not really addressing anything anymore. You're just kind of parroting what others are saying, and usually saying better. But maybe that's just me. I'm just an aging, graying hard-nosed enviro who has been fortunate enough to spend a good part of his life in the wilds, and believes that the wild earth and all that live on it and depend on it, including humans, are worth fighting for. This blog will reflect that belief. It will be about wilderness and wildlife and environmental activism, and yes, some green politics and relevant links will be thrown into the mix. They fit. I may find myself posting less, or maybe not, but hopefully this blog will be stronger for it. If I find myself wanting to go on about other issues I'll do them on other blogs. They're not that hard to start.

One other note. The sidebar clutter is really starting to annoy me, and I'm going to take a little time to clean it up. Stuff gathers there that you want to try out and then it ends up collecting dust. Just like at home. A few ads are going to stay. The pennies do keep trickling in and who knows -- by the time I'm ready to retire I might just be able to pocket an extra twenty bucks. It's worth a try. My question is, does anybody watch the weekly Hightower video? If not I won't waste the space. I watch it, but I can do that in my email. If you want it let me know, otherwise it's out of here. It doesn't matter to me one way or the other.

So with that said, I'm going to wish you all the best possible new year, and then I'm going to feed the cat and go to bed. Earth first.

Season's Greetings

Here's just a quick note to wish all of you out there the best this holiday season.

I want to give a big end-of-year thank you to all of you -- bloggers, readers, and commenters -- for putting the time and the thought and the energy that you do into this crazy mix. And I do mean all of you regardless of what color or stripe or persuasion you may be. It's the differences that make this so interesting. You've enriched my life more than I can say. Thank you, all of you, and I wish you all the best.

The Greenest And The Meanest

It's the weekend before Christmas and all that, I know, and I'm sure most folks are traveling or finalizing plans or otherwise getting ready for the holidays, and posting on blogs isn't a high priority right now. It's true here at my place too. I have a highly excited 12-year old on my hands. I need a clone.

A few of you though may be sitting at your computers, drumming your fingers in boredom, and waiting for something to come up somewhere to sink your teeth into. So this is for you.

Online polls always seem to be popular for some reason. They mean little, but they are popular and apparently fun. So in the true spirit of holiday generosity, I'm offering up not one but two of them for your enjoyment:

The first is your choice of environmental heroes of 2007.

The second, you guessed it, is your choice of environmental villains.

Meaningless trivia? Of course. But sit back and have fun with it unless you have better things to do, which I truly hope is the case. And above all have a Merry Christmas, and no, I don't need to know how you voted.

Happy Holidays.

Appalling

Imagine having to work long hours picking fruit and then being locked away for the night, sometimes with your hands chained behind your back so you couldn't escape. Imagine picking nearly two and a half tons of tomatoes and barely making minimum wage. Imagine too having to sleep in a decrepit shack or the back of a truck, with no sanitation, and having to pay for that privilege, as well as having to pay for a bath or shower from a bucket of cold water or a garden hose. For $5 a crack. Then imagine that if you happen to get sick a couple of goons come to your hovel, beat you, drag you into a truck and force you to work anyway. One would think it's a worst-case scenario from a third-world country, wouldn't one?

Yes. But one would be wrong. Such a case was unearthed right here in the US. In Florida. And apparently it's not an isolated case. Thousands of migrant workers are thus treated while being forced to pick the tomatoes we buy in the supermarkets and eat in the restaurants. Yes, right here in this country. Imagine.

Here's more.

Dan Fogelberg 1951 - 2007

Dan Fogelberg

(August 13, 1951 - December 16, 2007)

Then There's This

We are all familiar with the ugliness and obscenity of war. The death, the destruction, the displacement of entire populations, torture -- ugly ugly stuff. Water systems and food supplies are disrupted, and often destroyed. Sanitation facilities and power systems are next to non-existent. Nasty business, war is. Especially modern methods of warfare. And as if all of the horrors of war weren't bad enough, then there's this...

The Great American Petro-Powered Shop-a-Thon

It's certainly no earth-shaking news that our whole way of life is based on buying stuff. On making, selling, and buying stuff. We're living through the last throes of the 'Great American Petro Powered Shop-a-Thon'. At least I hope it's the last throes. It can't last for too many more years without some really nasty consequences. Limits are limits. They're not negotiable.

It's something I post about with some regularity, but rather than yammer on about it I'll pass along a link to a short film that addresses the subject of stuff quite nicely. It's called, appropriately enough, 'The Story of Stuff', and you can watch it right here. It runs for about 20 minutes, so if you have 20 minutes to spare, well, here you go.

Who Are These People?

The Heritage Foundation I mean. After considerable brain-racking, they have determined that there is no hunger in the US. Poor people simply eat too much and become obese and run out of food before the end of each month and suffer periodic food shortages because of it and should learn to eat less so they wouldn't become fatter and that would also make their meager food dollars last an entire month and they'd be oh so much better off. Or something like that. Jesus...

No News Is Bad News

So call me paranoid. Or whatever. I made my first cup of coffee this morning and sat down for a leisurely look through the blogs to see what was happening and immediately came across this post. Sure enough, the hair on the back of my neck started to stand right up. It appears that the Dept. of Interior plans to impose stricter permitting on news gathering and reporting in National Parks and other public lands, thus making it harder to document and expose threats to these places.

We all know BushCo's record on our public lands. They have waged war on the environment from day one, and would like nothing more than to privatize all public lands and for all practical purposes give them over to corporate interests who have wet-dreams about raping them for whatever few remaining resources they can dig out. If nobody can report on it or document it, so much the better.

Keep in mind that these new permitting requirements apply to more than our national parks. They apply also to national wildlife refuges, and to all lands under Interior's control. High fees or rejected permit applications could effectively squelch much good reporting and documentation, especially from struggling freelance or independent journalists. The major media outlets could afford to pay, but they wouldn't be likely to dig much. Much of the real gutsy reporting from independents wouldn't get done. Secrecy would prevail. So let's say that some particular wildlife refuge (ANWR anyone?) was in the sights of industry for it's resources. And let's say too that reporting of the devastating consequences and the inevitable controversy surrounding such activity was stifled. That would make it much easier to keep us pesky citizens out of the loop, no? Much easier to do the dirty work with as little interference as possible. A free press and informed citizenry is one of the bedrocks of our country. To stifle it like this is a kick in the ass to all of us. I can't help but wonder just what Bush/Cheney and their cohorts have in their playbook for the last year of their reign that they'd rather we didn't see.

A House subcommittee hearing is scheduled for Dec. 12. Let your Representative know that this one smells awful and that you fully expect them to stand up against it. And thanks to Left in the West for bringing this one up.