I just wanted to let you know that my husband and I are both under 30 and we read every issue of the Zephyr. When we're finished, we recycle it or use it to line the litter box. I think the cat likes your "dog of the month" photo. Our attitudes are best summed up by a bumper sticker I once saw " If you're not outraged, you're not paying attention". Of course, we're angry. I don't understand how anyone who's paying attention couldn't be. I've lived in western Colorado all of my life. It pains me to know that I can never return to my home town, Durango, because I have been out priced and out classed by people from Denver, Texas and California.
It frightens me to think that the solitude and recreation we have enjoyed in the Colorado mountains and the Utah desert may be gone before we are. I worry every day that my nieces and nephews will never be able to enjoy the same experiences that shaped me into the person I am today. Life changing opportunities, that can only be found out of doors, in the wild.
My view of the future is bleak. But, perhaps I am the eternal optimist. After all, I'm still here, I'm still fighting and I'm still hoping that tomorrow will be a better day.
Optimistic in Grand Malfunction, CO
Aspen Downs
See what I mean? Even among enthusiastic and dedicated Zephyr readers, I still end up with cat shit all over me. Good grief...JS
(a) Bless you for a wonderful newspaper which heartily jauntily jibes along against the grain of contemporary reportage...that is to say, "news" by press release. A heinous crime of which 99% of the so called news establishment is guilty and a crime for which they are not forgiven.
(b) Thank you for trying, though it be a ball buster, to find a sensible, rational palatable Way between the various frenetic and over-excited political viewpoints which so desperately strive to shape the future landscape of both the glorious Canyon Country and the Norte Americas. That you allow your detractors valuable print space is a testament to your good sense and sense of humor, and that you unerringly bash the huevos of the self-important bureaucrats is worth at least a commendation.
(c) To Daniel Oleszko, in the Aug/Sept 2000 Issue of the Zephyr. Piss off you irritating little bugger. You want stasis, an unending sameness, and a perpetual perfection of your dreams of how the glorious Canyon Country should be? Then buy the whole damned thing yourself and fence it off. Otherwise, change the (expletive deleted) tax laws in your country so your own citizens don't HAVE TO SELL in order to avoid the wrath of the tax man. I would wager this dingbat lives in a VW bus and bums drinks. Until you've had land, property, real property for which you are responsible and for which, through no fault of your own, you can no longer pay the ever escalating custom, the duty, the rents, the taxes, dare I say tribute (?) demanded by a horde from a District far away who require that they receive a share in your labor, labor they didn't bust a drop a sweat for but which if you refuse them they will escalate violence and force to unacceptable levels until you do pay....then hoss, you are a gnat on the ass of society whining about how you can't have it your way. This Earth, this World, this little blue marble is a field of dreams, pal, and crying in your beer, slopping your tears all over Jim Stiles' fine pages about how your dreams are someone else's responsibility is not only childish but liable to get your butt whipped. Grow the Eff up, son. Change the tax laws back to where your Constitution framed them to be. Rid yourself of onerous taxation and maybe, just maybe 80% of your beloved Canyon Country and Moab too would not have to sell out and MacDonalds could be told to (blankety blank).
But then, you probably like taxes, don't you?
"...In a world full of knuckleheads, shrimps, passionless fanatics and overwrought handwringers, I neither wear a helmet to the bathroom nor a raincoat in my shower. I am a Free Man and God Help The Bastard who tries to infringe upon my always already fully invested gifts from the Almighty, for he will be one sorry assed MF. Or, something like that. Nothing kinder or gentler down this way, mi amigos. Stand and be counted for Now is The Time to slap the silly even sillier." (Sr. Renaldo Xavier Stuart, in sui juris in remarks given at Ascencion, Bariloche, Argentina)
Sincerely
Gavrie Baron-Stuart
Contrails have been a plague to me for quite some time, directly as they ruin the natural appearance of the skies when I'm out with my camcorder, indirectly as they may be altering the climate with concomitant effects on the old body. They are indeed, as you mention, altering the climate. As a director and member of an organization with purpose of blocking further runway construction at the notorious O'Hare Airport, the climate altering nature of aviation's contrails has been of serious concern, first to me, then to the larger group and to allied organizations around the country and overseas. We are all concerned about aviation's pollution (fortunately for you in Moab it is of no concern) on human health and believe it to be of a serious nature as it affects persons living within rather large radial distances from airports, to the tune of millions nationally and elsewhere. Alas, the matter cannot be studied by the USEPA, for all control of aviation was given over to the FAA which both promotes and regulates the aviation industry which is now an enormous colossus.
Now to contrails, here are some internet sources you may wish to look up:
http://www.blazingtattles.com/info/eviljet2.htm
http://ens.lycos.com/ens/jan99/1999L-01-11-02.html
http://jinx.sistm.unsw.edu.au/~greenlft/1997/298/298p13b.htm
http://www.crystalinks.com/contrails.html
http://www.carnicom.com/contrails.htm (This is a new one to me and seems a
bit spooky, but who knows?)
Happy tramways!
Chuck Miller
We've never met, but I've passed through Moab a couple of times in the past few years and I've picked up your paper on both occasions. Here in England we have no real niche for a free community newspaper. Being a small densely populated nation, we're well-served by the national press, which limits what local papers have to offer--they're either full of details of the local football or listing who's dead, or they are just free advertising sheets.
I've always felt that our town was just the right size for a proper community newspaper along the USA lines, and I have toyed with the idea for a long time.
When I came to Moab for the first time--a family holiday, breezing through--I was not only struck by what a great little town Moab is, but I loved the approach you took with the Zephyr. In fact, I was so influenced by the first copy I read which featured articles about the flooding of the Glen Canyon, that when I realized my second visit would coincide with a talk on the same subject at your community centre, I just had to go. I enjoyed being there with the local folk and was impressed by their commitment to what is one of the most beautiful parts of the world.
Anyway, newspapers...you might be angry about this or you might not--I hope not - but I borrowed some ideas from the Zephyr for my own paper (if you're interested, I'll send you some copies). I'm now putting together the fifth issue and things seem to be setting up for a long run and the paper has taken on an identity of its own.
I just wanted to let you know that influence spreads and I'm pleased that I picked up your paper because it finally got me to get off my arse and do something that I'd been thinking about for so long. If I pass through Moab again, I would like to buy you a drink (unless you happen to be in the UK first).
Cheers,
Pete Clarke
Malmesbury
United Kingdom
PS. I love the web-site--funnily enough I want to be re-assured that there are people there fighting for the deserts
As I was perusing "DRUDGE'S SITE," late...or early this morning...the name FUNAFUTI jumped out at me. Naturally, I thought of you, and your "paradise lost" dream. Hidden away among the palms, and, topless maidens bringing you maitais, while innocently wearing short grass skirts, no doubt.
I hate to interrupt the dream, but, the same yahoos, (like those destroying your little desert ville), would eventually come along and build a tram to the top of the nearest high point and, of course, a McDonald's and a Pasta Jay's latte bar. At worst, they, (THE FANAFUTIANS) may return to their early roots, and look longingly at you and have a sudden desire for long pig.
Bubble popping is not my forte, but this time, I could not help it.
Best good wishes
B.T. Raven
They'd have to settle for a short pig...JS
I am grateful for the many years of dedicated service that long-time Utah Sierra Club leaders such as Gordon Swenson, Mike and Jean Binyon, Nina Dougherty, Ann and Jim Wechsler, Jim Catlin, Cindy King, and others have devoted to the protection of Utah's natural resources and the quality of our living environment. Over the past fifteen years I've worked with many of these people and I know how hard they work and with what ability and commitment. Some of them are close friends and I count former Utah Sierra Club chapter chairs Ann Wechsler and Rudy Lukez in my pantheon of personal heroes. Unfortunately, group dynamics do not always reflect the high caliber of individuals. No amount of admiration for particular individuals can excuse the Sierra Club's Utah Chapter leadership for its brutal, absurd and pathetic attempt to prohibit the formation of a Glen Canyon group and Sierra Club advocacy for the reclamation of Glen Canyon.
It's America folks. That's not how we do business here.
In America, we welcome open public debate on controversial issues, and cherish ideological diversity. Based on my own experience, Jim, your description of the Kafkaesque bureaucracy of the Utah Chapter is deadly accurate. Thanks for describing it so well. And Ken Sleight, thanks to you for driving 500 miles to appear at a Utah chapter executive committee meeting to which you had been pointedly disinvited. Thanks for refusing to be patronized and ignored, Ken.
The reason for the Utah Chapter leadership's passionate opposition to the Glen Canyon restoration campaign is plainly stated in its September 18, 1997 resolution on the subject. The Chapter leadership is afraid that any association with the issue could serve as a major and perhaps fatal political liability to the Utah BLM wilderness bill.
The Chapter's concern about linkage between these two issues is legitimate and deserves thoughtful consideration. By endorsing the Glen Canyon proposal, the National Sierra Club has given wilderness opponents a weapon they can use to lobby against the Utah wilderness bill. No doubt the anti-wilderness lobby will attempt to capture crucial so-called "moderate" swing votes by telling members of Congress, "these people that want the Utah BLM wilderness bill are the same ones that want to drain Lake Powell." Whether this tactic will be effective is another question.
Lake Powell is one of the most popular and visited National Park Service properties in the West. Many Utah residents vacation on the lake, and while I haven't seen the statistics, I'd guess that most Utahans want Lake Powell to remain where it is. The Utah Chapter's credibility with Utah politicians, its ability to influence the outcome of local elections and to send a pro-wilderness Utahan to Congress may all be diminished because of the National Sierra Club's endorsement of the Glen Canyon proposal. But the legitimate question of whether principle should be sacrificed to political expediency in this particular case never seems to have been openly and publicly debated before the Utah Sierra Club membership. What ought to have been decided by a plebiscite was decided instead by bureaucratic fiat.
Just how expedient IS this political expediency, anyway? The Sierra Club's own history has repeatedly demonstrated that sacrificing principle on the altar of short-term political gain can be a terrible mistake. Again and again political "expediency" has led to tragic and unnecessary compromises, not the least of which was the Club's 1956 decision to endorse the damming of Glen Canyon.
"For too long our leaders have used politics as the art of the possible," Hillary Clinton told her Wellesly College classmates in a much-acclaimed 1969 commencement address. "The challenge now is to practice the art of making what appears to be impossible, possible." While President Clinton has not always been the best example of courageous leadership on environmental issues, we know what you meant, Hillary.
Political expediency is properly the domain of politicians not of environmental advocacy groups. The role of environmental advocacy groups is advocacy. Yesterday's insanely radical ideas (emancipation, suffrage, civil rights, pollution control, a national wilderness preservation system) are today among our nation's most cherished assets. Today's radical ideas may turn out to be tomorrow's most cherished assets.
Environmental issues are always controversial. Virtually any new idea can be and usually is automatically rejected on the grounds of political "expediency." During the past decade the Utah environmental movement has become a culture predicated upon political expediency at any cost. The price of our desperate craving for "access" and "credibility" has been a fatal lack of vision and a nearly complete loss of moral compass. The best example of this lack of vision is not the Utah Chapter's refusal to support the reclamation of Glen Canyon, but rather the Utah Wilderness Coalition's categorical exclusion of adjacent Forest Service roadless areas from its statewide wilderness proposal. Throughout the past decade Forest Service roadless areas at the summit of the high plateaus have been under savage attack by the timber industry. Without question they are the most endangered large roadless areas on the Colorado Plateau. For sixteen years, while the bulldozers and buzz saws raged across the Aquarius, Paunsagunt, Markagunt and Kaibab plateaus, endangered Forest Service roadless areas have been categorically omitted from any and all Utah Wilderness Coalition wilderness proposals out of political expediency. Anyone familiar with these lands knows that that the price of "expediency" has been devastatingly high.
Former Utah Chapter Chair Rudy Lukez once accurately summarized both the strength and weakness of the Sierra Club in just three words. "What you gotta remember about the Sierra Club," Rudy warned, "is that it's a club."
In many ways the Utah Chapter has been a very good club. Now what we need is a club for the rest of us.
Ray Wheeler
Salt Lake City, UT
What's going on here ??? The Fee-Demo authorization passed by Congress in 1996 allows the imposition of a $100 (one hundred) maximum fine for those who do not purchase the necessary recreation pass.
Now the BLM in Utah has just come up with the notice appended below.
It says, in part: "punishable by a fine not to exceed $1,000 and/or imprisonment not to exceed 12 months."
It strikes me as though the BLM is getting a mite heavy-handed with this $1000 fine and/or 12 months imprisonment for someone who simply uses a public picnic table without paying.
Here is the "action" by State Director Sally Wisely...
DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR
Bureau of Land Management
Campground Fees for BLM-Administered Campgrounds in Utah
AGENCY: Bureau of Land Management, Interior.
ACTION: Supplementary rules.
SUMMARY: Notice is hereby given that effective September 5, 2000, the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) is establishing recreation use fees for campgrounds and picnic grounds that did not have existing supplementary rules related to recreation use fees. BLM is also reaffirming existing supplementary rules for BLM-administered campgrounds and picnic grounds throughout Utah. We are taking this action to authorize the collection of fees from those who use the campgrounds. This action has the effect of requiring users to pay fees for the use of certain designated campgrounds and picnic grounds.
FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Suzanne Garcia, BLM Utah State Office
(UT-934), 324 South State Street, Suite 301, Salt Lake City, Utah 84111
(801) 539-4223.
SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The authority for these Supplementary Rules is contained in the Code of Federal Regulations, Title 43, Sec. 8365.1-6, Supplementary Rules. Violation of any supplementary rule by a member of the public, except for the provisions of Sec. 8365.1-6, are punishable by a fine not to exceed $1,000 and/or imprisonment not to exceed 12 months. Federal Regulations, Title 43, Sec. 8360.0-7 violations of supplementary rules authorized by Sec. 8365.1-6 are punishable in the same manner. This supplementary rule authorizes the establishment and re-affirmation of recreation fees at all existing fee campgrounds on BLM administered lands in Utah. The following campgrounds and picnic areas are subject to recreation fees:
Salt Lake Field Office: Simpson Springs, Clover Springs, Birch Creek, Little Creek
Vernal Field Office: Bridge Hollow, Indian Crossing
Fillmore Field Office: Oasis, Sand Mountain, White Sands, Jericho Picnic Area
Hanksville Field Station: Starr Spring, Lonesome Beaver, McMillan Spring
Moab Field Office: Spring, Hatch Point, Wind Whistle, Hals Canyon, Goose Island, Negro Bill, Drinks Canyon, Oak Grove, Big Bend, Upper Big Bend, Hittle Bottom, Dewey Bridge, Jaycee Park, Goldbar, Kings Bottom, Moonflower, Hunter Canyon, Echo, Sand Flats Recreation Area Campsites, Fisher Tower, Kens Lake, Williams Bottom, Westwater Ranger Station, Highway 313 Campsites
Cedar City Field Office: Calf Creek
Price Field Office: Price Canyon, San Raphael Bridge Recreation Site, Cleveland Lloyd Dinosaur Quarry
Kanab Field Office: White House, Ponderosa Grove
Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument: Deer Creek, Calf Creek
St. George Field Office: Red Cliffs, Baker Dam
Monticello Field Office: Sand Island.
Scott Silver
Wild Wilderness
Bend, OR 97701
e-mail: ssilver@wildwilderness.org
Internet: http://www.wildwilderness.org