THE NATIONAL PARK SOLUTION
Anyways, as you read this, the problem will have been resolved. However, you will remember that at the time, the morning of Wednesday, November 8, you, myself and the rest of the Americans, not to mention the world, were mightily puzzled as who the next president would be.
There was talk of a "Constitutional Crisis". There was talk of abolishing the Electoral College (never had much of a football team anyway.) There was talk of having the House of Representatives elect a president (not necessarily Bush or Gore)
In short, there was confusion. What should have been done in such a tight race?
I believe the answer is laughably obvious when you think about it. In a close race, the choice of the President should be left to the National Park Service.
The National Park Service? Well, yes, after all, the White House belongs to us. (I know, all the guide books gush about "The People's Palace", "Every American's Second Home" and so on, but we know better. The National Park Service is the agency in charge of the White House, It is OURS, we are the landlords.)
Therefore, in a tight race, we should have the right to decide who is going to live in our house. (I mean, it's no affirmative action thing; they are both White males, so no one can sue us for housing discrimination!)
But you ask, since the NPS is traditionally Republican, would not the agency automatically select a Republican as president?
No, this is where the wisdom and historical hindsight of the NPS would be brought into play. The Park Service is the preeminent keeper of American history. You can find a solution to virtually any problem, by selecting and analyzing the correct NPS national historical site.
In the case of the Bush-Gore controversy, we have as our solution the Lewis and Clark expedition as memorialized at Jefferson National Expansion Memorial (JNEM) in St. Louis,(the beginning of the expedition) and Fort Clatsop National Historic Site (FOCL) in Oregon (The Western terminus of the Expedition)
Obviously, the expedition would call for great skill and leadership. Who then, would be the leader? Lewis or Clark?
The answer that both men came up with was neither. They would be co-captains, co-equals, sharing decision making, success, failure--and the glory.
This leadership method is unusual before or since. Some one individual was always supposed to be "in charge". The amiable Lewis and Clark apparently didn't have a problem with that even though they were wildly different in temperament. Lewis was a manic-depressive, (later, a suicide) while Clark was the steady extrovert. Together, they made the most successful team in American history and their names are forever entwined.
Therefore, it is obvious that in this case, we should have a Gore-Bush Co-Presidency. It is physically possible, the White House is the size of a small hotel, more than a hundred rooms; it could easily hold two first families. Gore and Bush could agree to be President on odd and even days of the week. Or one could be President on alternating weeks, or even more effectively, they could divide up the duties of the Presidency so that each would use his strong suit to address the issues (For example, Bush might focus on education, while Gore would focus on the environment. Each would be allowed to make an equal number of federal appointments, including Supreme court nominations.
It has been said that the Presidency is too big a job for any one person A co-presidency would be a way around this difficulty. Gore or Bush could ask his Co-President for advice on a matter, or if he wasn't feeling well or was tired, he simply could go on vacation or take sick leave and leave the co-president in charge.
Now there will be carping critics who will find fault with Co-Leadership. They will aver that Lewis & Clark were considerably more intelligent than Bush & Gore. Your editor agrees that taking a boat trip up the Missouri for four years with Bush & Gore would be a terrifying thought (Though George would have more interesting stories to tell around the campfire!), but critics are begging the question! We don't have Lewis & Clark, we have Bush & Gore! We must make do with what we have!
POGO
"We have met the enemy and they are us"
-- Pogo Walt Kelly
It is indeed a small world, but if my wife Joan were not a Scottish country dancer, I probably would never have met POGO (The organization, not the possum).
Scottish country dancing is a cerebral form of square dancing. In fact, according to Joan, the two dance forms are not to be mentioned in the same breath, sort of like comparing chess and checkers or bridge and poker.
Scottish Country dancing requires a certain bipedal dexterity and a zen-like concentration which makes it appealing to urban intellectuals seeking stress relief. (The obvious question is whether Scottish rural life was a lot more stressful than believed or maybe they were just trying to keep warm)
Anyways, I do not do Scottish country dancing, having mastered the secret Irish stress relief method of sitting quietly in a chair and watching others work. While Joan and her friends dance, I sit at the other end of the room and type up the next edition of THUNDERBEAR. One evening, between dancing sets, Joan came over to me and suggested that I meet a young lady who was a member of POGO, an organization being persecuted by Congressman Don Young of Alaska.
Now for the uninitiated, Congressman Don Young is a member of the Alaska Mafia, the Alaskan Congressional Delegation: a group of environmental neanderthals that the voters of Alaska inflict on Congress and the rest of us apparently forever.
Congressman Young is chairman of the House Resources Committee which is sort of like making Osama bin Laden chairman of the United Jewish Appeal. The Alaskan Congressional Delegation in general and Young in particular comes down heavily in favor of Tongass National Forest clear cuts and untrammeled access of oil companies to just about anything they want, apparently even without paying for it.
POGO found that the oil companies, which were supposed to be on some sort of an "honor system" in regards to royalties, were honorably short about a half billion dollars. They were of course, forced to disgorge the half billion to the federal government.
A grateful federal government decided to give POGO (a non profit, do-gooder outfit) $1.2 million as sort of a bounty for good citizenship. POGO in turn, decided to share the bounty with two federal employees who blew the whistle on the oil companies.
At that point, enter the Alaska Mafia in the form of Don Young (His eponymously ironic first name is the Congressman's preference and not that of your malicious editor). Apparently, according to the Alaska Mafia's code of Omerta, anyone who rats on an oil company sleeps with the fishes (metaphorically speaking, of course!)
Congressman Young seeks to hold POGO's Executive Director and others (POGO has only 9 paid staff in contempt of Congress for failing to be forthright on how they obtained their information. The POGO folks have refused to cooperate. You can get several years in a federal stony lonesome for Contempt of Congress and the usual bankruptcy in the form of fines and lawyer fees.
Fortunately, it is unlikely that this is going to happen. The American Civil Liberties Union has picked up on the case, probably stating that however worthy the zealous defense of white collar thieves by the Alaska Mafia and others, that the constitutional rights of whistle blowers should not be trampled upon. Also, some Republicans are uneasy about voting to fine or incarcerate opponents of the oil industry. Congressman Steve Kukendall (R-CA) said "It's the image of it more that anything else. It sounds like people will say we're trying to be nice to Big Oil."
Well, yes, Congressman, it sort of does sound that way.
MONTANA ON THE MEDITERRANEAN
We were in the "Wild East" of Turkey, near the forbidden border with Armenia, a land with an uncanny resemblance to Eastern Montana. Joan and I were standing at the Lion Gate, entrance to the Lost City of Ani.
"They are drop dead good looking!" whispered Joan.
She was not referring to the frieze of lions over the gate. She was referencing the young Turkish soldiers who stood before us, wearing automatic weapons and camouflage uniforms.
Despite the hardware and battle dress, they looked like well-bred, clean cut college boys--which, indeed, they were.
Turkey has Universal Military Service, which is almost impossible to evade and in which every male must participate in at some time in his life and for varying periods. Given Turkey's population (around 60 million) this provides Turkey with the region's largest standing army, which makes it the regional superpower and keeps Turkey's seven cantankerous neighbors (Georgia, Armenia, Iraq, Iran, Syria, Greece, and Bulgaria) at a respectful distance.
In addition to defense, the army has a sociological mission; the molding of the Turkish people into a modern, 21st century state. As in Israel, the Army has great prestige, and as in Israel, it must not be ridiculed or disparaged in any way as it regarded as the heart, soul, and backbone of the Nation.
As part of the sociological mission, the hicks from the sticks who have never been outside their village of 200 souls in their lives and who only recently have seen the advantages of electricity, are scarfed up by the draft, trained, and sent off to the big cities to have their horizons broadened. At the other end of the spectrum, the college kids, who had never seem Eastern Turkey (and don't particularly want to) are inducted, trained and posted to some Allah forsaken village in East Anatolia where cooking with dried cow dung and other non-Martha Stewart methods prevail. This is to show them how the other half lives.
There are those in the United States who advocate such a system of national service for our youth. Interesting idea, except that it wouldn't work: There are too many ways for the rich and powerful to evade such inconvenience. (Our Vice President Elect, Dick Cheney is on record as saying that "He had other priorities than going to Viet Nam" in the 1960's in regards to questions concerning his lack of military service.)
Curiously, the Turkish National Service has some good effects for their national parks and historic sites. Since national parks and historical sites are notoriously hard up for cash, why not staff at least some of them with college educated Army draftees to speak to the park visitors in French, English or German? Good idea and one that was apparently implemented. So in a sense, the fledgling Turkish National Parks and historic sites are emulating the 19th century American method of staffing parks like Yellowstone, Sequoia, and Yosemite with soldiers.
The job of the soldiers was to protect us from harm and of course the ruins from harm, so the PFC that was most fluent in English politely laid down the rules. (He was the handsomest of the handsome, and Joan hung on his every word!) They were the usual rules; don't litter, don't take anything, and a few peculiar to the area: Don't point your camera over the river, and above all don't go down into the river gorge.
"Why not?" asked Good Student Joan.
"Soldier rules!" The PFC explained, with the universal shrug and upended palms of the collegiate draftee. "You just have to obey them, not understand them! They are on the other side of the river, they do not like photographs and they have guns."
We started out on our four mile self guided tour of the ruins of the Lost City of Ani under a sky as blue as Turkish porcelain.
The ruined city of Ani is sort of a desert Angkor Wat, great stone churches the color of burnt sienna rising improbably out of a sea of grass, inhabited only by sheep and goats. Only the churches and monasteries of the town of more than 100,000 seemed to have survived. Why, I don't know. God's luck, perhaps. The outer wall of the ruined churches are inscribed with great billboard texts in Armenian or Georgian. My favorite is of course, the Cathedral of St. Patrick, which was built in the year 1034 AD. The idea of a thousand year old cathedral on the high plains of Asia honoring the patron saint of an obscure island in the North Sea, thousands of miles removed, is little short of amazing.
The trail took us to the edge of the gorge of the Arpacay River, where one could look down on class II and III rapids perhaps 400 feet below and across to Armenia, the "They" that we were not to photograph. I took out my binoculars and looked across at the gun emplacements on the other side of the river and received that always eerie chill when you see someone on the other side observing YOU with their own binoculars.
The young Turkish soldiers were correct, the Armenians had ample guns and for the first time in nearly a thousand years they had their own country.
Now, neighbors, if your last name happens to end in "ian", you probably don't like Turks much. This is because of the Armenian Massacres of the late 19th century and most tragically, the Armenian massacre of 1915. In the latter massacre, the Ottoman Turks believed that the Armenians were aiding their fellow Christians, the Russians who were invading Turkey during the First World War. The Turks fell upon their Armenian Christian neighbors and exacted a terrible vengeance, killing and raping them in the most grisly manner. The Turks admit that perhaps 300,000 Armenians died under "wartime conditions", the few surviving Armenians place the number at more than a million It was the first genocide of the 20th century, but, sadly, not the last.
The Turkish government prefers not to discuss the "Armenian Question", but it is a question that will not remain unanswered.
Even the U.S. National Park Service got involved. At Statue of Liberty-Ellis Island National Monument, the NPS had exhibits on the motivating factors for immigration to America, The potato famine for the Irish, the Czarist pogroms for the Jews, and so on. The exhibit for the Armenians showed photographs of Armenians who had allegedly been massacred by Ottoman Turks. The exhibit was vandalized by Turkish sympathizers and the Turkish government lodged a protest. The Park Curator came up with another set of different massacre photographs. At this point, the Park Superintendent panicked and issued a Letter of Warning to the park curator telling him to cease and desist. To his credit, the curator stuck to his exhibit and a New York City Councilman, a Mr. Vallone, pointed out that the superintendent did not work for the Turkish government and that there had better not be any more Letters of Warning.
So what can be done? The modern Turks are a kind and most hospitable people. So, I am sure, are the Armenians. One small step forward would be to turn Ani into an International Peace Park, very much on the lines Glacier-Waterton Lakes between the U.S. and Canada, with the Ahuryan River as an International Wild and Scenic River very much like the de facto Rio Grande Wild & Scenic River.
Then perhaps the guns could go away and a shared culture enjoyed.
THE LEGEND OF DUMBARTON OAKS
Our legend of the month concerns one of Washington's most beautiful sites, Dumbarton Oaks.
Dumbarton Oaks is a 16 acre estate in the Georgetown section of Washington. 16 acres may not seem like much, but in urban terms, where land is valued by the square foot and thousand dollar bill, it is awesome. Ten of these acres are occupied by some of the finest formal gardens in the U.S.
The house itself is a federal period mansion built in 1800 and lived in by the notables of the time, among them John Calhoun, the foremost defender of the Southern (slavery) cause in Congress before the Civil War.
The house and grounds were developed as we know them by Robert Wood Bliss and his wife who established exquisite collections of their three main interests, Byzantine art, Pre-Columbian art and landscape gardening. (It is exactly the style of life that you and I would have selected had we not chosen to devote our lives to saving the environment with the National Park Service). The Bliss family donated the estate to Harvard University, Mr. Bliss' alma mater (I would have done the same) It is open to the public and is a "must see" if you visit Washington.
Not only was Dumbarton Oaks a great place to live, it is also a great place to hold international conferences. Even if you are a communist, you can get used to elegant surroundings very easily and come to appreciate genteel living (which is why international conferences are not held in NPS seasonal housing).
You will remember a line from your college American history about a conference that laid the groundwork for the United Nations in 1944. It was called simply the "Dumbarton Oaks Conference"
And so it was where our legend begins. The delegates to this conference were to thrash out exactly how the peoples of the world were to be represented in this brave, exciting new organization called the United Nations.
As in our own constitutional convention of 1789, there were problems of some states being more equal than others. It was understood that large, powerful nations would have a special voice in the Security Council, but in the General Assembly, the United States stuck with the idea of "one nation, one vote". The Soviet Union insisted upon three votes for itself; (one each for Russia, The Ukraine, and Byelorussia.)
Now there was some justification for the Soviets' claim for three votes. The Soviet Union was physically the largest country in the world, spanning 12 of the earth's 24 hour time zones. Moreover, the Soviet Union had the third largest population in the world. There was also a moral issue; the Soviets had suffered more than 18 million casualties in a war that was still going on and had borne the brunt of the fighting (Good point: Out of every ten German soldiers killed, 8 were killed by the Soviets. something not always remarked on by Stephen Ambrose and other historians of the period.)
The Soviet delegate, Andrei Gromyko, suggested that he and the American chief and a few aides adjourn to the privacy of the magnificent library for brandy and frank discussion. There, brandy in hand, he again stated his case that the Ukraine and Byelorussia, though part of the Soviet Union, should have votes in the General Assembly.
The American delegate diplomatically pointed out that the Ukraine and Byelorussia, were, um, actually part of Russia and thus could be counted upon to vote every time exactly the way Russia did.
Gromyko suggested a compromise. After all, the United States was also a large, powerful state. It should have two votes.
How could the United States have more than one vote? The American delegate inquired through his interpreter.
"Quite simple", Gromyko responded, "The Soviet Union would have no objection to Texas having a seat in the United Nations."
Stettinius at first did not believe the translation and asked for a repeat.
Gromyko reiterated his offer, reminding the American delegate that like the Ukraine, Texas had once been an independent country, but like the Ukraine, had "decided" to join a larger entity. It was true that the Ukraine could be expected to side with Russia, but could not Texas be trusted to always side with the United States, thus giving the U.S. two votes?
Stettinius was of course, appalled. Nothing in his life as a tweedy Ivy League diplomat had prepared him for the idea of Texas in the United Nations. It was a clear case of the diplomatic maxim that if someone comes up with a bad idea, if you wait long enough someone will come up with a terrifyingly worse one.
Texas of course could not be trusted always to vote with the United States. The Texas delegate, clad in his native costume of cowboy hat and boots, could be counted upon to vote on whatever whim intrigued Texas at the moment, possibly voting for the Spanish dictator, Francisco Franco, possibly for colonialism, or against America's allies; there would be no predicting. Moreover, the other 47 states would be outraged! Why Texas! The liberal press would never allow the end of it! The fledgling United Nations, somewhat controversial in the U.S. would be hatched in a storm of domestic and international dispute!
What to do? Given the situation, there could be only one decision. The American delegate told Mr. Gromyko that the United States accepted the concept of three votes for the Soviet Union, and one for the United States.
"But Texas?" asked the puzzled Gromyko.
"Texas will not be necessary" said the American delegate, we are grateful for the idea, but it would be best that only the results rather than the discussion pass beyond this room.
So, according to legend, that's why the Soviet Union had three votes in the United Nations to America's one. In the course of the Cold War, there was no instance in which Russia extra two votes carried the day for the Soviet Union.
On the other hand, it might have been fun to have Texas in the United Nations!
DEMOCRACY IN ACTION
"All animals are equal, but some are more equal than others"
-- George Orwell Animal Farm
Now, friends, nothing in a democracy is more irritating than someone getting a leg up over one's fellow democrats in the use of public property. (Especially if that "someone" is not you or I)
Americans are pretty well accustomed to the idea of private property, gated communities, mansions at the end of a winding lane marked "private drive" and so on. However, privileged use of public property tends to inflame the jacobins of the press.
Consider this piece from the November-December issue of FOREST MAGAZINE, gadfly journal of the Forest Service Employees for Environmental Ethics (AFSEEE).
"If the National Park Service doesn't have enough money to keep up its aging facilities, why did Yellowstone National Park just spend $50,000 giving a facelift to a remote backcountry cabin--particularly one that's not open to the public? The answer, apparently, is that the Peale Island cabin, located on a remote arm of sprawling Yellowstone Lake, is used to entertain VIP's. Jimmy Carter has stayed there as has Wyoming Senator Craig Thomas....."
Now buckaroos, the qualifier "apparently" is sort of journalistic grout that can be used to fill in gaps in a story (Even THUNDERBEAR, that most accurate of journals, has used "apparently" from time to time, when the facts just wouldn't line up the way your kindly editor wanted them).
Apparently, this is one of those times. Your editor made a few calls and it turns out that the Peale Island cabin is not quite the sybaritic pleasure dome implied in the article. It seems that the cabin is a three room frame structure built many decades ago by one of our siblings, the Fish & Wildlife Service, to house researchers and lab equipment. It is a lean, mean bureaucratic machine, definitely not the place Bill would take Monica.
It is, I am told, part of the park's patrol cabin system. As such, it comes up for cyclic maintenance funding from time to time and now may have been one of those times. If you are going use a structure built with less physical integrity than the pyramid of Cheops, then you are going to have to maintain it periodically.
If you've priced a rehab job on your house lately, you found that money doesn't go quite as far as when the house was built. When one considers that the cabin is on an island and the island is located in a "no motor" zone. This means that materials and those expensive tradesmen are going to have to be paddled in and out. The rehab consisted mainly of replacing flammable wallboard, fitting the cabin with a photovoltaic system (no motor, thus no generator) taking out the indoor plumbing and replacing it with an outhouse. If you think about it, Peale Island seems to be the perfect place to stash politicians. I mean, would YOU like Carter and Thomas living next to you?
So what is the charm for VIP's? Mainly, remoteness, silence, wilderness values, simplicity, and so on, Amusingly, if you forced a minority group family to live in the Peale Island cabin, it would be called a "hovel" and the NEW YORK TIMES would investigate.
Yellowstone specializes in what might be called Remote Chic. Recently, there were a number of media articles on the most remote place in the Lower 48. This happens to the Thorofare Ranger Station in the southeast corner of Yellowstone National Park. The National Geographic Society announced that this ranger station, 32 miles from the nearest road, is officially the most remote place in the Lower 48. This means that well connected cognoscenti, who find they must be where the Common Herd is not, will exert "gentle" pressure on the Superintendent of Yellowstone to let them stay at the Thorofare Ranger Station.
Down in Grand Teton National Park, we have another domicile for homeless celebrities (and others). This is the storied Brinkerhoff Lodge.
According to the historic structures report it was built way back in 1946 by someone named, of course, Brinkerhoff. Back in the simple days of the 1930's, the U.S. Forest Service had a crowd pleasing gimmick in which parcels of Forest Service land were leased at a nominal fee as "summer home" sites to folks who could afford to built one (I imagine that this was one Forest Service program that was somewhat underutilized by the Inner City ghetto dweller or the poor whites of Appalachia)
The Brinkerhoff Lodge was one of 111 summer home sites in what was to become Grand Teton National Park. It was "rustic" style, which means it was built of logs. It has a living room, dining room, kitchen, bathroom and three bedrooms and a vast stone fire place. So far, not much different from your place. So why did George Bush and others want to hang out there? The answer is, as they say, location, location, location. It is located overlooking Jackson Lake and the Teton Range, perhaps the single most striking, drop dead panorama in the Lower 48.
So, who stays there? Um, well, according to the NPS person, it's officially a "Conference Center". I asked how many people you could have in the conference if you had only three beds. The Park Service chap allowed as how the folks in the beds would have to know each other pretty well.
According to the Park Service chap, The "Conference Center" was also open to NPS personnel in Grand Teton on official business. (Good use of resources, buckaroos!) How about other folks? Well, who stayed at the Brinkerhoff Lodge was sort of at the discretion of the Superintendent (You will remember George Bush stayed there; I was trying to find a polite way to find out what I had to do to get myself into the Lodge)
Now, neighbors, when you think about it every national park of any size NEEDS a VIP lodge to stash politicians and other pains. If you don't have such a lodge and you are the superintendent, YOU are going to have to put them up in YOUR house! If you have impressionable children, are you SURE you want them to meet the Alaska Congressional Delegation? Do you REALLY want to see Dick Chaney across the breakfast table? I thought not.
So, you really do need such a lodge. If you don't have one, build one. The problem is, how do you handle the public relations problem?
The answer is quite simple: When some foamy mouth, left wing reporter from the NEW YORK TIMES or the WASHINGTON POST calls up to accusingly ask you if you have "Special Treatment" facilities at your park, you can enthusiastically boom back "Ah! you're referring to our VIP lodge! Yes! and let me tell you, it's a dandy! First rate!"
"You admit it?" The reporter asks, aghast. You explain the VIP lodge is available to passing Very Important People OR to any Volunteer-In-The Park who contributes X number of hours or services to the park. That way, the Brinkerhoff or your VIP lodge is potentially available to anyone.
Naturally, this offer will have to include the National Park Services most sought after perk; the Lincoln Bedroom in the White House. You will recall that this bedroom has been retailed by our current tenants. Now this Bed & Breakfast activity is a bit crude on their part, but not illegal. What needs to be done is assure that a night in the Lincoln bedroom is potentially available to any VIP in America. That is, the yearly champion Volunteer In the Parks will be rewarded with a night in the Lincoln bedroom and breakfast in the White House. Perhaps Al or George Dubya could serve coffee!
DON'T FORGET TO VOTE
THEREFORE everyone should vote in our referendum on whether the NPS should remain in the DOI or go elsewhere. So vote when you re-up!
