WHISTLE BLOWING: LOOK BEFORE YOU LEAP
Recently a female employee of the National Park Service called the THUNDERBEAR office to inform me that, as the Dodge Sheriff would say, "She was in a heap o' trouble".
It seems that the Chief Ranger at her park had been downloading pornography on his government computer. Now this is not an unusual offense. (Your kindly editor had been trying to query a Chief Ranger in a western park about a totally unrelated issue, only to find that he had been deported to the regional office for, you guessed it, "downloading pornography.")
Now the Department of Interior, as well as Jesus Christ, is officially on record as being against pornography (Jesus anytime, DOI on government time). However, it does happen from time to time.
The problem was that the Chief Ranger's appetite for porn was voracious and all consuming, so much so that he had little time for unimportant things as, say, work.
So what does a good manager do? Well, he/she delegates! That is exactly what our Chief Ranger did. He went to the park superintendent and complained piteously that his work load was crushing and driving him to distraction, and therefore could not some of his duties be off loaded on Jane, the park's very handy resource manager?
The superintendent agreed that this would be a capital idea and that the gallant Chief Ranger should carry on and persevere in his duties.
Jane, of course, was outraged. Although she has worked for the NPS for some 12 years she apparently was blissfully unaware that while virtue is rarely rewarded, chicanery usually is.
Like most resource managers, she took her job seriously and was desperately concerned about the fate of the park's endangered ecosystems and was already overworked and overstressed without taking on some of the Chief Ranger's duties. Her concentration and morale was not helped by shrieks of delight coming from the CR's office as he downloaded " Dutch Girls Doing It In Wooden Shoes" or some other porn classic. What to do?
Now friends, this is where Jane, our heroine, made a mistake.
She did not consult with the experts.
Jane had always been a problem solver and thought that it is one's duty to paddle one's own canoe, that is take direct action.
She contacted two fellow workers, one a park computer expert, the other as a second witness and the three of them entered the Chief Ranger's office in his absence and downloaded the last file the Chief had been working on.
Now unless the NPS is doing park planning on the possibility of a Pornography National Historic Site detailing the history of the porn industry in the United States, the "research" being done by the Chief Ranger on government time and government equipment could not be justified.
Jane and her two witnesses were not particularly shocked (The Chief Rangers porn hobby was common park gossip). Jane took her findings to the superintendent. (Mistake # 2. The superintendent is not always the expert to take your findings to.)
After Jane and her friends had played "Nancy Drew and the Hardy Boys," things started to get more complicated than a Nevada Barr novel.
The superintendent did not exactly name Jane as the enterprising employee of the year.
True, he remonstrated with the Chief Ranger for downloading porn, using the government computer for unauthorized purposes etc. and even put him on suspension for three days.
However, the superintendent also gave Jane a written letter of reprimand and suspended her for two days for invading the office and "downloading pornography and corrupting her fellows workers"
Now the superintendent undoubtably thought he was making a very cute Solomonic decision in which two errant employees were given roughly equal justice for roughly equal offenses. He would be able to tell this anecdote over beers at the next superintendent's conference, complete with wry references to "smartass broads" and their eventual comeuppance.
The problem is that the superintendent's action was not equal justice, is probably illegal and certainly a dirty trick.
It is not equal justice and certainly a dirty trick because, rightly or wrongly, there is a double standard on the matter of pornography.
If a male is suspended for looking at "dirty pictures" and is asked to explain the cause of suspension, he can (particularly if dealing with another good ol' boy) chuckle it off as a regrettable (but understandable) indiscretion, one that won't happen again. If he is facing a prospective female supervisor, he can square his jaw, look her in the eye, and say humbly "That was before I found Jesus!"
However, if a female is suspended for viewing porn, the Witches of Salem are resurrected all over again! Nice girls aren't interested in porn!. (Interestingly enough, studies show that females, naughty or nice, have little or no interest in pornography. Females, do of course, participate in the production of pornography, but it is for money or drugs rather than any interest in the proceedings. Female interest in pornography is a male fantasy.)
The female suspended for viewing porn would be suspected of all sorts of lusts, natural and unnatural. According to park gossip, no scout troop, boy or girl could be considered safe from her molestations! Not even the park wildlife would be exempt from her prurient interest! At best, she would be subject to sniggering interrogations as to the break in service every time she applied for a new job. Essentially, Jane's career would be over.
So what to do? The NPS would recommend "going up the chain of command until you get results". Uh huh.
Let's meditate a little on the symbolism of the "Chain". Everyone is familiar with the saying "A chain is only as strong as its weakest link." Chains are metaphors for mutual help and support. One reason that each link of a chain is where he/she is at is a supporting link further on up the length of chain.
Yes, you will get results if you go up the chain of command but they may not be the ones you expect.
Jane found this out when she broached the subject to the superintendent.
So now what to do? Jane notified her union representative, a woman of pit bull tenacity who tore into the case with such gusto that the NPS will probably be glad to settle out of court. As noted, she also notified your Most Obedient Servant for advice. I suggested that she contact the environmental whistle blower outfit PEER (Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility) for legal advice. She did so and they provided her with a list of lawyers specializing in civil service cases--and a most interesting book on the subject of whistle blowing.
Jane has no regrets about her whistle blowing, but does wish she had read this whistle blower's manual before doing so as it would have saved her considerable grief and sleepless nights.
PEER has provided your kindly editor with a review copy of "THE ART OF ANONYMOUS ACTIVISM: SERVING THE PUBLIC WHILE SURVIVING PUBLIC SERVICE." The 66 page booklet is a joint production of three whistle blower organizations:
POGO (Project on Government Oversight) which "investigates, exposes, and seeks to remedy systemic abuses of power, mismanagement, and subservience by the federal government to powerful special interests." WWW.POGO.ORG
GAP (Government Accountability Project) which "Protects the Public Interest and promotes government and corporate accountability by advancing occupational free speech, defending whistle blowers and empowering citizen activists." WWW.WHISTLEBLOWER.ORG
PEER (Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility) "Protects the government employees who protect our environment. PEER works with, and on behalf of these resource professionals to effect change in the way government agencies conduct business. PEER promotes environmental ethics and governmental accountability." WWW.PEER.ORG
To begin with, the editors do not endorse whistle blowing as a lark or a pastime. If you decide to blow a whistle, it may become the defining moment of your career and perhaps your life. They quote one famous whistle blower, Admiral Hyman Rickover, as remarking "IF YOU MUST SIN, SIN AGAINST GOD AND NOT THE BUREAUCRACY, FOR GOD MAY FORGIVE YOU, BUT THE BUREAUCRACY NEVER WILL."
It is not a fair fight. If you blow a whistle, the government will be coming after you with everything they have, which is considerable as it is usually easier to persecute the whistle blower than to fix the problem.
Methods of harassment can be (but are not limited to) taking away job duties, blacklisting, retaliatory investigation and charges, questioning of mental health and/or professional competence as well as setting you up for failure (an impossible assignment with impossible deadlines.)
The editors of the whistle blowing manual believe in "Delivering the Message, not the Messenger". That is, the government employee should not have to go on a Kamikaze mission just to rectify a wrong.
Your supposed allies might not be allies at all.
According to the editors "Many employees regard the agency or department Inspector General as a knight in shining armor--an outside objective force riding over the hill to make all right within the agency." This may be an unlikely ending as the IG has no power (can only investigate and recommend; the agency can and often does ignore the findings). The IG does not guarantee confidentiality, leaving one open to retaliation. The IG has no particular deadline; the investigation can be strung out for years and may choose not to complete the investigation. IG offices prefer to avoid controversy, concentrating on misuse of credit cards rather than a $200 million overrun. The IG can and does turn on the complainant. The IG is often used to investigate the complainant or the source of the leak rather than the problem. In one example cited, the IG slanted an investigation of two Fish & Wildlife Service scientists in order to curry favor with DOI Secretary Gale Norton. The charges against the scientists were groundless. On the flip side, the IG found Secretary Norton completely innocent of wrongdoing in an Indian trust case, a feeling not shared by a Reagan appointed federal judge who later found Norton in contempt for filing false reports, lying about the security of the trust fund computer records and concealing her actions.
Well now, if you can't trust the Inspector General, then surely you can trust your Congressperson. Not necessarily. As the editors point out "What usually happens to letters from public employees is that a copy of the letter is sent over to the agency for a response. As a result, the perpetrators of the misconduct may be the ones who prepare the agency answer. This may also confirm for them the identity of the trouble maker in their midst." It is also a good idea to check out who is funding your Congressperson and his/her stand on environmental issues. (The latter can be obtained from the League of Conservation Voters.)
Yes, but we can rely on that bulwark of American democracy, our free and independent media, can't we? This is a very qualified "maybe" and then only up to a point. The media is interested in readership or viewership. There is the old newspaper slogan, "If it bleeds, it leads" Therefore the media is interested in your misery, not your victory. Reporters often ask employees to call them "when they are finally fired" for a good "human interest" story. In addition, the agency will get equal time to rebut your story (fair enough, but they have more resources).
So what on earth should you do in these trying times? Well now, the editors will answer all your questions, provide a (relatively) safe and secure way for you to correct a wrong in your agency without jeopardizing your career. The steps are illustrated with case studies that name the bad guys and errant agencies. So have at it!
THE ART OF ANONYMOUS ACTIVISM sells for $10 and may be purchased from PEER, 2001 S st. NW, suite 570, Washington, DC 20000. It's a great read!
SPECIATING REPUBLICANS
Recently there has been a loss of confidence in the Republican Party by permanent employees of the National Park Service.
This is largely due to the fact that the current Republican Administration plans to eliminate a goodly proportion of the NPS work force. This negative reaction on the part of employees is lamentable but quite understandable.
It is bad enough to be guillotined, but it is downright humiliating to be asked to sharpen the blade of the guillotine before inserting your head. (The NPS was asked to fund a study from its operating funds on which jobs could best be privatized.)
Terry Anderson, late of the Political Economic Research Center (PERC) a conservative think tank out of Bozeman, Montana, is personal advisor to President Bush on federal land management. Anderson is to the right of the Duke of Cumberland and would like to see all federal lands from the Grand Canyon to Independence Hall privatized and placed in the hands of the better sort of people (certainly not you and I).
As I say, this is distressing to the bulk of the Republicans who make up the majority of the permanent ranks of the National Park Service, particularly the uniformed field service.
Due to a number of sociological, cultural, geographic and demographic reasons, the uniformed ranks of the NPS have always been heavily Republican. Most rangers come from the rural areas and small towns of the South and West or the suburbs of Southern California. Such people are traditionally conservatives.
Most parks (and most assignments) are in small towns or remote, out of the way rural areas. People in these areas tend to be conservative and God fearing, reinforcing the core beliefs of the rangers assigned to these areas. Park Superintendents aspire to the presidency of the local Rotary Club and not, for example, the Socialist Alliance.
In addition, the wearing of a uniform reinforces a love of the status quo. Law enforcement officers tend to be conservatives. (Even communist law enforcement officers.) Refresher classes and training with other law enforcement groups tend to reinforce a conservative mind set.
Finally, most NPS assignments are in areas once known as "pockets of poverty", that is, picturesque rural areas where it is often quite difficult to make a middle class living without a permanent federal paycheck. This means that on a yearly basis, the ranger and his family make a bit more than the bulk of the people living in the county. In addition, the ranger and his/her spouse are usually college educated, a rarity among other folks in a rural county. This combination of a slightly larger disposable income and higher education tends to create a feeling that one belongs to an undefined "gentry," a sort of local upper class. This feeling of empathy toward "The better sort of people" tends one to gravitate toward a Republican world view.
For the above reasons, your kindly editor does not have to take his shoes off to count the number of NPS liberal democrats he has encountered in some 30 years with the agency. (Indeed, if it were a winter count, I could keep one mitten on!)
However, recent events on the environmental scene and the national parks in particular have perplexed your average Republican Ranger.
"I am brave, selfless, competent, steadfast, loyal, and unfailingly helpful, and yet my fellow Republicans are trying to get rid of me! Why?"
Well, mainly because they are Greedhead Republicans (Greedus vulgaris). This is simply their natural instinct and you should not take it personally.
Republicans were first speciated by former Yale biologist, Theodore Roosevelt in a series of papers around 1912. He noted that the Greedhead Republican was a remarkable creature in that it pursued the destruction of its own environment for its immediate gratification with a relentless fervor previously unknown in the animal kingdom. Other investigators noted that the Greedhead Republican could be identified by its grasping ways and its distinctive call "________you, Jack!" which is repeated with monotonous regularity.
Fortunately, Roosevelt discovered another species of Republican, the Bullmoose Republican (Teddi populi). His species has a much milder impact on the environment and a much more commensal relationship with one's fellow creatures.
Unfortunately, the Greedhead Republican species appears to be in the ascendancy and has acquired the status of an invasive pest.
What to do?
Well now, the Bullmoose Republicans, in the form of Republicans for Environmental Protection (REP) will be having their annual convention in San Diego, September 11-12. We hope to see you there. Should you not be able to make it (say, if you have been RIFed), you might consider learning more about REP and the struggle against the Greedheads at www.repamerica.org
BARE FACED RIP-OFF
One of the most interesting legal land frauds in recent history was the "acquisition" of the 89,000 acre Valle Grande Ranch by the U.S. Forest Service for the sum of $100 million paid by the U.S. taxpayers.
The Valle Grande is a dramatic volcanic caldera in northern New Mexico abutting Bandelier National Park. It is an area of sublime beauty, a sort of Ngorongoro Crater of North America, supporting large herds of elk as well as cattle.
In addition to its beauty and ecology, the Valle Grande Caldera (or rather its owners) controls the drainage and hydrology of Bandelier which is downstream.
Understandably, the National Park Service has cast a longing eye on the Valle Grande Caldera and made a number of attempts to acquire it for the purpose of turning Bandelier, an interesting but small archeological national monument into a major national park. This proposed park would stretch from the Sonoran life zone on the park's Rio Grande river border to the Hudsonian zone at over 8,000 feet on the North rim of the Caldera. It would make for a remarkable hike in a remarkable new park.
As early as the 1930's the National Park Service had recommended purchasing the Valle Grande which was an old Spanish land grant known as the Baca ranch and had been run as a typical New Mexican cattle ranch since the 1860's and of course, before. Although the land was private, and therefore none of the business of the U.S. Forest Service, that agency, which always plays Iago to the NPS's Othello, decided to stick its nose in anyway and vociferously opposed the sale of the Baca Ranch to the NPS, preferring its own "all things to all people" multiple abuse program.
According to the Bandelier Administrative history, NPS attempts to gain the Baca tract languished until the 1970's when Public Law 94-458 was passed which required the national park service to select and propose at least 12 new park sites every year (The so-called "park of the month Act." Ah! the glorious days of yesteryear!) The Valle Grande Caldera was on the first year's list for acquisition.
Events seemed to be breaking in favor of the National Park Service as Pat Dunigan, seemed ready to sell. Dunigan, a colorful Texas businessman, was something of a roughhewn environmentalist, and wanted the best fate possible for his property. Moreover, funds for purchase would be available from the Land and Water Conservation Act. It looked like we were home free.
However, the NPS can be counted upon to shoot itself in the foot at any critical moment in land acquisition or management.
Dunigan, a genial type, went to Washington to confer personally with the Director of the Park Service, William Whalen. Whalen, for whatever reason, refused to see him and directed him to an underling. The Bandelier Administrative historian states that Dunigan was "rightly upset" and left Washington to begin negotiations with the U.S. Forest Service (Whalen had also passed up a sterling opportunity to add the major California State Redwood parks to Redwoods National Park: It would seem that there should be some sort of NPS Council of Common Sense that could override the foolish decisions of a political appointee.)
However, it was not to be a dunk shot for the USFS. Dunigan suddenly dropped dead of a heart attack and guardians of his underage sons did not wish to sell.
Finally, in the last years of the 20th century, the Dunigan family did want to sell and Land & Water Conservation money was available.
The 89,000 acre Ranch was sold to you and I, the American people, for the sum of 100 million dollars.
However, the enabling legislation was hi-jacked by Senator Peter Domenici, (R-NM) one of the leading Republican Greedheads. The Act was so full of special interest provisions that President Clinton refused to sign it and Congressman Udall of New Mexico disavowed it.
The Act establishes a Valles Grande National Preserve to be administered by, but not as a part of Santa Fe National Forest. Basically, it is a USFS multiple use area on steroids. It is to be a model of a "working environment" (It seems that when God Almighty, a famously lazy liberal slacker, was running the Valle Grande, things were pretty loose!)
The Preserve is managed by a Trust with a seven-person board, appointed by the President of the United States. The Trust is charged with seeing to it that the Valle Grande Caldera Preserve becomes economically self-sufficient and is not a burden to the taxpayers. This means that grazing, logging, geothermal power (retired volcano, remember?) are to be pursued with enthusiasm, but always, always, with documents to back up the alleged benign results.
Hunting is expected to be a big money maker as there is a huge elk herd in the caldera. Naturally, the average Joe or Jose is not going to come along on these elk hunts as they are going to cost thousands of dollars. There will be no free lunch in Valle Grande Caldera Preserve, not even bird song. You will be charged for bird watching and any other recreational activity you pursue in the Preserve.
How much? Well that hasn't been decided quite yet, but figures of $45 per hiker per day have been bandied about. Oh, that includes the services of a naturalist-cum-security guard that will be with you at all times to make sure you don't stray off into a "sensitive" area.
Did I mention the Preserve is still off limits? Yup, seems you can't check out your 100 million dollar purchase just yet.
Worst of all, the Preserve is a real Trojan Horse for Fee Demo. You will remember it is supposed to be a "model" for future use, very probably for the rest of the national forests and BLM districts, to essentially privatize these lands and make them inaccessible to the average American.
However, these public lands are our lands as Woody Guthrie was wont to say, they do NOT have to be a "working environment" or have to make a profit. They just have to be there, for you and me.
SUBVERSIVE BIRD WATCHING
The Fee Demonstration Program can be defeated! This heartening news is spreading all across the U.S.
Fee Demonstration is an insidious program to make you pay twice for what you already own, very much like the definition of a consultant as a person "Who borrows your watch to tell you what time it is--and keeps your watch".
It would be bad enough to charge you an entry fee to forest and BLM lands that you already own, but there is considerable evidence that the "Fee Demo" may be the "thin wedge" that can be used by Greedheads to privatize federal land (No! Not "Federal" land, YOUR land!)
This is double taxation! Jesus Christ Himself had no objection to taxation (Render unto Caesar etc.") but He never paid the Roman Forest Service for a permit to go water walking on the Sea of Galilee!
The Bad Guys have tried to marginalize opposition to "Fee Demo" by inferring that opponents were the usual "tree-huggin' Eastern liberal wimps that are forever makin' trouble for us hard workin' Westerners.
However, a recent editorial in the conservative (some might say reactionary) TIMES-NEWS of Twin Falls in the conservative (some might say reactionary) state of Idaho seems to indicate that the grass root support for fee demo is drying up.
To wit:
Wednesday, June 25,2003 TIMES-NEWSOnly one way to protest forest fees: Don't pay.
We'll say this again: if you visit the Sawtooth, don't buy a permit. If the Forest Service writes you a parking ticket, don't pay the fine.
Three cheerful owl-hoots for the Ketchum and Hailey City councils. They've taken a stand against odious admission fees in the Sawtooth National Forest.
We'll suggest the next step a little later. Keep reading.
The Sawtooth forest has required parking permits at selected trailheads for the past several years, as part of a national fee program. Banners across Ketchum and Hailey's main streets have exhorted hikers to buy the permits.
No longer. Both towns recently banned the banners. Hurrah.
We've said this before and we'll say it again: If you're planning to visit The Sawtooth, don't buy a permit. If the Forest Service writes you a parking ticket, don't pay the fine.
Promoting civil disobedience is an unusual position for this newspaper, but this fee program is both insulting and dishonest.
In general, the basic idea of user fees is perfectly legitimate. There's nothing wrong with asking specific users of specific services to help pay specific costs.
But these fees aren't like that. The Forest Service wants you to pay for the mere privilege of walking in your own national forest--a forest that you already support with your taxes.
Further, this pay-to-plod program relies on insidiously circular logic. The Forest Service brass say the fee program is experimental. It's designed to see whether people will pay. Yet they also say the fees are mandatory.
In other words, they force you to pay. And when you pay, they count you as a supporter! That's the kind of coercive democracy you'd find in Castro's Cuba. No wonder the Forest Service can smugly assert that the fees are widely accepted.
The banner bans in Ketchum and Hailey are a noble gesture. But they're no match for the political and bureaucratic steamroller behind these fees. Unless we want permanent turnstiles in our woods, Idahoans should unite in forceful opposition.
That includes our congressional delegation--especially U.S. Senator Larry Craig, whose waffling on this issue is a continuing disappointment.
So we have a suggestion for Hailey's Scott Phillips, the Forest Service retiree who is gamely fighting the fees. How about organizing a "Costin' Fee Party"? One Saturday this summer, invite Idaho taxpayers to the trailheads for a relaxing protest hike, Pass out buttons that say, "I already paid. Invite elected officials from all levels of government. Schedule it during the congressional recess, so our senators and representatives can take part. If a dignitary doesn't want to risk a fine, he can hitch a ride to the trailhead.
But remember this: Nobody has ever been prosecuted for not buying a permit. Not one person. That's because federal lawyers have bigger fish to fry than backwoods parking tickets. That means the fee program is toothless. Idahoans are free to register their opposition by not paying.
If enough of us do that, maybe Congress and the Forest Service will get the message."
Bravo TIMES-NEWS!
Now neighbors, civil disobedience is a time honored American weapon against injustice, dating back to opposition to "The Intolerable Acts" in pre-revolutionary America, through Henry David Thoreau, to the sit-ins of the Civil Rights era.
It works well against people who have sewn up the legislature and most of the judiciary and who smugly say "You must do this because we say you must do this." After proving that "we" is not necessarily "us" by massive disobedience of their "regulations," they usually back down.
Your kindly editor suggests the possibility of "Subversive Bird Watching" this summer at our new Valle Grande Caldera National Preserve. (The one we paid 100 million dollars for and is currently off limits, except to, maybe, closely guarded hikers paying upwards of $40 a crack.) We would simply take sandwiches, the appropriate Peterson guide, binoculars, a reporter from the Santa Fe NEW MEXICAN, and climb over the fence into our own property and spend a pleasant morning bird watching. What could be more innocent?
If you are interested in such an outing, you can e-mail me at Thunderbear@erols.com or if you're a bit paranoid and don't want to leave a trail, you can call me at 301-933-6931. (Who knows, possession of Binoculars and Peterson's guides could become subversive!)
SHOULD FRAN RESIGN AND IF SO, WHY?
Political appointees play an interesting role in a modern democracy. A legacy from the old Spoils System, they serve as a conduit between the Executive Branch of the democratically elected Administration and the Civil Service.
The political appointee must be partisan (otherwise, what's the point?) and should be honest and knowledgeable (very much like you and I) and in addition, they should be filthy rich (very much unlike you and I). Why filthy rich?
Unless one is a practicing Buddhist, the advantages of being rich are too numerous and self evident to enumerate. Among the chief benefits is the ability to tell SOB's to go to hell, that you don't need this job.
Childish? Irresponsible? Adolescent? Perhaps, but it must be an exhilarating, empowering feeling to know that you can walk into the boss's office anytime and tell him/her to take this job and shove it and that you and your family will not experience an economic Dunkirk. You can ride the high horse of selfless devotion to the common good without the inconvenience of starving to death.
Take the case of Christi Todd Whitman, late of the Environmental Protection Agency. She is an Old Money Eastern Aristocrat who grew up on the family estate, Pontefract, in New Jersey. Her father served as a political appointee in the diplomatic corps under Eisenhower, which provided her with a French education and even more polish. She graduated from Wheaton college, majoring in government and married Walter Todd, who was also rich (and brave: two Bronze stars from Viet Nam) she inherited the family tradition of j j and she dabbled enough in Republican politics that she became New Jersey's first woman governor.
Although not particularly charismatic, Christi Todd Whitman is the cutest Republican going, with a winning smile and great cheekbones. More to the point, unlike the typical terrifying Western neanderthals that Republican administrations usually appoint to fill environmental positions, she is unthreatening.
Regarded as an environmental "moderate", Whitman is no Bullmoose. Although she did oversee the setting aside of a million acres of green space in her crowded, congested, and polluted state, she felt the need to waffle on a number of critical environmental issues. However, compared to the alternatives, Bush's appointment of Governor Whitman to head the Environmental Protection Agency was regarded by environmental groups as the least destructive of his appointments.
Not too many months into her appointment, Whitman began to have doubts of whether she could get even "moderate" environmental goals past this administration. What to do? As an aristocrat, you give the job your best shot. If that doesn't work then noblesse oblige kicks in and you tender your resignation. (Unless you need the job and the money, in which case you keep your mouth shut and just show up.)
Governor Whitman obviously didn't need the money and tendered her resignation. Now Christi Todd Whitman is first and foremost, a lady of good breeding, and a lady does not make a scene and does not embarrass people, not even George W. Bush. Therefore, her letter of resignation was a model of diplomacy and circumspection. She did not state:
"Dear Mr. President: Either you are an environmental cretin with the moral I.Q. of a tumbleweed, or you are a naive bumpkin deceived by some of the most pusillanimous, mendacious greedheads ever to gain control of the US government since the days of the Robber Barons. As I have neither the time nor the interest to determine which is the case, I therefore tender my resignation effective June 30."
Rather, as a well bred gentlewoman, she thanked the President for the opportunity to serve the administration and the American people. She then listed her somewhat modest accomplishments as Chief of the EPA, notably reduction in off road diesel emissions (a bigger problem than you may have thought); insisted that General Electric clean up their PCB's in the Hudson River; supported a Clean School Bus Initiative that would reduce school bus emissions by the year 2010; Made improvements on allowable factory farm runoff; Supported the passage of new brownfields legislation (rehabing abandoned and contaminated factory lands); and perhaps most importantly, helped assure that the nation's chemical plants and water treatment facilities were protected against terrorism in the wake of 9/ll.
She stated that the reason she was resigning was that she "was homesick for New Jersey". (After all the comedians' jokes about the New Jersey quality of life, I am pleased she was able to say this with a straight face, even on television!)
This brings us to the subject of whether NPS Director Fran Mainella should follow the lead of Christie Todd Whitman and resign from her position.
First of all, one must ask, does Fran have any REASON for resigning? It may well be that things are going EXACTLY as Ms Mainella planned. She may well believe, along with the Cato Institute, that the privatization of the National Parks is a good thing and that the elimination of some or all of the National Park staff is also desirable. In which case, she would be foolish to resign as things are going swimmingly! (You go, girl!)
If on the other hand, she has some doubts about the environmental and land management ethic of the current administration, then she does have a problem. As we have said, it is indeed nice to be if not filthy rich, then at least dingy rich. One can set one's moral course without trimming sail to fit the economic winds of everyday life.
Now Ms Mainella did not grow up riding to the hounds in New Jersey or skiing in France and Switzerland. She had the usual middle class upbringing very much like you and I. This means mortgages, children's tuition and orthodontia, shopping for food bargains at COSTCO, and so on. Like you and I, Fran turned out rather well, except she doesn't have much money. In short, unlike the Republican mayor of New York City who works for one dollar a year, Ms Mainella undoubtably cashes her paycheck and spends it on herself (or her creditors), just like you and I.
This means that like most middle class people she has to consider the economic consequences of taking a noble stand on an issue. While Fran will not be dumpster diving in national parks for her next meal if she resigns, there will be some economic consequences. This fact of life would make her resignation more noble and heroic than that of Christi Todd Whitman. Fran's next job will probably not be quite as interesting, nor will she meet as varied and colorful mix of people that one meets as Director of the National Park System. Still, one would hope that like most middle class folks, even you and I, that she has prepared herself for life after the NPS.
Perhaps it is getting to be that time.
So, if Fran is not particularly interested in the destruction of the National Park System as we know it, is there any other reason, aside from economic, for not resigning in polite protest?
Well, Fran could use the "Thomas Jefferson Defense." That is, if Mr. Jefferson did not own slaves, they would be owned by someone who was a lot less kind and gentle and who would not have their welfare at heart. Ergo it was best for all concerned that Mr. Jefferson owned X number of slaves.
Using this reasoning, if Fran were to resign, she would be replaced by someone even worse.
Like who? Well possibly James Watt would be willing to come out of retirement and become Director of the Park Service just for the pure billy Hell of terrorizing environmentalists. Then again, who knows? It would not be Fran's problem
Therefore, if Fran does not believe in the privatization of the national parks and the gutting of its work force, then she will have to write a polite letter of resignation.
We will be glad to help.
Fran Mainella has an advantage over Christi Todd Whitman in that the National Park system is a lot older than the Environmental Protection Agency and thus has generated a whole library of pungent and reflective quotations on parks and the environment from people as diverse as Bernard De Voto, Wallace Stegner, Edward Abbey, and John Muir that can give body and punch to any letter of resignation.
Thus after thanking President Bush for giving her the opportunity of working for the betterment of the national parks and serving the American people, Fran could note a growing homesickness for Florida coupled with a desire not to travel the road presently indicated by the administration. She could conclude with a quotation from John Muir on the subject of parks.
"The making of gardens and parks goes on with civilization all over the world, and they increase both in size and number as their value is recognized...nevertheless. they have always been subject to attack by despoiling gain-seekers and mischief-makers of every degree from Satan to Senators, eagerly trying to make everything immediately and selfishly commercial."
Such a quote would warm the cockles of President Bush's heart. You go, girl!