UPDATE ON FRAN'S RESPONSE
 | Now neighbors, you will remember from issue #255 of THUNDERBEAR, that my wife, Joan, wrote the Director of the National Park Service concerning an environmental practice of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service that the National Park Service might find useful in its own interpretive and environmental efforts.
To refresh your memory, we will reprint Joan's letter to Director Mainella. |  |
| Dear Director Mainella,
Over the years, my husband and I have visited many of our parks and monuments. As a univerity professor, I have always been most impressed with the educational quality of your visitor centers. I did not think they could be surpassed in making one think. However, you may have a rival in the visitor centers of your sister agency, the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service. When we visited the Fish and Wildlife vistor center at Chincoteague Wildlife Refuge we found that they were selling of all things, bags of coffee! I thought this a strange thing for a visitor center to be selling and said so to the person on duty. I received a lesson in ecology. It seems that many of the song birds we know and love here in the United States winter and/or nest in the tropical forests. Many of these forests are being cleared to make for large plantations of quick growing sun tolerant coffee. This of course destroys the habitat of our migratory songbirds as they have no place to shelter or nest. However, some coffee, the less productive (but tastier) variety can be grown in the shade of tropical forest trees, usually by small scale farmers. Certain ecologically minded coffee companies encourage this by marketing "green"or shade grown coffee. The Fish & Wildlife Service in turn encourages this enterprise by selling the coffee in their visitor centers. (This is apparently nation wide as we have bought coffee in Fish & Wildlife visitor centers in Maryland and North Carolina.) Not only does it help a worthy cause, but it provides an invaluable teaching tool to educate the public on the interdependence of man and nature. I am surprised that the National Park Service visitor centers have not adopted the practice of selling of environmentally friendly coffee to the public as the national parks host many of the same migratory bird species. (The Fish & Wildlife Service also sells environmentallly friendly chocolate bars made from cacao beans grown in an ecologically sound manner.) I hope your agency can soon implement this very useful environmental teaching tool. If there are any rgulatory problems, please let me know and I'll contact my congressman. Sincerely, Dr.Joan Rubin |
 | Now friends, the Director of the the National Park Service is a very busy person what with the chore of outsourcing your jobs, getting rid of Chief Chambers, deciding whether God creatied the Grand Canyon in 4,000 or 4 million years, and many other pressing tasks. Therefore, it is understandable that she would delegate the job of answering the letter to the Chief of Interpretation, the honorable Charles Mayo.
Mr. Mayo's reply is as follows |
| Dear Dr. Rubin:
Your letter of December 1, 2003 to National Park Service Director Fran Mainella has been forwarded to my office for response. Thank you for your positive comments about the education programs of the National Park Service visitor centers. As program Manager for Interpretation and Education Division, I work daily with the 4,000 National Park Service rangers and the public on providing quality educational opportunites. I am pleased to hear that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is so successful in its mission to educate visitors at Chincoteague Wildlife Refuge and the other sites you visited. There are also outlets at National Park Service sites that supprt sustainable practices. The Warming Hut, a café and bookstore in Golden Gate National Park celebrates the theme of environmental sustainablility. The building has been renovated using "green" products such as recycled denim cotton wall insulation, formaldehyde-free cabinetry, water-based paints and sealants and certified or salvaged wood for floors and furniture. The Warming Hut's café and bookstore feature organically grown items including shade grown coffees and products from recycled materials. The coffee beans are made avaiable for retail sale. The National Park Service does not have a servicewide interpretive program for the sale of shade grown coffees because food sales are generally conducted by our contracted concessioner operators. Many of these operators are using "green"practices for everything from using low flow plumbing to decrease water usage to more environmentally friendly cleaning supplies. By way of this letter, I will forward your letter to the National Park Hospitality Association. The association is the national trade organization of the busineses that provide lodging, food servies, gifts and souvenirs, equpment rentals, transporation and other visitor services in the National Park System. We encourage the parks to use ecologically sound practices and have made progress in this area on several fronts. Again, thank you for sharing your ideas and experiences with us. Sincerely, Charles Mayo |
Now neighbors, you can tell Mr. Mayo has been in interpretation for quite some time as that was some of the most artful dodging around a question as I have seen in government service.
Joan's question was not if there was a single example of environmentalism by a cooperating association in the National Park Service, but rather if the NPS had considered selling environmetally friendly products in the visitor centers operated by the National Park Service itself (As is the case with the Fish & Wildlife service.)
Virtually every NPS unit, no matter how small, has some sort of contact station or visitor center. Some of the larger parks might have half a dozen or more. Your editor does not know the exact number of NPS visitor centers or contact stations but suspects that it must be around 400. As for the single "success" story cited, It would not be unusual for a park in the liberal, left wing San Francisco Bay Area to have an environmentally aware cooperating association. In fact, you would probably have to use clubs and tear gas to stop them! However, many parks (and hence visitor centers) are located in parts of the nation that might charitably be characterized as environmentally unaware. The NPS has a real missionary duty to bring the light of the environmental gospel to these benighted regions. (In fairness, the new Marsh-Billings-Rockefeller National Historical Park in Vermont tells the history of the conservation movement in the U.S. and I understand, has an outstanding sustainable use program. It would be nice if rest of the NPS would take an inerest in the environment.)
The Fish and Wildlife service is able to do this sort of low pressure preachng in its visitor centers, so why can't we?
Well now, neighbors, this is where life gets complicated. There are probably several reasons; perhaps Mr. Mayo was desperately trying to tell us something without jeopardising his job! Let's take one sentence and read between the lines. According to Mr. Mayo : "The National Park Service does not have a servicewide interpretive program for the sale of shade grown coffees because food sales are generally conducted by our contracted concessions operators.
"Contracted Concessioners" is the key phrase, neighbors. It means that the fast talking, hard bargaining buccaneers that run the park "concessions" (Always wondered who did the conceding!) have a hammerlock on what the NPS can sell in its own visitor centers! As a devout Bullmoose Republican, I could care less how many tons of Chinese tourist schlock the park concessioner sells in his own store, but I find it monopolistic that he should be able to insinuate his dime squeezing fingers into the NPS visitor center to prevent the sale of what is essentially an environmental and interpretive product.
Now neither the park concession nor the Park Service are going to enrich themselves through the sale of environmentally and morally sound coffee and chocolate, but it is the principle of the thing as the folks over at Fish and Wildlife seem to understand.
As noted, the Fish & Wildlife visitor centers also sell rain forest friendly chocolate bars as well as environmentally friendly coffee. Like coffee, Cacao (the source of chocolate) can be maximized by clear cutting the rain forest and planting the cacao trees in huge plantations that require large amounts of chemical insecticides, herbicides and fertilizer to remain "profitable" to the detriment of every other living thing in the area.
Industrial cacao production has an added, cruel twist. It lends itself to child slavery. According to the folks who keep track of such things, an estimated 25,000 to 40,000 African children are enslaved each year to help get in the crop. In addition to seeing to the welfare of birds, the US Fish & Wildlife service insists that the chocolate in its candy be slave free. (The Department of Defense and the US Army were recently embarassed when they could not gurantee that the chocolate included in the army's famed MRE rations was slavery free!)
So what can you do?
Well, as one famous Texan observed "This is not rocket surgery!" All you have to do is get on the magic internet and type in "Rain Forest friendly coffee"or "environmentally friendly chocolate" should you not like the products or prices of the Thanksgiving Coffee Company or their chocolate counterpart, the Day Chocolate Company.
These various companies will be glad to supply your park or cooperating association with the necessary information. If your order is big enough, several of these companies will provide you with your own blend and label (You could, for example, be the first park on your block to market "Bullmoose Coffee" with a picture of the old Rough Rider on the bag along with his pithy comments on environmental preservation and his observations on the "malefactors of great wealth" as well as his accomplishments as a conservationist.
On the other hand, if you happen to work in a park that has made a devil's bargain with the park concessioner which forbids you to do any environmental education with foodstuffs, you can contact your most obedient servant, your kindly editor and we will in turn contact some interested Washington DC parties to see if we can't get your "concession" to mind its own damn business while you mind the environment.
I rather suspect Jim Walters received the same kind of non answer to his letter inquring about the state of NPS wilderness from Mainella or one of her minions. Should Mr. Walters not find the answering letter satisfactory, we would feel priviledged to publish his comments.
WHISTLEBLOWING IN HISTORY
In the past few months, the National Park Service has had its share of whistleblowers, those hardy, thick skinned folks who do not hestitate to point out to their superiors or anyone who will listen that the organization is headed for swift and sure disaster due to corruption or incompetence.
We had "Ranger Jane" up in the Northeast, who notified her superintendent that the Chief Ranger was doing nothing the live long day but downloading pornography on his government computer. Then there was Robert "Action"Jackson, the Yellowstone seasonal who would tell anyone who would listen that politically well connected outfitters were using salt to bait elk out of the park and causing collateral loss of grizzley bears, an endangered species. Finally, there was Teresa Chambers, Chief of the Park Police, who protested in public that she did not have the staff or funds to do the additional work assigned to her unit.
Now were these whistleblowers immediately rewarded for pointing out these dangers and deficiencies?
No, they were immediately crucified.
Why?
Interesting question! While it takes a mighty big supervisor to say "Thank you, Bertha! You have revealed unto myself and all concerned that I am a managerial nitwit!
However, the timely information you have provided will enable us to save the park! Congratulations and Huzzah! "
This usually doesn't happen. Instead, all park, regional, and national resources are instantly marshalled to crucify the whistleblower.
Now this is strange. If a well meaning, trusting, naïve government employee has stumbled on to something, this usually means that a cynical, suspicious NY TIMES or WASHINGTON POST reporter, trained and skilled in the arcane art of muckraking, is only a few months or even weeks behind the whistleblower in discovering the awful truth. Therefore, it would seem useful for the supervisor to profusely thank the whistleblower (an incentive award might be in order!) and everyone present a united front in solving the problem.
This rarely seems to be the case. In the haste and confusion of trying to crucify the whistleblower, NPS management invariably ends up nailing themselves to the cross, along with the whistleblower,where they all dangle, subject to editorial derision by liberal newspaper editors who are forever speculating in print on how the NPS obtains and promotes such stupid administrators.
How does this happen? Perhaps we should study a famous case from the annals of whistleblowing:
In the year 1707. A British fleet was returning to England after a glorious victory that won the great fortress of Gibraltar for Great Britain. The fleet was led by Sir Cloudsley Shovel, Admiral of the Red (real name, neighbors, I'm not making this up!) in his flagship the 74 gun ship of the line, HMS Association.
The fleet was in the western approaches to the English Channel, several days sailing from theBritish naval base at Portsmouth where Sir cloudsley was to be received with great honor by the king himself. The sea was relatively calm with a light off shore breeze, but there was a dense fog so thick that it was difficult to discern the following ships in the fleet and then only by the ghostly glow of the battle lanterns, seemingly suspended in mid air.
A less confident, more cautious commander might have hove to, and let the fog burn off,
Not sir Cloudsley Shovel! It was just such confidence and daring that allowed him to prevail against much stronger enemies! He would not be denied the king's honors by being weather timid. Besides, he was one of the acknowledged masters of the art of Dead reckoning navigation, the form of navigation used by european seamen to calculate position at the time, and Sir Cloudsley calculated his fleet to be safely in the middle of the English channel.
High up in the rigging above Sir Cloudsley, a lone whistleblower was shortly to disagree with the admiral of the Red. He was a foretopman, the Royal Navy equivalent of a GS-3 in the National Park Service. Like most whistleblowers, he did not start out to be a whistleblower, but circumstances gave him no choice. He had been posted in the rigging to supplement the usual lookouts in case there was a break in the fog and well as provide an extra pair of ears to listen for surf breaking.
But our whistleblower had other senses and what they told him chilled his heart. There was something on the wind. He began to detect a faint, familiar odor from his childhood. What was it? Then memories flooded in and filled him with dread: The kelp pits of Scilly! Our whistleblower was a native of the Scilly Islands, a cluster of rocky, dangerous islands off the Cornish peninsula at the entrance to the English Channel, The people of the islands burned seaweed to make fertilizer, and the burning kelp created a unique, unforgettable odor that immediate brought back memory of place.
The smell meant they were steering directly toward the rocks of Scilly! There was not a moment to lose! He must notify his superiors! He slid down the ratlines and aproached the officer of the deck. (So far, so good. He was going through the chain of command like a good whistleblower should. No grandstanding, no running around the ship, yelling "WE'RE ALL BLEEPING DOOMED! WE'RE GOING ON THE ROCKS! )The officer of the watch was skeptical, but passed our whistleblower onto a bored lieutenant. The lieutenant thought it a very good story, but that as long a our whistleblower had not seen anything or heard anything, the nose thing must have been the product of ignorant superstition. Like most whistleblowers, our foretopman was getting impatient as he had the valuable, all important field knowledge of the problem but not the rank to do something about it.
He asked permission to stand below the Quarterdeck. Permission was granted. (Our whistleblower was still going through correct procedures!) Now the quarterdeck was where the officers stood. No seaman was allowed on the quarterdeck: that would mean mutiny. The quarter deck was about 6 feet above the main deck, so that the ship's officers could keep an eye on everything. Standing below the quarterdeck to state your grieveance or make a suggestion was very dangerous business in the 18th century British Navy. You automatically risked demotion, flogging, keelhauling or worse for suggesting that everything was not hunky-dory on one of His Majesty's ships. Understandably, few availed themselves of the "privilege".
Our whistleblower dedided to take the risk.
He stated his opinion on the fleet's position to Sir Cloudsley, Admiral of the Red. The Admiral was apoplectic. He could understand a request for more water or more bread, but to have his professonal competence questioned by ruffian foretopman! Well!
Our whistleblower begged Sir Cloudsley to consider the possibility that his calculations could possibly be in error,that a course change might be in order or at least the fleet hove to until the fog cleared.
At this point, our whistleblower made a fatal error. In the emotion of his argument, he happened to rest his hand on one of the planks of the quarterdeck to steady himself. He had touched the quarterdeck! Mutiny!
Sir Cloudsley ordered the marines to seize our whistleblower and hang him. (If you can detect a resemblance between Sir Cloudsley and a certain NPS official, you would make a good historian.)
After the hanging, Sir Cloudsley ordered more sail bent on to increase speed. It was to be his last order. The flagship went onto the Scilly rocks as the whistleblower had predicted. The rest of the fleet, dutifully following the lanterns of the ship in front of it, soon joined the flagship on the rocks.
It was one of the worst disasters in British maritime history. 2,000 men were drowned. But not Sir Cloudsley.
Somehow, perhaps clinging to wreckage, he was carried through the rocks and surf onto the beach. Totally soaked by the cold Channel sea and hyperthermic, he collapsed on the shingle just above tideline and awaited his fate. It was not long in coming.
Out of the fog materialized a woman, a fisherman wife. Perhaps Sir Cloudsley thought she was a ministering angel. He weakly raised his hand. Bad move. The woman caught the glint of his gold and emerald ring. She then did what many a person in her social station in 18th century England would do. She picked up a large rock, dropped it on Sir Cloudsley's head and then bit off his swollen finger to get the ring. Not a bad end for a stubborn snob.
Now was any thing learned? Well, no and yes. The British government did not pass a whistleblowers protection act, but they did offer the eqivalent of a 2 million dollar prize to the person who develop a means of calculating longitude to prevent another such disaster. The problem was finally solved shortly before the American Revolution.
However, the spirit of Sir Cloudley Shovel is still with us! Resolute in face of evidence to the contrary! Stalwart in vindictiveness! Indifatable in ignorance! Sir Cloudsley is the very model of a certain type of NPS executive! He shall not have died in vain!
We at THUNDERBEAR humbly propose the annual Sir Cloudsley Shovel Award to the Federal Land Management executive who best personifies the Sir Cloudsley Approach in dealing with whistleblowers. The winner will be decided by an impartial panel convened by PEER.
THE CELESTIAL BEAR
Flying Bears rarely appear on the Washington public transit.
It is not that flying bears are not environmentally aware. Indeed the environment or rather the maintenance of the planet is the main reason for the existence of flying bears. So, flying bears, particularly Thunderbear, take the Metro whenever possible. The operative word is "appear".
To avoid mass panic on a crowded Metro train, Thunderbear remains politely invisible. Except of course, to your kindly editor. I could see him quite well, sprawled over most of the "priority seating" which the Metro folks had set aside for the benefit of the handicapped and elderly. The Great Bear interpreted "priority seating" as being reserved for visiting celestial bureaucrats like himself,
He was nearly ten feet tall and looked to weigh around a thousand pounds having grown a bit since I had last seen him. He was smartly turned out in boots, green pants, gray shirt, black Aussie style hat, back pack, and his trademark crossed bandoliers which carried cans of his favorite beer (though he was commendably scrupulous about obeying the Metro rules forbidding eating or drinking on the Metro trains) His great 28 foot fur lined wings with their glowingly irridescent feathers were folded neatly behind him.
Thunderbear is an extremely gregarious flying bear and struck up an animated conversation with me immediately after he appeared. Until recently, this was a source of considerable embarassment. Prior to the invention of the cell phone, I had no choice but to laugh, grin, and babble to an apparently empty seat across the aisle. This caused my fellow Metro passengers to move nervously to the other end of the car or even get off before their station.
However, I now find an unactivated cell phone to be an excellent prop. Upon the appearance of the Great Bear, I merely put the device to my ear and carry on a loud, one sided conversation, appearing no more abnormal than the average Washington commuter. I heartily recommend this gambit to anyone who has an unseen visitor.
Thunderbear was not his usual, jovial self. He appeared morose, yet determined, as if an unpleasant challenge awaited him.
Characteristically, he cut to the chase immediately.
"I want my book!" he said.
"What book?" I replied, trying to remember if the Great Bear had loaned me a book.
"You promised me "The Celestial Bear", he said reproachfully.
Ah yes! "The Celestial Bear". Promises! They can be so inconvenient! I had indeed promised the Great Bear that someday I would compile all of Thunderbear's stories of his life in the Celestial Civil Service, a book that would explain how the Universe worked, What God was like, What you do on an average day after you're dead, Sex in the Next World (Are the Moslems and Mormons in for a surprise?) and other things of interest to the general public.
The fact was that I had forgotten clean about it and rather hoped that he had also. The problem with the memoirs of a civil servant, even one working directly for God, is that they tend to be self-serving, inflating their own importance, explaining away their defeats or malfeasances, while slyly deflating or defaming the accomplishments of their rivals. I knew that Thunderbear had great admiration and respect for the Archangel Michael, but very little time for the Archangel Gabriel, whom he regarded as a pushy opportunist having gotten himself mentioned more times in the Koran and the Bible than any other angel. I also knew that the Great Bear would try to justify or explain maintenance failures that occurred on his watch: The total extinction of God's favorite creatures, the dinosaurs, the spectacular failure of the carbon recycling program during the Pennsylvanian geological epoch, the unstable climate, the unpredictable Ice ages the drifting continents and so on. In short, Thunderbear's memoirs would be about as free from bias and self incrimination as a Henry Kissinger autobiography.
But a promise was a promise. I could at least say that I would try to have "The Celestial Bear" published.
"I don't want you to try", the Bear said grimly, "I want you to succeed!"
Before I could reply, a 300 pound Black lady in a pink flowered dress sat down on Thunderbear. This would occasionally happen even though both of us preferred to travel during non rush hours and there were plenty of empty seats. Although the Great Bear is invisible, he is tangible. Sooner or later, every passenger who sat on Thunderbear would get a vague presentment that they were sitting on something. Looking puzzled, they would then get up and often stare fixedly at the apparently empty seat before moving on to another seat. This has led to the belief that certain cars on the Metro are haunted, an idea that Metro pooh-poohs as an urban legend.
The Great Bear politely stops talking when someone is sitting on him as it would require me to talk directly at (and through) the person, alarming them even more.
Presently, the Black lady rose with surprising agility and a puzzled backward glance.
The interruption gave me a moment to think.
" Of course we shall succeed!" I said soothingly, "But you must understand that it may go slowly!"
"Why would that be the case?" He asked suspiciously.
I patiently explained the publishing cycle to The Great Bear. "You are a first time author. This means we must find you what is called an "agent". The agent will take your book to various publishers, most of whom will not like it, but after months or years, the agent will find a publisher who will print and sell your book. You will then pay the agent 15% of what you make on the book."
"I am a pure spirit!" The Bear said with dignity, "I am not interested in money!"
"Agents are not pure", I answered with equal simplicity, " And they will want their 15%, believe me."
The Bear's eyes gleamed slyly "Well, why don't you take the book to the publishers?"
"Because I am not an agent!" I explained patiently. (These "Which came first, the chicken or the egg arguments always irritated the Great Bear and I was pained to hear the metro seat upholstery rip as Thunderbear raked it with his claws in frustration).
"Then get your National Park Service to publish "The Book of the Bear"! Thunderbear said righteously.
"The National Park Service doesn't publish books," I explained." It buys them from publishers and then resells them in its visitor centers. Moreover, the book titles are pretty much confined to the history or natural history of the area. The National Park Service does not sell books on religion or philosophy, which, I am afraid, is how " The Celestial Bear" would be classified", I said with the growing confidence of someone getting off the hook.
"Not so!" the Bear said triumphantly "There's that Vail chap up in Grand Canyon! He has a book he's making the Park Service sell that says the Canyon is only 3,000 years old and that Noah's flood made it! If the Park Service can sell that book, they can sell anything! They can sell my book, and my book is the gospel truth!" The Bear exclaimed with unconscious irony.
The "Vail chap". Who was he? I raked my long and short term memory banks for an answer. The answer came to me. Tom Vail was a sort of standard issue Colorado river guide, taking folks on raft trips down the America's most famous white water river thrugh Grand Canyon National Park. For years, he had lived the quasi-sinful life of a river guide, but then one day, he found Jesus. I don't recall if Vail said Jesus came along on a raft trip or not, but the thought of Christ on vacation is appealing ("How come that guy with the beard and white robe isn't wearing a life jacket! Who the hell does He think he is!") The point is, that Vail did indeed find Jesus and renounced his sinful, pre Christian ways.
Some of these pre Christian ways was the Gospel according to the US Geological Survey. Most of the rafting companys provided a narrative that was more or less in line with the ideas of the USGS and is encouraged by the NPS. Vail was now able to offer an alternative: A Christian raft trip! This is what he proceeded to do. An upshot of Vail's rafting and Christian witnessing was, a very beautiful (from what I have been told) coffee table book, with hauntingly lovely photographs of the Grand Canyon, and a text that provides a literal biblical explanation of what you are seeing.
The National Park Service soon found itself in its customary position of being between a rock of agnostic geologists and a hard place of literal Christians. The agnostics didn't want the book sold in NPS bookstores, period. The Christians wanted it sold, he the science section as an "alternative" to the official evolutionary gospel.
The NPS proposed a compromise in which Vail's book could be sold in the "insprational" section of the park book store. Like most sensible compromises, this satisfied no one and enraged all.
Basically, this is where the Christian Rafter and the Park Service were at loggerheads, when the Great Bear further muddied the waters by demanding that his "Celestial Bear" also be sold at the South Rim.
We were nearing my station, Wheaton. and a blessed respite from Thunderbear.
Placing a heavy paw on my shoulder and looking me dead in the eye, the Bear warned "I want this to happen! Even if you have to use the Female Demon against the Park Service to get results, I want you to do it!"
"What Female Demon? I asked weakly.
"The Female Demon with but one name, but that one name inspires terror and dread in all your tribe, causing abject submission" The Bear said cryptically.
The Metro train hissed to a stop and the door slid open. I bolted for the station platform, turning to see Thunderbear framed and backlit by the train window, staring after me, enigmatically.
The train pulled away and I was left with my thoughts. What did the Great Bear mean by "The Female Demon with but one Name"? A Demon so fearsome that its very name conjured up terror!
I pondered this conundrum as I rode the escalator to topside Wheaton. Near the top of the escalator, it finally came to me.
The name of the Female Demon was Sue.(As in "I'll sue you for every cent you've got!) Although the Great Bear had haphazardly observed the evolution of the human race for more than 3 million years, he had not taken good notes and confused our legal system with some kind of witch craft or sorcery. The Female Demon indeed!
Thunderbear was correct about Americans fear of being sued. It was very much a lose-lose situation even when you won. Could I disuade the Great Bear from such a law suit ? Could an extraterrestial sue in an American court of law? I was not sure if the Supreme Court had ruled on that.
As I hurried home, yet another problem rushed to attend my banquet of worry. The lawsuit was a moot point as there was no "Celestial Bear" as in an Amazon.com paperback. Rather, the Great Bear's reports, commentaries, articles, and miscellaneous papers were scattered throughout my files, Would there be enough text to put together for a decent sized book that would not embarrass Thunderbear? I would have to see.
THE SAFETY MESSAGE
Aha! You've finally found the monthly safety message which justifies your use of a government computer to conjure up this collection of occasionally anti-administration remarks. Since new and improved computer software now allows your supervisor to track virtually every key stroke on a computer, putting a "Big Brother" face on employee monitoring, your supervisor may be curious about your interest in THUNDERBEAR..
Fortunately, Safety remains an NPS Holy Grail, a crucifix that can be held up to ward off an evil supervisor. You can just say that you waded through the extraneous material, loyally shaking with rage at scurrilous references to Norton, Mainella and The Bushmaster, finally arriving at the neutral oasis of " The Safety Message"
Issue # 256 raises a safety question rather than answers one:
The question is "Can a supervisor or other interested party forbid you from using safety equipment if there is the possibility that the use of the safety equipment may be construed as a political statement?"
The question arose when the entrance staff at Yellowstone National Park donned respirators (referred to as "gas masks" by the media) when they joyfully greeted the annual avalanche of snowmobiles.
An "interested party" in this case, the govenor of Montana, was outraged, claiming that a political statement was being made at taxpayer expense, using taxpayer provided equipment by government employees who were making an egregious, one sided environmental statement.
The Governor ridiculed the wussy park rangers (probably transplanted Easterners!) who were afraid of a little carcinogin in their lungs, hinting darkly that safety and health was not uppermost in their minds anyway! He believed that they were deliberately trying to embarrass the snow machine industry. (Both sides agreed that the rangers, looking like Praying Mantis' in their respirators, were a powerful photo op for those nasty Eastern newspapers. )
The rangers innocently said that while they certainly had absolutely no comment on the rights or wrongs of snowmobiles in Yellowstone, they simply had to wear respirators to do their jobs safely.
The pro snowmobile people interviewed the slack jawed, cigarette dangling intellects that maintain these machines and were told "A little exhaust won't hurt ya! We're around 'em all day and look at us!"
The Governor of Montana implied that the NPS had not heard the last of him, and that while he personally was not going to rip the respirator off the next ranger he saw, he was certainly going to ask if it was necessary to embarrass an entire industry in a national park.
So there!
Which brings us back to our original question: Can anyone force you into a health or life threatening situation for political reasons?
Interesting question, neighbors, and don't be too sure of the answer.
Not too long ago, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) an egregious left wing busybody organization, came within an ace of getting a law passed in New York City requiring pizza deliverymen to deliver pizza to any address requested, even into the bowels of that city's famed public housing,under penalty of stiff fines. The reason for the law was that certain citizens would feel discriminated against!
Fortunately, even liberals revolted at the idea of a law that would require the daily courage of a combat infantryman of a $5 dollar an hour (plus tips) Pizza deliveryman just to make a political point.
Thus, can a politician, supervisor, or other entity insist upon or deny the use of protective or defensive equipment or participation in a dangerous activity on the basis that it might be politically embarassing to do otherwise?
Interesting question!
If there has already been a legal answer, please let us know!
MEXICO
Now neighbors, the Washington, DC area has four months that it really doesn't need.
They are generally agreed to be December, January, February, and March. Some collectors of unpleasant climates would toss in August due to the oppressive heat and humidity which doesn't seem to deter the clogging, coagulating hordes of visitors to our nation's capitol.
The problem with a DC winter is its lack of ambition and slovenly shiftlessness. It doesn't really gloriously snow in DC. No ten foot snowdrifts, no cross country skiing, no snowmen in the parks and on lawns, no childrens' sledding parties, just week after depressing week of gun metal gray overcast interspersed with drizzing rain, with an occasional sneaky, treacherous ice storm that reminds one of the Bush administration. Then there is the cold and the darkness. DC cold is a wet, clammy cold that insinuates itself into everything it touches like a Greedhead Republican. The darkness can't be helped, God planned it that way, but you don't have to like it.
So, if it is all possible, you spare yourself DC for these four months.
My wife does this by being one of the few Americans who crosses the Mexican border to look for work, sort of an intellectual bracero (No, we don't end up picking lettuce in the fields of Sinaloa,) rather Joan takes a job as "visiting professor" at one of the Mexican universities) This is a very good gig, the pay is not corrupting, but will support you, and the climate, the glorious Mexican climate, is thrown in free. My job is to do all the heavy lifting and to observe the Mexican scene.
You might gently ask if this was entirely necessary as Mexico seemed to be getting along quite well without being observed by the Christian Bureaucrat. Good point! The reason for these observations is two fold: First, a study of the complex relationship between Mexico and the United States with an emphasis on the national parks and the environment, and secondly, a study of the expatriate life in Mexico. That is, can you retire to Mexico to work, study, or simply drink beer as a primary occupation?
This admittedly ambitious assignment will occupy several forthcoming issues of THUNDERBEAR and will provide free guidance to the U.S. State Department as well as provide you with practical information on visiting and living in the the Mexico of Today.
Joan and I caught the last flight out of Dulles before the airport was closed due to the coming of the next Ice Age. (I distinctly saw a small herd of wooly mammoth at the end of the runway thrown the swirling snow, but Joan says it was my imagination.)
The flight to Mexico City was non-stop and uneventful, a welcome bonus in these post 9/11 days. (There is always the slight pulse of adrenalin for the first few minutes of a flight originating in the DC area: the fear that some interested party might divert your flight into the White House or the Capitol building. Later, you could entirely relax in the sure knowledge that Osama was not going to waste a terrorist on Lubbock, Texas.)
We landed in the middle of Mexico City, about the same place that Charles Lindburgh landed 77 Years ago to inaugurate international air travel between the U.S. and Mexico (and, incidentally, woo and wed Anne Morrow, the daughter of the U.S. ambassador.)
We weren't supposed to land in the middle of Mexico City and the fact that we did is something of a tribute to Mexico's popular democracy. The governor of Mexico City wanted a bright, shiny new airport about 50 miles outside the City. However, the farmers 50 miles outside the City wanted to continue growing corn, beans, and squash, just like their ancestors had done for the past two millinia. Boeing 747's did not figure in their crop plans. The government had allocated a sum to money to make them "go away". It was not nearly enough, and besides, there were the principles of the Mexican Revolution. The police came, but so did the many supporters of the farmers. There was no blood bath. The police were firm, but so were the farmers and their friends. Finally, the government understood all parts of the word "No!" and the airport remains in the middle of the City and the farmers remain in their fields, a tribute to growing Mexican democracy.
We arrived in early evening, perhaps the best time to fly into a major city and Mexico City is about as major as you can get (population 20 million and rising) Mexico City normally hits you with the double whammy of high altitude (7,350 feet) and the dirtiest air in the Western hemisphere. Normally, it actually stings and burns and you can taste and feel the particles as each breath enters and leaves your assualted system. Tonight was different. While the City had not shrunk in elevation, you could actually see some of the stars, and the air was crisp and relatively clean, not unlike Santa Fe. Had the oft-trumpeted pollution solutions been implemented or had some sort of a weather front come through and damped down the dirt? We would see in the morning.
One of the neat things about the Concourse of the Mexico City Airport is that you can lurch into a tiny alcove where a private elevator hauls you off to the Marriott hotel and they put you to bed. I know this is cheating. You are supposed to hire an undocumented gypsy taxi to take you into a part of Mexico City where the police do not normally go, and put up at a $3.00 a night backpacker hotel "Where the real Mexicans go" (or at least the real Aussies, Germans and Israelis) I know you are supposed to do this, but I am getting too old for that crap. I needed a last hug from the First World. I needed a final sleep in an American cocoon where everything works before confronting a Mexico where things work on a conjectural, philosophical, and occasional basis.
We awoke the next morning to a glorious sunshiny day with sky as blue as talavera tile.
The television weather report from Washington,DC was delightfully schadenfreudish: Nearly six inches of snow had fallen so far, with promises of sleet and an ice storm! Such news always selfishly warms the cockles of a winter escapee's heart.
We had breakfast then moseyed back into the airport terminal to pick up a bus for Puebla. Wow! What a futuristic concept! Buses and planes in the same terminal! In the U.S. if you were so declasse as to want to take a bus to another city from say, Dulles or JFK, you would first have to take a taxi a very long distance to a seedy bus depot in a dodgy part of town! Not here in Mexico City. What made the Mexicans so bright?
The bus was one of those new Brazilian jobs with a good six foot square front window for a ring side view, so we made sure to capture the front seats. We motored easily and pleasantly through the second largest city on earth. Mexico City is not Paris, or even New York, but it is not the seventh level of Hell either. Some of the anal apertures among the "environmentalists" compare Mexico City to a termitarium, but these are not termites, they are 20 million humans, each very much an individual with a story to tell and skills to offer, able to problem solve as well as to consume: something that people like Lester Brown and Paul Erlich seem to ignore.
To some Americans, particularly those in the Southwest, Mexico City symbolizes a sort of demographic lahar, poised on the edge of the Mexican plateau, ready at the first economic crisis to liquify and come rolling across the border sweeping our culture, jobs, environment and language before it in a seething brown tide!
Pretty florid description?
Not if you're a populist-nativist! (We will call them PN for short) What do the PN stand for? It's probably easier to say what they're against. For starters, they hate Republicans because Republicans are against the "little guy". They are against corporations because they import immigrants and export jobs. They are vigorously "English only" (Another reason to hate George Bush, he did make the mistake of learning a second language!) They are desperately in favor of the Second Amendment, though the First is certainly open to interpretation. One thing that really, really upsets them is a "uniformed authority figure" (That would be you, ranger) They just flat out hate to be told what to do by a uniformed authority figure. They are against violence, absolutely! Yessiree! However, if you push 'em beyond the human breaking point (Like asking them for a driver's license ) well, they just might have to kill you.
On a positive note, the PN would support a number of subsidies that would help the "Little Guy" (Though it helps a whole bunch if the "Little Guy" turns out to be white and native born.)
All in all, PN is an updated version of the "Know Nothing" party of the 19th century, with the Mexicans substituting for the Irish as scapegoats. You will not be able to look up PN in your Tucson telephone directory, nor will you be able to attend a PN rally (yet). PN is more a roiling, festering state of mind than an organization. It seeks to infiltrate existing political parties, Democrats being the most vulnerable.
However, aside from the racism and implied threats, you can see the insidious appeal of PN. (The anti-Republican and anti-corporate rhetoric would get some of my liberal friends on board in a thrice!)
For this reason, PN has a certain following on the Border. Now most people know that the border is a wild, dangerous place where the Wild West never really ended. What most people don't know is that two fifths of the nearly 2,000 mile border is National Park land. That is, the NPS under its Organic Act of 1916 is charged with "Preserving and Protecting for the enjoyment of future generations" some of the most dangerous country in North America.
The danger is caused by two distinct problems, as different as apples and oranges. The first is drug smuggling. The smugglers, usually armed, are a danger to anyone, civilian or law enforcement that encounter them. The solution to this problem is domestic production of all drugs coupled with decriminalization and accessible treatment programs. For political and sociological reasons, this is not possible in the foreseeable future and the problem will continue.
The second problem is illegal entry for purpose of employment. The illegals are not usually armed and are a danger mainly to themselves due to exposure to the hostile desert environment or being shot by competing "coyotes" (guides). This problem can be solved with a guest worker program.
Not only would the safety of the workers be guaranteed by passage though normal check points, but the considerable environmental damage done to park land by unregulated passage would be greatly reduced.
Although the drug smuggling problem on the border remains intransigent for the forseeable future, the first tentative step toward solving the illegal immigration problem has been made by the Bush administration proposal for some type of guest worker program.
Naturally, this proposal has been greeted with alarm by the PN and their supporters who have decided to field a rather noisy candidate in the Arizona Democratic primary to challenge Republican Senator John McCain, a leading supporter of a guest worker program.
The candidate is one Liz Michael. She is not going to win, but it is worth examining her position to learn something about PN paranoia. She published her "platform" in an article called "Some Dare Call it Treason (GOT ROPE?) in an on line publication called THE SIERRA TIMES "An Internet publication for Real Americans". The article has circulated through the Southwest and elsewhere and indeed to NPS personnel where your editor picked it up.
Ms Michael blatantly plays both the race card and the class warfare card by claiming that illegal immigration is a plot by the Republicans and corporate interests to flood the nation with culturally sub standard Mexicans, destroying jobs, unions, the environment and so on and so forth.
She darkly wonders who is behind the $2,000 or more that Coyotes charge to get the individual immigrant over the border, Ms Michael's candidates for this conspiracy are US Corporate sponsorship or the Mexican Government or drug smugglers, or terrorists. (The actual truth and source of the money is more mundane: It came from the same source that financed the steamer tickets of your near indigent ancestors: life long savings, borrowing from relatives either here or in the Old Country, or loans (often usurous) based on projected future earnings.)
Ms Micheal begins and ends her tirade with prediction of revolution in both Mexico and the United States. To be fair, she does raise some real issues as populists often do. There are very serious problems with NAFTA, free trade and other nuevo Adam Smith gimmicks that has crippled Mexican agriculture and forced many Mexicans to "El Norte". The Bush Guest worker proposal is far too loaded in favor of the "host" or employer and would result in a form of peonage unless seriously amended.
Liz Michael is an interesting peek into the curious left wing-right wing mind set of the PN. If it is a rainy day in your park, or if you are contemplating a transfer to a border park, you just might want to type "Liz Michael" into the Google search slot. Liz is a hoot! She will give you a wild ride through contemporary paranoid border politics, ending with a color picture of Liz guarding the border with her shotgun.
Liz and the surrounding 20 million Mexicans she fears so much slipped out of my mind's eye as we began the ascent out the bowl of Mexico City.
The view from the pass was stupendous. All four of the great Mexican volcanos were visible and one was performing. A thin plume of steam bannered from the summit of 17,863 foot Popocatepetl, a Fuji-like cone. About 20 airline miles from Popo lay the slightly lower (17,338) but far more rugged sprawl of Ixtaccihuatl. Near Puebla, the pyramid of La Malinche rose to 14,628, the smallest of the four classic volcanos, but still higher than anything more than 100 kilometers away, Orizaba,in the lower 48 of the US. On the horizon, Mexico's highest peak loomed at 18,404
All the volcanos were freshly snowcapped and the sky was cleansed and reblued by the same storm that had dumped the snow. It was a sight you will not see every day.
( To be continued)