SKULL AND BONES
Most NPS personnel are familiar with the provisions of the North American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act or NAGPRA.
To refresh your memories, this 1990 Act, signed into law by President Bush the First, briefly states that grave goods are the property of the descendents of the deceased and are not the property of the grave robbers nor the universities or museums that the grave robbers work for, no matter how many Phds they might have or how prestigious the institution .
NAGPRA was a long overdue piece of legislation designed to rectify a long standing cultural insult and wrong to Native Americans: That is that their spiritual beliefs, grave sites, and even their very bones had no significance other than objects for "study" by the dominant culture.
For most of the life of our Republic, deceased Native Americans have been exhibited in glass cases, along with their possessions, a treatment not proposed for your Uncle Fred.
The times are a changing, however.
The Act requires institutions such as the Smithsonian and Harvard's Peabody Museum, and, of course, the National Park Service to seek out the tribal descendants of the folks in their collections and politely ask if they would like their ancestors returned.
Now NAGPRA applies only to institutions receiving federal funding, it does not apply to private "collections" or "collectors."
Which brings us to the question at hand:
Did Prescott Bush, founder of the Bush political dynasty, father of George the First and Grandfather of George the Second, break into the tomb of the Apache leader, Geronimo, chop off his head, and spirit it off for use in the rituals of an arcane secret society known as Skull and Bones?
Well now, neighbors, you must admit that IS an interesting question to bring up at your next staff meeting!
Now I am the first to admit that the whole idea of Prescott Bush "collecting" the skull of Geronimo sounds like a really bad take off on the DA VINCI CODE or some other historical fantasy. Just doesn't sound like something a Republican would do.
However, there are, as Lieutenant Columbo used to say, a few things that puzzle me..
It seems that Geronimo had been basically a Prisoner of War at Fort Sill, Oklahoma until his death in 1909. Although the fierce Apache leader had expressed wishes to be buried in the "acorn country" of Southern Arizona (probably around what is now Chiriacahua National Monument), the Army preferred to continue to keep him under lock and key, so to speak, in a rather impressive tomb in the Fort's cemetery, rather than risk even the remotest chance of living Apaches getting any ideas.
Flash forward to the present and we find that Apache tribal chairman Ned Anderson believes that his ancestor's bones should be repatriated to his native land.
The army sort of hemmed and hawed; it seemed that there would be difficulties.
In the meantime, Mr. Anderson received an unsolicited document purportedly written in 1933, describing how four young artillery officers, including Prescott Bush broke into Geronimo's tomb at Fort Sill in 1918 and helped Prescott Bush steal the head of Geronimo.
Understandably, Mr. Anderson was astounded and rather frightened.
In Apache culture, the only people who dig up human bones are witches who require them for witchcraft. This would infer that Prescott Bush was some kind of witch.
Not quite, but the Apache tribal chairman could be forgiven for noting a certain resemblance between Apache witchcraft beliefs and the rituals of Yale's Skull & Bones Society.
Skull & Bones is a secret society established at Yale University in 1832 by William Huntington Russell. Such societies were all the rage in the first half of the 19th century, both within Universities and without. They fed upon the very human need to feel important and the equally human suspicion that things are not as they seem. That secret, unknown cabals control government, industry, even religion, that nothing can get happen without the approval of the Council of the Elect or whatever they called themselves.
The idea of most of these secret societies, including Skull & Bones, was that they had a mission to help the human race progress by helping themselves progress. The idea that once a brother was confirmed as a ¨Bonesman,¨ all living members were compelled by oath to grease his way through life by providing introductions, inside information, fortuitous career preference and facilitation and "lucky" breaks. In short, an Old Boys' network with teeth (or in this case, with bones).
Although Skull & Bones is mysterious, there is no mystery about its influence. It very definitely is a powerful influence in the higher circles of business and governmental decision making. Bonesmen are selected in their junior year at Yale. Only 15 are selected each year. This means that on the average, there are only around 800 Bonesmen living at one given time. However, they certainly make up in clout what they lack in numbers. As previously mentioned, if you are selected, your position as one of America's movers and shakers is assured. Few if any turn down the opportunity.
But what creates such unswerving loyalty to Skull & Bones among the Bonesmen?
Enemies of the Society suggest darkly that it is the Initiation Ritual: That the participants perform deeds so dark that the society has the steel club of possible blackmail to keep members perpetually in line.
And what are these secret rituals? You ask breathlessly.
What were the things that Theodore Roosevelt, William Howard Taft, Gifford Pinchot and the whole Bush dynasty performed that kept them loyal to this secret society throughout their lives?
Well now, neighbors, as THUNDERBEAR is a family oriented environmental newsletter, I'm afraid that I must refer the truly prurient among you to an outside source. That would be SECRETS OF THE TOMB by Alexandra Robbins.
Ms Robbins is a recent graduate of Yale and a member of a rival secret society Scroll & Key. She decided for whatever mischievous reason, to unmask Skull & Bones. She did not tunnel into The Tomb. She simply interviewed Bonesmen, something that apparently had never occurred to our ace reporters all the live long years from 1832 to the present.
Most refused to talk to her. A few hinted darkly that it would be a shame if something unpleasantly physical happened to such a pretty girl. However, others cooperated freely. The picture that Ms Robbins draws does not suggest intelligence and maturity as a starting point in America's ruling class.
Indeed, as both recent contenders for the presidency, George W. Bush and John Kerry, were both Bonesmen, if they performed the antics listed by Ms Robbins, then you could count yourself astute for voting for Ralph Nader, as there would be some question as to Bush and Kerry having a full deck, all their marbles and the elevators going to the top floor.
(Ms Robbins seems to be something of a character in her own right, playing on three different soccer teams and participating in a plethora of other activities including the aforementioned Scroll & Key. She does drop an interesting factoid that may or may not be true: that many of the Ivy League secret societies encourage their members to acquire (i.e. steal) artifacts from museum collections. Therefore, neighbors, if you are a park curator and the collection is missing something, you might discreetly inquire in the Halls of Ivy as well as the local pawnshop.)
No one is quite sure of the reason for Skull & Bones fascination with human bones, particularly human skulls. It is not a particularly original fixation. Christian monks in medieval times often kept a human skull on the table in their cells as a cheery reminder that life is fleeting. The Franciscan order had the skull and bones as part of their emblem. Skulls and bones were a familiar literary and architectural symbol in 18th and 19th century America, where Death was never far behind the most fleet footed American, young or old.
Friends of Skull & Bones suggested that the ossuary symbolism was to impress upon the young Bonesmen, the transience of life and that one had but a short time to reform the world, making it a better place for all, so let's get cracking!
Enemies of Skull & Bones suggested purposes far darker than the philanthropic urge. Whatever the motives of the Society, there has been considerable controversy over the source of the skulls used in the rituals of Skull and Bones. According to critics, just any old skull will not do, it has to be the skull of a famous person. Over the years, Skull & Bones have been accused of grave robbing the skulls President Martin Van Buren, Pancho Villa, and Che Guevara as well as Geronimo, and is happily looking forward to acquiring the skull of Saddam Hussein, arch enemy of Bonesman George Bush, when that worthy has no further need of it, which may be shortly.
Is any of this true? According to the breathless blogs of the internet, every word of it is true (which is extremely unlikely, given the bias of internet postings).
It happens that Martin Van Buren or at least the public image of Martin Van Buren is being safeguarded and burnished by none other than ourselves, the National Park Service, at Martin Van Buren National Historic Site. Your editor has contacted Chief Ranger James Mc Kay and has asked Jim if he knew of any legend of our 8th President missing his head. Jim says he believes Van Buren is still in his tomb in his entirety and has heard no rumors to the contrary. Must be an urban legend.
Pancho Villa, famed Mexican patriot or bandit (depends on your politics here, neighbors) was assassinated in Parral in Northern Mexico in 1923. Three years later, an American soldier of fortune by the name of Emil Holmdahl broke into Villa's tomb and stole his skull, Holmdahl was captured but the skull was not recovered. Mysteriously, Holmdahl was not charged, but allowed to deport himself to Texas. According to legend, Prescott Bush paid him $25,000 for the skull on behalf of Skull and Bones. Is this true? Well neighbors, this is one legend that will be difficult to prove or disprove without surprise and a search warrant.
As for the skull of Che Guevara, this one is a bit easier. Recently, the Cuban government sent a forensics team down to Bolivia to excavate the mass grave of Guevara and his followers where they had been dumped after a notably unsuccessful fire fight with the Bolivian Army (Guevara was not the first foreigner to underestimate the Bolivians; another forensics team has identified the bodies of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid). The skeleton identified as Guevara's still had its skull, whose dental records helped identification.
So what of the skull of Geronimo? Did Prescott Bush steal the skull of the famed warrior? If we believe the lurid stories about Skull & Bones, he certainly had a motive as he was a Bonesman as are his son and grandson. He certainly had the opportunity as he was stationed at Fort Sill to attend the School of Fire artillery course in 1918 and Geronimo's grave was nearby.
However, having the motive and the opportunity does not mean that he stole Geronimo's skull.
So what sort of a man was Prescott Bush?
Not a bad sort, actually.
The founder of the Bush dynasty, in addition to being a Yale graduate and a member of Skull and Bones, was a very rich man. He obtained his wealth in that genteel but murky field know as ¨Banking and Finance.¨ He dealt in international as well as domestic finance, which meant, in the 1930's, dealing with Nazi Germany, as was what happened when you were in international business in that time period.
He was NOT a Nazi sympathizer, however. Nor did he knowingly approve of, or help built the Nazi death camps, nor did he approve of persecution of the Jews. Although there are scores of breathless postings on the internet of Prescott Bush's alleged support of the Nazis; the Anti Defamation League, which is the last word in such matters, has investigated the issue thoroughly and tersely stated that the rumors ¨Have no basis in fact and are politically motivated.¨
During the Second World War, Prescott Bush served his country diligently in facilitating war materials production.
He continued to be a very rich man at the conclusion of the war and used that wealth to dabble in that rich man's hobby, politics; getting himself elected to the US Senate from Connecticut in 1952.
As a Senator he could be described as an Eisenhower Republican, that is, he was mildly liberal on a number of social issues. As a genteel Eastern sportsman, he pushed a number of conservation and environmental issues (You remember Mission 66: It started in 1956.) He endorsed and promoted some of the first efforts at Civil Rights legislation in a time when the Senate was still full of Southern troglodytes less than one generation removed from wearing bed sheets and burning crosses. Even the sainted liberal senator from Arkansas, William S. Fulbright, was reduced to giving racist speeches in order to get reelected. (You can annoy your liberal friends at cocktail parties by quoting from these speeches.)
Senator Bush also covered himself with honor by being among the first of a distressingly small band of Senators to challenge that odious demagogue, Senator Joe McCarthy.
He did queer one rather bizarre liberal idea. It was proposed to create a hundred square mile (ten miles on each side) United Nations City State within the state of Connecticut, where the United Nations would have its headquarters, think tanks, a Peace University, staff housing, parks etc., all off limits to U.S. authority. His was one of the more level heads that got the project scaled down to less than fifty acres and moved to a former industrial slum in New York City where the UN exists to this day.
Before becoming Senator, Prescott Bush married Dorothy Walker in 1921, at Kennebunkport, Maine, and set about siring the Bush Dynasty. You are, of course, familiar with George the First, father of George the Second. You are less familiar with brother Jonathan, Uncle of George the Second.
Jonathan Bush is sort of like you and I, he doesn't stand out.
Except for one thing.
You remember Ned Anderson, the Apache tribal official that wanted Geronimo (all of him, including the skull) back home in Arizona. Well, Ned told Apache tribal attorney, Joe Sparks about the 1933 document that describes the theft of Geronimo's skull.
The two Apache gentlemen decided to confront Jonathan Bush, who was sort of the public affairs manager for the dynasty. To their surprise, they found him quite conciliatory and promised to get them the skull that Skull & Bones referred to as ¨Geronimo¨. A decent interval passed, and Jonathan Bush did show up with a box that had a skull in it. Unfortunately, it was a child's skull, though Jonathan insisted, according to the Apache officials, that it was the skull referred to as ¨Geronimo¨ take it or leave it.
Anderson and Sparks did not accept the skull and wanted the FBI to investigate under the NAGPRA Act. The FBI demurred, unless it could control the evidence and the investigation, according to Anderson.
So that's where things stand today.
So did Prescott Bush steal Geronimo's skull (or purchase Pancho Villa's?) Do these skulls reside along with President Martin Van Buren's in that mysterious windowless building known as the Tomb near the Yale campus?
Well neighbors, I don't know. That's where you come in.
It appears that the Apaches and NAGPRA could use a little help. Fortunately, a number of NPS retirees have settled in the sunny ghettos of Arizona and New Mexico, represented by mischievous, irreverent politicians such as John McCain and Tom Udall.
I would like you to take some time off from golf and write your respective congressperson.
Ask them politely, in so many words, what the hell is going on: How come the Apaches can't get Geronimo repatriated from Oklahoma, and while doing so, check to see if he is all there.
Naturally, we will be glad to publish any responses you may get to your letters.
IN THE BELLY OF THE BEAST
Recently I received an interesting e- mail from the Ranger Lodge of the Fraternal Order of Police.
The e- mail stated that the convicted killer of Park Ranger Ken Patrick would be shortly released from prison. The reason for that event was not the discovery of new, exonerating evidence (Say, the magic of DNA or something.) rather it was a bureaucratic technicality. The killer, Veronza Bowers Jr. had served 30 years of a "life" sentence, and was not only eligible for parole, but mandatory release was required!
Naturally, this struck the Ranger Lodge as a bit premature as Mr. Bowers was very much alive and very cleverly kicking.
The FOP e-mail rather sportingly included the web site (!) of the convicted killer. Out of curiosity, I punched in Mr. Bowers' web site.
The web site was very well done! Mr. Bowers is obviously a clever fellow or has friends that are. After reading a bit, I felt that both conclusions were true.
According to the web site, Mr. Bowers is a sort of male Mother Teresa. He is a healer of both mind and body of the lost souls within the prison system. In one case, according to the web site, he caused a paralyzed inmate to not only walk, but run! He had completely freed himself of hatred or anti-social tendencies. He had found Religion. (No, he hadn't found Jesus. Remember, this is the San Francisco Bay Area. Jesus doesn't cut it among people who can do you some good in the Bay Area. Nor did Mr. Bowers find Allah or Mohammed, Wahabi Islam is a bit too scary even for Berkeley radicals.)
No, Mr. Bowers found Buddhism. Aside from Native American beliefs, Buddhism is the only acceptable organized religion if you plan to be an intellectual in the Bay Area and Mr. Bowers planned to be a Bay Area Intellectual.
Buddhism clearly has some advantages if you are bright and in prison. It has a meditation system that allows you to escape into your inner self that is not found in the less subtle desert faiths of Judaism, Christianity and Islam. The Japanese version of Buddhism uses a simple (but difficult to learn) bamboo flute as a meditation tool. Music soothes the savage breast, they say. It also impresses left wing activists. Here was a man who, due to his talent and intellect, should not be in prison! (No matter the still inconveniently dead victim.)
Now did Mr. Bowers exhibit any remorse for the killing of Ranger Patrick?
Well, no. You see that would be impossible to show remorse as he didn't do the crime. He was framed by government agents.
Oh.
Now there was something eerie, something that struck me as odd about Mr. Bowers warm and friendly web site. Something that was familiar. What was it?
In his writings, Mr. Bowers greets us ¨From within the belly of the beast¨
Where had I heard that phrase before?
Of course! Jack Abbott!
Jack Abbott was a career criminal who had spent most of his adolescent and adult life in prison for violent crimes, including murder. While in prison he began to exchange letters with the novelist and journalist Norman Mailer. (Mailer himself had a nihilistic, antisocial streak as evidenced by his stabbing his wife at a party, apparently just for hell of it! He got away with it as she didn't press charges and he was, well, Norman Mailer) Whatever Jack Abbott's social shortcomings, Mailer could see that he was a gifted writer, describing in gritty detail the nightmare of prison life. Mailer put the letters from Abbott together in book form and got it published as IN THE BELLY OF THE BEAST to considerable critical acclaim. Mailer pronounced Abbot completely rehabilitated due to the catharsis of writing, and campaigned with other literati to get him paroled.
In due course, Abbot was paroled from prison in Mailer's custody. They made the circuit of the television talk shows telling of the injustices of the American Justice System before rapt audiences.
There was just one small, innocuous thing, that might have provided a clue that something was about to go horribly wrong.
It was the dedication in the frontispiece of IN THE BELLY OF THE BEAST.
Now most authors dedicate their books to their spouses or their parents or some particularly helpful friend. But the book was not dedicated to relatives or even Norman Mailer, instead it was dedicated to Carl Panzram.
Who was Carl Panzram? Apparently no one bothered to find out, least of all, the Parole Board. They should have.
Six weeks after his release from prison, the rehabilitated Mr. Abbott was having dinner at a New York restaurant. There was a disagreement with the waiter, an aspiring actor. Mr. Abbot stabbed him to death. Later, back in prison for this latest moral slippage, Abbott, working on his second book, described the murder of the waiter as ¨necessary¨ and suggested that he lacked talent as an actor. Abbott later had the good grace and judgment to hang him self in his prison cell.
Oh yes. Who was Carl Panzram, the man to whom Abbott dedicated his book?
Carl Panzram was America's worst serial killer, beginning at age 8 and killing scores, perhaps hundreds all over the world. Once he went on safari in Africa and killed his six trusting companions and fed their bodies to the crocodiles. He was finally caught, convicted and hanged at Leavenworth Prison in 1930. Before his execution, he remarked "I don't believe in man, god, nor mercy. I hate the whole human race, including myself. I preyed upon the weak, the harmless, and the unsuspecting. This lesson I was taught by others: Might makes right."
Understandably, Norman Mailer did not make many future references to Jack Abbott and IN THE BELLY OF THE BEAST. However, IN THE BELLY OF THE BEAST remains available in libraries and used book stores, as it should in a democracy. Abbott's book thus became available to Veronza Bowers Jr. or his supporters, who liked its violence- justifying Marxist cant and included the title (unattributed) as a catch phrase in the web site.
Interestingly enough, the literary right could be conned as efficiently as the literary left by a clever criminal.
The conservative journalist, William F. Buckley Jr., was contacted by Edgar Smith who pleaded with great eloquence that he was innocent of the rape and murder conviction that condemned him to prison for life. Over the years, Smith's earnest, well reasoned letters managed to plant a doubt in Buckley's mind as to the justice of Smith's conviction. Smith managed to convince Buckley that he was innocent and the journalist became his champion. Through his influence, Smith was released from prison. Shortly after release, he attempted to rape a young woman. The woman escaped from him and gave the police a good description. Smith went into hiding and contacted Buckley, telling his literary friend that he had been framed. Mr. Buckley prudently called the FBI,
Once back in jail, Smith confessed to not only the attempted rape but also to the previous rape and murder. It had all been a great con, spun by a glib thug with plenty of time on his hands and nothing to lose.
This is understandable from the convict's point of view as it is much easier to get out of prison with a well crafted story than to dig a tunnel.
There seems to be no end to the number of well meaning, gullible people willing to believe that their man or woman is a real life Jean Val Jean.
In the case of Bowers, however, one key person remains unconvinced as to his rehabilitation. That would be the widow of Ranger Patrick, Tomie Lee.
Bowers remains in prison due to the fact that the authorities had failed to notify Tomie Lee that they were going to let Bowers out, a legal requirement. Instead, she learned of the impending release from the Ranger Lodge of the Fraternal Order of Police (FOP). She immediately protested and the impending release was suspended at least temporarily.
Now Tomie Lee is very unusual in that she is not only the victim's widow, she is also something of an expert witness in matters criminal. After her husband's murder, she went back to school, obtained her degree and joined the National Park Service where she spent more than 23 years in law enforcement, some of which were as Chief Ranger in Glen Canyon National Recreation Area, one of the most difficult and controversial of law enforcement "Hot Spots" of the National Park System.
Therefore, her testimony on the fate of Mr. Bowers will have the added weight of someone who has spent nearly a quarter century dealing with criminals and listening to their stories. She is not likely to be deceived.
DOWN MEXICO WAY
God's plan for the winter Eastern seaboard of the United States is weeks and months of pewter grey overcast skies, punctuated by blizzards and ice storms, and a damp cold more penetrating that a tax audit.
That, however, is not my wife's plan.
Joan does not do cold and grey. For that reason, she always graciously accepts a teaching position in Mexico over the winter semester and I always graciously agree to come along.
Joan teaches at the Universitad de Las Americas (universally referred to and pronounced as "OOODLA" by students, faculty and townspeople). UDLA is located in the town of Cholula in the state of Pueblo, just outside the city of the same name. Cholula takes great pride in its age (oldest continuously occupied town in North America: incorporated in 629 AD), its pyramid (world's largest in volume, though the Egyptian one is taller) and its church (Los Remedios; the most photographed church in Mexico.
The church sits triumphantly on top of the pyramid, a butter and ivory colored confection of domes and steeples, a sort of Mexican Mont St. Michel, with the great volcanoes of Popocatepetl and Iztaccihuatl as background.
The best place to eat in Cholula is Villas Archeologicas. It is a hotel located at the base of the pyramid. It is a sprawling, tropical vegetation rich structure that you would get if you asked Frank Lloyd Wright and Martha Stewart to design a Mexican hotel. You walk or drive through a gate that frames the classic view of the pyramid and church, and walk down tile floored, pastel pink halls adorned with some of the Aztec archeological treasures of the area, plus some excellent contemporary Mexican art, which is for sale,
You reach the poolside patio, it is dripping with Jacaranda, bougainvilla, banana trees and other examples of God's Stuff that you normally meet only in greenhouses in the U.S.
You choose a table. (another great Mexican custom, neighbors, unlike the US, the waiter lets you sit where you want).
We order two Negra Modelo beers. ("La Cervesa Que Dios Bebe")
It is both a sacrament and a religious duty.
According to Benjamin Franklin, beer is not only one of the proofs for the existence of God, but also proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy. We do our duty.
The bread arrives promptly, piping hot, baked in Villas own ovens, small spindle shaped loaves that one must remember to ration lest one exceed one's Weight Watcher points.
From long experience, the waiters know what we want. Sopa Azteca arrives shortly, a Villas Archeologica variation on Cioppino or Bouillabaisse, with tortilla strips, chile, and squash blossoms included with the fish, octopus, squid, and mussels. It is very, very good.
In between courses, I unfurl today's edition of the English Language MIAMI HERALD. Without doubt, it is the worst newspaper printed in American English, easily outdistancing such formidable contenders such as the HONOLULU ADVERTISER or THE NEW ORLEANS TIMES-PICAYUNE. The International edition of the MIAMI HERALD is rumored to be a joint production of THE NEW YORK TIMES and THE WASHINTON POST, which, if true, goes a long way in explaining the papers mediocrity. Alas! It is the only game in town.
I pass the USA section on to Joan and take the MEXICO insert.
I find that that our ambassador to Mexico, Tony Garza, has wed Maria Aramburuzabala, the richest woman in Mexico.
This is heartening news, neighbors, as it confirms my faith in the good judgement and sagacity of Bush political appointees. Not only is Maria worth 1.2 billion dollars, she also owns the Negra Modelo brewery. The idea of an unlimited life time supply of Negra Modelo has to be an encouraging thought on even the most trying days of a marriage!
I set the paper down upon the arrival of our regular entree; medallions of venison topped with mushroom caps and gruyere cheese, plus all the vegetables your mother asked you to eat, and some of the tastiest country fried potatoes in Mexico.
Not typically Mexican? You frown.
You bet! Friday is our vacation from Mexican food.
You see, Mexican cooking is rather monolithically Mexican. Good as it is, you can get tired of Mexican food. However, in Mexico you do not as a general rule, decide that you would like Thai, or Indian, or Chinese, or whatever, and get the results you had expected. This does not mean that Mexicans do not earnestly try to make foreign dishes. They do, they really do. Across the street from our apartment, there is, of all things, a Mexican version of an Irish pub and restaurant!
Now neighbors, I want you to hold that concept for a moment. Irish cooking is perhaps the worst cooking in the world; right up there with English cooking! Can you conceive of a Mexican chef earnestly trying for just the right overcooking of the vegetables, the bland tastelessness of the Shepherd Pie, the hockey puck toughness the Irish salmon? You get the idea. At least the Guinness is accurate.
Then there is the heretical feeling that Mexicans are not making Mexican food correctly. You wisely keep this opinion to yourself. To do otherwise is like complaining to an Englishman that he is speaking English with an incorrect accent. However, Mexican cooking in the American Southwest and nowadays, on the Eastern seaboard of the U.S. appears to have a tasty robustness that native Mexican cooking seems to lack.
Can the best Mexican restaurants of Cholula, Pueblo beat the best Mexican restaurants of Wheaton, Maryland ? I ask rhetorically. Not a chance, my wife says cynically, the Wheaton restaurants all have Salvadorian chefs! They will win hands down!
So it is nice once a week to take a vacation from Mexican food. That is easy to do as Villas Archeologica is owned by Club Med, a French outfit with the usual interest in good food.
Is it expensive? Yup. Anything imported is expensive in Mexico and the venison is shipped in from New Zealand. (Here's a question for our Leaders; How come the New Zealanders can lay everything from venison to Granny Smith apples on the world's tables without subsidies or Mexican labor and still provide a world class welfare and medical system as well as a world class National Park system ?)
As usual, we elect not to have a dessert. Like the Chinese, the Mexicans do not do desserts well, going for the sickly sweet and spongy. I do elect to having another Negra Modelo and to continue to leisurely read my paper. (This is yet another delightful Mexican dining custom; you are master and commander of your table. Should you desire to sit there all day reading or talking, no one will bother you or pointedly present the bill. You may ask for it when you feel like it, but you are not pressured to leave (unless you have haplessly entered a joint that practices gringo managerial techniques; in which case, leave immediately and warn your friends).
I called for the bill and found it to be around 420 pesos or around $40 gringo. Mexico is not expensive but it is not dirt cheap either. This is why we eat at Villas only one day a week (and why you and your spouse did not eat at the Ahwanee Hotel every night when you were a GS 7 at Yosemite.)
An American retiree or expatriate who knows the ropes, speaks some Spanish, and knows where and how to buy goods and services can get by on about half of what he she would spend in the U.S to maintain roughly the same standard of living. This means cooking most of your meals at home just like back in the States with you doing the cooking and not traveling by air around Mexico (expensive).
Our modest, but comfortable one bed room furnished apartment in a gated community rents for around $400 gringo a month.
Rental cars are expensive at $1,000 gringo a month, gasoline is also expensive at around $2.40 gringo a gallon
Basic food staples are cheap at least to an American.
- Bread runs around $1.35 gringo a loaf and it is sometimes difficult to get whole wheat,
- Eggs go for a bit under a $1.00 gringo per dozen
- Milk around 70 cents gringo a liter
- Beef goes for between $4.50 to $11 gringo a kilo, depending on the cut.
Mexico is a Vegetarians paradise as vegetables and fruits are quite cheap (including exotic ones like mangos and papayas that are somewhat of a luxury in the states. Yes, you can happily eat them if you give them an iodine bath (which is not as disgusting or time consuming as it sounds!)
This is pretty good if you are an American retiree or expatriate being paid in dollars.
It is not so good if you are a Mexican trying to make it on a Mexican salary. A Mexican, working construction makes around $10 gringo a day sometimes less. People clerking in shops make a little less than $8 American a day. The working class kings of Puebla are the unionized workers of the huge (world's largest) Volkswagen plant at Puebla. They recently won a contract that grants them 20 dollars a day. This means our VW worker must labor for two days before he can afford dinner for two at Villas Archeologica.
This accounts for the Klondike Gold Rush mentality associated with heading to "El Norte," the U.S. Unlike the Klondike, there is usually a payoff. If a person is willing to live four to a room, work 6 or 7 days a week, not fuss about overtime, then you can return with, by Mexican or Guatemalan standards, a considerable nest egg. As the Mexicans say "100 pesos a day or 100 pesos an hour, you choose!"
There is also the adventure of the thing. The Border and the Migras are a real challenge and these are young men full of their own immortality. Girls are impressed by the courage and material success of those who have been North and the experience helps a lad make a desirable marriage.
Just about every newspaper in Mexico has at least one story on migration and the Border problems and the MIAMI HERALD was no exception.
One article dealt with the coming April arrival of a group of some 500 American vigilantes on the Arizona side of the Mexican border. They call themselves Minutemen after the civilian militia of the American Revolution.
According to the organizer of the Minutemen, James Gilchrist, the Minutemen will patrol a stretch of the Arizona border through the month of April and alert the US Border Patrol of the presence of illegal aliens on the American side of the border.
In his website, Mr. Gilchrist said that the Minutemen will NOT arrest anyone or take direct action against the illegal immigrants. Indeed, if the illegal is in difficulty, the Minutemen may provide them with water, food or first aid. The Minuteman will simply notify the border patrol (presumably by radio or cell phone) of the illegal's approximate location.
Neither the Border Patrol nor any other federal agency (including of course, the NPS, has asked for the assistance of the Minutemen. They find the idea of an untrained, unsupervised vigilante group wandering around the Outback to be an appalling thought and one to make for a very long April.
Will the Minutemen vigilantes be armed?
Well now, that depends. Mr. Gilchrist is a bit coy on that point. You see, Arizona is an open carry state. That is, if you carry your pistol or other weapon openly, as in a visible holster and gun belt around your waist, then you are perfectly legit. Mr. Gilchrist will not tell you to bring a gun, then again, he does not say don't bring a gun. (Guns are not legit in most national parks and Organ Pipe rangers will turn away or cite anyone who shows up armed in the park.)
The border problem was further exacerbated by the ranting of a local Mexican drug lord serving a long term in prison who decided to pose as a patriot and authorized his henchmen to murder any Minuteman they came across. (That might inadvertently include any unlucky birdwatcher found with binoculars in hand)
So, along with a very good wildflower display predicted, April should be an interesting month along the Arizona border.
Does Mr. Gilchrist and his Minutemen expect to plug the leaky dike of the Southern border?
No. Mr. Gilchrist merely wishes to direct the searchlight of national and international media upon the problem.
That he will most certainly do. TV and print media from all around the world, particularly the liberal media will show up to document the vigilantes in action (and hope for a telegenic confrontation.)
Although the Minutemen will not be patrolling in Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument, ORPI has become a sort poster child for environmental degradation from both the drug trade and illegal immigration, two wildly different motivations.
According to Chief Ranger Fred Patton, the drug smugglers have ripped out 300 miles of illegal roads, often using stolen 4 wheel drive vehicles to do the work. This makes a mockery of wilderness and environmental protection. The illegal immigrants over the years have tromped out thousands of miles of illegal trails. Along these trails lie the pathetic flotsam and jetsam of desperate people seeking a better life; empty water bottles, food tins and wrappers, clothing, blankets and sometimes the lifeless bodies of the illegals themselves (134 have perished in the Sonoran DesertŠthat we know about.)
ORPI is the only NPS area where the illegal visitation surpasses the legal Golden Eagle type visitation. Indeed, illegal passage through the park is an estimated 400,000 a year and the illegals usually take two nights to get through the park. Ranger Patton put the problem graphically. It is the equivalent of taking the two day sewage and garbage output of a city roughly the size of Baton Rouge and dumping it on the park.
Clearly this has to stop if ORPI is to continue as an International Biosphere Reserve and a park unit. So what to do?
The more racist of the various websites that deal with border problems have solutions that stop not too short of Hitler's Final Solution. Some of the websites attempt to tar the illegal migrants with the tragic death of Park Ranger Kris Eggle.
Ranger Eggle was killed by a professional assassin who had come up from the Interior of Mexico and murdered four people on contract issued by a local drug lord. The assassin had no desire to emigrate to the US when he was engaged by Mexican police and was chased into Organ Pipe where he killed Ranger Eggle and was in turn killed by Mexican police. To call the assassin an illegal immigrant is a bit of a stretch.
Currently, the NPS is building an anti vehicle fence along ORPI s 33 mile boundary with Mexico The fence consists of stout concrete posts that support a single railroad rail set at a height that will peel a SUV hood back and through the windshield should the driver attempt to open a new entrance to the park (Yes, a fence of the kind the Israelis are building around their country would stop most illegals, but it would also stop most wildlife and that is why ORPI is an International Biosphere Reserve; it is important to keep everything in perspective) If the anti vehicle fence is successful in deflecting SUV borne drug dealers away from ORPI, it is possible it will be replicated along much of the border.
But what of the walking illegal migrants and their trash! Who will save ORPI?
Hola! There is a cloud of dust on the horizon! What is it? Yes! It is the Republicans riding to the rescue in the very unusual role of The Good Guys!
President Bush has been suggesting a comprehensive Guest Worker program for sometime. His best buddy, Senator John Cornyn (R. Texas) has providentially been made chairman of the Senate Subcommittee on Immigration, and just happens to be sponsoring a Bill remarkably similar to Bush's ideas.
Now it might be heartwarming if the Bush-Cornyn Bill might address the fact that one reason the Mexicans might have employment problems is that we stole two fifths of their country from them as well as the fact that they really aren't aliens. The vast bulk of them are North American Indians who have been wandering around this continent for around 30,000 years or more (They certainly are not latinos as certain liberals rather smarmily label them as if there was something wrong in being an Indian.) As for being Latino, very few Mexicans resemble Julius Ceasar or Rudy Guiliani) It is true that not all Mexicans are Indians. Presidente Fox, for example, is of Irish ancestry, but he has evidenced no interest in picking cantaloupes in Southern Arizona once his term is ended.
Should Bush and Cornyn fess up that we borrowed two fifths of our neighbors' country? No, such confessions would be wussily liberal. Bush and Cornyn are practical men, Republicans after all. They realize that the United States economy would collapse without Indian labor from Mexico and Guatemala
"But wait!" say the Neofascists and racists, "If we could seal our borders "(land mines, anyone?) we could employ the American Homeless to do the work you and I don't care to do."
Sorry. The Homeless are homeless because they have problems with alcohol, controlled substances, or are mentally ill. A businessman needs a salable product at the end of the day. The Homeless have problems just getting through the day. They are a separate problem. They are fellow human beings and need our help, but it will take months perhaps years of physical and mental therapy to get the average Homeless up and running. The economy needs sober, reliable workers right now.
The Bush- Cornyn Guest Worker package will be everything a liberal or environmentalist could ask for, even though these gentlemen are neither.
The migrants will cross the border in dignity and air-conditioned comfort on buses rather than death treks through the desert. Nor will they have to pay a coyote hundreds or even thousands of dollars to guide them over the mountains. They will have the full protection of American law while on American soil, including OSHA protection from on the job hazards They will have access to their social security payments after they return to Mexico. They will in short, get everything that you and I take for granted as free Americans, except of course, the right to vote in American elections.
ORPI will be saved as will much of the rest of the border ecology (though it is unlikely that Bush or Cornyn fretted overmuch about litter and environmental degradation) The Administration will be able to take credit for this collateral environmental success. We will get secure, trash free (and guilt free) borders where our Border Patrol can concentrate on the very real menace of Wahabi terrorists slipping across.
But what will become of our American culture when this great, seething horde of Spanish speaking Indians start swarming across our borders! Salsa has already replaced ketchup as America's preferred condiment! (Good Lord! Our sacred ketchup! Can the extinction of Moon Pies and Dr. Pepper be far behind!)
In short, will we be inundated by Indians?
No such luck, neighbors! You see, we are protected by the iron laws of capitalism and demographics.
In a few years, Indian migration northward will take a sharp turn toward the Yucatan peninsula; no, not to work in the resorts of Cancun. The Yucatan will be a handy embarkation point for Europe.
Europe has been suffering a birth dearth. They desperately need workers and replacements for an aging population. Italy, in particular, has a problem as its birth rate is the lowest in the world, 1.2 children per couple, far below the replacement rate.
Now, neighbors, until recently, one of the great joys of being a capitalist was that while capital was very fluid and could be moved about by telegraphic ( and later, electronic) means, your workers were not that portable or that fortunate. They pretty much had to stay in one place and accept your terms of employment. (Thoughtfully designed so as not to spoil the help)
Not anymore! Thanks to recent innovations in transport, labor will soon be as fluid as capital, with historic changes not envisioned by either Adam Smith or Karl Marx.
For example, the new European Air Bus can carry 700 economy class Italian holiday makers for a few weeks of sun and fun at Cancun. That Air Bus can return to Italy that very same day, carrying 700 Aztecs and Mayans for a three year term of employment to do the work Italians no longer care to do (or are simply not numerous enough to do)
Will some of the Indians decide to settle in Italy? Probably. Will a descendent of a North American Indian become premier of Italy? Probably. (This is not exactly the end of Western Civilization as we know it; that quintessential conservative Englishman, Sir Winston Churchill was part Iroquois Indian.)
Spain has a similar demographic problem. Now a rich country, it finds no one wants to be a peasant anymore and has had to send as far a field as Bulgaria to find people willing to farm. North American Indians are still connected to the soil and have the advantage of speaking Spanish.
There are of course, alternatives to North American Indians. They are Turkish, Middle Eastern, and North African Moslems; people who take their Religion quite literally and explosively. Europeans are aware of this. Given their druthers they would probably prefer the smiling, hard working nominally Christian Indians.
Will the United States suffer an Indian labor shortage? Not immediately, but in the near future, that would seem to be the case. If you have been to Western Europe recently, you will be made painfully aware that the dollar isn't what it used to be. North American Indians can make far more real income working for Euros than working for dollars
We can, of course, get petulant and tell the Europeans that Those are OUR Indians and you can't have them!
All to no avail of course, Labor, like Capital, will flow to wherever it can get the best return for its presence.
So, what are we Gringos to do?
Well, aside from rehabilitating the Homeless, which seems somewhat unlikely, we can "reform" Social Security by essentially abolishing it, and using Vladimir Lenin's chilling slogan, "He who does not work, does not eat!" we can free up an army of the elderly to do such interesting work as picking cantaloupes in Southern Arizona in July.
Or we can adopt a guest worker program that is fair to all and contains enough built- in incentives to keep North American Indian labor on this continent.
SAFETY AND LOSS
Yes, neighbors! You have finally encountered the Safety and Loss Article that legitimizes your use of a government computer to access THUNDERBEAR. You can now rest easy!
This issue's Safety and Loss topic is fossil petroleum or oil.
Slippery stuff, oil. It can make you lose your balance and seriously injure yourself. Flammable too. You can get badly burned.
But that's not what we are going to discuss.
For the safety of the nation, let alone you and me, we are going to have to eliminate our national dependence on fossil petroleum.
We need to do this for two reasons:
The first and obvious one is that fossil oil is finite, that is, God made only a certain number of oil bearing fossils. Exactly how much oil God deposited in the First International Fossil Bank is open to considerable debate. What is not open to debate is the fact the God hasn't made any recent deposits. This has not stopped us from writing checks on the account like there is no tomorrow.
The second obvious reason is that fossil petroleum drives you crazy.
Having dealt with a considerable number of Oil People in the last years of my NPS career, I was always at a loss to answer the question of whether oil itself makes you crazy or if oil simply attracts crazy people. It's sort of a chicken or egg question.
Take the majority of the folks that were or are in the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC). Some, such as Saddam Hussein, have killed people with their own hands. In the case of the Saudi Arabians, they are committed to the Wahabi form of Islam that insists on the conversion or elimination of all infidels (that's you and me). Russia's man at the pump is Vladimir Putin, whose last day job was head of the secret police, Nigeria is faced with insane corruption and a culture that will stone women to death for adultery. Libya's Khadafi only recently retired from the terrorism business. Iran's fanatics sell us oil to finance a nuclear program aimed at both the US and Israel.
Our fourth largest oil supplier, Venezuela's Hugo Chavez just announced that he really hates us and hopes to sell most of his oil to Communist China.
In many respects, OPEC has begun to resemble the waiting room of a psychiatrist specializing in Megalomania.
So, for the above two reasons and thus for the safety and sanity of the nation, we should declare Independence of Fossil Petroleum and slowly ride away
Yes, but how to accomplish that worthy goal?
President Bush has suggested hydrogen as a fuel.
But hydrogen fuel cells are a delivery system rather than an original fuel. True, it burns totally clean with only a little water vapor, but the hydrogen must be either stripped from natural gas (another fossil fuel that God is no longer funding) or it must be separated from water, a process that is not free. The obvious sources of electrical power to split hydrogen from water would be those standbys, dear old coal or nuclear energy, both of which cause environmentalists to raise a crucifix and cry" Get thee behind me Satan!" The same environmentalists murmur about wind and/or solar power to provide the energy to make hydrogen. However, wind and solar don't seem to work too well except in small time niche projects. Besides all that wind and solar power was supposed to power our light bulbs, stoves, toasters and so on. Will there be enough left over to produce hydrogen?
Then there will be industrial and possibly societal disruption as we enter the Hydrogen Age. Everything will have to change. Indeed, the hydrogen proponents cheerfully refer to it as The Hydrogen Revolution, as if revolutions were always a warm and cuddly thing: something that the involuntary participants in the French and Russian versions might dispute.
Then there is the safety issue. An accident between two vehicles using or transporting compressed hydrogen gas may not be quite as spectacular as the Hindenburg disaster, but it will be memorable if you are in the vicinity.
Then there will be the socio-economic issue. Hydrogen is simply hydrogen. There is no use pretending that Texaco hydrogen is any better than Exxon hydrogen. To achieve economy of scale, hydrogen will be produced by One Big Corporation, inevitably owned by the FOC (Friends of Cheney). FOC sole ownership and production of America's fuel will be better than OPEC, but only marginally. If you complain about the high cost of hydrogen, FOC will tell you to write your congressman to authorize a another coal or nuclear power plant in your neighborhood so FOC can produce more hydrogen.
Is there any alternative to FOC supplied hydrogen aside from the bicycle or shoe leather?
Well, yes! There is biodiesel.
You will remember that is issue #257 of THUNDERBEAR, we left Rudolph Diesel floating face down in the English channel in 1913. He had developed an interesting engine that would run on vegetable oil (biodiesel), Later developers" improved" his engine so that it could burn fossil petroleum. Which made sense at the time as there was an unlimited supply of $2 a barrel oil, a supply that would, of course, last forever.
Biodiesel has a number of advantages over fossil petroleum:
- It is not controlled by religious fanatics, madmen, communists, crooks, or right wing Republicans.
- It can be made locally, using local products (Ben and Jerry's Biodiesel?)
- It is a renewable resource.
- It uses the existing distribution infrastructure.
- It is infinitely safer to store and to use than gasoline (or hydrogen).
- It is a flexible fuel system. If biodiesel is not available, fossil diesel can be substituted.
- It is a mischievous system.
The first six are self explanatory, advantage # 7, mischievousness, appeals to the anarchic streak in the American character. It is theoretically possible to make biodiesel in your bathtub (though not recommended) allowing you to thumb your nose at Exxon, Mobil, Shell, Texaco, and King Faud of Saudi Arabia. In addition, there will be the delicious moral problem of remembering exactly how many gallons of biodiesel you manufactured so you can promptly remit the proper state and federal fuel taxes to the proper authorities as a good Christian should.
More seriously, a biodiesel system will allow you to tinker with both engine and fuel. (I suspect that tinkering with a hydrogen car will void the warranty and may void you.)
Now are there any drawbacks to substituting biodiesel for fossil petroleum?
Of course! Any FOC worth his salt can patiently (and condescendingly) explain to you why biodiesel is no solution for our energy needs.
"First of all," our FOC will intone, "Biodiesel is a niche fuel for hobbyists and environmental do-gooders. It is generally made from used vegetable cooking oil discarded from fast food restaurants. You are going to have to eat a lot of French fries at McDonalds or Whoppers from Burger King to produce enough used vegetable oil to make even a tiny blip in America's fuel needs! Probably die of cholesterol first! (chuckle! chuckle!) You could convert the entire fleet of some do-gooder, tax wasting government agency like the National Park Service to biodiesel and there would be barely enough fast food biodiesel in the country to meet their needs!"
But, you ask plaintively," Could you not plant vegetable oil crops like rape seed, soy beans and so forth to produce the necessary biodiesel fuel?
"Glad you asked that question, Son!" The FOC says seriously. "Do you know how much acreage would be required to meet our energy needs with biodiesel.
"Golly gee! No!" you respond.
"About three fifths of our total farm acreage!" The FOC says grimly. "This means that we wouldn't have enough acreage to raise feed for animals. This means no Chicken McNuggets and no Big Macs! We'd all have to be vegetarians! You wouldn't want that, would you, boy?"
"No Sir!" You reply contritely
"Good! Remember! It's FOC or King Faud: Take your pick!"
Not so fast, FOC! That ain't necessarily so!
You see, Dr. Michael Briggs of the University of New Hampshire may have figured out a solution for the apparently intractable question of what do we and our farm animals eat if we grow biodiesel.
First Dr. Briggs asks how much petroleum we need,
According to the Department of Energy, we use about 120 billion gallons of gasoline a year and about 60 billion gallons of fossil diesel for a total of 180 billion gallons of dinosaur juice.
However, diesel engines are about 40% more efficient than gasoline engines. If all gasoline engines were replaced with diesel engines, we would NOT need a 120 million gallons of biodiesel (Editors Warning: Dr. Briggs is a scientist and is therefore contaminated with logical thinking, unlike politicians or special interest groups. We would have to send missionaries and theologians to both Detroit and Washington to convince the Faithful that there nothing sacrilegious about building an engine without sparkplugs and diesel is part of God's Plan.)
Now Professor Briggs is conservative and is willing to drop the Diesel engine back to 35% more efficient than its gasoline counterpart. Even so, we would need only 75 billion gallons of biodiesel to replace the gasoline. You then replace the 60 billion gallons of fossil diesel with biodiesel for a total of 135 billion gallons of biodiesel. However, biodiesel is about 2% less efficient than fossil diesel, so we need 2% more or a grand total of 140.8 billion gallons of biodiesel.
Now Briggs is a New Hampshireman; conservative, no pie in the sky for him. For the purpose of this exercise, he chooses to ignore the possibility of a diesel electric hybrid such as the experimental Dodge Intrepid ESX 3 which gets a respectable 72 miles per gallon on diesel. Such cars could nearly halve the 140.8 billion biodiesel requirement.
However, Professor Briggs is apparently as good a student of American driving habits as he is of science, and bases his figures on the requirements caused by gas guzzling SUVs, sloppy driving habits, under inflated tires etc., so he prefers to stick with the 140.8 billion gallon figure. He realizes there is no way to make an ecological saint out of the average American driver. I like this Briggs fellow!
O.K. So where do we get our 140.8 billion gallons of biodiesel and still get our Big Macs? (There are food perverts called vegetarians around, but most of us want to eat at the top of the food chain like Turkey Vultures, the way God intended)
First, Dr. Briggs gives us a little geography lesson in what we have to work with.
We have about 2.3 billion acres in the U.S.
Of that, about 450 million acres are used to grow crops that are somewhat inefficiently fed to animals rather than ourselves to produce Big Macs and Chicken McNuggets.
Another 580 million acres is in range land or pasture.
About 66 million acres or 3% of the nation is in urban areas where you and I hang out,
The rest is timber, tundra, or what used to be called wasteland until Edward Abbey came along.
So, where do we get the biodiesel?
According to Professor Briggs, we have been looking for biodiesel in all the wrong places. True, you can make biodiesel from rapeseed, sunflowers, soybeans, peanuts, coconuts, and other oily seeds or nuts. However, terrestrial plants have one big problem; before they can present you with their prized seeds or nuts, they must first go to the trouble and energy expense of developing roots, stalks, trunks, and leaves; stuff that you don't particularly want or need.
Aquatic plants, such as algae, don't have that problem. In some species of algae, oil makes up over 50% of the volume of the plant. The reason for the oil is that it floats, and the closer the algae is to sunlight the better it will do.
Professor Briggs has pretty much figured it out. To produce our needed 140.8 billion gallons of biodiesel and free ourselves of every greedhead and nut case on planet earth will require that we dedicate around 9.5 million acres or 15,000 square miles to algae farming. How big is 15,000 square miles? Well, the Sonoran Desert in Arizona is around 120,000 square miles (Editors note: Dr. Briggs does not suggest that we sacrifice any of the Sonoran Desert to produce biodiesel. He merely uses it as a frame of reference. Indeed for strategic and economic reasons, we should not put all our algae in one basket, but should scatter the 15,000 square miles throughout the sunbelt. It is quite possible to grow algae biodiesel in New Hampshire as Briggs has demonstrated, but it is more efficient to do so in a sunnier clime.)
Although the 15,000 square miles or 9.5 million acres is a considerable bite out of our 450 million acres of farm land, it is far less than the three fifths total of our arable land as required by terrestrial biodiesel.
Now Briggs is a scientist, not a politician, but he is something of a diplomat. He does not remind us that much of our 450 million acres of farm land is subsidized farming, That is, we are paying the farmers to grow or not to grow crops that we really don't want or need. Though Dr. Briggs is too polite to mention it, we could do away with farm subsidies, as biodiesel would always have a ready, dependable market. At present, only America's Marijuana farmers have that advantage.
How much would it cost?
Professor Briggs is realistic. It is not cheap. The National Renewable Energy Laboratory says it will cost around $40,000 per hectare to build the ponds and infrastructure for an algae biodiesel farm. These are optimistic government figures and governments are famous for cost overruns. Let's be conservative says Dr. Briggs and double that figure to $80,000 per hectare.
At a cost of $80,000 per hectare, the 15,000 square miles (3.85 million hectares) could be build at a cost of 308 billion dollars. That is a lot of change, but it is a one time cost. (Editor's note: As a comparative yard stick, the Iraqi War is costing us $80 billion a year with no end in sight. I realize it is being fought for the sake of Democracy and to Punish the Wicked, and has nothing to do with fossil petroleum, but it does provide an interesting comparison.)
According to Briggs, the expense to the farmer to actually run the farm and harvest the biodiesel would be around $12,000 per hectare per year.
That would work out to 46 billion per year for all the algae farms to yield all the biodiesel needed for transport, and according to Briggs, enough left over to meet the home heating oil bill of the US.
It is not cheap. The days of 23 cent per gallon fuel are gone forever. The cost of a gallon of biodiesel will hover around what you would pay for say, a gallon of milk, a gallon of cheap wine, or any other agricultural product.
However, compare that 46 billion per year with the 100 to 150 billion per year that the US pays to various homicidal maniacs and religious fanatics to supply us with fossil petroleum.
Moreover, the 46 billion dollars stays within the US (As does the 308 billion initial start up fee) There is an axiom among some economists that "You can afford anything you can produce." This may not be entirely true, but what is true is that we are hemorrhaging dollars to often very unfriendly people in a zero sum game.
There is actually a side benefit in that algal farming may go along way toward solving one of the most intractable pollution problems of our time; algal blooms caused by animal and human waste as well as chemical fertilizer run off. Since the algal farms will require a great deal of fertilizer, human and animal waste and chemical fertilizer run off will be literally too good to throw away, thus making algal blooms and eutrophication of Chesapeake Bay and other bodies of water a thing of the past. In addition, the dried algae makes a passable fertilizer as a by product after oil extraction.
Any problems? I suspect so, though Dr. Briggs has not pointed them out as yet. The system will require lots of water. Where will it come from and how much of it can be recycled? Would the 15,000 square miles of industrial wetlands be a boon or a disaster to migratory waterfowl? What about mosquitoes and other noxious insect propagation? What about the smell? Will it be odor free, smell like new mown hay, or will it smell like an industrial hog farm? These and other environmental and economic questions, some of them unanticipated, will have to be answered
In the meantime, what should you as an environmentalist and flag waving patriot do? Well, you make your next car a diesel. The VW Jetta diesel goes farther on a tank of fuel than the Toyota Prius and the Jetta will burn biodiesel (The Governor of California could have saved himself a lot of headache and expense, if, instead of converting his HUMMER to hydrogen, he had simply installed a diesel engine and had himself and Maria photographed driving slowly pass the gasoline and diesel pumps of a filling station, stopping at the biodiesel pump, whereupon the Terminator gets outs and proceeds to fill up, saying in that inimitable accent " PEOPLE DOT LUV CAL- LEE- FORN-YA LUV BIODIESEL!
Next, you should get yourself on the biodiesel fuel committee of your park (assuming they have one) and prod the administration along on getting the park fleet converted to diesel and securing a dependable source of biodiesel. (The neat thing about biodiesel is that it is NOT revolutionary! You can go biodiesel in incremental baby steps, starting out with B20 (A blend of 20% biodiesel and 80% fossil diesel and move toward the Promised Land of B100 or total biodiesel) You can thus adjust the level of biodiesel component as circumstances permit. The US military, an organization not known for devotion to John Muir and Henry David Thoreau, plans to eliminate its last gasoline using land vehicle, the motorcycle, by adopting the M1030 developed by the F1 Engineering Corporation. This military dirt bike gets around 95 mpg and can run on regular diesel, biodiesel (either B20 or B100) or aviation kerosene. This means the military can simplify its fuel needs as well as gaining better fuel efficiency. The US Marine Corps has ordered 500 of them.
Now neighbors, are we going to sit back and let even the Marine Corps appear more progressive fuel- wise than the National Park Service? What would Theodore Roosevelt say?
So get cracking on total biodiesel for your park and get out from under King Faud and the FOC!
BUS TO OAXACA
American bus travel is always a shock to Mexicans. They assume that since the US is a First World Country, that bus travel in the Land of the Free must be as safe, comfortable, and enjoyable as it is in Mexico. It is a surprisingly incorrect assumption.
In US cities, the bus depot is invariably located in the most depressed, depressing and violent slum available (There may be a federal or state law requiring this, I don't know). That is only the beginning of the adventure. The dirty, worn out American bus may or may not leave or arrive on time. Any appeal to the passive aggressive (and often scruffy) depot staff or driver is met with thinly veiled hostility. Unlike Mexican bus lines that compete with one another in customer satisfaction, American bus lines are frequently the only game in town and combine the worst aspects of capitalism and communism.
The passengers are often a cross section of America's poor and dispossessed. It is not true that every American bus passenger is mentally ill, recently paroled, drunk or on drugs, but it may seem so to the alarmed Mexican traveler. This may be an incorrect assumption, but I can only report what Mexicans recently returned from the hinterland of America have told me in shocked tones.
I can understand their surprise and confusion. In Mexico, first class buses are the way normal middle class and working folks get around their country. The buses are new, spotless, and well maintained including the on board john. They depart and arrive with Germanic precision from clean, bright, centrally located depots. The staff, crisp in their neat uniforms, act like they're glad to be there and are glad you're there.
So when my wife suggested taking the bus down to Oaxaca for a long weekend, I snarfed up the plan with enthusiasm. The journey through the vast gorges of the Sierra Madre De Oaxaca from Puebla to Oaxaca City would be worth the ticket alone. The City of Oaxaca, capital of the state of the same name is perhaps the most different and exotic of the old Spanish Colonial towns, with a brooding Indian presence within and without. Several generations of American hippies and other Seekers of Enlightenment have felt the mystic pull of Oaxaca. The English language book store, which apparently understands the needs of its clientele, has two shelves full of books on the identification and use of the numerous hallucinogenic plants found in the Oaxaca region as well as an extensive collection of books on the shamanry and folk magic of the area.
We arrived early at the Pueblo depot. We managed to get in the wrong line and we gently put right by an American couple, Norm and Karyl Winn of Seattle, Washington, who proved to be excellent traveling companions.
Norm turned out to be a lawyer, and more importantly, a past President and life member of the Seattle Mountaineers, one of the oldest and most effective conservation groups in the Pacific Northwest, if not the country.
In his role as President of the Seattle Mountaineers, Norm worked behind the scenes with some of the major players in state and federal park management. We spent over an hour exchanging stories about Bill Briggle, Cleve Pinnix, Russ Cahill, Maureen Finnerty, and others; laughing and exclaiming " So THAT'S why that happened!"
The operative phrase was Behind the Scenes, not so much for Norm, who as a private citizen was very much out in front, but rather for the job safety of the state and federal land managers.
While it is true that most people initially joined the National Park Service to help protect America's Environment, you had better not let anybody catch you doing it.
Any overt or public support of the environment on the part of an NPS official immediately brings down the wrath of every Greedhead Republican with access to a FAX machine or a Senator.
Now this does not mean that our NPS official cannot issue platitudes. Indeed they are expected to. At each Rotary Club meeting or press conference, he/she may piously declare that "Clean Air and Water and a Good Environment are the Birthright of Every American." In response, the most polluting local industries will helpfully sponsor a Park Cleanup day in which folks are encouraged to pick up cans, bottles, and other trash, adroitly shifting the guilt to the lumpen proletariat and never mind that yellow gray cloud overhead.
Things only get to be career problematic when the superintendent gets a wee bit specific about the environment.
That is, if our superintendent points outs that Mothra Power and Light, J.B. Smith, CEO has been dumping tons of pollution on the park and nearby communities for decades with one ingredient being an average of 300 pounds of mercury, thus lowering the IQ of the citizens to the threshold needed to reelect the political friends of J.B Smith and Mothra Power & Light.
Naturally, such straightforward talk is going to have some career repercussions.
So the average superintendent prudently issues platitudes and attends to Job One (Assuring clean rest rooms and getting reports in on time)
However, some superintendents would like to protect the park environment and still survive. This is where people like Norm Winn come in. Norm is a lawyer and environmentalist, a potent combination for good in our society. Doing his day job, Corporate Law, gave him a handle on the pollution players in the Pacific Northwest as well as providing him with sufficient income to do Pro Bono work for various conservation watchdog organizations. State and Federal land management officials would quietly leak information to Norm, who would become point man in the issue and quietly save the day.
True, the superintendent or resource manager who supplied the information did not get the credit for being an environmental hero. Often they had to act like they just had an environmental lobotomy when asked by an incredulous reporter if building a zinc refinery next to the park might be detrimental. However, they survived to fight another day.
I asked Norm if he had considered Environmental Law. He patiently explained that only those who worked for the Bad Guys could make a living in Environmental Law. By dining with the devil (and keeping a long spoon) he had the best of all worlds; able to climb his beloved mountains (A number of First Ascents in the North Cascades) help preserve the Pacific Northwest and make enough money to do both.
Fair enough!
The talk shifted to food. The Oaxaca Region has a number of fairly exotic specialties that is supposed to raise its cuisine out of the doldrums of tortillas, rice, beans, and cheese. One of these exotic dishes is the famed "Chapulines", grasshoppers fried in onions, garlic cilantro, and chiles; something every food adventurer in Mexico has to try.
Although the idea of eating bugs may disgust you, think of them as small beef cattle. They are raised and harvested quite hygienically on specially prepared fields of organic alfalfa. (It sort of has to be organic if you think about it; spraying the alfalfa with insecticide would sort of defeat the purpose of the operation, which is to raise a huge crop of grasshoppers!) The farmer and his workers go through the alfalfa field, beating the alfalfa and causing the grasshoppers to fly into cheese cloth nets that are carried in front of the beaters
I asked Norm if he was up to a plate of grasshoppers for dinner.
Norm said that he certainly was as he hadn't eaten grasshoppers since he left the Philippines.
My curiosity aroused, I asked Norm if he had been stationed in the Philippines with the military.
Not quite! He laughed, When I was a very little boy, I was with a guerilla unit that was fighting the Japanese in the Philippines during the Second World War. Grasshoppers were simply part of the diet.
Now neighbors, this is a story you don't hear every day.
I asked Norm to elaborate.
It seems that his parents were Presbyterian missionaries in the Philippines when the Pacific portion of the Second World War broke out. The U.S. and Philippine armed forces made a gallant stand on the Bataan Peninsula and Corregidor, but their commander, General Wainwright, was finally forced to accept terms offered by the Japanese.
One of the terms was that U.S. civilian noncombatants, businessmen, missionaries, civil servants, retirees, and so on, accept internment until they could be repatriated.
However, a number of American civilians, including Norm's parents felt that they could not trust the good intentions of the Japanese military. So, Norman, age 4 and his brother, age 6 and his parents faded into the mountains of Mindenao where they were aided by Filipino guerilla groups.
The Japanese, for their part, were aware of the presence of Americans in the mountains. They did not know just how many or where. They were, however, aware of the presence of an American missionary and were most interested in acquiring him. They either did not know of the existence of a wife and children or did not care.
Now the Japanese had certain advantages in anti-guerilla warfare that were denied America in the Viet Nam and present day Iraq. A message was sent into the mountains to the Reverend Winn stating that unless he surrendered by a certain date, an entire Filipino village of several hundred souls would be massacred.
The Reverend Winn could not allow this to happen, and what must have been the most sad and poignant moment in Winn family history, the Reverend said goodbye to them and walked down the mountain into internment.
This left Mrs. Winn and her two boys to fend for themselves in a tropical wilderness full of unpleasant diseases, insects, and snakes. They survived due to the staunch loyalty of the Filipinos who cared for them and did not betray them in spite of the rewards and threats of retribution constantly offered by the Japanese.
Although the Winns and their hosts never doubted the momentary return of General Douglas MacArthur, the moment stretched into months and even years.
The boys regarded it as a remarkable adventure with something new happening every day! Never a dull or boring moment! Their mother was less sanguine. War could be hard on children; no quarter guerilla warfare particularly so. Their presence was also a danger and an impediment to the guerilla unit. Could they possibly leave?
That was becoming a possibility. As the war progressed, the guerillas were increasingly being supplied by submarines carrying small arms and ammunition. Naturally, after dropping their cargo, there would be room for the return voyage for a limited number of passengers. Although it would be dangerous, Mrs. Winn decided to join a group planning a rendezvous with one of the supply submarines. This would be no surprise to the submarine commander as MacArthur had decided to evacuate all noncombatants who wished to leave.
Incredibly, one member of the party still had their 8 mm home movie camera and managed to film portions of the journey down to the sea, including young Norman riding on a water buffalo.
Once aboard the submarine, Norm and his brother were exposed to exotic culinary delights such as hot dogs and ice cream from a mythic homeland they had never seen and knew only from stories. The boys were fascinated by being inside a giant machine from another world, one far different from the nearly stone age existence of their childhood.
There was still danger of course. The submarine finally had to surface to recharge its batteries. On the surface, they were spotted by a Japanese patrol plane which summoned several destroyers.
The sub commander had briefed his civilian passengers on what to expect. There would be a depth charge attack on their semi dark, claustrophobic environment. What lights there were, might be extinguished. There would be explosions and the boat would violently lurch. There might be sudden sprays of water under pressure, but the crew would make repairs. The civilians must stay out the way of the crew and above all, must make no sound. The Japanese would be listening on hydrophones for any sound. Any panicky screaming or crying could doom them all.
For not the first time, Mrs. Winn asked her boys to be brave.
The attack went much as the captain had predicted. The boys remained bravely calm and quiet.
After one particularly close depth charge explosion, the sub commander played his desperate last card. He had filled his torpedo tubes with everything that would float: paper, empty bottles and other garbage, life jackets, and hundreds of gallons of diesel fuel.
In the seconds just after the depth charge explosion, when the sea was still roiled by the shock waves, he discharged the oil and debris. The trick worked. The Japanese spotted the oil slick and trash, congratulated themselves on a successful hunt and left.
The submarine continued without incident to its base in Australia where the much relieved and grateful Mrs. Winn and her brood disembarked.
Unlike many war stories this one had a happy ending. The Reverend Winn survived the internment camp and was reunited with his family. The submarine and its crew survived the war and Norm remains in touch with the remaining crew members.
The Winns returned to Iowa where the Reverend accepted a pastorate and Norm much later discovered a letter in his mail box telling of his acceptance to Harvard. He later graduated from Harvard Law School and went on to a lifetime of climbing adventure in the Pacific Northwest which he coupled with environmental preservation.
I complimented Norm on his life of adventure and achievement.
"Actually, PJ", Norm laughed, "My life's been pretty tame and quiet since my 6th birthday!"
(Editor's note: The story of the rescue of the Winn family and others will be told in a documentary entitled "The Rescue" which will air on the History Channel on May 14.)