Recruitment Announcement - Wild
Planet Strategy Team
TWS & TNC: Eco-groups endorse
clear-cutting to create healthy forests
Alexander Cockburn's Merry Christmas
Predator Conservation Alliance
seeks a new leader!
Yosemite National Park E-Newsletter
"NOW with Bill Moyers"
~ Vandana Shiva talking about water privatization
WHEN JESUS SPOKE TO 'THE BURNING
BUSH'
Sierra Club on Bush Iraq Speech
Reclamation of Shootaring Canyon
(Lake Powell) Uranium Mill
Bring Back Hetch Hetchy?
Lands withdrawn for Marble Canyon
and Paria River Reservoir Projects
Memorial Resolution for Anne Brower
Amicus brief on Yosemite river
plan
Censorship becomes a Seminole rule
on the reservation
Removed tribal leader says he wasn't
elected for his morals
Japanese Governor Opposes Dams
as "Pork"
Utah Sierra Club Supports Restoring
Glen Canyon
AN EVENING TO
HONOR DAVID BROWER
Sierra Club Group Hosts Celebration
for David Brower
President Clinton's Order Preserving
Our Roadless National Forests
"Delta a Snag in Babbitt's
Plan for Colorado River"
David Brower Remembered
Bush Thanked Rioters
2000 Election Exposes Institutional
Corruption
Republicans for Environmental
Protection
=====================================================+
Date:
Tuesday, July 6, 2004 4:22 PM
Subject: WPST openings
Recruitment Announcement - Wild Planet Strategy Team
The Sierra Club Conservation Governance Committee (CGC) seeks
to appoint up to three new members on the Wild Planet Strategy
Team (WPST). If you would like to nominate yourself or someone
else for membership on the WPST, please complete the application
below by July 20, 2004.
The WPST deals with public and private land and water management
issues, including existing special designations such as national
parks, wilderness, and wild rivers. These issues at times overlap
with the work of other strategy teams and national committees
with whom they coordinate. For example, WPST works closely with
both the International and Wildlands Campaign Committees.
WPST members serve primarily in a supervisory capacity as
liaisons to six national committees: Marine Wildlife and Habitat,
Recreation Issues, Wildlife and Endangered Species, Rivers, Grazing,
and Forest Certification. Continuing members of the WPST are:
Jerry Sutherland (Chair, Oregon), Jim Dodson (Budget Manager,
California), Sharon Stephens (Vice-Chair, Minnesota), Dick Worthen
(Secretary, Illinois), Karl Forsgaard (Washington), and Vivian
Newman (Maine). Staff liaisons are Maribeth Oakes (Washington
DC) and Vicky Hoover (San Francisco). CGC liaison is Renee Voss.
Candidates for the WPST should have general knowledge of the
issue areas it covers, but must have experience with Sierra Club
policies and processes at the national level. As liaisons to
WPST committees, members are expected to teach and guide them
on process while leaving content primarily in their hands. Candidates
should have good management and social skills, as well as political
and strategic judgment. Members have to evaluate and establish
priorities (especially budget-related) among all the competing
demands of WPST committees fairly rather than represent one narrow
issue focus.
Nominees must be current Sierra Club members residing in the
United States. Sierra Club of Canada members are not eligible
to apply. Please contact Sierra Club Canada at scc@magma.ca
for information on Canadian participation.
Ability and willingness to use electronic mail and to participate
in conference calls (generally in the evening) are required as
well as the ability to travel occasionally to meetings or conferences.
Candidates need to consider their ability to contribute time
and effort to WPST participation in addition to ongoing commitments.
Appointments to the WPST are made by CGC, based on applications
and phone interviews with prospective candidates by CGC and the
WPST representatives. If you are interested in applying, please
read and follow the instructions completely. We are only accepting
self-nominations, so, please, pass this announcement on to others
you think may have an interest.
Applications and requests for more information should go the
following:
Jerry Sutherland (WPST Chair)
503-233-1552
jerry.sutherland@comcast.net
APPLICATION FORM
Name, address, phones, e-mail address, and best times to reach
you:
Sierra Club Membership #:
Sierra Club activities and leadership positions held, with dates:
Other relevant environmental experience and qualifications:
Statement of interest in serving on the Wild Planet Strategy
team (100 words max please):
Names, phones, and e-mail addresses of three references, including
best times to reach them.
=====================================================+
Denver Post - Sunday, May 02, 2004
TWS & TNC: Eco-groups endorse clear-cutting to create
healthy forests
Longtime forestry feud shows signs of healing
2 eco-groups endorse clear-cutting as way to create healthy forests
www.denverpost.com/Stories/0,1413,36~53~2120254,00.html
By Marcos Mocine-McQueen
Denver Post Staff Writer
Environmentalists and the U.S. Forest Service can agree on one
thing:
Clear-cutting is good.
And that's no small thing, considering that the two are often
at
odds over logging projects and that for decades clear-cuts have
been almost universally derided.
But now, thanks to science coming out of Colorado, scientists
are
agreeing that clear-cutting in certain types of trees is needed
to
open the path to a healthier forest and better wildfire management.
For many, that means supporting a practice that in the past has
represented all that was wrong in forestry.
"I've certainly had to change my idea of what a 'healthy
forest'
is," said Greg Aplet, a forest ecologist with the Wilderness
Society. "This is not something we would have discussed
even
a few years ago."
Although he has come to accept clear-cuts as part of good
forest
management, Aplet still has reservations, as do some forest residents.
"I understand thinning, but to me that means marking
certain trees
for removal and doing it delicately," said Faith White,
who lives
near national forest land outside Nederland. The Forest Service
has
made several small openings in the forest behind her house, which
is a mix of ponderosa and lodgepole pine and aspen.
"But this was just using big, heavy machines to mow over
lots of trees.
"It used to be so beautiful up here," White said.
"When I first saw
what they were doing, I just cried."
The new type of clear-cut, which has already been used on
some federal
land on a small scale, is not the logging practice demonized
by
environmentalists in which hundreds of acres are reduced to stumps
pocking a desolate landscape. The new style is a smaller and,
environmentalists hope, more calculated practice.
The patches of clear-cut are as small as a tenth of an acre
or as
large as 50 acres. Is some cases, individual trees or small stands
are left to dot the clearings.
-----------
Post photo/ Helen H. Richardson
The recently thinned 168-acre area known as Russell Ridge II
is part
of the Nighthawk Project in the Pike National Forest. In the
2,850-acre
project, dead or diseased trees and underbrush are removed to
reduce
the risk of a major wildfire and to improve wildlife habitat,
the
Forest Service says.
----------
Merrill Kaufmann of the Forest Service is one of the scientists
whose
research is prompting this new thinking. He and a group of researchers
believe they found part of the explanation for Colorado's wildfire
trends
in a stand of ponderosa pine around Cheesman Reservoir.
He and researchers found that nature had thinned the ponderosa
stands
much differently than humans had.
The stand of trees seemed largely without pattern. Patches
of old
growth were intermixed with patches of younger trees, and - most
important - broad open meadows.
Kaufmann, who took an interest in fire ecology after almost
losing
a cabin to wildfire, saw a lesson to be learned from the pines
about
how fires act in nature.
"What you had was fires that would burn, sometimes for
months
straight," Kaufmann said. "But it wouldn't crown and
run through
the tops of trees like they do now."
Instead, he says, the flames would nibble their way through
grasses
and duff, but leave trees undamaged and able to mature into old
growth. This matches the research that scientists have generally
used to design thinning programs.
But Kaufmann and his fellow researchers found still more in
younger
stands of trees. In those areas, Kaufmann said, the fire had
become
more active and completely burned an individual tree or a handful
of trees. Those openings provided a foothold for what are now
relatively younger trees.
But it is the open spaces that provide the most controversial
part
of the forestry theory. In these places, he said, a blaze became
highly active and turned into full-blown crown fires. Sometimes
those blow-ups would consume a tenth of an acre, sometimes dozens
of acres. Those blazes denuded the landscape, leaving behind
dead,
blackened sticks.
And in this erratic manner a fire would march across the landscape
for an entire season, leaving a patchy and uneven forest.
"If we're going to return the forest to its natural condition,
we're going to have to mimic that," Kaufmann concluded.
"And
that means in some places we open the canopy."
Kaufmann became a convert to the idea of canopy openings through
the research of scientists such as Bill Baker of the University
of Wyoming, Bill Romme of Colorado State University and Thomas
Veblen of the University of Colorado at Boulder.
"I've said before that I thought the environmental community
has
been one of the biggest obstructions to a healthy forest,"
Kaufmann
said. "But in the last year, they have really turned around,
and now
they're doing some great things."
The Wilderness Society's Aplet said that research by local
scientists
has caused him to rethink what it means to have a healthy forest.
"No doubt it's been a change for me," he said.
And the research from Colorado and Wyoming begs much deeper
and
broader questions about forestry across the nation: Forest ecologists
may need to rethink their approach to research.
Extensive research has been done with ponderosa pine in Arizona
and
New Mexico, so it is somewhat surprising that the new clear-cutting
ideas came from ponderosa studies. But Kaufmann and other researchers
suggest that the same stand of trees will burn differently depending
on where it is. Fire and forest do not mix in Colorado the same
way
they do in New Mexico.
"What it tells us is we need more local science,"
Kaufmann said.
It would be virtually impossible to open up spaces with controlled
burns because that would require a crown fire, the most dangerous
and erratic kind of wildfire. So, land managers are left with
logging:
removing all the trees in an area with chain saws and heavy equipment.
"We've got to use a tool to create canopy openings,"
said Chris Pague,
senior conservation ecologist with the Colorado chapter of the
Nature
Conservancy. "And that tool almost has to be going in there
and cutting."
Chuck Dennis, a project forester with the Colorado State Forest
Service,
said his agency has been incorporating canopy openings into its
fire
mitigation in recent years. The challenge, he said, has been
finding
ways to do it on the agency's parcels of land, which tend to
be
smaller than federal forests.
"I try to look at where we have existing openings,"
Dennis said. "By
sometimes removing just a handful of trees, we can maybe connect
a few
openings or expand a natural existing opening. We don't have
to remove
a lot of trees."
Often, he said, they look for areas where openings once existed
naturally.
"Those openings were there before, and they were there
for a reason,"
Dennis said.
The logging is largely done by private contractors. What to
do with the
trees that are cut is a sticky issue. Leaving them in the forest
creates
a potential fire risk, but much of the timber that is removed
is too
small to be of much commercial value.
But Dennis reports that in a few short years, state foresters
have
seen improvements across the forest ecosystem. The Pawnee montane
skipper is a butterfly that is threatened. It lives only along
small
stretches of the South Platte River, and 50 percent of its habitat
has been destroyed by fire since 1996, according to Dennis. Last
year, the State Forest Service measured a tenfold increase in
the
butterfly and its favorite plant, the prairie gayfeather, in
areas
of the new clear-cuts.
President Bush's Healthy Forest Initiative, and the Healthy
Forest
Act subsequently passed by Congress, have made this aggressive
thinning and fire mitigation easier, according to Terry McCann
of
the U.S. Forest Service. On some fire-related projects of less
than 1,000 acres, the Forest Service no longer has to complete
an environmental impact statement, and the bar for appealing
thinning projects has been raised, McCann said.
Whether this faster pace is good depends on whom you ask.
McCann
said the new rules have proven invaluable in protecting forests.
Environmentalists such as Lisa Dale, a policy fellow with the
Wilderness Society, say the relaxed process leaves the forests
more vulnerable to bad decisions.
And others in the environmental community still have concerns
about the clear-cuts.
"I don't have any problem with the science," Aplet
said. "It's
the application that I'm concerned about."
The Nature Conservancy's Pague, who endorses the idea of
opening up the canopy, has some of the same reservations as
Aplet about how this science will be turned into practice.
"I'd like to see them taking into account things like
slope
and aspect, and let's figure out how this would happen naturally
and build the program around that," Pague said. "We
shouldn't
just say, 'We need openings, so let's start cutting.' "
----------
Mark Garland
Forests in the News
http://www.fseee.org
=====================================================+
Thursday, December 25, 2003 1:46
PM
Alexander Cockburn's Merry Christmas
The Sierra Club can be a frustrating work-in-progress for any
visionary. There was a time when Sierra Club members who made
their living as employees of other environmental organizations
were not allowed to stand for election to Sierra Club offices,
while Club members who worked for oil companies and the like
were quite welcome to run. . . . we are past that peculiarity,
although it continues to be raised by some retrogrades.
Hang in there, wherever. Aleander Cockburn's list of worthy orgs
follows.
All the best,
- Ed
====================+++
Merry Christmas
December 25, 2003
CounterPunch Diary
Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!
By ALEXANDER COCKBURN
But first a word about Libya. Muammar Qaddafi has announced he
is abandoning
his quest for nuclear potency. Too bad. I think every country
should have at
least one nuclear device. It evens things up and would do more
for world peace
than a thousand pompous sessions of the UN General Assembly.
It's difficult to believe that the Libyan pantomime will do much
to help
George and Tony's adventure come quite to the conclusion they
desire. But as
Bruce Page remarks, there is a certain cunning in getting people
to abandon
voluntarily WMD they don't have, as against invading them to
destroy WMD that
don't exist.
Now for "Happy Holidays". Can we please deep-six this
trite
"non-denominational" greeting, designed to alert the
world that those uttering
the salutation "Happy Holidays" are sensitive people
aware that the recipients
of the greeting might not be Christians, might be Kwanzans, or
Jews or Muslims
who have a low opinion of J. Christ and no desire to celebrate
his birthday.
The Muslims think Christ was not divine and the Jewish sacred
writings say
likewise, and that for the sin of getting ideas above his station
JC is being
pickled in excrement for all eternity.
But my Jewish friends say "Happy Hanukah", with no
nonsense about saying
"Happy Holidays" out of sensitivity to the fact that
the festival of Hanukah
derives from the Maccabbees' triumph over the bestial forces
of Hellenism in
165 B.C., said Hellenism being in its neo-Platonic guise one
of the central
components of the Christian religion. An irony is that there's
no mention of
Hanukah in the Torah, but only in the Books of the Maccabees,
an annexe to the
Bible.
My friend and neighbor Joe Paff tells me he heard Oregon Public
Radio harshly
criticize Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger for daring to utter the
forbidden phrase
"Merry Christmas", even though he immediately made
haste to light a menorah to
show that his "Merry Christmas" wasn't an eruption
of ur-Schwarzenegger,
overture to a volley of Sieg Heils and Aryan paeans to Wotan.
When I lived in an apartment building on the Upper West side
of New York,
throughout December our elevator rang with jovial cries of Happy
Hanukah and
Merry Christmas, and Margot Adler who lived in the apartment
right next to me
wasn't put out, even though she was a boisterous Wiccan and reserved
her
enthusiasms for the festival of Beltane, which I vaguely remember
involved
dancing round some sort of a Maypole. I One time Margot, a radio
broadcaster
of the first quality, was up for a big job at NPR but lost out
because NPR was
worried about being trashed in the Nw York Post for hiring a
Witch (though a
witch who was White in edvery sense of the term).
So, hear it from a unbaptised, unconfirmed Protestant/atheist,
born out of
wedlock, albeit raised in a Christo-Commie environment, MERRY
CHRISTMAS AND A
HAPPY NEW YEAR. And that's from all all here at CounterPunch,
Jeffrey St
Clair, Becky Grant asnd yrs truly.
And now, a few deserving cases for those of you with money
in your pockets.
It's from the latest edition of the list Jeffrey St Clair and
I draw up for our newsletter
the CounterPunch newsletter each year.
They're all worthy and needy groups that are putting up a
good fight
against long odds, never losing their optimism that change can
be
wrought, from the ground up. These groups don't act like subsidiaries
of the
Democratic Party and aren't neutered by big foundations. So,
of course, they
mostly operate on a shoestring and greatly value each contribution.
Give them
what you can. We don't think you'll be disappointed in the results.
Bring Them Home Now!
c/o Veterans for Peace
438 N Skinker Blvd
St. Louis, MO 63130
bringthemhomenow.org/
Bring Them Home Now! is a campaign of military families, veterans,
active duty
personnel, reservists and others opposed to the ongoing war in
Iraq . Their
mission is to mobilize military families, veterans, and GIs to
demand: an end
to the occupation of Iraq and other misguided military adventures;
an
immediate return of all US troops to their home duty stations.
Powder River Basin Resource Council
P.O. Box 1178,
Douglas, Wyoming 82633
http://www.powderriverbasin.org/
The biggest natural gas rush in history is now going on in Wyoming,
the way
greased by Bush's Deputy Secretary of the Interior Steven Griles,
a former
lobbyist for the oil and gas industry, who still gets a paycheck
from his
former clients. If Bush and Griles have their way, more than
51,000 new wells
will be drilled in the Powder River Basin alone. Along with the
wells will
come thousands of miles of roads and pipelines, toxic holding
ponds, and the
depletion and contamination of groundwater 80 percent of the
people in
northern Wyoming depend on wells as their sole source of water.
Campaign To Stop Killer Coke
P.O. BOX 1004, Cooper Station,
New York, NY 10276-1004
http://www.killercoke.org/
The realization that U.S.-based multinational corporations like
Coca-Cola can
get away with murder prompted Corporate Campaign, Inc.(CCI),
working closely
with the International Labor Rights Fund (ILRF), to organize
the worldwide
Campaign to Stop Killer Coke. In July 2001, the ILRF co-sponsored
a lawsuit on
behalf of the Colombian union SINALTRAINAL and its members, charging
that
Coca-Cola bottlers "contracted with or otherwise directed
paramilitary
security forces that utilized extreme violence and murdered,
tortured,
unlawfully detained or otherwise silenced trade union leaders."
Adopt-A-Native-Elder Program
POB 3401,
Park City, UT 84060
Phone: (435) 649-0535
http://www.anelder.org/
The Adopt-A-Native-Elder Program started through the efforts
of Linda Myers of
Park City, Utah. In the late 1980s Meyers, an artist, was stunned
by the
intricacies of the patterns at a rug show displaying the weavings
by the
Elders from the Big Reservation. Touched by the stories of the
Navajo people
as told by Grace Smith Yellowhammer and Rose Hulligan during
that rug show,
Meyers soon became very involved in gathering donated food, clothing,
firewood
and simple medicines and was driving to the reservation in Northern
Arizona to
deliver them to Elders living traditionally on the Land. The
Program supports
350 traditional Elders who live in the Northern portion of Arizona
and
Southern Utah. The activities of the Program focus on helping
traditional
Elders live on the Land in the ways of Dine', as they have for
thousands of
years. This Program is assisted by traditional Dine' people who
serve as
coordinators in various parts of the reservation to help the
organization
determine the needs of the Elders in their own culture and lifestyle.
Citizens United for Rehabilitation of Errants
P.O. Box 2310 Washington, DC 20013-2310
202-789-2126
http://www.curenational.org/
In early December an 80-page report by a group called Grassroots
Leadership
revealed that the nation's largest private prison company, Corrections
Corporation of America, had used campaign contributions and intimate
ties with
conservative politicians to legislate harsher prison sentences
for nonviolent
crimes in order to boost demand for prisons. The same report
detailed how the
CCA, which pays its largely untrained workers and guards a pittance,
bilks
money off prisoners through outrageously high phone charges and
other
incarceration fees. National CURE (Citizens United for Rehabilitation
of
Errants) is a grassroots organization of prisoners, families
of prisoners,
former prisoners and concerned citizens working to reform the
prison system.
The Kopkind Colony
158 Kopkind Rd,
Guilford, Vt 05301
802-254-4859
john@afterstonewall.com
Above Weatherhead Hollow Pond, a few miles from Brattleboro,
Vermont, we find
the Kopkind Colony, a summer project begun as a living memorial
to Andrew
Kopkind, whose standing as the best radical journalist of his
generation is
lastingly set in Verso's collection of his writings, edited by
JoAnn
Wypijewski, The Thirty Years' Wars . On the theory that we can't
act without
thought and can't think without rest, the Colony has, since 1999,
been
bringing left journalists and activists together for a week of
seminars,
cross-generational exchange, good food and fun. Colony is not
geared for
solitary work but for collective engagement. It's free for all
the
participants. Every year the colony holds summer sessions involving
seven
younger journalists and activists and two to four veterans of
the same
occupations. Every year someone says, "It changed my life".
Every year it
holds public events for the community-free movies and speakers
and an annual
small fundraising lunch with special guests and, as always, vivid
discussions.
Speakers and mentors to the colony have included Tariq Ali, Patricia
Williams,
Rabab Abdul Hadi, Robin D. G. Kelley, Grace Paley, Robert Pollin,
Makani
Themba Nixon, Ron Nixon, Mandy Carter, Doug Lummis, Kevin Alexander
Gray,
Margaret Cerullo, Alisa Klein, Mike Marqusee, Nabil Abraham,
and Kopkind's
close friend, CP coeditor Alexander Cockburn . This past summer
the themes
were internationalism and resistance and, in a special collaboration
with the
Eqbal Ahmad Initiative at Hampshire College, the question of
Palestine.
Participants hailed from Uganda and Pakistan, from Dearborn and
the West Bank,
and from all over the US.
Rachel Corrie Foundation for Peace and Justice
P.O. Box 12149
Olympia, WA 98508
http://www.rachelcorriefoundation.org/
On March 16, 2003, Rachel Corrie, a young activist from Evergreen
College, was
crushed to death by an Israel Defense Forces bulldozer as she
tried to prevent
the demolition of a Palestinian home in the town of Rafah, Gaza.
Rachel's
killers have never been brought to justice. The US Congress has
never launched
an investigation. The Bush administration bought the Israeli
line that Rachel
was responsible for her own death. In one frightful instant Rachel's
parents,
Cindi and Craig, had their hearts broken and were transformed
into human
rights organizers. Craig quit his job in North Carolina and he
and Cindi moved
back to Olympia to campaign for justice for their daughter and
for the
Palestinians living under the Occupation. The Rachel Corrie Foundation
funds
their important work. "Rachel was not an Israeli. She was,
as a member of the
International Solidarity Movement, a member of the international
civil
society, as we all are," says Jeff Halper of the Israeli
Committee Against
Home Demolitions. "In her actions she affirmed her responsibility
for
upholding the inherent dignity and equal rights of all people,
including their
right to a nationality. She opposed non-violently the violence
that occupation
does the Palestinians. "The threshold of what is outrageous
has reached
unimaginable heights in the Occupied Territories. Little moves
us anymore. The
demolition of 60 Palestinian homes in the Rafah section of Gaza
where Rachel
worked made barely a ripple when it happened a year ago. 2400
Palestinians
have died in the past two years, a quarter of them children and
youth, and
22,000 have been injured. Thirty percent of Palestinian children
under the age
of 5 suffer from malnutrition. 500,000 olive and fruit trees
have been
uprooted or cut down. Israel is today imprisoning the Palestinians
behind a
500-mile wall that is much longer, higher and more fortified
than was the
Berlin Wall. It's all happening before our eyes and-who cares?
Rachel cared."
Peace Action New Mexico
226 Fiesta Street
Santa Fe, NM 87501
Peace Action New Mexico was founded in 1998 in the birthplace
of the nuclear
nightmare. They are committed to abolishing nuclear weapons and
all weapons of
mass destruction, redirecting excessive military expenditures
to domestic
investment, ending global weapons trafficking, preventing the
erosion of civil
liberties both in this country and elsewhere, preventing the
militarization of
space, and fostering non-military solutions to international
conflicts. It's a
grassroots, member-supported not-for-profit outfit . In 2003
Peace Action NM
sponsored numerous large rallies and protests against the war
in Iraq and Bush
domestic policies, drawing 8,000 protesters to their February
15 rally.
"Responding to email alerts, our members made as many as
1100 calls daily to
our representatives in Congress in the run up to the vote on
Iraq, resulting
in Sen. Jeff Bingagam and Rep. Tom Udall finally voting NO on
the resolution,"
says Beryl Schwartz. "As part of our educational program
on our issues, we
brought many speakers to northern New Mexico, including Dr. Helen
Caldicott,
Rahul Mahajan, , former U.S. Rep. Cynthia McKinney, Bruce Gagnon,
David
Barsamian, Mario Galvan, Damacio Lopez and most recently CounterPunch
co-editor, Jeffrey St. Clair." In 2004, Peace Action NM
will be campaigning
for a new foreign policy and for the use of verifiable voting
machines.
Cascadia Wildlands Project
N.E.S.T.
POB 10455 Eugene, OR 97440
541.434.1463
Early this month Craig Beneville, a longtime friend of the CounterPunch
editors, fell from an old Douglas-fir tree near the Molalla River
in western
Oregon. He died before they got him to the hospital. Craig had
been working on
a project to locate evidence of red tree voles and other endangered
species in
forests slated for logging under the Clinton/Bush forest plans.
Last year,
Craig and his colleagues at the Cascadia Wildlands Project launched
the
Northwest Ecosystem Survey Team (NEST), a group of forest watch
experts
committed to protecting the habitat of rare species associated
with
late-successional forests. NEST enforces environmental protections
built into
the Northwest Forest Plan-specifically the Survey and Manage
Strategy. The
on-the-ground information NEST develops will be critical to the
CWP's work to
stop old-growth timber sales and protect habitat for lesser known
species. The
Survey and Manage Strategy of the Northwest Forest Plan requires
the Forest
Service and Bureau of Land Management to conduct surveys for
certain rare and
endemic wildlife species that depend on old-growth habitat, and
protect them
where they are found. NEST has been highly successful at using
the Survey and
Manage Strategy to protect species. Habitat protection for the
Red Tree Vole
(RTV), an arboreal mammal that lives in the upper canopy of old-growth
Douglas
fir trees, has received considerable attention. NEST climbing
surveys have
been far more effective than agency surveys. For instance, NEST
typically
detects almost 75% more RTV nest sites. Recently, NEST surveys
detected over
two dozen RTV nests at the Straw Devil timber Sale, located in
the Middle Fork
District of the Willamette National Forest. Forest Service surveys
found zero
nests. The timber sale has since been halted.
=====================================================+
To: <browerpower@wildnesswithin.com>
Date: Thursday, November 6, 2003 12:11 AM
Predator Conservation Alliance seeks a new leader!
Predator Conservation Alliance--a non-profit wildlife conservation
organization based in Bozeman, Montana--is seeking a new executive
director.
For more information on this new chapter for Predator Conservation
Alliance, please visit our website:
http://www.predatorconservation.org
To help us find the best possible candidate for this important
position, please share this announcement with anyone that may
be
interested and qualified to lead our excellent organization.
For All Things Fanged and Furry,
The Staff and Board of Predator Conservation Alliance
Position Announcement - Predator Conservation Alliance
Position: Executive Director
Position status: Full-time, year-round
Office location: Downtown Bozeman, Montana
Compensation: Competitive salary and benefits package
Benefits:
- Knowing that you are helping to conserve and restore native
predatory wildlife in the U.S. Northern Rocky Mountains and Northern
Great Plains regions
- The opportunity to shape the future of a highly committed and
skilled staff and Board toward achieving this goal
- Working and living in a vibrant university town, with an active
conservation community, and preeminent outdoor recreational
opportunities
- Medical benefits, paid vacation, sick leave and holidays
Starting date: As soon as possible upon hiring
(Note: the current ED has agreed to remain with the organization
to
help during the transition)
Preferred contact: Electronic and print versions of resume
and cover
letter describing qualifications, list of five work-related
references, including telephone numbers
Mail letter and resume to:
Predator Conservation Alliance
Attn: ED Search Committee
P.O. Box 6733
Bozeman, MT 59771
Email letter and resume to:
pca@predatorconservation.org
Telephone inquiries to: Becky Weed, Search Committee - (406)
388-4945
Resume review to begin December 15; Position open until filled.
Check our website for position status: www.predatorconservation.org
Predator Conservation Alliance (PCA) works to protect, restore
and
conserve predators and their habitats, and helps people and predators
coexist, in the Northern Rockies and Northern Plains. In short,
we
are Saving a Place for America's Predators.
This place is also in the human heart and mind, where we strive
to
increase the public's understanding of, and appreciation for,
the
ecological, economic and cultural value these animals bring to
our lives.
Additional details information about Predator Conservation
Alliance
can be found on our website: www.predatorconservation.org
Principal duties:
- Manage PCA's experienced and energetic staff of eight in
the
design, support and implementation of effective programs to conserve
and restore native predators in the Rocky Mountains and Great
Plains,
including efforts to help people and predators coexist in these
regions.
- Work with PCA's Board of Directors to advance PCA's goals
by
further developing and strengthening the Board and organization
overall.
- Generate support from foundations, and work with development
director in generating support from individual donors and general
membership, in order to fund PCA's $700,000+ annual budget.
- Represent PCA in public venues regionally and nationally
to convey
understanding, interest, excitement and support for our work.
- Assist PCA staff and Board in the design and implementation
of a
new five-year strategic plan for our forests, grasslands, and
coexistence work. This will include consideration of how best
to
incorporate transboundary issues (national and/or ecological
boundaries) into PCA's vision and planning.
The qualified candidate is likely to have some mix of the
following
characteristics:
- A capacity for integrating rigorous science with effective
conservation policy.
- Interest and successful experience at managing a non-profit
organization of comparable scope, particularly one engaged in
controversial public policy. An ability to plan and implement
conservation programs with an experienced and dedicated staff
is
essential.
- Excellent ability and interest in work with a diversity
of people,
including PCA staff and Board, other conservation activists and
organizations, landowners, ranchers, hunters, land and wildlife
management agencies, biologists, political leaders, academia,
educators, members of the media, and the general public.
- Excellent oral and written communication skills, including
a track
record of successful grant writing and public speaking.
- Willingness to travel throughout the region and nationally
to
represent PCA before foundations, donors, colleagues in the carnivore
conservation community, and general audiences (working
collaboratively with PCA's development and communications staff
to
make the most of such efforts).
- Knowledge and successful experience in predator conservation
issues.
- Ties to the Rocky Mountain and Great Plains region, including
knowledge of the forces affecting ecology and economy of the
Western
U.S. (e.g. agricultural policies/practices/subsidies/opportunities;
trends in economic opportunity, landownership patterns, demands
upon
public lands, etc).
- Transboundary and/or International experience.
- Graduate education in conservation-related policy, science
or
management, or commensurate experience.
- Proficiency in basic computer operations, including Microsoft
Office software.
=====================================================+
Yosemite National Park E-Newsletter
The Park Service has decided to put out a Yosemite e-mail
newsletter. Drop them a note if you did not get this first one
directly from them at yose_planning@nps.gov
----- Forwarded Message -----
From: National Park Service <yose_planning@nps.gov>
To: e.dobson@juno.com
Date: Tue, 30 Sep 2003 12:59:43 -0400 (EDT)
Subject: Yosemite National Park E-Newsletter
September 2003
Measures for Success
A number of park improvement efforts are finally entering
into the construction phase. However, before a shovel ever meets
dirt, park staff"led by biologists, hydrologists, archeologists,
etc."conduct exhaustive studies in order to protect and
preserve Yosemite's natural, cultural, and social resources.
Read more... <http://www.nps.gov/yose/enews/200309/success.htm>
Construction Schedule
Park improvement efforts are getting underway. Read
more... <http://www.nps.gov/yose/enews/200309/schedule.htm>
Progress at Lower Yosemite Fall
This year, great strides have been made to improve the visitor
experience at Lower Yosemite Fall"and much of the work is
easily recognizable. Read
more...
On the ground in Yosemite Valley
Updates on nine specific projects happening in Yosemite Valley.
Read more... <http://www.nps.gov/yose/enews/200309/valley.htm>
Actions On the Ground Outside Yosemite Valley
Updates on three specific projects happening outside of Yosemite
Valley.
Yosemite Fire Management Plan
Fire season in Yosemite National Park is well underway as
park staff complete the Yosemite Fire Management Plan and its
Final Environmental Impact Statement.
Mark Your Calendar for Upcoming Open Houses
When it comes to planning for Yosemite,s future, the National
Park Service believes that the voices of the public are vital.
At regularly scheduled open houses, visitors, employees, and
interested members of the public can get up-to-the-minute information
on a number of improvement projects occurring throughout Yosemite
National Park.
Stay Involved!
If you would like to receive a copy of planning documents
for review or to submit written comments, please email the park
at thismessage:/yose_planning@nps.gov.
Dear Yosemite Friends,
Welcome to this inaugural edition of the Yosemite E-newsletter!
This useful tool will allow us to share Yosemite National Park
news with you while keeping down the financial and environmental
costs associated with circulating another print publication.
I encourage you to forward this newsletter on to anyone you think
might be interested in learning about the latest in Yosemite.
When you sign up for this e-newsletter, your email address is
confidential--you can be assured that we will not share it with
other entities. As this is our first edition, we welcome your
feedback. Email your comments to yose_planning@nps.gov.
Sincerely,
Michael J. Tollefson
Superintendent
=====================================================+
Date: Wednesday, August
27, 2003 11:24 PM
"NOW with Bill Moyers"
Vandana Shiva talking about water privatization
TUNE IN to "NOW with Bill Moyers" on PBS this Friday,
Aug. 29, at 9 p.m.
(est) to Vandana Shiva talking about water privatization. The
show will
feature video footage from Senegal in March of this year, where
local
activists are fighting a SAUR contract.
For information on where PBS airs in your community, visit
http://www.pbs.org/now/
Vandana Shiva is the founder and director of the Research
Foundation for
Science, Technology and Ecology in New Delhi, India. For more
information on her organization and Vandana's background, visit
http://www.vshiva.net/
=====================================================+
Date: Sunday, August 24, 2003
12:41 AM
Stunning Essay by Jim Stiles
(This piece bears a copyright emblem for the purpose of
preserving
the identity of the author. Forward at will, identifying the
author.)
=================+
WHEN JESUS SPOKE TO 'THE BURNING BUSH'
An otherworldly conversation in the Oval Office
By Jim Stiles copyright 2003
NOTE: What follows is clearly a figment of my fatigued
imagination. I am not
a biblical scholar; I am probably not even a Christian as most
religious
organizations would define it. But I grew up going to a Protestant
church
and, even as a child, can remember being confused by Christianity's
apparent
dual message. In the Gospels, Jesus spoke of love and compassion
and,
uncompromisingly, he spoke against violence, anger and hate toward
our
perceived enemies. And yet, Christians are always fighting-against
each
other, against other religions, against any perceived enemy.
And it's always
done in the name of the man who created a religion out of the
concept of
pacifism. This piece of fiction will probably enrage narrow-minded,
conservative Christians who will call it blasphemy. And it will
enrage
narrow-minded knee-jerk liberals who will see it as a some violation
of the
separation of church and state ("Did you see the new Zephyr?
It's turning it
into a Bible Study Newsletter!") As for Bush and Ashcroft's
role in this
drama, maybe I'm wrong. Maybe they'd surprise me if they were
truly thrust
into a similar situation. Maybe not....JS
7:43am on Sunday, March 16, 2003:
George Bush knew something was different the moment he stepped
into the Oval
Office. There was a quality to the light that caused him to stop,
dead in
his wing-tipped tracks, his rough hand still wrapped around the
burnished
brass handle, and stare warily into the magnificent room. What
is this? He
thought briefly as he tried to understand the view before him.
The light, he
pondered. Odd, though. It wasn't as if the room was glowing or
shimmering or
luminescing in any way. No...it wasn't really the light at all.
It was the
clarity; every window, every chair, every item, large or small,
in the room
seemed to be etched more starkly and with more definition than
he imagined
possible. He'd heard acid trips were like this; in fact it almost
felt like
deja vu to the president. But he honestly couldn't remember if
he'd ever
experimented with LSD or not. The Good Old Days were still a
hazy fog to
George W. Bush.
And just as well. The great grey mist that in some ways defined
the 43rd
President of the United States, gave him what his CIA director
called,
"plausible deniability." "If you can't remember
what you did, you sure as
hell can't lie about it," he used to assure the President,
and George would
flash his famous grin and say, "I'm not even sure I remember
what you're
talking about." The Director would nod and think, He probably
doesn't.
On this early Sunday morning in March, the President was in
a hurry, had not
expected to be challenged by anything "out of the ordinary"
and was not
particularly fond of such challenges in the first place. He hadn't
got this
far by thinking "outside the box" and had no intention
of starting now.
Blind faith, he liked to say about himself. No need to over-analyze.
He
blinked at the strange unsettling scene in the famous room. Scanned
the
office from side to side. Blinked again. Shrugged.
With him this morning, by odd coincidence, was the President's
Attorney
General, John Ashcroft. Bush respected the intelligence and advice
of his AG
and admired the tough stance Ashcroft had assumed in the War
on Terror. "I
told him to leave no stone unturned, but ol' John takes the stones
and puts
'em in a wire cage...I like that," Bush had once commented.
The two men did
not know each other intimately and the very proper Ashcroft would
have been
furious to hear his relationship with George W. described in
such a fashion.
"I don't think intimate is a word I would use to describe
my long and
platonic relationship with the President!" he might sniff
at the suggestion.
"What kind of man do you think I am!...We are just friends."
John Ashcroft did seem a bit homophobic at times.
The Attorney General had almost collided with the President's
backside as
Bush pulled up so sharply at the office door. What is he doing?
Ashcroft
thought to himself. How would that look if I bumped him in such
an unseemly
fashion? But a couple seconds passed, John took a couple steps
backward
and waited.
"Anything wrong, Mr. President?"
"Uh...no...nuthin' wrong at all John. Come on in."
The President was looking for a newspaper article that had,
in the Chief
Executive's words, "frosted my butt." It was an article
from the Washington
Post and it was about the National Council of Church's opposition
to the
upcoming War in Iraq. The Council had the temerity, the audacity
to oppose
the President's plan to invade the Land of Saddam Hussein. Had
gone so far
as to suggest that Bush's war plans were immoral. The President
was livid.
"It's here somewhere," Bush growled over his shoulder
as he searched a stack
of magazines and papers on a small table by the President's desk.
"You'd
think Condi and Karl would just hide this crap from me so I didn't
have to
read it....Now I'm all...riled up!"
The Council's criticism barely made a dent in the President's
public
approval ratings. Only Bush and his top aids knew that war in
Iraq was, on
this Sunday morning, merely a matter of days away. Yet, clearly,
the vast
majority of the American people stood solidly behind President
Bush and his
plan to attack Iraq with overwhelming military force. His leadership
after
September 11 in the War on Terror had so overwhelmed even the
liberal media,
that few if any Americans dared to challenge his agenda. The
Council of
Churches was a rare exception. Still it rankled the Commander-in-Chief.
"Here it is," Bush mumbled. "Damn it...Have
you read this, John?"
"Yes, Mr. President...shameful and unpatriotic is the
only way I can
characterize it."
"Damn straight. Here, listen to this...This is from some
guy named Reverend
Day. From something called the General Board of Global Ministries.
He says,
'We seek to build a better relationship between conflicting parties
rather
than to promote either armed retaliation or military intervention.'
Well isn't
that nice? It says here that he calls war a "monster."
Oh yeah..this is
the part that really torques me. Get this. 'I am appalled that
the United
States and its allies are launching such a mighty military attack
on a
country where, perhaps one-half of the population is made up
of children.'
So what's he sayin'? That I want to kill kids?"
The more the President lingered over the newspaper, the more
furious he
became. The Attorney General noticed the president's face was
flushed and
the veins in his neck visibly throbbed as he hunched over the
desk. From
time to time, Bush would pound his tightly clenched fist on the
smooth
mahogany and Ashcroft thought to himself, This is good. Righteous
indignation is a quality the President should exhibit more frequently.
Bush reached for the center of the page, crumpled the offending
story in his
trembling hand, and tossed it across the room, where it fluttered
to rest on
a sofa. The President looked upward, at the ceiling and toward
nothing at
all. I've never noticed those tiny cracks before, he thought
to himself.
That clarity again. So clearly could he see the detail. Finally,
the
President spread his arms, palms up and rhetorically pleaded,
"Jesus Christ,
why don't you do something to shut these people up?"
I'd like to tell you why.
The President's flailing arms stopped in mid-air. Freeze-framed.
Had he just
heard a voice? It certainly didn't come from either of the two
men he knew
to be in the room. Nah...and he almost chuckled to himself. He
wondered,
Maybe I did take acid and I'm having a flashback or somethin.'
He put his
hands to his face and gently rubbed his eyes and then glanced
at Ashcroft
who stood just behind him. He was about to tell an LSD joke he'd
once heard
while governor but stopped short. The Attorney General's eyes
were wild with
fear and all the color had drained from his already pallid skin.
Unable to
speak, he shakily pointed to the sofa where the President had
just hurled
the newsprint. His mouth flapped desperately but small globules
of spit
were all he could produce.
"I believe you should read this again."
Bush followed Ashcroft's unsteady finger. On the sofa, by
the fireplace, sat
a man and he looked familiar. "My God!" screamed Ashcroft
at last. "We have
a security breach! I'll call the Secret Service!" Bush stumbled
backward and
took refuge behind the big oak desk. But the telephone and intercom
were
both dead. Ashcroft's cell phone didn't work. Even their shouts
and screams
went unheeded. Ashcroft ran to the doors but they would not open.
They weren
't locked. He could turn the handle but he seemed to lack the
strength to
open them. Less than 20 feet away, on the sidewalk by the Rose
Garden, a
Secret Service agent stood placidly, oblivious to the calls for
help.
"I mean you no harm...I've simply come to answer your
question."
Bush fell backward into his thick leather chair, dazed and
bewildered and
terrified.
"Don't you know who I am?"
For the first time, Bush focused his attention on the young
bearded man who
sat calmly on the white sofa by the presidential fireplace. The
glow from
the fire flickered lightly on the man's face. Again, Bush noticed
the
clarity and he considered the man more closely now. His hair
was brown and
long and fell over his shoulders. He wore a simple long robe,
bound at the
waist by a braided cord. His eyes, his face conveyed-compassion.
The
President himself realized that he was no longer afraid; yet
he could not
stop trembling. He sat upright in his desk chair and spoke to
the strange
intruder.
"You do look familiar, I got to admit." The President
ran his hand across
his brow. Beads of sweat had appeared and now trickled into his
disbelieving
eyes. "In fact, you look like....good God." He turned
to his attorney
general. "John, are you seeing this?" Ashcroft nodded
but said nothing.
Bush rose from his chair. "I can't believe I'm saying
this, but you look
like...well hell...you look like...Jesus Christ!"
The man smiled slightly and nodded. "I look like Jesus
Christ because this
is how you expected me to look. Please. Come sit here with me.
We have so
much to talk about."
The President steadied himself on the desk as he moved uncertainly
around
it. He trembled so violently that he wondered if his legs would
support him,
once he tried to stand on his own, without the assistance of
his own desk.
"Please. There is no reason to be afraid."
George Bush negotiated the several steps it took to reach
the richly
upholstered chair that sat adjacent to the man on the sofa. The
man stood
and offered his hand. "Yes...I am who you think I am."
Bush felt the warmth and sincerity in the handshake, but his
hand still
quivered, although just slightly. The President settled into
the chair,
stretched his legs in front of him and exhaled a long deep breath.
"Whew!" The President sighed. "You'll have
to excuse me. But this is a lot
for me to take in, all at once. I mean...I'm flattered that you've
come to
visit me. And yes, I agree. We have so much to talk about. First
off, tell
me...uh...how should I address you? King of Kings? Prince of
Peace? Son
of God?"
"Just call me Jesus...and how should I address you?"
"Well, Mr. President, of course. With this war comin'
up, maybe you should
call me Commander-in-Chief!" Bush actually reached over
and lightly slapped
Jesus' knee. He felt relaxed for the first time and he noticed
his coiled
body unwinding. This might just be okay, the President thought.
This is just
the kind of endorsement I need to shut these anti-war "Christians"
up.
"Yessir Jesus, I'm mighty happy to welcome you here to the
Oval Office."
Jesus nodded compassionately. "I know you're under a
great deal of stress,
Mr. President, but in fact, I've come here to talk to you about
this war and
about all wars, and about my message of Peace. I can't be
misrepresented."
"Well of course not, Jesus," Bush said. "Nobody
wants to misrepresent you.
Why ever'body knows I'm a Christian. Have been for years. Why
I pray to you
ever'day for guidance and the strength to go out there and do
what needs to
be done to win the peace. Sometimes, of course, you gotta get
a bit bloody
in order to win that peace. You understand that, don't you?"
Jesus sighed softly and stared abstractly for a moment at
the thick pile
carpet and the embroidered presidential seal. Then he looked
up and said,
"No, Mr. President. I don't understand. That is why I've
come here today."
The President shifted uneasily in his seat and glanced at
Ashcroft, who
continued to stand sentinel at the door to the Rose Garden. "I'm
sorry
Jesus...I don't understand what you mean. Are you sayin' you
don't support
our efforts to rid the world of evil folks like Saddam Hussein?
Jesus nodded, "What I am saying to you now is what I
have always said. My
message of 2000 years ago is the same. 'Love your enemy.' 'Turn
the other
cheek.' It's really that simple."
"Now wait a minute there," Bush replied. "You
can't possibly be sittin'
there tellin' me that we should never fight back against...bad
people.
Why...what would the world be like if we did something like that?"
"You don't know what the world would be like because
no one on this planet
has ever tried to live by the simple ideas I offered to all of
you. But
there are no corollaries or exceptions to the rule here. No loopholes.
I was
quoted fairly accurately in what you call the Gospels of Matthew,
Mark, Luke
and John. Repeatedly, over and over again, I tried to convey
a message of
Love and Forgiveness and...what else can I call it? Non-violence."
George W. Bush came out of his chair, smoothed the wrinkles
out of his
pressed pants and nervously paced the carpet. He paused at the
fireplace,
stared absently into the flames and rubbed his forehead. This
was beginning
to give him a headache. "What you're sayin,'" the President
finally replied,
"Is that you're a...a pacifist?"
"The word is derived from 'peace.' So yes, that would
be fair."
"But what about 'an eye for an eye' and stuff like that?
And 'vengeance is
mine, saith the Lord?'" Bush argued. Theology was not his
strong suit but he
had always felt an eye-for-an-eye made good sense. They hit me?
I hit 'em
back harder. Might makes Right.
Jesus sighed softly, "My entire purpose in coming to
Earth was truly to
renounce that kind of thinking. It's in your Bible, Mr. President.
I could
not have been more clear. You could change the world if only
you had the
faith to believe in what I've told you. You really can move mountains
if you
just have the confidence to believe in me."
Bush returned to his chair. He began to have that impatient,
bored look that
he often displayed at press conferences when reporters kept asking
difficult
questions. "So...," he sneered. "We just let the
bad guys run over us and we
let them rule the world..."
"Tell me, Mr. President," Jesus leaned forward in
his seat. "Do you believe
in Heaven?"
"Well, of course I do."
"Do you believe that if you have been a good person and
believed in me that
you will live gloriously and happily for Eternity?"
"Yes, I do!" Bush answered. "All us Christians
believe that."
"Then why are you afraid to die?" Jesus asked. "Why
would you be willing to
kill others, supposedly in my name, so you can avoid eternal
life with me?"
The question played through George Bush's mind like an old
motor with thick
crankcase oil, trying to turn over on a frigid winter morning.
He tried to
digest it, to understand it, and compose a reply. But he couldn't.
"I don'
t...understand the question," he finally sputtered.
"What I am saying," Jesus replied, showing just
a hint of frustration, "is
that so many of you cling to physical life and seem so fearful
of Death; yet
at the same time, you proclaim your belief in me. It makes no
sense to me,
unless I accept the cold hard fact that you don't really believe
in me at
all. When I said, 'Whosoever believes in me shall have everlasting
life,'
what does that mean to you?"
"Well," Bush thought a moment. "It means that
if we believe you're the Son
of God, we're going to Heaven?" He answered the question
with a question
like a student in class, unsure of his answer, might reply.
"No," said Jesus. "If you believe in me, you
must believe what I say. It's
what I have said that matters. You cannot ignore the words I
gave to you. In
the months ahead, you will kill thousands of innocent people-children,
helpless civilians who merely wanted to live their lives in peace.
You
cannot justify this killing in any way, Mr. President, and possibly
think I
would approve of it."
"What if we just killed Saddam Hussein and his family?"
"NO!" Jesus exclaimed. "Do you remember the
story of my arrest in the Garden
of Gethsemanee? When Peter sliced off the ear of the man who
came to arrest
me? And I healed him? That was the point! You cannot selectively
kill the
people you think are evil without becoming the very thing you
despise."
Bush glared at Jesus with unmistakable contempt. "I just
don't get you at
all. Why the economic benefits alone make this war worth it.
Look at the
opportunities that a successful resolution of this Saddam Hussein
thing will
bring to the people. Think of all the wealth and products that
will be
available to Iraqis after this is over."
Jesus stared icily at Bush. "You will win no argument
with me Mr. President,
trying to sell the idea of war on economic grounds. You might
recall my
encounter with the money changers in the temple. I have little
or no
tolerance for greed. It is an evil and destructive force...perhaps
the most
catastrophic aspect of the human condition. It is wrong and how
you can
claim to be a believer and then utter such...such painful rhetoric
is
beyond me."
The President shrugged.
John Ashcroft had said nothing since this incredible encounter
began but had
listened intently from across the room. But finally he cleared
his voice and
said, "What about World War II?"
Jesus turned on the sofa to see the Attorney General. Briefly,
Bush looked
confused by the question. "What's that John?"
"World War II," Ashcroft repeated himself. "Adolf
Hitler. Benito Mussolini.
The Holocaust. The closest we've ever come to global domination
by Forces of
Evil in the history of the world. Are you saying that we should
have done
nothing? Just let Hitler and his henchmen rule the world?"
"YES! Of course!" Bush chanted. "What about
that, Jesus? Surely you didn't
expect us to just let Hitler have his way."
Jesus rose from the sofa and moved across the Oval Office
and turned so he
could address both men. "Tell me Mr. President, do you believe
people are
basically good? Do you think that good will overcome evil eventually?"
"Well...yes, I guess I would have to say that."
"And do you think that all the German people and all
the Italian people and
all the Japanese people in the Second World War were as evil
as the men
who led them?"
Bush thought briefly. "No...I'd say those people just
didn't have enough
information to know how bad their leaders were."
"Exactly," replied Jesus. "So imagine this.
Imagine that as Hitler's armies
swept across Europe, the Allies had simply refused to fight.
As the Nazis
charged, the young soldiers had laid down their weapons, extended
their arms
openly and said, 'We will not kill our brothers.' What do you
think would
have happened?"
"It would have been a blood bath," Bush answered
quickly.
"That's one way to describe it. The other way might be
to say that, having
actually proven they could love their enemy and turn the other
cheek, these
men were assured a place with me. Does that sound so bad?"
Bush said nothing.
"And what if the killing continued? What if, day after
day, week after week,
thousands and thousands more died, refusing to fight. How do
you think this
might have affected the common German soldiers, for example?
In fact...let
me ask you this. Had you been a German soldier, and you had seen
these
soldiers from 'the other side,' laying down their weapons and
refusing to
fight you, how would it have affected you? Would you have been
able to keep
up your enthusiasm for killing? For the slaughter of those young
men?"
"Well no!," replied Bush. " I don't think any
of us could keep killing like
that. That would have been like a massacre."
"That's right. You have made my point for me, Mr. President.
I agree with
you. I believe that eventually, the horrors of war would have
been realized
more fully by everyone, had such an event occurred. I believe
that the Axis
soldiers would have been so tortured and shamed by their own
deeds that they
would have denounced the evil actions of their leaders and would
have
eventually embraced their enemies. That would have changed the
world."
"But millions might have died, refusing to fight!"
Bush argued.
"Fifty million humans did die, Mr. President. And they
died fighting. Much
of the planet was bombed and burned to a cinder. And for what.
Was peace the
result of World War II? Has there been peace since then? Is there
peace now?
It's time to try something totally different."
Jesus looked at both men who now stood beside each other near
the fireplace.
The fire had burned down to glowing embers. Bush picked up the
iron poker
and stirred the coals.
Jesus sighed, "There's really nothing else for me to
say."
An awkward silence lingered in the Oval Office.
"You know, Jesus," Bush finally said. "You
have a good heart and you make
some excellent points. And in a perfect world, what you're sayin'
might
work. But this isn't a perfect world."
"It could be," Jesus said softly. His eyes glistened
in the glow of the
dying embers.
"Yes. Yes, of course," said the President. "It
could be but it isn't. And
that's just the way it is." Bush nodded knowingly at Ashcroft.
" I was
hoping, at the beginning of our little chat, that you might see
things our
way. But obviously we don't see eye-to-eye on this subject. So
I'm assuming
our little chat here will remain private...just between the two
of us. Or
three of us...excuse me, John."
Jesus walked toward Bush and Ashcroft, not menacingly but
with a
determination and force that made both men uncomfortable. They
actually
tried to back away but there was no place for them to back to.
As the
President and Attorney General leaned against the marble mantlepiece,
Jesus
closed the gap between them to just a few inches. "Listen
to me closely. I
cannot allow you to misrepresent me in this fashion. In my world
there are
no 'Christian Soldiers,' there is no killing in my name, and
it would be
wrong to suggest otherwise. No, Mr. President...I cannot remain
silent. I
must go out and talk to the people. That ultimately is why I
am here. I had
feared our conversation might end like this."
Bush and Ashcroft glanced nervously at Jesus and then at each
other.
Ashcroft shook his head slightly. Bush said, "It's not over
yet. Jesus, can
you back off just a minute? John and I need to talk. Just sit
back down
there on the sofa and we'll be with you in a moment."
The two men conferred quietly for several minutes. Ashcroft
walked to the
Rose Garden door again and, to his surprise, it opened easily.
He summoned
the Secret Service agent and the young man came immediately.
He saw Jesus,
sitting on the couch and said, "How in the hell did he get
in here? Who is
he?" The agent called into his lapel mike, "We have
a Code One in the Oval
Office. Code ONE! I need backup now!"
The President turned to Jesus, who now rose from the sofa.
"Jesus, I believe
in free speech as much as the next guy. But sometimes national
security just
has to come first. We're not goin' to be able to let you go out
there and be
a rabble rouser and whatever. Stirring up the people with this
kind of
radical talk. Not right now. It's not good for America, it's
not good for
our war on terror and it sure as hell wouldn't be good for this
administration...pardon my language"
"I...I don't understand," Jesus said.
Bush looked skeptically at Jesus. "Of course you do."
The President motioned to the agent. "Plain and simple,
you're goin' to need
to cool off a bit. And we're gonna take you someplace where you
can do just
that. A little spot for you to be alone with your thoughts, as
they say.
Maybe a little self-reflection will be good for you. And then,
after a
while, if you start to see reason, maybe we can talk again. Until
then,
enjoy your little...vacation."
The President started to walk away, but Jesus caught his coat
sleeve. "This
'place' you mention...where is it?"
"A tropical paradise some say. Palm trees. A pleasant
climate. Near the sea.
We call it... Guantanamo Bay."
Five days later, on March 21, the United States invaded Iraq.
In the months
that followed, more than 4000 Iraqi civilians were killed by
Coalition air
and ground attacks. The numbers grow larger each day. The whereabouts
of
Jesus are now unknown.
http://www.canyoncountryzephyr.com/extra/
=====================================================+
Date: Tuesday, April 1, 2003 1:10 AM
Sobering article from the Association for the Study
of Peak Oil
http://www.asponews.org/ASPO.newsletter.022.php
Overpopulation and resource limits - "Welcome to the
21st Century"
How much oil is left in the United States of America?
http://www.asponews.org/ASPO.newsletter.023.php
=====================================================+
Date: Tuesday, March 18,
2003 1:00 AM
Sierra Club on Bush Iraq Speech
Date: Mon, 17 Mar 2003 20:46:45 -0500
Subject: Sierra Club on Bush Iraq Speech
For Immediate Release: March 17, 2003
Contact: Allen Mattison, 202-427-3833
Statement of Sierra Club Executive Director Carl Pope:
"The Sierra Club opposes the impending military attack
on Iraq by the
United States. We believe that the best course of action is disarmament
through the United Nations' authorized inspections and weapons
destruction process. We hope all parties will use the next 48
hours to find a path
to peace.
"No matter the duration or outcome of this conflict,
however, we will
find ourselves in the same situation once again if the U.S. and
other nations
fail to recognize that continued dependence on oil and other
fossil fuels
is a significant de-stabilizing influence in international affairs.
The
Sierra Club therefore reaffirms its urgent call for the U.S.
to move to a
clean-energy economy using energy-efficient technologies and
renewable power."
=====================================================+
Date: Sunday, January 19,
2003 3:05 PM
Subject: Reclamation of Shootaring Canyon (Lake Powell) Uranium
Mill
ATTENTION!
Below is an opportunity to comment, or request a hearing,
on the Reclamation of the Shootaring Canyon Uranium Mill, near
Ticaboo, Utah, just north of Lake Powell. In addition to the
tailings from the operation of the mill, the site also
contains tailings from the old Hydro Jet Mill and wastes from
the Hanksville Ore Buying Station.
The State of Utah appears to be interested in moving
the tailings elsewhere. So the question is: Where??
Someone from Lake Powell has already submitted what
seems to be an informal proposal to the NRC and the State
regarding the transfer of the tailings to White Mesa.
===================+++
[Federal Register: December 23, 2002 (Volume 67, Number 246)]
[Notices]
[Page 78262-78263]
From the Federal Register Online via GPO Access
[DOCID:fr23de02-101]
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION
[Docket No. 40-8698]
Notice of Amendment Request and Consideration of Proposed:
Reclamation Plan for the Shootaring Canyon
Uranium Project
Ticaboo, Utah, and Opportunity to Provide Comments and to
Request a Hearing
I. Introduction
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) has received, by letter
dated October 24, 2002, a request from Plateau Resources Limited
(PRL)
to (1) amend Source Materials License SUA-1371 for the Shootaring
Canyon Uranium Project to change its status from ``operational''
to
``reclamation;'' and (2) review and approve PRL's proposed reclamation
plan for this facility.
The uranium mill at Shootaring Canyon operated for only three
months in 1982, generating a small amount of mill tailings (the
byproduct material wastes produced by extraction of uranium from
ore).
The mill has been on standby status since that time and PRL has
decided
to permanently cease operational activities at Shootaring Canyon
and
initiate decommissioning and reclamation of the mill site. Consistent
with this decision, PRL has
[[Page 78263]]
submitted a tailings reclamation and decommissioning plan
for the
Shootaring Canyon Uranium Project.
II. Opportunity To Provide Comments
The NRC is providing notice to individuals in the vicinity
of the
facility that the NRC is in receipt of this request, and will
accept
comments concerning this action within 30 days of the publication
of
this notice in the Federal Register. The comments may be provided
to
the Chief, Rules and Directives Branch, Division of Administrative
Services, Office of Administration, U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission,
Washington, DC 20555-0001, and should cite the publication date
and
page number of this Federal Register notice. Written comments
may also
be delivered to Room T-6 D59, Two White Flint North, 11545 Rockville
Pike, Rockville, MD 20852, from 7:30 a.m. until 4:15 p.m. on
Federal
workdays.
III. Opportunity to Request a Hearing
The NRC hereby provides notice that this is a proceeding on
an
application for an amendment of a license falling within the
scope of
subpart L, ``Informal Hearing Procedures for Adjudications in
Materials
and Operator Licensing Proceedings'' of NRC's rules and practice
for
domestic licensing proceedings in 10 CFR part 2. Whether or not
a
person has or intends to provide comments as set out in section
II
above, pursuant to Sec. 2.1205(a), any person whose interest
may be
affected by this proceeding may file a request for a hearing
in
accordance with Sec. 2.1205(d). A request for a hearing must
be filed
within 30 days of the publication of this Federal Register notice.
The request for a hearing must be filed with the Office of the
Secretary, either:
(1) By delivery to the Rulemaking and Adjudications Staff of
the
Office of the Secretary of the Commission at One White Flint
North,
11555 Rockville Pike, Rockville, MD 20852; or
(2) By mail or telegram addressed to the Secretary, U.S. Nuclear
Regulatory Commission, Washington, DC 20555, Attention: Rulemaking
and
Adjudications Staff. Because of continuing disruptions in the
delivery
of mail to United States government offices, it is requested
that
requests for hearing also be transmitted to the Secretary of
the
Commission either by means of facsimile transmission to 301-415-1101,
or by e-mail to hearingdocket@nrc.gov.
In accordance with 10 CFR 2.1205(f), each request for a hearing
must also be served, by delivering it personally or by mail,
to:
(1) The applicant, Plateau Resources Limited, 877 North 8th West,
Riverton, Wyoming 82501, Attention: Fred Craft; and
(2) The NRC staff, by delivery to the General Counsel, One White
Flint North, 11555 Rockville Pike, Rockville, MD 20852, or by
mail
addressed to the Office of the General Counsel, U.S. Nuclear
Regulatory
Commission, Washington, DC 20555. Because of continuing disruptions
in
the delivery of mail to United States government offices, it
is
requested that requests for hearing also be transmitted to the
Office
of the General Counsel, either by means of facsimile transmission
to
301-415-3725, or by email to OGCMailCenter@nrc.gov.
In addition to meeting other applicable requirements of 10 CFR
part
2 of the NRC's regulations, a request for a hearing filed by
a person
other than an applicant must describe in detail:
(1) The interest of the requestor;
(2) How that interest may be affected by the results of the
proceeding, including the reasons why the requestor should be
permitted
a hearing, with particular reference to the factors set out in
Sec.
2.1205(h);
(3) The requestor's areas of concern about the licensing activity
that is the subject matter of the proceeding; and
(4) The circumstances establishing that the request for a hearing
is timely in accordance with Sec. 2.1205(d).
IV. Further Information
The application for the license amendment and proposed
decommissioning and reclamation plan are available for inspection
at
NRC's Public Electronic Reading Room at
http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/adams.html
(ADAMS Accession Number ML023090073). Documents may also be
examined and/or copied for a fee, at the NRC's Public Document
Room,
located at One White Flint North, 11555 Rockville Pike, Rockville,
MD
20852. Any questions with respect to this action should be referred
to
Rick Weller, Fuel Cycle Facilities Branch, Division of Fuel Cycle
Safety and Safeguards, Office of Nuclear Material Safety and
Safeguards, U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Mail Stop T8-A33,
Washington, DC 20555-0001. Telephone: (301) 415-7287, Fax: (301)
415-
5390.
Dated in Rockville, Maryland, this 13th day of December, 2002.
For the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
Daniel M. Gillen,
Chief, Fuel Cycle Facilities Branch, Division of Fuel Cycle Safety
and
Safeguards, Office of Nuclear Material Safety and Safeguards.
[FR Doc. 02-32243 Filed 12-20-02; 8:45 am]
BILLING CODE 7590-01-P
=====================================================+
Date: Monday, October 21,
2002 12:53 AM
Subject: Bring Back Hetch Hetchy? - NY Times
The New York Times
Saturday, October 19, 2002
EDITORIAL
--------------
Bring Back Hetch Hetchy?
In 1913, in defiance of established law and the wishes of
millions of
Americans, Congress foolishly approved the construction of a
dam and an
eight-mile-long reservoir in a lush valley known by its Indian
name,
Hetch Hetchy, in the northwest corner
of Yosemite National Park. The dream of
righting this wrong has never really died. Now it's back, in
the form of
a proposal by Environmental Defense and other conservation groups
for a
feasibility study to see whether it would be economically and
hydrologically
plausible to knock down the dam, drain the reservoir, uncover
1,900 acres
of valley floor and restore what the naturalist John Muir once
described as
a "grand landscape garden, one of nature's rarest and most
precious
mountain temples."
Hetch Hetchy, once the largest reservoir in California, catches
water
from the High Sierra and sends it along to San Francisco. A lot
of
Californians think the idea of draining the reservoir is daft,
including Senator
Dianne Feinstein, a former mayor of San Francisco. However misguided
the
original decision, she has said, the reservoir is vital to San
Francisco's water
supply.
And so it is. But the environmentalists point out that the
city and state
are already talking about spending $3.6 billion to fix the pipes
and
associated plumbing that deliver Hetch Hetchy's water to the
city. For
that kind of money, they suggest, existing reservoirs can be
enlarged, or a
new one built, to replace Hetch Hetchy.
In 1913, over the course of the year, this page ran a total
of six
thunderous editorials opposing the reservoir and unsuccessfully
urging
President Woodrow Wilson to intercede. In the uninhibited vernacular
of
the time, the editorials described the scheme as "sordid,"
the commercial
interests that supported it as "grabbers of water and power,"
and
California's politicians as "trans-Mississippians"
who "care nothing for
matters of natural beauty and taste." Given this editorial
pedigree, the
least we can do is endorse a feasibility study. It may well lead
to
something remarkable.
============================================================+
Date: Friday, January 11, 2002
1:42 AM
Subject: Better late than never
The Bureau of Reclamation is finally getting around to deauthorizing
the
Marble Canyon and Paria River Reservoir Projects, and Utah Congressman
Jim Hansen has announced his retirement. Not a bad way to start
the
year.
All the best,
- Ed
======================+++
DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR
Bureau of Land Management
[UT-030-1430; UTU 52740 and AZA 18464]
Public Land Order No. 7503; Revocation of Public Land Order
Nos.
3469 and 4277, and the Bureau of Reclamation Order Dated March
14,
1957; Utah and Arizona
AGENCY: Bureau of land management, Interior.
ACTION: Public land order.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
SUMMARY: This order revokes two Public Land Orders, and one
Bureau of
Reclamation Order in their entirety as to the remaining 23,296
acres of
lands withdrawn for the Bureau of Reclamation's Marble Canyon
and Paria
River Reservoir Projects. The projects have not been developed
and the
Bureau of Reclamation has requested the withdrawals be revoked.
The
lands are located within either the Paria Canyon-Vermilion Cliffs
Wilderness or the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument
and will
be managed in accordance to the laws and regulations pertaining
to the
Wilderness and the Monument.
EFFECTIVE DATE: February 11, 2002.
FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Rhonda Flynn, BLM Utah State
Office
(UT-942), 324 South State Street, Salt Lake City, Utah 84111-2303,
801-
539-4132. A copy of the orders being revoked is available from
this
location.
SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: By virtue of the authority vested
in the
Secretary of the Interior by section 204 of the Federal Land
Policy and
Management Act of 1976, 43 U.S.C. 1714 (1994), it is ordered
as
follows:
1. Public Land Order No. 3469, Public Land Order No. 4277, and
Bureau of Reclamation Order dated March 14, 1957, are hereby
revoked in
their entirety as to the remaining lands withdrawn for the Marble
Canyon and Paria River Reservoir Projects. The areas within the
three
orders aggregate approximately 23,296 acres in Kane and Coconino
Counties.
2. The lands will be managed in accordance with the laws and
regulations pertaining to the Paria Canyon-Vermilion Cliffs Wilderness
and the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument.
Dated: October 2, 2001.
J. Steven Griles,
Deputy Secretary.
[FR Doc. 02-592 Filed 1-9-02; 8:45 am]
BILLING CODE 4310-$$-P
============================================================+
Date: Thursday, November 15,
2001 8:58 PM
Subject: Memorial Resolution for Anne Brower
Hi Ken, Barbara, Bob,
Please stop me if I am moving too fast on this. We could wait
until the
February Board meeting. But if you want to help bring this to
the floor
on Saturday, please get out your red pens. Add, subtract, but
mostly,
please, embellish. Is Friday night too soon for responses?
Thanks Ken, for making the marsh tour in spite of your loss.
The attachment is David's memorial resolution for reference.
Ever with you in heart and spirit.
- Ed
===============================+++
Board of Directors
November 16-17, 2001
Memorial Resolution for Anne
Hus Brower
One year ago we, the Directors of the Sierra Club, were gathered
at our first meeting following the death of David Brower and
mourned his passing. Now we mourn the loss of Anne Brower, David's
beloved wife and life partner. Anne's
unwaivering dedication to the earth and to David, and her keen
perceptions, provided a setting and support for some of the Sierra
Club's greatest achievements during David's tenure.
Anne and David met as editors at the University of California
Press. From then on, for more than 50 years, Anne's brilliant
skill with words would compliment David's. Her prodigious professional
gifts were overmatched by her love of her family and of all of
us whose work with David brought us into her life.
David, as a source of inspiration to the young, serendipitously
led us to Anne and to her generous heart and ready wit. While
David guided us on the trails of activism, Anne guided us, and
often David, on the trails of connecting. She became a surrogate
mother to many of our members.
Anne knew from the start that in marrying David she married the
Sierra Club as well. The demands of that second relationship
sometimes brought pain but more often great joy. We are confident
that there would not have been the David Brower we knew and loved
without Anne.
We express our deepest sympathy to Anne and David's children,
Ken, Bob, Barbara, and John, and to their grandchildren, David,
Anne Kathryn, and Rosemary. Once again the loss felt by the Brower
family is shared by all of us.
============================================================+
From: Ed Dobson <e.dobson@juno.com>
Date: Thursday, September 6, 2001 11:02 PM
Subject: joining you on the Yosemite brief !
This wasn't as easy as it looks from here, but here we are
!!
- Ed
================================+++
From: Jennifer Ferenstein <jennifer.ferenstein@SIERRACLUB.ORG>
Date: Thu, 6 Sep 2001 18:48:34
Subject: amicus brief on Yosemite river plan -- decision by ExCom
To all concerned:
The Executive Committee met today by conference call to discuss
issues
surrounding the Amicus Brief in a challenge to the Merced Wild
and Scenic
River Comprehensive Management Plan. Jennifer Ferenstein, Charlie
Ogle,
Larry Fahn, Jan OConnell present, Nick Aumen (absent), also present
on the
call were Phil Berry (Board member and Chair of the Litigation
Committee
(LitCom), Bruce Hamilton (Director of Conservation) and Alex
Levinson
(Club's Legal Program).
First of all I want to thank everyone who contributed to the
excellent
dialogue on this issues, including members of the RCC and their
Yosemite
committee. Mike McCloskey, CGC members, members of the BoD, Carl
Pope
and other members of the Club all weighed in with astute analyses.
The Executive Committee took our decision of whether to sign
the Club
onto the amicus brief very seriously and had extensive discussions
with
members of the LitCom, RCC, CGC, and staff.
During our conference call today the Executive Committee asked
for input
from Phil Berry, Alex Levinson, and Bruce Hamilton. Phil Berry
(Chair of
the LitCom) reported that he did not believe that his committee
should
resolve the political and policy issues surrounding the decision
to file
or
not file this amicus. He reported that the Litigation committee
did not
object to the legal arguments presented in the proposed brief,
and
that the LitCom appeared to be of one mind that the decision
is inherently
one of policy/politics and not based upon the legal merit of
the brief.
I would add that we gave considerable weight to the wisdom
and counsel of
former ED McCloskey.who has been quite close to the Yosemite
issue for a
good many years, as well as the lopsided nature of theYosemite
Committee's
decsion (18-1). They are after all the closest entity to the
issue.
All involved appear to agree that the arguments presented
in the amicus
are fully consistent with Club policy and positions. Additional
factors that
the ExCom weighed before reaching our decision included:
- significant support from Board members (Ehrlich, Dobson,
Fahn, Hanson,
Berry, Ogle, Ferenstein)
- support from CGC members
- recommendation from the Yosemite Committee
- discussions between VP Ogle and Director Fahn with CGC and
LitCom
member Jim Dougherty
- discussions between VP Ogle and RCC Chair Alan Carlton, Yosemite
committee member Sam Cogswell, Mike McCloskey, Phil
Berry, Bruce
Hamilton, Alex Levinson, and others.
The Executive Committee voted unanimously (4-0; Aumen absent)
in favor of
the Club staying on the Amicus Brief on the River Plan.
Again, on behalf of the Executive Committee I want to thank
all of you
that contributed to the discussion and the ultimate decision.
We all share the common goal of protecting the Yosemite Valley
from
irresponsible and destructive development. If you have any questions
or
concerns please feel free to contact either Vice President Ogle
or myself directly.
Best,
jennifer
Jennifer Ferenstein, President
326 East Spruce
Missoula, MT 59802
office: 406-543-9346
cell: 406-544-5987
jennifer.ferenstein@sierraclub.org
============================================================+
Date: Wednesday, June 13,
2001 12:58 AM
Subject: New Times, Broward-Palm Beach
Here is another story on Flowers and Gallagher. I was not aware
that they had won the Robert F. Kennedy Journalism Award back
in 1990, given by the Robert F. Kennedy Foundation and presented
to them by Ethel Kennedy.
This story is silent on the legal maneuvering taking place. The
ousted publisher of the Seminole Tribune (James Billie, also
ousted as Tribal Council Chairman) is looking to get back in.
- Ed
www. <http://www.--> newtimesbpb.com
06/07/2001 </issues/2001-06-07/index.html>
Undercurrents
Censorship becomes a Seminole rule on the reservation
As told to Bob Whitby
It's always sad to see a newspaper gutted, doubly so when it
was a scrappy publication with a history of tough reporting and
interesting stories.
Unfortunately The Seminole Tribune got in the way of a
political struggle for control of the Seminole Tribe that ended
May 24 with the ouster of chairman James E. Billie. There are
piles of money at stake, not to mention a powerful job held by
one charismatic guy for the last 22 years. So if you were at
the top of the indigenous heap, it would probably be best not
to have a handful of nettlesome reporters asking impertinent
questions.
Step one in getting rid of Billie -- silencing the newspaper
he championed -- took place a month earlier when the Tribal Council
voted to fire four Tribune journalists: Pete Gallagher, Dan
McDonald, Charles Flowers, and Colin Kenny. All four were full-time.
All four were white. All but Kenny had journalism backgrounds.
Now The Seminole Tribune was always a hit-or-miss proposition.
Pick up any given issue dating back to 1979, and you're more
likely to get chaff than wheat. But the paper hit more than a
few home runs and didn't shy away from afflicting the comfortable
-- namely Billie, who was listed in the paper's masthead as the
publisher. "It was beneath him to say "don't print
something,'" says Gallagher, the former tribe operations
director and Billie's right-hand man. "I don't remember
him ever telling us we could or couldn't run something in the
paper."
When Billie came under fire ten years ago for allegedly fathering
a child out of wedlock, the paper printed the story, notes Gallagher.
(When DNA testing proved the child wasn't his, they ran that
too, he adds.) Most recently the Tribune ran articles critical
of Billie's desire to score himself a bigger private jet.
In 1990 Gallagher and Flowers won a Robert F. Kennedy Journalism
Award for an investigation into the case of James Richardson,
a black man who spent 21 years in prison for murdering his seven
children. Their stories, which appeared in both The Miami
Herald and The Seminole Tribune, got Richardson a new trial;
he was later cleared of the charges and set free. The two also
penned a series of stories on the Rosewood Massacre, and more
recently wrote for nine months on the state's failure to protect
a cache of 5000-year-old canoes discovered in the receding waters
of Newnan's Lake near Gainesville. Their coverage led to the
listing of the lake on the National Register of Historic Places.
It also earned them an award nomination from the Sierra Club.
"The evolution and sophistication of the paper parallel
the rising success of the tribe in its other enterprises,"
says Flowers. "When we began it was a very narrowly focused
paper published strictly for the interests of tribe members,
who won the beauty contests, who graduated from high school,
et cetera."
Look for a return to such drivel under the editorship of Virginia
Mitchell, an enemy of Billie's who, according to Gallagher, is
more of an administrator than a journalist. "She never wanted
to learn the basics of the news business," he says. (Mitchell
did not return Undercurrents' calls for comment.)
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| E-mail this author <mailto:bob.whitby@newtimesbpb.com>
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reserved.
============================================================+
Date: Thursday, June 7, 2001
12:19 AM
Subject: Fw: Our nominees caught up in Tribal politics
Katherine Harris' letter is remarkable given the politics of
the firing of my nominees.
- Ed
=============================+++
Here is the piece I referred to in my note accompanying the Seminole
Tribe Historic Preservation Officer's letter, where I mentioned
that Mr. Gallagher and Mr. Flowers have been removed from their
positions because their boss, Seminole Tribune publisher and
Tribal Chairman James Billie, has been suspended by the Tribal
Council. (It is not clear whether that suspension is within the
authority of the Council, but all that is irrelevant as to our
concerns.) Flowers and Gallagher were removed essentially because
they were good soldiers, dedicated to their employer, who happens
to be wildly successful, colorful, controversial, outspoken,
and never dull.
This does not diminish my commitment to pursue their nomination.
Rather, it gives me pause to consider what forces are at work
within and without the Seminole Tribe because of the effectiveness
of the Flowers/Gallagher efforts.
Dr. Wickman is in no position to comment on the separations,
as she could follow our nominees out the Tribal door at any moment.
What great courage we see here in her support despite the personal
jeopardy!! Also, please note that the author below is one of
the press contacts we listed in the event that our nominees are
chosen for the Brower Award.
+++++++++++++++++++++
The Florida Times-Union
Tuesday, May 29, 2001
Removed tribal leader says he wasn't elected for his morals
By DARA KAM, Associated Press Writer
<http://www.jacksonville.com/tu-online/apnews/stories/052901/D7CA21T00.html>
WHITE SPRINGS, Fla. - "James Billie, the charismatic
Florida Seminole
leader forced out in the midst of a sexual harassment lawsuit,
says he
wasn't elected for his morals but is being ousted by tribal council
leaders in a political struggle.
"It was time for me to go, but I thought I needed to
get some Seminole
Indian to run against me in an election ... not to get some idiot
trying
to use some sexual harassment suit," Billie said following
a performance
this weekend at the annual Florida Folklife Festival.
Billie's criticism was directed not so much at an individual
member but
at the Tribal Council, which voted 4-0 on Thursday to indefinitely
suspend the leader.
Billie's former director of operations, Christine O'Donnell,
filed a
federal lawsuit earlier this month alleging that the married
father of
five got her pregnant, forced her to have an abortion and then
fired her.
"I'm not embarrassed by it, I'm just pissed off,"
Billie said.
Billie said he believes the move to oust him had been building
for some
time.
"I'm not finished," Billie said. "I knew it
was coming and I didn't do
anything to deter it."
But Jim Shore, the tribal attorney, said Billie was removed
strictly
because of the tenor of the lawsuit.
"The council thinks the head of any organization under
such a cloud
doesn't reflect well for the tribal members and that was the
reason that
was given for his suspension," Shore said.
But Billie, 57, said the Seminole culture sets them apart
from white
Americans as far as sexual behavior.
"Certain things you think are immoral, we kind of condone
it," Billie
said. "When they elected me, it wasn't because I was moral."
The self-proclaimed half-breed wrestles alligators, builds
chickee huts,
carves dugout canoes, flies his own airplane and has been an
avid
promoter of the Seminole culture.
He's also led the tribe into prosperity. Under his tenure,
he developed
the tribe into a $300 million-a-year enterprise which pays each
of the
2,800 Florida Seminoles $2,000 a month.
The lawsuit has also ordered an audit of the tribe's books
and an
examination of its business practices. Seminole officials also
say the
Federal Bureau of Investigations is investigating the tribe,
but the
agency will not confirm that.
Billie said he's known about the FBI investigation and doesn't
have
anything to hide.
"I told the FBI, `Why don't you take a look?' I've done
anything and
everything to get this tribe on its way," Billie said.
Prior to Billie's ousting, four non-Indian employees of The
Seminole
Tribune, the tribal newspaper, were fired by the council.
Pete Gallagher, the newspaper's operations manager, was among
those fired
in earlier this month.
Gallagher, who also worked for Billie as his assistant and
traveled with
the popular leader throughout the state chronicling the travels
of the
former chairman, said on Tuesday he was shocked to learn he had
been
fired by tribal leaders after 16 years.
Billie said the newspaper staff members were fired because
of their
allegiance to him, a charge which Shore concedes is true.
"They were fired because they were in charge of the paper
and what he's
saying is what they thought was happening," Shore said by
telephone from
his office at the Seminole reservation in Hollywood.
Billie said he wants the Council to impeach him so he can
run again, but
Shore said tribal leaders intend to wait for the outcome of the
trial
before making a permanent move to oust him.
Shore also said that although the tribe is not currently negotiating
with
Billie, leaders would consider compensating him if he agreed
to resign.
Billie and council members do agree on one thing - the spate
of lawsuits
and media attention have given the tribe a black eye.
"They think they're hurting me, but they're hurting themselves,"
Billie
said."
___
[ On the Net Seminole Tribe: http://www.seminoletribe.com
]
** NOTICE: In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107,
this material is
distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior
interest in
receiving the included information for research and educational
purposes. **
Copyright 2001 The Florida Times-Union
============================================================+
Date: Thursday, June 7, 2001 12:13 AM
Subject: Brower Award: Pat Wickman's Letter
Re Katherine Harris
New heights in the land of strange bedfellows?
She is in the stories. She helped get Gov. Jeb to end the lakebed
logging statewide, as the state owns the lakebottoms.
Attached is Seminole Tribe Historic Presiervation Officer Dr.
Pat Wickman's powerful letter, and some background below.
- Ed
===========================+++
Date: Thu, 31 May 2001 01:20:44 -0600
Subject: Brower Award: Dr. Wickman's Letter
As your read the Seminole Tribe Historic Preservation Officer's
letter, you should know that Mr. Gallagher and Mr. Flowers have
been removed from their positions because their boss, Seminole
Tribune publisher and Tribal Chairman James Billie, has been
susended by the Tribal Council. Flowers and Gallagher were removed
essentially because they were good soldiers, dedicated to their
employer. This does not diminish my commitment to pursue their
nomination. Rather, it gives me pause to consider what forces
are at work within the Seminole Tribe because of the effectiveness
of the Flowers/Gallagher efforts. I will send as a separate e-mail
a piece on this development.
- Ed
===========================+++
From: Pat Wickman <pwickman@semtribe.com>
To: <e.dobson@juno.com>
Date: Wed, 30 May 2001 09:19:15
Subject: Brower Award Support Letter
Hi Ed! Here's a letter that I hope may be of help. I hope
that I'm not too
late with it but I have been "on the road" yet again.
I need to talk to
you about DuPont and titanium mining. Is that within your expertise
or
purview? I need to discuss several apects of the topic, including
environmental law generally and ecological restoration. If you
can offer any
information, I would appreciate your sending me a telephone #
and best times
to reach you, and I'll call. I find emails unsatisfactory for
actual (interactive) conversations.
Thanks. Keep well.
Pat
=============================+++
May 30, 2001
Mr. Ed Dobson
Board of Directors
Sierra Club
Post Office Box 8
Bluff, UT 84512
Dear Mr. Dobson:
It is my understanding that the Sierra Club has entertained
the nomination of Mr. Peter Gallagher and Mr. Charles Flowers,
reporters for the Seminole Tribune newspaper, for its prestigious
Brower Award, as a result of their reporting of the Newnanís
Lake (Pithlachocco) Deadhead Logging controversy. I write now
to add my voice to those who support this nomination, and to
urge the Sierra Club to recognize the timely and valuable work
of these two journalists.
In this case, the environmental and social issues involved,
together with the actions and non-actions of the State of Florida,
constitute one of the moments in our national life when the nexus
between our physical and cultural worlds, and the values that
we create to sustain them, becomes clear and unambiguous. Further,
it presents yet another example of an instance when the power
of print journalists to inspire public support can have greater
efficacy than any law.
The case revolves around the issue of ìdeadhead logging,î
the modern retrieval of century-old logs lost in Florida lakes
and rivers during the harvesting of first-growth timber, in the
late nineteenth century. Highly valuable now, these logs are
of great interest to entrepreneurs around the state whose primary
concern is economic reward, despite the potential for damage
to the environment and the destruction of irreplaceable cultural
resources that their removal presents.
After a moratorium spanning most of the late-twentieth century,
the State of Florida began the permitting of deadhead logging
in the 1990s, over the heated objections of environmental groups
around the state. The highly negative aspects of the process
were made all too clear, however, by the subsequent abuses and
wanton destructiveness of a single logger operating on Newnanís
Lake, in eastern Alachua County, FL, and by the failure of several
State agencies and officials to disseminate, abide by, and enforce
State and Federal laws that should have, and could have, protected
the lake, its fragile ecology, and the rare historical treasures
that the lake was found to contain.
In the year 2000, prolonged and severe drought conditions
revealed more than 100 prehistoric- and historic-era Indian dugout
canoes that had been preserved by the waters of Newnanís
Lake, or Pithlachocco ñ the Place where the Long Boats
are Made, as the ancestors of the Seminoles knew it. It quickly
became clear that this site was unique not only within Florida,
but in the entire United States as well, and on the face of our
planet! Subsequent radiocarbon dating identified a history of
canoe manufacture beginning at least 5,000 years ago, and continuing
to a time as recent as 500 years ago. Nevertheless, despite its
rarity, the Florida State Historic Preservation Officer (SHPO),
the Florida Department of Environmental Protection, and the Florida
Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission (all directly involved
in the process of permitting and protection) failed in their
responsibilities to protect the site and its material culture
treasures.
I offer all of this information only to help you to understand
the importance and critical timeliness of the reporting of Mr.
Gallagher and Mr. Flowers. Moreover, I characterize their reporting
as courageous, because the entire issue would have been quietly
ëswept under the rugí by an entrenched bureaucracy
long used to unilateral decision making if not for the work of
these two reporters, who grasped immediately the importance of
the issues involved and determined to make the public aware of
the complex environmental and cultural values of the site.
Not only did they set about to publicize the events, but they
went to great lengths to report the highly complex elements of
riverine ecology, the deadhead logging process, and cultural
preservation, and to reveal the inadequacies of an antiquated
and moribund State system where lack of communication and enforcement
failed to protect the cultural and environmental heritage of
the people.
As a result of their reporting, many citizens of the state
and the nation became aware of the direct cause-and-effect relationship
between human actions and the environment, in a setting where
such effects generally are too subtle to be viewed or understood
fully. As a result of the power of their words to engender change,
Floridaís governor has placed all state lakes off limits
to deadhead logging. I was able to leverage changes in the systems
of interaction among the State agencies involved, and to see
two wrongdoers punished and the end of at least one abuse of
authority involved in the case.
As a result of the public spotlight in which their reporting
placed concomitant issues, I was able to use Federal laws (which
might otherwise have gone ignored) in order to stop a subsequent
ìmuck scrapingî project, proposed by a State agency,
that had the potential to destroy over thirty-four acres of lake
bed and, potentially, countless other irreplaceable material
culture resources. As a result of their reporting, that portion
of the lake where the original group of canoes was found has
been placed on the National Register of Historic Sites, and I
am working to expand the National Register area to include other
portions of the lake where more canoes are being found almost
daily.
Despite the disinterest and lack of pro-action on the part
of the SHPO and the Division of Historical Resources, public
awareness raised by these reporters has translated into public
support, and I am currently working with groups around the state
to change the name of the lake to its original Indian designation,
Pithlachocco, and to provide for permanent preservation and public
interpretation of the entire site and its accompanying Indian
town ñ an area of tremendous cultural value to the eighteen
Federally recognized Indian Tribes that are the descendents of
the earlier MaskÛkÓ peoples of Florida and the Southeast.
As a consequence of all of this information, I trust that
you will recognize the value of the reporting of Mr. Gallagher
and Mr. Flowers and offer them the Brower Award. They would,
without doubt, bring credit to the Sierra Club and to the other
recipients.
Thanking you, in advance, for you attention, I am
Sincerely yours,
Patricia R. Wickman, Ph.D.
Historic Preservation Officer
Seminole Tribe of Florida
============================================================+
From: Edward M Dobson <e.dobson@juno.com>
Subject: Japanese governor opposes dams as "pork"
Japan governor fights pork with "no dam" manifesto
By Elaine Lies
TOKYO, Feb 21 (Reuters) - In an unprecedented challenge to the
pork-barrel
practices of Japan's ruling party, the feisty governor of one
of its most
conservative prefectures has vowed to block the use of taxpayers'
money to
build seven costly new dams.
The action by Yasuo Tanaka, governor of Nagano in central
Japan, is yet
another sign of trouble for Japan's ruling Liberal Democratic
Party (LDP),
which faces a crucial July election with falling support due
to unpopular
Prime Minister Yoshiro Mori.
It also reflects a growing trend of popular rejection of public
works
projects, once welcomed as a way of pumping life into lagging
local economies
but now blamed in part for Japan's ballooning public debt.
In a manifest entitled "The No-Dam Proclamation,"
the first such statement by
a Japanese governor, Tanaka said on Tuesday that he would scrap
seven planned
dam projects in his rural, mountainous prefecture, some 180 km
(112 miles)
from Tokyo, for environmental and financial reasons.
"These concrete dams, in which we invest billions of
yen, are putting a
burden on the environment that cannot be ignored," he said.
"Moreover, they
will eventually have to be rebuilt using even more billions of
yen because
they inevitably silt up."
Noting that the national government picks up almost the entire
cost of such
projects, he added: "We must not choose to build dams for
the easy reason
that the government promises it will give us money."
Analysts hailed the move as a significant step that could
have far-reaching
repercussions for Japanese politics.
"There is no question that the LDP's traditional ways
are now under attack,"
said Tsunao Imamura, a public affairs professor at Tokyo's Chuo
University.
"But this could also affect the entire political system,
irrespective of
parties."
A LIKELY CHALLENGER
Tanaka is campaigning to effect that change.
An award-winning novelist, his victory in the Nagano gubernatorial
race last
October embarrassed the nation's established political parties
after he beat
a candidate backed by the LDP and the Democrats, the largest
opposition
party.
He pledged to shun the pork-barrel politics that have kept
the LDP in power
for five decades but have now come back to haunt the government,
which has
racked up the largest debt of any industrialised nation.
But his sudden decision to block further dam construction
has prompted fierce
criticism from both national and local officials, none of whom
knew about it
in advance.
"We are not doing public works projects just because
we want to," said Land
Minister Chikage Ogi. "They are to protect the lives and
possessions of our
citizens."
An engineer with the Nagano government said he was quite shocked
by Tanaka's
announcement.
"We have explained to him repeatedly that these dams
are essential for
irrigation and flood control," he said.
Tanaka, however, argued that it should be possible to achieve
both goals in
less damaging, and less expensive, ways.
Around 13.5 billion yen ($116.7 million) has already been
spent on
preparatory work for the seven cancelled projects, including
buying land and
building roads into often remote construction sites, the Nagano
engineer
said.
SIGNIFICANT STEP
Observers said that while Tanaka's move will not cause any
drastic overnight
change in the LDP's ways, it underscores a growing public backlash
against
public works projects.
Just a year ago, residents of Tokushima, around 515 km (322
km) southwest of
Tokyo, resoundingly rejected a controversial dam in the first
referendum ever
held on a public works project.
And a government reclamation project in southwest Japan has
come under fire
from fishermen who say it is killing the nori, or seaweed, they
harvest.
Slumping production has sent prices soaring, threatening even
the cost of
sushi.
"We will have to watch and see what happens," said
Chuo University's Imamura.
"At the least, it will provide a very important example
for future protests."
02:50 02-21-01
Copyright 2001 Reuters Limited. All rights reserved. Republication
or
redistribution of Reuters content, including by framing or similar
means, is
expressly prohibited without the prior written consent of Reuters.
Reuters
shall not be liable for any errors or delays in the content,
or for any
actions taken in reliance thereon.
>> NOTICE: In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section
107, this material is
distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior
interest in
receiving this information for research and educational purposes.
<<
============================================================+
From: Edward M Dobson <e.dobson@juno.com>
Earlier I brought up an article in Utah Outdoors magazine
. . .
- Ed
++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Utah Outdoors January 2001
Mailbox Reader Comments
Utah Sierra Club supports restoring Glen Canyon
Utah Outdoors and author Roy Webb deserve compliments for
a concise and
well-balanced treatment of the controversy surrounding the issue
of
draining Lake Powell ("Discord over Glen Canyon," November
issue).
However, your mention of the Utah Chapter of the Sierra Club
leaves an
inaccurate impression. The Utah Chapter does support the restoration
of
both Glen Canyon and the Grand Canyon.
Jim Wechsler
Utah Chapter Representative
Sierra Club Colorado River Task Force
Editor's response: Point well taken. Although the Utah Chapter
of the
Sierra Club was initially reluctant to take a high profile position
in
the Glen Canyon vs. Lake Powell brouhaha, after some prodding,
the
chapter has since endorsed the national proposal to study the
effects of
draining the reservoir.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
And a tip of the hat to all Sierra Club members, near and
far, so
resolutely prodding along. :-)
- Ed
============================================================+
From: Edward M Dobson <e.dobson@juno.com>
Subject: Glen Canyon Institute Online Newsletter - Issue #3
AN EVENING TO HONOR DAVID BROWER AND HIS WORK
TO PROTECT GRAND CANYON AND THE COLORADO RIVER
During his legendary conservation career, David Brower spared
Dinosaur
National Monument and Grand Canyon from being flooded by large
dams, but
always regretted the loss of Glen Canyon. Join us on February
1st from
6:00 to 9:00 pm at Mountain Light Photography in Emeryville,
California
to remember David and to continue his work to set the Colorado
River free.
The program will include Martin Litton recalling David's most
famous
victory - saving Grand Canyon; David's eldest son, Kenneth, remembering
the final trips through Glen Canyon; and Glen Canyon Institute
President
Richard Ingebretsen's slide show that revisits Glen Canyon and
introduces
the campaign to Let the River Run.
A donation of $50 to Glen Canyon Institute in David's memory.
DISCUSSIONS ON PROPOSAL TO DRAIN LAKE POWELL
On January 16th, Utah Congressman Chris Cannon will be hosting
a Roundtable
Discussion to include Glen Canyon Institute board members and
staff,
along with officials from the Bureau of Reclamation. It will
be held in Room
C215 at the Eyring Science Center on the campus of Brigham Young
University in
Provo, Utah at 7:00 pm.
On January 25th, the University of Utah is sponsoring a debate
that will
involve Glen Canyon Institute board president, Richard Ingebretsen
and
Bureau of Reclamation official, Larry Anderson. It will be held
in the
Moot Court Room at 7:00 p.m. The public is encouraged to attend
both events.
If you have any questions, please contact us. Thank you!
Andrea Jaussi
Glen Canyon Institute
Flagstaff Office
PO Box 1925
Flagstaff, Arizona 86002-1925
(520) 556-9311 phone
(520) 779-3567 fax
www.glencanyon.org
info@glencanyon.org
============================================================+
From: Edward M Dobson <e.dobson@juno.com>
Subject: Sierra Club Group hosts celebration for David Brower,
1/27
The Sierra Club, Utah Chapter, Ogden Group . . .
Finally, remember to mark your calendars for our upcoming
celebration in
honor of David Brower. Saturday, January 27, 3:00 p.m., at the
Eccles
Community Art Center, 26th and Jefferson. The public is invited
to this
free, catered event.
Dan Schroeder
Chair, Ogden Group Sierra Club
============================================================+
From: Edward M Dobson <e.dobson@juno.com>
Date: Tue, 9 Jan 2001 23:54:29 -0700
Subject: Missoulian roadless editorial - 1/8/01
>From the heart of the Northern Rockies, Missoula, Montana,
comes a clear
call for support of President Clinton's order preserving our
roadless
national forests.
Monday, January 8, 2001
MISSOULIAN EDITORIAL
SUMMARY: We've studied and debated to death the fate of national
forest
roadless areas. Keeping them intact is the right decision.
President Clinton on Friday finally signed an order placing
roadless
tracts of national forest off-limits to road-building, most logging
and
other development.
In most respects, the decision is long overdue. Studied and
debated to
death, the issue is about as straight-forward as they come. These
lands
are far more valuable in their undeveloped condition than they
could ever
be through logging or other development. Although the timber
growing in
some of these roadless areas sorely tempts the timber industry,
logging
roadless areas is a losing proposition.
It costs more to build roads into most roadless areas than
the timber's
worth. Logging them wouldn't even be an option without massive
public
subsidies. That's why conservative budget-cutters have joined
environmentalists in opposing construction of new logging roads.
These roadless tracts are - along with some scattered wilderness
areas -
among the last shards of the undeveloped West. It's in these
areas that
wildlife is most secure, water runs cleanest and the natural
world that
all of us - tree huggers and timber barons alike - value most
about the
West remains most intact.
As we've said time and time again, these areas are worth keeping.
We
have tens of millions of acres - the bulk - of national forests
that are
heavily roaded, extremely accessible and well-suited for timber
production. The Forest Service has hundreds of thousands of miles
of
logging roads in need of maintenance; it scarcely needs more.
Even if you
had the money it would take for gasoline to drive all the forest
roads in
Montana, you'd never have enough time to drive them all in one
lifetime.
We can well afford to leave a few places where, if you want to
visit, you
may have to get out and walk. That is, in the unlikely event
the
roadless area is closed to off-road vehicle use, something Clinton's
order doesn't address.
Don't be surprised to hear some people complain that keeping
the wild
places wild will kill the timber industry. Don't believe it,
though. In
the short run, the timber industry has more logs than it knows
what to do
with, thanks to last summer's wildfires and the massive scorched-timber
salvage operations that are following. Meanwhile, the Forest
Service is
having trouble selling all the timber it has to sell. The Associated
Press reported the other day, for instance, that the Forest Service
found
buyers for just 4.6 million of the 17.7 million board feet of
timber it
offered for sale from the Flathead National Forest.
The timber industry tends to be cyclic. Today's slump will
lead to
tomorrow's upswing. Over time, however, the industry's future
depends on
sustainable management of the best timberlands - mostly the privately
owned timberlands and the vast tracts of already-roaded national
forests.
In the unlikely event that Americans one day decide that we should
manage the roadless areas differently, those lands will still
be there,
intact, with all our options open.
************************
============================================================+
From: Edward M Dobson <e.dobson@juno.com>
U.C. San Diego College of Engineering's founding dean, M.
Lea Rudee, is
helping to elevate to conventional wisdom the arguments in favor
of
draining "Lake" Powell, originally and more accurately
known as Glen
Canyon Reservoir. Enjoy his exuberant posting to the Glen Canyon
Institute Board of Trustees and staff, reproduced below.
If Lea's recommendation is adopted, and the water lost at
the reservoir
is counted to the allocations held by Utah and Arizona, the arguments
for
the reservoir are more vulnerable to alternative uses including
groundwater recharge and underground storage, restoring the free-flowing
river ecosystem through Grand Canyon National Park, providing
additional
flows to the dying Colorado River delta, and reversing the silt
fill-in
of Glen Canyon. Further, although it is heresy to some, draining
Powell
reservoir could even provide a temporary flow to improve the
Salton Sea,
one of the three impoundments of Colorado River water - the others
being
Mead and Powell - that cumulatively lose the equivalent of about
a
quarter of the Colorado's annual flow, mostly to evaporation.
If one of those big ponds is to go, the easiest loser to eliminate
seems
to be Powell. Arizona, for example, is less likely to fight to
save
Page's crotch-rocket and floating tailgate party crowd and if
it means
losing water that is now worth $2,000 an acre-foot in California
metropolitan areas. Cooling water for the Navajo Generating Station
can
be secured through a smaller off-stream storage reservoir if
necessary.
Page can become the gateway to Glen Canyon National Park. Glen
Canyon
Dam's striking south face could become a solar electric array
to rival
Socorro, NM's Very Large Array radio telescope that Science Guy
Bill Nye
rates among the top 10 scientific must-see sites. And save a
slice of
the south face for the world's most spectacular artificial climbing
wall.
Page, your post-reservoir future's so bright, you gotta wear
shades.
(With apologies to Tim Buck III.)
|
==============================+++
Date: Mon, 01 Jan 2001 16:57:05
Subject: LA Times
Hi gang - Last week the LA Times ran an article, and the SD
Union-Tribune
ran an editorial, both pointing out the problems caused by low
flows on
the Colorado River Delta. I sent a letter to the editor to both
papers
pointing the finger at Glen Canyon Dam. The Times ran my letter
today at
the top right of their OP-ED page. (They also ran a very good
letter
about over grazing on federal lands just below mine.) I have
copied the
text of my letter as it appeared in the Times, below.
There is a chance it will get into the Union-Trib too, but
I have gotten
stuff in there before and have failed in other attempts with
the Times,
which has over 1Meg in circulation.
All the best for 2001!
Lea
----------------------------
LETTERS TO THE LOS ANGELES TIMES
JANUARY 1, 2001
"Delta a Snag in Babbitt's Plan for Colorado River"
(Dec. 26) described
the devastation that lack of flow in the Colorado River has brought
to
its once verdant delta. The two decade period when Glen Canyon
Dam
created Lake Powell - 1963 to 1983 - was the period when no water
reached
the delta and it was destroyed. Hence, Glen Canyon Dam simultaneously
inundated one of the great canyons of the world and destroyed
a huge and
productive wetlands area. Since then, a trickle of water has
reached the
delta and restored some modest pockets of wetlands.
Lake Powell also causes a loss of about 5% of the annual flow
of the
Colorado River through evaporation and seepage. This lost water
would be
more than enough to rehabilitate the delta to a
productive level. Moreover, this lost water is worth more than
the value
of the electricity generated by Glen Canyon Dam. The dam also
has had a
very detrimental effect on the ecology of the Grand Canyon which
is
immediately down stream from Glen Canyon Dam.
Many organizations advocate the gradual draining of Lake Powell
and the
decommissioning of Glen Canyon Dam. The main opponents are power
boaters
who use Lake Powell and support the
economies of Page, Arizona and Hite, Utah. However, if the dam
is
justified by its economic impact in Arizona and Utah, then I
believe the
water lost by Lake Powell should count against the allotments
of Colorado
River water to these states, just as if the water was used for
irrigation
or industrial usage.
M. Lea Rudee is the founding dean, College of Engineering,
U.C. San Diego
============================================================+
From: Edward M Dobson <e.dobson@juno.com>
Date: Mon, 8 Jan 2001 03:52:00 -0700
==========================+++
Dear readers,
For those of you keeping an eye out for remembrances of Dave:
Mark Dowie's appears in the February 2001 issue of Men's Journal,
available now at magazine stands for $3.95 US, $5.95 Canadian,
and L2.95
UK. See also www.mensjournal.com Telephone 1-800-544-6748 when
it
becomes a back-issue.
Katie Lee's appears in Glen Canyon Advocate, the first issue
of the
newsletter of the Glen Canyon Group of the Utah Chapter of the
Sierra
Club. This one heralds the campaign to drain Reservoir Powell
(aka
foul) gathering momentum. Look elsewhere on my page for the inspiring
letter from M. Lea Rudee, founding dean of the College of Engineering,
UCSD. For a copy of the Glen Canyon Advocate (supply limited)
contact the Glen Canyon Group at 435-259-1063, or email to Owen
Lammers at:
owen@drainit.org See also www.sierraclub.org/chapters/ut/glencanyon
And it may not be too late to acquire Cameron Burns' piece
in - are you
sitting down? - Mountain Gazette. Yes, it's true. The legendary
Mountain Gazette is back as a bi-monthly with issue No. 78, the
re-launch
issue, published in December 2000 after a 21-year sabbatical.
Contact
Mountain Gazette at 970-453-4427 or email to Ethan Harris at:
harris@mountaingazette.com See also www.mountaingazette.com The
re-launch issue has an especially poignant and beautiful piece
on Renny
Russell by M. John Fayhee. Renny and his brother Terry collaborated
to
produce On the Loose, first published by David Brower and The
Sierra Club
in the 1960's. Perhaps that book touched you deeply as it did
me, being
of similar age to the Russell brothers, only into our 20's then.
Look
for articles by Katie Lee, George Sibley, Rob Schultheis, and
other great
writers as Mountain Gazette is back with none of the legend luster
tarnished in the reincarnation.
+++++++++++++++++++++
It is hard to pull away from the aftermath of the 2000 election,
especially because of the suggestion that Dave Brower's endorsement
of
Ralph Nader made a difference in the outcome. Dave always seemed
to make
a difference, so that would be nothing out of the ordinary, if
it is
true. But we are pulling away, and we looking forward to building
a
stronger environmental movement based as much on our conflicting
views as
on our shared goals. Perhaps in the vein of a last look, here
are two
pieces that help to provoke thought and, I hope, build confidence.
Permission has been granted to reprint these two pieces here.
First is
from Bob Parry, email to:
consortnew@aol.com and the second is from Mark Robinowitz at
mrobinowitz@igc.org
After you have read the first piece, reconsider the following
quotes:
"Don't compromise." - David Brower
"Never give in." - Clarence Thomas.
Those of us who shrink from Dave' admonition - perhaps for
fear that it
will lead to self-defeat - need to understand that the other
side has
embraced the same philosophy and found the source of it's exhortation
among their own heroes. Bob Parry reminds us that the other side
will do
what it thinks is necessary to win. We need not descend to the
same
depths, but we do need to stick to the principle. Let the appropriate
body politic worry about compromise to the extent necessary.
It falls to
us to display the will and skill of adequate defenders, facilitating
the
best possible result.
|
+++++++++++++++++++++++
Date: 28 Nov 2000 11:39:46
From: "consortiumnews.com" <consortnew@aol.com>
Subject: [news] Bush Thanked Rioters
http://www.consortiumnews.com
The Wall Street Journal has dug up more details about how
Gov. George W. Bush's
campaign and the national Republican Party helped organize the
violent
protests in Miami last week.
The Journal discovered that Bush even called the protectors
a day later -- on the night
of Thanksgiving Day -- as they were celebrating their victory
in shutting
down the Dade County recount, which saw 10,750 votes discarded.
"The night's highlight was a conference call from Mr.
Bush and running mate Dick
Cheney, which included joking reference by both running mates
to the incident in Miami,
two [Republican] staffers in attendance say," according
to the Journal [Nov. 27, 2000]
The Journal also reported that the assault on the canvassing
board was led by national
Republican operatives "on all expense-paid trips, courtesy
of the Bush campaign." After
their success in Dade, the rioters moved on to Broward, where
the
protests remained unruly but failed to stop that count.
The Journal noted that "behind the rowdy rallies in South
Florida this past weekend
was a well-organized effort by Republican operatives to entice
supporters to South
Florida." House Majority Whip Tom DeLay's Capitol Hill office
took charge
of the recruitment.
About 200 Republican congressional staffers signed on, the
Journal reported.
They were put up at hotels, given $30 a day for food and "an
invitation to an
exclusive Thanksgiving Day party in Fort Lauderdale," the
article said.
The Journal said there was no evidence of a similar Democratic
strategy to fly in
national party operatives. "This has allowed the Republicans
to quickly
gain the upper hand, protest-wise," the Journal said.
The Bush campaign also worked to conceal its hand. "Staffers
who joined
the effort say there has been an air of mystery to the operation.
'To
tell you the truth, nobody knows who is calling the shots,' says
one
aide. Many nights, often very late, a memo is slipped underneath
the
hotel-room doors outlining coming events," the Journal reported.
After their victory in shutting down the Dade County recount,
the GOP
operatives from the Bush campaign and Capitol Hill celebrated
at a party
at the Hyatt on Pier 66 in Fort Lauderdale. The Journal reported
that
"entertainer Wayne Newton crooned the song 'Danke Schoen',"
the German
words for thank you very much.
>
> For more on Bush's triumph of the will, go to Consortiumnews.com
at
> http://www.consortiumnews.com
+++++++++++++++++++
On Thu, 04 Jan 2001 08:21:04 -0800
Mark Robinowitz <mrobinowitz@igc.org>
writes:
http://www.eugeneweekly.com/views.html#viewpoint
What's to Spoil?
2000 election exposes institutional corruption.
Ralph Nader and Winona LaDuke received the ideal number of
votes to
keep either corporate-funded presidential candidate from a clear-cut
victory.
If liberals nervous about Bush hadn't held their noses and
voted for Al Gore,
George W. Bush would have received more votes than Gore. If Nader
hadn't inspired as many citizens to vote their consciences, Gore
would have
been in a transition office, not in the courts.
During the campaign, Nader was repeatedly asked if he was
a "spoiler" and
replied, "you can't spoil a system spoiled to the core."
The campaign's corruption didn't start with the vote frauds
in Florida, it was
corrupted by obscene amounts of cash, party primaries decided
long before
votes were cast, and the exclusion of dissident voices from the
mass media
and pseudo-debates. Even worse, the permanent government of corporate
lobbyists and the military-industrial-media-financial complex
has more power
than the temporary occupant of the Oval Office. (Green perspectives
on
ballot rigging are at www.prorev.com/votecount.htm and www.commondreams.org.)
Like Spruce Houser ("Squandered Power," Nov. 30),
I also attended the
1991 national Green Party convention. Spruce's suggestion that
Greens
should have endorsed an architect of NAFTA and the World Trade
Organization ignores Gore's legacy of greenwashing destructive
corporate
agendas. The gory details are described in the book Al Gore:
A User's
Manual by Alexander Cockburn and Jeffrey St. Clair
(www.counterpunch.org).
In Germany, the Greens got the Social Democrats to agree to
phase out
nuclear power in exchange for their support in a coalition government.
In contrast, Gore's "New Democrats" spent the past
eight years breaking
countless promises to environmentalists and labor constituencies
as they
transformed the Democratic Party into "Republican Lite."
A coalition
between Gore and the Nader-ites was not possible, since the Democrats
were demanding capitulation, offering no policy changes in return.
Lieberman's selection demonstrated that Gore was not interested
in
offering even token gestures to progressives in return for their
votes.
I voted for "Earth in the Balance" in 1992, hoping
that Gore, despite being a
militarist and a social conservative, would act to slow ozone
depletion and
climate change. Instead, we got a continuation of Reagan/Bush
policies such
as "free trade" and "welfare reform," not
atmospheric protection.
In 1996, David Brower concluded that Clinton and Gore had
done more
damage to the environment than Reagan and Bush, and he helped
persuade
Nader to run for President. The day before Brower died, he voted
absentee
for Nader.
National Sierra Club Board member Chad Hanson said before
the election
that Bush is twice as bad as Gore on the issues, and Gore is
twice as
effective at enacting bad policies as Bush, because, "The
national
environmental groups are notorious for looking the other way
when a
Democrat president they helped get elected sells out the environment."
Monsanto Corporation stated in October that "Agricultural
biotechnology will
find a supporter occupying the White House next year, regardless
of which
candidate wins the election." Gore and Bush both support
nuclear power,
food irradiation, Star Wars, increased military spending, the
war in Columbia,
prison expansions, the death penalty, NAFTA highways, inaction
on fuel
efficiency standards, corporate welfare, gutting the Kyoto climate
change
treaty and Justice Antonin Scalia (Senator Gore voted for his
confirmation,
which he probably regrets now). USA Today editorialized June
26 that
"when it comes to the policies they believe will keep Americans
employed
and the nation prosperous, [Bush and Gore] could just as well
be running
on the same ticket."
Gore should have been 20 points ahead of Dubya, not in a virtual
tie. Nader
was astonished that Gore couldn't achieve a "slam dunk"
against the Texas
governor, considering Bush's horrible record and lack of qualifications.
The Green Party didn't make Gore ignore key Democratic constituencies
for
eight years or wage a lousy campaign -- only Gore is responsible
for that.
Congressman Henry Gonzalez (D-TX), who died Nov. 28, introduced
bills to
impeach Reagan in 1987 for Iran-Contra and in 1991 to impeach
George the
First for the Gulf War. No Congressional Democrat co-sponsored
his
effort. If they had, George W. would not be in politics.
Because Shrub got the job due to a popular vote/Electoral
College split (and
vote fraud), there will be intense pressure to abolish the anti-democratic
Electoral College, potentially the 2000 campaign's most important
legacy.
Proportional representation and "instant run-off" voting
are also getting
unprecedented attention (see www.fairvote.org for details). If
we're lucky,
the Democrats won't vote for Bush's phony bipartisanship and
George the
Second will wreck the Republican Party just like Pat Buchanan
just
wrecked the Reform Party.
Far more Democrats voted for Bush than for Nader. Nevertheless,
Gore's
proxies berated Greens for "stealing" votes from their
candidate, ignoring
how all candidates must earn their support from citizens. Many
people were
disgusted by the false choice between competing political dynasties,
which
resembled a choice between the electric chair and lethal injection.
The
"none-of-the-above" outcome publicized serious flaws
in our electoral
system that must be fixed for true democracy to exist.
Mark Robinowitz was a volunteer with the Lane County Nader
campaign.
============================================================+
From: Edward M Dobson <e.dobson@juno.com>
Date: Fri, 5 Jan 2001 02:45:31 -0700
Can we put this link in?
- Ed
From: LanceOlsen@aol.com
Republicans for Environmental Protection, a pro-wilderness,
pro-forests,
pro-wildlife group has come out with its analysis of GOP
anti-environmental
platform under George Bush. It's as scathing as anything you'd
find
elsewhere.
http://www.rep.org/news/ge4.1_platform.htm
============================================================+