Category: American wilderness

A message from the gatekeeper

This greeted me this morning, from “Trigger Man”:

Mark, you said there are “THREE” types of people who visit your blog, and I know where I fit in here,and so do you…I just chime in from time to time, and call it the way I see it… I know my comments here, are not appreciated, But..What you have here is more than just an attack on “B.M”…There is more than just a “Gatekeeper”.. There are keepers,and then there are “KEEPERS”, And with that being said…I think it’s time the TRIGGER MAN says, “Fare-Thee-Well”

Yeah, fare thee well.

Continue reading “A message from the gatekeeper” →

Pseudoscience and conspiracy theories

I was just reading an introduction to a book this morning, The Pseudoscience Wars, by Michael D. Gordin. He is discussing the use of the word “pseudoscience.” I had never thought much about it, but his explanation rang true. It does not exist, he said.

There is good science, mediocre science (most) and bad science. Nothing else. The word “pseudoscience” is an epithet. It has no other purpose that to be an attack vehicle.

Continue reading “Pseudoscience and conspiracy theories” →

My business plan: I will kill you with my smug

Just a brief note in passing to discuss two things that on the surface might seem unrelated. That is because under the surface they are unrelated. They are smugness, and business plans.

First, business plans. If you were to go to a bank seeking financing for your business, be it nail grooming or dog bathing or plumbing and heating, the bank will ask to see a written business plan. Stripped of its jargon – things like market dimensions and depth, rate of return, maximized cash flow … all real to a degree but also inside baseball talk, the simplest way to understand a business plan is to answer the question: “What’s your gimmick?”

Continue reading “My business plan: I will kill you with my smug” →

The radon game

If there is one ‘truism’ – something obvious and neither new or interesting – it is that the vast majority of people rely on authority figures in forming their own opinions. What else can we expect when our education system at its core (the tests) punishes students for being wrong. The SAT and ACT regimes are long lists of things to be memorized, statements by authority figures that students must regurgitate to land in a good college. It instills students with fear of being wrong even as mistakes are the best teachers around.

I long ago read a book (I should stop right there) by Edward Bernays called “Propaganda.” I would imagine at a website like this many others have read it as well. It was an interesting book in that Bernays, writing in the 1920s, came right out and said things that were known to be true among insiders, but were rarely spoken outside of the club (the men of his time who managed public opinion). I cite here a passage that appears right at the opening:

Continue reading “The radon game” →

Quiet, Please! The Latest Threat to the Big Wild

It was another long summer of smoke-filled eyes in the West. An early snow storm in the Northern Rockies ushers in a season of peace and solitude. Wildfires frighten tourists, excite the media and reacquaint homeowners who built in the forest to Mother Nature’s laws.  Hey, I get it, fires are deadly and sexy – good ratings. But after decades of kicking the environmental can down the road, at the first sign of smoke most politicians want someone else to blame for their pathetic past performances.

Three of the last four summers (2015, 2017, 2018), Glacier National Park erupted in a fury of smoke and flames. Tourists scampered away to Yellowstone, “inholder” homes were evacuated, some incinerated. But that’s not why I picked up the pen today. Let’s talk about quiet, yes quiet.  Where has our quiet gone? Continue reading “Quiet, Please! The Latest Threat to the Big Wild” →

YELLOWSTONE GRIZZLIES RETURNED TO ENDANGERED SPECIES LIST 

MISSOULA, Mont. – A federal judge today restored Endangered Species Act protections to grizzly bears in the Yellowstone ecosystem after they were prematurely and illegally delisted last year. This victory means that the grizzlies will remain protected as a threatened species pending additional scientific analysis and a more comprehensive plan for their recovery.

“The Trump administration wants to see Yellowstone’s grizzlies taken off the Endangered Species list so they can be hunted, killed, and mounted on the walls of wealthy trophy hunters like Trump’s sons” said Mike Garrity, Executive Director of the Alliance for the Wild Rockies. “But grizzly bears remain a tiny fraction of their former population and are living in an even tinier fraction of their former range.  Due to increased development and lack of connected habitat, it’s safe to say the grizzly bear isn’t really recovered yet.  These incredible animals deserve better from humans than a rush to the taxidermist.”

Continue reading “YELLOWSTONE GRIZZLIES RETURNED TO ENDANGERED SPECIES LIST “ →

Seventeen years after …

SBWell, it is the seventeenth anniversary of 9/11, so this has to be written. Please take time to review Kevin’s article below, The Sewing Circle (Loose Threads) as it is much more interesting than this will be.

It is time to talk about controlled demolition of seven buildings, two of which oddly formed the number 11 and that perhaps sat mostly empty for 33 years, of vicsims and rabbit holes, the devilishly clever misdirection of Dr. Steven Jones and Dr. Judy Woods and, of course, Jim Fetzer, who is not very clever but omnipresent in every fake event. All of that matters, and it needs to be discussed, especially on the anniversary …

Continue reading “Seventeen years after …” →

Campaign of Illusions: Where the Zero Cut Movement to Save the National Forests Went Wrong

Zero-Cut No Commercial Logging again? A quarter century after it became the banner and guiding star for much of the grassroots forest movement, and then over a decade of semi-retirement, the campaign for this legislation is trying to mount a national revival. My question is simple: Is it the best strategy for a collapsed forest movement, daily confronting the debacle of rapidly increasing logging and roadbuilding in the national forests?

The combination of President Trump and an overtly hostile Republican-controlled Congress has shocked the grassroots, non-collaboration forest movement. Awakening from over a decade of a sort of slumber, these forest defense activists are daily burning up internet chat rooms with news chronicling cascading losses in Agriculture and Interior Department rules, regulations, administrative edicts, and newly-passed laws and congressional riders that roll back decades of environmental laws and court victories.

They are stunned to see the reality that their strategy of timber sales appeals and lawsuits are no longer holding back the bulldozers and chain saws of the timber industry and its U.S. Forest Service puppet. As they ponder these mounting losses, they watch their local forests logged with increasing ferocity, a comprehensive assault on public lands with transgressions that few imagined they would live to see. Continue reading “Campaign of Illusions: Where the Zero Cut Movement to Save the National Forests Went Wrong” →

Trial by Fire

Last evening I participated as one of five presenters in a live-audience,  multi-media discussion/presentation with a group of foresters, a smoke jumper and State of Montana’s tourism specialist in the Dept. of Commerce.  The topic was “Can we manage wildfire; Should we manage wildfire.”  As the lone “tree-hugger” on the stage, I tried to probe other panel members for the reasons for their beliefs – most believed in management as a “solution” to our wildfire “problem.”  Needless to say, the anthropocentric viewpoint predominated.

Soldiering on, I tried very hard to interject a few self-evident truths about nature and fire’s natural role in the continuous mystery of life in its many forms.  When cornered with truth, however, the other participants simply lied to escape reality.  I’m sure they believed their lies, but even to the live audience lying seemed obvious, but generally an acceptable answer to a confrontation with an inescapable truth.  Continue reading “Trial by Fire” →