John Muir, Yosemite, Enacting Change

Last night, Dave and I caught most of the first episode of Ken Burns' new National Parks documentary.

I am going to digress already. First, the obligatory I know that PBS and Ken Burns have a liberal slant, but I still enjoy these documentaries. Second, the above linked article starts out with this statement (from a previous opinion piece, which I did not read) :

"[The documentary's] premise—that Big Government saved wilderness and national treasures that private enterprise would have destroyed—is a lot more politically pointed (in the year of the Tea Party) than you'd expect from a Burns documentary about trees. "

Please. There's a difference between big government taking over the free enterprise system while burdening future generations with phenomenal debt, and the government protecting natural resources. My time is too limited this morning to delve into this.

Right now, I want to discuss John Muir. First off, I need to say that I grew up with a totally trivial bias against him. I went to Horace Mann Middle School. John Muir Middle School was our cross-town rival, and therefore, evil. (Did you know there are only two John Muir Middle Schools in the country?)

Some things I learned about John Muir from the documentary last night:

- His father beat him and made him memorize the Bible. By the time he was 11, he had memorized 3/4 of the Old Testament and all of the New Testament.
- He attended the University of Wisconsin. He was able to use his knowledge to help businesses become more profitable.
(I may have missed this on the documentary, but something I read on Wikipedia is that he spent the years during the Civil War in Canada)
- He was temporarily blinded in a work accident. When he recovered, he walked to Florida. He planned to walk to South America and ride down the Amazon, but he was taken ill. He went to Yosemite instead.
- He turned his spiritual attention to nature. The documentary called it a Christianity with creation as its core. The wikipedia article states that he rejected the idea of a Creator. I think it would have been more apt to simply state he worshipped nature, instead of using the term 'Christianity' as a generic for spirituality.
- He married. His wife's family owned a vineyard and he helped to increase its productivity.
-He became ill. His wife realized he needed to get back in the natural environment, so she sent him to Mt. Ranier.
- He then went back to Yosemite, and was disgusted with how commercialized it had become.

Here's the part that stood out the most for me:

- He wanted Congress to protect the Yosemite region. The establishment wanted to discredit him, so he appealed directly to the people. He wrote articles in Century magazine glorifying the Yosemite region. This led people to petition their congressman to create a national park. Congress established it as a state-controlled park shortly thereafter.

So, one of our country's first conservationists, the founder of the Sierra Club, realized that the normal channels for enacting change weren't open to him. He used the means available to him to let the people hear him.

I wonder what he would have done if the internet had been available to him? Perhaps he would have bypassed even the magazine, and gone directly to blogging. I'm sure Tom Brokaw and Thomas Friedman would have been duly distressed.

Selective Journalism

I was planning on taking a break from discussing politics for awhile, but I came across this comment on the Althouse blog. I wanted to remember it, so I thought I'd post it here:

"A particularly apropos reminder when discussing the selective journalism of the NYT:

It is in the nature of [secular progressivism] for its adherents to make a certain kind of lying – and not only to others but first of all to themselves – a fundamental part of their lives.It is always a mistake to assume that [secular progressives] do not know the truth about the political reality they espouse. If they don’t know the truth (or all of it) one day, they know it the next, and it makes absolutely no difference to them politically. For their loyalty is to something other than the truth. And no historical enormity is so great, no personal humiliation or betrayal so extreme, no crime so heinous that it cannot be assimilated into the ‘ideals’ that govern the [secular progressive] mind, which is impervious alike to documentary evidence and moral discrimination.– Hilton Kramer

Kramer was writing about Stalinists. However, secular progressives in the US would be Stalinists but for constraints imposed on them by the traditional American institutions they work to dismantle: The Constitution, capitalism and Judeo-Christian values."

Isn't That Precious?

On our way into town, we pass over a highway. We go past a pro-life billboard, with a picture of a baby with words to the effect that every life is precious. The word 'Precious' is prominent on the billboard.

Probably about a year ago, as we were driving past it, Henry remarked to Grace, "Look, there's Precious!" So, several times a week, we'll hear Grace shout, "There's Precious!" as we pass the billboard.

This week, we heard "Where's Precious?" We could all see that she was still there, so we told her not to worry, she was still there. Grace was insistent that someone had taken Precious away. As we went home, Madeline again pointed out to her that Precious was still there. No, Grace insisted, she was gone. Then, Madeline realized that all this while, Grace had been looking at the billboard across the highway that had a teddy bear on it. That was Precious. And, sure enough, Precious is now gone.

The rest of us were pretty tickled about this year-long misunderstanding. Grace doesn't see the humor in it.

Reporting The News

Charlie Gibson, the anchor of the ABC Evening News, said yesterday morning that the reason he hasn't reported on the ACORN scandal is because he hadn't heard anything about it until the Senate voted to withhold funding the other day.

I believe that last night was the first time Katie Couric reported on it at CBS.

If you hold a position that's responsible for telling the American people the news, shouldn't you be aware of major developing stories?

Shouldn't we hold Gibson and Couric to the same standard they held Sarah Palin?

An Analogy

I thought of an analogy regarding the concept of The American People Are The New Fourth Estate. I'm not sure if it quite works, but it made me feel a little clever, so I decided to post it.

Suppose every time you go to the doctor, they seat some of the people on the left side of the waiting room, and some of the people on the right side. The people on the left side always received excellent care, but the people on the right side were generally neglected. Furthermore, if you ever complained, the lefties said you were overreacting. The doctors provided outstanding care. The doctors, too, called you a bunch of whiners and insisted their service was exceptional.

After awhile, some of the righties decided that they were going to take matters into their own hands. They figured out how to treat their own sicknesses, and started treating the other righties as well.

Of course, the doctors and the lefties trivialized the service these righties were performing, claiming it inferior.

They didn't understand that the righties would have much preferred to let the doctors do the job. Someone had to do the job the doctors refused to do.

American People Are The Fourth Estate

I wanted to post this video. It ties in nicely with my recent posts on the media and also on ACORN.

Incidentally, Breitbart's Big Government blog has the latest scoops on the ACORN debacle.

ACORN And Federal Funding

Below is the text of an email I just sent to my Senators and Congressman (I changed the wording on the second paragraph for my congressman). I don't write them too often. I guess part of me has been worried that if I write them too often they'll dismiss me as extreme.
I guess I'm not worried about that so much any more.
I also sent a separate note to Senator Feingold, thanking him for his recent decision to vote against Cap and Trade.

"I am one of your many constituents who is disgusted by the recent, and still developing, ACORN scandal. While I have always been skeptical of this highly partisan organization, the recent videos are over the top.

I understand that there is an amendment on the Senate floor to block any further money to ACORN. That is a good first step, and I urge you to vote for the amendment.

However, that is not nearly enough. There need to be Congressional investigations into how ACORN has used taxpayer funds, and about the allegations of voter fraud associated with ACORN. There needs to be assurances that this organization will not receive funding under any different names.

While I understand that there may have been legitimate reasons for originally funding this type of organization, there is no reason that the blatantly corrupt ACORN should receive federal funding.

Please take these concerns seriously, and help me regain trust in my elected representatives."