Next stop, The Twilight
Zone
Well, just in case you're interested, our little
eco-nut friend from last months column decided not to respond. In
fact, NONE of the lunatic fringe decided to respond. Gee...I wonder
why? ;-) OK, on to this month's rant. I'm writing this month's column after returning from
a family outing....In, The Twilight Zone. Yup, we loaded up the
truck and rail, headed out to the desert, drove down one of those
"Ghost Roads" that "don't exist" (but the the USFS and BLM intend
to take away from the masses anyway), and ran smack dab into a
"Wilderness" sign that the boys in brown hammered into that
"Pristine Desert Soil™". Not really suprising, but there the
catch. The sign read... "Wilderness Area". No Motorized
vehicles, Equipment, Bicycles (did you catch that Mountain
Bikers???), or HANG GLIDERS" Now, I know that a hang glider doesn't pollute, so it
must be that the endangered Blue Billed Desert Dwelling Snarfblat
had a documented traumatic experience after seeing a hang glider
pass it by on this flat, mountainless expanse, necessitating a sign
being nailed into the ground. The stupidity here is that... B. The sign is 5-6 inches wide, and about a foot
tall. How exactly does a hang glider actually "SEE" this sign from
altitude??? C. The sign says absolutely nothing about restricting
the military aircraft that do low level flyovers of this very area
on a regular basis.
Who comes up with this crap? Picture if you
will.... The scene is a plush, luxurious office building which
takes up much needed "Wildlands" in the SF Bay area. A group of
highly paid non profit org. "executives", armed & badged men,
and a young "MTV friendly" stooge with a nameplate (containing
metals derived from the "extraction industry") on his wooden
(possibly red-wooden) desk, settle down for a long hard round of
"planet saving & policy influence'. One of the "Executives" speaks, since the mouthpiece
of the 90's has no original thoughts to call his own.". "Not so fast boys" he says gleefully, "It may not
come to that." With a quick change into emotional distress mode,
the man addresses his flock. "Men, it seems that we missed a very
crucial threat to our planetary ecosystem". (much bewilderment and headscratching ensues; a new
innitiate to the inner circle falls on his sword) "That's simply not possible" says a bearded author
with more than 1 work of hate speech to his credit. "We shut out
the off-roaders, mountain bikers, equestrians, the handicapped, the
elderly, and we're close to calling on our own members to give up
their rights...er...ah...nature hikes as well. Hell boss, there's
nothing human on that ground that moves...what'd we miss?" The executive saunters over to the window, catching
the gleam of his new 98 Suburban with whaleskin hubcaps, and all
poached leather interior (none of that vinyl for this boy - it's
environmentally costly!) "Basic rules of war Dave. We control the
land, but we must control the skies as
well!" Phones fly off the hook, fax machines ramp up, hard
drives whirr, E-mail spams the net, and the enviro juggernaut
springs into action. "Dave" slithers out of the room, presumably to
rally a "non-organization" into stringing piano wire across the end
of a runway, and pour sand into jet fuel. Mr. Nameplate asks for
permission to go #1, and when denied, sits uncomfortably in his
chair. "Free Willy" plays silently on the office propaganda
box...er...TV, but the irony is lost on him. Within mere moments multi year studies are generated,
"proving" that the "Blue Billed Desert Dwelling Snarfblat", a
species "believed" to exist (at some point in history), by a 4 yr.
old watching too many "Captain Planet" cartoons, will become highly
constipated and fall to earth from it's lofty heights, should it be
exposed to the horror of a .....(can't you just FEEL the evil
building?) .......(God I can't stand it!!!!)......Hang Glider
Hours later, the head badge calls for a box van to
transport the several thousand pages of "evidence" back to
Washington, where it's met by a group of "concerned citizens",
augmented further, and forced down the throat of our elected
officials, with a slice of lime and a smile. Once properly legislated out of the area, a totem is
erected to warn the airborne vermin (close cousin of the "off-road
vermin") of their impending doom.The warding symbol is a sign less
than 1 square foot in area that would force the non-polluting
airborne Recreationalist to land, breaking the law just to read the
damn thing. Now naturally this signpost of authority must be
constructed of an environmentally friendly substance. After all, it
will be hammered down into "Pristine Desert Soil ™". What
could it be? Wood? Metal? Granite???? Well, not exactly....no. It
seems that in reality, the sign is constructed of painted
fiberglass. And the paint is chipping. Anybody got a HAZMAT sheet on these
things???? "It's Not Easy Being Green" - Article
Index
Links to so called "Environmental
Organizations" The Sierra Club Homepage
- http://www.sierraclub.org
The Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance - http://www.suwa.org/
Earth First! Homepage - http://www.hrc.wmin.ac.uk/campaigns/ef/pubs/aulat.html | 
