Red Tape
Deregulation is another scam meant to put more money into the pockets of the über-wealthy.
I know I have a few new subscribers and besides giving you a hearty “Welcome!” I just want to warn you I don’t write for a living, I write for my mental well-being. I don’t do any serious editing and I don’t pay much attention to grammar.
On the bright side, I won’t clutter your inbox because my writing is sporadic. I try to keep my thoughts short and succinct. I do use profanity when I feel it is warranted and it seems like no matter what I want to write about, it always has a hint of politics. These days, I don’t see how it couldn’t.
Bon apetit! - JLM
If you love being taxed, raise your hand.
If you get excited about paperwork and bureaucracy and red tape, give me a thumb’s up.
If sitting through lectures regarding rules and regulations that you’ve heard countless times lights you up, let me hear an “Amen!”
A couple of years ago I found myself by the Colorado River at the Lee’s Ferry Crossing prepping to raft the Grand Canyon for the umpteenth time. We’d driven out of a snowstorm in Flagstaff and the whole group was grimly expecting an endurance test like we’ve never had to endure. Setting out down a river during a winter squall, on a river punctuated with enormous haystacks of moving water and gaping holes of angry-looking, recirculating water, was no one’s idea of a good time.
Fortunately for us, we crested a pass north of Flagstaff and then descended into a snow-free countryside as far as the eye could see. The air temps were not as warm as I’d like, but we were not going to be rigging our boats amongst whorls of snow falling.
But back to the rules and regulations stuff.
The National Park Service won’t let you raft the Grand Canyon until you’ve listened to them drone on about the sanctity of the park and everyone’s role in keeping it as pristine as possible. The ranger, who may be witty or stern, approachable or prickly, takes your entire group and proceeds to lecture them about the myriad dos and don’ts on a river trip of such unfailing grandeur. The ranger also talks about the pitfalls and obstacles to a successful Grand Canyon journey and occasionally regales you with object-lesson tales you might harken back to at some point on the trip.
Or sleep through without hearing them.
Having been river rafting for decades and having been down the Grand Canyon numerous times, I tend to ho-hum the ranger’s talk. I also tend to get grumpy when fresh-faced rangers (and, to be honest, I get grumpy with older rangers too, because none of them are my age) — perhaps only months on the job and maybe not even a river runner — question my gear and safety equipment. And I always grow annoyed when they need to see the “throw ring” for boats over 16 feet because the Colorado River also falls under the purview of the U.S. Coast Guard. It’s a navigable body of water within the U.S. borders.
(I know. A “throw ring” is going to save my life one of these days. That’s how karma goes.)
But something dawned on me hard during this last hum-drum introduction to the Grand Canyon. It’s not that I hadn’t thought of these things before. It was just that sometimes the clarity of a bell being rung rings more clearly.
It might have been because we had a group consisting of many first-timers. It might have been that this ranger was more lucid, or funny, or knowledgeable. It might have been I was listening with fresh ears.
Rules and regulations and guidelines and dos and don’ts — though often onerous, sometimes ridiculous, and always a pain in the ass — are utterly necessary. River corridors are fortunate in that, usually, there are choke points where the traffic is easily monitored. It would not be simple to launch on the Grand Canyon without someone noticing. Same with most of the rivers in the West.
Because of those ‘choke points’, I can report that river corridors and the rivers themselves remain remarkably clean despite being over-loved every single season. Permits are required for most overnight rivers and during the permitting process someone is going to read a thing or two about rules and regulations. When they arrive at the river, a federal employee — usually a ranger — will reiterate the rules and regulations.
Of course, it helps that river runners are inclined to be environmentally savvy or aware. Even the biggest partiers, wake up the next morning, put on their “responsible person” hats and clean up whatever mess the group created the night before. Pack it back into their rafts, and haul it out.
All of the rules and regulations, that seem superfluous and suffocating, are absolutely necessary to — if nothing else — maintain a stasis. As every parent with a grain of common sense will tell you, humans need parameters. We have to know there are borders or many of us will be inclined to draw our own or ignore them altogether.
Which brings me to what prompted me to write about this.
I live in a faux Bavarian village in the foothills of the Washington Cascades. Our town is a major tourist destination (second most visited place in Washington). We have thousands of acres of wilderness nearby and hundreds of miles of trails.
COVID exploded the public’s interest in getting outdoors. My favorite local trail went from hardly anyone using it midweek — especially if the weather was iffy — to nearly two dozen cars daily at the trailhead, regardless of the weather. I already knew our wilderness areas were threatened due to their burgeoning popularity on social media. Permit requests jumped from 1000 a year prior to 2016 to more than 21,000 a year thereafter!
I spoke to a ranger at the trailhead to our most popular overnight backpacking trip (though there is nothing stopping people from day hiking as much of the trail as they can) because the traffic jam on the severely potholed dirt and gravel Forest Service road did not bode well for the “condition” of the trail itself. I was dropping off a group of friends who were headed into the wilderness area for several days.
As he kept a wary eye on the bumper to bumper line of cars coming up and down the mountain, he told me the Forest Service was considering issuing day use permits to limit the crowds. I was incredulous they had not already put those day use permits in place.
Well, yesterday, in our quaint little burg, the long arm of a rogue billionaire government contractor without Constitutional authority (Elon Musk) reached out and eliminated all of the Forest Service positions who maintain the trails and enforce the rules in the wilderness. They also slashed the job of the person who administered the permits.
From what I understand, these were not “seasonal” hires. Some were USFS employees with a decade of experience. Of course, they were understaffed and underfunded to begin with. Hopefully, the USFS has some sort of game plan to pick up the slack.
Without Wilderness Rangers or a Trail Maintenance crew of any kind, people are going to “love” the wilderness — as well as surrounding Forest Service lands — to death. There were problems galore WITH a staff in place.
Without parameters or enforcement, you can expect:
Some users to leave trash behind
Be careless with human waste and its removal
Build fires when and where they shouldn’t
Camp when and where they shouldn’t
Bring their dogs into a wilderness area
Disregard group size limits
Urinate and defecate where they shouldn’t
Many people in our small town are upset. If tourism is affected (meaning their pocketbooks), I suspect they will be even more upset. But there are also the Musk apologists and MAGA unpersuadables. They’re living in some sort of dreamworld where the rich have their backs and, no matter what goes down, they will be unscathed, or less “scathed”, than the people they look down upon.
They see it as a “win” for their side. This decimation of rules and regulations.
I’ll be honest. I’m a boundary-pusher. But I’m no anarchist.
As it stands right now, we are verging on anarchy.
There are a ton more flashy videos than this one, and that’s a shame. Because Farmer Westmoreland is insanely coherent about the affect this administration is going to have on agriculture. He’s talking to a younger farmer who enthusiastically threw his support behind the crime syndicate pretending to be a government.
One of my favorite lines is this one:
“You don’t have to admit that you were wrong, but you can admit that you were lied to…”
Give it a listen. It’s a powerful argument, meaningfully presented.
You’ll have to go to its Instagram link. I apologize for that.
Also, Resident Alien is NOT for everyone but it’s a bit of fresh air from the run-of-the-mill small town television show dramedy — from The Andy Griffith Show to Virgin River and everything in between. Vincent D’Onofrio may have done a better job of imitating an alien in a human meat suit in Men In Black, but Alan Tudyk gives him a run for his money. I will admit, it ‘jumps the shark’ early on.
Even so, it’s highly entertaining.
Thanks for reading! Don’t get accustomed to this regularity. Rafting season is coming! - JLM
Poobah, you are spot on per usual the times for sardonic rhetoric are over… love 💙 you brah and mahalos for keeping it 💯🙏🤙