Saving our last great places

One of the finer qualities of living in Washington state (and the Pacific Northwest in general) is its wealth of federally designated wilderness areas. These tracts of land receive the highest governmental protection possible. They are roadless, and logging is outright prohibited. Motorized vehicles and bicycles are not allowed.

For many years, local activists have been fighting for the establishment of such an area about 50 miles northeast of downtown Seattle in the Cascade Range. Called the Wild Sky region, it's a 106,000-acre swath of land encompassing the best of Northwest nature and scenery — alpine peaks, old-growth forests, waterfalls, and clear rivers. It would join several other wilderness areas — Glacier Peak, Alpine Lakes, and Lake Chelan, to name a few — that help keep the North Cascades largely undeveloped and unspoiled.

Wild Sky's recognition as wilderness nearly came to fruition earlier this year when the U.S. House unanimously approved the legislation granting it that title. But more recently, it hit a roadblock in the Senate when Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., blocked the bill under the premise that its price tag was too high. I visited this guy's Web site, and boy, is he ever a piece of work. I suppose I shouldn't be too surprised, given the state from which he originates. Coburn is the brand of senator who won't hesitate to support any astronomical sum for the Iraq disaster, but then turns around and cries foul over reckless spending when it applies to something as silly as, say, health care or the environment.

Ultimately, I'm optimistic that Wild Sky will prevail and that Coburn represents a dying breed among lawmakers. (OK, maybe the former is more likely than the latter.) In this age of environmental exploitation and destruction, it's absolutely critical to safeguard the last few great wild places we have, or eventually there will be nothing left. We're talking about a parcel of land in Washington state that most people have never heard of; but the environmental benefits offered by this parcel — which, thankfully, remain mostly intact — are too valuable to surrender to the dubious motives of a reactionary senator from Oklahoma.

And yes, for the record, I do have an inherent bias against the state of Oklahoma.

Making their priorities painfully clear

It's truly sad that this is what mobilizes church leaders these days. Apparently, children who lack access to health care and families broken by poverty seem to bother some churches far less than the idea of two gay people who might someday enjoy a legally sanctioned relationship.

Let's privatize everything

I can't talk at length about George W. Bush's recent announcement that he'll veto a bill that would expand health care coverage for children in low-income families. This post would become too profane for most audiences. In Bush's case, I guess reality is skewed just a bit when your linens are always freshly pressed, dinner is always waiting on the table, you've never landed a job independent of your father's connections, and taxes fund every dime of your health care. (Oops, did I say that? I thought Bush opposed using taxpayer money for health care coverage. OK, I'll delete that last line when I'm done writing.)

In a way, though, he may have a point. Government-run and tax-funded health care must be bad. In fact, why does our society pay taxes at all? Why do we trust "big" government to run any public programs or services? It's all a waste of money. Who needs streetlights, paved roads, or public parks? And why should I have to pay for the fire department to go to someone else's burning house? Or for the police to show up when someone else is being robbed? Or, yes, for someone else to receive emergency care when having chest pains? It's not my heart attack, nor is it yours. Why should it be our responsibility?

That's why I propose that we privatize everything. The benefits would be endless. We'd have no taxes to pay, and more insurance companies would help the economy, too — law-enforcement insurance, fire-department insurance, parks-and-recreation insurance, paved-roads, public-waste, public-lighting, and sewage-treatment insurance. Imagine the possibilities. This would truly do away with big government, my friends. I don't see any drawbacks to the idea, either. If you hear someone breaking into your house at 2 a.m., you'll just want to have your law-enforcement insurance card in hand before dialing 911. (The cops will want to see that before chasing the burglar.) Small price to pay for no taxes, don't you think?

What if you can't afford that insurance, you ask? No problem. Just buy a few more guns, and when the burglar comes in your bedroom, take care of him yourself. (Hopefully he'll have ambulance insurance, though, so that you don't have to cart him away yourself.)

Who is with me on this? How about you, Dubya?

A tourist commode

I can understand an interest in current events, but this is just a bit over the top.

It makes me wonder about the famous (infamous?) stall. Does anyone actually use it for its intended purpose now? You'd have people standing right on the other side with cameras the whole time. That might be awkward. In light of its notoriety, maybe the stall should simply be retired and designated with a plaque bearing the name of the gentleman from Idaho.

The worst words in the English language

In the past, I've talked about American political dialogue and how it has seemingly been reduced to two sets of poorly-defined concepts — "conservative" and "liberal," "right" and "left" — that too often are used for name-calling, stereotyping, and most regrettably, avoiding any constructive or meaningful discussion of the issues themselves. This notion rings true every time I visit an online news site that allows readers to leave comments. A letter to the editor or column about any controversial issue will inevitably draw comments accusing the author of being "an ultra-conservative," "loony liberal," and so on. The writers of such comments, of course, rarely make any valuable contribution to the discussion at hand. They don't explain why they disagree, or how their position might be a good alternative. They simply employ one of those tag lines — or a close variation — to reinforce a political climate of division. This country does not need that.

Granted, any Joe Schmoe can sign up and post his comments to an online discussion board. But what disturbs me the most is that it's not just Joe Schmoes who stoop to the "conservative versus liberal" rhetoric. It's the mass media. This CNN article is the worst I've read in a long time. Apparently, its intent is to discuss possible successors for outgoing Attorney General Alberto Gonzales; but instead of focusing on the candidates' qualifications and experience, the article concentrates on which of them might be objectionable to "liberals" and "conservatives." No attempt is made to define either term — their meanings are not self-evident, as far as I'm concerned — but the author freely assigns those labels throughout. By my count, there are five paragraphs in a row where either or both words are used, culminating in this gem sentence: "In 2003, liberal Democratic Sen. Chuck Schumer of New York, a leading liberal voice on judicial nominations, listed Mukasey as an acceptable Supreme Court choice in a letter he sent to Bush." Wow. Great writing skills. Does CNN actually edit its material before publication?

America will make no progress toward political unity until we get past this asinine idea that everyone needs to be on one "side" or the other — especially when those "sides" are nothing more than ambiguous stereotypes. I'd like to predict with confidence that independent thought will someday be the rule rather than the exception in American politics. After reading articles like the one above, though, I'm not terribly optimistic.

The beer (and era?) that is no more

This afternoon, I finally finished the last of the Irish red ales I packed in the car when I made my big move out to the Northwest. They clanked against each other the whole way, but otherwise traveled quite well cross-country (better than my cat did, anyway).

I consider this a symbolic event for a couple of reasons. On one hand, this beer of which I speak (pictured at left to show color and depth) is the first that I ever participated in creating. Last March, after months of talk and speculation, I purchased the necessary equipment with a friend, and we tried the art of homebrewing. The results were initially questionable — some criticism was leveled against our brew for an alleged lack of flavor — but six months after the fact, I think our creation has aged well. All potential biases aside, this is not a beer that screams "novice brewer" at first sip. (My fear all along had been that it would.) Rather, I'd describe it as having a mellow, caramel-like flavor that is good. Not great, but decidedly above the level of a Killian's.

On a more sentimental level, the end of this beer also seems to remind of the end of a chapter in my life — one during which beer tastings and happy hours were part of a weekly routine. Despite the preponderance of microbreweries and pubs that the Pacific Northwest has to offer, I admittedly haven't taken part in nearly as many of them as I would have wanted by this point. Like-minded friends aren't nearly as easy to find in the working world, I guess.

I'd love to take another stab at brewing — preferably a stout next time around — but this may have to wait for some time. The brewing supplies were left behind in the big move, and I'm inclined to think I'll need to return to their present location before this can be done.

Bearing witness to nature's fury

This past weekend, on a trip to Portland, I stopped at Mount Saint Helens in southern Washington state. The left photo above shows the peak one day before its catastrophic 1980 eruption. At right is an image of what the area looks like now. In geologic time, the volcano erupted just a few minutes ago — reflected by the moon-like landscape that remains nearly three decades after the event.

Mount Saint Helens had been silent for more than 100 years. Then, in March of 1980, it started showing signs of waking up. Shallow earthquakes began to swarm beneath the peak, and on March 27, a mini-eruption of steam and ash removed any doubt that the volcano was preparing for a much bigger show. A massive bulge formed on the north face of the mountain during April that year, caused by a build-up of magma inside the cone. Finally, on the morning of May 18, 1980, another earthquake caused the surface of this bulge to slide off, giving way to a cataclysmic eruption that spewed ash all the way east to Minnesota and south to Oklahoma. Day was quickly turned into night across parts of Washington. The explosions carried a force equivalent to 27,000 Hiroshima-sized atomic bombs, removing the top 1,300 feet of the volcano's peak.

The death toll of 57 could have been much higher if Mount Saint Helens had not been located in such a remote, unpopulated area. The disaster is a fascinating but disquieting reminder of nature's destructive capacity — and the reality that it will happen again. Mount Rainier, a dormant volcano much larger than Mount Saint Helens ever was (and closer to the Seattle-Tacoma metropolitan area), has not had a major eruption in hundreds of years. Hopefully, we won't be around when it wakes up.