Boundary Waters Blog

Here's a good one and it makes my point regarding conceptual defenders and how they spend their money and time feeling good about saving something.

My sister and here family live in the Twin Cities of Minnesota area.  She is a suburbanite - yecchhh - hard to type that about a relative, especially my sibling, but alas, it is true.  She likes it down there in the concrete jungle and I'm happy for her.

A few of my blogs back I wrote about how it made me really angry that while the Gulf of Mexico was being destroyed by runaway oil and it was eating alive three of OUR states nothing of value was being done by our government or enviro groups..  It wasn't just some faraway place that didn't mean anything to Americans - those are OUR states and they should matter to all Americans.  Regardless of what you may hold dear, they matter to me and as I watched our limp president as he caved in to unions while citing the1920's  Jones Act as a valid reason NOT to accept  help from anybody and everybody, I seethed.  Then, as I heard the silence (COMPLETE and UTTER silence) as the Sierra Club, Cousteau Society, Friends of the Boundary Waters, and every other enviro-wacko group  did and said nothing as our limp-excuse-for-a- leader assembled a tag-team of 5 lawyers and two scientists (of relatively worthless fields of study - optics?  How about "oil leak"?) to find out essentially "whose ass to kick", I fumed even more.   I wrote about it before and here I am again.

At my sister's house, someone came knocking at the door in the Twin Cities suburbs.  The guy disregarded my sister's lawn and walked over it instead of taking the sidewalk.  It's only somebody else's property - it's NOT the Boundary Waters afterall.  Note the parallel:  Those states being destroyed by oil are somebody else's problem and property - they aren't the Boundary Waters afterall.

Anyway, this guy pounded on the door wanting to talk to the occupant about the travesty that is occurring not in the Boundary Waters but instead about about 2 miles away from Chosen Land - outside of the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Park.   He was going door to door (and you can bet there were others) trying to encourage conceptual defenders to give money and support to allow the Friends of the Boundary Waters to  prevent a cell phone  tower from going up near Ely - again, outside of the Boundary Waters.

Here he's working for the Friends about 270 miles south of where the tower is going up.  There is nothing happening to the Boundary Waters.  No law is being changed, no other group is yelling for Congress to repeal the BWCA law PL 95-495. Nothing detrimental is happening within the borders of Chosen Land of which I'm aware as I type. And here they come - the Defenders of All Things Holy although I'm pretty sure their religion doesn't include traditional religious icons, definitions, or rules for living.  

Maybe they need to attack stuff out of the BWCA because overall BWCA use is falling off rather abruptly - down 20% since 2006 and down 12% this year alone with the average age of BWCA paddlers now being 45 years of age.  It won't be long before the average age will be 60.  The kiddies are all staying home too. Playing with their electronic toys and Facebook apparently because they are afraid they might lose contact with some other idiot with a Droid in hand which clearly supersedes any outdoor activity .  Maybe that's the reason the Friends need to fight - they are fighting  for us and all human/animal kind.  Somehow, I don't believe that is the basis for their cause.  I really think their cause lacks altruism.

I find it ironic that a wacko group like the Friends can find the time and human resources to commit to saving a park which is not being threatened. Now they are saving the land surrounding the park as three of our United States have horrendous, immediate, problems while our Washington leadership remains non-existent.   What is even more astonishing is their complete lack of respect for private property and something as apparently insignificant as walking on another's lawn while trying to garner support for saving (?) the BWCA for unknown recipients and, of course, themselves.

I'm guessing that the minion sported a scraggly, splotchy beard, a little rubber-banded ponytail, little round glasses, and wore a hemp, tie-die T-shirt and Teva sandals.  My next guess is that this Friend of the Boundary Waters (in the Twin Cities), in his spare time, attends G-8 summits whenever he can scrape up the cash to fly around the world so he can join forces with the rioters and smash the store fronts of private, un-involved, small businesses to prove some point that nobody really cares about.  Well, except for the business with the smashed glass, the owners of cars lit on fire, and insurance companies.  Oh- and the media, too.

OK- I'm being stereotypical here.  This Friend of the Boundary Waters probably doesn't have Teva sandals.  Probably a cheaper pair of knock-offs from Payless. My guess is that he was an unemployed minion for the more well-heeled, lawyer leadership who gave him his lawn-treading assignment.

I'll have to call my sister for the details.

All together now:  Go Environment!!!  Go Boundary Waters!!!  Be Green!!!!  Now, if you end strong with the Howard Dean "Yeeeeaaaaagghh!" you'll have the cheer down pat!

Keep giving your money for your conceptual defense.  It must be helping somebody do something to someone, somewhere.

CC