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Cubans Use Parks to Come Ashore

Mar 7th - 19:35pm | Snowbird

Whatever the case, we have very porous borders that will continously be a problem with illegal immigration. The question is, how do we stop the rich from reaping the wealth off of cheap labor: no workmens comp. to worry about, no benefit packages or health care concerns for the dirt poor illegal. Just pay them a cheap pittance!

Mar 7th - 18:28pm | kath

The law treats Cubans differently because they are escaping from a brutal repressive dictatorship and are not coming solely to make more money.

Mar 7th - 16:58pm | Rick Smith

It's also intersting to note how differently the illegal immigrants from Cuba are treated compared to the illegals from other parts of Latin America. Could it have anything to do with the heavy Republican leaning of the Miami Cuban community?

Mar 7th - 15:24pm | Random Walker

Living in the southwest, having traveled the border, national forests/parks, talked with and listened to border guards and land owners, Governors and Representatives (on both sides of the border) and those other folks "protecting" our border (minutemen?) one can not but be involved. Our Border Patrol is also terribly understaffed and over-burdened.

Mar 7th - 14:28pm | repanshek

I'd have to disagree that having NPS personnel in charge of rounding up illegal immigrants is a "wonderful use of resources." As I've been noting for going on two years now, the Park Service is terribly understaffed and over-burdened. Rangers are hired to work in the parks on park-related issues, not to be tasked with immigration duties.

Mar 7th - 13:02pm | Random Walker

IMHO The use of the Rangers "staff and time to handle due to the logistics of coordinating transportation and transfer..." is a wonderful use of resources. The problem with immigration is not the immigrants themselves, but an ongoing narrowing, negative fear based view (smells like racism) our government has taken on folks from other countries and immigration.

Mar 7th - 06:43am | Jim Macdonald

Kurt, I've bit my tongue on these topics because I will get extremely angry very fast (and then I turn into the Incredible Hulk, which might be amusing but is embarrassing here at work); I don't think it takes much to figure out what I believe given that I am an anarchist.

Mar 6th - 17:17pm | repanshek

C'mon, Jim, "Barnes and Noble" just doesn't sound the same... Glad to hear you've wrapped up Locke. Definitely something I want to read to get your spin on his ideas (or should it be his "ideals"?).

Mar 6th - 16:48pm | Jim Macdonald

Borders, borders, borders; it's not just a book store anymore. Kurt, I've finally finished my 4-part series of essays on Locke and against property rights. I can't help thinking of what I talk about there when I read about this.

Kings Canyon Turns 67

Mar 6th - 10:51am | Snowbird

Your right Steve, but close enough to enjoy all three great parks. Thanks for re-directing my pathways.

Mar 6th - 09:17am | Steve Sergeant

Ahh, but what Kings Canyon does have is really a big slice of the best of the high Sierra.

Mar 4th - 11:25am | Snowbird

Don't forget to slice in some time with Mineral King (between Kings Canyon/Sequioa National Park)...great views from the peaks...and much solitude!

Mar 4th - 10:38am | Ranger X

Another reason Kings Canyon is less visited is because the road dead ends. Visitors LOVE loop roads, and if they have to see the same scenery twice, they feel cheated. But the canyon is feels like Yosemite without the crowds. Take a bushwhack up an side of the canyon and you'll be amazed at the silence and unbelievable scenery.

Natural Bridges National Monument: Off the Beaten Path

Mar 5th - 15:07pm | Carol

I worked at Natural Bridges back in the Fall of 2000 - it's a lovely piece of the Colorado Plateau and definitely merits at least a full day of exploration - if not more! There are lots of ruins in the canyons, not just the Horsecollar location which is pointed out to you. Search carefully and you'll find a lot more along with some beautiful pictograph and petroglyph panels.

Mar 4th - 19:13pm | Bob Krumenaker

Kurt,

Cyclists Ride Through Grand Canyon, Booted from Parks

Mar 2nd - 20:34pm | Scott Morris

Hi, Just a correction. Riding bikes IS allowed in Grand Canyon National Park--just not below the rim. There are several miles of Arizona Trail that are open to mountain bikes on the North Rim and still a part of the park. Bikes are allowed in the canyon, however riding (or pushing them) is not.

Mar 2nd - 13:31pm | Jim Macdonald

Wow, that's wild; those three managed to bike through Yellowstone during the time when it was closed (though according to their blog had not been stopped by rangers from doing so). That was a shock and a half to me.

Tinkering With Perfection

Mar 2nd - 04:23am | Judy

Even though it is a state park you could use Stone Mountain Park as the prime example of over development. I grew up there and a little at a time they have paved over and comercialized the park.

Mar 1st - 16:17pm | Ranger X

Bob Madgic(is this a real name?) also writes: "In Lassen Volcanic National Park a ski area had been built near the south entrance, and cabins, a gas station, a store and cafe near Manzanita Lake, where rental boats littered the shoreline. True to their mission, enlightened officials eliminated most of these intrusions. Today Manzanita Lake is as picturesque and spotless as could be."

Yellowstone, Sadly, Goes Electronic

Feb 28th - 18:10pm | Phil

As a park professional who is working on podcasts and vodcasts, I have to say that the Yellowstone casts are excellent. I think it is wrong to think this is a way to get rid of interpretive rangers, on the contrary, this will allow rangers to develop writing skills (for media) and new methods of interpretation (presenting to a camera is very different than being taped for Interp compentancies).

Feb 27th - 14:59pm | Dan

It's rangers in the field who are introducing the podcasts in the first place. We'll tell our story any way people will listen. Brochures, podcasts, car tours, interpretive signs, films, exhibits, informal interp, formal interp, commercial guides, roving contacts, junior ranger workbooks.

Feb 27th - 13:25pm | Snowbird

The next best thing to plastic! How does this test the human spirit and soul by not being there in the National Parks...to enjoy, feel and touch? Podcasting is another way of scouring out the interpretive rangers off the payroll...as the Bush administration would like!

Feb 27th - 11:41am | Steve Sergeant

This could be done well, or it could be done poorly. Like anything else in technology, it can be effective or ineffective.

Glacier Geotourism Map: Boon, or Bane?

Feb 28th - 13:03pm | Random Walker

I do at times whine about the three foot wide, eight foot high, five percent grade, over signed trails in our National Parks (I swear I once came across a sign, a large arrow with the word "View" in a so called "designated wilderness" area of a National Park.)

Back in the Saddle

Feb 27th - 13:42pm | repanshek

Steve, I was indeed at Natural Bridges, and it provided an incredible star show. Even with the crescent moon the multitude of visible stars was fantastic. Unfortunately, I left my telescope at home. Not that I needed it;-)

Feb 26th - 13:06pm | Steve Sergeant

If you were in Natural Bridges National Monument, then you were under the darkest skies among all of the national parks in the contiguous 48 states. I hope you took a telescope and a star chart, or at least some decent, large-aperture binoculars! I did a couple of editions of The WildeBeat on the monitoring and decline of the darkness of night skies:

Paddling the St. Croix

Feb 27th - 12:41pm | Greg

Thanks Kurt. The next part in the series should be posted today or tomorrow. I'm approaching it as a study of the specifics of this issue, but also taking the opportunity to examine some of the assumptions of the conservation movement and its opponents. Thanks again for the link!

Juggling The NPS Budget

Feb 25th - 13:02pm | Alan

I read the president's call for private investment in the parks as just another step toward even greater privatization. The spectre of signs promoting some gawdawful corporation's "sponsorship" of this park or that one are just a step behind. Full and adequate public funding. That's what the parks deserve and Congress should give it to them.

NPS Web Sites: Boon or Bust?

Feb 23rd - 21:12pm | Random Walker

I was trying the other day to re access some administrative history on a NP site and could not find it anywhere.. I do remember pages and pages of this kind of data.

Feb 23rd - 12:41pm | Gabrielle Sedor

Agreed, but there was definitely a significant amount of time and resources poured into the NPS web redesign. The fact that the end result makes it more difficult to find park sites by state, region or topic is frustrating to say the least.

Feb 22nd - 17:53pm | matt

Waaaaaaaahhhhh! I'm afraid of change!!! To be honest, if I have to choose between a webnerd updating Olympics website or an LEO out in the field keeping the place safe, I'm going to go with the LEO. Websites should be kept relevant but not every NPS site is going to be like Glacier NP.

Out Product Testing

Feb 21st - 11:34am | Jim Macdonald

Happy travels, Kurt. I'm jealous. The things I see every day (or can see every day) - the National Mall, Lafayette Park, Dupont Circle, the Anacostia waterfront, or even Rock Creek Park, aren't all that conducive to showing people the fruits of the national parks system and perhaps show just enough to show just how stretched out the NPS is.

Killing Rocky Mountain NP's Elk

Feb 20th - 20:38pm | Snowbird

Random, that's nature at it's best and without the sound of rifle blasting off. Well put!

Feb 20th - 19:35pm | Random Walker

I would relish the opportunity to watch a full grown wolf take down a trophy bull elk on a rock broken alpine meadow mountainside studded with silver snags in our Rocky Mountain National Park.

E.O. Wilson: Some Words to Ponder

Feb 19th - 07:17am | Jim Macdonald

My heart goes with E.O. Wilson's sentiments; my mind tells me that what he's espousing is also a religion, and his distinction of a religion or an ideology as not serving without discrimination all the interests of humanity to be ideological (not to mention loaded).

Feb 18th - 22:59pm | Snowbird

Trey, name me one decent thing that the Bush Administration has done for the envirnoment...like a blown economy over his phony bogus war.

Feb 18th - 22:49pm | Trey

Bush has done FAR more than Clintoon! Snowybird: you're still a stupid Dupe...stinky too.

Feb 18th - 22:47pm | Snowbird

Roger, take real hard look and see what very little the Bush Administration has done to protect the environment...absolutely nothing! I'm not going to insult you Roger by calling you stupid...just ignorant!

Feb 18th - 22:37pm | Roger

Snowbird...you are a stupid dupe....

Feb 18th - 22:37pm | Roger

..."However, as USA Today pointed out in August of 2006, “he and his wife Tipper live in two properties: a 10,000-square-foot, 20-room, eight-bathroom home in Nashville, and a 4,000-square-foot home in Arlington, VA.” He also has a third home in Carthage, Tennessee. To get to and from his highly paid lectures, he uses jets that consume vast amounts of fossil fuel derivatives."

Feb 18th - 22:27pm | Lucy

Great article: http://www.smallgovtimes.com/story/07feb18.strange.world.gore/

Feb 18th - 22:11pm | Snowbird

It's to bad that the Bush Administration doesn't have the guts or the balls to read this short masterpiece. Profound reading!

Bush's Parks Budget: A Marketing Marvel

Feb 18th - 22:50pm | Snowbird

I wasn't hiding like Bush & Cheney...served as a medic in Viet Nam. Any more questions!?

Feb 18th - 22:47pm | Trey

Hey Snowybird...I'm serving...where are you?...singing Kumbaya?? Go away...you're drawing flies!

Feb 18th - 22:29pm | Snowbird

Look, it's GI Joe again...more troops? We can't even manage what we have there now. What did the last election say Stan?....no more waste on this bogus war in Iraq. You right wing whacko's are the last ones to march in the front lines of the Iraq war....Beside's Rick knows what he's talking about, and you Stan are foaming at the mouth.

Feb 18th - 22:12pm | Stan

Hey Ricky-boy...stop whining...ya whine about NO money, then ya bi&*h and moan when the Prez steps up to the plate....just like all ya liberals crying "we need more troops" (Iraq)...then when the Man steps up, it's the cowardly...no, no.... So go away...you have no solutions, only criticism.

What Can We Expect in the Wake of the Skywalk?

Feb 18th - 22:18pm | Stan

I wanna be there when some loser decides to jump over the glass and spare us his loser gene-pool....SPLAT!!!

Feb 17th - 15:08pm | Random Walker

I enjoyed John Weeks article (my mind works the same way?) I lived on a reservation (PNW) for seven years and as RangerX stated it is not a national park but a sovereign nation (albeit interfered with by the good old USA) with its own governmental and social structure. That I understand we borrowed from a bit.

Feb 17th - 06:42am | Jim Macdonald

Yes, Claire, exactly...which is one reason why I'd be the last person to tell a reservation what they can and cannot do. And, it's a reason to try to organize ourselves as people differently, which is what I myself have worked on here, though not with a lot of success (just spurts of hopeful moments and possibilities).

NPS Archives: What's Their Future?

Feb 18th - 15:01pm | jersu

Excellent idea regarding the NPS museum as a project worthy of funding through the Centennial Challenge grants. I had the opportunity to see the NPS Lewis & Clark traveling exhibition. The show traveled the nation for over 2 years along the Lewis & Clark trail.

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