Earth Matters: De-escalate

What? No missile shield in Eastern Europe to protect us from the nukes they’ll be lobbing at us? Katie, bar the door.

I spent considerable youthful time worrying that living at ground zero in Colorado Springs I’d be instantly vaporized in an air blast that would level most of the Front Range. Now peace-monger Obama wants to open the door to any crazy militant that can package up plutonium and launch it our way. I’d probably best get back to building my air-raid shelter; call me paranoid.

While the nuclear threat from Russia is probably less than it was when I was a kid in the 1950s, nuclear proliferation in countries like Iran, Pakistan and North Korea is still scary. George W. Bush’s way of coping with the threat was to install a missile defense system in former Soviet Bloc countries Poland and Czech Republic. Obama has scrapped that plan.

Russia’s Deputy Defense Minister Vladimir Popovkin lauded Obama’s cancellation of the missile defense plan as a “victory of reason over ambitions. Naturally, we will cancel countermeasures which Russia has planned in response,” Popovkin said. One such countermeasure was deployment of Iskander missiles along Russia’s border. I feel safer already.

Although Russia was the most outspoken opponent of the proposed missile defense shield, the plan was designed to address threats from rogue states like Iran and North Korea. Russia simply didn’t like the idea of the United States setting up missiles and radar in its former satellite countries and right on its border.

Obama’s intelligence, hopefully better than Bush’s, suggests that Iran isn’t as close as we thought to acquiring nuclear attack capability. Instead of irritating the Russians, Obama’s defense strategy would use radar in Alaska and California to detect launches, and respond with forty-four interceptor missiles in Alaska and California, and another 130 based on ships.

In return for us backing off the defense system in Eastern Europe, we hope Russia will join the United States in castigating Iran into backing off its nuclear program. It will be a while before Iranian nukes could touch the U.S. homeland, but Iran’s Shahab-3 missiles have a range of 1,240 miles. That’s enough carrying power to reach Israel, or NATO countries Greece, Bulgaria or Romania…or for that matter, Russia.

Obama’s de-escalation, if it can be called that, was not welcomed in Central and Eastern Europe. Former Czech Prime Minister Mirek Topolanek said, “This is not good news for the Czech state, for Czech freedom and independence. It puts us in a position where we are not firmly anchored in terms of partnership, security and alliance, and that’s a certain threat.” Oh, well; Obama’s Republican foes didn’t like the move either.

Although Obama’s new “smarter, stronger and swifter” plan maintains United States defense capabilities, I perceive eliminating missile sites on Russian borders as de-escalation of bellicose saber rattling. Despite irritating the Poles and Czechs, it might have placated the Russians…at least a little. It probably doesn’t faze Iran’s Ahmadinejad, who keeps insisting the Holocaust didn’t happen, and North Korea probably hasn’t got the news yet and could care less anyway.

From my perspective as a card-carrying peacenik, de-escalation is a good thing. Nuclear non-proliferation is a good thing. Diplomacy over pre-emptive and overwhelming force is a good thing. Civil discourse over vitriolic polarization is a good thing. If we could achieve a little domestic de-escalation right here in the homeland, that would be a good thing. If only…

Earth Matters: Hot button

They are all around us even if we don’t know they are there. I didn’t really know what hot-buttons were a few years ago; now I can’t tap out a couple of hundred words without touching a hot-button and igniting a firestorm of response. Suddenly we are a polarized people and Elk Avenue is no longer isolated enough to be immune.

Perhaps it is a matter of perception and I am over-reacting. Back in the day, a hot-button issue was whether I let my hair grow longer than GI Joe. Wild and crazy hippies were an issue when rednecks cruised Main Street using sheep shears to impose sartorial standards. Sex, drugs and rock ‘n roll were contentious in a society changing from the values of my father to those of his son.

Barber shops and bars are traditionally places where discussion devolves to religion, politics and other hot-buttons. I always thought that might be dangerous in barber shops where men wielded sharp instruments and respondents were captive in a barber chair. Now, of course, the discussion pool is limited because walk-in clients don’t sit around and instead must make appointments.

Bars remain places where alcohol loosens tongues, fires emotions and encourages hot-buttons. While I no longer spend any time in that environment, I remember well hot-buttons that when touched, caused venerable guzzlers to forgo their beverage and walk out the door. Politics has always been a hot-button.

It is certainly no less so now, although I suspect the definition of politics has expanded to fully encompass affairs of state foreign and domestic, government—how much, how little—and policy crafted by governance.

Since I am by no means, and never have been an outright anarchist, I concern myself with government and governance. That means, if I talk about it at all, I’m always pushing the politics hot-button.

I’m told there was a time when a majority of Americans were pretty much on the same page regarding their government, although I bet that attitude falls under the rubric of Pollyanna good ole’ days. On this point, the hot-button is revisionist history; the first generation makes history, the second generation remembers and the third forgets. Get used to it.

Perhaps every generation believes it is living through uniquely interesting times, and that future and past generations experienced bland, either good or bad times. The Great Depression, for example, was interesting only to those able to sustain themselves through the economic debacle. To everyone else, it was a bad time. We remember the Eisenhower era as a time of American well-being. But ask those persecuted under Joseph McCarthy’s witch hunts if they were happy. Oh yeah: communism was a hot-button.

The relative heat of buttons varies with time and throughout history. During the Clinton Presidency, for example, the hottest button out there was Monica Lewinski…or maybe that was just an excuse. Undoubtedly, some folks hated Clinton as much as I hated his successor and set about spending millions on impeachment that had no effect whatsoever. That was a hot-button for me.

George Bush refined the art of heating buttons to a fine point. He created hot-buttons with red herrings, deflecting criticism from the Iraq War, for example, into whether and how gay people should serve in his armies. Finally, through his own ineptitude, Bush himself became the hot-button…at least in my experience.

Hot-buttons tickle my fingers now; health care reform is practically as hot as buttons get. No wonder, since the amount people pay for health insurance increased 30 percent from 2001 to 2005, while income for the same period increased only 3 percent. Approximately 50 percent of personal bankruptcies are due to medical expenses. We are a better nation than to countenance that.

The latest hot-button is President Obama’s address to the country’s school children. Conservatives fear the President will somehow brainwash kids, which to me demonstrates lack of confidence in their own parenting skills.

Ouch! Hot! My keyboard is melting.

Earth Matters: Dead bear walking

“People can pretty much take care of themselves,” I remember my father telling me. “If we get into trouble we can usually figure a way to get out of it. It’s probably our own fault we’re in trouble in the first place.”

My father undoubtedly never thought I would remember so much of what he told me, especially an observation that implies a high degree of personal responsibility. A habitual screw-up even as a kid, I figured if I took responsibility for my screw-ups I could perhaps approach something resembling redemption. It worked…well, some of the time.

“Animals, on the other hand,” continued my father, “don’t have that luxury. Animals are at the mercy of us humans and don’t have a say in the trouble we put on them.”

Those words colored my life more than my father could ever have known. In the face of the way we humans treat animals, I usually find myself on the animals’ side. I figure we two-leggeds can probably help ourselves. If you think man’s inhumanity to man is egregious, consider man’s inhumanity to animals…poor, dumb animals.

Often we don’t even realize how our actions inadvertently affect animals. Having been granted dominion over most everything, we go about our business with little regard for those we believe lack sentience, feelings or enough brains to understand what we do. But I think that is wrong.

We don’t consider bears, for example, to be the fastest swimmers in the gene pool. Faced with a bruin in the boonies, however, there is no question in our viscera that the bear is higher on the food chain. He may not be smarter than we are, but he is darned sure bigger, meaner, grouchier and hungrier. The only time we are higher on the food chain is when our opposable thumb can work the bolt on our varmint rifle.

I watched this morning, as Crested Butte’s Finest cruised the neighborhood monitoring bear activity. The officer stopped and grabbed his shotgun, then jumped back in the car and took off down the block. This was bear hunting the modern, urban way.

Habituated bears, town bears, are animals used to being around humans because they eat our trash. Our current crop of dumpster divers are second generation trash bears who know no other means of finding an easy meal. Mama taught them how to do it. These are doomed bears; three such critters have been killed in town this year.

It’s our fault—collectively—that bears are in town. Instead of out cruising for berries or digging up grubs, they tip over dumpsters to get at our discarded barbeque ribs and break into cars for the popcorn we left on the seat. They don’t know how to find food differently, and here they will ultimately meet their demise. No doubt: a garbage bear is a dead bear.

Our community has actually made progress in bear awareness. Most of us now know why bears visit, and we’ve locked up our garbage or otherwise taken steps to discourage bears. Bear Saver trash receptacles, lockable dumpsters and truly inscrutable public trash cans keep bears out. More evolved or not, I still haven’t figured out how to get into some of our trash cans.

I mentioned to a Colorado Division of Wildlife officer that I don’t remember so many significant bear visitations in the past. He told me back in the day we let our dogs run loose which ran the bears out of town. Now we must corral our dogs and keep them on a leash, so bears have free rein.

“What if we let the dogs run loose just for a week or so?” I asked. The local constable rolled his eyes and said, “It’s one of those damned if we do, damned if we don’t situations. If we relax dog laws we’ll start getting more reports of dog bites.”

Roving dogs, marauding bears: life at the head of the draw. The poor bears.

Earth Matters: Road trip

Imagine you are the Secret Service. You’re all tricked out in your conservative suit, button-down collar and school tie. Your tasseled loafers are shined to a mirror finish and your earpiece communicator is synchronized to a fare-thee-well. You’ve traded in your Crown Victoria for a giant Cadillac Escalade because…you are taking George W. Bush on a Road Trip.

Imagine all you want, but this part, at least, is true. Bush and his entourage visited Crested Butte last week as guests at a wedding celebrated by another Texas oil family. I think the wedding was at a ranch in Gunnison, but Bush’s Crawford contingent chose to stay in Mt. Crested Butte. I guess Gunnison’s Holiday Inn Express just wasn’t…uh, secure enough. Instead, Bush drove a big ‘ole SUV and lassoed the entire sixth floor at Mountaineer Square.

I first heard of the former politician’s visit to our fair valley as a request—not assignment—from my boss. Given all the homework I’d done on the previous administration, my editor figured I’d be the one to perhaps conduct an interview with Mr. Bush and pose a few poignant questions.

At first I refused to believe George W. Bush had abandoned his two long-horned steers back at the ranch. It was difficult to understand why he would venture into the liberal enclave that is the upper East River Valley. While I realize there are significant holdouts who still believe Bush is the coolest thing since thumbscrews, most of us hold the realistic opinion that Bush was the worst president since Attila the Hun. I did my best to popularize that opinion, which is undoubtedly why my boss suggested I conduct an interview.

I declined my boss’ suggestion on the grounds that I might not be able to craft my queries with the proper deference. I’d likely end up in Gitmo, and I’d just as soon spend the rest of my life in Crested Butte. I don’t do well in hot climates, and even New Max down in Florence might be a little warm for me.

Alerted to the presence of the Beast, I watched the drama unfold over the weekend. One tenacious observer commented on Facebook: “So a couple of days ago I’m driving down the mountain, and I see this dude driving a big SUV that looks just like George W. Bush…turns out it was George Freakin’ W. Bush…He kind of had this look on his face like; ‘damn, I git to drive agin’!”

Another Facebookie wrote that he observed a large black bear crossing the road in Mt. Crested Butte and wondered if the bear was there to perhaps “visit (or maybe eat) W!” A response to his comment: “Poor bear would get very sick from tainted meat!” And remember, bears can eat almost anything.

I took my research to a bench on Elk Avenue. While Facebook is fun and I can peruse it without leaving the house, the bench has the advantage of face-to-face. Body language and scenery are articulate.

“If you could ask George W. Bush two questions,” asked a friend, “what would they be?”

“Only two questions?” I protested. “I want three.”

“Okay three,” she acceded. “What would they be?”

My first question would be, “Why did you invade Iraq…really?” After all, it was something of a stretch to believe the old weapons of mass destruction drivel. Saddam Hussein was too busy gassing Kurds with imported American nerve gas and blowing up fish with hand grenades to be serious about weapons of mass destruction.

My second question would be, “How can you sleep at night?” Having perpetrated so much nasty stuff during his term in office, and with the blood of so many American soldiers on his hands, I don’t know what sleeping pills Bush uses, but I want some.

My third question would be, “How come you didn’t reply to any of my letters?” Even Bill Clinton—between dalliances—had the common courtesy to send me form letters. Courtesy was not Bush’s strong suit, and if it had been, I bet he couldn’t spell it. Maybe that’s why he didn’t write back: spelling impaired.

Finally, my research turned up an interesting tidbit of unconfirmed information. Imagine you are the Secret Service and your GPS unit tells you the best way to get to Crested Butte is to drive up over Schofield Pass. Then imagine you get your big ‘ole Cadillac Escalade hung up somewhere in the Punchbowls. Now imagine those tasseled loafers scrambling on the rock.

Earth Matters: Hat trick

“So you’re causing a ruckus again,” observed one reader. “You’re stirring the pot with all those ‘take life too seriously’ people.”

“Well, that’s kind of my job,” I answered. “I paid my dues.” I spent years as a humble reporter assembling objective reportage every week. “Now I get to go off once in a while.”

Actually, this summer I’ve tried to be informative and entertaining, but ultimately I’ve been marking time until I could write my truth from my heart. That’s what it’s about for me. Luckily, not everyone agrees with my truth; think how boring that would be.

Any writer is lucky to work in interesting times, or conversely, perhaps good writers help make their times interesting. If someone wasn’t out there stirring the pot, even making some people angry, interesting would be a relative thing. Edward Abbey stressed the importance of stirring the pot: “…if you don’t keep it stirred up you get a lot of scum on top.”

I’ve always considered Abbey a good writer, and no question: he made a lot a people mad. He definitely informed and educated a generation of Americans, and he didn’t give a hoot in hell whether people liked him for his radical rants or not. I once asked Abbey how he could be such a misanthrope and hope to do good in the world. He answered that people who thought he was a misanthrope didn’t know him.

Abbey also held that people who lived in desert places were more to his liking than those who lived among mountains. He considered us xenophobes and socially inbred. I say to hell with Abbey, and I think he would have approved that attitude. He is correct in one respect, though; our relative isolation confines us in a stew pot that has nowhere to vent except back upon itself. So be it; there are compensations.

One of those compensations in our small mountain town is our newspaper. The newspaper gives us a voice, a place to put out there what is on our mind. Yes, I enjoy a bully pulpit because I earned it from years of being a reporter. But anyone who signs their name can write a letter and see it published in the newspaper. Never take this public voice for granted; not every newspaper in every town provides it.

So it bothers me only a little when folks disagree with what I write and respond with a major case of ire. It affirms me and lets my boss know I’m doing my job. One colleague always complains I’m a higher-paid pundit than he is. Perhaps we should institute a sliding pay scale where the writer with the most hate mail gets a raise.

I would be a wealthy writer—if there is such a thing—this week, because my email inbox is full of critical missives, my boss had to increase the page count to print outraged readers, and the tyranny of my cell phone is having its way with my ear. The only person I haven’t heard from is George W. Bush himself, which isn’t surprising since he never responded to previous letters I wrote. I even signed them.

If response mail is any indication, in the last couple of weeks I achieved a hat-trick. I angered what the left wing would call the right wing because I pummeled George W. Bush after his visit to our fair valley. I didn’t think I was being that harsh; we can never forgive and we must never forget. “Bush doesn’t matter,” opined one critic. “He’s a war criminal.” Whoa: I didn’t say that.

The second element of my hat-trick: I angered what the right wing would call the left wing. I trespassed on ground over which I seldom venture, and offended those who seek a different path for development of the ski area and proposed ski area expansion.

Having been so soundly thrashed by both sides of that particular debate, I hope here to very carefully watch what I say so as not to prolong or exacerbate the discussion. Writers must carefully measure their words, although sometimes such care gets in the way of truth and generates its own consequences. Damned if I do, damned if I don’t: such are the rewards of the bully pulpit.

Finally, I offended the fringy middle with my assertion that we must somehow achieve health care reform. Few issues in our national debate stir so many opinions and feelings. Yet I believe if something isn’t broke, leave it alone. But if it’s broke, and I believe health care is indeed broken, then fix it.

Okay, now about that raise…or not.

Earth Matters: Retro fit

I must have been about ten years old, staggering up Mount Antero, spewing breakfast across its face with altitude sickness. It was a day I can never forget for its challenge and for the opportunity to experience mountains as formidable chunks of rock. I learned it is best to treat them with due respect…and perhaps not eat a big, heavy breakfast.

I also learned that as much as I wanted to enjoy mountains, I would always find walking uphill at increasing altitudes a difficult undertaking. I would always sweat and swear, stagger and plod up the hill. No Reinhold Messner here.

My childhood presentiment manifested in adulthood and persists today. Bottom line: for someone who loves hiking in the mountains, I am one lazy slacker. So be it; at least I do it. Generally, though, I only commit exercise with the luxury of a purpose in mind.

Inevitably the question arises: why bother hiking up the damn hill anyway? Mallory’s answer—because it’s there—serves in simplicity but ignores nuances like the view, or the view and the flowers, or the snow and sliding down it, or whatever. Farther down the list is hiking for the sake of exercise. I can’t imagine Mallory on Everest simply for the exercise, and I bet he wasn’t into it so much for the view either.

But hell, Mallory is dead and times have changed. Now mountain exercise, at least in our user-friendly mountains, rewards hard-body, lean-and-mean athletes…and those who have learned to eat lighter breakfasts and walk slower.

It is difficult to ignore a certain physical vitality that derives from living at high altitude and (gulp) even exercising in that environment. Walking to the Post Office counts, but lying on the couch with the remote control doesn’t. Endurance runners blast past me at 12,000 ft., having started running a couple of mountain ranges over and planning to be home maybe for a little tennis before dinner. Too much!

Living smack in the middle of what has been called the “recreation archipelago,” most everyone is physically fit. It makes sense that mostly fit people would favor a demanding environment, one where if you want to leave town, in every direction but one you have to walk uphill. Damn right; that’s why they call it the head of the draw.

In our youth- and fitness-rich place it is difficult to imagine places where men my age still smoke a pack a day, knock back a sixer before sitting down to a heart-attack-on-a-plate, followed by the average five hours a night of television. While I myself have struggled with couch potato issues and consequent table muscle, I now recognize virtues of staying fit and mostly trim. I am retro fit.

I am not alone. A report by Trust for America’s Health (TFAH) and Robert Wood Johnson Foundation shows Colorado as the only state in the Union with an obesity rate lower than 20%. Colorado’s rate is 18.9% compared to the heaviest state, Mississippi weighing in at 32.5% obesity in the adult population. Explaining the obvious, experts suggest Colorado is more active, Mississippi more sedentary. I’m sure it has something to do with the heat…and maybe the fritters.

I remember a trip to Wisconsin some years ago where beer, fried fish—fried everything—and bratwurst contributed to ten pounds of excess…uh, material around my middle. I didn’t climb many mountains that summer, and my exercise consisted mostly of 12 oz. lifts. Had I not got out of Wisconsin, I would soon have gained the more portly demeanor of my hosts.

The TFAH obesity report, “F as in Fat: How Obesity Policies are Failing in America 2009,” suggests the current economic crisis could exacerbate the obesity epidemic. Furthermore, the study found Baby Boomers have a higher obesity rate than previous generations. As Baby Boomers age, related costs will sizzle federal health care programs as the fat hits the fire. Well…the report didn’t put it exactly like that.

For my part, in my born-again retro-fitness program, I will continue burning fat in high, thin and usually cold air. I am firmly convinced that merely being outside during winter burns calories just to keep warm. I will also watch what I eat—if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it—and make every attempt when I’m not exercising, to keep my table muscle trim.

Or maybe this is all just some kind of lame excuse. Just maybe.

Earth Matters: In rockets' red glare

Fireworks lit the sky. A gibbous moon sheltered shyly behind scudding clouds, and the silhouette of Crested Butte Mountain shone darkly against the sky. Another report flashed, and then exploded into cascading red stars. People oh-ed and ah-ed.

“Where are you from?” I asked the man next to me. He was a little older, and I couldn’t tell if I’d met him before or not.

“Pueblo,” he answered. “We just came to Crested Butte for the Fourth of July.”

“Welcome,” I said. “How do you like it so far?”

“It’s great,” he said. “A lot of small towns celebrate Fourth of July with parades, but Crested Butte knows how to do it up right.” Another firework report punctuated his compliment.

“Pretty patriotic stuff, that,” I observed, indicating the fireworks.

“Enjoy it while you can,” he responded. “We won’t be able to after a couple more years under Obama.”

I looked at him blankly, warily, knowing we were probably broaching dangerous ground. Talking politics is always sketchy even with someone whose opinions I know are relatively consonant with mine. Talking politics with someone I don’t know and from a completely different political and social environment is looking for trouble.

“How’s that?” I asked, living dangerously.

“Obama is ruining this country,” he asserted. “You know all those nice, big houses back over there on the hill?” He indicated homes above ski jump hill. “Obama would do away with all that.”

“You think so?” I encouraged. Now that we were out there on thin ice, I figured in for a penny, in for a pound. I wanted to hear a point of view other than the sometimes insular perspective we develop and accept as dogma up here at the head of the draw.

“Hell, yes,” he expostulated. He was getting exercised without even knowing he was talking to a raving and unreconstructed liberal. Like him, I deplore the economic toilet in which we are swirling, but I see a different hand on the flusher. Undoubtedly, I also postulate different ways of fixing the mess.

“I think it is too early to judge,” I responded as gently as I could.

I did not, for example, explain how I thought our economic malaise began back in the day when we came to believe air bucks were salvation and plastic was the key to heaven. You can’t get through the Pearly Gates without a credit rating, and the only way you can get a credit rating is to be in debt. Free lunch? You betcha.

“I don’t think it’s too early to judge,” the man sputtered. “Obama wants to redistribute the wealth. He wants to take money away from rich people and give it to people too lazy to work for it.”

“He has only been in office six months,” I said, trying to calm troubled waters. Instead of telling the guy he was spouting hogwash, I figured the more tactful position would be to wait and see. “I still think it’s too early to judge.”

“I don’t,” he insisted. “Obama is going to turn this country socialist and turn us all into communists.”

Holy cats, I thought. What the hell had I go myself into? This was one of those guys who wants Obama to fail, even if he resurrects the economy, fixes health care, reinvigorates social security and other entitlement programs, restores our standing with respect throughout the world, achieves Middle East peace, conquers the Taliban, executes Osama bin Laden and puts an end to war in our time. None of that would matter; we’d all be pinko, socialist commies.

Several things occurred to me. I could get into a pissing contest with this guy, engage him and argue with him, and probably ruin an otherwise beautiful evening for both of us. Furthermore, no way could I win him over; I could tell he was as set in his ways as I am in mine. What was the point in that? You know you’ve crossed some kind of threshold when tact and discretion prevail.

“Well, one thing is for sure,” I told him. “It’s the Fourth of July, that’s a beautiful fireworks display, and we can all celebrate that.”

And that’s what we did.