I've said before that I don't think that there is a lot of bias in the news so much as there is a lot of sloppiness. It seems that no organizations "vet" their stories anymore, no fact checking. Unnamed sources, while nothing new, have gained a lot of credibility which they shouldn't necessarily be entitled to. News has devolved from serious reporting into trivialities either designed to entertain (Britney Spears, Paris Hilton, Amy Winehouse, et al) or to stir up controversy simply to stir up controversy. Whether this is a byproduct of capitalist influence through ad revenue, a merging of news organizations into a handful of companies, or simply supply and demand is up for debate as I don't have an answer or solid opinion either way.
Forgive me Pooch but I'm going to hijack your thread for a moment.
I sit on the boards of two local foundations who are very involved in outdoor activities. One is Hi-Lakers, which backpacks fish fry into high mountain lakes and takes bio samples and helps to compile usage statistics for Washington Fish and Wildlife (WDFW). The other is the Skagit Fisheries Enhancement group, which monitors water quality, stream conditions, and fish returns for the Skagit River watershed. I also belong to several other groups: Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation, Trout Unlimited, Ducks Unlimited (though I've never been a duck hunter), Wild Turkey Federation. It would be safe to say that I'm pretty involved in the outdoor activities aspect of my region, it's something that I love and something that brings me a lot of personal fulfillment. It also brings me into close contact with a lot of environmental controversies and the groups that go along with them.
The town that I live in was a logging town, at least until the drastic reduction of Forest Service logging that took place in the 1990's. The town didn't die when logging was shut down, but it did take a real hit. All three sawmills closed and a lot of logging operations shut down altogether. The Forest Service, which derived most of its income not from Congress (at least then) but from timber sales, took a severe financial hit. A lot of FS roads, some of which are necessary for fighting wildfires, access to remote trails, hunting areas, etc. are no longer being maintained. The Forest Service disguises this and says that the roads are decommissioned for wildlife habitat preservation, but the majority of them are shut down simply because of pressure from environmental groups or because the Forest Service no longer has the funding to maintain them. A good example is a road near here that the FS has shut down for "elk habitat preservation". This classification bothers me for a couple reasons: for one, elk weren't native to Western Washington, they were imported from Wyoming at the behest of the Roosevelt Administration in the early 1900's (Roosevelt elk). Second, there are no elk in the area being designated as "elk habitat", there is and never has been sign of elk in that area, and third, the area (mostly old growth forest and huckleberry thickets) is not conducive to elk populations, which prefer to browse tender greens found in clear cuts, along creek and river bottoms, and rangeland bordered by forest. And yet, because of federal and local mandates pushed by environmental groups we have a stupid policy that benefits no one. There were two popular trails towards the end of this road, now it is a seven mile hike to reach the trailhead of the first and 12 miles to the second. Sure, a dedicated hiker can make it, but the family out for a day trip isn't going to get too far.
And it's not only roads, it's trails as well. Most of my hiking isn't on trails, but I'm the exception to the rule. The Forest Service does very little trail maintenance anymore, instead it relies on volunteer groups like the WTA and private individuals to clear trails. That's fine to a point, but the WTA mostly clears and maintains trails that get the most use, which are the trails that most people want to avoid. Who wants to hike up to Mt. Si and pass 60 people on the way up? The Forest Service has also implemented a "pay to play" program which requires a Northwest Forest Pass to park at most trailheads. I'm generally in agreement with the program, $30 for a year buys a pass ($5 for a one day pass) and the money is spent by the local ranger district. However, a lot of people aren't fine with the pass, and from my experience the ones that are dead set against it are the same people whose proposals and lawsuits cut the FS budget and necessitated the need for an additional funding source. Now there is a bill to do away with it altogether. In a similar situation, the same people squawking about forest fires raging out of control are also the same ones that lobbied to get the roads shut down, the roads that would allow fire crews closer access to the fire. Fighting fires with helicopters is marginally effective and extremely expensive.
Bear with me here, I know that this is rambling a lot and probably incoherent, but I really do have a point...somewhere.
The point is that there needs to be a balance between extraction and preservation. I'm not for logging the last stick of old growth, and I'm not for pushing roads everywhere. But I'm also not for a total logging shutdown and road decommissions. Everytime the FS wants to have a timber sale, there are immediately 5 lawsuits seeking an injunction. The FS rarely offers timber sales anymore because the legal fights and hassles aren't worth it. I personally liked the Bush forest plan, I thought that it was comprehensive and an improvement over the earlier Clinton plan, which stressed road decommission and timber preservation. But immediately after it was released, the lawsuits started flying. The plan wasn't without faults, but rather than the two opposing views working the issue out lawsuits were filed. And don't think this is solely related to Bush, Clinton had a lot of environmental opposition to his plan when the groups didn't think that it went far enough. In the meantime, Canadian imports (with far less stringent environmental and ecological regulations) are killing the timber industry in the US. Weyerhauser is about to undergo a major restructure to turn the company into an REIT, which pretty much all commercial timber holders are now. You can damn near guarantee less access to private timberlands in the future.
No one thinks clearcuts are pretty, and they are capable of producing environmental disasters from erosion and stream degradation, but they also increase the population of a number of wildlife species, particularly deer, elk, and bear. Environmental groups
do need to be part of the process when it comes to resource management, they are a powerful and well funded lobby, and some of their views and concerns are legitimate. But they shouldn't be hijacking the discussion and cutting their own throats with silly policies (like shutting down roads to protect habitat for an animal that doesn't live there). In this time of an obesity epidemic and kids who only exercise their thumbs by playing Halo and Guitar Hero, more should be done to improve access to outdoor recreation, and to promote outdoor recreation in general, especially to young people. I know from experience that a love of the outdoors is a lifetime relationship, whether it's hunting, fishing, backpacking, camping, mountain biking, skiing, whatever. There's more to life than staring at a TV screen or computer monitor all weekend.
The other hijack point that I wanted to make was on the whole "gay genetics" issue. I'll admit that I'm curious to know the source of "gayness", but I don't think that as a whole it is either relevant or important. Even if it is a choice, so what? It's not illegal, it's not hurting anyone (so long as it's consensual obviously) and I don't think that the population of the world is going to convert to gay and die out. The whole idea that it is important is based on the notion that as a gay community we should be making accomodations to those who find it immoral, why else would choice even be an issue? I look at it as being part of who I am (though not the definition of myself), like being left handed or liking Johnny Cash. There are people in the world who hate left handed people and hate Johnny Cash, they're entitled to their views and I generally respect them so long as they don't impose on my happiness or my ability to have a loving relationship with a consenting, non-related adult (I threw that in there just for you Plane
). I just wanted to say that I find the whole issue of "gay choice" to be irrelevant and lacking in importance.
There, my rant is done and I've probably just ruined your thread Pooch, but I'm happy.
