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Show PAGE 34 THE ZEPHYR APRIL 1993 feedback the readers respond Dear Editor: While I was at breakfast at the landmark Western Grill in Moab last Saturday, I picked up a copy of the Zephyr and was struck by a key problem shared by your dty and our valley: tourism. You love it but you hate it. Like Moab, we here in the Roaring Fork Valley realize that our livelihoods depend in large part on the "kindness of strangers," as Blanche Dubois said in A Streetcar Named Desire. But that dependence is sometimes irksome, to say the least I have a theory that tourists leave two things behind when they leave home - their humanity and their driving skills. How many times have we driven down what for us is a car stopped in the middle of secondary road in the valley to come upon an the road with two poorly dressed, gawking tourists taking in the local wildlife. Our wildlife is admittedly pretty spectacular, but all of us have learned to pull over to the side of the road if we feel the need to oggle elk or deer. Tourist trauma increases geometrically when one moves up to Aspen, which we "downvalley". types often refer to as "off planet." One day while driving into Aspen I came upon a serious traffic jam. Right in the middle of the busiest and only highway into Aspen were two rental trucks abandoned in the middle of the road. I looked to my right and saw a man and a woman gesticulating wildly at a doe deer which they'd pushed up against the airport fence. The animal couldn't jump over it and was dearly terrified of the humans. I shouted out of my car window, "Get the hell away from the deer. You're scaring it to death. But they paid me no mind and continued to chase the deer, thinking, I guess, to keep it out of the road. Meanwhile scores of cars were piling up on the highway. The moral of the story is yes, we too have stupid tourists. And it's with a great sigh of relief that we see the end of the ski season and the two or three month respite in which the tourists pack their bags and go bade to the real world. Bless their monied little hearts. I do sympathize with your frustration. And I loved your story about the woman who commandeered your car for a lift to the RV campground, then ungraciously left a gaseous calling card in your car when she left. I can only say that in my experience some people go a little berserk when they're on vacation. Many of us in the Roaring Fork Valley have been journeying to Moab for 10,15, 20 years. I'm well into my 15th. And what has dismayed us all is the hordes of bikers who trash campgrounds, blast strange music all night and hog the trails and roadways. We've all of us begun to look farther afield than Moab for our desert fix each year. I just want you to know that there are some of us, namely from Colorado, who cherish Moab and the canyon country, and would like to see it go back to what it was 10 years ago when you didn't have to fight for a camp site and there wasn't toilet paper festooned on every bush. well-travel- out-of-sta- ed te Donna Daniels Carbondale, Colorado Editors Note: This letter first appeared as commentary in the Valley Journal by Ms. Daniels, a writer for that newspaper. Dear Jim (and Zephyr readers generally). It sure is refreshing to have all of these new faces in county government. After seeing the new county council in action, I'll bet a lot of us saying too ourselves "Gee, it would really be cool to be a county council member. I wish I were one." Well, I've got bad news for all but seven of you: You're not council members, and that's not going to change any time soon. But I've also got some good news: There are three (count 'em, THREE) openings on the Moab Mosquito Abatement Board, and the county derk is accepting applications through April 23, 5 pm. In other words, there could be a completely new board. For those of you who want to fulfill your dvic duty to partldpate in county government, who desire to fight for good and against evil, who are tired of breathing malath ion when there are more effective, less toxic and less obnoxious ways of dealing with mosquitoes, this is the opportunity you've been waiting for. Find pen and paper and write that application RIGHT NOW! For the benefit of readers who are only skimming this page, I will repeat the main letter in capitals. THERE'S GOING TO BE A COMPLETELY NW MOSQUITO of this point ABATEMENT BOARD. IF YOU WANT TO SEE MORE SENSIBLE MOSQUITO ABATEMENT POLICIES IN MOAB, THEN PLEASE CONSIDER APPLYING FOR A BOARD POSITION. Kevin Walker Moab Zephyr: To the Editor In reference to the changing times column by Jack Campbell. Campbell sets forth all of the old radical party line, hardcore political objectives of the extreme left wing of the conservationist movement. I le fails to mention he and his fellow great planners have judged themselves to have a superior virtue and knowledge. Therefore they have appointed themselves foe elite overseers and protectors of the land. My question is who or what are they protecting foe land from? The answer has become dear over the years. It is we the people. The ranchers, fanners, oil gas and local voters, etc. mining, bikers, four wheelers, movie makers, tourists, sportsmen, wage earners, local foe and succeeds in protecting the land If Campbell and company people suppressing their elitist party and federal will is remain gun toting police from commercial enterprises, what Of course!, mountain line overseers whose duty will be to regulate the sightseers and vacationers. bikers and other land users will have to pay a fee to use BLM owned property. In reality the land will not belong to the public. It reverts to foe Federal bureaucracy and will be used for the benefit of the bureaucrades and their elite overseers and protectors of the land. The BLM and other federal land regulators had better set up and take notice. They have been given police powers and are now packing guns. The BLM must not allow themselves to be subverted and controlled by gangs of lawyers and well financed outsider elitist urban organizations that are fundamentally opposed to private enterprise, self government and private ownership of the land. If it comes about that foe great planners succeed in controlling and subverting the government land regulators and when the eyes of the general public, that dwell among the federal land, are finally opened and they figure out that the BLM are actually an armed occupying force foe situation is bound to turn ugly. Mr. Campbell, liberty is mainly what is at stake here, don't attack it in the name of the environment. It is best if we all work together to protect it while at the same time preserving liberty. I feel that for foe most part the BLM personnel will honor their oath to uphold the Constitution, therefore, you are conducting an exercise in futility. WALU member Jerry Stocks Moab Dear Jim, In response to yours and others' quizzical looks when I present foe option of direct democracy, not voting for people, and empowerment, I offer the following for why I don't vote. Let's go just a little bit further. In our quest for a voice in our future, Grand County residents recently took a big step toward reclaiming foe lost role of decision makers, agenda setters. As a community we have refused the continued darkness of government which cooperates to protect its own power and privilege. Step now, citizens of Grand County, into the light of our own interested voices as decision makers. We were going out to dinner. Biday night, springtime guests in Moab. There were fourteen of us. We all wanted to get there together. The notion that the best decision on where to eat could cmne from a vote seemed absurd. We talked. We illuminated possibilities. We narrowed the field. We agreed. Is this not how we make decisions with equals? Our current county government structure is designed toward inequality. How many times does a person have to approach the wise men (says a lot about which gender is favored In a race and who has the power of Grand County). To have their words held in judgement and receive that wisemen's opinion is more important Can you say "disenchantment." Can you say "This past presidential election less than 50 of the voting eligible (what about those whose future is certainly affected) population votes is declared valid. Fifty percent of the population is not apathetic. 50 of the population is disenchanted, realistic, sad, frustrated, fired, and fed up. My spirit soars when I get to make a decision. My spirit is crushed when I am told what to da I fear, too, that my relinquishing of my power over my life. My future!, is an insidious corrosion of foe sense of responsibility I have to my community and my self. If I let them make a decision about my money, my property, my way of life, how much closer am I to turning over my very body (women of Utah have already taken note? Is this the plot of a secret government which operates to protect its own power? Sometimes. More often, though, it is the very nature of the structure which creates a power elite capable of making decisions which protect their power (funny how things like executive orders and pardons More obvious is this in the "higher" (get it) work) and distance themselves from the power-les- s. forms of government where politicians don't live near foe people they're supposed to represent, get paid six times the annual income of the households they're supposed to represent, and spend most of their time raising more money so they can get reelected to do the same thing all over again. Reform? I think not! Is a government worth preserving when it lies to its people? The very notion of government, and in comprehensible omnipotent, judgmental force seems hardly worth preserving. To those doubters who wonder how it would all function without big brother, their questions are easily answered by "how did it all function before?" |