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Show Page A6 '(Elie ffitmcg-cSInhepenfre- Thursday, September 30, 2004 nt Idle Thoughts from Mt. Waas by Ollie Harris Many Trails by Adrien F. Taylor (Editor's Note: Ollie's column went astray in the mail, or was delayed for other reasons. In its absence, we re reprinting an earlier column for which we have had calls.) tions is likely to pass if there is no further information available to the voters than that they should vote for or against. One of the major questions at hand is whether all members of the council would have in a special election, to run for should either proposition pass. That was the case when Grand County changed its form of government from the County Commission to County Council, and increased the number of elected members from three to seven. At any rate, we plan to bring readers as much information as we can find about the issues. aft We've missed Nik Hougen and his political cartoons. The editorial pages are pretty gray without any artwork. And so when Zane was attending the National Newspaper Convention in Denver a couple of weeks ago, he picked up information about syndicated cartoons. As a result, we have subscribed. This week's offerings included seven different cartoons by cartoonists from various newspapers around the country. Not surprisingly, the subject matter of most of them is the upcoming presidential election. See my choice for this week on page A7. With the first presidential debate tonight (Thursday), it seemed appropriate. We've had several calls of late asking about the ramifications of the Grand County propositions 1 and 2 on the November ballot. These propositions arrived on the ballot by virtue of citizen initiatives, one of the moving citizens being the late Harvey Merrell. Prop. 1 proposes to reduce the number of members on the Grand County Council from seven to five; and Prop. 2 proposes to make all members at large rather than representing geographic districts. Last week we published a calendar of coverage of things that will be on the Nov. 2 ballot. Because of questions surrounding propositions 1 and 2, they will be addressed next week rather than this week. One of the problems, as understand it, is that the Grand County Council is in charge of planning implementation of these items, should they pass, and the council has been advised to wait until after the election for any such planning, because they were not originated through the council, but through the citizenry. Questions addressed to the Utah Attorney General's office about the propositions have resulted in tossing the ball into the court of the Grand County Attorney's office, for various reasons. My reaction is that neither of these proposi I The way it . . Sam Remembers by Sam Taylor into Miners Basin. My mother was a good friend of Mrs. Mernie Fowler, who lived with her hus- When was a youth my family kept a summer home near Warner Lake on the La Sal Mountains. We maintained it for a number of years, until the U. S. Forest people decided to designate a camping and picnic area at the lake, and required the handful of homeowners there to remove their homes and cabins, which were on forest leased I band in a log cabin in the Basin. remember the cookies as being extra delicious. On the way back to Warner, though, met my match. The trail was so steep couldnt make it on my own. had a friend, though. My Collie Dog, Rags, had a stub tail just long enough for my two small hands. Rags was glad to help me up the mountain. My uncle, Lon Robertson gave me Rags as a pup. Since he was raised in Lon's sheep camp, Lon had docked his tail along with the tails of his lambs. remember that we played cards a lot. And we sang songs accompanied by a ukulele or two. We did that as a family for years after that. still remember the songs to this day. didnt find out until was grown that the reason we maintained a mountain summer home was because of my terrible ordeal with hay fever. Summers in Moab kept my eyes swelled shut, and my nose was always streaming. That is one time where a physical problem paid off. To give me some relief, the whole family took me to the mountain in the summer, and that was a wonderful life. Thankfully, finally outgrew hay fever. was overwhelmed with memories this week when read the story about the Alpine to Slickrock 50 mile run. Twenty one runners finished the 50 miles. Amazing! They ran from La Sal Pass over Boren Mesa to Geyser Pass, crossed over Burro Pass to Warner. They then descended to the Loop Road and on to the Kokopelli Trail near Malloy Park, then took the Porcupine Trail down Burkholder Draw to the Slickrock bike trailhead. Read the story on Page B1. was amazed because over the years, have covered their entire route on foot, but never at one time, and certainly not running. It is no wonder that some of the experienced runners said it run they had ever made. was the toughest The winner, Peter Bakwin, made the run in 9 hours andIO minutes, hard to believe but true. What' great memories a lifetime in Moab gives me. It was a great place to grow up, and still is. il I I I I I I I I I I I k. 50-mi- le Brick Bats and Bouquets Accolades and Admonishment with regard to issues in our community Bouquets to Walker Drug for donating tricycle helmets to Moab Head Start. children 5 years old were kept safer due to Walker Drug employees kind, generous donation. 3-- Brickbats to local radio station KCYN for not broadcasting last Fridays Red Devil football game against South Summit. Technical difficulties arise, that is understood. But at the very least, let the fans know there are problems so they are not forced to sit through two hours of country music hoping to catch part of the game. Better yet, have a contingency. Arrange with a True Blue Red Devil fan that attends every game. There is this thing called a cell phone and we all have them. Have this fan call the station periodically with updates (score, big plays, injuries, etc.) and pass that information on to the listeners. It is the least you can do, especially for the advertisers you have asked to pay for this broadcast. - personal pawing. She has become garish, painted, a little bit trashy around the edges. She is visited by thousands who do not love her, who want only to consume what she has to offer, leaving her the worse for it. But I still love her. I think that I always will. I dont visit as much at used to. She doesnt seem to recognize me when I am there and I do not like to be mistaken for just another, casual lover. Writers on the Range Red-baiter- s target greens in Oregon . . . By Les AuCoi, A group in White City, Ore., has opened a broad attack on teaching environmental sustainability in our public schools and universities, calling it the kind of brainwashing Lenin and Hitler would do. The group, Operation Green Out, ran two e ads in The Oregonian, Oregons largest daily newspaper,' earlier this year. They warned of a covert plot by the international Green Party to manipulate our school-age- d full-pag- kids into thinking green. One might say this is at least better than programming kids to think red, as in communist. But the ads sponsor says that red is the sort of like a watertrue color of the greens melon: green on the outside, red on the inside. Operation Green Out is an enigmatic organization. It is not a registered nonprofit organization, it has no listed telephone number, refuses to disclose its revenue sources and will not give out its street address. In its ads, it asked: Why are political extremists targeting our kids? anOperation Green Outs swer: Its a political tactic perfected by dictators like Lenin and Hitler who brainwashed kids as a means to take over a nation. Green extremists, the ads went on, know that if they brainwash America's children they control America's future. Just think of it: A vast international conspiracy discovered by a small organization right there in White City, Ore., population 6,000. One thing that really has Operation Green Out steamed is a collective (oops! bad word) effort by several nonprofit organizations, educational organizations and businesses such as Nike to promote education for sustainability in the classrooms of colleges and public schools. Spearheading that effort is Second Nature, an internationally-know- n nonprofit that works with hundreds of universities and businesses across the country. Its approach is to make sustainability a foundation of their teaching and practice. Second Nature and its partners define education for sustainability as empowering societys future leaders, teachers and business professionals to solve problems facing our planet, to help college campuses save resources, to improve the health and economies of local communities, and to work to build a just, secure and healthy society, with economic opportunities for all. self-supplie- d Seems harmless enough. So I asked Holly Swanson, Operation Green Outs founder, what could be subversive about teaching kids to respect ecological systems? She told me its a smokescreen for a revolution that seeks to transform our culture and our political and economic systems into something that mirrors communism. Nike's normally-shar- p capitalists apparently missed this point. Swanson said the conspiracy is pervasive, but she could not identify a university or school district that had been contaminated. When I asked Swanson for specific examples of brainwashing, I was directed to the web site of the Oregon State University Extension Service, and a story about the of in Corvallis. In the article, Mourn Wyatt says he is concerned that when he is an adult, many animal species clinging to the edge of extinction will be gone. Operation Green Out thinks this youngster has been brainwashed. But the World Conservation Union says species are vanishing even faster than during the extinction episode 70 million years ago, when the dinosaurs disappeared. A group called the World Conservation Union is probably not apt to cut much ice with Operation Green Out, though. The group's very name has the word union in it by definition a collectivist term (red flag!). Operation Green Outs $10,000 ads contained no substantiation for their charges. When I asked eco-worri- es sixth-grade- rs for corroborative sources, Swanson told me twice that I could buy her book, Set Up & Sold Out, for $20 plus shipping. Operation Green Out is, of course, free to market its views even when they seem to promote ignorance of the environment. But by smearing the loyalty of citizens with whom it disagrees, the organization is engaging in guilt and trying to chill by association, freedom of expression. Now, you tell me who red-baiti- really threatens American values? One more thing: Holly Swanson said she hopes Operation Green Outs work will bring Americans together. She asked if I would be sure to mention it in this piece. Les AuCoin is a contributor to Writers on the Range, a service of High Country News (hcn.org). He is a former county commissioner from Ashland, Oregon, who now writes and does radio commentaries. -tme- s-(3Jniicpcnhmt Samuel J. and Adrien ISSN (UPS) Entered as Second class Matter at the Post Office at Moab, Utah under the Act of March 3, 1897. Second class postage paid at Moab, Utah 84532. Official City and County Newspaper. Published each Thursday at: 35 East Center Street, Moab, Grand County, Utah 84532 6309-200- 0) F. Taylor, Publishers Adrien F. Taylor, Editor Sadie Warner, Assistant Editor 1538-183- 8 address: editormoabtimes.com Postmaster: Send changes of address to: The 435-259-75- precious jewel set in a bezel of desert stone. Moab has changed. When we were young she was simple and accepting. I used to think that if I were a giant I would sleep in the cool freshness of her hayfields, pillow my head on the mountain, and bathe my feet in the river. Today she is splashed across the pages of every magazine that has to do with jeeping, biking, hiking, climbing, or most anything else. Even my Turbo Diesel Register, the magazine devoted to Dodge Cummins pickups, mentioned Moab in its winter issue. It seems that at about the time I left Moab, she fell on hard times. It must have been difficult for her as she struggled to keep body and soul together. She made some critical decisions. She inventoried her assets, saw that she was desirable as well as beautiful and decided to cash in on her desirability. I wonder if she abruptly decided to become a hooker or if it just sort of worked out that way. Now that I think about it, she was always just a little bit racy. Her neighbors to the north and south seemed judgmental, even in the old days, when times were good. She had a seductiveness about her that caused tongues to click and was great fodder for gossips. The sweet caresses and tender love that I once lavished upon her have given way to im- High Country News I I memories of our home there are precious. It was a frame structure with a screened porch, heated by a wood cookstove and lighted with Coleman lanterns and coal-olamps. It was snug and comfortable, and was later moved to Moab where it was remodeled into a real residence with electricity and flush toilets.. Our nearest neighbors were members of the Carroll Meador family, and their cabin was several hundred feet north through the aspen trees. Since Bill Meador and were the same age, we ran the trails together. Thats probably why you see a few of our names with 1 930s dates on the older aspen in the vicinity of the lake. would inhabit the My mother, sisters and Warner home just as soon as the Moab weather started getting really hot, and wouldnt come down from the mountain until it was time for school to start. Dad would drive up to spend weekends with us. We always knew when he was coming because we could hear the pipe cattleguard on Brumley Ridge chime away when he crossed it in his old 1936 Ford V8. It was always great to see him, and he always brought a watermelon or some other town treat. He would return to Moab on Sunday or Monday to get the paper out for another week, suffering in the valley, but not before hiking with me to Lake Oowah for a little fishing. Weekdays were pretty Occasionally we would hike to Bald Mesa to watch the sunset. Once in a while we would make a real hike. We would pack a lunch and hike over Burro Pass to visit the Gay Brown family who had a sawmill near Blue Lake in Geyser Pass. On one occasion, we hiked through Shuman Gulch and over the pass h Some things are better left alone, unexamined, repented of and forgotten. I cannot do any of these things. Many years have passed and the passion has cooled, but as recently as weeks ago, I sat in Moab, Utah, absorbed in the beauty around me and found myself moved almost to tears. It surprised me and, on another level, was gratifying that this battered old soul can still respond to the wiles of an old love. I speak, of course, of my love for beautiful Moab valley with the incomparable La Sal Mountains at her head and the mighty Colorado at her feet. It is a love tempered by the passing of so many years and marred by the changes that have come to us both. When I left Moab valley as a youth, I did not look back. There was nothing to see that had not already been burned into my soul. And I knew that I would return and that she would be there. I have seen the Cordillera of the Andes, mighty Illimani thrusting up from the sere in Bolivia. I have seen volcanic Mts. Ranier and St. Helens floating upon seas of Pacific fog, and Popocatepetl in the mist outside Mexico City. I have hiked and cycled hundreds of miles in the endless Rockies where the La Sals could be dropped and never noticed. But I have never seen a more beautiful mountain in a more sublime setting than the La Sals at the head of Moab Valley, displayed there like a I My Thirty-si- x Confession is said to be good for the soul. So, Im going to confess to a love affair of passion, youth, freedom and intemperance. It was a love of mutual exploration and discovery, a love that haunts me still. I land. laid-bac- MOAB Times-lndependen- or FAX t, P.O. 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