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Show tlhc PageAlO tEime-3Jnt)cpcnt)c- iT imrs--3- OURTfoWH bttoiinl nt Thursday, November 22, 2001 irpniiinit 1 of Utah s most significant icons o'her Nature will restore that grand dd rock, just as she will one day cause tfie rock to collapse Perhaps the incident with Fatali will serve as a lesson that will help prevent a similar occurrence bom happening at another ste tn another nation tl park by another photographer who isn't satisfied with natural light But Fatali seems to want 3 stay in the spotlight on thus issue In the couple of weeks since he was charged w th the crime, the T- has received several letters t j the editor that defend the photographer and criticize media coverage of the incident These letters are a bit conspicuous because of their rather obvious similarities The letter writers don t mention the fact that Fatali chose to ignore requess from reporters who sought to balance th a coverage of the story fns week writers from two Arizona towns and one bom Rockville (near Zion National Park and Springdale, where Fatali has a studio) lament the stiff charges waged against their beloved friend "My wife and are heartbroken a the insens'tive way m which Michael has been portrayed in the media wrote Dan and Aleen McGuire of Rockville The incredibly negative stones have had a crushing effect on his family as well The writers don't mention the fact that the negative publicity apparently has had a negative eflect on Fatali s salability which may well be more to the point But the impacts to both his family and his sales stem from his alleged flaunting of environmental protections in the parks, not from the media coverage about it There are those who are in awe of professional shutterbugs who can capture the grandeur of nature in a manner that seetns supernatural How disappointing to find that in some cases the techniques used are damaging to the environment one tf e meS The phrase Don t shoot me m h .sts nj ionijer,' is frequency used ty jGurn,i themselves being lambasted F stores hey ':'e about OttHJfS misdeeds Seas. vied re hers of the news media often have a common trait a f.ar j outer shell to help deflect the crhosm tf a! is of ten pointed at them, when it shout J be d fected at tfie newsrriavers Such is the case this ween hem at The inn-lndo( a, Jeff in tf.e dhermath uf damage caused at Delicate Arch by a profession. (.h. togra; her Fven tfiough we ve taxen a few (.its were n. t In kmg our wounds Its obv.ojs federal f.roscutors allege hat t Springdale resident Michael F at dil n fa ,.se substances that te1 a resdue on tfie below the arch when he toed t a a'tdiually ilium, nate the landmark Although National Pi'k Ser me vk e officials have been observing tie Site t r t ttian a year and past con plete an at'eng to m move the stains using tfie best av utuble technoi I M T 1 - 1 sand-dcn- T 1 H ogy tfie verdict is this cnly time w completely erase the scars Coupled w?h that verdii t afe fed oral charges that accuse Fatal' ol damaging fed ff I eral property It's not the media's place to say whether judicial charges fit a crime but in this case, if tfie charges are truo (and Fatali himself has admitted some guilt) then a judgment should be rendered Fatali, who prides himself on his gorgeous landscape portraits and instructional courses, should have known better Anyone familiar with his work can see he has a long history of shooting inside national parks It strains credulity to imagine that f e was unaware of park regulations forbidding hres at Delicate Arch Plain and simple, he should not have violated park rules that ban tires Worse yet. he apparently used materials that left lasting marks on -- Many Trails by Adrien F. Taylor It's sad to see the era of the Miller family retail businesses coming to an end, with the closing Saturday of Moab Outdoors (or, as we used to Brig's, or Bng's Moab Outdoors) Ralph and Genevieve Miller, their son and their daughknow it, ters and husbands and grandchildren have had a huge presence in the Moab business community for most of the last century That s Ralph, Sr , not Ralph. Jr, or Ralphie. And actually Ralph senior's father, old Joe Miller (as remember always hearing him called), started the whole shebang sometime back in the early part of the century, so the Millers have been among the movers and shakers hereabouts for a very long time When my family moved to Moab dunng the Uranium Boom, the grocery store was on the comer of Mam and Center, where Slickrock Caf6 is now, and the clothing store portion was located upstairs The furniture store was next door Sam and still have the game table we purchased as relative newlyweds from that store am confident that one of our children or grandchildren will inhent and enjoy that game table one day It'll probably need to have the chairs reupholstered once again, but that should be all it might need Shortly thereafter, the new complex was built south of town. The new grocery store was a won I Community Comments by Sam Taylor to whom we all owe a lot of thanks His wording in the documents that began this great nation was beautifully written, and still has great meaning today in this gnm world in which we find ourselves I grew up liking to read At any ve probably got two or three books I'm working on and they are not all of the same van-etrarely pass a paperback stand in a store without pausing to look it over I usually look for authors' names There are a dozen or so that I grab tfie minute they appear on the stands I like paperbacks They are easy to hold and read I like to one time read I y I It matters little to me that author Claridges research was meticulous and accurate don't care to read about his private life He and his family were probably ust as human as we all are What care about is that he painted pictures of what America should look like And he touched most of my generation with those warm, fuzzy feelings. When we finally get as many family members around this week to cook the traditional turkey, it is my hope that we will gather together in a scene as much like a Norman Rockwell painting as possible In the meantime, wouldn't pay a nickel for Clandge's biography don't even want it around I the hardbound books I get occasionally from my book club are so big and heavy that it makes work out of what consider leisure Because like to read books, also read book reviews in several newsmagazines and one na- Some I of I I I tional weekly tabloid That tabloid is the Washington Post Weekly It is a multi-pagsummary of wfiat its editors consider the best in the daily e I I t Three cheers for Moab businessman Royce Hennmgson He questioned Triple A for their news releases dunng this year citing Moab's are the gasoline prices highest in the state That just isn t so It turns out that when AAA answered Royce s the public relations lady admitted that the state survey was based on only six market areas of the state Moab was unfortunately included in that group of six have been a AAA member for years They have towed our vehicles, gotten us reduced motel rates, and m almost every respect been well worth the very nominal membership fees We will remain members, but we will treat their news releases in the future with a little caution. The same goes for a certain Salt Lake City television station which apparently has a remo'e, unmanned station m town that shows our summertime temperatures ten to fifteen degrees higher than our own local weather service station reports Higher gas pnees and higher than-resummer temperatures don't do much tor the image of a town becoming more and more dependent on visitor traic Telt it like it is, folks but don t target us wth negative publicity It ust isn't fair for a not like me Tins week s Post Weeklys book review section, tfiough stopped me cold It almost destroyed one of my idols The Post reviewed a 500-pag- e book by author Laura Claridge entitled American biDreamer N urman Rockwell The told me more about Norman Rockwell ographer lust in a review than I ever wanted to know I grew up reading my family's Saturday Evening Post rry favonte growing up magazine I could hardly await its arrival And so, I grew up loving tfie homey, realistic covers painted by the famous artist Particularly at holiday time, those covers gave me a warm, fuzzy feeling I cherished them most in memory on those occasions when I was away from home for extended periods of time college overseas with the armed services. etc Now am told that Rockwell s life wasn t that at a nor was his family They were cursed way wth all the trias tribulations and frustrations that we re all cursed with at times I don t know why some authors have to destroy was shaken earlier this year wth all my idoK tfie put iicity over Thomas Jeffersons private life I refused to even read reviews of those books In my mmd Jefferson was a great founding father travel-poo- well-know- r I I han-average al CLtmcs-3Jnicpcnhc- nt (UrSi 6309-2000- 1 Entered as Second class Matter at the Post Office at Moab, Utah under the Add March 3, 1897. Second class postage paid at Moab, Utah 84532. Official City and County Newspaper Published each Thursday at: 35 East Center Street, f.'oat. Grand County, Utah 84532 address: editorGmoabtimes.com ail Postmaster: Send changes of address to: The a mr PO. Box 129, Moab, UT 84532 Times-lndepende- nt or FAX Member 435-259-77- NATIONAL NEWSPAPER ASSOCIATION and PRESS ASSOCIATION Samuel J. and Adrien F. Taylor, Publishers Sena T. Flanders, Editor UTAH Tom Taylor Zane Taylor Ron Flanders Franklin Seal Lisa Church Mchael Gcsttn Sa-tWarner .... Dorothy Anderaon e Bobbe Dome nck. Circulation Manager. T l Maps Press, Production Manager 0ice Jose Systems Manager News Writer News Writer News Wnfer Maage,Sa!e,i Design Mai Room Supervisor D st ' ....... I Jed Taylor Dam Hawk. layne M .ter Betty BaJey Ron Drake.... Ron George j, . Over Hams n j an tl F- Backshop Sales Production ... Regona! Correspondent Green Rver Correspondent Castfe Va 'ey cokimnsst Cotjmrsst CcJjmnfst el... F,. I s, I I I High Country News Writers on the Range I have always Washington Post a newspaper njoyed even tfiough at times is a little too liberal CLljc I der to behold, with all that huge floor of shopping space Ralphie was justly proud of Miller's Shopping Center And as far as was concerned, shopping in downtown Salt Lake City wasn't any better than shopping at Miller's Clothing Store Hal was there to attend to any little detail his customers wanted, and Keith was the best shoe salesman I've ever known. Well, I'M take that back, just a bit, because it was also great to deal with Carl and Giona Har-nin their downtown shoe store I was just thinking that Miller's Clothing had the best sales ever, but then started thinking about Madge Wardes (another Miller, Ralph Sr's sister) Alice Jo Shop, and the great stuff bought over the years from Mary & Lucille's (Mary Williams and Lucille Robertson) I always enjoyed doing business with Bng, because he never was condescending when had questions or needed help with something The same has been true of Kevin and Jody and their staff But since all this looking backwards creates an overload of nostalgia. I'm going to quit it now and look the other direction while construction crews create something new and wonderful, both af Miller's Shopping Center and at the old, beloved Gambles Store Not every rancher is a bad rancher by Dan Daggett In the West, the campaign to hoot cattle ofT public lands is getting hotter Meeting in Reno, Nev . earlier this year, an umbrella group called RangrNet gave itself 10 years to achieve that goal More recently. RangeNet advertised to hire a couple of Washington lobbyists, which indifoundations are throwcates that the effort. This past spring at serious money ing an initiative that would have moved the Sierra Club and ita 650,000 members into the abolitionist camp failed in that group's annual election. Indications are it will be back. Ostensibly, this battle is about protecting folks present a the environment. The long list of sins for which they say ranching is responsible and which they say can only be solved by its total removal from public lands. I don't think this battle is about the environment It's about something very different -different enough to cause the campaigns staunchest supporters to reconsider their support What that is becomes apparent when you consider that the campaign to oust ranching from public lands is a lot like the literacy testa that racists imposed on black southerners during the 1950s Supjxisedly, those tests were necessary to determine w heth r a prospective voter was literate enough to make an informed decision. The reality was, if a prospective voter was black she or he failed. Even men and women w ith master's dog-eeeven the obviously literate, failed. The real test was their skin color. I thir.k the groups who advocate the end of raic-in public la- - is practice this same technique. No matter hew well a rancher manages the public lands leased from the government. say these critics, that rancher fails the absolute test and should be removed. Isnt this every bit as unfair as declaring black college graduates illiterate in order to keep them firm voting? In New Mexico, I know of a rancher who manages a npanan area along the Gila River to such a state of health that it supports the highest density of songbird territories known to exist in North America. His ranch also hosts the largest known populations of one endangered and two threatened species of birds, and the highest known ratio of native to exotic species of f.sh-9- 9 percent to 1 percent But to the zealots, this rancher fails the cow-fre- e s. test. Their verdict is: Kick 'em out In Arizona, another public-landrancher has come up with a way to use cattle to cover piles of mine tailings with green and growing grass. He spreads hay and seed over the piles of sterile rock dust and has cattle stomp in what they don't eat. The cattle fertilize the mix with their waste. Ranchers around the West have adapted these methods to successfully rrveg-etatpublic lands damaged by mining, offroad vehicle use and other forms of mismanagement and abuse. Yet this cattle-fre- e group's verdict remains the same, Get 'em off. The way the cattle-fre- e groups put together their list of environmental wrongs is alo typical of campaigns grounded in prejudice All the mistakes and misdeeds committed by any rancher, no matter how long ago. are included in that list, and they are attributed to all ranchers. No one name has ever been removed Successes, on the other hand, are considered anomalies. They never make a list I believe that those who find all ranchers guilty of mismanaging public lands are guilty of practicing the same kind of profiling as police officers who arrest blacks simply because they arent white. Their blanket condemnation also encourages vandalism directed at ranchers because all rancher.-- by definition are tarnished by this prejudice. Cutting fences, disabling windmills, vandalizing signs and even killing ammal-the- e could be considered hate crimes and treated as such. By labeling all public land ranchers as bad ranchers, no matter how sueresful some are at healing ecosystems or bringing endangered species back from the brink of extinction, cattle-fre- e s over-grazin- the cattle-fre- e movements verdict stays the same- - Get 'em off. Because the case against puhLc-lanrancher seems strictly a matter of prejudice and not environmental health, it can only be resolved by the same means we use agamst other types of prejudice: Those of us who recognize it for what it is must spieak out against it. We must also stand up against those who practice it Then we can look at ranchers as human us-- nd judge them by their actions and not by someone's label. d Dan Ooggrff u a conlnhuior to WnuYrs on the Rarj&. a senior Country NW m Ponnja. Coin Hr I a u ntfT cm toff, Anz. -- v-.c- ;- -j |