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Show EPHYR/ AUGUST-SEPTEMBER BULLETS | Veen S omewhere teed tee Deca 2005 COSTCO-ING DOWN THE RIVER . The other day, while wandering the RV and Recreation Vacations aisle at COSTCO, Inoticed a special on Grand Canyon Wilderness River Adventures. I put a couple of seats on one of the motorized expeditions into my cart and can't wait - to be piloted, next month, through the wilderness and experience all of the thrills described below. If this trip is everything the brochure says it is, then in the Fall I might try to squeeze in a three-day motorized adventure down the Grand. I never knew how easy and convenient it was to float the Colorado River. I thought it took something like 20 years to get a river permit. Silly me. Scott PS... What I remember best about my one previous Grand Canyon trip are the almost countless hours spent trying to finesse my way through slow moving eddies using the most subtle of Zen-like dips of my oars and managing, when I was successful, to be carried upon an invisible path that keep my boat in the flow. I sure hope get to experience that on my commercial trip! “RV and Recreational Vacations | Grand Canyon White Water Rafting Grand _Canyon White Water Rafting - From $914* Rediscover your adventurous side. Run the river with Wilderness River Adventures. The pilots and crews will act as your guide, cook, historian and social chairman. Your only schedule is to arrive at the take-out destination the morning of the last day. So relax and enjoy the grandeur of the canyon. SCOTT SILVER From the Costco ad UNILEVER NATIONAL PARK??? RANGERS OR POCKET RANGERS?? A month ago I saved, by did not pass along, a News Release about further commercialization of America's National Parks. At the time, I had already accumulated so much material about the NPS's ongoing slide toward commercial degeneracy, that I let that particular news release slip by without comment. My mistake. Included below is a personal report shared by someone who found a nasty surprise in his Sunday newspaper. Had I shared that information back in April, I could have spared both him and you, some major indigestion. Unfortunately, simply sharing that piece of news wouldn't have saved the National Park System from it's plunge into darkness. That plunge has been years in coming and the warning signs were available for all to see. Perhaps had more people taken more notice and spoken out more vigorously, the future that we have today could have been different. Fortunately, there's still time to save the parks for an even worse future. The Corporate Takeover of Nature and the Disneyfication of the Wild are threats that still lay mainly before us. The nightmare I've long predicted has barely begun. Here’s the letter: You know those coupons that come with the Sunday paper? Well, last Sunday's paper included a set of coupons that, pardon the expression, takes the cake! Wearing a headline "Get a Taste of the National Parks" and bragging that "Unilever is a Proud Partner of the National Park Foundation," coupons are offered for Hellman’s Mayonnaise; Larry's Steak Sauce; Wish-Bone Dressing; and Coleman coolers, grills and stoves. Unilever's two-page spread otters recipes tor Redwood Steak & Chop Skewers, Yosemite Asparagus Salad, Glacier Cheesecake Bites, and Golden Gate Coleslaw, along with a gratuitous bow to the Junior Ranger program. Unilever notes at the bottom of the page that it will... donate $500,000 to the National Park Foundation in 2005," alongside a Ranger hat and the slogan “Proud Partner of America's National Parks." I may be strange, and I know for certain I am out of step with the modern virtues of ‘partnerships, " butI find the whole thing downright disgusting! I may never buy another Unilever product again and I used to like Hellman’s Mayonnaise. National Park Foundation: shame on you! I’ve been taking notes again, this time at the American Recreation Coalition's "Recreation Policy Forum on Technology and Transportation.” I’ve included an excerpt from ARC's related news release. We are moving in the wrong direction when we bring excessive technology to our public lands. We are making a mistake if we replace live rangers with pocket rangers. And we would be moving in a very frightening direction if we ever, as Derrick Crandall suggests, equip park visitors with GPS devises which track their movement and bill them for the experience they enjoyed. The leadership team of the area has developed a new concept - the Pocket Ranger. Unable to provide enough live rangers to enhance each visit to the NRA, the team soughta way to make it possible for every visitor to have ready access to maps and guidebooks with pictures of wildlife, flowers and views and able to help those for whom English is a second language. The Pocket Ranger will combine the capabilities of a PDA, a GPS unit and a wireless device. Imagine a color screen, an audio capability, an easy indexing of the features of the park, all up to date and downloadable either at home or at the visitor center - that's the future Pocket Ranger. The NPS team has recruited high tech partners, including Intouractive Planet and PalmOne, to join in this project.] WWW.WILDWILDERNESS.ORG lost river company SOIL OLA ELE) 2) If I was not so concerned about the possibility of burning you out with overly frequent updates, I could send similar privatization updates on a daily basis -- the action is now occurring at such a fast and furious pace. As it is, Ishare only asmall sampling of the almost continuous train of new privatization developments affecting your National Park System and robbing you of your American Commons. Some people do not know that some of these agreements have anything to do with privatization. Some are totally unaware that volunteerism is a privatization tool favored by right-wing think tanks, by the Libertarian ideologues running the Dept. of Interior and by the Bush Administration. Some haven't a clue that Quasi Governmental organizations such at the National Park Foundation are being used for the purpose of shrinking government and replacing it with corporate rule. Some The October/ November issue of THE ZEPHYR will be on newsstands in Moab will find nothing disconcerting about some of these corporate sponsorship andalliances. I suppose a few may even support such partnerships --- after all, it is a way to generate "FREE" money and "FREE" publicity for our Parks, is itnot?? Some day, perhaps with your help, the vast majority of Americans will understand what is wrong with partnerships such these. Some day, perhaps if we are lucky, it will not be considered either appropriate or necessary to whore out America's Crown Jewels or force park managers to sleep with anyone who waves a $50 bill under their nose. Then again, some day, we may get to witness Mussolini's seamless merging of state and corporate power. The CHOICE is ours. The advanced nations have entered a pre-fascist social condition that will ripen in various ugly ways if the market's imperatives prevail, if commerce and finance refuse to compromise their objectives. William Greider, 1999 ) September 29th clothing the remarkable women of the four comers since 1992 |