| OCR Text |
Show gels Aalee oss Ue November Until we get serious, I have a hard time even trying to be. Today I found more amusement in the green-tintedheadlines---Toyota is offering a hybrid version of its Lexus LS---only $124,000, loaded. Ah yes, getting back to basics! Meanwhile I’m off to find some phthalate-free condoms and a bottle of cheap wine—I promise I'll recycle the lass. (EDITOR’S NOTE: Is all this just too damn depressing? Take heart! The next issue is titled: “The Brighter Side of Global Warming!” Everything is going to be just fine.) MORE GREEN ‘STUFF’--- THE POLITIC$ of MONEY The First Primary. That’s how the media described the first quarter financial reports of the 2008 presidential candidates. Whoever has the most money wins. Senior NPR correspondent Dan Schorr recently suggested, with only a hint of sarcasm, that we do away with voting altogether and allow the size of the campaign coffer to determine the next Commander-in-Chief. ieeiy 22, 1963 killed that dream, along with Ken- nedy himself. But can you imagine how that idea might have transformed our country? Is it too late to hope for visionary ideas like that again? I don’t know, but somebody better do something soon, or we're going to lose everything. Again, to quote our old friend Abbey, “What we need is something entirely different.” FUTURE ISSUES: I NEED YOUR CONTRIBUTIONS! I’ve been thinking ahead to themes and ideas for future issues of The Zephyr and I'd like your help and participation, if possible. After 18 years, I thought it might be a nice diversion in these grim times, to propose the following ideas...first: A TOTALLY FICTION edition. Mudd, Murie and I are already at work on our versions of un-Reality, but I'd like to open the door to all of you as well—or at least some of you. The stories can be of any type of fiction you prefer, including science fiction. Obviously I cannot print your novel, so we're talking about very short stories—maximum length 2000 words. It would make a more favorable impression if the stories had some relevance to the themes we hammer away at relentlessly in these pages. But it is not absolutely mandatory. Yl print the best two or three (if I receive that many entries) in the print edition of The Zephyr and other worthy submissions would at least find the light of day on the web site. Second idea: JOURNALS: Windows to our Past. IN THIS ISSUE OF las 4s wee le VOLUME 19 NUMBER 2 JUNE/JULY 2007 4...POINTBLANK LAST CALL for the GRIZZLIES By Doug Peacock 6...BULLETIN BOARD of DOOM China's Explosive Growth...Where are the Bees?...Sheryl Crow & TP..MORE!!! 8...LOSING SOLITUDE Childhood Memories of Jackson Hole By Martin Murie For years, I’ve been accumulating journals---my grandfather's, my great-grandmother’s, Herb Ringer’s and his dad’s, and What John Kennedy proposed to his conservative rival Barry Goldwater would have re-defined presidential campaigns forever. And why not? It’s been said that any presidential candidate in 2008 will need $100,000,000 by the end of this year, if he or she hopes to be taken seriously. ONE HUNDRED MILLION DOLLARS. The mind boggles. Someone as independently wealthy as Robert Kennedy may not have been able to compete, had the same rules applied when he became a late entry in the campaign of 1968. Forty years ago, presidential primaries began in Februa and ended in June. Over those five months, candidates had the opportunity to slowly but steadily build a case for their candidacy and their views. They could start in New Hampshire with small budgets but with a lot of enthusiasm and if they were well-received, had time to gather momentum. : In one primary after another, across the country, Americans had the opportunity to watch their next president grow and mature and gain strength. Now, for reasons that elude me, all the states want their primary to be first. And so it now appears that almost all the primaries will be held, nation-wide, by mid-February, with a flurry of them on February 9. Imagine, by early February, we'll most likely know the identity of the Republican and Democratic candidates, who can then bore us to death for another NINE months, until the general election in November. Sounds like the electoral version of premature ejaculation to me. Campaign reform isn’t just a good idea. It’s almost too late to worry about it. The public has been so anesthetized by the never ending drone of 30 second sound bites (we don’t even get a minute bite anymore), we are beginning to look like the Stepford Electorate. Is it too late, like the climate itself, to turn this nightmare around? I remember a story Barry Goldwater told, a few years after John Kennedy was assassinated. Goldwater was the presumptive Republican candidate for president in 1964 and President Kennedy was sure to run for re-election. In the summer of 1963, JFK invited Goldwater to the White House for a private dinner---just the two of them. Goldwater had no idea why he'd been invited; the two were personal friends but abhorred each other’s politics. To Kennedy, that was the point. What he proposed to his conservative rival would have re-defined presidential campaigns forever. Just thinking about it today, almost half a century later, is exhilarating. - The President believed that the differences between them were clear and that all of America should be able to accurately measure those differences. Kennedy wanted Goldwater to travel with him, on Air Force One, for at least part of the campaign. They’d jet from city to city and debate the issues, again and again, and without all of the rules and regulations that have come to rob most presidential debates of any spontaneity. They would debate in the grand style and tradition of Lincoln-Douglas. In the end, we'd know who we were voting for. And why. some extraordinary submissions from Zephyr readers —not too long ago, Vennie White of Austin, Minnesota sent me the journals of Frank Silvey via her father Bob White,a reporter with the Durango Herald in the 1950s. I’d love to run some excerpts and include photographs when possible. If you have an old journal or diary, and you'd like to share an excerpt with The Zephyr, let me know. 12...EARTH DAY COMETH and... EARTH DAY GOETH By Captain Paul Watson You would not need to send the journal itself; in fact, I'd 15...CLINGING HOPELESSLY to the MAPS I've been thinking ahead to themes and ideas for future issues of The Zephyr and I'd like your help and PARTICIPATION 16...MARTIN MURIE'S JACKSON In pictures and memories HOLE (plus excerpts from the 1940 Writers’s Guide) : (in the form of contributions) if possible. prefer if you didn’t. I’d hate for anything to happen to something so rare and precious. But a scan of some of the written material, or a clean copy of it would work. Finally, as we move precariously and deeper into the brave new world of the 2ist Century, and as we travel (sprint it seems) farther away from the simpler life many of us still remember and long for, into a world of techno superficiality, I thought it might be valuable to ask if any of this “stuff” is really making us happy. So here’s the request: Tell me about your most PERFECT MOMENTS. When you look back on your life, would you _be willing to share the event that you cherish the most.? You may not be able to select just one (if you're lucky); if that’s the case, then choose one of your Top 10. I’d even accept a Top 10 List, now that I think of it. But let’s not get too Letterman-ish here. And these comments must be succinct and short. No more than 200 words. Ten words can work if it conveys your feelings and the spirit of your memory. And please enclose a photo of yourself if possible. 18...WHAT i LEARNED from FIGHTING the NATURE CONSERVANCY By Loch Wade 20...FROM THE DESK of NED MUDD reporting from the crawlspace of history Ned's Rant on Global Warming 23...HERB RINGER'S AMERICAN WEST... Because I am lazy and cannot type worth a damn, email submissions will make me very happy. But I won't reject anything, simply because I have to re-type it. My schedule now calls for the TOTALLY FICTION issue to run in October/November, so there is some urgency that you get creative right now. I would need submissions by August 10. No later. But if this proves to be too daunting and the number of submissions not adequate, I will delay it. The PERFECT MOMENTS issue would run in the next issue. I thought it might fit well during the holidays, when we are often so otherwise totally depressed.. But don’t wait. Send me your ‘perfect moments’ any time you feel inspired to record them. I will put them ina safe place, for publication in a few months. And while the JOURNALS 29...FROM SCOTT SILVER The more things change... "Nature Notes" from 1948 issue is slated for next win- ter, let me hear from you soon if you have something worth sharing. The email address is everywhere on these pages, but just to be sure: moabzephyr@yahoo.com. cczephyr@frontiernet.netor The phone is: 435.260.1273. Thanks. Let’s see what you guys can come up with. 30...FEEDBACK The Readers Respond |
