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Show MAY slver Junction Mercantile Every 1996 APPAPGORT APPIN: “Arches Ain't Disneyland” thing You Interview with a Monkey-Wrencher: Hardly Heard Harold Speaks Want But Can't Find By 1.B. Rappaport BINGHAM JUNCTION ANTIQUES and COUNTRY STORE “You Cant Sell From An Empty Wagon” Articipation Galleries Original, Limited Editions, Sculpture, New Artists, Framing, Etc. eA. Friberg eJ.Bama ° H.F. Sellers °B. Dolittle (801) 649-8654 558 Main St. « PO. Box 715 Park City, Utah 84060 Seasonal Employment MONTANA 406-995-5821 Heed the call of the north Spend a cool summer at Montana’s Big Sky Ski & Summer Resort. Now hiring for notel, conference center, food service and cashiers. Call for application. A bill likely to be introduced by Utah Rep. Jim Hansen that would privatize Arches National Monument and has at least one aging Delicate Arch the so-called member of Monkeywrench Gang hopping mad. In a rare communication, a man calling himself Hardly Heard Harold, says turning Arches into a Disneylandstyle amusement park is the last straw. In a rambling and far-reaching interview, Hardly Heard Harold gave a call to arms to all monkeywrenchers to take the land back from something he called “industrial tourism.” According to a proposal rumored to have been put forward by Hansen, while visiting Denny’s fast food restaurant in Moab, Arches would be sold or traded to a private firm, like Rock Resorts or Marriott, for the purpose of operating it for a profit. “Tt makes perfect sense,” Hansen was rumored to have said over a Denny’s Grand Slam breakfast. “You’d buy a ticket and get on a ride that would take you around to the arches. We'd get the lands back in the private sector where they belong.” Those words were anathema to Hardly Heard, who wants public lands to remain public and who also says taxpayers should not have to pay for tourist promotion in Southern Utah. “All the cholesterol has gone to Hansen’s brain,” Hardly Heard exclaimed. “His synapses are obviously filled with grease for him to be thinking like that. “Another thing — Utahns should not be paying to bring tourists in here to run the place down. If tourists want to come, that’s one thing. But we don’t “You can’t go to Delicate Arch anymore,” Hardly Heard explained, “without being surrounded by a bunch of fat 10 and 11-year-olds that are begging have to bring everyone from Germany some to the former monkeywrencher is that while Utahns are advertising the to Arches,” Hardly Heard said. The former monkeywrencher, who claims ties to Seldom Seen Smith and Ed Abbey, among others, said turning Arches into an amusement park is not the answer. Rather, he insists, the sensible thing to do is take it off the World Wide Web page now offered by the Utah Travel Council. He also suggests taking out the paved road in Arches. this is the place e by John Helton t their parents, who are carrying plastic, half-gallon soda-pop containers, to take them to McDonalds. That's their idea of arches. “Imagine of a place the magic like Delicate and grandeur Arch being reduced to just another quick stop along an endless line of fast-food places, trinket shops, water slides and video outlets. It’s enough to make you puke,” Hardly Heard said. What seems particularly bother- state’s redrock country throughout the world, Jim Hansen is back in Washington DC cutting the funding for the operations of the national parks. Down at Denny’s, Hansen was rumored to have said that is exactly why Arches should be privatized. “Looky Itd be just like here. Disneyland. You buy your tickets. You know, like an “A” ticket for the Fiery Furnace, a “B” ticket for Klondike Bluffs, and a “C” ticket for Delicate Arch. Everyone gets to see the place. Everyone’s happy.” That is exactly the type of thinking that is ruining the natural beauty of Southern Heard conUtah, Hardly tends. “These damn fools just don’t get it. Naturesis not an amusement park. can't sell off nature like some You damn ride in Disneyland. It doesn't work like that. That sort of thinking will rob us of everything that’s meaningful about nature.” Asked if he was planning to take any specific actions if we illuminate the arches, people can come day and night, Combined with relentless advertising and a web page we Can maximize Natures income potentia| to halt what he called the “Disneylanding” of Southern Utah, Hardly Heard said, “No comment.” But he did urge everyone to do what they could to turn back the tide of millions of tourists each year who threaten to overrun places like Delicate Arch and seem to only recognize such places as a stop, like McDonalds. “Tell those people up at the capitol we don’t want our taxes going for industrial tourism,” Hardly Heard said. oc) TE PAGE'1# John ©9(, “And tell them Eco-terrorism isn’t dead, yet.” . |