Where politics meets the outdoors and why today’s journalism is a joke



U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt (left) and nature preservationist John Muir, on Glacier Point in Yosemite National Park. In the background: Upper and lower Yosemite Falls.

Do a Google search and see how many articles you can find on how approaching spending cuts by the federal government will affect our National Parks. I’ve been watching an endless stream of these articles come across my computer over the past couple of week. It seems like every journalist in the U.S. is writing an article on this subject.

Here’s a sample of one:

“The towering giant sequoias at Yosemite National Park would go unprotected from visitors who might trample their shallow roots. “

In the same article:

“Gettysburg would decrease by one-fifth the numbers of school children who learn about the historic Pennsylvania battle that was a turning point in the Civil War.”

GIVE ME A FRIGGIN’ BREAK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Trampling a giant sequoia’s shallow roots will harm a tree that has been living for close to a century?

Kids won’t learn about Gettysburg if they can’t visit it?

Apparently, Park Service Director John Jarvis last month asked National Park superintendents to show by Feb. 11 how they would absorb the 5 percent funding cuts, according to a recent report.

The report goes on to state: “While not all 398 parks had submitted plans by the time the memo was written, a pattern of deep slashes that could harm resources and provide fewer protections for visitors has emerged.”

Think for a minute about the hyperbole used by the journalist in this statement. A five percent cut is a “deep slash.” To anyone who considers five percent to be a “deep slash,” prepare to feel some real pain in the coming years!

I know of no one who wants see any cuts to the budgets of National Parks. They are truly gems. Unfortunately, politicians have run our country into such debt that the hurt is only beginning. We have started to see it in increased taxes to pay for their follies. More are yet to come. Next we will see it in cuts to government agencies. In the future, cuts to so called “entitlements,” such as social security will occur.

In a memo from the National Park Service, "Clear patterns are starting to emerge. In general, parks have very limited financial flexibility to respond to a 5 percent cut in operations."

I’ll bet that if someone was brought in from the private sector to analyze the agency they could cut 5% without any visitor evening knowing there were cuts!

Ahh, but my declaration is refuted by John Garder, a member of the nonprofit parks advocacy group the National Park Conservation Association. "In the scope of a year of federal spending, these cuts would be permanently damaging and save 15 minutes of spending, he said. “There's no fat left to trim in the Park Service budget," he added.

Then why the heck did the federal government just create a new National Park in California that will have to be paid for by taxpayers. Does that make sense!!!!

I have gotten off topic. The main reason I wrote this post is to display how rabid the reporting has been on this subject. Oh my. We’re going to have to cut 5% from National Parks. Why don’t a few of these reporters write something about the lies that constantly permeate our government or the moral decay of this country. Why don’t they write something about joblessness in the U.S. or how our government continues to lie to us about the murder of our diplomat and three other men in Benghazi, Libya.

Why not? Because instead of doing their job – making sure the government has someone looking over its shoulder, they have become nothing more than a megaphone for those in power. Congratulations journalists. You have officially jumped the shark.