[Vision2020] If you can't keep them from stopping.....

Ron Force rforce2003 at yahoo.com
Fri Oct 11 12:59:41 PDT 2013 


... The thoroughness of the closures this year makes sense only if you're banking on a long shutdown. Trash doesn't pile up overnight. And while on the first and second days of a shutdown it can seem idiotic to have cordoned off a playground at a federally run neighborhood park on Capitol Hill, by week three such a barrier will be a necessary legal warning that if you go in anyway and your toddler cuts herself on broken glass and that stayed there because no one is cleaning the place—well, that's on you, not the government.
"Without staff or funding to ensure the safety of visitors, the security of the memorials, and the continued operation and maintenance of park facilities, the memorials on the National Mall—just like Yellowstone and the Grand Canyon—are closed," Johnson, the NPS spokeswoman, said in a statement.
Cordoning spaces off or hanging signs in front of them even if they cannot be securely closed is a legal strategy for preemptively dealing with the things that can go wrong in abandoned spaces, and serves notice that if a site looks bad it's because of the shutdown, not willful neglect. D.C. has a terrible record of under-maintained public parks turning into disturbing hangouts for criminal activity, not to mention locales for trash-pileups and cozy vermin homes. In a shutdown of a couple of days, that's not much of a worry. But if could become more of one if the shutdown extends into November. (See my 2002 Washington City Paper piece, "Parks and Wrecks," if you want to a sense of what a public-safety disaster bad parks policy once created inside the District.) One week in, Mayor Vincent Gray announced the city would begin emptying trash cans in federally owned neighborhood parks that are easily accessible to city trash collectors, in a bid to
 prevent an increase in vermin citywide...
http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2013/10/how-the-national-parks-became-the-biggest-battleground-in-the-shutdown/280439/




On Friday, October 11, 2013 10:55 AM, Paul Rumelhart <godshatter at yahoo.com> wrote:
 
Going out of your way to put police tape around a monument in order to keep people out, or to barricade the entrance to an otherwise unmanned turnout is simply political theater.  You don't seem to mind so much, but I find it insulting.  It's just a power play.  They were afraid people might not be inconvenienced enough by the shutdown to call their Congressman, so they upped the ante a bit.
>
>It's also a good litmus test for where people think government fits into things.  Is it a massive monolithic structure that we should be grateful exists, or is it a necessary evil that we should keep tightly under control?
>
>Oh, and one good reason for encouraging third party candidates, despite your assertion that they will all automatically be corrupted by the system, is
 that with more political parties holding more seats in Congress there will have to be more negotiation since no one party will have enough seats to override every other party.  The Democrats will have to reach out to the Libertarians on social issues, while the Libertarians and the Greens can hope to advance a pro-civil liberties agenda together, for example.  Things that can't happen now very easily.
>
>Paul
>
>
>
>
>
>
>On Friday, October 11, 2013 12:37 AM, Saundra Lund <v2020 at ssl1.fastmail.fm> wrote:
> 
>So, tell us, Kai:  what other rules & regulations do you think we should be
>free to pick & choose to follow?
>
>Personally, having seen the havoc wreaked by far too many dolts in national,
>state, and local parks by people with absolutely no respect who think that
>their wants trump everything, I'm glad the national parks are closed since
>they can't be staffed due to the shutdown.  It takes no time for those
>idiots you support to cause decades of damage, but I guess you want to
>ignore that, don't you?
>
>As for other idiotic closures, there are certainly many, which is exactly
>what the GOP wanted to happen, or have you missed all those positively
>orgasmic interviews?  I addressed this one because *you* brought it up while
>failing to recognize the role of
 the idiots who thought they were above
>everyone else.
>
>I think it's a sign of what's wrong with America that people like you are
>all up in arms about national park closures while remaining stunningly mute
>about the closures that are causing *real* harm rather than silly
>inconveniences to people.
>
>What party am I a good little soldier for?  It's always disappointing that
>people like you try to simplistically categorize people no matter how
>incorrect you are so you can dismiss them.  Why are you so bitter?  Oh, I
>get it:  you're POed because some of us are unwilling to throw away our
>votes to support hopeless third party candidates you think will "save" us as
>though they aren't just as subject to the same corruption as the
 two-party
>system.  A great example of my point is what's happened to the so-called Tea
>Party.  For the sake of convenience, we'll just ignore that it was an
>astroturffed "movement" to begin with  :-)  Funny how the Libertarians who
>were initially attracted have all been shouted down by the Right Wing Moral
>Jackbooted Thugs, eh?  But, some other third party will magically be
>different, eh?  Keep up with your magical thinking while I stay in reality
>:-)
>
>
>
>
>-----Original Message-----
>From: Kai Eiselein [mailto:fotopro63 at hotmail.com] 
>Sent: Thursday, October 10, 2013 10:04 AM
>To: Saundra Lund; vision2020 at moscow.com
>Subject: RE: [Vision2020] If you can't keep them from stopping.....
>
>Nice try, Sandra, but access to the pullouts should have never been taken
>away. The directive to close them is purely a spiteful, vindictive decision
>straight out of D.C.
>Reckless behaivor? Since when is pulling over to look at a view reckless?
>You think there are ranger stationed at each and every one of them when the
>park is open? 
>It's funny you've nothing to say about any of the other idiotic closures.
>I see you are still being good little soldier for your party, don't
>question, just follow.
>
>----------------------------------------
>> From: v2020 at ssl1.fastmail.fm
>> To: fotopro63 at hotmail.com; vision2020 at moscow.com
>> Subject: RE: [Vision2020] If you can't keep them from stopping.....
>> Date: Thu, 10 Oct 2013 02:01:15 -0700
>>
>> "A state highway that runs through the national park was closed after 
>> Grand Canyon officials found tourists removing barricades at overlooks 
>> along the road."
>> http://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/travel/nearly-two-dozen-cited-
>> for-en
>> tering-grand-canyon-after-budget-battle-forced-parks-closure/2013/10/0
>> 9/94a7 2f2e-30dd-11e3-ad00-ec4c6b31cbed_story.html
>>
>> Yes -- I'm glad you agree that those "tourists" are responsible for 
>> the necessary decision to close the highway since they thought they 
>> were special enough that they could just move the barricades. You & I 
>> both know that if something went wrong with their illegal behavior, 
>> they'd be the first to sue, something they made clear to us with their
>reckless behavior.
>>
>> Yeah, it sucks when a few spoil things for the many, so I'm glad to 
>> see your ire directed where it belongs
 : at the "tourists."
>>
>>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: vision2020-bounces at moscow.com 
>> [mailto:vision2020-bounces at moscow.com]
>> On Behalf Of Kai Eiselein
>> Sent: Wednesday, October 09, 2013 2:28 PM
>> To: vision2020 at moscow.com
>> Subject: [Vision2020] If you can't keep them from stopping.....
>>
>> Then shut down the highway.
>>
>>
>> http://www.outsideonline.com/news-from-the-field/Citations-Issued-at-G
>> rand-C 
>> anyon.html?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=facebook
>> post
>>
>>                           
>
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