Little things

I may be the only person I know who has kept a New Year's Resolution for more than six months. I have kept it for five years and never change it. I return shopping carts to there proper place in parking lots so the car slots are not clogged with carts. I know its a pretty small thing but people with little care for others generally just leave carts strewn about parking lots make the place a mess.

I have also taken to not using plastic grocery bags or paper bags when I can at the grocery store. I bought a nylon sack, a total copy of a plastic shopping bag except that it has a built in sack and d-ring to store the bag when not in use. Some stores will give a credit for those that use their own bags, which is really not an incentive to buy a nylon sack since it would take many uses to break even, but again its a small thing I can do.

I also realized that with my lifestyle of running shorts and wanting to be a hands-free guy, I carry a backpack or drawstring bag with me pretty much everywhere I go and can put lots of what I purchase in it, saving on bags. I do get some looks and confusion from cashiers but for the most part they notice I am trying to save bags.

For those that also feel they want to do good with their plastic bags, here are some ideas. First they can obviously be re-used for grocery shopping. When retail stores use ones that are unique consider using them for sorting your items when you travel. Bright blue can be your pants, red for shirts. By compartmentalizing your clothes it becomes easier to pack. Keep a couple in your car for picking up litter at places you frequent like parks and water areas.

Just a few ideas. Little things

Hugging Trees

A friend of mine said to me the other day, "Have you seen the movie Happy Feet? No. Don't. Its got a lot of environmental stuff in it."

My response I could tell was a bit shocking to her, "You would be surprised at how I view the environment."

Just because my political beliefs point firmly to the right doesn't mean I, or other concerned and informed conservatives, don't have opinions that when viewed from the right seem out of phase with the GOP. It seems far to often that when you are pigeon holed as being republican or democrat, that all your opinions are in agreement with either Rush Limbaugh or Rosie O'Donnell. My thoughts on the environment are not based on my belief in business or from what I hear from talk radio. Nor is it based on 'An Inconvenient Truth' and Greenpeace or lately Outside Magazine.

My thoughts on the environment come from a life lived outdoors; fishing, hunting, hiking, camping, 4x4ing, trail running and traveling. I worked as a National Park Service Ranger. It comes from a father who I have no clue if he's a democrat or republican but retired as a Colonel in the National Guard and worked as both a Fish and Wildlife agent and a EPA criminal investigator. I have cut down a few trees and planted a few more than I have cut down.

In regards to open spaces, our wilderness is a precious commodity and the word that comes to my mind is stewardship. The environmentalist mentality cloaked in socialism and bolstered by most liberals in congress is a Leave It All Alone mentality. They would prefer to fence it all off, fine anyone inside it and let it do its thing.

I will certainly not stop any movement to conserve our open lands but I have a serious problem with not doing anything in it. It is not enough to protect these lands from elements who would do harm to it, but it must be protected from itself.

Think of city park. In the proto-typical environmentalist mentality the park will be fenced off and only walkers will be allowed inside. There are no garbage cans because users must follow a personal code of Leave No Trace Behind. In time the park will be in disrepair because there is no maintenance crew to trim the trees, pick up trash or maintain pathways. In time no one will go to the park because it is ugly or forgotten. Someone starts a fire and because of overgrowth the park burns unmolested and threatens a nearby apartment complex.

In the context of federally protected land areas, these parks need to be cleared of low lying brush so forest fires will not have the capacity to reach hundreds of thousands of acres and threaten homes and families. Back burning is necessary to create fire breaks and protect communities. Fire roads need to be created, not only for access to remote areas but act as a 'rally point' for hikers.

A rally point, or similar term such as handrail or protective line, is used to describe the direction of travel if lost. When your hiking in the backcountry it is good to have an agreed upon place to meet if someone from the group is lost. As not everyone carries a map but everyone should have a compass, cardinal directions are best. Based on where you are at on your trip, having a pre-determined grid coordinate to meet at is unrealistic whereas knowing anyone considered lost will travel east to a logging road or a lake is realistic.

The crux is this, as a green conservative, it is incumbent upon me to ensure our lands are protected for not only our future enjoyment but our future industries. It is one thing to protect our lands but another to realize it can improve the lives of those living around it or that a portion of those lands can limit our dependency on foreign imports. Business is not always bad for wilderness. Hunting is not bad for wilderness. Forestry projects are not bad for wilderness. Leaving wilderness to itself can be bad for for our economy in terms of forest fires, increased federal spending on fighting those fires; lost homes and lives, increased insurance payouts based on those loses; not to mention decreased ability to discover and sustain natural resources that can benefit our countries well being.

Take one (bag) for the team

On Sunday, I was the only person to show up for an open water swim practice that my triathlon team does a few times per week. Everyone was sleeping in or racing out of town. It gave me an opportunity to enjoy the beauty of our wilderness on my own...and pick up all the trash that people leave at our little spot.

Its unavoidable especially at close areas like Tonto National Forest that people who have low regard for nature will leave their trash, smash their bottles and scrawl graffiti on US Forest Service buildings. Just in the last month there is over a dozen new tags in the rest room I occasionally hit before swimming.

The spot we swim at is outside the beach/boat areas but still sees a fair amount of people who fish and perhaps engage in gazing and drinking alcohol. Littered around the area was ripped up Styrofoam coolers, broken liqueur bottles, soda cans, used napkins and other detritus. I filled a large garbage bag from my car and wished I had another. I took it to the dumpsters within the beach area.

Some of this trash is packed down into some of the rock crevasses or tucked under prickly trees or cactus. Later in the day while grocery shopping I picked up some more trash bags and one of those reaching grabby things called Trash Tongs to pick up the broken glass shards and hard to reach stuff.

I wish people would take better care of their personal trash outdoors. When I was in the military and later in my civilian business I was instilled with the habit of leaving a place cleaner than I found it; I even wipe down counters in movie theater bathrooms and at restaurants that still have paper towels.

After my short swim I hiked up into the canyon to find the Lost Dutchman's goldmine. Well I was more taken by the scenery than looking for caves but legend has it the unfound mine and many others are in the area. It made for a good day of training and my team mates will hopefully find a cleaner spot the next time they go to drop their towels for a swim.

Your the expert

There was a time when the term rugged individual or renaissance man meant someone who was a free thinker, someone who developed a variety of skills, a person who relied on themselves to make it through the world.

Today it seems that we are only to believe in experts, authors and people introduced as authorities who know whats best for us. We are not to question these people. Rationale discourse is not tolerated. There is only the story, the facts can be manipulated. Do you know what an expert is? An expert is someone who knows a lot about a little.

The worst part about listening to these people is that they usually make you feel like crap; your a bad parent, a particular political or social situation will never get better because if it did you wouldn't listen to me, if you were victimized at some point in your life you'll be screwed up unless you do what I say. All this does is make you dependent on someone else whose only goal is to subvert confidence in yourself or society.

You are your own best expert in your life. All your personal problems can be solved if you do some very simple things; some of which are to own up to your mistakes and listen to your heart. Have a problem with drugs, sex, adultery, video games, gambling? There is a moment, a heartbeat before every thing you do that tells you its a good thing or bad thing. Sometimes this can be the same feeling but generally this beat in time is an eternity of conflict and debate that you either overcome or it overcomes you. But you have the choice to quit, get help or get out.

When you are having a matter of conscious on social issues do your own research. Have you heard there is debate on the issue of how to stop global warming. Maybe saw a movie on it. What have you done to come to your own conclusions? You don't need to be Einstein to be find your answers but you do need to be open to look at the other side. Not sure how you feel about abortion or taxes or gun control. Perhaps these social issues affect you directly and you have an emotional response to it. Does that make your decision any more valid than someone else who came to their own conclusion.

By relying on others to tell you what is right or wrong is not the long term solution because you eventually lose the ability to make decisions for yourself. Solving things by committee though sometimes necessary for the group, seldom benefit every person. That means you need to learn how to solve things for yourself by surrounding yourself with like minded people or reinventing yourself in a new view.

Our county was founded by free thinkers who were religious but created a government based on laws, not theology. They knew that to be as free as they wished they needed a higher power to guide most, but laws to guide all. That higher power would provide a map for personal inventory, accountability, honesty and generosity.

Be your own expert. Listen to your heart like our founding fathers did theirs. Even when you want to create your world in your own image be careful that that image isn't based on what someone else is telling you it should be.

MayDay, May Day

May Day or May 1st, is internationally known as the remembrance of labor parties or Labour parties that have and still do progress the movement of better work environments and wages for employees. In the US its a federal holiday celebrated at the end of May.

For quite some time May 1st was seen as a reference to the socialist party and their desire for government to control and distribute wealth within the country. Think May Day and you would think of Russia or USSR or communism. Generally the day would be celebrated by some small rally's and radical speeches but otherwise tame.

In the last decade of the 20th century, May Day became the day that anarchists would pronounce destruction of the New World Order and denounce the world bank and capitalism and commercialism. Anarchist do not rally or protest as much as gang together in a city center and become a disgruntled mob that seeks damage and destruction and then when the police are forced to use non-lethal forms of civil obedience to quell the riot, the media shows the anarchists being attached by tear gas and batons and their only defense is bandannas around their faces as if the police are the ones who are breaking up a legal protest.

In the South West, the Pro-Illegal Immigration groups have occupied May 1st as their day to rally and protest and proclaim that all of America would fail if illegal aliens failed to show up for work the next day. These are for the most part non-violent protests and in the recent past have brought tens of thousand if not hundreds of thousands of people together for their activities. These groups have well meaning intentions for their cause but generally speaking are terribly ineffective at getting their point across or creating a memorable event.

One rally in Phoenix had over 100,000 people attend. However even the media could not get behind the rally cry of 'No Borders' and 'Ce se puede' (Yes we can!) when the majority of flags at the event where Mexican and not American. Instead of looking sympathetic they came across as arrogant and demanding. Each year these leaders get more savy, but less energized. This year less than 10,000 people are expected at the rallys in Phoenix.

May 1st, May Day, Labor Day, Labour Day, has been known as a day of rest and introspection at the advancement of employee rights. In the future it may well be turned into a focal point of immigration status and rights of illegal aliens. I look forward to a day when we can say that on May 1st, a national crackdown on businesses that employee illegals takes place, much like the DUI task forces on holidays. I look forward to the news reports on May Day that don't show mass rally's of forced rights but mass introduction of people becoming American citizens akin to the news we see on July 4th.

However you spend the day, at the beginning of the month or the end and every day in between, be thankful for what you have.

Optimisticaly Pesimistic

I was told the other day there is no difference between conservatives and liberals, republicans and democrats. Were all the same piece of filth.

People who don't have the ability to make a decision outside of a committee love to expose that there is no difference between a liberal democrat and a conservative republican. These are people whose hardest personal decision of the day is the size and type of beverage they want at Starbucks and still haven't decided after staring at the menu for five minutes.

Liberals look at the world in terms of pessimism, fueled by their desire to take every freedom you have and doling it back as if you have earned something special. Wrap it up in a shiny box with a big red bow and high taxes still equate to wealth redistribution. A liberal can't enjoy life when there is social inequity and the cure is increasing your taxes and decreasing the bar to get a piece of it.

Conservatives look at the world a bit more optimistically. A conservative mentality is not that they need a piece of some else's pie but there is a lot of pies out there, they just need to find theirs. Generally speaking conservatives are not concerned about the past but how to make their future better. It one thing to realize that life is not fair, its another to accept it and make the best way you can in life so it's better. Conservatives are not as much concerned with personal victimization as liberating the oppressed.

I am told that the media is more republican than democrat, ya know Fox News and all. But it astounds me at the deluge of negativity portrayed by local news. Bad news is not the currency of the right. For the first six months of my sons life, my wife cried every time the news was on wondering how we could have brought such a blessing into such bad times. Good luck finding anything positive about the Global War On Terror in any 'legitimate' news source. It used to be that the last refuge of anything positive in the newspaper was Sports or Lifestyles and now even those editions are riddled with bad news.

Liberals want to constantly remind you of where you are at in life and how someone took something from you. They generally are not concerned in your personal well being inasmuch as they want large groups to be dependent on them for support. Conservatives want to show you a path to reaching your dreams and tell you it will be a hard road with sacrifice and disappointment but with faith in yourself and personal growth anything is possible.

Lets use the example of The Underdog. Everyone loves the Underdog. Liberals because its an opportunity to entrap him in welfare and food stamps, forcing business to pay him a 'living wage' even though the Underdog is 24, has a family of three and no education. All the time telling him that life is dire and he's a victim of whatever can be checked off the list. Conservatives love the Underdog because its a chance to overcome the odds and persevere in the face of adversity. Becoming the best the Underdog can be and become a value to society and a contributor of the community. The Underdog story for the conservative is not a trailer park to mansion story but a Horatio Alger tale.

The bottom line is that only the non-thinking believe people that the right and left are the same. Believe in one side or the other, makes no difference to me. Its how our country works. But for the love of God or your higher power don't be so dense as to think we are all the same.

Now make your Starbuck order already, I'm just getting the black coffee straight up.

Stem Cells

I think there is great benefit to stem cell research. If inside each of us is tissue that when properly presented can become identical to a different organism in our body, well thats divine genius. Tissue taken from my brain or my neck or somewhere else inside my body or from stored umbilical cord blood that can become a new liver or a new cartilage for my knee or repair a damaged spinal cord is a testament to applied science.

The ethical debate on whether this course of study should be applied to fertilized eggs from inside a woman has completely complicated this fascinating program. I am whatever you want to call me, anti-abortion as bitrh control mostly. Stem cell research to me is not so much about my thoughts on abortion as it is my thoughts on courses of actions and real movement in the area.

The pro-fertilized egg crowd has done absolutely nothing to progress real results in the stem cell scientific community. They end up being portrayed as feminists and activists wanting more rights over reproduction. If a woman wants to abstain from sex, go through the two month fertility treatments and painful shots to harvest and sell her dozen or two fertilized eggs for a couple grand, that will be nurtured until life in created in those eggs and then those eggs will be destroyed and dissected. That is a choice those people are willing to live with.

President George W. Bush's ability to withhold federal funding for scientific study in this specific stem cell foray has only whipped that rabid mob into a frenzy. But he said he used his religious beliefs and unquestioned legal authority to maintain his personal moral's and convictions while in office. Thats his right, much as a liberal president would want to increase my taxes.

People against him can call him hypocritical but the claims goes both ways. People in the middle get lost in the muck, is it an activist issue or religious conviction.

I heard all the plea's at the democrat presidential convention. I listened to Ron Reagan Jr. rally the crowd about how embryonic stem cell research could have saved his father the late President Ronald Reagan from Alzheimer's disease. I saw the commercials after Christopher "Superman" Reeves died from complication of being a quadriplegic saying his condition could have been treatable only if this research was allowed to continue. Michael J. Fox did PSA's on this as well for Parkinson's disease. These where pandering idealistic platitudes based on the near future models of the embryonic program.

Look at me. I have had several sever brain injury's; subdural hematomas, fractured skull, swelling of the brain, amnesia, about a dozen concussions with more than half of those involving unconsciousness. Its understood that one more knock to my head and I could be a vegetable. I am really interested in any science that can help me out just in case I could become a carrot.

The problem with all this debate is that its not open. Liberals demand they have higher ground in that embryonic stem cell research is the future of stem cell discovery but they refuse to acknowledge that its not one hill that this fight is fought on, its a ridge with multiple peaks and honestly what their refusing to admit is that their little hill is in the shadow of some much bigger and older mountains in this venue. What they refuse to listen to is that the most promising forms of stem cell research is from adult stem cells which have been funded continuously by the federal government for thirty years. Yet even now with all the things they have succeed in doing with it, they haven't come close to curing Parkinson's or Alzheimer's and it's questionable but optimistic about spinal injuries. The Bush position was not to make embroynic stem cell research illegal, in fact public donations care well excepted at major universities around the country. The state of California passed a $6 billion tax plan for this research.

The best way for an individual to protect themselves is for parents to store their child's umbilical cord which holds more viable stem cells than anything available currently and are a perfect match for DNA. But individual responsibility is not really a buzz word in liberal circles. Liberals and bleeding hearts would rather make you feel a certain way rather than have you see a certain way.

The liberal flagpole of irrefutable scientific research in egg cell research has been destroyed not by lack of federal funds but by sabotage by the very scientists leading the studies. The first case and the most important in the egg stem cell debate was by a South Korean, Hwang Woo Suk, who completely falsified his own results with doctored charts and photos. Now another significant study done at the University of Minnesota by Catherine Verfaillie has been completely misleading with photoshopped pictures and false claims of study.

But it seems that people who push the embryonic stem cell debate are so indoctrinated in their own cause that they can't seem to have an intellectual conversion when confronted with overwhelming contrary evidence to their theory or at least admit a divergent avenue of success is even more possible. Adult stem cells have the most research and the most promise for radical changes in patient treatment in the 21st century and beyond. While the debate on federally funding embryonic research is on hold at least until the next presidency in 2008, millions are spent federally on adult stem cell research and private money and state money can cover the gap. Lets not also forget that as other countries devote their resources in this research we can simply outbid those scientists salaries in other countries and bring them to America with citizenship in hand once another president decided a change in the Bush policy is needed.