Insulting words from one critic of Maine Governor Paul LePage, who declines to put up signs marking the way to Katahdin Woods and Waters — which Obama designated a national monument — because the Trump administration might reverse Obama's decision. LePage says Obama made "a horrible, horrible decision" and resists spending "taxpayers’ money" on signage that might not be permanent. to signage or any type of project without knowing that it [the monument] is in place and that everyone is on board with it,” he said.
The land was donated to the federal government by the family that rich on the Burt’s Bees brand, and it's one family member — Lucas St Clair — who supplied those adjectives I put in the post title.
ADDED: Speaking of family fortunes, I wonder if LePage is related to
the mucilage people:
Posts
47 comments:
He sounds like an unusually sensible governor to me.
Wherever I have gone
Wherever I've been and gone
Wherever I have gone
The glues are all the same.
Since when does a state have an obligation to put up signs to a federal monument?
"I wonder if LePage is related to the mucilage people"
Sounds like a horror flick: The Mucilage People. They stick to you--like glue!
Jersey Fled said...
Since when does a state have an obligation to put up signs to a federal monument?
When rich people want them to.
LePage is right.
Iowahawk: I'd like to have an app that replaces "sources" in NYT/WaPo articles with "mysterious gypsy women"
It won't work. Anonymous sources would have the wrong adjective order. You want mysterious anonymous gypsy women, not anonymous mysterious gypsy women.
Rich people get so worked up about not spending other peoples money.
I recall the Adirondacks trails had ADK club supplied trail markers, and in addition you can buy the trail markers, a service to prevent people snatching the ones they've actually put up. That's a state park though.
That was in the 50s. God knows that they've evolved into by today.
Wealthy people using OPM to for self-glorification. But the guy thwarting it is the petty one.
Maybe the Burt's Bees people can donate some signs, too.
Governor LePage's family was on welfare when he was growing up. If there's a family connection to the mucilage company, it's a distant one.
Yeah buy some signs Burt
"Environmentalists, including St Clair, claim LePage’s attempt to deny signage is an attempt to cut visitor numbers to Katahdin in its first full season as a monument."
Isn't that a good thing - if you're an environmentalist? Keep the land free of nasty humans?
If, on the other hand, you have an interest in what might be in those human's back pockets, you may want as many as possible traveling to your 'captured' market.
Like all the other posters in this thread, I also hate rich people. And rich people giving land to the state, completely beyond the pale.
They should use the signs designed for the movie Second Hands Lions. "Go Back", "Beware of Dogs", "Do Not Enter", and "Radioactive". Just for the fun of it.
"He sounds like an unusually sensible governor to me."
Which is probably why Susan Collins is considering running for Governor.
LePage’s tenure—marked by xenophobic anti-immigrant rhetoric, racist comments, and statements like “we ought to bring the guillotine back” to punish drug traffickers—has wounded the state’s political climate. (LePage is barred from running for a third consecutive term, but he could pursue the office again in 2022.)
When Trump won the presidency, LePage said, “I think Susan Collins is done in Maine. I think her decision to go against the Maine Republicans really cooked her goose.”
Yes, he does sound like a good guy. I wonder if he could appoint himself to finish her Senate term?
"Mucilage" -- and its cousin mucilaginous -- are great words. I always think of okra when I see them.
I wonder if he had anything to do with the LePage glue gun mentioned in Catch-22
“They began to invent humourless, glum jokes of their own and disastrous rumours about the destruction awaiting them at Bologna.
Yossarian sidled up drunkenly to Colonel Korn at the officers' club one night to kid with him about the new Lepage gun that the Germans had moved in.
'What Lepage gun?' Colonle Korn inquired with curiousity.
'The new three-hundred-and-forty-four-millimeter Lepage glue gun,' Yossarian answered. 'It glues a whole formation of planes together in mid-air.'
Colonel Korn jerked his elbow free from Yossarian's clutching fingers in startled affront. 'Let go of me, you idiot!'
Nately was lighter than Yossarian and had great difficulty maneuvering Yossarian's luching bulk across the room to an unoccupied table. 'Are you crazy?' Nately kept hissing with trepidation. 'That was Colonel Korn. Are you crazy?'
Yossarian wanted another drink and promised to leave quietly if Nately bought him one. Then he made Nately bring him two more. When Nately finally coaxed him to the door, Captain Black came stomping in from outside.
'Boy, are you bastards in for it!' he announced exuberantly, splashing away from the puddle forming at his feet. 'I just got a call from Colonel Korn. Do you know what they've got waiting for you at Bologna? Ha! Ha! They've got the new Lepage glue gun. It glues a whole formation of planes together in mid-air.'
'My God, it's true!' Yossarian shrieked, and collapsed against Nately in terror.”
AReasonableMan said...
"Like all the other posters in this thread, I also hate rich people. And rich people giving land to the state, completely beyond the pale."
What people do with their own money is nobody's business but theirs. What you demand people do with their own money is immoral.
If I read the story right the governor won't allow signage, even if paid for privately.
A monument is a warn-think.
@Rusty, don't worry. Any minute now some one of ARM's buddies will be along to explain that the signage is "just a pittance" next to some other expenditure that the state makes.
Has Lucas St. Clair never heard of navigation systems? Who needs road signs in the 21st century.
"If I read the story right the governor won't allow signage, even if paid for privately."
That's alleged by the rich donor and not verified. Even so, if the order is rescinded, will the donor also pay to remove the signs?
Much of this story consists of invective, and very little light.
Maybe LePage could put up signs saying "This land was donated by the St. Clair family do that they could feel good about themselves while spitefully blocking the less well off from hunting and fishing here." Genuine truth in advertising!
@Bill R
Thanks for that!
Haven't thought about mucilage in over fifty years and indeed can't recall ever actually speaking that word-- it was just 'paste', I believe, in school. The bottles with the rubber dispenser tips... the memory is quite pleasant. Amazon doesn't sell such things so it must not be used in classrooms any longer; a tub of 'wallpaper mucilage' doesn't seem to evoke the same Proustian warmth.
The points I took away were that the Trump ordered review of recent national monuments by its terms will exclude this one but governor acting as if it will because he is requesting that it does.
And rich people giving land to the state, completely beyond the pale.
They didn't “give land to the state” — they gave it to the federal government.
As if the feds really really need to own an even larger proportion of this great nation of ours. (Maybe the federal proportion of the land in Maine isn't that great, I don't know — but out West it's gargantuan.) Why not give the land — if you have land you want to give away — to the state? Or even to the county; make it a county park.
Gave with a huge tax deduction.
"Gave with a huge tax deduction."
Bingo !
Why not give the land — if you have land you want to give away — to the state?
Why is it any concern of yours who a private landowner gives or sells his land to? Maybe he thinks the federal government is a better steward of the land.
Worse are the conservation easements on golf courses. Hmm who do we know who is a big exploited of that tax provision?
Put up your own damn signage if it is causing you so much grief. Go out, raise some dollars, put some work into it and get it up, instead of whining and crying for someone else to do it.
"Why is it any concern of yours who a private landowner gives or sells his land to? "
Maybe some of us have been watching what Harry Reid does with federal land.
Why is it any concern of yours who a private landowner gives or sells his land to? Maybe he thinks the federal government is a better steward of the land.
Because when a private landowner donates land to the federal government the local people lose opportunities to enjoy the land for fishing, hunting, and often just plain hiking. The landowner has the right to post the land for no hunting and no trespassing, but there's generally a bit of pushback from the locals that the wealthy don't much enjoy. Donate to the federal government and the rich can stick a finger in the eyes of local folks.
Also, in general, when a wealthy person donates land to the government there is some sort of quid pro quo. We'd just like to know what that quid pro quo was for the St. Clair family. Invitations to state dinners? Not so bad. Or was it a land swap of land that couldn't be developed for land that could? I don't know and you don't either.
Sense and respect for taxpayers? How'd someone like that succeed in Maine politics?
You wanna talk sophomoric and petty--not so wayback in the wayback there was a government shutdown; and Obama ordered the National Park Service to close all parks. There's a national park just to the south of Hoover Dam. I drove across the dam (just to do it--I was vacationing in Nevada at the time). About a half mile south of the dam on the Arizona side there was a roadway leading off the highway into the desert--and not much else. I doubt it got used very much--just a gate across a dirt road in a desert. But by gum, there was a park ranger and a vehicle there making certain that nobody could go through the gate. There were park rangers stationed at several other paths into the desert.
Geez I thought the parks belonged to the people.
Because when a private landowner donates land to the federal government the local people lose opportunities to enjoy the land for fishing, hunting, and often just plain hiking.
A national monument designation does not preclude hunting and fishing. As for hiking, that is just a bullshit claim
@Freder, are lying to us, or to yourself?
I think the problem is the abuse of the national monument program to unilaterally create what are in essence national parks without going through the congress and getting local and state support. Instead the president can create them unilaterally by just calling them monuments. A monument is a man-made construction designed to memorialize some event or some person and designation as a national monument should be restricted to those only.
"abuse of the national monument program to unilaterally create what are in essence national parks without going through the congress "
Yes and both Clinton and Obama used them to put mineral rights out of reach as they opposed mining or drilling for oil.
Clinton did it in Utah to pay off an Indonesian billionaire for graft. The Clintons have always been predictable.
Related to the mucilage people? NO
Governor LePage grew up dirt-poor, not speaking English, and pulled himself up through ambition and industry to be successful and later governor of his state. If he had the magic (D) behind his name, he would be a household name.
(Susanna Martinez is another ... I had the pleasure to hear her speak once, and thought to myself "I am listening to the first woman President of these United States". But, she doesn't have the magic (D), so: villain)
""Mucilage" -- and its cousin mucilaginous -- are great words. I always think of okra when I see them."
Me too! I liked okra until I saw that word used to describe it. Then I didn't like it anymore.
I spend a lot of time in Maine, and it has been interesting to follow the adventures of Monsieur Le Page. He represents the Maine working class, and he has a large following among Maine's large French Canadian population. He's
like Trump in some respects. He periodically comes out with some "outre" statement that offends the state's cultural
elites. Each outrage is followed by a slew of letters in the Portland paper by offended elites writing in a tone of
high dudgeon. As an outsider I find him interesting to observe. He seems to represent Maine's version of "les deplorables."
@rhardin
It won't work. Anonymous sources would have the wrong adjective order. You want mysterious anonymous gypsy women, not anonymous mysterious gypsy women.
No, it will work fine, because they never describe anonymous sources explicitly as "anonymous sources". They say things like "former government officials" or "a person familiar with his thinking" or "a source high in the Justice Department".
So we get "mysterious gypsy women" or "a mysterious gypsy woman familiar with his thinking" or "a mysterious gypsy woman high in the Justice Department". No problem.
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