"The first time I heard music on speakers in the backcountry, I thought, 'This can’t possibly be.' Now it’s very frequent, and people are blasting it.... That doesn’t mean you do what you damn well please. Trails are on public property and come with rules and regulations. Roads are public property, too, and we share them with a lot of people. I can’t just drive my own drive. … That mentality astounds me. Trails are being inundated with a lot of new, clueless people right now, and we need a massive public-education campaign."
From
"Piles of poop, litter on trails, trampled wildflowers. In the social-media era, Washington’s public lands are being destroyed. What can be done?" (Seattle Times).
There are a lot of Instagram accounts used to collect the bad that people who are proud of themselves post on other sides. For example, from
nationalparkshateyou, there's this:
Posts
107 comments:
Yesterday I had the misfortune of being in a public place where rap music was being played in the presence of small children. I heard the line, “bleed once a month.” And, of course, “motherfucker.”
I can imagine one of the children asking his or her mother, “Mommy, what’s a motherfucker?”
I left. Much of today’s popular culture is worse than trash. It is an evil and degrading American life.
And the women had tats. Double yuck.
Thanks liberals for the above.
I've looked through a lot of images at 2 of the shaming accounts on Instagram. The 2 biggest problems (based on photos submitted to those sites) are feeding the animals and using drones (both of which violate explicit rules).
I found this comment too, which incredibly/predictably blames Trump: "It seems as if some people have decided that acting like Trump is the thing to do... Rules? What rules? They are for other people and NOT for self entitled, arrogant, super special people. Get caught? Flip out, lie or pretend to be the “real” victim while seeking sympathy. Sorry, but I’m SICK of people misbehaving and not taking any responsibility for their own mistakes."
Note, too, that there's a problem with public shaming. At some point, it becomes abusive, and the shamers are worse than the person being shamed.
remember when Steven King said:
It's impossible to watch HBO's CHERNOBYL without thinking of Donald Trump; like those in charge of the doomed Russian reactor, he's a man of mediocre intelligence in charge of great power--economic, global--that he does not understand.
If you are a Life Long Liberal with TDS, you can NOT see ANYTHING without blaming President Trump
About playing music while hiking...
1. It might serve some purpose... scaring off bears? drawing in people of the sort you want to hang out with?
2. You'd think people would just use headphones... but maybe hikers in groups don't want to be all walled off from each other.
3. I can remember hiking and singing — especially singing "The Happy Wanderer," which adults taught us and strongly encouraged us to sing — presumably to keep spirits up ("And as I walk/I love to sing/My knapsack on my back/Val Da Ri Val/Val Da Ra...")
4. Last time I went to the beach... about 30 years ago... it was ruined for me by a number of things, but one of them was having to listen to other people's music. For those who are used to music on the beach, however, it may seem normal and good to play music out loud while hiking.
It's not social media it's lack of training. The reason people don't litter is because we had massive, successful propaganda campaigns against littering several Generations ago. I know many people like me who will carry a piece of paper for a mile looking for a trash can. It's pure conditioning. This is propaganda geared toward a tangible good and it worked spectacularly. But I bet not littering falls into a white supremacy category now.
as for the video, Yeah, there WERE trouts living where he threw those rocks.
and YES those trouts won't eat today (they'll be too scared), but i've seen FAR worse.
Seemed Mostly like doofus mostely wanted an excuse to show off his abs. I blame Gyms
A modern Tragedy of the Commons, though these public places are regulated to some degree. Does public shaming work to reduce or eliminate the offensive action? Not so far. Maybe in time. Do you remember the stories from a few weeks ago about what a shithole the Everest base camps has become?
Blaming Trump or Liberals or anyone other than the people that actually commit the offenses is just plain silly - and, yes, deranged.
Ann Althouse said... About playing music while hiking...
the Bears idea is very valid, when i'm by myself in bear country (which happens Far Too Often) i sing the Bear Song*
I remember the first time my fishing Guide said;
"oh! i bought a speaker for my phone! Now we can listen to music while we fish!"
and i was like; HELLO? I'm PAYING YOU TO LISTEN TO ME TALK TURN THAT THING OFF
and that fixed that
the Bear Song*
I hope there's not any Bears,
cause i don't wanna see no Bears,
and if there's any Bears,
they don't wanns see me too
It's a stupid song, and Very repetitive
America needs Woodsy Owl to return!
Stevew
People take their cues from the popular culture. The cool liberals love rap music and the expressive nature of it. It is performed by oppressed minorities. It speaks to them. It is their experience. It is the music of the streets. They are self-absorbed and don’t care about bothering other people.
The noise thing is a whole different problem. I mean anyone that's travel to any other parts of the world nose is incredibly noisy everywhere and the Western world is unusual and how quiet it is. I ran into a woman walking her dogs in my neighborhood and she had music playing from her cell phone. We let the dogs greet each other and I did ask her about it with a general air of the befuddlement. I must have successfully shamed her because she's never done it again and also she doesn't seem to be angry with me. That's pretty good
This is a very old story.
It wasn't a hipster who cut the giant tunnel through the sequoia.
Or maybe it was. A 1900s hipster.
Blame Trump? Read any of the 1960s era environmentalists. For them the big enemies were The U.S. Forest Service (and its love of road making) and the Department of Agriculture (and its love of factory farms).
I am a member of a fb group which seeks to make available and connect experts (doctors and vets) to posters in the event that they or a pet have experienced a snake envenomation. Very explicit rules govern the group which you are given upon joining.
(Using hyperbole) 8 million times a day the admins and moderators tell people who aren't the "patient" to NOT comment on the thread. They post a bright red and yellow graphic as each request for assistance appears saying don't comment (with a few additional instructions). They periodically post the group rules and berate the membership to NOT COMMENT, even if it's a simple "prayers" remark. DON'T DO IT. They will "clean up" a thread with extraneous, useless comments as the doctors/vets are seeking more info and giving advice. And yet, people STILL comment.
And then periodically someone will get butthurt and post the infamous "admins and moderators are so mean what is the purpose of this group if we can't ask a question or if we think we have information that would help or if the nice thing to do is let someone in pain know you care yada, yada..." whiny post. Admins and moderators have resorted to simply banning the offenders.
It's astonishing, really, how irritating and stupid people can be. Social media exposes more than you care to know about fellow human beings.
Great. We're back to the Gilded Age (and before) when people thought nature was made for them to mess with any way they want. I know, let's shoot some buffalo out a train window!
Stupid people. What's irking me at this moment is that those Washington hikers no doubt think that because I vote R, *I* am a callous ignoramus. (I just spent the weekend in Austin, grouchy as heck for the same reason. Doofuses on electric scooters zooming around, or dropping said scooters anywhere they pleased, without regard to the people walking on the sidewalks. But *I* am the oblivious idiot for believing that we ought to exert and maintain control of our border, for believing that throwing my food-encrusted paper plate into a recycling bin instead of the trash is empty virtue-signaling, and for believing that no matter how much money I make, the government's need for revenue dues not constitute a "right" to confiscatory taxes.)
Um.... OT, I guess.
To be fair (cue Letterkenny joke here) a lot of the rules are dumb. For example: don’t pick up a souvenir rock at the Grand Canyon. Everyone in the world could pick a rock up at the Grand Canyon every day for a year and you’d never notice.
One of my pet peeves is music in a quiet place, but that’s a personal preference, like not talking in a library. There’s no absolute moral code about silence. Much as I wish there were.
-XC
I am outside Glacier National Park today and they hand you material that gives advice on dealing with the large predators in the area. Whether it is a mountain lion or a bear, the National Park Service recommends making noise when you hike or bike so the animals are not surprised by people stumbling onto them. I think playing music is a brilliant idea to do this.
The stores sell bells you attach to your belts and hope they make enough noise to get the animals' attention.
I go back to the Glenn Beck rally in 2010, (a mix of Tea Party, religious, & patriotic people- I know you might think I'm being redundant, but I' not). There were a couple hundred thousand people who gathered for a day in front of the Lincoln Memorial. When it was over, they left the place cleaner than before the day started. They cleaned up after themselves and everyone else.
Flash forward a couple of months to the start of Occupy Wall Street (and the rebirth of Antifa). These folks literally shit on cars, raped their neighbors, and left whatever exactly where it dropped from their hands (or other parts of their bodies).
This isn't about Trump standards. This is about the Left's standards. There are none. I've been saying this for years. Remove all standards and see how this goes. Here's how: Seattle. LA. San Francisco. Dems in congress. Academia. Journalists who, as Ben Rhodes pointed out to us- literally know nothing. To say you're a Progressive today is to loudly proclaim you're a moron with no standards.
There will come a time when it will take a strong arm person to force standards back on this society. By that I mean, we've lost our ability to freely live in a civilized society. We gave that up as we allowed our standards to slip more and more. The junkers rule today. People who have regard for traditions that worked, for standards that worked, are laughed at and dismissed. And it'll take a strong arm to squash the junkers. Just telling you how this will go.
I've seen a couple of videos of people dumping stuff out their car windows while parked, and others then picking it up and dumping right back in the window.
It's remarkable how much I enjoyed those videos.
Val-de-ra-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha!
The only music I want to hear at the beach is the ceaseless susuration of the waves.
Music while hiking though is a good animal deterrent. Wearing headphones would be a horrible idea unless you *want* to be attached by a hungry mountain lion.
Sure, music is dandy for not accidentally startling a bear or mountain lion. But that music will also infringe on other people's "aural space," so some discretion is in order. Plus, the idea isn't that the MUSIC will SCARE the animal away - it's that you don't want to round a bend silently and come across a bear blissfully scratching herself on tree bark. Music at a speaking volume will alert the bear that she's not alone and she can leave before you even see her.
(Full disclosure - I'm irrationally scared of bears and make movie-extra efforts to converse animatedly when I'm hiking in bear country. God, don't tell me a joke in that circumstance - I'll laugh as if you're Milton Berle publicly in drag for the first time.)
It's remarkable how much I enjoyed those videos
It seems like that's a way to get run over, eventually, but yes -- very enjoyable
(Link)
Temujin said... There will come a time when it will take a strong arm person to force standards back on this society.
AND, the hilarious part is: WHEN National Socialists take over the country, people will say:
OMG! This guy is Like Hitler!
And people will be all, "oh, they say that about EVERY POLITICIAN"
Then, when people get out of the (electrically driven) rail cars, they'll think
You know, when people talked about Republican concentration camps, i don't think they were like this
The Whole point of the progressives comparing the right to Hitler, is to get people used to the idea of Hitler. When Hitler comes:
HE WILL BE PRO-ENVIRONMENT
HE WILL BE ANTI-MEAT
HE WILL BE ANTI Rap music (or Jazz)
HE WILL BE ANTI-RELIGION
just like the last time. Remember! Only YOU can prevent Wildfires
I had to note that this was about Washington rural lands.
It is a contrast to the urban Washington areas.
Where, for example, Seattle has the poop, litter and loud music in the streets.
Also: discarded needles.
I guess those that discard needles don't make it to the country too much.
I am Laslo.
"4. Last time I went to the beach... about 30 years ago... it was ruined for me by a number of things, but one of them was having to listen to other people's music. For those who are used to music on the beach, however, it may seem normal and good to play music out loud while hiking."
Same with our neighborhood pool. That people automatically assume that everyone else wants to hear their music irritates me.
Trump is just presidenting his own presidency.
It is Trump's fault that there are suddenly many more people with money and time for vacations to spend it. We demand that poverty come back. Enact Carbon Taxes and then we can return to desolation.
Woodsy wouldn’t be woke enough. Need a black bear and a brown bear with headphones scratching records.
Give a damn
Don't spread your jam
All over the woods...
Because that’s OUR HOOD!
Keep it down
Look around
Pick up your trash
And don’t be an (bleep)!
(Fist bumps)
Word...
circa 2020
Be patient.The new wing at Club Gitmo will be opening soon. No place like a Carribean resort.
Campaign ad idea:
Show some of these videos then cut to a shot of Elizabeth Warren with a tear running down her cheek.
Über allen Gipfeln Ist Ruh,
In allen Wipfeln Spürest du
Kaum einen Hauch;
Die Vögelein schweigen im Walde.
Warte nur, balde
Ruhest du auch.
Just hit the bastard with a Quickrete milk shake?
It’s all the rage in Portland.
Kevin said... Need a black bear and a brown bear
That's uncool dude! You supposed say; Bears of Color
Them Polars all the time, with their White Privilege!
People all the time worrying about those Bears?
What about THESE BEARS!
BLACK BEARS MATTER!
LOL gilbar!
We need to bus the bear cubs to end ursine segregation.
I need to control the actions of other people. I want that stopped. I don't have to tell you what that is. I will tell you later.
In general hike your own hike applies to shaming people on trail too. You committed to the thru and signed up for adversity- jerks are rare and most everyone just rolls with it. My AT thru hiker friends lament being on trail near population centers on the weekends. Too many obnoxious day hikers. They’ve had a couple loud music players walk through camp in the middle of the night with the beats cranked...yuk
Then there’s the people that set up their tent INSIDE the shelter where you’re supposed to rollout your sleeping bag on the floor- sleeping for 6 or more.
Nude hiking day seemed to go well. Check out my friend Mulligan on the ATs YouTube post for that! G rated...
Pollution. Polluting the environment with trash. Hate it. Hate the people people that pollute.
Two days ago a new neighbor asked if the neighbor hood has break ins. No, I said. Nothing I have experienced and no one else has mentioned. Very quiet enclave we live in.
She asked why the lights on my garage are always on. Ruins her star watching late in the evening. UGH! So now I'm the polluter! My lights arent switched. The come on at dark and click off after 3 hours. Then come on with motion. Not sure what I'm going to do to clean up my act.
abs boy needs to learn to lift with his legs. payback (pay BACK, get it)in a few years will be richly deserved.
He's tossing the rock not for the pleasure 9/0 of tossing the rock, but because he's making a 'look at meeeeee' video.
You know the world of: "I, me, I, I, My, I", Barack Obama.
Also, if you’re not gonna cathole, poop far far away from trail. Or, way cool if you want to pack out your poop but don’t drop it in the wastebasket by the door at the McDonalds just off trail.
FWIW, the Obama Derangement Syndrome displayed above was intentional unlike the actual TDS where the boy just can't hep it.
You people are like the end of the world is nigh nutballs. Always having you indignant aggravation receiver set to 11.
The world is simultaneously ugly and sublime. Always was and always will be.
If you are going to walk through bear or mountain lion country, always take along someone who is slower than you.
"Walruses too."
The make great goalies.
I kinda fondly recall the days of transistor radios and hearing the music, sporting events, talk shows and commercials that passing strangers were listening to.
But AM radio waves carry the sound of nostalgia.
and, from the Amazon portal (and YES, i have BOUGHT a copy, and it ROCKS!)
Bears Want to KILL You by Ethan Nicole
"snake envenomation?" Does one of those strict rules address verbosity?
You know, if the wildlife folks released cannibals into the wild instead of wolves the problem would be solved.
Consensus seems to be hiking with your beats cranking means you’re fantasizing an 80s movie complete with hiker montage music. 80s nostalgia is in this summer...
"That people automatically assume that everyone else wants to hear their music irritates me."
Somehow, I doubt that everyone else's wants factor into the calculation at all.
Last time I went to the beach...it was ruined for me by...having to listen to other people's music.
Hell is other people's music.
I can remember hiking and singing... presumably to keep spirits up...
Were you hiking through the Austrian Alps to escape the Nazis?
@David Begley
Allowing and making noise in a public place, via music I don't like, is different than disturbing and trashing a place, but I see your point and it's a good one.
As Girl Scout leader, I've taken groups of teenage girls on long hiking treks, long stretches of the Appalachian Trail. Scouts sing. It's in their DNA, but there are lots of reasons to sing on the trail. There's alerting animals to your presence. There's establishing a sort of cadence that keeps the group moving at the same pace. From a leader's perspective, when the group was finding it difficult to sing, I knew the hike was becoming strenuous for the girls. Time to slow down or maybe take a rest. There were times when quiet contemplation was the more appropriate mode, and we did that, too. If we were on a day hike in places where there were a lot of other hikers, then most animals would already be avoiding the trails. The girls would be too self-conscious to sing. The trails wouldn't be all that strenuous. But they found that kind of hiking pretty boring.
The people who always blame Trump usually get cause and effect wrong or even backwards. It might be a diagnosable condition for which TDS is just a symptom.
RE: Having music foisted upon you in the public space. Why is it always rap when this happens? Or at least in my experience. Has anyone ever been forced to listen to jazz, country, or chamber music? With so many musical forms in the world, you'd think there would be more diversity in the music you hear randomly. But no, always the one form over and over. Why?
The good thing about Cadence Calls, is they're not too loud (sure, a Platoon of riflemen counting off is kinda loud; but That's a Lot of people); at least not ANYTHING like electrically amplified music .
If you can't sing; you're going too fast
If you can shout; you should pick up the pace
Singing is Great for groups; Nothing builds the ability to "work together" like singing; You could Almost say it help make you Gung-ho!
The stores sell bells you attach to your belts and hope they make enough noise to get the animals' attention.
From a sign:
"Due to the frequency of human-bear encounters, the B.C. Fish and Wildlife Branch is advising hikers, hunters, fishermen and any persons that use the out of doors in a recreational or work related function to take extra precautions while in the field.
We advise the outdoorsman to wear little noisy bells on clothing so as to give advanced warning to any bears that might be close by so you don’t take them by surprise.
We also advise anyone using the out-of-doors to carry “Pepper Spray” with him is case of an encounter with a bear.
Outdoorsmen should also be on the watch for fresh bear activity, and be able to tell the difference between black bear feces and grizzly bear feces. Black bear feces is smaller and contains lots of berries and squirrel fur. Grizzly bear shit has bells in it and smells like pepper."
"She asked why the lights on my garage are always on. Ruins her star watching late in the evening. UGH! So now I'm the polluter!"
Hate to break it to you but you are the polluter.
Too many people on the planet. Too many selfish jerks in the mix.
Old fashioned anti-meth-style corny ad:
SELF-POLLUTION
"The above is an illustration of D. S. Burton of Harris, Pa., before the habits of secret vice had begun to tell on him. The second illustration shows the same young man three years later taken when he had become an inveterate victim of the vice."
[second illustration - he's been doing meth before it was invented but telling people he's just jerking off]
"The doctor's opinion was: "If this young man escapes the asylum he and his parents will be fortunate."
As stated above this isn't America, this is Left-wing America. Why would you expect liberals who live with shit/drug needles in SF, Seattle, Portland, LA i.e. anywhere they live in large numbers, to behave differently when they're out in the wild?
And of course any attempt to enforce the rules in the National Parks would be met with cries of "fascist" and law suits from the ACLU. Which would be supported by the Left-wing Obama judges.
I'd rather have 45 than pepper spray, but that's me.
@iowan2 said..."My lights arent switched."
I didn't understand this at first. How did this happen? You're builder installed them this way?
Bear bells are entirely sufficient for the purpose. Bears aren't hard of hearing.
It's funny because it implies the bears ate the hikers.
A friend of mine, years ago, was hiking the John Muir Trail in the Sierras when he heard someone ahead of him on the trail yodeling. An hour or so later they met on the trail and he found that the yodeler was one of his law school professors. They hiked together for a couple of weeks on the trail.
"...music on speakers in the backcountry..."
This absolutely enrages me. The proliferation of "forced (really shitty) music environments" (doctor's waiting room?!? wtf...) has already reached "menace to public mental health" levels, but parks and trails? What the hell is wrong with these people? Use your headphones or stay home. You can get a treadmill and watch your tee-vee and blare your music to your heart's content while walking, you retarded-social-development assholes.
First encountered this about 30 years ago at a Rocky Mountain Park campsite, so it's not new. Assholes gotta asshole.
Don't tell me that any significant percentage of the miscreants are just trying to avoid bear encounters. And no, it's not the same thing as hikers singing. These are the same people who blare music at deafening decibels while biking on shared city trails. And who used to talk loudly on their cellphones everywhere (including "quiet rooms" at public libraries), but who have now kicked it up another notch in assholery and turn on the speakerphone, because it's more comfortable for them than holding the phone to their ear.
Encountered this phenomenon twice in the last week at a library. The perps were a mix of perplexed and very put-out when the librarian politely asked them to desist. One - a middle-aged woman - kept right at it after the librarian left, until I went over and asked her to desist in polite but firmer tones. At which point she left in a huff. It's not as if there aren't comfortable nearby "noise OK" areas in that library where she could have yacked as loudly as she wanted. But she just *had* to use the designated quiet area. (It's telling that "quiet" is no longer the default in a bleedin' library.) Maybe it had the comfiest chairs? And she's the center of the universe, after all. Asshole.
Assholes. Moronic, noise-addicted assholes. Have I mentioned how much I hate these assholes?
"Trails are being inundated with a lot of new, clueless people right now, and we need a massive public-education campaign."
*Everything* is being inundated with a lot of new, clueless people right now. We already have a massive public-education campaign - called the public schools - but it doesn't seem to be helping.
They used to rent little prospector hammers, whatever you call them, at Stonehenge for people to take chips home with them. I think that respect for the wilderness is a very recent value.
In New Orleans nearly all the pupils in a large female boarding school were practicing this horrible vice and the scandal of the fearful discovery is not yet forgotten.
Sounds like an interesting school
"*Everything* is being inundated with a lot of new, clueless people right now."
I guess it's because they've been raised to think the world revolves around them. We were raised exactly the opposite (at least I was).
Bet most are young SJW's. Maybe a few more selfies as they step back over a cliff.
I think it’s really funny to mock and deride people who think that drugs can be harmful in any way. What’s really hilarious is to hang out around methadone clinics and homeless shelters and laugh at all the stupid yokels who fell for the propaganda that drugs could be harmful and believing it, were cursed to live it out.
Nobody: I think that respect for the wilderness is a very recent value.
As the abundance of 19th-century graffiti defacing Western rock faces will attest.
Though, to be fair, judging from all the "Kilroy was here" commentary added to walls of petroglyphs/pictographs, they didn't disrespect nature any more than they disrespected the human stuff.
I think that respect for the wilderness is a very recent value.
Those poorly indoctrinated ancients left a bunch of gigantic rocks standing around. Do you know how it's going to cost to put them back in the natural area they came from? A lot, I bet.
Once you backpack in a few days, you don't run into the heavers. Obviously, that dude doesn't fish or want abybody else to.
whitney said...
It's not social media it's lack of training. The reason people don't litter is because we had massive, successful propaganda campaigns against littering several Generations ago. I know many people like me who will carry a piece of paper for a mile looking for a trash can. It's pure conditioning. This is propaganda geared toward a tangible good and it worked spectacularly. But I bet not littering falls into a white supremacy category now.
**************
One of the very few jarringly false 60's scenes in "Madmen" occurred when the Draper family picknicked in a park, and then lifted up their blanket and strew all their trash over the grass.
People didn't do that then. Frequent commercials and ad campaigns against littering made it socially uncool. Today, it's "who gives a bleep".
"Bear bells are entirely sufficient for the purpose. Bears aren't hard of hearing."
We always called them dinner bells in brown bear country.
Dear Seattle Times: You live in the fucking state of Washington! After adopting Progressive politics and its pompous self-righteousness, what else do you expect? Don't you know that you are following California's path to shithole status?
Oh, that's right...your state has been absorbing a lot of California escapees. Sorry.
Expat(ish): One of my pet peeves is music in a quiet place, but that’s a personal preference, like not talking in a library. There’s no absolute moral code about silence. Much as I wish there were.
No, there isn't an absolute moral code, but there are agreed-upon social norms established among people who share preferences, including preferences in how public space is to be used. These norms aren't trivial. They have enormous impact on the quality of life of those living under them.
There are enormous cultural differences in these preferences. None of those preferences are correct or incorrect in any abstract moral sense. But both those who prefer a lively, noisy environment, and those who prefer a quieter one, are going to take a severe hit to their quality of life if forced to live under their non-preferred conditions. "Tolerance" can't fix this, because these are mutually incompatible preferences.
If I were a billionaire I'd bankroll a money-losing bistro/cafe just so there existed a nice cozy neighborhood bistro/cafe where *I* would like to eat, sit by myself with a cup of coffee or a glass of wine, or converse with my friends. Where I would never be subjected to other people's taste in (loud, shitty, intrusive, thought&conversation-killing vocal) music. No tee-vee, no speakers. For me and the minority of other human beings in town who are sick of the all-pervading Clown World soundtrack.
When camping or hiking, the last thing I want to hear is someone's idea of music. At a state campground the other night, campers were 'treated' to a rock concert of sorts that lasted well into the night. And it was a Thursday, not even a weekend. I lay in my sleeping bag debating to myself the wisdom of putting on my bathrobe, trotting over to the offending party and telling them, "Turn that shit off or I'll turn it off for you" or, perhaps, a milder version, "Excuse me, but some of us are trying to sleep. I wonder if you would consider winding it up for the night". I did neither.
"1. It might serve some purpose... scaring off bears?"
We were at the lake house last month and a group of yelling young people took a boat out into the middle of the lake and cranked up the music. It was midnight.
People who do these things know what they are doing. They are assholes.
Or maybe they were trying to scare the beers in the middle of the lake.
Whitney recalls: Generations ago. I know many people like me who will carry a piece of paper for a mile looking for a trash can. It's pure conditioning.
Yes. In my family, littering was considered a crime punishable by death. To this day, seeing litter evokes an inordinate level of anger in me.
The 8 Principles of Leave No Trace
1. Plan ahead and prepare
2. Travel and camp on durable surfaces
3. Dispose of waste properly
4. Leave what you find
5. Minimize campfire impacts
6. Respect wildlife
7. Be considerate of other visitors
8. Imply social-media-type-white people are making a mess.
Trash at the Border Highlights the Environmental Cost of Illegal Immigration
Migrant trash piles up at remote U.S.-Mexico border areas
Park Service: Illegals destroying federal lands, unsafe for camping
When illegals overrun U.S. national parks
In Mexico it's perfectly acceptable to throw trash out the car or bus window.
We always called them dinner bells in brown bear country.
The thing about bells in the bear shit is funny, but supposedly grizzlies don't attack and eat people (a rare exception), they just defend their cubs or territory when they're surprised; while black bears occasionally do track people in order to attack.
Aren't you suppose to go out in nature to get away from the modern world, including recorded music. I mean, I can't even imagine myself going on a hike listening to music, even on headphones.
In fact, playing your music in the open air in any public place is rude.
I created the slogan "Don't be a fuckhead and litter" back in 1970. It took time but seemed to work eventually.
At a state campground the other night, campers were 'treated' to a rock concert of sorts that lasted well into the night. And it was a Thursday, not even a weekend. I lay in my sleeping bag debating to myself the wisdom of putting on my bathrobe, trotting over to the offending party and telling them, "Turn that shit off or I'll turn it off for you" or, perhaps, a milder version, "Excuse me, but some of us are trying to sleep. I wonder if you would consider winding it up for the night". I did neither.
When this happens, I alternate between rage at the offenders, and rage at the state park rangers who are too lazy/afraid/wrapped up in doing their own thing to enforce quiet hours even though they can hear it, too.
If there are enough people on the trail that their music annoys you, there is no reason to fear bears. I've had dozens of bear encounters in the Sierras - I've only had them when there are no or few people on the trail. In only one case was the bear not giving ground (or climbing a tree). Coming down off Alta Peak, we saw him but figured he didn't see us so we made a detour. Popular trails with lot's of people (with or without music) have too much activity for the average bear to hang around. We're just like the bears - we try not to frequent those trails.
On the Forbidden Plateau on Vancouver Island (a very popular hike), we had a woman, who was walking and clapping every couple of steps, "join" us while we were hiking. Never seen anything larger than a squirrel on that hike.
Now in a trail in Alaska, we were by ourselves, so I told my wife revised Fairy tales like "Goldie Ranger and the three Grizzlies" to let the big boys know I was coming. We found lots of salmon parts on the trail that showed the bears had been there. The scariest one was freshly caught and not chewed upon - it seems that the Fairly tale about Goldie Ranger was effective.
The guy throwing the Rock is hot.
Blogger gilbar said...
Them Polars all the time, with their White Privilege!
People all the time worrying about those Bears?
What about THESE BEARS!
BLACK BEARS MATTER!
Black bears are best.
Bears
Beets
Battlestar Galactica
"The guy throwing the Rock is hot."
The guy throwing the rock is an idiot.
Rocketeer comments: When this happens, I alternate between rage at the offenders, and rage at the state park rangers who are too lazy/afraid/wrapped up in doing their own thing to enforce quiet hours even though they can hear it, too.
And at most state and USFS parks nowadays there is a 'host' but no rangers anywhere around. They may drive through on occasion but that's about it. The host is just a volunteer who gets a free campsite but who generally ignores any wrongdoing by campers. If things get really out of hand and there is cell service, the sheriff is called but that's usually by one the of campers, not the host. Fortunately, most of the places I camp are pretty quiet but I avoid public campgrounds on weekends.
Mr. Pants and I often, in our advancing dotage, wonder aloud if we are changing or if the world around us is changing. On Saturday morning we took the two youngest for brunch at a family-style diner. A large group of weirdos was seated next to us whose very presence and lack of [what we consider] manners ruined our breakfast. Fat sloppy grandma barely squeezed into a cheap tank top watched loud videos on her phone the whole time. Dude telling loud stories laced with F bombs with his daughter? niece? baby sister?, about 10 years old, sitting next to him and our 3 and 1 year olds at the next table. Another table had a woman stand on her booth seat, trying to kill a fly on the window with her flip flop. (insert barf emoji) While we were waiting for a table a heavily pregnant woman walked in while there were several men sitting in the waiting area; my own husband was already standing but none of the sitting men got up and offered her his seat and I wound up doing so. So I stood there holding my 25 pound toddler for fifteen minutes while a bunch of able bodied men sat there and stared at their phones.
Everywhere you go now people are coarse, loud, inconsiderate and unrefined. Kids run around screaming and barging into people, adults listen to filthy music and have loud phone conversations, everyone swears all the time no matter the setting, people don't clean up after themselves; few people even bother to be on time for appointments; people don't RSVP to invitations. On and on. This is not how I was raised and I don't remember the public being this way when I was a girl, and I'm not even that old; I'm 39.
I am required by my faith to love people but oh my God, do I ever bleeping hate them sometimes. I swear I am rapidly losing interest in ever leaving my house and backyard. And it's depressing because we are raising our kids to be polite and considerate, but what difference does it make when that is not considered normal anymore?
Take your enviro-normative privilege and shove it, said the stone thrower to the E-SJW warrior.
Oh I went in to put dinner in the oven and while I was slicing potatoes I remembered two more incidents, in my somewhat high-end neighborhood:
1. the guy across the street started putting on loud dirty rap music in his garage while washing cars in his driveway with his teenage son; it was loud enough that I could hear it inside my own house with my windows and doors firmly shut. I wasn't going to confront him over it, but after this happening a few times his immediate neighbor did and I watched a loud argument with flailing arms and everything. I guess he gave in because I haven't seen that behavior in a while but who does that?! and who talks back when someone asks you to stop?!
2. I caught on my security camera some teenage boys I recognized but didn't know running around in my front yard and driveway, touching and hiding behind our cars and running through my flower beds. I figured out who their parent was and sent him a private message on our neighborhood message board, with a link to the footage and a polite, "Could you have a talk with your boys about staying out of our yard and not touching our cars and landscaping?" If you're thinking he said "Oh I'm so mortified that they behaved like that. I'm so sorry that happened; we are not raising them to be disrespectful. Is there any damage that I need to address? They'll be over tomorrow to apologize" like you or I would do: you are wrong. He was a complete jerk, never apologized, never acknowledged that that is not appropriate behavior, and told me I am the problem because I don't want random kids running around my property.
God help us all
I think attributing bad/crude public behavior to Trump's influence is extremely ironic. People who have met him on a one-on-one basis report that he is very courteous and graceful. As much as he is videoed, I have never seen one of him throwing trash on the ground.
"I am required by my faith to love people but oh my God, do I ever bleeping hate them sometimes."
I'm glad I don't have that burden. I feel no guilt over my opinion of my fellow man.
i've reached my limit this month already and won't give the times money, but I can tell you exactly why this is happening. The influx of tech workers. Everything they touch turns out like this.
IhaveMisplacedMyPants: I'm totally with you on this, and i'm 33. People are awful and they just pass their awfulness on to their kids.
Original Mike said...
"The guy throwing the Rock is hot."
The guy throwing the rock is an idiot.
No, he's not. He's a guy hefting and throwing a rock like men have done since time immemorial. Throwing a rock into a stream or river doesn't hurt either. Of course, it's better to have some plan for were to place the rock. When I was a kid there was a brook between the apartments I lived in and the ball fields/community park. Several of us got together and found some large rocks and spaced them out across the brook so we could get across without wading or getting wet- if we kept our balance. There's not a single stream, brook, river, or flowing water of any kind that hasn't been altered by men, bear, and beavers since originally formed. I recall a study of East Coast rivers a few years back to determine how to bring them back to their "natural state". The study determined that there's no possible way to know the "natural state". Want get across a river and don't have bridge building technology yet? Create a ford. Keep piling rocks across until there's a shallow crossing. AS you do it, you'll also be widening the river. Want a back eddy to fish in? Throw ricks in to create a partial blockage. Look at what beavers do with their dam construction, creating lakes and bogs by blocking rivers.
Leave no trace? Elitist camping by idjuts who want to pretend they're the first people to ever be somewhere. There's not a spot in the U.S. that hasn't been trod upon. Leave no trash is appropriate all the time. 50 years ago the idea of wilderness camping was continuous improvement. If you were hiking and came across a previous campsite and it as nearing the end of the day- you'd stop there. Use the existing fire ring. Hunt around for some more rocks and build it up a little. Deadfall around? Pick it up and pule it near the fire ring. With leave no trace it's build a fire ring-and when you leave the next day, scatter the rocks! Make the next people who come along build another one. Scatter and hide the deadfall- make the next people work for it! Think about it for just a moment- How unhuman is it to build something, use it once- AND DESTROY IT? It's just plain stupid.
Man interferes with the natural course of events in many ways. If it weren't for man's efforts to keep the Mississippi river where it's at- it would by now have changed it's watercourse well to the east of it's present location. We divert about half the flow of the Niagara River to power generation. If we let things run their natural course, Niagara Falls would be Niagara rapids by now, and who want to look at a bunch of rapids? As is, it's going to be the Niagara Rapids some time in the future in any event. But mankind is delaying it.
The thing about bells in the bear shit is funny, but supposedly grizzlies don't attack and eat people (a rare exception), they just defend their cubs or territory when they're surprised; while black bears occasionally do track people in order to attack.
Ha ha. It's actually the reverse. Brown (grizzly) bears are known to sometimes track, kill, and eat (not necessarily in that order) people.
Post a Comment