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Subject: "Ask Gryphon Anything, Volume 2, Issue 1"     Previous Topic | Next Topic
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Peter Eng
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"Ask Gryphon Anything, Volume 2, Issue 1"
 
   In UF, did the United States Air Force re-form after the Exile? (I am assuming that Largo went after it as well, although I could be wrong.)

Peter Eng
--
Insert humorous comment here.


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  Subject     Author     Message Date     ID  
  RE: Ask Gryphon Anything, Volume 2, Issue 1 Gryphonadmin Aug-16-16 1
     RE: Ask Gryphon Anything, Volume 2, Issue 1 McFortner Aug-17-16 2
         RE: Ask Gryphon Anything, Volume 2, Issue 1 zojojojo Aug-17-16 3
             RE: Ask Gryphon Anything, Volume 2, Issue 1 Wiregeek Aug-18-16 4
                 RE: Ask Gryphon Anything, Volume 2, Issue 1 Pasha Aug-19-16 5
  RE: Ask Gryphon Anything, Volume 2, Issue 1 jonathanlennox Aug-26-16 6
     RE: Ask Gryphon Anything, Volume 2, Issue 1 Gryphonadmin Aug-26-16 7
         RE: Ask Gryphon Anything, Volume 2, Issue 1 Peter Eng Aug-26-16 8
         RE: Ask Gryphon Anything, Volume 2, Issue 1 Pasha Aug-26-16 9
             RE: Ask Gryphon Anything, Volume 2, Issue 1 Kendra Kirai Aug-26-16 10
                 RE: Ask Gryphon Anything, Volume 2, Issue 1 Pasha Aug-29-16 24
                     RE: Ask Gryphon Anything, Volume 2, Issue 1 Kendra Kirai Aug-29-16 25
             RE: Ask Gryphon Anything, Volume 2, Issue 1 TheOtherSean Aug-27-16 12
         RE: Ask Gryphon Anything, Volume 2, Issue 1 Mercutio Aug-26-16 11
             RE: Ask Gryphon Anything, Volume 2, Issue 1 Astynax Aug-28-16 15
                 RE: Ask Gryphon Anything, Volume 2, Issue 1 Gryphonadmin Aug-28-16 16
                     RE: Ask Gryphon Anything, Volume 2, Issue 1 Mercutio Aug-28-16 17
         RE: Ask Gryphon Anything, Volume 2, Issue 1 MoonEyes Aug-27-16 13
             RE: Ask Gryphon Anything, Volume 2, Issue 1 Gryphonadmin Aug-27-16 14
                 RE: Ask Gryphon Anything, Volume 2, Issue 1 Mercutio Aug-28-16 18
                     RE: Ask Gryphon Anything, Volume 2, Issue 1 The Traitor Aug-28-16 19
                 RE: Ask Gryphon Anything, Volume 2, Issue 1 BeardedFerret Aug-29-16 20
                 RE: Ask Gryphon Anything, Volume 2, Issue 1 jonathanlennox Aug-29-16 21
                     RE: Ask Gryphon Anything, Volume 2, Issue 1 Gryphonadmin Aug-29-16 22
                         RE: Ask Gryphon Anything, Volume 2, Issue 1 Mercutio Aug-29-16 23

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Gryphonadmin
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1. "RE: Ask Gryphon Anything, Volume 2, Issue 1"
In response to message #0
 
   >In UF, did the United States Air Force re-form after the Exile?

Never disbanded! They were on a contract out on the Frontier when the thing went down, and pretty much disappeared. Irregular operations under a variety of organizational aliases followed, all over top of a running shadow war with GENOM's hunters. Picture The A-Team if both the A-Team and the guy who was after them were whole armies and you have a fair idea of the vibe.

--G.
-><-
Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor-in-Chief, & Forum Mod
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/
zgryphon at that email service Google has
Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.


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McFortner
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Aug-17-16, 03:42 PM (EDT)
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2. "RE: Ask Gryphon Anything, Volume 2, Issue 1"
In response to message #1
 
   Guerrilla warfare. I like it.

Michael C. Fortner
SrA, 6949th ESS, USAF, 1989-1993
"Maxim 37: There is no such thing as "overkill".
There is only "open fire" and "I need to reload".


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zojojojo
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3. "RE: Ask Gryphon Anything, Volume 2, Issue 1"
In response to message #2
 
   >Guerrilla warfare. I like it.
>

Guerrilla warfare with A-10s!!!

-Z


---
Remember kids: guns make you stupid, duct tape makes you smart.


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Wiregeek
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4. "RE: Ask Gryphon Anything, Volume 2, Issue 1"
In response to message #3
 
  
>Guerrilla warfare with A-10s!!!


Making the Big Damn Heroes of the show the mechanics keeping those birds in the black, and the supply sergeants scrounging the supplies to keep 'em makin' whoopie.


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Pasha
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Aug-19-16, 07:17 PM (EDT)
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5. "RE: Ask Gryphon Anything, Volume 2, Issue 1"
In response to message #4
 
   >
>>Guerrilla warfare with A-10s!!!
>
>
>Making the Big Damn Heroes of the show the mechanics keeping those
>birds in the black, and the supply sergeants scrounging the supplies
>to keep 'em makin' whoopie.

So, A-Team meets Battlestar Galactica (2004).

I'd watch it.

--
-Pasha
"Don't change the subject"
"Too slow, already did."


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jonathanlennox
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6. "RE: Ask Gryphon Anything, Volume 2, Issue 1"
In response to message #0
 
   Since it's up in your neck of the, well, woods, what's your opinion on this new National Monument that Obama just declared?


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Gryphonadmin
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7. "RE: Ask Gryphon Anything, Volume 2, Issue 1"
In response to message #6
 
   >Since it's up in your neck of the, well, woods, what's your opinion on
>this new National Monument that Obama just declared?

oh god someone asked about the fucking national monument

OK, so. That's not just in my neck of the woods, in a lot of ways it is my neck of the woods, and I tell you what, it's been a hot-button issue here since at least 2002, when I moved back to the state and went to work at what was then my local newspaper. It touches on a lot of ingrained cultural forces in this region that go back to the year dot. Around here, Roxanne Quimby (the Burt's Bees lady, who bought up the land that she then presented to the feds to make up what, at the time, she intended to be a national park) is roundly hated as the quintessential Person From Away who wishes to protect the Maine woods from the people who live in it. There are a lot of those, and many of them become noisy and troublesome activists of a particularly unpleasant, patronizing, paternalistic stripe.

They are closely associated (and often explicitly aligned) with another group of people who are held in low regard by many of the people of the Katahdin region, environmentalists, who are widely (if in large part, I would argue, inaccurately) seen as the primary reason why the pulp and paper industry in these parts (which, I should stress, was the only industry of any note in these parts) died. I think I've talked about this before: a lot of people around here are out of work with no discernible skills and nowhere to put them to use if they had them, and as a consequence are desperate and angry. Most of them are angry at environmentalists, recreational carpetbaggers, and Foreign Competition, and Roxanne Quimby is two out of three. (Some folks around here wouldn't be too surprised to learn that she owned a stake in a Russian paper mill or some such, too.)

Adding to that, this region has a rich tradition of disdaining outdoorsy tourists (the only kind likely to come here, as there is nothing else here but The Woods). When we had a thriving industry in town, we didn't need them and they just got in the way. Now that we don't, we kind of do need them and resent them the way dependent people tend to resent the people they're dependent on. Contra to that prevailing popular opinion, you have the locals who actually work (often as struggling entrepreneur types) in the hospitality industry, who, in pushing back against that tide, tend to become not a lot less strident and talk-downy than the environmental crowd (with whom they are often in sympathy, since their business model depends on the Unspoiled Wilderness-ness of it all, and that makes them borderline to the skeptical local mind as it is).

There are deep divisions and a lot of anger 'round these parts, is what I'm getting at, and for going on 15 years now, the "national park" issue has been big jagged chunks of rock salt rubbed vigorously into the bloodiest parts. Hell, there are straight-up conspiracy theories in circulation that old Great Northern Paper was put down specifically to make way for it. Until very recently, over in Medway (the neighboring town closest to the Interstate), a local business run by a second-generation immigrant with an imperfect but oddly eloquent grasp of English displayed a large sign reading

WHY MILL
TEAR DOWN?
N. PARK??

(Which always struck me as slightly futile, since the way it's worded you wouldn't have a blind clue what it was about unless you already knew, but anyway.)

As for me, I don't really have a dog in the primary fight. I was close enough to the hypocenter when the bomb dropped on Great Northern to know that the environmental movement didn't really have a hell of a lot to do with it, nor did the outdoorsy tourists. GNP fell because it would have taken a genius management team to make a paper company work in northern Maine in the early 21st century, and what it had instead was a series of clownshoes and fraudsters, the best of which can charitably be described as "well-meaning". The cracks in the pulp-and-paper industry were showing as early as the 1980s, now that hindsight provides the clarity to recognize them, and while some of that was environmentally driven, most of it is down to what the right wing likes to misquote Adam Smith and call the Invisible Hand of the Market.

So I don't blame the Sierra Club or snowmobilers for the end of the industrial glory days, but on the other hand, I don't much care for them, either, because I believe the entire purpose of the last 10,000 years of human civilization has been making it so we don't have to be outdoors like a bunch of goddamn animals. :)

My own concern with the idea of a national park (or national monument, as they're now calling it, I'm fuzzy on what the distinction is but I'm sure there is one) on my doorstep is not connected to conspiracy theories about federal land grabs or Agenda Whateveritis at the UN (the one some people around here think calls for a systematic depopulation of the state to make way for the displaced population of Somalia or Syria or whatever the fuck it is, seriously, people think this). My concern is that I've been to other towns that are the "gateways" to national parks and they're horrible.

Take, for example, Gatlinburg, Tennessee, the last town before the entrance to Great Smoky Mountains National Park. I've been there, and it is the most godawfully tacky place you can even imagine. It's all "see the death car"-grade wax museums and places selling "Indian" trinkets and Ripley's Believe It or Not. It's every Walmart-parking-lot stereotype you can think of. The kind of place where you're glad to catch sight of a Hardee's for its reassuringly upscale atmosphere. Millinocket is a bit of a hole, I grant you, but it's not that and I really would prefer it not to become that. I'll take "crumbling post-industrial nowhere" over that shit any day of the year.

So yeah. I believe I'm not on that train, although not for quite the same reasons that a lot of my neighbors are not on it. Unlike many of them (for example, my sainted right-wing-loony mother, who voted for Richard Nixon in 1972 and would do so again tomorrow even though he's a criminal and dead), I do at least believe that the National Park Service provides a useful function to society and should not be dismantled as Liberal Nonsense.

--G.
-><-
Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor-in-Chief, & Forum Mod
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/
zgryphon at that email service Google has
Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.


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Peter Eng
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Aug-26-16, 01:04 PM (EDT)
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8. "RE: Ask Gryphon Anything, Volume 2, Issue 1"
In response to message #7
 
   That's useful to know.

I wish there was some way to make a profit from commentary like this, primarily because you'd be very good at it, although I have to allow that you're not in the best place to make use of such a skill. (Also, the sun is kind of warm.)

Peter Eng
--
News ain't what it used to be.


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Pasha
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Aug-26-16, 04:43 PM (EDT)
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9. "RE: Ask Gryphon Anything, Volume 2, Issue 1"
In response to message #7
 
   >My own concern with the idea of a national park (or national monument,
>as they're now calling it, I'm fuzzy on what the distinction is but
>I'm sure there is one)

There are two big differences. The first has longer term impact, because it's basically who runs them. National Parks are run by the Parks service, natch, while National Monuments are run by various and sundry other federal services ranging from US Fish and Wildlife to the Department of Defense (Which is think is just White Sands, but I could be wrong).

The other, and highly relevant one right now is that, due to the wording of the Antiquities Act, Congress creates National Parks, but the President has "nearly-unfettered discretion as to the nation of the object to be protected and the size of the area reserved"<1>.

This means that Mr Obama doesn't need to get a hostile Congress in line in order to designate the area a National Monument, but would in order to get it made a National Park.

>Gatlinburg, Tennessee

I can't read this and *not* think of A Boy Named Sue.
--
-Pasha <1> Wikipedia
"Don't change the subject"
"Too slow, already did."


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Kendra Kirai
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Aug-26-16, 07:31 PM (EDT)
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10. "RE: Ask Gryphon Anything, Volume 2, Issue 1"
In response to message #9
 
   The terrible cynic in my also thinks (perhaps highly incorrectly) that the wording also makes it easier for it to be exploited should some resource or other be discovered in it. The whole 'drilling in national parks' bit. If nothing else, it should go over with the public easier because it isn't a 'park'.


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Pasha
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24. "RE: Ask Gryphon Anything, Volume 2, Issue 1"
In response to message #10
 
   >The terrible cynic in my also thinks (perhaps highly incorrectly) that
>the wording also makes it easier for it to be exploited should some
>resource or other be discovered in it. The whole 'drilling in national
>parks' bit. If nothing else, it should go over with the public easier
>because it isn't a 'park'.

Monuments are just as protected from exploitation.

--
-Pasha
"Don't change the subject"
"Too slow, already did."


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Kendra Kirai
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Aug-29-16, 11:26 PM (EDT)
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25. "RE: Ask Gryphon Anything, Volume 2, Issue 1"
In response to message #24
 
   But the public is less likely to care about it since it isn't a 'park', making it potentially slightly easier to slip a change in...well, like I said, maybe I'm just a horrible cynic.


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TheOtherSean
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12. "RE: Ask Gryphon Anything, Volume 2, Issue 1"
In response to message #9
 
   >There are two big differences. The first has longer term impact,
>because it's basically who runs them. National Parks are run by the
>Parks service, natch, while National Monuments are run by various and
>sundry other federal services ranging from US Fish and Wildlife to the
>Department of Defense (Which is think is just White Sands, but I could
>be wrong).

To add some additional detail:

While other federal agencies can and do administer some of America's 123 National Monuments, about 70% are administered by the National Park Service (NPS); 95% are administered by a Department of Interior agency, including the NPS. Since most are created on existing Federal lands, whichever agency was administering the lands beforehand usually ends up administering the monument, though there are exceptions.

In this case it is clearly going to be an NPS-administered unit. I think it'll be their second largest unit in New England, after Acadia.

--
The Other Sean - Don't accept substitutes!
Quis Custodiet Ipsos Custodes?


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Mercutio
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11. "RE: Ask Gryphon Anything, Volume 2, Issue 1"
In response to message #7
 
   LAST EDITED ON Aug-26-16 AT 10:45 PM (EDT)
 
This is especially germane because this particular creation happened the day before the 100th anniversary of the creation of the National Parks Service. I'm not a big fan of Woodrow Wilson, who as a President was not skilled in the areas in which he was a good man and not a good man in the areas in which he was skilled, but he got some decent stuff done all the same.

> is
>roundly hated as the quintessential Person From Away who wishes to
>protect the Maine woods from the people who live in it. There are a
>lot of those, and many of them become noisy and troublesome activists
>of a particularly unpleasant, patronizing, paternalistic stripe.

I'm going to be That Guy again and note that, historically, it does often take People From Away in order to actually protect environmental integrity. If it were left purely up to the residents of Louisiana who live there, the Gulf Coast would be a blighted wasteland where nothing grows or swims. Ditto the Everglades in Florida. The Appalachians would be nothing more than blown-open mountains, strip mines, and decaying slag ponds. The Cuyahoga river would still catch on fire every summer.

Out in the midwest, if those of us who don't actually live there don't enforce some fairly substantive changes in industry and commerce, the Ogallala Aquifer is going to be drained dry and/or irreversibly polluted. (The shit the fracking industry is getting up to in Oklahoma will blow your mind.) Further west, I am 100% convinced that by 2030 we're going to see actual for-real water wars over the decaying remnants of the Colorado River if the feds don't enforce a solution over the wishes of a massive patchwork of state and local incumbents, who all more or less take the position "the water is mine and I've got a shooting 'arn if anyone says different." The State of California is going to have to tell some farmers they need to eat a loss, because they're sucking so much water out of the rivers that there's very real risk of salt backflow from the ocean flowing way, way upstream, and once a stretch of land is inundated with salt water it becomes relatively useless for farming.

I'm not saying high-handed paternalism is necessarily an attractive trait in people, but, well. Sometimes "no, we won't let you slash and burn" is sort of necessary thing to tell folks. People have a remarkable tendency to not just shit where they eat, but to get really mad at folks telling them to clean up the shit.

>There are deep divisions and a lot of anger 'round these parts, is
>what I'm getting at,

My understanding of Maine politics is that this sentiment is widespread throughout the state and a big part (but far from the only reason) of why human bowling jacket Paul LePage has an office with official letterhead, rather than still running a discount chain outlet.

>My own concern with the idea of a national park (or national monument,
>as they're now calling it, I'm fuzzy on what the distinction is but
>I'm sure there is one)

In addition to what Pasha said; National Parks, because they are created by legislative acts, often have funding attached. National Monuments do not.

However, in a twist of supremely black irony, the distinction has become somewhat moot over the past decade or so, because Congress refuses to appropriate sufficient money to the National Park Service either, with a few high-profile exceptions such as Yellowstone. So it's a bit moot.

>Take, for example, Gatlinburg, Tennessee, the last town before the
>entrance to Great Smoky Mountains National Park. I've been there, and
>it is the most godawfully tacky place you can even imagine. It's all
>"see the death car"-grade wax museums and places selling "Indian"
>trinkets and Ripley's Believe It or Not. It's every
>Walmart-parking-lot stereotype you can think of.

It's also possible to go the other way. A lot of resort towns in the Rockies that are making use of the fact that they're near national parks suitable for outdoorsy shenanigans of all sorts have become so gentrified that regular folks often can't afford to live there and have to resort to squatting out in the woods before they "commute" into town to preform menial labor. This is causing lots of pollution and fire hazards. It's a bit insane. Frickin' Leadville is becoming unaffordable and that place is basically built on top of poison and bodies.

The towns sure look super nice and fancy, tho. All those lovely chalets and whatnot.

>The kind of place
>where you're glad to catch sight of a Hardee's for its reassuringly
>upscale atmosphere.

Oh, oh! Something Maine-related I've been meaning to post about here but I needed an excuse.

Prior to this month, there were only two remaining Howard Johnson's restaurants in the world. (The hotel chain is doing fine.) One in Lake George, NY, and the other in Bangor.

The Bangor will close on September 6th. The Empire State is in possession of the last HoJo's standing.

So yeah. Suck it, Maine. We are the one! GIVE US THE PRIZE.

-Merc
Keep Rat


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Astynax
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15. "RE: Ask Gryphon Anything, Volume 2, Issue 1"
In response to message #11
 
  
>I'm going to be That Guy again and note that, historically, it does
>often take People From Away in order to actually protect environmental
>integrity. If it were left purely up to the residents of Louisiana who
>live there, the Gulf Coast would be a blighted wasteland where nothing
>grows or swims. Ditto the Everglades in Florida. The Appalachians
>would be nothing more than blown-open mountains, strip mines, and
>decaying slag ponds. The Cuyahoga river would still catch on fire
>every summer.
>
>Out in the midwest, if those of us who don't actually live there don't
>enforce some fairly substantive changes in industry and commerce, the
>Ogallala Aquifer is going to be drained dry and/or irreversibly
>polluted. (The shit the fracking industry is getting up to in Oklahoma
>will blow your mind.) Further west, I am 100% convinced that by 2030
>we're going to see actual for-real water wars over the decaying
>remnants of the Colorado River if the feds don't enforce a solution
>over the wishes of a massive patchwork of state and local incumbents,
>who all more or less take the position "the water is mine and I've got
>a shooting 'arn if anyone says different." The State of California is
>going to have to tell some farmers they need to eat a loss, because
>they're sucking so much water out of the rivers that there's very real
>risk of salt backflow from the ocean flowing way, way upstream, and
>once a stretch of land is inundated with salt water it becomes
>relatively useless for farming.
>
>I'm not saying high-handed paternalism is necessarily an attractive
>trait in people, but, well. Sometimes "no, we won't let you slash and
>burn" is sort of necessary thing to tell folks. People have a
>remarkable tendency to not just shit where they eat, but to get
>really mad at folks telling them to clean up the shit.
>

The reason behind that is actually quite simple. People from Far Away(tm) are not making an often hand to mouth living more or less directly from whichever natural resource they are seeking to protect. It is all well and good to tell some farmers to 'eat a loss' but if you don't give them some way to deal with that loss that does not involve words like 'bankruptcy' and 'homelessness' they will have many choice words and a couple of upraised fingers to show you.

It is a short sighted but inescapable truth that survival today trumps any and all concerns for tomorrow.


-={(Astynax)}=-
"The most common human response to being told 'no' are the words 'Fuck You'."


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Gryphonadmin
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Aug-28-16, 03:01 PM (EDT)
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16. "RE: Ask Gryphon Anything, Volume 2, Issue 1"
In response to message #15
 
   LAST EDITED ON Aug-28-16 AT 03:02 PM (EDT)
 
>The reason behind that is actually quite simple. People from Far
>Away(tm) are not making an often hand to mouth living more or less
>directly from whichever natural resource they are seeking to protect.

Quite. They also tend to care more about the resource than the people, which the people quite naturally will be inclined to resent.

The thing about this area is that, Merc's counterexamples notwithstanding, we're not talking about strip mines or slash-and-burn agriculture happening if the Nature Conservancy wasn't Ever Vigilant. The paper companies that used to operate in this region were, frankly, pretty good at the stewardship thing. When I was a kid, Great Northern's managers prided themselves on the company's woodlands being in better shape, however foresters measure these things, than the unorganized territories still belonging to the state (absent, e.g., Baxter State Park, which was left unmanaged on purpose as part of its charter). They had a massive woodlands department that was dedicated to things like scientifically managed harvesting, replanting, and so on. It was all very judicious.

(Somewhere here I have the brochure from the grand opening of the company's brand new Engineering and Research Center in the 1950s. It's full of the grandiose optimism stereotypical of the era, about how the state-of-the-art facility would help the company harness the boundless power of science to make everything better forever. Kind of depressing to read now, when the building is a crumbling ruin and everything is not better forever, but at the time it must have been hard not to be swept along by the current. I scanned it once, a few years ago, since as far as we know it's the last copy. Maybe I should dig up the files and post them?)

Also, because the company was run by people who lived where it operated, and not, e.g., Quebecois venture capitalists or hedge fund executives from New Hampshire,* and those people not uncommonly did the same Outdoorsy Stuff as the locals who worked for them, they gave a shit about conditions out there, even beyond the obvious economic prudence of not ruining their own sources of raw materials (the woods) and power (the rivers and lakes). That attitude went somewhat by the wayside in later years, when outside owners of various stripe came in and screwed the company up in various ways, but by then the whole enterprise had become so feeble they couldn't have ruined the woods if they'd wanted to. My point is that in its heyday, when they were powerful enough to do some really substantial damage in the vein of Brazilian jungle clearance or open-pit coal mining, GNP and the other similar companies in this part of the world deliberately set out not to do so.

As such, the prevailing sentiment around here is basically that Maine's woods didn't need protecting from Mainers, and we—myself included, even though I'm not anything like as engaged with the Outdoorsy Parts as a lot of people—rather resent being viewed as somehow ecologically equivalent to Congolese cobalt miners.

The difference, perhaps, is between conservation, which a lot of people around here are fully on board with TYVM, and preservation, which is what a lot of people who call themselves conservationists are really into—the full John Muir "untouched by human hands" business. Those people don't see any difference between a working forest, which is what we've always had around here, and a ruined one. It's a lack of sophistication that's ironic in people who appear to think that the locals in these parts are all ignorant bumpkins.

--G.
* Both of those happened later and were, in fact, just as bad as you were thinking.
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Mercutio
Member since May-26-13
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17. "RE: Ask Gryphon Anything, Volume 2, Issue 1"
In response to message #16
 
   >>The reason behind that is actually quite simple. People from Far
>>Away(tm) are not making an often hand to mouth living more or less
>>directly from whichever natural resource they are seeking to protect.

It's often less about protecting a natural resource per se than it is not completely fucking up the environment. Also too, many environmentalist these days are also supporters of things like robust social safety nets.

>Quite. They also tend to care more about the resource than the
>people, which the people quite naturally will be inclined to resent.

This is not 100% untrue, but it is a bit of an unfair stereotype. Certainly radical environmentalists of this type exists, but mainstream environmentalism, especially of the kind that has actually managed to enact political change (which is a heavy goddamn lift) has usually been massively people-centric. Because people and the ecology they inhabit are inexplicably intertwined, and despite our vaunted mastery of the natural world we don't actually know how hard we can punch the planet in the balls before we discover we've made a terrible mistake.

> When I was a kid, Great
>Northern's managers prided themselves on the company's woodlands being
>in better shape, however foresters measure these things, than the
>unorganized territories still belonging to the state (absent, e.g.,
>Baxter State Park, which was left unmanaged on purpose as part of its
>charter). They had a massive woodlands department that was dedicated
>to things like scientifically managed harvesting, replanting, and so
>on. It was all very judicious.

I bow to your superior knowledge on this specific topic. What little I know about forest conservation and management in the mid-to-late 20th century involves either the west coast (One of my good friends wrote a whole book on the environmental and labor struggles that happened there in the 80s and 90s, Empire of Timber which I don't recommend you actually buy because it is an textbook and therefore costs a lot of money)) or, oddly, the UK. The UK had some real issues with conservation in the postwar era, because they thought they were engaged in responsible replanting efforts but it turns out they were actually fostering an unsustainable monoculture.

But I don't know a whole lot about forestry in New England. I do know that the forests we have now are radically different than the ones we had 300 years ago, and that the shipping industry is somewhat to blame for that inasmuch as the word blame is appropriate, but that's about it.

>Also, because the company was run by people who lived where it
>operated, and not, e.g., Quebecois venture capitalists or hedge fund
>executives from New Hampshire,*

What the hell is the deal with New Hampshire, anyway? Maine and Vermont seem like relatively sane places, politically speaking. I mean, yeah, sure, LePage, but 62% of Mainers were smart enough to vote for someone who wasn't LePage, if not quite smart enough to all decide who the not-LePage would be. New Hampshire seems like it has a disproportionate number of "I've got mine, fuck you" types wielding power in it.

-Merc
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MoonEyes
Member since Jun-29-03
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Aug-27-16, 04:05 PM (EDT)
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13. "RE: Ask Gryphon Anything, Volume 2, Issue 1"
In response to message #7
 
   LAST EDITED ON Aug-27-16 AT 04:12 PM (EDT)
 
Ok, so, while this isn't related, as such, it isn't entirely UNrelated either.
I was looking hither and yon on the vast 'net, and for some reason ended up at a site called 'thewire.com'.
The thing I ended up reading was...rather nonsense, and so I started to wonder if this place was a joke/satire site.
So, I clicked the 'main page over here' banner/button. And on the front page was a LARGE image-and-headline thing. Thinking I recognized the name in the headline, I clicked.

You know, I hadn't actually checked LePage before, despite you writing about him, but if even a FRACTION is true? Calling him 'Fuckstick'? is FAR too weak. Stark raving slobbering moron mental case might be more to the point.

...!
Gott's Leetle Feesh in Trousers!


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Gryphonadmin
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14. "RE: Ask Gryphon Anything, Volume 2, Issue 1"
In response to message #13
 
   LAST EDITED ON Aug-27-16 AT 04:40 PM (EDT)
 
>Ok, so, while this isn't related, as such, it isn't entirely UNrelated
>either.

Awright, look. Here's the thing about Paul LePage. He wouldn't be governor of a state where smart people wrote the constitution. I'm pretty sure I've explained this before, probably in whichever context first exposed you to the word "Fuckstick" in the context of Maine's one and only governor, but just to recap for those who came in late, Paulie LeP won his first gubernatorial election with 39 percent of the vote, which shouldn't even be allowed. And the reason he did it—and then did it again four years later, with a slightly larger non-majority—is because first Maine's Democrats fielded weaksauce candidates against him, and second a colossally uncaring sack of ego* called Eliot Cutler jumped in as an indie/"third party" (in sarcasm quotes because the "party" he claimed to be part of isn't really one, it's just a label for people who don't think they can hack it as completely partiless independents like Angus King to slap on themselves) candidate and split the Not Fuckstick vote.

The result both times, because Maine's constitution does not require the person who wins the governor's office to do so with a majority, is that we've got Paul LePage. So now the country has Paul LePage, and because most people outside Maine don't know how our gubernatorial election system works, they assume a majority of Mainers must want it that way. Which is great! Not enough people outside the state thought we were all ignorant shitkickers before this. It's always good to do some outreach.

There is also no recall mechanism for Maine's governor, so unless he were to get caught doing something that's actually an impeachable crime, we're stuck with him for the duration. Just being shit at governoring is not sufficient grounds to get him out of office.

And he is shit at governoring, make no mistake. The fact that he's a public relations nightmare for the entire State of Maine is the smallest corner of the disaster that is Paul LePage. He doesn't really understand—or care—what the governor of the state is supposed to be for. Often, he'll get a hair across his ass about someone or something in the Legislature and decide that he's just going to veto everything he's presented with for the next week, even if it's bills he caused to be introduced in the first place. This is the executive-branch equivalent of holding your breath until your face turns blue because you didn't get an ice cream. Once, he got into such a snit over a Democrat winning a bye-election to fill an unscheduled vacancy in the Legislature (I forget which side) that he allowed the newly-minted legislator to make the trip to Augusta with her family and friends in tow, and then refused to swear her in until about 30 milliseconds before it would've been illegal (which was of course long after the time he'd had his staff schedule it for). It's like having the Burgess Meredith Penguin from the 1960s Batman TV show as the governor of your state.

A couple of years ago, when LePage first made minor national headlines for something (I think it was his dismissal of concerns over bisphenol A in drinking water containers with words to the effect of, "Big deal, so a few women might grow little beards or something"), friends of mine from out of state compared him to New Jersey governor Chris Christie, lately newsworthy for the apparent ease with which he's settled into his new role as Donald Trump's chief hunchbacked minion. Their tendency was to perceive LePage as a kind of minor-league Christie, but I have always maintained that they have it backward. In terms of sheer fuckheadery, Christie is the bush-league version of LePage. If he had done something like that George Washington Bridge thing, Paul LePage wouldn't have tried to cover it up, he'd have called a fucking press conference. "Enjoying your new traffic, Fort Lee? You're welcome! How d'ya like me now?"

The man is quite simply a grade-A sonofabitch. The fact that he was actually, legally elected governor of the state where I live—twice!—through a convergence of badly written electoral procedures, misguided-at-best attempts to reform the two-party system, and evil being better at getting out the vote than good means I can't allow myself the luxury of thinking the current situation in re the presidential election is funny.

--G.
* Or, to borrow a beautifully turned phrase I saw in a tweet directed at... I forget if it was Newt Gingrich or Mike Huckabee... one time, "Hefty bag full of coleslaw".
-><-
Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor-in-Chief, & Forum Mod
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zgryphon at that email service Google has
Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.


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Mercutio
Member since May-26-13
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Aug-28-16, 08:05 PM (EDT)
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18. "RE: Ask Gryphon Anything, Volume 2, Issue 1"
In response to message #14
 
  
>* Or, to borrow a beautifully turned phrase I saw in a
>tweet directed at... I forget if it was Newt Gingrich or Mike
>Huckabee... one time, "Hefty bag full of coleslaw".

I was curious about this turn of phrase, so I turned to Google.

The originator of the quote seems to be a comedian from Philly I've never heard of before named Chip Chantry, and it was directed at Gingrich.

However, the interesting part was what he was responding to. It wasn't just a random angry insult at Gingrich; it was Mr. Chantry calling Gingrich out for the following tweet:

"Washington elites mock Trump for mispronouncing Tanzania. They don't get it. He said the most important word correctly: America. He gets it."

I would like to remind people that Mr. Gingrich is supposed to be a writer and an intellectual. He has a Ph.D in history from Tulane, which is an R1 school. He wrote and published a number of books before he was famous.

Human bag full of coleslaw seems apropos.

-Merc
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The Traitor
Member since Feb-24-09
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Aug-28-16, 08:33 PM (EDT)
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19. "RE: Ask Gryphon Anything, Volume 2, Issue 1"
In response to message #18
 
   I blundered into this post just now and can confirm its origins. I was there at the time, because I made a Tanzania mod for Civ 5 and about, ooh, eleventy squillion of my friends (i.e. both of them) thought I'd not seen it before. Hefty bag full of coleslaw is a far more polite term than I would use, though I admit to screaming at La Gingrich to give himself a buckshot enema when I saw the tweet.

That I live three thousand miles away from Gingrich and the nation where he somehow managed to accrue political power is both blessing and comfort for the days I am forcibly reminded that our current Foreign Secretary is a xenophobic space hopper.

---
"She's old, she's lame, she's barren too, // "She's not worth feed or hay, // "But I'll give her this," - he blew smoke at me - // "She was something in her day." -- Garnet Rogers, Small Victory

FiMFiction.net: we might accept blatant porn involving the cast of My Little Pony but as God is my witness we have standards.

I view Boris the same way I view Jeremy Clarkson; not actually an idiot, and considerably more dangerous than they would be if they were just an idiot.


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BeardedFerret
Member since Apr-21-08
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Aug-29-16, 08:32 AM (EDT)
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20. "RE: Ask Gryphon Anything, Volume 2, Issue 1"
In response to message #14
 
   You poor, poor bastards.


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jonathanlennox
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Aug-29-16, 03:30 PM (EDT)
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21. "RE: Ask Gryphon Anything, Volume 2, Issue 1"
In response to message #14
 
   >He wouldn't be governor of a state where smart people wrote the constitution.

So does this mean you're in favor of Question 5? Or is that also screwed up somehow?


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Gryphonadmin
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Aug-29-16, 03:49 PM (EDT)
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22. "RE: Ask Gryphon Anything, Volume 2, Issue 1"
In response to message #21
 
   >>He wouldn't be governor of a state where smart people wrote the constitution.
>
>So does this mean you're in favor of
>Question 5? Or is that also screwed up somehow?

I'm sure Maine's voters will find ways to screw up using it, but I'm absolutely in favor of the proposal itself.

--G.
-><-
Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor-in-Chief, & Forum Mod
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/
zgryphon at that email service Google has
Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.


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Mercutio
Member since May-26-13
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Aug-29-16, 04:06 PM (EDT)
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23. "RE: Ask Gryphon Anything, Volume 2, Issue 1"
In response to message #22
 
   Single Transferable Vote/Instant Runoff is far from perfect, but it has the massive virtue in that it never elects a Condorcet loser.

-Merc
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