Vito and Guido arenât going to be happy that Zinke is cutting into their skim.
Itâs outrageous that our national parks cost a dime, but that ship has unfortunately sailed. I can think of few public expenditures more worthy than encouraging our citizens people to go see the most beautiful and spectacular parts of our nation. Same deal as the Smithsonian. Itâs what we work for, what we strive to protect and improve and grow.
This motivates, even underlies, a sense of civic duty. I can see why the GOP hates it.
Edit: not âour citizensâ, people. The Grand Canyon and Isle Royale and the National Air and Space Museum are bitchinâ sales pitches to the best and the brightest from around the globe.
Every time an Amazon employee uses a national park a kitten dies.
I love how these are the âpeopleâs parksâ but yet they canât USE them (too expensive) and these jackholes are constantly selling the mineral rights.
On the other hand, we are loving our national parks to death. While the backcountry remains relatively unscathed, the areas around the main attractions are mobbed, with corresponding trashing of everything in sight. Idiots handfeeding the wildlife and setting the campsite on fire. Staff completely overwhelmed and underpaid. Periodically they have to drop everything to rescue some incompetent fool from a totally preventable predicament in the backcountry. A $70 entry fee might help weed out the worst of them, although theyâll probably just end up destroying a campsite in the national forest instead.
Zinke takes a Sikorsky to his campsite.
Letâs extend that policy to restaurants, movie theaters, concert venues, the grocery store and the CVS on the corner I canât enter until I hand Shitpants Tony a dollar to let me by.
This is a very curious notion to me - that people who are better off financially are better stewards of their surroundings.
Doesnât exactly fall in line with my experience.
Iâd be much happier about this if I wasnât so sure his back-up plan is to auction off corporate naming rights.
I was going to say something similar. It seems to me that the people that could afford the $70 entry fee are often the idiots who have no respect for the park and expect someone to clean up after them.
A $70 entry fee might also make the ones who got in feel that much more entitled. âI paid $70 just to walk in the gate! Who are you to tell me not to take a picture of my kids feeding the grizzly?!â We kinda do want fewer people at the big parks (which suggests, btw, more national parks, not fewer, and more staffing and promotion for all parks). But the best way to do that isnât cranking up an entry fee, more likely some kind of lottery. (Our state parks have campsites that are free, but you have to make reservations. Something like that.)
A better solution is non-transferable lotteries for limited tickets. The average guy gets the same chance as the millionaire, and scalping is illegal.
Entry to some of the more popular federal wilderness areas (which have a strictly limited visitation rate) isnât âsome kind of lotteryâ - itâs exactly a lottery.
No matter what rangers tell people, they insist on feeding the animals which is not good for them. Signs telling them no feeding of the animals are ignored. Signs prohibiting climbing over rails are useless. People climb over rails to get a closer look at the waterfalls and lose their lives. Perhaps I am a bit rigid, but these rules were put in place for a reason. But then I never felt entitled.
When I was in Colorado for the summers, I worked one day a week at the little grocery store in the little town I lived outside of. People came in there all day who were camping, and they asked every single day what they could feed the bears.
I used to tell them itâs illegal and if they had toddlers or a dog the bear they attracted might eat one of them but they persisted. I also have been way the fuck up in the wilderness, having hiked up to a ghost town, only to have families show up and ask if there is anything around they could take for souvenirs. And thatâs not legal either.
Iâve seen the changes in the wilderness areas since I was a kid and itâs terrifying how many more people there are tramping around in it than there used to be.
Every child should have the experience of feeding a wild bear.
I very much enjoyed my visit to âYosemi-whee!, Brought to You by Viacomâ
Well, we already do it at restaurants and concert venues, if youâve priced any lately. But theyâre private industry, not a public resource. And your grocery and CVS make you pay to leave.
learn the words, indeed.