tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post2404711132626184721..comments2024-01-28T03:56:39.351-08:00Comments on TOM CLARK: Rim of FireUnknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger6125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-4866205044027522872013-08-28T04:54:30.718-07:002013-08-28T04:54:30.718-07:00John Muir's later life was marked by two great...John Muir's later life was marked by two great disappointments. The loss of his wife to lung cancer at 57. And the failure of his seven-year struggle against the damming of the Hetch Hetchy Valley.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.sierraclub.org/ca/hetchhetchy/" rel="nofollow">Sierra Club: Hetch Hetchy: time to redeem a historic mistake</a><br /><br />"It is impossible to overestimate the value of wild mountains and mountain temples as places for people to grow in, recreation grounds for soul and body. They are the greatest of our natural resources, God's best gifts, but none, however high and holy, is beyond reach of the spoiler. In these ravaging money-mad days monopolizing San Francisco capitalists are now doing their best to destroy the Yosemite Park, the most wonderful of all our great mountain national parks. Beginning on the Tuolumne side, they are trying with a lot of sinful ingenuity to get the Government's permission to dam and destroy the Hetch-Hetchy Valley for a reservoir, simply that comparatively private gain may be made out of universal public loss, while of course the Sierra Club is doing all it can to save the valley. The Honorable Secretary of the Interior has not yet announced his decision in the case, but in all that has come and gone nothing discouraging is yet in sight on our side of the fight.<br /><br />"As long as the busy public in general knew little or nothing about the Hetch-Hetchy Valley, the few cunning drivers of the damming scheme, working in darkness like moles in a low-lying meadow..."<br /><br />John Muir, Sierra Club Bulletin, January 1908<br />__<br /><br />You can guess how that one came out.<br /><br />More than a hundred years on, there remain those who believe that John Muir was right, and that drowning this glorious patch of the earth in 300 feet of water was a desecration that ought to be corrected by returning the valley to its original state.<br /><br />But the rich didn't get rich by worrying too much over environmentalism and California has long been a laboratory of ruthless capitalism in action. San Francisco, one of the richest cities on earth, gets its water from Hetch Hetchy, cheap. <br />The guns of the redoubtable HMS Di-Fi have been brought to bear on this issue. When the Bush administration proposed allocating seven million dollars to study removal of the dam, now-U.S. senator, then-San Francisco mayor Dianne Feinstein called the proposal "dumb, dumb, dumb."<br /><br />"I will do all I can to make sure it isn't included in the final bill. We're not going to remove this dam, and the funding is unnecessary."<br /><br />__<br /><br /><a href="http://tomclarkblog.blogspot.com/2013/08/cuidado-robinson-jeffers-fire-on-hills.html" rel="nofollow">Cuidado (Robinson Jeffers: Fire on the Hills)</a>TChttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05915822857461178942noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-41000754203402817682013-08-27T08:23:03.510-07:002013-08-27T08:23:03.510-07:00We no longer can judge which fires are "natur...We no longer can judge which fires are "natural" and which the consequence of our meddling. We haven't studied the forest ecosystems sufficiently to know what effect global warming is going to have. All early signs point to devastation.<br /><br />We do know that the legacy of millennia was rich, and that we are consuming that at unprecedented rates. <br /><br />James Wright: "It is, and it is,/the last time."Curtis Favillehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06213075853354387634noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-68702512554351804432013-08-26T13:07:17.998-07:002013-08-26T13:07:17.998-07:00Thanks for this, Tom. The words and pictures sooth...Thanks for this, Tom. The words and pictures soothe and break my heart at the same time. I suspect that what lies ahead for us all will have more of this same schizoid quality to it.Hazenhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13417573435195561519noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-12235846514499660962013-08-26T11:42:20.459-07:002013-08-26T11:42:20.459-07:00Every leaf speaks.
Much here to ponder and re-vi...Every leaf speaks. <br /><br />Much here to ponder and re-visit.<br /><br />Thank you, Tom.Jonathan Chanthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03647746685252448938noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-48248336714866130182013-08-26T10:24:15.353-07:002013-08-26T10:24:15.353-07:00"I only went out for a walk, and finally conc..."I only went out for a walk, and finally concluded to stay out till sundown, for going out, I found, was really going in".<br /><br />And here we are with the house on fire.<br /><br />First time I'd come across Muir. There's few true prophetic voices at any time.Mose23https://www.blogger.com/profile/01100756913131511440noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-80304451089103867682013-08-26T08:17:13.442-07:002013-08-26T08:17:13.442-07:00Tom,
"Pollution, defilement, squalor are wor...Tom,<br /><br />"Pollution, defilement, squalor are words that never would have been created had man lived conformably to Nature."<br /><br />"The snow is melting into music."<br /><br />"How little note is taken of the deeds of Nature!"<br /><br />"How sweet and keen the air! Every breath a blessing."<br /><br />Amen, John of the Mountains -- and thanks for this, Tom!<br /><br />8.26<br /><br />grey whiteness of fog against invisible<br />top of ridge, bird slanting toward left<br />foreground, no sound of wave in channel<br /><br /> that reflection of physical<br /> thing, thinking about<br /> <br /> that, that images happen at<br /> once, to be looked at<br /><br />fog against invisible shoulder of ridge,<br />white curve of wave in mouth of channel<br />STEPHEN RATCLIFFEhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12339481653546188412noreply@blogger.com