I'm sorry, I just can't handle these people who seem to buy their own PR. I am reading the latest Smithsonian article Native Alaskans Clash Over Cash - which discussed the challenges between the pro-development Inupiat and the pro-enviro lobby group Gwinch'in.
Let me state for the record that I have a natural bias here, because I heard Gwitch'in Spokeswoman Sarah James speak at AFN on the ANWR topic a decade ago and she creeped me out.
Now she is featured as in this Smithsonian article, going on about how the Gwitch'in "Never thought of ourselves as poor, because we are rich in our hearts." Hmmm, could it also be that check that you cash monthly from the anti-ANWR-lobbies?
C'mon now. I'm not just picking on Sara. It is waste deep ca-ca all over the glossy four-color spread. On the first page of the article it suggests that these guys are hunting caribou that were sighted by bush pilots two days earlier. What was fueling those planes?The second page features a photo of Sara where in the background you can plainly see a crockpot and an electric fan. What is fueling the generation of that electricity?
Page three of the spread, Raymond Tritt is dressing a fallen bull on his caribou hunt right next to his dog sled. Nope. Snowmachine. What does that snowmachine run on?Final page of the feature says it all. Charlie Swaney is quoted as saying, "everything we need, nature gives us." It hangs in the snow next to a photo of Swaney where he is carrying a rifle while hunting with guys decked in camouflage coats. Where in Arctic village did they grow those guns and cloth?
This "NOT IN MY BACKYARD" mentality is not becoming of those who are touting themselves as enlightened spiritual beings. If you are living a traditional rural Alaskan lifestyle, and there are plenty of those that do, then you have room to talk, and I am more than willing to listen. But for those who enjoy the comforts of the oil age while complaining about the very industry that provides the relatively cush lifestyle that your ancestors only dreamed of...you have no voice.
To me you are like that unfortunate self-styled environmental crusader Laurie David. The eco-chic Hollywood enviromentalist who enjoys the (in)fame she has received for terrorizing people for driving gas-guzzling SUVs. The same woman who refuses to fly commerical, preferring her Gulfstream. One cross country trip in her G200 burns more fuel than a Hummer would in a year, but this doesn't seem to bother David at all.
Scott Wallace closes his piece by describing Arctic Village as "Junk heaps of discarded stoves, wrecked snowmobiles and rusted oil drums lie scattered about in the white tundra." Yeah, these folks are really living in-tune with a nature that they respect. Give me a break.
2 comments:
Sorry to hear about your dog. You can always buy another one.
Mr. Morris
Ask Morris
Somethings are more easily replaced than others. And easier to acquire.
Akela was one of those rare individuals that you are lucky to come across once in a lifetime, and I consider myself very blessed to have had that opportunity.
I was actually initially really excited to have a neighbor who operated a kennel, because I hoped it would offer me exposure to a rotating door of new puppies to fall in love with...but those hopes never materialized.
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