Sometimes the circle of life makes my head spin. How amazing is it that we know so much? That everything works so perfectly, if all is left to its own devices? How do people figure out things? Who takes the time to look at a given thing--say the cycle of rain--and really understand how it works?
People from an earlier time, that's who. People who were not so distracted by television, the Internet (ahem), movies, their mobile devices, the generally fascinating world of humans at large. Those people still exist today, obviously. There are many throwbacks among us. I'm one, for example. While I loves me my online world, I'm also a sucker for sitting in silent wonder in a dusty little depression in the ground, surrounded by towering cliff walls and unknown scratchings on those very walls by long-dead hands, wondering to myself who those people were, why they wrote those symbols in the sandstone, and what their lives might have been like.
I'm missing the red rocks just about now.
So. Because Utah isn't the only land imperiled by blind human "progress" and ego, here are some links to contemplate yourself:
A friend just saw the movie Red Gold at the Banff Film Festival last night. She was so moved by it she cried, as apparently do many who view this film. There is a town in Alaska, Bristol Bay, that calls itself home to the last wild salmon hatchery in the world, and it is of course threatened by The Pebble Partnership, ye typical big huge corporation with an avaricious glint in its eyes, which wants to build an open pit mine at the headwaters to dig up gold. You can see the trailer at the Red Gold site, and it's a breathtaking cinematographic experience just in that snippet. And here's the blog site of the filmmakers, Felt Soul Media, with updates on the town. (Odd tidbit: Mitsubishi has a 10% stake in Pebble. Huh?)
For even more info, check out the following links:
Save Bristol Bay
Bristol Bay Alliance (seems to be a bit outdated)
The Pebble Partnership (the mine's site)
Stop Pebble Mine
The Pebble Blog at the Alaska Daily News
Seeing this sort of organizing, this public awareness-raising, makes me feel good. You know?
And here's some stuff going on in Wyoming: the Red Desert (never been, but it looks amazing) is being attacked by, you guessed, that dastardly old Bureau of Livestock and Mining. As usual, it's all about the oil and gas development. Shocker that, no?
Ah. Enough to contemplate for one morning, is it not?
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