So there were bugs everywhere. Salmonflies…golden stones…little yellow sallies, and the fish were going nuts.
Me and Stinky Pete were up the West Fork below the dam. It was the warmest day that we’d seen since last September, and we had decided to leave our waders behind. The water was fine until you reached that critical depth that, if you went beyond, you’d flash-freeze any hope of fathering a child afterwards. Think of it as a cheap vasectomy.
Occasional cotton ball clouds provided puddles of shade that kept us from getting overheated. A bald eagle sat on top of a dead tree, letting us know whose fishing hole this really was.
The big stonefly that was crawling up my shirt reached my neck, so I plucked him off and tossed him in the river. He struggled to reach the shore, and you could almost hear his tiny screams for help as a hungry rainbow sucked him down.
The mass quantities of food that were floating on and flying over the water, had stirred up the fish like Oprah at a 200-foot Vegas buffet table. It was a frenzy of slurping and gulping, and no scrap went to waste.
Almost every cast produced a trout, and the ones that didn’t were because the fish were eating the live bugs floating around my fly. I hooked onto a fat rainbow that took off down river. He was only 17 inches long, but it was a good thing that I was using 2x tippet because in the heavy current he felt like he weighed 15 pounds.
As I horsed him into the shallow water, I worried that the hook was going to unbend from all the pressure. But I managed to bring him to the net and release him.
After a couple of hours, the hatch slowed, and the fishing tapered off along with the bugs. Me and Stinky headed back to the truck.
When we reached the access where we’d parked, the game warden was waiting. He checked our licenses and asked how the fishing was. Before he left, I thanked him for the job he was doing and told him how I thought that the penalties for breaking hunting and fishing laws should be harsher. Because those resources belong to all of us.
He said, “Did you hear about the guy who lost almost $1 million because he was fishing without a license?”
I told him that I hadn’t, so he showed me an article from the Washington Post that he’d found online. It turns out there’s an annual event in North Carolina called the Big Rock Blue Marlin Tournament. Peter Wann reeled in an 883 pounder, a tournament record by 50 puonds.
But Peter had forgotten to buy a $15 fishing license. After thinking about it for a few days, tournament officials disqualified his catch and awarded the $912,825 grand prize to the guy who caught the next biggest marlin – a 528 pounder.
“For the integrity of the Tournament, Big Rock has no choice but to enforce the rules and disqualify the fish,” they said in a statement.
I said to the game warden, “That’s a pretty steep fine for fishing without a license.”
“That’s why you gotta play by the rules,” he replied.
That got me to thinking.
A feller can get in a lot of trouble for not doing the right thing. That’s something that General Stanley McChrystal should’ve considered before he trashed President Obama and most of his top advisors in Rolling Stone.
He was already on thin ice for pissing off our allies and publicly disagreeing with the White House. He may be a great general but he forgot one of the most basic rules of employment – don’t talk bad about your boss. Even if you are “disappointed” with him.
In Afghanistan, men and women are risking their lives to achieve the President’s goals to defeat the Taliban and disable Al-Qaeda. When their boss bad-mouths Obama, it puts into question their reason for being there.
It’s kind of like being on the show The Apprentice and saying on camera that you think Donald Trump’s wig looks like the rear end of a sheltie that’s been rolling around in cow pies and vomit. You know you’re going to hear the words, “You’re fired!”
The President had to replace McChrystal for the morale of our soldiers and for the good of the continuing war effort. And maybe the general learned that if you’re going to go fishing without a license, it could wind up costing a lot more than you imagined.
I don’t know, I guess I think too hard about these things.
Monday, June 28, 2010
Monday, June 21, 2010
Border Wars
So the sound of gunfire kept getting closer, and Joan said to me, “Do you think they’ll stop before they reach the house?”
“It’s hard to say,” I replied.
You see, my property borders the Bitterroot National Forest, and it’s near an area where lots of folks like to recreate. There’s relatively easy access from the highway and plenty of camping spaces. Trail riders, ATV riders, campers, rock climbers, hunters and fishermen all like to come up here. It’s a big forest, but this particular part gets its fair share of use.
Every once in a while, somebody will have a little bit to drink, and break out their guns. It’s more likely to happen on a holiday weekend (Fourth of July is a busy time), but it seems that trees are in season year round.
Now I’ve never understood the pleasure that a man gets from stumbling around the forest in a drunken stupor, pumping the pines full of lead. But it’s a popular activity among some.
Occasionally, these fearless lumber hunters will wander close enough to my house that I get concerned for my safety. I’ve never had a bullet strike the house, or even come close, as far as I can tell. But it’s hard to ignore the approaching thunder.
On this particular Saturday afternoon, the guns were getting too close for comfort. I told Joan, “I’ve got to go out there and let them know that there are people over here.”
“You can’t go outside,” she said. “You could get killed.”
But I could get killed sitting inside the house, too. When I peeked out the window, I saw that they’d crossed over onto my property. That was too much.
I grabbed my .30-30 Winchester, stepped out onto the porch and fired a shot into the air to get their attention. It worked because they stopped and looked at me like I had 4 heads and 2 of them looked like Nancy Pelosi. I think it was the first time they noticed that there was a house a few yards away.
I explained that they’d walked onto private property, and seeing as how I wasn’t in the mood to take a stray bullet from a drunken idiot, I asked them to kindly remove themselves from the premises. They apologized and staggered back into the National Forest, winging a Douglas fir on the way out.
When I went back inside, Joan said, “That was foolish…and excessive. But it was effective.”
That got me to thinking.
What’s the proper response for removing armed invaders from your land? If you’re the United States government, the answer is to ignore them.
There’s a section of this country where law enforcement agencies can no longer protect the lives of American citizens. Even though the land is owned by the taxpayers, it’s closed to the public because the government can’t provide for the common defense of its people there.
The Buenos Aires National Wildlife Refuge consists of 118,000 acres of land in southern Arizona. Approximately 3,500 acres of the refuge located along the Mexican border have been closed to public use since 2006 due to safety concerns.
The notice posted by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service on their website states, “The international border with Mexico has also become increasingly violent. Assaults on law enforcement officers and violence against migrants have escalated. Violence on the Refuge associated with smugglers and border bandits has been well documented.”
In a recent statement they said, “At this time there are no plans to reopen this southernmost ¾-mile wide portion of the Refuge.” They went on to say, “The Refuge will reopen the area at such time that it is determined to be safe for visitors.”
The Fish and Wildlife Service has tried to downplay the significance of this by noting that the area is only 3% of the total refuge. That may be true, but it’s still part of the United States, and it’s under the control of coyotes and drug smugglers.
Rather than make the area unsafe for the criminals entering from Mexico, we have chosen instead to say that it’s unsafe for Americans. As far as I can tell, armed foreigners have invaded a small portion of our country and driven our citizens out. Our law enforcement agencies have been unable to regain control of the region for the past 4 years, and our federal government is doing nothing about the problem.
Are we going to quietly give up control of little pieces of our country? Are we going to let them creep north bit by bit?
If so, when they reach my doorstep here in Montana, they’re going to be greeted by my .30-30.
I don’t know, I guess I think too hard about these things.
Copyright 2010
“It’s hard to say,” I replied.
You see, my property borders the Bitterroot National Forest, and it’s near an area where lots of folks like to recreate. There’s relatively easy access from the highway and plenty of camping spaces. Trail riders, ATV riders, campers, rock climbers, hunters and fishermen all like to come up here. It’s a big forest, but this particular part gets its fair share of use.
Every once in a while, somebody will have a little bit to drink, and break out their guns. It’s more likely to happen on a holiday weekend (Fourth of July is a busy time), but it seems that trees are in season year round.
Now I’ve never understood the pleasure that a man gets from stumbling around the forest in a drunken stupor, pumping the pines full of lead. But it’s a popular activity among some.
Occasionally, these fearless lumber hunters will wander close enough to my house that I get concerned for my safety. I’ve never had a bullet strike the house, or even come close, as far as I can tell. But it’s hard to ignore the approaching thunder.
On this particular Saturday afternoon, the guns were getting too close for comfort. I told Joan, “I’ve got to go out there and let them know that there are people over here.”
“You can’t go outside,” she said. “You could get killed.”
But I could get killed sitting inside the house, too. When I peeked out the window, I saw that they’d crossed over onto my property. That was too much.
I grabbed my .30-30 Winchester, stepped out onto the porch and fired a shot into the air to get their attention. It worked because they stopped and looked at me like I had 4 heads and 2 of them looked like Nancy Pelosi. I think it was the first time they noticed that there was a house a few yards away.
I explained that they’d walked onto private property, and seeing as how I wasn’t in the mood to take a stray bullet from a drunken idiot, I asked them to kindly remove themselves from the premises. They apologized and staggered back into the National Forest, winging a Douglas fir on the way out.
When I went back inside, Joan said, “That was foolish…and excessive. But it was effective.”
That got me to thinking.
What’s the proper response for removing armed invaders from your land? If you’re the United States government, the answer is to ignore them.
There’s a section of this country where law enforcement agencies can no longer protect the lives of American citizens. Even though the land is owned by the taxpayers, it’s closed to the public because the government can’t provide for the common defense of its people there.
The Buenos Aires National Wildlife Refuge consists of 118,000 acres of land in southern Arizona. Approximately 3,500 acres of the refuge located along the Mexican border have been closed to public use since 2006 due to safety concerns.
The notice posted by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service on their website states, “The international border with Mexico has also become increasingly violent. Assaults on law enforcement officers and violence against migrants have escalated. Violence on the Refuge associated with smugglers and border bandits has been well documented.”
In a recent statement they said, “At this time there are no plans to reopen this southernmost ¾-mile wide portion of the Refuge.” They went on to say, “The Refuge will reopen the area at such time that it is determined to be safe for visitors.”
The Fish and Wildlife Service has tried to downplay the significance of this by noting that the area is only 3% of the total refuge. That may be true, but it’s still part of the United States, and it’s under the control of coyotes and drug smugglers.
Rather than make the area unsafe for the criminals entering from Mexico, we have chosen instead to say that it’s unsafe for Americans. As far as I can tell, armed foreigners have invaded a small portion of our country and driven our citizens out. Our law enforcement agencies have been unable to regain control of the region for the past 4 years, and our federal government is doing nothing about the problem.
Are we going to quietly give up control of little pieces of our country? Are we going to let them creep north bit by bit?
If so, when they reach my doorstep here in Montana, they’re going to be greeted by my .30-30.
I don’t know, I guess I think too hard about these things.
Copyright 2010
Monday, June 14, 2010
You Want to Kick What?
So me and Big Al and Stinky Pete were down at O’Brian’s Bar and Grill watching the NBA finals. And trying to figure out why. You see, none of us really likes basketball, and we’re all tired of watching the Lakers and the Celtics compete for the title. I reckon it was because the NHL playoffs were over.
There’s something about guys gathered around a TV in a bar watching sports – any sports – that makes us feel like we’re part of a community. It gives us a sense of camaraderie…like men in combat or in a prison gang.
While I was feeling the warmth of knowing that my homies got my back, I watched with glazed-over eyes as Kobe Bryant did something that had the announcers screaming like teenage girls at a Justin Bieber concert. I didn’t care. I just wasn’t excited about the game.
I picked up a copy of the Missoulian that someone had left at the bar and started reading. I came across an interesting article, and I said, “Hey, did you guys hear about this Hopkins feller working in a wild animal park near Glacier who got mauled by a grizzly? It says here that a judge ruled that he deserves workers’ comp even though he got stoned before coming to work.”
“No way,” replied Big Al. “If I had a job, I think I’d wait until after work to get high.”
“There’s a great quote from the judge. He said, ‘It is not as if this attack occurred when Hopkins inexplicably wandered into the grizzly pen while searching for the nearest White Castle.’”
Stinky Pete chimed in, “It shouldn’t matter. He was stoned at work.”
“The judge felt that being under the influence of marijuana was not a contributing factor,” I explained. “He said that the only major cause of the attack was the grizzly bear. So the guy got hurt on the job from circumstances that were beyond his control.”
“You know, I’d have to agree with that,” said Stinky. “A grizzly bear is definitely one of those things beyond our control.”
That got me to thinking.
There’re a lot of things that folks have no control over but somehow believe that they do.
Take fer instance President Obama saying that he’s in charge when it comes to the BP oil spill. He doesn’t know anything about drilling oil wells, so how does he know what’s best? I wonder what exactly he expects to do – put on a wetsuit, grab a giant wad of bubble gum, dive down there and just plug the hole up.
I can image the President telling BP, “So I see you guys are working hard to stop all this oil from washing up on my clean white beaches.”
“Yes sir, Mr. President.”
“Could you work any harder?”
“We’ll do our best, Mr. President.”
“Yes! That’s how a man in charge takes care of things.”
The President likes to pretend that there’s something that he can do to end this disaster, and the American people like to let him pretend. That way we can blame him.
While there’s not much Obama can do to stop the leak, there’s plenty of other stuff he could be doing. First, he could’ve come right out at the start and recognized the loss suffered by the families of the 11 men killed on the rig like he did for the West Virginia coal miners.
Second, he could order National Guard troops to the area to begin sponging up all the oil that’s on the beaches and in the marshes right now. But they’ve got to wait on an environmental assessment before they can start any clean-up effort.
The truth is that the government doesn’t want to get involved. Because if they do, BP can turn around and tell folks who’re filing claims, “It’s not our fault. We were doing great until the US government came in and messed everything up. Go talk to them.”
Last week in an interview with Matt Lauer on the Today show, Obama said that he’d been meeting with experts so he’d know “whose ass to kick.” I would’ve thought that by day 50, he’d have figured that out. Isn’t it obvious? BP is responsible; who else’s ass do you need to kick.
The President needs to be careful though. The media keeps interviewing commercial fisherman who are angry that they’re losing money, but folks need to remember that the oil industry is a much bigger part of the Gulf Coast economy than shrimp.
You kick a grizzly bear in the ass, and you may not like the results.
I don’t know, I guess I think too hard about these things.
Copyright 2010
There’s something about guys gathered around a TV in a bar watching sports – any sports – that makes us feel like we’re part of a community. It gives us a sense of camaraderie…like men in combat or in a prison gang.
While I was feeling the warmth of knowing that my homies got my back, I watched with glazed-over eyes as Kobe Bryant did something that had the announcers screaming like teenage girls at a Justin Bieber concert. I didn’t care. I just wasn’t excited about the game.
I picked up a copy of the Missoulian that someone had left at the bar and started reading. I came across an interesting article, and I said, “Hey, did you guys hear about this Hopkins feller working in a wild animal park near Glacier who got mauled by a grizzly? It says here that a judge ruled that he deserves workers’ comp even though he got stoned before coming to work.”
“No way,” replied Big Al. “If I had a job, I think I’d wait until after work to get high.”
“There’s a great quote from the judge. He said, ‘It is not as if this attack occurred when Hopkins inexplicably wandered into the grizzly pen while searching for the nearest White Castle.’”
Stinky Pete chimed in, “It shouldn’t matter. He was stoned at work.”
“The judge felt that being under the influence of marijuana was not a contributing factor,” I explained. “He said that the only major cause of the attack was the grizzly bear. So the guy got hurt on the job from circumstances that were beyond his control.”
“You know, I’d have to agree with that,” said Stinky. “A grizzly bear is definitely one of those things beyond our control.”
That got me to thinking.
There’re a lot of things that folks have no control over but somehow believe that they do.
Take fer instance President Obama saying that he’s in charge when it comes to the BP oil spill. He doesn’t know anything about drilling oil wells, so how does he know what’s best? I wonder what exactly he expects to do – put on a wetsuit, grab a giant wad of bubble gum, dive down there and just plug the hole up.
I can image the President telling BP, “So I see you guys are working hard to stop all this oil from washing up on my clean white beaches.”
“Yes sir, Mr. President.”
“Could you work any harder?”
“We’ll do our best, Mr. President.”
“Yes! That’s how a man in charge takes care of things.”
The President likes to pretend that there’s something that he can do to end this disaster, and the American people like to let him pretend. That way we can blame him.
While there’s not much Obama can do to stop the leak, there’s plenty of other stuff he could be doing. First, he could’ve come right out at the start and recognized the loss suffered by the families of the 11 men killed on the rig like he did for the West Virginia coal miners.
Second, he could order National Guard troops to the area to begin sponging up all the oil that’s on the beaches and in the marshes right now. But they’ve got to wait on an environmental assessment before they can start any clean-up effort.
The truth is that the government doesn’t want to get involved. Because if they do, BP can turn around and tell folks who’re filing claims, “It’s not our fault. We were doing great until the US government came in and messed everything up. Go talk to them.”
Last week in an interview with Matt Lauer on the Today show, Obama said that he’d been meeting with experts so he’d know “whose ass to kick.” I would’ve thought that by day 50, he’d have figured that out. Isn’t it obvious? BP is responsible; who else’s ass do you need to kick.
The President needs to be careful though. The media keeps interviewing commercial fisherman who are angry that they’re losing money, but folks need to remember that the oil industry is a much bigger part of the Gulf Coast economy than shrimp.
You kick a grizzly bear in the ass, and you may not like the results.
I don’t know, I guess I think too hard about these things.
Copyright 2010
Monday, June 7, 2010
Symbol of America
So when the whitetail doe jumped up without any warning, it scared the deer pellets right out of me. She must’ve thought that by laying low in the grass she could stay hidden. But when I was about to walk right into her, she panicked and leaped up, nearly running me over. Now that’s a way to start your day that a cup of coffee can’t match.
I’d gone down to the river for a morning walk and to check on the water clarity. With the river rising from the runoff, it’d gotten murky. It’s going to be a while before the fishing is good again.
After flushing the deer like a grouse, I headed upstream along the bank. There was no place in particular that I was going to. I thought that maybe the rushing of the river would drown out the voices in my head for a while.
It’s always relaxing to walk along, take in the smells of the forest, and let your mind wander. I thought about the fish and the fishermen who are dealing with all the oil in the Gulf of Mexico, about how there will never be another Dennis Hopper, and about how the salmonflies will start to hatch soon.
An osprey called out, and I looked up in time to see him swoop down and pluck a fish from the river. It wriggled in his talons as he flew away.
Then, a bald eagle came streaking out of the sky toward the osprey. The smaller bird swerved at the last minute and took off in the other direction. The eagle was right back on him, and the two of them swirled around each other.
The eagle was bigger and faster; the osprey was quicker and more maneuverable but was hampered by the weight of the still struggling fish. After successfully defending his catch for a few minutes, the osprey eventually got tired and let the trout slip from his grasp.
The harassing eagle dove after it and snatched it out of the air. The osprey knew that he wouldn’t be able to overpower the bigger bird and flew away with his beak hung low. Confident in his air superiority, the eagle went off to eat the spoils of victory.
That got me to thinking.
Is America being unfairly criticized by the international community for using deadly force to protect our citizens in places like Afghanistan?
I know what you’re thinking, How in the world did he make that connection?
No, I haven’t lost it…yet. It’s the whole thing with the bald eagle as a symbol of America, and he’s attacking a smaller bird to get what he wants.
Anyway, a recent report to the UN Human Rights Council by Philip Alston, their Special Rapporteur on Extrajudicial, Summary, or Arbitrary Executions, calls into question the legality of certain “targeted killings,” especially those by clandestine agents using unmanned drones.
The report, dated May 28, 2010, talks a whole lot about the legal framework of when it’s OK for a country to kill a specific individual, and the methods they can use to do it. If you’re in an “armed conflict” (meaning you’re at war), then it’s usually OK
If not, there are a whole set of rules you’re supposed to follow. If you’re in an intelligence agency, like the CIA, and you don’t provide all kinds of justification to the international community, then you’re an assassin and could be charged with war crimes.
The report says that the use of drones is most likely illegal because there is too much risk of civilian casualties and because it doesn’t give troops on the ground the opportunity to get the target with non-lethal force. It also states that because the operators are in a remote location looking at a computer screen “there is a risk of developing a Playstation mentality to killing.”
Basically, what Alston is trying to say is that the use of drones by the CIA to kill Al-Qaeda terrorists in Afghanistan is pre-meditated murder. Because of the secrecy, there’s no accountability. And our claim that we are acting in self-defense isn’t justified because we haven’t proved to the rest of the world that the guys we’re targeting pose an imminent risk to our country.
Like most UN reports that I’ve read, there’s a whole bunch of opinion and speculation sprinkled in amongst the facts.
I wouldn’t be surprised if the name Special Rapporteur Philip Alston accidentally popped up on a list of targets on a Langley computer. All I can tell you is Mustafa Abu al-Yazid, the number 3 man in Al-Qaeda, is dead because of a drone attack, and I feel better because of it.
I don’t know, I guess I think too hard about these things.
I’d gone down to the river for a morning walk and to check on the water clarity. With the river rising from the runoff, it’d gotten murky. It’s going to be a while before the fishing is good again.
After flushing the deer like a grouse, I headed upstream along the bank. There was no place in particular that I was going to. I thought that maybe the rushing of the river would drown out the voices in my head for a while.
It’s always relaxing to walk along, take in the smells of the forest, and let your mind wander. I thought about the fish and the fishermen who are dealing with all the oil in the Gulf of Mexico, about how there will never be another Dennis Hopper, and about how the salmonflies will start to hatch soon.
An osprey called out, and I looked up in time to see him swoop down and pluck a fish from the river. It wriggled in his talons as he flew away.
Then, a bald eagle came streaking out of the sky toward the osprey. The smaller bird swerved at the last minute and took off in the other direction. The eagle was right back on him, and the two of them swirled around each other.
The eagle was bigger and faster; the osprey was quicker and more maneuverable but was hampered by the weight of the still struggling fish. After successfully defending his catch for a few minutes, the osprey eventually got tired and let the trout slip from his grasp.
The harassing eagle dove after it and snatched it out of the air. The osprey knew that he wouldn’t be able to overpower the bigger bird and flew away with his beak hung low. Confident in his air superiority, the eagle went off to eat the spoils of victory.
That got me to thinking.
Is America being unfairly criticized by the international community for using deadly force to protect our citizens in places like Afghanistan?
I know what you’re thinking, How in the world did he make that connection?
No, I haven’t lost it…yet. It’s the whole thing with the bald eagle as a symbol of America, and he’s attacking a smaller bird to get what he wants.
Anyway, a recent report to the UN Human Rights Council by Philip Alston, their Special Rapporteur on Extrajudicial, Summary, or Arbitrary Executions, calls into question the legality of certain “targeted killings,” especially those by clandestine agents using unmanned drones.
The report, dated May 28, 2010, talks a whole lot about the legal framework of when it’s OK for a country to kill a specific individual, and the methods they can use to do it. If you’re in an “armed conflict” (meaning you’re at war), then it’s usually OK
If not, there are a whole set of rules you’re supposed to follow. If you’re in an intelligence agency, like the CIA, and you don’t provide all kinds of justification to the international community, then you’re an assassin and could be charged with war crimes.
The report says that the use of drones is most likely illegal because there is too much risk of civilian casualties and because it doesn’t give troops on the ground the opportunity to get the target with non-lethal force. It also states that because the operators are in a remote location looking at a computer screen “there is a risk of developing a Playstation mentality to killing.”
Basically, what Alston is trying to say is that the use of drones by the CIA to kill Al-Qaeda terrorists in Afghanistan is pre-meditated murder. Because of the secrecy, there’s no accountability. And our claim that we are acting in self-defense isn’t justified because we haven’t proved to the rest of the world that the guys we’re targeting pose an imminent risk to our country.
Like most UN reports that I’ve read, there’s a whole bunch of opinion and speculation sprinkled in amongst the facts.
I wouldn’t be surprised if the name Special Rapporteur Philip Alston accidentally popped up on a list of targets on a Langley computer. All I can tell you is Mustafa Abu al-Yazid, the number 3 man in Al-Qaeda, is dead because of a drone attack, and I feel better because of it.
I don’t know, I guess I think too hard about these things.
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