Backcountry Airstrips
...and moving a few tons of dirt manually!
I’ve been racking my brain nonstop since November 6th trying to understand what happened. Every columnist seems to think they know. But I seem to think they have no idea at all. The thing that keeps rattling around in my head and is super bothersome to me is less about who voted for the MAGA party and why, than whatever became of integrity and character, traits that America has bragged about forever, but seems to have been replaced by selfishness and hate. Trump – to nobody’s surprise – ran a campaign based on hate, cruelty, retribution, “you’re getting screwed”, and racism… and won. That means something. To me integrity, and character are everything – not that I always exemplify those traits. I don’t. But I thought they meant a lot to America as well. Evidently not.
Voter suppression, especially if we include felony voter disenfranchisement (In many states if you’ve been convicted of a felony and paid your debt to society as determined by a court of law, the states, recognizing that with today’s criminal justice system that most felons are Black, impose an additional penalty by taking away the right to vote) has kept millions of Black Americans from voting. That means something.
America’s White population has not mustered enough votes all by themselves to put a Democrat into the oval office since Lyndon Johnson in 1964 - the year that Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act and told Bill Mahr that he’d just handed the southern vote to the Republican Party for the next 50 years. He was wrong of course. 1964 was 60 years ago, not a mere 50, and between then and now the south has been staunchly Republican and helped place only one president into the oval office – Jimmy Carter, one of their own. That little race-based event and the voting change it wrought sure means something.
What did it mean in when Ken Melman, RNC Chairperson, bravely but disingenuously went before the NAACP in 2005 and apologized for the GOP’s decades old Southern Strategy where white racial hatred, resentment and fear was ginned up to create more votes. Perhaps Mehlman meant well. But the GOP’s Southern strategy, racist at its core, lives on in Trump and his MAGA party.
And given how much hatred is wafting thru America’s air, how much does America’s thing with racial hatred play a role, if any… and not just in hatred of ‘other’, but in hatred of EACH other? What does it mean how comfortable we have become with that which MAGA exemplifies - hate, cruelty, retribution, and racism? 405 years after the first Africans were kidnapped and dumped onto the shores of America, the definitive answer is…I have no idea. But I know this… it sure means something.
Right now it appears that more Americans voted for someone other than Trump then voted for Trump. THAT’s something as well.
And to be clear once again - more then once I’ve voted to put a Republican into the Oval Office. And I’ll do it again when a non-crazy Republican can make it past the GOP primary. Just not the MAGA variety Republican.
So instead of diving into all that, I’m going to give me and my brain a break and let you watch a couple of amazing videos. Two weeks ago my friend Steve, a pilot with a serious adventure streak, invited me to join a group of pilots who enjoy testing their skills by flying into southern Utah’s many remote and unpaved backcountry airstrips. One had washed out due to torrential rains and needed to be repaired so small planes could once again fly in and out. So Steve volunteered and asked me to join the group. I love the red rock canyons of southern Utah and the easy-to-find adventure, harsh beauty, and aloneness. Plus, if you have a friend with a badass little backcountry airplane who’s willing to fly you around, you don’t want to piss him off and say, “Go fix it yourself.” So I went. Enjoy the photos and videos. Be sure to double click on the helicopter and airplane videos. And hey, nobody said that we’d have to hike in!
Please, no! We live in the Four Corners; we enjoy southern Utah. We enjoy the quiet, the beauty, the untrampled lands. But these videos simply add to the exploitation of these lands. This is not exemplary behavior on your part. You're mimicking exploitation not unlike the "Drill, baby, drill!" crowd; or those who want to privatize ALL public lands; or those who are seeking to profit from "the Commons" in any unscrupulous manner. You're proud of the fact you didn't have to hike?! Wow. I expected more from you. I'm a new subscriber questioning my commitment to your cause.