Where is Ansel Adams When We Need Him?

[IChing]

Where is Ansel Adams When We Need Him?
by Derrick Z. Jackson

Ansel Adams came to the White House in 1975 to deliver a print of a photograph from Yosemite National Park desired by President Ford and Betty Ford. Adams, still smarting from President Nixon's neglect of public lands, asked Ford to redefine the meaning of our parks, maintain their funding, and put a ''new emphasis on preservation and environmental responsibilities."

In 1983, Adams met with President Reagan, and not to deliver a photograph. He was a vocal critic of Reagan's rollbacks on environmental protection and preservation of wild areas. He said Reagan's land policies were ones of ''rape, ruin, and run!" According to Adams, had the nation been under the vision in the 1930s of Reagan's infamous Interior Secretary James Watt, Kings Canyon National Park would today ''look like part of the outskirts of Las Vegas."

After Adams told Playboy magazine in 1983, ''I hate Reagan," an embarrassed White House had the beloved photographer sit with Reagan for nearly an hour. Adams left unimpressed, borrowing from Oscar Wilde to say, ''They know the price of everything and the value of nothing."

One can only guess what sparks would fly if Adams, who died in 1984, could witness President Bush's resurrection of Reagan's rape, ruin, and run.

This week the Senate passed a budget bill that would allow for drilling for oil in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. The House Budget Committee, at the urging of Resources Committee Chairman Richard Pombo of California, voted to include in its budget bill a proposal to lift moratoriums on offshore oil drilling in the lower 48 states.>>>>snip
http://www.commondreams.org/views05/1105-20.htm

[Moochy]

1. Yosemite Valley, on Mount Ansel Adams

He would definitely feel worse about Bush, since Bush Senior was the crown regent at the time, setting policy for Mr HappyPants Reagan.

Following Mr. Adams' cremation, his son Michael made a two day backpack from Yosemite Valley to the base of a then nameless but favorite mountain of his father and climbed to the summit of what today is Mount Ansel Adams where he placed the ashes...the summit being but eight by ten feet or so and 2000 feet straight down on all sides.

from http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=2967&pt=Ansel%20Adams

[IChing]

2. I made the hike years ago up in the valley

Magical place so I know the mountain, I didn't hike to the summit of the mountain.


I love his quote : they know the price of everything and the value of nothing.