I moved to a smaller city after living in NYC for ten years. It's had a profound affect on mental and physical health. I enjoyed New York a lot, but it is far too culturally and politically intense for my liking. I also casually drank too much while I lived there.
Above all though I had such poor access to natural beauty and wild country, which I now realize is important to me.
360 dunk is very different than a double pump or windmill. Spud Webb was doing a double pump 30 years ago...
I think you are looking through rose colored glasses if you believe there was a glut of 14 year old European dudes with the hops for 360 dunks in 1989...
> It may not have been preventable, but he was absolutely correct on NAFTA.
He was wrong on NAFTA, pushing the nationalist/mercantilist line that it would divert gains from the US to Mexico when the actual problem was that (as is generally the case for neoliberal “free” trade) that it drove gains to the capitalist class in both the US and Mexico (and internationally, as capital is largely globalized) to the relative disadvantage of the working classes on both sides of the border.
Bill Clinton was largely rhetorically correct on NAFTA, at least in outline (noting that it would be an aggregate boon but would require additional work to avoid adverse impacts on workers), but while he did impose a labor side agreement on NAFTA it was insufficient to change the basic problems.
> So companies moved jobs away from the US to the detriment of American workers?
No, the US experienced strong economic growth (stronger than it would have without NAFTA) and likewise strong job growth (maybe stronger than it would have been without NAFTA, that's less clear), but less job (or at least wage) growth than would have been expected with similar economic growth without NAFTA. Insofar as there was a “sucking sound”, it wasn't of jobs or wealth being sucked to Mexico from the US, it was of relative economic position being pulled to capital from labor in both the US and Mexico (also Canada, FWIW.)
> The US would have been much better off with Perot as president.
Not, from any evidence, based on first-order policy impacts from the Administration. Perhaps based on missing the impacts on the partisan alignment from the pinnacle of neoliberal consensus and the subsequent rightward surge of the Republican Party as it sought to distinguish itself from the Clintonian neoliberalism in the Democratic Party that was virtually identical (but for comparatively small differences on some culture war issues, but even there Clinton was mostly a rightward divergence for the Democrats) to the pre-Clinton Republican position, sure. Maybe bases on the partisan realignment that would have resulted from the Perot faction displacing one of the major parties, sure.
Certainly based on Perot not having strong-but-failed bids in 1992 and then against with his Reform Party in 1996 which, by qualifying for matching funds, brought a number of opportunists to seek the 2000 Reform Party nomination, including David Duke and Donald Trump, the latter of which cited the risk of association with the former as a reason for dropping out, but courted the same White Nationalist constituency when he ran again, this time for a major party nomination, after a decade and a half of retooling his political image.
> Both Bush and Clinton supported NAFTA
On trade policy, Bush, Clinton, and Perot all favored the capitalist class.
Bush did so fairly nakedly, and chose policies well-supported by modern economics given that goal.
Perot also did so fairly nakedly, but work mercantilist policies th t both theory and evidence had shown were suboptimal for centuries.
Clinton was like Bush, but with some at least rhetorical recognition that supporting the capitalist class in ways which produced aggregate growth could be counterproductive for the larger working class and that at least modest active interventions were necessary to assure that aggregate growth resulted in general benefit.
If one agreed with his ideological focus, Bush was the least wrong on policy. Clinton was, at least rhetorically, the least wrong on what was necessary for durable broad progress, though in practical first-order policy terms probably not different enough from Bush to make much difference in outcomes, as his mitigation measures were far too modest. Perot was the most wrong.
I'm from Texas originally and in Texas, well, you just don't go on other peoples land. But I grew up sharing a fence line with national grasslands and I naturally developed an affinity for public land.
A few years ago I learned about Hawaiis public ownership of the beaches when a friend took me to a locals secret spot in Kauai that we had to trespass to get to. The trail to get there represented a battle between landowner (a golf resort) and the trespassers, with big soil dumps to create steep descents and thorny bushes vines planted to make it difficult (or at least painful) to get to the cove. But on the other hand it was clear people had come through there with shovels and machetes to clear the way so people could access that beautiful beach. I imagine that battle is still being waged today.
Recently I moved to a state (Maine) with a more nuanced set of norms about private land use (for recreation and hunting/fishing both), Before I didn't realize there are places in the US where it's normal to access peoples private land without permission. I took a hunters safety course here and one of the things they reinforce over and over again is to get permission to hunt land. They even gave us booklet containing templates for getting signed permission to hunt land. It was unfathomable to me that you would hunt on someones land without permission. They also taught us that times are changing here and in a couple of generations this whole culture of public use of private lands will probably go away, so it’s important to be respectful so as not to hasten its demise.
I’ve come around to believing that nature ought to be seen and land should be used (in a respectful way). Just to be able to go on a hike and be in nature is a special kind of liberty.
Those Wilks brothers in the article represent a culture of fear and paranoia that is born of certain ideologies (religion, neoconservatism, etc). I imagine they can’t see the world in any other way. That Justin Wilks thinks recreating on his 300,000 acres is somehow equivalent to him camping on your front yard shows you how petty and slighted even billionaires can be.
I grew up in Sweden with extensive Freedom to roam rights where you can visit all the forest and lakes. But my view has gone in the opposite direction, as someone who loves being in nature I thought the idea was wonderful and I have spent so much time in nature picking mushrooms and nuts. It has been great for me and I respect nature and try to leave it as I found it.
Unfortunately I can't say the same for other people. I just keep seeing more and more trash around pretty lakes because people got there and have a party and just leave all the trash. I found piles of junk in the forest just to learn that people just dump it there because it's easy and free. The problem is that it's basically impossible to enforce the Freedom to roam rules about not leaving trash or cutting down trees and so on. Basically it is just free for all to dump trash and behave like people want because of the lack of enforcement.
At this point I really wish to own a forest but not in Sweden, I want to own it in a country where I have real property right were I can people away from it because I don't want them to ruin it. Sure I don't need 100,000 of acres but I still want to own forest and be able to keep people from using it without permission.
A better, longer term, structural solution to this is investing in education and fostering a culture of environmental awareness from childhood. Instead, in the US, we keep defunding the EPA and denouncing scientists sacrificing their lives to appease the needs of rich people to increase the value of their equity.
Do you think people don’t know that dumping and littering in nature is bad? There is an inherent selfishness at play, especially with little threat of punishment or shame.
A similar problem encountered in California is illegal pot grows in National Forest and even National Park lands. These growers deliberately introduce large quantities of rodent poison into the econsystem, divert streams, and dump trash in what is supposed to be the most protected and pristine federal land. And they do it for profit, or because, as they claim, their families back home would be threatened by a cartel.
This seems like a feature that will eventually be baked into onX, which I happily pay for. Right now though it only draws a distinct line between public/private in my state and some public parcels (like city or land trust owned property) appear as private land. Still after a while you get a good sense of whether the parcel is accessible by the name alone.
I love OnX. Between it, and the USFS PDF maps (which can be keyed to GPS using other free apps), I've been able to do a bunch of exploring.
For example, last December, I drew a tag for the Whetstone mountains in AZ. The primary route that everyone used into the western side of the mountain range was a 2.5 hour drive in from the far west, with significantly challenging terrain toe cross. However, between OnX and the USFS maps, I was able to find a route from the south that had an unmarked, but official, USFS service road through private property.
Without that kind of info, I would never have even thought to approach the gate into the property (other hints at arrival help - there was a USFS placard saying to keep gate closed). It saved me dozens of hours of travel during the trip as we were staying in a nearby town.
Nice, I use it mostly for finding river frontage in Maine that I can access for fishing. Maine also has a ton of land trusts and conservancies, so I will use it to map out their borders.
Above all though I had such poor access to natural beauty and wild country, which I now realize is important to me.