Ok so the government has decided that a good way to help pay for rural schools is to sell of tracts of the national forest. Obviously they are doing this because they think it is a brilliant way to pay for something without having to use the “t” word (tax). This includes many forests in many states, but Missouri has the third largest total acreage that is up for sale in the proposed deal. Obviously the tree hugger in me thinks this is a stupid idea and here is why:

1- Costs for a school will never go away. They need a continuous stream of revenue. Selling off an asset provides only a short term solution. When the money from the forest sale runs out in a few years what is the next piece of public property that will be offered to the highest bidder?

2- With the explosion of rural development going on these days, we should be buying more land to save, not selling off the pieces we have.

3- Missouri is getting the bad end of this deal because it has more to loose than all but 2 other states (california and i’m not sure what the other one is). About 22,000 acres have been selected to be sold in southern missouri, which is a little over 34 sq miles total.

4- Although the idiots in Washington and elsewhere might think the national forest land is just sitting and not being productive, some people actually enjoy having a place that is owned by the public and protected from being tore up by individuals, developers, and the like. Just because these politicians don’t use this land doesn’t mean no one else does. Not everyone has the money to buy their own 2,000 acre estate.

5- I am a big fan of the national forest. Remember this recent outing thanks to the Mark Twain Natl Forest?

6- Did I mention the fact that the sale of all this land is a completely near-sighted solution? Once land is sold, its sold. You can’t sell it again every year.

If this irritates you as much as it does me (which it probably does not, but thats ok) you are probably asking yourself “what can i do?”. Well here is the answer – the month of march is public comment period, which again is brilliant becuse almost no one even knows about this plan because it hasn’t been publicized very much. So comment and tell them how stupid this idea is (preferrably in a more tactful way). Here is the contact info:

Comments on the proposed sale of Forest Service land to finance the Secure Rural Schools and Community Self-Determination Act of 2000 can be submitted by March 30, according to the U.S. Forest Service.

Comments can be sent by e-mail to: mailto:SRS_Land_Sales @fs.fed.us.

Written comments may be sent to: USDA Forest Service, SRS Comments, Lands 4S, 1400 Independence Ave., SW, Mailstop 1124, Washington, DC, 20250-0003.

By the way, I love how they have titled this proposal “Secure Rural Schools”. What a joke. It is not going to “secure” anything for very long. Am I totally missing somethere here? WHAT are they gonna do in 5 years. Just doing some math – if all 22,000 acres were sold at $2,000 an acre (reasonable for large tracts of rural land), thats about $44million (assuming ALL of the missouri land sale money stays in missouri – which is unlikely. To give you an idea of what impact this will have – the 2005 education for the state of missouri was $4.8 BILLION. So, basically nothing. At least not for more than a couple years.

Even after 2/3 of my team bailed because of rain, I was dead set on enjoying my saturday to the fullest extent possible. Two of the 3 others (who shall remain nameless) decided getting wet didn’t sound like much fun… and stayed in Joplin. I guess most people’s idea of fun isn’t hiking around the forest and climbing in caves in the mud and pouring rain?!? I simply prepared by taking a change of clothes, a towel, and a plastic rain pancho. Obviously the highlight was onyx cave, which is probably the coolest cave I’ve ever explored out in the wild. We also saw a huge natural bridge… which was just plain cool. All in all – it was a completely awesome saturday and well worth getting soaked and muddy…even if most people don’t think so.
Anytime you need to get away and spend some time in the outdoors, the Mark Twain Natl Forest is a great place to do it (good weather or not). Plus, there are lots of pine trees in some areas! Check out all of the pics here !

I went to the 617 thing at grant’s church last night, and then played this lord of the rings-esque board game with a few other guys. I guess my strategy of not having a strategy didn’t pay off because i was the first person to loose all my players. Oh well, it was pretty fun, even if my massachussetts minute men didn’t quite get the job done against grant’s evil wildebeast with the sabre and luc’s serpant-thing!

Yeah huh I took a trip back to gradeschool days and hit up the roller rink. Oh it was very excellent, and I have the bruises and blisters to prove it. This will mainly be a photo post…. so enjoy…..

So last night was pretty fun. A bunch of us went to the old (and very neglected) peace church cememtery near Joplin, said to be the final resting place of serial killer Billy Cook. Weird place, yes indeed. I appeared as though several trees had been hit by lightning recently, they were burned from the inside out.

So then we went back to Drew’s and I picked up where I left off on my ice cream from earlier in the night. I actually ended up finishing it up, back at wal-mart, where I had bought it just a few hours earlier (i went with joel to try and cash a check). Since we were already at the service count, I thought about trying to return the ice cream I had just finished…. on the grouds that it wasn’t very good. But since I didn’t have my camera to document the effort, I did not.

The next adventure will probably be hunting for bigfoot. If you want to contribute to this effort let me know! Also… the door prizes have been purchased for LakeEscape!

So all these pics are from friday night. Drew, Matt, my cousin Cameron and his ladyfriend Christy (sp?) went to go check out Drew’s grandmother’s old home. She died awhile back, and the house has been empty since then. A few things you must know. This house is VERY old and this house is VERY creepy. The pic of the outside is what you see from the street. The old tall windows that with a few exceptions are all grown over will weeds. We aren’t quite sure what the thing in the attic was – but from my best guess, it’s a coffin. With some blankets on top that have long rotted away. The most interesting find of the night was bottles of alcohol (still with alcohol in them) that I estimated to be about 70 years old (from the date printed on the labels). I took a smell, and yep, it definitely still smelled like kahlua. The other interesting find was the picture in the living room, of christmas in that very room, probably about 45 years ago. When the house was full of life and people. Before it was empty and slowly falling in on itself.

The other thing I did was go to the wedding of Adam and Candice. As far as weddings go – it was pretty nice. Except everyone I knew there was IN the wedding, so I just had to pick a random table at the reception with people about my age and make a few instant-friends. It worked out okay. What is weird, and also ironic is that on my way TO the wedding I ran into Jake. So later than night I swung by his loft and we went to the mud lounge and caught up on each other. It was pretty fun.

So I went to the WC-Carthage high school football game last night, and for the (i think) 20th year in a row, WC won. It was not a surprise, nor was it a surprise that it was their um-teenth shutout of the season. What was interesting to learn was that until last year Carthage actually lead the series historically. I guess I just can’t remember back that far. The interesting thing about this rivalry is that it is very one sided in my opinion. Carthage DESPISES WC, but I don’t think WC wants to beat Carthage any more than they want to beat anyone else. High School football… it’s so interesting how this little town on the north side of Joplin gets so wrapped up in it! Some towns have various festivals or this or that – this town has game day.