We have noted the relative sparse news coverage in American media of the floods in Brisbane Australia and in an effort to write about something that isn't on this week's Top Ten Blog Topics in the USA, we thought maybe we'd travel over to Brisbane California and see if there were any local angle stories there about efforts to help the folks in the city in Queensland. Will the residents of Brisbane California do anything to celebrate Australia Day on January 26?
In Berkeley, while debating that possible column topic, we encountered Sarah from Fremantle (in Western Australia), who was soliciting donations for the work being done by the Sierra Club. After chatting about our fond memories of her hometown, we promised to mention the work being done by the Sierra Club and their continuing need for funds.
Thinking about the group, a favorite of Ansel Adams, and the work they do to preserve the treasures of nature which can be found in the USA, reminded us that in the latest news letter from the Beat Museum they mentioned that the US government was seeking help in manning the fire watch tower on Desolation Peak, which is the very same place where Jack Kerouac once worked on the same job. It was while working on that job that he gathered the material used in his "Desolation Angels" book. Here is the link from the newsletter:
http://jobview.usajobs.gov/GetJob.aspx?JobID=94339980#Top
Thinking about the scenic splendors of the American West reminded the writer that one of the big glaring omissions in our efforts to go everywhere and see everything is that we have never been to Sequoia National Park. Since we have been having some difficulty trying to convince a high school classmate that California offers visitors both remarkable outdoor scenery and world class automobile museums that are just as good (or perhaps fueled by a resident's pride we might say "better"?) than those available in his adopted home state of New Jersey. We may have to go there and write a "based on personal observation" column asserting that a visit there is worth the expenditure of some funds and effort for a fellow who owns a camper and lives near Newark.
Ilsa she-wolf of the World's Laziest Journalist's accounting department is very parsimonious about authorizing the expenditure of funds in an effort to gather material for use in columns written for posting on liberal websites.
If we go to the Sequoia National Park, with or without Jersey Bill along on the venture, we would have to drop in occasional references to George W. Bush's cavalier attitude regarding the preservation of the natural beauty of places such as Yosemite, the Tahoe basin, the Monterey Peninsula, and Joshua Tree. The inclusion of that partisan information would be an effort to placate Ilsa and various M.E.'s.
At recent staff meetings at the World's Laziest Journalist's home office, we have made very tentative inquires to Ilsa about getting enough funds to travel to Germany to assess the various automobile museums there. Her immediate response was to snarl "Nein!" We amended the request and couched it in terms of taking a reading of the public opinion regarding America in cities such as Paris and Berlin. It's been almost 67 years since the Yanks liberated Paris. Have the existentialists' approval ratings of America slipped since then? Does the Berlin airlift still count for points in the average German citizen's thinking about the USA? We could intersperse that kind of information among the critiques of the various automobile museums encountered in the expedition.
The sad fact is that even if the exploration adventures gets Ilsa's approval, we would still have to be extremely cautious in the expenditure of funds because it's only the folks from the conservative media who earn exorbitant salaries and are not constricted by the rigors of a tight budget.
(Note: You can view every article as one long page if you sign up as an Advocate Member, or higher).
