DON'T STEAL OUR PUBLIC LAND TRUMP CRAZY PEOPLE. By Geniusofdespair

Today, I am writing to alert you all to an urgent public lands issue related to national monuments designations and to ask for your help. (My name is Jordan Schreiber and I've recently joined the Federal Affairs team at the Trust for Public Land as the National Advocacy and Outreach Manager.)

President Trump recently signed an Executive Order directing Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke to conduct a review of 27 national monuments. There is now a public comment period available. The Bears Ears NM in Utah is under expedited review – Secretary Zinke is to deliver a recommendation to the President by June 10. The other 26 monuments (listed at the end of this article) are under review through August 24.

BACKGROUND: This review of 27 national monuments has generated significant concern among many individuals and organizations due to the precedent it sets for undoing Presidential designation authority and because of its potential sweeping impact on public lands protections. The Trust for Public Land has long supported Presidential designations of national monuments under the authority of the Antiquities Act and we’ve opposed attempts to restrict that authority. As an FYI, The Trust for Public Land has been involved in land protection and due diligence work at several recently-designated or expanded national monuments, include California Coastal, Stonewall, Pullman Porter, Col. Young/Buffalo Soldiers, Rio Grande del Norte and the San Gabriels (of the monuments where we’ve worked, only the latter two are on the list of 27). You can read more about our support for the Antiquities Act in this op-ed from January. This sweeping review of already-designated monuments is unprecedented in its scope and is obviously geared to two monuments in particular in Utah: Bears Ears and Grand Staircase Escalante. Additionally, the new national monument in Maine – Katahdin Woods and Waters – is the only monument proposed for review under the premise of lack of public input; the other 26 monuments listed are all over 100,000 acres, which is the other criteria selected by the Trump Administration.

Bears Ears National Monument Utah

PUBLIC COMMENT PERIOD: On Thursday, May 11, the Department of the Interior formally opened a public comment period on the monument review, divided into two time frames: The Bears Ears National Monument in Utah has a 15-day comment period, ending on May 26, while the other 26 monuments are afforded a longer review period, with the comment period ending on July 10. The Trust for Public Land will be submitting formal comments as a national organization before the May 26 deadline, and we are using this email to alert you to the opportunity to weigh in on the issue as well. We thought it might help if we gave you the tools to follow through, so attached is a template for comments, and below are the steps required for submitting them.

Here’s how to submit a comment:

Follow this link to the Public Comment page -  this is the link right here
Click on the blue 'Comment Now!' button in the top right hand corner
Use the box provided to submit your comment
Select the 'I want to provide my contact information' box and type in your email
Click 'Continue'
Review your comment and click 'Submit'
After submitting, be sure to request an emailed receipt of your comment

We are encouraging as many people as possible to submit comments before the May 26 deadline, so that the response to the expedited review of Bears Ears will be substantial, but if you can’t do that please consider submitting comments before July 10 if possible.

DO THIS COMMENT YOU LAZY BASTARDS and send to your friends... - GENIUSOFDESPAIR

Here is an example of what you can write:

I am back from vacation...damn it. by Geniusofdespair

I came home to over 2,000 email messages on my private account, I didn't even look at the blog account, should be much more. Feh!

Italian Beach, forget about putting down a towel. You have to pay!!

Be very thankful for your beaches here in Florida. Praise the Lord!

This was the only fight I had in Italy (not saying I didn't annoy everyone) -- it was over public access to a beach (a decent beach is very hard to find on the West Coast of Italy). Here are the sordid details of my run-in:

I went to Italy on a tour and we stopped in a resort town called Viareggio on the Ligurian Sea (like the Biscayne Bay of the Tyrrhenian Sea).  Great place. It was hot, we arrived there about 5 pm and we just wanted to jump in the water, swim and jump out.

All the beaches around our hotel were privately managed. The management of the slivers of the beach are handed down from father to son in some sort of  'crappy deal' (like we always have here in Miami to give away public spaces). Each time an umbrella color changes, it is a new beach manager. You have to pay to rent a chair and umbrella from them. I didn't ask the price. (I looked online and it said the cost was $18 to $25 euros per day in 2006). Sorry I didn't find out the price. Anyone know?

The Umbrellas looking down the coast (each color denotes a different concession). I scanned at a high resolution so you could see these umbrellas better if you hit on the photo.

The Umbrellas....looking up the coast...

Anyway, the hotel gave us an hour pass at one of the beach concessions where they had a deal, but they were unclear on which one it was. We walked down to the water's edge and this guy chased us from his concession.  He wouldn't let us put our two towels down. We asked him where our hotel had rights, he said "If you ask me that I am going to tell you a lie. Why should I help you, I lose money." He was going to lie to me on purpose??  I said the only thing I could think of besides fongul, since I didn't want violence: "You're Stupid." He said in return: "You're Stupid".

The next beach concession owner said, when we asked him the same question: "Be my guest at my concession" It was after 5 pm after all. So we swam for about 20 minutes and thanked the nice Italian guy making a fortune on what SHOULD BE A PUBLIC BEACH. No riparian rights in Italy.

Thankfully, here in Miami Dade County and elsewhere in Florida, we might pay a nominal admission fee (about $5) at some beaches but we don't have to rent umbrellas and chairs for our entire family. Most of our beaches are free if you just walk in (not drive). The fact that our politicians have not gotten their dirty, grubby hands all over our beaches is a miracle. Yes, they do pollute them as often as they can but they haven't imposed high fees for swimming.  Watch out for privatization, it is a BAD THING (remember Donald Trump wanted to manage Crandon's Golf Course and the County Commission nixed it? That was a very good move on their part).

So I am back readers, to mess with your heads.

Rich People: Prepare Yourself for Another (Fisher Island) Beach Invasion by Farmworkers on Sunday by Geniusofdespair

I guess the demonstrators liked the Fisher Island Beach so much, they have decided to go back.

In a Sunday morning protest, hundreds of Farmworkers and supporters from around the country will demonstrate against the discrimination Fisher Island workers are subjected to on the island and on the ferry that takes them to the island. Demonstrators will seek access to the ferry to reach the public beach on the island for a noon picnic with performances by live bands. They will gather at 11am at the Fisher Island ferry terminal in hopes to make it to the public beach to have a picnic. Live bands are also scheduled to perform.

Catch the flick on YouTube of their last visit: Liberating Fisher Island.

Public vs. Private: Including a Guest Blog by “S” by Geniusofdespair

Above is a photo by Carlos Miller. SEIU Union staged a protest landing on the beach at Fisher Island, to highlight poor treatment of workers on the Island.

There are 218 households on Fisher Island according to the 2000 census. Since 2005 the super-wealthy residents of the Island have maintained a political action committee that has a goal of incorporation. They have $100,000 set aside for this goal. According to the Miami Herald’s Reporter, Nick Spangler (Nov. 18th):

“Turns out the beach in the most exclusive community in South Florida, composed of sugar-white sand imported from the Bahamas, is public. Not only that: the covenant developers made with the county years ago seems to guarantee public right of way on a pathway leading from the ferry landing to the beach.”

Let's go swimming! All windsurfers can tell you, guards will not let you land on that beach.

So we come to that question what is private and what is public?

With so many cities in our area lacking anything but strip malls, it is hard to find a public place to gather petition signatures. One of our readers “S” has praised Publix and said that she/he believed you can collect signatures for Hometown Democracy at her favorite store. In checking,(word to the wise, never check readers, they will always say no) here is the harsh reality that "S" found:

The corporate food chain took another bite...my man at Publix, who is willing to go to where ever to get what they don't have on the shelf checked with his corporate office and real estate manager...surprise surprise...no political solicitation. I am disappointed. He said " I thank you for not holding a grudge," (Didn't say I wouldn't, don't know if he read this).

Sooo.

Yes something is seriously wrong in the polis if we can't make policy in the agora...and can't organized effectively to design our cities so there is one. Even before you get Hometown Democracy, you need to change the concept of property and public. NYTimes mentioned a site, I think " chillingfact.com," or some such, yesterday over the Big Box stores like Walmart threatening to sue the people who post online info on anticipated sales. Big Boxes have to be challenged, not just boycotted.

What would Thomas Paine do? Back in the day, in addition to getting the pamphlets out, which had a greater circulation than their print numbers, the word, news and shmooze made its way on foot, stopping at various ye old pubs along the way. That was the Founding Fathers' agora...all hail ale. Probably folks were mellower than a hyped up Starbucks denizen today.

What is today's equivalent? Sports bar...something on the news about 10 laptops 10 games, not me, but whatever, not your parents American Legion. Do people shmooze? That's probably a better venue....busy parents at Publix are popping out the DVDs they'll watch over the weekend, kids having curtailed all adventures (unless its some movie titled "Larry?").

Maybe an in-depth public overview of where we are heading and how we got there every thing in the kitchen sink hearing would be in order: sprawl, credit melt down, Wall Street incompetence, no public square, global warming, water wars, nuks gone missing or appearing at a utility near us soon, jobs in China, illiterate, entitled teenagers...
Who wants to stay in the Senate and not run? Who might run but not win, still want a platform?

I think you should develop an overview committee "S". Seems a worthy project. It is far better than depending on the Publix Store for anything more than groceries.