Non-Voter Headspace

Remember this:  Wait for the backfire.

Watching the Collegiate Electoral Voting map appeared to be a river of blood right through the middle of America-it’s spread was everywhere. I fondly called it, The Masque of the Red Death. 

I wondered who could vote in such a way, and why?

The only thing I could think of was a great mental plague in the form of resentment, and the ability to organize an outcome, not necessarily in favor of benefiting the country, but one as children playing in a school yard with a bully shaking down kids for their lunch money.

Wait till someone realizes that a campaign was based around knowing how to work people through their true intentions to get into a position for self-benefiting shenanigans. 

If the undercurrent was to strike back against minorities, immigrants, etc. and take their country back (who exactly are these people?), then that would mean there is X amount of people that see the rest of us as non-patriotic and undeserving to live here.

Is that what it is like to be a winner? Complete separation from the rest of the country based on an ugly truth we now know is that big red blot across America on the Collegiate Electoral Voting map.

Take back your country? Who are we supposed to be taking back our country from? Oh wait, we weren’t included in that ‘take back America and make it great again’ scheme. Wait until "We, the People" have to take back our country from a Fascist Republican rule. A lot of these people are going to be using the guise of God to dictate their rules. Trust me, God isn't going to be speaking directly to them either. Buckle up kiddos. Four years is a long time when under the thumb of a small group of people that could make your life a living Hell.

Have fun champs! Let us see, if Trump makes it, what he will do over the next four years and if it ends in disgust, betrayal, and a mess to which the likes have never seen.

I wonder what the body count is going to be. If you worried about what you thought Hillary did that never went to trial, what exactly do you think will be Trump’s outcome especially when he has said some disrespectful things of Veterans? Those comments were right there coming out of his own mouth and not diatribe fake news reporting on Facebook and social media outlets.

Someone told me Trump might shock us. I laughed and said, “You bet. He’s gonna shock America for sure.”

Didn’t that already happen?

I figured this was going to happen because it is not too hard to figure out some of the American public. We already know we have racism running rampant, misogyny, and other things that play their incredible way out in political forums as we watch and go WTF over and over again.

Yet no one can stop those outcomes. We lie down as constituents, grumble, take it, move on, and mark it down as taking it for a loss.

I no longer worried over Trump’s election to office. That point was mute. I was convinced that the problem appeared to be people with voting apathy. Those people, who live in America, are subjected to its laws, but do nothing to take part in the process other than complain when policies menace their lives.

I woke up. Trump was President. I went to work. I began asking the same and only question: Did you vote? I didn’t need to know who they voted for-just if the person voted. Ten people I asked. Ten answers I got.

“Did you vote?”

Person #1     African-American Male Over 20:    No

Person #2     African-American Male Over 20:    No

Person #3     African-American Male Over 20:    No

Person #4     African-American Male Under 20:   No

Person #5     African-American Male Under 20:   No

Person #6     African American Male Under 20:   No

Person #7     Caucasian Female over 60:         No

Person #8     Caucasian male over 20, military: No

Person #9     African-American Female Over 20: Yes

Person #10   Caucasian Male over 30:           Yes

Person #11   African-American Male over 20:    Yes

Person #12   African-American Male over 30:    Yes

Of the twelve people, four voted. Of the eight people, voting apathy was evident. Digging in a little deeper, I asked: Why did you not vote?

The sixty-year-old Caucasian female’s reply was her vote didn’t matter. It would cancel out another’s vote and make it null. Two people’s vote would not matter.

The Caucasian male over 20, military replied the two lead options were not options. Trump was not a quality choice given his public antics, and Hillary had Benghazi looming over the voter’s heads. Who do you vote for the fascist, misogynist megalomaniac, or the military murderess?

Some unnamed person trolled me on Twitter, making sure I understood they weren’t attacking me, but telling me they were neutral and didn’t trust Hillary because of Benghazi. Now, I am not sure if that story is even true. No charges against her were ever filed. Why the hell not if it was that bad? I just blocked that person and moved on. Not sure why they even bothered with me.

Onward.

The six African-American males replied their vote didn’t matter. They argued by the time it got to the Electoral College-the Electoral College could vote the way the Electoral College wanted to. This vote would most likely align with the majority vote in the special interest section; not what is in the best interest of the States diverse people, or government.

The other four proclaimed they did their part and voted; nothing more to see there.

Here you have 8 people alone for their reasons that did not vote.  I wondered how many people didn’t vote just in my state. If the number is large how many of those people did not vote for the same reasons.

Another 19 year-old African-American male not included in this group told me that he didn’t vote because he was too lazy to change his voter registration from another district.  I mentioned absentee ballot and he didn’t want to do that either.

How do you live in America, in a state, with the things we are facing and not vote-then just live with the outcome. How do you live in America, as a young African-American male with the Black Lives Matter movement-yet you don’t care if you vote?

Great! The Curse of Manifest Destiny was upon us in the form of apathetic non-voters, who were becoming victims of their own undoing in the form of giving over their existence to something they felt was inevitable-no matter their actions, or the outcome.

Otherwise, I am a donkey sitting on my ass unwilling to move to go vote.

The moral of the story here is: Non-actions, no matter how you argue it is not the best self-governing policy when making huge decisions in the face of a long term consequence that can affect the world you know-it-at-large.

How do you change constituent’s minds about the value of their vote? If they think that low of their vote then can it be true to say, as a constituent, they feel their existence in the grander scheme of things within their government is left unheard, or inevitably worthless?

As politicians willing to lead, how do you go through the motions of politics knowing you were voted in on a sham because the ones that didn’t vote don’t believe in their government-federal and state, or you as a politician with many words and promises?

How does a government get to a point where a portion of We, The People feel as if we are victims to the unreliable Wheel of What-Fresh-Hell-Is-This-Today!

How does a government get to the point where “We, the People” have spoken, but it is a certain group hell-bent on striking back at everyone instead of doing what is in the best interest of the country as a whole? 

Or is it when constituents tell the government over and over they do not want something and a vague compromise is set forth, yet the outcome is not in favor of the constituents?

I know government is not perfect, but over time when the constituents yell at the governing body that things aren’t right and it needs to change, the governing body does nothing and holds “We, The People” hostage with laws made supposedly to ensure our rights, when we are just held hostage by them. Yet, we as constituents feel violated by the workings of our fellow man with spiteful choices and decision-making.

I was accused of spreading the hate but it would seem Trump did a fine job of that on his own with the help of his voters-whoever they are.

I also wondered with Trump voters, if this being at the whim of government means clutching onto the first person believed to be like a messiah, and voting them into office with the hope “We, The People” will be heard by the people we elected-even though “We, The People” is not a whole agreeable unit but different rations of a voting system in portion for a final outcome. 

“We, the People” in this case is Trump Nation. I am from the “We, the People of America.” How about you?

It stinks to high heaven like the War between the North and South-that was a racial epithet to how mistreating people will backfire in your face.

I didn’t do any of that hate-mongering. That was Trump, his rally followers, and those going around putting nasty things on minorities property. 

Yet, you will reap what you sow.

I had a friend over the age of 60, Caucasian female that believed Trump was sent from God to solve the problems of America. I stared in horror when she admitted sending money to his campaign. She really believed there were people out there voting who were sent by the Devil to keep America down. I wondered exactly what and who she thought America was. My tentative submission would be merely the Christian people of her choosing. She also believes there is a limited amount of space in heaven and some of us just won’t cut it.  I talked to someone about that particular episode. The consensus was: Wow, she has really fallen off the path. Maybe you need to cut ties with her?

You would be surprised how much of this strange indoctrination of voting based on religious belief is hammered out in churches in certain parts of the country.  I know of at least three churches I set foot in where I walked right back out based on the content of the sermon, and the way parishners treat everyone like an opportunity to show God just how holy they are-then post it to the internet.

Don’t worry. They make sure their children probably don’t have a say in their vote because the vote is streamlined straight through the family. They all vote the same, regardless of whether they want to vote different.

I put the question to task: In the face of voter apathy reeling our country into the panic zone, because some of us know what’s up, how do we go about digging into the mentality of these non-voters in the next four years to get them to be on-point and vote?

What about the backfires? Backfires are fires started to check an advancing fire by clearing an area.

We have already seen this in the form of protests. Protests that are likely to flare up over the next for years and I will not surprised if violence explodes somewhere and people are harmed.

I don't like to be all gloom and doom but there it is.

Of course, people like that religious lady friend of mine will say it is God’s work and those people against Trump deserve it because they are possessed by the evil spirit of the Devil.

I will interject here, being personally religious, this lady might be a small clutch of people. The rest might be okay.

What about now empowered voters, whose chosen candidate has won, advancing on those opposed to that candidate in such a way to make you think the winning candidate’s supporters really show they see a difference in you versus them. This difference is enough to ask you to leave your own country and aggression towards you? That doesn’t seem to be democratic at all.

When did America get to the point where we are judged, measured and found lacking to be American by other Americans?

The thing about this is: karma swings back around to serve you up the same quality bowl of ‘suck this Too-Big-For-Your-Britches magic'. When it comes, that one is gonna hurt.

I told you the darkness might come. Never say when, where or how; just that it would come.

If Trump and Hillary taught me anything it would be this:

Anyone can run for President with any kind of platform, both proper and vulgar, and get away with it. There is a group out there that does not want women to advance. There is a deeply flawed thought process flowing through the non-voter brain that we need to correct. STAT!

In terms of Trump, I am sure the ones running this country will be his kids. He will be a figurehead. The Republican Party is now the dominant force in true coup fashion.

If Trump were smart, he would hire all those against him, and let them lead his presidency by allowing the others to have input into his leadership. That is what a boss does. You pick the winning team.

That would burn a lot of Trump supporters because they would not be expecting that. It would appear Trump constituents are wanting the protection of a bully that can push people around.

Isn’t that what happens when you put a fox in  a hen house?

On a positive note, two African-American couples were talking to me. One of the men jokingly said, “Be patriotic. Give me a discount.”

I said, “Did you see who was elected President?”

The man laughed, “He says he is going to do something. Let’s see what he can do.”

I laughed. If these African-American couples can have some hope Trump won’t be as bad as he has impressed himself to be, there is a spark of Hope in this strange reality.

That is all I ask for: Hope in this messy situation.

I’ll go on that for now and wait to see what the fall-out is going to be over the next four years.

By the way, those of you that came to me defending Trump, if he does well you will not see me. If he screws up this country, I will find you in four years, show up to your social media door, and we are going to have a long chat.

Why? For the LOLZ

Otherwise, I need to work out my plan for four years because a woman will sit in that Oval Office-and other places in the government. If there is anyone willing to help me make this plan send me a message.

Even if it takes spending all my free time with teenagers, or anyone else living in voter apathy, to get it across to them that they matter, their vote matters, and their place in the world is worth fighting for no matter what is standing before them. It would be time well spent.

Let the games begin…

~Courtesy of the AOFH~

The Assault of Standing Rock Sioux

Remember this: Assault is assault-be it physical, psychological, or spiritual. Add inherited betrayal and you have yourself a shit-storm.

Not going to bore you with the bison shit. I saw the buffalo and knew Standing Rock was doing the right thing. Your ancestors come in different ways to tell you, whether it ends badly or not. That was a clear sign. If this goes by us, the Cosmos has the right to fling whatever darkness it has to offer us.

I am writing this because I know wrong when I see it. What has been done to Standing Rock is dead-to-the-pan wrong. 

In the Great Cosmology, there is a reason that moves Standing Rock. We don't have foresight, but if no one listens devastation will come. It might not be the gas but it will be the murder/harm done to a people grasping onto decency, while other people lose theirs.

This is the lesson dealt us. Their existence coveys your contempt for all that Mother Earth has given you. What Standing Rock conveys is the base line theme that trumps all the hoopla surrounding climate change. You destroy us. You destroy the Earth. You destroy yourself.

If you can't get that down in that brain of yours, you have a problem. 

Yet, I am trying to regard this with compassion instead of utter contempt at what I have seen and how people stand by and don’t offer protection, or support to those begging for something that is self-evident.

In regards to the Standing Rock Sioux and their protests against the DAPL pipeline, it is a moot point to waste time giving the history of the indigenous tribes of America. Their existence in a nutshell:

Lies and Broken Promises

Displacement

Eradication

Genocide-Genetic and Cultural

Assimilation

                            Ramrodding

Who did this? Take a guess.     

Above all those descriptive words, betrayal, Psychic rape and a complete disregard for their suffering, pain, and acknowledgement of their rightful place in this world-which belongs to all- by their fellow human beings. It would seem, indigenous people are always being shuffled about and remain rootless even when they have been given ground to grow from-begrudgingly.

Tribes were forced into areas that became their home. That is the last shred of decency that they know-their home and their lands. They have no other home to be forced off into. The only other place to force them is into non-tribal society.

Anyone that has ever been cast from their home and lived from pillar to post will understand the anxiety and frustration of being displaced and homeless. It hurts when you have been cast out by someone you thought was family and tried to love.

It wouldn’t be too far-fetched an idea to believe indigenous peoples may feel the human family has disowned them. Add in forcing yourself off on someone and that is rape. Rape brings all kind of nasty darkness to the table. Usually, the perpetrator is not the one living with that darkness. Boy, does it fester.

By the pricking of their fingers, the poison was put. I don’t think anyone would like to feel like a shadow person walking around, or not a whole human being.

Would you?

In non-tribal society, as an individual you hold family and home closest to your heart, if you have the gift of those things. It is no different in tribal societies.

Imagine someone disrespecting you, or your house. Imagine they disrespected you to the point they don’t care how much it upsets you.

The mentality is: you will get over it. Unfortunately, you don’t.

Why are indigenous tribes and peoples treated as if there is no regards for their place in the world. They are as deserving and have a given right as all do on this planet. Yet, their patch of dirt is being fingered as not their own to have and hold.

Yet maltreatment persists with the disregard at the suffering incurred on indigenous peoples.

It always appears that the American government is slowly trying to beat down their spirit to make them give in to what the government wants. In this case, what DAPL wants.

Don’t think it won’t ever happen to you. You see this all the time with non-tribal American citizens.

Trying to tell women what to do with their vaginas

Curfewing people in their homes like prisoners

Enslaving school kids to constructed dry curriculums

Giving police complete control to bully you

Threat

Threat

Threat

Etc.

Government is not all bad. It is the person in charge at the helm that is using it for self-serving purposes and not in the best interest of the people they are employed to take care of. Yes, employed, voted in, given a damn good paycheck, to shit us all up for their greedy need of money, power, and control.

I digress, not all politicians-but you can tell who those people are. These bad politicians leave a wake of bad decisions and the people pay for it. Aunt Bessie gave us a cow and her udders are shooting out E.coli.

Standing Rock Sioux declare their need for help. Where is it?

I pondered this. Their remoteness shuts them away from the world it seems. What can be done against the DAPL if the Governor of North Dakota lets constituents be abused through aggressive means?

State governance appears to be the bully here by helping and enabling the DAPL to do these things. Is that state governance really serving the best interest of the people? Are they showing the constituents of their state what government can do so the constituent will comply?

Translated: You just better sit there, shut up and take it right where the sun don’t shine.

What ever happened to diplomacy? Did it die? Who killed it? I know it existed once upon a dream...

I got to thinking on the suffering of the Standing Rock Sioux and all indigenous tribes and peoples.

This was the conclusion I came to:

Indigenous hate and aggression is warranted. They are entitled to that in full. That is all that has been given them, and they can only give what is given to them in return. These are human beings with the full spectrum of emotional and psychological ability to disseminate between pain, distrust, love, acceptance, and the realization that the last straw breaking the camel’s back has arrived. In truth, it hasn’t arrived-it has been occupying the mentality of all indigenous cultures for centuries. Why? Treatment never changed. No one listened. No one cared. No one acknowledged. All they saw was the back of heads turning away.  

Translated: We have been defecated upon and are tired of it.

If indigenous people are aggressive and want to fight you, that is years of maltreatment up to the present day. Finally, it is better to die than to stand one more minute of the shit bearing down on them by people that don’t care about their way of life, unless it is good for a photo-op, or a nice show to the American public to make it look like something is being done, such as good will.

I can’t imagine one person loving to eat the lies and broken promises forced down their throats.

Would you?

All you have to do is google Flint’s tainted water, Alabama busted gasoline, fracking wells tainted in Texas and Pennsylvania, etc. Post after post of bad water, government deciding it is more important to save money and poison their constituents.

How can this thinking be any different? How can DAPL pipeline not share the same outcome eventually? If you had the choice would you want it in your backyard and have it foul your water?

I don’t think so.

When people get offered “progress” they are rolling their eyes and wondering who drove the Taint-mobile into town.

They have a right to say no to this just like we said no to sonography of our coast and killing off, or harming our wildlife in the sea.

The issue that befuddles the mind is this:

When there is a clear and present situation that can cause potential damage and suffering to constituents, their local, state, and federal government stands with their fingers in their ears going lalalalalalala. Then tries to double talk and give them the run around hoping the bothersome mosquito of complaint goes away.

Eventually, disaster strikes. I-Told-You-So seeps out of every pore.

Whether you like it or not, non-tribal people inherited their full wrath, distrust, hate, animosity, loathing, from the pregnancy of past bad handling of the government, decision-making, lack of honor, and not honoring the word upon agreements and treaties.

Why is that?

It is deserved because no better has been done by indigenous tribes by non-tribal people as people stood there watching the same thing happen over and over again.

It is blight of the Soul. Nothing will ever ease it.

Indigenous peoples’ complete existence through their generations was never made right and they had to fight tooth and nail-tooth and nail for their present state.

No one can take the credit for that but indigenous people.

What is to be done with this DAPL debacle?

Who knows now? The pepper spray has be sprayed, tepees torn down, attack dogs set on them, the old disrespected, and their sacred ways chucked to the four winds by DAPL. What DAPL did was on a whole new level of that stuff way beyond what one can scrap off the bottom of a trashcan...and that stuff might be insulted at being put in the same category.

I guess it was more important to show those indigenous who is boss instead of taking the extra money to divert that pipeline to a different place. It was more important for DAPL to be gifted with a terrible public relations disaster by peeing in the faces of everyone watching their actions.

Way to go DAPL. Missions accomplished.

I don’t think you can stand in the face of a right-minded person, bring poison to their door, expect to walk in their home, and say, "Drink Up".

It is the small pox blankets all over again. The blanket is the pipe and the small pox is the gas inside. The pipe is breached, just like a blanket it covers everything-and the infection begins.

No, no sir. That is not how those things go.

Standing Rock Sioux's moniker holds true. Water is Life. There are people that believe that water is not an inherent right and should be a commodity withheld in exchange for payment.

True story, this elderly lady was forced on city water because the city people came and dropped dynamite in her well. If government wants to force you to be on a grid and dependent-they will find a legal way to do it and not care you feel raped.

Ideas like that are null and void when the water is tainted up to your eyeballs. 

I want to know: How does DAPL have the power to rape people like that while government stands aside to watch the show?

Why does this persist? Next time you drink a bottle of water, think about what you would do if someone took a piss in it, then handed it back to you to drink. 

~Courtesy of the AOFH~

See other links:
https://www.facebook.com/ErinBrockovichOfficial/?fref=ts

https://www.facebook.com/holly.young.946

Peoples of the Pee Dee

Remember this: Some are bound to the river as much as the river is bound to them.

By now, everyone is aware of the passing of Hurricane Matthew. Much like any tropical cyclone, the wake it leaves can be mild or devastating in varying degrees.

After the Hurricane, the local area had a curfew due to power outages and first responders possibly being unable to get to people in a timely manner.

Well-I am not sure it was the rain that was the problem but maybe the dams bursting-yet again.

Prior to these events, eight people came to my house to remove some trees that blocked the drive. A couple of days later, I went looking for one of them to pay. The Sheriff’s Department was down his lane telling people to evacuate because the dam had burst and the river was going to crest. The Sheriff’s deputy stopped to talk to me and he seemed a little stressed that people weren’t listening to him. I thought he should have taken a local person to be intermediary; stranger traveler in a strange land kinda thing.

This was the first whiff of what was to come. Next morning, anyone opening their door would probably find the river in the house creeping in their beds, or yelling Trick-O-Treat!

I stayed at my house because power lines were down everywhere. I knew the National Guard was out blocking water-covered roads and didn’t want to mess up my truck.

The last two days I have checked in on my extended family at their makeshift lodgings in front of Larrimore Deer Processing on Highway 378 West. My poor Aunt has broken her leg which makes this a more miserable time.

I trucked down the road and snapped a couple of pictures of my Uncle’s house and my Great Grandmother house; both were breached by the river water.

Once the people were told the dam had breached, they went to Piney Grove Church on 2690 Piney Grove Church Road, Gresham, South Carolina 29546-and promptly emptied out all the furniture they could to keep it from being lost. On this image, my uncle’s house is right behind the church. It used to be the Old Piney Grove Church-so that foundation is probably over 100 years old. I remember playing in this old church when it had lumber stacked up in it like a barn.

House in the background was the original church

These images have been presented in the State Newspaper and local news headlines. But, I am related to these people. No jokes.

From the Highway 378 West down Piney Grove Church Road back out to Highway 378 West and turning down the Bay Road off Highway 378 West to the end at Highway 908-these families were drastically affected in terms of loss of home, supplies, security, and a sense of space.

A person doing construction during the previous flooding said where he worked across the river, the home owners were not given any support for their home loss-and feared the same would be the case for these people up these two roads. Someone told me they were not allowed to carry insurance on their homes.

The FEMA representative strolled past.

My Uncle Darrell has been good about staying present at the mouth of the Bay Road at Larrimore Deer Processing to warn people, talk to Come-Look-See Tourists, greeting anyone else, and be a good sport in this trying time.

There was concern for lack of respect on the part of responder’s, or logging company’s concerned with their large equipment causing more of a wake, pushing water into people’s houses and for the people in the community’s space.

Not everyone is there for you as a hero and can be downright rude with the mentality you should be grateful they are there.

What you have here is a big extended family living by the river and they need help-in a big way.

I was talking to a nice couple where I worked at and told them of this place which they had seen. I thought I would tell you, dear reader about it.

This place, like so many, you have got to WANT to live here. Once you live here long enough, you can’t imagine living anywhere else-if it suits you. There is a certain amount of indigenous mentality going on here. The river comes, brings its lessons, then it moves away when the song is sung to those that should listen. It can sing its song far and wide for that water goes where it pleases in many forms. This doesn’t mean you have to be afraid of it-more respect what it can give you, or do to you.

Your mother eats the dirt and drinks the water-you become the dirt and the water. You are born of and from those things. You learn simplicity. You learn a healthy respect for what Mother Nature can do, especially when a human-made girdle breaks and she rages because her bindings are too tight.

You learn family should be there for each other-related or not. This means anyone in the community and outside of it.

One of the most important is not be too proud to ask for help, or point the need to do so out.

My worry is this place is remote and the people will be overlooked in their hour of need. This hour, which brings about thinking the outside world, is not so concerned with their well-being.

Our mindset in light of distance and local places being affected by weather patterns and their wakes should possibly be: We all live here in the world. Anyone, at any given time can be displaced, and should not be graded on the level of displacement as a mode of treatment for how best to approach people or situations. Being displaced totally sucks. You could be displaced for a long time. People love the security of home.

A physical home can be ripped away-but people and family that will support you will be there.

As my global family, I am asking you, whoever you may be to help me help these people. My goal for them is to have better engineered homes, or have the financial means to acquire better building supplies to work with. 

My other goal is to figure out who I have to talk to to get the State of South Carolina to take the occurrence of poorly services water dams from malfunctioning more seriously.

If you would be interested in helping the local people of Piney Grove Church Road and Bay Road off Highway 378 West-please contact Darrell Larrimore at (843) 907-2282 or send donations to:

Larrimore Deer Processing
C/O Darrell Larrimore

902 East Highway 378

Britton’s Neck, South Carolina 29546

(or)

Britton’s Neck-Gresham Fire Department

7692 SC-908

Gresham, South Carolina 29546

(843) 362-0102

Tell them I sent you. No one will see that one coming. 

~Courtesy AOFH~

Who Came Up With that Phrase?

Remember this: Form a better argument.

I have read a lot of articles by celebrity hunters, and seen posts that state, “hunting is conservation”.

I really wanted to be a thoughtful consumer when approaching this. I argue there is a hunting propaganda machine out there with a public relations department circulating this phrase-as an outdoors consumer-I should really give this some thought. For anyone reading this and seeing this type of thing circulating-maybe you should give it a second glance as well. I’m not saying act, but it is your outdoor sports, too.

Conservation is a multi-disciplinary science filled with many subdivisions-all based in science, such as wildlife, genetics, ecology, and biological. These terms can be applied to the land, air and sea as substrates in which the act of hunting takes its form. Hunting is not one of those. There are people that will suggest it as a fact.

Hunting is used as the action word here. I will stay on point with it. Given this, people who utilize the outdoors for sport can advertise “fishing is conservation”, but it’s not as catchy, or carries itself like hunting.

Hunting has become a power word. Unfortunately, those wielding it in the public as role models didn’t listen to Peter Parker’s Uncle Ben. Power words bring great responsibility.

Unfortunately, that power word is only as crucial as the one wielding it. Do not misuse your powers.

Misuse is what I see.

Hunting is an act generated from hunters, who go out and use their skills to garner a living thing and render it dead for food, or catch and release for pleasure.

Hunting and Conservation can be interchangeable tools for scientific use. Never be confused the two terms are one and the same. Someone may try to morph the two words together to further some poorly laid argument to support the argument itself-don’t be fooled.

Hunters managing an area can have a scientific study performed to tell them what Conservation plan would be best suited to build on the area they already have for maximum output and upkeep for the sake of their hunting activities. Without the quarry, the hunting act is empty.

Hunters can be conservationists. One day they can hunt, the next day they can plow their field to reseed for quail populations.

Now that I have said this, some nut somewhere is going to get his brief ready on why they need to make “Conservation Hunting” a scientific stand-alone. This is not comparable to Conservation Genetics.

People don’t hunt-technology does that for them, or so it seems.

One truth here is hunting itself becomes a monitoring data point in scientific study to issue information over a given species on a landscape. It may give information on the overall general health of the area and its inhabitants, but not the sole data point.

In a scientific study, hunting as an act is not the center of the universe-even though online posts would make it seem so.

This is not an opinion-it is a scientific fact.

If you are privy of the past and present scientific research in the ecological, biological, and natural resources of conservation, the reader discovers and understands that the act of hunting is a data point to be studied to determine what effect that particular act has on the outcome of the study groups from a list of chosen data points to be studied.

Just to exhibit layman data points in a domestic area, I give you the horse.

I will use the concept of horses in a field. The horse owner already knows they need a certain amount of acreage per horse (data point 1) and a water supply (data point 2). Horses drink about 1 gallon per 100 pounds of body weight.  Increase this by four times during the hot season (data point 3), hard work (data point 4), lactation (data point 5), and extra dry roughage consumed depending on winter or spring (data point 6). A 1000 pound horse will consume and waste three tons on average of forage dry matter during a 6 month grazing season.

The horse owner also has to take into consideration the carrying capacity of any pasture depending on soil type, soil fertility, drainage conditions, rainfall, time of year, and type of forage species present. Data point, data point, data point. Hunting can become a data point when a wayward hunter shoots into a field killing one of the horse specimens in the field. Those data points have to be noted.

Here you have a slow breeder living in domestication that is affected by its biological needs and size, and the environment it lives in. One horse in a field has its own unique set of data points to consider for its well-being and upkeep. You have to have a forage, water, and grazing plan with subsequently blocking of select areas for plants to grow and rotate the horse out for proper grazing.

Now apply that to wildlife in large expanses with human habitation living on the boundary. Somewhere there is a conservation plan for exactly how many wildebeest need to be living in a given area depending upon migration. Grazing animals living in a given area over a period of time can graze themselves right out of food without exception to the fact the weather patterns effect on forage.

An elephant can eat 200-600 pounds of food a day and drink up to 50 gallons of water a day. Now apply the horse theory to an elephant but use a conservation plan based in science.

Here you have a slow breeder, living in the wild affected by its biological needs, size, and the environment it lives in. 

Regular people living their lives do not think in terms of the needs of the animal, the ecosystem or what goes into the upkeep or management. They only know it is wrong for the animal to die at the hands of a hunter.

I have read plenty of scientific research where the data point of hunting was carefully followed to determine, with regards to that particular research, that hunting had a positive effect on the conservation of species in that given area and study. As a tool, in a given area, using a conservation plan implementing hunting as a data point, hunting can have a positive influence overall when not misused.

That is not an opinion-it has been studied and determined valid under given limits.

We can use the human animal here as an example, such as the elephant and horse. Syrian refugees have to have food, water, and a location. Someone has to come up with a plan to manage these immigrants. Apply the horse model to immigrants and their needs.

You really have to look deeper into the mud puddle past your reflection-and that mud hole goes deep.

When the hunter considers the great expansive of some parts of North and South America, Africa, Canada, and the Mongol grasslands, with huge herds of a variety of wildlife in need of a conservation plan, that are surrounded eventually by human habitation, there is a lot of mathematical application to biological work to help form a plan of management to keep those areas functioning at an acceptable level. This is not even considering the ecological impact of the land and ecosystems via other variables.

The Earth is big. It is a challenge given problems like ocean acidification. That is a whole different set of problems to talk about. Yikes! I would stay under that oak tree at the river with all this doom and gloom.

A fact is hunters do contribute a lot of money. Don't let money be your only supportive argument. Let’s own that as a fact. Hunters don’t need to argue to space that hunting is conservation when it is not. Hunter money does support a lot of scientific research and conservation effort. We shouldn’t expect gratitude from non-hunters abhorred to hunting. Just keep doing what you’re doing, don’t take more than you can use or need, and do as much work as you need to sustain the populations and habitats for future generations.

Be proud of that.

Don’t expend energy on fighting. Spend more time on contributing to organizations willing to be truthful and not manipulative in the way it directs its members to promote the outdoor sports.

If you voice your opinion, and you feel confident your stance is valid, stand your ground. If you find a person who makes more sense-maybe you should listen. Give it a second or third thought.

“Hunting is conservation” begins to look like a poor choice of words. If someone wanted to give the term hunting a home, it would be stashed amongst natural resource conservation. Don’t believe me? Look at that survey from the local Department of Natural Resources and ask yourself, “Why do they want me to send in how many turkeys I’ve seen?”  Data point for an impromptu scientific study using citizen science to give numbers because of lack of state funding. Why do you think the Department of Natural Resources controls the legalities of hunting, your permits, boats, public access areas, and wildlife managed areas?

Other than that, someone is trying to force a golden egg out the back end of a goose that is not laying. Cramming it down the throats of hunters is not going to produce a golden egg either.

Broken down as a truth, in the greater scheme of things, hunting is rendered as a scientific variable.

This is an example of a report where hunting is a variable or mode of removal to gain samples for an ecological study-hence it being a variable in a scientific research study.

You will read the term “offtake” as “a number of individuals removed from the environment through hunting or harvesting by humans”. 

See article below (circa 2015):

http://www.ecologyandsociety.org/vol20/iss3/art40/

This article discusses deforestation and hunting pressure of the Pano Indians in the Amazon (circa 2016). Review the section entitled, "Assessing wildlife status using hunting data":

http://www.ecologyandsociety.org/vol21/iss2/art3/

The next step on the public relations ladder is advertising “hunting is science”.

Hunting is not Conservation.

~Courtesy of the AOFH~

Crap In A Bag

Remember this: Someone has to pick up that crap.  

Yes, having peace and quiet is a good thing.

Yesterday, I went down to the river to sit in the shade and read an anthology of Ray Bradbury’s work. The breeze smelt of fishy river water. Eastern caterpillars fell off the trees to crawl across the expanse of my white soiled t-shirt.

It was a nice way to relax the tension in my neck muscles.

I was watching the water reflect off the oak tree I was sitting under. I heard some vehicles pull up and looked over to see a man and a blonde woman fishing from the bank. Another black truck pulls up with the cigarette smoking man and his friend getting out and throwing in a line.

I went back to reading a story of murder and a not-so-smart chick escaping a serial killer but comes back to find her lemonade where she left it.

I looked over at one abandoned camping area on the bank. Someone had vandalized the trees with red paint by putting letters and pictures on the trunks. Someone left a red hammock with a white teddy bear and cooler hanging in the trees. Cut up trees were piled up on a camp fire. You would think an idiot would know you have to cure cut oak a while for it to burn, otherwise it is too wet and hard-so that was a waste of cutting down some river trees. 

The blonde woman walks past my truck in search of a fishing spot on the other side of the river. She comes creeping back in a semi-disgusted weary way like she has just stepped in dog poop but can’t get it off her shoe-so the smell follows her everywhere.

She was telling me about the drunks on the other side of the boat ramp and how nasty they were. I didn’t go over there. I hoped they would leave. The blonde lady asked me was I not scared to be there. I told her other people were here so I didn’t see it a problem. She said she would be scared. I thought for her the idea of a clump of drunks down at the river could be capable of anything-along with the sober ones-all they need is the itch to do something bad.

I take it like this: If you don’t mess with a wild animal it won’t bite you. Some will seek you out just because of boredom and opportunity. The campers at the river insult wild animals with their antics. Mind you, some of the campers are not bad but a lot of them drive less than 25 minutes from their homes to trash the river area, leave it, and then go home to the squalor of their lives.

Here is the problem of the average nature-goer experiencing the “turn-off” of a potential interaction, directly or indirectly, with other not-so-savory nature-goers that make the landscape psychologically feel like a threat, or something to form an aversion to.

The blonde lady felt like she couldn’t say anything to the drunken people. It could be that she just didn’t want to go to the river to find that waiting on her and ruin her good time. 

This bids the question:

Who carries more weight in voicing a possible discretion on the part of another nature-goer, when that nature-goer is causing harm to a protected area where wildlife and the public can enjoy an experience-a good experience?

When there is no law authority present, is it an issue to say to someone who comes into an area, hacking away at trees, and leaving their human excrement everywhere-that someone feels like they can’t say to them, “Stop that shit!”

The boat landing being a public place, these people take public drunkenness to all-time-highs. It is scaring away the sober people who legitimately want to be there and fish from the bank without the molestation, or view of soap opera-type shenanigans.

It was getting late and I decided to leave everyone there.

Today, I decided to go back and read my book some more-to get myself out of the house. I figured the drunks would be gone. I took a rake and some trash bags. I drove down there and parked.

This man that lives down the road said to me, “It is a damn shame that you have to come down here and clean up someone else’s nasty mess. They cut that shade tree down Sunday after moving their campsite three times.”

Undoubtedly, I am not the only local that gets pissed off with people ransacking the public boat ramp. He told me he’d been there on and off over the weekend and it was the drunks in the blue tent.

I walked over there and asked them who cut the tree down. Three drunk birds chirped, "Not me!" The local man said he saw them do it.

A tree doesn’t seem so important. This tree was a young tree that stood on the bank of the water to shade you so you didn’t stand in the sun. These douches “allegedly” cut it down to hopefully burn their trash so they wouldn’t have to take it home. The drunken trio was already in the shade, swaying in a hammock tied on the river between two trees. I felt justified in not telling them about the alligators that creep in that stagnant water.

I asked them if they had trash bags and told them I would give them some if they would pick up their trash. They took them. The diabetic drunk woman followed me around constantly asking me who I worked for. She followed me so much I got her to help me pick up the trash. She told me that she had a court date for public drunkenness.

I laughed and asked her, “You didn’t go? Aren’t you going to get in trouble?”

She was a sweet, clueless little drunk woman and said, “No, I put it off for another day to come down here.”

I replied, “You do know this is a public boat landing. You don’t want to get yourself in more of a situation over a drink.”

She just kept talking and picking up trash. I said nothing. We finally got to this box that was filled with individual grocery bags filled with human excrement. Oh, the cherry on the cake!

She ran from the box and I laughed. I bent over laughing watching her run away from this box. I told her to leave it and someone else could come pick that up. By the time I got finished, we had a truck load of trash that I drove to the recycling center. I gave her some more trash bags and told her I had to be off and to enjoy her day.

When you think about all the sober people going in and out of there with fancy boats to enjoy the public boat landing it is funny how a drunken little old lady was the only one helping me pick up the trash. Shakes head.

Everyone wants to enjoy the bounty of what Nature has to offer but don’t ask them to clean their crap-left-behind up. You also have those people that literally take a dump on Nature and leave the grocery bag behind. Somehow, I don’t think that is a form of recycling? Or is it?

~Courtesy of the AOFH~