20 October 2004, Salt Lake City, UT
Back in Utah. Rain. Snow has fallen in the Wasatch Mountains for the first time this year. Brooke and I made a rendezvous at Steve and Ann's house in Salt Lake City. My brother is going in for a small dose of radiation today to ease the pain. We all watched the playoffs last night, cheering for the Red Sox.
During the 4th inning when the umpires huddled together to decide whether or not Mark Belhorn's 3-run hit was acknowledged for the home run that it was, I thought it was a nice example of collaborative decision-making. My brother said it was just a good call in lieu of a bad one.
Catching up on the New York Times, I read Andrew Revkin's article, "Bush vs. the Laureates: How Science Became a Partisan Issue."
Evolution is not a liberal idea. Climate change is not conspiracy theory.
"This year, 48 Nobel Laureates dropped all pretense of nonpartisanship as they signed a letter endorsing Senator John Kerry... Unlike previous administrations, Republican and Democratic alike, the Bush administration has ignored unbiased scientific advice in the policy making that is so important to our collective welfare." they wrote.
The article goes on to say how the White House was asking "litmus-test questions" of possible candidates to serve on scientific advisory panels and federal policy boards.
"One recent candidate was Professor Sharon L. Smith, an expert on Arctic marine ecology at the University of Miami."
"On March 12, she received a call from the White House. She had been nominated to take a seat about to open up on the Arctic Research Commission, a panel of presidential appointees that helps shape research on issues in the far north, including the debate over oil exploration in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge."
"The woman calling from the White House office of presidential personnel complimented her resume, Dr. Smith recalled, then asked the first and -- as it turned out -- only question: "Do you support the president?"
Reading more about the various polls and their differences in predicting who is ahead in the presidential race between Bush and Kerry, alongside a discussion about the number of registered voters in America voting by way of absentee ballots, I had this fantasy: What if caribou could vote? What if all the migrating birds traversing North America during this electoral season could vote? What if salmon and caddis flies in the dammed stretches of the Columbia River could vote? What would the wolves in Yellowstone say if they could speak? And what would happen if all the living, breathing, thumping, crawling, swimming, slithering, flying, running, and rolling creatures suddenly rose up in this wild country of ours and proclaimed themselves as a huge voting block on behalf of ecological integrity?
Would we listen?
