Island Richards

Enough is enough already! Barely a year has gone by since the federal “pilot program” was put into place that required us to purchase use permits in order to enter and enjoy, among other places, the Flaming Gorge National Recreation Area. Now, as a further insult, more fees are going to be tacked onto our enjoyment of public places.

Now don’t think that I mind paying my own way for my own recreational activities. If I expect running water, electricity and toilets, by gum I’ll pay. I do, however, have a problem paying for services that I don’t use, or for that matter, services that don’t exist.

I guess a little background is in order, right? Well, it goes like this. Congress decided that recreation areas across the country needed financial assistance in their quest to fulfill their charge of providing quality recreation services to the public. To remedy this they put into place a program, on a trial basis, to test the feasibility of charging user fees to the people that actually use the federally owned recreation areas. The plan required that a reasonable fee be charged and that all the money raised be used to improve recreational facilities in the areas that raised the money.

In short, all money raised by a recreation area will stay in that recreation area. No, I repeat, NO ‘Robin Hooding’. No stealing from the area that manages to raise a lot of bank and in turn feeding it to the recreation area ghettos. Great in theory, but…

THIS IS THE GOVERNMENT, MAN!

IT…AIN’T…GONNA…WORK!

Don’t forget, this is a bureaucracy! Packed full of un-elected bureaucrats who feel the continuing need to justify their positions in our hip pockets: right behind the family pictures and next to the credit cards. In the pocket book, baby!

This is how it really works.

The fee gets instituted and coffers overflow.
The bureaucrats watch closely, frothing at the mouth, to see how full the bank gets.
Next year’s budget gets cut by just that much and some pet project back east gets a little.
Now where are we? Right where we started, except we’re paying more for it. How do I know that this is how it will all shake out? It’s already happened.

During the first year of the Flaming Gorge Recreation Area’s involvement in the pilot program its user fees garnered around $190,000.00. Guess how much its funding was cut during its next fiscal year. Yep, you got it. Right there around $190,000.00. Outgoing budget stays the same. Incoming budget stays the same. Washington keeps more. You pay.

Except, it doesn’t stop there. Now, the recreation areas have been baited. They’ve had a brief taste of an overstuffed treasure chest, and they want more. How are they going to get it? How do you think? More fees.

Now, in addition to the user fee, the public will be charged another couple bucks to be allowed to park at Little Hole or Spillway. So, if you want to go fishing at Little Hole throughout the year it will cost you around $15.00 for a fishing license, plus $5.00 for a conservation stamp, plus $20.00 for an annual use pass, plus $20.00 for an annual parking pass. You’ve already spent $60.00 and you haven’t even tossed a fly at a cutthroat yet. If you plan to sleepover on the river, it’ll cost you another ten greenbacks a night. Six Tenths of a C-Note, plus.

That’s a lot of money for a little peace on the river, no?

It’s time for our public lands to be free of bureaucracy. It’s time for us to be allowed to enjoy what’s ours, and be allowed to use our lands without being harassed and hounded. And, as the great Will Rogers reminded us, “Be thankful we’re not getting all the government we’re paying for.”

Later for now,

Wisdom

ometimes, usually when you least expect it, an opportunity pops up. It begins simply enough, starting with a phone call from a friend, or an ad in the classifieds. Quickly it blooms into a full fledged chance to make your life into something better. You start making plans, mapping out all of the new directions that will soon be opened up for you, and dreaming of how you will enjoy what life has to offer.

Then reality sets in and you realize that an opportunity is not a guarantee, and that at a certain point you must cede control of your life to the decision making abilities of strangers. Furthermore, you must have faith that these strangers, who hold your life in their hands, have the knowledge and the sensibility to judge you justly and fairly against the criteria that is applicable to the situation at hand. You confidently face your judges and present your case. After the trial, you are convinced that your future is secure, and your happiness is at hand.

One or two weeks pass by as you wait for the final judgment, and all the while you are living in sort of a translucent dream. Sometimes though, way in the back of your mind, you get an itch that tells you, “This is too good to be true.”

Well, it is. The phone call comes, and as fast as the opportunity appeared, it is gone. What was the opportunity? A job, a career. And the trial? An interview. The judges? Your prospective employers. And you? Still unemployed.

We’ve all been there. We get a chance at a great job, and we get our hopes up. We get to strut our stuff in front of strangers, and brag about what we know and can do. Then we get crushed under the heel of disappointment. Usually, it is the people with whom we would have worked that make the decision, and for whatever reason, they decide that we are not the one for the job. Hopefully, it was a decision based on qualifications, and the person who got the job was truly the person best suited for it. It doesn’t make us feel any better, but in the grander scheme of things, we know it’s for the best.

Sometimes though, we find ourselves in a situation where the decision isn’t made by the people with whom we would be working. Sometimes the decision is made by people that aren’t involved in the work that will be done, and even worse, by people who haven’t the slightest idea what the job requirements are. It’s in these situations where we end up being judged against criteria that is inapplicable to the job we have applied for. It’s in these situations where our expertise and abilities lose their value, and are replaced by trivial, non-job related requirements. Most notably, a college degree.

Now don’t get me wrong, I am not here to tell you that you, or anyone else, shouldn’t go to college. College provides a unique environment for learning that almost any person can thrive in and benefit from. However, in many of today’s job markets, skills are required that colleges just don’t provide. The most notable of these are high technology fields. The sad truth is that in many of today’s colleges the term “Computer Sciences” means learning how to operate a word processor. The real “Computer Sciences”, like networking and programming, are taught in expensive, industry run classes that culminate with difficult, nearly impossible to pass, tests. The people who survive the classes and pass the tests become certified specialists. The people who can’t pass the tests? Find another line of work.

These specialists, who distinguish themselves with acronyms like MCSE and MCPS and [x], are hired by multi-billion dollar companies to make sure their computer systems function properly. They are trusted with millions of dollars of equipment and the continuing operability of Fortune 500 firms. Why? Because they are well trained and know how to do their jobs. They are the cream of the crop. The top of their field.

They do, however, lack something that some employers still insist on. Namely, a piece of paper that says they went to an accredited college. A degree. In fact, many employers are still choosing to fill their high-tech related positions with unqualified applicants who happen to have a degree, passing over highly qualified applicants who chose another form of non-traditional education. The biggest offender of all? Our education system. Specifically, our higher education system.

It seems that nothing threatens a traditional higher education establishment that someone who became competent in their field of work without the help of that traditional higher education establishment. Why, the idea is appalling that someone should become a highly paid, highly trained, highly qualified individual without their help! Simply put, colleges feel that if they hire a non-traditionally educated person to fill a position, it will be an example to their traditional students that traditional education isn’t a necessity for a good career, thereby diminishing their own importance in the grand scheme of things. In even simpler terms, less enrollment, less money. Does that make you feel any better?

And the result? Our publicly funded colleges are hiring unqualified applicants to fill specialized high-tech jobs simply because they went to a traditional college. In fact, the specialization of the degree does not even need to be related to the employment they seek! Because of the old fashioned attitudes of the traditional education institutions, our money is being unwisely spent on untrained individuals, and the students are suffering because of a lack of qualified personnel in their learning institutions. This includes systems administrators, programmers, and teachers that are being hired who are untrained and unqualified.

Who would you rather be responsible for keeping your school’s WindowsNT network system operating? A Microsoft Certified Systems Engineer/Microsoft Certified Professional who has been working on WindowsNT systems for years, or a two year college graduate with minimal experience working with WindowsNT systems. Now ask yourself who you would rather have teaching your child, or even you, how to operate a WindowsNT network. Someone who is a Microsoft Certified Systems Engineer, a Microsoft Certified Professional, and a Microsoft Certified Trainer; or would you prefer to learn it from someone who has a degree in “Computer Sciences” and knows how to use a word processor.

-Wisdom

Y2K.

The buzzword of 1999.

If you haven’t heard it, you’ve been living in the wilderness with no electricity or running water for past several years. If you’re a net junky, you know all about it. If you’re an investor, it has you more than a little worried. If you’re a doomsayer, you’re convinced it is the harbinger of the world’s end.

Wisdom, however, has a different view. I believe the new millennium will bring with it an end to the U.S. dollar’s dominance over the world currency market. “What?! Has Wisdom lost his marbles?” you might ask. Well, maybe. Bear with me though, and maybe you will understand my reasoning.

From the time our forefathers fashioned the first United States coins out of silverware they robbed from their wives kitchens, Americans have always loved and taken pride in their money. As a country we have spent a countless fortune designing, printing, and stamping our beloved dollars. The detail of the engraving and the overall artistic beauty have always been points of amour propre in our country’s history. Even as a child, I remember, my friends and I examined our dollars with a magnifying glass, in search of any secret that the green and yellow bills might divulge. We were excited to find the little red and blue fibers woven throughout our money, and it was with no little amount of conceit that I announced to my compatriots that I had found the legendary, long hidden owl peeking out from behind shield in the upper right corner of the one dollar bill (though some argued that it was a spider).

We have always revered our money, not for its value as currency, but more for its more intrinsic value of beauty. When other countries have been forced to spend cheap, ugly paper, we have been proud to spend our finely ordained fabric. We have always been proud of our “Green Backs”, even when other countries had begun to learn their lesson and start using more colorful decorative money. When a foreign traveler would question me about how we could tell the difference between our bills when they were the same size and color, I was always ready to show them differentiating artwork, unique to each denomination.

It has been this deep seeded respect for our currency that has allowed Americans, by shear force of will, to make the U.S. dollar the world’s most dominant currency.

“So what’s changed? Why does Wisdom think this is the end for our money’s ‘World Championship Title’,” you ask?

My answer? Our money has lost what differentiated it from it’s top contenders. It has lost that which elevated it in our hearts and minds to something we could love and respect. It has lost its art.

Simply put, the new series of American money, which made its debut in 1996 and is scheduled to be fully released in the new millennium, lacks character, artistry, and individuality. No longer does our money carry on its front and back the unique scroll work, or pleasingly intricate fonts that have graced our bills for generations. Gone is the finely ornate details that differentiated the denominations, allowing us to know at a glance what bill we were holding. The new bills are differentiated only by the central presidential portrait on the front, the real estate ad on the back, and the digits in its eight corners. Beyond that, they are virtual carbon copies of one another, challenging even those of us who handle cash every day to tell the difference between a $20 and a $50 while making hurried retail sales.

Every day I hear customers complain, “Man, that new money is ugly,” and, “Don’t those new bills look counterfeit?” I have yet to meet one person who was pleased with new design. Our new currency is, sadly, a badly conceived generic reproduction of what it could have been. If only the federal reserve had spent a little more time thinking about what our money stands for, instead of how to make it more modern.

As we’re now saddled with currency that we no longer respect, the top contenders have laid down the challenge and slapped us in the face with a white glove. That glove being known as the “Euro”. The European Community has stepped up to the plate with a consolidated currency, that, while being an economically ingenious idea, has something else that will make it superior in the coming millennium. Beauty. If you have seen the samples of this new series of European money, you know what I am talking about. The “Euro” is, in my opinionated opinion, the most beautifully designed currency in the history of the I.O.U. It is colorful, detailed, artistic, and represents the best of what Europe has to offer. Even their coins are jewels of ingenuity, while our new “shrunken head” quarters seem dim comparisons to what they used to be. The artistry represented in their money is something they will all be able to take pride in, to cherish, and to respect. It is that pride, as it was ours, that will allow them, by shear force of will, to propel the “Euro” into the top spot in our world economy.

Oh well, maybe second place won’t be so bad.

Oh yeah, happy new millennium.

-Wisdom