Island Richards

Kathy Gilbert’s editorial last week scolding the various candidates for not taking advantage of the free publicity offered by the Green River Star couldn’t help but to remind me of a scene from last year’s horror/comedy, “Jennifer’s Body,” starring Megan Fox as Jennifer and Amanda Seyfried as Needy.

Needy: Why do you need him? You can have anybody that you want, Jennifer. So why Chip? Just to tick me off? or is it because you’re just really that insecure?

Jennifer: I am not “insecure,” Needy. God! Wh–? That’s a joke! How could I ever be insecure? I was the Snowflake Queen!

Needy: Pffft. Yeah. Two years ago — when you were socially relevant —

Jennifer: I … am … still … socially relevant.

In her editorial, Kathy did little more than cry out to the world, “Don’t ignore us! We are still socially relevant!” But really, are they? The so-called in-depth reporting that the Green River Star provides to their readers is little more than a stenographer service, used to retype and relay the press releases handed out by the candidates. That would be fine, if they even did that right.

A quick look at the front page of the same issue that contained her editorial shows the real cost of depending on the local newspaper as a reliable information source. By misquoting Mr. Burnside, in a bold-faced aside of all places, The Green River Star was able to completely change Mr. Burnside’s message just by leaving out one word. It is no wonder so many candidates turn to alternative media in order to frame their message accurately and without fear of mishandling by an uninterested staff typist.

Kathy makes the claim that 80% of American voters read newspapers, but data from Scarborough Research (2009) shows that only 43% of Americans read a newspaper on any given day, and that readership by every demographic and age group is declining. Blind self importance is part of the reason main stream media outlets all over the country are slowly dying.

I have to question Kathy’s “wonder” about the seriousness of the candidates who haven’t yet responded to the Green River Star’s information request. I have spoken to at least a few candidates who have never been contacted by the Green River Star at all since they filed. Also, I wonder why, if the Green River Star is so intent on being a relevant part of the upcoming elections, they chose not to attend the forum hosted by the White Mountain Library for the four year commission candidates. Newsprint is hardly the media powerhouse that it once was, but the one meaningful foothold they have managed to keep is in local news. Even so, with eleven of the fourteen primary candidates there to answer questions from the public, the Green River Star couldn’t be bothered to attend.

It make one wonder how serious The Green River Star really is about being a relevant news source in Sweetwater County.

On one hand, we have Congress pondering the privacy of online shopping habits, as reported by ARS Technica, and a plan to “Rethink” online privacy and protect the public from data miners and evil corporations that are out to steal our everlasting souls.

Congress ponders privacy of your underwear, immortal soul

By Nate Anderson | Last updated about 21 hours ago

At a Congressional Internet privacy hearing on Tuesday, a group of middle-aged men had some questions about the ‘Net. Why was it such a creepy place? How come replying to spammers doesn’t get one immediately removed from their e-mail lists? And what is this talk we hear about websites gaining the rights to one’s immortal soul?

The creepiness was best summed up by the Senate Commerce Committee’s Jay Rockefeller (D-WV), who in his opening statement compared the Internet to a deeply disturbing shopping mall. In this mall, there’s “a machine recording every store you enter and every product you look at, and every product you buy. You go into a bookstore. The machine records every book you purchase or peruse. Then, you go to the drugstore. The machine is watching you there, meticulously recording every product you pick up—from the shampoo to the allergy medicine to your personal prescription. [READ MORE...]

And on the other, as reported by WIRED, we have the CIA and Google investing in a start up company, Recorded Future, that will develop technology which “scours tens of thousands of websites, blogs and Twitter accounts to find the relationships between people, organizations, actions and incidents.”

Exclusive: Google, CIA Invest in ‘Future’ of Web Monitoring

• By Noah Shachtman

The investment arms of the CIA and Google are both backing a company that monitors the web in real time — and says it uses that information to predict the future.

The company is called Recorded Future, and it scours tens of thousands of websites, blogs and Twitter accounts to find the relationships between people, organizations, actions and incidents — both present and still-to-come. In a white paper, the company says its temporal analytics engine “goes beyond search” by “looking at the ‘invisible links’ between documents that talk about the same, or related, entities and events.”

The idea is to figure out for each incident who was involved, where it happened and when it might go down. Recorded Future then plots that chatter, showing online “momentum” for any given event.

“The cool thing is, you can actually predict the curve, in many cases,” says company CEO Christopher Ahlberg, a former Swedish Army Ranger with a PhD in computer science. [READ MORE...]

Is it just me, or is there some disparity in the messages coming out of Washington?

There are a total of five candidates running for the single two year commission seat in the primary election to be held on August 17. On the Republican side, there is former Commissioner Wally Johnson and political newcomer Don Kauppi. On the Democratic side there is current Commissioner Randy Walker, along with Brand Seppie and Teresa Weyer. CAUTION. I’m not pulling punches here. I’m not running negative campaign ads, but I’m telling the truth as I see it.

I’ll start here with the Democratic candidates, but before I do I want to add this one disclaimer. I’m a Republican, and will be voting as a Republican in the primary. In the primary election I don’t have a say about which Democrat will earn their party’s nomination to be the single candidate to represent them in the general election for this office. I’m offering my opinion here merely because giving my opinions is what I like to do, so take it or leave it and do with it what you will.

Brandi Seppie is an absolute newcomer to the world of politics and that in and of itself isn’t a bad thing. A political newcomer can bring great new ideas to the table, and a fresh perspective in dealing with old problems. However, for a newcomer to be effective they have to come to the table with new ideas and a fresh perspective. Or at least an idea about what’s going on in the first place. Brandi didn’t do that during this forum. All she was able to do here was show her unpreparedness, and her lack of understanding of the job she has applied for. When asked a question about what she would do to support veterans in Sweetwater County, the only answer she was able to give was that there are a lot of veterans in her family. Admittedly, this question was nothing more than an attempt at grandstanding by an agenda driven, one issue, four year commission candidate, but she should have been a little more prepared to answer it. When she touched on the discussion about the proposed diversion of water from the Flaming Gorge to Colorado, all she was able to do was attempt to mirror the opinion of the candidate that answered before her. When she discussed how she would balance the needs of the incorporated and the rural populations of the county, her great idea was to “bring people together,” and to support the “joint powers board” that is already working on it. The joint powers board? Which one? The Joint Powers Water Board? The Joint Powers Telecommunications Board? The Joint Travel and Tourism Board? The Airport Board? The proposed Juvenile Justice Board? In fact, that seemed to be the resounding message behind her entire platform. Bring people together. Every time she started talking all I could hear was Captain & Tennille singing the old Sedaka & Greenfield song: “Love….love will keep us together…” If everyone got along so well, we wouldn’t need government. Yeah, sounds cynical. Sue me.

Teresa Weyer is another relative newcomer to the political world, but she appeared to have entered the race with a little more knowledge of what a County Commissioner does. Well, maybe. Her professional background is in nursing, and she pointed out that her experience as a nurse gives her a unique ability to bring people together. Oh, God! Please make that song stop playing in my head! Now Captain and Tennille are being joined by Bob Marley! “Let’s get together and we’ll feel alright…” The most memorable moment in Teresa’s forum participation came when an audience member posed a question about whether she would keep the County CEO and the County CFO that were hired by the sitting administration, yes or no? Her answer? “I can’t answer that yes or no because the people will decide the answer by who they vote for.” Really? Really. Her answer to probably the most contentious topic in this election is that she is going to wait and see who else gets elected and then they can tell her what her opinion will be. Way to make a stand there, Teresa.

Randy Walker enters this race with the advantage of being a sitting County Commissioner who knows the issues and has dealt with them on a first hand basis over the last two years. He also draws on the experience of being a former member of the Green River City Council. Of the three Democratic candidates, he was obviously the most knowledgeable and the most prepared for the forum. From the start, Randy was on the defense about his decision as part of the sitting commission to hire a County CEO and CFO to manage the day to day operations of the county, saying that the people of Sweetwater County deserved “professional administration,” and not the micromanagement and cronyism that had come before, and that the current system represented “best practices.” Okay, I can understand the need for “best practices,” but calling something “best practices” doesn’t make it “best practices.” “Best practices” isn’t contracting for a County CEO that has no investment in the community, and no vested interest in seeing our county succeed, other than the pay check that he takes home to Colorado at the end of every week. “Best practices” isn’t ignoring the advice of the “professional administration” – that of the County CEO that they hired, and especially that of the real professional administrators who have been heading their individual departments for years. Randy’s most memorable moment came when he was asked about what sixth cent projects he would support. “I support the application of a rubric to choose the best projects.” A rubric? Yeah. This is what happens when teachers become politicians. They bring the tools that they have used so effectively to turn our children into mindless sheep to the table for the rest of us. How about a Rubik’s cube? Or a magic 8-ball? Or, how about we elect people who can take responsibility for their own decisions, and not pass them off on decision making trees and contract help. Yeah, I stole the line about the Rubik’s cube and the magic 8-ball. Sue me again. At least I didn’t hear any bad songs playing in my head while he spoke.

Obviously, I wasn’t overly impressed with any of the Democratic candidates. If I was a Democrat and had to support one in the primary, well, I couldn’t. I’d write someone in. I know they are Democrats, and I know they are all about bringing people together, but I’m looking for leadership and representation, not a Beatles anthem.

I’ll move on now to the Republican candidates. No disclaimers on this one. I’ll likely be casting a vote for one of these two on August 17, and I want to give you an idea of who I’ll be choosing between.

Don Kauppi is yet another relative newcomer to the political landscape, but unlike the other newcomers, he brings some real world executive experience to the table. Don is self employed and runs his own oilfield company, giving him the perspective in this race of someone who deals with employees, budgets, and hard decisions on a daily basis. He comes across as someone who believes in simple straightforward answers to every issue, which is a refreshing stance, if not a little naive, and a bit unrefined. I almost cringed when he said, “I know how to run people.” Great, I guess, unless you are one of the people. Don will have to learn as he expands his political experience that sometimes how you deliver a message is as important as the message itself. I want commissioners who know where they stand, and who will tell me about it without hiding behind nonsense like bringing people together and rubric’s cubes. I also want commissioners who realize that very few of the issues that they deal with have simple answers. Don probably meets both of those criteria, but he doesn’t convey it very well. Don’s most memorable moment was when he entered the discussion on the water diversion plan. “Why are even talking about this?! No! You can’t have our water!” I agree with his sentiment, but I only wish it were that simple.

Wally Johnson is, without a doubt, the most experienced of the candidates, and brings both real world, practical, and applicable experience to the table. Wally was a Sweetwater County Commissioner for four years, but lost his spot in a previous election. He hit on several points during his time at the mike that were pretty important, and applicable to the current environment. Wally was clear about is stand against the sitting commissioners hiring a County CEO. He was also clear that in order for a commission to do its job effectively, its members need to have a seat at many tables, whether it be the National Forest Service or lobbying the State Legislature. “The current commission isn’t doing that.” He’s right, by not taking our seat at those tables, we’ve effectively lost our say in a lot of matters that directly affect our lives here is Sweetwater County. Wally was also the first to make a clear stand on water diversion. “If they have a right to the water, fine, but they need to take it from somewhere below the Flaming Gorge.” Finally, Wally took a stand against the wholesale creation of wind farms in Sweetwater County. “Wind energy is not a solution to our problems,” and in dealing with the location of the wind farms, “We need to look very carefully at what effect these wind farms have on our view shed.” Wally was the leader of the pack when it came to where he stood on all of these issues, and the other four on the panel were forced to follow or defend. Wally doesn’t, however, come to this election without baggage. He’s been a commissioner in the past, and his performance then didn’t come without controversy. It seems that there are some people in the county that are unhappy with his record, but I have yet to have someone explain to me what happened during his tenure that spurred the current vitriol.

Ultimately, I’m not 100% sure about who I will support in the primary, but I’m confident that either Wally or Don could do a good job. At this point though, I’m leaning toward Wally. His stands are clear and pretty well aligned with my own. If someone tells me some truly valid reason why they don’t like him that I find I agree with, or if Don refines his message a little more and shows me that he really does understands the intricacies of the job he is applying for, I’m open to changing my mind.

So there it is. My biased opinion. Take it, leave it, or tell me to go to hell. Just get your ass to the polls on August 17 and vote. But please, please, please, no more 60′s or 70′s songs.

“Shoot me! Shoot me! Shoot me!

“Here come old flattop. He come grooving up slowly
He got ju-ju eyeballs. He’s one holy roller
He got hair down to his knee
Got to be a joker he just do what he please

“Shoot me! Shoot me! Shoot me!

“He wear no shoeshine he’s got toe-jam football
He got monkey finger he shoot Coca-Cola
He say “I know you, you know me”
One thing I can tell you is you got to be free
Come together right now over me.

“Shoot me! Shoot me! Shoot me!

“He buy production he got walrus scumble
He’s got Ono sideboard he’s got spinal cracker
He’s got feet down below his knee
Hold you in his arms till you can feel his disease
Come together right now over me.

“He’s roller-coaster he’s got early warning
He’s got muddy water he’s got mojo filter
He say “One and one and one is three”
Got to be good looking ’cause he’s so hard to see
Come together right now over me.

“Shoot me! Shoot me! Shoot me!

“Ow!

“Come together! Come together! Come together!”

-The Beatles, 1969

As of today, Seth has joined the Singletrack Mafia and been given the rank of Soldato! His initiation ride was Clementine with Steve and Derek. He only has a few bruises to show for it!

FROM GREENRIVERBIKEPARK.COM

PRESS: MOUNTAIN FLYER MAGAZINE

4/13/10

Mountain Flyer number 16- Check out the Spring 2010 issue of Mountain Flyer for a great ten page article about mountain biking in Green River, Wyoming. Written and photographed by Green River native Mark Woolcot, the article takes you through a history of the mining town, shows off the great trail riding offered in this high desert town and introduces the Green River Bike Park to the masses.