National Parks & American Indians: Grand Canyon

by Ojibwa

American Indians have lived in and have utilized the Grand Canyon of the Colorado River for thousands of years. The Havasupai, whose farms are in the bottom of the canyon, were visited by the Spanish under the leadership of the missionary Francisco Garces in 1776. The Spanish followed a narrow trail into Cataract Canyon, a tributary to the Grand Canyon. The trail was narrow, steep, and perilous with a thousand foot drop-off. Some of Garces’ men finished the journey on their hands and knees as they were afraid to stand up. At the bottom of the canyon they encountered the Havasupai who were cultivating about 400 acres of land.

continued at Daily Kos....

National Parks and American Indians: Mesa Verde

by Ojibwa

Nearly a thousand years ago, Ancestral Puebloans (sometimes called Anasazi) began to construct pueblos in caves and under the rock hangings of the canyon cliffs in southern Colorado. Three hundred years later, these pueblos were abandoned because of a prolonged drought. Then in 1888, rancher Richard Wetherill and his brother-in-law Charlie Mason came across the ruins of an enormous village in the cliffs of Cliff Canyon. They named the village Cliff Palace. In exploring the area, they discovered two more large ruins which they named Spruce Tree House and Square Tower House.

continued at Daily Kos....

Expensive, inconvenient, and scratchy: solutions are easy

by mwmwm

In response to a comment in a recent post of mine, I replied,

"I think lots of us know what we have to do -- change radically -- but far too few are actually doing it. Problems abound, but so do solutions -- they're just expensive, inconvenient, and scratchy.

That's the theme of this diary -- that we can no longer be lazy, and that it can't be cheap, or convenient, or easy to save ourselves.

continued at Daily Kos....

Voices for Nature

by David Kroning II

As an environmental historian who has worked on fisheries-related issues for more than two decades, I’m not surprised by the popular discourse surrounding the oil gushing uncontrollably in the Gulf of Mexico.  It is only the most recent assault in a long, destructive campaign by humans to bend Nature to its will.  

The most frequent questions that have arisen from this crisis could have been written in advance out of the rhetoric of the last crisis: "What does this mean for fishermen and their ‘way of life’",  "What does this mean for tourism and the dollars tourists bring to the region?", "What does this mean for the political futures of Governor Bobby Jindal, or President Barack Obama?", "What will this mean for the price of shrimp?"

In short, "What does this mean for me?"

continued at Daily Kos....

Globalization, A Pictorial History

by Richard Lyon

The term globalization came into use in academic circles during the 1950s. By the 1990s it had entered the mainstream vocabulary. Today it is thought of as something that is almost inseparable from the neoliberal economic and political policies that are dominating the process. People who are actively opposed to those policies speak in terms of stopping globalization. The basic purpose of this diary is to present the process of globalization in an historical context that separates it from today's realities. I plan to write other diaries on neoliberalism. This diary will be used as background for those. I wish to make it clear at the outset that I am no fan of neoliberalism. However we will see that there have been a number of points in history where a process of geographical integration has been controlled by one group of people to impose their interests on other people.  

continued at Daily Kos....