Where is Ansel Adams When We Need Him?

I assume everyone knows Ansel Adams. Great piece published in the Boston Globe by Derrick Jackson.

Ansel Adams came to the White House in 1975 to deliver a print of a photograph from Yosemite National Park desired by President Ford and Betty Ford. Adams, still smarting from President Nixon's neglect of public lands, asked Ford to redefine the meaning of our parks, maintain their funding, and put a ''new emphasis on preservation and environmental responsibilities." In 1983, Adams met with President Reagan, and not to deliver a photograph. He was a vocal critic of Reagan's rollbacks on environmental protection and preservation of wild areas. He said Reagan's land policies were ones of ''rape, ruin, and run!" According to Adams, had the nation been under the vision in the 1930s of Reagan's infamous Interior Secretary James Watt, Kings Canyon National Park would today ''look like part of the outskirts of Las Vegas." After Adams told Playboy magazine in 1983, ''I hate Reagan," an embarrassed White House had the beloved photographer sit with Reagan for nearly an hour. Adams left unimpressed, borrowing from Oscar Wilde to say, ''They know the price of everything and the value of nothing."
One can only guess what sparks would fly if Adams, who died in 1984, could witness President Bush's resurrection of Reagan's rape, ruin, and run.
This week the Senate passed a budget bill that would allow for drilling for oil in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. The House Budget Committee, at the urging of Resources Committee Chairman Richard Pombo of California, voted to include in its budget bill a proposal to lift moratoriums on offshore oil drilling in the lower 48 states.
In September, Pombo got the House to weaken the Endangered Species Act under the ruse that it oppressed landowners. Pombo wants to relax rules on public land for mining and oil interests. He even floated an idea to sell off 15 national parks.

One can guess what Adams would say or do. His "hate Reagan" may even be a lttle sharper for W.

Let's all work to protect our environment and nature around us.

Ansel Adams said in his autobiography that ''Starry-eyed reaction to the splendors of nature is an invaluable experience for everyone, provided it is tempered in time with a realization that this reaction hopefully exists for the many rather than the few."

I think he would change that quote if he wrote it today. In 2005 it would read ''Starry-eyed reaction to the splendors of nature is an invaluable experience for everyone, provided it is tempered in time with a realization that the splendors hopefully exist."