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FW: [NEWBIRDHAWK] The Marlboro Man and The Sage Grouse



 

-----Original Message-----
From: stan moore
To: tws-l@listserv.vt.edu; sagegrouse@yahoogroups.com; pgtc-l@lists.ou.edu
Cc: newbirdhawk@yahoogroups.com
Sent: 2/6/02 5:52 AM
Subject: [NEWBIRDHAWK] The Marlboro Man and The Sage Grouse

Hello Friends --
 
When one reads the article by Hal Clifford in High Country News
regarding cattlemen and sage grouse, it is very obvious that the
ranchers in the realm of the sage grouse are in severe denial concerning
their impacts on sage grouse.  I would put the situation far past mere
ignorance, just as I would say that it is far more than ignorance that
leads the cigarette industry to say for many years that smoking does not
cause cancer.  They know and they knew for a long time, but they denied
it. The Marlboro Man lost his lung to cancer and he still kept puffing
away.
 
When I read the silly view of that cowboy that cattle must be good for
sage grouse because he say baby grouse eating insects near a cow patty,
I was reminded of a joke I heard years ago -- "Eat  (..it), 10,000,000
flies can't be wrong!"   The cowboy saw young grouse eating flies, but
he would have seen a lot more young grouse eating flies if the cows and
the cow patties had been long gone and the natural flowering forbs
(eaten by the cows) had been left 
to attract insects as the natural ecosystem intended.
 
So, when we get rid of the denial and face reality, we have to reallize
that when men put on the big belt buckles and the pointy-toed boots and
put cattle on the ground in the entire range of the sage grouse, these
men are part of a culture of death.  The whole cowboy culture in the age
and the realm of the sage grouse is a culture of death to many, many
components of the natural ecosystem in the West.  First, it was death to
the American Indian.  But range wars also resulted in deaths of many
ranchers vying for control of lands and water rights.  And the culture
of death went on and on, to include death to sagebrush, death to wolves,
coyotes, mountain lions, prairie dogs, ground squirrels, eagles, grizzly
bears, jackrabbits, pronghorns, bunchgrasses, and anything that stood in
the way of maximum profit to the cowboy.  The whole ecosystem was toyed
with to remove native vegetation and put in anything that would benefit
the cowboy and his money-making.  Take out sage, put in crested
wheatgrass.  Withdraw water from the rivers, put in alfalfa and the fish
be damned.  
 
Is it any wonder that the Marlboro Man is the symbol of the cowboy and
of cancer?  No, it is entirely appropriate.  Cowboys, sage grouse
extirpations, cigarettes, and cancer are all part and parcel of the same
way of life, or better put, the same way of death.  They fit together
like a carbine in a saddle holster.
 
And yet, with all this knowlege, millions of Americans are still
addicted to cigarettes and cowboys.  And cancer rates soar and sage
grouse dwindle.  Is it any wonder?
 
 
Stan Moore        San Geronimo, CA        hawkman11@hotmail.com
<mailto:hawkman11@hotmail.com> 

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