Mid-Summer Rant

Summer is my least favorite season. Fall has the best colors, the most comfortable temperatures, and the best fishing. My favorite photos are taken in the fall. Winter affords us a change of scenery and activities. The mountains and valleys are draped in a blanket of snow and fishermen bundle up and trade in rods for skis. Spring is like a second fall, but is a season of rebirth. Spring flowers and fresh green shoots transform the wet, rust colored landscape. New young stand by their mothers in mountain meadow pastures and cutthroat make their annual migration upstream to spawn. Summer… well, summer is just plain dog-gone HOT! I love to be outside. I love to fish and play ball. But the season just drags. Tourists and their RVs are all over the place. There is a Henning Hale-Orviston or Billy-Bob at every bend of the river. There is no escape from the people or the sun. There are few things less desirable to me than to stand outside in a dry heat on a 100 degree day and then sweat through the sheets at night because the house doesn’t circulate air well. Summer is definitely not the season of love.

It’s frustrating listening to politics right now. The lead-up to the national conventions is not news worthy. The presidential candidates are only trying to frame their message for the fall and define their opponent, jumping on every miniscule slip-up that might give them leverage and a boost in the poles. The media encourages the overreaction on either side by reporting every unimportant gaffe. I don’t care who is more patriotic, who is more liberal/conservative, or who has more money than whom. Stick to the “F”-ing issues: the economy, energy, the environment, and The War. Get these right and you’ve won my vote!

The Religious Wrong still thinks it needs to play politics. Religious leaders like Dobson need to quit beating the dead horse of abortion and same sex marriage. It didn’t change with the last guy you supported and he’s harmed our nation more than helped it. Christians who listen and support this dribble need to wizen up. There are more important issues to concern yourself with than determining which candidate is a better Christian. Trust me that decision is not yours to make.

Local issues are not much better. Here in Montana, I live in the last vestige of the old west where “you can’t tell me what to do with my land” still trumps any common sense. County commissioners are trying to draft a set of zoning rules and a special county committee is working on streamside setbacks. Both, if done correctly, will protect the natural beauty of the valley by allowing for managed growth and allowing the rivers and streams to move freely with little human interference. These are progressive, future thinking initiatives. But why plan for the future? Right? For being such a conservative Republican hotbed, there sure are a lot of asses in the valley backing their way into the future.

O.K., enough of that… I took a break from the blog for a few days to regroup, but now it’s time to get going again. At the end of the week, I’m going to have a little fun with bumper stickers. It should be interesting.

Have a happy Fourth of July!