home / subscribe / donate / tower / books / archives / search / links / feedback / events / faq

Special Report Only for CounterPunch Newsletter Subscribers!

Early 21st Century Holocausts

No Death Squads, No Torture, No Milton Friedman, No "Shock and Awe" Bombing; just Mild-Mannered Liberals from the World Bank and Harvard driving hundreds of thousands of poor people around the world to starvation and suicide. Read P. Sainath's searing special report. Get your copy today by subscribing online or calling 1-800-840-3683 Remember contributions to CounterPunch are tax-deductible. Click here to make a donation. If you find our site useful please: Subscribe Now

Order CounterPunch By Email for Only $35 a Year and Receive a Free Copy of
"Imperial Crusades: a Diary of Three Wars" by Cockburn and St. Clair

Alexander Cockburn's East Coast Tour: "Is There a Left Left?"

Newsflash! Daniel Cassidy's How the Irish Invented Slang Wins American Book Award for Nonfiction!

Today's Stories

October 11, 2007

Al Giordano
Bill Clinton as Ambassador to the World?

October 10, 2007

Michael Yates
Travels Across Greenspan's America

Gary Leupp
Spreading Awareness or Smearing a Religion?

David Macaray
How Wal-Mart Can be Beaten

Alan Farago
Corruption and the Law of Intended Consequences

Tom Clifford
Homeless in Their Own Land: Iraq's Deepening Refugee Crisis

Col. Douglas MacGregor
Washington's War

Sunsara Taylor
Nooses at Columbia

George Wuerthner
Behind the Bovine Curtain

Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz
Indigenous Peoples' Day

Michael Dickinson
Forgetting Lennon's Birthday

Website of the Day
Paying for War

 

October 9, 2007

Paul Craig Roberts
Blinded by Ideology: Cato, Trade and Outsourcing

Andy Worthington
Fourth Whistleblower Rocks Guantánamo

Alan Farago
The Fall of Florida's Largest Land Developer

Brian Eno
Exporting Democracy with Missiles

David Rovics
The RIAA vs. the World

Farzana Versey
Two Lovers and the Funeral of Secularism

Andrew Buncombe
and Omar Waraich
Musharraf's Landslide

Website of the Day
Romney and the Wheelchair Bound Medical Marijuana Patient

 

October 8, 2007

David Macaray
Lesbians for Hillary? or Teamsters for Hillary?

Jeff Ballinger
Nike, Steroids and Marion Jones

Brian Eno
This Ban Won't Stop Us

Christopher Brauchli
Translating Bush

Louay Safi
End the Disgrace of Guantánamo

Matt Reichel
Homocide by Cops at the Phoenix Airport

Dave Lindorff
Finally, A Good Day for the Constitution

Thomas P. Healy
The Politics of Mercury Pollution

Martha Rosenberg
E. Coli Spreading Slaughter Allowed to Stay Open

Richard Rhames
A Democrat's Lament

Website of the Day
Not All Italians Love Columbus

 

October 6 / 7, 2007

Alexander Cockburn
A Rainbow Over a Graveyard

Norman Finkelstein
Jeffrey Goldberg's Prison

James Bovard
Are Presidents Entitled to Kill Foreigners?

Patrick Cockburn
The Invasion of Afghanistan, Six Years Later

Jeffrey St. Clair
At Disaster Falls

Ralph Nader
Where Are the Lawyers of America?

Ray McGovern
So Who's Afraid of the Israel Lobby?

Saul Landau
A River Runs Through It

Ben Tripp
Bring on the Next War!

Terry Lodge
The Grateful Dead Body Parts Delivered to Your Door Reform Act

Seth Sandronsky
Market Mystification and the Liberal Virus

Kevin Funk / Steve Fake
Divestment and Darfur

Missy Beattie
In the Custody of Bush and Cheney

Website of the Weekend
Snoop Dogg vs. Bill O'Reilly

 

October 5, 2007

Andy Worthington
The Anonymous Victims of Guantánamo

David Macaray
De-Skilling America's Labor Force

Lee Sustar
The Democrats and Iran: Can They Sink Any Lower?

Dan La Botz
Cincinnati Six Years After the Killings and the Riots

Aaron Hess
Hate Week Comes to Campus

William A. Cook
Unmasking AIPAC

Website of the Day
Range of Memory

 

October 4, 2007

Uri Avnery
The Power of the Israel Lobby

Dave Marsh
Dick Cheney, a Eulogy

Valerio Volpi
How Italy Became a Launching Pad for the US Military

Cecilie Surasky
Dissenting at Your Own Risk

Dave Lindorff
Remaking Iraq, as Vietnam

Norman Solomon
Sputnik, 50 Years Later

Laura Carlsen
Costa Rica and CAFTA: Memo Reveals Manipulation Scheme

Walter Brasch
When Compassion Fails: Bush and the Children's Health Act

Ben Terrall
Haitian Human Rights Advocate Kidnapped

William S. Lind
Beyond the OODA Loop

Website of the Day
Musicians in Handcuffs

 

October 3, 2007

Vijay Prashad
Gang of Four

Anita Sinha
Black Ties and Bulldozers in New Orleans

Winslow T. Wheeler
Posturing at the Petraeus Hearings: Where was the Oversight?

Sharon Smith
The Kucinich Quandary

Jeff Leys
Our Bonhoeffer Moment

Sen. Russ Feingold
We Must End This Tragedy

Mohamad Bazzi
Playing Into the Hands of Ahmadinejad

Brenda Norrell
A Cry from the Top of the World

Robert Weissman
No Sex, Still a Scandal at the IMF

Website of the Day
Jena by Mellencamp

 

October 2, 2007

Ibrahim Warde
Logical Lies About Bin Laden's Wealth

Gary Leupp
"I Hate All Iranians": Frank Talk from a Defense Dept. Official

David Macaray
The Hunt for a Blue November: In Pursuit of the Labor Vote

Conn Hallinan
Religion and Foreign Policy

John Ross
The Great American Chess Match

Alan Farago
Ripping Off Miami's Poor

Sonja Karkar
The Right to Exist: States or People?

Niranjan Ramakrishnan
The Meteor and the Mahatma

Website of the Day
Grandin on Che's Legacy

 

October 1, 2007

Al Giordano
The Clinton Campaign's Reckless Race for Big Money Donors

Paul Craig Roberts
From Burma to Iraq: Hypocrisy Rules the West

Moshe Adler
The Crimes of Microsoft

Ingmar Lee
My Kayak Journey Down the Wild Pacific Coast

John V. Walsh
Ahmadinejad is Not My Enemy

Norman Solomon
Political Science and Truth of Consequences

Roger Burbach
Historic Victory in Ecuador for the Left

Ramzy Baroud
The Politics of Assassination

Stephen Lendman
The Maestro of Misery: Greenspan's Dark Legacy

Susie Day
Honey, I Shrank the Military!

Website of the Day
Letters from Fort Lewis Brig

 

September 29 / 30, 2007

Alexander Cockburn
Clinton Time: Do We Set Our Clocks Forward or Back?

Uri Avnery
So What About Iran?

Andrew Cockburn
Iraq's WMD Myth: Why Clinton is Culpable

Jeffrey St. Clair
Through the Gates of Lodore

Wajahat Ali
The Good, the Bad and the Iraqi

Andy Worthington
The Curse of the Military Commissions

Don Santina
Ethnic Cleansing in San Francisco

Ralph Nader
Free Lunches, for Corporations!

Fred Gardner
The Man Behind the MoveOn Ad

Seth Sandronsky
The US Economy Since 1980

Gideon Levy
The Children of 5767

William S. Lind
A Ticking Bomb

Reza Fiyouzat
An Anti-Imperialist Case Against a Nuclear Iran

Richard Rhames
Wag the Tail, Frag the Dog

David Michael Green
Buyer's Remorse: Their Purchase, Our Regret

Zach Mason
Hate and Hope in Herndon

Poets' Basement
Gibbons, Ali, Davies and Suss

Website of the Weekend
Domestic Crusaders

 

 

September 28, 2007

Kathleen and Bill Christison
The Teflon Alliance with Israel

Roberto J. González /
David H. Price

When Anthropologists Become Counter-Insurgents

Saul Landau
September, the Cruelest Month in Chile

Tom Clifford
Burma by the Numbers

Christopher Brauchli
Of Toxic Almonds and Bad Beef

Martha Rosenberg
Spinning Suicide Statistics

Dave Zirin
Soldier in Winter: John Carlos Speaks Out on the Jena 6

Laray Polk
Bush Library or Lockbox?

Binoy Kampmark
When Reagan Turned Brown

James McEnteer
Hell, Columbia: an Academic Hotshot Introduces a Petty Tyrant

Website of the Day
Concerned Anthropologists

 

September 27, 2007

Alan Farago
Housing Market Crashes and Burns

Andy Worthington
A Bad Week at Guantánamo

Jonathan Cook
Why Did Israel Attack Syria?

William Hughes
Billy Graham, a Prince of War Exposed

Ray McGovern
Bush, Oil and Moral Bankruptcy

Ron Jacobs
Joe Biden's Plan to Chop Up Iraq

Dave Lindorff
Quit the Party! Join the Mass Resignation Movement!

Joshua Frank
Pruning the Green Party

Anne Dachel
The CDC, Vaccines and Autism

Website of the Day
The God-O-Meter

 


September 26, 2007

Bill Quigley
HUD's Home Wreckers

Paul Craig Roberts
A Pandemic of Police Brutality

Jeff Kisseloff
Still Smearing Alger Hiss

China Hand
Is China the True Target of Financial Sanctions Against Iran?

Behzad Yaghmaian
At the Gates of Paradise

Sonja Karkar
The Quality of Mercy in Gaza

Mike Ferner
Interrupting the Empire, 30 Seconds at a Time

Col. Dan Smith
Freedom to Speak, Freedom to Learn

Clifton Ross
Bollinger's Barbarous and Ignorant Speech

Brenda Norrell
A Meeting of Indigenous Peoples in Caracas

Website of the Day
The Smearing of Jean Maria Arrigo, a Psychologist Opposed to Torture

 

September 25, 2007

Nicole Colson
On the March Against Racism

Uri Avnery
Foam on the Water

Brendan Cooney
Ahmadinejad on Broadway: Free Speech? Arrest Him!

Harry Browne
Bruce Springsteen Comes Home ... to Hell

Marjorie Cohn
The Drift Toward War with Iran

David Macaray
The UAW-GM Strike: the Long Knives are Already Out

Ralph Nader
Hypocrisy and Inverted Priorities in Congress

Dan Bacher
Schwarzenegger, the Climate Change Hypocrite

Anthony Papa
Perverted Justice & America's Drug Laws

Christopher Ketcham
All Politicos Now Classed as Sexual Deviants

Website of the Day
John Waters on Free Speech

 

September 24, 2007

George Ciccariello-Maher
Racist Violence from Jena to Oakland

Saree Makdisi
The War on Gaza's Children

David Keen
Action-as-Propaganda: Learning About the Iraq War from Hannah Arendt

Sherwood Ross
Just How Powerful is the Israel Lobby? Only Cheney Knows for Sure

Ron Jacobs
Greenspan's Open Secret

Donna Saggia
The Cult of the Military and the Decline of Democratic Values

Mike Ferner
Free Speech Takes a Capitol Beating

Malini Johar Schueller
Norman Hsu is a Model Minority

Monique Dols
and Dylan Stillwood
Ahmadinejad and Columbia

Website of the Day
The Promotion


September 22 / 23, 2007

Alexander Cockburn
On Naomi Klein's "The Shock Doctrine"

Jennifer Loewenstein
Beneath the Hideous Veneer of Security

Linn Washington, Jr.
The Injustice in Jena: Prosecutorial Misconduct More Dangerous Than Racism

Jeffrey St. Clair
Going Down in Dinosaur: Oil, Dams and Whitewater (Part One)

Alan Farago
Genuflecting to China

Brian Cloughley
Of Hate, Hubris and Atrocities

Robert Fantina
The Deadly Pattern of US Imperialism

Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz
Land Tenure and Resistance in New Mexico

Jason Hribal
Fear of an Animal Planet

David Rosen
Slugger Sex: Athletes, Violence and Male Sexuality

Mike Whitney
The Era of Global Financial Instability

John V. Walsh
Who Will Lead a Filibuster of the Iraq War Spending Bill?

Dave Lindorff
Why Aren't We Banning Blackwater Here?

David Michael Green
Hiding Behind a Camouflage Skirt

Fred Gardner
Claudia Jensen (Look Back in Anger)

Cassandra Jones
Support Our Mercenaries

Roger van Zwanenberg
Pluto Press Under Attack by Israel Lobby

Poets' Basement
Buknatski, Davies and Ford

Website of the Weekend
"For the Bible Tells Me So"

 

September 21, 2007

Karim Makdisi
Letter from Lebanon

M. Shahid Alam
A History of Violence

Alan Farago
Who Will Buy My House?

Joshua Frank
The Demise of the Congressional Black Caucus

Dave Zirin
Notre Dame and the Economy of Sports

Kenneth Couesbouc
A Short History of Lending and Borrowing

Dr. Steffie Woolhandler and Dr. David Himmelstein
Mass Health Care Failure

Ben Terrall
The Streets of San Francisco: Where Impeachment is Taken Seriously--By Everyone But Pelosi

Steve Fournier
Ex-Dems, Sign Up Here

Frederico Fuentes, et al
Voices in Defense of Bolivia

Website of the Day
Sabra and Shatila, Remembered

 

September 20, 2007

Kathleen Christison
Whatever Happened to Palestine?

Zoltan Grossman
An Endless Occupation?

Paul Craig Roberts
As the Empire Slips: Greenspan and the Economy of Greed

Stan Cox
and Wes Jackson
Carbon-Free and Still Wrecking the Planet

Russell Mokhiber
AARP to Kucinich: Drop Dead

Charles Modiano
Jim Crow's Children: the Jena 6, Shaquanda Cotton and Blog Power

Raymond J. Lawrence
Bush's Worrisome Use of Religion

Brendan Cooney
Body-Snatched Nation

Website of the Day
Mind Control for Breakfast

 

September 19, 2007

Paul Craig Roberts
Why Did Senator John Kerry Stand Idly By?

Paul Krassner
The Power of Laughter

Sgt. Martin Smith
The New Private Warriors: Blackwater in Iraq

Seth Sandronsky
Living in a Dilapidated Market: To Rent or Own?

Claud Cockburn
Looking back at the Great Crash

Victoria Buch
Israel's Agenda for Ethnic Cleansing and Transfer

Robert Weissman
Oil Warriors: From Greenspan to Kissinger

Mike Ferner
Can We Talk?

Dan Bacher
Schwarzenegger's $9 Billion Boondoggle for Big Water

Website of the Day
Housing Cost Calculator

 

September 18, 2007

Mike Whitney
U.S. Banks Brace for Storm Surge as Dollar and Credit System Reel

Alan Farago
Interviewing Alan Greenspan: How 60 Minutes Blew It

John Ross
America's Great Wall:
Where Will the Workers Go
When They Finish It?

Ron Jacobs
Nooses Hung From Jena, La. to College Park, Md.

Alex Doherty
Britain's 9/11 "Truth Movement": Who's Responsible?

September 17, 2007

Marjorie Cohn
Erwin Chemerinsky and the Post-9/11 Attack on Academic Freedom

Paul Craig Roberts
Conservatism Isn't What It Used to Be

Ricardo Alarcón
The Return of C. Wright Mills Amid the Dawn of a New Era

Marc Levy
Fake Vets Chasing Fame

Eva Liddell
In 1969 We Already Knew What 2007 Would Look Like

Website of the Day
Propaganda: Your Job in Germany. Directed by Frank Capra, and written by Theodor Geisel

Sept. 15-16, 2007

Alexander Cockburn
The General Came to Washington

Vicente Navarro
How the U.S. Schemed Against Spain's Transition from Dictatorship to Democracy

Mike Whitney
Plummeting Dollar, Credit Crunch

Herman Mindshaftgap
Has There Ever Been a Surge? If so, Has it a Future?

Ellen Cantarow
Girls! Music! Palestine!

Jordan Flaherty
K-Ville: Fox's New Paean to the N.O.P.D.

Zachary Hurwitz
Julio Cusurichi on Amazonian Development

September 14, 2007

Debbie Nathan
New York Times reporter was a member of an illegal underage porn site, claims he was only "posing as online predator"

Franklin Lamb
Sabra-Shatilla, 25 Years Later

Patrick Cockburn
Greet Bush and Die: The Killing of Abu Risha

Farzana Versey
The World's Richest Muslim Tycoon

Alan Farago
This is Florida, Epicenter of the Housing Bust and of Public Corruption

Hank Edson
Bill's New Book is Giving Me a Headache

September 13, 2007

Patrick Cockburn
Petraeus Confided Presidential Ambitions to Iraqi Official

Scott Vest, former Air Force Captain at Minot
The Barksdale Nukes

Andy Worthington
Guantánamo: "Ghost" Prisoners Speak At Last

Michael Baney
Mr. Fixit of Quake-Stricken Peru Has Death Squad Past

Dr. Susan Block
Is U.S. Run by Secret Homintern?

September 12, 2007

Paul Craig Roberts
American Economy: RIP

Stan Goff
The Petraeus Report

William Blum
When Soldiers Mutiny...Only Those Fighting the War Can End It.

Manuel Garcia
Forgetting 9/11

Debbie Nathan
Why One Sex Survey Didn't Make the Big Time

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Subscribe Online

October 11, 2007

Toward a Thousand Boat Float

Colorado River Blues

By JOSH MAHAN

"This river is loud," I say, overwhelmed by the constant roar in my ears.

"It will be quiet soon," says Serena Supplee, the official artist of the Colorado Plateau and a Cataract canyon companion. She refers to water that is pooling up downstream of us, even as we speak, in the Powell reservoir.

The comment is as eerie as the prospect of such a forceful current being tamed.

We're camped on river left below Rapid 19. The giant V-wave of Rapid 18 still churns in sight. The two surging laterals join together mid-rapid and stand powerful for generations to come, though you can only smash through that wave once a run.

The ride through 18 is so amazing that all you can do when you are finished is look back upstream and feel the joy and satisfaction of a smashing line. But at the same time sadness sets in. You begin to mourn that such a magnificent wave is upstream.

Feelings like those bring a boater back to Cataract again. And again.

Boaters like John Weisheit of Living Rivers, based in Moab. Weisheit has run the big water, roller coaster lines of Cat well over 400 times.

"I stopped keeping track around 390," he said. Numbers like those and a passion for clean, free-flowing rivers led John to become the Colorado River Keeper. You can't pass a gypsum dome or a salt intrusion without Weisheit tying off the boats and trudging a visitor through the coarse footing of Cataract canyon to explain how a one-time ocean evaporated leaving only crystals.

He'll even give you jeweler's loop to examine the residue.

If an exploration of the geologic record isn't enough, get Weisheit going on the Glen Canyon dam. Not only does that wall of concrete stop the movement of all things wild; like pike minnows, me, grains of sand, and mule deer ­ it's a safety issue now. When the Bureau of Reclamation built the dam it ignored the true high-water capacity of the Colorado river. And in not taking into account the levels that can be achieved during the 500-year-flood, the dam engineers have stacked the dominoes tight with every dam down the river. If one of these flood walls crumples, they all could, until the current flows straight to the sea.

Nobody wants this.

Unsafe dams are bad for business. Just like bad bridges and levees.

Don't think a dam can bust here in the land of milk and honey? Guess again. The Bureau of Reclamation lost a dam in the relatively low populated Teton Valley of Idaho in the 1950s. And they almost lost Glen Canyon dam to the high waters of 1983.

That's why Weisheit thinks we should drop the Glen Canyon dam 10 feet per year until it is drained. Sell chunks to philanthropists and treehuggers to fund the project.

People get real antsy when you talk about decommissioning dams. But like any great vessel even a dam can outlast its usefulness. To continue funding a money pit like the Glen Canyon Dam is the definition of stubborn. Especially while taxing the natural environment.

What will be the cost of this dam if it does collapse under the burden of shoddy craftsmanship? How much longer does the West have to live beneath the yoke of a dangerous, costly, and destructive dam?

The next morning we woke up to rapids drawn in the sand. We drank camp coffee while looking over the lines through the Big Drop, a collection of three falls in the river that required some scouting. The day was long, but the runs were clean, and the light in the canyon filtered off and on through the clouds, spotlighting the canyon walls. It was a beautiful place to be young, free, and healthy. A good moment to be alive. Just a speck on the geologic record. But when you're out dodging the house-sized boulders in a maze of dropping whitewater, and soaking in the folds of canyon surrounding you it all seems very significant ­ like you'll live forever. You feel like an entire layer of Navajo sandstone.

After the Big Drop the river careens through a few more rapids. Rapid 28 is the last one on the map. Before the dam there were 46 rapids through Cataract and Glen canyons. With historic low reservoir levels, though, and current running past Hite, Cataract canyon is slowly reclaiming itself one blowout at a time.

It was the giant storm of last October that created Rapid 29 at the mouth of Waterhole canyon.

29 is a burly drop and we run its stand-on-your-toes steepness while zig-zagging through a collection of boulders.

Then we see another horizon line.

Weisheit had said there would be no more rapids after Waterhole.

But down here in Cataract evolution is in process.

A steep, no-name gulch has gashed through the left side of the canyon. The gulch normally wouldn't have been noticeable. But today there is a massive debris flow spilling from its shallow walls and into the river.

As our boats approach the new rapid, the angle smoothes and we see down its gentle tongue. The flow merges into a series of rolling waves.

"This rapid is still forming," Weisheit says. "Someday it could be a large."

We run Rapid 30 ­ a brand new Cataract canyon drop. High on the canyon wall above the blown out gulch is an eroded sandstone fin.

"It looks like a buffalo head," Jen says.

Buffalohead Rapid.

We leave Serena and John at Cove canyon, where Serena is going to paint a watercolor landscape of the winding wash.

"Powell called this place Eden," John says. "It has a perennial stream flowing through it."

Mike props a DRAIN IT flag that John has given us in the frame of his blue Hyside. It flaps furiously in the strong upstream wind.

"Powell would want it this way," John says, referring to us parting company at Eden.

We thank him for his expertise and push down into the howling wind. But we're not rookies at this point. With over 40 days on the water and over 500 miles of river behind us, we know how to pull into the gale and make camp on Rockfall beach.

The next morning we float past Dark canyon, once home to one gnarly Dark Canyon rapid, considered one of the most ferocious. The current flows past it again, now. It's no longer choked up in the stillness of the reservoir that took its life. The massive Dark Canyon itself still has a couple boulders in its belly. I am confident that that rapid will again one day strike fear deep into the bowels of boaters. All good things are restored in time.

We continue on through the hundred-foot high silt beds that have been left behind by the recession of the reservoir. Though they're ugly and mar the canyon walls for now, it's obvious these sands will one day soon be washed downstream. For now, they don't seem all that out of place. This landscape was created by oceans that have receded. It will outlive this reservoir. It's all of the animals that are dying because of the monster rock wall that stops the flow of all things wild.

Eventually we wind our way to Hite, formerly known as a marina. It's been left high and dry, though. Jen attempts to reach the meager facilities that appear to be more oasis for the Columbus Day RVs than anything. A voracious mud covers the ground between river bed and dry fall. It sucks Jen in to her waist. Hite will not be reached.

The winds pick up and we are forced behind a rock reef at the mouth of North Wash for shelter. Happy to be out of the howling wind, we lie on our mats and don't stir for 14 hours. The next morning is windy, too, with gusts over 50 miles-per-hour as we push down reservoir. We're hardly moving, and take shelter on a beautiful beach at the mouth of Trachyte.

Finally, the glass moves in, and awaking at dawn we strike out for Good Hope Bay. It's good to be moving without resistance and we take in the beauty of Glen Canyon. Much like Flaming Gorge the stifled and stagnant waters cannot strangle the grandeur from the region. It's a fantastic landscape named for its lush glens. And one day each side canyon will run free again.

These are the things I think about as I row.

Jen gets on the oars and starts moving the boat. And this girl can move the boat. Sometimes I think about waterskiing behind. But this time I doze. I awake to a cataraft pulling up beside us with a motor assist. A nice couple named Gary and Elizabeth Perry from Flagstaff have just pulled off of a San Juan trip and are motoring the reservoir until they run out of "river kill," the extra food from the expedition.

Gary tells us we're making 1.7 miles-per-hour. The number makes us happy, as we've adjusted our speed of motion over the days. They say they've heard of us, from around a campfire on the San Juan trip, and that they respect what we're doing. We chit-chat a bit more, Gary offers us a tow, which we decline, and the Perry's are off to the next side canyon.

A houseboat drones slowly by. A frat boy on the top deck yells, "Hey." Then he holds up his beer and yells, "Beer."

I hold up my beer high to the sky and in an international gesture sweep it to by lips in a large chug. It's a luke warm PBR, but better than ice cold 3.2. The frat boy cheers wildly.

Mike sips a 3.2 Bushch Light. "I'm not sure how I've made this 12 pack last so long," he says.

"It's a 30-pack," replies Jen.

A bit later a jet skier comes up and asks us about the silt beds in Cataract.

"Have they washed out yet?" he asks. It's obvious he's a river runner and when he leaves he says, "Got to make the best of this damned backed up water," referring to his craft.

We push on. Two row boats in a small sea. The waters are quiet, though, even for a busy weekend.

"You know the motor boats hit peak numbers on a couple weekends, like when we were going through Flaming Gorge on Labor Day weekend," Roselle says. "The rest of the time these waters sit empty."

The motorboats aren't much of a user group, and the environmental destruction this lake creates should be weighed heavier than the motor boat's right to troll up a side canyon. If these people are truly in love with this redrock landscape, it's time to use the current to see it.

Right about then I started thinking about the THOUSAND BOAT FLOAT. That's right, folks, next Labor Day weekend, bring out your self-propelled craft and let's row these waters, demanding that current be restored to Glen canyon. Imagine rafts, kayaks, and canoes, lined out over dozens of miles of reservoir. The front of our flotilla will be hitting camp as the back still leaves the camp from the night before. Let's take this canyon back! And have a good time doing it.

If you think about it, half of the water that sits in this desert lake evaporates straight into the sky, without ever kissing the earth. Take this dam down. Decommission it. Replace it with smaller diversion projects to deliver the water. But let the river flow. Divert no more than half of it, and let the other half, which would have evaporated anyway flow into the Sea of Cortez.

I know this is only a proposal from an enterprising journalist river rat, but it makes even less sense to stay the course. We screwed up big time when we built this dam.

I'll see you at the THOUSAND BOAT FLOAT.

Josh Mahan is editor of Lowbagger.org. You can follow his adventure down the Colorado on Down the River website. He can b reached at: editor@lowbagger.org

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 












Shop at Amazon.com

 

Now Available!
How the Press Led
the US into War


Buy End Times Now!

New From
CounterPunch Books

The Secret Language
of the Crossroads:
HOW THE IRISH
INVENTED SLANG
By Daniel Cassidy

WINNER OF THE
AMERICAN BOOK AWARD!


Click Here to Buy!

Cassidy on Tour
Click Here for Dates & Venues

"The Case Against Israel"
Michael Neumann's Devastating Rebuttal of Alan Dershowitz


Click Here to Buy!


Saul Landau's Bush and Botox World with a Foreword by Gore Vidal


Click Here to Order!

 

Grand Theft Pentagon
How They Made a Killing on the War on Terrorism

 

 

 

 


The Occupation
by Patrick Cockburn


Humanitarian Imperialism
By Jean Bricmont


 


CITY BEAUTIFUL
By Tennessee Reed

 

 


Bruce Springsteen On Tour
By Dave Marsh

 

The Book on 9/11 the White House Denounced as "ABSOLUTE GARBAGE"