Arkansas Blog

Holy Shit, I agree with Blanche.

~JoePen

"Since sometime in the 1930s the National Park Service has promoted the myth that Yellowstone was America's First National Park. In truth, it was the second by almost 40 years. It is very difficult to find anyone in the National Park Service -- or the entire Department of the Interior for that matter -- who will admit that they've been fibbing for over 70 years. And now they believe their own mythology.

Fact: On April 20, 1832 Congress established Hot Springs Reservation, Arkansas, as a "National Park." Fact: On March 1st 1872, Congress established Yellowstone as the second National Park. The third was Mackinack Island, the fourth was Sequoia, then Yosemite, and so on. The problem was that these were loosely managed by the U.S. Cavalry, citizens' groups, State agencies, and some with no management at all. So on August 25, 1916, President Wilson created the National Park Service.

The presidential order that created the National Park Service expressly spelled out that it was to protect the National Parks, Monuments, and Hot Springs Reservation."
bluename

Thanks, eLwood, interesting read. Its always been Hot Springs National Park to me and
always will be. Apparently some folks don't have enough to worry about.

Gee Whiz....anyone have an idea??? I sit here, at my puter, with window on my right
overlooking the lake.....moments ago 5 very loud, very fast jets flew over, had to be
military. If idiot is going to nuke Hot Springs I demand a 30 day notice.

Washington - U.S. Senator Blanche Lincoln today released the following statement in response to the National Park Service's attempt to cancel the city's "Hot Springs National Park" trademark:

"I regret that the situation has been elevated to this level. I, like many Arkansans, have wonderful memories of times spent in Hot Springs. As an Arkansan, I am proud of Hot Springs' rightful place as a tourist destination that adds critical dollars to the state of Arkansas. I am proud of the spirit of cooperation that has existed for so many years among all sectors of the community and the National Park.

"The situation we find ourselves in today is extremely unfortunate and, I believe, unnecessary. The National Park Service has enjoyed a long and productive relationship with the people of Hot Springs and the state of Arkansas and its actions have caused irreparable damage to the spirit of cooperation that has helped Hot Springs flourish."

Sounds like a bunch of onsequious bullshit to me...in other words I'm on both sides of the fence...oooooh noooooooooooo...can't make a stand...can't piss off the feds and sortainly cannot upset the locals...unrestrained weasel words that typify the inability or refusal by anyone representing the Democratice Party to make a stand on something as simple as this...You know where the repugs come from, they are all crookd and sure as hell don't mind standing up and lieing about it...GO GREEN I SAY!

ArkansawTraveler,

I'm not sure that Blanche is being "onsequious" simply because she doesn't use spelling, language, and punctuation like "...oooooh noooooooooooo..." and "Democratice Party" and "crookd" and "lieing".

Also, she didn't use any weasel words. Wikipedia has an easy to understand primer on what weasel words actually are: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weasel_words

Blanche said she thinks the National Park Service's actions were "unnecessary" and "caused irreparable damage," which seems pretty unequivocal to me. Just because she doesn't blow up and go absolutely off the deep end over the issue of what a town calls itself doesn't make her a fence straddler. It makes her sane.

Vote Green Party; we're insane!

Hells bells, I always thought the official name of the city was Hot Springs National Park, AR. If it isn't it should be. Just change the official name of the city and tell the feds to stick it. We are having to work with the Elvis Presley Enterprises in order to promote the barbershop at Ft. Chaffee where E got his famous haircut...you think that US is more powerful than EPEnterprises,,,no f***king way.

Holy shit! Blanche Lincoln comes out of her coma to tread the dangerous waters of fightin with the dangerous National Park Service. How will she survive. What courage this woman is showing! Shoot low Sheriff, she's riding a Shetland!!!!

Does this mean now that Blanche is awake and fired up that she'd going to notice we got 2 wars going on in the Middle East and a gang of crooks in the White House? Can we expect her to finally start fighting against the bastard neo-cons who are trading our dignity, honor, tax money and the lives of over 4000 US troops to suck up Iraq's oil? Will she break away from her Bush-hugging fellow Senator from Arkansas and grow a pair of balls that might just help pull our fat out of the fire before Cheney-Bush cause WWIII?

Will Blanche apologize for voting to give Cheney-Bush the power to wage an illegal war? Will Blanche apologize for voting with the giant credit card companies, changing our nation's bankruptcy laws and bringing misery to millions of families who face medical bills no average family could pay?

How come we only hear from Blanche when she's taking a meaningless stand over something as unimportant as this fight with the Parks System? Is she the Senator of Small Matters? The big issues that are tearing this country apart seem to fly over her head like a jumbo jet.

According to GovTrack: Blanche Lincoln has sponsored 169 bills since Jan 19, 1999, of which 152 haven't made it out of committee (Poor) and 2 were successfully enacted ...

Are we getting our money's worth out of this Senator? Boy, makes me bitter.

Ark Traveler,
It'd too damn bad Ms Blanche has limited passion. If she could only apply her fierce passion to the Nat'l Park issue like she applies it to the Billionaires Relief Act and the Millionaires Welfare Bill (aka Farm Bill)
then it would be settled pretty quickly in my hometown's favor.

Judging from the written and E-mailed responses I get from Mr. Mark and Ms. Blanche I think a Senator's job consists in appearing to be CONCERNED.
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>>Vote Green Party; we're insane!<<

Yea, Vote Demo...Support Joe Liberman-McCain, support Gilbert Baker, support Bryan King and any other winger the Chicken Bureau tells you to support. That will do the trick for freedom and "justice for all." Vote Torture!

I am not privy to whatever conversatons have taken place between members of the HSPV and NPS, so I don't know what led up to this. I'm sure there is more to it, perhaps personal politics. However, seeing one of the "ducks" with Hot Springs National Park written across it immediately brought to mind the incident where a duck sank and people died. I can see why NPS might be concerned about confusion of perception in that case, even if it was clear *on paper* that the duck operator was not operating on behalf of NPS. Perhaps it is about avoiding possible liability in the future. Or control of the bathhouses. Why does common law marriage come to mind?

Note that although Google is not the definitive resource, I see that Google Maps clearly differentiates between the city and the park. At http://www.nps.gov/hosp/historyculture/index.htm, it clearly states that the HSNP was the first national park, and that it surrounds the northern end of Hot Springs, the city (there are also some job openings if anyone is interested).

Perhaps they could have two logos, or tiny text "in cooperation with HSNP." I'm just saying there may be a reasonable, other side to this.

eLwood,

Regarding your response to my "Vote Green" comment, that straw man doesn't follow. (For that matter, neither did my hasty generalization . . .)

That said, I'm in agreement that Blanche is not nearly worth the sixty percent approval rating she got in the Oakleaf poll. We ought to get a real progressive in there before we waste more time building senority for a senator who's uninspired (and longwinded).

You're right on target Mr Soul. We were having a bit of fun with Ms. Blanche because of some of her "undemocratic" positions she has taken over the years. Likely some compromise will be worked out.
Ms. Blanche was on target too. The entire episode was totally unnecessary.

Jazzy - they were out for a stroll in the Park today.

HO,
I enjoyed a long chat with one of my Buddhist friends from Nepal earlier this evening. He reminded me that humans are "mutable beings." We must endure changes, shifts and embrace different ideas as we traverse thru life in order to remain human. After all, we are minds just borrowing our bodies and reality is kept in place with our belief systems.

With that in mind I told him that I would just begin believing that John Boozman is a progressive liberal and hope for the best.
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That's it? I don't even know
why I care, but that's not
much information and not much
of a statement.

Try this link for the entire trademark dispute.

Perhaps the issue could have been resolve more congenially, but the Superintendent has a valid point. A quick scan of the Hot Springs Chamber of Commerce site and other web resources reveals:

National Park Aquarium
National Park Church of Christ
National Park Community College
National Park Gifts & Souvenirs
National Park Medical Center
National Park Pharmacy
National Park Rotary Club
National Park Dental Group

And more, plus other entities like the aforementioned Ducks that display "National Park" in their advertising or other forms of identification. None of these have any relationship with the National Park Service. If this was Little Rock and we were talking about the "Alltel Pharmacy" or the "Acxiom Medical Center" or, heaven forbid, the "Clinton Center Dental Group" all you-know-what would break loose.

Well, Goof,,,,I'm still thinking of those 5 military planes, flying south to north. We just
don't have air traffic over our part of the lake, that is why it struck me.....altho we did
have an old neighbor who saw black 'copters over the lake EVERY morn and was quick to
report it to a local radio call in show.......I never saw one.
I just get very uneasy over anything military these days, what with the great white chief
in the oval.