Julie Cart, Los Angeles Times, October 5, 2009
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In contemporary times, however, the job of overseeing John Muir’s “cathedrals of nature” requires presiding over fights of partisanship, science, religion and the appropriate telling of the American story.
For Jon Jarvis, the newly named director of the National Park Service, the future of the 391-unit system promises similar controversy.
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As director of the service’s Pacific West Region, Jarvis, 56, sought diversity in park staff and visitors, established programs to make parks relevant to young people, and provided materials in Spanish and on teaching inner-city families how to camp.
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Citing climate change as one of the top challenges in parks, Jarvis echoed the Obama administration’s pledge to reemphasize the role of science in federal land management decisions. Even though the park service is charged with a mission to educate, problems arise at places such as the Grand Canyon, where some visitors prefer a biblical interpretation of the canyon’s age.
“I’m not the least bit afraid of controversy in the work that we do,” Jarvis said. “We’re pretty good at this. It’s our job to tell the story and without embellishment, to tell it as truthfully as possible. Based on the historical side, scholarly work; and on the natural side, scientific work. That’s going to be the basis for our interpretation and we shouldn’t shy away from it.”
One change Jarvis says he’ll institute is to put park rangers back in classrooms. When Gale Norton was Interior secretary, she stopped that long tradition, saying it represented “mission creep.”
Rangers’ storytelling—called “interpretation” in the park service—will also shift. Jarvis said that rangers at Civil War battlefields now spend less time telling visitors where the Confederate and Union armies lined up for Pickett’s charge and more time discussing slavery and civil rights. Those issues are more relevant to today’s society, he said.
The role of the parks, Jarvis said, is to continue to tell the American story. He said that a group of military lawyers recently toured historic Japanese internment camps, to try to get a look at “how the current internment of American citizens will appear in history,” he said.
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Original article
Email
Julie Cart
at julie.cart@latimes.com .
(Posted on October 12, 2009)
Comments
“Less time telling visitors…” I just got back from Gettysburg. And one of the things I always do is go online to Virtual Tourist and read other posters complaints and compliments about Anywhere U.S.A. Then I go online and either reinforce or refute others observations compared to my own. Concerning Gettysburg were two complaints that I found valid. The first was that the multitude of monuments down to brigade strength made it all very hard to tell where the major action took place. When you can`t tell a regimental obelisk from the High Tide of The Confedercy marker, it makes it more difficult to get the big picture…
Rangers’ storytelling—called “interpretation” in the park service—will also shift. Jarvis said that rangers at Civil War battlefields now spend less time telling visitors where the Confederate and Union armies lined up for Pickett’s charge and more time discussing slavery and civil rights. Those issues are more relevant to today’s society, he said.
Maybe that’s why young people and minorities aren’t going to NPs. After all, they get “lessons” (more like agitprop) about slavery and civil rights at home. Why should they travel a thousand or more miles to get them?
“As director of the service’s Pacific West Region, Jarvis, 56, sought diversity in park staff and visitors, established programs to make parks relevant to young people, and provided materials in Spanish and on teaching inner-city families how to camp.”
Sounds like the only effort he has made is helping them fail. How many whites want to camp with inner city kids? Or go on a desolate path and the only face you see will be a black or brown one? Not me. Sorry, I’m going to be avoiding the national parks for good if this is the new policy.
So the parks have become fonts of politically motivated historical revisionism. This is not such a big surprise, it has really been going on for a long time. It only means that real scholars will have to research a little more. But they are aided by computers which actually make learning all sides of issues, including details of history easier than they were say, 40 years ago. I do think that they ought to be disclaimder that encourages more personal research if a more complete picture of a park’s particular history is desired. Computer kiosk’s at places like the Gettysburg Battlefield would be helpful to those who want to see the historical ground for themselves while they are there, rather than wait to get home.
Have you seen how these people trash places for something as simple as a picnic?! I’d hate to go to Sequoia and hear blaring mariachi or rap, a million hellish kids carving their names into trees, and trash everywhere. Just thinking about it brings tears to my eyes.
“The role of the parks, Jarvis said, is to continue to tell the American story”.
In other words, do not tell the American story as it was but re-interpret to fit the story of the day.
Is there currently ANY aspect of American life, past or present, that isn’t mandated to be veiwed through the impossibly murky prism of “civil rights” and the greater grievance lobby? Our entire modern society is based upon this bizarre exercize in perpetual self-flagellation and self-loathing - for Whites only, of course. What a sick and twisted world we live in…
So people who visit Civil War battlefields to learn about the War Between the States will instead get a lecture on the civil rights movement.
I knew this guy was a p.c. buffoon when he cited global warming as one of the top challenges facing the Park Service.
“Jarvis said that rangers at Civil War battlefields now spend less time telling visitors where the Confederate and Union armies lined up for Pickett’s charge and more time discussing slavery and civil rights.”
White people, the only people that go to national parks, want to hear about the actual history of the places they are visiting, not being lectured about white racism and civil rights. How on Earth could “civil rights” be relevent to a civil war battle? Does Jarvis actually think that white Union troops were fighting the Confederates to free black slaves?
“The role of the parks, Jarvis said, is to continue to tell the American story. He said that a group of military lawyers recently toured historic Japanese internment camps, to try to get a look at ‘how the current internment of American citizens will appear in history,’ he said.”
Who on earth is this freakishly pathetic old multicultural bootlicker attempting to describe here, in his idiotic and simpering frenzy of “enlightenment?” Is it: members of Islamic terrorist cells, illegal aliens, and the unrestrained psychopathic black criminals who overpopulate our prisons? Is that really the “role of the parks” Comrade Jarvis, to selectively distort history for your sanctimoniously obtained paycheck?
I wonder why this fecklessly wretched traitor isn’t ordering his rangers to discuss the hypocrisy of having some degenerate and archaic white Communist run the National Park Service, and stealing the job from a more deserving nonwhite, in General Secretary BO’s “post-racial” and hyper-affirmative action Utopian States of America?
As always, God help us all!
I’ve been camping in almost every state park and many of the National Forests from Alaska to California, from Washington State to Colorado—in other words, pretty much the entire western half of the nation. I have never seen more than a single handful of non-whites at any one of them. Camping is almost exclusively a white people’s activity. Look at: http://stuffwhitepeoplelike.com/2009/08/14/128-camping/
People generally go to these parks to marvel at the fantastic terrain and other natural features. Can’t we find respite from “white guilt” breast beaters anywhere? We are force-fed revisionist history in our schools, our television programs, etc.
In my many trips to the national parks throughout this great country I don’t see many African Americans observing or touring the historical sites. Sure, let’s not talk nor discuss the battles fought during the “war of succession” but instead focus on issues that matter to blacks today: “Them Selves”. The lives lost on both North and South matter very little to today’s blacks as they want you to know how horrible it was for them in the past. There should be a collection point where whites can contribute funds for the “sins of the past” and eager blacks can collect these funds to better themselves.
Rangers’ storytelling—called “interpretation” in the park service—will also shift. Jarvis said that rangers at Civil War battlefields now spend less time telling visitors where the Confederate and Union armies lined up for Pickett’s charge and more time discussing slavery and civil rights.
Oh jeez. As if students today weren’t saturated with propaganda about slavery and civil rights (read, “anti-white policies”) every day of the school year. What they are sorely lacking is any real knowledge of the particulars of how the Civil War started and how it was fought.
Just great. Now whites can’t even go on vacation without the white guilt trip. While these Rangers are disscussing slavery and civil rights, they should also be discussing the very small percentage of whites who actually owned slaves and STATES rights.
While they are at it, telling the important story of Japanese internment during world war II, I wonder, history being the guide, if they will also tell the story of German and Italian Americans also interned in the US during WWII. Or if they will tell the important story of the internment of American citizens by the Japanese during WWII all across Asia, a great number of whom would not survive? Or would that be considered racism?
There is a plaque posted at highway rest stops in the state of Georgia that commemorates American prisoners held during all of America’s wars. If you take the time to look closely, it lists the total number of Americans taken prisoner in each war in Americas history and the number that survived captivity. Around 10% of prisoners died in captivity. That’s true for World War II also, at least for the European theater. For World War II, it lists prisoners held by Germany and in a separate category, those held by Japan. Over 50% of American prisoners held by Japan during World War II died in captivity. A stark contrast to the figures for every other war in American history.
Our own National Parks are to be weapons against us. Why go to Gettysburg to listen to some Federal employee snivle about slavery? Preaching about Blacks’ problems at WBTS battle sites is relevant? Were slave auctions held at Antietam? This is a bait and switch scam, lure the White masses to revered places in our history and sell them “civil rights”. It might be fun to ask the Rangers about affirmative action and Black crime rates. That would be relevant.
several years ago I took the tour of Arlington National Cemetary. It was on a tram like thing with the driver as the tourguide. Maybe 30 or so people on the tram, about 1/2 white and black. The black driver tourguide was only interested in black issues of course, pointing out the resting place of the first black general and the first black this and that. Even the few whites he pointed out were the ones with some kind of influence in the black experiment. I just wanted to puke, and could tell some of the other whites felt the same way,, but as whites we just kept silent and took it. We must stand up!! Kingfish
queequeg wrote: I believe civil war is a very relevant subject again; but, not for the same reasons that Mr. Jarvis does.
Oh, I don’t know… “to try to get a look at “how the current internment of American citizens will appear in history,” he said.” That quote sounds like FEMA camps to me. And we all know who -and under what circumstances they will be filled.
“Pro-Patria” 31st Inf Rgmt wrote: There should be a collection point where whites can contribute funds for the “sins of the past” and eager blacks can collect these funds to better themselves. There is, it is called the IRS and Welfare…
This is just another cog in the most Evil, Genocidal machine ever built. Our children are taught responsible parenting -with the result that many don’t have kids until their 30’s or later. At the same time, certain other parts of our society are taught that one kid on welfare and they break even -two or more and they show enough profit that they needen’t ever work, just have kids on the taxpayer dime as an ‘occupation’. This is nothing but Eugenics applied to exterminate the smart and productive while breeding an overflowing army of ‘weak minds and strong backs’
Were on the aft deck of the Titanic here people -and seats on the lifeboats are reserved for the highest bidders and Affirmative Action.
“Citing climate change as one of the top challenges in parks, Jarvis echoed the Obama administration’s pledge to reemphasize the role of science in federal land management decisions.”
Ignorance is knowledge. Seems to me there is very little science involved in “climate change” as it is being discussed.
I was at the Mammoth Cave in Tennessee this summer. It’s run by the park service. There are 11 different tours that go on each day, from about an hour in length to around 3 hours. A park ranger conducts each tour. Among the helpful commentary made by our Ranger… “the government’s going to be honest now that Obama is our president”.
Strangely enough, ‘Slavery’ was an important topic at the Mammoth caves. Apparently slaves had a part fixing up the park.
Important if you actually believe there was really slavery in American. I don’t.
If every single thing they say is a lie, told for an evil purpose, I might add, why should ‘slavery’ be any different? It’s called deductive reasoning, I believe.
What the PC correct “interpreters” WON’T tell folks about the Civil War is this: when the average northern enlistee/draftee believed the war was about “preserving” the union, they went.
I am really beginning to hate what my country has become.
Under our laws we can never get the best if less than the best is applying, so what do we expect our country to become. A country comprised of second best by federal decree…and if it’s second best that’s a lucky break.
Always remembe what a soldier told General Longstreet as they left Gettysburg, “my health is gone, my family is gone, our home is gone, all this because I loved my country; if I survive this war I’ll be damned if I ever love another country.”
Our country has done nothing but surrender since that date.
Pro Patria wrote.There should be a collection point where
Good news Pro.These places have been around for years.The
Have A Nice Day.Unreconstructed
“teaching inner-city families how to camp”
Hey, wait a minute. I thought non-whites were more ‘at one with nature’ than the blue-eyed devils. Why do they need camping lessons?
The reason I would go to a Civil War battlefied is to find out how the Union and Confederate armies ‘lined up’.
“Camping is almost exclusively a white people’s activity”
Exactly. This is how it is, regardless of what the feds think it is or want it to be. Whites are the campers, hikers, etc. That sort of behavior is not in the non-white realms of activities to be enjoyed. And it is not because of lack of money, poverty, etc. It is just not something non-whites find to be pleasureable. The enjoyment or appreciation of wilderness is a “honkey” kinda thing!!
White people, the only people that go to national parks, want to hear about the actual history of the places they are visiting, not being lectured about white racism and civil rights. How on Earth could “civil rights” be relevent to a civil war battle? Does Jarvis actually think that white Union troops were fighting the Confederates to free black slaves?-Eric @ 7:40pm
That is precisely the point. It is not for the black audience. It is to remind, indoctrinate and humilate white people to have them listen to these chastising lectures.
