tequila4kapp said:

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tequila4kapp said:

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It is part of the story out of the FBI about how two private citizens were surveilled by J. Smith. I skipped right past all that political stuff and went to the part I found interesting - that an attorney would consent.

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And today's reports come from the attorney who claims he never consented and never knew about the call being recorded by the FBI.

It is difficult to see an innocent middle ground here. Someone is lying - either the attorney about not giving consent or the FBI about having received consent. My money would be on the latter.

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SBGold said:

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I want to leave. Blue Mountains in Australia might be nice, or perhaps somewhere in NZ by a beach

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Quote:

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Can you find speeches or environmentalists who have spoken about the need to deal with matters of the here and now rather than just looking for new virgin land? Because, eventually there is no more virgin land



Yes that idea has been expressed very clearly by environmentalists, conservationists, and even popes. The language varies, but the core theme is consistent:

The age of expansion is over. Stewardship must replace conquest.

Here are some strong examples.



Wendell Berry

Berry has spent decades arguing against the fantasy of escape whether to cities, technologies, or new land. A representative line:

"The care of the Earth is our most ancient and most worthy responsibility."

His essays repeatedly argue that you cannot "go somewhere else" to solve moral or ecological problems. You repair the soil you stand on.



Theodore Roosevelt

By the early 1900s, he explicitly recognized the closing of the American frontier and pivoted toward conservation:

"We have become great because of the lavish use of our resources. But the time has come to inquire seriously what will happen when our forests are gone…"

Roosevelt represents the historical transition from expansion to preservation.



Rachel Carson

In Silent Spring (1962), she warned that technological conquest of nature had consequences that couldn't be escaped by moving west or starting over.

Her work helped shift environmental thought from "limitless land" thinking to ecological limits thinking.



E. F. Schumacher

In Small Is Beautiful (1973):

"There are no solutions; there are only trade-offs."

His entire thesis is that we must live within limits rather than assume endless growth into new territory.



Pope Francis

In Laudato si', he writes:

"We are not God. The Earth was here before us and it has been given to us."

The encyclical strongly critiques the idea that humans can always move on after degrading land.



Stewart Brand

Founder of the Whole Earth Catalog, Brand initially celebrated frontier thinking ("access to tools"), but later environmental thought in that movement acknowledged planetary limits "We are as gods and might as well get good at it."



The Frontier Officially Closed

The intellectual turning point in American thinking was Frederick Jackson Turner's 1893 "Frontier Thesis," declaring the frontier closed. From that moment forward, the mythology of escape began to collide with ecological reality.

By the 1960s and 70s the folk era you mentioned environmentalism absorbed that realization:
There is no "somewhere else" anymore.



The Underlying Theme

The idea you're circling has become almost axiomatic in environmental thought:
Earth is finite
Expansion ends
Repair begins

It's less a single famous quote and more a civilizational shift in tone.

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smh said:

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SBGold said:

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I want to leave. Blue Mountains in Australia might be nice, or perhaps somewhere in NZ by a beach

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a cautionary note: NZ beaches come defended by persistent, off-putting, biting sand-flies.
no joke, for weeks we've been thereabouts (more than once) but advise against coastline snoozes.
inland valleys, meadows, hills, peaks, are all fine / no problemo.
https://www.nzgeo.com/stories/sandflies

oh yeah, and plenty of friendly folks too, though they "talk a little funny"

humble brag: we bought into permits to the very popular "one way" m-i-l-f-o-r-d tract walk, notched twice, most recently escorted in a group (booked way ahead), and once "freedom walk" style in the 1980s. either is fine, but freedom walkers can choose to linger a bit longer. oh, and nearly guaranteed it's gonna rain on the hilly west side of the south island.

kinda pricey access / listed in NZ currency, includes trail lodging and nearby transportation [book waay early], evening cooked meals and walkers pack included..
https://www.ultimatehikes.co.nz/multi-day-guided-walks/m*i*l*ford-track /* delete stars */

mandatory driving reminder, always "Keep LEFT"
sadly, i pretty much forget the rest.

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SBGold said:

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You didn't say enough, great to hear about your travels. Where else have you gone to that you loved?

Before the military coup a couple years ago, I found Myanmar to be amazing. India as well.

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smh said:

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SBGold said:

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You didn't say enough, great to hear about your travels. Where else have you gone to that you loved?
Before the military coup a couple years ago, I found Myanmar to be amazing. India as well.

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service in an east asia war zone for a couple years was comfortably endured, thankfully juiced with
hours patching isolated gi's thru on single-sideband connections to family via stateside amateur ham
radio operators [including a close relation of George Burns]; mostly focused on reminding callers
to "say over" when both operators had to switch from transmit to receive mode, and vice versa.
reaching out to family they couldn't talk to for many weeks or months [or ever again]
# not half bad.

enjoyed a few times a year backpacking with my better half, briefly in alaska, with lots
and lots of sierra trails; topping mt whitney (twice), trans sierra west to east, stuff like that
# long gone good old days / all hail the holy ghost of saintly John Muir

but enough about this old fort, sorry all, lets get back to Cal Sports and GO BEARS!

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concordtom said:

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Oh, heck no.
This life experience is Golden!
Keep going!

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DiabloWags said:

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For obvious reasons, can't believe that no one is talking about this . . .

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