It almost never fails: you go out to the woods or desert to
get away from people, noise, and polution, and some asshole
comes along and camps next to you. Before they even have their
tent up, they have the radio speakers hauled out and hanging
from the trees, with the volume up all the way. They just don't
give a shit about you. But don't take it personally: they don't
give a shit about anyone. They don't give a shit about
anything but their own gratification. That's what assholes do;
that's why they are assholes. The fact that they seem to work so
hard at being assholes is an illusion: it comes so easy to them,
it is not just "second-nature" to them, it's first- nature.
I once went camping in the mountains of Nevada, 50 or 60 miles North of Las Vegas. I camped near a creek, put out a lawn chair, and basked in the quiet.
Along came a flatbed truck filled with motor cycles, towing a dune buggy. Within minutes there were motorcycles being ridden through my camp, and in the creek. The creek silted up and turned to mud. Dust choked the air. The riparian ecosystem was torn up, making the creek uninhabitable. The dune buggy got caught in the creek and could not get out without help: when it was finally towed out, it had torn up a huge part of the creek bank, uprooting hundreds of reeds and a few young willows.
The next day I went to the Nevada Bureau of Land Management, a list of liscence plate numbers in hand, and swore out a deposition (the state is supposed to protect its creeks and streams from such abuse). I never heard from the Bureau after that.
It used to be a nice place to camp, but now the place is a wasteland. There is trash everywhere: discarded sofas; glass and beer cans everywhere; pools of motor oil on the ground; trees chopped down; graffiti--- it's just like being back in the city. I for damn sure am not going back.
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