Today's "Google Doodle" Accidentally Mourns Closing of National Parks
Look at the nice illustration Google put together for the birthday of Yosemite National Park. Thanks to anarchist Republicans in the House of Representatives, today's "Google Doodle" also marks the closing of all U.S. national parks. Even the parks' websites are shut down.
Yosemite Valley was originally preserved by the 38th Congress, both the House and the Senate, back in 1864. Abraham Lincoln signed it into law, the first land set aside for conservation and the beginning of the almost universally acclaimed United States National Park system—"almost," because in recent decades, fringe-right Republicans have become furious about the existence of national parks.
The dramatic valley was originally managed by the state California, under the federal act, and a local rabble-rouser named John Muir led a campaign to expand the park's boundaries and protection. Both houses of Congress and the Republican president, this time Benjamin Harrison, all supported the creation of Yosemite National Park in 1890. Muir convinced yet another Republican president, Theodore Roosevelt, to combine the valley and federal park into a single Yosemite in 1906.
This park, one of Earth's most beloved and iconic landscapes, is closed today because of Republicans in the House of Representatives. The whole system is shut down, regardless if you've had travel plans and campground reservations for six months or six years. The Statue of Liberty is closed, too, along with the Flight 93 National Memorial in Pennsylvania.
Yes, the terrorists won.
The National Park Service manages 84 million acres of beautiful land and 43,000 miles of shoreline, from American Samoa to Hawaii, Alaska to California's Channel Islands, all across the continent. All of its rangers, campground hosts, janitors, waiters, bartenders, and all the millions of people who work in the tourist towns around every park entrance are "furloughed" today, whether or not they're employed by the U.S. Department of the Interior.
Usually, when the old white men with all the money are stealing the crumbs from people surviving on wages, it's more subtle.