DOANE AGAIN

KIM READS
Commercialism Creeps
old faithful steams

<<-- Kim Allen Scott will read from his book on Doane, “Yellowstone Denied,” at 1 p.m. on Saturday, Jan. 27 at the Pioneer Museum in Bozeman. As previously noted, Gustavus Cheyney Doane was a soldier, inventor, author and explorer who felt he should be famous for "discovering" Yellowstone National Park and wealthy from one of his inventions.
.. Montana State University has finally issued a news release about this fascinating saga of the man and his obscurity - aided, interestingly, by a selfish, (or preoccupied historian.) The book is an interesting compilation, the story is even better.
.. The book is getting the good play that it deserves, including another note in the Helena Independent Record. If you're in Bozeman this Saturday stop at the museum and give a listen.

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.. Montana State University has a couple of employees who will be evaluating the "Windows Into Wonderland" series about Yellowstone National Park. The award winning series of electronic field trips has attracted millions of visitors and details a wide range of Yellowstone's various features and attractions.

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.. We noticed an interesting essay about commercialization, American values, and our national parks in Jim's Eclectic World. One point in the essay is very apparent in Yellowstone National Park -- CREEPING COMMERCIALISM.
.. As we've noted before, (here & here & here,) there are major corporations spending a lot of money to get their name associated with Yellowstone. The "Windows Into Wonderland" series mentioned is just one of them.
.. Via The Yellowstone Newspaper we were directed to a not so playful spoof of the future of Yellowstone in A Step Apart.
.. A pair of notes serve to illustrate the way this is working. WebWire has a note about how Canon is persistently pushing itself into Yellowstone. And the CSRWire has a note about how Toyota is doing the same thing.
.. This should not be too surprising in that the very origin of Yellowstone was fostered by the commercial interests of the Northern Pacific Railroad. An excellent review of Berringer's book "Selling Of Yellowstone: Capitalism & The Construction Of Nature" can be found HERE.

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.. There are two articles addressing the declining attendance at our national parks. The site Inside Bay Area.com lets us know that Yosemite is busy competing with Play Station & X Box. And over at Hotel Online, a similar note suggests that the decline is not all bad.

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.. The Voice Of America reports that one of the alternative energy sources we should be utilizing is geothermal power. So to does ARS Technica. No mention was made of the Iceland fiasco that destroyed much of the beauty of their geyser fields for steam heat.