Jackson Hole Underground

David Sirota will sign his new book, The Uprising, this evening at Valley Books starting at 7. Sirota is a leading voice among upcoming independent American political thinkers.

Sirota has been a critical player in the recent political enlightenment of the West, helping elect Montana governor Brian Schweitzer by educating voters on how the modern pro-corporate, anti-worker GOP undermines the West’s libertarian values.

Since his Schweitzer victory, Sirota has concentrated on a story that corporate-owned media cannot be expected to cover: Normal people have had their fill of robber-baron greed, corrupt politicians and the lazy, overpaid national press that keeps them in power. The Uprising includes the hefty subtitle “An Unauthorized Tour of the Populist Revolt Scaring Wall Street and Washington.”

Sirota’s weekly column appears Mondays in the Jackson Hole Daily.

Edward Rothstein of The New York Times writes a thoughtful essay about his visit to the National Museum of Wildlife Art.

Rothstein probes the meaning behind pastoral depictions of wilderness:

There is some fantasy in this, a simplification that can lead the way
into kitsch. But if taxidermy, hunting and painting are modes of capture, they are also modes of tribute. The moose heads mounted on walls or sold for thousands of dollars in souvenir shops in Jackson are affirmations of the hunter’s power and prowess. But like many paintings at this museum they are also monuments to a particular kind of encounter with the wild, in the wild. Environmentalism and hunting and painting become strange bedfellows.

Rothstein more vividly experiences the wild from the trails of Grand Teton park.

(Editor’s note: This post comes from Favio Snimp, just back from motorcycle racing across the Sahara and never afraid to be a contrarian.)

If you’re likeable, recently deceased and have been on TV a lot, you’ll get rave notices. Tim Russert certainly is getting his air time, right up there in Anna Nicole Smith territory. MSNBC seems to have instantly commissioned “Dirge for Tim for Lone Plaintive Horn” and repeats it often.

What, exactly, did Tim Russert offer to our needy nation? All the grim lamenters, on TV and in newspapers, agree. He was “the real deal.” He was “the ultimate dad.” An unending variety of accolades repeat the same sentiment: Russert was a regular guy who loved his family and remained faithful to the Buffalo Bills.

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By now you may have heard about the home page of John McBush McCain, where alongside his campaign strategy and Iraq policy is an equally weighted section devoted to “Golf Gear.” An indication of the demographics of his supporters, and his savvy grasp of the Internets.

The site has brought him blogospheric ridicule, but less funny is McCain’s latest assertion that it’s “not too important” when U.S. troops come home from Iraq. In this clip (after jump) he stresses that reducing casualties is what’s essential, oblivious to the fact that every day our soldiers are mired in a hostile land, away from their families, at a cost of $343 million per day, is a casualty for American taxpayers.

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You may have noticed, and chuckled like I did, when the John McCain ads began appearing en masse on this site earlier this week.

I have little control over the Google ads on the right of the page. The content usually is generated by Google to match the content of the posts, and I happened to write about Republican Party politics just as McCain claimed a huge win in Florida and embarked on a fund-raising drive.

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