Back To Nature?

(For some odd reason, the YouTube won't show up until you click the "read more" at the bottom. Just FYI...)



We've begun watching Ken Burns: National Parks - America's Best Idea, his documentary series on our National Parks and how they came to be. And how fragile their existence was in the early days -- and is still.

It is truly breathtaking in terms of the cinematography.  The views of Yosemite and Yellowstone alone are worth the watching.

But it is the sense of how things stay the same, no matter how the world changes, that is priceless.  The  bribes, the political self-dealing and deal-swapping, the pay-to-play politics, the crassness of self-promotion and grubby, greedy base interests at the core of so many of these stories is a good reminder that corruption is nothing new.

And a very good lesson in how corruption may be overcome with unrelenting efforts at turning the whole of public opinion into a swelling tide of "we want something better for us all."

Fascinating.  Can't wait to watch the next episode.


We wanted to watch this when it was first on PBS but, alas, our TIVO recording got screwed up and we kept getting some show that wasn't the documentary.  Thank goodness the DVDs are finally out.

But watching them is making me want to take a long cross-country drive to see them all in person.  I sense a few family vacations in the making...


(YouTube is an extended preview of the series that PBS posted.  It's a lovely taste of the whole show.)