Something About Al

As Congress pores over one of the most obsessive accounts of human behavior--Starr's narrative of the Bill/Monica encounters--since the Spanish Inquisition, Al Gore more than ever recedes into the political equivalent of Jasper Johns' "White on White." In his effort to shun the limelight, he's reached a stage of total transparency. One imagines his Secret Service body guards frantically trying to locate his impalpable essence, as he flits about his Vice-Presidential quarters at the Naval Observatory. Let us therefore evoke some more vivid images of Al Gore as he assailed the eyes of a BLM ranger at the bottom of the Grand Canyon a couple of summers ago.

As plump a cargo of family values as has ever taken to the waters of the Colorado River, Al, Tipper, the Gore children, their friends, the Secret Service detail, plus river guides embarked. As the Gore flotilla floated downstream it met a BLM ranger who has confided his subsequent observations to Nature and Politics. The Gores and their retinue alighted at a sandbar and lazed in the pleasant Arizona sun. Even the Secret Service men relaxed. At this torpid moment, two stunt planes shattered the peace of the canyon, diving low over the river and skimming only a few hundred feet above the Gore party. Apparently his innumerable speeches on the menace of international terrorism sprang to the mind of the startled Gore and he barked frantically at the Secret Service men to chase down the intruders. Twenty minutes later an Air Force plane summoned by the Secret Service showed up, but by that time the stunt planes had vanished over the horizon.

The flotilla took to the water again. Gone was the mood of pleasant lassitude. The Secret Service had their guns at the ready and the Vice President himself eyed every inlet with trepid vigilance. Half an hour later our BLM friend headed his own raft downstream. As he rounded a bend, the following scene met his gaze. The Vice-President was standing in the back of his own raft, pissing into the Colorado, still keeping a wary eye out for terrorist onslaught. On seeing the BLM his hand flew to his golf shorts, tugging fiercely at the zipper with, it appeared to our BLM friend, painful results. Displeased, the Vice-President dispatched the Secret Service agents to question the ranger. Later, not content with this interrogation, Gore himself advised the BLM ranger that in the future he should give full and fair warning of his movements on the river.

Oil and Feathers

Anyone innocent of the complex relationship nourished by America's leading environmental organizations might suppose that there are few entities more antipathetic to each other than oil companies and organizations dedicated to the protection of birds. Not so. For many years now, to take one bracing example, the National Audubon Society has rejoiced its revenue stream from the oil wells located within Rainey Wildlife Preserve in Louisiana.

And now Nature and Politics can offer further entertaining examples of the fraternal ties between the oil giants and the bird people. It comes in the form of the board of directors of the Audubon Society. Mustered here are: Reid Hughes, a resident of Daytona, former president of Hughes Oil Company who has been honored with the highest award from the American Petroleum Institute. Hughes has now entered another profession not normally associated with the protection of birds, the real estate development business.

Also on the board of National Audubon is John Whitmire of Houston, Texas. Until 1996 he was executive vice president of the Phillips Petroleum Corporation for exploration and production. He now serves as chairman and CEO of the Union Texas Petroleum Company. In addition to board duties for the Audubon Society, Whitmire finds time in his busy schedule to sit on the board of what is generally thought to be one of the environmentalists' most rabid antagonists, the American Petroleum Institute. John's beloved is Kathy Whitmire, former multi-term mayor of oil-rich Houston and herself a well- connected corportate Democrat.

Those mourning the cranes, herons and cormorants killed by oil spills would no doubt be interested to examine the minutes of the API board sessions to see whether Mr. Whitmire is taking a properly pro-bird position as the API pushes for the opening of Alaska's Arctic plain for oil exploration, one of the last great bird habitats in the world.

--Jeffrey St. Clair & Alexander Cockburn