Cave of Wonders, Cave of Rules

Cave Of Wonders, Cave Of Rules

My daughter and I toured Kartchner Cavern over the weekend, or rather we communed with the cave and learned what it had to teach us, as the cave managers would have it. I’ve been in many tourist caverns in many countries, and have explored a few undeveloped caves and while I was impressed with the beauty and fragility of Kartchner, what I came away with wasn’t a pleasant tour of a beautiful cavern but an indoctrination into environmentalism as religion. And they’re not shy about delivering this message throughout the tour and in the 45 minute movie at the posh visitor center.

Over and over they hammer the message home that the cave is a non-renewable resource, the cave is an asset, the cave has a message for us, the cave has something to teach us. This is more than just a cave tour, it’s a lesson in politics, perseverance, stewardship, and adoration and worship of the Discoverers. From the moment you turn off Arizona Highway 90 to the time you’re mercifully merging back onto interstate 10, you are constantly pounded with messages of a living cave, a fragile and precious natural resource that we all collectively have a duty to protect for our children’s children’s ad nauseum’s children. They even use the twisted logic that we should be ecstatic that we can only see about 1/3 of the cave during our tour, because this means the other 2/3rds of the cave is safe and protected for our descendents, who 1000 years from now will not be able to see those parts of the cave either.

In order to tour Kartchner Cavern you must book online or by phone months in advance as they grudgingly allow only 750 people into the cave each day to minimize our impact on the cave, although they made it clear that studies in progress may show that the cave can not support that many visitors and restrictions may become tighter. Nevermind that the cave is only a few miles off I-10, along which millions of tourists pass each year. If they opened the thing up the could certainly show the cave to tens of thousands of people per day. When reserving a tour you must pay up front, a good precaution to prevent people from booking and not showing up, I’m sure. But of course, once they have your money they never give it back. If you must cancel, you have one year to reschedule or lose your ‘deposit’, which is the full cost of entry.

Once you’ve overcome these hurdles, you actually get to attend a tour, which is a blizzard of environmental rightness and lengthily lectures on cave rules and behavior. No children under 8, no water bottles, no fanny packs, no backpacks, no strollers, no items in your hands, nothing hanging from your belt, secure your eyeglasses, and above all do not touch the rocks! From the modern artsy design of the visitor center, to the dyed concrete matching the background hills, to the new age native sounding flute music with words you can’t understand in the theme movie, to the electric tram that carries you across the custom built concrete bridge over the dry wash and the few hundred feet to the entrance to the cavern you are barraged with the message that the cave is everything and you are insignificant.

The difference between a cave and a cavern is that a cavern has a gift shop, and boy, do they have a gift shop. Every touristy place has one to further separate the marks from their money, a major hurdle that must be overcome before any tourist is allowed to see whatever touristy thing they’ve come for. And Kartchner does this right with $1000 decorative rocks, the obligatory t-shirts, new-age flute music with words you can’t understand, right down to the stuffed bats for just a few dollars along with lots of other high end cavey tourist junk. They even had chocolate covered somethingorother labeled ‘Bat Guano’ and Cabernet Sauvignon Truffles.

I’ll give them this, and it’s worth a lot to me. The tour started on time.

Each tour is limited to only 20 people with two tyrannical ‘guides’. I’m not making this up, but our main tour guide was an old guy wearing shorts, black socks and jack boots. I lost count of the number of times they told us to not touch the rocks, but it was several scores of warnings. As you arrive at the cave entrance, you are shown the plaques memorializing the governors, park administrators, owners of the land, boards of directors, scientists, researchers and even the crews that built the trails and welded the handrails. They also show you the sinkhole the Discoverers used.

To get into the cave you must endure another lecture at the giant walk-in refrigerator door they call ‘environmental chambers’ but are known everywhere else as airlocks. You must pass through four, five or six of these large metal doors depending on the tour you take. You must also subject yourself to being misted with water to minimize the hair, skin flakes and lint you leave in the cave. The guides explain that each evening the entire trail system both inside the cave and in the carved tunnels are hosed down and the water is pumped out of the cave where it is used to water plants. They also explain that if you do touch a rock unintentionally the cave people come through later and ‘bleach that spot’.

Once inside you pass through long corridors cut into the limestone hill containing the cave before finally entering the natural cavern space. The trail is very well made, smooth with small grades. The lighting is well done but very dim to protect the cave and prevent algae growth, which I’ve seen in many tourist caves overe the years. They manage the lighting well, turning lights on and off as they pass through the cave. I found myself often wishing for a flashlight, not so I could see the trail which was very well lit, but so I could look at a formation or a part of the cave in more detail than the built in lighting allowed.

On our tour an 80 year old gentleman had a medical issue while we were at the mud room, the very bottom part of our tour and they had to take him out in a wheelchair. It was unfortunate for him though it tuned out he was fine after they got him some food and drink. But fortunately for us they turned all the lights on at full brightness. Suddenly we could see, and it was spectacular! The levels of detail stood out, the cave had much more depth and color, and we didn’t feel like we were sneaking around any more. It’s a shame that that during the normal tour they keep the lights faded so darkly because the cave was beautiful in the full lighting. When they had the guy wheeled out and they finally turned the lights back down there were several sighs of disappointment in our group, a disappointment I shared.

At one point our very capable jackbooted tour guide, who was actually very knowlegable and had a great speaking voice, shut up. It was silent for several minutes, and it was the best part of the tour. Everyone was silent and we could hear the dripping and the natural silence that is so missing in our everyday life. I think cave tours should be made into therapy. You go into the cavern, leave the light on or turn it off, no matter. Then you just sit there with no sounds but the cave sounds. No walkman, no buzzing of electric lights, not even the sound of air movement. Just peaceful restorative silence. Of course all too soon he had to move us along. Another dinky tour group was behind us.

The tour is short in distance. I could have walked a lot more, and often have in other caves. Kartchner is famous for its delicate and dartlike soda straws. They glisten like Christmas lights with tiny drips of water hanging off the end. In one room we are exposed to The Discoverer’s Trail, a place where they slogged through the mud to their hips. They limited themselves to one trail so as not to disturb the ancient and precious cracks in the mud. Near their trail are a few broken off soda straws sticking out of the mud. Our guide told us they had been there for 4000 to 5000 years. Nowhere else in the large area of mud are there soda straws sticking out. Only near The Discoverer’s Trail. Go figure.

The Discoverers are revered and oft mentioned during the tour. They’re also the central characters in the 45 minute movie in the very nicely appointed theater at the visitor center. I notice that they were off trail when they found the cave, and that once inside the cave they had to ‘expand’ a hole which was ‘about the size of a grapefruit’ until it was big enough to crawl through. I guess it’s OK, since they were The Discoverers.

We were repeatedly reminded that Kartchner is a living cave, or rather a Living Cave. Everywhere else, when a cave is referred to as ‘living’ it means the cave is wet and the formations are still dripping and growing rather than dry and ‘dead’. At Kartchner though they actually revere the cave is a living thing rather than just a hole in the rocks, and they take this very seriously. Metaphor means nothing here.

I loved the cave itself, but am critical of the way it’s being managed. Over managed, in fact. Restrictions are much too severe, and the cave should be opened up to many more visitors each day. If the cave is so precious, important and valuable, then it should be locked away and never opened. Too late. So what is the point of letting people see it? If the point is truly not to entertain but to educate, an argument I do not agree with, then we would educate more people by letting them see the place. Relaxing the restrictions on what you can take into the cave, and on what ages are allowed would allow more people through thus helping spread the message.

But the fact is that most folks that tour Kartchner and every other cave for that matter simply want a cave tour, not a worldview. They want to appreciate beautiful rocks and they do not want an indoctrination. The want to witness with their own eyes cave formations that have taken many thousands of years to form, and they can figure out for themselves that if you break off a stalactite it won’t re-grow in their lifetime. The want to see wonders of nature, not be lectured about their duty to the earth.

It’s a hole in the rocks. A beautiful wondrous hole in the rocks, but a hole in the rocks nonetheless. Caves are not rare. They exist in nearly every state and nearly every country. You can buy ‘precious cave formations’ any day of the week on Ebay. Yes, idiots have dumped stuff in caves, spray painted and messed up something beautiful. That’s not going to happen here. It’s protected, even overprotected. Why do we have this wonderful place and we’re not letting people see it? Let more people in, not to teach them or to educate them or to remind them of their duty of stewardship. Let them in because it’s beautiful. They’ll figure out the rest.

Rebate Ripoff and Fraud from Fry's Electronics

Another Rebate Ripoff Story from Fry’s Electronics

This is just another boring rebate fraud story. I’ll tell you now so you don’t have to read to the end. Still no rebate.

What’s your rate of success getting rebates in the mail? Mine is pretty good, especially from Costco. From Fry’s Electronics I’m only successful about half the time.

The latest fiasco was a $50 rebate on a Compaq computer I bought back in November 2006. I dutifully filled out all the tiny blocks and lines on the rebate forms, snipped the bar codes from the boxes and even made copies of all the forms before sending them to some mysterious post office box in ‘Little America’, Minnesota. I’m thinking now that ‘Little America’ is code for ‘let’s screw people out of their rebates’.

Got a letter from them saying my rebate was refused, that bar codes didn’t match, that they needed more information, that they needed serial numbers and bar codes. Crap! I included all that stuff in the envelope when I sent in the rebate. Gave them everything they asked for!

So I wrote a letter demanding the rebate. And I filed complaints with the Better Business Bureau against Compaq and Fry’s Electronics. And I filed complaints online with the state attorney generals of Minnesota and Arizona. And I filed more complaints online with Ripoffreport.com, Planetfeedback.com and Consumeraffairs.com.

Fry’s Electronics actually answered me with a couple of emails which didn’t help a bit. First they didn’t know who I was, even though whenever I buy stuff in their store I simply give them my phone number and up pops my name, address and probably shoe size and morning breakfast cereal preference in their database. Once I identified myself, and the exact invoice number, they said they still couldn’t help me. Useless, but then Fry’s is known for low prices, not good service. I love the place for their discounts, but reserve high levels of hatred for any interaction with the employees, up to and including the checkout clerks after an incident when an item rang up for $2 more than it was marked, and it took 2 hours at the register and 6 people to fix it.

My next step will be to contact my credit card company to file a charge back complaint. Then it’s off to small claims court. Wish me luck.

Cmahar

Education Standards for Preborns

Education Standards for Preborns

As educational standards have swept across the country, federal, state and county governments as well as school district and even local schools have been furiously composing standards and aligning their curriculums to match. However I’ve noticed a shocking absence of standards for children ages 3 and younger. Sensing that leadership is needed in this area, and in the interest of inclusion and no child left behind, I’ve invited together a committee composed of educational experts, consultants, authors, psychologists, academia and school administration. So far none of them have ever shown up, but that little impediment didn’t stop the committee from composing academic and functional standards for the P-12 crowd. That’s pre-born to 12 months old.

Education Standards for Pre-borns, or Fetal Behavior Milestones

By the age of 9 months before birth, ninety five percent of students will have determined their gender. Competency may be determined by ultrasound or by DNA examinations in utero.

By the age of 6 months before birth, ninety percent of students will learn to move enough for the movement to be felt by their primary caregiver. Competency may be determined by placing a hand on the belly of the primary caregiver.

By the age of 5 months before birth, seventy five percent of students will learn to exhibit periods of interspersed activity with definable periods of inactivity (asleep) and activity (awake).

By 1 week before birth, 95% of students will learn to place themselves in a head down position. Competency to be determined at birth. Failure to meet this competency will result in a remedial or ‘breech’ delivery.

Education Standards for Newborns

By the age of 5 minutes after birth, 75% of students will learn to cry or make audible sound.

By the age of 5 hours after birth, 90% of students will open their eyes.

By the age of 12 hours after birth, 99% of students will learn to sleep.

By the age of 24 hours after birth, 100% of students will learn to wet and soil a diaper.

By the age of two days 100% of students will learn to suck, swallow and drink from either a bottle or directly from their primary caregiver. Competency may be determined by measuring weight gain of the student.

By the age of five days the student will learn to grasp an object or finger if it is placed in the palm of their hand.

By the age of 7 days the student will learn to distinguish between their primary caregiver and other adults.

By the age of 14 days the students will learn how to smile.

Educational Standards for One To Three Month Olds

By the age of 4 weeks students will deepen their understanding of who is their primary caregiver.

By the age of 5 weeks the student will stare at objects intensly.

By the age of 9 weeks the student will place their fingers, hand or other object in their mouth.

By the age of 3 months 98% of student will lift their head when placed on a flat surface on their belly.

Educational Standards for four to six month olds

By the age of 4 months 75% of students will learn to roll over from their back to their belly.

By the age of 5 months 90% of students will develop strong attachments to their primary caregivers.

By the age of 6 months 80% of students will learn to sit up or remain in a sitting position without any support when placed there.

By the age of 6 months, 100% of students will learn to eat solid food.

Educational Standards for Six to twelve month olds

By the age of 7 months 90% of students will support their own weight in a standing position while holding on to an object or person.

By the age of 8 months 50% of students will become mobile by crawling, scooting or creeping.

By the age of 9 months 100% of students will make basic consonant babbling sounds.

By the age of 10 months 67% of students will learn to play ‘peek-a-boo’ and will enjoy playing pat-a-cake.

By the age of 11 months 75% of students will pull themselves up into a standing position.

By the age of 12 months 75% of students will learn to walk, and will use the words ‘mama’ or ‘dada’ to specifically refer to the primary caregivers.