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Tax the Adirondack Black Flies

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I have a modest proposition — tax the black flies. I don’t know what rate, or how to collect such a tax — but it could greatly improve the quality of life in the Adirondacks during the spring black fly season. A modest tax on black flies could raise hundreds of millions of dollars..

If your not familiar with the black fly season, or have not been outside during a particularly hellish black fly season, you probably don’t understand the need for taxation on black flies, to control this Adirondack nuisance. Think swarms of little black flies, waiting for you to sit down, or even just stand still.

Forget about that cruel joke known as bug spray with DEET. That doesn’t do much of anything to control the black fly population. Moreover, the primary purpose of DEET is to make you sick from the smell of it. Citronella candles, DEET wipe pads — you might as not waste your money, as I think they mostly attract the black flies.

There are only four ways really to escape the clouds of Adirondack black flies:

  • Keep moving. Black flies need you stay still to bite you.
  • Hide out under the screens of your tent or truck cap.
  • Wait until it’s dark out. Black flies disappear within minutes of darkness.
  • Wait until late June. Then the black are all dead.

Keep the Government Off My Moose River Plains

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Some of the Tea Party activist-types have been known to hold signs up that say “Keep the Government Off My Medicare”. Liberal commentators gets a kick out of that, by pointing out that Medicare is a government program and would not exist without the government. That is logical, but that is not the implied meaning — that government is something different then the public as a whole and functions the government is supposed to provide to the public.

Government doesn’t always serve the public interest. Indeed, in many cases it does not serve the public interest because of citizen apathy and because certain insiders have more power then average citizens. Laws are often written in smoke filled rooms, and are used to justify policies decades later that are not supported by the majority, but instead the small minority of special interest groups that originally got them passed.

Stop Barrier Ahead

Few examples could be clearer then Indian Lake Road, now closed at the bottom of the hill below Squaw Lake. This road went to Indian Lake prior to 2008, a beautiful wilderness lake that was great for paddling and fishing. It was closed due to Adirondack Park State Land Master Plan Act, and because the DEC wanted to “bank” 2.5 miles of Moose River Plains Road to use for then they acquired the Nature Conservancy parcels to add to the Vanderwhacker Wild Forest.

You can still walk those 2.5 miles. The road is in decent enough shape to allow you to bring a kayak back on wheels. And at least for now, you can still backpack in a campsite along the road. But then it makes Horn Lake and other places even farther back, and makes the back country even farther back. And it begs real questions: why is the government taking our public lands from us?

Tea Party folk are right to question why the government is taking things from us. the public that they should be providing things to and not taking away from us.