SpoonDog

40K for out-of-state students, sure- but other than that we agree on quite a bit. But here's the rub: while in the abstract sense you feel kids today should harden up, in the real sense you've chosen to take the decision out of the student's hands for fear they'll make what you've deemed a mistake. By shielding that young adult from making their own decision and preventing them learning from mistakes, in the realest sense possible you've created the safe space you're simultaneously mocking. When parents are so vigilant against failure it gives students the impression they can't fail- creating the high self esteem you see as a problem. I understand it's an expensive gamble- having kids is an expensive gamble, raising them eightteen years is an expensive gamble, at some point the idea is you sever the umbilical and let them make decisions on their own. Of course they have zero experience- that's kinda the whole point- as you can't expect them to turn out as emotionally mature adults if they're never given the opportunity to make emotionally mature adult-type decisions. Sure it's arbitrary, but if they're adults in the eyes of the law I don't see why they shouldn't be making decisions about their future. And I don't see why they shouldn't be able to start with the one decision (college vs no, and what degree) that'll probably have more impact on their career than any other. High school kids can't afford college on BK wages, and when the best schools require participation in extracurriculars, volunteering, and internships for financial aide, sacrificing opportunities that'll make you competitive in the eyes of admissions isn't worth $7.70 an hour. That and a staggering number of older Americans are working menial jobs in retirement to make up for what they didn't save, why hire a 16 year old for twelve weeks when you can hire a 60 year old all year? And it's tangential, but...sometimes adults don't know best. When I was a senior in high school no one was saying "Go into Geology!" because no one knew fracking was going to become ubiquitous and that with only a Bachelor's you could have 3-5 offers ranging from $50-70K starting before you even graduated. No one knew how lucrative a degree in Arabic would become, but government agencies and the private sector are falling all over themselves for more. Yeah as a general rule a nursing degree's gonna be more valuable than a philosophy degree, but it success really does depend more on where an individual's interests lie and, more importantly- what they're willing to put up with. As for the safe space/trigger stuff, you and I both agree it's lame and it never got much quarter when I was teaching. But the reason professors and administrators emphasize it isn't to coddle millennials, it's because of the non-zero probability one day one of them's gonna come to class and start shooting.

I guess I don't understand the why. Tiger trout, cutts, and brookies aren't nearly as easy to grow in hatcheries as browns and rainbows, which is why most states don't stock them willy-nilly. Any other coldwater sportfish are gonna compete directly with what's already there for food and space, and unless MDC's gonna add more raceways at Shepherd of the Hills you'll be taking something away from brown-rainbow production. And since Shepherd's been having periodic trouble consistently producing browns due to water temps/levels/quality coming out of Table Rock, I don't know why anyone would want to move to an even less-certain formula of browns + rainbows + novelty species. If anything, I'd rather see MDC investigate other strains of browns and rainbows, which may be less susceptible to the environmental issues they've been having at the hatchery. Or restoring some wild trout water, or heck- repairing any number of accesses damaged by spring floods. Adding more species is pretty low on the priority list for me.

First off, your kid's not gonna see anything more "radical" at Mizzou that they wouldn't or couldn't see at MO State, or Truman, or SEMO, or anywhere else. Mizzou's just bigger. The same discussions and protests went on at MSU without impacting enrollment, so the explanatory factor isn't the presence of "liberal protestors." Campuses run on young people and young people are overwhelmingly liberal. It's that way now, it was that way in the 1990s it was that way in the 1970s. Heck, a lot of smaller colleges started out as women's institutions at a time when that was about as radical as you could be. Despite that Mizzou has 60 religious organizations on campus, young Republicans, ROTC, and who knows what else- it certainly isn't monolithic. A public institution like Mizzou has an obligation to foster the education of ALL citizens, even the ones you don't agree with. And a good university spends as much time teaching students HOW to learn- how to gather and evaluate evidence to make an informed decision, how to construct and deconstruct arguments and think critically about them- as it does teaching students WHAT to learn. Sometimes that aspect is lost in an effort to churn out more degrees, sometimes it's abused by professors and administrators, sometimes it results in challenging conversations at the Thanksgiving table. College isn't just supposed to be academically rigorous, it's supposed to be intellectually challenging, as well. It's an opportunity to see and learn from other people from other places and socioeconomic backgrounds you may never otherwise engage with. And if your kid wilts at the prospect of self-reflection, of having ideas challenged...if they can't hack that, they're not ready for college. They could stand to spend a year or two traveling, volunteering, working a wage gig and meeting all sorts of interesting folks and developing a little character. For myself and the kids I went to high school with, choosing a university was the first adult decision we really made. If parents are making those decisions for their adult children based on perceived ideological leanings of the university as opposed to economic considerations or the institution's quality, let's call it what it is: helicopter parenting. You're picking for your child based on your politics- at that point it's pretty clearly no longer about the student. It not only sends the message that you don't trust them to make a decision in their best interest, but that your politics come before their education.

Lol, "deranged student protestors?" MU mistook a tuition bump in the 2000s as a trend, and couldn't have anticipated a recession that'd make people on the bubble about college less likely to go. They didn't anticipate the effect the internet would have on learning: butts-in-the-seats attendance may be down, but there's 30,000 folks, from teens to geriatrics, taking classes online. Why spring for a dorm when all you need's a laptop and an internet connection? It's lazy to say that Mizzou's enrollment is down because the football team sucks or because some folks camped out on the lawn three years ago when college enrollment across the country has been declining since 2010. And like Flysmallie mentioned, I don't think MU anticipated Missouri State. Springfield's the third largest population center and one of (the?) fastest growing part of the state. You can pay more for room and board plus tuition at a university four hours away, or they can their undergrad done in town- they probably even have arrangements with local high schools for college credit. It's a no brainer. And because MO State is less research-focused than MU, professors aren't scrambling to write grants and write papers and otherwise defend their existence. I'm a Mizzou alum, and if the university had demonstrated as much interest in improving classrooms and recruiting top teachers as it did investing in new research facilities, new rec centers, new commons, and new stadiums, I'd be all for my kids going there. But they didn't, and eventually prospective students and their parents caught on. They could turn it around, but it'd require acknowledging administrative mistakes have been made instead of scapegoating. As of now, that doesn't seem likely.

90 degrees and 60%+ humidity is feeling pretty tropical to me right now. Please, please do not cash in your 401k to invest in a Jimmy Buffet themed hotel because you think it'll be a hit with the younger crowd. By and large, people under 30 have neither the income nor the interest to plunk down a couple hundred bucks for the weekend at a resort park rubber stamped by the guy who's song may very well have been playing the moment they were conceived. They're not targeting a younger crowd; if you don't believe me, check out the line of "Margaritaville Mom" t-shirts on their facebook page. That said, I don't think it's feasible- between the hotel, the houses, the conference facilities, golf course, etc; it's a pretty massive campus. If the folks who ran Tan-Tar-A couldn't get it to appeal to a general audience, I don't know how narrowing that audience could increase profits. And I always thought Tan-Tar-A did a lot of business with conferences and such? I can't imagine the folks who run those would continue sending money someplace that's gonna look awkward on receipts and audits.

The NPS website they were open the last time I was down in mid-June, although I didn't drop by to see what they looked like.

A parent who'd reconsider taking a kid fishing for fear they'd be "inconvenienced" by an agent is only showing it was never really about the kid in the first place. Most kids I know understand they're going to be asked to do things they don't want to. The most well-adjusted I've known take it in stride, eventually realizing dealing with those situations maturely is essential to becoming a grown-up. Maybe it'd be an opportunity for kids to school a few adults that there's little value in throwing a tantrum because someone dared to ask something of them, because of an unforeseen inconvenience, or because they otherwise haven't got their way.

If an agent has to rappel down a 200 foot bluff or wade through five miles of stinging nettles to write 23 citations I'm all for it. If they only have to set up a folding chair, I'm fine with that. At the end of the day these people are stealing, and you don't let someone waddle out the door with 20 lbs of ribeyes in their trousers because it's just too dumb a crime. There's no prohibition against going after the low-hanging fruit. Maybe agents would've been more successful if they'd been roving around the park, or more visible, or been more public in issuing citations, or made an example out of some folks. Those are all hypothetical situations, and it's pretty tough to gauge the efficacy of real-world events by comparing them to imagined ones. Monday morning quarterbacking is easy, and I'm not nearly so interested in whether imagined measures would be more effective, as for all I know they've learned from the experience and they'll apply that knowledge to future efforts. I'm interested in whether this measure was effective. I don't think there's much of a question. A roving agent is going to have to catch a poacher in the act- and if a poacher knows he's being watched by a roving agent, he probably won't risk creeling that undersize brown. If an agent rolls up on an angler without a license- maybe it's in his car, or his tent, or his cabin. Fishing without a license becomes failure to produce a license. A stringer with a short fish? It's his brother's, his uncle's, heck- he found it abandoned on the stream and didn't want the fish to go to waste. In a part of the world where it's tough getting game violations taken seriously, having the evidence in a cooler in the vehicle the poacher owns makes the case a slam-dunk. Anything less introduces doubt, it pits the word of the agent vs. the suspect, creating a weaker case and hampering enforcement of our game laws.

Would you guys rather they didn't spend the day enforcing fishing regs? sheesh, you clamor for more enforcement and then balk when it arrives. Of course it's low yield, most people follow most of the rules most of the time. There'll always be trade offs when enforcement resources are limited- patrolling Bennett means other places aren't. But it's a high visibility measure that has achieved some results, I wouldn't characterize that as a failure. I'm not sure how much relevance your convenience has. Its a couple hours from KC or STL to Bennett, if the few minutes it takes to check a cooler is too inconvenient or too emotionally shattering for you to handle, it may be time to investigate different hobbies. As far as I know none of you guys were actually stopped. Consider, then, how lucky you are to be upset at a hypothetical situation.

A restaurant's privately owned. More accurately it's like smoking in a public park, with no prohibitions against smoking, and a member of the public demanding you leave because you're an affront to their morality. Or owning a cigar store across the street from a park and irate citizens demanding you shut down because you "bring in the wrong crowd." If loud music inevitably leads to drugs, booze, theft and violence, there's a lowlife megachurch down the street who's bass bleeds through the walls, into the parking lot, and then my backyard. Shall a file a lawsuit ostensibly about gray bats to prevent them from disrupting my Sunday morning? I'm not a fan of noisy bars on the lake, I just think a drive-by analysis of the patron's moral character shouldn't be taken at more than face value. In my experience the type of person who's upset about a bar or venue they've never even been to is the kind of person who won't be relieved when it closes, they'll just find something different to be upset about. At any rate, there's a couple steps between "this person is annoying me right now" and "this person is morally bankrupt and therefore can't access a public resource" that I think are being missed. I think Justin and Amy Spencer and every cop or official who made a dime off Camp Zoe would disagree that rowdy folks are never booted by folks seeking peace, I've watched groups of rowdy campers being ejected from private and public campgrounds, and I can tell you from firsthand experience many of the retired campground hosts at our National Forest campgrounds can be downright ornery about their own little fiefdoms, enforcing regulations which aren't even on the books. It goes both ways.

It's a shame water patrol doesn't have a tipline like Operation Game Thief, it seems like you could forward them registration numbers and they could at least put the fear of God into boat owners or companies renting boats to clueless operators. Even some sort of development tax where boat dealers and rental companies pay into a kittie to cover the cost of dock damage. But the two posts above are absolutely correct, and more. If it's important to you do more than send an email- make time for a county council meeting or town hall, develop an open house for concerned anglers and lakeside property owners.

And at the end of the day, the office park was still built. If a pair of eagles can nest comfortably adjacent to a DC area regional airport, I think you're gonna have a tough time convincing a judge boat noise is a serious concern on a rural Missouri reservoir. Like I said though, you're welcome to waste your time and money. When thousands of birds are tangled in fishing gear or poisoned with lead tackle every year, you think it's a very good idea to set the bar for violating the Lacey Act at driving past birds in a noisy boat. I can think of a couple ways that might backfire. You've demonstrated to all of us you don't know what "sort" of people are using the business. Maybe it's not your cup of tea, but I don't think reading an awful lot into a fuzzy nighttime photo lifted off Facebook merits a federal court case. There have been six incidents reported to Water Patrol from Stockton in the past year, compared to 78 at LOZ, and 28 from Table Rock. They're not even in the same ballpark. The Corps owns most of the property around Stockton and has to my knowledge has expressed zero interest in either developing or selling it. Not only is the thing you're worried about not happening, it's not projected to even start happening any time in the near future. I don't know why we're supposed to throw a fit.

I have no idea what grounds you would sue on, given that bald eagles were delisted from the Endangered Species Act ten years ago and a motorboat noise ordinance covers...motorboats. Not docks or marinas or restaurants. If you can find a lawyer interested in either bilking you or losing cases, and if a judge doesn't laugh you out of the room, you're welcome to try. But with the money, time, and energy you'll have wasted you could probably have just bought out the current owner and turned it into a monastery or whatever else you'd suits your fancy. You're suggestion is an ineffective solution to a problem that doesn't exist. It's not a good idea, just a different bad one.

In Ozark, Missouri. Seventy miles from Stockton. Where three-quarters of residents voted the same way you did. If you're still trying to scapegoat urban liberals, you picked an awful example. I can't even imagine what dots you're trying to connect. I was curious about this place so I visited their Facebook page- the one you lifted that photo in your initial post from. There's all sorts of photos on there, and I think this is a teachable moment. The actual bands playing: The actual people actually watching the actual bands: The actual people drinking: Nobody under 40 is gonna plan a booze-fueled bachelor party at Mutton Creek based off of these photos. You're still so terrified the dude with the piercings represents a threat to your "morality" that you sacrifice said morality by misrepresenting the situation. You made a decision, to be dishonest, in order to blame a group of people who aren't even using the place for the behavior of those that do. That doesn't say anything about the dude with gages in his ears, or urban liberals, or "snowflakes," or anyone else. It says something about you.

1980 was nearly forty years ago, and given the limitations of physics there's literally nothing you can do to make then now. If that's your singular goal, the only thing you can hope to accomplish in the process is making yourself just absolutely miserable- a total pill. If that's the case then you can never be completely rid of the a-holes; at the end of the day you're still stuck with you. And why 1980? Forty years before that Stockton didn't even exist, should we go back to then? Forty years before that, everyone was using canoes- should that be our goal? You're arbitrarily picking a point in time which maximizes your benefit while only other groups bear the costs. Let's call it what it is. If you don't want to share a public resource that's fine. But then the problem isn't everyone else. Having been around longer doesn't confer any special privilege to decide who gets to enjoy the resource and when, what they get to wear, what they get to drink. If their activities are making other users unsafe, or if they're damaging the resource, sure- let's reign it in. But beyond that, live and let live. If someone told you to quit fishing their dock because they believe tricking and scaring a poor defenseless fish and stabbing it in the face is amoral, most of us would probably laugh and tell them to eat it. We may tell them that it's a public resource, that we have a right to fish there, that they don't have the authority to decide whether we get to fish there. In our heart of hearts we understand banning some activity based on our version of morality is a pretty lame argument, but one some folks will trot out when they feel it's in their best interest. The same folks shouting "Snowflake!" are the ones who want to limit activities which offend their sensibilities- it's silly and hypocritical.

That's real nice, I need to work on the long exposure nonsense. Thanks for sharing!

No, I completely get that. But if doing something because it makes you feel better is justification you've abandoned any moral high ground, because I think most of us here can agree a buxom coed in a skimpy bikini makes us feel pretty darn good. Beyond that I'm not sure you understood my point: if your goal is to reduce growth, electing a pro-growth local politician who greenlights whatever massive condo/bar/boat slip outfit that slides across his desk is a categorically awful way of achieving your goal. I understand it feels good to stick it to the uber rich, Hollywood elitists, and "deep state politicians," but none of those people have anything to do with development on LOZ, Taneycomo, Table Rock, or Stockton. It's tilting at windmills. Just explain to me how, exactly, putting the folks who want to develop these areas in power prevents these areas from being developed. I'm genuinely curious.

Maybe, sometimes, when the negative consequences don't directly impact you. But in this particular circumstance you've hung up the free-market, laissez-faire, invisible hand economic policies which characterize traditional conservatism for increased regulations to maintain the status quo. It's a start. There's a lot of fear to unpack in your other statements, and as I said earlier, I still don't understand how you intentionally being an a-hole to a bunch of people who are unintentionally being a-holes somehow makes you a representative or guardian of morality. But more important is the fact I'm a liberal resident of an urban county and I've never been asked to weigh in on Zoning for Miller, Morgan, or any of the other counties embracing LOZ, Taneycomo, Stockton or Table Rock. As a non-resident I've never been asked to vote for mayor of Osage Beach or Cape Fair, I've never been asked to vote for county council members, I've never been asked to participate in area chambers of commerce or regional development boards. Blaming "urban liberals" is just scapegoating, it's local residents who vote for the politicians which ultimately green-light development. If rural residents keep electing politicians who advocate unfettered development, easing restrictions on private markets, and allowing private property owners to develop their land as they wish, then rural residents will keep getting politicians who implement unfettered development, eased restrictions on private markets, and private property owners who develop their land as they wish. It only sounds like Yogi Berra because it should be intuitively obvious. Y'all were so terrified about who might be peeing in the stall next to you that you didn't pay attention to the fine print. Sorry Phil, I had to.

All boats are loud whether they carry anglers or anyone else, so it's not about that. Park yourself at a boat ramp for a couple hours anywhere during the summer and you'll run across anglers who've drank too much, so it's not about that. Anglers deposit miles of fishing line in places like Stockton every year and who knows how many pounds of weight, hooks, plastic lures, worm containers, and other goodies- stuff that entangles and poisons wildlife, chokes them, starves them, get's stuck in swimmer's feet. So it's not about littering, either. There's no moral high ground here, y'all are cranky 'cause things have changed and you don't like it. It's the aquatic version of "YOU KIDS! GET OFF MY LAWN!" They're doing it without thinking. Some of what you guys are advocating is just plain harassment, and the idea that it makes you morally superior is totally asinine. Frankly, I don't understand why the business owner should care that people who don't support his business don't like it. It'd be like me staging a protest in JoAnn's Fabric insisting they cave in to my demands even though I've never set foot in the place. I'm sure the owner doesn't want to fuss with drunks and fights and property damage that cuts in to his profits, either- and if anglers were supporting local businesses to the degree they believe, the owner wouldn't have to. Instead of escalating the BS, show the manager the money he's missing out on by catering to this crowd. If anglers' pockets aren't deep enough to make up the difference, that's life.

I don't think it'll be a major issue. As water temperatures continue to warm through summer, fish will move back into the Park where they'll be harvested.

More than can calculate stream discharge. In the "old days" all sorts of pollutants were directly discharged to streams; then and now gages help us determine how much we can release without serious impacts to fish, wildlife, or downstream drinking water. Gages help responders determine when a plume of pollution will reach downstream water users, helping to coordinate cleanup and response efforts. Gage data informs land planning, runoff mitigation, and the volume and timing of water to be withdrawn for domestic, industrial, and agricultural uses- all in a way which limits impacts to fish and wildlife. And when communities, individuals or industries pollute, suck streams dry, or otherwise cause harm to public natural resources, stream gage data forms the legal foundation for prosecution. All that goes away when these tools are dismantled. There's something romantic about setting off into the unknown. I get it. But we should give critical consideration to the valuable information these gages provide to citizens and policymakers before scrapping them in the name of nostalgia.

The Ozarks are a complicated place. That Current River gage is so high up, in such a narrow valley, big storms may not change the river much unless it sits directly over the headwaters. Underground flow mean heavy rains one watershed can affect another. The Jacks Fork is notoriously flashy, I've seen it go from floatable to sketchy in two hours. If folks could've checked stream levels remotely in the 60's, they would've. Too many people gleefully using jetboats and GPS and Fish Finders for me to buy the argument there's anything wrong with someone checking a stream gage. It's valuable information (otherwise we wouldn't be having the discussion) used by anglers as well as paddlers, campers, property owners and scientists. If you're concerned, do contact your congressional representatives- they control the purse strings and they ultimately decide what gets funded. Make sure they understand the function these stream gages play in supporting rural economies. Otherwise, take solace in the fact that whatever isn't spent on golf and vacations will fund a couple feet of the yyyuuuuugest wall you've ever seen

This is exactly why an independent conservation department is so important.

I've hunted and hiked a fair bit around that part of the world, saw my first collared lizard in the state down there nearly twenty years ago. Really cool area. Glad to see part of it won't be turned into a smelter or a tailings pile.

Of course that's not true, because in the article, near the center of the page, in bold, two inches above the graph you misinterpreted, the author states explicitly that MDC doesn't receive state general revenue. It's in the photo you shared with all of us, and in the next graph of receipts, where again, there are no funds from general revenue. The cut you're talking about is the sales tax, 61% of their total income. Characterizing that as a little budget cut is like mistaking a manicure for an amputation. It's an absurd position. You can say these properties have been bought and paid for, the graphic below it on pg. 11 demonstrates otherwise. Even with the information in-hand, staring you in the face, you either can't or won't look at it objectively. MDC isn't whining about the money they get from the state. You're saying MDC is whining about the money they get from the state. MDC is saying they'd be unable to keep up service with a 61% budget cut. You're saying MDC is pitching a fit "if their budget ever got cut a little." MDC is saying "let's find out if CWD is an issue." You're saying, without evidence, CWD isn't an issue. MDC is saying hunters can't harvest enough hogs to keep the population in check. You're saying, without evidence, that's not true. It seems like there's a recurring theme here. Skepticism's great. Criticism's great. But all you're offering is strawmen, baseless claims, and misinformed conclusions. I'm not sure why you think folks are supposed to take that for anything more than face value.