The Rembis Report and Other Fascinating Topics - Volume LII

By now, you have probably heard about Yellowstone.

June 24, 2022

By now, you have probably heard about Yellowstone.

That land of wonderous thermal features, mountains, waterfalls, and beautiful wild animals. Coyotes, wolves, bison, elk, bears, pronghorn antelope, beavers, and porcupines, just to name a few. I lived there from 1987-1989. I saw the great fires that burned the park, which at that time, were the most tremendous forest fires the west had ever seen, scorching over a million acres that summer. Since then, forest fires have become annual events out west. The great Yellowstone fire of 1988 is one of the largest fires in US history, but I was shocked to learn the scale of the 1871 Michigan and Wisconsin fires and others to date. No matter what, fire is a scary deal.

Fire did not destroy the park. The ecosystem changed to some degree. Old growth burned away and ponderosa pines, whose seeds must break free of their husks by fire, brought new sprouts to the landscape. The park survived.

Last week heavy rains doused Yellowstone and ripped away the road between Gardiner and Mammoth, where I once drove daily. Other roads in the park were also badly damaged. But the park will survive.

In the great scheme of things this is simply nature taking its course and a minor inconvenience to summer visitors. But for some residents of Cooke City, Red Lodge, and Gardiner, their lives have been upended. Fires and floods do that to people when their structures are destroyed.

You probably recognize this house from the news.

This was an apartment building that sat right down the street from where I once lived. Same side of the river, about a half mile downstream. It was much closer to the bank. When it washed away and tumbled into the Yellowstone River all anyone could do was watch. Five families lived there and so did the owners of the property.

TJ Britton and his wife Victoria knew the house was on tenuous ground. They had evacuated themselves and their residents. It fell, piece after piece, into the river that day. They had gone down the road for supplies and on their way home, got back in time to watch it slide into the river.

I rafted the Yellowstone several times. It can move fast in spring runoff, about 10-15 MPH with class 3 rapids in places between Gardiner and Yankee Jim Canyon, about ten miles downstream. The river was probably moving around 20-25 MPH on this day. The put-in for rafts is right next to this house.

Once it went in, it was on its way to oblivion. It was crushed under the bridge at Cinnabar Basin. I saw video of that with somebody saying it would need a new roof. I do not consider that funny.

Everything these people could not remove from their home had been drowned and destroyed. Everything is lost under waves on a current that will eventually reach the Missouri River, the Mississippi, and finally, the Gulf of Mexico, never to be seen again.

I was disturbed to hear that vacationing onlookers, who watched the house slide off the embankment, standing right nearby the Brittons as they watched, cheered as the house hit the water. TJ and Victoria were shocked. Not just by the loss of their home, but by the sheer callousness of people saying stupid and thoughtless things right beside them as they suffered that loss. That is completely uncouth.

It is one thing to laugh at a folly when a football player fumbles, for example. So close! When a home is destroyed there is no good reason to cheer. I have not seen video of these idiots, but I hope somebody was able to scold them. However, that probably didn't happen.

I once worked for a fellow, car salesman Dewey Hebeler, who told me how great it was in the 1950's (this was in the 1990's). He lamented for days when kids weren't so dumb. He said "Back then, if somebody said something stupid, or acted disrespectful, you could tell them, Hey, cut that out! Have some decency. Get your act together. Be nice, for crying out loud. Nobody scolds anybody anymore because they'll shoot you. No respect."

To a large degree Dewey was right. You try to tell anyone how to behave and they push back. They just might shoot you. But I also think he was right about scolding and shaming people who, quite simply, show great disrespect. There should be more of it.

The problem is that doing so is too dangerous. People are unpredictable. No matter how righteous you may feel, no matter how many people may back you up, saying anything to somebody who is determined to be rude can get you hurt. For your own preservation, the safest place to shame anyone is online. The downside to that is that it will not work.

Anybody you scold online will either call you a bully or ignore you. It is a waste of time. Unless you are a well-known celebrity with thousands of followers, everything you scream is only going to last for a few minutes before being completely lost in the digital wind and forgotten.

To be truly effective, shaming must be spontaneous, it must be witnessed in person, and it must be just. You have to be able to prove your point that what somebody else is doing or saying is out of line, and it can be simple enough as loudly saying "Not cool!" That's it. No need to elaborate, fly off the handle, or get in anyone's face. For those laughing at a house floating away you could also remind them that "It wouldn't be so funny if that were your house." Maybe that would drive some sense into them.

Public shaming is not for everyone. Lots of people are uncomfortable speaking up to scold a stranger. Many are completely against it. There is an entire anti-shame culture out there citing the detriment it brings to the psyche, and that you have to be careful about how you treat people because of how it will make them feel. It is true, shaming hurts, but the whole point is to make them feel bad, so they stop saying and doing stupid things. When done properly, you are helping people. Not just those who have been scolded, but society as a whole, as long as they get the message and don't do it again. They may even go on to carry your message forward when they see somebody else do or say something insensitive and shame them. Like the circle of life.

To combat rude behavior, shaming really needs to be done more often, because if not, if we keep letting bad behavior slide, it will get worse. One major problem with public shaming though, is that it can get out of control and produce negative results. Take the Karen phenomena, for example. Somehow, some women who attempted to shame others found themselves on the wrong side of the camera lens, and wound up as viral videos, with people making fun of them. They got labeled Karens. There are plenty of exceptionally nice ladies named Karen who did not deserve any negativity, because the ones whose attempts at scolding backfired. Although they meant well the court of public opinion lambasted them for what turned out to be considerable faux pas in their execution and delivery. So, whatever point they were trying to make turned them into the bad guys. The rude army won.

I went to a lot of Red Wings games as a kid. I stopped going when I was a teenager because I could not get on board with how violent the fans were getting. I saw face to face arguments turn into brawls. I am not sure why it kept happening, I wasn't involved, but I was close enough to the action for it to ruin the game. The last straw was the entire stadium chanting Bull-Shit! Bull-Shit! over and over at a referee. It was offensive and uncalled for. I didn't want to associate with those people. It was part of the reason I left Detroit.

A similar situation happened last year when Brandon Brown won a car race at Talladega Superspeedway. Great for Brandon, not so great for race fans. As he was being interviewed after the race, people began chanting an obscenity derogatory to President Joe Biden. A sports announcer heard them and whether by mistake or design, said "Listen to the crowd! Let's go Brandon!" and an anti-Biden slogan was born. It grew to such popularity that a gun holster company took hold of it and turned it into a cash cow. Their website unabashedly tells the whole story and in addition to Let's Go Brandon holsters you can get LGB T-shirts, hoodies, and coffee mugs.

But how does that even happen? The race was over. Why wasn't everybody on their way out to the parking lot? Why hang around and slur the President? I doubt it was the entire crowd. But whatever portion of the crowd it was, however they decided to start chanting, makes no sense to me as a way to behave at a sporting event. It is just plain rude. Why would anybody want to hang around with people like that?

The slogan took off. I see these flags flying from the backs of trucks in Tampa Bay every day. I think it is sad and a waste of effort. The statement they are making is that they want to offend people, nothing more. While this is freedom of speech, and every American has the right to express themselves, is it really worthwhile to do so? I don't see that it is. It is just rude.

I believe in freedom of speech and expression, but it is just not cool to be intentionally offensive for the sake of offense. A citizen of Roselle Park, New Jersey decided to put up some anti-Biden displays in her yard. A judge ordered them taken down. A week later the city reversed that decision, and they were back. Poor form, lady. Such a sad thing to do to your neighbors. She feels no shame. Chalk up another win for rudeness.

You would think that Brandon Brown would have something to say about his name being used in such negative fashion. Indeed, he did. He wrote an op-ed for Newsweek. But instead of condemning those who twisted his name into a slur, he commiserated with them, saying that he also disliked high gas prices, and understood that there was frustration in America, and that he did not want to get involved in politics or tell anyone how to vote.

Brandon Brown could have used this moment to shame people, to just step up and say, "I don't appreciate anyone using my name this way. Not cool." but he did not. He failed. He used a teachable moment to send an awkward message and appease fans and sponsors. He went full politician.

You can't stop fires and floods, but you can say speak up when somebody gets out of line and needs to be told they are. If you feel it is right, then by all means, speak your mind in opposition to those who speak theirs. And definitely don't be fearful of shaming stupid behavior. If you don't, who will? But keep in mind that you may be dealing with a deranged person with a gun who loves what they have to say more than whatever you have to say.

Thanks for reading.