Greens to Mingle and Sport By Josh Mahan

Here at Lowbagger world headquarters things are kind of old school. Fortunately prices on computers and scanners and digital doohickeys have finally dropped to proletariat prices, and even lowbaggers can get their hands on a decent setup. But when it comes to conventions like voice mail, Lowbagger still has an answering machine. After hobbling into the office Sunday night, thanks to a half marathon in Seeley Lake, the small numeric digit on my answering machine read 12. Most of those messages were from the boss man, publisher Mike Roselle, wondering why the writings he had just sent to me were not yet posted.

The messages varied. For instance, “Josh it just dawned on me that it’s actually Saturday. And I still need to know how to spell Nicolai Chauchesku. And Tony Curtis says he doesn’t give a fuck what Spartacus thinks. So there.” Click.

He was on a kick. There were two new columns in my inbox. One on mountaintop removal in the Appalachians. And one on the upcoming ELAW conference in Eugene. Both were solid pieces. By noon on Monday they had yet to be posted. Lowbagger’s outdoors editor John Fothergill was in the house, along with a hiking buddy, downloading some digital shots of their latest adventure. The phone rings. It’s Roselle.

“What does it take for your best writer to get published these days?” 

“Hey can’t a lowbagger take the weekend off,” I fired back.

“It’s only excusable because your girlfriend is so cute.”

I thought I had better document that in the interest of legal recourse if Lowbagger is ever bidded off to the fattest media cat in the interest of consolidation and pacification. Fortunately, those days are still on the horizon for Lowbagger. New Yorker’s advertisers have yet to begin beating down our door or to even send chocolates.

We have encountered guerilla media successes, though. We routinely receive world-class, timely pieces from the environmental world. We have links on a variety of websites. And we’ve received a ton of hits, mostly due to word of mouth. But it’s never enough. So tell all your friends to tell all their friends and instead of hanging on the sides of mountains, we’ll continue to huddle in front of computer screens, trolling the depths of cyberspace to provide you with a location on the web for consistent, informative, and down to earth discussions on the state of environmental affairs.

Anyhow, preparations are currently afoot for the upcoming ELAW Conference in Eugene, officially known as the Public Interest Environmental Law Conference or PIELC. While factions around the country have been organizing workshops, power lunches, and must-attend after-hours parties, the biggest buzz I’ve seen on the enviro listservs has revolved around a message entitled “Get your dribble on, annual LAW Conference b-ball round robin.” The competition pits various schisms of Cascadia against the Wild Rockies team. I will say, "Go Wild Rockies". But, I’ll also mention that it would be more appropriate for a bunch of treehuggers to play a game that doesn’t involve blanketing rectangles of earth with asphalt. A rendezvous of this magnitude can’t help but rekindle the stories of North America’s powerful Plains tribes. At their yearly gatherings the foot race was the event that garnered bragging rights. It was a sign that you could provide in an era where acquiring food sometimes meant running down a herd of buffalo. So, keeping with time-honored traditions, the winner of ELAW’s foot race will be given the task of running for double, vegan, shade-grown espressos.  But, I told you Lowbagger is old school, you'll find us at the pot of organic drip coffee.

All attempted jokes aside, we can’t wait to get out to ELAW and hob-knob with the movement’s most brilliant and dedicated. If you can’t make it, check in with Lowbagger. We’ll be posting regularly from the conference to keep those who had to stay home in touch. Cheers!

Josh Mahan is still trying to lowbag a ride to the conference. If any such hitchhiker is spotted on the interstates of central Oregon, please pick up.