The Mojave cross ruling: a blow to the 1st Amendment

The Supreme Court sends the message the government can treat a Christian symbol as a national emblem and display it on public property.

OPINION
Los Angeles Times

The Supreme Court on Wednesday sent a simple — and disturbing — message in a complicated ruling about an 8-foot cross in California's Mojave National Preserve. The message is that the government can treat the preeminent Christian symbol as a national emblem and display it on public property.

The decision didn't explicitly approve the display of the cross, the successor to one erected in 1934 by a veterans group to honor fallen World War I soldiers. Nor did it render a final judgment on whether Congress acted constitutionally in approving a deal in which the Interior Department would swap the public land on which the cross stands for a privately owned five-acre parcel elsewhere, on the condition that the new owners maintain it as a war memorial. The latter question will be reexamined by the lower court that issued an order against the transfer.

But these technicalities can't obscure the fact that a majority of the justices seem willing to accept Justice Anthony M. Kennedy's assertion in the court's main opinion that "a Latin cross is not merely a reaffirmation of Christian beliefs. It is a symbol often used to honor and respect those whose heroic acts, noble contributions and patient striving help secure an honored place in history for this nation and its people." At oral arguments in the case, Justice Antonin Scalia made the same point, prompting this devastating response from the lawyer for the former National Park Service employee who challenged the display: "I have been in Jewish cemeteries. There is never a cross on a tombstone for a Jew." Yet more than 3,500 Jewish American soldiers died in World War I.

Conceivably the Veterans of Foreign Wars, which would be responsible for the memorial after the land swap, could obtain congressional approval to add a Star of David or an Islamic crescent to the cross or, better yet, to erect a memorial containing no religious symbols. But they needn't consider such alternatives given Kennedy's conclusion that the cross is a generic tribute to war dead rather than a symbol that sends what dissenting Justice John Paul Stevens called a "starkly sectarian message."

It's distressing that the court seems inclined to uphold the government-sanctioned display of the cross in a national preserve (even if it actually stands on a tiny parcel of private land). More ominously, Wednesday's decision suggests that the court is moving toward what Kennedy in his opinion called a "policy of accommodation" of religious displays — even if the only display is the symbol of a single religion. The 1st Amendment deserves better.

Mojave Cross can stay on display in California

Supreme Court defends public religious symbol

By Valerie Richardson
Washington Times

An 8-foot cross honoring fallen soldiers in the remote Mojave National Preserve in California can stay where it is, because the Supreme Court said Wednesday that the Constitution nowhere requires the "eradication of all religious symbols in the public realm."

Justice Anthony M. Kennedy, writing the lead opinion in a 5-4 decision in which several justices wrote separate concurrences and dissents, compared the Mojave Cross to a hypothetical highway memorial marking the death of a state trooper to make the point that such displays "need not be taken as a statement of governmental support for sectarian beliefs."

"The Constitution does not oblige government to avoid any public acknowledgment of religion's role in society," Justice Kennedy said in his opinion. "Rather, it leaves room to accommodate divergent values within a constitutionally permissible framework."

Leading the dissenters was Justice John Paul Stevens, who called the war memorial "unprecedented" in its starkly religious tone.

"Congressional action, taken after due deliberation, that honors our fallen soldiers merits our highest respect," said Justice Stevens, who recently announced his plan to retire. "As far as I can tell, however, it is unprecedented in the nation's history to designate a bare, unadorned cross as the national war memorial for a particular group of veterans."

The justices didn't rule technically on the constitutional issue of whether the cross constitutes an establishment of religion. However, they declined to rule that the cross was a First Amendment violation, as asked, and the majority justices' language indicate a more benign view of religion expression on public lands.

Instead, the justices sent the case, Salazar v. Buono, back to a lower federal court and told the judge to look again at how the constitutional issues are affected by a congressional plan to transfer the federal land beneath the 8-foot cross to a veterans group. Lower federal courts had said the transfer was insufficient, a finding the justices implicitly rebuked.

Voting with Justice Kennedy in favor of keeping the cross was the court's conservative bloc, Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr., and Justices Samuel A. Alito Jr., Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas. Opposed were Justices Stevens, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Sonia Sotomayor and Steven G. Breyer.

The American Civil Liberties Union filed the lawsuit on behalf of Frank Buono, a former assistant superintendent at Mojave National Preserve, who said that the memorial offended him. The original cross was erected atop an outcropping known as Sunrise Rock in 1934 by World War I veterans.

A federal court ruled in Mr. Buono's favor and ordered the removal of the cross, but Rep. Jerry Lewis, California Republican, inserted language into a defense appropriations bill declaring the cross site a national memorial.

Barstow Veterans of Foreign Wars, thus placing the cross on private land.

The ACLU argued that the land transfer was a calculated effort to circumvent the court ruling, and the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals agreed, saying the land transfer "would leave a little donut hole of land with a cross in the midst of a vast federal preserve."

But the lower court "did not acknowledge the statute's significance," Justice Kennedy said in his opinion.

"In belittling the government's efforts as an attempt to 'evade' the injunction, the District Court had things backwards," said Justice Kennedy. "Congress's prerogative to balance opposing interests and its institutional competence to do so provide one of the principal reasons for deference to its policy determinations."

The case was sent back to the lower court.

Peter Eliasberg, managing attorney for the ACLU of Southern California, said the organization would continue to argue that the land transfer failed to address concerns over the separation of church and state.

"Although we're disappointed by today's decision, we're encouraged that the case is not over," Mr. Eliasberg said. "The cross is unquestionably a sectarian symbol, and it is wrong for the government to make such a deliberate effort to maintain it as a national memorial."

The Mojave Cross is now encased in a plywood box, hidden from view while litigation is ongoing. The original wooden cross has been replaced several times, and the current version is constructed of white metal.

"Congress has repeatedly voted overwhelmingly to protect the Mojave Cross as a memorial to veterans and those who have died to defend our nation, never intending it to be preserved as a religious symbol," said Mr. Lewis, whose district includes the desert area where the cross is located.

"I am gratified that the Supreme Court has upheld the right and authority of Congress to seek these solutions in memory of our veterans," he said.

The decision came as a victory for religious-freedom groups fighting efforts to eliminate religious symbols and references from the public square.

"A passive monument acknowledging our nation's religious heritage cannot be interpreted as an establishment of religion," said Joseph Infranco, senior counsel of the Alliance Defense Fund, which filed a friend-of-the-court brief defending the cross. "To make that accusation, one must harbor both a hostility to the nation's history and a deep misunderstanding of the First Amendment."

Eric Rassbach, national litigation director of the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, which also filed a brief in the case, applauded the ruling as "simple common sense."

"The First Amendment guarantees the right to speak and believe freely; it does not give busybodies the right to cut down religious symbols they don't like," Mr. Rassbach said.

At the same time, the ruling leaves unanswered several questions, such as what legal standard should be applied to religious displays on public property, according to the Becket Fund.

The cross supporters had feared that an unfavorable ruling would have jeopardized the nation's hundreds of cross-bearing roadside memorials, as well as other war memorials.

At least two other cross cases are in federal courts. One concerns a 29-foot cross at a war memorial on Mount Soledad near San Diego and the other the 12-foot roadside crosses that Utah uses to memorialize highway patrol troopers killed in the line of duty.

Court backs Mojave cross deal; case sent back to 9th Circuit

Joe Nelson, Staff Writer
Redlands Daily Facts

A divided U.S. Supreme Court on Wednesday ruled that a lower court erred when it invalidated a land transfer that prompted the veiling of a 76-year-old Latin cross in the Mojave National Preserve honoring fallen soldiers.
In a 5-4 ruling, with the court's conservatives in the majority, justices remanded the case back to the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco to reconsider its decision.

The Supreme Court majority voiced strong support for allowing the nearly 6-foot-tall cross, which has stood in various forms in the Mojave National Preserve for more than 70 years, to stay.

"The goal of avoiding governmental endorsement does not require eradication of all religious symbols in the public realm," Justice Anthony M. Kennedy wrote in his opinion.

The cross, crafted from metal pipe, was erected by members of the Veterans of Foreign Wars in 1934 to honor American soldiers who died during World War I. It sits in an area called Sunrise Rock, about 11 miles south of the 15 Freeway, east side of Cima Road.

"A Latin cross is not merely a reaffirmation of Christian beliefs. It is a symbol often used to honor and respect those whose heroic acts, noble contributions and patient striving help secure an honored place in history for this nation and its people," Kennedy wrote. "Here, one Latin cross in the desert evokes far more than religion. It evokes thousands of small crosses in foreign fields marking the graves of Americans who fell in battles, battles whose tragedies are compounded if the fallen are forgotten."

In dissent, Justice John Paul Stevens agreed that soldiers who died in battle deserve a memorial to their service. But the government "cannot lawfully do so by continued endorsement of a starkly sectarian message."

In 2001, the American Civil Liberties Union sued the National Park Service on behalf of retired Mojave National Preserve Assistant Superintendent Frank Buono, who argued the presence of a sectarian religious symbol on public property was not admissable, said ACLU attorney Peter Eliasberg.

Buono argued that the government had showed favoritism to one religion and cited the Park Service's denial of an application to erect a Buddhist symbol near the memorial.

About a decade ago, the land on which the cross sits was incorporated into the Mojave National Preserve by executive order from President Bill Clinton.

In 2004, Congress authorized the transfer of the one acre of land under the cross back to the VFW, a private organization, in exchange for five acres of other land.

The ACLU argued the land transfer was unconstitutional.

"Although we're disappointed by today's decision, we're encouraged that the case is not over," Eliasberg said in a statement Wednesday.

He said the ACLU will continue to argue that the cross, as it currently stands, does not remedy the government's unconstitutional endorsement of one particular religion.

Joseph Infranco, senior legal counsel for the Alliance Defense Fund, said the Supreme Court's decision sends a strong message to the 9th Circuit court.

"If they do not straighten this out and get it right and allow the land transfer to stand, I'd be surprised if the Supreme Court does not overturn them again and slap their hand a little harder," Infranco said.

The cross has been veiled by plywood for the last several years as the case has wound its way through the courts. It will remain veiled until the 9th Circuit court makes its decision, maybe longer, Infranco said.

San Bernardino County Supervisor Brad Mitzelfelt, a former Marine whose district spans much of the High Desert, applauded the Supreme Court's decision.

"This is great news for the memory of fallen soldiers and for all who treasure this historical landmark in the Mojave Desert," Mitzelfelt said.

Rep. Jerry Lewis, R-Redlands, also praised the high court's ruling.

"Congress has repeatedly voted overwhelmingly to protect the Mojave cross as a memorial to veterans and those who have died to defend our nation, never intending it to be preserved as a religious symbol," Lewis said in a statement Wednesday. "I am gratified that the Supreme Court has upheld the right and authority of Congress to seek these solutions in memory of our veterans."

Mojave cross case: a signal on religious symbols

By MARK SHERMAN | Associated Press Writer
San Luis Obispo Tribune

The Supreme Court's conservative majority signaled a greater willingness to allow religious symbols on public land Wednesday, a stance that could have important implications for future church-state disputes.

By a 5-4 vote, the court refused to order the removal of a congressionally endorsed war memorial cross from its longtime home atop a remote rocky outcropping in California's Mojave Desert.

The court directed a federal judge to look again at Congress' plan to transfer the patch of U.S. land beneath the 7-foot-tall cross made of metal pipe to private ownership.

Federal courts had rejected the land transfer as insufficient to eliminate constitutional concern about a religious symbol on public land - in this case in the Mojave National Preserve.

While the holding Wednesday was narrow, the language of the justices in the majority, and particularly the opinion of Anthony Kennedy, suggested a more permissive view of religious symbols on public land in future cases.

Federal courts currently are weighing at least two other cross cases, a 29-foot cross and war memorial on Mt. Soledad in San Diego and Utah's use of 12-foot-high crosses on roadside memorials honoring fallen highway patrol troopers.

"The Constitution does not oblige government to avoid any public acknowledgment of religion's role in society," wrote Kennedy, who usually is in the court's center on church-state issues.

Speaking of the Christian cross in particular, Kennedy said it is wrong to view it merely as a religious symbol. "Here one Latin cross in the desert evokes far more than religion. It evokes thousands of small crosses in foreign fields marking the graves of Americans who fell in battles, battles whose tragedies are compounded if the fallen are forgotten," he said.

In dissent, Justice John Paul Stevens agreed that soldiers who died in battle deserve a memorial to their service. But the government "cannot lawfully do so by continued endorsement of a starkly sectarian message," Stevens said.

The cross has stood on Sunrise Rock in the 1.6 million-acre Mojave preserve since 1934, put there by the Veterans of Foreign Wars as a memorial to World War I dead. It has been covered with plywood for the past several years following the court rulings.

Justice Samuel Alito, part of Wednesday's majority, noted the remoteness of the location. "At least until this litigation, it is likely that the cross was seen by more rattlesnakes than humans," Alito said, although he also pointed out that Easter services have long been held there.

The controversy began when a retired National Park Service employee, Frank Buono, filed a lawsuit complaining about the cross on public land. Federal courts sided with Buono and ordered the cross' removal.

In 2003, Congress stepped in and transferred the land where the cross stands to private hands to address the court rulings. But the courts said the land transfer was, in effect, an unacceptable end run around the constitutional problem.

In Wednesday's case, six justices wrote separate opinions and none spoke for a majority of the court.

But supporters of the cross memorials were pleased with Kennedy's language, especially because Alito and Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas would have gone further. Chief Justice John Roberts signed onto Kennedy's opinion.

"We know this is just the beginning. Until that box comes off that veterans' memorial, the veterans consider that a disgrace," said Kelly Shackelford, chief counsel at the conservative Liberty Legal Institute in Plano, Texas. He wrote a brief for several veterans' groups.

"We hope that some of the statements of Justice Kennedy go to the bigger issue, attacks on any veterans memorial that has any sort of religious imagery," Shackelford said.

The Rev. Barry W. Lynn, executive director of Americans United for Separation of Church and State, called the court's reasoning "bogus."

"It's alarming that the high court continues to undermine the separation of church and state. Nothing good can come from this trend," Lynn said. "The court majority seems to think the cross is not always a Christian symbol. I think all Americans know better than that."

Muslim and Jewish war veteran groups complained in court papers that they view the Mojave cross as a religious symbol that excludes them. The Jewish War Veterans called the cross "a powerful Christian symbol" and "not a symbol of any other religion."

Stevens largely agreed. He called the Mojave cross a "dramatically inadequate and inappropriate tribute." Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Sonia Sotomayor joined his opinion, while Justice Stephen Breyer also dissented.

High court supports Mojave cross in Calif.

By MARK SHERMAN
The Associated Press

WASHINGTON -- The Supreme Court said Wednesday that a lower court went too far in ordering the removal of a war memorial cross from its longtime home atop a remote outcropping on federal land in California.

Signaling support for keeping the cross, the justices ordered the federal court in California to look again at Congress' plan to transfer a patch of federal land beneath the cross into private hands.

The lower court had barred the land transfer as insufficient to eliminate concern about a religious symbol on public land in this case, the Mojave National Preserve.

The 5-4 ruling, with the court's conservatives in the majority, could have important implications for future church-state disputes.

The VFW erected the large cross in the federal preserve more than 75 years ago.

The cross 7 feet tall, made of 3-inch metal pipe filled with concrete to deter vandals has been covered with plywood for the past several years as the case made its way through court.

"Here one Latin cross in the desert evokes far more than religion. It evokes thousands of small crosses in foreign fields marking the graves of Americans who fell in battles, battles whose tragedies are compounded if the fallen are forgotten," Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote.

In dissent, Justice John Paul Stevens agreed that soldiers who died in battle deserve a memorial to their service. But the government "cannot lawfully do so by continued endorsement of a starkly sectarian message," Stevens said.

Six justices wrote separate opinions and none spoke for a majority of the court. The holding itself was narrow, ordering lower courts to look again at the transfer of land from the government to private control.

Lower federal courts previously ruled that the cross' location on public land violated the Constitution and that the land transfer was, in effect, an end run around the constitutional problem.

Kennedy, who usually is in the court's center on church-state issues, suggested there may have been no problem in the first place.

"The goal of avoiding governmental endorsement does not require eradication of all religious symbols in the public realm," Kennedy said.

Justices Samuel Alito, Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas would have gone further than Kennedy and Chief Justice John Roberts, who joined Kennedy's opinion.

Alito said he would allow the land transfer, barred until now, to take effect. Scalia and Thomas said they would not even have allowed the former National Park Service employee who complained about the cross to bring his objection to the transfer into court.

Roberts took a decidedly commonsense approach to the matter. At the argument in October, a lawyer argued there probably would be no objection if the government took down the cross, sold the land to the VFW, and gave the VFW the cross to immediately erect again.

"I do not see how it can make a difference for the government to skip that empty ritual and do what Congress told it to do sell the land with the cross on it," Roberts said.

Justices Stephen Breyer, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Sonia Sotomayor also dissented.

Supreme Court Sends 'Mojave Cross' Case Back For More Work

By Mark Memmott
NPR

A lower court was wrong to invalidate a plan that would keep the "Mojave cross" on top of a rock formation in what is now the Mojave National Preserve, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in a 5-4 decision announced this morning.

The court did not directly address the issue that had brought the case national attention: Whether the cross, because it is on federal land, violates the Constitution's ban on government establishment of religion.

Instead, the opinion (written by Justice Anthony Kennedy) focuses on the question of whether lower courts were right in rejecting a plan to transfer control of the land around the cross from the government to the Veterans of Foreign Wars, which placed the cross on the rock in 1934.

"A court may order an injunction only after taking into account all the circumstances bearing on the need for prospective relief," the opinion reads. "Here, the District Court did not engage in the appropriate inquiry. The land-transfer statute was a substantial change in circumstances bearing on the propriety of the requested relief. By dismissing as illicit the motives of Congress in passing it, the District Court took insufficient account of the context in which the statute was enacted and the reasons for its passage."

The case now goes back to the lower courts.

Supreme Court Sends Cross Case Back

by Jeremy Weber
Christianity Today

The Supreme Court ruled 5-4 Wednesday that the much-debated war memorial cross in Mojave National Preserve may remain because Congress' attempted transfer of the plot of land to private hands would resolve any constitutional concerns.

Unsurprisingly, the Court did not directly address the bigger Establishment Clause question of religious symbols on public land, instead ordering a lower court to reassess its challenge to the land transfer solution.

Update: Carl Esbeck tells CT that today's Supreme Court ruling on the Mojave cross is more newsworthy to evangelical church-state watchers than most media have portrayed.

Esbeck, professor of law at the University of Missouri, explains that Justice Anthony Kennedy sent the case back to the district court for additional fact-finding on whether Congress’ purpose in ordering the land swap was religious or secular, i.e. an evasion of the trial court's injunction or an accommodation to those wanting to preserve a war memorial. But Esbeck believes that Kennedy actually says quite a lot about how he thinks a court majority—and hence the Establishment Clause—should handle this kind of religious symbol on government property case.

“It would be a shame for evangelicals to think nothing has changed,” said Esbeck. “The way this will be spun is ‘everything was murky and unclear before, and everything is still murky and unclear.’ That is a way of covering up the loss, because the ACLU victory below was reversed. Are things crystal clear? No. But the ball has moved towards religious symbols on government property not violating the Establishment Clause, and now we know where [Chief Justice John] Roberts and [Justice Samuel] Alito—who are new to the Court—stand.”

“Press releases from the usual crowd probably overstate the scope of the opinion,” said Esbeck. “But it would be wrong to just say this case was not a loss for the ACLU. Kennedy has language that says of course the Roman cross is a Christian cross, but symbols can have multiple meanings, and it is clear in this case that the 70-year-old cross has taken on the message of a war memorial. This language will help the briefs of ACLJ, ADF, etc. And Roberts and Alito signed on to this language in Kennedy’s opinion. Further, Kennedy has never been so forthright on these Establishment issues.”

Esbeck says debate will now shift to whether the congressional purpose in swapping land was religious or not. The case could potentially go all the way back up to the Ninth Circuit and maybe the Supreme Court again, though this process will take years.

The ruling may improve of the odds of religious symbols remaining in public spaces, but Esbeck sees the justifications cited as a mixed blessing.

“I’m not a big fan of religious symbols on government property,” said Esbeck. “I believe there is a detriment because it dilutes the real purpose of the symbol. They’ve taken a symbol of the church and turned it into civil religion. This can be bad for evangelicals because when people look at a nativity scene or a Roman cross, we want people to think of the God of the Bible. If these too become simply civil religion to Americans, it makes the task of evangelism harder for Christians.”

Court Says Cross Can Remain

Mojave Desert Icon Is Deemed More Veterans' Memorial Than Religious Symbol

By JESS BRAVIN
Wall Street Journal



The cross, originally put up by World War I veterans, has stood for generations in the Mojave preserve. (Associated Press)



WASHINGTON—The Supreme Court blessed congressional efforts to maintain a cross that has stood for generations in California's Mojave National Preserve, reversing lower courts that found the symbol an unconstitutional endorsement of Christianity.

"The goal of avoiding governmental endorsement does not require eradication of all religious symbols in the public realm," Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote for the plurality. World War I veterans first erected the cross as a memorial to fallen comrades, he wrote, and more than religion alone, "it evokes thousands of small crosses in foreign fields marking the graves of Americans who fell in battles, battles whose tragedies are compounded if the fallen are forgotten."

The justices split 5-4 along their right-left divide. But they splintered in their reasoning, with conservatives delivering four different opinions and liberals issuing two dissents.

"The nation should memorialize the service of those who fought and died in World War I," Justice John Paul Stevens, the court's only wartime veteran, wrote in dissent. "But it cannot do so lawfully by continued endorsement of a starkly sectarian message."

The cross—estimated at five to seven feet tall—stands on Sunrise Rock in a remote patch of desert. Veterans, some of whom had moved to the region for health reasons, first erected a cross at the site in 1934 and it was often used for Easter services. The current version was assembled from painted metal pipes in 1998 by Henry Sandoz of Yucca Valley, Calif.

In 2000, a retired park-service employee, Frank Buono, complained that the cross's presence violated the First Amendment ban on a government "establishment of religion." Several years of litigation and legislation followed, with Congress taking several steps to protect the cross, including a ban on using federal funds to remove the symbol and a 2002 declaration that it was a "national memorial" dedicated to World War I veterans.

After lower courts found the cross in violation of the Establishment Clause, Congress attempted to end the matter by transferring the property on which it sits to the Veterans of Foreign Wars, in exchange for other property in the region owned by Mr. Sandoz. Lower courts found the land swap itself unconstitutional.

Justice Kennedy, writing for himself and Chief Justice John Roberts, found that lower courts had been too quick to dismiss the land transfer. "Placement of the cross on government-owned land was not an attempt to set the imprimatur of the state on a particular creed," he wrote, but rather "intended simply to honor our nation's fallen soldiers."

Over the decades, "the cross and the cause it commemorated had become entwined in the public consciousness," he wrote. The lower courts were directed to reconsider their decision and weigh alternatives to removing the cross, such as placing signs to indicate the VFW's ownership of the land.

Justices Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito wrote or joined separate opinions stating their own reasons.

Although the decision could be read to endorse land transfers in similar situations, Justice Kennedy said the court intentionally avoided making any "sweeping pronouncements" on the line between church and state. Due to the "highly fact-specific nature" of the case, it is "unsuited for announcing categorical rules," he wrote.

Justice Stevens's dissent argued that Congress wasn't taking action to memorialize veterans, but rather using their memory to justify maintenance of a religious symbol. He noted that the Mojave cross little resembles the prominent and nonsectarian markers erected for those who served in World War II, Korea or Vietnam.

Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Sonia Sotomayor joined Justice Stevens's dissent. Justice Stephen Breyer dissented separately.

Supreme Court Sides With Interior on Mojave Desert Cross

By GABRIEL NELSON
New York Times

The Supreme Court ruled today that Congress and the Interior Department acted properly when they used a land transfer to solve a dispute over a cross on display in the federal Mojave National Preserve.

The case, Salazar v. Buono, stemmed from a 2001 lawsuit challenging a cross erected in 1934 by the Veterans of Foreign Wars. Frank Buono, an Oregon resident who had served as an assistant superintendent in the park and was a regular visitor, claimed the memorial to World War I veterans was unconstitutional because it gave the impression that the government was advancing a particular religion.

By a 5-4 margin, the Supreme Court ruled today that lower federal courts were wrong to dismiss as "evasion" the federal government's effort to transfer the land underneath the religious symbol. Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote the opinion (pdf) for the majority, arguing that the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals had failed to consider the profound "dilemma" posed by the case.

The Interior Department could not leave the cross in place without violating the ruling that the display was unconstitutional, Kennedy wrote, "but it could not remove the cross without conveying disrespect for those the cross was seen as honoring. Deeming neither alternative satisfactory, Congress enacted the land-transfer statute."

"The statute should not have been dismissed as an evasion, for it brought about a change of law and a congressional statement of policy applicable to the case," Kennedy added.

Congress had authorized a land swap with the Veterans of Foreign Wars, trading 1 acre of land around the cross in exchange for 5 privately owned acres elsewhere in the preserve. Previously overseen by the Bureau of Land Management, the site of the cross came under control of the National Park Service when the 1.6-million-acre Mojave National Preserve was created in 1994.

The white wooden cross, roughly 5 feet tall, stands atop Sunrise Rock in California's San Bernardino County. It has been covered with a large plywood box since a lower court ruled it unconstitutional.

Justice John Paul Stevens dissented today, arguing that the land transfer could itself be considered a promotion of religion. If the land had been privately owned to begin with, he wrote, there would be no question that the statue is permissible under control of the veterans.

"But the Government does own this land, and the transfer statute requires the executive branch to take an affirmative act -- transfer to private ownership -- designed to keep the cross in place," Stevens wrote, joined by Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Stephen Breyer.

In a brief on behalf of Interior Secretary Ken Salazar, Solicitor General Elena Kagan said there was no reason to conclude that the continued presence of the cross would imply government sponsorship. The transfer handed over control to the Veterans of Foreign Wars and required the installation of a plaque dissociating the statue from the federal government, she wrote.

"Congress already has taken steps to end any continuing endorsement," she wrote. "By ordering the Park Service to install a plaque stating that the cross was erected by the VFW to commemorate fallen service members, Congress has required 'a clearly visible' statement of the memorial's secular origin and purpose."

U.S. Supreme Court supports Mojave cross

USA TODAY
Desert Sun

A deeply divided Supreme Court revived congressional efforts Wednesday to permit a wooden cross erected in the Mojave National Preserve 70 years ago to remain on the park grounds.

By a 5-4 vote, the justices reversed a lower court decision that had invalidated a federal law designed to let the cross remain, in the face of a challenge that it constituted a government endorsement of religion.

The decision does not reinstate the law, but returns the case to the lower court and strengthens the government’s hand to allow crosses and other religious symbols on public grounds.

“Although certainly a Christian symbol, the cross was not emplaced on Sunrise Rock to promote a Christian message,” Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote of the cross that was put up in 1934 by the Veterans of Foreign Wars to commemorate U.S. soldiers who died in World War I. “Rather, those who erected the cross intended simply to honor our nation’s fallen soldiers.”

Kennedy was joined in the vote - requiring a new hearing and enhancing federal arguments to keep the cross - by the four more conservative justices. Yet they splintered on their legal reasoning, and only Chief Justice John Roberts signed Kennedy’s opinion in full.

Rep. Jerry Lewis, a Redlands Republican whose district includes the site of the memorial, praised the court's decision.

"This is a dramatic victory for those who believe it is vital to preserve the memory of those who gave their lives to ensure the survival of our nation and the freedoms we enjoy," he said in a news release.

Lewis said Congress has voted multiple times to protect the cross and lawmakers did not intend for it to be considered a religious symbol.

“I am gratified that the Supreme Court has upheld the right and authority of Congress to seek these solutions in memory of our veterans," he said.

Dissenting in the case were the Supreme Court’s four liberal justices. “I certainly agree that the nation should memorialize the service of those who fought and died in World War I,” Justice John Paul Stevens, who served in World War II, wrote in his dissent, “but it cannot lawfully do so by continued endorsement of a starkly sectarian message.”

The case began in 2001 when Frank Buono, a retired park service worker, sued the federal government, objecting to the Park Service’s allowing the cross but no other religious symbols at the California site. Park officials had rejected a request for a Buddhist shrine near the cross.

The cross structure at the Sunrise Rock outcropping has been replaced several times since 1934, and the current cross, erected in 1998, is about five feet tall and made of white-painted pipe.

Lower federal courts ruled that the cross at the national preserve violated the required constitutional separation of church and state under the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment. A judge ordered the cross taken down, and the government appealed. The cross has since been covered with a plywood box.

The question before the justices Wednesday was not the validity of the lower court decisions finding a constitutional violation, but rather whether Congress’ law attempting to save the cross was permissible.

Congress designated the cross a national memorial and, in 2004, passed a law calling for the transfer of the property on which the cross at Sunrise Rock sits. Congress ordered the land given to the VFW in exchange for a parcel elsewhere in the preserve.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit rejected the effect of the 2004 law, saying it ran “afoul” of a district court judge’s order forbidding display of the cross.

Kennedy said the lower court judge was wrong to concentrate on the religious aspects of the cross.

“A Latin Cross is not merely a reaffirmation of Christian beliefs,” he wrote. “It is a symbol often used to honor and respect those whose heroic acts, noble contributions, and patient striving help secure an honored place in history for this nation and its people.”

Kennedy said a district court judge was wrong to then dismiss Congress’ motives in the 2004 law “as illicit” and should have more fully considered the context in which the land-transfer statute was passed before concluding that observers would think the cross an endorsement of religion.

“The goal of avoiding governmental endorsement does not require eradication of all religious symbols in the public realm,” Kennedy wrote. “A cross by the side of a public highway marking, for instance, the place where a state trooper perished need not be taken as a statement of governmental support for sectarian beliefs. The Constitution does not oblige government to avoid any public acknowledgement of religion’s role in society.”

Joining Kennedy in reviving the government’s case in Salazar v. Buono, along with Roberts, were Justices Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito.

Dissenting along with Stevens were Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen Breyer and Sonia Sotomayor.

Full text of Supreme Court decision, concurring and dissenting opinions in Salazar v. Buono

Supreme Court says Mojave cross can stand

In a divided ruling, the justices rule that the 1st Amendment calls for ‘accommodation’ of religious displays on public land rather than strict separation of church and state.

This undated photo shows the memorial known as the "Mojave Cross", on an outcrop known as Sunrise Rock in the Mojave National Preserve. (Liberty Legal Institute, Henry and Wanda Sandoz / Associated Press)

By David G. Savage
Los Angeles Times

Reporting from Washington -- The Supreme Court gave its approval Wednesday to displaying a cross on public land to honor fallen soldiers, saying the Constitution "does not require the eradication of all religious symbols in the public realm."

Speaking for a divided court, Justice Anthony M. Kennedy said the 1st Amendment called for a middle-ground "policy of accommodation" toward religious displays on public land, not a strict separation of church and state.

Kennedy disagreed with judges in California who said U.S. National Park Service officials must remove a small Latin cross from the Mojave National Preserve that had stood since 1934 to honor soldiers who died in World War I. The judges said the display of the cross on public land amounted to a government endorsement of religion.

"A Latin cross is not merely a reaffirmation of Christian beliefs," he wrote. "Here, a Latin cross in the desert evokes far more than religion. It evokes thousands of small crosses in foreign fields marking the graves of Americans who fell in battles, battles whose tragedies are compounded if the fallen are forgotten."

The 5-4 decision told the lower-court judges to reconsider the matter and presumably uphold the display of a cross. Chief Justice John G. Roberts and Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. joined Kennedy's opinion, and Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas agreed separately that the cross can remain on display.

Retiring Justice John Paul Stevens spoke for the dissenters. The government has good reason for "honoring all those who have rendered heroic public service regardless of creed," but it should "avoid endorsement of a particular religious view" in doing so, he said.

Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen G. Breyer and Sonia Sotomayor agreed.

The Mojave cross has been tied in litigation for years. The case had been watched closely because it was the first church-state-separation dispute to come before the Supreme Court since John Roberts became chief justice.

Removal of California memorial cross blocked by U.S. Supreme Court

The Mojave cross was first covered in a bag. When that was shredded by the
elements it was then encased in a plywood box. (L.A. Times file)

Los Angeles Times

The U.S. Supreme Court blocked the removal of a congressionally endorsed war memorial cross from its longtime home in the Mojave Desert, saying a federal court went too far in ordering that it be taken out.

At issue is a cross that sits atop Sunrise Rock in a remote part of California's Mojave National Preserve. Since 1934, the cross has existed, in one form or another, as a war memorial. Different court documents refer to it as 5 to 8 feet tall.

A decade ago, it came under legal attack from a former National Park Service employee who, though a Catholic, thought it was inappropriate to favor one religion over another in the preserve. The park service had turned down a request to have a Buddhist symbol erected nearby.

A federal judge and the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the stand-alone display of the cross in the national preserve was unconstitutional and, further, that Congress' move to transfer it to the private Veterans of Foreign Wars did not solve the problem.

The Obama administration, joining with the VFW, urged the high court to uphold the display of the cross now that it is in private hands.

U.S. Solicitor General Elena Kagan said the "sensible action by Congress" to give the VFW control of the cross and the land under it solved the 1st Amendment problem. The cross is no longer on government land and under government control, she said.

According to the Associated Press, the justices said Wednesday that the earlier ruling by federal judges did not take sufficient notice of the government's decision to transfer the land to private ownership to eliminate any constitutional concern about a religious symbol on public land.

A full report from the Supreme Court coming soon.

High court rules Mojave cross can remain

DISPUTED SYMBOL: This is the cross erected in the Mojave Desert
in 1934 as a memorial to the war dead. (Liberty Legal Institute)

Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The U.S. Supreme Court said Wednesday that a federal court went too far in ordering the removal of a congressionally endorsed war memorial cross from its longtime home in the Mojave Desert in California.

In ruling that the cross could stay, the justices said federal judges in California did not take sufficient notice of the government's decision to transfer the land in a remote area of California to private ownership. The move was designed to eliminate any constitutional concern about a religious symbol on public land.

The ruling was 5-4, with the court's conservatives in the majority.

The Veterans of Foreign Wars erected the cross more than 75 years ago atop an outcropping in the Mojave National Preserve.

It has been covered with plywood for the past several years following the court rulings. Court papers describe the cross as 5 feet to 8 feet tall.

"Here one Latin cross in the desert evokes far more than religion. It evokes thousands of small crosses in foreign fields marking the graves of Americans who fell in battles, battles whose tragedies are compounded if the fallen are forgotten," Justice Anthony M. Kennedy wrote.

OK Corral papers rediscovered

‘The actual artifact that encapsulated that time period’

Associated Press
msnbc.com



The OK Corral in Tombstone, Ariz. (Matt York/AP)



BISBEE, Ariz. - A missing handwritten transcript from a coroner's inquest done after the legendary gunfight at the OK Corral has resurfaced in a dusty box more than 125 years after the most famous shootout in Wild West history.

The document resurfaced when court clerks stumbled on the box while reorganizing files in an old jail storage room in Bisbee, about 20 miles south of Tombstone.

Stuffed inside was a modern manila envelope marked "keep" with the date 1881.

Court officials turned the document over to state archivists on Wednesday. Experts will immediately begin peeling away tape, restoring the paper and ink, and digitizing the pages.

The first pages could show up on the library's website for historians to review as soon as next week.

It's unlikely the transcript will provide any shattering revelations, since historians have already reviewed photocopies of the document and the inquest was covered in detail by local newspapers at the time.

But history buffs said the transcript is enlightening nonetheless, clearing up fuzzy points in the copies and revealing small notes that might not have appeared on the photocopies.

"They were handled by the people of that moment, and they're the actual artifact that encapsulated that time period," said GladysAnn Wells, Arizona State Librarian.

Heroes of the Old West

The 1881 gun battle between the forces of law and a gang of rustlers left three men dead, made folk heroes of Wyatt Earp and Doc Holliday and inspired numerous movies about the untamed Old West.

The inquest was done on the same day Earp, his two brothers and Holliday confronted a gang of drunken outlaws, sparking a 30-second gun battle in the streets of Tombstone that killed Frank and Tom McLaury and Bill Clanton.

The document has been missing for decades — last seen when it was photocopied in the 1960s. The pages include verbatim testimony from eyewitnesses to the shootout.

The document is legible, but the paper has darkened to an amber beer color and is brittle like a potato chip, said Cochise County Court Clerk Denise Lundin. The handwriting can be difficult to read because the court reporter was rapidly taking notes, she said.

Even if the document doesn't reveal new information, the discovery helps historians feel more comfortable with the record, said Gary Robertson, a Wild West historian and author of the book "Doc Holliday, the Life and the Legend." But most importantly, it sparks the imagination.

"Every time you find one it gives you hope that maybe you'll find some more," Roberts said. "Maybe there will be something else that we've all been dying to get our hands on."

Lundin is convinced that somewhere in her courthouse are records of the inquest for Johnny Ringo, another legendary outlaw.

"These things aren't something you can go search for," she said. "You really just have to watch for them."

A Look Back: Route 66 still remembered fondly

The original Summit Inn in the Cajon Pass around 1928 on Route 66.

(The Press-Enterprise)

By NITA HILTNER
Special to The Press-Enterprise

Historic Route 66 has been honored by festivals, TV, movies and song since its inception on Nov.11, 1926, and still exists in the memories of those who traveled this Main Street of America or the Mother Road to come west.

In 1857, by order of the War Department, Lt. Edward Fitzgerald Beale, a Naval officer in the service of the U.S. Army Topographical Corps, built a government-funded wagon road across the 35th Parallel, which later became part of U.S. Route 66.

Also known as the Will Rogers Highway by 1940, named after the humorist, the highway linked Chicago to Los Angeles over 2,448 miles. The route crossed through Illinois, Missouri, Kansas, Oklahoma, Texas, New Mexico, Arizona and California, eventually ending in Santa Monica.

The road planners meant for the route to connect main streets of the cities and rural areas because until then, most small towns had no access to major national thoroughfares. The highway became a major route for the Dust Bowl 1930s migrants to follow west. As the road grew in popularity, businesses such as restaurants, filling or gas stations and neon-lit motels popped up along the route, making traveling easier for the public.

From the 1930s to through the 1960s, the road was well-traveled by millions of people heading west for opportunity to those taking their children to California for a vacation to Disneyland or the beach.

In 1956, the Interstate Highway System was instituted by the Federal Highway Act, more popularly known as the National Interstate and Defense Highways Act of 1956.

The interstates effectively replaced the need for Route 66 and other routes. In 1984, Route 66 was officially deactivated.

The deactivation stirred nostalgic people to honor the route, and many state and local associations were formed to celebrate Route 66 with festivals, fairs, antique car meets, conventions and parades.

One of those festivals is held annually in San Bernardino to celebrate the highway and that era when it was popularly used. A TV show, Route 66, featured two men and a Corvette traveling the route and encountering adventure.

The song about the highway has the words, "Get your kicks on Route 66." In the movie "Grapes of Wrath" from the book by John Steinbeck, the family travels the "Mother Road" to California for work.

Nick Cataldo, local historian, special education teacher and past president and member of the San Bernardino Historical and Pioneer Society, recently gave a presentation and talk to the society about the history of Route 66 through San Bernardino County and his own experiences traveling it as his family moved to California in 1966.

"I remember the trip from New Jersey. You'd see New Jersey plates on other cars and wave to the people. There was a camaraderie on that road," said Cataldo. "You'd stop at a cafe and see the same people on the road with you."

He said that today's response to constantly running into and seeing the same people on a freeway might have a different consequence.

"They'd probably shoot you!" he said.

He said the I-40 and I-15 obliterated the need for Route 66, but there are still memorable cafes and motels along the route.

Cataldo said Juan Pollo owner Albert Okura bought Roy's Cafe in Amboy and hopes to open it once again for those nostalgic for that era. Main Street in Barstow and D Street in Victorville were once part of the route. Over the Cajon Pass into San Bernardino, Route 66 followed today's Cajon Blvd. to Mt.Vernon Ave. south to 5th St. and then Foothill Blvd. from San Bernardino to the Los Angeles County line.

Along the route, old restaurants, motels and gas stations, most abandoned or razed, served travellers.

Cataldo said the Summit Inn at the top of Cajon Pass, one of those places, still serves the traveler and has a lot of Route 66 flavor, with old signs and gas pumps. Mitla Cafe, a Mexican restaurant opened in 1937 at Mt. Vernon Avenue and 6th St. in San Bernardino, the Wigwam Motel in San Bernardino and the Sycamore Inn in Rancho Cucamonga opened in 1921, are all survivors and serve travelers today.

The 21st Annual Route 66 Rendezvous will be held in San Bernardino Sept. 16 through 19 this year.

Trains connect many parts of San Bernardino history

Trackside of the original San Bernardino Santa Fe Depot, 1915.

The Press-Enterprise

For parts of the 200 years it's been a city, San Bernardino has been linked to rail lines.

Now, in the year it is celebrating its 200th year, organizers of the celebration say they will honor that history with Railroad Days, May 8-9. The 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. event takes place both days at the San Bernardino Depot, 1170 W. Third Street.

According a statement released about the event, Steve Shaw, president of the San Bernardino Historical and Pioneer Society, and leader of the group organizing Railroad Days, "The railroads were crucial to San Bernardino. The first railroad arrived in San Bernardino in 1883, putting San Bernardino on the map. The city's population grew by leaps and bounds because of the railroads."

During the Bicentennial Railroad Days, the San Bernardino Depot will be open throughout the day. Steam locomotive Engine 3751, a fully operational locomotive, will pull historic railroad passenger cars, including one "dome car" during Railroad Days. For tickets of $85, or $105 for seats allowing views from the glass domed car and another special car.

Riders can either ride the special train pulled by Engine 3751 on its journey from Los Angeles on Saturday, May 8 or on its return to Los Angeles on Sunday, May 9. The ticket price also includes transportation in the opposite direction by Metrolink train.

"We will time Engine 3751's return to Los Angeles so that riders can spend the day in Los Angeles, perhaps checking out its historic Olvera Street, have dinner there, and return by Metrolink that night," Shaw said.

At the San Bernardino Depot during Railroad Days, there will also be historic photographic displays, model trains similar to those used in San Bernardino in the 19th and 20th centuries, and food and merchandise vendors. Admission is free.

The 1918 Moorish-style San Bernardino Depot was once one of the busiest train depots west of the Mississippi River because Santa Fe Railways used it as a transportation hub. As train travel decreased in the mid-20th century, the depot was shut down in 1972, said sponsors.

In 1992 the San Bernardino Associated Governments (transportation agency for all of San Bernardino County) bought and renovated the San Bernardino Depot, reopening it in 2004. One of the key attractions at the 2004 Grand Reopening, and again at this year's Railroad Days, will be Engine 3751.

This steam locomotive served Santa Fe Railways from the 1920s through the 1950s. Built in 1926, it was the first of the 484 series owned by Santa Fe Railways and was in active duty for about 30 years. In 1958, Santa Fe sold the locomotive to the city of San Bernardino. It was on public display at Viaduct Park until 1985, when the city sold it to the San Bernardino Railroad Historical Society.

The San Bernardino Railroad Historical Society restored Engine 3751. Today it is a fully functioning locomotive, but only travels the rails on special occasions like Railroad Days. It is usually kept in storage in Los Angeles.

Checking up on Whitewater Canyon's wild things

Researchers and university students conduct a two-day 'bio-blitz' to survey the wildlife inhabiting an oasis near Palm Springs

Volunteers walk through Whitewater Canyon during a biological inventory of the area. Winter rains have made the canyon preserve flush with wildflowers and blooming plants. (Don Bartletti / Los Angeles Times)

By Louis Sahagun
Los Angeles Times

With rain soaking their clothing and fogging up their binoculars, 50 researchers and university students armed with butterfly nets and specimen bottles fanned out across Whitewater Canyon at daybreak Monday to take the first full accounting of wildlife in the oasis a few miles northwest of Palm Springs.

The two-day "Whitewater Canyon Spring 2010 Bioblitz" aimed to survey 17 miles of the canyon framed by sandstone cliffs and watered by a year-round river roiling through overlapping biological zones including sandy desert, boulder fields, grasslands and forests.

The diverse terrain creates habitat for mountain lion, the California desert tortoise, waterfowl, migrating birds, tree frogs and arroyo toads. Sand snakes and rosy boa constrictors gather on the canyon's two-lane road at night this time of year, making them easy pickings for reptile poachers.

But on a blustery morning when creatures large and small were trying to keep warm and dry in treetops and underground lairs, the experts in the fields of botany, entomology, herpetology, ornithology and mammalogy had their work cut out for them as they trudged through soggy brush and mud.

"You'd think they would have canceled this thing just because our tallies are going to be abysmally low," quipped herpetologist Todd Hoggan, drying the lenses of his eyeglasses with his shirttails.

"No insect in its right mind would be out and about in this weather," said Kurt Leuschner, a professor of natural resources at the College of the Desert in Palm Desert.

Things perked up at about 9 a.m. when sunshine sliced through the clouds, painting the desert landscape with vibrant hues. Suddenly, the air was filled with bird song and the drowsy hum of insects.

High on a cliff side, three Nelson's bighorn sheep gazed down on the human surveyors. On the ground, lazuli buntings, blue grosbeaks and federally endangered least Bell's vireos flitted in chaparral and cottonwood trees.

Toad tadpoles wiggled in the river's shallows. Spring flowers were teeming with beetles, bees, moths and spiders.

UC Riverside entomologist Doug Yanega poked his head inside a butterfly net he had used to sweep up insects from Encelia bushes topped with bright yellow flowers. "What have we got? A black fly. Weevils feeding on seeds. A ladybug larvae eating an aphid that was eating the plant. A crab spider as bright yellow as the flowers he called home."

He plopped a few of the insects into a bottle already crammed with specimens collected earlier in the day, including a moth that resembled a yellow jacket. "At least two of the bugs in this bottle are new to science," he said.

The herpetology team's survey led to a pile of old boards and concrete slabs illegally dumped on a hillside. A few minutes of flipping boards uncovered a family of long-eared wood rats: a female with four babies. Nearby, they discovered an adult California desert tortoise hunkered in defense posture, head and limbs retracted within its scarred carapace.

"Looks like he's been chewed on by something -- but lived through it," Hoggan said.

Kneeling for a closer look, Tracy Philippi, who owns a wildlife removal service in Idyllwild, confirmed evidence of skirmishes. "There's a big canine tooth mark on one side of its shell," he said, "and what appears to be the gouge marks of tire tread on the other side. Otherwise, he's in pretty good shape!"

Their brief search of a nearby creek yielded a Gilbert's skink, a southern alligator lizard, Pacific tree frogs, two great horned owls and a snake they were unable to capture and identify.

Pausing on a mountain trail, Hoggan said, "It looked mighty glum this morning, but I'm glad we stayed. Given the circumstances, we did fairly well."

A mile up the road, botanist Orlando Mistretta helped students prepare samples of desert plant life for transportation to the herbarium of native California species at the Rancho Santa Ana Botanic Garden in Claremont. The leaves, flowers and roots they pressed between pages of newspapers and cardboard squares would provide generations of botanists with "a permanent record of canyon life at this moment in time," he said.

That kind of talk pleased Frazier Haney, manager of the Whitewater Canyon Preserve, which is operated by the nonprofit Wildlands Conservancy. The conservancy cosponsored the bio-blitz with the Southern California Botanists and the San Bernardino National Forest.

"There is so much we still don't know about this canyon, which has undergone enormous changes in recent years," Haney said. "For example, a cattle lease has disappeared, and the river is free flowing again because we got rid of diversions that channeled water for private uses."

Whitewater Canyon, a wildlife corridor linking the San Bernardino and San Jacinto mountains, is a candidate for special protection under the California Desert Protection Act proposed by Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-California), which would create a 134,000-acre Sand to Snow National Monument.

"The blitz was fantastic," Haney said. "We had so many experts surveying far and wide that we even discovered patches of federally endangered triple-ribbed milk vetch clinging to a remote hillside.

" Very cool."

'Desertscapes' celebration of plein air painting focusing on desert artists

City of Palm Desert

Palm Desert is dedicating the entire month of April 2010, to a celebration of the early desert painters and the contemporary landscape painters who followed.

Today there is a renaissance of interest in desert plein-air paintings among collectors and scholars. Many of the top painters including Maynard Dixon, John Hilton, Jimmy Swinnerton, and stagecoach artist Marjorie Reed either lived or exhibited in Palm Desert.

The mission of Desertscapes is to promote and educate the public about the historical and contemporary relationship between California landscape and plein-air painters within the Coachella Valley and surrounding area.

Desertscapes will feature exhibits of contemporary and historical painters, along with talks by some of California’s leading art experts.

Highlights include: Painting demonstrations, paint-outs in the field with contemporary landscape artists, panel discussions and tours. This groundbreaking event is valleywide in scope, with events to be staged in various cities.

Desertscapes will appeal to anyone who loves the dunes, the palm oases and the Santa Rosa Mountains, painted by so many acclaimed artists over the decades.

SCHEDULE OF EVENTS

Million Dollar Tortoises a Symbol of Environmental Schizophrenia

By BC Upham
triplepundit


This may not be a very popular post with some readers, but I feel it is my duty to present the other side of an issue, and maybe help Greens understand why business people and even average Joes sometimes think they’re completely crazy.

The Mojave Desert Tortoise is a threatened species that lives in the Mojave Desert. Brightsource Energy is a solar thermal power company that wants to provide clean, renewable energy to California. Brightsource, tortoise. Tortoise, Brightsource.

Both tortoise and solar company are “green,” in the sense that one is a cute, threatened animal, and the other because it is helping to mitigate global warming.

Yet in order to build its proposed 392 megawatt “Ivanpah” solar plant in the Mojave, Brightsource will have to spend, by the most recent complete figures available, about $20 million to relocate about 20 desert tortoises.

That’s $1 million a tortoise.

The money will be spent to buy 12,000 acres of desert land to accommodate the tortoises, plus a trust fund to care for them in perpetuity. The tortoises currently live on only 4,000 acres, but apparently a tract of land can only support 33 percent more wildlife than already exists there, so when they’re moved to a new neighborhood they’ll have to be dispersed over three times the area.

(Brightsource recently announced the affected tortoises may only number 17, but gave no revised figure for cost)

Brightsource’s plant, which uses concentrated sunlight to run a steam turbine and generate electricity, has a $1.5 billion price tag so $25 million might seem like chump change. But the fact is, that’s $25 million that’s not being spent on other things, like the next solar power plant — or other green jobs.

The company is being a good sport, telling the San Bernardino Sun it “wants to set a good environmental precedent for future solar power plants.”

If there are any.

Brightsource clearly takes its environmental obligations seriously and without complaint. So I’ll complain for them.

The problem is the obstacles to building solar plants on federal lands are having a dispiriting effect on the industry. It is not just the money, but the myriad of bureaucratic hurdles and permissions necessary to get the land which delay projects and scare away investors.

Last year Senator Dianne Feinstein introduced legislation in Congress that would create two new federal monuments in the Mojave, effectively banning solar development there. Before it could even become law, the legislation killed a dozen projects already in the works.

On March 17th, the staff of the California Energy Commission recommended that the Ivanpah plant go forward, after Brightsource shrunk the size of the power station to protect more tortoises.

Environmentalists continue to object.

Wildflowers expected to put on a show at Mojave National Preserve

Joshua tree bloom in the Cinder Cone National Natural Landmark area of the Mojave National Preserve on 20 March 2010 (photo by Leslie Ervin)

Margo Bartlett Pesek
Las Vegas Review-Journal

April annually produces the widest variety of wildflowers in the Mojave National Preserve. In a good year of plentiful rainfall, most of the 250 flowering plants of the region produce blossoms in profusion to the delight of visitors to the vast preserve located south of the Nevada-California border. Even in years of scant rainfall, a few dependable varieties still show up. Head for the Mojave National Preserve soon to enjoy the best of whatever show nature provides.

To reach the preserve, head south from Las Vegas on Interstate 15. Drive through Primm and over the state line to the Nipton-Searchlight Cutoff, Highway 164. Watch for the Ivanpah Road exit and turn there. Go a short distance to the Morningstar Mine Road, which leads to a crossroads at Cima. Follow the signs south to Kelso, once a major watering stop on the railroad. Visitors from Southern Nevada can also reach the preserve from I-15 by taking Cima Road or Kelbaker Road, which cover different parts of the preserve. Cedar Canyon Road between Cima and Kelso connects with other major routes through the interior of the preserve.

The handsome Mission-style Kelso Depot built in 1924 served railroad travelers and employees for decades before falling into disrepair. An ambitious restoration gave the depot new purpose. It serves now as the main visitor center for the Mojave National Preserve and headquarters for National Park Service personnel. Open daily except Christmas Day, the building houses informational exhibits and displays, a bookstore and a basement art gallery. On the main floor, a cafe called The Beanery serves meals Fridays through Tuesdays from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Inquire at the depot about where to look for current wildflower displays.

Predicting a sensational wildflower season would challenge a Vegas odds-maker. The goal of the players is to produce plenty of flowers and seeds for future seasons. Many variables change the game. A perfect season begins with an inch of rain in late autumn, followed by scattered rains and no desiccating winds in winter and early spring.

This year, the rains came late, promising greenery, but delaying the flowers. Occasional heavy winds did not help. Late bloomers risk all against the oncoming summer heat. If summer comes early, they lose. If it holds off even a few days, they could play a winning game.

In the Mojave National Preserve, flowers show up first in the lowest elevations along roadsides and on south-facing slopes. Varieties change with the terrain. For instance, look for the showy pale blossoms of dune primrose only around sand as at Kelso Dunes or in sandy spots along roadsides. Often you'll find a sand-loving pink verbena in the same area. Join a ranger for a walk among the dunes any Saturday at 11 a.m. The dunes lie seven miles south of the depot, then three miles west on a graded road.

Soon after the earliest blossoms fade, different flowers take over and the show sweeps into higher elevations. By May, many early annuals are done, but several kinds of cactuses are then at their showiest. Nearly everything takes a summer hiatus, but a few kinds of flowers put on a nice autumn show if the monsoon rains deliver late summer moisture.

Springtime in the Mojave National Preserve invites visitors to explore this largely undiscovered recreational treasure. In addition to paved routes, the preserve contains about 1,000 miles of primitive roads ideal for four-wheeling or horseback exploration. For a small overnight fee, campers use two nice campgrounds at different elevations along Cedar Canyon Road and Black Canyon Road. Self-contained RV users or primitive campers may also camp where others have traditionally done so, free of charge. Several trails and hiking routes probe interesting canyons, historical routes and geological points of interest.

Visitors do well to remember that springtime draws reptilian residents out of winter dens.

The Mojave is home to several species of rattlesnakes, the most dangerous being the Mojave green, whose strong toxin attacks the respiratory system. Watch where you step or put your hands and listen for that warning buzz.

Environmentalists Blast Obama Mining Reversal

Obama Signals Support for Giving Mining Companies Access to Public Land to Dump Toxic Waste, Fueling Criticism

CBS News

(AP) The same week President Barack Obama riled environmentalists with plans for offshore oil drilling, he faces criticism for signaling he will support a Bush-era policy criticized as giving mining companies unlimited access to public lands to dump toxic waste.

The administration asked a federal judge Tuesday to dismiss a challenge by environmental and community groups to a rule that lifted a restriction on how much public land companies can use. The groups are also challenging a 2008 rule that says companies aren't required to pay the going rate to use the land.

Environmentalists said the administration's decision conflicts with its pledge to overhaul the nearly 140-year-old law regulating the mining of gold, silver and other hard-rock minerals on public land.

"The Obama administration can't have it both ways," said Jane Danowitz of the Pew Environment Group in Washington. "Either it stands by its earlier commitment to bringing mining law into the 21st Century, or it continues to allow the industry to dump unlimited toxic waste on public land at the expense of taxpayers and the environment."

National Mining Association spokeswoman Carol Raulston said Friday that her group is pleased with the Obama administration's decision to support the Bush policy.