Waco Mammoth National Monument

Waco Mammoth National Monument is one of the newer additions to the National Parks system. Obama signed the enabling legislation in 2016. I'm reasonably sure he wasn't too thrilled about it. Waco Mammoth is an interesting park but would it have risen to the level of national park status without some pressure from Texas Congress critters? I doubt it.

I'm going to be honest. If Waco Mammoth is of national significance, so are Ashfall Fossils State Park in Nebraska and Mastodon State Historic Site in Missouri (and no doubt a plethora of other local and state parks and historic sites across the country). In fact, from what I've seen and read both of those parks are more significant in terms of species diversity and regional history. Ashfall preserves what can only be described as a shitload of mammal fossils, the whole range of animals wandering the Great Plains during the Ice Age. I haven't been there (yet), but the descriptions are pretty amazing. Mastodon also has variety, although the major focus is on mastodons because that was the most dramatic find. Mastodon also has human history --  mastodon and other bones date from a fairly recent time period, a mere 11,000 or so years ago, so the site includes evidence of human hunting activity.

You can't really tell from this photo but that irregular dirt below the viewing platform contains bones from multiple mammoths, including a huge mature male. Painting on wall shows size of an adult male mammoth. 

So what does Waco have? Mammoths. Lots of mammoths, granted, but that's basically it. A nursery herd of mammoths, one lonely camel, one as yet unidentified mammal, and a fragment of a young saber tooth tiger's tooth. Not that the nursery herd is actually on site. Researchers from Baylor University excavated sixteen female and juvenile Columbian mammoths about 40 years ago. The bones are now in storage. What is under the roof of the dig shelter are bones from several mammoths found in the process of preparing to backfill the original dig, including a humongous male who apparently died 30 or 40,000 years after the nursery herd got wiped out.

It is an interesting exhibit, and I have no doubt it is an important site in terms of paleontology. According to the interpretive ranger, the nursery herd is the only one ever found. What exactly killed sixteen mammoths simultaneously -- flash flood? mud slide? -- isn't known, but it certainly gave paleontologists a lot of material to work with. The fact more bones were found of animals that died thousands of years later suggests this particular location may have been periodically rather treacherous, which in turn suggests that if the dig is continued more bones will surface. A paleontologist has been added to the NPS staff so excavations will continue at the usual snail's pace -- trowels, small brushes, and lots and lots of patience make a dig in progress an excruciatingly boring process to observe -- and more good stuff may be found.

Waco Mammoth is, incidentally, one of those places that illustrates why when a member of the public approaches an expert and says "I don't know what this is but it might be important" it pays to look at the mystery object. The original discovery was made by two male teenagers hunting for arrowheads along the bank of a creek that feeds into the Brazos River. They spotted an unusually large bone sticking out of the dirt, knew it wasn't from a cow, and took it to Baylor. The university set up a dig. Sixteen mammoths later they thought they were done. They were also running out of storage space.

Exterior view of the Dig Shelter

When the backfill revealed yet another dead mammoth, they decided to preserve it in situ, first with a temporary tent and then with a permanent structure. The land's owner donated the property to the city of Waco, a nonprofit foundation leapt into action, millions were raised to construct the permanent dig shelter, and the rest is history. The park has sufficient acreage to allow for short hikes, for picnicking, and for the ever popular dog-walking. Some of the most popular (going by the head counts of visitors) parks have high visitation not because the park is intrinsically interesting but because it exists on the edge of a suburb where good places to walk Fido are scarce -- I think there were more dogs at Kennesaw Mountain National Battlefield the day we were there than there were humans. But I'm wandering off topic, as usual. Waco Mammoth is a nice little park. Plenty of parking, even for RVs, friendly and knowledgeable staff, and interesting enough that stopping there didn't feel like a waste of time.

How many videos is it going to take?

I keep wondering just which century some cops are living in. Did they sleep right through the invention of videotape? Digital cameras? Smart phones? Seems like about once a week, maybe more often, we're treated to viral videos that show police misbehavior or to news stories with headlines like "Video Shows White Cop Kicking Black Man in Face." That was one of today's headlines that came up when I closed Hotmail and the MSN page magically appeared.

In this most recent case, which actually isn't that recent -- the incident in question occurred back in 2013 -- the beating was recorded by a cop car dashboard cam. That raises two different, albeit related, questions. First, just when are law enforcement officers going to figure out that anything they do might be recorded? Back when the Rodney King beating happened, the recording was a fluke. Someone happened to have a video camera. It was back in the days when recording devices were still relatively bulky and took tape cartridges. That was over 20 years ago, though. Recording devices have become much, much smaller. They're also everywhere. Even my cheap little Tracfone, a bottom of the line dumb phone, can do video. Granted, only about 30 seconds worth, but video none the less. Smart phones have a lot more recording capacity, and more and more people have smart phones. In addition, the courts have ruled that the public has a right to film anything they see the police doing. For awhile, cops were trying to keep a lid on things by confiscating cameras and erasing videos. Not surprisingly, the courts found they couldn't legally do that.

In addition to the most obvious source of video evidence, there are more and more surveillance-type cameras out there: the police dash cams, security systems in place at various businesses, red light cameras, traffic cameras, and so on. We aren't under quite as complete a security net of surveillance cameras as the British, but we're getting close.

So with cameras potentially everywhere and stories of bad behavior making the news on a regular basis, why do the police still behave as though no one is watching? I know part of the answer -- because even with video evidence showing some rogue LEO behaving like a sociopath prosecutors almost never bring charges and police departments are reluctant to discipline anyone -- but that's not always true. The cop in this most recent video, for example, has been indicted for second degree assault. So if it's becoming more common for there to be actual consequences, why do some cops behave as though they're still living in the last century, not current one? Good question. Maybe it just takes awhile for some people to get the message times have changed.

Side note: in one of those weird coincidences that make a person wonder if Jung was right about collective consciousness, just as I was finishing typing the above paragraph, NPR did a brief report on a new app for smart phones. It was developed by the ACLU in California specifically for use in filming police misconduct. So far over 40,000 people have downloaded the application. That in itself is rather troubling news because for sure it's evidence that there are a whole lot of people out there who are expecting the cops to do something Bad. It definitely shows whatever trust the public once had in law enforcement is rapidly eroding. Which brings me to the second question: when the institution of law enforcement going to realize they need to clean up their act? More and more ordinary people are starting to view law enforcement as The Enemy. That solid blue line that tends to behave as though no cop anywhere ever did anything bad had better start crumbling a bit and start to police itself better. As long as they keep mouthing the line that "Officer Sadistic Asshat did nothing wrong" when the video shows Officer Asshat beating someone to death (or close to it), the public's confidence in law enforcement is going to keep shrinking.

Of course, considering just how many cops (male and female) I've met over the years who apparently went into law enforcement specifically because they were sadistic asshats and got off on power tripping, I doubt  things will get better any time soon.