National Park Service Gift Shops Under Scrutiny

https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2025/07/25/parks-gift-shops-banned-books/

This has my blood boiling 👀

The ripple effect of the administration's executive orders just hit the National Park Service's gift shops. They're now scrutinizing products, demanding the reporting and possible removal of items that "disparage Americans." (🙄). Some of the troubling consequences:

-Less Earned Revenue: Removing relevant items from gift shops could reduce sales, impacting already stretched park funding for operations and programs.
-Limited Deeper Learning: Directives to remove "anti-American" or "unrelated" content hinder access to accurate historical and interpretive information. Info that may become more difficult to find elsewhere.
-Strained, Unclear Directives for NPS: Understaffed parks face increased workload, and now they are having to implement broad orders without clear guidance. It's a lose-lose situation.
-History Being Rewritten: Efforts to sanitize history by removing content on topics like racism, slavery, or LGBTQ+ history undermine the park's ability to fulfill its core mission to be "...for the enjoyment, education, and inspiration of this and future generations."