In the wake of last week's fatal grizzly bear attack in Yellowstone National Park, and last fall's fatal goring by a mountain goat of a hiker in Olympic National Park, are park officials doing enough to educate visitors on wildlife?

The House Appropriations Committee has passed a funding bill for the Interior Department that contains a rider to allow uranium mining on 1 million acres surrounding Grand Canyon National Park.

Dr. Stephen Leatherman, aka "Dr. Beach," has opined what many of us already knew; the Great Lakes beaches of the U.S. and Canada are hidden gems, and the ones at Sleeping Bear Dunes and Pictured Rocks National Lakeshores are crown jewels.

A proposal concerning Fiscal Year 2012 funding for the Interior Department stands to do more than a little harm to the National Park Service's fiscal fitness, and also could theoretically degrade the watersheds that drain into the Colorado River as it runs through Grand Canyon National Park.