Are our parks closed? Not entirely.

There are a million Internet petitions these days, and I don't know if they do any good at all, but I thought this one was interesting, at least:

Our federal lands are being mined, drilled, logged and just about everything else you can name – but because of the Republicans’ reckless and irresponsible shutdown of the federal government, we can't be there to hike or camp, and our park rangers can't be there to respond to emergencies. We need to get our priorities straight. ...

There are about 800,000 furloughed federal employees all over the country. National Park Service, Bureau of Land Management, Fish and Wildlife Service and other land management experts are at home instead of tending to trails, eliminating invasive species and protecting our wild lands from pollution. While they wait for the shutdown to end, mining, drilling and logging are going ahead.

Fossil fuel and logging companies shouldn't have special access to our federal lands while rangers, hikers and the rest of us are locked out. Sign my petition to Sally Jewell and Tom Vilsack today to say we expect the same treatment as mining and logging companies when it comes to public lands and resources that we, as Americans, own and protect for the future.

If our public lands are shut down, because House Republicans refuse to do their constitutional duty and fund the government, they should be shut down for everyone, don't you think?

Corporations traditionally support the Republican Party, and none more so than the mining, logging, and drilling companies extracting resources from our public lands. So why should they get special treatment?

If the government shutdown hurts everyone, it's more likely to end quickly. At the very least, if might get big GOP donors to think about what they're doing to the rest of us.