Saturday, October 4, 2008

Going Out On A Limb

There may never be a more appropriate moniker for a tree-sitter than "jack-a-ninny" or "nincompoop". Excuse the R-rated vernacular, but anyone who values a tree more than human needs deserves to be exposed and eviscerated for the poppycockery they stand for. Somewhere out there, Bill O'Reilley must be licking his chops.

Of course, I'm specifically talking about the Berkeley tree-sitters, who have ended their 22 month stay up in a redwood tree. Sure, the redwoods have naturally become monolithic fixtures on the soils of UCB and replacing them with a new sports facility may not be the best idea, but Memorial Stadium sits atop a major earthquake fault and is screaming for retirement. Imagine 70,000 plus watching their beloved bears being upset by another unranked team and all of a sudden... the big one hits! Sadly, there won't be enough tables for everyone to cower under. Throngs of Berkeley brainiacs will resort to making mad dashes out their seats as if the exits were offering free pocket protectors to the first ten people. But when the dust settles, all you will hear on the news is utter tragedy - that there were no free pocket protectors at the exits.

Alrite, I will fess up - it's not so much that I care about the Cal Bear nation, it's more like I don't care for tree-sitters. That little stunt cost California tens of millions of dollars on security measures. The law abiding, non-tree-sitting people of California will end up being slapped with this bill. And it's not fair that they were treated like royalty up there. Because if I was up there chucking down buckets of human waste, they'd just chop the tree down with me in there. Either that or they would just set the tree on fire and leave me to fend for myself.

And what of the trees? With the tree-sitters sitting in and defiling these innocent redwoods for 22 months, what tree wouldn't want to be euthenanized? Those tree-sitters just hurt their own cause and their cause is going to hurt them. At least I secretly hope so. Needless to say, these tree-sitters need better things to do. Take a shower, get pottie retrained, and work on a resume or two. The to-do list should stretch for light years.