4/19/05
Let’s start with a little local stuff this week. Who would
have thought that brush clearing would become a hot topic. The
county is proposing an ordinance requiring property owners to
clear brush and cut lower tree limbs inside a specified radius
around houses and other buildings. Seems innocent enough, unless
the mandatory nature of it rubs you the wrong way. This is one
of those ordinances where the county says, "if you don’t
do it, we’ll do it and send you the bill, and if you don’t
pay it, we’ll put a lien on your property." Now it’s
starting to attract a few more opponents. That’s an approach
that hasn’t been much help with people who fill their property
with dead cars and appliances.
We all know the rationale. Humans have been suppressing
wildfires for so long that the forests have grown unnaturally
thick from the tops of the trees all the way down to the ground.
It’s that stuff near the ground that people like to call
"ladder fuel;" the fire starts on the ground and
climbs right into the treetops. All that sounds reasonable, too,
but it turns out that there are a lot more different opinions on
this subject than there are forest fires. It’s one of those
questions that tends to throw people who usually snarl at each
other over environmental issues onto the same side.
First there are the Libertarian types. They’ll clear their
brush if they want to, but they certainly don’t want the
government forcing them to do it. Besides, if people want to let
their houses burn down out of ignorance or neglect, that’s
their right and none of the government’s business. Those hard
core right wingers who are constantly crowing about property
rights check in here. Not only do they want the government to
stay out of their business, but anyone who shows up on their
land with a chain saw and says, "I’m from the government
and I’m here to help," is likely to get a good look at
the wrong end of a shotgun.
Then there are the neo-back-to-the-landers, the urban
refugees who quit the rat race for some privacy and a quieter,
simpler life in the hills among the trees. "We came here to
live in the forest and we accept the risk," they’ll tell
you. " We don’t want that park like setting which
the real estate agents like to promote. All that does for us is
open up sight lines to our neighbors." The
environmentalists probably clear the brush around their houses,
but they know they won’t have a healthy forest unless those
dead trees slowly rot where they lay. Finally, there are those
who say the ladder fuel analysis is overrated. They point out
that lightning starts more forest fires than people. When the
fire is up in the treetops, it’s just as hard to save your
house whether you’ve cleared any brush or not.
It’s the professional foresters and firefighters who are
plugging this ordinance, and their hearts are probably in the
right place, but their politics aint. Thinking they were doing a
good deed, all they’ve done is stir up opposition from just
about everyone. I know what I think about it, but I’m not
saying. After the cop and the judge, the next person I don’t
want to see mad at me is the fireman.
A bunch of Nevada City businessmen had a little meeting last
week to discuss their vision for the future of the town.
The first thing I want to know is why it’s always the
businessmen who get to have vision. The rest of us just have to
write a letter to some elected official, but I have to admit,
the business people came up with a lot more interesting ideas
than most elected officials could imagine. One of them was
getting the cars out of the downtown area, and idea which we’ve
been plugging on Local View for at least 10 years.
* * *
Speaking of government rattling our cages, you probably know
that Congress has passed and the President soon will sign a bill
overhauling federal laws on bankruptcy. The sell on this is that
it will stop people who knowingly pile up big debts then get out
from under some or all of them by filing a bankruptcy, leaving
the creditors holding the bag. Who benefits the most from this
bill? The lenders, of course, those people who massage the
numbers to qualify loan applicants who really can’t afford the
payments, and those people who offer more credit cards to people
who already have ten or twelve maxed out pieces of plastic in
their pockets. I don’t hear Congress discussing any
legislation to crack down on shady lending practices.
* * *
Among all the other peculiar qualities which make Americans
unique in the world, Americans are known for their apathy. Most
of us don’t get any deeper into the international news than
what Tom Brokaw can tell us in 30 seconds. When we were supposed
to be mad at France, recently, our anger consisted mostly of
jokes about freedom fries. Check out China. They’re supposed
to be mad at Japan, so 20,000 people roared through a Japanese
neighborhood in Shanghai smashing up cars and shops and shouting
"kill the Japanese!" I don’t know if these people
really know anything, but there’s not an apathetic couch
potato among them.
* * *
Finally, it’s about time we talked about the finger. No,
not that one. I mean the one in the chili. This is the kind of
tabloid story I usually hate hearing from people who call
themselves journalists, but not since Lorena Bobbitt has a story
developed so much appeal to the people’s more morbid
instincts. I’ll skip the latest details, because I know we all
are gobbling them up as fast as they come across the wire. I
just wanted to share the single best sentence I’ve read about
this story. Discussing the skepticism about the motives of the
woman who supposedly found the fingertip in the chili, a writer
named Mary Roach said, "Compared to the festering spectacle
of American greed, one and a half inches of a human finger is a
beauty to behold."
