Civil War on the Left, Part 20

Bezerkeley, I tell ya. You may wish to hesitate before clicking through on this link, because of contains disturbing photos of naked people protesting against the removal of eucalyptus trees in that fair city, because trees are people too. Or something. Put it this way: if these folks went to a Woodstock reunion, they’d probably use LSD suppositories. Here’s the relevant part of the news story, so as to spare your eyes:

An estimated 50-75 people took part in a staged protest today at a eucalyptus grove on the UC Berkeley campus, many of them stripping naked in doing so, to make clear their opposition to a proposed FEMA-funded tree-clearing program in the East Bay hills.

The event was orchestrated by the Tree Spirit Project whose mission is “to raise awareness of the critical role trees play in our lives, both globally and personally.” Jack Gescheidt, who founded the project, does this partly by taking fine-art photographs of people, often naked, communing with trees and nature.

Now, why is this story a “Civil War on the Left” item?  Because the greenies keep telling us that non-native species are a significant ecological problem, and there’s considerable momentum throughout California to remove eucalyptus trees, which are definitely non-native and do indeed disrupt nearby flora. Personally I like the grand old trees, but aren’t we supposed to take orders from our green overlords?

That same question is being asked right now up in Seattle, where protesting against oil rigs in petroleum-based kayaks isn’t enough to establish the city’s silliness. Seattle is trying to crack down on the scourge of  . . . trash . . . by  . . . inspecting your trash cans to make sure they’re properly sorted. The New York Times reported yesterday:

The rules were given teeth this year, when Seattle became one of the first cities in the nation to penalize residents for sorting poorly. If, on inspection, more than 10 percent of a garbage can’s contents should have properly been in another kind of bin, the trash collector can pin a bright red tag on the offender’s receptacle. Financial penalties have been authorized but not yet levied. A primary goal of the policy is to keep people from throwing food and recyclable materials into trash cans.

So the same people who say “keep the government out of my bedroom” want to go through your trash. Some citizens are suing claiming the garbage snooping violates their rights to privacy.  Personally I think having government officials crawling through trash cans is their highest and best use today.

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