---------- Original Message ----------------------------------
From: andrew fildes <afildes@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Reply-To: olympus@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Date: Mon, 22 Oct 2001 17:52:19 +1000
>Strident, obnoxious and 'gung-ho' are not words I normally
>associate with MY green chums. I think you're confusing us with
>people who think that conservation means not shooting anything
>out of season?
>AndrewF
>(house built in 1919)
Golly gee, Andrew, you are one combative mate, whatever your
color, green or otherwise. This invasion of the unworthy and
unwashed has really done a number on your usually sweet and
cheerful disposition. I didn?t mean to get your old billy boiling
out there in your billabong under the coolibah tree. Actually, I
was taking your side (sort of) and thought we might find ourselves
agreeing on something for the second time in as many weeks. <G>
You need to encounter certain of the tree huggers over here if you
think "stridently obnoxious" is an inappropriate description of
some folks who call themselves "environmentalists." That?s why I
put the word in quotes. I consider myself a conservationist; I?m
just not willing to spike trees, burn logging trucks or file
groundless, obstructionist law suits to further my cause. In
fact, I was a dues-paying member of the Sierra Club for years --
until they decided litigation was more important than conservation.
My reference was to certain city-slickers -- in the recent past,
mostly entertainers, jocks and dot-commers -- who make a bundle,
then find some untouched bit of nature, bulldoze an acre or so
(must have room for the swimming hole, Jacuzzi, tennis court and a
four-car garage), build some garishly pretentious monstrosity of a
house, move in and suddenly become the most avid of anti-
development assholes in the universe. For the first time in their
selfish, miserable lives their Mephistos and Range Rovers have
left the pavement and they suddenly have been endowed with
unassailable enlightenment and are now the virtuous protectors of
all things natural and beautiful and the rest of the world should
just stay in whatever hellhole they so deservedly live in and not
even drive through the area, with their ugly faces peering from
their cheap econobox cars, much less consider building anything,
because they are an unsightly and annoying herd, some so lacking
in taste and refinement that they may even be carrying N*k*n or
C*n*n point-and-shoot things, and they and their noisome spawn
don?t deserve to be breathing air cleaner than that where they
have come from because, like the dirty beggars they are, they may
get to liking it and keep coming back and who knows what they
might...
Oh, wait a minute. That attitude is starting to sound familiar.
Guess it?s not just the rich late-comers who feel that way.
Sorry. Have to admit to feeling a bit too protective of my own
patch sometimes, but I haven?t shot any trespassers or passers by
lately. Of course, the day ain?t over yet.
Walt Wayman
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