sorry!
It has recently come to my attention that I have not added anything to this site for a considerable amount of time, and for that I wish to appologize... so, sorry. Of course we've all been busy with the last month of festivities, feasts but with my completion of course work for my degree, trying to work as much as possible while I still had a job, christmas travel and visits, new years celebrations, hockey games, and looking for and finding a new job, the last month has indeed been busier than most... however, I know how much the four of you love reading these little rants, so I'll try not to let another delay of such magnitude lapse again!
Right, so the reason I ultimately did stick myself back in front of the computer to rant and rave is yet again from the pages a local-ish newspaper, The Vancouver Sun. As I was travelling back to Victoria from Vancouver after a fantastic hockey game, I came across a special section in the Sun which was dedicated to the Jewel of Vancouver: Stanley Park. As many of you may know, the We(s)t Coast has been subject to some pretty impressive lashings from mother nature in the last couple months, the latest severe one occuring in mid-December. During this bashing caused by the bunching of barometric bars, poor Stanley Park was mugged, beaten and robbed of its majestic beauty, so say the Vancouverites quoted in the Sun... Granted, a shwack of shrubberies of all sizes were shoved to the ground changing the landscape of the park considerably, but to have several 'mourners' show up to the park and 'shed a tear for the trees' is down-right silly. I understand that many Vancouverites while away countless hours doing laps of the sea-wall incessantly complimenting the aesthetic beauty of their city, and have perhaps over the course of many-a year doing so have grown somewhat attached to certain land mark trees, but they're TREES!!! How many of these same mourners still with damp kleenex in hand went home and cried more still while they cut a fallen tree (in which their children and grandchildren spent hundreds of summer days) out of their living room? NONE. Any one who was unlucky enough to face a task like that or something similar dampened their hankies with sweat NOT TEARS while cursing the very branches their sweet little children played on year after year because those branches had to tried to gain carnal knowledge of their new toyota's leather seats, via the windshield with a little help from mother nature....
Now I hear that 100s of 1000s of dollars have been DONATED by the general public and private businesses to help with the clean up and restoration efforts. Does it not strike anyone but me as a little bass-ackwards that Vancouverites have an atrocious poverty problem but getting any funding for support programs is like pulling teeth from an angry crocodile, but a few trees fall down and people start vomitting money like it was spoiled shellfish!?!?! Trees are thought to be 'unique' and 'ancient' and 'mystic', but they're not. They all look the same and do the same stuff, most of the trees around Vancouver are at most 80 years old, and any 6th grade science text book (that's if you can find one in some of our under funded schools) can tell you what makes trees tick. So I guess what I'm getting at is while the wind may have knocked down some trees in the Park, it also knocked over trees near (now on/in) people's homes, cars and businesses, so to all those 'mourners' out on the sea-wall: get over yourselves and save your tears for something worth crying about...
Right, so the reason I ultimately did stick myself back in front of the computer to rant and rave is yet again from the pages a local-ish newspaper, The Vancouver Sun. As I was travelling back to Victoria from Vancouver after a fantastic hockey game, I came across a special section in the Sun which was dedicated to the Jewel of Vancouver: Stanley Park. As many of you may know, the We(s)t Coast has been subject to some pretty impressive lashings from mother nature in the last couple months, the latest severe one occuring in mid-December. During this bashing caused by the bunching of barometric bars, poor Stanley Park was mugged, beaten and robbed of its majestic beauty, so say the Vancouverites quoted in the Sun... Granted, a shwack of shrubberies of all sizes were shoved to the ground changing the landscape of the park considerably, but to have several 'mourners' show up to the park and 'shed a tear for the trees' is down-right silly. I understand that many Vancouverites while away countless hours doing laps of the sea-wall incessantly complimenting the aesthetic beauty of their city, and have perhaps over the course of many-a year doing so have grown somewhat attached to certain land mark trees, but they're TREES!!! How many of these same mourners still with damp kleenex in hand went home and cried more still while they cut a fallen tree (in which their children and grandchildren spent hundreds of summer days) out of their living room? NONE. Any one who was unlucky enough to face a task like that or something similar dampened their hankies with sweat NOT TEARS while cursing the very branches their sweet little children played on year after year because those branches had to tried to gain carnal knowledge of their new toyota's leather seats, via the windshield with a little help from mother nature....
Now I hear that 100s of 1000s of dollars have been DONATED by the general public and private businesses to help with the clean up and restoration efforts. Does it not strike anyone but me as a little bass-ackwards that Vancouverites have an atrocious poverty problem but getting any funding for support programs is like pulling teeth from an angry crocodile, but a few trees fall down and people start vomitting money like it was spoiled shellfish!?!?! Trees are thought to be 'unique' and 'ancient' and 'mystic', but they're not. They all look the same and do the same stuff, most of the trees around Vancouver are at most 80 years old, and any 6th grade science text book (that's if you can find one in some of our under funded schools) can tell you what makes trees tick. So I guess what I'm getting at is while the wind may have knocked down some trees in the Park, it also knocked over trees near (now on/in) people's homes, cars and businesses, so to all those 'mourners' out on the sea-wall: get over yourselves and save your tears for something worth crying about...
posted by kalen at 7:47 PM
2 Comments:
Wait - four people actually read this blog?
So what you're implying is: when society has a choice where to spend it's money admit several competing demands, the environment should be pushed aside?
That attitude is why we need parks and other green spaces.
Yes other priorities are important - but so is the environment. Land in Bangkok and take a deep breath and you'll know why.
thanks grtdad,
you've hit the nail on the head. This has nothing to do with not caring about the environment, it has everything to do with knowing enough about the environment that a bunch of fallen trees won't stop it... I'm not saying log the park, I'm saying the park will regrow, plants have a knack of doing that in sub-tropical rainforests often whether we like it or not. What will not regrow without help is the healthy spirit of the downtown east side. The push of this post was that despite these facts, vancouverites choose to hurl boat loads of money at the cause that doesn't really need it, and is actually the least detrimental to the quality of life in Vancouver.
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