From: Judy Seigel (jseigel@panix.com)
Date: 04/16/02-02:48:54 PM Z
On Tue, 16 Apr 2002, shannon stoney wrote:
> ... However, if all the trees were
> gone, human life would not continue for very long at all, and if it
Shannon,
Ahem.
How do you get from let's not sentimentalize trees as subjects of art,
which was the context, to getting all trees gone?
If I said "let's not sentimentalize" (choose one or more) marriage,
babies, breakfast, motherhood, Easter, love's first kiss (I saw Shrek last
night), wine growing, back to nature, the new math, baking bread, college
days, alt photography -- whatever, would you contradict me by proving
how important, say, babies, are?
Would you assume I don't know that? So why the ecology lesson? Why the
assumption that somehow I ignore or don't know the botany and physics you
cite? These factors are truisms, if not cliches. (Which of course was my
point about trees in art -- the cliche factor.)
> .... Trees do
> sometimes have to be harvested, because they are in a place where we
> need soil and light or if we need them for firewood or building
> material. But it seems really, really wasteful to cut down ancient
> trees to make patio furniture or newspapers.)
Again, you leap to the absurd. Who on this list wanted to cut down ancient
trees to make patio furniture or newspapers? (Is this the real you, or too
much Jed Perl -- ??? That's his style.)
Not to mention that, as I understand it, our daily media are printed on
purpose grown trees -- often in Canada.
(So let's hear it for Canada.)
Meanwhile, somewhere in there I think you said we could live better
without all media than trees. Perhaps in the sense that life might not
exist without trees, assuming sentimentalizing trees is the only way to
preserve them (tho other forms might have evolved to take their place),
but the life you would lead would be nasty brutish and short, to coin a
phrase.
Since the "Fourth Estate," that is the press, NEWSPAPERS (made of wood
for now) and their ilk, are what have given you the freedom to .... um,
say these (fill in the blank} ------ things, in fact to learn to read and
write. I'm not a historian, but I do remember the story of the French
Revolution, and for that matter the Alien and Sedition acts in the US...
which are relatively recent. The press was vital in resisting tyranny...
Without it you would be living, at best, a primitive existence. And OK,
let's not sentimentalize primitive existence. You wouldn't like it.
I don't recall quite all the way back to the Magna Carta, I get a bit dim
as a senior citizen, but, maybe they had petitions -- the media for that
time.
I myself live without most modern media, that is never TV and about 1
movie a decade, but the fact that they exist, serves whatever purpose
you want... either to make you stupid or make you smart.
Your choice...
Judy
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