Selling a Forest to Save a Bush

We spent yesterday on a winter woods walk at the North Carolina Arboretum near Asheville, a relatively new public garden that is a gem of the species and within two hours driving time of our present location. Walking in the woods with a retired forester, learning to tell a scarlet oak from a white oak without benefit of leaves, the topic of the day naturally came up: the Bush administration's proposal to sell off hundreds of thousands of acres of our national forests to help offset Bush's out-of-control budget deficits.

Someone in the group said ruefully, "Yeah, sell a forest to pay a bill, and what do you have left? Nothing?"

The proposed sell-off of national forests ought to be as hot a topic as turning over our East Coast ports to the United Arab Emirates. But you get one guess only where Madame Virginia Foxx stands on this issue ... the Queen of Privatization.

But you should write her sorry self anyway. Though she won't listen to you, she still ought to know that there are people out here who disagree with this dismantlement of our cultural and natural heritage.

And visit the N.C. Arboretum!

UPDATE: Gov. "No Show" Says He Hearts Trees ... Mike Easley said yesterday at the National Governors' Conference in D.C. that he "doesn't like" Bush's plan to sell off some 10,000 acres of National Forest land in N.C.