Posted on 05/04/2008 9:29:25 AM PDT by jazusamo
I 'm with Joyce Kilmer -- "I think that I shall never see/ A poem lovely as a tree."
I'm even with city Commissioner Dan Saltzman, who recently waxed poetical before the Portland City Council on the "incredible" "show-stopping" trees growing in Portland. But before I could recall the last lines of Kilmer's poem -- "Poems are made by fools like me, / But only God can make a tree!" -- Saltzman went on to say something that's creepy and chilling:
"It sometimes pains me to think that we have no ability to control their destiny -- that a private landowner can take this tree down on a whim. So I think somewhere, woven into all this, is that we establish more of a notion that trees have rights, too, that trees have rights. And that's what we're looking at in terms of some of the enforcement policies that we're working on and the continued designation of more heritage trees for their protection where we have willing property owners but I do think we have to look where we don't have willing property owners . . . ."
Where to start here? Is it Saltzman's notion that "trees have rights, too"? Is it his obvious appetite to control the destiny of trees that their owners can take down on a whim? (Question: If trees have rights, too, how can Saltzman arrogate unto himself the control of their destiny?) Is it his condescending notion that Portlanders are too impulsive and arboreally insensitive to recognize the importance of the trees on their property? Is it his itch to use the force of law to bring "unwilling landowners" into line? Or is it the fact that this "trees are people, too" mumbo jumbo comes from the City Council's most measured member?
It's an odd calculus Saltzman has in store for us. The rights that Saltzman wants to give trees will come at the expense of the rights that Americans have long held, even in Portland: property rights that allow private landowners to tend to the trees, shrubs, grass and rocks on their piece of heaven.
Which reminds me: If trees have rights, on what philosophical grounds can we deny shrubs, bushes and rocks rights? They can be as "incredible" and "show-stopping" as a mighty oak, a towering elm or a broad maple. If you go in for extending rights to nonhumans, isn't Saltzman guilty a kind of speciesism?
Or some other "isms"? Lookism and ageism? After all, it's hard to believe that Saltzman wants each and every tree to have rights. It's likely that only gorgeous trees will get them. Or heritage trees that, as Saltzman said, "have been there long before us." But shouldn't plain or young trees have rights, too? At least in the moral universe of our Thomas Jefferson of trees?
Or maybe not. Here's the most unsettling aspect of the "trees have rights, too" talk: Saltzman would have sparked a real firestorm if he had dared to say that Portland's unborn children should have rights and protections, too. The ultimate ageism.
Alas, the devaluation of human beings and the elevation of trees and animals can be seen in the great California Sea Lion Pigout at Bonneville Dam. There, male sea lions gather near the dam's fish ladders to bulk up on salmon and steelhead. The brutes gobble up an estimated 16 percent to 20 percent of the five runs that return to the Columbia each year from February to May, according to government briefs. The government wants to take lethal measures against a limited number of California sea lions. But the Humane Society of the United States has gone to court to stop this, arguing that this action will cause emotional pain. Ridiculous.
Emotional pain? Tell that to the sport and commercial fishing communities and tribes that suffer while the sea lions stuff themselves.
It's not as if California sea lions are native to the area or dining in a habitat unruffled by man. They only arrived in 2002, and they're bellying up to man-made fish ladders that only they deem feeding troughs. Also, these Californians have ignored Gov. Tom McCall's words to visit Oregon but don't stay.
No wonder. According to the federal government, one Bonneville regular (C265) was captured on March 6, 2007. He weighed 559 pounds. He was released, and he returned to the dam. Captured, again, on May 21, 2007, he weighed in at 1,043 pounds. Homo sapiens: Don't try this at Hometown Buffet.
Emotional pain? If you're not worried about actual humans whose lives are affected by the sea lions' piggish ways -- if you think humans have no elevated place in creation -- then, at least, think of salmon and steelhead stocks that are "listed" under the Endangered Species Act. They're species, too. Shouldn't salmon and steelhead have rights, too?
Please notify me via FReepmail if you would like to be added to or taken off the Oregon Ping List.
Hmmmm - yeah!
It is what we have sadly come to expect from our city council members in Porn-land.
Even when they quit their posts, it is just others of the same ilk who step forward to replace them.
I recently received an email from a city council candidate in Portland - Ed McGarren. Sensing the same set of views, I wrote back and told him I did not really feel as if an election featuring a liberal Democrat versus an extremely liberal democrat versus a radical leftist environmentalist ...
offered me, the voter anything resembling a choice.
But Democrats {according to him} are always having to come in and clean up the mess Republicans have left behind.
Apparently, nobody has told him - Democrats have been running Oregon {into the ground} for the past 24 years plus.
the mess in Portland - the mess in Oregon
is on their heads alone
A.A.C.
It’s hard to imagine what has taken place in Portland, especially in the last few years with mayors, council members and police chiefs, I suppose it’s a reflection of Portland voters.
-ccm
Good point and I believe you’re correct.
It’s not as if California sea lions are native to the area or dining in a habitat unruffled by man.
They only arrived in 2002...?
When I lived in Carmel-By-The-Sea in Calif. - in the early 70’s - NO ONE could cut a tree down without the permission of the city - and they were required, if they got permission to cut, to replace the tree by planting a new one...
And in Washington state I believe the law regarding your property is that you can only build or otherwise impact 10% of it - the remaining 90% must remain 'pristine' = you get to pay for and pay the taxes on it - but you can't use it.
We really need to get rid of the liberal Marxists...
There was another incident that still tickles me when I think of it. I man, just down the road from Carmel, in Big Sur, built himself an ark. Basically, a house on supports...Nice big “ark” - and the town couldn't assess taxes as there was nothing current on the books to tax an ark...and they couldn't retro act one legally.
I'm keeping that in the back of my mind...didn't need a building permit either as there was nothing on the books requiring it for an ark...
Ingenuity - and "don't get mad, get even" by thinking outside the box. Liberals can't think independently, let alone outside the box. They can only operate on programmed information.
So rather than taking them head on, end run 'em.
Yep, I know this isn’t new, I’ve read about it in the past. The libtards are present most everywhere and if they get in office this is one of the things that all too often pop up.
Callers to Lars Larson have been complaining about different problems created by government. Lars asks them who they have voted for and when they say democrats he replies they need to change who they vote for. I have asked people the same thing for years. I hope people will wake up some day.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/2010698/posts
May is International Respect for Chickens Month (FOR GREAT JUSTICE AND DIGNITY, Uh-Huh)
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2010625/posts
The Silent Scream of the Asparagus: Get ready for ‘plant rights.’
Thanks for the links, AR. I read the chicken one yesterday but missed the asparagus, both of them are a hoot. These whack jobs are living in lala land. :-)
Hope this posts, everything is messed up here today.
Thanks for that; I was starting to think it was time to give my system another psychic enema.
Who is worse - them, or the rest of us for allowing the insane to continue to breed?
Trees and Sea Lions have rights.
Fishers, whose jobs depend on the salmon depend on the Salmon, and the fishers have no rights.
” According to the federal government, one Bonneville regular (C265) was captured on March 6, 2007. He weighed 559 pounds. He was released, and he returned to the dam. Captured, again, on May 21, 2007, he weighed in at 1,043 pounds!”
I posted last week, when confronted by a Fish and Game zealont while I’m fishing with a single legal salmon or steelhead barbless fly on the end of my line, I ask them how much salmon and steelhead does a 500 to 1000 pound Seal Lion need to eat to survive.
To calculate the salmon calories needed by this hog with fins to gain 500 pounds in 2.4 months, we would need a Krey Computer and advanced Calculus.
.....we would need a Krey Computer and advanced Calculus...
Purely arithmatic
From the net.... raw salmon 99 calories/3 oz portion
16/3= 5.33 servings per pound * 99 =527.7 calories /pound
527.7*500 pounds=283850 calories total gain
2,4 months 8 30 days = 70 days
28350/70= 4055 calories /day
Six sea lions shot near Bonneville Dam
Update
Previously: Washington and Oregon were authorized to trap and transfer some predatory sea lions below Bonneville Dam. What’s new: Six sea lions were illegally killed this weekend after they had climbed up into two open cages. What’s next: The trapping program is halted while the deaths are examined.
The Associated Press
A sea lion swims along the Columbia River, past Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife investigators on Sunday, May 4, 2008 at Bonneville Dam, just east of Portland, Ore. The deaths of six sea lions are under investigation after the bodies of the federally protected animals were found in open traps on the Columbia River and appeared to have been shot.
Monday, May 05, 2008
By TOM VOGT, Columbian staff writer
Officials are investigating the deaths of six sea lions who appear to have been shot Sunday after climbing onto traps in the Columbia River.
Wildlife officials said that the bodies of the sea lions were discovered at noon Sunday on two floating traps just below Bonneville Dam.
“In each of the two traps were three dead sea lions,” Brian Gorman, regional spokesman for the National Marine Fisheries Service, said. “There was one Stellar sea lion and two California sea lions in each trap.”
The sea lions appear to have been shot during the night by someone on the Washington side of the river, Gorman said.
“There was a great deal of blood in both traps,” he said by phone from Seattle. “The state patrols from Oregon and Washington are on the scene now, and they are treating the traps as a crime scene.”
Four traps were installed near Bonneville Dam in an attempt to protect endangered salmon.
The trapping program has been placed on hold until the investigation is finished.
The six dead sea lions had not been confined within the two traps, said Oregon wildlife official Rick Hargrave. The gates on all four traps were in the open position, and the six sea lions had clambered — or “hauled up” — onto the floating platforms.
Both species are federally protected. Washington and Oregon have been authorized to trap California sea lions, then relocate the most serious predators. More than 60 of the California sea lions have been branded as frequent offenders eligible for removal.
Wildlife agencies follow strict procedures for trapping the animals.
“We have trapping and transfer on Mondays and Thursdays,” Hargrave said by phone. “The traps have gates that are open all the time, until a marine mammal biologist checks the trap. If the animal is branded, we are authorized to transfer it.”
Only then is the gate closed and the animal trapped inside the cage.
Hargrave said the traps were placed in a restricted zone.
Most of the time, the sea lions have been treating the floating cages as a handy place to hang out.
“I’ve seen as many as nine sea lions on a trap at a time,” said Hargrave, spokesman for the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife.
On Sunday, the gates were closed to prevent other sea lions from becoming easy targets.
The investigation will include necropsies for all six animals. As far as evidence from witnesses or videotape surveillance goes, “There is none I’m aware of in either case,” Hargrave said.
Thanks for the calculations below. My problem is the calculation doesn’t get into its daily caloric requirement to stay alive, warm and able to swim and hunt for salmon.
Your calculation would apply to the seals who stay on the Docks and San Francisco and have someone from PETA throw them their daily salmon fix.
Purely arithmatic
From the net.... raw salmon 99 calories/3 oz portion
16/3= 5.33 servings per pound * 99 =527.7 calories /pound
527.7*500 pounds=283850 calories total gain
2,4 months 8 30 days = 70 days
28350/70= 4055 calories /day
Here's a step in that direction illustrating not only what can be found on the net but the extra time some of us have to do very little. I couldn't find a pollock to salmon equivalency
"Translating this into prey demands, we find that 20,000 reproductively active females on San Nicolas Island rookeries would maximally require 4,950 metric tons of Pacific whiting during a month of the breeding season."
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