Tree-huggers’ tactics don’t make the cut

What’s become of protest?

Pardon me for agitating like an aging child of the ‘60s. But in my day, people took to the streets over real issues, like civil rights and the Vietnam War.

Compare that to this bellyaching on Spokane’s affluent South Hill.

We’ve got latte-day activists tying yellow ribbons and lighting candles over 22 trees the city plans to remove along a stretch of Bernard.

Have you folks checked your heating bills lately?

The Avista robbers make the James Gang look like amateurs. We need every stick of firewood we can get.

Besides, the city has good reasons to defoliate this stretch of Bernard.

First off, the trees are in the way of a coming 15-block makeover.

When it boils down to renovating Spokane streets or saving a few trees, well …

Gentlemen, start your chain saws.

Second, many of these trees are storm-damaged. They’re goners. Tree surgeons have placed a “do not resuscitate” order on them. We need to let the trees go. It’s the humane thing to do.

The trees apparently disagree with this diagnosis.

I took a drive down Death Grove on Wednesday and saw “Help Save Us,” signs affixed to some of the trunks.

Wow. Who knew trees could write?

I, however, sensed a different message. What I heard our terminal trees saying was:

“Take us. We’ve been whizzed on by every mutt in the city. Besides, you can always plant more.”

And what’s with the yellow ribbons?

Hello? Does the name Tony freaking Orlando ring a bell?

What do we tie a yellow ribbon around?

The “ole oak tree.” These are maples and elms, according to my information.

Furthermore, the official Tony Orlando Web site states: “The yellow ribbon has welcomed home POWs from Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam, the hostages from Iran and the troops from Desert Storm.”

It doesn’t say a thing about saving trees or protecting property values.

Our area is percolating with so many legitimate protest-worthy causes.

The city just made massive cuts in funding human services. Those cuts trouble me a lot more than tree cutting.

Or how about this: “Nearly 10 percent of the female students surveyed at Washington State University reported they had been victims of attempted rape,” reported an Associated Press story.

Let’s light candles to acknowledge the victims behind that shocking statistic.

And my blood pressure spiked Wednesday morning while reading that “homicide suspect Joseph Duncan may be blogging from his Coeur d’Alene jail cell with the help of an anonymous correspondent.”

Compared to all of the above, Bernard logging is a splinter in a saw mill.

Give Spokane Mayor Dennis Hession credit for not wilting.

“We certainly appreciate all the input we’ve received from neighbors and other citizens, but in the long run, this is the right decision,” he said in a news story.

You go, Big D!

Hession should show Spokane what a strong mayor looks like by cutting down the first tree – with an ax.

Wouldn’t you just love to see him out there in his navy-blue suit, white shirt and red power tie, swinging away like a buttoned-down Paul Bunyan?

Timberrrrrr …

But, hey, I’m a reasonable guy. I could change my mind on all this if I see some real sacrifice.

Show me a South Hiller who’s willing to chain his Lexus to a doomed maple. Show me a Nordstrom shopper who’ll make a home up in one of the elms the way environmentalist Julia Butterfly Hill did in that 1,000-year-old redwood.

So lift your voices, you misguided members of the Bernard Bark (But No Bite) Brigade.

“All we are saaaaying, is give trees a chance …”