To borrow the summary from the highly recommended Arts & Letters Daily: “The British love their trees, but across the land beautiful old trees are being chopped down in their thousands. The reason? Safety rules and hungry lawyers… ” (Michael McCarthy, “Green giants: Our love affair with trees”, Independent (U.K.), Apr. 25). Earlier: Dec. 3, 2006, etc. More: Scott Greenfield says don’t blame the lawyers, blame the towns and other authorities for overreacting.
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I THINK that I shall never see
A poem lovely as a tree.
A tree whose hungry mouth is prest
Against the sweet earth’s flowing breast;
A tree that looks at God all day,
And lifts her leafy arms to pray;
A tree that may in summer wear
A nest of robins in her hair;
Upon whose bosom snow has lain;
Who intimately lives with rain.
Poems are made by fools like me,
But only God can make a tree.
Somewhat off topic, I still remember the comment made by my freshman English professor. He said that the one positive result of World War I was when Joyce Kilmer was killed. I do believe he didn’t think Joyce Kilmer was a great poet.
“There are no London barristers in their bespoke suits cutting down trees. There are London politicians cutting down trees.”
Uh, would they – as in the US – perhaps be largely barristers? And if not, surely they consult such when writing laws? And in this particular case, was the equivalent of ‘Parks and Recreation’ not consultated?
OK, forget the consulting parts above – we ARE talking about politicians, after all.