the tree poisoner speaks

Often, when there is a public outcry against some horrible incident of mistreatment of animals, a number of cynics will chime in with statements of disbelief that people seem more angry about mistreatment of animals than mistreatment of humans.

Then you have an incident that goes yet another step further: the miscreant Alabama fan who poisoned the special oak trees under which rival Auburn fans like to celebrate. HERE HE IS, though he’s not quite admitting yet that he’s the one who did it. (He is also mortally ill, it sounds like.)

I’m not sure what to say about this. I can’t honestly claim that an oak tree is worth more than a human life, but at the same time, this story gave me chills in a way that a run-of-the-mill story about a shooting doesn’t. Why is that? I don’t have an immediate answer.

Sometimes it can go yet another step further and extend to non-living things. At one point in Iowa City, someone had sawed the head off the fiberglass brontosaurus at a Sinclair gas station. The public was aghast, and not over the property damage. Somehow, that fiberglass dinosaur seemed like an exotic semi-living creature, and cutting off its head seemed symbolically despicable in a way that’s hard to describe.

But speaking of the tree poisoning, it was really vicious.