The Mountain of Shame

A few weeks ago Chaos was performing almost-daily ablutions to the God of Exercise, this time on a bicycle, and when rounding a corner came face to face with a large mountain of dead trees, seemingly three or four stories high, in the middle of a field. As amazing as this was, and as a symbol of the local environmental destruction, it was small potatoes for what happened next: someone set it on fire, and it will burn by itself for quite a long time (a year or more) if not extinguished, which of course will cost quite a lot of money (hence the reluctance of various state and local officials to get involved). Much has been made in the local media about "health hazards" of the said burning, but nothing mentioned about what an embarrassing symbol of willfully ignorant environmental disaster this is. The sickening irony is almost perfect: not only do the effects of the destruction of the ground cover (for enabling the building of unsustainable suburban sprawl)linger for years, but the detritus actually further contributes to air pollution. As a further totem of the cluelessness of the local population, this is fine beyond measure. Chaos wishes to have the wit to make this stuff up, but unfortunately, reality is much more bizarre than imagination.