The forests got along perfectly well for millions of years before we got here, with and without forest fires. And they will get along for millions of years after we're gone—provided we don't mow them all down and pave them over while we're here.

I've seen, out on the Olympic Peninsula and in other places in Washington and Oregon, what the timber companies do when given free rein. It's enough to make you sick. Large areas of the Olympic Peninsula, once covered by lush rain forest, look as if they have been attacked by some monumental form of mange. Mile after square mile of tree stumps and slash. And all that debris left on the ground (limbs stripped off and left there, because all the timber companies want are the trunks for logs) is dead and dry—and that, folks, rather that reducing the probability of forest fires, makes very good kindling, which can and does ignite and move into the as yet uncut forest—and towns and resorts. That is the timber companies' idea of "forest management!" Bush talks about allowing the timber companies to "manage the forests" by "clearing the underbrush and taking out a few selected trees." I know the trees the timber companies want. The huge old-growth giants that stand in the few patches of preserved forest that, so far, have been protected by all that "needless red tape and lawsuits" sponsored by a few self-proclaimed "environmentalist groups." that gargoyle hates so much. The timber companies have their own tree farms on their own land, but they're not satisfied with that. The most valuable (profitable) trees—the ones with the densest wood and straightest grain—are the few remaining old-growth trees that, so far, stand unmolested in the National Parks.

And as far as creating jobs is concerned, within recent years many sawmills out on the Olympic Peninsula have had to close, laying off their employees, because the timber harvested in the area is not being sent to the mills that have traditionally done the work, it's being sold overseas, to Japan. And now, I believe, to China. More profit for the timber companies. So much for our forest products needs! Very American, don't you think, DougR? And commercial and sport fishing (commercial fishing was once a major industry in this area, and sport fishing used to be a major tourist attraction) has had to be sharply curtailed because the North Pacific salmon are dying off. Lots of people blame the fishermen for over-fishing; the fishermen blame the loggers. Both are to blame. Within my memory, at spawning time the rivers and creeks were teeming with salmon: so many that one would have thought that this resource could never possibly run out. Not so any longer. The run-off from the logged off and eroding hills and mountains has silted up the rivers and creeks, making it impossible for the salmon to spawn there. Just in sheer numbers, there's no way hatchery salmon and salmon farms can make up for the loss of the wild salmon. But then, who cares about a stupid fish? I do, and quite selfishly. A salmon steak, that used to be the center of an inexpensive but delicious meal, now costs mega-bucks. When you can get them. Lots of different kinds of food are getting more expensive. And salmon is only one of the species affected.

It has been said that "a politician thinks of the next election. A statesman thinks of the next generation." Who, I wonder, thinks of the generations beyond that? The end of humankind will come, not by nuclear holocaust, nor by some astronomical cataclysm, nor by some naturally occurring plague. We will starve because we have squandered our natural resources, we will strangle on our own pollution, we will sicken with plagues of our own manufacture, and we will drown in our own offal. Why? Because we manage to keep elect (by hook or by crook) politicians who have the mentality of a weasel and who pander to that coterie of rapacious businessmen whose only concern is the Almighty Quarterly Report.

Don Firth