Alien Invasion Damn immigrants! A

Alien Invasion

Damn immigrants! A new Asian (Russia?) bug, the Emerald Ash Borer has been found in SE Michigan. It kills all varieties of Ash �with surprising aggressiveness�. This is very bad news. Ash easily constitute one out of every three street trees planted around here. Only Honey Locust and Norway Maple are as prevalent. In parking lots, too, it is one of only a couple trees commonly planted, Red Maple being the only tree as heavily planted. If Ash go out the way the American Elm did, it will devastate this region. The only good that can possibly come out of it is that more uncommon trees may come into use. American Basswood for streets and Hackberry for parking lots are two I’d like to see used more. But I’m not holding my breath that even this will make people come around. A friend who works at the MDA told me MSU is tentatively recommending Honey Locust as replacements. Good, then there’ll only be two trees completely dominating the landscape. Sheesh. There is just no substitute for diversified plantings, and while this pest is striking a native, natives are still the best choice for restablishing some stability in our local ecosystems. Those interested in native plants can try the Wild Ones for a great first start.

About this entry

You’re currently reading “Alien Invasion Damn immigrants! A,” an entry on Bin Gregory Productions

Published:: 08.05.02 / 6am

Category:: Land

Briefly

Anwar Ibrahim and the Opposition: Malaysian Seeks End to Decades of Firm Rule - a pretty decent roundup of political developments in Malaysia, from the New York Times.

The Spiritual Aspirant: Sidi Khalil Moore will be in Singapore conducting a workshop for The Spiritual Aspirant, to be held 27 June to 5 July. I had the pleasure to hear Sidi Khalil speak in Detroit back in 2002 in conjunction with the US tour of Habib Ali Al-Jifri. I regret I won't be able to make the short trip across the South China Sea to attend, but I recommend it to anyone in the area. The workshop is being sponsored by Simply Islam, under the capable hands of some of the fine people who put on the Journey to Ihsan event a couple years ago, which I did attend and enjoyed immensely.

Collapse Preparedness: The transition from the USSR to the republic of Russia was a catastrophic event for the people who lived through it. The eventual (imminent?) collapse of the US will be much much worse, warns Dmitry Orlov. The USA has a Collapse Gap. Orlov realizes

that some people will react rather badly to having their country compared to the USSR. I would like to assure you that the Soviet people would have reacted similarly, had the United States collapsed first. Feelings aside, here are two 20th century superpowers, who wanted more or less the same things – things like technological progress, economic growth, full employment, and world domination – but they disagreed about the methods. And they obtained similar results – each had a good run, intimidated the whole planet, and kept the other scared. Each eventually went bankrupt.

Valuable lessons on what to expect and how to prepare follow. Read it yourself, but the condensed advice is this: Live on the margins of society. One encouraging sign that Americans are picking up the skills they will need to survive: haggling at the mall.