Word: tree
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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Every year the capitol Government of the great state of Wisconsin arranges for what-is-now-known-as a Holiday Tree, which rises up from the floor into the great empty space below the dome. The tree is remarkably ugly. Not originally of course; it was clearly, when in the buff in stark Wisconsin nature, a fine pine of northern stock; but they had taken this poor tree and given it a cosmopolitan makeover which completely concealed the fact that 'twas ever a nat'ral-born tree, free and proud...
...felt bad, for the old people who had spent months sewing beautiful lace snowflakes for the tree. The lace flakes were totally invisible behind the saccharine-thick tinsel and the yellow light-bulbs which were crusting their smarmy way up the tree. That tree, with nothing but those lovely white-knitted snowflakes among its branches, green and huge, would have been beautiful. Clearly my employees, my Govern-Ment, was doing a lousey job; some Christmas Bulbs'n'Tinsel business was winning out over the Old People, and I meant to kick some beauracratic butt. "Lobbying," or "white collar terrorism...
...lying. I was standing there looking at the tree, with my chair beside me, when this guy with a microphone comes up shakes my hand tells me his name tells me his station name and asks if I'm a demonstrator (no commas, 'cause no pauses, just a soundbite-rush of Media Attention...
...course, some people are naturally conservative; they avoid taking a position whenever possible. They just don't believe in going out on a limb when they don't know the genus of the tree. For these people, the vague generality must be partially junked and replaced by the artful equivocation, or the art of talking around the point...
Cattle ranchers and environmentalists are usually as much at odds as the Hatfields and the McCoys. Yet in America's West, everyone from cowboys to tree huggers is suddenly joining forces against a common foe: the Pentagon. The Defense Department is seeking to add 4.6 million acres of wilderness to the 25 million acres of public land reserved for such military uses as war games and bombing ranges. Claiming a need for more space to create realistic battle simulations, the military covets parcels in eight states, including California, Nevada and Montana...