Re: You can\'t make anything foolproof,
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Please don't call the fool an arsonist. Arsonists are skilled individuals who intentionally destroy things via fire for profit or personal gain.
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Thank you for a very interesting semantic segue. To flesh out my answer, I'll refer you to a page from Wikipedia on
Arson.
There we find arsonists in a number of different categories and definitions. In English common law, arson required the malicious burning of a dwelling, and your observation included intentional burning for profit or personal gain. The early legal mutterings did not include acting intentionally, but did require damage by burning. The damage by fire also had to include the presence of a person and his establishment of ownership. I was surprised to find that arson didn’t exist with my own property, since it was my right back then to destroy my own property if I wished. (Who hasn’t been touched by those dumb moments of doing things they regretted.)
I don’t live in an Aristotelian world; things for me aren’t “either-or” and “black and white”. I’m very comfortable in shades of gray, apparent contradictions, and discovering some things in the past weren’t absolutely true.
For me, Sara Barnes, 26, was a fool, became an arsonist, and returned as a fool caught by her own stupidities and arrogance. If I give her the benefit of her claim that she started the fire innocently, she still videotaped it without calling 911, and later distributed the video to friends
Sarah is a fool by any definition; she is an indicted fool; and soon to be punished fool. Mark Twain was right on target in that she is in one of the endless fools stretching on past the horizons in a million areas. Hers is an individual stupidity against the backdrop of leveraged tragedies in a lust for profits regardless of the effects on our interconnected dependencies. How is destroying a venerable tree any different from sliding a mountain top in the Valley of the stream to get at the coal?
I think they all suck. And some here will absolutely agree, until it bumps into the conflicts with their own self-interests. I’m old enough to know this all will continue and I am at best a squeaky voice who’d like to make a difference. Trying to stay ethical is a difficult business for anyone.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arson
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Stepping beyond the tragedy of a single tree, and writing in a forum on trees, the Senator was hollow, so Wall 4 had done its work there, but that historic tree had no evolutionary anticipation and defense against Wall Fool.
Bob Wulkowicz
