the rix mix

Today is an environmental Blog Action Day, & I seem to recall signing up for it somewhere. I ranted on overdevelopment last Friday. My 2004 post on little Lake Owassa is an appreciation of an older New Jersey that hadn't even interested me much. Most of the Sunday postcards are reminders of what we have lost, usually views & locations that are idyllic only to those who know Jersey. We'reall aware of small convenient ways to reduce our carbon imprint. We know we should buy Jersey produce. Before environmentalists there were conservationists. In Jersey, most of our opportunities for action come as the latter. The coalitions that saved The Great Swamp & the core of the Pine Barrens, stopped the Tocks Island Dam project on the Delaware, & prevented a bridge-tunnel linking Cape May to Delaware* were conservative movements in the best sense, preservationist & progressive. Namby (Not-in-my-backyard) local activists, environmentalists, legal experts, birdwatchers, nature lovers, & a few enlightened politicians working together. But those were causes of immense & visible importance. Preserving individual farms & wooded tracts attracts less attention yet is just as complicated a process. The Jersey shore is destroyed property by property now, rarely so through the wholesale ruination of marsh & beachfront. But if a bungalow is replaced by a McMansion, a mom & pop store sells out to absentee owners who rip down the clapboard building, a two-floor motel replaced by ten stories of condos, that's usually a bad environmental tradeoff.

More fun to hear about than Blog Action Day: American Airlines, Citibank & dozens of other advertisers bought space in a 16 page religion-oriented, pro-gay supplement included in Sunday's Dallas Morning News. Bet that ruined a lot of breakfasts. Did you know Dallas has a church with one of America's largest predominantly LGBT congregations?

*This catastrophic conception bubbled up again recently as a suggestion that the unprofitable Delaware Bay ferry service is seriously inhibiting Atlantic coast traffic flow & commerce, & hurting Atlantic City business. But it's still an outrageous multi-billion dollar scam.