The Trees Are All Right

By TIMOTHY EGAN
NYT

In most of the American West, the trees are not the right height, which may frighten Mitt Romney, and some of them are so old as to challenge the biblical view of creation that Rick Santorum wants taught in schools.

The tallest trees in the world, the coast redwoods of northern California, grow to 378 feet — more than half the size of Seattle’s Space Needle. The oldest trees in the world, bristlecone pines that cling to hard ground in Nevada’s Great Basin, can live for up to 5,000 years.

The saguaro cactus, with its droopy, anthropomorphic limbs, is the signature tree of the Southwest, though some say it is not technically a tree. And the western red cedar, armored in bark that Indians made into waterproof clothing, is a symbol of the Northwest.

This arbor tutorial is prompted by the slack-jawed ignorance of the last Republicans standing in the bad-idea-fest that is their party primary. Every week, it seems, the conveyor belt of craziness serves up another archaic idea from the people who want to represent a party that claims at least 40 percent of the electorate.

(More here.)