feds—as usual—are doing something stupid

(i know this is from well outside of our neighborhood, but i just had to make a comment.)

i was just reading this month's hill rag, and i saw in the ANC reports section (see page 49) that the architect of the capitol has let the local citizens know that elm trees, well on their way to maturity, are to be cut down. and for what reason—everyone say it with me now—security.

yeah, apparently "federal mandate" has said that our soon-to-be state-tree, the security bollard, must be planted all along second street NE in 4 foot increments. the trees that are already there gotta go! can't have mature trees in this town, we gotta have security.

now, i'm no dummy. i realize that, even with a new sheriff in town, the bureaucrats who run things are not going to change the way they do business. we gotta secure the living crap outta things, common sense be damned. honestly, the maturing trees that are there would do a pretty good job of impersonating bollards if what you're looking for is keeping cars, trucks, etc., from driving into the side of a building. if you must have a denser field of bollards, add them to the spaces between the trees already there.

now, i know that someone with a degree in bollardology is going to tell me that just won't cut it. baloney. sure, a truck moving at 70 mph would probably be able to drive through such a barrier, but how in the hell could anything build up the speed necessary to do such a thing in a narrow space like second street?

look, AOC, get creative. find a way to make this work without pulling out the trees. we can see you've already done this once down the block. check out the image below:


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if you look at the street level image, you can see there are a few twiggy saplings on the east side of second street alongside the supreme court building. but, in the satellite imagery (taken from 2002), you can see that there were much larger trees there—ripped out in the name of security, the religion that we've been told to worship at the altar of during the last seven years.

you have a chance to not just follow the book to the letter, AOC. get creative. we can have our security cake and eat it too. don't take down maturing elms out of fear.