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TODAY Friday 18 April 1997 by Conn Nugent

 

TODAY IN THE WORLD: Victims of Extremism

What this country needs is a better class of victim.

I was reminded of Nora Ephron's observation -- responding to the talk-show mutation of Linda Lovelace from porn queen to abused co-dependent -- when we learned last night some new details about innocent sufferers at the hands of radical environmental extremists.

You will recall the case of Bobby Unser, the NASCAR driver whose beef against the Forest Service I mentioned yesterday. Bobby complained -- to a House committee and every microphone on the Colorado Plateau -- about the fact and manner of his arrest in a wilderness area after a near-fatal snowmobile accident. Thanks to Sara Savitt at CLEAR, we get the new details that, previous to his mishap, Bobby had an arm-long record of driving his machine wherever his fancy led, with pungent remarks offered to anyone with effete ideas about enforcing wilderness regs. (I want Frances McDormand to play the part of the Forest Service ranger who comes upon the scene of the wreck.)

Anyway, now Bobby has become the poster boy of the "property rights" lobby, sounding the alarm that the Forest Service has been taken over by extreme environmentalists. We can only hope.

Another class of victim surfaced yesterday: poor, can't-make-a-buck, bothered-to-death-by-senseless-regulations real estate developers. When the Sierra Club issued a report that taxpayers provide an annual $7 billion subsidy to destroy wetlands -- farm payments, flood insurance, roadbuilding -- the National Association of Home Builders acted, well, kind of hurt. Developers are people, too, they noted, and shouldn't be criticized for allowing ordinary Americans to realize their dreams. Besides, it just wasn't right, the way the Sierra Club "used rhetoric about wetlands as a way to scare the public." Now that you put it that way...

How about the put-upon Corps of Engineers seeking exemptions from the Endangered Species Act? Or the little old industrial hog producers that Marty Strange writes about, wanting some federal financial support for having to clean up the mess they make?

Now let's remember that one person's wasteful subsidy is another person's sound infrastructure investment. Being a Tammany Democrat by lineage, I tend to like subsidies myself, particularly for national parks and large and inefficient public works programs. I just don't want subsidies to go for things I don't want, like 4000 square foot vacation houses on barrier beaches or manure lagoons or snowmobile rescue squads in wilderness areas. By all means let's duke it out about these things, but how about a moratorium on sensitive victimization claims as a prelude to the fistfight? Unless, of course, somebody gets to appear on Oprah, in which case I'll lend them some two-handkerchief stories I keep in the drawer here.

 

TODAY ON THE SITE

It's Day Three on this Website, and we're almost there in terms of everything working. Most bothersome of the not-yet working elements was the failure of our response buttons, the words at the bottom of the page that invited you to e-mail your comments. Well, try them today. We do want to hear from you.

And over the weekend, try playing with the High Fives. More than 50 of the Web-smartest enviros in the country tell you about, and link you to, the five Websites you should visit for an introductory course in their fields of expertise. Bounce from Automobiles (alternative) to Automobiles (sinful) to Wind Power to Land Use to Prostate Cancer. Make your own trip.

Back on Monday.

-- New York, 18 April 97 9:20

4/16: Coca-Cola and the Merrit Parkway
4/17: Our White Guy Problem