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Oct. 13, 2008

Rabbi Yonason Goldson: The Happiness Quotient

Jonathan Rosenblum: Ignore the Grandchildren

Oct. 10, 2008

Rabbi Abraham J. Twerski: The limitations of scientific miracles

Caroline B. Glick: Lebanon on the brink --- and why it matters

Oct. 8, 2008

Rabbi Berel Wein: The day when the sane talk to themselves

Ana Veciana-Suarez: Many nonobservant Jews are finding religion

Oct. 7, 2008

Gary Rosenblatt: Of politics and prayer

Caroline B. Glick: The ironies of the West's collusion with the Arabs and Iran

Oct. 6, 2008

Rabbi Yitzchok R. Rubin: Mamma to the masses

Jonathan Tobin: Ahmadinejad Isn't Too Impressed

Oct. 3, 2008

Rabbi A. Henach Leibowitz: The 'living dead' are all around us

Caroline B. Glick: Olmert's parting blows

Oct. 2, 2008

The Jewish Ethicist by Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir: Q: Often customers looking for our competitor accidentally enter our store. Can we just serve them without comment?

Jonathan Tobin: Jewish pundit quiz on next year's news

Sept. 29, 2008

Rabbi Eli Gewirtz: Lehman Brothers and the Day of Judgment

Rabbi Leiby Burnham: Apples, Honey and You

Sept. 26, 2008

Rabbi Yonason Goldson: The shofar and the Echo of Sinai

Caroline B. Glick: A road paved on reality

Sept. 24, 2008

Greg Crosby: Home for the Holy Days

Ethel G. Hofman: Rosh Hashanah Favorites: Old-fashioned taste, reduced calories

Sept. 23, 2008

Caroline Glick: Liberalism or lives!?

Michael Ledeen: Dear President Ahmadinejad

Sept. 22, 2008

The Jewish Ethicist by Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir: Q: I gave a check to a local merchant, but it hasn't been cashed in months. Probably they lost it. Do I have to tell them?

Diana West: We are losing Europe to Islam

Sept. 19, 2008

Rabbi Berel Wein: On harvesting success

Caroline B. Glick: It is time to act

Sept. 18, 2008

Rabbi Hillel Goldberg: Is camping the panacea to save Jewry from self-destruction?

Craig Gordon: Was SNL hilarity too much for Hillary?

Sept. 17, 2008

Jonathan Tobin: The Whole World Is Watching

The Kosher Gourmet By Linda Gassenheimer: East meets Southwest in this quick meal: MEXICAN-ASIAN TOSTADOS

Sept. 16, 2008

Frank J. Gaffney, Jr. : Into the fire

Everything's Relative : Your Official Jewish Guide to the 2008 USA Presidential Election

Sept. 15, 2008

The Jewish Ethicist by Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir: Enabling risky behavior

Diana West: A day that will live in ... accommodating Islam

Sept. 11, 2008

Rabbi Yonason Goldson: The skeleton in my closet

Rabbi Yechiel Eckstein: Persecution and systematic destruction of Christians in the Middle East must be stopped

Sept. 10, 2008

Jonathan Tobin: There's Something About Sarah

The Kosher Gourmet by Kathy Manweiler: Who needs Chili's when you have these? Recipes for Mexican that taste great and are dietetic! Our commitment to freedom

Sept. 9, 2008

Daniel Pipes: Must counterinsurgency wars fail?

Frank J. Gaffney, Jr.:

Sept. 8, 2008

The Jewish Ethicist by Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir: How far must one go to help somebody out of a contract?

Barry Rubin: Waiting For Something

Sept. 8, 2008

The Jewish Ethicist by Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir : How far must one go to help somebody out of a contract?

Barry Rubin: Waiting For Something

March 22, 2007

J-Rhythms with Avraham Rosenblum: JWR's cutting-edge music program showcasing performers -- singers, song writers, musicians, and bands -- who learn and live the Torah lifestyle (OUR NEWEST IGODCAST !)

Oct. 29, 2003
Mortimer B. Zuckerman: Graffiti On History's Walls (MUST-READ!)

Jewish World Review June 26, 2008 / 23 Sivan 5768

Tracing the Roots of Environmentalism

By Bob Tyrrell


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http://www.JewishWorldReview.com | SARLAT, France — I have journeyed to the south of France to continue my research into the earliest ancestors of America's present-day political exotics. The American scene abounds with bizarre creatures: feminists, militant advocates of identity politics, environmentalist wackos (as Rush Limbaugh's millions call them). I came here to investigate the life of the 12th-century troubadour Bertran de Born, as early an intellectual precursor to the environmentalist wackos as I have discovered yet.


First, however, you will want me to declare where exactly I am. Well, I am in the valley of the Dordogne River in south central France, an area where huge medieval castles sprout out of mountaintops and give the lovely verdant valley a feel of genuine medieval fantasy, somewhat like Disneyland. The locals seem friendly, betraying none of the odious anti-Americanism that I had been led to anticipate. But then possibly, they perceive me as a serious professorial type. My queries are always very learned, about the folkways and mores of the 12th century and the life of de Born and his knightly pals.


They lived in these very castles and spent most of their time singing romantic songs (after all, that is what troubadours were supposed to do) and killing each other. They also killed as many farmers and merchants as they could spot — at least, de Born did. Today's wackos are equally argumentative, though in place of romantic song, they compose bumper stickers about rain forests and whales and so forth. Old Bertran, if he were alive today, would be on their side. From what I can tell, he would be particularly irritated by one of the wackos' most intense concerns: the automobile. Bertran favored horses, usually war horses.


Back in the 12th century, when there was very little pollution and no hygiene to speak of, Bertran spent most of his time composing songs and engaged in violent altercations. Things were changing in the valley, and he doubted that any of the change was for the good.


The specific sources of his concern were farmlands and the spread of farmlands, villages and the spread of villages, and commerce in all its primitive forms. If you have listened to the rants of today's wackos with care, you will recognize that this 12th-century troubadour's initial concerns remain their concerns, though our wackos have acquired many more.


From his castle high atop a mountain, he looked down into the valley, saw the hated farmers chopping down his beloved forests, and sent out his warriors to suppress them — the bloodier the better. (One cannot but be impressed by the instruments of torture preserved in the museums in these parts.) I have yet to estimate the number of villages that spread throughout this valley during the 12th century, but from the historical accounts I have read, whenever a handful of merchants, artisans and perhaps a priest or palm reader got together to set up a village and engage in the transport and marketing of local goods, Bertran would react as furiously against them as he did against the farmers.


Bertran de Born, like his fellow nobles, had a romantic sense of the forest and the hunt. They would ride their horses into these darkened cathedrals of trees and hunt or make love or compose their idiotic songs. Their knowledge of the environment was defective, possibly even more defective than our wackos' environmental knowledge is. Certainly, I would like to think that our wackos have a better grasp of today's environment and its needs, for they have a lot of power in our society, and if they are as ignorant as Bertran, we are in trouble.


Given Bertran's love of hunting, his brutal efforts to preserve the forests were actually counterproductive. The boars and deer and lesser creatures that attracted his venatic enthusiasm were much reduced in numbers because of his early efforts against farmlands. The simple fact is that wildlife does not thrive in the darkness of the forest, but on the edges of the forest where there is more to eat. The small animals eat the vegetation; larger animals eat the smaller animals; and the largest eat just about everything. If Bertran had left the farmers and the villagers alone, he would have had an abundance of targets for his primitive weapons. Moreover, the farmers would have provided him with a more balanced diet and would have provided the villagers with warm socks.


I urge you to think of Bertran de Born's energetic initiatives against farmlands and villages the next time you hear an environmentalist wacko harangue about carbon initiatives and global warming. The fact is that we have not had much global warming for a decade, and what we had before that, during the last quarter of the 20th century, was often good for the crops — certainly in these parts.

Every weekday JewishWorldReview.com publishes what many in the media and Washington consider "must-reading". Sign up for the daily JWR update. It's free. Just click here.

JWR contributor Bob Tyrrell is editor in chief of The American Spectator. Comment by clicking here.

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