Nobody here cares. I care.

It seems Mother Nature's mood swings now reach further extremes than are 'normal.' For some reason I doubt it is menopause in her.

The normal everyday functions of nature are not necessarily without violence, and that always seems to be a mystery to New Yorkers in general and the press in particular. Only the last paragraph in the article referenced seemed to recognize this:

I want to put a positive note on that. A park is always evolving, that’s the nature of the park. We’ll get another generation of trees ready to come on, the park does evolve.

While it is sad to hear of Eastern elms going down, at least no one, apparently, was injured or killed. In OR, trees are homicidal:
http://www.oregonlive.com/news/index.ssf/2009/08/forest_service_worker_fatally.html

The number of fatalities attributable to falling trees in OR is sufficient to raise questions about the actual agenda of the quasi-religious Friends of Trees.