It’s pretty hard to make two-by-fours out of a standing tree, after all.

Recently a land trust on the Olympic Peninsula “sold” the carbon stored in its trees, and in exchange agreed not to cut those trees.

A non-profit financial institution bought the carbon to offset its carbon dioxide emissions for the next three years.

The basic concept here is valid. Trees do absorb carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas.

What’s fallacious is the notion that only untouched forests sequester carbon.

And I mean “at it” in the theoretical rather than the literal sense.

It’s as if the bird, having recognized that the person wearing the vest with a recoil patch is about as malignant as a kangaroo rat, is curious to see how wildly astray the next wad of pellets will fly.

This is, of course, a dangerous habit for a chukar to indulge in.

The odds are good that the next hunter who comes along will pose a rather more immediate threat.

Actually the odds are better than that — 100 percent, not to put too fine a point on it.

In my hands a 12-gauge is not so much a weapon as it is a noisemaker that litters lead.

Although I suppose I could inflict grievous wounds on a bird by clubbing it with the shotgun’s butt, if only the bird would sit still for a moment and let me get my feet set.

Less than two days from now the government will intrude even further into our lives.

Finally.

Oregon’s ban on using a handheld cell phone while driving takes effect Friday.

We don’t doubt this law will save lives.

But that’s not, per se, the reason we endorse it.

Oregon laws that require motorcyclists to wear helmets, and car drivers and passengers to wear seat belts, save lives, too.

Baker City never seems to me quite so old as it does around Christmas.

I mean this in a good way.

With rare exceptions such as fine wine, advanced age is associated with an inexorable deterioration in utility, vigor and appearance, whether the object is animate or not.

Both cars and people, for instance, tend to accumulate sludge in their circulatory systems as their mileage rises. This comparison doesn’t hold up, of course — you can sometimes cure a balky fuel injector by simply pouring a bottle of additive into your gas tank; fixing a clogged artery is a rather more ticklish task, and not one you’d be wise to tackle with that tool set you got at Sears for 59 bucks.

Anyway, the sense of age I’m talking about, as regards our city, is more clearly expressed with a different analogy.

The notion I’m getting at is akin to the way the face of an elderly person can attain a peculiar beauty, when its wrinkles are clearly the brands left by a lifetime of smiles. The sight pleases our hearts as much as our eyes; we feel the welcome weight of many decades of love and laughter, and bask in their kind warmth.

Christmas is near and we have snow, which is as it should be.

It is in the main old snow, though, and rather threadbare.

The beauty of newfallen snow is of course ephemeral. This is especially so in the cities, even modestly sized ones like our own, where it is quickly shoveled and plowed and pounded to slush by passing tires.

Few sights seem to us as sad as a mound of grimy snow piled at the far corner of a parking lot.

That scene could serve as a symbol for 2009.

It has been a difficult year for our country and our state and our county.

Unemployment statistics say we have locally weathered the recession better than many other parts of Oregon and the nation.

Which is not to say we have been immune.

I must confess: I overdosed on peanut brittle.

Again.

Well, actually, I prefer almond brittle, and even then I seek out the shards without any nuts.

And when you’re the one pulling the molten candy across a greased surface, it’s easy to “make” these nutless pieces.

I blame my aunts, Betty Braswell and Evie Plankinton, for my addiction to this wonderful sweet.

The recipe, smudged with years and years of candy-making, came from Aunt Evie. Aunt Betty was the one who decided peanut (and almond) brittle would make a wonderful addition to the holiday baskets she delivers to family and friends.

Near as we can figure, it was 17 years ago that we — my cousin, Emily,  Aunt Betty’s friend Connie Howerton and me — first spent a few hours pulling brittle.

Let me explain the process, for those of you who have never made this candy.

When you have a problem with credit cards, the simplest solution involves a strong wrist and a sharp pair of scissors.

We’re not advocating quite such a drastic measure for the Baker School District’s collection of plastic.

But we agree with the district’s financial auditor that the district should, at least temporarily, stop allowing employees to use credit cards even for valid school-related purchases.

Here’s why:

Even after being admonished by a different auditor two years ago, some district employees have continued to use credit cards without turning in receipts or otherwise documenting that their purchases were appropriate.

“You have a policy, but it’s not being consistently applied,” the district’s current auditor, Robert Armstrong of John Day, told the school board last week.

It’s important to point out that the auditor’s findings fall well short of a scandal.

The accountants found no evidence that anyone committed fraud.

Problem is, the lack of receipts or other documentation can make it pretty hard for auditors to figure out whether a purchase was authorized.

Protest the road closures

To the editor:

The 4,200 miles that the Forest Service is proposing to close in the Wallowa-Whitman forest is the distance to Washington, D.C., and approximately halfway back. How many billions of dollars do you suppose it cost to build this 4,200 miles of road in the forest? Which most have crushed gravel, etc. And now how many millions will it cost to close these roads? How many hundreds of miles has the Forest Service already closed, without any public input, illegally?

To build these roads, in most cases, the Forest Service gave away a big percentage of the price they should have got out of the timber to the timber industry for building these roads.