Dear Editor
Why is it common with some people to call a slough, a marsh, or a treed area, wasteland?
When untouched wildlife and/or pasture land is sliced, diced and mutilated it is called "developed." Wouldn't the correct word be "destroyed?"
Groucho Marx said it, "You've improved it worse." But the ugly, new raw roads into the "development," now that is wasteland, for they will soon be edged with weeds.
When signs go up along a field of wheat proclaiming "Prime Land for Development." it could be said it had already been developed - to grow food. Isn't the growing of food real development?
Land around a boom town (or a smoke and mirrors boom) is said to have gone up in value. Isn't land always of great value? It just goes up or down in price. When it goes unrealistically high, artificially high, it is almost impossible for food producers to purchase enough to make a comfortable living, unless they are among those who keep acquiring more and more land almost as a hobby.
The latest words are "entitlement" or "it's all about me." How true.
Christine Pike,
Waseca
