A time I wanted to give up!

I am under no illusion as to what we are up against as a species. A couple of weeks ago, the American Natural Gas company, Kinder Morgan, decided to obliterate the wildlife trail opposite my house. They sent an e-mail to the the Maintenance Committee of our Co-op. Get this - "vegetation maintenance" they called it. A brief, innocuous missive that made it sound like they were merely lopping the heads off of the dandelions!
It was double-speak for we are gonna clear-cut the fuck out of your neighbourhood.
To ramp up the pace of this prose, a protest group was duly formed, to stall the chopping and grinding. Et voilà, so our hillside is silent for now. The heavy equipment has disappeared. But then so has the majority of the cottonwood and the maple trees...
Last week I was talking to a neighbour. He claps me on the shoulder and says, "It is good what they have done the other side of the road, isn't it?"
"Eh?" I am dumbfounded.
"That they have chopped the trees down. Got rid of the forest. My teenage daughter likes it. She says she feels safer when she is standing at the bus stop. Not so shadowy. Like, there are no bushes that people can hide in. You know, like rapists, weirdoes...."
Make no mistake. This is what we are up against. We decimate a forest so we can expel the phantasmagoric images misplaced in a youngsters' mind. All the local fauna is shell-shocked - the squirrels, raccoons, and owls - but it is okay because a 15 year old feels safer (in a overly benign neighbourhood.)