Pinheads,

    First of all, let's get the terms straight.  Logs are round, timbers are
square.  If they are salvaging hewn logs then they are timbers.  This would
imply that the purveyors of such goods are tearing down historic structures
or at least trafficking in the spoils of such an operation.  While they are
often just keeping these ancient structures from falling to the blade or the
flame of the developer, they are just as often scouring the countryside
looking for a specific victim.  The owners of these buildings have often
given up the maintenance because of short term cost or the perception that
the buildings are not adapted to modern usage as well as a steel or pole barn
structure.  The irony is that the buildings will die just as surely from the
sin of neglect as from that of demolition.

    As for the log salvagers out there.  They truly are some of the most
perverse tree-huggers known to man.  They market the salvaged logs-often
mined or dredged from river and lake bottoms-as an environmentally friendly
alternative to the evil pursuit of logging.  I will grant that logging is not
the kindest thing to do to Mother Earth, but consider the environmental
Pandora's box thrown open by yanking logs up out of silted river bottoms.
Agitating the silt at the bottom of a lake or river is perhaps the surest way
to destroy the marine ecosystem-especially if that ecosystem is recovering
from environmental pollution from chemical or industrial contaminants.
Whether 'tis better to cut down a majestic tree and tear up the thin topsoil
to get it to a location where it can be sawn into user-friendly pieces or
fuck up a marine ecosystem to bring up a majestic tree which someone else cut
a hundred years ago and screwed up the ecosystem with while trying
unsuccessfully to transport it?

David J. Dauerty