"McMansions...r not green"

It wasn't a Talking Heads show going down this morning in Woodinville, Washington, outside Seattle; the Earth Liberation Front (ELF) was literally burning down the house. Houses, actually, or suburban estates, to be more accurate — three of them, retailing for about $2 million each, in a development called "Street of Dreams." The empty homes were apparently targeted because of their supposed sustainable-building designs, despite their ridiculously extravagant proportions. Thus, the ELF sign left behind: "McMansions in RCDs [rural cluster developments] r not green."

Over at Slog, Erica C. Barnett, of the Stranger, has pointed out most of the things that piss me off about this incident: the houses' construction, their "green" creds, and the arson.

But I also feel compelled to wonder how setting three vacant houses on fire is "domestic terrorism," which is, predictably, how the FBI is classifying the crime. The Christian Science Monitor is running with the headline: "Ecoterror resurfaces with Seattle arsons." Is anyone really "terrified" by this?

One of the better articles on the debate, over the tactics and crusade of ELF, appeared in Orion magazine, in its Jan/Feb 2007 issue. It's titled "Green Rage," by Matt Rasmussen.