The collective crazies

We got an email from a member of the lake community about our most recent dredging of the forebay. The writer called to our attention, aside from a concern that the job had not been completed (it had) the fact that there was a noose in the lake "which could get caught around the neck of a turtle" as well as a couple of metal poles from the now removed check dam. There is a distinctly alarmist, "oh my god" quality to the whole thing: "we've been ripped off! The turtles will die". Despite the fact that in the 60-odd acres of lake and surrounding wetland there are perhaps thousands of similar naturally occurring things (vines, etc) turtles could get their necks caught on, but they don't.

The underlying tone is that we (the management, humanity) are evil and conspiring to destroy the community and nature with our inattention. Slightly histrionic.

We are all there right now, with the ambient hysteria about the coronavirus, racism, masks, etc. It's pretty exhausting. Thank god for comedy.