A split like that tends to happen when the weight of the bough and it's thick end branches become too much for the trunk that grew it. Heavy rainfall helps this too.
I think that the smaller branch, which was above, broke and fell on the larger piece, breaking it. I've had a lot of work done on this tree in the past five or so years. It shades the south face of the house, so I hate to lose it, but it's a stupid Norway maple, so I guess I'm lucky to have had 25+ years with it (I've lived in this house more than 25 years). Probably going to plant a native red oak on the other side. They grow pretty fast.
It broke in half almost a month ago. Tree Guy has been having equipment troubles, and the weather has been too wet.
This is what it looked like when it came down, for no reason that I can figure. I'm going to keep the unbroken half for a year probably, but it'll have to come down too.
A split like that tends to happen when the weight of the bough and it's thick end branches become too much for the trunk that grew it. Heavy rainfall helps this too.
It broke in half almost a month ago. Tree Guy has been having equipment troubles, and the weather has been too wet.
This is what it looked like when it came down, for no reason that I can figure. I'm going to keep the unbroken half for a year probably, but it'll have to come down too.
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In light of todayâs news, I thought I would try to take a step back and provide perspective on what this is really all about.
I first became concerned about @Harvard when 34 Harvard student organizations, early on the morning of October 8th before Israel had taken any military actions in Gaza, came out publicly in support of Hamas, a globally recognized terrorist organization, holding Israel âsolely responsibleâ for Hamasâ barbaric and heinous acts.
How could this be? I wondered.
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I came to learn that the root cause of antisemitism at Harvard was an ideology that had been promulgated on campus, an oppressor/oppressed framework, that provided the intellectual bulwark behind the protests, helping to generate anti-Israel and anti-Jewish hate speech and harassment.
Then I did more research. The more I learned, the more concerned I became, and the more ignorant I realized I had been about DEI, a powerful movement that has not only pervaded Harvard, but the educational system at large. I came to understand that Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion was not what I had naively thought these words meant.
I have always believed that diversity is an important feature of a successful organization, but by diversity I mean diversity in its broadest form: diversity of viewpoints, politics, ethnicity, race, age, religion, experience, socioeconomic background, sexual identity, gender, oneâs upbringing, and more.
What I learned, however, was that DEI was not about diversity in its purest form, but rather DEI was a political advocacy movement on behalf of certain groups that are deemed oppressed under DEIâs own methodology.
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Martin Luther Kingâs most famous words are instructive:
âI have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.â
But here we are in 2024, being asked and in some cases required to use skin color to effect outcomes in admissions (recently deemed illegal by the Supreme Court), in business (likely illegal yet it happens nonetheless) and in government (also I believe in most cases to be illegal, except apparently in government contracting), rather than the content of oneâs character. As such, a meritocracy is an anathema to the DEI movement. DEI is inherently a racist and illegal movement in its implementation even if it purports to work on behalf of the so-called oppressed.
And DEIâs definition of oppressed is fundamentally flawed.
Edit: Ackman's article is now available via Bari Weiss' outlet - The Free Press:
A lot (snicker) of nice space back there. 
