Did you see the story in the New York Times last week about a German forest ranger who wrote about the social connections between trees?

"These trees are friends," he said, craning his neck to look at the leafless crowns, black against a gray sky. "You see how the thick branches point away from each other? That's so they don't block their buddy's light."

Before moving on to an elderly beech to show how trees, like people, wrinkle as they age, he added, "Sometimes, pairs like this are so interconnected at the roots that when one tree dies, the other one dies, too."

His book has apparently created a sensation.

I suspect it's akin to the ongoing debate about whether animals have emotions.

Some say no, and then there are those of us who wonder how it could ever come into question.