Smith: So close to Easter, it’s just cruel

Too bad.

On Sunday, vandals climbed to the big, white cross on an east Santa Rosa hillside and partially dismantled it.

All of the whitewashed stones on the left side of the crossbar and a good many on the right were plucked up and rolled down the slope.

It’s the latest sortie in a potentially dangerous clash over the 127-foot-tall cross, erected more than 30 years ago by Christian combat veteran Arvo Kannisto, who’s now nearly 97.

He had the landowner’s permission to create the cross in tribute to fallen soldiers and to Jesus Christ. Each year as Easter approached, he’d trudge up to kill weeds growing between the rocks or splash on a fresh coat of paint.

The past several years, Kannisto has been forbidden to go onto the land to maintain the cross. Last summer, one group of trespassers disassembled much of it, then a second gathered up the displaced rocks and set them back in place.

Many people love that “t,” regardless of their faith. Many others detest it as a religious symbol forced upon them or a scar on a lovely hillside.

But nobody but the landowner has any business hiking up either to attack or defend a symbol that was long a man’s labor of love and now should simply fade into the landscape.

SMOKIN’ ON STAGE: Comic Dave Chappelle blew ‘em away in four sold-out shows at the Wells Fargo Center last weekend.

He also blew cigarette smoke, something you don’t see much since the days of the Rat Pack and George Burns.

Lighting up during performances is habitual for Chappelle, and occasionally he’s called on it. His puffing at a show in Toronto a few years back brought a reprimand from public health officers and a reminder that there are no exemptions to that city’s no-smoking ordinance.

Though smoking inside the Wells Fargo Center is prohibited both by the arts venue and by Sonoma County ordinance, evidently no one forced the issue at the Santa Rosa performances. A spokesman for the center said Monday there’s an exemption in California law for smoking as a part of a theatrical production.

That exemption appears to apply to on-stage smoking that’s “an integral part of the story.” Would Chappelle’s schtick be substantively less funny without the cigarettes?

It’s not the biggest of deals, of course it’s not. But laws and regulations, especially ones that safeguard public health and safety, shouldn’t be waived for people possibly inclined to view themselves as special.

AGE OF KIDNEYS: Dee Schilling read of a Santa Rosa man’s plea for a donated kidney and she had to pipe up.

The Sebastopol attorney said folks should know that while it’s recommended that a kidney donor be 65 or younger, that’s not set in stone.

Schilling recalls that she was 67 when she gave one of her kidneys to a local man, Carlos Rivera, who was in dire need. That was in 2008.

“It’s almost seven years later and he’s doing well, and I’m doing well,” she said.

Count Schilling among those who’ll be happy if Art Kane, who came down with kidney disease after a career in human-service nonprofits, finds a suitable donor.

“There’s an awful lot of extra kidneys out there,” she said.

Chris Smith is at 521-5211 and chris.smith@pressdemocrat.com. On Twitter @CJSPD.