Peace has been declared in the two-decade-old timber war over some of Northern California's great redwoods. Two tree-sitters who had spent nearly a year living high in a pair of Humboldt County giants named Grandma and Spooner came down last week, and they were the last among years of protesters to do so.

New owners took over Pacific Lumber Co., which had been the target of protests for aggressive cutting of redwoods. Now renamed Humboldt Redwood Co., the company has promised to spare any redwood born prior to 1800 with a diameter of at least 4 feet.

That vow helped end a dispute with environmental zealots that over the years featured a car bomb blast, pepper spraying of protesters and the death of one activist from a tree felled by an enraged logger.

Are we to admire such tenacity on the part of those fighting to save these great trees of the West, or merely shake our heads and consider them lunatics?

We could wonder the same about someone else living in the sky last week. That was New York magician David Blaine, who spent most of 60 hours suspended in the air, upside down, high in Central Park. His primary purpose seems to be personal fame, however, rather than some broader societal goal.

The Morning File is relieved that the redwoods will be fine but gets its figurative drawers more singed about issues closer to home, like the radioactive trash that is piling up all around us.

An Associated Press story published in this paper last week noted that ever since July 1, when South Carolina cut off other states' use of its radioactive waste landfill, low-level nuclear waste has nowhere to go. Contaminated tubes and pellets and capsules are being stockpiled in closets and basements of hospitals and research labs until someone figures out what to do with them -- which might be never.

Should we all be worried about a prankster dropping a bunch of this material on our front porch, ringing the doorbell and running behind a hedge to watch our reaction and laugh? It seems plausible enough that we can imagine our children -- like the young Alvy Singer in "Annie Hall" -- questioning the point of doing their homework. "We're just going to be drowned by radioactive material anyway," they'll say, "not to mention chemotherapeutic infectious waste" (a term they think would be cool for a rock band ever since seeing it on the back of a truck recently).

It may seem like we're overreacting to a threat with just a slim chance of actually harming us, but we're no different from security officials at the Philadelphia Phillies' ballpark.

They found three small duct-taped packages outside the ballpark last week, hours before a game. They evacuated the stadium and called in the local bomb squad. The packages were blown up. That's when authorities realized they were hot dogs, left behind the day before from those shot high into the seats by the Phillie Phanatic mascot, using a launcher between innings.

"We did the right thing," said Michael Stiles, Phillies senior vice president. "We could have gone over and picked it up and thrown it in the trash and been done with it. But if we had been wrong, someone might have lost an arm."

Back to protesting, we should mention that People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals is one of our favorite activist groups because it tends to use scantily clad women -- in cages, no less -- to draw attention to causes. So yes, men, you can stand around pretending to support some do-gooder movement when you're actually ogling and fantasizing.

But PETA can be a little bit wacky, like its poster child, starlet Pamela Anderson. The AP reports that PETA approached Ben & Jerry's last week with a proposal to use breast milk in its ice cream products instead of cow's milk. Supposedly, that would reduce the suffering of cows and calves employed in the milking industry and create a healthier product.

"We're aware this idea is somewhat absurd, and that putting it into practice is a stretch," said PETA campaign coordinator Ashley Byrne. "At the same time, it's pretty absurd for us to be drinking the milk of cows."

Hmmm, yes, pretty nutty, this whole milk-drinking orgy we've been on for centuries. It doesn't appear we're on the verge of altering it, however, just for the sake of reliving those early days at our mother's bosom. A Ben & Jerry's spokesman wrote to the AP, "We believe a mother's milk is best used for her child."

You may feel free to end the column here with your own breast milk joke involving Pam Anderson.