During this morning’s walk in Mt. Hope Cemetery in Roslindale, I saw that the burl thieves are at it again, in a similarly pointless manner.   This time the victim was a maple tree, but the result was the same:   The would-be thieves left the burl behind when they realized that it was shot through with carpenter ant tunnels.   In this case, they had screwed in tree steps to aid in their vandalism, further damaging the tree.   A recent article in the New York Times reports on the apotheosis of this activity; the local manifestations haven’t risen to this level of desecration yet, but it’s still a disappointing thing to see at 6:30 on a Monday morning.