They’re still burning in Orange County, San Bernardino County (Slide Fire) and San Diego, so this may be premature but being me, I’m going to jump in anyway with some random, scattered thoughts.

FEMA: I’m not a reporter, but I play one on TV
I mentioned in my earlier post that FEMA appeared to be using the fires to trumpet how they’ve improved since Hurricane Katrina.  I’m not sure how they thought staging a press conference with FEMA employees posing as reporters asking questions was evidence of change.  What mystifies me is this:  Why didn’t they just do a video or whatever answering what they thought would be frequently-asked questions and slap it up on YouTube or their web site or send it to the press?  How stupid do you have to be to go to all the trouble to PRETEND your news is important enough to have a press conference?  What kind of confidence should we put in this agency when they don’t take us seriously enough to just be straightforward about something as simple as disseminating information?  To me it proves the point I made earlier: their goal was to use our California disaster to vindicate themselves of the Katrina disaster.  It didn’t work.

San Diego: It takes taxpayers to fund a fire department
I’m not sure how much of the sound and fury about resources hit the national airwaves, but there were some very angry people in San Diego and Orange County.  Up in Ventura County, not so much, possibly because the conditions were different here and air support was used from dawn Sunday until the fires were fully contained, particularly in Malibu.  It could also be this:  We fund our fire departments fully and make sure they have the equipment to fight wildfires, which is not so much the case down in the San Diego area.  Joel Sax has a great post up about what happens when taxpayers make firefighting a priority.  It is unfathomable to me that after 2003 San Diego wouldn’t approve whatever tax was necessary to beef up firefighting resources.

The backstory:
The El Toro Marine Base is adjacent to the city of San Diego and in past times, the National Guard and military resources were easily available to assist with firefighting when needed.  That’s not the case now (and wasn’t in 2003).  LA Times columnist Steve Lopez responds to a comment on RedState.com that firm Republican leadership made the difference in San Diego (at least with respect to the government response), calling New Orleans “a city on the dole.”:

Republicans are better at evacuations than Democrats. This seems to be particularly true when the Republicans in question can flee down the highway in Yukons while Democrats wait for buses trapped under water.

“We’ve evacuated more people than were evacuated in Katrina,” San Diego County Sheriff Bill Kolender said Wednesday.

Not only was that ridiculously untrue, but one might argue the evacuations in the San Diego area were made necessary by a lack of firefighting personnel and equipment in a region that shuns taxes and happily sticks outside agencies with the tab when the bill comes due.

Talk about being on the dole.

I’m not sure I’m willing to go so far as to call San Diego a ‘city on the dole’ (and I don’t think of New Orleans that way either, BTW), but at the same time, opting to cheap out on firefighting resources when so many of the residents live in fire country and there has been such rapid development seems…well…selfish.  Selfish on the part of the city leadership, who should have INSISTED upon it after the near-misses and direct hits of 2003.

Adding insult to injury:
During President Bush’s photo op in San Diego yesterday, he just couldn’t resist making the comparison to Katrina. Only this time, he laid the blame at the doorstep of Kathleen Blanco, Louisiana’s governor by taking just a moment to say this about The Governator:

Bush returned the praise for his fellow Republican. “It makes a significant difference when you have somebody in the statehouse willing to take the lead,” he said.

There’s only one problem: Bush is suffering from head-up-the-ass syndrome once again, because as I and many others pointed out over two years ago, Blanco saw what was coming and requested assistance one full day ahead of Katrina, predicting that a storm of that magnitude would cause the levees to fail and result in a major disaster.  I am rarely a sage or clairvoyant in political matters, but Bush is so obvious in his grandstanding that even I could predict his response.  Here’s what I wrote in 2005:

I admit to the thought that racism and indifference to poverty had something to do with the slow Washington wake-up. I wonder — would the response have been different if Beverly Hills had been wiped out, Century City turned into a putrid parking lot for every bacteria on the planet and the LA Coliseum opened to refugees?

So, it was the Qualcomm stadium and not the LA Coliseum, Malibu and not Beverly Hills,  but you see…the response was predictable, just as his backhanded slap at Blanco was.  That remark was nothing more than a petty, chickenshit partisan smackdown, and proves my previous point about The Governator’s ability to gain an audience where Blanco could not.

Californians, corporations and charities act with compassion.
Donna at SoCal Mom has a nice roundup of resources and help available from private and corporate donors to help fire victims.  A special shoutout to goes fellow Julie Group member Randy Abrams of ESET, too.  ESET has been active in the area helping and is warning victims not to get burned twice by charity scammers. Read it and pass it on to anyone you know who has been affected by the fires.

On whether global warming is a factor:
I’m not smart enough to know as a fact one way or the other.  However, this weather and the ensuing fires were not an anomaly, nor were they unexpected.  In fact, the reason they are burning as hot and wild as they are is because these areas have not seen major wildfires in the past 20+ years.  In my years of living in Southern California, I have definitely seen bad, bad fire seasons, all the way back to my childhood when my home was surrounded by fire on all sides.  Had my mother not climbed up on the roof with the garden hose to defend the house, it may well have burned.  When you live in a canyon covered in chaparral, fire is always something to be concerned about.  The areas that burned are fire-hazard areas, and the odds were not in the favor of homeowners.  Whether or not the force of the winds were stronger as a result of global warming remains to be seen, but I wouldn’t necessarily jump to any kind of agreement that it was any kind of a factor in this event.  Let the scientists figure it out rather than speculating.

The lighter and better side of disasters:
There were some funny moments and posts out there.  Donna’s question about “how to evacuate a goldfish” made me giggle.  The twitterings (including my own) were very helpful, proving that one of the main reasons to be on Twitter is for times like these.  Shelley Powers’ wildly ironic report of Riots in the Valley, and my internal knee-jerk reaction to it before realizing what she was doing gave me a moment or two of self-deprecating laughter.  The self-congratulation of the blogosphere on the success of Web 2.0 in a disaster (link courtesy of Mathew), as well as their short attention span as PageRank tanked and Leopard pounced upon the scene — even more fun.

Your comments mean more than you know…
Beyond all of these wanderings and far closer to home have been the wonderful messages left here on the blog wishing us safety and clearer air (and times) ahead.  As blase’ as I may appear about this whole thing, I am utterly aware that living in this state means living with the knowledge that everything can be gone tomorrow, and I am so grateful that this time around the worst meant bad air, wheezy breathing, and ash and dust everywhere and yet you all took the time to shout out and send good wishes and prayers.  Thank you for that.

Blogged with Flock

Tags: SoCal, wildfires, Katrina, New Orleans, Bush, global warming, twitter, web2.0, fires

Maryam Scoble deserves a month’s vacation after spending over 24 hours in labor to birth this beautiful 9-pound boy. I had the good fortune to meet Maryam at the 2006 Blogher conference and can’t even imagine that sweet, gracious, soft-spoken woman having to wrestle with this big beautiful boy. But she did, and it’s all there on Robert’s Twitter stream for anyone who wanted to follow it.

Thomas Hawk went to the hospital today and took a set of some of the most beautiful photos I’ve seen of a newborn. The one above was one of my favorites because he captured so perfectly the instant bond between father and son, the protective gentleness with which he holds his baby boy and quiets him. It’s a beautiful scene. Thomas writes:

The world is rough. I hate that so many babies are born in this world into tough situations. Which is why it gives me such joy when I see babies born into loving stable families who will nurture them and give them every advantage in life that all babies deserve. Milan is one of those babies. He comes into this world with two great loving parents, a proud older brother Patrick, and lots and lots and lots of other friends and family who will love him and help nurture him as he grows. This afternoon was a very happy one for me.

His photos and post, along with the memory walk I took with DG earlier this week down Technology Lane got me to thinking about the world my kids were born into, and how radically it’s changed since.

On December 8, 1980, 2 months or so before the Eldest was born, I wrote this in my journal:

It’s dark now and what a day! John Lennon was shot and killed today…an institution of my childhood…and so senselessly too. Ronald Reagan was elected President last month — he will be President for your first four years of life. Russia is preparing to invade Poland and Iran is still holding 50 of our people as hostages. The ransom is death and their leader is a sick old man.

The week after he was born, I wrote about the wonder of seeing the first Space Shuttle launch and speculated on what it might mean for his future. I had high, high hopes.

August 24, 1989 was Sticks’ birthday. I made a note (but didn’t have time to write like I did with the first one…), that Voyager 2 was sending back amazing photos of Neptune and Triton, and wondered what kind of difference learning about our universe would have on all of us and what wonders he’d get to see in his lifetime. The world seemed more peaceful that year — there were certainly international tensions, but nothing to the scale of the Iran hostage crisis of the Eldest’s time. We seemed to have passed to a quieter, less turbulent era. Yet, I also remember sitting with Sticks less than two months later watching TV and seeing all the damage from the Loma Prieta earthquake right in front of me. We were living in Northridge at the time and were guiltily grateful that the ‘big quake’ had happened up North. One year later, Iraq invaded Kuwait.

March 2, 1994 was DG’s entry into the world. Just 45 days before, the Northridge quake had devastated the San Fernando Valley and areas beyond. We had moved to Camarillo just four months before that quake, but still owned our townhouse in Northridge. I remember thinking that DG had been pretty well shaken, not stirred by that little event. It was strong here, too, and actually did more damage. DG’s day in the world began with the David Koresh/Branch Davidian cult standoff in Waco. By midyear, the OJ Simpson case was the news of the day and I had jumped into the world of online communities to learn about the law and how it worked in criminal cases. At the time I was researching my own family whodunit (who really murdered my grandfather in LA in 1971?) and was fascinated by the process. I never got the answers to my questions, but I was forever changed by the experience of being online, learning and exchanging ideas about things legal.

I live in a world moving faster than I comprehend, with amazing advances in technology juxtaposed against incredible steps backward in human interaction. I live in a world where we live in communities at peace in a nation at war, deeply divided. Yet, when I stop to think about the things that unite us all, like hoping for our children’s future, wanting to protect them, wanting to create a safe place for them, hope rises. Seeing Milan nestled so securely in his father’s big protective hands, I can’t help but think that if we could focus on what we want to give these children of our generation — the gifts of our talents, our knowledge, our passions — we will leave them with high hopes for the future, too.

To Maryam, Robert, Patrick, and your extended families, congratulations. Your boy is beautiful. I know you have high, high hopes for him.

Technorati Tags: milan scoble, scoble, scobleizer, reflections, thomas hawk

Photos by Thomas Hawk

Do you ever feel like everything is spinning so fast that you’re stuck to the wall with no possibility of moving until it slows down? That’s me for the past week or so. So here are some fast random things that I wanted to say better but don’t want to forget or not blog while I’m stuck to the wall.

• Thank you, Shelley. I’m flattered.
• A new post on the political blog, which sucked up the last unstuck brain cell.
• Should it ever be too late to stop the execution of an quite-possibly innocent man? Evidently not, because he has received a 90-day stay of execution after a clemency hearing. Kudos to the State Board of Pardons and Paroles for stating that they would not allow an execution to proceed until its members are convinced that there is no doubt as to the guilt of the accused. The only thing better would be the abolition of the death penalty entirely.
• Oops! A closet racist ‘just slipped out‘…there are so many like this — thinking with this attitude every day, whether it ’slips out’ or not. It’s scarily pervasive. Will we ever overcome the need to view ourselves in terms of race, color or gender?

Enough for tonight. Here’s hoping for a little less ’sticky’ and a little more coherent thought.

Originally uploaded by maneeacc

The problem with reading the same stuff all the time is that it’s … the same stuff. And right now it’s all iPhone, all the time. I’m sick of reading about it, about the apps, about how pretty it is and how all self-respecting geeks must have one. So I’ve been on the lookout for some cool new blogs to read. And I’ve found some, thanks to Flickr and the 2000 Bloggers project.

Maneeacc (Nafis Azad) is a college student who has been a Flickr contact for awhile — probably a year or so. He’s a “people photographer” — but he also takes pics of musicians which is probably how we originally connected on Flickr. Anyway, he’s doing something that I would have loved to do (and still would). He and 15 others climbed aboard a big yellow bus yesterday and are taking a road trip of the US. Along the way they will be raising money for the Leukemia and Lymphoma society. Their blog is here and the Flickr set is here. They’ve had their bus stall a couple of times already, so I hope they make it all the way without too much trouble. (News Article)

Last year I joined the 2000 Bloggers project, which I thought was very cool and which Technorati viewed as gaming the ranking system. I would agree with them if I hadn’t actually found some very, very cool blogs as a result of the project. The latest find is Vanessa Unplugged. Vanessa is another 2K Blogger from Florida. After reading one page of her blog I was hooked, because she’s a thinker and she has a story to tell. I subscribed — I love her writing and her thinking.

What about you all? Any recommendations? Leave a comment with a link so I can update my blogroll, my subscription list and my mind.

Thank you for shedding the stigma, thank you for being brave enough to step out and tell us what that disease behind door number three is. All too often it seems that we rely upon the celebrity confessionals for our impressions and understanding of the disorders that dog our mental health, like bipolar disorder. But today you stepped out from behind the curtain and called it what it is and revealed yourself to anyone who reads, or cares to read.

But mostly, thank you for finding the resolve to stay alive even in the face of overwhelming darkness — the fire, the depression, the nightmares, the ’seeing’.

You say,

But if the choice is, woo, approval of people I’d sneer at on the street (or in high school), or “I got help and I’m alive, thanks.” Which do you think I’d pick? That I’d pick any day of the week? Because nothing stops me from making comics and sharing them, and nothing is stopping me from doing my part to normalize a misunderstood disease by saying,

“It’s not just you. Remember, the sick people are the ones who don’t get help.”

I say, right on, sister. If the comic folks are smart, they’ll pay you a heckuva lot of money to write a comic based on your experiences, your truth.

Here’s a shout-out to all of the thoughtful people who have visited my post about Britney Spears and the possibility that bipolar disorder is at the bottom of her behavior: Come and support Lea. Read what she writes, because she drew her curtain away for you, and for those you love.

Technorati Tags: bipolar disorder, health and wellness, blogs, lea hernandez

Lea Hernandez lost her home, pets and most of her art to a fire in September. Fortunately her family was physically spared, and their home was insured, but Lea makes her living with her art. The fire left the family with medical bills for the emotional fallout (which has been very difficult for Lea and her daughter in particular).

Lea is a very talented comic creator, and some of her friends are auctioning some treasures on Ebay to help defray her expenses. If you’re a Star Wars fan, you might want to have a look at the double-sided theater teaser poster from Episode 1: The Phantom Menace, signed by Samuel L. Jackson up for auction now.

All proceeds are being donated to help Lea get back on her feet. Her home is nearly rebuilt, but much of her art is gone forever, and she will be at the process of rebuilding her life for a long, long time to come. If you are a collector or just want to help Lea, consider bidding on some of the one of a kind items there.

Technorati Tags: Lea Hernandez, Samuel L Jackson, Tom Beland, comics, memorabilia, Gerry Duggan, auction, eBay