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The California Homeless Urban Brushfire Fire Season Begins
As the only member of my family living in California – specifically, Los Angeles – I have to deal with the common misconceptions of the state: No, one does not go up to celebrities and start talking to them, even just to say how much one likes their work. No, locals generally don’t go to Hollywood; it’s an overpriced, touristy hellscape of traffic with no parking. And no, even if one does go to the beach (many don’t – that hellscape of traffic with no parking thing again), people only swim on the hottest days because the ocean here is icy cold.
But what I find myself having to correct most often is no, those dramatic wildfires on the news are nowhere near me. I live a mile outside of Downtown LA in a dense, urbanized area, and there are no sections of hills and brushlands near me to go up in flames. What they are seeing is always either in the hills where the wealthy have homes or the suburbs so far from me that I won’t see the smoke until and unless it burns so long that it dissipates into a choking, carbon-scented haze that drifts over the Santa Monica Mountains and hangs over the Los Angeles Basin.
If you’re like me, you’ve spent the last few months trying to figure out the reasons for the near collapse of law and order in this country. Most of us realize that events following the George Floyd death have been in the planning stage for a long time; the Marxists saw a moment of weakness in our society and capitalized on it with merciless determination.
me in my tracks. (I seem to be doing a lot of that lately.) She said, “Black Lives Matter has gone mainstream.”
After struggling for days with (mostly very distressing, and, as much as I hate to admit it, downright at times depressing) ideas of how to write about the monstrosity which has descended upon us in the form of “mostly peaceful” riots in numerous cities with untold loss of life and property, deliberate murders like those of retired Police Capt. David Dorn in St. Louis, injuries all across the Nation we love and revere, my search ended when I saw this heart-rending sign in a shop– begging for mercy. Begging! Figuratively on her knees pleading to the animals of lawlessness to please, please, please let her continue to make a living and provide for her children. Please!
There has been plenty of commentary, on 
