- The southern California wildfires, and Will Rogers Ranch;
- How conservatives blame people they don’t like for everything;
- Perhaps I should create a new “Jack Smith” rule to dismiss claims by conservatives, since they always seem to be wrong;
- Lagniappes about Trump, the Mercator Projection of the globe, and his admiration for Putin.
News today is dominated by the wildfires in the Los Angeles area, beginning with the one that broke out yesterday in Pacific Palisades, an area of canyons right along the coast and between Santa Monica and Malibu. That’s not too far from where my partner’s son and his wife live in West L.A., so we texted them to ask their status. They weren’t in an evacuation zone, but they evacuated anyway, driving some 45 miles to Brea, east of L.A., to stay at his mother’s place. We watched CNN news about the fires last night, and again this morning.
Having lived both in So- and NoCal all my life, I’m familiar with the perpetual threat of big fires. I’ve never been near enough to be threatened by one. But I remember, vaguely, the 1961 Bel Air fire, partly through my father’s photos, a couple of which are posted on this page of my family history.
I have found a place that has burned down in the Palisades fire that we knew in particular, because we took a hike there in our December 2023 trip to LA to see partner’s son and wife — via this — the Will Rogers Ranch. I mentioned the hike in my post about that trip. The WRR folks have already posted before and after pics of the ranch house.
