Category: News

In General

So, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Supreme Court Justice, has died. She deserves peace and rest after a life of serving our nation and world.

So, back when Antonin Scalia, Supreme Court Justice, died, Republicans were adamant that no replacement should be considered until after the elections, which were then over eight months away.

Now, the elections are just eighty-eight days away.

Now, the Republicans are in a rush to replace RBG.

What is different, we ask, in mocking tones, because we already know what is different: Barack Obama, a Democrat, was President when Scalia was due to be replaced. Donald Trump is a Republican.

Yet, they insist that they must act now, to do their duty, as the Constitution establishes.

Yet, they don’t acknowledge the hypocrisy in their words and actions even as the video records of their speeches demonstrate the gaps in their principles, flaws in their logic, and failure to perform their duties.

And this, you see, is what will keep the United States a divided country, driven by partisan politics. The GOP have abandoned all principles to remain in power, freely lying and twisting logic.

Sorry, but I can’t stand liars. They just can’t be trusted. The Republicans have proven it again, again, and again, in this era.

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Saturday’s Theme Music

Today’s song came out in 1994. IBM had just purchased the company who employed me; that company had purchased the start-up that I’d been working for. So my employment record was like Russian dolls (which originated in Japan, BTW).

We were living in Half Moon Bay, CA, and had a comfortable life. But I had an uncomfortable feeling it was going in the wrong direction. We started making plans about where we could move. Texas? North Carolina? Pennsylvania, Ohio, New Mexico, Washington…we roamed the net, searching for answers.

I’d just sold a few short stories, so I as feeling good about that. This song came out. Catching me by surprise on the radio, the repeated chorus, “What you waiting for”, seemed expressed directly at me. I listened to see who it was, but the radio didn’t say.

I hunted it down on the net, learning it was Gwen Stefani, “What You Waiting For?” Later, I read that she’d written the song in response to having writer’s block. That resonated with me.

All of that is background. Today, it was about the cats. Our air is at 52. Don’t even smell smoke any more (which reminds me, check on the fires up north and down south). The cats had been released when we hit moderate on the AQI scale, much to their joy. Today, I had the door open to let in Tucker.

He paused to sniff the air before entering, then sat down. Looking up, he intently regarded me. To which I said (yeah, you know), “What you waiting for?”

It’s a good song for today. What are you waiting for? November? Clean skies and better weather? An end to the pandemic? A sign of God.

Get busy.

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Wednesday’s Theme Music

Some rhyming lyrics popped into my head this morning.

She’s been a bad girl, she’s like a chemical
Though you try to stop it, she’s like a narcotic
You wanna torture her, you wanna talk to her
All the things you bought for her, could not get a temperature

h/t to Genius.com

The rest of the song swam in, leaving me dancing around the kitchen as coffee was brewed. I thought, that’s a faux peppy song suitable for these days. I think that because so many want to pretend that everything is normal, especially the telly people setting up broadcast schedules, the sports people who want to pursue their championships, and the POTUS. “Everything is fine, look at the stock market.”

Meanwhile, the U.S. west coast is on fire and Hurricane Sally is beating down Alabama and other southern states. Unemployment is at an ugly number, food prices are rising, and food insecurity is spreading. On top of these disasters, we have the cherry on top that is the COVID-19 pandemic. What’s the death number in the U.S.? Two hundred thousand? Whatever, time for some football! Woo-hoo.

So, here is “Pump It Up” by Elvis Costello, another 1978 memory.

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No Longer On the Map

We’re spending hours over the last few days trying to find who lost homes and what businesses are gone in southern Oregon, where Ashland, Talent, Phoenix, and south Medford were fire struck a week ago. This is circulating Facebook and speaks volumes.

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Monday’s Theme Music

Remembering 2001 and thinking about the current crises — yeah, there’s a lot going on in parallel — brought 2001 Train song, “Drops of Jupiter”, to mind. The words appeal to my maudlin side and lift me.

But tell me, did the wind sweep you off your feet?
Did you finally get the chance
To dance along the light of day
And head back to the Milky Way?
And tell me, did Venus blow your mind?
Was it everything you wanted to find?
And did you miss me while you were
Looking for yourself out there?

h/t to Genius.com

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Sunday’s Theme Music

Sorry, a bit down today. As I awoke and wrestled with dreams and thoughts about recent events, Frank Sinatra began singing “That’s Life”. It rolled into Dire Straits and “The Walk of Life”.

Getting up, though, I stared out at the smoky air and heard Pink Floyd, “Breathe” and then the Police, “Every Breath You Take”.

It looks like a nuclear winter out there. Gray, fouled air, no sun, no life. People are sequestered in their homes so the usual parade of hikers, walkers, and cyclists are gone. Tourists have left town, leaving the streets empty. I haven’t heard nor seen the usual birds, or any deer. Hope they’re all safe somewhere.

Nuclear thoughts brought up “Radioactive” by The Firm and then the Imagine Dragons song.

None of these are good for a theme song on such a down day. I challenged my mind to find me something perkier. Being the asshole that it is, my mind responded with “Yummy Yummy Yummy”.

I wasn’t amused. Come on, shake it off, I told myself. That invited Taylor Swift’s 2015 pop song, “Shake It Off”.

No. Sorry.

Finally decided on an old Coldplay song. Not really lively as I wanted, but reflects my hope.

Here’s “Fix You” from 2005.

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Today’s Ashland Air

A graph is worth a lot of description.

Outside the home office window. Not a peak of blue, and nothing of the forests and mountains beyond the line of houses across the street. Ground visibility is about two hundred yards. Photo and graph was as of 10:30 AM, September 11, 2020.

By the way, this wasn’t technically a wild fire. It started as a grass fire and consumed urban areas. It wasn’t the forests on fires; it was the cities.

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Friday’s Theme Music

A dull red sun is struggling to light the morning, but smoky air lays siege to the sunshine.

This is morning. The windows are closed tight. Per government and health experts’ recommendations, we stay indoors and avoid outside activities. The air is unhealthy. If you must go outside, wear masks…

Yeah, not going into all the smoke and COVID-19 mask-wearing comparisons. That knotty logic against wearing masks, no matter what, is beyond my pre-coffee mind. I cannot help but think that this smoke and unhealthy air is going to cause a COVID-19 spike. See, in my limited and uninformed view, the smoke will affect our lungs, eyes, mucus members, sinuses and airways. We’ll sneeze and cough to eject the offending particles. That greater and more frequent force will launch more COVID-19 particles into the air. Those without masks, well, are more exposed. Additionally, the smoke will impact our bodies, creating or feeding underlying conditions, increasing vulnerabilities that the novel coronavirus will exploit. Finally, as people are being forced together to shelter, potential super-spreader events are being created.

But that’s just me, and my fiction-writing mind.

Back to the music. This sun color kicks in songs about the sun. The old pop tune “Red Rubber Ball” (The Cyrkle (had to look that up), 1966), about a relationship and taking new positive energy from the sunrise, doesn’t quite work for me for this situation.

No, I think it’s more of a somber, reflective, “Tequila Sunrise” morning.

Here are the Eagles with their 1973 song.

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A Fire Update

Just a general update on things for friends and family. My neighborhood and family are safe. Ashland, where the Almeda fire began, is safe. The wind has abated but red flag alerts remain.

Gas stations and stores are busy with exhausted, worried out of towners. The Almeda fire started as a grass fire by a BMX park in Ashland but then spread west and north. The initiating source remains under investigation. Pushed by 40MPH plus gusts, the burned through Talent, then lit up and destroyed Phoenix. South Medford was next. The last word that we had, last night, was that the fire was contained. We’re looking for better info.

Meanwhile, spot fires had been going on, threatening other areas of Medford, Central Point, and Eagle Point, to our north and west. Those seem to have been extinguished. Interstate 5 is open in both directions.

Note: a rumor is going around in certain political circles that Black Lives Matter went along Interstate 5 starting fires. They offer no evidence. Police are working to dispel the stories circulating on social media. To me, these rumors increase the evidence of who this people are; at a time when everyone needs help and should come together, they use lies to plant seeds of distrust. There’s the wildfire that needs to be put out.

We’re under a request to limit water due to the water used to fight fires. We remain at Level 1, ready to go. There are other fires burning in Jackson County. Temperatures have dropped today. Locally, we’re expecting highs in the mid-eighties. But the temperatures will then return to the nineties and perhaps over one hundred. While the immediate worst threat has subsided, staying alert and ready is required.

Our air is smoky. I jump to the conclusion that it’s probably from smoldering areas of our fires. The smoke might be from California to the south, or other fires in Oregon up north.

I’m relieved that we survived here, but the losses suffered by others can’t be overstated. The impact on Talent and Phoenix, our neighboring towns, is like what happened to Paradise, California, and we all remember that. Buildings, homes, and possessions are gone. Our resources through government and charity are stretched. Assessments are still being conducted, and the fire monitored for hotspots. Only when the authorities are assured everything is out will the people be allowed to return to their places, make private assessments, and begin rebuilding.

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Shocking Day

The consequences of the Almeda Fire (yeah, not ‘Alameda’), as it’s been declared, are rippling out. It’s named after the little street where the grass fire was first reported. The air is surprisingly clear, declared green by AQI, with a rating of 46, but a smoky odor teases you like a strong memory.

My little town, Ashland, Oregon, was where it started. We suffered some losses of homes. The area to the northwest suffered much more.

A trailer park is gone. Fast food restaurants and homes are gone. A winery.

Continuing into Talent…much of the northern side burned. The Camelot Theater is gone.

On into Phoenix…

Most news services are declaring that the small town of Phoenix, population of forty-five hundred, is gone. The primary road into town is blocked off, so confirmation is yet to come, but Youtube videos taken during the night attest that Phoenix suffered. Information is spotty, as the news services cope with elections, COVID-19, wildfires across the western US, and the snow in Colorado. We’re hampered locally as reporters had to evacuate their homes and the fire burned through a cable affecting at least one service provider. Some early reports said it was a local ISP called jeffnet, but others say it was Spectrum. Maybe it was both.

Those who bundle everything — television, phone, Internet — to one provider suddenly found they weren’t receiving the local emergency alerts, a new consideration offered for you the next time that you’re debating you options.

The fire continued into south Medford, about fifteen miles up the Interstate. That section of city was evacuated, along with the

Damage reports continue seeping in. So many fires are burning that the area lacks the resources to combat them. While towns and cities this part of Jackson County are fighting this fire, a larger fire is consuming another part of the county to our northeast. The county to the west is battling its own blazes, as are towns further north in Oregon. Little help is available.

The wind has abated. This is good news. Cooler temperatures are prevailing, the low nineties, but it’s going to increase again tomorrow and continue to get hotter the rest of the week.

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