Urban/Interface Zones: As more and more folks move into wildland, fire tactics change to favor structure protection rather than wildland and weldfires then become even more destructive. Property owners can make their property more firesafe. Please contact your local fire department. Global warming is also contributing by raising average temperatures which result in drier fuel and more erratic winds. Some recent fires illustrate the point: the Station Fire in 1999 which burned 260,000+ acres, 1/4 of the entire Angeles NF; the Texas fires last year that were unprecidented for that state, and the Wallow Fire in Arizona last year that burned 500,000+ acres. We haven't had a major wildfire on the West Side in over 100 years but the potential is definitely there. The Yacoult Fire in September, 1902, burned 238,920 acres in Clark, lewis, and Skamania Counties. A problem emerging this year is that the US Forest Service isn't funding enough large air tankers and hoping it will be a quiet fire season. It will continue to get worse.
Why and what can we do are natural responses. A result of the August 1910 fires which burned together and then burned 3,000,000 acres in N Idaho, W Montana, and NE Washington, federal agencies mandated that all fires be suppressed and controlled by 10 the following morning. If that didn't happen, then target 10 the following morning, and so on. However, fire is natural in wildlands. It keeps undergrowth cleaned out, favors strong overstory, and is required by some species to even germinate. We have kept fires out of some areas for more than 100 years which resulted in incredibly high fuel loads beneath canopies and sometimes species changes. When fires hit those areas the tend to be huge, violent, and unable to control. Wildland agencies are now trying to clear some of that fuel tonnage but no nearly enough has been treated because of weather conditions.
I spent 19 years as a wildland and structure firefighter, most of it wildland. I have been everything from the last McLeod operator on a hotshot crew to the nation's first Situation Coordinator at the National Interagency Fire Center. I wa the first Chief of Wildfire Management of the Territory of Guam and a Battalion Chief for a Washington Fire Department. I have studied wildfires since 1966. Some years have been really aweful and some have had minimal impact. What I've seen the last several years though is a lettle scary. I've seen more violent fire behavior lasting longer than ever before, I've seen much larger fires, I seen more buildings and infrastructure destroyed, and I've seen burned areas unable to return to their natural (original) type.
This situation really saddens and angers me. I think none of us want a government agency intruding into that most private part of our lives. It's very easy for parents to keep abuse secret and hidden for years. My parents kept their physical and mental abuse of my brother and I secret forever. On the other hand, judges and cops either believe that what they saw was not abuse or it is not serious enough to remove the kids. I remember going to a shelter care hearing for neglect. I showed a bunch of pics to the judge who wasn't interesting in taking any action. I showed him a picture of a literal pile of garbage about 4' high in the living room. He looked at the picture and said, "Is that a dead cat on top of that garbage!!?" I told him there was indeed a cat there. He then ordered the kids out of the home. He would not have ordered the kids out except for the cat which, was not dead at all but I didn't tell him that. Once the kids were safe, I could investigate in depth and I uncovered a large sexual abuse ring.
I can't begin to say how distressed I an about the number of Washington's kids killed by abuse. DSHS has some of the blame but not even most of it. The law limits what DSHS can do. Until they know about abuse or neglect they can't even begin an investigation. Once they investigat a situation and determine a child should be removed, the law does not give DSHS the authority to remove the kids. Only the cops or a court order can do that. Once they remove the kids, there are two nearings fairly quickly. A Shelter Care Hearing allow a Superior Court judge to order the kids to be removed. If he doesn't so order, the kids return home. DSHS has a little more time to finish the investigation, a week or less, and file an in home Dependency Petition. Again there is a Superior Court Hearing. The parents are represented by a free public lawyer. The judge will issue an order at the end of the hearing. Actually, anything can happen. The kids could remain in care, they could go home, the parents may be required to do something. Once there is an order, DSHS must follow it even if they believe the child wilol be abused again if he goes home.
Who believe the SPD or the Mayor's Office can take care of this matter themselves? Absolutely NO ONE (and those few that do don't count)! SPD must be required to follow the DOJ directives, fire SPD senior management, fire the bad cops, and clean out the mayor and his staff. It's possible to redeem SPD but the cost of redemption must be very high indeed.
I certainly believe our economy and world position are declining because of the 1% and the 99% percent certainly have a right to protest our plight even to the point of civil disobedience. However, no one has the right to commit violence and and act like the're still in their terrible twos. Certainly the father of civil disobedience, Henry David Thoreau, is apalled at what has taken place today. These people are neither liberal nor conservative, they are just seffish. If you want to protest effectively you could do no better then to follow the example of Dr. King, Gandhi before him and Thoreau before him.
While it is pretty obvious that the conservative "trust" and Murdock control Fox News, what is also true but not so obvious is the same "trust" controls CNN and the major networks. The "trust" decides what news to air and how to spin it.
Naturally, I was excstatic when the Dodgers moved to LA and I never missed a game on the radio or TV. I was on the Arcadia High School baseball team in 1965 when we won state. We were invited to be introduced to fans along the sidelines before the game and out pitcher threw out the first ball. We then watched the game from the Dodger dugout. I remember sitting there quiet and awestruck when a player came up to me read the lineup which was posted above me. I looked up and it was Sandy Koufax. Oh My God. He was my all time baseball hero and there he was. He then turned and started a normal conversation with me about baseball and my dreams. I was in heaven and so stunned I forgot to ask for his autograph. That's why I'm a Dodger fan. I'm a Mariners fan too but that's another story.
Woo Hoo! Finally sanity and honesty return to the most storied team in baseball. I admit I'm biased. I've been a Dodger fan since I was first enchanted by baseball in about 1953 or so. I grew up in LA and since there were no major league teams in the Western US, Dad rooted for the Dodgers and since I usually root for the underdogs and the Yankees ruled the baseball roost then, of course I rooted for the Dodgers. As I got a little older I learned that Dad was good friends and ran track at Pasadena Junior College with Mack Robinson, the older brother of one of the Dodger stars. Dad was one of the few white boys Mallie had over for dinner at that house on pepper street. No wonder he had a Dodger connection.
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