Tag Archives: United States Senate

The Road to Diamond, Day 44: Ring of Fire

2
Posted by on in collaborating, Community, distraction issues, impediments, Matters of Faith, Personal Values, Social, Spiritual, Striving

January 11,2025- The views from north Los Angeles County have been dispiriting, as views of mass destruction always are. There seems to be no end to burned-out shells of what used to be homes, businesses, institutions of culture; no end to scenes of forest gone, and dead wildlife lying on the forest floor. There is, also, it seems, no end to the finger-pointing back and forth, between people who didn’t like each other, before the fires, and won’t like one another even after some of them are dead. This last accomplishes nothing, as the well-to-do and the homeless, alike, find themselves on the street and too many are wondering where their next meal might be found.

Los Angeles proper is not free and clear, yet. No place within a thirty mile radius of the Palisades or Eaton fires is. The Santa Ana winds are that strong. Prayers are going up, all over the world, that next week’s tempests will not exacerbate the current fires, or spark new ones, along the State Highway 15, I-5 or Highway 101 corridors. Solutions are being devised, to the water accessibility issues, and in the United States Senate, where a conservative Republican (Montana’s Tim Sheehy) ,who is also a wildland firefighter, has reached out to Senator Schiff, of California and Senator Kim, of New Jersey-which has also had recent wildfire woes. The Federal strategy should prove proactive and its necessity is beyond argument, given that FEMA ends up with the tab for much of the costs of recovery. The piper can set the stage before playing the tune.

Too often, in times of disaster, from Pearl Harbor, through September 11, 2001 and on through all manner of hurricanes, tornadoes, chemical explosions, mass shootings, and wildfires, naysayers have to some extent deflected the public’s awareness of the actual causes of a tragic event and been allowed to interfere with the process of recovery. The public weal calls for us to shut off the noise and focus on actual causes of a disaster. Usually, those causes are far more complex than the fast track news cycle allows for analysis. Addressing only surface issues serves merely to guarantee that the same problems will be faced, the next time, regardless of the locale.

I live in a fire prone area. There is no daylight between the suffering of a conservative rancher or that of his neo-hippy artist neighbour. We have learned to see the needs of both as equally worthy of consideration, and it is highly likely that the one would come to the aid of the other, without hesitation, judging by the reactions to our own last big blaze, in 2013, when 19 wildland firefighters died in a firestorm. Conservatives and progressives spoke with one voice, when misfits came out of the woodwork, after the blaze had been extinguished and threatened the very lives of other firefighters, Go Fund Me,should there be a future fire, in a ludicrous claim of “speaking for freedom”. Everyone of sound mind stood together and helped both those who lost their homes and the families of the fallen Hot Shots.

That last is already happening, in Altadena, in Sylmar and in what remains of Pacific Palisades and south Malibu. Several nonagenarians were carried out of harm’s way, by their neighbours. Go Fund Me campaigns are in place for assistance to large families who have been displaced. A network of recovery is being established, across Los Angeles County and across the nation and the world. Fire teams from Oregon, Idaho, Alaska, Arizona, Nevada, Montana,Texas, the Navajo Nation, Canada and Mexico are on the ground, rendering assistance. World Central Kitchens, Project Rubicon and the American Red Cross are also in a full court press, across the County.

When disaster strikes, the greater fire of community strength rises. May it ever be thus.

Intolerance

6
Posted by on in Assistance, collaborating, Community, distraction issues, impediments, Personal Values, Social, Spiritual, Striving

July 13, 2024, Carson City- It is as despicable as it was predictable: The attempt on the life of former President Donald Trump, thankfully unsuccessful, will do nothing to stem the flow of anger and hatred towards those who see life differently than the would-be assassin and those who think like him-or their anger and hatred in kind, as voiced by a member of the United States Senate-and even more ominously, by a “political adviser” who cited a list of 350 targeted “opponents”.

People are still entitled to vote their conscience, even if the majority of us vote differently. People are still entitled to speak their peace, even if their ideas come across as ridiculous to a good many others. People can think far ahead, or look longingly to the past. People can accept differences, or peacefully need more time to process change, before either accepting the changes or choosing to stay in their own bubbles.

What no one should claim the right to do is to deprive another citizen of the right to voice an opinion, or even to exercise violence towards that citizen. Today’s events are a cautionary tale-both to those who might view the dead assailant as some sort of hero and to those whose interpretation of the contents of Project 25 is that the document is a green light for returning to the days of Jim Crow and public lynchings.

America is a big tent. Let it never be shrunk to a pup tent, or lean-to.

The Tides That Bind

2
Posted by on in Assistance, collaborating, Community, distraction issues, impediments, Inner Struggles, Inspiration, Personal Values, Social, Spiritual, Striving

January 19, 2022- The United States Senate today deferred action on curbing the excesses of those who wish to roll back the clock, and it did so, primarily because not enough of its members could agree on what those excesses are.

The United States Supreme Court today took action on curbing the excesses of those who wish to roll back the clock, and it did so, precisely because all but one of its members saw very clearly what those excesses are.

There was, a few days ago, a volcanic eruption, of the sort that only occurs once in a thousand years. It was heard in the outer islands of southeast Alaska, and close to Anchorage. It sent tsunamic waves clear to the coast of Peru. It covered several islands of Tonga in ash. It bound the people of the South Pacific region, in a united effort to find anyone missing as a result of the event.

We the people, across the United States of America, and across the planet, are learning, in fits and starts, just how closely tied we are. What we can’t get through our stubborn heads on our own, the forces of nature will bring to our attention. Those whose answer to our current problems is even tighter adherence to the shopworn, and the discredited, tenets of patriarchy and of elitism, regardless of their place on the political spectrum, risk being left behind, washed away. This applies as much to the eugenicists on the Left as it does to the oligarchs and white supremacists on the Right. The answers to our present problems will never come from zero population growth, especially with regard to people of colour. Nor will they come from the top down ethos of the kleptocrat or the tyrant.

Our progress depends on finding the answers that seem so elusive to the “greatest deliberative body on the planet”. They can only come from people who actually know how to listen to one another. They can only come from people who don’t care what age, what gender or what ethnic background gives rise to those answers. That ability comes first from the heart, then from the mind.