Blame it on the bears

Wildfires in California. I've been surprised by how 'wacky' (for lack of a better word) have been some of the responses thereto. Of course I shouldn't be surprised. This is the country that elected Donald Trump president.

I guess the notion of applying our usual political insanity to wildfires slipped under my radar and came up on me as a surprise.

But one finds on twitter without much effort earnest attempts to explain that brush and tress aren't burning, that only houses are burning, because the fires are the consequence of a government plot.

Also, one finds efforts to use the fires to make one of the key political points of the Trump coalition: beware illegal immigrants. There is no evidence any illegal immigrant had anything to do with any fire in California, or that there was arson involved with the largest of the fires in the state now, involving an arsonist of any nationality or legal status whatsoever.

Regardless, on twitter denizen “Cali-Conservative” wrote, “This is the type of stuff that starts to happen in a ‘Sanctuary State’ that encourages criminal behavior.”

Then there is the enormous brouhaha about a man who got out of his car to chase a wild rabbit. His effort was neither praise nor blameworthy. He was evacuating from his home, there were flames on both sides of the highway (enflamed brush, as the above still clearly shows -- so much for the "houses only" conspiracy theory) -- I'm certain our guy was in shock, and one's reactions in that condition are not the reactions of one's "right mind." So somehow that was his reaction to the sight of a rabbit in distress. It is possible that childhood memories of playing with a toy plastic Thumper played a role.

But this isn't a hero. He could have been seriously hurt, and might himself have required rescue assistance, from personnel stretched to the breaking point at the time as it was. How does the cost/benefit analysis of an effort to save Thumper work out? Let's not make him a hero, just as we shouldn't try to make of him a villain.

Peace out.

Comments

A Story About Coleridge

This is a quote from a memoir by Dorothy Wordsworth, reflecting on a trip she took with two famous poets, her brother, William Wordsworth, and their similarly gifted companion, Samuel Taylor Coleridge. We sat upon a bench, placed for the sake of one of these views, whence we looked down upon the waterfall, and over the open country ... A lady and gentleman, more expeditious tourists than ourselves, came to the spot; they left us at the seat, and we found them again at another station above the Falls. Coleridge, who is always good-natured enough to enter into conversation with anybody whom he meets in his way, began to talk with the gentleman, who observed that it was a majestic waterfall. Coleridge was delighted with the accuracy of the epithet, particularly as he had been settling in his own mind the precise meaning of the words grand, majestic, sublime, etc., and had discussed the subject with William at some length the day before. “Yes, sir,” says Coleridge, “it is a maj...

The Lyrics of "Live Like You Were Dying"

Back in 2004 Tim McGraw recorded the song "Live Like You were Dying." As a way of marking the one-decade anniversary of this song, I'd like to admit that a couple of the lines have confused me for years. I could use your help understanding them. In the first couple of verses, the song seems easy to follow. Two men are talking, and one tells the other about his diagnosis. The doctors have (recently? or a long time ago and mistakenly? that isn't clear) given him the news that he would die soon. "I spent most of the next days/Looking at the X-rays." Then we get a couple of lines about a man crossing items off of his bucket list. "I went sky diving, I went rocky mountain climbing, I went two point seven seconds on a bull named Fu Man Chu." Then the speaker -- presumably still the old man -- shifts to the more characterological consequences of the news. As he was doing those things, he found he was loving deeper and speaking sweeter, and givin...

Five Lessons from the Allegory of the Cave

Please correct me if there are others. But it seems to be there are five lessons the reader is meant to draw from the story about the cave. First, Plato is working to devalue what we would call empiricism. He is saying that keeping track of the shadows on the cave wall, trying to make sense of what you see there, will NOT get you to wisdom. Second, Plato is contending that reality comes in levels. The shadows on the wall are illusions. The solid objects being passed around behind my back are more real than their shadows are. BUT … the world outside the the cave is more real than that — and the sun by which that world is illuminated is the top of the hierarchy. So there isn’t a binary choice of real/unreal. There are levels. Third, he equates realness with knowability. I only have opinions about the shadows. Could I turn around, I could have at least the glimmerings of knowledge. Could I get outside the cave, I would really Know. Fourth, the parable a...

Jamesian Philosophy Refreshed

Search This Blog