Year: 2007
One Hundred Percent
Posted on November 9, 2007 in Santiago Fire
A deep fog muffled the intensity of the heat driving the fire storm. Hot shots probed the line in lieu of helicopters whose pilots couldn’t see anything. Then the word went down to the brass in the canyon bottom. We can’t find anything. The Santiago Fire has whimpered into history.
It went something like that.
Before I learned the news, I mistook a lawnmower for a chopper.
Friday Xenartha Blogging – Stewie eats a Tangelo
Posted on November 9, 2007 in Xenartha
The camerawoman behind this piece once visited here and gave me a short lecture on the differences between a Tamandua and a silky anteater. Here’s her pet:
The Ten Commonalities
Posted on November 8, 2007 in Agnosticism Spirituality and Being
Not much is happening in my life, but here’s a nice piece about the things Atheists and Christians have in common:
1. You Can Do Terrible Things in the Name of Either One
2. Both Sides Really Do Believe What They’re Saying
3. In Everyday Life, You’re Not That Different
4. There Are Good People on Both Sides
5. Your Point of View is Legitimately Offensive to Them
6. We Tend to Exaggerate About the Other Guy
7. We Tend to Exaggerate About Ourselves, Too
8. Focusing on Negative Examples Makes You Stupid
9. Both Sides Have Brought Good to the Table
10. You’ll Never Harass the Other Side Out of Existence
In the Blasted Lands 3
Posted on November 6, 2007 in Photos Santiago Fire
Borrego Canyon, Whiting Wilderness, from an overlook on Santiago Canyon Road.
The complex still reeks of smoke. It hangs around with a marine layer haze that burns off about midday. If you look after the fog has lifted, the air looks like that of one of those cabarets where [[Toulouse-Lautrec]] hung out in. Thin gossamer in the afternoons.
The land involved in the backfire lies in the foreground. The blaze burned right down to the edge of it, but the eastern half of Trabuco Canyon was saved. After Day 4, the fire burned over the ridge in the background and made its way towards its present location on the slopes of Silverado Canyon, about five miles away. The large yellow tree on the right is a eucalyptus, a species not known for changing colors in the autumn.
A rare example of the utility of overgrazing. This horse pasture (foreground) was chomped down to the roots, leaving no fuel for the blaze.
The OCFA warns us: “You may not see fire or smoke; do not let your guard down. A new event could occurr.” (sic)
What was preserved: Live Oak Canyon Road, below the backfire.
Here is a page of nicely edited videos of the fire by the Orange County Fire Authority. Day 3 is the one I described most vividly to you.
It’s Not Funny
Posted on November 6, 2007 in Agnosticism Attitudes
How many radical Lesbian feminists does it take to screw in a lightbulb?
One. And it’s not fun-ny.
A recent study conducted by male researcher finds that the joke is right. It’s not funny:
“Sexist humor is not simply benign amusement. It can affect men’s perceptions of their immediate social surroundings and allow them to feel comfortable with behavioral expressions of sexism without the fear of disapproval of their peers,” said Thomas E. Ford, a new faculty member in the psychology department at WCU. “Specifically, we propose that sexist humor acts as a ‘releaser’ of prejudice.”
In their research article*, Ford and the graduate student co-authors describe two research projects designed to test the theory that “disparagement humor” has negative social consequences and plays an important role in shaping social interaction.
“Our research demonstrates that exposure to sexist humor can create conditions that allow men – especially those who have antagonistic attitudes toward women – to express those attitudes in their behavior,” he said. “The acceptance of sexist humor leads men to believe that sexist behavior falls within the bounds of social acceptability.”
Undoubtably this behavior extends to other arenas such as this “inspirational posters” contest by Friendly Atheist. Ironically the people who say that religion breeds nothing but discord breed antagonism — the root of violent conflict — by these means. The same is true of Christians who make jokes about atheists and others. Etc. etc. etc.
It makes me think that I should have said something about the “towelheads” remark that I heard the other day. Except the guy was drunk and dangerous.
On a related note, andrea the serial deviant outlines her voluntary simplicity movement for blogging.
Up My Nose
Posted on November 5, 2007 in Santiago Fire
Just after I made the left onto Glenn Ranch from Portola, I caught the scent drifting down the Serrano Creek drainage. An odor like a heavy smoldering log rolling off the foothills, seeking the bottom of gravity’s well. A few feet higher and the marine layer shoved it aside, giving the air a cleaner scent. The darkness agreed with the latter’s suggestion and showed no sign of the conflagration’s lingering glow.
If you’re wondering just what the land looked like before it was torched, check these photos.
A site about fire in the chaparral with discussion of the demerits of hydroseeding as carried out after the 2003 San Diego fires. Also suggests that fires make it possible for alien species to take over tracts of chaparral. Not good.
Chris McGowan exonerates global warming as a factor in the recent wildfires, putting the blame on suburban expansion. Good old Republican slash, build and let it burn politics.
And from 2003, a little article I wrote about how chaparral wildfires can make the soil waterproof.
What if there was a fire?
Posted on November 5, 2007 in Strange
Pity the poor Costa Rican postman. Sure, he doesn’t have to deal with sleet or snow. But consider what passes for an address here:
From the Tibas cemetery, 200 meters south, 300 meters west, cross the train tracks, white two-story house.
That’s actually a pretty easy one. Making his rounds on the outskirts of this capital city one recent morning, carrier Roberto Montero Reyes pulled envelopes from his canvas sack whose addresses read like treasure-hunt clues or lines of haiku.
There was one for someone who lived on “the south side of the Red Cross” and another for a family whose home is “125 meters [410 feet] west of the Pizza Hut”….
It may be difficult for GPS addicts to comprehend, but Costa Rica doesn’t have a standardized system of addresses — at least not ones that can be typed into MapQuest. Many streets aren’t named, and virtually none have signs. Many houses don’t have numbers. Only a few pockets of the country use anything close to the “123 Main St.” format that Americans would recognize.
Instead, most Costa Rican addresses are expressed in relation to the closest community landmark. In colonial times, that was the church or town hall. Today it could be a fast-food joint or car dealership.
I wonder: would they be game to naming one of their avenues “Emperor Norton Street”?
Still Ablaze
Posted on November 5, 2007 in Santiago Fire
If there’s a column of smoke, I can’t see it. A great, transparent gray dishrag droops and spreads across the sky while life goes on. Garbage trucks lift the bins into their backs and dump the refuse of the past week. Gardeners noisily push leaf blowers and trim the lawns. The postman — wearing summer shorts and a pith helmet — delivers the mail. The fire won’t be coming back this way, but the helicopters keep flying over.
Yesterday, we ventured into [[Modjeska Canyon]]. A few charred trees had been aggressively trimmed — to the root or the trunk — and a white snow of ashes covered a few places. Black soot tumbled down the slopes to just across the street from the community store. Only a few houses had been burned either on ridgelines or in places where the fire had found a way over the treetops into their particular dale. I did not photograph the people cleaning up the debris nor the pygmy goats who had been put in a new pen next to the road. Why was there a huge stack of baled hay at the entrance to the gorge? I only noted these things in my mind so that I could write about them.
The Santiago Fire goes on. If we do not boast of having the largest fire in this last storm, it is certainly the longest lived.
Did I mention that my sheriff pled not guilty to charges of corruption?
In the Blasted Lands 2
Posted on November 4, 2007 in Photos Santiago Fire
It could take months to document the snowfields of ash, the reticulations on the trees, the twisted hardware. I went out for the second time this afternoon, skirting the edges of the Cleveland National Forest and Whiting Ranch Wilderness. There were the places unsinged like this grove of sycamores in the bottomland of Limestone Canyon:
Modjeska Canyon is largely untouched except for a handful of houses. You can’t really say “this block was gone” because there will be a single house torched surrounded by manors and cottages untouched in the thick of oaks and sycamores. The fire cleared out the brush, made it possible to see what was hidden, such as this rusted truck on the slopes of Flores Peak:
I’d been meaning to climb that summit. Perhaps now in the spring I will.
Yesterday, while I photographed the Dome House remains, another tourist told me that “when they catch the guy who started this they should release him. At Cook’s Corner. And make him run all the way to Irvine Lake. If he lives through that, he can go.” If forced, he would go through country that on the sides looks like this:
and this….
Miles of this horrid beauty, masked by the foilage of trees forced into false autumn colors:
Push through the veneer of surviving trees and strange sights await you:
The hawk screeches the only loneliness until you look at your feet and find things starting over again:
UPDATE: Checked the OC Fire Authority web site several times today. Fire continues to be 90% contained until the secretary can have her coffee first thing Monday morning.
In the Blasted Lands
Posted on November 3, 2007 in Photos Santiago Fire
Rocks at the head of the Santiago Trail. Beer bottles evidentally revealed by the fire.
Santiago Trail vista. Didn’t go very far on this one. Technically closed.
Ruins of the garage of a place known as the Dome House, a geodesic dome that is now white plaques of ash.
General rubble at the Dome House.
Mystery remains at the Dome House. I’m guessing pieces of a plastic chair?
General view to the east of the Dome House.
This man (a forest ranger) did it right: he cleared all the flammable brush away from his house.
These come from our first expedition to the rim overlooking Modjeska Canyon. The fire roared through here early Tuesday morning: I doubt that anyone had a chance to do more than run. Next to a fountain we found water, food, and various supplies that the owners were stashing while they went through the remains.
There’s a feeling that I get looking at these which is like the one I get viewing [[Mathew Brady|Mathew Brady’s]] Civil War photographs. You don’t see the action, but its effects and they are enough to communicate what happened here.
UPDATE: As of this writing the fire is said to be 90% contained. The threatened Santa Anas have not blown.
UPDATE: The fire still burns as of 9:30 am, Sunday. Firefighters are chewing their fingernails as winds pick up a little. An After the Fire pamphlet is available online. (You can tell that the OCFA was in a hurry when they uploaded this document. There’s a reference to seeking help from the Colorado Forest Service.)
Friday Xenartha Blogging – Anteater Porn
Posted on November 2, 2007 in Xenartha
In my day, porn films were famous for being nearly unwatchable due to the technical inexpertise of the cameramen. Here’s a piece about anteaters which stands as a fitting tribute to the kind of quality that erotomaniacs of old had to suffer:
