Fire,Hurricanes and Siegelman

I find it hard to imagine how a state of 30 million people can evacuate half a million and find somewhere for them to live. Yet this is the second time in two years Americans are evacuating en masse. The extent of the fires burning up Southern California is hard to imagine. 1500 homes destroyed equates to the City of Key West reduced to embers. And here we are, sunny tranquil and hurricane free- for now! All those spring predictions of a summer to dread failed to materialize in the Keys this year. Unlike fire season, hurricane season threatens every summer, and we just get a cool winter to refresh us before the next round of threats. Summer fires in California destroy the brush that holds together the manufactured slopes that slip slide away in the heavy winter rains. There will be lots of possibilities this winter across Southern California.

Southern California is a desert and sucks the water out of the Colorado River, the Sierra Nevada (Snowy Mountain) range and anywhere they can get water. And when the winds blow, as they do down the desert canyons, they send the flames tumbling before them. And its hot and dry this year, doubtless attributable to Global Warming, the cliche du jour, the same warming that is going to raise seawater and drown South Florida.

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Living the middle class life these days feels a bit like going to war- the economy is wrecked (Merrill Lynch posted $8 billion in losses today), and where you live determines how you die, drowned burned or run over. In fact I got cut off yesterday evening on my way out of town by a car that decided to turn sharp right when he realised he'd missed the 1st Street turn, off North Roosevelt. Layne was riding alongside on her ET4 and seeing I was okay on the ground took off after the Mitsubishi and forced him to stop up 1st Street. He apologized and in the same breath claimed I was riding inside him (in my own lane!) and it was my fault. He was Vietnamese and put his hands together and kept bowing and saying sorry and on and on and blaming me as an aside. Layne was angry but I shooed him away when I found no damage. I toppled gently and kept the machine off the ground with my elbow and knee and leather shoe.

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My wife remembers Don Siegelman, the former Alabama governor from their time at college together. He announced back then he wanted to be governor of his state and she remembers thinking "Not him! He's not smart enough!" And she was wrong. Now he's been sentenced to 88 months in prison on a bribery conviction. And a Republican attorney is charging Karl Rove with using the US Justice Department to bring down a prominent democrat who might have been a solid presidential candidate! We met Siegelman's wife last year in Birmingham, during a road trip to New Orleans (Katrinaland) and she protested they were trumped up charges, sounding for all the world like a loyal wife. I wish we had been convinced at that time. Not now when its obvious to one and all.

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A ruined reputation is worse than all the fires, hurricanes and motorcycle tumbles in the world.