I haven’t had much time for writing in these last few days, but, like the rest of you I’m sure, my attention has been riveted to the conflagrations that have utterly destroyed parts of Los Angeles, and are still, in many places, raging uncontrolled.
I won’t make a detailed repetition here of the accusations being leveled against those in charge, but it should be abundantly clear that ideologically driven mismanagement — DEI hires both in government and the LAFD, fire-department budget cuts (and the sending of fire-fighting equipment to Ukraine!), and wholesale sacrifice of responsible forestry and water-management policies upon the altar of an environmentalist cryptoreligion that cares far less about the flourishing of humans than the happiness of smelts and newts — have made this disaster much, much, worse than it might otherwise have been. (I realize, of course, that California is particularly prone to various kinds of natural disasters, but still.) And all of this is happening in a place that has, probably, the largest tax base of any state and municipal government in the world.
I wonder what the political result of all this will be. The “social contract” takes many forms, but at its most basic, it says that when you’re forced to pay protection money to the mob, you should at least be given protection. That’s clearly been broken in much of the West for some time now — except for the ruling class. Now, with Pacific Palisades and Malibu wiped off the map, even these cocooned elites have now seen the contract fail. What will happen next? We shall see.
PS: My friend and mentor, the legendary mixing engineer Bob Clearmountain, has probably had his home and studio completely destroyed; it was on Rivas Canyon Road in Pacific Palisades. I hope you made it out safely, Bob, and my deepest condolences for your loss.