mahiwaga

Leave it to San Diego politicians to turn a natural disaster like the fires that are currently running rampant throughtout San Diego County into a partisan issue.

Susan Taylor to Katrina Victims: You Suck!

So maybe Qualcomm hasn’t turned into the Superdome quite yet. But it’s only day two, folks. Maybe if you gave it a month of receiving no help whatsoever, with the surrounding city completely obliterated, it wouldn’t look so rosy.

And it’s not like San Diego is exactly immune to looting, either. Imagine what would be happening if people’s stuff didn’t, you know, actually go up into flames? (Maybe I’d have myself a nice new plasma screen TV, you know?)

I am simultaneously amused and disgusted by the auto-fellation going on amongst the hacks politicians. Both Catdirt and Rosemary describe the distasteful scenes with barely restrained sarcasm that makes it a little more palatable, but I still can’t help think of the scene in “Pulp Fiction” where Samuel L Jackson and John Travolta leave a dead body at Quentin Tarantino’s place.

Flatulating asshole Neil Cavuto likens Qualcomm Stadium to a big old party. OK. Sure. Your house just burned down, but at least you’ve got “lavish meals, piping hot coffee, even massages. Almost all the comforts of home.” Uh huh. That’s cool.

And the vile cunt known as Glenn Beck thinks that San Diegans deserve to lose their homes, because, you know, we’re all a bunch of sodomites and dope-fiends.

You can’t help but wonder, where was all this help in 2003, when Gray Davis was being kicked in the head while he was lying face down on the ground by the Right, never mind the fact that San Diegans refuse to have their taxes raised so they can actually fund fire departments enough so that fire fighters can have a fighting chance to defend the city. And the entire state was pleading with W for federal assistance, a plea that was summarily denied, no less.

What has the federal government done for California lately, I ask? And what if the good ol’ governator didn’t have an (R) next to his name, I wonder?

Just watch the Bush Administration take credit for the “success” of the timely evacuation, never mind that the mobilization was a result of the painful lessons learned by the city in 2003, and never mind that the property damages are far worse than for the Cedar Fire. Heckuva job, Chertoff. Thanks for cheering us on.

Me and a colleague speculated over why San Diego County can’t seem to protect their citizens from something as regularly cyclic and expected as wildfires. Everyone knows the drill come October. The Santa Anas come blowing in. The brush dries out. Eventually something is going to catch fire, and the fire is going to spread. Fast.

And yet here we are again, with houses burning to the ground, and hundreds of thousands of people displaced. Holy shit.

I have my theories about the county’s refusal to use any principles of urban development whatsoever. I have no doubt that this misguided clinging to libertarian principles contributes to this tragic repetition of events.

But we started amusing ourselves by going down the conspiracy track. Certainly, there’s a lot in it for the developers and their dependent contractors. Rebuilding homes will create jobs, and money will be flowing out of the pockets of insurance companies and into the pockets of the developers and contractors, all of whom have no desire to abide by sane building regulations, apparently.

When’s the next time the city is going to burn down, I wonder? 2011, maybe? Sooner, if this drought doesn’t end?

In San Diego thus far, no one is pointing fingers quite yet, at least not in the pwned mainstream media. (I think Clear Channel owns half, and Rupert Murdoch own the rest down here, but I could be exaggerating. A little.) But L.A. is a little different. The people are blaming the local policy wonks. The council members are blaming the state of California. But I was amused by the scathing criticism levelled by a climatologist against the marionette-like city planning committee in Malibu.

I can’t imagine anyone in San Diego having the balls to say something like that, even if it’s totally true. And the thing is, none of the victims really have much to gain by telling it like it is, because in a year or two, the insurance companies will pay developers and contractors to rebuild their houses.

Whatever. I’ve given thought to possibly staying down here and working at least for a few years more, but I’m starting to get sick of the idea of being surrounded by morons and lunatics.