Another perfect day

Seems to me that the only possibility for today’s earworm is Randy Newman’s “I Love L.A.”. Released in 1983, this is the anthem to the city and culture of the protean community that’s been drawing in dreamers for two centuries. Newman—like myself—is a native and he knows how to celebrate and mock in the same breath.

One of the things he calls out is the Santa Ana winds, which are a major factor in the ferocity and uncontainable wildfires that have raged across the county for a week. If you’ve never experienced one of them, shut the fuck up about how if you were in charge, you’d have put out the flames in less than a day. (It amazes me not that Republicans are on the “we have to chastise Californians because their disaster is of their own making, while the disaster of two hurricanes in Florida and the Carolinas are completely different” wagon, but because Republicans from California are climbing on that wagon to score points with the Kleptocrat.) Santa Anas are dry and hot, and gust up to 100mph; not for nothing are they known as “devil winds”.

Here's Raymond Chandler on them, in the novella called “Red Wind”:

“There was a desert wind blowing that night. It was one of those hot dry Santa Anas that come down through the mountain passes and curl your hair and make your nerves jump and your skin itch. On nights like that every booze party ends in a fight. Meek little wives feel the edge of the carving knife and study their husbands' necks. Anything can happen. You can even get a full glass of beer at a cocktail lounge.”

Well, possibly fewer cocktail lounges these days. And some of the settings for Newman’s video have been incinerated. But the city will reinvent itself. Again.

 

 

©2025 Bas Bleu

 

On kings

As we approach the inauguration of a convicted felon, who—but for a slight majority of those who actually voted last year—would currently be either in court defending his criminal attempt to overturn the 2020 election, or in the process of appealing his conviction for that crime, I’ve been thinking a lot about Aesop’s fable about the frogs and their kings.

Here's the gist:

There was a pond with frogs who thought very highly of themselves. Very important frogs in what was most likely the most important pond in the universe. (Well—so, that made them the most important frogs in the universe, innit?) But they had no ruler worthy of this amazingness, so they petitioned Zeus to send them a king.

“O, mighty Zeus—give us a king to rule over us! Send us someone befitting our status in the world.”

The king of the gods then dropped a log in the pond, making a huge splash. Literally. It frightened the frogs, but after a while some of them noticed that King Log wasn’t engaging in kingly activities, or even, truth be told, any activities at all. Frogs started hopping on the king and mocking him.

“Yah—proper king you are, I don’t think!” they probably said.

Well, after a while, the frog chorus appealed to Zeus again—“This isn’t the kind of king we deserve! We’re very important frogs; send us a real king, who’ll do king things!”

And Zeus sent them a stork. Naturally, the stork started scarfing down frogs, because that’s what storks do.

The frogs were terrorized as their numbers were decimated. Those who escaped wept piteously and petitioned Zeus again to take away this terrible monster.

But Zeus replied, “Nah—you should have realized when you were well off instead of getting ideas above your station. You got what you asked for. Also—there’s this word, “hubris”. You should look it up.”

I can see how some of the frogs in this American pond might consider Joe Biden a do-nothing King Log. In contrast to the Kleptocrat, Biden is muted; his decency and competence guided us through the chaos left by the last Klepto administration. He controlled the pandemic; he brought down inflation and enacted policies that built up business, spawned jobs and invested in infrastructure. But he’s not a flashy guy and he didn’t shit-talk immigrants, allies, neighbors or people who disagreed with him. Republicans hopped all over him, deriding him as useless and unworthy to be our king.

The MAGA frogs, they want flash—they’re very important frogs who haven’t been properly appreciated! And they want a powerful king who’s going to hurt people, bigly! So they elected King Stork, who is now completely unfettered by virtue of the willingness of legislators, the federal judiciary and big corporations to prostrate themselves at his feet and let him do as he pleases.

There is going to be such a slaughter of the frogs as this country has never seen. In little clumps and great big swaths, he will gobble them down without bothering to chew. And they will not understand what has happened, and they’ll blame it on someone else.

Problem is, salamanders, newts, dragonflies and other pond creatures are going to go into the maw, too.

Zeus is laughing his ass off.

 

 

©2025 Bas Bleu

 

Paperwork

I was spitballing my estimated tax payment for 2024 yesterday. Since it’s due today, I was actually much earlier than I usually am about this. It’s a challenge because of the change in my earnings status; for the past two years I’ve gone down to the wire because I couldn’t predict what the total would be until I’d crossed the line. It should be steadier going forward.

That doesn’t make me happy about it. Paying taxes that are going to support a criminal regime with everyone in office skimming off it does not sit well with me. Sometimes not being a lawbreaker is a moral burden.

But what really got to me yesterday was that, in the process of verifying my retirement disbursement, I came to the beneficiaries page. And I had to remove my sister from the list.

I believe I’m done with this for a while.

 

©2025 Bas Bleu

 

White out

A couple of mementos of the first real snow we’ve had for a while in the District They Call Columbia. It's been hanging around for a week on account of the sub-freezing temperatures.

Birds on the patio (before I shoveled it for their convenience):

Snow on a fence.

If it’s all the same to Nature, I’m ready to forego this kind of thing for a while. Kthxbai.

 

©2025 Bas Bleu

 

Gratitude Monday: even in the fire

Despite all the horrifying visuals coming out of the wildfires devastating LA County, there are still things to inspire gratitude.

First—my sister and her family in Pasadena are safe. They were evacuated in the early hours of Wednesday, but allowed to return later in the day. The Eaton fire is burning within blocks of their house, so the air quality is bad, but they’re okay.

Even though there are James Woodses, weeping on CNN about losing everything in the Palisades fire (and he later learned his house in fact survived, but he didn’t apologize for all the calumnies he managed to fling between tears), there were people like Steve Guttenberg, doing what they could to help first responders get to the fire sites. Guttenberg was interviewed by a local reporter—who did not recognize him as the smart ass Mahoney of the Police Academy franchise (fair enough; that reporter was probably not born until long after the sequels ran their course)—while he was trying to move abandoned cars that were blocking streets. Not an actor or star; just a guy trying to help out (and save people from having their Porsches and Teslas from being bulldozed aside).

Folks all over Southern California stepped up to the plate, donating food, clothing, toys and other supplies for the more than 100,000 people under evacuation orders. Animal shelters sprang up throughout the area for small to large critters displaced by the fires, and people donated food, toys and supplies to them, as well.

Relief organizations are also out in force—including World Central Kitchen, which I’ve been proud to support for years. By Friday, they had two meal service operations going in Pasadena, providing sustenance to first responders and comfort to people having the worst day of their lives. And that was just in Pasadena.

States and municipalities have sent firefighting teams to join the efforts to tame the multiple fires, driven by Santa Ana winds that at times have gusts topping 100mph. I want to point out in particular teams from Canada and Mexico, who’ve been in the air and on the ground for days, sent by their governments even as they have to bat away bullshit blustering from the Kleptocrat about how he’s going to fuck with them to show who’s boss when he takes over.

And, when handlers were trying to herd their flock of ground-managing goats out of danger as the Palisades fire approached Brentwood on Saturday, drivers—LA drivers—got out of their cars to help when some of the goats bolted.

I’m grateful for all of that.

 

©2025 Bas Bleu

 

Lead me home

It seems appropriate that we end the week with something honoring former president Jimmy Carter, who died last week at age 100. In fact, I’m choosing something from his funeral service, held yesterday in National Cathedral.

If any man—especially any president—can be said to be suffused with grace, it would be Carter, who spent his entire adult life in service and was guided at all times by the tenets of his faith. He was an extraordinary man, whose decency is a shining beacon to the world.

So, let’s have “Amazing Grace”, performed by Phyllis Adams, with Leila Bolden on piano, from yesterday’s service.

©2025 Bas Bleu

 

Moving messages

I think it’s time for another tranche of vanity plates; it’s been a while.

 Not entirely sure about the six eyes (maybe something to do with Tesla), but I do get the Hawkeyes possibilities.

The woman driving this one said this is what her family calls her:

This person may be a fan of the Cherry Blossom Festival:

And this one may be from Georgia, or a very nice person. Possibly both:

I have not seen these drivers, so I do not judge:

Okay:

Possibly someone from Virginia Tech:

Okay, not a vanity plate, but clearly plenty to say. 

©2025 Bas Bleu

Early warning

Pulitzer Prize-winning editorial cartoonist Ann Telnaes has resigned from The Washington Post. She left last week after her editor killed this cartoon she proposed:

The image shows Mark Zuckerberg (CEO of Meta), Jeff Bezos (Amazon founder, CEO of Blue Origin and WaPo owner) and Sam Altman (CEO of OpenAI) offering bags of money to the Kleptocrat (who may be a statue, elevated on a plinth—this is actually a sketch she submitted, not a finished cartoon). Additionally, LA Times CEO Patrick Soon-Shiong is offering a lipstick and Mickey Mouse is prostrated at the base of the plinth.

You may recall that Bezos and Soon-Shiong nixed their respective newspapers’ intent to endorse Kamala Harris in the presidential election. All of the corporations have recently donated in the seven figures to the Kleptocrat’s “inauguration”; they have clearly decided to obey in advance. It’s particularly outrageous that two of the formerly best newspapers in the country are among the Quislings, but that’s what happens when billionaires buy media companies as side hustles and make editorial decisions based on what’s best for their bread-and-butter revenues.

Telnaes explained her reasons for leaving WaPo on her Open Windows blog. She invited other cartoonists to riff on her rejected theme, and the early responses are pretty good. You should also take a look at her post on why political cartoonists are a critical part of a free press, which is vital for democracy. She wrote this in 2019; it's only become more frightening in the intervening years.

As she says, they’re the canaries in the coal mine of a democratic society. And the canaries are coughing.

 

©2025 Bas Bleu

 

Snow day

Well, we got the snow. Here in the People’s Republic, it wasn’t bad. (My Southern California brain is agog that I just said that; it was about four inches.) I did indeed spend about 30 minutes shoveling my sidewalk and clearing my car in case I needed to get out of Dodge unexpectedly. And I cleared the sidewalk for a neighbor who is unlikely to be able to do it for herself.

(I suspect that Sunday’s yoga focus on hips and core did not prepare my lower back for this, but it’ll work its way out.)

But mostly I spent the day watching the birds gobble up the safflower seeds I tossed out at them, and drinking hot tea.

Not so bad.

 

©2025 Bas Bleu

 

Gratitude Monday: Shelter from the storm

First Gratitude Monday of 2025. First major snow event of 2025. So I’m grateful that I’m snug in my house, with central heating that works, with plenty of food available and a heated mattress pad.

Even though I still have to shovel the sidewalk in front of it, I can come back inside and drink hot tea after I’m done.

  

©2025 Bas Bleu