Once again, I’m watching my state burn — family down in SoCal has had to evacuate, and vast numbers of homes, huge swaths of land, are burning.

The abject failure of the current government — supermajority D, with our self-serving idiot governor — to keep our state safe is, as always, apparent. While they waste our money housing and paying for the populations of other countries who have “migrated” here to our sanctuary state, dropping money into the coffers of their friends (never to be seen again), “building” fast trains to nowhere, and regulating and taxing us to death, they have neglected to make any effort to improve the state for her citizens, and it shows.

Let’s start with the rampant degradation of urban life. Nothing like hitting a huge pothole on the freeway to ruin one’s alignment! And the city streets need to be navigated vigilantly to avoid falling into the many pits, which neighbors have taken to outlining in bright spray paint, or, for the worst, sticking a traffic cone into the hole.

There are homeless encampments “hidden” on the back streets everywhere, and going out after dark is an adventure you don’t want to embark on, lest you run into the crazies or the violent. Sirens blare all night long, our “safe” streets are shooting galleries (both kinds), and public transportation is risky. Countless restaurants have gone under, as people can’t safely travel or park after dark. If it weren’t for the gig economy delivery services, more would be gone.

But wait — there are also “big” issues. We’ve done even worse on those.

Water infrastructure and storage? We haven’t built any since the 1970s, and since then, some 30 dams have been removed, in the name of saving this or that little fishie, decreasing our ability to store water. In that time, our population has doubled. Therefore, the hydrants down south where the fires rage are running dry. Not helpful for fighting fires!

Forest management? Nothing has changed since I wrote about it in September 2021, during our killer summer of fires. Now, SoCal is burning once again. While we can’t control the Santa Ana winds, we always know they’re coming. What would it take to do some forest management, to try and mitigate the potential for devastating fires? The argument that “natural” forests are best is belied by their destruction, with every single fire we have. Simple clearing of brush, culling dead trees, and creating fire breaks would save forests that are lost to fire every year. And provide jobs, too. We’ve ended our lumber industry, in favor of watching the trees burn up. So stupid!

So, my advice to Republican pols — put some money into our state where it matters. Many of us are ready for change. Find us some real, competent candidates and support them with real money. Find us wise leadership to elect, professional managers willing to address our real problems, and this state can be turned. The creeps that run it now need to be sent packing. Now that we have a cooperative federal government coming to power, we can do it. If the alarmed posts on my local Nextdoor feed over Barbara Lee running for Oakland mayor is any indicator, folks are fed up. For the first time in forever, the local censorship industrial complex is ripe to lose. Let’s focus on turning California into a first-world country again.

Image: Steve Shook from Moscow, Idaho, USA, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons, unaltered.