I have been described thus. Even by people who say they love me. Evidently I lack the stupidity gene that turns on for every sob story I hear. I think there is a Telethon. I've not cared enough to investigate.
We, here in Texas, have had the driest summer on record in contemporary memory. We have had brush and wild fires the likes of California and Wyoming and Montana see during dry spells. However, Texas, being a large state, also has large wild fires. Some have been burning out of control for weeks, new ones start up each day.
Last night it rained here in Central Texas. My neighbors joined me in an impromptu dance and Whoop-di-do in our front yards. We all swore we'd come out and dance in the rain when it finally happened, and we kept that promise we made on July 3rd, the last time it rained here. As happy as I was for the rain, I dreaded what else comes with it, lightning. We're do dry here that even the amount of rain we received would not have stopped wild fires started by lightning strikes. It happened in Florida a few years back, it could just as easily happen here.
In the past week my husband has obsessively watched videos and news reports coming from the Bastrop area, near Austin about the large wildfire still burning out of control there. Hey, even nerds have to have a hobby, right? He's been eager to show me every minute of film he finds or share with me every tedious tidbit of trivia he hears or sees. It's like having an eight year old drone on and on about a bike ride down to the creek where they found the biggest bull frog in the world. I love him, but his Asperger's like fascination with minutia can be trying on the patience. Trust me, Job would have succumbed.
One story stuck out to me, however. It was one man's home not burning down, surrounded by many that did. The man had overhead pictures of before and after, Thank you Google Earth, I Guess... People had moved into his area from California or something and decided to allow the cedar trees which are abundant in the area to grow right up to the houses and not clean up the brush and underbrush on their properties... get this, to allow the wildlife somewhere to hangout. Give me just the tiniest bit of help here... you buy a ridiculously expensive house, allow Mother Nature to abut said overpriced real estate, then piss and moan when it all burns down, and then rail at the man whose house remained untouched because he kept his property properly maintained all so you could try to connect with a racoon?
I say this with all due respect, but are you out of your flippin' mind?
It puts me in mind of a news story I read years back about a California company who bought a strip mall and then proceeded to tell tenants that they could not put down pesticides but rather had to entice ants and roaches to leave the building on their own. After a couple of restaurants got shut down for health violations and moved because of the ridiculous lease requirements, the California company cut their losses and sold out to a Texas Company. I really wish I could remember where I read this story. I know it was online and may have even been the Statesman paper, but since I can't even pin down the year I read it, I can't find it in any of my searches.
This is what really chaps my ass, though. Those property owners who made their own misery were the first in line when FEMA hit the Austin area. They were lined up complaining about the guy whose house didn't burn down... because it was just so unfair that he wasn't suffering as they were. Yeah... he was smarter than you were, the bastard. Guess you'd better regulate that, too. We'll refer to it as the Moratorium on Brains, in fine Randian fashion. How does it feel to be part of a prophecy, as most people are now referring to Atlas Shrugged? Bet you feel special now, as you never did at any other time in your useless lives.
I think back to the horrible brush fires in California a few years back. They happened just as my youngest son was home from a deployment and had reached Camp Pendleton. I was worried out of my mind with thoughts of him having to fight fires. He had to help with families that had been evacuated from their homes on base and dealt with getting them to where they were supposed to be. I did not rest assured until those fires were under control. And they were under control on Camp Pendleton well before they were in the surrounding California areas. Why? Because Sierra Club can't tell them to leave dangerous undergrowth and overgrown brush alone so the racoons have somewhere to smoke cigarettes and play pool.
There is a word called Conservation. It means something you granola eating, tree hugging, mindless zombies. Look it up and it will do more to "save nature" than any of your stupid ideas about spooning with a grizzly bear. Letting the world burn because you're stupid is not a goal you should list on your resume, in the event you freaks ever look for a job.
Dumb asses.
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