Tuesday, July 05, 2011

A Few, Um, Sparks of Hope

I try to look on the positive sides of events, for my own mental health as much as anything. So I was encouraged last night to see very few fireworks popping off as accompaniments to the main event at Santa Fe High School field. Last year they were everywhere, but this year I saw maybe a dozen, none in my immediate neighborhood.

The City Council passed an ordnance against aerial fireworks and threatened strong enforcement patrols. There has been a grass-roots campaign against fireworks. Santa Fe has had less than an inch of rain this year. In the past week, with the start of our monsoon, we may be up to almost an inch. Usually we have had almost six inches by now. Our spring winds extended into the warmer season, dessicating the soil and killing even drought-resistant plants. So when an aspen tree fell on a power line a week ago Sunday, it took only a few hours to torch 44,000 acres in the Las Conchas fire. It's up to about 124,000 acres now, having burned the entire eastern rim of the caldera that forms much of the Jemez Mountains.

It looks like people really don't want to burn down their homes and believe in the rule of law. The question is whether the country will have to go through the economic equivalent of the Las Conchas fire before the Republicans decide they really don't want to burn it down.

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