The world is on fire and where rain is drenching parts of our land, it isn’t raining in France or Spain, and parts of California. It is fire season. Whoever heard of such a thing? Fire season.

 

Since moving to California in 1968, I have become used to the fact that there are different seasons from the ones I knew growing up on the east coast. Not soon after moving here I realized there was no Autumn – I mean the real Autumn, with the red, yellow, and bronze leaves on the trees. In some places there was barely winter, although I soon found out that there is a type of winter here – it’s a wet one. Sometimes too wet, like it was in 2023 when Morro Bay was inundated with rain and floods kept us prisoners, not able to get out of town for any reason with all the roads in and out, flooded. Now we’re hearing predictions for one of those kinds of winter – an El Nino winter. Warming temperatures in the ocean create this problem and the outcome is an intense rain season.

 

So, there it is, it isn’t called the winter season, it’s the Rain season. Spring is the Green season, when we turn into the Irish hills, and usually begins in February, which in Montana and the rest of the country is winter. This is followed by the Dry season that for other areas is called summer. Fall, known as Autumn elsewhere, is summer in Morro Bay, when the fog backs off and the temperatures go up above 60 degrees for a change – sometimes too far up for a town without air-conditioning. Summer (or Morro Bay fall) is also Fire season, which can extend into Rain season and if we are lucky that stops the fires. Confusing at first, but you get used to it.

 

Here are the seasons in Morro Bay, California:

Rain

Green

Dry

Fire

Once you know these, you know what to expect and what to plan for as in the case of Rain season where your garage might flood due to an El Nino year – Rain season fluctuates between El Nino with a warmer ocean and lots of rain and La Nina with a cooler ocean and no rain. It doesn’t seem to confuse the fish, and whales travel through here no matter what type of year it is.

 

Fire season is going gangbusters right now with 17 states reporting large fires – five in California and Colorado, four in Montana, six in Minnesota and a whopping thirteen in Washington. As of July 28th, there are 309 new fires. You can get these statistics online from the National Interagency Fire Center. But if it isn’t fire, then it is flood, or tornadoes, hurricanes, or typhoons. All these things are natural occurrences. Mind you, these statistics are just for this country. Doesn’t include Canada or Europe or South America or Africa. The world is on fire.

 

No climate crisis? Are we all suffering from the Stupidity Pandemic?

 

Stupidity. It appears to be on the rise. I’d like to believe that there was once such a time when our government told us something was a fact, that we could believe them. The thing is, there is no vaccine for the stupidity pandemic and if it continues to increase, what with Fox News, and Facebook, and Tic Tac Toe, and the bare coverage of the Nightly News and no church or spiritual establishment calling their bluff, what are we to do?

 

What ever happened to common sense? We use the word truth a lot in peace and nonviolence work, but do we know what it is? Remember Joe Friday on Dragnet – “Just the facts, Ma’am, just the facts.” That’s what he used to say. The facts don’t support that immigrants are criminals or that war brings peace or that there is no climate crisis or that Donald Trump was sent by God to save the world. The facts are available. When you hear someone prattling the garbage that is coming out of those who are supposed to be in charge, ask for the facts. I’m betting you though that they can’t tell you.

 

Sad to say but it wasn’t so long ago in our human past that everyone believed the earth was the center of the universe and the sun, moon, stars, and planets all revolved around it. Be careful, because if you catch the stupidity pandemic you might think this is the truth.

 

THE WORLD IS NOT FLAT!