Fire Thoughts

I am probably not going to make any friends over these musings.     First I do not judge anyone individually.    We need to be safe and keep our animals and property as safe as possible.    

Clearing our land is the worst thing we can do for the earth and animals.  Fire is a normal part of the circle of life.    Fire is Mother Nature’s cleansing process.  It is a necessary evil to ensure the balance of life is maintained.    

Habitat destruction is the #1 cause of animal and plant extinction.  What is animal habitat?  It is the twigs and leaves, it is the rocks and dirt, it is the mighty oaks and annoying cat tails.    It is the muddy part of your property that drives you crazy, it is the dead tree in a pasture, it is the dense forest of shrubs and brush at your neighbors, it is the tallest redwood to the tiniest weed.   In the midst of the deadliest fires in California history I am getting FB posts saying do not rake your leaves and why.   There are very important reasons why not.  The beautiful Redwood only grows in a small place in the West, the California and Oregon coast.   The litter under the redwoods is vital to their survival.   I have grown up with and currently live with the mighty oaks.    They are sensitive to man, not fire and not Mother Nature, they are sensitive to man.   Building around them and disturbing their ecosystem is a fast or slow death.  Disturbing their system is as simple as raking leaves away from them.   When you notice something wrong with the oak in your yard it is too late, they die slow.    When you notice something wrong in nature it is also usually too late.    

There was a time when we were successful in putting out every fire quickly and efficiently.  I remember hearing how this was bad because fuel on the forest floors was building up because it was not allowed to burn.    I remember a time when there was not a home every 1-5 acres and fire fighters were not stretched so thin.  They were successful with fires around cities and when fires were too much to handle they were allowed to burn thru an area because there was few to no humans or buildings.    Only a small handful of homes were destroyed, if that.   No one died…..   no one died…..

I don’t remember a time when the Great California Valley flooded every year, but it did, every year.   California’s central valley was like the great Serengeti in Africa.   It was a treasure like Yosemite, Yellowstone, and Grand Canyon.   Humans, in the name of Manifest Destiny, could not wait to make deep water channels and re-route water.    California has been drying up ever since.   Our entire state is drying up.   Why we continue to send water from Nor Cal to desert areas (sorry friends down south)  to water lawns and fill pools of the rich astounds me.    One of the last years of our drought I drove south and the giant reservoir on the grapevine was full.     Our water was keeping it full to the top while our reservoirs were down to the lowest they had been in history.    We only need water to drink, for toilets, and bathing (maybe an ice cube or two).    Our gardens and yards should all be native.    Plants native to one’s area do not require extra water except in the first year to become established. 

Now we are talking about more land clearing as if this is the answer.    It really isn’t.   We need to re-hydrate and stop building homes every acre.   Our beautiful California is becoming a desert.   By putting homes and people on every square acre in the state we are spreading fire fighters too thin.  By putting homes every square acre in California we are destroying animal habitat.    By not allowing fires to run their course in the past we have created a perfect storm for what we are seeing now.   By re-routing every ounce of water so we can put people in homes in the desert so they can grow lawns, have pools and import European and Island species of plants to make lush gardens we are drying up our home.   

I don’t rake leave because the trees need their litter for nutrients and the little animals need it for survival.  

I don’t remove a dead tree on my property because it is animal habitat.   When it falls it stays there.  

I create burn piles and I do not let them sit for months and then burn out all the animals who moved in over that time.   I leave them for the birds and animals.   I let them decompose naturally. 

I do not remove the 2 acres of cat tails covering a large shallow pond on my property to make a big beautiful pond because those cat tails are a home to a host of creatures that are part of what makes my place beautiful.  
There are approximately 10 homes where I live which is an area that could have 200 five acre homes.  That does not account for 1-3 acre parcels which would increase the population and the degree of difficulty in fighting fires.    

Oh and PGE needs everything to go underground.  

Risk Assessment and the Game Sexual Attraction

Our whole culture is developed around getting what you want, especially for men.  We women are used to not getting what we want unless we find a man to help.  In life the #1 rule of sales is that a No can always be turned into a Yes.     The problem is becoming more complicated with sexual ruination becoming a thing and the old rules are still out there being followed.  Look up “the art of persuasion” and “how to get a woman into bed” Women and men offer time proven advice choked full of tips and tricks.

I am fully aware of this new and potentially life altering conundrum.   Some women like to feel taken against their will.   It is part of their turn on.   Then for other women just the act itself with two consenting adults is taboo enough to cause fear.   Complicate the game by having women who have the genetic DNA of 1000s of years being considered property and only very very recently being almost treated as equal.   We all agree that temperament is genetic, right?   Women have evolved over the years and have been literally chosen and bred for their compliant nature, just like dogs, for the purpose of supporting man (in any way) and having children with a few bold and courageous women leaking thru to help the gene pool and lead charges to equality.   So let’s go back to these two women mentioned above.   These gals, both good girls, find themselves at a night club.    Woman 1 is going for the thrill of flirting and perhaps more for the evening.   Woman 2 is going to dance and have fun with girlfriends and just dancing with a man gives her the thrill.    Both women act like ingénues, one women is an actress and the other is real.   A normal man cannot tell them apart (but he should).   So now let’s add some drugs or alcohol, and some good old fashioned sexual biology.   If that combination has not all but killed morality let’s add in some male buddies to strike the final blow.   Clearly not all situations are like this.  But most situations that go south have some of these elements.  

Women have spent lifetimes perfecting risk assessment to the point that we do not even know we are doing it.   I can make a list of what I have done while I was in my teens and 20s to avoid being the recipient of cat calls or worse.  Men do risk assessment all the time in life but are having a hard time generalizing this over to women. Perhaps they have just plain discounted us.   They roll the dice and cross fingers all the time in business and they are willing to do it over and over again.  Going bankrupt, divorced or even jailed is just a stepping stone to the next step.  Men have the genetic DNA behind them and remember temperament is genetic, right?   The problem is that men have consciously been willing to take extra risks.   The greater the risk the greater the reward.   Now they are having to apply that risk to courtship which is extremely inconvenient for some.    A simple drunken transgression has the potential to bring them down as if they had sold the family farm for ocean front property in Arizona.  Worse, ruin them without a trial!   It may be wrong and not fair but it would make me stop and take notice. 

What are men and women to do??    Well probably most men are going to say we women need to lighten up, it is just sex for goodness sake.    Didn’t the sexual revolution of the 60s started and fueled by Larry Flynt and Hugh Hefner desensitize our culture?   Recently Robert Redford was quoted in response to the K decision "I feel out of place in the country I was born".   I get what he is trying to say but come on dude, it was far worse for women when you were born than it is today.  When you were born it would have been unheard of for a sexual encounter to ruin a man.  Honestly "me thinks men prosteteth WAY too much.   Ok ok, back to what are humans going to do.  First of all get better at life, be better at being a good person, parents raise your kids better, simple eh?  Women need to understand that not all women are trashy and slutty and deserve or want what they get.  Some women are in the wrong place at the wrong time and things escalated.   Men need to become better at reading women.  Seriously.   If you are driving a race car and you want to go faster and faster you need fine-tuned skills in order to not wreck or worse, kill yourself.  If you are in the corporate world making deals you need to know the person across the table and read them well or the deal could go bad.    Many of my friends are dog trainers, the only way we get better is by reading our dog better.   So the reality is, men need to read women a lot better.   Most women who fight you off really do want you to go away.    Most women who say "wait, no" at even the worst moment really do mean, no.   I would be willing to bet that the woman who really meant yes when she said no is the sort you should stay away from.   So basically any time there is even the slightest hesitation or weakest no, walk the F' away.   I can think of many more alternatives ways to not having your life ruined but to be honest men are smart, they are not stupid.  This is something easy to work out.

I have been thinking about this for some time.   There is actual precedence for what I am talking about.     Thank you, Nichole Hamilton for sharing this one.  

If you play with cats, you must expect to be scratched.   

Prophetic words, I think.   

I know that it really is inconvenient for men to add sexual encounter gone wrong to the list of things that can ruin them but life is full of things we do not like.    The reality is that there are so many men all over the world that have treated women with respect that this will only effect a small minority or the worst risk takers.  

In closing I feel we do need to give allowances to teen age brains and teen age sexual awakenings.   This has nothing to do with the K decision.   It has all to do with science and young people who are out becoming social and independent and learning about life and making the mistakes that they can learn from.   There is a reason people under 18 are usually tried as children and the record is cleaned as an adult.    Parts of the brain are still maturing and adult skills for actions and consequences don't yet exist.   These socialization years for teens are super important for their development and should not be held against them.   There is real science behind this and we need to be very careful in our outrage against children. 

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