Posted on 01/11/2025 4:58:31 AM PST by MtnClimber
"'Climate Change' has been identified: it's a 28-YO man from Reseda in a black hoodie holding a lighter and some matches." — Peach Keenan.
“Life imitates art,” Oscar Wilde quipped, a most insightful glimpse into the human condition delivered as a wise-crack. Very Hollywood. Too bad there were no late-night talk shows in Oscar’s time. It took more than eighty years, but the apocalyptic burning of Los Angeles depicted at the climax of Nathanial West’s 1939 novel The Day of the Locust has finally come — the city of dreams turned into one big flaming nightmare. The adumbrations of this fiasco will darken our national life for years to come.
Who knew that the best way to convert Utopian Woke Democrats back into a reality-based thought system would be to burn their houses down? The wealthy showbiz folk occupying the moral high ground of the Pacific Palisades voted Democratic by 90-percent. They were fully on-board with the agenda of the Party of Chaos, especially Diversity-Equity-and-Inclusion (DEI) and the open border that allowed a deluge of mysterious strangers to flood the country.
Now, reports come across the “X” wires that these mystery folk are cruising the wreckage in the canyons on scooters and in cars to loot anything left of value. The police are shown on video capturing a mystery migrant with a blowtorch suspected of starting the latest outbreak named the Kenneth Fire on the edge of the San Fernando Valley. Loud-and-proud DEI firefighters were stymied in their work by neighborhood fire hydrants that were disappointingly not “full of water,” as they put it. Is that how it works? Each hydrant is supposed to get filled up on a regular schedule by water pixies?
You know by now that LA Mayor Karen Bass was unavailable for the early innings of the conflagration, having flown to the West African nation of Ghana for the inauguration of the new president John Dramani Mahama. But she managed to scramble back in time to mourn the smoldering ruins of Malibu. Governor Gavin Newsom dallied on a smoke-filled street with CNN’s disaster specialist, Anderson Cooper, pretending to manage the situation, which was, in fact, completely out of control. Among the things the governor has been criticized for is poor forest and brush management. Mr. Newsom has been lately working to pass a $25-million bill to fund measures for “Trump-proofing” California. For that same $25-million, he could have hired 500 workers at $50,000-a-year to cut brush around Los Angeles County. That is, if he didn’t avail himself of work-gangs from the California penitentiaries.
Even “Joe Biden” was in town, to announce the creation of a new national monument, the Chuckwalla National Monument, south of Joshua Tree National Park — 125 miles out in the Mojave Desert from LA. But he had helpful phone conversations with Governor Newsom. . . promises of federal funding to build Malibu back better. I wonder if the folks still camping out in tents back in the Mountains of Carolina heard about that. This same week “JB” also announced another $500-million aid package for Ukraine. Anybody wondering why “America First” helped get Mr. Trump elected?
You can’t overstate the amount and degree of family devastation to be endured in the months and years ahead. For one thing, many homeowners recently had their fire insurance cancelled. Decades of punitive bureaucracy made rate increases difficult in wildfire-prone areas, so companies like Allstate decided to quit doing business in the state. So, many of the thousands of lost houses will be total losses. A great many of these were multi-million-dollar houses, even modest ones built in the 1960s, due to the extreme desirability of neighborhoods like Pacific Palisades, the Hollywood Hills, and Malibu Beach. Some middle-class people had their entire nest-eggs vested in these houses.
Comedian and podcaster Adam Carolla put out an insightful video rant about just how difficult it will be to rebuild, even if you had homeowner’s insurance — or happened to be a very wealthy Hollywood actor. He put a spotlight on the monumentally obstructive permitting process in Los Angeles County, including additional onerous environmental agency hurdles that anyone would meet attempting to construct a new building in California. Also consider: where are the thousands of competent building contractors going to come from to work on so many replacement houses in one locality at the same time? The bottom-line is that an awful lot of formerly middle-class and even well-off people will be homeless possibly for years ahead. You have not begun to hear about this.
You also have to wonder how this disaster will end up affecting the movie industry. Show business in LA had been on-the-ropes for quite a while preceding the big fire. Woked-up management putting out woked-up movies did enough damage on top of momentous changes in movie exhibition and distribution, writers and actors’ strikes...SNIP
Someone forgot to fill up the fire hydrants.
James Howard Kunstler ping
This smells love me scapegoating to me. They’re trying to deflect blame away from their stupid ecological policies.
“You also have to wonder how this disaster will end up affecting the movie industry.”
Gee, that is way down on my list of things to remotely care about. They haven’t had an original idea in decades. As far as I’m concerned, Hollywood, and celebrity culture died long ago. I feel for those who lost their homes, but I somehow cannot muster sympathy for the movie industry.
Excellent article! Thank you for posting!
There are enough old movies that I’ve yet to see that would keep me busy for the next 20 years. I couldn’t care less about Hollywood
Yuppers...
and the Sit-Coms Box sets except for Seinfeld!
I know the area where the 2 biggest fires started very well, Palisades and Eaton, I have lived her for 64 years. There is absolutely NOTHING for Miles and miles from where these fires started. It is way to far off the beaten path for them to be homeless camps, Miles Uphill and far from civilization where they could congregate and panhandle for their drugs. I do not believe it was a miraculous case of spontaneous combustion from the ice cold winds. I firmly believe every last one was intentionally set, why, well your guess is as good as mine. But they DID NOT START ACCIDENTALLY.
You also have to wonder how this disaster will end up affecting the movie industry.
Los Angeles is going to take a financial hit that they may not recover from. The loss of the property tax revenue is one thing, but also the loss of all the businesses paying taxes, and the people in those communities paying taxes.
All gone and will take decades if ever to be back to where it was.
We in the rest of the country may be in for cant-find-a-contractor as they flock from the fifty states to get on the disaster in California gravy train. This is a situation where guys will put up with a lot of hard living and hard work for eighteen months to rake it in …
“multi-million-dollar houses, even modest ones built in the 1960s”
No, they are $100,000 houses built on multi-million dollar land.
I heard the LA fire dept has never lost a foundation or location.
BTTT
I wouldn’t worry about a contractor shortage anytime soon.
The permitting process will take years.
Literally.
Two interesting links...
Joel Pollak
@joelpollak
Sunset Boulevard is a scene of destruction, including in the center of Palisades — though, notably, @RickCaruso’s Village Mall looks largely intact. Caruso’s employees apparently fought the fire themselves. He lost to Mayor Karen Bass in 2022. She was in Ghana yesterday. (8/15)
9:30 PM · Jan 8, 2025 22.8K Views
https://x.com/joelpollak/status/1877181134334750755
And this one...
Note in particular the mention of Caruso’s recent loss to Bass.
The bit about it being a narrow loss.
Gee, sounds familiar, doesn’t it. Another electoral squeaker.
The firetrucks sent from Oregon had to be inspected prior to being driven to LA and then they have to be inspected again before heading home.
Obviously.
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