Donald K. Allen for President

Top of the Week

Monday, October 29, 2007

I lived in San Bernardino, CA, for two and a half years from 1969 to 1971.  The Santa Anna winds blew up the canyons and dry washes every year, and sometimes there were wildfires that came dangerously close.  Global warming?  No, just normal Nature flexing her muscles.  Did the political parties blame each other for the problems? No, they didn’t get truly juvenile and sophomoric until the last two decades.

One primary reason for the terrible wildfires that spread rapidly is the wind.  The other is the abundance of underbrush.  The Civilian Conservation Corps that put many unemployed, inner-city youths to work during the Depression addressed the underbrush issue.  They cleared thousands of acres and created landscapes safer from fire.  Today, however, conservationist groups have prevented underbrush clearing to preserve habitat and wildlife.  What wildlife are left after a forest fire???  Time to bring back the CCC.

Some will probably say our government reacted quickly to the wealthy suburbs of Southern California but didn’t care about the poor areas in and around New Orleans.  Two different states, two different catastrophes, two different local and state government officials.  Should we rebuild New Orleans?  Not without consulting the Dutch.  When I attended the American Veterinary Medical Association meeting in New Orleans in 1999, I was surprised at how the city seemed to be rotting away.  The buildings’ ground floors looked OK, but the second and third floors were nasty.  Maybe we need a New New Orleans further inland?  After all, with global warming it will be deeper under water in a few years anyway, right?  How about New Orleans?

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Throughout World War II our news media followed the wishes of our military and government and did not publicize things that went wrong and mistakes we made.  They also did not have a daily tally of casualties to kindle resentment and disfavor in our public.  We were at war then, we are at war now.

Our media needs to realize that negative publicity helps the enemy’s cause, just as it did in Vietnam.  It results in MORE of our military being killed.  It is disgraceful and disgusting and Americans need to let the media know that they are hurting the United States, not just fighting the current administration.  This world will always be creating new Hitlers, Stalins, Pol Pots, Maos, and other sociopathic megalomaniacs.  If we had stopped Hitler like we stopped Saddam, we could have saved untold millions of lives.  People forget history.  Don’t.