Onward Together

Onward Together

Tuesday, January 14, 2025

Felons and Fires

 Felons and Fires

 

Seven months ago, the Publisher of the Washington County Daily News spiked my columns going forward. I started my bi-monthly column in the paper in 2011 and it ended in 2024. I thought that I had lost my voice and would no longer be able to share my progressive take on American politics with an audience of readers. So I stopped writing.

 

During my silence, America turned hard right and elected a now convicted felon to the highest office in the land and gave him slim majorities in the House and Senate to go along with his super majority on the SCOTUS. The Felon in Chief takes on the trappings of power in just a few days surrounded by a cabal of sycophants and fellow travelers.

 

As hard as that is to fathom, in the past week I have watched from afar as my childhood neighborhoods in Altadena and Pasadena, California have gone up in flames. The church my mother loved and taught me some basic Christian values, St. Mark’s Episcopal Church, is gone. The buildings where I went to elementary and middle school are in the fire zone with fates unknown. The three houses I lived in from birth through my first year of college are in the evacuation zones with wildfires close by. The parks where I learned as a Cub and Boy Scout are burned. Eaton Canyon, where I learned to ride horses and hiked as a kid, along with a swath of the San Gabriel mountains where I camped, burned over.  The Altadena Town and Country Club where I enjoyed swimming and diving, played golf and tennis in Summers is gone.

 

While I left California to go to High School and College and never moved back, SoCal holds a special place in my heart and soul. Hopefully, the loss of the familiars of my childhood is not a metaphor for the loss we on the left expect from the governance by MAGA folks in Washington.

 

What I cannot let the election and wildfire losses do is cement my silence. I need to raise my voice and write again about what is important to the preservation of our democracy. I hope you will find my efforts helpful and gives you the ability to raise your voices to remind America that all this, fires and felons, will pass.

 

Stay Tuned here and catch up here.


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