Stupid and Deadly: America’s Wildfire Policy

Forest policy, climate change, and real estate development combine to create deadly fires.

“Today’s monster fires result largely from three human forces: taxpayer-funded fire suppression that has made the forest a tinderbox; policies that encourage construction in places that are clearly prone to burning; and climate change, which has worsened everything.”

“Society masks the costs of building on the edges of the forest, a zone that planners call the “wildland-urban interface,” or the WUI. With its vast forests and penchant for sprawl, California is the epicenter of WUI wildfire damage. Between 2000 and 2013, fire destroyed more buildings in California’s WUI than in all similar areas in the United States combined, and more than 75 percent of all buildings destroyed by fire in California were in the WUI, according to a University of Wisconsin–Madison study.”

— “Burn. Build. Repeat: Why Our Wildfire Policy Is So Deadly.” Jeffrey Ball, Mother Jones

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Short link: https://wp.me/p6sb6-tFP

Top image (“Smokey Says ‘Let It Burn’”) by Mike Licht. Download a copy here. Creative Commons license; credit Mike Licht, NotionsCapital.com

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The Singing Cowboy & Mother Jones

“The Death of Mother Jones,” sung by Gene Autry, 1930. about the great radical union organizer — Mary Harris Jones, sometimes called the “most dangerous woman in America”  by her enemies — who died in 1930 at age 100. Frankie Marvin accompanied Mr. Autry on slide guitar. The songwriter is unknown, although the label credits the song to W C Calaway, possibly William R. Calaway, a record company A&R man.

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School Supplies

“One way to curb mass shootings in America’s schools would be for Congress to pass gun control legislation. But since that plan failed miserably, an enterprising father in Oklahoma is offering another solution—equipping children with bulletproof blankets.

The Bodyguard Blanket™ was developed by Steve Walker, a father of two elementary school students who was horrified by the December 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting in Newtown, Connecticut, which left 20 children and six adults dead. In the 14 months following Newtown, there were at least 44 school shootings. ‘We wanted our children to have a layer of protection immediately,’ Walker told Oklahoma NBC affiliate KFOR. ‘They can be stored in the classroom, and, when seconds count, they can be easily applied.'”

— “Gun Control Measures Are Going Nowhere, So Here’s a Bulletproof Blanket for Your Kids,” Dana Liebelson, Mother Jones

Mitt Romney’s America

Ex-financier Willard Mitt Romney was whoopin’ it up at an intimate $50,000-a-plate dinner-for-150 at the palatial estate of kinky fellow plutocrat Marc Leder when some class traitor secretly recorded the GOP candidate’s run-down on the “Other Ranks.” 47% of Americans pay no Federal Income Tax, he confided, and it’s not because they’re compensated in capital gains or have elaborate off-shore bank accounts like real Americans. Our U.S. corporations simply pay them too little to cover their family upkeep, and those wretched, gummint-dependent ingrates won’t vote GOP in November anyway, so screw ’em.