Although the fires in the LA area are terrible, I was brought back to reality when I contacted a friend who lives in Santa Rosa, CA, north of San Francisco, and who lost his house (and three classic cars), there a few years ago to wildfire. He now works and has an apartment in LA, so naturally I was worried for him. He replied to my query by saying that he is in Downtown Los Angeles, which is unaffected. The only signs have been some smokey skies and some distant smells of fire. He sounded totally unworried, at least for now. We just do not appreciate the size of the American conurbations.
OT: A different viewpoint of LA fires
Jan 18, 2025
Last reply: 1 year ago
6 Replies
Some of us who have been there, do.
I remember visiting some people 'in LA'
We took a plane from LAX to their local airport. Of course they were as close to downtown LA as Birmingham is to London...
That whole part of california is one enormous suburban sprawl.
I'm told that real Angelenos tend not to call their city "LA".
It's known as LaLaLand™
On 18 Jan 2025, Graham. wrote
Sounds very likely - shibboleths, 'n' all that.
But since I'm not a real Angeleno (and have less than zero interest in being one), I'll stick with calling it LA.
It will be interesting to see if the LA 2028 Olympic city is built on one of the fire sites...
Newsom is already getting a bit of stick about talking with developers before the fires are even out:
"Joe Rogan unloaded on California governor Gavin Newsom during an episode of his podcast, calling him “disgusting” for smiling, dancing, and acting excited to talk with speculators about developing on the land where people’s homes are burning down."
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You can bet in 2 months time he will be accused of not acting soon enough.
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