Heat Storms in Los Angeles are the New Normal

You should stay indoors due to record-breaking heat in Southern California, officials warned today.

While other parts of the world experience tornadoes, heavy rain, hurricanes, and snow storms, Los Angeles is facing another kind of storm that has been coined as “Heat Storms.”

Weather reporters on television in this city are constantly reminding viewers that Southern California has a Mediterranean climate that provides the coastal area with moderate temperatures throughout the year.

Unfortunately the climate has changed continuously over at least the past 30 years or more. Snails and slugs were prevalent in my garden in the early 80s but disappeared entirely by 1990.

This month we have already experienced eight days of 90 degree plus temperatures including a 108 and 104 degree temps. Unfortunately it has been even hotter in the inland valleys of the city. Temperatures have exceeded 100 degrees seven times in the San Fernando Valley this month. One day in the Valley the temp reached 117 degrees. The forecast is for at least another four more days of this current heat storm.

The consequence of the very hot temperatures has been the death of at least one postal worker among others.

A USC study of weather patterns for Southern California confirms my suspicions. The study is titled HISTORICAL TEMPERATURE TRENDS IN LOS ANGELES COUNTY, CALIFORNIA

Departure from average for mean temperature, minimum temperature, and maximum temperature for the South Coast Region in the State of California. The bold line is 11-year running mean and the thin line is the departure from the mean for a region between Point Conception and the Mexico border. Source: Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment (http://www.wrcc.dri.edu/monitor/cal-mon/index.html)

The super hot days starting July 5 of this year were called a Heat Storm by the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power. 29,350 customers out of LADWP’s 1.5 million total customers lost power during that storm according to the DWP.

A Los Angeles Times article dated July 12, 2018 confirms my observations.

The record-breaking heat that baked Southern California and prompted mass power outages last weekend was just a taste of what is to come. Summers in SoCal have already been getting hotter over the last century. Climate change is expected to produce more frequent and more blistering heat waves in the coming years that will put unprecedented stress on the electrical grid and challenge utilities to keep the power on.

Los Angeles, apparently, isn’t ready for the new normal. The demand for electricity Friday, Saturday and Sunday overwhelmed the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power’s aged system, prompting power outages that affected more than 80,000 customers. The unluckiest people went 48 hours without electricity; they and many others had to evacuate their homes in search of air conditioning elsewhere.

The solar panel industry will be booming as we all receive our summer bills.

Vieste on the Adriatic coast of Italy

If Italy’s boot-shaped landmass has a spur, that spur is Vieste. The cliffside village juts out into the pristine waters of the Adriatic, with numerous hidden beaches and grottos along the town’s coastline. Vieste may seem as if it’s frozen in some romantic past. That’s due in part to the fact that this seaside village, with the wind-and-water eroded cliffs, is within the boundaries of Gargano National Park. Efforts to preserve the park’s natural beauty have greatly influenced policies intended to protect the town of Vieste as well.

Why I love quirky and wonderful Canter’s Deli

When we visited Toronto Canada last year we went to Caplansky’s Jewish Deli and I mentioned Canter’s. Caplansky’s does not even come close to Canter’s. The person behind the counter knew all about Canter’s as well as Langer’s. So Canter’s is at least known around North America. It might be world famous.

Los Angeles Times By Evan Kleiman

Jul 19, 2018

In this age of highly curated artisanal food and free-range Scandinavian design, it’s easy to pick apart an institution like Canter’s. But I’ve been eating there since forever and I love it.

Canter’s provides the same level of comfort as lying around on the couch in your pj’s. It feels like home — if home is the dynamic L.A. life set in a slice of well- loved vintage.

A colleague from Northern California recently asked me if Canter’s makes its own gefilte fish, and I burst out laughing. That’s not the point of Canter’s. It’s for when you want a wide swath of deli menu items but you want to put on zero airs. You can practically show up in your night clothes and no one blinks. For me, that lack of pretense is exactly the point. I know what I’m going to get — and what I’m not going to get.

The deli’s appeal is its consistency and its embrace of all who come. Every day, a parade of people of all ages and type walks through the front doors. Goths, punks, hipsters, grandchildren in quantity, Supreme heads, hippies, middle-aged writers still waiting for their first break, seniors eking out a day’s meal on Social Security.

Then there are my faves to watch: kids in their early 20s, accompanied by their bewildered visiting parents. For a moment, I see the place through their eyes, the freewheeling mix of the clientele that makes Canter’s what it is. It delights me that I live in a town where there is still a place for strange.

Oh, the waitresses and waiters are the best, beloved to the “regulahs” — as some call us. When my mom had her needlepoint store, Petit Point Junction on Robertson Boulevard, she would start everyday at Canter’s. Jeannie, who worked there for more than 50 years, would greet her with a “Hi, hon.” “How ya doing, babe?” my mom would respond. This went on for more than 20 years.

When the ceiling collapsed after a severe rainstorm, Jeannie was on the sidewalk making sure no one got hurt walking through construction debris. When the new ceiling turned out to be a fake stained glass evocation of fall in New England, it added yet another layer of weirdness to an already quirky place.

Everyone is greeted like they are family and handed a menu that requires two hands and considerable focus to wade through. But we regulahs know what we want before we hit the door, and what a comfort that is.

Weekday lunch, it’s a tuna melt with fries. Monday early dinner, a bowl of barley bean soup. Leisurely breakfast, the lox and bagel plate. Sure, it’s not the double-smoked lox at Wexler’s, but it doesn’t have to be. It’s Canter’s. It’s more than what’s on the plate.

Kleiman ran Angeli Caffe for 27 years. She’s the longtime host of KCRW-FM’s “Good Food” and a member of the James Beard Foundation’s Who’s Who of Food & Beverage in America.

Donald Trump’s Disgraceful Summit Press Conference

I can understand Democrats criticising Donald Trump but these are some of the comments made by Republicans after the Trump Putin press conference in Helsinki Finland. I have selected just a few of the reported comments made by Republican members of congress.

I would say his words of praise of Vladimir Putin and Russia are treasonous. Congressional Republicans will have to decide whether Donald Trump should be impeached. I would support that decision.

Sen. John McCain, an Arizona Republican who has consistently criticized the President, said Trump’s comments were “one of the most disgraceful performances by an American president in memory.”

Senate Foreign Relations Chairman Bob Corker said the President “made us look like a pushover” and that Putin was probably eating caviar on the plane home.

Senator Ben Sasse, a Republican from Nebraska, “This is bizarre and flat-out wrong. The United States is not to blame. America wants a good relationship with the Russian people but Vladimir Putin and his thugs are responsible for Soviet-style aggression. When the President plays these moral equivalence games, he gives Putin a propaganda win he desperately needs.”

Rep. Trey Gowdy, a South Carolina Republican, “I am confident former CIA Director and current Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, DNI Dan Coats, Ambassador Nikki Haley, FBI Director Chris Wray, Attorney General Jeff Sessions and others will be able to communicate to the President it is possible to conclude Russia interfered with our election in 2016 without delegitimizing his electoral success.”

Arizona Sen. Jeff Flake, a Republican who has been constant critic, called the President’s performance “shameful.” “I never thought I would see the day when our American President would stand on the stage with the Russian President and place blame on the United States for Russian aggression. This is shameful,” tweeted Flake, who is not running for re-election.

John Brennan, Former CIA Director (2013-17) Tweet, “Donald Trump’s press conference performance in Helsinki rises to & exceeds the threshold of “high crimes & misdemeanors.” It was nothing short of treasonous. Not only were Trump’s comments imbecilic, he is wholly in the pocket of Putin. Republican Patriots: Where are you???”

Photographic Error

Even England’s royal family press office can make an error. It is a lesson for all photographers.

Kate Middleton is not wearing lamp earings Or is she?

Intrusive Government Regulations

California issues over 130 different licenses for a variety of jobs. Those licenses are required by law to perform those functions. The licensing does not actually confirm competency.

Did you know that home improvement sales persons are required to be licensed?

My daughter has a license required for estheticians and her new career, making appointments at a car dealership, she is not a sales person, also required a license. The Department of Consumer Affairs issues or at least monitors all those 130 licenses. Their licensing does not include licenses for those in the legal profession (i.e. lawyers, legal document assistants, and notaries).

Yes, you need to be licensed to set up appointments at a car dealership. Her cost to do that was $55.00 for fingerprinting and $50 at the DMV. No test was required.

How about a cemetery broker or a cemetery sales person? You need a license.

Electronic and appliance repair also requires a license.

There is a State Board of Guide Dogs for the Blind. That provides “licensed Guide Dog Instructors and Schools.” “Instructors must have knowledge of the special needs of persons who are blind or visually impaired and be able to teach them, be able to train guide dogs such that blind or visually impaired persons would be safe under various traffic conditions, or be employed by a guide dog school certified by the International Guide Dog Federation or successor entity.”

Then there is the California State Athletic Commission whose mission is posted on-line. “The California State Athletic Commission (CSAC) regulates professional and amateur boxing, kickboxing and mixed martial arts throughout the State by licensing all participants and supervising the events. “The Commission is dedicated to the health, safety and welfare of the participants in regulated competitive sporting events, through ethical and professional service. California is the premier model for the safety and fairness of regulated sporting events.”

Of course there are legitimate reasons for licensing such as the practice of law and medicine. But do court reporters need to be certified?

The licensed contractor who added a room to my house did not pour a flat floor. I discovered that fact when I sold the house. That was a contractor who was on the bank’s approved list for home improvement loan contractors. So what value was his license?

I view these licensing regulations as an effort to limit private enterprise and an intrusion of government.

Minorities are Unwelcome in the United States

Beware! If you are not a White European you are not welcome in the United States. DO NOT believe what is written on the Statue of Liberty if you are not part of that group.

The behavior of the United States today should be a warning to those who are not White Anglo Saxons about their treatment and opportunities if they migrate to this country.

More than our mistreatment of African Americans (Blacks) who were held as slaves until the Civil War that ended on May 13, 1865. Other Non-White people have been treated with disrespect, hated and jailed because they are viewed enemies of America. Look at America’s history as a guide. The following events are examples of the treatment of Non-White in the United States. There are many more.

I wish it wasn’t so.

From 1778 to 1871, the United States government entered into more than 500 treaties with the Native American tribes; all of these treaties have since been violated in some way or outright broken by the US government, while at least one treaty was violated or broken by Native American tribes.

One of the worst and most disgusting things happened in the 1829 decision by the Supreme Court in Johnson v. M’Intosh. The court ruled that the U.S. Government could sell Native American land to non-Native people out from under the tribes. Believe it or not, they were actually trying to do just that. Under President Andrew Jackson Cherokee, Chickasaw, Choctaw, Muskogee, Creek and Seminole people were forced from their lands required to march to Oklahoma. Thousands died in that march.

The Chinese Exclusion Act was a United States federal law signed by President Chester A. Arthur on May 6, 1882, prohibiting all immigration of Chinese laborers. Those Chinese were needed to build the transcontinental railroad but by the 1880s the job was done.

After the bombing of Pearl Harbor all people of Japanese descent, even though they were born and raised in the United States were put into internment camps for the duration of World War 2. Many Americans don’t like calling them concentration camps but that is what they were.

The Mexican Repatriation was a mass deportation of Mexicans and Mexican-Americans from the United States between 1929 and 1936. Estimates of how many were repatriated range from 400,000 to 2,000,000. An estimated sixty percent of those deported were birthright citizens of the United States.^[2]:330 Because the forced movement was based on race, and ignored citizenship, the process arguably meets modern legal definitions of ethnic cleansing.

In 1955 Mexican immigrants were caught in the snare of Operation Wetback, the biggest mass deportation of undocumented workers in United States history. As many as 1.3 million people may have been swept up in the Eisenhower-era campaign with a racist name, which was designed to root out undocumented Mexicans from American society. The short-lived operation used military-style tactics to remove Mexican immigrants—some of them American citizens—from the United States. Though millions of Mexicans had legally entered the country through joint immigration programs in the first half of the 20th century, Operation Wetback was designed to send them back to Mexico.

MS St. Louis was a German ocean liner. In 1939, she set off on a voyage in which her captain, Gustav Schröder, tried to find homes for over 900 Jewish refugees from Germany. Due to countries’ immigration policies based on domestic political realities, rather than humanitarian grounds, they were denied entry to Cuba, the United States, and Canada. The refugees were finally accepted in various European countries, including Belgium, the Netherlands, the UK, and France. Historians have estimated that approximately a quarter of them died in death camps during World War II.

Great blue heron in Caddo Lake, Texas

One of the largest freshwater lakes in Texas, Caddo Lake is so big it spills over into Louisiana. This 25,400-acre lake was first created by a cataclysmic log jam that formed over centuries, dubbed the Great Raft. We’re visiting the Texas side of Caddo Lake along with our friend here, a great blue heron. Other creatures share this labyrinth of flooded cypress forests, including numerous species of bass (good for fishing); turtles, armadillos, and frogs (good for photographing); and snakes and alligators (good for avoiding).