Griffith Park Burns....

....Internet survives. This is a long-winded post by a woman named Donna Barstow. Check it out. If you don't have time, just read below.

Summary:

She lives near Griffith Park. She loves animals. She loves her Griffith Park. She doesn't understand fire. She doesn't really understand fighting fires. She admits this. She blames the LAFD for letting the recent Griffith Park brusher burn too long and too bright. She is happy no one died. I think.

She is happy no one lost their homes. Sort of. She is unhappy lots of plants and animals died. She doesn't like that they may have suffered. She doesn't like that no one is taking responsibility. She doesn't like her City Councilman's, the cops' or the fire department's reasoning or explanation about why there was a fire that burned so long and so bright. She senses conspiracy. She loves animals. She doesn't like that the media ignored the story of how many animals died; in what gruesome fashion and why they weren't saved. Same goes for the plants.

I love animals. My wife loves animals. We have an animal. I would be sad if my animal (or my wife) died in a brush fire.

Donna Barstow, however, doesn't really give much thought or credence to the idea that there are forest and brush fires all over the world every day--far from the reaches of people--where plants and animals die horrible deaths. Where is the media, the LAFD, the LAPD or the City of Los Angeles then? Donna Barstow clearly does not care for all of the majestic creatures big and small that probably perished in the forest fire in South Lake Tahoe last week. She makes no mention of the hundreds of acres of charred pine forest during that blaze, or the ash that fell into the gorgeous lake.

Nor does Donna seem to understand (as has been ably pointed out in her blog's comments section) that nature takes care of nature. That undergrowth and chaparral needs to burn every generation or two. That this is a natural process. Donna seems to take a misguided view of nature in her backyard. Her view is one of coddling and cuddling, not the reality that life is nasty, brutish and short...and that's often the case with a large portion of the world's humans, let alone animals. Survival of the fittest, etc. Where is her outcry for all of the helpless creatures that have certainly died in three or four brush fires currently raging in Southern California?

Donna loves her park. Donna doesn't really want to understand much beyond the fact that the fire hurt plants and animals. But that fire is one of the best things to happen to the park since the last big brusher there about 80 years ago. It cleared out vast sections that needed a good burn. And one other benefit--yet unmentioned--is that it also burned out the tons of garbage that has been collecting unchecked in Griffith Park for decades. Donna's City of Los Angeles (or her park) wasn't in any hurry to clean up a cluttered urban garbage dump. Luckily, nature did it for her.