We live in a celebrity-conscious environment where we are led by the media to worship movie stars, great baseball players and powerful politicians. But this week's wildfires in Southern California have proven once again that the true talent of America is right here at home.
The praise for the firefighters and volunteers has been immense and deserved. The integrated command structure within the county of San Diego and the state of California has, from at least the outside, appeared to work well. Local leaders, from San Diego Mayor Jerry Sanders to county Supervisor Ron Roberts and many others, performed marvelously -- and both were somewhat struggling with their reputations in the months before the fires struck. The local media, although hampered by ever-shrinking staffs, did quite well.
Compare that to our political leadership in Washington, D.C. where they're arguing over whether the fires were caused by global warming, ignoring the fact that the issue is a long-term phenomenon and that many of California's worst Santa Ana wind-related fire events have occurred in late-October. Sen. Barbara Boxer might not dare set foot in the county again after a hysterically poor performance. And compare with the national media, which I criticized in the previous post for making it appear that the entire southern half of the state has burned down.
Our heroes are right here in our hometowns. The guys who go off to fight fires and travel to foreign lands to battle terrorists, the women who streamed to shelters to help the unfortunate evacuees, and the businessmen who donated everything from bottled water to diapers. The folks who stayed home from work to keep the roads clear and helped care for the children of those whose services were needed.
We are what makes America work. The 300 million of us right here at home. Individually living our lives and making, for the most part, correct choices without help from the so-called elite in Washington, D.C., New York or Los Angeles.
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You see small signs all over San Diego about how generous people are. I accompanied my wife to an area supermarket on Sunday, and there were pallets upon pallets of bottled water stacked up around the store -- inside and out. Ready to be donated. Unneeded, because so much water had already been delivered to those in need.
An amazed woman who lived in an area hit by the fires called a radio talk show in disbelief about how much help was arriving. She listed just about every organization she could think of and said they just kept coming and coming and coming.
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Californians should "Google" Jerry Sanders' background. Learn about the guy. He's probably our next governor.
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Maybe I've missed it -- and it's a good thing if I have -- but I've yet to hear anyone screaming about how we're paying for the care of a bunch of illegal immigrants in the Burn Unit of the UCSD Medical Center. Several of these unfortunate souls were caught in the path of flames of the Harris Fire near the border. Four died. Others were hospitalized, at taxpayer expense.
As much as the big issue of illegal immigration needs to be solved, the smaller issue of sometimes needing to take care of someone in need can take precedence. As a generous nation, this is one of those times.
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Yeah, October is still the beautiful month. Sometimes the price is steep.
