Cobb

Every fall, when the Santa Ana's come up, there are hundreds of men (and women) like this one, doing the same thing, hoping against hope that a miracle will happen and their home will be spared. In some cases their pool pumps and garden hoses do save their houses, so the effort is not always futile.

And every fall, arsonists play their deadly games, dangerous, at times fatal to others. Like hackers, and spammers, and the ones who use their CB radios to spew racial slurs, there are always those vicious few who continue to find new ways to vent their anti-social feelings, who have little regard (if any) for the rest of society. If only there were ways to find and punish them, but most often they get away with it.

At times one thinks that if there were only some way of devining how they would turn out when still in the fetus stage, that then abortion might accomplish a real worthwhile purpose that would serve us well for the common good.

It's all very Don Quixote, isn't it? Tilting at windmills and all that stuff.

It happened in BC this summer as well. All I can say is that these people are demonstrating a presence of a far greater faith than I ever thought possible.

Cecily - great comments - think about it - making a "last stand" of sorts to save your life's work, in essence. Fine, insurance will replace your house (hopefully) - but it won't save the baby pictures, the kids' drawings on the fridge, or the cactus your wife gave you to decorate the windowsill. It's crazy, but I think you can see why we get this photo every.single.time. Stupid as it may be, some people have a different attitude towards certain situations.

When I lived in Hermosa Beach, the house two doors down burned to the ground. Within 30 minutes, I had my diary, vinyl, floppy disks and photo albums in 5 milk crates out on the curb ready to go. Granted, I was only 27 and didn't own that much stuff, but I did know what was valuable. It's not as if these people didn't have at least a day's warning.

I'm going to have a fire drill at my house this week and my wife and I just discussed briefly the things we'd need to grab in just in case. I'm going to make it a complete surprise in the middle of the night - we'll see if the kids remember.

I have never been the victim of fire. Now with that said, this reminds me that life is a series of letting go. Letting go hurts, no doubt. When I see a man this close to that fire (see above pic), I want to say, "Let it go man, just let it go."