...When All is Said and Dunn

We got a little respite from the winter doom and gloom this week when the heavens parted and the sun shown brightly on our valley. The ground began to dry and become firm once again. In most places that is. Live Oak Park in Temple City is always a virtual swampland, but every place else was dry.

By Monday mid-morning the temperature was in the mid 70’s on its way to 90 degrees by day’s end. But it was still only 10:30 a.m. and the day was looking great. The birds were out and singing and the plants were enjoying the heat. Then out of nowhere on every channel came the news that came like a blow to the head with a shovel. The power companies were going to begin rolling blackouts any time. Boy, those public utilizes sure know how to ruin a perfectly good day.

Suddenly the words “Storm Watch” were replaced with “Power Watch” and the lead story on every news show was about the blackouts and the problems that they were causing. Traffic accidents escalated, people were stuck in elevators, and businesses shut down without any notice.

So far these rolling black outs are only lasting about an hour at a time in any one area, but I’m sure that’s going to change as things progress towards summer. When that day comes the restaurants are going to be one of the most affected. The shelf life of food is short to begin with, and if it goes without refrigeration for any extended period of time, the restaurateurs will be screwed. They will loose tons of money not only in lost product but lost revenues from customers.

All of this is adding up to what is going to be one miserable summer and I am not so sure that it needs to be. This latest little torment on the public by the power companies seems a little contrived. The temperature goes up a few degrees and boom we have a blackout.

This whole thing smacks of a set up, beginning all the way back to Christmas when Edison renamed themselves “The Grinch”. I think we are all being set up like bowling pins about to be the victim of a strike once the temperatures go up and stay up. I am viewing the last couple of days the same way I would view a trailer before a movie.

Coming attractions.

It’s time for all of us to make our displeasure known before it’s too late. We need to let our elected officials know that it is their heads on the chopping block. The hotter we get under the collar the more we want to remove the need for the politicians to have a collar.

These guys need a wake up call and it has to come from us, because there is a good possibility their alarm clocks, along with ours, won’t go off. So let’s use our computers for something other that getting funny e-mails and downloading porn for once.

Let’s choke their systems with enough e-mails to let them know just how upset we are going to be once summer gets here and none of use can find relief from the sweltering heat.

Personally I am not going to bother with the small fries like congressmen and state senators. You can if you want, but I am addressing mine to Governor Gray Davis and the State Controller Kathleen Connell. You can e-mail them at governor@governor.ca.gov and www.sco.ca.gov respectively.

If you are reading this by candlelight, you can write them at the following snail mail addresses: Gray Davis, State Capitol Building, Sacramento, CA 95814, Kathleen Connell, PO Box 942850, Sacramento, CA 94250-5872.

I’d write more but I just don’t have the power.

The Shrub Speaks: “But the true threats to stability and peace are these nations that are not very transparent, that hide behind the-that don’t let people in to take a look and see what they’re up to. They’re very kind of authoritarian regimes. The true threat is whether or not one of these people decide, peak of anger, try to hold us hostage, ourselves; the Israelis, for example, to whom we’ll defend, offer our defenses; the South Koreans.” Media roundtable, Washington D.C., 3/13/01