Gee, and it seemed like such a good idea at the time...

Readers here may recall an article I posted here a few weeks ago about a crackerjack plan by the National Park Service to put up signage that would ask visitors to report what they thought in the park showed American history in a negative light.  Sort of act like Minutemen Watchdogs.

When contacted by NPR, the Department of the Interior, which oversees the National Park Service explained: "The effort ensures public lands reflect an accurate portrayal of American history and heritage."

Because, of course, visitors on vacation from across the country and around the world are all considered experts in American history and heritage -- rather than are there to learn about it.

Anyway, NPR thought it was worth checking how things was going with the whiz-bang idea.  And so they took a look at many dozens of comments submitted during the week of June 4 to 12 about the signs in parks throughout the U.S.

It turns out that visitors had a mind of their own. 

"The point of going to a park is to enjoy nature, not to whistleblow something that casts the American people in a bad light," said Evan Sutterfield, a San Francisco school teacher on his summer break.

"I think you need to tell the whole story," said Russ Harwell, visiting from Charlotte, N.C. "If you're gonna write it out of history, then you're doomed to repeat it."

Linda Mosinian from Milwaukee, Wis. wrote: "I think this is a waste of time." 

In none of the submitted comments that NPR reviewed did anyone, they said, "suggest that the parks need to change their depictions of people or history."

Some did at least say that politely.  Like --

"The park rangers and volunteers go above and beyond to tell the full American story," stated a comment about Catoctin Mountain Park in Maryland.

And as it happens, some even said that national parks should reflect even more of the country's difficult history. "Need more history on how black and indigenous people have been exploited," one comment stated.

Furthermore, as NPR wrote, "Accuracy isn't a given, because feedback can be submitted through a general website or email address accessible from anywhere in the world.
That was reflected in a statement from Clara Wooden, a member of the board of The Coalition to Protect America's National Parks. "What would stop somebody with an agenda from posting fake comments? People at both ends of the ideological spectrum can game the system without even setting foot in a national park."

If you want to read the full article, you can find it here.

​A couple days ago, a friend who lives in Texas sent me an email about how thrilled he was that he saw the news addressing Trump’s cuts to the staffing and funding of the National Weather Service, NOAA and FEMA.  He added that, since he was writing over the weekend, he was sure that Rachel Maddow and Lawrence O’Donnell will be covering that part of the story even more.
 
I was sure he was right.  And the thing is, as the coverage went on, and the horrific numbers of deaths (now at 104 as I write this) and devastation grew, it got to the point where I couldn’t even imagine the Trump cuts to NWS, NOAA and FEMA not being discussed as part of this story.  And not discussed by just them, of course, but all news coverage.  It’s borderline impossible to separate the story from those budget cuts.  They’re just too intertwined with the tragedy.
 
Not surprisingly, most MAGOPs from Congress who have commented on the disaster have said the obligatory, “This is not the time to talk about what should have been done.”

They’re right, of course.  The time for that was before the floods.  In fact, many did so, it’s just that MAGOPs ignored them and happily supported the Trump/“DOGE” cuts to NWS, NOAA and FEMA anyway.
 
Some, like Speaker Mike Johnson and Senator Ted Cruz (R-Cancun) said they didn’t know what could be done, but did suggest prayer.
 
Actually, a lot of people knew what could be done and said so when the Trump/“DOGE” cuts to NWS, NOAA and FEMA were made.  And further, if you’re the Speaker and senator from Texas, and you don’t know what to do, you probably shouldn’t be in your jobs, because that's one of the things your job demands.  But here’s one suggestion on what could be done – restore the cuts to staffing and funding for the NWS, NOAA and FEMA.
 
Another suggestion:  if you’re going to pray, pray that there isn’t another devastating flood.  Or natural disaster.
 
Rep. Chip Roy (MAGOP-TX) said that we didn’t have to worry yet about what to do next, since there was “a lot of time” to figure out that.
 
Well, no, there isn’t.  Climate Change is a very real thing, even if you don’t believe it.  Because science is not a belief system.  And these massive natural disasters will keep happening.  There will be more floods, and wildfires, and hurricanes, and tornadoes and storms of all kinds.  In a month.  Or perhaps a week.  We’re in the very start of the hurricane season.  They are still cleaning up from the North Carolina floods.  Massive wildfires are going on in Los Padres National Forest in California…right now.  At last report, it was 80,000 acres, which is bigger than the devasting fires in Pacific Palisades and Altadena that wiped out towns.  And they will all keep happening regularly because Climate Change is real, which is why, no, there isn't "a lot of time" until the next one.

And besides, a lot of people "figured out" before this not to cut staff and funding for the NWS, NOAA and FEMA.
 
Yes, we will find out later all the things that went wrong.  And no doubt many things went wrong.  But it’s impossible to cut major staffing and funding for NWS, NOAA and FEMA and think honestly they aren’t involved in some way – small or huge.   After all, this is exactly one of the things they do.  Predicting weather patterns, analyzing the intensity of gathering storms, warning the public.  And going door-to-door after a disaster to fine people in distress – but the ability to do that was cut from FEMA.
 
A guest on one news show said that the NWS office in San Antonio was fully staffed.  What another guest responded was that that didn’t address who was there on staff, because many experts with years of experience dealing with the specific areas of crisis involved and who were needed had been cut.  It also doesn’t address all the funding that was cut, nor all the other offices with staffing and budget cuts.
 
By the way, as to causes for the disaster, Mr. Cruz had an unexpected thought.  He blamed God.  "Why does God allow bad things to happen to young children?,” he asked, trying no doubt to sound deeply religious and meaningful, failing at both.  To which he added, in his supposed effort to be helpful in at least some way, “And all I know to do is to lean on God, to lean on prayer."  Which is a doubly weird thing to say – first, because he’s a U.S. senator, and he should have a basic idea of what to do.  (Including, as I noted before, returning the staff and funds that were cut to NWS, NOAA and FEMA.)  And second, because if you yourself are blaming the flood on God allowing it to happen and kill young children, why in the world would you count on that same God to help fix things you believe He did intentionally?  Though you don’t know why he did?
 
A thought for Ted Cruz:  Maybe God didn’t allow this to happen at all, but instead had helped the U.S. government create the National Weather Service, NOAA and FEMA!  And right now, He’s asking you why in the world you, and Trump and all the MAGOPs went along with cutting staffing and funds for them!
 
(It’s not been a good time for Cruz.  There is a story in The Daily Beast on him staying on vacation in Greece for several days after the initial warning had been issued and then even longer after the flooding and deaths got widely reported.  Is the story a bit of a cheap shot – honestly, maybe so.  In fairness, he was already on vacation and couldn't have known there'd be a tragic flood.  Although, just as honestly, a follow-story this morning showed that, from flight data and how as a U.S. senator he had access to private jets for emergencies, Cruz returned days later than his staff insisted he had supposedly "rushed back".  And so, especially given his history running away to Cancun during a Texas winter freeze emergency, does the story validly point to a pattern of not caring and having no sense of urgency to constituents when disasters hit?  After all, this is the guy who blamed God and said, hey, what can you do?)
 
On the other hand, there was video of Trump dancing on his White House balcony after the floods hit, and later having a fine time licking his ice cream cone at a holiday party, while the death toll rose.  But in fairness, perhaps that all can be blamed on dementia.
 
In the end, though, what’s most important is that the story of the flood disaster and tragic deaths (now at 104) are intertwined with Trump cutting staff and funding from the NWS, NOAA and FEMA, all enabled by the MAGOP in Congress.  In some ways, it focuses on problems caused by these cuts that exacerbated the disaster.  In all ways, though, it highlights with a bright, intense light the importance of the NWS, NOAA and FEMA in natural disasters and why cutting staff and funding to them is cruel, thoughtless and its own disaster waiting to happen -- every time.

In many areas of life, arguably most, people tend to feel helpless to make a difference in major areas that face society.  The environment is one of those areas.  Sort of, “Why in the world should I recycle my trash?  What possible difference could that make in solving pollution?  Why should I unplug my toaster when not in use.  I’m going to save energy to help the world with that??”
 
Consider, too, that since 1990, the amount of forestland that’s been lost from deforestation is the size of Africa.  And of course, it hasn't stopped there.  Every year an area is lost from deforestation that's the size of Panama.  Among the many problematic results of this is that 15% of all greenhouse gas emissions comes from deforestation.    And it’s not that this loss is a significant cause of pollution, but it also is a critical issue to destroying natural habitats for plants and animals.
 
So, seriously, it's beyond understandable when individuals feel helpless against such world forces.  International measures, like the Paris Accord, are one thing -- though even they have their limits -- but, in truth, what can one person possibly do when churning inside at the forceful tide of civilization causing such devastation?
 
Well, imagine instead if the question was not “one person” but…two.
 
Because that brings us to two people.  Award-winning Brazilian photographer Sebastião Salgado and his wife Lélia Deluiz Wanick Salgado.
 
Back in the 1990s, after traveling the world and spending years photographing the Rwandan genocide, emotionally devastated he returned home to Brazil, where he found the once-lush rainforest was now barren of forest trees and wildlife.

“The land was as sick as I was – everything was destroyed,” Salgado said in 2015. “Only about 0.5% of the land was covered in trees. Then my wife had a fabulous idea to replant this forest. And when we began to do that, then all the insects and birds and fish returned and, thanks to this increase of the trees I, too, was reborn – this was the most important moment.”
 
Not long after returning from Rwanda, the couple founded Instituto Terra in 1998.  And in the intervening years, the small organization has planted 4 million saplings “Perhaps we have a solution,” Salgado said in that 2015 interview. “There is a single being which can transform CO2 into oxygen, which is the tree. We need to start tree planting on a massive scale. You need forest with native trees, and you need to gather the seeds in the same region you plant them or the serpents, and the termites won’t come.”

Of course, reality has its say in such matters, no matter how noble the cause.  And so, how did this two-person, David vs. Goliath dream work out?

After all, this is the area around when they started their uphill effort in 2001.

And here it is today, 24 years later.​

I believe that the appropriate response is, indeed, "Oh.  My.  God."

If you want to see more photos documenting the work, and read a bit more about the actions started by just these two people, you can read about it here.

The article includes many social media posts from people who read about the reforestation effort.  My favorite among them was this:

"Reminds me of an old Chinese proverb -- 'The best time to plant a tree is 20 years ago, the second best time is today.''
​

There’s a point to this all, so bear with me.  It’s not about a favorite food, though it may seem so on the surface.
 
The tale does begin though with what has become a favorite food.  It’s known as “Nashville hot chicken” and has become very popular in Los Angeles, and apparently has been spreading through other parts of the country.  It began back in 1936 when Thornton Prince opened the BBQ Hot Chicken Shack (in Nashville, of course…), which later changed its name Prince’s Hot Chicken Shack in the 1980s.
 
I became a big fan of the food five years ago when Kim Prince (great-great niece of the original) opened her wonderful Hotville Chicken in South Central Los Angeles.  The inveterate Chris Dunn -- who introduced me to the place -- and I began frequent lunches there, and I wrote about Hotville four years ago here, if you want to know more about the place and its history.  Though that’s not the point here.
 
As great as their food is -- and it is great, in fact a “Best of L.A.” award--recipient from Los Angeles Magazine and making the Los Angeles Times 101 Best Restaurants list -- the owner/chef Kim Prince is even better.  She’d visit with the customers, and Chris and I have always loved our conversations with her, not a perfunctory "How's it going, how was your meal?," but stopping to talk, sitting down sometimes ​for 10-15 minutes. Full of kindness, not just for her customers, but her community, but even (actually) for her competitors.  She wants everyone to succeed, and puts actions to her words, a dynamo going out through the city relentlessly.  But that’s not the point here either – though it gets closer to it.
 
Because of COVID and the restaurant’s difficult location (though one Kim insisted on because of the community), Hotville Chicken unfortunately had to close down.  However, she teamed up with another pillar of the community, Greg Dulan of the legendary L.A. spot, Dulan’s Soul Food on Crenshaw – and the two created a successful food truck, Dulanville, which has relentlessly (of course) traveled throughout the city for the past several years.  And no, that too is not the point, but we’re getting close.
 
The point (and finally, we’re there…) is that last week, Kim Prince and Greg Dulan were on Jimmy Kimmel Live!  The reason is that he’s been featuring local chefs who have shown up in wildfire zones to feed people in need – and Kim and Greg, being who they are, are among those.
 
But it’s even more impressive than that.  To put it in perspective, when I sent an email to the Hotville account about how nice it was to see her on Kimmel’s show, she wrote back the following note, the details of which blew me away.  Though (being who she is), I wasn't surprised at that.  She wrote –

​​Here’s the video of their appearance on the show –
​

On this week’s Naked Lunch podcast, hosts Phil Rosenthal and David Wild have a special episode where they take listeners’ calls to discuss the recent wildfires in Los Angeles -- among them, check-ins from Brad Paisley and David's wife Fran Wild. They also write that “To learn more about building community through food and ‘Somebody Feed the People’ visit the Philanthropy page…” here at philrosenthalworld.com.

Every once in a while, you make one of those revelatory "light bulb moments," when the bulb goes on over your head and something comes to you that you're surprised hasn't occurred to you before.  It was big realization about the wrong-headed slams by the MAGOP at how Democrats supposedly mishandle fire management, which they then use to justify the unjustifiable -- their reprehensible claim that they may not provide emergency aid to California during a catastrophic disaster without any "strings".  Or perhaps not give any aid at all.
 
Putting it aside for the moment that Democrats do not "mishandle" fire management, and no MAGOP has really explained how they do (other than Trump suggesting that they use brooms to sweep up debris…) -- and putting aside, too, that it's ludicrous for the far right to complain that fire management budgets should be higher, since the relentless goal of the MAGOP is to cut budgets as much as they can, not raise them for fire management or pretty much anything, other than the military -- even if someone on the extreme right does choose to instead blindly (and wrongly) believe and insist (wrongly) that Democrats in California really do screw up fire management, and that’s why the state shouldn’t get emergency aid --
 
-- there's the very-simple, basic, near-impossible to not understand reality that anyone should be able to grasp: 

The forest that surrounds Altadena where one of the major wildfires has been burning out of control is…Angeles National Forest.  Which, of course, is..."national"! It’s controlled by the federal government, and so California has absolutely zero to do with managing it.  As for the other major fire in Pacific Palisades, that is surrounded by two separate forests.  One of them is Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area…which again, is…(yes, you've figured it out by now) national.  The other forest is state – Topanga State Park -- but (okay, are you ready?)…it’s actually part of the Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area!!!

Which, y'know, is again -- national.
 
Don't believe it?  Well, okay, here's a screenshot from the National Park Service website, with information about its properties.  You can't miss it -- there's "National Park Service" at the top, and "Topanga State Park" at the bottom.  And you can read about it here.

​In fact, there's even a page on the National Park Service website devoted to Fire Management in the Santa Monica Mountains Recreation Area.  Rather then type it in second-hand, I figure it's best to see it direct --

​(Moreover, back in 2012, Congressman Brad Sherman, who represents the district that the SMMNRA is in, got federal funds that helped restore sections of the park's popular Backbone Trail.  So, yes to reiterate -- those were federal funds, not state.)​

In other words, almost all the current wildfire damage in Los Angeles forests has been on federal land.  Some parts are overseen by state management, but all is controlled by the federal government.  Yes, of course, there have been wildfires in state forests and state parks in California over the years.  But these major wildfires -- right now, in the news today -- here in Los Angeles, these forests are federal.

In fact, to step back and look at the even larger picture:  Over half of California forest land (58%) is controlled by the federal government.  And even more surprisingly -- almost shockingly so -- the state only owns 3%!  The rest is owned by municipalities and private interests (which includes industrial-commercial, of course, as well as families, farms and even  churches).  This is not to say that the state of California has no part in managing the wilderness, it does. Just that's it's not a pure state/liberal issue at all, like Trump and MAGOPs want to make it.

I will anticipate your question:  “So, why is no one else mentioning this??!”  The answer is – I don’t have the slightest idea.  Is it possible that the state of California is involved with some of the forest management with the active fires?  Absolutely possible, if not likely, though only on state grounds.  But not on national forest land -- and it's the national forest and national recreation area that overwhelmingly have predominated in these two most-major and devastating wildfires.  Perhaps there is some coordination that overlaps -- I don't know.  But I do know that the only forestland around Pasadena is Angeles National Forest.  And that all the forestland around Pacific Palisades is under the oversight of the National Park Service with the Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area.

So, why has this seemingly gone unmentioned, as far as I can tell?  At times, this is one of my burdens in life…  Who knows?  Having worked years ago for Will Rogers State Historic Park helps grasp the fact, but that’s no explanation why it's been largely overlooked.  But overlooked or not -- it's reality.

The only guess I can make is that most officials and reporters are focusing on the immediate hell of the forests and homes burning, and they hear “Topanga” and "Pasadena and Altadena" and it’s all in Los Angeles, so that just viscerally says local -- and their other focus is the repugnant, but serious threats of MAGOPS in the White House and Congress to withhold aid, so they’re dealing with resolving that.  And while dealing with these critical issues, they can't see (no pun intended, but oh, does it fit) the forest for the trees.

But it's still the reality.

It might be an inconvenient reality for those on the right tied to trying to screw people in the midst of a catastrophic disaster who (whatever their party affiliation) live in a state that votes Democratic.  But it's reality nonetheless.