Wildfire fun

Oh, the fun and excitement of fire season.

After being up at 2 am to put out a work fire, I decided at 9:30 to go to bed and nap until 1, then head down to the studio for the afternoon and night classes. Sensible, right?

Not when wildfires are raging in the hills south of you!

First, the only freeway that leads south was blocked off. Then, the batcave road that parallels the freeway south was also barricaded. No problem, I thought: just head east a bit and go around the hills on the east side of the canyon, then south, then west, and pick up the road south again. That was also barricaded, I discovered. Awesome. Got herded by the highway patrol onto the 15, a freeway MUCH further inland than I want to be for my destination being a studio 3 blocks from the beach.

I would turn around, but traffic's stopped in both directions.

Been driving for 2.5 hours. Hurrah. Will I make the night class? Stay tuned, true believers. Traffic's moving again; must go. Wildfire fun

look, some art

Jasmine: Oils; 3 hours. Did this one on Saturday, and it took two sittings (40ish minutes) to get the underlying drawing right. I really must get better at taking photos of my paintings so they don't shine.

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the Prop. 8 protest

Outside, the police were actually being quite polite, except to the people who were insisting on sitting down in the middle of the street (for those of you not from LA, this was a move tantamount to suicide until the police could get traffic blocked off; about two pedestrians a month get struck by cars outside my office), which I thought was reasonable of the cops.... 8, they'll send the president of the Mormon Church a postcard with the following message: Dear President Monson: A donation has been made in your name by _________________ to “invalidateprop8.org” to overturn California's Proposition 8 and restore fundamental civil rights to all citizens of California.... Although we decry the reprehensible role the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints leadership played in denying all Californians equal rights under the law, we are pleased a donation has been made on your behalf in the effort to overturn the discrimination your church members helped enshrine in the California Constitution.

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apparently, it's a political day on the blog

Something to consider about the people "who worked really hard to make sure that I and everyone who didn’t agree with their blind support of Bush and Bush policies didn’t feel welcome...”... Ever read <a href="http://www.gurus.org/dougdeb/politics/209.html">"Red Family, Blue Family"?</a> It's a great overview of George Lakoff and James Ault's work in political cognition and sociology.... It’s the other side, we believe, that wants to start wars, keep the poor in their place, and make second-class citizens out of gays, non-Christians, non-English-speakers, and anyone else who didn’t come out of their cookie-cutter.

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