My ties to Los Angeles were once close but have attenuated over the years. We had family and extended family in the LA area, when I was a kid, we were frequent visitors. That ended when I moved East then South. But I’ve always had a soft spot for the City of Angels; except for the baseball team, as a lifelong San Francisco Giants fan I hate the Dodgers, but I like LA.

The Los Angeles fires are yet another example of the power of nature. Wild fires are fundamentally wind events. Human beings cannot control the wind: LA is suffering from an Ill Wind.

The authorities in California are under attack for events beyond their control. It’s the wind, stupid.

Each shift of the wind brings a new challenge to firefighters. They’re doing the best they can but President-elect Pennywise thinks he knows best when in fact he knows nothing. His recent comments blow an ill wind that people in Southern California simply do not need right now:

Trump is going after Mayor Bass and Governor Newsome because they’re Democrats who have criticized him in the past. That shouldn’t matter: a great American city is threatened with extinction and the role of the federal government is to help state and local government stave off calamity not to keep political score. Joe Biden and Kamala Harris understand that. The Insult Comedian never will, he sees Los Angeles as a city that voted against him. Trump is blowing an ill wind, which isn’t doing anyone any good:

As a New Orleanian, the uncertainty felt by evacuating Angelenos has my PTSD buttons buzzing. In 2005, it was difficult to learn what was going on in the city we’d left behind after the levees broke. Social media feels like a pestilence at times, but it can be a life saver during a natural disaster.

Dr. A and I learned that our neighborhood did NOT flood a week or two into our exile. News didn’t travel as fast in 2005 as it does today. We were worried sick, but we were lucky. I wish that sort of luck to everyone in LA fearful that their home will be taken by fire. Words are all I have to offer right now as well as another version of the Harold Arlen and Ted Koehler classic that frames this post:

Lady Day’s voice was somewhat ravaged when she recorded Ill Wind in 1959, but that’s nothing compared to the flames ravaging the Los Angeles area as I write this.

While I’m indulging in asides, the featured image is of Lillian Gish in the 1928 film The Wind. In that movie, the wind drives people mad. That’s crazy mad, not angry mad. The latter is how I feel when I ponder the history I lived through in 2005 and how it relates to 2025.

The rantings on the right in 2025 remind me of the rantings on the right twenty years ago. People in New Orleans had the temerity to criticize the Bush-Cheney administration for dropping the ball on help for our flooded city: Heckuva job, Brownie. Their supporters on Capitol Hill and the media added to the nonsense of that moment by trash talking New Orleans. Guess what? MAGA Republicans are even stupider than the GOPers of 2005. Anyone surprised? I thought not. They’re led by a blowhard who does nothing but blow ill wind.

What Los Angeles needs right now is rain, which is often in short supply there. I’d do a rain dance if I thought it would accomplish anything; all I can do is post this song:

My Katrina buttons will stop buzzing soon enough. I hope the same can be said of the Los Angeles fire of 2025.

Repeat after me: It’s the wind, stupid.

The last word goes to Oscar Peterson:

Have I told you lately how much I love Oscar Peterson? Almost as much as Randy Newman loves Los Angeles: