In Quest of Conclusions

So this week was a momentous one.  I sent a final edit to my editor.  Well, as you may have noticed final in the publishing world is a lot like many other finals in life. I will come back to the book at the end of this post.

This week our president, finally pulled us out of Afghanistan.  That was a conclusion I believe that most Americans thought was appropriate.   There was an uproar on his lack of consultation with our allies and his “strategies” (I believe both were justified in spite of the need to leave) to withdraw.  The chaos at Kabul airport was horrific.  I think if one is charitable this was not the USs finest hour.   But we are out of this 20 year involvement, or are we?   Babylon Bee joked that the Taliban had opened an Army surplus store with all the military equipment left behind.   For me I am more concerned about the people we left behind.   News reports are that the Taliban has not treated those who helped our effort but could not get out well.  One wag described the evacuation as a Blunder-Bus.

From my perspective the  lessons we should learn from this - which we do not seem to be very good at -a) is to follow one piece of advice my mother gave me - "Just because you can doesn't mean you should" and another which suggests that if you don't have a pretty clear plan when you get into something you are not likely to succeed (if you fail to plan you plan to fail).   In several instances of foreign policy in the decades since WWII - we have violated both rules and paid the price.

It turns out that Sacramento will be a large venue for the Afghani refugees who were able to get out ,many of whom worked in support of the American mission(s),  And in one of those odd turns of technology - we got an appeal from a friend in SMA (a former State Department employee) who worked with an Afghani who worked for the American Embassy (and she had worked with) who will be coming to Sacramento.  Soon after we got that, our Priest in Sacramento convened an interfaith meeting to think about how we could help these people as they are resettled to our area.  IMHO that is the least we owe them.   At the meeting we heard from a couple of remarkable people who have helped to coordinate including one amazing woman who is in charge of collecting and distributing food and other kits to new arrivals.   Her husband commented that their lawn is a bit shaggy because their garage is full.  Two local charities The Rescue Center  and the Sacramento Welcome Center seem to be working hard on accommodating our new arrivals.   At the meeting we had Episcopalians, Latter Day Saints, and Muslims represented.   It was heartening.

But then we are also coming to a conclusion on the Recall effort against Governor Newsome.  The polling at this point seems to be going in favor of retaining Newsome.   As often happens in the last two weeks before an election there is an awful lot of hyperbole being thrown about.  The leading candidate to replace the Governor has had a bunch of wild charges made against him.   But then you look down at the choices that Californians are being offered to replace the Governor and you don't need to wonder why the state has a flaky reputation (even if we did not have a Governor who in the middle of the COVID lockdown chose to have an unmasked dinner at a fancy restaurant in Napa which one of my democrat friends charitably described that action by Newsome as “tone deaf”).   The range of talents is quite limited while the depth of aspirations is mind-boggling.  Well actually the talent is in short supply. Perhaps four or five of them could actually do the job.  As one long time democrat campaign guy said, skills here should not be considered.  If the governor is recalled the sages in the legislature are likely to greet the budget proposal with two words “and those are not likely to be Merry Christmas” - as a native Californian I would wish that we could get a group of us who could get off the Kabuki politics we’ve lived through for the last couple of decades and begin to tackle issues like homelessness, water, improving the schools and things that really matter to Californians.  

The fire season also started early this year and much of the Northern part of the state has enjoyed AQIs (Air Quality Indexes) of well over 200 for several weeks.   Not to make a bad pun but we are not out of the woods yet.   The combination of terrible forest management, idiotic water policy combined with whatever effects their might be from climate change offer real risks through the next couple of months.  The good news, to the extent there is some, is that most of these fires, so far, have not produced significant damages to homes like the 2017-18 fires did.   When we left SMA the AQI there was 28; when we arrived in Sacramento it was 226.  I don’t think anyone can tell you when we will be out of this fire season or more importantly when the “leadership” of the state will be inclined to tackle the real issues that leads us to move to “smoke without mirrors” in each of the last half dozen summers.   Presented at the bottom of this post is a primer on AQI.  

One other odd comment about disasters.  Are you as puzzled as I am about the news coverage on Ida?  The number of deaths as a result of the 2005 storm Katrina was more than 1800 - this year in the south is is fewer than 5.  Sure power went out.  But because of a new system of levee reinforcement since Katrina hurricane alley was relatively safe.  Compare that the the news coverage o deaths in the northeast (46) where the coverage has produced comments like this from the AP "A stunned U.S. East Coast faced a rising death toll, surging rivers and tornado damage Thursday after the remnants of Hurricane Ida walloped the region with record-breaking rain, drowning more than 40 people in their homes and cars." (Yes I did add emphasis)

The AP goes on to comment "In a region that had been warned about potentially deadly flash flooding but hadn’t braced for such a blow from the no-longer-hurricane, the storm killed at least 46 people from Maryland to Connecticut on Wednesday night and Thursday morning." If you ever wondered about the regional biases of the MSM - look no further.

SO what is going on with the book?  As noted at the start of this Ramble (the apt name of my original blog) a final draft went to my editor this week.  But what does a “final draft” actually mean?   First, I have two chapters still out with reviewers.   The comments I have received on all the other chapters have been stunning; very very helpful.  For example, in the chapter I did on Values - a good friend helped me understand that the Bible does not mention luck.   He commented that if God is either omnipresent or omnipotent he does not get surprised - but humans do.   Second, I have spent some time working on photos.  A key part of this project for me has been to include photos.  But there are some quirks in getting photos printed.  As noted in the last post, they need to be of a high enough resolution to be useable.  But I may actually be able to use color photos in the Kindle/iPad version but will probably need to use black and white photos in the paperback.   Getting those organized for my design guy is a bit of a task.   Third, one of my sources offered me two dozen publishers who can get something into a paperback edition.   Over the last two years I have consulted with some of those but there are still half a dozen leads to run down from Kindle Direct to a bunch of smaller presses.   Finally, there are two unresolved issues in the manuscript.   My editor suggested that I include a visual timeline at the end of the chapters on Family.   I do not like what I came up with (visually) and I may just leave that up to my design person.   But there is also one chapter that I am still undecided on whether I will include it - which originally came when this was a Storyworth project. It is a musing on my reading habits.  I’ve already cut several chapters (ones on Critical Race Theory - called Plessy v Diangelo - which I liked and my reviewers also liked; on on how I dealt with COVID; and one on media influences when I was a nipper which was restructured to a speculation on whether I am a person of my times).   My goal is to get comments back from my editor by the end of the month; spend some time in early October doing final final revisions; get the manuscript to the design person so that by about the first of November we will begin to getting the project to final publication.

As I was researching the book I re-read Huckleberry Finn and came across his epithet for his book  “so there ain’t nothing more to write about, and I am rotten glad of it, because if I’d a knowed what a trouble it was to make a book I wouldn’t a tackled it, and ain’t a-going to no more.”  Who knows whether I will follow Huck’s standard.

What is the U.S. Air Quality Index (AQI)?

Think of the AQI as a yardstick that runs from 0 to 500. The higher the AQI value, the greater the level of air pollution and the greater the health concern. For example, an AQI value of 50 or below represents good air quality, while an AQI value over 300 represents hazardous air quality.

For each pollutant an AQI value of 100 generally corresponds to an ambient air concentration that equals the level of the short-term national ambient air quality standard for protection of public health. AQI values at or below 100 are generally thought of as satisfactory. When AQI values are above 100, air quality is unhealthy: at first for certain sensitive groups of people, then for everyone as AQI values get higher.

Daily AQI Color	Levels of Concern	Values of Index	Description of Air Quality
Green	Good	0 to 50	Air quality is satisfactory, and air pollution poses little or no risk.
Yellow	Moderate	51 to 100	Air quality is acceptable. However, there may be a risk for some people, particularly those who are unusually sensitive to air pollution.
Orange	Unhealthy for Sensitive Groups	101 to 150	Members of sensitive groups may experience health effects. The general public is less likely to be affected.
Red	Unhealthy	151 to 200	Some members of the general public may experience health effects; members of sensitive groups may experience more serious health effects.
Purple	Very Unhealthy	201 to 300	Health alert: The risk of health effects is increased for everyone.
Maroon	Hazardous	301 and higher	Health warning of emergency conditions: everyone is more likely to be affected.