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Funny Business
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But few things hit you as hard as losing your house and everything inside it in a matter of minutes. I don't know who owns the rubble I'm standing on, but I see pieces of a life: a clock, part of a tea set, the melted metal hangers which held clothes that turned to ash.
If it seems like every time you turn on the TV, California is on fire. Well, it is. We used to have a massive, multi-county series of fires every ten years. Now we have them more frequently. Two huge fires in 2003 totaled $2.7 billion in destroyed property. The fires which stretched across the state last year may have cost insurers $2.4 billion. And now, about a thousand residences have been lost in four days.
Maybe it's just the inevitable result of building out into the brush--there's not much infill left to develop and people want to live near "open space." Maybe it's the lack of controlled burns. Maybe it's the lack of rain. But mid-November is a little late for Santa Ana winds, though the Governor says fire season is now "year round."
SIGN OF THE TIMES?
I have friends who say they don't have money to buy holiday gifts this year, so they plan to knit scarves. They may not be alone. I was in Jo Ann's this weekend. The mall may be lightly populated, but the line at Jo Ann's was literally out the door.
Funny Business Comments: |
On my story Friday from Montecito where AIG pre-sprayed clients homes with fire retardant, Jason J. writes:
"Question – they just got bailed out by US taxpayer dollars and they will only protect certain homes???? They have NO PR skills… None!"
On my blog about Kotex running a hilarious ad in Australia where a woman carries around a pet beaver, Beth W. writes:
"Do they have a Viagra ad showing a guy carrying his rooster?"
From Gary L.:
"I opened my Linkedin page today to find that you have gone from Tigers to Beavers ... lol. And we aren't talking about Wally & Beaver either ;)"
And on my post about the changeover in accounting rules being equated to the "non event" of Y2K, Ed J. makes a good point:
"The reason that Y2K turned out to be such a low-key event is that American businesses collectively spent over $80 billion in 1998 and 1999 getting ready for it. I'm still surprised that some people continue to insist that the Y2K date-related problems were wildly exaggerated. They were real, and most of the work to prevent a disaster was totally 'under the radar'. From my Y2K experience, my guess is that a conversion from GAAP to IFRS will be just as expensive, if not more so. Similarly, the work (both hard and smart) to facilitate the change will go unreported and unappreciated."
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