Posted by:
Tevai
(
)
Date: December 06, 2018 05:55PM
kentish Wrote:
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> I feel for California and have contributed to
> relief funds but let's not forget Puerto Rico
> which is still hurting from hurricane damage and
> they get little attention.
I am not soliciting funds!
I agree that Puerto Rico is in a hugely worse situation than is California.
We are inherently tremendously economically strong (California is now the fifth-largest economy in the world, ahead of the United Kingdom).
That being said, we are also feeling like we have been battered (because we have been).
We made it through the drought, and we came out more-or-less intact (though produce now just is not up to the standards of produce which grew before the drought--as anyone who knows "real," pre-drought, California oranges can attest).
The wildfires were horrendously awful: there was loss of life (both human life and non-human life), there was nearly unbelievable property damage (leaving huge amounts of people literally homeless, with their houses gone, often with no funds to even rent a garage somewhere, and no jobs, and the "campgrounds" (such as the Walmart parking lot) no longer existing. As of my last reading of the articles, there are still no FEMA trailers for anyone. Some percentage of people have funds to move (at least temporarily) elsewhere; most people do not have this kind of financial strength.
But the rains were pretty fierce this morning (very loud, and with shock-like vibrations, like our house was being attacked by invading forces), and although we absolutely do NEED that rain water, when it comes in like that, it leads to mudslides (which can, and DO, kill) and flooding.
In my OP, I was in effect (through a gospel hymn I have always liked) saying a kind of prayer to the rain gods, to thank them for the rain, but asking them to send the rain in more manageable increments, so that the mass of it doesn't overwhelm our ability to deal with it (and the subsequent mud coming down mountain- and hillsides, with the added dangers of death and destruction).
We are fine, and we will be fine-er as time goes on, but right now, some better pacing of that still-much-needed rainwater would be really, really welcome.
To our compatriots in Puerto Rico, I have not forgotten, and I don't think most of us on the mainland have forgotten.
Puerto Rico has been treated ghastly [something similar is now going on in what used to be Paradise, California, as well], and I have always been (since I was in high school) a proponent of statehood for Puerto Rico--which would go a whole long way towards creating a Puerto Rico where every citizen, and every resident, would have a chance to survive, and to overcome, in decent circumstances.
To borrow from the words of Miss Medina, my Cuba-born, high school Spanish teacher: "!Viva Puerto Rico!," "!Viva California!," and "Viva Los Estados Unidos de America!"