Before my topic of today, a bit about those Southern California wildfires. These fires are usually caused by Santa Ana winds that can come from October through March. Of course, you also need certain environmental conditions, like drought and global warming, plus some ignition source.  Power grids are especially of concern.  And lightning.   Human causes, like campfire accidents and arson.  In fact, here is what Google AI says: Santa Ana wildfires are not typically caused by a single natural weather trigger; rather, Santa Ana winds act as the dangerous weather accelerant that spreads fires, while nearly all the actual ignitions (90% to 95%) are human-caused . [ 1 , 2 ]. I had a posting last year about them . Apparently, those fires now in Southern California have peaked. Of course other areas in California will remain vulnerable. Certainly, this is not only a California problem, for the Global Fire Dashboard today shows 6926 hotspots around the world. Glo...

I just watched: Woodstock:  Three Days That Defined A Generation This was  a 1 hr 36 min American Experience PBS documentary first aired at the Tribeca Film Festival in 2019. However, you can now see it on Prime... but only until August 31 for FREE .   Rotten Tomatoes  liked it, bestowing 86/84 scores. Christy Lemire indicated,  It does bring a freshness to a story that we've heard a million times , and Glenn Kenny of the  New York Time s said:   Uses the perspective of nearly 50 years' hindsight to demonstrate anew how the festival was both a mess and a miracle, and implicitly argues that it was a good deal more miracle than mess. For me, it was a trip down a memory lane that I never took.   Read my link to this event: In August of 1969 my wife and I were driving from Baton Rouge to Montreal to interact with the remnants of the recent World Expo.  We spent the night in Hershey, Pennsylvania to visit the chocolate company....

One of my favorite songs is  Both Sides, Now , in particular by Judy Collins, who made the original recording in 1968.  What I did not know is that it was written by Canadian  Joni Mitchell , ( click on that and you will see her singing this song, with appearances by Mary Travers and Mama Cass ), who I best remember as a somewhat mousey folk-type singer of  Big Yellow Taxi  in the early 70's when I was co-directing Earth 2020, a summer course for teachers at the University of Hawaii.  This song was released in 1970, and the B-side was  Woodstock . But you wonder, didn't Woodstock, the concert, occur in 1969?  And wasn't that song sung during that Music and Arts Festival by  Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young ?  What happened was that Graham Nash was then her boyfriend who asked her to write something commemorating the event.  She was supposed to perform  Woodstock  at the site, but had scheduling conflicts, so the group insert...