LA aflame

Even though I’m thousands of miles away I’ve been feeling very disturbed by the news from Southern California; principally, of course, due to the appalling loss of life, property, and peace of mind being endured by the residents of LA County, but also because, even to my supposedly rational mind, it seems like a terrifying omen. A bastion of progressive values literally burning to the ground is the sort of unsubtle metaphor for the times we find ourselves living in that would normally be dismissed as ridiculously blunt in a work of fiction, yet, the way things are going at the moment, it feels, if anything, like an understatement.