The coyote saga continues. 
There is a product on the market that emits a blinking red light from dusk until dawn and is said to ward off coyotes and other predators. It’s a small solar powered unit that takes nothing to operate. It powers up from the sun during the day and runs all night. Originally designed to protect livestock, other farm animals, and crops, it has of late come into extensive use in urban areas where predators, especially coyotes, have encroached.
The 95-year-old mother of one of our friends and key supporters died early this year. She was the matriarch of a very large family, and hearing him talk about her led me to ask him to tell me one thing that stood out in his mind about his mother’s life. His answer surprised me. “She was a questioner. She always asked lots of questions, right up to the end.”
Eloise as a puppy.
I’m a celebrity. Since Thanksgiving, I’ve been written up and quoted in three local newspapers; I’ve been on the evening news of all three major television networks, NBC, CBS and ABC. Yesterday, the story was picked up by the Los Angeles Times, which printed a full article that quoted me, and had my picture in it; and now I find out that later this week, I’m going to be interviewed for a story in The Wall Street Journal.
I say my picture was in the paper, but truthfully, you can’t really quite see as me … well … that is really me there, holding Eloise, our Chihuahua, but … all you can see is my hand. It’s a very cute picture of Eloise, though.
Here in southern California, we’ve been hearing about El Niño for some time. Currently, we have something in the news about it pretty much every day. El Niño means “The Little Boy” in Spanish, or it’s also thought of as “The Christ Child.” It’s an unusual weather pattern triggered by a huge, continent-sized area of warmer-than-usual water in the Pacific Ocean along the Equator west of Peru. The warmer water first occurs in the month of December which is where this weather pattern gets its Christmas name, and it can cause a persistent series of subtropical storms to hit the southern part of California, one after another. Most recently, this pattern has occurred in 1983 and 1998, causing double to triple the normal rainfall here. And it’s not so much the amount of rain as it is how it comes. It comes fast and furious, and by a series of storms that can result in severe flooding conditions and mudslides, especially in areas where autumn forest fires have stripped the land of foliage.
Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God. Matthew 5:9
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., was a true child of God. He was a messenger of peace in a time of grave conflict. His influence and stamp on the civil rights movement was indelible. Had it not been for him, there would have been much shedding of blood. Dr. King provided a non-violent outlet for the anger and frustration that had reached a boiling point among the African American community. Imagine where we’d be without him? Imagine where South Africa would be without Nelson Mandela and Bishop Tutu?
Let us turn our thoughts today
To Martin Luther King
– from “Shed A Little Light” by James Taylor
1965 was a watershed year for civil rights in America. It was a turbulent, wrenching birth of a new way of thinking. With the March on Montgomery, Alabama in March of that year, and the Watts riots in Los Angeles in August, all Americans were being forced to “recognize that there are ties between us, all men and women living on the Earth — ties of hope and love — sister and brotherhood. That we are bound together in our desire to see the world become a place in which our children can grow free and strong. We are bound together by the task that stands before us and the road that lies ahead.” (James Taylor)
Our 16-year-old son, Chandler, is the one responsible for the last gift of Christmas, 2015. By that I mean the last gift purchased. It was late afternoon, Christmas Eve, and Chandler, Marti and I had just enjoyed a traditional live rendition of Dickens’ A Christmas Carol, and were readying ourselves to go to the home of our other son, Christopher, and celebrate Christmas with him and his wife, Elizabeth, and their new daughter — our first grandchild — Jocelyn. There was a shopping mall across the street from the theater, and we decided to do a little last-minute shopping there. Chandler had something in mind he wanted to get his mother for Christmas, so we split up for an hour or so, and I took Chandler with me.
Star Wars: The Force Awakens, already at over $1.763 billion in sales, is a welcome return of the original series that owes much of its success to its ability to bring generations together. I saw it over the holidays with my two sons, Christopher and Chandler. Christopher and I loved it; Chandler was so-so. That’s probably due to the fact that Christopher and I have a history with the original series. Christopher was 4 when The Return of the Jedi came out and I can remember seeing it in a drive-in theater, of all things, because Christopher and Anne were too young and rowdy to be in a theater. Over the next few years, Christopher would have seen all three movies in the series multiple times, and gone through umpteen battery powered sabers, so he and I enjoyed a history with the original characters that Chandler didn’t possess.
I can’t quite leave this one yet — the topic of David Bowie’s death. If you’ve seen the “Lazarus” video, you’ll know what I mean when I say that you keep on seeing it. Never, in my recollection, has anyone orchestrated the presentation of their own death to so many. The YouTube video of “Lazarus” already has nearly 17 million views. In it, he sings “I’ve got drama, can’t be stolen/Everybody knows me now.” He’s right. I learned more about David Bowie in the last 24 hours than I knew in all my life leading up to this event.
Here am I floating round my tin can
Far above the Moon
Planet Earth is blue
And there’s nothing I can do.
David Bowie has died, as dramatically as he ever lived, even leaving us with a parting album, released on his birthday, and celebrated days before his death, with a final death-embracing video as he slips away into a wardrobe. Continue reading
John Fischer The Catch 