Dear FO Reader,
Greetings from Southern California, where it’s a little less hot and a lot more wet. It’s been a while since you’ve heard from me. A lot has changed since then, both in my own life and in California’s geography.
The one constant in my life is that I’m still tying flies with my grandfather. As I mentioned in my first FO Reflection, my grandparents live near the coast. Even from the street’s vantage point nearly 175 feet above sea level, I can see the oversized swell of the ocean as if it’s a bubble about to pop.
It’s king tide and El Niño season, which means the sea levels have risen and continue rising. That, combined with the melting ice due to climate change, is a recipe for disaster concerning our coasts. At this point, we have no beaches. No sand is left. The sand that’s there is being ferried in from elsewhere and scooped into big berms to keep the ocean from eating away at the coastal towns.
The large berms at Newport Beach, CA prevent more flooding.
This is all happening at a particularly tense time in the political arena. Time is up for Gavin Newsom, governor of California, and citizens of this state have to vote for a new governor during the November US midterms. My social media feed is filled with disasters at this point. Climate change on one side, and the political climate on the other.
Things are getting tough out there. Fatigue is setting in. I have to fight to find pockets of peace in my life. Fly tying is always a welcome one, even if the swelling ocean is right outside the door and the insurance and Social Security envelopes on my grandparents’ table induce anxiety about my own future.
“So, at that point, like, you just gotta go with it”
About a month ago, I awoke to a flurry of messages from my close family and friends. Apparently, Newport Beach, a high-tax-bracket beach town north of me, had flooded so badly people had taken their paddleboards out just to traverse the streets. A couple of homes had been marked as dangerous, and a crack (it’s pretty famous now) appeared below a stretch of the Pacific Coast Highway.
Of course, this is California; people took it relatively in stride. The most popular clip that circulated online — at least in my circles — was an ABC7 Eyewitness News interview with a Newport resident. Apparently, the interview subject was “four martinis in, so, at that point, like, you just gotta go with it.”
If that does not accurately capture the general atmosphere of not just Southern California, but the US at large, I don’t know what does. While the news stations were viewing the apocalyptic event, SoCal residents were pretty bummed that the beaches were closed during perfect weather.
That’s not to say we’re ignorant of the damage the flooding has done, nor are we flippant about the several deaths caused by the tides. This is a devastating event that should be taken seriously. There needs to be better infrastructure in place. Our levies, wakes and beach berms need to be revisited.
But this response — paddleboards out on the streets, surfers disappointed in the swells, the “go with the flow” attitude — is indicative of the larger issue at hand. People are tired. They’re tired of having to care, of having to react, of the events that, like Smash Mouth once wisely said, “start comin’, and they don’t stop comin’.”
This is probably one of the worst times to adopt a “just gotta go with it” attitude. The US midterms are here, and the polls close on November 3. Midterms are one of the most consequential elections in the US. Voters determine the people who represent them in Congress, what props are passed and who will lead their communities.
In California, we have to decide who is going to become the next governor. Much to the relief of many, Gavin Newsom’s term is up, and he can’t run for another one. Newsom is said to be a popular choice for the next Democratic presidential candidate, but many Californians are warning the US that he might not be the best choice.
Newsom has been embroiled in many scandals before. He had an affair with a staffer when he was mayor of San Francisco, and he broke his own COVID quarantine rules by going out to a high-end restaurant in 2020.
Compared to scandals committed by other government officials before (I’m not naming names; that will take far too long), this is small potato stuff. Yet, when asked the question of why Newsom wouldn’t be a good presidential candidate, many Californians reach for these reasons as if they’ve been ready in their back pockets for ages. Often, there’s no critique of any specific policy beyond the usual tax/gas/housing crisis stuff. These are complaints, as we all painfully know, not unique to California.
My point is, Californians are faced with a general sense of, “Things are not alright.” Everyone is. Unable to pinpoint an exact cause, people start pointing fingers and naming names without identifying solutions or working towards change. And when that gets exhausting — because the blame game is exhausting — people give up, drink a couple martinis and decide, “That’s that.”
I caution my fellow Californians and US citizens from doing so. (The giving up part, at least. Drink as many martinis as you want.) This is an integral time to start caring. We need to decide who holds the keys to California’s future, and to the future of the US at large.
Stuck between a rock and a hard place
There are two candidates up for California’s governor position: Xavier Becerra and Steve Hilton. Becerra, the Democrat, was the US Secretary of Health and Human Services during the Biden administration. Previously, he was the Attorney General of California and also held a seat in the US House of Representatives. Hilton, the Republican, was a contributor for Fox News. Before coming to the US, he was a senior advisor to UK Prime Minister David Cameron.
Recently, Becerra and Hilton had a debate hosted by CNN. I watched the whole thing, and that’s an hour of my life I’m never getting back. The questions presented were topics all Californians are interested in — AI centers, immigration, housing crisis, you name it. Yet I heard nothing from either candidate that sounded remotely like a solution. Becerra took jabs at Trump, and Hilton took jabs at Becerra. It seems as if we’re forced to “choose the lesser of two evils” again.
I can see why people refuse to vote. While it may seem like a form of protest, I urge people not to do so. I urge people to vote, in whatever direction that may be, because that is the first step towards enacting change. We shouldn’t let the exhaustion get the best of us. We shouldn’t look at the flooding and decide to go with it. That doesn’t mean we should panic, either. Instead, we need to calmly assess the situation, figure out a solution and implement it quickly. If we can’t implement that solution ourselves, we should elect the people that can.
I’ve voted already. That’s as much as I can do right now besides the work I do at Fair Observer. In the meantime, I’ll continue to fight for my little moments of peace in any way that I can.
Until next time,
Cheyenne Torres
Operations Chief of Staff
Comment