Uggh!

Sorry, I just can't get too worked up over the probable extinction of the Mexican Axolotl salamander.

The damned thing gives me the willies.

Thanks to blogger and fellow parishioner Kathy (who is awesome for a number of reasons, one of which being that she has a Chicken Quesadilla Salad named after her at Los Gringos Locos, our favorite neighborhood Mexican restaurant) for posting a bunch of good web resources for keeping track of the Station Fire.

Here they are:

L.A. Times Interactive Map: Shows evacuation zones and other key information.

Twitter Search for #StationFire — many informative tweets (though beware rumors and confusion and panic)

InciWeb: more comprehensive incident information.

City of La Canada Flintridge: Pretty reliable hourly updates

And a few of my own:

City of Glendale Emergency Operations Center Page: Useful updates, and a phone number for their command center, where real people answer your questions.

LAist: This blog — with which I was not familiar before — has had very good coverage of the fire, including good pictures.

Got a mandatory evacuation call at 2:30 this morning (it was voluntary Saturday night). Not clear whether it was actual fire threat or because of the breakfires they are doing. Fortunately we had left the cars mostly loaded. Hurriedly finished loading the cars — resulting in taking some nice big lungsfull of smoke, which caused me to heave in my dad's driveway later. Still feeling pretty sick.

Drove up to Dad's house. Home is where they have to take you in, and all that.

We'll be fine. Moving for an additional week extension on an appeal, based on this and my health scare this week.

I'm heartsick about the two firefighters who died — probably because the thick smoke led them to lose the road and crash. The firefighters' efforts continue to be astoundingly brave and tough. I'm very thankful for them.

Blogging might be even lighter for bit. I know, excuses excuses.

Growing up, it was a clear divider among my friends. Marvel or DC? I was always a Marvel man (or to use bullpen lingo "Make Mine Marvel.") I admit I haven't bought a comic book in probably 10 years (ok, a few graphic novels and the outstanding DVD of every issue of Avengers aside) but I still mildly follow Marvel Comics (despite their decade long Wolverine fetish..) So, it is with great sadness that I read that Marvel has been bought by Disney.

One of the reasons I liked Marvel better was that their stories were (for me) often subtler, darker, more complex. I doubt Disney will mark a return to that trend. I am sort of sad thinking about what this means for the future of my favorite comics company.

This weekend, I flipped by the old classic, Charlotte's Web. I'm a sucker for anything Paul Lynde related so I watched for a bit. It struck me that the whole story is a parable for our celebrity culture. The real extraordinary thing is that there is a spider that can write, but all anyone notices is the pig thatis written about. Perhaps the movie should have been called – "The Medium is the Message."

If it sounds stupid, don't write it.  If it sounds witty but your parents wouldn't understand, don't write it.  Say it. Don't write it.  Everything that's written must converge.

When I attended college almost everything was the same as it is today.  We were coming off a boom into recession, the music was embarrassing but we didn't know it, and we thought we knew everything when in fact that wasn't the case.  The main differences were that young ladies had bigger hair, mullets were fashionable for young men, and …

the internet and social networking.

In my day, we could say stupid things to our friends and be pretty confident that none of it would be remembered.  At least we could be confident our friends would lie, and say that they didn't remember that idiotic thing we said.  We could take stupid photos of ourselves and our friends, but they could be burned if need be.

Computers and the internet, on the other hand, remember everything.  Everything you write may, one day, be read over by a total stranger who's old enough to be your dad, is as conservative as your dad, and doesn't love you the way Dad does.

He might even be suing you.

I'd show a picture of my right knee, which took three stings from yellowjackets inhabiting the nest I mowed over this afternoon, but this is a family blog.  Also hit were both ankles, the left calf, and the right elbow. Who knew yellowjackets nest in old tree roots?

I believe I'll instruct the receptionist to tell callers I'm in depositions tomorrow.  "I'm sorry, he was attacked by a swarm of insects" sounds implausible.

Back home. Smoke was awful — a thick and choking blanket of whites and sickly pinks. Now it has started to lift. Ash is everywhere, like sand at the beach. Can't see flames yet, and the shroud of smoke still covers the huge mushroom cloud over the mountains. Hopefully we can stay here tonight. More pics once there is anything to see.

Though I use Facebook, I scorn in. It's like network TV, crocs, and flexible-waist trousers that way.

I have to say, though, that Facebook was tremendously useful in the last two days keeping track of fire news in La Canada. We have friends in several local neighborhoods, and others listening to radio and monitoring web sites. Everyone was posting Facebook updates as they got information and saw fire areas and evacuation areas first-hand. I followed it all on Facebook on my iPhone as I was out and about. Extremely helpful, actually.

Fire too close for comfort. Helicopters rattling the windows, they're so close. Evac area now two blocks north. We wouldn't get any sleep if we stayed here. So we've packed and we're heading to Katrina's sister's house.

Looking grimmer here. The Station Fire in La Canada Flintridge, the town where I grew up and the town next door to us in La Crescenta, is out of control, 5% contained at most. The winds are blowing towards us today, the heat is scorching, and the dry brush of Angeles Crest is strong fuel. The day started in a dim haze of smoke and ash, and throughout the day the great malevolent plume, looking like a mushroom cloud, has roiled and turned shades of coffee and chocolate as it has found rich veins of fuel. Huge swaths of the mountains, typically covered in tans and army greens, are denuded.

There are now evacuation areas west, east, and north of us. The nearest mandatory evac area is about 8 blocks north, the nearest voluntary area about four blocks north. Could the fire get to us? Possibly. If it did, it would be catastrophic in loss of homes — on the order of the Oakland fire some years ago.

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Oh Canada. Home of all so many delightfully goofy things. And yet, it's somehow comforting to know that their politics can be just as scummy as ours. The Prime Minister, Steven Harper, has previously taken a hardline stance against the patronage appointment of Senators in Canada. Seems some wags refer to being appointed to Congress (only one Province even has Senatorial elections) as "cash for life." So, now Harper appoints a bunch of party cronies and people he likes to the Senate.

There's nothing worse than people remembering your past statements. Tres inconvenient!

By the way, one of Harper's appointments bears special mention. ex NHL coach Jacques Demers is now a proud Senator. You may remember (although it's hockey so probably not..) that M. Demers admitted in his own biography (presumably written by someone else) that he is "functionally illiterate."I think I'll just end by letting you insert your own joke here. Consider it my Friday gift to you.

I was late to work today because the drawbridge was (quite literally) up! You'd think they wouldn't let boats through during the morning or evening commute, but one of my sailor friends tells me that water traffic always has the right of way.

When people find out that I do criminal defense work, I occasionally get the classic "how can you defend those people" question. That one's easy. Sometimes I get an interesting variation — "Is there anyone you wouldn't defend?" The honest answer is yes.

Both questions contain a misunderstanding of defense attorney attitudes towards their clients. I don't defend people because I support, or approve of, or like their conduct — or when I do, it's purely coincidental. Often I despise what they have been accused of — which is quite often something within shouting distance of what they actually did. But that has nothing to do with why I defend them. I do it because I believe firmly that the system works best (not perfectly, but optimally) when everyone accused by the state gets someone in their corner fighting for them — not because they are likable, not because in any objective sense that they deserve support, but because our society believes that the irreducible quality of being a human being is that when the government tries to stick you in a cage, we will give you one person who is on your side and doing their best to keep you out if the rule of law allows it. It's quasi-religious for me, or at least there is a religious parallel. I believe that I am loved, and forgiven, entirely by grace, not because I deserve it in any remotely convincing way. I could accuse me of such things, and so on. I think we come closest to grace when we provide an advocate to people without reference to whether they deserve it. Yes, I just impliedly compared myself to God. It's an occupational hazard.

So I don't have any list, even a mental one, of crimes I would defend and crimes I would not. But there are people I wouldn't defend. It's purely idiosyncratic — it's like how I can enjoy art produced by some awful human beings (Wagner, for example) but not other awful human beings (Ezra Pound, for example). Some people — not crimes, but people and courses of conduct — fill me with such visceral revulsion that I could never be an effective advocate for them, and I'd rather not be an advocate at all than be one for them. This is a human failing in my commitment to universal advocacy for the accused. I can live with it.

Case in point — and the person who brought this to mind — the verminous Joe Francis, founder of "Girls Gone Wild." This brilliant L.A. Times piece from three years ago limns him well, and gives a glimpse of the sociopathic tendencies that revolt me. This week he's in the news because of published details of his defense in a federal tax case, scathingly reviewed by Kevin Underhill, who also detailed Francis' recent antics in a civil case. Oh, and he might have assaulted a woman in a nightclub last night, which may (I hope) get his bond yanked.

Look, I've got nothing against the people defending Francis. I know and like several of his prior lawyers. But I'd rather not be a lawyer than defend him. The world would be a better place if he got shanked.

I spent a fitful night on the couch. This time it wasn't something I said!

The Station Fire in La Canada is alarmingly close to our house. Driving home from work last night, the plumes of smoke loomed huge over Angeles Crest, and the flames were visible from downtown, about 15 miles away. Around 6 the near arm of the fire started to crest the nearest ridge and was periodically visible from our driveway, which was unnerving. The further arm of the fire was a safer distance away, but was rampaging, creating a diffuse red glow against the smoke in the twilight.

I spent the night on the couch to be able to hear if there was an evacuation, and to get up every couple of hours to check if the fire was getting closer and checking the news and various web sites. By dawn the near arm of the fire had retreated a bit, and was no longer visible. But our neighborhood is in a vast cloud of smoke and gently raining ash. My eyes stung even in the house; spending even a few moments outside made my chest hurt.

We're packed up in case we have to evacuate. I had to do so about 35 years ago, when my family lived a few blocks from where I live now, at the edge of the mountain — I was taken to a friend's house while my father stood on the roof, garden hose in hand, putting out embers. The house was fine. The mountain burned black, but grew green again many times since then.

The window in my office faces southwest, so I won't be distracted all day.