EDITORIAL AN ILL WIND.SANTA Ana Santa Ana, city, El Salvador Santa Ana (sän'tä ä`nä), city (1993 pop. 129,873), W El Salvador. It is the second largest city in the country and the commercial and processing center for a sugarcane, coffee, and cattle region. season has arrived in Southern California Southern California, also colloquially known as SoCal, is the southern portion of the U.S. state of California. Centered on the cities of Los Angeles and San Diego, Southern California is home to nearly 24 million people and is the nation's second most populated region, once again, kicking up hot dry winds, stirring up our sinuses and igniting wildfires that have the potential to lay waste to whole sections of our communities. The Santa Anas - those devil winds - can also mess with mess with Verb Informal, chiefly US to interfere in, or become involved with, a dangerous person, thing, or situation: he had started messing with drugs people's heads, as writer Joan Didion Noun 1. Joan Didion - United States writer (born in 1934) Didion once noted: ``I have neither heard nor read that a Santa Ana is due, but I know it, and almost everyone I have seen today knows it too. We know it because we feel it. The baby frets. The maid sulks sulk intr.v. sulked, sulk·ing, sulks To be sullenly aloof or withdrawn, as in silent resentment or protest. n. .'' Mystery writer Raymond Chandler Noun 1. Raymond Chandler - United States writer of detective thrillers featuring the character of Philip Marlowe (1888-1959) Chandler, Raymond Thornton Chandler observed that when the Santa Anas begin to blow the dust across the flat expanse of Los Angeles, people begin acting in peculiar ways - ``meek little wives feel the edge of a carving knife and eye their husbands' necks. Anything can happen.'' Anything can happen. In Los Angeles, we seem to live perpetually on the edge. We know that at any time an earthquake could level our homes to dust or a rare deluge could wash it down a hillside. And, during fire season, communities could go up in smoke because of a carelessly tossed cigarette, a spark from heavy machinery, a campfire not properly doused. Whether you enjoy them or hate them, the winds so unique to our area are due to hit us full force this weekend. Firefighters are bracing for the worst. It behooves us all to be extra vigilant during the next few months and to take extra care and protection of our wonderful, but oh so fragile, environment. |
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