Speaking Of States Of Emergency

So there are about 10,000 fires burning 80 million acres. It's pretty insane. It got me out of work and I was pretty happy about that all day long, and then the opening prayer at FHE got me thinking about the people affected by the fire negatively and how there are some who are displaced, who no longer even have homes. I just can't believe how unpredictable life can be, that from one minute to the next you can be riding high and then hit so hard that you can't even remember all the stuff you were so excited about just the day before.

We were watching the news for a minute and the broadcaster mentioned that additional police were coming to guard evacuated neighborhoods to protect the empty houses from looters. Then Caitlin made my favorite comment of the day which was something to the effect of throwing those dirtbags into the fire. It was the quite sudden leap to extreme violence that caught me unawares, although it is a logical one. What kind of person would do that to someone else? When the playing field is completely altered people will unabashedly commit the most heinous acts.

A couple weeks ago I went to lunch with a bunch of people from work and somehow one of the guys we were with began talking about how he attended USC at the time the riots in LA over racial tension broke out. They sat and watched from their roofs the dozens of fires that spewed smoke into the Los Angeles skyline and listened to the multiple pops of gunfire going off. He said the weirdest thing was driving through LA one day and the image that he would never forget was seeing people organized and patiently filing in line to loot a large video store in his neighborhood. People lined up to get in, grabbed whatever they wanted, then quietly exited the store. He said those was no hysteria with those people, everyone just seemed to have the common understanding that you were going to the store and you were there to pick up as much as you could carry in your two hands. No running, screaming, or pushing. If you wanted your stuff you just calmy picked it up. Isn't that weird? Can you imagine seeing such an unusual scene?

Even though people act without regard for others and even if their behaviors are completely unjustified, when the playing field is altered and the circumstances are unfamiliar, expect different behaviors. I'm not saying it's right, it's just what happens.