One of the aftermaths of horrific fires

Flooding, debris flow shuts down Pacific Coast Highway

• Dustin Klemann
• 9:30 pm
• January 5, 2019

The rain is causing headaches and closures south of the Central Coast.

CHP announced the closure of Pacific Coast Highway in both direction Saturday night due to flooding and debris flow in the Woolsey Fire burn area.

Multiple vehicles became stuck, requiring swift water rescue, according to CHP.

Locally, commuters struggled with slick road conditions, resulting in several crashes and slide offs.

Brrrr

Flood, wind advisories issued for Central Coast

• Kelsey McFarland
• 3:27 pm
• January 5, 2019

A flood advisory has been issued for Santa Barbara and San Luis Obispo Counties as heavy storms are bringing up to 0.64 inches in just 30 minutes.

A flash flood watch for the recent burn areas of Southwestern California has been issued, including the HIll and the Woolsey Fire burn areas. The flash flood watch remains in effect through 6:00 p.m. Saturday.

An urban and small stream flood advisory will remain in effect until 7:30 Saturday night for both Santa Barbara and San Luis Obispo Counties. Floods will be likely across portions of the roads in the advisory areas through the evening. There is also a threat of rockslides and mudslides on canyon roadways along Highway 101 and 154.

The heaviest line of storms was observed west of Gaviota, with 0.59 inches within 15 minutes.

Storm almost at Morro Bay--Made it to Car, Almost--Colder Rain than Usual

Jim Webb as Defense Secretary? Not a YES Man. Not a chance?

I have sent money out of state twice, the second time to Beto and the first time to Jim Webb, when my hundred dollars, just at the right time, made him Senator for 6 years, starting in 2007. BORN FIGHTING is a quite wonderful history of the Scots in the colonies and later. Jim Webb heard family stories on the front porch or around a fireside. I envy him, for I had to find many hundreds of stories myself, on the Internet in the 21st century.

May I point out an error on 244 both in the paperback and the hardback? I have both, of course. Webb's writing about Reconstruction (a deceitful word if there ever was one):--"the invaders, the occupiers, the political reeducators who this time around called themselves Radical Reconstructionists, the philosophical fairies, the carpetbagger businesspeople with their grand plans and special deals . . . ."

Now before you start yelling HOMOPHOBE let me explain that Jim was dictating, at some point, and he did not say "the philosophical fairies," although there may be many in such a tribe. What he said, as any good Southern Christian (not including present-day Evangelicals) knows, was "philosophical Pharisees." Understand, children, in the New Testament the Pharisees were . . . .
The word "fairies" is a typo, it's a howler of a typo. I of course used to be a meta-textualist and knew how to read keeping a whole paragraph in mind as I went.

Will Jim take the job? If he does, it will because his patriotism is higher than that of the current President, and he thinks he might do something very important for the whole country.

Abraham Lincoln's Proclamation calling for 75,000 Troops

The more I learn about the resistance to disunion in the south, particular the reluctance of most people in North Carolina to secede, the more I wonder about the wisdom of Lincoln's calling for 75,000 volunteers to repossess property. Did he think about ways of freeing the slaves that might have avoided the "devastation" that was inflicted on the people and property of the South, all the people, and for decades to come?

This reminds me of the British proclamation in North Carolina in 1776 saying that although they were going to seize horses and equipment they were going to respect private property.

Did Lincoln's 15 April 1861 Proclamation create the conditions (including racial attitudes) out of which we saw un-Christian Evangelicals elect the current President?

I am not a great "what if?" person, but what if Lincoln had waited a little and thought through the situation a little more calmly?

Tourists are all gone--2 pictures, looking south, looking north

Goals for 2019

The first goal is to have everyone in the house capable of reading and driving. The second is to regain much of the strength I had before the minor cancer surgery of 15 October 2018 that proved disastrous and led to a Downward Spiral which involved horrific collateral mandible damage and neuropathy. I am trying to run again but I am not anywhere near as strong as on 14 October 2018. So, health, relative health, is the overall goal.

There were years when I had two dozen projects. No more.
There's a forum on THE WRITINGS OF HERMAN MELVILLE upcoming in LEVIATHAN this year. In mid July should come the Library of America HERMAN MELVILLE: COMPLETE POEMS--planned for just before Melville's 200th birthday.

That's it. I want to get my discovery of the first history of the Gainesville, Texas hangings of 1862 in some Texas State Historical Association publication. I have to polish the several page politically incorrect expose of one over-ambitious leader of some murdering colored troops in 1865, Matthews and the McGehees of Amite County. I want to write an article for the JOURNAL OF THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION on why it was sometimes wrong to hang Tories in North Carolina.

Bigger professional goals? Well, I thought I had a home for my Melville Collection. That seems to have disappeared because of how expensive it would be to maintain. I could always put my books and research materials on the curb a box at a time, but that seems a little irresponsible.

Probably what I will do in 2019 is learn about self-publishing. I have four thousand GLIMPSES of kinfolks from the 1600s to the early 1900s. I could do a series of shortish books--Glimpses of the American McGehee Family, the Hill Family, the Sims Family, the Bell Family, the Moore Family, the Coker Family, and Sparks Family, and many more. These Families all have a variety of documents written by them or about them in the early centuries, particularly the 19th century. I am talking about great stories that very often put family members in their places in big events of Southern history.

I bought Dragon years ago and applied myself to learning to use it until the program failed and I could no longer count on it to learn from what I did on a particular day and had no seller backup to consult or complain to. I did buy a very expensive microphone which I still have. Have there been great new developments in voice recognition where spoken words go straight to a word processing program?

Here's an old list of particular topics.

UNCLE DABBS AND HIS DIRTY JOB OF QUARTERING MURDERERS

UNCLE SAMUEL POTTENGER’S CANE

WILLIAM SPARKS—HANGING TORIES --NO DELFT 

AUNT MARGARET’S RIDE to King's Mountain

THE ARRIVAL OF AN OX-DRAWN WAGON TRAIN IN ALABAMA

ROBERT EWART’S CONSULTATIONS ON THE PROGRESS OF THE WAR

Jesse Moore having to pay for his land twice

THE ACCUSATIONS AGAINST Milton Sims AND Jesse Sparks

Sparks family members who gave up their land?

SOLOMON SPARK’S CANOE RIDE

MRS MOORE SENDING BOY OFF TO VA WITH NEW FLAX SUIT

HENRY DELLINGER TAKING COFFEE ADDICT SMOTHERS  [Schmoller] 2^ND WIFE

SWEARINGEN IDENTIFYING REUBEN COFFEY AS “OLD SORREL”

HOW A SENATOR FROM FOUR STATES RESCUED GRANDMA SIMS

POOR JOE HILL

RUDISILL GOLD MINE

COUSIN FREDERICK SLIMP AS A BOY

WILLIAM AND MYRA MAST MYSTERY

COKER – CHURCHMAN THAT MADE THE LIBERATOR & TIMES OF LONDON

ABIGAIL ROGERS’S SETTING OUT WI HER OX

DANIEL MOORE’S RIDE

JOHN PARKER BAREFOOT IN SNOW

AUNT KATE AND THE STICK OF FIREWOOD

CEPHAS BELL AND HIS PRISONER

JAMES ALEXANDER BELL AND HIS SNACKS IN HIS WAGON

JESSE SPARKS AND NEGROES IN MEXICO & in RR car

COUSIN LUTHER FRANCIS TUCKER AND JAMES BROS AND YOUNGER BROS

FRANKLIN BELL AND HIS SAYING

COKERS AND PUSHING MAN OFF BLUFF

WHAT AMANDA TUCKER COKER DID NOT KNOW ABOUT HER MOTHER goes in loss of memory

CALVIN COKER AND POLITICAL EXCITEMENT

BRUTAL COUSIN GEORGE C. SCOTT AND TALENT FOR MIMICRY

DAVID DELLINGER’S IGNORANCE ABOUT SOURCE OF MORAL RESISTANCE

MOORE COUSINS and Bushwacking Keith Blaylock

IN 1945-- COUSIN David Dellinger AND COUSIN PAUL W. TIBBETS

This is probably what I will do--start off with an e-book on the McGehees. That has the funniest opening, the ludicrous claim that the first colonial McGehee was really a MacGregor, when the name was banned and anyone identifying himself as a MacGregor could be killed. Ho ho ho, we all want to have links to famous people. Then comes DNA and I am a cousin of Rob Roy! And there are great American stories about my McGehees and all the cousins. Making 300 pages of documents? Easy--if there really are improvements in voice recognition and if a very old Melvillean can figure out the rudiments of self-publishing.

2019. Biggest goal: staying in denial about the fate of the United States.