State of Emergency
California’s official motto is “Eureka.” Our official nickname is “The Golden State.” Has any thought has been given to changing one of these to “State of Emergency”?
The most recent state of emergency was proclaimed by Governor Schwarzenegger on Friday, regarding the ongoing drought. (Our current heavy rains, although helpful, have only been a drop in the bucket, so to speak.) Three weeks earlier, the governor had declared a state of emergency because of the state’s projected $42 billion deficit. And every fall, we see numerous states of emergency proclaimed due to wildfires (four separate states of emergency in November alone.) Add to all these the potentially catastrophic emergencies caused by large earthquakes or failure of levees in the Sacramento River Delta, and I can’t help but wonder if “State of Emergency” would be a more apt nickname than “The Golden State.”
No emergencies in MA. But lots of snow.
March 2nd, 2009 at 4:23 pmIf you could ask the snowplow drivers to push some of that snow over this way, we’d appreciate it. Thanks.
March 2nd, 2009 at 6:36 pmI beg to differ, wordnerd: because of the officially declared “Snow Emergency,” which went into effect late last night and was lifted today at 3 PM, I couldn’t park my car on my own street. Now THAT is an emergency, darn it.
March 2nd, 2009 at 6:37 pmWhat does that make you, a NOMOS? Anyway, there’s one more reason to get rid of your car, or to keep it in deep storage in your garage, hidden behind your extensive fleet of bicycles.
March 2nd, 2009 at 6:53 pmWhat does that make you, a philosophy major? I was annoyed because I had to put the car in the garage, which meant moving the table saw, sliding over the skateboard ramps, stacking a few of the bicycles and lifting the bike trailer on top of a big pile of other stuff. Fortunately the Emergency is over and the car is on the street again, though I’m hoping not to drive it for a while. I just like using public land to store it on for free. So I guess I am a nomos, though I didn’t know you could use the word that way.
March 3rd, 2009 at 5:51 pmMy NOMOS was an acronym, not an ancient Greek word. Akin to NIMBY or BANANA. And of course it was a joke.
I came across a book today called WIMBY. It’s an anti-NIMBY manifesto (stands for Welcome into My Backyard.)
March 3rd, 2009 at 11:08 pmHow about State of Confusion?
March 6th, 2009 at 12:23 pm