Burn On

To open their season, celebrating last year's NBA championship, the Golden State Warriors decided not to use any pyrotechnics. Not because they would be staging the event indoors and they wanted to adhere to a set of previously understood safety concerns. Not because they wanted to keep things low-key, since the expectation is that they would be the odds-on favorite to repeat this year. Nope. They cancelled their standard fire and fury in sympathy for those affected by the wildfires that continue to burn just up the road from their arena.
It's a little thing, like the donations being made to the Red Cross by the team and other local sports franchises. They aren't going to fix the problem by donating all the proceeds from beer and hot dog sales. They certainly aren't going to make everything better by cancelling the indoor fireworks show before their basketball game.
So why bother?
Maybe they were hoping to be a notch more sympathetic to the more than forty who have died and the dozens more still missing than the "President" of the United States. After more than a week, the disaster that has become the North Bay Wildfires continue to burn. Our governor, the deeply blue Jerry Brown, has pledged to seek out federal disaster aid, but he has tried to soften the reality blow of a country still reeling from the effects of hurricanes hitting Texas, Florida and Puerto Rico. You may have heard about some of those natural disasters. And since Governor Jerry suggested that the fires plaguing the Golden State may have been caused in part by global warming, they can't really exist on our "President's" radar.
And given the way that same "President" has chosen to deal with Puerto Rico and its pleas for assistance, my guess is that the People's Republic of California will have to stand in line and fill out a whole bunch of extra forms to get paper towels tossed at us by some whispy haired Steph Curry wannabe. Suddenly that care and consideration from the Golden State Warriors seems overtly compassionate. It's hard to maintain a cynical outlook in the face of an administration that seeks the lowest level in virtually every circumstance.
Thanks for making me an optimist, I guess.