WebMink
Simon Phipps's personal commentary

Green Hills and Snowy Peaks [PhotoTravel]

Flying south to attend OMA in Long Beach last night I spent the hour or so on the little jet looking at the beautiful green hills of California's coastal range, the distant Sierras capped with snow, and the rich patterns of fields and orchards in the Central Valley. Between now and late April is my favourite time to be in California - after that all the green has become brown. I'm reminded of a book I purchased at Mono Lake several years ago called 'Farewell Promised Land' [US|UK] which looks like a coffee-table book but turns out to be a searing history of exploitation, politics and oppression in California.

It was in this book that I first discovered that California's state animal, the grizzly bear, was hunted to extinction in the state and the last one is mounted in a case in Sacramento. It was here I first heard about Manzanar (and went on to read 'Farewell to Manzanar' [US|UK]). Today I am in metropolitan Los Angeles, the destination of the streams that used to feed Mono Lake, and as I look through the smog towards the palm trees I am reminded of the cost of what is thought to have been achieved.

posted at 4:12 PM (UK) | |