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This is one of the several Canary Island date palms that Brent Green saved from poachers on the embankment of the Santa Monica Freeway.

Since I began posting my gardening column articles here, and supplementing with blog posts, I have deviated from horticultural topics only a few times. I will now do it again. I had earlier selected a horticultural topic for this post. It will wait for now.

Brent Green, my colleague down south, called me on the telephone to tell me to watch the news. I did so, but only briefly. It was just too crazy. So far, I have made a point of saying nothing about Coronavirus. I said nothing about those who protest the violation of their right to spread disease that will kill others. I mentioned nothing about the racist murderers in Minneapolis.

Now I see that people are senselessly rioting and looting in several cities in America.

The office building of the Canyon News, one of the newspapers that I write for, was clearly visible in the background as police helicopters showed looting of stores on the historic Rodeo Drive in Downtown Beverly Hills, in the region of Los Angeles. Police cars and palm trees were burning. From three hundred and fifty miles away, I can see it online.

This is not demonstration or protest. It is looting. It is mere opportunistic thievery. Those involved are not at all concerned about social justice, their own Communities, or that Black Lives Matter. They are exploiting an already bad situation to plunder what they can get away with.

This is happening in the Community where Brent Green has been planting his Birthday Trees (in quantities that corresponds to his age at the time) in public spaces for the past twenty two years. This is near where Brent Green saved several Canary Island date palms on the Santa Monica Freeway from poachers. This is a region that many people care about.

20 thoughts on “Riots”

  1. I hate all violence, menace and oppression – the vast majority of us do. We have had riots in our country too which swiftly turned to looting of electricals and sports shops etc. Many of the looters were caught afterwards by sharing pictures of what they had done.

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    1. Many of the looters in the cities come from far away just to loot. It is so senseless, and so contrary to what a demonstration should be. There are vastly too many to prosecute.

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  3. Well said, Tony. It’s hard to be sympathetic with the true protesters when their movement turns to such violence. It is a beautiful area, and will be restored in time, but what horrific events it has endured.

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    1. My niece wanted to attend a demonstration, but her parents could predict what the demonstrations could devolve into. She did not attend. It is so unfortunate on so many levels.

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  4. I’ve been pretty astonished at how quickly peaceful protest can turn into either police violence or looting. I’m sorry. I hope this stops soon. I too, wrote about it, and I don’t cross that line very often.

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    1. I did not watch much of the news. It was too saddening to see that it was like a big rowdy party to most of those kids. Those who were just there for a peaceful demonstration could do nothing about it. I am not familiar with the stores downtown, but I know that they are like other businesses that I do know. Many were likely about to go out of business because they had been closed for so long. Many that might have been able to recover will not be able to because of this. Although most looters seemed to be wearing masks, some were not. It is bad on so many levels.

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      2. I do not even know what is going on with the Coronavirus nowadays. It will be interesting to see if more infections become apparent two weeks after the looting.

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      3. We’ve never stopped having infections here. The County does updates, but it doesn’t look like we should be at stage one of opening if that’s supposed to be 2 weeks of declining cases…

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    1. Thank you. I do not like this post much at all. There should have been real demonstrations and protests, without all this destruction. Not only was the looting as destructive as it was, but society in some places is deprived of civil demonstrations.

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    1. He does not know. He planted so many in the region that he can not see all of them easily. As we were talking on the telephone, we could see some queen palms burning. It looked odd because queen palms are not notably combustible like bearded Mexican fan palms are. They will be fine once they replace their foliage. I saw other trees that I could not identify on television that were burning above burning cars. Brent is very protective of all city trees in the Los Angeles region, even though he did not plant all of them.

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  7. Reblogged this on Tony Tomeo and commented:

    Perhaps this post from three years ago should stay in the past. Perhaps it was more appropriate for the Horridculture rants on Wednesdays. Well, if there is any good news, the palms are fine.

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