The Subject STILL is Roses

It's been noted I am as exacting as Javert, the character in Hugo's Les Miserables, who hunts down a criminal who stole a loaf of bread to feed a hungry child, and under duress, I might confess, it may be false or true, but I would say not a word if being waterboarded in a drought-prone state.

My way of saying, the Tournament of Roses Parade, and the stadium in which the most famous flea market in CA is held once every four weeks, with the exception of the Rose Bowl- some sports game I know isn't March Madness, but is its own sort of bedlam, gratefully just once a year, is about to occur.

I know Pasadena is virtually branded to roses inextricably and I know the city has made strides to be in synch with a water challenged environment, and it has been an issue with landscaping since Native Americans no longer tilled their land, we had shunned European intolerance, yet insisted on re-creating intolerant other conditions as an homage to Europe, just the same.

As a state that has embraced the charge of leading the way for the rest of the nation, if not also the world, I think undercover substitutions, whether faux roses or other eco-friendly decorations, must be called to our attention, as moves for the greater good of all.

If industry is compelled to call American cheese, cheese food, I believe there is a standard of integrity that compels this same type of honesty with roses and formerly all-white communities, once called Sunset Towns, but still are Culver City and Glendale, among others, that have been made invisible as if they never existed.

I believe Gertrude Stein would understand the exception and yet this effort would be the epitome of the sentiment of the most famous rose-related expression, it would remain, as always:

A Rose is a rose is a rose.

HAPPY NEW YEAR & GO TEAM! (Whichever one LeBron James is on.)

Photos courtesy of wikipedia: Please, PLEASE support them. They are in need and seem like a fixture of the eco-highway but they need a different type of green to survive.