Let us now praise warmer nights

By: JOHN VAN DOORN - staff writer | Saturday, January 20, 2007 7:09 PM PST ∞

Always with us, the weather is a slippery deal to write about: By the time the paper comes out, winter has turned to spring. What was insufferable at 28 degrees is charming at 63.

But the freeze over the last week or so will be available as a hot topic for months and years. That is because it is a charmless disaster for citrus growers right now, the harshest winter for crops since 1990-1991.

What's more, the effects will be felt for at least two years, and perhaps well beyond, say growers and officials after grim days and nights in the groves and fields. At the moment, the accepted figure for damage to the crops is $500,000. But they say it will be much greater than that: pushing north of a billion.

Here is who will suffer: growers, workers, consumers.

It is said that growers never go on vacation in the winter just in case. They can fight a certain level of cold snap with smudge pots, covers and close attention. But this time, protection is more in the imagination than in the south 40. Simply too cold to fight.

It is also said that because growing ---- farming ---- is a risky business, its practitioners save against a freezing day. They put away money to carry them over. Some do, no question; it's not easy to come across a dumb farmer.

But others do not for all the reasons that many of us fail to save: emergencies, maintenance, upkeep, food, clothing and shelter.

Some of those growers will be very hard put to stay on the land. Maybe they can borrow enough; we hope so. Maybe friends can help, or relatives. Again, we hope so.

Figures will begin to come in soon. Say a prayer for the growers.

As for the workers, mostly migrants, who now have nothing to do and are not in the Savings Class, what of them? If told there is no work here, they cannot move to work there, because there is no work there, either.

Margins are very thin for the workers who pick and pack and deliver the goods in better seasons.

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger last week quickly recognized this. He pledged assistance to all affected laborers, regardless of immigration status.

That is a remarkable stance to take at a time when immigration ---- particularly of the illegal variety ---- is an angry subject in California, indeed, across the country. He could have finessed it. But he didn't, and instead took the high and human road. He has set an admirable example.

And then the consumers. They will pay a lot more for citrus products, because so few will make it to market. This is supply and demand, more fundamental to American life than the Bill of Rights.

Be a Lam, and go quietly

As measured against an administration's unconscionable war games and persistent lying, the case of Carol Lam, the U.S. attorney for the San Diego area, is probably pretty small beer.

Lam was apparently asked to resign. Last week she did. It is not precisely clear who asked her to quit or indeed if anyone "asked" her. U.S. attorneys serve at the pleasure of the president, as the phrase goes, so it seems evident that a form of forced departure is at the displeasure of the president.

We have the word of one of her sharpest critics, U.S. Rep. Darrell Issa of Vista, who said that it was true she was asked to go but wouldn't say who did the asking. No one in Washington stepped up and said, "I did it, and this is the reason." This is puzzling, but not very.

Issa never cared for Lam as San Diego's U.S. attorney; he concedes that. He sent letters on high castigating her, and he'd buttonhole administration figures to let them know.

He thought she waited for big targets in the conduct of her office and disregarded lesser crimes, which were not lesser at all to Issa. They seemed mostly to involve illegal immigration. Issa thinks Lam was "lax" in that she did not pursue such cases when, in his opinion, there were many available.

Issa said it would be "too strong" to say that he was "instrumental" in opening the gate and pushing Lam through it. That's like saying it would be too strong to connect Dick Cheney to the war in Iraq.

Contact staff writer John Van Doorn at (760) 739-6647 or jvandoorn@nctimes.com.

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