I'm not going to point fingers -- not in my nature -- but campaign signs litter North County again in such profusion that there ought to be a law. I can't stand them.

As always, their desecration crosses party lines, so one can call down a pox on all their houses.

There's nothing new about them: These signs are like all others through the ages, brain-rattlingly ugly and tasteless. They are foolish and gaudy, mad colors of the inane season, screams in the sunlight.

Worse, they cut off views to the stuff North Countians prefer to look at, such as trees, mountains, oceans, flowers, lawns and bamboo -- the stuff that keeps the soul in calories.

Our utility thinks again

Once again I have to point a finger at San Diego Gas & Electric Co. As wind-driven wildfires erupted this week, the utility put on hold its plans to cut off power in the backcountry when the Santa Anas roar in hard.

Apparently, many customers had complained at the prospect of powerlessness. The utility had said, in the initial announcement, that it was taking the action as a safety measure.

One suspects that the safety concern was for the company's own hide. Its high-tension wires were blamed in official reports for last year's devastating fires. Lawsuits were filed by fire victims.

In any event, for now, no power will be cut off. The utility should be ashamed of itself for such a petulant action in the first place. The state reports won't go away, and the lawsuits remain in place. Deal with them, San Diego Gas & Electric.

Come one, come all

It is said that when office space is in overabundant supply in a local community or in the average nation beset by economic troubles, the smart money that is still hanging around calls it recession, period.

Our Zach Fox reported this week that "vacant office space spiked during the third quarter" in North County. Ipso facto, recession. There were a lot of "mosts," "firsts" and "worsts" attached to the figures, but what do they matter? Those are for first-draft historians scrambling for context.

What matters at day's end -- to regular people who are the most profoundly affected by high-plain failures -- are the basics: food, clothing, shelter, schooling, health care and, most basic of all, something to cling to in the way of hope.

There isn't much around at the moment.

The fires this time

Observer does not believe for a second that a picture is worth 1,000 words -- not when his business is words.

But this week he begs to differ with himself. The North County Times pictures from our nearest fire, at Camp Pendleton, have been worth 10 times 1,000, for beauty, for humanity and for story-telling power.

I'm talking just the front pages. On Tuesday, there was a shot by one of our photographers, Jamie Scott Lytle, from the backyards of homes near Pendleton's back gate that, as they say, "said it all."

Such were the elements of his picture: tiny figures of firefighters locked in a five-column rectangle with cascades of black and brown smoke climbing over rolling flames, billows really, that seemed loath to let the smoke escape.

On Wednesday, there was a photo from another of our own, Hayne Palmour IV, of the same fire in another part of the forest, which showed six firefighters in bright orange poking for hot spots in charred gray woods and white-ashed earth. Dante revealed.

We, as a newspaper, are proud of our work and our workers in moments like these. But we do not delude ourselves: Ours is a tangential employment, a sideline sort of business; we take pride in it, we are fierce about getting things right, saying things well, and capturing important moments that they may live for awhile and maybe one day add to a purer understanding.

But that's it. We aren't central. We're not at the core. We're just watching.

There.

That's about 1,000 words, isn't it?

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