I read that the Federal government is proposing a new allocation of the waters from the Colorado River. Jump in the Way-Back machine and return with me to a lecture hall at the university listening to a radical old professor explaining how the City of Los Angeles tried to grab all of the water to keep the front lawns green and the orange groves orange.
Los Angeles was blessed with magnificent aquifers puddled around the base of the surrounding mountains. Used up. Then there were the vast lakes protected by the Sierra Nevada. Went dry. So take the water from the San Juaquin River. Diminished the flow so much that waters from the Sacramento River had to be diverted south lest the San Juaquin no longer be considered a river. But Los Angeles is saved by claiming the endless waters of the Colorado River for the advancement of Southern California lifestyle. Arizona objected and the Federal government stepped in to allocated the bounty of the river to the various states it ran through.
The Colorado River is old but not invincible. Like a five gallon jerry can on an occupied lifeboat, the water needs to be rationed long before it threatens to run out.
But sitting at my desk sipping a cold lemonade, my thoughts turn from endangered rivers and California greed to contemplate the reading suggestions I made during the previous month.
Suggested Reading: March 2023
03-01-23 – Unknown Soldiers — Väinö Linna
03-02-23 – Troll: A Love Story — Johanna Sinisalo
03-03-23 – The Leftovers — Tom Perrotta
03-04-23 – Hell House — Leigh Bardygo
03-05-23 – Maame — Jessica George
03-06-23 – The Forbidden Notebook — Alba de Céspedes
03-07-23 – Maisie Dobbs — Jacqueline Winspear
03-08-23 – The Wandering Mind: What Medieval Monks Tell Us About Distraction — Jamie Kreiner
03-09-23 – Empress of the Nile — Lynne Olson
03-10-23 – Essex Dogs — Dan Jones
03-11-23 – City Poet: The Life and Times of Frank O’Hara — Brad Gooch
03-12-23 – Dinner with the President — Alex Prud’homme
03-13-23 – A Mystery of Mysteries — Mark Dawidziak
03-14-23 – The World And All That It Holds — Aleksandar Hemon
03-15-23 – Driving the Green Book — Alvin Hall
03-16-23 – The Book of Evidence — John Banville
03-17-23 – Hippie Chick: Coming of Age in the ’60s — Ilene English
03-18-23 – B.F.F. — Christie Tate
03-19-23 – My Last Innocent Year— Daisy Alpert Florin
03-20-23 – The Birthday Party — Laurent Mauvignier
03-21-23 – Beyond the Bedroom Wall: A Family Album — Larry Wolwode
03-22-23 – Lives of the Wives: Five Literary Marriages — Carmela Ciuraru
03-23-23 – The Applicant — Nazli Koca
03-24-23 – Our Share Of Night — Mariana Enriquez
03-25-23 – If I Survive — Jonathan Escoffery
03-26-23 – The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo — Taylor Jenkins Reid
03-27-23 – We Don’t Know Ourselves — Fintan O’Toole
03-28-23 – Voyager: Constellations of Memory — Nona Fernández
03-29-23 – The Creak on the Stairs — Eva Björg Ægisdóttir
03-30-23 – Let the Northern Lights Erase Your Name — Vendella Vida
03-31-23 – The Howe Dynasty: The Untold Story of a Military Family and the Women Behind Britain’s Wars for America — Julie Flavell
A Celebration of Reading 
How sad that this situation has arisen.
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