Wildfire damage AT&T Inc. workers repair phone lines as a burned-out vehicle sits on a road during the Camp Fire in Paradise, California, U.S., on Tuesday, Nov. 13, 2018. (Photo: David Paul Morris/Bloomberg)

Joan Didion's "Holy Water," written in 1977, is a paean to the elaborate engineering that supplied her taps in Malibu and filled drinking glasses in Hollywood restaurants. At its heart is a warning: The apparent ease of California life is an illusion, and those who believe the illusion real live here in only the most temporary way.

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Inhospitable place

The Golden State is actually a pretty inhospitable place: arid or semi-arid in large parts, prone to occasional floods (maybe even mega-floods) and, lest we forget, a giant quake-zone. There's even a clutch of volcanoes. As a prosperous home for almost 40 million people, it is a place made, not begotten.

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