Thanks to the numerous lightning-sparked fires plaguing our region, the Bay Area Air Quality Management District issued advisories warning of unhealthy, smoke-filled air. These advisories, while issued with the best of intentions, always make me roll my eyes and wonder: What are we supposed to do, stop breathing?

Thankfully, I haven't noticed any lung irritation recently, but the smoke is a major problem for my eyes. Sometimes it gets so bad, the only thing I can do is the visual equivalent of not breathing: close them.

I've considered leaving the area until the smoke clears - it's difficult to be productive when your eyes are closed - but gasoline prices are so high that outrunning the smoke in a car is prohibitively expensive, not to mention prohibitively time consuming. So why not fly to some smoke-free destination for the duration? Puh-lease.

The same high oil prices that are boosting gasoline prices are boosting jet fuel prices, meaning that outrunning the smoke in a plane is prohibitively expensive, not to mention prohibitively annoying, thanks to the dubiously effective safety measures. Air travel elicits head shakes and eye rolls from me.

One lesson that the unusually early and vicious fire season should teach us is renewed respect for how dry this region is. Right? Puh-lease, not in Gilroy.

Despite fresh evidence that we live in an area that's ready to go up in flames at the drop of a spark, Gilroy remains the one place in Santa Clara County where "safe and sane" fireworks - and there's a term that induces head shakes every time I see it - are legal.

Last week, with the air full of eye-stinging, lung-clogging smoke, Gilroy City Council held an emergency meeting to consider a one-year fireworks ban. The proposal suffered an eye-roll inducing lopsided defeat, 5-1. Councilman Peter Arellano cast the lone vote to ban fireworks this year; Mayor Al Pinheiro was absent.

I know the current fires were started by lightning, not fireworks, as Councilman Dion Bracco is fond of pointing out. That's not the important lesson taught by the current fires, or the other recent fires attributed to other causes. The important lesson is that, to paraphrase a holiday song, baby, it's dry outside.

In addition, the mix of legal and illegal fireworks makes it very difficult for fire officials and police to distinguish between fireworks that are "safe and sane" and those that are, I must deduce, "unsafe and insane.

It also leads to the lame attempt to control illegal fireworks called administrative citations. Instead of citing the person who's using the "unsafe and insane" fireworks, officials can take the easy way out and cite the owner of property where illegal fireworks are used. Never mind if the property owner is out of town. Puh-lease, common sense should tell officials that scheme is patently unfair. But common sense should also tell them that fireworks and tinder-dry conditions don't mix.

Of course, natural disasters aren't limited to the liberal, diverse, tolerant, same-sex marrying state of California. The Midwest, the veritable buckle of the Bible belt, is experiencing the opposite natural disaster: flooding, the worst in decades. But where are the prominent religious right wingers blaming the Midwest flooding on the victims, as so many did after Hurricane Katrina?

Perhaps they're silent because the fact that Midwesterners are among America's most religious and most conservative citizens proves an uncomfortable truth: Natural disasters aren't related to abortion rates, tolerance of homosexuality, or prevalence of non-Judeo-Christian religions. You can't proclaim natural disasters to be God's vengeance on the wicked when they strike a region with people with whom you mostly agree.

At least, not without generating an eye roll, a head shake, a "puh-lease" and a charge of hypocrisy from me.

Lisa Pampuch Lisa Pampuch is a technical editor and a member of the newspaper’s editorial board. She lives in Morgan Hill with her husband and two children. You can reach her at lisapampuch@iname.com