The tail end of Hurricane Ivan has just hit Berkeley, California!

Most of the members of my e-mail group, The Front Porch Philosophers, live in Florida, Texas, Mississippi, Georgia and Tennessee. Being mostly Wobbly types who don't take kindly to having the 2000 election stolen, our treasury sacked, corporate welfare queens running Congress, our national security endangered and Lord knows what else the neo-cons have been up to, the FPP has joked a lot about Ivan lately. "It's God's wrath on the idiots who foisted George Bush off on us," they wrote me. "The blue states pay most of the taxes but the red states have all the power? Tell that to Charlie, Frances and Ivan!"

I had to laugh when one FPP reported that, "Some of the cult Christians down here think the End Times have come."

FPP members also e-mailed me hair-raising stories of storms and winds, about going for days without power -- and how only the rich are getting instant aid from FEMA. "You have to have an assessor's report to get aid," said one FPP hurricane victim, "and those of us on Social Security can't afford to pay for one."

Being safely out in sunny California, I worried about them and sympathized with them -- but I generally felt that Hurricane Ivan was THEIR problem.

However, last night I got a strange e-mail from one FPP in Arizona. "Can you believe it? Hurricane Ivan just hit Arizona! You'd better watch out, Jane! California is next!"

"You gotta be kidding," I e-mailed her back. "It NEVER rains in California in September. Never."

Guess what? I woke up this morning to the sound of torrential rain, heavy wind and even thunder. Hurricane Ivan has come to California! My house is flooding! My apple tree is tilting. My car is up to its hubcaps in wet stuff. And my cat looks like the Little Mermaid.

Have End Times come to the Golden State too? How can that be! We didn't even vote for George Bush!