Stickless

06:50 Wednesday, 31 July 2024
Current Wx: Temp: 76.37°F Pressure: 1017hPa Humidity: 90% Wind: 3.44mph
Words: 140

"Is this true?"

"Yes, your honor. This man has no sticks."

This morning's obscure cultural reference paraphrase is sponsored by laziness and indolence, attorneys at law.

Alarm went off at 0500, but I didn't feel like getting up. Finally rolled out a little before 0530. Realized I'd be encountering people (the horror), decided to skip the sticks. I even considered taking the morning off, but managed to convince myself to do something.

Anyway, confirmation that the sticks are useful and effective for better pace and more caloric expenditure and cardiovascular benefit. I wasn't exactly strolling, but 17'57" pace, a minute slower than with the sticks. Average heart rate of 113 bpm, vs 135 bmp with the sticks. 402 calories expended, vs 493 calories expended poling.

Lesson here is to just get out of bed when the alarm goes off.

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Standards

11:37 Tuesday, 30 July 2024
Current Wx: Temp: 84.97°F Pressure: 1018hPa Humidity: 78% Wind: 8.05mph
Words: 60

The American National Standards Institute has a blog, and it has an RSS feed.

We're having a reverse osmosis water filter installed in our kitchen and I wanted to know about NSF/ANSI 58. Found their web site and saw the blog. Seems like they post nearly daily, at least in July. Full posts with images too!

Very cool.

Subscribed!

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Red Shed

06:56 Tuesday, 30 July 2024
Current Wx: Temp: 72.81°F Pressure: 1017hPa Humidity: 93% Wind: 0mph
Words: 235

I tried getting some shots from the Auto Train a week ago. It's hard because you have essentially no time to think about composition. (Plus you get reflections from the window.) I thought this one was interesting.

Did the sticks again this morning, with a form that perhaps was closer to "Nordic walking." Wasn't a stellar effort in terms of pace, but it was 493 calories. I might have done better in terms of pace and calories, not using the sticks and pumping my arms. But it did elevate my heart rate more than not using the sticks, and I can feel the effort in my triceps.

Found an old headband I used to use running when I had long hair. Kept the sweat out of my eyes, which was a relief.

I was gifted a book by a gent named Simon who's corresponded with me before. He's from the UK and he linked to a couple of YouTube videos that make the point that "technology is not the problem," with regard to social media. And the context there is that it's human nature that is the root cause of the problematic experiences we have on social media.

And I think that's correct.

The book is How to Disagree. It may only be an audio book. I'll give it a listen.

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Walking Wrong

12:08 Monday, 29 July 2024
Current Wx: Temp: 87.98°F Pressure: 1020hPa Humidity: 69% Wind: 3mph
Words: 224

I'm not a physical therapist, but I slept at a Holiday Inn Express once and watched some YouTube videos.

Heh.

So, trying to understand more about what was going on during my walks, I watched more YouTube videos. Of course there are different ways to use trekking poles, and "Nordic walking" is definitely a more specific kind of technique than just "pole walking."

Since I'm relatively healthy, no joint pain or other mobility issues, and looking to get more aerobic benefit from my walking, the Nordic walking technique is appropriate. Decent video here.

I was trying to bring the poles too far forward, to land approximately where my opposite foot was landing. It's supposed to land mid-stride, or behind where the opposite foot lands. That keeps both poles angled backward, they never get vertical.

It's still not clear to me how the tip of the pole gets off the ground when you're supposedly releasing your grip toward the end of the stride and beginning to swing your arm forward. This also means the arms are more straight and less bent than I was doing.

I may dial it back tomorrow and just try to get the form down.

Imagine the fun I'm going to have after watching a few videos on kayaking!

I've got a brain surgery playlist queued up too. Stay tuned!

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Manuel Moreale Weighs In

09:59 Monday, 29 July 2024
Current Wx: Temp: 84.74°F Pressure: 1019hPa Humidity: 73% Wind: 6.91mph
Words: 212

I spotted Manuel's post in my RSS feed. There may be other reactions by bloggers I'm not yet subscribed to. So if you wrote something on your blog that you'd like to call to my attention, hit the reply link and let me know.

With that out of the way, I agree with everything Manuel wrote.

The current design of social media platforms rewards the kinds of behaviors that can be problematic. While I can distinctly recall the pang of emotion I felt, wishing I could immediately react and see the reactions of those within "my community," I think that it's better, at least for me, not to engage in that type of social media platform. And I would find prior restraint abrasive and unwelcoming.

This post is about as immediate as this interaction probably needs to be. I'm writing it in Tinderbox, so I have plenty of space to see what I'm writing, think about it and revise it as I go along. (I've deleted several paragraphs already.)

There is a reward to seeing someone respond to a post. And it's especially welcome when it's reasonable and reasoned, even if it's not exactly in agreement.

I'm accustomed to "the void," but it's nice to hear something back now and then. 😎

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The Torch Is Passed

09:40 Monday, 29 July 2024
Current Wx: Temp: 83.97°F Pressure: 1019hPa Humidity: 73% Wind: 6.91mph
Words: 140

I'm so grateful that Heather Cox Richardson is as prolific in her writing and her appearances as she is in this moment. While I'm much more optimistic than I had been, we still face great challenges in meeting this moment and holding on to our democracy. Her latest is a comforting, even inspiring piece, which included:

When President Joe Biden announced just a week ago that he would not accept the Democratic nomination for president, he did not pass the torch to Vice President Kamala Harris. He passed it to us.

Indeed.

And we don't just "get complacent." We're led to it deliberately, if not "intentionally," by our economic system that consumes our attention and exhausts us. We have to figure that part out too.

For better or worse, the environment and climate will compel us to do so anyway.

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Why "Everything is Politics"

07:07 Monday, 29 July 2024
Current Wx: Temp: 74.39°F Pressure: 1018hPa Humidity: 95% Wind: 0mph
Words: 1156

In the finest traditions of blogging qua blogging, the prototypical online social media platform, Jack responds with an update to his previous post; and Kev Quirk weighs in, as I hoped he might.

I've no quarrel with Kev's wish to run an instance where politics is considered off topic, and there's no reason to belabor that issue.

What prompted me to consider joining 500.social was recalling the feeling I had when we learned that Biden had dropped out of the race. That's the sort of event that evokes an immediate, emotional response because of its significance to a broad range of people, presumably my "community."

Since I'd left Mastodon and Twitter, I had no platform to do that from my phone in the car. In retrospect, I might have used micro.blog. I do have it on my phone and an account, but it's an adjunct to the marmot, originally intended strictly to cross-post to Mastodon. Since I'm no longer on Mastodon, I'm not certain it serves any purpose, but I do get the impression some people follow the marmot on micro.blog, and it's only $5 a month.

But, I digress. Kev also disagrees that "everything is political," and I want to kick that around some more, along with what the idea of "community" is supposed to mean.

The more I get to know about Kamala Harris, the more I like her. Especially that she laughs, even at herself sometimes.

There's a quote that people either seem to enjoy because they think it's humorous, or because they feel they can mock her with it:

“You exist in the context of all in which you live and what came before you,”

If you're familiar with the Buddhist text, The Fundamental Wisdom of the Middle Way, this may sound familiar to you. Nagarjuna tells us that "everything is contingent." (Disclaimer: I'm not a Buddhist, except in the context that everyone is a Buddhist, most of us just don't know it yet. I'm not an expert on Buddhist texts or thought, and I'm absolutely certain there are many people who would be quick to claim that I'm totally misunderstanding Nagarjuna and barking up the wrong tree. So be it. We're all just feeling our way through this thing.)

But Harris is right, I think, and I don't think she'd say something like that unless she understood it at some fairly deep level. Maybe I'm wrong, but it's intriguing. And encouraging.

America is supposedly a democracy. It's an imperfect one for many reasons, not the least of which is the Electoral College; but it may not be one for much longer. The work of democracy is political. It's not just showing up to vote on election day, which too few people do anyway. The value of democracy is that "power" (really, "authority") isn't concentrated in a small number of people for an indeterminate length of time. That the governed have some say in who governs.

I really hope I don't have to explain why I think democracy is important. There do happen to be a significant number of people who would welcome an autocracy in some form, particularly if the person in charge looked like them and shared their particular prejudices and fears, but I don't think many of them read the marmot.

So, back to "everything." Do I need to explain that the internet as an artifact is the result of political action? DARPA? The debates about how old children should be before they're allowed to have social media accounts are political debates. Even if you believe government shouldn't have a say in that, and that it should be up to the parents, that's a political position.

The frequencies that carry wifi and bluetooth and 5G signals? International agreements between governments, many if not most of which were democracies. Political.

Broadband access? It's a political choice, whether we leave that to the "free market," or if we use public resources to make that infrastructure available to regions the market would ignore.

Passionate about drones? Political. Street photography? Becoming political. Ubiquitous, network enabled cameras are changing the environment for police work, much to the dismay of the police. So political.

Some of these examples are national or international issues, but local ones are perhaps even more important, though of less interest to a dispersed online "community."

Flint Michigan, "This is water."

Zoning. Who gets to breathe clean air? Politics.

But I would argue that there isn't a single aspect of anyone's life that isn't touched in many different ways, from the profound to the mundane, by government, by politics.

(Here come the libertarians. See: Somalia.)

Figure it out.

The privileged among us wish to preserve their privilege. They use their privilege, their wealth, to gain and control access to government, or "power." One way to do that is to control the conversation. Make it toxic. Drive people from the public square.

Us.

"We, the people."

They use fear and division to drive people away from politics, so that they have exclusive access to the offices of government. The broader "national narratives"? Those are manufactured distractions, designed, intended to arouse fears and passions and alienate us from one another.

Everything is political.

"You think that's air you're breathing?"

Again, I'm not arguing that we should be talking about politics all the time. Especially not in the manner that we mostly seem to talk about politics these days. We've lost the ability to have rational conversations about politics. We fall into the traps laid for us by those who would have our voices excluded. The only way to reclaim those voices is to learn how to talk to one another again without making it toxic.

This is getting kind of long, and I'm not sure I'm making anything clearer. But let me conclude by saying that I don't think what Kev has in mind is fairly described as a "community." I'd say it's more like a "salon." An invitation by a host to a venue where the discussion is curated and constrained.

And beneath all of it, the politics of it is ignored, disregarded. By design.

And outside of the salon, the larger community struggles against forces of money and power, wealth and privilege.

Not long ago, I got a call from a Democratic strategist who tried to convince me to run for the Florida House again. I told him that after my experience in the last race, there's no way I'd ever actively enter politics again. People are horrible.

He said that's by design. They intentionally make it that way, to keep people on the sidelines. So that only their chosen favorites, the ones they control, would seek office. They win. (Ironically, was I "chosen"? Maybe. But just because I raised my hand once.)

I think he was right, but I don't regret my choice not to run.

"Do your best. The rest is not up to you."

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Sticks

06:35 Monday, 29 July 2024
Current Wx: Temp: 74.41°F Pressure: 1018hPa Humidity: 95% Wind: 0mph
Words: 322

After taking yesterday and Saturday off, I walked with the trekking poles again this morning. The replacement tips arrived Sunday and so I had those on.

Three degrees F cooler this morning (74° v 77°), which often seems to have the effect of reducing the calorie expenditure somewhat. Thermal efficiency perhaps. Anyway, compared to Friday's first effort, it was roughly the same. 43s faster overall, 4s faster pace. 34 fewer calories (490 v. 524). 3bpm slower heart rate (135 v 138), again possibly due to the lower temperature and greater thermal efficiency.

As an aside, whenever I exercise in Florida, warmer temperatures correlate with higher heart rates and higher heart rates correlate with greater calories expended. I don't know if that's strictly an energy thing with regard extracting more useful energy from a cooler sink, or if it's a physiological cooling thing, with a higher heart rate to move more blood through the capillaries to shed heat through the skin at a faster rate, or if both of those are just aspects of the same thing.

I adjusted the straps, but it made no difference, I still had a death grip on the poles and trying to focus on relaxing them screwed everything else up.

The first walk had the worn tip with the metallic *tick* every time the pole landed. This morning, both poles had new tips but the left pole landed differently than the right one. More vibration and more noise. It has something to do with the way I'm using the pole in my non-dominant hand. At some point in mile three, I was able to get the left pole to land with the same sound and less vibration, but I couldn't sustain it. I'm sure it's a form issue and I'd probably be better off focusing on form rather than maintaining a vigorous pace, but I'm not that wise. Or patient.

We'll see how it goes tomorrow.

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Politics and Community

16:15 Sunday, 28 July 2024
Current Wx: Temp: 86.65°F Pressure: 1018hPa Humidity: 74% Wind: 11.5mph
Words: 613

Jack offers a reasonable and reasoned take on my early post about 500 Social. (500.social?)

He sees a distinction between my perception that "everything is political," and his perception that "politics are everywhere."

More specifically, he writes,

I don't believe politics must be everywhere. I have conversations all the time that are nothing to do with politics, and not all of them are "happy talk" in a bubble.

To which I would say that both perceptions are true, and all conversations have something to do with politics, even if we don't always perceive it.

I go back to David Foster Wallace's Kenyon College commencement speech, This Is Water.

What does "community" really mean if we say that we "shouldn't" talk about politics, or hide what we have to say behind a content warning so that people who don't want to know what you have to say within your community are empowered to preemptively silence you? How is that a community?

Sure, there are a lot of things to talk about that won't necessarily invoke an immediately political thought or reaction. But I submit to Jack, and anyone, that there is less than a degree of separation from anything we talk about and politics, and it all begins with the accident of birth. Whether we were born into poverty or privilege. How our parents were shaped by the politics of their time.

In some ways, many ways I think, politics is the most important thing we should talk about. How "important" is it to discuss "tech"? It can be interesting. Pleasant or infuriating. But is it important? Perhaps in its political context. "The future is here, it's just unevenly distributed." That's a political consequence. Access to tech is economic and, therefore, political. We like to talk about technology while blissfully oblivious of all the people who never have the opportunity.

I'm not suggesting that politics is all anyone should talk about, and it seems like that's the case for too many people. I think that our dysfunctional, hyper-partisan political culture is the result of our economic system where our attention is exploited and monetized. Where we've lost the ability to talk about politics, how we wish to be governed, and by whom, simply because we haven't practiced it in a way that makes us good at it. And by "good," I mean "the good." As in "good faith."

Anyway, I hear you Jack, and I appreciate the welcome. But as I wrote earlier, I don't think I'm the kind of person Kev has in mind, and he's entitled to run his instance the way he wishes. I don't wish to impose my views on his goals and objectives. If I was a member, something would happen in politics that I would like to share my immediate emotional reaction to within my community, but I'd have to hide it behind a content warning.

Thanks, but no.

I think this exchange, between Jack and I, is perhaps a better example of the kind of online social interaction that might be possible. Social media platforms make it easy to have online social interactions, and that's perhaps their greatest flaw. Too easy, too immediate, and the nature of the platform rewards that immediacy.

When I learned that Joe Biden had dropped out the race, I genuinely missed Twitter and Mastodon. I wanted to share my immediate reaction with people I knew in the online space. But I was in a car driving in Pennsylvania. It would have to wait until we got to the hotel and I got online. By then, that feeling had passed.

That's one of the good things about feelings sometimes.

They pass.

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Bought a Boat

09:35 Sunday, 28 July 2024
Current Wx: Temp: 83.34°F Pressure: 1019hPa Humidity: 82% Wind: 8.05mph
Words: 302

Well, a kayak anyway. Mitzi has a kayak, but it's a rigid one, takes up a lot of space in the garage, is awkward to muscle around and get on top of the car and it's been in the water exactly once.

Dr. Drang bought a folding kayak back in May. I think that's what got me thinking about it. At any rate, I didn't buy a folding kayak, though that was kind of where I was leaning. I ended up getting an inflatable kayak. One of these (on sale for a few more days). I got the Pro package. I don't fish and I'm uncertain about the sail thing. Maybe later.

It should be here by Friday. I don't know if I'll get it in the water right away, it's hot and miserable here right now.

My interest isn't in exercise, it's to get out on the water a little bit with a camera. The inflatable seems more suitable to me in that regard, with a higher freeboard and perhaps less risk of getting water in the boat with the camera. I'll start out with the TG-6 which is a "Tough" camera and capable of being submerged. Get a sense of how to handle the kayak, where water goes, how stable it is (reportedly very stable) and so on.

It seems very inexpensive and, depending on my experience here, I may order another one next summer have it delivered to the other place. You can rent kayaks fairly readily in the Finger Lakes, but having your own offers some additional flexibility in terms of where you put in and paddle around.

I have an inflatable standup paddle board, but I've never been confident enough to actually use it. It's never been in the water. Doesn't take up much space though.

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You've Got Mail

07:33 Sunday, 28 July 2024
Current Wx: Temp: 78.17°F Pressure: 1019hPa Humidity: 93% Wind: 4.61mph
Words: 623

Got a note from the MacOS X Guru that the archive page hadn't been updated since April. Doh! That's an area of the marmot that hasn't been automated yet. I've updated the page, and I'll think about the automation as time and brain cells permit.

Jack joined 500 Social, Kev Quirk's "small online community." I considered joining, but I don't think I'm among the target demographic. I like the idea of a small social network, but I think that part of the goal is not only to constrain the size of the network, it's also to constrain the experience. And it seems like, to many people, not just Kev, that means constraining what topics can be discussed. That means active moderation and enforced compliance with expectations.

Those expectations all seem reasonable, except the last one.

I'll acknowledge that it doesn't say that "politics" is forbidden, but the fact that you're required to put it behind a content warning is pretty telling. I really don't care for content warnings, in general. Yeah, I know people can be upset, or hurt by certain kinds of content. Friends of mine who've had miscarriages have had unwelcome emotions stirred when people post about new births, and there are probably as many potential interactions like that as there are people.

I think content warnings are less about protecting other people's feelings and more about imposing some form of prior restraint on others based on some imagined, superior, privileged ideological position.

Yeah, "We don't talk about sex, politics or religion in the wardroom," but the wardroom is a more intimate space, that people can't avoid. Participating in a social network of any size, large or small, is an elective action. I elected to leave, though I admit that I miss the immediacy of posts and interactions. My experience on Mastodon was only a very tiny fraction of the amount of interaction I experienced on Twitter. In most respects, it was little different than posting here on the marmot. Mostly just shouting into the void to no discernible effect. That was the problem with Twitter, in that the amount of interaction absorbed so much of my time and attention, and that in pursuing that interaction, I was exposed to the vitriol and toxicity of others that I found ultimately depressing.

And the unpleasant fact is that everything today is political. Ok, that's an over-broad generalization. But "technology" is inherently, much to our surprise, chagrin and everlasting regret, political. The problem isn't "political speech" per se, it's that we've lost the ability to engage in political speech that isn't overtly tribal and zero-sum. I don't know how to fix that, and I'm not proposing to try.

If there is a "public square" anymore, where we ought to be able to try to hash those things out, it seems to me that it's in those "small social networks," unless they're intended to be bespoke bubbles where it's all just happy talk and we never have difficult conversations.

Anyway, the marmot is here. I get to say what I want. People are free to respond, though hardly anyone ever does. And that's okay too. I'm old, I'm tired and I don't know that I have the patience anymore to engage with people who aren't interested in having a conversation, just a zero-sum, "I'm right and you're wrong," debate.

Maybe blogs are just better in that regard. "Social media," is too easy to permit thoughtful interactions, too easy to wound or offend. I'm sure I can wound or offend here in the marmot, but it's never the point of a post.

No worries though. That's the great virtue of the void, no risk of it filling up, or anything being unwelcome.

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Recovery Day

05:55 Saturday, 27 July 2024
Current Wx: Temp: 75.74°F Pressure: 1016hPa Humidity: 93% Wind: 3.44mph
Words: 995

Didn't sleep well last night, sore too. I'm taking a day off. Sue me.

Florida is pretty much a microcosm of everything that ails America, not the least of which is Republican governance.

This is an Apple News link, so apologies if you can't open it. It's a story about a "sticks and bricks" (Actually, I don't see any bricks. It's just sticks and stucco.) apartment complex that was built in 1988 and converted to condominiums in 2006. (Some details here.)

If you recall those heady days pre-financial collapse, our "innovative" financial industry figured out how to make a bunch of money with sub-prime mortgages. Everyone wanted to get in on the action. Low mortgage rates, easy money, can't build houses fast enough! What to do? Buy apartment complexes and convert them to condos!

Go in, do a bunch of cosmetic touch-ups, add some amenities, some landscaping, new pool furniture and voila!

I know this, because I lived in one.

If you think back to 2021, Florida had a high-rise condo collapse and kill a bunch of its residents, Champlain Towers. That was built as a condominium, but it wasn't built right, because "Florida," and condominium owners are like Republicans everywhere, they don't like to pay taxes, or condo assessments. So they put off all their maintenance to "someday," (presumably after they'd cashed out).

So the Florida legislature, governed by the Republican Party for more than a generation, took action! (Too late, but hey, it's Florida. "Pro-active" is "pro-gressive" and that's too close to socialism for their liking.) (See also: Everglades, sea level rise, climate change, water quality, wetlands, insurance reform, the list goes on.)

Where was I? Oh yeah, they made a law that said all those lazy condo owners and their do-nothing boards of directors had to act responsibly! (Unlike the legislature.) They had to fully fund reserves and not defer maintenance! And they had to have their buildings inspected by professional engineers to make sure they were safe and wouldn't fall down.

Well, there are a lot of rather old condo buildings in Florida, with a lot of deferred maintenance and, um, little in the way of actually "funded" reserves. All of a sudden, monthly condo fees ("assessments") went up by enormous percentages.

(Add to that the cost of insurance increases, because "Florida.")

People are screaming. Screaming!

Anyway, back to the subject. This Heron Pond condominium that is being essentially shut down, is a lot like my old condo. It's about six or seven years older, and judging by the pictures, it's only two stories so it didn't actually require the inspection.

But... It's sticks and stucco, and in Florida that means... Water intrusion!

Basically, all the framing behind the stucco is rotting away. We had the same problem at Belleza. But we went after it and paid the high price of assessments to do so. Heron Pond is mostly owned by "investors." This class of scum includes absentee landlords who love to collect rent but hate paying assessments. So Heron Pond has been rotting away. The steel stairs rusting? We had that problem too. And we went through every staircase on the place and removed all the steps, replaced all the rusted steel and repainted them all. Paid for it out of the "paint" reserves. (Under the old law, the only statutory reserves were roofs, paving and painting. We funded them all.)

And our petulant, adolescent, would-be autocratic, humiliated ex-presidential candidate with funny cowboy boots with enormous lifts governor seems to have heard the screams of condo owners ("investors"), and says it's up to the legislature to sort this mess out.

Bad news, boys and girls: There's no cheap way out of this.

But hey, it's kind of a "teachable moment."

See, this is what's going to happen with the sea level rise thing. it's too late to fix it, because we've denied it for so long. The problem wasn't going to manifest itself in any politician's actual term of office, so no politician wanted to be proactive (because that sounds like "progressive).

And the insurance thing? Well the legislature "fixed" that the way they fixed the condo problem.

They didn't.

Because they can't. You can't pass a law that makes climate risk artificially "affordable." (That's the National Flood Insurance Program.)

What they did do was make it easier for insurance companies to deny claims, and harder for policy holders to sue insurance companies who deny claims. (If you sue your insurance company and they prevail, not only are you not made whole by your policy, you get to pay your attorney...and theirs! Winning!)

Which has made Florida pretty attractive to a lot of second or third rate "insurance companies" who see an opportunity to swoop in and grab that sweet, sweet premium money and skate out when the big one (or more than one) hits.

I'm insured by USAA, and there are a lot of retired military (to say nothing of active duty military) living in Florida because winter and no state income tax. I'm hopeful that USAA is financially and ethically strong enough to do right by its policy holders in the event of a loss. But who knows? I'm not an insurance expert, but it seems to me that USAA is massively exposed in Florida. But they seem to be run by smart people.

And I buy flood insurance. When I was president of my condo association, I made sure we bought flood insurance every year too. And people bitched about that. "We're not in a flood zone!"

We were less than a mile from the beach.

Because, apart from living in Florida, I ain't stupid.

Anyway, we're just whistling past the graveyard down here. Hoping every year that this year won't be the one that brings the big one, or two, or three, or four.

If you're dreaming of moving to Florida. Wake up. It's a nightmare.

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Suckage

09:02 Friday, 26 July 2024
Current Wx: Temp: 79.25°F Pressure: 1018hPa Humidity: 92% Wind: 1.01mph
Words: 59

Speaking of "Apple sucks," iCloud Private Relay is really a pain in the ass.

For better or worse, I watch a lot of YouTube videos. Yesterday they wouldn't load or play unless I turned off iCloud Private Relay. Before that, I kept getting alerts that it was down, or offline, or something. I just turned it off in Settings.

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Trekkin'

08:11 Friday, 26 July 2024
Current Wx: Temp: 77.67°F Pressure: 1018hPa Humidity: 92% Wind: 0mph
Words: 882

Yeah, not TOS. (IYKYK)

So I did the poles this morning. I wish you could export the data from the Fitness app. I did a quick search just now, and it doesn't look possible. Something about the Health app, maybe? Why not just a simple "Export" action? Apple is so disappointing these days. I use their products because I'm pretty much embedded in their ecosystem, but I'm no longer an enthusiastic user. I'm just another one of their consumers, and my "customer satisfaction" is low and decreasing. They just suck these days. Suck. Suck. Suck.

Anyway, first time doing an "exercise" kind of walk using trekking poles. Took a few adjustments to get the height of the poles right. I'm not certain it's dialed in yet, but I was able to move quickly without hitting the tips on the swing forward.

You're supposed to bring the right pole forward with the left leg, and the left pole forward with the right leg. That took about three quarters of a mile and establishing a rhythm. On landing forward, the pole should be about where the opposite leg is. You're not swinging the pole way out in front and then pushing back. Again, once I got the rhythm down, that was pretty easy to get right. It was kind of frustrating at first.

I forgot to adjust the wrist straps. "Real" Nordic walking poles have these kind of fingerless gloves attached to the poles. The idea is that you don't grip the handles, because that causes fatigue, which I'm feeling right now as I'm typing. And the propulsive action is made through the wrist and the strap. I gripped the poles the whole walk.

It takes a certain amount of concentration or focus. Turns could mess me up where I'd end up kicking a pole. Sometimes I'd somehow miss landing the pole and I'd push back on the arm and there was nothing there, the end of the pole just kind of glanced off the pavement.

So, how did it go overall?

Well, the first mile was slower than the two days previous by a few seconds. That was because I had to stop and adjust the height of the poles. The second mile was 11 seconds faster than the fastest second mile of the two preceding. The third mile was in the middle of the two preceding walks, which seems odd. The final quarter mile was 2 seconds faster than the fastest of the two preceding. Overall, the average pace was kind of in the middle of the two preceding: 16:38 on Wednesday, 16:41 on Thursday and 16:39 today.

Really, those numbers, while "precise" to the second, probably aren't accurate to that degree of precision. Essentially, I think it's basically the same pace overall. That may change as I get more accustomed to using the poles.

That said, much larger difference in caloric expenditure and average heart rate. Wednesday and Thursday were about 432 calories (431 and 433), while this morning the watch reported 524 calories expended. Average heart rate for Wednesday and Thursday was 128/129, while this morning it was 138.

In my ignorance, I hadn't removed the rubber feet when we were hiking the gorges at first. I'd ended up wearing a hole through one of them before I learned that you're supposed to remove them on a trail. Much of the gorge trails are paved, sort of, so I'm not sure what the right answer is there. Anyway, I put them on for this walk and the one with the hole in it made a noisy *tink* every time it landed. I've ordered replacements.

I need to get a headband or something, to keep the sweat out of my eyes. I had to stop at one point just before finishing mile 2 to wipe the sweat from my eyes. My shirt was soaked, far more than yesterday. That's a bit of positive feedback, as it's what I was accustomed to seeing coming in from a run and seldom see on any of my walks around here.

My "simulated" arm movements in no way resembled what I did with the poles. So the data point there is that you can walk at a faster pace pumping your arms with your elbows bent, rather than just swinging them from your shoulders.

I can feel it in my triceps a little, but mostly in my wrists, probably because I was gripping the poles. I'll try and adjust the straps tomorrow before I start and see if I can relax my grip. At some point, I may just get poles with the gloves attached.

I hit the road at 0500, so I encountered no one on my walk. I like it that way, because I'd be annoyed if someone was overtaking me with a noisy trekking pole *tinking* every second or so. Plus, I probably looked pretty stupid, old fat guy out walking with sticks.

What do I care though?

Anyway, I'll practice some more until I think I've got this down enough where I'm not kicking sticks or missing the landing, gripping to fatigue or getting out of step with the poles. Then I think I'll add a little backpack and some weight in it. See how that feels.

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Leadership

12:27 Thursday, 25 July 2024
Current Wx: Temp: 86.77°F Pressure: 1021hPa Humidity: 79% Wind: 11.5mph
Words: 884

Germany under Hitler has been much on my mind for the past several years. It was never exactly clear to me just why the German people would go along with such a man. Willingly follow him into the abyss. I've read probably more than a dozen books about Hitler and the German people, and I'm no closer to truly understanding it.

I have perhaps a cloudy notion of why. People are social creatures, we don't exist as atomistic entities. There are exceptions, but fewer than most suppose, I think. Most folks who claim to be "independent," are either ignorant or delusional, maybe both. About a quarter of registered voters in my county in Florida are "independents." The majority of them vote Republican. Consistently. Every election. I've been told that what statistics seem to show is that "independents" generally vote the way their neighbors do.

We're social animals that exist in a hierarchy. I don't think human beings could ever exist in a truly egalitarian social order. Whether we could or not, the fact is that we do exist in a hierarchy; and people are very aware of how others rank within the hierarchy, be it economic, political, military or academic.

We create hierarchies of authority, presumably to establish and maintain order. We understand authority, we know it when we see it, and we choose to either recognize it or not. Comply with it, or not. We use symbols and titles to display authority. Badges, uniforms, robes, coats, collars, furniture, housing, signage, vehicles. People with no authority sometimes try to impersonate someone with authority by appropriating these symbols.

Some people conflate power and authority. They believe authority gives people power. In doing so, they surrender their own agency. In Annie Jacobsen's Operation Paperclip, I read again and again, German scientists and doctors, most of them Nazi Party members, claiming that they were "just following orders," when they could no longer deny the horrible things they did. The generals at Nuremberg, likewise, claiming that if they didn't follow orders then there was no military, no discipline. It might as well just be a mob.

But people became Nazis willingly. Carried out mass murder on an unprecedented scale. (The same can be said about the United States Army Air Force in WW II, and the RAF, with the bombing raids on Japanese and German civilian population centers.)

It seems that nearly all people have some capacity for cruelty and violence, to one degree or another. Some people have an enormous capacity. Maybe they were damaged at some point in their lives. "Hurt people hurt people."

As social creatures, we have mechanisms in place to check that capacity, inhibit it, in most circumstances. Certainly in public settings. Not so much, perhaps, in more intimate ones.

Within the in-group, the larger society within which we identify, these mechanisms and measures are somewhat effective. The worst failures are considered newsworthy because we recognize them as failures.

But that capacity for cruelty and violence can be summoned by someone in a position of authority. A leader. Someone looked up to, held in some esteem. Like a "successful, billionaire businessman and former president." As horrible a human being as I believe Donald J. Trump is, there are many Americans who look up to him as a leader.

But in order to mobilize that capacity for cruelty and violence, the leader must identify a target, a threat, an "other" to which the ordinary norms of civil behavior do not apply. Because it's not "cruelty," if you're "protecting" something or someone you value. And violence is appropriate because of the high value of what is threatened.

Israel. Gaza.

We're social creatures. Irrational ones. Our cognitive abilities are limited. To the extent that we use them at all, it is often to justify or explain our interior emotional state to ourselves. To "rationalize" our behavior, our opinions.

I heard someone in a "focus group," broadcast on cable news, say that she thought Kamala Harris was an idiot. When asked what made her think that, she said something to the effect, "Because she hasn't done anything."

Irrational. Emotional.

Voter.

I thought, foolishly it seems, that Donald Trump would fade from the public arena. I expected a "Trump v2.0" would emerge. Someone who would exploit the same grievances, the same fear, the same prejudices, but in a more "civil" manner. Maybe Ron DeSantis, or, more likely, Rick Scott. DeSantis was trying to be "Trump v1.1," younger, with better hair.

What Trump has shown is that this kind of leadership works.

Not only is democracy on the ballot, so is who we are. Who we choose to look up to as leaders. What we are prepared to do in response to their "call to action."

I don't know how to reach the people who think Donald Trump's rhetoric is inspiring. I don't know how to convince them that they're being manipulated, conned into becoming the worst versions of themselves. I don't know how I should feel about them. I struggle with that, because most of my feelings are negative.

To no small degree, how this election turns will depend on what abilities Kamala Harris can summon as a leader. The contrast is clear, but it must be articulated clearly, to reach those minds that can be reached.

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Morning

08:24 Thursday, 25 July 2024
Current Wx: Temp: 79.72°F Pressure: 1022hPa Humidity: 91% Wind: 5.75mph
Words: 561

God bless Joe Biden.

Hit the pavement at 0520 this morning. Yesterday and today, I've kind of imagined I was walking with trekking poles, like "Nordic walking," just to see what that felt like.

My morning walks have evolved a bit as I've tried to get more caloric and cardiovascular benefits. I started out with the camera, which was great for getting early morning shots of birds and sunrises, but kind of limited the amount of speed or exertion I could achieve.

So I ditched the camera, which allowed me to pick up the pace. I let my arms swing at my side, but kept them kind of naturally straight. When it was cool out, I could get a good pace going and more caloric "burn," and a little heart rate elevation. But as it got warmer and more humid, that pace declined a bit. It was most evident on the walk by the location I found myself at when my watch announced "Exercise ring closed."

At my best pace, I would find myself past the clubhouse entrance, while a more typical pace would find me behind the clubhouse somewhere, and a slow pace might find me completing the exercise ring just after making the turn onto the path behind the clubhouse.

Well, "imaginary" Nordic walking had me raising my hands and bending my elbows, where my arm swing resembles more of a "pumping" action than a "swinging" one. While I haven't replicated my best pace on cool days, yesterday and today had me coming around the corner of the clubhouse, approaching the entrance when the exercise ring closed.

My pace suffered a bit this morning, because I paused to take this shot with my phone, but it was still faster than yesterday's. It was 77°F this morning, and 94% humidity. My shirt was drenched when I finished, and it felt like I'd probably have been better off wearing running shorts. I normally wear a ball cap, but I took it off and stuck it in my belt behind my back because it was pretty damn warm and I wanted my head to cool.

Tomorrow I'll try it with the poles. I go early so I encounter fewer people (and flies). If this feels good, I'll try and add a backpack with a little bit of weight. (If nothing else, it'll empty my pockets, which I occasionally strike with my hands.)

While I was fairly pleased with how we did hiking the gorges in New York this summer, I think I can do better and I want to be able to do it for as long as I can. I recall walking up the stairs at my condo not much more than a decade ago, when I was still running half-marathons, and I was carrying a 40 pound bag of dog food. I had lost about that much weight running, and it made me realize how much extra effort it takes to carry that much weight around. Granted, it's distributed differently, but it's a lot. Knowing we're going to be going back to the hills around the Finger Lakes more regularly and for longer periods of time is something to look forward to, and an added incentive to get fit.

We'll see how it goes.

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Florida

07:02 Wednesday, 24 July 2024
Current Wx: Temp: 75.43°F Pressure: 1022hPa Humidity: 92% Wind: 3.78mph
Words: 620

And we're back...

Mitzi enjoyed the Auto Train, and it's likely we'll do it again on at least the southbound leg. It is expensive, but on the southbound trip we can't stay at her daughter's place in DC, we have to get farther south to avoid the hell that is I-95 in the afternoon in South Carolina. So factor in the expense of a night in a hotel, along with the gas, and a little of the sting goes away.

And no matter how you break it up, two days on I-95 is just not fun. We can do the northbound run to DC because we'll leave at oh-dark-thirty and switch drivers every couple of hours. The last hour is brutal, because it's DC, but we've proven we can make it in twelve hours. We have a comfortable place to stay, visit and rest for a couple of days. And it's a relatively short, and mostly beautiful six hours to the Finger Lakes from DC.

We will be going back. While we were up there, we found a little place, and we currently have it under contract. It's not exactly a tiny home, but at 950 square feet, one bedroom and one bath, it's not exactly palatial. We're already thinking about how we might build a little guest cottage, affordably.

We skipped the Finger Lakes last year because Mitzi went to Greece with her daughter. It was a bucket-list trip for her, but she's not enamored with international air travel anymore, neither the expense nor the experience. We will likely do some more travel in North America, but flying overseas is probably not in our future.

So our summers will likely be all spent in the Finger Lakes, where we can travel from there by car to visit friends and family. And host them, once we get those logistics figured out. Fall trips are likely in the future as well, to see the foliage. Six to eight weeks each summer, maybe longer. Her daughter and son-in-law can get up there from DC for a weekend anytime they choose. We've met one of the neighbors and he seems like a nice guy. Raises Angus beef as a hobby, though his wife wants him to quit so they can travel! He's the seller's dad, and so we're pretty confident we'll have someone to keep an eye on the place while we're not there.

Upstate New York is simply beautiful. It's not exactly a climate haven, winters will be milder, but the extremes will still be, well, extreme. And tornados are now a thing there.

Like any major purchase, we wrestled with the, "Are we crazy?" question. I think it's a pretty safe investment. We've no plans to turn it into a vacation rental property, but I suppose that could be an option someday. The real estate market there is hot right now, at least according to the home inspector and the real estate lawyer we're working with.

For me, it does offer a certain peace of mind that we have someplace to run to if something catastrophic happens here. It's a rural location with well and septic tank, but it does have a fiber internet connection. We can build on the land if we want to at some point. We'll be looking at improving its resilience capability. It's not a compound, by any means. But it's a getaway, a hideout maybe.

We have a busy couple of months coming up, travel-wise. I've committed to attending my 45th class reunion at the Naval Academy in September, and Mitzi's nephew is getting married in October.

But maybe we'll get up there one more time this year.

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Train

12:53 Monday, 22 July 2024
Current Wx: Temp: 90.14°F Pressure: 1018hPa Humidity: 73% Wind: 10.36mph
Words: 266

We're all checked in. Boarding isn't until 3:30, but figured I'd kill some time here in the marmot.

I'm kind of impressed by the number of people here, and we got here right when they started admitting cars. It's a Monday, not near a federal holiday, mid-summer and still a lot of people, and their cars, take this expensive trip down to Florida.

Not a lot of kids and families. Probably skewed toward the older age demographic, as one might expect.

As an aside, my Quartiles streak continues, I think it's up to 72 days making Expert. I've never gotten all the words, but I usually get it down to something between two and six. It's the first thing I do in the morning, when I wake up and don't necessarily want to get right out of bed. I stay with it until I finish it, which doesn't take very long. It's not a hard game, but it does reward persistence.

I've got a bunch of pictures I still need to upload. Not exactly looking forward to that. Plus culling the hundreds I've already added to Photos. I could work on that today. We'll see.

Anyway, last time I did this was in 2019 and I didn't bring a laptop. I was using my new to me 10.5" iPad Pro with the attached keyboard cover, which doesn't run Tinderbox. I've got the iPad mini with me on this trip for Kindle and Books.

Anyway, that's it for now.

"All aboard!"

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Headed South

06:54 Monday, 22 July 2024
Current Wx: Temp: 75.2°F Pressure: 1017hPa Humidity: 93% Wind: 0mph
Words: 259

Our vacation is nearly over. This afternoon we'll board the Auto Train for the ride down to Florida, avoiding a drive through most of Virginia, all of North Carolina, South Carolina and Georgia. Apart from saving mileage on the car, it'll preserve my sanity. I hate driving through South Carolina.

This is also the part of the trip that is utterly devoid of scenery. Driving through New York and Pennsylvania was beautiful. Traffic wasn't bad either. It was also relatively cool.

Having been away from the Finger Lakes for two years, the feeling of enchantment was very strong. Toward the end of our visit, I could somewhat place myself in my adolescent mind that lived in Upstate New York and took the landscape largely for granted.

But I could also recall my Dad, who never seemed to tire of the views of the hills and the fields and the trees. I don't think I will ever tire of them again, or take them for granted. It is a stunningly beautiful landscape.

To be sure, the region suffers economically and there are stark reminders of that everywhere. But there are also signs of renewal.

Apart from the landscape, there is so much history there. Not all of it is great, General Sullivan driving the indigenous people from the Finger Lakes under orders from George Washington in 1789 is a shameful legacy. But abolition and women's rights are two progressive movements that owe much to the region.

We'll be going back. Mitzi is as enthralled as I am.

I ❤️ NY.

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Service Before Self

06:39 Monday, 22 July 2024
Current Wx: Temp: 75.24°F Pressure: 1017hPa Humidity: 93% Wind: 0mph
Words: 169

We were in the car, in Pennsylvania, when Mitzi's sister-in-law texted us, "Biden is out." We turned on the radio and listened to coverage from NPR.

Since we arrived at the hotel yesterday evening, I've read much of the coverage. Right now, it looks like the Democratic Party isn't going to form a circular firing squad, and is closing ranks behind Harris. That's the best news.

There have been many tributes to Joe Biden, and they are all well earned and richly deserved. For too many Americans, the contrast between Joe Biden and Donald Trump is a perverse one. Joe Biden is a decent man, a statesman, a compassionate human being, a competent leader. Donald Trump is none of these things, yet the Republican Party elevates him as their candidate. It's a bizarre trait in human nature. Some sort of self-loathing, self-destructive desire born out of fear and anger, and bad leadership.

For the first time since the debate, I feel more confident, more hopeful.

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Seneca Army Depot

07:31 Saturday, 20 July 2024
Current Wx: Temp: 74.14°F Pressure: 1019hPa Humidity: 94% Wind: 0mph
Words: 480

The antiquing was limited to one enormous location that was a bit overwhelming. There are few bargains to be had these days, when anyone can do a quick search on eBay or elsewhere to see if something has some value to someone. There were a couple of old AM radios that were in very good shape that probably were good deals, but I didn't want to carry them home.

The highlight yesterday was the tour of the former Seneca Army Depot. As often as we've been here, I'd never really looked into it, other than hearing about "white deer tours." We signed up for the bus tour and it turned out we were the only ones. Good for us, but kind of a shame because it's a fascinating tour.

Mitzi came for the deer, I came for the history.

We saw a lot of deer, most of them brown. They're accustomed to the bus and not super shy. I should have mounted the 40-150mm/f2.8, instead of the 12-100mm/f4. I needed more reach and more aperture. But, again, I wasn't really that interested in the deer.

Briefly, the decommissioned facility consists of 10,000 acres of fenced property. The white deer aren't albinos, they just carry a recessive gene that doesn't produce brown hair, so they're ordinary white tailed deer and the other deer don't know the difference. Since they're fenced in, hunted in limited numbers and well fed, they pretty much thrive in there.

The depot itself was constructed in preparation for WW II. The federal government essentially kicked around 150 families off their land, with only a few weeks' notice to clear out. Five hundred concrete ammunition "igloos" were constructed in a relatively short time. The manpower necessary to complete the project created problems of its own with inadequate housing and sanitation.

The bus tour was scheduled for 90 minutes, but our guide took us around for over two hours. We were able to get out and enter one of the igloos, which was fun just for the acoustics. There's also a beaver dam on the property, and an eagles' nest that seems to have recently been abandoned after being occupied/used for almost two decades.

There is a lot of history in this region, and I've enjoyed getting to learn about some of it. If you're ever in the Finger Lakes, this is a worthwhile tour.

Don't quite know what we're up to today. Packing at some point, but we'll probably get out and see something. I know Mitzi wants to buy some wine.

After some clouds and rain earlier in the week, the last two days have been wonderful. Sunny, relatively cool with low humidity. I'm going to miss this place next week when we're back in the swamp.

Literally.

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Seneca Falls

12:18 Friday, 19 July 2024
Current Wx: Temp: 89.78°F Pressure: 1018hPa Humidity: 66% Wind: 8.05mph
Words: 449

Spent some time in Seneca Falls yesterday. Lovely little village. The National Women's Hall Of Fame is located there, and we toured that facility. It's located in an old woolen mill, the Seneca Knitting Mills, which was in operation for over 100 years, closing its doors in 1999.

Seneca Falls is also the location of the First Convention for Woman's Rights (July 19-20, 1848), and the church where it was held is a national park with a separate building housing a number of exhibits about women's rights. The church had been significantly altered throughout its history, it's been restored to the closes approximation of what it is believed to have looked like. There are portions of the original brick remaining, and the roof beams and decking are supposedly original.

The village is also supposed to be part of the inspiration for Frank Capra's It's a Wonderful Life, where, in 1917, a young man drowned saving the life of a woman who had jumped into the canal. The village leans into the movie with George Bailey Lane and Clarence Street.

We stopped by the post office so Mitzi could put a couple of postcards in the mail. It was quite an imposing edifice for such a small town.

Then it was back to Geneva to catch the 2:00 PM boat for the lake tour. We've been on Cayuga Lake every time we've been up here. This is the first time we've been on Seneca. Since we're at the north end of the lake, the geography is much different, without the high cliffs adjacent to the shore. The air was actually quite cool and I spent some time trying to memorize the feeling before heading back to Florida.

Stopped at a craft brewery on the way back to the cottage and enjoyed a couple of beers and a view of the lake while sitting outside on the deck.

Mitzi had a zoom meeting today, so we're just heading out now to a couple of antique stores, before we do the bus tour this evening.

Only a couple of days left before we head back. While I'll welcome being in my own bed, I will really miss the scenery and the weather here.

Speaking of weather, I learned yesterday that a tornado touched down in my hometown, Canastota, as part of that severe weather system that went through on Tuesday. One man was killed in the village. Pretty rare for a tornado up here. My brother said that historically, there are an average of 13 tornado warnings per year, seldom an actual tornado. This year, there have been 62 tornado warnings and 12 confirmed tornados.

"We're not in Kansas anymore."

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Just Passing the Time

08:21 Thursday, 18 July 2024
Current Wx: Temp: 77.29°F Pressure: 1018hPa Humidity: 92% Wind: 1.99mph
Words: 399

Still have some time before we have to head out. Figured I'd noodle around here a bit.

Houston is struggling with the aftermath of a Category 1 Hurricane Beryl. Thousands of people still without power, more than a week after the hurricane in the middle of a heatwave. People are threatening line crews with AK-47s.

Awesome.

But it does make me feel better about having the rooftop solar array and battery storage. We wouldn't be able to necessarily run 100% of the normal household loads, but I'm fairly confident we'd be able to keep the house comfortable and refrigerator running.

That said, I do think FPL, as shitty a corporate citizen as it may be, has done a better job with its grid infrastructure, burying much of it underground. I don't know how JEA would fare, as much of their system remains above ground, and older neighborhoods have a lot of old trees.

I think I've written before that, "We're all preppers now." If you haven't made a sincere effort to evaluate your readiness for an extreme weather event or some other unexpected disruption, you should probably do so. I haven't gone so far as to stockpile food, but I'm thinking about it. I'll probably get some pushback on that, but I'll figure something out.

Frankly, the thing that troubles me the most is sanitation, specifically human waste. If the power is on, and fuel is flowing, I'm not too worried. But if the disruption is significant enough with regard to fuel deliveries, the emergency generators that keep the sewage lift stations running are going to be useless. Florida is flat, there is not "downhill" for shit to flow.

Apparently, one of the home solutions is a 5-gallon bucket with a lid and sawdust. How to ultimately dispose of that is another question.

I guess some Republican senators harassed and bullied the director of the Secret Service at the Republican Convention. That's awesome. I thought that was what the House of Representatives was for. But the Republican Party is little more than a mob these days, so I guess I shouldn't be surprised.

Sad and frightening at the same time. To me, anyway. I suppose the MAGA crowd love that.

Well, time to get ready to go I guess. It is a lovely day out there. I'd have taken a walk if this place made that worthwhile.

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Sunset 7-17-24

06:26 Thursday, 18 July 2024
Current Wx: Temp: 74.39°F Pressure: 1017hPa Humidity: 93% Wind: 0mph
Words: 539

Decent sunset last night. Supposed to be sunny all day today. We toured the Smith Opera House in Geneva yesterday morning. The guide was a drama professor from Hobart and William Smith Colleges, and she was very good. The exterior facade is as the theater was constructed in 1894, the interior is as it was remodeled in the 1920s. It's a treasure, and we really enjoyed the tour.

Been watching a juvenile bald eagle fly by several times this morning. I should be out there with a camera.

Today we're going to spend some time this morning over at Seneca Falls, then we have an afternoon boat tour, just as an excuse to get some time on the water. Tomorrow we're doing an evening tour of a former ammunition facility, which has some interesting history and wildlife.

We've had some good luck with rentals up here in the past. I can't say I've been as pleased on this trip. The previous house was comfortable, although it offered little in the way of a view. This cottage has a decent, not spectacular, view of the lake, which is its most appealing feature.

I pulled the filters out of the mini-split and they hadn't been cleaned in some time, so I washed those and reinstalled them. Place smells a little less funky. It does have a bigger TV than the previous place, and we've been able to watch Netflix before going to bed, which isn't very comfortable either. Both have had better internet service than previous places we've stayed at here that had better amenities and spectacular views.

These places all have a little guest book where people write about their experiences, and they're all laudatory to an almost absurd degree. Likewise, the online reviews omit all the annoyances, like a tiny bathroom, funky smells and a three-quarter mile dirt road to get there. I guess they want to get good reviews as renters.

Places have gotten more expensive each year, and the experience hasn't been as good. We looked at the place we rented a few years ago and it's way out of our price range now.

It's a shame, because I really love it up here. I can't imagine how I'd be feeling if I'd have been in Florida during this summer of insanity. I've been making more of an effort to be less online. I've been reading books when we're in the house. The Operation Paperclip book is fascinating, and it prompted me to read portions of another ebook I have on the Nuremberg interviews.

In any event, although I do love the region, I'll be happy to be in our own space once again next week. Get back into a regular exercise routine and a more sensible diet.

We're still committed to coming up here each summer, but we're starting to explore other options for accommodations. We may have ten years of relatively decent mobility left, if we're careful and lucky. The Finger Lakes affords a wide range of attractions, history, wildlife, local food, water, beautiful scenery. It's no mystery why it's getting more expensive.

Perhaps a different approach is appropriate.

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Things I Didn't Know

07:50 Wednesday, 17 July 2024
Current Wx: Temp: 77°F Pressure: 1018hPa Humidity: 89% Wind: 6.91mph
Words: 250

Mitzi and I switch using our iPhones on CarPlay in the RAV4. For much of this trip, Siri has been silent when it comes to navigation directions on Mitzi's phone. Somehow, magically I guess, it started working again at some point. But it was incredibly loud.

While silence was puzzling and annoying to me, the loud volume was intolerable enough to prompt me to do a search. It turns out that Siri's volume for navigation is in the Map app settings, and there are three choices, "Softer," "Normal," and "Louder." Oddly, there's no choice for "Silence."

So why we couldn't get spoken directions for so long remains a mystery. Why they returned at "Louder," is likewise inscrutable.

And, is it just me? Why in the world does spoken directions have a separate volume control? What kind of sense does that make? I'm sure there's some "reason," but it isn't obvious to me. Possibly because I'm not a "user experience" expert. I'm just a user with a shitty experience.

At one point, I used Siri to ask her to lower the volume. She told me to use the car's volume controls! Which we'd tried so many times already, to no avail.

Stuff like this just drives me nuts. It makes me feel foolish and stupid. It never occurred to me to check the Map app's Settings, because volume control has two dedicated buttons on the device and another control on the steering wheel!

"Minds greater than our own," and all that.

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Weather

06:37 Wednesday, 17 July 2024
Current Wx: Temp: 75.38°F Pressure: 1017hPa Humidity: 90% Wind: 4.61mph
Words: 218

Those thunderstorms on Monday did a number on power lines south of here. Trees and limbs took down power lines. We stopped at a winery that was open, most of the places we'd stopped at were closed, even though they were advertised to be open. This one had a generator.

That prompted us to check the news, and we learned about the outages. It hadn't affected us up here near Geneva.

Had some more rain yesterday, and some really high winds late in the afternoon, but it calmed and cleared around sunset, which didn't turn out to be anything spectacular. Supposed to be cloudy today with a chance of rain this afternoon, sunny tomorrow. But the temps have all been mild. People get kind of cranky at 85°F here, with a breeze. I'm enjoying it!

We're going to tour an old theater/opera house in Geneva this morning, then head over to Seneca Falls and check out some history.

Mitzi watched part of the RNC convention yesterday. I shut the door to the bedroom and read a book. For all the talk about "listening to one another," I can't stand to listen to Republican politicians.

Kottke linked to a nice sentiment yesterday. I don't have a clock to wind, but I did post something to the marmot.

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Bee

06:30 Tuesday, 16 July 2024
Current Wx: Temp: 75.81°F Pressure: 1017hPa Humidity: 92% Wind: 0mph
Words: 281

Did a little sight-seeing and grocery shopping yesterday morning. Came back to the cottage and put everything up and had lunch.

Went out to visit the Finger Lakes Visitor Center in Geneva, which we'd never been to before. Pretty nice facility, I think it's new since we were last in Geneva, which may have been three years ago, or four.

They have a lot of regional products, a snack bar, the usual tourist literature, a wine tasting bar that may sell beer. (I saw folks sitting outside on the patio with what I assume were beers.) We walked along the pedestrian path along the shoreline, found a bench and sat and looked at the lake for a while. Saw an osprey dive and catch a large fish. I had the Stylus 1s with me, 300mm effective focal length. I saw the osprey get set for its dive, but wasn't quick enough to get the camera turned on and lens extended. 300mm wasn't long enough anyway, but got some distant shots of an osprey with a large fish in its talons.

Shot this on the way back to the car when the severe weather warnings started going off. We made our way back to the car and headed home. When we got back into the house, the heavens opened up. Pretty intense downpour for a while. The car certainly needed it, it's covered with dust and dirt.

Spent the rest of the afternoon reading the book about Operation Paperclip. Judge Cannon and J.D. Vance intruded. Watched Netflix and went to bed.

The summer of madness continues.

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Lakeside

07:23 Monday, 15 July 2024
Current Wx: Temp: 76.95°F Pressure: 1018hPa Humidity: 88% Wind: 8.05mph
Words: 279

Left Trumansburg yesterday for our last week in the Finger Lakes. We're near Geneva, NY at the north end of Seneca Lake. To get to the cottage, we had to drive down a long dirt road (with speed bumps).

In what I take as a good sign, a woodchuck just showed up in the backyard. Didn't really expect to see one here. Mitzi says an eagle just flew by. I saw a large shape but didn't see it long enough to identify it.

This place doesn't have fiber, but it does have decent internet. About the same as back home, though upload speeds are a bit lower.

We drove up 96 yesterday, and it was part of the route of a half(?) Ironman competition. A lot of folks in Geneva for that event, but most of them were in a park down by the lake. We didn't have any problem finding parking and getting lunch.

The cottage is large and fairly comfortable, but it's got its quirks. One small bathroom. There's a small dock, but the stairs seem rickety and the handrails are painted black, so I couldn't use them to go down the steps last night, too hot to touch. May try it again this morning.

Trying, but mostly failing, to keep the world from intruding. Seems to be hanging over our heads like the clouds in the photo. Just have to keep breathing, I guess. Anyway, six more days here then back on the road. Heading back to Florida where the insanity "goes to eleven."

So I've got that to look forward to.

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Not Shocked

05:58 Sunday, 14 July 2024
Current Wx: Temp: 79.74°F Pressure: 1020hPa Humidity: 88% Wind: 9.22mph
Words: 248

The capacity for violence is an inherently human trait, and therefore not unique to any particular political affiliation. In a curious irony, early reports say the shooter was a registered Republican.

This act, apart from the pain of loss and suffering inflicted on the murdered and wounded and their families, only serves to further roil what was already an extremely contentious, indeed dangerous, race.

I don't expect either candidate or party to tone down their rhetoric. I regret that this incident occurred at all, but I reject the claim by some that Democratic campaign rhetoric incited it. It seems to me that Republican insistence that the 2nd Amendment is the last defense against tyranny, and its steadfast resistance to efforts to regulate the ownership of semi-automatic rifles, are more proximately responsible for political violence than anything uttered by the Biden campaign.

A party already prone to conspiracy theories is likely to make this event into something not remotely what it likely really was, an all too familiar story of a young man with a gun, a grievance and insufficient maturity and intellect to responsibly own a weapon, with the violent and tragic consequences that too often ensue.

If anything, I expect Republican rhetoric to grow more extreme. How that resonates with voters not already in Trump's camp, I don't know. I hope it doesn't.

How it resonates with young men armed with semi-automatic rifles and nurturing their own grievances is a different, and more troubling question.

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Blueberry Picking

08:09 Saturday, 13 July 2024
Current Wx: Temp: 80.37°F Pressure: 1020hPa Humidity: 85% Wind: 3mph
Words: 589

Picked a couple of pounds of blueberries yesterday. It was a pleasant experience. There was only one other family in the field with us, no bugs to speak of, plenty of berries and it wasn't hot. The sun was kind of intense, but there was a breeze.

The farm store offered a range of baked goods, jams and jellies. I had a cookie concoction consisting of an oatmeal cookie with white chocolate chips (Yes, I know. It's not "chocolate."), and a lemon glaze. I'm counting on the fiber and protein content of the oatmeal making it "healthy," though I know that's just wishful thinking.

We stopped by a former firehouse in Burdett, NY that has been converted to kind of an indoor farmer's market. All local or regional products. Very pricey, but it supports local agriculture. Bought some mushrooms, a steak and an onion. Dinner tonight.

ars technica has a piece on sea level rise in the southeast. The St Johns Riverkeeper, Lisa Rinamen is quoted in it. I know Lisa and I support the St Johns and Matanzas riverkeepers. None of this is really a surprise, apart perhaps from the increasing rate, though even that was anticipated by some. Historically, sea level rise occurs in pulses, periods of rapid rise.

But we keep shoveling taxpayer money into the sea. At best, it might buy time, but we waste that time and that money by doing nothing meaningful to address the risk. But Florida faces so many risks that it's doing nothing about that it's hard to single out sea level rise.

What's going to happen to the housing market when you can't get insurance, and therefore can't get a mortgage? We're one major hurricane away from an insurance industry collapse. We will learn just how "effective" those "reforms" the legislature enacted will be. They chiefly make it easier for insurance companies to deny claims, or under-compensate claims, and make it harder to sue insurance companies.

Then there's the heat, which I guess we're just going to ignore.

And the generation of Republican environmental stewardship that led to things like the Piney Point environmental disaster. There's more where that came from, as the saying goes.

They tell us they don't get much snow around here anymore. My kids and grandkids are all in Florida, or I'd seriously consider, I mean seriously consider pulling up stakes and moving up here. Taxes are higher. Prices are higher. Much of rural upstate New York can be Trump country, but it feels less rabid than Florida. The state has the opposite problem from Florida with a seemingly permanent Democratic majority in the legislature because of NYC, but the governor's office flips back and forth from time to time. This state isn't laser-focused on culture war issues and the governor's political ambitions.

And the views. I asked the guy at the blueberry farm if he kind of takes the scenery for granted. He's lived here all his life, so he allowed that he probably does. I don't know how long it'd take before I stopped being moved by it. Florida is claustrophobic, which may go some way toward explaining why it's so insane. Even in "rural" Florida, it's mostly just flat. There are no expansive vistas that can open your mind and your heart. Just the heat, the humidity, the mosquitoes, the gators and all the invasive exotic pets, and the selfish cruelty of its Republican ruling class.

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Platycryptus Undatus

08:19 Friday, 12 July 2024
Current Wx: Temp: 78.78°F Pressure: 1016hPa Humidity: 79% Wind: 4.61mph
Words: 550

Mitzi spotted this on the wall this morning. I took the opportunity to play with the TG-6. I haven't practiced very much using the macro feature. This is a single frame using the flash. I took some stacked images using the LED lamp, but I thought this one showed the eyes a bit better.

Anyway, not a great photo, but something I don't see very often at home.

Rained quite a bit yesterday, but we got our little hike in early. I guess we're picking blueberries today. Maybe. Well, Mitzi is anyway.

We watched the utterly forgettable Family Plan on Apple TV+ last night. They have some kind of Samsung TV streaming service on the smart TV here, and we've watched some of its programming. It's pretty generic, decade or more older reality TV stuff, a couple of movie channels that seem to play the same old movies over and over. So I've been streaming movies from my iPhone via AirPlay.

We watched The Good German the night before, before I knew George Clooney was adding his voice to the cacophony of chaos.

The Good German deals with, as a plot element, Operation Paper Clip. In the movie, a file Clooney is looking for mentions that the contents were moved to Operation Overcast. I hadn't heard of that before, so I wondered if it was a fictional creation, or something real. Turns out, was the official name of Operation Paperclip, which was something that emerged because of all the paperclips holding all the dossiers together.

Anyway, looking into that led me to Operation Paperclip: The Secret Intelligence Program that Brought Nazi Scientists to America, by Annie Jacobsen. That's available on Kindle Unlimited, so I've started that book. I was somewhat aware of the effort to enlist former Nazi scientists in American research efforts after the war, but I wasn't aware of the extent of it, mostly Von Braun and the rocket people. It was far more extensive than that, and involved some pretty unsavory people.

(Anecdotally, one of the gunners mate (missiles) techs aboard BAINBRIDGE (CGN-25, not the DDG) told me that the launcher logic sequencer for the Mk 10 launcher was designed by a former German scientist or engineer. He supposedly had a breakdown or went nuts after designing it, because it was so complex. No idea if there's anything to that story, but it stayed with me.)

Before getting into the Paperclip book, I went looking for something in my Apple Books collection, and started reading The End: The Defiance and Destruction of Hitler's Germany 1944-45, by Ian Kershaw.

So I have three books going right now, Heather Cox Richardson's, Jacobsen's and Kershaw's.

They are all kind of related in the sense that I'm trying to understand how supposedly good people can be persuaded to do horrible things, go on to do them with great efficiency, and how, after a conflict, we can look the other way and do business with people who did horrible things. Also, how people who did horrible things are sometimes remediated into being somehow "respectable" people. This also speaks to the Confederacy, Robert E. Lee, "heritage not hate," and so on.

Everything is contingent, I guess.

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Cascadilla Gorge

14:25 Thursday, 11 July 2024
Current Wx: Temp: 91.6°F Pressure: 1013hPa Humidity: 54% Wind: 9.22mph
Words: 216

It was a short hike, but it was lovely. Since the gorge is right in the middle of town, it gets a lot of traffic. A lot of steps, but otherwise easy.

We stuck around and had lunch at the Moosewood vegetarian/vegan restaurant. I had a nice black bean burger.

We stopped by the Ithaca town hall to see if the clerk that issued us our marriage license still worked there. She does not, she retired about five years ago. The woman we spoke to sees her often and will let her know we stopped by. When we received our marriage certificate, the clerk had enclosed a very nice note and invited us to stop by anytime we were in town. We've been to Ithaca many times since then, but never really made the time to drop by. Today we did.

It's been cloudy and overcast most of the day. On the ride home we could see rain off in the distance. Even cloudy, it's beautiful.

I suppose I could come to take these vistas for granted again eventually, but for now they continue to enthrall. There's so much ugliness in the world, I'm grateful for the beauty that nature offers.

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Out and About

08:25 Thursday, 11 July 2024
Current Wx: Temp: 78.4°F Pressure: 1014hPa Humidity: 89% Wind: 8.05mph
Words: 314

Went to Corning, New York yesterday, about fifty minutes from here. We visited the Corning Glass Museum, our first visit since 2017 when we stopped in on our wedding road trip. Mitzi still had the paper map and program from that visit, much to the delight of the young lady at the admission desk. She asked if she could keep them.

We toured the museum, focusing on the things we hadn't seen the first time. It's a large museum and full of fascinating artifacts, art and exhibits. Unique, perhaps, in that respect.

It also has a very large gift shop. Mitzi managed to escape unscathed, while I bought a "crystal ball" and a glass globe.

From there, we went into Corning proper and had a nice lunch at an Italian restaurant. I had an Italian sausage sub, while Mitzi had a small pizza. It's an authentic Italian restaurant, family owned and operated. Dessert was a delicious cannoli, that I probably should have skipped.

Mitzi saw a doe with two fawns in the yard yesterday morning. We saw them later in the evening down by the creek. We also saw a rabbit when we got back from the museum. So we've seen a fairly representative sample of common rural New York fauna, a woodchuck, skunk, rabbit and deer. There's a nesting pair of robins outside as well, who keep a wary eye on me when I'm in the hammock.

We're going to hike Cascadilla gorge this morning, also called Giant's Staircase because it's mostly steps. Looks like three quarters of a mile each way, so we'll go up first, then turn around and come back down and go look for lunch in Ithaca.

We're having dinner in a microbrewery tonight, which is supposed to feature live entertainment.

Only a couple more days here, then we'll head up to Geneva for our last week of vacation.

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All the News That Suits the NY Times

06:57 Wednesday, 10 July 2024
Current Wx: Temp: 78.1°F Pressure: 1015hPa Humidity: 93% Wind: 1.01mph
Words: 443

I was a longtime subscriber of The NY Times in the digital era. I was not a paper (dead-tree) subscriber at any time. I had high respect for the reporting of the Times, notwithstanding the Judith Miller episode, which, in hindsight, should have been a clue.

I unsubscribed in April, 2022 and wrote about it in September. Lately, I've been reading about other folks unsubscribing.

I don't miss the reporting, I play Quartiles on Apple News+ rather than Wordle. (Current streak: 60 days. Longest streak: 60 days. Expert rate: 100%) There are other sources of good journalism, though I do recognize that there are infinitely many more sources of bad journalism.

I've managed to mostly stuff the Biden candidacy into some locked compartment in my mind. I have no say in the decision or outcome, and I will vote against Donald Trump in November regardless of who the candidate is. Any candidate the Democrats would run would be flawed and problematic in some way, and the mainstream press would make that somehow equivalent to the horror that is Donald J. Trump.

So I just don't think about it.

I'm still struggling with the Supreme Court decisions. In many ways, that's a far worse development than turmoil within the Democratic Party, yet it gets very little oxygen. That's the problem with a journalism industry built on capitalism, competing in an attention economy. We are fucked six ways from Sunday, but there's nothing to do about it now, structurally.

We must defeat Donald J. Trump, and we must place a potential Trump presidency within the context of the entirely new constitutional regime invented out of whole cloth by those six "originalist" liars on the court.

Most of the mainstream press will continue to focus on Democratic dysfunction. It will be up to citizens to write letters to the editor of local papers, using social media, speaking out in public forums, and talking to friends, neighbors and acquaintances, as civility may allow.

Heather Cox Richardson is a good source of information and historical context in this matter. Today's post is a good example. If you're not subscribed to her RSS feed, please add it. (I do get an empty entry every day, along with the day's post. She generally posts every day, if only to report that she has nothing to post that day.)

I don't know what's going to happen in the fall. I know I can make myself genuinely sick with worry. I'm trying not to. I'll do my best to "keep the faith," and do my best to help democracy and the rule of law to prevail.

I hope you will too.

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Equal Protection Under the Law

06:35 Tuesday, 9 July 2024
Current Wx: Temp: 74.86°F Pressure: 1016hPa Humidity: 93% Wind: 4.61mph
Words: 140

Heather Cox Richardson writes about the 14th Amendment and the claims Republicans are making about "fetal personhood."

But it was her mention of the "equal protection" clause that caught my eye.

It seems to me, and perhaps this has already been mentioned elsewhere, that any notion of presidential immunity conflicts with the 14th Amendment and the equal protection clause.

Are we not, as citizens, entitled to the protection of the law when it is violated by the president?

I have the decision open in Preview, but I haven't read it because I get sick just thinking about it.

There are so many crises happening all at once, it's hard to figure out which is the wolf nearest the sled. I guess it's ensuring Donald Trump is defeated in November. But there are so many fires to fight besides that one.

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Buttermilk Falls

13:01 Monday, 8 July 2024
Current Wx: Temp: 92.8°F Pressure: 1016hPa Humidity: 68% Wind: 11.5mph
Words: 136

We hiked Buttermilk Falls this morning. Got there before 9:00 am, which meant we encountered fewer people on the trail.

It's only about three quarters of a mile each way, but about 463 feet of elevation gain. This was much easier than Treman, but still challenging. I'm getting better with the trekking poles, and I'm certain it would have been far harder without them.

After the hike we had a picnic lunch at the lower falls in the shade, enjoying the breeze. At home it was 93°F with a heat index over 100°F. I thought about that as I lay on the bench of the picnic table, staring up at the branches over my head.

I love New York.

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Thank God for France

18:35 Sunday, 7 July 2024
Current Wx: Temp: 86.54°F Pressure: 1013hPa Humidity: 75% Wind: 8.05mph
Words: 18

A glimmer of hope.

Here's hoping we can come together and do the same.

Merci, mes amis.

Merci.

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Marmot

07:52 Saturday, 6 July 2024
Current Wx: Temp: 77.9°F Pressure: 1014hPa Humidity: 89% Wind: 4.61mph
Words: 367

We have a woodchuck for a neighbor. He showed up yesterday afternoon. I watched him (her?) with binoculars for a few minutes, but when I went to get a camera it ran back into the woods.

Watched some YouTube videos about trekking poles and found out all the things I was doing wrong. It was interesting, and I may incorporate them into my morning walks at home. I do need to make an effort to get down to the bridge on CR 210 to get some elevation change in my walks. We don't even have stairs in our house! Maybe the treadmill at the gym will do as well.

We're going to attempt Buttermilk Falls next week. I say "attempt," but I should say "do," because once you start, you have to either finish or turn back right away. Buttermilk was the park where we had Mitzi's son-in-law go get the car, because we weren't going to attempt to hike back up.

We'll do the same thing we did for Treman, hike up the gorge trail first, while we're "fresh," and down the rim trail. Get the hard part done first. We'll bring some snacks along too.

Sixty-seven and obese isn't exactly a recipe for success, but if we could do Treman, we can probably do Buttermilk.

Mom's in the hospital in up in Albany or Troy. Not sure where Ellis Hospital is. My sister the nurse works there, so that's good. Her new Apple Watch detected two episodes of her heart rate being only 30 bpm. My youngest sister took her to urgent care and they did some tests and decided she should be observed overnight and referred to a cardiologist. Apparently there's a slightly elevated tropin level, and some indication of bigeminy, a kind of arrhythmia.

We're heading to the Farmers' Market in Ithaca in a little while, and a little boat excursion on the lake. Weather seems to be improved, as the sun is shining this morning for the first time in a couple of days.

Well, that's probably more than enough blogging for one day. Hope everyone is enjoying their weekend and not dwelling on the unfolding terror around us.

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Japanese Beetles

07:04 Saturday, 6 July 2024
Current Wx: Temp: 76.3°F Pressure: 1014hPa Humidity: 92% Wind: 3.44mph
Words: 56

Japanese beetles are an invasive species that I often see when we're here in New York. They are photogenic, with their color and metallic sheen; but they're pests. This was on the Cornell campus. I brought along the little Panasonic Lumix LX7.

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Out and About

06:53 Saturday, 6 July 2024
Current Wx: Temp: 76.33°F Pressure: 1014hPa Humidity: 92% Wind: 3.44mph
Words: 127

The other morning, Mitzi and I went and wandered through the Henry A. Smith Woods. The kids and the younger woman were just coming out of the woods as we arrived. The older woman and the dog were walking along the road, and I gather the kids wanted to pet the dog. Perhaps the two women know each other, I don't know.

I seldom take pictures of people intentionally. I had the Stylus 1s with me, so this is at a comfortable distance with the 300mm effective focal length. I just found it charming and colorful, and it's one of the nice things about visiting here.

The woods were very nice as well.

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Things You'll Never See In Florida

06:27 Saturday, 6 July 2024
Current Wx: Temp: 76.42°F Pressure: 1014hPa Humidity: 92% Wind: 3.44mph
Words: 330

We took a walk on the campus of Cornell University yesterday, and this photo caught my eye. In Florida, Gov DeSantis and his white supremacist lackeys have banned such efforts at diversity, equity and inclusion. They don't want anything to interfere with their efforts to uphold and maintain white christian supremacy in Florida. The people reflected in this sign are "others" in Florida. "Special interests," because we're all supposedly "already equal."

Florida used to be two states, one for the privileged and the other, simply ignored. Now the other is attacked, demonized, and targeted. This is the result of the steady rightward drift of the Republican Party of Florida. A dynamic that was set in motion by gerrymandering, where the politically ambitious must run as a Republican to attain elected office; and in a state of closed primaries, the election is decided in the primary where the most motivated voters are the most extreme ones.

In a primary, the way to win is to be more "Republican" or "conservative" than your opponent. This drives the entire party further and further to the right. It becomes more and more extreme. Issues are reduced to culture war matters. Genuine problems and challenges are ignored, or placed in a culture war context, which is why Florida's statutes now omit any reference to the words "climate change."

All people possess the potential for cruelty, violence and hatred. It has generally been the role of good leadership to move people away from those tendencies. In Florida, Republicans lead citizens toward them. Lead them astray.

Anyway, the sign leapt out at me because it was refreshing. A center that offers resources for students who aren't members of the white, christian majority, or plurality. I'm not certain of the demographic makeup of Cornell. I don't know how well the university performs this function. I just know it wouldn't even be permitted in Florida.

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Further to the Foregoing

09:34 Friday, 5 July 2024
Current Wx: Temp: 85.37°F Pressure: 1014hPa Humidity: 80% Wind: 4.61mph
Words: 166

I wrote the title to the previous piece after watching Heather Cox Richardson, who, as I wrote before, is my new North Star. And then I forgot to write about it. A "Biden moment," perhaps.

She said that people had been writing to her, asking what they can do. She tells them to, "Do what you do best." She's doing media hits.

I don't know what I do best. Anybody driving ships in this campaign? It's difficult for me to even know what my "best" is. Should I send all my available money to campaigns and PACs? The stakes are that high. I'm not there yet, but I'm struggling with it.

Some say that one of the ways to help with the climate crisis is to talk about it. I certainly do that enough here.

I don't know.

But I do know it's a question we all need to be asking ourselves. How can I help? What is "my best." And how do I do it?

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Do What You Do Best

08:58 Friday, 5 July 2024
Current Wx: Temp: 83.32°F Pressure: 1014hPa Humidity: 84% Wind: 5.75mph
Words: 692

I don't watch live cable news, but I've been browsing many of the YouTube channels. I watched Biden's address at his 4th of July barbecue. I think I understand what's going on when he speaks. It's somewhat like when I try to write in handwriting. My brain gets ahead of my hand and I start writing a word that's five words ahead of where the last word ended.

Now, he did forget Belleau Wood. Maybe I would too. He knows he's in the spotlight, so there's the pressure not to fuck up, which doesn't help in his circumstance. He reaches for a word, can't find it and realizes he has to move on and not be seen struggling to find it. It's hard.

I also watched the Hawaiian governor, whose name I can't recall, talk about meeting with Biden and I liked what he had to say. But I also watched a CNN panel on growing interest or movement toward Harris. That Biden is almost certainly "fine," right now, but he's not going to get "better." That we're going to experience more slips, more awkward moments.

This is unprecedented in our history. If we go by precedent, incumbents who don't run again, their replacements lose. Humphrey in '68. Not a large data set.

There's the campaign infrastructure. If the party changes candidates, all that has to get rebooted. Harris is the logical choice because she's largely been vetted before, but it'll all be rehashed again. She will at least have had the experience of enduring it once before, and it's less likely to throw her off her game. She knows how to respond already, it's in muscle memory. There's less media frenzy.

Likewise, I think the campaign infrastructure should be able to pivot to Harris relatively smoothly, though I'm certain she'd bring in her own senior staff and advisors, and how they get along with the remaining Biden people is a question. I think the stakes we're facing would make most of them fall in line pretty quickly.

I don't see Joe presenting well. I think he's fine cognitively, but the duties of the office are demanding enough, add to that the pressure of a campaign and the fact of his age and I just don't think he will be able to assuage people's fears that he's too old.

A Harris candidacy does flip the script on the age issue. We're still saddled with the border and the perception of the economy, but now Trump is the "too old" candidate.

I don't know if Harris can pull together the same coalition that Biden drew. It may depend on her choice of running mate. It's a question. I think she'd mobilize women perhaps more, or with greater enthusiasm than Biden, but I think most of them would be voting for Biden anyway, so it's marginal. But these races seem to be decided on narrow margins. Though we can't forget the absurdity of the Electoral College.

I don't think Joe should resign and give Harris an incumbency. If he steps aside as a candidate, I think he should continue to run the country and address the nation as the president about the stakes of this election. I think, without the pressure of campaign scrutiny, he could be an effective communicator regarding the danger represented by Trump.

We are in uncharted waters. I still believe that many people calling for Biden to step aside are doing so for self-serving reasons. I think if he does decide to withdraw his candidacy, that Harris is the only logical candidate to replace him. I'll support whoever the nominee is, but the sooner we get this resolved, the better.

Whatever chance we have to navigate the turbulent waters facing this civilization and our children and grandchildren, it is with leadership that at least tries to embrace humane values, that exhibits empathy, that is inclusive and not divisive.

This will be one of the most consequential elections in the history of the United States, certainly since Lincoln; maybe Roosevelt given that Lincoln saved the union while Roosevelt perhaps saved the world.

Who knew we'd live to see such times?

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Red Admiral

07:28 Friday, 5 July 2024
Current Wx: Temp: 77.79°F Pressure: 1013hPa Humidity: 93% Wind: 3.44mph
Words: 310

And I'm not talking about an officer in the PRC navy.

Anyway, took that the day before yesterday. We spent most of yesterday hanging around the house. We visited a local apiary with a unique retail store in the middle of a field. Mitzi browsed the merchandise while I chatted with one of the owners about beekeeping, something my Uncle John did and I helped on occasion.

This is not a pleasant vacation. When we often read of feelings of "existential dread," it's almost a cliché. It feels all too real now, underscored by an overwhelming feeling of powerlessness.

It's like we can all see what's coming, it's horrible, and there's nothing we can do to stop it. Because, well, life goes on. That is, until it doesn't anymore.

There are genuinely horrible people who are looking forward to taking power in January, and who are telling us all the things they're going to do, which are frightening. What is absolutely terrifying, though, are all the things they're going to do that they're saying nothing about now.

What I find perversely encouraging is that the larger planetary crisis will swallow the political one. In some ways, it'll be a pleasure watching these selfish, mean and bitter people grapple with something they don't understand as it robs them of all the wealth and power they will briefly control.

The suffering inflicted by nature will be on a far greater scale, if nearly as inequitable.

We can be certain that there will be large-scale geo-engineering efforts undertaken, confidently sold to us by tech bros, which will fail spectacularly and yet offer some perverse satisfaction in watching them do so, assuming I live that long.

Anyway, enjoy your summer. Probably the last one you'll be able to.

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Independence Day

09:34 Thursday, 4 July 2024
Current Wx: Temp: 86.81°F Pressure: 1017hPa Humidity: 78% Wind: 1.99mph
Words: 38

I can think of no better day to decide. I just donated $1000 to Joe Biden. Can I afford it?

Can I afford not to?

Do what you can. Do your best.

The rest isn't up to you.

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Voice of Reason

09:09 Thursday, 4 July 2024
Current Wx: Temp: 85.12°F Pressure: 1017hPa Humidity: 82% Wind: 1.99mph
Words: 46

The stakes are incalculably high.

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Superiority

07:04 Thursday, 4 July 2024
Current Wx: Temp: 78.1°F Pressure: 1016hPa Humidity: 94% Wind: 1.23mph
Words: 624

I had never heard of James Henry Hammond until I read Erik Larson's The Demon of Unrest. Then he turned up in Union: The Struggle to Forge the Story of United States Nationhood, by Colin Woodard.

Most recently, he was mentioned by Heather Cox Richardson in her June 30 Letters From an American blog post.

Hammond is an especially despicable figure in the dark history of the Confederacy. Apart from being an enslaver, he sexually abused his nieces. We know this because he wrote about it extensively in his diaries.

It's just interesting to me that such a figure would come to my attention with such frequency in a short period of time. Perhaps not so interesting considering that both Unrest and Union deal with the Civil War.

But Hammond's views represent a strain of American thought that has existed since the founding, and which continues today. Hammond was a member of the planter class, the wealthy elite of the South. Like many successful men, he married into it.

Hammond and others openly rejected Jefferson's claim that "all men are created equal." That view lives today.

Equality and democracy threaten the status and the privilege of the elite. FDR's New Deal created a new role for the federal government, to guard the equality and dignity of all Americans, against the predations of the elite, the monied class. Ever since it was created, the wealthy and the elite have been trying to roll it back and tear it down.

Gerrymandering is a cancer on democracy, where politicians choose their voters instead of the reverse. Gerrymandered states turn into political monocultures, where the policy views drift further to the extremes because elections are decided in primaries where only the most motivated voters turn out and reward the candidate who embraces the "purest" views of the radical fringe that turns out in proportionally greater numbers in primaries.

Demagogues thrive at both extremes of our political parties. The kinds of people contemplated by Thomas Paine when he wrote:

“A government of our own is our natural right: And when a man seriously reflects on the precariousness of human affairs, he will become convinced, that it is infinitely wiser and safer, to form a constitution of our own in a cool deliberate manner, while we have it in our power, than to trust such an interesting event to time and chance. If we omit it now, some [dictator] may hereafter arise, who laying hold of popular disquietudes, may collect together the desperate and the discontented, and by assuming to themselves the powers of government, may sweep away the liberties of the continent like a deluge.”

Democracy is messy. It can be slow to arrive at consensus. It involves compromise and concession. It confounds the impatience and ideological certainty of the extremes. At that makes it a liability they would happily do away with if they could.

If our democracy is to survive, and that is very much an open question as I write this, we must end the plague of gerrymandering. Monocultures make environments vulnerable to disease and parasites, in ecology and politics.

I just bought Heather Cox Richardson's Democracy Awakening. I'll read it on Kindle while I'm on vacation. I hope it will offer some comfort. Seems appropriate on Independence Day.

Last night I tried to stream Netflix's new Eddie Murphy Beverly Hills Cop movie. For whatever reason, which I don't know or understand, I was unable to send it to the tiny TV here via AirPlay.

So I chose a movie from my own library. I was looking for something light, but selected Darkest Hour, without giving it much thought. Perhaps I knew subconsciously it was what I needed to see. More so even than a comedy.

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Lives, Fortunes and Sacred Honor

06:57 Thursday, 4 July 2024
Current Wx: Temp: 78.08°F Pressure: 1016hPa Humidity: 94% Wind: 0mph
Words: 40

Heather Cox Richardson:

But just as in the 1850s, we are now, once again, facing a rebellion against our founding principle, as a few people seek to reshape America into a nation in which certain people are better than others.

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It's Not Just Me

06:36 Thursday, 4 July 2024
Current Wx: Temp: 78.04°F Pressure: 1016hPa Humidity: 94% Wind: 0mph
Words: 76

Skip the MSNBC part if you wish and go to the two veteran officers, now lawyers, as they discuss the grotesque obscenity perpetrated by the Supreme Court. We are in for a world of trouble.

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Ordnance Downrange

13:47 Wednesday, 3 July 2024
Current Wx: Temp: 91.81°F Pressure: 1018hPa Humidity: 68% Wind: 8.05mph
Words: 148

I wasn't planning on giving money to political campaigns this year. But I've been slowly leaning toward changing that position. I'd hoped to begin putting aside money for my kids.

But I took an oath to support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic.

The conservative majority of the Supreme Court is corrupt and has violated its oath. It has displayed gross contempt for the honorable service and sacrifice of America's veterans. It has elevated the office of president, without constitutional basis, to an imperial one, unaccountable before the law.

It's up to us, through what remains of our democratic process, to rescue our republic.

And until such time as the shooting starts, ordnance means money.

I just donated $500 to VoteVets.org. I will donate more as the means and opportunity presents itself.

I'm asking you to consider doing likewise.

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Some Encouragement

07:25 Wednesday, 3 July 2024
Current Wx: Temp: 78.39°F Pressure: 1018hPa Humidity: 94% Wind: 0mph
Words: 217

I don't read many pieces in the news that seem to begin with criticizing Biden and demanding he drop out of the race. I find all that rhetoric self-serving. People posing as sage political savants. It's too late for all that and the Democratic Party will destroy itself trying to identify a new ticket.

There are some things I read that I find, if not reassuring, at least make me feel less alone.

David Frum in The Atlantic seems like a voice of reason. Stuart Stevens, whose book, It Was All a Lie, I read and kind of enjoyed, channels some of my frustration with the Democratic Party.

And I find Heather Cox Richardson has become my North Star.

I hope that this grotesque obscenity redounds on both the Supreme Court and Donald J. Trump. I hope that veterans' organizations around the country recognize the open and brazen contempt the court has shown to veterans and service members by making their oath meaningless. I hope that announcing this gross obscenity during the Fourth of July holiday renders its faithlessness and contempt in bold relief to every person who has raised their right hand and taken an oath to support and defend the Constitution that Clarence Thomas and Samual Alito have chosen to wipe their asses with.

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Rage

07:03 Wednesday, 3 July 2024
Current Wx: Temp: 77.97°F Pressure: 1018hPa Humidity: 94% Wind: 0mph
Words: 400

The emotion I'm struggling with the most is the title of this post. Mitzi and I were talking this morning and she speculated that this Supreme Court and its "decisions" will spark more "self-sorting" in America, with red states getting redder and blue states, well, less red.

The problem with self-sorting is one that I criticized Michael Binder, a professor at the University of North Florida who runs a political poll, for when he made a generalization that people tend to move to states that more reflect their values.

Florida is two states, one for the privileged and the other is ignored. Professor Binder was speaking of the former and committing the sin of the privileged regarding the latter. Poverty in Florida is a life sentence. Poor people can't afford to move. The kind of people moving to red states aren't exactly known for their generosity. Florida is defined by its policy of malignant indifference to the suffering of others.

Although that indifference has turned to open hostility toward those living on the margins of society.

Mitzi and I have spoken before of buying property in New York. More accurately, Mitzi buying property in New York. Although my navy pension and Social Security make me firmly among the privileged, I don't have the means to own property in two states.

I've been trying to save a little money this year. I hadn't planned on making any sizable donations to political campaigns. I thought I might try to amass a small sum to pass on to my children when I'm gone, though I think the opportunity for that has likely passed. I think now I'll look around and see where my money might best serve what remains of our democracy.

We have a narrow window to save the republic. If we can soundly defeat Trump and repudiate Trumpism and neo-fascism in November, install unambiguous if not commanding Democratic majorities in both houses of congress, we can reform the Supreme Court, and reduce the corrupting influence of The Federalist Society.

But it's a narrow window, and I'm not optimistic. I think America is on the verge of becoming a fascist autocracy like Hungary. I have to recall that I must "do my best, and the rest isn't up to me." And perhaps among my best actions is sending resources to those people still fighting for democracy in our nation.

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It's All Uphill From Here

06:33 Wednesday, 3 July 2024
Current Wx: Temp: 78.1°F Pressure: 1018hPa Humidity: 94% Wind: 0mph
Words: 755

I recalled that Treman was challenging, but we hadn't done the whole thing in years. I told Mitzi that when we got back to the car I was going to write a note about our experience so we wouldn't forget the next time, if there ever is one.

When we discussed making the hike, I suggested that we do the gorge trail first, as the rim trail was likely to be "easier." Three years ago, at a different gorge, Mitzi's daughter and son-in-law were with us. After hiking down the gorge we had the two young people hike back up the rim trail to collect the car and come down and get us. We had looked at the rim trail and it began with a long series of steps and said, "Nope!"

This was my first hike with trekking poles. I wore the Cotton Carrier G3 on my chest with the E-M1X on it. It's a large body for micro four-thirds, and it does obscure your view at your feet. If I hadn't had the trekking poles I doubt I could have completed the hike, and I'm certain I'd have fallen on more than one occasion.

The hike was glorious going down into the gorge. New York has had a decent amount of rainfall, I haven't checked, perhaps more than "normal" due to our new climate, so all the falls were running with impressive torrents for early summer. The temperature was low to moderate, I think the most I saw on the hike was 78°F and the humidity was relatively low, so sweating actually worked to cool our bodies. I could feel the salt on my face at the end of the hike though.

I took a bunch if pics, too many probably. I'll post some on Flickr, though perhaps not this morning. "Seen one waterfall, seen 'em all."

We rested awhile at the upper falls and then started back down the rim trail. I'd forgotten that it begins with a steep descent on a seemingly endless set of stairs.

I found that in descending, I had to extend the poles a bit. Figuring out what length to set them at was a bit of trial and error. Ascending or walking on more or less level terrain, 49 inches was about right. I could essentially keep my hands low at my waist and just use my wrists to swing the poles forward. Going up, I could put a pole higher on a step or steep part of the trail with my arm remaining low enough to actually give me some assistance.

The trails are studded with roots and rocks and I almost turned an ankle a couple of times. I worried about Mitzi, but she's been using poles far longer than I have.

The image above shows the elevation profile for the gorge trail, hiking up to the upper falls. The rim trail isn't identical, but it is easier. Before we set out on the rim trail, I asked ChatGPT if it was easier than the gorge trail. Here's what it offered:

In Robert H. Treman State Park, the Gorge Trail is generally considered more challenging than the Rim Trail. The Gorge Trail runs closer to the creek and features a series of steps, bridges, and steep inclines, providing closer views of waterfalls and rock formations. The Rim Trail, while still moderately challenging, tends to have fewer steep sections and more gradual inclines, making it a bit easier for hikers compared to the Gorge Trail.

I used the Activity app to record both hikes. The gorge trail took one hour and forty-nine minutes, and expended 635 "active calories." Average heart rate was 136 bpm. The rim trail took one hour and 27 minutes and expended 545 calories, with an average heart rate of 138 bpm. The difference in time is confounded by the amount of time I spent taking pictures on the gorge trail. The increase in average heart rate may be due to fatigue.

While the grotesque obscenity was much on my mind yesterday, prompted often by seeing people in the water and thinking that rules are for chumps in America, I did enjoy the beauty of my surroundings and the pleasant sounds of birdsong and rushing water.

I think the effort I expended hiking the trail would have otherwise been spent in anger and anxiety, and the hike was a far better experience.

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Grotesque Obscenity

01:25 Wednesday, 3 July 2024
Current Wx: Temp: 81.55°F Pressure: 1018hPa Humidity: 85% Wind: 4mph
Words: 629

We hiked the gorge trail and the rim trail at Robert Treman state park today. It is described as being a "moderate," hike. I found it to be very challenging. I was exhausted when I went to bed before nine this evening, but now I find I can't sleep.

While we were hiking at both Treman and Taughannock, we saw people in the stream beds, or in the water, though the rules of the park specifically say to remain on the trail. But in America today, rules are for chumps.

I saw Heather Cox Richardson on the NewsHour yesterday evening. This ruling by the Supreme Court has been foremost in my consciousness ever since I learned of it. Again, I am dumbfounded that we seem to be so accepting of the overturning of one of the foundational principles of our country, our republic, which "Republicans" are always so eager to constantly point out, is not a "democracy," a "democratic republic."

This grotesque obscenity of a ruling has simultaneously reconciled two pernicious claims of the Republican Party.

The first is that, by making the office of president above the law, we may now have only the 2nd Amendment as a guarantor of our liberty.

I have never accepted that argument. It was the rule of law, that guaranteed our liberty, as imperfectly as that has been realized in our more than two centuries of existence. Imperfect, because it often failed many of our citizens, but perfectible, as we have striven to make real the vision proclaimed in the Declaration Of Independence, that "all men are created equal."

Now, that vision is rendered meaningless. The Supreme Court, an unelected, unaccountable body, some members of which have now been unequivocally shown to be corrupt to their core, has pissed all over Thomas Jefferson's words.

One man is above the law! One man is unaccountable to the law. And they willfully committed this obscenity with the knowledge and example of Donald J. Trump and January 6th, and had the incomprehensible temerity to suggest that the dissenting justices were relying on "extreme hypotheticals," to characterize the nature of this decision.

January 6th was no hypothetical.

The second isn't specifically a Republican claim, though they are now all irrevocably stained by Donald J. Trump and this court's faithless decision. It is Donald J. Trump's disgusting and pernicious belief that America's service members and veterans are "losers" and "suckers," as has been documented repeatedly by men of greater honor and integrity than Donald J. Trump and his "MAGA army" of bootlickers and sycophants.

The Supreme Court has not only pissed on the words of Thomas Jefferson, they have pissed on the graves of every American who made the supreme sacrifice, laid down his or her life, gave "the last full measure of devotion," in service to our nation to "support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic."

Apparently, none of us who swore that oath really understood what we were getting ourselves into. Only those solons in fancy robes and free RVs, who have never worn the uniform of our nation's armed forces, knew the real truth.

This "decision," this grotesque obscenity perpetrated on the American people and a government that has been an imperfect beacon of liberty for more than two centuries, by unelected and unaccountable, corrupt ideologues, demagoguing from the bench, has made every sacrifice empty. Meaningless.

Every scarred body, every mangled limb, every damaged psyche borne by America's veterans is now a joke. Donald J. Trump was right, we were suckers. There was nothing in it for us. The Supreme Court has made everything we believed in empty. Meaningless.

May God damn these faithless sycophants, and may their immortal souls burn in Hell for all eternity.

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Mental Health Break

08:58 Tuesday, 2 July 2024
Current Wx: Temp: 81.81°F Pressure: 1018hPa Humidity: 88% Wind: 1.01mph
Words: 271

We've seen a bit of wildlife here at the VRBO. Two fawns wandered into the yard yesterday evening. One seemed a little concerned or curious about the hammock I put up between two trees. (Always look up before hanging a hammock.) This morning, a skunk wandered into the yard, and may be under the deck outside the kitchen door. I hope not though.

Hiked Taughannock yesterday. Easy two-mile hike to the falls and back. Spent a little time at the overlook before heading down. Weather was beautiful yesterday.

I mentioned I'd lost my St Johns Riverkeeper hat, so we stopped into the Cornell shop at the Ithaca Commons. I mentioned to the woman checking me out that my mother's brother, Henry, was enrolled at Cornell, but left school early during WW II to join the Army Air Corps and died in a training accident. (Part of his plane fell off.) She gave me a 20% discount, which was unexpected and very kind.

I really don't understand what's going on in our country. I think I get the dynamics, but it still feels unreal to me. It's bad enough with the climate crisis and all the other environmental and resource challenges we're facing, but this just seems like the worst. But, just gotta keep breathing. "Tomorrow the sun will rise. Who knows what the tide will bring?"

Anyway, nice marmot...

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Heather Cox Richardson

07:21 Tuesday, 2 July 2024
Current Wx: Temp: 77.25°F Pressure: 1016hPa Humidity: 93% Wind: 0mph
Words: 186

She's not talking me off the ledge this morning.

Ironic that we've lost the Republic during the same week that we declared our independence from kings.

Like climate change, the fire that has engulfed spaceship earth and now threatens the life support system, I fail to understand why we are just taking this lying down.

Ron DeSantis routinely fired democratically elected state attorneys when he's unhappy with them. Florida's Supreme Court has said he has the authority to do so.

The only way I see out of this is for Trump to be defeated in November, and a Democratic majority elected to both houses of congress.

The Supreme Court must be reformed. Term limits. Add two or more additional seats. Rules for how vacancies are filled.

Of course, that would be litigated before the Supreme Court, so who knows what they'd do. Probably find it unconstitutional.

America has fundamentally, and possibly irrevocably, changed.

Not just because of Donald J. Trump, he was the ideal instrument, but because of a sustained effort by a fascistic element of America that loathes democracy.

They've succeeded in overturning the Constitution.

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Further to the Foregoing

07:12 Tuesday, 2 July 2024
Current Wx: Temp: 76.15°F Pressure: 1016hPa Humidity: 96% Wind: 0mph
Words: 54

"Everyone involved in that crime could be prosecuted."

Could be prosecuted.

Who does the Justice Department work for? Whose "official" acts are unreviewable by the Justice Department? Any prosecution could be delayed, forestalled, ended, just not brought, by a "loyal" Attorney General.

And if he was insufficiently loyal?

"You're fired."

We've lost the republic.

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The Falls

06:38 Tuesday, 2 July 2024
Current Wx: Temp: 76.21°F Pressure: 1015hPa Humidity: 96% Wind: 0mph
Words: 319

With regard to the "Seal Team Six scenario"...

“If the secretary of defense does it, and whether it’s successful or not, everyone involved in that crime could be prosecuted save for one person — the person who ordered it,” Becker said.

That is his opinion. It won't be resolved until a court weighs the facts of the case. The President of the United States is the Commander in Chief of the United States military. The armed forces of the United States are a part of the executive branch of government. The members of the military are sworn to obey the "lawful orders" of the president and the officers appointed over them.

The Supreme Court has said that the law does not apply to the president in the conduct of his official duties, and that is supposedly somehow enshrined in the Constitution, which the members of the military swear an oath to uphold.

The president himself cannot perform the missions and tasks of the military, that's why he has a military. He orders them to carry out those missions and tasks. Posse Commitatus Act? Literally no longer applies to the only person with the power to violate it.

Add to this that this president, or any future president, can fire defense secretaries and combatant commanders until he finds one who will obey his orders. And he won't have to go far to do so

Add to this the legal jeopardy officers and enlisted members of the military place themselves in when refusing to obey an order, the "lawfulness" of which is now utterly in question.

This is a disastrous decision in every dimension. Utterly incomprehensible. A power manufactured out of whole cloth to facilitate creating an autocracy in the United States of America, by unelected, unaccountable demagogues.

This should keep everyone up at night.

It did me.

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Not Enough Wine

18:13 Monday, 1 July 2024
Current Wx: Temp: 88.63°F Pressure: 1013hPa Humidity: 75% Wind: 7mph
Words: 135

I don't recognize my country anymore. It has let me down before, but I believed in the institutions. I never thought the Supreme Court would weasel its way to making a president into a king. There is no way this decision does anything but promote more turmoil and bad faith.

Perhaps Biden should exercise his newly granted authority in creative, albeit "official," ways.

I never liked the "Seal Team Six" scenario. Service members are only bound by oath to obey "lawful orders." This raises the very serious, very legitimate question of just exactly what a "lawful order" is today.

I never imagined the Supreme Court as chaos agents. But if your agenda is to overthrow democracy, I guess it makes sense.

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Trumansburg

07:55 Monday, 1 July 2024
Current Wx: Temp: 91°F Pressure: 1014hPa Humidity: 70% Wind: 11.5mph
Words: 635

We arrived at our VRBO rental yesterday afternoon. We took a little detour out of our way to Binghamton to tour the Phelps Mansion Museum. It was well worth the extra effort. There used to be a row of mansions on that street, but Binghamton never had the kind of economy that supported the degree of wealth that could support the maintenance and upkeep of large, elaborate homes.

This one survived because a women's group bought it as a clubhouse, and largely maintained it as constructed for a century. They did install some modern plumbing and a "modern" kitchen, and added an addition with a ballroom, but the interior details remain as the house was constructed in 1870.

They did make one sad mistake. In 1940, they discovered the rooftop cistern was leaking into the third floor, and they had the entire third floor removed. Since then, the museum has added a facade that recreates the exterior appearance of the third floor.

It's a tragic story, Mr. Phelps had a run of bad luck with regard to spouses and children dying. It's possible that the house may have contributed in some fashion with toxic materials. Asbestos, for instance, was used to add a sheen to wallpaper at the time.

I didn't bring a camera in with me, and made do with my phone. My cameras were all packed up in the car. I'm not thrilled with what I got, but I'll post the least bad ones on Flickr.

Mitzi loves the rental. I'm ambivalent. We can't park immediately adjacent to the house, so unloading the car involved carrying a couple of large, somewhat heavy plastic boxes down a stone paver path with steps. I discovered that it was easier to walk on the gently sloping grass instead of the pavers.

We are surrounded by trees. There is a fairly open area of sky, so I may get some star trails. But no shots of the Milky Way arcing above the horizon. There's a fairly wide stream flowing next to the property, and there are a couple of Adirondack chairs down there, overlooking it.

A lesson we have repeatedly failed to learn is that we should bring some of our own cookware, knives for instance. We're going to create a small box of essentials. I lack an 8" skillet here, so I can't make my usual breakfast, which I was looking forward to after a week of eating breakfast at restaurants and hotels.

The house is comfortable with large windows overlooking the yard and the trees. There is some view of the stream, though nothing that would make a photo.

I'm trying to decompress after more than a week of driving, visiting, sleeping and not-sleeping in hotels. Mitzi is planning, planning, planning and asking for my input when I just want to be still. At home, I'm usually up for more than an hour before she is, and I have that time to kind of get my day oriented. Here I'm trying to remain polite and composed.

The idea is to relax, but I'm just experiencing more stress. She's excited, I'm a little disappointed.

One good thing is that this is the first place we've stayed at in the region that has genuinely high-speed internet. I'm surprised, but they actually have fiber up here. Perhaps it's the proximity to Cornell, we're just up the road from Ithaca.

The weather has kind of turned on us. It's supposed to clear up in a couple of hours, and it is looking brighter out there, but it's been pretty cloudy since we arrived. Can't shoot stars through clouds.

We'll head out later and do the Taughannock Falls trail. It's an easy hike with a nice view of the falls. That should help clear my head a bit.

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