A Higher Loyalty
08:32 Wednesday, 27 June 2018
Words: 620
My internet fast continues. Yesterday I managed to get through most of the day, failing only in the evening when I consulted IMDB for information about a movie we were watching. That's another rabbit warren — go to a movie, click on an actor, click on their filmography, click on another movie they were in, then click on something in that movie, and so on. I eventually caught myself.
We had my grandkids over for the day and Mitzi was doing most of the activities with them, so I was reading James Comey's book, A Higher Loyalty. My mom had already read it, and she let me borrow it from her when we were in New York last month.
I think it's a pretty good book, and it left me with more respect for Director Comey. While it would be easy to assume that any book by the former FBI Director, seemingly loathed by partisans on both sides of the red/blue divide, would be self-serving and defensive, I did not find it to be egregiously so.
If I weren't observing an internet fast this week, I'd spend some time today looking for the Justice Department's Inspector General's report to see what the "official" take is on the former Director's actions. I intend to do so next week, and that suggests to me something about how I ought to be using the internet. Rather than "surfing," perhaps I should just look for specific information related to a question or an issue raised in another context. Of course, that doesn't protect against the possibility of getting sucked down the rabbit hole once "searching" starts, but it does suggest an alternative approach to just "surfing," which is the enormous time-suck.
I did consult another book I have about the election, one written by a Hillary Clinton supporter. It gave a fair amount of attention to Comey and the e-mail investigation, mainly focusing on how Comey presented the FBI's decision not to bring charges against Secretary Clinton, and the later episode regarding the re-opening and subsequent closing of the investigation just prior to the election. As is perhaps understandable, it makes no effort try to understand Comey's actions, and implies some sort of malicious intent by Comey's "extreme carelessness," characterization. Comey writes that if he were to do it over again, he'd reconsider those words.
I think the 2016 election was a disaster decades in the making. I think that had Hillary won, and I voted for her and wanted her to win, we'd still be in the middle of a shit-show. There'd just be a different production company and cast of characters. Comey closes with an optimistic take on how things will eventually work out, and I'd say under different circumstances, it's not an unreasonable point of view. But we live in unprecedented circumstances, and I see little reason for optimism. Things will get worse before they get better. The problem is that there's a real chance that they'll get so much worse that they'll never get better, and we will lose this civilization before it finds the means and the will to save itself.
In any event, I think it's worthwhile to read Director Comey's account. I mentioned to one of my trivia teammates that I was reading it, and she said something to the effect, "You actually paid for that trash?" I told her that my mom had loaned it to me; but it didn't occur to me to ask her if she hated Comey because he cost Hillary the election, or because he started the "witch hunt" against Donald Trump. Which is just as well, I observe a pretty strict "no politics" rule at trivia.
I'll Take It To Go
Current Wx: Temp: 74.17°F Pressure: 1013hPa Humidity: 84% Wind: 4.61mphWords: 116
Spent part of yesterday down on the dock with the OMDS OM-1 with the mZuiko 12-100mm/f4 on it. I may try using the 40-150mm/f2.8 later today, but it's really hard to keep the birds in the frame at anything approaching 100mm.
Another item I meant to bring but forgot (Hence, the utility of lists.) was the red-dot sight.
I'd say that the OM-1 was a lot livelier in terms of grabbing focus, but the targets remain the biggest challenge.
But both cameras were far more successful at getting good captures than I'd been two years ago with the E-M1 Mk2.
I need more practice. The gear is fine.
✍️ Reply by emailFlorida
08:02 Monday, 27 June 2022
Current Wx: Temp: 78.17°F Pressure: 1009hPa Humidity: 79% Wind: 1.01mph
Words: 586
I'm on vacation and really intended to stay off Twitter and mostly ignore the news, because there's little I can do about it and it's almost invariably bad.
But I have been trying to keep my email boxes under control, and as I was deleting messages something caught my eye. I followed the link, and now you can too.
It's hard to say I was outraged. Outraged is pretty much my default setting these days. But this was shocking to me in a way that many other outrageous things are not. It's local to where I live, I guess.
Briefly, if you don't care to follow the link, a few years ago, Jacksonville's city government, largely the mayor, decided that it might be wise to sell off the city's publicly owned utility, JEA.
In any other context, this might be a legitimate question to ponder, but that's not what took place.
We'll likely never know exactly how all this transpired, but at some point Mayor Lenny Curry, who had higher ambitions for political office, decided that the proceeds from the sale of JEA would allow him to establish his legacy as a great mayor, solving many of Jacksonville's financial problems in the short term, and giving a huge source of money to "build something that lasts."
So Lenny fired the board of directors of the city's "independent authorities" (JEA, JaxPort, the airport authority and a bunch of others), that itself was unprecedented. Usually board members are allowed to complete their regular terms when a new administration takes office. But there was no legal obstacle to asking all of them for their resignations.
He installed his own people, surprise, with a particular focus on JEA. Because one of his hand-picked board members, Aaron Zahn, later went on to become CEO of JEA, despite having exactly zero experience in the public utility business. What he did have was a sketchy background.
The whiff of something underhanded was in the air, and the local media started digging. The good news is, these idiots who think they're so clever really are their own worst enemies. The whole JEA scam might have been pulled off, were it not for Zahn's greed and that of the people who surrounded him. They worked up a little performance bonus plan that promised to make them all fabulously wealthy if the sale went through. And the sale would have gone through, were it not for this get-rich-quick scheme, which predictably involved fraud.
Nate Monroe is an outstanding writer, and has a pretty sharp way with words, as in, cutting. This pissed off the powers that be, one of which being the planned buyer, FPL.
We didn't know to what extent FPL would go to try to silence local media criticism, but it apparently involved secret surveillance of Monroe over many months, presumably to dig up dirt to discredit or silence him.
FPL has also been implicated in fake candidate schemes in Florida, where phony candidates are put on the ballot with no intention of winning, only of siphoning votes from Democratic candidates with similar names. Dark money funds direct mail campaigns to confuse the electorate, and in at least one case, the scheme worked well enough to cost the Dem the election.
Florida is a fetid swamp of corruption. It often has been, maybe it always has been; but it's especially bad today, with emerging authoritarian and prospective presidential candidate Ron DeSantis as governor.
Fascism has a home, and it's in Florida.
✍️ Reply by emailTaughannock Falls
Current Wx: Temp: 86.59°F Pressure: 1014hPa Humidity: 66% Wind: 9.22mphWords: 44
Brought the E-M1x along for this morning's hike at Taughannock Falls state park. Shot this with the Live ND feature. It's a computational photography feature, much like taking a Live Photo with your iPhone and having Photos turn it into a "long exposure."
✍️ Reply by emailCountry Roads
Current Wx: Temp: 79.02°F Pressure: 1011hPa Humidity: 92% Wind: 9.22mphWords: 518
Last night was our third night in a hotel and we have three more to go. I'm ready for it to be over now. Both places we've stayed at have very loud ac units, that rumble. The beds are on enclosed platforms that seem to form a resonance chamber, and so the low frequency rumble is amplified as you're lying in bed. And for some reason, my tinnitus has decided to amp up the volume. Not sleeping well and feeling cranky.
Tonight is the shit-show everyone's been (not) waiting for. Yes, Biden's old, and in an ideal world he wouldn't be the candidate. But we live in an absurd world, so absurdities are the rule of the day.
In the blogosphere, there's angst about AI being trained on the "open web." It's only "open" if you have permission I guess. And, I must say, like Captain Louis Renault, "I'm shocked" that tech companies were behaving "badly." I mean, really? All these visionary, well-informed, tuned-in, savvy web "influencers" didn't see this coming? El-oh-el!
We were able to charge the RAV4 at both of the hotels we've stayed at, though we missed seeing the chargers the first night at the first hotel. When we did notice them, they were inoperative. The first person we spoke to at the desk appeared clueless, but we got someone who knew what the story was and it turns out that the chargers trip a breaker in the hotel. They reset the breaker and we were able to charge the car. For free.
This Hilton Garden Inn we're at now has chargers, but they're on a different network, so another app and more surveillance. Also, not free. But we charged anyway, because it's better for the world.
Mom continues her slow decline, but her spirits are good. She's growing more hard of hearing too. We went out with my brother to an outdoor hamburger stand last night for dinner. They go there once a week. It was a real piece of Americana. I managed to avoid ordering any ice cream.
Today we'll spend with Mom, and tomorrow we'll head down the Hudson to Port Ewen to visit Mitzi's sister for lunch. She's the one who spent a couple of months with us while her broken pelvis healed. Saturday will be the 10th anniversary of Dad's death, so we'll spend that here with family.
Sunday we're on the road for Trumansburg and hopefully, better accommodations.
The shot above is from the side of the road in the area where I grew up. It's the kind of thing you can take for granted as an adolescent when you're looking at it every day. As an old man, it's one of the most beautiful sights in the world. I keep telling Mitzi we have to come up here in the winter so I can get over my infatuation with the place. I do recall that it can get cloudy in October and remain overcast through April, or seem like it anyway. We're always up here in the summer.
Anyway, the beat goes on.
✍️ Reply by emailCorrection
08:46 Thursday, 27 June 2024
Current Wx: Temp: 81.1°F Pressure: 1008hPa Humidity: 91% Wind: 5.75mph
Words: 78
At dinner last night, I asked my brother about the chicken house. He said I was confusing that with the milk shed. We had the chicken house constructed. We had the milk shed moved from the natural spring where it formerly held the milk cans going to the dairy and kept them out of the sun. We used it as a wood shed.
Nobody is quite clear on when the garage, mud room and front porch were constructed.
✍️ Reply by emailPizza
Current Wx: Temp: 61.7°F Pressure: 1020hPa Humidity: 96% Wind: 6.22mphWords: 153
Clouds came in late yesterday afternoon, and the temperature dropped. We went to a place called Scale House Brewery, and I guess they specialize in pizza and beer. We sat outside and listened to some of the performers at open mic night.
This is the veggie pizza and it was delicious although it suffered from the usual issue with heavily laden veggie pizzas: Soggy bottom.
Seems like Thursday is becoming our night to eat out. This was the third one in a row.
As we were leaving, we spotted a VW Micro-bus decked out like a '60s hippy-mobile. Took a few shots of that, and put them up on Flickr.
I went around the backyard with the OM-5 and the 60mm macro lens and tried to find some insects. Posted some of those on Flickr too.
It's cool this morning so I should get busy and start pulling up fence.
✍️ Reply by emailFooters Formed
Current Wx: Temp: 77.38°F Pressure: 1016hPa Humidity: 63% Wind: 5.66mphWords: 4
Concrete scheduled for Monday.
✍️ Reply by email