White Winds

Weaponized Incompetence

Sometimes for a "with it" guy, I end up being a little late to the party. I read this article the other day and was introduced to the concept of weaponized incompetence.

From Psychology Today:

Weaponized incompetence involves strategically avoiding responsibility—by pretending to be incapable or inept at a task so that someone else helps, takes over, or stops delegating tasks to them. In this way, the imbalance becomes entrenched over time.

I guess it has been written about for decades. Women get the drudge shit work and men throw their hands up and say, "Sorry, I am incapable."

Despite measurable advances in gender equality, the workload is not shifting at home, the Pew Research Center found in a 2023 report.

Dennis Vetrano, a divorce and family attorney in New York, said he's been hearing a familiar complaint from female clients increasingly over the past five years, "and that is the failure of their husband to be a true partner in their relationship."

"In fact," Vetrano added of weaponized incompetence, "that's become one of the core issues or one of the leading reasons for divorce these days."

Hey, I've got all the merit badges on this one, guilty, guilty, guilty.

This is how it goes down at my house:

She: Honey, I am taking off, you are going to have to clean the cat box. Please make sure that you do a thorough job (for once) and go all the way down at the bottom.

Me : Yes, dearest.

Invariably I am called out for my poor cat box technique. And the truth is I never want to get really good at it. A wise man once told me not to get really good at doing something you hate and for me it is the cat box.

I try to do an adequate job and have received no complaints so far from the cats but I am admittedly no Renoir in there.

Or how about this one, don't bother cleaning the pots in the kitchen, I just have to redo them. Or, please don't ever enter the laundry room again. Do not even touch that machine.

Fine. My work is done here.

The truth is I want to be an equal partner and good hubby. I like to think there are other asymmetric aspects of our relationship where my contributions do shine, like my third house insurance installment payment due on Friday. But my wife does an awful lot. Place would not run well without her.

*

I was talking to Barry at dinner the other night and he said there were two things you never find in a Jewish man's home, beer and a tool box.

As much as I would like to be, with the exception of sprinkler repair I am strictly call the guy. especially with plumbing.

But I will certainly strive to do better. Time to de-escalate the domestic war.

Prickish

I was leaving my home the day before yesterday when I saw a local jackrabbit run for cover under an opuntia cactus stand on the river I live on, the Santa Margarita.

 I wrote about this very same stand several months ago as I saw a bobcat taking shelter there and thought about the help sharp, spiny habitats can provide in keeping a creature alive against bigger foe. In our valley the apex predator is the mountain lion but they are rarely seen.

Later that afternoon I was amazed to see a huge doe cross the road in front of me running for the same cactus stand. 

I missed the shot, this was a second too late.

In any case, it has always been rare to see deer in these parts but the mule deer we do see can be very large. 

Neighbor Jerry M. got some good pics of a couple a few months ago.

When I had my horse (for 28 years) I ran into some bucks in the brush at eye level with my 14 . 3 hand Arabian gelding, Jasper.

It's great to see deer, I wonder how they manage to steer clear of the puma but I guess they do. 

I called neighbor Stephanie and she said this very same large doe was in her backyard a little while ago.

Anyway it is cool to think that animals are smart enough to surround themselves with very sharp spikes to occasionally keep themselves alive. 

Some of us humans have sharp spikes too and they operate similarly for keeping unwanted people at bay. 

They call us pricks.

*

I mention this because we lost a favorite shrub of my wife's this week and were talking about replacing it and she said, "Please, nothing with the sharp points you keep planting around the ranch. You know, those awful plants intellectuals like to collect."

I asked her if she meant cycads and she nodded yes. I laughed.

She does most of the watering and there are a lot of plants that can lacerate you around here, from cactus to sagos, yuccas to puya alpestris, this place can lay you bare.

Even the oak leaves have a point.

We will be looking for something nice and soft.

Build the wall. How's it working?

Dave Torbert

The artistic itch

BigDave asked ChatGTP to strain my blog and come up with some colloquy regarding my artistic vision and temperament. Not quite too sure about it but you might want to read these choppy screenshots:

Speaking of art, I have decided to use the upcoming month of September to get off the hamster wheel and go back to two things for however short or long of a time they eventually take, I will take up painting and try to play my guitar every day for the first time in years. I have a self portrait promised for the show and am ready to nail it.

Southwestern Run

So where was I? I checked out of the emergency room, none the wiser and checked into my hotel on Cerillos which fulfilled all of my basic needs admirably, clogged sink and rust spots notwithstanding.

Hooked up with Friedman and we went to Piccolino for dinner, the first of three trips to the local's only Italian joint with great food, portions and an extensive menu. I had veal francese the first night. Place is a godsend. And cheap.

Next day I met Joseph at Linda at La Fonda for my annual trout breakfast. The server agreed to give me the blue corn batter rather than the new oatmeal, which I detest. Always great to catch up with them. 

Chris Lusher had a really nice auction at the Santa Fe Woman's Club on Tuesday.

I bought some good stuff including two weavings, a painting, jewelry and this beautiful early Tonto Apache 21" tray.

The painting was too big to store in the van all week and my archaeologist friend Ron Winters let me take it to his house to keep it out of harm's way.

This is he and his wife Lisa's beautiful backyard you see behind me.

I usually only have two must see galleries in Santa Fe and I stopped at both of them, Nat Owings and Zaplin Lampert.

Both have the most exquisite material and have had the best forever.

Show drop off was Thursday and I waited for my allotted time slot and started setting up.

In the new post John Morris reality my booth in Santa Fe is a third of what it once was, even smaller than Albuquerque, but I managed to somehow fit lots of good stuff into my eight x ten postage stamp.

We all tend to hold back our greatest stuff for Whitehawk and I did.

I had a great selection of baskets, beadwork, silver and paintings.

I sold in all categories to a very knowledgable collector base, some of whom I go back with thirty years or more.

Sold a native woman a Bettina Steinke painting that she posed for when she was sixteen, she is eighty three today.

Sold her ex husband one of his paintings back too, they were both delighted.

Made some people happy and I was happy. Cut my prices in half but it didn't matter.

Do you see the pot on the third shelf with the Zuni frogs?

It was thrown by Cochiti potter Teresita Romero in the 1950's. I sold it back to her grandson Mateo through Mark Sublette.

George Lopez and Gloria Lopez Cordova

I sold my saltillo and found another one, later but still beautiful.

Sold that too.

I have been buying up some beautiful baskets. 

Basket prices have been falling of late but they had been ridiculously expensive.

There was a Carrie Bethell at the show that Wayne Thompson had once paid a million dollars for.

Now prices have become more affordable and I am buying the great ones that I can afford. 

They are too beautiful and precious to ignore.

What did Buffet say? 

Be fearful when they are greedy and greedy when they are fearful.

I am buying some great baskets right now, Yokuts, Kawaiisu, Washoe and Pomo. 

Bought a rare Mono Lake Paiute woven by Alice Wilson, Lucy Telles sister.

It was a work trip and I am a one man show and just kept merrily plugging along to the very end. 

I did well as did my longtime cohorts Steve and John.

I was probably low man on the totem but not by much. Booth was always full and humming along.

It was a strange week in the sense that I never made it to the plaza, or the Plaza Cafe, or Pasquales or many of the things I normally do. Stuck with the Pantry, Piccolino and Harry's. 

Here is a pic of the pork loin at Piccolino, they don't mess around.

They also made a great spinach salad with apricots, walnuts and feta.

Went out to Boca Taverna with Winters, Stoops and the Dodges one night, also to Paloma with Ron and Lisa.

Stayed away from the expensive joints and never made it to the Santa Cafe for the first time in memory.

Toward the end of the show a guy who I had photographed years ago came walking by with a weaving to sell.

It was a 19th century Germantown but almost resembled a Pennsylvania quilt. Condition is awful and needs more money than I have to make right but I bought it anyway.

Because I always favor design over condition. Now it helps to have both but give me something imperfect that actually says something over the inverse any day.

Later I met the person who sold it to this guy, Ernesto, he said it came out of Colorado. I love it, it is folk art and would be surprised if I had it forever. Too pretty.

Here are a couple more pictures from the shows.

Terry DeWald

Jamie Compton, a favorite booth

Alston's killer Germantown

The minimalist Mr. Cleary

Voracek

Farr

Traut

Smoot

Gallegos

Of course the people make the show and I go back with some of these traders a long way.

It's hard work and it definitely takes its toll but I love it and have never looked back.

The prednisone definitely kept me in the game but it was a small dose and it ran out quickly. I ended up green and running on fumes.

I had been promised move out help but it never materialized and I was totally beat up at the end, did it myself.

*

Took off back to Gallup early the next day, for a lunch at Don Diegos, only non native there. Had the sheepherder.

Figured out something, get it with green chile, not the red, The red in Gallup is so hot it will kill you.

I made a serious mistake and stayed at the Twin Arrows outside of Flag that night. Wandered too close to the slots and had a serious bloodletting. Fessed up to my wife and said Never Again.

Did have the lamb stew and fry bread which wasn't bad.

*

Took off the next day and stopped in Seligman. GPS said take the 17 to Phoenix but it was 117° there and I wasn't in the mood.

Was almost into my burger and eggs when the power went off. Cook finished it by braille. 

They shut the doors and I had the last flush in the biffy before I was back on the road.

So everything is cool and I'm heading for Barstow when I get the dumb idea of asking SIRI for the fastest way home.

I'm by the inspection station and it says turn here on five mile road. Really? Puts me on the 95 to Blythe and then somewhere near the Chemehuevi reservation and then I am in no mans land, no idea, on the 62, like a peyote trip without the pretty colors or the holy message, just stress at being lost in the absolute unforsaken spot in nowhere.

Takes me about ten hours to finally pull in my driveway.

Probably won't do that again.

Rock & Soul Music

I -25 Blues

I am back from my annual trip to New Mexico, where I exhibited at the 47th annual Whitehawk Ethnographic Show in Santa Fe and the 26th annual Great Southwestern Show in Albuquerque. 

I had excellent shows at both venues but the trip was not without its travails, pain and drama.

I guess I should start at the beginning which means I have to go back a ways. Five or six weeks ago I was in Santa Barbara doing a show when I got a little cold that turned into bronchitis. After a week slugging codeine and hitting the keflex, I went to Toronto for a family thing and then got the word upon my return that my kid brother had died in Pittsburgh. 

I came back, still sick and grieving and knew that making it alive to New Mexico would be a serious chore but I had to marshal on. Bronchitis and high elevation is a dangerous mix.

So I left on the 29th for Flagstaff when about four hours in on the Kingman grade I felt myself losing consciousness and passing out. I managed to right my ship and stay on the road. I called two doctor friends I know, Mike in Portland and Scott who was with his family in Portugal and they both tried to steer me straight.

One or both told me to get an oxygen sensor for my finger. I registered an 88 after a slight exertion, not good.

Mike told me to go to an emergency room, not to do the show. He was concerned that I could be having a pulmonary embolism, congestive heart failure or worse. I called the promoter. She told me that I would either live or die there but get my ass over, I was doing her show. She told me to buy some portable oxygen and suck it up.

I couldn't afford to leave this mortal coil without putting some money in the coffers and drove to the show the next day.

I set up the tiny 10 x 10 booth and gritted through the next four days, high elevation and bronchial crud  zapping all the energy I could muster.

As I said, I did really well, a lot of nice things went away, never to be seen again.

Forward to Sunday night. 

We pack out and I am staying in a very dicey part of town. 

I am worried about my stuff staying in my van all night in Albuquerque. I meet Shirley and Bill at Appleby's (their pick) and two men start hurling epithets at the bar, egged on by their respective wives. I am worried about getting caught in some stray bullet crossfire.

I have a CCW that works in California, Arizona, Texas and twenty six other states but not New Mexico so I left my gun at home.

I called the waitress over and asked her if she was aware of the brewing confrontation and she looked at me and said "Sir, get serious, you are in the ghetto."

The next morning I dropped a weaving off to get cleaned off University and First and got into an even seedier section. Tweakers, fentanyl and hot baking weather is a lethal combination. I managed to make it out alive, thankfully.

Now I had a decision to make. I needed to heed my doctors and hit an emergency room. But I have been there too many times before and know that you dip your toe into the medical system and you can be sucked in and not seen again for weeks.

I could go to UNM or Presbyterian but would I still have a van when I got released?

I decided to go to Santa Fe and take my chances there. 

I called the urgent care on St. Michaels, but they said that with my symptoms and advanced age I needed the E.R.

So I checked into St. Vincents.

I got every test known to man as well as a chest x ray. Covid, Dimex, RSV, the gamut. My oxygen dropped to 77 in the hospital. But I never saw an actual doctor and never got a satisfactory answer as to the nature of my medical condition.

I saw a physician's assistant and a nurse. Capable but I really wanted to see an actual doctor. Never happened. 

They gave me a respiratory treatment, a prednisone script and an albuteral inhaler and after about five hours, sent me on my merry way, really no wiser.

to be continued...

Tales Of Brave Ulysses

Religion of Rob

Yours truly, from Big Dave

I started writing the Blue Heron Blast in March of 2008, I believe that we are now in our eighteenth year. It has operated fairly consistently over that time, with normal ebbs and flows. 2025 is charting to be my least productive yearly literary output ever, for reasons previously discussed.

There have been 13,623 posts to date, not including this one, 16,324 comments and we are now quickly closing in on ten million views, currently charting at 9,190,946. I am pleased to note that my analytic tools show that people are finally starting to read my short stories, which now consistently rank as the most read posts.

My best friend Big Dave decided to do some GPT analysis of my writing, I believe through Chat GPT and then Claude and Anthropic . He asked about my written feelings regarding religion and this is what the AI machine intelligence came up with. I wasn't able to download his file so I took screenshots and the reading will be a bit patchy so please bear with me.

Although I am pretty wary of AI I have to say that the program did a good job scrubbing the blog and accurately encapsulating my thoughts and philosophy regarding religion. I could nitpick one or two things but how do you argue with machine intelligence? My god. People may not understand me so well but this machine has me pegged in a nutshell, at least theologically speaking. And I was pleased to see that the Machine Mind did not view me as a threat, at least not yet anyway.

I told Dave that the AI sort of glossed over my Jewish components and he ran it again with a different engine, delivering this:

The Religion of Rob: A 300-Word Overview

Based on the Blue Heron Blast blog posts, Rob's religious worldview emerges as complex and conflicted, shaped by Jewish cultural identity while maintaining a deeply skeptical stance toward organized religion.

Rob demonstrates clear Jewish cultural connections, attending family bat mitzvahs in Toronto and seeking grief counseling through Jewish Family Services after his brother's death. However, his relationship with faith appears fraught with cynicism. He describes religious tribalism with stark language: "Love the tribe, just hate the bullshit. God loves the conquerors, smites the infidels, like wiping up ants with a wet paper towel at a picnic." This suggests someone culturally Jewish but theologically disillusioned.

His spiritual sensibilities manifest more subtly through an openness to mystical experiences rather than institutional belief. When discussing his brother's death, Rob acknowledges seeing potential signs—like a screech owl appearing near his door the night he learned of the passing—while carefully qualifying his skepticism: "I am not a huge believer in signs, so easy to get caught up in indulgent self deception. But that doesn't mean I am going to stop watching and listening."

This tension between skepticism and spiritual curiosity defines Rob's religious perspective. He maintains cultural and familial Jewish obligations while rejecting what he sees as organized religion's violence and tribalism. His worldview appears shaped by personal loss—having lost three siblings—leading to both grief counseling and a search for meaning beyond traditional religious frameworks.

Rob's "religion" seems to be one of aesthetic appreciation, human connection, and guarded openness to mystery. He finds meaning in art, food, family relationships, and careful observation of the natural world, while maintaining deep suspicion of religious certainty and institutional power. His is a post-traditional spirituality—culturally rooted but intellectually liberated from dogmatic belief systems.

Not bad. 

Dave also ran an AI program analyzing my feelings regarding art, something I will share another day. Too much cutting and pasting for one evening.

Peace be with you, Pilgrims. And I really like the part about the well made sandwich, glad that came through.