Results about you

Concerned about too much of your personal contact information showing up online? Like to regain your anonymity? Google has a relatively new tool in beta called Results about you. This tool allows you to take control of that online information and delete it in most cases. You can find it on this page.

I submitted my request and found a bunch of sites that were publishing my private contact info, over 200 in fact. I requested deletion and was approved. It turns out that one site emanated from my gallery and I undid the deletion as I needed clients to be able to get a hold of me. Another was a magazine article that I wished to remain up.

Useful tool.

Afro Blue

Gavilan gone

 

It was so foggy this morning that the mountain disappeared.

The chocolate ration has been raised

“It appeared that there had even been demonstrations to thank Big Brother for raising the chocolate ration to twenty grammes a week. And only yesterday, he reflected, it had been announced that the ration was to be REDUCED to twenty grammes a week. Was it possible that they could swallow that, after only twenty-four hours? Yes, they swallowed it.”

 George Orwell, 1984

*

I had lunch yesterday with a dear friend who happens to be an ardent MAGA Trump supporter.

He kept looking at his phone during lunch and looked very unhappy and triggered. I thought that perhaps he was attuned to the events in Georgia.

I asked him if everything was okay and he told me that the country was going to shit and that he felt we were being pushed into a civil war. The election had clearly been stolen, there were three thousand dead people on the voter rolls in Arizona, etc. Donald Trump was our true current president. This is the second time in a week I have heard about the coming civil war.

When I pointed out that in every state where voter fraud accusations had been made they had been thoroughly debunked by multiple judges and trials, and that no credible evidence had been found to support his assertions anywhere, he said that they were all in on the game, the same evil deep state apparatus.

It was really frustrating for me to try to bridge our ideological gap and I quickly stopped trying. It is impossible to win these sorts of arguments. But it quickly became evident who the real villains were in his eyes, LGBQT followers who were in the schools actively grooming our children. In my friend's eyes our culture stands at the tipping point of destruction. Morality is at its nadir.

I pointed out to him that morality has been going downhill for a very long time. I recounted being at an automat in Times Square with my family in the late sixties. I was like an eleven year old kid and my eyes were wide. A very pretty scantily clad hooker sat at the table next to us and was a source of wonder for my young mind. Girl doing her job. Shorted my circuits.

But he said that was different. She was straight and not a threat to society.

Call me crazy but I don't think there is a push to "gayify" our kids at school. A percentage of humans has always been gay and I think people are embracing their orientation at a younger age without much prodding. But gay people are the most prominent target in today's culture war along with minorities and migrants.

I brought up the poor lady in the mountains that was killed at her store for flying a Pride flag and he had little if any sympathy. "Christians are killed flying their flags all the time," he said. "And we are not going to take it anymore." In his mind the diversity crowd had it coming. It was time for MAGA to take the country back, by force if necessary.

I was very unsettled by the whole conversation but happy that I could listen and trying not to judge. Everybody is feeling victimized and the dueling media silos have reduced every act into a culture war salvo. Small random local actions are purposely magnified and exploited to cause maximum national aggravation. We two Americas are dealing with two entirely different sets of facts. 

We finished our lunch and agreed to not let our political differences affect our friendship but there was not really a lot left to say. The twain will be awfully hard to bridge.

The Night Flight from Houston

Daniel Donato's Cosmic Country

Consensus is good, self righteousness and fascism is not

Roe v. Wade established a constitutional right to abortion in this country but allowed states to regulate abortions after 24 months of pregnancy. The Dobbs decision on June 24, 2022 ruled that there was no constitutional right federally and threw the issue back to the states to do as they saw fit.

When people in these various states put the issue to a vote, the right to reproductive choice won, now it stands as seven to zero. Polling shows support for abortion rights at a record high in our country.

So the conservatives in this country, who are not content to let the issue be between a woman and her doctor and are scared stiff of ballot propositions, are now talking again about a 15 week federal ban. But that is after reading the tea leaves and and imposing the most draconian bans on abortion, even in the cases of rape and incest. Many women have been physically damaged after medical boards in red states refused to allow abortions and jeopardized their lives.

This is a rehash so let me get to the point. Last night at the Republican debate Mike Pence said this in reaction to Nicki Haley; 

...consensus is the opposite of leadership," Pence said. "When the Supreme Court returned this question to the American people, they didn’t just send it to the states only—it is not a states-only issue. It is a moral issue."

Pro lifers thought that they had it in the bag when SCOTUS sent this to the states and now they are scared, because red states like Kansas was unequivocal on the right to choose and it looks like Ohio will be next. So they want to change the rules again and adopt a national ban. Well, people like Mike Pence do, others like Graham and Haley favor a national fifteen week ban.

All of a sudden they don't care about states rights anymore.

But what struck me was Mike Pence's line, consensus is the opposite of leadership. I don't think that is correct in a democracy. I think leadership is about obeying the will of the people, the majority, even a 51 % majority. I am one of those people that think that abortion, at any point in the term, is a matter between a woman and her physician. And make no mistake, late term abortions are very rare. 

...abortions performed after 20 weeks are rare. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) collects data on abortions conducted in the United States, the most recent data for which cover 2020, before the reversal of Roe. That year, less than 1 percent of abortions were performed later than 20 weeks into a pregnancy. Eight in 10 were performed before the 10th week. In New Jersey, less than 2 percent of procedures were conducted after the 20th week.

So called leadership in this case is really about self righteous people like Pence who think they can make moral choices for the heathens and heretics in his midst that he shows so much open disdain for. People that assert their will like this are rightly called fascists. It is not leadership to substitute your personal theology for our constitutional rights.

“After I gave my life to Jesus Christ as my lord and savior I opened up the book and I read ‘Before I formed you in the womb I knew you. And see I set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Now choose life,’” Mike Pence intoned from the debate stage Wednesday. “I knew from that moment on the cause of life had to be my cause.”

Great Mike, I didn't grok the book the same way you did. I have a different set of spiritual values. It shouldn't be winner take all. It's not the WWF. Why do the rest of us have to dance to your tune? I do not think that American women are immoral but I damn sure think they know if they are capable of raising a child better than you do.

In Judaism, a person is born when they take their first breath outside the womb. I still think that is a better moral place to start from on this issue than the rights of a fertilized zygote. And I hope that our Senators do their utmost to not allow a national fifteen week ban. We have seen what conservatives have tried to do when they have had the power to do so and it has not been good for women or children. People need to rise up and be counted and take back our freedoms from the puritanical minority who would subjugate us.

Inmate No. P01135809

 “For the record, it will be the most manly, most masculine, most handsome mug shot of all time,” said Hogan Gidley, a former Trump White House spokesman, to Time. “I can say that definitely, before having even seen it.”

Can you say stink eye?

Pecan apple crumble

Being a relatively new baker, I had never made a crumble before. I had made pie and cobbler but wanted to scratch the crumble off my list. Still need to bake a crisp too.

Having thoroughly gone through my peach phase with the scones I decided to go apple this time. Renee had some organic apples she gave me and I bought organic Annas for backup.

It was all rather perfunctory. I added my cornstarch and lemon juice. 

I didn't have normal brown sugar, we have a brown molasses cane sugar that is very sticky, but it was what I had and I went with it. 

Leslie bought it on sale at Sprouts and I think it made all the difference!

Added a whole bunch of melted butter.

I spread the filling and then the topping and finished it with chopped pecans.

For what it is worth, I think it was my best yet. The brown sugar filling caramelized and the whole thing was just over the top.

Good job Rob, this one is pretty sinful!

Hi-Heel Sneakers

Happy Birthday!

 

So far away

You want to disrupt your life. Deal with cancer. Or its after effects. Or any major illness. The universe gives you a big timeout, no matter what you want to happen. Beats any one of the many current natural and unnatural disasters and tragedies I could list but we all know what they are and I will spare you. But you better learn to either surrender or experience a lot of frustration.

As I have mnemonically squealed like a damn parrot on repeat mode, I have been basically worthless for the last three months, so stupid really, just that the effects of my treatment have been hard to function with. I basically [redacted}.

Thankfully I have one treatment left, this Friday but I have been sorely tested. About Wednesday next week, after the stuff has worn off, perhaps I will be able to resume my life. But the eight ball I am behind feels more like one of those big rollers they use to lay the asphalt with on the freeway. Soul crushing. Not the physical stuff, the emotional toll and the worry about keeping everything together. Not poor me, mind you, just reality.

*

I had to get labs yesterday in Temecula in the early afternoon. Said, fuck it and drove up to my special spot to look for birds. I had basically killed my day anyway, like so many others of late.

It was not an optimal day.

Very few birds and everything I did see was like that Carol King song, so far away.

Like this kestrel here.

I did see a white tailed kite, a rare favorite, but it was so far away I couldn't even get close to a decent shot.

I did manage to bag a pretty young red tailed hawk, always reliable. Saw a couple other birds, egrets, a heron, many more kestrels. which were feeding on a huge dragon fly population.

ash throated flycatcher

Nothing that you would call a keeper. 

But always a beautiful, replenishing day, birds or no birds, hot or cold. 

Mosquitos had a field day on me yesterday, had to cut my hike short.

Santana

Calling all witches and spiritists

It is one thing to be attacked by the Fulton County D.A. but when the evil spirits start attacking too, you know it is going to be a bad week.

I don't now how I missed this but Jeffrey Clark, the one time assistant Attorney General who helped engineer the fake elector scheme, was indicted recently with eighteen co conspirators and is blaming his persecution on the paranormal.

“Today witches, spiritists, mediums, those with spirit animals, and Ukrainian NPCs resumed their attacks on me,” Clark wrote on X, formerly Twitter, on Wednesday.

Sounds like somebody needs a psychiatric evaluation. Clark made some serious demands on the Judge in the Georgia case today that had a lot of legal scholars laughing.

Oh, the indignity.

Big lies and belief

“To say of what is that it is, or of what is not that it is not, is true.” Aristotle

When I was a hippie kid I used to wear a button that said question authority. It was a motto for many of us and I still think that it is important.

But there is a difference between questioning authority and questioning reality and truth. 

As the wise man said, "The truth shall set you free."

An interesting article today at the Washington Post, Why do republicans disproportionally believe health misinformation? 

The firm KFF has some interesting new polling out. The study is titled Most Americans encounter health misinformation and most aren't sure if it is true or false.

And the results show that their is definitely a partisan divide to our belief in what is real.

Respondents to new polling from KFF were presented with a number of statements and asked to evaluate whether they thought the claims were definitely or probably true. Asked about false claims that have been made about covid and other vaccines, Republicans were on average 20 percent more likely to state that they believed the false claims were accurate. Foremost among them: the regularly debunked idea that the coronavirus vaccine has caused thousands of deaths in otherwise healthy people. Nearly half of Republicans think that’s true.

I know that many of you can't broach the paywall and am going to share some of the poll questions and results with you. They are worth pondering.

Once again we see evidence that what we believe has much to do with which of the competing news silos we tend to frequent. Marshall McLuhan would have a field day. Truth has been stood on its ear and rationality thrown out the window. Force fed a steady diet of lies and conspiracies, often by people that knew they were peddling bullshit, we have lost the ability to discriminate the difference between truth and falsehood.

A couple pictures

Leslie saw this big fat red diamondback crossing the road the next ranch over yesterday. The rattlesnake had nine rattles. It looks very healthy, a big un.

Bruce Taylor has moved to Alabama. He sent me two pictures of deer in his backyard today. I miss Bruce.

He told me that it was hot as hell back there.

Mechanical World

Buffalo Springfield

May cooler heads prevail

A friend of mine was exhibiting in Santa Fe this week when another dealer, who happens to be a very wealthy and conservative "friend of Donald," loudly exclaimed that there will have to be a civil war in this country. 

He proclaimed that our problems are now so insurmountable that they can only be solved by force. 

He was hushed up by cooler heads. After my buddy relayed the story I really had to think, could we actually be poised for a shooting war in this country? 

Could there be any truth in this type of rhetoric?  If so, we libs will probably be hopelessly outgunned. We prefer to kill them with kindness honestly.

It's really pretty frightening but certain elements on both sides of the ideological spectrum have shown little reluctance for engaging in acts of violence.

But god, I hope not.

We are entering new turf. We have an ex President with four indictments and roughly 91 counts against him, I can't keep up anymore.

He has rock solid support among his base and a slightly larger strata of those that hold him in utter contempt. 

His supporters trust him more than their own friends and family.

And sometime before this Friday at noon he will be booked and have his mug shot taken. 

And then I think holy hell is going to break loose. I hope it is not a match to a powderkeg.

Because the symbology of our first convicted President (yes, that rape thing) getting his picture taken for a booking is going to seriously aggrieve some people and make an equal number of people quite happy.

And all that anger and all that joy is going to swirl around in the political alembic and then it is going to boil over, for no other reason than the pure optics of the deed finally coming home to roost in a deeply polarized political minefield.

I certainly have an opinion on Donald Trump and his guilt or innocence. But the truth is that both sides are feeling very victimized right now and they are both going to want to vent their anger. I hope that they can do so peacefully and constructively but I honestly have my doubts.

I have faith in America and the jury system that right and justice will prevail after all the evidence is exposed to the light of day. Let the chips fall as they may.

But I think that mugshot is going to be worth a pretty penny. You think he will be smiling, stoic or frowning? I think we will get the former, a big fat fake smile, his ego too large to show that he is sweating down deep. 

This is a guy who has run circles around the legal system his whole life, like Capone, nobody has ever really laid a hand on him. But like the last chapter of Dorian Gray, the Teflon man is certainly showing more stress in his face the last few weeks, and we may be in some final coda.

Whatever happens, don't get triggered. Not worth it. He's not worth it.

*

TPM - How not to get too overinvested in the Trump prosecutions.

famous mug shots - Robert Sommers 2023

Hiding Out

After the storm

Nico

We made it through the rainstorm unscathed. Thanks for the email and text messages. It was actually very mellow compared to some of the storms we have experienced in the past. The wind was never a real problem.  I'd say it was a perfect storm.

At around nine o'clock it started coming in real hard and didn't stop for about three hours. But it was an even consistent rain, the optimal one for the native greenery.

Linda and Peter's gauge

We showed around 4", Brian's gauge tipped over at eight o'clock already at 3.25" and he figures about 4" as well. Linda Wilson's gauge says 4", Beth's read 3.75" high on the hill. RoxAnn and Mick got 4" over near Yucca.

Jerry and Adelle showed 3.25" for the full storm total.

Our area of Fallbrook almost always has higher totals than the official numbers which might originate near the airport or Olive Hill.

The late Carroll Njust, a neighbor who was an Air Force Colonel and pilot kept accurate records here back to 1960. He was the definitive source.

The only question for us really was did our narrow canyon road hold up? We have been trapped before...

It held up beautifully. No problems. Here is a wide angle shot I took of the river and Gavilan Mt. this morning, very happy and green foliage for August.

Speaking of wide angle, here is a shot of oncoming clouds I took from the viewpoint over Lake Henshaw on the East Grade of Palomar Mt. on Friday afternoon.

As I drove in to town this morning I was treated very quickly to all four native hawk species. 

Right away I saw this red tailed drying off her wings.

Not very happy but no worse for wear.

 

Shortly thereafter I saw Beth and Bertie taking a walk on the road and we saw a red shouldered hawk on the line which wasn't able to snag.

She was showing off her fancy new Swarovski binoculars and counting bird species. She was up to 14. Mostly dumb sparrows I bet.

Most of my neighbors enjoy inclement weather because you have to love nature to live out here. Leslie and I do. Even the gloom is wonderful, like today.

I got to the mailbox, no problem and was so entranced with this Cooper's hawk that I forgot yesterday's paper. 

I got into a little bit of trouble, nothing new.

Beautiful bird. 

As I drove up Willow Glen I found the upper red tailed drying out on its familiar branch. 

I pulled over and grabbed a shot. 

I think I saw six hawks in about ten minutes, maybe seven. Not a bad haul.

And a male acorn woodpecker for good measure!

The Bewlay Brothers

Rainbow Homicide

Laura Carleton sounds like a cool lady. A fashion artist and Art Center graduate, she had a long career as an executive with Kenneth Cole. 

She owned a clothing store called Mag.Pi in Cedar Glen, located in San Bernardino County. 

Married with nine kids. And now she is dead, because some deranged asshole didn't like the fact that she flew a rainbow pride flag.

A Southern California business owner was shot and killed Friday by a man who objected to an LGBTQ+ Pride flag displayed at her clothing store, officials said.

San Bernardino County sheriff's deputies responded to the Mag.Pi clothing store in Cedar Glen, Calif., at around 5 p.m. local time for reports of a shooting.

Deputies discovered the victim, 66-year-old Laura Ann Carleton, suffering from a gunshot wound. Carleton was pronounced dead at the scene, the San Bernardino Sheriff's Department said in a news release.

According to deputies, the man made "several disparaging remarks about a rainbow flag" that stood outside Carleton's store before ultimately shooting her.

This woman did not deserve this. 

But with the amount of gay bashing and hatred incited by far right conservatives these days on a daily basis I guess we shouldn't be surprised when it happens. 

The rights of gay people are not a threat to straight people and they should be respected. 

This was a dastardly and cowardly act.

This woman wasn't even gay, she merely expressed a message of love and tolerance and it was enough to do her in.

Bad Stephen

If you look at all the nasty and creepy characters in the Trump Cabinet and his advisors, it is hard to pick a worst of the worst. The scale ranges from decent to incompetent to the purely evil and venal.

On a pure policy level, Scott Pruitt and Ryan Zinke lead the charge for their hideous mismanagement of EPA and the Interior. Nasty heiress Betsy DeVos always had her religious and private school agenda lurking close by. Mnuchin was in the pocket of the large investment banks.

But in terms of just nasty pieces of excrement, two stand out on this list, at least to me, Stephen Bannon and Stephen Miller.

And with Manafort in the pen, Miller has to win the prize for the sickest and most contemptible piece of dung in the Trump orbit. And he really hasn't stopped. 

The Jewish kid from Santa Monica has been disowned and disavowed by his own uncle for his hatred, hypocrisy and contempt. 

A quick look at his recent headlines gives you a reason why.

Who are Miller's enemies?  Gays, pop-tarts, M&M's liberals, janitors, diversity, migrants, cheez-its and all the people who are persecuting the poor white man. He spreads lies and conspiracy theories and has even promoted white nationalists. He created the Trump administration's family separation policy for migrants.

In September 2017, The New York Times reported that Miller stopped the Trump administration from showing the public an internal study by the Department of Health and Human Services that found that refugees had a net positive effect on government revenues. Miller insisted that only the costs of refugees be publicized, not the revenues refugees bring in. As a White House spokesman, Miller on multiple occasions made false and unsubstantiated claims regarding widespread electoral fraud. Emails leaked in November 2019 showed that Miller had promoted articles from white  nationalist publications VDARE and American Renaissance, and had espoused conspiracy theories. Miller is on the Southern Poverty Law Center's list of extremists.

It is interesting that the name of his group is America's first. 

Because in the 1930's Lindbergh, Henry Ford  and a bunch of other anti semites and isolationists had a group with the very same name. 

Many of the members were fascist sympathizers.

It really doesn't seem like much has changed.

I loathe everything that this man stands for.