Sunday, July 13, 2025

A Conversation with Terry

From: Karl Horak <karlhorak@comcast.net>
Sent: Sunday, July 13, 2025 10:04 AM
To: Terry 
Subject: Re: This is a must read
 
A long read indeed!  Thanks, Terry. 
 
FELON47 has taken the lid off a simmering pot of racism, misogyny, xenophobia, and anti-intellectualism -- now it's on full boil.  I find it difficult these days to run through a loving kindness meditation that wishes happiness, health, peace, and ease of living to these assholes.  That said, it is probably an economic & cultural system (corporate democracy and capitalism) that is leaving them without hope, turning them to darker outlets.  FELON47 personifies this with his strongman bullying combined with whining victimhood. 
 
The comments were edifying.  Some were advocating fighting fire with fire  Others were saying they won't vote Dem until party "leadership" changes (talk about self-defeating!).  Dopamine hits were even invoked. Clearly, there is no consensus on a solution. 
 
I had hoped that the Biden years would've ended MAGA, but that was not to be.  Garland frittered away our chance to put Trump in prison and now we're paying the price.  Maybe we'll be faster on the draw next time Dems are in the big chair. 
 
Sometimes I think it just comes down to stupidly simplistic things like the perceived economy.  Funny thing to be cheering on a recession so there will be a Blue wave in '26. 
 

Thanks for listening to my TED Talk!  



It is a good TED talk Karl. I am super aware that the way I think about things—generally on a fairly rational side—is a bit outdated or maybe uninformed. I think I have been disregarding some virulent realities like some of the thinking that is going on with the young men profiled in the article. I can see the groypers as occupying some of the same niches that tea party did—espousing ideas that may seem off the wall yet gain traction and flow into something larger. Yeah, the libertarian capitalists have been playing the long game, and while I do not think there is some kind of great Oz directing all of this or taking advantage of the related and even opposing strains, there is something foul emerging that is cruel, undemocratic, immoral, nihilistic. No, the Dems have no plan and frankly, how could they unless they decide to embrace the same tactics—and I mean MOST of those tactics. It will not happen nor should it. Holding the line on what made people flourish, generally, in the later 20th century, which had its source in Enlightenment thinking and humanism, which surfaced in opposition to slavery, which surfaced in opposition to fascism, which surfaced in opposition to the larger cruelties of capitalism—we have to hold on to that until its day comes again. And then try, in this country, to run the show better in terms of justice and equity and well-being.




Ultimately, it doesn’t matter that the bill is unpopular, because populism doesn’t mean you’re popular and need to maintain likability; populism means you reinforce a two-tiered society, where the political allies that keep you in power remain disadvantaged so that you can stoke their anger toward a group of outsiders that you identify for them. It doesn’t have to be rational, reasonable, or logical. In fact, a successful populist movement is intentionally not rational, reasonable, or logical.

So long as populism is the dominant component of one America’s major political parties, we should expect public policy to reinforce the conditions of populism, not to fix circumstances that generate it in the first place.



Saturday, July 12, 2025

Where are the Butterflies, Part 2?

We continue to see very few butterflies and bees.  Even the mosquitos aren't as numerous as the last couple of years.  Haven't seen any Black Swallowtails, but at least we have a single caterpillar on the fennel.  


For being so brightly colored, they blend in with the bronze fennel's foliage quite well.  Let's hope this fellow makes it to adulthood.  

 Meanwhile, over at Deb and Nat's fennel, they have Western Swallowtails in abundance.



Sunday, July 6, 2025

Space-time and Consciousness

Is consciousness simply the perception of time?  We live in the perpetual 'now' while the past is forever behind us, unchangeable, and the future is merely thoughts in anticipation.  

So many organisms have adapted to the rhythms of the natural world.  Our little phenology group at the BioParktry to tease these out of the behavior of the trees.  But does a tree have a perception of time or merely the repetition of cyclic events?  


 

Tuesday, July 1, 2025

The Map

I had something wise and politically astute to write, but events yesterday swept it from my mind.  So now I'm filling in today's post with a link to the NatureServe online map of ecosystems.  At first blush, it's a remarkable collection of data visualized.  But on closer examination, I'm finding oddities. 

Candelaria Nature Center and vicinity

Looking at our bosque near the Nature Center, just a mile or so to the west, one finds that most of what I consider riparian woodland is coded as pasture or hay.  True, there are some fields north and east of the Nature Center's two large ponds, but that cultivated area does not extend to the shoreline of the Rio Grande.  

I'll continue to investigate, but I haven't figured out how to place the street layer on top so I can precisely orient myself.  For now, I have to use rather crude estimates of what exact pixels I'm looking at.  

More to come... 

 

Friday, June 20, 2025

City Greenhouse

Courtesy of a BioPark event, I was able to be part of a guided tour of the City's Parks and Recreation Department greenhouses.  Their Master Gardener gave a, well... masterful, tour of their facility.  

It's very impressive as to how they've managed to turn the place around from a derelict facility 7 years ago into a model plant propagation endeavor.  

I'm encouraged that the theme of Backyard Wildlife Refuge is in common with the Botanic Garden.  That is making Valle de Oro Wildlife Refuge a hub for rewilding Albuquerque.  


Wednesday, June 11, 2025

The Courtyard Kitchen

While reorganizing a cupboard full of old board games this afternoon, Caro came across my boxed set of "Cookin' Cajun / Creole in the Courtyard Kitchen."  It contains an ancient video tape, an audio cassette, instructions on how to host a dinner party, invitations, and (most importantly) a recipe booklet.  

When a nearby lightning strike took out our cable TV service and the Internet, but not our power, I took advantage of the unscheduled evening to scan the recipe booklet.  Portions are appropriate to a restaurant, so I've got some serious math to do before I can cook up even a 4-person version of any of those famous dishes from that wonderful little restaurant at San Pedro and Zuni.  



Amazingly, when the interwebs came back up, I was able to search online and found two references to the old Courtyard:




Monday, June 9, 2025

Chaos

"And seas boiling 40 years of darkness earthquakes volcanoes the dead rising from the grave dogs and cats living together mass hysteria..."

Over the weekend TCF went over the CA Governor's head and sent National Guard into Los Angeles.  Now this afternoon I learn that Marines are being sent as well.  So far this has been predicated on a rarely-used law that gives that power to the President, but with the consent of the governor.  To use Marines for law enforcement would require the use of the Insurrection Act.  

Meanwhile, here in NM our governor has already brought in a small number of our National Guard to assist the ABQ Police by performing non-law enforcement tasks like traffic control to free more police for crime prevention. 

Possibly a traffic control training session for NM Nat'l Guard

Tensions are palpable in NM.  

FELON47 never activated the National Guard on Jan. 6, but now, when it's politically expedient, he does so in a Blue state.  Not to mention that he's happy to imprison people for peaceful protest while pardoning convicted criminals who attacked the Capitol.  Hypocrisy writ large.