First Thoughts

… up at 5 AM… an hour later than i like… this jams me up on the things i like to do prior to heading out for a walk…

… there is research that suggests there are heart benefits to going to bed between 10 and 11… i have been trying that but i am not sure it is working for me… i had been going to bed between 9 and 10 with the desire to be up by 4 AM… this gives me a good amount of time to write and read in the morning… so maybe that is my rhythm… i’ve always been early to bed and early to rise…

… an exhausting day devoted to errands for the household… i have been very frustrated with the way activities that are not photography, reading and writing are intruding an hours devoted to those things… it has been a real struggle lately to keep that from happening… today, J will claim a certain amount of my time… tomorrow, a friend for dinner, which will require an early start on dinner prep… sigh… there are times when i’d like to take off to a cabin in the woods and hibernate… i’m quite good at being alone…

HCR meter, ominous rumblings in Europe… Russia threatening Ukraine… Russia and Belarus pumping immigrants into Poland in an effort to inflame right wing dissidents and destabilize the region…

… i was thinking about the benefits of having lived in a pretty stable country… there have been times of unrest, but generally speaking, the average citizen could go about their business and depend on the world around them to behave pretty much the way it did the day before… there are so many people around the world for whom that isn’t true… what must be the loss in human product and accomplishment?… are we heading into a time where the world will twist and turn in ways we can’t possibly predict?… where faith in anything is impossible?…

… Cape Malay Pickled Fish for dinner last night… two days of marination in pickling juices… it was tasty… not clear that i would go to the trouble again… maybe…

… i did a search for recipes for CMPF and discovered a bunch of them… it appears i used the only recipe (from Martha Stewart), that fries the fish after marinating in the pickling juices for a couple of days… every other recipe cooks the fish before marinating… hmmm… i now have to cook this again…

First Thoughts

… this morning it starts to feel like the downhill race to Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year… the middle of Week 46, less than seven weeks to go…

HCR meter encouraging… the case for holding 45 accountable is being built, slowly, steadily… the Trumpublicans get crazier and crazier… Representative Gosar only the latest iteration of bat shit crazy with his tweeted anime wherein he decapitates(?) AOC… there is justifiable outrage… all the Trumpers in congress care about is disciplining the 13 congress men and women who voted for the infrastructure bill, a broadly popular bill that their states all desperately need… absolute loyalty to the party is all they care about… it is a necessary condition for authoritarian rule… this quote from Liz Cheney is amazing:

_ “In this time of testing, will we do our duty? Will we do what we must? Will we defend our Constitution? Will we stand for truth? Will we put duty to our oath above partisan politics? Or will we look away from the danger, ignore the threat, embrace the lies and enable the liar?”_ she said. “There is no gray area when it comes to that question. When it comes to this moment, there is no middle ground.”1

… i am in love with Liz Cheney… a politician with strong integrity… i suspect i disagree with most of her politics, but on the issue of where we are and what we need to do she is bang on…

… i continue to struggle with refining what i am doing photographically… struggle is probably too strong a word… i am evolving and refining what i am doing…

… oh my, did i finally turn off autocapitalize?… it seems i did!… so exciting… no more having to escape capitalization!…

… back to what sort of photographer am i?… i have begun to center on the iPhone as my camera of daily choice… easier, lighter, and damn, image quality is getting so good!… this, coupled with the very easy workflow of native camera app to Ulysses to Micro.blog has pushed me in the direction of publishing photos as i go, without editing, without careful selection of images to include… photography (and writing) of-the-now… i am publishing photographs in color, some of which i later import into Lightroom, turn to black and white and edit more careful in general… i have decided to be increasingly selective with that group, while maintaining a broader selection on the iPhone photo app… in color… part of me wanted to share color photographs with the Salon last night… instead i prepared a selection of images in black and white from the past ten days… i did not present them as there were an abundance of photographers wanting to show their work, but i reviewed that set several times and i feel good about it…

… so, the practice is evolving as both an of-the-now practice and one that then filters the of-the-now body of work into a more considered body of work with a focused and edited sensibility to it… this is the body that will coalesce into portfolios, book projects, photo poems…

… H wound up in a much better mood yesterday afternoon and evening… they went for a walk with Chas, an idea they sneered at when i suggested it in the morning… “it’s boring, my back hurts” they told me… they did the dishes while i was Zooming with my Salon buddies… i have this nagging question about yesterday morning… did they, for some reason, conscious or not, feel the need to torpedo my good mood and high spirits?… they did an excellent job of it… i can’t help but wonder…

… on the alcohol front… last couple of nights i have limited myself to beer… this seems to be working out… no mildly debilitating effects the morning after… for some reason, perhaps its volume of liquid, i am not as prone to overdoing it with beer… and last night’s meal was kielbasa roasted on a bed of onion, red pepper and red cabbage, glazed with peach preserve and mustard, served with mashed potatoes… beer was a perfect accompaniment, though Corona might not have been the perfect beer for the meal…


  1. Via Letters from and American, November 09, 2021, Heather Cox Richardson. ↩︎

First Thoughts

… frustration and irritation yesterday… too many intrusions on time set aside for writing and photographing… too much to do to acquire groceries, cook meals, maintain house and yard… too little help from H… i am determined to hold my creative time sacred and inviolable…

… and, on the creative front… i am moving towards something new yet old, something i know the broad outlines of, if not the specifics… i am continuously refining it… making clearer what i am doing… the major elements of it are the Notes On Attention Paid blog, the concentration on the phone camera as principle camera… the development of a new workflow centered on the smartphone, Micro.blog, Ulysses, a writing, walking and reading practice… working against that system is my weakening eyesight… what i really want to do is edit on the iPhone exclusively, but it is difficult with my aging eyes… i have grown tired of the cumbersome Lightroom… i have begun thinking that editing photographs to the nth degree is a waste of my time in the system of make and post possible with the camera phone… i have all of this camera equipment that i no longer seem to need… this new way of producing and delivering is, interestingly, allowing me to bring to fruition what has been at the core of my effort all along… a daily cataloging of observation… nothing more… nothing less… and it is rendered on the www… the complex of tools has finally fallen into place for a seamless and efficient workflow…

HCR meter, the shit show that is the Republican Party… generally it is a race to see whether they implode or seize control of the government for the rest of my life… Big Bird is a villain for promoting vaccinations for children which they have done since the 70’s… conservatives are currently dying from COVID at more than three times the rate of liberals… the result of conservative anti vaccination stance… i wonder if it will have any impact on elections?… conservatives are already dealing with a minority of the population for support… justice department announces indictments on ransome ware criminals and seize their ill gotten gains… it is one year until the midterm elections and there is so much to do… will voting rights ever become a priority?…

Heather Cox Richardson Meter: What Republicans Mean by Socialism

… AKA, HCR meter…

… in this morning’s post, HCR reports that Republicans immediately intensified the branding of Democrats as Socialists upon the passage of the bi-partisan infrastructure bill… she points out, as she has several times in the past, that what Republicans mean by Socialism has little to do with Socialism as a governing system which the American people, Republicans and Democrats, have never come close to endorsing…

… what Republicans actually mean by “Socialism” is anything that, in their opinion, redistributes wealth through taxation to benefit those without wealth… this dates back to the post civil war era when, initially white southerns, but eventually white northerners too, reacted to former slaves, now free men (women don’t get the right to vote for another 53 years) having the right to vote, which they did in large numbers, electing numerous African American legislators who promptly pursued the interests of their communities by getting money allocated for roads, schools, etc… find her more complete rendering of the history of Socialism branding here

First Thoughts

… coffee made… dogs let out and treated… Gregorian chants cranked up…

… i had two modest cocktails last night… went to bed feeling a little headachy… woke up feeling the same… it appears i don’t tolerate alcohol anymore… at least, not very much of it… a good thing?…

… we watched Dune last night… wonderful film though it ends abruptly… it ends the way the premier of a new series might end, with a clear promise there will be more… the story is far from told to completion and i think i now understand why it simultaneously appeared on HBO… because it is going to be a series… the next Game of Thrones?…

… it reminded me of the sci-fi series Raised By Wolves… Dune had very similar vibes in the way the story played out and the cinematography…

… we enjoyed J’s visit yesterday… they seem generally ok, though i got the feeling there is struggling going on there… they put a good face on it… but… they have a new car… a CRV… they are leasing… they have half the income we do and we stretch a bit to afford ours… hmmm…

… well below freezing last night… the last components of my freeze protection system for the planter tanks arrived… hoping it’s not too late for the rosemary… trying to see if i can overwinter it…

… been feeling a little like i am catching a cold… have been spending time in cafe’s as the cold weather arrives… trying to see where my winter get warm quarters will be… Kitchen and Coffee gets too busy too early… still not comfortable with indoor environments with numbers of people…

HCR meter this morning upbeat… unemployment report way better than expected… half a million new jobs, unemployment rate down to 4.6, a number the Congressional Budget Office projected wouldn’t be reached until the end of 2023… and, the hard infrastructure bill passed congress last night and will go to President Biden to be signed into law… a handful of Republicans even voted for it… the soft infrastructure bill is still being negotiated… moderates have promised progressives in writing that they will work with them towards the passage of the reconciliation package… before congress breaks for the holidays?…

… and what about voting rights?… the elephant in the room… something has got to be done about voting rights…

… i find my way to an opinion piece on Politico by Charles Sykes… it discusses the domination of the Democratic Party infrastructure by mostly white, college educated, people… he accuses the party of having shifted too far to the left under their influence and of being out of touch with the more centrist working class voters who outnumber the college educated by a 2-1 margin… i get a little bit of that vibe from H, who accuses just about everyone on the right of being racist and homophobic… Sykes reminds me that echo chambers can skew one’s understanding of reality…

First Thoughts

… an irritating stretch of minutes… dog poop in the living room… confusion about whether a file should be deleted or not… deleted, recovered, deleted again… computer choking and delaying in the process…

… J is coming to visit… love J but getting tired of entertaining getting in way of other productive work… ready to be a hermit for a while…

HCR meter… back on the voting rights broken record… at least some senators resistant to filibuster alteration are starting to say it may be necessary… the gerrymandering appears to be really bad, as expected… congress needs to step in… Republicans need to be kicked to the curb… my humble opinion…

… had a bad day yesterday with aftereffects of alcohol the night before… didn’t really drink that much and only wine, and yet, i had headache and general malaise all day long… no alcohol last night, no signs of suffering today…

… harvested tarragon yesterday… put it in the drying rack… with sage, oregano and thyme… clips and protective fabric arrived for the planter tanks… now i need the hoops which come today… just in time… need to get them installed today as temps drop into the 20’s tonight…

… wondering about planting some garlic… i think i may try it… i have one tank cleared and almost ready to go…

… made the most delicious pork chops last night… locally raised meat from Nature’s Pantry freezer section… cooked to perfection with the pre-salting (at least an hour up to several hours in the refrigerator liberally salted all over)…

… i had a dream with S and B in it… we were in some small town at something like a diner… i was bragging about my pork chops to them (accomplished chefs and restaurant owners)… S got sick to their stomach (not over my pork chops)… tried to find a bowl for them to puke in, but couldn’t, so brought paper towels… when i return, everything seems normal and happy… can’t find the expected mess… then i woke up…

First Thoughts

… had to switch keyboards… the wireless keyboard, which i spilled coffee on quite a while ago, was starting to get gummy… the cold weather causing the keys to gum up and stick because of the sugar-coffee-water spilled on it… was working fine over the summer… the colder weather seems to bring back the gummy…

… dinner with E&B last night… very nice time… talked about many things… they, at the end, pressing their concerns about rent control being considered and likely to pass at city council… they seemed to be saying that property owners and business owners in Beacon have been unable to stop this or even have a debate… i gleaned that they wanted a debate on the issues but it isn’t clear how we get there… the Republican Party is absent from the table in Beacon… business interests are absent from the table too?… they are perhaps thinking educating H will educate the many people H is in touch with…

… truth is, nobody wants the burden to fall on themselves alone… they suggest minimum wage adjustments to help people with limited means rather than promoting large business interests in Beacon… wouldn’t this make it harder for businesses to make their nut?…

… lots of Democratic hand wringing happening at the national level after the elections… HCR points out that the handwringing is overreaction… it was a mixed bag, a mixture of wins and losses for the Dems… even the Yungkin victory in Virginia may have a silver lining… it was achieved while holding 45 at arms length… could this be the start of Republicans moving a little towards the center?… if so, it would be a good thing…

HCR meter focused on the growing authoritarianism on the right… the critical race theory boogie man is being used to bludgeon educators and rile up parents (suburban, mostly white voters)… she points out that authoritarian movements across the board attack the educator class as part of their playbook…

First Thoughts

… Republican Glen Yungkin won the Virginia governor race… Yungkin is widely viewed as a Trumpian Republican and many will view it as a warning sign that the far right is poised for gains in the Midterms and could win back the presidency in 2024… it is, of course, too early to know what it really means… a Republican win is consistent with history in Virginia where a gubernatorial candidate of the opposing party to the President of the United States is the common choice of voters… why this should be is not clear to me, but it is the history of the situation… it will be interesting to see what the turnout numbers are… that will be more indicative of whether there is energy on the Democratic side or not…

… the thought that is bugging me more has to do with the mess that the infrastructure negotiations have been in Washington… a theory that has currency with Authoritarian regimes around the world is that Authoritarianism is able to respond more quickly and effectively and consistently (when they want to) to changing events around the world and the fast pace of technological development… the Biden/Harris administration is trying to challenge that perception but the difficulty Democrats are having passing a broadly popular with the public infrastructure bill seems troubling in this regard… at least one commentator, Democrat Mark Warner from Virginia, suggested that failure to have passed an infrastructure bill of any kind hurt the chances of Terry McAuliffe in the race… given historical trends in Virginia mentioned above, maybe it would have made a difference, maybe not… but the broader theme of whether Democracies are too cumbersome for the present world environment is a legitimate question and the jury is out on that…

this mornings post from Heather Cox Richardson suggests that last night’s election results across the nation were a mixed bag with no clear indication of future national winning strategies for either party… in fact, it seems that voters voted in line with the degree to which their state is conservative or liberal than anything else…

… i had a productive day yesterday… worked right up to 6 PM… i made my first “In This Year” post in which i photograph an inscribed date i find on my walks (usually on a building, but sometimes scrawled in random patches of concrete) and then look up what happened in that year… i find it is an interesting exercise in grounding oneself during times that seem tumultuous… a somewhat reassuring find is that tumultuous years are common in history and that things often work themselves out without bringing down the present order… though not always… one will also find a record of eras that come to an end… what is always the case is that life goes on, sometimes in a better way for the general population, sometimes in a worse way… Steven Pinker author of Better Angels of our Nature1, argues that the overall trend is for the better and that Enlightenment Humanism is the foundation of that better trend… i loved the book, especially it’s grounding in Enlightenment Humanism philosophy… it is completely in line with my own philosophical stance in the world… however, those principles are under severe attack and one can imagine everything “going to hell in a hand basket” as that enlightenment order crumbles… hello new dark ages?… or is something else afoot?…

… it seems odd that Joe Biden, in some ways a relic of the past, is the standard bearer for Enlightenment and Humanist principles… a true believer in the “Better Angels of our Nature”… a last gasp?… the optics at present don’t seem good…

… i am feeling like Ken Wilber’s Sex, Ecology, Spirituality would be an important book to read right now… an important concept that i want to review is that every next level of being subsumes and incorporates into itself the preceding levels of being and is dependent on those levels of being that came before it, yet none of the levels of being that came before it are dependent on it… that is… split out of this next level of being, preceding levels function perfectly well on their own… the thought that i have in reviewing current technological trends is that a way is being prepared for the appearance of a next higher level of being… a level of being composed of all that is now and a more comprehensive intelligence brought on by advances in data processing…


  1. This Wikipedia article has an extensive critique of Better Angels that is worth reading as is the book itself. ↩︎

First Thoughts

HCR meter, democracy is on the ropes… pointing to the spreading and increasingly blatant disinformation campaign in progress by the far Right… this morning’s stars are Marco Rubio and Tucker Carlson… Rubio apparently gave a speech that would have been unimaginable just a year or two ago… a speech that indicates he is banking on victory for authoritarianism and wants to be on the right side of it when we get there… another essay in Mother Jones names Fox News and Tucker Carlson in particular, as fascist propagandists… this has got to be beaten back… my belief is that Democrats in congress could make it easier by eliminating the filibuster, at least on two issues… voting rights and the debt ceiling… i too believe that democracy is on the ropes and that we have precious little time to save it…

… a disrupted day yesterday… plumbing problems escalated significantly when sewage began backing into the toilet in the basement and then overflowing… the stench… the mess… the frantic calls to the plumber… the $200 check handed to the plumber for fifteen minutes spent clearing the house trap which had become clogged… the flow of the entire day disrupted… it is remarkable how much i depend on my expected ordered flow of things happening…

… the backing up of the house trap seems an interesting metaphor for what is happening to the plumbing of Democracy…

… i did manage to make some quick revisions on J’s website and their LinkedIn page… their LinkedIn page is a bit of a mess… will have to help them with that…

… at the top of David Corn’s article, this image of Tucker Carlson…

Tucker Carlson at Politicon in Los Angeles on October 20, 2018 Christian Monterrosa/AP

… TC turns my stomach… i remember him on CNN’s Crossfire back in the day… he was an obnoxious twit back then… he’s morphed into something monstrous-to-me now… doesn’t he look monstrous in the photograph?… the point of the choice of image…

… i am toying with getting active in supporting democrats in next year’s election run up… i don’t have much money to give, but i have some time, which i’d really rather not expend that way, but i believe we are reaching a tipping point and need to be on deck in defense of Democracy…

… i was surveying the organization of my journal in Ulysses yesterday… i have this wonderful warm feeling of it being almost there as a cohesive product that could solidly support… something… but what something?… well organized thoughts and notes are the foundation of something bigger, if you want them to be… what is the bigger thing i am moving towards?… the coupling of journaling, thinking, and posting on a blog… something that develops the broad story of a particular human being at a particular stretch of moments in time grappling with the cosmos as it impinges on them… as i write this i am aware that when one has a project like this, puts large amounts of time and energy into it, one starts to desire an audience… one is supposed to desire an audience… the question sits in the shadows, what is my target audience?… my answer has been… i don’t care about my target audience… i want to craft something that is profoundly satisfying to me… this is what i seem to be on the path of now… it feels good… it needs tightening up and refining… it seems to be firing on nearly all cylinders, to use a gas engine phrase that is becoming quaint… can i push it to peak performance soon?…

HCR Meter

… from, Letters from an American, Heather Cox Richardson…

Today the Washington Post published a long report about the events before, during, and after January 6, compiled by a team of more than 25 reporters and additional staff who reviewed video and court transcripts, followed social media posts, and interviewed more than 230 people. The report lays the blame for January 6 on Trump and warns that we are in a fight for the survival of democracy.1

… and…

The Washington Post suggests that they made that calculation in the immediate aftermath of January 6 because Trump continued to command his base and they worried about being primaried from the right if they didn’t support Trump’s Big Lie that the 2020 election was stolen. And so they acquitted him in his second impeachment trial and supported the “audits” of state election results that had already been proved secure.

But that leaves a circle to be squared.

Winning a primary by staking out turf as a Trump supporter would mean losing in the general election… unless state legislatures fixed elections so that Republicans would win, no matter who the Republican candidate happened to be.2

… the next three years are “all hands on deck”…

… sign up for her newsletter here


  1. Richardson, Heather Cox, Letters from an American, October 31, 2021: https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/p/october-31-2021 ↩︎

  2. Ibid ↩︎

First Thoughts

HCR meter, hopeful… making the case that the Biden administration is fundamentally changing the way government works, rebuilding hard infrastructure, establishing soft infrastructure funding that will be consequential… interestingly, she points to the way the news media (liberal included) is making the story all about the “dysfunctional” Dems by reporting breathlessly on the intransigence of Sinema and Manchin, while ignoring the dysfunction of the Republican Party, which refuses to be engaged in the process in any way… Republicans, she points out, are spending the majority of their time waging culture wars that they believe will make their base passionate enough to return them to power one last time… and it will be one last time… i believe that if the current iteration of Republicans is allowed back in, they won’t leave… likewise, it will be a Democratic era if the Dems are able to hold on, which they will do in a more legitimate way, by making sure all people can vote… this depends largely on the passage of voting rights legislation, which relies on Sinema and Manchin agreeing to, at minimum, a carveout in the filibuster that would permit a simple majority to pass whatever bill it is that moves forward… so, yay for infrastructure and to returning the government to being “of the people, by the people and for the people”… it is important to do things for the people… but the peril is clear, the solution is clear, the outcome is not…

… nice dinner party last night with K and D, except H dominated the conversation, focusing on herself and making it hard for the rest of us to participate… i get it though, i think she is desperate for direct human contact… beyond that, it was nice to spend some time with K and D… and!… they bought two of my photographs!… it’s been a good year on the photo sales front… to the point where i will report the activity as income on this year’s taxes… it also reminds me that i need to get back to getting work in front of the public… loosely, i am planning to do that in the new year… starting with an application for a NYSFA grant… very competitive, probably won’t get it, but it is free to apply and as they say, “you gotta be in it to win it”…

… Fiona escaped the yard yesterday… H was in the back garden, planting bulbs… one minute she was there, the next minute Chas was trying to tell her she had escaped… i had thought i had the various under-the-fence routes plugged, but apparently not… this morning i went out with the dogs and i think i found the hole… will plug it up today… it isn’t a very large hole but she doesn’t need much… it seems anything she can get her nose through she can go through…

First Thoughts

HCR meter, encouragement to progressives… all about the stock market crash, subsequent Republican attempts to pound the people even further into poverty, the election of FDR and the New Deal, which sparked recovery and American prosperity for multiple decades following, enabling the nation to prevail in the Second WW… the thought that immediately flows through my mind, why are conservatives so bent on pounding the people back to the place of the Great Depression?… why are they so keen on dismantling the social safety net system?… is it all about greed?… about wanting as much money and as many toys as possible?… it doesn’t really make sense to me… but then, i come from a place where i don’t want much more than supports a relatively humble existence… well, we are a little better off than humble existence, but we are solidly middle class and i like it that way… i am not a fan of unfettered capitalism, which is brutal… and, in any case, wealth distorts even that playing field… it is difficult to impossible to hold wealthy people accountable… what passes for justice in this country is what keeps the masses in line… this will get worse if conservatives have their way…

… economics as if people mattered… Buddhist economics… there has to be a better way…

… made a nice vegetarian dinner and even used the Instant Pot… i don’t like the IP that much… it’s a time saving device mostly designed to help one be a last minute cook… still, it did make a lovely dish in perhaps a little less time than cooking with normal pots and pans… chickpeas and tomatoes with Indian type spicing… cumin, turmeric, Cinamon… i served it with basmati rice and a salad of radicchio, fennel and radish…

… no alcohol last night… the usual feeling much better this morning…

… we are steadily making our way through The Haunting of Hill House… we are more than half way through and just now getting to the place where scary stuff happens… so far, i am not very scared… i don’t think we will finish by Halloween, maybe a day or two after…

… i must not forget the chickens today… i have been a little off center since forgetting them last Saturday…

… i have begun the switch to Proton Mail… i have worked out a way to keep Proton Mail free of spam, i hope… my proton email address will only be shared with friends and family… gmail will be used to sign up for things… email from sources i actually want to see will be forwarded to the Proton mail account via my admin@studiombk.com address… the result so far is a very clean email experience in Proton… i am curious if the Proton email address will be harvested from someone using gmail to communicate with me?… it occurs to me, that everyone should continue to have my gmail address, i will just set up filters to forward their email to Proton… now i have to work out profiles to reply with…

First Thoughts

… morning off to a bad start… Chas whines until i get up… it’s almost time anyway… both dogs ready to go… running around the ground floor while i weigh myself and get dressed… weight on a steady upward trend… don’t feel like i have been eating too much, but the trend is the trend… then while doing the morning set up, the dogs prancing all over the place until the side table by the couch is knocked over… not hard to do, it is too tall for the three legged slenderness of its legs, making it wobble at the slightest touch… the crash startles and enrages me, WTF! i scream several times while turning on lights to see what damage has been done and return everything to it’s wobbly higher potential energy place1… H gets up to ask what’s going on… i explain and apologize for waking her up… i think she was up already anyway… Fiona slinks off to the second floor and back to bed with H… Chas braves my ill mood on the ground floor, then accompanies me upstairs… i let him in to the bedroom and then happily am by myself again, the house at peace…

HCR meter, Alarm! Alarm!, democracy is under assault… yes it is, and whether congress is going to do anything about it is a serious question… so far, it doesn’t look like it… all kinds of sinister shit going on… contemplating the need to get involved locally… it’s all hands on deck for the 2022 midterm elections… congress must stay in the hands of Dems…

… drank too much last night… feeling the effects this AM… combination of needing to relax in a very worryingly unsavory national climate and just liking the effects of a drink or two at night… during dinner H wonders if we should line up to get our free joint on Friday… a store is giving them out two Fridays a month… i am sure they will be selling when the state works out the appropriate licensing regulations… i thinking that might be a better way to relax… less unpleasant effects the next day?… or would i overdo that too?… i wonder if there is a legal limit to pot and driving?…


  1. I initially write “return everything to its higher entropy place,” then suspect that I have not understood entropy correctly… high entropy equals low level of order, though it is questionable that the concept applies at all to the situation… I look up entropy and find a wikipedia entry that explains in great detail what entropy is, without being very clear at all, but that is because entropy is a hard to grasp concept… ↩︎

First Thoughts

HCR meter, broken record, except, it’s a really important broken record… conservative forces that are in the minority are trying to seize control of the government… right now, they are on a track to succeed, unless, something is done about voting rights… will Manchin and Sinema come around to altering the filibuster?… no signs yet that they will…

… spent a bunch of time making my computer work better (more rapidly) and fussing with other issues, like my proton mail account which i am trying to make my email for correspondence with people i know… part of my withdrawal from Google… i have made decent progress on that front… oh, and i also installed Monterey, which appears to be not much of a change, except, shortcuts… i will be exploring the usefulness of shortcuts…

… COVID booster shot today… yay!

… the rain gave way to wind last night… no more rain for today, but more tomorrow and into the weekend…

… H woke up when i went to the bathroom and worried that the tree of life would be blown down… i told her there wasn’t enough wind to do that… she said the ground was saturated… i didn’t reply but maintained my position in my thoughts… if it ever did come down it could be a problem… it’s huge and would easily reach our or our neighbor’s house if it fell in either direction…

… i am trying to forward email from my mkriegh@studiombk.com email account to Proton, but so far, it hasn’t worked… it keeps going through gmail… and then i figured it out… i had two studiombk email addresses and had only configured the admin one to forward to Proton… i log into the mkriegh one and discover that lots of stuff goes through it from apple and adobe… so much for not having that email spammed… still, it is better than gmail which is spammed beyond belief…

… the wind blowing outside… a rushing sound…

First Thoughts

… heavy rain last night… woke up intermittently to the sounds of splashing water… gutters that are clogged and overflowing?… don’t think it’s our gutters… the houses next door?…

HCR meter, interesting and disturbing… more and more information coming out about January 06, the administration of 45 and Facebook… a lot of evil afoot… it’s more and more likely that the insurrection was planned… Republican House members are implicated… 45 is implicated… there seems to be a “festering turd” pile of rich conservatives trying to cement power towards an autocracy… HCR points to 1903 as the last time the wealthy made such a significant play for control at the expense of democracy… it was turned back then… there is no guarantee it will be now… even so, with so much coming out, there is plenty for the people to act on and a number of actors intent on doing that… hoping the people prevail again…

… made Moela (or Moelas, as a Portuguese contact spelled it) last night… chicken gizzards… it’s a good way to make them… H is not a fan of gizzards in general but said she liked this dish, as she has in the past… it wasn’t quite spicy enough… omitted crushed red pepper in favor of two fresh poblano peppers instead of the one called for… the long cooking tempered the heat of the poblanos to the point of non existence… should have kept the crushed red pepper… next time… my Portuguese contact has promised to compare my recipe to his mother’s and let me know of differences…

… there will be no photo walk today… rain all day… not really interested in a photo drive as i used to do on such days… will just skip the day in photograph making and focus on processing and other photography practice objectives…

… i over-drank last night… not badly, but enough to feel effects… sigh… it’s a struggle…

… i remember that D and K are coming for dinner on Friday… i remember that there is money owed me… will this be the day i communicate with people such that it will come to me?… i have been oddly resistant to doing that… in one case, i am not ready to start the work again… or at least hesitant about doing so… in the other i am unclear of the price i should ask… anyway… lets make a pact with ourselves and get it done today, shall we?…

… i couldn’t resist… started the download of OS Monterey… several hours of wait and watch i expect…

First Thoughts

… H’s bday a success, including gift i was worried about but had gambled on because i thought she would love it… and she did…

… my wireless keyboard is suddenly having sticky keys… a while back i spilled coffee on it and keys got sticky so i couldn’t use it… then i tried it and it was a lot better… now sticky again… the cold weather?…

… we drove to a really nice farm stand yesterday… would love to see it in full season… came back with a bunch of goodies… including really fresh ginger, garlic, some pasta, some mutton merguez sausage…

… HCR meter pointing up… largely about the epic battle Liz Cheney is waging on the crazies that have taken over the Republican party… apparently she is doing quite well with fundraising and the January 6th committee, which she co-chairs, is increasingly implicating 45 as having been intimately involved in the insurrection… of course, there are a bunch of people who haven’t lost their souls to the batshit crazy and always thought he was responsible…

… started reading the Haunting of Hill House to H last night… the goal is to try to finish by Halloween… not sure we will make it… more than 20 pages a night… if i forgo the alcohol, we might…

… i check the weather, need to harvest whatever herbs i will harvest today… rain and cold coming…

HCR Meter

… a pivotal moment?… the Freedom to Vote Act will be voted on by the Senate… this is the measure Manchin says he can get ten republican senators to vote for, thus passing the legislation without tanking the filibuster… there is no sign those ten votes will materialize…

… HCR tells us the fate of democracy hangs in the balance… either some form of voting rights legislation passes, or there will be, effectively, a one party system “that, at best, will look much like the American South did between 1876 and 1964”1

… that we are here at all is amazing to me… if we don’t get voting rights legislation, if we become a minority ruled oligarchy or authoritarian country, i will have no desire to live here but may not have much choice… i also think our retired life might be threatened as there were rumblings of doing away with Social Security entirely at the end of 45’s administration…

… we’d be in a pickle, though, hopefully, by then, our mortgage will be paid off…


  1. Richardson, Heather Cox: https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/p/october-15-2021 ↩︎

HCR Meter

… hopeful signs?…

… the appearance, at least, that nooses are tightening… Bannon being held in contempt of congress… 45 wanting to challenge January 6 select committee authority but struggling to lawyer up… bad reputation on several fronts appears to be dogging him… courts siding with opponents of 45 and 45 administration…

… this morning’s post allows me to hope that the whole gang can be brought down before the 2022 election cycle which might minimize ability of Republicans to make gains…

… oddly, conservatives battering Biden/Harris with supply chain paranoia, claiming Christmas will see package delays of epic proportions… i remember last year… packages did not arrive on time… arrived weeks late…

HCR Meter

… things aren’t all bad…

… some things the Biden/Harris admin has accomplished that have flown under the radar:

  • 130 nations have agreed to a minimum global tax rate of 15% for companies with an annual income of $866 million… this will move a good deal of money into the coffers of governments around the world…
  • The Biden/Harris admin has also struck a deal with various players in private industry to relive the supply chain slowdowns…
  • Vaccine mandates appear to be working… more people are getting vaccinated, rate of infection is down, COVID19 deaths are down…
  • Border restrictions have been lifted for the vaccinated at the Mexican and Canadian borders…

HCR Meter, Slow Moving Coup

… about two op-eds by Republicans or former Republicans… all sensible Republicans should vote Democrat until the existential crisis is over… Bill Maher aired a monologue1 in which he says bluntly, 45 will run and will be nominated by the Republican Party in 2024 which will lead to a constitutional crisis of epic proportions… it’s worth finding and watching… we, apparently, faced a similar threat leading up to the civil war… something happening here, what it is is pretty clear… to paraphrase a CSNY song…


  1. Starts at about minute 47 ↩︎

HCR meter

… not smoke, fire…

… about the debt ceiling fight, 45’s control of the Republican Party, the efforts of a hyper-radicalized minority to seize control of the country…

… we are heading towards a full bore constitutional crisis that will play out in the next two election cycles… 2022 will give us a good idea of where the country stands…

… Democrats have the power to reign it in, if they become willing to alter, limit or abolish the filibuster… so far they have not been willing to do that, but the debt ceiling will present itself as a continued battle in December that may require it… will Senators Sinema and Manchin get on board?… or will they go down in history as the two senators that could have stopped authoritarian rule but didn’t?…

… the country has been to this kind of precipice before… the last time a civil war broke out…

… it seems we come to the precipice periodically and manage to preserve democracy, albeit at great cost… will it be preserved now?… hard to know…

HCR Meter

I’m a professor of American history. This is a chronicle of today’s political landscape, but because you can’t get a grip on today’s politics without an outline of America’s Constitution, and laws, and the economy, and social customs, this newsletter explores what it means, and what it has meant, to be an American.1

… a friend wrote on FB that his day gets off to a good or bad start depending on what Heather Cox Richardson has to say… the above is from her about page… you can subscribe to her six, sometimes seven days a week posts here… she says, in her one paragraph personal statement, that she believes in Democracy “despite its frequent failures”2… at the present time, this makes her liberal… in fact, i would argue that believing in democracy is becoming a radical act… would be authoritarian rulers are gaming the democratic system at home in an effort to overturn it, all the while claiming they are protecting the “American way of life”… authoritarian regimes around the planet are betting that it isn’t facile enough to keep up with the rapid pace of technological and social change…

… following my FB friend’s lead, reading HCR has become a daily habit… i started including daily HCR meter statements with some commentary a while back… i have decide to separate them out into their own daily post…

… this morning HCR discusses the noose that is trying to close around 45 and high level figures in his administration… is accountability coming?… i don’t know… i would like to think so, but the inability of congress to impeach 45 and the failure of the Muller report to lead to any repercussions for 45 and his cronies has made me skeptical that our systems of accountability is up to the challenge of wealthy and well connected individuals… at this point i see the main purpose of our justice system as keeping the “little people” in line while the rich and powerful do whatever they want… this is not a particularly new observation, it’s just that it has only recently become apparent to me… my blindness results from my white middle class maleness… i want to be proven wrong… i hope i am proven wrong…


  1. Richardson, Heather Cox, about: https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/about?utm_source=menu-dropdown&sort=about ↩︎

  2. Richardson, Heather Cox, about: https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/about?utm_source=menu-dropdown&sort=people ↩︎

First Thoughts

… in the end we all fail… we fail because we all die and staying alive has been the point all along…

… last night i found myself wishing i had the energy to write an end of day journal entry… it seems days should begin and end with some thoughts about how things are, how things went and how i hope they might go tomorrow… or perhaps some commentary on the political shit show… or perhaps i will have read or accomplished something significant…

… which i did in the sense that whenever you keep life in order something significant has happened…

… yesterday i got up, wrote in my journal, read and wrote in my journal some more, went for my photowalk, made breakfast, sorted out some bill paying issues, edited some photographs, did the laundry, did some more photo editing, made a lovely and very tasty dinner… then we watched a couple of episodes of Maid, a Netflix series we like… except, i get really frustrated with the young woman protagonist who’s life continuously falls apart as soon as it’s put together… she makes bad choices (as much as i know free will is a questionable proposition, it seems i continue to believe there are choices to be consciously made)… almost everyone in her life is a disaster and their disasters constantly overtake her too… last night i had to turn it off i got so angry with her… when i like a program series i get emotionally invested in the characters… i especially get invested in characters struggling against the odds, the underdog characters — i know, me and the rest of humanity — who triumph in spite of all the beatings they take from the cosmos because, never-the-less, they persist and something does come of it…

… i suppose human mythology contains plenty of warnings that in life we don’t prevail… Job or Sisyphus, or just plain every man or woman as represented by Willie Loman in death of a salesman and Blanche DuBois in streetcar named desire…

… this hero’s journey thing is pretty engrained in our psyches… i expect it has a survival of the species purpose… we all need to see ourselves as heroes prevailing against the cosmic headwinds of life… except, so many of us get to the end and we are disappointed with the results of our efforts… we ask ourselves what it all meant and the answer to that question is not satisfying… i wonder if it is any more satisfying for an individual who can say their lives truly made a difference to humanity, Einstein, Jonas Salk, Newton, Simone De Beauvoir… maybe not… in the end we all fail… we fail because we all die and staying alive has been the point all along…

… when i review my life i realize i have generally had it good… i have never been destitute… i didn’t and don’t live in a war torn or third world country (yet)… i have made choices that didn’t go well, but always struggled with the results and turned them out as well as i could which was generally in a positive direction…

… at this place in my life my only big complaint is that it should have meant more in the grand scheme of things… my minor complaint is that i was saddled with a very inadequate human being for a father… the repercussions of that were extensive though M and siblings put the better face on it… M observed to me recently that we were “such polar opposites”… we were… how’s that for bad Karma?… to be saddled with a child who’s every choice in life seems to be a repudiation of the way you lived yours?… i suppose it’s something of an accomplishment to get to a place where i accepted there would never be a decent relationship between us, and there never was…

… the HCR meter today was in positive territory i suppose… the debt ceiling got raised, the stock market rebounded, there continue to be revelations about January 06, 2021 and 45’s administration… i would like to believe there will be accountability in the end, but 45’s impeachment trials put an end to my belief in our republic’s ability to enforce consequences on the rich and/or powerful… the system is rigged in their favor and exists principally to keep the common folk in order…

First Thoughts

we should make what we make and let the cosmos decide what will come of it…

… i have began to reorganize my photography web presence… i pointed studiombk.com away from my current Wordpress site and back to my old Adobe Portfolio site… the reason i had moved to a Wordpress site was to be able to keep a live journal (called “Daybook”) in an easier way… then i started using Ulysses as a writing tool, which led me to micro.blog which quickly became my journaling outlet, now called Notes On Attention Paid… once that was done, i went to set up Plausible Analytics with it and discovered a rub… i couldn’t track activity on the Adobe Portfolio site without using Google Analytics, which has become part of the evil big tech empire in my opinion… moreover, the use of Google Analytics required a banner saying so with a button that forced a visitor to opt in to being tracked… i found a lot of people wouldn’t do that and the bounce rate on the site was higher because of it… i will fly with no tracking… it caused me irritation when there wasn’t much traffic (there never has been to any of the various sites i have maintained over the years)… it also had a tendency to influence content, if they liked that i will do more of that… this is not what art production should be grounded in… we should make what we make and let the cosmos decide what will come of it…

HCR meter, a step back from the precipice, for the time being anyway… Mitch McConnel will allow the Dems to raise the debt ceiling until December… which will clear the way for them to pass the infrastructure bills they have been hammering out… good news, i suppose, though i had been hoping the situation would get so dire they would do away with the filibuster… the time is long gone when a minority party should be able to stop legislation that is popular but which some don’t like… i am willing to fly with no filibuster for anything… if we use the freedom to pass some voting rights legislation, democracy will be in control for a long time…

… yesterday felt a little more disjointed in the things accomplished… still, a steady list of things to be done is being worked through and i feel good about it… i only wish that H did more to help… they spend much of the day communicating with friends and acquaintances on FB and Instagram, with the news playing in the background… i move on with the variety of things i want to see done… maybe someday they will realize they need to help…

… been feeling a vague malaise… not lacking in energy, just not feeling physically happy… not sure what its about… possibly connected to alcohol consumption… the only day in the past month i have felt great was the day after a day i had no alcohol… i caved last night and bought a bottle of blended scotch and had a couple before dinner… kombucha with dinner… i didn’t overdo it, but still feel physically unhappy today…

First Thoughts

… woke at 5 AM… that is sleeping late for me… busy day yesterday… lots got done… another busy day today…

… made beach rose hip jam yesterday… actually more of a marmalade…

… my first successful BR jam… tried last year but managed to burn the sugar…

HCR meter, country approaching the precipice… Mitch McConnel has lost control of his caucus?… are there those who would really see the country crash and burn because they could rebuild it as an oligarchy or with authoritarian control?… i believe the conditions are being set for Manchin and Synema to blow away the filibuster… if this happens, a floodgate of legislation that should drown radical Republicans and wash them out to the sea… one can only hope… in the meantime, our retirement life hangs in the balance…

… i had the thought this morning, its actually been hanging out in the recesses of my consciousness for a while, that 45 will return as a Hitleresque leader and Tucker Carlson will be his henchman, the one who sets up the concentration camps… this might seem outlandish, but i see a host of characters on the far right that would readily fill the roles of Nazi German government… Steve Bannon would be head of the SS… it doesn’t take me to any kind of happy place to be having these thoughts…

… sirens in the distance… many sirens… police, fire trucks, i am wondering what is going on… if it’s big, i will find out later…