Otter Play Date

May 26, 2023

Saturday I was out with a group and we saw an otter. It was running out of a marshy stream into the woods, bounding quickly.

Otters to me represent play. About twenty years ago, in late winter, I was trudging along a seldom used path with a friend and we saw three otters playing in an icy stream. They would float on their backs, dive under the water, chase and scare each other – they were having a great time.

It’s Memorial Weekend, the start of summer, and I’m ready to cut loose. The licensing board disallowed 1/4 of my CEU credits, for totally bogus reasons I could not have foreseen, and I had to scramble this month to come up with enough before my license expired. Just when I thought I was done and could relax a little: more boring courses. The most painful part was all the patronizing rich girl MSW’s on a teaching mission to proselytize about preferred language on some surprising topics. I use cognitive restructuring in therapy, rephrasing problems to help clients achieve their goals, but I think this is a completely unethical trend, this cognitive restructuring on a societal level by supposed experts without the permission of ordinary people. It’s a power and control game, and it certainly won’t fly with the working class clientele I deal with. They like plain straightforward language and are rightly suspicious of constantly changing “preferred” terms. What a load of nonsense I’ve been dealing with this year!

So my compelled dumb useless classes are finally done for awhile and I really truly am ready for some down time. I’m like an otter: full of energy I’m determined to direct in enjoyable ways.

Photo: Tom Koerner, US Fish & Wildlife Service

It’s finally feeling like spring

May 19, 2023

Black fly season in the Adirondacks is quite beautiful, even when it feels like a bite on the neck. I’ve had difficulty adjusting to a head net in the past, but this year it has felt surprisingly comfortable.

Not many hikers here at the moment, and I have the woods to myself. The birds are back, though. One of my favorite sounds is the drumming of the male ruffed grouse. I’ve never actually seen him do this, but I’ve heard him often enough.

Busy Beaver

May 11, 2023

It’s looking good for my social work license. I have the continuing education hours and the money for renewal. Over 100 hours! It’s been a marathon. Some great new spring photos coming soon!

An Adirondack Spring

April 14, 2023
Eastern Bluebird. Photo William H Majoros

Well, the warm weather has arrived. Temperatures in the mid-70s melt the snow in the roads and the fields, at least in the lower elevations. There is a constant roar from swollen streams and rivers. I hear it even at home indoors. Backwoods activities are approached with caution, as rising stream levels can cut off retreat.

I saw the first Turkey Vulture of the season this past week. Bluebirds are singing. I heard the first Northern Goshawk last week and retreated, with perhaps an overabundance of caution. They’re courting, not nesting, right now.

Wild animals, like humans, are much more active. Yesterday and today, while cycling in the woods, I heard my favorite songbird, the Winter Wren. It will continue singing through the Summer Solstice.

Winter Wren. Photo Fyn Kynd

A snowy spring day

April 4, 2023

You guys are probably ready for flowers and leafy trees, but this is what it looks like here in the Adirondacks on the second week of spring.

Even so, there are noticeable changes, more than just the longer days. Crows and ravens are more active.

There is open water, reflecting the warmer days interspersed in the heavy snowfalls. With the open water comes ducks and geese.

Redbirds begin singing and Chickadees become much more vocal.

Not many tourists this time of year. It is a time of quiet waiting.

On Racket Lake

March 19, 2023

This is a photo of Racket Lake. It’s called that because the snowmobiles make a big racket when they speed over the ice.

Actually that’s not true.

Filters have been applied to this cropped photo to make it wuzzier and more sherbert flavorful. The lake is spelled Raquette, not Racket, and it’s supposedly named for a pile of snowshoes, raquettes in French, found at the confluence of the water. At least this is the origin given by the area’s museum, Adirondack Experience.

Since people in positions of authority are, in 2023, the most likely to be repeating a mistaken belief, I looked up the word and found raquettes to indeed be the word for snowshoes in French. Whether abandoned raquettes were the inspiration for the name is still up for grabs, but the explanation is at least plausible. If I were going to write an authoritative tome on Raquette Lake (sans the final “s,” please note), I would seek historical documents attesting to the longevity of the name and the presence of French-speaking persons in the area at the time the word arose. If a contemporary account of a such a story was extant, I would cite this derivation in my Raquette Lake exposition, perhaps simply as anecdote or with a caveat. In other words, I would employ some conscientious skepticism. The explanation I threw out first about the name is, of course, patently absurd.

Our perceptions of the world are like a cropped photo, limited by where we stand and blurred by our perspective, which is never absolutely sharp. Furthermore, our experience is a lens we place over everything we encounter, lending the landscape a color unique to us.

But a distortion of reality (and we all have them) is not the same as a delusion. When confronted with a piece of information that sharpens the focus or clarifies the color, people usually make the adjustment without difficulty. This is how a subjective understanding that is rooted in objective reality changes and evolves. Experience teaches us that we don’t have a perfect understanding of reality, so we are able to shift our view, just a bit.

A delusional picture of Raquette Lake, on the other hand, might look like this

or this

or even this

Delusions do not accept skepticism or withstand scrutiny. When confronted with evidence that doesn’t fit into a delusion, people tend to defend the delusion. The defensiveness is a clue that there is a wholly false idea imbedded in the consciousness, and people express this defensiveness by censorship. It is especially hard for people to examine a delusion if it benefits them materially or socially. As evidence increases, despite efforts to shut down discussion, some people experience greater and greater distress until the delusion dissolves. Others fall too deeply into the delusion to swim out. I call this racket, where some are deluded, others are too apathetic to know what a delusion is, and others are forced to endure lies, “Racket Lake.”

What’s in a name? as Shakespeare once said, and stoned philosophers repeat often, thinking they’ve said something new. I suppose we could call this Raquette Lake

but it’s kind of stupid, and most people who already have seen Raquette Lake (or even seen a lake) would agree only if they were forced. Language does evolve, though it’s being willfully mutilated at the moment by the gender studies departments and their black-hooded minions. Still, that’s not exactly what I’m talking about here. The con goes even deeper. What I’m saying is that this

is not this

The ice on Racket Lake is rather thin. Mass delusions are dangerous for the apostates and the appeasers and the true believers. You may face consequences from the fearful or the powerful or the powerfully fearful for telling the truth. Then again, you may continue peddling delusions without recognizing that the weather has shifted. Because being forced to play along with delusions has the curious effect of making people value the truth. Falsehoods cannot survive forever for this reason.

People who endured decades of repression in Eastern Europe under Soviet domination maintain that although they suffered from economic stagnation, bureaucratic corruption, and lack of communication with the outside world, the worst part of the experience was playing along with the disinformation: stifling their observations; pretending to believe things they didn’t believe; honoring people they detested. Those who escaped scolded us in the West for not appreciating our freedom.

Now we in the US are being coerced into accepting that men can be lesbians. That castrating children is medical care. That sex stereotypes are carved in granite as “gender” while sex itself is sculpted in ice. That being male or female is “fluid” while your ideas about yourself are your very existence.

Well, the world is heating up. How solid is the ground under your feet (and how deep is the water)? We shall see.

It’s only temporary….

March 2, 2023

So I’ve been busy since the start of the year getting ready for my social work license renewal.

I haven’t been practicing in the field for a few years, so there’s lots of catch up to do. I don’t mind the continuing education, as far as it goes, but it is keeping me from my writing and keeping me inside quite a bit.

Fortunately, it’s been a terrible year for outdoor activities, swinging from bitter cold to rain and back again for many weeks. This is the kind of weather I grew up with in Ohio, and it makes even an outdoor winter person want to stay indoors. So I’m not missing too much. If you HAVE to do 101 continuing education hours in five months, on top of your job, this is the time to do it.

The job is very part time, so I’m not working and studying all the time. But there’s only so much time I can spend in front of the computer, with my pain issues, so the writing is taking a back seat. Temporarily.

The Train

February 17, 2023

I feel like I should say something about the toxic chemical spill from the train derailment in East Palestine, Ohio, but I don’t know what to say. Is it bad or is it really bad or is it really really bad? The reports of people in the area continue to be at variance to what public officials are saying.

On February 3rd, during the night, a train carrying vinyl chloride and other chemicals derailed, causing a toxic spill in a rural area of northeastern Ohio. People within a mile of the derailment were evacuated immediately. Then a few days later, the evacuation area was three miles.

Toxic gases were intentionally released into the air soon after the spill, and a few days later a “controlled burn” of the chemicals was executed. This released a mushroom cloud of toxins. The purported justification of the burn was to avoid an explosion. Now some have suggested that it was done to open the railroad as soon as possible.

Two days after the burn, residents were told they could return home, with local officials warning them not to drink the water for a day. They returned to an apocalyptic landscape, with thousands of dead fish in the water. The fumes burned their throats and their stock animals were sick or dying or dead. Wildlife also died, and the birds left. Residents were told a few days later that the water was safe to drink and no chemicals were detected in the air. But the smell, the dead animals, and the nausea they experienced have made the public mistrusting of officials.

While sympathies go out to the communities near East Palestine, the proximity of the spill to the Ohio River is the bigger concern. Vinyl Chloride is a chemical that takes a very very very long time to degrade. Like, not in your or my lifetime. How this will affect the health and ecology of Ohio, Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Kentucky, and Indiana is unknown. The biggest unknown is what chemicals exactly were released during the burn.

Ohio Governor Mike DeWine, the Biden administration, the EPA, and the corporate media offer reassurances that the area of the spill is safe and so is the Ohio River watershed. The reports of people on the ground, including journalists who have traveled to the area, differ.

Here is Erin Brockovich talking about the spill. Listen to the first seven minutes or so at least.

Not entirely ready to forgive Roseanne (but I’m going to try)

February 11, 2023

I’m not entirely ready to forgive Roseanne. I think she’s rewriting history a bit. I don’t believe that she didn’t know that the target of her Twitter “joke” was Black. Her apology doesn’t sound sincere, after seeing the clip of her show. She def had Clinton derangement syndrome and had been mean and nasty for a long time toward anyone who supported the Clintons. It was only a matter of time before she crossed the line into something completely unacceptable, like a racist tweet.

Photo: Jonathan Mauer

On the other hand, canceling her show was a bit over the top, and an overly harsh sentence can obliterate feelings of contrition. Her comment could have sparked the “national conversation about race” that Obama said we needed to have. We’re not having the conversation. People of all races are mostly too afraid to question or to discuss racism freely, while the most psychopathic among us indulge in unproductive character assassination to play for the crowd.

I don’t know Roseanne and haven’t followed her closely enough to know if she’s a racist. (I read her autobiography, which was interesting.) I certainly can’t defend what she tweeted, though I’m not onboard with the “woke” definition of racist, which seems to be any person who makes any comment which betrays ignorance of any piece of Black history or culture or sociological statistical studies. I have run across too many people who really do believe in the superiority of the “white race” to countenance the word being irresponsibly disseminated (and potentially watered down) as fodder for Robin D’Angelo’s corporate-sponsored moral industry.

And I am very upset about problems in the US being racialized in order to be non-addressed. Poverty and income-inequality (related, but not exactly the same) contribute in a big way to problems facing the majority of African-Americans, as they do most Americans, and the US really really doesn’t want address poverty. The wealthy and well-connected want to racialize it – to police language and educate individuals with no clout in the system about systemic racism. I can understand why orgs devoted to addressing political issues of African Americans would be specifically interested in Black poverty and Black victims of police brutality and Black preventable health problems. But I see what universities, corporate media, and the men who control this country’s wealth are doing here, and I call foul. They don’t really want to address poverty or incarceration or violence or infant mortality. They want to Christian it a Black issue and prescribe another anti-racism seminar for the cogs and proto-cogs in the corporate machine. They want to crow with the Twitter mob and pat themselves on the back for being “progressive.”

I guess I do want to forgive Roseanne, because I want to move on. I hope she doesn’t make any more thoughtless racist remarks, though I’m not hopeful. She doesn’t strike me as a person who lives a self-examined life, and yet she lives under a public microscope more than most celebrities. She’s old and fat and loud and disagreeable and men of all classes – but especially rich white men – don’t like her.

Which is why she’s such a conundrum when she’s also wrong.