New Year Musings

Happy New Year!

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It isn't clear how 2021 is going to turn out. The political fissures that grew in 2020 are not going to go away any time soon. American social glue is weak and ways to repair it are not clear. Unfounded conspiracy theories tend to be more persuasive than reality for an angry, insurgent radical right minority. Inconvenient facts, truths and reasoning are all weak and unpersuasive in the eyes of that warring tribe.  

By now it is obvious that an angry minority of Americans have lost some or most of their trust in democracy, including the recent election. They have been persuaded by decades of ruthless propaganda that more authoritarianism and Christianity in government and society generally is their preferred way forward. 

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Given the circumstances, what makes sense? Since appeals to facts and reason are generally ineffective with the angry minority, an emphasis on appeals to emotions and morals seems to make more sense going forward. That calls for a different kind of rhetoric. Of course, one can argue that reliance on a different kind of rhetoric (1) capitulates to unwarranted and unjustified means of interaction, and (2) undermines the proper role of facts and reason in politics. It also raises the issue of the morality. If one resorts to lies, deceit, unwarranted emotional manipulation and partisan motivated reasoning, that is a win for darkness and ignorance and a loss for facts, reason and honest democracy. 

What to do differently, if anything, is not clear. I'm personally uncomfortable with significantly abandoning facts and reasoning, which tend to be more objective than dealing with emotions and morals. And, I don't know how to directly speak to emotions and morals.

Some time to cogitate on this is called for. Maybe over the next few days or weeks, something will emerge from the fog.

Normal Everyday Lies From Normal Everyday Liars

Three separate examples illustrate what is normal for politics and political discourse among some in the US and elsewhere. This has been going on for at least decades, but for some reason, personally it feels different and worse than before. Maybe it feels that way because it is that way. Or, maybe it feels that way because knowledge of it is so clear and discouraging.

Stephanie Mohr - presidentially pardoned thug

Hey Sarge, we got a new dog. Mind if it gets a bite? -- He only needed 10 stitches

An opinion piece in the Washington Post discusses the president’s pardon of a police officer, Stephanie Mohr, who was ordered to let her police dog attack a homeless person surrounded by police. The homeless person posed no threat and was in full compliance will all orders the police had given to him. The dog attack was just a test for a new dog to see how it would work out: “A police sergeant later testified that he was approached by Mohr’s supervising officer who said, ‘Hey Sarge, we got a new dog. Mind if it gets a bite?’” In court Mohr downplayed the incident, commenting that the victim needed “only 10 stitches.”

This incident occurred in 2001. The opinion piece was written by Alex Busansky, the former lawyer in the Justice Department’s civil rights division who prosecuted Mohr. Busansky described the incident, the lies by Mohr that led to the pardon, and the lies in the president’s pardon like this:

This was no accident or split-second mistake. It was a willful and deliberate act of police brutality. It was also not Mohr’s first — and there was a pattern to the violence. Evidence at trial showed that Mohr had previously released her dog on a Black teenager sleeping in a hammock in his own backyard. She had threatened the relatives of a fugitive that she would let her dog attack their “black ass” if they did not tell her where he was.

In early December, Mohr made a direct appeal to the president for a pardon by going on Newsmax. She spewed falsehoods about the case, claiming she had been made a scapegoat. Nothing could be further from the truth.

The White House statement announcing her pardon noted that it reflected her “service and the lengthy term that Ms. Mohr served in prison,” adding, “Officer Mohr was a highly commended member of the police force prior to her prosecution.” Actually, she had been sued at least four times for brutality, was twice found to have made false statements to a superior and was flagged as a potential problem officer by the department’s early warning system.

Russia & COVID

Lying about pandemic deaths - fire the statistician

The New York Times reports that COVID-19 deaths in Russia are much higher than officially reported. This comes as no surprise. Experts have been saying for months that the official death toll has been too low in view of the number of reported infections. Like the US president, Russian dictator Putin has not treated the pandemic seriously because, also like the US president, he does not care about the well-being of Russian citizens. Statistical data triples Russia’s Covid-19 death toll. Despite the newly released data, the Russian government still refuses to release the actual death toll. The NYT writes:

The statistics agency said 230,000 more people died through November of this year than did in 2019, a hike attributable to the virus.

After months of questions over the true scale of the coronavirus pandemic in Russia and the efficacy of a Russian-developed vaccine, the state statistical agency in Moscow has announced new figures indicating that the death toll from Covid-19 is more than three times as high as officially reported.

From the start of the pandemic early this year, the health crisis has been enveloped and, say critics, distorted by political calculations as President Vladimir V. Putin and Kremlin-controlled media outlets have repeatedly boasted of Russian successes in combating the virus and keeping the fatality rate relatively low.

But the release of the data received little coverage on state media and the news was crowded out by upbeat reports ahead of a lengthy national holiday to celebrate the new year. State television focused on what it said was the eagerness of foreign countries, especially Belarus, to roll out a vaccine developed in Russia.  

Russia has reported more than 3 million cases of infection, making it the world’s fourth-hardest-hit country, but only 55,827 deaths, fewer than in seven other countries. A demographer at a government agency who questioned the official fatality figures, dismissing them as far too low, was fired over the summer.

China & COVID: We are not gonna tell you what we know

Like the US president and Russian dictator Putin, the Chinese government does not care much about the well-being of people, at least ones outside China. The AP reports that the Chinese government has shut down access to research information on the origins of the SARS-CoV-2 virus. This is an example of government lying by withholding information. The AP writes: 

Deep in the lush mountain valleys of southern China lies the entrance to a mine shaft that once harbored bats with the closest known relative of the COVID-19 virus.

The area is of intense scientific interest because it may hold clues to the origins of the coronavirus that has killed more than 1.7 million people worldwide. Yet for scientists and journalists, it has become a black hole of no information because of political sensitivity and secrecy.

A bat research team visiting recently managed to take samples but had them confiscated, two people familiar with the matter said. Specialists in coronaviruses have been ordered not to speak to the press. And a team of Associated Press journalists was tailed by plainclothes police in multiple cars who blocked access to roads and sites in late November.

More than a year since the first known person was infected with the coronavirus, an AP investigation shows the Chinese government is strictly controlling all research into its origins, clamping down on some while actively promoting fringe theories that it could have come from outside China.  

The government is handing out hundreds of thousands of dollars in grants to scientists researching the virus’ origins in southern China and affiliated with the military, the AP has found. But it is monitoring their findings and mandating that the publication of any data or research must be approved by a new task force managed by China’s cabinet, under direct orders from President Xi Jinping, according to internal documents obtained by The AP. A rare leak from within the government, the dozens of pages of unpublished documents confirm what many have long suspected: The clampdown comes from the top.

People Are Sharing Photoshopped Pictures Of Trump — Again

 The doctored image makes Trump appear larger than his actual size.

An image of President Donald Trump that has been photoshopped to make him appear larger than he is has gone viral, with many Twitter users sharing the image as if it were accurate

"I don’t think William Barr resigned...I think @realDonaldTrump ate him guys," tweeted one person, in a tweet that's been shared more than 800 times.

The original photo was taken June 28 by AFP/Getty photographer Nicholas Kamm. As you can see in a side-by-side comparison, in the viral image, Trump's appearance has been altered to make his stomach and neck larger.

This isn't the first time that photoshopped images of Trump have gone viral as if they were real.In fact, throughout the four years of his presidency, there have been a number of controversies concerning widely shared images of him that were later proven to be photoshopped.

As the image of so-called fat Trump began to spread, people on Twitter began to call out those sharing the image for spreading misinformation.

"I hate this motherfucker more than anything, but this is a photoshop  of a real photo from June and you forfeit your right to complain about disinformation if you can’t be bothered not to spread it," writer and comedian Daniel Kibblesmith wrote in a tweet comparing the original and doctored photos.

However, even before the image was debunked, people started calling out those sharing the image for body-shaming under the guise of criticizing Trump.

"Goddammit. I hate this shit because now I gotta defend trump. There are a million reasons #TrumpIsNotWell, but we’re gonna rag on him for being fat?" one person tweeted. "Your fat friends, family, coworkers see this & it doesn’t make them feel great. Let’s stick to the ACTUAL reasons why Trump sux."

"It doesn't matter that he mocks other people or that he lies about his weight," Hollowell added. "This isn't the GOTCHA you think it is, you're just fatphobic."

jules rylan ✡︎

@radiantbutch

tw: fatphobia extremely unfriendly reminder that donald trump will never see this kind of shit, but all your fat friends will.

ken olin

@kenolin1

My god, he’s actually inflating.

5:51 AM · Dec 29, 2020

282

56 people are Tweeting about this

"Trump isn’t bad because he’s fat, he’s bad because he’s a fascist," Rylan wrote in a follow-up tweet. "Think about what you’re actually trying to criticize before you hurt every fat person who sees your reckless words."

https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/ellievhall/trump-viral-photoshop-fat-fake-twitter

American Social Unease

Is there going to be a calm?

A topic of intense personal interest is what is going on in people's heads. What are they thinking, feeling and why. IMO, the social glues that used to hold us together have been attacked by the radical right for DECADES. The glues are seriously weakened or broken entirely. Partisan political distrust is slowly destroying American democracy and the concept of the rule of law. Apparently, some other people seem to be having similar thoughts. AP writes in an article, A divided nation asks: What’s holding our country together?:

Weeks after the votes have been counted and the winners declared, many Americans remain angry, defiant and despairing. Millions now harbor new grievances borne of President Donald Trump’s baseless claims of election fraud. Many Democrats are saddened by results that revealed the opposition to be far more powerful than they imagined.

And in both groups there are those grappling with larger, more disquieting realizations: The foundations of the American experiment have been shaken — by partisan rancor, disinformation, a president’s assault on democracy and a deadly coronavirus pandemic.

There is a sense of loss.

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Trump immediately began sowing doubts about the vote, tossing out specious claims of fraud. Tens of millions of Americans — 36 percent of Republicans in a recent Fox News poll — now believe the claims that the election was rigged and he was the rightful winner.

“I think the election was totally paid for and rigged by the Democrats. I believe there was huge amounts of fraud and representation and illegal processing,” said Pamela Allen, a 72-year-old retiree from Holiday, Florida, who has supported Trump since he came down the escalator in Trump Tower in 2015 to announce his candidacy.

Allen, who worked as a poll watcher in Pasco County, said she saw no problems on Election Day.

“Here in Pasco I have to admit it was very well done,” she said. But she believes things she’s seen on the conservative Trump-favored Newsmax about alleged voter fraud in other states. She is “baffled” as to why Attorney General William Barr didn’t arrest anyone, and “amazed” that the Supreme Court didn’t rule in Trump’s favor. Barr, viewed by Democrats as a staunch Trump loyalist, instead made clear before leaving his job that he had seen no evidence of widespread fraud.

Allen believes that if Biden takes office, he will retire quickly, leaving the presidency to Vice President-elect Kamala Harris. She also thinks House Speaker Nancy Pelosi will become vice president. However, Allen hopes Trump will prevail prior to Inauguration Day, Jan. 20.

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In suburban Michigan, a coalition of suburban women achieved what it set out to do — help evict Trump from the White House. But Lori Goldman, in Oakland County, Michigan, who runs the group Fems for Dems, can’t shake the sense that the mission now is more critical than it’s ever been.

“We got rid of this blight, this cancer,” said Goldman, 61. “We cut him out. But we know that cancer has spread, it’s spread to soft tissue, other organs. And now we have to save the rest of the body.”

Trump isn’t gone, not really, she said. She is horrified at the number of Americans who believe his unsubstantiated claims of widespread voter fraud.

“That’s a dangerous, dangerous place to be in,” she said. “This country is in a lot of trouble.”

It feels to her that the United States is caught in a period of great transition. The bright, progressive future she longs for seems inevitable. But she thinks a large portion of America would prefer to turn back the clock.

Goldman can’t understand why 74 million Americans voted for Trump. She went on national television and said she was ashamed that most of her own relatives were among them. Now some of her siblings don’t want to talk to her anymore.

To her, this is a microcosm of one of the greatest challenges this country has faced: that tribalized politics has pitted people against each other in a way far more profound than ever before. It is no longer Republicans versus Democrats. It has splintered families and friends.

She weeps when she talks about the rift.

The AP article is long. It discusses the feelings of other people who are uneasy about what is happening and what is to come next.

Vaccine Distribution Stories

The Washington Post writes on how the vaccine effort is going. The article is not behind a paywall. It will be updated over time to stay current.

More than two million people have received the first dose of one of the two coronavirus vaccines approved for emergency use. Enough first-doses for 15.7 million people are scheduled for distribution over the next week, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The latest figures show 7.7 million doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine will be en route by the end of this week and 8 million doses of the Moderna vaccine.

The supply will cover almost 5 percent of the country. It’s enough for about three-quarters of the medical workers and nursing home residents and staff, according to Post analysis.

Both vaccines require a follow-up shot three or four weeks after the first dose. Those will be distributed starting early in January. The CDC’s counts include the 50 states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, island territories and five federal agencies that are getting their own distributions: Bureau of Prisons, Veterans Affairs, Indian Health Service, State Department and Defense.

Meanwhile, disputes are already arising over who should get the vaccine immediately. Executes at Stanford Health were criticized for putting themselves ahead of front-line workers. And politicians -- from the White House, Congress and governors’ suites around the country -- are getting vaccinated despite not being at the top of the official priority lists.

Following the CDC guidelines, many states are prioritizing health-care workers and nursing home residents and staff members. States are free, however, to set their own vaccination priorities. Some are emphasizing first responders, prison staff members or people who received placebos in completed vaccination studies.  

Once there are enough vaccines, the latest CDC guidance recommends adding frontline essential workers (first responders, teachers, day-care staff, grocery store workers and prison guards), and adults 75 and over as the next priority groups. After them, CDC recommends everyone with a preexisting condition such as diabetes, heart problems or obesity, and older adults. These are provisional priority groups from federal study groups. (emphasis added)

One can reasonably wonder if some of the politicians cutting ahead in line are among the radical right GOP crackpots who promoted promoting the spread of the infection by calling the pandemic a hoax or "just" the flu and/or by opposing masks and social distancing. Ah, the stench of fresh politician hypocrisy, GOP flavor.[1]

Each state is listed and its situation discussed. Some of the California discussion is below.

 

Footnote: 

1. As usual, the politicians will bicker, blither and bloviate. For some, their moral compasses are so broken that they do not know if they are showing leadership by example or just garden variety hypocrisy. A different WaPo article commented: "All members of Congress qualify for vaccine priority but disagree on whether this shows leadership by example or special treatment. .... The internal medicine resident at MedStar Georgetown University Hospital watched with frustration last week as inoculations were administered to scores of government leaders — including lawmakers who refused to wear masks and Trump administration officials who minimized the pandemic — while she and her colleagues were initially left unprotected because their hospital had received fewer than 1,000 doses of the scarce resource." (emphasis added)

That smells like GOP hypocrisy to me, even if it is leadership of some sort.

Russian Tyranny Rising

Dictator-kleptocrat for life Putin 

lying to Russian journalists a couple of weeks ago

The last remnants of democracy in Russia are being swept away as Putin crushes what is left of democracy and freedom in Russia. The Washington Post writes:

MOSCOW — As the Kremlin awaits what it fears will be a hostile Biden presidency, President Vladimir Putin is shifting course on two fronts — accelerating a drive to full-blown authoritarian control at home and escalating his defiant rhetoric against the West.

Domestically, a grudging tolerance for opposition and protest has been all but abandoned, while internationally, the Kremlin is taking particularly sharp aim at the United States ahead of the change of administration next month.

Russian-U.S. relations are going “from bad to worse,” Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said Wednesday, adding that Russia doesn’t expect “anything good” from President-elect Joe Biden and suggesting it adopt a policy of “total deterrence” toward Washington, with minimal dialogue.

In addition to signs that Biden will pursue a tough line with Moscow, Putin has seen his popularity slowly decline even as parliamentary elections loom in 2021. The move to double down against both the West and opponents at home reflects a perception of them as enemies working hand in hand to undermine Russia.

In this view, critical journalists and bloggers are potential terrorists, extremists or spies, and civic activists and nongovernment organizations may be labeled foreign agents. The Russian heroes Putin extols are spies who hack into U.S. agencies and domestic intelligence agents whose main role, like that of Stalin’s secret police, is the repression of dissent.

A raft of new, repressive laws sees Russia moving from partial to all-out authoritarianism, said Andrei Kolesnikov, a political analyst at the Moscow Carnegie Center.

“There is an open war with civil society,” he said, noting the Kremlin’s concern that Putin — who could legally stay in stay in power until 2036 — may someday face protests like those in Belarus, where the August presidential election was condemned as rigged by the opposition and Western nations.  

A blizzard of recent legislation in the State Duma has made it harder to protest, easier to target opposition figures and activists and has given authorities broad scope to brand individuals as “foreign agents,” with five-year jail penalties for failure to meet reporting requirements. The government is also moving to curb foreign Internet sites such as Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube.  

Putin maintains his grip by allowing loyalists in the military, intelligence, bureaucracy and law enforcement to guzzle Russia’s resources, Inozemtsev said. “This is a situation where this elite gang owns the country like private property and actually uses it for its enrichment.”

The tyrant-kleptocrat Putin is now fully showing his vicious dark heart. All the lies and hypocrisy his rhetoric and politics has been based on for years are as clear as an be. His friends and enablers must be overjoyed -- Utopia at last!! The tyrant and state has even moved to protect itself forever, giving Putin and his key enablers a pre-emptive pardon from everything for life in new laws. For example, Putin now has immunity from prosecution for life from all acts. He really can go out in the street and shoot widows, orphans and his relatives with impunity. America's tyrant-kleptocrat president is no doubt jealous of such wonderful possibilities.

On top of that, new laws classify as state secret all financial and personal information of millions of members of Russian intelligence bodies, security agencies, the judiciary, law-enforcement and regulatory agencies, the Russian military, and their relatives. Even crazy pedophile uncle Igor and sadist aunt Natasha are safe to do their things in peace and freedom.

Just think if all of that applied to Melania, Ivanka, Jared, Eric, Don Jr., the president and all the GOP crooks. Yuck, to say the least.

One can only feel sorry about the hopeless misery, kleptocracy and brutality that most or nearly all average Russians will live their lives under. If he had his way, that would be Putin's plan for America and Americans.

A Wealth of Insight

 

At the campus of the University of California, Berkeley, social psychologist Paul Piff paired off approximately 200 undergrad students and sent them into windowless rooms to play the board game Monopoly. With a random coin toss, one of the players in each game was selected to be the “rich” player, which granted them myriad advantages: they received twice the initial game money; they were entitled to double the normal bonus for passing “Go”; and they were allowed to roll two dice rather than one.

The altered rules made it clear to most participants that they were part of some kind of behavioral study, but they were unsure of its purpose, so they just played as instructed. With the use of hidden cameras, researchers observed that within 15 minutes, most of the rich players began to exhibit involuntary dominant behaviors. They slammed their game pieces more forcefully upon the board, made open displays of celebration, mocked the poor players for their misfortunes, and ate considerably more of the free pretzels on offer. But when they were interviewed after the game, the majority of the rich players tended to cite their own playing prowess for their victories, giving little or no credit to the initial, overwhelming, and randomly assigned economic advantage.

A related study by the same group of researchers took place in California, where the law requires drivers to stop for pedestrians waiting to cross at a crosswalk. The study showed that there is a strong inverse correlation between the expensiveness of an automobile and its driver’s tendency to yield to pedestrians.

https://www.damninteresting.com/curio/a-wealth-of-insight/

GOP Cements Its Authoritarianism

The AP writes about GOP responses to the 20202 election. They want to clamp down on voting.

Republicans in key states that voted for President-elect Joe Biden already are pushing for new restrictions, especially to absentee voting. It’s an option many states expanded amid the coronavirus outbreak that proved hugely popular and helped ensure one of the smoothest election days in recent years.

President Donald Trump has been unrelenting in his attacks on mail voting as he continues to challenge the legitimacy of an election he lost. Despite a lack of evidence and dozens of losses in the courts, his claims of widespread voter fraud have gained traction with some Republican elected officials.

They are vowing to crack down on mail ballots and threatening to roll back other steps that have made it easier for people to vote.

“This myth could not justify throwing out the results of the election, nor can it justify imposing additional burdens on voters that will disenfranchise many Americans,” said Wendy Weiser, head of the democracy program at the Brennan Center for Justice at the NYU School of Law.

Nevertheless, Republicans in Georgia have proposed adding a photo ID requirement when voting absentee, a ban on drop boxes and possibly a return to requiring an excuse for mail voting, such as illness or traveling for work on Election Day.

Early supporters of the ID requirement include Gov. Brian Kemp and Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, Republicans who were criticized relentlessly by Trump for failing to back his fraud claims after losing in Georgia. A top deputy for Raffensperger has said the ID requirement would boost public confidence and refute any future claims of fraud.

This makes it clear that all the GOP has to do is claim something that could happen but doesn't as a basis to restrict civil liberties. That is how authoritarians routinely operate. The only reason there is any loss of public confidence is based on repeated lies by the president and radical right GOP crackpots about voter fraud. 

The tyrant GOP leadership and politicians are not fit to hold power in America's representative democracy. 

A Dart From Germaine to Mr. Haynes

Context

The Washington Post reports on the CDC's failure to rapidly develop and distribute a test for the CARS-CoV-2 virus. It took the CDC in Thailand several hours to develop a test based on the WHO test. It took a couple more days before the first person in Thailand was diagnosed with COVID-19. It took the CDC in the US about six weeks to finish developing its test. WaPo writes:

Another breakthrough came the next day, Jan. 13, when the WHO publicly shared a protocol, essentially a recipe, specifying the materials needed to build a molecular test.

The Thais used that protocol to make a second test to detect the virus. This redundancy would eventually become the model for developing a vaccine against the virus.

Using their version of the WHO test, Thai health officials within days found other cases, including a taxi driver.

“The early availability of the RT-PCR testing definitely helped to reduce transmission and save lives,” Pongpirul told The Post by email.

John R. MacArthur, a physician who had led the CDC’s Thailand operations since 2013, said that when PCR testing confirmed the first case there, “I immediately contacted CDC leadership in Atlanta to let them know what was happening.”

“Seeing the first case outside of China, I thought, was a big moment,’’ MacArthur said in a phone interview. 

“The test that the WHO used early on was quite successful,” said Le Duc, a former senior CDC official who still serves as an adviser to the agency. “I frankly don’t know why CDC didn’t accept it.”

“If we would have put [tests] out there quicker, could we have saved lives? Well sure,’’ said Peter C. Iwen, director of the Nebraska Public Health Laboratory in Omaha. “If we would have diagnosed quicker, we would have saved people.”

The dart

WaPo asked for an interview, but the CDC blew it off: 

Redfield and other CDC leaders declined to be interviewed or to respond to written questions about the agency’s handling of the test.“Appreciate the opportunity, but we are going to pass,” said CDC spokesman Benjamin N. Haynes.

Something about that blithe “appreciate the opportunity” response prompted me to write to Mr. Haynes. I wrote this: 

To: Media (Media@cdc.gov)

Regarding Benjamin Haynes' Washington Post comment (CC: Harmon, Bonds)

Dear Mr. Haynes,

I read your comment to the Washington Post regarding a request for an interview. Your response, “Appreciate the opportunity, but we are going to pass”, was disgusting and an insult to the American people. You and the CDC owe the American people an explanation, not smug deflection while you slither under a rock to hide from accountability. It is no wonder that so many Americans are hostile to the federal government. Your arrogant attitude directly feeds the hostility and distrust. Does this come mostly from you personally, the CDC or Trump?

You are derelict in your duty and should resign.

Sincerely,

My real name, PhD, JD

San Diego, CA

CC: Carrie Harmon, Michelle Bonds

Questions: Was Mr. Haynes derelict, or did I overreact? Does the CDC owe the American people an explanation, or should this story be kept a secret?

Merry Christmas! Happy Holidays! Best Wishes!

 Pictures by pros:

Pictures by me:

blooming in the desert

A rare freshwater stream about 65 miles east of San Diego

A couple of blocks from my house

A rare flower blooming -- I've seen this in only one place

in my ~15 years of hiking in the mountains east of San Diego 

It is rare and thus precious to me, even if it is common elsewhere

That hawk used to be there almost every time we hiked the mountain

then the tree fell and now that sight is gone forever

That was what was left of a tree after the 2003 Cedar Fire in San Diego county

It is still there today in 2020 - we it saw again last week

Capybara (really big rodents) and offspring units at the San Diego zoo

(2012)

One morning over the bit of bay behind our house

(2016)