Remain calm, be kind, and carry on regardless!
You've reached the online journal of Richard Rathe — online since 2004! In this iteration I'm trying a few new ideas: minimal markup, working with mostly plain text, and moving beyond the timeline. I call it BLIS (BLog It Simple). Find me online…
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I define peace not as the absence of war, but as the presence of justice, and the absence of fear.
Panorama, Pictographs, Rock_Art, Native_American, Utah
Jun 04, 2026
Bots just officially outnumbered humans on the internet for the first time ever. Cloudflare’s latest report shows AI and agentic traffic has grown so fast its now the majority of online traffic. We crossed a line and most people didn’t even notice 😳 https://radar.cloudflare.com/traffic#bot-vs-human Dead internet theory is now becoming a reality
Birds Camping Everglades Galleries Nature Travel 2026
This was my 30th trip to the Everglades—different from all the others in several respects. First I was trying out new equipment (a sit-inside folding kayak). Second, I planned to just camp on a desert island, read, and take it easy. Third, I left from the Smallwood Store on Chokoloskee Island because the actual Ranger Station was closed for long-awaited hurricane repairs. I was also alone as there were no takers to join me this year.
Books Commentary History Music 2026
![Preparing to Fly the Flag (July 4, 1976) [source: DC Public Library]](commentary/america_at_250/img/bicentennial-1976.jpg)
I put out my American Flag today. 🇺🇸 I only fly the flag on special days and this is one of them. Thinking about what makes this day special is what gives the act meaning. One cannot be patriotic every day, but that's not required. We need days like this to think hard about history (those actions and actors who mattered), the present (our current situation and how it differs from what it should be), and the future (the history we might make during the time remaining to us).
Boats Nature Photography 2026
An occasional journal of photographs and activities on the Lake thru the seasons. I walk or kayak almost every day and these are the flora and fauna I encounter. The photographs are mine unless otherwise noted. Entries are in reverse chronological order.
Books Commentary History 2026
I've reworked these extended quotations from The March of Folly by Barbara Tuchman (1986) for today's wannabe King
Trump. In a few pages she describes the bad policies and attitudes of the French King Louis XIV. I was struck by the deep parallels with the policies and attitudes of the current administration and the flock of Lickspittle Poltroons that compose the current GOP. Tuchman's words speak to greater truths. My words are my own and speak for more immediate truths in desperate times.
Bookhouse Books Camping History
Ed Dodd (1971)
This little book brings back memories of reading the Sunday newspaper when I was a teen. There would always be a non-humorous cartoon by and about the fictional Mark Trail
promoting life outdoors. These cartoons often depicted humans and wild animals in close proximity. This book of camp cooking tips borders on the whimsical.
Camping Hammocks How_To 2026
It has taken me a couple of years to fully understand this knot. The Becket Hitch provides a strong but temporary way to tie a rope or webbing onto a fixed loop (such as a hammock). It is basically a slipped
version of the venerable Sheet Bend (shown below).
Commentary Video 2016
Most are familiar with the concept of FUD—short for Fear, Uncertainty & Doubt. It summarizes a strategy often used in marketing and political propaganda. Its effects are pernicious, divisive and lead to exploitation. Examples abound. Fear is a strong motivator! To resist FUD one must understand how it is practiced using the principles of Deception, Obfuscation and Misdirection.
Critters Galleries History Road_Trip_2026 Rock_Art Travel 2026
We decided to get a room in Green River Utah for two nights so we could: visit nearby Dinosaur Track and Rock Art sites that day, return to have a real cooked dinner, head out early the next day for Arches, then on to Nine Mile Canyon the next day.
Birds Critters Galleries Nature Video 2024
A recent cold snap in the Tampa Bay area forced hundreds of manatees inland in search of warmer water. One ready source is the outflow from the TECO powerplant. To their credit, the company provides a dedicated viewing dock and surrounding wildlife preserve for birds and other critters.
History 2025
In the late 1970s two friends and I invested in a three room cabin on thirty acres embedded in Superior National Forest in Northern Minnesota. That cabin and other buildings are no more after the Camp House Road forest fire swept through.
Camping Everglades Galleries Travel 2008
This is a quick-and-dirty gallery of my Everglades photographs. Only a placeholder for now while I work on converting my older sites. See my Everglades Wilderness Guide for more trips, maps, & photographs.
Apostle_Islands Birds Camping History Plants Travel 2021
We made an amphibious landing to offload our gear and then moored the boat about a mile away at the pier. I pitched my hammock tent right on the beach between mature white and red pines. The level of Lake Superior had recently gone down so there was a more normal amount of beach exposed.
Everglades Galleries Hammocks Travel Video 2022
The plan for this year was a clockwise tour around Whitewater Bay, with options to go out to the Gulf of Mexico and explore the Watson River. My cousin David Rathe and nephew Theron Pray decided to join me.
Birds Camping Everglades Galleries Hdr Travel Video 2013
Just back from the Everglades with highlights too numerous to relate them all here. For a start I think we’ve hit on the perfect mode of transportation—pedal kayaks with sails! The only downside compared with a canoe is getting on/off the chickees. In every other respect they were superior to canoes and even other types of kayaks. We especially noticed how wind and waves were much less of the threat, and the wind could often be put to good use! Unlike the sail canoe rig I’ve used in the past, the kayaks are much safer if they capsize.
Commentary Galleries History Medicine 1930
![The Tilden Company circa 1930 [source:NLHS]](commentary/medicine/patent_medicines/images/tilden-company-from-above.jpg)
My Wife's Grandfather worked as a chemist for The Tilden Company in Upstate New York during the early 1900s. As a result we came into possession of his Recipe Book
for the plethora of nostrums and remedies he helped create. Some of the ingredients are still sold today under various brand names. Some are humorous, others are forgotten, while still others are downright dangerous. The following installments are my exploration of this unique window into the medical past. [Note: We donated the actual book to the historical section of the National Library of Medicine.]
History Science Video
Hans Rosling (2010)
This spectacular section of 'The Joy of Stats' tells the story of the world in 200 countries over 200 years using 120,000 numbers - in just four minutes. Plotting life expectancy against income for every country since 1810, Hans shows how the world we live in is radically different from the world most of us imagine. [source:youtube]
Commentary Technology 2009
I like to listen to audiobooks on my iPod. I have a subscription to Audible.com and buy one or two books a month. In the beginning things were fine, but about two years ago iTunes stopped remembering my Audible password. I get around this by double-clicking on any Audible file and put in my password when it asks. This fixes the problem long enough to sync. But if I quit iTunes, I start over. If I forget, iTunes automatically deletes the files from my iPod. Needless to say this is a major pain in the butt!
Books
Douglas Adams (1998)
This was originally billed as a debate only because I was a bit anxious coming here. I didn't think I was going to have time to prepare anything and also, in a room full of such luminaries, I thought, What could I, as an amateur, possibly have to say?
So I thought I would settle for a debate. But after having been here for a couple of days, I realized you're just a bunch of guys! It's been rife with ideas, and I've had so many myself through talking with and listening to people, that I'd thought what I'd do was stand up and have an argument and debate with myself. I'll talk for a while and hope sufficiently to provoke and inflame opinion that there'll be an outburst of chair-throwing at the end.
Bookhouse Books History Reviews
G. A. Henty (1886)
The original Luddites were millworkers who rebelled against factory automation back in the 1800s. They had a lot to lose. In the present time, to call someone a Luddite
or Neo-Luddite
is to write them off as a kind of techno-hermit, using a non-smartphone and writing in a paper notebook. This is a mischaracterization. The full text is available at Project Gutenberg.
Camping Hammocks Reviews Technology 2016
I went out last night to get some experience pitching and sleeping in my new hammock tent. It came with no instructions and there is only limited info available online. I’m getting better using a bit more tension and added a small relieving line to the fly so it can hang along the side (keeping the netting clear for viewing the trees and stars!). In future I’ll keep it rolled so it stays off the ground. I paddled in the dark to a place I’d picked out. Once you find two trees the rest is pretty easy. In fact, it’s trip-over-a-log easy compared with a surface tent! Plus everything stays dry!
Projects Video 2022
Fire is a necessary feature of many ecosystems. It helps clear out old growth and often prevents dominance by one or more climax species. Some plants even specialize to exploit the ecological opportunities created by fire. This simulator attempts to capture some of these dynamics.
Commentary Technology 2026
My Critique of: Your Voice, Your Choice
— A Guest Post by Claude Sonnet 4.5
The ELIZA Effect is a tendency to project human traits—such as experience, semantic comprehension or empathy—onto rudimentary computer programs having a textual interface.
This little book was conceived neither as a medical history nor as a technical discussion of surgery. It is instead a story of people, of friends with whom I have shared joy and sorrow, in short, bits of the day-to-day drama which is the life of a country doctor. Many of the incidents are trivial, in one sense of the word, yet each has had in it something which appealed to me enough to make me remember it as a highlight in my forty-five years as a country doctor.
