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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No one wants advice, only corroboration.
Panorama, Sunset, St_Pete_Beach, Florida
Jul 16, 2026
"Those little white flowers you see here are known as the Arctic mountain heather, and they are highly toxic to this little pika. Collared pika create what we call haypiles under the rocks that will serve as food for the 9 months of winter they endure beneath the snow. That’s 9 months of dead rotting plants for fungi, bacteria, and other parasites to completely destroy. That is, unless the pika layers toxic species like this arctic heather through the haypile. This particular species of flower releases its toxic brew of phenolic compounds into the the pika's cache of food as it begins to break down. Those very same toxins, it turns out, are a natural food preservative that kills the very fungi and bacteria that would otherwise ruin an entire winter’s worth of food for the pika. And amazingly, by the time the pika makes it down to these layers, those toxins are completely harmless to the little mammal. None of this is by accident. Researchers have documented that not only are pika meticulous at how they layer toxic plants into their haypiles, they use different species, with differing levels of toxicity, at specific levels through the cache to ensure that their food is not only well preserved but also timed to be edible for themselves as they work their way through it. This is the most sophisticated pharmacological knowledge and behavior ever documented outside of humans." photo and text by jaredlloydphoto #Photographie #Photography #Fotografie #Nature #Wildlife #NaturePhotography #WildlifePhotography
California Galleries Plants Travel 2025
We recently visited the Bristlecone Pines within Inyo National Forest in the White Mountains of Eastern California. While there we took a five hour hike on the Methuselah Trail amongst some of the oldest trees in the world!
Camping Hammocks How_To Reviews 2025
There are various configurations of camping hammocks that I'll outline below. Most are gathered
with single tie-on points at each end. Some have integrated bug nets. Complete packages come with both nets & rainflies. After a brief survey of the different types, I go on to propose my criteria for the Ideal Hammock
.
Commentary History 2026
![Preparing to Fly the Flag (July 4, 1976) [source: DC Public Library]](commentary/americas_250th/img/bicentennial-1976.jpg)
I put out my American Flag today. I've decided to 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).
Music Reviews Video
Jean-Michel Jarre (1978)
IMO Équinoxe is one of the best original synthesized orchestral pieces out there. His preceding album Oxygène (produced and recorded at home!) is also good, similar in form—but Équinoxe remains my favorite.
Flowers Galleries History Road_Trip_2026 Rock_Art Travel 2026
I established my campsite and went for a walk about an hour before sunset. It was a magical time to be out in the desert. Some of the rocks are volcanic in origin. I think that may be a cinder cone in the distance. There is a large abstract petroglyph on the right (click to enlarge).
Birds Flowers Galleries History Panoramas Road_Trip_2026 Travel 2026
We entered Arches National Park about 8am the next day. This was a great time for photographing the rock formations in the southern part of the park (near the entrance). Our plan was to take a leisurely drive north—exploring along the way—until we reached the Devil's Garden area. This is where the majority of the notable arches are. You might also like to view photos from My November 2024 Trip.
Commentary
Frank Wilhoit (2018)
There is a quote from a few years ago that adds political framing I find useful. I propose using it as a test or razor
(à la Occam) when evaluating political actions and legislation:
Art Galleries History Photography Travel Turkey_2016 2016
Hagia Sophia is one of the most historic buildings in the world! It is a strange palimpsest of Islam superimposed on top of Orthodox Christianity. Finished around 537 CE in Constantinople (now Istanbul), it was the largest building in the world for a thousand years. When we visited it was a secular museum and world heritage site. In 2020 a theocratic government turned it back into a functioning mosque. I do not know if the Christian art and iconography has been covered or possibly removed since then.
Galleries Nature Photography Plants Travel 2025
Spring is the time to hunt for carnivorous plants along the Gulf Coast of Florida and Alabama. The image below from 2020 shows three different, unrelated species that have all evolved the ability to trap and consume insects (Pitcher Plants, Butterworts, and Sundews).
Bookhouse Books History Reviews 1970
Turns out I had volume two of a three part report on a decade of radiation research done in a national forest. There is an official Fact Sheet for this program which reads in part…
Everglades Galleries Travel 2026
Detailed maps of the thirty trips I've taken since the year 2000…
Commentary 2026
The history of the food pyramid is complicated (see my analysis from 2004). There hasn't been an official one for maybe twenty years. I grew up with it and I think it is a sound idea, but very political with respect to what foods go where. It may be a coincidence, but anyone who is familiar with the old pyramid will recognize this one as an inverted echo. There are many other ways to lay out these ideas graphically, the choice of an inverted triangle is not subtle. I think it's propaganda for the following reasons:
Birds Galleries Travel 2025
Out with friends to canoe down the Santa Fe River in north Florida. We saw many large turtles sunning themselves along the way plus a juvenile bald eagle! Stopped for lunch in the outflow from Blue Spring.
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.
Critters Galleries Nature Travel 2016
I was itching to go kayaking somewhere new, so I headed over to the Santa Fe River. There was a little park and boat launch near the highway 47 bridge. While getting ready to go I spotted what looked like green leaves stuck on the sides of two trees. They turned out to be Luna Moths, which I think were newly emerged. Beautiful!
Camping Everglades Galleries Travel 2016
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.
Camping Hammocks Reviews 2023
I became aware of Hammock Camping back in 2016. Luckily my first hammock was reasonably well designed and built. Seven years later that hammock has taken me many places and taught me a lot! Unfortunately it is showing some wear and I've been looking for a possible replacement.
Projects 2024
BLIS is an alternative to Wordpress and other database-dependent online publishing environments. One obvious problem with such systems is portability. They generally store text in a database—while media such as images are stored in nested directories by date. It can be daunting to put all these scattered parts back together again outside the original site. (I'm working on converting my WP materials now…it may take several months!)
Hdr History Travel 2009
First on our list was Uxmal, my personal favorite! Located in the gently rolling Puuc Hills, it is one of several significant Late Classic Mayan centers in that area. The so-called Pyramid of the Magician
dominates the modern entrance to the site. The main temple entrance takes the form of a huge mouth, still intimidating even today. The pyramid was actually built in five stages, each covering older parts of the structure.
Camping Commentary How_To Reviews Technology 2020
I'm not too fond of headlamps for a few reasons… they are generally too bright when you are working close, shine in people's faces when you look up, and kill your night vision. And what about your hat?!
Bwca Camping Travel 2002
My Siblings and I took a three night canoe trip in 2002. We also brought along two of my Niblings (it's a word, look it up!). We started with a canoe from my parents house, then rented a car and took a side trip to pick up a second canoe from my place in Brimson. We had a layover in Two Harbors before proceeding up the North Shore to the Gunflint Trail. We did a loop starting and ending on Poplar Lake. The highlight was an almost perfect day camping on Winchell. On the way back we were forced to use the same campsite on Horseshoe Lake because all of the sites on Gaskin were taken.
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.
