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 never want to be anything more than I am, what I don't have I don't need.
Panorama, Lake_Powell, Slick_Rock, Canyon, Utah
Sep 18, 2026
Just learned about this from a podcast interview... Phoebus (Lightbulb) Cartel "The Phoebus cartel was an international #cartel that controlled the manufacture and sale of incandescent #lightbulbs in much of Europe and North America between 1925 and 1939. The cartel took over market territories and 👉 lowered the useful life of such bulbs👈 , which is commonly cited as an example of #plannedObsolescence." Good to know corporate greed hasn't changed in 100 years! #SSDD https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phoebus_cartel #Corporations #Collusion
Critters History Travel Video 2019
On my trip west this year I made sure I had time to visit this unique area. The Dinosaur Tracks are located within and along side the Purgatoire River within the Comanche National Grassland. It is located 35 miles south of La Junta, Colorado off the lightly maintained County Road 25 (upper left in the map above). The last few miles are on a primitive forest service road that ends at the Withers Canyon Trailhead and Campground (four sites with fire grates and a pit toilet).
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 Galleries Protest Video 2025
Visiting family and friends in Sacramento California for my third protest against Trump. We had a nationwide No Kings!
event to counter Trump's birthday parade in DC. The final estimates were 4-6 million of us spread over 2000 events. Compared with The Orange Man's quarter mil.
Galleries Panoramas Photography Travel 2014
About a year ago [2013] I upgraded the iOS on my iPhone 4s. A few days later I discovered a new option in the Camera App—Panorama Mode! Over the next few months I slowly realized that this was a serious photographic tool. Now I take it along as an important part of my photographic gear. It appears to work like a slit camera, but instead of moving the film, you must move the camera. This has interesting ramifications if some or all of your subject is moving (see my Treatise on Panopainting).
Flowers Galleries History Road_Trip_2026 Travel 2026
My original plan was to find a BLM campground in the Sierra Foothills and have an easy first night. This became untenable due to a Pacific storm blowing in that would deposit snow on Donner Pass. So the plan became a quick up and over the pass and on into northern Nevada. We drove until we could leave the I-70 and got a motel in Fallon.
Nature Photography Plants Travel 2017
We decided to take a week-end trip to the Panhandle to see if we could find Pitcher Plants. We were not disappointed! Here I am standing along Highway 65 in the Apalachicola National Forest…
Birds Camping Everglades Galleries Panoramas Travel 2017
Everglades time again! This year I went for five days/four nights with my sister Diana Pray from LA. We did a lazy double figure eight route around northeastern Whitewater Bay and the Gulf. With the exception of a few distant motorboats we were completely alone for four days, quite remarkable! I brought along a 360° panoramic camera and took some impressive shots! [note1]
Birds Camping Everglades Galleries Hdr Travel 2010
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.
Everglades Galleries Travel 2026
Detailed maps of the thirty trips I've taken since the year 2000…
Galleries Hdr History Panoramas Travel Video 2023
After braving the nearly washed out road from the north I arrived around 9am. I had to walk
my Prius diagonally over piles of gravel and exposed rock faces. This was my third attempt over twenty years to visit this important site. (The first two failed because the roads were completely washed out!)
History Technology 2010
Anthropologists Steven Churchill & Jill Rhodes recently wrote a fascinating article on the development of projectile weapons by early Homo sapiens and subsequent effects on large carnivores (extinction!) and human evolution.
Galleries Photography Southwest_2024 Travel 2024
Our first stop in Utah was Fisher Towers along the back road
to Moab. I had been here before on my trips to Canyonlands. These stark, vertical towers are popular with climbers and there is a small primitive campground on site. We spent the better part of our day hiking the main in-and-out trail. It did not disappoint! We decided to camp there in the late afternoon. There was frost everywhere when we got up the next day. From there we moved on to Arches National Park and Vermilion Cliffs!
Art Galleries Hdr History Panoramas Travel Turkey_2016 2016
In 2016 we had the privilege of touring the ruins of Ephesus in Turkey. Originally built by the Greeks—the Romans took over the site in 129 BCE. The ruins are dominated by a long avenue lined with statuary and temples. This descending pathway leads to the Library of Celsus with it's two story facade mostly intact. There is a huge overhead structure protecting the Terrace Houses of wealthy inhabitants—looking very much like luxury condos today!
History Science 2010
I’m currently reading A Short History of Nearly Everything
by Bill Bryson. About a third of the way in he introduces Clair Cameron Patterson who could be the model of the modern citizen/scientist.
Birds Bwca Camping Travel Video 2023
This year's trip was a return to a familiar locale. Our goal was to establish a basecamp and take day trips from there. We started at Bearskin Lake and paddled across to the Duncan Lake portage. After exploring options on the north shore of Duncan we decided to stay on the campsite closest to the portage on the south shore (conveniently vacated by the prior group as we waited).
History Projects 1988
When I was a resident in 1988 I wrote a bit of software called HYTEXT
—a hypertext publishing system for MS-DOS computers. I knew nothing about networks at the time, but I did create a markup language that anticipated HTML in many ways. I recently came across a paper copy of my original documentation and thought it would be a good idea to reproduce a few pages here for posterity. The original program and documentation are on 5.25 inch floppy discs that I have no way to read. But I found my 22 year old documentation file online! So the circle is complete.
Birds Flowers Galleries History Road_Trip_2026 Travel 2026
My target for this segment was inspired by a used book I came across while working at my local Friends of the Library—Sinagua Sunwatchers
by Kenneth Zoll. At first I had a bit of trouble finding the site online because the name has been changed very recently to better reflect its Native American origins. [The old name V Bar V
referenceed the now defunct ranch on the property.]
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.
