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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Never pray for justice, because you might get some.
Panorama, Panopainting, Driftwood, Florida
Oct 12, 2026
🤣👇😂👇😉
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.
Birds Flowers Galleries Iowa Travel 2026
Late Fall excursion to Pikes Peak (the original!) for a bit of color and a long walk in the woods. In the panorama below, the city of Prairie du Chien is in the upper left, north of the Wisconsin River outlet near the center. Wyalusing State Park is on the opposite bluff. The sumac in the foreground is near its peak. There were White Pelicans down on the river (too small to see here).
Commentary Protest 2026
Visiting the Iowa branch of my family for the fourth No Kings Protest against Trump and his Lickspittle Poltroons in the GOP. The Orange Man is more unpopular than ever. It is very important that we get out the Vote!
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 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).
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 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…
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.
Birds Books History Reviews
George S. Appleton (1849)
Below is a limited sampling of historically significant pages that contain many surprising (and perhaps inaccurate) facts. Alas the Elegant Plates
mentioned on the title page appear to be missing. Also missing is any mention of smaller birds such as wrens and warblers?!
Audio Galleries Kist Projects Video 2026
KIST combines the best elements of various markup formats I've worked with over the past forty years. The original purpose of these tools was to generate valid HTML without special editors or technical knowledge. The plain text source files are nearly universal, portable, and reusable!
Projects 2024
Meta tag modsecs must be present to be considered an article. This should be the system time in seconds that the source file was lasted updated (as returned by the Perl time function or similar).
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).
Music Reviews 2005
I’ve always enjoyed yodeling, both alpine and the more bluesy American variety. So this public radio piece was a pleasant surprise. In spite of my interest I had never heard of this duo from Minnesota; they recorded only a handful of songs.
Galleries History Panoramas Travel Turkey_2016 2016
Here is a gallery of all the panoramas from our 2016 trip to Turkey and the The Turquoise Coast. We started in Istanbul and ended at Ephesus. Best viewed on a large screen!
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!
Camping Canyonlands Galleries Hdr History Travel Video 2018
I recently returned from a backcountry bike trip on the White Rim Trail in Canyonlands National Park near Moab Utah. We were a mixed group of twelve riders with three high ground clearance support vehicles coming after us. We started near the Island in the Sky
Visitor Center and camped four nights along the trail.
Birds Camping Everglades Galleries Travel Video 2015
This was my Eighteenth Everglades Journey and a collection of firsts for me: first Solo Trip, first en-route rendezvous, first exploration of the River of Grass, first time around Cape Sable, first time sailing beyond the horizon, first time camping in Florida Bay, and first major equipment failure (rudder). This was probably my penultimate trip! With the exception of bug problems at one site, it pretty much came off without a hitch. 🙂
Commentary History Medicine
James Guthrie (1888)
To Dr. Guthrie every word of that lecture was the living truth, a truth which found practical expression daily in his long professional career. And when, one tragic day in the dead of winter—when he was confined to his bed by illness—a patient needed him, he did not hesitate but arose and went to minister to him. Giving his last ounce of strength of this unselfish act, his own illness overcame him and he passed on in March of 1930.
Camping Commentary Reviews Technology 2025
I hadn't used a headlamp in five years until this one caught my eye. Mostly because of configurability and the price ($9.99). (The price suddenly jumped to $24.99 after I bought mine. (Tariffs kicking in perhaps? It's Nov 2025)
Camping Canyonlands Galleries Hdr Panoramas Travel 2019
It would be hard to top our 4WD/bike trip to the White Rim in Canyonlands last year, but entering the isolated subunit called The Maze was a strong contender! This immense National Park is divided into three major areas that are completely isolated from each other. The Maze lies mostly on the western side of the Green River with the southern-most Dollhouse area just below the confluence with the Colorado. As we did last year, we stopped at Fisher Towers and Moab along the way (see photo gallery below).
Birds Camping Travel 2012
My colleague Carlos and I took a quick overnight trip to Cedar Key and the primitive campsite at Hall Creek. We put in at “Bridge #4” at low tide and paddled through some very shallow water for the first hour or so. Once out in the Gulf of Mexico I had a chance to try out my new sail.
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.
