April 2023 – Quote of the Month

“If you are not willing to own a stock for 10 years, do not even think about owning it for 10 minutes.”

~Warren Buffet

March 2023 – Quote of the Month

“None are so old as those who have outlived enthusiasm.”

~Henry David Thoreau

Pretty in Pink

March’s perfunctory post is again from December 25, 2021. (On our Tanzania trip, we shot over 9,800+ photos and videos, so I can go to this source for a long time when I’m feeling short on posting enthusiasm.)

Lake Natron is a remote, surreal landscape. The lake is hyper saline and super alkaline with temperatures that range from 40˚ (104f) to 60˚C (140f).

The lakes chemistry provides a home for a halophilic microorganisms called cyanobacteria that turns the lake red. The lake is inhospitable or outright deadly to most other organisms but more than 2.5 million endangered Lesser Flamingos breed here. – Seventy-five percent of the world’s population are born on its shores. Since the flamingos have no predators to contend with they feed on the algae and cyanobacteria in relative peace: probably only bothered by camera wielding tourists like myself.

Tanzania's Lake Natron Flamingos, Dec. 25 2021
Tanzania’s Lake Natron Flamingos

February 2023 – Quote of the Month

“That which isn’t good for the hive, isn’t good for the bee.”

~Marcus Aurelius

Beware of Doctor Bellfield

When one thinks of the Brady Bunch, they probably conjure storylines depicting wholesome family values. Odd then when Alice doesn’t call the authorities to report their neighbor as quite probably a pedophile.

Season 4 episode, episode 10 “Goodbye, Alice, Hello”.

At least there were boundaries. – Apparently Carol and Mike need to approve any and all, ‘X-rated swimming pools.’

Trivia: This scene where Bobby and Cindy are contemplating skinny dipping is cut on some airings.

January 2023 – Quote of the Month

“Whenever you are about to find fault with someone, ask yourself the following question: What fault of mine most nearly resembles the one I am about to criticize?

~Marcus Aurelius

Color Corrected Killer Kitties

This being another challenging month, I’m just sharing a photo from January 7, 2022 taken in Tanzania’s Tarangire National Park. But I thought, for a change of pace I’d share the raw, uncolor corrected image compared to post color correction and sharpening. All color correction was done in Adobe Lightroom and the sharpening was done with Topaz Sharpen AI. Pushing the colors around as much as I had to in order to restore the sky and bring out the kitties resulted in a lot of noise. Fortunately Topaz Sharpen AI has good options to mitigate exacerbating noise upon sharpening.

That’s about as creative as I can get this month. Also, now I think that Topaz should sponsor my website.

Tanzania Tarangire in a tree, pre-color correction.
Tanzania Tarangire in a tree, post-color correction.

December 2022 – Quote of the Month

“Nobody can bring you peace but yourself.”

~Ralph Waldo Emerson

Dreaming of Giraffes

The last month has been chaos and trouble and I won’t relate it here. But in spite of some serious mental exhaustion, I’ll fulfill my monthly posting duties and leave this year with a fond recollection of where I was last year in December.

Giraffes and  Ol Doinyo Lengai (The Mountain of God),  Gregory Rift, Arusha Tanzania. December 24, 2022.
Giraffes and Ol Doinyo Lengai (The Mountain of God), Gregory Rift, Arusha Tanzania. December 24, 2022.

November 2022 – Quote of the Month

“I think it’s perfectly possible to explain how the universe came about without bringing God into it, but I don’t know everything, and there may well be a God somewhere, hiding away. Actually, if he is keeping out of sight, it’s because he’s ashamed of his followers and all the cruelty and ignorance they’re responsible for promoting in his name. If I were him, I’d want nothing to do with them.”

~ Philip Pullman

Breaking News

Even though news is no not nearly so soul crushing like it was while Trump was in office, I still find myself burned out on all of it. I’ve often advocated that a democracy depends on a well-informed electorate, so I’ve felt that its almost akin to a patriotic duty to follow the news.

But increasingly, I’m trying to step away from news that is likely not to impact me or the nation / world. That might sound self-centered, but by way of example I’m talking about stories of some Woman who drowns herself and her kids in Texas.

Maybe there is an underpinning in the story about depression, drugs or abuse that is relevant outside of her community. But reading such tragedies takes something of a mental toll.

And then there are the endless celebrity fluff pieces or the speculative news articles of something that might happen e.g. Apple might buy Disney based on Rumors.

Still, I tune into big global news like Russia’s war on Ukraine. And I enjoy positive happenings like the Artemis program.

But with our phones in hand, it’s so easy to occupy an idyll minute while on hold with a support desk or waiting for a friend to meet. It becomes a twitch.

I have those bored moments and am likely not going to step away from using my phone to kill time when there is nothing else to do, but increasingly asking myself when I read a headline, “How will this help me?” “What will I get out of this?” The answer is usually, “It won’t” or “Nothing much”. When you start looking at news this way, then one observes that 98% of it is passable noise.

I think I need to start carrying a good old fashioned paperback book with me everywhere.

October 2022 – Quote of the Month

“There is a child in every one of us who is still a trick-or-treater looking for a brightly-lit front porch.”

~Robert Brault

Happy Halloween Kids

Here’s hoping that I never outgrow Halloween. So far… So good…

Evil Clown, Carnevil party, 2014
From Carnevil Halloween Party, 2014

September 2022 – Quote of the Month

“Fairy tales are more than true: not because they tell us that dragons exist, but because they tell us that dragons can be beaten.”

~Neil Gaiman, Coraline

A Murder of Bats

Instead of world news commentary, here is a piece of inane trivia that I observed one evening while watching a rerun of Columbo.

From season 9, episode 6 entitled, ‘Murder in Malibu‘ which was released in May 14, 1990:

“Those are crows, they were nesting up here.”

I wonder how much time was spent looking through stock film before the producers said, ‘Ah, screw it! Let’s use bats instead. Nobody will notice or care.

August 2022 – Quote of the Month

“Fantasy, if it’s really convincing, can’t become dated, for the simple reason that it represents a flight into a dimension that lies beyond the reach of time.”

~Walt Disney

Firestarter of Oldupai Emanyata

Taken at a Massai Boma in Oldupai Emanyata, Tanzania on January 12 2022.

With another villager’s help, this man started a fire with friction in less than a minute. A humbling exposure to another culture, another way of life.

Massai firestarter  Oldupai Emanyata, Tanzania. Photo by Glen Green.

July 2022 – Quote of the Month

“Don’t let yesterday use up too much of today.”

~Will Rogers

Still Putting on Shoes

I recently saw a Facebook post from a really sweet guy I know. (I’ve redacted his name.) He is a very compassionate individual. The kind of man who is sensitive and cries at life’s tragedy. He also happens to have an advanced degree (Doctorate) and has a career that requires constant education.

And yet, this objectively well educated, good guy drinks deeply from the well of misinformation.

In the early days of the internet, this smart, kind person reflexively forwarded every joke or meme that came into his email inbox. (He was a one man spammer.) Now, in the age of social media, in spite of his good character and quantifiable education, he continues to consume and propagate easily falsifiable bullshit. – All of which is far right leaning.

It’s exhausting and feels like a losing battle. It doesn’t take much work to investigate a claim, but for most people it’s still too much effort and doesn’t come with the dopamine release of bias confirmation. I believe that there are real world consequences of this mindset to our country and world.

Often, when I see these posts and have time to spare, I’ll provide evidence refuting the meme. But it all seems so futile. By the time I see the posts, there are invariable already a series of ‘Likes’ and affirming comments. And when I do post the evidence, he (and his followers) never addresses my remarks. Instead, like the mass-forwarding days of yore, he’s already moved on and posted more junk. (I suspect that he posts and never looks back.)

I’m reminded of the saying:

A Lie Can Travel Halfway Around the World While the Truth Is Putting On Its Shoes

~ Attribution Uncertain

Here is one of the more recent posts he shared on Facebook:

A gas powered vabm towing a diesel generator, charging an electric car. The future is stupid...

I immediately sensed the dubious nature of this meme and did a quick search to check the validity. With the super simple entry of the words (lifted directly from the post), ‘A gas powered van, towing a diesel generator, charging an electric car‘ into Google, the first results returned debunked the meme: No, that’s not a van towing a diesel generator to charge an electric car.

But that’s not the punch line.

I intended to share this information to his post by pasting the link into the comment section, but upon doing so, I saw a series of Facebook auto-generated links that also disproved the validity of the post as the header to the comments.

Facebook auto-generated fact checking.
Facebook provided fact-checking.

The punchline is: someone named, ‘Jill’, went to the same comment section as I did and ignored the FOUR fact checking links provided by Facebook. ‘Jill’ went on to write, “Yep, can’t fix stupid!

Maybe Jill… Maybe… Or perhaps you can’t fix confirmation bias.

June 2022 – Quote of the Month

“You cannot run away from weakness; you must some time fight it out or perish; and if that be so, why not now, and where you stand?”

~ Robert Louis Stevenson

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