Category Archive: Opinions and Stuff

My thoughts on a variety of things.

Indigenous versus Invasive Species

Indigenous is an interesting word. A dictionary definition (there are a few variations) goes as follows:

Produced, growing, living, or occurring natively or naturally in a particular region or environment.

But also:

Relating to the earliest known inhabitants of a place.

For the purpose of this post, I’ll talk about a combination of the two definitions and how they are purposefully mangled by idiots . . . er . . . non-thinking jer . . . er . . . well-meaning people.

And I’ll begin with Hawaiʻi.

Having lived in Hawaiʻi for a few years, I was struck by the sanctimonious attitude of many of the natives. Like most people everywhere, they have a certain image of themselves, are proud of their culture and customs, and walk around with a chip on their shoulder about being ‘invaded’ by who they call ‘haoles’.

They will tell you the term refers to ‘light skin’ or ‘visitor’, but just swap the ‘h’ and ‘a’ around and you get what I think they really mean.

You see, Hawaiʻians, like most people who don’t know history, claim possession to where they live by virtue of having lived there a long time and — like most people — are not happy when outsiders ‘invade’ the place. I’m sure most readers are familiar with various conflicts around the world — and here, too — based on claims about who has the right to live in this or that place.

The thing is, at one time, no one lived on those islands. Then Polynesians came, liked it, and settled there (LINK). Later, Tahitians came, liked it, and settled there. By ‘settled’, I mean conquered the Polynesians (LINK). You know the rest; Europeans came and also settled there, and so on.

Continue reading →

Notes 20 Photos and some thoughts — Part 3

For them not interested in reading, you can see the photos in THIS<<link SmugMug Gallery.  

For a SmugMug slideshow, click HERE<<link. When you click the link, it will open in a new window, and you have two options:
1) Manually scroll through the photos by clicking the “<” and “>” symbols to the left or right of the photos.
2) There’s a PLAY/PAUSE button at the bottom-left of the screen with the transition set at about 5 seconds. Note: clicking the PLAY arrow will run a full-screen slideshow. You can then still use the”<” and “>” symbols to the left or right of the photos (this will pause the slideshow).

If you want the full experience, keep reading.

Don’t know why, but I suddenly thought of Marvin . . .

As stated in the last post, I’m sharing Note 20 Ultra photos. Most, like the above, have been processed with Lightroom CC. Most, unlike the above, are photos of flowers from the garden centers of places like Home Depot, Lowe’s, and Wal-Mart. The above photo was taken with the camera set at 10x as I was sitting in my car in a parking lot across the street from that establishment. That’s one of the photos they had on their facade, and yes, it’s an automotive supplies place

As usual, clicking on single images will open a larger version of the image in a new tab or window.

Continue reading →

Notes 20 Photos and some thoughts — Part 1

For them not interested in reading, you can see the photos in THIS<<link SmugMug Gallery.  

For a SmugMug slideshow, click HERE<<link. When you click the link, it will open in a new window, and you have two options:
1) Manually scroll through the photos by clicking the “<” and “>” symbols to the left or right of the photos.
2) There’s a PLAY/PAUSE button at the bottom-left of the screen with the transition set at about 5 seconds. Note: clicking the PLAY arrow will run a full-screen slideshow. You can then still use the”<” and “>” symbols to the left or right of the photos (this will pause the slideshow).

If you want the full experience, keep reading.

Photo taken at a flowerbed in front of Herrin Hospital.

The photos in this quick series of posts have all been taken with the Note 20 this May, lightly processed in Lightroom (see what I did there?), and output for this blog post.

Continue reading →

Another quick update . . . why I’ve been busy

I’ve not been very active either writing or reading blogs . . . here’s a bit about why.

First — sadly — Lawrence S. Ford passed away in mid-March (Lawrence Ford Obituary). He was Melisa’s dad and he passed away from complications from an unavoidable surgery. He was 96, and had been declining in health for a number of months before.

Aside from being with him for his last few days,  Melisa and her siblings were — and still are — involved in finalizing his affairs after his passing.

We held a memorial in early April, for which I made one of the boards recounting parts of his early life and the parts of his life he shared with us.

Continue reading →

Second “Z” stories voting reminder . . . and stuff

The “Z” stories voting block is live and running . . . and still not getting much love (votes). At this point, I don’t know why . . . perhaps our readers don’t want it to see it end and are avoiding reading the stories, hoping that will forestall the end.

If you’ve been a loyal reader of our offerings and someone who votes, you have the writer’s unending gratitude.

Links to the stories and the poll for voting for “Alphabet Challenge Z-Stories” are HERE(link). Votes will be accepted until  Noon (Central Time) on Thursday, April 8th, 2021.

So, stuff . . . let me begin with WordPress making another change, this time to the Admin menu(s). You can read about it here (LINK). If it’s confusing, basically, they are making it difficult to find and use the Classic Editor again . . . still. Save your version of the link below to create new posts using the classic editor and to still be able to edit posts using the Classic Editor as described in THIS POST<<link. The menu mentioned in Step 5 of that post is now difficult (if not impossible) to get to via the menu options, but the direct link still works:

https://{blogname}.wordpress.com/wp-admin/edit.php

So, for instance, I would replace “{blogname}” with “disperser”. In that menu, you’ll still be able to create posts using the Classic Editor, and edit posts created with the Classic Editor without having to convert them to the Block Editor. 

Note that WP will tell you the Classic Editor has been deprecated (they actually mean defecated on). They don’t tell you you can still use it, but you can.

OK, so what else?

Continue reading →

Last “W” stories voting reminder . . . and snow on Mauna Kea

Note: If you are using the WordPress App in Android and reading this with the Reader in Dark Mode, you won’t see much of the post because of a bug in the behavior of the app.

The “W” stories voting block is about 20 hours from closing. As usually happens late in the voting block, we have fairly significant movement by one of the stories.  If you like a particular story, in addition to voting for it — and if you feel like it — now is the time to nudge friends and family into reading it (and also ask them to read the others in case they don’t agree with you) and to cast their votes.

No matter how you come to them or who you vote for, if you’re a reader of our stories and someone who votes, the writers wish to express their gratitude and appreciation. Links to the stories and the poll for voting for “Alphabet Challenge W-Stories” are HERE(link) Votes will be accepted until  Noon (Central Time) on Monday, January 25th, 2021.

So, snow on Mauna Kae (the Big Island of Hawaiʻi) . . .

Composite of six photos taken in portrait mode.

That shot was taken from Highway 19 just north of the Kawaihae port while heading up to Waimea.

Continue reading →

Two days left in “W” stories voting block, a little rant . . . and a Cactus Ent

Note: If you are using the WordPress App in Android and reading this with the Reader in Dark Mode, you won’t see much of the post because of a bug in the behavior of the app.

The “W” stories voting block has a little over 48 hours before it ends and the results recorded in the annals of insignificant history.  If you like a particular story, in addition to voting for it — and if you feel like it — now is the time to nudge friends and family into reading it (and also ask them to read the others in case they don’t agree with you) and to cast their votes.

No matter how you come to them or who you vote for, if you’re a reader of our stories and someone who votes, the writers wish to express their gratitude and appreciation. Links to the stories and the poll for voting for “Alphabet Challenge W-Stories” are HERE(link) Votes will be accepted until  Noon (Central Time) on Monday, January 25th, 2021.

So, photos . . .

These were shot in Central Illinois last July. They are dead now.

Continue reading →

It’s frustrating

I assume I’m not in a unique position, but it feels like it.

On any given day, either directly or indirectly, I get one or both of two kinds of inputs regarding serious topics; an anecdote about something bad, stupid, or illegal said or done by someone on the left and a corresponding anecdote about something bad, stupid, or illegal said or done by someone on the right.

I might chance upon something shared by my Facebook contacts, read a comment on a blog (or a whole blog post), get forwarded an email, or I’m outright asked about said utterances or actions.

What’s frustrating about that?

I’ll tell you . . .

Continue reading →

Let’s talk about it’s just a thought . . .

That’s two interesting phrases I’ve heard a lot lately.

Now, people use the term “a lot” to indicate anything from twice to fifty-seven and even beyond.

In my case, it means I watched a crapload (a little-used technical term) of these videos:

Beau of the Fifth Column — by topics

Beau of the Fifth Column — list of videos

Knowing people are too lazy to click on links, here’s one of the videos:

Continue reading →

Covid-19 musings and stuff

Just a few things and a few thoughts I want to share.

First, THIS link about happiness and mental-well-being. The site is the Happiness Lab and it currently features short episodes on coping with coronavirus Social Distancing and isolation. You can also listen to Season 1 and Season 2 begins on the 27th.

Even more interesting is THIS link . . . it takes you to Yale’s most popular course (over 2M people currently enrolled for the course) which begins today, April 18th.

You can join the course for free — as I did — or pay the $49 entry fee if you want to earn a certificate to add to your resume. I entered for free; just provided my name and email address, and I was registered. There are ten weeks and it looks like there’s about 2-3 hours worth of material per week (just a cursory look, I had, so don’t hold me responsible if that’s not true).

Here’s the bio on the professor (including the links above):

Laurie Santos is an Associate Professor in the Department of Psychology at Yale University. She hosts the popular podcast The Happiness Lab and she teaches the most popular course offered at Yale to date, titled The Science of Well-Being. Laurie is also the director of the Comparative Cognition Laboratory and the Canine Cognition Center at Yale. She received her A.B. in Psychology and Biology from Harvard University in 1997 and her Ph.D. in Psychology from Harvard in 2003.

That blurb is from the Sam Harris interview with the lady, featured on his Waking Up app (a meditation app).

Some of what I see (looking at the titles) covers ground I’m already familiar with through reading various articles about cognitive studies and listening to podcasts, and I’ve already incorporated some of what I learned into how I live my life and how I cope with life.

Still, I’m always interested in learning more about how my brain works and controlling it to my benefit.

The class begins today, as I said, and I don’t know if it’s also the last day to register. Keep that in mind if interested in it.

Right, let’s proceed . . .

Continue reading →

More COVID-19 stuff, some ranting, and “F” stories

So, as the pandemic continues, I cross paths with more things that annoy me . . . no, that’s too mild. It’s things that piss me off.

Look, I spend a fair amount of time gently — and sometimes not-so-gently — pointing out to people that being “for” one political party or the other is, frankly, dumb. As is one religious belief over another, or any single ideology over another.

I cannot think of any religious, political, social, ethnic, or racial group that is completely right or completely wrong about things they believe and act on. Typically, they all have some things they get right, some things they get wrong, and some things that make them sound like they are bat-shit crazy. The proportions might change, but there’s always a spectrum.

Hence, it’s difficult for me to respect anyone who completely and totally buys into everything “their” group says. And it’s not just losing respect. 

If you are one of them people who are steeped into the culture of either the Far Right or Far Left, in short order you will cease to exist for me. I mean, I used to give a nod and a wink and let some things slide, but as I get older — and especially now — I have far less patience than I had even last month.

Truthfully, they too will likely lose their patience with me . . . and I can live with that, but then, stay out of my orbit.

What does this have to do with COVID-19, you ask? Good question; let me answer it after this photo.

Yet another grass photo as it came out of the D7500.

Continue reading →