Author: Mark Tokarski

Just a man who likes to read, argue, and occasionally be surprised.

If I fell*

Yesterday my wife and I were working on our back deck, she making planters while I tried to clean out a problematic gutter that sits over the ell part of the deck. I had to borrow a 13 foot ladder from our neighbor Tom, but before that thought that an eight foot step ladder was enough to reach a gutter twelve feet high. In fact, the eight foot ladder was enough, but only if once on the highest step I made no movements, used no force and applied no pressure to the various pain-in-the-ass parts of the gutter that clog up every year. (I have an extension ladder, but cannot lean it into the gutter and accomplish anything without damaging it.)

One time on  descent from the eight-foot ladder, I said to her:

I would not like it if I fell.
The reason why I cannot tell.
But this I know and know full well,
I would not like it if I fell.

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The Streisand Effect

 

Prior to discussing the Streisand Effect, I am reminded of radio talk show host Dr. Laura Schlessinger, heard on weekdays on SiriusXM channel 111. She is currently 75 years old and going strong. Back before the proliferation of Sirius channels she was usually heard on AM radio. The program was very popular. Even as I was a liberal at the time, and her advice very conservative, I liked her and had very little trouble with her advice, which was stern, sensible and straightforward.

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Locked down with TSA in Salt Lake City

This is purely a personal complaint so don’t read it if you’ve better things to do (and you know you do).

Over our years of traveling we have been many places and gone through customs in every imaginable form. People who work customs are just doing a job, one that is highly routine and boring. They have to look at our passports, run them through scanners, ask us perfunctory questions. No, we are not carrying large amounts of money and have not purchased jewelry, and are not bringing in oranges or yams. We are tourists, and not on business.

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A shocking graphic presentation of our Climate Emergency

If you are sharp of eyesight, you will note a slight uptick in planet temperature from 1880 to 2020. There is a word for this change from 57 degrees to 59 degrees over that 140 year period: Imperceptible. The human body cannot distinguish such slight temperature anomalies.

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Woketa-woketa-queep-woketa-queep **

Target is now taking it in the shorts, so to speak, after going full woke with a line of clothing aimed at gays, transgenders, and most notably, children including infants. This from Epoch Times* Roman Balmakov:

This was Target’s 2023 “Pride Collection,” which included items such as onesies for infants with a bunch of different pro-gay and pro-trans slogans, books for children like “Bye Bye, Binary” and “What Are Your Words?”—which helped to instruct children on using transgender pronouns—chest binders being sold for girls, and female swimsuits that had a “tuck-friendly” label—meaning that the swimsuit has enough additional fabric to cover male genitals, worn by young boys who want to pretend that they don’t have boy parts.

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Union of Concerned Scientists: Caught in a big fat lie

Once again, I am limited for display purposes here by the inability of this iPad to allow me to increase the size of the above image. On a PC it is easily done. Nonetheless, what is being sold here should be obvious, and can be viewed with greater ease by going to the original article. This graph is linked behind that article. CNN Published Blatantly false Claim About Wildfires – There’s No Link to Fossil Fuels At All.

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The dreaded travelogue: Chamonix, France

This is our third trip to Chamonix, or first in 2011 as we hiked one-half of the Tour de Mont Blanc*. We came here again in 2016, prior to taking on the Swiss Haute Route (which we completed over a two year period). This year we are here with the freedom of a vehicle, not having to walk everywhere. That said, the vehicle has been sitting in the hotel parking lot for three days now.

We could have driven to Cascade de Dard, a local waterfall. Instead we opted to walk up the thousand feet, our total day covering nine miles. There was a time when such a hike was a small thing, but after ankle surgery and a long period of relative inactivity, it was tough. The ankle hurts at the end of each day, but the next day feels new. It also counts against us that we are in our seventies.

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A couple of useful outdoor programs

While we travel and hike, we have come across some amazing and free programs that we use regularly. The first is called Seek, put out by iNaturalist. It is available for free at the Apple App Store.

Seek has many uses, but we primarily use it to identify plants. We merely hold the iPhone camera over the plant, whether leaf or flower. It quickly identifies it, giving us the common name, though on occasion it offers only the Latin name.

It does not matter whether you live in a large city or rural area, or as we have discovered if you are in a foreign country. Its database is so massive that if knows every plant and every subspecies. It is truly a wonder to behold. When stumped, it offers “dicot” or “monocot”.

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Americans in Paris

We just spent five days in Paris, walking 32 miles, visiting four museums and Monet’s home. We saw thousands of people. We ate in non-Michelin rated restaurants and walked the streets of various Parisian districts. This extensive survey is not scientific or peer reviewed, but here are my impressions:

Gays are among us, a few flamboyant, but mostly blending. By and large, coupling is race-based, black women with black men, whites with whites, Syrians with Syrians, etc. It is also age-based, young with young, middle with middle, and as with me and my wife, old with old. Among younger people there is little variety, as young girls tend to hang with their own race and status. Same with guys. Where I see diversity is among young school children being led by adults, quite a cacophony of races.

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