Richard Rathe's Reflections (BLIS)

Welcome!

Remain calm, be kind, and carry on regardless!

id photo 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. Some refer to this as a Digital Garden. I call it BLIS (BLog It Simple). Find me online…

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Food for Thought

In the middle of difficulty lies opportunity.

Albert Einstein

Featured Photo

Panorama, Sunrise, Lake_Santa_Fe, Florida

Mono Lake

Birds California Galleries Travel 2025

This is my second trip to Mono Lake and the good news is it hasn't changed much. In fact, the water level has stabilized (it was drying up) after agressive water management action by California. A large amount of water had already been drained for watering lawns and golf courses in Los Angeles. We visited the Tufa State Reserve on a sunny afternoon and saw many cool plants and birds.

RFK jr's Food (Non) Pyramid as Propaganda

Commentary 2026

The history of the food pyramid is complicated (see my analysis from 2004). There hasn't been an official one for maybe twenty years. I grew up with it and I think it is a sound idea, but very political with respect to what foods go where. It may be a coincidence, but anyone who is familiar with the old pyramid will recognize this one as an inverted echo. There are many other ways to lay out these ideas graphically, the choice of an inverted triangle is not subtle. I think it's propaganda for the following reasons:

Natural Selection in the Nest!

Birds Nature 2018

Great Egret Chick Pushed Out of the Nest by Siblings

Yesterday we kayaked over to the Egret Rookery on Little Lake Santa Fe. There were at least ten great egrets sitting on nests and one nest had a raucous bunch of chicks (3 or 4). Then we noticed there was a much smaller chick on the edge and its siblings were attacking it! After a minute or two we watched the little guy fall sixty feet into the water…

Baking Good Bread On Demand

Books How_To Projects Reviews 2026

I've been a novice bread baker over the years, specifically breads leavened with yeast. I've made bagels and pizza crusts from scratch. I have a pizza stone in my oven and a wooden peel for that purpose. My last big endeavor was using my bread machine to make no knead bread (based on the famous NY Times recipe) with some success. All of this pales by comparison with the Five Minute approach outlined in the book discussed here.

Garden of the Gods (Illinois)

Birds Galleries Hdr Travel Video 2017

I had the opportunity to travel through Southern Illinois on my way back from Iowa in June. I large part of this hilly country is contained within the Shawnee National Forest There are miles of trails, several wilderness areas, and many points of interest. I stopped for the night at The Garden of the Gods (not to be confused with the area in Colorado by the same name!).

Sweetwater Wetlands 2026

Birds Galleries Nature 2026

Photos from our recent visit to Sweetwater Wetlands Park. Not sure I've been there in January before. There were the usual denizens and one surprise (Roseate Spoonbills). It was a bright shiny day and it warmed up quickly.

Stockon Island Camping Trip

Apostle_Islands Birds Camping History Plants Travel 2021

We made an amphibious landing to offload our gear and then moored the boat about a mile away at the pier. I pitched my hammock tent right on the beach between mature white and red pines. The level of Lake Superior had recently gone down so there was a more normal amount of beach exposed.

Guttenberg 2025

Birds Flowers Galleries Iowa Travel 2025

This year I came and went three times due to other trips and obligations. Starting in May to open up the place. Then back in late July for the RAGBRAI and family reunion. Then back after trips to Brimson and the BWCA in September.

Santa Fe River Day Trip

Birds Galleries Travel 2025

Out with friends to canoe down the Santa Fe River in north Florida. We saw many large turtles sunning themselves along the way plus a juvenile bald eagle! Stopped for lunch in the outflow from Blue Spring.

No Kings Anti-Trump Protest

Commentary Galleries Video 2025

Visiting family and friends in 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.

Okefenokee Canoe Trip 2004

Camping Okefenokee Travel 2004

Most of our party camped in Folkston, GA the night before the trip started. All ten of us arrived at Kingfisher Landing on a cool, sunny morning. After loading the canoes, we were off just after nine. The red and green trails both begin at the landing, but after a short paddle down a canal we turned north following the red trail. We preceded through low cypress, marsh land, and several small shallow lakes.

Treehugger Hitch (or Tree-Hook Knot)

Camping How_To Projects 2023

This is an idea I’ve been incubating for some time as a non-destructive “place anywhere” alternative to nails in trees or breaking living branches to hang things on. The knots required are very simple. Shown here is my first successful field test! It is tied using a short stick or similar object found locally.

All in the (Eagle) Family!

Birds Nature 2012

Sometimes you see something in nature that has a direct analog in the human world. I caught sight of this family of Bald Eagles on the Mississippi River—then I noticed a familiar pattern…

Hand Counting by Twelves

History Technology 2023

Ever wonder why we sometimes count things by the dozen, or why there are 60 minutes in an hour? We may have the ancient Babylonians (or earlier societies) to thank. They came up with this ingenious way to keep track of large numbers using only their two hands. There are variations on this theme, but it becomes pretty obvious if you have a hand with four fingers, with three bones each, and a thumb.

The Rational History of Present Illness

Medicine Medinfo 2017

The History of Present Illness (HPI) has not changed appreciably since the introduction of the Problem-Oriented Medical Record in 1968. Until recently most medical documentation was created via dictation or handwritten notes. Narrative was the natural format for the HPI. This is no longer true in the era of online forms and computer-generated text.

Meteor 3p Tent (Review)

Camping Reviews Tents 2025

This nominal Three Person Tent from Sierra Designs is an asymmetrical, rectangular, wedge design. The asymmetry shifts the maximum interior height towards the head end where it is most useful. The sides (and doors) are nearly vertical thanks to a short spreader pole across the top. (Note that the tent reviewed here has been discontinued. The newer lite version costs twice as much 🙁 and has a bright orange fly.)

Self-Organizing Hypertext Notebooks (Jrju)

Medicine Medinfo Projects 1997

Hypertext Notebook with Inverse References

Jrju (Chinese for spider) is a Perl program that weaves hypertext 'notebooks' from plain text files. An author creates notebook pages using the JTX markup format. Jrju will process a directory of JTX files into a cross-linked collection of HTML pages. Jrju rebuilds the entire notebook each time so there are no broken links or orphan pages.

Everglades Kayak Trip 2024

Everglades Galleries Photography Travel Video 2024

This year we planned an aggressive trip—going down the Gulf Coast to access the narrow Wood River, revisit Camp Lonesome, stay at Willy Willy, and then loop back through the various inland bays on our return. Yet again we were thwarted by adverse winds.

Kammok Mantis Hammock (Review)

Camping Hammocks Reviews 2022

The Kammok Mantis is most notable for the superior materials used. My favorite is the night sky bug net material, which nearly disappears on dark starry nights. The hammock fabric feels very light and sturdy, while having a slight texture that makes it less slippery. The fly is made from an extremely light waterproof fabric (silnylon). It all goes into a very small package weighing 2 lb 11.5 oz (per Kammok website).

Cellon Oak (Florida Champion Tree)

Hdr Nature Photography Plants 2012

The Cellon Oak Park is located three miles south of La Crosse off highway 121 in rural Alachua County. For years I’ve driven the highways nearby and never knew this gem was there. The tree is magnificent in person. Well worth a trip!

Epitaph of Edward Carter (1742)

History 1742

Farewell Vain World I have Enough of thee and now I'm Careless what thou Say'st of me. What Fault thou See'st in me Take Care to Shun. There's worke within thy Self That Should be Done. Thy Smiles I Court not, nor thy Frowns I fear. My Cares are past, my head lies quiet here.

Deception, Obfuscation & Misdirection

Commentary Video 2016

Most are familiar with the concept of FUD—short for Fear, Uncertainty & Doubt. It summarizes a strategy often used in marketing and political propaganda. Its effects are pernicious, divisive and lead to exploitation. Examples abound. Fear is a strong motivator! To resist FUD one must understand how it is practiced using the principles of Deception, Obfuscation and Misdirection.

Good Morning Doctor!

Books History Medicine
W.A. Rohlf (1938)

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.

Richard Rathe's Reflections