Where I've been and what I've learned along the way…
Welcome!
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. Some refer to this as a Digital Garden. I call it BLIS (BLog It Simple). Find me online…
Click or tap on any Article or Social Media Post to see more. You can also Search by key words.
Food for Thought
Never pray for justice, because you might get some.
Margaret Atwood
Featured Photo
HDR, Sierra, Mountains, California, Compressed
Social Media (Mastodon)
John Carlos Baez (@johncarlosbaez@mathstodon.xyz)
Mar 07, 2026
Manet's famous painting Un Bar aux Folies-Bergère never appealed to me. But now I realize its genius, and my spine tingles every time I see it.
The perspective looks all wrong. You're staring straight at this barmaid, but her reflection in the mirror is way off to right. Even worse, her reflection is facing a guy who doesn't appear in the main view!
But in 2000, a researcher showed this perspective is actually possible!!! To prove it, he did a photographic reconstruction of this scene. Check it out in my next post.
This blows my mind.
(1/3)
Hagia Sophia, Istanbul Turkey
Galleries History Photography Travel Turkey_2016
2016
Hagia Sophia is one of the most historic buildings in the world! It is a strange syncretism of Islam superimposed on top of Orthodox Christianity. Finished in 537 CE, it was the largest building in the world for a thousand years. When we visited it was a secular museum and world heritage site. Since that time a theocratic government has turned it back into a functional mosque. I do not know how the Christian art and iconography has been covered or possibly removed since then.
No Kings 3 Anti-Trump Protest
Commentary Video
2026
Joined my community to protest the Trump administration. Larger crowd than No Kings 2 back in October. Amazing how much has changed since then: the Demolition of the East Wing of the Whitehouse, the invasion of Minneapolis/St. Paul, the public execution of Renee Good & Alex Pretti, the Kidnapping of the President of Venezuela, the Epstein cover-up, starting an Illegal, Senseless War with Iran. Airlines are shutting down because TSA workers have been unpaid for a month. Gas is headed for $5 a gallon. And those are just some of the highlights.
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.
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.
RFK Jr's Inverted Food 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:
No Kings Anti-Trump Protest
Commentary Galleries Video
2025
Visiting family and friends in SacramentoCalifornia 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.
"Earth" by Imogen Heap
Music Reviews
Imogen Heap (2010)
I’ve been a fan of Imogen Heap for several years. Her latest album Ellipse has one of my all time favorite songs—Earth [listen]. It describes how a frustrated Mother Earth deals with her rambunctious offspring, homo sapiens. [lyrics]
Idiot America (Review)
Books Reviews
Charles Pierce (2009)
This short confection of a book has a serious message… When cranks become mainstream and large segments of the population take them seriously, our entire society is at risk! He's not against people with unconventional ideas, in fact he considers them to be an asset… a sort of check on the status quo. But an increasing number of cranks have won mainstream acceptance, and this is very alarming! Politics and religion are particularly vulnerable to exploitation.
Action Journaling (Tasks & Projects)
Projects
2022
AJ focuses on Action Items defined as discrete activities that can be performed, decided, or otherwise resolved (aka a todo list). This is the lowest level of organization—a shopping list for example. The higher level Task is to go shopping. The shopping list is an aid to complete this task. If you are planning a party with food and guests you must complete several tasks to ensure a successful event. Let's call this top level outcome a Project. As an outline it might appear something like this:
RFK Jr. & the Pasteurisation Controversy
Commentary History Medicine
Lawrence P. Garrod (1944)
Consider the so-called War on Raw Milk. I was amazed to discover in my Grandfather's scrapbook an article from 1944 debating the benefits of unpasteurised (raw) milk. These are echoed today by the public health nihilist Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.
Panhandle Pitcher Plant Expedition
Galleries Nature Photography Plants Travel
2020
The last time I went hunting for Pitcher Plants was 2017. This year I went about two weeks earlier and learned more about their distribution and lifecycles. I visited six sites in all, moving from Florida into Alabama. I saw mostly pitcher plant flowers as I moved west, apparently the flowers emerge days to weeks before the funnel-shaped leaves.
Wrens Singing a Duet
Birds Nature Science Video
2011
Plain-tailed wrens (Pheugopedius euophrys) cooperate to produce a duet song in which males and females rapidly alternate singing syllables. From Neural Mechanisms for the Coordination of Duet Singing in Wrens by Fortune, Rodríguez, et al in Science 4 Nov 2011.
BWCA Canoe Trip 2024
Birds Bwca Galleries Photography Travel
2024
This year we decided to base our trip out of Ely. We spent the night in the bunkhouse on Snowbank Lake. The next day we took the short drive to the official entry point #27 to head out into the wilderness.
Rebuilding the Food Pyramid
History Medicine Science
Willett & Stampfer (2003)
For more than ten years the U.S. Department of Agriculture has promoted its food pyramid as a guide to proper nutrition. The only problem is that it isn't very good advice! The authors of this January 2003 article in Scientific American provide much better guidance. But first a little history…
Okefenokee Canoe Trip 2021
Camping Galleries Hammocks Okefenokee Travel Video
2021
I last traveled to the Okefenokee in 2004, and I had been hoping to return sooner. My return was delayed in part by a multi-year drought and Major Fires in 2011. This year the water was high thanks to record rainfall in the late summer.
Self-Organizing Hypertext Notebooks (Jrju)
Medicine Medinfo Projects
1997
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.
Advanced Elements Expedition Kayak (Review)
Boats Camping Reviews Technology
2022
I’ve used a “traditional” inflatable kayak for several years, mostly in special situations such as houseboat camping or floating down rivers. They can be very practical and lots of fun in these settings. They are bouncy and sit high in the water, more like life-rafts than kayaks. The one thing they are NOT good for is a windy day on open water! So I was intrigued when I read about newer designs that approximate the capabilities of hard-sided kayaks. Advanced Elements produces several models including the Expedition Elite reviewed here.
Finding the Andromeda Galaxy (aka M31)
Nature
2010
Here's a bit of astronomical lore I picked up a few years ago. I learned the sky at summer camp; I have looked through numerous telescopes over the years; I even took an astronomy class in college—but no one ever pointed out the Andromeda Galaxy (the most distant and largest object we can see with our naked eyes!). So I invented my own way to find it using the triangle in Cassiopeia as my pointer. This is a great target for binoculars!
Review of Pandemic (The Game)
Medicine Reviews Science
2020
I bought this award-winning board game about three years ago not guessing how relevant it would become. Now that many of us are sheltering in place from COVID19, what could be better than a science-based game where the goal is to cooperate in order to defeat life-threatening viruses!
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.
Ephesus Ruins in Turkey (Gallery)
Galleries Hdr History Panoramas Travel Turkey_2016
2016
Richard Rathe 2016 (HDR, History, Panoramas)
There is No ‘I’ in AI
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.
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.
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 
