Category: Life

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“We live in a republic, not a democracy” is a false binary. The United States is a representative democracy in the form of a republic. It’s both.

It’s like saying you’re not in a car, you’re on a road. You may be driving yourself (direct democracy) or choose someone who’s going your way (representative democracy). Or you may be tied up in the trunk…but hey, you’re still on the road, right?

When someone says we live in a republic, not a democracy, they’re downplaying the importance of representation in favor of structure. China and Russia are structured as republics too.

At best, it’s the Dunning-Krueger approach to being pedantic: look at the first definition in the dictionary, think you know enough to pull a “Gotcha!!!” on someone, and stop reading before you find the second, third and fourth definitions.

At worst, they’re actively telling you that you don’t deserve and shouldn’t expect representation in government. And considering that it’s usually said in response to someone complaining about a lack of representation, well… 🤔

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I’ve been seeing hawks lately when I’m out walking, which is new. I know partly it’s that I’m actively looking for suburban wildlife, but I’ve been doing that since last June when I started participating in iNaturalist. I started noticing how many squirrels and sparrows and phoebes and finches were around (in addition to the crows and pigeons and seagulls) right away. Maybe it’s seasonal? Maybe it’s the time of day I’ve been looking?

Whatever the reason, I’ve logged four observations over the last month or so. First, two red-shouldered hawks I spotted while hiking.

A hawk with brown feathers surrounded by mostly-bare leaves.

This is the best photo I managed to get of any of them, because it was perched in a relatively short tree at Madrona Marsh Preserve. Maybe only ten feet off the ground, just off the trail and not too far ahead of where I was standing. When I saw it, I stopped and took about five photos. It looked around, no doubt trying to spot some of the zillion tiny frogs I could hear (but not see), and then flew up to a higher tree, presumably for a better view.

A brown hawk perched on the end of a long, bare branch, a few twisted branches nearby, but mostly empty gray sky.

This one’s not as detailed, but I like the way it came out. I saw it from a few hundred feet away in a tall tree at the South Coast Botanic Garden. Yay for zoom lenses! (Though I still cropped the heck out of this shot.) It stayed there for a while, but I decided not to try to get a closer view and just continue hiking.

And then on two occasions I’ve spotted red-tailed hawks up in the same electrical transmission tower while walking along a bike path. In both cases I spotted them from a distance, perched up in the metal struts, not sure what kind of bird I was looking at until I could get closer.

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A small bird with gray and blue feathers on a wooden platform, with a blurry green background.

I spotted a western bluebird on Valentine’s Day morning.

Seems appropriate.

(Spotted in a tree at a city park. As I was trying to aim my camera, it flew down and landed on top of a birdhouse nearby, making it easier to see.)

Update: This was the last photo I posted to Instagram before I stopped using the site altogether. Even at the time I cross-posted it to Pixelfed and Flickr.

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The Washington Post points out that 82% of covid-19 cases identified so far are mild, basically a bad cold. Virologists are trying to determine: How many more mild cases haven’t been counted? And what factors cause some cases to be mild and others lethal?

There are several coronaviruses that already circulate globally and just cause colds. And there are several that cause more dangerous diseases like SARS and MERS. Covid-19 is new enough that we’re still trying to figure out where it is on the scale between a cold and SARS.

The Los Angeles Times brought up the H1N1 flu, which at first appeared much more deadly than other strains because it was the severe cases that were being counted. Once researchers could go back and find the mild cases, it turned out to be about the same as the typical seasonal flu. A decade since jumping to humans, H1N1 has essentially become just another seasonal flu.

Covid-19 is somewhere in between a cold and SARS, but as mentioned above, we’re still trying to figure out where.

In any case, it’s worth remembering: mild or severe, coronaviruses spread the same way as colds and the flu. Update 2023: Well, we thought it did at the time. Now we know it’s mostly shared, close airspaces. But washing your hands is still a good idea.

Wash your hands. (As Science-Based Medicine points out, a recent study suggests that hand-washing in airports is “probably the single most effective method for preventing pandemics.”)

Cough and sneeze into your elbow instead of your palm.

And if you get sick, stay home if you can.

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“Everyone lies!” “They’re all corrupt!” Even if that’s true, you still have to look at scale.

There’s a difference between drizzle, rain that you can use an umbrella for, and a hurricane.

Don’t make excuses for a hurricane because it might be raining somewhere else.

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I went hiking at the marsh preserve this weekend and was astonished at just how many different types of birds I saw. Five species of ducks alone (it is winter, after all) — not just the more common mallards, but shovelers, teals, wigeons, and one I hadn’t heard of before called redheads (for obvious reasons). The usual coots, egrets and Canada geese. Red-winged blackbirds, sparrows, a heron that was standing so still I started to wonder if it was a statue, and a very patient hawk that sat in a tree completely ignoring me and my camera until I was finished and it flew off to another tree.

I also heard frogs all over the place, but couldn’t actually see any of them. I asked about them at the visitor center and apparently the pacific tree frog can be very small, about the size of a quarter, but they can still be very loud when singing in a chorus. Next time I’m there, if the frogs are still in season, I need to at least record the audio.