Four For Four

 I believe this is the first time this falcon has succeeded in hatching all four eggs in the clutch.  

I think the bird on the right is the slightly smaller male, tiercel.  He has been very ably carrying out his support role, bringing food and guarding the nestlings when the female is off the scrape.

Fifty years ago it was not uncommon that all the eggs in a falcon's clutch would fail to hatch.  In fact, in those times many bird populations world-wide had gone into a disastrous decline due to egg shell thinning caused by pesticide contamination.  The raptors were especially vulnerable to pesticides, and populations including peregrines and eagles reached critically low levels.

The birds were granted a reprieve by a rarely achieved international agreement to stop producing and using the insecticide, Dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane (DDT).  The peregrine population might still not have rebounded to a healthy level had it not been for the rapid development of captive breeding programs.  Today, there may be as many breeding pairs of peregrines just in the Bay Area as existed in the whole country a half century ago.

A History Lesson for the Speaker

 It was not particularly surprising to see House Speaker Mike Johnson at Columbia calling for the resignation of the college's president.  However, to hear him demand that Biden send the National Guard to suppress the pro-Palestine demonstrations seemed extraordinary to me.  I suppose Johnson was a child when National Guardsmen opened fire on the student protesters in 1970 at Kent State, killing four and wounding nine.  That seems a poor excuse for a national leader for such a level of ignorance or disregard about such an historic and consequential event.

Mary Ann Vecchio screams as she kneels over the body of Kent State University student Jeffrey Miller on May 4, 1970.         Photo by John Filo

Peregrines

 Follow the nesting of the Peregrines at UC Berkeley (article).

(Click the picture for the Berkeley Live Cams.)

Annie takes flight around Sather Tower, or the Campanile, in 2022. Credit: Bridget Ahern

The Costs of Homelessness

 A friend recently expressed the opinion that an appropriate response to law breaking by homeless individuals would be to lock them up and throw away the key.  The Supreme Court is about to weigh in on the issue.

It appears, judging from court records that a sizable portion of the homeless population is already incarcerated, though not with a sentence of perpetual incarceration.

Ethical and constitutional issues aside, there are some practical issues with jailing as a solution to homelessness and associated burdens to society.

Looking at just the economics, the average cost of locking up a person in Albuquerque is about $124 per day.  That amounts to $3,720 per month.  Homeless people have illness and death rates much greater that of the general population, so the monthly cost of incarceration may be quite a bit higher for homeless individuals than the average.

Another practical consideration is the current state of the City's capacity to manage the incarcerated population.  In spite of a robust recruitment effort the City prison system is perpetually understaffed, currently with around a 25% deficit.  It seems like policies that would greatly increase imprisonment rates would make an already difficult situation close to impossible.

The current Albuquerque budget for dealing with homelessness is $25 million per year. I do not think that includes the current costs for the incarceration of homeless individuals. In any case, the money expended clearly has not made any real impact on the magnitude of the problem.

It seems like using the funds currently appropriated for dealing with homelessness and incarceration might be better spent on just supporting housing initiatives. Aside from getting people off the streets, housing would greatly decrease the usually minor offenses like trespassing that often lead to incarceration of the homeless.

 UPDATE:

The New Republic has some interesting comments on the unavailability of affordable housing.  It turns out that that financial speculation is at the heart of the problem:

...In 2018, corporations bought one out of every 10 homes sold in America, according to Dezember, who notes that, “Between 2006 and 2016, when the home ownership rate fell to its lowest level in fifty years, the number of renters grew by about a quarter...”

Good Morning

 

Spring Morning

 I got out on the sidewalk about 7:30 AM for the purpose of making some pictures with one of my old Kodak folders.  While there I also grabbed a few shots with my phone which actually turned out a bit better than what was captured on film.

The historic Henry Mann house across the street was built in 1905.

Our bungalow is more modest, but I'm claiming historic status for it as well as it has made it to one hundred years of age.

Eclipse Rose

 

 

I thought I missed capuring anything of the partial solar eclipse, but found a shot lurking in my phone.  I think this shot was made with the eclipse glasses held in front of the phone's camera lens.

 

 

Forest Management

 We often take our dog to this beach on the Rio Grande, walking there a quarter mile through the dense cottonwood forest.

There was no riverside forest in the vicinity of Albuquerque for a couple centuries after European settlement. Firewood harvesting and the demands of agriculture eliminated the forest, and then the Corps of Engineers tightly channeled the river's course to control flooding.  Now the area is protected as State park land and the web of steel jettyjacks has been mostly removed to allow some riverside irrigation for the cottonwoods.  Too much of a good thing at times, as fires are frequent and can be difficult to control because of the density of the vegetation.

Recently, the Middle Rio Grande Conservancy District (MRGCD) has begun a massive effort to thin the forest for the purpose of fire suppression.  Previous clearing was most focused on removing invasive species like the Russian Olive along with the associated ground litter, but the current effort is of much wider scope and has given the forest a much more open look with broad swaths permitting access by heavy firefighting gear.

Going Wide

 I have been exploring the possibilities of panoramic photography, without yet doing much myself.  In my film photography as I mentioned on my other blog, I have done some wide shots by using 120 film in my old 116 folders.  As the 120 film is narrower than the 116 frame I get pictures that are about twice as long has they are high.

 

Today, I left the house with two film cameras, the little Canon digital and my phone.  I drove to the Natural History Museum and was immediately aware of the many possibilities there for panoramic images.  It seemed a nice opportunity to get in some practice using the panoramic function in my phone camera, and I only did that.

Here are a couple that approached my intention:

So, a useful learning experience.  My technique clearly needs work, but it is apparent that digital technology has greatly expanded the possibilities for panoramic imaging.  I'm looking forward now to further exploring the potential of both digital and film for the wide views.

Ceasefire Now

 

NM Democratic Party adopts Gaza ceasefire policy

With 74% in favor, pre-primary convention calls on congressional delegation and Biden to end war and military aid to Israel

 An overwhelming majority of the New Mexico Democratic Party’s membership this month voted in favor of a ceasefire in Israel’s war in Gaza, an end to the blockade on aid, a pause on U.S. military aid to Israel and the release of hostages on both sides...

Continue reading at Source NM

Catching Some Rays

 

Mid-March Morning

 

At the Museum

 A few images from the current exhibition, 

Coast to Coast to Coast: Indigenous Art from the McMichael Canadian Art Collection

Taksam (woodbug) - Beau Dick

Eagle Spirit - Simon Dick

Transformation Mask - Art Thompson

Chief of the Undersea Kingdom - Johnny Davis

Chief of the Undersea Kingdom - Charlie George Sr.

Crooked Beak of Heaven  - Henry Speck Jr.

Albuquerque Spring

 

The Neighborhood

River Otters at the Aquarium

The Day after SOTU

 Biden put on a good performance in his State of the Union address.  He said about what I expected, including in those last seconds of the speech in which he vowed to conquer cancer.  

Well, every president in my now lengthy memory of the office has promised that.  So, the question remains: How do we weigh the damage we have contributed to in Gaza against the prospects of success in Biden's agenda, and the obvious threat of allowing Trump back into office?  It is clearly a complex computation.  

For instance:

 5 people killed in Gaza as aid package parachute fails to deploy

Eight months to go.

More:

I heard one of the pundits after Biden's speech referring to protestors wanting an immediate ceasefire as "one issue" voters.  I disagree.  Thirty thousand dead are thirty thousand issues.

A message for Joe

 Robert Reich, in today's Guardian, has a few suggestions for what Biden might want to say in this evening's State of the Union address.  Reich's list is essentially an outline for a coherent Democratic Party platform based on FDR's 1936 summary of his first term accomplishments.  I thought it was a good list as far as it went.  Missing was any mention of Gaza, or the complicity of the U.S. military-industrial complex in the ongoing Genocide.  We'll see what Joe has to say on those topics.

Makeba

Miriam Makeba Foundation

 

We often listen to the music of Miriam Makeba, but a recent long article on the Daily Kos brought forth memories for me of when I first became aware of her sixty years ago. The article includes a short biography from South Africa History Online, and links to many of Makeba's songs. Listening to the Swahili song, Malaika, brought forth a particularly emotional response from me because of the way it reminded me of her extraordinary voice, strength and courage.

I grew up in the Pacific Northwest. In those years the area had no overt evidence of racism -- no signs proclaiming separate public facility access. The racism was largely hidden from sight in housing contracts and unspoken assumptions. I don't recall any people of color then in the vast expanse of tract homes where we lived outside of Bellevue. I did have a Filipino friend and a Black friend in high school.  If it were not for the children of those two families Bellevue High School would have been totally segregated.

I recall as a child having strong feelings about any kind of unfairness or injustice.  However, the lack of any real contact with clear racist expression kept my level of awareness at an abstract level for a long time.  Makeba's appearance on the world stage gave a sense of reality and urgency to the issue. The problems of inequality and racism are clearly still with us, but Makeba's songs continue to bolster the resolve to overcome.

Morning in Old Town

 

The Cat

 

2024

 I voted for Hillary in 2016 and for Biden in 2020, though I would have much preferred to cast a vote both times  for Bernie. Now, my Bernie bumper stickers have faded to invisibility and I'm not planning to support Joe in '24 unless I see some major change in his stance on the Israeli war. In spite of my previous long-standing reservations about Biden he seemed clearly a preferable choice to Trump in 2020.  I understand why many people still feel the same way now.

What has changed since 2020 is the death of 29,000 Palestinians as the result of the indiscriminate bombing of Palestinian population centers.  For me, the threat of a second Trump presidency is greatly diminished in comparison to continuing war crimes against the Palestinian people. Biden's refusal to fully support the call in the UN for an immediate ceasefire makes the U.S. complicit in those crimes against humanity.

Click image for video

Early Spring

 Albuquerque is enjoying mild temperatures and mostly sunny skies.

Still time for a late cold snap, but another hot summer is likely on the way.

Curve-billed Thrasher

 

At the Museum

 I spent another hour at the big current exhibit at the Albuquerque Art Museum.  All the works in the exhibit are from the McMichael Canadian Art Collection including these two shown on their website:

There are several examples in the exhibit of animated masks operated with pull strings.  In my picture below the dorsal fin and mouth of the fish figure are opened and closed with strings.

My notes on the images are a bit muddled.  I think the big beaked figure in the glass case is by Henry Speck, Jr.  In the background are pieces by Norval Morrisseau.

Henry Speck Jr. created the three large pieces in the picture below.  The two framed drawings were done by Speck Sr.

The information accompanying Speck Jr.'s work points to an interesting aspect of the cultures of the groups along the Coast of the Pacific Northwest:  the hereditary chiefs are also artists.

This small mask by Beau Dick is said to represent a Wood Bug.

There are only a few pieces in the exhibit that go back beyond the mid-19th Century.  The governments of the U.S and Canada did their best to stamp out the indigenous cultures and nearly succeeded.  Archaeologists and collectors saved some things, but much of the provenance was lost in the process.  Contemporary indigenous artists have taken up the challenge of preserving and carrying forward the traditions and skills of their ancestral predecessors.

A Small Memory Recovered

The West Seattle House (Google Earth Screenshot)

I have been poking around in the dim corners of my memory, trying to retrieve some fragments related to any awareness of the previous indigenous residents of the neighborhood I lived in as a child in West Seattle. 

Aside from some references to Chief Seattle heard in school, the only actual contact I could recall with a living Native American was from around the age eight or nine when I had an Inuit friend of about the same age as I.  Originally from Alaska, he lived just down the street in a house even more modest than the one I lived in with my mother and grandparents after the war. His name was Marco.

I remember Marco as a handsome little guy with dark hair and dark eyes.  We often played together at war games as boys of that time did, fighting valiantly and dying dramatically.  A favorite locale for such dramas was about a mile to the southwest of our street -- a bluff overlooking the beach with steep, sandy slopes that were mostly covered with trees, including a few madrones with papery red bark. People in those days seemed unconcerned that children our age might be wandering about by themselves for much of the day.  I remember going often to the bluff, or in later years even down to the beach to spear flounders in the shallows.

The Bluff (Google Earth Screenshot)

Once, when we were scrambling around on the bluff's steep slopes, we came across a covey of valley quail which scooted noisily ahead of us through the brush.  One of the birds flew up into a tree close by. Marco picked up a fist-sized stone and threw it with perfect aim, hitting the quail which fell dead to the ground. I could not have been more surprised and amazed if Marco had suddenly flapped his arms and rose into the air.

Rethinking the Value of Art

The Albuquerque Art Museum has brought another fine exhibition to town: Coast to Coast to Coast: Indigenous Art from the McMichael Canadian Art Collection. What most caught my interest in the show was the selection of traditional art from the Northwest Coast.  After a quick walk-through my first thought was to wonder at how I had grown up in Seattle and undergone sixteen years of "education" there without achieving a better understanding and appreciation of the area's indigenous art.  There are some obvious personal and social reasons, I think, but a large part of the educational deficit was the absence of native voices in the process.  What brought home that idea was the opening presentation by two Canadian indigenous experts on the subject of the show.

I had developed an interest in anthropology during my time at the University of Washington, but somehow it was not channeled into the local access that was available to native cultures.  Instead, I wandered off to explore a bit of the Northwest Amazon which my months there only gained me a superficial view of the possibilities of learning about traditional societies.

Most of the art  discussed by the presenters was recent work by Canadian indigenous artists.  I have never been very interested in museum-directed work of that kind, but the discussion did point to the importance  of the underlying motivations and history.  The brief comments on the role of art in the traditional cultures of the Pacific Northwest, however, really sparked my interest in the subject.

I was particularly taken by the explanation by Bonnie Devine about the Potlatch as a key element of a sustainable economy.  Of course, that subject was touched on in my college classes, but I only remember it being presented as kind of an aberrant curiosity.  Devine's few words on the topic made the tradition of giving away precious art objects seem perfectly rational and practical.  Thinking the next day about that viewpoint brought me to the idea that a modern day analogy might be the history of the Free Software Movement.

So, I am looking forward now to several more visits to the current exhibition at the Art Museum and to spending some time exploring the available literature on the subject.

A Little Snow for Albuquerque

 The city's Spring-like weather has been interrupted by a bit of winter.

The jasmine is undeterred.