Wednesday, April 22, 2026

His Mother Named Him Marmaduke?



Marmaduke Wetherell (1883–1939) was a British–South African actor, screenwriter, producer, film director and big-game hunter, as well as the fraudster responsible for the hoax "surgeon's photograph" of the Loch Ness Monster.

From Wikipedia:

“In the 1930s, Marmaduke went to Loch Ness to look for the Loch Ness Monster. Wetherell claimed to have found footprints, but when casts of the footprints were sent to scientists for analysis they turned out to be from a hippopotamus; a prankster had used a hippopotamus-foot umbrella stand. (There is strong evidence that Wetherell perpetrated the hoax himself) As a result, Wetherell was publicly ridiculed by his employer, the Daily Mail. To get revenge on the Mail, Wetherell perpetrated the hoax "surgeon's photograph" of the Loch Ness Monster with his son Ian (who bought the material for the fake and took the photos), son-in-law Christian Spurling (a sculpture specialist), and Maurice Chambers (an insurance agent), taking a picture of a toy submarine made of plastic wood and passing it off as the monster. Chambers gave the photographic plates to surgeon Robert Kenneth Wilson, a friend of his who enjoyed "a good practical joke". Wilson had the plates developed and sold the first photo to the Daily Mail; the Mail would then announce that the monster had been photographed. The photo had been described as a hoax as early as 1975, but this was not common knowledge among the general public until 1994.”




The White Rose

The White Rose was a non-violent, intellectual resistance group in Nazi Germany which conducted an anonymous leaflet and graffiti campaign that called for active opposition to the Nazi regime

Tuesday, April 21, 2026

Robert Plant :: Ramble On (Unplugged)



Bald Eagle Chicks Getting Big

We Have Barred Owls in the Nest Box!




While leveling the new bee hive stands, I saw a Barred Owl fly out of the owl box I built in late 2003, and which has been occupied continuously since then (2004-2006). 

I built the owl box the first year in this house, and while my tree guys were doing some big tree felling, they put it up on a french cleat I cut for that purpose (third picture).

I can see the owl box from the back deck and hot tub, but it’s inside the forest edge so the owls feel secure.  There’s a small pond a few hundred yards to the left, and a creek a few hundred yards to the right, and a fair-sized marsh about 500 yards away, with acorn-heavy tall oaks and some beech trees on about 400 acres of forest which is connected to farm lands.



Pews and Pencils



Yes, I hug trees.  I will hug anything that manufactures oxygen for free, and which provides shade and the fixings for pencils and pews as well.



Monday, April 20, 2026

Pity the Nation by Lawrence Ferlinghetti



Pity the nation whose people are sheep, and whose shepherds mislead them.

Pity the nation whose leaders are liars, whose sages are silenced,
and whose bigots haunt the airwaves.

Pity the nation that raises not its voice, except to praise conquerors and acclaim the bully as hero and aims to rule the world with force and by torture.

Pity the nation that knows no other language but its own and no other culture but its own.

Pity the nation whose breath is money and sleeps the sleep of the too well fed.

Pity the nation — oh, pity the people who allow their rights to erode and their freedoms to be washed away.

My country, tears of thee, sweet land of liberty.

An American Cardinal



Sunday, April 19, 2026

Tougher Than a Honey Badger



ON THIS DAY IN 1775, Samuel Whittemore was in his fields when he spotted an approaching British relief brigade under Earl Percy. Whittemore loaded his musket and ambushed the British Grenadiers of the 47th Regiment of Foot from behind a nearby stone wall, killing one soldier. He then drew his dueling pistols, killed a second grenadier and mortally wounded a third. By the time Whittemore had fired his third shot, a British detachment had reached his position; Whittemore drew his sword and attacked.

He was subsequently shot in the face, bayoneted numerous times, and left for dead in a pool of blood. He was found by colonial forces, trying to load his musket to resume the fight. He was taken to Dr. Cotton Tufts of Medford, who perceived no hope for his survival. 

However, Whittemore recovered and lived another 18 years.




America Is Now a Terrorist State



Check this out:  SS Schutzstaffel meets Nazi Gestapo: 

▪️Web site >> https://hstf.gov

▪️Mother Jones article >> https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2026/04/homeland-security-task-force-new-website-sanitizes-trump-deportations-ai-big-balls/

This is what happens just before a country starts rounding up and disappearing its own citizens. 

Yes, that’s right; Stephen Miller has created his own government-funded paramilitary force. 

The massive detention facilities now being built, and the huge Homeland Security budget that accompanies it, are far too big for “criminal illegal aliens” alone.

Once built and staffed, those detention facilities will have to be filled to justify their continuing cost. 

Guess who they are going be filled with?  

Anyone with a conscience.

America is now a terrorist state ruled by a madman made possible by a cowardly and complicit Congress.

In the end, America was simply bought for cash and compromised with the most base and common kind of Kompromat. 

Pedophile rapist and money launderer Jeffery Epstein was (and is) a massive and long-running Israeli honey-pot operation using young girls (and some boys) to lure powerful economic and political players into compromising situations.  

The scheme destroyed Bill Gates’ marriage and Prince Andrew’s life. 

People all over the world have lost their jobs, their marriages, and are under investigation for criminal acts, but in the US, NOT ONE CHILD RAPIST has gone to jail.

Illegal sexual perversion compromises, but money paid to politicians has aways been a tried and true way to steer the ship of state.

Israel and Saudi Arabia paid cash and bought American lives with it, while reaping hundreds of billions of dollars in American military might and weapons sales for their investments.  

Was it a 100 to 1 return?  No, it’s been much higher than that.

The Gaza genocide is part of it, as so too is the Lebanon genocide and land theft.

And, of course, the Big Play was Iran, where American bombs are killing thousands of non-combatants, not only in Iran, but around the world as rising fertilizer, gasoline, and natural gas costs lead to rising prices, declining farm yields, anf lost lives.

And who benefits, other than the already named players?  

Why Russian and the big oil companies, of course. Both have pocketed many billions in new profits.  

And then there are the folks in Trump’s immediate orbit, who have made billions in pump-and-dump bets on oil and gas futures.  Trades have often been made minutes before Trump flips or flops on one issue or another.

America is now a terrorist state, and there is no reason for any country to ever trust us again.

I am not sure we were ever good, but the scale of the evil now in motion is truly unprecedented, as is the political cowardice.  

The press is not protecting us; they sweep most of it under the rug or work to normalize it.  

What does get through is mostly headlines — headlines that leave us numb and feeling helpless at the speed and scale of the corruption and cruelty sweeping the nation.

One third of the American people has always been brain-dead and absent from the voting booth, while another third appears to be nakedly racist, cruel, and cheerleaders for fascism and kleptocracy.  

I would not have thought the percentage was that high in the second group, but polls confirm it is.

Quo Vadis?  Where are we going?  

I do not know.

In the 19th-century, it was said four boxes defended American liberty; the soap box, the ballot box, the jury box, and the cartridge box.

That last box —bullets — is looking more important every day.

Perhaps it’s time we turned around that threat on the “Homeland Security Task Force” web site.

?? We don’t negotiate. We dismantle.” ?? 

Right.

That’s a strap line the American people and the world need to embrace as regards the Trump Administration.  

And we need to do it, in the immortal words of Jean-Paul Sartre, Frantz Fanon, and Malcolm X, “By any means necessary.”



Signs of Covid Times





























Back in 2020, I walked the local streets of downtown Frederick, Maryland to document the signs of that time.

In Maryland in 2020, we followed our sane Republican Governor, not the insane and morally bankrupt Trump who won through fraud and was cheering death while intentionally killing with abandon.