October 1, 2024 – After hurricane Helene at SAFF. | Saint Andrews Forest Farm

Chicken of the woods, Laetiporus sulphuric, found on the way to the farm. We took this older specimen over and left it to spore on some of our dead and dying hardwoods: Mostly black cherry trees and tulip poplar.

Today was a mushroom hunter’s dream. It’s an understatement to say they were everywhere. We’ve had an enormous amount of rain in Central Virginia and the Shenandoah Valley. We’ve had flooding at the house but finally, after all of this rain, the water table is restored at SAFF from our prolonged summer drought. All of the springs are flowing and the waterways are moving. We saw water flowing in the wet weather gullies in the north and south. It’s a beautiful sight.

Source: October 1, 2024 – After hurricane Helene at SAFF. | Saint Andrews Forest Farm

The Murder Rate Fell at the Fastest-Ever Pace Last Year—and It’s Still Falling – Mother Jones

In 2023, murders in the United States fell at the fastest pace ever recorded, by about 11 percent, according to figures released by the Federal Bureau of Investigation last week. And on Monday, the agency shared more good news: The number of killings seemed to keep falling significantly, by an estimated 23 percent, during the first six months of 2024.

“It is an astounding feat that deserves to be studied for decades to come,” crime analyst Jeff Asher, whose reports on homicide trends have been widely cited, wrote on his Substack last week. He noted that the US murder rate is now “at or very possibly below pre-Covid levels,” and that the country hasn’t seen such a big one-year decline in killings since 1996, when murder rates dropped by 9 percent.

Overall violent crime is falling too—by about 3 percent in 2023, and by an estimated 10 percent in the first half of 2024, according to the FBI. This drop is “certainly nowhere near as fast” as the drop in murder, writes Asher. But unlike murder, he adds, overall “violent crime didn’t rise a ton in 2020.” It has “largely returned to the 50-year lows seen a few times over the last decade, and is down more than 50 percent from where it was at peak in the 1990s.”

The 2023 FBI data gives us a pretty good sense of recent crime trends, but it’s important to note that the latest figures from the first six months of 2024 are more preliminary—law enforcement agencies have until the end of the year to correct any mistakes. So take these figures with “a grain of salt,” writes Asher: It’s likely that the numbers won’t be quite as great by the end of the year.

Source: The Murder Rate Fell at the Fastest-Ever Pace Last Year—and It’s Still Falling – Mother Jones

JD Vance won the VP debate with lies. Here’s the truth, in his own words – Los Angeles Times

He said he and Donald Trump wouldn’t back a national ban on abortions. He backed away from deporting millions of undocumented people. He shifted positions like a chameleon changing colors to fit into its nationally televised surroundings.

In short, he lied, lied and lied some more, with ease and flair. Sometimes he just flat-out fabricated, and other times he balanced deftly on the knife edge between fact and fiction. Where his boss, Trump, screams his deceits in between stories of batteries and sinking boats, Vance delivered them covered in sugar and serenity.

Source: JD Vance won the VP debate with lies. Here’s the truth, in his own words – Los Angeles Times

El viento – Santiago Galicia Rojon Serrallonga

santiagogaliciarojonserrallonga

Derechos reservados conforme a la ley/ Copyright

El viento trae sus notas y sus colores, a veces con lluvias rezagadas y en ocasiones, en cambio, con fríos anticipados, con caricias y rasguños, y con sus rumores, pausas y silencios, igual que el poema que regala letras alegres y tristes, hermosas y aterradoras, mortales e infinitas, o el concierto que ofrecen los violines y llegan, sensibles y cautivantes, a las profundidades del ser. El aire, en el terruño donde un día, a cierta hora, fui forastero, me recuerda, en las auroras y en los ocasos, a toda hora, que estoy vivo aquí, en medio del mundo, con los claroscuros de la existencia, con algo de temporalidad y mucho de inmortalidad. Son las ráfagas que sonrojan mis mejillas y que arrancan las hojas de los árboles y mueven sus ramas, al trigo, las flores y las plantas, en un acto que se repite a diario, en absoluta armonía con el palpitar de la naturaleza y el infinito. Es el viento que corre, se va y deja huellas de su paso. Sopla de acuerdo con su guión, congruente con las notas de la partitura, magistral y poderoso, señorial e imponente o pequeño e imperceptible. Suave o intenso, mueve los molinos y pulveriza las gotas de las cascadas y las olas. Le entrego mis letras, mensajes, cartas, con la intención de que los lleve a los seres de antaño, hoy y siempre, que tanto amo, al agua, a la lluvia, a los ríos, al océano, a los animales, a las estrellas, a los vegetales, a las rocas y a cuanto pulsa en mi interior y afuera. En el lugar donde vivo, el aire otoñal trae sabores, colores y sensaciones veraniegos e invernales. Invita a vivir.

Derechos reservados conforme a la ley/ Copyright

 

Source: El viento – Santiago Galicia Rojon Serrallonga

The Mind Boggles | Filosofa’s Word

The most mind-boggling question that is boggling my mind these days is how millions of people can still, in light of everything, support Donald Trump for the highest position in our government.  Given the lies, the obvious ineptitude, the egomania, the cruelty … wouldn’t you think people would have backed away from him by now?  Robert Reich poses his theory on this issue, and to a large degree I think he may be right … but I tend to believe that misogyny and racism play a bigger role than what Reich gives them.  It’s as if a brain-eating bacteria has spread to millions of people.  Anyway, see what Mr. Reich has to say and see if you agree …


How the hell can Trump be running neck-and-neck with Harris? Let me tell you.

And why I remain optimistic

 

By Robert Reich 

30 September 2024

With less than 40 days until Election Day, how can it be that Trump has taken a small lead in Arizona and Georgia — two swing states he lost to Biden in 2020? How can he be narrowly leading Harris in the swing state of North Carolina? How can he now be essentially tied with her in the other key swing states of Michigan and Wisconsin? 

More generally, how can Trump have chiseled away Harris’s advantage from early August? How is it possible that more voters appear to view Trump favorably now than they did several months ago when he was in the race against Biden?

How can Trump — the sleaziest person ever to run for president, who has already been convicted on 34 felony charges and impeached twice, whose failures of character and leadership were experienced directly by the American public during his four years at the helm — be running neck-and-neck with a young, talented, intelligent person with a commendable record of public service?

Since his horrid performance debating Harris, he’s doubled down on false claims that Haitian migrants are eating pets in Ohio. He’s been accompanied almost everywhere by right-wing conspiracy nutcase Laura Loomer. He said he “hates” Taylor Swift after she endorsed Harris; that Jewish people will be responsible if he loses the election; that the second attempt on his life was incited by the “Communist Left Rhetoric” of Biden and Harris. And so on.

He’s become so incoherent in public that Republican advisers are begging him to get back “on message.”

So why is he neck-and-neck with Harris?

Before we get to what I think is the reason, let’s dismiss other explanations being offered.

One is that the polls are understating voters’ support for Harris and overstating their support for Trump. But if the polls are systematically biased, you’d think it would be the other way around, since some non-college voters are probably reluctant to admit to professional pollsters their preference for Trump.

Another is that the media is intentionally creating a nail-bitingly close race in order to sell more ads. But this can’t be right because, if anything, more Americans appear to be tuning out politics altogether.

A final theory holds that Harris has not yet put to rest voters’ fears about inflation and the economy. But given that the American economy has rebounded, inflation is way down, interest rates are falling, wages are up, and the job engine continues, you’d think voters at the margin would be moving toward her rather than toward Trump. 

The easiest explanation has to do with asymmetric information.

By now almost everyone in America knows Trump and has made up their minds about him. Recent polls have found that nearly 90 percent of voters say they do not need to learn more about Trump to decide their vote.

But they don’t yet know Harris or remain undecided about her (more on this in a moment).

Trump is exploiting this asymmetry so that when it comes to choosing between Trump and Harris, voters will choose the devil they know.

This requires, first, that Trump suck all the media oxygen out of the air so Harris has fewer opportunities to define herself positively. 

Americans who have become overwhelmed by the chaos are tuning out politics altogether, especially in swing states where political advertising is nonstop. And as they tune out both Trump and Harris, Trump is the beneficiary, because, again, he’s the devil they know.

In other words, Trump is running neck-and-neck with Harris not despite the mess he’s created over the last few weeks but because of it. 

Trump’s strategy also requires that he and his allies simultaneously flood the airwaves and social media with negative ads about Harris, which are then amplified by the right-wing ecosystem of Fox News, Newsmax, and Sinclair radio.

Trump’s campaign has given up trying to promote him positively. The Wesleyan Media Project estimates that the Trump team is now spending almost zero on ads that show him in a positive light. There’s no point, because everyone has already made up their minds about him.

Instead, the ads aired by Trump and his allies in swing states are overwhelmingly negative about Harris — emphasizing, for example, her past support for gender transition surgery for incarcerated people.

Researchers on cognition have long known that negative messages have a bigger impact than positive ones, probably because in evolutionary terms, our brains are hard-wired to respond more to frightening than to positive stimuli (which might explain why social media and even mainstream media are filled with negative stories).

Finally, Trump’s strategy necessitates that he refuse to debate her again, lest she get additional positive exposure (hence he has turned down CNN’s invitation for an October 23 debate, which she has accepted).

Behind the information asymmetry lie racism and misogyny. I can’t help wondering how many Americans who continue saying they “don’t know” or are “undecided” about Harris are concealing something from pollsters and possibly from themselves: They feel uncomfortable voting for a Black woman.

Having said all this, I’m cautiously optimistic about the outcome of the election. Why? Because Trump is deteriorating rapidly; lately he’s barely been able to string sentences together coherently. 

Harris, by contrast, is gaining strength and confidence by the day, and despite Trump’s attempts to shut her out, more Americans are learning about her. As she gets more exposure, Trump’s “devil-you-know” advantage disappears.

Perhaps it’s more accurate to say I’m nauseously optimistic, because, to be candid, I go into the next five weeks feeling a bit sick to my stomach. Even if Harris wins, the fact that so many Americans seem prepared to vote for Trump makes me worry for the future of my country. 

Source: The Mind Boggles | Filosofa’s Word

Second Look Behind the Headlines – News you can use…

Baldacchino di Perla

"Luce di parole, ombra di sogni."

Northern Desert Photography

Living on the Edge of the Sagebrush Ocean

Susana Cabaço

Spiritual Insights & Personal Empowerment

Barbara Picci

Artist & Art Blogger

craft journey

Furnicraft, woodwork, and art

musings corner

reveries and rants

Japão para Românticos

Bem Vindos a este espaço onde compartilhamos um pouco da realidade do Japão à todos aqueles que desejam visitar ou morar no Japão. Aqui neste espaço, mostramos a realidade do Japão e dos imigrantes. O nosso compromisso é com a realidade. Fique por dentro do noticiário dos principais jornais japoneses, tutoriais de Faça você mesmo no Japão e acompanhe a Série Histórias de Imigrantes no Japão. Esperamos que goste de nossos conteúdos, deixe seu like, seu comentário, compartilhe e nos ajudar você e à outras pessoas. Grande abraço, gratidão e volte sempre!

Leben als Mensch

Willkommen auf Elke´s Glücks-Blog

Sharpshot Nature .Com

- Specializing in the great outdoors, capturing nature at its finest!

Diane Ravitch's blog

A site to discuss education and democracy

Expansão e Percepção

Seu Guia de Inspirações e Reflexões Diárias

noga noga.

my-health-and-beauty.com/

Uğurcan'ın Ütopyası

Benim Gezegenime Hoş geldiniz !!!

AKILS

Blog de viajes y lugares

Ed Mooney Photography

The official blog of Ed Mooney Photography. Dad of 3, Photographer, Blogger, Powerlifter. Exploring the historical sites of Ireland.

everything Explored on the earth

It has new aidias,news, about education , motivation, social, historical, culture, marketing creation new aidias education of language science culture and history

Born to die

L'unico modo sensato di vivere è senza regole

Early Morning Memories

by Anuran (A) & Sayoni (S)

My thoughts

Fun for the Brain

Neo Vision College

An exemplary learning community.

Anthony’s Crazy Love and Life Lessons in Empathy

Loves, lamentation, and life through prose, stories, passions, and essays.

Episodic Squalid Rants

public tantrums by a non-two-year-old

The Street Art Directory

Public, street and urban art worldwide

Artie & Stu

all the rules of free form

Everyone read that they fell in love first

<script async src="https://pagead2.googlesyndication.com/pagead/js/adsbygoogle.js?client=ca-pub-2937106805202763" crossorigin="anonymous"></script>

davidscottmoyer

Lapsed Painter, Occasional Photographer, Compulsive Writer

Health & Fitness

Health Blogs

Buildings Tell Tales

Exploring the hidden architectural heritage of Budapest

Divit kalem

Yaşamdan

Roy's Weblog

The third incarnation...

Thought Pukes

More than a thought less than a question

"بوصلة الحياة"

"بوصلة الحياة: مدونة متعددة المجالات، من السياسة إلى الرومانسية، ومن تطوير الذات إلى الأدب وأكثر!" بقلم مشاعر بنت عبدالرحمن

parallax

The view from here ... Or here!

ClearingSpace4Joy

Bringer and seeker of joy

Belladonna’s Flashlight

The One Where She Stumbled Through Her 40's and Faced Her Demons

~ Trivial Music Silliness ~

Baw wit da baw. Just sayin'.

mo mnsoor blog

Website storys

Chronicles of an Anglo Swiss

Welcome to the Anglo Swiss World

gnaddrig ad libitum

Querbeet und ohne Gewähr

Peace & Truth

KINDNESS IS FREE, sprinkle it all over the world, and 😁 smile

Ética de la vida diaria

Nuestra ética de todos los días...

Elizabeth Gauffreau

Fiction Writer in Poet's Clothing