R. Doug Wicker's Blog, page 155

Election 2016 — A Call to Arms

I call it the NOTAP. The NOTAP is the None Of The Above Party. And I offer up as NOTAP’s first presidential candidate . . . well, we’ll get to that in a moment.

NOTAP’s primary platform is the ultimate delegitimization of the eventual winner of this year’s U.S. presidential election, and the abject humiliation of a two-party system that foisted these two candidates upon us. That’s it. One issue. One objective. Everything else at this point is secondary to that one goal. E-v-e-r-y-t-h-i-n-g, w...

Election 2016 — But How Do We Fix This Year’s Mess?

The short answer is, we can’t. Barring a federal indictment, or someone being crushed to death in the tragic collapse of an enormous ego, or other unforeseen and unlikely circumstance, Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton are this year’s disastrous nominees. Get used to the idea. We can’t fix it . . . but we might, just might be able to mitigate the damage regardless of the outcome.

Why we can’t fix things this year: Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump were right about one thing — the system is rigge...

Election 2016 — Fixing This System Long Term

So how do we fix our broken nominee selection system here in the U.S.? The most expedient and cost effective solution is to go back to that clichéd “smoke-filled back room” I mentioned in yesterday’s “Decision 2016 — Why the Hell Did We Get Here?” But that genie is out of the bottle. We, the people, are not likely to express the desire to relinquish control of candidate selection, even if as I demonstrated yesterday that “control” is an empty illusion.

That leaves reforming what we have. Firs...

Election 2016 — Why the Hell Did We Get Here?

Election 2016 — Why the Hell Did We Get Here?

So, this election year the U.S. electorate has reached a fork in the road. Unfortunately, both forks lead directly off a very tall cliff with large granite boulders at the end of the long ride down. And regardless of which fork you — the individual voter — choose this year, we’re all forked. On Monday I described how we got to this Hobson’s Choice of deeply flawed candidates. Today I’ll touch upon why we got to this point.

Through 1968 candidates...

Election 2016 — How the Hell Did We Get Here?

Election 2016 — How the Hell Did We Get Here?

Readers of my blog probably realize by now that I assiduously try to avoid political discussions. That’s ironic, because my third most read blog is the one in which I renounced my lifetime affiliation with one of the Big Two U.S. political parties. That post way back from October 14, 2013, received 11,790 views, and it averaged 649 hits a day over the course of the final eighteen days of the month in which it was published.

With that amount of suc...

Fun Photo Friday — Birds of the Tárcoles River

Great Egret

Today I present some birds of the Tárcoles River:

Pygmy Kingfisher

Frigate Bird in Flight

Don’t Tell U.N.C.L.E, but is this a Clay-Colored Thrush?

The migrating Great American Snow Bird

I’ll be suspending for one week the continuation of this latest travel series for a five-part treatise on the state of U.S. politics, what went wrong this year, and solutions for how to fix this mess long-term, and how to mitigate it short-term. Sorry for the detour, but that series builds up to an...

Tárcoles — No Lions, No Tigers, No Bears, but Oh My!

On the River

By no stretch of the imagination am I knowledgeable on birds, but what Ursula and I saw this day along the Tárcoles River was indeed impressive. So, you’ll just have to enjoy the beauty of our feathered friends without too much in the way of identification. I do know that this proud fellow is a great egret:

Great Egret

Also in the waters of the Tárcoles River were various other animals, some cute:

Sunbathing turtle

And some rather dangerous:

American crocodile

Below is today’s ph...

A Quick Stop before Our Jungle Expedition

Entering crocodile territory

Our ultimate destination on this trip into the wilds of the Costa Rican jungle was a boat ride on the Tárcoles River, a river teaming with potentially dangerous American crocodiles and other more benign wildlife. But first it was time to feed the tourists before possibly feeding the tourists to the crocodiles. And so it was that we stopped at a charming little restaurant called Steve -n- Lisa’s, where we were greeted by this friendly little fellow just outside the...

Fun Photo Friday — Puntarenas and Capuchin Favorites

The Light Post

Here is today’s photo gallery/slide show of Puntarenas and Costa Rican Jungle favorites:

Filed under: Fun Photo Friday, Photography, R. Doug Wicker, travel Tagged: Costa Rica, Fun Photo Friday, Golden Princess, photography, Puntarenas, R. Doug Wicker, travel, travel photography, vacation

The Costa Rican Jungle

White-headed capuchin

Our next tour stop was at a farm. No, it wasn’t the crops we were here to see. It was the wildlife, particularly the white-headed capuchin monkeys. You have to be careful with these little guys, as the agitate very easily. No sudden moves, and read the body language. If they’ve had enough of your attention they’ll make it known.

Friendly guy

Of course, it helps if you have treats for them.

Where’s the food?

So don’t come empty handed. Don’t worry. The human residents wil...