The Curmudgeon Speaks

Back in the 60s (I think), Malvina Reynolds wrote a song called “Little Boxes” which was about conformity in society. I flashed on the lyrics when I saw and photographed this image of mailboxes at the end of our road.

We own a lake property in northern Wisconsin. In general, the county provides wonderful services for our remote location with an asphalt road leading to our house. I grew up in Iowa, and these and many more traveled roads would have been gravel. I read or perhaps imagined that this commitment in Wisconsin was because of the dairy industry and the need to reach rural farms no matter the weather.

The mailboxes used to be much closer to our house. There was even a side road along this deserted road and the mailboxes were at the intersection of this road with the main uninhabited road. Not only that, but USPS and FEDEX would deliver packages directly to our door just like in the big city. Near Christmas time, we used to have AMAZON and other online shopping providers ship to our rural location because there was no possibility of porch pirates. We would go up on weekends and there would be a pile of boxes next to our door. It worked great unless we or someone shipped something that might freeze.

Then it all stopped. I blame Trump, but I think it happened before then. We had to move our mailbox down to where our road departed from the highway. We did. Then, the USPS stopped delivering packages because the parcels were undeliverable. What this meant was that our mailbox was too small. They would not drive the extra half mile to our door, as was originally the case. The undeliverables were not returned, but held at the post office and we may or may not receive a notice that we had to pick something up. I liked the pile by the door better. Most of the mail we received was junk, making it difficult sometimes to find the notice that a package was available. FEDEX still delivers, but AMAZON seems to use both systems, so you never know for certain when something will be delivered and when you will have to remember to go search for your package. The post office lady always glares at me when I ask if I have received any packages. She has to sort through a giant pile to see if something for us is there. Sometimes I can’t remember our house number and that seems to really annoy her. This was never an issue when I grew up, and each farm had a mailbox. We have given up having packages sent to the lake. It was getting old trying to explain to the post office lady about my life and why I am not aware of the house number of what is now my second home in the country. She did not seem that interested.

Many of our neighbors adapted and bought giant mailboxes (see photo). These folks must feel silly most of the year if they are like us. They have a giant mail box and get one small local shopping paper each week. We (mostly me) have not given in. I bought a brand new, regular-sized black mailbox, and I am not about to let the government pressure me into getting anything larger.

Yes, our mailbox does look lonely and sad. I like to think of it as proud and resolute.

We have made a visit to the Amish greenhouses since 2019 with the exception of the COVID year. As I have noted in a few of my other posts, the original post attracts more posts every other year than any other posts on this blog. My guess is that people are interested in visiting these greenhouses but can’t find much information about them. Recently, a few more local ones have appeared, but the early popularity of my initial post has racked up many Google hits, which prioritize my link over others. My original post has a map, which is still what they give you at the local gas station, and that is also of some value.

St. Charles sits in Winona County, straight south of Minneapolis. Amish communities have established themselves in this part of the state over the past several decades, drawn by the availability of farmland and the opportunity to build tight-knit agricultural communities. Unlike large commercial operations, these farms tend to be family-run, with knowledge passed down through generations. Many of houses on these farms are large and often extended to allow for multiple families under a single roof.

Greenhouses have become an important extension of that tradition, allowing Amish farmers to start plants early, extend the growing season, and provide products that are in high demand among gardeners. Prices are somewhat lower than we experience in the Minneapolis/St. Paul metro area, but the current price of gas would not justify the trip unless you came with a large vehicle and purchased a large number of plants. I like to start my own vegetables, but my wife invests heavily in flowers.

One of the biggest reasons people return year after year is simple: quality. Plants from Amish greenhouses seem hardy and and we have always had good luck with both vegetables and flowers. There’s also something intangible at play. The experience is quieter, slower. You are exploring a different culture with different clothing, a religious lifestyle emphasizing contributions to the group, education for children only through 8th grade, and an agriculture-based economy emphasizing hand and horsepower.

First and most importantly: bring cash. Many Amish businesses operate on a cash-only basis. No credit cards or Venmo. In many greenhouses, a teenage girl will list your purchases at checkout on a receipt with a carbon paper generated copy, add the cost of each item by hand, and check the required tax against a sheet specifying the required allocation for totals of different amounts. She may seem shy and many not have much to say. The greenhouses will not be open on Sundays.

I have now made this trip to many times I try to find something unique to write about each time. I grew up in a small town in Iowa and have enough background to have had some interesting conversations about the equipment they use and my personal experiences. There is not much difference between a 5-horse hitch pulling a 2 or 3-bottom plow and what I use to pull with our old John Deere B.

As I mentioned, I start my own vegetables and have always been interested in their greenhouses. These structures don’t have the heating sources or thermostats that control modern greenhouses. I tried to do some research on their wood stoves. My online sources suggested that these greenhouses are normally heated with a boiler system that circulates water warmed by the external wood fired furnace. I so now heat source of this type in the greenhouses we visited. In most cases, each structure had two large wood stoves that function as a source for convection heat.

Just for kicks, I submitted the following photo and asked the AI tool I use to provide a description.

This is a box-style wood-burning stove with a firebox and chimney, designed to produce a lot of radiant and convective heat:

• The main chamber (firebox) is where wood is burned
• The smaller lower door is likely for ash removal and airflow control
• The upper door allows loading larger pieces of wood
• The vertical stovepipe vents smoke and creates draft

This design is very typical of traditional Amish heating: heavy steel or cast iron, simple controls, no electricity, and built to last decades.

A few additional comments.

I think sometimes they cheat. I have observed chainsaws in out-of-the-way places and this gas-powered water pump for the greenhouse. I also learned that the “rules” do vary, perhaps at the level of even an individual church.

It’s easy to view Amish communities through a lens of curiosity, but it’s important to approach with respect. These are working farms and family businesses, not tourist attractions. One issue concerns photography. I have asked in previous years and took photos without the Amish individual I had talked with, who had willingly stepped aside. I admit I took the following image, which I found so unique, without asking, but I waited for the horse and equipment to pass so as not to reveal the individual in a recognizable way. You don’t see too many horse-drawn lawn movers.

In 2021, we on our way to our lake place in Northern Wisconsin and stopped for gas. On the pump near the price to pay for my gas, there was a sticker with President Biden’s face and a message “I did that”. I wrote a post commenting on the fairness of the logic of whether the President was responsible for the price of gas which I note was $3.19.

Today we were again driving to our lake place and again we stopped for gas.

I am not in total agreement with my previous post. Without the backing of Congress, President Trump sent the military to Iran, spiking the price of gas. The $3.89, which I hope is a short-term price, has a straightforward explanation. As far as the public’s response, I hope those responsible for the 2021 stickers give some thought to their motives.

Earth Day 2026 seems the time to reflect on the deterioration of the commitment to our environment. My accompanying image was generated by an AI prompt asking for an image that focused on the recent federal decision to end protection for the Boundary Waters of Minnesota.

A recent Senate vote, championed by Representative Stauber of northern Minnesota, passed largely along partisan lines and allows Twin Metals Minnesota, a subsidiary of Chile-based mining giant Antofagasta, to mine within the watershed of the Boundary Waters, though not directly within the federally protected wilderness zone.

This decision is in keeping with the positions taken by Trump’s Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), which has reduced the agency’s budget by 65% and eliminated its Office of Research and Development.

My interest in the interaction of big tech, economic equity, and politics came late. I don’t think these sectors were always as interrelated and certainly not in terms of which sector influenced which sector. The rising political power of ultra-wealthy tech leaders has allowed these individuals and their companies to suck up ever more resources, alter government policies across a wide range of areas, shape public opinion on important topics through algorithms that bias the information people encounter, and increase income disparities. 

Here are the key connections:

Platform Power Becomes Political Power – In earlier phases of social media, platforms like Facebook or were seen primarily as communication tools. Increasingly, however, their leaders—such as Elon Musk or Mark Zuckerberg—are perceived as political actors.

This shift occurs because:

• Platforms shape what information people see (algorithmic curation)
• Leaders publicly intervene in political debates

Users begin to see platforms not as neutral infrastructure, but as ideologically influenced spaces.

Perceived Capture of the Public Sphere – As tech leaders accumulate wealth and influence, critics argue that a small number of individuals effectively control large portions of the digital public sphere.

This creates concerns about:

• Agenda-setting power (what trends, what is visible)
• Influence over elections and public opinion
• Lack of democratic accountability

Trust Erosion and Motivated Migration – When platform governance becomes visibly tied to the values or actions of specific leaders, users respond based on their own political orientations.

Examples of user reactions:

• Perception that a platform has become too permissive or too restrictive
• Concerns about misinformation or censorship

This leads to migration toward alternatives such as:

• Mastodon (federated, community-run servers)
• Bluesky (protocol-based, aiming for user control)
• Niche or ideologically aligned platforms

Reaction Against Wealth Concentration – The visibility of extreme wealth among tech leaders contributes to a broader cultural critique:

• Concerns about inequality
• Suspicion of motives (profit vs public good)
• Fear of unregulated influence

My focus here is on Meta and, more specifically, Instagram. Books critical of Big Tech (e.g., Wu – The curse of bigness, Klobuchar – Antitrust) also use Instagram as an example of what the authors argue should have been an acquisition by a large company to limit competition. 

Instagram is an example of Meta’s strategy of acquiring or creating products to directly compete with offerings from competitors. 

• Facebook: Founded in 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg and others
• Instagram: Acquired in 2012 for $1 billion, this is a photo and video-sharing app.
• WhatsApp: Purchased in 2014 for roughly $19 billion. This is a primary messaging service
• Messenger: Evolved from the acquisition of Beluga in 2011. This is a messaging platform.
• Threads: Launched in 2023 to compete with X (formerly Twitter).

Instagram

Instagram has been the undisputed king of social photo sharing, but it has increasingly transitioned from a simple community for photographers into a commercialized labyrinth of algorithmic feeds, intrusive advertisements, and aggressive data harvesting. 

META has modified Instagram to fit its more commercial approach.

• More “recommended” content (and less purely follower content). 
• More commercial content inside normal browsing – ads that resemble organic posts.
• Feed relies on an algorithm that does prioritize friends and family, but also posts related to your past behavior and posts that have generally been more popular. 

Why Pixelfed?

Pixelfed is a free photo-sharing platform that looks and feels remarkably familiar to longtime Instagram users. It offers a clean, visual-centric interface where you can upload photos, apply filters, create stories, and organize your work into collections. However, the similarities end at the surface level. Pixelfed is a decentralized, open-source project designed to return control of the social experience to the users themselves.

Unlike Instagram, which is owned by a single corporation (Meta), Pixelfed is part of what is known as the “Fediverse.” This is a global network of independent servers that can all communicate with one another using a standardized protocol called ActivityPub. You may already be familiar with Mastodon, which takes a federated approach and is much like X, just as Pixelfed is similar to Instagram (see following image). 

Here’s a clear breakdown of what Pixelfed includes:

Core social media services

• Photo & video sharing – Post images (and short videos).
• Stories – Temporary posts that disappear after 24 hours.
• Comments, likes, replies – Standard social interaction tools  
• Collections/albums – Organize posts into curated sets 

Multiple feeds

• Home feed – Posts from accounts you follow
• Local feed – Content from your specific server/community
• Global feed – Content from across the wider network (Fediverse)

Content tools

• Photo filters & editing tools 
• Hashtags and geotagging for organization and discovery  
• Profile customization 
• Direct messaging (Pixelfed Direct)  

How Does Pixelfed Work?

When you join Pixelfed, you choose an “instance” (a server) to host your account. There are many different instances to choose from, often centered around specific interests, languages, or geographic regions. Once you have an account on one instance, you can follow, interact with, and share photos with users on any other Pixelfed instance worldwide. You can even interact with users on other Fediverse platforms like Mastodon, meaning your social reach isn’t confined to a single instance or platform.

Because Pixelfed is decentralized, there is no central authority that owns your data. Each instance is run by individual administrators or community groups, and because the software is open-source, the code is transparent. This structure ensures that the platform remains focused on the community rather than profit.

Why Choose Pixelfed Over Instagram?

The most immediate benefits of switching to Pixelfed are independence and the opportunity to contribute to diversifying social media. There is also the complete absence of advertisements. In the Fediverse, there are no sponsored posts cluttering your feed or algorithms trying to guess what product you might buy next. Your feed is strictly chronological, showing you the content from the people you actually chose to follow in the order they posted it. This restores a sense of “social” back to social media, allowing for genuine discovery and connection without digital manipulation.

Privacy is another cornerstone of the Pixelfed experience. Instagram’s business model relies on tracking your behavior across the web to build a profile for advertisers. Pixelfed does none of this. There are no third-party trackers, and the platform doesn’t sell your personal information. You own your content, and you have much finer control over who sees it.

Furthermore, Pixelfed is a haven for photographers and artists who are tired of their work being compressed or buried by “Reels” and video-first algorithms. Pixelfed remains a photography-first platform, respecting the craft and the community of visual creators. It supports high-quality uploads and provides a space where an image can stand on its own merit without needing to be part of a viral trend. 

To be honest, I do continue to use Instagram because this is where my family shares photos. I use Facebook to comment on political issues because that seems to be where the broadest audience is for such discussions. I consider my decisions a matter of being realistic. My personally creative content – photos, comments on topics of professional interest – goes elsewhere.

By moving to Pixelfed, you are not just choosing a new app; you are supporting a more democratic, private, and creative version of the internet. It is a return to a time when social media was about sharing a beautiful moment with friends, rather than serving an algorithm. If you are ready to take back your digital life and see photography through a clearer lens, Pixelfed is waiting for you.

It takes very little to get started if you have already used Instagram. 

Connecting

To join Pixelfed, you need to join one of the instances. I would suggest you join Pixelfed.social which is the original instance, but when I checked today, the registration page was not available. This may mean the operator has decided his equipment has reached capacity. The link posted here lists many instances and the process works the same – you use the link to connect, select the join button, and complete the registration request. After you gain some experience, you might explore other instances and it is not unusual to be a member of several. Remember, you can follow individuals from other instances, and their posts will appear in your feed.

 We participated in today’s No Kings protest. Lots of people. Lots of clever signs. “No Kings in Princeville (HI)” was mine, but I thought of it during the event and not in time to make a sign. It was an older crowd I suppose, because it draws not only from the small hamlet, but from those of us who spend some of the winter in the surrounding rental properties. 

This week the EPA (Environmental Protection Agency) announced that it was ending the “endangerment finding”. The endangerment finding under the Clean Air Act found that greenhouse gases posed a danger to health. Based on this finding, the EPA had the authority to take reasonable steps to reduce the harmful gases produced by human activity. As a consequence of rejecting this finding, emission standards for cars and trucks and expectations of power plants and oil and gas facilities are deemed unnecessary.

This action is similar to other decisions that appear more related to degrading rather than enhancing the mission of other government agencies (e.g., appointment of Linda McMahon as head of the Department of Education and Robert Kennedy Jr. to Health and Human Services). What bothers me about the EPS decision is the assumption that you can simply declare scientific findings faulty. What happened to facts?

I have always found it useful to differentiate values and facts.

Examples of Values:

• Citizens have a responsibility to support those who have fewer advantages
• The ultra-wealthy pay more in taxes
• Immigrants are more of an oppportunity thabn a burden for this country
• The decision to carry a fetus to term should be made by the woman carrying that fetus 

Examples of Facts: 

• Cigarettes increase the probability of cancers
• Man’s activities have led to a deterioration in the quality of the atmosphere

Issues are never completely fact or value, but to a large degree, this distinction seems useful and legitimate. For me, it follows that you can argue values with some arguments being more effective than others, but you don’t argue facts. If you dispute facts, you need to marshal credible evidence based on accepted methodologies. Claiming you reject facts marks you as naive and ignorant. Disputing values seems more a function of character and personal priorities. I can certainly dispute your character and priorities based on your values, but the arbiter in such challenges would seem to be the opinions of others, not evidence or methodologies. 

Why do some reject facts?

This is the topic I find most puzzling. Working in a science, I have lots of experience with differences of opinion. However, such disputes tended to come down to differences in the methodologies producing data that appeared to point to different facts. Science is about replication and multiple methods leading to similar conclusions. Facts equal data and interpretations tend to coalesce. 

What about the acceptance of facts by the general public? At some level, this is what is most important. The potential to use facts in daily decision-making has become such an important issue. Do people make decisions that seem illogical and poorly informed because they are ignorant or just don’t care? Do people not make the distinction I make between values and facts?

Climate change – a case study

I began this post noting the Trump administration rejection of the reality of climate change. I happen to be reading a study in Nature that focused on public acceptance of climate change. The study analyzed public behavior on X (Twitter) to identify characteristics associated with climate change deniers and estimated that 14% of X users were deniers. This compares with estimates from other studies putting this characteristic at between 12 and 26%. 

This study found the following characteristics to be associated with the denial of human behavior’s responsibility for climate change.

Economic Dependence: Communities that rely on fossil fuel industries are more likely to exhibit denialism, likely due to economic interests that conflict with climate action. Areas of the country that have related industries stand out on a map showing refusal to accept climate change. 

Education Levels: There is a strong correlation between lower educational attainment and skepticism toward climate science. This suggests that access to quality education and critical thinking skills plays a significant role in shaping public attitudes toward climate issues.

Social Media Influence: The role of social media in propagating denialist beliefs cannot be overlooked. Key influencers use these platforms to spread misinformation, which can significantly skew public perception.

Mistrust in Science: A general skepticism of science is prevalent among climate change deniers, which is often reflected in broader attitudes toward other scientific issues, such as COVID-19 vaccination rates. This mistrust can lead to a general rejection of science-based public policies.

Cognitive Biases: Many deniers use logical fallacies, such as cherry-picking data or arguing from isolated weather events, to dismiss the overwhelming scientific consensus on climate change.

Some of these topics seem relevant to action. In general, making information on scientific findings and the process of science available seems important. Formal education is part of this, but also social media which more and more is treated as informative by so many must be an area of emphasis.

I do wonder about science not only being lost in the firehose of online media, but also the politicization of science denial. The cluster of anti-science issues identified in this article is especially troubling. Those who reject the value of vaccinations are also the same folks denying the reality of climate change with the roots of this generalized reaction having strong political overtones, which partly seems a function of the rejection of expertise. Some politicians have found a way to characterize expertise as a  “these folks think they are better than you” attitude with the suggestion that your common sense knowledge is more practical. People can be easy to manipulate when you appeal to their sense of self-worth. I believe formal education provides a window into individual differences in expertise and the reality that some know more about some things than we do. This seems obvious, but beyond calling out the political manipulation tactic I have little to recommend. 

We talked with son Todd yesterday and he was describing how recent events in Minneapolis/St Paul have made him homesick. His family lived in South Minneapolis and he had what he called a one-step removed familiarity with both shooting victims (Good and Pretti). Todd is a big bike guy and frequented a bike-and-coffee shop called the Angry Catfish to talk bikes, enjoy coffee, and get some work done. Alex Pretti did the same thing. Bike clubs around the country are now engaged in rides to honor Alex Pretti.

 Yesterday had to be an extremely difficult day for many. A second protester was shot and killed by Border Patrol agents in Minneapolis. After the initial explanations by President Trump and other government officials, multiple videos from bystanders began to surface, proving their careless, self-protecting explanations wrong. The victim was shot multiple times in the back while pinned to the ground by multiple federal agents. Those protesting ICE and the aggressive tactics resulting in physical violence, home invasions, and false arrests of citizens of color while searching for undocumented immigrants have enraged the Twin Cities residents, and the cycle of protests and government aggression will likely only accelerate.

We left for Kauai just as the protests had begun, but our kids are still there, dealing with school and business closures and the general chaos. They participate in the protests to the extent they can and share our feelings about what is going on. As working citizens and with kids they are more directly impacted than we are. You cannot escape this reality. 

We were driving through Kapaa yesterday and came across a sight that we found quite encouraging. A small group of maybe 8-9 people were holding their own protest opposing the government invasion in the Twin Cities. This small group of people were expressing their displeasure with the behavior of their government, thousands of miles away from where things were happening. They were standing in shorts and colored shirts in 70-degree heat, while those in Minneapolis were doing the same in gloves, parkas, and heavy boots. Cindy shouted that we were from Minneapolis as we drove past, and someone shouted “we love you” back. Mahalo for that.

Such is just showing up and doing what you can. 

I started to write this post, which I guess is a product endorsement, and realized that “ice” has taken on a very different meaning for those of us who live in Minnesota. For those who might happen on this post in a few years, now is the period when Minnesota has been invaded by government troops referred to as ICE, who are here to locate and capture “illegals”. The aggressive behavior of these agents in indiscriminately grabbing random people of color has enraged the neighbors of those so captured, resulting in an escalation of aggression and resistance.

Anyway, the more common ice has always been a feature of Minnesota winters. This winter has been particularly bad, with rain and snow falling near freezing. Maintainance crews have been unable to keep up and after the public driving on the streets you get glare ice that seems very difficult to get rid of. One more factor – we don’t have sidewalks in our suburb so walking becomes treacherous,

I do like to walk, so I get some exercise when the temps are moderate or the winds are calm, and so I purchased Ice Bugs mostly out of desperation. What a great product and I move feeling very steady with no fear of falling and breaking a hip or whatever tends to happen to people of my age.

The secret to these shoes are this tiny spikes. The traction that results is amazing and I sometimes walk across a local hockey rink just because I can. The one issue I wonder about is what happens when you enter a building and walk on the floors. I love walking to or from coffee shops, but can’t bring myself to enter, as I am unsure what my boots would do to the floors. The studs are seated in a soft material and are supposed to prevent floor damage, but I would think it would be difficult not to scratch wood if your steps do not move up and down perfectly.