Bill Kipper

@billkipper.bsky.social

2831 Followers 6787 Following

Increasingly agitated disliker of political trends. Peacenik. Covid and environmental degradation conscious: verging on doomer. Has crow/duck/chickadee/blackbird buddies. Tardy writings available at https://billkipper.substack.com/

Crow fledgling on a garden trellis surrounded by food plants. Ragged new feathers and baby blue right eye visible as it takes in its surroundings.
Small Anna's hummer staring at photo right atop one of several new growth shoots standing out starkly against a pale blue sky.
Pied-billed grebe coasting down toward photo centre atop murky green waters, belting out a lusty rendition of [pick your favourite aria from a Wagner opera], with a backdrop of reflected haunted stumps.
Female mallard water-skiing to photo right, wings extended, green trees and herself reflected in the lightly rippled water.
A present for the professor: 3 ducks swim towards photo left: female mallard, male just below and trailing by a half-duck, with a female wood duck below and behind them. The water sports ornately fractalized tree reflections in shades of grey and and brown.
A multitude of fluffy ducklings are locked on to their mom's rear while she plows blue waves through waters reflecting the variably green trees in the unseen background. A haggard year-old cattail points up just right of the best duck-mom a duckling could ask for.
Young Cooper's hawk looking straight ahead to photo left. Subject is perched atop a lichened rustic fence rail between two posts.
Murky pond with male merganser facing left, head tilted back with half of a goldfish protruding from his open beak.
Heron, looking to photo left to display its dagger beak to best effect, standing atop a horizontal branch in a budding tree against a blue sky backdrop.
A magnificent american crow, left wing feathers showing great detail, head turned to face his human friend, immaculately combed bridge of beak feathers, perceptive brown eyes facing the camera without fear.
Wood ducklings snoozing atop a slightly mossy log, against a backdrop of brilliant green reeds. A non-snoozing duckling at left has noticed the photographer, and gazes calmly in his direction.
Crows on rustic wooden fence-posts, stretching out to upper photo right, glossy black beauties pecking sunflower seed booty.
Rippled green pond surrounding the flat top of a stump, which is populated by a diminutive Ouachita map turtle at left, and several times larger Mississippi map turtle dominating the stump to the right.
Seen from behind and left, a grey and white tree sparrow youngling with brilliant yellow beak sits atop a lichen-encrusted wooden nest-box, looking glumly at the photographer, who is clearly a waste of breath with respect to supplying tasty insects.
thumb on bark next to typical splitgill mushrooms, which are poorly described as 'large'.
Hairy turkey-tail imitators sprouting through 'common' script lichen
Map of Europe and north Africa with countries hosting US military bases coloured red. Black-bordered grey circles 'might' be 'facilities'.
Beyond Vietnam -- A Time to Break Silence (excerpts) I'm convinced that if we are to get on the right side of the world revolution, we as a nation must undergo a radical revolution of values. We must rapidly begin the shift from a thing-oriented society to a person-oriented society. When machines and computers, profit motives and property rights are considered more important than people, the giant triplets of racism, militarism and economic exploitation are incapable of being conquered. It is a sad fact that because of comfort, complacency, a morbid fear of communism, our proneness to adjust to injustice, the Western nations that initiated so much of the revolutionary spirit of the modern world have now become the arch anti-revolutionaries. This has driven many to feel that only Marxism has a revolutionary spirit. Therefore, communism is a judgment against our failure to make democracy real and follow through on the revolutions that we initiated. Our only hope today lies in our ability to recapture the revolutionary spirit and go out into a sometimes hostile world declaring eternal hostility to poverty, racism, and militarism.
A row of slime-jellies getting some sun on a substrate of lichen crusted fence plank, with poorly focused same lower in the frame, and total blurrosity below of mysterious greens and Samsung-fabricated bokeh. The most perfect of our orange gumdrops has a photo-bombing purple critter atop, catching the rays before heading over to our second image...
Cladonia-bro and pals sprouting inside a lumberous eye, with bro the mostest emerging from the wee-est sprig of mossy bedness. The upper eyeball is dominated by a single stunted pyxidata 'bloom' that looms out of the darkness.
Large mushroom cap seen from above, with hints of lobes, mostly cream with brown speckles increasing toward the center. A CD lies in the grass above and right, featuring a 'come hither' looking photo of an Asian woman who's apparently (unfortunately?) named May Ho. The shroom dwarfs the CD.
Why America didn’t take action Burns, whose previous historical documentaries include “The Roosevelts” (2014) and “The Vietnam War” (2017), says the message on a neon sign hanging in his office—“It’s complicated”—is an apt summary of the issues discussed in “The U.S. and the Holocaust.” Over three two-hour segments, the film dispels competing myths that Americans were either ignorant of the persecution of Europe’s Jews or knew about it but responded with callousness and indifference. (The reality was somewhere between these two extremes; newspapers kept the American public informed about the Holocaust, sparking limited but concerted aid efforts by numerous organizations and individuals.) It also convincingly shatters the myth of America as the ever-welcoming champion of the oppressed. “Americans have a very hard time deciding what kind of country they want to have,” says Peter Hayes, a historian at Northwestern University who appears in the documentary. “We all tend to think of this country and the Statue of Liberty [poem] ‘Give me your tired, your poor.’ … But in fact, exclusion of people and shutting them out has been as American as apple pie.”
Bumblebee making a right old polleny mess of a defenseless and pinwheeled Dahlia, an otherwise lovely Verrone's Obsidian.
Common Merganser, cruising through the pond, to Hooded Merganser on collision course: bruh! what's with the marshmallow in yer head! Hooded: head envy's a bad look, and oh SNAP! who's 'common', again?! Meanwhile, back in photo composition land, a stalk poking from the water points at hooded bro, and with its reflection frames common dude, who is also pointed out by an off-kilter curved blade. Otherwise still waters disturbed by passage of wild-ass aquatic birds.
Mama Mallard and her Duckling Octet in 'Full Feeding Frenzy'
Huge screef in a suburban lawn, with an off-kilter pruning victim identifying as a white cedar, or arborvitae if you prefer, in the center of the raised hump. Black lumps surround said uber-screef, moving in for the kill! but not really, as they're a symbiotic pair (or more!) in a mycorrhizal love-fest of horny hyphae.
Helvella dryophila is a species of fungus in the family Helvellaceae. It is found in western North America, where it associates with oak. - Wikipedia Warped black parasol on a fluted grey/ivory stem (stipe, to please myco-fascists, and just kidding, cuz love me some mycological correctness), growing out of a mossy bed in close proximity to a log of filthy retaining wall wood.
Springtail nosh pit. A crooked row of wee beasties, with my first dicyrtoma fusca bringing up the rear. Poised above lichen stained wet blurry wood, our springtails are navigating dark brown battered bark on a small branch from the southwest of image to northeast. Above them, we see our lobed sunburst with but a few cups, a clump of drenched moss above and within that, and a hint of pale green foliose lichen to close the scene.
A pair of young ponderosa pine cones on the branch, like spiky purple pineapples sans their green tops. One is aimed right at us, seemingly, the one above is pointing up and right. Paired green needles extend up and out from the central stalk, still bearing their brown cellophane wraps near the stalk. Most of the needles extend out of frame.
Mallard hen looking elsewhere while her iridescent drake buddy pretends to not be looking at me. Mossy with evidence of lupines, tall rank grass above and beyond.
Brilliant and bizarre yellow-green cups of sunburst lichen, hundreds of them, from tiny to perhaps 1/10th screen width. Shallow imperfect cups, greener at the margins. Vignetted courtesy of poor depth of field. A wet black void in the lower quarter for contrast.
Moss-heavy grass becoming fallen brown maple leaves with mycena mushrooms clustered primarily in the center to left region. The upper quarter is all leaf. The mushrooms are on the nipply side, pale brown fading to ivory towards the cap margins, with radial striations of the central brown colour pulling the eye down to more modest places.
Weathered grey fence plank with a crow caught in mid-air mid-prance a few inches above, assorted chaotic tree foliage behind him, above him mixed blue sky and cloud.
Mallard mom with 8 fuzzy little ducklings pecking up a storm. Narrated by the videographer.
Grayscale image of scraggly grass leading up to an old fishing boat that's been stripped of seaworthiness by weather and time, lying left broadside with a view into its battered interior. Planks are popping off the visible side. Above and right stands a plain wooden industrial-looking building whose planks are vertically oriented and shaded, making a textural and tonal contrast that pleased my eye. The sky above is streaked with cirrus 'flames', which one could interpret as the boat's spirit evaporating. The roof line of the building is bolstered by a streak of those same clouds. In the distance beyond a glimpsed sea are hilly suburbs.
Dead dry leaves imprisoned by dead dry cleaver stalks and burrs against a lichen festooned and heavily weathered fence plank. Colour-enhanced to bring out details. ©2024 Bill Kipper, as if that matters.
Nigella Damascena (Love-in-a-Mist) flower bud barrel of green with purple highlights, guarded by its typical accompanying spiky nest of green hate.
Overexposed where it isn't underexposed, a perfect botch of a shot that's also blurry, aside from a string of water pearls on spider silk stretched across the sculpted wood grain of a rotting fence post. The yellow-orange spider contemplating the abyss is, of course, eye-wateringly out of focus, as is the near-ground green and gold face of the post.
Closeup of rain-moistened Kalanchoe laetivirens leaf margin, with ~1/2 dozen plantlet shuttle-craft preparing to abandon the rain-dappled brilliant green mothership. The plantlets populate the trough portions of the serrated leaf, are curvaceous little cups of several leaves: a couple sport little raindrop eyes, with lids of red-rimmed doppelganger leafy goodness.
Crowded cluster of Coprinus Comatus mushrooms standing tall above landscaping lumber with freshly sealed paving behind.
Mr Crowbuddy and four relatives nibble seeds atop fence posts stretching from left to right, facing the bush, with one crow keeping an eye out for hawks. Rustic fence, wire-backed, grass to the right.
A chubby orange and brown springtail surmounts one of many lichen-crusty ridges as it works its way from left to right across a deeply grooved (for it - it's just weathered wood grain) fence-post summit.
Wide view of an expanse of lawn in need of care, but not in need of any more A. Muscaria. A trianglular tree shadow separates a hand-sized shroom on the right from the bulk of them, which are orange, broad-capped and speckled with white veil remnants. Upwards of 8 inches/20 cm across, these lovelies stand on sturdy white stipes (or stems, as normies call them), which also sport a smattering of white shreds from the 'birthing process'. A late bloomer, looking rather like an orange snow-globe with the snow on the outside, jazzes up the image in the top left corner.
Brains...Caramelized onions being excreted from the end of a sawn-off branch, by appearances. A tiny insect explores the underside of an upper-left fold, the bark of the branch seen end-on is way dark brown, with what appears to be tremella-infected golden-orange wood supporting the bulk of the fungus from below.
Small fan-shaped split-gill mushroom in my palm, underside showing off the characteristic crowded and discontinuous tan to white gill structure. Pink palm indicates good perfusion ;)
A cluster of ~10 Clitocybe mushrooms, pale tan indented caps, with one flipped over to show the 'blown out umbrella' format of the gills, which extend part-way down the stipe. They're in roughly 2 overlapping lines up from mid-photo, the flipped one at top left, on a bed of orange-brown cedar fronds and a few dead leaves.
Macro shot of highly degraded dark gray wood grain atop a fence post, populated by a dozen or so purple springtails, with a sprig of moss to photo left and a couple of tiny new mosslets. The wood grain looks furrowed, as if the springtails have consumed the fungally infected softer bits.
Moss and lichen miniature on wet decayed wood that's nearly black. Tufts of moss are largely surrounded by blue-green leafy lichens. Out of focus cladonia 'trumpet' near image bottom.
Front cover of an edition of Colin Wilson's 'The Outsider' book, upper section sky blue with blurb atop: The classic study of alienation, creativity, and the modern mind. Further down, we encounter a stark black ink rendering of a hand thrust up from similarly stark black 'soil', with a contrasting and bloated white stick figure of a human on the palm, who looks to be busting a move on a snowboard. Title below that in same blue as sky above, with the i of outsider dropped slightly, and author's name below that in white. Finally, one digs down far enough to reach these words: Updated for new edition.
Screenshot of Google 'search labs/AI overview: In Kim Stanley Robinson's novel "The Ministry for the Future," the "secret department" refers to a shadowy, clandestine part of the Ministry that engages in extreme, sometimes violent actions to combat climate change, including assassinating polluters, sabotaging power plants, and disrupting major events like the Davos forum, all in the name of protecting the future generations by any means necessary.
Varied Thrush male, crouched on my weathered concrete patio, seen from above and warily eyeing the observer.
We have a new type of rule now. Not one-man rule or rule of aristocracy or plutocracy, but of small groups elevated to positions of absolute power by random pressures and subject to political and economic factors that leave little room for decision. They are representatives of abstract forces who have reached power through surrender of self. The iron-willed dictator is a thing of the past; there will be no more Stalins, no more Hitlers. The rulers of this most insecure of all worlds are rulers by accident; inept, frightened pilots at the controls of a vast machine they cannot understand, calling in experts to tell them which buttons to push. William S. Burroughs
Adorable smudgy gray tabby attempting to high-five with her pink little left foot toes, an action made difficult by lying on her right side on a blue-checked bathrobe with her eyes half closed. Cute white feet, toes are curled. Kitchen chair with wooden arms supports the legs of Bamboo's personal lap slave and heat source.
A weathered but sturdy rustic wooden fence running from bottom left to mid-image right, grass on this side - ragged brush and a tree losing its last summer cling-ons ornament the other. Your artist stood near the leftmost post, upon which an industrious and glossy crow is hunched as he attacks my sunflower seed UBI (Universal Birdly Income). Next post over features a similarly occupied crow, a 3rd crow pecks off the rail, a 4th stands watch a couple of posts down the line, and a nearly out of view 5th rounds out our lineup. Heavy wire is largely obscured by the fence and end of season 'weeds'.
Mr. Redwinged-Blackbird overseeing a clutch of sunflower seeds atop a bleached-out rustic 4x4 fence post, while his birdly wife looks on from the crude rail to photo right. The background is dominated by an abundance of catkins dangling from a small, otherwise naked tree, with more distant green grass, brush, and finally some evergreens and miscellaneous deciduous trees decidedly in need of leaves.
A trio of weird-ass thick-stiped grey-cookie-capped 'shrooms sprouting from decaying strobiles and the like. The stipes, 'stems' for you normies, are a near luminous yellow, which probably provides a clue as to edibility. Just realized there's a juvenile 'shroom tucked behind the second-most. Yay! Now they can play cards....
Grey cat curled up in the highest of 3 pole-mounted circular cat beds, seemingly more interested in the fresh hit of window birdshit than she is with the mathematical marvels the blonde woman below is mapping on her laptop. Said mathematician sports a grey t-shirt which claims, in classic hard-ass bicep-flexing war propaganda fashion, that a woman's place is in her union. She hasn't quite reached the beautiful mind level, but there are sheets of arcane mathematica taped to the wall just left of the open orange curtain. Her Teamsters local declined comment.
Crowbuddy nibbling sunflower seeds atop a stout and weathered 4x4 fence post, showing some back feather detail, some pond, rank grass, and off-kilter woods behind.
Scruffy yet debonair bespectacled pseudo-hippy rock climber dressed in black on a mossy granite slab, right palm and left knee against the rock, left hand up and cupped like he's trying to catch water poured horizontally from behind. Various climbing trinkets dangle from the waist loops of his climbing harness, and behind the ~60° wall is a lovely green mixed forest of conifers and big-leaf maples, fading into darkness below.
Classic example of coprinus comatus, or 'shaggy mane' mushroom, sprouting from a slightly unkempt lawn. White stipe, cap beginning to deliquesce (turn to black liquid) at the base of the mostly white doubly tapered cylindrical cap, which features feathery flakes lifting away from the surface, some tinged with brown.