 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
||||||||||||
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Image of the Week 08-09-2025
Grape Phylloxera
I've been in Minneapolis this past week attending the 2025 National Stereoscopic Association's 3D-Con. It's fun to get together with fellow 3-D photography geeks. We even have a secret handshake.
The convention is at the Hilton Minneapolis-St. Paul Airport, and immediately next door to us is the Minnesota Valley National Wildlife Refuge. On Thursday I hiked the refuge on what I thought was a 3.4 mile loop trail. After it seemed to go on well past 3.4 miles I took out my phone to see how far it was back to the hotel to discover it was well over 4 miles to get back. I found I was near the Old Ceder Avenue Bridge, which I crossed to get back to cars and civilization, clicked on my Uber app and a car pulled out of the parking lot 100 feet away to drive me back to the hotel.
The trail provided me with lots of macro shot opportuniies, this shot being one of them. I found hundreds, perhaps thousands of leaves like this covered by lots of big bumps. I'm not entirely sure if these are grape leaves, probably are. According to Wikipedia: Grape phylloxera is an insect pest of grapevines worldwide, originally native to eastern North America. Grape phylloxera; originally described in France as Phylloxera vastatrix; equated to the previously described Daktulosphaera vitifoliae, Phylloxera vitifoliae. The insect is commonly just called phylloxera.
As to this week's rant, I'm a little tired this morning from late night partying so I'll keep it short.
I watched a Rachel Maddow segment this past Monday titles "It's not coming, it's here" refering to the fact that we're no longer wondering when Trump's regime will turn authoritarian, we are there. His victimization of immigrants (every authoritarian regime needs someone to blame), willingness to hire armed, masked goons to sweep people off the street, his attacks on colleges, the press, courts, democrats, the environment, diversity, equity and inclusion, ... and his demand that states currently controlled by republicans rig their congressional districts to insure greater republican representation, ... it all adds up to where we are today and where we're increasingly heading, ... to a fascist America.
Regards,
Barry Rothstein
I send out a weekly email of these. If you'd like to be included, please go to the contact page and send me an email.
Previous Images of the Week
|
