Carter was both my favorite president and my favorite former president.
James Earl Carter, Jr., 1924-2024, 39th President of the United States
Carter had served in the US Navy as a nuclear submarine officer and engineer. He not only knew how to operate nuclear subs, he knew how to repair them and their complex electronics.
During his initial security briefing after being elected president, Carter greatly impressed the briefing staff with the insights in his questions and his ability to absorb and integrate complex information. My father told me that the Naval intelligence community considered Carter the smartest politician they had ever briefed.
President Carter emphasized human rights as a guiding principle in American foreign policy. Critics said we should be more instrumental in our policy, but Carter’s stubborn implementation of his Christian values made me proud to be an American.
Only when Carter was four decades out of office did it dawn on me how much inspiration I had drawn from his exemplary public service.
President Carter installed solar panels on the White House. As a teenager at the time, that REALLY impressed me. I dreamed that someday I would be able to do the same.
You can also explore my solar blog, SomiSolar.com where I explain solar home economics and how to run a house with solar + batteries when the grid is down.
Jimmy and Roselyn Carter were big supporters of affordable housing and worked closely with Habitat for Humanity for many years after leaving the White House.
One frequently saw photos of them helping to build and refurbish houses for low income families.
Inspired by the Carters’ commitment to affordable housing, I agreed to serve an extra, 5th term as mayor of South Miami so I could lock in the zoning approval and funding for two major affordable housing projects, both of which were completed after I left office. Here’s one of them:
SOMI Parc, South Miami
After leaving office Carter championed democracy and protected election integrity throughout the world.
I am writing this remembrance in a quiet moment as I volunteer as a poll observer, something I have done for the past two decades.
For my non-Miami resident friends, 305 is our area code and thus greater Miami is often referred to as “The 305”. This year, two friends and I started an organization,We the People of 305, to coordinate events supporting democracy in greater Miami.You can check out our Pro-Democracy Events Calendar at wtp305.org/events. We will make our software available if you or someone you know wants to host your own local events calendar.
During his presidency, the Carters would slip out the back door at Camp David to evade the press, whereupon the Secret Service would whisk them up to the clear mountain streams of central Pennsylvania where they would unwind by fly fishing for trout.
As Carter was leaving office, a reporter asked the President what he would do next. Carter replied: “I’m going to become a really good fly fisherman.”
Powering artificial intelligence might involve constructing a fleet of new nuclear reactors, yet natural intelligence runs handily on organic farm waste, such as tofu and kale.
If powering Nvidia chips to make fake videos is that important, nuclear power is still the most expensive way to add power to the electric grid, while renewables, wind and solar/battery, are the cheapest.
The push to build more old-style nuclear reactors suggests that AI and data companies have made so much money from their stratospheric stock valuations that they and everyone around them are willing to waste it.
Seems like a sign, and I am hardly alone in thinking so. Here, I believe, is a hint to how this mystery might resolve.
Remember Michael Burry and Scion Asset Management from the film “The Big Short”? Scion is betting big on an AI stock decline, allocating 80% of its $1.1 billion portfolio to put options against the AI companies Nvidia (NVDA) and Palantir (PLTR).
Why stop at shorting NVDA & PLTR? When was the last time any utility company failed to lose money building nuclear power?
Open carry of firearms became legal in Florida on 25 Sept, 2025, though private property owners can still prohibit firearms on their premises. To the horror of many, the Florida grocery chain Publix responded by changing their own policy to allow customers to bring loaded firearms into their 900 stores.
How should folks like us respond?
A boycott seems appropriate, and we do have choices. Most Florida grocers DO NOT allow their customers to display weapons in their stores. Here are the ones I’ve found, in alphabetical order who do not: Aldi’s, Milam’s, Sprouts Market,Trader Joe’s, Whole Foods, and Winn-Dixie.
Fresh Market does the same as Publix. Walmart prefers you not bring a weapon into the store, but does not outright prohibit open carry.
If you boycott Publix over this policy, please amplify your power by letting them know:
The problem for my family is that we pretty much already boycott Publix over their dark money campaign to prevent single-use plastic bag regulation in Florida and their refusal to support the Immolakee farm workers with a penny-a-pound bonus for tomatoes.
As an alternative to the open carry boycott, what if we give Publix what they seem to be asking for? Open carry.
Engaging in open carry in Publix, to the extent allowed by their own policy and Florida law, would do far more damage to the Publix brand than by shaking our fists and shopping at Sprouts.
Go for it.
Acquire an assault rifle, such as an AR15.
Insert an empty ammunition clip, release the safety and dry fire once at the ground to make sure the rifle doesn’t have a cartridge in the chamber.
Dress in black (trick or treat!).
Strap the rifle across your chest.
Stroll the produce isles at your nearest Publix.
For my family, that would be the sparkly new Publix that replaced the theater on US1 in Coral Gables. Knowing the Coral Gables clientele, I’m confident that a man in black strolling the produce isle with an AR15 would empty the place in a heartbeat. For a woman doing the same it would take several heartbeats – maybe snarl every few moments: “Publix – where shopping is a pleasure”.
My stomach isn’t strong enough (yet) to purchase an assault rifle, much less carry one, even for such a noble cause. When it comes to any type of firearm, the only civilian use I entertain is deer hunting (for conservation purposes, of course). There I draw the line at single-shot hunting rifles and I prefer to borrow cousin Jon’s crossbow. Oh yeah, and shotguns are useful for shooting down those pesky quadcopter drones.
Still, I continue to entertain the AR15-at-Publix fantasy and hope someone with serious cojones is inspired to pull it off.
Today I am volunteering as a poll-watcher in the City of Miami elections. Early voting is in progress.
I’m stationed at a polling site in a community center in the north end of Miami on the edge of the area known as Little Haiti. The conversation among the elections staff alternates sentence-by-sentence between English and Haitian Creole, both with the same Caribbean cadence and accent.
The Elections Clerk at this polling site is delightful, a nutritionist by trade and a proud alumna of FIU. She shares with me her recipe for the sauce she applies to snappers before she fries them.
This morning, the large TV in the hall of the community center is playing Fox News, highly political and inappropriate for a polling site.
The young elections worker sitting nearby would prefer to see the football game, however the TV controls are in a locked-off area so the Clerk cannot change the channel or even turn off the TV. While she ponders the problem, I trot to my car and return with my TV-B-Gone, an electronic device the size of a matchbook that turns off any television.
The TV-B-Gone contains a microchip that cycles through all the TV “off” codes. Aim its infrared LED at a TV, press the button, and wait… it never fails. The IR beam will also bounce off reflective surfaces and light-colored walls, so you can use it surreptitiously.
One click, a brief pause, and the offending TV goes dark.
Are you wondering why Phil carries a TV-B-Gone in the glove compartment of his car?
I deploy the device in restaurants where TVs are interfering with the table conversation, or, on rare occasion when the devil gets into me, to create havoc in a sports bar. Never during a FIFA soccer match, though. The Argentinian fans are so spirited they might break something… or someone.
The Elections Clerk wants to buy her own TV-B-Gone ($15 on eBay) and maybe a cell phone jammer as well to use on her husband’s phone.
So read one young woman’s sign this morning, 40 miles west of Miami on the Tamiami Trail, in the heart of the Big Cypress National Preserve.
Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier’s latest brainstorm is to build an ICE prison in the middle of the Big Cypress National Preserve, a plan he dubs “Alligator Alcatraz”.
James Uthmeier came to notoriety as the brains behind the diversion of $10 million in public Medicare funds into Gov. DeSantis’ dark money campaign against the Florida ballot initiative to legalize marijuana.
This would be the same A.G. Uthmeier who is now held in civil contempt for advising Florida law enforcement agencies they should ignore a federal judge’s order limiting enforcement of a Florida statute creating a state immigration policy.
Hundreds of people showed up this morning to protest Alligator Alcatraz. The line of parked cars was 1/4 mile long on one side of the road and I didn’t measure the line on the other side. Virtually all the cars driving through gave us positive toots on the horn and thumbs up. Zero disapproval.
Click any photo to see it full size.
Betty Osceola speaks. That’s Clyde Butcher on the left.
Uthmeier is promoting this site for an immigration prison because, according to him, it wouldn’t need a perimeter fence since nobody can escape through the Everglades. What a moron. Does any intelligent person think that immigrants who escaped gangs by walking through the tropical forests of the Panama’s Darien Gap will be stopped by the inviting waters of a South Florida cypress swamp? My wife and I take children and geezers on swamp walks through the Big Cypress.
If any immigrants did escape, Miccosukees and Seminoles living nearby would likely take them in. These First Nation folks have a long history of hiding fugitives from the U.S. Government in the swamps of South Florida. The proud Miccosukee Tribe never signed a treaty with the U.S. Government.
No, the real reason for a 1000 bed ICE prison at Mile 48 on the Tamiami Trail is the Dade-Collier Transition Airport. So easy to lock people up out of sight then fly them out of the country in the middle of the night.
This land is jointly owned by Miami-Dade and Collier Counties. Will our County Mayor and Commission fight to prevent the state from snatching it for an immigration prison?
The young woman got it right: “Fuck Alligator Alcatraz”. Silence is complicity.
What National Park offers so many opportunities for exciting wildlife encounters as the Everglades?
In 1979, Professor Tim Williams, wrote me a grad school recommendation letter that ended with this line:
“If I were planning a research expedition to the mosquito-infested swamps of Hell, I would choose Philip as my field assistant.”
I was never 100% sure if Tim meant that as a compliment, but to my prospective grad school advisor, Mike Beecher, it sounded like high praise so he took me on.
With that reputation as a prelude, I’m embarrassed to report that a year ago, in June of 2024, Black Salt Marsh Mosquitoes kicked by butt (well, bit my butt, to be precise) and drove me out of my favorite Everglades kayak-fishing spot when I’d barely gotten started.
I studied mosquitoes in the lab and I’m not a mosquito sissy.
This is my hand, feeding a precious batch of Aedes aegypti mosquitoes selected for the “Tiki Bar” phenotype in the which this normally diurnal mosquito is hyperactive after sundown.
Even I have my limit, and the Black Salt Marsh Mosquito (BSMM) found it that morning.
Determined vampirism of the summer BSSM hoard provides solitude for anyone hardy enough to fish the tidal mangrove estuaries of the Everglades backcountry. That morning, 30 minutes before sunrise, I was the only human within miles, attempting to cast a topwater fly at a large, actively feeding snook. The BSSMs were so brutal, it was hard to pay attention, much less savor the splendor. But the one single mosquito that managed the coup de grâce somehow found her way inside my head net, whereupon I inhaled her. Ten minutes of hard coughing to dislodge that mosquito from my trachea, while her sisters and cousins bit me through my clothes and chewed my exposed finger tips (despite the insect repellant) – that was too much. I gave up and went home with my bitten tail between my itching legs.
Here’s what my pants looked like after 15 minutes.
The secret antidote to mosquito bites:
I don’t much react to bites of local mosquitoes, but the number of BSSM bites that day overwhelmed my acquired defenses. To sleep that night I had to take the antidote, the invention of my clever FIU colleague, Dr. Laura Serbus.
Read the labels before ingesting, right?
Mosquito bites irritate our skin via two histamine receptors, H1 and H2. H1 receptors produce about 20% of the itch and H2 receptors the other 80%. Typical antihistamines, like Benadryl, only block the H1. I use cetirazine instead, which lasts 24 hours and doesn’t make me drowsy. To block the H2, I use Pepsid AC, an over-the-counter drug for excess stomach acid. Not everybody reacts well to the H2 blockers, but I’m OK with them. Itching disappears completely for 12 hours.
* * *
Back into the cauldron on Friday, June 13th, 2025
It took me a full year to recover the motivation to venture back into Mosquito Hell, succumbing once again to the prospect of fly fishing snook, juvenile tarpon, and redfish from the intimacy of the kayak. Winds in the open were 14 mph with gusts to 22 mph and my usual flats and creek mouths were too exposed. That left the sheltered mangrove coves, areas best left for winter when the mosquito population is at a dull roar instead of a loud one.
This time I had to better prepare myself for the onslaught of the June BSSM population. Here’s what I wore:
Fishing pants. AFTCO, synthetic, light tan
Snow gaiters, calf height
Second pair of fishing pants
Sand socks
Crocs
Hoodie fishing shirt, knit fabric
Tight weave sun shirt, with top button fastened and collar turned up
Tilley hat
No-see-um proof head net, Cochrans
Insect repellant (Lemon Citronella) on my exposed fingertips and the edges of my gaiters where they met my Crocs sandals
It worked well enough at keeping BSSMs from reaching my skin that I could enjoy a good morning fly fishing tarpon & snook. A great morning, in fact. I lost count of the tarpon hits.
The BSSMs found a vulnerable spot where the gaiters met the Crocs [I’ll spare you the photo of my red-spotted ankle]. Next time, I will wear ankle-high neoprene dive booties instead of the Crocs.
Another twenty skeeters somehow managed to bite me on my butt [definitely no photo], though damned if I know how. This happened before while camping on the Arctic tundra and I couldn’t figure it out that time either.
High concentration DEET works pretty well but dissolves plastics on contact (thinking of my fly line here). Picaridin works well too but lasts half as long as DEET.
Mosquitoes don’t see red light (ditto snook, tarpon, redfish). I outfitted my head lamp with a red lens (3D printers rock) so I could see to set up the boat without getting mobbed by BSSMs and no-see-ums.
Two things I don’t think will work for me:
(1) mosquito netting suit. It’s too easy to tear and simple for BSMMs to bite through where it touches my skin or another article of clothing.
(2) permethrin-soaked clothing. Permethrin is a good mosquito excito-repellant, but new research shows it damages our heart and nervous system.
The next puzzle: How do you get 300 mosquitos out of a car?
It took three days to fully rid the car of BSSMs. Several hid in my stuff and found their way into the house. Next time, I’m going to open the car’s rear hatch and all four doors, then drive backwards around the parking lot in circles as fast as I can. Other suggestions are welcome by email or in the comments section below.
buzz buzz buzz.
P.S. I received a comment worth sharing from Dr. David Glabman: “As for the mosquitos in your car maybe try capturing a bat for release in the car since he will eat many times his weight in them.”
Regarding Dr. Glabman’s idea, I very much like the concept. I’d need one of those tropical leaf-gleaning bats that can forage in tight spaces, and I’d have to wait until nightfall for the bat to feed. I do need to drive home with fewer vampires for company. Mabel’s Orchard Spider, however, might do the job. They’re our most common orbweaver, voracious predators of mosquitoes, diurnal, completely harmless to humans, and their possession does not require federal and state permits. I might release a couple in the passenger seat next trip to see what they can do.
… as in “The Burmese python is decimating native wildlife across their invaded range.” Miami Herald, 12-Jun-2025
Marsh Rabbit photo swiped from Animal Diversity Web. Such cute ears!
People today use “decimate” synonymously with “devastate” and it bugs me.
These two words sound similar, but to “decimate” is to reduce by 1/10th, not reduce to 1/10th.
I’d be thrilled if pythons had only decimated Everglades mammal populations.
Origin – The verb “decimate” dates back to ancient Rome. My high school Latin teacher, Mr. Downum, explained that if a member of the Roman Legion committed a heinous crime, and nobody among the ranks would identify the culprit, all the soldiers were lined up and every tenth one was killed. Wikipedia provides a similar explanation with more detail and historic record, albeit limited. Decimation didn’t happen a lot after the scary new word got around. The original meaning gave “decimate” the power to change human behavior for the better.
Here are more examples in which over-educated people are decimating the lexical diversity and power of our language:
“The first time I drove into Tuscaloosa after the storms, I had to pull over on the side of the road to take in the decimation and collect myself.” Joyce Vance, 17-May-2025
“A Fungus Decimated American Bats. Now Scientists Are Fighting Back” Headline, The New York Times, 17-Sep-2024
“In 1989, Hurricane Hugo decimated much of the remaining old-growth forest that is vital habitat for endangered red-cockaded woodpeckers, Leuconotopicus borealis.” @grrlscientist, 11-Oct-2024
It’s everywhere. Even Heather Cox Richardson and Paul Krugman conflate “decimate” and “devastate”, two erudite professors with a mastery of English.
In a living language, word meanings can change. Still, this one sticks in my craw every time I read it. Seems a shame to lose such a graphic and powerful word to confusion in common parlance.
* * *
I’d tell this to the marsh rabbits in the Everglades, if I could find one to tell. Not that a marsh rabbit ever listened to what I had to say. Not even back in the pre-python glory days, when legions of round-eared bunnies lined up ten feet apart along the swale of the Shark Valley tram road every evening. Had they merely been decimated by Burmese pythons, they’d line up today eleven feet apart. Like coral reefs and trees dripping with migrant warblers, or a savored word that’s lost its meaning to misuse, I miss them.
Eye of the Cormorant 