Ducky's Last Day
As usual, there are ups and downs this week.
Finite Disappointment
After the townhall on immigration I covered this week for perhaps no one but myself, I got in my car to leave. On the way out, I saw a family of ducks crossing the street. I pulled the car over, grabbed my camera, which was already equipped with my longest lens, and jumped out to snap a picture. The family of ducks moved over the barrier into safety, with the exception of one curious little duckling.
I snapped a couple of pictures of him and then heard a car coming. The duckling was obvious to any driver paying attention. I briefly contemplated flagging the driver down to make sure they knew the duckling was there. Sure that driver saw it and perhaps just caught up in a bystander effect, I watched. The car didn't veer, but, as the duckling was by then in the middle of the lane surely it would be ok, right?
I don't know if the driver was distracted by their phone, distracted by my fat ass standing by the side of the road with a two foot long lens, or just plain cruel. At any rate, I titled the post "Ducky's Last Photo" for a reason.
Coming out of a Townhall on Immigration meeting where a big topic was what citizens can do to help people whose right to be in the United States is being challenged, I couldn't help but draw parallels.
I'm safe, on the side of the road, and if I say nothing, I'll (probably) be alright, at least for now. If I draw attention to myself something bad could happen to me and my family.
Philip Cardella
I cried over the duckling. I'm nearly crying now thinking about the duckling. I had a large version of the image above printed so I have to look at it every day and ponder what I could have done to help Ducky there.
A duck. I'm all up in my feelings over a duck. During the Townhall people broke down sobbing while trying to tell their story. But I'm upset about a duck.
Maybe I'm upset about everything.
Historic Interlude
May 5, 1961, Alan B. Shepard lifted off in a tiny, rickety, spaceship tied to a nuclear missile launch rocket, from Cape Canaveral, Florida, soared 115 miles into outer space and landed in the water 15 minutes and 37 seconds later.
"Man what a ride," were his first words upon landing safely.
Shepard missed being the first human in space by less than a month, losing that honor to Soviet Cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin.
While esteemed authors such as Arthur C. Clarke, a prophet in so many ways, predicted a future where humans fought over the space race instead of nuclear weapons, the reality was the space race was about nuclear weapons.
The fear as the Sputnik satellite soared low over the United States in 1957, broadcasting pings and beeps, was that the Soviet Union could use this technology to drop nuclear bombs from space.
To be fair, that was probably the plan.
Less than a year after Alan B. Shepard's historic flight, John Glenn, the future American Senator, with the pivotal assist from an army of Black and white women fiercely crunching the numbers to do the advanced mathematics essential to a safe return from orbit, would become the first human to orbit our world.
While Gen Xers like myself grew up with the thawing of relations between the Soviet Union, and then Russia and the United States largely around the unifying efforts that became the International Space Station, Boomers and older stared into the night sky both awed and terrified by the prospect of adventures from space.
Soviet space triumphs and fiascos are even making the news this week!
Cape Canaveral, Florida's launch center, a quick drive from Downtown Orlando and its numerous megaresorts like Universal Studios and Disneyworld (which is technically just a bit further west) remains the world's most active to date.
For a very realistic recreation of what Alan B. Shepard experienced I recommend this clip from First Man. The clip is of Gemini 8's launch--a two person craft, Shepard's Mercury 7 aka "Freedom 7" was a one person ship--in 1966. Still, it gives an idea of how chaotic these things were. Ironically, if you look at the "scoreboard" clip above, while the US had more successful manned flights, until the Saturn V Apollo missions starting in 1967, the Soviet rockets were a much smoother ride for the occupants.
This Week in Protests
Hands Off Our Workers! Miami May 3, 2025. Video Copyright Philip Cardella 2025.
The past weekend was a wet one is South Florida. This impacted my kid's choir concert on Sunday and the protest at Torch of Friendship on Saturday. Head over to my Protests and Actions Page to see more from Saturday.
Note: there are at least two protests at noon today, May 10, 2025 that I was hoping to attend. One is another Tesla Takedown, the other is a America Needs Fatima in Tropical Park. If you go, share pictures with me because, I'm quadruple booked at noon and frankly bummed.
The dueling picnics between my kid and my wife, on opposite sides of town at the same time, take precedent.
Philip Cardella
Infinite Hope
A Peruvian Pope. An American Pope. A Leo.
Pope Leo XIV, who by choosing the name Leo and as a close ally of Pope Francis, seems to signal that he will both be a Pope similar to Francis and Leo XIII. Heather Cox Richardson, the eminent historian with one of the largest Substack followings in the world, did a great breakdown of this Friday. She writes:
In the midst of the Gilded Age, Leo XIII defended the rights of workers and said that the church had not just the duty to speak about justice and fairness, but also the responsibility to make sure that such equities were accomplished. In his famous 1891 encyclical Rerum Novarum, translated as “Of New Things,” Leo XIII rejected both socialism and unregulated capitalism, and called for the state to protect the rights of individuals.
So, Leo XIV seems to be aligning with that history and Pope Francis' call to love all of humanity. I'm a big fan of humans getting along.
It's interesting that a Pope who made fiercely anti-LGBTQIA+ comments in the past and aligned himself with a former Pope who rejected socialism out of hand is enraging the Far Right.
Still, this is about hope and my hope is that the first Pope to hail from Peru and the United States will be a unifying force for the good of all.
Probably only interesting to me
I hope to be a professional photographer. That's probably obvious to my long time readers/viewers. Dare I hope to be an Associated Press photographer? No, not really, because their work is freaking top shelf photojournalism. The picture above is stunning both in beauty and the message it is conveying. I at least can hope to learn from these folks. Helpfully, the AP is fully aware of how good their team is and has an entire page dedicated to showcasing their photography.
Like pictures? Make sure you check out their page.
· THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Bear the History Hound's Finds
Bear the History Hound has recommendations from historians published this week.
Lauren Lassabe Shepherd
Stephen Starr
Thomas Zimmer
Robert Tait
Random Bird Pictures
Miami is home to a staggering variety of birds. So I thought I'd just toss out of a few of my favorite pictures from the city (technically, the urban part of the county) to cleanse my pallet of Ducky's demise.
All photos copyright Philip Cardella 2024.
Ducky's Legacy
Ducky didn't make it. Clearly. But his family persists. When faced with finite despair may we all waddle on with hope for our future and the future of our children.
Along the way hopefully we can find a home that isn't covered in asphalt and home to duckling murdering vehicles of despair.