First photo is from March 20, 2015. Second is from April 20, 2017, from roughly the same spot. Note how the snowpack on Mt. Shasta is obviously deeper and the snow level is lower, even though the 2017 photo is from a full month later in the year.
Mt Shasta, from Hatchery Ln, near Old Stage Rd.
In February I spent a weekend in Switzerland with a friend. We toured Basel and Bern, visiting the Federal Assembly and the legislatures of two cantons, and also witnessed campaigning for a number referendums (and more!) that would be held the next week.
On electronic displays this poster showed up as a gif, with the trucks rushing through
On the federal level (and in similar terms in most Cantons and municipalities), Switzerland has two types of citizen-initiated referendum:
A striking multilingual poster near the Basel docks
When we visited there were four federal referendums about to be held, of which three were popular initiatives and one was an optional referendum. As it happened, all four votes would follow the government’s official recommendation: rejection of all the initiatives and approval of the federal law.
Central Bern, a protest against the popular initiative for the deportation of criminal migrants
The campaigns were very visible and there were posters were everywhere, both in public places alongside regular commercial advertising and on apartment balconies and small shops’ doors. We also saw many different leaflets, including some published by political parties. Far more visible than in the UK, which I also visited during the recent referendum – in London, the only sign I saw of the campaign were some flyerers at a tube station at rush hour on the day of the referendum.
Cantonal referendum posters in Basel. Note the middle one, sponsored by the Liberal Democratic Party
(As a side note, Switzerland has virtually no regulation of campaign finance, either on the federal or cantonal level. I wonder if that had anything to do with it.)
A number of Cantonal referendums were held on the same day as the federal ones, and we saw posters for these in both Basel and Bern.
We visited three legislative buildings:
Basel-City’s Canton/City hall
Basel-City’s late mediaeval rathaus (city hall), home to the cantonal legislature which also serves (with the exception of a handful of members) as city council. Unfortunately, we were not able to see the chamber, as the tour clashed with our visit of the Federal Assembly in Bern.
Secondly, Bern’s legislature, the Grosser Rat/Grand Conseil. As far as we could tell there were no regular tours; we were let in by the janitor.
The Bernese legislature, the Grand Council
Switzerland generally has relatively large legislative chambers. Basel-City, with a population of just under 200,000, has 100 seats, almost double what it should have per cube root; Bern, with a population of just over a million, has 160, 60% over cube root. The Confederation as a whole is just right with 200 in the lower house for a population of 8.3 million.
The Federal Assembly’s National Council
The federal legislature is spectacular. The picture here is of the lower house, the National Council. The upper house, the Council of States, was more difficult to get a good photo of so here’s a link; the wall painting is of a traditional ‘landsgemeinde’ or popular assembly that used to be common in rural areas. Today the practice persists as the form of government of two cantons, where the citizens meet once a year, while the agenda for that meeting, and most details of legislation, are prepared by an elected assembly. One of the members of the Council of States is still elected by their canton’s popular assembly every four years.
Poster with the candidates of the Socialist/Social-Democratic (depending on whether you translate from French or German) Party in the executive by-election of February 28th (and ultimately also April 3rd for the second round)
Lastly, in Bern, we saw a poster for another campaign – we weren’t sure when we saw it, but it turned out to be for a by-election over two positions in the cantonal executive. Unlike the federal government, the cantonal executive councils are directly elected, mostly (as in Bern) through a two-round system, though proportionally in some cantons. The unusual thing in Bern is that there is one seat reserved for the French-speaking minority of the Bernese Jura – and this seat was one of the two up in the by-election. But, even more interestingly, it turns out this seat is not just reserved to candidates from that region, but the winner is the candidate with the higher geometric mean between the vote total in Bernese Jura and the canton as a whole – a fascinating and likely unique arrangement!
Apparently, I am among the few who will be sad to see Sydney tear down its monorail. Glad I saw it, and rode it, while I could.
Here’s hoping no one in Seattle gets any such idea…
From the photo archives. Has anyone ever seen anything like this?
This is from rural Estonia, in midsummer, 2010. In fact, it is from just next to the grounds of Taagepera Castle.
(I am actually somewhat surprised that I had never gotten around to posting this one before!)
Let’s start the year of 2012 on Pope Gregory’s calendar with the amazing Alhambra.
I had wanted to visit this place since I was a child. I think my mother must have had a book about it that impressed me.
You know how you might dream of something for much of your life, and then you finally experience it, and it disappoints?
This was not one of those times.
The Alhambra was everything I had ever imagined. And so much more.
Speaking of more, yes, of course, there are many more photos…
New Year’s is always a good time to blow off a little steam.
Geysers of Te Puia, in Rotorua, New Zealand.
Little Blues and Yellow-Eyed Penguins, at the amazing Nature’s Wonders on the Otago Peninsula.
More.
You see these painted tiles, azulejos, all over Portugal. But the National Palace in Sintra has some of the finest.
More.
Porto.
The engineer who designed this bridge also did some little tower somewhere else in Europe.
No matter how many photos or TV shows you have seen of the aqueduct in Segovia, nothing can prepare you for just how massive this structure is.
I like this photo, among the many I took, because of the shadows, and how it gives a sense of how long and tall the structure is. (And this is by no means all of it!)
Canberra.
That’s the War Memorial (also a fantastic museum, by the way) at the bottom of the picture. Then the ANZAC Parade. On the day we left (which was not the day of this photo), ANZAC Parade was lined with alternating Australian and US flags, as Barack Obama was arriving for his visit that day.
Across Lake Burley Griffin the white building is the Old Parliament House (which contains an outstanding Museum of Democracy). Then well beyond that, under the massive flag pole, is the current parliament building.
The view is from the Mt. Ainslie lookout.
More (in addition to the specific links above).
Fruits and Votes 
