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John Teets

@suenitos.bsky.social

1.5K followers 1K following 2.9K posts

Elderqueer (he/him) out since the '70s. Former Chicago newspaper guy, from copy boy to editorial board via points between. Friend of facts, foe of fascists. At home in Key West, missing my late husband after 38 years together. 🌈

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John Teets @suenitos.bsky.social · 6h

Thanks.

John Teets @suenitos.bsky.social · 6h

The tail is the tell: This is not one of my anole friends. In fact, it often eats them, which is why I'm not fond of Leiocephalus carinatus, often called the Cuban curly-tailed lizard. Stouter than anoles and growing to a hand's span, they're Caribbean island natives but sadly now invasive here.
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A brown juvenile lizard, thick-bellied and with a distinctive curled tail. It's basking on a porch plank, with the edge of a rubber mat at the top of the photo.

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John Teets @suenitos.bsky.social · 16h

"To be nobody but yourself — in a world that is doing its best, night and day, to make you everybody else — means to fight the hardest battle any human being can fight, and never stop fighting." — E. E. Cummings
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John Teets @suenitos.bsky.social · 1d

Our recent bouts of wind and rain have left them less than pristine. Nevertheless, they persisted.
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Two phalaenopsis orchids, vaguely pink with magenta throats, in front of a porch railing.

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John Teets @suenitos.bsky.social · 1d

Here's one. Some have more, some none that I can see.

One light blue plume among the white "feathers" on a Giant White Bird of Paradise.

John Teets @suenitos.bsky.social · 1d

"In my youth I thought of writing a satire on mankind; but now in my age I think I should write an apology for them." — Horace Walpole (1717-1797)
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John Teets @suenitos.bsky.social · 1d

They bloom when they feel like it. What the b&w leaves out are the baby-blue accents among the plumes.

John Teets @suenitos.bsky.social · 2d

Monochrome Monday.
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Blossoms of the Giant White Bird of Paradise (Strelitzia nicolai) emerge from the tight fan of the plant's thick stalks, pointing to 10 and 2 o'clock. Sleek foot-long pods tapering to points, they sport white plumes at their bases. At the left is a vertical leaf growing from a new offshoot, a paddle-shaped oval with a heavy center rib similar to the leaves of their banana cousins.

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John Teets @suenitos.bsky.social · 2d

The queen portrait is a huge fail, recognizable only because of the crown. I find his nudes depressingly grotty.

John Teets @suenitos.bsky.social · 2d

"Either you deal with what is the reality, or you can be sure that the reality is going to deal with you." — Alex Hailey
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John Teets @suenitos.bsky.social · 3d

The red ixoras on the deck are every bit as happy as their golden cousins out front. I'm just not out back as often to appreciate them.
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A little bigger than a fist, an ixora bloom head is a tight hemispheric cluster of dozens of four-petaled red flowers with tiny yellow centers. Here, they are in a hedge of ferns and buttonwoods.

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John Teets @suenitos.bsky.social · 3d

"The most common form of despair is not being who you are." — Søren Kierkegaard (seems right on National Coming Out Day)
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John Teets @suenitos.bsky.social · 4d

At a good 4 inches across, the rubbery blossoms of the Golden Chalice Vine bring big shots of color to a fence. As actual chalices, though, they're destined for spillage.
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A bright yellow blossom of Solandra maxima is shaped like a cup on its side, rimmed with a raggedy turned-back edge. The opening is almost perfectly round. A prominent stamen and anthers protrude from the center.

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John Teets @suenitos.bsky.social · 4d

“No one man can terrorize a whole nation, unless we are all his accomplices.” — Edward R. Murrow
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John Teets @suenitos.bsky.social · 5d

Congratulations to María Corina Machado of Venezuela, winner of the 2025 Nobel Peace Prize. On a related note: Suck it, loser.

A cartoon by Clay Bennett of the Chattanooga News Free Press features sans-serif type spelling out "NOT TRUMP," with the gold Nobel medal as the O.

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John Teets @suenitos.bsky.social · 5d

“People can face any misfortune with fortitude and buoyancy as long as they are convinced that those in charge of their affairs are not deceiving them, or are not dwelling in a fool's paradise.” — Winston Churchill
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John Teets @suenitos.bsky.social · 6d

Think of arousal as a BOGO.

John Teets @suenitos.bsky.social · 6d

I look up and sigh, tapping into a rapture that eons of ancestors have known.
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Pink and gray clouds in a pale twilight sky flirt with the full moon. Below are the crown of a palm tree and a slanting slice of a cottage's tin roof.

Reposted by John Teets

jamelle @jamellebouie.net · 7d

i desperately want everyone involved in the destruction of USAID to have to, st the very least, answer to the american people for the suffering and misery they have caused apnews.com/article/myan...

Starving children screaming for food as US aid cuts unleash devastation and death across Myanmar

U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio has repeatedly said “no one has died" because of his government’s decision to gut its foreign aid program.

apnews.com

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John Teets @suenitos.bsky.social · 6d

... where denunciation, without specification or backing, takes the place of evidence; where orthodoxy chokes freedom of dissent; where faith in the eventual supremacy of reason has become so timid that we dare not enter our convictions in the open lists, to win or lose." — Judge Learned Hand

John Teets @suenitos.bsky.social · 6d

"That community is already in the process of dissolution where each man begins to eye his neighbor as a possible enemy, where nonconformity with the accepted creed, political as well as religious, is a mark of disaffection....
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John Teets @suenitos.bsky.social · 7d

Nonbinary by nature.
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A blossom of an Aechmea fasciata bromeliad, sharp pink spikes radiating from a tight center, interspersed with small pale blue flowers.

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John Teets @suenitos.bsky.social · 7d

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... uses media to polarize the nation, punishes academics and scientists, all while the party officials get rich and promote their own interests. Be vigilant and if you see any of this happening, know these people are commies! They want to pollute our precious bodily fluids. They must be stopped!"

John Teets @suenitos.bsky.social · 7d

... exerts control over the economy, destroys free enterprise and hands out subsidies, suppresses the media, has unidentified law enforcement show up at people's homes and on the street and detain them without judicial process, blames minorities and political opponents for creating the situation...

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John Teets @suenitos.bsky.social · 7d

My brilliant friend Joe, a retired U.S. diplomat, has a dire warning: "Some of my old buddies worry about communism, where the government suppresses dissent, controls universities, uses the military against civilians it deems its political enemies, intervenes in commercial activities...

A bold poster of a grinning skull over the classic Soviet hammer and sickle with the warning "BEWARE OF COMMUNISM."

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