The mountain pinks I mentioned
Two posts back I mentioned that on June 28th in my part of town I stopped to check out some mountain pinks, Zeltnera beyrichii, that in previous years had grown horizontally from the face of a low roadcut. I found a few of those plants doing so again this year, one of which you see below. For the svelte portrait of the isolated bud above, I got in as close as my macro lens would focus.
(You’ve already seen a floralicious mountain pink portrait in a post last week.)
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Yesterday, July 4th, was America’s national holiday celebrating independence and freedom. By a happy coincidence, the day also saw a victory for the U.S. Constitution’s First Amendment proviso that government may not interfere with a citizen’s right to free speech. As The Epoch Times reported:
A federal judge has made a historic ruling by partially granting an injunction that blocks various Biden administration officials and government agencies like the Justice Department and the FBI from working with big tech firms to censor posts on social media.
The injunction came in response to a censorship-by-proxy lawsuit brought by attorneys general in Louisiana and Missouri, who have accused Biden administration officials and various government agencies of pressuring social media companies to suspend accounts or take down posts.
The judge, Terry A. Doughty, wrote in the July 4 judgment (pdf) that various government agencies, including the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Agency (CISA), the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), the U.S. Department of State, the Department of Justice (DOJ), and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) are prohibited from taking a range of actions with regards to social media companies.
Specifically, the agencies and their staff members are prohibited from meeting or contacting by phone, email, text message or “engaging in any communication of any kind with social-media companies urging, encouraging, pressuring, or inducing in any manner for removal, deletion, suppression, or reduction of content containing protected free speech,” per the injunction.
The agencies are also barred from flagging content on posts on social media platforms and forwarding them to the companies with requests for action such as removing or otherwise suppressing their reach.
Encouraging or otherwise egging on social media companies to change their guidelines for the removal, suppression, or reduction of content that contains protected free speech by the government is also not allowed.
You may be able to read the full article. You can also read a report about this welcome decision in The Washington Examiner. And if you want the judge’s full written decision, you can have it.
© 2023 Steven Schwartzman
Portraits of Wildflowers 
These always remind me of a pretty pink flower that’s quite common here. I need to look more closely to figure out whether I’m seeing branching centaury (Centaurium pulchellum) or Lady Bird’s centaury (C. texense). BONAP’s moved Lady Bird’s centaury into Zeltnera, but shows branching centaury as non-native. All that aside, they’re as delightful as your mountain pinks, and just as small — which makes your photos even more admirable. I do like the sweet tangle of flowers in the second photo, but that single bud is quite an accomplishment.
shoreacres
July 5, 2023 at 7:08 AM
We have Lady Bird’s centaury in Austin, too. It’s small and diffuse and grows in with other things, so I’ve always had a hard time getting pictures of it that I like. In contrast to that, the dense flower domes of mountain pink easily lend themselves to portraits with colors and forms that fill the frame. Notwithstanding my enthusiasm for that floral density, the isolated bud here pleased me, too.
Yours is the first mention of branching centaury I’ve come across. The online picture of it I found and its distribution map make me pretty sure I’ve never seen one (unless maybe inadvertently at Brazoria).
Steve Schwartzman
July 5, 2023 at 7:25 AM
Always appreciate learning something new here… whether regarding Lady Bird’s Centaury (which is common in the wilds near me) or free speech (which people in positions of power are so often tempted to suppress, rather than listen to). As I recall, a former President of the USA was impeached for attempting to get a foreign leader to plant a story about an investigation into the son of his political opponent. (I know, not really related to free speech, but some free speech should be more free than others, to paraphrase George Orwell. Hate speech, and speech which incites people to riot or harm others, should probably not be given the same sort of freedom as speech that encourages collaboration and cooperation in solving problems.
But back to Mountain Pinks – I recall having seen in the past, on top of cut throughs on 360 just North of Bee Caves Road in Austin, a profusion of Mountain Pinks that could have been distracting enough to cause auto collisions. The solitary bud is beautiful, the more profuse blooming is exquisite, and all the post lacked was a photo of the plant as a whole in order to be able to recognize it in the field. But you probably have posted a photo like that in the past, I would guess.
RobertKamper
July 5, 2023 at 9:25 AM
In the past few years the term “hate speech” has increasingly often gotten used as a pejorative label for anything that certain ideologues disagree with. There are now activists who say it’s hate speech for someone to claim there are only two biological sexes, or that men can’t give birth, or that college admissions should be based on academic merit, or that Covid-19 escaped from a virology lab in Wuhan. The First Amendment doesn’t single out any particular kinds of speech that the government can interfere with. Case law has developed a few First Amendment exceptions like slander, fraud, and incitement to imminent violence (as you mentioned), but otherwise protection from government censorship still applies to statements that some people find distasteful or even hateful.
As for mountain pinks along Loop 360, I don’t think I’ve ever photographed any as far south as down by Bee Caves Rd. For the past decade I’ve found some on the east-side roadcuts a mile or so south of the Colorado River. Unfortunately the current construction in that area seems to have ruined those, based on my observations last week. I’ve also found mountain pinks on the roadcut and in the ditches north of the river on the west side of Loop 360 in the vicinity of Champion Grandview Way, though 2023 has proved a poor year for the species there.
You’re correct that in other posts over the years I’ve showed an entire mountain pink plant. My purpose in taking (and showing) photographs is mostly aesthetic rather than didactic, hence my frequent use of the term “portrait.” I do occasionally show a not-particularly-appealing photograph just for documentary purposes.
Steve Schwartzman
July 5, 2023 at 1:36 PM
I was referring to traditional hate speech, like referring to folks with lots of melatonin by a certain word, or those whose ethnic background associated them with a certain religion, and so forth.
I do take a lot of not-particularly-appealing photos, sometimes for documentation, other times because that’s the best I can do at the time
RobertKamper
July 8, 2023 at 10:23 AM
A big concern of mine, based on the many incidents that have already happened, is that the definition of “hate speech” isn’t staying restricted to the two examples you cited, which I believe almost everyone would agree are hateful examples.
I think we all take pictures that we wish we could have done a better job on.
Steve Schwartzman
July 8, 2023 at 1:09 PM
Wonderful flowers and so nice that you found them again this year.
I hope you had a lovely 4th of july.
picpholio
July 5, 2023 at 11:25 AM
Thanks. Because the Fourth of July is also mijn verjaardag, it’s a double holiday for me each year.
Steve Schwartzman
July 5, 2023 at 1:38 PM
Sorry, didn’t now…. now I’m too late…. but still a happy birthday Steve !
picpholio
July 6, 2023 at 6:21 AM
It’s never too late. Thanks.
Steve Schwartzman
July 6, 2023 at 7:05 AM
The mass of flowers in last week’s post is a wonderful contrast to the two images today. A delicate bud, detailed blooms jutting from the road cut – beautiful work.
Wally Jones
July 5, 2023 at 12:41 PM
Ah, thanks. I’ve most often been drawn to dense masses of mountain pinks, of which there weren’t a lot this year (though last week’s view wasn’t bad, as you noted). This season’s lack of a good showing led me to focus on smaller details, as in the two portraits shown here.
Steve Schwartzman
July 5, 2023 at 1:43 PM
‘Floralicious’ is a good word for these lovely flowers. 🙂
Ann Mackay
July 6, 2023 at 5:03 AM
A good word indeed. I’ll have to work at coming up with more such words.
Steve Schwartzman
July 6, 2023 at 7:08 AM