Wednesday, October 7, 2020

Debatable

After watching the recent American political debate, I suggest a bland recipe: plop representatives of two opposing views into one bowl, toss in a bunch of facts, semi-facts, obfuscations (aka lies), modify and reframe dollops of recent historical facts and evidence, add a soupçon of moderation. Mix. Pour. Bake. Walk away from the toxic mix, sit in the warm sun until your troubles drop away, feel the wonder of your life, an important part of all life.
Then, vote!

Worldwide (Map
October 8 – 36,069,000 confirmed infections; 1,055,000 deaths
October 1 – 33,881,275 confirmed infections: 1,012,980 deaths 

US (Map)
October 8 – 7,550,000 confirmed infections; 212,000 deaths
October 1 - 7,233,200 confirmed infections; 206,940 deaths
  
SA (Coronavirus portal
October 8 – 685,155 confirmed infections; 17,250 deaths
October 1 – 674,340 confirmed infections: 16,735 deaths 
 
This week sees 19 countries having lower rates of Covid infections than the US White House. As of yesterday, October 7, according to a Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) memo, “Thirty-four White House staffers and ‘other contacts’ have been infected with the coronavirus in recent days.”  

News blues…

WHO official says 10 percent of the world may have been infected by Covid-19
There are more than 35.5 million confirmed Covid-19 cases globally, according to the widely-used Johns Hopkins University dashboard, but World Health Organization and other experts say that is almost certainly an enormous undercount. Over the summer, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said cases in the US had likely been undercounted by at least 90%.
With a global population of about 7.7 billion people, Ryan's estimate would mean about 770 million have been infected - but most have not been diagnosed or counted.
***
After departing the National Institutes of Health, where he was working on a program to expand national COVID-19 testing capacity, Dr. Rick Bright wrote a blistering op-ed in the Washington Post: “I couldn’t sit idly and watch people die from Trump’s chaotic, politicized pandemic response, so I resigned,”
 “From the beginning of the coronavirus outbreak, the administration’s failure to respond with a coordinated strategy only heightened the danger… Nine months into the pandemic, the United States continues to grapple with failed White House leadership.”
Rick Bright said the administration’s “hostility to the truth” has caused tens of thousands of preventable deaths.  
***
For the first time ever in its 208-year history, the New England Journal of Medicine issued an editorial about an election:
Lambasting the Trump administration’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic [the editorial, signed by all its editors, calls] on Americans to vote President Donald Trump out of office next month
November’s election will have life-or-death consequences for people across the country regardless of party alignment, the journal’s editorial board said.
“Reasonable people will certainly disagree about the many political positions taken by candidates,” the journal’s editors wrote. “But truth is neither liberal nor conservative. When it comes to the response to the largest public health crisis of our time, our current political leaders have demonstrated that they are dangerously incompetent. We should not abet them and enable the deaths of thousands more Americans by allowing them to keep their jobs.”
I repeat, vote!
***
The Lincoln Project: Hospital  (0:55 mins)

Healthy futures, anyone?

The Earth is changing faster than at any point in modern history as a result of human-caused global heating. 

Meanwhile, back at the ranch…

After decades of independence living in a different country, far from my mother and family of origin, it is disorienting to live intimately with another person’s chronic ambivalence. I’m caught between settling my dangerously mood-changing mother into a (formerly thoroughly agreed upon) new life while simultaneously expecting willy nilly changes of direction that upend agreed-upon plans.
Do I simply plow ahead with the original plan – sell the house and furnishings – while waiting for her next handwritten list that completely changes the course of events?
Or do I give up and return to my own life?
If the latter, what happens to my essentially alone, 87-year-old mother?
An enquiring mind wants to know…



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