Do it anyway!

News blues…

President Ramaphosa on lockdown with restrictions eased: Booze & beaches are back as first vaccines arrive (6:12 mins)

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I Volunteered To Administer COVID-19 Vaccines. Here’s What I Saw During My Shift." 

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Coronavirus Pandemic’s Deadliest Month In U.S. Ends With Signs Of Progress. As the calendar turned to February, the number of Americans in the hospital with COVID-19 fell below 100,000 for the first time in two months. 

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The Lincoln Project Just like always  (0:55 mins)
Sarah Cooper I’m a lawyer for the Trump campaign  (1:07 mins)

Healthy planet, anyone?

Working from home during Covid-19 has brought noise pollution close to home, whether it’s your partner making calls within earshot or grinding coffee during your Zoom interview. Now research suggests the animal kingdom is also disturbed by the noise of humans and our gadgets. As humans proliferate, we have penetrated deeper into wildlife habitats, creating a pervasive rise in environmental sound that not only directly affects the ability of animals to hear but indeed communicate. Emerging research suggests noise pollution, caused, for instance, by traffic, interferes with animal behaviour, including cognition and mating.

Read >>  “Human noise affects animal behaviour, studies show” 

Meanwhile, back at the ranch…

For those who think about psychology and culture and the how/why “we the people” got into the political mess we’re in – (wars, creeping fascism, political corruption, money as god, etc.) here’s something to chew upon: Joseph Heinrich’s book, The WEIRDest People in the World: How the West Became Psychologically Peculiar and Particularly Prosperous.
Atlantic Monthly’s review and an excerpt from it:

Given the nature of the project, it may be a surprise that Henrich aspires to preach humility, not pride. WEIRD people have a bad habit of universalizing from their own particularities. They think everyone thinks the way they do, and some of them (not all, of course) reinforce that assumption by studying themselves.
[and]
Given the nature of the project, it may be a surprise that Henrich aspires to preach humility, not pride. WEIRD people have a bad habit of universalizing from their own particularities. They think everyone thinks the way they do, and some of them (not all, of course) reinforce that assumption by studying themselves.
[and]
Democracy, the rule of law, and human rights “didn’t start with fancy intellectuals, philosophers, or theologians,” Henrich writes. “Instead, the ideas formed slowly, piece by piece, as regular Joes with more individualistic psychologies—be they monks, merchants, or artisans—began to form competing voluntary associations” and learned how to govern them. Toppling the accomplishments of Western civilization off their great-man platforms, he erases their claim to be monuments to rationality: Everything we think of as a cause of culture is really an effect of culture, including us.
[and]
It should be said, though, that Henrich can make a person feel pretty helpless, with his talk of populations being swept along by cultural riptides that move “outside conscious awareness.” Cultural evolutionary determinism may turn out to be as disempowering as all the other determinisms; a WEIRD reader may feel trapped inside her own prejudices. But perhaps some comfort lies in Henrich’s dazzling if not consistently plausible supply of unintended consequences.

Enough quotes from the review. Read the book. I download it, free, from my local online library. It is long but worth the effort. (I’ve an undergrad degree in intercultural communication and grad work in adult learning. My interest includes culture shock as “an adult learning experience.” Heinrich's theses make sense to me.)

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After my close call as a pedestrian earlier this week, I read the following news with glee:

Five former employees of the uMngeni licensing office in Howick, near Pietermaritzburg, will have their fate determined by the court on Wednesday when they appear on graft and corruption-related charges. 
[They] are set to appear in the Durban specialised commercial crimes court, where they will be sentenced for fraud cases after they assisted scores of motor vehicle learner’s licence applicants to pass their tests.

Could it be that the many drivers who were willing to run me over in the pedestrian crossing (I was following direction from the pedestrian lights) had purchased their licences?
Enquiring minds wanna know.

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I hope the following advice isn’t necessary for you in your life but…
If you ever find yourself in a similar situation – a very weak and fragile parent who’d once been robust and in a care center visit - that parent as much as you can. 

It’s hard. It’s scary. It’s heartbreaking. It’s certainly emotionally painful. 

But do it anyway.
Covid put a damper on visiting hours at the Care Center and, as of six weeks ago they shut down to all visitors although they allowed visitors only under certain conditions (dying, for example). 

Since they eased up recently and allow in one visitor per resident per day, I stiffen my spine and go every day at 10am, to see my mother folded over in the Laziboy chair. 

I sit next to her, talk to her and she knows I’m there, she hears me, she tries to respond. I offer sips of tea or water (through a syringe as she’s too weak to use a sippy cup). I catch her up on news of the dogs, the monkeys, the garden, the gardener, and on appropriate business dealings.
When I realized earlier this week that I couldn’t go on Tuesday (yesterday) I arranged for my brother to visit her. Yes, its a 25-minute drive for him, but he’s the love of her life and, surely, the effort is worth it? 

He agreed to go.
I called him yesterday afternoon to check in with him on the visit.
Turns out, he hadn’t visited. If I hadn’t called him, he wouldn’t have mentioned that salient fact. His excuse? Something about someone having to "go to Durban." (So? With 3 vehicles in his household, one wasn’t available? How many vehicles needed for a trip to Durban?)
He says he’ll visit today.
I know he’s reluctant to visit as it’s upsetting. But she’d prefer he visit than anyone else – aside from her grandson (who won’t even send her a WhatsApp audio message to say, “I love you. I’m thinking of you.”
My point? Yes, it’s difficult. 

But do it anyway!