New normal

News blues…

Covid news continues as countries grapple with vaccine procurement and/or vaccination schedules.
The biggest change in news coverage, though, is the absence of The Donald, aka the “sentient naartjie”. With Trump on the world stage, news – much of it mind-boggling – issued every minute of every day.
Now? Not so much. Today’s Trump news is all about investigations into his “business” practices, his presidency, his corruptions. And his golf games. 
Trump-free news. What a concept.

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Tracking Covid-19 vaccinations worldwide 

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Technology’s best use: reconstituted video shows San Francisco’s Market Street heading towards the Ferry Building a day before the 1906 earthquake.  (14:07 mins)
The Ferry Building has a new life now, as a tourist destination with fancy shops and fine dining  .

Healthy futures, anyone?

It's unavoidable: we must ban fossil fuels to save our planet. Here are ideas on how we do it …. 

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Photo essay: The biggest swarms of the insects in a generation that have devastated crops and grazing across Africa are now being turned into sustainable, high-protein animal fodder and fertilizer. 

Meanwhile, back at the ranch…

My childhood in rural South Africa tempered my view of “normality.” In apartheid South Africa, my ethnic and socio-economic culture provided many advantages, including running water (albeit then stored in tanks and dependent on sufficient rainfall) natural gas for cooking, and electricity (unless a thunderstorm knocked out the grid.).
My adulthood in urban California, however, accustomed me to a new normal: municipal water always on tap, ditto electricity and natural gas.
Even after a year in South Africa it is … odd… to check a schedule each day to learn when my teeny part of the world will be without electricity.
The upside? I can count on electrical current throbbing through electrical lines and into my dwelling at some point of my day. That’s not true for 11 percent of South Africans https://www.engineeringnews.co.za/article/11-of-sa-households-still-without-electricity-2013-11-14 .
If Eskom is to load shed, I’m happy that for the next couple of days at least, our power is off from 4am to 6:30am.

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Day light savings time begins in California.
In KZN, days get shorter while nights get longer:
Feb 26: sunrise 5:47am; sunset 6:33pm.
March 2: sunrise 5:50am; sunset 6:29pm.
March 9: sunrise 5:55am; sunset 6:21pm.
March 15: sunrise 5:58am; sunset 6:14pm.