Veterans Day

Today is Veterans Day in the United States.

• Note that the World War I armistice was signed on the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month. ...
• There were around 21.8 million veterans in the United States as of 2010.
• There are around 9 million veterans over the age of 65.
• Around 1.6 million veterans are women.
• Military.com’s  history of veterans day…

Let We the People ensure vets get all the benefits they’ve earned. 

Worldwide (Map) 
November 10, 2021 – 251,624,400 confirmed infections; 5,076,300 deaths
November 26, 2020 – 60,334,000 confirmed infections; 1,420,500 deaths
Total vaccine doses administered: 7,365,272,360

US (Map) 
November 10, 2021 – 46,793,200 confirmed infections; 759,100 deaths
November 26, 2020 – 12,771,000 confirmed infections; 262,145 deaths

SA (Tracker) 
November 10, 2021 – 2,924,625 confirmed infections; 89,435 deaths
November 26, 2020 – 775,510 confirmed infections; 21,2010 deaths
South Africa’s recent Covid tracker >> 

News blues…

How are UK, US, Italy, New Zealand, Canada, France, Singapore, and other countries dealing with Covid vaccine mandates ? A quick glance …
From Atlantic Monthly:

…breakthrough infections remain a statistical inevitability despite our very, very excellent vaccines. We’ll need to get comfortable with them as we learn to live with the coronavirus long term.

• A breakthrough infection is a logistical nightmare.  “A positive test sets in motion huge hassles and anxieties for anyone you’ve been in contact with,” says Alexis C. Madrigal, a co-founder of the COVID Tracking Project at The Atlantic who recently contracted COVID.
• But your immune system is ready to handle it. “A breakthrough, despite what it might seem, does not cause our defenses to crumble,” my colleague Katherine J. Wu wrote this summer. “Vaccines reinforce the defenses we already have.”
• We still don’t know how easily vaccinated people spread COVID.  “We might not reach a consensus on just how contagious breakthrough infections are, and that’s okay….”

***

New political ads: Electile Dysfunction  (2:04 mins)
The Lincoln Project:

Rebuild  (0:57 mins)
Last week in the Republican Party  (2:06 mins)

Healthy planet, anyone?

Getting your point across...

Tuvalu's foreign minister, Simon Kofe, says his country is looking at ways to retain statehood
even if it disappears due to climate change and rising sea levels. 
Photograph: Tuvalu Foreign Ministry/Reuters

Tuvalu's Foreign Minister Simon Kofe spoke to attendees at the COP26 climate summit and around the world while knee-deep in the ocean to show the effect of rising sea levels. >> 
Tuvalu will continue to raise awareness about the complexities of sea levels rise as it seeks to maintain state hood.

Tuvalu is looking at legal ways to keep its ownership of its maritime zones and recognition as a state even if the Pacific island nation is completely submerged due to the climate crisis….
“We’re actually imagining a worst-case scenario where we are forced to relocate or our lands are submerged,” the minister, Simon Kofe, [said].
“We’re looking at legal avenues where we can retain our ownership of our maritime zones, retain our recognition as a state under international law. So those are steps that we are taking, looking into the future.” 

Nor is it "just" Pacific islands suffering effects of melting glaciers and rising sea level, Tangier Island – a Virginia fishing town home to about 400 people - is losing ground faster than previously thought, highlighting how climate change threatens U.S. coastal communities >> 

Meanwhile, back at the ranch…

Infrastructure is, indeed, a critical need in the US, even in cosmopolitan San Francisco and the East Bay. This became clear today as I drove through the cities of El Cerrito (home to the band Credence Clearwater Revival), small and cozy Albany, and Berkeley, site of the esteemed University of California campus. While these cities’ roads don’t have the extreme potholes of South African roads, they are, nevertheless, decrepit, cracked, patchy; in some spots – College Avenue, for example, it’s as if one is driving on loose gravel.
Shock at the state of the cities’ roads, however, was outweighed by the thrill of visiting these cities after several years’ absence. While I lacked time, today, to park and explore (I plan to do that “soon”) I noticed much that has changed and more that remains the same. I look forward to visiting as a tourist on foot – with camera – and sharing what I discover. What’s clear already, though, is that even cities age, sometimes, as I discovered, not gracefully.
The Biden Administration’s infrastructure bill – disappointing as it is in its paring down of what is vitally needed – addressing the effects of climate change - passed not a moment too soon.

***  

Is it the pandemic or am I "just" nuts?

Insomnia evolves into obsessive attention to iPhone battery level graphs,
and turned into “art” depicting new levels of obsession….