More of the same

Worldwide (Map) 
March 10, 2022 - 449,958,700 confirmed infections; 6,016,600 deaths
March 11, 2021 – 117, 645,000 confirmed infections; 2,612,000 deaths

US (Map) 
March 10, 2022 – 79,369,500 confirmed infections; 961,950 deaths
March 11, 2021 - 29,222,420 confirmed infections; 529,884 deaths
Amazingly, the 1 million death toll predicted two weeks ago is still in our future in the US. Or not. Perhaps Covid-19 deaths will cease and we’ll never reach that dire statistic. Here’s hoping.

SA (Coronavirus portal) 
March 10, 2022 - 3,686,560 confirmed infections; 99,625 deaths
March 11, 2021 – 1.522,700 confirmed infections; 50,910 deaths.

Blog post from March 11, 2021: “Load shedding, reprise” >>  

Ironically, load shedding continues. We are without electricity for three 2.5-hour stints each day. 

News blues

As South Africa heads towards the dreaded 100,000 Covid-19 deaths toll, Ministerial Advisory Committee and director of CAPRISA, Salim Abdool Karim reviews the last two years of Covid-19 and its successes in South Africa.  (8:19 mins)

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The US CDC says 90 percent of people no longer need masks. Experts who've been very careful thus far are starting to shift their approaches — but just a little >> 

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On War: “Ukraine: Mother of Russian soldier asks, 'Whose door should I knock on to get my child back?' >> 

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The Lincoln Project: Last Week in the Republican Party (March 8)  (1:35 mins)
The Lincoln Project Re-airs President Biden's Remarks on Ukraine  (12:38 mins)

Healthy planet, anyone?

Described by the head of the UN Environment Programme as the most important multilateral environmental deal  since the Paris agreement in 2015, the new legally binding treaty world leaders recently agreed upon covers the full lifecycle of plastics from production to disposal. This could provide an essential tool to hold governments and companies accountable for their environmental impacts.
Read more >> 

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For Svitlana Krakovska, Ukraine’s leading climate scientist, it was meant to be the week where eight years of work culminated in a landmark UN report exposing the havoc the climate crisis is causing the world. But then the bombs started to crunch into Kyiv.
Krakovska, the head of a delegation of 11 Ukrainian scientists, struggled to help finalize the vast Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report ahead of its release on 28 February even as Russian forces launched their invasion. “I told colleagues that as long as we have the internet and no bombs over our heads we will continue,” she said.

Read “‘This is a fossil fuel war’: Ukraine’s top climate scientist speaks out” 

Meanwhile, back at the ranch…

In drought-ridden California, I adore the sound of rain. In waterlogged KZN, I dread the same sound.
A little more than one year ago, I shared the most recent information about KZN’s Dept of Transportation’s (DOT) lack of effective maintenance of culverts  adjacent to my mother’s property. Requesting maintenance has been an ongoing project over several years.
It’s not that DOT is unresponsive. Bulldozers and diggers show up, but these are the wrong tools for the job. What is required? Strong people wielding shovels. Here, as in many places, manual labor is considered less sexy than driving a diesel-powered bulldozer.

Blocked culverts back in April 2019

One of two culverts, this one totally blocked - April 2019

March 9, 2022 - now not only utterly blocked, also invisible.
Is this is how ancient cities "disappeared"?

With the unprecedented amounts of rain, my late mother’s garden is ankle-deep in water due to barely functioning culverts designed to drain water from the stream, under the roadway, eventually reaching Howick Falls. One is entirely blocked and covered with vegetation and debris. (Watching this occur over the past 6 years presents insight into how whole cities of the ancient world disappeared until intrepid archaeologists dug them out. Hmmm, maybe I need intrepid archaeologists on this job?)

Last night’s pouring rain had me frantically messaging our local councilperson – again.

I’m tempted to implement Plan B: appeal through humiliation. Write an article for the local weekly print paper explaining the issue then beg readers and local residents each to contribute R5,00 into a fund geared toward paying a non-governmental team of workers to work on public projects. Donations should be deducted from residents’ monthly rates (“property tax”) bill. 

This approach shares the burden of “fighting city hall” among members of the community rather than burdening one person with blowback.
Come to think of it, We the People could adopt the same strategies for other areas where the municipality fails to use residents’ property taxes for residents and public areas (potholes, storm drains, broken signage, dangerous roadways, severely cracked bridges and overpasses…).

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Been working my half hour stint weeding the pond when it is not too rainy or too hot. Each day the pile of pond debris on the pond banks gets a little higher and the pond a little freer.

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Hello, darkness, my old friend…. Escom (SA’s parastatal Electrical Supply Commission) began, again, depriving the citizenry of electricity. This area is at Stage 4, meaning our electricity goes down three times per day - from 6:00 am to 8:30am, 2:00pm to 4:30pm, and from 10pm to 12:30pm. 

Oh, and the price of electricity hikes up at least 10 percent each year.

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Three days to US daylight saving time.
San Francisco Bay Area
Sunrise: 6:27am
Sunset: 6:11pm

KZN, South Africa:
Sunrise: 5:56am
Sunset: 6:21pm