LOCKDOWN WEEKS 11 - 20

Read day-by-day posts.

Week 20: Day 140 Thursday, August 13 - Slogging

Pandemic’s latest toll. A month of numbers:

Worldwide

August 13 – 20,621,000  confirmed infections; 749,400 deaths
August 6 – 18,753,000 confirmed infections; 706,800 deaths
July 9 - 12,041,500 confirmed infections; 549,470 deaths

US
August 13 - 5,198,000 confirmed infections; 166,050 deaths
August 6 –  4,824,000 confirmed infections; 158,250 deaths
July 9 – 3,054,800 infections; 132,300 deaths

South Africa
August 13 – 569,000 confirmed infections 11,010 deaths
August 6 – 529,900 confirmed infections; 9,298 deaths
July 9 - 224,665 infections; 3,602 deaths

News blues…

CO2 levels in the atmosphere
8 August 2020: 413.17 ppm
This time last year: 410.35 ppm
10 years ago: 399.71 ppm
Pre-industrial base: 280
Safe level: 350
Atmospheric CO2 reading from Mauna Loa, Hawaii (part per million). Source: NOAA-ESRL.

The draconian coronavirus lockdowns across the world have led to sharp drops in carbon emissions, but this will have “negligible” impact on the climate crisis, with global heating cut by just 0.01C by 2030, a study has found.  But the analysis also shows that putting the huge sums of post-Covid-19 government funding into a green recovery and shunning fossil fuels will give the world a good chance of keeping the rise in global temperatures below 1.5C. …we are now at a “make or break” moment in keeping under the limit – as compared with pre-industrial levels – agreed by the world’s governments to avoid the worst effects of global heating.
The research is primarily based on … data [that] gives near-real-time information on travel and work patterns and therefore gives an idea of the level of emissions. The data covered 123 countries that together are responsible for 99% of fossil fuel emissions. The researchers found that global CO2 emissions dropped by more than 25% in April 2020, and nitrogen oxides (NOx) by 30%.
These falls show that rapid changes in people’s behaviour can make big differences to emissions in the short term, but the scientists said such lockdowns are impossible to maintain. Therefore, economy-wide changes are needed for a transformation to a zero-emissions economy, such as greening transport, buildings and industry with renewable energy, hydrogen or by capturing and burying CO2.

***

Covid-19 launched a mortality category, “excess deaths.” Our World in Data  defines this as

… miscounting deaths from the under-reporting of Covid-19-related deaths and other health conditions left untreated….[or] as actual deaths from all causes, minus ‘normal’ deaths.
US CDC  calculates potentially excess deaths … by subtracting the expected number of deaths from the observed number of deaths. The expected number refers to the number of deaths that we would see if that state’s death rate was equal to the best-performing states.
South African Medical Research Council (SAMRC) weekly report  revealed the difference between the country’s confirmed Covid-19 deaths and the number of excess natural deaths. From the first week of March to July 21, the country recorded 22,279 excess natural deaths: 6,620 excess deaths in Gauteng, 6,411 in the Eastern Cape, 4,133 in the Western Cape and 2,632 in KwaZulu-Natal [with] 752 reported in the Free State, 627 in Mpumalanga, 566 in the North West, 527 in Limpopo, and 164 in the Northern Cape.

People paying attention to pandemic numbers – confirmed infections and deaths - understand that confirmed and published numbers represent only a small percentage of actual infections and deaths.
Listening carefully to public figures and politicians discuss confirmed Covid deaths and “excess deaths” one might hear references to “stigma” and “social stigma”  afforded those afflicted.
Such stigma can have fatal consequences.
In South Africa’s hard hit, overcrowded townships and informal settlements, social stigma associated with coronavirus can lead to the infected hiding and/or denying their status and/or not seeking medical help. This, as disclosing one’s status can incur attack and endanger the life of the infected – and the lives of the infected person’s family….

Meanwhile, back at the ranch…

I’ve embarked on the veggie garden hiding project and located three areas in the garden monkeys might not explore. Problem is, one of the household’s 7 dogs likely will detect the sweet smell of compost – explore, and dig up seedlings.

***

A day to mask up and venture out of the security gates to forage for groceries, (guarded) social contact, and a change of scenery.

Day 139 Wednesday, August 12 - Still swinging

After decades living in America, I know American politics as a pendulum, swinging from one extreme to the other. There’s little balance upon which people can depend. (I’m not the first to use this metaphor. ) 

The Trump years have only widened the arc of the swing – and highlighted underlying layers of racism, sexism, socio-economic disparities….
How we’ll do it, I don’t know, but We the People must extricate ourselves from the trauma of Trump.

Joe Biden picked Kamala Harris for vice-president. As a Californian and San Francisco Bay Area resident, I’m less enthused than many about Kamala Harris. She comes with baggage. 

But it means the pendulum will swing in the other direction – albeit not too far. Progressive change is not in the cards, but picking up the pieces and re-establishing government after Trump’s devastation? That’s vital. 

News blues… 

New Zealand family tests positive for Covid-19 after 102 days without locally transmitted coronavirus cases

Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said four cases had been detected in a single family in Auckland from an unknown source. Ardern said she understood the disappointment of New Zealanders who believed the virus had been quashed after a strict seven-week lockdown earlier this year.
"It was perhaps easy to feel New Zealand was out of the woods, my request is not to feel dispirited or disheartened. Of all the countries in the world, New Zealand has gone the longest without a resurgence - but because of that we always knew we had to plan, and we've done that." 

***

Is relaxation of lockdown regulations in South Africa’s near future?

The National Coronavirus Command Council met...[and] President Cyril Ramaphosa is expected to address the nation no later than Saturday, when the state of disaster he declared in March is due to expire.
Even as SA passed the grim milestone of 10,000 deaths [overnight] … there are strong signs that the Western Cape, Gauteng and the Eastern Cape have seen their surge. They warned, however, that KwaZulu-Natal has yet to reach its peak. Professor Salim Abdool Karim, head of health minister Zweli Mkhize's advisory committee on the outbreak… is "very worried" about his home province.
Health Minister Mkhize …warned of the possibility of a second wave… and urged South Africans to stay on guard. "Whilst we are cautiously optimistic, it is still too early for us to make definite conclusions regarding the observed decline. We need to continue to track all these indicators and ensure that our testing capacity reflects a realistic picture of our epidemiological status." 

***

Coronavirus testing, a la California.

Two types of tests are available to determine whether a person currently is infected with the coronavirus: molecular tests, such as so-called “RT-PCR tests,” which detect the virus’s genetic material, and antigen tests, which detect specific proteins on the surface of the virus. (Another test, known as the antibody or serological, test, shows whether a person has been infected in the past.) This chart, prepared by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, outlines the differences:

Click to enlarge. 

As the chart (left) indicates, antigen tests yield results more quickly than molecular tests. But, according to the FDA, they “have a higher chance of missing an active infection.” As the Mayo Clinic explained,

A positive antigen test result is considered very accurate, but there's an increased chance of false negative results – meaning it's possible to be infected with the virus but have negative antigen test results. So antigen tests aren't as sensitive as molecular tests are. Depending on the situation, the doctor may recommend a molecular test to confirm a negative antigen test result.
The risk of misleading results has led public-health agencies to discourage the use of antigen tests in a non-medical setting. Accordingly, both the Association of Public Health Laboratories and the California Department of Public Health warn against using such tests to screen asymptomatic persons, like those who would go to a community testing site. (The two organizations also recommend against using such tests to screen healthcare workers, first responders, and other essential workers.)

***

The Lincoln Project: Moving day  (0:55)
Interview with Steve Schmidt of Lincoln Project on difference between Mike Pence and Kamala Harris  (5:25 mins)
Meidas Touch: The Rule of Law or Trump (1:00)

Healthy futures, anyone?

Focus on coral. 

© The Conversation 

“Cities of the sea” is how Dr. Sylvia Earle of Mission Blue describes coral: bustling neighborhoods of settled residents, familiar faces, multiple generations….
Smithsonian’s Ocean organization uses the same metaphor and educates...

Corals are related to sea anemones, and they all share the same simple structure, the polyp. The polyp is like a tin can open at just one end: the open end has a mouth surrounded by a ring of tentacles. The tentacles have stinging cells, called nematocysts, that allow the coral polyp to capture small organisms that swim too close. Inside the body of the polyp are digestive and reproductive tissues. Corals differ from sea anemones in their production of a mineral skeleton.
Corals do not have to only rely on themselves for their defenses because mutualisms (beneficial relationships) abound on coral reefs. The partnership between corals and their zooxanthellae is one of many examples of symbiosis, where different species live together and help each other. Some coral colonies have crabs and shrimps that live within their branches and defend their home against coral predators with their pincers. Parrotfish, in their quest to find seaweed, will often bite off chunks of coral and will later poop out the digested remains as sand. One kind of goby chews up a particularly nasty seaweed, and even benefits by becoming more poisonous itself.

Coral reefs support over 25% of marine life by providing food, shelter and a place for fish and other organisms to reproduce and raise young. Today, ocean warming driven by climate change is stressing reefs worldwide.
Rising ocean temperatures cause bleaching events – episodes in which corals expel the algae that live inside them and provide the corals with most of their food, as well as their vibrant colors. When corals lose their algae, they become less resistant to stressors such as disease and eventually may die.
Hundreds of organizations worldwide are working to restore damaged coral reefs by growing thousands of small coral fragments in nurseries, which may be onshore in laboratories or in the ocean near degraded reefs. 

Meanwhile, back at the ranch…

Stymied by monkeys’ wanton destruction of germinating pea and bean seedlings in the veggie garden, I heeded friends’ advice to disguise veggies by distributing them among garden plants.
Yesterday, I began preparing veggie beds – and incorporated abundant pond weed.
Perks of pond weed. Despite the winter hibernation, pond weed continues to grow, albeit slowly.
Over summer and fall/autumn, I’d composted abundant pond weed. It doesn’t break down quickly, but it helps retain moisture in the soil.
I reached into the pond and harvested piles of winter pond weed and padded the bottom layer of the new veggie patches.
Next week – after the predicted cold snap – I will transplant pea, bean, beet, and zucchini seedings.
I never occurred to me, a month ago, when I began germinating seeds in the recycled deep freeze I use as a cold frame/greenhouse, that monkeys would imperil seedlings. Older and wiser now, I wish I’d had the foresight to plant many more seeds.
It takes only one monkey only one second to destroy weeks of seedling care. 

Day 138 Tuesday, August 11 - Rising tides

Twenty million-plus confirmed Covid-19 infections around the world. And it took fewer than six months to arrive at this point.
Rising tides: surging seas, surging coronavirus, surging fear.

News blues…

Europeans view with astonishment and alarm the United States' failure to contain the spread of coronavirus.

Perhaps nowhere outside the US is America's bungled virus response viewed with more consternation than in Italy, which was ground zero of Europe's epidemic.
But after a strict nationwide 10-week lockdown, vigilant tracing of new clusters and general acceptance of mask mandates and social distancing, Italy has become a model of virus containment.
"Don't they care about their health?" a mask-clad Patrizia Antonini asked about people in the United States as she walked with friends along the banks of Lake Bracciano, north of Rome. "They need to take our precautions ... they need a real lockdown."
Much of the incredulity in Europe stems from the fact that America had the benefit of time, European experience and medical know-how to treat the virus that the continent itself didn't have when the first Covid patients started filling intensive care units.

Moreover, a major new survey  of EU citizens found that

… almost 60 percent said their view of the US had worsened since the start of the pandemic. By contrast, just 6 percent of respondents said their view of the US had improved.
European perceptions of the United States slumped in European countries that were previously regarded as being Washington's closest allies, thanks to Donald Trump's handling of the coronavirus pandemic. 
The crisis [has] inflicted dramatic and lasting damage on the reputations of Europe’s two biggest economic partners: the United States and China. Each superpower has seen its reputation collapse in some of the countries that were its closest allies and partners.

***

Predictably, a report finds widespread infection among U.S. children. 

As schools face the daunting challenge of reopening while the coronavirus continues to spread, at least 97,000 children around the United States tested positive in the last two weeks of July, according to a new report from the American Academy of Pediatrics and the Children’s Hospital Association. It says that at least 338,000 children had tested positive through July 30, meaning more than a quarter tested positive in just those two weeks.

***

How can it be that anybody still supports Donald Trump?

According to CNN Trump’s “position is no longer deteriorating. A look at the polls shows that even as coronavirus cases and deaths rise, Trump remains within striking distancing of Biden.” What’s more, Trump recently “signed four executive actions that included deferring payroll taxes that provide funding for both Social Security and Medicare.”
This, as a pandemic rages and more than 5 million Americans are confirmed infected with Covid-19.
As “the American people desperately need relief,” noted Rep. Val Demings (D-Fla.). “…the president decided to defund Social Security and Medicare.”

***

In South Africa, the vuluzelas fell silent.

Healthy futures, anyone?

Focus on Kiribati (pronounced Kiribas). Kiribati, population 119,449, consists of 33 atolls and coral islands (22 inhabited) divided among three groups: Gilbert, Phoenix, and Line Islands.
Economic activity once centered on mining rock phosphate, but deposits are exhausted. 

Click to enlarge. 

The small and beautiful island… in the Kiribati group was mined for rock phosphate from about 1906. 
Top photo: the island shortly before mining began.
Bottom photo:  taken soon after, shows vegetation and soil removed to extract the phosphate rock. 
(c) Permission of the Alexander Turnbull Library, National Library of New Zealand, Te Puna Mātauranga o Aotearoa.

While a $500 million fund created with mining revenues continues to provide significant budget support, Kiribati now relies on foreign assistance, emigrants' remittances, fishing, coconut exports, and tourism. Kiribati is most famous for its world class fly fishing, great scuba diving, and astounding seabird wildlife. 
Kiribati’s newly re-elected president, Taneti Maamau, plans to raise the islands to counter sea-level rise. He will seek support from China and other allies to elevate the islands from the sea, partly through dredging. 
… “The strategy is still in development but clearly identifies raising our islands as a way forward in our fight against climate change. This is also clearly demonstrated in our national climate change policy.”
… To solve chronic flooding in the overcrowded capital, Tarawa, [proposes] to replace causeways – landfill between islands that supports the main road but which can cause beach erosion – with an elevated bridge road running the entire length of the atoll on the sheltered lagoon side. It is the sort of massive infrastructure project China might fund, and has the expertise to engineer. 

Hmmmm. Besides raising the temperature of ongoing geo-political disputes between China and the US regarding offshore resources, one wonders about the practicalities of Kiribati’s plan.
Can “dredging” produce enough material to raise these atolls (“ring-shaped reefs, islands, or chain of islands formed of coral”)?
And at what harm to long-suffering and imperiled coral?

Will China supplement and transport building material to Kiribati – a journey of between 10,600 to 11,000 km? Isn’t that prohibitively expensive under current economic conditions? 

One painful and politically incorrect solution might be to relocate Kiribati’s islanders to more secure areas. (For thinking people, sea level rise is a fact of life; humans must and will adjust . I’m sympathetic: my condo on San Francisco Bay is threatened by sea level rise.) 

On the other hand, Pacific islands and islanders have been used and abused for decades. Perhaps it’s payback time?

Backstory: More than 60 years ago, the United States tested radioactive weapons on Bikini and Enewetak atolls (of the Marshall Islands).
Today, these atolls remain far more radioactive than Chernobyl and Fukushima.

Sarcasm follows: Instead of the enormous expense of China hauling material to Kiribati, the US could recycle and donate material from Runit Island’s Runit Dome? 

The dome, aka “The Tomb,” the Cactus Dome, was built to contain toxic nuclear waste after the US conducted nuclear tests in 1958.
With the Marshall Islands only 2,373 kms from Kiribati, wouldn’t it be cheaper to recycle and transport the dome’s 46 cm (18 in) thick, 115 m (377 ft) diameter concrete dome and the material it encapsulates - an estimated 73,000 m3 (95,000 cu yd) of radioactive debris, including plutonium-239?
(It’s a matter of time before sea level rise drowns then breeches Runit Dome and releases deadly toxic material into the Pacific Ocean.)
Economically distressed Kiribati could use free materials to elevate the islands and cover it with another concrete dome or two. 

Voilà! Both countries benefit by promoting the reduce, reuse, recycle philosophy.
Additionally, the US could mount a concerted propaganda campaign to highlight its gifts to Kiribati, thereby enhancing its tarnished global reputation and cleansing its appalling history at Bikini and Enewetak.
Kiribati would become a model of modern ingenuity in the face of climate change. (The atolls couldn’t look worse than they did after the removal of soil and vegetation to extract rock phosphate back in 1906.)
The tourist industries of both countries would thrive!
A win/win!

Finally, people would “get so sick and tired of winning!” 

*** 

The Lincoln Project: Regret  (0:55 mins)
Really American: Biblical Idiot  (0:37 mins)
Meidas Touch: Vote Proud: Enough is Enough  (1:20 mins)

Meanwhile, back at the ranch…

I’ve gone from mowing lawns, weeding, maintaining the garden pond, composting, hosting various obsessions , spying on garden creatures , videoing garden creatures , essentially, doing anything to ward off the doldrums.
Yet, behold, the doldrums.
I’m becalmed. Stagnating. Listless.
For now, I’ll choose to blame Lockdown. Winter. A visit geared to check on my elderly mother’s well-being extending… and extending…with no end in sight.
But…
What if I’m falling apart?
What if the whole world is falling apart?
What if this is the end of the world as we know it? (Sabine Hossenfelder – coronavirus version - 3:35 mins)

 

Day 137   Monday, August 10  -   Women on Women's Day

Our world is on the cusp on 20 million confirmed cases of Covid-19 infection.
The US is responsible for more than 25 percent of those cases (5.5 million confirmed). That’s more infections in the US than New Zealand has people (population: 4,886 million). Moreover, New Zealand has virtually eliminated Covid-19 with zero active cases. 
Iceland, too, has zero active cases. Iceland’s population is 364,000 so the US has “lost” the equivalent of half of Iceland’s population to Covid-19.
Reminder: New Zealand and Iceland have women as heads of government. Just sayin’….

According to new research, a record number of people are giving up their US citizenship.

Hmmm, perhaps these Americans have moved to New Zealand or Iceland.

News blues…

National Women's Day is celebrated annually in South Africa on 9 August. If that day falls on a Sunday – as it does this year – Monday is the public holiday. (Naturally, not all women will have a holiday – certainly not a paid holiday.)
According to Wikipedia, Women's Day

...commemorates the 1956 march of approximately 20,000 South African women to the Union Buildings in Pretoria to petition against the country's pass laws that required South Africans defined as "black" under The Population Registration Act to carry an internal passport, the “pass.” The pass allowed the maintenance of population segregation, controlled urbanisation, and managed migrant labour during apartheid.
The first National Women's Day was celebrated on 9 August 1995. In 2006, a reenactment of the march was staged for its 50th anniversary, with many of the 1956 march veterans.

International Women’s Day is celebrated around the world on 8 March. Not to knock it, but I recall IWD as a burden when I was a young mother in the US. It meant I – and other working mothers – had to find and pay for babysitters to care for our children so we could work to earn money to support our children. 

Ironic that a day meant to recognize women was not geared in practice to recognize mothers. That is, heavy on intention, light on practicalities.

***

President Ramaphosa delivered the keynote address for national Women’s Day  under the global campaign themed “Generation Equality: Realizing women’s rights for an equal future.” (Ramaphosa’s segment begins at 53:27 mins. My opinion of his address? Heavy on intention, light on practicalities.)

***

Daily Maverick webinar, “The Inside Track: A Critical Conversation with Advocate Shamila Batohi.” 

Daily Maverick Associate Editor Ferial Haffajee in conversation with National Prosecuting Authority Advocate Shamila Batohi, the National Director of Public Prosecutions, on gender-based violence and the war on women. Batohi also talks about her experience as a woman leader within the National Prosecuting Authority.

An eye-opening fact- and statistic-based conversation about South Africa’s criminal justice system and how it affects violence against the country’s women and children.
Takeaways:

• Gender-based violence (GBV) is, essentially, a war on this country’s women.
• 82,726 cases of gender-based violence from 2017 through 2018
• Rape has increased by 1.4 percent. (Only 1 in 9 rapes is actually reported.)
• What is going on in our country when the levels of violence against women and children is so high?
• 70 to 80 percent conviction rate – but based on number of cases that come to court, not the number of reported cases (only 10 percent are reported). It is the detection rate that is under-reported.
• Everybody in the justice system needs training in the holistic system’s view rather than one or two segments of the whole.
• Huge challenges, including how to deal with forensic evidence What values are we teaching out children and young people when they can violate respect for other human beings?
• National registers in the works for violations against women and children – but perhaps not enough being done at the level of preventation.
• Prevention and better detection required.
• Value system is off in this country; custom, patriarchy, and entitlement plays big roles in attitudes towards women, too.
• Alcohol plays a huge role; Ban on alcohol due to pandemic reduced gender-based and domestic violence.
• Admits there are “serious problems” within SAPS (corruption, lack of training, responses, and attitudes to women complainants, etc., “system fails many women.” (Personal view: Backstory on GBV in this house.)
• NPA looking to understand lens through which we view these issues and developing a policy about how to deal with them.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch…

Monkeys become bolder by the day. They’ve moved from the garden’s perimeter fence into the garden and close to the house. The “watch” dogs are too comfy in their toasty beds to rouse themselves.
My experiment to discourage monkeys with rubber snakes failed. 
Now I’m researching how to discourage them via smell and taste. I’m weighing the … ethics … of this recipe:

To keep vervet monkeys away, mix 1/3 cup flower, 2 tablespoons red chili powder and two tablespoons powdered mustard and sprinkle around the garden. If you want to spray it, add 4 cups of water and some vinegar. Even just sprinkling vegetables with pepper will deter monkeys from eating them.

The ethics involved? Monkeys do what monkeys do… moreover, they do it well: feed themselves and their young. Punishing them with chili and mustard powder feels… unethical. Isn’t it illogical to feed wild birds (mostly doves) but not feed wild monkeys? (I’m not for feeding monkeys – that’s also discouraged by wildlife experts – just pointing out well-meaning but faulty logic.)
Another recipe:

Sprinkle Jeyes Fluid inside, on the outside or around refuse bins and bags. Refuse skips covered with shade cloth and treated with Jeyes Fluid will deter vervets. 5. Use nylon bird or hail netting over and around vegetable, strawberry and other produce gardens to keep them out.

I’ll skip the Jeyes Fluid - a strong disinfectant. (Back in the day, my grandfather dipped his cows with diluted Jeyes Fluid to kill ticks.)
Netting might work. But it takes only one persistent monkey breeching the netting to destroy weeks of gardening effort.

 

 

Day 136 Sunday, August 9 - Continental divides

The recent battering of the World Health Organization’s reputation  does not nullify its important research – echoed by many other reputable organizations and individuals. Its warnings about urbanization is particularly apt:

Urbanization is process of global scale changing the social and environmental landscape on every continent. Urbanization is a result of population migration from rural areas in addition to natural urban demographic growth. In 2007, the world’s population living in towns and cities surpassed 50% for the first time in history and this proportion is growing. Rapid, unplanned and unsustainable patterns of urban development are making developing cities focal points for many emerging environment and health hazards. As urban populations grow, the quality of global and local ecosystems, and the urban environment, will play an increasingly important role in public health with respect to issues ranging from solid waste disposal, provision of safe water and sanitation, and injury prevention, to the interface between urban poverty, environment and health. 

We, the people, have been warned. 

Will we rouse ourselves enough to force a change in direction, from unfettered consumption to sustainability?

New blues…

This Ridley Olive turtle
screen saver graces my laptop.
Click to enlarge.

The good: More than 10,000 baby Olive Ridley turtles were released into the sea off the Indonesian island of Bali - part of conservationists’ attempts to boost the population of a vulnerable species and promote environmental protection.
The turtles, just a few inches long, scurried over the black sand and pebbles as the tide splashed over them. 

The bad: Under a new “self-reliant India” plan, India’s prime minister, Narendra Modi, will boost the economy post-Covid-19 and reduce costly imports, [by opening] 40 new coalfields for commercial mining in some of India’s most ecologically sensitive forests. 

Among them are four huge blocks of 420,000 acres of forest in the central Indian state of Chhattisgarh, which sit above an estimated 5bn tonnes of coal…. [This pits] a rich and biodiverse Indian forest, indigenous people, ancient trees, elephants and sloths against the might of bulldozers, trucks and hydraulic jacks, fighting with a single purpose: the extraction of coal. 

The ugly: While more than 160,000 Americans are dead, unemployment has soared to levels not seen since the Great Depression...

federal payments to laid-off workers have expired with millions more facing possible eviction, and coronavirus cases continue to spike nationwide, Congress and the White House are mired in their ancient, all-consuming gridlock.
Two weeks of closed-door talks … failed to lead to a breakthrough on a new coronavirus relief package. [Democrats and Republicans] remained hundreds of billions of dollars apart on overall spending for the new package, and even more important, were separated by a huge ideological chasm over what role the government should play at this point in the calamity. 

***

The Lincoln Project’s Steve Schmidt on Trumps hot mic moment and strong words on Trumps Golf Club press briefing  (12:15 mins)
Meidas Touch: Vote out Racism  (1:47 mins)
Trump Rant: Axios Interview, “I want a Do Over with more charts and graphs and no Jonathan Swan!  (7:48 mins)
Don Winslow Films: Consequences For Trump  (2:19 mins)

Meanwhile, back at the ranch…

Granadilla, aka passion fruit, is a fruit native to southern Brazil through Paraguay and northern Argentina. It flourishes in lower altitude KwaZulu Natal; so far, I’ve had no luck growing it in the Midlands. Two weeks ago, I purchased a dozen purple fruit and waited for them to wrinkle and harden – evidence they’d ripened enough to eat. Then I made granadilla curd, a buttery, egg-yolk-rich, sweet/sour treat. 
It turned out well. I plan to bake granadilla bars – think lemon bars with seeds – although it’s a tossup if there’ll be enough curd left after the many spoonsful I snack on in the meantime.
Granadilla curd requires only the yolk of eggs. I beat the leftover egg whites and baked an impromptu veggie frittata: zucchini (“baby marrow”), onion, sweet pepper, garlic, parsley, olive oil, Swiss and Romano cheese.
Many ingredients I use in California are difficult to find in KZN: fish sauce - available sporadically. Mexican ingredients and spices (I’d kill for tortillas, a softshell taco, salsa verde, refried beans, a frozen margarita…).
On the other hand, Indian cuisine spans both countries – with the South African variety far cheaper. For example, a samosa in California costs from 5 to 7 US dollars - equivalent to 80 to 150 rand! Slightly less plump KZN samosas costs 18 to 20 rand each – that’s 1 to 1.20 dollars).
No melktert or koeksisters in California. No lacey cookies in KZN.

*** 

As a child I had a one-on-one relationship with Jacko, a pet vervet monkey. These days, my relationship with vervet monkeys is hands off and communal. The local troop comprises about three dozen monkeys I address collectively as “monkeys ... monksters … monkilizers….”
I continue to appreciate their antics when they negotiate the garden perimeter, raid the bird feeder, and balance precariously on overhead wires.
My relationship with this primate community, however, is becoming more nuanced and complex as they uproot – destroy – seedlings, most recently snap peas and pole beans.
Local gardeners familiar with monkey business advise not transplanting my veggies into the dedicated veggie garden I’ve created. Rather, they suggest transplanting seedlings among decorative garden plants.
I’m not adverse, but it means rethinking an approach I assumed already settled.
Accordingly, I scanned the winter-dry garden for segments of garden capable of disguising veggies from monkeys.
A dry palm stump offered potential for climbing peas and beans. I donned my sunhat and gardening gloves and began removing the dry vegetation around the base of the stump.
Within a minute, dozens of small black ants swarmed over and bit into my hands and arms.
This encounter with South African ants was less vicious than a past encounter with Texas fire ants.
Outside the Crawford, Texas property of then-president George Bush, as we protested his administration’s war policies in Afghanistan and Iraq, I’d unwittingly pitched my tent on a colony of fire ants.
Those ants can bite – and their bites burn for days!
That day lives on in infamy!

 

Day 135 Saturday, August 8 - Dear Diary

Dear Diary: This Is My Life in Quarantine / under Lockdown
Sensing that they’re living through a historic moment, many people are journaling [and blogging] to create a keepsake of life during the pandemic. The time we’re living through will one day become history. This is always true, of course, but the coronavirus pandemic has, perhaps more than any other event in living memory, made people hyperaware that their present will be remembered in the future. And this new, strange sensation has compelled many to capture the moment for posterity. 

Thank you for being on board here. If the mood strikes, comment below and I'll share your thoughts and experiences….

New blues…

“Sh**hole country,” anyone?
Irony of ironies: America shut its southern border to South Americans while Canadians shut their southern border to Americans.
I’ll dare to say it: “What goes around, comes around.” Or, rats clinging aboard ship….

Since March, the U.S.-Canada border has been closed to all but essential traffic in an effort to contain the spread of the coronavirus. But Americans being Americans, they are flouting the new regulations in the pursuit of their usual summer fun.
“Canadian border patrol has effectively prevented caravans of Americans” from crossing the border. Most are arriving by sailboats and luxury yachts.
Those crossing the border have often told officials that they are heading to Alaska to circumvent the new regulations. …
One reason Americans are being spotted is that Canadian boaters are using technology to monitor them. With the requirement that all passenger boats have to be equipped with tracking devices to help prevent weather-related accidents, anyone with an internet connection can monitor border-crossings and identify vessels by type and country of origin. 

Meanwhile, back at the ranch…

During a recent visit to Karkloof Conservancy,  I spotted wattled cranes flying over the hide (aka “blind”), but they settled in a field out of reach of my camera lens.
Karkloof Conservancy hides were built by local farmers, foresters and landowners to provide visitor safe access to the region’s biodiversity. Posters decorating the hides’ interior whet the appetite of novice crane-seekers. 

View posters: 

Poster wattled crane
Click to read.

Poster blue crane
Click to read.

Poster grey crowned crane
Click to read.

I will return to the Conservancy in anticipation of a close encounter with a crane, any crane. 

After all, recent visitors shot gorgeous video of wattled cranes at the Conservancy (0:33 mins). If they saw wattled cranes, so can I. Hope spring eternal.
Wattled cranes bring to mind the thousands of sandhill cranes that migrate to California’s Sacramento Delta each winter.  I hear them from my houseboat and a 10-minute walk reveals vast flocks grazing and nesting.
Not a hardcore “birder,” my motto is, shoot first, ask questions later. I’m frequently unsure of what birds I’ve captured on camera. Can you identify those at the bottom of the page, Spying on garden creatures?

 

Day 134  Friday, Aug 7 - Exemplars of absurdism

“I recently thumbed through “The Plague,” to see if Albert Camus had intuited anything about the rhythms of human suffering in conditions of fear, disease and constraint. Naturally, he had. It was on April 16 that Dr. Rieux first felt the squish of a dead rat beneath his feet on his landing; it was in mid-August that the plague “had swallowed up everything and everyone,” with the prevailing emotion being “the sense of exile and of deprivation, with all the crosscurrents of revolt and fear set up by these.” Those returning from quarantine started setting fire to their homes, convinced the plague had settled into their walls."

We’ve hit a pandemic wall: New records show that Americans are suffering from record levels of mental distress. 

Healthy futures anyone?

I recently “had my say” on South Africa’s Nuclear Regulation Act. Take a look and, if South African, have your say. 
South Africa taking on another nuke power station is, well, an exemplar of absurdism. Why purchase – with the country’s demonstrably corrupt tender system and little technical knowhow – a power system that provides mountains of toxic waste?
No nuclear waste has ever been successfully (sustainably) managed anywhere in the world.
Why nuke power in an era when the world must go in a sustainable direction?

African prosperity will not come by it being shackled to the outdated dirty energy infrastructure of the past. Rather than trudging behind in the 50-year-old footsteps of European countries, Africa needs to leapfrog to the clean, cheap and renewable technologies of the future. This is how Africa will catch up with its global neighbours. Africa is blessed with more sun, wind and geothermal energy than anywhere else on the planet, but that fact does not help the GWPF or the coal industry.
Not only are wind and solar increasingly becoming the cheapest forms of new electricity across the globe, but they are also inherently more agile and versatile than grid-reliant fossil fuels. Pastoralists in remote parts of Africa in need of electricity will not be served waiting for hulking great power grids to be built, cutting a swathe across Africa’s precious natural landscape. They would be better off with solar mini-grids and wind turbines supplying energy exactly where it is needed most.  

***

Mauritius environment minister Kavy Ramano and fishing minister Sudheer Maudhoo concur, “We are in an environmental crisis situation… This is the first time that we are faced with a catastrophe of this kind and we are insufficiently equipped to handle this problem.” 

The problem? A breach in the vessel MV Wakashio, carrying 200 tonnes of diesel and 3,800 tonnes of bunker fuel.

The ministers said all attempts to stabilise the ship had failed because of rough seas and efforts to pump out the oil had also failed. Ecologists fear the ship could break up, which would cause an even greater leak and inflict potentially catastrophic damage on the island’s coastline. The country depends on its seas for food and for tourism, boasting some of the finest coral reefs in the world.

It’s not rocket science: We the Critters of this planet all depend on our oceans. (Way back in May 2010, Greg Moses wrote “Oil Wars come home to roost."  It’s more relevant than ever. )
What can you do? Start small with an easy-to-accomplish step:
Call on world leaders to protect Antarctica and deliver the largest act of ocean protection in history. Only one Antarctica 

*** 

A line from the movie, “Cry, the Beloved Country, about apartheid South Africa: “In South Africa, the law and justice are distant relatives – and they haven’t been on speaking terms for decades.” 

Update that for this moment and substitute the law and justice with Trump and responsible leadership. Trump is a dangerous clown but he is merely the current instrument with which American right-wing politicians hammer home their philosophy expressed by Grover Norquist: “I don't want to abolish government. I simply want to reduce it to the size where I can drag it into the bathroom and drown it in the bathtub.”
And right-wing Republicans accuse “The Left” of anarchism? 

It's a complex history with a simple plot line: subjegate The People by impoverishing them, taking away possibilites of health care, decent and affordable education, minimum wage....
How the pandemic defeated America. 

This is not a blanket condemnation of all Republicans. The Lincoln Project, for example, is made up of Republicans of a different feather (at least during this season of Trump disasters).
Republican Vets Against Trump  (1:00 mins)
Meidas Touch:
Leave Me A Loan: Trump's PPP Scandal Exposed (1:16 mins)
Trump Hoaxed America  (1:00 mins)

Meanwhile, back at the ranch…

Overnight temperatures dropped to 2C/ 36F – that means below zero in our valley wetlands. And that means, ice in my watering can this morning. In anticipation of freezing temperatures, last night I wrapped vulnerable plants.
I watch the days getting longer by mere seconds, longing for the return of spring and summer. This time last month, the sun rose at 6:53am and set at 5:12am; today, it rose at 6:37am and will set at 5:29. Getting there, slowly but surely.

***

The latest threat to healthy seedlings and flourishing vegetable gardens?
Monkeys.
I discovered the hard way – solid evidence – that monkeys, curious rather than malicious, pluck seedlings out the ground and toss ‘em. 

I’d be less chagrined if monkeys ate seedlings – it’s winter and they’re hungry.
But, wanton destruction?
Exemplars of absurdism.

 

Week 19: Day 133 Thursday, August 6 - Reaching out

Click to enlarge 

Reaching out during times of stress can be lifesaving. 

The conundrum: doing it in a way that preserves health, safety, and well-being.
It’s a mess out there. Do your part.
Pandemic toll: this week’s numbers compared with last week’s:

• August 6 – 18,753,000 worldwide confirmed infections; 706,800 deaths
• July 30 – 17,096,000 worldwide: confirmed infections; 668,590 deaths
• August 6 – US 4,824,000 confirmed infections; 158,250 deaths
• July 30 - US: 4,451,000 confirmed infections; 151,270 deaths
• August 6 – SA 529,900 confirmed infections; 9,298 deaths
• July 30 - SA: 471,125 confirmed infections; 7,498 deaths

KZN rising...
Click to enlarge.

US CDC’s interactive map of Covid devastation across that nation. 
Dr. Anthony Fauci said on Monday, “The number of new coronavirus cases in the U.S. needs to get below 10,000 a day by the fall in order to maintain some control over the pandemic.” Over the past week, there has been an average of over 60,194 cases per day

News blues…

Repetition helps drive home reality:

The human destruction of natural ecosystems increases the numbers of rats, bats and other animals that harbour diseases that can lead to pandemics such as Covid-19, a comprehensive analysis has found. The research assessed nearly 7,000 animal communities on six continents and found that the conversion of wild places into farmland or settlements often wipes out larger species. It found that the damage benefits smaller, more adaptable creatures that also carry the most pathogens that can pass to humans. In June, experts said the Covid-19 pandemic was an “SOS signal for the human enterprise”, while in April the world’s leading biodiversity experts said even more deadly disease outbreaks were likely unless nature was protected.
…David Redding, of the ZSL Institute of Zoology in London, who was one of the research team (results published in the journal Nature), said the costs of disease were not being taken into account when deciding to convert natural ecosystems: “You’ve then got to spend a lot more money on hospitals and treatments.” A recent report estimated that just 2 percent of the costs of the Covid-19 crisis would be needed to help prevent future pandemics for a decade. 

***

Give sustainable peace a chance … and critters may make a comeback

New Guinea has greatest plant diversity of any island in the world, a study reveals.   New Guinea is home to more than 13,500 species of plant, two-thirds of which are endemic, according to a new study that suggests it has the greatest plant diversity of any island in the world – 19% more than Madagascar, which previously held the record.
Ninety-nine botanists from 56 institutions in 19 countries trawled through samples, the earliest of which were collected by European travelers in the 1700s. Large swathes of the island remain unexplored and some historical collections have yet to be looked at. Researchers estimate that 4,000 more plant species could be found in the next 50 years, with discoveries showing “no sign of levelling off”, according to the paper published in Nature. New Guinea is home to more than 13,500 species of plant, two-thirds of which are endemic, according to a new study that suggests it has the greatest plant diversity of any island in the world – 19% more than Madagascar, which previously held the record.
Ninety-nine botanists from 56 institutions in 19 countries trawled through samples, the earliest of which were collected by European travellers in the 1700s. Large swathes of the island remain unexplored and some historical collections have yet to be looked at. Researchers estimate that 4,000 more plant species could be found in the next 50 years, with discoveries showing “no sign of levelling off”, according to the paper published in Nature. 

***

Poop-spotting: Poop reveals presence of new penguin colonies in Antarctica

Satellite images have revealed 11 previously unknown emperor penguin colonies in Antarctica, boosting the number of known colonies of the imperiled birds by 20 percent. The discoveries were made by spotting the distinctive red-brown guano patches the birds leave on the ice. The finds were made possible by higher-resolution images from a new satellite, as previous scans were unable to pick up smaller colonies.

***

For your viewing pleasure:
Hummingbird pool party  (0:47 mins)
The Lincoln Project’s Secretary Of Failure (0:56 mins)
Meidas Touch: Trump Donors: Don't Be Don's Next Con  (1:00 mins)

Meanwhile, back at the ranch…

I spent my childhood in a section of rural South Africa 55kms/35 miles from my current location. Due to short-term visits to KZN, and now the pandemic, I’m both isolated and constrained in finding a local network of friends and supporters. In short, I’m isolated in my mother’s household and in the town where she chose to purchase a dwelling large enough to house her 12 dogs.
We barely have a social community. Those in our circle are predominantly people I’ve contacted as health care providers. Thankfully, I’ve developed a couple of friendships with generous spirits who have offered a lifeline: valuable advice and emotional support.
Yesterday, after court, the effects of this isolation became clear.
My security team suggested following my vehicle home – “just to show I have security and that it’s not easy to mess with me.” I was reluctant – they’ve provided support beyond the call of duty and I hated to take more of their valuable time. Nevertheless, I agreed to drive in convoy: me in the middle.
Alas, I quickly lost the vehicle I was following. Instead, I followed a different, barely similar, vehicle driving in the opposite direction.
That’s what weeks of stress does to the human head.
After arriving at home – again in convoy – I realized it is time to reach out for professional support. I contacted a well-regarded local psychologist. Today, I plan on visiting her, clarifying my thinking, talking through current circumstances, and seeking advice on solutions to dilemmas.
Before visiting her, though, I plan to visit Karkloof Conservancy for another form of clarity: Day 132 Wednesday, August 5 - Gee Bee Vee

GBV: gender-based violence.
South Africa has one of the highest, if not the highest, rates of gender-based violence in the world. It’s prevalent and normalized such that one can be involved in GBV and barely recognize it. 

Happily, if one spends the time, asks for and follows advice, is supported in following through, one can succeed at least in receiving legal protection.

News blues…

Article from Mountain Echo
newspaper of Underberg
Page 5 of 8
Click to enlarge and read.

Open letter to President Cyril Ramaphosa on farm murders:

Mr President, 

On September 26, 2018 you spoke to financial news service Bloomberg on the sidelines of the Bloomberg Global Business Forum in New York. In the interview, you said that there were “no killings of farmers… white farmers in South Africa.” In fact, farmers (black and white), farm workers (black and white), and visitors to farms (black and white) were being killed, and are still being killed today. These murders often involve the most terrible torture of the farmers and farm workers, their parents, their wives, and their children. What you said then was false. You in fact contradicted yourself in that 2018 Bloomberg interview, because in November 2017, in the NCOP you said: “We condemn the farm killings that continue to take place in our country, because we can never justify any form of taking of life. The farm killings must be brought to an end.”
We are not sure of your motivation in denying to the world 10 months later that these heinous murders, tortures and kidnappings were taking place. We, as the Official Opposition, ask that you, Sir, put this matter to rest once and for all. In 2018, when you made this claim, there were 54 farmers and farm workers who were horribly murdered on South African farms and smallholdings. There were 394 vicious attacks. Farmers and farm workers in South Africa, instead of being supported as workers within a Strategic Asset, feel today that they have become persona non grata as the Police Strategy fails them year after year. In 2017and 2018 combined there were 136 murders on farms, a figure which contradicts what you announced to the world. This year, during this lockdown period, we have seen a large increase in attacks on farms and smallholdings… (Read the full letter, page 5.) 

Glad you’re not a farmer? 

The bad news: In South Africa, you are most likely to be killed not on a farm but in public. 

Between April 2019 and March 2020, a total of 7,735 attempted murder and 30,272 assault GBH cases were reported in a public space.
Police minister Bheki Cele said gender-based violence (GBV), political killings and farm murders were some of the most stubborn crimes plaguing the country.
Overall, 5,522 people were murdered at residences, while 853 were murdered at shebeens and 467 at business premises.
The statistics further showed that 232 people were killed in modes of transport, 166 were murdered on a farm or smallholding and a total of 88 people were murdered at a lake or river. The recent murder of an elderly couple and their daughter on their farm in Hartswater sent shock waves across the country. Danie, 83, and Breggie Brand, 73, and their daughter Elzabie, 54, were found dead in open fields in the Taung area on Tuesday. Five suspects have appeared in court for the brutal murders. Shockingly, 33 people were murdered at a petrol station while a further 60 attempted murder and 269 assault GBH cases were opened.
Last year, people including taxi bosses, gang “bosses” and a lawyer were gunned down at petrol stations across the country.

My own confrontation with a drunken male, also a convicted rapist, threatening me with death, rape, and mayhem completed another phase. See that story below. 

First, a little levity:
Every day, thousands of YouTube viewers eagerly await a uniquely compelling feature of the 2020 election cycle: ads from The Lincoln Project.
Here, Trump endorses:
Steve Daines  (1:33 mins)
Dan Sullivan  (2:16 mins)
Susan Collins  (2:15 mins)
Assorted musical interludes
"Vote Him Away #2 (The Liar Tweets Tonight)"  (2:40 mins)
Don Caron parodies:
Spreadin through the air (with David Cohen)  (2:40 mins)
Battle Hymn of the Republic - Modified for Relevance   (4:44 mins)

But it’s not all song and dance. The Lincoln Project and other groups (Meidas Touch, Sarah Cooper, Now This, Randy Rainbow, et al) engage serious topics to educate Americans about the perils of another four-Donald-Trump-laced years.
Lincoln Project co-founder and conservative lawyer George Conway – aka “the man married to White House counsel Kellyanne Conway” – recently wrote:

Trump must face retribution after he’s voted out of office… For the sake of our constitutional republic, he must lose, and lose badly. Yet that should be just a start: We should only honor former presidents who uphold and sustain our nation’s enduring democratic values. There should be no schools, bridges or statues devoted to Trump. His name should live in infamy, and he should be remembered, if at all, for precisely what he was — not a president, but a blundering cheat.”

Hear, hear, George Conway!
Still need convincing? The following exclusive interview could be a parody, but, alas, this is the real, live, actual president of the United States with AXIOS’s Jonathan Swan. It’s 37-well-worth-watching minutes of eye-opening Trump (il)logic, off topic ramblings sprinkled with power-of-positive-thinking-ism, and, yes, plain, old-fashioned lying.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch…

Yesterday afternoon I fetched my mother from her overnight ordeal in the hospital. (Backstory ) She was discharged early due to her age – 87 – in face of Covid-19.
Her severe nosebleed has been staunched and medical hardware inserted into her nostril. She’s weak, exhausted, and her face is swollen from hardware, but she’s happy to be home. Her many dogs are just as happy to have her home.

*** 

Today’s law and order/crime watch theme was stimulated by my day in court. (Backstory 1 and Backstory 2)
Thinking (erroneously) that arriving early to the local Magistrates Office would get me in and out within a “reasonable time”, I arrived 20 minutes before doors opened. One and a half hours later I was still waiting – outside (a pandemic precaution), masked, and shivering with cold.
Half an hour later, the man threatening me arrive and we were signed in and allowed to proceed to the initial holding area.
I had not expected the defendant to show up. Since he had, I figured he must have an effective rebuttal….
Faced with the magistrate’s first administrator, the defendant claimed he “did not understand the charges," nor the documents, nor did he speak English.
Problem is, after we'd laid a trap to counter the efforts of his mother, my mother's domestic worker, who had been hiding him, the security team had escorted hin to the police station where they'd explained the charges - in English, with his agreeement. 

I texted them to confirm: Had he not signed documents declaring he understood English and understood the documents?
Indeed, he had. “It’s a delaying tactic,” they texted me back, along with the name of the Detective Warrant Officer who'd processed the defendant.
Additionally, they texted me that two members of the security team would join me at the magistrate’s office, in case their evidence was needed.
By the time they arrived, I’d already been waiting four hours. Together, we waited another hour and a half. 

After being introduced to the magistrate,  she explained the process; an interpreter translated into Zulu for the defendant. 

Forty-five minutes later I had papers in hand confirming the defendant must stay away from me and from my mother’s property, refrain from talking, harassing, threatening, and approaching me -  for the next five years. Failing that, he spend three years in prison.
I’m tempted to write, “finished and klaar” but nothing really is, is it?

Yet, I got on the official record that my mother’s longtime domestic worker may no longer sneak her son through the armed security system onto my mother’s property. (She’d ignored the previous written warning from my mother’s lawyer and perfected this habit, particularly, but not only when I was absent.)

A shout-out to Specialized Security Systems – “Triple S” – for outstanding service and support and for going several extra miles in assisting me in this ordeal. I’ve never been supported by any company on anything in the way Triple S has supported me in this.
Special shout-out to Cheyne and Dennis. Can’t thank you enough for your help!

Day 131 Tuesday, August 4 - Cliché USA

Desperate times call for desperate measures. Even The Donald sees the writing on the wall – and is grasping at straws. Time to pay the piper….
Now that I’ve exhausted the clichés appropriate to this moment, I’ll move on to … 

News blues… 

Joe Heller (c) 2020 Hellertoon.com
Click to enlarge. 

Ironic that I’m preparing to vote absentee from South Africa in the US election. South Africa has a barely functioning postal service, but I can still vote from here (see below for details). 

The US Postal Service has problems, but mail is sent and delivered well enough that Trump can’t allow it to do its job. Apparently, he and his enablers will attempt to collapse the USPS to ensure the disenfranchisement of Americans looking for alternatives to Trump and Trumpism.

Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington warned Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.), chairman of Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, that: “Recent actions” taken by Postmaster General Louis DeJoy, who was appointed by Donald Trump in May, “will delay prioritizing mail delivery,” which threatens voting by mail…. The number of Americans voting by mail is expected to surge across the nation as voters seek to avoid the risk of catching COVID-19 at the polls. Yet DeJoy is slashing overtime for mail carriers and prohibiting employees from making late delivery trips, which will slow the mail… DeJoy, who has no experience in the agency, is a prominent Trump donor and the former lead fundraiser for the Republican National Convention. “We have an underfunded state and local election system and a deliberate slowdown in the Postal Service,” Wendy Fields, the executive director of the Democracy Initiative, told The New York Times. Trump is “deliberately orchestrating suppression and using the post office as a tool to do it.” 

Remember, the United States is a constitutional republic with some decisions - often local - made by direct democratic processes and others - often federal - made by democratically elected representatives. 

The president is actually elected by the Electoral College, not necessarily directly by the popular vote.
It’s complicated, but briefly: The Electoral College forms every four years for the sole purpose of electing the president and vice president of the United States. Each state has electors based on its total number of representatives in Congress. With 538 total electoral votes, each elector casts one electoral vote following the general election. The candidate gaining more than half – 270 – electoral votes wins the election.
American voters in each state cast hardcopy ballots – in person, by mail, absentee…. The vote is counted and, in nearly every state, the candidate who gets the most votes is supposed to gain that proportional number of electoral votes in the Electoral College - and win.
However, candidates can win the popular vote yet lose the election. Hillary Clinton, in fact, won the popular vote by 3 million but lost in the Electoral College. (Al Gore has a similar history although his case was decided by the US Supreme Court.)  

*** 

Meidas Touch:
Trump has no healthcare plan  (1:00 mins)
Evict Trump from the White House  (1:00 min)
Lincoln Project Ad Slams Trump’s COVID-19 Response | NowThis   (3:20 mins)

Healthy futures anyone?

Focus on Denmark. 

Denmark’s groundwater is one of the cleanest in the world for a reason. According to the Danish Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), it’s the result of the country’s consistent efforts to purify the country’s wastewater and protect its aquatic environment with the help of more than 1,000 water-treatment plants. Perhaps partially due to the expenses associated with maintaining so many treatment plants, Denmark’s water prices are fairly high, but ultimately, that’s a good thing. Similar to how carbon taxes work, the country’s high water price deters its citizens from using a surplus amount, which allows the cycle of clean water to flow interrupted. Denmark is also home to the “world’s greenest city,” Copenhagen. There are so many things we can learn from this eco-friendly city, starting with its famous landmark, CopenHill, aka Amager Bakke.
CopenHill is a power plant that converts waste to clean energy to produce heat and electricity for tens of thousands of local households, but that’s not all it does. It also functions as an artificial ski and snowboard slope! Copenhagen also makes it easy for its citizens to use eco-friendly forms of transportation. All the city’s buses are electric. One can rent inexpensive electric bicycles as well as ride on electric, solar-powered boats in some of the purest waterways in the world.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch…

Last night, my elderly mother purposefully used the internal alarm system. I’d purchased it despite her poo-pooing the need for such a system – “I’ll never need it!” she said.
At 8:35pm, she triggered that alarm. I phoned her and heard a muffled call for assistance. One domestic worker and I opened the multiple burglar guards and doors and discovered my mother hunched in her bed and covered in blood. Dogs competed for space around the cumbersome bed set up and licked at blood splattered on the floor. My mother was suffering a severe nosebleed. She’d suffered another, less dramatic bleed two weeks ago and her doctor’s office staff suggested we “wait and see.”
EMTs arrived and worked on her for an hour before deciding to take her to a not-so-local hospital.
Since then, I’ve had one constructive conversation with a nightshift “Sister” (“charge nurse”) who told me, “she’s fine; she’ll be admitted after we get a bed and the doctor sees her.”
Several subsequent calls dead-ended in a “full mailbox” message.
Most recently, I was told, “she’s had her breakfast and she’s still waiting for a bed.” And, “no visitors allowed due to Covid.”
I asked Sister to relate a message, “The dogs are fine.”

*** 

Vote! US Consulates in South Africa explain how:

Act early and take the necessary steps to vote in the 2020 U.S. elections!
In order to vote in the November 2020 elections, all overseas U.S. citizens need to request a ballot through their state’s online portal or complete a Federal Post Card Application (FPCA) in 2020. Whether you are a first-time voter or have already received ballots and voted absentee in past elections, you must complete this process each year to participate in elections as an overseas absentee voter.
Registering to Vote and submitting a ballot is fast, easy, and can be done from anywhere in the world! Follow a few simple steps to vote in the 2020 U.S. elections: 

1. Register to vote: Start by confirming your voter registration with your state. Some states require absentee voters to register annually, so you may need to re-register. Go to FVAP.gov to connect to your state’s voter portal to register to vote, request a ballot, and more.
2. Request Your Ballot: Most states provide the option to request ballots through their state election portals, which you can easily access via FVAP.gov. You can also choose to complete a Federal Post Card Application (FPCA). The completion of the FPCA allows you to request absentee ballots for all elections for federal offices (President, U.S. Senate, and U.S. House of Representatives), including primaries and special elections, during the calendar year in which it is submitted. FPCA forms that are correctly filled out and include a signature and date are accepted by all local election officials in every U.S. state and territory. FVAP’s easy online assistant can assist you with completing the FPCA. Whether you request your ballot through your state’s portal or the FPCA, we encourage you to select the option to receive your ballot electronically (by email, internet download, or fax) when available. This is the fastest way to get your ballot and ensures you have it in time to return a completed form before your state’s deadline.
3. Receive and Complete Your Ballot: States are required to send out ballots 45 days before a regular election for federal office, and states generally send out ballots at least 30 days before primary elections. Most states allow you to confirm your ballot delivery online.
4. Return Your Completed, Signed Ballot: Some states allow you to return your completed ballot electronically. If your state requires you to return paper voting forms or ballots to local election officials by mail, you can do so through international mail, professional courier service, or through the U.S. Embassy’s diplomatic pouch. The diplomatic pouch provides ballot mail service from embassies and consulates to a U.S. sorting facility. You will need to place your ballots in postage paid return envelopes or in envelopes bearing sufficient U.S. postage, in order for them to be delivered to the proper local election authorities once received by the U.S. sorting facility.
If you plan to use the diplomatic pouch, drop off your completed voting forms and ballots addressed to your local election officials at the U.S. Consulate in Johannesburg, Cape Town or Durban by October 1, 2020 during the following hours:

U.S. Consulate General Johannesburg

9:00-15:00 Tuesday-Thursday \ Email questions to: VoteJohannesburg@state.gov 

U.S. Consulate General Cape Town

9:00-15:00 Monday-Thursday \ Email questions to: VoteCapeTown@state.gov 

U.S. Consulate General Durban

10:00-15:00 Tuesday-Thursday \ Email questions to: ConsularDurban@state.gov 

Address and other contact information for each Consulate is below. Please note that all visitors to the Consulates must wear appropriate PPE. It can take up to five weeks for mail to reach its destination if sent by an embassy via diplomatic pouch. All overseas U.S. citizens are advised to submit their forms and ballots accordingly. Ballots will be received and forwarded whenever submitted, including after October 1, 2020, but you may want to consider using a courier service if submitting your ballot close to or after the stated delivery time for pouch mail.

For more detailed information please visit our U.S. Citizen Voting Page.
Researching the Candidates and Issues: Online Resources. Go to the FVAP links page for helpful resources to aid your research of candidates and issues. Non-partisan information about candidates, their voting records, and their positions on issues are widely available and easy to obtain online. You can also read national and hometown newspapers online, or search the internet to locate articles and information. For information about election dates and deadlines, subscribe to FVAP's Voting Alerts (vote@fvap.gov). FVAP also shares Voting Alerts via Facebook (@DODFVAP), Twitter (@FVAP), and Instagram (@fvapgov).

USA! USA!

 

Day 130  Monday, August 3 - Woo woo

Oh dear, as in the US, conspiracy theories and theorists are alive and well in South Africa - and just as lavishly flavored with soupçons of extreme Christian evangelisms.
As Lockdown extends, I’ve noticed a Christian friend tipping more towards evangelical conspiracy theories. Yesterday, she reported experiencing dreams and visions – “very disturbing but exciting as well” - and updated me on how:

“Fauci and Gates want everyone microchipped when given the vaccine. That means we have lost our freedom… according to Revelations it’s the sign of a one world government and the start of a 7-year Tribulation before the coming of Christ….”

I Googled “Tribulation” and discovered at least three controversial periods of Tribulation. It’s complicated, certainly more complicated than I can absorb in one sitting. (You try….  )
My friend also directed me to an interview with a guy who explained how “the world’s governments worked together” to create Covid-19 from the two earlier iterations of coronavirus, SARS and MERS. 

My friend is a good and decent person so, perhaps ill-advisedly, I responded that I wished the “world’s governments” could successfully work together on anything. 

* woo woo: A person readily accepting supernatural, paranormal, occult, or pseudoscientific phenomena, or emotion-based beliefs and explanations.

More whackjobery*

California Pastor John MacArthur …defended his decision to hold in-person services despite the state-mandated closure of churches, saying his congregation is “protesting lies and deception for the sake of the truth.”

[He explained] his church decided to reopen just two weeks after Gov. Gavin Newsom indefinitely closed churches [because] “We are the original protesters. We go back 500 years [and] we are still protesting lies and deception for the sake of the truth.”
“…it is a First Amendment right. This is the United States of America and… we stand on that amendment…The second thing that makes this so sensible is that in California … you have a 99.99 percent chance to survive COVID.”

"99.99" percent may have been true back then, but it is no longer true. LA Times data analysis at the end of June  … found that 5.7 percent of coronavirus test results in California over the preceding seven days came back positive, a rate not seen since early May. A week ago, the rate was 4.7%, a rate that had been largely stable for June until just Sunday, when there was a dramatic shift in the numbers.

Pastor Greg Locke of Tennessee is willing to go to jail to defend his right not to wear a mask during the coronavirus pandemic and has been telling his church members to do the same. 

I’m so sick of this mask brigade nonsense. Bunch of Nazis. We don’t require masks at our church…. We probably had 450 people crammed into a tent this weekend. Two people in the whole place had a mask. If they want to wear a mask, that is great, I’m not going to mandate it. As a matter of fact, I discourage it because I think it’s utter nonsense.”
Locke produces viral videos. [A recent] video … triggered after a confrontation with a male staffer at an unidentified store over his [Locke’s] refusal to wear a mask, has already been watched by more than six million people.
“I’m pretty spittin’ mad about a bunch of nonsense. Did you know that there’s nothing in the American culture and nothing in the Church of the Lord Jesus Christ that has separated the body more than these stupid things right here? We call them safety precautions. No, what these are, these are gags, ladies and gentlemen … These have become idols … used to divide the Church. They don’t do anything whatsoever. They are the dumbest thing to have ever been created by humanity. They are scientifically proven to do Jack sprat! But I’ll tell you, religiously what they’ve done, they’ve divided the body of the Lord Jesus Christ. These things are so dumb.” 

Evangelist Franklin Graham – son of Billy - warned of “all-out socialism” if Americans do not vote for leaders who “love this country, defend the Constitution, & support law & order.”

He pointed to the “chaos erupting in cities controlled by liberal, socialist-leaning leadership” as a harbinger of things to come … if “this kind of leadership wins in local, state & national elections… [it] would lead to the demise of our nation as we know it. Socialism is dangerous, and we have a party and many politicians who are flirting with all-out socialism. I would encourage every person who loves this country to pray & to turn out by the millions to vote…. America’s new enemies are “progressives” and “godless secularism.”  

*Whackjobery: term promoted by Steve Schmidt of The Lincoln Project to denote virulent Trump supporters who’ve given up common sense in favor of Trumpism.

News blues…

South Africa passes half a million Covid infections as “the government struggles to retain public trust amid allegations of widespread corruption, arbitrary decisions on restrictions and administrative incompetence.” 

…“The lockdown succeeded in delaying the spread of the virus by more than two months, preventing a sudden and uncontrolled increase in infections in late March,” the South African president, Cyril Ramaphosa, said….
As restrictions have eased, infections have risen quickly, with some observers questioning decisions to allow the crowded minibuses that provide most public transport to operate and to permit religious services. A ban on smoking and drinking has also been controversial. In recent days, several prominent officials from the ruling African National Congress, including Ramaphosa’s spokesperson, have been suspended or forced to step down temporarily following graft allegations. More than a hundred contracts for procurement of protective equipment and other vital supplies are under investigation in Gauteng province, the economic heart of South Africa, and its worst-hit area.

***

Apple fire in Banning, California.
Photo: Josh Edelson/AFP/Getty Images
Click to enlarge. 

Thousands of people were under evacuation orders  after a wildfire in mountains east of Los Angeles exploded in size as crews battled the flames in triple-digit heat. The fire, dubbed the Apple Fire by local firefighters 

… consumed more than 23sq miles (about 60sq km) of dry brush and timber, according to the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection. …The blaze began as two adjacent fires reported Friday evening in Cherry Valley, an unincorporated area near the city of Beaumont about 85 miles (137km) east of downtown Los Angeles.

*** 

Covid-19 affects the California firefighter’s life and work. 

Healthy futures anyone? 

Focus on Switzerland. According to the 2018 Environmental Performance Index*, Switzerland ranks number one in the world for its achievements in sustainability and environmental conservation with a 2018 overall EPI score of 87.42, environmental health score of 93.57, and ecosystem vitality score is 83.32.

Switzerland protects its natural lakes, forests and mountains and the health of the environment on a global scale. It boasts a secure economy, a high standard of living and an impressive emphasis on education… [and it has preserved its] water quality since the 1960s, especially its wastewater treatment… (97 percent of the Swiss population was connected to a sewage treatment plant [with] approximately 900 wastewater treatment plants across Switzerland0. It leads in waste management with a recycling rate of 53 percent.

How sustainable is Switzerland? Implementing the 2030 Agenda from a civil society perspective 

*Environmental Performance Index is a ranking system used to compare the world’s countries based on their efforts to preserve and protect the earth’s environment. This index also measures how close countries are to meeting their established environmental policy objectives. The 2018 Environmental Performance Index is the most up to date index and has scored 180 countries on their environmental performance using the latest set of data available, as well as data from the past decade. In addition to receiving an environmental performance index score, countries also receive an environmental health and ecosystem vitality score. The environmental health score is based on the quality of the country’s air and water, while the ecosystem vitality score primarily indicates the condition of a country’s ecosystem and the animal species that live within these ecosystems. Some of the performance indicators used to score these countries are household air quality, air pollution, drinking water quality, wastewater treatment, species protection, marine protected areas and CO2 emissions. The scores achieved by each country are translated into rankings that can be used as an opportunity for countries to engage in friendly competition as they try to improve their rank. The Environmental Performance Index also gives countries a more granular view of the areas in which they need to improve.
Sustainable Development Index (SDI) measures the ecological efficiency of human development, recognizing that development must be achieved within planetary boundaries. It was created to update the Human Development Index (HDI) for the ecological realities of the Anthropocene. The SDI starts with each nation’s human development score (life expectancy, education and income) and divides it by their ecological overshoot: the extent to which consumption-based CO2 emissions and material footprint exceed per-capita shares of planetary boundaries. Countries that achieve relatively high human development while remaining within or near planetary boundaries rise to the top.
Currently, Cuba tops the SDI, followed by Costa Rica (2) and Sri Lanka (3). South Africa’s SDI is 57. USA’ SDI is 160. Total countries on the SDI: 164. See the map and the SDI. 

The Lincoln Project:  Moms  (1:27 mins) 

 A South African proverb used during the struggle against apartheid: 

“You touch a woman, you touch a rock.” Or, "Wathinta abafazi, wathinta imbhokodo." 

Updated for 2020: “You touch a mom, you touch a rock.”

Meanwhile, back at the ranch…

I like marshmallows. I seldom eat them, but when I do I enjoy them under the illusion they were made with egg whites – a saving grace that made them not a total junk food.
This winter in South Africa, I’ve indulged in eating more sugary items than at any other time in my life (as an adult!) - including marshmallows. 

Today, as I worked on my laptop, I noticed the pink dancing marshmallow illustrated on the empty bag next to me. I read the ingredients list: glucose syrup, sugar, water, gelatine (bovine), dextrose, stabilizer, flavouring, coloring, and “may contain” sulphites.
Sugar and salt; nary a whiff of egg white. And “bovine” gelatine? Cow fat?
Illusion became disillusion. 

Last week, a watched film on the use and abuse of children working to grow and process cocoa trees and beans – think chocolate. Ah, the hidden costs and unbearable reality of that delicious treat.
Upside of the pandemic: Like thousands of others, I’ve time on my hands. It’s leading to deeper recognition about the need to take ever more responsibility for the welfare of the planet and its people.
Woo woo conspiracy theories and theorists demand “freedom”?
How about implementing existing freedoms to expanding one’s own small view to include a wide view of the world’s unvarnished realities?

 

Day 129 Sunday, August 2 - Testing... testing...

Four-plus months into Lockdown and six-plus months into what was planned as three months to oversee my mother’s affairs, I’m humming and oldie but goodie:

“On a Sunday morning sidewalk/wishing lord that I was stoned/for there’s something ‘bout a Sunday/makes a body feel alone…” (See below for more.)

And my tales of woe are just a microcosm.
The macrocosm? “Who the hell knows what’s going on? It’s just insanity.” 

News blues…

The federal government, under Trump’s direction, has botched testing.

…Experts are warning that the U.S. testing system is on the brink of collapse. “We are at a very bad moment here … We are about to lose visibility on this monster and it’s going to rampage through our whole country. This is a massive emergency.”

This must-read Vanity Fair article by Katherine Eban, “How Jared Kushner’s Secret Testing Plan Went Poof Into Thin Air”, lays a foundation to understand how We the People arrived at this tenuous place.  

***

Trump’s Tweet baselessly claims
mail-in voting is a vehicle for voter fraud.
Click to enlarge. 

"Why would Trump even suggest putting off the vote? Unless he plans to occupy the White House illegally, a postponed election wouldn’t keep him in office. In fact, it could well usher in an unelected President Joe Biden. That sounds strange, but it’s where the rules would take us if there were no election — if those rules were followed, which is a significant “if.” Here’s how it would work. 

Additionally, even Republican conservative legal expert and Federalist Society’s Steven Calabresi calls the president’s threats to delay the election “fascistic – and grounds for impeachment.” 

The influential conservative law professor supported President Donald Trump in 2016 and spoke out against his impeachment said the president’s latest tweet about delaying the election is grounds for his removal. Steven Calabresi wrote in his New York Times opinion article  that Trump “should be removed unless he relents” on his suggestion to delay the November election…. “Until recently, I had taken as political hyperbole the Democrats’ assertion that President Trump is a fascist,” Calabresi wrote. “But this latest tweet is fascistic and is itself grounds for the president’s immediate impeachment again by the House of Representatives and his removal from office by the Senate.”
Calabresi also called for any lawmakers who support Trump’s fight to delay the election to “never be elected to Congress again.”

***

Tick tock on TikTok? - because “Sarah Cooper is being mean to me! I don’t like it when girls are mean to me!” Critics [including this one are] convinced Trump wants TikTok banned because Sarah Cooper is driving him (even more) nuts. 

Healthy futures anyone?

Sunday timeout to appreciate wonderful creatures of our planet. They, we, the planet requires giant efforts to bring back a semblance of sustainable balance. Search for the community that is right for you and get to work…. 

Meanwhile, back at the ranch…

“On a Sunday morning sidewalk/wishing lord that I was stoned/for there’s something ‘bout a Sunday/makes a body feel alone/and there’s nothing short of dying/half as lonesome as the sound/on the sleepy city sidewalk/Sunday morning coming down…”
On this Sunday morning, I’m aligned with Kris Kristofferson (remember him? An historical figure these days.) “Sunday morning coming down”  (4:30 mins – scroll to 1:40 for the refrain.) 

I’m out of my depth in the situation I find myself. Having no experience of a mothering mother, I’m at a loss trying to understand the person biologically my parent. All this is complicated by the huge changes she faces: advanced age and fragile physicality, the consequence of past decisions, living as a “boss” in the same life for 60 years, and never having to face the challenges and complexities of the “real” world. Plus, seven pampered dogs. Two resentful and frightened domestic workers who see the writing on the wall: their longtime “boss” cannot continue “as is” so they’ll be retired. 

They’ll retire with sufficient funds to ensure they do not have to work again, but change is frightening. 

Fear projects outward, onto an object. 

Too bad for me that, in the microcosm,  I’m the object.
Too bad for the planet that, in the macrocosm, We the People - and planet - are Trump's object.

Day 128   Saturday, August 1 - Seeing the light?

It’s taken a long time, but I knew, sooner or later, a majority of Americans would break through the fog of Trumpism. But, the toll, the toll…. 

News blues… 

Rats abandoning ship as Sen. Mitch McConnell suggests the Republican Senators… 

do whatever it takes to salvage their campaigns ahead of what could be a devastating election for the Republican party. McConnell has become so concerned over Republicans losing control of the Senate that he has signaled to vulnerable GOP senators in tough races that they could distance themselves from the President if they feel it is necessary…. [This] forces them to walk a tightrope. 
"These vulnerable senators can't afford to explicitly repudiate Trump," said one senior Republican on Capitol Hill. "They just need to show they are independent on issues important in their states." 

Residents vote to rip off President Trump Name from New York City Building  (4:15 mins) 

Trump’s Self-Inflicted Wound: Losing Swing Voters As He Plays to His Base  The president’s support among bedrock Republicans is almost certainly not enough to win him a second term in the White House, as even some G.O.P. leaders concede.

*** 

To poach, or not to poach? In May, news reported a …

wildlife catastrophe unfolding in Africa with closure of safari tourism (an industry worth almost $30 billion a year and employing almost four million people) due to the coronavirus pandemic, decimating the industry, and leading to an increase in poaching. Experts and rangers on the ground say they are seeing a surge in poaching as thousands of unemployed people dependent on the industry turn to wild animals for food. They also fear an upsurge in more organised poaching of endangered species. 

August 1, news reports South African rhino poaching halves in six months thanks to Covid-19 lockdown 

South Africa has for years battled a scourge of rhino poaching fueled by insatiable demand for their horns in Asia - China and Vietnam - where the horn is coveted as a traditional medicine, an aphrodisiac or a status symbol. 

During the first six months of the year, 166 rhino were poached in South Africa, compared with 316 in the first half of 2019. That’s a drop of 53 percent in the first six months of 2020 as restrictions and disruption to international flights hinder poachers.

I’m confused. Animals other than rhinos are still being poached? 

Healthy futures anyone?

Taken-for-granted items in your pantry: “The 'deadly food' we all eat” - BBC REEL  (3:25 mins) 

***

The Lincoln Project :

Wake up  (6 mins) 

We will vote  (1:00 min) 

A must see ad: Nationalist Geographic  (0:55 mins) 

Sarah Cooper: How to tick tock  (0:13 mins) 

 Meanwhile, back at the ranch…

 I was scheduled to return to California on May 21, but the pandemic and subsequent lockdown put an end to commercial flights. Overly bureaucratized repatriation flights were occasionally available, but high-tailing it out of SA and abandoning my fragile, 87-year-old mother didn’t feel like a viable option. Moreover, repat flight reservations and routes were confusing. If I could get to Johannesburg (required a permit for the 6-hour trip by car), a flight would dump me in, say Istanbul or Doha – cost in the vicinity of US$2,500.00 (ZAR41,250). I’d still have to find a flight to New York – then the world’s Covid-19 epicenter – or Chicago, followed by a domestic flight to San Francisco. 

I was smart to stay put. 

Today, travelers who opted for repat flights find themselves in a quandary: Americans stranded abroad as the coronavirus spread took a lifeline offered by the State Department: We'll fly you home, but you have to pay us back. 

… the main method of payment for State-chartered repatriation flights was promissory notes, without anything more than an estimate of how much it might cost. Most of the people repatriated, especially in the beginning of the department's efforts, were handed blank documents which they had to sign before they got on the plane, promising to pay back the government when billed. 

Some Americans had to use passports as collateral for loans — but months later, they're still waiting for a bill, so their passports are invalid. Others signed promissory notes agreeing to pay an eventual bill they're still waiting for, and dreading a price tag that for a family of four could weigh in at $10,000. 

Since the pandemic began, State has flown home about 100,000 U.S. citizens from nearly 150 countries, at a cost to the agency of $196 million, which it must collect from passengers. Of that sum, about $8 million comes from direct loans secured with a passport. 

Hmmm, sounds like health care in America. 

Health care has never been easily available or affordable in America. President Obama tried to address that. 

Along came Trump. In the middle of a pandemic, he has been battering at the Affordable Care Act, aka Obamacare. 

Who does that? 

And why? 

My guess? 

Then president Obama – for years accused by then-birther Trump of not being eligible for the presidency as not born in America – made fun of notoriously thin-skinned The Donald at the White House Correspondents dinner back in 2011. 

This clip is a bit “inside the beltway” for non-Americans but worth watching: Barack Obama mocks Trump at the White House correspondents' dinner.  (3:57) 

Ah, the good ole days! I miss Obama. Smart. Funny. Intelligent. Elegant. Happily married family man.

Decent Americans are out there still, plenty of them/us. Step up, you guys. We the People need you!

 

Day 127    Friday, July 31  –   “Not Trumpistan”

Déjà vu all over again: end of the month and end on the week without internet.

After full-throated moaning about being hours behind the latest news, one accepts the temporary absence and finds something else to do. A refreshing break….

 (c) Illustration by Victor Juhasz
for Rolling Stone
Click to enlarge

News blues…

Donald J Trump Tweets his idea of delaying the election: 

With Universal Mail-In Voting (not Absentee Voting, which is good), 2020 will be the most INACCURATE & FRAUDULENT Election in history. It will be a great embarrassment to the USA. Delay the Election until people can properly, securely and safely vote???

Masters of under-statement – and Trump allies - respond:

• Lindsey Graham, "I don't think that's a particularly good idea."
• Majority Whip Sen. John Thune: "I think that's probably a statement that gets some press attention, but I doubt it gets any serious traction.”
• Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell: "I think we've had elections every November since about 1788, and I expect that will be the case again this year," he said. 
• Republican Sen. Thom Tillis: "The election is going to happen in November period."
• Republican Sen. Ted Cruz:  "Election fraud is a serious problem we need to stop it and fight it, but no the election should not be delayed."
• GOP Sen. Marco Rubio: "I wish he hadn't said that, but it's not going to change: We are going to have an election in November and people should have confidence in it."
• Senate Finance Committee chairman Chuck Grassley: "All I can say is that, it doesn't matter what one individual in this country says. We still are a country based on the rule of law. And we must follow the law until either the Constitution is changed or until the law is changed."
• Republican Sen. John Barrasso of Wyoming: "No, we're not going to delay the election… We're going to have the election completed and voting completed by Election Day."
• GOP Rep. Dusty Johnson of South Dakota: "Moving Election Day would seriously jeopardize the legitimacy of the election. Federal, state and local officials need to continue to work hard to ensure that Americans can vote safely whether by voting early or on November 3." 

Trying to change direction when he’s under fire is Trump’s go to MO (modus operandi). It’s worked well for him in the past, but there are signs the public – including Republicans – are onto his strategy. 

• Now This: The Rock Slams Trump with Scathing Video Message  (8:00 mins)
• Trump's narcissism and lack of empathy have Dan reconsidering his party status after 60 years. (1:02 mins)
• Why This Longtime Republican Rejects Trump (4:00 mins)
• Lifelong Republican give a blistering critique of Trump and the GOP  (4:13 mins)
• Trump Vote A Monumental Mistake.  (2:20 mins)
• Trump Voter: "Every day he breaks my heart as an American in a new way" (4:12 mins) 
• Jim is a gun-owning USMC vet who voted Trump in 2016 but will be voting Joe in 2020  (4:45 mins)
• Linda, a lifelong Republican from a military family, won’t vote for Trump this fall. (3:25 mins)
• Marie (Connecticut)  (2:40 mins)

The Lincoln Project:

Steve Schmidt interview, “This is the United States of America, not Trumpistan.” Watch: ‘This Is An Autocratic Moment.”  (3:19)

Memories 2  (0:57 mins) 

Meidas Touch:

Nobody likes Trump  (0:37 mins)

Rolling Stone’s “The Plot Against America: The GOP’s Plan to Suppress the Vote and Sabotage the Election.” Blocking ballots, intimidating voters, spreading misinformation — undermining democracy is at the heart of Trump’s 2020 campaign :

Healthy futures anyone?

An effort to educate and support peoples' effort toward sustainable living.

Terms and definitions: The Sustainable Development Index (SDI)

… measures the ecological efficiency of human development, recognizing that development must be achieved within planetary boundaries. It was created to update the Human Development Index (HDI) for the ecological realities of the Anthropocene. 

The SDI starts with each nation’s human development score (life expectancy, education and income) and divides it by their ecological overshoot: the extent to which consumption-based CO2 emissions and material footprint exceed per-capita shares of planetary boundaries. Countries that achieve relatively high human development while remaining within or near planetary boundaries rise to the top. 

See SDI results for 2015, the most recent year of complete data. While some countries score reasonably well, none reach over 0.9. South Africa is 57 on a list of 164 countries while US is 160.

Sustainable development goals – SDGs – also known as the Global Goals, 

…adopted by all United Nations Member States in 2015 as a universal call to action to end poverty, protect the planet and ensure that all people enjoy peace and prosperity by 2030.

The 17 SDGs are integrated  — that is, recognize that action in one area will affect outcomes in others, and that development must balance social, economic and environmental sustainability…. Everyone is needed to reach these ambitious targets. The creativity, knowhow, technology, and financial resources from all of society is necessary to achieve the SDGs in every context. 

Focus on Norway.  Norway ranks high on SDI in terms of global implementation of the SDGs. 

From the school curriculum to the initiatives for recycling and the cross-industry struggle to keep the air, the seas and nature as free from pollution as possible, every aspect of life is imbued with a need to go greener. 10 Ways Norway Is Contributing to an Environmentally Friendly Planet  

Meanwhile, back at the ranch…

South Africans talk of “the CCMA” as the bugaboo of South African employers, particularly employers with long-term employees. Since one of my mother’s two long-term domestic workers is spreading false rumors that I am “going to throw her out of her job and into the street”, I researched CCMA. 

The website was no help in unpacking the acronym, but Google defined it as, “Commission for Conciliation, Mediation and Arbitration (CCMA). 

CCMA is “a dispute resolution body established in terms of the Labour Relations Act, 66 of 1995 ….” 

If a dispute exists (none exists here, far as I’m concerned) dispute resolution is a good thing. Isn’t it? 

Apparently, CCMA has the reputation for bias – toward employees and against employers. 

I believe in fairness and recognition of all parties to obtain justice. 

Should be interesting as the saga continues….

 

Week 18: Day 125 Thursday, July 30 - Another Thursday

No internet connection all day! 

On the one hand: Grrrr! No internet! 

On the other hand: Yay, no internet! No news on Trump craziness. No news on Covid-19 deaths and destruction. No news about our desperate planet and its desperate people. 

 Yet, the Covid news doesn’t end. Compare this week’s numbers with last week’s: 

July 30 – 17,096,000 worldwide: confirmed infections; 668,590 deaths 

     July 22 – 15,240,000 worldwide confirmed infections; 623,660 deaths 

July 30 - US: 4,451,000 confirmed infections; 151,270 deaths 

     July 22 - US: 3,971,000 confirmed infections; 143,200 deaths 

July 30 - SA: 471,125 confirmed infections; 7,498 deaths 

     July 22 - SA: 395,000 confirmed infections; 5,940 deaths

News blues…

With more than 3,000 Covid-19 infections each day since last weekend, KwaZulu-Natal is emerging as South Africa’s latest epicenter. 

Last Sunday, the number of cases in the province had risen to 60,532, with 3,405 new infections since the previous day. On Monday, the number of cases stood at 65,982, placing KwaZulu-Natal behind the Eastern Cape, Gauteng and the Western Cape in totals, but giving it the highest rate of increase in infections in the country. 

Today, KZN has 71,240 cases. 

***

Iceland has virtually beaten Covid-19 infections. 

The latest statistics show 1,823 recoveries of 1,861 cases with 10 deaths. Iceland never imposed a lockdown. Only a few types of businesses - night clubs and hair salons - were ordered closed. Hardly anyone in Reykjavík wears a mask. And yet, by mid-May…the tracing team had almost no one left to track. During the previous week, in all of Iceland, only two new coronavirus cases had been confirmed. 

The country hadn’t just managed to flatten the curve; it had, it seemed, virtually eliminated it. 

(Consider: Katrín Jakobsdóttir is Iceland’s prime minister 

Jacinda Ardern, New Zealand's prime minister, announced stringent lockdown and quarantine measures and that country fares very well. 

A similarly positive pattern occurred in Denmark, Norway and Finland, all ruled by women, as opposed to Sweden, ruled by a man, where economic considerations trumped health concerns, and ultimately resulted in the highest death toll per capita in Europe. 

Not sexism. Just facts. 

Read, “Countries with female leaders suffer six times fewer COVID-19 deaths.” 

***

Interactive map of infections in the United States 

Healthy futures anyone? 

Focus on Iceland. With low levels of air pollution, stunning green forests, excellent water quality, and effective environmental policies, Iceland is one of the most environmentally friendly countries on the planet. According to PR Newswire, 72 percent of the country’s total energy consumption comes from hydro and geothermal resources. Moreover, Iceland is still reaping the benefits of the Nature Conservation Act (1999), which protects the land from construction, deforestation, and other damage. 

When settled in the 9th century, Iceland had considerable forests which provided fuel for the population… and for the production of charcoal and, by extension, for iron working. Available] forests … almost disappeared in less than 400 years and, along with volcanic eruptions, climate changes, and wind erosion of grassland, caused serious desertification. Centuries of poverty followed when the population squeezed what we could out of peat and other low-grade combustibles. In other words, trees were harvested without foresight, not replaced, and the valuable forest asset was destroyed.

Around 1900, fossil fuels triggered a historical shift with the use of coal and oil in Iceland’s growing fishing fleet. This made possible trawler fishing and large-scale harvesting of productive fishing grounds. Fossil fuels also heated houses.

Fortunately, the country began harnessing hydropower resources to produce electricity to light streets. That worked until the 1970s, when oil prices dramatically climbed. The oil crisis forced Iceland to look at other energy sources. The success of a large project to produce electricity from geothermal steam has been followed by more technically advanced power plants.

Today, wind turbines, reclaimed forests, and hydropower and geothermal energy account for more than 99 per cent Iceland’s sustainable and clean electricity production.

On the other hand, World Meteorological Organisation (WMO), predicts the world is on the brink of reaching temperatures the Paris agreement had hoped to avoid. 

The study predicts that the global temperature is likely to be at least 1°C above pre-industrial levels in each of the coming five years. There is also a 20 percent chance that the Earth’s temperature will exceed 1.5°C in at least a year’s time. 

As the United States under Trump is set to pull out of the Paris accord (see yesterday’s post ) South Africa’s government hopes to

…cushion the blow of the Covid-19 economic crisis [with] a three-month delay in first carbon tax payments. The implementation of the carbon tax, aimed at penalising large emitters of greenhouse gasses, has since been concluded. On March 27, the day the lockdown kicked in, Minister of Environment, Forestry and Fisheries … lowered minimum air pollution standards for sulphur dioxide to reduce emissions by 58 percent.

The move was a compromise, achieved after public consultation [and] took into account the financial situations of big polluters Eskom and Sasol, which were seen as unable to invest in infrastructure that would lower their emissions to standards called for by environmental organisations. Since the beginning of the pandemic, stimulus directed at South Africa’s fossil fuel producers exceeds stimulus directed at clean energy. 

***

 Daily Maverick webinar, “Dirty Tobacco: Spies, lies and mega-profits.” 

For decades, reputable tobacco companies have been complicit in cigarette smuggling. In a tell-all exposé, host Pauli van Wyk talks with Telita Snyckers, SARS insider [South African Revenue Service (US IRS)] about the illegal cigarette trade, why and how listed companies smuggle their own product, and other truths uncovered while writing her latest book, Dirty Tobacco. 

***

The Lincoln Project: Trump Stooge 

Meanwhile, back at the ranch… 

What would I do without online libraries? 

I subscribe to and download e-books from both Berkeley Public Library and San Francisco Public Library. Downloads allow me to read on my cell phone anytime I have Internet access (a bit tricky here). My regular sleep pattern includes awakening at 3:00 a.m. I’ve no heavy physical book or flashlight/torch to hold as I lie in bed and me. Just me, snug in my bed with my cell phone – happy as the proverbial clam. 

After years of reading hard-topic non-fiction, I returned to fiction to escape reality. Well, almost: I read current non-fiction online, as it becomes available. Recently I downloaded, and n the process of reading, the second edition of The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump: 35 Psychiatrists and Mental Health Experts Assess a President, edited by Bandy Lee, M.D., M. Div. 

It’s a disturbing read. 

I pause frequently and read fiction to regenerate my mental constitution before diving back into The Dangerous Case… 

For lovers of books and reading, online libraries are heaven sent. I’m an online library evangelist. Recently, as I purchased my usual weekly seed, nut, and whole grain loaf at the local bakery, I chatted with the store owner. He mentioned he’d not slept well and read a book in bed. 

Did he read e-books, I asked. 

He’d never heard of e-books. 

I grabbed my moment to proselytize and explained how e-books work: one signs up for library membership, logs onto the library website, finds e-books, audio, and video (a filter system allows easy perusal of catalogs) and either downloads or “holds” items. 

Most users process and track downloads through an Amazon account although I suspect there are alternatives to Amazon, too. 

I suggested the bakery owner approach the local library and inquire about their e-book offerings. Prior to finding a local Internet Services Provider, I frequented the local bricks-and-mortar library and used one of three computers there. Like most libraries, a user signs up for a computer and, once online, has 30 minutes of use, including accessing Internet. Not much time, but better than nothing.

Day 124 Wednesday, July 29 - “Mendacious from start to finish”

Peter Kuper

Many articles about Covid-19 claim that it  “will change the world forever…”
It could, but not without a valiant and concerted effort by well-meaning people working together.

News blues…

Covid-related predictions:

• “…less global and less urban”
• “… change the workplace forever” 
• “…how the world will look after…” 
• “…may forever change the world’s cities…” 
• “…the future of development…” 

Then, reality raises its stubborn head. “Trump has warned of alien DNA, sex with demons…” and you realize that, in fact, anything could happen – including no future.
Think that’s an exaggeration?
See Trump’s response after being called on his warning about alien DNA  (4:48 mins)
If well-meaning people of the world do nothing to shift towards more equality, all people of the world and the world are sunk.
Doing nothing or waiting for “someone” to “do something” is the human default.
What and how to do something effectively are huge questions.
Remember, simply confronting your clueless friends’ whackjob views is doing something….
Need a stimulant for action?

The US will officially exit the Paris accord one day after the 2020 US election and architects of that deal say the stakes could not be higher.
… in 2017 …Donald Trump took to the lectern in the White House Rose Garden to announce the US withdrawal from the Paris climate agreement, the only comprehensive global pact to tackle the spiraling crisis.
Todd Stern… the US’s chief negotiator when the deal was sealed in Paris in 2015… [said] “I found it sickening, it was mendacious from start to finish… I was furious … because here we have this really important thing and here’s this joker who doesn’t understand anything he’s talking about. It was a fraud.”
The terms of the accord mean no country can leave before November this year, so due to a quirk of timing, the US will officially exit the Paris deal on 4 November – [fewer than] 100 days from now and just one day after the 2020 presidential election.

In other words, there’s still time for you to get involved. If you’re in the US, find out who is you local, state, and federal representatives and share your concern.
If you’re not in the US, here are five ways to contact the White House and air your concerns. 
Don’t expect a reply….

Healthy futures anyone?

Costa Rica, a model for sustainability

Like many tropical countries, Costa Rica lost a significant portion of its forests to agriculture in the 20th century. The United States was responsible for most of this damage: they provided massive “aid” loans to cattle farmers in Costa Rica starting in the 1960s … to feed Americans’ growing appetite for meat.
It’s not easy to come back from losing 80 percent of your forests, but Costa Rica is making a valiant effort through its payment for ecosystem services (PES) program. Using revenue from a gas tax, the government is paying small landowners to help reforest the country, with special attention to water resources and areas of high poverty. Their goal is to have 60 percent of the country covered in forests, a significant feat for any country.
This ambition is paying off for Costa Rica’s tourism sector: it now surpasses agriculture as the country’s biggest industry. People all over the world are drawn to Costa Rica’s renowned national parks and plentiful ecolodges.

***

The Lincoln Project:
Memories : It truly is a choice: America? Or Trump?
Meidas Touch:
Trump kills Texas  (1:00 mins)
Now This:
Republican Voters Against Trump Ad Uses Reagan’s Words  (3:00 mins)

Meanwhile, back at the ranch…

Yesterday I started what looked like a long, potentially ineffectual effort to vote in the November 3 election. I’d contacted the US consulate and received guidance, but it relied on the SA Postal Service. Anyone in SA knows there is no functioning postal service in this country. (See yesterday’s post. )
Today, I’m happy to share that I received a personal call from the consulate agent working with absentee ballots. She outlined the process to follow to ensure my ballot is filled out correctly and will be counted. This includes paying a courier company to courier the paperwork to the consulate in Durban for transport to the US.
Perhaps I should send the bill for the courier service to Donald J Trump?
Nah, he’s known for seldom paying for services.
Along with information, the consulate agent mentioned she was in quarantine as 3 other agents had been diagnosed with Covid. Consequently, consulate operations in Durban are intermittent.
Moreover, both her 30-something son and her 90-year-old father are infected with Covid.
Happily, both appear on the road to recovery – yes, including her father!

***

The tone of today’s post shares my growing concern about the direction of our planet and people. But… I remind myself that seedlings continue to sprout and grow, weaver birds chatter as they seek safe sites for spring nests, and the sun shines warmly.
Yesterday, the sun shone so warmly as I painted rust-proof paint on metal garden fencing that I wore a sun hat and spread glops of sunscreen on my face, neck, and arms.
I’m beginning the long and arduous task of spiffing up this property and preparing it for sale.
This for as long as my mother holds on to her current agreement to live with my nephew and his family in Johannesburg.
I hold thumbs that this remains a plan we can successfully execute. 

Day 123 Tuesday, July 28 - No news is good news

Usually actively engaged in following news around the world, I hesitate, now, to do so. Too much bad news. Too much bad Trump news….

News blues…

• Trump still pushing hydroxychloroquine as a cure for COVID-19. 
• Trump reportedly never was invited by the Yankees to pitch the first game of the season. He lied. Rather, his aim was to grab the limelight from Dr Anthony Fauci who was invited – and who pitched. 
• Trump finds Twitter’s trending “very unfair” and, he claims, “illegal, too. They look for anything they can find, make it as bad as possible, and blow it up, trying to make it trend,” the president laments. 
• On and on he goes…clowning his way through a pandemic, as the world’s people struggle along a path strewn with up to 10,000 children dying each month from hunger. Covid-19 side effects are pushing the world’s hungry communities over the edge. ... and Trump and his cronies have no coherent strategy against a pandemic. 

Trump grifts, you die! (1:00 min) Meidas Touch

Healthy futures anyone?

In this new segment, I find examples of areas of the world where and people are creating/living sustainably.
Today, Cuba.
The US embargo has kept Cuba frozen in time, its environment pristine, and its people independent and self-sufficient. A brief history:
On March 14, 1958, the United States imposed its first embargo on the sale of arms to Cuba, during the Fulgencio Batista regime.
On October 19, 1960 (almost two years after the Cuban Revolution had led to the deposition of the Batista regime) after Cuba nationalized American-owned Cuban oil refineries without compensation, the U.S. placed an embargo on exports to Cuba except for food and medicine.
On February 7, 1962 the embargo was extended to include almost all exports. The embargo did not prohibit the trade of food and humanitarian supplies.
On December 17, 2014 Presidents Barack Obama and Raúl Castro announced moves to reestablish diplomatic relations and to loosen travel and economic policies. Obama also announced a review of Cuba's status as a terrorist state and an intention to ask Congress to remove the embargo entirely.
On May 29, 2015, according to the U.S. State Department, "Cuba's designation as a state sponsor of terrorism was rescinded. Under the announced changes by the President, there will be an increased ability to transact with Cuban nationals and businesses, including Cuban financial institutions. Additionally, permitted U.S. banks would have been able to open accredited accounts in Cuban banks.
But, along came Donald Trump…
On November 8, 2017, barely a week after Trump was elected, he and his Administration enacted new rules to re-enforce the business and travel restrictions to go into effect on November 9, 2017.
(Read a Wikipedia version of US/Cuba relations and US embargo against Cuba .)
The last laugh? 

A new report published recently places Cuba at the top of developed countries in the world in terms of sustainability. The Sustainable Development Index measures each country’s CO2 emissions aligned with other parameters linked to human development like education and life expectancy. The most recent figures from 2015 reveal Cuba as the most sustainable country on the planet followed by Costa Rica and Sri Lanka.

While the tourist industry has hurt biodiversity in much of the Caribbean, Cuba's relative isolation has left its wildlife untouched. Now, Cuba is a safe haven for rare and intriguing indigenous animals, migrating birds and marine creatures. But as the prospect of the US trade embargo being lifted looms, a surge in tourism is predicted. What will happen to Cuba's ecological riches in the process?
Watch “Cuba: The Accidental Eden, The Jewel of the Caribbean” (PBS 53:02 mins)
Movie promo:

Cuba may have been restricted politically and economically for the past 50 years, but its borders have remained open to wildlife for which Cuba's undeveloped islands are an irresistible draw. While many islands in the Caribbean have poisoned or paved over their ecological riches on land and in the sea in pursuit of a growing tourist industry, Cuba's wild landscapes have remained virtually untouched, creating a safe haven for rare and intriguing indigenous animals, as well as for hundreds of species of migrating birds and marine creatures. Coral reefs have benefited, too. Independent research has shown that Cuba's corals are doing much better than others both in the Caribbean and around the world.

In real terms, Cuba, a sustainable ecosystem, is better off not having Americans traipsing all over the island, making American demands, and influencing that culture with American values. It better for Cuba’s natural environment, too.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch…

I applied for absentee voting ballot today. What struck me as odd for a US consulate doing business in South Africa was the assumption that I could “drop off [my] sealed ballot at our office for mailing to the US”.
The consulate office is in Durban. I reside in the Midlands. That’s a trip of at least 90 minutes one way by car - and not feasible during Lockdown.
At least they know enough about how things work in South Africa not to assume that I could mail my hardcopy forms or my hardcopy ballot through the SA Postal Service.
For all intents and purposes there is no functioning SA Postal Service in this area.
The local post office teetered for several years (“no ink to print receipts,” “no stamps,” etc.). It shut down altogether about two years ago although it’s hard to say when it actually closed.
Residents were not informed about the closure.
If I wasn’t here with a laptop, an email address, and an Internet connection (albeit, inconsistent), my mother would be sunk.
No longer able to drive, nor walk any distance, she’d have no way to pay her monthly bills. Indeed, she’d not even know her monthly bills were stacking up – until her utilities and services – rates/property tax, water, power, etc. – were turned off.

So, what’s the next step for absentee voting?
Who knows?
Who knows if there’ll even be an election?
We the People know that Trump and his allies are doing their best to prevent eligible Americans from voting.
All the more reason to insist upon my right to vote!

Day 123 Monday, July 27 - Thinking future

Time warp. Long seconds of disorientation this morning during which I lost track of whether it was morning or evening. Four months of Lockdown will do that.

News blues…

On the day I emailed the US Consulate in KZN for directions on how to vote absentee, I discovered Michele Obama has launched a national voter registration effort.

Obama said, “We’ve only got 100 days left [before the election on November 3] and we’ve got to direct every ounce of energy we have into making sure everyone understands the importance of their voice and their vote.” This election “could not be more important for the future of our country….” 

If you’re American living in America and not yet registered, register to vote now.

Healthy futures anyone?

Introducing a new segment on this blog: Healthy futures anyone reviews areas of the world where and people are creating sustainable lives and/or living sustainably. Yes, many are out-of-the-way places, off the beaten track. But that doesn’t nullify their success. First up, Nakhchivan, on the Transcaucasian plateau between Armenia, Iran and Turkey.

Nakhchivan has adopted a strict no-pesticide, all-organic food policy. This health-conscious land-to-table ethos ensures that the Balbas breed of sheep you’re eating come from Nakhchivani farms; the fish from Nakhchivani lakes; the wild dill, aniseed terragon and sweet basil from Nakhchivani foothills; the produce from Nakhchivani orchards and even the salt from underground Nakhchivani caves. 

Learn more about Nakhchivan. Then there’s South Georgia. A far-flung British territory in the South Atlantic Ocean between Argentina and Antarctica offering glaciated peaks, billowing tundra grasses, and millions of happy penguins. The Lincoln Project An interview with co-founder Ric Wilson on the huge walk away from GOP that Trump may not survive (10:00 mins)

Trump has been in office for exactly 1,282 days. During that time, he has: • Ignored a pandemic while 140,000 Americans died from COVID-19. Then he said "we've done a great job" • Fawned over Putin as Russia paid the Taliban cash for killing American soldiers in Afghanistan • Utilized a mercenary secret police to go into U.S. cities and attack peaceful protestors • Lied over 20,000 times — over 15 a day — and has played golf at least 280 times • Begged at least three different countries to cheat in our elections • Cozied up to ruthless dictators — saying Kim Jong Un is a friend — while isolating our friends • Watched helplessly as our economy has gone into a depression that has left 40 million Americans out of work.

Ready to sign up for four more years – 1,460 days – of Donald J Trump and his ilk? If not, register to vote now. .. and vote on November 3.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch…

Covid-19 has traction among South Africans. KwaZulu Natal has 14.4 percent of the total – 64,061 cases – and creeping up on the Eastern Cape with 73,585 infections. The good news in this household? I might have stumbled upon a plan for my mother’s ongoing safety, health, and welfare that will conclude with me returning to California, my family, and my houseboat - albeit only in several more months. To celebrate the forward momentum, I’ve begun efforts toward prepping for the sale of this house. Having a plan helps orient. I’m prepared for the plan not to work out, but at least there is a plan….

Day 122 Sunday, July 26 - Day of rest

The global coronavirus infection rate passes 16 million. The US rate passes 4 million. South Africa heads toward half a million.
Overwhelming.

News blues…

As he presented his adjusted budget to parliament on Friday, Police minister Bheki Cele said gender-based violence (GBV), political killings and farm murders were some of the most stubborn crimes plaguing [South Africa].

… “There are far too many women killed in South Africa, many by people known to them. The accelerating scourge of GBV is affecting everyone, both young and old. We should all agree this is a societal challenge that needs all of us to deal with it decisively. It cannot be police alone,” said Bheki Cele.
Speaking about the impact of Covid-19 on the police service, Cele said 10,077 officers had been infected with the virus, and more than 95 officers had died. "When the whole world pressed the reset button, policing continued. When world economies collapsed, policing continued. When businesses closed down, policing continued. When everyone was locked down in their homes, policing continued. When news of police officers who were arrested for wrongdoing made headlines, policing continued. When statistics of the Covid-19 infections skyrocketed to alarming figures, policing continued.

Not to dampen Police minister Bheki Cele’s support for his police force, but what sort of policing continued?
This is not a rhetorical question.
Last week, two clerks at the veterinary clinic recognized me as the author of an article in the local weekly, “Village Talk.” (Justice, South African Style )
Both clerks thanked me profusely for sharing my experience on local policing efforts. One said, “Many share similar experiences of police doing nothing, but few write about it. We expect little from the police and that’s what we get.”
I felt disoriented by the experience of 1) being recognized in a small town where I know few people, 2) supported in my point of view and, 3) pleased by both.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch…

I take heart in the wonderfully sunny winter days in the Midlands. Very different to cold, wet, dark winters in the San Francisco Bay Area.
Despite the morning frost and ice, gardening under these conditions is a pleasure.
Nevertheless, a welcome sign that spring is on its way:
Last month, June 26, the sun rose at 6:52 am and set at 5:08 pm
Today, July 26, the sun rose at 6:45 am and set at 5:23 pm.
Harbinger of spring.

Day 121 Saturday, July 25 - Considerations....

Week 18 of Lockdown begins…. How much longer will this go on?
Predictions are not my forte, but circumstances are such that I predict I’ll still be posting daily blog entries at Week 28.
That is, unless “something” happens to me….

News blues…

During his recent public address, President Ramaphosa announced that all public schools would "take a break" for the next four weeks from 27 July until 24 August. Grade 12 pupils and teachers would only take a week-long break and return on 1 August, and Grade 7 pupils would take a two-week break and return on 10 August. The academic year would be extended beyond 2020 and the details would be communicated in due course….
South Africa-style democracy ensued: tails wagging the dog?
South Africa’s Basic Education Minister Angie Motshekga welcomes 'school break'… and calls on communities not to vandalise schools

Motshekga said, "Once again we appeal to members of the public to protect schools during the break to prevent theft and damage that was caused when schools were closed to the Covid-19. It remains one of our biggest concerns when schools are targeted. The burglaries and theft of food supplies and other expensive items defeat our efforts to provide mainly for the poor and vulnerable learners who are always the hardest hit."

The Western Cape government was considering its legal options to oppose the closure of schools….
Premier Alan Winde, speaking during a Friday "digicon" on the province's special adjustments budget, said, "The Western Cape … opposed the closing of schools."

"In my own experience, being on the ground specifically in highly vulnerable, high density areas where our hotspots were showing the numbers, I am convinced it's safer at schools than not."
The national school nutrition programme would also continue operating during the break. Winde called this "interesting", saying schools would still "actually stay open" to run these programmes which is "critical, specifically right now… So many months into this pandemic, with the real slowdown in the economy, food security is a massive issue. It links directly with our ability to get food efficiently to hotspot areas where starvation is a big thing among our young people and scholars."

The South African Human Rights Commission (SAHRC) says the decision by the government to close schools is “regrettable and unjustifiable”.

“The decision means that by August 24 2020 over 10 million South African children, depending on the grade they are in, will have lost over 50 percent or 100 scheduled school days as a result of Covid-19 school closures.”

The South African Federation of Trade Unions (Saftu) said it was pleased that Ramaphosa had responded “partially positively” to calls for schools to close.
The union, however, said the announcement lacked logic or an attempt to convince society with scientific statements.

“The president does not cite the work of epidemiologists who understand when we are reaching the peak of the pandemic, and what that means for decisions to close public schools and not private schools. The president acknowledges that there are differences of opinions without taking the country into his confidence.” 

The Educators Union of SA (Eusa) said while it welcomed the decision to close schools, it said the plan on how schools would reopen lacked “scientific reasoning”.

“We maintain our call that all schools should close until it is safe to reopen. It is sad that we come to this victory [closure of schools] when teachers and learners have already died from the virus and thousands have got infected while at work,” the union said.
The union said the issue of private schools not closing exposed inequalities within the education system.

The Governing Body Foundation noted the announcement with “reservation”.

“We appreciate that the minister consulted widely with stakeholders … to assist her in preparing a report for the president and cabinet.”
“Pressure has been exerted by the teacher unions, supported by some civil society groupings, to close schools for the reasons they advanced, and they have prevailed.
“However, the Governing Body Foundation, along with other stakeholders such as the South African Council for Human Rights, education and economic researchers, and medical and scientific organisations, believed that children in South Africa would be better served if schools remained open, provided they could do so safely.”

Gauteng education department head Edward Mosuwe said at the Gauteng Provincial Command Council briefing "… while we take a break we are going to provide nutrition for learners who qualify for school nutrition programme. … since the re-phasing in of grades we started with 183 000 of the 600 000 that were qualifying for nutrition".
However, on average, the programme covers 1.1 million pupils daily.
The programme has been extended to cover all pupils not back at school yet, in line with a court order. "Learners who are not back yet at school have been asked to bring their own containers from home, own face mask and wear their school uniform to be easily recognisable".

In the US, the resurgence of infections and the faltering economy has ignited debate about how to proceed with the new school year. Republicans favor opening schools so that parents can return to work, stimulate the economy, and benefit Trump’s dwindling re-election prospects. As in all things Trump, chaos reigns:

New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham announced Thursday that the state will delay in-person learning through at least Labor Day as cases break records in the state.

Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee said his state will introduce a plan to reopen schools Tuesday. "Our kids need to be in school because kids not only academically are suffering, emotionally, mental health. ... working families need for their children to be in school so they can continue to work. There's a lot of reasons why schools can be and should be open. So long as we do that in a way that protects teachers and protects students at the same time we believe we can do," Lee said.

New guidance from the CDC is strongly in favor of sending students back to the classroom, saying that available evidence shows that coronavirus does not possess as great a risk to children. With the services and instruction offered in school, the CDC guidance said virtual learning can be a disadvantage to American students. "It can lead to severe learning loss, and the need for in-person instruction is particularly important for students with heightened behavioral needs," the CDC statement said.

***

The Lincoln Project: Maxwell  (0:55 mins)
Brief levity: rap-style song, Cognitively there (1:44

Meanwhile, back at the ranch…

Warmed by the winter sun, I find sitting in the garden and watching monkeys cavort allows moments of peace and serenity amid turmoil.
I’m experiencing increasing physical stress – aching jaw from clenching while asleep, tension aches in my neck, shoulders, and back muscles – brought on by security concerns: compromises with my own physical safety and breeches of security from internal actors that my mother refuses to acknowledge.
Staying busy is essential.
The comfort of ritual.
This being my first winter in the Midlands – 3,400 ft elevation – I’ve no experience with precipitous temperature drops overnight.
Since many plants, including indigenous, succumbed to the unexpectedly severe frost in June, I’ve protected young succulents by covering them every evening – and uncovering them every morning.
A handful of small succulents – and all vegetable seedlings - thrive on this treatment.
Larger plants must fend for themselves.
Indigenous plants tells a story.
Consider the aloe, how it freezes.

Aloe  garden - May 2020 - large aloe to the right
Click to enlarge 

Early July after overnight freezing
Click to enlarge

July 22, 2020
Click to enlarge

Day 120 Friday, July 24 – “Cognitively there!”

(c) The Late Show
Click to enlarge. 

Five words that prove the president of the United States is “cognitively there”: person, woman, man, camera, TV.  (2:40 mins)

News blues...

President of South Africa, Cyril Ramaphosa, addressed the nation, shared facts and figures regarding economic costs of the pandemic on the country, and promised to tighten the consequences of corruption.

US Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez brilliantly addresses foul comments directed at her by Rep. Ted Yoho on the steps of the US Congress.
In 9:35 succinct minutes Ocasio-Cortez clearly speaks on behalf of all women who’ve been accosted by powerful men with attitudes of impunity.
Yoho ain’t gonna easily squirm out of this! 

News anchor/presenter Ari Melber on the history of Trump promotion of Law and Order as a political strategy – and echoes Richard Nixon’s strategy. (10:00 mins)

***

Coronavirus is decimating safari tourism – an industry worth almost $30 billion a year and employs almost four million people. This is also leading to an increase in poaching.

Experts and rangers on the ground say they are seeing a surge in poaching as thousands of unemployed people dependent on the industry turn to wild animals for food. They also fear an upsurge in more organised poaching of endangered species.

Overall, South Africa’s tourism sector may have already lost an estimated R54.2 billion in output in just three months as Covid-19 travel and leisure restrictions batter the industry.

Furthermore… the sector now faces a potential 75 percent revenue reduction in 2020, putting a further R149.7 billion in output, 438 000 jobs and R80.2 billion in foreign receipts at risk.

***

Going bats?
A global research consortium, including the Max Planck Institute, stated:

For the first time, the raw genetic material that codes for bats’ unique adaptations and superpowers such as the ability to fly, to use sound to move effortlessly in complete darkness, to survive and tolerate deadly diseases, to resist ageing and cancer has been fully revealed, and published.”
Read “Groundbreaking study adds insights into why bats are flying laboratories that advance medical understanding.” 

***

Let’s hear it for science, public health, and vaccines!

For most of human history billions of children died from infectious diseases. Recurring epidemics of influenza, measles, cholera, diphtheria, the bubonic plague, and smallpox killed large parts of the adult population, too. The Black Death killed half of Europe’s population in just a few years. Today, infectious diseases are the cause of fewer than 1-in-6 deaths.

Read “Our history is a battle against the microbes: we lost terribly before science, public health, and vaccines allowed us to protect ourselves.” 

***

Remember those five words that prove you're "cognitively there"?
Sarah Cooper: How to person woman man camera tv… (1:25 mins)

Meanwhile, back at the ranch…

Click to enlarge.

Dump fire!
Pietermaritzburg firefighters battled to contain the inferno at the New England Road landfill site as arsonists kept lighting new fires around the dump. …

Speaking on condition of anonymity, a fireman said their solution of dumping sand on the fire and then water was set aside by city officials who visited the site on Tuesday.
“We are the experts when it comes to fire-fighting. We had a quick solution of dumping the heaps of sand, already at the site, over the fire and then dousing it with water, but we were told they [city officials] would make decisions about how the fire would be put out because they are in charge and we must just do what they say,” said the disgruntled fireman.
The initial fire, they said, would have been contained within a few hours had their advice been taken. “Now it’s going to take us at least a week or more to put out. Putting it out with water is going to do nothing.
“We honestly feel that this landfill site and the fires are part of something bigger. Unfortunately we are the pawns in this game as we have to risk our lives going out there all the time,” said the fireman.
Another fireman said being at the site was like “being in hell”. 

A petition is circulation force the closure of the Msunduzi Municipality New England Road landfill site.

***

The power struggle at this house is about worsen.
I worked with the security team to thwart my mother’s domestic worker’s refusal to disclose the whereabouts of her son. (Background) The security team picked him up soon after his mother handed him his latest allotment of her cash.
He was served with the court order, officially explained how he can defend himself, and alerted about implications of further harassment. He signed the document.
However, both domestic workers have side-stepped complyig with filling out this household’s coronavirus tracing document. Everyone here, including me, agreed to document 1) all trips off the property and 2) all contacts with whom we interacted while in public.
So far, neither worker has recorded outside contacts.
I'll formally ask them - again - to comply.
The pressure ratchets up if neither mentions contact with the son.
My 87-year-old mother is my priority. Her fragile health will not withstand a Covid-19 infection.

Week 17: Day 119 Thursday, July 23 - Be careful out there!

July 22 – 15,240,000 worldwide confirmed infections; 623,660 deaths
     July 16 – 13,558,000 worldwide: confirmed infections; 585,000 deaths
July 22 - US: 3,971,000 confirmed infections; 143,200 deaths
     July 16 - US: 3,500.000 confirmed infections; 138,000 deaths
July 22 - SA: 395,000 confirmed infections; 5,940 deaths
     July 16 - SA: 311,050 confirmed infections; 4,460 deaths

Numbers from April 9, 2020.
Click to enlarge.

Numbers in pictures: April 9 compared to July 22
South African news reports 572 new COVID-19 related deaths in the last 24 hours, 400 of which occurred in the Eastern Cape.

The bad news: the number of confirmed cases jumped by more than 13,000.
The better news: the recovery rate has improved 58 percent. This means almost 230,000 people have already recovered.

Numbers from July 22, 2020.
Click to enlarge.

Tracking coronavirus global spread 

California hit a single-day record for new COVID cases. San Francisco Bay Area counties are doing better than the rest of the state, especially compared to Southern California counties.

***

Now for a break from "the horror, the horror": 
The Lincoln Project: Failure  (2:13 mins)
A summary of Trump’s response to coronavirus over the past five months.
Trump sums it up: “That’s the way it is”.
Randy Rainbow is pro-Anthony Fauci (so am I!): GEE, ANTHONY FAUCI! - A Randy Rainbow Song Parody (3:53 mins)

Meanwhile, back at the ranch…

© Photo: JOSH EDELSON/
AFP Via Getty Images
Click to enlarge.

Fire season!
A recent post described fire season in KZN and in California.
Today, the Hog Fire announces California fire season is roaring back.

A massive pyrocumulonimbus cloud, or fire cloud, formed over the Hog Fire in far northeastern California Monday, generating its own weather with a wild mix of thunderstorms, rain, and fire whirls….
Thunderstorms passing over the Sierra Nevada and Cascade Range kicked up high winds that fanned flames in the late afternoon and spread the blaze in remote Lassen County. The intense heat in the vigorous updraft created a foreboding weather cloud of smoke and ash, reaching 30,000 to 35,000 feet (10,000 to 12,000 meters) in height.

***

Since police in this area are, well, hopeless, this post is in the spirit of spreading the word so that, in the horrible event that I’m attacked by my mother’s domestic worker’s drunk-of-a-ne’er-do-well son security personnel know where to look for a culprit. (Background)
And aother wrinkle in an ongoing saga.
The upper security gate has been used in the past by the domestic worker to allow her son onto the property after the alarm was armed for the night.
I’d discovered this two years ago after returning to SA for a visit.
I heard a buzz from the alarm panel located in my bedroom. At first, jet lagged, I paid little attention. After several nights hearing the same sound, I investigated.
I checked the security cam replay and found footage of the domestic worker responding to her son’s after-hours call through the intercom. In the footage, the domestic worker, dressed for bed, appears on the monitor, unlocks the padlock, opens the gate with the remote-control opener, ushers him inside, then re-arms the alarm and re-locks the padlock on the gate.

I showed my mother the footage.
Her first reaction was to flinch … then she shrugged.
The message she conveyed? So, what’s your point?
Six months before I’d arrived for that visit, my mother had caved when her domestic worker begged permission for her son had to live on the property. Despite his conviction and 5-year prison sentence served for rape, his lack of employment, his history of alcohol abuse, my mother had allowed the 40-year-old to move into his mother’s living space.

Back then, I copied the footage from the security cam and saved it on my laptop. I also changed the security on the gate so that the domestic worker could no longer open it.
Since she lies to my face, I said nothing directly to her: sometimes actions speak louder than words.

Fast forward to yesterday, July 22 – approximately two-and-a-half weeks after the incident wherein the ne’er do well – evicted – son threatened to kill, rape, etc., me.
While the domestic worker uses a leaf blower to clean my mother’s front verandah, I’ve never seen her use it to clean the area between the garage’s folding door and the upper security gate.
Suspicious, I checked the padlock on the upper security gate.
It was unlocked.
The key to that padlock is one on a set everyone in the household uses.
I removed the key from the set, switched padlocks, and held both keys to the new padlock.
Today, I reviewed yesterday’s security cam footage.
At 11:37 am, the domestic worker leaf blows in the vicinity of the gate and padlock – quickly unlocks the padlock, then finishes leaf blowing.
A copy of that footage now resides on a thumb drive and on my laptop.
Creepy.

My mother – a receptacle for denial of reality for much of her 87 years – refuses to believe the evidence of her own eyes.
Me? I don’t feel heard – or safe.

Day 118 Wednesday, July 22 - Oh, no!

Internet connection down for 24 hours. Again.
The toughest part of disconnection from that lifeline?
Ironically, lack of human connection.
One can catch up on the news – much of which focuses on coronavirus infection rates. But disconnected Internet makes me feel cut off from other humans.
Dr. Steven Gundry addresses this feeling in his video unfortunately titled
“TRUTH ABOUT CORONAVIRUS  (10:00 mins).”
Why unfortunately titled?
With truth under fire, and “truthiness” ascendant, the title sounds suspiciously like another conspiracy theory.
It’s not.
Dr. Gundry’s brief overview of coronavirus ends on a thought-provoking question: what will be the long-term effects of social distancing on highly social humans?

News blues…

The Donald’s plummeting poll numbers convinced him to resume press briefings. This,

… after discontinuing them in April and declaring them a waste of time. Trump is expected to hold the briefings a few times a week, but not on a daily basis like he was earlier this year.
There remains an internal split over whether it's wise for Trump to take the stage and discuss the virus in a high-profile setting like a White House news conference.
Some aides have reminded others how hard they fought to convince Trump to end the briefings in April when he suggested sunlight and ingesting disinfectants could help cure coronavirus.

Trump’s legendary inability to follow a simple script promises a wild ride.
Should We, the People, be scared stiff at the prospect of further Trump ramblings at the podium? Or should we bring out the popcorn and watch the show unfold?
Think I’m exaggerating? Watch this clip.
Are you ready to put your life and the lives of your family and friends in this guy’s hands?

***

After months of mask-denial, Trump is now a fan of masks, has always been a fan of masks, and, as he sees fit, will remove the mask he carries in his pocket and put it on – at least for a photo op! 

***

Prophylactic advice - reprise
According to a new study,  if people washed their hands regularly, wore masks, and kept their social distance from each other, [people] … could stop most all of the Covid-19 pandemic, even without a vaccine or additional treatments.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch…

Blast from the past….
I’ve lived in California since I was a young adult which means I never run into someone I knew as a child or teenager. This lends poignancy, when I’m in South Africa, to running into people I knew in my “salad days”.
This week I heard from two people I’d known from our days as passengers on one of two yellow school buses that transported rural students to high schools in Pietermaritzburg, an hour-long trip of about 20 miles each way.
The “English bus” and the “Afrikaans bus” followed the same route but seldom crossed path. When they did, male passengers gleefully opened windows, gesticulated, jeered, and hurled derogatory names at one another.
It was – mostly – youthful boredom stimulating such behavior although a fraught history between these cultures added a certain je ne sais quoi. Drivers of both buses were, however, Afrikaans and our driver was offended by English boys’ antics.
One fateful day, boys on our bus dropped a stink bomb.
As passengers fought over access to windows, the irate driver cursed loudly – then parked the bus in front of the village police station. He demanded we close all windows, threated police arrest of anyone daring to open a window, then exited the bus.
Arms folded, exaggerating the luxury of breathing fresh air, he guarded the closed door and smirked as he watched us gag.
After the stink dissipated, he boarded the bus and continued the journey.
Decades later, the humorless side of my human nature that craves vengeance admires that bus driver’s quick-thinking.
The side of my nature that craves justice and compassion is appalled at how quickly adults can victimize children.

Day 117 Tuesday, July 21 - Uncharted territory

Internet access was down all day. The reason? Who knows? Something to do with Telkom, South Africa’s state-owned telephone company. I’ve had other not-so-confident-inspiring run ins with Telkom, so don’t get me started….

News blues…

South Africa is 5th on the list of countries hit with highest rates of Covid-19 infections.
In terms of numbers of people per 100,000 infected, South Africa is 3rd ,with 661/100,000.
US tops the list with 1,881 people/100,000
2nd is Brazil with 1,011/100,000
4th is India with 85/100,000
5th is Russia with 541/100,000
It’s bad out there.
We’re in uncharted territory: a novel (never encountered) coronavirus, mind-bogglingly bad – verging on criminal – leadership, foundering health services, failing economies, and increasing suffering among humans.
But as the old adage states, "the show must go on."

***

New rules around quarantine and self-isolation in South Africa
South African’s health minister Dr Zweli Mkhize has revised the recommended isolation and quarantine period for South Africans who have tested positive for Covid-19.

***

US’s director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, Dr. Anthony Fauci, said New York has set an example for the rest of the country of how to successfully bring down cases of coronavirus.

[The US has] a problem. We need to admit it and own it. But we have got to do the things that are very clear that we need to do to turn this around, remembering we can do it… We know that, when [done] properly, you bring down those cases….We have done it in New York. New York got hit worse than any place in the world. And they did it correctly…."
As cases in other parts of the country continue to surge and hit new record highs, Fauci believes that the key to containing the virus is to get the tests in the right place at the right time…. [and] “in the right manner… get them to the right people who can do the proper identification, isolation and contact tracing, and even go beyond that - to be able to test more widely in a more surveillance way, so you can get a feel for the extent and the penetrance of this community spread."
Fauci said all he can do is plead with people to be consistent and take the advice of health professionals.

***

In a breakthrough that could help experts better treat COVID-19 patients, a group of scientists have realised the existence of six distinct types of coronavirus, all with their own symptoms.
A new study done by researchers from King’s College London, collated via a COVID Symptom Study app has revealed that different forms of the virus are directly affecting the severity of symptoms among patients.
These findings have huge implications for the management and treatment of COVID-19, as it could help doctors predict who is most at risk and likely to need professional care.…
The team managed to break the six forms down as follows:
1. (‘flu-like’ with no fever): Headache, loss of smell, muscle pains, cough, sore throat, chest pain, no fever.
2. (‘flu-like’ with fever): Headache, loss of smell, cough, sore throat, hoarseness, fever, loss of appetite.
3. (gastrointestinal): Headache, loss of smell, loss of appetite, diarrhea, sore throat, chest pain, no cough.
4. (severe level one, fatigue): Headache, loss of smell, cough, fever, hoarseness, chest pain, fatigue.
5. (severe level two, confusion): Headache, loss of smell, loss of appetite, cough, fever, hoarseness, sore throat, chest pain, fatigue, confusion, muscle pain.
6. (severe level three, abdominal and respiratory): Headache, loss of smell, loss of appetite, cough, fever, hoarseness, sore throat, chest pain, fatigue, confusion, muscle pain, shortness of breath, diarrhea, abdominal pain.
… The pre-print, non-peer reviewed paper is available online: Carole H Sudre et al. Symptom clusters in Covid19: A potential clinical prediction tool from the COVID Symptom study app (2020)

***

Talking about shows going on….

• MAR-A-LAGO-VILLE | The Freedom Toast with Parody Project (4:30 mins) 
• DUMB DOWN | The Freedom Toast with Parody Project (2:54 mins) 
• Did you ever imagine the President could act like this? (:53 mins)

The Lincoln Project:

• Trumpfeld  (1:25 mins)
• This is how it starts (1:24 mins) 
• Trump can’t quit us (0:26 mins)
• Wake up  (1:29 mins)

Meanwhile, back at the ranch…

Early this morning, 2:45am SA time, a friend from California called to report an uncontained fire across the road from the marina where I dock my houseboat.
Evacuations from the marina had been ordered.
He emailed me a link to view live news coverage and, with 14,000 miles between us, we watched and commented on the action from the point-of-view of a news helicopter.

Good news for liveaboards and firefighters? Abundant water, courtesy of the San Joaquin River.
Fire consumed more than 75 acres of summer-dry vegetation and trees before it was contained. True, that’s relatively minor in terms of California wild fires and, even from a distance, I could see the marina was out of direct danger.
Nevertheless, small fires can devastate lives and livelihood as easily as conflagrations.

During California’s fire season last year, I and fellow liveaboards received a fire evacuation order issued after midnight via cell phone. Five of us congregated on the pier to discuss the pros and cons of evacuation. We agreed that, since the only road in the area routed through the fire zone, staying aboard was the right option.
An hour later, the evacuation order was lifted.

As California moves into late summer fire season and firefighting crews are on high alert, South Africa’s winter fire season is in full swing, too.
Over the last several days, a white smokey hazy accompanied by the aroma of burning grass and brush has enveloped this area.

The differences in attitude about fire between California and South Africa?
Some say that winter burning is traditional, that burning dry brush lowers the danger of extreme fire hazard – as occur in California – that it stimulates plant growth, and that life cycles of African indigenous plants require a fire phase.
To burn or not to burn? 

Some ecologists …maintain that burning is critical in herbivore management and is necessary for the ecological well-being of grassland and savannah ecosystems. [Others] counter this approach saying that burning is a key contributor to the decline and desertification of grasslands… that while fire can play a useful role in land management, it should be cautiously used with an understanding of soil and plant life … [and that] fire is used excessively by too many farmers; an approach that contributes to soil erosion.

South Africa's Air Quality Act of 2004, for the prevention of pollution and for national norms and standards for the regulation of air quality, appears to refer mainly to emissions from the country’s energy intensive economy and coal-intensive energy system. While South Africa’s emissions profile is high and differs substantially from that of other developing countries at a similar stage of development (as measured by the Human Development Index) air pollution from grass fires is, apparently, acceptable.

Day 116 Monday, July 20 - The matter with white matter

“Pathological liars have on average more white matter in … the area of the brain that is active during lying, and less grey matter than people who are not serial fibbers.”
                                           - Adrian Raine, psychologist

News blues…

Lies and white matter?

The brains of pathological liars have structural abnormalities that could make fibbing come naturally.
“Some people have an edge up on others in their ability to tell lies,” says Adrian Raine, a psychologist at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles. “They are better wired for the complex computations involved in sophisticated lies.”
Raine says the combination of extra white matter and less grey matter could be giving people exactly the right mix of traits to make them into good liars. These are the first biological differences to be discovered between pathological liars and the general population.
Other researchers have used brain imaging to show that the prefrontal cortex is more active when ordinary people tell lies. …
But pathological liars are a distinct group who systematically manipulate others, lie or use aliases for financial gain or personal pleasure, such as to get sickness benefits or to skip work. “It’s almost like a livelihood,” says Raine.
Until now no one has looked at the structure of the brains of this particular group, says psychologist Maureen O’Sullivan of the University of San Francisco in California, who specialises in lying and truthfulness.

How fares The Donald’s white matter?

President Trump's lies over time
by topic.  (c) DAVID MARKOWITZ
Click to enlarge

Rates of interpersonal deception — the lies I tell you and you tell me — have been remarkably stable in deception research over time. But…something is unusual about President Trump. His rate of deception has increased since taking office.

President Trump's lies over time
by location.  (c) DAVID MARKOWITZ
Click to enlarge

As of early April, Trump has told 23.3 lies per day in 2020, a 0.5-lie increase since 2019. What’s more, Trump has averaged 23.8 lies per day since the first case of COVID-19 was reported in the US — another 0.5-lie increase. Even during a pandemic, when the public needs to trust and rely on him the most, deception remains a core part of the president’s playbook.
What’s unusual about Trump is not just how often he lies, but what he lies about and where he communicates his lies most often.  Read “Trump Is Lying More Than Ever: Just Look At The Data”

***

Interview with Steve Schmidt, “We, the American people, are a worldwide laughing stock…”

***

Stand with your man  - a Parody | The Freedom Toast (2:24 mins)

Meanwhile, back at the ranch…

Pondering the pond produces a wonderful surprise. After many attempts to photograph the perennially shy malachite kingfisher – success!

Day 115 Sunday, July 19 - Staying alive!

One week ago, South Africa was 8th on Johns Hopkins map of global confirmed infections.

Today? It’s 5th.
Gauteng is this country’s hotspot with 128,604 cases - that is 36.7 percent of all cases in SA.
KwaZulu Natal, with 11.3 million people, 19.2 percent of the country’s 60 million, has 40,086 or 11.4 percent all confirmed infections.

News blues…

Feed the kids!

On Friday 17 July judgment was handed down in the North Gauteng High Court ordering the Department of Basic Education (DBE) to provide food to all qualifying learners immediately. “A more undignified scenario than starvation of a child is unimaginable. The morality of a society is gauged by how it treats its children. Interpreting the Bill of Rights promoting human dignity, equality and freedom can never allow for the hunger of a child….” 

BIG news. SA government may be introducing a Basic Income Grant (BIG), according to Social Development Minister Lindiwe Zulu.

… Zulu said historic and emergent factors, in particular the Covid-19 pandemic, had spurred discussions on how the poor will continue accessing support once the R350 Social Relief of Distress (SRD) grant is discontinued.
“Since we already have categorical grants for children, older persons and persons with disabilities, the BIG will be an income support grant for the population aged 18 to 59….”
The SRD grant is being paid out until the end of October, after which the government is considering implementing the Basic Income Grant.
But the BIG discussion is nothing new.
Backed by civil society, policy proposals have been made since 2000 to introduce a targeted or universal basic income for unemployed individuals without financial support. 

Ironically, South Africa, a country pushed to socio-economic limits by the pandemic, at least considers a basic income grant during this time of global devastation.
In a country that could afford to extend unemployment and other benefits to stricken Americans, the US Congress chooses not to do so. Indeed, Congress refuses hazard pay to front line workers, too.

Four months into the coronavirus pandemic, the only curve the U.S. has managed to flatten is wage growth for essential workers.Many front-line employees in grocery stores and other essential businesses received hazard pay increases at the start of the crisis. But most of those temporary pay bumps have since been phased out, which effectively amounts to a pay cut for many workers amid a record-setting surge in COVID-19 cases. And most workers in hospitals and other health care facilities never received any additional pay at all, despite being hailed as “heroes” by politicians.
Meanwhile, Congress has not approved a plan for federally funded hazard pay that would boost wages for nurses, bus drivers, retail clerks and others who were asked to continue working through the pandemic. The lack of a pay bump struck many essential workers as particularly unfair in light of expanded unemployment benefits that paid laid-off workers more than the typical low-wage job.
House Democrats included a hazard pay measure in a stimulus package they passed in May, but it has not been taken up in the GOP-controlled Senate.

***

A change of pace with music – “Staying alive!”

• Original version, Bee Gees  (4:03 mins)
• Down memory lane with young John Travolta (5:04 mins)
• Naudo guitar solo version (2:45 mins)
• Bruce Springsteen version (in Brisbane, 2014 – 5:55 mins)

***

The Lincoln Project:
Latest ad – Wall  – America now leads the world in Covid deaths. (0:58 mins)
Story hour - where we read excerpts from our favorite book: Mary Trump's Too Much and Never Enough. (The tell-all book sold a staggering 950,000 copies by the end of its first day on sale - a new record for publisher Simon & Schuster.)

• Story hour, Episode 3 Daddy Issues  (1:30 mins)
• Story hour, Episode 2 (1:30 mins)
• Story hour, Episode 1  (1:30 Mins)

Thanks for the advice, Ivanka. The billionaire's daughter is telling unemployed Americans to "find something new."

Meanwhile, back at the ranch…

I intend to:

• Uncover plants after a cold night – and chat with them….
• Walk the neighborhood
• Hang out with my mother
• Sit in the sun next to the pond – and ponder….

Day 114 Saturday, July 18 - "Money, it's a gas"

In a time when worthwhile lawmakers ought to bring people together, we find the opposite: lawmakers selling their honor and their reputations to clutch yet more dollars. “Data shows lawmakers secured millions in small-business aid meant for [the US] Paycheck Protection Program.”

[US] Businesses and organizations linked to lawmakers and congressional caucuses received at least US$11 million.
At least nine lawmakers and three congressional caucuses have ties to organizations that took millions of dollars in aid from a small-business loans program that was designed to help companies avert layoffs during the pandemic….
In total, companies linked to lawmakers and congressional caucuses have received at least $11 million in aid from the federal program that Congress created to help small businesses. Overall, 650,000 businesses and nonprofits received assistance under the $670 billion program.

This money-grubbing as “unemployed Americans struggle with losing health care….”  (4:34 mins)

What is it about money that makes people … crazy?
Pink Floyd weighs in

Money, get away
Get a good job with good pay and you're okay
Money, it's a gas
Grab that cash with both hands and make a stash…
Money, get back
I'm all right Jack keep your hands off of my stack
Money, it's a hit
Don't give me that do goody good bullshit

Listen to Pink Floyd, “Money”  (4:36 mins)

Dire Straits offers another view: “Money for Nothing”:
Disclaimer: this music uses terms considered socially objectionable but keep in mind the point of view. These lyrics represent someone who resents earning a living with hard physical labor while someone else makes a lucrative living playing a guitar:

We got to move refrigerators, we got to move color TVs…”
…The little faggot got his own jet airplane,
the little faggot, he’s a millionaire…
I shoulda learned to play the guitar/
I shoulda learn to play them drums…
Get your Money for nothing, get your chicks for free…

Listen: “Money for Nothing”  (8:22 mins)

***

We interrupt this gloom to offer… hope.
An American view: “Yes, America is suffering needlessly. That may save us.”
A South African view: Sixteen weeks of Lockdown, with time on your hands and a ban on alcohol?
Ideas to explore your creativity:
Pineapple beer.
In the seven weeks of lockdown, the demand for pineapple has skyrocketed so much so that it’s made headlines, with prices at a record high.
Boozy apple cider. With a simple recipe, minimal equipment and a surplus of apples you can make a delicious sparkling apple cider that'll be ready to drink in a day or so.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch…

Cold nights, cold mornings – and, in between, wonderfully warm, sunny, dry days. Today’s high was 77F/25C. Coming from California with cold, wet winters, KZN winter days are a treat – well, except for the fire hazard potential of tinder-dry vegetation. Mid-winter, and I apply sunscreen when I work in the garden.
Today’s gardening included:

• Chatting to the seedlings in the cold frame as I removed the overnight protective covers and checked their progress. So far, so good.
• Planting the remainder of purple bearded iris tubers harvested from other sections of the garden.
• Sewing seeds – beets, onions, parsley, rocket, zucchini - in the newly constructed garden boxes.
• Adding another batch of “fresh” kitchen waste to the compost pile (link).
• Noticing the large troop of monkeys had returned to the neighborhood after several days’ absence. Increasing monkey hunger drives increasing monkey risk taking. They snack boldly in the bird feeder and pay little attention to barking dogs.

***

Despite someone threatening my life, I (try to) avoid preoccupation with my safety and focus on vigilance coupled with joie de vivre.
While I (try to) gauge day-to-day safety, I also continue to walk around the residential area for exercise.
The newly hired private security company is confident they’ll find my harasser.
I’m skeptical.
As long as his mother remains a domestic worker in this household – and my mother shields her – we’ve little chance of locating him.
So, each night, I check potential hiding places in my living quarters: an unused fireplace, an unused stairwell. I ensure doors and burglar-guards are locked, that my pepper spray canister is near at hand, and that my claw hammer lies on the floor next to my bed. (Yes, I’ve heard that, in an attack, such a weapon is more likely to be used against me than used by me. But, hey, let a woman fantasize.)

Today, as I exited the security gate for my walk, coincidentally, a security patrol vehicle parked on a grass verge across the road.
I approached the driver and his partner, introduced myself, pointed out that I lived here, and thanked them for their protection.
I’m relieved we switched security companies.

Day 113  Friday, July 17 – Happy World Emoji Day

July 17 is World Emoji Day - the unofficial "global celebration of emoji.”

It’s fitting for Lockdown, at least for we relatively benign users who, 1) can afford a computer, cell phone, or tablet, 2) have time to hunker over keypads, and 3) use emojis to express our thoughts.
(The less benign among us, express conspiracy theories – or commit cybercrimes, “now more profitable than the drug trade”.)

News blues…

World Emoji Day led me to research computer use worldwide … and that led to fascinating stats and fun facts.

© Internet World Stats

Click to enlarge

As of March 2020, Planet Earth hosts 7.8 billion people using - according to SCMO  - more than:
- 2 billion computers, including servers, desktops, and laptops
- 5 billion smartphones
- 1 billion tablets (any brand and size, excluding smartphones).
Fun fact: It took more than 200,000 years of human history for the world's population to reach 1 billion, and only 200 years more to reach 7 billion.)
Surprising fun fact: Africa hosts more Internet users than North America: 11.5 percent compared to 7.6 percent for US and Canada combined. Asia has more than 50 percent of the world’s Internet users.
Fun fact: In 2019, the average selling price of personal computers was US$632/ ZAR10,428 to US$733/ ZAR12,0950.

Affordability

© Average Salary Survey.

Average salaries in South Africa.

Click to enlarge

How do people afford computers, cell phones, and tablets around the world?
An FYI on income-related definitions in US (using the current rate of exchange of approximately US$1.00 = ZAR16.50.)
Having lived in California for two thirds of my life I understand how the relative ease of American life can lull one into complacency. One may, for example, disagree or out of sync with The System – mainstream politics, philosophy and worldview (capitalism and exceptionalism, The American Dream, etc.) – yet create a comfortable, materially sufficient life.
Much of what goes on in the urban US is, however, based upon income, and in which region or state one resides.
Income-related terms and definitions:
Lower-middle class: A family earning between $30,000 and $50,000 per year.
Middle-class: A family earning between $50,000 and $100,000 per year.
Upper-middle class: a three-person family with an annual income between $100,000 and $350,000.
“Rich”: earning more than $350,000 per year.
One half, 49.98 percent, of all income in the US is earned by households with an income over $100,000.
Before the pandemic, the US average income was $53,482/year; the annual median personal income, $31,099/year.
Regional location affects material wealth, too. For example, homes in Houston, Texas are more affordable per square foot than homes in San Francisco; one can buy twice as much house in Houston.
In practice, a family of two adults and two children in San Francisco needs to earn $148,440/year, or $12,370/month, to purchase a home and live “comfortably.” (“Comfortably” is a malleable term. I live “comfortably” on a 36-foot houseboat and earn way less $12,370/month.)
The hourly income you need to afford rent around the US.

Food for thought

Source: World Bank and IMF

Click to enlarge

.

Katharina Buchholz writes in, “Continental Shift: The World’s Biggest Economies Over Time”:

According to data from the World Bank and IMF, Asian countries are expected to make up most of the top 5 countries in the world by size of GDP in 2024, relegating European economic powerhouses to lower ranks.
China's economic growth has been steep since the 1990s, while India and Indonesia have even more recently entered the top 10 of the biggest economies in the world and are expected to reach ranks 3 and 5 by 2024. Japan, an established economy, is expected to cling on to rank 4 in 2024, while Russia will rise to rank 6.
Asia’s burgeoning middle class is one of the reasons for the continental shift in GDP. While China has been the posterchild of market growth in the 21st century so far, the country is expected to tackle an ageing population further down the line, which will put a damper on consumption. Indonesia, together with the Philippines and Malaysia, are expected to grow their labor forces significantly in the years to come, contributing to a rise in average disposable incomes, according to the World Economic Forum.

***

Ready for a change of pace?
The Lincoln Project: Where we read excerpts from our favorite book: Mary Trump's Too Much and Never Enough.
Story hour, Episode 1  (1:30 mins)
Story hour, Episode 2  (1:30 mins)

Mary Trump’s tell-all book had sold a staggering 950,000 copies by the end of its first day on sale, publisher Simon & Schuster said Thursday. This includes pre-sales, as well as e-books and audiobooks, is a new record for Simon & Schuster. 

Meanwhile, back at the ranch…

I stumbled upon World Emoji Day while seeking offbeat emojis to txt/sms an American friend who loathes emojis.
He's a talented photographer so perhaps emojis offend his photographic gifts/ talents?
As a ceramic sculptor,  I find emojis “fun” and, more importantly, expressive. Perhaps I’m not talented enough as a sculptor to know any better?
At any rate, locked down in SA while he’s staying-at-home in New Mexico, we’re developing another facet to our friendship: emoji bugging.
I bug him by emphasizing emojis in my txts/sms and he responds in unexpected – usually humorous – ways.
During a pandemic, it’s the little things that make the heart grow fonder.

I talk almost every day to another close American friend, a professorial-type and masterful “mansplainer.”
Mansplaining defined: the explanation of something by a man, typically to a woman, in a manner regarded as condescending or patronizing. Sarah Cooper demos  (3:00 mins)

My friend’s mansplaining is not meant as condescending or patronizing. Indeed, he’s one of the most “feminist” men I know. Moreover, as one of two adored sons in a family that prized and praised intellect, he grew up with regular parental pats on the head for demonstrating his intellectual prowess.
Yet, he does not understand how his over-detailed explanations could be perceived as mansplaining.
Ironically, he’s explained to me how he is not mansplaining.
Then I wised up.
In the past, when he’d talk over me, I’d respond by rolling my eyes, shutting my mouth, and – like a good girl – let him finish what he was saying.
Now, when he talks over me, rather than cramping my innards with stress, griping, or feeling annoyed, I talk… and talk… and talk – right over him.
The challenge? It takes a long time for him to hear me.
I must either repeat what I’m saying (I find that boring) or make up words associated with what I’m saying and blab, blab, blab - until he “hears” me.

It’s femsponding to mansplaining.
It works.
No one feels chastised or diminished.
And I get to finish a sentence.
I recommend it.

Week 16: Day 112 Thursday, July 16 - Doin' the numbahs!

Whither Covid-19? Another end-of-week wrap-up of global numbers:
July 16 – 13,558,000 worldwide: confirmed infections; 585,000 deaths
     July 9 - worldwide: 12,041,500 confirmed infections; 549,470 deaths
July 16 - US: 3,500.000 confirmed infections; 138,000 deaths
     July 9 – US: 3,054,800 infections; 132,300 deaths
July 16 - SA: 311,050 confirmed infections; 4,460 deaths
     July 9 - SA: 224,665 infections; 3,602 deaths

Eerie that, I begin my initial tally of the numbers in the morning. Mere hours later, when I post, the numbers of confirmed infections have increased substantially.
This week, South Africa is 8th on the Johns Hopkins list of countries with the highest number of confirmed infections. Topping the charts, the US remains “Numbah one!”; 2 Brazil, catching up fast; 3 India; 4 Russia; 5 Peru; 6 Chile; 7 Mexico; 8 South Africa.
Note: except for China, all BRICS countries listed. (BRICS = Brazil, Russia, India, China, and SA.)

Map of cases in SA
as of Wednesday, 15 July.
Click to enlarge.

Snapshot of US infections map, 28 May to 27 June 2020.

***

CO2 in Earth's atmosphere nearing levels of 15m years ago

Last time CO2 was at similar level temperatures were 3C to 4C hotter and sea levels were 20 metres higher
The amount of carbon dioxide in the Earth’s atmosphere is approaching a level not seen in 15m years and perhaps never previously experienced by a hominoid, according to the authors of a study.
At pre-lockdown rates of increase, within five years atmospheric CO2 will pass 427 parts per million, which was the probable peak of the mid-Pliocene warming period 3.3m years ago, when temperatures were 3C to 4C hotter and sea levels were 20 metres higher than today. 

***

Not a lover of winter, I’ve been (obsessively) following sunrise and sunset times over the past month with an eye toward spring and summer:
July 1 : sunrise: 6:53am; sunset: 5:11pm
July 8 : sunrise: 6:52am; sunset: 5:13 pm
July 16: sunrise: 6:50am; sunset: 5:17 pm
This morning, however - almost a month after the winter solstice – a half inch of frost covered the ground - and remained until close to 10:30a.m.
At noon, I removed an inch-thick sheet of ice from a birdbath. My plastic watering can was solid with ice, too.

News blues…

Daily Maverick webinar: “A Critical Conversation with Gauteng Health MEC Dr Bandile Masuku” – hosted by Mark Heywood.
Takeaways:

• SA has not yet reached the peak. SA has highest numbers in Africa and recoveries are lagging. Many sufferers have mild symptoms, so far.
• Gauteng always expected to have the highest numbers; it has 25 percent of SA population, and many densely populated areas, and highly mobile populations.
• Expect to see “gaps in terms of beds and resources” after mid- to the end of July as we head into August and September.
• Hotspots in Gauteng: hotspots change; high density areas; informal settlements; Central Biz Districts; retail and industry. Mining was low, then interprovincial travel seemed to bring spikes as well as steady increases;
• Regarding prevention: 100 percent taxi ridership a good idea?
• Evidence indicates ventilation and social distancing and wearing a mask good – drivers are at most risk (as in taxi all the time); highly mobile population suggests transmission not as quick (but controversial)
• Differences in opinion between politicians and medical professionals.
• A bed is a bed: whether in public or private sector – how to direct the flow of patient traffic is the issue. Bed management teams work with EMS to prevent EMS having to drive around looking for beds; learning from Western Cape experience.
• Is a bed without oxygen sufficient? What’s the oxygen supply situation now?
• Confident about major supplier of oxygen (Afrox?) – redirecting from industries to health care system. Storage has been worked out. Beds must have the capacity for oxygen. Most of critically ill must be seen in hospitals. Others can be stepped down to a field hospital.
• Patient transport? Enough ambulances?
• We do have enough ambulances. We have a framework to use all vehicles. Trying to manage beds and quick response system to address bed shortages.
• Health care personnel and human resources?
• Learning how to manage it, burnout, etc. Have a recruiting system database to manage to employ/pay people.
• How to increase personnel capacity for second wave and longer term, highly skilled posts?
• Have a plan for 4 new med schools for long term.
• Have enough money? Cuts to health budget?
• System must be able to run sustainably and cost effectively – prevention is best. Reengineer system over long-term toward prevention. Reprioritizing… but may still not be enough in long term therefore prevention is key. Integration also key – old and new ways of doing medicine.
• Balance is key – not absolutes. Create space for opening up economy and industry.
• Response can’t just be a government responsibility. What about shared planning between public and private and governance structures?
• Provincial Command Council. Command Center – with above stakeholders (civil society, NGOs, social mobilizing, etc.)
• Quality of care? Nurses appear not fully aware of regulations; long queues expose people to infection;
• Working on this; limitations of personnel and infrastructure; fear of infection is a factor;
• Trying to bring consistency and improve as we go forward.
• Listening to people with hands-on experience, modeling, politicians stay out of patient and clinical decisions; M&MMs = morbidity and mortality meetings;
• Alcohol? Difficult matter – need a balance but currently alcohol trauma is rife and not sustainable under circumstances; ciggies? No health benefit from alcohol and ciggies – too much damage from these items.
  

Conclusions:

• Civil society is willing to mobilize why not work with people?
• The matter is how formally to do it? Trying to work with groups but Lockdown stymied this. We need to broaden our scope.
• We (civil society) needs to continue to our part to keep burden low on health care workers.
• Foreign nationals will not be turned away from care in SA – it’s a fundamental human right.

***

Comedienne Sarah Cooper’s Trump voice-over: How to immigration policy  (0:54 mins)

Meanwhile, back at the ranch…

Despite the freezing temperatures, the seedlings in the cold frame/greenhouse appear to thrive. Late yesterday, I covered them with sacking then dropped over them the sheet of heavy plastic that constitutes the “greenhouse.”
So far, so good. I spot germinating peas, beans, beets, onions, cilantro seedlings….

***

An all’s well that ends well story: Noon today, I noticed five men trailing down then cutting across the winter-dry hillside east of this house.
Apprehensive - home invasions are common, and invaders perpetrate significant violence against residents - I watched the group disappear around the hill. Then, a hubbub: dogs barking, people shouting, car horns honking.
Soon after, one man ran back up the hill, accompanied by what looked from a distance like a dog.
Three men followed, also running. A fifth man trailed.
I called a neighbor to offer help – call police, security, etc.
Help wasn’t needed.
Apparently, an ewe belonging to one of the men had abandoned its lamb and wandered away from the kraal.
The men had come to claim the ewe – and carried the lamb with them to induce the ewe to return to the flock.
What I’d imagined a dog had been the ewe.
The men regroup, laughed, and chatted happily as they disappeared up and over the hill.

***

Stages 1 and 2 load shedding LINK today. No electricity from noon to 2:00p.m. and from 6pm to 10pm tonight.
Router goes down so no Internet access, no cell phone reception; no lights, no ‘fridge. Security cameras and laser beams run off battery back-up.
It takes an additional 15 or more minutes for the router to reconnect to the ISP after power comes back.
Sigh.
(And, yes, indeed, I’m privileged to have electricity, a router, a cell phone, a ‘fridge… Doesn’t mean load shedding isn’t inconvenient or frustrating. Sorry.)
How do hospitals, clinics, and health centers cope?

Day 111 Wednesday, July 15 - Ignorance is bliss?

Sprinkled amid the word salad spouted by GW Bush’s then-secretary of state, Donald Rumsfeld was this gem: “… we don’t know we don’t know...” 
Coronavirus unknowns:

Back in March, Professor Francois Balloux, chair in computational biology at University College London, said that for an epidemiologist, the two biggest unknowns are the virus’s ability (or not) to adapt to the seasons and the immunity (if any) it gives those who are infected and recover…. We don't know to what extent Covid-19 transmission will be seasonal. And We don’t know if Covid-19 infection induces long-lasting immunity.” 

Back in May, Business Insider South Africa reported, “What we do know is that the coronavirus apparently emerged in China as early as mid-November and has now reached more than 185 countries….” See the list of Business Insider’s unknowns.
In the same month, Reuters published another set of unknowns …. 

Naturally, human beings, being human, fill the gaps between the known knowns and the unknown unknowns with wishful thinking, myths, and conspiracy theories. Medical News recently explored some of the most predominant.

News blues...

Tick-tock for TikTok?

US Vice President Mike Pence has cast his one, lidless eye on to TikTok. The Chinese-owned social media app was included by Pence in the list of companies facing potential bans by the US. Washington was concerned Chinese telecommunications company Huawei and "perhaps even TikTok" present a real threat to privacy and security of Americans. If he banned TikTok, Pence might just have instantly galvanised the Gen-Z vote against his administration this year. 

Huh. Might this have anything to do with TikTok also being a place where young people (Sarah Cooper, et al.) express and share their disillusionment with Trump’s presidency?

• Sarah Cooper’s latest: How to AIDS vaccine. 
• Felipe Neto, a new funny commentator. Who’s the world’s worst leader at handling the pandemic? Easy. Donald Trump. Right?
• Well, as terrible as Mr. Trump is, Brazilian YouTube star, Felipe Neto, argues Brazil’s president, Jair Bolsonaro, is worse. (6:25 mins)

More ads from The Lincoln Project:

• Fauci  (1:32 mins)
• Law and Order  (1:02 mins)

Meanwhile, back at the ranch…

Circumstances – recent threats against my life - have me exploring the opposite of “ignorance is bliss,” that is, misery and disbelief - with a dash of fury.
I don’t like,but I accept that the world tends towards anti-female.
A 2010 report prepared by South Africa’s People Opposing Women Abuse (POWA) with the AIDS Legal Network (ALN) on behalf of the One in Nine Campaign and the Coalition for African Lesbians (CAL) states:

In South Africa violence against women has reached epidemic proportions, one of the highest rates in the world of countries collecting such data. It exists in millions of households, in every community, in every institution, in both public and private spaces. VAW cuts across race, class, ethnicity, religion and geographic location. 

The US is anti-female, but arguably not as profoundly anti-female as South Africa.
Americans know domestic violence is spiking under lockdown although the general public doesn’t know the details. Who bears witness to a hidden epidemic? 

Background: I grew up in a family that regularly practiced domestic violence. My role, the only girl sandwiched between two brothers and already outspoken, was Intervener-in-chief. I’d (try to) get between my battling parents and (try to) stop the battering.
At twelve years old, I begged my mother to “get a divorce.”
Decades later, I remember her response: “Mind your own business!”
Along with all the other gratuitous violence endemic in my homeland, is it any wonder I skedaddled as soon as skedaddling was an option?

I avoid violence, but I act against it when I encounter it and its perpetrators, from high ranking US military brass to low ranking drunks.
Male-on-female violence, from physical to verbal, is a horrible expression of anti-female sentiment. But anti-female sentiment is not only a male prerogative.
Females readily express anti-female sentiment.
Indeed, my mother is downplaying her long-term employee’s drunken son’s threats – and either not seeing or pretending not to see passive-aggression perpetrated against me by her long-term employee.
It’s both startling and, yes, somehow expected.
Apparently, my role, as a female, is to accept threats against my life, not take them too seriously, and to deny the possibility of danger.
I plan to explore this topic in future posts. Meanwhile, my experience, here and now, is "mind your own business” - all over again.

Day 110 Tuesday, July 14 - To school? Or not to school?

Given surging infections, there's  no way I’d send my child to school –in SA or in USA, yet...

News blues…

It appears schools and school children have become the latest coronavirus hot potato.
In the US, Sec of Education Betsy Devos, well, obfuscates and demands children return to school 
In SA, the biggest teachers' union, the South African Democratic Teachers Union has resolved that schools should close amid a peak in Covid-19 cases in South Africa…
That politicians, teachers, parents, secretaries of state, teachers’ unions, and by-standers argue about risking children’s lives by forcing them back to school is as astonishing as, well, people arguing about whether or not to wear masks.

***

The Lincoln Project: One Day  (0:56 mins)

Meanwhile, back at the ranch…

I recommend spending a day mixing compost, hauling by wheelbarrow the sweet-smelling, earthworm-rich compound, and dumping it into garden frames you have constructed.
Every step of the process nourishes the spirit and exercises the body.
Just add compost and your day becomes as good as possible under Lockdown.

That we’re expected temperatures dropping below zero tonight and tomorrow night just means a slight delay in sowing seeds. A seed worth its seediness won’t quibble if it’s planted today or next week.
What’s more, all the seeds I planted and set in the cold frame/greenhouse are sprouting. They’re tucked in and, I hope, ready for the cold spell.

Talking about hot potatoes… potatoes are easy to grow and each plants produces a dozens or more spuds.  If a few potatoes remain in the ground, they’ll sprout the following year, too.
It’s a win/win.

One grows potatoes by regularly mounding soil up the growing plant stem – until the plants’ leaves turn brown.
One harvests the fruit by feeling around underground, pulling up spuds, digging carefully, feeling some more, pulling up more spuds – work your way all the way down to the end of the roots.
It’s thrilling to pull fresh potato after fresh potato out of the soft earth. And thrilling to cook and eat them, too.

Contemplating this year’s garden, I’d carried home several free old tires with an eye toward using them as planters.
I realized they’d be ideal for growing spuds: simply add another tire when the mound grows too high - and keep going….
I thought this was a terrific idea – and unique… until I conducted Internet research.
Other gardeners have already developed and perfected such potato production. Take a look…

Day 109 Monday, July 13 - Repeated repetition

Repetition is the act of repeating or being repeated while repeat is an iteration or a repetition.
Hmm....
These days the news is repetitive: numbers of coronavirus infections break records; wear masks, wear masks, wear masks… stay home, stay home, stay home…

News blues…

• The US posted yet another daily record of confirmed cases on Saturday night, with 66,528 new infections, while the death toll rose by almost 800 to nearly 135,000.
• Last Thursday, California, Texas, and Florida reported new record daily highs for deaths:
  - California: 149 deaths
  - Florida: 12 deaths (more than 12,000 infections in one day – another record broken)
  - Texas: 105 deaths (ditto on another record set for the third-straight day)
• South Africa recorded 12,349 new cases on 10 July, taking the cumulative total to 250 687 (with 118 232 recoveries).
  Deaths rose by:
  - 140+ in the Western Cape,
  - 39+ in Gauteng,
  - 24+ in the Eastern Cape and
  - 11+ in KwaZulu-Natal
  - Total death toll (today): 4,079+

Ominously:

• Oxfam reports, "The World Food Programme (WFP) estimates that the number of people experiencing crisis level hunger will rise to 270 million before the end of the year as a result of the pandemic, an 82% increase since 2019.
  ‘This means between 6 000 and 12 000 people per day could die from hunger linked to the social and economic impacts of the pandemic before the end of the year, perhaps more than will die each day from the disease by that point.’
• Hunger is worsening in the US, too. 
• Meanwhile, the White House takes aim at Fauci as he disagrees with Trump on virus 
• Dr. Fauci on why he's not being allowed on TV.

***

Ramaphosa speaks: President Cyril Ramaphosa Nation Address | 12 July 2020
Takeaways:

• Country remains at Alert Level 3
• Tighten up on mandatory wearing of masks
  (let’s hope – insist? - “tighten up” does not mean “beat up”) 
• “Mask” defined as anything – t-shirt, cloth – that covers nose and mouth.
• Curfew from 9pm to 4am
• Reinstituting the ban on the sale of alcohol as of last night.

***

Alas, TV presenter and journalist, Justice Malala writes, “The ANC and those who voted for it aren’t victims. They chose the mess SA is in.”

***

Daily Maverick webinar: “Inside Track: Hotspot Gauteng”
Hosted by Mark Heywood with Doctors Nathi Mdladla and Jeremy Nel.
Takeaways:

• “In terms of people, we never actually instituted Lockdown. We went from hard Lockdown to softer… the reverse from what the rest of the world did. We behaved like Sweden.”
• “We’ve lost control of the pandemic. … We can intervene, but escalating higher level of lock down now may lose more benefits than gain…”
• Hospitals in Johannesburg are groaning but still managing – for now.
• Predominantly a respiratory disease although often affects other organs. 
• Oxygen is the primary therapy for Covid 19. Getting right the delivery of oxygen is essential. 
• Stocks of oxygen depleted. Oxygen delivery more important than ventilators.
• Infrastructure – hospitals, oxygen, beds, and personnel – remains the challenge.
• Systems are getting better at managing care.
• Integration of private and government hospitals across provinces is vital; all must cooperate/ network to provide best delivery of scarce resources.
• Obsession with numbers isn’t helping people feel safe…. (Mea culpa – guilty!)
• Seeing more young people affected but SA is a country with many young people. This will help keep mortality rates down although co-morbidities don’t help rates of survival (diabetes, hyper-tension, obesity, etc.).
• Flattening the curve: more important than ever to wear a mask – the best prevention - practice social distancing, sanitize, stay home, and avoid groups of people.
• We are going into peak risk period.

Whackjobery*
Young Americans tempt fate and attempt – fatally - by trying to prove the pandemic is, as Donald Trump claims, “a hoax.”

A 30-year-old patient died after attending a ‘“Covid-19 Party”, believing the virus to be a hoax, a Texas medical official has said.
“Just before the patient died, they looked at their nurse and said ‘I think I made a mistake, I thought this was a hoax, but it’s not,’” said Dr Jane Appleby, the chief medical officer at Methodist hospital in San Antonio.

*Whackjobery: term promoted by Steve Schmidt of The Lincoln Project to denote virulent Trump supporters who’ve given up common sense in favor of Trumpism.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch…

I instituted a set of protocols for anyone entering the property – beginning with the gardener.
I placed hand sanitizer and viral guard throat spray on a table near the gate and txt’d him instructions.
That went off without a hitch. He appeared to find it novel, rather than intrusive.

Temperatures overnight expected to drop below zero for the next week. This, just as seedlings emerge. Let's hope the cold frame/greenhouse protects them.

 

Day 108 Sunday, July 12 - "A staggering failure of governance”

In South AFrica, I find it difficult to receive regularly updated updates on Covid-19.
Until this latest cycle of load shedding, Eskom’s app, EskomSePush, published daily updates on gross numbers: total infections, new infections, total deaths, new deaths….
Alas, load shedding alerts have coopted those updates.
Incongruous, perhaps, for a national power grid to publish Covid statistics but Eskom’s daily Covid updates were the easiest place to find gross numbers. More conventional avenues for stats – health dept, etc. – appear to update only when someone remembers to do so. That hit-or-miss quality could be disconcerting to “normal” people. To a control freak, 14,000 miles from home, locked down in someone else’s household with someone else’s domestic workers and someone else’s seven pampered mongrels, it triggers massive anxiety.
Ironically, to date, every upcoming load shedding event proclaimed on EskomSePush has failed to appear - electricity remains on.
Eskom sends out alerts prior to, immediately prior to, and simultaneous with shedding then … nada, zero, zilch, niks.

Tracking US Covid-19 Response – a state-by-state map of infection

News blues…

(Not so) Lone ranger …

or the Businessman’s Wedge

Click to enlarge.

(Not so) Lone Ranger 
Is what I call the “Businessman’s Wedge” a strategy of businessmen everywhere?
This picture shows Trump leading the sharp edge of a wedge with his entourage fanning out behind him. The stance aims to intimidate business rivals.
Here, Trump, finally masked, looks as if he and his gang aim to rob a bank.

You’d think President Donald Trump had just discovered a medical cure the way his campaign team figuratively fainted at his feet Saturday. But no, he was simply, finally wearing a face mask during a visit to the Walter Reed National Military Medical Center as a COVID-19 safety measure — months after just about everybody else in the world.

In the White House and in Trump’s entourage, “You get made fun of, if you wear a mask…. There’s social pressure not to do it.”

Facing no threat of enforcement, the Trump campaign has continued to make its own rules on coronavirus protections, said the individuals, who requested anonymity to speak freely. For instance, staff have been told to wear masks outside the office, in case they’re spotted by reporters, but they’ve been instructed that it’s acceptable to remove them in the office, the individuals said, adding that staff also publicly joke about the risk of coronavirus and play down the pandemic’s threat. The individuals described an environment where campaign staff have been discouraged from telling colleagues whether they were exposed to the virus, particularly after a series of negative headlines about multiple campaign staff testing positive ahead of last month’s campaign rally in Tulsa, Okla. Instead, campaign staff have been encouraged by officials to quietly self-quarantine when they are thought to have come in contact with the virus.

***

Rare air…

(South African) Doctors report that “happy hypoxics” are showing up in numbers at clinics and hospitals – patients with oxygen saturation levels so low they are in danger, but who do not realise they are in the red zone.
“Usually a little bit of oxygen at a clinic can get them through. You can prevent complications that way,” says Dr Francesca Conradie, deputy director of the Clinical HIV Research Unit at Wits University, adding that “We are beginning to run short of oxygen in public hospitals and clinics.”
You don’t need ventilators for this stage of illness but can deliver oxygen through a mask or use high flow nasal oxygen, which has worked well in the Western Cape….
At clinics, the first port of call for eight in 10 people in Gauteng and Johannesburg who are sick, tanks of oxygen are running out.

***

New York Times columnist and author, Nicholas Kristoff writes,

One of the puzzles had been that even as coronavirus infections were rising over the last month, Covid-19 deaths were still dropping. President Trump bragged that this was because the United States was doing the right thing. Epidemiologists said that was simply because of lags: It often takes a month after infection for someone to die. They were right, for deaths are now swinging up again, up about 50 percent higher than they were a week earlier.
We may have 200,000 Covid-19 deaths in America by Election Day, and that’s by the undercount that we’re all using (the real total may be about 30,000 higher, based on “excess deaths” reported by local authorities). This toll reflects a staggering failure of governance, for the United States has 4 percent of the world’s population but a quarter of the world’s deaths.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch…

A recent email update from the City of Alameda (where I live in California):

As of this morning, there are 121 cases of COVID-19 in the City of Alameda, up from 92 last week. Alameda County has 7,725 cases with 140 current hospitalizations and 148 deaths. The State of California has 304,297 cases and 6,851 deaths. The US continues to lead every other country in the world in cases and deaths with more than 3 million cases and 134,349 deaths. Across the world, the caseload increased by over 229,000 yesterday, with over 12.5 million cases and 561,311 deaths.

Now, that level of detail makes this control freak happy.

 

Day 107 Saturday, July 11 - Broken records

The United States broke another record for daily rates of confirmed infections - for the seventh time in 11 days.
New US cases surpass 68,000/day while the WHO reports 228,102 new cases.

The number of COVID-19 cases in South Africa has risen to 250,687 – more than a quarter of a million. Infections continue to surge around the country, including villages around here.

News blues…

Follow the money? Major US corporations and companies linked to Trump associates got business loans. Payroll Protection Program funds went, instead, to Trump pals and not to the protection of tax-paying, working people. Yet another case of Trump being Trump?

Republicans agree to work together to force Trump from office in November.  (8:36 mins)

***

The Lincoln Project, The MAGA Church.   (1.08 mins)
Sarah Cooper does:

• Trump on the 4th of July (4:14 mins)
• How to mask (0.58 mins)

Meanwhile, back at the ranch…

After three days of warnings about the impending once-a-decade weather system, it came … and it went! (Our immediate area got off lightly in comparison to the hail storms that hit close by.)

For the first time in a week, I ventured out for a quick walk around the neighborhood. By the time I arrived back home, daylight had turned to twilight and thunder drummed in the distance.
Soon, a smattering of hail the size of marbles fell, followed by sheets of rain.
I signed with relief: at least the rain would extinguish smoldering embers from fires that had raged last night.
I had been working on my laptop, my back to the picture window, when I’d heard rustling and cracking.
Alarmed, I wondered if my abuser had returned?
Instead, when I looked out the window, I saw walls of flame shooting high into the air.
Smoke-laden wind gusted, and flames danced as I dialed frantically to alert someone, anyone, that our house could ignite.
Where were the darned fire trucks and fire fighters?

The flames receed.

I reached our new security services providers who explained that the “fire brigade” was occupied with other fires - one in Mpophemeni and two more in the adjacent village. They’d attend to this fire as time allowed.

Frantic, I knew that if the tinder-dry trees surrounding the house ignited, the house could ignite.
I needed to “liberate” my mother.
For, somehow, she and her two domestic workers have evolved a convoluted night-time sequence that locks my mother and her seven pampered mongrels inside overnight and liberates them early next morning.
Anyone paying attention to the details would realize that the complicated mass of keys and locks and procedures involved means that my mother cannot quickly evacuate the building in an emergency. She forgets she has a set of keys and she awaits the workers to unlock the doors.
I’ve worried about and tried to alert her to the dangers.
I successfully addressed her habit of lighting a candle at night by purchasing and placing a small fire extinguisher next to her bed.
But a small extinguisher cannot handle a conflagration. “Besides,” she’d laughed, “I can’t remember how to use it.”
Naturally, she pooh-poohs my concerns.

As the fire raged outside, I roused one domestic worker and we unlocked my mother’s doors and burglar guards.
Tellingly, my mother, surrounded by dogs and happily watching TV, had been blissfully unaware of the fire. This, even as she watched the security monitor display billowing smoke. She’d judged it fog.

After the flames receded, we locked up my mother and her dogs, again … and went to bed.
Takeaways?
1) I’ve lived away for so long, I’d forgotten that “veld fires” are a feature of South African winters, indeed, burning is part of Africa’s natural ecology. (As a child growing up in a rural area, I’d loved joining informal firefighting crews armed with wet sacks to beat back flames.)
2) I’ve become accustomed to life in California where fire trucks and fire fighters are the solution to fires.
3) “veld” and brush fires are a far cry from the infamous climate-change-related wildfires that, over the past decade, have burned hundreds of thousands of acres of rural California.
4) And, this household needs a plan everyone can buy into that ensures my mother is safe at night – and easily liberated.

Day 106   Friday, July 10 - Load shedding

Covid-19 has forced the temporary closure of two local banks, the police station, a government clinic, even a (private) hospital in our village to allow for deep sanitizing before reopening.
Looks as if the last 15 weeks were a rehearsal for the start of the real drama….

Checking my cell phone for news while at the courthouse today (story below), I learned that, after 4 months of uninterrupted supply of electricity, Eskom's load shedding was imminent.
Eskom is South Africa’s State-owned Enterprise/parastatal that generates 95 percent of southern Africa’s energy: about 45 percent is consumed in South Africa and the rest exported to Botswana, eSwatini, Lesotho, Mozambique, Namibia, Zambia, and Zimbabwe.
Load shedding a la South Africa, the interruption of supply to avoid excessive load on electricity generating plants, is supposed to be the measure of last resort to prevent the country-wide collapse of the power system and to balance the energy grid.
Seventy-seven percent of South Africa's energy needs come directly from coal with 81 percent of all coal consumed domestically going to the production of electricity. (Fun fact: Eskom emits at least 42 percent of South Africa's total greenhouse gas emissions.)
Chronic power shortages began in 2007.
Eskom has blamed everything from diesel shortages, inclement weather, wet coal, no coal, malfunctioning turbines, employee problems, and "unexplained incidents". But the root causes are gross mismanagement and rampant corruption. (Two huge new power stations—Medupi and Kusile—are years behind schedule and billions of dollars over budget.)
So far, the tally for lost revenue stands at more than ZAR72 billion, with an additional ZAR716 million spent by businesses on backup generators.
Small business owners in South Africa report load shedding was the number one challenge they faced in Q1 of 2019. At least 40 percent of small businesses lost more than 20 percent of their revenue during that period.
While short duration outages occurred in the last four months, none were defined as load shedding. Perhaps Covid-19 discouraged it – at least until today.
Imagine: hospitals without power during a pandemic.

News blues…

University of the Witwatersrand Professor Shabir Madhi said airborne transmission of Covid-19 is a reality and has been underestimated… and that this explains the rapid rate at which the coronavirus is being transmitted.
Madhi warned that it is now more important than ever for everyone to wear masks.

***

Dr. Anthony Fauci, the [US’s] top infectious disease expert, said Thursday that the country was not doing well as cases of the coronavirus continue to surge nationwide, and he placed some of the blame on a divisive culture that has politicized efforts to fight the pandemic.

***

And, The Unclear on the Concept Award goes to:
Republican Senator Del Marsh of Alabama said he’s “not concerned” about the current spike in cases of the coronavirus in that state.

“Quite honestly, I want to see more people, because we start reaching an immunity as more people have it and get through it. … I don’t want any deaths — as few as possible… So those people who are susceptible to the disease, especially those with preexisting conditions, elderly population, those folks, we need to do all we can to protect them. But I’m not concerned. I want to make sure that everybody can receive care. And right now we have, to my knowledge as of today, we still have ample beds.”

Someone should mention to Del Marsh that his “knowledge as of today” is faulty.
A recent study by the Spanish government and the country’s leading epidemiologists… found that just 5 percent of those tested across the country maintained antibodies to the virus.

Moreover, with 60,000-and-climbing new cases per day in the US,

Health experts cautioned that it was too early to predict a continuing trend from only a few days of data. But the rising pace of deaths … followed weeks of mounting cases … and suggested an end to the country’s nearly three-month period of declines in daily counts of virus deaths.

***

Daily Maverick webinars

• "War Party: How the ANC’s political killings are breaking South Africa.”
  A virtual book launch with Sam Sole and author Greg Ardé.
• “Emerging stronger: building an economically and environmentally resilient post-Covid
  world.”   Hosted by Ferial Haffajee with Nicole Martens and Tarryn Sankar
• “The Accidental Mayor: Herman Mashaba and the battle for Johannesburg.” 
  Hosted by Greg Nicolson with Herman Mashaba.

***

A new MeidasTouch ad, Creepy.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch…

Assisted by a member of the new security provider team, I went to court to apply for a Protection Order against my harasser.
We arrived before 9am…and departed at 2:15pm.
We arrived prepared with paperwork and audio recordings, passed through security and the Covid testing station (temperature taken, hands sanitized, tracing document signed) passed paperwork on to administrators, and … waited… and waited… and waited – of course, wearing masks the whole time.
One of two magistrates was out quarantined with suspected Covid exposure.
I’d been warned that a Protection Order may not be granted, that I must present a convincing case. As it turned out, instead of a formal sit-down with the magistrate, I chatted briefly with him in the hallway when he told me he’d reviewed the documentation and granted the Order.
Relief!
Next step: police or security personnel will find the perp – not easy – and hand deliver paperwork to him. (I suggested they seek him in the illegal shebeen!)
Court date: August 5.
Three weeks away.
I’d allowed myself to fantasize about a window seat in a half-empty repatriation flight – via Amsterdam – to San Francisco.
I guess that ain’t happenin’…
But, I shed some of the load I'd been carry about threats to my life.

Week 15: Day 105 Thursday, July 9 -  Pestilence, thunderstorm, and a locust

I was tempted to comment on how the surging global pandemic plays into biblical prophecies - water to blood, frogs, boils, locusts, pestilence, etc. That, however, would be in poor taste under the circumstances, and likely brand me a Bible-based conspiracy theorist. The coming storm, however, has “DISASTER MANAGEMENT TEAMS ON HIGH ALERT AS INTENSE COLD FRONT SET TO AFFECT PARTS OF KZN.”

KZN MEC for Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs (Cogta) Sipho Hlomuka has placed disaster management teams on alert across the province following a warning from the South African Weather Service. The warning indicates that an intense cold front could hit parts of the province on Thursday going into the weekend. The cold front is expected to bring the possibility of heavy rains, flooding, gale-force winds and snowfall in high-lying areas. Hlomuka has urged residents across the province to exercise caution as the expected change in weather conditions could pose a serious risk to human life. “We are appealing to residents to take this warning seriously and to put in place the necessary measures to protect themselves and their families. Teachers and parents are requested to ensure that learners utilise safe routes on their commute to and back from school,” said Hlomuka. "As a province, we take this weather alert seriously and we will be monitoring the situation, especially in areas that we know are prone to localised flooding. We are urging all motorists to be extra vigilant as roads can become slippery. We call for extra caution when crossing bridges, especially in low-lying areas, and we also urge residents to avoid crossing rivers. Those residing in low-lying areas are urged to seek shelter on higher ground”.

Meanwhile, the country struggles to keep up with Covid cases  … and the occasional locust flitting about in this garden gives one pause. (Perhaps these are stragglers from the devasting locust swarms plaguing East Africa?) Covid-19 has the upper hand, with confirmed cases soaring:

• July 9 - worldwide: 12,041,500 confirmed infections; 549,470 deaths      July 2 - worldwide: 10,729,340 confirmed infections; 517,055 deaths
• July 9 – US: 3,054,800 infections; 132,300 deaths      July 2 – US: 2,688,250 infections; 128,104 deaths
• July 9 - SA: 224,665 infections; 3,602 deaths      July 2 - SA: 159,333 infections; 2,749 deaths

[Predictions suggest] that Gauteng, a province of 15 million people, will overtake the southern tip of the country as the centre of the crisis. Numbers here are now set to breach total infections of 70,000, and the epidemic has reached the point where almost everyone knows someone who has Covid-19. Total official deaths are still low at 403, but doctors have told Daily Maverick that classification of deaths may mean the numbers are higher, as this Medical Research Council report revealed at the end of June. And within the province, the Covid-19 centre in Johannesburg had a total of almost 32,000 cases by 7 July, with recoveries at about one in three. Both Soweto and the inner city are chalking up big numbers of infections, showing that the coronavirus has moved from suburb to township.

Doctor says, “There are no more beds…”

We have probably by this week run out of capacity to treat people. And it makes you feel useless as a doctor to have to say that to someone. But there’s nothing else we can do. … What you can do as an individual is protect your neighbour, friends and colleagues by staying away from them, keeping your mask on and washing your hands. There’s not much else you can do other than that, really.

News blues…

The US is tearing apart with Trump versus health scientists , US surpassing records with 59,000 confirmed Covid cases in one day Map to track coronavirus’ global spread 

***

The Lincoln Project’s new ad, Names  names names…. Their promo:

Don’t ever forget who enabled Donald Trump. Donald Trump wrecked the Republican Party and then he wrecked this nation. Most Republican senators stood by and said nothing while he did it. Many of them enabled it. Some of them made it worse. Remember their names: Mitch McConnell. Lindsey Graham. Thom Tillis. Cory Gardner. Martha McSally. Ted Cruz. Joni Ernst. Marco Rubio. Susan Collins. John Cornyn. Jim Inhofe. Mike Rounds. Steve Daines. Tom Cotton. For The Lincoln Project, stopping Trump is just half the battle. Any of these Republicans could have stepped up. They could have held the President accountable. They could have spoken the truth. They could have voted for his removal. But, every time they had a choice between America or Trump: they chose Trump. We’re never going to forget it. We know you won’t, either. They too must be defeated. We’re putting this ad up in their home states, so their voters know their cowardice and betrayals.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch…

Setting up a new security system provides unexpected opportunities to gauge one’s new service provider. After the new provider’s technician switched the hardware yesterday, I forgot to test the system. After nightfall, upon attempting to arm the security system, we discovered the exterior system was disconnected. The technician had switched the interior but not the exterior system. I called the new provider and we discussed, first, setting two guards on the property overnight. That, however, would provoke anxiety in my elderly mother who has access to the CCTV monitor. (She’d see unfamiliar faces and be unsure if they’d were guards or potential perps.) Ultimately, we agreed the guards would patrol outside property as part of their regular neighborhood duties. This resulted in regular security vehicle drivebys with bright white zig zag lights flashing and an even brighter spotlight raking the property at regular intervals. Hmmm. Moreover, my mother was too anxious to sleep. She reports staying awake all night, eyes glued to the CCTV. The new security provider arrived early this morning to connect the exterior system. As of now, all appears well.

Day 104  Wednesday, July 8 - A cold wind gonna blow

South Africans brace for an onslaught of cold and wet weather – potentially “the most eventful winter weekend in Southern Africa in many years.”
It’s expected sometime tomorrow although temperatures have already dropped – albeit not yet low enough to cover plants overnight. 

News blues…

Whispers, the latest Lincoln Project ad targets Donald Trump’s core vulnerabilities: his narcissistic paranoia, fear of not being adored, and his obsession with sycophantic displays of loyalty. The Lincoln Project’s promotional material for Whispers:

Donald Trump is sinking in the polls. He's tried to ignore COVID-19 and the Russian bounty scandal, but he can’t ignore the whispers.
Now the sharks are circling and his staff keeps leaking to the press about how mentally weak and physically weak he is, how he can’t focus, and why he hides in a bunker when it matters most.
Their whispers are only going to get bolder and louder before November.
This is just what a few of them would say on the record.

• "We are witnessing the consequences of three years without mature leadership.”
          —Former Secretary of Defense James Mattis, The Atlantic, June 3, 2020
• “Remained stunningly uninformed on how to run the White House.”
            —Former National Security Advisor John Bolton, The Room Where it Happened
• “An idiot.”
             —Former White House Chief of Staff John Kelly to Bob Woodward, Fear: Trump in the White House
• “A racist, misogynist, and bigot.”
              —Former Assistant to the President Omarosa Manigault Newman, Unhinged
• “A f***ing moron.”
              —Former Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, NBC News, Oct. 4, 2017

In an interview, Trump is asked how he responds to people “wounding” him. He explains, “I unwound myself.” 

Meanwhile, back at the ranch…

I paid ZAR15 (US $0.88) to a roadside vendor for 20kgs of “kraal manure” to use as compost amendment. (FYI: a “kraal” is a traditional African enclosure for cattle, goats, and sheep.) A year ago, the last thing on my mind was poop…or a pandemic… or Lockdown.

***

What’s known as a Temporary Restraining Order (TRO) in the US is known, in South Africa, as a Protection Order (of Section 2(1) of the Protection from Harassment Act).
Today, our newly hired security services provider team dropped by to process the paperwork, reconfigure the security system hardware, and help me fill out and prepare documentation to apply for a Protection Order against further death threats.
My impression is Protection Orders are not a slam dunk. Perhaps that explains why South Africa has “the highest number of cases of violence against women in the world… [and] one in four men [having] committed sexual crimes.”
I’ll approach the court on Friday, armed with Form 2 – 11 pages that include application, information regarding acts of harassment, particulars of respondent, and information regarding urgency of application – along with a description of the episode and my email correspondence with the US Consulate in SA.
The Consulate can’t/won’t do much as “it is a civil matter” but suggests I file a police report and “insist on opening charges against your abuser.” 
The use of “insist” is instructive. 
I doubt more insistence would have moved either the police or the former security services provider any closer toward warning, never mind charging, my abuser. 
Both gave the impression they couldn’t have cared less – and intended to spend no time on trivial threats of death and great bodily harm. 

Day 103  Tuesday, July 7 - How did we get here?*

Covid-19 has the world in turmoil. How did we get to almost half a million dead and 12 million infected - and the world’s wealthiest country racking up a quarter of those cases, 3 million?
The strangest part?
While running errands today, I noticed that most people on the streets don’t wear masks - not even “chin covers”!

News blues…

I began following the work of The Lincoln Project last May when I wrote:

To the extent that I appreciate The Lincoln Project’s sense of humor, dedication to principle, and growing list of succinct ads, I declare myself an “Honorary” Lincoln Project Republican. (Read the post about the context of “honorary.”) 

Some views presented in The Lincoln Project’s ads are antithetical to my views and I don’t post them. Politico, however, published a thoughtful article by Joanna Weiss, “What the Lincoln Project Ad Makers Get About Voters (and What Dems Don’t)”. Excerpts:

…How has one renegade super PAC managed to trigger Trump and his allies so thoroughly? Part of it is surely frustration that a group of Republicans would issue a full-throated endorsement of Joe Biden. Part of it is skill: the Lincoln Project ads are slick, quick and filled with damning quotes and unflattering photos. But part of it might just be that Republicans are better at this than Democrats. Trump may sense that these ads are especially dangerous because they pack an emotional punch, using imagery designed to provoke anxiety, anger and fear—aimed at the very voters who were driven to him by those same feelings in 2016. And history, even science, suggests that might in fact be the case—that Republicans have a knack for scaring the hell out of people, and that makes for some potent ads.
…Research shows there’s a reason these ads could be effective with Republicans voters: Conservatives are an especially fear-prone group. In a 2008 paper in the journal Science, researchers subjected a group of adults with strong political beliefs to a set of startling noises and graphic images. Those with the strongest physical reactions were more likely to support capital punishment, defense spending and the war in Iraq. A 2011 paper in the journal Cell found a correlation between conservative leanings and the size of the right amygdala, the portion of the brain that processes emotions in response to fearful stimuli. In her book Irony and Outrage, University of Delaware professor Dannagal Young points out that liberals and conservatives respond differently to entertainment rhetoric: Liberals have a higher tolerance for open-ended ambiguity, while conservatives look for closure and want problems to be solved.

Read Joanna Weiss’thoughtful article.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch…

Yesterday’s post addressed obsessions one can develop during Lockdown. I also described someone else’s obsession: to snuff me out! 
Amazed at the lack of effective action by our private security company and the police, I penned an article about the experience for a local weekly newspaper that will be published in next week’s (print) edition:

Justice, South African style
I was recently verbally abused, and life and limb threatened, by my 87-year-old mother’s domestic worker’s son, a 40-year-old child-man. This, because, drunk again, he acted out his anger at being legally dislodged, two years ago, from mother’s Merrivale property. He’d squatted there for six months, drunk, unemployed, rent-free, and with full board, lodging, and laundry service.
He stood outside the upper gate and I recorded on my cell phone his obscenity- and death threat-laden harangue while I waited for our private security services provider and SAPS.
Both arrived within half an hour of my call. Then things got interesting. Both were a sharp contrast to what occurs in my home state, California.
For the last several years, I have spent several months each year in Merrivale caring for my fragile mother. This year, I was due to return to California on 21 May, four days before George Floyd was murdered by police in Minneapolis.
Lockdown prevents me from returning to the US where, concurrent with the pandemic, massive protests rage against police violence.
Police violence, and protesting police violence, is nothing new in the US. I’ve experienced several convulsive protests: Rodney King (1991), Oscar Grant (2009), Eric Garner (2014), and too many similar killings – few of which have resulted in police officer convictions. America, the can-do country, armed to the teeth, believes in going beyond the call of law-enforcement’s duty to crack down on resisting arrest, civil dissent, or, depending on the color of your skin, on nothing much at all.
I am more anarchist than law-and-order uber alles. Nevertheless, words, deeds, and actions contrary to a human’s and a society’s rights must be recognized effectively.
A drunk, abusive, and life-threatening perpetrator should be listened to as intently as a sober victim. Should not the benefit of the doubt, however, be afforded the victim when the abuser, a convicted rapist, publicly threatens rape, mayhem, even murder?
Apparently not in this section of KwaZulu Natal.
Both security service provider and SAPS listened to my abuser, encouraged him to pull up his britches, then prepared to drive away with nary a word to me. I had to wave them down to learn that 1) I could make a police report if I wished – at the police station, but 2) “Covid”, the officer implied, prevented the generation of a police report.
Then, both private security and SAPS drove off, leaving my abuser to continue his foul harangue outside my gate.
Would I have preferred he was physically beaten, handcuffed, a knee held to this neck?
Not at all. But perhaps he could have been placed in a vehicle – or a cell – until he sobered up?
Instead, at sunset, he returned, even more drunk, to the lower gate – opposite my bedroom window – and began a more graphic series of threats (also recorded on my cell phone).
I’ve heard nothing further from the private security firm nor SAPS.
I have, however, cancelled my account with that private security firm. I‘ve engaged a more proactive team that is working with me to apply for a restraining order.
Do I expect a miracle? No. But recognition of my rights as a human would be nice.

Thoughts? (email raisingsandradio – at – gmail.com)

* Listen to Talking Heads, Once in a Lifetime. 

Day 102 Monday, July 6 - Obsessions, cont'd

Obsessions have their place during a pandemic. I've addressed a smattering of mine in earlier posts. Some obsessions have lessened (battery charge level graphs), some are lessening (making compost), and one is in the first stages of development.
I admit a growing obession with my personal safety.
This, because someone else’s growing obsession is to “shoot” me, “kill” me, and perpetrate great bodily harm.
More on this below, but first – a developing, harmless, obsession:

• June 25: sunrise 6:52am; sunset 5:08pm
• June 30: sunrise: 6:53am; sunset: 5:10pm
• July 1: sunrise: 6:53am; sunset: 5:11pm
• July 5: sunrise: 6:53am; sunset: 5:12 pm
• July 6: sunrise: 6:53am; sunset: 5:12 pm

Every few days we add a minute more of daylight yet sunrise time remains constant.
Why?
Broad explanation: Instead of a perfectly-circular orbit, Earth's orbit around the Sun is slightly elliptical… The combination of Earth's elliptical orbit and the tilt of its axis results in the Sun taking different paths across the sky at slightly different speeds each day. This gives us different sunrise and sunset times each day.
In the southern hemisphere,

“We may have reached our shortest day, but unfortunately it will be a few more weeks before our mornings get any brighter. In fact, sunrise will shift slightly later (by a couple of minutes) and it won’t be until well into July that the trend will shift. (See a deeper explanation with illustration.) 

News blues…

Nothing much new happening in the news. Infection rates go up. Income and employment rates go down.
Trump and other leaders appear as confused as ever – to the chagrin of health workers and scientists agog but seemingly powerless.

The Lincoln Project continues to churn out ads: Historic 

Meanwhile, back at the ranch…

Context: My mother owned/ran a country hotel for 60 years. She was forced to sell when industry moved in. She purchased a large house 50 miles away (much higher elevation) and brought along two long-term domestic workers.
One domestic worker has a 40-year-old ne’er-do-well son who, in the past, was convicted of and served prison time for rape.
Two years ago, while I was in California, that domestic worker persuaded my mother to allow the son to move onto the property.
My mother agreed.
He’d been here six months – lounging around, drinking, not working - when I arrived from California.
One morning, he was so drunk by 11am that he had to sidle along the walls of the house to stay upright.
Next day, I told him to leave.
It took a lawyer’s letter and several days to evict him (while the domestic worker repeatedly asked my mother to reconsider).

Fast forward: Last week, as I mixed compost outside, a drunk passed along the road, shouting obscenities directed at me by name.
I figured it was the son, still smarting over his ouster. Still jobless. Still supported by his mother (he’s fathered children he does not support).

Yesterday morning, the drunk showed up outside the upper gate. For more than an hour he stood there and harangued: “you Susan, you’re in danger: I’m going to shoot you; I’m going to [perform lewd sex acts upon] you” … on and on. I recorded much of it on my cell phone.
Even my usually passive mother paid attention, albeit wishy-washy.
I called our security services provider and the police.
Both arrived (a miracle the police actually arrived).
Neither did anything beyond suggest he stop yelling.
Police said they couldn’t do anything about the incident because of “Covid”.
Security services took my name.
Both drove away, leaving the perp still shouting.

On advice of a friend, I called a different security services provider that also runs a citizens’ task force in the neighborhood. We discussed how to get a restraining order. It’s tough: Lockdown affects courts’ open hours.

Last night, dark, 5:45pm, the drunk showed up again, this time at the lower gate that’s opposite my bedroom.
Yet more, and more explicit, threatens against my life and limb. All recorded.

A woman came from the local shebeen and chased him back there (his antics call attention to, therefore endanger, her business).
(A shebeen is an illegal “bush” pub that sells cheap, potent alcoholic bevs.)
The new security service put two watchmen in the neighborhood. Apparently, my incident is one of several, most of which involve invasion of property and crop and animal theft.
The next few days will be… interesting….

Day 101 Sunday, July 5 - Day of rest

Fifteen Sundays and counting....
Late summer, to autumn/fall, into winter and Lockdown continues….
According to President Cyril Ramaphosa, South Africa “won't be moving back to Levels 4 or 5 of the lockdown despite the rapid increase of COVID-19 infections. [Instead, he’s] calling on South Africans to protect themselves through social distancing, washing of hands and wearing masks.”

News blues…

• Watch President Ramaphosa assess Mpumalanga’s response to Covid-19 (11:00 mins)
• South Africa on Saturday reported more than 10,000 new coronavirus infections, the highest daily jump on record for the country [so far]. … [Gauteng] health ministry showed 10,853 new confirmed COVID-19 cases, taking the cumulative tally since March when the virus first arrived in the country to 187,977.  (Gauteng will soon surpass 50,000 COVID-19 infections; death toll at 282. "By the end of the weekend, we would have passed 50,000 going towards 60,000.")
• In the Land of the Free and “exceptional” US, Trump,
  ...delivered another deeply divisive speech to mark Independence Day… comparing the US's fight against Nazis and terrorists to his efforts to defeat "the radical left" in the US and accusing social justice protesters of trying to destroy America. 

Same old Trump.
And same old cronyism comorbid with the other virus raging through the White House – denial, lying, deflection  – as Trump’s trade adviser and Whackjob Peter Navarro rants Whackadoodle-itude.

***

• The Lincoln Project’s new: Gettysburg 
• Jimmy Kimmel’s “… Donald Trump Added to Mount Rushmore”

Meanwhile, back at the ranch…

Ah, Sunday. A day of rest.
I’ll take it!
And I'll mix more compost!

Day 100 Saturday, July 4 - Handed trash? Make compost!

New York Governor Andrew Cuomo 

demonstrates how to wear a mask.

© CBSNew York 

Click to enlarge

These days of surging pandemic, even America and Americans see the value of face masks in reducing the risk of contracting Covid-19.

News blues...

Formerly resistant mask-deniers now urge their use. (Texas; Republicans;  Ohio;  California; even Trump-sycophant Pence.)
Donald Trump?
Not so much. “Trump Trip to Mt. Rushmore, Masks & Social Distancing Not Required”
This, while the US leads the world in number of infections: closing in on 3 million.
Trump, the “stable genius,” focuses on what’s really important: lying, obfuscation, and ignorant division:

… [Trump made] an impassioned appeal to his base while in the shadow of Mount Rushmore [and] instead of striking a unifying tone, railing against what he called a "merciless campaign" by his political foes to erase history by removing monuments some say are symbols of racial oppression.
"As we meet here tonight there is a growing danger that threatens every blessing our ancestors fought so hard for," Trump warned.
"Our nation is witnessing a merciless campaign to wipe out our history, defame our heroes, erase our values and indoctrinate our children." 

Many Native Americans would agree with Trump about “a merciless campaign to wipe out our history, defame our heroes, erase our values and indoctrinate our children.”
Unfortunately, Trump is ignorant of history – and irony – and fails to recognize how apt is his summary of Native American history since the first boatload of Pilgrims set foot in North America.

For many Native Americans, the 79-year-old Mount Rushmore, with four white faces carved into the granite, is a symbol of similar oppression, especially offensive because it's located in South Dakota's Black Hills, which they regard with reverence. 

Trump is a 19th century throwback longing for the good old days when the rabble knew its place and could be/was abused at whim and will.
He’s Cecil John Rhodes without the horse - or the self-made wealth. (FYI: Rhodes apparently was frightened of horses and loathed horse riding. Sickly as a youth and never robust, he was depicted on horseback because it made him look tall and manly.)
Who will have the last laugh?
Good question.
We, the People – and I mean the people around the world – must come together to stand up to Trumpism and the laissez-faire attitude of politicians (looking at you Republicans and Democrats). If we don’t, we are – and democracy is - sunk . Already struggling, We, the People could easily be back in the position of rabble abused at whim and will…
Consider the latest direction of US federal regulators who,

... quietly shredded the most significant banking reform enacted after the 2008 financial crisis last month. When they were done, they patted banks on the back for continuing to shovel cash to their shareholders.
Not a single Democratic regulatory appointee voted for the measure to strip what was left of the Volcker Rule of its meaning. Congress approved the Volcker Rule in 2010 as part of the Dodd-Frank financial reform package, which was meant to curb excessive risk-taking at the nation’s largest banks by barring them from making speculative bets in securities markets for their own benefit. The rule also forbade banks from holding a financial interest in hedge funds or private equity funds that were involved in such markets.
That principle has been under assault in the decade since. In a concession to Wall Street, the original law allowed big banks to invest up to 3% of their capital in hedge funds and other speculative vehicles and turned the issue over to regulators to hash out the details. The result was nearly 300 pages of loopholes and exemptions.
Last week, regulators at the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. (FDIC) simply shredded what was left of the statute. Under the new interpretation, bank investments in venture capital funds are wholly exempted from the rule, as are investments in funds that focus on long-term debt investments. 

A significant problem, of course, is that Trumpies, "his base", anti-vaxxers, conspiracy theorists, “the poorly-educated”, the “Basket of Deplorables”, you, me, Antifa, people whose views we dislike, etc., must be included and have a say in our collective future.
The world has had more than 2,020 years to figure out how to come together and live generatively. We’ve failed.
Can we do it now, under pressure?
To speak metaphorically: handed trash and bulls***, can we make compost?

***

Anti-Trump ads come so thick and fast these days it is hard to keep track. Moreover, how many times can We the People be shown the dismal failure of the Trump presidency without tuning out?
Overkill is real. One can see too much of a point of view.
Having said that, here are a couple of new ads/editorials:

• Alfred Hitchcock presents Trump 
• If you’ve missed Sarah Cooper’s Trump How to, voice-overs, here’s a compilation 
• The Lincoln Project : “Betrayed” 

Meanwhile, back at the ranch…

Concrete mixer = a blessing for titrating compost ingredients.
Who knew the satisfaction of watching – and sniffing the healthy aroma of – compost as it tumbles in a concrete mixer?
Excellent compost is, of course, made around the world without fossil-fuel-energy-consuming mixers.
I, however, have limited physical strength and I find the recycled (free) mixer liberating.
Three bags full of compost await spreading to nourish seeds.
Naturally, Murphy’s Law is in play (summarized: what can go wrong, will go wrong). I spent half an hour troubleshooting why the elderly electric mixer wasn’t powering up, and another hour repairing the elderly three-prong plug – twice! – before mixing commenced.
All appears well; another day of composting awaits.

Week 14: Day 98 Thursday, July 2 - Those pesky numbers

Week 14's pesky numbers compared to Week 13's

• July 2 - worldwide: 10,729,340 confirmed infections; 517,055 deaths
  June 25 - worldwide: 9,409,000 confirmed infections; 482,190 deaths
• July 2 – US: 2,688,250 infections; 128,104 deaths
  June 25 - US: 2,381,540 infections; 121,980 deaths
• July 2 - SA: 159,333 infections; 2,749 deaths
  June 25 - SA: 111,800 confirmed infections; 2,205 deaths

And, despite all the staying at home going on around the world, atmospheric CO2 continues its upward trajectory

• 27 June 2020: 416.05 parts per million
• This time last year: 413.50 ppm
• 10 years ago: 391.44 ppm
• Pre-industrial base: 280ppm
• Safe level: 350ppm

Reading from Mauna Loa, Hawaii . (Source: NOAA-ESRL)
Scientists have warned for more than a decade that concentrations of more than 450ppm risk triggering extreme weather events of temperature rises as high as 2C, beyond which the effects of global heating are likely to become catastrophic and irreversible.

News blues…

A brief scan of new numbers:

• Gauteng’s Health MEC expects “Covid-19 cases to reach 120 000 by the end of July. "Our predictions tell us that we will be … getting closer to 250 000 to 300 000 by August, [and in] September which is expected to be the peak, we will be having more than that," Dr Bandile Masuku told News24 on Wednesday. 
• The SA government’s official coronavirus figures could be missing more than half the deaths caused by the pandemic, a new report from the Medical Research Council (MRC) reveals. 
• As a number of US states reversed course on their reopening plans amid spiking case counts, Trump told Fox Business in an interview that he still believed the virus would simply go away on its own. “I think we’re gonna be very good with the coronavirus,” he said. “I think that at some point that’s going to sort of just disappear, I hope.” 
• With 4 percent of the world’s population, the US accounts for a quarter of worldwide coronavirus deaths. On Wednesday, the US reported 49,932 new coronavirus cases, the fifth single-day case record in eight days…. North Carolina, Tennessee and Texas also hit daily records, with Texas reaching more than 8,000 new infections. 
• The US experienced 15,400 'excess deaths' from March to April 4 compared with last year, suggesting coronavirus death toll is higher than known, according to an analysis conducted for The Washington Post. During the same time period, the official death count from COVID-19 was 8,128. The discrepancy exists in data from around the world, and suggests the true number of coronavirus-related deaths is being significantly undercounted. New Orleans Health Director Jennifer Avegno believes the actual death toll may be 15 percent higher than what is officially reported.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch…

Ah, the satisfaction that comes with recycling an elderly concrete mixer into a compost mixer….
For months, I’ve composted kitchen scraps and collected leaves, ash from veld fires, pond weed, sawdust, peat, vermiculite, even excavated soil from mole hills….
Today, those ingredients – including earthworms - went into the concrete mixer… and came out as sweet smelling, fecund, garden soil. (Earthworms came out dizzy but alive – and ready, I think, for the upcoming garden phase.)
Figuring out how to start the mixer was a challenge. Incentivized by a potential 220-volt jolt if I got it wrong, I consulted the Internet – which wasn’t much help. I spent some time searching for the on/off switch, then, finally, realized there was only a three-prong plug to push into a live socket.
Voila!
It was hard work, but the sweet smell of compost made it all worthwhile!

***

(c) Charles J Sharp, Sharp Photography
Click to enlarge.

Yesterday, I spotted a Giant Kingfisher perched on the overhead electric power cable peering into the garden pond.
It was in the same spot today.
The Giant Kingfisher is Africa’s largest kingfisher species – up to 18 inches tall – and it dives from its perch to catch crabs, fish, and frogs.
In this set of four photos by Charles J Sharp, a female Giant Kingfisher returns to perch with a tilapia from Lake Naivasha, Kenya. She smashes the fish against a post to break its spine.

Ah, can’t help thinking of my goldfish!
Haven’t seen goldfish fin nor tail for weeks. I assumed they’d dived deep for warmth.
Would the Giant Kingfisher offer any insight into goldfish whereabouts?

Day 97 Wednesday, July 1 - No immunity in the community

What does it mean when members of a country’s elected governing body does nothing while the leader of a major country refuses to lead during a pandemic, shuns advice, and chooses to play golf and Tweet (“The Lone Warrior”) rather than attend to deadly perils that citizens face?
One of my friends would answer: “It means a decadent ruling class…”
Another friend would say that “It means the governing body is maneuvering behind the scenes to solidify their positions….”
Another friend would say, “It means they’re all fascists….”
(I love my friends for their points of view: never a dull moment.)
I would answer: It means We, the People of the world, are in deep, deep trouble….

News blues…

Testifying at the Senate coronavirus hearing yesterday, Dr Anthony Fauci said, “We are now seeing 40,000 cases [of Covid infections] per day. I won’t be surprised if we see 100,000 per day if this does not turn around. I am very concerned.”

Trump, meanwhile, has been largely silent on the continued spike in cases, instead focusing on vandalized statues and his own ego. As more than 40,000 new cases and more than 800 new deaths were reported in the U.S., the president was busy tweeting “photos of 15 people the U.S. Park Police said it is attempting to identify ‘who are responsible for vandalizing property’ in a park in front of the White House.” 

Moreover, to celebrate July 4th this year, Trump plans to insert himself amongst George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Theodore Roosevelt, and Abraham Lincoln on Mount Rushmore.

President Donald Trump and first lady Melania Trump will travel to Mt. Rushmore National Memorial in Keystone, South Dakota, on Friday for an early Fourth of July fireworks celebration and flyover, the first of its kind in more than a decade. The event will gather "thousands" together during a global pandemic with no social distancing, and comes amid a national conversation on monuments with racist histories.

Need I add masks and social distancing will be optional?

Another point of view regarding the wearing of masks.

Most examples of people failing to follow social distancing measures [in the UK] are not evidence of individual selfishness, said John Drury, a professor at the University of Sussex and one of the country’s leading behavioral psychologists, but rather of the hardships that many face and the failure of public officials to offer clear guidance or provide for their needs.
“Despite media campaigns to vilify some people as selfish and thoughtless ‘covidiots,’ the evidence on reasons for non‐adherence shows that much of it was practical rather than psychological,” Drury and his colleagues wrote in a recent paper in the British Journal of Social Psychology. “Many people had to cram into Tube trains to go to work because they needed money to survive and government support schemes were insufficient. People were told they could go out to exercise, but those in urban areas had limited public space. And some employers failed to provide the support for social distancing and hygiene. Those with less income and wealth also live in more crowded homes.”
Now, with Boris Johnson encouraging people to eat, drink, and be merry — and the decision to relax restrictions further on a Saturday seems designed to facilitate just that — it’s no wonder that the public seems to be adopting a looser stance toward the coronavirus.
But it remains the government’s responsibility to make sure that the lifting of lockdown restrictions doesn’t result in a second wave of infections. Many health officials have looked on with dismay as the U.K. and the U.S. press ahead with reopening plans despite the lack of robust testing and tracing systems that would allow them to identify and isolate new outbreaks quickly, before they spread throughout the community.

Talking about statues…

The statue of British colonialist 

Cecil John Rhodes was removed 

from the University of Cape Town 

as a result of a month long protest 

by students citing the statue 

"great symbolic power" which glorified 

someone "who exploited black labour [sic] 

and stole land from indigenous people".

© Mail and Guardian 

(Charlie Shoemaker/Getty Images)

Click to enlarge.

The current wave of protests sweeping the world is nothing new to South Africans.

Students orchestrated the removal of the Cecil John Rhodes statue from the University of Cape Town campus back in 2015. Now, activist groups in the city are threatening to dismantle more relics of the past if the government does not act to remove them.
Lester Kiewit reports that the Black People's National Crisis Committee will intensify protests if those demands are not listened to. "These symbols inflict psychological violence on the minds of people whose ancestors were murdered by people who are being glorified by statues," said a member of the group.

Lawrence O’Donnell, host of MSNBC’s The Last Word, interview: Bill Moyers: Instead Of A 'Soul,' Donald Trump Has An 'Open Sore'
This interview is from 2017, shortly after the Charlottesville violence that resulted in one death (and about which Trump said, “great people on both sides”). Moyers’ words are still timely in 2020 as he explains that the inherent message of Confederate statues in the South “was not to honor the soldiers of the Civil War. It was to remind blacks and whites that the force of the state would still be used to subjugate them to a different form on slavery. All of those [statues] could come down without affecting history at all…. We could put them in museums where teachers could explain why they were put up in the early part of the 1900s. (Segment at about 6:30 min and continues at 10:00 min).

Meanwhile, back at the ranch…

Another warm and sunny winter day that I began with an early walk around the neighborhood.
I passed the house with the black Great Dane that, as usual, barked and stalked me. His barking, as usual, alerted the two dogs guarding the corner house who then barked and stalked me, too.
As usual, I pass and talk to the dogs: “Hello, dogs, what good barkers you are, dogs…” As usual, they bark (“stay away from our house, stay away, we say…”)
Today, however, I met a young girl who lives in that house. She told me the dogs’ names: Zack and Chloe.
Now our relationship – dogs and mine – changes forever.
Tomorrow, I’ll pass and say, “Hello Zack. Hello Chloe. What a good barker you are, Zack. What a good barker you are, Chloe….”
I’m dying to see how they respond.

***

I collected two large bags of dry leaves from a neighbor’s avocado tree (“avocado pear tree”)… plus three planters made from recycled tires/tyres.
Back home, I raked dry leaves of the exotic camel’s foot tree, and collected a bucketful of soil from mole hills dotted around the garden as well as another bucketful of wood ash from a recent veld fire outside.
I’ll combine leaves, mole hill sand, wood ash, and other ingredients with compost and mix in a recycled concrete mixer to produce wonderfully rich soil for the veggie garden.

Tens of thousands of people around the world struggle with a deadly infection while millions more struggle to remain infection-free.
Gardening is a metaphor for regeneration.

Day 96 Tuesday, June 30 - Timing is everything?

Click to enlarge and read.

A friend (American) texted me this joke.

As I read it, I thought, “Oh, no, a conspiracy theory…”
Then I got to image of the valve stem – and laughed.
Phew, thank the gods! It’s a joke!
I Whatsapp’ed it to friends (South African).
So far, all have thought it serious!
I might have to text a disclaimer!

Dark humor. Another (American) friend enduring stay-at-home in New Mexico and commiserating with our Lockdown, texted, “Things are the same here: comfortable and voluntary house arrest. It’s like prison but without the sex.”

***

Typical 15-seat mini-bus taxi.
Click to enlarge.

There are more than 200,000 minibus taxis South Africa, with full capacity at 15 seats (although more passengers are frequently carried). More than 15-million commuters use mini-bus taxis each day.
The growing industry is worth about R50 billion a year, with 69 percent of South African households using them. (More facts about this industry.)
Even as numbers of confirmed cases surge between 5,000 and 6,000 per day in South Africa...

“Santaco - National Taxi Council in KwaZulu says government's R1-billion relief fund is not enough.
The association says it has now resolved to load taxis to full capacity and it will hike fares [as of] Monday.
Santaco’s resolution goes against government’s COVID-19 restrictions and guidelines that stipulate that minibus taxis must load at 70-percent capacity during level three of the lockdown.
Government says there is simply no money to offer anything more.

With commuters jammed into taxis again, how long before numbers of confirmed cases surge above 6,000 per day?

***

Testing, testing…

Hundreds of COVID-19 test kits have been found dumped next to the N2 highway near… East London [Eastern Cape].
The used kits were discovered by a jogger late on Tuesday last week.
The tests were on their way from surrounding hospitals to a laboratory in Port Elizabeth.
It's not clear how or why they were disposed of.
The National Health Laboratory Service has now collected the remaining tests.
The jogger told eNCA that he normally sees the tests when he watches the news. "When I saw them I knew immediately that these were the sticks they use to test people for COVID-19. I didn't touch them.
"I shoved them away with my running shoes. I could open them up using my foot, and I saw that these were COVID-19 tests."

As of today, South Africa has conducted 1,596,995 tests. How many have been read in a timely fashion?

Western Cape healthcare workers have reported waiting up to 10 days for COVID-19 test results — and sources in Gauteng say they’re not alone. Delays in results leave many fearing that patients with the new coronavirus virus, who should otherwise be self-quarantining, could unwittingly be exposing others to the virus.
“The delay is not only being experienced in the Western Cape… and indeed other provinces — ramp up testing, [the National Health Laboratory Services] are finding it challenging to keep up and process these tests, resulting in a nationwide backlog in the results.”
According to the provincial health department… it is currently testing about 1600 people daily for the virus.

Turns out, testing is the easy part.
Throwing tests away is one way to handle the lack of capacity to read them in a timely manner.
Hmmm, how long will it take America’s failing political leadership to figure out this tactic in response to their testing controversies?

Meanwhile, back at the ranch…

Months of stay-at-home/Lockdown prey on the mind and emotions – not to mention the body.
I’m experiencing mood swings similar to those reported by my American friends.
One moment, we feel vindicated that our projections were correct: the pandemic is out of control and no one of substance is in charge, at least in the US.
The next moment, we’re plunged into depths of despair: our projections were correct, the pandemic is out of control, and no one of substance is in charge.
South Africa at least tried to mitigate the effects of Covid-19 and the surging pandemic. Ramaphosa shut things down quickly, and tried – despite monumental challenges – to respond effectively.
The United States did – continues to do – few of those responses.
Trump poo-poo’d Covid-19 as “the flu” that would disappear “like a miracle.”

Remember the emergence of HIV/AIDS  in the San Francisco Bay Area during the 1980s?
One day a colleague would fail to come to work, next day, he was reported sick, and soon after, dead.
That epidemic was associated with a specific group of people and  those outside that group were relegated the role of helper or observer.
Observing allows distancing.
Covid-19 is an equal-opporrunity pandemic that disallows observation.
We humans are amid a horrific time. Few of us know how to grapple with – and hold – the horror.
Yet , grapple we must ….

Gardening is my solace.
I hear seeds calling….

Day 95 Monday, June 29   -   Culture wars

News blues…

Culture wars
© Chris Hayes Highlights:
June 24 | MSNBC
Click to enlarge.

An excellent and thoughtful interview conducted by Chris Hayes of MSNBC with writer Adam Serwer  who maintains that the Republican Party has forgotten how to run /campaign against “an old white guy” like Biden after 12 years running against a woman and a black man. Trump’s playbook isn’t working this time around. Culture wars made it easier running against/insulting a woman - Hilary Clinton – and a black man – Obama.
(Interview with Serwer begins around 2:40 min.)
***
Stoking the culture wars…

Sacha Baron Cohen pranked a far-right rally Saturday in Olympia, Washington, with the actor — pretending to be a bluegrass artist — leading the crowd in a singalong to a tune with racist lyrics.
Social media accounts first revealed …that Baron Cohen was behind the hijinks at the “March for Our Rights 3” rally hosted by the far-right militia group Washington Three Percenters.
According to reports, Baron Cohen first disguised himself as the wealthy head of a political action committee in order to infiltrate the event, then populated the rally with his own entertainment and security team. With his plan in place, Baron Cohen was able to execute his prank — which may or may not been filmed for his Showtime series Who is America? — by severing organizers’ access to their own event.
In one video from the rally, Baron Cohen took the guise of a bluegrass artist and sang,
“Obama, what we gonna do? Inject him with the Wuhan flu.
Hillary Clinton, what we gonna do? Lock her up like we used to do.
Fauci don’t know his head from his ass. He must be smoking grass.
I ain’t lying, it ain’t no jokes. Corona is a liberal hoax.
Dr. Fauci, what we gonna do? Inject him with the Wuhan flu.
WHO, what we gonna do? Chop ’em up like the Saudis do,”
with some in the crowd gleefully singing along.

Audio is not great but listen carefully to the Tweet videos and you’ll make out the words.

• Randy Rainbow COVER YOUR FREAKIN' FACE! - A Randy Rainbow Song Parody
• The Lincoln Project “Debt”

Meanwhile, back at the ranch…

The gardener worked today and, together, we moved the recycled freezer/greenhouse/cold frame into a sunny spot. I laid out the shelves and the seedling trays…then worried that the monkeys would find irresistible the new item in the landscape. No monkeys visited today so that worry falls to another day.
At the agri-store and purchased seed packs of chard, zucchini, inion (no starts available yet) to replenish what remains of last year’s seed packet collection.
Too busy in the garden to walk the neighborhood.
Tomorrow is another day.
The sun will shine, the air will warm…

Day 94 Sunday, June 28 - Plugging away

Even as I projected 10 million Covid-19 infections worldwide by end-of-day yesterday, I was filled with disbelief, fear, anger, and shock.
I was wrong on the timing – the 10 millionth confirmed case happened six hours later than my prediction – but my emotional turmoil continued.
How could the United States of America – one of the world’s leading countries, powerful, wealthy beyond comprehension, technologically advanced – display such incompetence and poor management?
How could the US be in this predicament?
How did this pandemic get so out of hand?
Where’s the leadership?
And, why is Donald Trump still in nominal charge?
It’s a nightmare.
Unreal.
But too real.

Isolated in South Africa, locked down with housemates uninterested in Covid-19 goings-on (“it’s not very nice, is it?”), and lacking person-to-person intellectual stimulation, I phoned American friends to commiserate.
We repeated our disbelief, anger, fear. We insisted on our pet theories. We conjectured. Back and forth, back and forth, our voices sounded out words of outrage, shock, disbelief.
Talking soothes.
For now.

News blues…

A growing number of Americans of both political parties believe the worst of the coronavirus pandemic is over, even as the number of daily new cases is rapidly increasing nationwide.
A new survey from the Pew Research Center found that 40 percent of Americans now believe the worst of Covid-19 is in the past, up from 26 percent in early April. That number includes the majority of Republicans, 61 percent of whom said the country has already suffered the worst of the pandemic.
Overall, the survey — taken June 16 to 22, featuring 4,708 American adults and a 1.8 percentage point margin of error — found a strikingly deep ideological divide between how Republicans and Democrats think about the continued threat of the virus. 

Denial is a river in Egypt.

***

A gleam of light at the end of the long, dark, tunnel of infection.
Finally, a media personality, MSNBC’s Chris Hayes, “Calls For Trump To Resign: 'Urgent Matter Of Public Health, Public Safety’
Hayes also addresses surging numbers 
Other efforts:
Meidas Touch’s ads:

• Bye Ivanka 
• Bye Ivanka: A Public Disservice Announcement

Lincoln Project’s ads:

• “Bounty” 
  Putin paid a bounty to kill American soldiers. @realDonaldTrump knew about it but did nothing. How can Trump lead America when he can’t even defend it?
• “Truth” 

Sarah Cooper’s voice overs:

• How to second term 
• How to Lincoln 

Meanwhile, back at the ranch…

Changing my morning routine helped stabilize my mood.
Assuring myself that would-be muggers of women walking alone would still be asleep early Sunday morning, I walked my usual route, carrying my knobkerrie walking stick and pepper spray.
The sun was bright, the day warm, the assorted dogs quiet.

Soon after I returned home, a friend texted me photos of her veggie garden.
I was astonished that she was growing spinach, lettuce, cabbage, spring onions, beet (“beetroots”) pole beans and peas at this time of year.
These veggies are on my grow list, too, but I didn’t know I could plant in July!
Perhaps I can’t. Elevation here is 3,444 meters above sea level compared to my friend’s place at 764 meters.
While I’ve been mixing soil amendments for seedlings, I’d had no intention of planting until, well, August.

Two years ago, I’d recycled and modified a deep freezer/ice chest to use as a winter greenhouse/cold frame.
I’m usually not here in the winter and I’d actually forgotten that plan. (Lockdown makes this is the first winter I’ve been here  in decades .)
I’ve been using the greenhouse/cold frame as a quasi-potting table/storage area.
Spurred on by my friend’s garden success, I visited the greenhouse - and was inspired.

I swept away layers of dust and explored.
The shelves I constructed from recycled plywood and lined with recycled plastic as moisture barrier are in good shape.
The hooks I designed and made from recycled wire still attach the shelves to the wood frame I built.
The sheets of recycled plastic I stapled to a bamboo frame (bamboo grown in the garden) still allow sunlight into the greenhouse.
The greenhouse is in good working order.

I love beating ‘the system’ – capitalism – and take pride that, barring peat and vermiculite, everything in, on, and around the greenhouse is recycled.
I’ve seeds left over from last year, too - beets, pole beans, peas, basil, Rockette, “mixed greens,” and marigolds (for pest control).
I’ll start these seeds in recycled 6-pack seedling trays.
I’ll purchase spring onion sets from the local agri-store.
Potatoes grow beautifully from kitchen peelings.
I don’t grow tomatoes: KZN’s hot, wet summers encourage tomato disease and bugs.

Cutworms are my nemesis. They love hot, wet summer weather, and they attack tender plant stems as they erupt from the earth.
My anti-cutworm innovation is to plant seedlings in toilet roll cardboard. I use the roll ‘as is’ or cut in half, fill with soil, and plant the seed. Once the seedling erupts, I place it in the garden with the cardboard acting as a collar to prevent cutworms from attacking the stems.

I visited my productive compost pile located near the stream at the back of the garden.
Here, composting consists of 4 containers and 4 steps:
Stage 1 container: covered and stored outside the kitchen to collect household organic waste
Stage 2 container: semi-covered, and stored near the mature compost pile
Stage 3: mature compost pile
Stage 4 container with mature, usable compost.
Steps to making compost:
Step 1: carry stage 1 container with household organic waste from the kitchen to the composting area
Step 2: remove mature compost from the pile and store in Stage 4 container, ready for garden use
Step 3: move the semi-composted organic waste from stage 2 container to the compost pile
Step 3: pour the household organic waste into stage 2 container, add a handful of sawdust, wood ash, and dried leaves, mix, and secure the lid
Step 4: rinse stage 1 container in the stream before returning to the kitchen to collect more organic waste.

The compost is gorgeous: dark, organic, clean smell, and full of earthworms.

The pandemic rages “out there” while we humans plug away at life!

Day 93 Saturday, June 27 - Evidentiary knowledge empowers

Following the news every day is simultaneously exhausting and empowering. Last night I reviewed my go-to Covid-19 Dashboard of choice, Johns Hopkins CSSE, for total numbers of confirmed cases around the world. They were such that I assumed numbers would reach 10 million by end-of-day Sunday.

News blues…

Alas, this morning’s review revises my assumption. We’re on track to reach 10 million by the end-of-day today.
Amid much confusion and dark obfuscation, rays of scientific evidence emerge to empower the Average Joe/Josephine.
Symptoms, as we’ve learned, can appear anywhere between 2 to 14 days after exposure. The list of possible symptoms, however, has expanded and may include:

• Fever or chills
• Cough
• Shortness of breath or difficulty breathing
• Fatigue
• Muscle or body aches
• Headache
• New loss of taste or smell
• Sore throat
• Congestion or runny nose
• Nausea or vomiting
• Diarrhea

This list, from Yale Medicine,  does not include all possible symptoms.

• In the US, look to the CDC for updates on symptoms  as it learns more about COVID-19.
• In South Africa, look to the COVID-19 Corona Virus
• South African Resource Portal.

***

An HIV/AIDS specialist discovers similarities — and differences — to COVID-19.

A few recent studies on the effects of HIV and SARS-CoV-2 indicate that they do have some similarities. Shanghai-based researchers provided evidence that SARS-CoV-2 can infect T lymphocytes, the same cells targeted by HIV. Other researchers have documented that individuals with severe COVID-19 may exhibit lymphopenia, or an atypically low number of lymphocytes in the blood. Likewise, HIV infection results in this abnormality, eventually causing the immunosuppression associated with AIDS. But these findings should not cause us to assume that SARS-CoV-2 is like HIV.

What can you do? Dr. Mark Smolinski, infectious disease physician and president of Ending Pandemics offers his perspective:

As a public health physician, I know the SARS-CoV-2 virus doesn’t care that we are all going a little stir crazy sheltering in place. Coronavirus lays in wait to move from one person to another, as the percentage of people with asymptomatic infection is quite high. My chances of getting infected, therefore, are not solely based on my actions, but are also impacted by the behaviors of those around me. This is why I am both disappointed by the seemingly nonchalant actions of those without masks, and sad that I know it will mean the pandemic will continue to cause illness and death. …
You wear a mask to protect others, and others wear a mask to protect you. Wearing a mask is a true sign of respect for others; it is not an impingement on one’s freedom as many have claimed. Wearing a mask tells the person you pass on the street, share an aisle with in the supermarket, or march along side at a peaceful protest, that you respect them as a fellow human.

Hear, hear, Dr Smolinkski!

***

Follow the cuckoos  and on (ahem!)
Twitter: @BirdingBeijing.

Now for something completely different: the Mongolia Cuckoo Project – Birding Beijing 北京观鸟 

From 4-8 June 2019, five cuckoos – one Oriental Cuckoo and four Common Cuckoos – were fitted with transmitters around Khurkh Bird Banding Center in northern Mongolia. The birds have been named by local schools who will follow “their” birds to learn about the migration route and wintering grounds of these iconic birds.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch…

According to Web MD, that paragon of online diagnosis, an obsession is “a persistent disturbing preoccupation…. Symptoms start small, and to the obsessed, can [do!] seem like normal behavior. They are unwanted and repetitive thoughts, urges, or images that don't go away.”
I’m not sure about “unwanted”: I quite like my array of growing obsessions encouraged by 14 weeks (and counting) of Lockdown. (I sound like friends who defend their addiction to, say, cigarettes: “I can give ‘em up any time I like, but I choose not to….”)
Lockdown provides ample time to evolve one’s obsessions. Mine come and go. For example, I still admire my cell phone’s Last Charge Level graphs, but I no longer capture screen shots. Nor do I hanker to capture screen shots. I’ve moved on.

Two pigtails suit this young trendsetter.
I'm opting for one pigtail - for now.

Now, with hair salons shut and my hair still growing, I’m perfecting the “Hair Flare.” Inspired by a favorite 4-year-old’s style, I tie a pigtail left of my forehead then fan it out.
I’m also improving the flare with the addition of colored ribbon.
Testing it out in public has, so far, been neither a hit nor a miss. No one has admired nor ridiculed it.
Who knows? I may start a trend.
Then again, my 4-year-old inspiration looked shocked when I explained the Hair Flare derived from her hairstyle.
I like to believe she was shocked that, at four, she was a trend setter rather than shock that she ever looked as crazy as I do with the Hair Flare.

Read   Week 1 |   Week 2   |  Week 3  |  Week 4 |  Week 5  | Week 6  |  Week 7  |  Week 8  |  Week 9  |  Week 10   |   Week 11  |   Week 12  |  Week 13  |  Week 14  

See photos  Spying on Garden Creatures 

Watch  Videos of Garden Creatures

Day 92   Friday, June 26 – Don’t need no stinkin’ mask!

 News blues…

June 13 Tweet from Dr Jerome Adams, US surgeon general:

Just a reminder - wearing a face covering is a small inconvenience that provides big benefits, and gives us our best chance for an effective and lasting reopening of America. If everyone does their part to slow the spread, then everyone wins.

Dr Adams sounds like a logical and rational man who may not have factored in that not everyone wants to win if winnng means knuckling down and wearing a mask.
That segment of Americans – spurred on by, and including, the president – resist advice on basic hygiene during a pandemic.
Comedians Steven Colbert and Jon Stewart recently highlighted  this “politicization of basic hygiene” – wearing a mask – and noted that the mask has become a symbol of political tyranny: “The Covid Burqa”, “the garb of the authoritarian”, “the new swastika armband”, “the don’t tread on me snake….”
Trump is the happy head of the “don’t tread on me snake” that

…continues to refuse to wear a face mask in public, even as polls show a majority of Americans say they should be used to prevent the spread of the virus. Even as some of Trump's political aides quietly assert he would score political points by wearing a mask - like Vice President Mike Pence did on Thursday in Ohio - Trump hasn't shown signs of budging.
"He will never change on the mask. He doesn't want that picture," one White House official said. "He knows masks are important, but he doesn't want that image or to admit he is wrong."  

A group of Trump-supporting Floridians spoke…

at a heated public hearing [and] attacked county commissioners as “communist dictators” who follow “the devil’s laws” as they [commissioners] prepared to vote on a mandate for wearing face masks in public.
During public comments before the unanimous vote in favor of the mask requirement on Tuesday, a majority of speakers opposed the move…some denied that masks were effective against spreading COVID-19 and accused officials of playing God, violating the Constitution and threatening freedom and lives by imposing the measure.
One speaker threatened to perform a citizen’s arrests on the officials for going “against the freedom of choice.”
“Every single one of you that’s obeying the devil’s laws are going to be arrested. And you are going to be arrested for crimes against humanity,” the woman declared.
“Every single one of you has a smirk behind that little mask, but every single one of you are going to get punished by God. You cannot escape God ... not even with the mask or 6 feet.”
The woman touched on several other theories, including a suggestion that the public officials could be part of a “deep state” of rogue officials. [This woman is an equal opportunity blamer. She included the devil, 5G, Bill Gates, Hillary Clinton, and "the pedophiles."]
Another woman told commissioners, “I want to know who is getting paid off and where is the mandate coming from.”
“Well, guess what, the riots are spreading, too!” she continued. “And what the hell are we going to do about that? We’re going to arrest patriots for not wearing a mask? That’s what you want?”
She concluded her remarks: “And I say Trump 2020!”

***

“Trump 2020” is looking less and less likely as anti-Trump Republicans organize to defeat the President in November.

A group called "Right Side PAC" … will focus on targeting voters  in battleground states like Arizona, Florida, Michigan, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin [and on] data, targeting and turnout … [and] will work to turn out "that group of Republicans who feels that Donald Trump is an existential threat to the country and this party."
"We're going to make people feel comfortable with the correction option -- pulling the lever for Joe Biden this year…."

The Lincoln Project’s most recent ad,  “Mattis,” states, "Democracy is under threat, and people who care about it must summon the will, the discipline, and the solidarity to defend it. At stake are the freedom, health, and dignity of people everywhere."

The Project’s point of view is shared by more than 500 former world leaders and Novel Laureates who signed an open letter claiming authoritarian governments across the globe are using the pandemic crisis to silence critics.

The letter, organized by the Stockholm-based Institute for Democracy and published Thursday, highlights that in the wake of the crisis, both authoritarian and democratically-elected governments the world over have used emergency powers to arrest protestors and sidestep democratic norms.
The letter warns: "Authoritarian regimes, not surprisingly, are using the crisis to silence critics and tighten their political grip. But even some democratically-elected governments are fighting the pandemic by amassing emergency powers that restrict human rights and enhance state surveillance without regard to legal constraints, parliamentary oversight, or timeframes for the restoration of constitutional order.
"Parliaments are being sidelined, journalists are being arrested and harassed, minorities are being scapegoated, and the most vulnerable sectors of the population face alarming new dangers as the economic lockdowns ravage the very fabric of societies everywhere."
Since the pandemic began, dozens of countries have introduced emergency declarations and more than 100 have brought in measures that affect public assembly, such as protests against the state, according to the International Center for Non-Profit Law's Covid-19 Civic Freedom Tracker. Their cited examples range from restricting access of public information to arresting citizens for "provocative" posts on social media.
…the letter's chief warning is that countries with strong democratic traditions could use the pandemic to introduce extraordinary measures that in the long run become ordinary, doing permanent damage to global democracy.
"Authoritarians around the world see the Covid-19 crisis as a new political battleground in their fight to stigmatize democracy as feeble and reverse its dramatic gains of the past few decades."
"Now is the time when all of us must stand up for democracy. We need to make it clear to everyone what is at stake and that we will not allow leaders with authoritarian tendencies to use this or other crises to increase their power and decrease our rights," said Kevin Casas-Zamora, Secretary-General of IDEA and former Second Vice-President of Costa Rica.
The letter says that "Repression will not help to control the pandemic," and that "Silencing free speech, jailing peaceful dissenters, suppressing legislative oversight, and indefinitely canceling elections all do nothing to protect public health."
"Democracy is under threat, and people who care about it must summon the will, the discipline, and the solidarity to defend it. At stake are the freedom, health, and dignity of people everywhere."

Meanwhile, back at the ranch…

Many glorious moments basking in the sun during these winter days. Step out of the sun, though, and brrrr, the temperature drops.
My evolving morning routine includes eating breakfast while sitting in the bright sunshine.
Tortoise-like, I take time-outs during the day to warm up in the sun.

Today, as I weeded, a flock of chatty weaver birds alit in a nearby tree. I continued weeding and they continued chatting.
Then, I became aware of the beauty of the moment, that I was part of a miraculous environment, birds, an infinite reality.
I stopped weeding to savor the sensation.
The birds stopped chatting.
It was as if my state of being – attentive listening – communicated with the birds and they held their collective breath to see what I’d do.
I relaxed into the silence.
Soon, the birds started chatting again. I’d been accepted.
Made my day.

***

A plethora of repat flights offered
Health Alert: Announcing Upcoming Repatriation Flights – U.S. Embassy Pretoria, South Africa (June 25, 2020)
Event: The South African Ministry of Health has confirmed 111,796 cases of COVID-19 within its borders.
Announcing Multiple Upcoming Repatriation Flights
We have been notified of multiple upcoming special commercial repatriation flights operated by Lufthansa, KLM, Emirates, Turkish Airlines, and Ethiopian Airlines.
Flight information:
DATE DEPARTURE ARRIVAL AIRLINE
27 June 2020 Cape Town (CPT) Frankfurt (FRA) Lufthansa
27 June 2020 Cape Town (CPT) Amsterdam (AMS) KLM
28 June 2020 Johannesburg (JNB) Amsterdam (AMS) KLM
28 June 2020 Johannesburg (JNB) Dubai (DXB) Emirates
30 June 2020 Johannesburg (JNB) Dubai (DXB) Emirates
01 July 2020 Johannesburg (JNB) Addis Ababa (ADD) Ethiopian Airlines
02 July 2020 Johannesburg (JNB) Istanbul (IST) Turkish Airlines
04 July 2020 Cape Town (CPT) Amsterdam (AMS) KLM
05 July 2020 Johannesburg (JNB) Amsterdam (AMS) KLM
11 July 2020 Cape Town (CPT) Amsterdam (AMS) KLM
12 July 2020 Johannesburg (JNB) Amsterdam (AMS) KLM
Interested passengers must book their tickets directly with the airlines' local ticket office or using the below contact information:

• Ethiopian Airlines by contacting: SouthAfricaSalesTeam@ethiopianairlines.com
• Lufthansa by contacting: Jnbmarketing@dlh.de
• Emirates must be booked directly with the Emirates Johannesburg office, by contacting eksa@emirates.com and completing a required booking form
• Turkish Airlines by contacting: cptmarketing@thy.com
• KLM by contacting:
  Website: You can book your ticket through our website www.klm.co.za by searching for a one-way trip and specific date. The calendar view will not display them. Please book only for the flights on these dates and flight numbers.
  Call centre: Our sales and Service Centre can be contacted to book a flight, via phone: +27 (0)10 205 0100 or +27(0)10 205 0101, daily between 09:00 –16:00. Payment can only be made with credit card. If you have an existing booking with Air France or KLM you can use it to (partially) pay for this flight.
  Additional Information: During the booking process a link will be given to fill in a web form. You need to fill in the form for each passenger in your reservation. It is mandatory to fill in this web form. In case you missed the link in your booking process, you can find it here: https://www.klm.com/travel/za_en/customer_support/repatriation_flights.htm.
• SAA also has a repatriation portal where you may register your interest in potential future repatriation flights.

Please Note:
·Passengers will be responsible for travel to their final destination in the United States from the arrival airport listed above.

• These flights are open to U.S. citizens, Lawful Permanent Residents, and visa holders who have received DHA approval to depart South Africa. (Noting that visa holders will not be allowed to transit the EU.)
• Passengers will be responsible for finding transportation to the required assembly point, which will be communicated by the airlines prior to the flight departure.
• Travel permission letters for U.S. citizens and green card holders are not required unless you will be crossing provinces to arrive at the assembly point. If and only if you must cross a provincial border to join this repatriation flight, please write SAEvacuation@state.gov requesting a travel letter. Include your name, passport or green card number, current address, and flight confirmation.
• For any questions regarding availability, cost, baggage allowance, or other flight details, please contact the airlines directly.

I may register on SAA’s repatriation portal. I hesitate to expose myself to bureaucracy that might reel out of control. I’m not particularly thrilled about travelling SAA, nor having to find a way to Johannesburg (why no flights originating in Durban?) nor of landing on the east coast or Chicago when my destination is San Francisco.
Moreover, I won’t leave before July 14 – my mother’s 87th birthday.
Am I settling in here? Putting down roots?

Week 13: Day 91, Thursday, June 25 - Mindboggling numbers

Each week I ponder whether to post coronavirus statistics on the last day of the week or on the first day of the next week.
This week’s numbers of infections and death around the world are rising so precipitously it feels appropriate to examine them, understand them, do our best not to contribute to further rise – and begin a new week fresh and hopeful….
Week 13’s numbers… compared with Week 12’s:

• June 25 - worldwide: 9,409,000 confirmed infections; 482,190 deaths
  June 19 - worldwide: 8,489,000 confirmed infections; 454,007 deaths
• June 25 - US: 2,381,540 infections; 121,980 deaths
  June 19 - US: 2,191,100 confirmed infections; 118,435 deaths
• June 25 - SA: 111,800 confirmed infections; 2,205 deaths
  June 19 - SA: 83,890 confirmed infections; 1,737 deaths

News blues…

• Global report on numbers. 
• South Africa sees its biggest ever single-day increase, a total of 111,796 includes more than 5,800 cases reported in the past 24 hours 
• As the US records highest one-day total in coronavirus cases since April...

...the president and Feds Set To Cut Coronavirus Testing Funds As COVID-19 Cases Soar COVID-19 testing centers across five states are set to lose federal funding next week after the Trump administration decided not to extend the program that established them.
As a result, 13 testing sites across Colorado (1), Illinois (2), New Jersey (2), Pennsylvania (1) and Texas (7) will likely close if those states are unable to replace the necessary funding.
... Assistant Secretary for Health Brett Giroir confirmed that the program that originally funded 41 such sites across 48 states would end next week… [as] part of a planned transition to “more efficient and effective testing sites,” noting that the original end date had already been postponed once.

“All 13 sites were provided an extra 30 days from the original transition date in May,” Giroir said, “and I personally spoke with Governors from all 5 states involved, and/or their leadership designees, who agreed that it was the appropriate time to transition out of the original 13 sites and into the thousands of new testing options.”

And Trump?
Trump is not just in denial but also indifferent to an unfolding American tragedy

... the best President Donald Trump cares to offer the thousands more Americans projected to shortly die of Covid-19 is the unsubstantiated prospect of a "beautiful surprise."
The US just hit its third highest ever peak of new coronavirus cases, multiple states are registering their own daily records and three are now taking the extraordinary step of imposing quarantines for citizens from pandemic hotspots. The world's most powerful nation lacks a coherent national strategy to meet another cresting viral crisis, the capacity or even the willingness to take steps that might stop it.
It is also led by a man who is suggesting by his actions and attitudes that he doesn't care that much about the unfolding tragedy.
Trump, who has previously predicted a "miracle" would occur or the virus would just disappear in the warmer weather, again declared falsely Wednesday that the danger had passed -- even with the nation racing towards another deadly summit of infection.

The weirdest thing?
According to a Reuters poll  37 percent of Americans approve of Trump’s handling of this health crisis.
How can 37 out of every 100 Americans approve?
Mindboggling.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch…

It’s tough to sustain vigilance against an unseen, mysterious, and, yes, controversial virus. It appears vast numbers of people cannot grasp the concept of a pandemic or its wide-ranging implications.
Confused, contradictory messaging (Trump) – or too little messaging/too many messengers (Ramaphosa and Dlamini Zuma) – doesn’t help.
Add a dash of WhatsApp misinformation and voilà! People fill the gaps in their knowledge with wishful thinking.
After my quick walk-for-exercise around the neighborhood today, I dropped by a neighbor’s house. She displayed a WhatsApp message listing more than a dozen schools, malls, and business in Pietermaritzburg that had shut their doors due to a spike in infections in that city.

Graph shows 9 out of 10 Internet
users in South Africa are
active on WhatsApp Click to enlarge

That WhatsApp is the messaging app-of-choice for 9 out of 10 South African mobile phone users does not mean WhatsApp info is accurate.
Back home, I researched the data and found that, yes, indeed, Pietermaritzburg (a 15- to 20-minute drive away) is:

… on high alert following a dramatic rise in the number of reported coronavirus infections across the city… Since last week, cases have been reported in at least five schools, shopping and retail outlets, city hall, and the electricity department in Havelock Road. A local magistrate, Mumsy Boikhutso, who tested positive for coronavirus, this week succumbed to Covid-19.
KwaZulu-Natal Department of Health’s Ntokozo Maphisa … called on the community not to be careless and to follow all the protocols of social distancing, wearing masks, sanitising and staying at home if possible.
“Covid-19 is a pandemic affecting the whole world … we must accept that this virus is with us… It is now up to us to follow the rules that are in place. We must think of ourselves and our loved ones. Let us not be careless.”

Amen, Maphisa.
Friends, let’s be careful out there.

Day 90, Wednesday, June 24 - To jest, or not to jest....

So, is Trump kidding or not kidding when he said he’d had directed his administration to slow coronavirus testing in the United States?
White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany said Trump was “speaking only in jest”…
Trump later said he was “semi-joking”….

Anyone looking for guidance from the White House on avoiding the coronavirus is on her or his own. Good luck out there and, y’know, all that stuff….

MeidasTouch (“because truth is golden”) presents their view: “Trump kills US.”

News blues…

Things are not going well in South Africa – and we don’t even have a Trump confusing issues.

Eastern Cape “Premier Oscar Mabuyane said on Monday 22 June that 15,751 people in the Eastern Cape had tested positive for the coronavirus. With 8,035 people having recovered that left 7,716 active cases and 285 deaths.
The province’s biggest metro, Nelson Mandela Bay, had 4,706 positive cases, of whom 2,116 had recovered and 86 deaths.
…“The current doubling rate is 10 days and this will get shorter. Hospitals are already turning people away because there are no beds.”
Eastern Cape Department of Health spokesperson Sizwe Kupelo said the main driver of infections in the metro remains poor adherence to precautionary measures like washing hands, wearing a mask in public and maintaining personal distance.
He said they had managed to reduce the testing backlog in the province and now had a turnaround time of between 48 and 72 hours. Last month it was between 14 and 21 days.

***

Daily Maverick webinar, “Two Minutes to Midnight: Will Cyril Ramaphosa's ANC survive?”
Host Ferial Haffajee in discussion with author Dr Oscar Van Heerden

Meanwhile, back at the ranch…

My daily walk around the neighborhood is circumscribed by reality.
Since a woman walking alone is a target for mugging, I repeatedly walk the same circular route away from main thoroughfares. I also carry an impressive wooden knobkerrie walking stick and pepper spray.
Walking the same way, the same routine, in the same fashion each day quickly becomes tedious.
The same dogs bark.
I greet the dogs the same way: “Hello, Curly Tail”… “Woof, woof, woof, doglets” … “Oh, what a big barks you have!” ….
One section of this repetitive walk passes a yard with two boxers. The alpha dog works himself into a frenzy as I pass his territory. When his companion boxer joins in the fun, the alpha attacks it. Yesterday’s attack was particularly vicious: the younger dog was savaged as long as I remained in sight.
The message came across loud and clear: dastardly human, watch me savage my pal and pretend it’s you!
An experience not for the faint hearted.
Today, instead of walking the neighborhood, I returned to loping around the garden: around the pond (no goldfish), up and down one set of stairs, down and up another set of stairs, around the apple tree, past the compost pile… and repeat – for forty minutes.
After that, I returned to revamping the section of garden where I’d recently removed the canna plants.
I recycled bearded iris tubers and replanted them in what I hope will be another small garden with purple bearded iris.
I also recycled several logs that have been beautifully hollowed out by ants. I’ll fill the logs’ nooks and crannies with soil and create organic planters perfect for small succulents.
It’s essential, during Lockdown, to keep busy, plan, implement, exercise. And remind yourself that, this, too, shall pass.
But, oh. When?

Day 89, Tuesday, June 23 - Silver linings

The Africa Medical Supplies Platform is coming!
Ubuntu in action.
The AMSP is designed to unlock access to supplies across the continent and save money for African countries suffering high rates of viral infection.
I hope it works.
President Ramaphosa calls it a “silver lining… the glue that is going to bind the continent together.”

“The one-stop shop [will] give the continent a fairer chance in the international scramble for Covid-19 test kits, protective equipment and any vaccines that emerge.” 

Finally, a scramble for Africa by Africans for Africans.

News blues…

Trump, post Tulsa rally.
Click to enlarge.

Portrait of a man beaten - at least, a man temporarily beaten.
Trump, being Trump, will find a way to rebound and reframe and re-rally.
For now, though, even his tie has come undone.
As mentioned yesterday, I’m not a fan but I recognize compassion when I feel it.
Watch the 3 short video memes in this article – set to appropriate music - and tell me you don’t feel a flicker of pity for The Donald as the memes multiply….

Is Donald Trump finally paying “a direct, personal price for his pandemic denial - the possible shelving of the thing he cares about most, the raucous rallies that defined his political rise and are crucial to his reelection hopes”? 

We’ll see.

Sara Cooper passes comment on Trump’s Tulsa turmoil with her latest voice over: How to empty seat. 

Meanwhile, back at the ranch…

I’m not a person who shies from “speaking truth to power” – no matter the power. I’m not very successful at it – no eponymous not-for-profit organization, few interviews on “mainstream media”, little to no income generated from freelance writing, radio show short-lived – four years (Raising Sand Radio), conned by my book publisher, etc., etc.
Moreover, I’m an equal opportunity speaker: I alienate friends and colleagues on the Left and foes on the Right, and on multiple continents, too. (I’m not boasting. I wish I had better control of the conduit between my outrage and my emotional intelligence.)
Overall, though, I’m not someone who gives up. It’s odd, therefore, to find myself locked up in Lockdown, inside looking out.
I follow the rules: maintain social distance, wear a mask, wash my hands, and stay home.
I read online news. I participate in webinars. I read WhatsApp messages from a small circle of friends (one of whom, after I requested that she discern truth from conspiracy theories, deleted me from her group).
While I talk regularly on the phone to friends and family in the US – who follow virus-related safety precautions, stay home, and work online via Zoom - I’m without face-to-face friends.
Nevertheless, I’m relatively cozy: nourished, warm enough, safe enough.
“Out there”: hunger stalks, cold weather unavoidable, and, too often, shelter and security inadequate. Accordingly, I donate small amounts of funds to a local non-profit that provides food and essentials to children and families. It all feels – is – insufficient in the face of reality.

One day a week, I learn from our public-taxi-commuting gardener about the effects of lockdown on him, his family, and residents of his “location.”
(FYI: “Location” usually describes an underdeveloped sub-urban residential area. “Township” denotes larger residential communities built on the periphery of towns and cities that may/may not offer electricity, septic tanks, garbage/rubbish disposal service. “Informal settlements” describes shacks cobbled together on land residents have no legal claim to/occupy illegally and offer no amenities other than what is carried in/out.)
The gardener reports that, to date, no one he knows has contracted Covid-19, that, of those residents who had jobs before lockdown, many still have jobs waiting for them and, for now, income/handouts from those jobs. (I’m happy to hear it although I suspect this is unusual.)

With infections surging in South Africa, I reduced our gardener’s working/commuting days to reduce the risk of contagion for my 87-year-old mother and her two health-compromised, live-in domestic workers (one diabetic, one asthmatic).
I found him another day job in the neighborhood. I offered to place a classified ad in the local newspaper seeking yet another day of work, if needed. He declined: his current schedule suits.
Last week, after work, I sent him home with an assortment of groceries: chicken, rice, apples, spinach, potatoes etc., and chocolate brownies for his two kids.
It’s awkward purchasing groceries across culinary cultures. Would his family like chicken feet or chicken thighs? Canned beans or unprocessed samp? Chocolate cookies or garish pink coconut-sprinkled puff balls?
Whether more to Euro-American than Zula taste buds, he carried the groceries in two ordinary store bags.
This week, I played it safe and gave him one 12.5 kg bag of mealie/maize meal, a Zulu staple.
He asked for a black bin liner.
As I handed it over, he explained the opaque bin liner disguises the contents resulting in fewer strangers hitting him up for food.

***

I’ve two more opportunities to flee and fly:

Opportunity 1: Health Alert: Announcing June 27 Repatriation Flight on Lufthansa – U.S. Embassy Pretoria, South Africa.
Event:  The South African Ministry of Health has confirmed [then] 83,890 cases of COVID-19 within its borders.
Announcing June 27 Lufthansa Flight
We have been notified of a special commercial repatriation flight operated by Lufthansa from Cape Town to Frankfurt and onward connecting destinations on Saturday, June 27, 2020.
Flight information:

• Potential passengers must book their tickets directly with Lufthansa. To make a booking please visit: www.lufthansa.com. Seats are subject to availability and sales close on 21 June 2020.
• IMPORTANT: You must select “ONE WAY” when making you booking online, as this a special repatriation flight and not a regular commercial flight. Only once you have made a confirmed booking for this repatriation flight, you must complete the attached Passenger Information excel document and return this to Lufthansa via the following email: Jnbmarketing@dlh.de
• The flight will depart from Cape Town to Frankfurt, Germany and connecting destinations.
• Passengers will be responsible for travel to their final destination in the United States.
• Once the flight has been closed for sale, all passengers who have purchased a ticket will receive information about the assembly point. This will be provided by the Embassy of the Federal Republic of Germany.
• Passengers will be responsible for finding transportation to the required assembly point. The Embassy of the Federal Republic of Germany will issue you with a letter which allows passengers to travel to the assembly point. Thereafter, all passengers will be transported from the assembly point to Cape Town International Airport by bus. Please note that you may not travel directly to the airport yourself.
• For any questions regarding availability, cost, baggage allowance, or other flight details, please contact Lufthansa directly.

Opportunity 2: Health Alert: Announcing June 28 Repatriation Flight on Ethiopian Airlines – U.S. Embassy Pretoria, South Africa
Event: The South African Ministry of Health has confirmed 101,590 cases of COVID-19 within its borders.
We have been notified of a special commercial repatriation flight operated by Ethiopian Airlines to Chicago, United States on Sunday, June 28.
Flight information:

• Interested passengers must book their tickets directly with Ethiopian Airlines by contacting SouthAfricaSalesTeam@ethiopianairlines.com.
• The flight will depart from Johannesburg and then Cape Town on Sunday, June 28 before proceeding to Addis Ababa, Ethiopia and onward to Chicago O’Hare International Airport, United States.
• Passengers will be responsible for travel to their final destination in the United States from Chicago O’Hare.
• This flight is open to U.S. citizens, Lawful Permanent Residents, and visa holders who have received DHA approval to depart South Africa.
• Passengers will be responsible for finding transportation to the required assembly point, which will be communicated by Ethiopian Airways prior to the flight departure.
• Travel permission letters for U.S. citizens and green card holders are not required unless you will be crossing provinces to arrive at the assembly point. If you must cross a provincial border to join this repatriation flight, please write to SAEvacuation@state.gov requesting a travel letter. Include your name, passport or greencard number, current address, and flight confirmation.
• For any questions regarding availability, cost, baggage allowance, or other flight details, please contact Ethiopian Airlines directly.
  ...

U.S. Mission Repatriation EffortsIf you would like to depart South Africa, we highly recommend you avail yourself of any available opportunity, even if it is not your desired flight route. We cannot guarantee frequency of special repatriation, nor can we guarantee that previously scheduled commercial flights will depart as planned. We do not have further information about when regular international commercial flights will resume.
To date, over 30 repatriation flights have departed to the United States in coordination with airlines and friendly mission partners since the government lockdown, returning over 1500 U.S. citizens, lawful permanent residents, and visa holders to the United States. For questions about other potential upcoming repatriation opportunities, please contact the airlines directly for details.…

Despite my personal drawbacks and the public health situation, I’m mentally-emotionally unable to depart.
Certainly, travel restrictions affect my decision – how do I make my way to Cape Town? Or Johannesburg? – but restrictions hamper only if I allow them to hamper.
Rather, I appear to have accepted/intuited that I’ll remain here until the expected surge – August? September? – has receded.
In other words, the conduit between my brain and my emotional intelligence has presented a solution I can live with – at least psychologically.
Yet, I must figure out how to vote in the US presidential election, 3 November.
Silver linings, indeed.

Day 88, Monday, June 22 - Capitalizing on capitalism

The planet is on the cusp of 9 million confirmed cases of Covid-19 with almost half a million dead.
A month or two ago such numbers seemed wildly unlikely.
Now? Not so much.
As confirmed cases keep multiplying - South Africa heads towards 100,000, Brazil 1.1 million, and the US 2.3 million – we humans adjust, albeit reluctantly. Some adjust by increasing their humanity to fellow humans. Others adjust by increasing their net worth.
Back in 1981, Pink Floyd’s music alluded to the power of money over the human psyche:

Money, it's a gas/ Grab that cash with both hands and make a stash…
Money, get back/ I'm all right Jack keep your hands off of my stack
Money, it's a hit/ Don't give me that do goody good bullshit

(Listen to “Money”  - 6:29 mins)

Maybe I’m full of “that do goody good bullshit” but… I’m still shocked by revelations that nursing homes are evicting frail, poor/low income elderly humans in favor of elderly humans who bring in more … money.

… in America, nursing homes have come to symbolize the deadly destruction of the coronavirus crisis. More than 51,000 residents and employees of nursing homes and long-term care facilities have died, representing more than 40 percent of the total death toll in the United States.
But even as they have been ravaged, nursing homes … are taking on coronavirus-stricken patients to ease the burden on overwhelmed hospitals — and, at times, to bolster their bottom lines.
… They are kicking out old and disabled residents — among the people most susceptible to the coronavirus — and shunting them into homeless shelters, rundown motels, and other unsafe facilities…
Many of the evictions, known as involuntary discharges, appear to violate federal rules that require nursing homes to place residents in safe locations and to provide them with at least 30 days’ notice before forcing them to leave.
… Medicare often pays for short-term rehabilitation stints; Medicaid covers longer-term stays for poor people.
Nursing homes have long had a financial incentive to evict Medicaid patients in favor of those who pay through private insurance or Medicare, which reimburses nursing homes at a much higher rate than Medicaid.
RC Kendrick, an 88-year-old with dementia, was living at Lakeview Terrace [where his] family had placed him there to make sure he got round-the-clock care after his condition deteriorated and he began disappearing for days at a time.
But on April 6, the nursing home deposited Mr. Kendrick at an unregulated boardinghouse — without bothering to inform his family. Less than 24 hours later, Mr. Kendrick was wandering the city alone.
… According to three Lakeview employees, Mr. Kendrick’s ouster came as the nursing home was telling staff members to try to clear out less-profitable residents to make room for a new class of customers who would generate more revenue: patients with Covid-19.

News blues…

Trump held a re-election campaign rally – and nobody came!
Trump claimed a million people would show up at the venue that has a capacity of 19,000. Only 6,200 showed up.
Naturally, he and his team blame the media, “thugs” aka protesters, this, that, and the next thing.
Turns out, he was punked by savvy teenagers. 

The Lincoln Project quickly responded to the failed rally:

Donald Trump kicked off his re-launch in Tulsa. And, like the man himself, it was a disaster, and much smaller than he promised.
But, as soon as he started talking, he did exactly what we thought he would do: lie, praise the Confederacy, and then lie some more.
Every time Trump opens his mouth, we need to be there to hit back with the truth.
What a failure.
He's losing.
We can see it in the polls, and now Donald Trump can see it in his own crowds: His numbers are shrinking.
He can’t deliver on COVID-19 testing. And now he can’t even deliver crowds.
Millions are turning away from Trump….

Watch the ad, Shrinking (0:45 mins)

I admit that I am not only not a Trump fan but I am the opposite of a fan, something Merriam Webster defines “nonadmirer”, “belittler”, “carper”, “critic”, and “detractor.”
I’d accept “nonadmirer” and “critic” but my lack of fan-dom is more complicated than simply pasting the correct term on my feelings.
I also harbor a smidgen of compassion for The Donald.
His narcissism combined with his craving to be loved means he’s both where he wants to be – the center of attention – and where he hates to be – publicly lampooned around the world.
For a world class narcissist, this is psychological torment.
I agree with Trump’s former friend, Howard Stern, SiriusXM radio host, who claimed during an interview with Steven Colbert, that Donald Trump didn’t really want to be president.

“I firmly believe that Donald did not want to run for president, I don’t think it was serious…. I knew him. He had a great life at Mar-a-Lago. He was running around town. He played golf. He had a good time.”
Stern said Trump was trying to negotiate more money from NBC for “The Apprentice” and ran for president as a tactic to get a raise.

Ouch. Instead of The Apprentice and a hefty raise, Trump’s known as Ass, Buffoon, Bully, Bunker Boy, Clown - and at least 25 other names.

I’ve a solution: Trump should feign a heart attack and give up the presidency – out of the goodness of his heart, of course.
A fake/ faux heart attack would earn him sympathy rather than antipathy. From his palatial sick bed he could Tweet how it’s not his fault that he can no longer carry the world upon his shoulders, how unfair it is that the American People are deprived of his bigly deal-making skills, how he’ll MAGA from the 100th floor of Trump Tower or his Mar-a-Largo suite….
A faux heart attack would solve Trump’s president problem – and the world’s Trump problem.
It’s a win/win for the world and a zero/sum game for Trump.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch…

My soft spot for vervet monkeys comes from a childhood with a young male vervet as a pet. Jacko went everywhere with me and my brothers – for long hikes and horse rides in the veldt (grasslands), swimming, bathing, sleeping….
The closest I come to befriending the monkeys in this neighborhood is admiring them and talking to them as they pass.
Once largely considered vermin in South Africa, vervets are protected by national and provincial conservation legislation and national animal protection legislation. They’ve been on the Cites (Convention on the International Trade in Endangered Species) list since 1974 although were only declared "protected" in September 2004.
Injuring or killing vervet monkeys is a jail-able offence. That does not mean, unfortunately, that people do not harm them. (This 3-egged monkey lost a hind leg to accident, trap, or injury)

A troop of at least 37 vervet monkeys visited the garden today, in dribs and drabs – some raided the avocado tree and some the bird feeder while others dashed to-and-fro along the aerial electrical cable (amazing how they use their tails to balance on the narrow cable).
Winter is in full swing and monkeys are hungry. Feeding them is not an option: they become more dependent, more of a nuisance, more likely to become aggressive towards other species and humans, and more likely to be injured or killed by irate humans.
Moreover, wild monkeys are highly susceptible to diseases from human hands and can die from bacteria transferred from a human hand that has no ill effect on the human.
Feeding creates a dangerous dependency on humans that diminishes the monkeys’ survival abilities.
Contrary to the stereotype, bananas are not the preferred food of monkeys in the wild. Bananas, especially those containing pesticides, can be upsetting to the monkeys’ delicate digestive system and cause serious dental problems that can lead to eventual death.
Feeding interferes with the monkeys’ natural habits and upsets the balance of lives centered on eating wild fruits, seeds, small animals, and insects.
Most interestingly, monkeys need to travel an average of 17 kilometers each day to be in good physical condition. If they know that food is available in a particular location, they will not leave that area.

Day 87,  Sunday,  June 21 - Smart, at last!

Happy Father’s Day and happy solstice!

News blues…

In South Africa, Health Minister Zweli Mkhize said that in the past 24 hours, “the cumulative number of confirmed Covid-19 cases in South Africa is 92,681. The mortality rate is 2 percent.”
These numbers are alarming – particularly as South Africans, like Americans, appear to have decided the risk of contracting the virus is more welcome than suffering further lockdown tedium.
The people of Tulsa, Oklahoma, however, displayed unexpected wisdom and didn’t budge from home.
After weeks of controversy about Trump’s first campaign rally to take place in months “and held against the advice of Trump’s own coronavirus task force, which had urged White House officials to nix the event amid fears it might spread coronavirus,” Americans elected to watch it on TV.
Perhaps it was the message that:

“potential rallygoers would participate in the event at their own risk [or that the] registration page for the rally included “a legal disclaimer that said attendees could not sue Trump or his campaign if they found themselves infected with COVID-19” [or that] the Trump campaign confirmed that at least six Trump rally staffers [had] tested positive for the coronavirus [and were]...immediately quarantined.”  

Whatever kept you home (an expected audience of 925,000!) We the People salute you!
I paraphrase Martin Luther King, Jr.: Smart, smart at last, thank the gods, you’re getting smart at last!

Meanwhile, back at the ranch…

Focusing on something other than lockdown continues to challenge. With domestic conundrums waking me each day with tense neck and shoulders muscles and tension headaches, I’m running out of new obsessions. (“Symptoms of Lockdown Fever.”)
The change to cold weather has subdued my garden and garden pond obsessions (goldfish are hiding; pond weed paths now covered with cypress needles; canna plants eradicated, cat’s claw eradication ongoing).
Alas, like nature, human brains abhor a vacuum, so this human brain is revisiting ideas for remodeling Otter Pop, my pontoon houseboat.
Currently, alone and unvisited, Otter Pop docks in a small marina on the San Joaquin River in California’s Sacramento Delta.
Until January, when I departed the US, I’d maintained the boat, the outboard motor, a deck garden with pots of basil, tomatoes, and parsley, and several hummingbirds that dropped by to sip at the feeder hanging off the bow.
On this winter solstice, I long for Otter Pop, summer temperatures (upper 30s, even low 40s C / 90s into 100s F), birds and otters and fish, fellow mariners, glorious sunrises and sunsets, even the islands of invasive water hyacinth that float through the marina's channel.
Instead, I’m cold, locked down, and isolated
All is not dismal, however: I’ve begun a virtual remodel of Otter Pop.
I’m researching materials with which to upgrade the deck – exterior and interior, how to clean two pontoons, or who I could hire to de-foul and maintain the pontoons, if necessary.
Besides overall maintainance, I plan to enlarge the “head” – the shower/toilet space – replace the too-small kitchen sink, and insulate interior walls with spray-on foam insulation.
Not sure when I’ll board Otter Pop again, but when I do, I’ll have plans aplenty. 

Click to enlarge.
(c) Susan Galleymore
Jabula Arts

Sculpture on my mind.
Last week I mentioned my interest in returning to work in clay, or clay-like material.  The experiment conducted with cement/peat didn’t work: the mixed material is too soft and requires too much set up time.
The yen to work clay, however, hasn’t diminished.
As I figure out my next move on how to satisfy this yen, I revisit past sculptures, a handful of which exhibited in the San Francisco Bay Area (Link to my Heedlessness series. )
This series grew out of meditating upon a line of Rumi poetry: "Heedlessness is a pillar that sustains our world, my friend.”
Apt, no?

Day 86   Saturday,  June 20 -  "Avoid the 3 Cs"

Scientists around the world are sharing more of their findings about Covid-19.
Japanese research, for example, advises humans avoid the “3 Cs”: closed environments, crowded places, and close-contact settings.
Moreover, “Any one of us could unknowingly be a superspreader.”

News blues…

Reality check:

• Covid-19-related deaths rose to 1,831 across South Africa, including 60 deaths reported in the Western Cape, 27 in Gauteng and seven in KZN. 
• Brazil is now the world's second worst-hit country with more than 1 million COVID-19 cases, and nearly 50,000 deaths. 
• India reported 14,516 coronavirus cases and 375 deaths in the last 24 hours.

Remember, avoid the “3 Cs”, wear masks, wash hands, measure distance between people, and stay safe.

***

Ouch, The Lincoln Project is ramping up on Donald Trump. Their latest hard-hitting ad, “China”,  will drive The Donald crazy. (Well, crazier than usual. That whiff of smoke you detect wafting in Washington and Mar-a-Largo? That’s Bunker Boy’s Twitter account sizzling as he tries to duck and cover….)

***

Week’s Webinars
Daily Maverick: “Risks and Rotisserie Chicken: How safe is our food during Covid-19?” 
Hosted by Estelle Ellis with food expert Professor Lucia Anelich.
Takeaways:

• No current evidence the virus is transmitted via contaminated food and food packaging. (Coronavirus is a primarily a respiratory, not digestive, illness.)
• Do not disinfect your groceries with soap and water (soap is toxic to humans’ digestive systems).
• Virus is susceptible to drying out.
• Refrigeration and freezing prolongs virus survival.
• Virus does not fare well in higher temps, above 30 or 32 Celsius.
• Sunlight: virus “seems not to like sunlight,” but person/item would have to be in sunlight for “a few hours” to negatively affect virus.
• Virus only replicates in the host cells – not outside cells, surfaces, etc.
• Gloves: not a good way of dealing with Covid-19, particularly when dealing with food. Often give a false sense of security: hand washing is more effective than wearing gloves.
• Supermarket trollies and baskets: wipe handles down before use.
• Safety glasses: okay but be vigilant and do not rub eyes.
• Disinfect shoes? WHO says virus not transmissible via shoes and disinfecting streets not useful.
• Dogs: no indications that strangers touching/patting your dog spreads virus.
• Taking temperatures and listing names: food industry does/must take temps; person taking temp should be protected with mask and regularly sanitize hands.
• Handling money/cash: sanitize hands after handling/handing over/accepting money – both paper and coins.
• Air con: consensus that virus is not aerosolized in office environment – distribute by large droplets within a meter of person shedding droplets.
• Disinfection booths: avoid them.
• Be aware. Practice safe food handling. Wear masks, correctly; Wash hand, correctly (20 seconds at least).

Mail & Guardian: “COVID-19 & WFH: Best practices for employers and employees to adapt work-from-home as the new normal.” 
Moderator: Melody Xaba, Learning & Development Consultant & Co-Founder of My Future Work. Presenters: Colin Erasmus, Modern Workplace Business Group Lead at Microsoft; Bronwyn Williams, Trend Translator & Future Finance Specialist at Flux Trends.
Takeaways re (Working from Home) WFH:

• Pros: flexibility for employees; employers can save costs; requires trust;
• Cons: small children at home, not at school, cuts down on productivity; requires trust;
• Review of Tools, systems, contractual obligations, technologies; Using devices (headsets, laptops, phones); Security; Generational challenges; Types of work.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch…

Warmer weather, and sunshine!
Neighborhood walks resumed; neighborhood dogs woof and howl as I pass by; neighborhood vegetation looking peaky but not frozen.

***

What, I wonder, are the statistics on infection rates of passengers on repatriation flights? Reviewing the risks of transmission during air travel makes me (somewhat) happy I’ve stayed put.

Day 85   Friday June 19 – Heedless

The numbers, this week and last week:

• June 19 - worldwide: 8,489,000 confirmed infections; 454,0007 deaths
  - June 12 - worldwide: 7,514,500 infections; 421,460 deaths
• June 19 - US: 2,191,100 confirmed infections; 118,435 deaths
  - June 12 - US: 2,043,500 infections; 114,000 deaths
• June 19 - SA: 83,890 confirmed infections; 1,737 deaths
  - June 12 - SA: 58,568 infections; 1285 deaths

March 29, 1968, Memphis Tennessee. 

US National Guard troops block off 

Beale Street as civil rights marchers 

pass by during the third consecutive 

march led by the group in as many days. 

© Bettman Archive/Getty Images.

Click to enlarge.

Juneteenth – a combination of the words "June" and "19th" – is the primary holiday commemorating the end of slavery in the United States.
The date is tied to a speech given by Union Maj. Gen. Gordon Granger, in 1895, in Galveston, Texas. In "General Order No. 3, Gordon declared that, owing to the Emancipation Proclamation issued by President Abraham Lincoln more than two years earlier, "all slaves are free."
The order did not end slavery overnight in Texas, just as Lincoln's earlier proclamation had not ended its practice in other Confederate states. But a few years later, formerly enslaved people of Texas, particularly in the area around Galveston, began to celebrate Juneteenth as the day of slavery's abolition.
Alternatively known as Freedom Day, Jubilee Day, and Cel-Liberation Day, is often marked by parades and public ceremonies.

News blues…

A recent post mentioned an amorphous, white supremacist, far-right anti-government movement called Boogaloo and its adherents, Boogaloo Boys/Bois.
In our current world of extreme prejudice and whackjobery, the word “boogaloo” is shorthand for stimulating a second American civil war. The name may reference a 1984 film, Breakin' 2: Electric Boogaloo, glamorizing armed conflict with authorities and law enforcement. (Ironically, in the 1960s, boogaloo was a genre of music and dance popular in the US - a fusion of popular Latin, African American rhythm and blues and soul.)
Boogaloo (the xenophobic group) has been deeply involved with disinformation activities following the lockdowns related to COVID-19.
Now, Boogaloo Boys have been specifically mentioned in charging documents filed against 32-year-old Steven Carrillo in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California.
US Air Force Sergeant Carrillo, a leader of an elite security force from a nearby military base, was charged with killing other security force members. He ambushed Santa Cruz deputies and threw pipe bombs at police on June 6, killing Sgt. Damon Gutzwiller and wounding four other officers. He has also been federally charged with the murder of federal security officer Pat Underwood, killed in a drive-by shooting on May 29 in Oakland. (An area close to where I work when in California.)

Whackjobery: it’s bottomless

Disinformation is the emergent weapon of choice of dis-informers, aka conspiracy theorists (aka “bullsh*t Berties”).
The current crop of dis-informers takes it cues from the president of the United States.
We’re not talking the usual kind of agit-prop put out by politicians and political parties. We’re talking nasty sh*t designed to dog whistle the easily swayed and the dangerous.
Latest pro-Trump gambit? Facebook ads displaying a red inverted triangle with text asking Facebook users to sign a petition against antifa, a loosely organized anti-fascist movement. (See post “Change in political and economic power.”)
In a tweet on Thursday, the Anti-Defamation League’s CEO, Jonathan Greenblatt, said of the symbol:

“The Nazis used red triangles to identify their political victims in concentration camps. Using it to attack political opponents is highly offensive.” The Facebook ads were run on pages belonging to Trump and Vice President Mike Pence, and also appeared in ads and organic posts on the “Team Trump” page.

I fear this is the beginning of an even more virulent disinformation campaign by an increasingly desperate Trump team. Essentially, he asking, “Boogaloo anyone?”

***

Despite a political worldview far from Republicanism, I promote the work of The Lincoln Project , a self-described Republican group focused on ousting Trump and Trumpism.
How is The Lincoln Project different from run-of-the-mill agit-prop generators?
Jennifer Horn, co-founder of the project, explains.
The Lincoln Project responds to Trump’s first rally since the start of the pandemic. It’s to be held tomorrow in Tulsa, Oklahoma. The ad, “Tulsa.” 

***

Chickens, home, roosting, etc.
On the eve of Trump’s first re-election campaign rally since the start of the pandemic, Oklahoma Republican Sen. James Lankford, warned wanna-be attendees at high risk from the coronavirus:

“… if you have comorbidities, if you are older, or you have other health issues, don’t come. …Watch it on TV.
Lankford stopped short of joining public health experts who have condemned the Trump campaign’s decision to host the event indoors at the 19,000-capacity BOK Center, saying the president is “always welcome” to come to the state.
Lockdown measures aimed at slowing the spread of the coronavirus were eased in Oklahoma weeks ago and a fresh surge in infections was expected, Lankford said. He said the rise in cases wasn’t accompanied by an increase in hospitalizations or deaths.
People seeking tickets to Trump’s rally had to acknowledge a waiver on the Trump campaign website that they won’t sue organizers if they contract the coronavirus at the event.
The Trump campaign said it will hand out face masks and hand sanitizer to attendees. The president himself flouts Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidelines by refusing to wear a mask in public.
Lankford said wearing a mask would be “an individual decision” for rally attendees.
“The hard part about it, and I’ve tried to explain this to other folks, when you’re at a large gathering like that, as you know, it’s hard to be able to hear sometimes,” he said. “So there’s going to be times, they’re gonna pull masks on and off. That’s why I really encourage people, if you have other health issues, I discourage you from coming to the event. But a lot of folks are coming, and the state is very excited about receiving the president.”

What to say?
Perhaps take a lesson from Arizona’s pro-Trump Republican sheriff, Mark Lamb? Back in April, Lamb refused to continue enforcing Arizona’s coronavirus lockdown order.
This week, he announced he’d tested positive for Covid-18 during a visit to the White House where he’d been invited to join President Donald Trump at a campaign event.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch…

My vehicle’s 2020 license was due for renewal by the end of April. The deadline has been extended, but my past experiences at the department leads me towards pro-action. Accordingly, I’ve dropped by the municipal offices and enquired about renewal.
First, I was told the office would open for business the following week.
The following week the gate was shut, and the security guards advised, “Come back next week.”
The following week, the gate was closed and, since then, remains closed.

Meanwhile, the saga of cancelling my mother’s Telkom telephone account continues. (See post, “Boiling frogs”)
I’ve cancelled the account online – as per Telkom voice instructions. Nevertheless, my mother continues to receive bills. Calling Telkom directly frustrates as I’m directed to “use the app” – except the app is an malfunctioning endless loop. I’ve repeatedly cancelled online, also as directed. I suspect cancelling her Telkom account will become another burr under my saddle of SA bureaucracy. It reminds me of a joke:

A man dies and goes to hell.
There, he discovers each country has its own version of hell.
He decides to go with the least painful version.
At the door to German Hell, he is told: "First they put you in an electric chair for an hour. Then they lay you on a bed of nails for another hour. Then the German devil comes in and whips you for the rest of the day."
Not liking the sound of that, he visits American Hell, Russian Hell, Norwegian Hell, and many other countries versions of hell. All are gruesome.
At the door to South African Hell, however, a long line of people waits to enter.
Amazed, he asks, "What do they do in this Hell?"
A woman tells him, "First they put you in an electric chair for an hour. Then they lay you on a bed of nails for another hour. Then the South African devil comes in and whips you for the rest of the day."
"But that's the same as other countries. Why are so many people waiting for that?"
“Ah,” she smiles, "Because of load-shedding, the electric chair does not work. The nails were paid for but never supplied, so the bed is comfortable. And the South African devil was a civil servant, so he comes into work, signs his time sheet, then goes back home to run his own business.

Week 12: Day 84 - Thursday, June 18 - He speaks!

President Cyril Ramaphosa came out of hiding last night and presented a pandemic update.  (35:18 mins) 

Along with clarifications and updates on continuing Alert Level 3, Ramaphosa addressed the epidemic of violence against women in this country. He recognized – by name – at least two dozen women and children recently murdered by the men in their lives. 

Over the last weeks, I’ve grumbled about the dearth of Ramaphosa updates. 

When he does update the nation, however, he consistently does a good job, certainly far superior to those of Trump, in terms of topic, tone, substance, focus, and, yes, in absence of lies and “other” bashing. 

Staying with Trump for a moment who, mercifully, has refrained from personally presenting any of his lie-laden updates. This, largely because he’s pretending the pandemic is over, done, finished and klaar.

Indeed, both Trump and toady VP Mike Pence posit that, if “we” didn’t test, “we” wouldn’t have an increase in cases. 

Pence – after disbanding the coronavirus taskforce – now praises “all 50 states for beginning to reopen in a “safe and responsible manner,” while both he and Trump accuse the media of “fear mongering” and being in “hysteria mode.” 

(To quote Joe Biden: “malarkey!” Numbers of cases are spiking, particulary in states that followd Trump's advice on reopening.) 

Anyway… good to hear from Ramaphosa who presented infection numbers, rates of increase, forthcoming challenges, and, yes, hope. Let's hope he makes his next update sooner rather than later.

News blues…

Apparently South Africa is refloating a plan for more nuclear energy after the Department of Mineral Resources and Energy (DMRE) issued a Request for Information (RFI) “to enable it to assess nuclear technologies.” 

Why? 

Why spend any more money on an energy source that presents such challenges, particularly to a low-tech country?  

Why not spend the money on renewable energy rather than a energy source whose by-product and waste present insurmountable problems even to high-tech countries?

Take the US, for example, that has more than 90,000 metric tons of nuclear waste requiring disposal plus, ditto, for another 80,000 metric tons of waste produced by its commercial power industry. 

US Government Accountability Office (GAO) states, “highly radioactive waste is currently stored at sites in 35 states because no repository has been developed for the permanent disposal of this waste.” (Read GAO’s issue summary and the map of current disposal sites.) 

Imagine relatiely small South Africa seeking permanent disposal sites for incredibly toxic waste. 

Moreover, back in 2016, South Africa’s proposed nuclear build program was estimated to cost at least ZAR3 trillion. It was “estimated South Africa will have to borrow R1.2 trillion for the deal. Think of it: ZAR1 trillion would build 100 million RDP houses - with running water, sewage systems, etc. 

Why, when the world knows so much about the problems of nuclear energy - financial and environmental costs, contamination, disposal, etc. - would any country, let alone low-tech South Africa, grow a nuclear industry?

Meanwhile, back at the ranch…

Weather here today is out of the California winter playbook: cold, rainy, and overcast. 

 No neighborhood walk. 

 Just hunkering down - and repeating to myself: “this, too, shall pass!”

Day 83 - Wednesday, June 17 - Only connect

“Study the science of art. Study the art of science… Realize that everything connects to everything else.”

- Leonardo da Vinci

…seeing the interconnectedness of diverse aspects of the world went out of fashion after the Renaissance, when Western thinkers largely adopted a more atomistic, analytical approach to science and philosophy pioneered by scientists such as Galileo and philosophers such as René Descartes and Thomas Hobbes [who viewed] the world in terms of individualised foundations or building blocks, which could be best understood through analysis rather than integration. The new approach was: if you want to know how things work, take them apart and examine the pieces.” 

We humans can take things apart. It’s examining them – or not – and putting the pieces back together with coherence that challenges us.

News blues…

Poisoned vultures
 in Mozambique.
 Photo: Andre Botha/AP
Click to enlarge.

At least 87 critically endangered birds died in Mozambique after eating poison planted by poachers in the carcass of an elephant. [In India]… from 1992 to 2007, [the] most common three vulture species declined by between 97% and 99.9%... only once the vultures had gone did people realise the crucial job they had been doing in clearing up the corpses of domestic and wild animals. Rotting carcasses contaminated water supplies, while rats and feral dogs multiplied, leading to a huge increase in the risk of disease for humans. 

…a decade [later]… the key cause [of vultures’ deaths] was confirmed… feeding on animal carcasses containing diclofenac, an anti-inflammatory drug routinely given to domestic cattle but poisonous to birds. … a similar story is unfolding in Africa … home to 11 of the world’s 16 old world vulture species. … From Kenya to Ethiopia, Botswana and South Africa, these birds have been a reassuring and seemingly permanent presence wherever big game animals roam. But now there are signs that Africa’s vulture populations are also plummeting at an alarming rate. 

…while deliberate poisoning by poachers does occur, other cases are unintentional. “Pastoralists and rural farmers try to protect their livestock from wild dogs, jackals, lions and hyenas by poisoning predators, and vultures are the unfortunate collateral damage.” 

“Another fundamental problem is the rapid economic growth and accompanying consumption and construction of infrastructure,” he says. Power lines and wind turbines are a particular problem if safe design principles are ignored. Vultures – due to their large size – are especially vulnerable to colliding with them, or being electrocuted when perching. …“Vultures play a vital role within human ecosystems that most people are unaware of, and so they don’t class their conservation as important. We only have to look to Asia as an example of what could happen in the face of continued vulture declines in Africa.”

Making connections

…scientists have referred to the diversity of life on Earth as “biological diversity”, or just “biodiversity”….[defined] as operating at three levels: the diversity of genes within any particular species; the diversity of species in a given place; and the diversity of habitat types such as forests, coral reefs, and so on. But … [a] fourth level has been almost entirely overlooked: cultural diversity. 

Culture is knowledge and skills that flow socially from individual to individual and generation to generation. It’s not in genes. Socially learned skills, traditions and dialects that answer the question of “how we live here” are crucial to helping many populations survive – or recover. Crucially, culturally learned skills vary from place to place. In the human family many cultures, underappreciated, have been lost. Culture in the other-than-human world has been almost entirely missed. 

… in many species, survival skills must be learned from elders who learned from their elders. Until now, culture has remained a largely hidden, unrecognised layer of wild lives. Yet for many species culture is both crucial and fragile. Long before a population declines to numbers low enough to seem threatened with extinction, their special cultural knowledge, earned and passed down over long generations, begins disappearing. Recovery of lost populations then becomes much more difficult than bringing in a few individuals and turning them loose. 

…Cultural survival skills erode as habitats shrink. Maintaining genetic diversity is not enough. We’ve become accustomed to a perilous satisfaction with precariously minimal populations that not only risk genetic viability of populations but almost guarantee losing local cultural knowledge by which populations have lived and survived. 

…What’s at stake is: ways of knowing how to be in the world. Culture isn’t just a boutique concern. Cultural knowledge is what allows many populations to survive. Keeping the knowledge of how to live in a habitat can be almost as important to the persistence of a species as keeping the habitat; both are needed. Cultural diversity itself is a source of resilience and adaptability to change. And change is accelerating.

***

Daily Maverick Webinar Exclusive, “Influence: From South Africa ‘94 to Trump ‘20, how elections are manipulated & monetised across the world.”

In 1993, Western strategic communications specialists were brought in to help political parties prepare for South Africa's first democratic election. Their work in part paved the way for the development of a lucrative and far-reaching new business model: the commodification of democracy, through the manipulation of election campaigns.

Join Influence directors Richard Poplak and Diana Neille in conversation with Nigel Oakes on what went on behind the scenes of the '94 election; how it helped establish a host of new weaponised communications tools for geopolitical processes in the 21st century, and what we can expect in the lead-up to the 2020 election in the United States.

Nigel Oakes is a British behavioural thought leader and defence scientist, whose ideas have laid the foundation for many significant developments in both military influence and population analysis. He is the former CEO of SCL Group, which was the holding company for Cambridge Analytica, and is the current Chairman of the Behavioural Dynamics Institute. Oakes was one of the consultants who helped prepare for the 1994 elections.

I urge you to watch this webinar. Nigel Oakes describes himself as “amoral” – and, indeed, that’s his excuse for doing things that would be better undone. 

After the webinar, read Christopher Wylie’s book, Mindf*ck: Cambridge Analytica and the Plot to Break America. (Get the kindle edition at your local library or buy at Amazon  )

Meanwhile, back at the ranch…

Time to hibernate. 

Little overnight frost last night and none predicted tonight. The garden looks gray, burned, and exhausted. I’ll prune frost-burned plants later in the season. For now, what remains of the damaged plants – blackened and shriveled buds, leaves, and limbs - provide shelter for undamaged plants.

Uniform gray, burned, and exhausted plants and gardens in evidence throughout the neighborhood during my (mercifully uneventful) daily walk. 

Overcast weather was cold enough that, despite wearing a heavy faux-sheepskin jacket and thick pants, I did not overheat. 

Dogs barked. I barked back. Dogs barked more. I passed by. Next household’s dog barked…

 

Read   Week 1 |   Week 2   |  Week 3  |  Week 4 |  Week 5  | Week 6  |  Week 7  |  Week 8  |  Week 9  |  Week 10   |   Week 11  |   Week 12

See photos  Spying on Garden Creatures 

Watch  Videos of Garden Creatures

Day 82 - Tuesday, June 16 - Hirsute yet?

How’s your hair these days?
Mine is longer than usual, not styled, and driving me bonkers.
Seeking solace, I asked a friend how fares his hair.
“Not good.” he said. “I figured that, since I trim my own beard, I’d trim my own hair. How tough could it be?”
With his thick, curly hair, it was tougher than he imagined.
“Now I know why 19th Century US Cavalry soldiers have the dos they do,” he said. “I look like one of them: short sides, long bangs brushed back from my forehead, long tresses down my back.” (Translation: “Bangs” in US = “fringe” in South Africa.)

Click to enlarge.

Click to enlarge.

News anchor Anderson Cooper tried trimming his own already-short hair. It turned into a hack job … and a news item. 

News blues…

Confirmed cases of Covid-19 infections are surging in South Africa. Today’s total, 73,533, saw an increase of 3,495 cases in the last 24 hours. This repeats an emerging pattern of increase over the past week.

“Public health officials see the peak coming in July or August. Most of the increase is coming from just three of the country's eight provinces: Gauteng, the Eastern Cape and the Western Cape. Right now, Cape Town appears to be the continent's current epicenter.”

Yet…

“as the Africa CDC works with countries to increase testing capacity and hotspots in urban centers emerge, WHO officials say there is little evidence yet of an exponential surge in severe cases, or a surge in deaths across much of the continent. They have said much of the continent will see a 'smoldering' outbreak. 

Yet…

Health Minister Zweli Mkhize said, “in coming days, the country would see a rise in infections, more people would be hospitalised, and many would lose their lives.”

Getting an accurate picture of what’s what with Covid in South Africa is, well, hair-raising.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch…

As days get colder, I notice a desire to hibernate.
Each morning I pull off the covers I laid on plants the night before to protect them from frost.
I sit outside in a sunny spot to eat breakfast and acclimate to the coming day.
Sometimes I enjoy a cup of tea with my mother.
Sometimes I drive into the village and run errands.
Sometimes I scoop swamp cypress needles from the pond.
Sometimes I walk around the neighborhood for exercise.
Today, I visited with an elderly friend who has been unwell.
All the while, I’m aware that I’d like to hibernate, not simply stay in bed but sleep, deeply, soundly … until winter is over.

Day 81  - Monday, June 15 – Many are cold, some are frozen

 Yesterday, Johns Hopkins reported a surge of confirmed infections in the US: 19,532 new cases.
South Africa reports surging cases of new infections, too: 4,302 cases overnight; 70,038 confirmed infections, today.

Daily Maverick webinar’s, “The Inside Track: 100 Days of Covid-19” offers sobering insights into South Africa’s near future.
In the 100 days since the public was notified of the first case of Covid-19 in South Africa, our health, the way we work, what we eat (or don’t) and how we live have changed dramatically.
Daily Maverick Associate Editor Ferial Haffajee in conversation with DM Citizen Editor Mark Heywood and Professor Glenda Gray, physician, scientist and activist, reflect on the state of the pandemic and what’s to come.
Takeaways:

• Low testing numbers mask (ahem) a hidden epidemic.
• South Africa is the now 8th on the world list of countries with the highest numbers of new cases/day.
• Contact tracing is inefficient: “We don’t have the capacity for fast tracking turnaround.”
• South Africa’s school feeding program nourishes 9 million South African children. Closing it down interrupted the program and prevented 9 million children from enjoying one square meal/day.
• Hunger and lack of resources is real in South Africa – AND ALSO in countries around the world. There’s a human rights epidemic simultaneous with the pandemic.
• Challenges for the next 100 days: we’re entering the surge phase of the pandemic. Brace for a medical onslaught. Health care workers vulnerabilities – lack of PPE, beds, ICUs, equipment; overwork and physical, psychological, emotional health stress – mean patients will be vulnerable, too.

Near future/next 100 days will be challenging. Volunteer to help in your neighborhoods, feed people, dig deep to share and appreciate our humanity.

***

Meanwhile, back at the ranch…

The search for a local source of chicken giblets for my mother’s dogs continues… (backstory - a saga of giblets).
I’ve scouted several local vendors and discovered 1) the pandemic and Lockdown has driven one popular local butchery out of business, 2) chicken necks are available; chicken giblets are not, 3) the entrance to the one village butchery that likely carries giblets shares space with a taxi rank. People, masked and unmasked, mill around the butchery entrance – and I’m not pushing my way through crowds and risking infection to purchase food for seven spoiled and obese dogs.

***

I can manage demands coronavirus makes on my worldview. It’s tougher to adjust to a more banal change: weather.
Each morning for the past week, a half inch/1+ cm layer of frost has covered the lawns and plants.
As a San Francisco Bay Area resident, I’m unused to frost. The Bay Area’s Mediterranean climate delivers wet winters with temperatures averaging 12°C/53°F, dropping overnight to 3°C/38°F. One or two nights/year temps might drop to freezing.
As a houseboat resident in the Sacramento Delta - elevation 79 feet/24 meters – temperatures range from a summer high of 38°C/102°F, with winter lows about the same as the Bay Area. (Freezing temperatures can damage outboard motors, so liveaboards and mariners pay attention).
Since I departed South Africa, decades ago, I’ve avoided spending winter here. Until Lockdown, I never spent a winter at my current elevation: 1050 m/3,444 feet.
Yesterday noon, the bird bath hosted a platter-sized layer of ice. It was thick enough that, astonished, I carried it inside to show my mother, then placed it in a plant pot to melt in the warm sunshine.
This morning, the same bird bath was frozen solid with a 2-inch-thick layer.
Sections of the garden pond were covered in ice, too.
I hear from local residents that this is an usually cold period for this time of year.

Perhap that explains whty garden plants suffer, too. Before and after photos show some of the damage.

Befrore - buds appearing
Click to enlarge.

After - buds dead
Click to enlarge.

Before - flowering aloe
Click to enlarge.

After - flowers dead
Click to enlarge.

 (The good news? As I scooped swamp cypress needles from the pond, I spotted one goldfish. That’s one more goldfish than I’ve seen in a week.)

Day 80 Sunday, June 14 - Unknown unknows

On this day of rest, I paraphrase Bush Administration's former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld’s immortal words at a 2002 news briefing. Rumsfeld addressed the lack of evidence about the government of Iraq supplying WMD to terrorists:

..there are known knowns; things we know we know…there are known unknowns…we know there are some things we do not know…[and the] unknown unknowns—the ones we don't know we don't know.

A now known known:  we could have/should have known that those known unknowns and the known knowns would turn out in a way we could have guessed!

News blues…

Nicholas Kristoff, in this week’s New York Times column, explores an issue I raised earlier this week regarding women leaders’ success handling the pandemic. I mentioned PMs of New Zealand and Iceland (Jacinda Ardern and Katrín Jakobsdóttir, respectively). Kristoff delves deeper and asks, “Why are the rates of coronavirus deaths far lower in many female-led countries?”

Are female leaders better at fighting a pandemic? I compiled death rates from the coronavirus for 21 countries around the world, 13 led by men and eight by women. The male-led countries suffered an average of 214 coronavirus-related deaths per million inhabitants. Those led by women lost only one-fifth as many, 36 per million. If the United States had the coronavirus death rate of the average female-led country, 102,000 American lives would have been saved out of the 114,000 lost. 

“Countries led by women do seem to be particularly successful in fighting the coronavirus,” noted Anne W. Rimoin, an epidemiologist at U.C.L.A. “New Zealand, Denmark, Finland, Germany, Iceland, Norway have done so well perhaps due to the leadership and management styles attributed to their female leaders.” 

… [certainly] there have been plenty of wretched female leaders over the years. Indeed, according to [my] research …female leaders around the world haven’t been clearly better than male counterparts even at improving girls’ education or reducing maternal mortality. … It’s not that the leaders who best managed the virus were all women. But those who bungled the response were all men, and mostly a particular type: authoritarian, vainglorious and blustering. Think of Boris Johnson in Britain, Jair Bolsonaro in Brazil, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei in Iran and Donald Trump in the United States. Virtually every country that has experienced coronavirus mortality at a rate of more than 150 per million inhabitants is male-led.

What to say?

***

Only in America. Access to decent health care is a political hot potato in the US. Obama’s Affordable Care Act (“Obamacare”) addressed the shortfall in health care insurance for about 40 million Americans. Donald Trump promised to improve on ACA but instead slowly erodes it. Imagine the surprise of a Seattle resident recovered from Covid-19 when he got a bill from the hospital for $1,122,501.04 / ZAR 19,144, 311.77.

Flor, 70, shared the 181-page document with The Seattle Times, which noted that he has insurance and Medicare coverage and so may only have to pay a relatively small amount of the whopping total. He may not have to pay anything at all due to steps taken by Congress to protect Americans with private insurance or no insurance from being charged for seeking testing and treatment for COVID-19…. 

Yet Flor’s bill, technically an “explanation of benefits,” is a stark example of the sky-high cost of health care in the U.S. that has come under increased criticism during the coronavirus pandemic. America spends more per person on health care than any other high-income country, due in part to its reliance on for-profit companies.

I wonder if Flor is mollified by the uncertainty that “He may not have to pay anything?” 

Despite Lockdown, South Africa’s Covid-19 current rate of increase  - 2,500 to 3,500 confirmed infections/day - place me at risk of contracting the virus. My travel insurance expired the day after I was scheduled to travel, May 19. With health care in South Africa far more affordable (if not always available or high quality) than health care in the US, I'd expect my (personal) overall out-of-pocket costs of a Covid-19 infection in South Africa would be less than US$1,122,501.04/ ZAR 19,144, 311.77. 

But, who knows? I would have to pay something but how much? 

An alarming sort-of-known unknown.

***

A dab of humor… Sara Cooper’s How to - Trump voice overs:

• How to lobster 
• How to water 
• How to bible 

Oh, oh, Lindsey Graham speaks – and Trump ain’t gonna like it:

• Graham on Trump and Joe Biden 
• Graham on Joe Biden 

And, then, there’s Devin Nunes, his mom, his cow, and his failing lawsuit. (I find Nunes a, well, strange … cowboy … in Congress. If you don't know Nunes, and not laying my prejudices on you, here’s the vanilla Wikipedia version of his bio.)

Meanwhile, back at the ranch…

I worked on the cement sculpture mix experiment enough yesterday to know that the recipe won’t work for my sculpture projects. The other recipe I researched - advertised as “cement that works like clay” – requires more ingredients than I want to purchase (Portland cement, metakaolin, fine fiber flakes, etc.). From my current perspective, I’m unlikely to venture down that path. It’s back to the drawing board….

***

Cold, cold, cold…. Another layer of frost outside. Yesterday’s layer frost burned and blackened – several large plants. I repeated the experiment of covering several outside succulents overnight. I can’t say I notice significant difference in their response to frost. Overnight temperatures will drop below freezing for the next several nights so more observation coming up.

***

While scooping swamp cypress needles from the pond, I discovered just how cold is the water, even at midday. No wonder goldfish are scarce. I hope they have found a sufficiently warm niche to survive the worst of the winter.

 

Read   Week 1 |   Week 2   |  Week 3  |  Week 4 |  Week 5  | Week 6  |  Week 7  |  Week 8  |  Week 9  |  Week 10   |   Week 11  |   Week 12

See photos  Spying on Garden Creatures 

Watch  Videos of Garden Creatures

Day 79 Saturday, June 13 - “… ugly Anarchists must be stooped”

Click to enlarge

Ah, now, does that man on the left look like a leader you’d trust with your life?

President Donald Trump has warned repeatedly that antifa, a favorite bogeyman, is behind the violence during recent waves of protest … scant evidence supports Trump’s claims, [on the other hand] adherents of the far-right [loosely organized] movement known as Boogaloo have shown up at various protests sparked by the police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis, attempting to use the demonstrations to further their own cause and in some cases carrying rifles. 

Trump Tweeted about unarmed protesters, “These ugly Anarchists must be stooped [sic] IMMEDIATELY. MOVE FAST!”
He says nothing about “stooping” Boogaloo or any of the other burgeoning white nationalist groups in the US.
The mayor of Seattle’s advice to Trump? “Make us all safe. Go back to your bunker!”

News blues…

The book of Trump’s former US National Security Advisor is due to publish next week. Remember John Bolton? The man who refused to stand up and speak the truth when it counted – during Trump’s impeachment?
He plans to profit from that role?
I’ll not purchase his book.
Media outlets will summarize the salient points and, if I’m curious beyond that, I’ll get the Kindle edition from the library. I’ll not spend a penny to prop up Bolton’s version of public service.

***

The Donald, a tone-deaf guy immune to positive change, has chosen a trajectory guaranteed to toss him out of the White House, if – a big if - the election process unfolds without interference.
He continues to push unAmerican activities. More Americans push back.
Meidas Touch produced a supercut with excellent advice: “End this Ugly Presidency.”

***

What’s the connection between food and pandemic? What’s the difference between virus and bacteria? Where lies further dangers from both? Writer Sigal Samuel unpacks these topics….

Some experts have hypothesized that the novel coronavirus made the jump from animals to humans in China’s wet markets, just like SARS before it. Unsurprisingly, many people are furious that the markets, which were closed in the immediate wake of the outbreak in China, have already reopened. It’s easy to point the finger at these “foreign” places and blame them for generating pandemics. But doing that ignores one crucial fact: The way people eat all around the world — including in the US — is a major risk factor for pandemics, too.
That’s because we eat a ton of meat, and the vast majority of it comes from factory farms. In these huge industrialized facilities that supply more than 90 percent of meat globally — and around 99 percent of America’s meat — animals are tightly packed together and live under harsh and unsanitary conditions.
When we talk about the risk of pandemics, we’re actually talking about two different types of outbreaks. The first is a viral pandemic; examples include the 1918 influenza pandemic and Covid-19. The second is a bacterial pandemic; the prime example is the bubonic plague, the “Black Death” that wracked Europe in the Middle Ages.
…scientists believe the novel coronavirus originated in wild bats, not factory farms. But it has awakened us all to the crushing effect a pandemic can have on our lives. Now that we’ve come face to face with this reality, the question is: Do we have the political and cultural will to do something major — changing the way we eat — to sharply decrease the likelihood of the next pandemic?
Read the full article, “The meat we eat is a pandemic risk, too.” 

***

Daily Maverick webinar, “The Fight Against Misinformation Part 2: Unmasking Malevolent Networks.”  Hosted by Marianne Thamm with Jean le Roux and William Bird.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch…

Click to enlarge.

Sign at the entry of the plant nursery where (wearing my mask correctly) I purchased Palm Peat, a material in my upcoming cement sculpture mix experiment.
Palm peat, aka “coir,” is a multi-faceted material. Besides its most common role as growing medium for seedlings and its role as potential ingredient in sculpture mix, it is also an ingredient in composting toilets.
I’m fourteen thousand miles from my houseboat where half a dozen “coir bricks” – and a composting toilet - await my return.

***

Temperatures dropped below freezing last night. This morning, three hours after sunrise, frost still carpets the lawns and gardens.

***

Swamp cypress, taxodium distichum, is not, as I thought, native to South Africa but to the southeastern United States.
The wetland section of this garden has four tall and mature swamp cypress. Gorgeous trees – with one drawback: in the winter, the trees shed gorgeous russet-red lacy needles that drift and clog the pond. Each day I scoop out and recycle piles of needles.
As I scoop, I cajole, “c’mon, trees, hurry up and shed already!”
I also cajole goldfish, “where are you, guys? Haven’t seen you for more than a week. Show yourselves! Let me know you’re still swimming….”

***

Yet another repat flight:

Event:  The South African Ministry of Health has confirmed 58,568 cases of COVID-19 within its borders.
Announcing June 18 Ethiopian Airlines Flight
We have been notified of a special commercial repatriation flight operated by Ethiopian Airlines to Chicago, United States on Thursday, June 18.
Flight information:
• Potential passengers must book their tickets directly with Ethiopian Airlines.
• The flight will depart from Johannesburg and then Cape Town on Thursday, June 18 before proceeding to Addis Ababa, Ethiopia and onward to Chicago O’Hare International Airport, United States.
• Passengers will be responsible for travel to their final destination in the United States from Chicago O’Hare.
• This flight is open to U.S. citizens, Lawful Permanent Residents, and visa holders who have received DHA approval to depart South Africa.
• Passengers will be responsible for finding transportation to the required assembly point, which will be communicated by Ethiopian Airways prior to the flight departure.
• Travel permission letters for U.S. citizens and green card holders are not required unless you will be crossing provinces to arrive at the assembly point. If you must cross a provincial border to join this repatriation flight, please write to SAEvacuation@state.gov requesting a travel letter. Include your name, passport or greencard number, current address, and flight confirmation.
• For any questions regarding availability, cost, baggage allowance, or other flight details, please contact Ethiopian Airlines directly at JNBTrade@ethiopianairlines.com.

Etc., etc., etc….
I’m staying here.

***

Click to enlarge.

What do you see in the photo (left)?

I snapped this master of disguise near the pond.
Can you see it?

Day 78 Friday June 12 – Realities, unchained 

Welcome to Week 12...and a look at the numbers:
Worldwide: ,7,514,500 infections; 421,460 deaths
US: 2,043,500  infections; 114,000 deaths
SA: 58,568 infections; 1285 deaths

In the 1989 movie, “A Dry White Season,” the South African lawyer played by Marlon Brando says that, in [apartheid] South Africa, law and justice are from the same family but “they’ve not been on speaking terms for years.”
Not to trivialize South Africa’s past, but I’m reminded of this line as I grapple with Lockdown. Real reality and human/my reality are from the same family, but not on speaking terms for, well, at least 66 days!
Lockdown Day 66 – 28 May – was the day Lockdown reality began to penetrate my Lockdown denial. Until then, I’d stayed busy, developed minor obsessions, whatever it took. Unconsciously, I’d deluded myself that a few weeks of laying low and, poof, coronavirus would lose its lethality. I’d hop on a plane and return to my houseboat, life on the water, summer.
Maintaining psychological balance was a challenge but not impossible.
I would, you know, overcome…

Twelve days later, coronavirus reality is overcoming me.
Denial is hard to maintain.
I am, you are, we’re all amid a perfect storm of historical events – and few of us are equipped effectively to respond.

We humans are ill-equipped to address/confront real reality; we lag way behind the moment. We resort to habit, the familiar. We lose the plot when faced with a slowly unfolding catastrophe.
Ditto elected leaders. Most appear incapable of addressing the moment. Many are still in denial - their equivalent of Day 66 hasn’t arrived, or they ignored it when it did.
Ramaphosa seldom appears in public.
Others - Trump, Bolsonaro – have thrown in the towel and pretend the pandemic is over, finished and klaar, “embers and ashes.”
We, the People discover systems we took for granted, that we thought securely in place, no longer work – perhaps never did.
Historically, now is a delicate moment, the kind of moment history teaches can go either way: more fascistic or more progressive.
Which will it be?
It is up to you, to me, to our friends and family.

News blues…

Notable successes during the pandemic:
New Zealand. Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern announced the country coronavirus-free. New Zealand also saw very few COVID-related deaths.

The cornerstone of a pandemic response for every country must be to find, test, isolate, and care for every case, and to trace and quarantine every contact… That is every country's best defense against COVID-19 and it is how New Zealand succeeded in overcoming COVID-19. Stopping the virus also means the country can begin its economic recovery sooner.”
Ardern said the economy would now operate at just 3.8% below normal. "We now have a head start on economic recovery because at level one we become one of the most open, if not the most open, economies in the world."  

Iceland: Vigilant tracing and strict quarantine resulted in Iceland beating the virus.

Iceland never imposed a lockdown. Only a few types of businesses—night clubs and hair salons, for example—were ever ordered closed. Hardly anyone in Reykjavík wears a mask. And yet, by mid-May … the tracing team had almost no one left to track. During the previous week, in all of Iceland, only two new coronavirus cases had been confirmed. The country hadn’t just managed to flatten the curve; it had, it seemed, virtually eliminated it. 

True, both countries are isolated islands with relatively small populations. But more importantly their leaders responded fast and with honesty about the way forward.
Is it significant that both countries are led by women with children?
Prime minister of Iceland: Katrín Jakobsdóttir;
PM of New Zealand: Jacinda Ardern.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch…

Overnight temperature dropped toward freezing early this morning. This overnight trend continues through the next several days.
The early freeze of late May (Day 66?) damaged succulents leaves and flower buds. With time on my hands, last night I covered beds of succulents with sheets of plastic.
After struggling to pull on my stiff-with-cold gum boots early this morning, I removed the plastic. Succulents appear frost-burn-free. (None thanked me for my service – perhaps, like my gum boots, too cold.)
Yes, I know it is ridiculous to protect outdoor indigenous plants from frost. But I’ve the time and the inclination so why not? Tonight, I’ll cover them again. (Perhaps they’ll figure out how to express their thanks?)

***

Remember toilet paper mania (TPM), way back at the beginning of the pandemic? Stores ran out of toilet paper with the result a modern-day tulip mania (looking at you, Australia).
Naturally, entrepreneurs capitalized on TPM: Japanese company PooPaint presents toilet paper for people with time on their hands. (I’ll pass – at least for now. I recommend PooPaint conduct a no-holds-barred marketing campaign in Australia.)
Manias come and go, and capitalism will never end.

Week 11: Day 77  Thursday, June 11 - Embers, ashes, and flames 

More than 2 million confirmed cases of Covid-19 infections in the United States and as many as 1,000 deaths per day – and the implicit message emanating from the White House? “Move along, nothing to see here.”
I was not unhappy to no longer see and hear The Donald spouting gobbledygook at press briefings. But to halt coronavirus task force briefings? To end the coronavirus task force?
It’s madness.

News blues…

Ramaphosa has largely disappeared from view. South Africans are left to their own devices as:

…squabbling erupts over the constitutionality of the National Coronavirus Command Council (NCCC)…[that] it appears to usurp the powers of structures set up under the Disaster Management Act in determining government’s response to national disasters…[and that it operates] without parliamentary oversight.
…Ramaphosa said that the NCCC was not established in terms of the Disaster Management Act but instead forms part of Cabinet in an advisory capacity.
“The National Coronavirus Command Council – originally known as the NCC – was established as a committee of Cabinet by the Cabinet in its meeting of 15 March 2020.” He further expanded on the role of the NCCC in decision-making and how it helps formulate lockdown regulations.
“The NCCC coordinates government’s response to the coronavirus pandemic. The NCCC makes recommendations to Cabinet on measures required in terms of the national state of disaster. Cabinet makes the final decisions.”
In a separate response Ramaphosa added that all cabinet members currently sit on the NCCC – although this was not originally the case when the lockdown first started.

A dose of confusion, anyone?

In the US, top officials like infectious disease expert Anthony Fauci have also largely disappeared from national television.

…Fauci [and other experts made] just four cable TV appearances in May after being a near fixture on Sunday shows across March and April — and are frequently restricted from testifying before Congress. Meanwhile, President Donald Trump is preparing to resume his campaign rallies after a three-month hiatus, an attempted signal to voters that normalcy is returning ahead of November’s election, and that he’s all but put the pandemic behind him.
“We’ve made every decision correctly,” Trump claimed in remarks in the Rose Garden Friday morning. “We may have some embers or some ashes or we may have some flames coming, but we’ll put them out. We’ll stomp them out.”

We’ll see….
Confusion keeps apace with rising cases of infection and leaders, north and south, appear incapable of leading.

***

I wish it were not inevitable but…

“Covid waste” – dozens of gloves, masks and bottles of hand sanitiser [noted] beneath the waves of the Mediterranean, mixed in with the usual litter of disposable cups and aluminium cans.

The quantities of masks and gloves found were far from enormous…[but]… the discovery hinted at a new kind of pollution, one set to become ubiquitous after millions around the world turned to single-use plastics to combat the coronavirus. “It’s the promise of pollution to come if nothing is done…” 

As much as 13 million tonnes of plastic goes into oceans each year…. The Mediterranean sees 570,000 tonnes of plastic flow into it annually – an amount … equal to dumping 33,800 plastic bottles every minute into the sea.

These figures risk growing substantially as countries around the world confront the coronavirus pandemic. Masks often contain plastics such as polypropylene …“With a lifespan of 450 years, these masks are an ecological timebomb given their lasting environmental consequences for our planet.”

Meanwhile, back at the ranch…

The plumber called in to replace a bathroom fixture mentioned he had a plumbing job in Durban.
“Durban! How lovely,” I breathed. “Sounds so … exotic! Like a visit to the moon!”
“Lockdown has that effect on people,” he said, “but for those of us working, it’s a hassle. Police roadblocks shut down the N3 [national highway] and it takes forever to pass through. The cops climb into my bakkie [work truck] and paw through my toolboxes.”
“Why do they do that?” I asked.
“Looking for [bootleg] alcohol and cigarettes.”

The cigarette ban makes no sense. Illegal trade in cigarettes flourishes within South Africa and without. The Limpopo /Zimbabwe border is riddled with illegal cigarette trade.  (2:12 mins)
I’m not a smoker but under the circumstances – hungry, financially strapped South Africans and Zimbabweans – of course do what they need to do to survive.
The biggest loser? South African Revenue Services – SARS – loses a vast generator of tax with the ban and makes not a penny of illegal cigarette sales.
With Lockdown/stay-at-home fraying around the edges all over the world, continuing the ban on cigarettes makes no sense.

***

I’m researching recipes for a workable cement-type material to sculpt. Even as I conduct research, my hands long for the feel of clay. I’ve worked with concrete in the past – not for sculpture but for repairing and patching. In comparison to clay, it lacks that … je ne sais quoi….

Day 76   Wednesday, June 10 - Wild Ride

The pandemic has reinforced humans’ need to neutralize the horror of the unknown by predicting the future. 

Predictability makes the world go round. We save money for a “rainy day,” plan events, have babies – because we believe in tomorrow. 

The unpredictable frightens. 

But popular yammering on and on about coronavirus, what it will do, how it will do it – or not – is detrimental to mental health. Not needing to know, not managing anxiety by making predictions, presents an opportunity to develop a mentally healthy relationship with not knowing. 

The challenge is training oneself to “hold”, mentally and emotionally, the unpredictable without denying its power. Think of it as a form of meditation: clearing the “monkey mind” and simply… being, holding the moment’s challenges rather than having to “do something.” 

Having said that, let’s hear what the “experts” predict.

News blues…

Experts warn that it is only a matter of time before the rest of South Africa reaches the surge in Covid-19 coronavirus cases currently being experienced in the Western Cape. 

Epidemiologists, as well as experts in infectious diseases and vaccinology, spoke to City Press this week . All agreed that a change in social behaviour was the only way to halt the increasing speed at which the virus was spreading. Just this week, South Africa recorded the highest increase in new cases, with a jump of 3,267 new infections identified from the previous day. Friday also saw a large increase of 2,642 new cases from the previous day. Numbers of confirmed cases went up another 2,112 overnight, with today’s total close to 53,000.

***

We don’t really know when the novel coronavirus first began infecting people. But … it is fair to say that Sars-Cov-2 has been with us now for a full six months.

What we know At least 100 scientific teams around the world are racing to develop a vaccine. That’s about it for the good news. The virus has shown no sign of going away: We will be in this pandemic era for the long haul, likely a year or more. The masks, the social distancing, the fretful hand-washing, the aching withdrawal from friends and family — those steps are still the best hope of staying well, and will be for some time to come.

“This virus just may become another endemic virus in our communities, and this virus may never go away,” Dr. Mike Ryan, the executive director of the World Health Organization’s health emergencies program, warned last month.

Some scientists think that the longer we live with the virus, the milder its effects will become, but that remains to be seen. Predictions that millions of doses of a vaccine may be available by the end of this year may be too rosy. No vaccine has ever been created that fast. The disease would be less frightening if there were a treatment that could cure it or, at least, prevent severe illness. But there is not. 

Remdesivir, the eagerly awaited antiviral drug? “Modest” benefit is the highest mark experts give it. Which brings us back to masks and social distancing, which have come to feel quite antisocial.

If only we could go back to life the way it used to be. We cannot. Not yet. There are just enough wild cards with this disease — perfectly healthy adults and children who inexplicably become very, very sick — that no one can afford to be cavalier about catching it. 

About 35 percent of infected people have no symptoms at all, so if they are out and about, they could unknowingly infect other people. Enormous questions loom.

Can workplaces be made safe? What about trains, subways, airplanes, school buses? How many people can work from home? When would it be safe to reopen schools? How do you get a 6-year-old with the attention span of a squirrel to socially distance?

The bottom line: Wear a mask, keep your distance. When the time comes in the fall, get a flu shot, to protect yourself from one respiratory disease you can avoid and to help keep emergency rooms and urgent care from being overwhelmed. Hope for a treatment, a cure, a vaccine. Be patient. We have to pace ourselves. If there’s such a thing as a disease marathon, this is it. 

***

Tasteless and tone-deaf: What is it with white guys wearing black face? For readers not familiar with the term, blackface describes a form of theatrical make-up used predominantly by non-black performers to represent a caricature of a black person. I was tempted to write, above, “old, white guys” assuming such antics happened way back when, in the dim days of the colleges they attended as teenagers. 

Alas, the young and apparently hip do it, too. Canada’s Liberal Justin Tradeau, for example, admits “he can't recall how many times he wore blackface makeup.”

Click to enlarge

Perhaps Liberty University President Jerry Falwell Jr. wore blackface as a college student. If so, he has not learned a thing since then. Indeed, just the opposite. Running one of the largest Evangelical Christian colleges in the world, junior Falwell recently went steps beyond tasteless.

Falwell, an enthusiastic supporter of President Donald Trump who opposes wearing masks, posted an image [in May] of a facial covering he said he would wear. It featured a picture of a person in blackface and another in a KKK hood. Along with apologizing on Monday, Falwell deleted the May tweet. However, it was preserved in screenshots. Nearly three dozen Black pastors, ministry leaders and former athletes ― including several former NFL players ― who graduated from Liberty sent Falwell a petition that was co-signed by thousands more on Change.org. 

It read in part: 

The KKK robe and hood and blackface face mask tweet may seem funny to you, but this tweet is the action of a political commentator or activist and is not fitting nor acceptable for the leader of one of the largest Evangelical Christian schools in the world. A review of your social media and statements during your presidency would lead many to believe that you care much more about politics than Jesus Christ, Evangelism, and the discipleship of students.

Hear, hear!

Meanwhile, back at the ranch…

Another repat flight announced, another repat flight not taken.

Health Alert: Announcing June 14 Repatriation Flight on South African Airways – U.S. Embassy Pretoria, South Africa (June 8, 2020) Location: South Africa Event:  The South African Ministry of Health has confirmed 48,285 cases of COVID-19 within its borders.

[Editorial: adding increasing numbers of cases feels like a warning: “now is your moment to do-like-a rat and abandon ship”]

Announcing June 14 South African Airways Flight We have been notified of a special commercial repatriation flight to the United States operated by South African Airways on Sunday, June 14. Flight information:

• The flight will depart from Johannesburg and then Cape Town on Sunday, June 14 before proceeding to Washington Dulles International Airport.
• Passengers will be responsible for onward travel to their final destination in the United States.
• This flight is open to U.S. citizens, Lawful Permanent Residents, and visa holders who have received DHA approval to depart South Africa.
• Passengers will be responsible for finding transportation to the required assembly point, which will be communicated prior to the flight departure.
• For any questions regarding cost, baggage allowance, or other flight details, please contact SAA directly.

To confirm your participation in the June 14 South African Airways special repatriation flight, you MUST express your interest by completing this form by 11:59pm on Wednesday, June 10. Note that completing the form does not guarantee you a seat. Please complete the form even if you have filled out a previous form with the U.S. Mission to South Africa – this will confirm your interest in this specific flight only and does not track interest in future flights. SAA will sell tickets directly to passengers who have completed the above form. … If you would like to depart South Africa, we highly recommend you avail yourself of any available opportunity, even if it is not your desired flight route.  We cannot guarantee frequency of special repatriation, nor can we guarantee that previously scheduled commercial flights will depart as planned.  We do not have further information about when regular international commercial flights will resume.

Despite the ominouos sound of that last line: "We do not have further information about when regular international commercial flights will resume" (will I get out of this country alive?), I’ve pretty much given up the notion of a repat flight to California, my family and friends, and my houseboat. 

I can’t justify departing during a pandemic and leaving my 87-year-old bed-ridden mother, seven dogs – three elderly and incontinent – two live-in domestic workers, one-to-two-day /week gardener. 

Crazy, I know. 

I should simply vamoose… 

Yet….

Instead, I will take my own advice and train myself to “hold”, mentally and emotionally, the unpredictable nature of this moment without denying its power. 

Gardening, Weed Walking, walking the neighborhood, writing a blog entry every day, isn’t enough. In real life – California - I’m a ceramic sculptor. Here, I’ve neither clay nor studio. 

I can either look around for a ceramic studio to join (not holding my breath on finding one) or test cement-powder-based recipes (plenty of cement-powder here) and create a sculpting medium. Goals are good.

Day 75  Tuesday, June 9  -  Teetering....

Pandemic numbers hit another milestone: globally, more than 7 million confirmed infections and nearing half a million deaths.
The US teeters on the brink of 2 million confirmed infections and more than 110 thousand deaths.
South Africa’s numbers continue an ominous rise: now more than 50 thousand infections (increasing by more than 2,500 eahc day for the last several days) and 1,080 deaths.
Brazil ranks second in the world – behind the US - with infections and first with recording new deaths, more than any other nation. Its health ministry found the best route to keeping numbers down: hide them or fudge them.

***

Mind boggling. In 2015, then-FBI Director James Comey told the House Judiciary Committee,

"People have data about who went to a movie last weekend ... [but] I cannot tell you how many people were shot by police in the United States last month, last year, or anything about the demographics. … We can't have an informed discussion, because we don't have data… And that's a very bad place to be."

Indeed.
The data we do have points to a grotesque truth: “American police shoot, kill and imprison more people than other developed countries.”
Clearly, something must change.
My first take on the increasingly popular notion in the US of defunding police departments was, “oh, yeah, right. Like that’s going to happen.”
I’m still skeptical. Not because it’s impossible but because of pushback by folks like, well, Joe Biden. Downplaying America’s law and order mentality and defanging police would be akin to ridding American of guns: many powerful reasons to do so but American gun ideology and culture is too entrenched in gun worship.
History is a great place to begin understanding how We the People got to this terrible place with aggressive police and ‘law and order’ culture.

Isaac Bryan, the director of UCLA's Black Policy Center, points to history: Law enforcement in the South began as slave patrol, a team of vigilantes hired to recapture escaped slaves. Then, when slavery was abolished, police enforced Jim Crow laws - even [for] the most minor infractions.
And today, police disproportionately use force against black people, and black people are more likely to be arrested and sentenced.
Bryan said, "That history is engrained in our law enforcement". (Read about origins of police in US. )
Defunding the police means reallocating those funds to support people and services in marginalized communities. It "means that we are reducing the ability for law enforcement to have resources that harm our communities," said Patrisse Cullors, co-founder of the Black Lives Matter movement…. "It's about reinvesting those dollars into black communities, communities that have been deeply divested from."
Those dollars can be put back into social services for mental health, domestic violence and homelessness, among others. Police are often the first responders to all three… Those dollars can be used to fund schools, hospitals, housing and food in those communities, too - "all of the things we know increase safety."
…
It's radical for an American city to operate without law enforcement, but the plan is already in motion in Minneapolis..[after] nine members of the Minneapolis city council announced they intend to disband the city's police force entirely.
"We committed to dismantling policing as we know it in the city of Minneapolis and to rebuild with our community a new model of public safety that actually keeps our community safe," Council President Lisa Bender told CNN.
…the council still needs to discuss what to replace police with, but that the city would funnel money from police into "community-based strategies." She noted, too, that most 911 calls are for mental health services, health and EMT and fire services.
…"A week ago, defunding the police in any capacity would sound like 'pie in the sky,'… Now we're talking about it. Defunding police in its entirety still might sound like 'pie in the sky,' but next week might be different."

Viva la different!

Meanwhile, back at the ranch…

Second day of walking around the neighborhood – alone. Today I forgot my mask at home. Ditto my identity document. Carrying both was mandatory during Level 4. Now? I’m not sure. That added anxiety to the pleasure of being out, winter sun warming my face as I noticed recent changes in the ‘hood.
Walking alone can be risky. Muggings are common. (A year ago, a friend’s husband – 80 years old - was mugged, robbed, and physically abused by two young men.)
Lockdown fever, however, demands I choose: risk? Or insanity?
Risk wins.

***

The gardener returned to work. Until I’ve a better sense of where things are heading vis-a-vis Covid-19 in this area, he’ll work one, perhaps two, days a week.
He mowed the outlying section of lawn and bush-cut overgrown grass along the stream. We bagged the clippings – 9 large sacks full – for our neighbor. His brother, a farmer, feeds grass clippings to his calves.
I’ve almost eradicated invasive canna plants from the inside garden.
The cleared area is like a canvas waiting for an artist to apply paint. Or, as a ceramic sculptor I'd say, like a bag of raw clay ready for wedging. (A ceramicist wedging raw clay looks a bit like a baker kneading bread dough. Kneading bread dough introduces air pockets for a lighter loaf. Wedging clay removes air pockets and creates a pliable, uniform consistency in clay.)

Day 74 Monday, June 8 - Outta juice!

“Load shedding” is the uniquely South African means whereby the nation’s electrical energy provider, state owned enterprise Eskom preserves electricity by switching off segments of the grid for hours at a time. So mainstreamed are these events that Eskom has its own app: “EskomSePush”. Naturally, unreliable electricity supplies affect businesses, large and small, households, and everything in between. But c’est la vie, eh?
This year, after Eskom published it upcoming 5-level load shedding schedule, intervention by coronavirus delayed actual cut-offs. EskomSePush app claims “No Load Shedding :) 3 months ago” – and publishes Covid-19 numbers instead.
Except… electricity continues to fluctuate. Power shut-off from 3:30 to 5am this morning, with shorter duration fluctuations since.
Does Eskom understands how it “looks” to depower a nation during a pandemic and has decided, like Brazil’s Bolsonaro, to fudge reality?
Bolsonaro’s government stopped releasing total numbers of Covid-19 cases and deaths and wiped an official site clean of swaths of data.
Taking note of Bolsonaro, Eskom could load shed for shorter durations and pretend it’s not happening.
Or is Eskom, like everyone else, simply out of juice?

I’ve managed, until the last day or two, to stave off lockdown fatigue.
Friends and family admit malaise, too.
We’re all in uncharted waters.
Does lockdown fatigue come in waves? If so, is our current experience the crest of the wave - or its trough?
Does it matter?
Fortitude is needed. But what? And how?

Mental health experts warn of fallout.

Even in the early stages of the lockdown, the World Health Organization issued a statement that noted “elevated rates of stress or anxiety” in the general population, before warning that, “as new measures and impacts are introduced – especially quarantine and its effects on many people’s usual activities, routines or livelihoods – levels of loneliness, depression, harmful alcohol and drug use, and self-harm or suicidal behaviour are also expected to rise.”
[By] 21 April … 42 researchers from around the world had formed the International Covid-19 Suicide Prevention Research Collaboration amid growing concern about the longer-term mental health consequences of the virus. Leaving aside the probability of another spike, the aftershock of the pandemic is likely to last a long time and leave yet more casualties in its wake.
… [One off] kinds of emergencies are classed as “single events that occur within a limited time-frame and affect a defined population”. A global pandemic does not fit that model.
“The word most often used is ‘unprecedented’… and it looks increasingly likely that the long-term consequences will also be unprecedented in scale. … there is a lot of concern among health care professionals … about what will happen next.”
It is in the coming months and even years, then, that the psychological effects of the pandemic will become most apparent. “Trauma occurs when you are overwhelmed by an event that you cannot process…”

***

It is time to revamp thoroughly how police and police departments operate. But nothing will change expeditiously enough to save lives right now.

The use of tear gas and pepper spray, which provoke coughing, adds to the health risk, as do police crowd control techniques like “kettling” — pushing demonstrators into smaller, contained and tightly packed spaces.
“The police tactics — the kettling, the mass arrests, the use of chemical irritants — those are completely opposed to public health recommendations,” said Malika Fair, director of Public Health Initiatives at the Association of American Medical Colleges. “They're causing protesters to violate the six-feet recommendation. The chemicals may make them … remove their masks. This is all very dangerous.”
In New York, Milwaukee, Cincinnati and Washington, D.C., civil rights groups are filing lawsuits and exploring other legal steps if police don’t take measures to protect detained protesters. In these cities, and many more across the country, demonstrators have been held for hours, packed together in cells with little room to social distance or access to running water, civil rights attorneys said. 

“American Police are at War with Democracy Itself”

Police in city after city have made it very clear that they simply do not care if they are exposed as lawless brutes. ..
The police violence is not restricted to Black protesters, or even protesters in general. On Saturday night, officers in Brooklyn brutalized a hospital worker walking home from his job of managing the COVID-19 crisis, leaving his hospital ID smeared with blood. Police are arresting journalists, legal observers and even food deliverers — all of whom are permitted to be on the streets after locally imposed curfews — just for doing their jobs.
All of these actions were not only outrageous, but flagrantly illegal, and dozens of similar horror stories are emerging every night. The police know the whole world is watching, and the message they are sending is very clear: We’re in charge, not your laws or your elected officials.

***

Meanwhile, Sara Cooper’s terrific Trump voice-overs find a grateful audience. Click to view her recent pieces enjoyed by a growing audience of millions:

• I tested very negative 
• How to grief 
• How to bunker 

Meanwhile, back at the ranch…

A walk on the wild side. Today, I stepped out of the security gate and enjoyed my first walk in ten weeks through the rural neighborhood. Alone. Pepper spray in pocket. Knobkerrie walking stick in hand. Mask around my neck.
It was lovely. Legs and lungs adjusted quickly. Neighborhood dogs set the pattern for barking. I reciprocated, woof for woof.

Day 73  Sunday, June 7 - Teargas and coronavirus in the air

An English expression, now cliché, fits the moment:
When the going gets tough, the tough get going – meaning when the situation becomes difficult, the strong work harder to meet the challenge.
Meeting this moment – pandemic and protest – further challenges the challenged.
Further wearies the weary.
Further endangers the endangered...
Wish I could be in Washington D.C., where thousands bravely continue to meet the moment. (Photo essay )

News blues…

Alcohol.
What to say?
[South African Medical Research Council] SAMRC modelling predicts that 5,000 patients a week will flood hospitals with injuries related to drinking. Professor Charles Parry, director of the SAMRC’s alcohol, tobacco and other drug research unit, which conducted the modelling, said of the 2.2-million trauma cases in SA each year, 40% are alcohol-related. “Under lockdown, weekly trauma admissions decreased from 42,700 to about 15,000.”
Trauma specialists said that during the first two months of lockdown, trauma admissions dropped by 70% at hospitals in Gauteng and the Western Cape. Those declines, according to the SAMRC, are now being dramatically reversed.
“We have seen an explosion in stabbings, accidents and assaults. It’s a nightmare. All are linked to unbanning alcohol,” the specialist said.

***

Numbers climb
Vasbyt!
South Africa’s health ministry announced the number of confirmed cases of Covid-19 climbed to 45,973 yesterday, an increase of 2,539 cases in the past 24 hours.
This indicates 11,616 new cases and 247 deaths since Monday, June 1, when the country moved to Lockdown Level 3.

Bite the bullet!
United States, since last Sunday, 4,430 deaths reported - 1,036 of which occurred between Thursday morning and the same time Friday. Total confirmed cases nearing 2 million.

***

Since it’s Sunday, a day of rest, I’ll not mention the abysmal Donald J Trump and his abysmal lack of humanity.
I’ll leave it to The Lincoln Project and their new ad to point out that Trump’s “new brand of leadership isn't leadership at all…”

Leaders take responsibility. Donald Trump isn't capable of that.
America's history is full of strong, compassionate, capable leaders. No matter their party or their goals, they all had one thing in common: success or failure, they took responsibility for the good and the bad.
But Trump? It's always someone else's fault.
And if it's not someone else's fault, it's "fake."
And if it's quite obviously not fake, he "won't take any responsibility at all."
This country is crying out, desperate for real leadership. Let’s remind Americans what that looks like.  (1:00 minute)

Meanwhile, back at the ranch…

Yesterday, I allowed Lockdown Fever to fester.
I didn’t Weed Walk.
I didn’t talk to the dogs, birds, monkeys, fish, spiders, or plants.
I didn’t even obsessively check my iPhone’s battery’s Last Charge Level.
After a stint eradicating canna plants... I simply hunkered down and allowed feelings of horror and dismay to wash over me.
We will  get through this annus horribilis (to quote the queen)... won't we? 
Perhaps Christopher Robin’s reminder to Winnie-the-Pooh can help,

“Promise me you’ll always remember: You’re braver than you believe, and stronger than you seem, and smarter than you think.”

Amen.

Day 72 Saturday June 6 - Glum

Lockdown’s getting me down.
Nothing particularly bad has happened – that is, nothing out of the usual extraordinary events - increasing rates of infection and death, United States aflame, South Africa’s freefalling economy….

News blues…

Sean Collins writes a good description of why the protests in the United States are different to those of the past three decades:

We have seen uprisings over racism and police brutality before, the most famous being the civil rights movement of the 1960s. There was sometimes a sense that those uprisings had brought on a great deal of progress in a short period and that the eradication of systemic racism would be a long-term project from then on out, with incremental changes ensuring the arc of the moral universe bent toward justice. The recent protest movement — though nascent — seems to reject that idea. The protesters want change now.
… protesters are demanding life itself be changed — that policing be fairer and kinder, that biases be inspected and corrected, that lasting policies be implemented that erase inequality, and that all people be able to move through the country without experiencing existential dread.
Read “Why these protests are different”

Meanwhile, back at the ranch…

Gardening heals the troubled heart – and raises questions.
Canna indica, the canna species I’m attempting to eradicate, originates in “North” and “South America”.
As the pile grows of discarded stems, tubers and roots, I wish I could return them to their place of origin.
But where, specifically, is their place of origin?
Would that place of origin repatriate and re-acclimate packages of canna tubers and roots if I packed them up and mailed them back?
I could address the packages:

Granddaddy of Canna indica,
c/o South America

Clearing the garden continues apace.
Last year, I eradicated about 87 percent of this garden’s invasive cat’s claw creeper - dolichandra unguis-cati. (Like canna, cat’s claw originates in “South America” – a continent vaster and more diverse than that descriptor implies.)
As I dig out canna’s tubers and roots, I discover cat’s claw making one last stand: the creepily persistent creeper thrives amongst overgrown canna.
Cat’s claw is botanically designed to proliferate: its roots have bulbs that remain in the ground after the roots and stems are pulled out; tenacious “claws” on its fast growing stems grip any surface; segments of stems quickly regenerate; each plantain-sized seedpod produces dozens of winged seeds that are borne by wind.
Cat’s claw is the only plant that I’ve ever sprayed with inorganic herbicide. And that, only after weeks studying the plant’s habits and concluding that herbicide was the practical solution despite my organics-only ideology.
Perhaps I could have packaged up and returned cat’s claw,  too?

Granddaddy of dolichandra unguis-cati
c/o South America

Day 71 Friday June 5 –  Covid-19 lost in the shuffle?

Apparently, highly transmissible Covid-19 is no longer a stimulant to cautious behavior.
While New Zealand and New Zealanders appear to have successfully applied vigilance – no new cases in past several days - cases in many parts of the world increase.
Your average South African-at-large appears to have concluded stay-at-home and lockdown orders are worthless. Accordingly, infection rates jump:

South Africa recorded 3,267 new Covid-19 cases on Thursday, the biggest jump since the pandemic began. The country is the worst hit in sub-Saharan Africa and has nearly a quarter of all cases on the continent, with 40,792 infections. 

Today, WhatsApp messages confirm a case in an upscale local retirement community. Two ways of viewing this news:
1) it could perpetuate the misinformation that, in South Africa, Covid-19 is a “white man’s disease” therefore life for majority is back to “normal” ,
2) if Covid-19 can show up in upscale tightly locked down communities, it can show up anywhere: extra vigilance required.

Week 11 - and relevant numbers from Johns Hopkins:
Worldwide: 6,635,004 confirmed infections; 391,180 deaths
US: 1,872,660 confirmed infections; 108,220 deaths
SA: 40792 confirmed infections with a one day increase of 3,267 new cases; 850 deaths

US: 10,000 protesters confirmed arrested across the US in protests decrying racism and police brutality in the wake of George Floyd’s death. (See relevant numbers.)
SA: More than 230,000 people arrested due to violating regulations; 11 dead in “police action” during the lockdown
The concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere reached 417.2 parts per million in May, 2.4ppm higher than the peak of 414.8ppm in 2019, according to readings from the Mauna Loa observatory in the US.  This, despite the impact of the global effects of the coronavirus crisis.

News blues…

Congruent with Donald Trump’s unerring knack for choosing the wrong path for the country, he

...has confirmed the White House coronavirus task force will be winding down, with Vice-President Mike Pence suggesting it could be disbanded within weeks.
"We are bringing our country back," Mr Trump said during a visit to a mask-manufacturing factory in Arizona.
New confirmed infections per day in the US currently top 20,000, and daily deaths exceed 1,000.

This, despite professional advice that ”large protests against police brutality across the nation, could lead to a spike in new cases.”

***

Another webinar from Daily Maverick, “The Fight Against Misinformation: How to verify like a pro.”

Meanwhile, back at the ranch…

Cold weather convinced me to take down the protective mosquito net around my bed. Alas, there are no protective nets against spiders and I suspect a spider snacked on my right eye lid. Swelling and bruising affects working on the laptop and iPhone.
Moreover, burnout resulted from obsessive catching up on news since my Internet was reconnected.
Today, I plan to reconnect with the garden. Canna plant eradication goes on.