Indeed.
Watch/listen to his full speech | NBC News (19:25 mins)
News blues…
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| Debris piles burn as the LNU Lightning Complex fire burns through the area on Wednesday in Fairfield, California. Photograph: Justin Sullivan/Getty Images click to enlarge. |
Fires!
Nah Hopeless to expect US Congressional Republicans action toward funding unemployed Americans and struggling health care workers and centers, providing affordable health care, taxing corporations, addressing long term effects of climate change….
Wildfires continue to sear through California, forcing thousands out of their homes and taxing the state’s firefighting capacity amid a heatwave and the coronavirus pandemic. One grouping of fires – the LNU Lightning Complex north of the Bay Area – grew rapidly overnight, doubling in size to about 131,000 acres by Thursday, and burning through more than 100 homes and buildings. The fires have so far destroyed 175 structures, including homes, and are threatening 50,000 more… In all, 33 civilians and firefighters have been injured...
As the flames edged toward the Silicon Valley city of San Jose, they blackened the skies and spewed up what was perhaps some of the worst air quality in the world. Ash blanketed many Bay Area neighborhoods, and health officials asked residents to stay indoors, warning that the combination of smoky air and Covid-19 make those with respiratory conditions doubly vulnerable.
Big Basin Redwoods state park, California’s oldest state park and home of some of its majestic redwoods, sustained “extensive damage”… with several historic buildings destroyed.
About two dozen major blazes and several smaller fires have eaten through brushland and dense forests, wildlands in the Sierra Nevada, southern California, and regions north, east and south of San Francisco. Evacuated residents now number in the tens of thousands…
The coronavirus pandemic has also complicated the government’s ability to safely evacuate and shelter residents. … California has been struggling to get a handle on a recent surge in coronavirus cases, and crowded shelters could exacerbate the spread of Covid-19 among evacuees.
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Not to be ageist but… something funny to lighten the mood: How old is Biden?
Well, he is older than 94 percent of all living Americans, and older than 96 percent of all people alive on the planet, according to demographic data compiled by the United Nations.
He is already older than 27 presidents were when they died — including 14 years older than Franklin D. Roosevelt and 13 years older than Lyndon B. Johnson.
When Biden arrived in the U.S. Senate at age 30 on Jan. 3, 1973, he joined six senators who were born in the late 1800s. Of those 100 people — all of them men, and only one not white — he is one of just 13 who are still alive today. Read, “Joe Biden: An old man trying to lead a young country.”
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Lookit! An anomaly is today’s polarized politics: A Congress that does its job!The Brazilian Congress has decided that the use of masks is mandatory in closed places like commercial establishments, many workplaces, religious temples and schools. In a joint session of both houses — Senate and Deputies Chamber — the legislature overturned President Jair Bolsonaro's veto on such requirements.Maybe the actions of Brazil’s Congress will rub off onto the Republican-controlled Congress of the United States?
In votes on Wednesday, senators and deputies also upheld the right of mayors and governors to fine those who disobeyed the requirement.
The Congress also overturned Bolsonaro's vetoes of a law that sets out the federal government's duties to protect indigenous people during the pandemic. The legislators upheld aspects of the law assuring universal access to drinkable water, emergency access to beds in hospitals, the acquisition of ventilators and the delivery of free food to indigenous people and communities of slaves' descendants.
Nah Hopeless to expect US Congressional Republicans action toward funding unemployed Americans and struggling health care workers and centers, providing affordable health care, taxing corporations, addressing long term effects of climate change….
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Daily Maverick interview with journalist Andrew Harding, author of These are not gentle people A non-fiction crime drama that intimately explores South Africa’s divisions and questions the idea of truth in an unequal society. These Are Not Gentle People began in 2016 when Harding went to court in Parys, Free State, after a group of white farmers were charged after they caught and brutally assaulted Samuel Tjixa and Simon Jubeba, accused of attempting to rob an elderly white farmer in the area. Both men died.
Harding was immediately struck by the different versions of the story. Two black men had been accused of trying to rob a white farmer and other white farmers, who live in fear of violence, caught them and meted out punishment.
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Sarah Cooper riffs on Trump at the 2020 Democratic National Convention (1:15 mins) Really American: Rigger in Chief (1:30 mins)
***
After Lockdown Level 2 was announced, I re-contacted the care center matron and arranged a visit. I learned from her that, if the place met my mother’s needs, she could potentially bring one of her six dogs to live there, too.
Great news!
I quickly followed up and took my mother and Jessica, her dog, for a visit.
The gods smiled upon us: we were welcomed by a herd of 7 zebras grazing on the extensive lawns. Another zebra grazed between the parking lot and the residential building. (My mother loves animals.)
Since Jessica, like all my mother’s dogs are not leash-trained, I worried Jessica might create a bad first impression. Instead, she followed us into the building and made herself at home. She met Bella, the white husky who lives, and introduced herself to residents.
I was amazed – and proud of her.
As the matron showed my mother her choice of rooms - one large (and more expensive), and two small - I watched my mother for signs of distress, or distaste, or reluctance.
Instead, she, like Jessica, was amenable to moving.
We’ve a long way to go, but we made a start.
Observation: when one is in the moment of a big and ultimately successful event, one tends not to recognize that moment until later. Today, I recognize that yesterday’s event went very well. I put a lot into it and, so far (11 hours later) it appears that it’s “all systems go!”
But…
Am I’m spinning my wheels? Will she’ll change her mind – again?
That’s my experience: my mother changing her mind, acting as if something that happened never actually happened, and recently, when stressed, saying, “Oh, I wish I could just die. That would take care of everything.”
Challenging being involved in this transition. I feel that no matter what I do, my efforts are dismissed, undermined, diminished.
As “they” say, “story of my life”. My “problem”? Being a feisty daughter in a sexist culture?
I was tempted to end this post with a trio of emojis expressing laughter, tears, and craziness.
Far better to end with an apt quote: “What we do, echoes through generations…”
Meanwhile, back at the ranch…
For the past six months, I’ve sought a care center that would meet the needs of my 87-year-old mother. Back in May, Lockdown prevented a planned visit to a community with grounds large enough to host wild African animals: impala, warthog, blesbok, zebra….After Lockdown Level 2 was announced, I re-contacted the care center matron and arranged a visit. I learned from her that, if the place met my mother’s needs, she could potentially bring one of her six dogs to live there, too.
Great news!
I quickly followed up and took my mother and Jessica, her dog, for a visit.
The gods smiled upon us: we were welcomed by a herd of 7 zebras grazing on the extensive lawns. Another zebra grazed between the parking lot and the residential building. (My mother loves animals.)
Since Jessica, like all my mother’s dogs are not leash-trained, I worried Jessica might create a bad first impression. Instead, she followed us into the building and made herself at home. She met Bella, the white husky who lives, and introduced herself to residents.
I was amazed – and proud of her.
As the matron showed my mother her choice of rooms - one large (and more expensive), and two small - I watched my mother for signs of distress, or distaste, or reluctance.
Instead, she, like Jessica, was amenable to moving.
We’ve a long way to go, but we made a start.
Observation: when one is in the moment of a big and ultimately successful event, one tends not to recognize that moment until later. Today, I recognize that yesterday’s event went very well. I put a lot into it and, so far (11 hours later) it appears that it’s “all systems go!”
But…
Am I’m spinning my wheels? Will she’ll change her mind – again?
That’s my experience: my mother changing her mind, acting as if something that happened never actually happened, and recently, when stressed, saying, “Oh, I wish I could just die. That would take care of everything.”
Challenging being involved in this transition. I feel that no matter what I do, my efforts are dismissed, undermined, diminished.
As “they” say, “story of my life”. My “problem”? Being a feisty daughter in a sexist culture?
I was tempted to end this post with a trio of emojis expressing laughter, tears, and craziness.
Far better to end with an apt quote: “What we do, echoes through generations…”
