Beware, Greeks…

News blues

Beware Greeks bearing letters...

The World Health Organization has been using letters of the Greek alphabet, in order, to name coronavirus variants. Delta was the most dominant one, followed by eight others - including Epsilon, Iota and Lambda
…
…[Read the story of] how this latest coronavirus variant became named Omicron.
And if even newer variants emerge, there are nine more letters in the Greek alphabet. The next one is Pi.

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Last week, a loved one was diagnosed with Omicron. His wife’s had it, too. Both work in hospitals in Texas and report many, many staff have or have had it. Their kids have had it. None, thank the gods, have had bad cases, so hospitalizations unnecessary (adults have been jabbed, small kids not).
Multiple episodes of Covid are not uncommon. A student nurse in UK, for example, has suffered 4 doses of Covid >> 

Anecdotal reports of Covid reinfection in the UK are growing, including people testing positive just weeks apart in December and January, or having had the virus three or even four times. Children are also being seen with reinfections. We take a look at the science behind catching Covid multiple times.

Read "How likely are you to catch Covid multiple times  >> 

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An alphabet, a pandemic, isolation… Now? A game: Covid Simulator. Here’s a promo >>  (1:25 mins)
Read an announcement about the game and when to expect it >> This simulator aims to allow users to visualize how quickly Covid-19 spreads, becoming a disaster. The game is an open sandbox for you to enjoy!

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The Lincoln Project:
What are they for?  (0:24 mins)

Healthy planet, anyone?

Due to obsessively isolating to avoid Omicron, I’ve watched a lot more Netflix than usual. I delved into the stories of assorted serial killers before stumbling onto the many facets of the story of The Unabomber, aka Unabom, aka Ted Kaczynski. I’ve watched dramatized versions from the point of view of the FBI (“Manhunt”), the man himself, his family, and the media (“Unabomber, in his own words”). Even watched the Saturday Night Live version >>  (4:06 mins). And listened to a series theme song, “The Worst – Man” >> (2:01 mins – beware, it could worm its way into your head).

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Meanwhile, back at the ranch…

Last week, our planned trip to a Pt Reyes beach was delayed due to ill health. A friend and I did that trip yesterday: a perfect sunny, crisp, and clear winter day.

I assumed my friend and I would easily negotiate the steep, even treacherous path to the beach. After all, I’ve done it many times before. (Back in the day, when I needed a break from civilization, I’d pack my sleeping bag and a bottle of water and make for the cliffs. There, I’d scope out a cleft in the cliffside - a spot where no one with malicious intent could easily approach without waking me -  climb into the bag, and spend a moonlit night in awe of our world’s natural beauty.) Yesterday, alas, I realized my friend has a bad knee and attempting to reach the beach was unwise. 

I missed not collecting assorted beach debris and making a beach sculpture, but a healthy knee was preferable.
As they say, “chit happens….

Tsunamis

News blues

Metaphors for the coronavirus pandemic and its variants include “wave” and “surge”, even “tsunami.” It takes an actual, real live tsunami to remind us how that can look.
An underwater volcano erupted about 30 miles off the coast of the South Pacific island of Tonga. Thousands of miles away, the California coast was affected, too.
While one might expect towns along the Pacific coast to be affected, three locations mentioned in the video - Tiburon, Richardson Bay, and Berkeley Marina - located inside San Francisco Bay saw a significant water rise, too.
News outlets reported wave action throughout the day but walking along my part of the bay, I saw no rise. The tide was, in fact, one of the lowest I’ve seen. (More on this below.)

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As for Covid-19, contradictory information continues in, well, waves and surges:

There's a growing narrative in the mainstream media, on social media — maybe even at your dinner table. That is: The coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 is weakening and evolving into a less deadly virus. In the future, each new variant that crops up will cause milder illness than the previous variant.
"There's this story that we're going to have variants that are progressively less severe," says Dr. Roby Bhattacharyya, who's an infectious disease specialist at Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School.
But that's completely untrue, Bhattacharyya says. "It's comforting to think there might be some tendency for SARS-CoV-2 to evolve toward a milder form. That's not what we're seeing here."

Read “Fact check: The theory that SARS-CoV-2 is becoming milder” >> 

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The Lincoln Project:
Flip Flop Lindsey  (0:45 mins)
McCarthy on 1/6 (0:47 mins)

Healthy planet, anyone?

How do you see plant life?

The term “plant blindness” was coined in 1998 to describe our general tendency, as humans, not to see the plant life that surrounds us. The problem has understandable roots: the human brain evolved to detect difference, and then to categorise that difference as either threat or non-threat. Plants, being unlikely to attack, are lumped together and treated as background, a green screen against which dramas take place. Many plants, and especially trees, exist on a different timescale to humans – who, moreover, have spent millennia dividing existence into conscious beings and things, where the former are afforded automatic importance over the latter. Combined with the general move to cities, and then to screen-based life indoors, this has resulted in, for example, up to half of British children being unable to identify stinging nettles, brambles or bluebells; 82% of those questioned could not recognise an oak leaf.

Read the editorial >> 

Meanwhile, back at the ranch…

Fascinated by the notion of seeing the effects of an underwater volcanic explosion along California’s coast – thousands of miles away – I kept an eye out for tidal action along my local beach.
Nothing. Nada.

Low tide, looking east towards Oakland Hills.

 

Low tide, looking west towards South San Francisco.

Rather, the low tide was, if anything, lower than usual. 

I assume water rise depends upon the angle water from the Pacific enters the bay through the narrow one mile wide Golden Gate. The towns mentioned as affected by rising water – Tiburon, Richardson Bay, and Berkeley Marina - are north of my island town. Perhaps the tsunami-driven water entered the Golden Gate from a southern angle and maintained a relatively straight trajectory. (Heading towards my section of beach would have required the surge suddenly to veer south - highly unlikely though I'd have appreciated that.)

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A friend and I had planned to visit Duxbury Reef today, along the Pt Reyes shoreline  . It would have been a first visit in some years for both of us. (I visited Kehoe Beach back in July 2021 – a different part of Pt Reyes.)
Alas, my friend succumbed to a bad cold ten days ago. His at-home Covid test revealed no Covid: big relief. Alas, the congestion remaining in his lungs persuaded us to forgo the trip for now. 

Next week perhaps.

Kehoe Beach, 2018.

While we’d planned the trip prior to yesterday's South Pacific volcanic eruption, this sign - permanently posted near another Pt Reyes beach - warns an unwary visitor.

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Usually, while at the beach, I gather assorted debris – manmade and organic – and create odd beach sculptures, one example shown below. (Taken with iPhone camera so detail is murky.)
I miss not doing that today. 

Next week perhaps.

 

I cast around on the beach and construct in situ art,
usually of the totem variety.
Traces of my last visit may still remain on the beach.
Nah. It's long gone.... That's the nature of natural "art."