“An inquisitive mind”

Photo courtesy
Young Scientist Challenge

Big news

Anika Chebrolu. 

Remember that name. Anika is 14 years old, lives in Frisco, Texas, and may have discovered a potential therapy for Covid-19. Anika won the 2020 3M Young Scientist Challenge - and a $25,000 prize - for an invention that uses an in-silico methodology to discover a lead molecule that can selectively bind to the spike protein of the SARS-CoV-2 virus.
Anika Chebrolu, an “inquisitive mind,” along with self-confidence, thinking outside the box, and other qualities that suggest our youth might have the wherewithal to force change on our current crop of leaders’ old ways of thinking.  

News blues…

Lordy, Lordy, who else is really sick of Donald Trump and his crew, the lies, the obfuscation, ubiquitous presence on TV, social media, and constant presence in our faces….? 
The scariest part? Trump is president until January 20th.
He’ll be at his most dangerous during this lame duck period. I predict he’ll wreak more damage in those weeks than he has to date. For Trump, being Trump, will punish We the People for ousting him via the ballot box…
It’s not just little ole me, opining via keyboard in locked down South Africa. Former Trump administration officials have hands-on experience that they are – finally - willing to share with the republic…  (3:40 mins)
Ah, yes, but… then you have the creativity expressed about Trump. Here, South African The Kiffness has Trump doing the Jerusalema ….  (1:00 mins)

***

President Ramaphosa extends Covid-19 grant.  (2:08 mins)

***

The US, along with European countries, experiences yet another surge in Covid cases.

The third surge of the COVID-19 pandemic in the United States is under way. Outbreaks have been worsening in many states for more than a month, and new COVID-19 cases jumped 18 percent this week, bringing the seven-day average to more than 51,000 cases a day. Though testing rose by 8 percent nationally, that’s not enough of an increase to explain the steep rise in cases.
Meanwhile, COVID-19 hospitalizations, which had previously been creeping upward slowly, jumped more than 14 percent from a week earlier. 

***

Infections are rising in South Africa, too. The toll of confirmed infections surpassed 700,000 yesterday, and that number includes South Africa’s health minister, Zweli Mkhize and his wife, both of whom tested positive.  
More than 18,000 South African residents have died of the virus.

***

Cats for Biden/Harris 
Meidas Touch:

Believe in America  (0:55 mins)
Stronger with Biden  (0:55 mins

Healthy planet, anyone?

Meercat Manor  (20:05 mins)

Meanwhile, back at the ranch…

Funny thing about selling a house at this time, in this place in South Africa: no bites. Not even nibbles.
Information about the house sale published on the real estate agency’s web site a week ago. Recently, I asked a friend about her experience selling her house – two years ago and not during a pandemic. She said, “We got an offer within 48 hours” – and that offer was accepted. My friend added, “It took 18 months, and dropping the selling price by ZAR 200K, for an acquaintance in the same village, albeit a different neighborhood, to sell their well-maintained house.”
18 months!
The real estate market in the San Francisco Bay Area is the opposite: a seller usually receives multiple, competing offers within a day of publishing the sales info.
Local realtors handing the sale of this house concur, telling me, “a sale could take months – sometimes 18 months.”

Sobering. 

I can't stay in South Africa for 18 months! What am I going to do? 

Time to take a lesson from "an inquisitive mind": think outside the box.  

Week 3 - Day 19, Tuesday April 14

Question of the Day: Whither Democracy?

 No truly “fair and balanced” person can watch the president of the United States and not worry. Check out this April 14 press briefing  and this one, “Presidential authority is total” ...
Methinks the prez doth protest too much. He’s losing whatever marbles he had, he’s on the ropes (talking of ropes, Florida deems wrestling “essential business.”)
Be afraid. Be very afraid. The Trump/Moscow Mitch duo hath cometh – and hath bamboozled.
It’s a formidable opponent for generous-spirited people everywhere.

Jailbirds flying the coop?

• Paul Manafort, set for release from Rikers prison in November 2024, seeks early release citing risk from coronavirus. 
• Ditto, Bernie Madoff, 81-year-old financial fraud schemester par excellence.
• Ditto, Michael Avenatti, convicted extortionist, busily working himself out of jail for 90 days. The Trump nemesis faces two more criminal trials.
• If I was a betting woman, I’d bet Harvey Weinstein is leveraging the coronavirus pandemic, too. And Bill Cosby. Cushy mansion/house arrest, instead?
• No ruling has been issued on a similar motion from twenty-eight-year-old Reality Winner, former intelligence analyst. Given the politics, I’d bet Winner, “leaker”/ whistleblower of a top-secret report on Russian election interference, is refused. She’s sentenced to prison for more than five years…and I’d bet she serves ‘em all.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch…

I’ve alluded to KZN’s astonishingly fertile soil, that I can pluck a stem and push it into the earth and, pronto, it sprouts.
Last year’s veggie garden presented both the up- and downside of fertility.
Upside: already rich soil, amended with rich compost, and potatoes, onions, and squash volunteer with gusto. Initially, starter plants - tomatoes, spinach (chard in California), strawberries, thyme, oregano, basil, and Thai basil - appear willing to flourish.
Downside:

The enthusiasm of beans, peas, and lettuce is quickly dampened by uMswenya. Cutworms.
California’s dry summers, wet winters, and clayey soil present few opportunities to understand cutworms. Sow bugs, yes: similar color and shape and, like cutworms, they roll/curl.
KZN’s wet, hot, humid summers present perfect umswenya conditions. Add beans, peas, dill, lettuce, rhubarb… and the gross, juicy pests thrive just below soil surface. They demolish emerging sprouts and stems leaving only tiny scattered flecks of green.
I engineered seedling collars out of discarded toilet roll tubes cut in half. Unfortunately, collaring constrains plants and they grow spindly.
My revenge? Popping unswenya.
This year, only volunteer squash survived cutworms. Instead, they fell victim to marauding monkeys.
Takeaways? 1) How do farmers cope? 2) Do creatures like umswenya and monkeys account for Africa’s incredibly rich, fecund soils not developing as the world’s breadbasket?

***

I’m the only South African I know who sleeps (or admits to sleeping) under a mosquito net.
Divebombing and sucking mosquitos are annoying but manageable. I dab smelly, homemade cannabis oil on the bites. (Lockdown means not worrying about wafting cannabis aroma.)
Alas, the manufacturer and dispenser who supplied me last year has moved on. I’m not sure how to replenish my supply but I’m using what remains, mostly on spider bites.
Despite consistently checking for spiders inside gum boots, shoes, waders, and outside gear, spiders express their displeasure at my presence. This year, they’ve dined on my right calf, left foot, sternum, and left wrist. The latest assault left a large red splotch with two tiny, raised bite marks on my right front hip.
If I don’t scratch, the angry red bumps disappear after eight to ten days of generous dabbing.
The odd thing? Unlike mosquitos, I’ve never actually caught a spider in the act, nor even found one on my person.
Why blame spiders? Couldn’t aliens from another planet be conducting experiments?
Well, I encounter spiders and evidence of spiders: on plants, on walls, and webs slung between plants and anywhere I walk.
When I encounter aliens, it’ll be time for me to burst out of lockdown, damn the consequences.

A positive note: finally snagged a shot of a dragonfly near the pond. (Still no sign of goldfish.)





Read Week 1 | Week 2 | Week 3

Week 3 - Day 18, Monday April 13

USA! USA! USA is number one!

This nationalist slogan takes on new meaning as the United States really is number one.
We're sitting on top of the world: 558,590 confirmed cases of novel coronavirus, and numbers still growing.

David Bowie* has a song for that… “This is not America” – except it is. This is America in the Age of Trump.

(Left) The cover of Rolling Stone Magazine's May issue.  “The President and the Plague” outlines the last 5 months.

Coping in a time of crisis

• Is there anybody out there? 
• People dress up to take out trash to enliven their self-isolation
• Volunteering to help those self-isolating 
• Stay sane and Let’s Dance 

Okay, Boomer*

Born on the trailing end of Boomer Gen, I grew up in rural KZN and missed much of the US 60s culture and all of its nuance. Nevertheless, last night, to change my headspace from depressing Age of Trump news, I slipped down the YouTube rabbit hole and listened to ye good ole days classic rock:

• Pink Floyd: Another Brick in the Wall 
• Jefferson Starship: White Rabbit 
• Jefferson Airplane: White Rabbit 
• Jimi Hendrix: Hey Joe 
• Joe Cocker: Help from my Friends (Woodstock)  and Whiter Shade of Pale 
• Rolling Stones: Sympathy for the Devil 
• David Bowie: Heroes 
• Janis Joplin: Ball and Chain (Monterey) 
• Bob Dylan: Knocking on Heavens Door and his big existential questions, Blowing in the wind 

Meanwhile, back at the ranch

Goldfish spotting: with no flick of goldfish fin or tail in six days I conclude fish are under lockdown, too. For, even the most dedicated kingfisher couldn’t pluck nine goldfish from a weed-and-lily-filled pond in six days. Could it?

Of moles and mowing

A different section of lawn but moles with similar
mathematical inclinations?

For now, I’m declaring lawn mowing “finished and klaar.”
I’ve had it with maneuvering a mower designed for genteel lawns over hardy Kikuyu Grass and between ever-increasing numbers of mole hills.

It’s tough to learn anything about moles from moles.
Humans opine that moles spend their time in four-hour shifts, divided between sleeping and searching for food (earthworms, grubs, and other small earth dwellers).
Online conspiracy theorists say nothing about whether moles use clocks, watches, or cellphones to tell the time, but they confidently assert that moles love to eat Juicy Fruit gum (and that it's best to buy Wrigley’s Juicy Fruit in bulk packages from Costco).
They also argue about whether 1) gum should be chewed or unchewed when placed in the mole tunnels, and/or 2) to use a knife and cutting board to cut up fresh (unchewed) gum into tiny squares, smaller than the period at the end of a sentence. Theoretically, moles eat the gum that “gums up” their insides, causing them to die of constipation or some other horrible digestive problem.
That sounds like American moles...and American consipiracy theorists.

Conspiracy theorist's view of moles.
(Looking for Juicy Fruit?) 

All’s I know about KZN moles in this garden is that they’re mathematically fastidious  (note the almost straight lines; perhaps they use an app on their cellphones?).
Based on the formal/biological names of most of the KZN creatures I’ve researched to-date, I’d guess this mole species is something like Common Brown Garden Mole.
At any rate, no creature, Common or not, deserves to die of gummed up insides, constipation, or digestive problems.
Moreover, I've discovered I prefer moles to lawns.



Read Week 1 | Week 2 | Week 3

Resist! Italians show the way

Italians sing ... from their balconies during coronavirus lockdown... and it "goes viral"