October numbers

Worldwide (Map)  
October 29 – 44,402,000 xx confirmed infections; 1,173,270 deaths
September 24 – 31,780,000 confirmed infections; 975,100 deaths

US (Map) 
October 29 – 8,856,000 confirmed infections; 227,675 deaths
September 24 – 6,935,000 confirmed infections; 201,880 deaths

SA (Tracker) 
October 29 – 719,715 confirmed infections; 19,111 deaths
September 24 – 665,190 confirmed infections; 16,206 deaths

News blues…

US Covid cases at all time high – and “the worst is yet to come”   (5:45 mins)

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When 511 Epidemiologists Expect to Fly, Hug and Do 18 Other Everyday Activities Again 

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In the last four days, the Western Cape, KwaZulu-Natal and the Eastern Cape, three of the country’s Covid-19 hotspots have shown a spike in new cases leading warnings of a possible second wave. 

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Political ads reaching a crescendo with 5 more days to actual election day.
The Lincoln Project:
Biden’s Moment  (1:40 mins)
Covey Spreader  (2:45 mins)
Pizza  (0:50 mins)
Don Winslow Films: America needs Michigan  (2:03 mins)

Pebble  (0:25 mins) 

Now This: Laid off auto workers confront Trump Jr  (4:40 mins)
Meidas Touch:
Sicko Trump  (2:20 mins)
Believe in Biden  (0:25 mins)

Healthy futures, anyone?

“Cultural arrogance” best describes corporate attitudes to humans’ environment and history. Capitalism's attitude to the natural environment? It’s a potential treasure trove to plunder when convenient or the price is right. Sacred? Who cares? Mere antiquated notions and superstition.

Trees: In a deal last year, Aboriginal landowners negotiated with the Victorian government to save around a dozen of 250 "culturally significant" trees from destruction.
Protesters have long camped at the site in Victoria to defend culturally significant trees, including some where local Djab Wurrung women have traditionally gone to give birth.
But state authorities cut down the Djab Wurrung "directions tree….” 
Officials defended the felling, saying the tree was not on a protection list.
Earth: The Juukan Gorge caves, in Australia’s Pilbara region, were destroyed last Sunday as Rio Tinto expanded an iron ore project….  
Many prehistoric artefacts have been found at the remote heritage site.
"We are sorry for the distress we have caused," said Chris Salisbury, the firm's iron ore chief executive. "We pay our respects to the Puutu Kunti Kurrama and Pinikura People (PKKP – the traditional owners of the site).
“Extractive industries:” Global extraction of natural resources has increased with the onset of the process of capitalist industrialization, growing at an astounding rate in the past 50 years. Global extraction of primary materials more than tripled to 92 billion tonnes in 2017 from 27 billion tonnes in 1970, an annual average growth of 2.6 percent , according to a 2019 report conducted by the United Nations Environment Programme-hosted International Resource Panel (IRP). 

Only a decade or two ago it was widely thought that tropical forests and intact natural environments teeming with exotic wildlife threatened humans by harbouring the viruses and pathogens that lead to new diseases in humans such as Ebola, HIV and dengue.
But a number of researchers today think that it is actually humanity’s destruction of biodiversity that creates the conditions for new viruses and diseases such as Covid-19…– with profound health and economic impacts in rich and poor countries alike. In fact, a new discipline, planetary health, is emerging that focuses on the increasingly visible connections between the wellbeing of humans, other living things and entire ecosystems.
Is it possible, then, that it was human activity, such as road building, mining, hunting and logging, that triggered the Ebola epidemics in Mayibout 2 and elsewhere in the 1990s and that is unleashing new terrors today?
“We invade tropical forests and other wild landscapes, which harbour so many species of animals and plants – and within those creatures, so many unknown viruses,” David Quammen, author of Spillover: Animal Infections and the Next Pandemic, recently wrote in the New York Times. “We cut the trees; we kill the animals or cage them and send them to markets. We disrupt ecosystems, and we shake viruses loose from their natural hosts. When that happens, they need a new host. Often, we are it.” 

Want to raise your voice against such plunder and shortsightedness? Consider signing the Global Deal for Nature petition:

Thriving nature is essential to life on Earth. The food we eat, the water we drink, the air we breathe, are all pillars of human survival that depend on a series of delicately balanced interactions within the natural world.
But these systems are being thrown dangerously off balance by an onslaught of human activities. From pesticides on our fields, to plastics choking our oceans, to bulldozers in our forests, all over the planet the natural world is under assault.
This crisis has now reached a scale that threatens everything. Species extinction is running at 1000 times the natural rate, and scientists warn that two-thirds of wild animal populations could be gone in our lifetimes. As with climate change, there is now growing concern that dangerous tipping points could be triggered, causing the collapse of key ecosystems and threatening human survival.
Like what you read? Sign the petition…. 

Meanwhile, back at the ranch…

The unidentified critters spotted near the pond yesterday  are ivondo (Zulu), or cane rat, of the genus Thryonomys (from the Greek word thryon meaning a "rush" or "reeda rodent”). Found throughout Africa south of the Sahara, the animal – about 720mm/28 inches long - is “related closer to the porcupine than to veld rats.” .
In KZN crops and agriculture, ivondo are considered a pest. Many Zulus consider them culinary candidates.
The ivondo family in our garden appear to have moved in and focus on snacking on vegetation growing between the pond and the stream.