Inexplicable

Worldwide (Map) 
September 8, 2022 - 606,874,650 confirmed infections; 6,507,900 deaths
September 9, 2021 – 223,101,000 confirmed infections; 4,604,450 deaths
September 10, 2020 – 27,766,325 confirmed infections; 902,470 deaths

US (Map) 
September 8, 2022 - 95.020.850 confirmed infections; 1,049,050 deaths
September 9, 2021 – 40,601,000 confirmed infections; 654,600 deaths
September 10, 2020 – 6,360,000 confirmed infections; 190,820 deaths

SA (Coronavirus portal) 
September 8, 2022- 4,012,950 confirmed infections; 102,108 deaths
September 9, 2021 – 2,843,100 confirmed infections; 84,327 deaths
September 10, 2020 – 6,360,000 confirmed infections; 190,820 deaths

Posts from:
September 9, 2021, “Category of critter” 
September 10, 2020, “Cooperation” 

News blues

Annual Covid shot joins ranks of annual shots, such as the annual flu shot. 

Watch >>  (7:14 mins)

Dr Anthony Fauci recently said, "In the absence of a dramatically different variant, we likely are moving towards a path with a vaccination cadence similar to that of the annual influenza vaccine."
Read more >> 

(Mary and I have appointments for our soon-to-be-annual Covid boosters and flu shots on September 26, 10:00am at the conveniently located grocery store pharmacy.)

***

If she hadn’t assumed most of her symptoms were due to long Covid, Nic Petermann’s may have received proper treatment and a diagnosis for cancer much earlier. She says, “When I went to get my pain symptoms checked out, I didn’t mention the flu-like symptoms, because I just thought that was something that I would have to deal with.” 

As with Meso Mary who discovered mesothelioma in her left lung while being x-rayed for hip pain, Peterman’s symptoms, including those that seemed to be long Covid, were due to Stage IV Hodgkin’s lymphoma. 
The point of this story is not to scare readers. Rather, the point is both practical – don’t rationalize physical symptoms – and philosophical - life is often … inexplicable. 

Take precautions to ensure life doesn’t catch you by surprise.

***

On war and the culture war
Putin Says Russia Has Not ‘Lost Anything’ Over War In Ukraine' (1:35 mins) Russian, with English subtitles.

***

The Lincoln Project:
Michelle Obama on democracy (1:55 mins)
Biden v. Trump  (0:24 mins> 

Sucker  (0:58 mins)

Last week in the Republican Party - September 6 , 2022  (2:17 mins)

Meanwhile, back at the ranch…

My bestie, Mary, whom I’m accompanying through the ups and downs of her diagnosis and treatment of pleural epithelial mesothelioma, including pending chemotherapy, is a fighter. I’m so proud of her and her clear-eyed response of what she faces. 

Along with the many facets of life with such a diagnosis, she’s re-exploring music. Currently, she’s re-enamored of Gloria Gaynor’s “I will survive…”  (3:14 mins). Mary’s favorite lines:

“I should have changed that stupid lock
I should have made you leave your key
If I’d know for just one second
You’d be back to bother me…"

That line - "You’d be back to bother me" - refers to the high likelihood Mary's meso will recur. According to medical expereince, 

Mesothelioma recurs for all patients who undergo treatment, even after the most aggressive treatment options successfully put it into remission. This happens because it is nearly impossible to surgically remove or kill every mesothelioma cancer cell. The remaining cancer cells eventually form tumors again.

This is daunting information. Mary and I are absorbing it, albeit with jokes others might find "inappropriate" or "distasteful." (To that, we say, "Hey, whatever floats your houseboat!")
Among the many milestones of this illness, is the knowledge that somehow, sometime, somewhere Mary breathed in asbestos fibers. These fibers toiled away in her lung for decades. Sheer coincidence discovered them there. (Backstory, “Oh, the irony”.) As we diligently explore the past decades for the time a DIY woman might or might not have been exposed, Mary re-explores music, too. It’s fun to listen then chat about the assorted musical eras. We're re-exploring art, too. More on that in a following post. 

***

“Heat dome” is here. Temps in parts of urban California have reached into 3 digits, even beyond 113F (47C).
Our collective future during our summers? 

Breakdowns in electrical supply. Californians currently face “rolling blackouts.” South Africans face “load shedding.” (Meanwhile, Pakistanis face epic flooding with little help in sight.)
Nevertheless, climate change denialism and deniers continue. Know your deniers as …

… they are not all the same. They tend to fit into one of four different categories: the shill, the grifter, the egomaniac and the ideological fool.

Read more >> 
Buckle up, humans! We’re in for a hot (maybe cold), dry or wet (maybe icy) ride… and we are not prepared.

***

Daylight savings times is coming – well, coming on November 6 – so enjoy the last days of summer – and welcome to fall.
SF Bay Area:
Sunrise: 6:46am
Sunset: 7:27pm

KZN, South Africa:
Sunrise: 6:04am
Sunset: 5:48pm

***

Meet Fiona, aka Fifi. She lives in a local pond. (Those are grass trimmings from the lawn. Somehow gardeners never scoop trimming from ponds even though trimming decompose and upset the delicate balance of water. Fifi hates that!

Meet Finny and Fergy, same pond, same dread of grass trimmings decomposing in their liquid environment. 

A photographer friend recently informed me that he 
frequently uses his iPhone to create gallery-ready art.
This, due to assorted apps created for just this purpose.
I tried an app to "enhance" this photo of brown pelicans.
I'm too cheap to fork out money for apps so I get what I 
don't pay for. Nevertheleoss, a slight improvement though
I'm not gallery ready - yet!

"Without fear of favor"

On war and culture war

I, like many Americans, have watched and wondered about Merrick Garland since his very human and touching acceptance speech for the role of US Attorney General. Since then, however, given all the b*s*t put out by Trump and the Trumpies, I’ve wondered what on earth was AG Garland doing? Or not doing? Was he asleep at the wheel? Was he terrified of raising his head above the parapets?
Turns out the guy was beavering away on minute details to implement a warrant to search Mar-a-Lago.
Woo hoo! My hero! A guy in the position of US AG requires cajones. Up until yesterday, Garland’s cajones were tidily tucked away. Now? The little guy displays big cajones!
You go, Garland! Here’s a straight-forward explanation of what’s going on in the US these days and what it takes to maintain a civil society. 

Watch and listen, ‘An Epic Showdown Between Rule Of Law And Law Of Power' >>  (8:00 mins)

***

Life imitates art… or is it art imitates life? No matter. It’s kinda art – and life… enjoy >>

And, birds, in conjuction with humans, create art >>

Healthy planet, anyone?

I live on the beach on the western side of a small island on the east side of San Francisco Bay. It’s a gorgeous spot (see short video on recent post ). We 7-plus million residents of this area face dramatic sea level rise.
Each day, some 390 billion gallons of water pass through a natural “opening” that is less than 90 feet/27.5 meters wide into the inner bay. Plus, more water from the interior – the rivers of the Sacramento Delta, for example. That’s a lot of water through a narrow gap. How, I wonder, will sea level rise affect the Pacific Ocean side and the inner bay side?
Until recently I figured engineers would create some sort of tidal barrier a la Venice  or the Thames.
I’m not sure of shipping traffic into Venice (mostly cruise ships?) or to London (like the Bay Area weighted towards trade?) but heavy shipping traffic into San Francisco Bay, to the Port of Oakland, for example, would be adversely affected by such a barrier. (Interesting Covid-realted info on shipping in the bay)
Enter creative thinking on the subject of barriers to thwart flooding of existing infrastructure: the Billion Oyster Project

The non-profit [Billion Oyster Project] hopes to restore 1 billion oysters to New York Harbor by 2035, in an effort to improve the area’s flood resiliency.
The organization also works with Living Breakwater, a nature-based green infrastructure in the works along the Staten Island coastline, to cultivate the region’s shellfish habitat. Overseen by New York state governor’s office of storm recovery, this $107m effort to mitigate storm surges through living barriers has installed two breakwaters – a series of rock piles that blunt the impact of waves – off the borough’s coast. A total of eight breakwaters are planned.

Read more >> 

Perhaps now that Prez Biden has successfully begun with at least one plan, the Inflation Reduction Act  to address climate change, more creative ideas such as Billion Oyster Project will see fruition. “Thoughts and prayers….”

Meanwhile, back at the ranch…

Healing is a series of good days and bad days. Yesterday was a good day. Mary and I went walking along the beach and chatted with a woman “walking” her young parrot. Well, she walked and her bird rode upon her hand and wrist. We encountered them after the bird and the bird lover engaged a garden sprinkler. The bird thoroughly enjoyed fluffing its feathers and spritzing under the sprinkler mist. Mary and I watched fascinated as the bird clung to the woman’s hand held under the misty water and fluttered its wings and feathers. The bird appeared ecstatic.
Afterward, the woman encouraged the parrot to “step up” onto Mary’s arm. Close up, it was a gorgeous creature. This iPhone camera photo hardly does justice to the speckles of turquoise area the creature’s head and neck….

***

Mary and I participated in our second Zoom support group for those struggling or those supporting those struggling with mesothelioma. It included about a dozen people.
Mary and I share an existential view that slivers of humor exist in most situations, indeed, that humor heals. Alas, this point of view is scarce in the meso world. Yes, this is a horrible disease, made more horrible in that it derives from working – making a living – using toxic materials that manufacturers KNEW was toxic yet continued to sell. The worse kind of profit over human lives.
There are many forms of meso. Mary may or may not have the worst form; we’re babes in the mesothelioma woods. So far, we agree that suffering with peritoneal meso  – malignancies in the lining of the abdomen – appear to be a worse form.
Mary says, “At least my meso is confined to one lung… and the surgeon scraped out all but the tiniest bits and pieces.” (Pic of what surgeon removed from Mary’s lung.) Scraping all the bits and pieces from the lining of the abdomen seems a greater challenge.”
Nevertheless, Mary and I agree that one factor that appears missing from these meso online gatherings is humor. Yes, meso sufferers face daunting challenges. Yes, everyone has a personal trajectory to make peace with one’s diagnosis. Yes, maybe Mary and I have, so far, only encountered the online gatherings of people yet to find the humor in their situation. Or, yes, we’re just ignorant brats who refuse to face up to our new reality and deflect with humor.
We agree with, say, Joan Rivers: “Life goes by fast. Enjoy it. Calm down. It’s all funny.”
Scott Weems, a cognitive neuroscientist and author, said  “My first thought when I think about humour is it’s a great way for us to have evolved so we don’t have to hit each other with sticks.”
George Burns said, “"I think when humor has a basic honesty, you can use it all your life.” 
I could go on quoting well-known comedians but why? What counts is how you experience humor/humour in your life. I maintain that cracking a joke here and there about one’s own experience is healthy and, indeed, funny and healing.
Try it. You may like it.
Mary and I understand that people afflicted with an incurable disease might find humor misplaced, unkind, and inappropriate. We also agree that the support groups that do not display forms of humor are not for us.
What to do?
That is the question.

Not a week, a lifetime!

News blues

I suspended posting for over a week to learn what I needed to learn to act as caregiver to my bestie, Mary.
A week ago, I accompanied a nervous Mary to the hospital, checked her in, hugged her “tot siens”, and left her in the very capable hands of the thoracic surgery team that would relieve her of an unknown quantity of pleural mesothelioma nodules accumulated in her chest and upon the lining of her left lung.
It's been a rough week, rougher for Mary, but she’s home now.

Before describing Mary’s surgical and post-surgical encounters – and my lesser encounters as care giver, let’s revert to the familiar: the pandemic. 

Or should I say, pandemics? 

Pandemic 1: Covid
An abbreviated set of Covid numbers
Worldwide (Map) 
July 23, 2022 – 569,461,510 confirmed infections; 6,383,200 deaths
July 14, 2022 - 558,366, 400 confirmed infections; 6,357,300 deaths

US (Map) 
July 23, 2022 – 90,390,200 confirmed infections; 1,026,950 deaths
July 14, 2022 – 88,967,000 confirmed infections; 1,022,000 deaths

SA (Coronavirus portal) 
July 23, 2022 – 3,998,000 confirmed infections; 101,980 deaths
July 14, 2022 - 3,998,000 confirmed infections; 101,880 deaths

Pandemic 2: Emergent monkey pox
Outbreaks of monkey pox in more than 70 countries is, the WHO declares, an “extraordinary” situation that now qualifies as a global emergency.

Declaring a global emergency means the monkeypox outbreak is an “extraordinary event” that could spill over into more countries and requires a coordinated global response. WHO previously declared emergencies for public health crises such as the COVID-19 pandemic, the 2014 West African Ebola outbreak, the Zika virus in Latin America in 2016 and the ongoing effort to eradicate polio.
The emergency declaration mostly serves as a plea to draw more global resources and attention to an outbreak. Past announcements had mixed impact, given that the U.N. health agency is largely powerless in getting countries to act.
Last month, WHO’s expert committee said the worldwide monkeypox outbreak did not yet amount to an international emergency, but the panel convened this week to reevaluate the situation.

Read more >> 

***

On war and culture war

"You couldn't make this up. Last night Russian state TV ran a report on the unexpected 'benefits' of having your son killed in Ukraine. You can buy a [cheap vehicle] Lada with the compensation given to you by the state!
Watch the report >> 

Moreover, Russia, after coming to an agreement with Ukraine on shipping grain from the port of Odesa, bombed the port – and thereby the agreement.

Russian missile strikes have hit the southern Ukrainian port of Odesa, just one day after Ukraine and Russia agreed on a deal that would allow the resumption of vital grain exports from the region.
Serhii Bratchuk, a spokesman for the Odessa military administration, said two missiles hit the infrastructure of the port and two were shot down by Ukraine’s air defense.
At least six explosions were heard in Odesa, according to Ukrainian member of parliament Oleksiy Goncharenko.
It comes one day after ministers from both Ukraine and Russia signed an agreement – brokered by the United Nations and Turkey in Istanbul – to allow grain exports from Ukrainian Black Sea ports aimed at easing the global food crisis sparked by war.

Read more >> 

***

The Lincoln Project:
Tucker Carlson’s Unofficial Presidential Speech  (1:12 mins)
Part of the plan  (1:10 mins)
Last week in the Republican Party - July 19 , 2022  (2:10 mins)

Healthy planet, anyone?

Believe it or not! A four-year assessment by 82 leading scientists has found,

A market-based focus on short-term profits and economic growth means the wider benefits of nature have been ignored, which has led to bad decisions that have reduced people’s wellbeing and contributed to climate and nature crises, according to a UN report. To achieve sustainable development, qualitative approaches need to be incorporated into decision making.

Read “Humans need to value nature as well as profits to survive…” Focus on market has led to climate crises, with spiritual, cultural and emotional benefits of nature ignored >> 

Meanwhile, back at the ranch…

Mary’s harrowing journey with surgery becomes clearer each day as she adjusts to her new reality: pain, confinement, pain, physical limitation, pain, and pain killers. 

The journey will unfold as she becomes more comfortable and I’ll share her own words as we go forward. For now, the summarized version:
Surgery took about six hours. During that time, the surgical team removed an astonishingly large and well-formed series of malignant masses from her chest, lining of her left lung, her heart, her aorta.
Mary had asked the surgeon, previous to surgery, to take an informal photo of what he removes. This, as she, none of her friends and family, had a clue a to what pleural mesothelioma nodules look like.

Now we do.
It ain’t pretty. Indeed, it is astonishing.
“How on earth,” Mary asks, “Did I walk around with that much gunk around my lung and not know?
That’s the question.

Malignant epithelial mesothelioma nodules, exised.
July 15, 2022.

A close look at the photo shows well-formed, well-developed, well-entrenched malignancies. That “stuff” has been around for some decades.
How did it escape detection for so long?
More to the point, how much longer could it have gone undetected ifMary hadn’t heeded the advice of a doctor during a casual conversation?
Back then, Mary admitted experiencing pain in her hip. The doctor suggested x-rays. 

Mary poo-poohed that. “X-rays? For a sore hip? Seems too trivial.”
Thank the gods she took the doc’s advice.
Thank the gods she asked her primary doc’s advice on why she had a short, dry cough while doing certain yoga exercises.
Thank the gods, her primary doc ordered x-rays on her chest.
Here we are, six weeks later, with the gunk displayed here, displayed here. That is, it’s no longer squatting in her chest.

Thank the gods!