“Tiny, little, short period of time”

Soon, I hope, Americans and other human and animal residents of planet Earth will look on the Trump years as a “tiny, little, short period of time” – whose historical significance will be as long as Trump spent in the White House bunker….

Bunker mentality. President Donald Trump

… denied reports that he retreated to the underground bunker beneath the White House last Friday night as protests outside the executive mansion escalated, insisting he only visited the secure facility for a brief time during the day for the purposes of “inspection.”
“It was a false report. I wasn’t down. I went down during the day, and I was there for a tiny, little, short period of time. And it was much more for an inspection. There was no problem during the day,” Trump told “Fox & Friends” co-host Brian Kilmeade on his Fox News radio show.
… Trump also maintained that the Secret Service did not order him to the bunker, but merely “said it would be a good time to go down, take a look, because maybe some time you're going to need it.” Since assuming office in early 2017, Trump has entered the bunker roughly “2½” times, he said.

What and how long is half a visit to a bunker?
Standing in the doorway for a “tiny period” but never looking inside?

News blues…

To quote Rep James Clyburn – D Majority Whip: “This country is at a cross-roads and if we don’t choose wisely between now and the end of this year, I think we’re seeing the demise of the greatest democracy ever on earth.”

***

From The Lincoln Project: America or Trump?
War Zone 

Donald Trump has no qualms about inciting violence and mayhem, from the safety of his White House bunker. In an explicit show of totalitarianism, he has taken the U.S. military and police forces and mobilized them against our own citizens.
Trump has taken the side of the oppressor and the American people have made it clear: we are not him, and he is not us.

Flag of Treason 

Perhaps this choice resonates because what you and I already know is becoming more obvious to more Americans: Donald Trump only cares about himself — not our country.
You and I have always known Donald Trump was unfit for office.
But the fact he has not addressed the nation while our cities are on fire, and instead sits in his bunker tweeting petty insults and planning his next round of golf is worse than I expected this to get.
The Lincoln Project will do everything in our power to defeat this president.

***

Defense Secretary Mark Esper (to whom James Miller sent his resignation letter yesterday) on Wednesday declared his opposition to sending active-duty troops into US cities to deal with violent protesters, two days after President Donald Trump threatened to do so if governors don't call up National Guard troops.

The option to use active-duty forces in a law enforcement role should only be used as a matter of last resort and only in the most urgent and dire situations. We are not in one of those situations right now," Esper said in his first public comments since the protests erupted. 
Just hours later, after a meeting at the White House Esper abruptly reversed course. It is unclear if Esper met with President Donald Trump. [Some suggest] the change was based on ensuring there is enough military support in the region to respond to any protest problems if needed.
…The White House meeting and Esper's reversal suggests the president or his aides pressured Esper to keep troops in the region after he told reporters in no uncertain terms that he opposed the use of active-duty troops as law enforcement right now. 

Confusion reigns, but that’s par for the course in the Trump White House.

***

Another domino falls… In a forceful rebuke of his former boss, former Secretary of Defense General James Mattis castigated President Donald Trump as "the first president in my lifetime who does not try to unite the American people…."
What’s extraordinary about Mattis’ statement?

… it appears to imply that an order by Trump for troops to deploy against protesters would be a breach of their constitutional oath. And since former top military brass remain highly loyal to their comrades and plugged into the Pentagon, one of the most political of power centers, Mattis' broadside will spark speculation as to whether he is conveying the thoughts of serving senior officers who are unable to speak out. 

***

Daar lê die ding. The average South African consumer of alcohol swallows from 28.9 to 34.9 litres per annum – “the fifth highest consumption rate in the world.”
Lockdown Level 4 forbade the sale of alcohol. Level 3 restricts but does not ban South Africans from purchasing alcohol:

...they will not be able to buy alcoholic beverages between 5pm on Thursday until Monday morning.
National police spokesperson Brig Vish Naidoo said anyone found buying or selling alcohol between those designated times would face the might of the law.
“From 5pm on Thursday until Monday morning, people are not allowed to carry liquor. We want to prevent people from getting intoxicated and getting together. We would be opening an avenue for them to start parties, which will cause a further spread of the disease,” he said.
“This is not saying it’s illegal to drink - just don’t drink in public or attempt to buy through the illicit trade.”

Despite restrictions,

Trauma cases … have spiked substantially since the easing of lockdown regulations to Level 3.
The Western Cape Department of Health confirmed … significant increases in admissions this week… the majority… alcohol-related trauma.
Groote Schuur hospital has seen an increase from eight patients per day during Level 4 to 20 per day [at Level 3].
Helderberg Hospital has seen "100 percent increase. [Previously,] in a 12-hour period, we saw 28 patients. On Monday, in a 12-hour period we saw 50 patients of which the majority was alcohol-related trauma.”

Would it have been wiser to ease restrictions on cigarettes and maintain restrictions on alcohol? Enquiring minds….
*Idiomatic Afrikaans, literally “there lies the thing” and implies seeing to the core of an issue.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch…

Humor and art and music help overwhelmed humans cope in stressful times.
Accordingly, today, let’s enjoy Weezer’s wonderfully fun existentialist “Undone - The Sweater Song”  (4:14 mins)

Read   Week 1 |   Week 2   |  Week 3  |  Week 4 |  Week 5  | Week 6  |  Week 7  |  Week 8  |  Week 9  |  Week 10 

See photos  Spying on Garden Creatures 

Watch  Videos of Garden Creatures

Herd immunity, impunity, or fraternity?

Catching up after three days without an Internet connection.
So much going on it’s hard to stay current.

News blues…

A friend under curfew (also a lawyer) texted news from the San Francisco Bay Area:

• Yesterday was the attack on peaceful protesters, media, and clergy by secret service, police, and the National Guard in Lafayette Square [outside White House] to clear it for a Trump photo op. They attacked protesters under the direct command of Attorney General [William] Barr, who could clearly be seen ordering the attack. I watched this in real time.
• There were a number of crimes committed by all involved, the main crimes being criminal civil rights violations and conspiracy to violate civil rights.
• I spent the morning calling my federal representatives about this stuff, and my state and county reps about the wholesale use of gas, flash bang grenades, and rubber bullets against non-violent protesters, many of whom are young college and high school students. This is happening all over the state [California]… A main freeway [near me] was blocked [by protesters, too].
• A MSNBC TV reporter asked Republican Senators about these attacks. All senators either refused to answer or claimed not to have seen it.*
• Former CIA analyst Gail Heit said, “This looks like what happens when democracies die. It happens like this in countries before a collapse. It really un-nerves me.”
• There are big demonstrations all over defying the curfews. Like many cities and counties around the country, San Francisco and East Bay counties [population of 3.5 to 4 million], are now under curfew indefinitely. 
• [Signaling]…resistance from the big state governors and other quarters, a member of the Defense Science Board, James Miller, a former under-Secretary of Defense, resigned today. [He wrote] a scorching letter to the Secretary of Defense saying both he [current SecDef] and Trump had violated their oaths of office and the law.

Defense Science Board member, James Miller’s resignation is the beginning, I believe, of a domino effect that will bring Trump down.
*For now, leaders such as Marco Rubio still prop up the stale edifice. Rubio (R-Fla.), the acting chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, said about the attacks on peaceful protesters outside the White House:

“That wasn’t even a protest ― that was a provocation … created deliberately for national television… Show me the pictures of that crowd and tell me those are real protesters and not professional agitators.” 

Meanwhile, Republican Voters Against Trump, a Republican group opposed to President Donald Trump urges voters to end his “American carnage” by voting him out of office in November. The group is using Fox & Friends, one of Trump’s favorite TV shows, to spread the message.

The spot uses the president’s own words against him and is centered around a line from his inauguration has taken on new meaning amid a deadly pandemic and nationwide civil unrest: “This American carnage stops right here and stops right now.”

Former chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, Mike Mullen, wrote in The Atlantic:

It sickened me yesterday to see security personnel — including members of the National Guard — forcibly and violently clear a path through Lafayette Square to accommodate the president's visit outside St. John's Church. I have to date been reticent to speak out on issues surrounding President Trump's leadership, but we are at an inflection point, and the events of the past few weeks have made it impossible to remain silent.
Whatever Trump's goal in conducting his visit, he laid bare his disdain for the rights of peaceful protest in this country, gave succor to the leaders of other countries who take comfort in our domestic strife, and risked further politicizing

Televangelist Pat Robertson, on his “700 Club” TV show, scolded President Donald Trump over his threat to send the U.S. military into American cities to control civil unrest.

“You just don’t do that, Mr. President. It isn’t cool.”
In comments posted online by Right Wing Watch, Robertson also called out Trump for getting the tone all wrong in dealing with the people protesting against racial injustice in the wake of the police killing of George Floyd, a Black man in Minneapolis, last week.
“You know, there’s a purpose to everything under heaven, you read in the Bible, and there’s a time,” Robertson said. “And I think now is the time to say, ’I understand your pain, I want to comfort you, I think it’s time we love each other.” 

Ah, yes, this is what I love about America and Americans. When the fur flies (aka “sh** hits the fan”) Americans guided by principle come out of the woodwork and show their courage.
I find fraternity at these times with James Miller, and Mike Mullen, and Republican Voters Against Trump, even very conservative Pat Robertson.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch…

Third feature of Lockdown Syndrome: coupled with isolation, disconnection from the Internet for more than 24 hours causes irritation, anxiety, even depression.
Sitting by the garden pond helps, watching dragon- and damselflies helps. Seeing a vibrant Woodland Kingfisher certainly helps. But, there’s nothing like reconnection to the Internet!

***

Mea culpa. Fulsome complaining about the kitchen alarm and staff’s misuse of gas comes back to haunt.
It is true that staff does not moderate gas burners.
It is true that fire alarms are necessary tools to signal emergency.
And, it is true that alarms malfunction.
Indeed, malfunction was the root cause of our kitchen’s overactive alarm.
Another humbling lesson in why not to jump to conclusion, why not to assume, and why not to assign blame.
My excuse? I’m all-too-human.

On the topic of all-too-human, this was the perfect morning to listen to Arlo Guthrie’s, “City of New Orleans.”

Good morning, America
How are you?
Say, don’t you know me?
I’m your native son…

I listen, smile with joy … and cry with anguish as American burns. (Why brutalize people who justly claim their humanity?)
Crying is not allowed in my family of origin. Never has been, never will be.
So, like a well-trained seal (Bored Zoo Animal?) Dutiful Daughter sits on her bed, alone in her bedroom in KZN, far from friends and family in burning, adopted-country America, and cries.

Take care, Americans and America.
Do not give up your fight for your humanity, your human rights – and our democracy.

Read   Week 1 |   Week 2   |  Week 3  |  Week 4 |  Week 5  | Week 6  |  Week 7  |  Week 8  |  Week 9  |  Week 10 

See photos  Spying on Garden Creatures 

Watch  Videos of Garden Creatures

Going cuckoo

After brief Internet connection, I’m disconnected. Again.
A “problem with the tower.”
The tower ain’t got no power!
Coming from California – close to hyper-urban, hi-tech Silicon Valley – to KZN’s rural low-tech Midlands demands patience.

News blues…

Uneasy about being cut off from US news during one of the most significant domestic moments of the New Millennium, I grimace… grumble … grouse…
Friends and family text me their local news:

• I’ve been watching videos of cops and undercover cops inciting violence. One video showed an undercover cop breaking windows. Another showed people intentionally pushing other people into the cops from behind then running away. What’s fascinating is that they used to get away with all this stuff but now it’s all captured on video so all can see the tactics.
• Resistance [to heavy-handed cops] is already happening. In Minneapolis a bus driver refuse to drive arrested protesters to jail. In a couple of places cops even joined protesters. This has never happened before - so it’s a good sign.
• [Congressman] Seth Moulton, a Democrat and a [war] vet just called on the military to “lay down arms” if ordered to confront protesters.
• As per the UN International Human Rights Standards of Law Enforcement pocket handbook, soldiers have a duty to refuse unlawful orders: “All measures for the restoration of order are to respect human rights.”

Leaders of the City of Alameda, an island city of approximately 74,000 souls and my home for 20 years, alerted residents that:

A curfew is in place…tonight and tomorrow night, June 1 and 2, from 8pm to 5am. If extended, we will continue to update the community.
Last night, May 31 into June 1, the East Bay was hit hard by widespread incidents of looting, burglaries, and violence. Here in Alameda, we experienced a dozen incidents from 9pm to 5am, and arrested 7 individuals. What we experienced was less severe than in neighboring cities, but damage was done to our community.
These unfortunate events will also further complicate statewide and regional efforts to slow the spread of Covid-19.
We have substantially increased the number of officers we have on duty and have contingency plans in place to address changing circumstances.
Curfew regulations…include that it is unlawful for any person to travel or be upon a public street, sidewalk, or public place within the City during dates and hours designated, unless you are exempt. Exemptions include essential workers and individuals traveling to and from work, seeking emergency care, fleeing dangerous circumstances, or experiencing homelessness.
The Alameda County Sheriff issued a curfew order for the entire County [1.67 million people] beginning tonight at 8pm and extending through June 5 at 5am.

Hmmm, nothing about banned cigarettes, rationed alcohol, or wearing/not wearing short-sleeved white undershirts.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch…

Day 2 of Lockdown Level 3. Except for masks covering many but all faces in public, and the occasional store clerk holding an infra-red thermometer to customers’ foreheads, life here appears back to normal. Heavy traffic, crowded taxis, crowded shopping malls, crowded stores, crowded pavements.

***

The live-in domestic worker who took ill yesterday suffered, not a stroke, but a form of lockjaw!
She reports that a fellow patient in the communal ward where she spent the night suffered similar symptoms … and he succumbed. Dead.
I’m trying to get further details on the malady.
No one knows nothin’.
Without Internet, I can’t even consult the Internet’s diagnose-from-a- distance “health experts.”

***

Further symptoms of Lockdown Syndrome.
Sunday’s post admitted my growing obsession with the graphs displayed by my iPhone’s Last Charge Level.
Today, I admit my daily Weed Walk resembles the anxious lope of a Bored Zoo Exhibit. The swaying elephant… poop-tossing baboon… cage-circling wolf… breast-feather-plucking cuckoo….
Come 3 o’clock, I don walking shoes and pluck weeds while I prowl: over mown and unmown lawns, up the stairs and turn right or down the stairs and turn left (last minute changes of direction add variety), around and around, up and down, down and up, over and under, under and over – over and over and over.
Vehicles passing on the dirt road poof clouds of dust that settles onto my hair and shoulders.
Hadidah ibis roosting on the electric pylon observe and chuckle raucously.
The dogs that once alleviated their boredom by following me no longer bother.
On the plus side, Weed Walking has eliminated garden weeds.
At 3:30, I dust off the dust … and visit my mother for a cup of tea and a dose of Judge Judy.

Click to enlarge.

End of day, I review the graph displayed by my iPhone’s Last Charge Level.
Love the pattern!

Read   Week 1 |   Week 2   |  Week 3  |  Week 4 |  Week 5  | Week 6  |  Week 7  |  Week 8  |  Week 9  |  Week 10 

See photos  Spying on Garden Creatures 

Watch  Videos of Garden Creatures

“Change in political and economic power”

Protestors demonstrate in 

Columbia, S.C. in response 

to the recent killing of 

George Floyd at the hands 

of law enforcement. 

Sean Rayford, © The New York Times

Click to enlarge

Fourteen thousand miles/ twenty-three thousand kilometers from the US yet I feel, and sympathize (non-violently) with the anger in the streets of my adopted country.
I’ve lived, worked, and engaged with events in the San Francisco Bay Area for many years, including the 1992 Rodney King riots, the 2010 Oscar Grant riots, the 2003 anti-war protests, and the 2011 Occupy encampments.
What protesters say now was true then: We, the People, protest injustice and mobilize for change yet our protests go nowhere - beyond police banging up protesters, shooting with rubber bullets, and arresting hundreds.
We get labeled, too.
Once upon a time, “Communist” was the worst Boogieman name to label Americans. These days, “socialist”, even “Democrat”, thanks to Trump - are in the running, but both lag behind the current worst naming label: “Antifa.”
Antifa lends itself to amorphous projections that imply all the bugaboo lables: communist, un-American, traitor, terrorist, domestic terrorist, socialist, Democrat, radical, Left, far-Left, and ultra-Left. It implies youth: dissatisfied, disengaged, disenfranchised, disempowered. And, dare I say it, it implies poor “people of color”…
In fact, Antifa is an abbreviation for something truly American: anti-fascist.
Pronounced an-tee-fah, and defined as “a political protest movement comprising autonomous groups affiliated by their militant opposition to fascism and other forms of extreme right-wing ideology.”
If Antifa is made up predominantly of young people (no proof of that) then these young people are among the most politically engaged Americans. They’re willing to risk their health and well-being to demand progressive change in our country.
South Africans know how to protest – effectively, too. Yet, for me right now, KZN seems so, so far from the current round of protests in the US that:

…shook more than three dozen [American] cities on Saturday as crowds expressed outrage over the death of George Floyd…. Demonstrators shut down freeways, set fires and battled police batons and tear gas…the pain and frustration of the moment spilling out into the streets.
In Columbia, the city where Mr. [Joe] Biden delivered his victory speech after the South Carolina primary just over three months ago, demonstrators on Saturday said they were demanding more than what it seemed like an election in November would deliver. Not only justice for the death of George Floyd, but change in political and economic power that would prevent the death of another black person in police custody, another brutal video going viral.

Ah, “change in political and economic power”….
“Change” is a tough enough ask of politicians.
Add “in political and economic power”… and you’re wandering into the realm of “ain’t gonna happen” – at least not without sustained protest.

News blues…

“Willing to kill democracy”?

…we can focus this simply on Trump or we can also focus on all of those folks that have enabled Trump: the Republican leadership, the corporation that may make statements in support of this work but, on the other hand, do all sorts of things to prop up, support, donate to Donald Trump. You don’t get Trump and Trumpism without a whole host of institutions and individuals that support and enable him.”

***

The Lincoln Project reports that Republican Senator Mitch McConnel responds to their ad, “Rich Mitch”  with a page from Trump’s playbook: tweeting insults.
McConnell roundly denounces the team who created the ad with name calling: inane, ridiculous, etc. But the Gentleman from Kentucky does not refute their central claim, that Mitch enriched himself at the cost of Kentucky.
To be fair, Mitch’s second wife Elaine Chao, inherited money after her mother died in 2007. That marriage would have increased Mitch’s net worth on paper. He balanced those books by elevating his wife to Transportation Secretary.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch…

Further symptoms of Lockdown Syndrome. Yesterday, I described a growing obsession with the various patterns displayed by my iPhone’s Last Charge Level.
Today, I recognize my daily Weed Walking  around the garden resembles the anxious lope of a Bored Zoo Animal.
Limited access to Internet news and limited exposure to public behavior under Lockdown suggests South Africans view Lockdown Level 3 as an opportunity to socialize again.
Accordingly, I elected to delay until next week the gardener’s return to work, and then he’ll work only one day. Returning to/from work via public taxi one day a week poses a risk of Covid-19 infection; returning three days a week is a greater risk, one I’m unwilling to take.

***

Yesterday, one domestic worker suffered a medical episode that’s a repeat of an event eight years ago diagnosed as a stroke.
Her face swelled up and her upper lip was rigid. Swelling is not a feature of stroke, nor is moving around easily.
An ambulance transported her to a provincial public hospital.
This raises a dilemma.
South Africa’s notoriously under-funded and over-crowded public hospitals cater to, well, ill people, including people carrying, knowingly or unknowingly, coronavirus.
Today, I sought advice from a “sister” – an advanced nursing professional – on how safely to incorporate the worker back into the household.
The domestic worker returned – unexpectedly by public taxi – to quarantine.
We’ll all take necessary precautions.

***

Another round of canna removal.
The succulent garden I imagine slowly takes shape.

Read   Week 1 |   Week 2   |  Week 3  |  Week 4 |  Week 5  | Week 6  |  Week 7  |  Week 8  |  Week 9  |  Week 10 

See photos  Spying on Garden Creatures 

Watch  Videos of Garden Creatures