Weirdness overload!

News blues…

POTUS (The Donald) and FLOTUS (Melania) diagnosed with Covid-19!
The entire Trump entourage may have been exposed after Hope Hicks, close adviser to Trump, tested positive after travelling with the entourage on Air Force One (no one masked in an enclosed tube, all breathing the same coronavirus-tainted air for the duration of the trip).
Expect more positive diagnoses.
Dr Fauci anyone? Oh, wait! Trump implies Dr Fauci is a quack, that masks are a hoax, that Covid is a “just like the flu” and will, “like a miracle”, simply ”disappear”.
Time for a Trumpian recalibration?

(Fake) conspiracy theories follow:

• Is a Covid diagnosis a way for Trump to avoid another abysmal debate?
• Is Covid-19 the way Trump choses to save face for losing the election?
• For years, I’ve advised Trump to feign a heart attack to drop out of the presidency. It would be an elegant way both to bow out and garner the world’s sympathy. Perhaps he’s taken my advice – with his own interpretation: claim Covid instead of feign a heart attack?
• Is Covid-19 Trump’s way to allow Pence to become president long enough to pardon The Donald for his many dubious, criminal, and fraudulent acts?
• Is Covid a cover for Trump to pack his gold-trimmed bags and shuffle off to his high rise hotel in Moscow, Russia to live beyond the threat of extradition to the US to face tax and other frauds and avoid paying his $400 million-plus debt?

Enquiring minds want to know!

Trump, as we know, falls into the Covid risk groups: elderly and obese. His diet, however, consists mostly of junk food replete with BHT added as ingredient preserver. With any luck the BHT accumulated in Trump’s adipose tissue (aka “fat”) will preserve him.

Just as one thinks public life couldn’t get any weirder, it gets weirder. At least until tomorrow!

***

The Lincoln Project:
A Zoo Story (0:54 mins)

Meanwhile, back at the ranch…

Another rainy day. I’m now two days behind the schedule to paint the house’s exterior façade. If there’s a break in the weather tomorrow – prediction shows the icon for storms – I’ll begin to paint it myself. I’m not a professional, but I can wield a paint roller.

Going woolly

Twenty-eight weeks of Covid-19 Lockdown. I've got to say there's never been a dull moment during lo, these many weeks. And, Internet revived at 1a.m. this morning. I was more than ready.

***

Covid-19 numbers do not look good. Compare today’s numbers with those of a month ago:
Worldwide (Map)
October 1 – 33,881,275 confirmed infections: 1,012,980 deaths
September 3 – 26,940,000 confirmed infections; 861,870 deaths
US (Map)
October 1 – 7,233,199 confirmed infections: 206,940 deaths
September 3 – 6,114,000 confirmed infections; 185,710 deaths
SA (Coronavirus portal)
October 1 – 674,340 confirmed infections: 16,735 deaths
September 3 – 630,596 confirmed infections; 14,390 deaths 

SA is now 10th on the list of countries leading rates of infection, surpassed by (from first to ninth): US, India, Brazil, Russia, Colombia, Peru, Spain, Argentina, Mexico.

News blues…

• Global Covid report: Rio cancels Carnival for first time in a century as global deaths near 1 million 
• One million coronavirus deaths: how did we get here? 
• 'Confounding': Covid may have already peaked in many African countries 
• Neanderthal genes increase risk of serious Covid-19, study claimsStrand of DNA inherited by modern humans is linked to likelihood of falling severely ill 

***

The Lincoln Project:
Focus Group  (0:24 mins)
Le Creimos  (1:13 mins)
With Vote Vets: Our Moment  (1:28 mins)
The Collapse  (0:56 mins)
I’m Smart  (1:20 mins)
She’s back! Sarah Cooper, How to Drugs  (1:03 mins)
Meidas Touch: By Rudy  (0;55 mins)

Healthy futures, anyone?

We all know about plastics and microplastics gumming up our planet, our oceans, our wildlife, our lungs, our digestives systems. Plastic is an indestructible material. It breaks down but never goes away.
That may be changing.

A super-enzyme that degrades plastic bottles six times faster than before has been created by scientists and could be used for recycling within a year or two. 
The super-enzyme, derived from bacteria that naturally evolved the ability to eat plastic, enables the full recycling of the bottles. Scientists believe combining it with enzymes that break down cotton could also allow mixed-fabric clothing to be recycled. Today, millions of tonnes of such clothing is either dumped in landfill or incinerated….
The super-enzyme was engineered by linking two separate enzymes, both of which were found in the plastic-eating bug discovered at a Japanese waste site in 2016. The researchers revealed an engineered version of the first enzyme in 2018, which started breaking down the plastic in a few days. But the super-enzyme gets to work six times faster.
“When we linked the enzymes, rather unexpectedly, we got a dramatic increase in activity,“ said Prof John McGeehan, at the University of Portsmouth, UK. “This is a trajectory towards trying to make faster enzymes that are more industrially relevant. But it’s also one of those stories about learning from nature, and then bringing it into the lab.

I’m all for it… well, sort of. We, the people, have a remarkable history of jumping to miracle conclusions before a thorough checking out of new discoveries. Remember Agent Orange. Fertilizer. Genetically modified organisms….

Meanwhile, back at the ranch…

Mystery revealed. I’ve noticed, occasionally, what looks like evidence of trampling in areas of the garden pond. I’d hoped it might be otters – clawless otters and river otters frequented the pond before my mother fenced them out to fence in her dogs. I considered it might be a dog, but nah. The dogs aren’t interested in pond life. 

Today, I saw… a pair of woolly necked cranes foraging in the pond, trampling the pond foliage.

Swimmingly

Still no internet. But the end of the month is nigh. Tomorrow, first day of the month of October, my internet service begins again.
I’ve been in South Africa eight, going on nine, months!

Meanwhile, back at the ranch…

Big day! Finally, after almost 7 months with the swimming pool shutdown due to Covid-19, it re-opened and I re-upped my swim pass. It hurts not to swim. At first, it hurts to swim. I’ll push myself through the hurt, start off slow – only 100 meters today – and, if I keep pushing, I'll soon be back in swim shape. And next time I visit the pool, I’ll remember to carry a towel. On a cold day, using one’s shirt as towel after a swim and a shower is no fun.

Club Fed?

Still no Internet. Sigh.

News blues…

The walls are closing in on The Donald. Ironic that, after talking, talking, talking about building walls, it’ll be walls that do him in. His notorious tax dodgery is catching up with him.
Funny how taxes – not paying them – seems eventually to catch up with many a heretofore successful tax dodger. Given how replete history is with stories of the IRS catching up with dodgers, I wonder why tax dodgers think they can outsmart the IRS?

When the Trump-as-president fiasco is over, the Feds can open an entire new wing of Club Fed for Trump, his crooked family, cabinet, enabling congresspeople, Attorney General, and assorted hangers-on – at least the American hangers-on. The Russian, Indian, Chinese, etc., hangers on will escape. Who knows? Perhaps, to avoid justice a la IRS, the Trump entourage will relocate to Russia. Doesn’t Moscow already host a Trump hotel? If not, he’ll have time to build one. He can call it Mal-a-lardo.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch…

Two nights ago, a marvelous, joyous, and loud chorus of frogs in the garden pond. Since then, rain.
I’m not complaining about rain – at least not yet. Plants were parched and dosing them pond water via watering cans gets old fast. Moreover, rain is the best medicine. Then again, the forecast predicts rain every day except this and next Wednesday – that’s ten days of rain.
***
With spring in full swing, birds, bugs, frogs appear, even the occasional mosquito has sniffed then sampled my ankles.
A joyous sunbird supped nectar from red salvia blossoms yesterday. It was the first time I’ve seen a sunbird in action. I was able to grab my camera and photographed it, but the photo shows none of the bird’s spectacular curving beak or iridescent plumage.
Another smaller variety of sunbird has returned to nest on the verandah. This is the third year running it has elected to lay eggs and bring up a family in a shaggy nest hanging off a plant pot on the well-trafficked verandah. Alas, the nest hangs on the dark side of the pot so not easily photographed by an amateur. Nor is it polite to shine a spotlight on a wild creature’s nest to snap a photograph ….
***
My goal was to put my mother’s house on the market on October 1. I’d arranged for a professional painter to come today, but rain prevented that. ***
The good mother and dog news: they’re settling into their new lives. Moreover, my mother is exercising more since Jessica “wants” to walk four or five time a day.
Way to go mom!