“…too small for walls”

While art objects are out of the usual parameters of this blog (the pandemic, the era, and the effects on our collective home), this expression - one of many - is pertinent: Fragment of the Berlin Wall - the End of Division of Germany and Europe 1990, on site at the Muzeon Park of Arts in Moscow, Russia.  

News blues…

Totally Under Control — how the United States (and South Africa) screwed up the coronavirus response

South Africa needed a lockdown to save lives. We did not, however, need the lockdown we got. We required something gentler, more progressive, more human. The cruelty was underscored by the staggering corruption of the PPE procurement process, which resulted in at least 10% of the R50-billion disbursement being squandered by connected cadres. Rightly or wrongly, South Africans will remember Covid-19 for the orgy of thieving and greed that has studded Johannesburg and Cape Town with high-end vehicles and proud new mansion owners.
Worse, like so many countries, we’ve learnt something essential about ourselves. The postmodern capitalist technocratic state is a chimera. In its endless dedication to fake parsimony, it is always broke, and has no scope to deal with emergencies.

Read on…  

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Need a pick-me-up? Here it is: Jerusalema by All Africana Kids Best Dance Challenge  (9:25 mins)

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The Lincoln Project:
Names  (0:55 mins)  
Chyna  (1:00 min)

Healthy planet, anyone?

Half Of Corals On The Great Barrier Reef Have Died Since 1990s. 

Dr. Terry Hughes, a professor at the ARC Centre and a co-author of a recent paper, has long said climate change remains the single greatest threat to the future of the Great Barrier as we know it.
“The word ‘threat’ is funny,” he said. “If you threatened to punch me on the nose, it’s something you might do. We’ve been measuring the impacts on the Great Barrier Reef for 22 years … it’s certainly not a future threat. It’s been part of the ongoing saga for a long time.”

Meanwhile, back at the ranch…

The newly purchased double bed with drawers purchased specifically for my mother’s small room at the Care Center didn’t work out for her: The Dog refused to sleep on it. Yesterday, I arranged for a mover to exchange it for a lighter-weight twin bed without drawers. The Dog is happy. The Mother? Happy-ish.
On Friday, I propose driving a former neighbor to the Care Center to visit my mother. Always uplifting to have neighbors visit.
The realtor informed me that the sale of the house could take “at least six months.” I’m not prepared to stay here beyond January 2021, so I need a plan to ensure the house is occupied although not rented. How to do that? I’ve a few months to figure it out.

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Chard and parsley are ready to eat from the veggie garden. Zucchini and snap pea plants are flowering. And, for the first time since I planted it three years ago, I’ll be here to enjoy the sweet smell of the jasmine. A benefit of the pandemic?
Glorious spring is in full swing here.

“Cowori”

In an Amazonian language, “cowori” has come to mean “man knows too little for the power that he wields, and the damage that he causes.” 

Ain’t it the truth?  (Read the piece, below.)

News blues…

• Is South Africa heading towards a second wave of coronavirus? “The risk is there,” says the health minister. 
• Covid-19 infected and diagnosed, US Congressman Mike Lee attends the Supreme Court confirmation hearing without a mask. 
• Trump campaign recontextualizes Dr Fauci’s words from months ago – and creates a self-serving political ad. 

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The Lincoln Project: Walk of Shame  (0:55 mins)
Inside the Lincoln Project's campaign against President Trump  (13:33 mins)
Don Winslow Films: Memo to Trump  (0:34 mins)

Healthy planet, anyone?

According to a report by insurance firm Swiss Re, trillions of dollars of GDP depend on biodiversity, and a fifth of countries are at risk of ecosystem collapse. 
Along with Australia and Israel, South Africa ranks near the top of Swiss Re’s index of risk to biodiversity and ecosystem services; India, Spain and Belgium are also highlighted; countries with fragile ecosystems and large farming sectors, such as Pakistan and Nigeria, are also flagged.

One-fifth of the world’s countries are at risk of their ecosystems collapsing because of the destruction of wildlife and their habitats, according to the analysis. Natural “services” such as food, clean water and air, and flood protection have already been damaged by human activity. More than half of global GDP – $42tn (£32tn) – depends on high-functioning biodiversity … but the risk of tipping points is growing.

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Dear presidents of the nine Amazonian countries and to all world leaders that share responsibility for the plundering of our rainforest,

In each of our many hundreds of different languages across the Amazon, we have a word for you – the outsider, the stranger. In my language, WaoTededo, that word is “cowori”. And it doesn’t need to be a bad word. But you have made it so. For us, the word has come to mean (and in a terrible way, your society has come to represent): the white man that knows too little for the power that he wields, and the damage that he causes.  

My name is Nemonte Nenquimo. I am a Waorani woman, a mother, and a leader of my people. The Amazon rainforest is my home. I am writing you this letter because the fires are raging still. Because the corporations are spilling oil in our rivers. Because the miners are stealing gold (as they have been for 500 years), and leaving behind open pits and toxins. Because the land grabbers are cutting down primary forest so that the cattle can graze, plantations can be grown and the white man can eat. Because our elders are dying from coronavirus, while you are planning your next moves to cut up our lands to stimulate an economy that has never benefited us. Because, as Indigenous peoples, we are fighting to protect what we love – our way of life, our rivers, the animals, our forests, life on Earth – and it’s time that you listened to us.

Read Nemonte Nenquimo’s letter. 

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Meanwhile, back at the ranch…

I arrived in KZN from California on 28 January, intending to assist my mother, get things in order, ensure her appropriate health care (she was treated for oral cancer a year ago), and return to my American family 28 May, to work, live… until next year.
Instead, a global pandemic and lock down followed.
I’m still here. My mother is in a Care Center, I’m packing up piles of stuff, working with auctioneers, realtors, and municipal and legal bureaucracies, to ensure the sale of her house, settle her pets, down to details such as today’s activity: move, remove, and replace one of my mother’s beds with another – and find sheets and bed clothes that fit the replacement bed.
Two weeks ago, I made an offer on my own retirement unit in KZN. It was accepted so, at a distance of 14,000 miles, I’m organizing my life in California so that I’m not financially bust when I return, organizing my gear here so that I’ve a place to move into when this house is sold, organizing my thinking so that I can return to California - and an income generating job – as soon a possible.
I’m also discovering and deeply exploring the dynamics of my family of origin. It ain’t pretty. One misses a lot in four decades.
Simultaneously, I’m deeply grateful that I have this opportunity. I’m learning I’m resilient, unflinching, and, yes, even compassionate.
Life is complex.

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Life is also diverse.
Yesterday’s sojourn in the garden included a Brown hooded kingfisher. 

 

Required: best intentions

Two hundred days of lockdown in South Africa. Together, we’ve endured Levels 4, 3, 2 and remain on Level 1. While the rates of infection hover above 1,000 cases per day – today more than 1,500 new cases – and we’ll reach 700,000 confirmed cases of infection any day now, South Africans have accepted wearing masks, sanitizing, and social distancing. We’ve also introduced the Jerusalema to the world, to dance during dire times. 

Congratulations, South Africans and those who make South Africa your home away from home.

News blues…

The prevailing mindset in the United States is that voting is the cure-all for poor or mediocre governance. (The Electoral College is there to, y’know, ensure We the People don’t, y’know, make a mistake – such as vote for a liberal or even worse, a progressive president.)
Voting, the cultural myth posits, is the Word of We the People.
The Trump presidency puts this cultural myth to the test.
Perhaps the biggest gift of the Trump presidency?
A chance to review – and reset? - real flaws in the constitutional process.
That system’s biggest - and bad-est - assumption? That whoever runs for office holds a high ethical and moral value system. That the person voted president understands and respects the US Constitution and is willing and able to act for something beyond self-interest.
A basic – and proven faulty – assumption of the framers of the Constitution? That humans known as politicians will show generous spirits towards all Americans. Instead, humans known as politicians are – like the rest of us – first, humans: complex, wily, self-deluding, self-interested, and, too often, greedy and power hungry. Add incompetence, narcissism, and corrupted by power and Americans experience “Amateur hour at the Trump White House,”  bolstered by “All the President’s Men.”  

Big change requires big hearts and minds - and generosity. 

Are those qualities in evidence these days?

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The Lincoln Project: Transfer  (0: mins)

Meanwhile, back at the ranch…

Weather predictions for this week? Sunny days. After temperatures dropped into the single digits (centigrade) overnight, welcome Sun!
This busy weeks includes another round of complying with my mother’s latest impulse. This time, after agreeing to purchase a bed with six space-saving drawers, she’s decided she wants a space-saving single bed, no drawers. The reason for the first decision? The Dog would share her bed. The reason for the second decision? The Dog isn't sharing her bed after all. (And, yes, that The Dog isn't sharing her bed means I'm running back and forth with different size foam pads and different duvets, even sewing duvet covers to suit the different size duvets, to satisfy The Dog's particular needs.)

Today, I'll hire the same mover to move the single bed from the house to the Care Center, figure out how to dismantle the heavy, bulky double bed with drawers – and mattress – and drive it back to the house. That we're in sale mode and trying to stage the house for a quick sale doesn't enter my mother's calculations.
The good news, she’s forming a coterie of elderly folk to watch DVDs in her room on her TV. Yesterday’s show? “The Sound of Music.” The group agrees they like James Bond, too, and my mother has a full set of those DVDs.
I greet any signs of settling into her new life with joy.

Superman

News blues…

Last week, while in the presidential suite at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, Donald Trump floated an idea for the moment he faced the public after his discharge: rip open his dress shirt to reveal the Superman symbol beneath.

He “wanted to appear frail at first,” people with knowledge of the conversations told the New York Times. But underneath his dress shirt, Trump would wear a Superman T-shirt, which he would reveal by ripping open the top layer of his clothing. He ultimately opted not to go ahead with the stunt. It wasn’t immediately clear why.

He opted not to go ahead with the stunt? Huh. Could it be he’s not as crazy as a bedbug?
Nah! He’s crazy. 

Then again, how come 42 percent of those polled intend to vote for Trump?
Can 42 percent of America’s voting population be crazy too? 

Well, yes. See for yourself. (6:11 mins)

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The Lincoln Project Mocks Trump With Fake Retro Ad Pushing Covid Drug (2:27 mins)
The Fly Song  (1:27 mins)
Meidas Touch: Trump Devastation   (1:15 mins)
Same Old - Samuel L. Jackson  (0:59 mins)

Healthy planet, anyone?

As they have done for more than a billion years fungi are changing the way that life happens: eating rock, making soil, digesting pollutants, nourishing and killing plants, surviving in space, inducing visions, producing food, making medicines, manipulating animal behaviour, and influencing the composition of the Earth’s atmosphere.

Fungi make up one of life’s kingdoms – as broad and busy a category as “animals” or “plants” – and provide a key to understanding our planet. Yet fungi have received only a small fraction of the attention they deserve. 

The best estimate suggests that there are between 2.2m and 3.8m species of fungi on the Earth – as many as 10 times the estimated number of plant species – meaning that, at most, a mere 8% of all fungal species have been described. Of these, only 358 have had their conservation priority assessed on the IUCN red list of threatened species, compared with 76,000 species of animal and 44,000 species of plant. Fungi, in other words, represent a meagre 0.2% of our global conservation priorities.

Read Kew’s 2020 report State of the World’s Plants and Fungi,  the outcome of a collaboration between 210 researchers in 42 countries.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch…

And… it’s raining again. I’m grateful for two days of sunshine during which we painted and primped the exterior of the house. Now I must photograph it for the realtors’ marketing promotion.
After the push to reach this point, I intend to recognize and celebrate the new freedom afforded by Lockdown Alert Level 1: take a day off, perhaps drive somewhere – the beach? The Drakensberg? A local plant nursery?

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Life offers amazing diversity. For example, after mentioning the night time frog choir with a basso profondo section, I searched the term, “basso profondo.” Here’s what I found: Russian Basso Profondo: The Lowest Voices  (1:45 mins)
Amazing.