Solstice

Week 39 Day 270 Monday, December 21 - Solstice

Mid-summer in KZN (left)… and mid-winter in California (right)
Click to enlarge. 

I miss my American family, but I don’t miss winter. Living on a houseboat, as I do when in California, has its plusses in the winter. To name several: the confined space of a houseboat is easy to heat; seals and sea lions frequent Delta waterways; the migration of sandhill cranes to the Delta is in full swing. 

News blues…

As numbers of people infected and die from Covid-19, Donald Trump utters nary a word on the pandemic. Instead, he’s focused on overturning a legitimate election and declaring martial law. 

***

My hopes for returning to California are dire now that South Africa and UK have been identified as hotspots for the new coronavirus strain:

Germany plans to impose restrictions on flights from and to SA and Britain after the two countries reported identifying a new coronavirus strain, a government spokesman said on Sunday.
He said that the government was working on new travel rules and was in contact with European Union partners.
El Salvador has also banned travellers who have been in the United Kingdom or SA in the last 30 days or whose flights included a layover in those countries….

Goodbye dreams of seeing family, sea lions, and sandhill cranes any time soon….

Healthy planet, anyone?

It's not easy these days to find positive news on the environment. One Tree Planted responds to this dearth of good news by sifting through the headlines and presenting some of the best stories related to nature, conservation, and biodiversity. Here’s their July news…. 

Meanwhile, back at the ranch…

As populations of the SARSCov-2 virus surge, so do populations of mosquitos. What’s a bad mosquito-related event for someone who sleeps under a mosquito net?
Mosquitos inside the net!
What’s worse than a buzzing mosquito or two insides the net?
Buzzing mosquitos flitting through the light emitted by one’s cell phone as one reads the screen.
It’s woman against predator.
So far, predator wins!

New behaviors

News blues…

• A new coronavirus variant? South Africa and the new coronavirus variant: your questions and health department’s answers 
• UK scrambles amid fears a new variant of COVID-19 is spreading more rapidly across parts of the country that could be “up to 70 percent more transmissible” than the original variant. 
• A fairly technical good explanation (if you’re patient) of the new variant of Covid-19 that 'may be spreading faster'  (1:45:40 mins)

***

Another look at whacky stuff: Fox Spreading New DANGEROUS Lies about Covid (3:05 mins)

Healthy planet, anyone?

A photo essay to remind us of the creatures of our beautiful planet 

***

We can learn to better love our country. There’s no better time than now: Namadgi national park: ‘A mystery, a relic, a vibrant pulse in the earth’ 

Meanwhile, back at the ranch…

Monkeys, always observant, have noticed this household has trimmed down from 10 to 3 dogs. Their response? House invasion!
AS I departed the house yesterday, I discovered and discouraged (“scoot monkey!) a monkey in the foliage outside the house. This is the closest to the residence that I’ve ever encountered a monkey. I pulled the burglar guards closed and departed.
Three hours later, my return was met with an excited domestic worker who reported monkeys had invaded the house and eaten my paw paws (“papayas”). Paw paws do have a wonderful aroma and it’s likely that aroma attracted the hungry beasts. They’d entered through the burglar guards, pounced on the fruit, then made themselves comfortable on my large worktable and proceeded to eat the fruit.
By the time, I returned home, Martha (domestic worker) had cleaned up behind the monkeys. I can only imagine the mess that she’d faced. Thank you, Martha. 

From now on out we will keep both the burglar guards and the French doors shut.

It’s his nucleus accumbens and dorsal striatum!

It’s his nucleus accumbens and dorsal striatum!

Madam & Eve, courtesy of
South African cartoonists Steven Francis and Rico 

***

James Kimmel, Jr., researcher on violence, discovered that “your brain on grievance looks a lot like your brain on drugs.”
In fact, brain imaging studies show that harboring a grievance (a perceived wrong or injustice, real or imagined) activates the same neural reward circuitry as narcotics.” Kimmel relates his findings in relation to Donald Trump:

Scientists [find] that in substance addiction, environmental cues such as being in a place where drugs are taken or meeting another person who takes drugs cause sharp surges of dopamine in crucial reward and habit regions of the brain, specifically, the nucleus accumbens and dorsal striatum. This triggers cravings in anticipation of experiencing pleasure and relief through intoxication. Recent studies show that cues such as experiencing or being reminded of a perceived wrong or injustice — a grievance — activate these same reward and habit regions of the brain, triggering cravings in anticipation of experiencing pleasure and relief through retaliation. To be clear, the retaliation doesn’t need to be physically violent—an unkind word, or tweet, can also be very gratifying.
Although these are new findings and the research in this area is not yet settled, what this suggests is that similar to the way people become addicted to drugs or gambling, people may also become addicted to seeking retribution against their enemies — revenge addiction. This may help explain why some people just can’t let go of their grievances long after others feel they should have moved on—and why some people resort to violence.
It’s worth asking whether this helps explain Trump’s fixation on his grievances and ways of exacting retribution for them. The hallmark of addiction is compulsive behavior despite harmful consequences. Trump’s unrelenting efforts to retaliate against those he believes have treated him unjustly (including, now, American voters) appear to be compulsive and uncontrollable. The harm this causes to himself and others is obvious but seems to have no deterrent effect. Reports suggest he has been doing this for much of his life. He seems powerless to stop. He also seems to derive a great deal of pleasure from it.

Hmmm. Explains a lot…except how to manage it.
Alas, the recent election as “intervention” appears to have upped Trump’s pleasure in wreaking revenge.
Read, “What the Science of Addiction Tells Us About Trump“  >> 

News blues…

South Africans are hosting a new variant of coronavirus, with “three mutations, which is an unusually high number for a new variant, and can bind more easily to receptors in the human body.” This. according to health minister Dr Zweli Mkhize, speaking at a briefing alongside top scientists including Prof Salim Abdool Karim and Prof Tulio de Oliveira.
This “new highly transmissible variant is circulating widely — but it is not clear yet whether it is more severe than the original variants. Nevertheless, it has become the dominant one in the country's second coronavirus wave, and is “making young and previously healthy people severely ill”. 

Healthy planet, anyone?

Mixed results of the pandemic. It cuts funding and volunteer numbers, rises awareness, and results in more people are rescuing more injured animals – and overwhelms systems. 

Meanwhile, back at the ranch…

A good time is planned for all!
My mother will enjoy Christmas Day with my brother and his family. The Dog will enjoy Christmas Day at this house – her previous home.
I hope we can load The Dog (and the mother?) back into the car when it’s time to return them to the Care Center.
I expect my mother’s surging determination to escape the Care Center will be tempered by reality after she visits my brother and his family in their small house. Not only is the house small, the two bedrooms already are inhabited by my brother’s wife’s adult sons and an eight-year-old grandson – and a puppy. Imagine my mother and The Dog squeezed in there! (One hour, max, before mayhem breaks out!)

“Whole-of-America approach”

News blues…

We start a new week – in South Africa lockdown weeks begin on Fridays – with the US experiencing “roughly one coronavirus-related death every 27 seconds.” This, after, Mike Pence, US vice president and chair of the Coronavirus Task Force wrote a summer Op Ed for the Wall Street Journal:

The media has tried to scare the American people every step of the way, and predictions of a second wave are no different. The truth is, whatever the media says, our whole-of-America approach has been a success.
We’ve slowed the spread, we’ve cared for the most vulnerable, we’ve saved lives, we’ve created a solid foundation for whatever challenges we may face in the future.

A lot can happen between now and 20 January, 2021 when Trump et al, depart the White House and escape responsibility for the botched systems we know they're leaving behind (most recently, knee-capping the CDC; a massive breech of national security data . These are some of what we know. What don't we know about yet?)

***

Former New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, stricken with Covid at the White House, retracts his anti-mask advice and urges Americans to wear masks: “I was wrong!”  (1:00 mins)

***

Meanwhile, California nears zero capacity in its intensive care units as COVID-19 cases continue to surge. As of Thursday morning, there was just 3% ICU capacity statewide, the California Department of Public Health revealed on its statewide metrics database. 

***

In South Africa, 24,000 have now died from Covid-19, with 9,100 new cases in 24 hours.

Healthy planet, anyone?

There’s a tendency for (some) humans to believe that if we just left alone the “natural” world, it would “fix” itself. The problem of “just letting nature get on with” and returning it to its pristine roots? There is no such thing as “pristine roots.” The natural world is in a state of ongoing unfolding. (You know, kind of like you are in a state of ongoing unfolding, too….

…the problem with “just letting nature get on with it” is twofold: first, ecological succession takes a long time. And second, [countries and] Britain now contains so many invasive plant and animal species that we may never get the resulting forests we hope for through a policy of benign neglect. In other words, some management will always be required…
If we want to maximise biodiversity in our wild spaces, we need to consider what grows there, and what food webs and habitats are built and supported. There is no guarantee that nature, unassisted, will arrive at a desired outcome.

Read “Letters: Restoring forests needs both nature and nurture” >> 

An excellent read for a challenging view of nature and nurture is Charles Mann’s 2005 book 1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch…

Out walking Jessica (the dog) yesterday, I spotted a legavan/ legawaan/rock monitor lizard.

It ran from the Care Center parking lot into the reeds lining the shore of nearby Robin Pond.
Jessica, luckily, did not spot it. Had she spotted it, it’s likely she’d chase after it, barking. Barking is a no no at the Care Center. Chasing critters and barking is a double whammy no no. Last week, she barked and chased a warthog family – with an audience of lawn bowlers and the driver of a vehicle that stopped just before it struck the belligerent dog.
Yes, I am supposed to leash the dog and I do if people are around. She caught me off guard that time as we were heading back home, and I was not vigilant.
Moreover, softy me sometimes allows her off leash so she can sniff at leisure and roll (“roly poly”) on the grass. She is, after all, confined to the Care Center. She doesn’t get out much, and rarely has a chance to bark at anything, never mind critters as deserving (in her mind) of a good bark as a warthog family.
The Care Center inhabitant of the Care Center I’m most concerned about is, of course, Mother Dearest. She’s maintaining her complain-a-thon: she hates the place, she’ll call her lawyer to get her out (he can’t), when will her grandson rescue her (he won’t), and where are her peas (in the fridge outside her door).
Yesterday, I responded to her with a human version of a dog’s bark: “The country – the world – is in lockdown. You’d be well advised to take it day-by-day for the next several weeks. Change the channel in your mind to find something nurturing for yourself because no one is going anywhere while the pandemic rages. With 75 million people infected around the world, and 7 to 10 thousand South Africans infected per day, no one, not even Jesus, will move you anywhere right now.
Like Jessica, if pressed, my bark is worse than my bite.