More of the same

News blues…

US CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky warns the latest COVID-19 data could spell trouble: “At this level of cases with variants spreading, we stand to completely lose the hard-earned ground we have gained….” 

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There are around two million traditional healers in Sub-Saharan Africa of which more than 200,000 live and work in SA.
Traditional healers are frequently exposed to bloodborne pathogens such as hepatitis B and HIV. In particular, they are exposed through the widespread practice of traditional “injections” by incision. This is when the healer makes small cuts in a patient’s skin using a razor blade to rub herbs directly into the bloodied tissue with their bare hands. They are also exposed to airborne pathogens such as Covid-19 and tuberculosis (TB) when treating patients.
… research in a rural South African town found that traditional healers are open to using gloves and masks, and many regularly do so. But they do not have access to formal training in putting on, taking off, and disposing of personal protective equipment. They also don’t have regular access to government-funded gloves or masks. Leaving aside any question about the efficacy of traditional methods for diagnosis and treatment, traditional healers should be made as safe as possible. 

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Tracking Covid-19 vaccinations worldwide 

Healthy planet, anyone?

There is a marked divide in the state of the world’s forests. In most rich countries, across Europe, North America and East Asia, forest cover is increasing, whilst many low-to-middle income countries it’s decreasing.
But, it would be wrong to think that the only impact rich countries have on global forests is through changes in their domestic forests. They also contribute to global deforestation through the foods they import from poorer countries.
Today, most deforestation occurs in the tropics. 71% of this is driven by demand in domestic markets, and the remaining 29% for the production of products that are traded. 40% of traded deforestation ends up in high-income countries, meaning they are responsible for 12% of deforestation.
How much do people in rich countries contribute to deforestation overseas? 

***

In appreciation of our world and its amazing creatures: Cyclotron physicist outdone by persistent squirrel. (11:31 mins)

Meanwhile, back at the ranch…

Another example of the vast gulf between my understanding of good business practices and South African business practices:
I received the March invoice for my mother’s board and lodging at the Care Center. With no heads up, no indication at all, her monthly rate increased by more than R3,500 plus R1,777 VAT (tax). This does not include her miscellaneous expenses – hair salon (I wasn’t aware she was going to the hair salon, but okay…) and medical supplies, etc.)
I emailed the Matron asking if it was normal practice to increase the rate without any warning, especially in light of “us” having to give 30 days notice in event of departing the residence. Does it not work both ways? I fear not. We shall see. Naturally, I’ll pay the increase. After all, my mother is a captive audience.

***

The jokes on me: yesterday’s post  highlighted my emotional and psychological dependence on my cell phone and by association, on my battery charger. The irony? When I drove to my other home to pick up the battery charger I’d inadvertently left there, I left behind my laptop. This meant making a second trip back.
Am I just getting old? Or is lockdown getting to me and making me lose my marbles?

***

While picking up my phone charger, Winnie - a supervisor with the landscaping company that services the community – knocked on my door.
Last week, I’d introduced myself to Winnie and asked if her company might be interested in hiring our gardener (after we sell the house). She was interested enough to remember my address and, today, turned up to talk further about hiring him.
Since my Zulu is as elementary as Winnie’s English, I’ve asked a friend who is fluent in Zulu to ensure communication is clear.

***

The curse of the culverts, cont’d: Intense irritation about the continuing delay – after years! - in clearing two blocked culverts had me writing both another letter with photographs to Public Works and and an article for the local print newspaper. (Background – updated this week  and last month)
I’d recently acquired the name and phone number of the man in charge of the project and I called him. Mr. Biyela was pleasant on the phone and agreed to send “someone” to clear the culverts “today.”
Oh, joy!
I put aside the writing – I can come back to it, if needed.
An hour later, someone from Mr. Biyela office left a “missed call” on my phone. I called back. That person, a woman, no name given, said she was “too busy” to talk to me. I called back later. She was “in a meeting” and would call later.
I’m still waiting for her call.
Several back hoes and grader passed the house during the day. None stopped at the culverts.
Today, I texted Mr. Biyela to let me know when to expect the culverts cleared.
So far, no response.
Back to the writing desk?

***

Obsession: Tracking the sun’s rising and setting schedule:
Feb 26: sunrise 5:47am; sunset 6:33pm.
Feb 27: sunrise 5:48am; sunset 6:32pm.
Feb 28: sunrise 5:49am; sunset 6:31pm.
March 1: data missing due to failed battery on iPhone 6SE. (Curse you, Apple! LOL!) 

March 2: sunrise 5:50am; sunset 6:29pm.

New days dawn

A new week, a new month, and a new lockdown level…

News blues…

South Africans skip lockdown level 2 and, from level 3, go directly to level 1.
President Ramaphosa announced last night that South Africa had seen new Covid infections reduced enough that the country will move from lockdown alert level 3 to lockdown alert level 1 regulations.  (3:45 mins)

Lockdown alert level 1 restrictions:

• Curfew from midnight to 4am
• Restrictions on social political and religious gatherings are lifted subject to the size of gathering – 100 people maximum indoors and 250 outdoors or 50percent of capacity of small venues
• night gatherings after funerals still not permitted;
• ongoing social distancing, health protocols (ventilation, hand sanitizing)….
• night clubs remain closed;
• sale of alcohol permitted according to normal license provision but no alcohol sold during curfew hours;
• Mandatory wearing of masks in public places; failure to do so “remains a criminal offense.”
• Border posts that have been closed (30 of them) remain closed; border posts that have been open (20 of them) remain open.
• Five airports open for international travel with “standard infection control measures remain in place.”

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Extreme Covid measures – how the other half lives  (2:38 mins)

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Tracking Covid-19 vaccinations worldwide 

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Their former law professor calls out (US Senators) Cruz and Hawley behavior  (5:53 mins)

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Republican angst:

"There are a lot of people in the party ready to move beyond Donald Trump. In fact, most of us realize he is much better at golfing than governing which is really saying a lot if you know anything about Donald Trump's golf game," before adding, "Donald Trump lost, not because more Democrats came out. Donald Trump lost because his own voters defected from him." Watch a Republican point of view of how to “move beyond Donald Trump” – from “crazy to rational”….  (5:58 mins)

Hmmm. We’ll see….

Healthy planet, anyone?

Photo essay: the week in wildlife 

Meanwhile, back at the ranch…

Months ago, about the time my mother’s house went on the market, I talked to an electrician about surveying the electrical system to ensure it passes the mandatory inspection.
Background: The former owner had been an unscrupulous DIY guy who owed a lot of money around town. He’d kludged together a DIY electrical system based on guesswork and, maybe, dabs of super glue… in the same way he’d DIY’d other “fixes” around the house. This, to make the house appear sales worthy enough to a naïve, too trusting 80-year-old woman, (also too stubborn to heed advice). 

My mother paid his asking price for a house that required many fixes after she’d moved in.
Fast forward to 2020-2021. We’re selling the house “as is” – “voetstoots” in SA realtor lingo – but that does not mean illegal. Unlike my mother’s seller, we will sell the house with a functional electrical system, as per law. (My mother’s seller simply paid off the friend /inspector responsible for signing off on the electrical system.)
The electrician I hired showed up yesterday (after a 5 month wait) and began inspecting, then fixing, the malfunction system in the garage/workshop and upper apartment.
This included locating the second “DB” – sub distribution board - in the ceiling of the garage (a surprise: I had not known there was a second sub board).
Apparently, the wires in the ceiling were a rat’s nest resulting in the power failure - something to do with improper connection of live and neutral wires….
He also began replacing the remaining power-hungry incandescent and florescent bulbs with LEDs. (I replaced a handful last year as the incandescent bulbs burned out.)
My discoveries about South African building law continue: electrical outlets/wall sockets are not permitted in bathrooms. This explains why the bathroom in my new home has zero electrical outlets – other than two overhead halogen bulbs. It also explains why the bathroom light switch is located in a different room. This law makes it highly impractical for a residents to plug a hair dryer, electric shaver, electric toothbrush, etc., in another room but….
I’d thought the lack of outlet was a building error specific to my new home. Apparently, no such outlets are permitted in South Africa. (This explains, too, why there are not outlets for hair dryers in the public dressing room at the swimming pool – or the bathrooms at my mother’s house.)
Inevitably, electricians have a (legal) workaround… I’ll hire the electrician to install the workaround in my new bathroom.

***

Living semi-moved into two living spaces has drawbacks, the biggest of which is forgetting one's cell phone battery charger.
With the battery failing fast in my iPhone 6SE (and Apple’s ongoing refusal to address their “slowdown” of this device series) I carry my slowed-down phone and battery and charger cable everywhere. (Yes, I’m addicted to my phone … therefore it’s accessories.) Unfortunately, yesterday, I didn’t notice until after nightfall that I’d left my battery charger at my new home. My first reaction was panic: how would I handle my routine hours of wakefulness at midnight and 2pm and 4pm? Usually, I read my latest library e-book on my iPhone’s Kindle app. 

Could I survive hours of no iPhone?
How would/could I handle withdrawal?
It helped that the battery charger was not missing, that I knew where I’d left it. I wasn’t able to fetch it until morning, but the crisis was survivable.
True, I’ll also miss my daily routine early morning phone call with my friend in (his late night) California. My laptop, however, functions so I can email him and let him know. Then I plan to race over to my new home and retrieve the lifesaving devices.

***

Big social occasion: I had lunch with two friends in a café yesterday - first time in more than a year. What a treat! 

***

Our neighbor races pigeons and, yesterday, while training, one of his pigeons landed near our garage and limped under cover of a plant box.
I called to alert the neighbor and he arrived promptly to fetch it – one of his “youngsters,” he said, newly introduced to training.
He reported he’d lost several pigeons that day to hawks attacking mid-flight.
Training racing pigeons to return home happens by 10 kilometer increments: first trip away from home is 10kms distant, then 20kms, then 30kms… until the birds can find their way home from as far away as 800kms.
Now there’s an inbuilt homing device.

***

Obsession: Tracking the sun’s rising and setting schedule:
Feb 26: sunrise 5:47am; sunset 6:33pm.
Feb 27: sunrise 5:48am; sunset 6:32pm.
Feb 28: sunrise 5:49am; sunset 6:31pm.
March 1: data missing due to failed battery on iPhone 6SE. (Curse you, Apple!)

Apropos of nothing

“Oh, Misty always hates me showing this slide. ...
It’s halftime at the ’88 Detroit-Chicago game when we first met.”
© Gary Larsen, The Far Side 

News blues…

South African efforts to vaccinate are ”going spectacularly “:

By Friday, 63,648 health-care workers had received vaccinations against Covid-19 and the sleep-deprived teams providing them had exceeded targets, said professor Glenda Gray, a co-principal investigator of the Johnson & Johnson implementation study.“
We are ahead of the schedule of 80,000 in 14 days. It is going spectacularly and the demand has been overwhelming,” she said. “We will be ready for the next batch after the weekend.” 

***

Meanwhile… a news report out of Florida (USA) has two women – one in her 30s, the other in her 40s – disguising themselves as “grannies” in order to qualify for their second vaccination. This means their granny disguises succeeded for their first dose…
And, in California

Access codes meant to give Californians of color priority access to Covid-19 vaccine slots have been getting passed around among other residents in the state, allowing some to cut the line and get appointments meant for underserved Black and Latino residents. 

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Tracking Covid-19 vaccinations worldwide 

Healthy planet, anyone?

First, the bad news

Brazil’s Cerrado encompass some of the country’s most beautiful national parks. The region’s rich habitat features 11,000 species of plants and more than 200 varieties of mammals, including jaguars, anteaters, armadillos and tapirs.
“It … covers more than 20% of the country, is also an important motor in Brazil’s economy, producing over half of Brazil’s beef, 49% of its soybeans, 47% of its sugar cane and almost all its cotton, according to the government agricultural research institute Embrapa.
To raise those crops, the region’s native forests and vegetation are being systematically replaced by farms and ranches. Under Brazilian law, the Cerrado enjoys much less protection than the iconic Amazon rainforest to its north. Half of its land has already been cleared, including some 2,800 square miles last year alone. (That compares to about 20% of the Brazilian Amazon gone.) 

Then, (marginally) better news as scientists discover wild animals thriving in Chernobyl exclusion zone  (9:57 mins)

Meanwhile, back at the ranch…

On this day of rest and the last day of February, I will walk from my apartment to the Care Center to visit my mother, swim at least 12 laps, then walk back to my apartment. After that, I will check in with the electrician who is investigating, then fixing, the electrical fault that has shut down power to the upper part of my mother’s house – including an apartment and the double garage.
I’ll also don my waders and begin – again – to remove overgrown exotic lilies in the pond.
I hope you enjoy your day of rest as much as I expect to enjoy mine.

***

Obsession continues: Tracking the sun’s rising and setting schedule:
Feb 26: sunrise 5:47am; sunset 6:33pm.
Feb 27: sunrise 5:48am; sunset 6:32pm.
Feb 28: sunrise 5:49am; sunset 6:31pm.

Fishy

Courtesy of street artist Jeremy Novy 
whose stencils his signature koi fish across the city of San Francisco.
Since the pandemic, he’s doing commissions, too. 

News blues…

The medical team from People's Hospital [India] … “running the [Covid vaccination] trial, may have failed to adequately explain that they were part of a trial and that only some of the participants would receive a vaccine. … [and] appear to violate India's clinical trial rules that require informed consent from all participants.” 

Tracking Covid-19 vaccinations worldwide 

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The Lincoln Project: an interesting point of view on what went wrong  (5:26 mins)

Healthy planet, anyone?

How fare the fish?
The Global Ocean Science Report is updated and published every five years. Another report due next year. Meanwhile, catch up on the current status of ocean science around the world 

Explore ocean-focused organizations:

• Mission Blue 
• Pacific Marine Mammal Center  I’ve observed seals healed by PMMC released back into the Pacific. It’s an unforgettably wonderful experience.
• Oceanic Society 

Meanwhile, back at the ranch…

A day for reality checks:
SARS – SA Revenue Service. For the first time ever, my mother is due a hefty tax refund. Around about October 2020, I began receiving emails from SARS to expect those funds to be deposited into her account “in ten days.” Four months - and 8 emails - later and still no deposit. 

Now, SARS says I need this form and that form and this signature and that signature before the service will release her funds. Her attorney suggests a signed General Power of Attorney will do it. (That’s not going to happen.) Her accountant suggests we take my mother to the SARS office.(She’s physically incapable of drinking out of a cup never mind endure an hours long wait at SARS so that’s not going to happen either.) The accountant refuses to go to SARS himself due to Covid-19 – and I don’t blame him. So. Her interest free refund remains at SARS (or, knowing South Africans’ reputation for corruption, it’s already paying for some fleeing SA official’s poolside sundowner cocktails in Dubai!)

Culverts. With more rain and culverts still blocked, the stream, therefore the lower lawn – is flooded. I called the local councilperson – again – and heard – again – his sigh of disbelief? Frustration? – and his promise – again - to call his contact – again.

Outcome so far? Culverts are still blocked.
I did, however, notice a bulldozer with a backhoe heading up the road yesterday. Unfortunately, the driver did not stop anywhere near the culverts but continued heading away from them. 

Is this an omen? Is the public works department at least getting closer to the culvers? 

If its taken 2.5 years to get them this close, how much longer before they actually find the culverts? Then how much longer before they unblock them?
Enquiring minds wanna know.

House sale. I met with the “business man” interested in purchasing my mother’s house. It was my first direct encounter with a genuine South African “bait and switch” artist.
Prior to our meeting, his proposal included a deposit of a bit less than one third of the asking price – plus my mother carrying the rest of the loan that he’d pay off at interest (not stipulated) each month for four years. None of this in writing.
During yesterday's face-to-face, he proposed ZERO deposit - plus my mother carrying the loan that he’d pay off with 7% interest each month for five years.
I cancelled that offer – and let him know my thoughts on his tactics.
The other offer came from a young guy and his soon-to-be wife – both of whom run their own businesses (a dog trainer and a baker) – and “do their own accounts.” On paper they look quasi “realistic” but in reality?  They will never get a bond/mortgage with their skimpy finances.
Am I still California dreaming? Nah. I’m back to the drawing board regarding how to sell this house. I’m going nowhere, not to California, nor Texas, nor my houseboat. 

Sigh. 

I’m stuck here for many more months.

***

At least my obsessions distract. 

Tracking the sun’s rising and setting schedule continues apace: 

• Feb 26: sunrise 5:47am; sunset 6:33pm.
• Feb 27: sunrise 5:48am; sunset 6:32pm.