Mothers Speak about War and Terror

Friday, April 30, 2021

SOS India

News blues

“What’s happening in India is an indication that South Africans can’t become complacent and think that we are going to get natural immunity and be protected."
Related news: Recent numbers in South Africa include 1,674 Covid-19 more infections, for a cumulative total of infections since the start of the pandemic at 1,581,210.
Over the past 24-hours, the tally of deaths in Eastern Cape stands at three, Free State one, Gauteng seven , KwaZulu-Natal four, Limpopo 0, Mpumalanga three, North West 0, Northern Cape 0 and Western Cape one.
The total number of deaths in SA stands at 54,350; recoveries at 1,505,620; number of tests conducted to date, 10,654,870.

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Thirty-nine percent of the US adult population has been fully vaccinated, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. That’s more than 100 million fully vaccinated Americans. Congrats, America and Americans! Maybe time to share the success and the bounty? The US and other wealthy countries appear hesitatant on this logical conclusion. The BBC’s podcast “How to vaccinate the world.”

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Tracking Covid-19:

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An excellent view of life in and out of the US from the perspective of an American re-pat… (30:50 mins)

The Lincoln Project:

First 100 (0:55 mins)
Florida man (1:35 mins)

Healthy planet, anyone?

Peek into our a-mazing planet and its critters: Starlings over Rome – 10 million of ‘em… But… there’s the poop problem…. (5:00 mins)

Meanwhile, back at the ranch…

On her flights to South Africa, my daughter had an extensive stopover in Doha, Qatar. (This, to avoid a stopover at Oliver Tambo airport in Johannesburg where her risk of exposure to Covid was, she deemed, greater than it was in Doha.) She reports Doha transited a group of Japanese travelers in the airport outfitted in haz mat suits.
Her return flight to California, again through Doha via Johannesburg, also had a group of travelers outfitted in haz mat suits. Judging by what showed of their faces, she determined the travelers were Indian and surmised they were traveling to India. Smart travelers. If haz mat suits are appropriate anywhere, they’re de rigueur for India:

…reporting 379,257 new cases on Thursday, a new global record and 3,645 deaths, the highest number of Covid-19 deaths the country has reported in a single day…. The University of Washington's Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluations suggests the death toll could peak at more than 13,000 a day - more than four times the current daily death toll.

Be safe, travelers! (Countries around the world are banning flights coming from India and/or changing travel rules and regulations to become more stringent for Indian travelers everywhere.)
Recover soon, India!

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Temperatures here in KZN dropped over the last few days and its getting darker and darker…
Feb 26: sunrise 5:47am; sunset 6:33pm.
March 2: sunrise 5:50am; sunset 6:29pm.
March 18: sunrise 5:00am; sunset 6:11pm.
March 29: sunrise 6:07am; sunset 5:58pm.
April 1: sunrise 6:09am; sunset 5:54pm.
April 18: sunrise 6:19am; sunset 5:36pm.
May 1: sunrise 6:27am; sunset 5:24pm.

Wednesday, April 28, 2021

Consequences

Worldwide (Map)
April 29, 2021 – 149,206,600 confirmed infections; 3,146,300 deaths
December 3, 2020 – 64,469,710 confirmed infections; 1,492,100 deaths

US (Map)
April 29, 2021 – 32,229,350 confirmed infections; 574,350 deaths
December 3, 2020 – 13,920,000 confirmed infections; 273,370 deaths

SA (Coronavirus portal)
April 29, 2021 – 1,578,500 confirmed infections; 54,290 deaths
December 3, 2020 – 796,475 confirmed infections; 21,710 deaths

Tracking Covid-19:

News blues

India: “We are facing very bad times, very bad times….” (2:00 mins).

India’s overall rate of infection is lower than the US but the US – crazy politics and all - is, at last, getting a handle on the pandemic. India is not, at least not yet. Scenes in video above give a sense of how bad things can get when a pandemic has the upper hand ….

"I'm afraid this is not the peak," said Dr. Giridhara R. Babu of the Public Health Foundation of India on Monday. "The kind of data that we see, (we are) at least two to three weeks away from the peak."
Others say India may be approaching the peak now, sooner than Babu's estimate -- but with so many ill and so few supplies available, the country will see many more deaths before the second wave subsides.

Moreover, India is the world’s largest vaccine producer and, that it is struggling to overcome its latest COVID-19 surge is everyone’s problem. “Ninety-two developing nations rely on India, home to the Serum Institute, the world’s largest vaccine maker, for the doses to protect their own populations, a supply now constrained by India’s domestic obligations.”
The people paying attention know that coronavirus is a symptom of an over-stressed planet out of whack. The chamber of horrors in which India finds itself was not caused by any one man, or any single government. It’s a symptom of prevailing worldviews – and “What Happens When Rich People Do Nothing.” (I suggest an edit to this article’s title: “…when rich and/or clueless and/or feckless people do nothing…”

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Meanwhile, over the last week, California has reported an average of 1,901 new cases per day, a 34 percent decrease from two weeks ago….

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By Wednesday, South Africa recorded 849 Covid-19 new cases in 24-hours with a cumulative total of 1,576,320.

Deaths, broken down by province: Eastern Cape five, Free State five, Gauteng three, KwaZulu-Natal one, Limpopo five, Mpumalanga 0, North West 0, Northern Cape two and Western Cape 17, bringing the total number of deaths since the star of the pandemic in the country to 54,186.

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The Lincoln Project’s latest ads remind the public of the recent past:
His Party (3:00 mins)
McCarthy (0:45 mins)

Healthy planet, anyone?

I am a longtime member on a Restoration Advisory Board that encourages local residents to overview the cleanup of toxic chemicals from the superfund site that is the former Naval Air Station, Alameda. As such, I’ve become aware of the volume of residual chemicals that the US Department of the Navy dumped on the 2,000-plus acres of landfill on the edges of the City of Alameda, California.
My research suggests that dumping toxics, by design or carelessness, has become a feature of “doing business” in our world. Various branches of the US government and business appear to act upon the aphorism “outta sight, outta mind.” Take the sampling up and down the California coast, for a regional example:

Dumping and/or dispersing of toxic substances is a feature of American life. Nevertheless, it’s still shocking to learn that the Environmental Protection Agency, the US department tasked with protecting the environment is so, well, lax.

Starting in 1973, the EPA issued chemical giants permits to discard thousands of drums of industrial chemical waste at the offshore site. The pollutants included chlorinated hydrocarbons, or CHCs, a family of toxic chemicals that can persist in the environment and become concentrated in marine organisms, potentially migrating up the food chain and posing a risk to human health. In the decades since, oil companies have built up a vast network of wells and seafloor pipelines in the same portion of the Gulf. The area’s largest producer is Shell Offshore Inc., a subsidiary of oil giant Royal Dutch Shell, which operates three platform rigs and three drillships in what’s known as the Mars-Ursa oil basin. Shell also happens to be one of the companies that received permits from the EPA to dump huge quantities of industrial chemical waste in the Gulf in the 1970s, albeit at a different location.

Read more >>

I’ve written much on this blog about the damage caused by toxics. For postings, see:

I’ve many posts of toxics and the effects on people and planet. Search the blog for terms such as “mothers”, “Vietnam”, “war”, “toxic”, “agent orange”, “RAB”, and similar.
Sometimes I’m tempted to believe we humans have despoiled out planet beyond the possibility of cleanup. But I cannot afford, emotionally, psychologically, sor piritually to hold onto that belief.
We must clean up our only home.
Knowledge is power. It begins with you.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch…

My daughter is on her way back to California. Boo hoo! I already miss her. We enjoyed our two weeks together.
Seventy-two hours before her departure, she complied with her pre-flight Covid test. After that, we mulled how to spend her final days. This, after she’d driven the Chana bakkie to a local recycling plant where we recycled piles of various gauge electrical cable. (Driving is a thrill for her: on the “wrong side of the road,” and “steering wheel on the wrong side of the vehicle,” and “Huh, I’m not used to driving a manual transmission….”
As a passenger, I’m terrified: IMHO, too few thoughtful drivers in this country.)
After mulling a visit to Pietermaritzburg’s botanical gardens, we settled, instead, on driving towards the Drakensberg, to the village of Underberg. (I’d hoped we’d have had enough time together actually to spend a night at one of the many Drakensberg hotels or B&Bs. Alas, we simply ran out of time. Too many trips to scrap yards and recycling centers?)
The restaurant I’d visited once in the past, was hosting a private party so we sought another place. Slim pickings. We drove beyond Underberg to The Olde Duck, sat at an outdoor table under a willow tree, and enjoyed the view of the “’berg” on a perfect fall/autumn day.
We also visited the botanical gardens on the public holiday known as Freedom Day – a day to celebrate and contemplate election day 1994, the first time many – the majority? – of South Africans had the freedom to vote in an election. (That election resulted in Nelson Mandela becoming the first African elected as president in South Africa.)
The day my daughter departed South Africa, an audio message was sent to the community from a local security company reporting a hold up of a vehicle transporting at least 31 prisoners.
The message urged caution and described an incident that had occurred approximately 8 miles away from our town. Apparently, five men holding AK47s had stopped the prisoner transport vehicle, picked out and armed with AK 47s, had attacked a prison vehicle transporting a group of prisoners, and left the remaining prisoners to fend for themselves. Most had taken advantage of the situation and escaped the vehicle and were on the run.
By the time I returned from Shaka International Airport – about six hours after the prison break – six prisoners had turned themselves into police custody. Never a dull moment in KZN!

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Long nights, shorter days here…
Feb 26: sunrise 5:47am; sunset 6:33pm.
March 2: sunrise 5:50am; sunset 6:29pm.
March 14: sunrise 5:58am; sunset 6:15pm.
March 29: sunrise 6:07am; sunset 5:58pm.
April 1: sunrise 6:09am; sunset 5:54pm.
April 14: sunrise 6:14am; sunset 5:43pm.
April 29: sunrise 6:26am; sunset 5:26pm.

Sunday, April 25, 2021

Vaccine realities

News blues

Dr Fauci on where things are vis-à-vis vaccine, vaccination programs, booster shots. (From an American perspective but globally applicable. 10:55 mins)

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Good to know: COVID vaccines help produce antibodies ― and trigger another immune response that also fights the virus.

Much of the research regarding immunity against COVID-19 (which can be achieved either through vaccination or natural infection) has looked at antibodies. These little fighters go after the coronavirus and prevent it from binding to cells in our body and creating an infection. Some lab studies have found that antibodies don’t do as good of a job fighting variants, which has raised fears that the vaccines might not be able to keep us safe.
But antibodies don’t tell the full story. … The immune system is very complex, and in addition to antibodies, there’s a whole other aspect, known as the cell-mediated immune response, that’s just as important…. This part helps create something called T-cells, which are crucial to preventing infections. The COVID-19 vaccines don’t just generate antibodies; they also prompt your immune system to produce T-cells.
“T-cells are the main line of defense against the virus,” said Monica Gandhi, an infectious disease specialist with UCSF. T-cells can identify many different parts of the coronavirus (some studies say up to 52 parts) and get rid of any cells that are carrying the virus. The cell-mediated immune response can also help our systems produce new antibodies if need be.
Mutations or not, T-cells will still be able to detect the virus and jump into action. …
So, why aren’t we all talking about how awesome T-cells are? They’re really hard to measure… [but] findings are exciting.
For one thing, all of the vaccine clinical trials found that participants produced strong T-cell responses after vaccination…
There’s also evidence that the variants probably aren’t going to have a very meaningful effect on the immunity we get from being fully vaccinated. Two recent studies found the T-cell response was unaffected by variants, and another paper found that while some antibodies diminished against variants, our T-cell response held up just fine.
When it comes to COVID-19, a robust T-cell response is the difference between a mild infection and serious disease, research shows. The cells can’t always prevent an infection, but they may be able to clear it out quickly so you don’t get badly sick.

Healthy planet, anyone?

The helping hand strikes again. Or overkill leads to overkill…
Trying too hard, UK retailer Marks & Spencer’s “do good for the environment” effort backfires. Turns out, releasing 30 million honeybees into the British countryside is not helpful to the environment – more likely, this effort “could damage ecosystems and deprive wild pollinators of valuable food sources.”

[M&S] placed up to 1,000 beehives on 25 farms to produce single-estate honey for customers as part of its five-year Farming with Nature programme. The bees are in cedar beehives, many made in the 1930s, with plenty of nectar nearby….
But the announcement has been met with dismay by some bee experts and conservationists. “Such and [sic] opportunity missed M&S, this is greenwashing or beewashing at its most blatant,” tweeted Gill Perkins, chief executive of the Bumblebee Conservation Trust.
Critics say M&S should focus on restoring native habitats instead of releasing millions of honeybees, which are just one of the nearly 270 bee species in the UK, many of which are in sharp decline. “They are actually ending up doing something that may damage the environment,” said Matt Shardlow, head of the conservation charity Buglife.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch…

My daughter and I visited the community’s weekly Karkloof Farmers Market, purchased goods – goat cheese and blue cheese for me, locally crafted shoes for her – then sat outside for a cup of rooibos tea. All visitors to the market wore masks.
After that, breakfast at the Yellow Wood Café. The café, one of my favorite local historic sites, was hand built from local stone and reminds me of my childhood in a similar era building. My mother’s old place, largely hand built in local stone by my grandfather, was torn down to make room for industry.
A screen shot blurb for the Yellow wood Café website:

Wildebeest

With the Howick Falls in the background, we watched a wildebeest leap over a fence to graze with the café’s domestic animals – donkeys, Shetland ponies, sheep, and pigs. Howick Falls in the background.

Howick Falls was once a tourist destination of note. Ditto the Howick Falls Hotel and the various historical buildings nearby and across the road. These days, tourist buses seldom appear, tourists are rare, even tourist-centric craftspeople are thin in the ground. The area, generally, presents an atmosphere of desperation and depression.

An information structure near the foot of the observation platform displays a poster titled “Howick Facts and Figures.”

A closeup of the facts and figures, however, lists a litany of deaths and suicides over the years!

Hmmm....

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Day by day, dark and darker in the southern hemisphere…
Feb 26: sunrise 5:47am; sunset 6:33pm.
March 2: sunrise 5:50am; sunset 6:29pm.
March 16: sunrise 5:59am; sunset 6:13pm.
March 22: sunrise 6:03am; sunset 6:05pm.
April 1: sunrise 6:09am; sunset 5:54pm.
April 14: sunrise 6:14am; sunset 5:43pm.
April 22: sunrise 6:22am; sunset 5:32pm.

Friday, April 23, 2021

Mixed bag

News blues

India. A disaster’s unfolding in India with 6 million Covid infections - second only to the United States in a country of nearly 1.4 billion people. The country recorded 332,730 new cases on Friday, marking the highest daily case count globally. The United States is second, having recorded a high of 300,310 cases on January 2.
Additionally, more than a dozen people died when an oxygen-fed fire ripped through a coronavirus ward fire in a hospital intensive care unit and killed 13 COVID-19 patients in the Virar area on the outskirts of Mumbai.
Read the article >>

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South Africa plans to begin issuing Johnson & Johnson’s coronavirus vaccine to the general public next month after settling a contractual dispute with the U.S. drugmaker.

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Tracking Covid-19:

Healthy planet, anyone?

Joe Biden pledges a drastic reduction in U.S. greenhouse gas emissions by 2030… but no specific targets for agriculture – accounting for 10 percent of all U.S. emissions with discharges mostly stem from fertilizers, livestock and manure.
A Fact Sheet focusing on Biden’s climate pledge…

…notes that agriculture is both a source of greenhouse gases and potentially a key piece of the solution by capturing and storing heat-trapping carbon dioxide in forests and farmland. Environmental advocates … say the White House needs to address both sides of that equation to make a dent in global warming.
“It’s difficult to make concrete pledges in terms of using ag as a carbon sink… you can be more concrete around reducing fertilizer use [and] trying to address emissions around these large-scale hog and dairy operations.”
[Yet the] Biden administration is leaning heavily toward awarding financial bonuses for farmers, ranchers and foresters who retool their operations to suck carbon from the atmosphere. The White House blueprint specifically calls for “incentives” to reduce methane and nitrous oxide emissions through new farm practices and technologies.

Read “White House dances around a big contributor to climate change: Agriculture” >>

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President Cyril Ramaphosa told the delegates of US President Joe Biden’s Leaders Summit on Climate that emissions in South Africa would begin to fall by 2025, rather than peak and plateau that same year, adding that South Africa had introduced new target ranges that were more ambitious than before.

“Firstly the top of the 2030 range has been reduced by 28% or 174 million metric tonnes, which is a very significant reduction. Second, according to our previous nationally determined contribution, South Africa’s emissions will peak and plateau in 2025 and decline only from 2035. … South Africa’s emissions will begin to decline from 2025, effectively shifting our emissions decline 10 years earlier.”

Meanwhile, back at the ranch…

Like me, my daughter eschews tourist-rich spots and heads to shopping malls only under duress.
A dream daughter, she accompanied me to the local scrap metal recycling yard yesterday and, after taking the Covid test required for air travel on Monday, we plan to visit the local landfill site. She’s a chip off ye olde blocke!
Today, we head to the local farmers market …then back home to display on the lawn near the public road items such as planks. Passers by stop and glean what they want from the collection. Such recycling – home grown and localized – is a perfect way of recycling goods too useful for the landfill yet no quite good enough to sell.

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Getting darker here…
Feb 26: sunrise 5:47am; sunset 6:33pm.
March 18: sunrise 5:00am; sunset 6:11pm.
April 1: sunrise 6:09am; sunset 5:54pm.
April 24: sunrise 6:23am; sunset 5:30pm.