Distracting the Distractor

Spot Quiz: “We’re dealing with people who have to get their act together, for the good of the country.”
Which politician recently said this?
 Donald Trump
 “Moscow Mitch” McConnell
 Nancy Pelosi
Sounds like something Nancy Pelosi would say.
But it was Donald Trump…in response to Nancy Pelosi saying that Trump

“could be at greater risk of complications from taking an unproven coronavirus treatment because he is ‘morbidly obese.’ [She added] that she didn't anticipate he would be ‘so sensitive’ about his appearance…. [After all]‘He’s always talking about other people's ... weight, their pounds." 

The president, consummate distractor, has met his match in Pelosi.

In a recent attempt to distract the public from his dismal coronavirus response (1.258 million known Americans infections; 92,000+ dead), Trump said he was self-medicating with hydroxychloroquine. Pelosi’s statement about Trump’s weight – ‘morbidly obese’ – has thrown him off-stride.
We, the People microwave the popcorn in anticipation of the Trump Tweet Tirade (you know it’s coming). Meanwhile, enjoy a Randy Rainbow intermission: his latest parody interview and song, “Distraction!”
***
“You’re fired!”
Donald Trump has a well-documented history of not paying workers and contractors for services and stands “Accused of Routinely Stiffing his Own Employees”.
Before his presidency, Trump

…received at least 3,500 official complaints for failing to pay employees, contractors, and other business affiliates money owed…at least 60 lawsuits, 24 instances where Trump failed to pay overtime and minimum wage, and countless out-of-court settlements. Among those to whom Trump owed money, according to USA Today: dishwashers, bartenders, painters, real-estate brokers, and ironically, even his own lawyers.
In 1990, a casino commission audit of the Trump Taj Mahal, then about to open, revealed that Trump owed an astounding $69.5 million to 253 subcontractors.

Before the presidency, Donald Trump had become “a reality television sensation” on “The Apprentice.” At the end of each episode, Trump would send one contestant packing by turning his hand into a finger gun, fixing it on the contestant, and saying, “you’re fired."

As president, he continues his proclivity to fire people – often just before they’re eligible for retirement benefits.

Andrew McCabe, a 21-year veteran of the FBI, was forced out in 2018 amid an internal investigation by the Office of the Inspector General (OIG) into his approval of unauthorized disclosures to the media in October 2016 related to the bureau's Hillary Clinton email probe.
McCabe’s firing would have posed a significant risk to his pension benefits and financial future. 

© AP Photo/Lynne Sladky
Click to enlarge.

Now, Trump is jeopardizing the futures of more than 40,000 National Guard members currently under federal orders known as Title 32.
The troops are under local (state) command, but the order grants them federal pay and benefits for helping states test residents for the coronavirus and trace the spread of infections in 44 states, three territories and the District of Columbia. This effort is the largest domestic deployment of National Guard since Hurricane Katrina.

Trump administration’s order ends deployments on June 24, just one day … shy of many members becoming eligible for key federal benefits…. [T]housands of members who first deployed in late March will find themselves with only 89 days of duty credit, one short of the 90-day threshold for qualifying for early retirement and education benefits under the Post-9/11 GI bill.
…Governors and lawmakers in both parties have been pleading with the White House to extend the federal order for several more months or until the end of the year, warning in a letter to Trump that terminating federal deployments early in the summer just as states are reopening “could contribute to a possible second wave of infection.” 

"Nobody knows more…"
Juxtapose Donald Trump’s history with his view of his brain and of himself: “nobody knows more about anything than “Me!”

Feeling all warm and fuzzy towards this man now, aren’t you?

***

News blues…

South Africa’s numbers grow more alarming as:

… confirmed cases of Covid-19 rose to 17,200 on May 19, modellers said the number was likely to grow to 30,000 cases by the end of May at a best-case scenario and 54,000 cases in a worst-case scenario. 

Ekurhuleni metro in Gauteng, eThekwini metro and iLembe District in KwaZulu-Natal, Buffalo City and Nelson Mandela Bay metros in the Eastern Cape as well as the Cape Town City metro and the Cape Winelands district in the Western Cape have the highest number of Covid-19 infections in the country. 

This is based on the average number of active cases between 2 and 8 May per district, which is then compared per 100 000 people of the population.

***

After causing havoc in the Philippines, the typhoon renamed Super Cyclone Amphan, approaches the Bay of Bengal. It’s just the second super cyclone to hit the Bay of Bengal since records began.

During the last super cyclone in 1999, nearly 15,000 villages were affected and almost 10,000 people were killed.
The super cyclone is due to make landfall on the India Bangladesh border on Wednesday evening, near the Indian city of Kolkata which is home to more than 14 million people

The whackjobbery* just never ends…

Poopagandist “mommy bloggers” are rebranding as coronavirus skeptics or deniers…

[Mommy bloggers] are uniquely well-positioned to open people’s minds to dubious and false information. It’s a sobering sign of far-right ideologies creeping in from the fringes of social media amid a colossal “infodemic” that’s causing real-life harm.
In recent weeks, HuffPost has reviewed the Instagram accounts of more than a dozen seemingly radicalized influencers who have been propagating COVID-19 conspiracy theories. Only a few returned requests for comment, including Cohen, who accused this reporter of being “part of the DeepState agenda.”

What to say?
Poopaganda is powerful.
Free your mind.

*Whackjob: term coined by Steve Schmidt of The Lincoln Project to denote virulent Trump supporters who’ve given up common sense in favor of Trumpism.
*poopaganda – a quasi-genteel term for virulent bull-s**t “truthiness” masquerading as self-empowering info.
*poopagandist – one who perpetuates poopaganda and then complains that social media and “fake news” is trying to silence contrary views and/or conservative voices.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch…

I was supposed to depart South Africa today and return to San Francisco. I’m still here. More than a month ago, I received an email from British Air cancelling the second leg of my return flight. I’ve heard nothing at all about the first leg and none of my eight emails to the travel agent have enlightened me about how or when I’ll get back to California.
Being left hanging in this way is the most disempowering feature of lockdown I’ve experienced. (Yes, I recognize I'm living la dolce vita conronavirus .... nevertheless....)
Emails and phone calls go unanswered.
Has the travel agency packed up and decided not to mention that to customers?
Enquiring minds wanna know…

Despite my personal trials and tribulations...daylight hours growing shorter and winter approaching, 55 days of lockdown have left my anything but bored.
I’ve built into my day, Weed Walking, pond weeding, fish feeding, dog, bird, crab, monkey chatting, and the occasional foray into town for necessities. (So far, I've not built in feeling sorry for myself.)
Today I continue researching cell phones for my elderly mother.

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Boiling frogs?

Click to enlarge.

Place a frog in boiling water and it will immediately jump out.
Place a frog in cold water that slowly heats to boiling and the frog, not registering the rise in temperature, will cook.
Moral of the story? Frogs do not react quickly to significant change.

Substitute frogs for humans and we have a metaphor for humans’ current reality.

American frog-humans
The United States has a frog in charge (no prince hidden under the froggy warts) and We, the People, don't notice the increasing temperature or how to leap out the water to save ourselves.
South African frog-humans
Telkom is South Africa’s SOE – State Owned Enterprise – for telephonic communication.
Think of Telkom as the slowly heating water and Telkom customers as frogs.

Two years ago, Telkom decided to transition all landline phones to wireless phones.
I received a breezy marketing but detail-free email from Telkom that the transition was underway.
I worried about the implications for aging customers such as mother. Tough to learn new technologies at 87-years-old, plus wireless reception in this rural neighborhood is unreliable.
I asked that Telkom email me whatever information it had about the proposed change so that I understood, 1) the overall plan, 2) the conditions of the proposed plan, 3)how it would affect my mother IF she choose to transition.
No email ever arrived.
Calls to Telkom were a nightmare of endless loops – “press x for x” – and, if I managed to talk to an actual person, I was told there were no conditions under which my mother could keep her landline.

Last January, I arrived in South Africa to find Telkom had forced my mother to transition and presented her with two D-Link wireless phones made in China. Only one of the two phones had a SIM card.
Before the start of lockdown, calls on the working phone intermittently failed and displayed, “No mobile network available.”
For the next eight weeks, my 87-year-old mother had no way to call a friend, a doctor, or an ambulance, police, or security firm if an emergency arose.
I called Telkom on my cell phone (waiting for a Telkom representative to answer is an expensive proposition in South Africa). I was told to drive to Telkom center in a large shopping mall in Pietermaritzburg. That is, drive twenty-five miles during lockdown with roadblocks and aggressive police and military patrols and wait for at least an hour in lines with little, if any, social distancing.
I complained to Telkom via email. No reply.
I wrote a Facebook complaint and got a response to “contact Telkom” but no contact info was provided.
Eventually, we traveled to Pietermaritzburg. Three times. Each time there was a small variation in why we couldn’t be helped: phone was broken, sorry, no replacement; ID info, phone number, or something else was incorrect, etc.
Finally, yesterday, Telkom presented a phone that appeared to work.
I tested it with a call from my cell phone. My mother answered! It worked!
She called the first friend on the list of friends she hoped to reach.
During that call, the phone failed.
Now, the phone displays no messages at all. The screen is black.
The frogs are cooked.

News blues…

The numbers continue to grow
Worldwide: 4,805,050 infections; 318,535 deaths
US: 1,508,600 infections; 90,360 deaths
Russia: 290,700 infections; 2,722 deaths
Brazil: 255,370 infections; 16,860 deaths
SA: 16,440 infections; 286 deaths
Map of infections per 100,000 by municipality in South Africa

***

"If it can take me down, it can take anybody down." (video clip, 7:44 mins).
Infectious disease expert Dr. Joseph Fair speaks from his hospital bed after contracting Covid-19: He shares his battle with coronavirus and warns others to take the outbreak seriously.

***

Ready for a laugh?
Sara Cooper:

• How to more cases than anybody in the world … 
• How to grief…
• How to mayor of Las Vegas 

Latest ad from The Lincoln Project

Whackjobbery*:

Just when one thinks Donald Trump can’t go any further in his brand of whackjobbery, he goes further!
“Trump Says He Is Taking Drug That Is Deemed a Risk”

Hydroxychloroquine can cause arrhythmia, but the White House physician says the “potential benefit from treatment outweighed the relative risks.” Stocks rose after positive vaccine news.

Trump wants the public to believe he’s taking regular doses of Hydroxychloroquine?
This, from a man who is notoriously self-centered and germophobic?
I don’t believe him.
He is either lying …or he understands only people with a heart can suffer arrhythmia.

Remember the day Trump swore the crowd at his inauguration was the bigly-est ever in the history of inaugural crowds? Soon after, we learned “Trump inauguration crowd photos were edited after he intervened.”
His whoppers have only become whoppier.

Trump’s pal, Howard Stern, believes that Trump’s run for president was a Trump branding exercise, and that no one was more surprised at Trump’s win than Trump himself.
I concur with Stern. In the spirit of offering The Donald advice, I’ve urged Trump – telepathically – to feign a heart attack, to get out of the job of president, to retire to Mar a lago and write a whopper of a memoir.
Surely, somewhere in his “very, very large brain,” he knows he’s killing humans?
Feigning a heart attack would get him out of the White House and a job he doesn’t really want. Best of all, many Americans would consider him a hero, rather than a buffoon.
A heart attack would also prove he has a heart … and suggest he sacrificed himself out of overwhelming love of country and countrymen.

Feigning a Covid-19 infection would also get him out of the White House, but it’s not as romantic as a heart attack. It also risks mixed messaging.
He’d be a hero – to some - but an infection could raise uncomfortable questions:

• Should people wear masks after all?
• Should people stay home after all?
• Should states not open? Should workers, including meatpackers, refuse to go to work?
• Would the stock price of Hydroxychloroquine plunge instead of rise?
• Could Democrats, worse, socialists, be right about a more robust health insurance policy?

*Whackjob: term coined by Steve Schmidt of The Lincoln Project to denote virulent Trump supporters who’ve given up common sense in favor of Trumpism.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch…

Finding the right cell phone for my mother is top of today’s agenda.
Continuing with building the pond weed path is next on the agenda.

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Reopening America

First things first. Download the CDC’s recently published Guidelines for Reopening America (pdf).

This is intended for all Americans, whether you own a business, run a school, or want to ensure the cleanliness and safety of your home. Reopening America requires all of us to move forward together by practicing social distancing and other daily habits to reduce our risk of exposure to the virus that causes COVID-19. Reopening the country also strongly relies on public health strategies, including increased testing of people for the virus, social distancing, isolation, and keeping track of how someone infected might have infected other people.

***

A spoof or not a spoof? That is the question
The lines between reality and farce increasingly blur as The Don and his wrecking crew refuse evidence-based, scientific, medical, research-oriented data.
And, our life and times become increasingly surreal.
Donald Trump tweeted this video of a grotesquely transformed scene from the 1996 movie “Independence Day.”
Watch for faces of spell-bound Republicans – including Sen Ted Cruz (shedding tears of joy?), Marco Rubio, Donald Trump Jr. – superimposed over actors’ faces.
The Donald is the hero lip-sync’ing original movie script lines that he’d never think of actually saying.

Trump apparently viewed the manipulated clip as calling Americans back to a reopened economy amid the COVID-19 crisis. But the speech could also be interpreted as a call to Americans to fight for their lives.
The twisted version uses [original movie actor Bill] Pullman’s …voice, but images of Trump’s head have been superimposed on [Pullman’s far sleeker] body. Spectators enraptured by his speech include Sean Hannity and Tucker Carlson of Fox News, a teary-eyed Sen. Ted Cruz, Ivanka Trump, Vice President Mike Pence, and others.

In the clip, Trump, the man who couldn’t care less about actual humans, mouths,

“Mankind. That word should have new meaning for us today… We’re “fighting for our right to live, to exist.”

Indeed, with 4,716,520 million infected and 315,225 dead, Trump got something right, even if unintentionally.
We are in the fight of our lives – and getting little help from a chaotic wanna-be hero.

News blues…

Trump names Moncef Slaoui his COVID-19 vaccine czar/ “chief scientist” for Operation Warp Speed COVID-19 vaccine development. Slaoui, former pharmaceutical executive of Moderna, owns 155,000 Moderna stock options, totaling more than $10 million.
Conflict of interest, you ask? What conflict of interest?

Moderna last month announced that it received $483 million in federal funding for vaccine development, which sent its stocks up 15 percent, CNBC reported.
On Friday, when Trump introduced him in a Rose Garden press briefing, Slaoui said the president’s aim to have a vaccine by the end of the year was “credible,” though it would be “extremely challenging.”

Hmm, what if the challenge proves too challenging?
Microbiology Society’s report, “The current challenges for vaccine development” states:

…there is still a great need for new vaccines and these are emerging far more slowly than we would wish. Despite the massive expansion in understanding of immune responses to infection, research is often hindered by a lack of understanding of the immune responses required specifically for protection, or by a lack of approved adjuvants and delivery systems to induce the required responses. In addition, the financial commitment required to license new vaccines is significant, and the more lucrative markets are often not those with the greatest need.

How soon before Trump fires Slaoui for promising a vaccine and didn’t deliver? Or Trump, notoriously truth-averse, tells Americans that Slaoui never, ever said a vaccine was possible by the end of the year?
Enquiring minds ….

Whackjobbery*: it’s baaack

Journalist for News 12 Long Island, Kevin Vesey covered a pro-Trump, anti-stay-at-home protest. There,

... a protester without a mask and wearing a red MAGA hat and Trump T-shirt deliberately advanced on Vesey (who was wearing a mask).
“I think you need to back away from me,” the reporter told [the protester] on video, turning his face away.
“No, I’ve got hydroxychloroquine,” said the unidentified protester as he strode closer. “I’m fine.”
The drug, touted by Trump, has not proved to be effective against COVID-19 and can have lethal side effects.

 Kevin Vesey writes, “The level of anger directed at the media from these protesters was alarming. As always, I will tell a fair and unbiased story today.”
Despite all captured on film, Donald Trump slammed the report as “fake news.”

***

Eric, son of Trump
Last Friday, I shared Eric Trump speaking “fluent Donald.” Eric is an echo chamber of “fluent Donald,” too.
Taking a page from dad’s playbook, Eric insisted in an interview with Fox News uber-Trump-groupie Jeanine Pirro that:

COVID-19 will “magically” disappear — after election day.
He indicated that the coronavirus [that has killed 315,000+ people around the globe — including nearly 90,000 Americans] is a ploy cooked up by the Democrats to stop Donald Trump from rallying his supporters at campaign events.
[Middle son maintains] Democratic presidential frontrunner Joe Biden “loves this. They think they’re taking away Donald Trump’s greatest tool, which is to go into an arena and fill it with 50,000 people every time.” [BTW, Trump has never had 50,000 people in any American arena.]
“You watch,” Eric added. “They will milk it every single day between now and November 3rd.”
“And guess what – after November 3rd, coronavirus will magically, all of the sudden, go away and disappear and everybody will be able to reopen.” He called it a “very cognizant strategy.”

Gosh, is Eric a poopagandist* who believes his own poopaganda*?
[FYI: In English “cognizant” is defined as “having knowledge or awareness.”]

*Whackjob: term coined by Steve Schmidt of The Lincoln Project to denote virulent Trump supporters who’ve given up common sense in favor of Trumpism.
*poopaganda – a quasi-genteel term for virulent bull-s**t “truthiness” masquerading as self-empowering info.
*poopagandist – one who perpetuates poopaganda and then complains that social media and “fake news” is trying to silence contrary views and/or conservative voices.

***

Recently, Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni warned against people misbehaving during the COVID-19 period.

"God has a lot of work,” he said. “[God] has the whole world to look after. He cannot just be here in Uganda looking after idiots...."

President Museveni, can you extend that warning to anti-mask, anti-stay-at-home idiots in the United States? And, to the current inhabitants of the White House and Trump Tower?

Meanwhile, back at the ranch…

Still struggling for sufficient aerobic exercise -  and trying to keep busy - during lockdown, I’ve taken up Weed Walking.
This entails laps around the garden while wearing gardening gloves (and other clothing). I walk, I notice weeds. I pluck an armful of weeds and, at the end of the lap, I place them into a wheelbarrow.
When full, I push the wheelbarrowful through the security gate, along the road, and dump contents into the burn pit.

Blackjack seedpod.
© Something over Tea 

This time of year, the predominant weeds is the almost indestructible (not easily compostable) blackjack - Bidens Pilosa. Originally native of South America, each tenacious blackjack plant “bears about eighty flower heads that can produce over 3,000 seeds in a single generation.” Designed to persist, seeds “radiate outwards and have sharp awns that hook onto passing animals and people as an efficient means of dispersal.”

In the garden, Weed  Walking keeps me ahead of blackjacks’ seeding phase.
With lockdown preventing outside garden care, weeds run amok and blackjacks are in Blackjack Heaven.
I return from the short trip to the burn pit covered in blackjack seeds. Before re-entering the garden, I pluck seeds from my hoodie, my pants, socks, shoes, gardening gloves, and hair.

Perhaps the only living thing currently more reproductively successful than blackjacks is the nightmare coronavirus.

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Humor might save us

German café tells customers
to wear pool noodles
to enforce social distancing
Click to enlarge.

The owners of a café in Berlin had fun handing out straw hats with two colorful swimming noodles attached and telling customers, "Keep the social distance."
Creative, friendly, and humane customer service lifts the spirits more than floor markings and perspex screens geared to keep people apart.

Friendly humor and comedy can save us humans from ourselves.
Animals are in on it, too, as this short photo essay indicates.

Is it inappropriate to laugh when, globally, close to 4.64 million humans have been infected with, and more than 312,000 killed by a mysterious and apparently fast-morphing virus?
Consider the intangible pluses:
Psychologists Richard Tedeschi and Lawrence Calhoun of the University of North Carolina Charlotte, maintain that while prolonged traumas can cause untold psychological damage, there is a portion of people who report psychological growth in the face of trauma.
Tedeschi and Calhoun call this “post-traumatic growth” and describe it as “positive psychological change experienced as a result of the struggle with highly challenging life circumstances.”
Post-traumatic growth, they claim, has five facets that survivors report experiencing:

• a greater appreciation for life,
• closer social relationships,
• enhanced feelings of personal strength,
• spiritual growth, and
• the recognition of new possibilities for their lives.

The development of post-traumatic growth is theorized to lead to a sense of wisdom about the world, and, potentially, over time to greater satisfaction with life. Post-traumatic growth is seen as not only an outcome, but also as the process of coming to terms with trauma and changing your life in a more meaningful or positive direction.”
They don’t specifically mention humor as an element of a greater appreciation for life, but I will. Humor and laughing at oneself and with others fits into all the bullet points, above.
Give it a try with comedienne Sara Cooper who lets “Trump be Trump” at his campaign-rally-cum-press-conferences:

• Cooper/Trump on Katie Miller and testing 
• Cooper/Trump, “How to Medical” 
• Cooper/Trump, “Obamagate!” 
• Coooper/Trump, “Testing” 

Comedian Stephen Colbert says,  “I got a thing for science. I’m into the lifestyle…by which I mean… [the lifestyle of] continuing to live!”
Me too, Stephen.
Let’s to continue to enjoy living while the living is possible, if not easy.

Anti-blues News

More to feel good about:

• Wild white storks hatched in the UK for the first time in centuries 
  A Polish female [white] stork fraternized then mated “with a male [white stork] believed to be one of the ‘20 or so vagrant storks’ that visit the [UK] every year.” This year, for the first time “in hundreds of years …white stork chicks have been born in the wild” at the Knepp Estate in West Sussex. “Before this, the most recent babies hatched was recorded on the roof of St Giles Cathedral in Edinburgh in 1416.”
  Immigrant storks, vagrant storks, chick storks … it’s all happening out there. (I hope the Polish female has her Brexit paperwork in order. ) Life goes on…
  
• A rare blue bee scientists thought might have become extinct has been rediscovered in Florida.
  The extremely rare metallic navy insect, a blue calamintha bee, previously found in only four areas "totaling just 16 square miles of pine scrub habitat at Central Florida's Lake Wales Ridge," has been discovered by a researcher.

I hope the wild white storks and rare blue bees are as excited about discovery as are the researchers.
History indicates life gets precarious for many species – including human – after “discovery.”

Meanwhile, back at the ranch…

Fifty-two days of lockdown haven’t quenched my zest for talking to all the dogs, monkeys, birds, fish, crabs, dragonflies, plants, and spiderwebs that will listen.
Nor have 52 days dulled my desire to conduct garden experiments.
Back in late April I experimented with laying a footpath made of recycled pond weed and waterlilies (see Day 34, April 29).
The success of that experiment persuaded me to extend the footpath around the pond edge. Accordingly, I donned waders yesterday, entered the pond, harvested excess pond weed, and formed a new section of path.
Only excess pond weed and invasive lilies are harvested so it’ll take time to form this path. I’m confident completion will conclude about the same time as lockdown level 4.

I was anxious about how the goldfish might feel about me messing around in their habitat.
I’m pleased to report that, at days end, three of the four showed up for their late afternoon snack.
If the fourth fish refused to join his friends because he was miffed at my intrusion, I hope the three help him understand I mean no harm.

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VOTE!

Click to enlarge.

Former US President Barack Obama is, these days, a man of few words. But the few he utters are elegantly concise.
In the face of ongoing abuse by The Donald - the “Obamagate” conspiracy theory (that alleges Obama led attempts in 2016 to sabotage Trump’s incoming administration) and Trump’s efforts to distract from criticism of his blundering coronavirus response - Obama Tweeted one word: VOTE!
(Someone please mention to White House senior adviser, son-in-law, and general-fix-it-guy Jared Kushner that neither he nor his boss can postpone the election,  not even in an emergency.  Despite Jared’s lack of familiarity with life's disappointments - or the US Constitution - shouldn’t someone mention that pesky third branch of government, the US Congress, not the prez – nor Jared –  has the power to pass a statute changing the date of the election, yet not even Congress has the power to cancel it altogether?)

***

The gift of free webinars on topics of concern during the coronavirus pandemic have helped ease the effects of lockdown.
Thanks to Daily Maverick and their sponsors for their generosity in making these available.
“Seeding the Great Divide” addresses agriculture and agri-business in South Africa, Africa in general, and the possible effects of the pandemic.
Hosted by Daily Maverick’s Richard Poplak the webinar features Wandile Sihlobo, chief economist of the Agricultural Business Chamber of South Africa, and author, Finding Common Ground: Land, Equity and Agriculture.
Takeaways:

• Food insecurity is dire in the African continent – and will grow in the coming months due to the pandemic and climate change. This may mean migrations of hungry people in many African countries.
• South Africa is still exporting crops, but food insecurity is real for too many South Africans.
• South Africa desperately needs a land audit to determine who owns what, and where is the land the government owns and how to benefit from it.
• Worldwide, post Covid-19, there may be structural shifts in labor markets with more automation in agriculture. Over time, this will mean fewer people/migrants required to work.
• Brief discussion on Expropriation without Compensation (EWC) and why Wandile does not support it.

View the growing list of Daily Maverick titles and benefit from these webinars.

Mail & Guardian also offers free webinars, most recently, “Alcohol, tobacco and substance use during COVID19."
The South African government is unique in banning the sale of alcohol and tobacco during lockdown and, essentially, forcing withdrawal on its people. This webinar unpacks the implications and effects on mental health of the banning tobacco and alcohol.
Hosted by SADAG’s Cassey Chambers, with psychiatrist Hemant Nowbath and clinical psychologist Neil Amoore.

Whackjob* no more?

“Just last month,” Brian Lee Hitchens, a former Covid-19 skeptic, said:

“I didn’t think the crisis was real. I thought it was maybe the government trying something, and it was kind of like they threw it out there to kinda distract us.”
“I’d get up in the morning and pray and trust in God for his protection, and I’d just leave it at that. There were all these masks and gloves. I thought it looks like a hysteria,” he added.
In posts on his Facebook page in early April, he had claimed, “I do not fear this virus because I know that my God is bigger than this Virus will ever be.”
Then, Hitchens and his wife contracted the virus. They were hospitalized with serious infections.
Now, he’s urging people to take coronavirus seriously. “I don’t want to see anybody go through what I went through…This wasn’t some scare tactic that anybody was using. It wasn’t some made-up thing. This is a real virus that you’ve got to take serious.” 

*Whackjob: term coined by Steve Schmidt of The Lincoln Project to denote virulent Trump supporters who’ve given up common sense in favor of Trumpism.

News blues…

The politics of food parcels in Cape Town.

Food parcels are not a sustainable, comprehensive or systemic fix, but are governed by a logic of charity. When the state distributes a small number of food parcels through its ward councillors, it mimics this logic of charity: Whether they want to or not, distributors are forced to choose those they deem to be “deserving”.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch…

Another warm autumn/fall day, another lawn mowed, grass clippings composted, and pond edging trimmed. Four healthy goldfish spied, swimming in the pond.
One happy gardener.

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Digital death clock

Day 50! Let the humor  begin...
Ragging on Eric Trump, known in the US as the “least smart Trump” is like, well, bobbing for fish in a pot – so to speak.
Trying for an epic put-down of “truly evil people” @EricTrump Tweeted: “The chips are starting to crumble!”
Fellow Tweeters responded with a flurry of mixed clichés:

• No use crying over pissed milk
• You know what they say, the bigger they are, the more the eggs in the basket flock together
• How the turns have tabled!
• The tiger is now truly out of the barn!
• Down is away and up is far-fetched!,
• Time to shit or get out of the kitchen
• It’s collapsing like a house of cookies
• The cats out of the cradle
• Looks like the domino's on the other foot.

One wag Tweeter pointed out, “Eric speaks fluent Donald!”

Talking Trump

Digital Death Clock
in Times Square, NY
Click to enlarge.

‘Trump Death Clock’ In Times Square Is Grim Reminder Of Preventable Virus Deaths.
The “Trump Death Clock”  is a digital billboard in New York City’s Times Square that highlights President Donald Trump’s early inaction on coronavirus.
On Wednesday, May 13 it ticked over to an estimated 50,000 deaths that, according to two leading epidemiologists, could have been avoided had social distancing measures been implemented earlier.

News blues…

Around the world:
Philippines. More than 50 million people in the Philippines are locked down due to Covid-19, with 11,876 confirmed cases. Simultaneously, more than 200,000 people are facing Typhoon Vongfong with winds of at least 115 mph - an intensity equivalent of a category 3 hurricane - forcing the evacuation of tens of thousands.
Russia is hailing its medical workers as heroes …

But as the country becomes one of the global hot spots of the pandemic, those workers are suffering astonishing levels of infection and death in their ranks.

Thousands have been infected, and more than 180 doctors, nurses, paramedics and other medical workers have died.
Like their colleagues in much of the rest of the world, many of those doctors and nurses are suffering from a shortage of protective gear and equipment. But Russian health workers are also at the mercy of a convoluted, unforgiving bureaucracy that increasingly appears outmatched by the pandemic.

Bangladesh…[where] tented Rohingya encampments spread across landslide-prone hills are already susceptible to disaster and disease.

Diphtheria, all but eradicated in most of the world, has raced through them. Marauding elephants have trampled children to death. A fire recently destroyed hundreds of shelters.
The first cases of the coronavirus in crowded refugee camps for Rohingya Muslims in Bangladesh were confirmed on Thursday, raising fears about how quickly disease can spread through one of the world’s most overcrowded and vulnerable communities…. where around 1 million refugees have taken shelter after fleeing decades of persecution in neighboring Myanmar.
A community leader in the camps said that up to 1,900 people who had contact with the pair have been identified and may undergo some form of quarantine.
Epidemiologists fear the virus could spread like wildfire through such camps around the world, teeming with millions of people fleeing war, persecution and famine. It has turned up in camps in Syria, South Sudan and Greece’s Aegean Islands.

Yemen. It was just two weeks ago that war-ravaged Yemen, the Arab world’s poorest country, reported its first cluster of coronavirus cases.

Since then infections appear to have exploded, realizing the worst fears of aid groups.
Save the Children, the global charity, reported Thursday that at least 385 people had died over the past week with Covid 19-like symptoms in the city of Aden, where the first cluster — five cases — surfaced at the end of April.
Several hospitals in Aden have closed, and some medical workers have refused to work because of a lack of protective equipment. The two main public hospitals are providing only emergency services, and are not admitting patients.

Mumbai, India.
India’s ‘Maximum City’ Engulfed by Coronavirus. Photo essay.
Overflowing hospitals. Exhausted cops. Desperate slums. Images from Mumbai as the coronavirus upends the metropolis.

After President Ramaphosa’s lockdown update  EFF MP Mbuyiseni Ndlozi weighed in saying, “US President Donald Trump's Covid-19 addresses are good compared with how President Cyril Ramaphosa conducts his.”  This, because Trump “allows” reporters to “interrogate him” – nothing said about the lies Trump visits upon the American public and his abuse of reporters.
Economic Freedom Fighters – EFF – founded in 2013 by expelled former ANC Youth League President Julius Malema, and his allies, describes the party’s ideology as “far-left Pan-Africanist.”
“Far-left,” indeed. If political ideologies formed a circle, EFF is so far left that they’re overlapping far right. Of course, they love Trump. As Eric Trump might say, “they’re chicks of a feather.”
See post Day 6 – Tuesday April 1 for more.

(more) Whackjobery …

Another chapter in the ongoing saga of poopaganda, poopagandists, and poopagandism.*

• Get Ready for a Vaccine Information War. Social media is already filling up with misinformation about a Covid-19 vaccine, months or years before one even exists. A concerned citizen (non-poopadandist) mulls the success of the anti-vaccine poopagandists mindset and raises awareness about what could be at stake.
• Conspiracy theorists, far-right extremists around the world seize on the pandemic.  Civil rights advocates have warned for months that the coronavirus could aid recruiting for the most extreme white-supremacist and neo-Nazi groups. People seizing on the pandemic range from white supremacists and anti-vaxxers in the U.S. to fascist and anti-refugee groups across Europe, according to a POLITICO review of thousands social media posts and interviews with misinformation experts tracking their online activities.

*poopaganda – a quasi-genteel term for virulent bull-s**t “truthiness” masquerading as self-empowering info; poopagandist – one who perpetuates poopaganda and then complains that social media is trying to silence contrary views and/or conservative voices.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch…

Another sunny, warm autumn/fall day.
Mowed 1.5 of 5 lawns – piece of cake! Mowing is smooth since I overcame the struggles encountered the first weeks of lockdown. Smooth, expect for the occasional wheel falling off the mower. The mower was new when first I began mowing and, during my first foray, the front left wheel fell off. Since then, all four wheels have fallen off, one at a time. Today, the front left wheel fell off again. If a wheel falls off tomorrow when I tackle lawns 3 through 5, I'll know there's a wheel-conspiracy....
Wheels notwithstanding, mowing, weeding and prepping the garden for winter is a pleasure. Full body exercise – bending, pulling, clipping, crawling – allows the mind to range and enquire.

Ongoing area of enquiry: what’s up with the U.S. Embassy’s confusing Updates on Special Repatriation Flights?
Last week I mentioned Qatar Airlines had arranged several flights from SA airports to Doha. That upon arrival in Doha, travelers would seek flights heading to the US and find their own way home. SAA had offered a flight to Dulles, Washington D.C.
Soon after, I received another email from the Embassy stating all flights had been cancelled.

Another confusing email arrived today:

Event:  The South African Ministry of Health confirmed 12,074 cases of COVID-19 within its borders.
May 16 Qatar Airways and May 17 SAA Flights
The airlines have notified us that these flights have been sold out. The airlines are working directly with customers on ticketing for the flights. These special repatriation flights are organized by the respective airlines and are not U.S. government-coordinated flights, and the U.S. Mission did not compile or prioritize the passenger lists but did work with the airlines to clear the passenger lists. If you have a ticket booked on one of these flights and have specific questions about baggage allowance, cost, or anything specific to the flight, please contact the airline directly. Otherwise, please wait until we have coordinated with the Government of South Africa and the airline to complete the passenger list clearance process after which we will create and distribute travel letters for confirmed passengers. You do not need to email us to request a travel letter; they will be distributed as soon as possible once the passenger list is finalized.
We continue to work with airlines for repatriation opportunities for our citizen community and we hope to be able to announce upcoming opportunities in the coming days. We want you to know that we've heard your questions and concerns as the lockdown was extended and future commercial flights continue to be canceled.  We understand there is a lot of uncertainty during this time and we are doing everything we can to seek clarity and pass on the latest information we have.
We will continue to follow every lead and pursue every option for repatriating U.S. citizens to the United States.

Hmmm, each time I receive an email from the Embassy, my lack of confidence in repatriation flights grows ….

Read Week 1  | Week 2 | Week 3 | Week 4  |  Week 5   | Week 6   |   Week 7   | Week 8

See photos Spying on Garden Creatures     

Watch Videos of Garden Creaturesatures

“Hugging, kissing, a thing of the past!”

Ramaphosa eases lockdown to level 3 – for parts of the country - as of end of May!
While some suggest the president “was vague and uncertain”,  my standards aren’t as high. After all, compare the US president’s demeanor … and that of the guy who was president prior to Ramaphosa.
The current president’s update was, for me, a pleasure to see and hear.  Finally, a president who is presidential! And humane. And who admits failures – and apologizes for them.
Too bad he said, “hugging and kissing is a thing of the past.”
If the opportunity presented, I would hug and kiss him for the difficult challenge he's attempting to confront!

Water, water, not everywhere

Lack of access to safe or reliable water is reality for 1 in 3 South Africans, about 20 million people. Photo essay presents views of life for too many South Africans.

Imagine a dwelling for a family of, say, five South Africans with no running water and no indoor plumbing in a locked down township, informal settlement, or rural area.
Need water to drink, cook, bath, and wash hands to stay free of Covid-19?
Carry a container to the nearest communal water faucet (compromising social distancing), fill the container, carry it back to the house. (FYI: 1-gallon of water weighs 3.6 pounds; 1-liter weighs 1 kilogram.)
Need to pee or poop? 
Walk to the nearest communal long-drop (ditto on compromising social distancing), walk back to your locked down house, and wash your hands using the household’s precious water.

© Elitsha 
Click to enlarge

South Africa’s water supply was the topic of Daily Maverick’s webinar, “Water Wars: Access to water in post-Covid South Africa.”
Hosted by Mark Heywood with Xhanti Payi - economist and head of research at Nascence Advisory and Research - and Simon Gear – a leading South African climatologists and a national authority on global warming and green issues.

Takeaways:
South Africa faces overlapping crises: climate change (last year, Cape Town and the Cape metro area - population close to 5 million – run out of water); health and social welfare, and, now, Covid-19 co-morbid with virulent TB and the highest HIV rate in the world (7.7 million people in South Africa live with HIV).

Just do it!

Decades of corruption and the mismanagement of public funds has weakened the Department of Water and Sanitation’s ability to deliver access to safe and reliable water.

Minister Lindiwe Sisulu denies that access to water is an issue in South Africa, but her team has been forced to draw up emergency plans to deliver water to those most in need during the COVID-19 pandemic. It is time to make safe, running water an everyday reality for everyone, always.

Amnesty International urges signing their petition to encourage Minister Lindiwe Sisulu.

News blues…

Is the coronavirus mutating and becoming more contagious?  A recent study claims a new dominant strain of the virus could spread faster than the original. (Could does not mean will.)

Day 19, April 19, I predicted it wouldn’t be long before Covid-19 presented the perfect reason to release Trump protégés and current inmates from jail. Three weeks later:

• “Paul Manafort, convicted felon and former campaign manager to President Donald Trump, has been released to home confinement amid concerns over the spread of coronavirus in prisons.
• Michael Cohen, Trump's former lawyer and longtime fixer, currently locked up at FCI Otisville in New York, “will be released from federal prison  to serve the remainder of his sentence in home confinement amid the coronavirus pandemic…. He will remain under quarantine for 14 days before he is released.”
• Harvey Weinstein, convicted rapist, contracted Covid-19 in mid-March at Wende Correctional Facility, a maximum security prison east of Buffalo, NY. He’s being held in the prison's residential mental health unit, where he remains on suicide watch. (Not a Trump protégé.)
• Bill Cosby will not be granted an early prison release. “Mr. Cosby is not eligible for release under Gov. Wolf’s order since he was convicted of a violent offence (aggravated indecent assault) and was deemed a Sexually Violent Predator.” (Not a Trump protégé.)

No one should be exposed to Covid-19. But…will these felons report back to prison after the pandemic?
Enquiring minds want to know….

Meanwhile, back at the ranch…

Yesterday’s intruder sent me on a search of crime statistics since lockdown. Initially, there was a drop in crime:

Attempted murder cases dropped from 1300 to 443, rape cases fell from 2908 to 371, assault GBV cases decrease from 11 876 to 1758 and aggravated robberies fell from 6654 to 2022.
Carjacking crimes decreased 80.9 percent, robbery at non-residential premises decreased 65.5 percent, robbery at residents’ premises decreased by 53.8 percent. 

Then, alas,

The first week of level 4 restrictions has seen vehicle recovery activities more than double compared to the lockdown extension figures, representing a six-fold increase from the first week of lockdown to figures that are now only 35 percent lower than pre-lockdown averages. Vehicle crime activities are set to rise even further, back to the same levels or even higher as South Africans return to work and criminals resume their operations. 

On the other hand, neighborhood monkey incursions continue unabated.
Like troops of baboons, monkey troops post sentries to ensure youngsters are safe. Today, by mid-morning, the sentries had declared the zone safe and the troop, youngsters and all, had infiltrated the ‘hood.
My so-so video skills captured monkey antics, including an active three-legged monkey.

Read Week 1  | Week 2 | Week 3 | Week 4  |  Week 5   | Week 6   |   Week 7

See photos Spying on Garden Creatures     

Watch Videos of Garden Creatures