If the glove don’t fit…

Week 8 ended with more than 5 million confirmed Covid-19 cases and 333,000 deaths worldwide. The US at the top of the list with 1.578 million confirmed cases and 95,000 deaths.

News blues…

Brazil is quickly climbing the charts. Third after Russia (317,555 cases) with 310,100 cases, you may recall Brazil’s President Jair Bolsonaro aping US President Trump’s denials, saying Covid-19 was “just a weak case of the flu.”

On May 9, Brazil’s death toll from the coronavirus topped 10,000. Instead of marking the grim milestone with an address or a sign of respect for the victims, President Jair Bolsonaro took a spin on a jet ski. Video footage widely circulated on social media shows Brazil’s far-right leader grinning as he pulls up to a boat on Brasília’s Paranoá Lake where supporters are having a cookout. As he grips onto their boat, Bolsonaro jokes about the “neurosis” of Brazilians worried about the virus. “There’s nothing to be done [about it],” he shrugs. “It’s madness.”
Even by the standards of other right-wing populists who have sought to downplay the COVID-19 pandemic, Bolsonaro’s defiance of reality was shocking. From the favelas of densely packed cities like Rio de Janeiro to the remote indigenous communities of the Amazon rain forest, Brazil has emerged as the new global epicenter of the pandemic, with the world’s highest rate of transmission and a health system now teetering on the brink of collapse.

 ***

(c) Zapiro
click to enlarge

Police have arrested 22 000 people for violating the Covid-19 lockdown, and 3 600 police and soldiers have been deployed to Pietermaritzburg where adherence to regulations has been poor. General crime, however, has dropped by 49 percent.
[At a recent] briefing … provincial police commissioner, General Khombinkosi Jula, said lack of compliance with lockdown regulations in the city had resulted in police escalating their operations in Pietermaritzburg. “We remain concerned about non-compliance and as such we will be stepping up visibility in Pietermaritzburg.”

More than 3,600 law enforcement officers, who include members of the South African Police Services, the South African National Defence Force (SANDF) and traffic department have been deployed to Pietermaritzburg.
Police operations since the start of the lockdown have so far resulted in the confiscation of more than 551,000 millilitres of alcohol and 5,400 loose cigarettes in the city. Major transgressions within the city include failure to adhere to social distancing rules, particularly at month-end.
Besides making arrests, police are also engaging business owners to address the problem of long queues outside supermarkets and other businesses.
While Pietermaritzburg and Isipingo in Durban are non-compliance hot spots, Jula said other areas of the province have also become a problem, resulting in arrest[s]…. 

Whackjobbery* …

While Germany braces for more protests against coronavirus policies, a minister urges people not to join rallies that include conspiracy theorists, anti-vaxxers and anti-Semites.

Thousands of people are expected to gather in cities across Germany at the weekend to demonstrate against the government’s coronavirus policies.
Germany’s foreign minister has warned people to distance themselves from the growing movement, which includes radical extremists, conspiracy theorists, anti-vaxxers and antisemites, after domestic intelligence agents warned that extremist groups were exploiting fears around the virus in order to gain support.
“If radical extremists and antisemites use demonstrations in order to stoke hatred and to divide, then everyone should keep a lot more than just a 1.5-metre distance from them,” Heiko Maas said in an interview on Thursday. 

“Those who spread conspiracy theories throughout the world, without a mask, without keeping the minimum distance, without any concern for others, are confusing courage with blind anger, and freedom with pure egotism,” he added.
Among the protesters are those who accuse the government of inventing the virus in order to impose dictatorship-like conditions. Their anger is focused on everyone from the chancellor, Angela Merkel, and her health minister, Jens Spahn, to the virologists and epidemiologists who are advising them. The US billionaire Bill Gates, the founder of Microsoft who has committed to a fund to solve the crisis, is often depicted at the demonstrations as a satanic figure, accused of engineering the health emergency in order to achieve world dominance.
A celebrity vegan cook, a prominent R&B singer, and a former broadcast journalist turned YouTuber are among the movement’s figureheads. Some align themselves with an initiative called “Querdenken” or lateral thinking, whose symbol is a pendant fashioned out of a tinfoil ball. Another movement, called “Widerstand 2020” or resistance 2020, headed by a lawyer, a psychologist and an ear, nose and throat specialist, is also gaining support.

Hmmm, a tinfoil ball? Symbolic, indeed.

***

While Trump tries to be normal, shock jock radio celebrity, Howard Stern, “once friendly with the Donald Trump who was a regular guest on the radio show years ago”, has some advice for this former friend.

Stern suggested he’d be happy to join Trump at Mar-a-Lago again ― under one condition.
“I do think it would be extremely patriotic of Donald to say, ‘I’m in over my head, and I don’t want to be president anymore,’” Stern said. “It’d be so patriotic that I’d hug him, and then I’d go back to Mar-a-Lago and have a meal with him and feel good about him because it would be such an easy thing to do.” 

*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…

Cell phone purchased.
The line outside the cell phone store consisted of two other women and our wait went slightly faster because we chatted, about the learning curve of cell phones for the elderly, the pandemic, and, yes, about inefficiency.
I took my place in line already irate from a frustrating adventure with, and at, the bank.
Banks offer an online feature called Send Instant Cash. One fills out and submits an online menu with cell phone details of the intended cash recipient. The submission auto-emails a One-Time-Passcode – OTP – to enter into a online submission menu. Voila! Theoretically, the money is released after the sender messages a password to the recipient, who picks up the cash at a nearby store.
I’ve been trying – unsuccessfully - to send money to our locked down gardener for three days.
The time delay between submission and the arrival of the OTP is faulty. By the time the OTP arrives – usually after about 15 minutes, the bank’s OTP window has expired. An infinite loop follows: the bank resends an OTP, I enter it, it is already expired….

I admit I’m impatient with systems in South Africa – from banking, communication (Telkom), medical (hospitals and meds), to infrastructure (Prasa, see below). My attitude – expecting frustrating delays - spurs spurts of anger before anger, under “normal” conditions, would be justified.

This go round, a bank customer services representative who “couldn’t help” as the topic was one only the Instant Cash team could resolve. The team was only available by phone.
I called from the bank and an Instant Cash team member told me the delay was the fault of my email system.
“I don’t believe that’s correct,” I told him. “I regularly pay bills etc., online and the only place I have this issue is with your Instant Cash feature.”
Naturally, we went back and forth assigning blame before the representative said he’d “escalate” my concerns up the chain – to wait a “few days, not more than a week”.
This issue has been “escalated” several times over the last months.
Perhaps my irritation would be less instantaneous if I had more confidence in systems here. Consider Passenger Rail Agency of SA (Prasa) purchasing locomotives that didn’t fit SA train tracks:

South African railways officials imported brand new locomotives from Europe worth hundreds of millions of rand despite explicit warnings that the trains are not suited for local rail lines.
In what may be the country's largest and most expensive recent tender [contract] blunder the Passenger Rail Agency of South Africa has to date received thirteen new diesel locomotives that are too high for the long distance routes they were intended for.
Senior railways engineers and sources with firsthand knowledge of the issue told Rapport Prasa had been warned that the new diesel locomotives it ordered from Spanish manufacturer Vossloh España are too tall for local use.
… A senior Transnet engineer said, “Prasa was warned the locomotives were too high even before they started arriving in the country. They carried on with the contract despite our warnings.”

Small in comparison, my bank experiences are, nevertheless, colored by such blunders.

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Filling gaps?

Last day of Week 8!
This excerpted from an email sent to residents of Alameda, California – where I lived for 20 years.

Thank you Alameda, for your ongoing efforts to slow the spread of COVID-19, save lives, and keep Alameda safe and healthy. As of this afternoon, the City of Alameda has 42 cases of COVID-19, Alameda County has 2,560 cases and 88 deaths, the State of California has 84,057 cases and 3,436 deaths, the United States has 1,551,853 cases and 93,439 deaths, and across the world, there are a staggering 4,996,472 cases and 328,115 deaths. These numbers continue to grow, and we must continue to be vigilant about wearing face coverings and using physical distance to protect the health of our community.

The email continues with specific actions, one of which is to recognize Slow Streets:

Slow Streets Alameda temporarily reconfigured Pacific and Versailles streets to discourage through traffic and provide more space for residents to walk, run, bike, scooter, and roll at a safe distance from one another. Last night, the City Council approved expanding the program….

Alameda is a small island city (78,000 people) with many city street so the reconfiguration makes sense.
Here, in this KZN village, Slow Streets would not make sense because, 1) too few streets, 2) drivers would rather die than drive slowly, 3) too many potholes.
Potholes make driving a death-defying experience as drivers veer across lanes to avoid disappearing into potholes. In our road, thoughtful residents try to fill potholes by tossing bricks inside. One local pothole hosts at least 10 bricks. (I count as I drive around it.) And that pothole is far from full!
(A post with photos on potholes on my other blog.)

News blues…

(c) News24.com
click to enlarge.

Dire predictions for South Africa. We’ve gone from expecting a manageable Covid-19 wave to predicting a million infections, 40,000 deaths and a dire shortage of ICU beds by November.

The release of the projections during an extensive technical briefing with Health Minister Zweli Mkhize and members of several teams producing modelling for government on Tuesday night came after intense criticism over the apparent lack of transparency over the modelling and other Covid-19 data.
The projections, which the experts stressed were subject to change as more data became available, show:

• Between June and November, 40 000 to 45 000 people could die from Covid-19, with nearly 500 deaths by the end of May.
• The total number of cases between June and November is expected to be between 1 and 1.2 million, with around 50 000 cases expected by the end of May.
• Projected need for ICU beds is between 20 000 and 35 000 between June and November, and 500 by the end of May.
• General hospital beds required are expected to be between 75,000 and 90,000 between June and November, with just more than 2,000 beds required by the end of May.
• Provinces are expected to peak at different times, with varying levels of infection and deaths, but the national peak infection rate is expected around mid-July to mid-August.

The modelling was prepared by the South African Covid-19 Modelling Consortium, which is made up of key experts from several university-based institutions and convened by Dr Harry Moultrie, a senior medical epidemiologist based at the National Institute for Communicable Diseases (NICD) – Modelling and Simulation Hub Africa (Masha) from the University of Cape Town, the South African DSI-NRF Centre of Excellence in Epidemiological Modelling and Analysis (Sacema) from the University of Stellenbosch, Health Economics and Epidemiology Research Office (HE2RO), which is made up of experts from the University of the Witwatersrand and Boston University School of Public Health, based in the US.

Ouch!

The US is in trouble, too, although for different reasons. "How Covid-19 Overwhelmed The American State: Decades of poor policy choices and neglect of government agencies have left the U.S. ill-equipped to handle this crisis."

Although American struggles have a lot to do with choices President Donald Trump has made in the past few months, they also have a lot to do with choices that the U.S. has been making for decades ― in particular, skimping on its safety net and funding for key government agencies.
National and state officials have been scrambling to make up for that with new initiatives, most recently a relief bill called the Heroes Act, passed by House Democrats on Friday. Like its predecessors, it would provide much-needed help to millions if it became law.
But there’s only so much that even the most determined policymakers can do right now. What the U.S. really needs to do is reimagine what the government does and how it operates ― to build a new state edifice, starting with its foundation, in a way that it has done only a few times in its history. And it’s not clear the political system is capable of that.

***

On a (slightly) brighter note: Another Daily Maverick webinar, “Africa First”
How does Africa’s response to the Covid-19 pandemic differ from Western society? What is the African continent’s response to the Covid-19 pandemic and its long-term development prospects?
Host Tim Cohen, Business Maverick Editor, in conversation with Dr Jakkie Cilliers, founder, Institute for Security Studies, and Ottilia Maunganidze, head of Special Projects for the ISS.

Whackjobbery* …

I’ll dispense with real-world examples of whackjobbery for this post. There’s too much of it around and, today, it’s just too depressing to share.
Instead, an old joke that’s still pertinent:

A Soviet official tour guide is showing a group of Americans around a city touted as the jewel in the crown (wool cap?) of Soviet-style socialism.
An American asks the guide, “What’s the difference between socialism and capitalism?”
The tour guide thinks a moment then says, “In capitalism, its man against man, and every man for himself. In socialism? It’s the exact reverse!”

And a new curse word: To Telkom someone, as in, “he’s such a bad guy, I hope he gets Telkomed.”
I coined this after I shared my mother’s recent Telkom experiences with a friend who’d moved from this neighborhood to Mooi River 15 months ago. Since that time – 15 months! - she’s been waiting for Telkom to install their telephone.

*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…

Not much of a shopper at the best of times, recent excursions shopping during lockdown centered around purchasing basic groceries for the household and prescription meds for my mother. I’ve little experience with shopping behavior under the new normal.
After my mother finally agreed that Telkom’s half-assed phone service ain’t cutting it (see yesterday’s post, Boiling frogs  ) I set off  to research cell phones.

Best case scenario would have been to drive twenty-five miles to the city of Pietermaritzburg and pick a phone from the range of choices at the gigantic Liberty shopping mall.
With lockdown, roadblocks, aggressive police and military, and rumors the city is an infection hot-spot, I headed, instead, to the local village’s only computer store.
There, they’d cordoned off the store’s entrance and set up a table outside with hand sanitizers and printed directions about maintaining social distance (two meters/six foot) while lined up outside. Only two customers at a time allowed inside.
A clerk approached as I reached the head of the line at the store’s entrance. I explained my goal. He told me the store doesn’t carry cell phones, and advised, “Try the MTN store at Woolworth’s shopping center – across the road.”
It was bustling over there: parking lot filled with vehicles; masked car guards in attendance; masked shoppers dashing hither and thither; masked store clerks behind cash registers.
I found the MTN store and lined up outside behind two correctly spaced people.
After waiting about twenty minutes, one person gave up waiting. As I moved one person closer to the entrance, I noticed passing shoppers ignored social distancing in lines. Instead, they passed through our carefully constructed space as if it was a thoroughfare. (Apparently, this is usual public behavior. My friends and family tell me Californians do the same.)
At the entrance to the store, a clerk took my temperature (36.15 C) and spritzed my hands with sanitizer before I was permitted inside.

I brought home to my mother a brochure of MTN phones.
She’s risk averse. I sense she’s also ambivalent about her ability to adjust to a cell phone. I’m treading carefully and urging her to make decisions beyond the cost of a cell phone. This includes full commitment to learning how to use the device, rather than hand it over to someone else to manage.
Additionally, if I risk life and limb (virus and potholes) to return to the store to purchase a phone, she can risk a learning curve.
The best part of my day? Goodbye, Telkom!

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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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