Many are cold, some are frozen

Yesterday, Johns Hopkins reported a surge of confirmed infections in the US: 19,532 new cases.
South Africa reports surging cases of new infections, too: 4,302 cases overnight; 70,038 confirmed infections, today.

Daily Maverick webinar’s, “The Inside Track: 100 Days of Covid-19” offers sobering insights into South Africa’s near future.
In the 100 days since the public was notified of the first case of Covid-19 in South Africa, our health, the way we work, what we eat (or don’t) and how we live have changed dramatically.
Daily Maverick Associate Editor Ferial Haffajee in conversation with DM Citizen Editor Mark Heywood and Professor Glenda Gray, physician, scientist and activist, reflect on the state of the pandemic and what’s to come.
Takeaways:

• Low testing numbers mask (ahem) a hidden epidemic.
• South Africa is the now 8th on the world list of countries with the highest numbers of new cases/day.
• Contact tracing is inefficient: “We don’t have the capacity for fast tracking turnaround.”
• South Africa’s school feeding program nourishes 9 million South African children. Closing it down interrupted the program and prevented 9 million children from enjoying one square meal/day.
• Hunger and lack of resources is real in South Africa – AND ALSO in countries around the world. There’s a human rights epidemic simultaneous with the pandemic.
• Challenges for the next 100 days: we’re entering the surge phase of the pandemic. Brace for a medical onslaught. Health care workers vulnerabilities – lack of PPE, beds, ICUs, equipment; overwork and physical, psychological, emotional health stress – mean patients will be vulnerable, too.

Near future/next 100 days will be challenging. Volunteer to help in your neighborhoods, feed people, dig deep to share and appreciate our humanity.

***

Meanwhile, back at the ranch…

The search for a local source of chicken giblets for my mother’s dogs continues… (backstory - a saga of giblets).
I’ve scouted several local vendors and discovered 1) the pandemic and Lockdown has driven one popular local butchery out of business, 2) chicken necks are available; chicken giblets are not, 3) the entrance to the one village butchery that likely carries giblets shares space with a taxi rank. People, masked and unmasked, mill around the butchery entrance – and I’m not pushing my way through crowds and risking infection to purchase food for seven spoiled and obese dogs.

***

I can manage demands coronavirus makes on my worldview. It’s tougher to adjust to a more banal change: weather.
Each morning for the past week, a half inch/1+ cm layer of frost has covered the lawns and plants.
As a San Francisco Bay Area resident, I’m unused to frost. The Bay Area’s Mediterranean climate delivers wet winters with temperatures averaging 12°C/53°F, dropping overnight to 3°C/38°F. One or two nights/year temps might drop to freezing.
As a houseboat resident in the Sacramento Delta - elevation 79 feet/24 meters – temperatures range from a summer high of 38°C/102°F, with winter lows about the same as the Bay Area. (Freezing temperatures can damage outboard motors, so liveaboards and mariners pay attention).
Since I departed South Africa, decades ago, I’ve avoided spending winter here. Until Lockdown, I never spent a winter at my current elevation: 1050 m/3,444 feet.
Yesterday noon, the bird bath hosted a platter-sized layer of ice. It was thick enough that, astonished, I carried it inside to show my mother, then placed it in a plant pot to melt in the warm sunshine.
This morning, the same bird bath was frozen solid with a 2-inch-thick layer.
Sections of the garden pond were covered in ice, too.
I hear from local residents that this is an usually cold period for this time of year.

Perhap that explains whty garden plants suffer, too. Before and after photos show some of the damage.

Befrore - buds appearing
Click to enlarge.

After - buds dead
Click to enlarge.

Before - flowering aloe
Click to enlarge.

After - flowers dead
Click to enlarge.

 (The good news? As I scooped swamp cypress needles from the pond, I spotted one goldfish. That’s one more goldfish than I’ve seen in a week.)

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Unknown unknowns

On this day of rest, I paraphrase Bush Administration's former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld’s immortal words at a 2002 news briefing. Rumsfeld addressed the lack of evidence about the government of Iraq supplying WMD to terrorists:

..there are known knowns; things we know we know…there are known unknowns…we know there are some things we do not know…[and the] unknown unknowns—the ones we don't know we don't know.

A now known known:  we could have/should have known that those known unknowns and the known knowns would turn out in a way we could have guessed!

The pandemic continues to rage. 

Trump golfs and campaigns while numbers of infections and deaths rise around the US. 

Bolsonaro jet skis while Brazilians sicken. 

Fauci fumes at the lack of White House response. 

Ramaphosa, well, he's disappeared. South Africa is now 8th on the list of countries with the greatest numbers of new infections.

News blues…

Nicholas Kristoff, in this week’s New York Times column, explores an issue I raised earlier this week regarding women leaders’ success handling the pandemic.
I mentioned PMs of New Zealand and Iceland (Jacinda Ardern and Katrín Jakobsdóttir, respectively). Kristoff delves deeper and asks, “Why are the rates of coronavirus deaths far lower in many female-led countries?”

Are female leaders better at fighting a pandemic?
I compiled death rates from the coronavirus for 21 countries around the world, 13 led by men and eight by women. The male-led countries suffered an average of 214 coronavirus-related deaths per million inhabitants. Those led by women lost only one-fifth as many, 36 per million.
If the United States had the coronavirus death rate of the average female-led country, 102,000 American lives would have been saved out of the 114,000 lost.
“Countries led by women do seem to be particularly successful in fighting the coronavirus,” noted Anne W. Rimoin, an epidemiologist at U.C.L.A. “New Zealand, Denmark, Finland, Germany, Iceland, Norway have done so well perhaps due to the leadership and management styles attributed to their female leaders.”
… [certainly] there have been plenty of wretched female leaders over the years. Indeed, according to [my] research …female leaders around the world haven’t been clearly better than male counterparts even at improving girls’ education or reducing maternal mortality.
… It’s not that the leaders who best managed the virus were all women. But those who bungled the response were all men, and mostly a particular type: authoritarian, vainglorious and blustering. Think of Boris Johnson in Britain, Jair Bolsonaro in Brazil, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei in Iran and Donald Trump in the United States.
Virtually every country that has experienced coronavirus mortality at a rate of more than 150 per million inhabitants is male-led.

What to say?

***

Only in America. Access to decent health care is a political hot potato in the US. Obama’s Affordable Care Act (“Obamacare”) addressed the shortfall in health care insurance for about 40 million Americans. Donald Trump promised to improve on ACA but instead slowly erodes it.
Imagine the surprise of a Seattle resident recovered from Covid-19 when he got a bill from the hospital for $1,122,501.04 / ZAR 19,144, 311.77.

Flor, 70, shared the 181-page document with The Seattle Times, which noted that he has insurance and Medicare coverage and so may only have to pay a relatively small amount of the whopping total.
He may not have to pay anything at all due to steps taken by Congress to protect Americans with private insurance or no insurance from being charged for seeking testing and treatment for COVID-19…. Yet Flor’s bill, technically an “explanation of benefits,” is a stark example of the sky-high cost of health care in the U.S. that has come under increased criticism during the coronavirus pandemic. America spends more per person on health care than any other high-income country, due in part to its reliance on for-profit companies.

I wonder if Flor is mollified by the uncertainty that “He may not have to pay anything?”

Despite Lockdown, South Africa’s Covid-19 current rate of increase  - 2,500 to 3,500 confirmed infections/day - place me at risk of contracting the virus.
My travel insurance expired the day after I was scheduled to travel, May 19.
With health care in South Africa far more affordable (if not always available or high quality) than health care in the US, I'd expect my (personal) overall out-of-pocket costs of a Covid-19 infection in South Africa would be less than US$1,122,501.04/ ZAR 19,144, 311.77.
But, who knows? I would have to pay something but how much?
An alarming sort-of-known unknown.

***

A dab of humor…
Sara Cooper’s How to - Trump voice overs:

• How to lobster 
• How to water 
• How to bible 

Oh, oh, Lindsey Graham speaks – and Trump ain’t gonna like it:

• Graham on Trump and Joe Biden 
• Graham on Joe Biden 

And, then, there’s Devin Nunes, his mom, his cow, and his failing lawsuit.
(I find Nunes a, well, strange … cowboy … in Congress. If you don't know Nunes, and not laying my prejudices on you, here’s the vanilla Wikipedia version of his bio.)

Meanwhile, back at the ranch…

I worked on the cement sculpture mix experiment enough yesterday to know that the recipe won’t work for my sculpture projects. The other recipe I researched - advertised as “cement that works like clay” – requires more ingredients than I want to purchase (Portland cement, metakaolin, fine fiber flakes, etc.). From my current perspective, I’m unlikely to venture down that path.
It’s back to the drawing board….

***

Cold, cold, cold…. Another layer of frost outside. Yesterday’s layer frost burned and blackened – several large plants.
I repeated the experiment of covering several outside succulents overnight. I can’t say I notice significant difference in their response to frost. Overnight temperatures will drop below freezing for the next several nights so more observation coming up.

***

While scooping swamp cypress needles from the pond, I discovered just how cold is the water, even at midday. No wonder goldfish are scarce. I hope they have found a sufficiently warm niche to survive the worst of the winter.

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“… ugly Anarchists must be stooped”

Click to enlarge

Ah, now, does that man on the left look like a leader you’d trust with your life?

President Donald Trump has warned repeatedly that antifa, a favorite bogeyman, is behind the violence during recent waves of protest … scant evidence supports Trump’s claims, [on the other hand] adherents of the far-right [loosely organized] movement known as Boogaloo have shown up at various protests sparked by the police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis, attempting to use the demonstrations to further their own cause and in some cases carrying rifles. 

Trump Tweeted about unarmed protesters, “These ugly Anarchists must be stooped [sic] IMMEDIATELY. MOVE FAST!”
He says nothing about “stooping” Boogaloo or any of the other burgeoning white nationalist groups in the US.
The mayor of Seattle’s advice to Trump? “Make us all safe. Go back to your bunker!”

News blues…

The book of Trump’s former US National Security Advisor is due to publish next week. Remember John Bolton? The man who refused to stand up and speak the truth when it counted – during Trump’s impeachment?
He plans to profit from that role?
I’ll not purchase his book.
Media outlets will summarize the salient points and, if I’m curious beyond that, I’ll get the Kindle edition from the library. I’ll not spend a penny to prop up Bolton’s version of public service.

***

The Donald, a tone-deaf guy immune to positive change, has chosen a trajectory guaranteed to toss him out of the White House, if – a big if - the election process unfolds without interference.
He continues to push unAmerican activities. More Americans push back.
Meidas Touch produced a supercut with excellent advice: “End this Ugly Presidency.”

***

What’s the connection between food and pandemic? What’s the difference between virus and bacteria? Where lies further dangers from both? Writer Sigal Samuel unpacks these topics….

Some experts have hypothesized that the novel coronavirus made the jump from animals to humans in China’s wet markets, just like SARS before it. Unsurprisingly, many people are furious that the markets, which were closed in the immediate wake of the outbreak in China, have already reopened. It’s easy to point the finger at these “foreign” places and blame them for generating pandemics. But doing that ignores one crucial fact: The way people eat all around the world — including in the US — is a major risk factor for pandemics, too.
That’s because we eat a ton of meat, and the vast majority of it comes from factory farms. In these huge industrialized facilities that supply more than 90 percent of meat globally — and around 99 percent of America’s meat — animals are tightly packed together and live under harsh and unsanitary conditions.
When we talk about the risk of pandemics, we’re actually talking about two different types of outbreaks. The first is a viral pandemic; examples include the 1918 influenza pandemic and Covid-19. The second is a bacterial pandemic; the prime example is the bubonic plague, the “Black Death” that wracked Europe in the Middle Ages.
…scientists believe the novel coronavirus originated in wild bats, not factory farms. But it has awakened us all to the crushing effect a pandemic can have on our lives. Now that we’ve come face to face with this reality, the question is: Do we have the political and cultural will to do something major — changing the way we eat — to sharply decrease the likelihood of the next pandemic?
Read the full article, “The meat we eat is a pandemic risk, too.” 

***

Daily Maverick webinar, “The Fight Against Misinformation Part 2: Unmasking Malevolent Networks.”  Hosted by Marianne Thamm with Jean le Roux and William Bird.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch…

Click to enlarge.

Sign at the entry of the plant nursery where (wearing my mask correctly) I purchased Palm Peat, a material in my upcoming cement sculpture mix experiment.
Palm peat, aka “coir,” is a multi-faceted material. Besides its most common role as growing medium for seedlings and its role as potential ingredient in sculpture mix, it is also an ingredient in composting toilets.
I’m fourteen thousand miles from my houseboat where half a dozen “coir bricks” – and a composting toilet - await my return.

***

Temperatures dropped below freezing last night. This morning, three hours after sunrise, frost still carpets the lawns and gardens.

***

Swamp cypress, taxodium distichum, is not, as I thought, native to South Africa but to the southeastern United States.
The wetland section of this garden has four tall and mature swamp cypress. Gorgeous trees – with one drawback: in the winter, the trees shed gorgeous russet-red lacy needles that drift and clog the pond. Each day I scoop out and recycle piles of needles.
As I scoop, I cajole, “c’mon, trees, hurry up and shed already!”
I also cajole goldfish, “where are you, guys? Haven’t seen you for more than a week. Show yourselves! Let me know you’re still swimming….”

***

Yet another repat flight:

Event:  The South African Ministry of Health has confirmed 58,568 cases of COVID-19 within its borders.
Announcing June 18 Ethiopian Airlines Flight
We have been notified of a special commercial repatriation flight operated by Ethiopian Airlines to Chicago, United States on Thursday, June 18.
Flight information:
• Potential passengers must book their tickets directly with Ethiopian Airlines.
• The flight will depart from Johannesburg and then Cape Town on Thursday, June 18 before proceeding to Addis Ababa, Ethiopia and onward to Chicago O’Hare International Airport, United States.
• Passengers will be responsible for travel to their final destination in the United States from Chicago O’Hare.
• This flight is open to U.S. citizens, Lawful Permanent Residents, and visa holders who have received DHA approval to depart South Africa.
• Passengers will be responsible for finding transportation to the required assembly point, which will be communicated by Ethiopian Airways prior to the flight departure.
• Travel permission letters for U.S. citizens and green card holders are not required unless you will be crossing provinces to arrive at the assembly point. If you must cross a provincial border to join this repatriation flight, please write to SAEvacuation@state.gov requesting a travel letter. Include your name, passport or greencard number, current address, and flight confirmation.
• For any questions regarding availability, cost, baggage allowance, or other flight details, please contact Ethiopian Airlines directly at JNBTrade@ethiopianairlines.com.

Etc., etc., etc….
I’m staying here.

***

Click to enlarge.

What do you see in the photo (left)?

I snapped this master of disguise near the pond.
Can you see it?

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Realities, unchained

Welcome to Week 12...and a look at the numbers:
Worldwide: ,7,514,500 infections; 421,460 deaths
US: 2,043,500  infections; 114,000 deaths
SA: 58,568 infections; 1285 deaths

In the 1989 movie, “A Dry White Season,” the South African lawyer played by Marlon Brando says that, in [apartheid] South Africa, law and justice are from the same family but “they’ve not been on speaking terms for years.”
Not to trivialize South Africa’s past, but I’m reminded of this line as I grapple with Lockdown. Real reality and human/my reality are from the same family, but not on speaking terms for, well, at least 66 days!
Lockdown Day 66 – 28 May – was the day Lockdown reality began to penetrate my Lockdown denial. Until then, I’d stayed busy, developed minor obsessions, whatever it took. Unconsciously, I’d deluded myself that a few weeks of laying low and, poof, coronavirus would lose its lethality. I’d hop on a plane and return to my houseboat, life on the water, summer.
Maintaining psychological balance was a challenge but not impossible.
I would, you know, overcome…

Twelve days later, coronavirus reality is overcoming me.
Denial is hard to maintain.
I am, you are, we’re all amid a perfect storm of historical events – and few of us are equipped effectively to respond.

We humans are ill-equipped to address/confront real reality; we lag way behind the moment. We resort to habit, the familiar. We lose the plot when faced with a slowly unfolding catastrophe.
Ditto elected leaders. Most appear incapable of addressing the moment. Many are still in denial - their equivalent of Day 66 hasn’t arrived, or they ignored it when it did.
Ramaphosa seldom appears in public.
Others - Trump, Bolsonaro – have thrown in the towel and pretend the pandemic is over, finished and klaar, “embers and ashes.”
We, the People discover systems we took for granted, that we thought securely in place, no longer work – perhaps never did.
Historically, now is a delicate moment, the kind of moment history teaches can go either way: more fascistic or more progressive.
Which will it be?
It is up to you, to me, to our friends and family.

News blues…

Notable successes during the pandemic:
New Zealand. Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern announced the country coronavirus-free. New Zealand also saw very few COVID-related deaths.

The cornerstone of a pandemic response for every country must be to find, test, isolate, and care for every case, and to trace and quarantine every contact… That is every country's best defense against COVID-19 and it is how New Zealand succeeded in overcoming COVID-19. Stopping the virus also means the country can begin its economic recovery sooner.”
Ardern said the economy would now operate at just 3.8% below normal. "We now have a head start on economic recovery because at level one we become one of the most open, if not the most open, economies in the world."  

Iceland: Vigilant tracing and strict quarantine resulted in Iceland beating the virus.

Iceland never imposed a lockdown. Only a few types of businesses—night clubs and hair salons, for example—were ever ordered closed. Hardly anyone in Reykjavík wears a mask. And yet, by mid-May … the tracing team had almost no one left to track. During the previous week, in all of Iceland, only two new coronavirus cases had been confirmed. The country hadn’t just managed to flatten the curve; it had, it seemed, virtually eliminated it. 

True, both countries are isolated islands with relatively small populations. But more importantly their leaders responded fast and with honesty about the way forward.
Is it significant that both countries are led by women with children?
Prime minister of Iceland: Katrín Jakobsdóttir;
PM of New Zealand: Jacinda Ardern.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch…

Overnight temperature dropped toward freezing early this morning. This overnight trend continues through the next several days.
The early freeze of late May (Day 66?) damaged succulents leaves and flower buds. With time on my hands, last night I covered beds of succulents with sheets of plastic.
After struggling to pull on my stiff-with-cold gum boots early this morning, I removed the plastic. Succulents appear frost-burn-free. (None thanked me for my service – perhaps, like my gum boots, too cold.)
Yes, I know it is ridiculous to protect outdoor indigenous plants from frost. But I’ve the time and the inclination so why not? Tonight, I’ll cover them again. (Perhaps they’ll figure out how to express their thanks?)

***

Remember toilet paper mania (TPM), way back at the beginning of the pandemic? Stores ran out of toilet paper with the result a modern-day tulip mania (looking at you, Australia).
Naturally, entrepreneurs capitalized on TPM: Japanese company PooPaint presents toilet paper for people with time on their hands. (I’ll pass – at least for now. I recommend PooPaint conduct a no-holds-barred marketing campaign in Australia.)
Manias come and go, and capitalism will never end.

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Embers, ashes, and flames

More than 2 million confirmed cases of Covid-19 infections in the United States and as many as 1,000 deaths per day – and the implicit message emanating from the White House? “Move along, nothing to see here.”
I was not unhappy to no longer see and hear The Donald spouting gobbledygook at press briefings. But to halt coronavirus task force briefings? To end the coronavirus task force?
It’s madness.

News blues…

Ramaphosa has largely disappeared from view. South Africans are left to their own devices as:

…squabbling erupts over the constitutionality of the National Coronavirus Command Council (NCCC)…[that] it appears to usurp the powers of structures set up under the Disaster Management Act in determining government’s response to national disasters…[and that it operates] without parliamentary oversight.
…Ramaphosa said that the NCCC was not established in terms of the Disaster Management Act but instead forms part of Cabinet in an advisory capacity.
“The National Coronavirus Command Council – originally known as the NCC – was established as a committee of Cabinet by the Cabinet in its meeting of 15 March 2020.” He further expanded on the role of the NCCC in decision-making and how it helps formulate lockdown regulations.
“The NCCC coordinates government’s response to the coronavirus pandemic. The NCCC makes recommendations to Cabinet on measures required in terms of the national state of disaster. Cabinet makes the final decisions.”
In a separate response Ramaphosa added that all cabinet members currently sit on the NCCC – although this was not originally the case when the lockdown first started.

A dose of confusion, anyone?

In the US, top officials like infectious disease expert Anthony Fauci have also largely disappeared from national television.

…Fauci [and other experts made] just four cable TV appearances in May after being a near fixture on Sunday shows across March and April — and are frequently restricted from testifying before Congress. Meanwhile, President Donald Trump is preparing to resume his campaign rallies after a three-month hiatus, an attempted signal to voters that normalcy is returning ahead of November’s election, and that he’s all but put the pandemic behind him.
“We’ve made every decision correctly,” Trump claimed in remarks in the Rose Garden Friday morning. “We may have some embers or some ashes or we may have some flames coming, but we’ll put them out. We’ll stomp them out.”

We’ll see….
Confusion keeps apace with rising cases of infection and leaders, north and south, appear incapable of leading.

***

I wish it were not inevitable but…

“Covid waste” – dozens of gloves, masks and bottles of hand sanitiser [noted] beneath the waves of the Mediterranean, mixed in with the usual litter of disposable cups and aluminium cans.

The quantities of masks and gloves found were far from enormous…[but]… the discovery hinted at a new kind of pollution, one set to become ubiquitous after millions around the world turned to single-use plastics to combat the coronavirus. “It’s the promise of pollution to come if nothing is done…” 

As much as 13 million tonnes of plastic goes into oceans each year…. The Mediterranean sees 570,000 tonnes of plastic flow into it annually – an amount … equal to dumping 33,800 plastic bottles every minute into the sea.

These figures risk growing substantially as countries around the world confront the coronavirus pandemic. Masks often contain plastics such as polypropylene …“With a lifespan of 450 years, these masks are an ecological timebomb given their lasting environmental consequences for our planet.”

Meanwhile, back at the ranch…

The plumber called in to replace a bathroom fixture mentioned he had a plumbing job in Durban.
“Durban! How lovely,” I breathed. “Sounds so … exotic! Like a visit to the moon!”
“Lockdown has that effect on people,” he said, “but for those of us working, it’s a hassle. Police roadblocks shut down the N3 [national highway] and it takes forever to pass through. The cops climb into my bakkie [work truck] and paw through my toolboxes.”
“Why do they do that?” I asked.
“Looking for [bootleg] alcohol and cigarettes.”

The cigarette ban makes no sense. Illegal trade in cigarettes flourishes within South Africa and without. The Limpopo /Zimbabwe border is riddled with illegal cigarette trade.  (2:12 mins)
I’m not a smoker but under the circumstances – hungry, financially strapped South Africans and Zimbabweans – of course do what they need to do to survive.
The biggest loser? South African Revenue Services – SARS – loses a vast generator of tax with the ban and makes not a penny of illegal cigarette sales.
With Lockdown/stay-at-home fraying around the edges all over the world, continuing the ban on cigarettes makes no sense.

***

I’m researching recipes for a workable cement-type material to sculpt. Even as I conduct research, my hands long for the feel of clay. I’ve worked with concrete in the past – not for sculpture but for repairing and patching. In comparison to clay, it lacks that … je ne sais quoi….

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Wild ride

The pandemic has reinforced humans’ need to neutralize the horror of the unknown by predicting the future.
Predictability makes the world go round. We save money for a “rainy day,” plan events, have babies – because we believe in tomorrow.
The unpredictable frightens.
But popular yammering on and on about coronavirus, what it will do, how it will do it – or not – is detrimental to mental health.
Not needing to know, not managing anxiety by making predictions, presents an opportunity to develop a mentally healthy relationship with not knowing. The challenge is training oneself to “hold”, mentally and emotionally, the unpredictable without denying its power.
Think of it as a form of meditation: clearing the “monkey mind” and simply… being, holding the moment’s challenges rather than having to “do something.”
Having said that, let’s hear what the “experts” predict.

News blues…

Experts warn that it is only a matter of time before the rest of South Africa reaches the surge in Covid-19 coronavirus cases currently being experienced in the Western Cape.
Epidemiologists, as well as experts in infectious diseases and vaccinology, spoke to City Press this week . All agreed that a change in social behaviour was the only way to halt the increasing speed at which the virus was spreading.
Just this week, South Africa recorded the highest increase in new cases, with a jump of 3,267 new infections identified from the previous day. Friday also saw a large increase of 2,642 new cases from the previous day.
Numbers of confirmed cases went up another 2,112 overnight, with today’s total close to 53,000.

***

We don’t really know when the novel coronavirus first began infecting people. But … it is fair to say that Sars-Cov-2 has been with us now for a full six months.

What we know
At least 100 scientific teams around the world are racing to develop a vaccine.
That’s about it for the good news.
The virus has shown no sign of going away: We will be in this pandemic era for the long haul, likely a year or more. The masks, the social distancing, the fretful hand-washing, the aching withdrawal from friends and family — those steps are still the best hope of staying well, and will be for some time to come.
“This virus just may become another endemic virus in our communities, and this virus may never go away,” Dr. Mike Ryan, the executive director of the World Health Organization’s health emergencies program, warned last month. Some scientists think that the longer we live with the virus, the milder its effects will become, but that remains to be seen.
Predictions that millions of doses of a vaccine may be available by the end of this year may be too rosy. No vaccine has ever been created that fast.
The disease would be less frightening if there were a treatment that could cure it or, at least, prevent severe illness. But there is not.
Remdesivir, the eagerly awaited antiviral drug? “Modest” benefit is the highest mark experts give it.
Which brings us back to masks and social distancing, which have come to feel quite antisocial. If only we could go back to life the way it used to be.
We cannot. Not yet. There are just enough wild cards with this disease — perfectly healthy adults and children who inexplicably become very, very sick — that no one can afford to be cavalier about catching it. About 35 percent of infected people have no symptoms at all, so if they are out and about, they could unknowingly infect other people.
Enormous questions loom. Can workplaces be made safe? What about trains, subways, airplanes, school buses? How many people can work from home? When would it be safe to reopen schools? How do you get a 6-year-old with the attention span of a squirrel to socially distance?
The bottom line: Wear a mask, keep your distance. When the time comes in the fall, get a flu shot, to protect yourself from one respiratory disease you can avoid and to help keep emergency rooms and urgent care from being overwhelmed. Hope for a treatment, a cure, a vaccine. Be patient. We have to pace ourselves. If there’s such a thing as a disease marathon, this is it. 

***

Tasteless and tone-deaf: What is it with white guys wearing black face?
For readers not familiar with the term, blackface describes a form of theatrical make-up used predominantly by non-black performers to represent a caricature of a black person.
I was tempted to write, above, “old, white guys” assuming such antics happened way back when, in the dim days of the colleges they attended as teenagers.
Alas, the young and apparently hip do it, too. Canada’s Liberal Justin Tradeau, for example, admits “he can't recall how many times he wore blackface makeup.”

Click to enlarge

Perhaps Liberty University President Jerry Falwell Jr. wore blackface as a college student. If so, he has not learned a thing since then.
Indeed, just the opposite.
Running one of the largest Evangelical Christian colleges in the world, junior Falwell recently went steps beyond tasteless.

Falwell, an enthusiastic supporter of President Donald Trump who opposes wearing masks, posted an image [in May] of a facial covering he said he would wear. It featured a picture of a person in blackface and another in a KKK hood.
Along with apologizing on Monday, Falwell deleted the May tweet. However, it was preserved in screenshots.
Nearly three dozen Black pastors, ministry leaders and former athletes ― including several former NFL players ― who graduated from Liberty sent Falwell a petition that was co-signed by thousands more on Change.org.
It read in part:
The KKK robe and hood and blackface face mask tweet may seem funny to you, but this tweet is the action of a political commentator or activist and is not fitting nor acceptable for the leader of one of the largest Evangelical Christian schools in the world. A review of your social media and statements during your presidency would lead many to believe that you care much more about politics than Jesus Christ, Evangelism, and the discipleship of students.

Hear, hear!

Meanwhile, back at the ranch…

Another repat flight announced, another repat flight not taken.

Health Alert: Announcing June 14 Repatriation Flight on South African Airways – U.S. Embassy Pretoria, South Africa (June 8, 2020)
Location: South Africa
Event:  The South African Ministry of Health has confirmed 48,285 cases of COVID-19 within its borders.

[Editorial: adding increasing numbers of cases feels like a warning: “now is your moment to do-like-a rat and abandon ship”]

Announcing June 14 South African Airways Flight
We have been notified of a special commercial repatriation flight to the United States operated by South African Airways on Sunday, June 14.
Flight information:

• The flight will depart from Johannesburg and then Cape Town on Sunday, June 14 before proceeding to Washington Dulles International Airport.
• Passengers will be responsible for onward travel to their final destination in the United States.
• This flight is open to U.S. citizens, Lawful Permanent Residents, and visa holders who have received DHA approval to depart South Africa.
• Passengers will be responsible for finding transportation to the required assembly point, which will be communicated prior to the flight departure.
• For any questions regarding cost, baggage allowance, or other flight details, please contact SAA directly.

To confirm your participation in the June 14 South African Airways special repatriation flight, you MUST express your interest by completing this form by 11:59pm on Wednesday, June 10. Note that completing the form does not guarantee you a seat. Please complete the form even if you have filled out a previous form with the U.S. Mission to South Africa – this will confirm your interest in this specific flight only and does not track interest in future flights. SAA will sell tickets directly to passengers who have completed the above form.
… If you would like to depart South Africa, we highly recommend you avail yourself of any available opportunity, even if it is not your desired flight route.  We cannot guarantee frequency of special repatriation, nor can we guarantee that previously scheduled commercial flights will depart as planned.  We do not have further information about when regular international commercial flights will resume.

Despite the ominouos sound of that last line: "We do not have further information about when regular international commercial flights will resume" (will I get out of this country alive?), I’ve pretty much given up the notion of a repat flight to California, my family and friends, and my houseboat.
I can’t justify departing during a pandemic and leaving my 87-year-old bed-ridden mother, seven dogs – three elderly and incontinent – two live-in domestic workers, one-to-two-day /week gardener.
Crazy, I know. I should simply vamoose…
Yet….

Instead, I will take my own advice and train myself to “hold”, mentally and emotionally, the unpredictable nature of this moment without denying its power.
Gardening, Weed Walking, walking the neighborhood, writing a blog entry every day, isn’t enough.
In real life – California - I’m a ceramic sculptor. Here, I’ve neither clay nor studio.
I can either look around for a ceramic studio to join (not holding my breath on finding one) or test cement-powder-based recipes (plenty of cement-powder here) and create a sculpting medium.
Goals are good.

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See photos  Spying on Garden Creatures 

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Teetering…

Pandemic numbers hit another milestone: globally, more than 7 million confirmed infections and nearing half a million deaths.
The US teeters on the brink of 2 million confirmed infections and more than 110 thousand deaths.
South Africa’s numbers continue an ominous rise: now more than 50 thousand infections (increasing by more than 2,500 eahc day for the last several days) and 1,080 deaths.
Brazil ranks second in the world – behind the US - with infections and first with recording new deaths, more than any other nation. Its health ministry found the best route to keeping numbers down: hide them or fudge them.

***

Mind boggling. In 2015, then-FBI Director James Comey told the House Judiciary Committee,

"People have data about who went to a movie last weekend ... [but] I cannot tell you how many people were shot by police in the United States last month, last year, or anything about the demographics. … We can't have an informed discussion, because we don't have data… And that's a very bad place to be."

Indeed.
The data we do have points to a grotesque truth: “American police shoot, kill and imprison more people than other developed countries.”
Clearly, something must change.
My first take on the increasingly popular notion in the US of defunding police departments was, “oh, yeah, right. Like that’s going to happen.”
I’m still skeptical. Not because it’s impossible but because of pushback by folks like, well, Joe Biden. Downplaying America’s law and order mentality and defanging police would be akin to ridding American of guns: many powerful reasons to do so but American gun ideology and culture is too entrenched in gun worship.
History is a great place to begin understanding how We the People got to this terrible place with aggressive police and ‘law and order’ culture.

Isaac Bryan, the director of UCLA's Black Policy Center, points to history: Law enforcement in the South began as slave patrol, a team of vigilantes hired to recapture escaped slaves. Then, when slavery was abolished, police enforced Jim Crow laws - even [for] the most minor infractions.
And today, police disproportionately use force against black people, and black people are more likely to be arrested and sentenced.
Bryan said, "That history is engrained in our law enforcement". (Read about origins of police in US. )
Defunding the police means reallocating those funds to support people and services in marginalized communities. It "means that we are reducing the ability for law enforcement to have resources that harm our communities," said Patrisse Cullors, co-founder of the Black Lives Matter movement…. "It's about reinvesting those dollars into black communities, communities that have been deeply divested from."
Those dollars can be put back into social services for mental health, domestic violence and homelessness, among others. Police are often the first responders to all three… Those dollars can be used to fund schools, hospitals, housing and food in those communities, too - "all of the things we know increase safety."
…
It's radical for an American city to operate without law enforcement, but the plan is already in motion in Minneapolis..[after] nine members of the Minneapolis city council announced they intend to disband the city's police force entirely.
"We committed to dismantling policing as we know it in the city of Minneapolis and to rebuild with our community a new model of public safety that actually keeps our community safe," Council President Lisa Bender told CNN.
…the council still needs to discuss what to replace police with, but that the city would funnel money from police into "community-based strategies." She noted, too, that most 911 calls are for mental health services, health and EMT and fire services.
…"A week ago, defunding the police in any capacity would sound like 'pie in the sky,'… Now we're talking about it. Defunding police in its entirety still might sound like 'pie in the sky,' but next week might be different."

Viva la different!

Meanwhile, back at the ranch…

Second day of walking around the neighborhood – alone. Today I forgot my mask at home. Ditto my identity document. Carrying both was mandatory during Level 4. Now? I’m not sure. That added anxiety to the pleasure of being out, winter sun warming my face as I noticed recent changes in the ‘hood.
Walking alone can be risky. Muggings are common. (A year ago, a friend’s husband – 80 years old - was mugged, robbed, and physically abused by two young men.)
Lockdown fever, however, demands I choose: risk? Or insanity?
Risk wins.

***

The gardener returned to work. Until I’ve a better sense of where things are heading vis-a-vis Covid-19 in this area, he’ll work one, perhaps two, days a week.
He mowed the outlying section of lawn and bush-cut overgrown grass along the stream. We bagged the clippings – 9 large sacks full – for our neighbor. His brother, a farmer, feeds grass clippings to his calves.
I’ve almost eradicated invasive canna plants from the inside garden.
The cleared area is like a canvas waiting for an artist to apply paint. Or, as a ceramic sculptor I'd say, like a bag of raw clay ready for wedging. (A ceramicist wedging raw clay looks a bit like a baker kneading bread dough. Kneading bread dough introduces air pockets for a lighter loaf. Wedging clay removes air pockets and creates a pliable, uniform consistency in clay.)

Read   Week 1 |   Week 2   |  Week 3  |  Week 4 |  Week 5  | Week 6  |  Week 7  |  Week 8  |  Week 9  |  Week 10   |   Week 11  |  

See photos  Spying on Garden Creatures 

Watch  Videos of Garden Creatures