Considerations…

Week 18 of Lockdown begins…. How much longer will this go on?
Predictions are not my forte, but circumstances are such that I predict I’ll still be posting daily blog entries at Week 28.
That is, unless “something” happens to me….

News blues…

During his recent public address, President Ramaphosa announced that all public schools would "take a break" for the next four weeks from 27 July until 24 August. Grade 12 pupils and teachers would only take a week-long break and return on 1 August, and Grade 7 pupils would take a two-week break and return on 10 August. The academic year would be extended beyond 2020 and the details would be communicated in due course….
South Africa-style democracy ensued: tails wagging the dog?
South Africa’s Basic Education Minister Angie Motshekga welcomes 'school break'… and calls on communities not to vandalise schools

Motshekga said, "Once again we appeal to members of the public to protect schools during the break to prevent theft and damage that was caused when schools were closed to the Covid-19. It remains one of our biggest concerns when schools are targeted. The burglaries and theft of food supplies and other expensive items defeat our efforts to provide mainly for the poor and vulnerable learners who are always the hardest hit."

The Western Cape government was considering its legal options to oppose the closure of schools….
Premier Alan Winde, speaking during a Friday "digicon" on the province's special adjustments budget, said, "The Western Cape … opposed the closing of schools."

"In my own experience, being on the ground specifically in highly vulnerable, high density areas where our hotspots were showing the numbers, I am convinced it's safer at schools than not."
The national school nutrition programme would also continue operating during the break. Winde called this "interesting", saying schools would still "actually stay open" to run these programmes which is "critical, specifically right now… So many months into this pandemic, with the real slowdown in the economy, food security is a massive issue. It links directly with our ability to get food efficiently to hotspot areas where starvation is a big thing among our young people and scholars."

The South African Human Rights Commission (SAHRC) says the decision by the government to close schools is “regrettable and unjustifiable”.

“The decision means that by August 24 2020 over 10 million South African children, depending on the grade they are in, will have lost over 50 percent or 100 scheduled school days as a result of Covid-19 school closures.”

The South African Federation of Trade Unions (Saftu) said it was pleased that Ramaphosa had responded “partially positively” to calls for schools to close.
The union, however, said the announcement lacked logic or an attempt to convince society with scientific statements.

“The president does not cite the work of epidemiologists who understand when we are reaching the peak of the pandemic, and what that means for decisions to close public schools and not private schools. The president acknowledges that there are differences of opinions without taking the country into his confidence.” 

The Educators Union of SA (Eusa) said while it welcomed the decision to close schools, it said the plan on how schools would reopen lacked “scientific reasoning”.

“We maintain our call that all schools should close until it is safe to reopen. It is sad that we come to this victory [closure of schools] when teachers and learners have already died from the virus and thousands have got infected while at work,” the union said.
The union said the issue of private schools not closing exposed inequalities within the education system.

The Governing Body Foundation noted the announcement with “reservation”.

“We appreciate that the minister consulted widely with stakeholders … to assist her in preparing a report for the president and cabinet.”
“Pressure has been exerted by the teacher unions, supported by some civil society groupings, to close schools for the reasons they advanced, and they have prevailed.
“However, the Governing Body Foundation, along with other stakeholders such as the South African Council for Human Rights, education and economic researchers, and medical and scientific organisations, believed that children in South Africa would be better served if schools remained open, provided they could do so safely.”

Gauteng education department head Edward Mosuwe said at the Gauteng Provincial Command Council briefing "… while we take a break we are going to provide nutrition for learners who qualify for school nutrition programme. … since the re-phasing in of grades we started with 183 000 of the 600 000 that were qualifying for nutrition".
However, on average, the programme covers 1.1 million pupils daily.
The programme has been extended to cover all pupils not back at school yet, in line with a court order. "Learners who are not back yet at school have been asked to bring their own containers from home, own face mask and wear their school uniform to be easily recognisable".

In the US, the resurgence of infections and the faltering economy has ignited debate about how to proceed with the new school year. Republicans favor opening schools so that parents can return to work, stimulate the economy, and benefit Trump’s dwindling re-election prospects. As in all things Trump, chaos reigns:

New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham announced Thursday that the state will delay in-person learning through at least Labor Day as cases break records in the state.

Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee said his state will introduce a plan to reopen schools Tuesday. "Our kids need to be in school because kids not only academically are suffering, emotionally, mental health. ... working families need for their children to be in school so they can continue to work. There's a lot of reasons why schools can be and should be open. So long as we do that in a way that protects teachers and protects students at the same time we believe we can do," Lee said.

New guidance from the CDC is strongly in favor of sending students back to the classroom, saying that available evidence shows that coronavirus does not possess as great a risk to children. With the services and instruction offered in school, the CDC guidance said virtual learning can be a disadvantage to American students. "It can lead to severe learning loss, and the need for in-person instruction is particularly important for students with heightened behavioral needs," the CDC statement said.

***

The Lincoln Project: Maxwell  (0:55 mins)
Brief levity: rap-style song, Cognitively there (1:44

Meanwhile, back at the ranch…

Warmed by the winter sun, I find sitting in the garden and watching monkeys cavort allows moments of peace and serenity amid turmoil.
I’m experiencing increasing physical stress – aching jaw from clenching while asleep, tension aches in my neck, shoulders, and back muscles – brought on by security concerns: compromises with my own physical safety and breeches of security from internal actors that my mother refuses to acknowledge.
Staying busy is essential.
The comfort of ritual.
This being my first winter in the Midlands – 3,400 ft elevation – I’ve no experience with precipitous temperature drops overnight.
Since many plants, including indigenous, succumbed to the unexpectedly severe frost in June, I’ve protected young succulents by covering them every evening – and uncovering them every morning.
A handful of small succulents – and all vegetable seedlings - thrive on this treatment.
Larger plants must fend for themselves.
Indigenous plants tells a story.
Consider the aloe, how it freezes.

Aloe  garden - May 2020 - large aloe to the right
Click to enlarge 

Early July after overnight freezing
Click to enlarge

July 22, 2020
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“Cognitively there!”

(c) The Late Show
Click to enlarge. 

Five words that prove the president of the United States is “cognitively there”: person, woman, man, camera, TV.  (2:40 mins)

News blues...

President of South Africa, Cyril Ramaphosa, addressed the nation, shared facts and figures regarding economic costs of the pandemic on the country, and promised to tighten the consequences of corruption.

US Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez brilliantly addresses foul comments directed at her by Rep. Ted Yoho on the steps of the US Congress.
In 9:35 succinct minutes Ocasio-Cortez clearly speaks on behalf of all women who’ve been accosted by powerful men with attitudes of impunity.
Yoho ain’t gonna easily squirm out of this! 

News anchor/presenter Ari Melber on the history of Trump promotion of Law and Order as a political strategy – and echoes Richard Nixon’s strategy. (10:00 mins)

***

Coronavirus is decimating safari tourism – an industry worth almost $30 billion a year and employs almost four million people. This is also leading to an increase in poaching.

Experts and rangers on the ground say they are seeing a surge in poaching as thousands of unemployed people dependent on the industry turn to wild animals for food. They also fear an upsurge in more organised poaching of endangered species.

Overall, South Africa’s tourism sector may have already lost an estimated R54.2 billion in output in just three months as Covid-19 travel and leisure restrictions batter the industry.

Furthermore… the sector now faces a potential 75 percent revenue reduction in 2020, putting a further R149.7 billion in output, 438 000 jobs and R80.2 billion in foreign receipts at risk.

***

Going bats?
A global research consortium, including the Max Planck Institute, stated:

For the first time, the raw genetic material that codes for bats’ unique adaptations and superpowers such as the ability to fly, to use sound to move effortlessly in complete darkness, to survive and tolerate deadly diseases, to resist ageing and cancer has been fully revealed, and published.”
Read “Groundbreaking study adds insights into why bats are flying laboratories that advance medical understanding.” 

***

Let’s hear it for science, public health, and vaccines!

For most of human history billions of children died from infectious diseases. Recurring epidemics of influenza, measles, cholera, diphtheria, the bubonic plague, and smallpox killed large parts of the adult population, too. The Black Death killed half of Europe’s population in just a few years. Today, infectious diseases are the cause of fewer than 1-in-6 deaths.

Read “Our history is a battle against the microbes: we lost terribly before science, public health, and vaccines allowed us to protect ourselves.” 

***

Remember those five words that prove you're "cognitively there"?
Sarah Cooper: How to person woman man camera tv… (1:25 mins)

Meanwhile, back at the ranch…

Click to enlarge.

Dump fire!
Pietermaritzburg firefighters battled to contain the inferno at the New England Road landfill site as arsonists kept lighting new fires around the dump. …

Speaking on condition of anonymity, a fireman said their solution of dumping sand on the fire and then water was set aside by city officials who visited the site on Tuesday.
“We are the experts when it comes to fire-fighting. We had a quick solution of dumping the heaps of sand, already at the site, over the fire and then dousing it with water, but we were told they [city officials] would make decisions about how the fire would be put out because they are in charge and we must just do what they say,” said the disgruntled fireman.
The initial fire, they said, would have been contained within a few hours had their advice been taken. “Now it’s going to take us at least a week or more to put out. Putting it out with water is going to do nothing.
“We honestly feel that this landfill site and the fires are part of something bigger. Unfortunately we are the pawns in this game as we have to risk our lives going out there all the time,” said the fireman.
Another fireman said being at the site was like “being in hell”. 

A petition is circulation force the closure of the Msunduzi Municipality New England Road landfill site.

***

The power struggle at this house is about worsen.
I worked with the security team to thwart my mother’s domestic worker’s refusal to disclose the whereabouts of her son. (Background) The security team picked him up soon after his mother handed him his latest allotment of her cash.
He was served with the court order, officially explained how he can defend himself, and alerted about implications of further harassment. He signed the document.
However, both domestic workers have side-stepped complyig with filling out this household’s coronavirus tracing document. Everyone here, including me, agreed to document 1) all trips off the property and 2) all contacts with whom we interacted while in public.
So far, neither worker has recorded outside contacts.
I'll formally ask them - again - to comply.
The pressure ratchets up if neither mentions contact with the son.
My 87-year-old mother is my priority. Her fragile health will not withstand a Covid-19 infection.

Be careful out there!

July 22 – 15,240,000 worldwide confirmed infections; 623,660 deaths
     July 16 – 13,558,000 worldwide: confirmed infections; 585,000 deaths
July 22 - US: 3,971,000 confirmed infections; 143,200 deaths
     July 16 - US: 3,500.000 confirmed infections; 138,000 deaths
July 22 - SA: 395,000 confirmed infections; 5,940 deaths
     July 16 - SA: 311,050 confirmed infections; 4,460 deaths

Numbers from April 9, 2020.
Click to enlarge.

Numbers in pictures: April 9 compared to July 22
South African news reports 572 new COVID-19 related deaths in the last 24 hours, 400 of which occurred in the Eastern Cape.

The bad news: the number of confirmed cases jumped by more than 13,000.
The better news: the recovery rate has improved 58 percent. This means almost 230,000 people have already recovered.

Numbers from July 22, 2020.
Click to enlarge.

Tracking coronavirus global spread 

California hit a single-day record for new COVID cases. San Francisco Bay Area counties are doing better than the rest of the state, especially compared to Southern California counties.

***

Now for a break from "the horror, the horror": 
The Lincoln Project: Failure  (2:13 mins)
A summary of Trump’s response to coronavirus over the past five months.
Trump sums it up: “That’s the way it is”.
Randy Rainbow is pro-Anthony Fauci (so am I!): GEE, ANTHONY FAUCI! - A Randy Rainbow Song Parody (3:53 mins)

Meanwhile, back at the ranch…

© Photo: JOSH EDELSON/
AFP Via Getty Images
Click to enlarge.

Fire season!
A recent post described fire season in KZN and in California.
Today, the Hog Fire announces California fire season is roaring back.

A massive pyrocumulonimbus cloud, or fire cloud, formed over the Hog Fire in far northeastern California Monday, generating its own weather with a wild mix of thunderstorms, rain, and fire whirls….
Thunderstorms passing over the Sierra Nevada and Cascade Range kicked up high winds that fanned flames in the late afternoon and spread the blaze in remote Lassen County. The intense heat in the vigorous updraft created a foreboding weather cloud of smoke and ash, reaching 30,000 to 35,000 feet (10,000 to 12,000 meters) in height.

***

Since police in this area are, well, hopeless, this post is in the spirit of spreading the word so that, in the horrible event that I’m attacked by my mother’s domestic worker’s drunk-of-a-ne’er-do-well son security personnel know where to look for a culprit. (Background)
And aother wrinkle in an ongoing saga.
The upper security gate has been used in the past by the domestic worker to allow her son onto the property after the alarm was armed for the night.
I’d discovered this two years ago after returning to SA for a visit.
I heard a buzz from the alarm panel located in my bedroom. At first, jet lagged, I paid little attention. After several nights hearing the same sound, I investigated.
I checked the security cam replay and found footage of the domestic worker responding to her son’s after-hours call through the intercom. In the footage, the domestic worker, dressed for bed, appears on the monitor, unlocks the padlock, opens the gate with the remote-control opener, ushers him inside, then re-arms the alarm and re-locks the padlock on the gate.

I showed my mother the footage.
Her first reaction was to flinch … then she shrugged.
The message she conveyed? So, what’s your point?
Six months before I’d arrived for that visit, my mother had caved when her domestic worker begged permission for her son had to live on the property. Despite his conviction and 5-year prison sentence served for rape, his lack of employment, his history of alcohol abuse, my mother had allowed the 40-year-old to move into his mother’s living space.

Back then, I copied the footage from the security cam and saved it on my laptop. I also changed the security on the gate so that the domestic worker could no longer open it.
Since she lies to my face, I said nothing directly to her: sometimes actions speak louder than words.

Fast forward to yesterday, July 22 – approximately two-and-a-half weeks after the incident wherein the ne’er do well – evicted – son threatened to kill, rape, etc., me.
While the domestic worker uses a leaf blower to clean my mother’s front verandah, I’ve never seen her use it to clean the area between the garage’s folding door and the upper security gate.
Suspicious, I checked the padlock on the upper security gate.
It was unlocked.
The key to that padlock is one on a set everyone in the household uses.
I removed the key from the set, switched padlocks, and held both keys to the new padlock.
Today, I reviewed yesterday’s security cam footage.
At 11:37 am, the domestic worker leaf blows in the vicinity of the gate and padlock – quickly unlocks the padlock, then finishes leaf blowing.
A copy of that footage now resides on a thumb drive and on my laptop.
Creepy.

My mother – a receptacle for denial of reality for much of her 87 years – refuses to believe the evidence of her own eyes.
Me? I don’t feel heard – or safe.

Oh, no!

Internet connection down for 24 hours. Again.
The toughest part of disconnection from that lifeline?
Ironically, lack of human connection.
One can catch up on the news – much of which focuses on coronavirus infection rates. But disconnected Internet makes me feel cut off from other humans.
Dr. Steven Gundry addresses this feeling in his video unfortunately titled
“TRUTH ABOUT CORONAVIRUS  (10:00 mins).”
Why unfortunately titled?
With truth under fire, and “truthiness” ascendant, the title sounds suspiciously like another conspiracy theory.
It’s not.
Dr. Gundry’s brief overview of coronavirus ends on a thought-provoking question: what will be the long-term effects of social distancing on highly social humans?

News blues…

The Donald’s plummeting poll numbers convinced him to resume press briefings. This,

… after discontinuing them in April and declaring them a waste of time. Trump is expected to hold the briefings a few times a week, but not on a daily basis like he was earlier this year.
There remains an internal split over whether it's wise for Trump to take the stage and discuss the virus in a high-profile setting like a White House news conference.
Some aides have reminded others how hard they fought to convince Trump to end the briefings in April when he suggested sunlight and ingesting disinfectants could help cure coronavirus.

Trump’s legendary inability to follow a simple script promises a wild ride.
Should We, the People, be scared stiff at the prospect of further Trump ramblings at the podium? Or should we bring out the popcorn and watch the show unfold?
Think I’m exaggerating? Watch this clip.
Are you ready to put your life and the lives of your family and friends in this guy’s hands?

***

After months of mask-denial, Trump is now a fan of masks, has always been a fan of masks, and, as he sees fit, will remove the mask he carries in his pocket and put it on – at least for a photo op! 

***

Prophylactic advice - reprise
According to a new study,  if people washed their hands regularly, wore masks, and kept their social distance from each other, [people] … could stop most all of the Covid-19 pandemic, even without a vaccine or additional treatments.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch…

Blast from the past….
I’ve lived in California since I was a young adult which means I never run into someone I knew as a child or teenager. This lends poignancy, when I’m in South Africa, to running into people I knew in my “salad days”.
This week I heard from two people I’d known from our days as passengers on one of two yellow school buses that transported rural students to high schools in Pietermaritzburg, an hour-long trip of about 20 miles each way.
The “English bus” and the “Afrikaans bus” followed the same route but seldom crossed path. When they did, male passengers gleefully opened windows, gesticulated, jeered, and hurled derogatory names at one another.
It was – mostly – youthful boredom stimulating such behavior although a fraught history between these cultures added a certain je ne sais quoi. Drivers of both buses were, however, Afrikaans and our driver was offended by English boys’ antics.
One fateful day, boys on our bus dropped a stink bomb.
As passengers fought over access to windows, the irate driver cursed loudly – then parked the bus in front of the village police station. He demanded we close all windows, threated police arrest of anyone daring to open a window, then exited the bus.
Arms folded, exaggerating the luxury of breathing fresh air, he guarded the closed door and smirked as he watched us gag.
After the stink dissipated, he boarded the bus and continued the journey.
Decades later, the humorless side of my human nature that craves vengeance admires that bus driver’s quick-thinking.
The side of my nature that craves justice and compassion is appalled at how quickly adults can victimize children.

Uncharted territory

Internet access was down all day. The reason? Who knows? Something to do with Telkom, South Africa’s state-owned telephone company. I’ve had other not-so-confident-inspiring run ins with Telkom, so don’t get me started….

News blues…

South Africa is 5th on the list of countries hit with highest rates of Covid-19 infections.
In terms of numbers of people per 100,000 infected, South Africa is 3rd ,with 661/100,000.
US tops the list with 1,881 people/100,000
2nd is Brazil with 1,011/100,000
4th is India with 85/100,000
5th is Russia with 541/100,000
It’s bad out there.
We’re in uncharted territory: a novel (never encountered) coronavirus, mind-bogglingly bad – verging on criminal – leadership, foundering health services, failing economies, and increasing suffering among humans.
But as the old adage states, "the show must go on."

***

New rules around quarantine and self-isolation in South Africa
South African’s health minister Dr Zweli Mkhize has revised the recommended isolation and quarantine period for South Africans who have tested positive for Covid-19.

***

US’s director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, Dr. Anthony Fauci, said New York has set an example for the rest of the country of how to successfully bring down cases of coronavirus.

[The US has] a problem. We need to admit it and own it. But we have got to do the things that are very clear that we need to do to turn this around, remembering we can do it… We know that, when [done] properly, you bring down those cases….We have done it in New York. New York got hit worse than any place in the world. And they did it correctly…."
As cases in other parts of the country continue to surge and hit new record highs, Fauci believes that the key to containing the virus is to get the tests in the right place at the right time…. [and] “in the right manner… get them to the right people who can do the proper identification, isolation and contact tracing, and even go beyond that - to be able to test more widely in a more surveillance way, so you can get a feel for the extent and the penetrance of this community spread."
Fauci said all he can do is plead with people to be consistent and take the advice of health professionals.

***

In a breakthrough that could help experts better treat COVID-19 patients, a group of scientists have realised the existence of six distinct types of coronavirus, all with their own symptoms.
A new study done by researchers from King’s College London, collated via a COVID Symptom Study app has revealed that different forms of the virus are directly affecting the severity of symptoms among patients.
These findings have huge implications for the management and treatment of COVID-19, as it could help doctors predict who is most at risk and likely to need professional care.…
The team managed to break the six forms down as follows:
1. (‘flu-like’ with no fever): Headache, loss of smell, muscle pains, cough, sore throat, chest pain, no fever.
2. (‘flu-like’ with fever): Headache, loss of smell, cough, sore throat, hoarseness, fever, loss of appetite.
3. (gastrointestinal): Headache, loss of smell, loss of appetite, diarrhea, sore throat, chest pain, no cough.
4. (severe level one, fatigue): Headache, loss of smell, cough, fever, hoarseness, chest pain, fatigue.
5. (severe level two, confusion): Headache, loss of smell, loss of appetite, cough, fever, hoarseness, sore throat, chest pain, fatigue, confusion, muscle pain.
6. (severe level three, abdominal and respiratory): Headache, loss of smell, loss of appetite, cough, fever, hoarseness, sore throat, chest pain, fatigue, confusion, muscle pain, shortness of breath, diarrhea, abdominal pain.
… The pre-print, non-peer reviewed paper is available online: Carole H Sudre et al. Symptom clusters in Covid19: A potential clinical prediction tool from the COVID Symptom study app (2020)

***

Talking about shows going on….

• MAR-A-LAGO-VILLE | The Freedom Toast with Parody Project (4:30 mins) 
• DUMB DOWN | The Freedom Toast with Parody Project (2:54 mins) 
• Did you ever imagine the President could act like this? (:53 mins)

The Lincoln Project:

• Trumpfeld  (1:25 mins)
• This is how it starts (1:24 mins) 
• Trump can’t quit us (0:26 mins)
• Wake up  (1:29 mins)

Meanwhile, back at the ranch…

Early this morning, 2:45am SA time, a friend from California called to report an uncontained fire across the road from the marina where I dock my houseboat.
Evacuations from the marina had been ordered.
He emailed me a link to view live news coverage and, with 14,000 miles between us, we watched and commented on the action from the point-of-view of a news helicopter.

Good news for liveaboards and firefighters? Abundant water, courtesy of the San Joaquin River.
Fire consumed more than 75 acres of summer-dry vegetation and trees before it was contained. True, that’s relatively minor in terms of California wild fires and, even from a distance, I could see the marina was out of direct danger.
Nevertheless, small fires can devastate lives and livelihood as easily as conflagrations.

During California’s fire season last year, I and fellow liveaboards received a fire evacuation order issued after midnight via cell phone. Five of us congregated on the pier to discuss the pros and cons of evacuation. We agreed that, since the only road in the area routed through the fire zone, staying aboard was the right option.
An hour later, the evacuation order was lifted.

As California moves into late summer fire season and firefighting crews are on high alert, South Africa’s winter fire season is in full swing, too.
Over the last several days, a white smokey hazy accompanied by the aroma of burning grass and brush has enveloped this area.

The differences in attitude about fire between California and South Africa?
Some say that winter burning is traditional, that burning dry brush lowers the danger of extreme fire hazard – as occur in California – that it stimulates plant growth, and that life cycles of African indigenous plants require a fire phase.
To burn or not to burn? 

Some ecologists …maintain that burning is critical in herbivore management and is necessary for the ecological well-being of grassland and savannah ecosystems. [Others] counter this approach saying that burning is a key contributor to the decline and desertification of grasslands… that while fire can play a useful role in land management, it should be cautiously used with an understanding of soil and plant life … [and that] fire is used excessively by too many farmers; an approach that contributes to soil erosion.

South Africa's Air Quality Act of 2004, for the prevention of pollution and for national norms and standards for the regulation of air quality, appears to refer mainly to emissions from the country’s energy intensive economy and coal-intensive energy system. While South Africa’s emissions profile is high and differs substantially from that of other developing countries at a similar stage of development (as measured by the Human Development Index) air pollution from grass fires is, apparently, acceptable.

The matter with white matter

“Pathological liars have on average more white matter in … the area of the brain that is active during lying, and less grey matter than people who are not serial fibbers.”
                                           - Adrian Raine, psychologist

News blues…

Lies and white matter?

The brains of pathological liars have structural abnormalities that could make fibbing come naturally.
“Some people have an edge up on others in their ability to tell lies,” says Adrian Raine, a psychologist at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles. “They are better wired for the complex computations involved in sophisticated lies.”
Raine says the combination of extra white matter and less grey matter could be giving people exactly the right mix of traits to make them into good liars. These are the first biological differences to be discovered between pathological liars and the general population.
Other researchers have used brain imaging to show that the prefrontal cortex is more active when ordinary people tell lies. …
But pathological liars are a distinct group who systematically manipulate others, lie or use aliases for financial gain or personal pleasure, such as to get sickness benefits or to skip work. “It’s almost like a livelihood,” says Raine.
Until now no one has looked at the structure of the brains of this particular group, says psychologist Maureen O’Sullivan of the University of San Francisco in California, who specialises in lying and truthfulness.

How fares The Donald’s white matter?

President Trump's lies over time
by topic.  (c) DAVID MARKOWITZ
Click to enlarge

Rates of interpersonal deception — the lies I tell you and you tell me — have been remarkably stable in deception research over time. But…something is unusual about President Trump. His rate of deception has increased since taking office.

President Trump's lies over time
by location.  (c) DAVID MARKOWITZ
Click to enlarge

As of early April, Trump has told 23.3 lies per day in 2020, a 0.5-lie increase since 2019. What’s more, Trump has averaged 23.8 lies per day since the first case of COVID-19 was reported in the US — another 0.5-lie increase. Even during a pandemic, when the public needs to trust and rely on him the most, deception remains a core part of the president’s playbook.
What’s unusual about Trump is not just how often he lies, but what he lies about and where he communicates his lies most often.  Read “Trump Is Lying More Than Ever: Just Look At The Data”

***

Interview with Steve Schmidt, “We, the American people, are a worldwide laughing stock…”

***

Stand with your man  - a Parody | The Freedom Toast (2:24 mins)

Meanwhile, back at the ranch…

Pondering the pond produces a wonderful surprise. After many attempts to photograph the perennially shy malachite kingfisher – success!

Staying alive!

One week ago, South Africa was 8th on Johns Hopkins map of global confirmed infections.

Today? It’s 5th.
Gauteng is this country’s hotspot with 128,604 cases - that is 36.7 percent of all cases in SA.
KwaZulu Natal, with 11.3 million people, 19.2 percent of the country’s 60 million, has 40,086 or 11.4 percent all confirmed infections.

News blues…

Feed the kids!

On Friday 17 July judgment was handed down in the North Gauteng High Court ordering the Department of Basic Education (DBE) to provide food to all qualifying learners immediately. “A more undignified scenario than starvation of a child is unimaginable. The morality of a society is gauged by how it treats its children. Interpreting the Bill of Rights promoting human dignity, equality and freedom can never allow for the hunger of a child….” 

BIG news. SA government may be introducing a Basic Income Grant (BIG), according to Social Development Minister Lindiwe Zulu.

… Zulu said historic and emergent factors, in particular the Covid-19 pandemic, had spurred discussions on how the poor will continue accessing support once the R350 Social Relief of Distress (SRD) grant is discontinued.
“Since we already have categorical grants for children, older persons and persons with disabilities, the BIG will be an income support grant for the population aged 18 to 59….”
The SRD grant is being paid out until the end of October, after which the government is considering implementing the Basic Income Grant.
But the BIG discussion is nothing new.
Backed by civil society, policy proposals have been made since 2000 to introduce a targeted or universal basic income for unemployed individuals without financial support. 

Ironically, South Africa, a country pushed to socio-economic limits by the pandemic, at least considers a basic income grant during this time of global devastation.
In a country that could afford to extend unemployment and other benefits to stricken Americans, the US Congress chooses not to do so. Indeed, Congress refuses hazard pay to front line workers, too.

Four months into the coronavirus pandemic, the only curve the U.S. has managed to flatten is wage growth for essential workers.Many front-line employees in grocery stores and other essential businesses received hazard pay increases at the start of the crisis. But most of those temporary pay bumps have since been phased out, which effectively amounts to a pay cut for many workers amid a record-setting surge in COVID-19 cases. And most workers in hospitals and other health care facilities never received any additional pay at all, despite being hailed as “heroes” by politicians.
Meanwhile, Congress has not approved a plan for federally funded hazard pay that would boost wages for nurses, bus drivers, retail clerks and others who were asked to continue working through the pandemic. The lack of a pay bump struck many essential workers as particularly unfair in light of expanded unemployment benefits that paid laid-off workers more than the typical low-wage job.
House Democrats included a hazard pay measure in a stimulus package they passed in May, but it has not been taken up in the GOP-controlled Senate.

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A change of pace with music – “Staying alive!”

• Original version, Bee Gees  (4:03 mins)
• Down memory lane with young John Travolta (5:04 mins)
• Naudo guitar solo version (2:45 mins)
• Bruce Springsteen version (in Brisbane, 2014 – 5:55 mins)

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The Lincoln Project:
Latest ad – Wall  – America now leads the world in Covid deaths. (0:58 mins)
Story hour - where we read excerpts from our favorite book: Mary Trump's Too Much and Never Enough. (The tell-all book sold a staggering 950,000 copies by the end of its first day on sale - a new record for publisher Simon & Schuster.)

• Story hour, Episode 3 Daddy Issues  (1:30 mins)
• Story hour, Episode 2 (1:30 mins)
• Story hour, Episode 1  (1:30 Mins)

Thanks for the advice, Ivanka. The billionaire's daughter is telling unemployed Americans to "find something new."

Meanwhile, back at the ranch…

I intend to:

• Uncover plants after a cold night – and chat with them….
• Walk the neighborhood
• Hang out with my mother
• Sit in the sun next to the pond – and ponder….