Cold War II?

The scramble is on to be first with a Covid-19 vaccine. About whether the vaccine works or not, the unspoken attitude may be: Who cares? What matters is being first.

News blues…

According to a British spy agency monitoring international fiber optic cables, Russia, China, and Iran are especially competitive in targeting “vaccine research networks in the United States, Canada and Britain.”
The New York Times reports, 

Chinese intelligence hackers were intent on stealing coronavirus vaccine data, so they looked for what they believed would be an easy target. Instead of simply going after pharmaceutical companies, they conducted digital reconnaissance on the University of North Carolina and other schools doing cutting-edge research.
In short, every major spy service around the globe is trying to find out what everyone else is up to.
The coronavirus pandemic has prompted one of the fastest peacetime mission shifts in recent times for the world’s intelligence agencies, pitting them against one another in a new grand game of spy versus spy, according to interviews with current and former intelligence officials and others tracking the espionage efforts.
Nearly all of the United States’ adversaries intensified their attempts to steal American research while Washington, in turn, has moved to protect the universities and corporations doing the most advanced work. NATO intelligence, normally concerned with the movement of Russian tanks and terrorist cells, has expanded to scrutinize Kremlin efforts to steal vaccine research as well, according to a Western official briefed on the intelligence.

Last month, the world heard from Russia…

that its vaccine, named "Sputnik V" after the Soviet-era satellite that was the first launched into space in 1957, had already received approval. This raised concerns among Western scientists over a lack of safety data, with some warning that moving too quickly on a vaccine could be dangerous.
Russia denounced criticism as an attempt to undermine Moscow's research.
In a Lancet study, Russian researchers reported on two small trials, each involving 38 healthy adults aged between 18 and 60, who were given a two-part immunisation. … The report said the data showed that the vaccine was "safe, well tolerated, and does not cause serious adverse events in healthy adult volunteers".
The trials were open label and not randomised, meaning there was no placebo and the participants knew they were receiving the vaccine and were not randomly assigned to different treatment groups.

Working Russians – eligible for the test vaccine - appear skeptical.

Yuri Varlamov, a teacher in Moscow and a member of the union, said he doesn't want to take the vaccine because he doesn't believe it is safe right now.
"Before the end of trials, they cannot make it mandatory. But I know that in some schools and state bodies, people are talking about mandatory status of this vaccine by the end of this year."
Marina Balouyeva, co-chairman of the "Uchitel" union, said a petition against compulsory vaccination for teachers was more of a precaution. She is wary of Sputnik-V for several reasons. "Firstly, it is generally known that the quality of domestic vaccines is worse than that of foreign ones."
"Secondly, the vaccine was created at railway speed, which already raises concerns. It was created in haste."
Despite promises from authorities that taking the vaccine will be voluntary, she said she fears things could go differently in reality, as often happens in Russian state institutions.

Moreover, vice presidential candidate Senator Kamala Harris of California, said she would not trust President Trump’s assurances that a coronavirus vaccine was safe, that she’d not take Trump’s

“word for [its safety]. He wants us to inject bleach,” she added, referring to remarks in April when the president incomprehensibly suggested a dangerous coronavirus treatment.
Ms. Harris’s remarks came after federal officials alerted state and major city public health agencies last week to prepare to distribute a vaccine to health care workers and other high-risk groups as soon as late October or early November. Given that no vaccine candidates have completed the kind of large-scale human trials that can prove efficacy and safety, that time frame has heightened concerns that the Trump administration is seeking to rush a vaccine rollout ahead of Election Day on Nov. 3.

So, Russia, China, Iran … and Donald Trump.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch…

Today, I meet with a real estate agent to view a couple of “appropriately sized” future homes for people like me. Practical. Not romantic.

Signs of the times?

Boaters recently took to Lake Travis to trumpet their support of The Donald in the “Trump Boat Parade.”
It didn’t go well. According to Kristen Dark, spokesperson for the Travis County Sheriff’s Office, “multiple vessels began sinking.”

“During the boat parade we received multiple calls from boats that were in distress and several boats did sink.”
The calls came in from “all over the parade route and described situations that included a boat taking on water, a boat capsizing and a boat “stalled and smacking on the rocks. It was all over the place.”
Dark did not know the exact number of boats that participated in the event overall. “There were a lot of boats on our lake,” she said. “And it’s a very, very large lake.”

Hmmm, extraterrestrial commentary? 

News blues…

As Trump ducks and tries to cover from the fallout of his views on military personnel, yet more insight into his worldview:

In a book due to be published next week, [fix-it man and Trump former lawyer, Michael] Cohen alleges that Trump described Mandela as a poor leader, according to the Washington Post which reported it obtained a copy of the book.
According to the newspaper, Cohen wrote that following Mandela's death in 2013, Trump said: "Mandela f---ed the whole country up. Now it's a s---hole. F--- Mandela. He was no leader."
Cohen also alleged that Trump said: "Tell me one country run by a black person that isn't a s---hole. They are all complete f---ing toilets." 

*** 

Ischgl ski resort, in Austria’s Paznaun valley is one of Europe’s most popular vacation spots. Facilities are well-run, with 45 convenient state-of-the-art ski lifts, and après-ski bars galore.
One bar with DJ booth offers a very popular feature: large red button that, when pressed, lowers the music volume and sets off a siren.
The problem?
That red button may have been a coronavirus super spreader.
Charlie Jackson, from Berkshire, partied with eight friends in the bar and reported, “You had to push [the button] with the palm of your hand. By the end of that night the button was slippery with sweat. One man alone “must have pressed it 50 times that night.” Since then,

At least 28 people who visited Ischgl in late February and early March have died of Covid-19. Four of the eight men in Jackson’s group fell ill with the virus on their return. Many thousands more are thought to have caught it at the resort. By mid-March, it was clear that tourists travelling in and out of the Paznaun valley had been the key accelerators behind the first wave of the virus on the European continent.
Outbreaks in northern Germany, Denmark, Sweden, Norway and Iceland have all been traced back to skiers returning home from the Paznaun valley, and the devastating reach of the Ischgl cluster is likely to be considerably wider: an Austrian lawyer compiling a class action lawsuit against the Tirol region, alleging it failed in its public health duties, has gathered the signatures of more than 6,000 tourists from 47 countries who believe they caught the virus in Ischgl, including people from Canada, Cambodia and Zimbabwe. Around 180 of them are British citizens, who took the virus back to London, Manchester, Birmingham, Norwich and Brighton.

As I recall, South Africa’s first case was confirmed in nearby Hilton, KZN after a family went skiing in Italy. 
So much for Trump et al blaming China: “the Chayna virus.” Turns out it may have been the European virus mundanely brewed up on a sweaty red button in an Austrian après-ski bar.
Irony, anyone?

***

The Lincoln Project’s recent email blast states,

It's time for an actual Commander-in-Chief.
“Why should I go to that cemetery? It’s filled with losers.”
Trump’s disparagement of our fallen war heroes isn’t surprising — he’s called John McCain a “loser,” whined about flags being lowered to honor McCain in his death, and said “I like people who aren’t captured” — but that doesn’t make it any less revolting.
A private citizen making these comments would rightfully be shunned and humiliated...for them to come from the Commander in Chief is an abhorrent and devastating — and completely predictable — outcome from a narcissistic draft-dodging conman’s elevation to the White House.
We know Trump is a fraud and a criminal. It’s plainly apparent that he is also a feckless coward, or directly complicit, in the face of Russia’s targeting of our troops with bounties paid to the Taliban.
Either way he is wholly unfit to be Commander-in-Chief in the first place and our troops can’t afford another term.

POW  (0:55 mins)
RVAT: American Veteran and Pastor: Explaining Why Trump's Supporters Remain Loyal  (4:55 mins)
Meidas Touch: Draft Dodger Don: Trump Hates Our Troops  (0:55 mins)  

The Choice  (1:18 mins) 
Joe Biden Pays Tribute to John Kelly's Son  (0:45 mins)
NowThis | Gold Star Father Slams Trump  (5:14 mins)

Meanwhile, back at the ranch…

Spring in KwaZulu Natal Midlands. Gorgeous.
Imagine: the close of a warm day – temps reached 28C / 83 F and, at 4:15pm, a balmy 19C / 67 F; sitting near the garden pond, gusty breeze lifting hair and swaying the leaf greening trees. Binoculars and camera are within reach on the coffee table, a gin and tonic in hand. 

Striped kingfisher
Click to enlarge. 

Along with many monkeys, masked weavers and many small, flitting unidentified birds, I spotted a striped kingfisher, a handful of frogs, and water bugs.
It’s about as perfect as it gets in the Midlands in spring. Well, except for Eskom load shedding: no electricity for two hours. Luckily, dinner accompanied the G&T: a bag of peanuts.

Farewell to arms

News blues…

Oh, oh! Trump has touched a nerve. Could Jeffrey Goldberg’s article in The Atlantic, “Trump: Americans Who Died in War Are ‘Losers’ and ‘Suckers’”  do in the prez?
Has the Trumpster met his match in the US military?

When President Donald Trump canceled a visit to the Aisne-Marne American Cemetery near Paris in 2018, he blamed rain for the last-minute decision, saying that “the helicopter couldn’t fly” and that the Secret Service wouldn’t drive him there. Neither claim was true.
Trump rejected the idea of the visit because he feared his hair would become disheveled in the rain, and because he did not believe it important to honor American war dead, according to four people with firsthand knowledge of the discussion that day. In a conversation with senior staff members on the morning of the scheduled visit, Trump said, “Why should I go to that cemetery? It’s filled with losers.” In a separate conversation on the same trip, Trump referred to the more than 1,800 marines who lost their lives at Belleau Wood as “suckers” for getting killed.

“A Retired General CRUSHES Donald Trump For Calling Fallen Soldiers ‘Losers’”  (4:50 mins)

VoteVets:  Gold Stars  (0:57 mins)
MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow shares author Mary Trump’s story of Donald Trump’s view of the military.  (5.24 mins)

This week’s batch of political ads hammer Trump’s disloyalty to the US military and its personnel.
Not someone who likes to listen to or make predictions, nevertheless I predict The Donald will come to regret his disregard and his disrespect of The Troops.
To Americans, Trump’s attitude to women, Ukraine, impeachment, the presidency, the coronavirus, nationalists, inciting violence, can be flicked off as trivial.
His attitude to the US military? Nope. It is a giant strategic error that will sink his re-election efforts. There’s no coming back from this. 

 
Meidas Touch: Vote Out JQNI  (o;29 min)
Draft Dodger Don: Trump Hates Our Troops  (0:54 mins) 

RVAT: Republican Voter: Voting for Biden to Save American Democracy  (6:02 mins)

*** 

Despite Trump’s woeful showing in polls, the American presidential election process offers plenty of quirks. It’s not, for example, a direct democracy where majority votes determine the winner. It’s a republic bolstered by an Electoral College designed to “manage” the process and, to my mind, ensure direct democracy, aka the “popular vote” can be (has been) thwarted. Here’s why and how Joe Biden could face an uphill battle in the US election.

Healthy futures, anyone?

Dear SA  is a “legally recognized public participation process that allows citizens to co-form policy at all levels of government.” Most recently, the Department of the Environment, Forestry and Fisheries invited members of South Africa’s public to amend the Environment Conservation Act Plastic Carrier Bags and Plastic Flat Bags Regulations.
Sign before the invitation closes on September 7 (so far only 5863 signatures) 
Background: 'War on plastic' could strand oil industry's £300bn investment. Major oil firms plan to grow plastic supply to counter impact of shift against fossil fuels . 

© ‘Energy companies must no more
be allowed to flood the oceans
with polyethylene than
they should be allowed
to pump the atmosphere
full of greenhouse gases.’
Photograph: Dan Clark/USFWS/AP 

An editorial in the Guardian news responds: 

Reports of plans by the oil industry to expand the supply of virgin plastics by a quarter over five years, while putting pressure on countries such as Kenya to lift restrictions on their use, show how urgently this needs to change. Plastics are not a byproduct of the fossil fuel industry. They are a product of it. The expansion of plastics manufacturing, on which companies including Saudi Aramco and Royal Dutch Shell plan to spend about $400bn (£300bn), is part of the industry’s coordinated response to the reduced demand for fuel brought about by the shift to renewable energy and electric vehicles.

Reduce, reuse and recycle has long been anti-waste activists’ slogan, and it still serves a purpose. Encouraging people to stop consuming stuff they don’t need, to pass unwanted objects on, and recycle rubbish rather than send it to landfill are all worthwhile goals. The trouble is that it isn’t working. Currently, about 8m tonnes of plastic end up in the ocean every year, with the latest research suggesting that this quantity could triple in 20 years. A new approach is required that retains a strong emphasis on personal and collective responsibility (which help keep beaches and parks clean), while sharply increasing pressure on politicians and businesses.

That Guardian photo shared above? I’m not sure where it was taken but I can attest to it being no exaggeration, and not a one-off.
In 2000, I traveled to Midway Island, north of Hawaii, with the Oceanic Society, to aid research on spinner dolphins.
Midway is a breeding ground for Laysan albatross and our group visited the atoll at the end of the breeding season after the healthy birds had departed. Only sick, dying, and dead birds remained. Too many of the dead birds echoed that photo: starved to death from ingesting too many BIC lighters, bits of colored plastic, small plastic containers, etc. 

A healthy Laysan albatross 

It’s estimated about five tons of this sort of plastic is fed to chicks each year at Midway Atoll alone. The volume of plastic in a chick's stomachs causes death by dehydration as well as by sharp plastics fatally puncturing portions of the digestive tract.

***

As a ceramic sculptor, I focus my art on alerting viewers about the dire shape of our planet due to heedless misuse of its bountiful resources.

(c) Jabula-arts
Click to enlarge. 

This piece is from my “Heedlessness” series – so named after a line from Rumi’s poetry: “Heedlessness is a pillar that supports our world….”   
This piece maps the Great Pacific garbage patch, and the pelagic critters dependent upon healthy oceans. The life raft – embedded in the headdress – is a common motif in my work.

 

Meanwhile, back at the ranch…

Delving into a whole new arena of South African culture: weapons, arms, ammunition.
Keeping in mind America’s pro-gun, shoot-first-ask-questions-later culture, I warily drove to the local gun shop carrying three of my mother’s elderly weapons: a pellet gun, a single-barrel shotgun, and a Berretta pistol/handgun, along with her gun licenses. My goal was to learn how guns are managed here and either to sell or consign the gun shop to sell the weapons, or hand them over to be neutralized.
At the gun shop, the gun expert called the local police station to confirm the licenses had been issued “after the new law went into effect.” They had. But the police also had a record of my mother owning a 38 revolver.
I called my mother from the store and learned that that revolver had been stolen seven years ago. She couldn’t remember if she’d reported the theft.
Problem # 1: According to the police, she had not reported the theft – and must do so. Daunting thought: besides more bureaucracy, my frail 87-year-old mother – as the owner of the weapons – must go in person to the police station… which means wearing a masks and waiting outside in the coronavirus-socially-distanced line, in the hot winter sun.
Apparently, not reporting the theft will create a paper trail nightmare for her relatives (me!) after she passes.
Problem # 2: Word on the street states never surrender weapons to the police as “the police” are likely to sell the guns to “bad guys” to perpetrate bad deeds.
Urban legend? Shaggy dog story?
Who knows?
If the paperwork associated with surrendering weapons is anything to judge by, Problem # 2 never happens. Nor is it something within my control. My job is to take my mother and her guns to the police station, stand in line, do the paperwork, hand over the guns, and return my mother to her home. 

Nevertheless, the frequency with which I’ve heard this warning, however, makes me wonder about the underlying truth.
In the end, it’s yet another reason to avoid the arcane world of guns and gun-ownership.

In the dark!

After a short reprieve, Eskom – and South Africa – offers lack of energy, again. 

In my area, we fluctuate between Stages 3 and 4 – that is, no electricity from 2am to 4am, then 10am to 12:30pm, and 6pm to 10:30pm. (Can’t figure out the difference between these schedules. I guess it’s an Eskom thing.)
Back in 2019, President Ramaphosa said Eskom would be “unbundled” into three separate firms responsible for three different business areas: generation, distribution, and transmission. Alas, this process of unbundling process will “take until 2022”. 

Don’t hold your breath. In the meantime, 

Eskom has failed to meet some of the conditions attached to the R59billion it received from the government last year to service its debt through the special appropriation bill.

Hmmm, well, I guess Eskom knows what it is doing. NOT. Moreover, we’re heading towards summer. Who needs electrical light when we have universal light?

News blues…

With 193 police officers dead from Covid-19, South African has its first police hospital: 160 beds for personnel struck with coronavirus and based at the Tshwane SAPS Academy.

While the new hospital fits into the force's long-term plans for its members, its first duty will be to assist officers who have been exposed to the coronavirus.
Deputy police minister Cassel Mathale said, “We have been compelled to respond decisively and innovatively to curb the rapid spread of this pandemic and to ensure that we protect our front-line workers … to continue to deliver much-needed services to our citizens. What we are witnessing today is a step in the right direction.”

Healthy futures, anyone?

First, the bad news. Back in May, more than 350 elephants mysteriously died in northern Botswana’s Okavango Delta – a mass die-off clustered around waterholes. Scientists, nonplussed as to why, described the event as a “conservation disaster”.

Three months later, most surviving elephants have fled. Last week a plane flew over the Okavango Panhandle, an area in the north-west of the delta where most of the deaths occurred, and eight elephants were spotted, when normally you would see hundreds. Dr Niall McCann, director of conservation at UK-based charity National Park Rescue said, “It is understandable, I’m sure you or I would flee if all our friends and relatives were dying, and that’s what the elephants appear to have done.”
Elephants are now reported to have started dying in a similar way in neighbouring Zimbabwe. At the time of writing, 22 have died, with numbers expected to rise. Dr Roy Bengis, retired chief state veterinarian of the Kruger national park, says …it is unclear if there is a link between the two incidents. 
There have been many competing theories about the cause of the deaths in Botswana. Human-elephant conflicts are common in the Okavango delta, an agricultural area home to 15,000 elephants and 16,000 people but poisoning or poaching are unlikely to be to blame. Cyanide was ruled out because no scavengers died and tusks were left intact … Pesticides and anthrax were tested for and also ruled out.

Now the good news:

The population of ibex recently introduced to the French Pyrenees is thriving more than a century after the native species was wiped out in France. 

Officials have counted 70 newborn ibex this year at the Pyrenees national park and nearby Ariege regional park in the craggy mountains that separate France and Spain.
The French population now stands at some 400 animals, though they are not the original Pyrenean Ibex, the last two of which in France were shot and killed in 1910.
The new animals are western Spanish ibex, another subspecies of the Iberian ibex that began to be brought over from a Spanish reserve in 2014.
Recognisable by their long, curving horns, the ibex is a wild goat can easily scamper up cliffs in search of grass, leaves and moss.
“In relation to the initial goal of establishing a viable core population, for now we can say the operation has been a success,” Jerome Lafitte, head of fauna operations at the Pyrenees park, told Agence France-Presse. Matthieu Cruege, director of the Ariege park, said: “These are majestic animals, and it really is exciting when you’re able to see them.”

Daily Maverick webinar: Economic State of Play: South Africa’s Debt Tale of Woe.  Hosted by Sasha Planting with Nazmeera Moola and Mamokete Lijane 

***

Political ads: enjoy ‘em while you can. That vigilant guardian of democracy, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg says, “This election is not going to be business as usual. We all have a responsibility to protect our democracy. That means helping people register and vote, clearing up confusion about how this election will work, and taking steps to reduce the chances of violence and unrest.”
[Sarcasm alert] Gosh, thank you, Mark Zuckerberg. With you reducing the chances of violence and unrest. I feel so much safer.
Meidas Touch: Had Enough Trump?  (0:52 mins) (And, oh, yes, I've had more than enough Trump, thank you very much!)

Meanwhile, back at the ranch…

I’m working with and around Lockdown Level 2 to ensure a relatively calm move for my mother on September 16.

I’ve reserved a mover. I’m scrounging boxes from local stores and used 5 of them to carry donations of ceramic ornaments to the local SPCA. more ceramic ornaments to go. I’ve run Blue Book-like valuations on my mother’s Toyota for sale. Today, I’ll pick up boxes and I’ll drive 2 rifles and one Beretta pistol – and licenses – to the local gun shop to sell on consignment.
I’m also looking at properties for sale in the around – just in case, a “chip off the old block,” I decide to change my mind about fleeing this country and, instead, decide to remain. That is, not remain remain but live part of each year here and there, California. Hey, changing my mind willy nilly is part of my DNA: like mother, like daughter.
[Sarcasm alert]. Why not sign up for semi-darkness generously served up by Eskom?

Killing ‘em softly

© Tom the Dancing Bug
Click to enlarge.  

South Africa remains at Lockdown Level 2. My small sampling of local peoples’ infection mitigation efforts: compliance with wearing masks. 

America never locked down and Americans show spotty compliance with wearing masks. (No incentives – other than staying alive - and no repercussions for failing to do so.) 

Some Americans protect themselves and others by wearing masks, others refuse to wear masks (it “infringes on our freedoms”).
Residents of both countries, however, appear subliminally to agree: “been there, done that.” 

Widespread perception? The pandemic as almost over. 

It is not. 

***

Compare today’s numbers with those of a month ago: 

Worldwide (Map)
September 3 – 26,940,000 confirmed infections; 861,870 deaths
August 6 – 18,753,000 confirmed infections; 706,800 deaths
US (Map)
September 3 – 6,114,000 confirmed infections; 185,710 deaths
August 6 – 4,824,000 confirmed infections; 158,250 deaths
SA (Coronavirus portal)
September 3 – 630,596 confirmed infections; 14,390 deaths
August 6 – 529,900 confirmed infections; 9,298 deaths

News blues…

While KwaZulu Natal now has the second highest rates of infection in South Africa – 113,237 or 18 percent of all confirmed infections: 

Health minister Dr Zweli Mkhize announced on Monday night that [countrywide] 1,985 new infections had been recorded in the past 24 hours. This is after 2,505 new cases were confirmed on Sunday night and 2,418 on Saturday night.

***

Remember all the Trumpie finger-pointing at China (“Chayna”) as the source of America’s Covid-19 problems? Not so. Majority of cases in the US have “viral lineages …in Europe”.
A new study, “Phylogenetic analysis of SARS-CoV-2 in the Boston area highlights the role of recurrent importation and superspreading events” claims a Biogen conference held in Boston, MA on 26 February 2020

... turned into a superspreading event, seeding infections that would affect tens of thousands of people across the United States and in countries as far as Singapore and Australia.
The study ... gives an unprecedented look at how far the coronavirus can spread given the right opportunities. …Researchers analyzed the genetic material of the viruses infecting the patients’ cells. …All told, the scientists analyzed the viral genomes of 772 people with Covid-19 between January and May…. Most of the viral lineages in Boston have a genetic fingerprint linking them to earlier cases in Europe. Some travelers brought the virus directly from Europe in February and March, whereas others may have picked up the European lineage elsewhere in the northeastern United States.

Read “One Meeting in Boston Seeded Tens of Thousands of Infections, Study Finds.”  

Hmmm, maybe it came from … Norway?  (lily white, forest raking…). 

***

Meanwhile, reports from the White House suggest Trump and aides are resigned to, and okay with, the virus’ inevitable spread. 

Internal struggles among medical advisers have divided the White House [with] …resistance from the top down. Now, with two months to go until the election, the White House is focused on reopening the economy and mitigating the virus to a limited extent, or just enough to keep hospitals from being completely overwhelmed.
They're doing it with the imprimatur of newcomer adviser Dr. Scott Atlas, a neuroradiologist whose voice within the White House is drowning out task force members the public had come to know and trust. Task force meetings are growing more infrequent, ostensibly because its head, Vice President Mike Pence, is often out of town on campaign trips.
… The internal goal is to keep things just under control until a vaccine comes out, two senior administration officials said. "You can't stop it!" one senior official said of the internal thinking on the virus. 

***

The political ads keep coming…
The Lincoln Project: Ratings  (0:55 mins)
Meidas Touch:

Trump’s Mental Unhealth with Bandy Lee  (2:25 mins)
I’m voting for Joe  (1:00 mins)
Vote Vets – Losing  (1:20 mins)
Really American: In Trump’s America  (0:50 mins)
Republican Voters Against Trump (RVAT): Vietnam Vet and Counterterrorism Official Knows Trump is Not Good for the Military or our Country  (6:00 mins)
The Daily Show: How Holy Is Donald Trump? (4:44 mins)

Meanwhile, back at the ranch…

The apricot tree shows signs of spring with a sprinkling of pink blossoms.
Masked weaver birds are in full nest-building mode.
With some decisions made and confirmed – Care Center’s deposit and first month’s rent paid – next big step: euthanizing three old dogs. These dogs are old, obese, and incontinent. They haven’t a hope in hell of being “re-homed.” Moreover, my mother’s plan for her dogs? Rather than rehome them with people she doesn’t know and wouldn’t trust to care “properly” for her dogs, she’ll euthanize, cremate, and save the ashes until she passes. At that point, yours truly is instructed to combine my mom’s and the ashes of dozens of former dogs and transport them to her previous rural home. That the land now belongs to a corporation is a minor issue. I’m instructed to “just dig a hole and slip the bag into the ground.” I balked at euthanizing the two younger, healthy, continent dogs. I’ll seek new homes for them. 

How hard can it be?

Then and now…

News blues…

With all the Trump craziness, it’s easy to forget: 

California’s fire woes continue…. 
Ramaphosa’s political woes continue…  
Zuma rears his head…. 
Coronavirus still has the upper hand… 

***

The Lincoln Project: Ratings (0:55 mins)
Meidas Touch:

Trump’s Mental Unhealth with Bandy Lee  (2:25 mins)
Trump Terrorism (1:00 mins)

Meanwhile, back at the ranch…

The US Embassy published another series of repatriation flights, one or two for almost every day of September. 

For details contact: 

https://za.usembassy.gov/ 

Tel: 012-431-4000 (outside South Africa: +27-12-431-4000) 

Johannesburgacsmessage@state.gov 

***

I’m taking to heart Kate Murphy’s essay “We’re All Socially Awkward Now” as she tackles an overlooked side effect of the pandemic: awkwardness. She writes: 

Social skills are a muscle, and right now they’re atrophying. Our personalities are getting flabby.
“The signs are everywhere… people oversharing on Zoom, overreacting or misconstruing one another’s behavior, longing for but then not really enjoying contact with others.”
Kate takes an everyday interaction and breaks it down into countless decisions — each decision a chance to get it wrong, each one an atom of anxiety. “Social interplay is one of the most complicated things we ask our brains to do.” You’ve got to “get the timing and pacing right, as well as titrate” — I love the choice of that word — “how much to share and with whom.”

Definition of titrate:
In chemistry: ascertain the amount of a constituent in (a solution) by measuring the volume of a known concentration of reagent required to complete a reaction with it, typically using an indicator.
In medicine: continuously measure and adjust the balance of (a physiological function or drug dosage). Example: “each patient received intravenous diazepam and pethidine, the doses being titrated according to the response"
A few years ago, Kate wrote a popular essay about attachment theory that began:

We humans are an exquisitely social species … thriving in good company and suffering in isolation. More than anything else, our intimate relationships, or lack thereof, shape and define our lives.”
Intimacy is on the rocks right now. Kate’s advice is to cut one another — and ourselves — some slack. And she has guidance to share from people who’ve survived much more extreme bouts of isolation, like in polar outposts and solitary confinement.

Kate Murray’s column resonates as isolated, locked down, implementing huge changes in the life of my elderly mother, I reached out for advice and support, not from family, but from professionals and new acquaintances … and “share” (over-share?) via this blog.
As I’ve intimated elsewhere in this blog, I left South Africa at 19 and since then, apart from the last 8 months, have never again lived here.
Looking back, I understand that my youth made me determined to grow as an adult, and to do it elsewhere.
My real home in South Africa was the wonderfully rural and relatively safe outdoors of the Valley of a Thousand Hills. The people I grew up with – aka “family” - was a collection of 2 adults and three children who shared DNA, not a nurturing, emotional support system.
Along with the stress and turmoil of my current life in South African, a great gift is the opportunity to look back and understand the context of “then” and “now.” The day by day posts shared in the blog allow me to share multiple perspectives, grope through the past with the present as context, maintain level-headedness despite fear, stress, longing – and respect my mother’s humanity as equal to my own.
It’s fascinating, humbling, frustrating, and very human.
I accept the challenge and intend to do it justice.

Coming to terms

Sixty-something days to the election and, to date, the 2020 election campaign cycle has racked up a bill close to US $10 billion.
Imagine if, instead of the awful Citizens United decision,  Americans outlawed outrageous spend on political campaigns and diverted that money - US$10 billion–and-growing - on making health care affordable, or addressing homelessness, or improving education, or offering free, mandatory classes on critical thinking to all Americans.

News blues…

In 2019, it was … unusual… for Speaker Pelosi, of the US House of Representatives, to disallow the president of the United States to deliver The State of the Union address.
That was then. 
Now, a governor of an American state begs an American president not to visit! And mayors of American cities throw down against a president for inciting violence… 

Governor Tony Evers of Wisconsin urges Trump to “reconsider” his upcoming trip to meet with law enforcement and survey the damage following demonstrations against police brutality and systemic racism. Evers writes, such a visit,

… “may only delay our work to overcome division and move forward…. Kenosha and communities across Wisconsin are enduring extraordinary grief, grappling with a Black man being shot seven times and the loss of two additional lives at the hands of an out-of-state armed militant. I along with other community leaders … are concerned about what your presence will mean for Kenosha and our state…[that] “your presence will only hinder our healing….” 

Kenosha Mayor John Antaramian said the timing is wrong for Trump’s visit on Tuesday. “I think that you have a community that’s in the process of trying to heal… It just seemed to me, and I think others, that it would be better for us to get them to actually heal up the process of what’s going on and start dealing with the concerns that we have that need to be addressed.”
He added that he could not comment on the details of President Trump’s visit because it was under the workings of law enforcement and not his office, but he said that this is not the time.

Portland Oregon Mayor Ted Wheeler took on Trump in an impressively passionate rebuttal of Trump’s incitement.  (12:00 mins) 

So far, Trump’s ignoring these requests and said,

…he would go to the region,  even though he was unwelcome, in his latest effort to cast himself as the “law-and-order” president going into the November election. The White House has said he will use the visit to support local law enforcement and “survey” damage after anti-racist demonstrations, but the move mirrors his administration’s efforts to cast such protests as violent riots rather than calls for change.

Buckle up….

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Trump’s latest election ploy? “Swift boating” Joe Biden. 
 

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Reality raises inconvenient truths.
Remember: the Sturgis Motorcycle Rally that gathered in South Dakota earlier this month? How cyclists scoffed at wearing masks?
So far, more than 100 attendees have tested positive for COVID-19 after they returned home to their respective states.

Benjamin Aaker, president of the South Dakota State Medical Association, said it’s almost impossible to track the true impact of the rally in spreading the virus.  Many more unidentified positive cases likely exist for every confirmed positive, he told The Washington Post. Those unidentified positive individuals will likely proceed to infect others in their communities, but it’ll be impossible to trace the resulting community spread back to its ultimate source in Sturgis.
According to an analysis of anonymous cell phone activity shared with The Associated Press by Camber Systems, which specializes in aggregating cell data for health researchers, 61% of all the counties in the U.S. have been visited by someone who attended Sturgis.

Remember: the 2½-hour long final night of the Republican National Convention with Trump on the South Lawn of the White House, addressing an in-person audience of 1,500 largely maskless supporters?

Most attendees sat inches rather than feet apart and sweated profusely in the August heat as they clapped, whistled and chanted, “Four more years!”
The fervor was infectious at this potential super-spreader event, where supporters flouted CDC recommendations to hear Trump recite his dream list of successes, one of which was how wonderfully he’s combated the pandemic.

Remember:Reality is a hard task master.

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Don Winslow Films: An Open Letter to Republicans   (2:20 mins)

Meanwhile, back at the ranch…

I’m gear up for an emotionally taxing roller coaster ride: “retrenching” (“laying off”) my mother’s long time employees, accompanying my mother to euthanize three elderly, incontinent dogs and adding their cremains to her collection of cremains (at least two dozen dogs plus cremains of a few people), hiring someone to move big items to her new care center abode, setting up the place for her to move into, and settling her in. After that, packing up and disposing of her remaining goods (giving away, donating, and auctioning), cleaning, patching, painting before “staging” her house for sale, hosting potential buyers, and staying sane for the “3 to 4 months” it takes to process paperwork through a moribund bureaucracy further impeded by unanticipated shut-downs due to coronavirus. Then, it’ll be December – “the festive season” – an inauspicious time to purchase a ticket and fly back to California – mid-winter.
The good news? 

1) While taxing and ultimately do-able, days will be graced by the beauties of emerging spring. 

2) An opportunity to grapple with who I am, where I came from, where I'm going, and how to make the most of what I learn to fully enjoy the rest of my days on planet earth.