Do-over?

President Ramaphosa hints at reviewing Lockdown levels and, perhaps, dropping to level 2; Looking forward to that.
Nevertheless, this twenty-fifth week of Lockdown presents a new batch of weirdness, including exposure of the moral bankruptcy of our collective political institutions…

News blues…

What was Donald Trump’s solution to Bob Woodward’s 2018 book, Fear: Trump in the White House, an unflattering portrait of the current White House residents?
Agree to many hours of interviews with Woodward for another book, Rage, due out on September 15. Trump’s incomprehensible solution – a do-over - did not go as he’d hoped. Instead, Fear ignited further controversy after Woodward released audio recordings from the interviews. 
President of the United States Donald Trump clearly states his awareness of the dangers posed by Covid-19 – and his solution: to lie about it. Thus began the tragic comedy of fatal errors and lies that has lead, so far, to more than 190,000 dead Americans dead and more than 6.3 million confirmed infections. (“UnAmerican")
Trump’s excuse for his lies and lack of effective action? “I don’t want people to panic.”(Covid-19)  
From the virus’ “miraculous” disappearance, to endangering children (“they’re immune”), culture wars about wearing masks, undermining science and scientists, the man is scrambling to stay ahead of an accumulating mountain of lies.
But this is the essence of Trump. 

On the other hand, it could this his solution to quelling the days-long furor of Americans angry at Trump’s view of military personnel: “losers,” “suckers,” “dopes,” “babies,” and “I don’t get it. What’s in it for them?’
It is possible. That’s the way The Donald rolls…. 

***

Daily Maverick webinar: The Rise and Fall of the ANC Youth League.  Hosted by Gregory Nicolson with Rebone Tau and Prof Somadoda Fikeni

***

The Lincoln Project: Parasite  (0:56 mins)
Unfit  (2:00 mins)
EXCLUSIVE CLIP "THE TRUMP APPEAL" – Project co-founder George Conway discusses what's going on in Donald Trump's head  (2:04 mins)
Vote Vets Maine Ad – Marty  (0:55 min)
RVAT: Max is disgusted with Trump's lack of character, so he's going against his party and voting Biden  (3:32 mins)
Meidas Touch: Pretend President: Trump Downplayed the Pandemic (0:53 mins)

Healthy futures, anyone

The good(ish) news:

Up to 48 bird and mammal extinctions have been prevented by conservation efforts since a global agreement to protect biodiversity, according to a new study published in the journal Conservation Letters. It estimates that extinction rates for birds and mammals would have been three to four times higher over that period, which was chosen because 1993 is when the UN Convention on Biological Diversity came into force.
Since then, 15 bird and mammal species have become extinct or are strongly suspected to have disappeared. But researchers say that between 28 and 48 bird and mammal species were saved.

The bad news:

Wildlife populations are in freefall around the world, driven by human overconsumption, population growth and intensive agriculture, according to a major new assessment of the abundance of life on Earth.
On average, global populations of mammals, birds, fish, amphibians and reptiles plunged by 68% between 1970 and 2016, according to the WWF and Zoological Society of London (ZSL)’s biennial Living Planet Report 2020. Two years ago, the figure stood at 60%.
 The research is one of the most comprehensive assessments of global biodiversity available and was compiled by 134 experts from around the world.
It found that from the rainforests of central America to the Pacific Ocean, nature is being exploited and destroyed by humans on a scale never previously recorded.

With all the chaff swirling around the political environment these days, it’s tough to find the kernels of truth about the ongoing degradation of our planet. Here’s a list of five lies uttered to conceal truth…. 

Meanwhile, back at the ranch…

Two days ago, local residents got an urgent warning: “Umngeni Water will be doing their maintenance upgrade in the Howick Reservoir Pipeline and as such there will be a TOTAL SHUTDOWN of water on Tuesday 08 September 2020.” Naturally, residents – including in this household – took this warning seriously. We stored water in kettles, pots, and buckets.
The water never shutdown.
Eskom, too, warned of scheduled load shedding. That never happened either.
Will either or both suddenly shut down without warning? It is possible.

***

Big day: I drove to the local city – 20 miles away – to purchase and set up delivery for a bed base (aka “box spring) for my mother. Her new home is small, and this bed base has three drawers on either side. It’ll give her better storage capacity. One of the perks of living on a houseboat as I do: exquisite eye for best use of space, and saving space.

I’ve not been in the city since my I picked up my mother from the hospital several weeks ago. It was strange driving with hundreds of other drivers and vehicles racing robots (“traffic lights”) and one another. Today's errand, though, has been a long time coming: delivering for recycling several dozen empty bottles of my mother’s favorite wine at an off-sales liquor store.
I parked outside the security gate exactly at opening time: 9am.
I waited. And waited. At 9:10am I phoned the store and was told “the security guard will come open the gate.” I waited. And waited some more. At 9:20am I exited my car – parked over the pedestrian pavement (“sidewalk”) – and approached security guards at the exit gate. 

One asked, “Do you have a license?” I told him I had a driver’s license. He ignored me. The other guard asked, “Do you have a license?” I asked what license he had in mind. “Liquor license.” I confirmed I had no liquor license. Then I realized: liquor stores are closed Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays across the land.
I’d carried several dozen empty wine bottles without remembering this salient fact about Lockdown. The two guards and I laughed at my mistake.
I’ll drive back there again on Monday.

Cooperation

Smoke from multiple wildfires
burning in California and Oregon
hung above a layer of fog
in San Francisco.
Click to enlarge. 
Photo: Jessica Christian /
The Chronicle. More photos 

The sun came up as usual, but in California it hid behind a thick blanket of smoke, fog, haze, and muck. Headlights and porch lights stayed on all day. Flashlights came out at high noon.

The ominous shroud was a product of the plumes of smoke billowing from the historic number of wildfires burning across the state, as well as Oregon and Washington. Wind conditions overnight pushed smoke into lower elevations, filtering sunlight and producing dark tints of red, orange and gray. Still, air quality remained mostly unchanged.
The orange dimness confused almost everyone and everything — from the Bay Lights display on the Bay Bridge, which is supposed to turn off a half hour after sunrise, to pets acting unusually standoffish to folks who spied the early-morning darkness, figured their alarm clocks were wrong, and rolled over and went back to sleep.
Hours after sunrise, dawn remained something of an oversight. At high noon, the heavens grew darker instead of lighter. The surreal replaced what passes for the real. 

***

Worldwide (Map)  
September 10 – 27,766,325 confirmed infections; 902,470 deaths
September 3 – 26,940,000 confirmed infections; 861,870 deaths
New daily cases: 232,982; new daily deaths: 4,737

US (State by state map)
September 10 – 6,360,000 confirmed infections; 190,820 deaths
September 3 – 6,114,000 confirmed infections; 185,710 deaths

SA (Coronavirus portal)
September 10 – 642,431 confirmed infections; 15,086 deaths
September 3 – 630,596 confirmed infections; 14,390 deaths
SA dropped from 5th highest infections rates in the world to 8th highest, surpassed, this week, by Peru (696,190) Colombia (686,850), and Mexico (658,299).

News blues…

Is South Africa slowly beating Covid-19?

The statistics are as confusing as they are potentially enlightening. “We are seeing that we have had what seems to have been a peak, and now we have the daily numbers of cases being reported overall in [Africa] going down,” the World Health Organisation Africa regional director Matshidiso Moeti is reported to have said recently.
However, tracking the arc of the virus in Africa has been and remains a challenge. Could it be possible that the continent has actually passed its Covid-19 peak? Can anyone now or in the near future speak with conviction of the true toll of Covid-19 on the continent?
Poor data management or just a Covid-19 enigma? discusses the trends and statistical enigma, and encourages readers to understand that the “positive” news of Covid-19 easing and that the return to normalcy should be treated with some degree of caution.

Health minister Dr Zweli Mkhize suggests, the declining number of infections in SA may move the country to Level 1 soon.

“We can safely say we are over the surge. June, July and August were the worst months, as predicted by our models. However, we found that not as many people as the model suggested would be affected… A number of factors could be attributed to the declining number of infections.”
“A major factor is that we embarked on containment measures, and there may well be other factors in the environment here. We are very grateful for the support we got from South Africans to try to contain the spread of the coronavirus.”
Asked when the county could move to level 1 and what measures would be put in place, Mkhize said President Cyril Ramaphosa would give an indication in a few days.
“We are still discussing all the issues. The president will give us a sense of direction, but we will be preparing to start easing to the next level.” 

***

President Donald Trump, meanwhile, has admitted that, back in February 2020, he knew the dangers of Covid-19. He elected to hide that information from Americans as, 

“I want to show calmness, I’m the leader of this country,” Trump told Hannity on Wednesday after the accounts were published. “I don’t want to be jumping up and down, I don’t want to scare people. I want people not to panic. And that’s exactly what I did.” 

Hmmm, if I wasn’t scared before this revelation (I was), I’m scared now. Of the virus, yes, but more scared because this man remains in a position he’s demonstrably incapable of mastering.
Moreover, Trump’s former lawyer and fix-it guy, Michael Cohen recently tossed out a “theory”: Trump will resign if he loses the presidential election and pave the way for Vice President Mike Pence to pardon him for any federal crimes he’s supposedly committed. 
Sounds like Trumpian logic….

***

The Lincoln Project: LPTV – The Breakdown (56:00 mins) Vote Vets
POW  (1:00 min)
A Real Commander-in-Chief  (1:20 mins) 

Usually, this segment shares ads developed to address the current moment: 1) Republicans and former Republicans offended by Trump and Trumpian rhetoric and urging voters to elect the opposition’s candidate, and 2) points of view outside of the “normal” mainstream of American socio-political culture. The following 2 ads fit the latter category.
We're Listening | Joe Biden For President 2020   (1:00 min)
Eject and elect  ((0:30 mins)

Meanwhile, back at the ranch…

I accept that I’m in KZN, under Lockdown. There is no part of me that is glad I’m not in California, suffering from catastrophic fires. Indeed, disaster, catastrophe, and stress,

may actually lead to greater cooperative, social, and friendly behavior…. This more positive and social response could help explain the human connection that happens during times of crises, a connection that may be responsible, at least in part, for our collective survival as a species. 

I watch from 14,000 miles away, listen to family and friends struggle with conditions of pandemic and environmental disaster, and I worry. California is weeks away from rain. How will Californians survive?

***

Eskom. Don’t gotta love it, but do gotta live with it. Today, Eskom messaged customers: “No load shedding scheduled, but possibility exists that Stage 2 could trigger at short notice. We’ll let you know immediately if anything changes.
If Stage 2 triggers, power in this neighborhood is expected to shut off from 22:00 – 00:30 (10pm – 12:30am). That’s manageable. If it goes according to “possibility.” The only thing consistent about Eskom and load shedding is the inconsistency.

***

Here, at home, we’re three dogs down, experiencing cool weather with comparatively clean air.
Packing up the household continues….

Rain dance

© Associated Press
Click to enlarge

California’s winter rains usually end in March or April and begin again in October or November – although these days that varies. This year, that schedule is catastrophic. 

With more than 14,000 firefighters battling hundreds of fires around California and more than 2 million acres already burned, let’s dance, pray, beg for rain.

News blues…

After a typically dry summer, California is parched heading into fall and what normally is the most dangerous time for wildfires. Two of the three largest fires in state history are burning in the San Francisco Bay Area [population more than 7 million].
A three-day heat wave brought triple-digit temperatures to much of the state during Labor Day weekend. But right behind it was a weather system with dry winds that could fan fires. The state’s largest utility, Pacific Gas & Electric, was preparing to cut power to 158,000 customers in 21 counties in the northern half of the state to reduce the possibility its lines and other equipment could spark new fires.
Randy Moore, regional forester for the Forest Service’s Pacific Southwest Region that covers California, announced campgrounds at all national forests in the state also were closed. “The wildfire situation throughout California is dangerous and must be taken seriously. Existing fires are displaying extreme fire behavior, new fire starts are likely, weather conditions are worsening, and we simply do not have enough resources to fully fight and contain every fire.”
Record-breaking temperatures were driving the highest power use of the year, and transmission losses because of wildfires have cut into supplies. Throughout the holiday weekend, the California Independent System Operator that manages the state’s power grid warned of outages if residents didn’t reduce their electricity usage. 

*** 

With scores of pharma companies working on a vaccine against Covid-19,  spokesperson for AstraZeneca, the company working with a team from Oxford University, explained the trial has been stopped to review the “potentially unexplained illness” in one of the participants.

The spokesman stressed that the adverse reaction was only recorded in a single participant and said pausing trials was common during vaccine development.
“As part of the ongoing randomised, controlled global trials of the Oxford coronavirus vaccine, our standard review process was triggered and we voluntarily paused vaccination to allow review of safety data by an independent committee.”
“This is a routine action which has to happen whenever there is a potentially unexplained illness in one of the trials, while it is investigated, ensuring we maintain the integrity of the trials. In large trials illnesses will happen by chance but must be independently reviewed to check this carefully. “We are working to expedite the review of the single event to minimise any potential impact on the trial timeline. We are committed to the safety of our participants and the highest standards of conduct in our trials.”
The vaccine had been expected to be publicly available as early as January.

On the other hand,

Pfizer and BioNTech are confident they can have a vaccine against the novel coronavirus ready for regulatory approval by the middle of October or early November, [said] BioNTech CEO and co-founder Ugur Sahin. "It has an excellent profile and I consider this vaccine ... near perfect, and which has a near perfect profile."
US drug giant Pfizer and German firm BioNTech say they plan to provide 100 million doses of their vaccine candidate, BNT162, by the end of the year, and up to 1.3 billion doses in 2021. How are vaccines tested? 

In the pre-clinical stage of testing, researchers give the vaccine to animals to see if it triggers an immune response. 

• In phase 1 of clinical testing, the vaccine is given to a small group of people to determine whether it is safe and to learn more about the immune response it provokes.
• In phase 2, the vaccine is given to hundreds of people so scientists can learn more about its safety and correct dosage.
• In phase 3, the vaccine is given to thousands of people to confirm its safety – including rare side effects – and effectiveness. These trials involve a control group which is given a placebo.

Take aways?
Excessive heat. Excessive fire danger. Excessive death and illness. Who knows what will happen next?
One thing for sure: we’re living in unprecedented times. But we’re doing it. We will survive. (Let’s hear it, Gloria Gaynor.  (3:12 mins)

***

The Lincoln Project: Fallen Heroes  (2:00 mins)
Radicalize  (0:55 mins)
Trump is not like you  (2:15 mins)

Meanwhile, back at the ranch…

Hard day in the house, sad day, too. Three dogs down. Yes, three elderly, incontinent dogs but my mom loves ‘em. Now they’re elderly, incontinent doggie angels in doggie heaven. Happy sad? 

The move is moving along. This time next week, my mom will start another phase of her life. She’ll adjust and, I believe, even enjoy the company once she settles in.
And I’m saying a   L O N G  goodbye to the plants I’ve nurtured in the garden lo, these many months.

Blistering

Back in the day, I spent four months living in a cave on the reef and beach in Sharm el-Sheikh when there was nothing there except a locked dive hut. (Sharm el-Sheikh is now an “Egyptian resort town between the desert of the Sinai Peninsula and the Red Sea, known for its sheltered sandy beaches, clear waters and coral reefs.”). During that long ago past, I survived 3 days of desert sandstorms, called khamasīn, in the Sinai Peninsula and have since traveled in Jordan, Syria, Iraq, Lebanon, and Israel/Palestine. These are all high temperature countries. Yet, these days, it’s California experiencing temperatures ranging up to 114 F (+45 C) . Creatures great and small struggle at this temperature. The extraordinary fires exacerbate a growing catastrophe.  
What’s next, a plague? Oh, wait…. Now you mention it….

News blues…

Click to enlarge.

A month ago, South Africa was fifth on the list of countries most affected by Covid-19. If the numbers can be believed, it’s now seventh on the list,  behind Peru and Columbia. Good going, South Africans! 

Healthy futures, anyone?

Magical moments in music  (7:00 mins) 

***

Has the pandemic highlighted the fragility of global supply chains and identified a need to redefine the role of food in the economy? In UK,

The first post-lockdown crops of the land army have been harvested. The food – chard, spinach, lettuce and radish – is being parcelled out to the local shops, market stalls and those in need. Now the volunteer labour force has its sights on a new goal: a land-use revolution that will make UK farming more nature friendly, plant-based and resilient to future shocks.
“If the whole coronavirus experience has taught us anything, it is that we should be more self-sufficient. It was terrifying seeing the empty shop shelves,” said Chris Higgins, a retired academic who gets as much back as he gives from the voluntary work. “It’s very enriching. Growing and cooking food and working together is a great way of engaging with the local community and nature at the same time.” 

***

The Lincoln Project: UnAmerican  (1:15 mins)

Meanwhile, back at the ranch…

The day before The Day. Tomorrow, we take my mother’s three very elderly and very incontinent dogs to the vet for the last stage of their life journey.
My mother moves to the Care Center next week. Two of the younger dogs will stay in this house with me until the house is sold. I’ve committed to “rehoming” them. Rehoming is not an easy task in a country with an exploding dog population (even more dogs than monkeys) – and a mother who believes that, if not with her, all her dogs should be put down. She explains, “I don’t want them to be unhappy.”
I will drive her small Toyota Yaris with my mother, a domestic worker, and three elderly dogs to the vet. After the deed is done, the dogs remains are “processed”, returned to my mother in personalized boxes, and will be placed on a shelf in her new home with at least a dozen similar boxes of cremains.

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.