Orange is the new orange

Still no Internet. Sigh.

News blues…

Reading the news on my cell phone is better than not reading the (US) news at all. None of it is good for POTUS Trump, or the Trumpettes (Ivanka could go to jail? OMG! ), Lindsay Graham, Moscow Mitch, etc., all staring into the abyss that is The Donald.
One good thing: Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez – “AOC” – slapped back at those who had a field day squawking about her $250 hairdo. Turns out Trump spent $70,000 (ZAR 1.23 million) in one year for his hairdos.  I wonder how much it’ll cost The Donald to find a hair color that matches the orange jail jumpsuit he’ll be wearing after he’s sentenced for tax fraud? 

***

Comedian John Mulaney , not usually a political funnyman, elegantly delving into politics with a light hand. A horse in a hospital.

***

News viewers who have the luxury of seeing news inside and outside the United States know that that mainstream US news presented to mainstream US audiences is palpably different to the same news presented in, say, the UK, or Europe. That is, the fact are similar, but the manner in which it’s presented in different countries is markedly different. Moreover, the same news outlets frequently presents the news differently. Take CNN, for example. CNN in the US is far gentler – less pointed, more flattering - than CNN in UK. More importantly, CNN UK delves deeper and offers more nuance that the US outlet.
CNN UK also covers a far wider range of news. CNN US covers US news… unless the US is waging war on another country, then that other country is mentioned as a foe.
Fair and balanced?

***

The Lincoln Project Whispers II  (0:54 mins)

Meanwhile, back at the ranch…

Before meeting a friend at a local café today, I accessed the café’s Internet, responding to business emails and glancing at the news.
Having only brief internet connection for someone with my level of regular use is frustrating. At a café, it is more so as access is limited to the goodwill of the café’s manager.

***

After loading years-worth of rubbish into my elderly mother’s elderly China-manufactured Chana pick up, the gardener accompanied me to the local municipal refuse dump. Unlike in California, dumping rubbish in designated spots in KZN is free. KZN’s designated fills frequently were once pretty valleys easily filled with garbage of all sorts.
People work hard at dumps, and few are actually hired and paid to work there. Most workers are freelancers known as rag pickers, people who pick up rags and other waste material from the streets, refuse heaps, etc., for a livelihood. 

Rag picking is a hard way to earn a living anywhere. It is particularly hard at a dump site. It’s easier and there is less competition rag picking in neighborhoods before the municipal refuse trucks arrive to haul away trash. Working solo or with a companion or two, a neighborhood rag picker sorts through bagged household trash and takes anything worth saleable. (Naturally, no one ever takes plastic bags or torn or broken plastic items. Those things eventually end up in the ocean.) Rag pickers at dump sites compete mercilessly to grab discards as they arrive, frequently pulling discards before the delivery vehicle stops. 

I threaded the lightweight Chana uphill through inches-deep mud, following the site manager’s hand signals, dreading the moment the Chana bogged down in mud and avoiding driving into rag pickers already digging through our load.

Unloading wsa fast and efficient as rag pickers examined each item. Who knows what recyclable treasures await? Something could mean the difference between eating and not eating at the end of the day.

Internet down – again!

Another day without Internet. Somehow, by day 26 of 30 of the month, I've used all 30 gigs – despite carefully titrating my use. I’ve experienced the same thing for the last four months: no warning that I’m approaching my monthly capacity – just suddenly no internet. 

It consistently happens on a weekend, too. I’m about done with this.

News blues…

Instead of increasing my level of anxiety about breaking my promise to myself – to post every day of Lockdown – I’ll simply do my best. If I’m late posting a daily pandemic diary, so be it. I’ll post when technology re-establishes my connection to the great wide world.

Healthy futures, anyone?

Review of David Attenborough’s “A Life on Our Planet,” – a stark climate emergency warning 

‘I am David Attenborough and I’m 93. This is my witness statement.” There is a tremendously moving sense of finality about Attenborough’s terrifying new documentary on the climate emergency. It is being marketed as a retrospective, a look back at his life and 60-years-plus career. But make no mistake about its true agenda: Attenborough is here to deliver a stark warning that time is ticking for the planet. It is a personal film – and political, too. There is emotion and urgency in that familiar soothing voice.
[Attenborough warns] …that it’s not too late if we act now. Halt the growth in the world’s population. Create no-fishing zones. Stop eating meat. It’s not about saving the planet, it’s about saving ourselves.

***

Mea culpa. My endless appetite for dark chocolate – and the appetite of millions of others – has bitter environmental consequences 

Cocoa production, catering especially to a wolfish demand for candy in Europe and the U.S. (each American consumes about 9.5 pounds of chocolate a year; in Switzerland, 19.8 pounds) has led to the decimation of forests.

***

RVAT: Packers Fan WRECKS Trump Worse Than Favre Wrecked the Jets  (4:30 mins)

Meanwhile, back at the ranch…

Prepping to sell the house continues. I’ve uncovered a maternal consumption philosophy that is diametrically opposite my ow. I like nice things but I lack the over-consumption gene. My mother's theory: buy in bulk, have other people manage and monitor consumption and – if someone cannot find a purchased item – buy more.
This means this house is full of duplicate items, or items still in boxes having never been opened or used.
For someone who lives on a houseboat, it is unnerving to find myself surrounded by “stuff”. My instinct it to give it away. 

***

My mother’s relocation to the Care Center is complete (sort of) and her – and Jessica, The Dog’s - settling in proceeds. My mother’s sole focus is Jessica’s happiness – and she appears to believe that my sole focus should be Jessica’s happiness, too. (Displacement theory is alive and well: deny your own anxiety and place it upon someone else/a pet – then focus on that creature’s anxiety.) 

Nevertheless, I regularly drive to the Center with freshly cooked giblets for Jessica, Beeno biscuits for Jessica, a non-slip mat for Jessica. (The non-slip mat was an attempt to secure the plastic crate intended as a step for Jessica to mount my mother’s bed. The first step worked well but was too large for the small room. Alas, the crate slipped and Jessica fell spectacularly. Since then she'd ignored the crate, even opting to sleep on the floor. An unheard of humiliation..) I was instructed to return the too-large step.

***
I cancelled today’s visit today as I’m feeling unwell and, with coronavirus, a visit to an establishment catering to the elderly could spell disaster. My potentially compromised health had me delay picking up Jessica’s organic anti-anxiety-med-impregnated collar from the vet. Miraculously, the vet was heading toward the Care Center anyway and she dropped off the medicated collar.
Jessica’s eating habits, a reprise. While my mother and I agreed that Jessica “must” begin the arduous task of transitioning to canned dog food. Jessica, alas, has other ideas: canned dog food? You expect me to eat canned food? I don’t eat no stinking canned dog food!
My mother explained Jessica “doesn’t want it.” Jessica’s refusal scares my mother. What if… the dog starves? … the dog is insulted by the new dietary direction?
I try to lay the ground for Jessica’s transition to the more practical, Care Center-centered diet - whether she “wants it” or not. “Mix small amounts of canned food into Jessica’s high-end giblets meals to acclimate her.”
“But,” my mother tells me, “She doesn’t like it.”
“She will get used to it,” I urge. “Canned dog food is the practical solution. Your job as leader of the pack is to demonstrate to The Dog how to adjust to change.”
Alas, this goes nowhere.
For me, it’s back to carry freshly cooked giblets to the Care Center.

Reality check

Day after day I read the news and become more agitated at the goings on, in the world and, particularly, in the United States. US media ratchets up the anxiety, as do polls, the president, and Congress. I’m reaching the point at which it becomes … mentally destabilizing… to focus on US news for news.

News blues…

The underlying assumption of Donald Trump’s many proclamations about Covid-19: life will immediately return to normal after a vaccine is administered.
Wrong. Again.
Here’s How the Pandemic Finally Ends : A vaccine by early 2021, a steady decline in cases by next fall and back to normal in a few years — 11 top experts look into the future.

“It will take two things to bring this virus under control: hygienic measures and a vaccine. And you can’t have one without the other,” says Paul Offit, director of the Vaccine Education Center and an attending physician in the Division of Infectious Diseases at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia.
… Producing and distributing a vaccine will take months, with the average American not receiving their dose (or doses) until at least mid- or late 2021. And while widespread inoculation will play a large role in bringing life back to normal, getting the shot will not be your cue to take off your mask and run free into a crowded bar. The end of the pandemic will be an evolution, not a revolution, the vaccine just another powerful tool in that process.
… Experts’ estimates of the timeline vary, but there seems to be some agreement that the virus could be in decline and under control by the second half of 2021, and that society could see pre-Covid “normal” within two years.

Buckle up – and don’t forget to wear your mask!

***

Daily Maverick webinar: Eskom’s Survival is South Africa’s Survival. Hosted by Sasha Planting with Sikonathi Mantshantsha and Doug Kuni.

Healthy futures, anyone?

The wealthiest one percent of the world’s population are responsible for the emission of more than twice as much carbon dioxide as the poorer half of the world from 1990 to 2015.

Carbon dioxide emissions rose by 60% over the 25-year period, but the increase in emissions from the richest 1% was three times greater than the increase in emissions from the poorest half.
A report, compiled by Oxfam and the Stockholm Environment Institute, warned that rampant overconsumption and the rich world’s addiction to high-carbon transport are exhausting the world’s “carbon budget”.
Such a concentration of carbon emissions in the hands of the rich means that despite taking the world to the brink of climate catastrophe, through burning fossil fuels, we have still failed to improve the lives of billions, said Tim Gore, head of policy, advocacy and research at Oxfam International.
“The global carbon budget has been squandered to expand the consumption of the already rich, rather than to improve humanity,” he told the Guardian. “A finite amount of carbon can be added to the atmosphere if we want to avoid the worst impacts of the climate crisis. We need to ensure that carbon is used for the best.”
The richest 10% of the global population, comprising about 630 million people, were responsible for about 52% of global emissions over the 25-year period, the study showed.

The biggest surprise?
Globally, the richest 10 percent are those with incomes above about $35,000 (£27,000 / ZAR600,000) a year. The richest 1 percent are people earning more than about $100,000 (£78,000 / ZAR1,711,600) a year.
This requires a shift in understanding, particularly if one assumes an annual a salary of $35,000 barely provides a sustainable lifestyle in California’s San Francisco Bay Area. There, an annual salary of $35,000 disallows rental of even a small apartment,, and certainly disallows saving enough money to make a down payment on a home. (The median home value of single-family homes and condos in San Francisco is $1,416,879, with a down payment of 20 percent, that is, more than $280,000.)

***

A note about political ads shared below: US political campaigns spend millions of dollars each year on political ads, and many more millions during presidential elections. This year, for the first time in my memory, Republicans are running political ads against Republican incumbents, particularly against the incumbent Republican president. The ads are diverse, hard hitting, and unprecedented. I share them to express surprise at the anomaly and at creativity. Enjoy!
The Lincoln Project: The Choice  (0:55 mins)
Meidas Touch:
Lying Lindsey  (0:58 mins)
Vote Or Die: You Are Not Nobody  (0:25 mins)
Really American: Trump Destroys Democracy (0:35 mins)

Meanwhile, back at the ranch…

My mother’s relocation to the Care Center is complete (sort of) and her – and Jessica, The Dog’s - settling in proceeds. My mother’s sole focus is Jessica’s happiness – and she appears to believe that my sole focus should be Jessica’s happiness, too. Accordingly, I regularly drive to the Center with freshly cooked giblets for Jessica, Beeno biscuits for Jessica, a non-slip mat for Jessica. (This, to secure the recycled crate upon which Jessica accesses my mother’s bed. Jessica’s first try on the crate resulted in the crate slipping on the tile floor and Jessica tumbling. So far, she’s refused to approach the crate for another try.)
After cancelling my visit today - I’m feeling unwell - and hired someone to deliver Jessica’s freshly cooked giblets.
In theory, my mother agrees that Jessica “must” transition to eating canned dog food. But she reports that Jessica “doesn’t want” to eat it – and frets that Jessica will starve.
I insist that Jessica transition to that more practical diet - whether she “wants to” or not – and advise mixing small amounts of canned food into Jessica’s high-end giblets meals.
“But,” my mother moans, “She doesn’t like it.”
“Your job as leader of the pack,” I urge my mother, “is to demonstrate to The Dog how to adjust to change.” 

Each day allows one to re-evaluate reality. Not an easy task. 

International intrigue

Our world shrinks by the day, scientists (for those who believe scientists) grow smarter by the day, yet the vast majority of humans stay stuck in the same old thinking we’ve enjoyed for millennia. This disconnect could be humanities’ undoing.
As the Covid-19 virus continues to mutate, experts believe it’s probably becoming more contagious, and cases US have started to rise once again, https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/sep/24/coronavirus-mutate-contagious-study-us-cases POTUS (President of the United States) ignores 32-plus million infections and more than 200,000 dead and calls coronavirus “harmless.” 
That Trump is Trump is irrefutable; he ain’t gonna change.
Why people continue to believe him is mysterious. It appears that won’t change either.
Humans. Go figure.

News blues…

Finnish dogs respond to the call of the wild coronavirus

Four Covid-19 sniffer dogs have begun work at Helsinki airport in a state-funded pilot scheme that Finnish researchers hope will provide a cheap, fast and effective alternative method of testing people for the virus. 
A dog is capable of detecting the presence of the coronavirus within 10 seconds and the entire process takes less than a minute to complete, according to Anna Hielm-Björkman of the University of Helsinki, who is overseeing the trial. She said, “It’s very promising. If it works, it could prove a good screening method in other places” such as hospitals, care homes and at sporting and cultural events.

Healthy futures, anyone?

Lake Chad, in the Bol region,
200km from Chad’s
capital city, N’Djamena,
lies on the borders of
Chad, Niger, Nigeria and Cameroon.
Photo: Sia Kambou/AFP/Getty

Chad halts lake's world heritage status 

In a letter leaked to the Guardian, Chad’s tourism and culture minister wrote to Unesco, the body which awards the world heritage designation, asking to “postpone the process of registering Lake Chad on the world heritage list”. The letter says the government “has signed production-sharing agreements with certain oil companies whose allocated blocks affect the area of the nominated property”…

The letter asks Unesco to “postpone the process” in order to “allow [us] to redefine and redesign the map to avoid any interference in the future”.

The request follows a multiyear process involving the governments of Cameroon, Chad, Niger and Nigeria to jointly nominate the Lake Chad cultural landscape to the Unesco world heritage list. It has been nominated as both a natural and a cultural site.
… “It is important to recall that the goal of the inscription of a site on the world heritage list is to ensure conservation of its outstanding universal value for future generations,” a spokesperson for the Unesco world heritage site centre said. “A suspension of the inscription process is not contemplated among the possibilities offered by the provisions of the world heritage nomination process”.
If Chad decides to go ahead with oil exploitation, the process would have to be cancelled all together, Unesco said.

***

Scientists take temperatures of butterflies to uncover climate threat 

***

In context, consider current CO2 levels in our atmosphere
Weekly averages
19 September 2020: 411.47 ppm
This time last year: 408.48 ppm
10 years ago: 387.00 ppm
Pre-industrial base: 280
Safe level: 350
Atmospheric CO2 reading from Mauna Loa, Hawaii (part per million). Source: NOAA-ESRL. 

Read more about CO2 levels.

***

Some of the best reporting the environment comes from the Guardian News . Usually, I’d not promote a news or other outlet on this blog, but these are perilous times…

41 days to save the Earth …
… the Guardian is all in. Are you? On November 4, a day after the presidential election, the US will formally withdraw from the Paris agreement on constraining global heating. It’s urgent that we tell the world what this means, and the Guardian is pulling out all the stops to do so. Will you help us by supporting our journalism?
With millions are flocking to the Guardian every day, financial support from our readers is crucial in enabling us to produce open, fearless, independent reporting that addresses the climate emergency. It helps sustain the freedom we have to present the facts comprehensively, explain the details as they unfold, and interrogate the decisions made.
The Guardian recognises the climate emergency as the defining issue of our times. That’s why we have pledged to give climate change, wildlife extinction and pollution the sustained attention and prominence they demand, as a core part of our journalism.
At this pivotal moment for our planet, our independence enables us to always inform readers about threats, consequences and solutions based on scientific fact, not political prejudice or business interests. This makes us different. And we are equally determined to practice what we preach: we have divested from the oil and gas sectors, renounced fossil fuel advertising and committed to achieving carbon neutrality by 2030.
We believe everyone deserves access to information that is fact-checked, and analysis that has authority and integrity. That’s why, unlike many others, we made a choice: to keep Guardian reporting open for all, regardless of where they live or what they can afford to pay. Our work would not be possible without our readers, who now support our work from 180 countries around the world. Every reader contribution, however big or small, is so valuable for our future. Support the Guardian from as little as $1 – and it only takes a minute. Thank you.

***

The Lincoln Project:

We, the people, will reject Donald Trump’s presidency on November 3rd. There will be no Trump coup in this country.
The American experiment, which has endured since 1776 — through civil war, world wars, and depressions — will not yield to a dime-store Mussolini who is faithless to his duty and is the worst president in American history.
He will be repudiated and humiliated by history’s judgment. It is our job to make that happen.
Donald Trump is threatening the peaceful transition of power because he is losing and he is weak. Let us finish him off.
Peaceful Transition  (0:25 mins)
Nobody  (0:25 mins)

Meidas Touch: Arizona Knows Honor  (0:58 mins)

Meanwhile, back at the ranch…

32 degrees Centigrade (90F) here today. Tomorrow: 34C (93F). And, it’s only September.

***

Late yesterday South Africa time, I received a text message from an acquaintance – I’d believed a friend-in-the-making - at the marina where my houseboat is docked: “Do you know they moved your boat?”
I did not know “they” had moved my boat – from a covered slip (out of direct sun and direct rain) into an open slip.
It was 11am or so in California (SA time is 9 hours ahead of California) and I called the office. I talked to Peter - the brother of Rob, the major share owner - and he promised Rob would call me. I’ve met neither Peter nor Rob as they only recently purchased the marina.
I was asleep an hour or more later when Rob called. He explained the covered slip cost US$100 more per month than I was paying so, without telling me, they moved my houseboat into a cheaper slip. None of their cheaper covered slips accommodated my boat’s width (“beam”).
I purchased my houseboat in July 2019, 13 months ago. For eight of those 13 months Covid-19 has locked me down in South Africa. I’ll be in SA for at least another four months, engaged with selling my mother’s house, her move and wellbeing, etc.
Marina-owner Rob also asked me how I learned about the move “so soon.” I mentioned that person I’d considered a friend-in-the-making. By the call’s end, Rob had led me to believe he’d look into a solution that would protect my boat from the full onslaught of sun and rain – despite my state of unemployment/lack of income due to pandemic.
That remains to be seen.
I filled in the person I’d thought a friend-in-the-making about my call with Rob.
Yikes!
He was angry. Accused me of using him as “a source of information,” called me a “snitch,” implied I’d exposed “a confidential source.”
Oh, oh. In what strange inter-cultural predicament have I landed?
Just what I do not want nor need: international intrigue. Another saga.

Sundowners

Whither coronavirus, you ask?

Worldwide (Map)
September 24 – 31,780,000 confirmed infections; 975,100 deaths
September 17 – 29,902,200 confirmed infections; 941,400 deaths

US (Map)  
September 24 – 6,935,000 confirmed infections; 201,880 deaths
September 17– 6,630,100 confirmed infections; 196,831 deaths

SA (Coronavirus portal)
September 24 – 665,190 confirmed infections; 16,206 deaths
September 17 – 653,445 confirmed infections; 15,705 deaths

News blues…

Across South Africa in the last 24 hours, 1,906 people have tested positive for Covid-19. While SA’s infection rates continue to climb, the country is now 9th on the Johns Hopkins worldwide list  of most infected countries. Most recently, Spain surpassed SA’s numbers and rose to 8th place.
Positive news from the Western Cape

The number of active cases of Covid-19 in the Western Cape slipped below 2,500 on Thursday.  At the height of the provincial outbreak at the beginning of July there were more than 17,600 active cases and nearly 1,900 people in hospital. These figures were down to 2,492 and just over 600 on Thursday, meaning active infections in the province are 35.3 per 100,000 people.
The per capita active infection rate in Cape Town — once the epicenter of the national epidemic — is even lower, at 30 per 100,000.

***

European countries experience a second wave. Coronavirus world map: which countries have the most Covid cases and deaths? 

***

Dr Fauci “klaps” back. (For readers unfamiliar with South African idioms, “klap” is the Afrikaans word for hit back or fight back. It’s also used to describe a strenuous effort, as in, “I’ll klap that job, one way, man!” Translation into American: I’ll make short work of that job.
Watch Dr Fauci klap Congressman Rand Paul who maneuvers- and fails - to get the last word for a photo op. 
Way to go, Dr Fauci!

***

Barton Gellman’s recent article in The Atlantic,The Election that could Break America, paints an alarming election scenario 

The [election] contest will be decided with sufficient authority that the losing candidate will be forced to yield. Collectively we will have made our choice—a messy one, no doubt, but clear enough to arm the president-elect with a mandate to govern.
As a nation, we have never failed to clear that bar. But in this election year of plague and recession and catastrophized politics, the mechanisms of decision are at meaningful risk of breaking down. Close students of election law and procedure are warning that conditions are ripe for a constitutional crisis that would leave the nation without an authoritative result. We have no fail-safe against that calamity…[and] blinking red lights.

Time for Americans to engage their inner patriot and demand – and vote for – democracy over authoritarianism. There’s no time like the present.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch…

A conundrum: how to stage for sale one large property, full-of-“stuff” being held to use after the purchase of a small property? With limited help and limited funds to hire help?
And drive up and down to my mom’s new home in the Care Center to accommodate her need to keep her dog healthy? If Jessica, the dog, refuses to eat for a couple of days, I’m asked to purchase appetite stimulating meds for the dog. I order meds. Meanwhile, the dog – inevitably – starts eating again. 

The more things change, the more things stay the same. 

***

I thought I’d hired a skilled painter to handle the more complex areas of the house’s façade. Since she lives far from this house, we’d agreed she’d stay overnight until the job was finished. She’d bring her two dogs. Then she thought about it and decided her dogs and my mother’s three dogs that remain here, would fight. She cancelled the job. Then she thought about that – and decided she’d leave her dogs at home and drive here each day.
I’m grateful she’s coming to paint.
I do not understand the … canine fetish … that drives South Africans to prioritize dogs over making a living – or living independent of dogs.

***

With the change in weather, ending a lovely spring day next to the garden pond, sipping a “sundowner” (a cocktail in the English colonial tradition), and chatting with monkeys. Well, “chatting” is a stretch of my imagination. I invite monkeys to chat, but none have accepted my invitation – so far.
Hope springs eternal and I’ll keep trying. Already I see signs that the more mature monkeys are tempted: they sit, scratch, stare, sometimes even wander into the garden as I cajole.
Wouldn’t monkeys look great sipping on sundowners?

Licensed!

News blues…

In the latest polls US presidential candidate Joe Biden leads presidential incumbent Donald Trump 51 percent to 44 percent. https://edition.cnn.com/election/2020/presidential-polls
My only comment? How can 44 percent of the United States voting public still support Donald Trump? More than 7 million American infected with Covid-19, and 200,000 plus dead.
It is inconceivable that any human, never mind 44 percent of ‘em, could vote for a man devastating the United States with his lies.
***
The Lincoln Project:
Meidas Touch:
Joe Knows How  (0;25 mins)
Bye Kayleigh  (0:55 mins)

RVAT: As Bill watches Trump dismantle checks and balances across the board, he prepares to vote Biden. (3:45 mins)

Meanwhile, back at the ranch…

Big day: due to pandemic, my car license (“car registration” in US) lapsed at the beginning of May. Allowances were made to accommodate drivers’ lapsing licenses due to Covid-19. I experienced police at roadblocks making gentle suggestions about renewal – “do it as soon as possible” - instead of issuing tickets. (Municipality offices, the police station, too, have shut down several times during Lockdown due to detection of Covid-19 infections among employees. Shut downs last for two or three days while office undergo “deep cleaning.”)
Three weeks ago, I visited the municipality to renew my license. I learned I could get an appointment to renew.
Today was the day, at 11:00am.
I dreaded the visit, largely because the first time I visited that office – three years ago, to transfer my vehicle into my name – it took six visits to accomplish my goal. I’d never done it before, could find no directions on how to do it, and anyone I asked gave conflicting directions. The clerks behind the thick glass were impatient and unhelpful. In short, licensing my car annually has been stressful. Moreover, the transaction is in-person only - no online service and no functional post office to deliver pertinent and timely documents. 

While anxious, I hoped that today’s 11:00am appointment meant a quick in and out – with license in hand.
First surprise: I was fourth to join a line of socially distanced customers seated outdoors under a tree. Within 10 minutes the line was a dozen customers long. We all had appointments for 11:00am.
I tried alleviating my anxiety by reading my Kindle library book on my cell phone. Alas, I reread the same page several times before realizing I was eavesdropping on the conversation among the three people in line ahead of me.
The man dominating the conversation explained he carried vehicle license renewal paperwork for 8 other people… then interspersed his monolog with his schtick of rhetorical negativisms: “how many more years does the white man have in South Africa? He answered his own question: "20? Nah. Less." 
Then he threw in comments about “cannibalism” and how “it is not over yet” ...and followed this up with dour jokes themed on how “they” are “not on the ball”.... that “we will end up in chaos”... how he hoped “we don’t end up like Zim” [Zimbabwe] “but we’re heading there...” After that, he segued to public officials’ salaries. “They [the village mayor] make about R120,000 [US$7272] per month, a million a year” … “for doing nothing, and taking no responsibility.”
He offered insight into how “they” are “talking about taking away/doing away with peoples’ pensions... Oh well….” 

I’d arrived at 10:35 for my 11:00am appointment. I checked the time: 11:30am. I saw no discernable progress getting customers into or out of the office. 

Meanwhile, our voluble companion had moved onto sharing his plan for his old age: suicide. 

He explained he already had the means in his possession: a two-phase poison. “I’ll add it to my orange juice one morning…. No trace will be found which means my life insurance policy will be paid. It’s all about quality of life... I’ve had a good life. I got nothing... so bugger all to lose which is nice... I’ve no medical insurance. Few years ago, I had a heart attack and they took me to Edendale Hospital [a free government-run hospital]. It was like being in the heart of Africa. But they fixed me up. It cost me nothing. And I feel better than ever! Even my eyesight improved.”
11:55am.
Then two of us were called inside the office.

After sanitizing hands, having temperature taken, and filling in personal details and signing the Covid tracing document, I settled in to wait.
Three clerks served a waiting group of 6 socially-distanced customers.
Now the topic of conversation was “that horrible man” waiting in line outside, how he had paperwork for 8 vehicle owners… and how the staff intended to make him wait until the end of the work day (2pm at the municipality)…
Customers who’d experienced “that horrible man” laughed at the notion of keeping him waiting….

Soon, I faced the thick glass window and the clerk. Within six minutes, I paid my fee - no late fee - tucked my paperwork into my backpack, and departed.

Best of all: next year I'll renew my license by August 31 instead of April 30. Six months reprieve.

Bliss. 

Equinox

The past winter – my first in South Africa in decades – I recorded daily sunrise and sunset schedules.  
July 1, 2020 the sun rose at 6:53am and set at 5:11pm.
Today, September 22, 2020 the equinox, the sun rose at 5:45am and will set 5:54pm.
Fiat lux. (“Let light be made,” aka “let there be light”.) 

Perhaps We the People need more balance in how we pay attention to micro- and macro-cosms? An Equinox of Daily Living?

News blues…

Trump's Total Failure: Francis Ford Coppola On His Old Classmate  (4:40 mins)
It’s not an exaggeration to say the political struggle in the US is for the very soul of the nation. What kind of nation – therefore world – will emerge after the election? It really is up for grabs.
For decades, Americans took our version of democracy for granted. Many didn’t bother to vote or to struggle against the authoritarian direction Republicans slowly instituted. 

Let's pray it's not too late. After praying, let's get out there and work for a better outcome. 

Healthy futures, anyone?

First, the bad news: “I lived the climate crisis every day of my childhood. This November, I'll vote on it.”
And the “we’ll get to it sooner or later” news: Botswana says it has solved mystery of mass elephant die-off.
 Now the good news, aka, “who-knew?” news: the sacred giants of the dung-beetle world  

***

The Lincoln Project:

It’s critical we defeat Trump and Trumpism in November. His enablers in the Senate are just as guilty for aiding and abetting this criminal administration as Trump himself.
Let’s ensure South Carolinians know: It’s America, or Trump.
Lindsey's lack of integrity once before, and now, thanks to you, his race is a dead heat as voters are now finally recognizing the extent of his cowardice.
To ensure Lindsey’s defeat, we have to expose his depravity — and we’re using his own words to do it:
“I want you to use my words against me...You can say 'Lindsey Graham said let’s let the next president, whoever it might be, make that nomination.'"
Lindsey Graham can not, and will not, stand up for principle—or even his own word.
He has abandoned his duty and neglected South Carolinians, all while cowering to Trump and his cruel, antidemocratic agenda.
Once Trump entered the White House, Lindsey’s fidelity to his principles—and his oath—vanished.
Time and time again, Donald Trump has proven to be horrifically unfit and dangerous—and at every turn, Lindsey has done nothing but give Trump cover, accommodate his corruption, and evade any accountability.
Lindsey is petrified at the threat of a Trump tweet. Let’s remind him who he answers to.

Accountable  (0.25 mins)

Is Jamie  Harrison the guy who can vote Lindsey Graham out?  (5:35 mins) 

It’s up to you, South Carolinians. To quote Star Trek’s Captain Kirk, “Make it so.”

Meanwhile, back at the ranch…

Back in July, I posted the beginnings of a saga involving my mother’s long term domestic worker’s son, a lay about, make-no-effort-to work drunk. Miffed at being dislodged from his comfy spot his mother had organized to bum off my elderly mother, I had him ousted, legally. Nevertheless, his mother – my mom’s domestic worker - continued surreptitiously to let him enter and exit the property each night. After security cameras showed this, I locked the upper gate and kept the only key. Thwarted and in a drunken rage, he threatened to kill, rape me, etc. (he’d served prison time for rape). I had him served with a restraining order. When his mother departed her job and this area last week, I expected he’d leave with her.
Alas, “best laid plans,” etc., etc. The saga continues: yesterday, I learned he’s still here, somewhere in the village.
Why?
Who knows? Not on my account, I hope.
His mother sends him money for food.
I informed our security service so they’re aware I’m still under threat of physical harm.

***

Oakland, California lies on San Francisco Bay, adjacent to Alameda, the delightful island city I lived in for the last 20 years. When I’m not in KwaZulu Natal, I work in Oakland, too.
Architecturally, Oakland is fascinating: art deco buildings interspersed with modern, postmodern, Chinese, and everything in between.
Recently, a friend wrote me about this city:

Did you know all of Downtown Oakland is completely shut down? From Jack London Square [the waterfront] all the way to about 21st Street almost all the shops are boarded up in covered up with Black Lives Matter murals. It's wild! You can't smash any more windows because there aren't any Windows left to smash. I look at it as a rebellion against corporate repression. They left standing a couple of the smaller shops, but obliterated all the banks, the CVS, the Walgreens, Target - virtually anything that looks look like a chain store - is gone. There would be no reason for anyone to go to downtown to shop for anything because there's nothing there. For whatever reason, what's left of Jack London Square is still intact. It's just all along Broadway that is decimated.“

I’ve an ongoing project photographing changes in rural and urban environments, both in my small part of KZN and in California, including Oakland. Before I departed California in January, I and a friend spent the afternoon walking Downtown Oakland and Chinatown while I photographed most recent changes. So much has changed there - driven by the tech industry (Uber, for example, headquarters in Oakland) - that we got lost in Chinatown.

These photos – none of which are mine – show the area over time. 
Now? Photos taken during Black Lives Matter protests:
Set 1.  

Set 2.

I see these photos and remember the times I’ve spent in Oakland, working, enjoying city life, sightseeing, and protesting - the invasion of Iraq, the ongoing war and trauma to American troops and Iraqi civilians, etc.

I miss it. 

I want to be there.