Vaccine!

A UPS truck backs into
the loading dock at the Pfizer Inc.,
manufacturing and storage facility
in Portage, Michigan, USA,
 13 December 2020.

News blues…

Word spread quickly yesterday that President Ramaphosa would address the nation last night (Sunday). Soon after, another message explained he’d delay his address until tonight. With SA’s current daily rate of new infections at 7,999 (Saturday/Sunday), I suspect the president will impose further Covid-related restrictions for “the festive season.”
The year of living dangerously.

***

Prime Minister Ambrose Dlamini, of the tiny absolute monarchy Eswatini, tested positive for COVID-19 four weeks ago. Hospitalised in South Africa, he died on Sunday of Covid. He was 52. 

***

Is living with Covid-19 rewiring our brains?
I talk regularly to family and friends in the US. Some – Lockdownees – suffer more than others from isolation. Intellectually, we know the pandemic is altering our psyches. Now, research supports this awareness.
The loss of the connecting power of touch, for example, can ‘trigger factors that contribute to depression – sadness, lower energy levels, lethargy. The pandemic is expected to precipitate a mental health crisis, but perhaps also a chance to approach life with new clarity. 
This is both necessity and choice. Choose “to approach life with new clarity.”

***

Researchers at Yale University found that Covid-19 patients had large numbers of misguided antibodies in their blood that targeted the organs, tissues and the immune system itself, rather than fighting off the invading virus.
Dramatic levels of “friendly fire” from the immune system may drive severe Covid-19 disease and leave patients with “long Covid” – when medical problems persist for a significant time after the virus has been beaten…. 

***

The Lincoln Project: Fool me  (0:25 mins)

Healthy planet, anyone?

Go out an spot a bird…

A new study  reveals that greater bird biodiversity brings greater joy to people, according to recent findings from the German Center for Integrative Biodiversity Research. In fact, scientists concluded that conservation is just as important for human well-being as financial security… and determined that happiness correlated with a specific number of bird species.
"According to our findings, the happiest [humans] are those who can experience numerous different bird species in their daily life, or who live in near-natural surroundings that are home to many species," says lead author Joel Methorst, a doctoral researcher at the Senckenberg Biodiversity and Climate Research Center, of the Goethe University in Frankfurt.
The authors calculated that being around fourteen additional bird species provided as much satisfaction as earning an additional $150 a month.
According to the study authors, birds are some of the best indicators of biological diversity in any given area because they are usually seen or heard in their environments, especially in urban areas. However, more bird species were found near natural green spaces, forested areas and bodies of water.
In the U.S., birding has become a more common and accessible hobby during the pandemic. 
…"Nature conservation therefore not only ensures our material basis of life, but it also constitutes an investment in the well-being of us all….”

Meanwhile, back at the ranch…

Psychotherapeutic therapy – “counseling” – is culturally mainstream is many parts of the western world. Ironically, whether one “buys into” the benefits of “talk therapy,” acceptance of the service remains generational. Within western culture, middle-aged and younger people accept that this therapy is useful. Older generations? Not so much. With this cohort, a mindset remains that “only crazy” people require such help.
My mother belongs to the latter group, the Silent Generation: “those born from 1925 to 1945 – so called because they were raised during a period of war and economic depression. The label reflected the counterculture of a rebellious generation, distrustful of the establishment and keen to find their own voice.”
Initially an eager resident in a Care Center my mother now “hates” the place. She refuses to socialize (I’m not one for “natter…”) and finds fault everywhere: “the vegetables are hard,” “the dog is unhappy,” “not enough tea,” … “the staff is rude….”
Initially, she agreed to “talk to someone” and benefited from these short conversations. Then she learned she was paying for a service. Now? Despite the psychotherapist accommodating my mother with half-hour visits at half price, my mother decided “it’s too expensive.” Ironically, she eagerly pays for a vet to attend a dog’s prickly-heat allergy but will not pay for her own “prickly” emotional adjustment to being a frail, in-constant-pain, 87-year-old.
Me? Besides “talking” to my own psychotherapist about how to handle challenges with my mother, I find pleasure in talking to plants… and birds… and frogs… and monkeys…

Consider the lilies

News blues…

Grim data. 

• South Africa suffers more than 200 Covid-19 deaths and 8,300 new cases in 24 hours 
• USA surpasses 300,000 confirmed Covid deaths  and more than one million new infections in the first five days of December.

Let’s leave it at that for today.

***

The Lincoln Project: Silver Alert  (0:23 mins)

Healthy planet, anyone?

The catastrophic Covid-19 pandemic also offers a chance to reset humanity’s approach to the future. It’s entirely unclear whether We the People have the will or the gumption to force our reluctant elected officials in that direction. First order of business, however, is to inform yourself and to make pragmatic reality-based decision.
Food for thought: According to the International Union for Conservation of Nature’s latest Red List, an inventory of threatened species, more than 35,700 species — representing almost 30% of all plant and animal species evaluated — are currently threatened with extinction.

These include all of the world’s freshwater dolphins, almost one-third of all oak trees and 40% of all amphibians.
At least 31 species have been declared extinct… [including] several freshwater fish species endemic to Lake Lanao in the Philippines, which, according to the IUCN, were killed off in part by overfishing and the introduction of predatory species to the lake. Three Central American frog species have also been declared extinct.
“The growing list of extinct species is a stark reminder that conservation efforts must urgently expand,” Bruno Oberle, IUCN’s director-general, said in a statement. “To tackle global threats such as unsustainable fisheries, land clearing for agriculture, and invasive species, conservation needs to happen around the world and be incorporated into all sectors of the economy.”

Interested in knowing more about how to secure a healthier, more sustainable, and more equitable future – unmarred by ever-more health crises and other disasters? The World Economic Forum offers a place to start …. 

Meanwhile, back at the ranch…

No shortage of water in this part of the country as summer thunder storms continue to gift the Midlands.
The garden pond thrives, as do the kingfishers dining on freshwater critters – frogs, crabs, and indigenous fish (no sign of any goldfish I added last summer).

(Left) The lilies are blooming. Actually, these lovely yellow lilies are exotic to KZN. We’ve tried to clear them from the pond, but they’re hellbent on surviving. 

(Right) Nymphaea nouchali var. caerulea, the lovely sky-blue lily is South Africa's most commonly grown indigenous water lily.

Notice

Two o’clock this morning, I received a notice from Eskom (SA’s national electricity providing parastatal) that load-shedding is back on across the country. Our freedom-from-the-tyranny-of-electricity begins this weekend from 6am to 8:30am and 2pm to 4:30pm. No time to prepare, just wake up to no electricity, repeated early afternoon. (Ah, life in SA returns to new-normal. I feel so at home.)
I also received a notice to download a Covid-tracker app that alerts a user about rises in Covid infections in the user’s locale. I downloaded it (do so at your own risk) from discv.co/COVID19Hotspots.
A third notice on my phone declared SA will return to Lockdown Level 4 on December 16. A hoax? Who knows? December 16 has been a public holiday from way back. During my youth, Dingaan Day recognized a triumph of the Voortrekkers against the Zulu army led by Zulu King Dingaan at the 'Battle of Blood River', now it’s The Day of Reconciliation. Time will tell whether is also Hoax Day.

News blues…

According to the CDC director, the US will likely have more daily Covid-19 deaths for the next 60 to 90 days than died on 9/11. That’s more than 3,000 deaths a day. For that atrocity, the US went to war and remains at war. For Covid, nah, not a prob, let’s convene super-spreader events and undermine US-style democracy.

***

Food for thought: Steve Schmidt, former Republican, continues to examine current events and dangers to the American system  (3:09 mins)

Another look at Whackidoodleitude

It’s clear whacky ideas and conspiracy theories currently are transcendent in the US. A pastor in this video clip actually says, “I’m forty-four years old and there’s never been a pandemic in my lifetime. There isn’t one now either." Take a look….  (5:28 mins)

***

The Lincoln Project: Mitch’s Tears  (0:55 mins)

Meanwhile, back at the ranch…

Neighborhood monkeys’ summer schedule includes invading the garden early, before the alarm is disarmed. Today, before 5am, a wave of the small furry critters pours over the walls and fences and made for the bird feeder and for my veggie garden. (Monkeys, I’ve discovered, love to snack on green onions!) I did my duty as Neighborhood Crazy Lady and thwarted their monkey plans. After disarming the alarm, still wearing pajamas, I dashed outside waving my arms and yelling. A bracing way to awaken my sleepy blood.
I’m really going to miss the little buggers when this house is sold, and I move to my new place. No monkeys at that community, only zebra, warthog, impala, blesbok….
Prior to lockdown, on a walk along that community’s Game Trail, I chatted briefly with someone about his enjoyment at seeing wild animals, including African wildebeest (buffalo). I thought he’d misidentified a blesbok for I’d never seen a buffalo on any of my many walks along Game Trail. Searching with binoculars revealed the usual zebra, blesbok, impala but no wildebeest. 

Yesterday, driving a new route through the community, I spotted a small herd of wildebeest grazing contently, not in the residential area, but in an adjacent area.
I look forward to more discoveries.
I’m blessed to have decided to move to an area that presents a safe, sanitized version of African wildlife, right on my doorstep. Not even Amazon Prime could deliver that!

MIA

Day 260 Friday, December 11 – MIA

News blues…

Oh, oh! In the past 24 hours, South Africa recorded more than 8,100 new Covid-19 infections, and 173 deaths. Ninety deaths occurred in the Eastern Cape, 52 in the Western Cape, 13 in Gauteng, 10 in KwaZulu-Natal and eight in Gauteng.
Health minister Dr Zweli Mkhize said, “We wish to reiterate our plea to South Africans to heed the threat of the rising numbers of Covid-19 cases identified. There is clear evidence of an exponential rise in transmission and this is cause for serious concern.” 

***

The Covid-related death toll in the US, meanwhile surpasses its World War II combat fatalities. 

Healthy planet, anyone?

The US is currently MIA as a signatory to the Paris climate agreement, but that isn’t stopping the 54 cities that are on track to meet the targets. Let’s join the mayor of Paris to praise an “important milestone” on fifth anniversary of the landmark agreement.

More than 50 of the world’s leading cities are on track to help keep global heating below 1.5C and tackle the worst impacts of the climate crisis, according to a new report. 
From mass tree-planting in Buenos Aires to new public transport networks in Mexico City, 54 of the world’s leading cities are now rolling out plans that will cut their greenhouse gas emissions in line with the Paris agreement, according to a new study by the C40 cities network. 

Fifty-four sane cities! Perhaps there’s hope for our planet after all!

Meanwhile, back at the ranch…

A word about masks and mask-resistance so prevalent in the US.
A friend in California notes that no one attending children’s soccer games in local parks wears masks or face coverings to inhibit the spread of Covid.
Outraged by the anti-mask mentality, my friend called to complain to the local parks and recreation department. The park’s department representative, however, agreed with my friend’s assessment. She explained that the department regularly posts signs urging the wearing of masks in public.
Local anti-makers tear down the signs.
The department is creating sturdier signs that they intend to embed in concrete.
One hopes that might help. It is, however, common sense and respect for others that’s missing-in-action in the current US. Addressing that is immensely more difficult.  

Wear a mask!

Worldwide (Map)  
December 10 – 68,849,000 confirmed infections; 1,568,750 deaths
November 12 – 52,070,000 confirmed infections; 1,274,000 deaths
October 15 – 38,426,375 confirmed infections; 1,091,250 deaths

US (Map) 
December 10 – 15,385,00 confirmed infections; 289,500 deaths
November 12 – 10,258,100 confirmed infections; 239,700 deaths
October 15 – 7,911,500 confirmed infections; 216,860 deaths

Deaths from COVID-19 in the U.S. have soared to more than 2,200 a day on average, matching the frightening peak reached last April, and cases per day have eclipsed 200,000 on average for the first time on record, with the crisis all but certain to get worse because of the fallout from Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year’s.
Virtually every state is reporting surges just as a vaccine appears days away from getting the go-ahead in the U.S. 

SA (Coronavirus portal) 
December 10 – 829,600 confirmed infections; 22,580 deaths
November 12 – 740,255 confirmed infections; 19,951 deaths
October 15 – 696,420 confirmed infections; 18,155 deaths
Covid-19 infections have surpassed the 4,400 mark daily for the past three days in SA.
Mkhize: Expect faster rise in COVID-19 cases in second wave 

Stay safe – wear a mask, any mask, just cover your mouth and nose and try to protect yourself and your fellow humans…

News blues…

Global Home Care Services Market to Reach $1.8 Trillion by 2027 

***

Yesterday, I happened to pick up an unfamiliar local weekly print paper. The solitary Letter to the Editor caught my eye: it was a pro-Trump misinformation screed.
My first reaction? Counter the lies with my own Letter to the Editor.
Years of being attacked as a “socialist,” a “radical,” and someone who ought “to kill myself out of shame,” while volunteering a GI Rights counselor and an anti-Iraq-and-Afghanistan-war activist, urged caution.
I asked a local friend if she knew or had heard of the Letter’s author. She had: he’s an elected official of a local chapter of a predominantly white rightwing political party. Freedom Front Plus, is the fifth largest in the country with 2.38 percent of the national vote, up 0.9 percent since 2014.

Remember when, back in 2018, Tucker Carlson and Donald Trump suddenly began, briefly, talking about “land seizures” and “white farmer murders” in South Africa?
That was Trump complying with the FF Plus’s request that Trump highlight the issue. Since the issue suited Trump’s divide-and-conquer tactics, he dived “into controversy over South Africa's land policies and farmer killings.” (9:00 mins)

South African politicians rebutted Trump’s tactic. 
Nary a word about that from Tucker Carlson and Donald Trump. 

When reality and facts do not match ideology, toss out reality.

It would have been nice to rebut misinformation in the local rag, I’m glad I resisted. 

Note: yes, South African farmers, white and black, are murdered. That the majority of murder victims are white lies in the reality that whites are the majority of owners of large farms.

Healthy planet, anyone?

Human-made materials now outweigh Earth's entire biomass. Production of concrete, metal, plastic, bricks and asphalt greater than mass of living matter on planet. 

… research shows that human activity including production of concrete, metal, plastic, bricks and asphalt has brought the world to a crossover point where human-made mass – driven mostly by enhanced consumption and urban development – exceeds the overall living biomass on Earth.
The amount of plastic alone is greater in mass than all land animals and marine creatures combined….
On average, every person in the world is responsible for the creation of human-made matter equal to more than their bodyweight each week [according to] the paper published in Nature. 

Meanwhile, back at the ranch…

After much drama, uncertainty, and arguing with lawyers, I was handed keys to my new, small home. From now on, I spread my finite energy between selling my mother’s large house and continuing to manage her affairs, visiting and caring for her, and moving into my new home, extending the small garden, and admiring the wild animals.
How long before I’ve normalized this idyll and begin to complain about those darned zebra, impala, warthogs, and birds eating my plants? Or bemoaning the lack of monkeys?

“Republican wack pack”

Here, the queen assumes the year 2020 is over and that the worst has passed.
Not so, your highness. 

Eleven more days present Donald Trump, a desperate man trying desperately to stave off the inevitable, wiggle room to bring down the system of governance that voted him out of office.
The United States heads towards, not only pandemic disaster, but the disaster of doing too little, too late to stop a crazy man. 

In 2012, Americans such as Steve Schmidt began warning  about the appearance on the political scene of Donald Trump and the “Republican wack pack,” (aka “an autocratic cult of personality.” An interview worth watching – 18:30 mins.)
If you think we’ve reached bottom with the Trumpster and Trumpism, think again. The cult may be gasping for oxygen, but the Republican wack pack is headed up by powerful politicians determined to weaken essential American-style democracy.  (5:40 mins)

News blues…

Trump acolyte, Covid denialist, and anti-maskist, Florida’s governor Ron DeSantis, stands accused of sending armed officers to raid the Tallahassee, Florida home of Rebekah Jones.
Jones is the former Florida official who says she was ousted from her job managing the state’s COVID-19 data for refusing to censor and alter case information. 

After her ouster in the spring, Jones went public with allegations that her superiors had told her to put misleading and false information on the public-facing COVID-19 dashboard, which people could use to track data about coronavirus infections in Florida.
The information they asked her to post would have over-counted the number of COVID-19 tests performed and under-counted the total number of cases, she said, as Florida rushed to reopen its economy. She also said she was asked to remove evidence of people testing positive for the virus in January.
… FDLE Commissioner Rick Swearingen disputed Jones’ claim that the officers [invading her house] pointed guns at her and her children. But Jones’ video indicates that they may have pointed weapons in her family’s general direction. When the officers enter the house, one demands her husband come downstairs while another points what appears to be a firearm directly to the top of the staircase.
Jones said she’ll return to work running her dashboard on Tuesday.
“If [DeSantis] thought pointing a gun in my face was a good way to get me to shut up, he’s about to learn just how wrong he was,” she tweeted. “I’ll have a new computer tomorrow. And then I’m going to get back to work.”

***

The Lincoln Project: Pence  (0:34 mins)

Healthy planet, anyone?

• Earth photo essay
• Our global fire crisis is the sign of a dying biosphere. But we can take action.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch…

A pandemic positive: picking up a plethora of new skills. I did not choose these roles. They – through circumstances – chose me.
I’m delving into the sad ins and outs of early dementia in the elderly. I’d prefer to do without this skill. Words of warning: as a member of collective humanity, you will, come face-to-face with dementia in someone you love. Prepare for that, now.
Pool Gal: After waiting three months for Pool Guy Richard to show up to troubleshoot the small pool, he arrived, looked it over, removed the apparently dysfunctional “creepy” suction system, quoted “R2,500 or more” to finish the job, then tucked the “creepy” under his arm and departed. 

Five days and many phone calls later, he returned the creepy. In the interim, the gardener and I experimented with “fixing” the filter system. No dice. Despite tardiness and lack of specificity in tasks required or associated costs, Pool Gal must defer to Pool Guy’s expertise.
Recycling Carpenter is a role I relish since I relish creative reuse. I’m rising to the challenge of recycling odds and end to build a garden worktable for my new home. A perfect-enough discarded kitchen counter top, two recycled “legs” and a recycled former dog bed all go into the mix. 

Photos forthcoming….

Denial is a river in Egypt

Have We the People reached the point at which “real” reality begins to inform our day-to-day actions?
A range of powerful and complex emotions - such as desire, need to be right, greed, pride, revenge, need for status, shame, humiliation - exert a strong influence over humans’ ability to interpret facts.
The worsening coronavirus pandemic highlights the reality that:

… fact-based decision-making hasn’t made as much progress in society as it deserves because many decisions are overwhelmed by emotions. Our overall progress as a society, however, is predicated on our learning how to control emotions and make decisions based on “real” facts [as opposed to “alternative facts]. Add in other psychological dynamics such as ideology (which substitutes belief for facts), inertia (change requires significant energy), momentum (the desire to will obstacles out of our way), impulsiveness (wanting it now!) and stubbornness (no one will change my mind), and we can easily relegate facts to a far, obscure corner [of our minds].  

News blues…

The three Ws: Watch your distance; wash your hands; wear a mask. Informative updates on coronavirus from an European perspective.  (11:50 mins) 

***

Canadian Premier's harsh holiday message, “If you don’t think Covid’s real, you’re an idiot!“ (3:33 mins)

***

Powerful reality check by MSNBC’s Stephanie Rhule on her COVID-19 Diagnosis: I Did All the Right Things, But I Still Got the Virus  (6:20 mins)

***

Donald Trump’s ever-widening reign of inhumanity continues. His finals acts in office include pardons for his crooked cronies (Mike Flynn, Roger Stone, Joe Arpaio, et al), decidedly questionable pardons among a long list and, now, an execution spree (“killed more death row prisoners than the U.S. government has done in the last five decades”) that are also super spreader events.

The decision by the U.S. government to move full steam ahead with federal executions in the face of a raging pandemic has attracted scant attention, despite the fact that it is dramatically out of step with state prison practices and opposed by a growing number of law enforcement officials and advocates for incarcerated individuals.
Since coronavirus lockdowns began in mid-March, executions by state governments have essentially come to a halt because of the health risks involved. Only two people on state death rows have been executed, Walter Barton in Missouri on May 19 and Billy Wardlow in Texas on July 8.
In contrast, the federal government has executed eight people, with five more people scheduled to die before President Donald Trump leaves office. Brandon Bernard is set to be executed on Dec. 10, Alfred Bourgeois on Dec. 11, Lisa Montgomery on Jan. 12, Cory Johnson on Jan. 14 and Dustin Higgs on Jan. 15.
Since it reinstated capital punishment at the federal level this summer, the Trump administration has killed more death row prisoners than the U.S. government has done in the last five decades combined. 

Donald Trump spectacular and brazen vindictiveness is so apparent that humans cannot directly cope. We appear, so far, stumped, opting for denial over evidence.
How much longer will We the People allow Trump, his cronies, and the Republicans that enable him to continue on this path?

Healthy planet, anyone?

A change of pace: celebrate our ancestors and an example of “what you do today matters tomorrow”: Astonishing rock paintings discovered in Colombia hold a lesson for today’s rainforest. 

Meanwhile, back at the ranch…

Spending more time in South Africa this year than I’ve done in the last 40 years has advantages. One advantage is an unfolding awareness of seasonal change.
These days, for example, neighborhood monkeys invade this garden – balancing precariously on overhead cable, scaling garden walls and fences, and squeezing through the security gate - before our security system disables at 5:30am. This means, instead of my usual monkey-deterrent behavior – running outside wielding a stick and yelling, “go home, monkeys! Scoot monkeys!”, I yell from behind the burglar guards. Hardly incentive for monkeys to abandon the chance to snack on green onions, tender zucchini, crunchy new potatoes….
Moreover, “go home monkeys”? 

This IS their home. They’ve as much right to snack on Earth’s bounty as I do, perhaps more since no grocery stores cater to their culinary needs.