It’s his nucleus accumbens and dorsal striatum!

It’s his nucleus accumbens and dorsal striatum!

Madam & Eve, courtesy of
South African cartoonists Steven Francis and Rico 

***

James Kimmel, Jr., researcher on violence, discovered that “your brain on grievance looks a lot like your brain on drugs.”
In fact, brain imaging studies show that harboring a grievance (a perceived wrong or injustice, real or imagined) activates the same neural reward circuitry as narcotics.” Kimmel relates his findings in relation to Donald Trump:

Scientists [find] that in substance addiction, environmental cues such as being in a place where drugs are taken or meeting another person who takes drugs cause sharp surges of dopamine in crucial reward and habit regions of the brain, specifically, the nucleus accumbens and dorsal striatum. This triggers cravings in anticipation of experiencing pleasure and relief through intoxication. Recent studies show that cues such as experiencing or being reminded of a perceived wrong or injustice — a grievance — activate these same reward and habit regions of the brain, triggering cravings in anticipation of experiencing pleasure and relief through retaliation. To be clear, the retaliation doesn’t need to be physically violent—an unkind word, or tweet, can also be very gratifying.
Although these are new findings and the research in this area is not yet settled, what this suggests is that similar to the way people become addicted to drugs or gambling, people may also become addicted to seeking retribution against their enemies — revenge addiction. This may help explain why some people just can’t let go of their grievances long after others feel they should have moved on—and why some people resort to violence.
It’s worth asking whether this helps explain Trump’s fixation on his grievances and ways of exacting retribution for them. The hallmark of addiction is compulsive behavior despite harmful consequences. Trump’s unrelenting efforts to retaliate against those he believes have treated him unjustly (including, now, American voters) appear to be compulsive and uncontrollable. The harm this causes to himself and others is obvious but seems to have no deterrent effect. Reports suggest he has been doing this for much of his life. He seems powerless to stop. He also seems to derive a great deal of pleasure from it.

Hmmm. Explains a lot…except how to manage it.
Alas, the recent election as “intervention” appears to have upped Trump’s pleasure in wreaking revenge.
Read, “What the Science of Addiction Tells Us About Trump“  >> 

News blues…

South Africans are hosting a new variant of coronavirus, with “three mutations, which is an unusually high number for a new variant, and can bind more easily to receptors in the human body.” This. according to health minister Dr Zweli Mkhize, speaking at a briefing alongside top scientists including Prof Salim Abdool Karim and Prof Tulio de Oliveira.
This “new highly transmissible variant is circulating widely — but it is not clear yet whether it is more severe than the original variants. Nevertheless, it has become the dominant one in the country's second coronavirus wave, and is “making young and previously healthy people severely ill”. 

Healthy planet, anyone?

Mixed results of the pandemic. It cuts funding and volunteer numbers, rises awareness, and results in more people are rescuing more injured animals – and overwhelms systems. 

Meanwhile, back at the ranch…

A good time is planned for all!
My mother will enjoy Christmas Day with my brother and his family. The Dog will enjoy Christmas Day at this house – her previous home.
I hope we can load The Dog (and the mother?) back into the car when it’s time to return them to the Care Center.
I expect my mother’s surging determination to escape the Care Center will be tempered by reality after she visits my brother and his family in their small house. Not only is the house small, the two bedrooms already are inhabited by my brother’s wife’s adult sons and an eight-year-old grandson – and a puppy. Imagine my mother and The Dog squeezed in there! (One hour, max, before mayhem breaks out!)

“Whole-of-America approach”

News blues…

We start a new week – in South Africa lockdown weeks begin on Fridays – with the US experiencing “roughly one coronavirus-related death every 27 seconds.” This, after, Mike Pence, US vice president and chair of the Coronavirus Task Force wrote a summer Op Ed for the Wall Street Journal:

The media has tried to scare the American people every step of the way, and predictions of a second wave are no different. The truth is, whatever the media says, our whole-of-America approach has been a success.
We’ve slowed the spread, we’ve cared for the most vulnerable, we’ve saved lives, we’ve created a solid foundation for whatever challenges we may face in the future.

A lot can happen between now and 20 January, 2021 when Trump et al, depart the White House and escape responsibility for the botched systems we know they're leaving behind (most recently, knee-capping the CDC; a massive breech of national security data . These are some of what we know. What don't we know about yet?)

***

Former New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, stricken with Covid at the White House, retracts his anti-mask advice and urges Americans to wear masks: “I was wrong!”  (1:00 mins)

***

Meanwhile, California nears zero capacity in its intensive care units as COVID-19 cases continue to surge. As of Thursday morning, there was just 3% ICU capacity statewide, the California Department of Public Health revealed on its statewide metrics database. 

***

In South Africa, 24,000 have now died from Covid-19, with 9,100 new cases in 24 hours.

Healthy planet, anyone?

There’s a tendency for (some) humans to believe that if we just left alone the “natural” world, it would “fix” itself. The problem of “just letting nature get on with” and returning it to its pristine roots? There is no such thing as “pristine roots.” The natural world is in a state of ongoing unfolding. (You know, kind of like you are in a state of ongoing unfolding, too….

…the problem with “just letting nature get on with it” is twofold: first, ecological succession takes a long time. And second, [countries and] Britain now contains so many invasive plant and animal species that we may never get the resulting forests we hope for through a policy of benign neglect. In other words, some management will always be required…
If we want to maximise biodiversity in our wild spaces, we need to consider what grows there, and what food webs and habitats are built and supported. There is no guarantee that nature, unassisted, will arrive at a desired outcome.

Read “Letters: Restoring forests needs both nature and nurture” >> 

An excellent read for a challenging view of nature and nurture is Charles Mann’s 2005 book 1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch…

Out walking Jessica (the dog) yesterday, I spotted a legavan/ legawaan/rock monitor lizard.

It ran from the Care Center parking lot into the reeds lining the shore of nearby Robin Pond.
Jessica, luckily, did not spot it. Had she spotted it, it’s likely she’d chase after it, barking. Barking is a no no at the Care Center. Chasing critters and barking is a double whammy no no. Last week, she barked and chased a warthog family – with an audience of lawn bowlers and the driver of a vehicle that stopped just before it struck the belligerent dog.
Yes, I am supposed to leash the dog and I do if people are around. She caught me off guard that time as we were heading back home, and I was not vigilant.
Moreover, softy me sometimes allows her off leash so she can sniff at leisure and roll (“roly poly”) on the grass. She is, after all, confined to the Care Center. She doesn’t get out much, and rarely has a chance to bark at anything, never mind critters as deserving (in her mind) of a good bark as a warthog family.
The Care Center inhabitant of the Care Center I’m most concerned about is, of course, Mother Dearest. She’s maintaining her complain-a-thon: she hates the place, she’ll call her lawyer to get her out (he can’t), when will her grandson rescue her (he won’t), and where are her peas (in the fridge outside her door).
Yesterday, I responded to her with a human version of a dog’s bark: “The country – the world – is in lockdown. You’d be well advised to take it day-by-day for the next several weeks. Change the channel in your mind to find something nurturing for yourself because no one is going anywhere while the pandemic rages. With 75 million people infected around the world, and 7 to 10 thousand South Africans infected per day, no one, not even Jesus, will move you anywhere right now.
Like Jessica, if pressed, my bark is worse than my bite.

What can go wrong…

Worldwide (Map) 
December 17 – 73,557,500 confirmed infections; 1,637,100 deaths
November 19 – 56,188,000 confirmed infections; 1,348,600 deaths
October 22 – 41,150,000 confirmed infections; 1,130.410 deaths

US (Map)
December 17 – 16,724,775 confirmed infections; 303,900 deaths
November 19 – 11,525,600 confirmed infections; 250,485 deaths
October 22 – 8,333,595 confirmed infections; 222,100 deaths

SA (Coronavirus portal)
December 17 – 873,680 confirmed infections; 23,665 deaths
November 19 – 757,145 confirmed infections; 20,556 deaths
October 22 – 708,360 confirmed infections; 18,750 deaths

News blues…

What can go wrong, will go wrong… On the eve of delivering thousands of vaccines into thousands of willing arms, a major storm threatens:

…shipments of the vital coronavirus vaccine around the US face delay as a monster winter storm pummels states from Virginia to Massachusetts.
Treacherous weather could bury parts of the eastern US in snow, ice or flooding and cause power outages, hazardous travel conditions, or even tornadoes on Wednesday and Thursday, according to the National Weather Service, threatening all forms of transportation being used by the vaccine manufacturing facilities, centered in Michigan, as they fly and truck vials around the country.
The storm, which is set to be a record for December and hit a region stretching from Virginia to north of New York City by late afternoon on Wednesday, was poised to drop as much as 2ft (0.6 meters) of snow in some places by Thursday.

Gosh, maybe the conspiracy theorists (aka “whackjobs”) are 100 percent correct and there is a giant, organized, worldwide cabal of Never Trumpers, socialists, communists, Democrats, God and gods, freedom-haters “out there” looking to “do us harm” ….
Could it be?

***

A notice from my island hometown, Alameda, in San Francisco Bay:

Stay at Home Order Extended to January 7th; No New Changes to Permitted Activities
The State announced today that the availability of intensive care unit (ICU) beds has fallen below 15 percent in the Bay Area Region. This means that the Stay at Home restrictions adopted by Alameda County and seven other Bay Area jurisdictions earlier this month remain in effect for the entire Bay Area region for a minimum of three weeks, starting today. Because Alameda County’s restrictions already match the State’s restrictions, there are no additional changes to permitted activities at this time.
After the minimum three weeks (January 7, 2021), the State’s order could be lifted once the region’s projected ICU capacity meets or exceeds 15 percent. As with local Health Officer orders, easing of restrictions will also depend on local disease conditions.

***

The Lincoln Project: Never happens here  (1:35 mins)

Healthy planet, anyone? 

One of the pleasure of KZN this time of year – the rainy season – is lying in bed at night listening to frogs sing for a mate. The cacophony is extraordinary. During my next trip here, I plan to bring my recording equipment to capture the amazing variety of frog calls.
In other parts of the world, France, for example, live, breathing, singing frogs are fatally unwelcome:

The French courts have had their final word: Grignols’ grenouilles (frogs) must go.
The frogs of a Dordogne village have been served notice after a judge decided they make so much noise during the mating season that they are a nuisance to the neighbours.
After nine years of legal battles, Michel and Annie Pécheras have been told they have 90 days to drain the 300 sq-metre pond at their home in the village of Grignols: population 587, and get rid of the amphibians. 

A 300 sq-metre pond is home to many, many frogs. 

Has any thought been given to what happens to a 300 sq-metre pond sans grenouilles?

I imagine not. Why think ahead? Why think beyond immediate needs and desires? Why think “big picture”? 

Meanwhile, back at the ranch…

Grrrr. Care Center Mother! 

Each week the Care Center provides residents an opportunity to order whatever “extras” they want from the local grocery store. Care Center staff track orders and deliver items to residents. My mother, however, prefers to phone Martha, her former domestic worker still resident in this house, and order up dog food that I carry to the Care Center. Now, Mother Dearest orders Martha to cook her own food, too. (Naturally, my mother calls Martha directly as she – mother – knows I’d put the kabosh on the order. This puts Martha in a tough spot: she’s officially my mother’s domestic worker but reliant on my to carry the order to the Care Center.)
Ironically, when my mother lived in this house, she ate only Jungle Oats cereal and three Romany Cream biscuits accompanying each of her dozen or more cups of Rooibos tea each day. We’d begged her to eat the occasional serving of over-cooked vegetables. She did so reluctantly.
The Care Center serves breakfast, morning tea, lunch, afternoon tea, dinner, and yet more tea. Alas, according to my mother, the Care Center’s food is “awful,” the “vegetables hard” - “no peas!” – and the tea supply insufficient.
In the past, along with dog food – specialty giblets, chicken livers, and rice – and dog biscuits – “the dogs only like Beenos and Montego” – I’ve also carried gem squash to my mother. I brought a package of four as she intended, she said, to microwave one a day. A week after I delivered them, four gem squash remained in the unopened package. My enquiring as to why she’d not cooked them elicited a plaintive, “I have no knife.” Eventually, I asked a care giver to cook her gem squash. Delivery of the cooked vegetable was met with yet another complaint: “It was too stringy.”
Carrying dog food up to the Care Center every two or three days has been a chore. Ditto carrying dog biscuits up the Care Center every two or three weeks – with another delivery due today.
I can’t tell, yet, whether my mother is conducting an ongoing low intensity war of attrition with the outcome her victorious ejection from the Care Center or whether dementia is kicking in faster than predicted. Meanwhile, Martha will semi-comply with her order. I’ll take the flak for Martha not exactly following orders. I’ll carry a small container of frozen peas – uncooked, no gravy – and deliver it, along with a box of Beenos and Montego dog biscuits.
I’m almost thankful that the Care Center locked down to visitors. It allows me an (almost) clear conscience when, masked as usual, I deliver these items to my mother through her window….

***

On the public holiday Day of Reconciliation an Eskom contractor called, seeking permission to enter this property.
Background: Eskom, SA’s national supplier of electricity, brutally prunes trees that touch overhead electrical cable. Last year, they massacred two beautifully mature swamp cypress, leaving only the main trunks; branch and pruning debris remains as litter blocking the free flow of water in the stream.
Accordingly, I’m reluctant to allow them into the garden for a repeat performance.
I was away from the property when the Eskom contractor called. We agreed he and his team would come at noon – “12 o’clock today” – and I’d be back home to allow them entrance. (My hesitation: why are they working on a public holiday? Could this be a scam to gain entrance into the property and rob? At this time of year, warnings about such home invasion robberies proliferate.) I was home at the agreed upon time.
Eskom failed to arrive at noon, or even 1pm or 2pm or 3pm….
Long story short: Eskom never arrived at all. At midnight, I noticed a SMS/text msg: “It seams as if I can’t make it in an hour time, too much work….” Hmmmm.
Correction: I was wrong. Eskom’s representative, Zephraim just showed up. (He introduced himself along with, “If you read the Bible, you’ll see Zephraim and words about Babylon.” How can I resist?)
Zephraim will bring his crew to cut. 

I’ll be out for most of the day.
What will I return to?
If only Zephraim of Babylon had a passage in the Bible about respecting all God’s living work on planet earth! 

Inching closer

The US and the world inch closer to seeing the back of Donald J. Trump and his devastating mal-influence. 

Now that the Electoral College has concluded it’s tally, and (a handful of) Republican Congress people have conceded Biden’s status as president elect, one can only hope that the Trumpster and his grift will exit stage right….

News blues…

Twenty-four hours, 7,500 new Covid infections and 200 deaths in South Africa. The bulk of the deaths in in the Eastern (95) and Western (70) Cape. KwaZulu-Natal accounted for 23 of deaths, Gauteng 10 and Limpopo and the Free State six each. 
We’re inching toward a million confirmed infections.
Tighter lockdown restrictions in place locally, too (see below).

***

From The Lincoln Project:

Our Republic’s institutions — from the courts, to election officials, to the Electoral College — held firm through the most critical stress test in over a generation.
Yesterday, members of the Electoral College met in their respective states to cast their official ballots. Without so much as a single faithless elector, Joe Biden and Kamala Harris were duly elected President and Vice President.
The weeks since the election have served as verification for everything we believed and said about our current president and his enablers.
Trump’s attempted coup will go down in history as one of the most un-American, anti-democratic, destructive, and shameful undertakings by a sitting president.
This attack was a close call for democracy and our Constitution. Fortunately, the election itself was not particularly close — or we could be confronting a coup on the precipice of victory.
While Joe Biden’s and Kamala Harris’s triumph and the new chapter for our country should be celebrated, we cannot avoid the unvarnished truth — Trump Republicans are willing to discard democracy and the will of the American people when it becomes politically advantageous for them to do so.
Luckily, we know their names.
And the American people will know their names, and what they signed their names to.
We, The Lincoln Project, will ensure it.
As it has become increasingly evident that Trumpism has metastasized throughout Republican Party ranks, we are steadfast in our determination to expose and defeat every last one of them.

Amen!

Healthy planet, anyone?

Ten thousand years of undisturbed nature will soon be open to the highest bidder, starting at $25 an acre

On 6 January, the [US] Bureau of Land Management, directed by the Trump administration, is scheduled to hold a virtual oil and gas lease sale – an “aggressive, competitive exploration and development program” – for drilling in Alaska National Wildlife Refuge - ANWR. More specifically, in the 1.5m acre coastal plain, the refuge’s biological heart: the birthing grounds of the Porcupine caribou herd, the prime denning area for the Beaufort Sea population of polar bears (a threatened species, numbering only 900), and the breeding sites for birds that every year fly across oceans and continents to raise their young on undisturbed, flower-embroidered tundra.
Ten thousand years of natural beauty and balance – America’s last great wilderness – will soon be “open” to the highest bidder, beginning at $25 an acre. The winner could initiate seismic testing: shaking the earth with massive vibration trucks, awakening polar bears in their dens. If the testing shows a strong promise of oil (which is presently unknown), they may build an industrial complex of roads, well pads, desalinization plants, airstrips and pipelines, all tied into Prudhoe Bay, some 80 miles to the west. If not, the seismic testing alone will produce many scars visible for decades.
How can this happen? Easy.
On the final page of the massive 2017 feed-the-rich federal tax bill, the Alaska senator Lisa Murkowski added oil and gas exploration as a “purpose” of ANWR.

Read the article “America's last wilderness is about to go to the highest bidder for oil drilling” 

Meanwhile, back at the ranch…

When it comes to virulent infection, timing is everything….
I’m preparing to move into my new home in a secure community – aka “the Valley” - that also houses the Care Center in which my mother – and her dog, Jessica – are resident.
Yesterday, the day after President Ramaphosa tighten Covid-related restrictions on all South Africans, “the Valley” leadership shut down access to visitors. This, due to an increase in infections.
Luckily I’d hurried to the office last week - the day after I was handed keys to my new home – to register my new status as owner. Had I not done so, “visitor” status would have barred from entering the grounds.
I’m pleased the community is vigilant against the virus and I’m dismayed that, for the duration, I’m permitted to visit my mother in the Care Center only once a week. Since she’s experiencing significant “adjustment issues” (“I can’t stay here,” she complains), I’ll stand outside and chat with her through the window.
I hope I can continue to walk the dog, too. I’ll meet Jessica at the back gate and take her for a short walk that includes a “roly poly.” I’d hate to deny her the pleasure of flopping onto her back and groaning with delight as she kicks her legs and twists and turns on the grass.
***
Happily, the Covid-19 notification app I added to phone reports, “no exposure found: according to your recent interactions with people using this app, you have not come into close contact with someone who uses the app and has tested positive for Covid-19.”
Nice to know. Best not to think about the app’s big weakness: effectiveness relies on a critical mass of users. How many, besides me, currently use this app?

Inquiring minds wanna know….

Update U/SA

News blues…

As vaccinations begin across the US, Perry Wilson, a physician, clinical researcher, and epidemiologist, congratulates the 95 percent efficacy of the Pfizer/BioNTech and Moderna mRNA vaccines.
“It is unprecedented and “better than any of us hoped for.”
He also warns, “We need to be careful. We need to temper our enthusiasm with the acknowledgment that the vaccine is a weapon we may not be fully prepared to wield. A lot can still go wrong.”
Here are 9 things that can go wrong, according to Dr. Wilson who encourages, “By worrying together, we can prevent much of this from happening”:

1. Unexpected long-term side effects (probability: low)
2. There won’t be enough vaccine for everyone (probability: low)
3. Vaccination becomes politicized (probability: low)
4. There won’t be enough vaccine supplies (probability: medium)
5. People won’t get both doses (probability: medium)
6. Doctors will bend the truth to help their patients get a vaccine faster (probability: medium)
7. Vaccines will exacerbate inequality in the health care system (probability: high)
8. A false sense of security develops (probability: high)
9. Anti-vaxxers amplify and misrepresent side effects (probability: almost certain)

Read the details >>  

***

According to research published by a team with New York University,  “SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, leads to neurological injuries in roughly 1 out of every 7 people infected.”

Those injuries run the gamut in severity, from temporary confusion to seizures and stroke. And they can occur without the virus appearing to directly enter the brain or the nervous system, suggesting many neurological injuries associated with COVID-19 are a secondary effect of becoming really sick with the virus, which can lead to problems like oxygen loss and blood clots.
To that end, the researchers behind the NYU study have argued their findings show that doctors who treat patients with serious COVID-19 must be aggressive in getting oxygen levels stable. If they cannot, the brain may pay a steep price. 
…Symptoms and side effects can include encephalitis and inflammation of the brain, chronic cognitive deficits, neurological symptoms such as headaches and dizziness, and mental illness that could include anxiety, depression or insomnia.

Will this info convince the most anti of the anti-maskers to mask up? 

***

President Ramaphosa addressed the nation last night. (Be patient. It takes 7:10 mins to crank up; be entertained with background noise and sound checks until our president appears.) My favorite part of Ramaphosa’s public addresses? He greets the wide range of South African ethnicities in her/his/our own language.)
Summary: more than 8,000 cases in 24 hours. Soon SA will hit a million confirmed infections.
SA has entered a second wave. Rate of increase requires us to act together. Daily average is 74 percent higher than previous 7 days. Deaths increase by 50 percent to 150 death/day.
Four provinces E and W Cape, KZN and Gauteng…. Among young people, 15 to 19 yrs old. Contributors to rise in infections:
Social gatherings and parties
No social distancing. Venues are overcrowded, inadequate ventilation, no sanitizers available, no masks worn, alcohol use high.
Increased travel – few prevention measures. The more we travel the greater the potential for spreading the virus.
Safer to socialize with immediate family than with others.
Observe basic and easy to follow directions.
No longer see the point in observing safety measures/precautions.
Festive season poses great threat – traditionally time for gatherings, travel, relaxing.
Must go back to observing safety measures.
Take extraordinary measures with a view to saving lives and protect business.
Takeaways:

• Hotspots: Sarah Bartman and Garden Route districts now restricted areas.
• “Festive season” is a risky time and response of gov’t and NCCC:
• Nationwide restriction from midnight tonight
• Stricter enforcement of Level 1 including drivers and operators of public transport must wear masks
• Stores, etc., obliged to ensure customers wear masks
• Employer must ensure masks on all employees
• Will be liable for fine or 6 months imprisonment Super spreaders: gathering may not be attended by more than 100 indoors, outdoors 250 – total must not exceed more than 50% capacity of venue, and ventilation, wear masks, use hand sanitizers
• After funeral gatherings prohibited
• Beaches and parks to close for duration of Dec 16 to Jan 3, Eastern cape, Garden route. KZN beaches and parks closed Dec 16, 25, 26, 31 plus Jan 1, 2, 3. Beaches in North and Western Cape remain open.
• Festivals prohibited at beaches and parks; 9am to 6pm open, monitored daily
• Poor compliance = closing or limiting access

NCCC on standby for monitoring throughout season; leave “tempered” and on standby
To prevent burden on health system:

• Alcohol: curfew from 11pm to 4am; non-essential establishments close at 10pm before enforcement of curfew
• Curfew includes Christmas and New Year’s Eve Retail sale of 10 am and 6pm M – Thursday; Tastings at wineries okay
• No consumption at public spaces
• Review in new year based on condition of infection
• National lockdown was designed to restrict infection and give us time to deal with and to delay pandemic
• We must act based on best scientific evidence
• 38,000 health workers tested positive; 5000 admitted to hospital; 331 deaths
• Must support and protect health workers
• Season must be both festive and safe – keep celebrations small, avoid crowds, well ventilated
• Masks cover nose and mouth
• Limit travel
• Limited number of contracts at least one week before travel, immediate family
• Isolate if any symptoms and seek medical attention

Vaccine: SA participating with WHO Covaxx
Vaccinate “certain groups” early next year
Next weeks will be our greatest test to do things differently: requires us to give up short lived pleasures, play your part, follow precautions…
Let us welcome the new year united as resolute nation.

***

The Lincoln Project’s Steve Schmidt on Trump Coup - Star Wars  (1:42 mins)

Healthy planet, anyone?

Our planet still has secret places… and heretofore unknown species. Let’s hear it for “sky islands” – isolated hotspots of evolution…. 

An “ecological Swat team” has discovered 20 previously unknown species in the misty cloud forests and cascading waterfalls that flank Bolivia’s Zongo valley.
Among the animals found were a minuscule 10mm-long frog, a pit viper, two metalmark butterflies and an adder’s-mouth orchid. The pristine forests are just 30 miles (48km) from the capital, La Paz, but the expedition also rediscovered the devil-eyed frog, seen just once before, and a satyr butterfly not seen for nearly a century. Alongside these were threatened species including the spectacled bear and the channel-billed toucan.
The high, steep-sided peaks of the Andes harbour enormous biodiversity because movement between them is difficult for wildlife and results in isolated hotspots of evolution that are known as “sky islands”.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch…

I’ve been intending to turn in my mother’s weapons – a Beretta pistol, a single barrel shotgun, and a pellet gun. (A 38 handgun was stolen from the house several years ago.) I keep putting it off as I’m intimidated by the idea of standing in line outside the police station holding these weapons and a pile of paperwork. 

Then I asked my brother if he’d do it (since he knows the weapons, the process, etc.) I’ve filled in the paper work for him and he agreed to do it – more than a month ago. 

Today is the day. Not to be skeptical but…

***

My increasingly frail mother fell yesterday. Apparently, the staff tried to reach me on the phone although I received no calls nor any sign I’d missed calls. Tough not to trust one’s phone connection. Instead, I received an email at 3:00am this morning. I’ll head up to the Care Center today.
“Old age is not for sissies!”

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.