Juneteenth

News blues

Juneteenth today. History of Juneteenth >>  (See Lincoln Project ad, below, too.)

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According to a PNAS study, the US could have saved more than 338,000 lives and more than $105bn in healthcare costs in the Covid-19 pandemic with a universal healthcare system.

More than 1 million people died in the US from Covid, in part because the country’s “fragmented and inefficient healthcare system” meant uninsured or underinsured people faced financial barriers that delayed diagnosis and exacerbated transmission, the report states.
The US had the highest death rate from the virus among large wealthy countries and is also the only one among such countries without universal healthcare. It spends almost twice as much on healthcare per capita as the other wealthy countries, according to Kaiser Family Foundation data.
“The current healthcare system in the US is economically inefficient and leaves millions of Americans without adequate access to medical treatment,” said Alison Galvani, director of the Center for Infectious Disease Modeling and Analysis at the Yale School of Public Health and the lead author of the study, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Read more >> 
I know a little about America’s “fragmented and inefficient healthcare system” that “leaves millions of Americans without adequate access to medical treatment.” I’ll get into it in the next weeks.
America. Land of gross inequality.

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On war

Ukraine. How will this country and its people ever recover? Photo essay >> 

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The Lincoln Project:
Juneteenth (1:25 mins)
Meidas Touch Work together!  (8:40 mins)

Healthy planet, anyone?

$44 trillion.
According to the World Economic Forum, $44 trillion is how much of the world’s total economic output is dependent on animals and ecosystem.

Insects pollinate commercial crops, coral reefs protect coastal buildings, wetlands purify water, and all of those services — and more — help fuel economic growth.
If the economy is embedded in nature, then the global decline of wildlife and ecosystems is a risk for companies and investors alike. If insects vanish from farmland, say, farmers might have to pay to import pollinators or produce less, which hurts their bottom lines. That’s one reason why WEF ranks “biodiversity loss” as the third most severe risk to the economy over the next decade, after failure to act on climate change and extreme weather.
“The risk of continued biodiversity loss is profound,” Sarah Kapnick, a scientist and strategist at the banking giant JP Morgan, wrote in May, “not just for nature but for financial stability.”

Read more >> 

Meanwhile, back at the ranch…

Summertime… and the milkweed’s in blossom

caterpillars are eating… 

and the monarchs reign… 

(sing to the tune of Summertime)

Summertime… and the milkweed’s in blossom

caterpillars are eating…

and the monarchs reign… 

The monarch has four distinct life stages: egg, larva (caterpillar), pupa (chrysalis), and adult. Watch >> 

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SF Bay Area:
Sunrise: 5:47am
Sunset: 8:34pm

KZN, South Africa:
Sunrise: 6:52am
Sunset: 5:08pm

Catching up

Worldwide (Map) 
June 17, 2022 - 538,260,000 confirmed infections; 6,316,775 deaths
June 17, 2021 – 1.77,120,700 confirmed infections; 3,835,000 deaths

US (Map) 
June 17, 2022 - 86,154,500 confirmed infections; 1,012,900 deaths
June 17, 2021 – 33,500,000 confirmed infections; 600,700 deaths

SA (Coronavirus portal) 
June 17, 2022 - 3,983,700 confirmed infections; 101,600 deaths
June 17, 2021 – 1.774,500 confirmed infections; 58,225 deaths

Posts from:
June 17, 2021, “Heavy heart” 
June 18, 2020, “He speaks” 

News blues

“Fauci ouchie”! Dr Anthony Fauci, the chief medical adviser to President Biden and director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, has Covid, a mild case, thank the gods.
Read more >> 

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The Lincoln Project:
40 Feet  (0:47 mins)
Clear and present danger  (0:35 mins)
Last week in the Republican Party - June 14, 2022  (2:05 mins)

Healthy planet, anyone?

I thought I’d misheard when I first learned the Men on the Moon – first people to land on the moon back on July 24, 1969 – left bags of garbage behind when the departed  I’d been astonished at the temerity – and lack of, well, respect. 

Who visit a unique place and leaves garbage?
Humans. That’s who.
Turns out that was the tip of the iceberg, so to speak.

More than half a century of lunar exploration has left its mark on the moon… the relentlessly grey surface is littered with clapped-out robots, spacecraft parts, moon buggies (including one with a bible on the dashboard) and technical equipment.
Scattered around the Apollo landing sites are other items that were never meant to come home: a falcon’s feather, a javelin, bags of human waste, a family photo and an aluminium figure, the Fallen Astronaut, which lies on its side near a plaque bearing the names of 14 men who died in the pursuit of space exploration.
In all, the lunar junkyard holds nearly 200 tonnes of human objects. The dusty remains of five Saturn V rocket stages from the Apollo missions are the heaviest single items. Then there are the wreckages of spacecraft that smashed, or were crashed intentionally at the end of their missions, into the lunar surface. There are a dozen 1960s Soviet Luna probes; nearly twice as many US Rangers, Lunar Orbiters, Surveyors and more recent observatories; at least four Japanese spacecraft, and other robots sent from Europe, China and India. In April, the mangled remains of the first private moon mission, Israel Aerospace Industries’ Beresheet probe, became the latest addition when the lander’s gyroscopes failed.

Read more >> 

Alas, we humans aren’t satisfied with leaving garbage on our moon. Now, we’re leaving trash on Mars.
The Nasa team member likely responsible for leaving the debris was “surprised” to see the images. He said, “That shiny bit of foil is part of a thermal blanket – a material used to control temperatures.… My descent stage crashed about 2 km away. Did this piece land here after that, or was it blown here by the wind?”
Hmmm, someone needs to explain to this space cadet that “pieces” travel thither and yon when they’re abandoned.
Out of sight, out of mind?

The image [of the shiny bit of foil] has reignited concerns that space exploration risks contaminating the pristine Martian and lunar environments. The Outer Space Treaty of 1967 created an obligation under international law to avoid the harmful contamination of outer space, the moon and other celestial bodies, but some argue that the law is not detailed enough to ensure protection. However, in the case of the Perseverance litter, Prof Andrew Coates, a space scientist at UCL’s Mullard Space Science Laboratory, said: “The good news is that everything is sterilised before it goes to Mars, and the space radiation environment helps during the nine-month trip to Mars as does the harsh surface environment.”

“Everything is sterilized”?
So, leave trash everywhere and anywhere – as long as it’s “sterilized”….(Moreover, how does one sterilize poop?)
Read more >> 

Meanwhile, back at the ranch…

Goldilocks weather: not too hot, not too cold. Juuust right!

Afternoon meditation on the beach.

Happy Canada geese

SF Bay Area:
Sunrise: 5:46am
Sunset: 8:33pm

KZN, South Africa:
Sunrise: 6:52am
Sunset: 5:07pm

Subversion on display

News blues

In the US, Covid is totally not news these days. Instead we have almost unbelievable accounts of how The Donald and his gutless minions subverted the election process, and attempted to overthrow the US system. Lots of hours devoted to this… and one wonders how many Americans actually care.
I do.
My friends and family do.
Twenty million Americans watch… 

Will anything change? 

Will Trump be held accountable by the Department of Justice. 

Enquiring minds wanna know....

I’m not holding my breath. 

Want to watch? Search on your computer or phone: “hearings”, or “select committee hearings”, or “capitol attack investigation”, or anything similar.

Not a big fan of (former president) Ronald Reagan, I nevertheless found Meidas Touch’s presentation by son Ron Reagan -  a Republican - worth watching: “Ron Reagan SLAMS GOP as Traitors for Supporting Insurrection in EPIC rant" (5:15 mins)

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The Lincoln Project:
Apparently inebriated (0:31 mins)
Comic relief and a trip down memory lane with my all-time favorite LP ad, Nationalist Geographic (0:56 mins)

Meanwhile, back at the ranch…

Gorgeous day on the island. Birds are singing, Canada geese are snoozing, shorebirds are feeding… Life is good.

"Monkeypox" be gone!

News blues

A group of scientists from Africa and elsewhere are urging the scientific community and world health leaders to drop the stigmatizing language used to differentiate monkeypox viruses, and are even advocating renaming the virus itself.
In a position paper published online, the group proposed abandoning the existing names for monkeypox virus clades — West Africa and Congo Basin — and replacing them with numbers, saying the current names are discriminatory.
“In the context of the current global outbreak, continued reference to, and nomenclature of this virus being African is not only inaccurate but is also discriminatory and stigmatizing,” the more than two dozen scientists wrote.

Read more >> 

Beyond a name change, and as authorities say the outbreak is containable and poses a low risk to the general public, here are ways to protect yourself and others from this potential new whatever-it-will-be-called scourge >> 

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Returning to Covid…
According to experts, the current Covid-19 wave in the U.S. is noticeably different than past ones — and might even be the start of our "new normal." Here's why >> 

…and in China, Beijing warns of 'explosive' COVID outbreak while Shanghai conducts mass testing - “connected to a bar” - and to contain a jump in cases tied to a hair salon. 

Read more >> 

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On war – and culture war

Ukraine: destruction in pictures >> 
The dire truth is that Kyiv’s fighting strength is stretched, and even Russia could benefit from a pause in fighting.

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Cynical comic relief – and a question: Could real life in the form of his past and the country’s present be catching up with The Donald? He’s spent a lifetime getting away with egregious financial behavior. Is that beginning to change?
Recently, Memphis City Council Member Martavius Jones stated, "[Trump's] notorious for not paying [his bills]."
Jones and other “Memphis politicians object to police escort at an upcoming Trump rally, citing unpaid bills. They do not want Memphis eating the costs of the rally >> 

Meanwhile, back at the ranch…

A slowed down Sunday. Baking healthful bread rolls, eating well, walking, walking, walking….

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Heat wave across much of the US and the SF Bay Area is overcast:
Sunrise: 5:46am
Sunset: 8:31pm

KZN, South Africa:
Sunrise: 6:50am
Sunset: 5:07pm

Humans. Gotta luv ‘em

News blues

Midnight Sunday, June 12, sees an end to the requirement for travelers to test negative for Covid-19 before entering the US. This, according to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention begins a "new phase" of the pandemic:

"Widespread uptake of highly effective Covid-19 vaccines, the availability of effective therapeutics, and the accrual of high rates of vaccine- and infection-induced immunity at the population level in the United States" have all helped lower the risk of severe disease and death, the CDC said.
… That means flights departing to the US from a foreign country at or after that time no longer have to present a negative test result or documentation of recovery in the past 90 days from Covid-19. … Foreign arrivals to the US will still need to be vaccinated. The vaccination requirement for foreign arrivals has not changed.
The CDC also continues to recommend wearing masks in indoor public transportation settings but masks are no longer required.
The rule change applies to air travel. Land border and ferry port arrivals are unaffected by the rule change...

Read more >> 

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“An ongoing outbreak of monkeypox was confirmed in May 2022,
beginning with a cluster of cases found in the UK.
The first recognised case was confirmed on 6 May 2022 in an individual
with travel links to Nigeria, but it has been suggested that cases
were already spreading in Europe in the previous months.”

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A pox on vile and greedy monkey business: 

US Attorney in New Jersey said Paul Andrecola, 63, of Maple Shade, New Jersey, pleaded guilty to one count of "knowingly distributing or selling an unregistered pesticide in violation of the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide and Rodenticide Act (FIFRA), one count of wire fraud, and one count of presenting false claims to the United States."
… Buyers included a medical clinic in Georgia, a police department in Delaware, a Virginia fire department and "numerous" US government agencies, including the Department of Veterans Affairs….

Read more >> 

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Monkeys vs hamsters? “Cocoa Krispies-loving hamsters could be key to cracking long COVID” >> 

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The Lincoln Project:
Cheney to Republicans (0:30 mins)
Carnage and chaos  (0:45 mins)
And they came  (0:41 mins)

Healthy planet, anyone?

Animals are vital to the functioning of the biosphere in innumerable ways. Their interactions with plants, fungi and microbes sustain the conditions on which we, along with all other life, depend. For example, the great whales that sit at the pinnacle of marine food webs are linked to some of the most fundamental processes that shape conditions in our world. They eat other marine creatures, including krill, and in the process take nutrients from deeper water to be released via their faeces into the ocean, where they fertilise blooms of planktonic algae.

Read “Our entire civilisation depends on animals. It’s time we recognised their true value” >> 

Meanwhile, back at the ranch…

Tales from the bus. The bus ride to work in the early morning – few passengers - stands in sharp contrast to the bus ride home in the afternoon. 

The morning ride’s colorful character is an elderly masked lady who croons in Chinese. Before she offboards at 28th Street, she carefully uses slivers of newspaper to touch anything: the stop pullcord, the stop button, handrails…. While her crooning is disconcerting, I admire her vigilance against infection.
The afternoon ride home is a marvel of views into the diversity of human expression. 

Recent examples:
One elderly lady strenuously objected at any opportunity to the bus schedule. Fiercely, she’d pull her mask away from her face, scream that the bus was “40 minutes late”, then release her mask to pop back in place over her mouth and nose. So coordinated was this pulling and popping that it appeared a well-honed behavior.
Another elderly lady  boarded the bus shouting a variety of political slogans she’d updated for the current moment. My favorite? “No nukes! No fentanyl!”
Oh, we have grumpy bus drivers who say little that’s not, well, grumpy. We have determinedly happy bus drivers who yell out “have a good day” each time passengers disembark. 

We also have passengers who are kind to other passengers. One man hopped off the bus before it departed the stop to retrieve another elderly woman’s purse (why so many elderly ladies?). She’d forgotten it on the street in her haste to board the bus carrying a huge bag of groceries.

Riding the bus: a niche world expressing human peccadillos.
Gotta love it!

Phish food

Worldwide (Map) 
June 9, 2022 - 534,061,700 confirmed infections; 6,306,200 deaths
June 10, 2021 – 174,500,000 confirmed infections; 3,759,200 deaths
December 31, 2020 – 82,656000 confirmed infections; 1,8040100 deaths

US (Map) 
June 9, 2022 - 85,324,615 confirmed infections; 1,010,800 deaths
June 10, 2021 – 174,500,000 confirmed infections; 3,759,200 deaths
December 31, 2020 – 19,737,200 confirmed infections; 342,260 deaths

SA (Coronavirus portal) 
June 9, 2022 - 3,971,000 confirmed infections; 101,397 deaths
June 10, 2021 – 1,713,000 confirmed infections; 57,320 deaths
December 31, 2020 – 1,039,165 confirmed infections; 28,035 deaths

Posts from:
June 10, 2021, “Renewings” 
December 31, 2020, “TGIO” 
Day 77, June 11, 2020, “Embers, ashes, and flames” 

News blues

Subvariants spread while the administration takes away $10 billion from existing pandemic funding, half of which will go to finance updated vaccines — when those become available — and the other half will pay for treatments, including the Pfizer drug Paxlovid.
Read more >> 

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In South Africa, Gauteng has the majority of the new Covid cases (32%) followed by the Western Cape (23%), Eastern Cape and KwaZulu-Natal (11% each), Free State (7%), Mpumalanga, (5%), Northern Cape and North West (4% each), and Limpopo (3%).
There were 85 new hospital admissions in the past 24 hours, bringing to 2,285 the number of people now admitted in hospitals with Covid-19.
Read more >> 

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Covid infections continue, but humans pay less attention to the data. Institutions such as Johns Hopkins University & Medicine’s Coronavirus Resource Center continue to provide expert insight. Learn more from a recent Q&A, “The Future of the Pandemic Initiative” 

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Monkeypox is of increasing concern – more than 1,000 cases outside of Africa , but what is it? (1:40 mins)

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Friday that new genetic sequencing data indicate there are at least two distinct monkeypox outbreaks underway outside Africa — a surprise finding that one official said suggests international spread is wider, and has been occurring for longer than has been previously realized.
Three of 10 viruses the CDC has sequenced from recent U.S. monkeypox cases — two from 2021 and eight from 2022 — are different from the viruses that have been sequenced by several countries involved in the large outbreak that is spreading in and from Europe.

A pox on monkeypox! Read more >> 

On war – and the Culture War

Photos and news from Ukraine battle fronts >> 

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According to US Congress’s House Minority Whip Steve Scalise (R-La.) and Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-Texas), if “everyone had just prayed more, 19 children and two teachers might not have been massacred by a gunman in a Uvalde, Texas, elementary school last month.” 

Yes, “thoughts and prayers continue”… >> 

***

The Lincoln Project:
It’s not a joke  (0:20 mins)
Make up your mind (1:15 mins)
Mark Meadows unlocked  (1:30 mins)
Last week in the Republican Party - June 7, 2022  (2:22 mins)

Meanwhile, back at the ranch…

Sometimes ice cream is the only antidote to the craziness “out there”. 

My fav? Phish food.

Covid schmovid

News blues

Move over, Covid pandemic… for war, crazy politicians, guns, shootings, massacres, more crazy politicians, looming famine, outrageous inequality, scorched earth tactics….
We’re living in a world gone mad, falling apart at the seams, heading towards calamity.

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On war

“Russian … using scorched-earth tactics” >> 

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The Lincoln Project: Retire  (0:55 mins)

Healthy planet, anyone?

Recent posts have mentioned the murders of noisy crows in the park near my home. (“Squawk-fest”  and “Keep the bribes comin’" ). Turns out crows have a very legitimate reason for squawking: they’re baby-sitting. 
Talking about birds, check out these Australian budgies  and English parakeets.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch…

Linda, a woman I met by chance last Sunday, revived my flagging respect for American womanhood. That sounds pompous – or worse – but, in general, I find American woman not prepared (as opposed to unprepared) to carry large rocks around a garden.
I was out walking when I spotted Linda, not a young woman, placing rocks the size of watermelons, one by one, around the building’s entryway lighting system.
We chatted and I commented on her hard work. She explained that she’d dug the rocks out of a back section of her apartment building, piled them in the wheelbarrow, and pushed the heavy load to the front of the building with the aim of beautifying the entryway.
Amazing.
I commented on how unusual it was to see an American woman doing such hands-on work. (It’s the kind of thing I do – love to do – in South Africa. Here, my apartment dwelling lifestyle disallows such gardening.) Linda explained that she’d once been married to a Ukrainian gardener and they’d worked happily in the gardening business until he’d died. (Gardening hadn’t killed him, cancer had. Alas.) During that time of her life, she’d learned about – and how to use – her physical strength.
Linda. A gal to admire.

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SF Bay Area:
Sunrise: 5:47am
Sunset: 8:29pm

KZN, South Africa:
Sunrise: 6:49am
Sunset: 5:07pm