“…too small for walls”

While art objects are out of the usual parameters of this blog (the pandemic, the era, and the effects on our collective home), this expression - one of many - is pertinent: Fragment of the Berlin Wall - the End of Division of Germany and Europe 1990, on site at the Muzeon Park of Arts in Moscow, Russia.  

News blues…

Totally Under Control — how the United States (and South Africa) screwed up the coronavirus response

South Africa needed a lockdown to save lives. We did not, however, need the lockdown we got. We required something gentler, more progressive, more human. The cruelty was underscored by the staggering corruption of the PPE procurement process, which resulted in at least 10% of the R50-billion disbursement being squandered by connected cadres. Rightly or wrongly, South Africans will remember Covid-19 for the orgy of thieving and greed that has studded Johannesburg and Cape Town with high-end vehicles and proud new mansion owners.
Worse, like so many countries, we’ve learnt something essential about ourselves. The postmodern capitalist technocratic state is a chimera. In its endless dedication to fake parsimony, it is always broke, and has no scope to deal with emergencies.

Read on…  

 ***

Need a pick-me-up? Here it is: Jerusalema by All Africana Kids Best Dance Challenge  (9:25 mins)

***

The Lincoln Project:
Names  (0:55 mins)  
Chyna  (1:00 min)

Healthy planet, anyone?

Half Of Corals On The Great Barrier Reef Have Died Since 1990s. 

Dr. Terry Hughes, a professor at the ARC Centre and a co-author of a recent paper, has long said climate change remains the single greatest threat to the future of the Great Barrier as we know it.
“The word ‘threat’ is funny,” he said. “If you threatened to punch me on the nose, it’s something you might do. We’ve been measuring the impacts on the Great Barrier Reef for 22 years … it’s certainly not a future threat. It’s been part of the ongoing saga for a long time.”

Meanwhile, back at the ranch…

The newly purchased double bed with drawers purchased specifically for my mother’s small room at the Care Center didn’t work out for her: The Dog refused to sleep on it. Yesterday, I arranged for a mover to exchange it for a lighter-weight twin bed without drawers. The Dog is happy. The Mother? Happy-ish.
On Friday, I propose driving a former neighbor to the Care Center to visit my mother. Always uplifting to have neighbors visit.
The realtor informed me that the sale of the house could take “at least six months.” I’m not prepared to stay here beyond January 2021, so I need a plan to ensure the house is occupied although not rented. How to do that? I’ve a few months to figure it out.

***

Chard and parsley are ready to eat from the veggie garden. Zucchini and snap pea plants are flowering. And, for the first time since I planted it three years ago, I’ll be here to enjoy the sweet smell of the jasmine. A benefit of the pandemic?
Glorious spring is in full swing here.

“Cowori”

In an Amazonian language, “cowori” has come to mean “man knows too little for the power that he wields, and the damage that he causes.” 

Ain’t it the truth?  (Read the piece, below.)

News blues…

• Is South Africa heading towards a second wave of coronavirus? “The risk is there,” says the health minister. 
• Covid-19 infected and diagnosed, US Congressman Mike Lee attends the Supreme Court confirmation hearing without a mask. 
• Trump campaign recontextualizes Dr Fauci’s words from months ago – and creates a self-serving political ad. 

***

The Lincoln Project: Walk of Shame  (0:55 mins)
Inside the Lincoln Project's campaign against President Trump  (13:33 mins)
Don Winslow Films: Memo to Trump  (0:34 mins)

Healthy planet, anyone?

According to a report by insurance firm Swiss Re, trillions of dollars of GDP depend on biodiversity, and a fifth of countries are at risk of ecosystem collapse. 
Along with Australia and Israel, South Africa ranks near the top of Swiss Re’s index of risk to biodiversity and ecosystem services; India, Spain and Belgium are also highlighted; countries with fragile ecosystems and large farming sectors, such as Pakistan and Nigeria, are also flagged.

One-fifth of the world’s countries are at risk of their ecosystems collapsing because of the destruction of wildlife and their habitats, according to the analysis. Natural “services” such as food, clean water and air, and flood protection have already been damaged by human activity. More than half of global GDP – $42tn (£32tn) – depends on high-functioning biodiversity … but the risk of tipping points is growing.

***

Dear presidents of the nine Amazonian countries and to all world leaders that share responsibility for the plundering of our rainforest,

In each of our many hundreds of different languages across the Amazon, we have a word for you – the outsider, the stranger. In my language, WaoTededo, that word is “cowori”. And it doesn’t need to be a bad word. But you have made it so. For us, the word has come to mean (and in a terrible way, your society has come to represent): the white man that knows too little for the power that he wields, and the damage that he causes.  

My name is Nemonte Nenquimo. I am a Waorani woman, a mother, and a leader of my people. The Amazon rainforest is my home. I am writing you this letter because the fires are raging still. Because the corporations are spilling oil in our rivers. Because the miners are stealing gold (as they have been for 500 years), and leaving behind open pits and toxins. Because the land grabbers are cutting down primary forest so that the cattle can graze, plantations can be grown and the white man can eat. Because our elders are dying from coronavirus, while you are planning your next moves to cut up our lands to stimulate an economy that has never benefited us. Because, as Indigenous peoples, we are fighting to protect what we love – our way of life, our rivers, the animals, our forests, life on Earth – and it’s time that you listened to us.

Read Nemonte Nenquimo’s letter. 

***

Meanwhile, back at the ranch…

I arrived in KZN from California on 28 January, intending to assist my mother, get things in order, ensure her appropriate health care (she was treated for oral cancer a year ago), and return to my American family 28 May, to work, live… until next year.
Instead, a global pandemic and lock down followed.
I’m still here. My mother is in a Care Center, I’m packing up piles of stuff, working with auctioneers, realtors, and municipal and legal bureaucracies, to ensure the sale of her house, settle her pets, down to details such as today’s activity: move, remove, and replace one of my mother’s beds with another – and find sheets and bed clothes that fit the replacement bed.
Two weeks ago, I made an offer on my own retirement unit in KZN. It was accepted so, at a distance of 14,000 miles, I’m organizing my life in California so that I’m not financially bust when I return, organizing my gear here so that I’ve a place to move into when this house is sold, organizing my thinking so that I can return to California - and an income generating job – as soon a possible.
I’m also discovering and deeply exploring the dynamics of my family of origin. It ain’t pretty. One misses a lot in four decades.
Simultaneously, I’m deeply grateful that I have this opportunity. I’m learning I’m resilient, unflinching, and, yes, even compassionate.
Life is complex.

***

Life is also diverse.
Yesterday’s sojourn in the garden included a Brown hooded kingfisher. 

 

Required: best intentions

Two hundred days of lockdown in South Africa. Together, we’ve endured Levels 4, 3, 2 and remain on Level 1. While the rates of infection hover above 1,000 cases per day – today more than 1,500 new cases – and we’ll reach 700,000 confirmed cases of infection any day now, South Africans have accepted wearing masks, sanitizing, and social distancing. We’ve also introduced the Jerusalema to the world, to dance during dire times. 

Congratulations, South Africans and those who make South Africa your home away from home.

News blues…

The prevailing mindset in the United States is that voting is the cure-all for poor or mediocre governance. (The Electoral College is there to, y’know, ensure We the People don’t, y’know, make a mistake – such as vote for a liberal or even worse, a progressive president.)
Voting, the cultural myth posits, is the Word of We the People.
The Trump presidency puts this cultural myth to the test.
Perhaps the biggest gift of the Trump presidency?
A chance to review – and reset? - real flaws in the constitutional process.
That system’s biggest - and bad-est - assumption? That whoever runs for office holds a high ethical and moral value system. That the person voted president understands and respects the US Constitution and is willing and able to act for something beyond self-interest.
A basic – and proven faulty – assumption of the framers of the Constitution? That humans known as politicians will show generous spirits towards all Americans. Instead, humans known as politicians are – like the rest of us – first, humans: complex, wily, self-deluding, self-interested, and, too often, greedy and power hungry. Add incompetence, narcissism, and corrupted by power and Americans experience “Amateur hour at the Trump White House,”  bolstered by “All the President’s Men.”  

Big change requires big hearts and minds - and generosity. 

Are those qualities in evidence these days?

***

The Lincoln Project: Transfer  (0: mins)

Meanwhile, back at the ranch…

Weather predictions for this week? Sunny days. After temperatures dropped into the single digits (centigrade) overnight, welcome Sun!
This busy weeks includes another round of complying with my mother’s latest impulse. This time, after agreeing to purchase a bed with six space-saving drawers, she’s decided she wants a space-saving single bed, no drawers. The reason for the first decision? The Dog would share her bed. The reason for the second decision? The Dog isn't sharing her bed after all. (And, yes, that The Dog isn't sharing her bed means I'm running back and forth with different size foam pads and different duvets, even sewing duvet covers to suit the different size duvets, to satisfy The Dog's particular needs.)

Today, I'll hire the same mover to move the single bed from the house to the Care Center, figure out how to dismantle the heavy, bulky double bed with drawers – and mattress – and drive it back to the house. That we're in sale mode and trying to stage the house for a quick sale doesn't enter my mother's calculations.
The good news, she’s forming a coterie of elderly folk to watch DVDs in her room on her TV. Yesterday’s show? “The Sound of Music.” The group agrees they like James Bond, too, and my mother has a full set of those DVDs.
I greet any signs of settling into her new life with joy.

Superman

News blues…

Last week, while in the presidential suite at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, Donald Trump floated an idea for the moment he faced the public after his discharge: rip open his dress shirt to reveal the Superman symbol beneath.

He “wanted to appear frail at first,” people with knowledge of the conversations told the New York Times. But underneath his dress shirt, Trump would wear a Superman T-shirt, which he would reveal by ripping open the top layer of his clothing. He ultimately opted not to go ahead with the stunt. It wasn’t immediately clear why.

He opted not to go ahead with the stunt? Huh. Could it be he’s not as crazy as a bedbug?
Nah! He’s crazy. 

Then again, how come 42 percent of those polled intend to vote for Trump?
Can 42 percent of America’s voting population be crazy too? 

Well, yes. See for yourself. (6:11 mins)

***

The Lincoln Project Mocks Trump With Fake Retro Ad Pushing Covid Drug (2:27 mins)
The Fly Song  (1:27 mins)
Meidas Touch: Trump Devastation   (1:15 mins)
Same Old - Samuel L. Jackson  (0:59 mins)

Healthy planet, anyone?

As they have done for more than a billion years fungi are changing the way that life happens: eating rock, making soil, digesting pollutants, nourishing and killing plants, surviving in space, inducing visions, producing food, making medicines, manipulating animal behaviour, and influencing the composition of the Earth’s atmosphere.

Fungi make up one of life’s kingdoms – as broad and busy a category as “animals” or “plants” – and provide a key to understanding our planet. Yet fungi have received only a small fraction of the attention they deserve. 

The best estimate suggests that there are between 2.2m and 3.8m species of fungi on the Earth – as many as 10 times the estimated number of plant species – meaning that, at most, a mere 8% of all fungal species have been described. Of these, only 358 have had their conservation priority assessed on the IUCN red list of threatened species, compared with 76,000 species of animal and 44,000 species of plant. Fungi, in other words, represent a meagre 0.2% of our global conservation priorities.

Read Kew’s 2020 report State of the World’s Plants and Fungi,  the outcome of a collaboration between 210 researchers in 42 countries.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch…

And… it’s raining again. I’m grateful for two days of sunshine during which we painted and primped the exterior of the house. Now I must photograph it for the realtors’ marketing promotion.
After the push to reach this point, I intend to recognize and celebrate the new freedom afforded by Lockdown Alert Level 1: take a day off, perhaps drive somewhere – the beach? The Drakensberg? A local plant nursery?

***

Life offers amazing diversity. For example, after mentioning the night time frog choir with a basso profondo section, I searched the term, “basso profondo.” Here’s what I found: Russian Basso Profondo: The Lowest Voices  (1:45 mins)
Amazing.

“Certain little tiny fish”

A Trump believe it or not. Trump tweeted about California. Not, as one might feasibly hope, about cataclysmic fires and emergency funding for victims of the fire. No, he tweeted about, well, nutty stuff:

California is gonna have to ration water. You wanna know why? Because they send millions of gallons of water out to sea, out to the Pacific. Because they want to take care of certain little tiny fish, that aren't doing very well without water."

“Certain little tiny fish”? 

Hmmm, enquiring minds wanna know more….

News blues…

Senate Majority leader Mitch McConnel (left) – aka “Moscow Mitch”  –  appears shocked! shocked! that Americans intuitively grasp The Donald is not the guy we want to lead our democratic republic.  

***

Three new lockdown changes for South Africa. In a series of gazettes recently published, the rules around grants, sports and events were updated to clarify existing regulations and allow for the further reopening of some sectors. 

***

RVAT: Super-Spreader-In-Chief   (0:28 mins)

The Lincoln Project - fund raisers:

***

Donald and Boris  (1:32 mins)

Healthy planet, anyone?

Cars, planes, trains: where do CO2 emissions from transport come from? 

Transport accounts for around one-fifth of global carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions [24% if we only consider CO2 emissions from energy].
How do these emissions break down? Is it cars, trucks, planes or trains that dominate?
This chart shows  global transport emissions in 2018. (Data sourced from the International Energy Agency - IEA).
Road travel accounts for three-quarters of transport emissions. Most of this comes from passenger vehicles – cars and buses – which contribute 45.1%. The other 29.4% comes from trucks carrying freight.
Since the entire transport sector accounts for 21% of total emissions, and road transport accounts for three-quarters of transport emissions, road transport accounts for 15% of total CO2 emissions.
Aviation – while it often gets the most attention in discussions on action against climate change – accounts for only 11.6% of transport emissions. It emits just under one billion tonnes of CO2 each year – around 2.5% of total global emissions [we look at the role that air travel plays in climate change in more detail in an upcoming article]. International shipping contributes a similar amount, at 10.6%.
Rail travel and freight emits very little – only 1% of transport emissions. Other transport – which is mainly the movement of materials such as water, oil, and gas via pipelines – is responsible for 2.2%.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch…

Two days of sunshine – and an intense painting schedule – gave over to rain late last night. With the exterior of the house almost complete – some clean up remains – we turn to prep the interior.
Photos for marketing come next. After that, we simply wait for buyers to fall into our honey-trap!
My mother met with the realtors and signed necessary documents to proceed with the sale of the property. What a relief!

***

Spring has arrived and settled in.
Chard seeds, started in the cold frame then transplanted into the garden, grow fast. As I pass their patch in the garden, I can reach out and snack on the fresh new leaves. Ditto with the flatleaf parsley that grows abundantly, too. (I substitute parsley for lettuce in salads. It’s more nutritious, has a stronger, more pleasing flavor, and grows faster.

***

After nightfall, a chorus of frogs serenades spring, from the basso profundo croaking of guttural toads to tender tweets from, well, not sure what kind of frogs but many sopranos, interspersed with tenors. A lovely sound salad.

Superfly

Black flies matter.
During the debate, a fly sat
on Pence’s head for 2 minutes. 

Black flies matter. 

In his recent New York Times column, Frank Bruni admits, “Mike Pence’s Debate Performance Bugged Me Out: He’s numb to pests large and small”:

We need to talk about that fly.
It was a fly, wasn’t it? If not, it was a bug doing an ace interpretation of a fly, and about two-thirds of the way through the debate in Salt Lake City on Wednesday night, it took up residence in Vice President Mike Pence’s hair, a smudge of black against a shock of white, where it lingered for a few minutes before undoubtedly realizing that there was warmer, more demonstrably human real estate to be had.
Off it flew, and on Pence droned. He never exhibited any awareness — not the subtlest glance upward, not the slightest flinch or twitch — that his head had been colonized. I first found this strange and then realized it was everything. Pence’s years of obsequiousness to Donald Trump had beaten all sensitivity and capacity for revulsion out of him.  Read the humorous column.  (By the way, after the debate, Pence’s wife Karen - aka "Mother" -  appeared on stage without a mask, ignoring guidelines both campaigns had agreed to observe.)

Wags called the fly a “national treasure,” an “American hero,” and suggested “even the fly knows he’s trash.”
“Late Show” host Stephen Colbert joked that Pence was “so full of crap, he’s attracting flies.” He added, “All jokes aside, thoughts and prayers to that fly’s family. It’s got to quarantine for two weeks now” (referencing the coronavirus outbreak in the White House). “We’ve gotta get that fly to Walter Reed.” Colbert also noted how long the fly remained on Pence’s head, “Two minutes… meaning that fly has a longer attention span than the president of the United States.”
Trevor Noah tweeted: Pence apologizing to Mother right now for getting to 3rd base with the fly.
Stephen King: that fly knows….
Eric Holder: Who will play the kamikaze fly on SNL?
Ah, humor, the saving grace during these bizarre times.

News blues…

After the Commission on Presidential Debates decided next week’s debate between Trump and Biden would be held remotely, the President of the United States, with sagging poll numbers, said, “I’m not going to waste my time on a virtual debate - that's not what debating is all about, you sit behind a computer and do a debate -- it's ridiculous. And then they cut you off whenever they want."
And, there’s the rub: being cut off. He is the guy to cut off others, not the guy to be cut off….
Trump’s campaign manager Bill Stepien - positive for COVID-19 - called the virtual format a “sad excuse to bail out Joe Biden,” adding that Trump – also positive for COVID-19 – would “do a rally instead.”

***

Dr Rick Bright shares an important point of view regarding Trump’s attitude to coronavirus, science… and ponders Trump and his administration’s resistance to common sense and health protocols. 

***

South Africa publishes a new interactive dashboard that details all transactions related to PPE procurement. This after tenders currently being investigated worth over five billion rand (US$299 million) were awarded for cloth masks, surgical masks, face shields, medical gowns, aprons, scrubs, overalls, gloves, sanitisers, and other products.
A good example of shutting the barn door after animals have skedaddled?

***

With a tweet, Trump nixed what had been an ongoing haggle about the amount of and who would benefit from the coronavirus spending bill – aka the Stimulus Package/Bill. “I have instructed my representatives to stop negotiating until after the election when, immediately after I win, we will pass a major Stimulus Bill that focuses on hardworking Americans and Small Business.”
The day after that tweet, he reinstated the haggling, saying on Fox, “I shut down talks two days ago because they weren’t working out. Now they are starting to work out.”
They’re not “starting to work out.” It’s more likely The Donald noticed the stock market dip and his poll numbers drop even further in response to his tweet. (Colbert’s take on this move – and other Trumpisms - 12:34 mins)
Maybe it’s time someone not truth-averse reviews Trump's Covid med package?

***

The Lincoln Project:
Gasping for Air  (0:55 mins)
Regeneron  (0:40 mins)
Don Winslow Films: Trump is patient zero  (1:39 mins)

Meanwhile, back at the ranch…

Success! Our small, very hard working team of three, under the guidance of a detail-oriented painter (a woman), succeeded in squeezing four days work into two days. I’m thrilled with our progress. 

Over the weekend, I will continue, alone, to finish: primp the trim, clean gutters of paint splotches… then clean brushes, put away painting gear, and photograph the results. 

Photographs will go realtors to market the house.
Only unknown?
Will my mother revert to her original agreement to sell the house? Or will she balk again before agreeing again before reverting again?
Enquiring minds wanna know….

Debatable

After watching the recent American political debate, I suggest a bland recipe: plop representatives of two opposing views into one bowl, toss in a bunch of facts, semi-facts, obfuscations (aka lies), modify and reframe dollops of recent historical facts and evidence, add a soupçon of moderation. Mix. Pour. Bake. Walk away from the toxic mix, sit in the warm sun until your troubles drop away, feel the wonder of your life, an important part of all life.
Then, vote!

Worldwide (Map) 
October 8 – 36,069,000 confirmed infections; 1,055,000 deaths
October 1 – 33,881,275 confirmed infections: 1,012,980 deaths 

US (Map)

October 8 – 7,550,000 confirmed infections; 212,000 deaths

October 1 - 7,233,200 confirmed infections; 206,940 deaths

  

SA (Coronavirus portal) 
October 8 – 685,155 confirmed infections; 17,250 deaths
October 1 – 674,340 confirmed infections: 16,735 deaths 

 
This week sees 19 countries having lower rates of Covid infections than the US White House. As of yesterday, October 7, according to a Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) memo, “Thirty-four White House staffers and ‘other contacts’ have been infected with the coronavirus in recent days.”  

News blues…

WHO official says 10 percent of the world may have been infected by Covid-19: 

There are more than 35.5 million confirmed Covid-19 cases globally, according to the widely-used Johns Hopkins University dashboard, but World Health Organization and other experts say that is almost certainly an enormous undercount. Over the summer, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said cases in the US had likely been undercounted by at least 90%.
With a global population of about 7.7 billion people, Ryan's estimate would mean about 770 million have been infected - but most have not been diagnosed or counted.

***

After departing the National Institutes of Health, where he was working on a program to expand national COVID-19 testing capacity, Dr. Rick Bright wrote a blistering op-ed in the Washington Post: “I couldn’t sit idly and watch people die from Trump’s chaotic, politicized pandemic response, so I resigned,”

 “From the beginning of the coronavirus outbreak, the administration’s failure to respond with a coordinated strategy only heightened the danger… Nine months into the pandemic, the United States continues to grapple with failed White House leadership.”
Rick Bright said the administration’s “hostility to the truth” has caused tens of thousands of preventable deaths.  

***

For the first time ever in its 208-year history, the New England Journal of Medicine issued an editorial about an election:

Lambasting the Trump administration’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic [the editorial, signed by all its editors, calls] on Americans to vote President Donald Trump out of office next month. 
November’s election will have life-or-death consequences for people across the country regardless of party alignment, the journal’s editorial board said.
“Reasonable people will certainly disagree about the many political positions taken by candidates,” the journal’s editors wrote. “But truth is neither liberal nor conservative. When it comes to the response to the largest public health crisis of our time, our current political leaders have demonstrated that they are dangerously incompetent. We should not abet them and enable the deaths of thousands more Americans by allowing them to keep their jobs.”

I repeat, vote!

***

The Lincoln Project: Hospital  (0:55 mins)

Healthy futures, anyone?

The Earth is changing faster than at any point in modern history as a result of human-caused global heating. 

Meanwhile, back at the ranch…

After decades of independence living in a different country, far from my mother and family of origin, it is disorienting to live intimately with another person’s chronic ambivalence. I’m caught between settling my dangerously mood-changing mother into a (formerly thoroughly agreed upon) new life while simultaneously expecting willy nilly changes of direction that upend agreed-upon plans.
Do I simply plow ahead with the original plan – sell the house and furnishings – while waiting for her next handwritten list that completely changes the course of events?
Or do I give up and return to my own life?
If the latter, what happens to my essentially alone, 87-year-old mother?
An enquiring mind wants to know…