Delta

A leak of CDC information on the Delta variant. As I understand it ...

The Delta variant is incredibly more contagious than previous variants.

People who have been completely vaccinated can and do catch it - breakfhrough infections.

Infected vaccinated people are as able as infected unvaccinated people to infect others.

Though vaccinated infected people are less likely than unvaccinated infected people to be seriously ill, it does happen, and vaccinated people can and do die from COVID.

And even if a vaccinated peson who gets infected has very mild symptoms, or even no symptoms, they may still end up with long term damage to their organs, including their brains.

And finally, expect more vaiants. As long as there are whole continents full of mostly unvaccinated people, like Africa, the virus will replicate and mutate like crazy.

Just when you thought it was safe to go back in the water :(

Biden

President Biden lays out the government's latest plaqns to deal with COVID ...

Hearings cont.

I'm still watching the House Select Committee hearings. This first day has four policemen who defended the Capitol against the Jan. 6 mob giving accounts of their experience. I'm watching the third policeman now and it is terribly disturbing. I don't think any decent person could listen to what these men have to say and not be angry and upset. It makes me sick to know that most Republicans won't even listen to them, not even those Republican politicians whose lives they put themselves in danger to save. Please listen to them.

Sgt. Aquilino Gonell ...

Officer Michael Fanone ...



Officer Daniel Hodges ...



Officer Harry Dunn ...

Hearings

I'm watching the House Select Committee's first day of hearings about the riot at the Capitol, January 6th. Scheduled is the testimony of four policemen, two Capitol police and two DC Metropolitan police, who were attacked and injured during the riot.

Republican politicians have been lying about what happened during that riot and a large percentage of Republican voters believe those lies, or at least sign on to them. I don't doubt that those Republicans will avoid watching the hearings and the evidence presented there. Effing cowards.

Freedom?

Watching the news today. It was about the anti-COVID-restriction protests in France and Australia. Also about the anti-vaxxers in the US, and the conservative excuse for not vaccinationg ... freedom. Think Ted Cruz at CPAC ...



Yuck! What these people don't consider is that their idea of freedom ... the ability to do whatever you want irregardless of how it affects others ... is only possible in complete social isolation. Every relationship you have, from personal to societal, will infringe on that freedom. Most people accept this because of the benefits of being in community.

It's ok with me if anti-vaxxers choose to die of COVID, but the problem is that they are dragging everyone else down with them. They don't exist in some state of nature, and being part of our community and reaping those benefits, they don't have the moral right to doom the rest of us.

Having said all that, I don't really believe this anti-vax movement is about personal freedom at all. These same right-wing conservatives are rabid to take away a woman's personal bodily freedom to get an abortion.

I think what all this is instead about is something else ... power. The power to say no, the power to stand in the way, the power to ruin.

Ágnes

An ad for the Olympics features Ágnes Keleti, 10-time Olympic medallist and now 100 years old.

$pace

There's been much in the news about the commerical efforts of billionaires like Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk, and Richard Branson to get, not to actual space, but to the edge of space (the Kármán line) ...



But anyway, what I want to say is that, despite all the frisson in the press about this, I think the commercialization of space travel is a bad idea. There's a 2019 article in Nature that expresses how I feel ... One giant leap for capitalistkind: private enterprise in outer space ... but it's pretty long, so here's just a bit from the abstract of the article ...

Outer space is becoming a space for capitalism. We are entering a new era of the commercialization of space, geared towards generating profits from satellite launches, space tourism, asteroid mining, and related ventures. This era, driven by private corporations such as Elon Musk’s SpaceX and Jeff Bezos’s Blue Origins, has been labeled by industry insiders as ‘NewSpace'—in contrast to ‘Old Space', a Cold War-era mode of space relations when (allegedly) slow-moving, sluggish states dominated outer space. NewSpace marks the arrival of capitalism in space. While challenging the libertarian rhetoric of its proponents—space enterprises remain enmeshed in the state, relying on funding, physical infrastructure, technology transfers, regulatory frameworks, and symbolic support—NewSpace nevertheless heralds a novel form of human activity in space. Despite its humanistic, universalizing pretensions, however, NewSpace does not benefit humankind as such but rather a specific set of wealthy entrepreneurs, many of them originating in Silicon Valley, who strategically deploy humanist tropes to engender enthusiasm for their activities ...

Makes me think of the original Blade Runner movie and the book from which it was adapted. In that scenario, the wealthy and genetically sound have evacuated to colonies in space, fleeing an environmentally ravaged Earth. Only the less fortunate remain.

There billionaires who plan to sell space could use all that money to do so much good here on Earth - climate change, poverty, disease, etc. But they would rather make a buck, while indulging their egos. Stop romanticizing them and their schemes.

Guess Who

One group I didn't appreciate as much as I should have back in the day was the Canadian band, The Guess Who. Probably best known for their song American Woman, they did a number of others that showed up the good voice of their lead singer.

Here are a few of their songs that I liked ...

Portland

I was watching a news program today that was partly about Portland, Oregon. That city has been so demonized by right-wing extremists that many now believe it to be some kind of liberal commie hell. Nothing could be farther from the truth.

I lived in Portland for three years, moving there after I got divorced. I think this is the only photo I have of me (L) and my sister (R) from then ...

It took me nearly a year to find a job there - I almost took a job at a sheltered workshop out of desperation - but I finally did get a job working the graveyard shift as a surgery aid at the Oregon Health & Science University (a hospital) ...

But when not working there was a lot to do in Portland. They have a ton of bookstores, including the famous Powell's Books. They also have a lot of coffee shops and cafes, like Apizza Scholls pissa ...

And the Bread and Ink Cafe ...

There's a lot to do outside too, like visiting Washington Park, which includes the Portland Zoo, the International Test Rose Garden, and the Portland Japanese Garden (where they sometimes hold Go tournaments) ....



Further afield, we would visit places like Multnomah Falls ...

Ot Cannon Beach ...

But of course, Portland isn't perfect. When I was there, there was a lot of poverty - you couldn't be downtown without encountering people, especially the disabled, asking for help. Homeless people lived under the bridges. I don't doubt this problem still exists.

And despite what Trump and right-wing media might wnat you to believe, Portland has a history of white supremacist violence, not liberal protest ...

The Atlantic: The Racist History of Portland, the Whitest City in America

NPR: How Portland's Racist History Informs Today's Protests

CNN: Portland’s liberal image tempered by history as ‘Skinhead City’

Don't let Fox News inform your views of Portland - visit :)

Retreat

The news is full of the US military's retreat from Afghanistan, and I am reminded of a similar situation: I was 23 when the US withdrew from Vietnam and Saigon fell in April of 1975 ...

Earworm

My sticky song today :) ...

Alternative facts

Hilaria Baldwin Is Now Claiming to Be Culturally ‘Fluid’

In an Instagram post on Thursday, she wrote that she considers herself culturally “fluid.” “We all get to curate our individual expressions of our cultures, languages, who we love, what we believe in, how we dress, present ourselves,” she wrote under a photo of her daughter holding an artwork of paint mixed together. “This is the right that each person should have.”

Baldwin, wife of actor Alec Baldwin, had claimed for years that she was from Spain and put on a Spanish accent in media appearances. But she was actually born in Boston as Hillary ...

Being "fluid" with the truth = being a liar.

I know it's just celebrity news, but it's gross that someone who is famous and rich thinks they have the power to manufacture a new reality. This is the "alternative facts" grift that characterized the Trump era.

Hawaii

My sister and I were looking at our pile of family photos today and we saw this one I hadn't remembered. It's my sister (L) and me (R) on our family vacation to Hawaii in 1981. My sister looks pretty, as usual, and I look like a zombie who's just spotted a tasty brain ;)

We went with my mother and grandmother ...

... and visited the islands of Oahu, Maui, and the Big Island (Hawaii). A fun trip (except for the giant flying cockroaches - eeeek!).

Taxes

Trump's CFO, Allen Weisselberg, has been indicted for cooking the books, and the DA has pretty solid evidence of this, including the fact that the Trump organization kept two sets of books.

As Chris Hayes points out, the Trump family doesn't seem to be denying that they have done this ... it's just that they're offended by the idea that it's an actionable crime. And it is - many celebrities have ended up in prison for cheating on their taxes, from Al Capone to Pete Rose

The only real question is whether the DA can prove Trump did what he did (what he told Weisselberg to do) with the intent to defraud the government. The fact that he kept two sets of books seems to indicate awareness of guilt.

Day of Rage

As part of a six-month investigation, The Times synchronized and mapped thousands of videos and police audio of the U.S. Capitol riot to provide the most complete picture to date of what happened — and why. .... read more about this video here

I'm watching this now. I feel sick. God save us from these crazies. Trump is respinsible for this.

The big house

Trump may again slither out of accountability for all the crooked things he's done, but Ivanka may not be so lucky. Ivanka in an orange jumpsuit? One can hope.