After the cascade of news in the past several days and the Democratic National Convention, today was a relatively calm day… at least in politics. There are, though, some important stories. The first is getting less play than it should: the nation has lately been hit by a series of environmental catastrophes. California is in the midst of a brutal heat wave, and has been hit by 560 fires, many of them sparked by lightning. Some of the fires have come together to create two dozen large and complex conflagrations. Land the size of Rhode Island has been burned over, six people have died in the fires, and one hundred thousand Californians have been evacuated from their homes. Air quality is dangerously bad.
It was my second week back at my school. We’ve been training for virtual teaching. Sipping from a fire hose of instruction. We offer both and it’s overwhelming situation. Children start Monday and our numbers are 60% in school.
Thank you not only for current updates but educating me along the way! A colleague who gets her news from talk radio, started about how unfair the wealth tax would be. Well let me tell you about the wealth tax under Eisenhower! Then she moved on to why we shouldn’t give enough unemployment to make it more profitable to stay home. Tee hee hee! By the end of the argument, I suggested she become better informed about the issues. I recommend you and Robert Reich for starters!
Back to my measly research to figure out how in Texas the AG Paxton, and TEA’s Mike Morath, as well as Gov Abbott have forced schools open in a fatal pandemic. I hope I make it! I haven’t seen my daughter since Christmas, she’s in Queens. And my son is going with me to get my will and power of attorney notarized today. All to teach elementary art.
Keep it coming! I need to hear rational intelligent information! 💙
Poisoning. Tax returns. Q-anon. Fasting as a donation strategy. DeJoy, USPS, and dead baby chickens. Ravaged Iowa with no help for homeowners or farmers. Double hurricanes in the gulf for the first time in recorded history. California burning down. And all this is a "quiet" news day. Not long ago any ONE of these would have been front page headlines. Now, with the firehose flow of bad news that we are living with, most of us are so overwhelmed that we can just barely register that each new thing truly is as awful as it sounds. And please, dear God, don't forget that we now have almost 180,000 dead Americans. In less than a year. We are traumatized as a country, as a people. We must pull together as one nation to get through this or surely we are lost.
Mother nature is distinctly unhappy with one of its species it would seem. Perhaps she has an immune system to protect herself from invasive infections!
Not for the first time recently, I'm forced to face how much the various systems we've come to rely on, depend on everything working 'just right'. Heather's description of the lack of prisoner-firefighters is but one example. It's like watching a giant Jinga tower have pieces removed in real time, only those pieces are bits of our lives foundations.
From the destruction of political norms forcing us to realize how much our system of governance relies on the decency and integrity of our fellows, to the distribution of our food supplies, medicine, etc., all of it is being highlighted as fragile and interconnected.
Thanks Heather for the news and providing a forum for conversation. As a scientist involved in COVID public health outreach, I want to offer a heads-up to your readers that smoke from forest fires (and other forms of air pollution) have been documented to increase the risks of morbidity and mortality from viral infections including COVID-19. The mechanism is that the tiny airborne particles interfere with innate immune protection against viral infections. Technical details (open access-free download) can be found at the following link. Please feel free to share. https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpubh.2020.00232/full
As a longtime resident of South Florida, I've experienced many hurricanes, and as my dad was a pilot (got his license in 1936) I grew up with a bit of a weather eye. There are a couple of excellent meteorologists I follow in Miami; they are predicting that the tropical depression, Laura, is not likely to become a hurricane. Not only has it never really organized due to dry air and wind shear, it looks like it will travel directly over the three largest islands in the Caribbean. I feel for the folks in Puerto Rico, Hispaniola, and Cuba, but they've been through far worse! Hard to believe Hispaniola has 10,000-foot mountains, which tear up a storm. By the time Laura emerges into the Gulf of Mexico on Sunday-Monday from passing over Cuba, it may not even have the juice to reform as a tropical storm. We have been spared so far this season due to the Saharan dust damping down the Atlantic. But there's plenty of time left in The Season! Anyway, hope my weather guessers are right...because one never knows about hurricanes...
The fires in Northern California are about the destroy the Napa Valley California wine industry. These are coming on top of the fires two years ago that nearly wiped out the region. (fortunately TJ's "Two Buck Chuck" comes from the central valley, no fires there)
McSally's as good a politician as she was a fighter pilot. I know two A-10 pilots who were around her, they told me the only reason she wasn't grounded for technical incompetence as a pilot was her threat to get the AF "bad publicity" for firing a woman pilot. Of course, once she made Colonel and got into Wing leadership, incompetence in the cockpit was expected (the days of wing leaders leading from a cockpit in the front of the formation ended with Korea).
Expectations are really low for the GOP convention. The convention website looks like it was designed by a teenager who TikTok won't be hiring as an influencer, Their "announced guests" include one-hit draft dodging entertainment wonder Ted Nugent and his machine guns, "F" list talent Scott Baiao, who's got the time to go there now after the "movie" he's starring in, produced by Pure Pix (the fundiescum who got busted for copyright infringement for releasing DVDs of movies cut to "G" ratings) got shut down for not following the production requirements for shooting a movie during the Pandemic, and those two gun-wielding ambulance chasers from St. Louis. But then, no entertainer with any talent has ever been a Republican to begin with.
I figure I'll be able to finish "A Very Stable Genius" and get through Rachel Maddow's "Blowout" with the cable news blackout this week.
Ouch. You managed multiple paragraphs on "environmental catastrophes" without mentioning the words "climate change." You probably assume that all your readers understand the connection! But we have to pound it in, because many people don't make the connection, or understand the need to act fast and decisively (witness the DNC backing off on stopping fossil fuel subsidies.)
On of the weather disasters getting almost no attention outside the immediate affected area is a 25,000-acre fire in far western Colorado. Thus fire is difficult to fight because of the rugged terrain.
Heather, thanks for the update on Martha McSally. It is very painful to watch her endless TV ad attacks on Mark Kelly in Arizona. Fact checking quickly points out that these are lies and ridiculous distortions of the truth. And Mark Kelly never shoots back. His ads are all about the issues and his plans to address them. Whether he will be a good Senator or not, we don't know yet, but I am clear that he will at least be an honorable one. That would be a great start in the Senate. Certainly what I would expect from an Astronaut and the husband of our beloved Gabby Giffords.
Thank you for leading with the environment. We refuse to learn. On the subject of QAnon, I have noticed that most Republican attacks are projection, and we've certainly seen pedophilia.
Heather, as always, thanks for the concise round up for the day. Interesting in that there are so many facets of unrest in the country today, so many fires to put out, literally.
I'm sure there is no significance to this but it seems strange that the City of Chauvin, LA, targeted as the first-ever site of a double hurricane, shares the same name as the police officer Chauvin who was charged with the murder of George Floyd.
With the possibility of two hurricanes this week of the Republican National Convention, we may see rain on the outdoor events like Melania's speech in the Rose Garden and DT's nomination speech on the South lawn. Makes one think of the Bible verse Psalm 2:4 "He who sits in Heaven laughs." Isn't it delicious that the climate crisis may rain on DTs parade?
It was my second week back at my school. We’ve been training for virtual teaching. Sipping from a fire hose of instruction. We offer both and it’s overwhelming situation. Children start Monday and our numbers are 60% in school.
Thank you not only for current updates but educating me along the way! A colleague who gets her news from talk radio, started about how unfair the wealth tax would be. Well let me tell you about the wealth tax under Eisenhower! Then she moved on to why we shouldn’t give enough unemployment to make it more profitable to stay home. Tee hee hee! By the end of the argument, I suggested she become better informed about the issues. I recommend you and Robert Reich for starters!
Back to my measly research to figure out how in Texas the AG Paxton, and TEA’s Mike Morath, as well as Gov Abbott have forced schools open in a fatal pandemic. I hope I make it! I haven’t seen my daughter since Christmas, she’s in Queens. And my son is going with me to get my will and power of attorney notarized today. All to teach elementary art.
Keep it coming! I need to hear rational intelligent information! 💙
Poisoning. Tax returns. Q-anon. Fasting as a donation strategy. DeJoy, USPS, and dead baby chickens. Ravaged Iowa with no help for homeowners or farmers. Double hurricanes in the gulf for the first time in recorded history. California burning down. And all this is a "quiet" news day. Not long ago any ONE of these would have been front page headlines. Now, with the firehose flow of bad news that we are living with, most of us are so overwhelmed that we can just barely register that each new thing truly is as awful as it sounds. And please, dear God, don't forget that we now have almost 180,000 dead Americans. In less than a year. We are traumatized as a country, as a people. We must pull together as one nation to get through this or surely we are lost.
Mother nature is distinctly unhappy with one of its species it would seem. Perhaps she has an immune system to protect herself from invasive infections!
Not for the first time recently, I'm forced to face how much the various systems we've come to rely on, depend on everything working 'just right'. Heather's description of the lack of prisoner-firefighters is but one example. It's like watching a giant Jinga tower have pieces removed in real time, only those pieces are bits of our lives foundations.
From the destruction of political norms forcing us to realize how much our system of governance relies on the decency and integrity of our fellows, to the distribution of our food supplies, medicine, etc., all of it is being highlighted as fragile and interconnected.
Thanks Heather for the news and providing a forum for conversation. As a scientist involved in COVID public health outreach, I want to offer a heads-up to your readers that smoke from forest fires (and other forms of air pollution) have been documented to increase the risks of morbidity and mortality from viral infections including COVID-19. The mechanism is that the tiny airborne particles interfere with innate immune protection against viral infections. Technical details (open access-free download) can be found at the following link. Please feel free to share. https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpubh.2020.00232/full
As a longtime resident of South Florida, I've experienced many hurricanes, and as my dad was a pilot (got his license in 1936) I grew up with a bit of a weather eye. There are a couple of excellent meteorologists I follow in Miami; they are predicting that the tropical depression, Laura, is not likely to become a hurricane. Not only has it never really organized due to dry air and wind shear, it looks like it will travel directly over the three largest islands in the Caribbean. I feel for the folks in Puerto Rico, Hispaniola, and Cuba, but they've been through far worse! Hard to believe Hispaniola has 10,000-foot mountains, which tear up a storm. By the time Laura emerges into the Gulf of Mexico on Sunday-Monday from passing over Cuba, it may not even have the juice to reform as a tropical storm. We have been spared so far this season due to the Saharan dust damping down the Atlantic. But there's plenty of time left in The Season! Anyway, hope my weather guessers are right...because one never knows about hurricanes...
The fires in Northern California are about the destroy the Napa Valley California wine industry. These are coming on top of the fires two years ago that nearly wiped out the region. (fortunately TJ's "Two Buck Chuck" comes from the central valley, no fires there)
McSally's as good a politician as she was a fighter pilot. I know two A-10 pilots who were around her, they told me the only reason she wasn't grounded for technical incompetence as a pilot was her threat to get the AF "bad publicity" for firing a woman pilot. Of course, once she made Colonel and got into Wing leadership, incompetence in the cockpit was expected (the days of wing leaders leading from a cockpit in the front of the formation ended with Korea).
Expectations are really low for the GOP convention. The convention website looks like it was designed by a teenager who TikTok won't be hiring as an influencer, Their "announced guests" include one-hit draft dodging entertainment wonder Ted Nugent and his machine guns, "F" list talent Scott Baiao, who's got the time to go there now after the "movie" he's starring in, produced by Pure Pix (the fundiescum who got busted for copyright infringement for releasing DVDs of movies cut to "G" ratings) got shut down for not following the production requirements for shooting a movie during the Pandemic, and those two gun-wielding ambulance chasers from St. Louis. But then, no entertainer with any talent has ever been a Republican to begin with.
I figure I'll be able to finish "A Very Stable Genius" and get through Rachel Maddow's "Blowout" with the cable news blackout this week.
Ouch. You managed multiple paragraphs on "environmental catastrophes" without mentioning the words "climate change." You probably assume that all your readers understand the connection! But we have to pound it in, because many people don't make the connection, or understand the need to act fast and decisively (witness the DNC backing off on stopping fossil fuel subsidies.)
The successful election of a QAnon lunatic makes me think Republicanism is now in the late stage of a serious political syphilis infection.
It started with Reagan, who put a pleasant face on it, and it’s now terminal with Trump at the helm.
On of the weather disasters getting almost no attention outside the immediate affected area is a 25,000-acre fire in far western Colorado. Thus fire is difficult to fight because of the rugged terrain.
https://coloradosun.com/2020/08/19/grizzly-creek-fire-threatening-colorado-river-western-water/?mc_cid=c14b523759&mc_eid=dd6296ca41
Heather, thanks for the update on Martha McSally. It is very painful to watch her endless TV ad attacks on Mark Kelly in Arizona. Fact checking quickly points out that these are lies and ridiculous distortions of the truth. And Mark Kelly never shoots back. His ads are all about the issues and his plans to address them. Whether he will be a good Senator or not, we don't know yet, but I am clear that he will at least be an honorable one. That would be a great start in the Senate. Certainly what I would expect from an Astronaut and the husband of our beloved Gabby Giffords.
Thank you for leading with the environment. We refuse to learn. On the subject of QAnon, I have noticed that most Republican attacks are projection, and we've certainly seen pedophilia.
Heather, as always, thanks for the concise round up for the day. Interesting in that there are so many facets of unrest in the country today, so many fires to put out, literally.
Not helping all those farmers in Iowa will do wonders for the Republican vote turnout in November.
I'm sure there is no significance to this but it seems strange that the City of Chauvin, LA, targeted as the first-ever site of a double hurricane, shares the same name as the police officer Chauvin who was charged with the murder of George Floyd.
With the possibility of two hurricanes this week of the Republican National Convention, we may see rain on the outdoor events like Melania's speech in the Rose Garden and DT's nomination speech on the South lawn. Makes one think of the Bible verse Psalm 2:4 "He who sits in Heaven laughs." Isn't it delicious that the climate crisis may rain on DTs parade?