Sunday Serendipity

It was neighborhood cleanup day today and for some reason my lower back is just knotting up in pain as I type. So I will keep it short and let you all use google and wiki for any information.

It is a lively piece and I hope you all enjoy it

Jack

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77 thoughts on “Sunday Serendipity”

  1. wiki:

    Mahler Symphony No. 4 is a 57-minute studio album that the operatic mezzo-soprano Frederica von Stade recorded with the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra under the direction of Claudio Abbado. It was released in 1978.
    […]
    None of Mahler’s other symphonies was more Viennese in spirit than the Fourth, and the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra was altogether at home in its radiant happiness. Their playing was “consistently wonderful without ever being lost in a welter of details”. Frederica von Stade’s performance of the final movement’s Wunderhorn song did not spoil its innocent simplicity with unwarranted sophistication. The album as a whole was a genial, endearing addition to Mahler’s discography. There had been a time when his music had been thought too difficult for anyone but a few specialists. The charm and accessibility of Abbado’s disc made it easy to imagine that the composer’s popularity would continue to grow, in Vienna as elsewhere.

  3. the guardian:

    Two Nasa astronauts are preparing to make the first splashdown return to Earth in 45 years as the threat posed by Hurricane Isaias off the coast of Florida eased.
    Robert Behnken and Douglas Hurley are set to come back to Earth from the International Space Station on Sunday after launching into space in May on a commercial spacecraft built by SpaceX.
    The astronaut carrier, the Crew Dragon, has decoupled from the space station ahead of an expected splashdown off the coast of Pensacola, Florida at 2:42 pm ET on Sunday (6:42pm UK GMT).
    […]
    Shortly after undocking, the Crew Dragon perform will perform several manoeuvres that will lower the capsule’s orbit and get it closer to the splashdown zone.
    The spacecraft will then perform another manoeuvre, known as deorbit burn, which will place it on a trajectory for splashdown, travelling at a speed of approximately 17,500 miles per hour.
    On entering the Earth’s atmosphere, the Crew Dragon will face scorching temperatures of around 1,900C as it deploys parachutes to slow its speed down to around 119 miles per hour, before landing on the ocean.
    The re-entry will create a communications blackout between the spacecraft and Earth that is expected to last approximately six minutes, Nasa said.
    Two SpaceX recovery ships, the Go Searcher and the Go Navigator, made up of spacecraft engineers, recovery experts and medical professionals, will be waiting to pull the capsule on board and help the astronauts get out as they begin readjusting to gravity.

  4. NYTimes:

    […]
    The Crew Dragon undocked from the space station at 7:35 p.m. Eastern time on Saturday, with brief thruster firings pushing the spacecraft back.
    As the capsule backed away from the station, Mr. Hurley thanked the current crew of the space station and the teams on the ground that helped manage their mission.
    “We look forward to splashdown tomorrow,” he said.
    If the weather conditions remain favorable, it will splash down in the Gulf of Mexico off Pensacola, Fla., at 2:48 p.m. on Sunday, NASA announced.
    NASA Television’s coverage of the undocking will continue through splashdown. You can watch it in the video player below.

    [continues]

  6. So we here in the smartest, strongest, freeest, richest, yada, yada, yada country in the world somehow can’t do what a slum in India’s could do to control the spread of the virus. 

    NEW DELHI — Kiran Dighavkar, a Mumbai official, realized the coronavirus could prove devastating for the city’s sprawling slum of Dharavi when he spent three hours trying to find a vacant ICU bed for a resident. By the time he found one, the patient had died. That was in April.

    In July, Dharavi drew praise from the World Health Organization for its “aggressive action” in containing the pandemic.

    “There are many examples from around the world that have shown that even if the outbreak is very intense, it can still be brought back under control,” WHO Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said at a news conference July 10, citing Dharavi’s success along with efforts by countries including Italy and South Korea.
     
    India is third behind the United States and Brazil in confirmed coronavirus infections, but its new cases are climbing at thefastest rate in the world, according to Bloomberg News. For Dharavi to turn a corner in the midst of this crisis is a noteworthy story of customized solutions, community involvement and perseverance.

    * * *

    “Dharavi was a ticking time bomb,” said Shivkumar Utture, a doctor advising the city government on coronavirus measures. “There was stigma and fear among the people.”

    City officials led by Dighavkar, the assistant municipal commissioner in charge of Dharavi, charted their own course. After identifying five areas reporting the most cases, they focused on screening every house for people withfever or low oxygen levels. Local doctors were enlisted to inspire confidence among residents.

    Within 10 days, 47,000 people had been screened, and 400 symptomatic people were tested for the virus, with 20 percent turning out to be positive. An additional 4,000 people, including contacts and those with co-morbidities, were placed in institutional quarantine.

    Health-care camps were set up in prominent locations in the slum where people could walk in and get a free virus test. Officials urged dozens of private clinics in the area to remain open so more cases could be detected. In turn, the government provided them with protective gear and daily sanitization.

    * * *

    The other critical challenge was building health infrastructure from scratch. The government-run health-care facilities inside the slum had no beds or intensive care equipment. Dighavkar and his team took over a sports complex, a park, a marriage hall and private hospitals to house quarantine and treatment facilities. On a vacant lot, they built a 200-bed hospital with oxygen beds.

    * * *

    The efforts paid off. The number of new cases in July was a fifth that of May. The recovery rate is over 80 percent, and the number of active cases is under 100.

    “We chased the virus,” Dighavkar said, “instead of waiting for people to report it.”

    But fighting the virus wasn’t the only test facing Dharavi. A burgeoning problem was its residents’ struggle for survival as the lockdown snatched away livelihoods overnight.

    Nearly 150,000 workers went back to their villages, which reduced the population somewhat. But the gap between government’s relief efforts and residents’ need remained vast. Closing it was a feat the administration could not accomplish alone. The slum’s fame — the Oscar-winning movie “Slumdog Millionaire” was shot in Dharavi — helped. Private donors and nongovernmental organizations stepped in to help.

    Laxmi Ramchandra Kamble, a relief worker with the Acorn Foundation, said her group helped 1,500 households with ration kits through the lockdown months. As the economy reopens and virus numbers stabilize in Dharavi, the demand for aid has diminished.

    “Factories and shops are gradually opening, and now we are distributing rations to only 15 persons a day,” she said. “Things are slowly getting better here.”
    (Continues)

    Sooooo….. I think that’s what a great job of fighting COVID looks like.  Don’t see anything like that coming from SFBCo .

  7. By contrast…

    The coronavirus is spreading at dangerous levels across much of the United States, and public health experts are demanding a dramatic reset in the national response, one that recognizes that the crisis is intensifying and that current piecemeal strategies aren’t working.

    This is a new phase of the pandemic, one no longer built around local or regional clusters and hot spots. It comes at an unnerving moment in which the economy suffered its worst collapse since the Great Depression, schools are rapidly canceling plans for in-person instruction and Congress has failed to pass a new emergency relief package. President Trump continues to promote fringe science, the daily death toll keeps climbing and the human cost of the virus in America has just passed 150,000 lives.

    “Unlike many countries in the world, the United States is not currently on course to get control of this epidemic. It’s time to reset,” declared a report released this week by Johns Hopkins University.

    ***

    Ryan Westergaard, Wisconsin’s chief medical officer, said he is dismayed by the failures of the national pandemic response.

    “I really thought we had a chance to keep this suppressed,” Westergaard said. “The model is a good one: testing, tracing, isolation, supportive quarantine. Those things work. We saw this coming. We knew we had to build robust, flexible systems to do this in all of our communities. It feels like a tremendous disappointment that we weren’t able to build a system in time that could handle this.”

    There is one benefit to the way the virus has spread so broadly, he noted: “We no longer have to keep track of people traveling to a hot spot if hot spots are everywhere.”

    (Continues)

    From DC – fringe science, piecemeal strategies, death tolls rising with Wrongway Peachfuzz at the helm. 

  10. jamie, given your bent toward a biden harris ticket and you might be a bit biased about considering someone else for vp, where do you stand on karen bass as an alternative to kamala?

    i’m still wanting warren, but bass looks like a good 2nd choice.  and what could be more alliterative than “build back better with biden-bass”? 

  11. Today is laundry day. I’m done with the linens and have the bed re-made.  Only four more loads to go. Jack, I feel your pain. Turn the other cheek.

  12. wapo yesterday on bass:

    She had earned a sterling reputation among progressives as an activist on the streets of South Los Angeles, but now Karen Bass was the new speaker of the State Assembly, and California was in the midst of a budget crisis.
    It was 2009 — the height of the Great Recession. Bass was responsible for negotiating tens of billions of dollars in cuts to some of the very social programs she had pledged to protect.
    “The whole reason I went up there was to expand and strengthen programs, not cut them. I had to cut $40 billion,” she recalled in an interview. “It was devastating to me. But I fought to cut because the alternative was to dismantle programs altogether.”
    The difficult decisions she made during that period, which drew admiration from colleagues on both sides of the aisle, help explain the five-term congresswoman’s quiet rise in the ranks in Congress and the intensifying speculation about her future as a potential running mate for presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden.
    As Biden nears a decision about his vice-presidential pick, Bass’s boosters see in her someone whose activism in Los Angeles in the 1990s could bring progressive credibility to the ticket during a fresh wave of racial unrest in the country. She could also help assuage liberal skeptics who have been critical of Biden’s now-controversial efforts on criminal justice reform in the 1990s. She has already made history once as the first Black woman in the United States to rise to the role of assembly speaker in any state.
    […]
    “She’s really unique in this business. I’ve dealt with some of the best politicians on the planet, the Kevin McCarthys, the Nancy Pelosis, all the governors. Karen’s unique for one key reason, and that is that she is stunningly likable at all times,” Dunmoyer said. “It doesn’t mean you agree with her. She’s like the velvet hammer for the Republicans of the world. She’s very polished, she’s very gracious. She’s firm in her convictions, but she’s very nice.”

    [continues]

  13. One of my favorites which slipped by the censors was “Rumpole of the Bailey”.  Every time She or some other character addressed Rumpole you could hear it:
    Rump Hole!
    It takes a willing suspension of disbelief not to hear it.

    One which didn’t make it was the Fugawi Tribe on F Troop. They caught that one made them change it to the Hekawi Tribe.

  14. Trump's coattails no boon for GOP Senate candidates
    John Harwood

    So far at least, Republican Senate candidates have shown little capacity to separate their fates from Trump.
    That means big trouble for the GOP attempt to hold seats in states where Biden leads such as Arizona, Colorado, Maine and North Carolina. The nonpartisan Cook Political Report recently pronounced Democrats favored to achieve the net gain of at least three seats they need to gain the majority if Biden wins or four if the President is re-elected.

     

     

    “If (the election) is today, I don’t see how Republicans can hold,” agrees GOP strategist Liam Donovan. Up and down the ballot, he explains: “The only question is, ‘Do you like Trump?’ ”

  16. like lizzie, karen seems to be the happy warrior type. both are  easy on the eyes and spirit with ready and genuine smiles.

    I liked that quote from above article in wapo:   “Karen’s unique for one key reason, and that is that she is stunningly likable at all times,”   

    she also appears to be well-experienced in the art of getting things done.

    Image result for karen bass

  18. tony, that was more than funny!   like a lincoln project ad on steroids. 

    perfect for those “suburban housewives” the Rump thinks are his.  he’s toast in the ‘burbs.

  20. Pat, thanks for the wiki article. 
    The back is much better, I don’t know why, I rarely have back problems except for a little stiffness. But after I posted todays post I went to my recliner. The back didn’t hurt while in the recliner but it was 5am before I was able to get out of it and go to bed. 
    Been active this morning doing dishes it is slowly getting better. By tomorrow I should be back to my stiff old man grumpy self.
    Jack 

  21. Jack, I feel for you buddy. This getting old stuff is no fun. And it’s surely not for pussies. After I got my left knee replaced it started reminding me how much the rest of me hurts – nothing big, just the odd aches and pains in joints. I don’t like it.


  22. Gotta love, Nancy!

  23. jack, beware the chair.  it may be the culprit behind the back problem.  awhile back i was having pain problems walking upon both getting out of the recliner and getting out of the car.  pain would subside after a few minutes of activity but i worried about an onset of back/hip disfunction.  luckily i discovered it was caused by a certain angle of leg elevation in both situations and not some oncoming chronic ailment.  voila, no more problem upon reordering the angle.

     

     

  25. The Aussies over at Juice Media have done a great job at poking at Boris Johnson, tRUMP, and, their own government.    They do an amazing job. 
    Jack – A lovely piece today. From the smiling musicians at the beginning to the conductor’s pregnant pause at the end, just lovely.  Feel better.
    I’m still feeling that short-term, President Pelosi vibe.  Can we have that good October surprise in August?

  26. Pogo, when I was a kid I used to laugh about all the old folks talking about their different ailments. Now I are one, payback is a bitch.
    Pat I’m suspecting my chair, I set my laptop up at the dining roomtable  so I could plug in my speakers for music  last week and hadn’t moved in my office chair, so I was using one of the chairs at the  table. They are fine for a 20 min lunch/dinner but for the long term internet addict…. So I  brought in one of my office chairs and I seem to be better.
    Funny thing is I can bend over and pull weeds out of the garden with no pain but set too long in the chair….
    Then there is the problem with my pants, use a belt too long and my hips hurt, wear suspenders and my shoulders hurt. If it gets any worse I may be looking for a nudist colony.
    Jack
     

  27. As for Bass, how did she not know that the Cuban people hated Fidel Castro when he died?  Did she miss the Mariel boat lift? Why did she think Cubans were still trying to get to the US?
    If she is that unschooled in foreign affairs, I’m not sure what she brings to the table? Likability v  competence if something were to happen to Biden?  Not a great trade off.
    I’ve read her resume and her focus has been quite narrow. I just don’t see her having the depth of knowledge and experience needed to be POTUS. The VP has to be ready to actually step in; she can’t just fit the suit.

    I’m still on team Warren.   

  28. Bid
    I really enjoyed watching the conductor. It reminded me of my music teacher in high school. She too directed without a baton and like the conductor pointed to individual sections with a code we all learned as to what we were to do next.
    Jack

  29. BiD
    She was not particularly interested in the Cuban vote. They vote Republican and they live in Southern Florida not Southern California.
    Does it hurt the ticket in Florida? Maybe but not much as the old Cuban immigrants already vote Trump. And outside of Miami not at all and she brings a progressive black vote to the ticket. BTW there are a lot of votes in Florida minorities that dislike  Cubans. So maybe in Florida it is a tossup. We will have to ask our Florida expert, Craig?
    Jack
    ps, like the edit button

  30. pogo – Sounds like a tight psoas muscle. I was in physical therapy for almost two years after I hurt my back.   It’s amazing what PT can do for a person, but it has to be done every day.   Just a PT session isn’t enough. 

  31. I’m looking for a VP who can step in and do the job, if necessary.  I just don’t think Bass is up to it.  
    I guess I’m setting the bar pretty high if they have to compare to Elizabeth Warren. 

  33. There is a serious condition caused by sitting too long.  Certain muscles and tendons shrink or are tight, causing all sorts of issues standing up, includes back ache.  I can tell when I have been sitting too long working and then go to the boat for the weekend.  Lots of leg stretchy pain from the toes up to my head.  A couple days on the boat are enough to get stretched out for a week.

  35. BiD, nah, most of my aches and pains are Leg joints unrelated to muscle injury although my IT band and upper quad are still coming around on the new knee side. Knock on wood aside from the very occasional upper back trigger point soreness if I have to do extensive keyboarding my back doesn’t bother me. 

  36. Sturg – Ha! Never thought of it that way.   An easy yoga stretch is cow to cat.  
    BB – Glad to see you tether yourself to the boat.   Hope the ‘cane gets tRUMP’s put-put course, and, misses you and everyone else. 

  37. bID -I decided to sit this one out on her.  She is a lot bigger than sitting out hurricanes and tropical storms on my thirty foot sailboat.  The time of arrival is changing which means something.  Right now the best guess is a lot of rain.  It is fun sitting watching all that water fall from the sky.  Very relaxing in between lightning strikes.

  38. Robert is right again, of course…..now we’re seeing at very least one hurricane pain in the ass every year.  I’m leaving the land of summer blows. I think I’ll stop by Peaks of Otter for a spell.

  39. Karen Bass was the speaker of the California assembly and maybe she knew Cubans who still live in Cuba
     
    anybody but Susan Rice

  42. BiD, yes, lizzie is still tops on my list too but i agree with kgc that bass should not be discounted.  she was speaker of the world’s 4th largest economy  during a terrible recession and successfully helped steer them thru it. 

    she is fluent enough in spanish to a degree she will be an asset.  aside from many years legislative experience (chr of black caucus and favored to be next speaker of House) she was educated and served as and taught others to become a physicians assistant as well as being a community coordinator.

    BTW most latinx citizens in usa are NOT of cuban extraction.

  43. Harris polls terribly and has a likability problem, it’s a mistake picking her.  Don’t kill the messenger🤷‍♂️

  45. business insider:

    SpaceX just achieved an historic feat that even CEO Elon Musk thought improbable when he founded the rocket company in 2002: flying people to and from space.
    On Sunday afternoon, NASA astronauts Bob Behnken and Doug Hurley safely careened back to Earth after a 27-million-mile mission in orbit around the planet. The men flew in SpaceX’s new Crew Dragon spaceship, landing the cone-shaped capsule at 2:48 p.m. ET in the Gulf of Mexico near Pensacola, Florida.
    Ahead of the landing, the crew undocked from the $150 billion International Space Station, where they’d spent 63 days, then performed a series of maneuvers to return home to their families. The capsule handily survived a blistering 3,500-degree-Fahrenheit return through Earth’s atmosphere, a high-stakes parachute deployment, and the final splashdown.
    Shortly after 4 p.m. ET, a SpaceX and NASA recovery crew pulled the astronauts from their toasted ship. 

  46. takes guts for a politician to admit they were wrong. rare virtue in critterville.

    the hill:

    The California lawmaker acknowledged that people in Florida viewed her description as “endearing to him.”

    “I didn’t see it that way,” she told moderator Chuck Todd. “I was expressing condolences to the Cuban people to the people in Cuba, not Cubans around the world.”

    “I don’t think that’s a toxic expression in California, but let me just say Chuck, lesson learned, wouldn’t do that again,” she added. 

    Bass also said she communicated with lawmakers from Florida after receiving criticism for her statement and “realized that that was something that just shouldn’t have been said.”

    Bass said she believes in “bridging the divide” between Cuba and the U.S., noting she has worked on health care-related issues in the last two decades. But she said “that doesn’t excuse the fact that I know the Castro regime has been a brutal regime to its people.”

  48. Bass is 66, Demings 63, Obama 56, Harris 55, Bottoms 50, Abrams 46.
     
    Demings has the crime fighter persona that trump fakes. Bottoms is fairly conservative and gorgeous. Abrams has little management experience, but can excite both bases with her rhetoric. Obama can fake foreign policy experience, as in, Oh yes, I’ve dined with mr putin many times. Bass knows the House inside out, and Harris knows the Senate. It’s a rich bullpen.

    Ms Dallas, I could go for Abrams in a split second. And as soon as she’d be on the ticket, I’d worry about her health.

  49. Does Michelle Obama have any interest in being VP?   Susan Rice seems more suited for the job than Bass.

  50. Sturge
    I’m with you. I like Harris but I’m fine with any choice Joe makes. I just unfriended a long time follower on Twitter who said if it was Harris and not Rice she wasn’t voting. OMG, these people never learn. After 2016 you’d think so but????? 

  53. Susan Rice has never run for office and backed out of the race against Susan Collins
    Karen Bass has run and been elected to both state and federal office a lot

  56. I still don’t want Rice.  Bad idea.   Karen Bass is not a Scientologist but wtf was she she doing pandering to them?  

  57. Warren is the one with the goods to be POTUS, if called upon.  Next in line would be Rice, IMO.  

  58. I don’t care if Rice hasn’t run for office.  She knows how campaigns work, and, she has been in a WH administration.   

  60. Craig
    I agree, seems Karen has some Castro and Scientology baggage. I like her but its about helping Joe’s chances. The Republicans are horrible. Benghazi, Benghazi.


  61. Yes, TRUMP HAS BLOOD ON HIS HANDS!

  62. CBS News poll: Georgia: Voting now, didn’t vote in 2016 Joe Biden 50% Donald Trump 30%

  64. Looks to me like everybody has some kind of “deal breaker” Yet I’ve noticed that they get support just the same.
    As I said her Cuban thing looks like it will only matter to old Cubans around Miami. If this election was closer and Florida was make or break. But it won’t come down to Florida. Let me check, yep no Senators to worry about. 
    As to scientology, she is from California, nuff said.
    Jack

  65. Jack
    Yep, it’s going to be something with anyone he chooses. I’m fine with anyone. I just want to throw Trump and Republican’s out. McConnel losing would be so delicious. If we get the Senate, Presidency we can hopefully do good things.  

  66. Susan Rice works best behind the scenes. She is whip smart but not real political.
    She doesn’t have either the skill or know how to step in to replace Biden.
    Jack

  69. Warren is the best prepared to do the job. I will be overjoyed if she is VP.   Like everyone else, I’ll accept whomever he taps for the job.   
     

  70. Whoever does not become VP will most certainly be appointed to some key post or other.   Looks kinda like the moon is in the seventh house and Jupiter is on the rise…..
     

  71.  about joe (77) not making it through his 1st term and vp warren (70) is there to step in, she will choose a younger and well qualified person (say someone like  cory booker or kamala harris or stacy abrams) as her VP.  if lizzie does a good job and still with it at 74 she can run again.  if she’s not up to it, gets sick or just doesn’t want to run i have confidence in her judgement that she’ll pass on the torch with gusto.   

    why is it okay for men like trump at 74 and biden at 77 to run for prez but not for a woman like warren at 70 or bass at 66?

  76. Craig, I didn’t appreciate Milbank’s article.
     
    Love Aquarius!
     
    It’s late, but this just happened. I was telling a friend that I was in the food store and someone an aisle over had 2 big, juicy sneezes.  He said they probably took off their mask to sneeze. I screeched, that defeats the whole freakin’ purpose of wearing a mask, for God’s sake!  It’s a failure of the American educational system! He said he takes off his mask to sneeze because the mask then smells bad.  I screeched, throw it away and put on another one or wash it!  This is why I’m still quarantined here!  This is what I have to put up with.  Unbelievable!  this damned virus is never going to go away!

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