Good evening, Kibitzers! I hope everyone’s well and safe!
Well, here it is, March 122nd already. Time flies when you’re hiding out from the plague!
Maybe you saw this interesting theory expressed on Twitter the other day. It makes sense to me, or maybe I should say, it makes as much sense as anything else right now. Low bar.
It’s been hot and muggy here, upper 80s during the day but never cooling off much at night, so no open windows and the air in the un-air-conditioned spaces in the house just gets nastier. It’s the kind of weather that makes me stalk around muttering I hate summer. It really is the humidity, absolutely, although the heat is no prize either, in my opinion.
So, in keeping with our title today, let’s join some animals at the Oregon Zoo in Portland as they cool off. We’ve visited the Oregon Zoo at KTK before; they have a YouTube channel with lots of clips of interesting animals, many of them rescued from some bad situation.
The zoo has a playlist specifically for short histories of some of their rescue animals. The video above doesn’t name the animals shown, so they may not be the same individuals as those that follow, but here are the stories of a rescued bear, elephant, and sea otter.
Takoda the black bear:
Chendra the Borneo elephant:
Eddie the arthritic sea otter:
Need moar otters! Tilly the river otter:
Okay, just one more — it’s a long playlist and we cannot have them all in here. But here’s Chupacabra the Patagonian mara.
Tonight’s musical selection comes around to the “animals” theme rather indirectly. I don’t know why I’m so fond of covers of Black Hole Sun — I don’t recall being that taken with the Soundgarden original, but I keep happening upon vocalists, mostly women, doing great things with it. In this case, singer Jennah Bell is backed by the instrumental duo “stories”. And what I especially liked, beyond her beautiful interpretation of the song, is that she sings the whole thing while petting a dog who is sitting quietly in her lap.
This is a late addition: Rest in Power, 98-year-old genius and activist Carl Reiner.
Stay safe! 💙💙💙💙💙
Randy Rainbow! These lyrics have some especially inspired rhymes.
🦠 COVID-19 🧫
I’m cutting this box way down, because we’re all familiar by now with the available information, such as it is. We know how to shelter in place; we’ve been doing it to give public health measures time to be implemented. Now, many of us are just waiting for some public health measures.
My past diaries list, where the older purple boxes still live.
Viruses on surfaces, from The Guardian.
This virus spread tracking site also has an excellent “wiki” page on virus information/misinformation, proper mask use, symptoms, etc. h/t eeff!
The Atlantic has listed their ongoing virus coverage here, and none is behind a paywall.
This excellent video explains clearly how viruses are killed by washing with soap. h/t Sara R!
And this one intelligently discusses the benefits of face masks.
If you know someone who feels wearing a mask is just too hard, maybe they need to see this.
The Washington Post offers video tips on dealing with common mask annoyances. h/t Sara R again!
CDC chart showing how to remove gloves properly to avoid contamination.
The lung exercises in this diary are still good for anyone, sick or not.
If you’d like some attractive handmade facemasks, see Sara’s diary here to order a set made by Sara R and WInglion from various cotton quilt fabrics: $40 + $7.75 Priority Mail shipping for a set of 5 (or other quantities at $8 each). You can contact Sara R to discuss your preference in fabrics or special needs.
WASHINGTON, D.C. (The Borowitz Report)—Donald J. Trump on Friday threatened to ban a coronavirus vaccine if it turns out that it was invented by former President Barack Obama.
Trump’s threat took members of the White House press corps aback, since there are no reports to date of Obama attempting to invent a vaccine or any other pharmaceutical. [...snip]
“If Obama came up with a vaccine, it would only be to make me look bad,” [Trump] said. “Well, guess what? I’m not going to let him get away with something cute like that. We’re going to move quite powerfully on anything Obama does in terms of a vaccine.” …
— The Borowitz Report, at The New Yorker
If You’re Bored, Part a million:
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🌟 GOTV 🌟
🌟 VOTING BY MAIL: Some states (New Jersey is an example) don’t have vote-by-mail as their standard procedure, but issue absentee ballots with no questions asked. Now would be a good time to check into that for your state and those of your Democratic friends and relations — Google can help. In the case of NJ, one has to download, fill out, and mail in an application. I plan to switch over to automatically getting a mail-in ballot for every election from now on, which is one of the options here. No one who does not have to touch buttons in a voting booth should be doing so!
🌟 POSTCARDING: If you are looking for a way to help and can’t do things like canvassing or phoning, consider hand-writing postcards asking people to vote. It’s easy because you’re given specific talking points from the campaign you’re working with, so you don’t have to think up what to say, and no one will be coming back at you with questions. And if you like to color, you can get creative decorating the cards. Note that you are responsible for buying postcards (and stamps if you don’t use pre-stamped ones.) Postcard stamps are 35 cents each; pre-stamped postcards from USPS are 39 cents each; two different pretty designs. If you can spend a little more, the two postcarding sites below sell their designs; or, searching the phrase “postcards to voters” on Amazon will show you many designs.
To get started:
🌟 PERSONALIZED LETTERS: Similarly, you can do more good than you might expect by writing personalized letters (from a template) to Democrats who are unlikely voters, adding a brief personal statement about why you VOTE EVERY TIME. Studies have shown this can boost turnout by enough to make a difference. As with postcards, you get names/addresses for these voters in targeted districts from the website, fill in the letters, address/stamp/fill the envelopes, but then, you hold them and mail them on Oct. 27, a week before election day! Note that, as with the postcards, you are responsible for buying envelopes, paper (no special paper required), and stamps. First class letter stamps are 55 cents each. (A new Gwen Ifill stamp came out recently!) You can also buy pre-stamped business-size envelopes, also two designs.
For more info:
(Postcard v. letters: letters are to registered Dems who seldom vote, trying to persuade them voting is important. Postcards are to registered Dems likely to vote, giving them information on specific elections/candidates.)
THESE MAIL PROJECTS ALSO HELP SUPPORT THE USPS, THE LATEST GOP TARGET!
🌟 FOLLOW THE DIARIES OF Yosef 52: He posts at least once a day with tons of information and links to help us vote, get others out to vote, and support candidates, and if the last election was any guide, he will only jam in more and more info as time goes on. I highly recommend his work as a resource!
🌟 CONFIRM YOU ARE REGISTERED, REPEAT REGULARLY, AND GET YOUR FAMILY AND OTHERS TO DO THE SAME!!! FIGHTING VOTER SUPPRESSION STARTS AT HOME!
- Many folks here have been surprised to find that their or a family member’s registration has mysteriously disappeared, even though it had been active. Don’t wait until too late to catch and correct this bullshit.
- HEADCOUNT.ORG will direct you to your state’s Department of State/Division of Elections (or similar) webpage, which is the horse’s mouth, as it were.
- Or, google something like “am I registered to vote” plus your state, and go to your state government’s page directly.
🌟 If you can do more, do it! These are just things you can do at home at 3 am. Some of us have the wherewithal to do more, and we should! No one is coming to save us. Act accordingly.
Remember we need the House and Senate, or no president will be able to help us. If you’re sad your presidential candidate wasn’t nominated (I was), please find some downticket races to get excited about. We all need each other.
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IT HAS BEEN 1,014 DAYS SINCE HURRICANE MARIA MADE LANDFALL IN PUERTO RICO ON SEPTEMBER 20, 2017. JUNE 1 BEGAN THE THIRD HURRICANE SEASON AFTER MARIA’S SEASON.
Full power has never been restored there, and many homes still have blue tarps for roofs. Earthquakes (still!) and now coronavirus, the giant dust storm, AND a severe drought have made recovery still harder. Sadly, this is the Trump model for handling any kind of disaster.
If you can help one of the organizations working to help the people of Puerto Rico or any of the subsequent disasters, please check out the diary of links.
⛈️ 🌊 💥 HURRICANE MARIA AND EARTHQUAKES 💥 🌊 ⛈️
🐨 🔥 AUSTRALIAN FIRES 2019-20 🔥 🐨
🚒 🔥 CALIFORNIA FIRES 2019 🔥 🚒
⛈️ 🌊 HURRICANE DORIAN 🌊 ⛈️
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