Badlands Journal
Social, Economic, and Environmental Justice
MERCED (BLJ) –On August 29, Merced County Public Health Department reported 115 deaths, no increase over the previous day, according to the departmental “statistical dashboard”) – so much quantitative sophistication, so little improvement in the quality of prevention or cure of the virus.
A Dull-Witted Boy story, for your entertainment only.
From the offices of the Badlands Journal editorial board.
On Basketball
It was Wednesday afternoon and four masked boys were playing basketball at the last public basketball court in town that didn’t have lids on the baskets. Somebody in Parks and Rec thought the whole idea of fitting lids on basketball hoops was baloney.
MERCED (BLJ) – One August 25, the Merced Public Health Department reported 106 total deaths, an increase of seven for the day. We aren’t sure of the numbers on the rest of the departmental “statistical dashboard.” We believe that the deaths have been recorded by more responsible agencies.
California reported 12,257 deaths, an increase of 123 for the day.
The United States reported 180,375 deaths, an increase of 640 for the day.
The global total deaths is 814,354, an increase of 1,332 for the day.
Bill McKibben’s masterful review of Mark Lynas’ Our Final Warning: Six Degrees of Climate Emergency is a timely update on the state of the climate emergency. This is not exactly a strange subject to Californians at the moment, whose state is under an emergency order due to the dire effects of 12,000 lightning strikes last week. -- blj
8-20-20
New York Review of Books
130 Degrees
Bill McKibben
August 20, 2020 Issue
8-12-20
Washington Post
Quoting ‘To Kill a Mockingbird,’ judge strikes down Trump administration rollback of historic law protecting birds
‘It is not only a sin to kill a mockingbird, it is also a crime,’ Judge Valerie Caproni wrote in a forceful decision
By Darryl Fears
MERCED (BLJ) – On August 19, the Merced County Public Health department reported 97 people had died from Covid-19. Let those to blame rot in their own private hells. Let the rest of us continue to wear our masks, wash hands, observe social distance, be kind to doorkeepers who poke temperature-taking apparatuses in our faces, and find some way, regardless of how irritated we are, to take these precautions seriously.
You never know: the life you save may be your own.
MERCED (BLJ) – On August 17, Merced County Public Health Department reported 93 deaths (4 new). We think that hospitalization figures might also be reliable so we are now including: 454 even in the hospital, and 91 currently in the hospital.
California reported 11,242 deaths (18 new).
The United States reported 172,146 deaths (60 new).
The global report was 773,152 deaths.
We are no longer recording the tallies for number of cases. The American politico-medical system is, to repeat a tiresome but still accurate cliché; a seamless web of incompetence and corruption overlaid with layers of evasion of responsibility – the American system du jour of government in a nutshell.
MERCED (BLJ) –On August 10, Merced County Public Health Department reported 5,735 cases of Covid-19 and 70 deaths (10 new).
California reported 561,911 cases (7,751 new) and 10,359 deaths (66 new).
The United States reported 5,173,566 cases (42,214 new) and 165,111 deaths (325 new).
The global report was 20,011,186 cases (148,587 new) and 734,755 deaths (3,406 new).
As we have reiterated, these figures are best considered approximations, but they are the best we have in the gigantic failure the American response to the pandemic continues to be. – blj
I asked myself the other day how mass evictions before the General Election would affect voter registration and turnout, and got a fairly grim, if imprecise answer. After reading this and some other articles I think of us on the beach, barefoot, the ocean receding and pulling sand rapidly from under our feet as the last, largest waves in the cycle built out there to return and smash our suddenly fragile shore. – blj
8-7-20
New York Times
Millions of Evictions Are a Sharper Threat as Government Support Ends