The Virus that Stopped Time

In November 2019 an unknown species of coronavirus left a bat reservoir and by way of an intermediate host, possibly a Malayan Pangolin, entered the lungs of a human being living in Wuhan, China^[1]. This species was zoonotic, meaning it could infect and spread within a human host. The invading virus had one objective: create more virus particles by hijacking the host cells' genetic protein building machinery. It was a parasite^[2], like all viruses, that could not replicate itself on its own.

Shannon Stapleton/Reuters A coyote stands by the roadside, as the spread of the coronavirus pandemic continues, at Golden Gate Bridge View Vista Point across from San Francisco, April 7, 2020.[3]

Planetary Solitude

"Pale Blue Dot" photo of Earth captured by NASA Voyager 1 on February 14, 1990. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

We reside on a random mote we call Earth orbiting an average sun in a galaxy that is one out of potentially trillions in an expanding universe.^[1] The observable universe’s size is so huge it’s essentially an abstraction, something like ten to the power of 23 (10²³) kilometers in diameter. About 13.8 billion years ago our universe was almost infinitely small when space and time began rushing outward faster than the speed of light in less time than a blink of an eye and continue to expand to reach its current size.

Preemption Laws and Gun Control

Part One - Preemption

When I first learned about Florida Statute 790.33, the law that prohibits local governments from enacting their own gun regulations, I thought it should be unconstitutional for several reasons. First, the student shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in February 2018 might have been prevented. There were people who knew the shooter was a threat but there was no local resource that legally could get involved.^[1]

Journalism November 2018

There is an article on the Committee to Protect Journalists website (CPJ) that reports the murder of Edmund Sestoso, a broadcast reporter for a radio station in Dumaguete, Philippines:

“Edmund Sestoso [...] was shot several times at around 10 a.m. on April 30 [...], [He was] returning home after hosting his morning public affairs program, according to reports.

[...] The gunman then shot out the tires of a pedicab that was preparing to take Sestoso to a local hospital before fleeing the scene on the back of an unidentified person's black motorcycle.”

Catching Up

My last post was September of last year. I’m obviously not keeping up. Here are updates to posts from last year I'm publishing so I can move on to other things.

Syria June-July 2018

In early 2017 I watched a graphic documentary, “Cries of Syria.” I learned how the rebellion started in 2011 with the arrest and torture of 15 boys in the city of Daraa because they wrote graffiti on a school wall. The uprisings in Tunisia and Egypt inspired them to write, “Doctor, you’re next,” referring to President al-Assad’s medical degree. One of the boys, 13 years old, died. His parents were told after their child’s mutilated body was returned to them, “you can always make more.”

The Fall of Aleppo

There was a nonviolence movement in Syria when the protests there began in 2011. About that time young Syrian activists formed the Syrian Nonviolence Movement, a Non-Governmental Organization (NGO) based in Cergy-Pontoise, Ile-De-France, France, and the Local Coordination Committees, led by Razan Zaitouneh.

From the Syrian Nonviolence Movement’s Facebook page:

https://www.alharak.org (deceased as of March, 2020)

"We believe in nonviolent struggle and civil resistance as a principle and method in achieving social, cultural, and political change in Syrian society, and in enabling Syria to take its role in building human civilization."

The Local Coordination Committees was a national decentralized network that reported on protests and advocated civil disobedience, such as nightly protests and refusal to pay water, electricity and telephone bills. In December 2013 Razan Zaitouneh and three other activists, Samira Khalil, Nazim Hamada, and Wael Hamada, were taken from their offices at the Violations Documentation Center in Douma. I'd like to think they're still alive. If I could I’d ask why they thought nonviolent activism in Syria had a chance.

Climate Change Narratives

I've been trying to thoroughly research climate change and rising sea levels. My objective has been to be thorough and look at both sides of the issue. Unfortunately there is war of “manufactured narratives” that makes it impossible for the layman to form an objective opinion of climate change (or possibly any issue). We all have our personal beliefs and prejudices, and manufactured narratives, opinions, and filtered and fake news are everywhere to create or bolster an opinion we already have. Either that or we end up totally confused, which is probably what is intended.