The joys of hiking in winter – Delay of Carnival parades in Brazil – Unexpected application of hydroxychloroquine – More bad news for Giuliani – Ominous proposal in South Dakota – A new form of tradeable commodity – Evening statistics
I had a splendid hike today, one that might be called an optimal winter hike: that is, the sun was shining brightly from a cloudless sky of a hue that could truly be termed azure, a coating of pristine white snow blanketed the rocks on the trail, and temperatures were well below freezing, thereby ensuring that the trails never became slippery. There were only four of us in all; a fifth person was prevented from joining us by become stuck on an icy section of a road (we later learned that she eventually managed to extricate herself and did some hiking on her own). We hiked in Gambrill State Park, taking the Catoctin Trail to the Yellow Poplar Trail and then hiking the greater part of the latter to ascend Catoctin Mountain and to skirt by the park buildings along the high plateau at the top. There was only one noteworthy overlook, but that one provided a magnificent panoramic view of Frederick, MD.
It is curious how much difference going a few hundred feet upward can make. In the DC metro area the rainfall on Thursday had melted much of the snow , and even in the streets and yards in Frederick, as we could discern from the overlook , were virtually free of snow. But the base of the woodlands in which we roamed had a significant amount of snow (about an inch for the most part) and patches of ice as well. We wore microspikes for the hike. Perhaps they were not strictly necessary, since the snow provided sufficient traction for most of the hike, but they certainly provided a firmer footing. It is the first time that I’ve used microspikes this season. Last year I used microspikes more than I have done for any previous year; whether the remainder of the season will require me to use them to the same degree of frequency remains to be seen.
The times when one could casually saunter into Nethers and summit Old Rag will soon be gone. As of March 1, 2022, it will be necessary to obtain a pass in advance to do the Old Rag hike. Nothing has been been said about whether this affect those who wish to access the Nicholson Hollow Trail; the same parking area is used for both.
The government of Brazil is displaying a surprising amount of prudence, to my astonishment. The Carnival parades that generally take place towards the end of February, and which can involve hundreds of thousands of participants in street crowds, have been rescheduled for April 21st. The explanation is that this caution has nothing to do with Jair Bolsonaro and has been initiated by the municipal governments of Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo, whose mayors are a great deal more careful about their citizens’ health their President is. Brazil reported a record 131,103 new COVID cases on January 18th, surpassing the previous daily record of 115,228 set on June 23rd.
Hydroxychloroquine, although it is absolutely useless for treating COVID, may prove to be effective in slowing the disabling effects of multiple sclerosis. There is no known cure for the disease and the best that treatment can do at this point is to prevent symptoms from worsening as long as possible; it cannot be either halted or reversed. A new study tested hydroxychloroquine’s ability to slow the disease’s disabling effects over an 18-month study. Researchers followed 35 people with MS, keeping track of their progress from November 2016 to June 2021. The research team expected at least 40 percent of these patients (14 people) to experience a significant decline in their ability to walk, even after the hydroxychloroquine treatments. To their surprise, only eight participants saw their MS symptoms worsen, a result nearly twice as beneficial as what they had anticipated.
Federal prosecutors gained access to thousands of Rudy Giuliani’s communications this week. The FBI raided Giuliani’s home and office last year and seized 18 electronic devices. A judge later appointed a “special master” to review documents and records seized in the raid and filter out materials that could be covered under attorney-client privilege. The filtering process is a gradual one and records have been released to prosecutors in parcels. The judge has recently ruled that the prosecutors have access to nearly all of the 25,000 communications from one of the seized cellphones. Prosecutors also gained access to over 3,000 communications from December 2018 to the end of May 2019 from another set of Giuliani’s devices. It has not yet been revealed whether any of the documentation obtained from the raid has proved to be unreadable due to stains of hair dye.
South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem on Friday unveiled a proposal to ban nearly all abortions. It is virtually a copy of the new abortion law in Texas. The proposed law would punish people who aid someone in getting an abortion with a minimum $10,000 penalty, in addition to legal fees and other potential compensation. It makes no exception for rape or incest, except stipulating that a man who commits the rape or incest cannot sue. The legislation has received an enthusiastic reception from fellow Republicans who dominate the South Dakota Legislature, so the likelihood is that it will pass.
It is clear by now that unless American women take matters into their own hands and vote every Republican out of office, they will become as downtrodden as women in sub-Saharan Africa. That party is now nothing more than a rotten reed. It cannot be salvaged at this point. Trump has corrupted it for all time.
The notion of what constitutes a tradeable commodity is becoming increasingly flexible and, frankly, downright weird. Sultan Gustaf Al Ghozali, an Indonesian student, took a photo of himself every day for five years. He studies computer science and necessarily spends hours at a workstation, and the photos he took reflect the dazed, expressionless appearance that generally is the outcome of staring at an LED for hours on end. He then started to sell his selfies as non-fungible tokens (NFTs), simply as a joke. An NFT is a unique digital asset representing ownership of real-world items, and photographs may be included among these. To his astonishment, a celebrity chef purchased some and promoted them on his social media accounts; other users followed suit, some of them making T-shirts sporting his image and others penning songs about him. As of Friday, his collection reached a total trade volume of 384 ether (another crypto-currency), equivalent to more than $1 million. He has yet to disclose his newfound wealth to his immediate family. “To be honest,” he said, “I still haven’t had the courage to tell my parents. They would be wondering where I got the money from.”
Today’s statistics as of 8:00 PM – # of cases worldwide: 349,707,561; # of deaths worldwide: 55,609,684; # of cases U.S.: 71,728,557; # of deaths; U.S.: 888,623.