Twelve Million

As readers of my other blog are aware, I frequently contribute photos and reviews to Google Maps. In February, I posted on that blog that the photos I had uploaded to Google Maps had been viewed more than 11 million times.

Because of the current Enhanced Community Quarantine, I've not been out for a while and haven't had much to add to the website. It's only been a few days since I noticed that my photos have now been viewed more than 12 million times.

Hopefully, we will return to General Quarantine in a few days, and I will be able to add additional photos.

The Living Room Ceiling - Day One

The photos on this post are identical to the photos posted onto another of my blogs. However, due to differences in the themes of the two blogs, the photos here are a bit larger than those on the other blog.

What we have here are photos of the first day's work on the living room ceiling. I'll be posting more photos as the work continues.

Fun With GIMP

Baking With Third Class Flour

I enjoy baking. Biscuits, brownies, cakes.

Baking at home isn't as popular here in Philippines as it is in the U.S. and locating a store that sells wheat flour isn't easy in Dumaguete. I can't recall ever seeing whole wheat flour. Fortunately, there is a grocery store here that usually has white flour in kilo bags.

At Lee Plaza grocery, I can normally find all purpose flour, cake flour and something called third class flour. I prefer to buy the cake flour for all my baking, though I will substitute the all purpose flour if the store is temporarily out of the cake flour. I've stayed away from the third class flour until a few days ago.

Because of the quarantine, I've been unable to buy either the cake flour or the all purpose. As an experiment, I bought 2 kilos of the third class flour. We all wanted biscuits a day or so ago and I used the third class flour for the first time. Actually, I was very surprised. The biscuits were as good - if not better - than the biscuits made with the other two flours.

Pancakes made from the third class flour, however were another matter entirely. I could not manage to make pancakes with this flour. The pancakes were an absolute disaster.

The only explanation that made sense to me was that the heating process involved in making pancakes is very different than baking in an oven.

To test this idea, I decided to bake banana bread (AKA banana cake in Philippines).

As can be seen in these two photos, the banana bread looks wonderful. The texture of the bread was perfection. The only problem was that in my haste, I had neglected to add sugar to the batter. Still, the banana bread tasted very good. It would have been better had I put in the proper amount of sugar, but in my mind the experiment was a success. Next time, I'll pay attention to what I'm going and put in all the ingredients.

2 Cats in NY Test Positive for Coronavirus

Earlier this month, I wrote about a 4-year-old tiger named Nadia at the Bronx Zoo in New York City that had tested positive for COVID-19. At the time of that writing, six big cats (3 tigers - 3 lions) at the zoo had the same dry cough as Nadia, and while these six had not yet been tested, the zoo was assuming, due to their symptoms, they were also infected with the virus that causes COVID-19.

Now, national geographic.com is reporting that seven more big cats have tested positive for coronavirus at Bronx Zoo.

Yesterday, it was reported that in two different households in New York State two pet cats have tested positive for covid19.

It is becoming increasingly obvious that the virus can pass from humans to animals and it spite of the fact that this disease originated in bats, we're being told that our pets cannot pass the virus to us.

There is a great deal we don't know about the corona virus. Health officials in the U.S. once told us that wearing masks were not necessary, now we're told we must wear masks. Are we now to assume that "pets cannot pass the virus to their owners" is the final word?

Matt Drudge's Click-Bait

I recently visited Drudge Report where I came upon a photo of the Obamas with the following link: "How Obamas could easily win 12 more years in White House....."

Naturally, I had to take the bait. There's obviously no way that could happen.

When I clicked, I was directed to a NY Post Opinion piece - How the Obamas could easily win eight more years in the White House. The theory behind the opinion piece is plausible - Joe Biden picks Michelle Obama as his running mate, they beat Trump in November, because she is so popular. The next step would be for Sleepy Joe to resign the day after his inauguration due to his poor health.

The writer of the opinion piece goes on to envision Michelle Obama being re-elected in 2024. Of course one can argue if such a scenario would actually play itself out, but I don't understand Drudge's need to alter the story's headline.

Bob Dylan Has Left The Planet

There was a time, many, many years ago, when I believed Bob Dylan to be a poetic genius. When I was in High School, his album Blonde On Blonde was the latest thing and his earlier Rock LPs, Highway 61 Revisited and Bringing It All Back Home were still relatively new and exciting.

Anyone who has read my post from last week (written on another blog)  - Music Most Lame, knows that Dylan is no longer my Fave.

This change in my opinion of Bob Dylan isn't recent. I had been less than impressed when he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature, and when he predicted President Obama would win re-election by a landslide in 2012, I referred to Dylan as a Senile Old Coot.

However, with the release of his latest song, I Contain Multitudes  I have completely given up all hope for him. In one verse, Dylan says he is "just like Anne Frank".

Seriously?! Anne Frank?!

In what possible world can Bob Dylan be compared to Anne Frank?

I believe Dylan has finally lost his freakin' mind - and I'm talkin' Joe Biden-like senility.

A Morning Out

In the province where I live - Negros Oriental - the Governor has had us under Enhanced Community Quarantine (ECQ) since April 3. This quarantine was originally scheduled to end tomorrow, April 17, but the Governor extended the ECQ until April 30.

Folks in Dumaguete city are required to have quarantine passes in order to leave the house to run essential errands.

I live outside the city, in the small town of Sibulan. We have fewer restrictions here, but we're only allowed to travel into Dumaguete two days a week - Tuesday afternoons and Thursday mornings. The only opportunity I have to do banking business is Thursday morning.....the bank closes at 1PM now and isn't open when I am free to travel into the city on Tuesdays.

We left the house at 7AM, headed to Dumaguete. There is an inspection checkpoint at the boundary of Brgy. Magatas, Sibulan and Brgy. Camanjac, Dumaguete. Our temperatures were taken - checking for fever - we told them what business we had in Dumaguete and after my wife surrendered her driver's license in exchange for a temporary pass, we were on our way.

Because of the route we took going toward our bank, we did not encounter another checkpoint until we arrived at the bank. Our temperatures were taken again.

Banking business finished, we drove to Lee Plaza for grocery shopping. Passed another checkpoint where our temperatures were once again take.

Due to this limited time period when folks can be out and about, the grocery section in Lee Plaza was very crowded; certainly more than it would have normally been that time of day. If the purpose of this ECQ is to limit our exposure to other people, this limiting of days is counter productive.

I have no reason to go out, except on rare occasions when a gazillion other people are allowed out. I'm home again for a while.

Rush Twists Pope's Words

A recent lede to a story on Rush Limbaugh's website reads:

Environmentalists (Including the Pope!) Praise the Virus for Saving the Planet

In the transcript of Rush's conversation with a caller, he accuses "a bunch of Millennial-aged left-wing know-it-alls" of praising the virus because it is killing people and thereby saving the planet. Limbaugh does not, sadly, provide us any links or names so we can verify this statement.

Rush then goes on to mischaracterize a statement by Pope Francis. This isn't the first time Limbaugh has been critical of the Pope. He goes on to say,

"This is the pope, the Vicar of Christ on Easter weekend. Donald Trump is doing more for Easter celebration than the pope is, for crying out loud."

First of all, this statement did not come from the Pope on Easter weekend. This comes from an interview with Austen Ivereigh of The Tablet. Ivereigh writes that certain questions were submitted to Pope Francis at the end of March, which the Pope answered, in Spanish, before Easter.

In answer to one question, Pope Francis responds,

"There is an expression in Spanish: 'God always forgives, we forgive sometimes, but nature never forgives.' We did not respond to the partial catastrophes. Who now speaks of the fires in Australia, or remembers that 18 months ago a boat could cross the North Pole because the glaciers had all melted? Who speaks now of the floods? I don’t know if these are the revenge of nature, but they are certainly nature’s responses.

There is absolutely nothing in the original interview which would remotely suggest that the Pope is praising the virus for saving the planet.

On the Facebook page where I found a link to Limbaugh's transcript, I read quite a few nasty comments by people who hate Pope Francis. There's a link to NY Post story which I'm sure Rush read, although I question how many of his listeners/readers followed the link.

The NY Post story does provide a link to the original interview in The Tablet which I'm sure Limbaugh did not bother to read.

Scammers and Spammers

Several years ago, I spend a good deal of my spare time goofing on scammers. I would take emails that were obviously from scammers and using email accounts created on Yahoo mail, I would respond to the scammer and see how long I could mess with him. These misadventures where chronicled at the time on my other blog, Sorry all the clever names are taken. All of these posts can be accessed using the label scammers on that blog.

The last chronicle of any consequence involved a scammer calling himself Capt. Eddie Shields. In my email exchanges with this particular scammer, I was using characters like Misty Meaner and Wanda Tuinphro to scam the scammer. I had even used a website I had at the time to create phony news stories. The photo at the beginning of this post is a screen shot from one of those phony stories where Misty Meaner was involved in a traffic accident with a donut delivery truck that was being pursued by hungry police officers. While the blog entries are still available, the phony news site can no longer be accessed.

I eventually lost interest in scamming the scammers. The obit on my desire to keep goofing on them can be found on my post, Death of the (Reasonably) Intelligent E-mail Scammer.

I received a spam email today from an especially stupid scammer. A screenshot of his email follows below:

Although my information has been redacted, this is essentially the email I received. I'll let this screenshot speak for itself, with no further editorial comment on this scammer's intelligence.

An Unusual Holy Week

As I mentioned in a post on another blog (No Via Crucis in 2020 ) this has been an unusual Holy Week in Philippines, in general and our community in particular as we try to deal the the covid19 pandemic. In our province, we are under what is being called an Enhanced Community Quarantine (ECQ). Churches have been closed for several weeks. Holy Week began without distribution of palms on Palm Sunday. No Maunday Thursday observance and of course, no Via Crucis on Good Friday. This was the first Good Friday Via Crucis I've missed since moving to Sibulan.

Coincidentally, even our idea to watch The Passion of the Christ was not quite like we'd planned. We have a copy of the film on DVD which I purchased in the U.S. several years ago. While not exactly a family tradition, we do watch the film on the occasional Good Friday. We wanted to do that this year.

Even after a few moves, I was able to locate the DVD faster than I expected. Around 8:00 PM last night, my wife, my son and myself gathered by the PC to view the film. Unfortunately, the DVD hasn't held up. There's some sort of damage and we were not able to view it.

We still wanted to watch the film and I began looking online for an option. My first choice was a search on Netflix, but the film is not available. Youtube wasn't even an option. The film is under copyright restrictions so Youtube won't allow anyone to upload the film to their website.

Still, we were not completely without options. There is a Russian website (OK RU) which I visit to watch films. Being a Russian site, copyright laws are merely suggestions. The site has quite a few copies of the film. In The Passion of the Christ , the characters speak the languages common to Jerusalem at the time of Christ, so subtitles are important for those of us not fluent in Latin, Hebrew, and Aramaic. We were unable to find a version on OK RU with English subtitles. Arabic - yes, Russian - likewise, but no English. In the end, we choose a version that had no subtitles what so ever. Our family is sufficiently Catholic, however, to understand the story without necessarily understanding the spoken language.

Dr. Jordan Peterson's Book Lists

Anyone who has been a reader of my other blog is surely aware of my fondness for book lists. Since 2011, I've been keeping record of every book I've read throughout the year, and on January 01, 2012 I began what would become an annual tradition for me - the posting of the list of books I had read the previous year.

In 2015, after having read The Hounds of the Baskervilles and discovering it had been #7 on the top ten best sellers of 1902, I found a copy of said list  of best sellers and began reading those novels.

In 2017 I read the top ten best selling novels of 1917.

In 2019, I came upon The 100 best novels written in English. I was not going to attempt to read every book on the list, but I was curious to see how many of those books I had read, how many I had heard of but not read, and how many were completely unknown to me. I was intrigued by number 25 on the list. This book, Three Men In a Boat (To Say Nothing of the Dog) became the last novel I would read that year.

On his website, Dr. Jordan Peterson has two book lists. One is an incredibly long list consisting of 51 novels, as well as books on Clinical Psychology and Psychiatry, Neuroscience, Religion and Religious History, History/Systems Analysis, and finally, The State of the World with two of his books thrown in for good measure.

The second list is considerably shorter - just 15 books. He states that this list come about by people asking him what they should read to educate themselves. He went on to say that he found the books on that list to be particularly influential in his intellectual development.

I would concern myself with the novels on the two lists and stay away from the non fiction.

I'm actually surprised by the number of books on his lists that I've already read. There are also a few that I'm surprised to find on his list.

The Maltese Falcon made, not only Dr. Peterson's list of Great Novels, but was ranked #54 on the 100 best novels written in English list. I enjoyed the novel, but frankly I can't understand how or why it made both these lists.

Another novel on Dr.Peterson's lists which I found surprising is The Master and Margarita by Russian writer, Mikhail Bulgakov. Again, I very much enjoyed that novel, enough to read twice, but I can't see it on a list for Great Novels.

Not every book on Dr. Peterson's lists are available for free download - though many are. I've collected 20 of these novels, even those I've read and will read or reread many of them this year.

Camus During COVID19 Days

There are a number of books which I feel a need to read more than once. Number one on that list is Fyodor Dostoyevsky's Crime and Punishment, followed by Hunger  written by Knut Hamsun and Camus' The Stranger, which I recently reread.

Upon finishing The Stranger, I thought I'd like to reread The Plague and even though it was difficult finding an ebook copy, I was finally able to download a pdf. which I converted to mobi.  Like many others, it seemed appropriate to me to read it again during this time of covid19.

While you'd imagine many similarities, there are actually many differences between life in Camus' Oran and the quarantine we're currently living under in Negros Oriental.

The obvious difference is in the diseases. We're living in the age of covid19, while the disease in Camus' novel is the bubonic plague. In the novel, the town of Oran is closed, but there, the only people experiencing quarantine are the actual victims of the plague. Those who do not have the disease are free to move about outside the home; cafes are not closed, nor are the cinemas. There is no "social distancing".

Here in our province, we are under what is being called an Enhanced Community Quarantine (ECQ). No one is permitted to leave their home except for essential needs, and then only one person per household is allowed outside. Each household is allotted one pass which can only be used on a limited number of days per week, and only for a limited number of hours on those days.

In Camus' novel, while not dying in the streets, many people are dying every day during the height of the epidemic. As of April 07, there have been only 4 confirmed cases of the corona virus in our entire province, with 2 deaths from the disease. These cases were some time ago. No recent cases have been reported.

There are several rumors floating about on Facebook as to when our ECQ will end. I won't repeat those rumors here, as I have no way of verifying any of the reports.

I suppose some might say that our response to covd19, when compared to earlier responses to plague, is out of line and over board. I can't say. Staying home now seems appropriate, although an extreme lock down does appear to be a bit much.

COVID-19 In Animals

According to news reports - [news.yahoo.com and livescience.com] A 4-year-old tiger named Nadia at the Bronx Zoo in New York City has tested positive for COVID-19. Also, six big cats (3 tigers - 3 lions) at the zoo have the same dry cough as Nadia, and while these six have not yet been tested, the zoo is assuming, due to their symptoms, they were also infected with the virus that causes COVID-19. A zoo caretaker with COVID-19 likely infected the cats before he or she developed any symptoms of the disease.

After hearing this, my first thought was, if a human can pass COVID-19 to lions and tigers, why can't a human pass the virus to a domestic cat or dog?

The Yahoo news report on the Bronx Zoo big cats goes on to say that there have been a handful of reports outside the U.S. of pet dogs or cats becoming infected after close contact with contagious people, including a dog in Hong Kong that tested positive for a low level of the pathogen in February and early March.

In March, Hong Kong’s Agriculture, Fisheries and Conservation Department, in a news release, said "There is currently no evidence that pet animals can be a source of infection of COVID-19 or that they become sick" and pet cats and dogs cannot pass the new coronavirus on to humans, but they can test positive for low levels of the pathogen if they catch it from their owners.

Here we have documented cases of humans passing the virus to tigers, lions, domestic cats and dogs, yet we are to believe the virus cannot be passed the other way - from pets to pet owners.

Obviously, there is much we do not know about the virus. We can't jump to any conclusions, but this is worth looking into.

Snus Hunt

Thankfully, I gave up tobacco products twenty eight years ago. Prior to quitting, I smoked cigarettes for many years and I know the difficulties tobacco users experience when forced to do without his or her fix.

Even in these days of ECQ, cigarettes are still relatively easy to come by, but for those using smokeless tobacco (aka snuff, "dip") finding the fix isn't the same. Even under the best of times, it is nearly impossible to find dip in Dumaguete.

My friend, "B1". is stranded here in Negros due to the travel ban during these covid19 days. B1 is one of those who use smokeless tobacco, and not expecting to be stranded here indefinitely, he did not bring enough to last longer than two weeks. Needless to say, he's not happy.

I wanted to help him in his time of desperation.

I thought of another friend, "B2" who also dipped and I contacted him to see if he could help. B2 knew a brand of dip called Snus was available for delivery from Cebu and he suggested I Google "snus in Cebu". Doing that, I was led to the Facebook page of Swedesnus.

I wasn't quite sure that Swedesnus would be able to deliver Snus during these days of Quarantine. While on the page, I saw that another of my Facebook friends, "R" liked the Swedesnus Facebook page. I contacted R and he told of his friend, "J" who sells Snus locally.

Long story short, I contacted J who provided a cell phone number for B1 to text. I've since heard from B1 who tells me he has hooked up with J and will soon have a supply of Snus.

All in a days work.

Temporary Passes

In a post from Thursday, [ECQ - Day One ] I include a photo of the three color coded passes issued to residents of Dumaguete city. Being residents of Sibulan, we were issued a different pass which is valid within our town. There doesn't appear to be a restriction on which days the residents of Sibulan can move about in Sibulan, but non residents of Dumaguete can enter that city only on certain days.

The photo at the beginning of this post is of a temporary pass. Below is an explanation of the protocol for non residents entering Dumaguete as posted onto Facebook:

REMINDER to NON-RESIDENTS who want to enter the city:

Secure a temporary safe pass to enter the city, which is only allowed on the following days:

 
SUNDAYS 7:00 AM - 12:00 PM
TUESDAYS 1:00 PM - 6:00 PM
THURSDAYS 7:00 AM - 12:00 PM
 
They may voluntarily surrender before the checkpoint their driver's licenses or original copy of the Certificate of Registration to be granted the temporary safe pass.

They must also comply with these policies: No helmet, No Entry and No Face Mask, No Entry.
Every person is subject to thermal scanning. Any person who has a temperature of 38 degrees Celsius and above shall be refused entry.

The driver's license or original copy of the Certificate of Registration will be returned to the owner upon exiting the same checkpoint and upon surrender of the temporary safe pass.

ONLY residents from Cluster 1 Bacong, Dauin, Zamboanguita, Valencia, Sibulan and San Jose will be allowed entry but only to buy basic necessities, food and medicine or access medical assistance and essential health services.

PERSONS belonging to Clusters 2, 3 and 4 will only be allowed entry to access medical assistance or essential health services in the city.

These measures are adopted to prevent the spread of COVID-19 and to keep the city safe.

(Source: Executive Order No. 19 series of 2020 signed by Mayor Felipe Antonio Remollo)

ECQ - Day One

This post was originally published on another of my blogs. For an explanation read my first post on this new blog.

 

Today is the first day of what we've been told will be a two week Enhanced Community Quarantine (ECQ) in an attempt by the Provincial Governor of Negros Oriental to stem the tide of the corona virus here.

We've been pretty much on a lock down status for a few weeks, but this will be Quarantine on Steroids.

Students and seniors, 65 and older had been ordered to stay at home a while back, and that rule remains in effect. We've all been under a 9:00PM to 5:00 AM curfew for weeks, however now the restrictions on everyone else in the province have gotten tighter.

Only one person from a household will be allowed outside the home, and that person is severely limited as to where and when he can go out. Each household has been issued a quarantine pass which must be presented at checkpoints. I've been told that the person going out must surrender his ID at the checkpoint and must return home through the same checkpoint within a certain time frame in order to retrieve the ID.

I'm pretty much a homebody, so the quarantine hasn't been a burden for me, although now it will be a little more complicated getting my money from the bank. That is my main complain now.

This call for an ECQ apparently comes a recent event at a port in Sibulan, Negros Oriental. The borders of the Province had been closed, with only cargo being allowed to enter. Out of humanitarian concerns, a passenger ferry was allowed to bring home stranded residents of Negros from Cebu island. Photos of the arriving passengers were posted onto social media. These photos showed that these passengers were not practicing "social distancing" and most were not wearing masks. None of these arriving passengers underwent any medical exam, we're told that the passengers were not instructed to self quarantine.

These photos sent the local medical community into a frenzy; generating a petition from front liners to the Governor demanding an ECQ.

I suspect this move by the Governor is based more on politics than on anything else.

The powers that be in our area are notorious for not enforcing laws and regulations. It remains to be seen how this will work out.

My New Blog

I've been blogging since 2006. I've started, and finished a number of blogs, but the one I've used most consistently over the years is Sorry, All The Clever Names Are Taken.

I've been thinking that the name of that blog was just a bit too clever. It works well when using a link, but it's cumbersome when telling the name to someone and expecting them to remember it. I've been lazy, and in spite of wanting to create a new blog with a easier name, I've been putting it off.

Circumstances have pushed me to finally follow through on the plan to create that new blog.

Due to the COVID19 causing havoc around the globe, the area where I'm living in Philippines has been placed under Enhanced Community Quarantine (ECQ) and I wanted to begin writing about the situation and my experiences living under the ECQ. I wrote that post this morning, (ECQ Day One ) and attempted to put a link to that post onto my Facebook page.

Unfortunately, I was unable to post the link. Facebook said the blog was banned due it's not following community standards. I couldn't understand how or why that happened. I put the same post onto another of my blogs, and the link was accepted on Facebook. With all that, I've decided the time was right to create a new blog under an easier name to get across - hence, robertsimms.blogspot.com. Perhaps, one day, if the url is available, I'll use my name with a dot com or dot net.

This will mark the first post on the new blog. It will also be simultaneously posted on Sorry, All The Clever Names Are Taken.