Seattle: A Beautiful Farewell
“Oh! Look! The mountain is out!”
When someone says ‘the mountain,’ everyone knows what mountain you are talking about. It’s the granddaddy of all mountains, Mount Rainier:
Mount Rainier often shrouds itself in clouds and fog. A day when the mountain is out lifts everyones spirits. It was a beautiful last sight of Seattle.
Camels Source of MERS?
From today’s BBC News:
Mers coronavirus: Dromedary camels could be source
By Rebecca Morelle
Science reporter, BBC World Service
Dromedary camels could be responsible for passing to humans the deadly Mers coronavirus that emerged last year, research suggests.
Tests have shown the Mers (Middle East Respiratory Syndrome) virus, or one that is very closely related, has been circulating in the animals, offering a potential route for the spread.
The study is published in the journal Lancet Infectious Diseases.
But the scientists say more research is needed to confirm the findings.
The Mers coronavirus first emerged in the Middle East last year. So far, there have been 94 confirmed cases and 46 deaths.
While there has been evidence of the virus spreading between humans, most case are thought to have been caused by contact with an animal. But until now, scientists have struggled to work out which one.
‘Smoking gun’
To investigate, an international team looked at blood samples taken from livestock animals, including camels, sheep, goats and cows, from a number of different countries.
They tested them for antibodies – the proteins produced to fight infections – which can remain in the blood long after a virus has gone.
Professor Marion Koopmans, from the National Institute of Public Health and the Environment and Erasmus University in The Netherlands, said: “We did find antibodies that we think are specific for the Mers coronavirus or a virus that looks very similar to the Mers coronavirus in dromedary camels.”
The team found low levels of antibodies in 15 out of 105 camels from the Canary Islands and high levels in each of the 50 camels tested in Oman, suggesting the virus was circulating more recently.
“Antibodies point to exposure at some time in the life of those animals,” Prof Koopmans explained.
No human cases of the Mers virus have been reported in Oman or the Canary Islands, and the researchers say they now need to test more widely to see if the infection is present elsewhere.
This would include taking samples from camels in Saudi Arabia, the country where the virus is the most prevalent.
‘Priority search’
Prof Koopmans said: “It is a smoking gun, but it is not definitive proof.”
Commenting on the research, Professor Paul Kellam from the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute in Cambridge and University College London, said the research was helping to narrow down the hunt for the source of the virus.
But he told BBC News: “The definitive proof would be to isolate the virus from an infected animal or to be able to sequence and characterise the genome from an infected animal.”
Health officials say confirming where the virus comes from is important, but then understanding how humans get infected is a priority.
Gregory Hartl, from the World Health Organization, said: “Only if we know what actions and interactions by humans lead to infection, can we work to prevent these infections.”
Data suggests that it is not yet infectious enough to pose a global threat and is still at a stage were its spread could be halted.
ReVisit Mr. and Mrs. T’s in Edmonds, WA
You wouldn’t think such a good restaurant would be in a strip mall, but it’s a good thing we got there early. Within half an hour of our sitting and ordering, the place was packed. It’s a large place, but people just kept coming in. Friday night, and truly great Chinese food is also comfort food in Seattle. The clientele was probably 75% Chinese descent and 25% the rest of us.
“Let’s try something new,” I suggested. We eat at this restaurant almost every time I am in town. I miss GOOD Chinese food. “I read that we can forestall dementia by forging new neural connectors in our brains, and you do that by making yourself do something new. Let’s all try a dish we’ve never had before.”
My friends ordered. Actually, they laughed, they eat there more often than I do, and have tried almost everything on the menu. They said unless it were jellyfish or something of that ilk, it would be hard to find something they hadn’t tried, but they would find some things less ordered, but good.
This is what they came up with:
Fish Shanghai Style
Spicy Ginger Beef
Clams and Black Bean Sauce (this was my favorite!)
Delicious! Every bite! Or maybe that it is seasoned with a friendship that goes back thirty years or so 🙂
Favorite Meal at Ivar’s
Ivar’s is a Seattle icon, with several different restaurants at different locations. The original Ivar’s Acres of Clams is still in downtown Seattle, on the waterfront. Another great favorite is in Mukilteo, right next to the Mukilteo Ferry, where they have both a beautiful restaurant and an outdoor quick-stop, so while waiting for the next ferry over to Whidbey Island, you can snack on fish and chips – or clams and chips, scallops and chips, salmon and chips, halibut and chips . . . you catch the drift. All hot and freshly made, there is no more wonderful fast food – to me – in the world.
During a break in my busy day, I had a crab-on-crab meal, Dungeness crab, it has it’s own sweet, intense flavor:
What you are looking at is a Dungeness Crab Cocktail on the left, and a Dungeness Crab Ceasar Salad on the right. Oh, yummmmm!
Some Peeks in Edmonds, Washington
You would love Edmonds, Washington.
It is a picturesque village. Along Main Street, and Fifth Avenue there are corner gardens, maintained by the city. This year, they are planted primarily with white flowers, big, fluffy flowers which make all the other flowers POP! with color. Overhead, from the lamp posts, are huge hanging baskets, full of a variety of plants, mostly purples, blues and fuchsias. The overall effect is stunning.
On our way to her manicure-pedicure, I drove Mom around looking at the sights. Down at the Edmonds Beach, I was shocked to see an eagle, perched on a piling. The shot isn’t very good, I jumped out of the car in a hurry and snapped, not taking enough time, but I was so surprised – I had never seen an eagle there before.
After lunch, as we headed out, we saw people touching up one of the murals Edmonds has painted on the sides of buildings there:
Here is another one, nearby:
I love it that this sweet little town, with its ferry coming faithfully in and out, preserves its identity and character in the face of changing times.
Family Culture Early Rising
There are some great things about being with family. You know how things are done. You know what people mean when they say things. You exchange ‘looks.’
When I am with my family, there are some funny things that make me feel at home. Both my sisters have smashing views, one looking southeast at Lake Washington and Mt. Rainier and the other at Puget Sound and the Olympics. Growing up on the side of a mountain with a view of water, game and mountains, it just feels ‘right.’ Not a lot of mountains in Florida to build a house on the side of. Or to view . . . sigh.
Staying at my sister’s house, I was the last one up. My body time was two hours earlier then all of theirs, but I was the last one up. They are early-to-rise people. I totally love it – for so many years, I’ve been an early riser living in countries where the day starts around noon and runs well past midnight . . . especially during Ramadan. In Kuwait, I took photos of the sunrises for this blog; my friends told me it was the only sunrise they ever saw, LOL.
Being around other early risers – aw, what a joy. As I left the house for the airport, Little Diamond was already up eating breakfast and I was able to hug her one last time before departing.
The photo above is the view of the I-90 bridge crossing Lake Washington in a cool, breezy pre-dawn.
Non-Essential State Department Personnel Ordered to Leave Yemen
I know, I know, it is not a funny headline. But here is the thing. People have egos. You might wonder why anyone would stay in the face of a threat so grave. It isn’t by coincidence that so many prisoners were busted out of prison – hundreds in Iraq, in Yemen, also if I remember correctly, in Pakistan.
These countries, under international understandings and agreements, provide security for one another’s embassies. Like WE provide security for the Saudi and the Yemeni and French diplomats in the United States. When a country suffers massive prison breaks, it is only prudent to wonder how well they might be able to protect international diplomats – it’s all security.
But – and here is why a very serious headline can make me laugh so early in the morning – who wants to be “non-essential?” I’ve lived through similar situations; people want to think themselves important – you would be surprised how many people will choose to stay, knowing the dangers, because they want to consider themselves “mission-essential”. 🙂
WASHINGTON — The State Department on Tuesday ordered non-essential personnel at the U.S. Embassy in Yemen to leave the country following the threat by al-Qaida that has triggered temporary shutdowns of 19 American diplomatic posts across the Middle East and Africa.
The department said in a travel warning that it had ordered the departure of non-emergency U.S. government personnel from Yemen “due to the continued potential for terrorist attacks” and said U.S. citizens in Yemen should leave immediately because of an “extremely high” security threat level.
“As staff levels at the Embassy are restricted, our ability to assist U.S. citizens in an emergency and provide routine consular services remains limited and may be further constrained by the fluid security situation,” the travel warning said.
The U.S. Embassy is located in Sanaa, the capital of Yemen.
The State Department on Sunday closed a total of 19 diplomatic posts until next Saturday. They include posts in Bangladesh and across North Africa and the Middle East as well as East Africa, including Madagascar, Burundi, Rwanda and Mauritius.
This is only an excerpt from AOL/Huffpost World News where you can read the rest of the story by clicking the blue type here.
Breath of Fresh Air in Seattle
Miss me?
I’ve been in Seattle for a truly grand event, my Mother’s 90th Birthday. She was queen for almost a week, with visitors and well wishers and a smashing party with friends and family and faces she has known and loved for years – many many people.
When I arrived in Seattle it was cool and cloudy and everyone told me how sad it was that I had missed the glorious weather they have had for weeks. Coming in from the airport I was shocked to see all the scorched grass; it looked more like California than green green Seattle.
I wasn’t sad to miss the warm sunshine at all. I have all of that I need in Pensacola. What I loved, from the moment I arrived, was the fresh air.
Seattle smells good. Seattle smells like mown grass, and flowers, lush flowers everywhere. Youcan drive with your windows open. I slept with my window open, and when it got COLD in the middle of the night, I used a BLANKET! This is the best luxury for me, cool weather, fresh air, cool breezes, even a little thunder and lightning and rain.
The days were warm and sunny, and the nights were cool and fresh. I was in heaven.
It wasn’t that I forgot about you – I have all kinds of material – but blogging with the iPad just doesn’t work for me. It’s fine for picking up e-mail and checking the news and playing a game or two, but it isn’t a real computer, with real capabilities. If blogging gets to technical, I’m not going to do it, life is too short. I love WordPress for making life so easy, making it so easy to put in all the photos I want, easy easy easy. I just had too much going on, and didn’t have time to fiddle. The iPad just doesn’t do it for me. I wish I had a computer small enough to just stuff in my purse like the iPad, I wish I didn’t have to pull the computer out of my purse, like the iPad. The iPad is convenient, better than slogging a lot of books on the plane with me, but . . . What I really want is an iPad sized computer . . .
Home again, on the flight in the pilots must have mentioned the heat and humidity in Pensacola six times. Ahhh . . . .for those sweet cool breezes and cool nights . . .
Worse Than Crack Cocaine? Growing up Poor
From AOL Daily Finance Poverty damages children more than being born to a crack addicted mother. Poverty keeps children from attaining their full potention, and hurts us all as a society as a huge waste of potential resource:
In the 1980s, the crack baby epidemic was hard to ignore. Television show after television show, article after article proclaimed that children born to addicts of the increasingly prevalent “crack” cocaine were all-but-guaranteed to have birth defects, including extremely low IQs and severe emotional problems. This “lost generation,” commentators emphasized, would be incapable of forming relationships or reaching full emotional maturity. They would be, in the words of Washington Post columnist Charles Krauthammer, condemned to “a life of certain suffering, of probable deviance, of permanent inferiority.”
A little over 20 years later, Krauthammer’s predictions have proven almost embarrassingly inaccurate. Last week, the findings of a 24-year-long study of crack babies revealed that parental use of the drug had little or no direct effect on the children. In the process of investigating the babies, however, researchers discovered another environmental problem that did, in fact, lead to problems with depression, anxiety, cognitive functioning, and a host of other issues: poverty.
In 1989, Dr. Hallam Hurt, chair of the neonatology department at Philadelphia’s Albert Einstein Medical Center, began tracking 224 near-term or full-term children who were born to crack addicts. In the ensuing years, her longitudinal study followed the children, finding that, overall, their IQs were about the same as a control group of children of non-addicted mothers. Further, the children in Hurt’s study had comparable outcomes when it came to educational and emotional development.
That having been said, Hurt’s study found that children raised in poverty — regardless of whether or not their mothers were addicted to crack — tended to have lower IQs and lower school readiness than those who weren’t raised in poverty. A big part of the problem, she argues, is environmental: Of the children in her study, “81 percent of the children had seen someone arrested; 74 percent had heard gunshots; 35 percent had seen someone get shot; and 19 percent had seen a dead body outside.” The children themselves acknowledged the effect of these events: “Those children who reported a high exposure to violence were likelier to show signs of depression and anxiety and to have lower self-esteem.”
In other words, while prenatal crack abuse may not have a major effect on children, the societal conditions in crack-ravaged communities most certainly do. As Hurt emphasized, “Given what we learned, we are invested in better understanding the effects of poverty. How can early effects be detected? Which developing systems are affected? And most important, how can findings inform interventions for our children?” Or, to put it another way, now that we understand that poverty is more dangerous for children than crack, what can we do to protect our children from its effects?
In Florida, the worst schools are those serving the poor. Many fell a full grade point in the Florida evaluations and would have fallen further if there were not a law – I am not kidding – that says they can only fall one grade point in a year. We are failing in the two most important areas that can help children pull themselves out of poverty – good health care, and good education.
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