Movie Review: The Searchers (a John Wayne movie)

I recently saw The Searchers on TMC. John Wayne plays the lead character Ethan Edwards while Natalie Wood has some brief scenes as an older version of Debbie Edwards. The director is John Ford.

The movie starts out with Ethan Edwards (John Wayne) coming to visit his brother in Texas. He is a Civil War veteran who fought for the Confederacy. The war had actually ended three years prior and there were rumors that he had traveled to California during that time frame, but he denies it. Whatever he did, he seems to have done decently okay for himself as he provides his brother payment for temporary shelter. The next day, Rev. Capt. Samuel Johnston Clayton (Ward Bond) comes to the house. Cattle was stolen from a nearby ranch and a posse is being put together to chase down the thieves. Ethan goes with the group while his brother and most of the family stays behind. After going a distance on horseback, they come upon the cattle - they're all dead. They quickly realize that a group of Comanches has set a trap where they've gotten a group of armed men to leave their homesteads, which would leave their places wide open for attack.

The groups split in two with one group riding to one location while the other group goes back to the Edwards location. By the time one of the groups gets back to the Edwards homestead, it is too late. The place is burned down and most of the family has been killed. The two young girls, Ethan's nieces, appear to have been abducted: Debbie and Lucy. The two groups re-form and ride off to try and rescue the girls. They come across the Comanche warriors and are outnumbers by about 2 to 1. The group is able to find protective cover with the use of a river as defense and survive the attack. Due to the fact that they don't have the necessary military advantage, the group makes the determination that they simply can't rescue the two girls. 

Libya: The Two Leaders - Khalifa Haftar and Farrej al-Sarraj on life support?

After a very long drawn out battle over Tripoli between the GNA (Government of National Accord in Tripoli) and the LNA (Libyan National Army in Benghazi), the GNA with the help of Turkey forced the LNA to retreat. It appears that Libya is at a standstill between the east and the west with foreign powers playing a significant role on each side. 

Yet, did this drawn out battle result in the weakening of both leaders? Recent reports might imply yes. 

Prime Minister Fayez al-Sarraj

France 24 (Sep 18) has the following to report on Prime Minister Fayez al-Sarraj (GNA):

Prime Minister of Libya’s UN-recognised Government of National Accord (GNA) Farrej al-Sarraj announced on Wednesday his intention to step down, prompting a flurry of speculation about his reasons for doing so, as well as fears that his resignation could cause further turbulence in a country racked by nearly a decade of chaos.

Potential reasons for his resignation:

1. “This could be a manoeuvre aimed at putting pressure on the international community, especially the United States and its allies, so that these countries get more involved in resolving Libya’s civil war,” added Walid Phares, a US-based Middle East specialist, talking to FRANCE 24.

2. Another possible explanation for Sarrej’s resignation, Phares said, is that it was a matter of him bowing to pressure from recent wave of protests over deteriorating living conditions in Libya: “He’s facing a lot of pressure from both demonstrators and members of his own camp, notably Interior Minister Fathi Bashagha, who does not hide his own ambitions.”

3. Phares also raised the possibility that Turkey or local militias directly pressured Sarrej to stand down.

Reuters (Sep 21) has this on Turkey's reaction:

President Tayyip Erdogan has said Turkey was upset by Sarraj’s announcement that he planned to quit, but Kalin said Turkish support for the GNA and their bilateral agreements, which include a security pact signed last year, would continue.

Turkish officials may travel to Tripoli “in the coming days” to discuss developments, he added. 

Coronavirus: Are residents leaving New York City?

Is COVID-19 causing people to leave New York City? Let's explore some articles about the topic.

ARGUMENT: RESIDENTS ARE LEAVING

DNYUZ (Aug 20):

While the moving industry is fractured among numerous small business owners, and official statistics are tough to come by, one thing is clear: From professionals who are downsizing following a job loss, to students moving back in with their parents, to families fleeing the city for the suburbs, New Yorkers are changing their addresses in droves.

According to FlatRate Moving, the number of moves it has done has increased more than 46 percent between March 15 and August 15, compared with the same period last year. The number of those moving outside of New York City is up 50 percent — including a nearly 232 percent increase to Dutchess County and 116 percent increase to Ulster County in the Hudson Valley.

New York Post (Aug 17):

In early March, many people (not me) left NYC when they felt it would provide safety from the virus and they no longer needed to go to work and all the restaurants were closed. People figured, “I’ll get out for a month or two and then come back.”

They are all still gone.

And then in June, during rioting and looting, a second wave of NYC-ers (this time me) left. I have kids. Nothing was wrong with the protests, but I was a little nervous when I saw videos of rioters after curfew trying to break into my building.

Many people left temporarily but there were also people leaving permanently. Friends of mine moved to Nashville, Miami, Austin, Denver, Salt Lake City, Austin, Dallas, etc.

Now a third wave of people are leaving. But they might be too late. Prices are down 30-50% on both rentals and sales, no matter what real estate people tell you. And rentals soaring in the second- and third-tier cities. 

ANTIFA/BLM: Anti-Asian Rhetoric

Is there a level of anti-Asian sentiment in the ANTIFA/BLM movements? There are a couple tweets that I came across that caught my attention. In the below tweet, an apparent BLM activist yells, "Fuck Asians." This was after a police shooting in Los Angeles that occurred in the Westmont neighborhood. The neighborhood is just north of the 105 freeway and west of the 110 freeway.

Coronavirus: Don't believe the numbers - Russia

As the world creeps ever so closer to an official million deaths due to COVID-19, one has to wonder what the true numbers really are. I've spent time looking at various countries and the speculated under-counting of deaths, for example, Ecuador, Iran and Mexico

Now Reuters (Sep 14) takes a look at Russia:

While Russia has confirmed the world’s fourth largest tally of coronavirus cases, it has a relatively low death toll from the associated disease, COVID-19.

Moscow says the way it classifies deaths is more accurate than other nations. Some Russian health officials have explained that in many cases, a patient who dies with COVID-19 does not necessarily die of it but from other causes including pre-existing health problems. 

. . . But data released by the Rosstat State Statistics Service on Sept. 4 show there were 57,800 excess deaths between May and July, the peak of the outbreak.

. . . In Russia, they surpass the number of COVID-19 deaths by a factor of 3.6 for the months in question. Raksha and some opposition figures have criticised Putin for downplaying the pandemic. 

Oil: European Oil Majors Reducing Exploration

Back in early July I wrote a blog post about oil that highlighted the fact that capital investments for oil exploration were at 15 year lows. The expected 2020 investments are over 50% below the highs in 2014. 

If this Bloomberg (Aug 15) article is correct, expect oil investments to continue to decline:

As the coronavirus ravages economies and cripples demand, European oil majors have made some uncomfortable admissions in recent months: oil and gas worth billions of dollars might never be pumped out of the ground.

With the crisis also hastening a global shift to cleaner energy, fossil fuels will likely be cheaper than expected in the coming decades, while emitting the carbon they contain will get more expensive. These two simple assumptions mean that tapping some fields no longer makes economic sense. BP Plc said on Aug. 4 that it would no longer do any exploration in new countries.

The interesting exclusion from the article is US oil majors. 

Algeria: Update on Protests

It has been awhile since I last looked into the protests that were occurring in Algeria. In fact, it has been so long that I didn't even realize that Amy Chief Gaid Salah had died. Al Jazeera reported (Dec 25, 2019):

Thousands of Algerians gathered for the funeral procession of the country's powerful army chief, who fought for independence from France as a young man and this year became the country's de facto leader. 

The wooden coffin containing the body of Gaid Salah, who died of a heart attack on Monday aged 79, was covered in a national flag and carried by officers.

Coronavirus: Athletes' Health Update

In mid-August, I wrote a blog post about COVID-19's impact on athletes' health. I looked into the impact on the lungs and heart. 

USA Today (Sep 3) has an article about the impact of the virus on Big Ten athletes, which provides an explanation for why the Big Ten and Pac-12 decided to put sports on hiatus:

Cases of myocarditis, an inflammation of the heart muscle, appear to be prevalent among Big Ten athletes, said Penn State's director of athletic medicine, impacting roughly one-third of all athletes who have tested positive for the coronavirus. 

Coronavirus: 410,000 plus deaths by January 1, 2021?

Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) at the University of Washington recently released an estimate of COVID-19 deaths in the United States. Their estimate is 410,451 deaths by January 1, 2021. Seriously? I previously went after Nobel Prize winner Michael Levitt for what I thought was a ridiculously low estimate of 175,000 deaths. I personally think 410,451 deaths is laughably high considering that as of Sept 6th we had 193,250 deaths. 

The Hill (Sep 4) wrote:

The model created by the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) at the University of Washington posted an update Friday predicting an additional 224,000 Americans will die by the beginning of next year.

The model says that as many as 122,000 of those deaths could be avoided with safety measures, including near-universal mask use, but it warns that easing restrictions could cause the death toll to be more than 620,000.

Coronavirus: New Zealand

Why write a blog post about New Zealand, which has very few cases of COVID-19? Well, read on, for why I find this a topic to explore, but first some news on what is going on in the country.

After 102 days of no community cases (I do believe there were cases from people coming to New Zealand), a family was diagnosed with the virus. The initial thought on the cases was that it could be traced back to frozen food shipments as one of the individuals worked at a place that handled such imports. The Chinese have also speculated that some of their recent cases were due to imported frozen food. Fortune (Aug 17) reported that New Zealand no longer believes that theory:

New Zealand's mysterious new coronavirus outbreak did not originate from frozen food shipments, the country's health department said on Tuesday. 

"Seems clear now that the possibility is being ruled out from that investigation," said Director General of Health Ashley Bloomfield, according to Reuters. He did not provide specifics on the probe but said a full report on it will be released later this week.

Public health authorities in New Zealand are still investigating the outbreak, which began on Aug. 11 when four family members in Auckland, New Zealand's biggest city, tested positive for the coronavirus. A total of 69 active cases—out of 90 nationwide—are linked to the Auckland cluster. New Zealand reported 13 new cases on Tuesday. 

  

Riot Erupts in Malmö, Sweden

It looks like Malmö, Sweden is making the news for the wrong reasons. I last wrote about Malmö on November 12, 2019 and the violence that was occuring in the city. In fact, there was so much violence that Denmark was putting up border checks. Here's the most recent unfortunate events. Reuters via the New York Times (Aug 28) reported:

A riot broke out on Friday [Aug 28] in the southern Swedish town of Malmo, where at least 300 people had gathered to protest against anti-Islam activities, police said. 

Protesters were throwing objects at police officers and car tyres had been set on fire, a police spokesman said. Earlier in the day, a copy of the Quran had been burned in Malmo by right-wing extremists.

The anti-Islam protests occurred after Rasmus Paludan, leader of Danish far-right political party Hard Line, had been denied permission to have a meeting in Malmo and was stopped at the Swedish border, according to the newspaper.

Coronavirus: Venezuela's Open Air Market and other news

I last wrote about coronavirus in Venezuela back on June 28th. At that time, per Worldometer, there were only 5,297 cases. Since then daily cases have increased dramatically above the levels seen in June. The first case of COVID-19 in Venezuela was in mid-March. Was Venezuela really able to keep control of the spread through much of June before cases started to get out of hand? Or has something changed that resulted in Venezuela being able to better report the spread of the virus? In that June 28th post, I mentioned that UNICEF had sent a third shipment of humanitarian supplies to the country. Perhaps testing kits are starting to flood the country? Per Worldometer, Venezuela has conducted a large number of tests (when compared to their South American peers). Unfortunately, the site doesn't have a graph that shows how testing has increased over time so I don't know if testing kits have started to flood the country starting in July.

OPEN AIR MARKET

Reuters (Aug 4) reported that in Caracas the spread of the virus could be pinned on a open air market called the Coche Wholesale Market: 

Venezuela capital Caracas’ largest produce market is at the center of a worsening COVID-19 outbreak, but cash-strapped merchants refuse to stop hawking food there for the city’s 5 million residents, many of whom are starving. 

  . . . Coche is a “potential site of high contagion” due to its lack of social distancing, Jose Manuel Olivares, a health advisor to opposition leader Juan Guaido, said in an interview. 

Okay, I keep hearing educated people in America stating that the virus doesn't spread very well outdoors. And yet here we have Reuters reporting that this market is resulting in the spread of the virus. But then the article ends with this quote:

Coche administrator [Walter Rivera] said in the last few weeks they carried out 4,500 rapid antibody tests there, with only one positive result. “We’re working so that they don’t shut the market,” he said.

Hmm, is the virus really spreading through this market or did Reuters just write up an article that supports the political opposition? That last quote really makes me question if the assumption of this article is true: one positive case out of 4,500 tests? 

Coronavirus: Michael Levitt Follow-up

This is a quick follow-up to my recent blog post about Michael Levitt's projections on COVID-19. Now Michael Levitt is an American-British-Israeli biophysicist who won the 2013 Nobel prize for chemistry. So he is definitely far smarter and intelligent then me. But I have issues with his projections. For example, I suspect he just got lucky with his China projections. I first came across his projections based on this Jerusalem Post (Mar 20) where he was quoted with the following: