Los Angeles Times Festival of Books: Eastside Punks - A Screening and Conversation

My final 2021 Los Angeles Times Festival of Books conversation was about the Eastside Punk rock scene from the late 1970s and onwards. It was a nice final conversation to catch as I loved the memories from the participants. Now I have to say that I hope this is the last time I have to watch the Festival of Books online. I've now spend both 2020 and 2021 attending it online and hopefully 2022 can be spent catching it in person at the USC campus (I'm assuming).

Here are some bio information that I took from the LA Times website>

Jimmy Alvarado has authored numerous interviews, articles, and short films spotlighting the Eastside scene. An episode of his Eastside Punks documentary series, about The Brat, was named Best Documentary Short at the 2020 Highland Park Independent Film festival. 

Teresa Covarrubias was the vocalist for The Brat. Their debut EP Attitudes is a prized item among collectors and Straight Outta East L.A., a double album packaging it with other rare tracks, was released in 2017. 

Coronavirus: Causes the Brain to Shrink?

I've read a lot about various long haul symptoms from COVID-19, but I think this is the first time I've read about a study that suggests that the brain shrinks. Now I've read about impacts to the brain via brain fog, but a shrinking of brain size? Ouch. 

Fox News via Yahoo (Jun 18) reports:

Researchers affiliated with the University of Oxford posted findings ahead of peer review this week to medRxiv, drawing on data from the U.K. Biobank. They compared brain scans taken pre-pandemic to scans taken about three years later among 394 coronavirus patients and 388 matched controls. A further analysis included 15 hospitalized patients compared with 379 people who hadn’t been hospitalized.

"Our findings thus consistently relate to loss of grey matter in limbic cortical areas directly linked to the primary olfactory and gustatory system," or areas in the brain related to the perception of smell and taste, authors wrote.

Coronavirus: Lab Leak Part 20 - Was Dr. Fauci Lying about Funding Gain-of-Function Research?

I have no clue who is right or who is wrong or if this is a big deal or not, but since I've been posting on the lab leak hypothesis, an interested piece of information came out recently on Zerohedge (Oct 22) reports:

In a letter addressed to Rep. James Comer (R-KY), NIH Principal Deputy Director Lawrence A. Tabak cites a "limited experiment" to determine whether "spike proteins from naturally occurring bat coronaviruses circulating in China were capable of binding to the human ACE2 receptor in a mouse model." According to the letter, humanized mice infected with the modified bat virus "became sicker" than those exposed to an unmodified version of the same bat coronavirus.

Oil: Shale Growth in Decline?

Though this Dallas News (Sep 20) opinion piece is more of a look at how US shale has helped the United States in terms of geopolitical ramifications, it does make the following point: 

When investors looked at the shale companies, it was no longer growth at any cost but rather growth at what cost. As share prices declined, companies were forced to reset their businesses, get their spending under control, and live within their budgets — and thus deliver returns to investors either in the form of dividends or share buybacks . . . 

The shale industry has changed in another way. While the independents have scaled back, the majors have stepped up . . . When it was all added up, the growth in U.S. output seemed destined to slow to a much smaller annual increase, far less than the hectic pace registered in preceding years.

Coronavirus: Another Long Term Symptoms Study

As time goes on, more and more studies are coming out about long term symptoms due to COVID-19. One such study is from Fair Health, a non-profit organization, that the New York Times via Yahoo (Jun 15) reported on:

The study, tracking the health insurance records of nearly 2 million people in the United States who contracted the coronavirus last year, found that one month or more after their infection, almost one-quarter — 23% — of them sought medical treatment for new conditions.

. . . Post-COVID health problems were common even among people who had not gotten sick from the virus at all, the study found. While nearly half of patients who were hospitalized for COVID-19 experienced subsequent medical issues, so did 27% of people who had mild or moderate symptoms and 19% of people who said they were asymptomatic.

The most common symptom was pain and breathing difficulties. Many also had malaise and fatigue. All age groups were impacted.

Now 23% is a high figure, but in one way you could view this as good news. Back in June 2020 a report came out that estimated a much higher estimate. DutchNews.Nl (Jun 12, 2020) reported that some 95% of 1,600 respondents stated that they had trouble with normal day to day activities three months after infection. The 27% does appear to align with a Lancet Psychiatry study that estimated that 33.62% of COVID-19 patients had neurological or psychiatric issues.

Oil: Peak Supply Comes Before Peak Demand?

There is a race out there: will peak demand or peak supply come first when it comes to oil? Per Oil Price (Oct 26), the answer just might be peak supply.

Why?

Chronic underinvestment in new oil supply since the 2015 crisis and the pressure on oil and gas companies to curb emissions and even “keep it in the ground” will likely lead to peak global oil production earlier than previously expected, analysts say.

Some other notes from the article:

1. OPEC expects oil to peak in the mid-2030s, but hold steady at those levels until 2045.