Spying on California’s great white sharks with drones – Los Angeles Times

A great white shark swims near surfers. Gauna filmed two nerve-racking encounters on April 18 off this same beach in Santa Barbara County. First a 7-foot shark approached two young children floating just feet from the sand on bodyboards. He raced to them and motioned for them to come in. The shark turned away. Ten minutes later he watched a larger one approach a surfer sitting on a 9-foot-2 longboard. The shark was as big as the board. The drone hovered directly above. But Guana was over a half-mile away and could not warn him. The audio recording on his monitor captured his mounting anxiety.

“He’s turning toward the surfer,” Gauna said. “This surfer needs to look down, he has a shark right next to him. You got a shark right next to you, dude.”

Gauna has been trying to find a drone that could give an alert, but hasn’t found one compatible with the film equipment he uses.

The shark turned into the surfer under the nose of the board, as if it were going to start circling.

“Oh, my God, don’t bite him, don’t bite him, don’t bite him.”

That size of a shark is sub-adult, and usually just starting to upgrade their diet from stingrays and fish to harbor seals and other marine mammals. It could make a mistake. Just last year on this beach, a female swimmer was bitten on her foot and suffered two one-inch lacerations.

The shark slowly did a U-turn under the surfer and then kept swimming out to sea. The surfer never saw a thing.

Source: Spying on California’s great white sharks with drones – Los Angeles Times

Separated families: Biden reunification program seeks to undo Trump border policy – The Washington Post

Three years, seven months and four days since U.S. immigration agents separated her from her son, Sandra was on her way back Monday to the San Ysidro border crossing.

The 48-year-old Mexican woman had packed her bag: three outfits, a pair of shoes and the birth certificate of her son, Bryan, whom she hadn’t seen since they were separated at the border in 2017, when he was 15.

He’s 18 now, and living in southern California. She was deported alone to Mexico. Her flight back to the border — to Bryan — was 12 hours away.

“I keep thinking about what it’s going to be like. How will I react? How will he react?” she said Monday by telephone. “He’s not the same boy I remember.”

Sandra and Bryan were among the thousands of families separated by the Trump administration in 2017 and 2018 under a policy to deter migration. When Sandra crosses into the United States on Tuesday afternoon, she and her son will be among the first reunited under the Biden administration — the start of a massive relocation of parents deported by one U.S. president and returned by another. In total, more than 1,000 families are expected to be reunified.

Source: Separated families: Biden reunification program seeks to undo Trump border policy – The Washington Post

Looking at India from afar, I’m furious at Modi’s wilful neglect of my homeland | Natalie Grover | The Guardian

There was an air of inevitability about India’s unfolding Covid disaster. Watching from afar in London, I had long feared the worst for the country of my birth. Since India has decades of underfunded health infrastructure and no cohesive national strategy, I often discussed with family and friends back home that the virus would hit its 1.4 billion people harder when the inevitable second wave came round, even with its young population and available vaccines.

By late last year, my loved ones were going about their daily lives believing the pandemic had been conquered, alongside many others who attended cricket matches, weddings and religious festivals. India’s road to Covid hell was paved with delusions of grandeur – a fanciful idea that the virus had been vanquished by sheer might of will, superhuman immunity, faith in an almighty God, and piecemeal restrictions. By January, India’s prime minister, Narendra Modi, had declared India had defeated the virus. In the months that followed, the government – and by extension citizens – acted as if it had. Between January and mid-April 2021, India’s national scientific taskforce on Covid-19 did not hold a single meeting.

Indians understand that they must beg, borrow and steal to get by in crisis – because the central government isn’t equipped to help and local administrations scramble to survive the onslaught. Just days ago, Modi practically confirmed it was each man for himself in his first national broadcast to address the second wave, urging people to create small taskforces within their communities to ensure Covid discipline so that his government does not have to impose a national lockdown. It may seem hard to fathom that people are hoarding oxygen cylinders in their homes, but when you know there’s no chance the national government will step in to help – when no government really has in your lifetime – you take care of your own. If my loved ones were gasping for breath, I’d be in alleyways selling family jewellery for oxygen.

Yes, the BJP has sleepwalked through this pandemic. By actively undermining public health to secure its political future, it is in large part responsible for the horrific surge of cases and deaths.

Source: Looking at India from afar, I’m furious at Modi’s wilful neglect of my homeland | Natalie Grover | The Guardian

The Growing Frustration Over Pandemic Restriction Cheaters – The New York Times

While it’s very likely that no one other than deep introverts enjoys lockdown restrictions, several polls from the past year show that an overwhelming majority of Canadians support the rules and a large number of them want their governments to be more strict.

Mohammad Movassaghi leaving provincial court in Vancouver, on April 28.

Three Months on, Myanmar Regime’s Brutality Matched Only by Its Incompetence

As Myanmar marked three months since the coup on Saturday, many people at home and abroad fear the country is now on the verge of becoming a failed state. The country’s economy is on the brink of collapse. Banks face the constant prospect of a run on deposits as concerns over the country’s stability grow, even in the urban centers. Since the coup, international aid has been suspended, and foreign investors have taken the last train out of town. The UN has warned that half of the country’s more than 54 million people could face poverty next year. Last week, the first prize in the national lottery—normally 1.5 billion kyats (about US$963,000)—was reduced to one third of that amount as people boycott payments of any kind to the government, including paying taxes and buying government lottery tickets.

As of Tuesday, 93 days after the takeover, the old soldier’s achievements can be summarized as follows: a) killing 766 citizens who opposed his rule; and b) arbitrarily arresting some 4,874 people, according to AAPP Myanmar, an independent group monitoring arrests and killings by the junta.

Source: Three Months on, Myanmar Regime’s Brutality Matched Only by Its Incompetence

Lighthouse on Cape Rapier

Michael Stephen Wills Photography

While most of our fellow passengers were sleeping, as usual I woke at 5 am to pull the gear together, dress warmly, step out onto our magic window on the world. Our decision to request a port side cabin continues to pay off. The Cape Rapier lighthouse flashes every few seconds. One of these shots caught the light.

Lighthouse on Cape Rapier
Since 1914 the lighthouse on Cape Rapier, Aysen Provence, Chile, has protected ships on the northern approach to the Gulf of Penas.

Click this link for a visit to my online gallery

Lighthouse Cape Rapier
Before dawn, February 17, 2016, the light protected us on the Oceania Regatta as we rounded Cape Rapier to enter the Gulf of Penas on route of the Messier Channel, the Fjords of Chile and an encounter with the Iceberg Glacier of Fjord Tempanos.

Gulf of Penas is the next blog in this series.

A mini-interview with Michael Wills is…

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My Days

Lyrical smile

I begin my day hoping that it goes well than yesterday. Of-course its what most people hope about but what I hope the most is today I don’t have to face my father, today maybe I’ll cry less, maybe someone will make me feel worthy. I look at the mirror and say I am beautiful and I deserve all the love of the world and that is yet to come. When I am in my bed in the morning I think to myself will my problems ever be solved? I wake up with swollen eyes and dark circles not because I studied till late night but because I cried till late night. I try hiding my face from everybody hoping no one notices me. The more I stay at home the more I feel the “black day” recap.(I will tell about black day some other time) The time…

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Purposeful Survival

Anonymously Hal

Sometimes I feel like life
is just some sick joke on all of us.

The purpose of humanity is to do one thing right?
We’re supposed to survive.
Yet here we are…
spending our entire fucking lives trying to do everything and anything
we can to make it to another day…
still knowing that we will eventually die.

But besides just surviving for however long we have…
I feel like everyone has a desire to leave some sort of mark
on this planet.
Maybe it’s children, relationships, ideas, music, art or just something miniscule
the next generation might have a use for or remember… anything at all.

And I don’t know about you,
but I have this deep desire to leave something behind
for this world after I’m gone…
to make my own mark.

I just worry that I won’t have enough time
to figure out what that mark is…

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