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The scene is far from unique: across Michigan and the country, people are protesting the mitigation measures health and safety experts say will help stymie the ongoing generational health crisis.

All the while, the pandemic rages on. The indicators of an impending surge have risen drastically: Case rates in Michigan are up more than 1,000% since June 22, the day Gov. Gretchen Whitmer's administration rolled back the remaining statewide pandemic orders. The test positivity rate is up more than 600% over the same time frame, according to a review of state data.

....(snip)....

“I just don't know how we got to this point — how this ridiculous thing, a simple mask on someone's face, has become so divisive and political,” said Davidson, who lives in Ottawa County and has children in a local school system. ............(more)

https://www.freep.com/story/news/health/2021/08/29/michigan-pandemic-protests-rage-covid-19-poised-surge/5599726001/

(Detroit Metro Times) The Wayne County Public Health Department on Friday announced a mask mandate for schools and daycare providers.

The mandate requires students, faculty, staff, and visitors, regardless of vaccination status, to wear masks in schools and during school-sponsored indoor events.

Some of the county’s school districts have already issued mask mandates, including Detroit and Dearborn. School districts without mask mandates include Grosse Pointe, Van Buren, River Rouge, Livonia, Taylor, Wyandotte, Wayne-Westland, Gilbraltar, Huron, Flat Rock, and Woodhaven-Brownstown. ...........(more)

https://www.metrotimes.com/news-hits/archives/2021/08/27/wayne-county-issues-mask-mandate-for-schools-daycare-centers-as-covid-19-risk-remains-high#.YSuWBPp9xWw.link

(Detroit News) Traverse City – A newspaper reporter said he was punched in the face while covering an anti-mask event near Traverse City.

The Grand Traverse County sheriff’s office is investigating.

“I know the concern you have,” Sheriff Tom Bensley told the Traverse City Record-Eagle. “There are some people out there that are not happy with the news outlets. We’ve had two incidents in a short period of time.”

Record-Eagle reporter Brendan Quealy went to Silver Lake Recreation Area to check an event organized by a group called Citizens Liberating Michigan and promoted by local allies on a Facebook page. ............(more)

https://www.detroitnews.com/story/news/local/michigan/2021/08/28/reporter-punched-mask-protest-traverse-city/118478940/

.... 93 degrees with plenty of humidity in downtown Detroit today. It's been around or above 90 for a week+. .... I love summer, but I'm sort of looking forward to a Michigan fall.

A ratsnake perches in a tree in Pittsburgh in 2017. Pat Roukous


(Grist) People thought the snake spotted in the park was a black mamba. Who knows how a reptile that normally makes its home in sub-Saharan Africa could have slithered its way over to the East End of Pittsburgh — or why it would want to make that particular trek — but there it was, wrapped around a beech tree in the middle of Frick Park back in April.

Of course, everyone in the neighborhood lost their minds. A highly venomous snake right there where people go jogging and walk their blissfully unsuspecting labradors and terriers? Call the police if you see this thing, people posted on Facebook, and sure enough, somebody did. One local news station sent a chopper. (“It’s no garden snake — look at this thing!” said an incredulous anchor.) The department of public safety issued a citywide alert.

But the people more familiar with the ecosystem, those who knew their non-human neighbors, were aghast. The police? For what? That thing was a ratsnake. A big one, but sometimes they get that big — six, seven, even eight feet long! Native to the eastern United States, a resident of Appalachia since long before the first Indigenous people ever set foot on the land, before the first stone of Fort Pitt was ever erected or the first rock of coal ever pulled from the ground. Not venomous, not dangerous, and certainly not out of place.

“These are very docile, fragile animals,” explained Chris Urban, chief of natural diversity at the Pennsylvania Fish and Boat Commission. “I’m hoping someone on the police force was aware of what it was, that it wasn’t dangerous and such. I don’t even know what the fate of the snake was, but I tried to quell those fears quickly, that it was just an eastern ratsnake and wasn’t a harmful animal.” ..............(more)

https://grist.org/culture/urban-legend-reptile-snake-teenage-mutant-ninja-turtle/

Aug. 24—Commuter service railroads are looking to various approaches and partnerships to attract new riders and better serve the changing transportation habits in a post-pandemic world.

Of all the public transit services impacted by the COVID-19 crisis, commuter rail lines — which have often largely served white-collar office types traveling into and out of city centers — were the most impacted, seeing their ridership drop upward of 90 percent.

Since then, operators have reduced fares, adjusted train schedules and taken other steps to if not regain former riders, entice new ones.

"The recovery is going to have to be a much broader conversation, involving supporting partners to sustain, and eventually rebuild, ridership," said James M. Derwinski, CEO of Metra commuter rail in Chicago, during a recent listening session with the Federal Transit Administration (FTA). .............(more)

https://www.masstransitmag.com/rail/news/21235841/us-can-americas-covidbattered-commuter-rail-make-a-comeback

Why is walking so good for the brain? Blame on the "spontaneous fluctuations"
Going on a walk makes your mind wander in ways that neuroscience is only just coming to terms with

By THOMAS NAIL
PUBLISHED AUGUST 28, 2021 10:00AM


(Salon) Like most people, I have been walking more than usual during the pandemic and enjoying it. My meetings with students and colleagues have turned into walking meetings around campus for over a year. Now, I have a problem: School is starting soon, and I don't want to go back to the classroom. We all saw this coming. Give employees a taste of the outdoors, and they might not want to go back to their offices and desks. So I am thinking of teaching my fall courses outside.

Yet while I was researching this possibility, I discovered a problem. I had always read that walking increased cognitive functioning and problem solving, but it turns out that it's not that simple. In 2014, a new study showed that walking decreased rational and linear thinking and increased divergent thinking and imaginative mind-wandering. Uh oh. Will my students learn less if I teach them while walking?

....(snip)....

What is the connection between walking and thinking, and is it still good for us if it makes us more irrational? We may have heard by now how walking makes us feel good by releasing endorphins, lowers risk our of depression; increases cognitive functioning; strengthens memory; enhances creativity; and produces a protein essential for neuronal development and survival, synaptic plasticity, and cognitive function. It sounds great, but how are all these related, and why do we have to sacrifice our hard-earned rationality to get them? This is what I wanted to know before sending my students to the realms of unreason.

A lot is happening to our bodies and brains on a walk, but one fascinating thing stands out. They are all related to an increase in what neuroscientists call "spontaneous cognitive fluctuations." Scientists have been telling us that the background noises our brains make are random and unimportant for almost a century; hence, they have filtered and averaged them out of their studies. Yet increasing evidence shows that this "noise" is neither random nor unimportant. ...........(more)

https://www.salon.com/2021/08/28/walking-and-spontaneous-fluctuations-brain/

A powerful gust of wind killed a kite surfer by slamming him into the second floor of a house on Wednesday, according to firefighters in Fort Lauderdale Beach, Fla.

Authorities did not immediately release the victim’s identity, but friends have identified him as Fred Salter, 61.

Salter was just venturing out onto the water around 10 a.m. when the wind picked up, lifting him up and carrying him 122 metres (400 feet) through the air before smashing him against a home.

“He was attempting to kitesurf in the ocean … when strong winds came into the area unexpectedly, and he was not able to release from the kite in a timely manner,” Stephen Gollan, a battalion chief for Fort Lauderdale Fire Rescue, told WSVN-TV. He added that the weather went from calm to “extremely dangerous” in a short period of time. .............(more)

https://globalnews.ca/news/8142670/kite-surfer-dies-house-wind-florida-man/