DailyOh! Why the coffee you drink could be extinct soon, to who started Taking A Knee protest
Hey,
The hunt for a vaccine is on and so is the experimentation on what medicine could set us free again and let us live like we once lived. The World Health Organisation (WHO) has restarted trial on hydroxychloroquine after The Lancet raised concerns over a paper that raised concerns over the drug to treat Covid-19. In London, tests are on to see if painkiller ibuprofen could help cure the disease. Imagine after this long period of staying locked in, scrubbing the skin on the hands to the point of scraping it off, if we get to know that all we needed was an ibuprofen, how cheated would we feel?
Now, hindsight offers a good sight. The moment, in which we are advised to live, doesn’t. The moment we were locked in, we didn’t know how to cure Covid-19. We still don’t. We are experimenting. By ‘we’, we mean scientists and doctors are. Even as the search for a cure is on, the disease is spreading.
In India, the number of positive cases this morning crossed 2,10,000. Over 1,00,000 have recovered, but sadly, more than 6,000 mortalities have been now been reported to this coronavirus.
India says, the mortality rate in Covid-19 cases is 2.82 per cent, and 73 per cent of these 2.82 per cent people had co-morbidities. A person with co-morbidities could have continued to live if not for the virus, but who knows who would continue to live and who won’t. So, how much blame can be ascribed to the coronavirus for the mortalities is a debate that will only lead us to the classic chicken and egg debate. But why are mortals those alive and moralities, a figure of those dead?
Mortality, our Word Of The Day, finds origin in its Latin form ‘mortalite’, which means the condition of being subject to death or the necessity of dying. Oxford dictionary defines mortality as “the state of being human and not living forever”. That is why mortal remains are an oxymoron. Mortal remains would mean the remains of a dead person that are also subject to death. Nothing, as they say, is permanent or here forever.
The coffee that wakes you up every morning could be gone in just about 10-20 years from now. Data shows 60 per cent of coffee species could go extinct. What’s sending coffee plantations to sleep? Climate change, droughts, deforestations, and even diseases. Now, coffee doesn’t grow just about anywhere you plant it. This also explains why coffee is a costlier brew despite being in high demand. Global warming makes the environment inconducive for coffee plantation. Arabica, the most popular coffee, is already on the endangered species list. So, how long before Arabica can go completely extinct? Just about 60 years. Coffee is difficult and expensive to grow in artificial environment and that is the reason why in the days to come, your mug of coffee could taste crappier. And that ‘crap coffee’ too would come at increased cost.
If your coffee hadn’t woken you up completely, this piece of information might have. If you are not a coffee person, you can chill and not bother about the future of coffee. Paris, meanwhile, has opened up cafes. People are visiting too. Opening up of France is a huge message for the future of the world post-Covid-19, because France is the world’s most travelled-to destination.
But protests in America have left people very concerned about the future. A Covid-19-battered economy is now dealing with protests, going violent in several places. Now, violence is a spectacle. So violent protests catch more eyeballs. But peace is durable. And peaceful means of protests get etched in public memory. Four years after ‘taking a knee’ to protest was first reported, many from the US to the UK are taking a knee to protest atrocities against black people in the wake of the death of George Floyd.
Forty-six-year-old Floyd died after American police officer Derek Chauvin put his knee on Floyd’s neck for 8 minutes and 46 seconds. Floyd pleaded he couldn’t breathe but Chauvin didn’t let him go. This happened after Floyd, a black man, was arrested by four white police officers outside a shop in Minneapolis for allegedly buying a pack of cigarettes with a counterfeit $20 bill.
Four years ago, Colin Kaepernick knelt while the US national anthem was played during the 2016 NFL season. He was trying to bring attention to the same issues that the protesters are raising now.
In a show of solidarity to those protesting over Floyd’s killing, police officers in the US are also ‘taking a knee’, even as Donald Trump is itching for a military response to the protests.
Much has been said about the stupidities of Trump. So a little about the stupidity of a man in our neighbourhood – former cricketer Shahid Afridi. Before we say anything, see this to know for yourself, what we want to say.
Now, Afridi isn’t alone in this. Many in India and elsewhere in the world are giving the mask a slip, if not a complete ditch. There is no point troubling yourself with a mask, if you can't trouble over mouth and nose by keeping them behind the mask.
See, a mask is not supposed to provide protection to your chin, or neck, as Afridi and others believe it is supposed to. Our Covidiots today are Aridi and all others who treat the mask like oxygen masks are treated in films. Drop it a little when you want to talk, and put it on to act.
Coronavirus is real and so should be our precautions.
On that note, bye for today.
We will be back tomorrow.
Also read: DailyOh! How bad was Great Bombay Cyclone, to how military curbed 1992 protests in US