Oiental Poppy Seed Pods

I did make slits in some of these and a very small amount of a tarry black substance dripped out. I can't imagine what it would take, or how many poppies, to turn this into opium.  Guess we'll just have to stick to pot...

On the Covid front, the paper this morning states that despite the fact that the number of cases is continuing rise by 20-30 a day, our health officer is continuing to allow more businesses to open. Two county supervisors said the higher number of cases alone aren't likely to derail her plan.This doesn't seem to be particularly rational to me since that was certainly the reason given for being sequestered in the first place. . One supervisor was quoted as saying health officials knew the cases were "destined to rise as the county, state and nation shift into a 'living with Covid19' mode' and more data would be needed to signal a course correction". I'm not convinced that data alone can bolster the case for preventing a very large number of people from going to their jobs. How about some common sense? It seems a national holiday, demonstrations and marches and the opening of restaurants and wine tasting rooms are now being called 'living with Covid'. 

It is interesting to note that worldwide, the countries that have had the most success in fighting the coronavirus are all run by women...New Zealand, Denmark, Finland, Germany, Iceland and Norway. Female led countries had one fifth  the number of deaths per million inhabitants as male led ones. If the United States had the coronavirus death rate of the average female led country 102,000 American lives would have been saved out of the 115,000 lost. I found that to be a stunning statistic.

It's not just that the leaders who best managed the virus were all women, but those who made the biggest mess of things were all men, and mostly a particular type...authoritarian, vainglorious and blustering. Think Boris Johnson (Britain) Jair Bolsonaro  (Brazil) Ayatollah Ali Khamenei (Iran) and you- know-who in the U.S.

Perhaps this just says something about the kind of countries that are likely to choose a woman to lead it, or perhaps it has something to do with the fact that men are much more likely to be able to get away with a brash leadership style than women.

As for the current moment of recognition that black lives matter, I  believe that any white person who has stood silently by and watched the institutionalized racism that has thrived in this country since the days of slavery, and not spoken out is as responsible for the current moment as the cop who put his knee on George Floyd's neck for almost 9 minutes. It's not enough to say we don't know what to do. We can start by looking into our own hearts and doing something....