Welcome to the Monday edition of the socially distant Mark Steyn Show with an audio Coronacopia of news and comment, plus another Brit Wanker Copper, Your Monday Mohammed, scientists and sopranos, biting your legs and whacking your bankers, bonus bereavements, and Canada's worst mass murder in living memory.
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~It was a busy weekend at SteynOnline, starting with the Friday edition of The Mark Steyn Show. On our weekend movie date Kathy Shaidle marveled at Leave Her to Heaven and Mark hosted the first-ever all-request audio edition of Steyn's Song of the Week. Our marquee presentation saw the conclusion of Mark's latest Tale for Our Time - this tale being the too timely Journal of the Plague Year by Daniel Defoe. Steyn Club members can hear Mark read the ante-penultimate episode here, the penultimate episode here, and the ultimate episode here. Or, if you've yet to sample this series, you can have a good old binge-listen here.
If you were too busy getting fitted up by a bent Brit copper, we hope you'll want to check out one or three of the foregoing as a new week begins.
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76 Member Comments
I take issue with anyone saying prisoners are being released from prison in order to protect them from corona virus. Please give some solid proof as to how this works. There's no greater enforced social distancing than a prison. Anyone put in prison before four months ago wasn't out and about when this virus hit the streets.
I'm a nurse. I know some of the nurses who work in the local maximum security prison. Prisoners get good healthcare in prison. Where exactly are these released prisoners going to be getting healthcare on the streets? Prove that they can be counted on to quarantine themselves in wherever they end up living when they get out of prison.
One of the prisoners set to be released in Massachusetts this week was an illegal Dominican who was arrested for, among other things, bringing 50 grams of fentanyl into the community with the intent to sell it.
If it's not enough that the chinese government is murdering Americans with dodgy viruses they invent they're also exporting deadly, illegal drugs which are being sold to the general public by illegals being released from prison ostensibly to protect them from the chinese virus that's killing the people outside the prison.
If the virus doesn't work on American citizens surely the fentanyl will do the trick.
Hearing all the clubbers' song choices the other day reminded me that a song we fondly recollect is the only reliable buoy in the rough and rocky waters right now.
There's a little song about a fisherman, Phelim, who went out on his boat to an island somewhere in the Irish Sea to fish and never came home. Perhaps all that was found was his sweet little boat, mostly wrecked, but still it washed ashore, as if to let those behind know he had perished and it was sent back as his good-bye.
When it plays I feel a little wave of anguish wash over me thinking of losing a parent or other loved one and not being able to hold their hand or wipe their brow when they passed away from these earthly shores because of great distance or some other inescapable, flubbed-up logistic. It's called Báidin FheilimÃ. I don't know anything about its origins other than it's Irish. It took me a bit of searching as I forgot the Gaelic spellings.
Just listened to Sinéad O'Connor rendering it, F. Thanks for the reference. Lots to reflect upon.
Yeah, stubborn people - rightist trash that they are - will go fishing and come back dead. For this sin, the lefties would have us damn them forever. They should starve, or queue for handouts raised by taxing ...
... oh, yes, people who go fishing.
I must say that I'm somewhat sympathetic with O'Connor's misgivings about Catholicism and with her thematic pacifism, but I've not really given her songs a chance. I'll change that now. I can do no less: I like any number of Joan Baez's songs, but resonate with none of her religious convictions and scanty few of her political ones. And I like both voices, 'though never as much as I like Maddy Prior's. I offer that for comment. Like Eithne Bhraonáin much? "Enya"?
It sounds like a lovely sad song with real currency for the time when it was written. I was taught by an Irish professor of mine that the Irish fisher folk didn't teach their sons to swim so as to not prolong their suffering if their boats were caught in a storm and sank.
My family on my mother's side are all from Nova Scotia. One ancestor, Charles, was a fisherman who lived on Digby point. He and his wife Ruth and their five children lived a humble but happy live until one evening Charles didn't come home. He had headed out in his dory in the morning, hit a storm, his dory foundered and he drowned, his body and boat washing up at different times within a week of the storm. Ruth managed to raise her children alone, educated them and they all ended up working as professionals on the mainland of Nova Scotia.
Songs like yours must have been written by broken hearted mothers and wives.
Kitty, it sounds as if you can write your own folk tune. They must have loved their work or would they do it? All on your mother's side from Nova Scotia, very cool. Mine from Roscommon, but my mom always wanted to visit Nova Scotia so we bought her a round trip air ticket along with a bus tour. She sent me a postcard from Halifax which I kept. She must have felt close to the old country there. She was a different, more contented person after that trip. Places you long to visit possibly do that to you. I searched for that song and what appeared? The sheet music for printing!
For a sad lyric, my pick is the line from "Jeannie with the Light Brown Hair" - sighing like the night wind and sobbing like the rain, waiting for the loved one who comes not again. I get teary-eyed just typing it.
Joan Baez was one of a few female musicians along with Mama Cass, Joni Mitchell and Mary Travers whose voices I tried to imitate back in the day, and later, Sandy Denny. I liked to play some of each of their songs when I first learned to play guitar but I always hoped to learn the harp. I used to listen to Enya but I swung way off to a punk rock period and away from folk for a while. I'm all over the map. I'm not familiar with the other Gaelic folk singers. I like the sound of the Gaelic language. I'll look for those other artists. Thanks, S.
Beautiful, Calvert! Thanks for that. I'll be dabbing at my eyes all day long.
Segnes, I love Maddy Prior. How good to see that name again. Steeleye Span was a favorite of mine when my older kids were young.
Have you ever listened to Kate Rusby? Her music is sort of unique. Some people really like it, some don't.
I also like Fiona Apple, Mazzy Star and Norah Jones. Do you like any of them?
My favorite female singer is Victoria de Los Angeles, and my favorite piece by her is Bailero. Have you ever heard it? I think you would like it very much.
Fran, my favorite Canadian folk singer is Stan Rogers. He wrote a lot of good music about life in Nova Scotia. I think you would like his song The Jeannie C. He also wrote beautiful songs about getting older and being left behind by life. The field behind the plow, Lies, Sailor's rest, Lock keeper, The Last Watch all come to mind. I'd love to know what you think of them. He wrote a lot of jolly songs too. He has a rich, baritone voice that was once described as like 'taking a bath in warm milk' to listen to.
I'll check him out and give you some feedback, Kitty. Thanks! I still owe you a reference for a talk on getting energy supplies to third world countries but I'm not sure how to share a link when they make havoc for our host website. I'll have to share whenever we meet on a Mark Steyn cruise. Just so you know I'm not getting forgetful:)
I know you're not forgetful. Your comments are too interesting for that. I hope someday I can go on a Steyn cruise. For now I'm grateful I can afford my membership here.
I'm something of a musical philistine, K.: I've been told that I like nothing in which the melody line doesn't come from the drums. It wasn't praise. But I do love Steeleye Span: got everything they released within the month on vinyl. I was going to suggest "The blackleg miner" to the boss-man on the basis that nobody's going to work right now, and anybody who does is reviled, but thought that I'd better not lest I be taken for a trades unionist. The other singers you name are new to me, but you've given me a splendid list to chase up and listen to and I shall give it every priority. Many thanks.
Thanks, F. Move in a little closer, baby. I fear that my terrible prose has got me into trouble again, though. Eithne Bhraonáin trades as "Enya". Yeah, you can get enough of that. Punk rock, then? Any recommendations?
My primary fallbacks are Steeleye Span, George Thorogood, the early Stones, some Kristofferson, a little Great Big Sea, a dash of Lindisfarne, a jigger of Arlo Guthrie and lots of Dylan, but sometimes I introduce a little of what my beloved refers to as music, just by way of leavening. Unwholesome diet, I've been told.
Well, I can tell already, if not months earlier (you had me at Warren Zevon) we could blast through a two-week Mark Steyn cruise chatting about songs and bands to the exclusion of other common interests, S. What I heard was one way to get a sense of someone's musical tastes is to ask what was in their CD player in your car at that precise moment. Now they don't sell cars with CD players which is why I opted not to get a new car when mine hit 150K miles and will run mine into the ground. I didn't like all the super duper new features either. I'm getting old and set in my familiar ways so I like what I'm used to when driving, especially as there's so much in doubt going on outside my car. I love The Ramones. I heard them in a restaurant that cleared out the diners for a night in Arlington, Virginia. I'll probably have to say that room was definitively the most energy-filled room I ever experienced in my entire life. I never saw a room full of concert goers dancing on table tops. If you hear of a punk rock band that beats them, I'd like to hear about them.
I decided that I've got to go on at least one someday, to see how I like it, Kitty. I'm keeping a positive outlook.
I love The blackleg miner. I used to sing the Saucy Sailor song to my oldest son when he was going to sleep at night.
Zevon, right, F. Great tracks, some with an appropriately unfinished feel, and sadly all too few. Like your thinking: a car is basically a mounting for a CD player. Why hadn't I realised that before? The Ramones: absolutely with you. Some of their numbers put me in mind of early Alice Cooper (love that stuff - "I want to be elected" rings true to this day - and some of Status Quo, and some has a sound all of its own ... and it's all rock and roll. Can't fail to endear them in my house.
Time to reveal just how infra dig. I am. I recommend keeping "Radar love" and "Highway star" handy in the car, to play (loud) when driving through any serious accumulation of doubt going on outside. Also turn on the windscreen wipers in case the seas of doubt are not sufficiently parted by the sound alone.
How do you think the boss-man would go rendering "Another brick in the wall"? Think we should put it to him? The song's theme is certainly topical, more so now than when it was merely anti-establishment, and it would probably stand a bit of judicious jigging.
I'm going to have to earmark all yours and Kitty's comments. Lots to check out including the rest of the Daniel Defoe tale about the plague that Mark just wrapped up, and the new Laura's Links. Where do they get their energy? So much here to keep me busy during our own quarantine.
We have May 16th to look forward to for opening up the economic hatch here in New Mexico. That's twenty-four more days. Who knows what the economic condition of our state will look like them? It has already taken a hit. The oil industry funds forty percent of this state with monies from land leases, which perhaps they'll default on, and percentages of what's pumped. They stopped pumping so there we go. Talk about going batty. That happened already when this state elected this Dem Governor. She was all in for the Green New Deal right from AOC's first flight out of the bat cave. Her policies will give the country the first example of a laboratory socialist state experiment. It was already on its way. It's not going to be pretty when she is finished with us another three long years.
".... we cannot escape history. We ..... will be remembered in spite of ourselves. No personal significance, or insignificance, can spare one or another of us. The fiery trial through which we pass will light us down in honor or dishonor, to the latest generation." Abraham Lincoln, Annual Speech to Congress, December 1, 1862 (condensed for clarity)
True fact! Mark Steyn, you are the master of brevity and understatement. The ending of this show confirms your skill and sophistication.
Yet, the passion for anger, my new favorite Deadly Sin, quietly waits and seethes in my heart.
That fatal media episode drew the line neatly down the page of who's who and who stands where. On one side are the names of narcissistic climbers and bright light posture holders. On the other are the quietly angered who resolve to remember. Remember the episode and the offender's names.
There's a quote from MacBeth about the fantasy of wrongdoing escaping punishment:
".... that but this blow / Might be the be-all and the end-all here, / But here, upon this bank and shoal of time, / We'd jump the life to come." Shakespeare, MacBeth (full speech 1, 7, 1-29)
Someone of my clan will express anger with a loud, full-caps voice; someone will say more than a quiet, "I see."
Thanks again, Mark! Continued thumbs up for these broadcasts!
This was my favourite show so far.
Mark, your comment about the multiple bereavements was so poignant and true. And really, the same spirit of human evil motivates the Chinese communist murderers just as it did the Nazis. Your comparison is accurate, even though the situations are different.
It's Yom Hashoah in Israel. A very good time to remember who did what to whom, why there needs to be an Israel, and to say thanks to individuals such as yourself who remember and honour the dead, the victims of human barbarity then and now so gracefully and respectfully.
"... thanks to individuals such as yourself who remember and honour the dead, the victims of human barbarity then and now so gracefully and respectfully."
Well said. Laura. It's noteworthy that Mark is one of only a few conservative voices honouring the victims of the CCP's criminal conduct.
I think the "experts" have taken us all hostage. When our lives are put on the line, we're expected to trust the "experts" and not question them. The only thing the "experts" are good at is finding a way to get paid during a crisis. We need people who give a damn about getting a problem fixed instead of how they can milk the system for all its worth and to get everyone to worship their knowledge and wisdom like a god. I wish we could call out the "experts" when they're wrong and let them know they're replaceable but the damage may be done already and our faith in the educated is one that we all should evaluate now and forever. Knowledge is power and if you know the right knowledge and the right people who don't have that knowledge seem to be all you need to get by as an "expert".
I have a story to tell which goes to your point, B. Before it became politically incorrect for women to wear fur garments, there was a great demand for karacul (or qaraqul, if you prefer) pelts. which came from lambs slaughtered before they were three days old. Bloodlessly, to avoid spoiling the pelts, and then the carcasses are tossed over the shoulder into a bin. The lambed ewes, as I am told, cluster about the legs of the butcher, having trusted him with their lambs, and knowing whence cometh their help, or anyway fodder and water. In the matter of experts, we're much like those ewes, aren't we?
There's a case study on learnt helplessness in the modern welfare state to be written.
A tasteful comment on the Nova Scotia tragedy Mark. An option to 'help' that area of Nova Scoria is as a tourist - particularly good value if using American $ . If you like "Alt History" you can visit all the Henry Sinclair/Glooscap sites/Gold River/both Oak Islands, Cape Blomidon, buy excellent furniture in Bass River, check out Economy ( the town, not the lounge in Halifax, though that is worth it as well), experience evading being drowned by the Fundy tides (not for the faint or unfit). See Fort Edward - the most fought over fortification in Canada - or Fort Beausejour ( 7 years/French and Indian War) , or all the Annapolis Valley ( where campgrounds have wifi and some cater to massive RVs travelling in clubs) . There is all the Acadien aka "Cajun" history carved into the land and kitchens. And of course - eat your own weight in lobster and mussels !
What a lovely walk down memory lane this is! I've done a number of those things while taking my kids to visit family in Kingston, Hall's Harbor and Margaretsville. Somewhere along the Bay of Fundy when I was in my 30s and my oldest sons were early teens we ran out to meet the tide and raced back in as the water rushed around our legs, laughing and falling into the cold, clean, salty water the whole way back to shore. My grandparents are buried in the old Chebogue Cemetery near Yarmouth where I'll be burying my mother's ashes later this year.
My grandfather's cousin came home from the first world war a Colonel and petitioned the government to save the Citadel in Halifax as well as the old town clock. He put up a fuss insisting that Halifax needed a radio station and when the radio station was finally built he put together a radio show called Tales Told Under the Old Town Clock in which he told stories about Nova Scotia history. He also wrote a number of books based on those stories. So much of my family is buried up there, so much of my family history is up there, that when I have the chance to visit coming back to the states makes me feel like I'm leaving home.
The killer was gunned down in Enfield, N.S. The local bar well I think they'll have to change their name ("Shooters"!). It's Week Six at home, and it would take all of ten seconds for me to convince my wife to hop in the car and head right to Nova Scotia and stay there for about a month, even if we have to avoid all human contact.
Thank you.
It seems quite likely that the nervous glances during the next NHS clapathon this Thursday will coincide with the nervous glances of weeping North Koreans thanks to the efforts of a CCP-19 infected heart surgeon. No doubt both groups will appreciate the various ironies while being careful not to smile ironically.
Inadequate grief is an underlying condition, unfailingly fatal, in Pyonyang. You'll ululate and you'll like it.
Inadequate enthusiasm for NHS is only fatal to friendships here at the moment but give them time. Having seen how 'Our NHS' treats the elderly in non-plague times I plan to commit my body to the chilly waters of the Swale after enjoying a last bottle of Laphroaig when the time arrives.
No kidding Nigel. The NHS offed one of my sisters, my Mother and my Father.
Look up Gosport War Memorial Hospital. Just one example.
More staff than the Soviet Red Army, and more dead at their hands them too.
The Aztecs believed in ripping out the beating hearts of children to appease the gods, but only the British believe in sacrifice at the altar of Aneurin Bevan
"Soldiers of Allah", "Ambassadors of Death"--pains in the ass, if you ask me. But I do wonder if you have your audiotapes mixed up, Mark. Are you sure your Monday Mohammed wasn't just a Monday Moonbat with a phlegm condition? Pretty much any day of the week, you can hear them thanking corona for delivering us from Trump, with that Cuomo fellow (not Fredo, the other one) as the promised 12th Imam (or is that just a Shia thing?), soon to reveal himself as the one true Soldier of Albany. They failed with the Russia investigation, failed with Ukraine, they would fail with Moldova and Uzbekistan if they tried--President Trump said we'd grow tired of winning, but they never tire of losing--what good is a worldwide plague to the feverish Left if not to rid them of this turbulent beast? The imams and the iPad crowd agree on everything, as far as I can tell, except for the coffeehouses. A man-bunned metrosexual is nothing without his(?) macchiato. Not that he's(?) much to speak of with it.
Adam Schiff is having one of his four hundred staffers find out where Moldova is, right now.
How many conservatives are left now who even talk like this Josh? Very few and virtually none even on Fox News. There are few harsher critics of Islam than me but it's a far distant threat to freedom in the west compared to what is playing out every day in post constitutional America. Any mention of Hydroxychloroquine as an effective and safe treatment for this virus is under strict censorship now media wide - does this bother anyone on the right that these people are willing to let hundreds die needlessly to prevent Trump from receiving any credit for being right from the get-go on this drug? Not that I've seen. Fox News is under relentless attack for 'promoting' this ineffective and dangerous drug. Only recently has any Fox News host even begun to wonder if shutting down and ruining our economy and suspending our constitutional rights was the right approach. You can't put a price on human life! - Really? Last week at the end of his program Tucker ran the clip of Cuomo praising New Yorkers as "special" people. He then closed the broadcast with the juxtaposition of the clip showing the NY state Assembly rising in joyous applause after passage of the live birth full term abortion bill. Cuomo's clearly correct - they truly are special people. They will soon be running America.
Watching the hypocrisy and the lunacy of what is happening on the Left is as painful as it's ever been. If Trump wants up, they want down, if he wants in, they want out. It's always been like this but it's apparent now more than ever they mean to take this Chinese virus as their best chance to take us all down and out until there's nothing left of anything. What their duplicitous sickness aims to do is analogous to what this virus does: squeezes out the oxygen and shuts down the vital organs of the people.
Absolutely hilarious, J.!
"Last week at the end of his program Tucker ran the clip of Cuomo praising New Yorkers as "special" people. He then closed the broadcast with the juxtaposition of the clip showing the NY state Assembly rising in joyous applause after passage of the live birth full term abortion bill."
RAC, I must've missed that show, so thank you for pointing this out. Along with Mark, Tucker Carlson is one of the most important voices on the right.
Mark, I love these audio Mark Steyn Shows, but would it be possible to have the odd Mark's Mailbox?
I'm quite interested to hear opinions about why Australia is registering such a low death toll from WuFlu. The amount of Chinese ambassadors in cities like Sydney is high and the living arrangements in the Meriton tower landscapes must be similar to those in cities experiencing massive rates of infection. My personal hypothesis is that the strain circulating here is either less virulent or primarily asymptomatic - or that it cannot thrive in the relatively warm and dry conditions of a subtropical autumn. Anyone care to share?
Good question, Damien.
It looks like seasonality might have a big impact on both the virus (reduced transmission - and maybe virulence) and the host (in terms of immunity - Vitamin D). And our relatively low-density living may have been a big advantage.
We were also *very* aggressive with mandatory isolation for 14 days of ALL incoming travellers (notwithstanding the Ruby Princess mess), this being the biggest source of infections. Our social distancing etc has probably been comparable with other countries.
Was the community incidence very low in January, so that it never really got going? I recently spoke with a smart person who has an interesting theory: The bush fires deterred overseas visitors/ tourists to Australia (and NZ), and also restricted a lot of the normal activities of locals (often by choice) - even beyond those areas directly affected by fires. So both importation and community transmission may have been low for this reason. Even the pervasive heat and poor air quality - intolerable on some days - might have destroyed any virus hanging around the place.
Listening to "Red Dan" Andrews in Victoria applauding himself - and justifying his dictatorial inclinations - is quite nauseating: I suspect we have been lucky (rather than effective).
PS. A century ago, deaths due to the Spanish flu were low in Australia compared with the rest of the world.
PPS. Why are Covid deaths in Eastern Europe generally low compared with the other side of the continent?
Any hope that the numbers are honest will be, sooner or later, crushed.
I heard Arlene Saunders sing the role of Minnie in Puccini's masterpiece, Il Fanciulla del West (the very first spaghetti western) at Covent Garden. I'm not sure when, but it could easily have been 40 years ago. She made a great impression.
A recent MSC comment thread (via "Tales") included an observation that - compared to the era of the Great Plague - our decadent culture is "fearful" and "outraged" at the prospect of any mortality risk. Others have noted that death (including death during childhood) was a routine feature of life in times past, and that we need to toughen up.
An alternative view of our collective disposition - espoused by Nassim Nicholas Taleb - is that advanced societies are intolerant of deprivation (as opposed to death - hence the apparent indifference to the latter): "Wealth brings moral degeneracy".
The mortality stats for various causes of death have often been cited in recent weeks. This raises the question: if - in the case of Covid - we "let-it-rip" (as many suggest), why not allow chronic diseases to "play out" in (say) the over-50s? The cost savings for ageing populations across the Anglosphere would be massive using this approach with respect to cancer and cardiovascular disease etc.
If we take a part-and-parcel position for a communicable disease, is there a good reason why we shouldn't allow diseases in general to take their course?
Hi Kate
The first reason I can think of is that Covid infection consequences have a ripple effect on people and the economy, while the chronic stuff and cancer, heart disease etc. are confined to the victim's circle of family and care. I did enjoy "Soylent Green" at the time of release, I thought it had some really good ideas, but should only be implemented if me and my circle of friends were in charge!
Best Regards.
Al Man from CA
No, not really. The idea of allowing the old, the poor, the feeble, and the unproductive to simply wither away and die (whilst guiding, in the name of mercy and compassion, the otherwise uncooperative toward the exit) offers a rational and straightforward solution to a great many of our most intractable and longstanding social and economic problems. So simple and enticing is this idea that God rather unhelpfully chose to deliver unto us Wisdom that cautions against its widespread acceptance and implementation.
The points which you make are as persuasive as ever, K. It is important not to take the wrong message from them. You ask, rhetorically: "If we take a part-and-parcel position for a communicable disease, is there a good reason why we shouldn't allow diseases in general to take their course?" The indicated answer is naturally not to imply that the West should commit seppuku willy-nilly every time something lethal for which there is no vaccine or allopathic treatment does the rounds. We now have treatments for AIDS, for instance, 'though condoms still stand in for vaccination. For a while, there was no treatment for it, and we soldiered on instead of imprisoning ourselves and suspending elective surgery, effectively bankrupting the very institutions which would be needed to treat AIDS. The necessary treatments were achieved by investing resources in their development, instead of burning them off by keeping everybody away from work. I know from your previous posts that you'd agree that it is as important to take effective measures as it is to take any measures at all. Being creatures of narrow perspective, there are those of us who are concerned that those measures should be affordable as well as effective, and who are concerned that the cost of many of the measures being taken in response to this nasty little party-piece (pun intended) are unaffordable and are insufficiently appreciated. I'm one of those.
None of that is to contradict what I take to be your view that any argument to "toughen-up" and do nothing more has little to support it. I agree entirely. Happily, I don't think that anybody on these boards takes that position. I am however sympathetic with those who deplore the passage of the spirit which saw the West soldier on through other crises in the past. In that we may differ, but it would surprise me.
Anyway, we need to be manufacturing our own medicines and medical paraphernalia, and that won't happen if everybody is compelled to work from home. I'd be taken altogether aback if there were any debate about that. Well, particularly since Mr Sanders, Mrs Pelosi and the Australian Greens don't appear to be particularly well represented in this forum. (All right, I'm not funny, and I should leave the humorous sallies to my betters...)
Thanks, Al. Yes, it's the issue of the economy that's the difference between the pre-Covid concern for, say, individual cancer patients (and the societal expectation of access to high quality medical care to improve survival) versus the indifference on display when large numbers of such people fall prey to Covid. Hence the very common sentiment on Twitter: "Sure, it's sad that she died (eg. a 50 year old with history of breast cancer) but she had a co-existing condition. She actually died •with• Covid, not from Covid."
As someone noted (paraphrasing): it's ironic that conservatives who go hysterical about the imaginary "socialist death panel" boogeyman are currently the same ones engaging in a cost-benefit analysis of lives saved. It's very possible that the post-corona world will see a major shift in healthcare to a far more rationed framework - ushered in by conservatives!
Indeed. Mark noted a few episodes ago that conservatives are "playing to caricature" in their apparent eagerness to "push granny off a cliff". (Actually, there's an eagerness to push 50 year old hypertensives off a cliff, based on many of the conservative comments about Covid deaths.) I have to admit being unaware of the caricature until recently... therefore a huge double-take.
It's often the same people doing the courage-in-the-face-of-death shtick, when's there's absolutely no risk to the vast majority of us (ie. the >99% who are merely transmitting the disease, with either mild-to-no symptoms). Clearly they missed the slow-the-spread memo.
(As a related aside, note the acceleration of Canada's healthcare "choice" of MAID, aimed at those you mentioned.)
Regarding Medical Assistance in Dying (MAID), the Supreme Court of Canada struck down the Criminal Code provision against assisted suicide on the grounds that it was unconstitutional. Why? Because it denied a person's right to life. That's right. Denying assistance to hasten death denies a person's right to life. Brilliant!
Thanks for the reply, S - although it's crucial to note that there is no equivalence whatsoever with AIDS, which was rapidly identified in the West as sexually-transmitted amongst promiscuous persons engaging in certain high-risk contact (hence the focus on bathhouses - which Fauci dithered on closing) and persons with a history of intra-venous drug use/ needle-sharing, as well as those receiving (HIV-infected) blood transfusions. The "general population" was neither spreading it around nor contracting it. And healthcare workers wore gloves - not respirators/ Hazmat suits.
As for Covid and your comment - "there are those of us who are concerned that those measures should be affordable as well as effective" - I couldn't agree more, and will continue my annoying reminder to all that preventative action was the best strategy, both in terms of affordability and effectiveness vis-a-vis Taiwan, HK, South Korea etc, where there was no curve to flatten.
SARS-1 was in 2003.
SARS-2 started in January.
SARS-3... ? Nah, it will just be another "bad flu" (blah blah) so presumably we'll be as unprepared next time.
If we're going to lament the failure of expertise, we should be directing criticism at the absence of proactive measures for a "known known" risk, rather than the flawed, last-minute, worst-case-scenario reactive measures. What good is the most lavishly-funded military in the world if you can't have not-made-in-China throat swab tests ready to go? Note that Hong Kong - which has no army - had extended, economically damaging anti-CCP protests through to late 2019, and still managed to contain what we couldn't.
Locking everyone up under house arrest because we don't know who or how many have the infection and the country might face multiple Wuhans (as Europe now has) is basically a "third world" response, for want of a better term - and few are prepared to admit it. And we have paid a huge price.
The proposed "reopening-the-economy" measures are precisely those used for ensuring it doesn't close in the first place (as in Taiwan etc) ie. test-trace-isolate, albeit in rearguard fashion once community transmission is widespread. As per comments weeks ago, reliable serology tests will be the real game-changer to facilitate re-entry into the workforce etc.
PS. Note that we have it exactly backwards with our blind, blanket over-reaction, because the people who need to be quarantined are those spreading disease around - *not* those at risk of dying from it.
Thanks, K. Persuasive as ever.
My experience with AIDS was in Africa, of course.
I hasten to add that my experience with AIDS was professional rather than personal. Much, much rather. Little AIDS story which might interest: according to newspaper reports, widespread feline AIDS was discovered among the lions in South Africa's Kruger national game reserve, a huge area on the north-eastern margin of the country. Turned out evidently that, while the countries to the north despised South Africa and harboured guerrillas, their AIDS-infested citizens were eager to immigrate there illegally to earn more money than in their communist paradises, and were being consumed by lions which had failed to attend the social distancing seminars, with unfortunate consequences for the lions and the illegal migrants alike, Stay cheerful - if you can!
Brilliant recording of the Brit wanker copper of the day.
I was stopped by a Met wanker copper two years ago and stupidly didn't record his authoritarian and abusive remarks. I tried to make the case in traffic court that it was a class warfare indicent but in the he said/you said, the copper in the UK always wins. Next time, I'll record it.
Thank you for your wit and honest heartache at these deaths due to the WuFlu...
As I began to listen to this episode I had to stop and stand during the siren that sounds here in Israel to commemorate the Holocaust memorial... and in fact I was supposed to attend this years March of the Living in Auschwitz and Bergen Belson... so Gitta's story struck a chord...
thank you for giving such depth to their names and their lives... may all their memories be a blessing
Nice to see your comments Deb ,it was an important episode with salient memories of our collective history of loss and learning, we just hope like hell that some lessons will be learned by those in power from this once in a century catastrophe, I feel the ordinary good people will do everything they can to make sure those in power will not forget how this happened
One of the most mystifying things about this constant desire to trust the "experts" is that no-one ever seems to question the credentials of these self-defined experts. It's possible that there is somebody in a virology institute in Wuhan who knows something about this virus, although it's also rather likely that that somebody was cremated months ago. The people who have sprung up as government advisers on this matter really have no better idea about it than anyone else. Six months ago, they had never even heard of this virus.
Here in Britain, Government ministers appear to be in thrall to some character called Neal Ferguson, who came to fame by producing a computer model which predicted the bleakest possible outlook. The fact that Ferguson's model was completely useless should not be a surprise; any attempt to forecast the future by putting essentially random numbers into a computer is doomed to failure. What ought to be a surprise, but isn't, is that Ferguson was taken seriously, not only before his computations were inevitably exposed as meaningless, but afterwards, too.
Why did anyone in Whitehall imagine that Ferguson was sufficiently in command of the facts to have anything useful to say? How could he be? I wonder if Ferguson would be willing to show the software he ran and the input he used for his model. My guess is that he'd go all Michael Mann over any request to check his homework. We have seen his kind before, many times, documented over several decades in the UK by the late Christopher Booker.
We have had a salmonella panic, a listeria scare, the Madness of Cows, foot and mouth craziness and, of course, that sky-is-falling-down climate stuff... The difference this time is that the problem is genuine - but the "science" is as fake as ever. Yet that "Let me through - I'm a doctor" thing seems to work, every time.
Not to mention that all of his previous predictions have been wildly wrong. For SARS, HINI, Bird Flu, Mad Cow Disease and (not him I think, but his college) Foot and Mouth, where millions of healthy animals in Britain were needlessly slaughtered.
How can someone be so shockingly wrong so often and still be listened to as some sort of guru?
"The people who have sprung up as government advisers on this matter really have no better idea about it than anyone else."
Actually, Fauci (who went from "minuscule" to "millions" within a week) presumably has knowledge of the coronavirus research undertaken at the Wuhan laboratory, as it was funded by him (via the NIH). He dodged a question on it at a press briefing the other day, so it would be good to see a "journalist" drill down on it.
I recall the time when some genius in the British Ministry of Defence managed to cough up many millions for six Chinook helicopters which were incapable of flying in anything other than perfect weather conditions. It's not as if it ever rains in Britain, after all. That bureaucrat probably ended up in the House of Lords. These people are limpets.
In an environment where we are supposed to pretend that the NHS is doing a great job, anything is possible. The record of the NHS on China virus testing is not just unbelievably bad, but wilfully so. Influential segments of society would prefer that people die, than that private health companies contribute to the solution. Ferguson spouts nonsense, but it's Government-approved nonsense.
I suppose there comes a time when ministers are so committed to their propaganda that they can't change course. I don't believe that David Cameron was ever sincere about his "global warming" pronouncements (he is a moron, but not that much of a moron), but, once you've gone to Greenland, or wherever it was, for a photo-shoot with huskies, you're a bit stuck with that whole green thing.
Likewise with Ferguson. If some minister had had the guts to tell him, "Come off it, Ferguson! You're having a giraffe," we'd probably never have heard of the man again. As it is, he's virtually dictating government policy.
I'm not sure that British Government policy re Foot and Mouth disease can be laid at Ferguson's (or Imperial College's) door. The policy has long been (see e.g. the 1967-68 outbreak, as well as in 2001 and 2007) to eliminate by slaughter of an entire herd where there is at least one reactor, rather than to vaccinate - i.e. so that the country should be FMD-free, rather than one in which it is allowed to become endemic.
Well exactly, Owen: Ferguson only "dictates" Government policy because the Government has decided to let him. It might just as easily have opted to follow the Oxford study which predicted far fewer deaths. The problem is that it couldn't know which was the more likely to be correct, and presumably anticipated that it would be judged more harshly for under-preparedness rather than over-preparedness. They know, too, that everyone, not least the BBC, will be "experts" after the event.
(Re BSE and nvCJD, Government probably waited too long before accepting the "expert" warning of transmissibility via infected meat to humans, for fear of trashing the UK beef industry unnecessarily; it duly ended up trashed for a decade.)
I entirely agree with your point that NHS-worship has prevented recourse to private-sector resources; this is doctrinaire stupidity.
"Ferguson only 'dictates' Government policy because the Government has decided to let him." Well said, S. That's the point, isn't it? And your last clause is the bottom line, as far as I'm concerned.
They've done it!
Fifty years ago this month the ongoing Dr. Who show was really called "The ambassadors of death"! And possibly a first, reality is MORE terrifying than Dr. Who.
Since the IRS can pay money straight into bank accounts, why did the banks have to be involved?
We have seen the Shake Shack shakedown - what else have we missed?
We don't need banks any more. Bank of America hates its customers and wants them to stop using branches. They create money from nothing thanks to fractional reserve banking and the Fed gives them free cash which they sell to us at 25% for credit cards.
That's funny, the banks say they don't need you!
"War is far too important to be left to generals"
In the immortal words of Noel Coward in the original "The Italian Job", "Camp Freddy, everyone in the world is bent".
I also note that Tony Heller loves to highlight President Eisenhower's farewell address, where many in the press quote his warning about the military-industrial complex. What they forget is that he also warned against a scientific-government complex taking over policy decisions. Wise words to remember.
yes! Liberals are very selective when they quote that speech.
Is every Imam just born with an extremely loud and jarring voice?? And I thought Joy Behar was unbearable...
With sincerest apologies to the ladies, Dr Fauci and the '23 year old co-ed with 48" knockers' Tinder bit had to be the highlight of today's show.
I noticed that also! And here I naively thought that Mark was a back man (as per the Carly Simon elevator anecdote). But yah 48 inches are certainly most impressive highlights.
Noting your other comment perhaps I should've said the comedic highlight. The double and family wide deaths are horrific. We had a small hint of what it could be like when a much loved local fellow died recently of an 'underlying condition' and his funeral was limited to ten mourners. So difficult to make your farewells without the rituals. In some ways I'm glad I don't have grandparents to worry about any more.
thanks so much for these ongoing audio shows... they are wonderful... well produced, entertaining, just what I need for my work from home day in the basement... I've come to really look forward to them!
Me too! I love them.