Welcome to the Tuesday edition of The Mark Steyn Show, just ahead of tonight's first presidential debate, in which Mark covers the bloodlust on the streets, attempts to make sense of ChiCom-19's "grim milestone", and ODs on Vitamin D. There's another edition of The Hundred Years Ago Show, in which Warren Harding has a brush with death; plus a new political party in the United Kingdom, and why an old political party in Quebec is well past its sell-by date - and Steyn takes his time undressing the appeal of a certain Frenchwoman.
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For that brave band who prefer Mark in visual formats, he'll be joining Tucker Carlson live across America tomorrow, Post-Debate Wednesday, live at 8pm Eastern/5pm Pacific.
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56 Member Comments
Yes please Mark we're waiting for your English version! I actually was impressed by the mood setting minimalistic music employed by a certain sexy Frenchwoman Juliette!
I'll listen to Juliette Greco's music for the rest of the evening. May she rest in peace. I missed reading the news of her death last week, and I am even late listening to your post, but I am glad I backtracked through my email to catch up. I do enjoy listening to the obituaries in these shows even though they occasionally sadden me. Mine isn't a morbid interest, but it's that the show's obituaries are edifying and, dare I say it, often entertaining.
Your comments about Drs Witless and Bollocks reminded me of the despair I feel concerning the current state of science. It has devolved into a kind of Sciency Religion of Scientism. With know-nothing reporters like Chris Wallace and the entire White House press corps merely pitting one "expert" against another (never mind that they frequently contradict not only each other but themselves), I can see how the Gell-Mann effect has become so prevalent. As a scientist myself, I can attest to its validity. I wonder if you care to comment about the fracas between Dr Atlas and Drs Renfield and Fonzi (err, I mean Redfield and Fauci). I was delighted that Atlas told the reporters to actually look up the science for themselves. What a concept!
The disparity in the numbers of covid cases doesn't make me wonder if the virus only affects whites or affects them disproportionally. There have been complaints by leftists that covid affects 'communities of color' more than those of a whiter hue.
The disparity in the numbers of covid cases by country makes me wonder if the numbers are purposefully being inflated for the purpose of manipulating the general population. Is there a disparity in the numbers of whites and blacks getting covid in the U.S.? If only whites were dying of covid in the U.S. I might consider whether the virus had been engineered to kill whites, but the only person I know of personally who has died of covid was a black family friend who was in his late 60s and already sick with some other compromising illnesses. I'm a visiting nurse. So far, I've had zero covid positive let alone covid sick patients.
From where I stand this whole covid situation seems to have been purposely over blown to destroy western economies.
Political correctness has kept us in the dark about the infection/fatality rates between races. A lot of important information has been kept from public view.
In fact, the fatality rate among blacks was significantly higher than for whites in the early virulent stages of the US pandemic in states like NY, NJ and MI. It has been speculated that in addition to the high rates of comorbidity for African-Americans (e.g. type II diabetes), they are especially susceptible to the disease because of their prevalence for low levels of vitamin D (too much melanin). This vitamin is extremely useful in reducing the risk of infection and hospitalization from covid-19, so Mark's prescription of going outside for a couple of hours a day makes a lot of sense. And house arrest lockdowns may in fact be lethal.
The interesting thing now is that the US and most of the EU are likely close to having achieved a level of herd immunity, probably from a combination of antibodies, cross immunity from previous colds (other coronaviruses) and T-cell immunity. Treatments have got a lot better, which has reduced fatality rates among the infected. In addition, I suspect that the virus has mutated so that it is now more infectious but less virulent. That's what successful viruses do. You don't want to kill your host, you just want he/she/xhe to successfully spread copies of the virus to others. It's evolution in action.
Great summary. Vitamin D deficiency is also a major problem for nursing home residents (often on supplements). And prisoners, as Mark noted.
There's also increased mortality among non-whites after adjusting for Vit D/ comorbidities and socio-economic factors - ie. consistent with a genetic issue and specific clinical phenotype of disease: the "novel" hyper-thrombotic state (versus classic ARDS picture). Ventilators were of little benefit to patients having major pulmonary emboli and strokes. (Yet a Public Health England report on "BAME" deaths from Covid found that racism may have been a factor.)
Also, the viral load in test samples has been lower since April/ May - consistent with "less sick" patients across the spectrum of severity. This also corresponds with the start of indiscriminate "mass testing" and the adjustment of PCR cycle thresholds - by the CDC and NHS etc - to generate lots of positive results among those who were no longer infectious: an absolute scandal.
Cross immunity is likely to be a major reason why mortality rates in East Asia are so low - as burned-out SARS may have been circulating in the region - along with mask use, lower obesity rates, better dietary Vit D etc.
PS. America's *top* immunologist contradicting the science on T cell immunity is in keeping with him being wrong about everything. Is it the election, the vaccine - or both?
I remember you mentioned the benefits of sunlight many months ago, Kitty!
The excess death count (all cause) is the most robust metric, and 280,000 Americans more than usual died in the six month period mid-March to mid-September. Overall, the deaths attributed to Covid correspond closely in location/ time with the epidemic curves of distinct outbreaks. But 90,000 deaths - ie. a third of excess deaths so far - were *not* due to Covid. Which is massive. And the continued impact will be seen for years (eg. cancers).
The White House (not CDC) has overseen the data since July, and Scott Atlas has quoted the official numbers and dispelled the myth of "6 percent", whereby (according to the bizarre politicisation of the disease) having pre-existing hypertension and a BMI of 35 means a person with an acute viral illness died "with Covid" - not "from Covid".
But the main purpose - beyond killing people - is to destroy western economies, as you say. The CCP probably couldn't believe a two week quarantine turned into 6 months.
The political correctness applies to metabolic syndrome in general (regardless of race), which is a "big" issue in the US/ West. It was a major risk factor with Swine flu, too - before the "of" and "from" differentiation.
This thread ties together pieces of a puzzle that create a sensible whole. After the Civil War many freed blacks moved to northern cities to find work and acceptance in the general community with an unfortunate side effect. Winter kept those blacks, used to being out in the sun in all seasons in the south, inside their homes and businesses. Subsequent to this children growing up in places like Chicago and Rochester, New York began to develop rickets and other bone deformities. Examination of these unfortunate people and their dietary habits and blood work done over time illustrated to the medical community that vitamin D is necessary for healthy bone development. The result was that vitamin D has been introduced into milk which provides most of the calcium, phosphorous and magnesium necessary for building bone matrix. I learned this in nursing school where we were made to read thousands of pages of research forcing us to back up practice with reason. I have a disheartening suspicion that these sorts of exercises in critical thinking are completely absent from public school and university education.
FYI - one of the early media reports: "Autopsies find Black COVID-19 victims' lungs filled with blood clots: Discovery might be why African Americans suffer more from COVID-19, study says" - by Nancy Clanton, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, May 29, 2020.
So despite a clear biological basis for the racial difference in lethality (after accounting for other variables), woke doctors in the US have insisted that "white supremacy" - along with "medical racism" - is a greater threat to Black lives than spreading Covid-19 at protests. It's virtue signalling unto death (of others)!
But this information also dispels the myth that covid has struck western developed nations more than countries in Africa, the middle east, south east Asia, India, more than Mexico, central and south America. How is it that this disease has disparately affected western developed nations if people of African descent are more likely to be affected by it?
I can draw one of two conclusions. The first being that there is no means of tracking the disease in any but western countries and that the disease is wiping out people in Africa, south east Asia, India, the middle east, Mexico and central and south America. This is highly unlikely because people would notice the markedly higher death rates in those areas. The news would be making a big deal about it and probably blaming America in the process.
The other conclusion is that morbidity and mortality from covid were greatly exaggerated in a bid to destroy the economy of the United States. This would explain the approach Sweden took and their relative success at dealing with covid. Sure, Boris Johnson got sick, or at least that's what everyone's been told. President Trump got sick, but so far he seems to be doing fine. Interestingly enough while covid deaths were going through the roof the death rates for other diseases were lower than usual. This doesn't include the times when people died in accidents but were deemed covid positive then listed as having died of covid.
I wish to God that the whole truth about this mess were exposed and made public. It's like the covert destruction caused by traitors in the FBI and the 'intelligence' community. (If they were intelligent they'd have some moral standards.) The rest of us are working hard and paying taxes off of which the parasites in the deep state who are plotting our destruction are living. It's all wrong.
Crazy notion: here's a number whose lyrics remain topical as they stand. The challenge would be to render Alice Cooper's screaming as song. Might be fun, might not be possible. I've transcribed the lyrics in the closest equivalent of SBE that I could accomplish, but that might not have pleased Cooper.
I'm your top prime cut of meat, I'm your choice;
I want to be elected.
I'm your Yankee doodle dandy in a gold Rolls Royce:
I want to be elected.
Kids want a saviour, don't need a fake:
I want to be elected.
We're all going to rock to the rules that I make.
I want to be elected, elected, elected.
Good evening Mr and Mrs America and all ships at sea.
The candidate is taking the country by storm.
I never lied to you; I've always been cool:
I want to be elected.
I've got to get the vote, and I told you about school:
I want to be elected, elected, elected.
Hallelujah, I want to be selected.
Everyone in the United States of America:
We're going to win this one, take the country by storm;
We're going to be elected.
You and me together, young and strong,
We're going to be elected, elected, elected,
Respected, selected, call collected.
I want to be elected, elected.
[Intoning] And if I am elected
I promise the formation of a new party,
A third party, the Wild Party!
I know we have problems
We got problems right here in Central City
We have problems on the North, South, East and West:
New York City, Saint Louis, Philadelphia, Los Angeles, Detroit, Chicago.
Everybody has problems,
And personally, I don't care.
I think I heard the first version of that song about a thousand incarnations ago, but I'm only now beginning to think that the strange fellow knows something. (Actually, that's not altogether true, but he is uncontroversially strange.)
Re Telemundo comments: If most Telemundo viewers don't speak English fluently, then the 66% number reflects who won the visuals. The media have been saying for 60 years that the visuals are the most important thing.
Enjoyed Chinaman (for the second or third time) and God Save the 'Tis of Thee!
Ah, yes, the Bloc Québecois - I remember when that was a thing. Maybe you have to be over 60 like me to recall those tense days of 'Will they, won't they?' referenda. It seems pretty silly now, especially the hysterical 'We love you!!!' rallies in the rest of the country to try to cajole Quebecers to stay. We didn't know back then that Quebec was a Failure To Launch child, destined to remain forever in Mom and Dad's boring bungalow instead of striking out on its own.
I'm neither over 60 nor Canadian but I certainly remember.
"Chinaman" is another Steyn instant classic. And it reaffirms my belief that Mark is the best off-key singer on the globe.
Knock it off with the "off-key " malarkey!!! No one with that much knowledge of music theory is off-key!
I prefer to think of Mark's singing as comparable to Rex Harrison's. Harrison didn't really have what we would commonly call "a singing voice", yet an acknowledged expert on the subject, Louis Armstrong, once told him, "You were right down the middle of every note!"
Rex was more of a rapper. :-)
If one was a conspiracy type, one might conclude that the disparity in lethality between the four races is that COVID 19 is an unfinished race-specific biological agent that snuck out - or any number of theories. Crazy people might also speculate this is the 'secret' reason behind irrational lockdowns. Complete tin foil hat types might say you should get a fertility test a month or so after you tested positive.
I like Laurence Fox, he was good in 'Lewis' and as Lord Palmerston in 'Victoria' and I also enjoy some of his music even though he cannot sing a note. I think his politics are basically fairly liberal and hearken back to the old days when the left wing in Britain and elsewhere had a conservative component to it that was quite patriotic, not ashamed of its country or its traditions and not based upon 'identity' politics. Laurence was essentially trying to articulate that viewpoint on the BBC regarding Meghan Markle when he was attacked for being a privileged white man by a 'race and ethnicity researcher' who just happened to be in the audience. Good luck to him with his political party but, as he has said, he's probably completely scuppered his acting career by making the move. A shame as he looks so quintessentially English, as if he's just stepped out from the canvas of a 16th century portrait, and that's a rare look now.
When you've had to put up with social distancing going on seven months, the French imperative words for undressing one put to song sure sounds empowering, mmmmm mmmmmm.
Punctuation is everything... A few commas and you have an entirely different 1990's hit song by the Canadian group Crash Test Dummies "Mmm, mmm, mmm, mmm ". Half the disc, "God Shuffled His Feet" is really quite good.
It kills me how imaginative some people are and how they can put together ordinary words, compose the melody to fit, or the other way, then add all the voices and accents with the various instruments as if they've always just been out or in there. To make a beautiful something special for our enjoyment and to ease our tensions is a gift. Most days I feel I'm just barely holding things together and get excited when I can outsmart my rabbits. It's good there are still creative people full of energy for those of us who are just mmmmm mmmming along off into the sunset.
I love that disc. Brad Roberts has a lovely, resonant voice. The lyrics and the songs were lovely. Music was better in the late 80s and early 90s.
I was taught in nursing school that the music you listen to can change your brain chemistry. An example of this is given in the book Shake Hands With the Devil by Romeo Dallaire. General Dallaire recounts how the propaganda against the Tutsis included songs constantly broadcast on radio stations in Rwanda calling Tutsis cockroaches and inciting people to eliminate them. Similarly,broadcast propaganda was used against the Jews to soften the idea in the general public that eliminating all the Jews was a benefit to society.
Consider the cop hating lyrics and music that many teens and young adults listen to today. It's no wonder there's so much violence in the U.S.
I wonder if anyone in the Carnegie Hall, during that not entirely spontaneous anti-British tantrum in 1920, wondered who Andrew Carnegie was and where he came from.
Oh he of the Johnstown flood...or am I confusing him with another Robber Baron? I give him full credit for all his accomplishments and the National Gallery (not to mention SEI CMM...for you REAL geeks) , one of the few positive influences on FDR. (Sorry, maybe I read too much Amity Schlaes)
Scotland?
Carnegie was only one of the members of the fishing club. He also built 2,509 libraries in towns all across America.
Which, last I checked, was part of Great Britain, which geographical fact Wee Nickie Krankie can't ever change. While Carnegie's philanthropic endowments in Britain mainly benefited his native Scotland, he also made generous charitable distributions in England, Wales and Ireland, as well as, I believe, Canada and Australia.
I remember a Carnegie Library in Vancouver - an impressive stone building with big pillars on a curved portico out front. It still stands today - it's a community center, and its location - the Downtown Eastside - is the poorest, slummiest part of Vancouver now.
Keep checking, les ecossais could join the EU in a luath Gaelic minute. Isn't Northern Ireland a part of Great Britain too? How's that Irish border Brexit deal coming along?
BTW, in 1920 when the crowd was so rude to the British, the Irish War of Independence was raging. In those days there were known to be a few Irish in New York.
Actually, the Scots would find it very difficult to join the EU. For a start they'd have to become independent of the UK first and then they'd have to negotiate accession. Having hypothetically cut themselves off from subsidy by the English taxpayer, they would be expected to stump up to subsidise Bulgaria and Romania. They would also be forced to join the Euro, with all that entails. While there are some Nats daft enough to vote for national suicide, I think there are enough negatives to put most people off. I'd be surprised if there is even an EU in existence, ten years from now.
And by the way, most Scots can't speak a word of Gaelic. In the 1901 census, out of twenty-five names on a Scottish census page, my great-grandmother was the only one who could speak Gaelic as well as English. Gaelic has only declined since then.
Oh and I don't need history lessons about Ireland, either. There was a reason I referred to the brouhaha in the Carnegie Hall as "not entirely spontaneous." You'd have to wonder why Irish-Americans would feel the need to pack out a commemoration of the Mayflower voyage.
There is a curious contradiction between the numbers China has claimed for Wuhan mortality and some of the images China saw fit to share with the rest of the world, round about last February. Weren't we being shown people in Wuhan supposedly keeling over in the street from the effects of the virus? And, if all it takes to diagnose the Wuhan virus is a common-or-garden Chinese Communist Party spy camera, what's taking Boris Johnson so long to come up with a foolproof testing system? Tony Blair turned the UK into the most snooped-on country in the West and Matt Hancock's frequent exhortations for everyone to go all Pavlik Morozov and snitch on their neighbours show that that kind of culture now has cross-party support.
Yep. (Short 'n ' (bitter) sweet.).....are nested parentheses only allowed in math classes?
I'll say it again: Best Steyn parody song yet. Any chance of a physical release of your Mark Steyn Show songs? Would sound great on vinyl.
Mark replies:
I'll think on that, Sean. We've pretty much got enough for an LP's worth.
I've been mispronouncing Taiwan all these years.
Have you ever done a song based on The Eye of the Tiger? I know there's a book but not the musical.
$15 download works for me!
That's a really good book too! As soon as I finish my annual Autumn/Winter tour through Lord of the Rings/Hobbit/Silmarrillion, I just need to buy Broadway Babies and I think I'll have the whole collection.
"Zip-a-Dee-Doo-Dah" is better!
Just to keep score, but after all the tough talk and tariffs, China's trade surplus with the U.S. widened sharply to USD 58.93 billion in August 2020 from USD 34.72 billion in the same month the previous year. We're losing.
As a Pilgrim descendant I have long ago put aside any hard feelings against the British and I am too big a person to point out that 100 years ago the rude crowd sang the lyrics of Let Freedom Ring, not My Country 'Tis of Thee, so I won't.
Mark: Stay safe; stay free.
God knows, we're trying...but the total number of us seems to be shrinking at an alarming rate.
Apparently Biden has refused an inspection for an earpiece as he wants to listen to these sorts of calming tunes during the debates.
In the military industrial complex America that I know, you'd wait until the debate and then jam the signal with an ear splitting screech!
Hoo-rah!!
What is the music you used for "The Franchise?" I actually met Isaac Asimov when he came years ago to talk to students in my class in Manhattan. He was engaging and approachable so I have nice memories of his visit.
Mark replies:
That's quite something, Yvonne. Glad he did not disappoint.
What is the music you used for "The Franchise?" I actually met Isaac Asimov when he came years ago to talk to students in my class in Manhattan. He was engaging and approachable so I have nice memories of his visit.
As to the music, I wanted something that captured the old-time ballyhoo of American electioneering, even as the story is a complete negation of that tradition. So I picked "Wintergreen for President" from Of Thee I Sing, the 1931 satirical operetta by George S Kaufman, Morrie Ryskind, George and Ira Gershwin. "Wintergreen" was George Gershwin's campaign theme for the eponymous presidential candidate. Our brief excerpt being instrumental, we don't hear Ira's short but unforgettable lyric:
Mark, If you have need of some more songs from 1920, I'm going through the Complete Lyrics of Irving Berlin this year and a couple of songs from 1920 might work in your "Hundred Years Ago" segment. One is about going to CUBA, written the week Prohibition went into effect in January 1920. It's amazing in the sense that Berlin's first wife died of a bug picked up in their honeymoon in Cuba in 1912, and Berlin was still a lonely bachelor in 1920, but he had the requisite division of memory cells to write this clever ditty:
I particularly like the triple rhyme of "Stellas....fella's...panatellas." or the interior rhyme of "plan a" and Havana.
(Verse) Not so far from here
There's a very lively atmosphere
Everybody's going there this year
And there's a reason;
The season opened last July
Ever since the USA went dry
Everybody's going there and I'm going too!
(Chorus)
I'm on my way to Cuba
That's where I'm going
Cuba, that's where I'll stay;
Cuba, where wine is flowing
And where dark eyed Stellas
Light their fella's panatellas
Cuba, where all is happy
Cuba, where all is gay!
Why don't you plan a wonderful trip
To Havana? hop on a ship
And I'll see you in C-U-B-A
Take a friend's advice;
Drinking in a cellar isn't nice!
Anybody who has got the price
Should be a Cuban
The second 1920 Irving Berlin tune I had in mind was a siren song best sold by Marilyn Monroe in "There's No Business Like Show Business" (1954) but it was a #2 hit in 1920. In Marilyn's case, the words of "After You Get What You Want..." might best be tacked to bedposts of Frank Sinatra or Bobby and Jack Kennedy or other Conquistadors of Miss M, but it was written in April 1920
"After You Get What You Want, You Don't Want It."
After you get what you want you don't want it
If I gave you the moon, you'd grow tired of it soon
You're like a baby, you want what you want when you want it
But after you are presented with what you want, you're discontented
You're always wishing and wanting for something
When you get what you want, you don't want what you get
And though I sit upon your knee, you'll grow tired of me
Cause after you get what you want
You don't want what you wanted at all
Changeable, you've got a changeable nature
Always always changing your mind
There's a longing in your eye hard to satisfy
And here's the reason why
Cause after you get what you want you don't want it
Baby I don't mean to make you blue but you need a talking to
Cause after you get what you want
You don't want what you wanted at all
I know you!
Hi Mark....I believe China's COVID death numbers....at least a lot more than the West's numbers....didn't even Rush announce on his show at about the end of August or early Sep that the CDC on its webpage had stated that COVID only deaths, not with co-morbidities, were 9,000 in the US, not 200,000....and I think even our 9,000 figure is highly suspect and overblown, as isn't it widely known US hospitals were citing COVID as cause of death in many cases when it had nothing to do with it, like when MA stated it had its first COVID infant death when in reality the baby was suffocated when someone rolled on top of it...aren't there also "alternative-type-sites" stories that say the US knew (Nov of last year) even before China knew that there was a pandemic in China and was warning its allies (but apparently not ourselves or the CDC)....in any case, China's 3/1,000,000 deaths is a lot more accurate than our numbers...
I had something pithy to say about China, and something droll to say about Biden. And then I heard Juliette Grèco sing "Déshabillez-moi".
I'm sorry, what were we talking about?
China, J. We should be, anyway. I'm glad that the boss-man is on the case. The song is most beguiling, of course, but maybe for the moment il faut rester bien habillé.
Glad you haven't fallen on your sense of humour!
Une merveilleuse chanteuse, oooh la la!