From "Vienna ‘New Year’s Baby’ Greeted First With Hate, Then Hearts" (NYT).
Many of the comments that filled the social media pages of Austrian media outlets that carried the picture of Asel’s family, released by the Vienna Hospital Association, also targeted the baby’s mother, whose smiling face was encircled by a bright pink head scarf.
“I’m hoping for a crib death,” wrote one user. “Deport the scum immediately,” read another posting to Heute’s Facebook page, it reported on Thursday.
Posts
88 comments:
“but the paper said they were being examined to see if they had broken laws against inciting hatred or against hate speech.”
German laws?
The ethnic group with the highest birth rate gets the first baby, once they're numerous enough.
Vienna is in Austria. They speak Austrian.
My mistake. Austria. Sound of Music and all that.
But Austria was annexed by Germany in the recent past.
Here’s the thing. Sure nasty things have been written about the new Austrian baby. But was there ever a vote by Austrians or Germans to open their borders. That’s a problem. My understanding is that Merkle and other top leaders just acted on their own. They suspended current law, didn’t enforce current law or issued executive orders.
German laws?
----------
Yep, David.
Yes, the joke was Austria vice Germany
...
Think consolidation, white man.
Who told you RH was white? You got skin-dar?
This deserves a BS Concern tag.
For decades, the NYT has been targeting innocent newborns for death -- including denying here that this "sweet girl" was even alive for the first nine months of her life. And so has almost the entire left and Democrat Party.
...also targeted the baby’s mother, whose smiling face was encircled by a bright pink head scarf.
Isn't the scarf fuschia?
The Viennese have been complaining about the "Third Invasion" all of this century. They weren't interested in becoming Muslim the first two times the opportunity presented itself, why should they celebrate this one? People from fucked up countries bring their fucked up culture with them. Among the German-speaking peoples, at least the Austrians have the good sense to know that they were able to live complete and happy lives without importing an underclass.
They're so cute until they hit puberty.
Sort of related. For years and years, the first baby of the new year was always born to a single mom with no father in sight. People complained about it and the newspaper changed its policy to only celebrate the first baby born to a married couple. True story. Now we have to wait a day or two before the first baby of the new year is declared.
It doesn't really matter if it's German or Austrian law anymore, because they're all EU. These no-longer-sovereign nations are now ruled by the EU's unelected corruptocrats and are subject to whatever policies the corruptocrats choose. Don't want to be a member? The EU will just hold repeated elections until they find one they can rig for the "correct" result.
And the couple from Fixer-Upper is being greeted by hate for the sonogram of their fifth baby. That's what social media is. Lots of Hate, less of other stuff. I don't know why people are still surprised
“A certain stereotype about Muslims has become increasingly common on social media,” Ms. Unterlechner said in a telephone interview from Vienna. “Whether refugees or those wearing head scarves, there is no differentiation, but anyone appearing to be Muslim is cast as an enemy of our culture.”
The rapes, truck/car attacks, knife attacks and beheadings tend to drive that stereotype. The welfare costs and failure to assimilate don't help. There are also those who interpret the Islamic faith as being anti-Christian (convert or die). Hating the child is inappropriate, but the larger issue is, well, complex.
Austria is benefitting from the strength of diversity.
The completely new dimension of an unbelievable wave of violent, hateful online commentary probably consisted of about three comments from the whole world.
Europe has failed. It is an example of what America should NOT do.
I was in Spain and discovered that many people hang their clothes out to dry. It looked like America in the 50s. Why?
Natgas is very expensive. So is electricity. Russia imports natgas to Europe. Putin controls the price. The whole Green movement has made electricity, oil and gas very expensive. No thank you. I like natgas dryers.
There was a movie a few years back shot in Spain starring Dennis Quaid. I can’t recall the name. Lots of car chases. Car chases in clown cars. Again, no thanks.
If one is rich like George Clooney, I suppose Europe is great.
Just for the record, having been to Poland recently, it may be observed there that white people can live happy and productive lives surrounded by other white people.
"Fuchsia is a vivid purplish red color."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fuchsia_(color)
The Poles ain’t dummies. They enforced current law and didn’t open their borders. But I suppose they will be conquered by a stronger military power again. Like Russia.
One of the reasons I don’t get too bent out of shape when somebody claims to be a victim of a hate campaign on Twitter:
https://twitter.com/MicroCapEquity/status/949046074974638081
Sorry, but something in my Mac Broswer that doesn’t love a hot link.
Many don’t realize it, but when Trump pulled us out of the Paris scam, opened ANWR and the coast waters for drilling, he probably saved American sovereignty and the economy for 100 years. High priced solar and wind would have been a disaster.
It was a Trumpian knife in the throat to Russia, Iran and KSA.
This is interesting, I think, in another way. This is Vienna, and the argument is fundamentally about cultural replacement, tribal war, turf.
The baby is just a symbol.
And we have seen this before.
More than a hundred years ago a fellow in Vienna called Adolf Hitler was embittered by similar signs of the replacement and minimization of his own South-German people by annoying Easterners, mainly Jews in his day. And he wasnt the only one, as quite a lot of people had similar beefs, to a large degree legitimate. As it happens the actual Austrian-Viennese nativist response was a Catholic Socialism (as with Karl Lueger), and Hitler himself went into politics elsewhere.
The problem here is not simply the hateful reaction, or even mainly the reaction, but the lack of foresight that permitted the conditions that created such a predictable reaction. In Hitlers day it was the compounding of the stresses of the industrial revolution, which had come late to Austria, with the imperial policies that permitted the flooding of the Austrian labor market by the excess population of its multiethnic empire, and in such a way to create not just class but ethnic strife.
One wonders what would have happened in Britain in the 1810's-40's if, in the most strained moments of the original industrial revolution, Britain had been flooded with the millions of South Asian and Caribbean immigrants that came in since the 1960s.
The Habsburg monarchy, a century ago, was sclerotic and out of its depth in all sorts of ways, and dealing moreover with unprecedented problems even the best run nations hadn't worked out yet.
But in modern times this is not a new problem at all.
The Poles used horses against Hitler. They aren’t stupid but that didn’t work too well. They should have filed a lawsuit against Hitler in the League of Nations.
Funny how the newspapers are allowed to report this kind of stuff, where, as my link above shows, it’s impossible to even know who is writing that stuff, but the news of a thousand sexual assaults, including gang rape, on a single New Years Eve at a celebration in Cologne, by Muslim refugees was kept out of the newspapers until the sheer size of the crime wave made it impossible.
That was just youthful exuberance, the newspapers tell us, even though nothing like it had ever happened before Merkel invited the massive wave of refugees from Hillary’s wars in Syria and Libya.
Those two women really screwed the pooch.
rhhardin said...
Vienna is in Austria. They speak Austrian.
--------------
Or maybe Australian?
Projects of the left are sacrosanct, and any opposition is a crime. The problem with the West is the electorate, and that’s a problem that lefties can change by importing a new one!
Vienna is in Austria. They speak Austrian
I didn’t know that until Obama explained it, he is such a light bringer! I never knew about the intercontinental railroad either! Nor did I know about our zombie army of corpse-men. I miss having a Harvard educated man in the White House!
Poles don't have a history of resistance to tyranny? Lech Walesa and Carol Wojtyla could not be reached for comment.
Most of Europe has sufficient Muzzie populations with high birth rates, and low enough non Muzzie birthrates, that they will conquered by population growth. Bye-bye Europe. Hello Eurasia. Now Africa and the middle east don't have a monopoly on Destination Shithole.
Maybe the native Austrians could start making babies again .... call me crazy.
"Many don’t realize it, but when Trump pulled us out of the Paris scam, opened ANWR and the coast waters for drilling, he probably saved American sovereignty and the economy for 100 years. High priced solar and wind would have been a disaster.
It was a Trumpian knife in the throat to Russia, Iran and KSA."
We really got lucky with Trump getting elected which will help, at least for a while. The Islamic terrorists and future terrorists didn't need a Trojan horse to get into other countries, they were just invited in to terrorize and to multiply and eventually become the majority. Western civilization suicide.
The press has become excellent trolls. We noticed that in the last few years, the Post and NYT have run features on lesbian parents to recognize Father's Day.
Not saying I agree (I don't identify as "white" and my skin color is about as fair as it comes), but in our shared world these days: that is one white man.
I believe we aren't supposed to use "begs the question" here...but, so then, what are you? I've noticed you use that "whitey" thing a lot, and have suspected that you could probably hide in a paper factory.
Blogger cronus titan said...
Poles don't have a history of resistance to tyranny? Lech Walesa and Carol Wojtyla could not be reached for comment.
1/6/18, 7:54 AM
They were busy answering Jan Sobieski's fan mail:
John III Sobieski https://g.co/kgs/4jaUNU
You can talk a lot of trash about Poles (or if you like, the slang term is "Polacks") but lacking in resistance? For all the jokes about cavalry vs tanks, I seem to recall they resisted Germany longer than France did, and France didn't have Russia coming in the back door.
"I was in Spain and discovered that many people hang their clothes out to dry. It looked like America in the 50s. Why?"
Why not?
I would like to live to 2100 just to see that the CAGW was a complete scam. OTOH, would not like to see the Islamization of Europe. The burning of the Louvre would be sad.
Sidney reports: Sort of related. For years and years, the first baby of the new year was always born to a single mom with no father in sight. People complained about it and the newspaper changed its policy to only celebrate the first baby born to a married couple. True story. Now we have to wait a day or two before the first baby of the new year is declared.
Neither here in AZ nor in WA do I remember seeing a New Years baby born to a married couple.
Robert Cook
It takes a lot of time to dry clothes by hanging them out. And sometime# it rains. And snows.
"I was in Spain and discovered that many people hang their clothes out to dry. It looked like America in the 50s. Why?"
Here in southern AZ I hang my clothes out to dry. Most of the year they dry as fast or faster than they would in a dryer. My clothesline is on my patio which is enclosed by a high brick wall so no one sees it but me.
Mock
That wouldn’t work in NE, MN, WI etc.
But was there ever a vote by Austrians or Germans to open their borders. That’s a problem. My understanding is that Merkle and other top leaders just acted on their own. They suspended current law, didn’t enforce current law or issued executive orders.
Hmm...sound familiar....Obama? Democrats?
And THIS is the problem. Ruling against the will of the people. Ignoring the wants, needs and desires of the people who you are supposed to be considering and then they wonder why the people get mad and elect someone like Trump or worse....next time....maybe Hitler.
Makes me think of that saying: Play bitch games. Win bitch prizes.
The people right now are just irked. Wait until they are so mad that they decide to "do something about it".
Europe (except Poland) will be Islamic in 100 years.
Hungary has also kept the invasion at bay. Maybe the Austrians would be better off as part of Hungary,
They once were joined and Franz Joseph had Rudolf, the crown prince, killed because he was talking treason with the Hungarians.
The business with Mary, his mistress was cover, or so some histories say,.
I've ben to Mayerling and to her grave, Poor thing, she was a pawn.
Visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the 3rd and 4the generations
Regarding the hateful comments: They are unfortunate but they probably reflect the frustration of a people who have lost control of their country. Internet comments provide an outlet for pent up anger over the mass migration of Muslims and may not reflect a genuine personal attack.
My daughter lived in Grenada (Spain) for a year, The gas tanks are only available one day a week. If you miss the seller, you are out of luck until the next week and it is far too expensive to use to dry clothes.
They look like the propane tanks we use for the barbecue.
The Dennis Quaid movie was “Vantage Point.”
Internet comments provide an outlet for pent up anger over the mass migration of Muslims and may not reflect a genuine personal attack.
Not yet.
Not saying that I want it or rooting for it to happen. However, the reality of this unwanted forced mass migration, forced social change and the perceived oppression of the existing population by the immigrants and the disinterested government who foisted all this upon them, generally results in violence, scapegoating and civil war.
Dave Begley says: Mock
That wouldn’t work in NE, MN, WI etc.
True. Nor in WA where I lived most of my life.
The original remark was about Spain, was it not? And we know that, The rain in Spain stays mainly in the plain.
Stop allowing anonymous comments. The fact they do makes me think they WANT to be trolled.
Anonymous comments cede the public sphere to the named people. They are dismissed. If you are afraid of consequences to your RL, then that admits that the public sphere doesn't belong to you.
Sites should make people name names.
Some people are jerks. Social media encourages them in that direction. But if you read through to the end, I think this article is a great example of why hate speech laws are unnecessary.
"Here in southern AZ I hang my clothes out to dry. Most of the year they dry as fast or faster than they would in a dryer. My clothesline is on my patio which is enclosed by a high brick wall so no one sees it but me."
And you usually don't have to worry about rain. In Arizona most houses don't even have gutters or a lot of them don't which surprised me when I visited my brother a few years ago.
"Smart enough people, but befelled by their own foolishness/lack of common sense in the end. Think Marie Curie contaminating herself to death with her noble lab experiments not smart enough to take any precautions. That's a pollack"
Jesus! She discovered the radioactive element polonium in 1898 and isolated many of the isotopes, which is why she won two Nobel prizes, physics and chemistry. No one knew anything about radiation or its dangers until she developed the theory of radioactivity, so just how was she supposed to know which precations to take? And "Pollacks" are stupid?
BTW, you should take a trip to Warsaw sometime and visit the Jewish Ghetto Uprising Museum and the Warsaw Uprising Museum to not only gain some appreciation for real courage but also to understand just how ignorant you really are.
"This is Vienna, and the argument is fundamentally about cultural replacement, tribal war, turf."
Maybe "Deport the scum immediately" is how you say "You will not replace us" in Austrian.
"My daughter lived in Grenada (Spain) for a year, The gas tanks are only available one day a week."
You can get a replacement Butano tank at most service stations 7 days a week in Spain, and the large bottles last six months to a year and can be serviced on one day's notice. The reason most people hang clothes out to dry is because the vast majority of older apartments do not have room for a dryer or are not plumbed for gas - usually there is at most a small under counter electric washing machine in the kitchen. Most newer villas have laundry rooms with washers and dryers.
The NYT can't help but push the multi-cultural agenda particularly against all those damn "racists" who oppose it.
...makes me think they WANT to be trolled."
The Internet is just one big Outrage Antenna, finding and concentrating Outrages from across the universe.
Look! Somebody did something Outrageous! Click and be Outraged!
Marie Curie's grandchildren are alive.
I recently watched the movie with Greer Garson and was curious.
Tim 7:42 - point taken
Representative Steve Scalise was shot by a Bernie Sanders supporter, and the media refuse to mention THAT FACT.
The Poles used horses against Hitler. They aren’t stupid but that didn’t work too well.
@David Begley, prior to the Blitzkrieg most military thinkers thought there was still a role for cavalry breaking up infantry formations. According to what I've read the Poles used their cavalry in just that way, with some success, until the Germans learned to put their infantry behind the tanks and to attack cavalry formations with tanks.
A lot of people learned lessons the hard way during World War II. American generals apparently believed that tanks would never fight tanks, so our Shermans could not safely fight against German Tigers at less than 4 or 5 to 1, losing 3 or 4 in order to finally maneuver one of their number to where it could make a kill shot at the vulnerable rear of the Tiger.
Jaydub
That makes sense. But natgas and oil prices are very high. Russia and OPEC control the supply. Green energy never lowered electricity prices. Euro electricity much higher than in the US. Failure.
jaydub, she was there as a student and did not live in the neighborhood "plumbed for gas."
Th seller came once a week and there were no service stations close enough for her to go and carry one back.
I wasn't making a derogatory remark about Spain. She loved it but that was the situation where she was.
She and her boyfriend took in a lodger to help with the rent and she learned Portuguese from him, adding a fourth language to her repertoire. She also spent a month in Morocco working on her Arabic.
I'm glad she wore a scarve but this just highlights the need to develop a delivery room hijab. We have burkinis and Nike has developed athletic wear for Muslim women. There should be an appropriately modest garment for a woman to wear while giving birth.
There's an asshole fringe who take pleasure in criticizing a newborn baby. They're a fringe because the overwhelming majority think that to do such a thing is wrong and that such people should be shamed. Among the Muslims there's a certain portion of their population who believe that. Mohammed cartoonists should be put to death. You can't really call this portion a fringe because they are, in fact, the majority of the population.
"Green energy never lowered electricity prices. Euro electricity much higher than in the US. Failure."
True, but higher energy prices are forced on the population in Europe, no matter what the production costs or fuel source may be (solar and wind are actually cheaper here in Andalucia because of the climate, but still expensive.) For my house in Spain I have to contract for a given maximum electricity usage and the higher the contracted max, the higher the KWH rate I pay. If I exceed the contracted rate for more than a few minutes, the breaker at the street trips and I have to manually reset the main breaker in the house. Exceed it too much for the month and you get fined and bumped up to a higher max and steeper rate. Gasoline is the same way - Taxes essentially doubles the price of fuel at the pump. So, it's not exactly failure, it's planned pain to try to force behavior modification in the name of AGW. The Green parties in Europe have forced out nuclear and they're trying to kill gas and coal power production, too. That's why most European economists think the US is going to get a big boost from not only the tax cuts, but also from cheaper energy costs. The real question is whether the virtue is going to be worth the economic pain. My guess is it's not.
Jaydub
Agree with your comment.
People in Spain need to pressure the government to allow massive LNG imports. We’ve got plenty at low prices.
"Robert Cook
It takes a lot of time to dry clothes by hanging them out. And sometime# it rains. And snows."
So? Perhaps the people in Spain are less concerned with how quickly their clothes are dried. Perhaps they don't see the necessity of dryers. (I'm old enough to remember my mother drying our laundry on clothes lines in our back yard...in Indiana and later Florida.) I've never understood, for example, why so many Americans seem to think dishwashers are requirements for a modern kitchen. Does washing dishes by hand really take so long? No. (In fact, I find it kind of relaxing and enjoyable in a way...with a very little bit of time and little effort or thought, one can make a pile of dirty dishes clean. It's almost immediate gratification!)
"
I wasn't making a derogatory remark about Spain. She loved it but that was the situation where she was."
No offense taken. Much of the apartment housing in Andalucian cities is well over a hundred years old, some houses several hundred, so the housing was not designed for modern amenities like electricity or gas. In fact, even plumbing sometimes is hung on the outside of the older buildings. So, there are tradeoffs and I understand where she is coming from.
Diversity promoted in the wake of the left's global "clean" wars forcing immigration reform (e.g. refugee crises) for gerrymandered districts, welfare profits, labor arbitrage, and compensation for Planned Parenthood.
the NYT has been targeting innocent newborns for death
Normalization with religious/moral policies of selective-child and recycled-child. The left has been a first-order forcing of wars and abortion, diversity and congruence. But, they have the loudest bullhorns, and can project fast and furious.
the Post and NYT have run features on lesbian parents to recognize Father's Day
Transgender parent, guardian, and an absentee father. Progress.
Hmm, I just got an Austrian StG-58, their version of the FN-FAL. Maybe they shouldn't have gotten rid of those on the surplus market. Also purchased lots of surplus Malaysian 7.62 for the rifle. They have their own Islamic troubles. Maybe they shouldn't have gotten rid of that on the surplus market.
Last Tuesday, during work detail, another message straight from Rasta Dale: Work hours extended again. The solar array’s still not wired right..
Oh he’ll let nubile females in, since he’s the only one with the Divine Right Of Penetration since October.
Me and and a couple from Eco-West are crossing the river tonight. Fuck the guards. See you on the other side.
In the first 3 trimesters of her life... The issue is selective-child and recycled-child, but also social justice adventures that are first-order forcings of catastrophic anthropogenic immigration reform for gerrymandered districts, welfare profits, and labor arbitrage, and the press-created illusion of "clean" wars congruent ("=") or exclusive of trail of tears and men, women, children, and babies left behind in wo/man-made abortion fields. Also men, women, children, and babies aborted, displaced, and replaced for social progress, under diversity policies. and through immigration reform (e.g. exceeding the rate of assimilation and integration).
And this.
"No, the defining issue of our day is mass immigration into the nations of Western heritage. This growing inflow threatens to remake those nations and overwhelm their cultural identity. This is the issue that played the largest role in getting Donald Trump elected. It drove Britain’s Brexit vote. It is roiling the European continent, mounting tensions inside the EU and driving a wedge between the elites of those nations and their general populations.
Indeed, the central battlefront in the immigration wars is Europe, which accepted a trickle of immigrants in the immediate postwar era due to labor shortages. But over the years the trickle became a stream, then a growing river, and finally a torrent—to the extent that ethnic Britons are now a minority in their own capital city, refugee flows into Germany went from 48,589 in 2010 to 1.5 million in 2015, and Italy, a key entry point, received at one point an average of 6,500 new arrivals a day."
http://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/how-europe-built-its-own-funeral-pyre-then-leapt-in/
The left started this multi culti war and now ppl are surprised that others are fighting back. It's a war and right now the opponents are fighting with words.
It's a lot harder to pick out the Muslims in Nashville with the weather this cold. I'm wondering if I should go all in and start working on my hoodie-hijab. prototype.
I guess that means all Aussies are horrible people.
“Whether refugees or those wearing head scarves, there is no differentiation, but anyone appearing to be Muslim is cast as an enemy of our culture.”
Maybe that's because all Muslims are enemies of Western culture.
Most of us posting comments here are descended from immigrants. My great grandparents came from Germany and Ireland. They came to America with the intention of becoming Americans; they didn't demand that America become Germany or Ireland.
My great-grandfather, born in Germany, was a founder of the first English-language Lutheran Church in Brooklyn. He wanted to keep his religion, while becoming an American. His American-born son, my grandfather, joined the New York State Guard during the First World War (he was too old for overseas service), and helped to raise money to support the American troops overseas. My Irish-born grandfather, a doctor, served overseas in the Army Medical Corps in WWI, as did his older brother.
Somehow the idea has become au courant that immigrants must be allowed to bring their own cultures with them and the natives of the countries they come to are the ones who must adjust. This is bound to cause resentment, and it's totally unnecessary. If immigrants accept that they are expected to assimilate to the countries they immigrate to, and if the countries receiving immigrants implement programs to assimilate them, and limit the number of immigrants to the number they can assimilate, the tensions that we're seeing in this story can be eliminated.
The Godfather said...
"If immigrants accept that they are expected to assimilate to the countries they immigrate to ..."
They would have to have some reason for supposing that to be true, before they could be expected to accept it. Like, if someone had mentioned it to them or something.
" If immigrants accept that they are expected to assimilate to the countries they immigrate to,"
My great Grandfather's two brothers, first generation born in America, both volunteered for the Union Army in the Civil War. The 55th Illinois Volunteer Infantry.
Both died. The younger of measles in camp and the other from a wound at Vicksburg.
Buwaya @7:26
Thanks for the, as always, erudite yet concise history lesson.
And yet, 19th C Vienna produced the greatest music the world has ever heard.
Or more distressingly (since I love that music), perhaps the conditions that produced that artistic flowering are exactly those of the decaying Austro-Hungarian Empire.
Michael K 8:23
You are one of my favorite commenters on Althouse, but you may want to revise the romantic view of Mayerling (which reminds me of the romantic conspiracy theory about JFK, but I digress).
Mary, 17 to Rudolph’s 30, wasn’t a pawn, she was merely a groupie.
There’s a new book out. Don’t know if this will get you through the paywall, but this review covers it
https://www.wsj.com/articles/review-the-mayerling-incident-and-the-twilight-of-empire-1514941042
or if you can’t get to that one, try this
https://t.co/cpHD93Wj5e
I am not that romantic bout Mayerling and she was an incidental casualty to my understanding.
I think the issue was Rudolph getting too close to the Hungarians.
I'm a WSJ subscriber and will look.
Thanks.
he began plotting against his father by encouraging Hungarian nationalism in the hope that he would soon become king of an autonomous Hungary and thus free to found his own dynasty.
This is pretty much what I have read. The convent that the Emperor had built is also gone now.
We were out in the country with a driver and visiting Huerigan. It seemed appropriate.
Michael
I envy you; I loved traveling to Vienna. Circumstances will probably not allow me to go again. It's one of my few regrets (along with not dancing a waltz at the Vienna New Year's Ball).
Think Marie Curie contaminating herself to death with her noble lab experiments not smart enough to take any precautions. That's a pollack
That’s not a “pollack,” that’s a myth!
It's now known that despite extended contact Madame Curie had with a number of different radioactive elements — most particularly elemental radium* — as a result of her researches into the phenomenon of radioactivity during the closing years of the 19th century and first decade of the 20th, leading to her two scientific Nobel Prizes — despite that, we now know that Curie’s exposure to the “radiant” element was nonetheless quite insufficient to ultimately cause the leukemia that led, decades later, to her death (in 1934, at the age of 2/3 of a century — an age which is actually beyond the average lifespan for folk in Europe at the time).
As it happens, during the 1990’s Marie Curie’s body was exhumed to prepare it for interment in the French national mausoleum, the Panthéon — the first such honor for a woman on her own merits. Investigating in the interest of public safety during the process, France’s responsible Office de Protection contre les Rayonnements Ionisants (ORPI) determined that Curie had actually been exposed to far less (less than 1/20th) of what today would be recognized as being even marginally dangerous (much less close to a lethal dosage!) as a result of her lifelong exposure to elemental radium.
If radium wasn’t the cause, then what did lead to Madame Curie’s eventual leukemia? (Presuming that her cancer didn’t arise spontaneously, as cancers oftentimes do.)
It appears that it was Marie Curie’s subsequent wartime investigations into X-rays during the 1st World War — at a time when the dangers of X-ray exposure were not fully appreciated — that ultimately led to her fatal illness in the 1930’s.
––––
*Radium is about a million times more radioactive than uranium — though it’s a sort of radioactivity (alpha rays) that something as tenuous as a sheet of tissue paper can block 100%.
(Source: Nature (Nature.com/Nature), Vol. 377, Issue No. 6545 (14 September 1995), p. 96: “X-rays, not radium, may have killed Curie”)
Post a Comment