March 4, 2021

"The doctors-facts-science mantras have become familiar over the past year. The experts tell us, expertly, what we need to know, and we do it."

"At least until all this science starts to fog up our mental windshields and we, the people, start to wear out. Our irritability mounts; our attention wanes; the guide-rope in our mouth starts to chafe. It is then that the bawdy obstreperousness and its odd twin, the glory hallelujah, of democracy come into view — a single unit; maddening, infuriating, nevertheless fused. And Greg Abbott or someone else steps up to lead the beast forward, by instinct if not by Hoyle... The love of democratic citizens for experts shouldn’t be overestimated. The nature of democracy is preference for or deference to popular wisdom, however unwise that wisdom may prove in action. It’s been a long time since this pandemic started. People are tired. People want to see, and relate to, each other. That’s human nature. The human nature-affirmers like Greg Abbott, with a little luck and sense of timing, are likely to come out way ahead of their castigators and vilifiers, Robert Francis (Beto) O’Rourke conspicuously included."

Writes William Murchison in "Glory Hallelujah for Texas!/Gov. Greg Abbott takes a calculated gamble on we, the people against the experts" (The Spectator).

The Spectator is British, but Murchison is American. He even went to the University of Texas. I had to look that up because the use of "glory hallelujah" hit my ear as a foreigner's mistake. To me, the phrase — which you see in the title and the text ("its odd twin, the glory hallelujah, of democracy") — is entirely evocative of "The Battle Hymn of the Republic," and Texas was in the Confederacy. 

Puzzling, I ran across this 2018 NPR article, "How 'The Battle Hymn of the Republic' became an anthem for every cause"

There's an episode of The Johnny Cash Show from 1969 where the man himself makes a little speech with a pretty big error. "Here's a song that was reportedly sung by both sides in the Civil War," Cash says, guitar in hand, to kick off a performance of "The Battle Hymn of the Republic.... which proves to me that a song can belong to all of us."

 

Cash was wrong, but in the years after the Civil War, the song came to be sung in church, at football games, and at labor union events. And on all sorts of political occasions:

Anita Bryant, the singer and conservative activist, used to perform the song at anti-gay rallies. During the 1964 presidential race, Republican nominee Barry Goldwater had to disown a campaign film that posed the election as a choice between two Americas — an "ideal" America, where the tune of the "Battle Hymn" scored images of the founders and the Constitution, and a "nightmare" America, featuring black people protesting and kids dancing to rock music.

On the flipside, the day before he was killed in 1968, Martin Luther King Jr. made his famous "I've Been to the Mountaintop" speech, which he ended by quoting the song's first line: "Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord." His home church, Atlanta's Ebenezer Baptist, took up the song after his death as an anthem to him and the civil rights movement.

"How people relate to patriotism is kind of how they come into the 'Battle Hymn,' " says professor Brigitta Johnson, an ethnomusicologist at the University of South Carolina who teaches in the schools of Music and African-American Studies. "For example, your white nationalists digging deep into heavy patriotism messages — they bring up things like 'The Star-Spangled Banner' and the 'Battle Hymn' and it becomes their battle cry, just as easily as it could become the battle cry for Ebenezer in Atlanta."...

"The kumbaya moment will not be happening across the aisles because of this song," [Johnson] says, "because it's really about supporting whatever your perspective is — about freedom or liberation, and having God as the person who's ordaining what we're doing. And 'glory, hallelujah' about that."

As Johnny Cash said in 1969, "The Battle Hymn of the Republic" is an anthem that belongs to everybody. But what really matters is what they're singing it for.

That meshes well with Murchison's point about human nature and human nature-affirmers.

215 comments:

1 – 200 of 215   Newer›   Newest»
LordSomber said...

"Experts"

D.D. Driver said...

Mine Eyes Have Seen the Glory is the G.O.A.T. hymn.


rcocean said...

The battle hymn of the Republic WAS song by both sides. The South just changed the lyrics a little. Not only that, but you can sing the HB Stowe lyrics without knowing its for the North. You just have to drop the verse about "making men free".

rcocean said...

IT wasn't until after WW 2 that the song was made into some sort "black Freedom" song. John Brown's body and "we'll hang Jeff Davis" were more popular lyrics with Union soldiers.

YoungHegelian said...

Oh, Lord, hearing the Battle Hymn of the Republic brings back memories from schoolboy days of a parody we used to sing:

Glory, glory, hallelujah,
Teacher hit me with a ruler
met her at the door with a loaded 44
and the teacher wasn't there no more!


Nowadays, any boy who was heard singing this would be sent off for mental rehabilitation after the police had been called to the school to take him into custody.

Different, and saner, times.

rcocean said...

BTW, they usually changed the "let us die to make men Free" to "let us live to make men free" during WW 2. People had stopped being into martyrdom.

Todd said...

The people selected to "lead" us have failed at it to a miserable level. They do NOT deserve to have us follow them.

They have alternately treated us like children, criminals, and morons. Sometimes all at once. The only thing these "experts" have earned is our scorn.

rcocean said...

I'm so tired of Ignorant knuckle dragging Leftists posing as "Scientists". Your English Lit degree or Journalism degree doesn't make you "Scientific". The Trade off between disease control and the economy has nothing to do with "Pure Science" but is a political decision. The liberal/left, for some reason, wants to panic to lock everything down, forever.

Everyone seems to forgotten that the MSM and the same people attacking the Texas Governor, were attacking Trump every time he refused to lockdown the whole country. And when he recommended HCQ. Or when Trump said Pro Sports teams should play. The liberal/left has been wrong again and again during the CV-19 epidemic. Supposedly, everyone in Florida and GA were going to die. But that didn't happen. And we weren't going to get a vaccine, Trump was being a "3rd grader" when he said that. but that was wrong too.



rcocean said...

One of the hilarious things about BHTV and the NYT's Doug (Dan?) McNeil is all three of them pose(d) as "Science experts" when they all three were Rhetoric and English majors! All they did was write stories ABOUT science. And all three used "Science" as a club to beat their political enemies with. Hogan now believes in astrology or some flakey voodoo. that's after being all "scientificy" on BHTV. I'd love to cross-examine "Science expert" McNeil on his knowledge of disease. I bet he's a complete dope.

Joe Smith said...

"And Greg Abbott or someone else steps up to lead..."

Steps up?

Did he put his best foot forward as well?

Ableist bastards!

daskol said...

Check out the lyrics of the first song to be sung to that tune , John Brown's body, when it was just a marching tune for the Union soldiers, before that poetry contest winning poem replaced it in our popular imagination. Some gory lyrics in some of those versions.

Gospace said...

YoungHegelian said...
Oh, Lord, hearing the Battle Hymn of the Republic brings back memories from schoolboy days of a parody we used to sing:

Glory, glory, hallelujah,
Teacher hit me with a ruler
met her at the door with a loaded 44
and the teacher wasn't there no more!


We sang a slightly less violent version:

Bopped her on the bean
With a rotten tangerine
And she ain't gonna teach no more

I suspect there's thousands of versions...

Mark said...

We sang it at church on the Sunday after 9/11.

And it was sang to Pope Benedict when he visited the White House in 2008.

daskol said...

Heh YH, our version started...

Mine eyes have seen the glory of the burning of the school
we have tortured all the teachers
we have broken all the rules
our troop is marching down the hall to hang the principal
our troop is marching on
Glory, glory halleujah
Teacher hit me with a ruler
Smacked her in the butt
with a rotten coconut
My teacher don't like me no more

Gospace said...

The experts have also told us that the icecaps no longer exist, all the glaciers are melted, and the worlds population is starving because we can't possibly produce enough food for 7.6 billion people.

I'm sure I've left a few things out...

YoungHegelian said...

@Gospace,

We sang a slightly less violent version:

Well, you know, growin' up in Northern Alabama, we wuz all, from an early age, gun-totin' Deplorables avant la lettre.

William said...

I think we can all agree that the Battle Hymn of the Republic tops anything written by George Harrison. It's even better than John Lennon's Imagine.....Harriet Beecher Stowe was struck by the melody but didn't think much of the lyrics: "We'll hang Jeff Davis from a sour apple tree." Not bad, but it doesn't do all that much to consecrate your cause and ennoble your death......Lorenz Hart had to try three times before he found the right lyrics for Blue Moon. Lyrics maketh the song.....La Marseillaise and Ca Ira are better sung in French because the lyrics aren't so great. Ditto with La Cucaracha. Disabled cockroaches are not inspirational. The Rising of the Moon is okay, but it doesn't quite live up to the melody.

h said...

Battle Hymn of the Republic does not celebrate "coexistence" and "peace through understanding". It celebrates violent victory over your enemy. To sing this in some (liberal leaning) churches in the aftermath of 9/11 was controversial.

And commenter Daskol pointing out the "John Brown's Body" version reminds me that John Brown espoused and led an armed uprising against the US govt. (I think we could agree that Brown's effort was an insurrection.) Robert E. Lee led the US Army troops that captured Brown in Harper's Ferry (in 1859) and among Lee's officers were Stonewall Jackson and JEB Stuart.

YoungHegelian said...

An interesting interview of Dr. Marty Makarty of Johns Hopkins on the underrated role of T cells in the movement towards herd immunity. The best line:

T-cells need a better PR firm.

Here's the link.

DavidUW said...

Classic example of still accepting the premise that idiot, non-practicing doctors/scientists like Fraudci are "experts"

Hint: He is an expert of nothing but politicking his way around.

Stop even referring to him as "expert"
Stop accepting others' labeling of him as an "expert."

Reject the premise
here and everything the leftists try.

hombre said...

Some of us didn’t do things because of the experts. We did them out of a sense of kindness to the bubble people. You know like being kind to dumb animals.

In our city, a progressive city with the usual depressed economy, it is not uncommon to see people walking alone on desert roads wearing their masks. The city limited the use of outdoor patios after restaurants added them due to Covid concerns.

Speaking of science, it is interesting to note that Israel’s vaccine priorities were people over 60, health care workers, people with comorbid considerations. Shame on those pesky, inhumane Israeli Jews leaving teachers and the bureaucrats behind. You know, the really really endangered folks. No wonder QuidProJoe has resumed financing Palestinian bombers.

Robert Cook said...

"I think we can all agree that the Battle Hymn of the Republic tops anything written by George Harrison. It's even better than John Lennon's Imagine."

I don't agree...and I am not particularly a fan of George Harrison or John Lennon. "The Battle Hymn of the Republic" is dreary and dull.

Gusty Winds said...

“EXPERTS” helped contaminate nursing homes via cross-staffing. They stayed silent while effective treatments like HCQ were vilified for political reasons. They supported the ridiculous closing of schools. First it was you don’t need a mask, and then everyone better wear a mask, to everyone wear two masks. The experts even screwed up the initial predictive models, and decided that "died with COVID" was the same as "died of COVID".

When it comes to COVID there are no experts. Only advocates, fear mongers, and liars. We are sick and tired of their vacillating bullshit. Especially Anthony Fauci, Bill Gates, and the Teachers Unions.

Other qualified experts that don’t tow the political line are silenced. Those are the ones we should be listening to.

Joe Smith said...

"I don't agree...and I am not particularly a fan of George Harrison or John Lennon. "The Battle Hymn of the Republic" is dreary and dull."

'Imagine' is the worst song ever written, so 'BHOTR' must be better, even if not by a lot : )

Owen said...

I've said it before, I'll say it again. "Science is the belief in the ignorance of experts." - Richard Feynman.

The con job we've been sold on "climate change" enabled the rapid cloning and dissemination of the con job we've gotten on Covid-19. It is hard for me to convey even a smidgen of the contempt I feel for the way hacks, hysterics and minor tyrants have destroyed both the common ground of facts and theory, and the social capital of trust, on which our health, safety and prosperity directly depend. We are surrounded and besieged by an army of Wesley Mouches.

Gusty Winds said...

The macro COVID battle and split between CA and TX, FL and NY, or Dane County and Waukesha County Wisconsin is about the fundamental balance between life and liberty. Don’t try and save my life by not letting me live it. Don’t lock me in my house and expect a thank you.

Hey, asshole, heroes work everywhere, not just hospitals and schools. Get over yourself.

And don’t tell me that stripping today’s young children of their future liberty that all the Baby Boomers enjoyed is morally right. It’s shamefully fucking selfish.

COVID, more than anything, exposed the inner liberal totalitarian selfish coward. The experts and their bullshit just helped uncover it.

wendybar said...

And yet, Flip Flop Fauci is condemning Texas, but not saying a word to Dementia Joe about letting Covid infected illegals run free through the country.....

Michael K said...

Classic example of still accepting the premise that idiot, non-practicing doctors/scientists like Fraudci are "experts"

Hint: He is an expert of nothing but politicking his way around.


Hillarycare was designed by a bunch of professors who had no experience actually caring for patients. I knew most of them. Hillary excluded the insurance companies and they beat her at PR. The Obamacare team let the insurance companies write the bill. Insurance companies hate health insurance and the law was designed to facilitate rationing. The Democrats, after the 2010 election disaster, left employer plans alone and that is what exists today. Medicaid and employer plans.

Mike of Snoqualmie said...

'Imagine' is the worst song ever written...

+1.

Better song would be "Imagine if there had been no John Lennon..."

Owen said...

wendybar @ 12:47: "And yet, Flip Flop Fauci is condemning Texas, but not saying a word to Dementia Joe about letting Covid infected illegals run free through the country....."

That's different because shut up.

SGT Ted said...

The "doctors-science-facts" mantra is a religious/political mantra because information and facts coming from other doctors and scientists are often ignored and are now censored.

NC William said...

This has all been a dress rehearsal for the Green New Deal lockdown(s) they'd like to implement. If that gets in, you can expect the razor wire to remain in DC forever.

BUMBLE BEE said...

Experts, currently defined, are political suck asses who have risen to the top. Wannabes who have found out what to suck and when to suck it. See also Kamala Harris, a genuine %2er.

Gusty Winds said...

Best version of Battle Hymn of the Republic is Elvis’ inclusion of the song in his “American Trilogy”. It would be cancelled today because it includes “Dixie” as well. But the performance in the Aloha from Hawaii concert in the American Eagle jumpsuit is awesome.

traditionalguy said...

Many Civil War buffs contend the North won because they had a better song. Which they did. Best version is Judy Garland’s on YouTube.

Real American said...

"Two weeks to flatten the curve." - Experts

mockturtle said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Gusty Winds said...

wendybar said And yet, Flip Flop Fauci is condemning Texas

Let’s call him “Flip, Flop, and Fellate Fauci.

Fauci fellated Andrew Cuomo and NY’s handling of COVID. “They did it right” the little dick declared. Fauci has done more to destroy credentialism and expertise that anyone in modern history. It may be his best contribution to society.

But to liberals, Fauci is as infallible as Papal supremacy.

n.n said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
n.n said...

Fauci fellated Andrew Cuomo and NY’s handling of COVID. “They did it right” the little dick declared.

The ageists. Planned Parent/hood is a human and civil rite.

Mr Wibble said...

The problem isn't the "experts" or that they were wrong. It's that too many on the left, as well as some on the right, replaced their old religions with scientism and a priesthood of technocrats.

I'm Not Sure said...

"It's that too many on the left, as well as some on the right, replaced their old religions with scientism and a priesthood of technocrats."

Or a Magic 8-Ball.

Robert Cook said...

"'Imagine' is the worst song ever written...."

No, it's not. Not by a long shot.

MadTownGuy said...

Peter Wilhousky's arrangement of the Battle Hymn of the Republic is rousing.

traditionalguy said...

BigScience is totally bought off. A few 60+ retired guys still do science. The rest are careerist crooks. Every one of them knows that the GlobalCO2 catastrophe Story is a hoax. But only the money talks.

GMay said...

"[BHotR]'s even better than John Lennon's Imagine...."

Talk about damning with faint praise...

MadisonMan said...

'Imagine' is the worst song ever written...."

No, it's not. Not by a long shot.

I give you Seasons in the Sun.

lgv said...

Need I remind anyone:

1) The mask mandate was in effect when cases skyrocketed in November.
2) The lockdown and mask mandate were necessary to "flatten the curve". The curve has been flattened. The the occupancy an usage rates of hospital beds and respirators is at an easily handled level.
3) Other states have also lifted the mask mandate.
4) It is a repeal of the mandate. People can still wear masks. Businesses can still require them if they like. They can move to mandatory mask states.

Masks reduce the infection rate a little, but not a lot. Most infections are from family settings where no masks are used. They are also of little value the way they are being used. If you aren't constantly discarding your mask regularly, sanitizing your hands after every touch of the mask or wearing disposable gloves (and continually disposing of them), then they aren't doing all that much.

I'm Not Sure said...

"They are also of little value the way they are being used. If you aren't constantly discarding your mask regularly, sanitizing your hands after every touch of the mask or wearing disposable gloves (and continually disposing of them), then they aren't doing all that much."

You mean masks don't work like a rabbit's foot or a four leaf clover? Well shit.

GMay said...

Not nearly enough hay made over the NEJM and The Lancet retracting the utterly fake Surgisphere "study" about the dangers of HCQ as a treatment for COVID infection. I'm still disappointed by Retraction Watch's snide remarks about Trump based on such amateurish fakery.

If ever there were a more damning and obvious example of politicized science, I can't think of it.

rhhardin said...

Not long ago thrillers and murder mysteries were mostly about criminals with distinct motives. Now they feature the serial killer. Unlike the murderer who killed, fulfilled his purpose, and hoped to remain innocuous, the inexorable serial killer with his open-ended string of crimes hopes to become famous as a source of anxiety. News broadcasts, themselves great organizers of anxiety, regularly contain health segments in which the public is invited to become anxious about what it eats, what it buys, how it seeks pleasure. One set of experts steps forth to inculcate anxiety, another to teach us how to live with it. What do those in the know actually know? They always claim to know where our true concerns should lie.

- Wm. Kerrigan

Bob Smith said...

It was the restaurants close, open with restrictions, close, open outside, close except takeout and the hair salons open close etc. we finally figured out that A. None of the public employees were getting furloughed B. They didn’t have a clue what they were doing that tipped the scale.

Ken B said...

Imagine is not remotely as bad as I Shot The Sheriff. Sorry, but it’s true.

Deevs said...

I don't know about the rest of you, but William Murchison's prose made that paragraph almost impossible to get through.

Iman said...

“Mandy”... “Freebird”... “Yummy Yummy Yummy”... “Muskrat Love”... “Ant Music”... “Swollen Itching Brain (SIB)”...

Lots and lots of songs vying for WOAT...

n.n said...

Imagine there's no heaven
...
Living for today


The People, less our Posterity. Keep women appointed, available, and taxable. Abort the "burden", cannibalize her profitable parts, and sequester her carbon pollutants.

Imagine there's no countries

Administrative districts, now, and forever.

Nothing to kill or die for

Planned Population schemes, including: minority Choice (e.g. one-child) and Planned Parent/hood (e.g. selective-child) are human and civil rites.

And no religion too

Religion is a philosophy of behavior, including its relativistic cousin "ethics", or its politically congruent nephew "law". The philosophers range from God, gods, and mortal gods and goddesses.

Imagine all the people
Living life in peace


Diversity dogma denies individual dignity, individual conscience, intrinsic value, normalizes color blocs (e.g. people of color, people of white), color quotas, and affirmative discrimination.

And the world will be as one

Individual dignity. Intrinsic value. Inordinate worth. Natural imperatives. Reconcile.

Imagine no possessions

I call dibs on beach front estates in Hawaii and/or Martha's Vineyard.

No need for greed or hunger

Ironically, people are glutinous and malnourished.

And the world will live as one

Diversity of individuals, minority of one.

Unfortunately, the Progressive Church/Synagogue/Temple/Mosque/Office/Clinic/Chamber/Colander, Pro-Choice religion, and liberal ideology, have 0.1% backing and popular support. One step forward, two steps backward.

Ralph L said...

Is the Battle Hymn still in modern hymnals?

Balfegor said...

I haven't looked carefully, but has Texas provided their analysis of infection rates and hospitalisation rates to support this decision? I think there's a point well below herd immunity where it's defensible to rescind all mandatory restrictions.

Let's make up some numbers. Based on the current vaccination dashboard, Texas has full vaccinated 753,000 people 65+, and another 587,000 have received one dose. This is all Pfizer and Moderna at this point, I believe, so people 65+ fully vaccinated have maybe a 5% risk of hospitalisation if infected? The single dose, call it 35%. And let's assume the risk of death in the 65+ population range decreases proportionately. About 13% of the population of Texas is over 65, or about 3,792,600 people. If you assume that the coronavirus fatality rate in over 65 is ~10% (might be lower, might be higher, depending on the mix of age ranges), then the current levels of vaccination would bring the expected fatality rate down from 10% to 7%. Since fatalities are overwhelmingly concentrated in the older age groups, that's a significant reduction in the overall fatality rate already.

But that doesn't seem low enough to support total release of all restrictions. I would feel more comfortable if, e.g. they had 2 million in the 65+ category fully vaccinated, and another 1 million with one dose, i.e. the estimated fatality rate in the 65+ age group were down to about 3%. And I'd want to see similar reductions in the other vulnerable populations (specifically, people with complicating health conditions), for an overall reduction in the fatality rate of around 2/3's. Just targeting those two groups would do it. Other than those two groups, the rest of the population still has some risk of serious symptoms and death, but it's really extremely low.

Hospitalisations. It looks like as of the end of February, other than El Paso, all of Texas was below 15% hospital bed utilization for coronavirus. That's at a point when new cases were running about 7,000 per date, down from a peak of about 23,000 a day, so that would suggest that in the event of another surge, you'd end up at around 50% utilization, absent vaccination. With targeted vaccination bringing hospitalization rates down 2/3's, though, that surge hospital bed utilization rate would only be around 15% (i.e. roughly current levels), reducing the risk that non-coronavirus patients get squeezed out of treatment.

So 2/3's is my arbitrary target; it looks like Texas is moving forward at the ~1/3 threshold. That might be reasonable -- I assume vulnerable populations will continue mitigation strategies anyhow, to the extent they care, and hospital capacity doesn't seem to be overly strained at the moment. But at the current pace, I don't think we would be talking about a long delay to get to 2/3's. The daily vaccination rate has bounced around a bit but it looks like apart from the extreme weather event the week of February 15, Texas is around 800,000-1,000,000 doses per week. So we'd be talking a couple of weeks.

Iman said...

Best Quirky Song of All Time: “Texas Rose Cafe”...

Picked up on my phone in Houston
Everybody answered, everybody answered but they won't say why
Then this dancer grabbed me down by the bus stop
And she said I'm takin' you with me to the Texas Rose cafe
I got a fast car, it's a Jaguar, and I'll get you to the plane on time
Drinkin' Lone Star, play guitar, oh... we'll have a real good time
I said love can be found in Austin,
Love... love can be found in Austin town,
I replied that I would try, but you see my time is not my own
'Cause when I was just a big time low ball fool
My friend Leroy came to me
He said look out your window
Does the first man you see look just like me?
I'm sooooore displeased
Since that time I changed my mind
About the things I'm up to
Yet the things around me they stay just the same
'Cause outside my hotel window is a sign that turns from red to green
It says chop suey and join the U.S. Marines

tim in vermont said...

He’s right. We have suffered enough. It’s time to start living again. Obviously people at risk need to be careful, but restaurants are optional, so are bars, so are concerts, so are ball games. The at risk are free to stay home rather than worry that somebody is having a good time at a restaurant or whatever. This thing is on the downswing and the government squandered its goodwill on this matter.

I'm Not Sure said...

"So we'd be talking a couple of weeks."

We were talking a couple of weeks a year ago. Why should anyone believe that now?

tim in vermont said...

"Is the Battle Hymn still in modern hymnals?”

It’s right next to “Onward Christian Soldiers."

Jim at said...

Gusty Winds at 12:46 cannot be improved upon.

GMay said...

"And please don't try to argue about that much.

...

Why not? What exactly is the argument against mandated masks?


How about you start over without absurd parameters for an argument.

tim in vermont said...

‘Imagine’ is the western left’s ‘Internationale’ which is why Cooke defends it.

tim in vermont said...

BHOTR is great music and great poetry. You might not agree with the sentiments, but it is great for what it is. Just like the poisonous song “Imagine” which doesn’t rise artistically to BHOTR, not nearly.

n.n said...

The Lancet retracting the utterly fake Surgisphere "study" about the dangers of HCQ as a treatment for COVID infection

The HCQ cocktail was a known early, inexpensive, effective, low-risk treatment from the beginning of the pandemic. The Ivermectin protocol is even more effective at late stage progression, was discovered in spring. There are other therapies that temper disease symptoms, reduce safe sanctuaries (i.e. community immunity), and complement innate immune function to mitigate disease progression.

Planned Parent/hood, social contagion driving hospitalization (and cross-contamination), and forcing people indoors aside, only a fraction of a fraction of the infections and deaths would have occurred. Wearing anything less than N95 (and goggles), following strict protocol, masks are known to either have no effect or to increase infection rates in both trained and general populations. There is zero probability, not impossible, but improbable, of airborne and droplet transmission outside of spaces with a greenhouse effect. The likely mode of transmission in asymptomatic individuals is fecal transmission, and the only places where viable viruses were discovered in patient rooms was in and around the toilet and vents.

Balfegor said...

Re: I'm Not Sure:

We were talking a couple of weeks a year ago. Why should anyone believe that now?

I literally just did the back of the envelope calculation for you. That is why you should believe that now. Don't trust authority -- look at the numbers.

Also, I'm not one of our criminally dishonest US public health experts. I've never chortled about how I deliberately lied to you about whether masks would help, and how I'd fuckin' do it again. I'm a rando on the internet -- obviously much more credible.

Bruce Hayden said...

My very strong personal preference is for the Battle Hymn of the Republic to be sung primarily, if not exclusively, by male singers. The Johnny Cash rendition was fine - his deep voice overwhelmed the four women in the background. Growing up, our church choir always had a strong preponderance of women, and esp strong, overwhelming, sopranos. I used to cringe when they would lead the singing by the congregation. It’s a marching song. That means that it was essentially designed for male voices. If women want to participate, they can sing the Star Spangled Banner, with its horrid pitching.

A little bias here - my maternal GG grandfather enlisted and fought for the Union, and was wounded in the fight. His mother and her sisters had long been involved in fighting for abolition (and, yes, they all voted for Lincoln in 1860). That ancestor’s marching, with his GAR colleagues, every year inspired my grandfather to have a military career (and historian Bruce Catton to specialize on the Civil War).

I'm Not Sure said...

"Masks are an undoubted good; they help limit the spread of the virus."

Never leaving your house would help limit the spread of the virus even more, yet you didn't suggest that. Are you trying to kill people, or what?

tim in vermont said...

"Smacked her in the butt
with a rotten coconut
My teacher don't like me no more”


We used to sing:

“I shot the filthy whore
with a magnum forty four
the kids are marching on.”

OK, that was only me, the rest of the kids sang:

“knocked her in the bean
with a rotten tangerine
the kids are marching on...”

Sorry, but dull songs don’t inspire such homage for over a century in the folkways.

William said...

The trouble with "Imagine" is that it's written in English and you can understand the lyrics. If it were written in Italian, it would be a much better song. That was Mozart's secret.....Paul Simon said somewhere that he can't listen to the "Feeling Groovy" song without wincing. His best melody paired with his worst lyric.....I'm sure that if John Lennon had lived but a few years longer, he would have apologized for Imagine's lyrics.

n.n said...

T-cells need a better PR firm.

Yes, the infection rate ("cases") is a low-information statistic. Immunity is preexisting, naturally acquired, or induced through inoculation (where it is a viable choice). Assuming credible testing (e.g. excluding false positives), most jurisdictions reached community immunity in late Fall.

Unintended Consequences? Polio and COVID 19

DanTheMan said...

>>It’s right next to “Onward Christian Soldiers."


That's theme song of the New Iraq Army. :(

I'm Not Sure said...

"I literally just did the back of the envelope calculation for you. That is why you should believe that now."

The "two weeks to flatten the curve" restrictions worked, the curve was flattened. What didn't happen was the "two weeks" part. Bait-and-switch? Or a lie? Whatever. It happened.

Now, suppose your calculation is accurate- fine. Why should I (or anyone else) believe that, in two weeks, there's not going to be some other bullshit reason made up to keep people restricted from living their lives?

Joe Smith said...

"No, it's not. Not by a long shot."

Sugar, ah honey honey
You are my candy girl
And you got me wanting you

Honey, ah sugar sugar
You are my candy girl
And you've got me wanting you

The shit lyrics in the song above are better than anything in 'Imagine' and here's why:

'Sugar Sugar' was written to be a crap 2-minute song for by teeny boppers.

'Imagine' was supposed to be written as a serious song that would heal the planet.

That's what makes it so offensive.

It's schlock wrapped in garbage, smeared with shit, and covered in treacle.

Not surprising that idiot leftists think that the juvenile, communist musings of a billionaire have such deep meaning, and turned him into a martyred, secular god the moment he drew his last breath.

Without McCartney, Lennon was a Tin Pan Alley hack.

Ask me what I really think.

NorthOfTheOneOhOne said...

daskol said...

Check out the lyrics of the first song to be sung to that tune , John Brown's body, when it was just a marching tune for the Union soldiers, before that poetry contest winning poem replaced it in our popular imagination. Some gory lyrics in some of those versions.

It was originally a hymn called "Say Brothers Will You Meet Us On Canaan's Happy Shore". John Brown's Body and Hang Jeff Davis (or Abe Lincoln) came later.

n.n said...

"Masks are an undoubted good; they help limit the spread of the virus."

That's what intuition and observation suggest. However, in context, excluding community immunity, removing chance, studies show another outcome.

Stan Smith said...

Has no one here ever heard the Mormon Tabernacle Choir version of BHOTR?

Easily the best in my opinion:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yAqNe-m0a8s

M Jordan said...

Call me crazy but this verse is just about perfect poetry to me:

In the beauty of the lilies Christ was born across the sea,
With a glory in His bosom that transfigures you and me.
As He died to make men holy, let us die to make men free,
While God is marching on.

DanTheMan said...

>>The trouble with "Imagine" is that it's written in English and you can understand the lyrics.

The trouble with "Imagine" is the outrageous hypocrisy. A multi-multi-millionaire lecturing us about "no possessions."

The Clash did much the same in early 80's, singing about the evils of America and the glory of the Sandinistas... while raking in the cash. Yet more Marxist millionaires...



M Jordan said...

Actually, I like this verse even better:


I have read a fiery gospel writ in burnished rows of steel:
"As ye deal with my contemners, so with you my grace shall deal";
Let the Hero, born of woman, crush the serpent with his heel,
Since God is marching on.

M Jordan said...

John Lennon, when reminded by a friend about "No possessions" in "Imagine," replied:

"It was just a bloody song."

n.n said...

More information, including citations and charts.

Covid-19 -- A White Paper - To @RealDonaldTrump and @CDC*

The transmission modes were mischaracterized, preexisting immunity was underestimated, acquired immunity was misjudged, and the increased infection and excess deaths rates followed from Planned Parent/hood, social contagion, restrictive mandates, denying, stigmatizing early, inexpensive, effective treatments, and collateral damage.

Michael K said...

A little bias here - my maternal GG grandfather enlisted and fought for the Union, and was wounded in the fight.

My great great uncle die from a wound at Vicksburg. I have his letters to his wife, reassuring her that his wound was not too bad. He had survived Shiloh but was wounded in Grant's last assault on mMay 22. Grant after that repulse, settled down to a siege. They surrendered July 4.

tim in vermont said...

"most jurisdictions reached community immunity in late Fall.”

Yet deaths doggedly continued to climb well after that wonderful point in time nobody told the virus about. Herd immunity is kind of a misnomer, it depends heavily on the immunity levels of varying demographics. If people over fifty were 100% immune by whatever means, and people under fifty were hardly immune at all, we would still be good, no matter the absolute percentage.

tim in vermont said...

If those lyrics came from a poetry contest, they were still inspired.

n.n said...

while raking in the cash. Yet more Marxist millionaires...

The democratic/dictatorial duality. And, of course, diversity dogma, a classicist religious philosophy, not limited to racism, breeds adversity.

Skeptical Voter said...

I've got several progressive friends (what the heck if you live in California you can't avoid them) who have made "believe in the science" and "listen to the science" and "you're a science denier" into something like a cargo cult religion. Actually discussing "science" with them is like discussing theology with True Believers. I'd be better off talking to a brick wall. They are worshippers in the church of St. Anthony Fauci.

Now Shufflin Senescent Joe has got all wee wee'd up and is calling the decisions of the governors of Mississippi and Texas to open up "Neanderthal thinking". Next think you know, he's going to be calling them "lying dog faced Pony Soldiers". Well those Pony Solider will have good company with other governors like Ron DeSantis and Kristi Noem who kept their states open. I guess they are all Neanderthals--and belong to a club, to which Joe is not invited.

Greg The Class Traitor said...

rcocean said...
BTW, they usually changed the "let us die to make men Free" to "let us live to make men free" during WW 2. People had stopped being into martyrdom.

"As he died to make men holy let us live to make them free" actually seems like a better counterpoint.

Esp since his death only lasted 3 days.

Balfegor said...

Re: I'm Not Sure:

Now, suppose your calculation is accurate- fine. Why should I (or anyone else) believe that, in two weeks, there's not going to be some other bullshit reason made up to keep people restricted from living their lives?

Two reasons. One, I'm not an American public health expert who has spent the past twelve months strategically lying to the public in order to manipulate them into doing what I want. And second -- more importantly since I have no authority here -- we're talking about the governor of Texas. You think if the governor of Texas set clear achievable criteria for opening, tracked the numbers, and reached them, he wouldn't open up at this point? He's not Cuomo. He's already opened Texas up, so in the alternate universe where he laid out my preferred criteria for opening that Texas was on track to meet in two weeks, three at the most, it would seem a bit odd to believe that actually he wouldn't have done. People on the ground in our alternate universe might not believe him after having public experts crow about how clever they were to mislead the public, but Abbott is the same fellow in that universe as in this. He'd open the state up.

n.n said...

Yet deaths doggedly continued to climb well after that wonderful point in time nobody told the virus about. Herd immunity is kind of a misnomer

Assuming accurate testing and attribution, latent and progressive conditions. Community immunity refers to vectors and probable cases and deaths, but does not preclude infection, disease progression, and even localized surges.

tim in vermont said...

https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nvss/vsrr/covid19/excess_deaths.htm

Excess deaths will soon fall to within the range of “normal,’ meaning they won’t be excess anymore. We are back within the range of H1N1 back in 2018. There may not be any more waves at all.

tim in vermont said...

"Assuming accurate testing and attribution, latent and progressive conditions.”

If you want to get a paper published that demolishes the methodology of excess deaths, go right ahead, but it seems pretty basic and unassailable. At best you would have to find some other explanation for all of the excess deaths. A lot of you guys wear your rejection of logic and evidence like a badge, repacing it with ideology. It’s Lysenkoism of the right.

n.n said...

my maternal GG grandfather enlisted and fought for the Union, and was wounded in the fight.

Not the first, probably the second greatest generation, in order.

DanTheMan said...

>>I'm not an American public health expert who has spent the past twelve months strategically lying to the public in order to manipulate them into doing what I want.

Fauci lost me completely when he suggested we stop shaking hands... not just during the pandemic, but permanently.

It was a crystal clear moment showing he was either incredibly naïve, or completely disconnected from everyday life in America, or both.

If you say something that foolish, I for one can't take anything else you say seriously.

bleh said...

What Abbott and other governors are doing now is necessary because there needs to be a first mover putting pressure on the other states. There's a natural bias against loosening up restrictions, if only not to be blamed for what happens after you get rid of the restrictions. Even if things go well, critics will say things could have gone better if you'd kept the restrictions in place.

I'm sure Abbott has done some polling to see that a solid majority of Texans support eliminating the mask mandate. Which should give him some cushion if things go badly. Blue state governors like Cuomo, Newsom, etc., do not have the same luxury.

n.n said...

At best you would have to find some other explanation for all of the excess deaths. A lot of you guys wear your rejection of logic and evidence like a badge, repacing it with ideology. It’s Lysenkoism of the right.

Excess deaths compared to previous years? Deaths attributable to the virus? Deaths attributable to all causes is under surveillance, but the intuitive consensus staked an early claim.

tim in vermont said...

My Great Grandfather enlisted for pay, taking the place of another. The war was thankfully over within weeks and he never left training, so he made out on the deal.

I'm Not Sure said...

"You think if the governor of Texas set clear achievable criteria for opening, tracked the numbers, and reached them, he wouldn't open up at this point?"

We've been lied to pretty much from the very start of things. At this point, I don't trust any politicians.

"He's not Cuomo."

He is a politician.

n.n said...

There's a natural bias against loosening up restrictions

Emotional inertia, intuitive science, vested interests, and prospective legal liability.

mockturtle said...

All satires aside, the Battle Hymn of the Republic is the best patriotic song ever written and should be sung--all verses!!!--at public functions instead of the national anthem, IMO, in defiance of the anti-Christians among us. They can just keep quiet and listen. The only way to healing as a nation is through Christ. Seriously.

tim in vermont said...

All causes n.n. If you are sayig it’s not COVID-19, it’s up to you to explain that tranche of excess deaths that sure seems to me to follow a curve that a seasonal virus would make. I am all ears, look at the graph and tell me what killed those people.

Nonapod said...

According to my calculations using data from NYT

California has averaged 11 positive tests per 100k residents over the past seven days
Texas has averaged 25 positive tests per 100k residents over the past seven days
Florida has averaged 24 positive tests per 100k residents over the past seven days
New York has averaged 37 positive tests per 100k residents over the past seven days

Greg The Class Traitor said...

Chuck said...
Why not? What exactly is the argument against mandated masks?

A properly fitted N95 mask (one that will keep you from smelling a sharp odor held 6 inches away) will provide some protection for you from Covid. not for anyone else, but for you.

Religiously wearing a mask at home at home will make it less likely that an infected individual will pass the infection on to other family members.

Every single person in public religiously wearing a mask over nose and mouth 100% of the time they're in anything public, and never reaching under their mask to scratch their noses, would probably provide some benefit.

To sum up:
I've got N95 masks. None of them filter my great going out, they only filter the air coming in. No public health benefit
No one wears masks at home religiously, and a gov't order to do so would be ignored
Many people do a crappy job with masks in public. And the focus on masks has led to a drop of focus on hand washing / sanitation / control. So in practice this doesn't do much good.

So, masks are a miserable experience that leave people feeling like they're chocking, and do little to no good. Mask mandates are the agrandization of petty dictators of the rest of us.

That is why they suck, and should be abolished.

tim in vermont said...

"So in practice this doesn't do much good.”

And yet the observational studies that were done that used more sophisticated statistical analysis than cherry picking graphs and posting them on Twitter showed that they reduced the infection rates, bringing more people alive to the point where we have a vaccine. This despite all of your theories as to why they wouldn’t work.

Just like excess deaths continued despite n.n.’s theories that they did not exist.

tim in vermont said...

To be clear, I think that the time for mask mandates may be past, although I wish people would wear them indoors in supermarkets and drug stores, places that are not really optional, like restaurants and bars and ball parks are.

These arguments that they don’t work take a very selective view of the evidence.

Roy Lofquist said...

Far worse than all those songs mentioned - Bang Bang,

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DcMS1GoUvbI

effinayright said...

I got my second covid shot last week.

Nonetheless the Faucisti keep telling me I still need to wear a mask.

Why? who the eff knows.

Can anyone name a respiratory virus that an immunized person can still transmit to other people?

Why don't people who get flu shots have to wear masks?

Where is "the science"?

effinayright said...

tim in vermont said...
To be clear, I think that the time for mask mandates may be past, although I wish people would wear them indoors in supermarkets and drug stores, places that are not really optional, like restaurants and bars and ball parks are.

These arguments that they don’t work take a very selective view of the evidence.
************

So...how about offering us your best evidence, comprising multiple studies and meta-studies?

And I take it you accept the official "died from covid" statistics? Why?

BUMBLE BEE said...

Fortunately, flu deaths have ceased to exist. That's science. Wait till next flu season. America is likely flooded with counterfeit N95 masks by now. Do you feel lucky? Well do ya?

Richard Aubrey said...

Stan Smith

youtube has BHOTR by First Dallas Baptist Church Better than the MTC.
Also by Kate Smith with some Normandy fighting footage. Thy lyrics about let the hero born of woman crush the serpent with his heel cover a line of tanks and GIs moving up to do just that.

Youtube also has

There was blood upon the risers,
there were brains upon the chute
Intstines were a'hangin'
from his paratrooper boot.

sniff

Michael K said...


Religiously wearing a mask at home at home will make it less likely that an infected individual will pass the infection on to other family members.


The only valid argument for mask wearing is if you are sick and coughing or sneezing. I would hope most people are smart enough to figure that out. Biden obviously isn't because I have seen him lift his mask and cough into his hand.

My wife had all the symptoms last June but had 5 negative tests. We were both taking HCQ. She spent 3 nights in the hospital and has a long history of asthma and emphysema. Never in ICU. I did not get it.

tim in vermont said...

"And I take it you accept the official "died from covid" statistics? Why?”

Look at the excess deaths link I posted and tell me what else could have accounted for so many. Is it your belief that. we had a massive and deadly flu epidemic and doctors and hospitals have been treating the wrong thing all along?

What would be different about the numbers we see if COVID-19 was far more contagious than the flu and measures taken against COVID were far more effective against the flu?

The deaths are there. They are real. Country after country. It’s up to you to explain what they are if you maintain that they are not COVID-19. I mean the all of those weeks since early last year when the number of deaths in the US greatly exceeded the normal numbers and followed a pattern that would be expected from a seasonal virus.

Do you think that hospital labs are not testing for the flu, and committing widespread malpractice? That’s on a level with the 9-11 “Loose change” conspiracies.

Brian said...

Why not? What exactly is the argument against mandated masks?

I'll bite. Mandating masks means that masks won't work. If everybody wore masks seriously then a mandate wouldn't be required. So politicians in their first order thinking, simply think by mandating masks, magically everybody will wear masks like they were a infectious disease doctor in a level 5 virus lab.

In reality, people who are forced to wear a mask will only do the bare minimum. So they are "complying" with the order, but in reality, they are not doing themselves or anyone else any good.

Similar non mask situations come up in the office environment. See Mike Judge's Office Space. "You know Bob", Peter complaining about having 8 different bosses, "that will only make someone work just hard enough to not get fired". While the managers think that having 8 different bosses would make an employee work harder, it actually results in the opposite.

Take also, stopsighs/stop lights versus traffic circles. We want everyone to obey traffic laws, yet collisions happen frequently during these stop environments. Studies show fewer accidents with things like traffic circles where cars have to watch out for each other, than with stop signs/lights.

Think of the 2nd order effects! While masks may work in limited situations, mandating masks is actually counterproductive. Masks aren't magic talismans.

tim in vermont said...

"The only valid argument for mask wearing is if you are sick and coughing or sneezing.”

Why don’t you explain then how it has been so easy to find cases of pre-symptomatic transmission of the virus. Pick your own study, go to scholar.google.com and type in pre-symptomatic. Is it your contention that when speaking, people don’t produce and aerosolize droplets laden with virus from their vocal chords?

There has been a ton of work on this in the last year and it all points to the fact that masks work. Even the Anish-Day study found that fewer people in the mask group became ill, and even fewer seriously ill.

Balfegor said...

Re: Greg the class traitor:

I've got N95 masks. None of them filter my great going out, they only filter the air coming in.

You're wearing a vented mask. I have one like that, with a rubber seal and the removable/replaceable intake filters. It's pretty nice (and the filters I attach are better than N95, I think), but for the precise reason you note, it doesn't comply with the mask requirements on, e.g. airlines (at least United), which forbid vented masks. There are tightly fitted N95's available with no vent, and I have a couple (I wore one when I had to repatriate to the US after my visa ran out). For daily use, I generally wear Korean KF94s, not fitted tightly enough that the seal is 100% perfect, but most of my breath is still passing through the mask proper.

Brian said...

And yet the observational studies that were done that used more sophisticated statistical analysis than cherry picking graphs and posting them on Twitter

My understanding is that these studies were with mask wearers. I.e. they were volunteers. By definition we aren't talking about volunteers with a mandate.

Mandated mask wearers wear them under their chin, or use a more comfortable neck gator that is porous, or pull their mask down to talk, or pull their mask off to sneeze.

Wearing a mask in a bar where you are drinking is just silly. Either shut down the bar, or remove the mask requirement.

In the same line shutting down the bar at 11pm instead of 1am is silly. The virus doesn't care about the number on a clock.

tim in vermont said...

"Masks aren't magic talismans.”

Nope, they are not, they are effective barriers to aerosolized coronaviruses.

Respiratory virus shedding in exhaled breath and efficacy of face masks

Note that the part about “symptomatic individuals” in the abstract was based on conventional wisdom last March, which was wrong, not based on anything they discovered in their experiments, which was only that simple surgical masks can block aerosolized coronavirus.

This argument is moot though. You guys have an emotional reason for not examining all of the evidence that I can’t overcome, and the pandemic is coming to an end.

GMay said...

"And yet the observational studies that were done that used more sophisticated statistical analysis..."

Sticking "sophisticated" in front of "statistical" doesn't change the fact that observational studies aren't scientifically rigorous. It might be statistically interesting, and worthy of further scientific inquiry, but it's not actual science. And it's certainly not something that should guide public policy, particularly when there's evidence to suggest that an asymptomatic carrier (which would the the vast majority of people who test positive for) can become symptomatic when constantly shedding viral particles into a warm, moist environment that sits millimeters from the upper respiratory system for hours at a time.

The science, to date, shows that cloth masks (what most people are actually wearing) has little value in preventing transmission. The existing literature on masks in general came from experiments that do not resemble the general public in the COVID-19 environment, that meaning a massive population with no training or experience wearing masks for prolonged periods of time.

Brian said...

Even the Anish-Day study found that fewer people in the mask group became ill

Were they volunteers? Or were they slaves that were forced to participate in the study?

Volunteer mask wearers are going to do better than mandated mask wearers, who are going to look a lot like non mask wearers.

tim in vermont said...

"My understanding is that these studies were with mask wearers.”

YOu would be wrong, they were done comparing jurisdictions mandating masks with those that did not at the sime time and infection rates.

"Wearing a mask in a bar where you are drinking is just silly”

Agreed, bars and restaurants are “enter at your own risk” places. Nobody needs to go to a bar to get food or medicine. It has nothing to do with whether masks work or not though.

Brian said...

Nope, they are not, they are effective barriers to aerosolized coronaviruses.

When worn properly. Are they effective barriers when they are on someones chin? When they are hung from the car mirror? When they are pushed into a pocket to be pulled back out later? When dropped on the floor? When hung from the ear?

These are all things I see in public every day, and I live in a county that never, never ever, had a mask mandate.

GMay said...

" You guys have an emotional reason for not examining all of the evidence that I can’t overcome, and the pandemic is coming to an end."

Everyone here has their reasons, many are posting them. They might be wrong, they might be right, but imputing emotion as the driving factor here is a bullshit ad hominem.

tim in vermont said...

"Sticking "sophisticated" in front of "statistical" doesn't change the fact that observational studies aren't scientifically rigorous.”

Here we are in a fucking pandemic where 500K+ people have died here and another 500K+ people have died in the EU and we can only go with the evidence we have. The observational studies are backstopped by laboratory studies that show that surgical masks are effective against coronavirus.

What nobody could anticipate is the emotional response to something as simple as wearing a mask indoors in places where the public have to go to live would create.

tim in vermont said...

"They might be wrong, they might be right, but imputing emotion as the driving factor here is a bullshit ad hominem.”

Why else is it that people refuse to actually look at the evidence, and instead keep repeating arguments that have long since been debunked?

Jersey Fled said...

Religiously wearing a mask at home at home will make it less likely that an infected individual will pass the infection on to other family members.

The two studies that I saw found that between 10% and 18% of those living in the same household with an infected individual would get the disease.

I bet you though it was higher than that.

Most people that I know think it is a death sentence to run past an unmasked person on a jogging path.

That being said, I would probably wear a mask if my wife was infected because of my age and comorbidities.

Luckily, we will both have been vaccinated by next week.

tim in vermont said...

"When worn properly. Are they effective barriers when they are on someones chin?”

Observational studies all say yes, they work despite the shortcomings of the general public.

GMay said...

"YOu would be wrong, they were done comparing jurisdictions mandating masks with those that did not at the sime time and infection rates."

If that's the case, and that was the only or primary parameter, then that's just the usual bullshit statistical analysis masquerading as science. I'm open to more information though.

Brian said...

YOu would be wrong, they were done comparing jurisdictions mandating masks with those that did not at the sime time and infection rates.

Ahh, the comparing jurisdictions studies. To be accurate, these studies would need to be in the same geographic area. Comparing Seattle to Miami is going to have it's own problems. So by definition when they are in the same geographic area, people will cross contaminate their areas. Unless walled city states sprang up recently.

GMay said...

"Why else is it that people refuse to actually look at the evidence, and instead keep repeating arguments that have long since been debunked?"

Because the evidence might not prove your claim? Because I'm not seeing any debunking going on? (Granted I haven't read every comment) Because other credible evidence casts doubt on the claims? Because people can draw different conclusions given the same sets of facts (happens ALL the time in science, in case you weren't aware) without it being emotion-based? I could probably think up a few more alternative explanations, but you get the drift.

If the only alternative explanations you can divine from an argument is that it's coming from an emotional place, perhaps your ability to digest scientific information isn't as well-honed as you think it might be.

But I'll wait for more evidence.

Brian said...

Observational studies all say yes, they work despite the shortcomings of the general public.

These are some magic masks then... Can I get a case? If I wear it around my arm does that ward off covid as well? What about if I just keep it in my pocket?

tim in vermont said...

" I'm open to more information though.”

I am done here. If you are really interested in getting at the truth, head over to scholar.google.com and type in mask mandates and you can read the details of whatever study you wish. Or you can imagine that other factors happened to randomly line up in such a way as to simply create the appearance that mask mandates work. Of course then you have to ignore the expermental evidence on mask effectiveness I posted above. But that should be no problem for you guys. Ignoring information you don’t want to hear is your speciality, just like so many other people.

This argument is moot.

Mattman26 said...

Where I come from it was:

I bopped her on the beanie
With a greeny tangerine-y
And her teeth came marching out (two, three four)

Inga said...

“You guys have an emotional reason for not examining all of the evidence that I can’t overcome, and the pandemic is coming to an end.”

It seems to be more of a political reason than an emotional reason.

GMay said...

"I am done here."

How totally unsurprising.

tim in vermont said...

"These are some magic masks then...”

You should form a cult, you are very good at “though stopping” language that cults rely on so heavily.

tim in vermont said...

"How totally unsurprising.”

Here, let me spoon feed you the link and you can get your own answers.

https://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&as_sdt=0%2C10&q=mask+mandates&btnG=&oq=mask

Brian said...

Ignoring information you don’t want to hear is your speciality, just like so many other people.

I'm not ignoring anything. I just don't care. My county never mandated masks. The county I have a vacation home in is even less mask dominant (customers in walmart don't wear a mask).

I'm a professional that works at home. I don't have to go into an office, I don't have to deal with customers face to face. Mask mandates in Texas or Vermont or whatever just don't affect me. If Vermont wants to have a mask mandate, have at it. If Texas wants to remove their mask mandate, then more power to them. By the same logic you use, nobody has to go to Texas. If you don't like their mandate, don't go.

I'm an engineer by training. By profession I am paid to find weaknesses in systems. The mask mandate is a weak system, easy to abuse, just as the lockdowns were.

Michael said...

It is pretty simple. At this stage of the great pandemic only an idiot would not have a sense of personal risk. So it will not be forbidden in Texas or Mississippi to wear a mask, social distance or stay at home. The nanny believes you are an idiot. You probably aren’t.

Gilbert Pinfold said...

OK, Texas and Mississippi are "Neanderthals" according to Biden for relaxing COVID mandates and masking requirements--at the same time he allows illegal immigrants to be released into Texas after testing positive for COVID. But they have no compunctions about crossing illegally, but will wear masks and social distance once over the border. Right...

JPS said...

rcocean, 12:13:

"One of the hilarious things about BHTV and the NYT's Doug (Dan?) [Don] McNeil is all three of them pose(d) as "Science experts" when they all three were Rhetoric and English majors!"

I'm OK with this in itself. A science reporter has to make arcane scientific details accessible to the non-expert in a way that professional scientists often don't do (and too many can't). Now whether that reporter is a science expert skilled at making that translation, or a non-scientist who can identify good sources, ask good questions, and relay / explain their responses fairly and lucidly, the result can be helpful.

As far as I know, Bill Bryson has no formal scientific training, but with A Short History of Nearly Everything he wrote a wonderful science book for non-scientists. I experienced the opposite of the Gell-Mann Amnesia premise: Where he touched on the subject of my PhD, I was impressed with how much he'd got right.

Joe Smith said...

Neanderthals are the new Deplorables...

stevew said...

Covid-19 was new and as such there were no experts, scientist or otherwise, to explain it and how to combat it. Now with a years worth of data collected, locally and across the globe, policy makers can make informed decisions. For example the data tell us that lockdowns, quarantines, and masks have made no difference in the spread of the virus. We also know who are the high risk populations and how to protect them.

But of course you know what's best for everyone so you just keep doing you. The rest of us will get on with our lives.

doctrev said...

When 6% of illegals tested are positive for coronavirus- and that's just the ones responsible enough to get tested while breaking the law- obviously there's no possibility to restrict the behavior of Americans. There would certainly be chances to talk about reasonable measures if people dealt with us in good faith. And that hasn't happened at the level of federal public health for months.

Matt Sablan said...

I'd have more faith in experts if they weren't so often, consistently wrong.

Greg The Class Traitor said...

tim in vermont said...
All causes n.n. If you are sayig it’s not COVID-19, it’s up to you to explain that tranche of excess deaths that sure seems to me to follow a curve that a seasonal virus would make. I am all ears, look at the graph and tell me what killed those people.

What killed those people?
1: Not getting medical help because of Covid fears
2: Depression from losing jobs, losing businesses. Depression is well known to lead to adverse health outcomes
3: Depression from losing interaction with people outside their "bubble"
4: Weight gain from lockdowns and lowered physical activity, again well known to cause adverse health outcomes
5: Living in a State with a Democrat Governor who gets old people in LTCFs infected with Covid at high rates

JaimeRoberto said...

The problem isn't necessarily with "science" and "experts".

Part of it is how science reported in the media by people who wouldn't understand science if it bit them in the ass and use fear to ramp up ratings.

Part of it is our expectation of what an expert is. An expert isn't infallible. He isn't right 100% of the time. Hopefully he's right more often than your average Joe, but I'm not sure that's true any more.

Also, Scientists and experts usually have a narrow field of expertise. They are not good at balancing competing priorities. Rand Paul tried to make this point with Fauci.

Another problem is politicians who think they have a myriad of dials they can turn to carefully manage the situation and hide behind the "believe the science" mantra. Constantly changing rules to micromanage peoples' lives leads to distrust and scorn.

Greg The Class Traitor said...

I'd have more faith in experts if they weren't so obviously and blatantly political, and if they publicly attacked the "experts" who are obviously and blatantly political.

When the "public health experts let" came out defending George Floyd protests in the age of Covid, every single signatory of that letter permanently destroyed their credibility.

But every "public health expert" who stood mute helped to permanently destroy the credibility of the entire "public health establishment".

Because a field that lends its "voice" to left wing political agendas is a field that has not legitimacy.

Matt Sablan said...

"When the "public health experts let" came out defending George Floyd protests in the age of Covid, every single signatory of that letter permanently destroyed their credibility."

-- Indeed. It's a lot like how before I just thought Garland was a smart guy who had different politics, but after his, "well, those happened at night, so they're not insurrections," statement, I realize he's a moron, and keeping him from the Supreme Court was a good thing, not just a political power play.

I also make sure to remind people that Cuomo is "Emmy Award Winning Governor Cuomo," because the point is to show the absurdity of credentialism.

Big Mike said...

We were talking a couple of weeks a year ago. Why should anyone believe that now?

@Balfegor, you have no business getting snippy about this question. You are admitting that the 2/3 figure is your own criteria, and need not be any part of Abbott's considerations.

JPS said...

Matt Sablan, 4:38:

"I'd have more faith in experts if they weren't so often, consistently wrong."

Expertise doesn't mean you won't often be wrong, when no one knows the answer. It means you'll generally spend less time mired there, before groping your way to a right answer, than someone who's never analyzed the issues you've immersed yourself in for years. I'm wrong all the time in my own area, but I'm self-critical and I correct myself pretty quickly.

Experts letting their politics cloud their dispassionate judgment, or slanting their pronouncements to support a preferred policy, as you and Greg the Class Traitor discuss above, is a whole other problem. As the physicist Robert Brown put it (in the context of climate research, but it applies here):

"Possible disaster at stake or not, the minute you start lying in science for someone's supposed own benefit, you aren't even on the slippery slope to hell, you're already in it. Science runs on pure, brutal honesty." Or does, if we can keep politics the hell away from it.

Oso Negro said...

@Tim in Vermont

You have been a nervous Nelly for the entire pandemic. I have logged countless air miles, shaken hundreds of hands, and eaten breakfast at Mi Abuelita's in Galveston, Texas at least once a week when I am home FOR THE DURATION OF THE PANDEMIC. At Mi Abuelita's I am required to wear a mask for the few seconds it takes me to walk the 15 feet to my table, where I sit for an hour with no mask. Science! Science! I suggest you buy yourself an NBC suit or something similarly severe, and wear it when you leave your home in Florida or Vermont or wherever you happen to be for the rest of your life. You can't be too safe, after all! Why take chances? If you can't afford it, start a GoFundMe and I will contribute.

Here is a helpful link to the Grainger catalogue. I am sure you can totally rock the look.

https://www.grainger.com/product/5HH24?gucid=N:N:PS:Paid:MS:CSM-2295:TVRYAD:20501231&s_kwcid=AL!2966!10!78752653331538!4582352162607866&ef_id=6bebee7bdbd61f79d0b28e3abc20b6ba:G:s&gclid=6bebee7bdbd61f79d0b28e3abc20b6ba&gclsrc=3p.ds&gclid=6bebee7bdbd61f79d0b28e3abc20b6ba&gclsrc=3p.ds&msclkid=6bebee7bdbd61f79d0b28e3abc20b6ba

Josephbleau said...

My favorite is the airborne version, Blood on the Risers,

Gory, gory, what a helluva way to die,
Gory, gory, what a helluva way to die,
Gory, gory, what a helluva way to die,
He ain't gonna jump no more!

"Is everybody happy?" cried the Sergeant looking up,
Our Hero feebly answered "Yes," and then they stood him up;
He jumped into the icy blast, his static line unhooked,
And he ain't gonna jump no more.

Oso Negro said...

@Althouse - Murchison probably even sang "The Eyes of Texas"! The clear mark of an oppressor trying to gull us with an ode to freedom.

Ken B said...

Neanderthals were a real race. Using them as the standard example of stupidity really is racist.

Joe Smith: Guess what was the best selling song of 1969? Yes, Sugar Sugar. Guess what was the best selling song of the era? In The Summertime by Mungo Jerry. Not what people expect!

Oso Negro said...

And let's be clear - Abbott has freed the citizens of Texas who live OUTSIDE of Democrat-controlled urban areas. Those poor people will be tormented as long as The Party can get away with it. I doubt the music in Adlerville (aka Austin, Austin Texas, Mayor - Steve "Cabo" Adler") will roar back to life next week.

Seamus said...

At Winston Churchill's request, the congregation at his funeral sang The Battle Hymn of the Republic. Three and a half years later, at the end of Bobby Kennedy's funeral, Andy Williams sang the same hymn, which I remember bringing the goosebumps up on my back when I listened to it.

I'm Full of Soup said...

I would lie to remind all your readers that deaths per 100,000 are:

USA average 155
CA 131
FL 143
TX 150
PA 187
MISS 224
MA 231 [I believe Dr. Fauci went to Holy Cross in Massachusetts]
NY 244
NJ 262

So Texas is a bit better then the average. Mississippi is worse than the average.

The hostess's state of Wisconsin is 120.

All stats are as of last Friday 2/26/21.



Narr said...

"Freebird" a bad song!?! Only a barbarian or Yankee could think such a thing.

Narr
I jumped ahead for that, and now return to later comments.

Static Ping said...

My opinion on "Imagine" is it is a beautiful, moving song communicating an absolutely horrible message. The worst part about it is John is completely earnest about it and obviously well meaning. He knows not what he sings and if he did know the truth he would be horrified. Alas.

I'm sure I could come up with some songs with a worse message than "Imagine" but none that were actually popular and were recorded since the 1950s come to mind. For worse songs, I could probably come up with several hundred that were far worse before I got bored and decided to do something else. "Imagine" is excellent song craft.

Joe Smith said...

"Joe Smith: Guess what was the best selling song of 1969? Yes, Sugar Sugar. Guess what was the best selling song of the era? In The Summertime by Mungo Jerry. Not what people expect!"

They're crap songs but you can tap your toes to them. They weren't meant to be serious and save the world like you-know-who. They're quite enjoyable and nobody mistakes them for Shakespeare.

Btw, Mungo Jerry had some FINE mutton-chops...

iowan2 said...

I'm Full of Soup said...
I would lie to remind all your readers that deaths per 100,000 are:

USA average 155


Shouldn't we be looking at these numbers from just January 1st? My perception is the medicos have learned treatment protocols that have affected death statistics. Also, the dry tinder of senior care facilities, as been expended. But I will admit to not looking closely at the numbers.

Narr said...

Eh. Nothing important after that.

Narr
See you at the next cafe.

The Crack Emcee said...

Sheryl Attkisson gave a good talk on how the media's been lying to us - with tons of examples - reducing claims of objectivity to the lies they are.

If you didn't have a firm grasp of reality before Trump, I feel for you, now.

Markoni said...

"Experts"
Self-appointed, self-anointed high priestesses of "Facts" and "Science"

Jim said...

The Wisconsin marching band played and *sang* The Battle Hymn of the Republic in ~1960. The stands went wild, shouting, stomping, cheering. . . and I was on the field singing and playing and watching the fans. Quite a memory.

Richard Aubrey said...

What is the mechanism by which masks work? They don't kill the little bastards.
No. They trap your stuff going out so nobody else catches what you have. They trap other people's stuff so you don't catch what they have.
They concentrate "stuff" in front of your face and you breathe through it. Such of the stuff that breaks loose on the inhale goes into you. On the exhale, out into the world until the next inhaler walks by.
Makes me all warm and fuzzy.
And every time you touch the mask, your fingers sop up some stuff to be deposited on the next surface you touch to lie in wait for the next masked victim to touch.

They only work if you wash your hands--or sanitize them--every freaking time you touch your mask.
Went for my semi-ann physical the other day. The shenanigans the receptionist went through simply to glove, sanitize, change gloves, wipe off he pen on which I signed the pad--with plexiglass between us--were the only way to make masks effective. And at that level of care, probably unnecessary.

John henry said...

Someone said in a comment that John brown engaged in insurrection in the Harper's ferry raid.

I agree that it was insurrection in the common meaning of the word. I did not remember him being charged with it though. Not tha I have a lot of knowledge about this.

One would have thought that an attack on a US Arsenal would have merited federal charges and I had always assumed that it was the feds who tried and hung brown.

Looking in the book of knowledge I find that he was tried in a Virginia court for treason against Virginia.

That got him a death sentence.

He was also charged Wiig "inciting insurrection" among slaves though his attack, in which a dozen or so were killed does not appear to have been "insurrection" (legally)

Thanks Ann and commenters. Now you've sent me down a rabbit hole to find out more.

Seems weird from a legal standpoint.

John Henry

iowan2 said...

Masks, no masks, lock downs, wide open, what difference, at this point, does it make?

Starting January 8th hospitalizations, and deaths have been on a steep decline.

(pro tip: Big surge is hospitalizations and deaths two weeks after a major holiday...maybe like Christmas...so predicts the "experts")

The virus is doing exactly like every other virus. All the wu hu flu theater was the CDC practicing their power to override constitutional protections against an authoritative government stripping citizens of their freedoms....IN THE NAME OF SCIENCE.

Catastrophic, Anthropogenic, Global, Climate, Change. Next in the que.

John henry said...

I ran across Foamtec cleanrooms masks working in a pharma plant last year. They are soft foam rubber and conform very well to your face.

They probably do a better job than the paper masks in which very little air actually passes through the "filter" media. Most comes in and out around the edges.

The conformal fit assures that all air in and out passes through the media.

There is very little restriction in breathing in and out. I can even drink a glass of water through it. Not easily, though.

It's the closest thing to no mask that ive found.

https://www.foamtecintlwcc.com/products/accessories/facemasks

for specs. You can buy them through Ann's portal too.

Washable and reusable.

John Henry

GMay said...

"Here, let me spoon feed you the link and you can get your own answers."

Golly, and here you said you were done. I would have been back sooner if I'd known you were gonna lie about that.

Here's a protip - linking search results doesn't prove anything. But I indulged your smokescreen anyway. The first couple of links confirm what I suspected earlier: statistical analyses that establish a correlation. That's all. Nothing about causation and very little attempts by the authors to establish causation or control for the myriad other variables that contribute to increases in infection and hospitalization rates.

Do you want to make an actual effort here, or is phoning it in your thing?

Here, let me help you.

https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/69/wr/mm6936a5.htm

There's a study that shows a lot, particularly how it acknowledges all the variables that aren't considered in the studies you can't arse yourself to produce. Another thing it shows is how 85% of those infected claimed to always wear masks.

Robert Cook said...

"All the wu hu flu theater...."

You think half a million Americans dead in a year from the virus is theater? That's well over the number of Americans killed in combat in all of World War II. Think of the exponentially larger number of people affected by those deaths. Think also of those who haven't died but have experienced grave illness, including persistent debilitating after effects, along with expensive hospitalizations.

Oh, never mind. You obviously don't care.

h said...

replying to John Henry at 6:27.

THanks for your observations. I also assumed that he was executed for a federal crim of some sort.

John Brown has been intriguing to me, because he doesn't conform to modern norms. If John Brown is to be admired for wanting to end slavery, was he wrong to use the force of arms to bring that about? And if he was, how can you support restrictions on gun ownership? And if that was okay, would it be okay for a person or group to form an armed insurrection because they oppose lack of restrictions on abortion rights? Or because they think that elections were not held in a legal way?

I'm not a good historian. But I also think that there was an exchange of letters between Brown and Frederick Douglass in which Brown argued that abolition required violent upheaval against the US government, and Douglass argued that it could better be achieved by peaceful non-violent protest. I also have a vague recollection that Douglass came to believe (after it was too late) that Brown was right.

Robert Cook said...

"My opinion on 'Imagine' is it is a beautiful, moving song communicating an absolutely horrible message."

Not horrible at all. Just a wistful "imagining" of a world where humankind were not violently divided by selfishness, self-centeredness, and illusory "differences" and beliefs.

KellyM said...

@ YoungHegelian

I agree about your version. I'd never heard that one. When I was a kid the ditty went..
Glory, glory, hallelujah,
Teacher hit me with a ruler
Knocked her on her bean with a rotten tangerine
Now she ain't my teacher no more!

The more cynical part of me says that Abbott decided to do this at this time to distract the masses from his complete SNAFU in bending over to the feds instead of ordering the utilities to to what they needed to do to keep the lights/heat on. Not that I don't think he's right to do it, just the timing is suspect.

John henry said...

Half a million dead of what, Robert?

Kung flu? No, I don't believe it's theater. That's too kind a word. I believe it's lies.

CDC says that over 90% of those did Not die of Chinese lung rot. They say they died of 2-3 other causes on average. Including things like gunshots, drowning, auto accidents.

They tested positive on a bogus test (pcr) that had cycles jacked up way too high, yielding way to many false positives.

Some didn't even test positive, some weren't even tested at all. They had merely been in contact with someone who might have had it.

So yeah, not even theater. Just 500m straight up lies.

Fuck this flu.

John Henry

Gospace said...

stevew said..
Covid-19 was new...


And right there is one of the biggest lies of the whole covidiocy. One that the vast majority swallowed hook, line, and sinker. Covid-19 is nothing more and nothing less than a coronavirus variant. The medical profession knows all about Coronaviruses. One thing known- prior to the newly developed vaccines no successful vaccine had been developed for any coronavirus that infects humans. Some of the vaccine attempts killed IIRC. But we have successfully made coronavirus vaccines for domestic felines. To be honest, I do not trust in the long term effectiveness or safety of any of the newly developed dreaded covid vaccines. If you want to take your chances, go ahead, take them.

One thing different about the dreaded covid virus is that there are several analyses that indicate it was manufactured and is not natural.

We learned a lot about the dreaded covid from the floating laboratory Diamond Princess, an ideal virus incubator. Not as deadly as advertised, not as infectious as advertised, a significant portion of people appear to have natural immunity, and it has far more age bias for deadliness. In the next year we learned a lot more. Like treatments that lower the death rate.

So for Greg The Class Traitor I’m going to add 6 to “What killed these people?”
6. Not receiving any treatment at all if the dreaded covid was contracted unless one was a VIP or had a maverick doctor.

West Texas Intermediate Crude said...

KellyM-
Slightly off topic, but WRT your reference to Abbott not keeping the lights on.
The system worked as designed. It was designed to provide the cheapest power possible. The cheap power was a big factor in Texas overperforming the rest of the US economy over the last decade or so. Cheap power is good for industry, it's good for ordinary citizens, it's good for non-profits. It's bad for Greta, but that's another topic.
When a hundred year weather event occurs, whether it's a hurricane or a cold spell, stuff breaks. You get freezes, floods, power outages, major damage, suffering, and some people will die as a result.
You can spend more to make any system more robust, but then you don't get to spend that money on things that at the time seemed more important.
ERCOT blew it on the rotating the outages, but I've enjoyed the 8 cent power I've had for the past few years. I spent some of the savings on making sure my house was secure during the cold event, and lost only outdoor vegetation. People who did not think ahead, or did not have the money to properly prepare, suffered greater losses and in some cases lost their lives, but that always happens when there is a disaster. If power cost more here, some people who did prepare would not have had the resources to prepare as well as they did.

As my whimsy leads me.. said...

I think Johnny Cash may have confused The Battle Hymn of the Republic, which was a Union song, with “When Johnny Comes Marching Home Again,” which really was popular with people on both sides of the war. Some people think “Johnny” was always Johnny Reb, and the Union had Billy Yank, but they weren’t rigid about those nicknames. “The Battle Hymn of the Republic” was obviously pro-Union and anti-slavery. “When Johnny Comes Marching Home” appealed to the yearning on both sides to have the war over and the men home.

Toy

effinayright said...

Tom of Vermont said:

The deaths are there. They are real. Country after country. It’s up to you to explain what they are if you maintain that they are not COVID-19. I mean the all of those weeks since early last year when the number of deaths in the US greatly exceeded the normal numbers and followed a pattern that would be expected from a seasonal virus.
*******************************

OK, let's assume arguendo that you are correct. Myself, I question the accuracy of the data in part because each state has had different rules for determining cause of death. But I've seen good medical websites arguing that undercounting may be going on as well, for the same reason. I don't ascribe to any conspiracy theory.

OK, Please look at the purported death-from-covid per age group here:

https://www.statista.com/statistics/1191568/reported-deaths-from-covid-by-age-us/

Notice the heavy skewing toward people dying who are over 65. 81% of the deaths for the period 1/1/2020 to 02 /13/2021 . Only a tiny fraction of deaths for those under 55 in the entire country.

Does that look like a reason to destroy our economy and to frighten the shit out of every person young and old? Or a valid reason for teachers to consider themselves "guinea pigs" if they are exposed to symptom-less children?

Why not isolate the geezers (I am one) and those with the illness and leave it at that? Please don't tell me that younger people with no symptoms can transmit the disease to old people, because that would point to much higher death-rates across all age cohorts, not just among the elderly. The data shows that has not happened.

Vermont has experienced 207 covid deaths, 332/million, while NH, NY and Mass have had much higher death rates, multiples of Vermont's.

Yet you've been a major hosenpisser over the extent and lethality of the disease, urging drastic measures by the entire population, in Vt. and nationwide.

Can you look at the data and explain why Vermont's tough measures have worked, but those in the states abutting it have not? Doe Vt. do anything **positively** those states don't?

mockturtle said...

One thing different about the dreaded covid virus is that there are several analyses that indicate it was manufactured and is not natural

Gospace, it is almost certain that it was developed in the lab. There were four additional amino acids from the original COVID-1 and many scientists have said [before they were stifled] that it would not have mutated to that extent in that span of time.
But just because it's 'only a coronavirus' does not mean that it isn't dangerous. No one knows as yet the extent of its mechanisms or their long term effects. As with HIV, some retroviruses are more dangerous than others.

mockturtle said...

That said, the pandemic was conveniently used to further the agenda of the Left and they will continue to milk it as long as they can. And because they can, they will.

Mal said...

@daskol


Our version went,

mine eyes have seen the glory of the burning of the school

we have tortured every teacher
we have broken every rule

we have marched into the office
we have shot the principal

the school is marching on

glory, glory hallelujah
teacher got me with a ruler

shot her in the attic
with a loaded automatic

and she don't teach no more

rcocean said...

"John Brown has been intriguing to me, because he doesn't conform to modern norms."

John Brown was a terrorist and nutcase who quite rightly got hung. He had a song about him, because once the Civil war was started by the Slave-owners, the North decided, quite rightly, that abolition had to be a war objective. As Grant put it, there could never be peace between the two sections as long as slavery existed.

The fact that a terrorist wants something good, doesn't mean terrorism and murder is right. Stalin wanted to industrialize the USSR and have a more equal society, that didn't justify killing millions. Some wanted to end the Vietnam war, that didn't justify bombing innocent Students or killing policeman. The list could go on and on.

n.n said...

Great Barrington Declaration

They were right. Separately, the doctors were right about early treatments (e.g. HCQ cocktail, Ivermectin protocol) to reduce hospitalization, mitigate disease progression, facilitate natural immunity, and promote community immunity, all while tamping down collateral damage. Planned Parent/hood, especially in the first months of the pandemic, is one of the few venues where there were observable excess deaths on year over year basis in a population. Deaths attributable to Covid-19 are correlated with comorbidities correlated with age. There is also a strong correlation between malnutrition, specifically vitamin D, and disease progression.

Narr said...

H.W. Brands has a book out about Brown and Lincoln--and Douglass, who was the link between the two. He says that Douglass thought Brown was moving too early and expecting too much, a view Lincoln pretty much shared, but (IIRC) Douglass, not being burdened by actual power and responsibility, was quick to try to exploit the Harper's Ferry fiasco to polarize the question.

It took Lincoln several years to conclude that abolition was the only way forward.

Narr
Hooray for Mr. Lincoln's Army!

Static Ping said...

Robert Cook: Not horrible at all. Just a wistful "imagining" of a world where humankind were not violently divided by selfishness, self-centeredness, and illusory "differences" and beliefs.

Quite true. Until you look at the means by which this world would be formed and discover something out of Orwell. It is less imagination and more delusion.

Achilles said...

Robert Cook said...

"All the wu hu flu theater...."

You think half a million Americans dead in a year from the virus is theater? That's well over the number of Americans killed in combat in all of World War II. Think of the exponentially larger number of people affected by those deaths. Think also of those who haven't died but have experienced grave illness, including persistent debilitating after effects, along with expensive hospitalizations.

Oh, never mind. You obviously don't care.


Going to be sad in 2021 when our cure for pneumonia, flu, lung cancer, heart disease all wear off.

It was really awesome having nobody die from those for a year.

Joe Smith said...

"Not horrible at all. Just a wistful "imagining" of a world where humankind were not violently divided by selfishness, self-centeredness, and illusory "differences" and beliefs."

Nice sentiment, but the execution is pure fucking schlock.

mockturtle said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
mockturtle said...

Cookie, it may, at some time, have come to your attention that the history of mankind has been an endless string of 'illusory differences and beliefs'. In fact, these differences and beliefs, far from being illusory, are intrinsic to the nature of the human species. There are only two conceivable solutions to this: One, a totalitarian World Government and/or Two, a re-engineering of our brains. Neither solution is desirable. So we can either accept man with all his faults or we can make up silly songs about peace and love.

iowan2 said...


"You think half a million Americans dead in a year from the virus is theater?"

You need to go play on twitter were your reading comprehension matches up with all the other idiots.

No one is denying.the globe has experienced a pandemic.
The theater is all the government posturing like there is a discernible answer. That shutting down Smith and Sons shoe store, but allowing Kohls to conduct business, would save a single life. Shutting down the Box county nursery somehow is SCIENCE, and roping of the isles of garden seeds in Home Depot, will prevent the overwhelming of hospitals.
The Theater was being fully aware about seniors being especially vulnerable to the virus, but refusing to implement even a single protocol to prevent the virus from entering senior living facilities.
The Theater is vaccinating teachers instead of vulnerable seniors.
The Theater is pretending that after all the vulnerable are vacinated, we give two hoots about healthy people becoming infected. We know all the risk factors, when those are eliminated, it is no worse than seasonal flu...to pretend different, is, theater.

catter said...

I've never seen a parody that comes close to the original for grim bloodlust.
The interweaving of religion and war-mongering gives me chills.
If you ever need to frighten a foreigner, have them read all the verses.
In case anyone's not familiar with it, the wikipedia article has the complete version.

Robert Cook said...

‘Robert Cook: Not horrible at all. Just a wistful "imagining" of a world where humankind were not violently divided by selfishness, self-centeredness, and illusory "differences" and beliefs.’

”Quite true. Until you look at the means by which this world would be formed and discover something out of Orwell. It is less imagination and more delusion.”

Lennon does not propose any means or program by which the world could come to “live as one.” The song is not a blueprint for forced social engineering. He is aware such a world is a dream. That’s why the song is called “Imagine.” The song is really just a meditation on what could happen if each individual tried to become more accepting of others, less selfish, less intolerant, more kind. It’s about individual transformation.

Richard Aubrey said...

Lennon's song leaves out the matter of timing. If we're all going to give up our mean old ways... You first. Because Lennon's dream as that of so many in those days presumed the epiphanied give up their capability to active self-defense.
If it's guaranteed that the lion shall lie down with the lamb and everything will be fine, there's no problem with me being the lion. Right? I mean, it's guaranteed. You have nothing to worry about, right? Wouldn't hurt. No need for me to be the lamb to make this work. I think I'll be the lion. You be the lamb We'll all be happy and peaceful and stuff.

daskol said...

Call me crazy but this verse is just about perfect poetry to me:

In the beauty of the lilies Christ was born across the sea,
With a glory in His bosom that transfigures you and me.
As He died to make men holy, let us die to make men free,
While God is marching on.


I remember discovering this later verse when I was looking into the song because my kids enjoyed it when I sang it to them at night. Even as a non-Christian, I always thought this was the most moving verse when you think about it as a war marching tune. I understand that sometimes the lyric was changed to "let us live to make men free," but it's better this way.

Todd said...

Ken B said...

Imagine is not remotely as bad as I Shot The Sheriff. Sorry, but it’s true.

3/4/21, 1:51 PM


Have you heard Bob Marley do it? I believe it was originally his song and after growing up on the "other" version, it took me 4 or 5 listens to "get it" and I now like his rendition much more than the version everyone usually thinks of.

And sorry but Imagine is absolutely the worst song EVER and I wish it had never been written. More for the words and sentiments than anything else.

Tim said...

China weaponized the Kung Flu to panic the rest of the world. Remember the video of Chinese collapsing in the street? Our Left/deep state/press saw this as an opportunity to damage Trump. All you have to see is the unending attacks on Trump from the start. HCQ denial for one. Lies about drinking bleach! Falsified death reports. Sure it helped kill old , weak people. Just like the flu, pnuemonia etc. How many died of ONLY Kung Flu? No one will tell.

Gravel said...

"Imagine" is lame, insipid, and soporific. It's not worse than "Oh Mickey You're So Fine", though. But it may very well hold pride of place for the distance between its actual musical value and the reverence in which it's held by equally insipid boomers and lefties.

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