Joe Rogan, Call Julie Ponesse And Sign Up For Some Manhood Lessons...,

brownstone |   Dr. Julie Ponesse was a professor of ethics who has taught at Ontario’s Huron University College for 20 years. She was placed on leave and banned from accessing her campus due to the vaccine mandate. This is her speech during the weekend when the Canadian truckers arrived in Ottawa to protest pandemic restrictions and mandates that have been so harmful to so many. Dr. Ponesse has now taken on a role with The Democracy Fund, a registered Canadian charity aimed at advancing civil liberties, where she serves as the pandemic ethics scholar.

But our true moral failure is that we did this to ourselves. We allowed it. And some of us embraced it. We forgot for a while that freedom needs to be lived every day and that, some days, we need to fight for it. We forgot that, as Premier Brian Peckford said, “Even in the best of times we are only a heartbeat away from tyranny.”

We took our freedom for granted and now we are in danger of losing it.

But we are waking up and we won’t so easily be seduced or coerced again.

To our governments, the cracks are showing. The dam is breaking. The facts are not on your side. You can’t keep this up any longer. The pandemic is over. Enough is enough. You are our servants; we are not your subjects.

You have tried to mold us into hateful, terrified, demoralized people. 

But you underestimated the challenge. We aren’t so easily broken. Our strength comes from the bonds of family and friendship, of history, of our home and native land.

You didn’t realize the strength of our doctors and nurses on the front lines in Alberta, our RCMP and provincial police officers, the ferocity of a mother fighting for her child, and my goodness the truckers who rolled courage into Ottawa on 18 wheels.  18 wheels times tens of thousands of trucks.

To the families of those who have lost children, your tears will be a stain on our nation forever. But you can rest now. You have done enough, lost enough. It’s time for us, your fellow citizens, to take up this battle for you. 

To the truckers who drove across Canada, to stand up for all of us, to defend all our rights, I have never felt so much gratitude or pride for perfect strangers. You are electrifying this moment in history, and you are awakening a passion and a love for our country that we thought we had lost. You are the leaders all of Canada has been waiting for.  

Driving from all corners of the country — from Prince Rupert to Charlottetown, on icy roads, past waving flags and under packed overpasses, you are taking all the brokenness, all the hate, all the division, and weaving us back together again. In this one simple, united, powerful action, you are the leaders we so desperately need.

You are giving grandmothers who have been isolated and abandoned a reason to smile again.

You are giving those who have lost their livelihoods reason to hope; the families who have lost loved ones a reason to believe in justice.

Speaking Of Science And The Necessity Of Large Randomized Sample Data

The CDC stopped tracking breakthrough infections that didn’t cause hospitalization or death after April 30, then pointed to low figures for earlier pre-Delta breakthrough cases to justify their position that these were so rare and mild they needn’t be tracked. 

They made that decision before they knew if those vaccinated could transmit the virus, suggesting this was unlikely. It wasn’t. Weeks later, they knew and announced the Delta variant was proliferating, yet did not change their guidance on breakthroughs.

In July strong evidence accumulated that breakthrough cases were easily spread, found in clusters, and growing in number, as in Provincetown. Unlike the US, Israel studied waning immunity early and began widely administering 3rd doses. 

The CDC said there wasn’t yet evidence to support 3rd jabs (evidence they’d declined to collect), then abruptly changed guidance for the immune-compromised—before submitting the evidence they’d said they were waiting for. 

Meanwhile, data from states tracking breakthroughs told a different story: cases were rising, occurred in clusters, most were symptomatic, and for the most vulnerable, could require hospitalization and cause death.

Looking at the following site I calculate about 4% of breakthrough infections go into the hospital compared to 5% of unvaccinated infections...lower but not by all that much.

Why don't we have this data for other states? Going further, why do we lack so much data on breakthrough cases?

What percentage of breakthrough infections are going into the hospital and how does that compare to infections among un vaccinated people?  

How do we know that the issue we are seeing with breakthrough infections is not waning immunity but the Delta variant getting by the vaccine?

Where is data on reinfection rates with Delta? Are those who had COVID already better protected? If breakthrough infections are milder (not convinced based on the Wisconsin data), do they convey better protection than a booster?

We will never know what percentage of breakthrough infections are going into the hospital, because the public health officials, including the CDC, are only tracking breakthrough infections that result in hospitalization or death.

While I'm not an epidemiologist, I would *really* prefer that the public health officials track *all* breakthrough infections. And, that they track *all* cases among unvaccinated individuals.

How else will they, or we, know which vaccines are most efficacious, and for how long? Are we just to wait for data from much smaller countries like Israel?

Israel did not have randomized studies of the third dose.  They did not wait for Pfizer studies. Pfizer just submitted its randomized study data, which should trump observational data from Israel.  It is important to know which groups actually obtain benefit from the neo-vaccinoid booster. 

Black Resistance - Lacking Training and Initiative - Tends To Be Wildly Overestimated

centerforsecuritypolicy |  The deadly riot at the US Capitol bore the markings of an organized operation planned well in advance of the January 6 joint session of Congress.

A small number of cadre used the cover of a huge rally to stage its attack. Before it began, I saw from my vantage point on the West Front of the Capitol, what appeared to be four separate cells or units:

1. Plainclothes militants. Militant, aggressive men in Trump and MAGA gear at a front police line at the base of the temporary presidential inaugural platform;
2. Agents-provocateurs. Scattered groups of men exhorting the marchers to gather closely and tightly toward the center of the outside of the Capitol building and prevent them from leaving;
3. Fake Trump protesters. A few young men wearing Trump or MAGA hats backwards and who did not fit in with the rest of the crowd in terms of their actions and demeanor, whom I presumed to be Antifa or other leftist agitators; and
4. Disciplined, uniformed column of attackers. A column of organized, disciplined men, wearing similar but not identical camouflage uniforms and black gear, some with helmets and GoPro cameras or wearing subdued Punisher skull patches.

All of these cells or groups stood out from the very large crowd by their behavior and overall demeanor. However, they did not all appear at the same time. Not until the very end did it become apparent there was a prearranged plan to storm the Capitol building, and to manipulalte the unsuspecting crowd as cover and as a follow-on force.

Eyewitness account, with no outside details

This article is a first-person, eyewitness account drafted the night of January 6 and morning of January 7, so it is not affected by other news coverage or information. The only research aids used in this article were photos and videos that I took from my phone. I have witnessed and participated in scores of protests since the 1970s, when as a high school student I was trained by professional agitators from California. Apart from my own professional background and experience, nothing in this article is derived from any third-party information or analysis.

In editing this for publication, I fought the temptation to add new information that I had subsequently learned from my own or from other people’s accounts. Other reports will vary and may contain contradicting information, and will contain far more facts than appear here. Many well-known actions and developments reported in the news do not appear here, as this is purely what I saw and understood between about 11:30 a.m. and 4:00 p.m. on Wednesday, January 6.

Fiat Authority Has No Power A Competent Man Is Bound To Acknowledge

counterpunch |  In effect, the governor used his authority to pull us into an alternative narrative in which we were people who watched out for each other, not only for ourselves as we ordinarily do, when chips are not down. Just as on the Right, people follow their talk-radio-supplied narrative of Big Government and elites out for themselves, people on the Left must have a larger narrative; in our case one that can authorize for us the Truth (I capitalize in order to designate the highest, most inclusive Truth) of interdependence – unless our aim, like that on the Right, is to keep capitalism going no matter what. 

I still just can’t. First, can we mandate education on the Holocaust and actual genocides? Wearing masks indoors at suburban stores ain’t it.

But there’s something more insidious here about the callousness around us these days, outnumbering the rest of us in some states. https://t.co/uH6BzFqRqI

— Mayor Q (@QuintonLucasKC) November 20, 2020

Long ago, we lost the unifying myth of religion that now is replaced in liberal reality with unchecked anti-authoritarianism and its correlative, cancel culture. The function of myth is to unify, to provide a kind of “immunity” that allows people to hold contrary realities in imagination, without having to cancel the other or oneself. Contrarily, with no persuasive reason to “stick together,” each existing in our frail “micro-realities,” like catty girls on the playground we have to make objectionable people not exist. A healthy immunity that could allow us to stop reflexively fending off “otherness,” will not come from Big Pharma, but only from expanded imaginations.

Without a narrative of inclusion, a narrative of hate is all our imaginations are left with to feed on exuberantly. Last week I read one of those smug editorial pieces in the NYTimes that serves to keep divisiveness alive and well in stunted liberal hearts, rather than to encourage healing (that doesn’t sell papers!). Columnist Frank Bruni took on Ivanka and Jarrod, seeming to delight in imagining their being friendless in NYC, and “getting theirs” after Trump’s loss. And it works! As I read, delicious feelings of sweet revenge rose up in me: Yes! Bring them down into the mud! Let them see what it feels like!

Whether or not our leaders can resist politicizing it, and despite the massive anti-mask rebellions going on across the country, feeding on Fox news, talk radio and social media-spread theories, the pandemic crisis calls us unambiguously to that Truth of interdependence that not only makes an injury to one an injury to all; it makes one’s own good and the good for all the same, not artificially kept separate as they are in “normal” liberal reality. That people must fend off the Truth that puts the common good first is due as much to liberalism’s unchecked, reflexive anti-authoritarianism, based at its core in deep wounds inflicted by a rudderless, profits-driven zeitgeist that rewards individuals with the emblems of success (NY Times columnist!), as to uneducated Trump-followers’ resentments.

Though one could be forgiven for thinking liberals had just recently heard of it, the Truth of interdependence is not new, even in western civilization. Religious tradition gives us beautiful phrases like the “Kingdom of God,” the “brotherhood of man,” the “body of Christ” that point to this all-embracing inclusivity. The words are metaphors for realities only imagination can grasp, but not beyond the capacity of the heart to experience and to hunger after. Scripture, after all, is poetry put to the use of the institution. Western societies, sacrificing poetry for power, failed to attain the inclusiveness that was basis for their own religions. We became top-down missionizers, conquerors, colonial settlers and exploiters, always capable of exclusion and cruelty in the name of a higher, civilizing purpose.

Contrary to popular “wisdom,” surrender to the truth of the “Kingdom of God” is not sacrifice of individual freedom. It’s not simply the opposite of selfish egoism. Rather, this highest most inclusive truth favors individuality as the expression of freedom. Under its uncompromising terms of wholeness and interrelatedness, action one takes on behalf of genuinely “selfish” concerns, say, for personal meaning and occasional joy, is not egoistic; serving soul it serves the whole. Equally, action on behalf of oppressed others follows naturally from the prior liberation of one’s personal soul, that, in liberal reality has been deemed inferior and goes undefended (i.e., the “original injustice” that impels us to forsake our creative spirit for bourgeois rewards).

Neither Ironic Or Hypocritical - Become Competent - Command Respect - Stop Begging...,

 

medium |  In a vacuum, the story of Netflix pulling Chappelle’s Show from the platform at the request of its star and creator is a feel-good story. Of course it is. Dave Chappelle left Comedy Central when he felt he was creatively compromised. After a period of relative exile, he’s now making as much money with Netflix as he left on the table before and wields enough power and respect for the multibillion-dollar company to honor his wishes.

It’s a story of perseverance, betting on yourself, and leveraging your gifts to write your own legacy. Again, in a vacuum. But Chappelle, one of the most dissected and gravitational figures in pop culture, will never live in a vacuum. And in order to properly contextualize his power move — as related in “Unforgiven,” an 18-minute performance the comic uploaded to Instagram yesterday — we have to establish its deep irony.

For the past few years, since his return to mainstream consciousness, Chappelle has taken it upon himself to wave the flag of comedians’ right to tell any types of jokes they want, no matter whom they offend. To prove this point, Chappelle has peppered his stand-ups with jokes at the expense of the trans community. And as members of that community have voiced their anger and hurt over these jokes (which are among the least funny or creative in his arsenal), Chappelle has only responded with defiance and more disregard. He’s labeled the backlash as censorship or cancel culture instead of thoughtfully addressing the feelings and worries from a community continuously terrorized by prejudice and hate.

So it’s quite the plot twist that Chappelle is engaging in the same sort of behavior he’s railed against for the past few years. Sure, Chappelle’s initial anger over Chappelle’s Show being streamed on HBO Max and Netflix came from the fact that he wasn’t getting paid for it. But that ship has sailed. Chappelle will never see another dime from Chappelle’s Show. No, the reason he reached out to Netflix was, by his own words, over something other than finances:

I like working for Netflix because when all those bad things happened to me, that company didn’t even exist. And when I found out they were streaming Chappelle’s Show, I was furious. How could they not know?

So you know what I did? I called them, and I told them that this makes me feel bad. And you want to know what they did? They agreed that they would take it off their platform just so I could feel better. That’s why I fuck with Netflix. Because they paid me my money, they do what they say they’re going to do, and they went above and beyond what you could expect from a businessman. They did something just because they thought that I might think that they were wrong.

Read that again. Chappelle does words for a living. He didn’t say he called and asked for Netflix to remove the show because of money. He said he called to say “this makes me feel bad.” And Netflix responded by pulling the show “just so I could feel better.”

Unexpected Consequences: Bus Drivers Refusing Co-option Into Rioter Mass Arrest

payday |  Friday evening, bus drivers in New York City and members of TWU Local 100 refused to cooperate with police in transporting arrested Justice for George Floyd protestors. 

The action comes a day after bus drivers in Minneapolis also refused to assist the police in transporting arrested protestors; shutting down the Twin Cities’ transit system. 

“I told MTA our ops won’t be used to drive cops around. It is in solidarity  [with Minneapolis’ bus drivers],” JP Patafio, vice president of TWU Local 100 told Motherboard. 

(Watch a video of one bus driver walking off the job to cheers from a crowd in Brooklyn)

Payday Report has learned that transit union leaders nationwide are instructing members not to cooperate with police in arresting protestors. 

Many union leaders have instructed their members that their union contracts protect them against being forced to work in dangerous conditions. They have informed their union members that their unions would use organizational legal resources to protect bus drivers who refuse to cooperate with the police. 

“It’s safe to say that bus drivers in a lot of places are going to be refusing work,” said one top labor leader, who wished to remain anonymous. 

For decades, transit unions, which are heavily African-American, have sought to build community alliances around environmental racism and expanding public transit communities. These community-labor alliances have helped communities to expand transit services in many areas. 

As a result of this organizing, many transit union leaders are vehemently opposed to helping with police crackdowns in communities of color.

Aerosol Filtration Efficiency

ACSNano |  The emergence of a pandemic affecting the respiratory system can result in a significant demand for face masks. This includes the use of cloth masks by large sections of the public, as can be seen during the current global spread of COVID-19. However, there is limited knowledge available on the performance of various commonly available fabrics used in cloth masks. Importantly, there is a need to evaluate filtration efficiencies as a function of aerosol particulate sizes in the 10 nm to 10 μm range, which is particularly relevant for respiratory virus transmission. We have carried out these studies for several common fabrics including cotton, silk, chiffon, flannel, various synthetics, and their combinations. Although the filtration efficiencies for various fabrics when a single layer was used ranged from 5 to 80% and 5 to 95% for particle sizes of <300 and="" nm="">300 nm, respectively, the efficiencies improved when multiple layers were used and when using a specific combination of different fabrics. Filtration efficiencies of the hybrids (such as cotton–silk, cotton–chiffon, cotton–flannel) was >80% (for particles <300 and="" nm="">90% (for particles >300 nm). We speculate that the enhanced performance of the hybrids is likely due to the combined effect of mechanical and electrostatic-based filtration. Cotton, the most widely used material for cloth masks performs better at higher weave densities (i.e., thread count) and can make a significant difference in filtration efficiencies. Our studies also imply that gaps (as caused by an improper fit of the mask) can result in over a 60% decrease in the filtration efficiency, implying the need for future cloth mask design studies to take into account issues of “fit” and leakage, while allowing the exhaled air to vent efficiently. Overall, we find that combinations of various commonly available fabrics used in cloth masks can potentially provide significant protection against the transmission of aerosol particles.

Waaaay Too Long, Well Worth Reading Detailed Technical Account From The Trenches

medium | What to Wear, What to Wear … 

“Do you want PAPRs?” asked the resource nurse.

These are Powered Air-Purifying Respirators: In our case, a white plastic hood with a clear face shield, attached by hose to a motorized fan/filter worn on a belt around the waist. We don these spaceman hoods now for high-risk situations like intubations, the prologue to putting a patient on a vent.

If a patient is failing despite oxygen, then he might need sedated, intubated (i.e., have a plastic breathing tube slipped into his trachea), and put on a ventilator. We do this routinely in emergency medicine. But it involves getting up close with a coughing, struggling airway — perhaps between periods of vigorous bag-mask ventilation — and it turns out this is all high-risk for aerosolizing a coronavirus, so that it floats in the air all around us.

This happens in a negative-pressure room — resource was already tracking the patient in the computer to our main resuscitation bay, which has a sliding glass door and a fan that continuously sucks air in from the hall — so no viral particles can wander the ER. The fans draw the air through filters and outside of the building — hopefully someplace up high and remote, where any few scattered viral or bacterial particles that make it so far will be killed off by sunlight. None of this, however, protects those of us inside the room, hence the question: Should we dress like astronauts to meet the new COVID-19 patient? Or go with standard gear?

Standard included an N 95 mask, which each of us had been wearing all shift, for weeks now. They feel like hard cardboard, with moldable edges. When sealed to the face, supposedly they keep out “95%” of whatever’s floating in the air — as long as that whatever is bigger than 0.3 micrometers (300 nanometers). (This is regulated by the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health; the N stands for “not resistant to oil,” which means it’s fine for healthcare work but not for some industrial processes.)

If you’re wondering: “Is filtering out 95% enough?” — join the club. Sucking in 5% of the coronavirus that comes my way sounds like a bad deal.

Worse, the coronavirus itself is only 0.125 micrometers (125 nanometers). So … small enough to make it thru the mask?

Nevertheless, we have some clinical evidence that N 95s prevent viral or bacterial infections. And we hypothesize that if say a coronavirus is floating in the air, it’s doing so in a large water droplet. Suddenly, the exact size in micrometers of said droplet is of interest, so there’s a brisk trade in math-heavy papers like this one from the Journal of Fluid Mechanics — with its 1,000-frames-per-second images of sneeze- and cough-expelled saliva sprays. This and other literature suggests virus-filled saliva droplets range from 5 to 15 micrometers (5,000 to 15,000 nanometers)— far too big to make it past the N 95.

Maybe so, but the N 95s are miserable things.

Before COVID-19 they were considered “single-use,” worn to see a patient and then discarded upon leaving the room.

Now, in the setting of an international shortage, at every hospital I work at or know of, they are being used in a completely new way: Worn constantly, sometimes with a surgical mask over top to “keep the N 95 clean,” and then turned in for some sort of deep cleaning. The CDC has offered only the most grudging of guidance blessing this sort of reuse, but what can we do? At least we are past the early days, when we doctors were literally studying the specs on vacuum cleaner bags and air conditioner filters, wondering if we could cut them up and sew them into face masks.

To be clear: At none of the hospitals where I work did we ever run out of protective gear. But at all of them we had reason to worry about it, and if we haven’t run out, it’s in large part because of the ingenuity of the physicians and nurses in suggesting workarounds.

These Jokers KNOW They Shoulda Called The Institute In The First Place!

MIT |  One of the most pressing shortages facing hospitals during the Covid-19 emergency is a lack of ventilators. These machines can keep patients breathing when they no longer can on their own, and they can cost around $30,000 each. Now, a rapidly assembled volunteer team of engineers, physicians, computer scientists, and others, centered at MIT, is working to implement a safe, inexpensive alternative for emergency use, which could be built quickly around the world.

The team, called MIT E-Vent (for emergency ventilator), was formed on March 12 in response to the rapid spread of the Covid-19 pandemic. Its members were brought together by the exhortations of doctors, friends, and a sudden flood of mail referencing a project done a decade ago in the MIT class 2.75 (Medical Device Design). Students and faculty working in consultation with local physicians designed a simple ventilator device that could be built with about $100 worth of parts, although in the years since prices have gone up and the device would now cost $400 to $500 in materials. They published a paper detailing their design and testing, but the work ended at that point. Now, with a significant global need looming, a new team, linked to that course, has resumed the project at a highly accelerated pace.

The key to the simple, inexpensive ventilator alternative is a hand-operated plastic pouch called a bag-valve resuscitator, or Ambu bag, which hospitals already have on hand in large quantities. These are designed to be operated by hand, by a medical professional or emergency technician, to provide breaths to a patient in situations like cardiac arrest, until an intervention such as a ventilator becomes available. A tube is inserted into the patient’s airway, as with a hospital ventilator, but then the pumping of air into the lungs is done by squeezing and releasing the flexible pouch. This is a task for skilled personnel, trained in how to evaluate the patient and adjust the timing and pressure of the pumping accordingly.

The innovation begun by the earlier MIT class, and now being rapidly refined and tested by the new team, was to devise a mechanical system to do the squeezing and releasing of the Ambu bag, since this is not something that a person could be expected to do for any extended period. But it is crucial for such a system to not damage the bag and to be controllable, so that the amount of air and pressures being delivered can be tailored to the particular patient. The device must be very reliable, since an unexpected failure of the device could be fatal, but as designed by the MIT team, the bag can be immediately operated manually.

Are You F'ing Kidding Agnes?!?!?! (School Starts at 1:53:20)

Sincerity is the key to success. Once you've learned to fake sincerity, then you're in the game. The fundamental rule of the game is to "sincerely" believe and behave as if power holders are superior. You are expected to pretend that power holders are better than you. The problem for a great many objectively smart people is that they can't fake sincerity or mask their own objective and demonstrable superiority. When the only way to survive in a hierarchical environment is to lie, fake, or cheat, then everyone is complicit in the fraud and its accompanying narratives. And so, everyone has skin in the game of protecting the fraud and its concomitant beliefs and behaviors. If the next generation wants to rise they have to become complicit in protecting the fraud that their predecessors have institutionalized. THIS is the rot now pervasive in American institutions that has resulted in the hollowing out of innovation and achievement.

Pleasing white light at 1:53:00 and cleansing blue fire at 1:55:48

thepointmag |  In the Importance Game, participants jockey for position. This usually works by way of casual references to wealth, talent, accomplishment or connections, but there are many variants. I can, for instance, play this game by pretending to eschew it: “Let’s get straight down to business” can telegraph my being much too important to waste time with such games; or your being so unimportant as to render the game otiose.

The other game is the Leveling Game, and it uses empathy to equalize the players. So I might performatively share feelings of stress, inadequacy or weakness; or express discontent with the Powers that Be; or home in on a source of communal outrage, frustration or oppression.

A player of the Importance Game tries to ascend high enough to reach for something that will set her above her interlocutor, a player of the Leveling Game reaches down low enough to hit common ground. The former needs to signal enough power to establish a hierarchy; the latter enough powerlessness to establish equality.

The advanced games really are advanced, in the sense of being harder to play than the Basic Game. This is due to the fact that one must, while playing them, also pretend not to be playing them. It is not okay to approach a new acquaintance with: “Let us set up a contest to figure out which of the two of us is smarter.” Nor would it be reasonable for me to say to my colleague: “How the administration oppresses us! Let us unite in self-pity.” Or to an undergraduate who enters my office: “Let me tell you how overwhelmed I am, that will put us on equal footing.” (“Stars: they’re just like us!”)

Players of the Basic Game are permitted to come pretty close to explicitly saying “Let us see what places/people/interests we have in common.” With the other two games this kind of explicitness itself violates one of the rules of the game. Call this “The Self-Effacing Rule.” Why does this rule apply to the advanced games, but not the Basic Game?

Cuba Has SARS-CoV2 Totally Under Control While Exporting Aid to Others

yalebooks |  COVID-19 surged in the Chinese city of Wuhan in late December 2019, and by January 2020 it had hit Hubei province like a tidal wave, swirling over China and rippling out overseas. The Chinese state rolled into action to combat the spread and to care for those infected. Among the thirty medicines the Chinese National Health Commission selected to fight the virus was a Cuban anti-viral drug, Interferon Alpha 2b. This drug has been produced in China since 2003, by the enterprise ChangHeber, a Cuban-Chinese joint venture. 

Cuban Interferon Alpha 2b has proven effective for viruses with characteristics similar to those of COVID-19. Cuban biotech specialist Dr. Luis Herrera Martinez explained, “its use prevents aggravation and complications in patients, reaching that stage that ultimately can result in death.” Cuba first developed and used interferons to arrest a deadly outbreak of the dengue virus in 1981, and the experience catalyzed the development of the island’s now world-leading biotech industry. 

The world’s first biotechnology enterprise, Genetech, was founded in San Francisco in 1976, followed by AMGen in Los Angeles in 1980. One year later, the Biological Front, a professional interdisciplinary forum, was set up to develop the industry in Cuba. While most developing countries had little access to the new technologies (recombinant DNA, human gene therapy, biosafety), Cuban biotechnology expanded and took on an increasingly strategic role in both the public health sector and the national economic development plan. It did so despite the US blockade obstructing access to technologies, equipment, materials, finance, and even knowledge exchange. Driven by public health demand, it has been characterized by the fast track from research and innovation to trials and application, as the story of Cuban interferon shows. 

Interferons are “signaling” proteins produced and released by cells in response to infections that alert nearby cells to heighten their anti-viral defenses. They were first identified in 1957 by Jean Lindenmann and Aleck Isaacs in London. In the 1960s Ion Gresser, a US researcher in Paris, showed that interferons stimulate lymphocytes that attack tumors in mice. In the 1970s, US oncologist Randolph Clark Lee took up this research. 

Catching the tail end of US President Carter’s improved relations with Cuba, Dr. Clark Lee visited Cuba, met with Fidel Castro, and convinced him that interferon was the wonder drug. Shortly afterwards, a Cuban doctor and a hematologist spent time in Dr. Clark Lee’s laboratory, returning with the latest research about interferon and more contacts. In March 1981, six Cubans spent twelve days in Finland with the Finnish doctor Kari Cantell, who in the 1970s had isolated interferon from human cells and had shared the breakthrough by declining to patent the procedure. The Cubans learned to produce large quantities of interferon. 

MIT and Harvard Understand SARS-CoV2 Geometric Progression

technologyreview |  After an outbreak of the novel coronavirus disease Covid-19 was found spreading through Boston's biomedical community, Harvard University said it will move classes online and is telling students not to return from spring break.

This story is part of our ongoing coverage of the coronavirus/Covid-19 outbreak. You can also sign up to our dedicated newsletter.

Online only: The nation’s oldest university said it plans to switch to online classes by March 23 and asked students not to return after spring break week, which begins on March 13.  (Update: later the same day MIT, in an email from its president Rafael Reif, asked its students to do the same, and canceled classes for the week of March 16 to 20. MIT's spring break is the week after Harvard's.)

Harvard has more than 6,500 undergraduates and more than 20,000 students overall.

“These past few weeks have been a powerful reminder of just how connected we are to one another—and how our choices today determine our options tomorrow,” said university president Lawrence Bacow in a statement posted to Harvard’s home page.

Preemptive step: Harvard said its actions “are consistent” with recommendations of leading health officials, who have started to urge older people to avoid travel and contacts, and for the rest of the country to practice social distancing to slow the pace of the pandemic.

“We are doing this not just to protect you but also to protect other members of or community who may be more vulnerable to this disease than you are,” Bacow said.

Disconnect:  Harvard’s move could prompt other universities to close as well, but stands in contrast to statements made yesterday by US president Donald Trump, who downplayed the need to restrict normal activities. 

“So last year 37,000 Americans died from the common Flu. It averages between 27,000 and 70,000 per year. Nothing is shut down, life & the economy go on. At this moment there are 546 confirmed cases of coronavirus, with 22 deaths. Think about that!” Trump tweeted on March 9.

No gatherings: Harvard said the move to online classes is meant to avoid large gatherings and close contact between people. The campus will otherwise remain open and operating.

The move to online classes follows similar steps by west coast universities, including the University of Washington in Seattle.

Effects on science: Massachusetts has been hit by a coronavirus outbreak, with more than 40 cases so far. Many of those are linked to a recent meeting of executives from the biotech company Biogen, striking at the heart of the area's close-knit biomedical research community.

Harvard indicated work at its research laboratories would continue. In a message to staff, Harvard Medical School dean George Daley said that medical students would be staying on campus and continuing their rotations in the school's teaching hospitals.

Graduate students "can continue to pursue their laboratory research" after consulting with supervisors, Daley said.

Russia: Handling Bidnis and Holding Coronavirus Down

Meduza |  The number of COVID-19 cases detected per day outside of China has long surpassed the recorded infection rate within Chinese borders. Nonetheless, since 2020 began, Russia has reported only four confirmed cases of the disease. Only one of those cases was found in Moscow, the second-largest city in Europe after Istanbul. Meanwhile, in Italy, France, and Germany, there are currently 3,089, 337, and 444 confirmed cases, respectively. This is despite the fact that the number of passengers who have traveled to those countries from China by air is comparable to the number traveling to Russia. While it’s impossible to say with certainty how this disparity arose, it is possible to offer a few potential explanations. Whether you believe them is up to you.

Hypothesis 1: Russia closed its borders fast enough that almost nobody infected with the virus could get in

The Russian government first increased its control over individuals arriving in the country from China on January 23, 2020, but it did not limit any means of transport until January 31. On that day, Russian officials closed off direct trains from Moscow to Beijing and closed its ground border with China to foot traffic and automobiles.

By then, 9,923 cases of COVID-19 had already been registered worldwide, both in China and in Taiwan, Singapore, Australia, the United Kingdom, and other countries. Even in Finland, which has a very small interchange of transit passengers with China and a large one with Russia, had registered cases. All this means that at least in theory, the new coronavirus had every opportunity to enter Russia before transportation to and from China was limited. In fact, it did just that: The first two infections recorded in Russia were detected on January 31 in two Chinese citizens traveling as tourists.

What Does Cave Art Have to do with Animation?

awn |  The first thing that strikes me when looking at the many reproductions (I have yet to see an original) is that there are no stories, at least so far as I understand a graphic story to be. Instead what appears are images of local fauna in full view, mid-view, and close-up.

Even though these paintings were created more than 10,000 years ago, the drawing style is highly accomplished. There's a strong sense of 3D form translated onto a 2D surface, the coloration is finely tuned, and the animals breathe life. So these artists could have told a story if they had chosen to.

But nothing is chronicled in the way that we structure narrative, with a beginning, middle, and end. Instead the artists have chosen to present these huge images (the bulls at Lascaux are 20 feet wide) singly or sequentially, on the rock wall deep inside these safe chambers well below the earth's surface.

Sequentially? What are sequential images doing on a cave wall painted tens of thousands of years ago? As an animator I recognize them immediately to be like the key frames of an animation.

It's one thing to enter a cave and be confronted with a huge still image, but how much more dramatic would be an image that reads as an animal in motion.

What finer way than this to present shock and awe from a safe vantage point. Perhaps the artists were seeking to recreate and thereby control these near overwhelming sensations, feelings certainly experienced above ground and probably often in dangerous if not deadly circumstances.

Did these artists want to recreate them in a controlled way so that while the audience's experience was akin to the real thing, the real dangers remained above ground and well outside the cave?

Think of experiencing a huge thunderstorm from the safety of a cozy cottage, or watching a horror film from the security of a movie theater. There's something deeply satisfying about being awed or terrified while knowing one is safe.

Were these paleolithic men and women our film artist ancestors?

Work on your Own and with Your Friend Who is a Girl Before You Go to the Baile...,

addicted2salsa |  Download : How to find the beat in salsa music

 

Well, this episode has long been in the making. One of the hardest things I ever went through, and most dancers will go through in my salsa, is finding the beat in the music.

We all go through this problem, and with this part 1 of a multiple part series, I will try to do my best to help you practice on how to find the beat in salsa music. I will play some songs, do some counting and hopefully give you some tips on how to train your ear to listen and feel the clave of the salsa music.

Salsa

wikipedia |  Salsa is a popular form of social dance originating in Eastern Cuba^{[citation needed]}. The Salsa we hear now is said to be born in New York to a mixture of Afro Cuban folk dances with Jazz. Evidence shows that the “Salsa” sound was already developed in Cuba before being brought up to New York^{[citation needed]}. The movements of Salsa are a combination of the Afro-Cuban dances Son, cha-cha-cha, Mambo, Rumba, and the Danzón. The dance, along with salsa music,^[1][2][3] saw major development in the mid-1970s in New York.^[4] Different regions of Latin America and the United States have distinct salsa styles of their own, such as Cuban, Puerto Rican, Cali Colombia, L.A. and New York styles. Salsa dance socials are commonly held in night clubs, bars, ballrooms, restaurants, and outside, especially when part of an outdoor festival. 

In many styles of salsa dancing, as a dancer shifts their weight by stepping, the upper body remains level and nearly unaffected by the weight changes. Weight shifts cause the hips to move. Arm and shoulder movements are also incorporated. Salsa generally uses music ranging from about 150 bpm (beats per minute) to around 250 bpm, although most dancing is done to music somewhere between 160–220 bpm. The basic Salsa dance rhythm consists of taking three steps for every four beats of music. The odd number of steps creates the syncopation inherent to Salsa dancing and ensures that it takes 8 beats of music to loop back to a new sequence of steps. 

Fania record label in the 60s, was the one that gave the name "Salsa" to this new blend of different influences, rhythms and styles of Latin music in New York City, especially in el Barrio, Spanish Harlem, and the Bronx. Salsa means sauce which represented son, guaguanco, son montuno, Jazz elements, Latin Jazz, Cuban influences. Prior to that time, each style was recognized in its pure original form and name. It evolved from forms such as Son, Son Montuno, cha cha cha, and Mambo which were popular in the Caribbean, Latin America and the Latino communities in New York since the 1940s. Salsa, like most music genres and dance styles, has gone through a lot of variation through the years and incorporated elements of other Afro-Caribbean dances such as Pachanga. Different regions of Latin America and the United States have distinct salsa styles of their own, such as Cuban, Puerto Rican, Cali Colombia.  

La Pachanga

wikipedia |  Pachanga is a genre of music which is described as a mixture of son montuno and merengue and has an accompanying signature style of dance. This type of music has a festive, lively style and is marked by jocular, mischievous lyrics. Pachanga originated in Cuba in the 1950s and played an important role in the evolution of Caribbean style music as we know it today. Considered a prominent contributor to the eventual rise of Salsa, Pachanga itself is an offshoot of Charanga style music.^[1] Very similar in sound to Cha-Cha but with a notably stronger down-beat, Pachanga once experienced massive popularity all across the Caribbean and was brought to the United States by Cuban immigrants post World War II. This led to an explosion of Pachanga music in Cuban music clubs that influenced Latin culture in the United States for decades to come.

Charanga is a type of traditional ensemble that plays Cuban dance music (mostly Danzón, Danzonete, and Cha cha chá) using violin, flute, horns, drums. In Cuba in 1955, Los Papines fused the violin-based music of charanga with the trumpet-based music of conjuntos. Eduardo Davidson's La Pachanga was recorded in 1959 by Orquesta Sublime (which was in the USA). After Fidel Castro seized power in Cuba in 1959, the epicenter of Cuban music moved to other islands and USA. José Fajardo brought the song La Pachanga to New York in the Cuban charanga style. The orquesta, or band, was referred to as charanga, while the accompanying dance was named the pachanga.^[3] The similar sound of the words charanga and pachanga has led to the fact that these two notions are often confused. In fact, charanga is a type of orchestration, while pachanga is a musical and dance genre.

 

Heed the Words of the Weinstein!

apple |  In this episode of the Portal, Eric checks in with his friend Andrew Yang to discuss the meteoric rise of his candidacy; one that represents an insurgency against a complacent political process that the media establishment doggedly tries to maintain. Andrew updates Eric on the state of his campaign and the status of the ideas the two had discussed as its foundation when it began. Eric presents Andrew with his new economic paradigm; moving from an 'is a [worker]' economy to a 'has a [worker]' economy. The two also discuss neurodiverse families as a neglected voting block, the still-strong but squelched-by-the-scientific-establishment STEM community in the US, and the need to talk fearlessly - and as a xenophile - about immigration as a wealth transfer gimmick. 

Forget Silly Protests - Hon.Bro Dupree Esq., Taking Dirty KCK Cops to War

KCTV5 News

injusticewatch |  The request by a Kansas prosecutor to create a unit that would review cases involving evidence of wrongful convictions has exposed a schism among law enforcement officials who contend that the business of reviewing wrongful convictions should not be left to the local prosecutor.

The dispute was touched off after Wyandotte County District Attorney Mark Dupree asked the County Board in July for $300,000 to create the new conviction integrity unit.  The Kansas City, Kansas police chief, sheriff and two Fraternal Order of Police union presidents then sent a July 30 letter to Kansas Attorney General Derek Schmidt questioning the proposal, and asking Schmidt’s office to oversee any decisions by the local prosecutor to reopen past cases.

On Wednesday, Cook County State’s Attorney Kim Foxx, Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner and Eric Gonzalez, the Brooklyn, New York prosecutor, were among 54 current and former law enforcement officials who signed a letter supporting the creation of the unit within Dupree’s office. Pursuing justice is not “at odds with community safety or victim support,” their letter states. “In fact, victims are safer – and we prevent further victimization – when communities trust that their law enforcement officials seek the truth rather than ‘win.’”

The issue has erupted months after Dupree cut short a hearing into Lamonte McIntyre’s claim that he had been wrongly convicted and spent 23 years in prison for a 1994 double murder, saying he was acting to correct a “manifest injustice.”

Questions of McIntyre’s conviction involved allegations of a corrupt police detective, a corrupt state prosecutor, misconduct by the trial judge and ineffective representation by his court appointed attorney. The July 30 letter by law enforcement officials challenging Dupree stated the prosecutor had “failed to fulfill its role as an advocate for the homicide victims(s) and the State” in that case.

#YouToo: Public Banking Would End Parasitic Pimpster Bankster Rapinage...,

nakedcapitalism |  Michael Palmieri: So, Michael we’ve talked a little bit about the different indicators that point towards a financial crisis. It’s also clear from what you just stated from a regulatory standpoint that the U.S. is extremely vulnerable. Back in 2008 many argue that there was a huge opportunity lost in terms of transforming our private banking system to a publicly owned banking system. Recently the Democracy Collaborative published a report titled,The Crisis Next Time: Planning for Public ownership as Alternative to Corporate Bailouts. That was put out by Thomas Hanna. He was calling for a transition from private to public banking. He also made the point, which you’ve made in earlier episodes, that it’s not a question of ifanother financial crisis is going to occur, but when. Can you speak a little bit about how public banking as an alternative would differ from the current corporate private banking system we have today?

Michael Hudson: Sure. I’m actually part of the Democracy Collaborative. The best way to think about this is that suppose that back in 2008, Obama and Wall Street bagman Tim Geithner had not blocked Sheila Bair from taking over Citigroup and other insolvent banks. She wrote that Citigroup had gambled with money and were incompetent, and outright crooked. She wanted to take them over.

Now suppose that Citibank would had been taken over by the government and operated as a public bank. How would a public bank have operated differently from Citibank?

For one thing, a public entity wouldn’t make corporate takeover loans and raids. They wouldn’t lend to payday loan sharks. Instead they’d make local branches so that people didn’t have to go to payday loan sharks, but could borrow from a local bank branch or a post office bank in the local communities that are redlined by the big banks.

A public entity wouldn’t make gambling loans for derivatives. What a public bank woulddo is what’s called the vanilla bread-and-butter operation of serving small depositors, savers and consumers. You let them have checking accounts, you clear their checks, pay their bills automatically, but you don’t make gambling and financial loans.

Banks have sort of turned away from small customers. They’ve certainly turned away from the low-income neighborhoods, and they’re not even lending to businesses anymore. More and more American companies are issuing their own commercial paper to avoid the banks. In other words, a company will issue an IOU itself, and pay interest more than pension funds or mutual funds can get from the banks. So the money funds such as Vanguard are buying commercial paper from these companies, because the banks are not making these loans.

So a public bank would do what banks are supposed to do productively, which is to help finance basic production and basic consumption, but not financial gambling at the top where all the risk is. That’s the business model of the big banks, and some will lose money and crash like in 2008. A public bank wouldn’t make junk mortgage loans. It wouldn’t engage in consumer fraud. It wouldn’t be like Wells Fargo. It wouldn’t be like Citibank. This is so obvious that what is needed is a bank whose business plan is not exploitation of consumers, not fraud, and isn’t gambling. That basically is the case for public ownership.