In Dobrzyn, Hili is pensive
Hili: Are you sure you have the right priorities?
A: No, but such criticism from the other side of the window is not helpful.
Hili: Czy jesteś pewien, że masz właściwe priorytety?
Ja: Nie, ale taka krytyka zza okna nie pomaga.
Here’s another illusion you won’t believe, with proof:
— david in az (@dvdflm) May 4, 2022
Twitter is useful, if you are a mite:
Did you know that there is a mite named 'twitter'?
'The specific name ‘twitter’ refers to the social media platform Twitter on which this species was spotted for the first time ever.' https://t.co/NKg8y56j0h— Nick Porch (@InvertoPhiles) May 4, 2022
And of course, never forget, never forgive:
4 May 1939 | A Dutch Jewish girl, Suzanna Cohen, was born in Amsterdam.
In July 1942 she was deported to #Auschwitz. She was murdered in a gas chamber right after selection. pic.twitter.com/M6zLWGeGNO
— Auschwitz Memorial (@AuschwitzMuseum) May 4, 2022
A couple of on this days that caught my eye:
1859 – The Cornwall Railway opens across the Royal Albert Bridge linking Devon and Cornwall in England.
That’s Brunel’s massively over engineered Tamar bridge. I say “over-engineered” but it has been strengthened a couple of times
1982 – Twenty sailors are killed when the British Type 42 destroyer HMS Sheffield is hit by an Argentinian Exocet missile during the Falklands War.
And a birthday. An illustration from Alice in Wonderland is my Teams backdrop today
1852 – Alice Liddell, English model (d. 1934)
Also, it’s Star Wars Day. May the Fourth be with you.
Oops, I’m late posting these:
On this day:
1493 – Pope Alexander VI divides the New World between Spain and Portugal along the Line of Demarcation.
1626 – Dutch explorer Peter Minuit arrives in New Netherland (present day Manhattan Island) aboard the See Meeuw.
1776 – Rhode Island becomes the first American colony to renounce allegiance to King George III.
1919 – May Fourth Movement: Student demonstrations take place in Tiananmen Square in Beijing, China, protesting the Treaty of Versailles, which transferred Chinese territory to Japan.
1926 – The United Kingdom general strike begins.
1927 – The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences is incorporated.
1953 – Ernest Hemingway wins the Pulitzer Prize for The Old Man and the Sea.
1961 – American civil rights movement: The “Freedom Riders” begin a bus trip through the South.
1970 – Vietnam War: Kent State shootings: The Ohio National Guard, sent to Kent State University after disturbances in the city of Kent the weekend before, opens fire killing four unarmed students and wounding nine others. The students were protesting the Cambodian Campaign of the United States and South Vietnam.
1990 – Latvia declares independence from the Soviet Union.
1994 – Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and PLO leader Yasser Arafat sign a peace accord, granting self-rule in the Gaza Strip and Jericho.
Births:
1655 – Bartolomeo Cristofori, Italian instrument maker, invented the piano (d. 1731)
1825 – Thomas Henry Huxley, English biologist, anatomist, and academic (d. 1895)
1852 – Alice Liddell, English model (d. 1934) – Had adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass.
1923 – Eric Sykes, British actor and comedian (d. 2012)
1929 – Audrey Hepburn, Belgian-British actress and humanitarian (d. 1993)
1937 – Dick Dale, American surf-rock guitarist, singer, and songwriter (d. 2019)
1939 – Amos Oz, Israeli journalist and author (d. 2018)
1949 – Graham Swift, English novelist and short story writer – I remember enjoying Waterland (Booker Prize shortlist, 1983) and Last Orders (Booker Prize winner, 1996).
1981 – Dallon Weekes, American singer-songwriter and musician – formerly of Panic! at the Disco and now in I Dont Know How But They Found Me.
Those who bought a one-way ticket to visit Hades:
1615 – Adriaan van Roomen, Flemish priest and mathematician (b. 1561) – Expanded π to 16 decimals, solved the Problem of Apollonius using a new method that involved intersecting hyperbolas, and wrote on the Gregorian calendar reform.
1799 – Tipu, ruler of Mysore (b. 1750)
1912 – Nettie Stevens, American geneticist credited with discovering sex chromosomes (b. 1861)
1924 – E. Nesbit, English author and poet (b. 1858)
1980 – Josip Broz Tito, Yugoslav field marshal and politician, 1st President of Yugoslavia (b. 1892)
1990 – Emily Remler, American guitarist (b. 1957) – “I may look like a nice Jewish girl from New Jersey, but inside I’m a 50-year-old, heavy-set black man with a big thumb, like Wes Montgomery”.
Audrey Hepburn was the child of Rushton, a Brit, and Ella van Heemstra, a Dutch (not Belgian) baroness. The name van Heemstra sounds even Frisian.
Audrey was indeed born in Elsene (aka Ixelles), a Brussels suburb, and hence in Belgium, and spend some of her youth there, but citing Duke Wellington, who was born in Ireland, ‘being born in a horse stable does not make one a horse’ (or something in that vein).
Forgive me for my blatant plug here but the topic gets a lot of play and interest from our host and the comments are often lively. I have at best one to two hundred thousand readers at two publications total so I’m of only moderate impact. But I think some of my WEIT friends will like this:
https://democracychronicles.org/what-pro-palestine-student-groups-get-wrong/
(In democracychronicles.org and themoderatevoice.com this week)
D.A.
NYC
Indeed, and an Arab-Israeli party is in Israel’s governing coalition.
Thanks. I was subbing to the original plug (:-)) in case you posted it back there. My wife is already devouring it.
Great summary, David.
The US just hit one million reported Corona deaths. The Economist reports that worldwide, only one in four related deaths are reported as such.
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/covids-toll-us-reaches-1-million-deaths-unfathomable-number-rcna22105
“Unfathomable”? Don’t know what that means, probably nothing.
Out of a population of 330,000,000, fourth largest population in the world, many fat or old, of course the U.S. is going to be near the top for total deaths no matter what they do. Do a little worse than average and they hit the top. Since China lies like a rug we have no idea what their death toll is.
https://www.statista.com/statistics/1191568/reported-deaths-from-covid-by-age-us/
To 27 April 2022, one quarter were 85 and over, another quarter were 75-84, and just shy of another quarter were 65-74. ~68,000 were under 50, almost none under 30. When the young people we like to call Covidiots called the virus the Boomer Eliminator, they weren’t kidding.
The young-ish deaths the NBC article cherrypicked to highlight were slanted towards minorities, which is fair since minorities died 2-7x disproportionately, but is also helpful if NBC wanted to leave the false impression that this was a young healthy person’s disease that left orphans behind. Not really.
“…. no matter what they do.” That is incorrect. Vaccinating and boosting greatly reduces mortality. So no, it absolutely matters what they do.
Well, yes, if vaccination had been better, deaths per 1000 cases would have been fewer and some reduction in cases, especially in early months.. But if case numbers were very high for other reasons, this could override the lower CFR from vaccination and lead to more deaths over-all, not due to vaccination of course but despite it. You might see this if low-risk worried-well populations took up vaccine more avidly, leaving high-risk populations to have more cases and more deaths (which is what happened in the U.S. other than in nursing homes where vaccine uptake was high.)
But my point was more trivial: the U.S. is such a large country that all numbers associated with it are just large. Even if all Americans had accepted vaccination (which would have reduced deaths only in the second and now third year), its total deaths were never going to be as low as, say, Canada with one-ninth the population. Even if deaths had been one-third fewer, the U.S. would still have been Number 1 in total deaths, with Brazil a close second.
Looking at total deaths per thousand population, (rounded), and full vax proportions now, for selected countries ordered by deaths/1000.
Brazil 3.1 0.77
U.S. 3.0 0.66
Belgium 2.7 0.79
U.K 2.6 0.73
France 2.2 0.78
Sweden 1.8 0.75
Germany 1.6 0.77
Canada 1.0 0.82
India 0.4 0.62
https://ourworldindata.org/covid-deaths (vaccination on another tab)
As we know, death reporting is incomplete and degree of incompleteness varies around the world.