Saturday Links

• Will COVID be remembered as the disease that ushered in the final stage of white pacification? Will it be remembered as the white man’s “Injun epidemic”? To be clear, it’s not even remotely as deadly as the smallpox that killed millions of Indians. But I do think it’s a catalyst. I think COVID pulled the trigger on an acceleration of antiwhiteness, buoyed by a newfound confidence on the part of authorities that white America can, by and large, be pushed around to no end. Whites can be locked down at home while hordes of nonwhites are allowed to literally mock them from the sidewalks. [Taki]
• Even if no one reads poetry anymore, “The Second Coming” is proof that a perfect poem can still go viral in a distinctly predigital way: that it’s become a part of the culture’s water supply. Slouchy though they may be, the misapplications amount to a tribute. [Paris Review]
• Due to the demands of running time, one important scene ended up on the cutting room floor but survives in the director’s cut. Despite its loss from the theatrical version, the scene between Nixon (Anthony Hopkins) and CIA Director Richard Helms (Sam Waterston) acts as a cornerstone making explicit what is implicit in the theatrical version. [link]
• We introduced a geriatric-palliative approach and methodology to improve the quality of care in nursing home/nursing departments, assuming a priori that each patient in our nursing department suffered from some negative effects of polypharmacy. Our research hypothesis was that, in most patients, several drugs could be discontinued without significant negative effects on mortality, morbidity and quality of life, and with beneficial financial consequences. [IMA]
• The epidemiology of influenza swarms with incongruities, incongruities exhaustively detailed by the late British epidemiologist, Edgar Hope-Simpson. He was the first to propose a parsimonious theory explaining why influenza is, as Gregg said, "seemingly unmindful of traditional infectious disease behavioral patterns." Recent discoveries indicate vitamin D upregulates the endogenous antibiotics of innate immunity and suggest that the incongruities explored by Hope-Simpson may be secondary to the epidemiology of vitamin D deficiency. [NLM]
• Sam Long, a small-business investor who writes about the economy, said that the Fed program has enabled three wealth transfers: from the middle and working classes to the affluent, who own most of the stocks and bonds whose prices have been propped up by the Fed; from the cautious to the reckless, who have seen the risk in their dubious business decisions eliminated; and from the young people of today, who will end up paying back all the borrowed money, to the older people, who are now benefitting from it. [New Yorker]
• The capital of the Idaho Territory was relocated from Lewiston to Boise in December 1864. In the late 1880s, statehood for the Washington Territory was nearing. Because its commercial and transportation interests looked west, rather than south, the citizens of the Idaho Panhandle passionately lobbied for their region to join Washington, or to form an entirely separate state, rather than remain connected with the less accessible southern Idaho. [Wiki]
• Critical theory is taking socially binding norms and flipping the narrative to make them pejoratives, pathologies, and oppression that must be fought in order to destroy the strengths & defenses of a society, like what HIV does to the immune system. Critical theory as it applies to men and women is taking something as socially binding as the natural differences in mental and physical talents and abilities between men and women, and making them a pejorative called “sexism”. Critical theory as it applies to family is taking something as socially binding and natural as loving and caring for your family, and making it a pejorative called “patriarchy”. [Occidental Dissent]
• He smoked back then. All the way through the ’08 campaign. And then he quit. His medical report in ’08 said “continue smoking cessation efforts.” He was chewing Nicorette. Which, I fucking love Nicorette, but only when complemented by a nice healthy Camel Filter at the beginning and end of the day. You need that stabbing in your lungs, that burning, a hit of pain that lets you know the medicine went in. But since he was on a doctor-supervised medical program, he would have quit the Nicorette too. He would have staggered it down slowly over several months, six pieces a day, four pieces a day, two pieces a day– from the auspicious beginning of his presidency to the long drawn out months when it became clear he couldn’t get anything through Congress. He never picked up the phone and called legislators to push shit through, even Democrats. He hated socializing, Washington parties– that’s where you get shit done. That’s where you have a brandy with John Boehner and have a laugh and talk about old pussy and golf or fishing or whateverthefuck and in your heart you realize this guy isn’t so bad, let’s get something done together. Have a shared legacy. Even Bill Clinton and Newt Gingrich did this. But Obama said he had to spend time with his daughters. Mr. President: first of all, fuck your daughters; they’ll live. But also: they want to spend time with you, not this crabby worn out simulacrum of you. The real you that they love is the you who smokes. And then he didn’t smoke with chainsmoking John Boehner during the budget negotiations. This is what killed the historic compromise that the normally intransigent Congress was ready to make. If they had had a cigarette together, that deal would have been made. Because of that secret bond that smokers have in this uptight sewing circle of a society. Us against the world. Had to be Michelle who made him quit. Her and whatever candyass square they hired as White House Physician. [Delicious Tacos]
• Does that third bullet point sound like 21st century United States or what? What he's talking about is what High Plateau Drifter covers in his essays for this blog. Yet Turchin does not mention immigration, nor explain it as a tool that elites in the U.S. and Europe have been using deliberately to drive land rents higher and per capita incomes lower. You have to hand it to this theory (not that it is original to Turchin), the overpopulation does explain why we are seeing $100 million apartments in Manhattan. Anyway, the civil war that follows after the third bullet point reduces the population, resulting in falling rents and rising per capita incomes. The ranks of the elites shrink, with many simply abandoning aristocratic pretenses. These oscillations between prosperity and collapse are what Turchin calls "secular cycles". [CBS]
• Personally, I’ve been quite frustrated at the world’s pathetic response to fighting the coronavirus. Most politicians and scientific leaders have not been trying. They are failing to employ tools such as CT scans and government-run quarantine centers. It is embarrassing that most developed countries have failed to suppress the virus while Thailand, Cuba, and other developing countries have succeeded in doing so. We as a society should demand that our leaders act responsibly and start using the tools available. A powerful and low-tech tool that can be used to fight aerosol transmission is to shift activities outdoors and to avoid indoor spaces. The natural ventilation of being outside will dramatically dilute aerosols It is highly likely that coronavirus is like all other infectious diseases where the severity of the infection depends on the initial dose. Extremely low doses will result in no infection. Any steps taken to reduce exposure to aerosols will make a big difference in reducing the spread and lethality of the disease. [Glenn Chan]
• The automotive business may be topsy­-turvy these days, but there's still no question about where the world's best drivers' cars come from. For sheer quantity, you can't beat the Fatherland: Audi, BMW, Mercedes-Benz, Porsche, and VW turn out more great rides than the rest of the world's carmakers combined. Even the Japanese still think German cars are magic—and they're working furiously to close the gap. [Car and Driver]