#they are indeed fragment 94

[sapphireofmars]

rip sappho you would've loved agathario

[testicoolarcancer]

Enkidu as Social Lichen

In hierarchically organized cultures throughout history, humans have had a tendency to view themselves as above other creatures and, above all, as individuals. Self-reliant and free-willed, humans have walked the planet and conquered. Or so the story goes. Indeed the human would not have been able to survive without fruits on the trees, the blossoms, the pollen, the bee, the seed, the rain, the sun. Civilizations would have never emerged were it not for the existence of networks of forests (and interdependent mycelium) with which they have built their walls and fields. Even more is to be said on this in relation to divisions of labor within human societies.

We are all like lichens. We are all lichens in the sense that forms of life and their material contributions cannot be separated from one another. Individuals are the algae that lives upon the form provided by our environmental territories of fungus. We exchange the fruits of our labor and consume.

Even one of the oldest stories surviving, The Epic of Gilgamesh, displays this humanist-individualist bias. At the same time, it is not in the slightest exempt in portraying fragments of reality and its characteristic exchanges. This is particularly the case with Enkidu, the creation of the earth goddess Aruru and the agriculture god Ninurta (I.201-204)  who is “Coated in hair like the god of animals” (I.209). As a catalyst of the story and Gilgamesh’s counterpart, Enkidu is central to the way the story and the titular Gilgamesh develop and is all the more important to analyze in this symbiotic respect, through the expression of the lichen.

The description of Enkidu’s behavior being shaped by the standards of his environment throughout the text represents Enkidu as a character who evolves to the shape of territories (such as nature and civilization). Despite this, Enkidu maintains a place as a reminder of the inherently symbiotic relationships that characterize material reality with each evolution he experiences.

This paper will analyze Enkidu’s embodiment of social symbiosis through the expression of lichen. First, it will describe the defined fungal territories that Enkidu interacts with over the course of the story. Then, it will demonstrate how Enkidu acts as an algae to the fungal territories of nature and civilization through the way that his behavior is shaped and the way they contribute to each other materially and ideologically. Lastly, we will examine the ways in which the territories of nature and civilization’s attitudes on symbiosis contrast and find similarities in between.

It is worth noting- while lines 94 to 133 of tablet I of The Epic will be a primary object of focus, understanding the motifs of different territories and Enkidu’s interaction with them throughout the text can only be accurately achieved through the consideration of how they are expressed throughout the whole of The Epic.

Territory as illustrated throughout the Epic

Territory is the fungus upon which the individual grows. Words like environment fail to describe the expression of fungus in this sense, because it naturalizes the boundaries surrounding a circumstance. Socially and materially applied, the concept of the environment is actually one of scale with defined boundaries based around certain subjectivities of what falls under certain labels. The term territory recognises this constructed element. 

What is considered as nature in The Epic of Gilgamesh versus what is considered as civilization is separated by a very hard-drawn line. [Enkidu has sex with harlot] With the act of sex with Shamat, Enkidu is defiled and the animals who they had lived among their whole life abandoned them (I.1195-1202). Sex in this instance is seen as an impure act, despite it being a natural thing for all kinds of animals to engage in and the harlot being a priestess of Ishtar. Primarily, interaction with the human is what is viewed as causing his defilement. In analyzing Enkidu’s interactions further we will find out why.

Enkidu algae upon nature fungus

From the beginning of his life, Enkidu finds himself growing upon the fungus of nature-as-territory. The impacts of it on his lifestyle are immediate; he lives among the animals as an animal, even resembling them.

Coated in hair like the god of animals,

With the gazelles he grazes on grasses,

Joining the throng with the herd at the water-hole,

His heart delighting with the beasts in the water (I.109-112).

Sharing water with the beasts recognizing its significance to all of them, Enkidu lives like the animal algae around him. He lives with gazelles when grazing upon the grasses and any other sorts of animals at the water hole, not discriminating between different groups and going wherever he needs to be. But he also has a part in maintaining this territorial fungus. In (I.130-133), Enkidu helps the animals through destroying the traps set by a huntsman, slowing the human extension of work in the forests. A sort of sense of empathy is birthed in him through his constant interactions with various different types of animals that pushes him to do this. His understanding of the symbiotic relationships of the herd and the environment is ultimately established this way.

Enkidu algae upon Gilgamesh fungus

After Enkidu meets Gilgamesh confrontationally and becomes close friends with him, Enkidu’s ultimate tie to civilization is formed. Gilgamesh, who is so interested in proving himself worthy to be a god in a hierarchically-obsessed way drags Enkidu into areas where he is not comfortable acting, but their ties are so close in a way where he does so anyways.

Enkidu possesses no [kith or kin.]

Shaggy hair hanging loose……

He was born in the wild and [has] no [brother.]’

Standing there, Enkidu heard [what she said,]

And thinking it over, he sat [down weeping.]

His eyes brimmed with [tears,]

His arms fell limp, [his] strength [ebbed away.]

They took hold of each other and…….,

They [linked] their hands like……

Gilgamesh………, (II.175-184).

Gilgamesh’s decision to fight Humbaba is highlighted as foolish by his mother, Ninsun, who makes the point that Enkidu would be left without family were Gilgamesh to die and that proving his godliness in this way was selfish. Enkidu processes this fact and breaks down into tears, recognizing his reliance upon and care for Gilgamesh. Enkidu ends up fighting Humbaba with Gilgamesh out of more fear or his family than his own self-preservation. Enkidu contributes so much to Gilgamesh’s goal for civilization that he even cuts down Humbaba’s forest, much like the one he would’ve lived in when young, for little more than a sense of companionship.

Enkidu is constantly building Gilgamesh houses to sleep in and out of Humbaba’s forest once all of the trees are cut down (IV.171-174). He is constantly contributing to Gilgamesh’s goals without concern for his own needs and desires out of a sense of closeness to Gilgamesh, his new assumed identity within civilization. Conforming to the shapes of civilization’s fungus hurts Enkidu, eventually killing him as he fights the Bull of Heaven and Ishtar on behalf of Gilgamesh.

Fluid nature versus static civilization

After examining the different ways in which Enkidu was impacted by living a part of nature and civilization territories, it is interesting to look closer at the contrasting attitudes around concepts of symbiosis between the two and the different ways in which resources are allowed to be allocated. For instance, on (I.109-112),

All his body is matted with hair,

He bears long tresses like those of a woman:

The locks of hair grow thick as barley,

He knows not a people, nor even a country.

In Enkidu’s original state, we see a marked absence of identity and a blend of characteristics that would suggest his belonging to three pairs of opposing identity groups. Firstly, the comparison of Enkidu, a humanoid figure, with an animal that is coated in hair. Then a woman, whom Enkidu’s pronouns do not align with. Then, a lack of a formal sense of citizenship despite living with the herd. In (I.105-112), 

he is displayed as grazing with gazelles and joining other animals to the watering hole. On the fungus of nature, Enkidu lacks identity outside of Enkidu, of transitioning between groups of animals in nature. Identity in nature is displayed along the lines of change and perceived absence, with fluid groups sharing resources and seeking safety in numbers in a way that has no qualms with expressing symbiotic relationships.

Looking again at the very boundary definer of civilization, the humanistic way that identities and their corresponding roles are assigned can be seen to contrast the way they operate in nature. In (I.1195-1198), Enkidu is shunned by his herd for having sex with Shamat. Shamat is introduced as being a “harlot” almost inherently, with her role having been defined largely for her. In professions, the diverse material needs of the individual are ignored in favor of having people perform one instrumental, unnatural task that has little to do with their willingness to perform it. The way that this denies the basis upon which nature largely functions creates unhealthy situations, like when Enkidu is conscripted to fight against Humbaba by Gilgamesh most reluctantly out of a sense of dependence upon Gilgamesh (II.175-184).

Even the motif of being stripped of the ability to run in adjacence to purity is described.

Enkidu had defiled his body so pure,

His legs stood still, though his herd was in motion.

Enkidu was weakened, he could not run as before,

But now he had reason and wide understanding. (I.1195-1202)

The static and symbiotically denying identities of civilization have been applied to him, and he can no longer be a part of a collective group defined in their fleetness of going from one consumptive or productive identity to the next. He is posited as learning from this, however. He had learned the concept of a static and irrational boundary.

Ultimately similar underlying exchanges of material resources were taking place in both nature and civilization, but the lack of acknowledgement of this in civilization creates exploitable classes like Enkidu whose achievements ultimately are associated with legitimizing Gilgamesh, the one with the exalted identity of King.

Conclusion

In the end, the character of Enkidu is a sobering dose of symbiotic reality in a story full of otherwise humanistic messages. His interactions with nature and civilization display that despite the difference in attitude of the territories towards more fluid symbiotic ideas, they are both ultimately reliant upon its social and material existence. The weight of conforming to different territories can be crushing if the territory views your role as innate. We should all learn from Enkidu’s experience and move ourselves to fungi that allow us to grow and change. 

Bibliography

George, A. R. The Epic of Gilgamesh: The Babylonian Epic Poem and Other Texts in Akkadian and Sumerian. Penguin Books, 2020.

[kny111]

An epidemic curve has a relatively predictable upslope and once the peak is reached, the back slope can also be predicted. We have robust data from the outbreaks in China and Italy, that shows the backside of the mortality curve declines slowly, with deaths persisting for months. Assuming we have just crested in deaths at 70k, it is possible that we lose another 70,000 people over the next 6 weeks as we come off that peak. That's what's going to happen with a lockdown.

As states reopen, and we give the virus more fuel, all bets are off. I understand the reasons for reopening the economy, but I've said before, if you don't solve the biology, the economy won't recover.

There are very few states that have demonstrated a sustained decline in numbers of new infections. Indeed, as of May 3rd the majority are still increasing and reopening. As a simple example of the USA trend, when you take out the data from New York and just look at the rest of the USA, daily case numbers are increasing. Bottom line: the only reason the total USA new case numbers look flat right now is because the New York City epidemic was so large and now it is being contained.

So throughout most of the country we are going to add fuel to the viral fire by reopening. It's going to happen if I like it or not, so my goal here is to try to guide you away from situations of high risk.

Where are people getting sick?

We know most people get infected in their own home. A household member contracts the virus in the community and brings it into the house where sustained contact between household members leads to infection.

But where are people contracting the infection in the community? I regularly hear people worrying about grocery stores, bike rides, inconsiderate runners who are not wearing masks.... are these places of concern? Well, not really. Let me explain.

In order to get infected you need to get exposed to an infectious dose of the virus; based on infectious dose studies with other coronaviruses, it appears that only small doses may be needed for infection to take hold. Some experts estimate that as few as 1000 SARS-CoV2 infectious viral particles are all that will be needed (ref 1, ref 2). Please note, this still needs to be determined experimentally, but we can use that number to demonstrate how infection can occur. Infection could occur, through 1000 infectious viral particles you receive in one breath or from one eye-rub, or 100 viral particles inhaled with each breath over 10 breaths, or 10 viral particles with 100 breaths. Each of these situations can lead to an infection.

How much Virus is released into the environment?

A Bathroom: Bathrooms have a lot of high touch surfaces, door handles, faucets, stall doors. So fomite transfer risk in this environment can be high. We still do not know whether a person releases infectious material in feces or just fragmented virus, but we do know that toilet flushing does aerosolize many droplets. Treat public bathrooms with extra caution (surface and air), until we know more about the risk.

A Cough: A single cough releases about 3,000 droplets and droplets travels at 50 miles per hour. Most droplets are large, and fall quickly (gravity), but many do stay in the air and can travel across a room in a few seconds.

A Sneeze: A single sneeze releases about 30,000 droplets, with droplets traveling at up to 200 miles per hour. Most droplets are small and travel great distances (easily across a room).

If a person is infected, the droplets in a single cough or sneeze may contain as many as 200,000,000 (two hundred million) virus particles which can all be dispersed into the environment around them.

A breath: A single breath releases 50 - 5000 droplets. Most of these droplets are low velocity and fall to the ground quickly. There are even fewer droplets released through nose-breathing. Importantly, due to the lack of exhalation force with a breath, viral particles from the lower respiratory areas are not expelled.

Unlike sneezing and coughing which release huge amounts of viral material, the respiratory droplets released from breathing only contain low levels of virus. We don't have a number for SARS-CoV2 yet, but we can use influenza as a guide. Studies have shown that a person infected with influenza can releases up to 33 infectious viral particles per minute.  But I'm going to use 20 to keep the math simple.

Remember the formula: Successful Infection = Exposure to Virus x Time

If a person coughs or sneezes, those 200,000,000 viral particles go everywhere. Some virus hangs in the air, some falls into surfaces, most falls to the ground. So if you are face-to-face with a person, having a conversation, and that person sneezes or coughs straight at you, it's pretty easy to see how it is possible to inhale 1,000 virus particles and become infected.

But even if that cough or sneeze was not directed at you, some infected droplets--the smallest of small--can hang in the air for a few minutes, filling every corner of a modest sized room with infectious viral particles. All you have to do is enter that room within a few minutes of the cough/sneeze and take a few breaths and you have potentially received enough virus to establish an infection.

But with general breathing, 20 viral particles minute into the environment, even if every virus ended up in your lungs (which is very unlikely), you would need 1000 viral particles divided by 20 per minute = 50 minutes.

Speaking increases the release of respiratory droplets about 10 fold; ~200 virus particles per minute. Again, assuming every virus is inhaled, it would take ~5 minutes of speaking face-to-face to receive the required dose.

The exposure to virus x time formula is the basis of contact tracing. Anyone you spend greater than 10 minutes with in a face-to-face situation is potentially infected. Anyone who shares a space with you (say an office) for an extended period is potentially infected. This is also why it is critical for people who are symptomatic to stay home. Your sneezes and your coughs expel so much virus that you can infect a whole room of people.

What is the role of asymptomatic people in spreading the virus?

Symptomatic people are not the only way the virus is shed. We know that at least 44% of all infections--and the majority of community-acquired transmissions--occur from people without any symptoms (asymptomatic or pre-symptomatic people). You can be shedding the virus into the environment for up to 5 days before symptoms begin.

Infectious people come in all ages, and they all shed different amounts of virus. The figure below shows that no matter your age (x-axis), you can have a little bit of virus or a lot of virus (y-axis). (ref)

The amount of virus released from an infected person changes over the course of infection and it is also different from person-to-person. Viral load generally builds up to the point where the person becomes symptomatic. So just prior to symptoms showing, you are releasing the most virus into the environment. Interestingly, the data shows that just 20% of infected people are responsible for 99% of viral load that could potentially be released into the environment (ref)

So now let’s get to the crux of it. Where are the personal dangers from reopening?  

When you think of outbreak clusters, what are the big ones that come to mind? Most people would say cruise ships. But you would be wrong. Ship outbreaks, while concerning, don’t land in the top 50 outbreaks to date.

Ignoring the terrible outbreaks in nursing homes, we find that the biggest outbreaks are in prisons, religious ceremonies, and workplaces, such as meat packing facilities and call centers. Any environment that is enclosed, with poor air circulation and high density of people, spells trouble.

Some of the biggest super-spreading events are:

Meat packing: In meat processing plants, densely packed workers must communicate to one another amidst the deafening drum of industrial machinery and a cold-room virus-preserving environment. There are now outbreaks in 115 facilities across 23 states, 5000+ workers infected, with 20 dead. (ref)

Weddings, funerals, birthdays: 10% of early spreading events

Business networking: Face-to-face business networking like the Biogen Conference in Boston in late February.

As we move back to work, or go to a restaurant, let’s look at what can happen in those environments.

Restaurants: Some really great shoe-leather epidemiology demonstrated clearly the effect of a single asymptomatic carrier in a restaurant environment (see below). The infected person (A1) sat at a table and had dinner with 9 friends. Dinner took about 1 to 1.5 hours. During this meal, the asymptomatic carrier released low-levels of virus into the air from their breathing. Airflow (from the restaurant's various airflow vents) was from right to left. Approximately 50% of the people at the infected person's table became sick over the next 7 days. 75% of the people on the adjacent downwind table became infected. And even 2 of the 7 people on the upwind table were infected (believed to happen by turbulent airflow). No one at tables E or F became infected, they were out of the main airflow from the air conditioner on the right to the exhaust fan on the left of the room. (Ref)

Workplaces: Another great example is the outbreak in a call center (see below). A single infected employee came to work on the 11th floor of a building. That floor had 216 employees. Over the period of a week, 94 of those people became infected (43.5%: the blue chairs). 92 of those 94 people became sick (only 2 remained asymptomatic). Notice how one side of the office is primarily infected, while there are very few people infected on the other side.  While exact number of people infected by respiratory droplets / respiratory exposure versus fomite transmission (door handles, shared water coolers, elevator buttons etc.) is unknown. It serves to highlight that being in an enclosed space, sharing the same air for a prolonged period increases your chances of exposure and infection.  Another 3 people on other floors of the building were infected, but the authors were not able to trace the infection to the primary cluster on the 11th floor. Interestingly, even though there were considerable interaction between workers on different floors of the building in elevators and the lobby, the outbreak was mostly limited to a single floor (ref). This highlights the importance of exposure and time in the spreading of SARS-CoV2.

Choir: The community choir in Washington State. Even though people were aware of the virus and took steps to minimize transfer; e.g. they avoided the usual handshakes and hugs hello, people also brought their own music to avoid sharing, and socially distanced themselves during practice. They even went to the lengths to tell choir members prior to practice that anyone experiencing symptoms should stay home.  A single asymptomatic carrier infected most of the people in attendance. The choir sang for 2 1/2 hours, inside an enclosed rehearsal hall which was roughly the size of a volleyball court.

Singing, to a greater degree than talking, aerosolizes respiratory droplets extraordinarily well. Deep-breathing while singing facilitated those respiratory droplets getting deep into the lungs. Two and half hours of exposure ensured that people were exposed to enough virus over a long enough period of time for infection to take place. Over a period of 4 days, 45 of the 60 choir members developed symptoms, 2 died. The youngest infected was 31, but they averaged 67 years old. (corrected link)

Indoor sports: While this may be uniquely Canadian, a super spreading event occurred during a curling event in Canada. A curling event with 72 attendees became another hotspot for transmission. Curling brings contestants and teammates in close contact in a cool indoor environment, with heavy breathing for an extended period. This tournament resulted in 24 of the 72 people becoming infected. (ref)

Birthday parties / funerals: Just to see how simple infection-chains can be, this is a real story from Chicago. The name is fake. Bob was infected but didn't know. Bob shared a takeout meal, served from common serving dishes, with 2 family members. The dinner lasted 3 hours. The next day, Bob attended a funeral, hugging family members and others in attendance to express condolences. Within 4 days, both family members who shared the meal are sick. A third family member, who hugged Bob at the funeral became sick. But Bob wasn't done. Bob attended a birthday party with 9 other people. They hugged and shared food at the 3 hour party. Seven of those people became ill.

But Bob’s transmission chain wasn’t done. Three of the people Bob infected at the birthday went to church, where they sang, passed the tithing dish etc. Members of that church became sick. In all, Bob was directly responsible for infecting 16 people between the ages of 5 and 86. Three of those 16 died.

The spread of the virus within the household and back out into the community through funerals, birthdays, and church gatherings is believed to be responsible for the broader transmission of COVID-19 in Chicago. (ref)

Sobering right?

Commonality of outbreaks

The reason to highlight these different outbreaks is to show you the commonality of outbreaks of COVID-19. All these infection events were indoors, with people closely-spaced, with lots of talking, singing, or yelling. The main sources for infection are home, workplace, public transport, social gatherings, and restaurants. This accounts for 90% of all transmission events. In contrast, outbreaks spread from shopping appear to be responsible for a small percentage of traced infections. (Ref)

Importantly, of the countries performing contact tracing properly, only a single outbreak has been reported from an outdoor environment (less than 0.3% of traced infections). (ref)

So back to the original thought of my post.

Indoor spaces, with limited air exchange or recycled air and lots of people, are concerning from a transmission standpoint. We know that 60 people in a volleyball court-sized room (choir) results in massive infections. Same situation with the restaurant and the call center.  Social distancing guidelines don't hold in indoor spaces where you spend a lot of time, as people on the opposite side of the room were infected.  

The principle is viral exposure over an extended period of time. In all these cases, people were exposed to the virus in the air for a prolonged period (hours). Even if they were 50 feet away (choir or call center), even a low dose of the virus in the air reaching them, over a sustained period, was enough to cause infection and in some cases, death.

Social distancing rules are really to protect you with brief exposures or outdoor exposures. In these situations there is not enough time to achieve the infectious viral load when you are standing 6 feet apart or where wind and the infinite outdoor space for viral dilution reduces viral load. The effects of sunlight, heat, and humidity on viral survival, all serve to minimize the risk to everyone when outside.

When assessing the risk of infection (via respiration) at the grocery store or mall, you need to consider the volume of the air space (very large), the number of people (restricted), how long people are spending in the store (workers - all day; customers - an hour). Taken together, for a person shopping: the low density, high air volume of the store, along with the restricted time you spend in the store, means that the opportunity to receive an infectious dose is low. But, for the store worker, the extended time they spend in the store provides a greater opportunity to receive the infectious dose and therefore the job becomes more risky.

Basically, as the work closures are loosened, and we start to venture out more, possibly even resuming in-office activities, you need to look at your environment and make judgments. How many people are here, how much airflow is there around me, and how long will I be in this environment. If you are in an open floorplan office, you really need to critically assess the risk (volume, people, and airflow). If you are in a job that requires face-to-face talking or even worse, yelling, you need to assess the risk.

If you are sitting in a well ventilated space, with few people, the risk is low.

If I am outside, and I walk past someone, remember it is “dose and time” needed for infection. You would have to be in their airstream for 5+ minutes for a chance of infection.  While joggers may be releasing more virus due to deep breathing, remember the exposure time is also less due to their speed. Please do maintain physical distance, but the risk of infection in these scenarios are low. Here is a great article in Vox that discusses the low risk of running and cycling in detail.  

While I have focused on respiratory exposure here, please don't forget surfaces. Those infected respiratory droplets land somewhere. Wash your hands often and stop touching your face!

For The Full article with the helpful illustrations and charts visit:  The Risks - Know Them - Avoid Them by Erin Bromage

[onlineindus23]

ONLINEINDUS - Pakistan English News, Latest Pakistan News

Maybe the biggest and most inescapable issue in a specialized curriculum, just as my own excursion in schooling, is specialized curriculum's relationship to general instruction. History has demonstrated that this has never been a simple obvious connection between the two. There has been a ton of giving and taking or perhaps I should state pulling and pushing with regards to instructive arrangement, and the instructive practices and administrations of schooling and custom curriculum by the human instructors who convey those administrations on the two sides of the isle, similar to me.

In the course of the last 20+ years I have been on the two sides of training. I have seen and felt what it resembled to be a customary standard instructor managing specialized curriculum strategy, custom curriculum understudies and their specific educators. I have likewise been on the specialized curriculum side attempting to get normal schooling educators to work all the more viably with my specialized curriculum understudies through altering their guidance and materials and having somewhat more tolerance and compassion.

Moreover, I have been standard normal instruction educator who trained ordinary schooling consideration classes attempting to sort out some way to best work with some new custom curriculum instructor in my group and their custom curriculum understudies too. What's more, conversely, I have been a specialized curriculum incorporation instructor barging in on the region of some standard training educators with my specialized curriculum understudies and the alterations I figured these educators should actualize. I can disclose to you direct that none of this give and take between a custom curriculum and normal training has been simple. Nor do I see this pushing and pulling turning out to be simple at any point in the near future.

All in all, what is custom curriculum? What's more, what makes it so exceptional but then so unpredictable and questionable here and there? Indeed, custom curriculum, as its name proposes, is a particular part of training. It asserts its heredity to such individuals as Jean-Marc-Gaspard Itard (1775-1838), the doctor who "subdued" the "wild kid of Aveyron," and Anne Sullivan Macy (1866-1936), the instructor who "worked supernatural occurrences" with Helen Keller.

Extraordinary instructors show understudies who have physical, psychological, language, learning, tangible, and additionally passionate capacities that go amiss from those of everyone. Unique teachers give guidance explicitly customized to address individualized issues. These instructors fundamentally make training more accessible and available to understudies who in any case would have restricted admittance to schooling because of whatever inability they are battling with.

It's not simply the instructors however who assume a job throughout the entire existence of a specialized curriculum in this nation. Doctors and ministry, including Itard-referenced above, Edouard O. Seguin (1812-1880), Samuel Gridley Howe (1801-1876), and Thomas Hopkins Gallaudet (1787-1851), needed to enhance the careless, frequently harsh treatment of people with handicaps. Unfortunately, instruction in this nation was, as a general rule, careless and oppressive when managing understudies that are distinctive in some way or another.

There is even a rich writing in our country that depicts the treatment gave to people handicaps during the 1800s and mid 1900s. Tragically, in these accounts, just as in reality, the fragment of our populace with handicaps were regularly restricted in prisons and almshouses without respectable food, attire, individual cleanliness, and exercise.

For an illustration of this diverse treatment in our writing one requirements to look no farther than Tiny Tim in Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol (1843). Furthermore, commonly individuals with inabilities were frequently depicted as scoundrels, for example, in the book Captain Hook in J.M. Barrie's "Peter Pan" in 1911.

The overarching perspective on the creators of this time span was that one ought to submit to setbacks, both as a type of submission to God's will, and in light of the fact that these appearing mishaps are at last planned to one's benefit. Progress for our kin with handicaps was rare as of now with this perspective pervading our general public, writing and thinking.

All in all, what was society to do about these individuals of adversity? Indeed, during a significant part of the nineteenth century, and from the get-go in the 20th, experts accepted people with inabilities were best treated in private offices in provincial conditions. An out of the picture and therefore irrelevant sort of thing, maybe...

Notwithstanding, before the finish of the nineteenth century the size of these establishments had expanded so significantly that the objective of recovery for individuals with incapacities simply wasn't working. Foundations became instruments for lasting isolation.

I have some involvement in these isolation approaches of schooling. Some of it is acceptable and some of it is slightly below average. I have been an independent instructor on and off over time in numerous conditions in independent homerooms out in the open secondary schools, center schools and grade schools. I have likewise instructed in various specialized curriculum social independent schools that completely isolated these grieved understudies with inabilities in dealing with their conduct from their standard companions by placing them in totally various structures that were in some cases even in various towns from their homes, companions and friends.

Throughout the long term numerous specialized curriculum experts became pundits of these organizations referenced over that isolated and isolated our kids with incapacities from their companions. Irvine Howe was one of the first to advocate removing our childhood from these gigantic foundations and to put out occupants into families. Lamentably this training turned into a calculated and down to earth issue and it required some investment before it could turn into a practical option in contrast to systematization for our understudies with incapacities.

Presently on the positive side, you may be keen on knowing anyway that in 1817 the primary specialized curriculum school in the United States, the American Asylum for the Education and Instruction of the Deaf and Dumb (presently called the American School for the Deaf), was set up in Hartford, Connecticut, by Gallaudet. That school is still there today and is one of the top schools in the nation for understudies with hear-able inabilities. A genuine progress story!

Be that as it may, as you would already be able to envision, the enduring accomplishment of the American School for the Deaf was the special case and not the standard during this time-frame. What's more, to add to this, in the late nineteenth century, social Darwinism supplanted environmentalism as the essential causal clarification for those people with handicaps who digressed from those of everybody.

Unfortunately, Darwinism made the way for the genetic counseling development of the mid 20th century. This at that point prompted much further isolation and even sanitization of people with inabilities, for example, mental hindrance. Sounds like something Hitler was doing in Germany additionally being done well here in our own nation, to our own kin, by our own kin. Sort of alarming and unfeeling, wouldn't you concur?

Today, this sort of treatment is clearly unsatisfactory. Furthermore, in the early piece of the twentieth Century it was likewise inadmissible to a portion of the grown-ups, particularly the guardians of these debilitated youngsters. Hence, concerned and furious guardians framed support gatherings to help carry the instructive necessities of youngsters with incapacities into the public eye. General society needed to see firsthand how wrong this selective breeding and disinfection development was for our understudies that were unique in the event that it was truly going to be halted.

Gradually, grassroots associations gained ground that even prompted a few states making laws to ensure their residents with incapacities. For instance, in 1930, in Peoria, Illinois, the primary white stick law gave people with visual deficiency the option to proceed when going across the road. This was a beginning, and different states did in the long run go with the same pattern. As expected, this nearby grassroots' development and states' development prompted enough tension on our chosen authorities for something to be done on the public level for our kin with inabilities.

In 1961, President John F. Kennedy made the President's Panel on Mental Retardation. Furthermore, in 1965, Lyndon B. Johnson marked the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, which gave subsidizing to essential training, and is seen by backing bunches as extending admittance to state funded schooling for kids with handicaps.

At the point when one ponders Kennedy's and Johnson's record on social equality, at that point it most likely isn't such an unexpected discovering that these two presidents likewise initiated this public development for our kin with incapacities.

This government development prompted segment 504 of the 1973 Rehabilitation Act. This ensures social equality for the handicapped with regards to governmentally subsidized establishments or any program or movement accepting Federal monetary help. Every one of these years after the fact as an instructor, I for one arrangement with 504 cases each and every day.

In 1975 Congress authorized Public Law 94-142, the Education for All Handicapped Children Act (EHA), which sets up a privilege to state funded training for all youngsters paying little heed to inability. This was another beneficial thing in light of the fact that before government enactment, guardians needed to generally teach their youngsters at home or pay for costly private schooling.

The development continued developing. In the 1982 the instance of the Board of Education of the Hendrick Hudson Central School District v. Rowley, the U.S. High Court explained the degree of administrations to be managed the cost of understudies with exceptional necessities. The Court decided that custom curriculum administrations need just give some "instructive advantage" to understudies. Government funded schools were not needed to amplify the instructive advancement of understudies with incapacities.

Today, this decision may not appear to be a triumph, and actually, this equivalent inquiry is indeed coursing through our courts today in 2017. Be that as it may, since its getting late period it was made

[prorevenge]

Don't screw with the crew!

Back in the early 90s, I got a gig working as a front-of-house sound engineer on a major 10-day music and arts festival in London’s Docklands with some fifteen stages dotted all around the waterfront. All of the crew working the stages were either experienced theatre techs, and/or had loads of experience working major outside events, which is the reason we were hired. As an aside, this festival was to celebrate the culmination of a massive investment in the redevelopment of this area of East London, itself the former site of one of the largest dock complexes in the world.

I was tasked with running FOH sound on one of the largest stages. Normally, events like this are loads of fun to work but within two days it became apparent that the organisers had 1), no idea of how to run major outside events and 2), had not the faintest idea of how to book acts and schedule same. In particular, we also had to contend with some woman from Docklands' middle management team who had been given the job of "overseeing" our particular stage, a person who not only had rapidly proved to be totally ignorant of any aspect of managing outside events, but also someone for whom the word "entitled" had been invented.

Our stage was licensed to run events from midday until 10:00pm but we rarely had a full day’s-worth of events for punters to enjoy, due to the aforementioned incompetence with booking. Still, not our problem—we'll just work with what’s given us.

On the Thursday, we had scheduled an evening of old-time Victorian music hall which featured, as a special guest, a very famous film and TV actress. Her performance rider required a grand piano. For some unfathomable reason (and again due to the incompetence of the organisers), the piano—a full-size Yamaha concert grand—arrived from the hire company on the Tuesday. This was a remarkably stupid idea for any number of reasons: due to operational considerations, we had to store the piano in the backstage area where it spent two days suffering in the heat of the day despite our best efforts to shield it.

As any piano technician/tuner will tell you, this is An Extremely Bad Idea, especially with an instrument worth close to £100,000. Almost as bad was the fact that our area was little more than a roughly-graded building site: the ground was covered in hard-core rubble fragments around the size of hen’s eggs (very uncomfortable to walk around on, even with proper work boots), which also kicked up loads of dust and other detritus—not the sort of crap you want floating about gumming up the works of a very expensive concert grand!

Now let me properly set the scene: it’s mid-summer, very hot, and our venue is a large circus-style tent with around 800-seat capacity. The cast of the show, along with our august star, were due to turn up at around 1:00pm to conduct a production rehearsal so we could sort out sound and lighting cues for the show.

The main cast duly turn up on time, and we start sorting out their technical requirements (pretty simple and nothing that we’re not used to). At about 1:30pm, our star turns up sporting dark glasses and an immaculate couture. As anyone who’s worked in this industry knows, the initial interaction with a major A-list star vis-à-vis their technical requirements can go one of two ways: full-monty diva, or let’s go with what we have.

Her first demand was that the piano be dropped off the front of the stage so that she could maintain an eye-line whilst standing right downstage, both with her pianist and with the audience. The stage was about 4.5 feet above ground level and would have required at least eight burly lads to safely shift a full-size concert grand off the deck. Also not a good idea since it had been tuned that morning and moving it would have almost certainly caused the tuning to go out of whack.

I delicately pointed out that doing so would be in direct violation of both health and safety, and fire regulations—as per our written policy—as it would have put the piano in both the fire lane and close to one of the primary emergency exits from the venue. Thinking rapidly, I then suggested that we place the piano as far downstage as physically possible, and that she page herself three or four feet upstage so that she could still glance over and take cues from her MD whilst still “taking in” the audience.

The tension was palpable: after a few seconds consideration she replied, “No problem, I can work with that.” Phew!! No sooner than this crisis had been averted than the Docklands rep rocked up. I remind you, gentle reader, that this person had absolutely zero knowledge about how to run an outside event.

She had also been a major thorn in our side for the previous week, trying to micro-manage proceedings in the venue in order to big herself up in front of her bosses: we, of course, completely ignored her ��suggestions” but in such a way as made her think she was in charge—trust me, she wasn’t! She had also been inexcusably rude to virtually every single member of the crew from Day One, and had over the days previous reduced several of them to tears. Production crews don’t take kindly to our own being treated in such a cavalier fashion, and while we’re generally fairly thick-skinned, there comes point where we want to get our own back. Believe me, after a week of constant abuse, we were coming up with creative ways of disposing of the body.

Although we didn’t realise I at the time, our saviour was at hand…but I digress…

Obviously star-struck, she announced in gushing tones that she would be taking personal charge of our star’s every need and that we were not to concern ourselves with that aspect: indeed, we were to “keep our place” as we were only the hired help. Our stage manager, who was at that time sweeping the stage, bridled at the suggestion and made as if to use his broom to beat the brains out of this woman. I had to step in front of him as unobtrusively as possible and stop him from burying the woman right there and then—“she ain’t worth it, mate.”

She then swanned off, leaving our star slack-jawed in amazement. She then turned to me and said, “Is that fucking woman for real?” I replied: “Darling, you have NO idea!”, at which point she laughed uproariously. I gave our star a brief summary of the previous few days' farrago and instantly, she became one of us and from then on we were all on first-name terms.

We then ran a full tech rehearsal from 3:00pm to 5:00pm, sorted out all our cues and then repaired to the beer tent with the cast for a spot of late lunch and a drink or two.

The show was scheduled to kick off at 7:30pm. At around 6:00pm, The Harridan reappeared to overlook the situation. She noticed that we had all the sides of the tent raised in order to get some air flowing through—remember it’s mid-summer and it’s currently low to mid 80s. She then demanded that all of the tent flaps be lowered because she wanted a more “theatre” atmosphere and the light spilling through the side walls would spoil the effect. Despite pointing out that dropping the tent sides would significantly raise the temperature in the venue, she demanded the sides be dropped, so despite our earnest advice to the contrary, we reluctantly complied.

At around 7:00pm, we saw eight 50-seat coaches arrive. To our amazement, out from the coaches came an entire flotilla of old-age pensioners, many on Zimmer frames, who proceeded to shuffle their way into the tent across the hard-core rubble underfoot. We discovered later that the organisers had forgotten to advertise the event anywhere (seriously??) and in desperation, had gone around to all the local Darby & Joan clubs a couple of days before handing out free tickets and laying on transport in order to have an audience.

So now we have 400-odd OAPs frantically fanning themselves with anything to hand as the temperature climbs ever higher. We start the show: everything’s going fine but the mercury in the thermometer I have strapped to the FOH rack is slowly going up and up: it’s so hot up at the sound desk that I’m down to my shorts!

By the end of Act 1, the temperature has gotten up to around 94°F and one could clearly see the old dears are in a bit of distress. Naturally, the organisers had neglected to provide water for the public, and judging by the horrified expressions of the two St John’s Ambulance first-aiders stationed either side of the stage, things were about to get a lot worse. I climbed off the tower, found the rigging crew and ordered the sides of the tent raised. No sooner had I done so than “our friend” standing nearby demanded that the sides stay down because "she was in charge" and "...her instructions were to be followed absolutely, no questions!"

It was at this juncture that diplomacy went completely out of the window. I informed her in no uncertain terms (and employing a fair amount of Anglo-Saxon vernacular) that it was in fact the crew who had the responsibility of ensuring the health and safety of all the people in the venue, not her, and that we have the legal authority to enact ANY procedure that we see fit at ANY time to ensure the safety and well-being of everyone present. I then informed her that I was now exercising my authority under The Health & Safety at Work Act 1974 to remediate the situation, and that if she made one single attempt to circumvent that authority, I would have her ejected from the venue without hesitation. She then got in my face and screamed, “I’M IN CHARGE!”. No strike one, no strike two, instant strike three!

I glanced over at two of our security crew who had been hovering in the background with huge shit-eating grins on their faces, who then stepped up either side of her. Defeated, but complaining like a banshee with a terminal case of haemorrhoids, she was escorted off the premises in short order.

By the time Act 2 kicked off, we’d gotten the temperature down to a more manageable low 70ºF, much to the appreciation of our audience, and the rest of the show went off without a hitch.

After the show, cast and crew—including our august star—repaired to the bar for a well-earned drink. Moments later, you-know-who appeared and in imperious tones informed us that our star was to be the guest of honour at a VIP reception for the various Docklands' bigwigs. With a tinge of regret for having our fun curtailed prematurely, we said our goodbyes to our star.

Now it gets interesting!

Not ten minutes later, she storms back into the beer tent with a face like absolute thunder. Taken somewhat aback by her reappearance, we enquired as to why she had returned.

“That fucking woman! She drags me off to this so-called ‘VIP party’: I get there and all that’s there are two fucking plates of curled-up ham sandwiches and two fucking boxes of cheap wine from Sainsburys! How the holy fuck did she get this job?

“I gave her a right bloody earful and came back here because I’d much rather drink with you guys!”

At which point she calls the barman over and orders a round for the entire crew. We spend the rest of the evening chatting away like old friends: she regaled us with stories of her life, and she was gracious enough to listen to some of ours. Despite us trying to buy her a drink, she refused point-blank and picked up the entire bar tab for the rest of the evening on the basis that “…you’ve had to put up with that fucking evil bitch all week: the least I can do get you folks a drink!”

All good things must come to an end and at the end of the evening, her chauffeur turns up to take her home. She embraces all of us as old friends: she hugs me, plants a big kiss on my lips and thanks me, whereupon I comment, “you have just fulfilled a boyhood dream!” Again, that uproarious laugh! She looks at me and says, “Don’t let that fucking bitch get you down! Leave it to me…”

I later discovered through the back-channels some weeks later that our bête-noir had been fired from her five-figure job for her monstrous screw-up, primarily because our star’s agent had ripped the organisers a new one in very short order; you do NOT fuck with someone of our star’s track record without there being consequences. So, although we were not directly responsible for The Harridan’s demise, we were gratified to have someone of our star’s calibre standing up for us.

Revenge is a dish best served cold!

Edit: corrected °C for °F.

(source) story by (/u/GhostOfSorabji)

[station-19-series4eps4]

Watch Station 19 (Season 4 Episode 4) : Full Episodes

Watch Station 19 (Season 4 Episode 4) : Full_Episodes ⇨ One way to watch StreamiNG !!! ⇨ Enjoy watching! Series Online Complete! ⇨ Watch Station 19 Season 4 Episode 4 : Don't Look Back in Anger Full Online @ https://bit.ly/3lZmMpN

Genre : Action & Adventure, Drama Air Date : 2020-12-10 Network : ABC Casts : Stefania Spampinato, Boris Kodjoe, Jay Hayden, Barrett Doss, Okieriete Onaodowan, Jaina Lee Ortiz, Jason George, Grey Damon, Danielle Savre Guest Star : Kevin McKidd, Carlos Miranda, Lachlan Buchanan Director : Bethany Rooney Writer : Brian Anthony

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Sipnosis

The team responds to a difficult domestic dispute involving a pregnant woman. Meanwhile, Travis struggles to deal with a family crisis, and Maya and Carina’s relationship continues to grow.

Storyline

Follow a group of heroic firefighters at Seattle Fire Station 19 - from captain to newest recruit - as they risk their lives and hearts both in the line of duty and off the clock. These brave men and women are like family, literally and figuratively, and together they put their own lives in jeopardy as first responders to save the lives of others.

✌ STREAMING MEDIA ✌ Streaming media is multimedia that is constantly received by and presented to an end-user while being delivered by a provider. The verb to stream refers to the procedure of delivering or obtaining media this way.[clarification needed] Streaming identifies the delivery approach to the medium, rather than the medium itself. Distinguishing delivery method from the media distributed applies especially to telecommunications networks, as almost all of the delivery systems are either inherently streaming (e.g. radio, television, streaming apps) or inherently non-streaming (e.g. books, video cassettes, audio tracks CDs). There are challenges with streaming content on the web. For instance, users whose Internet connection lacks sufficient bandwidth may experience stops, lags, or slow buffering of this content. And users lacking compatible hardware or software systems may be unable to stream certain content.

Streaming is an alternative to file downloading, an activity in which the end-user obtains the entire file for the content before watching or listening to it. Through streaming, an end-user may use their media player to get started on playing digital video or digital sound content before the complete file has been transmitted. The term “streaming media” can connect with media other than video and audio, such as for example live closed captioning, ticker tape, and real-time text, which are considered “streaming text”.

This brings me around to discussing us, a film release of the Christian religio us faith-based . As almost customary, Hollywood usually generates two (maybe three) films of this variety movies within their yearly theatrical release lineup, with the releases usually being around spring us and / or fall respectfully. I didn’t hear much when this movie was initially aounced (probably got buried underneath all of the popular movies news on the newsfeed). My first actual glimpse of the movie was when the film’s movie trailer premiered, which looked somewhat interesting if you ask me. Yes, it looked the movie was goa be the typical “faith-based” vibe, but it was going to be directed by the Erwin Brothers, who directed I COULD Only Imagine (a film that I did so like). Plus, the trailer for I Still Believe premiered for quite some us, so I continued seeing it most of us when I visited my local cinema. You can sort of say that it was a bit “engrained in my brain”. Thus, I was a lttle bit keen on seeing it. Fortunately, I was able to see it before the COVID-9 outbreak closed the movie theaters down (saw it during its opening night), but, because of work scheduling, I haven’t had the us to do my review for it…. as yet. And what did I think of it? Well, it was pretty “meh”. While its heart is certainly in the proper place and quite sincere, us is a little too preachy and unbalanced within its narrative execution and character developments. The religious message is plainly there, but takes way too many detours and not focusing on certain aspects that weigh the feature’s presentation.

✌ TELEVISION SHOW AND HISTORY ✌ A tv set show (often simply Television show) is any content prBookmark this siteoduced for broadcast via over-the-air, satellite, cable, or internet and typically viewed on a television set set, excluding breaking news, advertisements, or trailers that are usually placed between shows. Tv shows are most often scheduled well ahead of The War with Grandpa and appearance on electronic guides or other TV listings.

A television show may also be called a tv set program (British EnBookmark this siteglish: programme), especially if it lacks a narrative structure. A tv set Movies is The War with Grandpaually released in episodes that follow a narrative, and so are The War with Grandpaually split into seasons (The War with Grandpa and Canada) or Movies (UK) — yearly or semiaual sets of new episodes. A show with a restricted number of episodes could be called a miniMBookmark this siteovies, serial, or limited Movies. A one-The War with Grandpa show may be called a “special”. A television film (“made-for-TV movie” or “televisioBookmark this siten movie”) is a film that is initially broadcast on television set rather than released in theaters or direct-to-video.

Television shows may very well be Bookmark this sitehey are broadcast in real The War with Grandpa (live), be recorded on home video or an electronic video recorder for later viewing, or be looked at on demand via a set-top box or streameBookmark this sited on the internet.

The first television set shows were experimental, sporadic broadcasts viewable only within an extremely short range from the broadcast tower starting in the. Televised events such as the 944 Summer OlyBookmark this sitempics in Germany, the 944 coronation of King George VI in the UK, and David Sarnoff’s famoThe War with Grandpa introduction at the 9 New York World’s Fair in the The War with Grandpa spurreBookmark this sited a rise in the medium, but World War II put a halt to development until after the war. The 944 World Movies inspired many Americans to buy their first tv set and in 94, the favorite radio show Texaco Star Theater made the move and became the first weekly televised variety show, earning host Milton Berle the name “Mr Television” and demonstrating that the medium was a well balanced, modern form of entertainment which could attract advertisers. The firsBookmBookmark this siteark this sitet national live tv broadcast in the The War with Grandpa took place on September 4, 94 when President Harry Truman’s speech at the Japanese Peace Treaty Conference in SAN FRASEAL Team CO BAY AREA was transmitted over AT&T’s transcontinental cable and microwave radio relay system to broadcast stations in local markets.

✌ FINAL THOUGHTS ✌ The power of faith, love, and affinity for take center stage in Jeremy Camp’s life story in the movie I Still Believe. Directors Andrew and Jon Erwin (the Erwin Brothers) examine the life span and The War with Grandpas of Jeremy Camp’s life story; pin-pointing his early life along with his relationship Melissa Heing because they battle hardships and their enduring love for one another through difficult. While the movie’s intent and thematic message of a person’s faith through troublen is indeed palpable plus the likeable mThe War with Grandpaical performances, the film certainly strules to look for a cinematic footing in its execution, including a sluish pace, fragmented pieces, predicable plot beats, too preachy / cheesy dialogue moments, over utilized religion overtones, and mismanagement of many of its secondary /supporting characters. If you ask me, this movie was somewhere between okay and “meh”. It had been definitely a Christian faith-based movie endeavor Bookmark this web site (from begin to finish) and definitely had its moments, nonetheless it failed to resonate with me; struling to locate a proper balance in its undertaking. Personally, regardless of the story, it could’ve been better. My recommendation for this movie is an “iffy choice” at best as some should (nothing wrong with that), while others will not and dismiss it altogether. Whatever your stance on religion faith-based flicks, stands as more of a cautionary tale of sorts; demonstrating how a poignant and heartfelt story of real-life drama could be problematic when translating it to a cinematic endeavor. For me personally, I believe in Jeremy Camp’s story / message, but not so much the feature.

[completeoveranalysis]

TRC Translation Notes Volume 13 (Chapters 91 - 99 + Omake)

The wondrous third installment of the new Translation Notes from @giniroangou, now looking at Volume 13. I can’t believe how far we’ve come, this still feels so recent. 

Highlights include: that’s so love, secret drugs, justice for Syaoran’s detective skills, improved Kuroparents, and cuddle pile!

Chapter 91

p.11-12 - Just for fun, the word that’s been translated as “love birds” is “raburabu”/“love love,” which is frequently used to indicate that two people are lovey dovey together, so to speak. Mokona continues to use the word “rabu”/“love” throughout her proceeding comments. First she says, “It’s love! It’s love!,” then she turns the word “love” into an adjective (so, “But it was so romantic” becomes literally, “But it was so love”), and finally, “Isn’t love nice?”

p.15 - Since a commenter asked, this world’s name rendered directly from the katakana is “Rekoruto.” I think the fan translation of Lecourt works the best as a country name, but I’ve always liked how the original name is reminiscent of the word “record” given all the libraries, so I can understand the use of Recort as an alternate translation. As far as I know there are no right answers here - I don’t think CLAMP has officially clarified? - but in fandom you’re probably most likely to see people using Lecourt.

P.22 - The translation has switched from “Daddy” to “Father” but the original Japanese is the same as it’s always been. As I mentioned earlier, this was “Otou-san,” for which “Father” would be a more accurate translation.

When Fai says that they’re “not permitted” to sell the swords, he’s really just saying they shouldn’t sell them. I’m pretty sure if they actually wanted to they could.

Chapter 92

p.31 - As a bit of trivia, Kurogane calls his mother “Hahaue,” which is a more formal and old-fashioned word for “Mother” than the commonly-heard “Okaa-san.” It’s something you’d be unlikely to hear from anyone today, but fits right in with the apparent time period of Kurogane’s Nihon. (Likewise, a little later he calls his father “Chichiue,” the equivalent word for “Father.”)

p.33 - In the translated version Kurogane’s father calls him a “brat,” but the term he uses is “wanpaku bouzu,” different from both words Kurogane has used for Syaoran (“gaki” and “kozou.”) While I think “brat” works well for the exchange between Kurogane and his father, normally I’d interpret this phrase a bit more warmly - it’s like he’s calling him a little rascal. Not that brat can’t be said fondly, of course.

P.34 - Following up from the previous note, Kurogane’s “I’m not a brat!” can be interpreted along the lines of “I’m not a kid!”

Kurogane’s father is referred to as the “ryoushu” (領主) indicating that he is a feudal lord, but the extent of his holdings isn’t necessarily as large as a daimyo (though it very well could be!) From the tiny bit of research I’ve done, ryoushu seems to be a fairly ambiguous term, so we have some leeway in interpreting his position. If anyone is well-versed in historical Japanese terminology and/or has more information on this, feel free to step forward!

p.35 - The translation of “kusa” as “grass” here is unintentionally hilarious - that is a legit translation of the word, but in this context “herb” would be more appropriate. (Either way they’re suddenly sounding like pot farmers though, HELP.)

p.38 - It seems like you may have misinterpreted the speech bubbles from your tags, but the parent who Kurogane is said to resemble is his father rather than his mother, much as I love the image of baby Kuromama climbing trees (though who’s to say she didn’t!)

Chapter 93

p.51 - Kurogane’s “I want to protect Suwa and everyone in it,” is spoken first as, “I [want to protect] Suwa,” then clarified to, “I want to protect everyone.” You could interpret this the way the official translation did, or you could say that to Kurogane, Suwa is equivalent to the people there.

More significantly, Kurogane’s vow of protection is, “I want to protect Mother and Father, who protect everyone else.”

p.59 - Now that Kurogane’s grown up a bit, he calls his father “Oyaji.” This means “Father” as well, but it’s used primarily by men - it’s rougher and more casual than “Chichiue” or “Otousan.” In English translations it’s often rendered as the colloquialism “my/the old man.” We see later that he still uses “Chichiue” when speaking to his father directly, though.

Chapter 94

p.67 - There’s nothing here I would consider a mistranslation, but I’d like to clarify some nuances in the dialogue. Kurogane’s “I’d rather have you feeling better!” is, “It’s fine as long as you get better.” When his mother responds by calling him a good child, the word she uses is “yasashii,” meaning gentle/sweet/caring. I really love this word choice in juxtaposition with Kurogane’s actions - he’s yelling, but his mother clearly recognizes that it’s coming from a place of care and concern.

p.68-70 - This is getting into nitpicky territory and I’m too lazy to write out the specifics, but please take my word for it that in the original text it feels clearer that Syaoran is actually in the process of figuring things out and heading towards a conclusion rather than just summarizing information he’s already said, lol.

p.79 - Since “You people...” sounds kind of alienating in English, I’ll clarify that Kurogane’s saying, “Everyone…”/“All of you…”

Chapter 95

p.87 - I don’t think it’s clear in the translation, but Kuromama tells Kuropapa that he mustn’t take Ginryuu with him without calling for her first (to bless the sword, as we learn shortly after.)

p.88 - The tone of this exchange is different as well - it’s not about demands being made but about the actions each of them choose to take. Kuropapa says, “You’ve always been like this. You keep pushing yourself too hard,” and Kuromama replies, “I could say the same of you.”

p.90 - A little elaboration on Ginryuu as the “Dragon of Water” - the original text refers to Ginryuu as one who rules over/controls the water.

Chapter 96

p.107-108 - I’m not certain that Kuromama’s final words are a request for Kurogane to protect Suwa. It’s difficult to tell because she’s speaking in sentence fragments, but she’s using the same structure for both “Suwa” and “You” (“Suwa wo...” “Anata wo...” vs “Anata ni/ga…”), and there is no pronoun associated with the following “Must protect…” This leads me to believe that she’s still struggling under her own obligations here, feeling that she must protect both Suwa and her son even as she dies.

p.120 - A clarification so Amaterasu doesn’t sound totally irresponsible here: She says she led her army in assuming that monsters would invade Suwa, the implication being that she came as soon as she could after hearing about Tomoyo’s dream.

Chapter 97

p.133 - Amaterasu isn’t trying to reason with Kurogane, as it appears in the translation. She’s speaking to the people with her (or the readers, however you want to see it), saying that he’s lost himself and that it can’t be helped, but she has to stop him. My interpretation would be that she’s ready to put him out of his misery here, tbh, hence the look of pain on her face. It’s brutal, but she believes it’s the only thing to be done at this point. Tomoyo literally saved Kurogane’s life here.

Chapter 98

p.142-143 - Since this became a topic of discussion, the “U” noises Kurogane makes here are indeed a sort of animalistic groaning noise (at least that’s how I would interpret them.) The Japanese “u” sounds like a shortened English “oo,” so just imagine he’s alternating between short and long versions of that sound and you should have an idea of what it’s supposed to be.

p.150 - I’m pretty sure this came up near the start of the manga, but as a reminder this castle is called “Shirasagi,” not “Shirasaki.”

p.153 - When Kurogane says his name here it’s “...Kurogane” rather than “Kurogane…” There are far too many weird punctuation-based tonal shifts in this translation, let me tell you.

p.156 - SPEAKING OF WHICH… Mokona’s line should end in an exclamation mark (“Syaoran is crying!”) and the ellipsis comes at the front of Fai’s line (“...He won’t let go.”) I don’t always point these out or even notice them but they’re deeply frustrating. As subtle as the changes may be, they still affect the way these lines come across.

Chapter 99

p.165 - It’s actually quite likely that Syaoran led with “I think I saw your past” - the language Kurogane uses in the original text implies that he’s confirming something that was already speculated/assumed. I don’t think it lessens the moment at all, though.

Omake

p.177 - What’s been translated as Yuuko telling Mokona to find a good place to stay was originally, “You need to make sure you get enough sleep.”

p.179 - Mokona’s actually saying here that everyone’s going to sleep together! Canon cuddle pile! :D

[oliviaschafferhistory242]

Nazi Germany as the Antithesis of America

I will first focus on the organization of the museum’s space as buttressing the narrative of the Holocaust as the antithesis of American ideals of freedom and democracy. Central to this conversation is USHMM’s placement in the National Mall. Its placement was, at first, met with skepticism. Indeed, as noted by James Young (1993), both Americans and local survivors worried over the relevance of the Holocaust in a place central to the elaboration and shaping of American identity and national narratives (338). Yet, as seen in USHMM’s mission statement, this positioning was, in reality, fundamental to reaffirming American identity and narratives. As the USHMM website explains, the museum is “located among our national monuments to freedom on the National Mall” because it “provides a powerful lesson in the fragility of freedom, the myth of progress, and the need for vigilance in preserving democratic values” (USHMM, 2022). Put another way, as placed within and juxtaposed to the National Mall, the museum can sanctify and glorify those American values of freedom and democracy by centering on their precariousness. Likewise, the museum teaches how to be a good American citizen today and in the future (Crysler and Kusno 1997, 52). That is, as the museum magnifies these virtues of freedom and democracy by locating their antithesis in Nazism, it can serve as a vanguard in which American citizens, learning about the Holocaust, see the necessity in protecting and uplifting those ideals.

Upon entering the museum, the Hall of Witness further reinforces the narrative evoked by the museum’s exterior. As the scholar Linenthal (2001) writes, “it is not a comfortable space to inhabit…there is a sense of a space that is twisted and tortured in the effort to contain the story of the Holocaust, a space that screams as it seemingly strains to rip itself apart” (94). The museum’s attention to fragmentation and disorder directly contradicts the overwhelmingly symmetrical and neat architecture of the other structures in the Mall. For instance, as Stephanie Rotem (2013) argues, while the exterior of the museum blends into the landscape of the Mall with its federal buildings, the interior is fragmented, disorienting and foreign to its environment. As such, this disturbing and fragmented interior reinforces the idea that the Holocaust could occur in Europe but is out of place in the democratic and free United States (10). Thus, the museum’s interior extends the narrative reinforced by its placement on the National Mall. It peddles a narrative that further highlights the virtues of America and its ideals as delineated and designated by what it is not. That is, to reiterate, as the antithesis to or offset by the absolute evil of Nazism and the Holocaust.

A view of the Hall of Witness in the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in 2015. 

Yet, to complicate such discussions further, visitors coming into the museum are not static receptacles of the museum’s narratives. Instead, visitors enter with their own prior knowledge that shapes and influences how they respond to and interact with the museum. That is, there is a dialectical relationship between the visitors and the museum in which the visitors’ prior knowledge and experiences are either confirmed or reframed and challenged by the museum (Winkel 2018, 19). As applied to USHMM’s entrance hall, its organization brings discomfort to the visitors, allowing them to have an embodied and simulated experience of being a Nazi victim. For instance, as Crownshaw (2000) affirms, “the architectonic features of the museum’s vestibule, the Hall of Witness, recall those of concentration and death camps and also act as memory prompts” (20). Likewise, USHMM does not just spatially remove visitors from the National Mall and American ideals. The museum also physically and emotionally removes them as it reframes and realigns visitors’ experiences to those of Nazi victims. Through this performance and simulation spurred by the architecture, the visitors’ emotional and intimate experiences render them co-authors in the production of Holocaust meaning-making  (Messham-Muir 2004, 100). Visitors create their own personal set of memories about the Holocaust and victimhood, despite never having lived through it, as incorporated into their lived experiences with the museum. Thus, the dialectal relationship between the architecture and the visitors reinforces the juxtaposition between the Holocaust and American identity. Both frame the Holocaust, contingent upon clear definitions of Americanness and its values, as foreign to the visitors’ previous lived experiences

[longforgottenunofficial]

Death is a Cabaret, Old Chum...

Time to get our noses out of the Ancient Near East and back into the Victorian era, where we find more direct sources of inspiration for the Haunted Mansion.  Back HERE I discussed briefly the Cabaret du Néant, with a link HERE to Cory's treatment of the subject, which is largely given over to quoting a lengthy passage from Bohemian Paris of To-day (J.B. Lippincott, 1900).  It was written by W. C. Morrow from notes by Edouard Cucuel (the book also includes Cucuel's sketches).  It's very good, very interesting, and a valuable source, but buyer beware; it's a second-hand account, and in places it's inaccurate.  However, there are descriptions of the C du N published in other sources too, plus a lot of photos. There is little doubt in my mind that the Cabaret du Néant was a direct source of inspiration for the Haunted Mansion.  My reasons for thinking so will emerge with a fresh description of the Néant experience, drawn from several sources, as well as a closer look at the special effects used in the Néant show.  I do not think these tricks have ever been explained accurately, so if you think you know the Cabaret well enough already—think again. A bit of background.  The pub originally opened in Brussels in 1892 as the "Cabaret de la Mort" (i.e. the Cabaret of Death), but it soon moved to the Montmartre district of Paris, where it was renamed the "Cabaret du Néant" ("néant" = nonexistence, obliteration, nothingness, death).  The Montmartre district was THE place to be if you were an artiste in the second half of the 19th c.  It seems like all of the important Impressionist painters lived there or hung out there.  In the 1890's, it was bursting at the seams with cabarets and theaters, including fully-themed nightclubs.  Practically across the street from the Cabaret du Néant, for example, were the "Cabaret of Heaven" and the "Cabaret of Hell," side by side.  The waiters dressed as angels in the former and devils in the latter.  Guess which one this is:

The famous Moulin Rouge cabaret is still there, but otherwise these pubs and theaters are all gone. . . . Come to the Cabaret.

Shall we pay a visit?  Oh, do let's.  The street façade of the CdN is like a house dressed for mourning in traditional French fashion, with austere black and white coverings, although there is a skull and crossbones on the front door.  There are two large, iron, torch-like lamps throwing yellowish-green light down on all who pass by.  That kind of colored light makes people look shockingly sick and corpse-like, so we're already getting in the mood. The unsmiling doorman is dressed exactly like a croquet-mort; that is, a professionalpall-bearer or undertaker's assistant.  The same is true for the waiters inside.

The doorman leads you through the low, narrow front door and down a short, dark corridor.  He opens some black drapes, allowing you to enter the first room.  It's dark, lit only by candles.  A chandelier in the center of the room is constructed of (real) human bones and nicknamed "Robert Macaire's chandelier," Macaire being a sort of all-purpose villain and bogeyman in France.  Upturned coffins serve as tables, with small thin candles available for illumination.                      

The walls are decorated with skulls (which serve as dim lamps), sculpture, and posters with grim slogans such as "Life is a folly which Death corrects," "To be or not to be," and "Requiescat in Pace," as well as No Smoking signs, price lists, and notices that candles are available for 10 cents.  More importantly, there are paintings all over the walls depicting death and carnage.  Battle scenes, a guillotine in action, and in later times, a painting of an automobile with a demonic driver, running people down—at least I think that's what this is:

It's similar to a cartoon that appeared in Punch, in 1903:

(hat tip to Craig Conley)

By the way, this was actually a common theme among cynics and satirists in those days. These new-fangled automobiles were extremely dangerous, to the point that they betrayed a contemptible indifference to human (and other) life. They were depicted as instruments of death, glamorous only to the foolish and the callous. Here's a wonderful example from Puck. Behold the demon, "Speed Mania":

(Puck 68/1756, Oct 26, 1910)

Anyway, back to the Cabaret. Upon entering the room, you are met with "Welcome, moribunds," or "Welcome, weary wanderer, to the kingdom of Death," or "Enter, mortals of this sinful world, enter into the mists and shadows of eternity," or some other greeting striking the same tone as "Welcome, foolish mortals."   Better get used to it.  You and your friends will be continually addressed as "mortals," "coffin worms" (asticots de cercueil), and "Maccabees," the latter term being a slang expression for anonymous cadavers found floating in the river.  In an account from 1931, it says that the staff at that time received guests by chanting a mass for the dead.  The staff are all instructed not to smile or do anything else to break the solemn atmosphere, much like HM butlers and maids.  That includes the waiter, who seems to mean it when he says "Name your poison."  The mixed drinks and the beer are all renamed after deadly microbes and bacteria of various diseases.  The waiter will plop them down before you, saying something like, "Drink, coffin worms.  Drink these loathsome poisons filled with the deadliest germs." A man in clerical garb eventually enters and gives a lengthy speech in morbid detail about the horrors of death, progressing from the variety of gruesome and agonizing ends awaiting individuals to the miserable fates of mankind in general. Here the place gets interesting. As he commences this portion of the lecture, the speaker points to a painting depicting a battle scene.  According to Morrow, it begins to glow, making its details clear (remember, it's pretty dark in there).  Then the glow fades away, and the painting has changed.  The human figures in it are now all skeletons.  The same thing happens with a painting of a guillotine chopping away.  When the glow fades, the figures are now skeletons.  Another painting shows a festive ball.  Glow and fade.  Now the dancers are all skeletons. In my earlier treatment I quoted without objection Albert Hopkins' explanation of this effect (written in 1901).  He suggests that the paintings are transparencies with one scene painted on one side and another on the other, the second one becoming visible when illumined from the rear.  I now think that explanation is inadequate.  It doesn't really account for the effect as described by Morrow.  The paintings light up and then fade back down, revealing a skeletonized version of the same scene.  How would you do that with a single, two-sided cloth?  The effect could be produced, however, by having two paintings layered very close to each other, much like the panes in a double-pane window.

The skeleton one is in front, painted on a thin cloth or on theatrical scrim.  The "normal" one is in back.  The paintings are already moderately illumined from the back when folks come in, showing the back painting through the transparent front one.  The lighting is further turned up during the lecture, at the appropriate time, and then faded down and extinguished, leaving the front painting visible for the first time.  This would be perfectly do-able in the 1890's (the CdN was fully electrified). In that earlier post, I drew a parallel between the CdN changing-painting effect and the attic wedding pictures and portrait hall paintings of the HM.  If the above explanation is acceptable as a more satisfactory accounting for the effect as described, then the parallel between the Cabaret du Néant and the current Disney versions is extremely close indeed. If you bought a drink while in the first room, you got a ticket entitling you to enter the Chambre de la Mort.  You now take your puny candle and follow a man in Capuchin monk's garb single file through an arched doorway (painted to look like stone), down a narrow flight of steps, with green and yellow lighting once again, making everyone look cadaverous.

At the end of the steps is an antechamber where you wait your turn.  The show repeats about every half hour, and only 15 or 20 are admitted at a time.  To amuse yourself while you wait, you can look through holes or niches in the brickwork at gruesome tableaux, "studies of cholera patients, of persons buried alive, and similar cheerful subjects" (NYT Apr 9, 1894).  Morrow (Cucuel) speaks of "bones, skulls, and fragments of human bodies."  At last a cowled figure with only his eyes visible comes in and produces a large iron key, unlocking the spiked iron gate at one end of the room and opening it with a harsh grating sound.  The monks mournfully announce that you have arrived at the Gates of Death, and in you go.  There is an item inside, near the entrance:  "By a clever arrangement of mirrors one sees one's self on entering reflected lying in a coffin" (NYT '94), which seems like a good idea since you can then see for the first time what you yourself look like under greenish-yellow lighting. This part of the Cabaret du Néant show is justly famous.  An upright coffin is visible in a narrow doorway at the far end of the room, which was hung in black in early years but later on left exposed, having been painted to look like stone vaulting.  Also in early years, a pretty young lady was already in the upright coffin when you came in. She would smile and wink and then grow silent.  While the monk guide kept up his groaning soliloquy about death and decay, she turned into a decaying corpse and finally a skeleton, right before your eyes.  The process was then reversed, but instead of the young lady a fat old man returned.  He would leave the coffin, and the monks would ask for a volunteer from the audience who would like to experience death.  In later times they went straight to this phase and skipped the earlier stunt.  Not missing a single detail, the Cabaret folks have a harmonium and an iron bell offstage somewhere, providing dirge music and solemn tolls at appropriate times. There are a lot of pictures of this trick.

I especially like this last set because it really shows the excellent trompe l'oeil work in this chamber, transforming blank wall into convincing arches and stonework through skillful use of the paintbrush.

The trick is done, of course, using the Pepper's Ghost illusion, which requires only a big sheet of glass and careful manipulation of the lighting.  But here again, I think Albert Hopkins' explanation is inadequate.  He's got a simple two-chamber set up, turning the coffin occupant into a skeleton and back again.  With this arrangement, the sense of gradual transformation would be enhanced through the use of colored light.  The light on the volunteer goes from normal to greenish-yellow before fading down, while the skeleton is gradually lit up.

Below is a simplified pair of diagrams.  When the coffin-with-occupant (#1) is illumined and the coffin-with-skeleton (#2) is dark, the audience sees only the first.  When coffin 1 goes dark and coffin 2 is lit up, you see only the second, but it looks like it's in the place of the first.  This is simple, rudimentary Pepper's Ghost illusioneering.

The problem with the Hopkins arrangement is that it does not account for the descriptions of the effect.  Morrow describes a slow dissolving of the face into a corrupt state of decomposition before finally becoming a dried skull:

Her face slowly became white and rigid; her eyes sank; her lips tightened across her teeth; her cheeks took on the hollowness of death,—she was dead.  But it did not end with that.  From white the face slowly grew livid...then purplish black.... The eyes visibly shrank into their greenish-yellow sockets. ...Slowly the hair fell away....The nose melted away into a purple putrid spot.  The whole face became a semi-liquid mass of corruption.  Presently all this had disappeared, and a gleaming skull shone where so recently had been the handsome face of a woman.

Well, Morrow is giving a flowery, second-hand description based on Cucuel's notes, so maybe this is all exaggerated.  But the 1894 New York Timesaccount also describes a three-stage process, although the stages are different: man, skeleton, vacant.  The shroud on the volunteer "by some trick gradually melted away, so did the flesh, or rather the man in the coffin, and a skeleton appeared in his stead.  There remained another experiment to be witnessed, namely, the crumbling away to dust of the bones." There may even be a photograph of the intermediate, rotted-corpse stage as described by Morrow:

The CdN gang may have had a much more sophisticated set-up than Hopkins describes. One possible way to add a step to the transformation is with two sheets of glass and a third, intermediate coffin.

For an alternate method, still using only a single glass, see the remarks by "John b" in the Comments (Aug 4, 2013). It involves rotating, back-to-back coffins. The only problem I see with it is that it would be hard to use genuine audience volunteers that way. You'd probably need stooges.

Why so fancy?  By the 1890's, Pepper's Ghost trickery had been in use for thirty years.  The Cabarets of Heaven and Hell, across the street from the CdN, used it in their floor shows.  Various traveling ghost show exhibits and theaters made heavy use of it, and Professor Pepper himself kept flogging it at the Royal Polytechnic Institute where he worked. 

Furthermore, there was no shortage of Victorian spoil-sports eager to inform the public how the illusion was done:

It stands to reason that showmen would be searching for clever new ways to use what was now an old-hat illusion, something to bring back the "how do they do that?" element.  The CdN boys seem just the kind who would tackle such a problem.  Besides, two-sheet Pepper's Ghost illusions were known, even if this illustration doesn't show them making any particularly good use of it.

Originally, the coffin gag was the end of the show at the CdN, but in 1900 or 1901 they added a whole third room, set up like a small theater, with another Pepper's Ghost illusion onstage.

This one was played strictly for farce, to judge by descriptions and photos.  The poor volunteer could not see what the audience saw:  ghosts moving around, mocking, doing stupid bunny tricks, acting in a lewd and lascivious manner (this is Paris, after all).  "[T]he solemnity which the lecturers invoke is of a most mock sort, and the audiences are continuously convulsed with laughter" (NYT 1896).  Time to go.

Rolly Crump and Yale Gracey were professional magicians, as noted in an earlier post, and they did research into things like the history of Pepper's Ghost.  There can hardly be any doubt that they knew about the Cabaret du Néant, which is mentioned in any decent survey of Pepper's.  Earlier, Ken Anderson had incorporated a Pepper's Ghost illusion in his proposed haunted house walk-thru, using a 45º angled glass pane, much like CdN:

Eventually, this horizontal version of Pepper's would be used in Phantom Manor to make Melanie appear in the Endless Hallway.  By the way, the CdN coffin gag was reproduced very closely, except it wasn't at Disneyland but at Knotts Berry Farm:

Besides the technical gimmicks, the CdN used a winning recipe of horror + stage magic + laughs, essentially the formula used for the Haunted Mansion.

Some time in the 1930s the Cabaret moved to a different location on the same street (#64 instead of #34) and continued to operate there for a long time. In November of 2012 we made a major discovery: The Cabaret du Néant was still open in September of 1969, in other words, still operating when the Haunted Mansion opened.

As a postscript, I should mention the apparent discrepancy between the photos of the coffin gag, in which the coffin looks like it's standing right in the doorway, and the actual set-up, which had it much further back.  It's simple:  these are staged photos, intended for post cards and publicity.  They moved the coffins up for the photo shoots.

Originally Posted: Tuesday, August 24, 2010 Original Link: [x]

[sinrau]

Please read this link to learn about the author and background to these posts ~.~

It seems many people are breathing some relief, and I’m not sure why. An epidemic curve has a relatively predictable upslope and once the peak is reached, the back slope can also be predicted. We have robust data from the outbreaks in China and Italy, that shows the backside of the mortality curve declines slowly, with deaths persisting for months. Assuming we have just crested in deaths at 70k, it is possible that we lose another 70,000 people over the next 6 weeks as we come off that peak. That’s what’s going to happen with a lockdown.

As states reopen, and we give the virus more fuel, all bets are off. I understand the reasons for reopening the economy, but I’ve said before, if you don’t solve the biology, the economy won’t recover.

There are very few states that have demonstrated a sustained decline in numbers of new infections. Indeed, as of May 3rd the majority are still increasing and reopening. As a simple example of the USA trend, when you take out the data from New York and just look at the rest of the USA, daily case numbers are increasing. Bottom line: the only reason the total USA new case numbers look flat right now is because the New York City epidemic was so large and now it is being contained.

(as of May 3rd)

So throughout most of the country we are going to add fuel to the viral fire by reopening. It’s going to happen if I like it or not, so my goal here is to try to guide you away from situations of high risk.

Where are people getting sick?

We know most people get infected in their own home. A household member contracts the virus in the community and brings it into the house where sustained contact between household members leads to infection.

But where are people contracting the infection in the community? I regularly hear people worrying about grocery stores, bike rides, inconsiderate runners who are not wearing masks…. are these places of concern? Well, not really. Let me explain.

In order to get infected you need to get exposed to an infectious dose of the virus; based on infectious dose studies with other coronaviruses, it appears that only small doses may be needed for infection to take hold. Some experts estimate that as few as 1000 SARS-CoV2 infectious viral particles are all that will be needed ( ref 1, ref 2 ). Please note, this still needs to be determined experimentally, but we can use that number to demonstrate how infection can occur. Infection could occur, through 1000 infectious viral particles you receive in one breath or from one eye-rub, or 100 viral particles inhaled with each breath over 10 breaths, or 10 viral particles with 100 breaths. Each of these situations can lead to an infection.

How much Virus is released into the environment?

A Bathroom : Bathrooms have a lot of high touch surfaces, door handles, faucets, stall doors. So fomite transfer risk in this environment can be high. We still do not know whether a person releases infectious material in feces or just fragmented virus, but we do know that toilet flushing does aerosolize many droplets. Treat public bathrooms with extra caution (surface and air), until we know more about the risk.

A Cough: A single cough releases about 3,000 droplets and droplets travels at 50 miles per hour. Most droplets are large, and fall quickly (gravity), but many do stay in the air and can travel across a room in a few seconds.

A Sneeze: A single sneeze releases about 30,000 droplets, with droplets traveling at up to 200 miles per hour. Most droplets are small and travel great distances (easily across a room).

If a person is infected, the droplets in a single cough or sneeze may contain as many as 200,000,000 (two hundred million) virus particles which can all be dispersed into the environment around them.

A breath: A single breath releases 50 – 5000 droplets. Most of these droplets are low velocity and fall to the ground quickly. There are even fewer droplets released through nose-breathing. Importantly, due to the lack of exhalation force with a breath, viral particles from the lower respiratory areas are not expelled.

Unlike sneezing and coughing which release huge amounts of viral material, the respiratory droplets released from breathing only contain low levels of virus. We don’t have a number for SARS-CoV2 yet, but we can use influenza as a guide. Studies have shown that a person infected with influenza can releases up to 33 infectious viral particles per minute. But I’m going to use 20 to keep the math simple.

Remember the formula: Successful Infection = Exposure to Virus x Time

If a person coughs or sneezes, those 200,000,000 viral particles go everywhere. Some virus hangs in the air, some falls into surfaces, most falls to the ground. So if you are face-to-face with a person, having a conversation, and that person sneezes or coughs straight at you, it’s pretty easy to see how it is possible to inhale 1,000 virus particles and become infected.

But even if that cough or sneeze was not directed at you, some infected droplets–the smallest of small–can hang in the air for a few minutes, filling every corner of a modest sized room with infectious viral particles. All you have to do is enter that room within a few minutes of the cough/sneeze and take a few breaths and you have potentially received enough virus to establish an infection.

But with general breathing, 20 viral particles minute into the environment, even if every virus ended up in your lungs (which is very unlikely), you would need 1000 viral particles divided by 20 per minute = 50 minutes.

Speaking increases the release of respiratory droplets about 10 fold; ~200 virus particles per minute. Again, assuming every virus is inhaled, it would take ~5 minutes of speaking face-to-face to receive the required dose.

The exposure to virus x time formula is the basis of contact tracing. Anyone you spend greater than 10 minutes with in a face-to-face situation is potentially infected. Anyone who shares a space with you (say an office) for an extended period is potentially infected. This is also why it is critical for people who are symptomatic to stay home. Your sneezes and your coughs expel so much virus that you can infect a whole room of people.

What is the role of asymptomatic people in spreading the virus?

Symptomatic people are not the only way the virus is shed. We know that at least 44% of all infections–and the majority of community-acquired transmissions–occur from people without any symptoms (asymptomatic or pre-symptomatic people). You can be shedding the virus into the environment for up to 5 days before symptoms begin.

Infectious people come in all ages, and they all shed different amounts of virus. The figure below shows that no matter your age (x-axis), you can have a little bit of virus or a lot of virus (y-axis). ( ref )

The amount of virus released from an infected person changes over the course of infection and it is also different from person-to-person. Viral load generally builds up to the point where the person becomes symptomatic. So just prior to symptoms showing, you are releasing the most virus into the environment. Interestingly, the data shows that just 20% of infected people are responsible for 99% of viral load that could potentially be released into the environment ( ref )

So now let’s get to the crux of it. Where are the personal dangers from reopening?

When you think of outbreak clusters, what are the big ones that come to mind? Most people would say cruise ships. But you would be wrong. Ship outbreaks, while concerning, don’t land in the top 50 outbreaks to date.

Ignoring the terrible outbreaks in nursing homes, we find that the biggest outbreaks are in prisons, religious ceremonies, and workplaces, such as meat packing facilities and call centers. Any environment that is enclosed, with poor air circulation and high density of people, spells trouble.

Some of the biggest super-spreading events are:

Meat packing: In meat processing plants, densely packed workers must communicate to one another amidst the deafening drum of industrial machinery and a cold-room virus-preserving environment. There are now outbreaks in 115 facilities across 23 states, 5000+ workers infected, with 20 dead. ( ref )

Weddings, funerals, birthdays: 10% of early spreading events

Business networking: Face-to-face business networking like the Biogen Conference in Boston in late February.

As we move back to work, or go to a restaurant, let’s look at what can happen in those environments.

Restaurants: Some really great shoe-leather epidemiology demonstrated clearly the effect of a single asymptomatic carrier in a restaurant environment (see below). The infected person (A1) sat at a table and had dinner with 9 friends. Dinner took about 1 to 1.5 hours. During this meal, the asymptomatic carrier released low-levels of virus into the air from their breathing. Airflow (from the restaurant’s various airflow vents) was from right to left. Approximately 50% of the people at the infected person’s table became sick over the next 7 days. 75% of the people on the adjacent downwind table became infected. And even 2 of the 7 people on the upwind table were infected (believed to happen by turbulent airflow). No one at tables E or F became infected, they were out of the main airflow from the air conditioner on the right to the exhaust fan on the left of the room. ( Ref )

Workplaces: Another great example is the outbreak in a call center (see below). A single infected employee came to work on the 11th floor of a building. That floor had 216 employees. Over the period of a week, 94 of those people became infected (43.5%: the blue chairs). 92 of those 94 people became sick (only 2 remained asymptomatic). Notice how one side of the office is primarily infected, while there are very few people infected on the other side. While exact number of people infected by respiratory droplets / respiratory exposure versus fomite transmission (door handles, shared water coolers, elevator buttons etc.) is unknown. It serves to highlight that being in an enclosed space, sharing the same air for a prolonged period increases your chances of exposure and infection. Another 3 people on other floors of the building were infected, but the authors were not able to trace the infection to the primary cluster on the 11th floor. Interestingly, even though there were considerable interaction between workers on different floors of the building in elevators and the lobby, the outbreak was mostly limited to a single floor ( ref ). This highlights the importance of exposure and time in the spreading of SARS-CoV2.

Choir: The community choir in Washington State. Even though people were aware of the virus and took steps to minimize transfer; e.g. they ~avoided~ the usual handshakes and hugs hello, people also brought their own music to avoid sharing, and socially distanced themselves during practice. They even went to the lengths to tell choir members prior to practice that anyone experiencing symptoms should stay home. A single asymptomatic carrier infected most of the people in attendance. The choir sang for 2 1/2 hours, inside an enclosed rehearsal hall which was roughly the size of a volleyball court.

Singing, to a greater degree than talking, aerosolizes respiratory droplets extraordinarily well. Deep-breathing while singing facilitated those respiratory droplets getting deep into the lungs. Two and half hours of exposure ensured that people were exposed to enough virus over a long enough period of time for infection to take place. Over a period of 4 days, 45 of the 60 choir members developed symptoms, 2 died. The youngest infected was 31, but they averaged 67 years old. (corrected link)

Indoor sports: While this may be uniquely Canadian, a super spreading event occurred during a curling event in Canada. A curling event with 72 attendees became another hotspot for transmission. Curling brings contestants and teammates in close contact in a cool indoor environment, with heavy breathing for an extended period. This tournament resulted in 24 of the 72 people becoming infected. ( ref )

Birthday parties / funerals: Just to see how simple infection-chains can be, this is a real story from Chicago. The name is fake. Bob was infected but didn’t know. Bob shared a takeout meal, served from common serving dishes, with 2 family members. The dinner lasted 3 hours. The next day, Bob attended a funeral, hugging family members and others in attendance to express condolences. Within 4 days, both family members who shared the meal are sick. A third family member, who hugged Bob at the funeral became sick. But Bob wasn’t done. Bob attended a birthday party with 9 other people. They hugged and shared food at the 3 hour party. Seven of those people became ill.

But Bob’s transmission chain wasn’t done. Three of the people Bob infected at the birthday went to church, where they sang, passed the tithing dish etc. Members of that church became sick. In all, Bob was directly responsible for infecting 16 people between the ages of 5 and 86. Three of those 16 died.

The spread of the virus within the household and back out into the community through funerals, birthdays, and church gatherings is believed to be responsible for the broader transmission of COVID-19 in Chicago. ( ref )

Sobering right?

Commonality of outbreaks

The reason to highlight these different outbreaks is to show you the commonality of outbreaks of COVID-19. All these infection events were indoors, with people closely-spaced, with lots of talking, singing, or yelling. The main sources for infection are home, workplace, public transport, social gatherings, and restaurants. This accounts for 90% of all transmission events. In contrast, outbreaks spread from shopping appear to be responsible for a small percentage of traced infections. ( Ref )

Importantly, of the countries performing contact tracing properly, only a single outbreak has been reported from an outdoor environment (less than 0.3% of traced infections). ( ref )

So back to the original thought of my post.

Indoor spaces, with limited air exchange or recycled air and lots of people, are concerning from a transmission standpoint. We know that 60 people in a volleyball court-sized room (choir) results in massive infections. Same situation with the restaurant and the call center. Social distancing guidelines don’t hold in indoor spaces where you spend a lot of time, as people on the opposite side of the room were infected.

The principle is viral exposure over an extended period of time. In all these cases, people were exposed to the virus in the air for a prolonged period (hours). Even if they were 50 feet away (choir or call center), even a low dose of the virus in the air reaching them, over a sustained period, was enough to cause infection and in some cases, death.

Social distancing rules are really to protect you with brief exposures or outdoor exposures. In these situations there is not enough time to achieve the infectious viral load when you are standing 6 feet apart or where wind and the infinite outdoor space for viral dilution reduces viral load. The effects of sunlight, heat, and humidity on viral survival, all serve to minimize the risk to everyone when outside.

When assessing the risk of infection (via respiration) at the grocery store or mall, you need to consider the volume of the air space (very large), the number of people (restricted), how long people are spending in the store (workers – all day; customers – an hour). Taken together, for a person shopping: the low density, high air volume of the store, along with the restricted time you spend in the store, means that the opportunity to receive an infectious dose is low. But, for the store worker, the extended time they spend in the store provides a greater opportunity to receive the infectious dose and therefore the job becomes more risky.

Basically, as the work closures are loosened, and we start to venture out more, possibly even resuming in-office activities, you need to look at your environment and make judgments. How many people are here, how much airflow is there around me, and how long will I be in this environment. If you are in an open floorplan office, you really need to critically assess the risk (volume, people, and airflow). If you are in a job that requires face-to-face talking or even worse, yelling, you need to assess the risk.

If you are sitting in a well ventilated space, with few people, the risk is low.

If I am outside, and I walk past someone, remember it is “dose and time” needed for infection. You would have to be in their airstream for 5+ minutes for a chance of infection. While joggers may be releasing more virus due to deep breathing, remember the exposure time is also less due to their speed. Please do maintain physical distance, but the risk of infection in these scenarios are low. Here is a great article in Vox that discusses the low risk of running and cycling in detail.

While I have focused on respiratory exposure here, please don’t forget surfaces. Those infected respiratory droplets land somewhere. Wash your hands often and stop touching your face!

As we are allowed to move around our communities more freely and be in contact with more people in more places more regularly, the risks to ourselves and our family are significant. Even if you are gung-ho for reopening and resuming business as usual, do your part and wear a mask to reduce what you release into the environment. It will help everyone, including your own business. This article was inspired by a piece written by Jonathan Kay in Quillete

C OVID-19 Superspreader Events in 28 Countries: Critical Patterns and Lessons

About the author

Erin S. Bromage, Ph.D ., is an Associate Professor of Biology at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth . Dr. Bromage graduated from the School of Veterinary and Biomedical Sciences James Cook University, Australia where his research focused on the epidemiology of, and immunity to, infectious disease in animals. His Post-Doctoral training was at the College of William and Mary, Virginia Institute of Marine Science in the Comparative Immunology Laboratory of late Dr. Stephen Kaattari.

Dr. Bromage’s research focuses on the evolution of the immune system, the immunological mechanisms responsible for protection from infectious disease, and the design and use of vaccines to control infectious disease in animals. He also focuses on designing diagnostic tools to detect biological and chemical threats in the environment in real-time.

Dr. Bromage joined the Faculty of the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth in 2007 where he teaches courses in Immunology and Infectious disease , including a course this semester on the Ecology of Infectious Disease which focused on the emerging SARS-CoV2 outbreak in China.

The Risks – Know Them – Avoid Them #web #website #copied #to read# #highlight #link #news #read

[terabitweb]

Original Post from Rapid7 Author: Wei Chen

Introduction

I remember the first time I attempted to exploit a memory corruption vulnerability. It was a stack buffer overflow example I tried to follow in this book called “Hacking: The Art of Exploitation.” I fought for weeks, and I failed. It wasn’t until months later that I tried a different example on the internet and finally popped a shell. I was so thrilled I got it to work.

More than 10 years later, I have some memory corruption exploits under my belt, from small-third-party applications to high-profile products such as Microsoft, Adobe, Oracle, Mozilla, and IBM. However, memory corruption for me is still quite a challenge, despite having a soft spot for it. And I don’t think I’m the only person to feel this way.

LiveOverflow, who is most well known for his hacking videos on YouTube, shares the same feeling about approaching browser exploitation in the early stage, saying:

I know the theory. It’s just a scary topic, and I don’t even know where to start.

My impression is that many people certainly feel this way about heap corruptions, which are indeed difficult because they are unpredictable in nature, and the mitigations are always evolving. About every couple of years, some major security improvement would be introduced, likely terminating a vulnerability class or an exploitation technique. Although a Black Hat talk may follow explaining that, those talks are probably overwhelming for the most part. People may get a grasp of the theory, it still remains a scary topic, and they still don’t even know where to start.

As LiveOverflow points out, there is a lot of value in explaining how you mastered something, more than just publishing an exploit. Being a former Corelan member, I know that some of the best exploit tutorials from Corelan started off this way, with Peter Van Eeckhoutte and his team researching the topic, documenting the process, and in the end, sharing that with the public. By doing so, you encourage the community to engage on the topic, and one day, someone is going to advance and share something new in return.

Learning by creating

Learning a vulnerability from a real application can be difficult because the codebase may be complex. Often, you may get away with examining a good crash, get EIP, add some shellcode, and get a working exploit, but you may not fully understand the actual problem as quickly. If the developers didn’t spend just a few days building the codebase, there certainly isn’t any magic to absorb so much internal knowledge about it in such a short amount of time.

One way that guarantees I will learn about a vulnerability is by figuring out how to create it and mess with it. That’s what we’ll do today. Since heap corruption is such a scary topic, let’s start with a heap overflow on Windows 10.

Heap overflow example

This is a basic example of a heap overflow. Clearly, it is trying to pass a size of 64 bytes to a smaller heap buffer that is only 32 bytes.

#include int main(int args, char** argv) { void* heap = (void*) malloc(32); memset(heap, 'A', 64); printf("%sn", heap); free(heap); heap = NULL; return 0; }

In a debugger, you will be presented with an error of 0xc0000374, indicating a heap corruption exception that is due to a failed inspection on the heap, resulting in a call to RtlpLogHeapFailure. A modern system is really good at protecting its heaps nowadays, and every time you see this function call is pretty much a sign that you have been defeated. Exploitability depends more on how much control you have on the application, and there is no silver bullet on the OS level like in previous years.

Client-side applications (such as a browser, PDF, Flash, etc.) tend to be excellent targets due to the support of scripting languages. It’s very likely you have indirect control of an array, a HeapAlloc, a HeapFree, a vector, strings, etc., which are all good tools you need to instrument a heap corruption—except you have to find them.

A difficult first step to success

In C/C++ applications, a programming error may create opportunities like allowing the program to read the wrong memory, writing to the wrong place, or even executing the wrong code. Normally, we just call these conditions crashes, and there is actually an industry out there of people totally obsessed with finding and controlling them. By taking over the “bad” memory the program isn’t supposed to read, we have witnessed Heartbleed. If the program writes to it, you have a buffer overflow. If you can combine all of them on a remote Windows machine, that’s just as bad as EternalBlue.

Whatever your exploit is, an important first step usually involves setting up the right environment in memory to land that attack. Kind of like in social engineering, you have this thing called pretexting. Well, in exploit writing, we have various names: Feng shui, massaging, grooming, etc. Every program loves a good massage, right?

Windows 7 vs. Windows 10

The Windows 10 internals seem significantly different from their predecessors. You might have noticed some recent high-profile exploits that were all done against older systems. For example, Google Chrome’s FileReader Use After Free was documented to work best on Windows 7, the BlueKeep RDP flaw was mostly proven in public to work on Windows XP, and Zerodium confirmed RCE on Windows 7.

Predicable heap allocations is an important trait for heap grooming, so I wrote a test below for both systems. Basically, it creates multiple objects and tracks where they are. There is also a Summerize() method that tells me all the offsets found between two objects and the most common offset.

void SprayTest() { OffsetTracker offsetTracker; LPVOID* objects = new LPVOID[OBJECT_COUNT]; for (int i = 0; i 0) { int offset = (int) objects[i] - (int) objects[i-1]; offsetTracker.Register(offset); printf("Object at 0x%08x. Offset to previous = 0x%08xn", (int) obj, offset); } else { printf("Object at 0x%08xn", (int) obj); } } printf("n"); offsetTracker.Summerize();

The results for Windows 7:

Basically, my test tool is suggesting that 97.8% of the time, my heap allocations look like this consecutively:

[ Object ][ 0x30 of Bytes ][ Object ]

For the exact same code, Windows 10 behaves very differently:

Wow, only 6%. That means if I had an exploit, I wouldn’t have any reliable layout to work with, and my best choice would make me fail 94% of the time. I might as well not write an exploit for it.

The right way to groom

As it turns out, Windows 10 requires a different way to groom, and it is slightly more complicated than before. After having multiple discussions with Peter from Corelan, the conclusion is that we shouldn’t bother using low-fragmentation heap, because that is what messing with our results.

Front- vs. back-end allocator

Low fragmentation heap is a way to allow the system to allocate memory in certain predetermined sizes. It means when the application asks for an allocation, the system returns the minimum available chunk that fits. This sounds really nice, except on Windows 10, it also tends to avoid giving you a chunk that has the same size as its neighbor. You can check whether a heap is being handled by LFH using the following in WinDBG:

dt _HEAP [Heap Address]

There is a field named FrontEndHeapType at offset 0x0d6. If the value is 0, it means the heap is handled by the backend allocator. 1 means LOOKASIDE. And 2 means LFH. Another way to check if a chunk belongs to LFH is:

!heap -x [Chunk Address]

The backend allocator is actually the default choice, and it takes at least 18 allocations to enable LFH. Also, those allocations don’t have to be consecutive—they just need to be the same size. For example:

#include #include #define CHUNK_SIZE 0x300 int main(int args, char** argv) { int i; LPVOID chunk; HANDLE defaultHeap = GetProcessHeap(); for (i = 0; i

The code above produced the following results:

The two loops do the same thing in code. The first iterates 18 times, and the second is five times. By observing those addresses, there are some interesting facts:

In the first loop:

Index 0 and index 1 have a huge gap of 0x1310 bytes.

Starting index 2 to index 16, that gap is consistently 0x308 bytes.

Index 16 and index 17 get a huge gap again with 0x3238 bytes.

In the second loop:

Index 0 is where LFH kicks in.

Each gap is random, usually far away from each other.

It appears the sweet spot where we have most control is between index 2 to 16 in the first loop, before LFH is triggered.

The beauty of overtaking

A feature of the Windows heap manager is that it knows how to reuse a freed chunk. In theory, if you free a chunk and allocate another for the exact same size, there is a good chance it will take over the freed space. Taking advantage of this, you could write an exploit without heap spraying. I can't say exactly who was the first person to apply this technique, but Peter Vreugdenhil from Exodus was certainly one of the first to talk about it publicly. See: HAPPY NEW YEAR ANALYSIS OF CVE-2012-4792.

To verify this, let's write another C code:

#include #include #define CHUNK_SIZE 0x300 int main(int args, char** argv) { int i; LPVOID chunk; HANDLE defaultHeap = GetProcessHeap(); // Trigger LFH for (i = 0; i

On Windows 7, it seems this technique is legit (both addresses are the same):

For the exact same code, the outcome is quite different on Windows 10:

However, our hope is not lost. An interesting behavior by the Windows heap manager is that apparently for efficiency purposes, it can split a large free chunk in order to service smaller chunks the application requests. That means the smaller chunks may coalesce (merge), making them adjacent from each other. To achieve that, the overall steps kind of play out like the following.

1. Allocate chunks not handled by LFH

Try to pick a size that is not used by the application, which tends to be a larger size. In our example, let's say our size choice is 0x300.

Allocate no more than 18 chunks, probably a minimum of five.

2. Pick a chunk that you want to free

The ideal candidate is obviously not the first chunk or the 18th chunk.

The chunk you choose should have the same offset between its previous one and also the next one. So, that means you want to make sure you have this layout before you free the middle one:

[ Chunk 1 ][ Chunk 2 ][ Chunk 3 ]

3. Make a hole

By freeing the middle chunk, you technically create a hole that looks like this:

[ Chunk 1 ][ Free chunk ][ Chunk 3 ]

4. Create smaller allocations for a coalescing miracle

Usually, the ideal chunks are actually objects from the application. An ideal one, for example, is some kind of object with a size header you could modify. The structure of a BSTR fits perfectly for this scenario:

[ 4 bytes (length prefix) ][ WCHAR* +

[wealthbronze59-blog]

“We Are Looking in a Mirror”: Ramsey Campbell Curates the History of Horror

NOVEMBER 4, 2018

FIRST, THE BONA FIDES. The Folio Society is a British publisher that produces limited hardcover editions of classic titles, both fiction and nonfiction. Their books are handsomely produced and usually include original illustrations of very high quality. Until 2011, Folio titles were only available to subscribing members, but they are now sold to the general public via the company’s website. Although most of their releases are reprints, they have commissioned the occasional anthology of specialized interest, such as The Folio Book of Ghost Stories (2015), edited by Kathryn Hughes. The newly issued The Folio Book of Horror Stories (2018) is a follow-up volume with a more expansive editorial remit.

The book’s editor, British author Ramsey Campbell, needs no introduction to aficionados of the horror genre. He is arguably the most distinguished living writer of horror fiction, having won 12 British Fantasy Awards for his novels, stories, and anthologies, as well as lifetime achievement awards from the Horror Writers Association and the World Fantasy Convention. His fiction spans the gamut from eerie tales of supernatural dread to works of extreme, graphic horror, and this wide range perfectly equips him to helm a volume that purports to canvass the field from Poe to the present.

Campbell’s introduction makes the case for a generous construction of the genre’s borders. While horror is a form distinguished by its characteristic affects, those emotional states can vary from “supernatural fear” to “psychological disquiet” to “terror devoid of a physical cause.” Horror, Campbell writes, “is the least escapist form of fantasy […] It shows us the monstrous, sometimes to reveal that we are looking in a mirror.” The editor’s catholic tastes are evident in his choices, which start with Poe’s “The Fall of the House of Usher” (1839) and conclude with Adam Nevill’s “Hippocampus” (2015). There are 15 stories in all: two from the 19th century, five from the first half of the 20th, five from the second half, and three from the 21st. They include obvious classics alongside unexpected selections by major authors and a few contributions from relatively obscure talents. The book thus manages both to satisfy readers new to the field, by providing a sense of its historical development, and to please well-versed fans, by presenting them with unexpected gems.

There are a few surprising omissions, none more notable than Robert Aickman, whom the editor himself has often praised as one of the finest authors of weird fiction ever. Campbell acknowledges that another curious absence from the book — J. Sheridan Le Fanu — was the result of a lack of space, but while Le Fanu’s work is in the public domain and thus readily accessible, Aickman’s is not — though NYRB Classics recently released a welcome compendium of the author’s “strange stories.” Considering that a third of The Folio Book of Horror Stories is consumed by two long texts, Arthur Machen’s “The White People” (1904) and Stephen King’s “1408” (2002), it might have been possible to select briefer works by those particular authors in order to find room for Aickman, or Clive Barker, or Roald Dahl, or Richard Matheson, or Joyce Carol Oates, or any number of other worthy figures who are absent here. It should also be said that the canon presented in Campbell’s volume is exclusively Anglo-American: no Hoffmann, no Kafka, no Borges, no Quiroga.

But these are quibbles. If the reader wants a more extensive introduction to the genre, there are comprehensive works available, such as David G. Hartwell’s The Dark Descent (1987), which features 56 stories, or Jeff and Ann VanderMeer’s The Weird (2012), which includes over 100. One of the chief pleasures of The Folio Book of Horror Stories is its relative concision, the fact that it can be hair-raisingly devoured on a single lonely night, as well as the opportunity it presents to witness one of the preeminent talents in the field curate a “greatest hits” volume. Campbell has edited more than a dozen anthologies, including award-winning installments of the “Best New Horror” series (1990–’94), but none of his previous stints as editor has afforded him the historical or thematic scope this one does.

Campbell shows himself to be a skillful anthologist indeed: the selected tales echo one another in curious and provocative ways. The first two entries are a case in point: both Poe’s “Usher” and Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s “The Yellow Wallpaper” (1892) are tales of stifling claustrophobia, of domestic environments cursed by the tainted legacies of their past inhabitants. But while Poe’s story uses the distancing technique of an external narrator, who watches his childhood friend succumb to madness, Gilman offers an indelible first-person portrait: her narrator, by the end, is irremediably insane. As Campbell remarks in his introduction, works like Gilman’s show a particular strength of the genre — its ability to deploy narrative voices “impossible in conventional terms,” and thus to evoke extreme psychic states with terrifying immediacy. This contrast between distancing and immersive styles runs throughout the volume: Lovecraft’s “The Music of Erich Zann” (1922) and Reggie Oliver’s “Flowers of the Sea” (2011) relate, from an uneasy but external vantage, the mental deliquescence of an acquaintance or loved one, while Shirley Jackson’s “The Bus” (1965) and Dennis Etchison’s “Call Home” (1991) plant readers squarely inside the nightmarish predicaments of their protagonists, who find themselves at the end — like Gilman’s narrator — trapped in recursive loops of lunacy.

Several of the stories combine these two techniques via the traditional framing device of the mysterious manuscript found in some cryptic archive. M. R. James’s “Count Magnus” (1904) features the diary of a researcher whose antiquarian obsessions summon a vampiric revenant; his frightful story is bookended by the bland observations of a narrator who discovered the manuscript “in a forgotten cupboard” of a dilapidated house. In Machen’s “The White People,” a pair of occult dabblers ponder a wild account of sorcerous initiation penned by a young girl who died in mysterious circumstances. The most unnerving of this subset of stories is Thomas Ligotti’s “Vastarien” (1987), in which a hapless bookworm is literally possessed by the eponymous tome: “Each passage he entered in the book both enchanted and appalled him with images and incidents so freakish and chaotic that his usual sense of these terms disintegrated along with everything else.” By the end, he has been absorbed into its fragmented dreamscape.

A turning point in the volume, historically speaking, is Fritz Leiber’s 1941 story “Smoke Ghost.” As the title implies, it is a tale of eerie haunting, but the eponymous specter does not lurk in some cloistered abbey or rural forest, as in Algernon Blackwood’s “Ancient Lights” (1912); rather, it is the veritable incarnation of big-city squalor and malaise. A grimy, shambling creature “with the soot of the factories on its face and the pounding of machinery in its soul,” it stalks the protagonist relentlessly, first as a series of sooty silhouettes glimpsed from his subway seat and high-rise office building, then as a demonic amalgam of all the psychological trials of urban life, and finally as a demonic idol demanding total subservience and devotion. In short, Leiber transplants a Gothic monster into a hyper-modern space, thus setting the tone for future chroniclers of urban anxiety and dread, such as Campbell himself.

The editor sums up Leiber’s achievement succinctly: “Whereas previously the supernatural might invade a mundane setting, in ‘Smoke Ghost’ that setting is its source.” In the wake of “Smoke Ghost,” even the most trivial incidents of modern life can be occasions for ghoulish horror: a bus ride (in Jackson’s tale), a message left on an answering machine (in Etchison’s), a night spent at a big-city hotel (in King’s). Works that revive the Gothic tradition more directly, such as Ligotti’s, come across in part as self-conscious pastiche: a deliberate reversion to the genre’s roots. It is a tribute to Campbell’s skills as an editor that such a brief conspectus of the field can lend itself to such large-scale observations and comparisons.

The stories in the book that most affected me were the three I had never read before. They are also the most graphically gruesome, thus giving the lie to the notion, advanced by some critics, that it is always preferable to suggest, rather than to explicitly unveil, a tale’s central horror. Margaret St. Clair’s “Brenda” (1954) is a skin-crawling story of a pubescent girl who, while on holiday with her parents, develops a weird psychic bond with a stinking, silent, shambling stranger:

He was not a tramp, he was not one of the summer people. Brenda knew at once that he was not like any other man she had ever seen. His skin was not black, or brown, but of an inky grayness; his body was blobbish and irregular, as if it had been shaped out of the clots of soap and grease that stop up kitchen sinks. He held a dead bird in one crude hand. The rotten smell was welling out from him.

The tale hints cryptically at — but never offers a clear answer for — Brenda’s motives in embracing this foul golem; as Campbell comments in his introduction, sometimes “an enigma can be richer than an explanation.” St. Clair was, during the 1950s and ’60s, a prolific author of science fiction and fantasy whose work is neglected today. The editor deserves credit for unearthing this genuinely creepy story from the moldering issue of Weird Tales where it has been immured for decades. Indeed, Campbell has done much to rehabilitate interest in this author’s work, having edited a retrospective volume for Dover Press, The Hole in the Moon and Other Tales by Margaret St. Clair (though this title has unfortunately been delayed by copyright issues).

Campbell’s own contribution to The Folio Book of Horror Stories is the sublimely grotesque “Again” (1981), a tale of claustrophobic entrapment so intense you actually feel vaguely frantic while reading it. While several of the stories in the book derive their frissons from repressed sexuality, there is nothing repressed about Campbell’s story: it is shockingly explicit in its grim evocation of an erotic slavery that survives death itself. I found myself stifling gasps at its baleful twists and turns. Surprisingly, the story was not included in Campbell’s 1987 volume Scared Stiff: Tales of Sex and Death, where it would have been right at home.

The final story in the volume, Nevill’s “Hippocampus,” is something of a revelation. Campbell calls it, in his introduction, “bracingly experimental,” and it is most certainly that: a calmly narrated exploration of an unmanned freighter adrift in mountainous seas, it slowly unveils — without ever fully explaining — the grisly bloodbath that claimed the ship’s crew. “The pale flesh of the rotund torso is whipped and occasionally drenched by sea spray, but still bears the ruddy impressions of bestial deeds that were both boisterous and thorough.” There are Lovecraftian hints of occult entities unearthed and unleashed, but these are mere background to a boldly cinematic and meticulously detailed tour of a floating abattoir. The effect is, by turns, bewildering and disgusting, and altogether brilliant. “Who can say what future [the story] adumbrates?” Campbell inquires. If “Hippocampus” is any indication of the present strengths of the genre, its future would appear to be as bright as the past so ably anatomized in The Folio Book of Horror Stories.

¤

Rob Latham is a LARB senior editor. His most recent book is Science Fiction Criticism: An Anthology of Essential Writings, published by Bloomsbury Press in 2017.

Source: https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/we-are-looking-in-a-mirror-ramsey-campbell-curates-the-history-of-horror/

[viewfromthedrumstool]

Sri Lanka Diary, Part 1/4

London to Kandy to Nuwara Eliya

It’s early on a rainy Thursday afternoon in January when I leave Oxford. Even under grey skies it still looks beautiful but I’m glad to getaway all the same. As per tradition, my January is fairly empty work-wise — the musician’s quiet month — so Harry ‘Deaco’ Deacon (bass player with Razorlight and Willie J Healey, among numerous others) and myself are heading east to Sri Lanka!

Two weeks of freedom in ‘The Land Of Serendipity’ is a tasty prospect – even without mention of the food. So to Heathrow I go, where a Thai waiter called ‘Servinio’ serves up my final taste of England - a passable fish pie - at The Curator before I board Sri Lankan Airways flight UL504 and we soar up to 31,000 feet.

↑ For your own safety and comfort please stow your bongos securely

It only takes American Sniper (better than expected) and half of Django Unchained (I‘ll be back for the rest) before I pass out. Deep in slumber I remain for the duration of the 10-hour flight before waking to a tasty Sri Lankan fish breakfast and a rapid descent into Bandaranaike International Airport.

Inside the airport it’s clinical and clean and the staff all wear white – though ominously a solitary Pizza Hut greets us before even reaching Passport Control… hopefully not a sign of things to come.

It’s early on a sunny Friday afternoon as I emerge from the terminal, dazed and disoriented, into the frenzied bustle and hustle of a Sri Lankan street. A hundred tuk-tuk drivers spy my pale skin and circle like vultures... airports are heady hunting ground for grifters the world over and it takes a feat of negotiating to convince a rickshaw driver to take me to the nearby bus station for less than the cost of my return flights...

Deaco has been out here for a few days already and has journeyed as far as Kandy, a small city in the middle of the island. It’s a four-hour passage to get there by bus and we meander along at a fair pace, slowly picking up elevation as the journey progresses. I’m a little weary but it’s an enjoyable ride – and very cheap too at 162 rupees (70p)!

There’s barely a junction or a turning to be made on the route east, just a long winding road up into the mountains, flanked by huts, houses, schools and shops. As they say in Asia: Same same but different. And despite being on another continent, many of the characters on the bus are familiar: a group of young mums gossip, school kids play, and my new friend and seat-mate Hashan, on his way to visit an Aunt, promptly falls asleep in my armpit.

The bus pulls in at Kandy station and Hashan peels himself from my underarm. I disembark and hop in a final tuk-tuk up to the pre-emptively named ‘Best Hostel’ where Deaco awaits. It’s his Birthday today! Many Happy Returns to the chap, and after a joyous reunion, we enjoy a celebratory dosa in town with a third travelling companion, Tom, from St Louis, MI.

Kandy is a vibrant little city popular with tourists and centred around a man-made lake. There’s a wiggly road that skirts its perimeter and I can’t help but think it would make for a great tuk-tuk Grand Prix – or at the very least a Kandy Lake track level on Mario Kart.

Harry takes me to see all the tourist attractions – which is kind, given he’d already been to see them before I arrived. We start at the Botanical Garden, a scenic spot with an impressive suspension bridge and a beautiful display of different grasses (who knew there were so many). We bump into old friends of his too: an odd pair of Russians with whom he shared a hostel earlier in his trip. The tourist trail is a well-trodden one and bumping into familiar faces hundreds of miles down the road is a common occurrence ... I suspect it isn’t the last time we’ll see them.

Next we enjoy a display of ‘Kandy Kultural Dancing’ (plate-spinning, back-flipping, fire-walking and some enthusiastic drumming) before heading over to The Temple of The Tooth, the centrepiece of the city and one of the biggest attractions in Sri Lanka.

As the name suggests, the focal point of the large Buddhist temple complex is a single tooth mounted atop a magnificent gold shrine. And not just any tooth! Indeed, the famous fang is allegedly one of the Buddha’s very own, pulled from the funeral pyre of his body back in 543 BC. It has a chequered history and the controversial canine has already been responsible for more than one war...

We barely catch a glimpse of the shrine, let alone the tooth itself, which as it turns out is safely tucked away inside a box within a box within a box within a box within a box within a box within a box. Only a handful of people have ever seen the holy fragment which leads one to wonder whether the tooth is literal or simply more a state of mind...

Tooth or no tooth, there’s a lively atmosphere in and around the Temple as night falls, while tourist and Buddhist alike are harmoniously integrated in a melange of worship, ceremony, prayers and music.

Feeling a little more spiritual, we rise early the following day and head to Kandy station for the 0847 train to Nuwara Eliya. It’s another small city further south in the hill country of the Central Province. The scenic journey that will take us there is apparently the stuff o’ legend and needless to say we aren’t the only ones with the idea. The platform at Kandy station is soon teeming with tourists – including a pair of familiar Russians!

First Class has long since been reserved by the coffin-dodgers on the package tours, so it’s a tight squeeze in the Second Class compartment. Not concerned with seats, we locate ourselves by an open door for the duration and take it in turns with our fellow travelling companions (the usual suspects – Aussies, Germans and more Russians) to hang out the side, take pictures and wave at those who call this beautiful land their own.

↑ Third Class can be found at the rear of the train, attached by rope

The train canters along at a pleasant pace, weaving in and out of tea plantations while the native folk enjoy their peaceful Sunday in the beautiful Sri Lankan hill territories. With much more rain up here, the scene is more colourful than the sandy beige of the lowlands, with plants, trees, grasses, shrubbery and foliage in every shade of green. Many of the quaint little stations (my favourite is called Ohiya) along the way have a distinctly English feel, reminding me with fondness of the Malton-Scarborough route oft ridden in my youth.

After 4 idyllic hours watching the country scroll by and chatting with new friends, we disembark at Nanuoya Station and our friendly cab driver Pryantha (+94 778 880213) takes Harry, myself and a handful of Aussies into Nuwara Eliya to drop us at our respective hotels.

At least that’s the plan, except Pryantha nor anyone else that he asks has actually heard of the ‘King’s Lodge’ and when we eventually arrive at the hotel in the picture the staff there don’t recognise the name either.

All the same, it’s such a pleasant spot overlooking the town that we decide to stay anyway. They show us to their last remaining room, a ‘triple’ which one presumes would surely contain at least two beds given that a triple bed doesn’t exist. In Sri Lanka however, it does, and it looks like tonight Harry and I will be sharing a bed, albeit a large one. (It’s good to know that the liberal Sri Lankans consider a three-way relationship quite normal and are prepared to cater to that in the design and manufacture of both beds and bedding.)

We wander into town for a bite, passing a sign for Grymsby Holiday Bungalow. As a Mariner myself, it’s nice to feel close to home – despite the misspelling – and a passing stranger poses with me for a photo, insisting that it was his Uncle who named the hotel and that it really is named after “Grymsby City in Engerland”.

We’re rapidly becoming fans of the cheap local eateries where the food is always fast and fresh (and there are lots of vegetarian options too). In Nuwara Eliya town we spy a vibrant spot teaming with locals and lay out a mean £1.70 on a dinner of vegetable kotu, egg rotis and dhal curry.

Nuwara Eliya isn’t called Little England for no reason. That night an almighty rain unleashes an unrelenting torrent that bounces off the roof and fills our room with a resonant 80dB of white noise. It’s not until daybreak that the downpour ceases – apparently this happens most nights – and I grab 6 minutes of uninterrupted sleep before heading down to breakfast.

We’re taking a tour of the surrounding area before training down to Ella later in the afternoon and our friendly hosts have hooked us up with their friend Hamza to show us the sights.

He rolls up bright and early in his well-kept rickshaw complete with rain flaps, CD player and anti-marijuana stickers. He’s the happy-go-lucky sort, with enough spoken English to get by and a friendly demeanor. It’s only when he smiles his generous smile that I first glimpse the most rum set of gnashers I’ve ever seen. There’s a section of ill-fitting false teeth, a couple held together with string, and some that barely look like teeth at all. If the Buddha’s canine was anything on Hamza’s I can see why they keep it locked up inside seven boxes.

First stop: Ramboda Falls. The journey alone is a thrill: an endless vista of tea plantations as far as the eye can see. These hill territories are carpeted with them and it’s easy to see why, after the overnight downpour.

Our rickshaw winds its way along the mountainside on a road peppered with pretty stalls selling fresh vegetables: aubergine, potatoes, curry leaves, onions, green chillies, carrots and unexpectedly to me, leeks, which it turns out are a delicious feature in many Sri Lankan dishes.

We swing a final right in a sharp descent and are suddenly confronted by 109 metres of sheer waterfall, a magnificent sight, and in fine thundering voice after the long nights rainfall.

Ramboda Falls holds the claim of being the 729th highest waterfall in the world, a fact which massively undersells what is actually an impressive spectacle. There’s a dangerous and slippery path which snakes up the rocky mountain face, and Hamza insists that it’s well worth climbing for a closer view of the natural wonder. Thankfully I had my Loake brogues only recently re-soled...

While our nature-loving guide takes a moment to scrawl our initials into a tree, an elderly native appears in the undergrowth. The water supply to her village some 5kms away unexpectedly stopped, so she traced the pipe halfway up the mountain to the spot where it was broken and is undertaking a repair job.

The descent is even more deadly, made all the more tricky when two Chinese schoolgirls wearing flip flops execute a reckless overtake and I almost lose my footing. Luckily I needed no dramatic rescue because Hamza’s attention was entirely on Harry. “I like your hair” I overhear him say to my friend. “You look like Robin Hood...”

The next stop on our tour of the Nuwara Eliya district is the Blue Field Tea ‘Factory’. It was opened in 1921 and has changed very little since. Everything is still done by hand and much of the machinery originates from Lincolnshire, Birmingham and Belfast. It’s atmospheric and rich in Colonial, vibes which I love!

Our tuk-tuk swings into the ‘Damro’ factory next but we’re done tea-tasting and ready for something a little more substantial, so Hamza takes us to his favourite buffet. The food is delicious, however, our respective understandings of the term ‘buffet’ are quite different. After sampling a little of everything on display (dhal, different kinds of rice, mackerel, swordfish, curried aubergine, egg curries, sweet and sour vegetables) it’s to our dismay that we’re charged the full price of a meal for every dish! Thankfully the food is so cheap that it doesn’t amount to much.

Finally we’re dropped off at the train station. It’s been a fine day in the company of our friendly tour guide and his willingness to shuttle us around from place to place without constantly asking us for more money is refreshing. Your teeth may be among the worst I’ve ever seen, Hamza, but we’ll miss you.

Part 2/4 follows shortly!

Mike

[96thdayofrage]

As the Democrats Press for War, the Left Must Demand Peace and Social Transformation

The Democrats are whipping up war hysteria and “cynically seeking to harness people’s well-founded fears of Trump’s domestic policies in order to sabotage the possibility of a relaxation of international tensions.” Some folks have taken the bait. “Leftists that think they can exploit the split between the Trump troglodytes (fascists) and the Obama/Clinton/Old Line GOP War Party (fascists) will ultimately wind up caught in a pincer between the two.”

“The Left’s job is to oppose the warmongers, not band with them.”

As is ordained by law, at the end of the week much of President Obama’s legacy will become Donald Trump’s powers, including the power to detain Americans indefinitely (forever) without trial or charge, an authority the First Black President secured from Congress in 2011. Obama’s wars become Trump’s wars, which, if Trump follows Obama’s example -- and if he succumbs to the furious pressures of leading Democrats, old line Republicans and an openly aggressive and “politicized” national security establishment -- will be expanded and multiplied. The most imminent threats to human survival under a Trump presidency flow, not from the billionaire’s own belligerent instincts and unpredictability, but from the momentum of Obama’s policies of ever-escalating confrontation with Russia and China -- his deliberate “pivots” towards brinksmanship on all the geopolitical fronts of Empire.

“U.S. policy is to militarily intimidate the world into submission -- a gangster’s game.”

It is the Democrats that have whipped up war hysteria and a new McCarthyism, attacking Trump from the Right to force him to keep Obama’s imperial “surge” moving forward. With western economic power fading fast, U.S. policy is to militarily intimidate the world into submission -- a gangster’s game. For the Lords of Capital and their national security servants, Obama’s greatest achievement was to put the U.S. back on the offensive after George Bush’s defeat and humiliation in Iraq. From their perspective, Obama has already “Made America Great Again” with his “humanitarian” military intervention doctrine, trampling every principle of international law, including the sovereignty of nations, in Libya and Syria. Trump’s talk of “deal-making” with Russia and China threatens to slow the imperial offensive.

The ruling class realignment that congealed in the Clinton campaign’s Big Tent sees any relaxation of U.S. military pressures against Beijing and Moscow as a prelude to imperial collapse. For them, de-escalation is an existential threat. They don’t give a damn about the damage Donald Trump intends to inflict on what remains of the U.S. social safety net -- and neither did Obama, who came into office scheming to forge a Grand Austerity Bargain with the Republicans. And, if his preventive detention bill were not enough, Obama’s support for creation of a “Ministry of Truth” -- officially, a joint governmental commission to police the media for “foreign disinformation and manipulation” -- screams out to high heaven that protection of civil liberties is not part of their agenda, either. Internet publications like Black Agenda Report, cited by the Washington Post as “fake news” and “minions” of Russia, will be punished for deviance from imperial “exceptionalism” and aggressive war policies.

“Trump’s talk of ‘deal-making’ with Russia and China threatens to slow the imperial offensive.”

This is all about war. The Democrats, massed corporate media and the fully mobilized legions of spooks and disinformation specialists are cynically seeking to harness people’s well-founded fears of Trump’s domestic policies in order to sabotage the possibility of a relaxation of international tensions. Leftists that think they can exploit the split between the Trump troglodytes (fascists) and the Obama/Clinton/Old Line GOP War Party (fascists) will ultimately wind up caught in a pincer between the two.

The ruling class is, indeed, in an acute political crisis, to match its larger, systemic crisis. The duopoly system that has served the rich so well for most of the history of the Republic has come undone, split at the seams, endangering the corporate-imposed national “consensus” on empire and war. The War Party, deploying every disinformation trick in the book, foments anti-Russian hysteria to create a mass base for its imperial agenda. They point fingers at phantom “minions” of Moscow in order to make leftists into political foot soldiers of the Pentagon, Langley and the military industrial complex. MoveOn.org moves to their beat, as does the entire Congressional Black Caucus, including Barbara Lee (D-CA), the nation’s most left-leaning congressperson. Fine; they are duty-bound to go down with the Bad Ship Hillary. But the social movement activists that allow themselves to be swept up in the Democrats’ offensive-from-the-Right against Trump are the biggest dupes of all.

“They point fingers at phantom ‘minions’ of Moscow in order to make leftists into political foot soldiers of the Pentagon, Langley and the military industrial complex.”

The Democrats are incapable of agitating for anything more than defense of Barack Obama’s “legacy” -- chiefly, his doomed Affordable Care Act, which was already disintegrating from its own contradictions and whose final demise will create an acute crisis that cries out for single payer health insurance, the outcome Obamacare was designed to forestall. The Left should be making that demand right now, rather than helping Democrats join with Republicans to patch together an even worse private-based system, down the road.

The precariat economy that is emerging from Obama’s post-Meltdown restructuring, in which 94 percent of the new “jobs” are so contingent, inadequate and insecure they can hardly be called jobs at all, demands a National Minimum Income – a potentially transformative leap that the Left should be loudly championing, right now.

Five years after Occupy Wall Street, the Left should finally call for the nationalization -- not fragmentation -- of the big banks, and creation of a public development bank to rebuild the national infrastructure without going into debt to private capital. Anybody that doubts masses of people will join in this demand doesn’t know their fellow Americans and their deep hatred for Wall Street banks.

“The social movement activists that allow themselves to be swept up in the Democrats’ offensive-from-the-Right against Trump are the biggest dupes of all.”

Ferguson set the new Black movement on a course of confrontation with the Mass Black Incarceration State, in all its manifestations. Obama’s legacy -- and that of the Black misleadership class that has collaborated with mass Black incarceration for two generations – is to intensify intelligence gathering in Black communities, while dispersing Black population concentrations through gentrification. Trump or no Trump, there is no avoiding the logic of the movement’s central grassroots demand: Black community control of the police. Non-Blacks on the Left must support that demand.

There is no such thing as a genuine Left that supports imperialism, but there are plenty of fakers that do, including phony socialists. How sad -- and maddening, at the same time -- that a Donald Trump can speak of “cutting down” on “regime change,” while purported leftists rally to Obama’s “humanitarian” military interventionism, the lip-stick on the imperial pig. The Democrats want war so badly, they are fouling their bourgeois institutional nest and bearing down hard from the Right to prevent any let-up in tensions with Russia and China. The Left’s job is to oppose the warmongers, not to band with them.

There is no mystery to what the moment demands. What’s needed is Left movements for social transformation, not a farcical, Democrat-led anti-Trump pseudo-movement, whose real agenda is war.

[iol247]

The Risks - Know Them - Avoid Them

It seems many people are breathing some relief, and I’m not sure why. An epidemic curve has a relatively predictable upslope and once the peak is reached, the back slope can also be predicted. We have robust data from the outbreaks in China and Italy, that shows the backside of the mortality curve declines slowly, with deaths persisting for months. Assuming we have just crested in deaths at 70k, it is possible that we lose another 70,000 people over the next 6 weeks as we come off that peak. That’s what’s going to happen with a lockdown.

As states reopen, and we give the virus more fuel, all bets are off. I understand the reasons for reopening the economy, but I’ve said before, if you don’t solve the biology, the economy won’t recover.

There are very few states that have demonstrated a sustained decline in numbers of new infections. Indeed, as of May 3rd the majority are still increasing and reopening. As a simple example of the USA trend, when you take out the data from New York and just look at the rest of the USA, daily case numbers are increasing. Bottom line: the only reason the total USA new case numbers look flat right now is because the New York City epidemic was so large and now it is being contained.

So throughout most of the country we are going to add fuel to the viral fire by reopening. It’s going to happen if I like it or not, so my goal here is to try to guide you away from situations of high risk.

Where are people getting sick?

We know most people get infected in their own home. A household member contracts the virus in the community and brings it into the house where sustained contact between household members leads to infection.

But where are people contracting the infection in the community? I regularly hear people worrying about grocery stores, bike rides, inconsiderate runners who are not wearing masks…. are these places of concern? Well, not really. Let me explain.

In order to get infected you need to get exposed to an infectious dose of the virus; based on infectious dose studies with other coronaviruses, some estimate that as few as 1000 SARS-CoV2 viral particles are needed for an infection to take hold. Please note, this still needs to be determined experimentally, but we can use that number to demonstrate how infection can occur. Infection could occur, through 1000 viral particles you receive in one breath or from one eye-rub, or 100 viral particles inhaled with each breath over 10 breaths, or 10 viral particles with 100 breaths. Each of these situations can lead to an infection.

How much Virus is released into the environment?

A Bathroom: Bathrooms have a lot of high touch surfaces, door handles, faucets, stall doors. So fomite transfer risk in this environment can be high. We still do not know whether a person releases infectious material in feces or just fragmented virus, but we do know that toilet flushing does aerosolize many droplets. Treat public bathrooms with extra caution (surface and air), until we know more about the risk.

A Cough: A single cough releases about 3,000 droplets and droplets travels at 50 miles per hour. Most droplets are large, and fall quickly (gravity), but many do stay in the air and can travel across a room in a few seconds.

A Sneeze: A single sneeze releases about 30,000 droplets, with droplets traveling at up to 200 miles per hour. Most droplets are small and travel great distances (easily across a room).

If a person is infected, the droplets in a single cough or sneeze may contain as many as 200,000,000 (two hundred million) virus particles which can all be dispersed into the environment around them.

A breath: A single breath releases 50 - 5000 droplets. Most of these droplets are low velocity and fall to the ground quickly. There are even fewer droplets released through nose-breathing. Importantly, due to the lack of exhalation force with a breath, viral particles from the lower respiratory areas are not expelled.

Unlike sneezing and coughing which release huge amounts of viral material, the respiratory droplets released from breathing only contain low levels of virus. We don’t have a number for SARS-CoV2 yet, but we can use influenza as a guide. Studies have shown that a person infected with influenza can releases up to 33 infectious viral particles per minute. But I’m going to use 20 to keep the math simple.

Remember the formula: Successful Infection = Exposure to Virus x Time

If a person coughs or sneezes, those 200,000,000 viral particles go everywhere. Some virus hangs in the air, some falls into surfaces, most falls to the ground. So if you are face-to-face with a person, having a conversation, and that person sneezes or coughs straight at you, it’s pretty easy to see how it is possible to inhale 1,000 virus particles and become infected.

But even if that cough or sneeze was not directed at you, some infected droplets–the smallest of small–can hang in the air for a few minutes, filling every corner of a modest sized room with infectious viral particles. All you have to do is enter that room within a few minutes of the cough/sneeze and take a few breaths and you have potentially received enough virus to establish an infection.

But with general breathing, 20 viral particles minute into the environment, even if every virus ended up in your lungs (which is very unlikely), you would need 1000 viral particles divided by 20 per minute = 50 minutes.

Speaking increases the release of respiratory droplets about 10 fold; ~200 virus particles per minute. Again, assuming every virus is inhaled, it would take ~5 minutes of speaking face-to-face to receive the required dose.

The exposure to virus x time formula is the basis of contact tracing. Anyone you spend greater than 10 minutes with in a face-to-face situation is potentially infected. Anyone who shares a space with you (say an office) for an extended period is potentially infected. This is also why it is critical for people who are symptomatic to stay home. Your sneezes and your coughs expel so much virus that you can infect a whole room of people.

What is the role of asymptomatic people in spreading the virus?

Symptomatic people are not the only way the virus is shed. We know that at least 44% of all infections–and the majority of community-acquired transmissions–occur from people without any symptoms (asymptomatic or pre-symptomatic people). You can be shedding the virus into the environment for up to 5 days before symptoms begin.

Infectious people come in all ages, and they all shed different amounts of virus. The figure below shows that no matter your age (x-axis), you can have a little bit of virus or a lot of virus (y-axis). (ref)

The amount of virus released from an infected person changes over the course of infection and it is also different from person-to-person. Viral load generally builds up to the point where the person becomes symptomatic. So just prior to symptoms showing, you are releasing the most virus into the environment. Interestingly, the data shows that just 20% of infected people are responsible for 99% of viral load that could potentially be released into the environment (ref)

So now let’s get to the crux of it. Where are the personal dangers from reopening?

When you think of outbreak clusters, what are the big ones that come to mind? Most people would say cruise ships. But you would be wrong. Ship outbreaks, while concerning, don’t land in the top 50 outbreaks to date.

Ignoring the terrible outbreaks in nursing homes, we find that the biggest outbreaks are in prisons, religious ceremonies, and workplaces, such as meat packing facilities and call centers. Any environment that is enclosed, with poor air circulation and high density of people, spells trouble.

Some of the biggest super-spreading events are:

Meat packing: In meat processing plants, densely packed workers must communicate to one another amidst the deafening drum of industrial machinery and a cold-room virus-preserving environment. There are now outbreaks in 115 facilities across 23 states, 5000+ workers infected, with 20 dead. (ref)

Weddings, funerals, birthdays: 10% of early spreading events

Business networking: Face-to-face business networking like the Biogen Conference in Boston in late February.

As we move back to work, or go to a restaurant, let’s look at what can happen in those environments.

Restaurants: Some really great shoe-leather epidemiology demonstrated clearly the effect of a single asymptomatic carrier in a restaurant environment (see below). The infected person (A1) sat at a table and had dinner with 9 friends. Dinner took about 1 to 1.5 hours. During this meal, the asymptomatic carrier released low-levels of virus into the air from their breathing. Airflow (from the restaurant’s various airflow vents) was from right to left. Approximately 50% of the people at the infected person’s table became sick over the next 7 days. 75% of the people on the adjacent downwind table became infected. And even 2 of the 7 people on the upwind table were infected (believed to happen by turbulent airflow). No one at tables E or F became infected, they were out of the main airflow from the air conditioner on the right to the exhaust fan on the left of the room. (Ref)

Workplaces: Another great example is the outbreak in a call center (see below). A single infected employee came to work on the 11th floor of a building. That floor had 216 employees. Over the period of a week, 94 of those people became infected (43.5%: the blue chairs). 92 of those 94 people became sick (only 2 remained asymptomatic). Notice how one side of the office is primarily infected, while there are very few people infected on the other side. While exact number of people infected by respiratory droplets / respiratory exposure versus fomite transmission (door handles, shared water coolers, elevator buttons etc.) is unknown. It serves to highlight that being in an enclosed space, sharing the same air for a prolonged period increases your chances of exposure and infection. Another 3 people on other floors of the building were infected, but the authors were not able to trace the infection to the primary cluster on the 11th floor. Interestingly, even though there were considerable interaction between workers on different floors of the building in elevators and the lobby, the outbreak was mostly limited to a single floor (ref). This highlights the importance of exposure and time in the spreading of SARS-CoV2.

Choir: The community choir in Washington State. Even though people were aware of the virus and took steps to minimize transfer; e.g. they avoided the usual handshakes and hugs hello, people also brought their own music to avoid sharing, and socially distanced themselves during practice. They even went to the lengths to tell choir members prior to practice that anyone experiencing symptoms should stay home. A single asymptomatic carrier infected most of the people in attendance. The choir sang for 2 ½ hours, inside an enclosed rehearsal hall which was roughly the size of a volleyball court.

Singing, to a greater degree than talking, aerosolizes respiratory droplets extraordinarily well. Deep-breathing while singing facilitated those respiratory droplets getting deep into the lungs. Two and half hours of exposure ensured that people were exposed to enough virus over a long enough period of time for infection to take place. Over a period of 4 days, 45 of the 60 choir members developed symptoms, 2 died. The youngest infected was 31, but they averaged 67 years old. (corrected link)

Indoor sports: While this may be uniquely Canadian, a super spreading event occurred during a curling event in Canada. A curling event with 72 attendees became another hotspot for transmission. Curling brings contestants and teammates in close contact in a cool indoor environment, with heavy breathing for an extended period. This tournament resulted in 24 of the 72 people becoming infected. (ref)

Birthday parties / funerals: Just to see how simple infection-chains can be, this is a real story from Chicago. The name is fake. Bob was infected but didn’t know. Bob shared a takeout meal, served from common serving dishes, with 2 family members. The dinner lasted 3 hours. The next day, Bob attended a funeral, hugging family members and others in attendance to express condolences. Within 4 days, both family members who shared the meal are sick. A third family member, who hugged Bob at the funeral became sick. But Bob wasn’t done. Bob attended a birthday party with 9 other people. They hugged and shared food at the 3 hour party. Seven of those people became ill. Over the next few days Bob became sick, he was hospitalized, ventilated, and died.

But Bob’s legacy lived on. Three of the people Bob infected at the birthday went to church, where they sang, passed the tithing dish etc. Members of that church became sick. In all, Bob was directly responsible for infecting 16 people between the ages of 5 and 86. Three of those 16 died.

The spread of the virus within the household and back out into the community through funerals, birthdays, and church gatherings is believed to be responsible for the broader transmission of COVID-19 in Chicago. (ref)

Sobering right?

Commonality of outbreaks

The reason to highlight these different outbreaks is to show you the commonality of outbreaks of COVID-19. All these infection events were indoors, with people closely-spaced, with lots of talking, singing, or yelling. The main sources for infection are home, workplace, public transport, social gatherings, and restaurants. This accounts for 90% of all transmission events. In contrast, outbreaks spread from shopping appear to be responsible for a small percentage of traced infections. (Ref)

Importantly, of the countries performing contact tracing properly, only a single outbreak has been reported from an outdoor environment (less than 0.3% of traced infections). (ref)

So back to the original thought of my post.

Indoor spaces, with limited air exchange or recycled air and lots of people, are concerning from a transmission standpoint. We know that 60 people in a volleyball court-sized room (choir) results in massive infections. Same situation with the restaurant and the call center. Social distancing guidelines don’t hold in indoor spaces where you spend a lot of time, as people on the opposite side of the room were infected.

The principle is viral exposure over an extended period of time. In all these cases, people were exposed to the virus in the air for a prolonged period (hours). Even if they were 50 feet away (choir or call center), even a low dose of the virus in the air reaching them, over a sustained period, was enough to cause infection and in some cases, death.

Social distancing rules are really to protect you with brief exposures or outdoor exposures. In these situations there is not enough time to achieve the infectious viral load when you are standing 6 feet apart or where wind and the infinite outdoor space for viral dilution reduces viral load. The effects of sunlight, heat, and humidity on viral survival, all serve to minimize the risk to everyone when outside.

When assessing the risk of infection (via respiration) at the grocery store or mall, you need to consider the volume of the air space (very large), the number of people (restricted), how long people are spending in the store (workers - all day; customers - an hour). Taken together, for a person shopping: the low density, high air volume of the store, along with the restricted time you spend in the store, means that the opportunity to receive an infectious dose is low. But, for the store worker, the extended time they spend in the store provides a greater opportunity to receive the infectious dose and therefore the job becomes more risky.

Basically, as the work closures are loosened, and we start to venture out more, possibly even resuming in-office activities, you need to look at your environment and make judgments. How many people are here, how much airflow is there around me, and how long will I be in this environment. If you are in an open floorplan office, you really need to critically assess the risk (volume, people, and airflow). If you are in a job that requires face-to-face talking or even worse, yelling, you need to assess the risk.

If you are sitting in a well ventilated space, with few people, the risk is low.

If I am outside, and I walk past someone, remember it is “dose and time” needed for infection. You would have to be in their airstream for 5+ minutes for a chance of infection. While joggers may be releasing more virus due to deep breathing, remember the exposure time is also less due to their speed. Please do maintain physical distance, but the risk of infection in these scenarios are low. Here is a great article in Vox that discusses the low risk of running and cycling in detail.

While I have focused on respiratory exposure here, please don’t forget surfaces. Those infected respiratory droplets land somewhere. Wash your hands often and stop touching your face!

As we are allowed to move around our communities more freely and be in contact with more people in more places more regularly, the risks to ourselves and our family are significant. Even if you are gung-ho for reopening and resuming business as usual, do your part and wear a mask to reduce what you release into the environment. It will help everyone, including your own business. This article was inspired by a piece written by Jonathan Kay in Quillete

COVID-19 Superspreader Events in 28 Countries: Critical Patterns and Lessons

About the author

Erin S. Bromage, Ph.D., is an Associate Professor of Biology at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth. Dr. Bromage graduated from the School of Veterinary and Biomedical Sciences James Cook University, Australia where his research focused on the epidemiology of, and immunity to, infectious disease in animals. His Post-Doctoral training was at the College of William and Mary, Virginia Institute of Marine Science in the Comparative Immunology Laboratory of late Dr. Stephen Kaattari.

Dr. Bromage’s research focuses on the evolution of the immune system, the immunological mechanisms responsible for protection from infectious disease, and the design and use of vaccines to control infectious disease in animals. He also focuses on designing diagnostic tools to detect biological and chemical threats in the environment in real-time.

Dr. Bromage joined the Faculty of the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth in 2007 where he teaches courses in Immunology and Infectious disease, including a course this semester on the Ecology of Infectious Disease which focused on the emerging SARS-CoV2 outbreak in China.

https://www.erinbromage.com/post/the-risks-know-them-avoid-them

[leekchess87-blog]

“We Are Looking in a Mirror”: Ramsey Campbell Curates the History of Horror

NOVEMBER 4, 2018

FIRST, THE BONA FIDES. The Folio Society is a British publisher that produces limited hardcover editions of classic titles, both fiction and nonfiction. Their books are handsomely produced and usually include original illustrations of very high quality. Until 2011, Folio titles were only available to subscribing members, but they are now sold to the general public via the company’s website. Although most of their releases are reprints, they have commissioned the occasional anthology of specialized interest, such as The Folio Book of Ghost Stories (2015), edited by Kathryn Hughes. The newly issued The Folio Book of Horror Stories (2018) is a follow-up volume with a more expansive editorial remit.

The book’s editor, British author Ramsey Campbell, needs no introduction to aficionados of the horror genre. He is arguably the most distinguished living writer of horror fiction, having won 12 British Fantasy Awards for his novels, stories, and anthologies, as well as lifetime achievement awards from the Horror Writers Association and the World Fantasy Convention. His fiction spans the gamut from eerie tales of supernatural dread to works of extreme, graphic horror, and this wide range perfectly equips him to helm a volume that purports to canvass the field from Poe to the present.

Campbell’s introduction makes the case for a generous construction of the genre’s borders. While horror is a form distinguished by its characteristic affects, those emotional states can vary from “supernatural fear” to “psychological disquiet” to “terror devoid of a physical cause.” Horror, Campbell writes, “is the least escapist form of fantasy […] It shows us the monstrous, sometimes to reveal that we are looking in a mirror.” The editor’s catholic tastes are evident in his choices, which start with Poe’s “The Fall of the House of Usher” (1839) and conclude with Adam Nevill’s “Hippocampus” (2015). There are 15 stories in all: two from the 19th century, five from the first half of the 20th, five from the second half, and three from the 21st. They include obvious classics alongside unexpected selections by major authors and a few contributions from relatively obscure talents. The book thus manages both to satisfy readers new to the field, by providing a sense of its historical development, and to please well-versed fans, by presenting them with unexpected gems.

There are a few surprising omissions, none more notable than Robert Aickman, whom the editor himself has often praised as one of the finest authors of weird fiction ever. Campbell acknowledges that another curious absence from the book — J. Sheridan Le Fanu — was the result of a lack of space, but while Le Fanu’s work is in the public domain and thus readily accessible, Aickman’s is not — though NYRB Classics recently released a welcome compendium of the author’s “strange stories.” Considering that a third of The Folio Book of Horror Stories is consumed by two long texts, Arthur Machen’s “The White People” (1904) and Stephen King’s “1408” (2002), it might have been possible to select briefer works by those particular authors in order to find room for Aickman, or Clive Barker, or Roald Dahl, or Richard Matheson, or Joyce Carol Oates, or any number of other worthy figures who are absent here. It should also be said that the canon presented in Campbell’s volume is exclusively Anglo-American: no Hoffmann, no Kafka, no Borges, no Quiroga.

But these are quibbles. If the reader wants a more extensive introduction to the genre, there are comprehensive works available, such as David G. Hartwell’s The Dark Descent (1987), which features 56 stories, or Jeff and Ann VanderMeer’s The Weird (2012), which includes over 100. One of the chief pleasures of The Folio Book of Horror Stories is its relative concision, the fact that it can be hair-raisingly devoured on a single lonely night, as well as the opportunity it presents to witness one of the preeminent talents in the field curate a “greatest hits” volume. Campbell has edited more than a dozen anthologies, including award-winning installments of the “Best New Horror” series (1990–’94), but none of his previous stints as editor has afforded him the historical or thematic scope this one does.

Campbell shows himself to be a skillful anthologist indeed: the selected tales echo one another in curious and provocative ways. The first two entries are a case in point: both Poe’s “Usher” and Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s “The Yellow Wallpaper” (1892) are tales of stifling claustrophobia, of domestic environments cursed by the tainted legacies of their past inhabitants. But while Poe’s story uses the distancing technique of an external narrator, who watches his childhood friend succumb to madness, Gilman offers an indelible first-person portrait: her narrator, by the end, is irremediably insane. As Campbell remarks in his introduction, works like Gilman’s show a particular strength of the genre — its ability to deploy narrative voices “impossible in conventional terms,” and thus to evoke extreme psychic states with terrifying immediacy. This contrast between distancing and immersive styles runs throughout the volume: Lovecraft’s “The Music of Erich Zann” (1922) and Reggie Oliver’s “Flowers of the Sea” (2011) relate, from an uneasy but external vantage, the mental deliquescence of an acquaintance or loved one, while Shirley Jackson’s “The Bus” (1965) and Dennis Etchison’s “Call Home” (1991) plant readers squarely inside the nightmarish predicaments of their protagonists, who find themselves at the end — like Gilman’s narrator — trapped in recursive loops of lunacy.

Several of the stories combine these two techniques via the traditional framing device of the mysterious manuscript found in some cryptic archive. M. R. James’s “Count Magnus” (1904) features the diary of a researcher whose antiquarian obsessions summon a vampiric revenant; his frightful story is bookended by the bland observations of a narrator who discovered the manuscript “in a forgotten cupboard” of a dilapidated house. In Machen’s “The White People,” a pair of occult dabblers ponder a wild account of sorcerous initiation penned by a young girl who died in mysterious circumstances. The most unnerving of this subset of stories is Thomas Ligotti’s “Vastarien” (1987), in which a hapless bookworm is literally possessed by the eponymous tome: “Each passage he entered in the book both enchanted and appalled him with images and incidents so freakish and chaotic that his usual sense of these terms disintegrated along with everything else.” By the end, he has been absorbed into its fragmented dreamscape.

A turning point in the volume, historically speaking, is Fritz Leiber’s 1941 story “Smoke Ghost.” As the title implies, it is a tale of eerie haunting, but the eponymous specter does not lurk in some cloistered abbey or rural forest, as in Algernon Blackwood’s “Ancient Lights” (1912); rather, it is the veritable incarnation of big-city squalor and malaise. A grimy, shambling creature “with the soot of the factories on its face and the pounding of machinery in its soul,” it stalks the protagonist relentlessly, first as a series of sooty silhouettes glimpsed from his subway seat and high-rise office building, then as a demonic amalgam of all the psychological trials of urban life, and finally as a demonic idol demanding total subservience and devotion. In short, Leiber transplants a Gothic monster into a hyper-modern space, thus setting the tone for future chroniclers of urban anxiety and dread, such as Campbell himself.

The editor sums up Leiber’s achievement succinctly: “Whereas previously the supernatural might invade a mundane setting, in ‘Smoke Ghost’ that setting is its source.” In the wake of “Smoke Ghost,” even the most trivial incidents of modern life can be occasions for ghoulish horror: a bus ride (in Jackson’s tale), a message left on an answering machine (in Etchison’s), a night spent at a big-city hotel (in King’s). Works that revive the Gothic tradition more directly, such as Ligotti’s, come across in part as self-conscious pastiche: a deliberate reversion to the genre’s roots. It is a tribute to Campbell’s skills as an editor that such a brief conspectus of the field can lend itself to such large-scale observations and comparisons.

The stories in the book that most affected me were the three I had never read before. They are also the most graphically gruesome, thus giving the lie to the notion, advanced by some critics, that it is always preferable to suggest, rather than to explicitly unveil, a tale’s central horror. Margaret St. Clair’s “Brenda” (1954) is a skin-crawling story of a pubescent girl who, while on holiday with her parents, develops a weird psychic bond with a stinking, silent, shambling stranger:

He was not a tramp, he was not one of the summer people. Brenda knew at once that he was not like any other man she had ever seen. His skin was not black, or brown, but of an inky grayness; his body was blobbish and irregular, as if it had been shaped out of the clots of soap and grease that stop up kitchen sinks. He held a dead bird in one crude hand. The rotten smell was welling out from him.

The tale hints cryptically at — but never offers a clear answer for — Brenda’s motives in embracing this foul golem; as Campbell comments in his introduction, sometimes “an enigma can be richer than an explanation.” St. Clair was, during the 1950s and ’60s, a prolific author of science fiction and fantasy whose work is neglected today. The editor deserves credit for unearthing this genuinely creepy story from the moldering issue of Weird Tales where it has been immured for decades. Indeed, Campbell has done much to rehabilitate interest in this author’s work, having edited a retrospective volume for Dover Press, The Hole in the Moon and Other Tales by Margaret St. Clair (though this title has unfortunately been delayed by copyright issues).

Campbell’s own contribution to The Folio Book of Horror Stories is the sublimely grotesque “Again” (1981), a tale of claustrophobic entrapment so intense you actually feel vaguely frantic while reading it. While several of the stories in the book derive their frissons from repressed sexuality, there is nothing repressed about Campbell’s story: it is shockingly explicit in its grim evocation of an erotic slavery that survives death itself. I found myself stifling gasps at its baleful twists and turns. Surprisingly, the story was not included in Campbell’s 1987 volume Scared Stiff: Tales of Sex and Death, where it would have been right at home.

The final story in the volume, Nevill’s “Hippocampus,” is something of a revelation. Campbell calls it, in his introduction, “bracingly experimental,” and it is most certainly that: a calmly narrated exploration of an unmanned freighter adrift in mountainous seas, it slowly unveils — without ever fully explaining — the grisly bloodbath that claimed the ship’s crew. “The pale flesh of the rotund torso is whipped and occasionally drenched by sea spray, but still bears the ruddy impressions of bestial deeds that were both boisterous and thorough.” There are Lovecraftian hints of occult entities unearthed and unleashed, but these are mere background to a boldly cinematic and meticulously detailed tour of a floating abattoir. The effect is, by turns, bewildering and disgusting, and altogether brilliant. “Who can say what future [the story] adumbrates?” Campbell inquires. If “Hippocampus” is any indication of the present strengths of the genre, its future would appear to be as bright as the past so ably anatomized in The Folio Book of Horror Stories.

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Rob Latham is a LARB senior editor. His most recent book is Science Fiction Criticism: An Anthology of Essential Writings, published by Bloomsbury Press in 2017.

Source: https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/we-are-looking-in-a-mirror-ramsey-campbell-curates-the-history-of-horror/