Matt Miazga playing for Alaves

Discussion in 'Yanks Abroad' started by Gorky, Jan 25, 2015.

  1. DHC1

    DHC1 Member+

    Jun 3, 2002
    NYC
    do you also believe that vaccines should be optional?
     
  2. freisland

    freisland Member+

    Jan 31, 2001
    My D (a HS senior who is currently on "spring break" in her bedroom for 2 weeks) and her friends have been doing on-line sewing circles where she is teaching her friends to sew masks. (She drove a needle through her middle finger two days ago. My wife said - you better pull that out babe, cause you ain't going to no hospital... Dutch stoics, sheesh. My kid turned white, took the pliers from me and pulled it through herself.) They are making masks from 2 layers of tight weave cotton with an inner layer of tissue paper (or old take-out napkins from the picnic box). Dunno if anyone will need them, but makes the kids feel useful at least.

    Meanwhile, Martinus Harmsma and the 18 various folks (resistance, RAF pilots, Jewish kid, displaced folk) he was hiding at his and the next door neighbor's farm near the end of the war - Netherlands was liberated in 2 "waves" essentially - separated by the "hunger winter." It was quite challenging, Opa told us, to think that relief was coming, but be stuck, with the remaining Germans taking everything not bolted down. Many urban area of Holland, especially, literally starved - like famine level in parts of Amsterdam. Opa was fortunate to be hidden on a farm in Friesland, which was never fully "controlled" by the Germans at the level South Holland and other southern and eastern provinces were.

    Martinus (bottom right), Mrs. Harmsma, family, friends and a few of the "guests" they "hosted" at liberation.

    upload_2020-3-21_8-22-13.png
     
  3. freisland

    freisland Member+

    Jan 31, 2001
    I'm pretty aware of the Dutch response to the German invasion. And your characterization is incorrect.

    Rather than go into a long history lesson, I'd encourage folks to look up the Februaristaking, (and, ironically perhaps, the action of the outlawed Dutch Communist Party). I'd also suggest looking into Seyffardt/Reydon assassination...

    One statistic that has always stuck with me regarding the Dutch in WWII. 80% of the Jews who voluntarily registered with the Germans were murdered. 80% of those who went underground survived.

    So those who threw themselves on the mercy of their community had a very effective survival rate... Because community matters.
     
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  4. The Irish Rover

    The Irish Rover Member+

    Aug 1, 2010
    Dublin
    Club:
    Manchester United FC
    Nat'l Team:
    Ireland Republic
    In the end, yes, they do accept that mandatory vaccination curtails one's freedom. The question is whether some of them believe that it is justifiable, on the grounds that I have a right to endanger my own health but I have no right to endanger anyone else's and an infectious disease creates a situation where I can't even assess the morality of my actions, simply because I don't know whether I'm dangerous or not.

    The more intellectually significant accept that this dilemma makes compulsory vaccination a legitimate curtailment of our freedom. I remember a TV debate where Milton Freidman opposed mandatory wearing of seat belts but was fine with mandating bumpers before that car gets on public roads: the first is an illegitimate removal of our moral autonomy; the latter is a legitimate precautionary prevention of the possibility of harming others, which is preferable to punishing us after the fact.

    In this scenario, mandated vaccination against an epidemic or pandemic is similar to compulsory car insurance: not something you want to encourage, but there is no better option.

    That's the intellectuals. The rest aren't thinkers, so don't expect any analysis from them, or facing facts, and forget about confronting conflicting moral principles. It's all instinct, appetite and the "don't read on me" aspects of the Id.
     
  5. Winoman

    Winoman Drinkin' Wine Spo-De-O-De!

    Jul 26, 2000
    Club:
    DC United
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
  6. Eighteen Alpha

    Eighteen Alpha Member+

    Aug 17, 2016
    Club:
    Stoke City FC
    I’m even less of a scientist. But my gut tells me that the enormous numbers of Chinese living in Northern Italy, particularly in the Lombardy region where fashion and textile is centered, must have influenced the rate of contagion.
     
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  7. The Irish Rover

    The Irish Rover Member+

    Aug 1, 2010
    Dublin
    Club:
    Manchester United FC
    Nat'l Team:
    Ireland Republic
    #6907 The Irish Rover, Mar 21, 2020
    Last edited: Mar 21, 2020

    FYP

    The Italian government has very good reason to have hushed things up for fear of offending the Chinese government (they got really pissed off by the Italians simply stopping direct flights back before Xi realized that denial wasn't domestically viable any more). Italy was broke, and needed Chinese investment to keep the show on the road. After this, they'll be eve more broke and will need the investment even more. Don't expect too many awkward questions from there about how simple candor from China at the start would have saved so many lives.
     
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  8. Eighteen Alpha

    Eighteen Alpha Member+

    Aug 17, 2016
    Club:
    Stoke City FC
    And here I was just talking out my fourth point of contact based on personal observation. I remember the view times I visited Milan, every designer’s window display was invariably surrounded by Chinese taking pictures of the newest releases.
     
  9. y-lee-coyote

    y-lee-coyote Member+

    Dec 4, 2012
    Club:
    --other--
    I think

    @The Irish Rover gave my position well.

    I would add about seat belts is they lower the cost of everybody's "compulsory" insurance, and that is why those laws were able to be passed in the first place.

    @freisland I don't mind the history lesson. I find there is much to be learned about our nature when we study the genocides in the twentieth century alone.

    Clearly this event is changing life as we know it, spring breakers or not. So anybody got any guesses how long this goes on? How long until we start running out of staples or basic necessities? How long can civil order be maintained under lock down conditions? What does life after this look like?
     
  10. The Irish Rover

    The Irish Rover Member+

    Aug 1, 2010
    Dublin
    Club:
    Manchester United FC
    Nat'l Team:
    Ireland Republic
    Glad I could do so. I'm on the right, but libertarianism leaves me cold, in the same way that marxism leaves my centre-left friend cold. It can be a useful starting point for analysis and/or critique, but that's about as far as it goes.

    The British army general staff reckon that they'll need to reach full operational readiness for civil defence by mid-April in anticipation of a peak running from late May to mid-June before it dies away in September. "Dies away" is the optimistic scenario. The pessimistic scenario is that, instead of it dying away, it only "dies down" but continues at a low level before roaring back around November after incubating in the general population and/or Africa, South Asia and Latin America during our summer, which is their winter.

    [​IMG]
     
  11. The Irish Rover

    The Irish Rover Member+

    Aug 1, 2010
    Dublin
    Club:
    Manchester United FC
    Nat'l Team:
    Ireland Republic
    As I said, dying down is optimistic. What's keeping planners up at night is this beauty.


    [​IMG]

    Further comment on my part is unnecessary.
     
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  12. freisland

    freisland Member+

    Jan 31, 2001
    As for short history - the Dutch in Amsterdam held a general strike (organized in large part by the Dutch commies, "started" by tram drivers that eventually included 300k people) in response to the rounding up of Jews and other German actions, in Feb 1941, this was followed by a student strike in Nov and another strike in 1943 (among smaller actions). The disproportionate response by the Germans (killing a number of Communist organizers) had the desired effect though - for the most part direct, active rebellion was stopped.

    A Dutch communist cell did manage to kill two "Dutch Vichy" officials, but again, the severe German response (and the destruction of the cell, in part by suicide of one of its members to avoid giving up the others) made folks reluctant to undertake too many of those actions. But the Dutch had a number of "resistance" or "underground" orgs, most of which were about helping Jews and other refugees (many non-Jewish Dutch men were sent to factories in Germany as forced labor - my wife had an "uncle" - close cousin of her father's - whose mom was Protestant, Dad was Jewish, so he was able to survive by going to work in Germany as a Dutch worker rather than Westerbork and beyond as a Jew. (One of the issues for the Dutch Jews is the Netherlands was the first country in Europe with consistent land rights for Jews, and the Dutch had a tri-partate education system: Catholic schools (lots of Catholics left from the Spanish years), Protestant schools (Netherlands was a hotbed of Protestants as well) and even Jewish schools. So they were very comfortable indicating religion on official census and other docs (Ironically, many non-Portuguese Jews in Netherlands had taken "Dutch" surnames over the years so they were less easily identified by surnames and were less likely to live in "quarters." Leeuwarden, where my father-in-law was from, had a tiny Jewish population, the Shull and a few apartments occupied one or two streets, but the Jewish population had lived there a few generations, was generally interspersed and almost all had "Dutch" surnames.)

    What I think you see from studying the Dutch in WWII is active, overt resistance can be relatively easily squashed by superior military strength and willingness to murder in disproportionate numbers. But most folks, while perhaps not willing to die/go to jail by resisting will "passively resist" or "not actively enable" criminal governments/overlords. Community (Nietzssche's rabble) is where morality is most likely to lie.
     
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  13. Suyuntuy

    Suyuntuy Member+

    Jul 16, 2007
    Vancouver, Canada
    Demographics has been a factor, compared to China. All other variables (smoking, children living with or close to parents, etc.) are similar. Even when adjusted for the older population, the Italians strains have killed more: their death-to-case ratio is an astounding 9%.
     
  14. LouisianaViking07/09

    Aug 15, 2009
    what's the discussion about Dutchies in ww2?
     
  15. Suyuntuy

    Suyuntuy Member+

    Jul 16, 2007
    Vancouver, Canada
    Keep in mind the second wave coincided with the soldiers returning home from the battlefronts. The war ended in November 2018, soldiers were going back home since October. It coincided with the fall, it was a worst-case scenario.
     
  16. Suyuntuy

    Suyuntuy Member+

    Jul 16, 2007
    Vancouver, Canada
  17. Sufjan Guzan

    Sufjan Guzan Member+

    Feb 13, 2016
    People who don't understand the burgeoning Chinese Empire (again historians call any dominant political entity an Empire regardless of type of govt) should really look into the colonization of China (read the Rape of China). This is a proud society with thousands of history that was exploited by the West and then literally desecrated by the Japanese.

    They are playing for keeps. And objectively if you take out coming from the Western world: Who can really blame them?

    They've already begun replacing themselves as cheap manufactures for the world with their investments in Africa and they will probably learn from our mistakes. Coronavirus fall out economically is going to tell us a lot about what the world looks like forty years from now.
     
  18. freisland

    freisland Member+

    Jan 31, 2001
    Of course you aren't being irresponsible.

    For my part the people I'm talking about are the nihilists: "my actions probably won't affect me, and sure 50% of people are asymptomatic and maybe I'll give it accidentally to a nursing home worker or ET driver or grocery clerk, but 96% of people survive, even more if you're young, so I'm just gonna Yolo."

    We can't/don't want to live every day in lock down. We all take calculated risks in living, but there are certain moments where it's clear the risks are much more difficult to analyze and it make sense, for the greater well-being of the community, to be conservative.

    For me, this started with the numerical analysis "It's just X% of the population, old people, 'underlying condition' whatever..." well before anyone really knew what this thing was going to look like. If we'd all gone into lockdown (myself included) earlier, could we have saved lives and economic dislocation (which will also cost lives.) I dunno, but this seems like one of those times erring on the side of over-reaction would have been a good idea.
     
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  19. freisland

    freisland Member+

    Jan 31, 2001
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  20. freisland

    freisland Member+

    Jan 31, 2001
    As far as "how long this goes on" - we'll see. From reading a few scientists that seem to know something, they tend to believe it could follow other viruses and go into a some sort of summer lull - although it could fail to do so as well it seems.

    It appears, in general terms, to create immunity in those infected. Since it can be asymptomatic in as much as 50% (if not more) of the population, a lot of folks could already be immune, but we'll need a test for that (we don't have one yet.) Once we have a test to see if you've been exposed, then basically anyone who has been can go about their lives, get on the front lives of health care, policing, government, business, go back to work, on spring break, etc. (just keep washing those hands, which would be the one way they could still spread it - by physically carrying the virus on skin or clothes, which appears to be possible but much more difficult to very unlikely.)

    Then the million dollar question is does it stay flattened out in the fall, or does it "Spanish Flu" and come back more virulent? Given that we are somewhat prepared at that point, and hopefully have figured out what interventions are most effective in treating (as we won't yet have a vaccine it seems) there's some hope among some experts I read that even if it returns more virulent, we'll be better able to mitigate. I have no idea about any of this.

    If it "peters out," by this time next year we will all have forgotten and will be booking our trip to the 2021 Tokyo Olympics.
     
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  21. y-lee-coyote

    y-lee-coyote Member+

    Dec 4, 2012
    Club:
    --other--
    I want to say I have really enjoyed this internet discourse, remarkably, it has remained cordial and not devolved into polarity. It seem we have a mutual understanding of each sides position and places of agreement. The world really is coming to an end when a man can find reasonable discourse about strongly held positions on the internet of all places.
     
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  22. Sufjan Guzan

    Sufjan Guzan Member+

    Feb 13, 2016
    Have read reports though that because the R naught (number of people an average person passes the disease to) is so much higher than seasonal flu, that even with a lower R naught due to weather change it would be around the same R naught as seasonal flu has during cold weather. Presumably once humanity starts to build up antibodies to coronaviruses we will see a lower R naught both in and "out" of whatever coronavirus season ends up being.
     
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  23. lmorin

    lmorin Member+

    Mar 29, 2000
    New Hampshire
    Club:
    --other--
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    Read an article this PM indicating that the FDA has just approved a 45 min test that can be used immediately. Also, apparently a 15 min test has been submitted for approval. The process normally takes 6-7 wks, but in this case, it might be immediate or close to it because it supposedly is the same procedure used for several months now by the Chinese having been developed in China. The info about the first test mentioned is in most news sources, I believe.
     
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  24. ebbro

    ebbro Member+

    Jun 10, 2005
    The 15 min test (if it's the one I'm thinking of) is a blood test and has been used in China, South Korea, and Italy, and is made by a company in North Carolina. Their facility isn't currently approved by the FDA, but they've been trying to get approval for weeks now.
     
  25. freisland

    freisland Member+

    Jan 31, 2001
    I think this is for an "active infection" test, not a "has been exposed" blood test. It's more important to have abundant active infection tests cause that will let Drs know who to quarantine, treat, how to treat etc.

    But eventually we will need/want a "has been exposed" blood test for folks who aren't ever symptomatic enough to get an active infection test. (Like a measles exposure test) That will let people know if they are (theoretically) immune through exposure and therefore can go back to normal stuff. I don't know how far we are from that test. It's less of a priority and I haven't seen much on it.
     

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