Alert: The Maps Thread

Was it any good?

 

The epidemiology of the plague is absolutely fascinating. Reading how Poland dodged the plague because their king created a quarantine on their external borders and between cities. And the theory that their love of cats helped too. Or tracing it back to warm winters in Mongolia and/or Siberia in the years preceding it.

 

Utah checks out.

 

I'd also accept "Jamaican Patty," or "Empanada" for #6.

 

Never seen it in Scranton in the time we’ve been here (since 2012).

 

That's right, pork roll prats. It's a Taylor Ham egg & cheese AKA THEC

 

If PA could just get rid of the City of Brotherly Needlesharing, the ham bbq would take it.

 

They got Virginia half right. Country ham is correct, but it's served on a biscuit, without any of the lettuce and tomato pictured.

 

I'm glad there are people for whom that concoction is pleasant.

 

Probably more than any dish, it is the one tied to countless idyllic memories of family and holidays. Even if my family gathers outside of Western PA, someone will come with the proper ingredients. For me, because I didn't grow up there and only had it on those special occasions, the aroma and taste instantly conjures those collective memories unencumbered by anything else.

 

I get ya, I just dont get it. But those memories are special... your family does meatballs and jelly too, right?

Hoagies for me conjure memories of packing up lunch for bike rides on the rail trails here, especially Ohiopyle State Park*. Every year we got farther as the kids got older.

Non-PA folk, if you ever get this way that park is worth the trip.

 

It's my partner's family that does the meatballs and jelly. That only conjures bile. I'm excited that I get to introduce my son to Kennywood this summer.

 

If you have any room in your heart/schedule for baseball, PNC Park is a gem. The Pirates, not so much, but the park is awesome. Views of dahntahn and bridges.

 

... or if you were cool enough for the people in the record store to let you in on what they were listening to. Which I never was.

The influence of Spotify (or streaming more broadly) on music is complex, imo. On the one hand, it's great to be able to listen to whatever song you want, whenever you want it, rather than having to wait and hope when listening to the radio. One the other hand, there is something to be said for having to listen to hours of radio just to catch a song you wanted to hear (with your cassette tape cued up on pause so you could record it for your mix tape).

I also think streaming has caused artists to become more singles oriented (as things were before the AOR era of music), and it seems to me that albums that flow from one side to the other have largely gone away.

Also, this technology (i.e. ProTools) has done wonders for production but led to a lot of musicians not having the live chops they might have a few decades ago.

 

People writing songs that voices never shared and no one cared....

 

If you haven't read up on how the lack of an epidemic helped win the Revolutionary War, here you go and have fun!

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC6654165/

More proof that vaccination is the answer. Even the revered George thought so.

 

This wins the thread.

Although, without applying any statistic whatsoever, I'd argue that New Mexico and Arizona should be in yellow, not green. Also, how are South Carolina and Oklahoma not in red?

 

I think you're talking about the Peloponnesian War and the great Athens Plague.

https://www.ebsco.com/research-starters/history/plague-athens

https://warontherocks.com/2020/03/the-plague-and-the-peloponnesian-war/

 

Great piece, thanks for sharing.

Ironically, once General Washington made the decision for mass inoculation, he encountered little actual resistance among the troops. However, throughout military history some service members have objected to compulsory vaccination on medical, religious, and personal grounds. In United States v Chadwell, a military court ruled against 2 Marine Corps members who refused vaccination for smallpox, typhoid, paratyphoid, and influenza, citing religious grounds. The court opined that the military orders that ensure the health and safety of the armed forces and thereby that of the public override personal religious beliefs.7

The paradox of liberty—the liberty first won in the Revolutionary War—is that in a pluralistic representative democracy like ours to secure the freedom for all, some, such as the military, must relinquish the very choice to refuse. Their sacrifices grant liberty to others. On June 6, we commemorated the seventy-fifth anniversary of D-Day, remembering how great the cost of that eternal vigilance, which the patriot Thomas Paine said was the price of liberty. On Memorial Day, we remember all those men and women who died in the service of their country. And while they gave up the most precious gift, we must never forget that every person in uniform also surrenders many other significant personal freedoms so that their fellow civilians may exercise them.

Great descriptions here of why it is that in a polity of any size and sophistication, all individuals MUST cede some of their individual liberty (all political, some [esp. military] also physical). The perception of whether this cession is a bargain or a rip-off is a yuge dividing line, and perversely those most strident in praise of the cession of physical liberty tend to be those least in favor of ceding political liberty.

 

Youse Yinzers talking scrapple?

Scrapple is typically made of hog offal, such as the head, heart, liver, and other trimmings, which are boiled with any bones attached (often the entire head), to make a broth.