UPDATED (5/26): March Of Mephisto By Kamelot (Music Is Male)

Art, Culture, Gender, Human Accomplishment, Music

It’s so obvious. Music is male. It was male when Johann Sebastian Bach was making it. And it was male until real men fell from favor and were replaced with prancing androgyny.
For the few progressive rockers remaining (check), here’s “March Of Mephisto” by Kamelot, which MUST be cranked-up:

RELATED: “Best Headbanger Ever: Simone Simons Sings ‘The Haunting’ By Kamelot”

UPDATE (5/26):
She forgot about #MeToo and #Masks and reacted like men and women once used to react to one another: naturally. Adorable.

Best Headbanger Ever: Simone Simons Sings ‘The Haunting’ By Kamelot

Culture, Europe, Human Accomplishment, Music

Any prog rockers in the house? Two? Better than none. Good progressive rock is as popular as H. L. Mencken these days.

No wonder Kamelot did not keep the marvelous, classically trained mezzo-soprano Simone Simons. Too much competition (and jealous wives). Best headbanger ever. Superb singer, too.

The Haunting,” a song on Kamelot’s “The Black Halo” CD, sports a strong melody and fine arrangements, to say nothing of solid playing and stunning vocals from the backup singer, Ms. Simons mentioned. Then again, the instrumentals make it clear these lads listen to symphonies—from Mozart to Mahler.

Not that lyrics matter much, but for inspiration, the band draws on imagery evoked by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe’s Faust. How tellingly Western.

Heroic, epic, grand themes serve as a contrast to the self—and inner-injury—obsessed themes that animate today’s musical illiterati.

“The Haunting”
Merely the sound of your voice
Made me believe that, that you were her
Just like the river disturbs
My inner peace
Once I believed I could find
Just a trace of her beloved soul
Once I believed she was all
Then she smothered my believes
One cold winter’s night
I may follow her voice to the river
Somewhere in time I will find you and haunt you again
Like the wind sweeps the earth
Somewhere in time when no virtues are left to defend
You’ve fallen deep
How could that first time recur
When memories linger on and on
What made me think you were her
Helena is dead to all
Dead to all
Nothing can bring her to life
Don’t pretend that I’ll be loving you
Once I believed she was gone
I corrupted from within
Leave me for now and forever
Leave what you can
Somewhere in time I will find you and haunt you again
Like the wind sweeps the earth
Somewhere in time when no virtues are left to defend
You’ve fallen deep
I was a liar in every debate
I rule the forces that fueled your hate
When the cold in my heart leaves, it comes to an end
Quietly now go to sleep
Follow me into the light
Like ice on a lake of tears
I’ll take you through
Or leave me tonight
I’ve gone too far to begin all anew
With someone like you
Somewhere in time I will find you and love you again
Like the wind sweeps the earth
Somewhere in time when no virtues are left to defend
You’ve fallen deep
I was a liar in every debate
I rule the forces that fueled you hate
When the cold in my heart leaves, it comes to and end
Quietly I’ll go to sleep

RELATED: “March Of Mephisto By Kamelot.”

How Far Are We From Herd Immunity To COVID? Very Far.

Argument, COVID-19, Healthcare, Logic

There seems to be a simple—as in elegant—way of getting some perspective on COVID-19 and herd immunity, which is defined as,

A situation in which a sufficient proportion of a population is immune to an infectious disease (through vaccination and/or prior illness) to make its spread from person to person unlikely. Even individuals not vaccinated (such as newborns and those with chronic illnesses) are offered some protection because the disease has little opportunity to spread within the community. Also known as herd immunity.

According to WorldOMeter, the United States has 1,546,420 Coronavirus Cases.

As has been pointed out here, America’s case count is scandalously inaccurate. By the Economist’s telling,

Throughout April the number of daily tests has averaged around 150,000, with the share of positive tests staying around 20%. That suggests America is testing only people who are probably infected (in Taiwan, for instance, one in every 132 tests is positive), which in turn suggests that many mild or asymptomatic cases are going undetected. America may have 15 to 20 times more actual infected people than confirmed cases.

1.5 million times 20 makes 30 million infected.

At best, approximately 30 million individuals in the US have some immunity to COVID-19.

The 30 million number is predicated on these two assumptions:

1. That the infected number includes the dead and the recovered. This seems reasonable.

2. That the Economist’s multiplier above is correct. That likelihood is good, too.

Thirty million people with immunity is less than 10 percent of the U.S. population. For there to be population-level immunity to COVID, “at least 70 percent of the population needs to be immune.”

We are still very far from achieving herd immunity.

 

UPDATED (12/11/020): Home Is Where You Ship Your Masks To: Chinese Multinationals Ship Supplies To The Mother Ship

Business, China, Economy, Globalism, Nationalism, Nationhood, Trade

Liberals think you can easily compel a production line into existence (by using the Defense Production Act, for example). However, to get a production line going is difficult: it’s expensive and time consuming. You might have the design on paper, but you lack the hardware, the tools, the components, and material.

The Economist (4/11/2020):

… the manufacture of masks .. might look simple, but producers need sterile factories and sophisticated machinery to churn out melt-blown fabric. Upfront costs would be hard to justify if the virus were quickly snuffed out. So in January, the early phase of the outbreak, Chinese firms began by scouring the world for masks rather than by making more of their own. It took government action to change that. Officials offered subsidies to firms producing safety gear: promising not outsized gains but an avoidance of losses. China went from making 20m masks per day before the crisis—half the world’s output—to nearly 120m by the end of February.

The Chinese, unlike the American government, took care of business. True: WuFlu originated in China, in the city of Wuhan, in particular. So the Chinese knew in advance they had a bad one on their hands, well before our buffoons awoke to the reality of corona virus.

But it’s not like the US government ever puts its own first, urgently. The Chinese, however, look after their own. Ostensibly international, Chinese companies operating in Australia—Risland and the Greenland Group, in particular—began vacuuming up tons of medical materials, in the host country and beyond, between January 24 and February 29, in order to send back to the Mother Ship, China.

Via the Daily Mail:

China imported more than two billion masks and 25 million pieces of protective clothing from overseas before the coronavirus outbreak reached pandemic levels, it has been revealed.

On Thursday a Chinese government report emerged detailing its foreign trade for the first two months of the year, when the country was at the peak of its virus crisis.

As COVID-19 infections began to spread across the globe in January and February, China saw a ‘rapid growth in imports of commodities and key consumer goods’.

More than 2.46billion pieces of medical materials, including masks and protective equipment, were inspected by National Customs in China between January 24 and February 29, according to the report. …

It comes days after Chinese organisations operating in Australia were reported to have sent bulk medical supplies to China at the height of the crisis.

Chinese-owned property developer Risland Australia was reported to have flown 80 tonnes of medical supplies on a corporate jet to Wuhan in late February.

Video footage emerged showing boxes of surgical masks stacked up at Perth airport before being sent to Wuhan on February 8 – when there were 15 cases of coronavirus in Australia.

Another Chinese property company, Greenland Group, retasked its employees to purchase face masks, hand sanitisers, antibacterial wipes, thermometers, Panadol and other medical items in bulk for shipment to China.

Greenland bought up three million surgical masks, 500,000 pairs of gloves and bulk supplies of sanitiser and antibacterial wipes in Australia and other countries where the company operates.

The goods were hoarded at Greenland’s Sydney headquarters and were sent to China in January and February.

The upshot? The host country, Australia, suffered severe shortages:

… Video footage emerged showing boxes of surgical masks stacked up at Perth airport before being sent to Wuhan on February 8 – when there were 15 cases of coronavirus in Australia.

Another Chinese property company, Greenland Group, retasked its employees to purchase face masks, hand sanitisers, antibacterial wipes, thermometers, Panadol and other medical items in bulk for shipment to China.

Greenland bought up three million surgical masks, 500,000 pairs of gloves and bulk supplies of sanitiser and antibacterial wipes in Australia and other countries where the company operates.

The goods were hoarded at Greenland’s Sydney headquarters and were sent to China in January and February.

MORE.

*Image courtesy Daily Mail.

UPDATE (12/11/020):

“Wall Street can’t fix Trump”: So says a Chinese analyst, DIDONSHENG, speaking to a crowd of super-patriotic Chinese, laughing at Americans and their traitor representatives. The fix is in, BUT, China’s penetration ran into a wall with Trump.

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