Rain Gryphon

It appears that Israel has blown up the Al Jazeera building. Tragically, all of the journalists seem to have escaped beforehand.

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Not content with the 600k Americans he's already killed, Dr. Tedros tries to add some children to the tally. One ought to admire a man with ambition, I suppose.

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Interesting Canadian research on administering mixed dose of vaccine.

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For some days, there've been reports of bodies, partially-burned and otherwise, being fished from the Ganges. CBC is claiming that the unburned ones are being tossed into the river from rural villages that have run out of firewood. That would not surprise me in the least.

What does this imply, then, for India's future? Humans regenerate their population far faster than trees. Will India end up looking like Haiti? I'd hate to see that, as I actually like India and the Indians, despite their rather odd ideas about so many things. They actually try to carry their own weight, and contribute to the world at large, which is vanishingly rare for a Third World nation. I think it's far and away the most likely outcome, though.

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More fretting about vaccine passports, and how they might "discriminate", or create a "two-tiered society". The PURPOSE of a passport, ANY passport, is to discriminate. That's by design. It divides the world into those who can be safely allowed to travel, and those who cannot. This is no different. I kind of wonder why a separate document is proposed, even, instead of just a stamp or certification in your existing document?

While I support vaccine passports for international travel, they shouldn't be used within the US. Biden, in one of his rare moments of resolve and lucidity, got right to the heart of the matter: "Americans don't show their papers". My virtual hat is off to him. One of the standard horrible, tension-filled moments in WWII and Cold war movies is when the police ask with cold politeness to see someone's papers.

A parade to move the Pharaohs to the new Egyptian Museum. The current Egyptian Museum, despite being terribly romantic and atmospheric^1, was apparently getting rather old and crumbly. So, they built a new one, and moved the Pharaohs' corpses in a grand parade.

The parade was done in proper style, and was actually quite touching. The cars that moved them were done up like stylized funerary barges, and a serious attempt was made to do honour to them in a way that they themselves would have understood, with functionaries in classical costume, and soldiers with chariots, wearing ancient armour and carrying swords. There were huge statues of winged Rams guarding the route, their personal effects were borne along by hand in fancy boxes, and actual (I think) Khemetic priests to speak the sacred prayers and recite the magic spells needful for their repose. I am quite favourably impressed.

^1 There is just something so compelling about 1920s museums, with their high ceilings, wooden cases, and dim lighting. Modern ones are probaby more educational, at least by modern concepts of the idea, but oh! Going into the old Field Museum, and seeing these long, dim, echoing halls, filled with black walnut and glass cases containing the accumulated debris of the ages. That was an experience. You don't get that sense of awe with modern museums.

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It's dawned on the AU that India's newfound resolve to get their own population vaccinated first isn't the best development from the AU's perspective. Sadly, things have reached the point where someone is going to have to die for lack of vaccine. There simply isn't enough. If it comes down to a mass-casualty event for India, or one for sub-Saharan Africa, I know who I'd choose. I suspect that the Indians see it the same way. This will be interesting.

I recall part of a dream from last night, in which I was a long-legged bird of prey, similar to a Secretary Bird. It was during the Sepoy Mutiny (I've a friend going to India on business soon, so that's not as random as it sounds), and I was the friend or pet of a British officer. I made a night flight (very vivid - flying in the dark is scary, plus I was afraid someone would shoot me ^1) and deposited a small incendiary time bomb through a brick-work ventilation screen in a rebel powder store. Sadly, I don't recall the actual explosion, but I was left when I awoke with the conviction that I had fucked those people up bigly.



^1 Now that I reflect on it, it was almost as though the dream forked at points, and I was aware of other outcomes where I did get shot.