Their Last Full Measure of Devotion

  In 1863,President Abraham Lincoln commemorated the sacrifice of our fallen soldiers at Gettysburg, when he declared his purpose--our purpose--in honoring them:

It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us—that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion—that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain—that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom—and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.

Many years later, in my 2011 novel, Smoke, we find a character, a young American whose father had never returned from World War I. In the story, in 1937, Philip Morrow is en route to the gravesite. Shortly before  arriving at the battlefield,   Philip poses a question to his companion, Mel Leblanc, because . . .

 . . . something was moving deeply inside of him. “Mel?”

“Yes?”

       “How could this place have been a battlefield for a world war?”

The old Frenchman cast his eyes on the passing landscape, and seemed to join Philip in this musing. He answered slowly, “War is a terrible thing, an ugly thing. I did not fight in the war; I had already served my military duty, long before the Archduke was assassinated in Sarajevo and the whole damn world flew apart, like shrapnel. But I had many friends who fought here, and back there, where we just came from in my France, back there at the Somme, the Marne, Amiens. Our soldiers drove the Germans back across their fortified lines, the Hindenberg line they called it. By summer of 1918 the Germans were in full retreat, although it took them a hell of a long time, and rivers of spilt blood, to admit it. And so it all ended here. Those trenches, over there in France, that had been held and occupied for two hellish years by both armies, those muddy hellholes were finally left behind, vacated, and afterward . . . filled up again with the soil of France and Flanders and Belgium, and green grass was planted where warfare had formerly blasted its way out of the dark human soul and the dark humus of lowland dirt and now we see that grass, trimmed, manicured and growing so tidily around those rows of white crosses out there, most of them with some soldier’s name carved on them, many just unknown, anonymous, and how could this have happened? You might as well ask how could. . . a grain of sand get stuck in an oyster? And how could that oyster, in retaliation against that rough, alien irritant, then generate a pearl—such a beautiful thing, lustrous and white—coming forth in response to a small, alien presence that had taken up unwelcomed residence inside the creature’s own domain? The answer, my friend, is floating in the sea, blowing in the wind, growing green and strong from soil that once ran red with men’s blood.”

Half a century later, soldiers of our nation served in Vietnam on behalf of an expanding "new birth of freedom" about which Lincoln had earlier spoke. In Washington today, you will find their memorial:

And there have many other men and women who, since those times, have fallen while defending "government of the people, by the people, and for the people" . . . including those police who were killed while defending our US Capitol against an attempted coup  on January 6 of this year.

King of Soul

Common Sense about Covid

As the dust of the Covid19 media storm settles, we find credible scientific evidence that the virus was more likely a result of some laboratory mishap than a natural occurrence of transmission between us and some animal species. 

Public panic and media overreaction subsides to a dull roar and we can remember the firestorm that ensued, following two opposing media/social media explanations for the pandemic and what should be done to stop it.

The great Covid disagreement of 2020 centered around two strategies for fighting the spread of the disease. 

One strategy was the Mask and Distance strategy, generally favored by citizens who are left of center.

The other strategy was the Herd Immunity strategy, generally favored by citizens who are right of center. 

The Mask and Distance crowd placed significant—if not absolute—faith in whatever strategies were promulgated by scientific  authorities such as the World Health Organization and Centers for Disease Control.

Proponents of the Herd Immunity strategy were generally mistrustful of scientific or political efforts to restrain public liberty that would limit or prevent public meetings and/or commerce.

Associated with these two fundamental strategies were two opposing theories about whether the escaped Covid was a result  of a lab mistake or a natural transference from bats or some other animal.

Now, in late May, 2021, evidence for the lab origin of Covid is mounting. As the more scientific data is brought forth and analyzed, several questions arise to complicate our public discourse about the disease.

Unfortunately, the great divide between Left and Right was a significant factor in each person’s, or social group’s assessment of the information and disinformation that was being brought forth at the time. 

Dr. Anthony Fauci was one of the main proponents of the Mask and Distance strategy. There was good reason for his position on those issues and his advocacy of public health controls.

Dr. Fauci had a job to do, and he did it. His job was to do everything he could to stop the spread of the disease. sc

His job was not to explain the origin of the escape of a mutant virus because that volatile information would have clouded the issue so heavily with he did/ she did and he said/ she said blather that Dr. Fauci’s capacity to do his job effectively would have been covered in a tsunami of public argumentation.

It is obvious to us all that there was indeed a flood of political and social media blahblah that acted as a cloud to obstruct public agreement about what the hell to do about Covid19.

In the midst the Covid tsunami, the former president displayed an attitude of ridicule toward the scientists and the citizens who believed them. The result was a widespread confusion that contributed to the spread of the disease and intensified our public disagreements to the point of ridiculousness.

Had our former president taken his executive duty seriously, instead of manipulating information for the purpose of intensifying his own control of political events, he might have contributed to our great 2020 battle against Covid. 

But the 2020 loser ridiculed appropriate efforts to curb the spread of the pandemic. Referring to Covid as the “Chinese” virus was an attempt to manipulate public information, twisting it into crude, unproven-at-the-time, propaganda to advance his agenda of political control and re-election.

But his obfuscation strategy backfired on him and he lost. As if that wasn’t enough offense against the peace and safety of this nation, he persisted in his unproven accusations even to the point of inciting a riot at our nation’s Capitol.

Now, after the dust has settled, public evidence of the Covid’s escape from a US-funded laboratory at the Wuhan Institute of Virology can be reasonably evaluated; it may prove useful in future control of risky scientific research to understand and prevent future epidemics.

Politics and propaganda aside, we may be able to figure out a few effective strategies for preventing future pandemics on this internetted planet.

 

Glass Chimera 

Points of Viral Information

 Many thanks to Nicholas Wade for his informative article, 

  https://thebulletin.org/2021/05/the-origin-of-covid-did-people-or-nature-open-pandoras-box-at-wuhan/, which provides a multitude of covid origin facts.

Here are some Points of Interest for contemplating or initiating an informed, responsible public discussion:

~ When scientists in various parts of the world had understood the possibility of using gain of function research to anticipate—and thereby prevent—pandemic spread of a killer disease, they began their gain of function gene-snipping experiments.

~ Scientists understood that generating a novel coronavirus capable of attacking humans would enable them to use the virus’ spike protein as the basis for a vaccine. This was their rationale for tolerating risky micro-procedures for the sake of preventing disease. 

~ Homo Sapiens are full of good intentions.

~ People are also known for being unable to anticipate in advance just what could, or would, go wrong in the best laid plans of humanized mice and mice-splicing men.

~ The extreme discomfort of space-suit lab clothes and working in ultra-safe, closed laboratory conditions discouraged scientists. In an effort to simplify their scientific procedures, they relaxed lab safety standards from BSL4 conditions to a less restrictive, but more hazardous, BSL3 level. In some cases, standards of cautionary control were  lowered even further, for convenience, to BSL2 levels.

~ Snipping certain genes from humans and then injecting them into lab mice produces a chimera creature, which is then adapted more suitably for  experiments that would be effective in humans for preventing viral infections. Such chimeric mice are loosely referred to as “humanized” mice. The special mice are then used in research, including gain-of-function research.

~ This field of scientific endeavor is generally known as “genetic engineering.”

~  In the WIV laboratory, the “humanized” mice research yielded an unusual enhancement to the new SARS-related beta-coronavirus: a furin cleavage site, including a double arginine codon unknown among earlier beta-coronaviruses.

~ NIH/Eco/NIAID/WIV researchers were able to reprogram the SARS virus’ spike protein through that furin cleavage site mentioned above.  Thus they were able to generate chimeric coronaviruses capable of infecting humanized mice.

~ These experimental procedures they did in spite of a 3-year US ban(2014-2017) on gain-of-function research that could/would increase the pathogenicity of the flu, MERS or SARS viruses.

~ The first three years of EcoHealth-funded research (2014-2017) were conducted overseas at WIV in spite of a US moratorium on gain-of-function research.

~ There are indications that several researchers at the WIV lab became sick in autumn 2019, having symptoms consistent with both covid19 and common seasonal illnesses.

~ The SARS2 virus, a single-strand RNA virus that had erupted in 2002, was an object of gain-of-function research in WIV laboratories, funded largely by (US) NIH/NIAID through EcoHealth Alliance.

~ Why a natural epidemic would break out in the WIV location is a question that, to date, has not been accurately explained.

~ Nevertheless, the Covid19 pandemic just happened to break out in the vicinity where WIV genetic engineering experiments were being conducted.

~ How the SARS virus acquired a furin cleavage site, using human-preferred codons, is a question that, to date, has not been accurately explained.

~ But there was an experimental site nearby, at the ground-zero of covid19.

~ The chief overseas WIV virologist had been trained by French and American virologists; she was following international rules for the containment of coronaviruses.

~ Bottom line: a little knowledge is a dangerous thing. That ancient Tree of Knowledge bears, in these high-tech times, some dangerous fruit, including the explosive mushroom that we unleashed at Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945. 

Now we have been advised to be on guard whenever venturing out into the garden of earthly delight. Perilous times require masking, distancing, and a certain tolerance of public pandemic paranoia (ppp), which we strive to neutralize with ppe.

I suppose that is why someone named this contemporary arrangement the Brave New World. You’re taking a chance just to go out in it. 

Good luck with that.

Glass Chimera

Sun to Sand

 Solar sun spitteth igneous earth

Igneous earth speweth lava lake

Lava lake maketh magma mound

Magma mound mounteth metamorphic mountain

Metamorphic mountain spilleth sedimentary stone

Sedimentary stone sheddeth shifting sand

Shifting sand groweth green

Growing green seeketh solar sunshine.

Selah.

Smoke

Ancient Story at Tahoe

 Yesterday we were adventuring at Lake Tahoe, California. 

On this crystal clear spring day, we hiked up the mountain above Emerald Bay. Departing on foot from the road we ascended up to Eagle Lake.

When we arrived at the lake, I was reminded of John Denver’s mentioning the “serenity of a clear blue mountain lake. 

While we were traipsing up that trail, the mountain told me a story.The story was a silent, evidentiary account of how new, rough mountains, such as the Sierras, gradually deteriorate into old, smooth mountains like our Appalachians back home in North Carolina.

In the center of this picture, notice at the water’s edge the pile of rock rubble. The pile widens from its top to bottom, to form a rough triangular shape.

The rubble comes from mountains being broken into bib rocks that tumble down and break into smaller rocks.

The forces of nature—volcanic activity, earthquakes, freezing rain, snow—dislodge those big mountain chunks from on high and cast them down into lower regions where they become rubble.

As geologic time creeps slowly onward, the rubble gets broken further down, as rocks get dislodged and tumble down to some lower stopping point. Big chunks become smaller as the forces of nature weaken their integrity.

Boulders tumble down and split into rocks, accompanied by the sonic rumble of ancient rock musicians such as Led Zep and Jeff Airplane doin their thing. 

Further down in that great ancient concert of change, rotting trees . . .

 and other organic stuff—dead animals, poop, trillions of leaves, mosses, lichens tossed around by raging waters and furious storms, before you know it . . .

Ages and ages down the river of time we find gravel and dirt, and plants growing in the dirt, and homo sapiens eating the plants after using sharpened stones from the mountain to cut up his food.

Someday these Sierras will lose their rough character; then they will appear to the distant human eye as gentle lumps of Appalachian-style, tamed, mellowed out mountains like we have back home in the Blue Ridge.

And we all live happily ever after.

Glass half-Full