The RAIL

λ | Poetry | Prose

Acknowledgements

“Read anything interesting lately?”
– An old friend.

2024

2024 is underway, gems will surface.

2023

Some gems from 2023;

2022

Some gems from 2022;

2021

Some gems from 2021;

  • Glenn Greenwald: The Cynical and Dangerous Weaponization of the “White Supremacist” Label (greenwald.substack.com)
  • Paul D. Thacker: Covid-19: Researcher blows the whistle on data integrity issues in Pfizer’s vaccine trial (bmj.com)
  • Laurence Flynn: Decoding the Narrative (renegademind.substack.com)
  • Iain Davis: What is the Global Public-Private Partnership? (in-this-together.com)
  • OpenVAERS (openvaers.com)
  • Canadian Covid Care Alliance (canadiancovidcarealliance.org)

  • An anonymous quote from the internet;

    Panama gets it right:

    If you show up at a hospital in Panama with Sars-cov2 symptoms, but not severe enough to be admitted, this is what they give you:

    https://www.metrolibre.com/nacionales/192062-las-medicinas-que-componen-kit-de-covid.html

    It’s a complete package with all the medicines you need with instructions on how to use them so you can treat yourself or a family member at home.

    here’s the translation for those who don’t speak Spanish:

    More than 67,800 Protect yourself Panama Kit have been delivered to people positive for COVID-19 through the Unified Traceability Teams in the 15 regions of the country, confirmed the Ministry of Health to Metro Libre. According to the coordinator of the Protect yourself Panama Kit, Elvia Lau there is only one kit, which contains “an oximeter, alcoholic gel, masks and medications: acetaminophen, antihistamine, ivermectin, enterogermina, vitamin C, multivitamins, hydroxychloroquine, zinc and finally has added 20 tablets of infantile aspirin ”, drugs required for the treatment against the coronavirus, according to the Minsa. Dr. Israel Cedeño, Metropolitan Health Director, explained that the use of each medication contained in the kit: “Acetaminophen: control of fever and pain (head, throat, body); antihistamine: control of mucus and nasal congestion; Ivermerctin: antiparasitic with in vitro evidence of an inhibitory effect on the replication capacity of the virus; enterogermina: is a supplement for diarrhea; vitamin C, multivitamins and zinc are trace elements that have stimulatory effects on the immune system; Infant aspirin: (70-100mg) has an antiplatelet effect, prevents clots and thrombi and hydroxychloroquine: there is evidence that it inhibits the in vitro replication of the virus, an effect similar to that of ivermectin ”. For his part, Dr. Leonardo Labrador, national chief of Epidemiology, also supported the use of ivermectin as an early treatment for Covid-19. “Studies put this drug as part of the drugs that help early treatment of the disease,” he noted.

    Once again, and I can’t say it enough times.

    READ THE FOREIGN PRESS!

2020

Some gems from 2020;

(strategic-culture.org)

I must have shadows on the way
If I am to walk I must have
Each step taken slowly and alone
To have it ready made
And I must think in lines of grey
Must have dim thoughts to be my guide
Must look on blue and green
And never let my eye forget
That color is my friend
And purple must surround me too
The yellow of the sun is more more
Intrusive than the bluish snow
That falls on all of us. I must have
Grey thoughts and blue thoughts walk with me
If I am to go away at all.

2019

Some gems from 2019;

  • Christopher W. Shaw: The People Vs. the Banks (laphamsquarterly.org)
  • Ben Hunt: The Long Now, Pt. 2 - Make, Protect, Teach (epsilontheory.com)
  • Francis Fukuyama: Against Identity Politics (foreignaffairs.com)
  • Scott Alexander: Meditations on Moloch (slatestarcodex.com)
  • Antonio Prohias: SPY vs SPY (comic book, pdf)

  • A quote from Ira Glass (public radio);

    “Nobody tells this to people who are beginners, I wish someone told me. All of us who do creative work, we get into it because we have good taste. But there is this gap. For the first couple years you make stuff, it’s just not that good. It’s trying to be good, it has potential, but it’s not. But your taste, the thing that got you into the game, is still killer. And your taste is why your work disappoints you. A lot of people never get past this phase, they quit. Most people I know who do interesting, creative work went through years of this. We know our work doesn’t have this special thing that we want it to have. We all go through this. And if you are just starting out or you are still in this phase, you gotta know its normal and the most important thing you can do is do a lot of work. Put yourself on a deadline so that every week you will finish one story. It is only by going through a volume of work that you will close that gap, and your work will be as good as your ambitions. And I took longer to figure out how to do this than anyone I’ve ever met. It’s gonna take awhile. It’s normal to take awhile. You’ve just gotta fight your way through.”

2018

Some gems from 2018;

Now society in towns is infested by persons who, seeing that the sentiments please, counterfeit the expression of them. These we call sentimentalists,—talkers who mistake the description for the thing, saying for having. They have, they tell you, an intense love of nature; poetry,—O, they adore poetry,—and roses, and the moon, and the cavalry regiment, and the governor; they love liberty, “dear liberty!” they worship virtue, “dear virtue!” Yes, they adopt whatever merit is in good repute, and almost make it hateful with their praise. The warmer their expressions, the colder we feel; we shiver with cold. A little experience acquaints us with the unconvertibility of the sentimentalist, the soul that is lost by mimicking soul. Cure the drunkard, heal the insane, mollify the homicide, civilize the Pawnee, but what lessons can be devised for the debauchee of sentiment? Was ever one converted? The innocence and ignorance of then patient is the first difficulty; he believes his disease is blooming health. A rough realist or a phalanx of realists would be prescribed; but that is like proposing to mend your bad road with diamonds. Then poverty, famine, war, imprisonment, might be tried. Another cure would be to fire with fire, to match a sentimentalist with a sentimentalist. I think each might begin to suspect that something was wrong.