It doesn’t matter where they come from or where you read them, online comments seem to have one overriding common characteristic: obnoxiousness. It doesn’t matter whether it’s Facebook, You Tube, or newspaper websites, online comments coming from people I’ve never met, and thankfully never will, excel by their virtuosity in handling the written word. What […]
Science
AstraZenica – Just A Little Prick (Of A Needle)
“Excuse me, young man,” I asked the 23-year-old volunteer who got ready to steady his shaking hands, before opening an AstraZenica vial and insert a rather long-looking needle into my left arm. “You do know it’s my arm you’re jabbing?” And with what, I could have added? “Don’t worry,” he said. “Just a little prick.” […]
Mark Rutte Bevoogdt Tandartsen
Ik geef Mark Rutte het voordeel van de twijfel. Hier staat een politicus onder druk. Zijn hele liberale, gemoedelijke kijk op de wereld wordt bevroren door een virus dat zelfs kleiner is dan de kleinste virussen. In antwoord op een vraag of tandartsen hun praktijk konden openen, antwoordde Rutte neerbuigend dat tandartspraktijken altijd open mochten […]
Coronavirus Et Responsabilité Individuelle
Il est étrange que ce que beaucoup de gens décrient dans nos sociétés – la solitude – nous évitera probablement de flirter avec une extinction partielle. En confinant l’ensemble de la population française à deux semaines d’assignation à résidence, Emmanuel Macron a utilisé l’un des maux de la société actuelle pour que les français puissent […]
COVID-19 And Herd Immunity – Thanks For Sharing!
If the rumours are true that Boris Johnson is seriously considering herd immunity to combat the coronavirus pandemic, let me give him a humble word of advice – don’t. During vaccination programs, the logic behind herd immunity is that if enough people are immune against a particular human-to-human transmissible infection, the rest of the population […]
La Moralité d’Un Coronavirus
Quelques semaines après le début de l’épidémie du coronavirus, et je suis atteint. Non, je n’ai pas attrapé cette saloperie – heureusement – mais je devrai faire face à la perspective, tôt ou tard, de manquer de masques de protection pour mon cabinet dentaire. Grâce à la panique générale – même mes collègues ont fait […]
No Brain, And No Will – The Morality Of A Coronavirus
A few weeks into the coronavirus outbreak, and I’m affected. No, I haven’t caught the damn thing – luckily – but I’ll have to face the prospect, sooner or later, of running out of facemasks for my dental practice. Thanks to panic buying – even colleagues have been stocking up, it seems – my dental […]
ITALIE: Le Décès De Venise
Beaucoup d’entre vous, comme moi, sont coupables. Nous sommes coupables d’avoir visité une ville malade mais belle. Nous avons été au chevet d’une patiente mourante et n’avons rien fait pour la guérir de sa maladie. Elle s’éloigne lentement, sans bruit, acceptant que son destin soit scellé. Elle répond au nom de Venise et reste, malgré […]
The Death Of Venice
Many of you, like myself, are guilty. We are guilty of having visited a sick but beautiful city. We have been at the bedside of a dying patient and have done nothing to cure her of illness. She is slowly slipping away, without a sound, accepting that her fate is sealed. She answers to the […]
Greta Thunberg And The Climate Change Debate
On October 10 an interesting podcast was published on UncommonGroundMedia, analysing, “the validity of the criticisms by people who acknowledge climate change as a problem, and environmental activism as desirable, but are nevertheless vehemently critical of Greta on various grounds, including her youth, her white identity, and the perception of her as a puppet.” On […]