The NYT runs a "Those We've Lost" feature about all the famous people who have been struck down ... but, on average:
A. They aren't all that famous
B. Most were old and/or sickly and thus well-past their primes:
For example, here's the first name on the NYT's list:
Here's another name on the NYT's "Those We've Lost" list of famous people who have died of COVID:
The NYT tries to put younger people toward the top of its Those We've Lost list of COVID deaths. One obvious pattern is most seem overweight in their photos.
Why has there been no push to get Americans to lower the risk of the virus by losing weight?
If the media scared 50% of Americans into losing 10 pounds to reduce the risk from COVID, that would likely increase life expectancy for the whole country on average more than the virus reduces it.
• • •
Missing some Tweet in this thread? You can try to
force a refresh
The Good Life in Gov. Wendell Anderson's Minnesota (August 1973)
vs.
The Not So Good Life in Gov. Tim Walz's Minnesota (May 2020):
When I was in high school in the 1970s, Minnesota and Wisconsin competed for the reputation as the most well-ordered state in the Union.
Now, they compete to be the state that generates the most Steve Sailer Content.
From the 1973 "Time" story:
"Some argue that Minnesota works a bit too well and too blandly, that its ... serene population is a decade or two behind the rest of the U.S. The place lacks the fire, urgency and self-accusation of states with massive urban centers and problems."
@alecrogers1968 @amortowles It would be a better argument to contend that "A Gentleman in Moscow," like, say, "The Master and Margarita," has fantasy elements that make it more conducive to historically unrealistic diversity casting than would be, say, "Darkness at Noon" or "First Circle."
@alecrogers1968 @amortowles For example, I didn't object much to the diversity casting in "Wonka," a children's musical set in a vague time and place, than I would be to diversity casting in, say, "Middlemarch" or "Brideshead Revisted."
@alecrogers1968 @amortowles Dear Mr. Towles:
A good defense of unrealistically casting a black in your 1930s Soviet-set "A Gentleman in Moscow" is that your novel has strong imaginative elements, so utter realism in casting isn't artistically necessary in the TV series based on it.
Washington Post: We Had to Destroy the Democracy to Save It.
The Post reports on how in Europe, the secret police are putting under surveillance political parties that are growing by advocating policies popular with voters.
One of the many threats to democracy in Europe, according the Washington Post news section, is that political parties are increasingly debating immigration policy instead of having a gentleman's agreement not to discuss it.
Seriously, these articles would be less comic if they simply admitted their experts are, obviously, anti-democratic. Lots of bright people from Plato onward have been against democracy. But Plato at least didn't argue for rule by philosopher-kings in the name of Saving Democracy.
A standard response to complaints about immigrant crime is that the migrant murder rate is is lower than the native born rate. (Of course, the trick here is that few Americans know that blacks accounted in 2021 for 60.4% of known murder offenders & 55.0% of homicide victims.)
But imagine that the 15,000 U. of Chicago students commit 3 murders / year. When Chicagoans complain that the U. of C. is bringing in 3 murderers annually, the college president scoffs analogously that his admittees' murder rate is 20% lower than Chicago's, so why the kvetching?
In reality, of course, students accepted by the U. of Chicago almost never commit murder. And, of course, that is exactly as it should be. With much of the world to choose from, the U. of C. should not admit any murderers. Similarly, the murder rate for immigrants should be zero.
The all-time fastest marathoners as of today include: 1 Japanese, 1 black Brazilian, 2 North Africans, and the rest East Africans (46 Ethiopians and 44 Kenyans).