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Claire Berlinski. Profile picture
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5 Aug, 5 tweets, 2 min read
All hands on deck, Twitter gardeners. I have a situation.

The pride of my urban garden is this Morning Glory vine. It's been inexpressibly moving to watch her grow from a single, tiny seed to this--and she grows like magic!
She moves so fast she's almost more animal than plant. The way her tendrils twine around the trellis is so mysterious.

I've been figuring any day now, she'll start to bloom. I've been looking forward to it all summer.
But yesterday, when I came over to water and admire her, my blood ran cold.

They're all over her:
Out of nowhere. Overnight.

The Internet said I should spray her with a solution of water and dish soap.
I sprayed her like a machine gunner firing at Japanese positions in support of a Leatherneck advance on Iwo Jima.
I sprayed and sprayed.
But today--*they're still there.* They're indestructible! What kind of demonic superbug *is* this? Has it been genetically enhanced? Why, why God, why?

What do I do? I can't let them eat her. It will break my heart.

Help me, Twitter #gardeners. Her life is in your hands.

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More from @ClaireBerlinski

Claire Berlinski. Profile picture
6 Aug
Another excellent, insightful article by @john_lichfield, whom I *highly* recommend if you're looking for Anglophone commentary on France. He's been here forever; he really knows the place--leagues better than anyone writing for the big US papers. A few interesting points:
1. I saw the "Le virus c’est l’état" graffiti in my neighborhood, too. Usually the graffiti in my neighborhood is anarchist far left, so that would be my guess.
2. "All in all, the health pass has exposed the contradictory and — somewhat teenaged — French attitudes to 'the state.'"
Yes. Very much so. Not just the French, I'd add. We've really seen, in the pandemic, how confused people are between "the government" and "their parents."
Read 10 tweets
Claire Berlinski. Profile picture
6 Aug
I'm a bit confused by the question. If it's illegal, how can it be desirable, policy-wise? Do any of your followers think, "Rule of law, hell--I'm over it?"
As for whether it's legal, I'm not quite familiar enough with the relevant law to say, but surely...it couldn't be?
We don't have a *federal* law on the books that allows the Executive to make arbitrary decisions depriving owners of private property of their established rights over it, do we? What could be less compatible with the American legal tradition than that?
I could imagine *state* or *local* laws pertaining to rental properties under emergency conditions ... but a federal law?
I haven't really looked at this, but what's the putative justification for it? This couldn't be within the powers of the Executive, could it?
Read 9 tweets
Claire Berlinski. Profile picture
4 Aug
A study in the Lancet suggests 766,611 deaths in the US from Covid as of May 29.
I think their methodology makes sense. Maybe a better mathematician could help me assess it.
thelancet.com/journals/lanam… Image
What they're trying to do is improve upon the standard methods of calculating the death toll--either counting the death certificates or counting excess deaths.

They rightly note the limitations of both methods.
(In the first case, Covid19 may not have been properly diagnosed; in the second, excess mortality might be owed to something other than the virus, e.g., lack of access to medical care owing to lockdowns or over-full ICUs.)
Read 5 tweets
Claire Berlinski. Profile picture
3 Aug
Once again I have the sense, reading the @nytimes's coverage of France, that they're writing about some other country. What is she talking about? 75% of France is behind Macron on this. In his party, 93%. The other 25% are just the usual lunatics: nytimes.com/2021/08/03/opi… Image
The same contingent of scélérats, pleurnichards, and râleurs who take to the streets like one of Pavlov's salivating dogs in response to *any* policy proposal. "Large protests" in France aren't news. They're "Sunday recreation."
58% of the public thinks Macron hasn't gone far *enough.* ouest-france.fr/sante/vaccin/p….

Since his (long-overdue) announcement, rates of vaccination have picked up so quickly that France might well achieve 90 percent vaccination by the end of the summer. I consider that "going well."
Read 6 tweets
Claire Berlinski. Profile picture
2 Aug
But to my suprise--typos apart--the report is reasonable, sober, and well-sourced. Nothing that hasn't been reported elsewhere, but a perfectly respectable summary of the circumstantial evidence thus far.
It makes me all the more furious the GOP has established itself as the party of lunatics, traitors, toadies, and insurrectionists--because we *so badly* need a GOP whose reports would be credible the world around. But this won't be--even though it's well done--
because the GOP has given the world ample reason to feel, "Oh, if they wrote it, it will by definition be insane."
It's not insane. It's a perfectly competent summary of the evidence to date and the reasons to think SARS-CoV-2 may have emerged from a lab.
Read 8 tweets
Claire Berlinski. Profile picture
2 Aug
No, this kind of crude anti-Christianism is dumb and kind of offensive. No doubt the US has a problem with a large group of radicalized Protestants right now. Suggesting this is *inherent to Christian doctrine* (or religious faith) is absurd. Who made the Scientific Revolution?
Copernicus was not only a Catholic but a canon. Medieval Catholic mathematicians and philosophers (Buridan, Oresme, Bacon) were the founders of modern science. The medieval church built universities. Do you think Thomas Aquinas would be an adherent of QAnon? I rather don't.
He was much like other medieval theologians who thought reason and faith intimately linked, not divorced. There's a clear linkage between C17th Anglican intellectual transformations and the thought, e.g., or Robert Boyle and Isaac Newton.
Read 5 tweets

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