Havent we read from day 1 that the death figures of doctors and nurses was a total fabrication by the MSM?
Surely it is common knowledge by now that the novel C19 is itself a fabrication and a monstrous lie that duped the whole world into submission.
Isn’t that what has been seen time and time again on this site and other alt. media sites?

So why are you even here then, bully?

I stopped commenting on the guardian after they deleted my comments which highlighted contradictions in the said article by linking back to a previous guardian article which averred the opposite. the guardian doesn’t like criticism of the article itself..

You must be “that guy” Thomas Wolfe (aka “Look Homeward, Angel”) had in mind, if nigh a century past, when he wrote, “The bearer of the torch at noon”.

Steinbeck the American was at the pre-dawn of his domestication when he wrote that. You can see the fingers of “la recuperation” -of controlling and containing his populist “commie” message- in the works of his that follow.

I met his late son Thom in Salinas during “pop’s” Centennial (2002) and he said his two favorite books of his were “In Dubious Battle” and “The Moon is Down”. (I was given a choice from among 20 Californian cities for a temporary job assignment, and I chose his birthplace, as it was in throes of his Centennial, one of my smarter -or less dumb- moves in 2002, as it brought huge dividends with the things I stumbled upon, just amazing, not the least of which was godly oxygen, the air is about 100 times better than the L.A. area. I took the was “In Dubious Battle” book and others and read a lot of his oeuvre in the long grass next to père Steinbeck’s grave, on my off days. The mise en scene is in that area just north a stone’s throw, and the aura of that California still thrills and thrives there. Later in the month I literally bumped into Steinbeck, fils, who was launching his first book of fiction, “Down to a Soundless Sea” which shines from the father’s storytelling gene. He signed a copy with a first day decal for my mother, who had been a huge fan of his dad’s- her mom’s nephew, Roman Bohnen, her favorite cousin, had invited her to sit in on the set when he played “Candy” in the Lewis Milestone original, “Of Mice and Men” -which, as an added treat, they have on continuous loop, projected on a screen in one of the museum rooms of The National Steinbeck Center, in the little old downtown area where many of his storylines played out, such as “East of Eden”. I was going to write Thom a couple years ago, but looked him up and found he had died of c.o.p.d. a few months before. At least he escaped being tagged for Covid. He told a group how he had been dispatched as a sort of Adrian Kronauer to do a radio show in Viet Nam and almost immediately found himself in a combat situation, strapped into a chopper, as a tailgunner, where he complied, since, as he put it, “Very simply, I wanted to keep breathing.” The PTSD is implicit, as he became a chronic smoker, and ultimately died before his time of respiratory disease. You don’t have to be an idly speculative Conspiracy Theorists to see the long arm of the CIA up to its old tricks in all those coincidences. Straight outta “The Quiet American”. His brother John IV also had a fascinating stint and stayed behind to become a Buddhist monk. His mistake was to come back here to nearby La Jolla, where he died youngish in surgery for his back? All 3 of them died before their time. A Russian journalist, when père Steinbeck spoke in Moscow in the 1960s, asked him how he had strayed from his original populist focus, “You used to write about true things…” Steinbeck defended himself, ably enough, but prefaced the remark by calling the questioner, “You son of a bitch.” He had touched that deep groin of the “American Myth” where our tenderest nerves cross. His lifelong fondness for wine increased notably after effing Henry Fonda was cast as the lead in “Grapes of Wrath” and then he married Elaine, his last wife, a Hollywood piece of work, and the domestication took his edge. Still some good work followed, but he lost some of his sense of pitch, or it was recessed.)

But I digress. I was using “free man” not in the American or mass-produced mythic sense, or even the Steinbeckian, but ONLY in the Pickwickian.

Besides, I translate it always: ‘free man’ has no real earthly, least of all political, sense to me at all.

As Nathaniel Hawthorne put it, “For I am a citizen of Somewhere Else.”

_______________£4£

“In the deserts of the heart
Let the healing fountain start.
In the prison of his days
Teach the free man how to praise.”

~Auden

I recognise that Russia, for instance, at a certain point in time was deporting itself well on the international stage, against a backdrop of Russophobia. I wasn’t under the impression they were beyond question and I suggest that China should be viewed similarly. States act in their own self-interest and, as we witness in our own countries, this isn’t always, or even often, in the interests of its people.

I was referring to a tour in the 1990s, that was mostly cancelled because people who were desperate to silence him pressurised the hosting theatre groups. We were fortunate to see him in a small independent theatre.

No such thing as a ‘free’ man, J.E. An American Myth.

You could pop over to the Richard Lugar Centre for Public Health Research (rather like the Josef Mengele School for Talented Children)in Tbilisi to ask them if they’ve done any research on bats lately.

A couple of good local breweries, too.