flâneur

Neelabh Srivastava

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on the atlas — 11

highlights — 61

  • Rolf Marschalek, a professor at Goethe university in Frankfurt who has been leading studies into the rare condition since March, said his research showed the problem sat with the adenovirus vectors that both vaccines use to deliver the genetic instructions for the spike protein of the Sars-Cov-2 virus into the body. The delivery mechanism means the vaccines send the DNA gene sequences of the spike protein into the cell nucleus rather than the cytosol fluid found inside the cell where the virus normally produces proteins, Marschalek and other scientists said in a preprint paper released on Wedn…
    Scientists claim to have solved Covid vaccine blood-clot puzzle | Financial Times
  • The observed increased reactogenicity experienced after the first dose in COVID-19 survivors [[1],[4]] combined with rapid increase in antibody titers [1, 2, 3, 4, 5] supports the notion that the first vaccine dose acts as boost for the immune responses acquired after natural infection. In such a scenario, the second vaccine dose administered within 21-30 days after the first dose results in little increase in antibody titers [[1],[3]]. It will be important to assess whether the same principles apply to vaccines developed on different platforms, with broad implications for global health.
    SARS-CoV-2 vaccines for all but a single dose for COVID-19 survivors - EBioMedicine
  • Recent findings from several groups independently report high antibody titers and neutralization activity after the first dose of Pfizer or Moderna RNA vaccine in individuals who already had SARS-CoV-2 infections [1, 2, 3, 4, 5].
    SARS-CoV-2 vaccines for all but a single dose for COVID-19 survivors - EBioMedicine
  • Emerging real world evidence suggest that the antibody responses to the first vaccine dose in individuals with prior SARS-CoV-2 infection is equal to or exceeds the antibody titers found in naïve individuals after the second dose.
    SARS-CoV-2 vaccines for all but a single dose for COVID-19 survivors - EBioMedicine
  • Many of the impulses that drive us are impulses of commission: we do things that we regret. Procrastination is an impulse of omission, and is perhaps worse. The cost of our inaction is unseen. Who can tell what we have lost?
    #4: What are you waiting for? - The India Uncut Newsletter
  • It is not only with this newsletter that I have done this. It is the story of my life. My epitaph could read: Here lies Amit. Maybe he’s dead. Maybe he’s procrastinating.
    #4: What are you waiting for? - The India Uncut Newsletter
  • In July 1945, when the victorious Churchill toured the ruins of Berlin, he asked to be taken to the bunker where Hitler ended his life. He was also shown the spot in the courtyard of the Reich Chancellery where the dictator's body was incinerated.
    The Man Who Saved Europe: How Winston Churchill Stopped the Nazis - DER SPIEGEL
  • As we know, Hitler committed suicide in his bunker a few days before Germany capitulated in 1945. As Churchill writes in his memoirs, it was a more preferable end for the Nazi dictator, after all.
    The Man Who Saved Europe: How Winston Churchill Stopped the Nazis - DER SPIEGEL
  • It was one of Churchill's darkest hours when, at the Summit of the Big Three in Tehran in 1943, he picked up three matchsticks, which were meant to represent Germany, Poland and the Soviet Union. He had already agreed to Stalin's demand that part of Poland was to go to the Soviet Union. Now he placed the matches together to illustrate the consequences: By pushing the Soviet match toward the West, he was also shifting the positions of the other two matches. Stalin found this depiction of Poland's westward shift amusing.
    The Man Who Saved Europe: How Winston Churchill Stopped the Nazis - DER SPIEGEL
  • When Dresden was destroyed near the end of the war, in February 1945, even Churchill admitted that the bombings were "mere acts of terror and wanton destruction."
    The Man Who Saved Europe: How Winston Churchill Stopped the Nazis - DER SPIEGEL
  • Hoping to make a significant contribution to victory over the Nazis, the British began systematically bombing German cities in the spring of 1942. Despite his occasional doubts, Churchill was relentless. After viewing film of devastated German cities, he asked: "Are we beasts? Are we taking this too far?"
    The Man Who Saved Europe: How Winston Churchill Stopped the Nazis - DER SPIEGEL
  • Hitler, too, was looking for new options and was puzzled that the British were holding their ground. Finally, he developed the original theory that the reason Churchill was refusing to yield was that he was secretly counting on the Soviet Union, which was still aligned with Hitler. Armed with this nonsensical notion, Hitler seriously resolved to attack Stalin, which had been his intention all along. "Once Russia is annihilated, England's last hope will be gone."
    The Man Who Saved Europe: How Winston Churchill Stopped the Nazis - DER SPIEGEL
  • Churchill danced for joy when he heard the news. "This certainly simplifies things," he told US President Franklin Roosevelt, "God be with you."
    The Man Who Saved Europe: How Winston Churchill Stopped the Nazis - DER SPIEGEL
  • Churchill and his cabinet ministers were not especially well protected in the facility, which was only adequately fortified later on. A direct hit would have put an end to the duel between Hitler and Churchill.
    The Man Who Saved Europe: How Winston Churchill Stopped the Nazis - DER SPIEGEL
  • According to the Churchill saga, the British Isles were practically defenseless against Hitler in the summer of 1940. Churchill, too, was infected by the so-called invasion fever that was taking hold all around him. Speaking to a friend, he grimly predicted: "You and I will be dead in three months' time."
    The Man Who Saved Europe: How Winston Churchill Stopped the Nazis - DER SPIEGEL
  • Sebastian Haffner, a German immigrant, reported that at Easter in 1940, uniformed doormen were still standing in front of the luxury hotels, while a million unemployed were looking for work. Only a few months later, the people had disappeared from the streets and the War Office had requisitioned the hotels.
    The Man Who Saved Europe: How Winston Churchill Stopped the Nazis - DER SPIEGEL
  • The prime minister would later seek to downplay the impact his words may have had, saying that "there was no need to rouse their spirit," and that "nothing moves an Englishman so much as the threat of an invasion."
    The Man Who Saved Europe: How Winston Churchill Stopped the Nazis - DER SPIEGEL
  • On June 4, he uttered the following famous words in the House of Commons: "We shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender." A similar passage appears in Rudyard Kipling's collection of stories, "The Jungle Book."
    The Man Who Saved Europe: How Winston Churchill Stopped the Nazis - DER SPIEGEL
  • Churchill's strongest weapon was the word. The equally eloquent John F. Kennedy, son of the then US ambassador in London and later president of the United States, once said that Churchill had sent the English language to war.
    The Man Who Saved Europe: How Winston Churchill Stopped the Nazis - DER SPIEGEL
  • The war was entirely to the taste of the prime minister, a man about whom the writer H.G. Wells wrote, after World War I: "He believes quite naively that he belongs to a peculiarly gifted and privileged class of beings to whom the lives and affairs of common men are given over, the raw material of brilliant careers … Before all things he desires a dramatic world with villains -- and one hero."
    The Man Who Saved Europe: How Winston Churchill Stopped the Nazis - DER SPIEGEL
  • Hitler would later claim that he had spared the British so as to solicit "the recognition of our dominance on the continent." Churchill, he added, had unfortunately "failed to appreciate" his "generosity and chivalry."
    The Man Who Saved Europe: How Winston Churchill Stopped the Nazis - DER SPIEGEL
  • Then the prime minister looked out of the window. As he later wrote: "Outside in the garden of the Quai d'Orsay clouds of smoke arose from large bonfires, and I saw from the window venerable officials pushing wheelbarrows of archives onto them. Already therefore the evacuation of Paris was being prepared."
    The Man Who Saved Europe: How Winston Churchill Stopped the Nazis - DER SPIEGEL
  • He flew to France several times to encourage his French allies to hang on. He promised squadrons of aircraft (which he didn't send) and divisions (which he didn't have). But after his first visit to the Foreign Ministry in Paris on May 15, he already noted that "utter dejection was written on every face."
    The Man Who Saved Europe: How Winston Churchill Stopped the Nazis - DER SPIEGEL
  • The German advance also took Churchill by surprise. He later admitted that he had underestimated the extent of the change that had taken place since the last war, as a result of the emergence of large numbers of fast-moving, heavy armored vehicles. "Neither in France nor in Britain had there been any effective comprehension of the consequences of the new fact that armored vehicles could be made capable of withstanding artillery fire, and could advance a hundred miles a day," Churchill wrote in his memoir.
    The Man Who Saved Europe: How Winston Churchill Stopped the Nazis - DER SPIEGEL
  • On the evening of May 10, Churchill, now 65, was sitting in a limousine on his way to Buckingham Palace, where King George VI would ask him to form a new government. In his memoirs, Churchill writes: "I felt as if I were walking with destiny, and that all my past life had been but a preparation for this hour and for this trial." The duel could begin.
    The Man Who Saved Europe: How Winston Churchill Stopped the Nazis - DER SPIEGEL
  • Ribbentrop, the host, and Churchill stood together in front of an enormous map in the German Embassy in London, while the Nazi explained that the Germans needed space for a greater Germany, or Lebensraum, in the Ukraine and Belarus. He assured Churchill that the Empire would be left untouched, but that the British would have to accept Germany's eastward expansion in return. Churchill, however, felt that this division of territory was unacceptable, to which Ribbentrop brusquely replied: "In that case, war is inevitable."
    The Man Who Saved Europe: How Winston Churchill Stopped the Nazis - DER SPIEGEL
  • But his warnings went unheard. His fellow conservatives, supporters of then-Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain, favored appeasement of the Germans, because they feared another world war and believed that the dictator could be kept happy.
    The Man Who Saved Europe: How Winston Churchill Stopped the Nazis - DER SPIEGEL
  • In a letter to a friend, he wrote that the Britain had never yielded to the strongest power on the continent, not to Philipp II of Spain (in the 16th century), not to the French Sun King Louis XIV (in the 18th century), not to Napoleon (in the 19th century) and not to Kaiser Wilhelm II (in the 20th century). London had always aligned itself with the second-strongest power. The acceptance of German hegemony, Churchill wrote, "would be contrary to the whole of our history."
    The Man Who Saved Europe: How Winston Churchill Stopped the Nazis - DER SPIEGEL
  • In 1937, in remarks directed at Hitler, he said: "We cannot say that we admire your treatment of the Jews or of the Protestants and Catholics of Germany … But, after all, these matters, as long as they are confined inside Germany, are not our business."
    The Man Who Saved Europe: How Winston Churchill Stopped the Nazis - DER SPIEGEL
  • Churchill also proved to be susceptible to the prevailing sentiments of the day. As a monarchist, he was horror-stricken by the Russian Revolution, which he initially blamed on a Jewish-Bolshevik global conspiracy, and for a time he even sympathized with the Italian fascist Benito Mussolini, who he called "a Roman genius." But Churchill abandoned positions as quickly as he adopted them. He was not interested in party agendas or ideological designs, and he once told his mother that he considered his quickness to pass judgment a "mental flaw." He changed parties twice, once from the Conservative…
    The Man Who Saved Europe: How Winston Churchill Stopped the Nazis - DER SPIEGEL
  • The war did bring the two later rivals into close physical proximity with each other. Churchill assumed responsibility for the catastrophic failure of the British landing operation at the Dardanelles, where the Ottoman army prevailed, and resigned in 1915. To make amends, he signed up to serve at the front and, as a lieutenant colonel, was assigned to a section of Flanders where Hitler was serving in the German army. Only 13 kilometers (8 miles) separated the two men.
    The Man Who Saved Europe: How Winston Churchill Stopped the Nazis - DER SPIEGEL
  • To understand the Churchill phenomenon, it is important to consider the historic impact of his origins. He was mainly interested in seeing his painting appear alongside those of his ancestors in the family gallery and, of course, in the British Empire, to which his ancestors had already felt committed. He said it best himself: "The British Empire is everything to me. What is good for the Empire is also good for me, and what is bad for the Empire is bad for me."
    The Man Who Saved Europe: How Winston Churchill Stopped the Nazis - DER SPIEGEL
  • One concerned his vicious war of words with Lady Nancy Astor, the first female member of parliament, who once hissed: "Winston, if I were your wife I'd put poison in your coffee." Churchill replied: "Nancy, If I were married to you I'd drink it."
    The Man Who Saved Europe: How Winston Churchill Stopped the Nazis - DER SPIEGEL
  • During his lifetime, he found it amusing that the history books would judge him kindly -- because he intended to write them himself.
    The Man Who Saved Europe: How Winston Churchill Stopped the Nazis - DER SPIEGEL
  • Churchill declared that he had only one goal: "Victory -- victory at all costs, victory in spite of all terror, victory however long and hard the road may be."
    The Man Who Saved Europe: How Winston Churchill Stopped the Nazis - DER SPIEGEL
  • Adolf Hitler and Winston Churchill. It was a rivalry that pitted a member of the petit bourgeoisie against a son of the aristocracy, an ascetic against a hedonist, and ideologue against a pragmatist, a murderer against an adventurer, a racist revolutionary against an imperial political realist.
    The Man Who Saved Europe: How Winston Churchill Stopped the Nazis - DER SPIEGEL
  • He loved danger and sought out adventure. Even when he was in his sixties, as prime minister, he would stand on the roof of a government building in London during German air raids to observe the murderous spectacle from above, while his cabinet ministers fled into the bomb shelters.
    The Man Who Saved Europe: How Winston Churchill Stopped the Nazis - DER SPIEGEL
  • "Nothing in history was ever settled except by wars," the bellicose Churchill believed.
    The Man Who Saved Europe: How Winston Churchill Stopped the Nazis - DER SPIEGEL
  • But no one is guaranteed another Valentine’s Day.
    Just for Tonight, Pretend You Don’t Know Me - The New York Times
  • Telling each other stories about our romantic and sexual pasts has something of the same effect, reminding me that she is a whole person of whom I know only a recent and narrow sample, with a long history of relationships, flings and fantasies, a whole spectrum of desire, much of which may be invisible to me.
    Just for Tonight, Pretend You Don’t Know Me - The New York Times
  • Years ago a friend of mine had a dream about a strange invention; a staircase you could descend deep underground, in which you heard recordings of all the things anyone had ever said about you, both good and bad. The catch was, you had to pass through all the worst things people had said before you could get to the highest compliments at the very bottom. There is no way I would ever make it more than two and a half steps down such a staircase, but I understand its terrible logic: if we want the rewards of being loved we have to submit to the mortifying ordeal of being known.
    I Know What You Think of Me - The New York Times
  • We don’t give other people credit for the same interior complexity we take for granted in ourselves, the same capacity for holding contradictory feelings in balance, for complexly alloyed affections, for bottomless generosity of heart and petty, capricious malice. We can’t believe that anyone could be unkind to us and still be genuinely fond of us, although we do it all the time.
    I Know What You Think of Me - The New York Times
  • Like a lot of wisdom, this sounds at first suspiciously similar to idiotic nonsense; obviously what other people think of you is your business, it’s your main job in life to try to control it, to do tireless P.R. and spin control for yourself. Every woman who ever went out with you must pine for you forever. Those who rejected you must regret it. You must be loved, respected — above all, taken seriously! They who mocked you will rue the day! The problem is that this is insane — the psychology of dictators who regard all dissent as treason, and periodically order purges to ensure unquestioning …
    I Know What You Think of Me - The New York Times
  • It is simply not pleasant to be objectively observed — it’s like seeing a candid photo of yourself online, not smiling or posing, but simply looking the way you apparently always do, oblivious and mush-faced with your mouth open. It’s proof that we are visible to others, that we are seen, in all our naked silliness and stupidity.
    I Know What You Think of Me - The New York Times
  • Hearing other people’s uncensored opinions of you is an unpleasant reminder that you’re just another person in the world, and everyone else does not always view you in the forgiving light that you hope they do, making all allowances, always on your side. There’s something existentially alarming about finding out how little room we occupy, and how little allegiance we command, in other people’s heads.
    I Know What You Think of Me - The New York Times
  • I’ve often thought that the single most devastating cyberattack a diabolical and anarchic mind could design would not be on the military or financial sector but simply to simultaneously make every e-mail and text ever sent universally public. It would be like suddenly subtracting the strong nuclear force from the universe; the fabric of society would instantly evaporate, every marriage, friendship and business partnership dissolved. Civilization, which is held together by a fragile web of tactful phrasing, polite omissions and white lies, would collapse in an apocalypse of bitter recrimination…
    I Know What You Think of Me - The New York Times
  • A great Heather Havrilesky quote (yes, I try to include at least one per essay): “As long as you imagine that the outside world will one day deliver to you the external rewards you need to feel happy, you will always perceive your survival as exhausting and perceive your life as a long slog to nowhere.”
    bookbear express
  • We’re fed this cultural narrative that doing the right thing should be accompanied by a feeling. But most of the time all you get is ambivalence. You want to believe but you’re not sure if you should. Certainty often appears only in retrospect.
    bookbear express
  • Finding the typewriter was like finding the axe I’d used to chop the wood to build the house I lived in.
    How to Practice
  • The laundry room was where things went to die.
    How to Practice