”The peculiar evil of silencing the expression of an opinion is, that it is robbing the human race; posterity as well as the existing generation; those who dissent from the opinion, still more than those who hold it. If the opinion is right, they are deprived of the opportunity of exchanging error for truth: if wrong, they lose, what is almost as great a benefit, the clearer perception and livelier impression of truth, produced by its collision with error.”

— John Stuart Mill

BIRTHDAYS:

1812 Edward Lear, English landscape painter and poet (Complete Nonsense Book).

1820 Florence Nightingale, English social reformer, statistician and the founder of modern nursing.

1828 Gabriel Dante Rossetti, English Pre-Raphaelite figure poet and painter.

1842 Jules Massenet, French composer of the Romantic era best known for his operas, of which he wrote more than thirty. Meditation from Thais for Violin and Piano, and Élégie, and Le Cid

1924 Alexander Esenin-Volpin, Russian mathematician (ultrafinitism) and human rights activist, born in Leningrad, Soviet Union.

1938 Andrei Amalrik, Russian writer and dissident (Will the Soviet Union Survive Until 1984).

1939 Charles Hull, American inventor (3D printing).

MISCELLANEOUS:

THIS IS PRECISELY THE SORT OF THING I WOULD EXPECT… IN NORTH KOREA. Who Was in Charge of Covid Communications?

THE COVID 19 INJECTIONS AND LOCKDOWNS BEGAN ON MARCH 15, 2020. THE TRAGEDY THAT ENSUED WAS ENTIRELY AVOIDABLE. TO ANYONE CONSIDERING DOING THIS AGAIN IN THE FUTURE – HERE IS YOUR HOMEWORK READING ASSIGNMENT:

Nuremberg Code (1947)

Disease Mitigation Measures in the Control of Pandemic Influenza (2006)

Great Barrington declaration (2020)