Island of the Lost: An Extraordinary Story of Survival at the Edge of the World by Joan Druett is a timely read given for those who are upset that everything has been out of stock for two years. It covers the experience of five guys whose sailing ship wrecked in the Auckland Islands in 1864. They’d been looking for new places to kill seals or, possibly, do some silver mining (their cover story). The Auckland Islands are southwest of New Zealand, 50.7 degrees south latitude (old saying: “Below 40 degrees south there is no law; below 50 degrees south there is no God”).
The weather is miserable, the sandflies are relentless, and they were stuck there for almost as long as 15 days to flatten the curve. The resourceful crew manages to build a hut from the timber of the wrecked ship and they kill enough seals that starvation isn’t an issue. But the sailors have to do their own blacksmithing, sew their own clothes, make their own soap, tan their own hides, make their own cement (from seashells), make a forge bellows, turn wood into charcoal to fuel the forge, and create anything that they would ordinarily have purchased in a hardware store (e.g., nails).
The book will also be helpful if you’re worried about climate change destroying humanity as a species. It turns out that we can be difficult to eradicate.
Finally, the book is also encouraging to those of us who are so old that we are more likely to be killed by Omicron than by Alec Baldwin. Island of the Lost also talks about a shipwreck that happened around the same time, that of the Invercauld. A sailor on that ship sat down and started typing a vivid and useful memoir at the age of 86, six decades after the experience. This is the basis for a great-granddaughter’s book: Wake of the Invercauld.
Related:
- Wrecked on a Reef by Raynal is an 1874 source used by the historian/author (illustration above is from Raynal)
“But the sailors have to do their own blacksmithing, sew their own clothes, make their own soap, tan their own hides, make their own cement (from seashells), make a forge bellows, turn wood into charcoal to fuel the forge, and create anything that they would ordinarily have purchased in a hardware store (e.g., nails).”
Flash to CNN:
“”People without a certificate like me, we’re not a part of society anymore,” he said. “We’re excluded. We’re like less valuable humans. … Because he has chosen not to get vaccinated, student and part-time supermarket cashier Rimoldi is — for now, at least — locked out of much of public life. Without a vaccine certificate, he can no longer complete his degree or work in a grocery store. He is barred from eating in restaurants, attending concerts or going to the gym.”
https://www.cnn.com/2022/01/16/europe/europe-covid-unvaccinated-society-cmd-intl/index.html
The vaccine rules are making guys like Rimoldi into the survivalists of the 21st century!
That is a great CNN article! “We will not allow a tiny minority of unhinged extremists to impose its will on our entire society,” Germany’s new Chancellor, Olaf Scholz, said last month, targeting the violent fringes of the anti-vaccine movement.
When a virus is killing obese 80-year-olds, it is not “extreme” to give an experimental medicine to a 5-year-old. But the young folks who don’t want a novel vaccine against a disease of the old are “unhinged extremists”.
Alex: Thank you, great article. Even CNN can no longer claim that “anti-vaxx” sentiment in Europe is driven by an imaginary right wing. It has been obvious to any European that most are left/green leaning people who are probably just into natural healing and against experiments on humans.
While they conceded that particular issue, they doubled down on the rhetoric and lies. I’d say this is the densest propaganda article I’ve read since we flattened the curve in a fortnight.
Globalist Macron takes the crown:
“When my freedom threatens that of others, I become irresponsible,” he said. “An irresponsible person is no longer a citizen.”
At least they are showing their true faces now.
Anon: I found a source for that Macron quote. https://www.newsweek.com/french-president-emmanuel-macron-says-someone-who-refuses-covid-vaccine-not-citizen-1665669
“In a democracy, the worst enemies are lies and stupidity,” he continued.
(It was not a lie nor stupid to tell people that bandanas could serve as PPE against an aerosol virus.)
Where will the newly stateless vaccine refuseniks go? https://www.worlddata.info/europe/france/asylum.php says that France receives migrants from Afghanistan, Guinea, Bangladesh, Ivory Coast, Nigeria, Congo, Turkey, Pakistan, and Haiti. Maybe France could pay some of these nations to take their unwanted and unclean unvaccinated former citizens? France could pay Haiti $10,000 to give each irresponsible person a passport and a mountainside shack near Port-au-Prince. Haiti is rich in Moderna vaccines doses (see https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2021/08/03/1022776041/a-bright-spot-amid-haitis-woes-its-first-mass-rollout-of-covid-vaccines ) in case these folks ever decide to come over to the side of truth and intelligence.
philg: Thanks for that link, Macron clearly has issues. The Daily Mail, illuminating as always, is offering some insights:
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-5845533/Brigitte-Macron-didnt-marry-15-year-old-schoolboy-lover-friends-reveal.html
He certainly loves authority!
“Dr” Phil:
I’m back for more punishment.
Man, you hit about 6 right-wing memes in a couple of short paragraphs and comments!
1. Massive shortages: I’ve been to three groceries in the last two days and didn’t notice any shortages at all. No I take that back, one only had sharp cheddar in stock instead of regular cheddar. The horrors! Looks like Wyoming (super-Republican country) is doing fine too — see picture in this article, they have 12 different kinds of ranch dressing in Podunk Wyoming: https://www.washingtonpost.com/magazine/2021/10/07/wyoming-voters-liz-cheney/
2. Flatten the curve didn’t work: next time we have a novel virus, when indications are from China that people are dropping dead with some regularity, do you seriously suggest we do…nothing? (well, yes, that is exactly what your vice-god Desantis says) [https://www.cnn.com/2022/01/14/politics/desantis-trump-covid-response/index.html]
3. Global warming ain’t no big deal: 7.9 billion people in the world say it is real, 0.1 billion say it is not — by party platform the Republican Party of the USA. In fact the no-kidding official Republican platform is that global warming is a Chinese hoax. Man do I wish I could be so enlightened — “the entire rest of the world is wrong, only my know-nothing party is correct!”)
4. Alec Baldwin: so sorry he made fun of your orange king/god a few times
5. The virus doesn’t impact young children: I know it is anecdotal, but I have two close friends whose kids have spent time in the hospital in the last two weeks from covid. For my kids, I consider any overnight stay in a hospital as something rather serious.
6. “They” are showing their true faces: Who is “they”? that “they” don’t want the health care system to collapse? That “they” don’t want another 1 million US deaths on “their” hands?
Phil: if all deaths are obese >80 years olds, haven’t we run out of them already? Surely of the ~3000 people that turn 80 each day, 2/3 of them aren’t dying that day? (US averaging 2000 covid deaths/day right now). Only one Congressman has died of covid that I’m aware of: a 30-something year old fit-looking male.
Mike: Point 6. is about European authoritarianism (Scholz, Macron), which should be evident from the thread.
In Europe, the worst rhetoric and oppressive governments always seem to originate from parties with “social” or “socialist” in their names, and it is telling that the new German (“Social” Democrat) chancellor and the French president (who had been a member of the Socialist Party from 2006 to 2009) are leading the way in dehumanizing people and opponents.
You are the property of the state, and if you don’t obey, you are no longer a citizen.
Mike almost always provides amusing insight into how a progressive mind (judging by the dogmas he so passionately supports) functions. Please do not be rude to him and do not scare him off again. I was afraid we lost Mike forever !
Mike: thank you for your service !
Re: 5 were your friend’s young kids that got covid vaccinated against covid? Pre vaccine there was no covid in children. Now they are no longer asking who is vaccinated when they test for covaids wonder why?
Mike: On (1), I’m guessing that you haven’t been to IKEA lately! See comments within the last two weeks on https://www.reddit.com/r/IKEA/comments/kt7088/everything_out_of_stock/ (Or a car dealer; we went in for an oil change last week and discovered that the Honda dealer had exactly 0 new Hondas in inventory.)
(2) What to do next time there is a respiratory virus pandemic? Follow carefully developed WHO guidance, as Sweden did, rather than making it up as you go along. See https://philip.greenspun.com/blog/2021/02/23/who-guidance-on-pandemics-then-and-now/
(3) I can understand that there are those who believe that global warming is a species-ending crisis, i.e., that the climate will change and humans will not be able to adapt or create tech solutions that vacuum CO2 out of the atmosphere or that reduce solar heating. And I can understand that there are people who are upset that SARS-CoV-2 is able to kill a small percentage of humans. What confuses me is the intersection of these two groups. If the human species is going extinct in the medium term, why fret about a virus that deprives us of fewer life-years than measles?
(4) I’m actually huge fan of Alec Baldwin’s work, based purely on https://youtu.be/czOpDN8Knr4 (Glengarry Glen Ross)
(5) In a heavily plagued country, those under 18 had a roughly 2 in 1 million chance of dying from COVID-19 during the first year of coronaplague (see https://www.nature.com/articles/s41591-021-01578-1 for British data). 64% of those deaths, however, were in young people who “had comorbidities in two or more body systems”. So the chance of a slender healthy child dying from COVID-19 is quite a bit lower.
(6) As Dave Chappelle says (https://youtu.be/TT8-5KBInls ), one “they” or many “theys”? (I didn’t write the sentence you’re commenting on)
Is an obese 80-year-old the correct characterization of a typical (median) COVID-19 death? It was 82 with multiple comorbidities for March through August 2020 when Maskachusetts pulled the information from its dashboard (see https://philip.greenspun.com/blog/2020/08/13/maskachusetts-when-people-arent-scared-enough-change-the-covid-19-dashboard/ ). https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8057856/ says that, across 8 countries, most people (65%) who suffered a “COVID related death” were already above the life expectancy in their respective countries.
In other words, any COVID-19 intervention is done with the goal that more people who’ve already lived beyond life expectancy can die from something other than COVID-19.
Hey Mike…..Don’t let the noisy ones make you think you are alone in your perspective. I am part of the growing silent reader base who enjoys Alex’s comments but also greatly appreciate you speaking up for the meek, weak and covid impacted democratic readers. Keep it up!!!!
(Democrat) Anon: I too, appreciate Mike’s comments even though I think he is often wrong. However, since his opinions are mainstream, surely he cannot feel alone. I also disagree with characterizing Democrats as meek, when their Dear Leaders all over the world are openly mocking their subjects and “losing patience” with them.
“Dr” Phil:
The modernized version of the “Ph.D.” appellation, I take it? Quite apt since from what I recall reading even here, when people call out for a doctor they are not seeking a Dr of Statistics.
Also, I’d just like to add tonight:
People who are horrified by this book’s story – with its tales of the extreme measures brave men once suffered though to achieve something miniscule – should remember: there’s always an upcoming town election! Even if you’re almost totally incompetent, in many towns you can get a cushy side job with full benefits including pensions if you just pick the right time to run for an elected office that nobody cares about. The most important thing to do is talk to some other local administrators and find out which town has officers on the ballot where most of the voters are totally asleep and don’t even know an election is going on!
Our country is run this way now! You won’t have to tan your own hides or kill any seals! All you need to do is get your name on the ballot and have a hundred goobers show up to vote for you while everyone else watches TikTok!
Not so much horrified as impressed, actually.
“The resourceful crew manages to build a hut from the timber of the wrecked ship and they kill enough seals that starvation isn’t an issue. But the sailors have to do their own blacksmithing, sew their own clothes, make their own soap, tan their own hides, make their own cement (from seashells), make a forge bellows, turn wood into charcoal to fuel the forge, and create anything that they would ordinarily have purchased in a hardware store (e.g., nails).”
They wanted to get rescued! It looks like an escape to heaven on earth to me. Today they would be hunted down and arrested for hunting seals and mollusks and for unregulated CO2 emissions.
Interesting ending. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mr._Robinson_(film) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DW2SmFOrD9Y
Excellent book. Thank you for alerting us.