Bolsonaro and Amlo slammed for snubbing coronavirus warnings

THEY ARE BOTH NEOLIBERALS ONE IS RIGHT WING THE OTHER IS A SOCIAL DEMOCRAT
Brazilian and Mexican leaders mingle with public
Critics say populists should set example as outbreak grows

Jair Bolsonaro greets supporters in Brasilia. Photograph: Sergio Lima/AFP via Getty Images


Tom Phillips in Rio de Janeiro and David Agren in Mexico City
Published onSun 15 Mar 2020 

The populist leaders of Brazil and Mexico have come under fire after publicly thumbing their noses at growing fears over the spread of the coronavirus.


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In recent days both Brazil’s Jair Bolsonaro and Mexico’s Andrés Manuel López Obrador – nationalists from opposite ends of the political spectrum – have enraged opponents and observers by making high-profile public appearances in which they came into close physical contact with citizens.

They did so in defiance of medical advice and despite growing alarm over the spread of the virus through Latin America, where at least 17 countries have confirmed cases.

Bolsonaro, a far-right rabble-rouser who recently dismissed coronavirus as a media “fantasy”, left his presidential palace on Sunday to exchange fist bumps and mingle with supporters who turned out for highly controversial protests targeting Brazil’s democratic institutions.


“This is priceless. We politicians must change Brazil’s destiny,” Bolonsaro enthused during his hour-long jaunt, during which he used supporters’ mobile phones to take selfies before handing them back into the crowd.

Bolsonaro left his palace despite reportedly being placed in isolation there on Friday after members of a Brazilian delegation to the US, which he led, were found to have contracted the virus.

Bolsonaro claimed he tested negative for coronavirus on Friday after initial reports that a preliminary test came back positive.

The president is due to repeat the test next week and at least five senior officials have been confirmed to have coronavirus, including communications chief Fábio Wajngarten and ambassador to the US Nestor Forster.

On Friday one of Bolsonaro’s doctors told the conservative Estado de São Paulo newspaper the president would be “quarantined” until early next week. Bolsonaro’s decision to ignore that advice on Sunday sparked fury among critics and commentators.

Gleisi Hoffmann, president of Brazil’s leftist Workers’ party, tweeted: “The country needs a responsible and serious government that thinks first about the population. But what we have in the presidency is a loud-mouthed coward who behaves like a boor.”

The political commentator Vera Magalhães tweeted: “President Bolsonaro is promoting corona day”

Major cities including Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo have unveiled tough measures to fight coronavirus, including the closure of schools, creches, nightclubs and cinemas. Brazilian authorities have confirmed at least 121 cases and have advised citizens to remain at home.

But on Sunday Bolsonaro used his official Twitter account to encourage controversial street protests targeting his political enemies in congress. One prominent Bolsonarista congressman tweeted: “Pandemic my arse”.

In an editorial, the Estado de São Paulo lamented: “The major crisis Brazil now faces isn’t the stuttering economy or the threat of coronavirus. The real crisis is lacking a government when one is needed most.”

Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador with supporters in Acapulco on Friday. Photograph: David Guzman/EPA

Mexico’s leftwing president, López Obrador, who some compare to Bolsonaro despite their ideological differences, is also facing criticism for what many see as his cavalier attitude to the crisis.

On Saturday, as authorities announced schools would be suspended until at least 20 April, he tweeted a video of himself hugging fans, posing for photos and even kissing one child during a visit to the south-western state of Guerrero.

“Leaving the hotel in Ometepec, I greeted and attended to the petitions of the people,” López Obrador tweeted.

The president, best known as Amlo, also suggested Mexicans read Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel García Márquez, calling it “a balm to calm us”.

Confirmed Covid-19 cases in Mexico continued to increase: 41 were counted on Saturday, according to the health secretariat, 15 more than the day before.

Mexico has been slow to impose travel restrictions and testing has been scant. The public education secretariat, however, announced an extension of the Easter break, starting on 20 March.

Not all public events have been called off, with Amlo’s administration citing economic considerations. The Mexican football league continues and a massive music festival headlined by Guns N’ Roses attracted 40,000 fans on Saturday.

Xavier Tello, a healthcare consultant in Mexico City, said health authorities were slowly changing their position but their leader remained in “total denial”.

“And that’s dangerous,” he said.

On Sunday morning, López Obrador briefly alluded to the global health crisis, telling reporters: “I have great faith that we will move our dear Mexico forwards, that misfortunes and pandemics won’t affect us. Nothing of the sort.”

Perfume giant LVMH to make hand sanitiser for French hospitals

Luxury goods group will dedicate three sites to producing hand gel to help fight Covid-19 outbreak

Coronavirus – latest updates

See all our coronavirus coverage

The company’s French production lines usually produce scents and make-up for brands such as Christian Dior, Guerlain and Givenchy. Photograph: Christian Hartmann/Reuters

Agence France-Presse Sun 15 Mar 2020

The French luxury goods group LVMH is to start producing hand sanitiser at three of its perfume and cosmetics factories for distribution to French hospitals fighting the country’s coronavirus outbreak.

Twelve tonnes will be produced as soon as this week, instead of the usual Christian Dior, Guerlain and Givenchy scents and make-up usually made at the three French sites. The company also owns brands including Louis Vuitton, Tiffany and Moet & Chandon.


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The gel will be delivered “at no charge” to French health authorities, in particular the 39 public hospitals in Paris, the group said on Sunday.

“I wish to thank LVMH for acting so quickly: they made us this offer on Saturday night at 9pm (2000 GMT), and confirmed it on Sunday,” Paris hospitals chief Martine Hirsch told AFP.

The city’s hospitals have not yet run out of gel but supplies are “strained,” a spokeswoman for the Paris hospital system said, adding that other companies have also said they are ready to donate supplies. Fears of catching the new coronavirus have sparked a run on hand gel across France, with many pharmacies restricting clients to one small bottle per person.

The government issued a decree limiting prices after reports some retailers were trying to make extra profit from would-be buyers, with a 100ml bottle now costing no more than three euros.

Producers across France say they have been hiring workers to meet the soaring demand, as authorities urge stringent hand cleaning among measures to curtail the outbreak.

Climate change forces cognac makers to consider other grape varieties

Hotter, drier summers are making the French region’s star grape, Ugni blanc, ripen too quickly and lose acidity

Cognac can only be made in one 78,000-hectare area of France, using grapes grown in six regions. Photograph: Charbeau Stéphane/BNIC

Alan Evans @itsalanevans Sun 15 Mar 2020

Cognac makers are considering overturning longstanding tradition and turning to new grape varieties, as the main cultivar required to make the spirit struggles with the effects of global warming.

Cognac’s star grape, Ugni blanc, which accounts for 98% of the vines in the Cognac region, is ripening quicker and losing acidity as summers become hotter and drier.

The rules that govern the French brandy are among the strictest in the drinks world, and are subject to controlled appellation of origin (AOC) specifications.

Each stage of the spirit’s production, including the types of grapes that can be used, is outlined in its AOC. Cognac can only be made in one 78,000-hectare area of France, using grapes grown in six regions, or crus. This means distillers cannot move production to another part of the country to escape rising temperatures.

The spirit is, broadly, made from wine that is distilled into a liquid called eau-de-vie and aged in oak casks, often for decades. The result is cognac, with Hennessy, Martell, Courvoisier and Rémy Martin among the best known brands.

Vines damaged and without leaves in a vineyard in Cognac following a violent storm in the region during 2018. Photograph: Georges Gobet/AFP via Getty Images

These brands, and many more, are now working to find sustainable solutions to manage the effects of climate change. Extreme and unpredictable weather has blighted the region: in 2018, powerful hailstorms caused serious damage to 3,500 hectares of vineyards in the Cognac area. Hail and heavy rain also reduced the 2016 harvest, while 2017 was marred by frost.

“There is more extreme weather in Cognac than there used to be,” said Patrick Raguenaud, president of the BNIC, the governing body of Cognac. “We would sometimes have hail, but not this big.”

The changing climate has also thrown out the timings of production. “The grapes are ripening much sooner than they used to,” said Baptiste Loiseau, cellar master at Rémy Martin. “What is key is the balance between sugar and acidity. In cognac we need a lot of acidity to maintain the conservation of the wine because we are not using sulphur.”


Winegrowers have shifted harvest dates forward, and Cognac’s grapes are now removed from their vines in September rather than October. However, this raises concerns that other key flavour characteristics risk being lost. “When we harvest early, we are able to have a correct level of acidity and … sugar,” said Pierre Boyer, deputy cellar master and estate manager at Hine. “But the problem is we are going to have less aromatic components in the grapes.”

Cognac houses and their partner winegrowers are seeking longer-term solutions. According to Loiseau, while Ugni blanc has been the best grape variety for Cognac for more than a century, this may not be the case in the coming decades. “We have to prepare the future for the next generation, to allow them to take the right decisions depending on the conditions of weather,” he said.

A number of estates across the region, overseen by the BNIC, are testing grape varieties that are not currently permitted under the AOC to see if they prove more resilient to global warming and resistant to disease.

Rémy Martin is working with the Monbadon cultivar and, five years ago, planted vines in test sites. After two harvests, Loiseau notes that the grape’s ripeness develops at a slower pace than the Ugni blanc vines, which have been planted in an adjacent plot.

“The role of the trial is to have these two plots and see how they behave year after year, vintage after vintage,” said Loiseau.

Cognac makers are engineering completely new varieties of grapes that are more resistant to disease and extreme weather conditions. Photograph: Charbeau Stéphane/BNIC

Martell, meanwhile, has partnered with the French National Institute for Agricultural Research (INRA) to create new cultivars through natural breeding. “We have fantastic small new vines, which are quite promising,” said Pierre Joncourt, vice-president of cognac at Martell Mumm Perrier-Jouët. “They are definitely resistant to the disease so far, and they have slower growth.”

Likewise, the BNIC is naturally engineering completely new varieties of grapes with the help of the INRA, using different plants to Martell.

“We need to prepare as an industry to be resilient and we need to manage long-term actions – we need to experiment,” said Joncourt. “Then, we need to engage all the stakeholders, all the winegrowers … to … do something really consistent at a regional level.”

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Reuse this content

Can a face mask stop coronavirus?
Covid-19 facts checked

The truth about how you can catch coronavirus, who is most vulnerable and what you can do to avoid infection
Coronavirus – latest news and updates

What are the symptoms and should I see a doctor?
How to protect yourself against coronavirus

Hannah Devlin, Science correspondent 16 Mar 2020 

Claim: ‘Face masks don’t work’

Wearing a face mask is certainly not an iron-clad guarantee that you won’t get sick – viruses can also transmit through the eyes and tiny viral particles, known as aerosols, can penetrate masks. However, masks are effective at capturing droplets, which is a main transmission route of coronavirus, and some studies have estimated a roughly fivefold protection versus no barrier alone (although others have found lower levels of effectiveness).

If you are likely to be in close contact with someone infected, a mask cuts the chance of the disease being passed on. If you’re showing symptoms of coronavirus, or have been diagnosed, wearing a mask can also protect others. So masks are crucial for health and social care workers looking after patients and are also recommended for family members who need to care for someone who is ill – ideally both the patient and carer should have a mask.

However, masks will probably make little difference if you’re just walking around town or taking a bus so there is no need to bulk-buy a huge supply.

Claim: ‘It is mutating into a more deadly strain’

All viruses accumulate mutations over time and the virus that causes Covid-19 is no different. How widespread different strains of a virus become depends on natural selection – the versions that can propagate quickest and replicate effectively in the body will be the most “successful”. This doesn’t necessarily mean most dangerous for people though, as viruses that kill people rapidly or make them so sick that they are incapacitated may be less likely to be transmitted.

Genetic analysis by Chinese scientists of 103 samples of the virus, taken from patients in Wuhan and other cities, suggests that early on two main strains emerged, designated L and S. Although the L strain appeared to be more prevalent than the S strain (about 70% of the samples belonged to the former), the S branch of the virus was found to be the ancestral version.

The team behind this research suggested that this may indicate the L strain is more “aggressive”, either transmitting more easily or replicating faster inside the body. However, this theory is speculative at this stage – there haven’t yet been direct comparisons to see whether people who catch one version of the virus are more likely to pass it on or suffer more severe symptoms.

Claim: ‘It is no more dangerous than winter flu’

Many individuals who get coronavirus will experience nothing worse than seasonal flu symptoms, but the overall profile of the disease, including its mortality rate, looks more serious. At the start of an outbreak the apparent mortality rate can be an overestimate if a lot of mild cases are being missed. But this week, a WHO expert suggested that this has not been the case with Covid-19. Bruce Aylward, who led an international mission to China to learn about the virus and the country’s response, said the evidence did not suggest that we were only seeing the tip of the iceberg. If borne out by further testing, this could mean that current estimates of a roughly 1% fatality rate are accurate. This would make Covid-19 about 10 times more deadly than seasonal flu, which is estimated to kill between 290,000 and 650,000 people a year globally.

Claim: ‘It only kills the elderly, so younger people can relax’

Most people who are not elderly and do not have underlying health conditions will not become critically ill from Covid-19. But the illness still has a higher chance of leading to serious respiratory symptoms than seasonal flu and there are other at-risk groups – health workers, for instance, are more vulnerable because they are likely to have higher exposure to the virus. The actions that young, healthy people take, including reporting symptoms and following quarantine instructions, will have an important role in protecting the most vulnerable in society and in shaping the overall trajectory of the outbreak.

Claim: ‘You need to be with an infected person for 10 minutes’

For flu, some hospital guidelines define exposure as being within six feet of an infected person who sneezes or coughs for 10 minutes or longer. However, it is possible to be infected with shorter interactions or even by picking the virus up from contaminated surfaces, although this is thought to be a less common route of transmission.

Claim: ‘A vaccine could be ready within a few months’

Scientists were quick out of the gates in beginning development of a vaccine for the new coronavirus, helped by the early release of the genetic sequence by Chinese researchers. The development of a viable vaccine continues apace, with several teams now testing candidates in animal experiments. However, the incremental trials required before a commercial vaccine could be rolled out are still a lengthy undertaking – and an essential one to ensure that even rare side-effects are spotted. A commercially available vaccine within a year would be quick.’

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How to protect yourself against coronavirus

How to protect yourself against coronavirus How to avoid catching the coronavirus. A visual guide Illustration: Guardian Design


World Health Organization recommends people take these simple precautions against coronavirus to reduce exposure and transmission
What is the coronavirus?
Coronavirus outbreak – latest updates

by Hannah Devlin Science correspondent Tue 10 Mar 2020


How does the coronavirus spread?

The Covid-19 coronavirus outbreak is a new illness and scientists are still assessing how it spreads from person to person, but similar viruses tend to spread via cough and sneeze droplets.

When an infected person coughs or sneezes, they release droplets of saliva or mucus. These droplets can fall on people in the vicinity and can be either directly inhaled or picked up on the hands then transferred when someone touches their face, causing infection. For flu, some hospital guidelines define exposure as being within six feet of an infected person who sneezes or coughs for 10 minutes or longer. 

FacebookTwitterPinterest Stay six feet from infected individuals.


Viruses can also be spread through droplets landing on surfaces such as seats on buses or trains or desks in school. However, whether this is a main transmission route depends on how long viruses survive on surfaces – this can vary from hours to months.


There is anecdotal evidence that the virus can be spread by people before they have symptoms. Some other illnesses such as flu can be passed from one person to another before symptoms occur – but the extent to which this is happening with the new coronavirus is not well understood yet.
How to protect yourself and others

 Wash your hands.

Wash your hands: wet your hands with clean, running water and apply soap. Lather your hands, including the backs, between your fingers, and under your nails and scrub for at least 20 seconds. Rinse.

 Cover your mouth.

Cover your mouth and nose with a tissue when you cough or sneeze, then throw the tissue in the bin and wash your hands. If you do not have a tissue to hand, cough or sneeze into your elbow rather than your hands.

Face masks offer some protection.

Face masks offer some protection as they block liquid droplets. However, they do not block smaller aerosol particles that can pass through the material of the mask. The masks also leave the eyes exposed and there is evidence that some viruses can infect a person through the eyes.

Seek medical help.


Seek early medical help if you have a fever, cough and difficulty breathing, and share your travel history with healthcare providers.

Avoid live animals.

If visiting live markets in affected areas avoid direct, unprotected contact with live animals and surfaces that have been in contact with animals.
Avoid raw foods.


If you have returned from an affected area in the last two weeks, stay indoors and avoid contact with other people for 14 days. This means not going to work, school or public areas.
Seek medical advice before leaving home.

If you have returned from an infected area and develop a high temperature, cough, runny nose, sore throat or difficulty breathing do not leave your home until you have been given advice by a doctor.

 ON THE FAILED WAR ON WEED AND IT'S RACIST CONSEQUENCES 

USA TODAY SPECIAL INVESTIGATION LONG READ http://tinyurl.com/s2vmjj5

Coronavirus gives Sanders a chance and an obligation to push Biden left on health care

If the catastrophic implications of the coronavirus aren't the best possible argument for a Medicare for All single payer system, I don’t know what is.

Connor Turque Opinion contributor

There’s no way around it, Bernie Sanders is losing. A path to the Democratic presidential nomination still exists, but it's a Hail Mary. He lost in 2016, too, but it was one of the most successful losses in electoral history. What were once considered radical, career jeopardizing stances on issues like single payer health care, a $15 minimum wage and free college became the standard by which a large chunk of the Democratic electorate measures a candidate. He changed the trajectory of the Democratic Party.

Now, nominee or not, he could do it again. As we face down the COVID-19 pandemic, Bernie has an unexpected chance, and an obligation. A chance to change the conversation once again, and an obligation to push Joe Biden as far to the left on health care as he can. He has substantial leverage to do so.

Center for Disease Control officials have said they are not billing for the cost of COVID-19 testing, but that doesn’t mean it’s free, or even affordable. As a lot of us are about to find out, depending on your insurance (or lack thereof) you can expect to get a bill in the mail for a COVID-19 test, in some cases for more than $3,000. The test itself might be free, but the tangential costs related to being treated in a hospital are inescapable, and can be exorbitant. Nearly 28 million Americans have been left uninsured by Obamacare. Exactly how proactive do you think they are going to be about getting tested?

That thing that Bernie has been yelling about for years? This is that.
COVID-19 best case for single payer

If you haven’t recently tuned in to CNN or MSNBC (the networks that have spent the better part of the year deriding Sanders, with mostly aesthetic complaints, the common refrain being that he “shouts too much”), their commentators are beginning to sound a lot like Bernie surrogates.

We as a nation are going to get to watch, in real time, as institutions of power in America assess the value of human life against financial losses. This isn’t a new or notable occurrence. But the song that’s been playing quietly for years is currently being blared over a loudspeaker for everyone to hear. If the catastrophic implications of the coronavirus aren't the best possible argument for a single payer system, I don’t know what is.


In a recent interview with MSNBC's Lawrence O'Donnell, Democratic frontrunner Joe Biden suggested he might veto a Medicare for All bill if one were to land on his desk. However unlikely that scenario, the disconnect it highlights between Biden and a large chunk of the electorate is shocking, and would hurt him in November. He may not end up needing the youth vote Bernie has a near-monopoly on to secure the nomination, but he is going to need it if he wants to beat Donald Trump. That means making some concessions, and showing a willingness to make some enemies in the private sector.

Case for Bernie:Moderate Democrats have a duty to consider Sanders. He has a clear path to beating Trump.

There’s a reason major health care stocks surged by double-digits after Biden’s Super Tuesday victories. If the former vice president wins the nomination, and is serious about beating Trump, he'd be wise to embrace single payer. In all 20 primary contests to date with an exit or entrance poll, most Democrats — in some states as many as two-thirds or more — said they favor "a government plan for all instead of private insurance."
Biden needs to show me something

I myself am undecided about whether I’ll vote for Joe if he’s the nominee. There’s a lot of election left and I don’t need to decide today. But Biden needs to show me something. Like tens of thousands of other people, I’ve given everything I’ve got to fight for Bernie over the past months. The thought of settling for someone who appears to share very few common goals with me is a painful one. It’s also a familiar one. It cannot be overstated how little most young voters like me care about “restoring some dignity of the office.”

Warren's choice:She has the chance to unite the left by endorsing Sanders. She should take it.

Bernie Sanders is the first politician in my lifetime whom I’ve heard speak about compassion in convincing, dead-serious terms. That kind of unqualified compassion at the foundation of the movement is why, even after Bernie’s crushing defeat in Michigan, campaign volunteers stuck around in the following days to organize mutual aid with local groups to help those affected by COVID-19 shutdowns.

This is a bitter, sobering moment for Berners. If I’m going to be asked once again to vote for a candidate who has spent his career compromising, I’m going to need to see him compromise for me.

Connor Turque was a volunteer for Sen. Bernie Sanders' 2020 presidential campaign in Iowa, Nevada and Michigan. Follow him on Twitter: @turkowits

New species of tiny 'bird-dinosaur' discovered trapped in 99-million-year-old amber

Doyle Rice USA TODAY

It's one of the most ancient birds yet reported.

The bird's upper and lower jaws contain a large number of sharp teeth.

Despite its small size, this finding suggests Oculudentavis was a predator.

A new species of a bird-like dinosaur that lived 99 million years ago has been identified from a fossilized skull trapped in a block of amber, a study said.

Even tinier than a hummingbird, it's among the smallest dinosaurs from the Mesozoic Era yet found. It's also one of the most ancient birds ever reported.

"When I first saw it, I was blown away," Jingmai O'Connor, a paleontologist from the Chinese Academy of Sciences and lead author of the study, told AFP.

“Amber preservation of vertebrates is rare, and this provides us a window into the world of dinosaurs at the lowest end of the body-size spectrum," said study co-author Lars Schmitz, a biologist at the W.M. Keck Science Department in California, in a statement. 

The skull specimen, which was discovered in a mine in northern Myanmar, is only about 1/2 inch in length. The entire bird weighed less than a tenth of an ounce, scientists estimate.

The animal was given the scientific name Oculudentavis khaungraae. Oculudentavis means “eye tooth bird,” reflecting notable features that give hints into how the animal lived. 

Dinosaur clues:Rocks discovered from the day the dinosaurs died 66 million years ago when an asteroid hit the Earth

The creature's skull is dominated by a large eye socket that's similar to a modern lizard’s eye. The eye socket has a narrow opening and only lets in a small amount of light, which means that Oculudentavis was suited to being active in daylight conditions.

Its upper and lower jaws contain a large number of sharp teeth and the study authors estimate each jaw would have had 29 to 30 teeth in total. 

Despite its small size, this finding suggests Oculudentavis was a predator and likely ate small arthropods or invertebrates, unlike similar-size modern birds, which have no teeth and feed on nectar. 

“This is truly one of the rarest and most spectacular of finds!” The University of Central Florida paleontologist Ryan Carney, who wasn’t involved with the study, told National Geographic. “Like capturing Cretaceous lightning in a bottle, this amber preserves an unprecedented snapshot of a miniature dinosaur skull with exciting new features.”

The researchers concluded that the specimen's tiny size and unusual form suggests a never-before-seen combination of features.

"This discovery shows us that we have only a small glimpse of what tiny vertebrates looked like in the age of the dinosaurs," Schmitz said.

The study was published in the peer-reviewed British journal Nature.

New study shows how effective Alcoholics Anonymous really is

Adrianna RodriguezJayne O'Donnell

USA TODAY

The well-known program that seeks to help people with alcohol use disorder, Alcoholics Anonymous, has long been criticized for not having the medical research to back up its efficacy.

Until now.

A new study published by the medical journal Cochrane Database of Systematic Review found the peer-led program not only helps people get sober, but it also has higher rates of continuous sobriety compared with professional mental health therapy, such as cognitive behavioral therapy.

The study is important because it dispels misinformation about the program, said lead author Dr. John Kelly, a professor of psychiatry and addiction medicine at Harvard Medical School.

“In the popular press, there’s been reports of AA not working or being even harmful for people,” he said. “So, we wanted to clarify the scientific picture to the highest scientific standard.”

The study had the opposite findings of a similar study published by Cochrane in 2006 that found “no experimental studies unequivocally demonstrated the effectiveness of AA or TSF (twelve-step facilitation) approaches for reducing alcohol dependence of problems."

The 2006 review included eight trials with about 3,400 people, while the new review included 27 studies of more than 10,500 people.

The studies reviewed for Wednesday's publication rated AA's effectiveness by measuring factors including the length of time participants abstained from alcohol, the amount they reduced their drinking, if they continued drinking, the consequences of their drinking and their health care costs.

AA was never found less effective and was often significantly better than other interventions or quitting cold turkey. One study found the program 60% more effective than alternatives.
Lisa Smith, a recovery advocate who chronicled her addiction and recovery from alcoholism and cocaine in the book "Girl Walks Out of a Bar," said the study "provides important confirmation to what I have seen throughout my 15 years of sobriety in AA."

“Anyone struggling with their drinking can walk into a meeting full of people who’ve been there and are ready offer support," said Smith, an attorney.

Psychologist Keith Humphreys, co-author of the study and a Stanford University psychiatry professor, said mental health professionals – including him early in his career – are frequently skeptical of AA's effectiveness. Psychologists and psychiatrists are often trained to provide cognitive behavioral therapy and motivational enhancement therapy to treat patients with alcohol-use disorder.

He recalled thinking, “How dare these people do things that I have all these degrees to do?”

Kelly said the peer-led basis of AA is what makes the program so effective and has the potential to save health care providers $10 billion a year in alcohol-related incidents. The program is free.

Women and the bottle. Alcohol is killing more people, and younger.

They were young. They thought they had time. Then they nearly died of liver disease.

'Deaths of despair':Drugs, alcohol and suicide hit young adults hardest

“AA didn’t come from the scientific community, it came from people who were suffering addiction,” he said. “They’re just people with lived experience, and that’s powerful when you multiply that by a couple of million people.”

The study found higher rates in long-term sobriety when medical professionals connected their patients to AA after completing a 12-step program. Kelly hopes that the review will encourage more studies of other programs, possibly without spiritual elements, such as Smart Recovery.

It is the spiritual aspect of AA that turns people off and sends them to alternatives, said Smart Recovery executive director Mark Ruth. AA and other 12-step programs recommend the use of a higher power to help members recognize something, even if it isn't God or any religious deity, has a power greater than they are.

"We believe in faith as part of a person’s personal choice, not as part of a program or a tool," he said.

Meeting facilitators are trained to "redirect conversations" when faith comes up as the program wants to remain science and evidence based, he said.

Although the federal Substance Abuse and Mental Health Administration recommends the use of "medication-assisted treatment" combined with therapy for opioid addiction, many in 12-step programs including AA don't consider people taking these anti-craving drugs to be sober. Ruth says that's another key differentiator for his program, which has "no stigmas" and focuses on "where they want to go and how we can assist them to get there."

According to the 2018 National Survey on Drug Use and Health, 14.4 million adults over 18 have alcohol use disorder.

An estimated 88,000 people die from alcohol-related causes annually, making alcohol the third leading preventable cause of death in the U.S. behind tobacco and poor diet, according to the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism.

Smith, Ruth and the study authors said it's most important for people to find an approach to recovery that works.

"As an organization, we have nothing but great respect for the AA 12-step program," said Ruth. "It's like choosing a vanilla shake versus a chocolate shake."


ONE OF THE AA FOUNDERS WAS INFLUENCED BY THIS BOOK

SNOWSTORM IN THE DESERT REDUX

ARIZONA, MARCH 2020

SEVERE WEATHER: LIGHTNING & SHELLY

USA TODAY http://tinyurl.com/vp5uu8

Percy Bysshe Shelley Quotes
In the golden lightning Of the sunken sun O'er which clouds are brightening, Thou dost float and run Like an unbodied joy whose race is just begun.

The Cloud (poem) - Wikipedia

"The Cloud" is a major 1820 poem written by Percy Bysshe Shelley. "The Cloud" was written ... Lightning or electricity is the "pilot" or guide for the cloud. Lightning is attracted to the "genii" in the earth which results in lightning flashes. The genii symbolise .

517. The Cloud

Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792–1822)

I BRING fresh showers for the thirsting flowers,     From the seas and the streams; I bear light shade for the leaves when laid     In their noonday dreams. From my wings are shaken the dews that waken         5     The sweet buds every one, When rocked to rest on their mother’s breast,     As she dances about the sun. I wield the flail of the lashing hail,     And whiten the green plains under,         10 And then again I dissolve it in rain,     And laugh as I pass in thunder. I sift the snow on the mountains below,     And their great pines groan aghast; And all the night ’tis my pillow white,         15     While I sleep in the arms of the blast. Sublime on the towers of my skiey bowers,     Lightning my pilot sits, In a cavern under is fretted the thunder,     It struggles and howls at fits;         20 Over earth and ocean, with gentle motion,     This pilot is guiding me, Lured by the love of the genii that move     In the depths of the purple sea; Over the rills, and the crags, and the hills,         25     Over the lakes and the plains, Wherever he dream, under mountain or stream     The Spirit he loves remains; And I all the while bask in heaven’s blue smile,     Whilst he is dissolving in rains.         30 The sanguine sunrise, with his meteor eyes,     And his burning plumes outspread, Leaps on the back of my sailing rack,     When the morning star shines dead, As on the jag of a mountain crag,         35     Which an earthquake rocks and swings, An eagle alit one moment may sit     In the light of its golden wings. And when sunset may breathe from the lit sea beneath,     Its ardours of rest and of love,         40 And the crimson pall of eve may fall     From the depth of heaven above, With wings folded I rest, on mine airy nest,     As still as a brooding dove. That orbèd maiden with white fire laden,         45     Whom mortals call the moon, Glides glimmering o’er my fleece-like floor,     By the midnight breezes strewn; And wherever the beat of her unseen feet,     Which only the angels hear,         50 May have broken the woof of my tent’s thin roof,     The stars peep behind her and peer; And I laugh to see them whirl and flee,     Like a swarm of golden bees, When I widen the rent in my wind-built tent,         55     Till the calm rivers, lakes, and seas, Like strips of the sky fallen through me on high,     Are each paved with the moon and these. I bind the sun’s throne with a burning zone,     And the moon’s with a girdle of pearl;         60 The volcanoes are dim, and the stars reel and swim,     When the whirlwinds my banner unfurl. From cape to cape, with a bridge-like shape,     Over a torrent sea, Sunbeam-proof, I hang like a roof,         65     The mountains its columns be. The triumphal arch through which I march     With hurricane, fire, and snow, When the powers of the air are chained to my chair,     Is the million-coloured bow;         70 The sphere-fire above its soft colours wove,     While the moist earth was laughing below. I am the daughter of earth and water,     And the nursling of the sky; I pass through the pores of the ocean and shores;         75     I change, but I cannot die. For after the rain when with never a stain,     The pavilion of heaven is bare, And the winds and sunbeams with their convex gleams,     Build up the blue dome of air,         80 I silently laugh at my own cenotaph,     And out of the caverns of rain, Like a child from the womb, like a ghost from the tomb,     I arise and unbuild it again.

ESSAY

Lightning Strikes Twice
Revisiting the Shelleys 200 years after their masterpieces.
BY ERIN BLAKEMORE 

Portrait of Percy Bysshe Shelley © Chronicle / Alamy Stock Photo. Portrait of Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley © National Portrait Gallery, London.

When Ramesses II died in 1213 BCE, the 96-year-old Egyptian pharaoh was so unusually old for ancient times that most of his subjects couldn’t imagine life without him. Some feared that his death meant the end of the world itself. After all, he had reigned for 66 years—long enough that many Egyptians lived and died without ever knowing another ruler. Several centuries later, and thousands of miles away, Ramesses II was resurrected: not in Egypt this time, but in Britain, where he was the subject of an impromptu literary competition that spawned “Ozymandias” one of Percy Bysshe Shelley’s most beloved works and a staple of poetry anthologies.

Two hundred years later, it’s hard to imagine literature without Shelley’s oft-quoted poem. That wasn’t always the case. Were it not for the tireless work of Mary Shelley, Percy’s second wife, collaborator, and posthumous editor, “Ozymandias” would probably be forgotten today. Likewise, Mary’s own work, including her most famous book, Frankenstein, might not exist in its current form without Percy’s encouragement. The potent brew of collaboration, competition, and chaos that fed the Shelleys’ shared literary lives was rare but not singular.

Indeed, literary lightning seemed to strike again and again for the couple, first with Frankenstein; or, the Modern Prometheus, published anonymously in 1818, and then with “Ozymandias,” published a little more than a week later in the January 11, 1818, issue of the Examiner newspaper in London. Both works had their roots not just in genteel, if cutthroat, literary competitions but also in the turbid, six-year marriage that framed the most productive period of the Shelleys’ literary careers.

By the time Percy wrote “Ozymandias,” he and Mary had been in love for four years. They met in 1814 at the home of Mary’s father, philosopher William Godwin, whose commitment to what today might be called anarchism deeply impressed the troubled young poet. Just three years earlier, Percy had been expelled from Oxford University after cowriting and distributing a pamphlet called The Necessity of Atheism, which he refused to disavow or discuss with university officials. He was obsessed with the daring politics and philosophy of first-generation Romantics such as Godwin and Robert Southey, England’s longtime poet laureate. Like his role models, Percy believed that individuals, rather than institutions such as the church or state, should determine their fates. In 1813, he laid out his political views in a privately distributed poem, “Queen Mab,” inspired by Southey’s then-revolutionary stance.

Godwin was the head of a large blended family—he raised five children born to his two wives—and the widower of the feminist thinker Mary Wollstonecraft, who died in 1797. He had hoped that Percy might dig into the Shelley family fortune to support him as a patron. The 22-year-old Percy had fallen out of favor with his aristocratic father, however, and was thousands of pounds in debt. He was also infatuated with Godwin’s 16-year-old daughter, Mary. Godwin tried to nix the budding affair, but the couple ignored his protests and ran off to Europe. Godwin was devastated.

The young couple’s relationship was as toxic as it was passionate. Percy abandoned Harriet Westbrook, his pregnant wife of three years, for Mary, and Mary abandoned the comforts of a conventional life by essentially eloping with her married lover.

She didn’t go alone, however. Her stepsister, Claire Clairmont, craved adventure and accompanied the couple to Continental Europe, which they associated with revolution—the French Revolution had ended a little more than a decade before—and natural splendor. They relied on Claire’s shoddy French and more optimism than money. Mary became pregnant almost immediately.

"It was acting a novel, being an incarnate romance,” Mary recalled later, and the literary partnership that would define her marriage was forged on this foolhardy vacation. During a breakneck six-week tour of France, Switzerland, Germany, and the Netherlands, Mary and Percy read aloud to each other, studied Mary Wollstonecraft’s works, and, between bouts of lovemaking, kept a record of their journey in the margins of each other’s journals.

The trip’s romantic mood soon soured. As Mary struggled with the nausea of early pregnancy, Percy and Claire flitted together from one tourist site to another. (Some biographers suspect they had an affair.) They ran out of money for carriages and had to traverse the countryside on donkeys and, often, on foot. Percy fell further and further into debt. Eventually, the trio slunk back to England. Mary’s father fully disowned her, and she was forced to live with friends while hiding from Percy’s creditors, to whom he owed money for everything from clothing to rent.

Though the couple continued to read and write together in England, Percy encouraged Mary to take another lover in a demonstration of his commitment to free love. (It’s unclear whether she did.) Mary keenly felt her separation from her father and her isolation from polite society. When she gave birth prematurely in February 1815, it was a kind of breaking point. The child died just weeks later, and Mary, perhaps disillusioned by the life she had signed on to, fell into a deep depression. Her journal from the period was either lost or destroyed, so biographers don’t know how her mental state might have affected her writing.

In 1816, Mary’s stepsister suggested that the trio again try their luck in Europe. By then, Mary had another child, three-month-old William, and Claire had a new obsession, 28-year-old George Gordon, Lord Byron, one of the most notorious poets and playboys in Europe. She became one of Byron’s many lovers and, unbeknown to Mary and Percy, was pregnant with Byron’s child.

The Shelleys had never met Byron, but he intrigued them, so Claire insisted that the couple join her and her new paramour on an extended road trip through Europe. Their first stop was Geneva, where Byron, who had been all but run out of England because of his string of scandalous, failed, and allegedly incestuous love affairs, was to spend the summer.

Percy and Byron became immediate friends, and Mary joined them—usually indoors, given the lack of sunshine during the “year without a summer,” in which ash and aerosols from the eruption of Mount Tambora in Indonesia cast a pall of gloomy weather worldwide. It was a hothouse environment of writing, argument, and creative fervor. The couple often joined Byron and his accompanying doctor, John Polidori, for late-night conversations and storytelling. Things turned eerie in Byron’s candlelit drawing room in June 1816. After the friends challenged one another to write a ghost story, Mary produced the beginning of what would become Frankenstein. Although Percy encouraged Mary to expand the story into a complete book, and although many words in the rough draft appear to have come from Percy’s pen, it’s unclear how much he contributed to the final manuscript. Most scholars argue that his contributions were minor edits, many of which Mary rejected. Others, including Charles Robinson, consider Percy’s influence and edits to be significant. (Another modern horror trope was born that night: Polidori’s “The Vampyre.” Though largely unread today, it is considered a forerunner of the vampire genre.)

This spirit of friendly literary competition followed the Shelleys back to England in September 1816. Three months later, they married, following the suicide of Percy’s wife. They rented a house in Marlow, a rural hamlet outside London, christened Albion. Mary hoped the house would be a haven after the peripatetic life they’d led during the first few years of their relationship. She started cowriting a travelogue of her trips throughout Europe with Percy and worked on the expanded manuscript of Frankenstein. Shelley edited and encouraged Mary’s work but focused on his own poetry, including The Revolt of Islam, an epic poem about a fictitious revolution that was published in 1817.

Percy had carte blanche to pursue his passions, but Mary felt hemmed in. “I am … so intolerably restless that it [is] painful to sit still for five minutes,” she wrote to Percy during one of his frequent trips away. Albion was now home to her husband, two babies, Claire and her daughter by Byron, and a seemingly endless cavalcade of friends, children, and servants. Mary was also pregnant with her third child.

Albion could be a claustrophobic environment, and because the Shelleys and their contemporaries lived in a world with no screens, speakers, or smartphones, they had to create their own entertainment. Literary competitions were a lively way to flex their considerable narrative muscles while visiting with guests. These casual competitions, some of which were timed, were usually judged by the participants themselves and pursued for fun rather than publication. Yet, in the intense, fame-hungry subculture of the Romantic poets and their hangers-on, these competitions demanded every iota of artistic firepower each writer could bring.

It’s no surprise that Horace Smith regularly took part in the Shelleys’ literary competitions. He was a famed parodist who, in 1812, struck it big sending up Romanticism’s most recognizable voices. London’s Drury Lane theater had burned three years earlier, and its proprietors offered 50 pounds to the poet who produced an address worthy of being read at the theater’s grand reopening. Its secretary apparently complained to Smith that the applications were all inane. In response, he and his brother James published a series of supposedly rejected entries written in the style of literary lights such as Wordsworth, Coleridge, and Scott. Horace Smith, who later became a stockbroker, prospered with The Rejected Addresses, a book that became wildly popular. (Lord Byron—the poet, not the parody—eventually won the competition.)

Smith and Shelley were fast friends. The parodist described the poet as a handsome, if distracted, gentleman, “one that is gentle, generous, accomplished, brave.” In reality, the Shelleys courted Smith for his generosity. He began to manage the couple’s disastrous finances, lending money to Percy and his fellow poets and artists. And Smith had a special devotion to Mary, whom he supported after Percy’s death and whose finances he also managed for decades.

“I am afraid [Smith] must think me a strange fellow,” Percy reportedly said to his friend Leigh Hunt. “Is it not odd, that the only truly generous person I ever knew, who had money to be generous with, should be a stockbroker! And he writes poetry, too.”

Smith, like Shelley, moved in circles deeply inspired and fascinated by ancient languages and cultures. It was a golden age of grave robbery, marked by high-profile archaeological discoveries, such as the Rosetta Stone in 1799, as well as controversies over whether antiquities, such as those from the Temple of Apollo Epikourios at Bassae, should be brought from Greece to England. In 1801, England fell into an uproar over the British Museum’s acquisition of one of the ancient world’s most treasured works of art, the Parthenon Marbles. The marble sculptures once lined the Acropolis of Athens, ancient Greece’s most important building, and British nobleman Thomas Bruce, the seventh Earl of Elgin, began taking pieces of it to England. Elgin claimed he did so with the blessing of the Ottoman Empire, but debates over the legality and morality of the move have raged ever since. For Byron, the marbles’ presence in England was a scandal and Elgin a criminal whose name would live in infamy.

Percy was fascinated. Mary’s journals, which religiously track her husband’s every movement and visitor, record in characteristic terse fashion that he visited the marbles on January 13, 1817: “On Friday, 13th, spend the morning at the British Museum, looking at the Elgin Marbles.” And though Percy’s reaction wasn’t recorded, scholars believe the visit helped inspire “Ozymandias.”

As Britain continued to wrestle with the ethics of removing art from ancient Greece, other European tomb raiders were hard at work. In 1816, Henry Salt, the British consul to Egypt, dislodged a 7.25-ton statue of Ramesses II from the pharaoh’s family temple and shipped it to England. Word of Salt’s archaeological and engineering feat soon spread. The Shelleys and their coterie eagerly discussed the imminent arrival of the monument, which all the British papers covered. It was the perfect subject for one of the Shelleys’ literary contests.

In late 1817, Percy and Smith embarked on a sonnet competition inspired by news of the Egyptian treasure then en route to England. Percy composed on a sheet of paper scrawled with numbers, perhaps indicating his increasingly perilous financial situation. His was an artistic process in which the sublime, the economic, and the domestic were closely intertwined.

Percy’s sonnet, “Ozymandias,” the Greek name for Ramesses II, begins not with Ramesses’s face, which has sunk into the sand, but with the image of his “vast and trunkless legs of stone.” The poet reflects on what the sand-blasted ruins suggest about the statue’s sculptor before turning his attention to the Egyptian king, whose acts are summed up in a commandment that appears on the broken sculpture’s pedestal: “'Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!'”

But the king’s works, like his representation in stone, are buried in the sands of time. The poem ends with an image of the lonely, endless plain of sand that has effaced the king’s accomplishments. Such undoing could happen to anyone, Percy seems to suggest, and in the case of the Egyptian ruler, who is described as a frowning tyrant, obliteration is deserved.

The poem’s ruminations on the ephemerality of fame reveal Percy’s own awareness of how brittle Romanticism, with its fetish for personal glory, was and of how fleeting art can be. It also suggests the hollowness of the British Empire, which expropriated antiquities such as the statue of Ramesses without understanding that its own dominion was imperiled and fading.

The poem Smith wrote for the contest, “On a Stupendous Leg of Granite, Discovered Standing by Itself in the Deserts of Egypt, with the Inscription Inserted Below,” is less awe inspiring. Instead of ruminating on the ephemerality of the creator, it portrays the lonely statue as symbolic of a long-lost city—one that could point to the eventual end of London.

Both poems appeared in the Examiner, published by their mutual friend Leigh Hunt. Although Smith and Percy’s friends likely read the newspaper, the poems didn’t make much of a splash. They were largely ignored until after Percy’s death, when “Ozymandias” took on the added poignancy of its creator’s brief life.

As it turned out, Percy never saw Ozymandias in person. By the time the massive statue reached England in 1818, Percy had decamped permanently to Italy with Mary and Claire, dogged by debts and eager, as always, for a geographic escape from his problems. Percy’s chaotic retinue of family, art, and friends followed him to Europe instead.

In 1822, Percy drowned after a freak boating accident in Italy. He was only 29. Mary, a widow at 25, devoted herself to preserving and championing her husband’s legacy. During most of their marriage, she had played the role of mother and caretaker (of the Shelleys’ four children, only Percy Florence Shelley survived into adulthood), entertaining Percy’s friends and nurturing his literary ambitions. Her own talents, expressed in travelogues and set aside whenever there was business at hand, were often sidelined in favor of Percy, though both wrote, edited, and obsessively read each other’s work.

Mary’s literary prowess was hidden from readers too. Though popular in its day, Frankenstein was published anonymously and only those in the know realized that it was Mary’s work. In 1831, she published a heavily revised version of the book under her own name. It was a kind of public debut, and afterward she pursued a literary career of her own, writing popular travelogues, biographies, and novels. Although she is still best known for her fabulist fiction, her other great achievement was editing and publicizing Percy’s work.

“The ungrateful world did not feel his loss,” she wrote in the preface to her husband’s Posthumous Poems, published in 1824, “and the gap it made seemed to close as quickly over his memory as the murderous sea above his living frame.”

Sorting through the mire of Percy’s papers, which were left in disarray after his untimely death and contained a large cache of fragmentary and unfinished work, was Mary’s way of working through grief. “You cannot imagine how confusing & tantalizing is the turning over Manuscript books,” she wrote to Edward Moxon, who published Percy’s poems beginning in 1838.

Cataloging Percy’s papers was just the beginning of Mary’s battle to resuscitate his literary legacy. Her father-in-law, Sir Timothy Shelley, had often clashed with Percy because of the poet’s unconventional behavior and antiestablishment political views. Sir Timothy saw Mary as part of a distasteful past he wanted to bury along with his son.

But Percy had left behind a son of his own, and Mary and the child depended on Sir Timothy for financial support. Although the elder Shelley was determined to suppress his son’s burgeoning fame, which had been stoked by news of Percy’s tragic drowning, Mary could not afford to anger her benefactor.

Nonetheless, throughout the 1820s, Sir Timothy threatened to cut off Mary and her son if she published Percy’s work. She sorted his papers anyway and begged her father-in-law to let her publish what she had found. Finally, an aged Sir Timothy relented, and in the late 1830s, Mary published an ambitious four-volume edition of Percy’s poetry and a two-volume edition of his prose. It was the culmination of years of dogged detective work and editorial skill.

Mary could never have—and would never have—brushed aside her husband’s legacy in her desire for renown of her own, both because of her devotion to Percy and because of the era’s strict gender norms. Even in her editorial work, which included extensive biographical writing about Percy, Mary held her own on the page. As Percy’s literary executor, she restored his reputation, which had been tattered by his antagonism toward 19th-century social mores. Through commentary that documented her close relationship with Percy, she also ensured that readers realized she was an inextricable part of her late husband’s creative process. Finally, she also ensured that Percy—a relatively unknown poet upon his death—received the posthumous fame she felt he deserved.

Today, the statue of Ramesses II is still on view at the British Library, the crown jewel of a massive collection of Egyptian artifacts. And the Shelleys’ intertwined legacy is still the stuff of literary legend. The “lone and level sands” of time and a fickle public may yet sink the Shelleys, but for now, two centuries after the creation of “Ozymandias” and the publication of Frankenstein, it’s difficult to imagine a world without them.
Originally Published: January 22nd, 2018


Erin Blakemore is a journalist from Boulder, Colorado. She writes about history, literature, culture, and science for publications such as The Washington Post, Smithsonian and JSTOR Daily. Her first book, The Heroine's Bookshelf, won a Colorado Book Award for Nonfiction.