KARMA IS A BITCH

Ex-coal mine CEO Bob Murray files for black lung benefits — claims he is ‘near death’

Published on September 30, 2020 By Sarah K. Burris

Coal baron Bob Murray appears on Fox News to praise Trump/Screenshot

Robert Murray, former CEO of Murray Energy, filed for Black lung benefits after fighting regulations for the disease.

According to West Virginia Public Broadcasting reported on the filing at the Department of Labor Wednesday, recalling that Murray and his company fought mine safety regulations aimed at protecting those in the field from the disease.

“I founded the company and created 8,000 jobs there until the move to end coal use. I am still chairman of the board,” he wrote on the form, which was obtained by the Ohio Valley ReSource, a regional journalism collaborative with WVPB. “We’re in bankruptcy, and due to my health could not handle the president and CEO job any longer.”

Murray, who uses an oxygen tank, said that he is still in the early stages of the disease and he’s consulting with experts “to determine the party potentially responsible for paying out the associated benefits.” The Labor Department requires such information to define liability.

The claim says that the 80-year-old Murray is “near death.”

“During my 63 years working in underground coal mines, I worked 16 years every day at the mining face underground and went underground every week until I was age 75,” Murray said in the claim.

“It’s idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis. IPF, and it is not related to my work in the industry. They’ve checked for that,” Murray said in an interview with NPR. “And it’s not — has anything to do with working in the coal mines, which I did for 17 years underground every day. And until I was 76, I went underground twice a week.”

Murray has been the source of jeers from HBO host John Oliver, who fought a lawsuit against Murray for years, prompting an extensive episode on SLAPP suits and that ended with a fiery musical number, kickline, singing lawyers and squirrel barbershop quartet.

“North American Coal Corporation is named as one potentially liable party in Murray’s claim for the benefits,” the sort said, citing the documents from the claim. Murray said that he was employed there from May 1957 to October 1987 “where he ascended through its ranks, first as a miner before taking on the role of president.”

Read the full report.

Trump gave the go-ahead for his supporters to commit a wave of ‘election-related violence’: report



Published on October 1, 2020 By Matthew Chapman RAW STORY

On Thursday, writing for The Daily Beast, Kelly Weill reported that President Donald Trump’s nod to the Proud Boys at the first presidential debate has election officials worried he is opening the floodgates for vigilantes to engage in voter intimidation — or possibly violence.

“During the debate, Trump appeared to tell the far-right paramilitary group the Proud Boys to ‘stand by’ and urged fans to ‘go into the polls and watch very carefully’ for voter fraud, an exceedingly rare phenomenon Trump has crafted into a cornerstone of his political identity,” reported Weill. “If the prospect of election-related violence was already looming over the first presidential contest since Trump effectively welcomed the paramilitary far-right into the Republican Party, the debate made the alarm bells ring even louder.”

“The Proud Boys capitalized on Trump’s comments even before the debate’s end, putting his words on memes and t-shirts. But the far-right glee at the prospect of presidential permission for election-related violence wasn‘t confined to one group,” continued the report. “Andrew Anglin, the founder of the neo-Nazi website the Daily Stormer, wrote a post-debate blog post that reiterated Trump’s baseless claims that Democrats would attempt election fraud, and claimed that ‘Trump is ready for a war in the streets.’ (Anglin cannot personally participate in said war on the streets because he has gone AWOL while avoiding an ongoing lawsuit and tens of millions in civil penalties from previous lawsuits.)

Experts warn that this is a dangerous development.

“During Reconstruction, after the Civil War, during the 1920s, during the Civil Rights movement, attempts to keep people from exercising their legal right to vote were as intrinsic to white supremacy and white power groups as a burning cross,” said University of Chicago history professor Kathleen Belew. “It’s one of the textbook, central strategies.”

“Given the Trump orbit’s connection to the Proud Boys and given his advisors’ connections to previous voting meddling efforts,” said Institute for Research & Education and Human Rights executive director Devin Burghart, “there is certainly a concern both for violence on Election Day coming from groups like the Proud Boys and, should there not be a clear victor on November 3, for potential violence and meddling in the electoral process after Election Day.”

You can read more here.

Growing number of Americans willing to justify political violence: Surveys


Published on October 1, 2020 By Travis Gettys RAW STORY

Portland, Oregon/United States-August 22, 2020: Conservative people from the far right movement, Proud Boys, and Boogaloo join for a "Back the Blue" rally.

A new survey found an alarming uptick in the number of Americans who believe violence may be justified to achieve their political goals.

Researchers conducted a series of polls, which they reported to Politico, that showed one in three Americans who identify as either Democrat or Republican believe violence could be justified to achieve their partisan goals

The acceptance of political violence has grown in recent months, according to the researchers, who found in September that 44 percent of Republicans and 41 percent of Democrats said there would be at least “a little” justification for violence if the other party’s presidential nominee won the Nov. 3 election.

That’s a sharp rise since June, when 35 percent of Republicans and 37 percent of Democrats agreed.

The surveys found 36 percent of Republicans and 33 percent of Democrats say that violence is at least “a little justified,” a rise from 30 percent of each party in June.

Both Democrats and Republicans increasingly believe there would be “a lot” or “a great deal” of justification for violence if their party loses, with Republicans jumping from 15 percent in June to 20 percent in September, and Democrats moving from 16 percent to 19 percent in that same period.

The most ideological partisans feel even more strongly that violence would be greatly justified if their side loses.

Twenty-six percent of “very liberal” Democrats believe there would be “a great deal” of justification for such violence, compared to 7 percent who describe themselves as simply “liberal,” and 16 percent of “very conservative” Republicans feel the same way, compared to 7 percent of those who say they’re simply “conservative.”

About one in five Americans with a strong political affiliation say they’re willing to endorse violence if the other party wins the presidential election, according to the surveys conducted by YouGov, the Voter Study Group and Nationscape.

The polls had margins of error of up to 3 points.

PARASITE OF THE WEEK
A top House Republican criticized the $400 weekly federal unemployment benefit in the White House stimulus plan, saying the GOP doesn't want 'wasteful spending'
Joseph Zeballos-Roig

Republican Rep. Kevin Brady of Texas on Capitol Hill. Andrew Harnik/AP Photo

Rep, Kevin Brady criticized elements of the White House plan, including a $400 federal unemployment benefit.

"The worry is: 'How much wasteful spending will we have to swallow to do this?" Brady said in a Fox Business interview.

Brady, the top Republican on the House Ways & Means Committee, expressed concern that a $400 federal unemployment benefit disincentivizes work.

Numerous studies indicate an earlier $600 federal benefit didn't keep people out of the labor force.

Learn more about the race for a coronavirus vaccine in our live event on October 5. Sign up here.

Rep. Kevin Brady of Texas — the ranking Republican on the tax-writing House Ways and Means Committee — was critical of elements within the White House's stimulus proposal on Thursday, including a $400 weekly federal unemployment benefit.

During an interview with Fox Business, Brady said many Republicans are reluctant to back a stimulus plan with a big price tag.

"The worry is: 'How much wasteful spending will we have to swallow to do this?" Brady said, adding he wanted the federal government to prioritize spending on thwarting the coronavirus and aiding the jobless.

But he expressed concern that a $400 federal supplement to state unemployment checks would disincentivize people from seeking work, arguing many would earn more out of work than on the job as a result.

It's a claim often made by Republicans about the economic impact of the $600 federal unemployment benefit that expired in late July. Numerous studies show it didn't keep jobless people out of the workforce.

Brady said "targeted help" was needed, particularly to airlines moving ahead with layoffs and the restaurant industry.

Read more: BlackRock's investment chief breaks down why Congress passing a second round of fiscal stimulus is 'quite serious' for markets and the economy — and pinpoints which sectors will benefit in either scenario

House Democrats led by Speaker Nancy Pelosi are pressing for a $2.2 trillion stimulus plan. It includes a $600 weekly federal unemployment benefit, another wave of $1,200 stimulus checks, and aid to cash-strapped states and small businesses.

Meanwhile, the White House put forward a $1.6 trillion virus aid proposal containing many of the same measures, but lower spending amounts.

Brady's remarks underscore the opposition to significant federal spending among GOP lawmakers. Many in the GOP say they're opposed to stimulus plans since it would grow the federal debt. Lawmakers have approved over $3 trillion in federal aid since the pandemic began devastating the economy in the spring.

Negotiations between Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and Pelosi stretched into their fifth day on Thursday. The California Democrat assailed the White House's proposal in a Bloomberg TV interview.

"This isn't half a loaf. What they're offering is the heel of the loaf... and you really can't just say, well, just take this," she said.


Read more: Stimulus talks press on as dealmakers push for another boost to unemployment payments. Here's everything you need to know about the rescue package.

More than half of Americans at risk of shutoffs as economic crisis causes utility bills to pile up

Published on October 1, 2020 By Matthew Chapman RAW STORY

Couple worried as they analyze bills (Shutterstock)

On Thursday, The Washington Post reported that more than half of Americans are at risk of water, power, or gas shutoffs as unpaid utility bills pile up from the economic crisis — and emergency protections put in place by states begin to lapse.

“At the start of the coronavirus pandemic, many states acted quickly to ensure their residents would not lose their power or other utilities if their jobs or wages were slashed,” reported Tony Romm. “Now, however, only 21 states and the District of Columbia still have such disconnection bans in place. That leaves roughly 179 million Americans at risk of losing service even as the economy continues sputtering, according to the National Energy Assistance Directors’ Association, which is tracking the moratoria. Millions more in nine other states are set to lose their protections starting Thursday and throughout the fall, the group found.”

“Americans nationwide also appear to be racking up massive unpaid bills in the process,” continued the report. “Electric and gas debts alone threaten to reach or exceed $24.3 billion by the end of the year, according to a new NEADA analysis, released Thursday, based on roughly two dozen’ states regulatory filings. In some cases, the delinquencies appear to be severe. In Indiana, for example, more than 112,000 households are behind 120 days or more on their power bills, a Washington Post analysis of the largest local energy companies’ records found. The debt, totaling millions of dollars, is four times greater than the arrears accrued during the same period in 2019, the data shows.”

“The torrent of missed electric, water and gas payments underscores the severe cash crunch that continues to plague Americans nearly seven months after the deadly coronavirus sent the U.S. economy into a tailspin,” said the report. “Nationally, nearly one-third of adults still say they face difficulty meeting their regular household expenses, according to the most recent survey by the U.S. Census Bureau. That dour figure is compounded by the fact that 837,000 new workers filed for unemployment assistance last week, the U.S. government reported Thursday.

Data from companies in many key states paint a grim picture.

“In Wisconsin, residents fell behind on their electricity bills in August: An average of three in 10 customers at five electric and gas utilities missed payments, totaling $235 million in arrears, state records show,” said the report. Meanwhile, “More than 68,000 Nevada residents and small businesses were behind on their payments last month, the Nevada Power Company recently told regulators, and half are past due by more than 90 days.”

Already, the shutoffs are beginning, with horrible consequences for some people.

“This Tuesday marked 67 days of darkness for Kenneth Parson. He fell behind on his utility bills in the spring — and his lights went off, and stayed off, starting at the end of July,” said the report. “No power meant no refrigerator, so Parson, a 62-year-old with diabetes in Griffin, Ga., had no choice but to store his temperature-sensitive insulin on ice in a small cooler. He didn’t have an easy way to cook at home, either, so his wife, Cheryl, took to preparing some meals for him in a neighbor’s kitchen.”

Lawmakers in Washington have spent months trying to craft a second round of stimulus, which could give millions of people the relief they need to pay these bills. However, Senate Republicans, House Democrats, and Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin have wildly different terms for the bill, making a deal hard to reach.

You can read more here. PAYWALL

Trump supporters swallow voter fraud claims for one very simple reason: NYT reporter

Published on October 1, 2020 By Travis Gettys RAW STORY

Trump supporters (Shutterstock)

One of the reasons President Donald Trump’s conspiracy theories about voter fraud resonate with his supporters is they simply don’t know anyone who’s voting for Joe Biden.

New York Times reporter Jeremy Peters interviewed Trump supporters around the country who are sure Democrats can’t win without cheating, and he told MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” that was setting up a dangerous dynamic for the post-election period.

“Because of the geographical separation that people have from one another of different political views, often, these days, they don’t know anybody who is not voting for Trump,” Peters said. “So on Election Day or election week, whenever we know who the winner of the presidential election is, if it’s not Donald Trump, there’s a sizable chunk of people who are going to say, ‘How is this possible? I don’t know anyone who is voting for Biden.'”

This distorted view is further propped by Fox News and other conservative media outlets, which frame negative stories about the president as partisan attacks by his enemies.

“That’s why it’s so important for Trump and his pro-Trump media boosters to insist that he’s doing so well, that he’s winning,” Peters said. “Winning is such a key part of the Trump brand, so even after a night like Tuesday night where you had members of his own campaign staff and White House staff really shaking their heads at his performance, the message coming out of them publicly, at least, was the president really killed it. He was in an unfair fight against two people debating him, the moderator and Joe Biden, so, you know, he really beat the spread. We think he did a great job under such trying circumstances and the media is going to lie to you, that’s why it’s so important to put that narrative out there.”

“If you are a Trump voter, it’s better for you to be energized and mobilized by the sense, false as it is, that you’re winning,” he added, “and that’s something that I talk to Democrats and they’re really worried about because Democrats don’t, for the most part, have the same sense of energy and momentum. In fact, they’re quite anxious they might lose, and I think that that’s something that, frankly, Trump has an advantage on.”

        DIANE ARBUS, NYC. 1968

     ACTUAL PHOTO CAPTION

Facebook removes Trump campaign ads with misleading claims about refugees

Claims Biden immigration policies risked more Covid-19 as company also blocks ads delegitimizing election results


Kari Paul Thu 1 Oct 2020 
 

Facebook has rejected ads from the Trump campaign. 

Photograph: Dado Ruvić/Reuters


Facebook has removed a number of ads from the Trump campaign for making misleading and inaccurate claims about Covid-19 and immigration.

On Wednesday the social media platform took down the Trump-sponsored advertisements which claimed, without evidence, that accepting refugees would increase Americans’ risk of Covid-19. The ad, which featured a video of Joe Biden talking about the border and asylum seekers, claimed, also without evidence, that the Democratic candidate’s policies would increase the number of refugees from Syria, Somalia and Yemen by “700%”. More than 38 versions of the ad were run on Facebook and were seen by hundreds of thousands of people before the company removed them.

Facebook did not immediately respond to a request for comment, but said in a statement to NBC news the ads violated its policies. A version of the advertisement can still be seen in Facebook’s library but is now inactive, meaning it is not being run across any Facebook products.

Facebook's long-awaited oversight board to launch before US election

“We rejected these ads because we don’t allow claims that people’s physical safety, health, or survival is threatened by people on the basis of their national origin or immigration status,” a Facebook spokesman, Andy Stone, told NBC News in a statement.

The removal is the latest action taken against the Trump administration as social media platforms attempt to rein in misinformation ahead of the 2020 elections. It follows other removals of Trump ads including one in June, which featured a Nazi symbol. The company removed another Trump ad in 2018 saying it violated its rules against “sensational content”.

Following the removal of the ad on Wednesday, Courtney Parella of the Trump campaign doubled down on the advertisement’s claims in a statement. She did not cite the source of the 700% figure featured in the ad.Facebook is also changing its policies to prevent ads that delegitimize election results, project manager Rob Leathern tweeted on Wednesday. Under the new policies, ads cannot prematurely declare victory, present any method of voting as fraudulent or corrupt, or make accusations of voter fraud. The changes to these policies apply to both Instagram and Facebook and apply immediately as of Wednesday, he said.

“While President Trump took decisive action to restrict travel from China to slow the spread of coronavirus and saved countless lives, Joe Biden was busy calling the president xenophobic and armchair quarterbacking his pandemic response,” she said.

The Biden campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Although Facebook removed the ads regarding refugees and Covid-19, other misleading advertisements remain on the platform. One ad shows Joe Biden with a headphone photoshopped to his ear, perpetuating the false claim that the presidential candidate somehow cheated in the debates.

The advertisement appears to have been launched on the day of the debate but remains active on the platform, with more than 800 versions still active. The ads have been viewed by more than 3.6 million people, the majority of whom are in the key election states of Florida and Pennsylvania, according to Facebook data.

The Trump campaign’s ads have led to the “earpiece” conspiracy theory spreading organically on other social media platforms, including TikTok, according to the watchdog group Media Matters. The group has found four examples of TikTok videos espousing the theory that have been viewed more than 560,000 times. A spokesperson for TikTok said the videos violate its policies on disinformation and it is working to remove them as they are posted.

“You would not have seen the proliferation of conspiracy theories on TikTok today if there was not already an intense saturation of this idea from the Trump campaign yesterday,” said Angelo Carusone, president of Media Matters. “They sort of seeded the ground with this idea until the users themselves were driving it.”

Recognising vocational routes into chemistry

I HAVE ADVOCATED FOR THIS INTEGRATION OF

OF POST SECONDARY EDUCATION AND NO TUITION

Picture: © West Suffolk College

3 August 2020

The Royal Society of Chemistry has awarded accredited status to a vocational programme for the first time, reflecting the increasing importance of apprenticeships as a route into the chemical science profession.

On 6 May, the RSC’s Registration Committee met and approved the accreditation of West Suffolk College (Bury St Edmunds) for the delivery of the Level 3 Advanced Apprenticeship Laboratory Technician Standard with the Level 3 Cambridge Technical Extended certificate in Applied Science.

Accredited status is a marker of quality for a higher education programme – assuring prospective students that the programme is of a high standard.

The Royal Society of Chemistry has been awarding accredited status to degree level programmes for many years, but this is the first time we have extended accreditation beyond degrees. The new initiative reflects the growing importance of vocational routes into the chemical sciences. Accrediting apprenticeship programmes not only helps prospective apprentices to choose a high quality programme, but it also helps employers to secure the best quality training for their apprentices.

As a supporter of the Technician Commitment, the Royal Society of Chemistry is committed to recognising the professional status of the technical workforce. Opening up accreditation of the Laboratory Technician apprenticeship programmes is an important step towards this aim.

In order to attain accredited status, West Suffolk College had to complete a detailed application – showing how the programme met the key requirements for accreditation – and then go through a rigorous peer review process. A team of assessors conducted a site visit and met with apprentices on the programme and representatives of their employers.

The assessors noted: "West Suffolk College staff go that extra mile to ensure that the apprentices receive a good learning/training experience, to equip them to succeed and to create a nurturing environment. Apprentices value the support that they receive from the college and the staff here."

Catriona Bacon, Head of Health, Science and Social Care said: "I am immensely proud of leading the team in our science apprenticeship delivery and to receive this accolade.  We are continually working very hard with our learners and employers to ensure our learners receive the outstanding learning, supporting and enhancing their professional development and growth in such fast moving and specialist vocation."

Laraine Moody, Vice Principal for Employer Engagement said: "I am absolutely delighted that the hard work and dedication of the team has led to West Suffolk College becoming the first college to receive this amazing accolade. We are delighted to work with such an incredible organisation as The Royal Society for Chemistry and look forward to our learners and employers benefitting from this wonderful partnership."

Katie Dryden-Holt, Interim Vocational Skills Programme Manager at the RSC said: "The quality of provision at West Suffolk College really shone through- the nurturing environment created by the team at the college, coupled with excellent teaching and employer engagement will put West Suffolk College’s apprentices in a great position as they embark on their careers."

Find out more

Contact us to find out more about apprenticeship accreditation

Email:

Find out more about apprenticeship accreditatio

The holy grail myth

The true value of a scientific quest comes from the journey, not the goal writes Philip Ball

BY PHILIP BALL 28 SEPTEMBER 2020 CHEMISTRY WORLD

Source: © Getty Images

Golden opportunities lie on the route to holy grails

The holy grail was originally neither holy nor a grail (a chalice-like cup). It first featured in a romance, Perceval ou le Conte du Graal written by the Frenchman Chrétien of Troyes around 1190. This poem tells the tale of the Arthurian knight Percival, who encounters the ‘grail’ – more like a shallow dish with miraculous powers – while dining with the magical Fisher King. The image perhaps derived from old Celtic myths, but later translators of Chrétien’s popular tale turned it into a holy relic: Christ’s chalice from the last supper, used to collect his blood at the crucifixion.

All this seems a peculiar metaphor for setting scientific grand challenges. But it might be more apt than you’d think, especially for chemistry. One of the translators of Chrétien’s romance was Wolfram von Eschenbach, a German knight and poet who allegedly could neither read nor write but worked by dictation. In his Parzival, composed in the early 13th century, Wolfram interprets the grail as a stone, also called the lapis exilis, which could confer eternal youth like the elixirs of the alchemists. The philosopher’s stone that could transform base metals to gold was sometimes identified with this wondrous lapis.

Is this just fantasy?

Like the grail, the philosopher’s stone was a figment of the imagination that you could waste a lifetime seeking – hardly a good model for a target of scientific research. Except … you could discover other useful things on the way. In the nineteenth century, when alchemy was frequently mocked as deluded fantasy, Justus von Liebig had the perception to note its value. Without the philosopher’s stone to act ‘powerfully and constantly on the minds and faculties of men [sic]’, he wrote, ‘chemistry would not now stand in its present perfection’. For in order to know that the stone did not exist, ‘it was indispensable that every substance accessible … should be observed and examined’. This is not an entirely fair picture of alchemy – practitioners were doing much else besides seeking the marvellous stone, not least making dyes, medicines and soaps – but it does express the value of a motivational goal for research as a generator of useful spin-offs. As Professor Waldman tells Victor Frankenstein in Mary Shelley’s 1818 novel, when the naïve young medical student confesses his admiration of alchemists, ‘The labours of men of genius, however erroneously directed, scarcely ever fail in ultimately turning to the solid advantage of mankind.’


The art of successful science often lies in being prepared to reorient your research goals

It’s with this sentiment in mind that we might consider the value of setting ‘holy grails’ for chemistry. All of those considered in this issue are more achievable than the philosopher’s stone, and indeed in many of the cases (artificial enzymes, unnatural selection, C–H bond activation) the goal is to improve on what we already have. But the art of successful science often lies in being prepared to reorient your research goals when something unexpected but interesting turns up. Whether it is William Perkin trying to make quinine in the 1850s and ending up launching the synthetic dye industry, or Hideki Shirakawa contemplating a visiting scientist’s error in a synthesis of polyacetylene in the 1960s and realising he had a conducting polymer on his hands, it can pay to switch your quest when a lucky accident occurs.
Grail rules, OK?

This might be considered the first rule of a scientific holy grail: the value may lie in the journey, not the destination. (Percival never reaches the grail in Chrétien’s unfinished poem.) The second rule is not to succumb to obsessive pride and lust for your goal, as Parzival does in von Eschenbach’s version: he ends up doing some dumb and reprehensible things on his quest, and suffers as a result.


There’s a danger that scientific holy grails become sticking plaster technofixes

The third rule is to remember that panaceas – whether grails, philosopher’s stones or elixirs – don’t really exist. Yes, grand scientific challenges have the potential not only to stimulate new ideas and discoveries but also to alleviate urgent problems: artificial photosynthesis, for example, could offer abundant clean energy, while room-temperature superconductors could help to make more efficient use of it. But there’s a danger that scientific holy grails become sticking plaster technofixes. Some would consider a colony on Mars to be a desirable holy grail, but if that is portrayed as a way of saving humanity from the harm we are wreaking on our own planet, we should be as wary of it as of the evil magician Klingsor in Richard Wagner’s operatic version of Parzival.

Such technofixes have, in other words, a tendency to perpetuate rather than address underlying problems. Right now there are few more tempting holy grails than vaccines and better tests for Covid-19, but professor of public policy Shobita Parthasarathy has warned that ‘We can’t just ‘tech’ our way out of the pandemic.’1 For everyone to benefit, the disadvantaged communities that have been hardest hit must be included in the way such innovations are developed and applied – and ultimately we need to tackle the socioeconomic inequalities that the crisis has highlighted. Often, our real problem is not that we have failed to find the grail, but that we have created the need to look for it.

References

1 S Parthasarathy, Nature, 2020, 585, 8 (DOI: 10.1038/d41586-020-02495-y)

 Alchemy in the time of coronavirus

Has the coronavirus given a literal shot in the arm to the ancient proto-science cum transformational philosophy called alchemy?

 

September 22, 2020, 4 Jug Suraiya in Juggle-Bandhi | Science, World | TOI

In medieval Europe, alchemy was an occult science whose practitioners sought to transmute base metals, such as lead, into ‘noble’ metals like gold, through a process called chrysopoeia. While this was deemed to be the ‘esoteric’, or practical, goal of alchemy, its ‘estonic’, or secret, aspect was an inner transformation of the human spirit by which ignorance was transmuted into gnosis or transcendental knowledge.

The word alchemy is said to be derived from the Arabic al-Kimiya, but the roots of this ancient crypts-science have been traced back to the China of the 7th century BC, from where it went to Europe, via Greece, and to what later was to become the Islamic world.

As it spread like a great banyan tree, alchemy sprouted numerous offshoots, including the so-called ‘philosopher’s stone’ and the ‘elixir of life’ which gave immortality to its recipient.

In Christendom, alchemy was deemed to be a form of witchcraft, a heresy which could invoke the penalty of the ‘auto defe’, the inquisitional execution of being burned alive at the stake.

Alchemists formed an underground cult, cloaking their rites and rituals in symbols and arcane signs, some which are extant today in societies such as that of the Free Masons.

As a beacon of humankind’s never-ending quest for knowledge, alchemy found an eloquent platform in literature, as exemplified by Christopher Marlowe’s Faustus who traded his soul to the Devil for the power of boundless knowledge. In Rabindra Sangeet, we have mention of the ‘poroshmoni’, or philosopher’s stone which the poet’s soul yearns for.

Its philosophical subtext apart, alchemy is seen by several science historians as being the precursor of modern chemistry, the alchemist’s crucible morphing into the test-tube and petri dish of the laboratory.

Never has this connect between alchemy and contemporary science been more evident than it is today when the world is in the grip of a pandemic which might more aptly be called a panic-demic.

A vaccine that can prevent or cure Covid-19 has become the new ‘philosopher’s stone’, the latter-day ‘elixir of life’. There are reportedly over 140 formulations currently undergoing trials at various levels.

Governments and charitable foundations such as that of Bill and Melinda Gates have ploughed in billions to fund the search for a surefire ‘silver bullet’ which will put paid once and for all to the dread virus which has overturned the world’s economic, social and political applecart causing wreckage from which it will take countries years, if not decades, to recover.

But even as an overload of information – and an equal, perhaps greater, amount of misinformation – about the virus and its possible antidotes spreads even faster than the pathogen itself, many of the protocols regarding the development of the various vaccines and the progress of the human trials involving them are shrouded in secrecy as nations, and the pharmaceutical companies tasked with making and testing potential cures, vie with each other to try and take the lead in this race for redemption from the menacing spectre of the virus.

In recent times many skeletons have tumbled out of the clandestine cupboards of ‘Big Pharma’, such as the thalidomide tragedy of the 1960s. Reports that the Phase 3 trials of a frontrunner vaccine were temporarily suspended after a volunteer developed severe side effects, and the subsequent taciturnity regarding the issue by the company concerned, has raised widespread doubts about the safety of these medicinal miracles in the making.

With the Devil waiting in the wings to claim him, Faustus enjoined a resurrected Princess of Troy, “Sweet Helen, make me immortal with a kiss.” Today’s white-jacketed Faustus clone, hypodermic syringe in hand, might well say “Sweet vaccine, make us immune with a jab.” Is that a Satanic chuckle we hear in the background?