From Sophie's front desk — Saturday, September 12
Al Jazeera — read the full story
Seventh province. Cross-border creep. Government denial. The Democratic Republic of Congo's Ebola outbreak has jumped another boundary — this time through Rwanda and Uganda — while officials claim the numbers are falling. Hypayshia of Alexandria has the first word, then Epickteetus.
The disease does not honor the lines we draw on maps. In Alexandria we knew this , the plague of 262 did not pause at the Serapeum's threshold, nor did it respect the prefect's edicts. My father Theon taught me that a proof fails when its premises contradict what the diagram shows. Here the magistrate's account says the affliction recedes; the diagram — seven regions now, crossed by a single traveler through lands beyond the cataracts — ... says otherwise.
We built the astrolabe to measure what the eye cannot see directly. The traveler is the moving point; the regions are fixed stars. The line between them is not drawn by decree. When Synesius wrote from Cyrene describing the desert tribes' movements, he did not ask permission of the Roman governor. The geometry of spread obeys its own necessity.
Containment is a construction problem. You need the true center, the true radius, the true boundary. If your center is the official report and not the body where the fever burns, your circle will always miss the disease. The question is not whether the magistrate speaks truly. The question is whether your instruments are calibrated to what moves.
and the Mexicans, it was inevitable that conflicts would develop. Differences in political views, religion, language, and mode of living all served to kindle and feed the flames of the Texas Revolution. At the very beginning of hostilities, Texans closed the colonial land offices…
to be largely a history of land. The political, social, and economic superstructure of a people is traceable to the land they control. Especially is this true of western nations and of Texas. In what is now Southwestern United States there were several settlements of Mexicans and…
Creek in Dallas County, and covered a large part of what is now the southeast part of the City of Dallas. Among Third Class Certificates will be found all colonial grants. The Republic of Texas encouraged immigration by contracting with numerous people who agreed to settle a numb…
Great Britain, France, Holland, and Belgium. Americans, laboring under the influence of what they considered a Manifest Destiny, feared the influence of foreign powers in Texas. This led to the third phase, which was characterized by renewed U. S. interest in Texas. On June 8, 18…
then will we carry out the division? Must the subject that feels contain as many parts as there are in the sense-object? Will each part of the soul, in its turn, feel by its own parts, or will (we decide that) the parts of parts will not feel? Neither is that likely. If, on the o…
The virus does not read press releases. It does not negotiate with ministers. It moves where bodies move , along the footpaths, across the river crossings, into the seventh province while the capital counts declining numbers. We have seen this shape before. Athens. The Antonine pestilence. The physician who stays at his post while the wealthy flee to their villas. The mother who tends the sick child knowing the cost.
The neighbor who bolts the door and calls it prudence. The government's claim is not up to you. The border's porosity is not up to you. The virus's trajectory is not up to you. Your judgment , that is yours. Your preparation. Your willingness to act when the official word says wait. Agrippinus, told his sentence was death, asked what time the verdict came.
"Midday," they said. "Then I will take my exercise," he replied, "and afterward, my bath." The sentence was not his. The hour was. You watch the maps redden. You feel the familiar tightening in the chest. Name it. Fear is an impression. It is not the thing itself.
What did you assume was yours to control that was never yours?
a liquid which will restore and perpetuate memory to be used to get evidence of crimes that poor souls are said to have committed in lives gone by, that they may now be brought to justice. There is no telling how far these accursed doings will be carried. It will not stop at the …
it. “A volcanic eruption could not have created more of a sensation over the entire United States, or in all Europe, than is now taking place on account of the knowledge they have of our scientific discoveries. However, to come to the point, I positively located, during my recent…
to happen now? The cab is stopping.” Then aloud he asked: “The cab stops; is this the city of the dead?” “No, your Reverence,” said Leo Leander, “this is not the necropolis. However, I will leave you here and join you in a few moments at the Motuble tomb. Here is the key to the t…
sprang into a sitting posture, then fell back against the hard board with a thud, the limbs rigid and straight. The physicians and scientists looked inquiringly at Guillermo Gonzales and Governor Lehumada. “Explain, friend Guillermo,” said the Governor; “explain the action of Ebo…
the condition of Julio. The Governor sympathized heartily with the sufferer, and assured him that the mere fact of his escape from death, or rather of his being wounded in the affray, would serve as proof of the real intentions of the rebels, and be a means of helping to bring th…
Al Jazeera carried this piece. A government insisting cases are declining while the virus spreads to a seventh province is not epidemiology — it's theater masquerading as control. That's the brief for today.