by John Helmer, Moscow  @bears_with Pandemic or no pandemic, misery always and everywhere craves company.    After he had been running a high fever with diarrhoea and other symptoms, scribbling notes on the progression of his illness —  London’s  typhus plague of 1623 —  John Donne not only wrote, famously,   “no man is an island,  entire […]

by Editor - Sunday, May 24th, 2020
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by John Helmer, Moscow  @bears_with A coordinated attempt by the Australian and US governments to blame China for the corona virus, and to attack the World Health Organisation (WHO) for covering this up at China’s behest,  failed when the World Health Assembly (WHA) voted on Tuesday afternoon. The terms of the Covid-19 resolution adopted by the […]

by Editor - Tuesday, May 19th, 2020
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by John Helmer, Moscow  @bears_with All the well-known plague novels make the same mistake. So unexpected, inexplicable, incurable, and comprehensively lethal was the plague for those telling its story, their conclusion has been that there can be no getting back to normal.   Not so in Russia. “Over the past week”, President Vladimir Putin declared last […]

by Editor - Sunday, May 17th, 2020
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by John Helmer, Moscow  @bears_with Cardiology doesn’t expire when people die of heart attacks. Just so, no one should expect that when a man dies of the corona virus, or hundreds or thousands of men, the sociology of their pre-existing health, race, ethnicity, income, education, ideology – in short, their class in the old- fashioned meaning […]

by Editor - Thursday, May 14th, 2020
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by John Helmer, Moscow  @bears_with After the episode of the sermon by the Jesuit priest, blaming the plague on the sinfulness of his congregation – “a calamity has befallen you, my brethren; you have deserved it…no earthly power – not even, note this well , vain human science – can shield you from His hand as […]

by Editor - Tuesday, May 5th, 2020
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by John Helmer, Moscow  @bears_with Inoculation against tuberculosis, the official Soviet state policy for almost a century, continues to shield the Russian population with a higher level of immunological resistance than those in Europe and the US who lack the vaccination.  This has also been a well-tested finding in western and Indian medical publications; in India […]

by Editor - Monday, April 13th, 2020
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by John Helmer, Moscow  @bears_with “The immediate priority is to prevent the quick spread of this disease”, President Vladimir Putin (lead image, top left) declared in his state speech on the corona virus last week.   This is the point on which there is no disagreement, not now at least. But how restrictive for the economy […]

by Editor - Monday, March 30th, 2020
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