City of Namur Belgium

Posted on by Thor

After seeing a very detailed model of the Citadel, I felt the need to do a detailed sketch of the city of Namur Belgium seen from the fortress. The four foot high fortress walls made it impossible to sit and do a sketch, although I saw a couple precariously perched on top of the wall. If they fell forward they could drop several hundred feet. Ahhh young love.

I stood at the wall and used the top of the wall as my desk. I was wearing 3 layers for warmth since the winds can get brisk and I needed a waterproof shell since I have been rained on just about every time I start to do a sketch. There was some sort of retreat going on down the hill to my right. They were having a race where two people had to work as a team navigating a series of obstacles.  They had a ball or water balloon between them and they needed to keep it balanced without using their hands. I stopped sketching to watch the hilarity as couple after couple failed. There was also a running group running up and down the thousands of stone steps around the fortress. No, my exercise this morning is to sketch of the city.

I love sketching old forts. I could spend a week here and not run out of sketch opportunities. I kind of regret not sketching the tunnels the American army used as a command post. However, I need to get to the front lines where the troops were preparing to defend the Netherlands at the Meuse River. Different countries s-ell the name of the Meuse differently. I am certain troops at the time often were not sure what town they were in or even what country. They just wanted to survive. I know for sure that Holland was the final destination for 1st Lieutenant Arthur Thorspecken who arrived in Europe on about February 17, 1945.

The 75th Infantry histories I have been reading refer to the Netherlands as Holland. That conjures up images of wooden shoes and windmills. Seems like a quiet romantic setting, but not at war time. Before I left, I found a thread from someone who wanted to know how his father might have died in Holland in 1945. His father was also in the 75th Infantry. The Americans were on the West Bank of the Meuse and the Germans on the East bank. Both were in sight of each other maybe 100 yards apart. The most likely cause of a death would be a random mortar blast, or a dangerous trip across the Meuse  River at night to gather intelligence. I do not know if 1st Lieutenant Arthur Thorspecken was ever on one of these very dangerous recon missions.

 

Bus Ride to The Woodring Wall and Museum

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Mt father was a 1st Lieutenant of the 75th Infantry Division. The 2025 reunion for the 75th was being held in Oklahoma City, so I had to go to see what I could find out that might help as I make plans to follow in my fathers footsteps through Europe.

There were several day trips planned. One to the Oklahoma National Memorial & Museum and the other to the Woodring Wall & Museum. The bus ride was a solid one and a half hours, so I had plenty of time to get a sketch done. I was also given a paperback book that was a history of the 75th Infantry so I read that on the bus ride back.

The bus driver gave us all one important warning. He said that there was a bathroom at the back of the bus but he advised against against any number twos. I’m guessing the thing doesn’t flush very well. He also advised that men sit down since he didn’t want anyone falling down with all the side to side movement of the bus.

What I recall most about the bus trip was all the gorgeous wide open countryside and and endless line of wind mills. Like an airline, there was a safety video on the multiple screens hanging over the seats.

When the buss pulled into the air field, I could see the Vietnam memorial wall. There were few name to start and then each panel filled up to it’s full height. At the far end of the long wall the names compressed once again as the wall angles down in a triangular fashion. This wall is a miniature replica of the Memorial in Washington, DC designed by then undergraduate,  Maya Ying Lin. To find the name of a loved one it is best to use the index which tells youo what panel to look at. Names on the wall are arranged chronologically, so it might take a long time to search the 58,318 names of Americans who had been killed in action. The printed index allows you to search fr the name alphabetically.

On the bus ride back to Oklahoma City, I read the 75th Infantry history ind underlined sections to double check against the list of cities and engagements I was compiling for my trip through, France, Belgium, Netherlands and Germany. Many accounts of what happened in the later days of WWII don’t pin point the actual days or even the cities, so I have to cross reference everything to come p with a unified plan of attack.

Stealth

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Multiple countries in Europe are showing an increase in infections, fueling concerns about the possibility of another global surge. The United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Germany, Switzerland and Italy were among those that saw an upswing in cases this past week, according to data from Johns Hopkins University.

The European surge also comes alongside conflict in Ukraine after the Russian invasion, leading to rising concerns about a public health crisis in the region sparked by densely crowded shelters and forced travel across borders. The WHO said earlier this month that the conflict may cause a surge in infections, straining scarce resources and contributing to more suffering and death.

BA.2, known as the “stealth” omicron variant, is making up a growing number of cases in some countries, and some studies show that it may be up to 30% more transmissible than the original omicron variant. China just locked down 52.5 million people to try and stop the spread of BA.2 stealth omicron. On March 15, China issued city-wide lockdowns in place in Shenzhen, affecting 12.5 million people, Dongguan (10.5 million), and Langfang (5.5 million), and locked down the whole province of Jilin, affecting 24 million. That’s 52.5 million people.

Cases of BA.2 made up an estimated 11.6% percent of cases in the United States as of March 5, 2022 according to CDC data, up from 6.6% February 26, 2022. In the United States hospitalizations are on the decline but this country has always lead the world in the number of cases and deaths. Only 44.3% of the U.S. population has received a booster dose so this country is ripe for another surge.

Omicron which was supposed to be a “milder” variant has killed more people than the Delta variant. World wide the number of deaths from COVID-19 is over 6 million. A new study found that the actual number may be 3 times higher, up to 18 million dead.

Lollapalooza

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Lollapalooza was a four day concert event in Chicago which wrapped up on August 1, 2021. An estimated 100,000 people attended.

Leading up to the festival, Chicago’s COVID-19 daily case rate was quintuple what it was a month ago. It does not take a seasoned epidemiologist to see that this will be a super spreader event. You can be sure that there will be a sharp increase in cases of COVID-19 in Chicago and the surrounding area in two weeks time.

Concert goers had to show proof of vaccination or a COVID test that was negative to attend. Videos posted showed staff barely checking vaccination cards on entry. The Delta variant is proving quite successful at breaking through and infecting fully vaccinated individuals. When a vaccinated person get the virus they may be asymptomatic or just show symptoms of a common cold. Their airways however can carry as much of the virus as an unvaccinated person and they can easily spread the virus to 8 or 9 other people. The ancestral strains of COVID -19 only spread to 2 or 3 other people

A study from Israel shows that the Pfizer vaccine is showing decreasing efficacy over time. The study found that there was only a 41% symptomatic protection against getting infected. The original protection against symptomatic infection when the shots were first given was 90%. Dr. John Campbell from England speculates that the timing between vaccine doses accounts for this reduction in efficacy. Israel had 3 weeks between shots. The UK had 8 weeks or more between shots and the efficacy is over twice as high. In the United States we have 3 weeks between doses just as in Israel. It is fair to assume that vaccinated individuals in the United States have an increasing chance of infection over time but remain safe from severe disease and death.

In May 2021 Lollapalooza festival goers were told they needed to show a negative COVID-19 test taken 24 hours or less before entering, that number was increased to 72 hours, allowing a much longer window to theoretically contract the virus before the festival. Earlier this month, the Verknipt festival in the Netherlands admitted unvaccinated attendees as long as they had a negative test taken within 40 hours of entering. The festival was later linked to 1,000 COVID-19 cases among its 20,000 attendees. So if that math holds up Lollapalooza may result in 5000 or more infections. Now lets say those 5000 people spread the virus to 8 friends and family. That would be 40,000 people infected.

At the Rolling Loud hip-hop festival in Miami two weekends ago. Tens of thousands of people showed up daily to the festival, which did not require masks, vaccinations or negative tests. Last week, the rapper Dess Dior and the actor Alexa Leighton, among others, announced on social media that they had tested positive for COVID-19. Their infections coincided with a larger spike in Florida at large, in which COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations have risen dramatically.

Lollapalooza was an outdoor event but the hundreds of thousands of people were packed in like sardines. Delta has also proven effective at spreading better outdoors. It has spread at soccer matches. Basically anyone who went to Lollapalooza who was not vaccinated is at a very high risk of getting infected and having severe symptoms. When I saw photos of the crowds I just could not believe what I was seeing. This was absolute insanity and Chicago’s Mayor Lori Lightfoot seemed to think it was a great idea.

Post script: As of September 6, 2021, according to Chicago City officials there are 200 confirmed cases of COVID-19 associated with the Lollapalooza concerts.

Bees Detect COVID-19

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Researchers in the Netherlands have trained bees, which have an unusually keen sense of smell, to identify samples infected with COVID-19, a finding they said could cut waiting times for test results to just seconds.

Using the Pavlovian training methodology, researchers gave the bees sugary water as a reward after showing them samples infected with COVID-19. The bees would get no reward after being shown a non-infected sample.

The bees  are put in harnesses much like a horse at a race track. When presented with a COVID positive sample the bees would extend their tongues to receive a reward. The extending of the bees’ straw-like tongues to drink is confirmation of a positive coronavirus test result, according to the researchers.

It can take hours or days to get a COVID-19 test result, but the response from the bees is immediate. The method is also cheap, potentially making it useful for countries where tests are scarce, researchers said. The technique of “insect sniffing” was effectively tested by the U.S. Dept. of Defense to detect explosives and toxins in the 1990s. The notion of harnessing bees to have them sniff COVID samples all day could be inhumane as well. If you were to give me a sip of Mountain Dew every time I sniffed a COVID sample I would be a happy camper.