Friday Night Miscellany

I'm tired - this will be short. St. John's Catholic Church has it's festival going on this weekend and the screams of people on the rides and the noises of a really crappy band are blasting into my windows, even though I'm a good three blocks away from the action. Well, it's the same thing every year for the past 19 years except that, after numerous complaints, about 10 years ago the Church opened up its large soccer fields to parking so drunk people no longer park on the subdivision streets where I live and we don't have to clean up plastic beer cups and see staggering dudes urinate on our trees. On Sunday I'll have a front row seat on my deck to the spectacular Bartolotta Brothers fireworks display the festival puts on every year! All the neighbors have parties and invite people to watch the big show from their backyards. Two things on the agenda this evening, both of which have to do with the fact that we're DOOMED, DOOMED I say! Oh no! Oh yes! Was the latest Jupiter collision with - something really fricking BIG - a wake-up call to Earth? Hello, Earth? Geez, NBC just spent the last two Sundays broadcasting METEOR, with a really hot chick in a really bad script. Hmmmm, I sense a conspiracy here...how did NBC know that something really really big was going to hit Jupiter right around this time? Okay, back to reality - really, do we have ANY kind of plan in place for deflecting something the size of whatever it was that hit Jupiter (which is causing the "wound" to grow ever larger and larger...) If not, we're in big trouble, and I'm talking mass extinction event like, wiping out all human life. Oy! This is even better than the SWINE FLU CONSPIRACY I vaguely recall posting about last week... (Photo:from the Times on Line, July 21, 2009 - not exactly reassuring, is it.) Speaking of which, I've read a couple of articles in my local Milwaukee Journal/Sentinel over the past week regarding said SWINE FLU that made the hair on my arms rise up like the Demon Army in Mummy (the movie)! Unfortunately, the "search" feature at JSoline.com isn't working right tonight - at least, not on my computer, so you can just take my word for it that I'm 100% correct in my recollections (har!), or you can just admit right now that we've all taken one big giant step - ONE STEP BEYOND - and we are all now living in THE OUTER LIMITS (cue spooky music...) The first article I read was something about the new SWINE FLU VACCINE not being ready in time, and therefore the GOVERNMENT is soliciting volunteers to be guinea pigs for this unknown vaccine. I found that rather disturbing - not that the vaccine wouldn't be "ready on time" but that the government is soliciting volunteers to test out something that they have no idea what it will do. I mean, don't they usually test this stuff on animals first? What's going to happen to a lab rat that contracts SWINE FLU? Will it grow pig's ears and a corkscrew tail? The second article I read was something about problems with SWINE FLU VACCINE PRODUCTION and therefore at best, the USA will only have 160 million shots of vaccine available sometime in October. The alarm is already being sounded by the CENTER FOR DISEASE COTROL in Atlanta, Georgia USA that the SWINE FLU is expected to really spike once all the kids go back to school in September. Okay - let's do some simple deductive reasoning (or is that inductive reasoning? I never could keep the two straight.) Kids go back to school in September. VACCINE isn't available until October at the earliest. Plus, there are only 160 million doses of vaccine available. Kids go to school and infect each other at enormous rates, and take the shitty virus home with them too. And of course it's on every touchable surface on the Milwaukee County Transit System buses because kids never wash their hands and cannot keep their hands out of their noses, mouths and eyes - plus we still have the illegals coming in from Mexico, where all of this began in the first place. It doesn't take a genius to deduce (or is that induce?) what will happen once the average joes start dropping like flies. WILL WE HAVE RIOTING ON THE STREETS? WILL PEOPLE BE HIJACKING SHIPMENTS OF VACCINE AND SELLING IT ON THE BLACK MARKET? WILL THE NATIONAL GUARD BE CALLED OUT WITH ORDERS "SHOOT TO KILL" AMERICAN CITIZENS WHO ARE STORMING CLINICS AND HOSPITALS IN A DESPARATE SEARCH FOR VACCINE? Geez, haven't we all read this before in some cheap sci-fi novel or seen it in some cheezy made-for-tv movie? I'm sure if you do the proper searches you can find sufficient evidence for every single thing I've written above tonight, including the conspiracy how the SWINE FLU IS AN ENGINEERED VIRUS DESIGNED TO WIPE OUT MOST OF THE WORLD'S POPULATION SO THAT THE ILLUMATI OR WHOEVER IS BEHIND THE CONSPIRACY WILL ENSLAVE THOSE OF US WHO ARE LEFT. I'll be left because I never get vaccinated for flu, but they probably won't want me, I'm too old and I have a smart mouth. That means I'll be shot or have my head chopped off or something equally undesirable. Oh - one other thing - by making people scared that there is not going to be enough vaccine to go around to save all of us, the GOVERNMENT is actually setting us up for wanting something that will actually kill us quicker than the SWINE FLU! We will all line up like sheeple to get our vaccinations and drop dead within 15 minutes afterward, or something like that. Now I'm going to bed! 'night, darlings!

Swine Flu Pandemic? Update

Here's an update since my last post. Here, in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, the last time I checked the local news earlier this evening, five public schools (four elementary and one high school) and three parochial schools (outside the province of the Milwaukee School Board) have been closed. In some cases, it is because there was confirmed contact of students and/or teachers with a person who has H1N1 flu; in other cases, it is anticipatory -- closing before any flu infections have not yet been confirmed but trying to head things off at the pass, as it were. One day ago, there were two suspected cases of H1N1 flu in Milwaukee. Today it is reported that the South 16th Street Health Clinic (that's not the legal name, but people who live here will know what I mean) have three more suspected cases of H1N1 flu. I can personally attest to the fact that around 8:00 a.m. this morning, as the bus I take downtown to work five days a week rode northward past the 16th Street Health Clinic on Caesar Chavez Drive (the street formerly known as South 16th Street), there was a line of people at the doors waiting for the clinic to open -- something I haven't seen before. At the time I thought, "oh oh." This is scary as hell to me. The South 16th Street Clinic provides medical care to all comers on a sliding scale of income. Those who have more, pay more; those who have less, pay less -- or sometimes nothing. It's a great service provided to all Milwaukeeans. Increasingly, a lot of the people who visit the clinic can pay nothing. This neighborhood I grew up in, which used to be populated primarily with working class German and Polish families, is today a neighborhood of diverse ethnicity. We were poor then; the area is even poorer now. This is not a good thing. Tomorrow a big rally and march is planned to protest against government policies relating to illegal aliens. I understand that last year, thousands of people attended. It didn't appear to me, a local resident, that there were thousands of people attending last year's event. But hey, what do I know? I call it as it see it. This year, more thousands of people are forecasted to attend this event. On the 10:00 P.M. news I saw a spokeswoman for this event saying yeah, we're going to be there and we hope you will be there too. So - you're supposed to go out into this projected massive crowd of people and expose yourself to who knows what germs, to support a political cause. And then go back home and a few days later maybe die from the H1N1 flu virus you got exposed to during the rally? Am I being totally stupid for thinking that it is really assinine of the organizers to hold a rally where thousands of people will be in close contact with one another during an influenza epidemic that has already killed over 150 people in Mexico? The local Cinco de Mayo celebrations have been cancelled - common sense says YES to this. Cinco de Mayo can be celebrated next year, in health and hopefully in prosperity. Cinco de Mayo is not going to go away; if even one less case of this H1N1 flu can be avoided by cancelling the event, it's worth it. I remember when I got the swine flu in 1975, how sick I was. Geez, I don't even want to remember it , it was horrid! I would wish this infliction upon my worse enemies, but only if they would suffer as much as I did in 1975. I also caught the Hong Kong flu in 1968. Fortunately, no one else in my family (7 other people) did, and they were able to isolate me in a room with a sheet tacked up across the entrance (there was no door). There I laid for seven straight days, wishing every day that I could die, so sick I was. Of course, back then, there was no "Tami-flu." But even if here had been, my parents couldn't have afforded it. So why do the Milwaukee May Day marchers protesting the United State's policies on immigration feel that politics trumps public health? Come on. Get real, people!

Swine Flu Pandemic?

Oy! I was all set to write about this Friday night, but then I got distracted by other things. As it is, developments have been happening so quickly what I would have written on Friday night would now be hopelessly outdated. Earlier today I saw a blog entry about this new version of flu that mentioned Randall Flagg - TRULY scary stuff. But that's exactly what I thought of when I first read about the then "outbreak" of a new strain of what is being called swine flu (combining DNA of swine, human and avian flu viruses, readily transmissible via air and touch, the worst of all scenarios). I was going to frame a blog entry around Stephen King's classic scary novel "The Stand." You may remember the story line: a flu-like pandemic of unknown virus sweeps across the world, and about 90% of the human population dies horrid, quick deaths. For unknown reasons, the remaining 10% or so of the population is immune to the virus, even proving totally immune to being directly innoculated with live virus. The world as we know it ends in a relatively short period of time. The meat of the novel then begins. The survivors gather themselves into groups, and eventually converge on Sin City - Las Vegas, where there is an apocalyptic show down between the forces of Good and the forces of Evil. The forces of Good are led by a very elderly, frail black woman. The forces of Evil are led by a big strapping dude named Randall Flagg, who becomes the Devil Incarnate. Back to reality. This incipient pandemic isn't something I'm taking lightly. I was laid flat on my back for a week in 1968 with the Hong Kong flu. Fortunately, I was a teenager at the time living at home, and had mom to take care of me. No one else in the family got sick which, looking back, is something of a miracle since there were eight people living in 3 bedrooms, a kitchen, "dining room" which served as a living room, and the "good" living room which normally served as a bedroom at night for my two brothers, on a sleeper sofa. And one bathroom. I was so sick, I wished to die. I was camped out on the sofa in the "god" living room where normally my two brothers camped out, and there I stayed except for trips to the bathroom, for the next seven days. For throwing up there was a bucket next to the sofa where I lay, helpless. Mom hung a sheet across the large open archway between that room and the rest of the house, and except for Mom everyone else stopped at the sheet and talked to me through it. Not that I did much talking. I was much too sick to do anything other than ache and moan. The odors of cooking from kitchen made me sicker still. I didn't eat anything of substance for a week, and for several days I could not even keep down the room temperature, flat 7-Up and saltines my mother fed me. Everything made me heave, including those cooking odors, long after my body had emptied of anything remotely resembling food. I heaved anyway. I had delirious, fever-induced dreams, one in particular that I remember to this day. I recovered. I prayed I would never ever be that sick again. But, I believe it was in November, 1975, I got a really bad flu again. I think that time it was a version of swine flu, another pandemic, although that one was not so bad as the 1968 pandemic. By then I was working full-time, living in an apartment on the fashionable east side with a roommate and had started college part-time at night. My kind roommate, Connie, took care of me in the early mornings and after she returned from work in the evening. My mom visited several times too, after working all day she traveled many miles to come take care of me. I was flat on my back on the sofa in the living room. I don't remember now why I wasn't in my own bed, maybe it was because the t.v. was in the living room. Not that I watched much of it. I was so sick, once again knocked flat on my back, this time only for five days, but I found myself once again wishing for death. The pain in my body was excruciating. Everything hurt, and it was non-stop. I did manage to keep myself better hydrated, and Connie forced water and broth down my throat, most of which I managed to keep down. I tell you - I never want to be that sick again. And I'm scared, really scared, about this new version of swine flu, because it seems that everyone who has been exposed to it is getting sick. There is no immunity. When I last checked the news, some 149 dead in Mexico of suspected swine flu, which is about a 10% casualty rate out of suspected cases. I don't like those odds. Now, evidently, there is at least one case of swine flu here in Wisconsin. So, what are the odds that I will NOT get sick? Already on April 26th the CDC stated quite bluntly that there was no hope of containing this flu, all they can hope to do at this point is mitigate as best they can, and hope for the best. What does that mean? In the 1918-1919 pandemic, some sources say nearly 100 million people died - and that was in a much smaller world population than the 6 billion plus we have today. I believe the 1968 Hong Kong flu outbreak resulted in some 2 million deaths, and the 1975-1976 swine flu outbreak resulted in some 1 million deaths. Ach! I'm going to bed. Couldn't help but wonder today whether there will be anyone walking around New York when dondelion and I are scheduled to meet Isis and Michelle there in May. Am wondering whether we shouldn't just cancel it all and lay low as we can until this fledgling pandemic burns itself out, one way or another.