Spinning is no remedy to swine flu

The World Health Organization (WHO) feels the urgent need to protect pigs and, therefore, is now officially referring to the swine flu as H1N1 Influenza A. W.H.O. is not the only source speaking in silly code. President Obama is referring to the spread as a great "concern" but not a panic. Funny, that's how former president Monkey related the recession.

The vaccines exist. Why aren't they being given out?

According to the organization, pigs pose no danger or direct connection with the illness spreading around the globe. Oh? Then why the hell was it termed "swine flu" in the first place AND ground zero traced back to a pig farm outside of Mexico City??

Instead of worrying over the 300,000 pigs slaughtered in Egypt and the many other countries inacting bans on Mexican pork products, the WHO ought to be squashing global anxiety with the administration of swine flu vaccines. The vaccines exist. Why aren't they being given out?

One needn't be a wordsmith to see through the word buggery being employed. Swine flu or H1N1 or whatever they wish to label it is serious, catching and catching beyond the Third World border of Mexico.

Am reminded of Malcolm X's observation on ebbing racism. He said you can't plunge a knife in a man's back nine inches, pull it out three inches and call that progress. The knife is still in the back.

American Airlines spokesman Tim Smith said, "[For Vice President Biden]to suggest that people not fly at this stage of things is a broad brush stroke bordering on fear mongering."

Yeah leave that job to the experts at CNN, FOX, MSNBC.

"The facts of the situation at this stage anyway," adds Smith, "certainly don't support that."

Huh?!

Love = licking another woman's vagina

And while the world's immunity is being tested, lesbians are "marrying" each other in Iowa. The Hawkeye state is now more like the hackeye state.

The circus geek: A picture of absurdity.

"No" seems to be a dirty, or at least difficult, word---outside of the D.A.R.E. program. "Just say No" needs to be brought back in vogue. Dust off the '80s cheesiness and encourage its use for what it is: empowerment.

In the Academy Award winning movie, Network, viewers were told to stop what they were doing, stamp down their feet, open the windows and shout "I'm as mad as hell and I'm not going to take this anymore!"

viewers would rather cheer on mendacity, mediocrity, stupidity than do something constructive---like, say, masturbate or shuck corn

The fear of saying no is fueled by the fear of being offensive, uncool, being pegged as a hindrance to someone's advancement. How dare you tell me no? comes the rebuttal. You can't judge me, blah, blah, blah.

Look around us. Look at the fools on television. Real people making blatant fools of themselves on camera because 1) they can't act, 2) think very little of preserving self-dignity, 3) their friends and family are awol. These wannabes and reality show celebs, in turn, are bolstered by the mass of viewers who would rather cheer on mendacity, mediocrity, stupidity than do something constructive---like, say, masturbate or shuck corn.

Why wasn't Kyle Maynard given a definitive rejection to his fight petition? So what he's a heart of gold and indomitable spirit, the man is still a congenital amputee---a head atop a muscular torso with four protruding stubs---and, as any reasonable person can see, is therefore unfit to fight in caged mixed martial arts bouts (MMA). But reasonable people are as scarce as are polite people in New York Shitty.

Sports writer Dan Wetzel regarded Maynard's MMA ambition a picture of courage. I call it a picture of absurdity. Circus geek comes to mind. I couldn't even stomach to watch the three minute footage. I would've posted the clip here for your own judgement but it's been removed from the Internet due to some copyright claim.

Swine flu paranoia

When headlines about the swine flu in Mexico City appeared last week I thought it had something to do with the countries dietary staple and dismal hygiene standards. And I was relieved to have left the country the week before. Border crossing has grown yet again more restrictive. What timing!

Now, America and Canada are reporting cases of the virus and am starting to think the timing of all this is a bit queer. Leave it to American news media to hammer home any frightful incident into a pandemic inevitability. The news media perpetuate fear like a domineering lover perpetuates dependence, instilling paranoia via comforting words like "concern," "security," "safeguard," and, quixotically, with expert assurances that we've no need to panic or worry so long as we thoroughly wash our hands. Oh brother!

The common cold does not fall otherwise healthy people in alarming numbers. Swine flu, like SARS and the Black Plague before it, is not a common cold. Still, that such a virus is multiplying---or reportedly multiplying---throughout NAFTA countries out of the clear blue is fantastically thought-provoking.

Leave it to American news media to hammer home any frightful incident into a pandemic inevitability

Nature, unassisted, does not evolve this rapidly. Glaziers move and melt at a slow pace, meteorites like the scale that wiped out dinosaurs are far from routine, tsunamis and earthquakes are not staple features of weather reports. Crippling organisms such as bacteria and viruses require time to adapt and surpass other organisms' immune defenses; a point of fact which swine flu appears to contradict and so, now, trusty CNN has converted their ever featured gloom&doom colored map of the country to highlight swine flu cases instead of home foreclosures.

Earlier today the World Health Organization announced America has forty confirmed cases. From zero to seven to, now, forty confirmed cases. Just like that. In, what, three days?

Read the incoming reports with a clear eye and incredulity and see if a few elements appear amiss.

Obama bounces to Beyonce

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California upholds marriage ban

I was surprised to read the president of the National Hispanic Christain Leadership Conference, Rev Sam Rodriguez, opposes same-sex marriage since so many Hispanics seem to be so blase about homosexuality and are pagan Catholics if ever I saw any (note: I've not yet visited Italy). In every Hispanic sitcom and movie there is a sissy character---along with a clown, drunkard, and enormously top-heavy bimbo---and nary a disco bar does not showcase drag queens.

Homosexuals want to overturn our democratic system

Am glad, nonetheless, that Rev Rodriguez and others are strategically fighting to uphold California's constitutional amendment, Proposition 8, that sensibly recognizes marriage as only between a man and a woman.


While 12% of the nation reside in California a larger percentage---16%---of homosexual couples call it home. I guess they like surfing and driving from the mailbox to Starbucks en route to the tanning salon. Homosexuals want to overturn our democratic system and make the world revolve around them and their feelings because, as their mothers always told them, they are special.


For their part, as always but especially in the wake of California Supreme Court's upholding of the marriage ban, same-sex marriage advocates are taking to media campaigns that massage public opinion; that is to say, feelings and emotions. Utterly glamorous. Fools will fall for it, of course. One group, Equality California, is passing out bumper stickers that read "I Do."


I don't. You go Rev Rodriguez!

#1 drug kingpin is a Forbe's billionaire

While economics dip and dive (and bounce on a good day) even billionaires from Russian oligarch like Roman Abramovich to Mexican businessman Carlos Slim---who for a spell topped Forbes Magazine's wealthiest list but is again ranked third---notice the difference. For one thing, there's more dancing room in the gilded ballroom. According to the magazine the 2009 roll is shorter by 23% compared to last year's.







Speaking of Mexico, Forbes, with its hardworking investigators and sleeping ethicists, listed as one of the newest nueavu riche Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman with a net worth estimated at $12 billion. El Chapo also 'happens' to head the Sinaloa cartel and controls half of the $30+ billion in drug shipments to America.

Sí, Mr Guzman is the most wanted narcotraficante in Mexico! Apparently this slips the radar of the Mexican federal government---as most important things do.

But, to his credit, Presidente Calderón is seriously trying to combat the problem that threatens to devolve Mexico into a bona fide narco state.


Still, the richest of the world are still rich and, so, I can hardly feel their pain. As most can hardly imagine, let alone feel, mine.

How often have I said to you [Watson] that when you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.

Sherlock Holmes

Kasparov warns America against Moscow

President Obama's trips to London and Europe are as much damage repair from the Monkey's mess as it is drumming up support for our problems in Afghanistan and Iraq. Concensus is the President aced the former but EU leaders budged nary a centimeter on the latter cause.

There are lots of photos of the First couple meeting with the English monarchy. There's even one with the President palling around, as Mrs Palin might put it, with Russian President Dmitry Medvedev to whom the New York Times discovered he sent a secret letter weeks ago. Speculation is that the letter was an intimate attempt at brokering some alliance against Iran which is itching for a fight.

President Obama "palling around", as racist Mrs Palin might put it, with Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev. Communists AND fascists...oh my!!

According to Gary Kasparov, a man who knows more a than a thing or two about strategic plays, this move is ironic and ass-backwards as oil revenues sustain the current Russian regime which he believes is on the skids. "It is in [Putin's] interests to increase tensions in the Middle East as a way of driving up global oil prices," Mr Kasparov wrote in the Wall Street Journal last month (March 5th).

Contrary to American news reports and sentiments Mr Kasparov cautions---strongly---against cozying up to Moscow. "The West must not be tempted by a desire to maintain comfortable relations with the current government in charge of Russia" because "in all likelihood Mr Putin will not be around that much longer" and presumably neither will his greedy billionaire cronies.

It is in [Putin's] interests to increase tensions in the Middle East

The Russian economy may be on the skids and its bureaucracy in convulted shambles but with an over-confident Iran in the wings American forces can hardly contend with introducing another player into this Middle East tragedy playing out now. Moreover, with attendance already low it is foolish to count on European allies wanting to buy in on this act.

Imagination for [Edgar Allen Poe] was a crutch...Imagination has fewer pitfalls than reality has.

Franz Kafka

Dash

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All books have a front cover
and back
But. It's the in-between
that comprises substance.
There we find, if it be
the ground that matters, the
portion that counts. Everything
that transpires from start to
finish is what makes one worthwhile.
Of minute significance, in the grand
scheme of things, matters the size of the
read: short stories, novellas, novels, judicial text
What next? We all have an ave and vale
But. It is the straight line extending
from the one to the other that distinguishes
us, that makes me different from you and you
and you and you. A year followed by
a dash followed by another year. And to look
at it, a dash is a dash is a dash is a dash. And all
books laid on their sides look too similar with
blocks of white bound betwixt two binders.
But. It is when we open the book and read the
colors with its trials and tribulations; loves sustained
and lost; challenges faced or conquered; defeats tasted;
travels undertaken; perplexities explored; charities bestowed;
labor toiled; advances contributed; constructions built; Auld Lang Synge
and the ilk.
And in review, I think will be seen, that although the etching be banal and
uniformly small, sometimes a dash is a not a dash is not a dash like them
all.


ScholarSpartan

Nobody wants to hang Bernard Madoff?

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The U.S. recession isn't spelling gloom and doom for everyone. Starbucks is still abrewing so somebody's buying those $4 biscotties and pricey lattes and smoothies. Hollywood hacks are still being offered millions for making terrible movies and strippers aren't quitting their...well, night jobs. Mexican immigrant gardeners, in California no less despite the state's double-digit unemployment hike, aren't feeling the economic pinch either. Rich white people succumbing to mowing their own lawns and pruning their own bushes? Ha, that's rich!

Nor is the art world about to to get hip to discounts. Afterall, dears, discounts, like paying taxes, are for the little people.

Chinese-born artist Yan Pei-Ming exhibited his 60"x 90" watercolor of con man Bernard Madoff at this year's Armory Show. The large portrait was fetching a large price: $100,000. While it didn't go unnoticed---it was quite the attraction---the piece did go unsold; probably due to the six-figure price tag, or the subject matter, or the economic crash, or all of the above. Who knows? In New York City, art collectors have been known to buy shit on a canvas. Literally.

Perhaps this fashionista fact is what keeps Mr Pei-Ming unfazed. Undaunted by the lingering Madoff watercolor, the artist surmised, "Everything can be sold in this world." P.T. Barnum would be proud.

No cushy vacations for professors

In lieu of uncertainty about future state funding---translation: the recession--- Kent State University (Ohio) has canceled about sixty faculty sabbaticals in the coming school year. The University estimates the rescinded paid leaves saves the campus $500,000 to $750,000.

Man, am I in the wrong racket!

With Phd's to their names I fancy the academics are smart enough to pay for a trip to Venice/Tunisia/Athens/Panama, etc like the rest of us or maybe they'll just reason there's no real need to "research" in those exotic, lush locales and buy, I mean, invest in a bottle of four hundred dollar wine, instead.

I'd like a tontine, please

After posting an entry about a bout of illness incurred in Mexico I read an op-ed piece in the New York Times by Tom Baker and Peter Siegelman (March 9, 2009) concerning youth's allergy to health insurance and it struck a chord.

"Many young Americans don't have health insurance," opens the article. "...Some just don't want to invest good money in health care that they may never need." The first paragraph concludes with the statistic thtat 19-29 year olds comprise a third of all un-insured adults below retirement age in America.

Pluck, pluck, twang went the chord!

coverage on par with saying prayers just in case Hell and its lake of fire does exist!

Referring to us as "young invincibles" for our "exaggerated optimism" about our health, the authors propose insurance companies reintroduce the tontine plan to attract young people. Under a tontine program the insured would receive a cash bonus for ultimately being right about not having needed insurance; and with bonuses framed within a five year span there is not that far off range---20, 30, 50 years---that convinces people to wait until they are old or settled down...like their parents. Now that's coverage on par with saying prayers just in case Hell and its lake of fire does exist!

Under a tontine program the insured would receive a cash bonus for ultimately being right about not having needed insurance

I don't go along with the belief that everyone should buy insurance anymore than everyone should safeguard their monies in a bank. I think the insurance business is a scam, like the engagement ring, which did not always exist, cooked up among money changers. Insurance companies loathe to pay out when *#$*%! hits the fan, leaving you to play the part of the chump arguing and wrangling for your own money. Tontine insurance, however, is something I would buy into as it suits my needs, "exaggerated optimism," and sounds like it would be more easily affordable (and less cumbersome) than regular old people's insurance.

If I don't get injured or seriously ill, then I gain bonus money; and if I am brought to confront mortality, then I am covered. It's a win-win situation. I'd like a tontine, please.

Stupid people always get hired

Here I relate in full an entry from the New York Times' "Metropolitan Diary" section (March 9, 2009):

Dear Diary:

Anybody who wants a simple economic explanation of why our major banks are in distress from holding sour loans may be interested in the following conversation.

I called the company in Florida holding my home equity loan with a routine question. Before answering, the prson on the other end dutifully took down my loan number, Social Security number, etc, and then asked me to verify my address. I did so.

She replied: "I see no such city as New York in our records, sir." To my amazed "What!" she said, "New York is the state listed for your loan, sir." I explained that New York City was in New York State. Again: "I see no such city, sir. I have you listed as living in Manhattan." I patiently explained that Manhattan was a borough of New York City.

"Thank you, sir; now what was your question about your loan?"

--Irwin Wall

Pastor killed during service

If Dirty Harry were a deranged, God-fearing man he might quip something to the effect, "Shoot first, say Amen later."

Earlier this month a stranger walked down the aisle of First Baptist Church in Maryville, Illinois and blessed the Rev Fred Winters with .45-caliber semiautomatic. It might not have given Rev Winters a closer walk with Thee but it, no doubt, increased the lead in the man's diet.

Violence and tragic mishaps in churches---barring terrorist fundamentalism---have a halo of dark comedy to them that arouses a smirk in me as I wonder on God's protective hand. Did you hear about the one about the old man who broke the fall of steeple? Classic!

Returning to Maryville, the preacher's initial reaction was to shield himself from bullets with, get this, a Bible. Had he lived that most certainly would have made for a barnstorm sermon from coast to coast. Reported one congregant, "We thought it was part of a drama skit. When he shot, what you saw was confetti. We just sat there waiting for what comes next."

Shoot first, say Amen later

What eventually followed was the preacher's funeral. The madman was, in turn, subdued by two other congregants but not before whipping out a knife to replace the jammed gun (guess they don't make 'em like they use to).

Oh, and I would be remissed for not mentioning the theme of Rev Winter's sermon: Finding happiness in the workplace.

You can't make this stuff up!

Give my regards to Hollywood

You might regard it odd to read a bibliophile's appreciation for literary works turned into motion pictures---Hollywood---but sometimes odd ain't so bad. A couple of nights past I watched Doubt, the Pulitzer-Prize winning play turned into a major motion picture by its author John Patrick Shanley. Mr Shanley also directed the movie which stars Meryl Streep and Phillip Seymour Hoffman and was nominated for five Academy Awards including Best Adapted Screenplay.

I had never heard of Doubt before the Oscar buzz and was still replaying scenes in my head long after I finished watching the film, attesting to the efficacy of its title (and players!) And whilst watching I could not help but wonder how engaging must be the drama and dialogue in more restrictive theatre settings as it was certainly engrossing on screen. Click here for movie trailer.

The 'good' isn't just the successful adaptation from one medium to another but the bigger reception garnered by one medium over the other

But I have not seen the play and that returns us to my point.

The movie introduced me to this work. Hollywood can do some good especially when it is working with good material---supplemented by fine acting and editing---which tends to be the case when plays are the wellspring from whence is produced a screenplay. The 'good' isn't just the successful adaptation from one medium to another but, rather, the bigger reception garnered by one medium over the other. Movies cast a larger net, hauling in bigger and newer audiences. Consequently the (probably) obscure playwright, writer, thespian, publishing house gains more attention, job offers, money and, if nothing else, graduates, for the time being, from starving artist existence.

One mustn't be snobbish towards transforming plays and books into movies. Not everyone lives in namby-pamby NYC or can afford the sophisticated ticket prices. Broadway isn't the center of fine art; and even if it were who is to say the center is such a hot place to be? Answer: real estate worms and theatre owners.

Adapting plays into movies introduces literary works to disparate demographics who either would never or could not see a theatre production, including musicals and opera. Ditto for the lot who, strange to my thinking, never read books---and, stranger still, are proud of it.

I think plays lend themselves better to the camera because they already involve acting and directions but, overall, adapting any writings into major motion pictures has the effect of encouraging movie goers to reinvest in the originals. Sometimes---probably more often than not---the book remains superior and more substantial than its mindless movie version but sentiments lost in translation seems to be the rule, not the exception. Still, the movie does not fail to present one to the magical word of its progenitor, literature.

As for the exceptions they are mightily exceptional. Among my favorites are Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, The Talented Mr Ripley, A Few Good Men, Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil, Interview with the Vampire, whose author Anne Rice famously took out a full page apology to Tom Cruise; Sin City, The Collector, The Shining, Valley of the Dolls, Jurassic Park, Silence of the Lambs and its sequel (the prequel was a rushed job in reverse...the movie outshone the weak book!), and the James Bond franchise.

Plays lend themselves better...but, overall, adapting any writings into major motion pictures has the effect of encouraging movie goers to reinvest in the originals

Plays are harder for me to attend due to the scarcity of playhouses but books are another matter. Thankfully they are readily available through libraries, book exchanges, book shops and anonymously 'gifted' from travellers passing through stations, airports, hostels. A few of the ones on my To Do list include Mr Shanley's Doubt, Robert Ludlum's Jason Borne trilogy, Truman Capote's In Cold Blood, Running with Scissors by Augusten Burroughs and Rum Diaries by Dr Hunter S Thompson. Hope to get through these this summer. And, being a long time fan of C.S. Lewis, I plan to eventually complete J.R.R. Tolkein's The Lord of the Rings. Eventually.

Make no doubt about it.

The coming reality of Thought Police

As read in The Guide, New Scientist reports our Homeland Security Department is now working on pre-emptive scanning technology called Project Hostile to, get this, detect "hostile thoughts" in people crossing through designated posts such as border crossings and, of course, airports.



This high-technology is being sold as a measure towards thwarting would-be malefactors according to their suspicious breathing patterns and facial expressions. Such a device---or attitude---makes criminals out of people who've committed no crime. In short, these "pre-criminals" will be legally punished for thinking about doing something unlawful.
If such a scenario sounds familiar---"1984" or "Minority Report"---that's probably because it damn well is.

Eighteen months countdown

President Obama unequivocablly declared an end to OUR involvement in the Iraq mess. In issuing a withdrawal timetable the President declared:

"Let me say this as plainly as I can: By August 31, 2010, our combat mission in Iraq will end"