Posted on 04/30/2009 1:26:08 PM PDT by lewisglad
The people who do TV news -- the big-time, ostensibly serious, 24/7 stuff -- know what the audience likes.
One of the things they've found out about us is there's nothing we find more entertaining than a crisis. We love that hint of danger -- vicarious, of course, but not so far removed that we can't put ourselves in the shoes of the real people who are going through something kind of scary.
Governments love crises, too. Crises offer the chance to sound concerned look busy and tell us what good care they're taking of us. And made-up crises are the best of all, because it's almost impossible to screw them up.
I'm saying the piggy pox is the crisis du jour, and has been since Sunday.
That's the day the grunting and squealing started in the cable news channels' pen. Just as the virus jumped from pigs to people, the hysteria jumped from the media to a couple of governments, and since then it has been spreading like wildfire.
The World Health Organization estimates that every year, at least 99.99 percent of the world's population doesn't die of anything related to the flu. The last pandemic scare, the avian flu, killed a worldwide total of 421 people over seven years.
The media know we like a good stampede while we're waiting around for global warming that will never get here or a North Korean missile that might.
But by acting, right from the outset, as if every story is the Big One, the visual media are training Americans to get all worked up over nothing, while desensitizing us to real danger.
It isn't in the media's interest -- or politicians' -- to drop the self-serving dramatics.
It's up to you to build up your resistance
(Excerpt) Read more at cleveland.com ...
Piggy Pox - Haven’t heard that one yet, not bad ...
Or so they would have us believe.....
[without this, I have no outlet for my trademark gallows humor]...:-\
Ping...
Yeah so all of you just (cough...cough) clam down. ‘The Zero’ has everything in control (sniffle...sniffle), so go on out and buy something, put some money in the market, take a married gay couple a gift, abort a baby.. Sorry I’ll have to finish this post later I need to barf now (cough...sniffle....cough)
And it’s something we could have COMPLETELY AVOIDED if Obama had taken the PROPER restriction of closing the border.
Instead, people are going to get horribly sick, and SOME WILL DIE.
How many American lives are the Illegal Alien Vote worth to Obama?
But I sure in hell will be taking common sense precautions, and will be avoiding public contact etc, etc. If anyone thinks that's paranoid, that's too damn bad.
Others, including this author are free to go bump bellies with thousands of Mexicans at their upcoming Cinco De Mayo celebration.
No one is going to die. It’s a hoax,,,
Someone else probably wrote the same thing in 1918.
If this had happened under BUSH, you can damn well bet that this author would be writing something like THIS, instead. And it would be the leading story on MSNBC and DAILY KOS:
Bush Released Man-Made Flu
“Examination and analysis of the recent swine flu outbreak. Dr. Gary Ridenour suggested that this virus could further mutate and become even more dangerous. We could see mass school closings and work outages in the U.S., he said, and in a worst-case scenario, 5-15 million people could die. He estimated there was a 40% chance that the new virus was man-made, and was released either accidentally or intentionally.
The new swine virus was not natural. It’s a “genetically altered bioweapon,” possibly being “beta-tested in the field” to target specific races, say experts in the field, pointing toward the virus being designed, and noted how unusual it is for a flu virus to start out of season, and not come from the East.
Experts suggested the virus may be part of a global plan to reduce the population, and that the mysterious deaths of microbiologists in recent years could be connected to this outbreak— scientists who could help stop a pandemic were taken out.
Experts posited the idea that flu fears could be deliberate hype by the government in order to distract the public from other issues.”
Right.
The plague was bacterial and therefore curable with antibiotics.
The flu is viral and therefore not curable just treatable.
Cinco de Mayo??? HA...got ya beat....here in the Capital city of Oregon, Salem, Tomorrow, May 1st, is the annual IMMIGRATION Rally (i.e. Commie rally) which the state has made REALLY easy for the participants....as compared to the Tea Party Rally less than a month ago. It’s going to be interesting to see if any of this flu stuff dampens down their ENTHUSIASM....
Several of my neighbors in the STATE of Mexico have gotten Mexian Swine Flu, with the cough, phlegm high fever and head aches. It’s just one more par for the course, for life in 2009, a few bugs come and some go. We were at the hospital this a.m, they had a lot of empty beds. I don’t see the long lines of people burying bodies at cementeries. My mother told me she sat on the porch and watched the wagons pull the caskets, and it was a block long, the line of people getting into the cemetery. It ain’t happening..I think we need to all get back to work, spend money, and treat people who have the flu.
at least it will be faster than the 1000+ days of economic death we are now facing.
My brother-in-law, who is a medical resident, says that it’s just the flu and has no idea why everyone is freaking out. He lives in Texas and said very few doctors are even wearing masks.
Are you proposing that no travel from the United States to Mexico be permitted?
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