We’re all gonna die!
Like the headline sez, but it ain’t gonna be ebola that gets us.
This is not West Africa. We’re turning ourselves inside out over the fact that one guy has died (and he was recently arrived from West Africa.) Now two other people have it.
The populace of this holy land is having conniption fits over this non-epidemic, thanks mainly to a corporate media whose most precious talent is the ability to scare the poo out of us. They’re doing so.
Anyway, let’s turn to a little science. Have you caught this piece in the Washington Post?
Click Image For Full Story
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Each of the grid charts illustrates how a specific disease spreads and kills (if at all). Ebola may be a killer but it ain’t a spreader. At least not a fast one. It simply does not jump from body to body easily.
An alert medical system and educated populace can stem the disease relatively quickly.
So, no, Centers for Disease Control head Dr. Thomas Frieden does not need to resign, despite the demands he do so by that noted epidemiologist Bill O’Reilly and the learned experts at breitbart.com. See, Frieden does not think ebola is gonna kill us all, nor does he want to seal our borders against the even more terrifying and dangerous natives of Africa.
Almost as perilous is what fear of ebola is turning us into. Andy Borowitz of The New Yorker states the case clearly and firmly (satire alert, natch):
You Know The Drill — Click For Full Story
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And, of course, since we live in a nation awash in grievances, some among us consider themselves victims even though they haven’t got a fever. For instance, I know a nurse who is loudly proclaiming on the interwebs that nurses, as always, take the blame for everything. She’s referring to suggestions that the nurse who caught ebola from the Liberian man in Dallas may have employed faulty personal protection practices while caring for him.
The idea being, she might have touched her eyelid or mouth with a contaminated glove finger, a simple mistake that any human can make. But, naturally, chronically aggrieved parties interpret any criticism as the moral equivalent of slavery.
Nah, Don’t Click The Image
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This is the first time I’ve ever heard that nurses are being blamed for anything. They, like teachers, are the Virgin Marys of our society, above reproach, free of sin, spotless vessels. Now, suddenly, they’re the fall guys for everything?
We Americans are weird.
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Big City Blues
The Herald Times reports this morning (paywall) that Monroe County is going full steam ahead with plans for a 220-spot parking garage next to the Zietlow Justice Center and jail. Only “The full cost of the project is not known.” and “A construction date has not been set.”
So scotch the full and the steam. The ahead while you’re at it, too.
All I know is the county and the city had better get cracking on throwing up some parking garages quickly, what with hotels springing up everywhere near the formerly quaint Courthouse Square. Hell, no fewer than three developments are in the planning stages for the intersection of Lincoln and Kirkwood avenues alone. And another is planned for the bank property at Washington and Kirkwood.
Bloomington’s Future?
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It’ll be easier to catch ebola in Bloomington than find a parking space once all these structures go up. To steal and mangle a line from Jerry Seinfeld, They’re gonna be building hotels inside of hotels soon.
Anyway, here’s my suggestion. Let’s build a nice round number of parking facilities spaced out to ring the downtown area. Say six of them. The existing parking facilities — on 4th Street, on Walnut and 7th, and behind the Buskirk Chumley Theater will give us a total of nine. (Let’s leave the Monroe County Municipal Library lot for library patrons, shall we?) Eliminate street parking for a two or three block radius around the Square, maybe more. Contract with a private company to run regular trolley service between all the lots, the Courthouse, the Zietlow facility, the hotels, the library, the Buskirk Chumley, the Sample Gates, City Hall, and whatever other attractions and municipal service centers there are in the vicinity.
Catch The Trolley
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How do we pay for it all? Slap a room tax on all the new hotels going up. Add a food and beverage tax to all appropriate places within the service area. Hell, a five-dollar surcharge on a hotel room isn’t going to kill anybody. And adding 50 cents to a dollar to everybody’s grub and booze tab isn’t going to stop people from stuffing their faces and getting sloshed.
If Bloomington wants to pretend it’s a big city, it’s going to have to act like one.
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The Haircuts Of Kim Jong-Un
As a public service, I’m providing a photographic timeline of the North Korean Dear Leader’s coifs. Historians and researchers will benefit greatly from this.
A Very Young KJU With His Daddy-o, KJI
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KJU Adopts The Adolph Look
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KJU Opts For The Collegiate Crew Cut
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KJU Shaves The Sides
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KJU Ditches The Part
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KGU Sprouts Speed Racer Villain Horns
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KJU’s Pompadour/Fade Begins To Attain Towering Heights
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You’re welcome
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