Monday, October 13, 2014

Are You Afraid of Ebola?

"I am so scared.  I saw on TV.  We could all die of Ebola."

"The Government better do something or me and you could die of Ebola."

"OMG the guy in texas died we r all dead."


Annamaria - Monday

15 comments:

  1. Yeah, that's why I avoid watching the news on TV so that I don't know when. I like surprises.

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  2. Very funny, Margaret. One thing I know for sure--the discussion of ebola has killed all other topics of conversation.

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  3. Ebola is the "perfect storm" for the media. It will remain top of the news until this flare-up is brought under control, and then it will be replaced by the story of an orphaned boy from Iceland who was kidnapped and taken to Russia where he became a hacker that broke into the Chinese computers in Hong Kong and started a Free Willie movement that was deemed racist. That will last until it's revealed that the boy was really the run-away son of a police officer from Ferguson. At that point, the media will move on to the latest from Hollywood about the blind porn-star who is adopting gay children and forcing them to become drug pushers in retirement communities...

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    1. EvKa, HAHAHA! I was hoping we would have some fun with this, and I knew I could count on you to provide a great deal of it.

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  4. EvKa, thank you for the plot line suggestion. I see it as a chick-lit phenom.

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    1. I left out several major sub-plots, such as the hacker's boyfriend who is a gay Saudi man who has escaped from ISIS, but who's really spying for the CIA and is secretly married to the love child of Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan...

      But I didn't want to give everything away and spoil the "based on a True Story" TV movie that's bound to be made and released this Christmas.

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    2. I don't know nothin' bout birthin' chiklit, Mr. Jeffrey. And thank you, EvKa, for the additional laughs. (It's funny--I always thought of Margaret as Ronnie in drag! Thinking of them as a couple is even funnier.)

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  5. There is a popular cabaret song that goes, "I'm too old to die young," and then enumerates the risky things the singer plans to do now.

    I'm worried about my family. Having written an entire book on plague literature, which involved mega-research, I am aware that from 1918-19 more people died of the world-wide flu endemic than soldiers in WW1. And we are constantly told our antibiotics are getting resistant to diseases they once cured. And don't work on viruses anyway.

    I had a hospital appt. this morning and when checking in had to answer questions about whether I was out of the country in the last 3 weeks. Where? And the list of symptoms sure seemed like the flu to me.

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    1. Barbara, I share your serious concerns. I am just tired of hearing people express terror when there is no clear and present danger for the average American at this point. And I daily see people engaging in life-threatening activities. I do not make light of the seriousness of the ebola threat, only of the silliness of panicking at this moment. Or at any moment for that matter. I could not resist a bit of satire over that.

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    2. I agree with you, Barbara. I think disease (evolved or man-made) is the most likely "humanity killer." But, it's the old "A coward dies a thousand deaths..." adage, I refuse to spoil what joy there is in life by spending it worrying about what I think might be a highly likely eventuality. Be aware, be prepared, but don't live in fear, that's my philosophy. Well, one paragraph of the treatise... :-)

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  6. The great thing about crime writers is --- we can count on 'em to see the humorous side of life in the worst of the planet! Thelma Straw in Manhattan

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    1. Yes, Thelma, and we are at our most humorous when people behave in such absurd ways that we know we could never write their actions into believable fiction.

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  7. And I agree with you Everett. Because of my age and because of some health issues, I have adopted a very carpe diem philosophy. Make every day as good as you can. Have fun.

    Reading Boccaccio and Defoe, and about them, there was a shock to me that people abandoned their own children to save--what? That's what I tried to explore in these literary works--and others on plague--what sheer survival meant to these characters.

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  8. After listening to Don Imus and Dr. Doug Brinkley this A.M. about 7, I think all the brouhaha re ebola on every single station and front page is that the powers that be are using this as a smoke screen to avoid all the truths about the toward-war strategies, which in the opinions of more erudite minds are just not working or suitable for the occasions! Thelma Straw in Manhattan

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    1. T, If only the resources that are available for war were focused instead on disease and suffering. I hate to think that the human race is better at causing suffering than at alleviating it. The doctors and the scientists need to be the generals.

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