The coming flu pandemic

It's going to be bad. Very bad. And Bush is falling down on the job again about the preparation that is needed. I'm linking you to an article first published in the Los Angeles Times entitled, "Dr. Bush's Flu Flim-Flam". Here's part of what it says:

Nearly 2 million Americans could die in a flu pandemic, which many scientists say is not just inevitable but long overdue. In such an emergency, national leaders would need to be forthright and candid to gain our trust — or risk chaos.

But recent polls show that President Bush's approval ratings have sunk below 50% and that deception about the Iraq war, as well as federal mismanagement after Hurricane Katrina, have hurt his credibility. That loss of public faith is almost as scary as the virus itself. When citizens are skeptical or defiant in the face of severe disease, fear becomes epidemic, leading to confusion and often needless deaths. "

One of the hardest things — and one of the most crucial things — about preparing for a public health crisis is cooperation from the public and trust in government," said Judith Walzer Leavitt, professor of medical history at the University of Wisconsin.
...
How can leaders launch a vital national conversation on pandemic influenza?

First, they must earn back Americans' trust. That has been squandered in the failed federal response to Hurricane Katrina, the daily horror in Iraq, the unsolved epidemic of mail-borne anthrax in 2001 and the color-coded terror alerts after 9/11. Even the president's flu plan, announced in early November, seemed tardy.

The president and other officials should concede these earlier failures, said Peter Sandman, a risk consultant based in Princeton, N.J. Here's the pitch that Sandman suggested health officials give: "Look, it's hard for us to be the ones to warn you. Some of you are thinking about Iraq, where we warned you and we were wrong. Some of you are thinking about Katrina, where we were warned and we didn't respond well. Lots of you are thinking about the fact that if we're going to take this issue seriously now, why weren't we taking it seriously two years ago and gearing up properly? We come to this with a very imperfect record — but we've got to tell you about it anyhow."

Second, the Bush team must straightforwardly warn Americans about how bad a novel strain of flu could be. The president's statement at an October news conference — "rest assured that we're doing everything we can" — was patronizingly dishonest.

Skilled risk communication is frank, said Monica Schoch-Spana, a medical anthropologist and senior fellow at the Center for Biosecurity at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center. "It's resetting a baseline expectation: that people get sick and can die from flu, and in extraordinary outbreaks that can happen at a large scale."

In crises, great communicators help citizens steel themselves for suffering, while also protecting them. "But we first have to admit that something tragic will happen," Schoch-Spana said.

But Bush will concede no failures nor will anyone in his administration. And we have no "great communicators" in this government.

And, of course, preparations that need to be made are not being made:

The Pandemic Influenza Plan leaves cash-strapped and staff-starved state and local health departments to pay for drugs and other vital necessities and to logistically handle a crisis on their own. That approach makes sense in one respect, because all public health preparedness and response ultimately takes place locally.

But in a global economy, no locality could be wholly self-sufficient for the 12 to 18 months that a pandemic would play out. "There are a lot of things besides vaccines and antivirals that are going to be critical," said Michael Osterholm, director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota. "At this point, we virtually have no plans for that: masks, syringes, needles, IV bags, ventilators, food supply."

We don't know where we'll get the medicines we take daily, the fuel that keeps us warm and runs our transportation, the consumer products and services we rely on. "This will have all the makings of a slow-motion worldwide tsunami," Osterholm said. "You never can be fully prepared for this. But there are many things we can do."

Perhaps this is what it will take for us to get our country back. Perhaps when the population sees how incompetent this administration is as a result of the devastation that is coming, we will come to our senses as a nation. It is just tragic, however, for so many people to have to die so that we can finally wake up.

Reality for women

Common Dreams has published an article about a traditional wife and mother who wrote a book 25 years ago extolling the life of the homemaker as well as her own choice not to pursue a career outside the home. Now she has written a new book saying she was wrong. What happened?

In a display of spectacular bad taste, [Terry] Hekker's husband presented her with divorce papers on their 40th wedding anniversary and left her for a younger woman. The divorce left her facing an uncertain financial future, bereft of income and - after spending her adult life bringing up five children - lacking skills to make her attractive in the job market. Despite that, the judge in her divorce case suggested that - at 67 - she go for job training.

She ended up selling her engagement ring to pay for roof repairs and discovering she was eligible for food stamps. Her ex-husband, meanwhile, was holidaying with his new lover in Mexico. Hekker, once a role model for young homemakers, is now rapidly becoming an icon for so-called 'silver divorcees', older women who suddenly find themselves alone without skills and with a much reduced income.
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This is an increasing problem in America. As the population grows steadily older, the divorce rate is growing, especially among the over-50s. One study from the University of Michigan showed that the proportion of women aged between 55 and 60 who divorced jumped from 4.8 per cent in 1970 to 18.7 per cent in 2002. 'The baby-boomers are getting ready to retire. You would expect to see more of this,' said Brette McWhorter Sember, author of Divorce Without War.

Hekker admits her story is partly a lament for the lost concept of marriage for life. Though a self-proclaimed liberal, she believes easier divorce has played largely to the advantage of men. 'Socially, it is acceptable for men to divorce these days. They still get invited to everything. If my father had left my mother the way my husband left me, no one would ever have spoken to him again. Divorce has become a license for men to behave badly,' she said.
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The study found that 22 per cent of divorced women over 65 live in poverty, five times higher than the norm for married women. Experts expect the number of poor elderly divorced women to grow. Employers do not want to hire elderly people, and it is hard to start training for a job when you are almost at retirement age, or even above it. 'It is very, very hard to find a job,' said McWhorter Sember.

Hekker's advice to young American women now could not be more different from that of 25 years ago when she traveled the country extolling the virtues of making good meals, keeping a clean house and bringing up fine children. She still believes that those things are worthwhile, but she is under no illusions about marriage being forever. Today, she says, women have to look out for themselves as well - to prepare 'for being abandoned, so that if you end up alone you will have the skills to look after yourself'.

I know this post is not about my usual subjects on this blog. But I'm sharing with you an article about a real social problem. And a lament. The lament that women need to "prepare for being abandoned." Yes, I know men get abandoned too. But facts are facts. The economic devastation involved is mostly experienced by women. And with the Republicans systematically unraveling the social safety net in this county, that economic reality is going to get even worse.

The boat we're in

After an orange cloud — formed as a result of a dust storm over the Sahara and caught up by air currents — reached the Philippines and settled there with rain, I understood that we are all sailing in the same boat.

- Vladimir Kovalyonok (Astronaut)

The Book of Daniel

Well, last night I did something I had not planned to do. I watched the premiere telecast of the new NBC show, The Book of Daniel, and I did it simply because the fundies are against it. And I can understand why. Here's what a Beliefnet article says about the show:

Back when Jack Kenny was a good Catholic boy, he was taught to develop a personal relationship with Jesus Christ. So when he wrote a TV show about a troubled Episcopal priest, he made Jesus his main character's best friend.

In Kenny's "The Book of Daniel," which NBC just picked up for midseason, Aidan Quinn plays Connecticut-bred Daniel Webster. Daniel is a good minister and a good man, but that's not always enough to deal with his life. He's addicted to Vicodin. His wife, Judith, has frozen inside since one of their sons died of leukemia. His son, Peter, is gay. His daughter, Grace, is dealing marijuana to raise extra cash.

And in moments of great stress, Jesus (played by "Deadwood" alum Garret Dillahunt) turns up--in the passenger seat of Daniel's station wagon, in the bedroom hallway, outside the church--to offer his counsel.

So, yeah, "Book of Daniel" is going to be controversial, and that's even before you consider that Kenny is gay, and that homosexuality and religion have mixed lately like hair spray and a blow torch.

"I recognize there are going to be people who have an issue with a gay man writing about Jesus," Kenny says at the Television Critics Association's summer press tour. He adds, "I'm not making fun of Jesus. I never want to poke fun at religion or at Jesus. These characters are very spiritual people. They believe in God, they believe in Christ as their savior, and I think that's wonderful."

Well, I'm definitely hooked. The writing is good, the acting is good and the show is funny in a bizarre, wry sort of way. I hope it's not hounded off the air. Already a couple of NBC affiliates have dropped it from their line-up due to fundamentalist pressure. What is it with these fundies??? Doesn't their remote change channels the way mine does? If they disapprove of a program, they don't have to watch it. But no, they want to police the rest of us. I will be very interested to see how this plays out.

The truth about Ariel Sharon

All right. Let me say from the outset that I deplore what Pat Robertson said about Sharon's stroke - that God smote him for giving away Israeli territory. First of all, I don't believe in that kind of God and secondly, withdrawing from the Gaza strip was probably the one good thing that Sharon did. But that doesn't make up for the great evil he has perpetrated on the Palestinian people. I'm bringing you an article today called The Whitewashing of Ariel Sharon which takes issue with those who are now calling Sharon "a man of courage and peace". Here's an excerpt:

From the beginning to the end of his career, Sharon was a man of ruthless and often gratuitous violence. The waypoints of his career are all drenched in blood, from the massacre he directed at the village of Qibya in 1953, in which his men destroyed whole houses with their occupants — men, women and children — still inside, to the ruinous invasion of Lebanon in 1982, in which his army laid siege to Beirut, cut off water, electricity and food supplies and subjected the city's hapless residents to weeks of indiscriminate bombardment by land, sea and air.

As a purely gratuitous bonus, Sharon and his army later facilitated the massacre of hundreds of Palestinians at the refugee camps of Sabra and Shatila, and in all about 20,000 people — almost all innocent civilians — were killed during his Lebanon adventure.

Sharon's approach to peacemaking in recent years wasn't very different from his approach to war. Extrajudicial assassinations, mass home demolitions, the construction of hideous barriers and walls, population transfers and illegal annexations — these were his stock in trade as "a man of courage and peace."

Some may take comfort in the myth that Sharon was transformed into a peacemaker, but in fact he never deviated from his own 1998 call to "run and grab as many hilltops" in the occupied territories as possible. His plan for peace with the Palestinians involved grabbing large portions of the West Bank, ultimately annexing them to Israel, and turning over the shattered, encircled, isolated, disconnected and barren fragments of territory left behind to what only a fool would call a Palestinian state.

Sharon's "painful sacrifices" for peace may have involved Israel keeping less, rather than more, of the territory that it captured violently and has clung to illegally for four decades, but few seem to have noticed that it's not really a sacrifice to return something that wasn't yours to begin with.

It remains to be seen what will happen to the peace process (such as it is) due to the incapacitation of Sharon, but I believe with the author here that lauding him as a peacemaker is quite inappropriate.

Friday cat blogging!

Here's Edgar sitting in front of his little house:


Photo by Ellie Finlay

The Amanpour story

Carolyn L. left a comment earlier about an NBC interview that suggested CNN's Christiane Amanpour had been targeted for surveillance by the NSA. CNN reports this morning that the NSA has denied this:

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- A senior U.S. intelligence official told CNN on Thursday that the National Security Agency did not target CNN's chief international correspondent Christiane Amanpour or any other CNN journalist for surveillance.

NBC raised the question in an interview with The New York Times reporter James Risen, asking him whether he knew anything about possible surveillance of Amanpour by the NSA. Risen, author of a new book, "State of War: the Secret History of the CIA and the Bush Administration," said he had not heard anything about it.
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The senior official said that from time to time NSA surveillance overseas "inadvertently" acquires recordings or copies of communications involving Americans -- or what the government calls "U.S. persons," which includes most U.S. residents and employees of American companies. By law, however, such materials are required to be erased or destroyed immediately, the official said.

Intelligence officials rarely comment on who they may or may not have collected information about, but because of all the speculation on Internet blogs, the senior official agreed to look into the matter for CNN.

Of course you can decide for yourself whether or not you want to trust the word of a "senior intelligence official" of our government.

Our would-be King George

Why has Bush engaged in illegal spying on the American people? Paul Craig Roberts suggests the following in his article, "The Gestapo Administration":

One reason is that the Bush administration is being used to concentrate power in the executive. The old conservative movement, which honors the separation of powers, has been swept away. Its place has been taken by a neoconservative movement that worships executive power.

The other reason is that the Bush administration could not go to the FISA secret court for warrants because it was not spying for legitimate reasons and, therefore, had to keep the court in the dark about its activities.

What might these illegitimate reasons be? Could it be that the Bush administration used the spy apparatus of the US government in order to influence the outcome of the presidential election?

Could we attribute the feebleness of the Democrats as an opposition party to information obtained through illegal spying that would subject them to blackmail?

Those certainly are possibilities worth considering. Earlier Mr. Roberts had this to say:

Compared to Spygate, Watergate was a kindergarten picnic. The Bush administration's lies, felonies, and illegalities have revealed it to be a criminal administration with a police state mentality and police state methods. Now Bush and his attorney general have gone the final step and declared Bush to be above the law. Bush aggressively mimics Hitler's claim that defense of the realm entitles him to ignore the rule of law.

Bush's acts of illegal domestic spying are gratuitous because there are no valid reasons for Bush to illegally spy. The Foreign Intelligence Services Act gives Bush all the power he needs to spy on terrorist suspects. All the administration is required
to do is to apply to a secret FISA court for warrants. The Act permits the administration to spy first and then apply for a warrant, should time be of the essence.

Yes, the illegal acts were gratuitous unless Bush was spying on people the courts would never have permitted. Are we going to impeach this man or are we going to give up on freedom altogether? I fear the latter.

Extinction is forever

I'm very concerned about the condition of our oceans. It's one of the reasons I belong to and support Ocean Conservancy and I urge you to click through and read about the fine work they are doing to fight against the destruction of our oceans' ecosystems. Today I want to bring you an article from the Guardian entitled, "Deep sea fish face extinction". Here's how it gets started:

The oceans are emptying. In a single generation, once thriving populations of deep sea fish have been driven to the brink of extinction by expanding fisheries, researchers say today.

Records of catches logged by trawlers operating in the North Atlantic from 1978 to 1994 show that at least five species of deep sea fish are at such low levels that they qualify for the World Conservation Union's critically endangered list. The research, published in the journal Nature, adds weight to demands by conservationists for the creation of internationally protected reserves to place vast areas of the deep seas out of bounds to fisheries.

"We expected to see declines, but we didn't expect such severe declines," said Jennifer Devine, a PhD student who led the study at Memorial University in Newfoundland, Canada. "If nothing changes, we could be facing barren oceans or oceans of fish we can't utilise."

Last year, researchers in Canada, led by Ransom Myers at Dalhousie University, reported that the great predators, such as tuna, swordfish and marlin, were in serious decline. Shark populations have also nosedived in the North Atlantic, by 90% in 15 years. While previous studies focused largely on species destined for the dinner plate, the latest research looked at by-catch, those fish caught up in trawlers' nets by accident.

"These are species no one really cares about, but they play a key role in the ecosystem," Ms Devine said.

The scientists reviewed trawler logs for records of five deep sea by-catch species - the roundnose grenadier, onion-eye grenadier, blue hake, spiny eel and spinytail skate. All are slow growing, reaching more than a metre long and living to 60 years. They found that levels of all the fish plummeted by 87%-98% over the 17 years, a rate that will see a decline over the next three generations of 99%-100%. Records for roundnose grenadier and onion-eye grenadier from 1995 to 2003 show those species have collapsed by 99.6% and 93.3% in 26 years.

Those are simply appalling percentages. This is really very scary. All life depends on the seas. Please consider taking action on this issue.

Comments, please?

Okay, folks. I know you're out there. I know this blog is not going into the void because people see me in person and tell me they're reading it or I get the occasional email referring to something I've blogged. So let's get the comments function working! The way a blog becomes a vital and reliable part of people's support systems is through the conversations that develop in the comments section. Here's how it works: Someone leaves a comment. Then someone else responds to the first comment. Then the first commenter answers back. Then the blog owner makes a response. Then someone else provides a link to still another article. Then people start commenting about that.

If you want to "talk" about something other than the article I've posted then put OT at the beginning of your comment. That stands for "off topic" and is perfectly legitimate. You can post about anything you want.

Also, if you don't want to have to register with Blogger, that is perfectly okay. Just post anonymously but sign your name or nick name in the text section of your comment so we know how to respond to you.

I always read every comment that people post. Blogger automatically send me an email with each new comment so I don't even have to re-read the blog itself to know your comment is there. If everybody who reads Child of Illusion would consistently make comments, we would have a nice little on-line community here. Okay? How about it?

The dream is over

I just want to give you a two simple sentences from a very sad article:

And it struck me as a sad irony that Jefferson's America overthrew the tyranny of King George III, overthrew his oppressive society ruled by men and not by laws. But then, just 230 years later, another tyranny imperceptibly returns as another George dismisses Jefferson's grand Constitutional dream with a simple smirk - and in doing so declares himself King.

This is from The Dream is Over: The Jaws of Darkness Do Devour It Up by Steven Laffoley.

What's happened to our guts?

Once again, I am bringing you an article primarily for its title. Gene Lyons wrote it and it's entitled, "Have Americans lost the guts for democracy?" I say, with great sadness, yes. And, to use a biblical allusion, we have sold our birthright for a mess of pottage. Sometimes my grief knows no bounds for I have long considered myself a patriot. I really believe in what America used to stand for.

Here's how the article gets started:

Every time George W. Bush gets caught in a tight spot, he does the same thing : He plays the 9 / 11 fear card, wraps himself in the flag, emits jawdropping falsehoods and all but accuses his critics of treason. So it is with the stunning revelation that the White House has ordered the illegal, warrantless wiretapping of American citizens in brazen defiance of federal law and the U. S. Constitution. If allowed to stand, Bush's actions will have taken the United States a long way down the road to military dictatorship.

Indeed, that's essentially what his legalistic enablers, starting with Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and Vice President Dick Cheney, argue : that in wartime, the commander-in-chief can take any action he deems appropriate to protect the nation, bypassing Congress and the courts to assert the primacy of the presidency until declaring victory in the "war on terror." As terrorism is not an enemy, but a tactic--a vile, cowardly tactic, but by definition not subject to being defeated--the metaphorical war against it could last indefinitely. And as long as it lasts, the commander-in-chief rules by fiat. Our constitutional rights exist at his sufferance.

If the president, any president, can unilaterally declare the Fourth Amendment forbidding unreasonable search and seizure null and void, why not the First Amendment protecting a free press? Why not the Second Amendment? We can't let terrorists have guns, can we?

Far-fetched ? Today, maybe. Tomorrow, maybe not.

Later Lyons states the following:

But there are a great many Americans who either don't comprehend what's at stake or cannot bring themselves to believe it.

I think most Americans truly don't comprehend what's at stake. The ignorance I encounter is appalling. What were some of these people doing in civics class anyway? Did they even have civics? I remember being absolutely fascinated my senior year in high school with the required civics class even though it was taught by a right wing ideologue who tried to convince us there was a Communist lurking behind every bush. I ignored the propaganda and still was privileged to learn how government actually works. Obviously today most people don't know or don't care. If they did there would be rioting in the streets due to the blatant and egregious violation of the Constitution perpetrated by this administration.

Sad, but true

Michael Wright sent me the following passage from The End of Faith: Religion, Terror, and the Future of Reason by Sam Harris:

But religious moderation still represents a failure to criticize the unreasonable (and dangerous) certainty of others. As a consequence of our silence on these matters, we live in a country in which a person cannot get elected president if he openly doubts the existence of heaven and hell. This is truly remarkable, given that there is no other body of "knowledge" that we require our political leaders to master. Even a hairstylist must pass a licensing exam before plying his trade in the United States, and yet those given the power to make war and national policy---those whose decisions will inevitably affect human life for generations---are not expected to know anything in particular before setting to work. They do not have to be political scientists, economists or even lawyers; they do not need to have studied human relations, military history, resource management, civil engineering, or any field of knowledge that might be brought to bear in the governance of a modern superpower; they need only be expert fund-raisers, comport themselves well on television, and be indulgent of certain myths.

I wish there were some way to change that reality but it will probably be true for as long as we survive as a nation.

True Christianity

I believe I've posted before about the Christian Alliance for Progress. I thought I'd call it to your attention again because I think it's important that people realize that the fundamentalists are not entitled to exclusive use of the term, "Christian". Here's their mission statement:

The mission of the Christian Alliance for Progress to reclaim Christianity and transform American politics. We advance a renewed, progressive vision of Gospel values and help Americans express this moral vision in how we think, work, and vote.

And here's what the Christian Alliance for Progress stands for:

Issues

Our positions on political issues arise from how we see the values that Jesus taught. To learn more about these values, click here. To download a PDF of the issues below, click here.

Caring For "The Least Of These" - Pursuing Economic Justice The Jesus of the Gospels calls us to good stewardship, justice, and care for "the least of these." We call on our nation's leaders to seek economic justice in the management of our nation's wealth.

Caring for the Earth - Responsible Environmental Stewardship for Today Jesus urged his followers to be good stewards and to act for good in the world here and now. We respond by caring for God's created world today, holding our environment in trust for our children.

Rejecting Bigotry, Embracing Dignity - Equality for Gays and Lesbians Jesus taught equality, justice and obligation. We accept Jesus' call to love one another and to welcome all God's children at the table.

Honoring the Sanctity Of Childbearing DecisionsEffective Prevention vs. Criminalizing Abortion Jesus taught compassion, responsibility, and equality. Following his call, we support responsible, compassionate programs that are genuinely effective in helping prevent unintended pregnancy. We affirm that each woman's body belongs to herself. No woman should be forced either to bear a child or to terminate a pregnancy.

Forsaking Brute Power - Seeking Peace, Not War Jesus knew power and he knew it could be used for justice or for conquest. Over and over, Jesus blessed his followers with peace and urged them to peace. Following his example, we call for restraint - not aggression - in the exercise of our nation's power.

Extending Healing to All - Health Care for All Americans Jesus' insisted on justice, equality, and care for "the least of these." Acting on his teachings, we claim every American must have access to excellent health care.

If you are a church person, this is a movement worth supporting and participating in. Even if you're not a church person, studying this site may well give you a refreshing look at what Christianity is meant to be.

Okay, here's some GOOD news!

In honor of the new year we really ought to celebrate the good news that's happened in 2005. Here are some excerpts from and article by Katrina vanden Heuvel entitled, "A Year of Sweet Victories":

A year later, the dark and menacing clouds that hovered over The Nation's November 2, 2004 cover ("Four More Years") seem to be slowly lifting. Millions of us are organizing, agitating, mobilizing--and there are many hard-fought victories to celebrate.The attempt to destroy Social Security has been successfully blocked, the movement for withdrawal has captured the majority of the public's support, the mainstream media is slowly rousing from its slumbers, the White House's surveillance state is being revealed, there is talk of impeachment in the air, Vice President for Torture Cheney suffered a stinging rebuke when John McCain's torture ban passed, the GOP is mired in corruption and cronyism ( "Jack Abramoff seems to have the whole party on his payroll,"Katha Pollitt writes in her end of year review for The Nation), and scores of local, statewide, and national victories have been won.

The author then lists several of those victories according to category. I'll give you one of each here:

Electoral Reform: Connecticut passes the strongest campaign finance reform bill in the country, banning contributions from lobbyists and state contractors. Additionally, the legislation creates a publicly funded election system encompassing all statewide races, including House and Senate seats (also a first).

Civil Rights and Civil Liberties: Montana became the fifth state to officially condemn the USA Patriot Act. Joining Alaska, Hawaii, Maine, and Vermont--not to mention more than 375 local governments--Montana's state legislature passed the strongest statewide resolution against the Patriot Act yet.

Environment and Health: Colorado passes the Renewable Energy Initiative. A precedent-setting victory for renewable energy, the bill requires the state's largest electric companies to increase their use of renewable sources such as wind, solar, biomass, geothermal, and small hydro from less than two percent today to 10 percent by 2015. Amendment 37 is expected to save Coloradans $236 million by 2025, create 2,000 jobs, and significantly reduce gas prices in the state.

Labor and Economic Rights: After a massive three-year boycott against Taco Bell, Yum Brands Inc.--the world's largest fast-food corporation and the chain's parent company--agrees to improve working conditions for its tomato pickers in Florida, increasing their wages by paying an extra penny per pound of tomatoes picked.

Antiwar & Peace Movement: Chicago's City Council votes 29 to 9 to become the largest US city to pass the "Bring Them Home Now" resolution. The Windy City joins Philadelphia, San Francisco, Sacramento and more than fifty other municipalities that have called for withdrawal.

I'll try to bring you more good news as I find it. Do me a favor everybody, okay? When you come across good news regarding the above topics, email me at efinlay@intcon.net and tell me about it - preferably with a link to your source. I'll be happy to blog whatever good news I get. Let's make a commitment to keeping each other encouraged during the new year, all right?