Could it be that this was hyped way out of proportion? I thought the
left was all about proportional response to things.
Their Own Self
FRED Columns
/Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeek!/
Brief Notes from Those Who Are About to Die
*May 8, 2009 *
OK, yesterday on final into Guadalajara, at the height of the flu
epidemic, indeed pandemic, predicted to be even more cleansing than
the killer flu of 1918, perhaps the beginning of the long-expected
plague that would eliminate mankind from the earth, no doubt to the
earth's relief, I was ready for the worst. I had read the papers,
after all. I was sure there would be piles of festering corpses in
the streets, such as one would expect after a Burundian election. I
had read Defoe's account of the bubonic plague in London, and knew
that men with wheelbarrows would be collecting the dead. Especially
with today's littering laws.
Except that, when I had called Violeta every night during the two
weeks I was in the US, she always said "What flu?" Ain't got no flu
heah. The schools were shut down, bars closed, everybody hiding from
the flu, but they couldn't find any flu to hide from. My friend Ken,
in another town near Guad, reported an equal epidemic of perfect
health. It was media flu, he suspected.
I knew better. I had read of the lightning spread, the hundreds of
dead, the frightening appearance of cases in New Zealand,
comparisons to the Black Death of 1348. Ohmygodohmygodohmygod. The
only logical explanation was that the Mexican government was quietly
disposing of thousands---nay, tens of thousands---of dead so as not
to alarm the tourist trade.
We deplaned. An official of some sort was handing out those funny
little masks to anyone who wanted one, which practically no one did.
Coming out of customs, everybody had to stand briefly in front of an
infrared camera that made you appear green on a big screen if you
didn't have a fever, which nobody seemed to. No corpses. I guess
they removed them really fast. No coughs. Come on, I thought. You've
advertised the flu. Now produce it.
Violeta and Natalia picked me up, apparently not dead, and we headed
south to Jocotepec. The streets were semi-deserted, traffic light.
Maybe, I thought, a plague was a good thing. I mean, you could find
parking. Mexico seemed to be taking the disease seriously, doing all
the responsible things that one does with a plague. All it needed
was a plague. Can you order plagues online, I wondered, being a
practical sort.
That evening we went with friends to the Tortuga Sedienta in Ajijic
for hamburgers and wine. (I'm not sure you are supposed to drink
wine with hamburgers. The question consumes me.) One of said friends
was a Mexican doctor, shock-trauma variety I believe, who had worked
all over the world. In two hours of conversation, she never
mentioned the careening extinction, the eminent PCS to the sky, the
Permanent Change of Station that loomed over us like a bad divorce
settlement. I guess it just didn't make an impression on her. Or
anyone else.
This morning I leaped like a startled jackrabbit to La Puta Dora and
checked the Yahoo headlines, which didn't mention the plague at all.
This was ominous. I figured all the journalists must be dead. A news
story I had read put the mortality from the Monster Flu at ten
percent, so the reporters must have gotten it several times each to
all be dead. So surviving it didn't confer immunity. Bad, very bad.
What's the deal? Sure, tomorrow the virus may erupt with renewed
virulence and carry off whole populations. I suppose it's more
likely than an asteroid strike. Maybe. The Yahoo headlines did
Illinois or somewhere is suspected of killing his third wife. All
right, perhaps this is of greater import than a disease that is
going to depopulate the earth. You have to respect the editor's news
judgement. (Mmurdering your wife is a family matter and nobody
else's business. How about a little respect for privacy?) But if
this flu business isn't just a media frenzy staged by bored news
weasels, why aren't we hearing more about it? How come I can't find
it, and I'm supposed to be in the middle of it? Habeas corpus, I say.
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