Check this out:
More than two dozen African countries have already imposed restrictions
or outright bans on travel to and from Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea,
and numerous air carriers have canceled flights.
http://www.latimes.com/world/africa/la-fg-ebola-air-travel-20141016-story.html#navtype=outfit
I earlier mentioned the stalwart stance of KSA, in banning
the inflight of (pourtant) Muslims from the top three infected countries, to the Hajj; thank goodness, this year’s pilgrimmage
seems to have gone off especially well.
But I had no idea that so many African countries were less paralyzed by political
correctness, than is America, Belgium, or France.
Ebola nurse, enjoying her Caribbean cruise. |
[Update 20 Oct 2014]
And now yet another African country has decided it doesn’t want to be a
sacrificial lamb just to please the bleeding-hearts: Morocco has just rescinded its commitment to host the Coupe
d’Afrique des Nations (soccer tournament) in January, owing to the risk. The soccer authorities tried to
twist their arm, but Morocco held tough.
~
There has been much tut-tutting about ‘scare tactics’ re
ebola. In principle, that is a
valid concern. There have
historically been many cases of media-inflated panics, simply to “sell
newspapers” (permit me this somewhat archaic formulation, propre à un sexagénaire). In our own day, “shark attacks” (or
child abductions) regularly fill the news vacuum during the summer doldrums;
eventually it is acknowledged that there was statistically
nothing to it.
But there is a contrary possibility, that of “sedative
tactics” or “soporific tactics”.
Thus, consider what your impressions are, of the progression of ebola.
[Pause while you reflect. Then, scroll down.]
.
.
.
.
.
The sense one gets from the media is:
(1) First, one has a slight fever,
then perhaps diarrheia and vomiting.
All quite familiar symptoms of a host of minor illnesses, from childhood
on, and in that sense almost reassuring.
(2) Next, either
(a) you are all better again,
feeling your oats, clicking your heels, and immune for evermore,
or
(b) somehow, silently, in the
night, (no-one knows quite how)
a gentle death spreads o’er thee,
a gentle death spreads o’er thee,
like some sweet dream,
and thou art risen among the
angels,
world without end.
Actually, as a matter of medical fact, there seems to be an
intermediate stage, at least in some cases. These you will not generally hear of.
The standard image in the media these days, is this:
Kinda cute li'l critter, big eyes and a lopsided grin |
Not very threatening;
might almost be one of those ribbon stick-ons for your car, in support
of Breast Cancer Awareness or whatever.
But if you google-image “ebola symptoms”, a different
picture emerges:
Coming soon ... |
... to a nursery school ... |
.... near you. |
Enjoy the epidemic! |
Heaven forbid we should offend anyone, by actually protecting ourselves... |
Sorry to have to display such things; but the fact is, the airbrushing of ebola's real nature amounts to a kind of cover-up.
[Update 18 October 2014] Never mind, stand down. Everything is now under control.
The President has just appointed a lawyer and “longtime
political operative” as “ebola czar”. That should fix things.
Problem solved.
(Wonder if, a few months from now, we’ll be hearing “Klainy,
you’re doing a heckuva job.”)
[Update 19 October 2014] Hmm …
President Obama on Saturday evening
met with members of his national security and public health teams for an update
on the administration's response to the Ebola outbreak. The president's new
Ebola czar, Ron Klain, did not take part in the meeting, according to the White
House.
http://thehill.com/policy/healthcare/221194-officials-brief-obama-on-ebola-response
Interesting.
Second such meeting he’s missed, so they say. Is he perhaps, ahh, feeling a little under the weather? Running a slight fever? ….
OK, let’s go back to panic.
~
Yes, all this is kind of harsh; but that is called-for, given the continuing fog of
obfuscation and patronizing Pollyannaism we are being fed.
Thus, the other day, one of the major media outlets had a
nice simplified graphic, of the sort that could be understood even by
illiterates, to “educate the public”.
Eager to learn, we set down our crayons and pulled our chairs close.
There we saw an icon of a meal with one of those diagonal ‘Not’
lines through it. Actually that
isn’t as easy to interpret as the editors apparently thought, since the most
obvious interpretation -- “Don’t eat” (here, or this, or whatever) -- is the
opposite to the one intended.
What they meant was: Go
ahead -- “Whatsoever ye find in the market, that eat” (as St Paul put it): you “can’t get ebola from food.”
Now, we shall readily grant that the chances of contracting
ebola from a pizza or whatever are
effectively nil; but that cheerful
slogan brushes over the generally accepted account that this outbreak entered
the human population precisely via
food: Namely, bushmeat.
Oh well, true enough (you might tut-tut), but none of that
has any relevance to the West, where we don’t eat monkeys and pangolins and
bats and what-have-you. Only …
wherever you have pockets of African ex-pats, you are going to find illegal
importation of bushmeat, generally in the suitcases of travelers (which means
that, in addition, it will not be of the freshest). A recent article states that 270 tons of the stuff -- viande de brousse -- is smuggled-in
annually via Roissy airport alone.
270 tonnes de viande de brousse illégale
transitent chaque année par l'aéroport de Roissy (France)
http://www.notre-planete.info/actualites/actu_2451.php
De la viande de brousse est
toujours importée illégalement en France
http://www.notre-planete.info/actualites/actu_2840_viande_de_brousse_France.php#bouton
Don’t take their word for it; here is an official source:
http://www.gendarmerie.interieur.gouv.fr/eng/Sites/Gendarmerie/Presse/Communiques/Operation-de-controle-des-importations-de-viande-de-brousse-a-Roissy
No comments:
Post a Comment