It’s a mad, mad, mad world

The craziness just keeps on coming… (or in case you missed these gems)

 

The last few months have been fun for most Democrats, with the GOP imploding in the most public of ways.  Last week’s bombshell was Senator Specter’s defection and nothing topped that but that doesn’t mean the week wasn’t funny and strange.

 

·     Conservatives attack President Obama’s condiment choice:   Arlington, VA residents were treated to a rare POTUS/VPOTUS visit when the duo went out for a ‘working lunch’ at a local favorite.  Personally I thought the most absurd thing to come out of the stop was the amount of time MSNBC devoted to it until I read this: http://mediamatters.org/research/200905070031  Sean Hannity, and a host of his colleagues, were outraged that the President ordered his hamburger with mustard and not ketchup.  I get that they have been trying to paint him as someone who is out of touch with the American people but is this really the best they have?  Does anyone really think FOX News is ‘fair and balanced?’  What-ever.

 

·         Republicans attack each other over ‘listening tour’:  In an effort to ‘re-brand’ the party, several prominent Republicans set out on their listening tour.  The team, made up of Mitt Romney, Eric Cantor (R-VA) and Jeb Bush held a pizza party in northern VA.  Now there is an inherent irony in having Mr. Cantor (aka ‘Dr. No’ to the people on the Hill for his obstructionist positions and rhetoric – he even got into an argument with President Obama regarding the decree John Boehner issued instructing all GOP Members of Congress to reject any Obama proposals even before reading them) speak about this issue but there’s more to this than that.  Shortly after, Michael Steele, head of the GOP, told the press that moderates ‘are welcome in the party as long as they don’t change it.’  My translation:  We are a big tent party as long as we don’t have to listen to anyone who doesn’t share every one of our views.  The National Council for a New America has said they want to focus on the ‘traditional’ Republican values such as reducing the size of government, increased personal liberties (and probably responsibility) and supply side economics and move away from the cultural issues.  For some reason this just reminds me of Gordon Ramsey’s Kitchen Nightmares.  It’s as if some Republicans understand the menu that has won elections in the past (during the first W administration Ohio lost more than 300,000 jobs but the state went for him in 2004 because of gay marriage)  doesn’t  work anymore but others want to stay where they are.  Mike Huckabee said this was a ‘sad day’ – maybe for them, it sure made me laugh.   http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0509/22242.html

 

·         Ron Paul makes sense, sort of:    I don’t often get to say that I agree with Ron Paul and think most of what he said about the flu is wrong, he did get it partially right.    I did read a headline that indicated the former presidential nominee and Congressman thinks the federal government is hyping the flu for its own nefarious reasons and while I DO NOT believe that, a little less paranoia about it would be a good thing.  Back in 2006, I was always talking about the bird flu and all my friends and colleagues thought I was crazy.  Maybe I burned through all my flu fears then but I just cannot worry too much about H1N1.  Should people be careful?  Sure.  Should we all stock up on three months of food and water?  I don’t plan to and will not get vaccinated should a vaccine be developed.  My only remaining concern is that the outbreak will subside in the northern hemisphere, it will come back next fall when the regular flu season begins.   http://www.cnn.com/2009/HEALTH/05/03/swine.flu.react/

 

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News Montage

Arbitrary collection of recent events:

 

1.        Swine flu:  Any story that can knock a subject like torture off the front pages has to be huge, and bad.  This is both.  The current strain is a Flu A subset H1N1 (There are several flu types – A, B & C – only A can cause an epidemic or pandemic.  H is the protein hemagglutinin, which gets the virus into a host cell and the N is neuroaminadase another protein that turns the cell into a virus factory).  Being an A H1N1 means it is also a descendent of the 1918 flu that killed between 50 and 100 million people worldwide.  And this was before air travel became.  It used World War I to travel through Europe.  Its origins are disputed, some scientists believe it began in China while others say the first outbreak was in Kansas (check out, Gina Kolata’s Flu: the story of the great influenza pandemic of 1918 and the search for the virus that caused it  or John Barry’s The great influenza.  Or Google it.  With over 150 deaths in Mexico so far and cases in at least seven US states, this has the potential to be really, really bad.  I would hope anyone concerned about this would check out either www.cdc.gov or www.who.org to get information as the media loves a crisis.

 

In fact when asked about the similarities between this flu and the 1918 version, Sanjay Gupta’s comments only seemed to make a pandemic seem more likely today than it was then.  When he responded to viewed questions he talked about the lack of air travel, the ability to be contagious with the flu before symptoms appear and then digressed into how this differs from seasonal flues in that its impact is seen mostly in young, healthy people rather than the very young/old.  So what you’re saying, Sanjay, is “Yes, this could very well kill everyone in the prime of their lives.”  I am not saying he should sugar coat anything but we are already near panic about everything else – the economy, terrorism, war, pirates – this is not the time to freak out. 

 

2.       Politics and the flu:    Because how the two parties view this is the real question du jour.  President Obama’s stimulus bill apparently included $850 million for pandemic prevention but was taken out in a compromise with Senator Susan Collins (R-NH).  Her vote was crucial to the bill’s passage through the Senate but one has to wonder why this was signaled out.   Her office issued a statement that she thought this was a worthy cause but should go through the appropriations process rather than be considered stimulus.  The interesting this about the current crisis is that the 1918 flu caused a one to four percent drop in the US GDP.  The 2010 budget does contain money, albeit much less, but I wonder if this grows will we look and think that it was just too little, too late?

 

3.       Red rover,  red rover, send Arlen right over:  The only Democrat who didn’t look like he was happy about Arlen Specter’s defection to the Democratic party was Congressman Joe Sestak (D-PA) but that’s only because he wanted to run for the Senate himself (and people say Specter put his ambition before his country).  Bah-humbug.  I am ecstatic about it.  No, this will not give the D side a totally filibuster proof Senate but it shows how the GOP has changed.  It’s always fun to watch the Republicans fight, to me anyway. 

 

4.       California; find yourself here (on vacation):  Maybe it’s the 11 percent unemployment rate but California recently changed its advertising campaign.  The tagline used to be ‘California: find yourself here’ but  they added ‘on vacation’ to the end.  Interesting times.

 

5.       New Yorkers miss Eliot Spitzer:  It may be the economy but it seems most don’t like the way David Patterson is doing his job and would rather have Spitzer at the helm.  http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2009/05/04/poll-bring-back-spitzer-say-new-yorkers/

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