Thursday, April 30, 2009

PANIC!

April 30th, 2009 – Great Scott! A new strand of porcine influenza has stricken at the demographic and economic heart of Latin America and is rapidly spreading across the globe. The World Health Organisation (WHO) has thus assigned a five out of six to this public health threat, creating widespread fear and panic amongst the media-hungry masses. The dangerous disease, fatal even, is now effectively a level shy of full on pandemic such as the medieval Black plague, 19th century Smallpox or 20th century Polio and AIDS.

Thusly, I encourage all my readers from Vancouver to Minsk and Johannesburg to Hanoi to raid their local Wal-Mart in search of canned food, bottled water, face masks, latex gloves, batteries a portable toilet and a few gallons of anti-bacterial soap. Setting up a fortress of hygiene in your basement/nuclear fallout shelter/local underground parking for the next two years should be simple enough. I will establish why I am so sure that the pandemic of global proportions will subside in two years but first, let us take a look at our epic killer as portrayed by the media.

“Global pandemic”, “No one is safe”, “No cure or Vaccine”, “Run for the hills”, “Revenge of the Pork”, “Al Gore says I told you so” and “Worst than SARS, bird flu and West Nile virus combined” have been the headlines flooding our television sets and newsstands this week and I got some more news for you: it’s far from being over. If you remember what a fuss North America makes every year about West-Nile virus, you wouldn’t suspect that the mild disease only kills a handful of frail and/or elderly people every year. As for Bird Flu, we heard about it for years even though less than a thousand people died from it in South-East Asia and less than 50 in the Americas. I do not wish to belittle the death of 1000 South-East Asians, I am just putting into perspective that the media do not even remember the tsunami of 2004 that killed hundreds of thousands of the same people. To be blunt, a disease is more sexy because it is invisible and can potentially be everywhere at any time; it is fear. To be blunter, that disease is a million times sexier if it affects people with white skin. To prove a point and to inform those of you that don’t know, there still is no cure for AIDS. There are antiretrovirals available to us in the industrialised world that have greatly diminished the number of victims but millions are infected and dying in Africa = old and boring news.

Pig Vs. Human

Let us take a look at this disease; it is only prudent seeing as CNN won’t stop pestering me about proper hygiene when coughing and even the newspaper I work for has a daily update about where the disease has struck and when it will potentially get to a location near me, resulting in a painful and messy death. Porcine influenza or “Swine flu” boasts a misleading title associating it with pigs. It could simply be called the flu since it biologically and chemically IS the flu. The difference here, as with the old bird flu, is that they represent a distinct strand of the virus that mainly affects the animal they are named for. In very rare cases, the disease can be passed on to humans and even more rarely, it can be transmitted between humans. For the current “pandemic” of swine flu, there has been a minor mutation that allows its free transmission between humans, spreading as the regular flu does. This is the important point: the symptoms are mostly the same. Runny nose, congested sinuses, coughing, feeling weak, headaches, a slower immune system and a small chance of it progressing to pneumonia, sinusitis and other manageable infections will occur when you have the flu, human or otherwise. The second important point, if you really think about it, is that I am probably the first one to tell you what the symptoms of swine flu are. You see if the BBC News Service comes out and tells you that a lot of people are getting the flu in Mexico, there is no real story there. If they use words like “pandemic”, conceal the true risks of the disease, polish it up as a shiny new dangerous ailment and then tell you it is inching it’s way closer to your home, sneeze-by-sneeze they have found the proverbial pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.

That being said, porcine, avian and the good-old regular flu are no laughing matters. Thousands upon thousands of people die every year from their complications, mostly young infants, the elderly and immunocompromised people. It could even be called a pandemic but instead we accept this disease as an inevitable occurrence that strengthens our immune system and then we go on with our lives. I cannot accuse the media of doing their jobs excessively; I accuse them of hiding certain facts to focus on the more sensational aspects of their selling point (just like the make millions quick infomercials that spend 30 minutes telling you how much money each of these pretty people won with the advertised “method” or “system” but never tell you how). They will get some shiny awards in journalism and the rest of the world will panic unduly for something that is, for all intents and purposes, banal.

Now, to conclude with a historical link and to leave you feeling confused and ambiguous about this article, I present you with one of the deadliest pandemics of human history.

The great influenza pandemic of 1918-1919 was shadowed and intensified simultaneously by a period of great war in Europe although it was truly global. From inner Siberia to the South Pacific, the disease was similar to the common cold yet added a very strong propensity towards pneumonia and death. Over 50 million died worldwide although upwards of 25% of the world population was infected. Modern medicine was still no match for the disease and all responses rather revolved around spraying things, quarantines and campaigns against public spitting (things that could still work and that may be proposed soon across the world). Its origin is probably American yet the Americans blamed the Spanish…for kicks. This is why today; we may hear this disease and this episode referred to as “the Spanish Flu”. Its biology, its method of spreading and its incredible virulence remains unknown; what we do know is that it was porcine influenza, a simple mutation of swine flu.

(Pictured: Doctors sent to "help" victims of the medieval plague wore long-nosed masks containing fresh herbs; it was thought that smells carried diseases - A theory about how swine flu spreads to humans)

End.

Tuesday, April 21, 2009

A Fine Line...

April 21st, 2009 – Former astronaut Dr. Edgar Mitchell has boldly announced that UFOs exist, Aliens are constantly visiting us and the ‘gouvernment’ has been concealing all these facts for many years. Furthermore, it all started in 1947 in Roswell, New Mexico, where he coincidentally grew up. This astounding affirmation was made in honour of earth day (a gross misunderstanding of what that day is supposed to celebrate) and begs the follow-up question : just how more credible is this person when compared to the regular crazies?

I certainly wish to be fair to Dr. Mitchell; I do believe he is an extremely smart person, a great scientist and somewhat of a hero but a man is more than one thing he participated in, he is the sum of his wasted endeavours and crazy ramblings. Born in 1930, he was an incredible man who obtained a bachelor of science degree in industrial management, another Bachelor of science degree in aeronautical engineering and a Doctor of science degree in aeronautics and astronautics from MIT. He did this all within 10 years and while in the United-States Navy no less. He achieved immortality in 1971 when he left earth abord Apollo 14 and became the sixth man of 12 to ever walk on the moon. He retired from the Navy and NASA shortly after and then we began learning about the darkness behing the genius.

Firstly, he admitted during an interview that he attempted ESP communication with earth friends during his space mission, recording the unsuccessful data. Later, he wrote a book entitled ‘The Way of the Explorer’ in which he claimed that high-ranking officials in the US Army and eye-witnesses on site (none of which are named) personally told him about the Roswell crash of a space saucer and the recovery of several beings from another planet. Finally, he claimes that a young Vancouver boy named Adam Dreamhealer faith-healed his renal cancer in the early 2000s. The important thing to take away from this is that he personally has never seen any evidence of any paranormal phenomena and therefore, astronaut or not, he has no more credibility in this field than the other crazies. A further realisation to take away from this is that Dr. Edgar Mitchell seems to be bat-s*** crazy.

To be somewhat impartial, but rational, I must expose the events of Roswell, what the US gouvernment has said and admitted and what the crazies have deduced in return. It was July 1947 when the Air Field in Roswell, New Mexico, annouced they recovered a crashed ‘flying disk’. A later conference specified that the disc was a common weather balloon and pictures and samples passed out to the media confirmed this. At this point, the crazies may bring up the famous testimony of farmer William Brazel whom recovered some of the crash site, proving it was alien. Indeed, he found ‘rubber strips, tinfoil, and rather tough paper and sticks.’ Even more strange and outworldly, the next day he found ‘more patches of tinfoil and rubber.’ Finally, we were not alone in the universe, others have travelled hundreds of lightyears, defying the known laws of physic themselves and they did it with materials from Home Depot. Brazel’s account is actually true, there exists military record of his find and pictures including him and the contraption that he rebuilt from the debris. It was balloon-shaped, metallic-coloured and boasted a consipicuous absence of alien blood.


Sarcasm aside (if I must), there was a military cover-up. In 1997, a declassified report announced that the crashed craft in 1947 was a balloon but it was in fact part of a secret project called ‘Mogul’. This balloon was meant to detect sound-waves caused by Soviet atomic testing. Considering the US had used such a weapon in 1945, the USSR didn’t have it yet and the whole world had just come out of war, this is an extremely plausible explanation. On the other hand, crazies claim the existance of a massive cover-up in which the evidence of thousands of UFOs has been hidden for 60 years. To support this outlandish claim (pun intended), they seem to have no concrete evidence whatsoever that EVER showed up in the hands of the media. Take a moment to slowly understand that such a thing was not possible in the 80s and 90s, nevermind up until 2009 with internet technology and social networking sites.

Given these circumstances, big gouvernment and their plausible deniability wins whereas the crazies and their speculation lose. To close the matter, I will use Dr. Mitchell’s own words against him. He claimed that witnesses in Roswell came to him with their story because « they wanted to tell somebody reliable ». He was such a person, an eminent scientist and astronaut. Well, NASA represents hundreds of such people and declared today, following Mitchell’s announcement, ‘NASA does not track UFOs. NASA is not involved in any sort of cover-up about alien life on this planet or anywhere else – period.’

There it is, case closed, get back to work.

(Pictured: These 1947 newspaper headlines didn't cause trouble until 1978; fiction writers began the hysteria and lined their pockets - Dr. Edgar Mitchell -- Oh, and while we're at it, Bigfoot is a man in a suit and the Loch Ness Monster is a piece of wood and playdoh.)

End.

(Disclaimer : I do not confirm or deny that I have received a cheque for writing this blog from the Internet special ops branch of NASA’s interstellar denial division)

Sunday, April 12, 2009

Democratising Easter

This Sunday, April 12th will see the worldwide celebration of Easter. Much more than an exclusively religious ceremony, Easter is one of the only such holidays that is observed by the faithful and seculars alike, and this, in almost every nation on earth. That being said, what are we celebrating every year at Easter? We know about the resurrection of Jesus Christ and about the chocolate-egg delivering bunnies but what has common-knowledge lost throughout the centuries to leave us with such of a logical gap.

Today, in the traditional sense, Easter is a Jewish and Christian observation of the end of Lent, a forty day fasting period leading to the death of the saviour/prophet Jesus and his resurrection and ascension to heaven three days later. Good Friday, Holy Saturday and Easter Monday accompany the Easter Sunday celebration and host a variety of liturgical activities. Lighting of candles, chanting, readings from the Bible and a vigil for Christ mark the gist of the strictly religious aspect of Easter around the world as has been established over 17 centuries ago.

The early Hebrew Passover celebration commemorated certain events of the Bible long before Christ but following His crucifixion around 30-36 AD, the festival (called Pesach) would inextricably be associated with Jesus, the Last Supper, the Eucharist, the Crucifixion and Resurrection. It was finally at the first dogmatic meeting of the Christian church at the city of Nicaea in 325 AD that leaders of the Church decided Easter’s annual position. It had to be a Sunday, the holiest of days, and would continue to be established by the Hebrew lunar calendar. Consequentially, our calendar now establishes it every year as the first Sunday after the first full moon following the first day of Spring (anywhere between March 22 and April 25).

Syncretism

In the following centuries, as Christian missionaries and military campaigns diffused cultural traditions across old frontiers, the festival of Easter was not only adopted but modified and made particular to brand new cultures. They call “syncretism” the concept of merging aspects of two religions to create a brand new one and that is exactly what then happened to our Christian/Pagan Easter. Early in Anglo-Saxon Britain for example, a spring festival celebrating rebirth and fertility was held annually in honour of their goddess Eostre (equivalent of Greco-Roman Diana or Persephone). She symbolised spring and the dawn (rebirth of the rising sun every day in the East) that is why the English and Germanic-speaking worlds use the derived words “Easter” or “Ostern whereas almost all other western languages derive from Hebrew (Pâques in French, Pascua in Italian, Paskar in Icelandic or Paskha in Russian). Further syncretism occurred when we incorporated the Scandinavian goddess Freya of flora and fauna to the festival and thus we retain Freya’s symbol, the bunny (specifically the hare) associated with Easter, as well as the Easter feast observed by all. Eventually, Eastern Europe augmented this now rich celebration with their traditional Slavic egg decoration. These pieces of art and symbols of spring fertility remain today as the intricately-ornate painted eggs of Bulgaria or the Czech republic and even the luxurious Faberge eggs of Russia but the entire world has adopted this cultural art once a year by decorating eggs or simply buying the deliciously colourful and chocolate ones.

Finally, the process of syncretism continues to this day as we discover new regional Easter traditions that may one day travel to every corner of the world. In Bermuda, symbolising the ascension of Jesus, young children build intricate kites and fly them only once a year on Easter Sunday. Mexican and German schoolchildren and businessmen have 2-3 weeks of vacation to reflect on the final times of Jesus. North Americans have invented the Easter-egg hunt and are the global champions of the “chocolate” facet of it all. In Africa, certain communities weave colourful clothing and celebrate through traditional dancing and a communal feast of fresh produce. In Scandinavia, children dress as witches (ancient symbol of Freya) and collect candy door-to-door. To finish the demonstration and to illustrate the wide variety of Easter regionalisms, Slovakia and the Czech Republic observe the holy day by having their men publicly whip or spank the women. This symbolic and painless tradition is supposed to guarantee health and beauty for the women during the coming year.

In conclusion, some purists claim that Easter has been corrupted over the centuries but I believe that through a long process of syncretism in religious doctrine, cultural tradition and regional practices, Easter has become a democratic and universal celebration with a specific and powerful meaning for all walks of life, none being excluded.

(Pictured: Ukranian Easter eggs - The lesser-known creepy Easter bunny)

End.

Saturday, April 4, 2009

Money, Money, Money

April 2nd, 2009 – This Thursday, London hosted a summit meeting of the G20, an organisation of world leaders, international organisations and world financial institutions. As it was founded in 1999, it had a clear, if not vague, goal of fostering “sustainable economic growth and development”. It would no longer be a secret that in the epilogue of the Cold War, the capitalist world order would relegate the human experience to an economic equation. Indeed, in the current worldwide financial meltdown, we have seen the general decline of culture, democracy, good times and general standards of living. It is only natural that the great owners and transaction dealers of money meet in London to determine our future.

To this meeting were invited the heads of state of all important economic countries such as China, Germany, France, Russia, Indonesia, Saudi Arabia, Brazil and Canada (it should be mentioned that the Canadian Prime Minister went to the bathroom when all the other leaders were lined up for a picture – upon learning this, all Canadian citizens echoed what President Obama said at the time but with more scorn than smile: "Where is Canada?"). Furthermore, the United Nations, European Union, World Bank, World Trade Organisation and International Monetary Fund were invited to complete the roster of humanity's financial managers.

The short meeting ended with massive protests beyond the security perimeter and an agreed-upon investment plan within the walls of the most secure location in the Solar system at the time. 1.1 trillion dollars will now be given to worldwide development banks and the International Monetary Fund to boost world trade, increase lending to Third World countries and to generally help international commerce.

That being said, the G20 organisation is a very young concept and is not necessarily easy to compare to specific historical parallels. That is why the capitalist world order, its actors and money in particular link our subject to the recent past. As seen in London, money provokes and relieves all the ails of mankind and only those who have it can help those who lose it or simply enjoy burning it for entertainment. I submit to you the Prime Minister of Italy, Silvio Berlusconi. On behalf of Italians, Silvio was to participate at this summit as another serious head of state; too bad for the Italians he is a buffoon.

The Buffoon

He noticeably annoyed the Queen of England with his boisterous manners in London this week and angered Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany later on when they were both supposed to show up at an official ceremony together. Instead, Berlusconi answered a cell-phone call and talked for so long that the Chancellor lost patience and went on alone. He is inappropriate, loud, an admitted jokester and an alleged criminal but more importantly, he has more money than you or I could ever shake a stick at. This has made him invulnerable, powerful and basically invincible to the normal afflictions of men and women.

Beginning a career in banking and media in the 1960s, the Italian PM is today worth almost 10 BILLION US$, owns the AC Milan soccer team and directly or indirectly controls 90% of Italian newspapers and television stations. Over the decades, he has been brought to court for corruption, mafia connections, fraud, tax evasion, bribery of officials, blackmail and extortion yet he has a secret weapon that has permitted his criminal record to remain clean. You see, money brings power and owning billions of dollars while being the leader of a country allows you to: delay trial until a statute of limitations expires and you can go free, hire the greatest lawyers on the planet (the current French President Sarkozy used to be on Berlusconi’s defence team), manipulate most of the media coverage surrounding your trials and finally giving up and making a law declaring you immune from legal prosecution forever (law passed by Berlusconi in 2008).

As final proof of money buying more money and loads of smug happiness, here is my compilation of comments by the Italian Prime Minister on the topic of women. Keep in mind that he was re-elected despite all of this and has no future inclination to stop his foolish jokes, attitude and comments - he will simply throw dollars at his problems until they disappear as it seems to have worked in the past.

Top 5 sexist or chauvinist comments by Silvio Berlusconi that would normally land a middle-class person in court or in the infirmary with testicular torsion.

  1. In May 2005, Berlusconi wanted to negotiate the hosting of a European Food Safety Authority meeting in Parma, Sicily rather than in Helsinki, Finland. Besides opening the negotiation by announcing on television that the Fins “don't even know what prosciutto is”, he also implied that he would “dust off my playboy skills” and seduce the female President of Finland, Tarja Halonen, into getting his way.

  1. Later in 2005, he was in New York selling Italy as a prime market for future investment on Wall Street. It made international headlines when his main pitch was: “we have the most beautiful secretaries in the world”.

  1. In 2008, without anyone asking him to comment on the particular subject, he blurted out in an open session of parliament: “the left (wing) has no taste, even when it comes to women”. He continued jamming his foot in his mouth by saying that it was simple fact that the right (Berlusconi’s conservative party)’s female politicians were much more attractive than the left (socialists) ones.

  1. Again in 2008, the PM was being interviewed live on television during an electoral season and was being asked direct questions from the audience of voters. One young woman cordially asked about the lack of stable and paying jobs for her generation. Berlusconi simply answered that "with the smile that you have" should try marrying his son as a long-term career plan.

  1. Finally, at the beginning of 2009, Berlusconi took his vapid humour to new levels of insensitivity, especially towards women. A new crime wave nationwide led to Silvio introducing 30000 new military controllers, ten times more than before. When asked by a female journalist if this would be enough to prevent the increasing cases of rape, he thoughtfully replied: "We would need as many soldiers as beautiful women and I don't think that would be possible, because our women are so beautiful". Please keep in mind that if you are an attractive young women travelling in Italy, the local Prime Minister cannot possible be persecuted for raping you. You are basically asking for it.

In lieu of a thoughtful conclusion tying up all of the loose ends, I will leave it up to former disco group ABBA. On the subject of the G20 round table of men and women controlling the world and one particular man at that same table whom effectively bought himself a license to kill, Annifrid, Bjorn, Benny and Agnetha offer the following words about our powerlessness in it all:

"Money, money, money
Must be funny
In the rich man's world
Money, money, money
Always sunny
In the rich man's world
Aha-ahaaa
All the things I could do
If I had a little money
It's a rich man's world”

(Pictured: Silvio Berlusconi souring relations with Spain by doing a cockold sign behind their foreign minister at an official photo op - A few years back, Berlusconi and Vladimir Putin of Russia went on a Russian talk show and when the host asked a difficult question of Mr. Putin, Berlusconi pointed "gun fingers" at her to indicte that the KGB is sooo gonna get her. She subsequently fled the country and Berlusconi publicly said that he found it hilarious - G20 meeting in London where Barack Obama (USA), Dimitri Medvedev (Russia) and Silvio are celebrating the joy of having money)

End.