A World Minus Critical Thinking

I'd have to say that after viewing the video I'm about to discuss here and noticing the number of views that it has received that people as a whole seem to have lost the ability to invoke critical thinking skills for issues which could end up being a matter of life or death. OK, that last part might be stretching it just a bit, but it's not grossly overstated, I'll tell you that much.

Enter the swine flu. I prefer the term 'hamthrax', but everyone else seems to be going with the ol' H1N1 these days. For some reason, one that is lacking in explick (that is, it is inexplicable), people are really freaked out about this swine flu thing. I understand being freaked out about a communicable disease. That seems reasonable. What doesn't seem reasonable is that people are freaking out about the hamthrax but they are not freaking out about the regular flu? (Scooby head tilt.) Roooo?

That's right. The regular flu. The regular flu, the good ol' flu-flu, that flu, that kills over 30,000 people a year in this country. In case you missed that number, it was THIRTY THOUSAND. In case you missed that time frame, it was EVERY YEAR. And in case you missed the significance of both of these items, it's the NUMBER of PEOPLE who DIE every year from the REGULAR FLU. That's almost 100 per day. Why is that not on the front page of every newspaper in America EVERY DAY?! (Yeah, yeah, because the media sucks. I mean besides that!) That's big news! That's 4.16 people every hour that are croaking from the regular flu. That's one person every 14.4 minutes that's keeling over from the regular flu. By the time I get done writing this, at least two people will have dropped dead in this country from regular flu. And those are people who aren't dropping dead from reading this blog! Now that's sayin' something!

Let's compare the numbers for the regular flu (somebody probably has already dropped dead between the last paragraph and now) and the numbers for the swine flu, shall we? According to the folks at the LA Times (who have really kicked things up a notch since newspapers started to fade from glory. Nice job, LA Times guys! Way to keep a dying art alive!) "...at least 5,700 people worldwide have died from swine flu". Wait. World....did you say worldwide? That's IT?? That's the number of people that die in this country from the regular flu between January 1 and the end of February (with or without that damned Leap Day that no one can figure out why it's there). Worldwide? Are you kidding me?! Why is there a panic? OH, right. Because people are morons. How soon I forget.

Now, there is a vaccine for the hamthrax. Is it necessary? I don't know, but the reason that I don't know isn't because of a bunch of crap that I've read on the Internet. I don't know if a swine flu shot is necessary because I don't necessarily know that a regular flu shot is necessary. But this isn't about people being concerned about whether or not they should get the vaccine because they're in a particular group. No, it's about them not wanting it at all because they're afraid it's going to do something untoward to them. For cryin' out loud, people. Wake the freak up.

Since when did everyone in this country become their own self-trained medical professional who knows more than people who are actually trained medical professionals? Why are people so quick to assume that everything out there that is portrayed as being able to help them is really going to kill them? You know, medical science in this country has done wonders for people, but suddenly, people who just stepped out of their shack in the woods (one, oddly enough, with Internet access) don't want to listen to anything those people tell them. They want to believe whatever it is they want to believe. And here's some of the crap they want to believe:

There was a story on Inside Edition about a young woman in suburban Washington, D.C. named Desiree Jennings. Desiree Jennings allegedly received a flu shot and then ten days later allegedly came down with a rare neurological condition called dystonia. Now she is allegedly only able to walk backwards or run forwards normally. If she tries to walk forwards, all she can do is manage spastic, jerky movements which she seemingly has no control over. She allegedly can only talk normally when she's running. If she is not running, she allegedly has extreme difficulty speaking. Please place your BS Detector Caps on...now!

Look, we've all seen plenty of videos on the Internet by now. Those surfboarding dogs. The surprised hamster. Keyboard cat. Popcorn popping via cell phone. That damned Star Wars kid. We should have a pretty good idea of what's real and what's fake by now, don't you think? I think we should. (That hamster really does look surprised, though.) This whole stunt just reeks of fakeness. Here's the video. It's two minutes-ish. I'd love to hear your impressions in the comments section. In the meantime, behold! A video of what may or may not be an actual neurological condition that was brought on or not by a flu shot that someone may or may not have had! (It's official all right!)

First of all, if you're basing your personal medical decisions upon what you see on Inside Edition, well, that's just Darwin at work, I suppose. I can just look at that as the natural thinning of the herd. (Translation: You're a moron.) But let's say you just want to know if you should feel sorry for this girl or not. This is where the BS Detector Caps and our critical thinking skills need to come into play. The Inside Edition folks claim in their video that this is a one in a million occurrence. There are over 300 million people in the United States. Thus, there should be 299 other people out there with this bizarro condition. Um, there aren't. That either means that their fake statistic is wrong (it likely is) or this doesn't exist (it likely doesn't).

Secondly, with something this bizarre, don't you think that the Inside Edition story would have included at least one, just ONE doctor? Preferably HER doctor?? I see no doctor. I barely saw her husband for more than 10 seconds. Not ONE doctor. This seems like something that would have a whole TEAM of doctors just right there, ready to talk about it. Seriously, how do you overlook having a doctor there??

Third, they associate her "condition" with the swine flu vaccine, but they don't elaborate as to HOW the two are related. I'm sure that she did lots of other things in between the ten days from when she had the shot and when she could only walk backwards. How do they know any of THOSE things didn't cause her "condition". Shellfish. What about shellfish? Did she eat a lot of shellfish? How about peanuts? Good Lord, the whole damn world has some sort of peanut allergy these days! How do we know it wasn't some sort of lethal nut that she got a hold of? Huh?! See? Could be the NUTS. (Trust me. Nuts are involved in this story all right. Plenty of nuts.)

Fourth, she can't walk, but she can run? Hey, tell me something. How in the hell does she get up to running speed if she can't even walk? How does that work? Don't know! That's because Inside Edition only saw fit to show her running at an impressive gait, but did not see fit to show her begin to run.

And finally, this, if true, is absolutely incredible. And yet something this incredible has yet to be picked up by the whores that are cable news. If those folks won't touch it (and they'll touch anything that they think has even a shred of credibility) what does that tell you? The alphabet networks haven't covered it. The news holes on cable haven't covered it. The only nitwit that we have reporting this story is Deborah Norville on Inside Edition. Good Lord, people. Think. THINK!!

What scares the holy living bejeezus out of me is that over ten million people have watched one form or another of this story on freaking YouTube. That's over 3 percent of the population of this great, but stupid, country. What percentage are going to be in a group that should probably be vaccinated for the hamthrax which will not do so because of watching this video and assuming (for God only knows what reason) that if they saw it on the Internets, that is has to be true.

Again, I could just chalk it all up to the thinning of the herd and Darwin at work and just walk away from it all, but I can't. I'm afraid that people will start to think the same thing about all vaccinations. I'm afraid that people will not get their children immunized and then will reap the repercussions of some dread disease that we have worked extremely hard at nearly eradicating in order to better the health and longevity of the human race. We are devolving (that would be the opposite of evolving. Catchy, no?). Use your heads!

If that girl turns out to really suffer from some sort of neurological malady as depicted in the video, regardless as to why she has it, I will totally apologize in another post. But I don't know if we'll ever find out if that's the case if people just accept that sort of crap journalism as covering the story in it's entirety. (ie, Where's her damn doctor?!) And if you think that someone can't pull off a stunt like that and totally have people believing it, I have two words for you. Balloon Boy.

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When Swine Flew

Wow. Leave it to a possible outbreak of a flu virus to allow the media to just run rampant and exemplify one of two things, possibly both. This whole swine flu dealio has enabled the media to either show us a) how stupid they are or b) how stupid they think we are. It's one of those. I'm sure of it.


Take, for example, this little slideshow that was over there at USAToday. The title of the slide show is "Swine Flu Epidemic. People worldwide try to protect themselves." First of all, nice job with the inflammatory 'try' to protect themselves. As if to imply that it may well be completely futile to do anything at all. You just might be doomed no matter what. You poor sap. But that's not all!

Here are the pictures they show us:

Children learn how to wash their hands properly in China.

A hospital worker displays a mask in Spain.

An immigration officer checks a passenger's papers in India.

Street vendors play chess in Mexico.


Wait. What?

What the hell is that? CHESS?!?! People are trying to protect themselves from swine flu by playing CHESS??I don't think they are! Just a hunch. Call me crazy, but I don't think they are! What did they do when everyone thought SARS was going to kill half of the world's population? Break out the Parchesi board? Do we reach for Monopoly or Yahtzee if that bird flu ever comes back? I always get it the wrong way. I always break out Monopoly for bird flu when it's supposed to be Yahtzee. When will I ever learn that Monopoly is for an outbreak of whooping cough (or whooping cranes which, while admittedly unlikely, would still be something that I'd really like to see!). Give me a freaking break.

But wait. There's more!

Again, the USA Today (which I am becoming convinced is either being run by kindergartners or Paris Hilton, as all are of a relatively equal level of functioning, with the kindergartners scoring slightly higher in all areas) offers us the article "Stay safe from swine flu with 3 simple steps". Well! That sounds like news I can use! Let's see what those three simple steps are, shall we?

Step Number One: Wash your hands thoroughly and often.

Now that is important. Hand washing with SOAP and WATER (not with that anti-bacterial gel crap, so get your little squirty bottle away from me) is the most effective way to prevent most viruses from transmitting themselves from person to person. Excellent advice. The other two tips must be just as good.

Step Number Two: Cover your cough.

OK, covering your cough will help not SPREAD the swine flu around (provided that the one who has it is also the one who is coughing), but covering your cough will not help keep you safe from the swine flu. That's not a step that I can take to keep myself safe! And yet there it is, right there, in the list of 'Three simple steps' that will help me 'stay safe from swine flu'. Hmmm. That's interesting because now we're down to TWO steps. Let's look at the third, shall we?

Step Number Three: Stay home when you're sick.

::: blink ::: ::: blink :::

Um, that's not going to keep me from getting sick either as, by the definition of what I was just told, if I'm staying home when I'm sick, I'm already sick! It's not helping me to NOT get sick! I'm SICK! What is wrong with you people?!

This! This is why newspapers are failing! This is a perfect example of how badly the media just sucks these days. This article tells me I'm going to get three steps and I only get ONE! How many times do you think that this list has been reproduced in publications elsewhere without one, not ONE person stopping to realize, "Hey! Wait a minute! There's only one step here!" Plenty! And yet it keeps happening.

It is as if the media doesn't care about reporting real news and real information, but would rather cater to the populous of those with a sub-60 I.Q.Take the State of California (please!) and consider the swine flu advice that they give on their website.

"Cover your nose and mouth with a tissue when you cough or sneeze. Throw the tissue in the trash after you use it."

:::: blink :::: ::::blink ::::
Thank you, State of California! I never would have thought to throw my mucus filled tissue in the trash (of all places!) after I've just hacked bodily fluids all over it. Never occurred to me! Nope. See, I've just been collecting all of my used tissues and pressing them together. I'm trying to make a replica of the Empire State Building out of nothing but my used tissues! ARE YOU KIDDING ME?!?!

The State of California, not content with only including the above advice as a way of indicating that they think my brain is made of hay, also have included this Hint from Heloise or Advice from Arnold or whatever the heck it is:

"Try to avoid close contact with sick people."

:::: blink :::: :::: blink ::::
Well, I'm certainly glad they told me that! That's one that would have just blown right by me. Yep. You know, I was thinking of everything else. I was building a hyperbaric chamber to sleep in (I used the design plans that were the same ones that Michael Jackson used for his), I've already bought two scuba tanks and scuba gear and I breath the oxygen from those tanks all the time (I also walk around in the flippers and wetsuit, but that's mainly just for fun), and I've bought one of those spray tan booths, only I've replaced the tanning spray with Purell. But even after all of that, it never occurred to me to stay away from sick people. Thank God for the government. (Translation: We're doomed.)

And as if all of this wasn't enough to make you just plant your head into the nearest wall, I will also tell you that the CDC, the C freaking DC, the Centers for Disease Control offers up the same tips for keeping yourself safe from the flu that were printed in the USA Today and that were on the State of California's website. I swear.

Look, I know that there are morons out there. I know that there are super morons out there. We ALL know that. Except for the morons, they might be a little clueless in that arena. But the more and more that I hear stuff like these "tips" the more and more I begin to think and/or realize that the majority of the morons work in the government!

So as you practice the ONE simple step to help you stay safe from swine flu, remember these not so helpful, but oh-so-amusing random thoughts:

The REGULAR flu kills an average of 36,000 people in this country EVERY YEAR. Why that is not the headline every, single day is beyond me. So far, the swine flu has made a handful of people in this country mildly ill. And...

The government doesn't want to call the swine flu "the swine flu" any more because of what it says about swine. It appears to be some sort of politically correct move, perhaps a portion of the No Swine Left Behind bill or something like that. Of course they haven't come up with an alternate name yet (and it won't matter if they do, as people have been calling it 'the swine flu' for about a week now, so it's pretty much set in stone), but I have! Since it's the swine flu, I shall return the name to it's Latin roots, well, to it's PIG Latin roots and begin referring to it as the "Wine-say U-flay". It's either that or The Three Little Pigs of the Apocalypse Virus. Your choice, but wine-say u-flay is a heckuva lot of fun to say!



No pigs were harmed in the writing of this post. Several, however, were rather embarrassed.

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Random Thoughts du Jour

A few random thoughts....

There's going to be "Ocotmom - The Musical". I know, I know. People clearly have no shame. It's hard to say who is at a lower level, Octomom herself or the folks doing the musical. And according to bangstudio.com, the group putting on the shenanigans would be Cabaret Voltaire and they're currently looking for someone to play the role of OctoNutJob! Here's what they want:

Female, Mid 20’s - mid 30’s. Funny, whimsical, but not too charactery. (Not too charactery?! Have you SEEN her lately? OK, maybe I'm thinking cartoon charactery, but still.) She should be able to command authority, play broad range of facial expressions (expressions that will convey emotions such as "Eight?" "I'm not on welfare" and "I'm not a celebrity, but make sure you take pictures of my good side."), plus physical comedy. Sketch and improv experience a plus. Likable, energetic and at the same time able to be emotionally expressive and believable (and at the same time, un-believable). Can handle musical theatre and pop styles a plus. Actress who can move (including the ability to dodge questions left and right).

My only question is this: If you pay $20 to go see this thing, well....OK, I have two questions. The first one is: If you pay $20 to go see this thing, can I have all of the rest of your money? My second question is if you go to see this thing and you're in one of the front few rows, is it going to be like a Gallagher performance where everyone has to wear rain coats and plastic ponchos to protect themselves from flying debris?

Meanwhile, elsewhere in my brain.....

I've heard more than one news outlet report that the difficult economy is driving people to commit suicide. Really? Wow. I certainly hope I don't get that! That'd be horrible. I don't want to commit suicide! Oh, wait. That's right. I don't have to worry about that because it doesn't happen!
If...Paula...Ab...dul....could...stop....talking...in...such...a.halting....manner...it...

could...maybe...help..her....to....finish...a...com...plete...sentence....one...of...

these...days....But...even....if...she....could...speak...fluently....I....doubt....it....

would...help....her....make...more...sense. Seriously. Last night, she compared Adam Lambert to Michael Phelps. She said that every week "...it's like watching the Olympics and you're our Michael Phelps." Huh. Funny. I don't remember seeing Adam Lambert up there with a bong. Oh, wait. That's right. Paula probably had it.

Sunday on Celebrity Apprentice, Melissa Rivers, daughter of Joan, was fired by The Donald. Mother Joan didn't care for that too much and embarked on an amusing rant directed at Annie Duke and Brande Roderick. Among the myriad of insults that she hurled were gems such as, "I met your people in Las Vegas. None of them have last names. You’re a poker player. A poker player! That’s beyond white trash. Poker players are trash, darling, trash." Um, perhaps Joan is unaware that Annie Duke has won millions of dollars and a World Series of Poker bracelet playing poker. Not too many white trash folks can claim that. (Oh, she also compared her to Hitler. Again with the Hitler! Just to review, comparing Hitler and anyone else? NOT the same.)

Bonus Celebrity Apprentice: As Joan and her daughter, the newly ousted Melissa, were in the elevator (presumably to take them straight down to hell) as the doors were closing and in a show of excellent sportsmanship, not to mention CLASS, Melissa Rivers shouted, "Lying f**king whores." Huh. Apple. Tree. Stay classy, Rivers girls.

Meanwhile, over in New York, a 747 plane followed by two F-16 fighters did a flyby of downtown office buildings and the Statue of Liberty in Manhattan on Monday, sparking a panic amongst office workers (can you blame them?). Turns out there was no need to panic, it was just a White House photo-op in order to get pictures of Air Force One in front of some US landmarks. The problem was that no one was notified that this was going to be occurring, which accounted for the panicked deja vu reaction of practically everyone in the vicinity. And all of this at the low, low cost of only $328,835! First of all, I don't know who could possibly be so stupid that they would schedule this stunt and not tell anyone in New York about it. But aside from that, we live in the world of Photoshop. If you want pictures of Air Force One in front of the Statue of Liberty, then do it....from your computer! Cut and paste the Statue in the background and voila! Air Force One in front of the Statue of Liberty! Yep, your tax dollars hard at work, folks.

The swine flu thing is something to be concerned about, but I've learned that there's something to be even more concerned about. A different disease (not cancer) has killed 13,000 people in this country alone since January. So far, the swine flu has killed zero people in this country. The other disease? That's right...regular flu. Holy crap! The regular ol' flu kills around 36,000 people here in the US every year. That's like 100 people a day! Why aren't we talking about that ALL THE TIME?

A one Megan McAllister, the fiance of alleged Craigslist Killer, a one Philip Markoff, had been sticking to her belief/fantasy that his arrest had all been a terrible mistake and that he wasn't the one responsible for killing at least one woman and also for robbing at least one prostitute. She even issued a statement about a week ago denouncing the arrest and proclaiming that she still loved the guy and still planned to marry him in August. Now that's some loyalty right there. But lately, it seemed as if she was wavering on that loyalty. Hard to say what might have made her waver on that belief. Maybe it was the gun that they found inside of a hollowed out copy of Gray's Anatomy in his apartment. Perhaps the video surveillance tape with a guy on it that looks remarkably like Mr. Markoff. Or it could have been the victim's underwear that were also in his apartment. Regardless, the band that had been booked for their wedding is suddenly available on that date! Imagine! Of course, that still doesn't mean that she thinks he did it or anything. It just means that she's realized that he will likely be busy on that particular date and it would be best to wait until he has an opening in his calendar. Or an opening in the bars on the windows that he can crawl out of because that's going to be about the only way he'll be attending any wedding in the near future. Or in the far future.


I think that should do it for now. Cleared out a little space in my brain to make room for new and exciting bits of minutiae and mundane information. Stay tuned, won't ye?

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