The Bishop and the Butterfly: Murder, Politics, and the End of the Jazz Age

    Another Halloween story?

    By Flavius on Fri, 10/31/2014 - 10:33pm |

    Hmn. How do I put this.?Maybe Limbaugh ,Hannity et al are right. That at least until we have sufficiently  larger data base providing evidence to the contrary, the prudent course is to quarantine  every arrival from Ebolaland. .

    Why have so many health-care professionals been infected? The easy answer is ‘because they haven’t followed the protocols’. Really? Even though they knew that they were risking their lives and possibly the lives of many others by such carelessness?

    Just possibly they didn’t violate any protocols. They scrupulously complied with every period, comma and semicolon. And got Ebola anyway. And that’s why so many of them have died.

     Maybe Ebola has mutated in some way we don’t  understand. At least not yet.If for ,say, the next 40 or so weeks we implement “Quarantine Light” we can keep track of all returnees. And make sure they stay off the subway.

    .And don’t plan for a big wedding. Or even a small one. Just yet

     Depending on what has been happening we’ll have been accumulating more data. And maybe we can then relax. If that seems like the right thing to do. Or if not- not.

    It's uncomfortable disagreeing with the consensus here. Maybe I'm seeing ghosts.It's

    still Halloween.

     

     

     

    Comments

    I have certainly missed much.

    But People attempting to help sick people are put into cages?

    Let us incarcerate the good people?

    I have no answers.

    But right wing radio/tv aint got any answers anyway.

    Just blame Obama for everything anyway.

    Sometimes I wonder when folks blame politics on everything.

    But damn!


    by Richard Day on Sat, 11/01/2014 - 12:04am

    I used the words "Quarantine Light" as short hand for saying that it should not be deep quarantine:probably confined to home for 21 days but with visitors permitted.While gathering data  It would be reasonable to gamble that the subject might possibly infect specific  individuals who know the risk they are taking ..But not a whole subway car..


    by Flavius on Sat, 11/01/2014 - 8:32am

    In the past; Just because people had compassion for folks with leprosy didn't mean the rest of the people and their communities, had to allow the lepers and the compassionate ones. who had contact with the lepers be allowed  to freely mingle within the community. Today, new drugs have helped those with leprosy. 

    Until new drugs are found to be to be affective against EBOLA. (but I haven't heard of any that will make the disease safer to be around.) 

    Until then, we must safeguard our communities. Quarantining works; It helped prevent leprosy from spreading until a cure was found  and it will prevent Ebola as well.


    by Resistance on Mon, 11/03/2014 - 5:02am

    Leprosy is an excellent comparison. Leprosy is also not very contagious.


    by Verified Atheist on Mon, 11/03/2014 - 6:10am

    The United States is now showing, with this Ebola panic, just how deeply we have become a nation driven almost entirely by fear.

    There are things in the world far more likely to kill any one of us than this odd virus from Africa.

    The one thing Ebola has going for it is that it is truly a sensational (as in extreme, horror-movie-esque, headline-grabbing) way to die.

    So far in the US we're at a death toll, from Ebola, of one.  Be very afraid.

    Even in Africa, home of the virus, hunger and malnutrition kill far more people than Ebola.   Their ends are slow, predictable, and so common as to not generate headlines.  Maybe if it became (barely) communicable and would affect the well-off?

    Stop.  Being.  Afraid.


    by Austin Train on Sat, 11/01/2014 - 9:56am

    I think the conservatives as a group are having a nervous break down.


    by trkingmomoe on Sat, 11/01/2014 - 2:37pm

    As are some non conservatives like me . Who fear that another US case between now  and Tuesday  as well, most importantly, being a tragedy for that new patient will also be bad news for anyone  relying on Obamacare being around to assist them with their own future medical needs..


    by Flavius on Sat, 11/01/2014 - 4:44pm

    People are tuning a lot of this out now.  Election fatigue is setting in. They have had time to learn some about Ebola.  The family of the Texas man never came down with it. People who do get it in this country are surviving with good care. 

    The old farts that watch CNN and Fox have mostly already voted. GOTV is turning out voters who don't have cable and watch only a little network TV. 

    Ebola will disappear in the media after the elections. It will be all about the annual government shut down season. 


    by trkingmomoe on Sat, 11/01/2014 - 6:57pm

    Worry about things worth worrying about.

    You have a better chance of dying by being hit by a falling tree limb than from Ebola.


    by Austin Train on Sat, 11/01/2014 - 8:33pm

    You have a better chance of dying by being hit by a falling tree limb than from Ebola

    Of course .But there's a far better chance of Mitch McConnell  becoming Majority Leader  because  Obama's response to Craig Spencer's Ebola is worryingly reminiscent of his introduction of Obamacare. 

    The good news is that Dr. Spencer's condition was upgraded today to "stable". 

     


    by Flavius on Sat, 11/01/2014 - 10:21pm

    worryingly reminiscent of his introduction of Obamacare. 

    There's also little bit of Mr. President "just plug the damn hole"  here, too, methinks.

    You got me thinking, Flav. It's now been about 7 years since Obamamania took over TPM Cafe. You think it's finally safe for someone like me to call the President a pretty mediocre manager and leader yet? Especially for a huge gummint? Doncha at least some of ya might think by now he might have done better remaining a Senator?

    I always thought his presentation screamed that from day one, and the excitement was all in the fans' heads. Looking back, I think that whole thing was one of the stranger phenoms in American politics, it really was like a whole bunch of people drank some spiked koolaid, gives me the willies to this day thinking about such a reaction being used by more dangerous types. Don't get me wrong, the results could have been a lot worse. He's a smart guy with mediocre political skills, we all get by with someone like him running the country. A sort of "one step forward, two steps back, one step forward" situation. But I still don't get the excitement about him to this day, I thought it scary then and I still do.


    by artappraiser on Sun, 11/02/2014 - 1:25am

    Speaking of TPM, I just went there the first time in ages, to check what they had on presidential approval. The got a nice timeline right at the top, shows it's basically been BLEH and yawn since 2010.

    I bet for sure that a large majority would let him babysit their kids. He's a decent and intelligent guy. That and a nickel will not get you a great president. He's going to make a great post-presidential writer, though--writing is one thing he's made for.


    by artappraiser on Sun, 11/02/2014 - 1:39am

     

    His 2004 keynote speech was a breath of fresh air (trite expression but so what). While he was still speaking my son in law included me in an email that only said " Obama rocks"..

    Just a speech, of course.But the best one I'd heard since Eugene McCarthy at the convention in 1960.

    In 2006 I bought Dreams from my Father from a bookstore in Newport Vt.The proprietor ,and I'm sure owner, said "So you want to read about our next president" and I was taken aback. That didn't seem possible.

    I was actually thrilled in Sept of 2008 when he addressed a rally in Berlin. The camera was focused on  the enthusiastic crowd and then it picked him up walking , apparently casually from back stage up to the mike. I thought: You know , we're going to do it. This racist country is going to elect a black president.

    We did and I was proud of us. For the first time in decades.

    Since then.

    I've described him here as a "good enough" president. I wonder whether that's really accurate but I guess so. Certainly a good human being. Not a good administrator - he went to the Law School not the B School.and it shows.  Oddly, he reminds me of David Brooks. Instincts  OK but in over his head in the job.

    I wish he were better but he's the best president we've got at the minute so I'm still glad we elected him.

     

     

     

     

     


    by Flavius on Sun, 11/02/2014 - 8:08am

    I've seen weaker reasoning, though not often and not lately.

    McConnell may become Majority Leader, though that was equally possible before Ebola.


    by Austin Train on Sun, 11/02/2014 - 1:34am

    Stop.  Being.  Afraid.

    I suppose you think those words, would have been comforting to Eric Duncan?

    Catching the Ebola virus is rare;....... lets keep it that way.


    by Resistance on Mon, 11/03/2014 - 5:27am

    Since my knowledge of medicine is virtually nil, I can't say whether quarantine is appropriate.


    by Aaron Carine on Sun, 11/02/2014 - 9:29am

    What is surely inappropriate is doing  nothing to prevent a Craig Spencer from  taking  the subway.

    At a minimum he should  limit his contacts for 3 weeks.See a lover or a few friends? Sure.,if they are willing to take the risk

    But the evening the thermometer shows he's got a temperature that means  he also had it earlier that day .So he needs to get on the phone to the 20 people he'd spent time with  and warn them  to start taking their temperature. .

    And not take the A train ...   

       


    by Flavius on Sun, 11/02/2014 - 10:50am

    At a minimum he should  limit his contacts for 3 weeks.See a lover or a few friends? Sure.,if they are willing to take the risk

    He didn't care enough to consider others.

    'I can infect whomever I please': HIV-positive woman steals frozen food from Texas Walmart, tries to infect employee ...


    by Resistance on Mon, 11/03/2014 - 5:23am

    I think it's unfortunate that you're feeling uncomfortable disagreeing with the dagblog consensus, and that definitely suggests we should be less hostile in responding to those we disagree with (and I'm looking into the mirror as I write this).

    I think it's perfectly reasonable for the average person to have concerns about Ebola and its contagiousness, especially considering the media frenzy. If one imagines that politicians are people, too (a stretch, I know), then it's also possible to understand how many of them will say things that aren't accurate about the disease.

    That said, due process is all about protecting us from rushing to judgment, and I'm glad that due process appears to be working for us.


    by Verified Atheist on Sun, 11/02/2014 - 4:26pm

    Sorry to have appeared to be whining about being in a minority..And won't compound the error by saying any more now.

    I would normally have been critical of the Coumo /Christie offensive.But I felt we were drifting and they sure stopped that.

     


    by Flavius on Sun, 11/02/2014 - 11:36pm

    I didn't take it as a whine, but rather I took it as a legitimate concern, even though I do not share your specific concerns. (That's not to say that I think Ebola is a cake-walk or anything, of course.)


    by Verified Atheist on Mon, 11/03/2014 - 12:24am