This is going to be a little long-winded, but it’s one of the things that has been, as Peter Griffin might say, “Grinding my Gears.” I’m hoping for us all to have a sensible conversation about this, and I’m open to anyone who would like to take part. So I was thinking about how this whole Ebola thing has begun to get some coverage and I’ve noticed my wall get a little blown up by people posting about it. Everything from “Fire the CDC chief” to “It’s Obama’s Fault” to “Shut Down Flights coming from West Africa.” I’ve watched CNN, MSNBC, Fox News go gangbusters about it, talk radio is all about it, the internet, and everything. Listen, I’m a film guy and love a good global pandemic catastrophe movie as the next person, but let’s have a serious non-tin foil hat discussion without it going slightly full stupid. One person has contracted it while in this country, the young nurse. Is this horrible? Of course. My response of non-hysteria should not be mistaken as not pulling for her. But it’s one case here in America. One. The flu kills on average 109 people A DAY. And yet there are people out there going “I don’t need a flu shot.” Some of these people are now the ones screaming for air-traffic to cease from West Africa. About that. It’s also reported that there are NO direct flights from West Africa here. Meaning people have to travel to another international airport, connect from there to get here. Are we going to tell Britain, Japan, and a slew of other countries they can’t travel here? Probably not. So that argument is dead in the water. And if you’re all for shutting down travel from places where Ebola is detected, does that mean you believe we should just shut down Texas? Send troops/National Guard to the Texas border and say “Hey, sorry, but you can’t leave. No flights in and out of Texas, no cars in and out. We’re dropping a dome over you to contain it.” You’re not going to see Bill O’Reilly, Sean Hannity, or anyone over on Fox calling for THAT are you? But them spreading the idea that Ebola is going to be the next “zombie apocalypse” when someone sneezes, that’s embraced with open arms. It’s so easy for everyone to get caught up in the drama and the newest, scariest, exotic virus story. You stick to the news stations and outlets you’d frequent anyway, so whatever they peddle is what you’re going to eat up. And I watched/listened as show after show today on network after network get fired up about closing borders, or keeping people under quarantine, or how you can’t trust these medical professionals over here on how Ebola can spread but you CAN trust the ones that “this network” puts on. If Ebola all of a sudden jumps from one case today to 1.7 million cases tomorrow in the U.S., then we’ve got a serious problem. But in the meantime, can we all just calm down about it?
Posted on: Wed, 15 Oct 2014 06:30:38 +0000
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