Spring into knee jerk reactions - 2009 - the swine flu chapter 4 · Monday May 4, 2009 by colin newell
The funny thing about humans is that we are predictable.
Reliable as gravity.
Modern Air travel
A handful of Saudi’s take over some American aircraft with little more than box cutters of persuasion, and the World changes forever. Tightened airport security was certainly overdue on this continent.
Someone gets on a plane and tries to light their shoe on fire – and it is lights out for foot fancy free air travel.
Someone decides that you can cook up a wicked explosion with 2 small containers of dissimilar fluids. Bye bye in flight hydration.
I have determined that there are 15 ways of killing an obnoxious person with the air safety fold-out, flotation pillow, or In-flight magazine… but I am not talking.
And isn’t it enough that we have to strip down to our bare essentials to climb into a flying cigar – we are scanned and prodded and questioned and shuffled around like sheep. So, let’s get back down to Earth…
Life on the ground
Attach the word Swine to a largely harmless illness and it’s curtains for potential pork ribs and bacon.
Why couldn’t we have had Snake flu or Spider flu…
Actually, I step back. I do like spiders and snakes. They are largely harmless.
Better name… Spring Flu. No one gets hurt.
But that is not reality, is it?
Currently, schools are being closed. Vacations are being ruined. Few people are actually getting sick, but we are acting like the sky is falling. Farmers are being forced to slaughter perfectly good livestock because of our emotional weakness and fear.
We are chasing our coiled up little piggy tails… and for what?
In China, they are locking down Canadian tourists… not that this is a bad thing in principle – I mean, god knows what we could teach the Chinese politburo about common sense living…
Oh. Yea. Contradicted self.
Going mask free regardless of what happens… I am Colin Newell.
Additional reading – Health scares are like terrorist ones. Someone somewhere has an interest in it.
Spring into flu and other media created illnesses - chapter 3 · Friday May 1, 2009 by colin newell
Patient Zero.
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Spring into flu - and other media created illnesses - part deaux · Thursday April 30, 2009 by colin newell
10 reasons you know you might/might not have swine flu!
- Number 10 – It’s Friday. 99% of cases appear on Fridays.
- Number 9 – The sun is shining. You feel good. Don’t be deceived – you are not well!
- Number 8 – You partied on Thursday night and your throat is sore the next day. It’s swine. Stay in bed.
- Number 7 – You had a pulled pork sandwich at your favorite BBQ joint. You feel queasy. This is swine flu.
- Number 6 – You really don’t want to go to Mexico with your girlfriend – that anxiety you are feeling? Swine.
- Number 5 – You woke up next to a stranger you met at a Vancouver club. Is this swine? No but you are crazy.
- Number 4 – Home sick. Updating Facebook. Boss catches you. You’re fired. Swine.
- Number 3 – You find yourself in an actual James Bond movie… but it is not a movie, it’s real – and James nemesis, Fang, has locked you into a mysterious machine that makes you look sexy and 60’s retro chique… Swine.
- Number 2 – You have just smoked 3 cartons of Lucky Strike and are not feeling so lucky anymore… and we all know smoking is harmless
- And the number one reason you may or may not have swine flu…
- You haven’t had a weekend off since Christmas… and something had to give!
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Spring into the truth - I mean, why not - America and Canada · Sunday April 26, 2009 by colin newell
Keywords being Napolitano, McCain, 911 Myth – Border security – Terrorists from Canada.
Okay. Listen up. I saw no point in writing my own spin on this… because James sums it up with aplomb.
Bottom line (for those too weak to click on the link above…)
911 terrorists did not cross the Canadian border into the US prior to the 911 attacks. They came from Britain, the United Arab Emirates and… Florida. Yea. Florida, where they were doing flight training. And they had been in America “legally” for some time.
One of the most obvious sub-thoughts about the American zeitgeist is the following (which I believe to be true…)
- Americans spend about as much time thinking about Canada as they do wondering if their next breath contains life giving oxygen (which is to say, rarely)
Americans are not alone in their blithe ignorance of Canada. I had a telephone conversation with a colleague in Australia who was unsure about what currency stiffens up our wallets; American dollars, Euro, what?
Actually, mate… we live in Igloo and we don’t use money – we trade Hudson Bay pelts and get from A to B by canoe… generally in inhospitable weather…
and that has been the rumor for over a hundred years…
as for the right now from the Canadian perspective?
Get used to explaining to our Southern friends…
as if they will listen.
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Spring into inactvity - our new generation of lazy kewl · Monday April 20, 2009 by colin newell
One of my favorite phrases is Hip to be square…
When I turned 40 (more than a few years back…) I was worried that I would become entirely invisible to all those young people around me…
click on photo at left for the latest Corner Drip cartoon
And considering that I work at a very popular Canadian University populated largely by 20-somethings, that would have been a whole lot of invisibility.
I mean, everyone wants to be, even slightly, relevant.
But I was wrong. And I am still sorta cool. In a grand illusion kind of way… But for the most part, for reasons just outside of my grasp.
And I really do not think it has anything to do what what I am doing…
It has more to do with what everyone else (in the young’n age bracket) are not doing.
I figure I am just out there living the dream… burning the candle with a flame-thrower… drinking 5 cups of coffee at a time so I can keep up with my own timetable.
And it is not like I am that busy. I work for 7 hours, taking about an hours worth of breaks a day – come home and make a gourmet dinner with my wife – put in about 2 or 3 hours on writing projects and web site obligations… shower, rinse and repeat.
Seems like that would have been considered a normal day… in 1974…
A movie making student friend of mine describes me as the coolest guys he knows…
I look behind myself every time I hear stuff like that. Surely I am not the calendar boy for Good as it gets. Dang, I was expecting to be a geezer by now… wearing tattered polyester pants and a weedy Nike golf shirt from Value Village… smelling vaguely like a combination of Canadian blended whiskey, Aqua Velva and sketchy personal hygiene.
But no…
Instead, life on campus has forced me into Gap-ville. I wear Levi’s, Fluevog shoes, cotton monochrome banana republic t-shirts… and I (gasp) shower every morning and shampoo with an all-in-one volume enriching organic formulation…
What have I become? Is this the future for the middle aged? Retro-chic into our golden years? Who is going be rad if the young folks won’t come up to the plate? Sigh… guess it’s gonna be me and my similarly aged hunky stud dudes.
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