*Picture the robot from Lost in Space flailing its arms around.*
At work today have appeared bottles of antiseptic hand gel. It's taken me all afternoon to click on to why they've appeared now.
It's in reaction to the flu season that is about to be upon us and also to the swine flu that, if you listen to the media, is also about to murder millions of us any day now. Hopefully. The Australian media is having multiple orgasms about it even though there AREN'T EVEN ANY FUCKING CASES IN AUSTRALIA YET. Even though there aren't even enough fatalities worldwide to shove into one office of a World Trade Center building or one square kilometre of African starvation lands. It's not that I don't believe there could be an outbreak. It's that every single time there is a tiny chance that something catastrophic may possibly happen, it is the lead-in of news reports. But the reports aren't about anything substantial that is actually happening. They are about what might POTENTIALLY happen.
Yeah, well, an asteroid might plummet through the roof of my work and kill me. I might get spinal meningitis. I might get a job I vaguely like. I might ever complete and have published a piece of my own writing. I might die a slow and painful death by being driven mad by the fucking media. Millions of things MIGHT happen. Meanwhile, children starve to death all around the world every single day. And I was sick for over six years and never once in my life had I inoculated myself against it by fearing it, and it happened anyway.
Get a grip, workplace. Get a grip media. Who is holding you accountable for your detestable practices? And as an aside, and for future blog posts, when are we, the people, going to start realising that in a very real sense the reality that is out there is the one that we create every day, collectively and individually, by our fears and our insistence on everything being separated, and begin to make some real changes instead of being told we cannot do anything?
(Yes, I know my swearing count has increased again, but when it comes to the media - and the willingness of humanity to be fearmongered - you can't swear enough. )
(I had a squirt of the antibacterial hand gel just in case :)
Links: 'We need to be inoculated against outbreaks of panic': Deborah Orr
The Swine Flu Pandemic - Fact or Fiction?: Dr Mercola
Don't you just have to love the tabloidy spin the media has to take on these sorts of things?? Gawd! How about some common sense advice to wash your hands frequently instead, or stay home if you run a fever?
ReplyDeleteThose same bottles of antiseptic appeared at my workplace today, too. Tomorrow it may be masks....
Love that photo, btw... reminds me of my drinking days. ha, ha; I was the one on the other side of the fence.
There was a local press conference at noon yesterday. Why, you might ask? Was it something the public desperately needed to know?
ReplyDeleteIt was because there is one, ONE I say, case of the swineflu here in Oregon. One.
My germaphobe son panicked and freaked. I asked him how many people he thinks live in Oregon. He said, "500? 5000? 100,000?" I said "No. 3.7 million at last count. ONE person is sick. One."
I told him right now he was more likely to die in a plane crash (he's never been on a plane).
But they had a press conference so we'd all be rightly scared. And yes, it will probably spread. But a press conference?
Sue,
ReplyDeleteI love your perspective on reality!!
And I've been meaning to tell you that your blog design is awesome!
Just don't eat the antiseptic gel, OK? We survived monkey pox, we can survive this.
ReplyDeleteNorm - antiseptic gel at your place too, huh? Sheesh. *shakes head* Reminds you of your drinking days? What, you spent time being licked on your nose by toddlers in your drinking days? I love the joy and experimentation of that little girl. The pig looks like it's enjoying itself too, hehe :)
ReplyDeleteErin - that is just bloody ridiculous. Why is this happening? I read something in the newspaper today that had a little break-out box that listed pandemics of the past. It listed 1918 where X million people died. Got down to 1968 and the Hong Kong flue where X people died. And then after that listed the paltry things that have broken out including SARS etc where X people died. And I think, what is wrong with this fucking picture? Is it so when a pandemic DOES break its banks (which is entirely possible and maybe even probable) they can feel like they have warned us? I just don't geddit. It makes me want to press the stop button on the world and go and live on Mars.
Kimber - oh, thank you darling! You are very kind. It is very nice to have people say that because sometimes I just think my perspective is due to wayward mental illness :)
Barbara - oh, dammit, I was wondering what was making me feel sick on Friday afternoon :)