Wednesday

[muser]

It's Thursday here, which means it must be Wednesday somewhere in the world.

The Big Thread on the KH site, whilst sad (and maddening), has brought a number of lurkers and old timers out of the woodwork. It's encouraging to see so many people offering care and sympathy.

Well there's not much happening for me today. I'm sitting here waiting for exciting things to unfold but don't know when that might happen. I'm so busy at the moment with upcoming birthdays and Christmas, I feel sad that there are several friends we may not catch up with in person until next year because we are just about 'booked out'. If only we could charge appearance fees.

[bferrin]

I'm going to see the Pixies next month. The show is on a Tuesday in Oakland, so I took Wednesday off knowing I'd be up late Tuesday night. My manager suggested I take the rest of the week off since I'm maxed out on vacation time. (Only 2 days, since I still have one day of comp time too.) At this point I think I'm more excited about taking the time off than I am about going to see the Pixies. 3 days plus a weekend will make 5 days away from work!

[fifteen pieces of flair]

I'm listening to my 10-4 that arrived today. I got home 20 mins ago, and just dumped everything on the floor and threw it in.

I'm trying not to cry.

It's just as beautiful as I hoped it would be when I ordered it on the 25th February 2008!

I wanna reach through the speakers and hug her!

[muser]

That's awesome. :)

I'm so envious.

[Hooberrydooberry]

Saw Zombieland last night.

Undead slasher gore fest with a love angle...

Movie perfection.

Congratulations Fifteen Pieces.

[Scott Hamilton]

I am very angry this morning after reading that by the time the US takes delivery on its MUCH-delayed orders for H1N1 vaccine, it may well be too late. According to the AP, it likely will not happen until mid-December, at which point an estimated 63 percent--most of them children--will already be infected. Of the 120 million doses of the vaccine expected by mid-October, only 12.8 are currently available.

And what's the main reason for this? A massive failure in dependence on capitalism. Simply put, since the flu vaccine, vital as it is to public health--especially in eras of epidemic or worse, pandemic--is not very profitable for pharmaceutical companies, they have little incentive to focus on it. As a result, we're relying on 50-year-old technology--injecting the vaccine into chicken's eggs and waiting for it to incubate (a problem for vegans, but I won't go there). Though the Centers for Disease Control says developing new technologies is crucial, they concede that there will not likely be improvements in the near future, for lack of profit incentive.

So here in the US, we're left with a few overwhelmed manufacturing plants juggling their efforts between H1N1 vaccine and conventional flu vaccine, the latter of which is now in woefully short supply as well, as clinics for it across the country are canceled, leaving seniors in particular exposed. Yesterday, the manufacturer of Purell hand sanitizer issued an appeal to folks to stop hording the stuff because they can't keep up with demand despite running their factories around the clock--and despite the fact that we've been told that clean hands and coughing into your elbow are our main hopes of staying healthy. Then this morning, news broke that Tamiflu supplies are already running low, even though we're nowhere near the height of infections.

What a sorry state of affairs. In an era where we're giving away money to buy cars, giving away money to buy houses, throwing hundreds of billions to already-rich corporations so they can in turn throw multi-million-dollar bonuses at their executive, and otherwise squandering away the nation's resources, shouldn't protecting public health from a virus that could decimate the population be our primary focus--and in fact, a world-wide priority?

One vaccine expert is quoted as saying that we need a "man-to-the-moon effort for flu vaccine if we don't want to find ourselves in the same position in the future." Amen to that. But in the meantime, cough into your elbow. Wash your hands. And hope like hell that you and, more importantly, your kids, don't get sick--and that the person sitting or standing next to you isn't or hasn't been already (since news also broke yesterday that those who've recovered from H1N1 can continue shedding the virus for up to a week) .

Grrr. Off my soapbox...