Sounds like Representative King has made a new Scientific Breakthrough to me! You Republicans are selling yourselves short with this whole "I'm not a scientist" bullshit.
I very distinctly remember when I was a medical student and I was asked to help care for my first AIDS patient. The primary care physician didn't bother to list AIDS on the H & P (history and physical). When confronted by the upset nursing staff, I went and asked said physician why he didn't let the staff know they were dealing with an individual with AIDS. He told me, "Because it's none of their God Damn business!" Now I understand that things have changed quite a bit since the mid-eighties. For one, the Royals are in the World Series this year. Well, that's a bad example, but we're still talking about the same time span. Things have changed scientifically and politically since then. But, at the time, HIV was the Ebola of it's day. I mean, a Herpes simplex viral infections could be an incurable bitch, but at least it didn't normally kill you.
Back in the long, long ago, in the dark days before the internet, I decided that I'd rather light a candle than curse the dark. I did extensive research on HIV infections. After 48 hours I knew everything humanly possible about individual with HIV infections and the care there of. I shared this information with the rest of the hospital staff. At that time, I didn't really blame the Nurses. There was way more myth than reliable information at the time and I felt that it was part of my job to get things straight.
The primary was a tad bit peeved because I "violated his patient's privacy" and tried to write me up over it. He was unsuccessful in doing so, but that's not the point. For those who weren't around for that little Merry-Go-Round, the same cast of characters with different names were spreading the same sort of "Ebola's gone airborne" bullshit about HIV. My personal favorite, and the one I think is the most germane here, was, "AIDS has mutated and it can now be spread by mosquitoes!!!" MOSQUITOES DAMN IT!! WE'RE ALL GOING TO DIE HORRIBLY WITH EVERYONE THINKING THAT WE'RE HOMOSEXUALS!!! How am I going to get into heaven now?!?! How can I look Jesus in the face when I stand before him while he's judging the quick and the dead??? HOW DAMN IT?!?!
So let's see, the Royals are in the Series, and republicans are still sounding the "Be afraid! Be Very Afraid!!" alarm. The more things change huh? The one thing that has changed since 1985 is the ease at which reliable information is available to the common man. I suppose you could call ol' Rep Petey "The" King that. As common as dirt. As common as the horse shit that Black Jesus used to fertilize his community garden. And all these hemorrhoids on the body politic that run under The Red Badge of Bullshit banner, otherwise known as the republican Party, seem to be completely unaware that reliable information is but a few keystrokes away. It should be harder to get away with shit like this, and maybe it is and nobody cares. I mean we do here, but your average "values voters" doesn't seem to.
I've given the general public a pretty big bye so far on the whole believing what the Teabagger Express, Bat shit crazy, wing of the republican Party says. Most of the people in that position, at least from what I see, is getting their information, second or third hand, from the guy at work who actually bothers to take the minimal amount of effort necessary to download Glen Beck's pod cast, or watches the O'Liely Factory of a night after a twelve pack or two. Shiva knows, that's the only way I could sit still for it.
I have a lot of respect for people who work hard every damn day just to keep the lights on and food in the stomachs of their kids. After a long day of a crappy, mind numbing, low paying, soul crushing job, I don't blame them for not wanting to follow the news. I don't blame them for not wanting to tease out the political fact from fiction out there. The republicans know this too. They've set out on a "pox on both their houses" campaign of misinformation. They just follow the KISS (Keep It Simple Dumb fuck) principal of political rhetoric. If a plank of the Party of Stupid doesn't fit on a bumper sticker then it don't go into the Party platform. As I see it, this one's different. Ebola should be apolitical; "should be" being the operative words here.
If the thought of the Ebola virus actually scares you. If you really think Ebola could get a foothold in this country, then go online and look up the facts for yourself. I could list all the reasons why but, short of a Walking Dead type of apocalyptic collapse of civilization worldwide, Ebola will never get a foothold in this country, and actually, not even then. It's not that hard to find this out anymore. I guarantee that even with a (1985) state of the art Medical library at my disposal, it's easier by a factor of 1,000 to get that same information today. Try CDC.gov, or WHO.int.
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The internet: It's not just for porno anymore.
xxxooo
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