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Page added on October 14, 2014
Kunstler: Real Life is Not Spin Art
The authorities keep emphasizing that the nurse who caught ebola from Thomas Eric Duncan was sealed in her haz-mat suit the whole time she cared for the poor fellow and blah blah nobody knows how she could possibly catch the darn thing…. But the newspapers and cable news networks are not asking: What about all the people, ordinary civilians, that this nurse was consorting with off-work, after she took off her haz-mat suit and, let’s say, at some point stopped by the Kroger Store’s fabulous steam table display of take-out goodies behind the helpful and reassuring sneeze-guard on her way back home? It sounds like a new Netflix drama – The Fatal Mac and Cheese.
If one more person in that chain of circumstance falls ill, Rick Perry will have to ring-fence Dallas faster than you can say Guadalupe Hidalgo and then we’ll be off to the quarantine races in America. It will be interesting to see who’s shorting the airline stocks a few hours from now. I’ve got to pass through Dulles airport tomorrow myself, and then two more foreign hubs after that, and return to freakin’ Newark International at the end of the week when a fullblown ebola panic may be underway.
For the moment, I’m in Washington for a conference on population and immigration. Believe it or not there are some people who want to have an honest national conversation about these issues amid all the disingenuous chatter about “dreamers” emanating from the Oval Office in this miserable era of politics-as-spin-art. And along comes the galvanizing event of a really serious disease to finally force the issue. Nothing concentrates a nation’s attention like the specter of the people next door bleeding out through their ears and noses.
Welcome to the diminishing returns of the global economy. They’ve been there all along, but none previously were sufficiently vivid or horrifying as ebola. The Chinese FoxConn workers throwing themselves out the factory windows in despair just seemed like some kind of fraternity prank in comparison. Now something has got loose from the Heart of Darkness like the hissing beastie that burst out of John Hurt’s ribcage in Alien and water-skied out of the sick bay into the bowels of the cargo ship Nostromo. Sometimes a metaphor is just a figure of speech and sometimes it’s liable to set your hair on fire.
The ebola melodrama has all the mojo to set the global economy’s hair on fire. And it comes along at a very strange time: just as central bank hoodoo approaches the brink of its own epic fail – as in, accounting fraud, check-kiting, and public relations can only work as a place-holder for authentic economic relations for so long before the ominous shadow of reality sweeps in on black swan wings. The markets were already well into the puking stage of their own hemorrhagic contagion last week. Maybe the S & P starts bleeding from its eyes and ears this week.
There’s certainly blood all over the overburdened back roads of the Bakken play all of a sudden, where $88-a-barrel shale oil doesn’t even allow you to pretend that you’ve got a profitable venture going. The shale oil fairy tale has been at the center of a matrix of lies America has been telling itself about its economic meth buzz. Saudi America and all that malarkey, all in the service of America’s master wish of all wishes: please Lord, let us keep driving to Wal Mart forever.
Speaking of dreams and dreamers, that was a pretty shabby one. But here we are now up against one of the master facts of the day: our world faces epic, desperate demographic shifts as regions of it are proving to be very unfriendly to human habitation. How long do we pretend that all the refugees are welcome to come here, bleeding from their eyes and noses, as their dreams of laying sod for $6-an-hour or slaughtering chickens for the greater glory of Colonel Sanders collide with the diminishing returns of yet another Elon Musk sales pitch for the blessed denizens of Palo Alto aspiring to Godhood. I, for one, doubt that there’s enough room for all of us in that much dreamed-of for-profit spacecraft soon to carry us to worlds where the black swan’s wings have never cast a shadow.
5 Comments on "Kunstler: Real Life is Not Spin Art"
rockman on Tue, 14th Oct 2014 10:54 am
“…that the nurse who caught ebola from Thomas Eric Duncan was sealed in her haz-mat suit the whole time she cared for the poor fellow”. Absolutely untrue. She was wearing protect gear no different the common worn by intake ER personnel. Whether she should have been outfitted differently is another matter.
JuanP on Tue, 14th Oct 2014 12:21 pm
“Nothing concentrates a nation’s attention like the specter of the people next door bleeding out through their ears and noses.” LOL
I don’t know what will happen with Ebola, but it has the potential to become a big problem if it is not stopped early, say within six months at the most.
Vaccine production and research need to be jumpstarted because we are behind the curve at this time. I know the Canadians and Russians are working on Ebola vaccines, but if we wait for trials it will probably be too late to stop this epidemic that is doubling in size every 21 days according to the WHO. We have to go to human trials and increased vaccine production ASAP.
Aspera on Tue, 14th Oct 2014 12:32 pm
rock: Thanks for what is, I assume, local knowledge. I do think that Kunstler is being metaphoric of a sort, not literal (is he ever not so? lol).
From the web I take it that the outfit she was wearing would have been correctly assessed as hazmat Level D secure (or perhaps a European Type 5 or 6):
In the United States Hazmat protective clothing is classified as either Level A, B, C, or D, based upon the degree of protection they provide.
Level A – The highest level of protection against vapors, gases, mists, and particles is Level A, which consists of a fully encapsulating chemical entry suit with a full-facepiece self-contained breathing apparatus (SCBA) or a supplied air respirator (SAR) with an escape cylinder. The breathing apparatus is worn inside (encapsulated within) the suit.
Level B – Level B protection requires a garment (including SCBA) that provides protection against splashes from a hazardous chemical. Since the breathing apparatus is sometimes worn on the outside of the garment, Level B protection is not vapor-protective. Level B suits can also be fully encapsulating, which helps prevent the SCBA from becoming contaminated. It is worn when vapor-protective clothing (Level A) is not required. Wrists, ankles, facepiece and hood, and waist are secured to prevent any entry of splashed liquid. Depending on the chemical being handled, specific types of gloves and boots are donned. These may or may not be attached to the garment. The garment itself may be one piece or a two-piece hooded suit. Level B protection also requires the wearing of chemical-resistant boots with steel toes and shanks on the outside of the garment.
Level C – Level C protection differs from Level B in the area of equipment needed for respiratory protection. The same type of garment used for Level B protection is worn for Level C. Level C protection allows for the use of respiratory protection equipment other than SCBA. This protection includes any of the various types of air-purifying respirators. Crew members should not use this level of protection unless the specific hazardous material is known and its concentration can be measured. Level C equipment does not offer the protection needed in an oxygen deficient atmosphere.
Level D – Level D protection does not protect the crew member from chemical exposure. Therefore, this level of protection can only be used in situations where a crew member has no possibility of contact with chemicals. A pair of coveralls or other work-type garment along with chemical-resistant footwear with steel toes and shanks are all that is required to qualify as Level D protection. Most firefighter turnout gear is considered to be Level D.
bobinget on Tue, 14th Oct 2014 2:26 pm
Deaths from Ebola in the US will be in double digits,
that is, fewer then ninety nine. 30,000 people die each year from gunshot.
Long after Ebola is living memory we still have more then a one percent chance of going away for the ‘long
nap’ from getting shot.
Almost the same number die in auto related accidents,
about 30,000. (92 people per day)
Smoking? Don’t get me started.
No single group will resist healthcare operatives in the US as was the case in Africa.
Not to put too fine a point on it but Africans are not well educated. With one doctor serving as many as 20,000 outbreaks should happen more often.
Machine translation:
Now it’s official, eight bodies were found after the incidents in Wome, a town in the forest region 50 kilometers from the County seat, N’zérékoré-center, it was learned Thursday according to the spokesman of the government, Damantang Albert Camara.
According to our source, the eight bodies found include: the sub-prefect of Wome, the prefectural health director of the regional hospital N’zérékoré, deputy director of the regional hospital center head Health Womé, an evangelist pastor of the health center Zao, two trainee technicians rural radio journalist and a private radio Zali Fm.
In other news, the eight bodies found in a septic tank in primary school Womé were exhumed in the presence of the public prosecutor at the court N’zérékoré and medical examiner. Similarly, the five year old son of the Deputy Commissioner of Womé managed to escape.
Makati1 on Tue, 14th Oct 2014 8:59 pm
bobinget, thanks for putting it in perspective. Ebola is just more advertised than auto deaths or murders. We have become numb to the fact that everyday, some 100+ people are murdered or die in an auto accident somewhere in the USSA. Millions injured. And as for deaths from our lifestyle (smoking, drinking, over-eating, drugs, etc.) they run in the thousands daily.
CDC: Annual…
Heart disease: 596,577
Cancer: 576,691Chronic lower respiratory diseases: 142,943
Stroke (cerebrovascular diseases): 128,932
Accidents (unintentional injuries): 126,438
Alzheimer’s disease: 84,974
Diabetes: 73,831
Influenza and Pneumonia: 53,826
Nephritis, nephrotic syndrome, and nephrosis: 45,591
Intentional self-harm (suicide): 39,518