Nothing like a good plague to shake everyone up

The "Ebola Panic" is playing out like some bad made-for-television movie of the 70s. A scare generated for no other purpose than to influence this year's midterms, as conservative pundits have been attracted to the outbreak like proverbial flies to shit, but mainstream pundits also hover around this faux pile of fears like fruit flies, fighting for their little piece of the action.

Of course, it doesn't help when the Center for Disease Control (CDC) starts questioning itself and rushes an infected nurse at the 11th hour to the National Institute of Health in Bethesda, Maryland, to be given special treatment she apparently couldn't get in Dallas. The given was a lack of proper hazmat suits in Dallas. Nina Pham is reportedly in good condition.

However, the sudden move was covered like O.J. Simpson's slow moving "getaway" on television, with commentary every step of the way, which makes you wonder if these news channels don't have anything else to talk about. Coverage has been at times comical, with CNN inviting Robin Cook, best known for his medical thrillers, to comment on a possible pandemic in the wake of this latest "outbreak." After all, he wrote the book on the subject.

Unlike AIDS, which did reach pandemic levels in the 1980s, Ebola has remained contained, but still firebrand ministers find ways to make this "plague" God's way of punishing someone. Politicians have brazenly linked Ebola to immigration reform, and demanded visas and flights from stricken African countries be cancelled. Of course, the news media quickly picks up on these rants, adding more fuel to the fire.

It seems like Americans love a good panic. News ratings have soared, with Shep Smith surprisingly offering a "voice of reason"on the media-induced hysteria. It seems Shep has become the go-to guy at Fox to let everyone know when enough is enough. Still, Shep made sure to link Democrats to the panic.

Yes, it is another political-motivated panic meant to elicit fear in the unsuspecting public, with much of the blame being foisted on the Obama administration. Who else? However, Shep failed to mention that Obama has reacted to the "crisis" much faster than did Reagan, who virtually ignored the AIDS pandemic until it was too late. I guess dear old Ronnie was trying to keep the public calm in the face of the most pervasive epidemic in modern history.

Ebola pales in comparison to AIDS, in large part because the world health community has stayed on top of the viral disease. There have been several outbreaks since Ebola was first reported in 1976, including this case in the United States in 1990, but each time health officials contained the spread, and it is very likely they will do the same again despite the much higher number of cases in stricken West African countries.

The problem is that when you see health officials running around in hazmat suits it can't help but stir up panic, and any number of conspiracy theories are bound to ensue. However, it would be nice if we could keep Ebola out of religion and politics.

The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire

Welcome to this month's reading group selection. David Von Drehle mentions The Melting Pot , a play by Israel Zangwill, that premiered on Broadway in 1908. At that time theater was accessible to a broad section of the public, not the exclusive domain it has become over the decades. Zangwill carried a hopeful message that America was a place where old hatreds and prejudices were pointless, and that in this new country immigrants would find a more open society. I suppose the reference was more an ironic one for Von Drehle, as he notes the racial and ethnic hatreds were on display everywhere, and at best Zangwill's play helped persons forget for a moment how deep these divides ran. Nevertheless, "the melting pot" made its way into the American lexicon, even if New York could best be describing as a boiling cauldron in the early twentieth century. Triangle: The Fire That Changed America takes a broad view of events that led up the notorious fire, not...

Team of Rivals Reading Group

''Team of Rivals" is also an America ''coming-of-age" saga. Lincoln, Seward, Chase et al. are sketched as being part of a ''restless generation," born when Founding Fathers occupied the White House and the Louisiana Purchase netted nearly 530 million new acres to be explored. The Western Expansion motto of this burgeoning generation, in fact, was cleverly captured in two lines of Stephen Vincent Benet's verse: ''The stream uncrossed, the promise still untried / The metal sleeping in the mountainside." None of the protagonists in ''Team of Rivals" hailed from the Deep South or Great Plains. _______________________________ From a review by Douglas Brinkley, 2005

The Searchers

You are invited to join us in a discussion of The Searchers , a new book on John Ford's boldest Western, which cast John Wayne against type as the vengeful Ethan Edwards who spends eight years tracking down a notorious Comanche warrior, who had killed his cousins and abducted a 9 year old girl. The film has had its fair share of detractors as well as fans over the years, but is consistently ranked in most critics' Top Ten Greatest Films . Glenn Frankel examines the origins of the story as well as the film itself, breaking his book down into four parts. The first two parts deal with Cynthia Ann Parker and her son Quanah, perhaps the most famous of the 19th century abduction stories. The short third part focuses on the author of the novel, Alan Le May, and how he came to write The Searchers. The final part is about Pappy and the Duke and the making of the film. Frankel noted that Le May researched 60+ abduction stories, fusing them together into a nar...

Dispatches from Vilnius

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