. except--since (a) i've been under the weather this week and missed seeing him; and (b) this blog seems to have become my personal scrapbook as of late--this shot of v from the early, heady days of his nascent career as a practicing homogay which somewhat recently came into my possession and which i can't even begin to tell you how much i fuckin' adore.
. there are those out there (including at least one regular commenter to this blog) who would tell you that mkf gets all his news from fringe sources and conspiracy theorists. i am here to tell you this is not true--i only get about 95% of my news from those places; for the remaining 5% i turn to the mainstream media, because they can be counted upon at least 5% of the time to belatedly confirm what my fringe sources and conspiracy theorists have been telling me for months.
seems that a major news organization--namely, CBS news--has, for once, done what all news-gatherers should be doing routinely but in actuality do rarely; namely, ignore what the powers-that-be are telling 'em and dig for the real truth.
bottom line: what CBS news found out is, probably less than 20% of the "swine flu" cases you hear reported in the mainstream media these days are any kind of flu, much less the goddam swine flu.
now that we've got the big reveal outta the way, let's backtrack to find how they arrived at the above conclusion, shall we?
first, CBS found out that back in july, the centers for disease control (CDC) advised states to stop testing for H1N1 flu, since, it being an established epidemic and all (?), continued testing seemed like a waste of resources.
which resulted in--what?--yes, that's right: anybody who showed up at their doctor's office or an emergency room with flu-like symptoms since july has pretty much automatically been branded a swine flu victim, whether they actually were or not.
so, their curiosity piqued, CBS news asked the CDC for state-by-state test results prior to halting all testing in july. when the CDC balked, CBS went to each and every state and asked for their statistics on lab-confirmed H1N1 cases prior to the july cut-off.
what did they find? this is where it gets interesting. CBS reported:
"The results reveal a pattern that surprised a number of health care professionals we consulted. The vast majority of cases were negative for H1N1 as well as seasonal flu, despite the fact that many states were specifically testing patients deemed to be most likely to have H1N1 flu, based on symptoms and risk factors, such as travel to Mexico."
wow--in other words, most of the people showing up at emergency rooms with "flu-like symptoms" didn't even have the goddam flu. here's a nice graphic that breaks it down for you:
[courtesy CBS news]
so how could the CDC's findings be so wildly at odds with those of CBS news?
well, you tell me. could it possibly be because there's a conflict of interest there--that the CDC's advisory committee is infested with all kinds of drug-industry folks who would profit greatly if swine-flu vaccines--at an average of $50 a pop--were hysterically demanded by a panicked populace?
oh, and even better--because this rushed-to-market vaccine was granted blanket immunity from lawsuits by congress in case anything goes wrong?
in other words, our government has just granted to the drug companies the same deal they gave wall street back in 1999: roll the dice as wildly as you want, baby--we'll cover ya.
and you people wonder why i don't trust the goddam government.
_________________
[oh, and since this story broke, have you seen it in the mainstream media, or did you have to hear about it from some drunken blogger with an audience of approximately eleven?
. but you'd be fairly astounded at the legion of bloggers out there who don't see a visit from moi as the honor i always at least intend it to be (or then again, maybe you wouldn't).
while the following after-comment apology from the tail-end of my golden age of drunk-commenting happened to be issued to josh & josh [who, bless their hearts, still put up with my comments], it could just as easily have applied to any number of others who tend to run screaming when they see me coming.
this one's pretty good, tho--i guess that's why i saved it.
[proving once again you never know what you're gonna find while you're digging around for something else]
______________________
sober update: "tomorrow he'll cringe" woulda been so much better. damn.
. i've never talked about my friend mark, but something came up recently as regards him, so let's do that.
mark levine is one of the smartest, most accomplished guys i know: ivy-league educated, fulbright scholar, massive over-achiever, dyed-in-the-wool liberal, perennial optimist--in other words, my polar opposite in almost every way.
to give you an insight into mark's nature: dragged to an audition for wheel of fortune while an undergrad at harvard--he got on, the friend who dragged him there did not--mark, suddenly seeing this as his best shot at paying for law school, left nothing to chance. while the other contestants were no doubt crossing their fingers and thinking good thoughts, mark spent every night up until game day in the library poring over letter-frequency charts and books on cryptography and code-breaking, and calculating the physics of how hard he should spin the wheel based on its position. the result?
at the time i met him, mark was in his second year of law school at yale, and was visiting los angeles in preparation for a summer-associate gig at the firm where he would ultimately end up working after graduation. for whatever reason, we hit it off pretty much immediately.
how would i describe our relationship? to paraphrase hillary clinton, mark and i started an argument in the spring of 1991, and almost 20 years later, we're still talking.
always passionate about politics and policy, mark abandoned a successful and lucrative law career in order to take a job as counsel for congressman barney frank; and then, once he'd had his fill of intrigue on the hill, began a new career in radio, where for the last several years his show, the inside scoop, has given his listeners a perspective on washington and national/world events with a depth that they're not likely to get anywhere else in radioland.
i've watched mark evolve from his stiff, awkward beginnings into a polished, confident radio--and now, tv--personality, and struggle with his characteristic focused tenacity to make a name for himself in one of the toughest, most competitive businesses out there.
and it looks like all that hard work is finally beginning to pay off: he is now being heard nationally as a fill-in host on air america, and--the reason for this post, actually--just appeared last week for the first time on fox's the o'reilly factor, where, in the limited time bill allowed him, he gave as good as he got:
[incidentally, this clip is an instructive lesson as to how o'reilly works--avoiding his more formidable opponent and instead devoting most of the segment to a back-and-forth with the blonde bonehead who really contributed nothing of substance other than her apparent eagerness to act as an easy foil for the host.]
if you're weary of the kind of janeane garofalo-level drivel that passes for progressive talk radio these days and would prefer an informed, in-depth exploration of the issues of the day, i urge you to go over to radioinsidescoop.com and check mark out--in addition to his ongoing broadcasts, he has all of his past shows archived and available for free.
oh, and if you're in the d.c. area and think you can keep up, he's single ;)
. i've watched this clip a dozen times, and it just gets better and better.
h/t to v
update: even though i've been watching this clip all day, msnbc suddenly chooses to take it down five minutes after i publish a blogpost in which it is prominently featured. fine, whatever--i'm nothing if not adaptable. you assholes wanna make me create a re-enactment, i'm more than up to the task:
the clip opens with some anonymous msnbc news-chick
stating the following:
joining me now to talk about this--the nation's real problem of joblessness--the reverend al sharpton.
[cut to the following split screen]
the clueless anchor continues:
what's your reaction to hearing someone say, "you know, when it comes to income inequality, all's well--the rising tide floats all boats?"
[cut to the following shot, and the following priceless exchange]
uh, i'm reverend jesse jackson.
at which point the flustered anchor falls all over herself saying,
right--you know, i'm so sorry, the script in front of me said "the reverend al sharpton"--i'm looking at your face and i know you're reverend jackson--we all do--i'm sorry...
at which point the right reverend starts into his canned spiel and the clip mercifully ends.
trust me, it was funny as hell.
update #2: apparently the clip's back up, if only for the moment. whatever--i'm leaving my re-enactment in place, in case it disappears again.
. first, he was gone for a week, and then just as he got back i took off for a week, and then work got in the way, and then...whatever--it was too long.
i took this picture yesterday with my crappy iphone at the papa john's in westwood as we waited for the crappy pizza we took home and ate curled up in fronta some crappy movie we'd picked up at blockbuster.
. i mostly don't remember shit about my past, but i do remember the night the above picture was taken: it was at a party in austin on a chilly night in late 1979, in the first semester of my first year at the university of texas school of architecture--the gayest school in the most liberal university in the most liberal city in the lone star state, at a time when it looked like gay was gonna take over the world.
four years older than most of my peers, i typically exuded the kinda smiling confidence evident in the above snapshot, but truth be told, it was all a lie--i was scared shitless somebody was gonna find out i was as queer as half my classmates.
while most everybody else in my class partied and fucked each other senseless during our five years there, i mostly kept to myself and fended off advances with lame excuses.
downside of that cowardly decision: i'm the emotionally-stunted wreck you see before you today.
upside of that cowardly decision: virtually every hot guy who hit on me back then has been dead for at least fifteen years.
[btw, i still have that down jacket--it's held up much better than its owner.]
[courtesy CBS news]
stating the following:
