Lucky Pete's contribution .

From good old Lucky Pete in Florida:

Lucky Pete wrote:
"Sorry Dewey I don't know how to get this directly on your Blog."

And he sent me a picture of one article by Marc Seigel. The text can't be read, but I found the original link and I'll post it here with a couple other typical Seigel articles. it is from November of 2005 so it may be a bit dated, but Seigle still has the same kind of message today. Basically, he argues that the odds of avoiding pandemic are better than he sees reported, and he wants to make sure we don't suffer from panic rather than pandemic.

LINKS:

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=518399

http://www.thenation.com/doc/20060130/siegel


http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/fortune_archive/2005/11/28/8361928/index.htm




Dewey's response:


Thanks Peter,

The way to put a comment on my Blog is to hit the comment button at the bottom of any article. You can't really easily post more than what you write yourself. I have to do that, so sending the e-mail was the way to go. But now you can comment if you like.


I could not really read the picture of the article, but I could make out enough to find the original and post it as a link. Marc Seigel is one of the few voices I am hearing who downplays the pandemic scenario so it is good to have it up on this Blog.

I'm not in a panic. I just want to prepare and I'm enjoying reading about the history of these pandemics and learning interesting facts about the way they work.

And I am not trying to spread panic in the website either.

Just discussion.

But I have to tell you that lately I don't trust the judgement of my fellow Americans. Some of the responses I get are just denial that anything is even possible, or an inability to want to even think about what they might do in a disaster, and an unwillingness to listen to what is being explained outside the box of their own mental paradigms.

Lots of people are just too busy, but I don't think that is all of it.

I think it may just be that no one has much faith in any authority anymore. They think everyone in power is in a conspiracy against them, and that everything is hype. I have to tell you that I had the same reaction when they warned us about the coming snowstorm in NYC and we went there anyway. I thought it was exaggerated hype. then the record snow cam while I slept in Manhatten. Well, it worked out fine (it was, after all, just a snowstorm even if it ended up being the largest in the history of NYC.)

And I understand why many people did not evaculate when Katrina hit because when I was in New Orleans a few years ago, I asked people if they feared a major hurricane and I heard how used to the hyped warnings they had become. I also remember visiting a Voo Doo Priestess there. She told with pride about how all her followers had gathered on the edge of the ocean and used VooDoo prayers to keep a hurricane away. I had been wondering what happened during Katrina and then one night after the hurricane, I heard another VooDoo priestess on the television. They asked her about her powers to keep the hurricane from harming people, and she said that it was not the hurricane that had done the damage, but the levees. So she was still in her old thought patterns, and you could just see that she was not going to process any new information.

That scares me more than the disasters.

I have probably been around too many craps tables and watched how much the players want to make craps a game that is not based on randomness and how they mold their beliefs to try and give reason to the random rolls, so they can get some control over it. And that is what this bird flu is. One dice roll after another with our hope that one bad number does not come up.


I do think we are better prepared than they were in 1918 and will do much better. I'm glad to hear suggested by Marc in one of the articles that the evolved flu might come out in a much more weakened state. That makes sense and is a good news guess. Fewer deaths then and less disruption of our lives.

And many people I respect, who I know are not afraid to tell the truth, like Ward Stone the other night, say that they believe technology will get us through this thing even if it hits. The problem is the delay between the time they might know a pandemic strain has developed, and the time they might actually give the little guys like you and me the vaccine. During that time it is best to be hunkered down in the bunker.

About the only thing I am doing that does not fit into some other personal agenda of mine is buying masks. And actually I've been thinking of wearing whatever I buy when I go on the plane to Vegas. Too often I catch something. I bet a good respirator would keep me from many of the flus and colds of traveling.

The rest of my preparations are just reorganizations of what I need anyway. I need to get some sort of house generator for emergencies, and I might as well match it to the pandemic emergency scenario while I do it, and get it now before some other emergency hits. I like stocking canned goods on sale. And I've been wanting my buddy to take me rabbit hunting so a 22 is not just for protection in case the world goes crazy and wants to invade my house.

But I have to say that all these emergencies have made me feel like some people avoid panic by just not thinking very much, or very well, and by not opening their minds up to ideas that surface as the discussion continues. Then when the SHTF they will panic or expect somebody to take care of them. I don't expect in emergency that the government should take care of me if I can do it for myself now. And even if they should, I don't think they know how.

I did hear today, however, from a doctor who believes that the government might have a good chance up in Alaska of containing the bird flu there when it comes in fomr the Berring Straight with migrations of wild birds. I have not heard that from anyone else. Most are sure that the migration South will carry the bird flu with it. That sure would be great if it did not happen! I also felt good today to hear that the ducks are spreading the disease, but not dying like the swans. I suppose that is not good for controling the disease, but I've been watching mallards here all day, and I felt better thinking they might not die in this unless somebody shoots them in ignorant panic.

Marc Seigel is trying also to sell his book, so some people have been skeptical that he has a hidden agenda. If no bird flu evolves, then he gets lots of credit. But I'll take him as a sincere, if a minority, voice among doctors and scientists.

I agree with him that panic does not help. But preparation might, if the worst dice roll. Discussion is always a good thing. And he agrees with that. He has been appearing on discussion round tables and representing his postion on this issue.

And I know that you will survive, whatever comes. Because you are Lucky Pete. I wish I'd get lucky on some free rooms in Vegas in March. Not much coming in the mail these days that says free. But that is for another Blog.