Government
Thoughts on a Global Pandemic
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“GLOBAL PANDEMIC!” Yeah, that’s kind of frightening. Especially if one is sitting in a hotel room in Washington DC, the epicenter of governmental paranoia. That’s where I was for the first half of this week, Washington DC. There is something really freaky about hearing the words “global pandemic” when you are in the belly of the beast. If I was at home in Saint Paul, I wouldn’t be so creeped out by the warnings and the increases in “threat level”, because I would still have plenty of control of my own destiny. However, as I sit here in Washington National Airport, minutes before boarding my flight back to Minneapolis, I get the feeling that I am narrowly escaping what could have been an absolutely terrible experience.
When the words “global pandemic” are heard on my hotel television while in Washington DC, visions of spooky government folks sheathed in impenetrable isolation suits rounding people up for some kind of “quarantine” rush through my head. [Shit, a woman right next to me with a baby just sniffed!] The visions remind me of one of those really bad made-for-TV movies that gin up some crazy strain of the flu that threatens to kill everyone on the planet Earth in a matter of days, unless the handsome, but mysterious doctor can come up with the virus in a matter of minutes; most likely this movie has the word “monkey” or “strain” in the title. Anyway, you get the drift. It is always in Washington DC where the spooky white-suited dudes are dispatched, the airport is promptly shut down, and everyone goes bananas because they are basically imprisoned there. Not that I am panicking or anything, but in truth, the more I think about what the world might be like if there was an uncontrollable spread of an extra deadly flu strain, the more I want to get the hell back home.
