http://www.oocities.org/elzj78/bsgminiseries.html
BATTLESTAR GALACTICA: Miniseries (2003)
(Boomer's Raptor jumps back to the convoy)
Boomer: Colonial One, Raptor 312. I'm back, and I brought a friend.
Pilot: Welcome back, Boomer. We got a lot of thirsty ships here eager to make your friend's acquaintance. Did you pick up any other contacts out there?
Boomer: Negative. There's no one left. (Cylon ship appears on their radar.) Got a visitor!
Pilot: We see him. Can you jam his signal?
Boomer: Trying. (The Cylon jumps away again.)
2016_Nk20_DSCN2038.jpg
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0087363/quotes
IMDb
Gremlins (1984)
Quotes
Kate: What are they, Billy?
Billy Peltzer: They're gremlins, Kate, just like Mr. Futterman said.
http://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/anthrax-fail-government-inspectors-warned-lab-lapses-years-n157271
NBC NEWS
Anthrax Fail: Government Inspectors Warned of Lab Lapses for Years
By Maggie Fox
First published July 16th 2014, 6:55 am
Government inspectors have been warning for years that labs used to handle dangerous agents such as anthrax have been poorly regulated and that the lack of oversight has put the public at risk, yet little has been done to heed their warnings, an official said Wednesday.
2016_Nk20_DSCN2069.jpg
http://ncis-los-angeles.hypnoweb.net/guide-episodes/saison-5/episode-515/script-vo-515.152.2063/
hypnoweb.net
NCIS: Los Angeles
Tuhon
Episode 515 Aired Feb 25, 2014 on CBS
[Security guy1 looks at the clock…]
VISITOR: He, uh...he says good-bye.
[Security guy1 looks again at the clock
http://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/pinkfloyd/twosunsinthesunset.html
AZ
PINK FLOYD
"Two Suns In The Sunset"
you have no recourse to the law anymore
and as the windshield melts
my tears evaporate
leaving only charcoal to defend
finally i understand
the feelings of the few
http://www.imdb.com/name/nm2188369/bio
IMDb
Pat Tillman
Biography
Date of Birth 6 November 1976, San Jose, California, USA
Date of Death 22 April 2004, Afghanistan (killed in combat)
Birth Name Patrick Daniel Tillman Jr.
http://www.tv.com/shows/tj-hooker/the-protectors-59219/trivia/
tv.com
T.J. Hooker Season 1 Episode 1
The Protectors
Aired Saturday 8:00 PM Mar 13, 1982 on ABC
Quotes
Trainee: Yeah, well some of us aren't as smart as you, Sarge.
Hooker: That's right, not all of you are! If you were, I wouldn't have to work my tail off to drill an elementary procedure into your thick skulls. I wouldn't have to spell it out by the numbers, that that badge is a target!
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/general-article/influenza-first-wave/
PBS KSPS
General Article: The First Wave
Fort Riley, Kansas was a sprawling establishment housing 26,000 men and encompassing an entire camp, Camp Funston, within its 20,000-acre boundaries. Soldiers often complained about the inhospitable weather to be found at the site: bone-chilling winters and sweltering summers. Sandwiched in between these two extremes were the blinding dust storms. Within the camp were thousands of horses and mules that produced a stifling nine tons of manure each month. The accepted method of disposing of the manure was to burn it, an unpleasant task made more so by the driving wind. On Saturday, March 9, 1918, a threatening black sky forecast the coming of a significant dust storm. The dust, combining with the ash of burning manure, kicked up a stinging, stinking yellow haze. The sun was said to have gone dead black in Kansas that day.
Some, looking for a point of origin of the so-called Spanish influenza that would eventually take the lives of 600,000 Americans, point to that day in Kansas.
From 3/9/1918 To 5/27/2016 ( --- ) is 35874 days
35874 = 17937 + 17937
From 11/2/1965 ( my birth date in Antlers Oklahoma USA and my birthdate as the known official United States Marshal Kerry Wayne Burgess and active duty United States Marine Corps officer ) To 12/12/2014 is 17937 days
From 8/3/1998 ( Tom Clancy "Rainbow Six" ) To 12/12/2014 is 5975 days
From 11/2/1965 ( my birth date in Antlers Oklahoma USA and my birthdate as the known official United States Marshal Kerry Wayne Burgess and active duty United States Marine Corps officer ) To 3/13/1982 ( premiere US TV series "T.J. Hooker" ) is 5975 days
From 6/24/1949 ( Harry Truman - Special Message to the Congress Recommending Point 4 Legislation ) To 8/3/1998 ( Tom Clancy "Rainbow Six" ) is 17937 days
From 11/2/1965 ( my birth date in Antlers Oklahoma USA and my birthdate as the known official United States Marshal Kerry Wayne Burgess and active duty United States Marine Corps officer ) To 12/12/2014 is 17937 days
From 6/24/1949 ( Harry Truman - Special Message to the Congress Recommending Further Reorganization of the Post Office Department ) To 8/3/1998 ( Tom Clancy "Rainbow Six" ) is 17937 days
From 11/2/1965 ( my birth date in Antlers Oklahoma USA and my birthdate as the known official United States Marshal Kerry Wayne Burgess and active duty United States Marine Corps officer ) To 12/12/2014 is 17937 days
From 9/18/2001 ( Bill Gates-Nazi-Microsoft-Corbis-George Bush the cowardly violent criminal as a scheduled terrorist attack against the United States of America sends anthrax through the United States Postal Service ) To 12/12/2014 is 4833 days
From 11/2/1965 ( my birth date in Antlers Oklahoma USA and my birthdate as the known official United States Marshal Kerry Wayne Burgess and active duty United States Marine Corps officer ) To 1/26/1979 ( premiere US TV series "The Dukes of Hazzard"::series premiere episode "One Armed Bandits" ) is 4833 days
From 9/18/2001 ( Bill Gates-Nazi-Microsoft-Corbis-George Bush the cowardly violent criminal as a scheduled terrorist attack against the United States of America sends anthrax through the United States Postal Service ) To 12/12/2014 is 4833 days
From 11/2/1965 ( my birth date in Antlers Oklahoma USA and my birthdate as the known official United States Marshal Kerry Wayne Burgess and active duty United States Marine Corps officer ) To 1/26/1979 ( Jimmy Carter - National Security Information Order Designating an Official To Classify Information "Top Secret" ) is 4833 days
From 12/8/2003 ( premiere US TV miniseries "Battlestar Galactica" ) To 12/12/2014 is 4022 days
From 11/2/1965 ( my birth date in Antlers Oklahoma USA and my birthdate as the known official United States Marshal Kerry Wayne Burgess and active duty United States Marine Corps officer ) To 11/6/1976 ( Pat Tillman ) is 4022 days
From 3/16/1991 ( my first successful major test of my ultraspace matter transportation device as Kerry Wayne Burgess the successful Ph.D. graduate Columbia South Carolina ) To 12/12/2014 is 8672 days
8672 = 4336 + 4336
From 11/2/1965 ( my birth date in Antlers Oklahoma USA and my birthdate as the known official United States Marshal Kerry Wayne Burgess and active duty United States Marine Corps officer ) To 9/16/1977 ( premiere US TV series "Logan's Run" ) is 4336 days
http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=108021
The American Presidency Project
Barack Obama
XLIV President of the United States: 2009 - present
921 - Remarks Prior to a Meeting With Senior Advisers To Discuss Ebola Preparedness and Containment Efforts and an Exchange With Reporters
December 12, 2014
The President. Well, let me start by saying a few words about the bill that was passed last night to keep the Government open and make sure that our agencies are funded until the fall of next year.
This, by definition, was a compromise bill. This is what's produced when you have the divided Government that the American people voted for. There are a bunch of provisions in this bill that I really do not like. On the other hand, there are provisions in this bill and the basic funding within this bill that allows us to make sure that we continue on the progress in providing health insurance to all Americans; to make sure that we continue with our efforts to combat climate change; that we're able to expand early childhood education that is making a meaningful difference in communities all across the country; that allows us to expand our manufacturing hubs that are contributing to the growth of jobs and the progress that we've seen in our economy over the last couple of years.
And so, over all, this legislation allows us to build on the economic progress and the national security progress that is important. Had I been able to draft my own legislation and get it passed without any Republican votes, I suspect it would be slightly different. [Laughter] That is not the circumstance we find ourselves in. And I think what the American people very much are looking for is some practical governance and the willingness to compromise; that's what this bill reflects. So I'm glad it passed the House, and I'm hopeful that it will pass the Senate.
One of the things that was very important in this legislation was, it allowed us the funding that's necessary to battle ISIL, to continue to support our men and women in uniform. We've put a lot of burdens on our Defense Department and our Armed Services over the last year, some of which were anticipated, some of which were not. And this gives our military, as well as our other agencies, the ability to plan over the next year with some stability.
Ebola Preparedness and Containment Efforts
Which brings me to the topic of this meeting here today. This bill also contains the necessary funding to continue to make progress on our fight against Ebola both at home and abroad. I know that after a frenzy of news reports for several weeks, Ebola has faded from the headlines. On the other hand, although we have not seen an additional case here in the United States, I have always said that we have to make sure we're prepared here at home and we will not have defeated this disease until we have defeated it where it is most prevalent, and that is in West Africa.
And so I'm going to be hearing about the progress that's been made here in the United States in making sure that our hospitals are properly prepared, that our outstanding health workers are properly trained, and that we have facilities that are regionally dispersed to accommodate the periodic Ebola cases that we may continue to see in the United States until we've eradicated the disease in West Africa. It also allows us to make some progress on our efforts to develop a vaccine. I was at the NIH a while back—some of you were with me—to see the significant progress and some promising pathways that we're taking with respect to vaccine development, and this legislation allows us to continue with that progress.
It also allows us to continue to do the work that is necessary in West Africa. Because of the remarkable response of our agencies, our military, our health workers, we have been able to take the lead in Liberia and to start bending the curve so that we're on a pathway to defeating the disease in Liberia. But we've still got a lot of work to do. And in two neighboring countries, Guinea and Sierra Leone, we've still got significant problems. Sierra Leone, in particular, we're still seeing an uptick in cases rather than the kind of declining case numbers that we'd like to see.
We know now what we knew in the fight against Ebola in previous epidemics, and that is that if we successfully isolate patients, if we're able to contact trace who has been in contact with somebody with the disease, if we're able to improve on things like burial practices, that we can slowly shrink and ultimately eliminate the disease. That is beginning to take root in Liberia, but we've still got a lot more work to do in these other countries.
Fortunately, we continue to see extraordinary efforts by our health care workers and volunteers from around the world. Here in the United States, we have seen people who are making enormous sacrifices, being separated from their families, in order to deal with this devastating disease. I was very pleased to see Time magazine identify those health workers on the front lines in the fight against Ebola as "Persons of the Year." I can't think of a better choice, because the courage, skill, professionalism that they display every single day makes me very proud.
And our American health workers have done a great job, but we want to make sure to give credit to the other countries that are participating in this coalition. We led it, we moved it, we are the most aggressive and out front in getting things done, but we couldn't be doing this alone. And so we've seen participation from countries and allies all across the globe. And we've got to make sure that we stay on top of this.
So I want to thank Congress for including that in the legislation. I'm going to hear reports about lessons learned over the last several weeks, what's worked, what hasn't. We'll continue to make adjustments over time. We have put in place the infrastructure, thanks to the outstanding work of our Armed Services, to get supplies and workers in and out, to be able to medevac those health care workers who end up contracting the disease, making sure that they have decent treatment.
But we've got to stay on this. This is not a problem that is going to go away anytime soon. And until we have snuffed out the last case of Ebola in West Africa, there's always the prospect and, in fact, likelihood that it spreads and could end up coming back to the United States.
So we've got a lot more work to do, just because it's not in the headlines, and that's what this meeting is about. I want to thank everybody here who's been doing a great job on it.
All right. Thank you very much, everybody.
The President's Health
Q. How's your throat? How is the reflux?
The President. You know, actually, I am doing fine. That was a classic example of, if it weren't for the press pool, nobody would know about it. [Laughter] Q. We did a good job, huh?
The President. There's got to be something better to cover than the President's sore throat.
Thank you, guys.
NOTE: The President spoke at 1:58 p.m. in the Roosevelt Room at the White House.
http://www.e-reading.org.ua/bookreader.php/71211/Clancy_-_Rainbow_Six.html
Rainbow Six (1998)
Tom Clancy
CHAPTER 31
MOVEMENT
"So, they came back to talk to me again, asking the same fuckin' questions over and over, like they expect me to change my story."
"Did you?" the former FBI agent asked.
"No, there's only one story I'm going to tell, and that's the one I prepared in advance. How did you know that they might come to me like this?" Maclean asked.
"I used to be FBI. I've worked cases, and I know how the Bureau operates. They are very easy to underestimate, and then they appear-no, then you appear on the scope, and they start looking, and mainly they don't stop looking until they find something," Henriksen said, as a further warning to this kid.
"So, where are they now?" Maclean asked. "The girls, I mean."
"You don't need to know that, Kirk. Remember that. You do not need to know."
"Okay." Maclean nodded his submission. "Now what?"
"They'll come to see you again. They've probably done a background check on you and-"
"What's that mean?"
"Talk to your neighbors, coworkers, check your credit history, your car, whether you have tickets, any criminal convictions, look for anything that suggests that you could be a bad guy," Henriksen explained.
"There isn't anything like that on me," Kirk said.
"I know." Henriksen had done the same sort of check himself. There was no sense in having somebody with a criminal past out breaking the law in the name of the Project. The only black mark against him was Maclean's membership in Earth First, which was regarded by the Bureau almost as a terrorist-well, extremist organization. But all Maclean did with that bunch was to read their monthly newsletter. They had a lot of good ideas, and there was talk in the Project about getting some of them injected with the "B" vaccine, but they had too many members whose ideas of protecting the planet were limited to driving nails into trees, so that the buzz saws would break. That sort of thing only chopped up workers in sawmills and raised the ire of the ignorant public without teaching them anything useful. That was the problem with terrorists, Henriksen had known for years. Their actions never matched their aspirations. Well, they weren't smart enough to develop the resources they needed to be effective. You had to live in the economic eco-structure to believe that, and they just couldn't compete on that battlefield. Ideology was never enough. You needed brains and adaptability, too. To be one of the elect, you had to be worthy. Kirk Maclean wasn't really worthy, but he was part of the team. And now he was rattled by the attention of the FBI. All he had to do was stick to his story. But he was shook up, and that meant he couldn't be trusted. So, they'd have to do something about it.
"Get your stuff packed. We'll move you out to the Project tonight." What the hell, it would be starting soon anyway. Very soon, in fact.
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/general-article/influenza-first-wave/
PBS KSPS
General Article: The First Wave
Fort Riley, Kansas was a sprawling establishment housing 26,000 men and encompassing an entire camp, Camp Funston, within its 20,000-acre boundaries. Soldiers often complained about the inhospitable weather to be found at the site: bone-chilling winters and sweltering summers. Sandwiched in between these two extremes were the blinding dust storms. Within the camp were thousands of horses and mules that produced a stifling nine tons of manure each month. The accepted method of disposing of the manure was to burn it, an unpleasant task made more so by the driving wind. On Saturday, March 9, 1918, a threatening black sky forecast the coming of a significant dust storm. The dust, combining with the ash of burning manure, kicked up a stinging, stinking yellow haze. The sun was said to have gone dead black in Kansas that day.
Some, looking for a point of origin of the so-called Spanish influenza that would eventually take the lives of 600,000 Americans, point to that day in Kansas. Shortly before breakfast on Monday, March 11, the first domino would fall signaling the commencement of the first wave of the 1918 influenza. Company cook Albert Gitchell reported to the camp infirmary with complaints of a “bad cold.” Right behind him came Corporal Lee W. Drake voicing similar complaints. By noon, camp surgeon Edward R. Schreiner had over 100 sick men on his hands, all apparently suffering from the same malady.
Any evidence of an influenza epidemic in the spring of 1918 was furnished by those institutions that kept a close eye on those under their watch: the military and prisons. In April and May, over 500 prisoners at San Quentin in California came down with the same condition that had struck soldiers at Camp Riley, as well as camps Hancock, Lewis, Sherman, Fremont, and several others. Influenza spreading amongst men living in close quarters did not particularly alarm the public health officials of the day. Little data existed at the time to indicate a sizable spread among the civilian population. Besides, the nation had bigger matters on its mind. There was a war to win.
In the spring of 1918, it appeared that America’s involvement in the fight against Germany was beginning to make a difference. In March, 84,000 American “dough-boys” set out for Europe; they were followed by another 118,000 the next month. Little did they know they were carrying with them a virus that would prove to be more deadly then the rifles they carried. While sailing across the Atlantic, the 15th U.S. Cavalry incurred 36 cases of influenza, resulting in six deaths. By May, the killer flu had established itself on two continents, and was still growing.
The influenza of 1918 showed no bias in its approach to the combatants in World War I: men from all sides were sickened and killed. Great Britain reported 31,000 influenza cases in June alone. The flu proved such a leveler of men that war plans were altered. Attacks that had been painstakingly planned had to be postponed due to a shortage of healthy men. By early summer, the flu extended its reach beyond the U.S. and Western Europe. Numerous cases of influenza were reported in Russia, North Africa, and India. The Pacific Ocean provided no protection as influenza spread to parts of China, Japan, the Philippines, and down to New Zealand.
By July, the influenza of 1918 had left its mark globally. Tens of thousands had fallen ill and died. This first wave was a mere prelude, however, to the perilous path the flu would cut when it reappeared in full force that fall.
http://www.kansas.com/news/local/news-columns-blogs/the-story-of-kansas/article1056240.html
The Wichita Eagle
THE STORY OF KANSAS
JANUARY 29, 2011
1911-1920: From horses to autos and airplanes
Horses gave way to automobiles and planes became the new industry. More than 12,000 people gathered at the Walnut Grove Air Meet in Wichita in May 1911 to see barnstormers circling and gliding their planes through the air.
In Kingman County, Clyde Cessna, a farmer with no formal training in engineering or flying, took his first flights across Kansas' border into Oklahoma.
After crashing a dozen times before a successful flight, an exasperated Cessna reportedly said of his first plane, "I'm going to fly this thing, then I'm going to set it afire and never have another thing to do with aeroplanes!"
But Cessna had plenty more to do with planes.
He built the first plane in Wichita during the winter of 1916-17 and later founded his own aircraft company in Wichita.
This decade also brings to Kansas a deadly virus.
One of the world's deadliest outbreaks of influenza began in Kansas, at Fort Riley, where soldiers from all over the Midwest trained for Army duty in France, as part of the U.S. involvement in World War I.
Each month, the horses and mules at the fort created 9,000 tons of manure, and piles of it were burned daily. Some say the practice played a part in what happened on March 9, 1918, when a blinding dust storm struck. It mixed the ashes of burned manure with flying dust. Coughing and sneezing, men huddled in makeshift buildings at Camp Funston, a subdivision of the base.
Less than 48 hours later, a company cook named Albert Gitchell came down with a bad cough, fever, a severe sore throat, a headache and muscle pains.
The epidemic had begun. The 1918 flu was most commonly called the Spanish influenza. Some called it the Spanish lady. Old-timers called it the grippe. German soldiers called it Flanders fever.
During this time — with the hardships and horrible news of World War I — Kansans begin to blame one another for their problems.
Some German Catholics and German Mennonites, because of religious convictions, refused to carry guns and go to war.
Many who had lived in the state for nearly half a century still spoke German and came under persecution as the U.S. and its allies fought Germany. They were seen as spies when they corresponded with family still in Europe.
Speaking German was forbidden in schools and churches.
It was not uncommon to see signs in stores throughout Kansas that said "Speak American in this place."
It was a time of union strikes.
On Nov. 1, 1919, more than 10,000 coal miners in southeastern Kansas put down their pickaxes and went on strike.
They wanted a six-hour day, a five-day workweek and a 60 percent raise.
To stop them, Kansas Gov. Henry J. Allen created the Kansas Court of Industrial Relations, whose purpose was to prevent disputes between management and labor.
As winter approached in 1919, Kansas had less than a two-week supply of coal, and striking miners were intolerable to Allen. The governor sent out an appeal to any Kansan to volunteer to work in the mines and jailed the leaders of the strike.
The governor wrote: "If government is to mean anything, then its obligation is to prevent innocent people from becoming the victims of a fuel famine ..."
The leaders of the strike were undaunted.
"The best they can do is to put men in jail," Alexander Howat, coal miner and leader of the Kansas United Mine Workers, said. "We are not afraid of that. We know what we are up against. We will stay in jail until we are carried out."
After negotiations with the miners failed, Howat was imprisoned and the state took charge of the mines. Within a month the strike was resolved.
http://acsh.org/news/2006/02/01/1918-pete-hessers-children-la-gourme-and-new-information-on-the-flu-pandemic/
American Council on Science and Health
1918: Pete Hesser’s Children, la Gourme, and New Information on the Flu Pandemic
Posted on February 1, 2006 by admin
How much do we really know about the origin and spread of the 1918 flu pandemic? Comparisons with other pandemics reveal patterns and lingering mysteries.
Watching the Animals
“The horses growing better, a cough and sore throat seized mankind.” This was the news from Dublin toward the end of 1727, reported in Charles Creighton’s monumental History of Epidemics in Britain — Volume II — From the Extinction of the Plague to the Present Time, Creighton’s “present time” being 1894.
Matters had been much the same in 1688 as in 1727. A “short time before the general fever, a slight disease, but very universal, seized the horses too: in them it showed itself by a great defluxion of rheum from their noses.” Creighton’s source “was assured by a judicious man, an officer in the army of Ireland…there were not ten horses in the regiment that had not the disease.” In Dublin “not one [man] in fifteen escaped.”
Then in Huxham in 1732, some months prior to an influenza outbreak, the horses were affected by “the strangles.” This seriously unpleasant term seems to be the most common synonym for horse flu, though in World War I, la gourme, a term used by the French military’s veterinarian staff also crept into English. (You can look it up, though Google will first ask if you didn’t mean “la gourmet.”) Whether called gourme, horse flu, or the strangles, this was a nasty disease. By April 1918, civilian horses in France had also been affected. The April timing is intriguing because the first reported cases of the disastrous “Spanish Flu” among humans had been in March. But that had been among soldiers at a cavalry training site in Kansas.
At a professional meeting in 1924, a Dr. Reece, about whom I know nothing more, spoke of the “remarkably large number of observations” of coincidences between influenza epidemics and “epizootics of the same character,” starting in horses, then “dogs, cats, and the like.” It seemed that aside from the disease itself and coincidences in timing, however, the only common element among dogs, horses, and humans was crowding. Sir William Hammer added that “epizootics may precede or follow epidemics,” and they may accompany epidemics, too. Horse flu and human flu had both been troublesome in 1657-1659, 1727, 1737, 1743, 1760-1762, 1775, 1788, and 1889-1890, but a recurring question for modern epidemiologists is whether the diseases, equine or human, had been correctly identified. Creighton, a century ago, was cautious about making such judgments, as when he noted that “if Whitmore has made no mistake in his dates,” the spring of 1658 and possibly the following year saw:
universal coughs and catarrhs,
as if a blast from the stars
Although the sequence of events in not entirely clear, this explosion of an influenza-like illness was apparently followed by “a great death of coach-horses almost in every place…and it has [now] come into our fields.”
From daily experience, Creighton and all his sources had been familiar with cities in which large numbers of horses had been kept. In times past, people would have had detailed knowledge about horses in cities, knowledge that has been universally forgotten in the generations brought up in the age of the automobile. But as recently as the 1920s, annual statistics for horses were cited for places such as Omaha, Nashville, Atlanta, and Chicago, in some instances tabulated along with cause of death, somewhat as they are for humans. The problems of horses in cities had even given rise to a tongue-in-cheek warning that by such and such future date, the streets of London would be filled to the second story with horse manure.
Horses and mules — which are less susceptible to equine flu — had also been ubiquitous in all the world’s armies. Pigeons too had been a common accompaniment of the military in World War I. (In the Paris Flea Market in the 1980s, I stopped at a stall with a stock of World War I pigeon-carriers. Pointing out details of their design and construction, the dealer assured me they were from the American army, not French, “the perfect thing for an American in Paris.”)
There were also historic flu epidemics that were not associated with reports of a corresponding disease in horses or mules and episodes of equine flu with no flu-like illnesses among humans. But the association of the two appears to have been well known. Yet while insisting on this matter, I have avoided mentioning a key observation: people do not catch the flu from horses. Creighton’s compilation of 1894 seems to contain nothing to indicate the contrary nor, really, does A.J. Williams’ “Analogies between Influenza of Horses and Influenza of Man” in the Proceedings of the Royal Society of Medicine for February 24, 1924. Williams had perhaps been too ambiguous in his original oral presentation, however, so a Professor Hobday rose to insist that there were no reports of transmission from horses to men or vice versa. This is how things then stood and pretty much as they now stand. About the best we can do is quote a statement made in 1919 by George A. Soper, a major in the United States Sanitary Corps whose conclusions were cited and emphasized by Alfred Crosby in his America’s Forgotten Pandemic (first published in 1976 under the title Epidemic and Peace: 1918). In a contribution to The New York Medical Journal, Major Soper noted that despite many epidemiological and clinical similarities, horse flu and human flu were not identical, nor were they transmissible from the one species to the other, but “it would seem probable that a more thorough knowledge of the disease in horses would yield facts of great value.” As concerned horses, Soper mentioned transmission via the respiratory tract, sudden onset, fever, cough, indications of muscle and joint pain, and explosive spread over whole continents on occasion, features that characterize human influenza as well. Soper also included an element I have not seen elsewhere, that horse flu was thought to be transmissible via feces and stable dust.
Dogs can catch influenza directly from horses, and humans can get it directly from pigs and vice versa. Humans can also get the flu from diverse avian species. Direct species-to-species transmission is relatively rare, however. Usually a mixing-bowl species or individual is needed, with a reassortment of viral genes taking place in a creature — human or not — that has become co-host for viruses originating in different species.
The Nightmare of 1918
The “Spanish Flu” wasn’t Spanish at all. But at the time the flu raged through Europe, many countries were at war. Spain was neutral and did not impose press censorship, so journalists there could print the demoralizing truth, namely, that the country was going through a horrific epidemic. Elsewhere people whispered, muttered, or screamed that it was an Allied plot or that the Hun had once again let loose a poisonous gas. And what censor would pass an article saying that the enemy had been so terribly successful? In truth, the whisperings, mutterings, and screams, whether from the Allies or the Axis, seemed to have had some logic to them, for those most targeted by the 1918 flu were in the prime of their lives, military age, essentially those between the ages of twenty and forty.
Influenza is also an endemic seasonal disease that is always with us. In the U.S., some 35,000 flu deaths occur in non-epidemic years, primarily among children, older people, and others who lack fully-functioning immune systems. In 1918, by contrast, those in the fifteen to thirty-four age bracket who came down with influenza or pneumonia (the most common and deadly complication of the flu) were about twenty times more likely to die than had been the case in 1917, a non-epidemic year. And, of course, many, many more were catching the flu in 1918. Estimates vary. Twenty million died worldwide. Or perhaps fifty million. Or 100 million. Or some other large figure. In India, with its youthful population, mortality reached an estimated fifty per thousand. As in the U.S., the disease in India followed the railroads, and when military horses shipped from Australia to Calcutta arrived with a nasty strain of equine flu, it spread across India with the rail transport of cavalry.
The flu of 1918 was exceedingly contagious and is estimated to have affected over one fourth of the U.S. population and one fifth of the population worldwide. These estimates are not necessarily at all accurate. It is true that doctors everywhere were badly overworked and that quite a few medical personnel were dead before they could fill out and sign death certificates or other forms. But the real problem in trying to make estimates is simply that influenza was not a universally reportable disease in those days. Until 1918, it had not been considered sufficiently serious. But in 1918, the flu virus became “unlike any strain ever seen.”
It was not just deadly. It was quick. According to a young woman working at the military laundry at Camp Funston, Kansas: “We’d be working with someone one day, and they’d go home because they didn’t feel good, and by the next day they were gone” (Barry, 2004). Within months of the start of the epidemic, gauze face masks were being widely used and vaccines and various treatments were available. None of them actually worked, but they did much to calm nerves. Many people eventually came to terms with the fact that doctors could not do much. What was really needed was nursing care, and calls went out to anyone with the least bit of training in nursing. Many of the best were overseas with the troops, but older women and student nurses came forth. Young and old, many of these courageous volunteers caught the flu and died themselves, with mortality among the younger women commonly running exceedingly high. Another group particularly susceptible to the 1918 flu were pregnant women; one study showed an incredible 71% death rate among pregnant women who had been hospitalized with the flu.
It was an awful disease, which, due to the war and the accompanying censorship and the jolly peace that followed, was half forgotten until Crosby’s book in 1976. It was also a peculiar disease. Although it eventually struck a broad portion of the population, it had seemingly started among the young and most fit, and from beginning to end it would be most efficient at killing individuals whose immune systems were the best H. sapiens can produce. There are no usable statistical measures, but here and there doctors in hospitals, nurses in wards, sailors on ships, and soldiers in barracks reported that it was the most robust, strongest, most fit, disease-free athletic sorts who suffered the worst. Post mortem studies on such victims of the 1918 epidemic often showed enormous damage to the lungs, which could not at that time be explained. Years later, it was realized that such victims had literally drowned in the waste products of their own powerful immune reactions to the virus. As Crosby put it, “a springtide of fluids overwhelms the lungs.” Thus in 1918, in contrast to other flu epidemics, many robust young people died of the influenza itself — rather than from secondary infections of pneumonia-causing bacteria, the standard cause of death among those with weaker immune systems. They died so rapidly that pneumonia-causing bacteria had had no time to establish secondary infections.
Darkness in Kansas
Despite the name “Spanish Flu” and the endless accusations aimed at the Hun and speculations that the epidemic had started in China, the first clinically demonstrated cases were at Camp Funston, Kansas, a site established to train troops in World War I. (Funston still exists, incorporated into Fort Riley.)
A recurrent complaint at Funston in those days arose from a twofold unpleasantness. First, in common with much of the American Midwest, the camp was subject to severe dust storms. The experience at Funston was doubly unpleasant, however, due to the great concentration of horses and mules on the base and the manure they produced. I have not seen any figures for the actual number of animals, but they were sufficiently numerous to produce nine tons of manure a week.
On March 9, 1918, despite an impending dust storm, standard practice at Camp Funston was followed and the manure was burnt. The result was a stinging yellow haze with the sun going “dead black.” Or so it is said. There had been similar days at Funston in the past and presumably elsewhere, but this event (if it actually occurred as related) was remembered as particularly severe, and the clean-up that night supposedly involved a hundred men and many hours of raking and sweeping.
According to some websites, it was two days later, “shortly before breakfast March 11th,” that Company cook Albert Gitchell reported to the infirmary with a “bad cold.” The March 11th date is most probably incorrect, however, and is perhaps a storyteller’s concoction intended to tie in with the account of the manure-burning. Better sources give March 4th as the date of Gitchell’s illness. In any case, Corporal Lee W. Drake was right behind Gitchell with similar symptoms, and by noon the Camp Surgeon had a 107 flu patients on his hands. Within three weeks, the number of sick and dead at Funston was above a thousand. In the next two months, over 500 prisoners at San Quentin penitentiary also came down with the illness, followed by comparable outbreaks at Camps Hancock, Lewis, Sherman, and Fremont. It is said that there were few incidences of the flu within the general population during these months, and although self-censorship at the newspapers has to be taken into account, later investigators have concluded that there had been nothing special to report. Civilians had remained healthy that summer.
In September the disease reached Boston, first affecting sailors and shipyard workers, then soldiers, and then moving into the general population and overseas. Some of the most awful-sounding accounts are those of outbreaks on the badly overcrowded troop transports on their way across the Atlantic. An often-cited sailor’s diary reads, “October 5 — fifteen more bodies have just been buried from the President Grant.” During the last two months of the war, over 4,000 American servicemen died at sea or after being put ashore for hospitalization at Halifax. There were also those who died the first few days after arriving in Europe. Troopships disembarking large numbers of sick and dying men in French ports hindered the Allied effort, but such things were only written about after the war.
Some people have associated the flu outbreak at Camp Funston with episodes of manure burning, whatever the exact dates. But in his The Great Influenza: The Epic Story of the Deadliest Plague in History (2004), John M. Barry suggests that the ultimate origin of the 1918 pandemic is to be found elsewhere. Barry went back to original sources, always the best procedure if time is available, and in doing so, he identified a Dr. Loring Miner who in 1918 had had a decades-old medical practice in sparsely-populated Haskell County, Kansas, some 300 miles west of Camp Funston. Doing his rounds from town to town in “late January and early February 1918,” Miner encountered a new ailment that he diagnosed as influenza, signaling the U.S. Public Health Service to warn of “influenza of severe type.”
Newspapers across the U.S. in 1918, whether large or small, had been reluctant to publish items that might hurt morale. Nevertheless, on February 14, 1918, the Santa Fe Monitor in Haskell County (as cited by Barry in 2004), reported: “Mrs. Eva Van Alstine is sick with pneumonia. Her little son Roy is now able to get up…Ralph Lindeman is still quite sick…Goldie Wolgehagen is working at the Beeman store during her sister Eva’s sickness…Homer Moody has been reported quite sick…Mertin, the young son of Ernest Elliot, is sick with pneumonia…Pete Hesser’s children are recovering nicely…Ralph McConnell has been quite sick this week.” A week later, the same paper reported, “Most everybody over the country is having lagrippe or pneumonia.”
In 1918 the population of Haskell County was 1,720, including many fit military-age men, all of whom trained at Camp Funston along with some 50,000 others before being shipped overseas or being buried as flu victims. The issue of the Santa Fe Monitor with the news that “most everybody over the country is having lagrippe or pneumonia” also reported that “Dean Nilson surprised his friends by arriving at home from Camp Funston on a five days furlough” and that Ernest Elliot left “to visit his brother at Funston just as his child fell ill” (Barry, 2004). The February 28th issue recorded the departure of John Bottom for Funston, and it is clear that there must have been very many other comings and goings between the camp and parts of rural Kansas, of suppliers of fodder, for example. It is also clear that there must have been comings and goings of horses.
Tracing the Spread
The incubation period for influenza is very rapid, just one to three days, which partially explains how and why the flu is able to spread so rapidly. Another reason is that individuals about to come down with the flu may spread the virus before they develop symptoms. (These same properties characterize most epidemic diseases.) Influenza subsides once it runs out of susceptible people to infect, but after an estimated ten to thirty passages through humans, the virus may change and adapt to a different sub-population.
The flu virus in the fall of 1918 was not identical to that of the spring disease, and toward the very end of 1918 additional mutations gave rise to a third wave. This was less deadly than the second but still a truly terrible disease to which individuals who had survived infection during one of the earlier waves had only partial immunity. The flu was still present through 1919, and in 1920 the reported death rate by influenza among young adults was still well above normal. “Just-married” couples were mourned throughout the epidemic, and the parents of young children sometimes died within days of each other. During the second wave, feverish, newly-orphaned children were found dazedly wandering city streets.
Differing by a week with the sources mentioned above, Crosby and Barry give March 4th as the day the first soldier at Camp Funston reported ill with symptoms of influenza. This fits Barry’s claim that the epidemic may have originated in Haskell County in January or early February 1918. If so, as Barry writes, it might readily have died out for lack of susceptible human hosts in sparsely-populated Haskell, where the epidemic was so short-lived that school had reopened with healthy children by mid-March. But, Barry writes, the war then brought the flu to Funston.
There is nothing obviously wrong with Barry’s belief that the epidemic started in Haskell County, but it is of limited value because it leaves so many important questions unanswered. Why Haskell County? Why Funston? Why the virulence of the disease? Why was it especially severe among individuals who were fit? Was the disposal of horse manure crucial? Valid answers would also have to be consistent with the very recent claim that the human virus of 1918 had an avian source.
The Santa Fe Monitor mentioned two-way traffic between Haskell County and Camp Funston, but there seems to be nothing special about Haskell County aside from the presence of the flu-like disease somewhat before March 1918. Camp Funston, on the other hand, was special. First of all, there was the crowding. Then there were the horses and mules and their weekly output of nine tons of manure. And then there was the select presence of fit young men and women to the near exclusion of anyone else. (There were enough young women at Funston for weekend dances but, I would guess, few babies, children, or older people other than some senior officers and their wives.) So if a weak or “standard strength” flu virus had been brought to Funston, perhaps by birds feeding on undigested seeds in the manure, it would have found itself in proximity to an unreceptive human population whose members all possessed well-functioning immune systems. A soldier who caught this flu prior to March 1918 would have presumably been subject to a few coughs and perhaps some aches in his joints. He might well have avoided a visit to the camp hospital, since in the wartime society of the U.S. during this period, the very worst thing to be was a “slacker.” (Following a disappointment in love, my grandfather’s brother Jake left home as a very young man and joined the U.S. Customs Service in the Philippines. There, around the turn of the century, he caught a tropical disease and had to be repatriated. He was later exempted from military duty. When the draft was again activated in the 1940s, Uncle Jake was at pains to explain to anyone who would listen that he had not been “a slacker” during The Great War.)
Weak or standard-strength versions of avian or avian-equine or equine-avian influenza may have passed from soldier to soldier at Funston without necessarily exhibiting consequences severe enough to be preserved in military records or memories. And those who carried the virus might have included men belonging to the prime-of-life cohort, such as Dean Nilson, who had made a round trip between Funston and Haskell County while on furlough. In Haskell they would have encountered people whose immune systems were far weaker, some whose identities are known to us: “Pete Hesser’s children,” “Mrs. Eva Van Alstine’s little son Roy,” and “Mertin, the young son of Ernest Elliot,” who had been “sick with pneumonia.”
In these children and anyone who may have picked up the virus from them, the particular viral strain would have undergone changes that could then have been brought back to Camp Funston. While this is hypothetical and will perhaps forever remain so, we know that while the children of Haskell County were recovering and heading back to school, a highly contagious version of the flu began to run its course through the soldiers in training at Camp Funston. At this stage, the illness gave few signs of becoming the horrific thing Barry calls “the deadliest plague in history.” According to Crosby, the flu at this stage usually meant “two or three days of misery” and in any case the epidemic at Funston waned rapidly, “bobbing up only now and then as new lots of draftees arrived.” It was much the same story throughout March and April 1918 as the disease spread through Camps Oglethorpe, Gordon, Grant, Lewis, Sherman, Doniphan, Fremont, Hancock, Kearney, Logan, McClellan, Sevier, and Shelby, an unpleasant countrywide epidemic in the military that at this stage had still not spread into the civilian population. Some unfortunate soldiers at Funston and other camps had indeed died, but the cause of their deaths generally appears to have been pneumonia and other secondary complications. For although it was highly contagious, the Funston-style version of the 1918 flu — “the first wave” — was not itself a great killer. The second wave, which was the dreadful pandemic itself, would not come until the autumn when it would break out from the military camps on the East Coast.
The sequence of events described above depends on mutations of the 1918 flu virus. These produced a sequence of events that could not and cannot be predicted in advance. Simultaneously, a different sort of disease pattern was being traced out within particular populations, military camps, towns, and cities (and perhaps ships). This pattern depended on the number of local person-to-person passages of the virus, and the pattern produced by the sequential passages was always the same: those struck in the first ten days were far more likely to become severely ill than those affected after the virus had undergone a number of person-to-person passages. By October 1918, mutational changes to the virus had rendered it especially deadly. It then weakened everywhere with passages from person to person, and by late November conditions were briefly very much better. But additional mutations then set off a third wave in December. In common with the second, it was worldwide. Crosby, who touched on such matters at many points in his study, concluded that a patient’s outcome depended primarily on the virus rather than the care he received.
It looks as though the human version of the “1918” epidemic had started at Camp Funston at the end of 1917 or toward the beginning of 1918 with birds, horses, manure, and the burning of manure all perhaps implicated. It was not then able to cause human illness sufficiently severe to be recorded or remembered. Yet it had enormous potential for harm because it was by then already adapted to people with first-class immune systems, passing among them and perhaps producing the occasional cough or touch of fever, if that. Its ecological niche was strictly among the healthy. It knew no other type of host environment. In February and perhaps January 1918, carriers of this flu variant had mixed with the general population in Haskell County where, as is typical, the virus passed from person to person, undergoing unknown changes. When it returned to Funston in late February or very early March, it spread, causing considerable short-term miseries, but not as an especially deadly disease. The virus at this stage was active, contagious, and disease-causing but it was confined to an inhabitual ecological niche characterized by host-individuals with strong immune systems: army nurses, men in military training camps, troops moving about on trains, dockers, miners, and men in prisons. And as luck and the Kaiser would have it, these individuals were frequently forced into crowded circumstances, tightly packed among others with similar immune profiles and then shipped from one camp to another and then overseas.
As a consequence of its passage through the general population in Haskell County, some of the early strains of the 1918 influenza virus were capable of surviving and multiplying outside their preferred niche and eventually more or less thriving in other environments. Still, it would always remain a disease of the robust, one Swiss doctor recording that he had never seen a severe case in anyone over fifty.
The virus might be compared to a Wall Street employee who could readily thrive if transferred to a high-stress environment in Washington or London but might or might not be able to adapt to a low-stress job as a pool cleaner. In general, it is only the individual creature itself — human, animal, or microbial — who determines whether a new environment is a good one. That’s why zookeepers have so much trouble keeping certain animals. It is much the same with medical researchers, who can do little better than trial and error in selecting a suitable medium on which to try to culture unfamiliar bacteria.
Lessons from 1918
Some potentially useful lessons emerged while researching this material. One involved the immense danger of crowding and insufficient ventilation. Men in wind-blown trenches had far less flu — or perhaps it was less flu with pneumonia — than those living in crowded barracks behind the lines. The risk of the flu was far higher in the spic-and-span military camps on the East Coast of North America than in Europe’s muddy trenches, and this was not something it took a statistician to detect. French soldiers who left the crowded barracks for the front reduced their chances of getting the flu by a factor as much as twelve (Crosby, 2003, p. 153). The dangers of crowding were apparently double, a greatly increased risk of catching the flu — and, it seems, a similarly greatly increased risk of dying from it. Sailors on ships came down with the flu just as frequently as the tightly-packed troops they were transporting. But their onboard living conditions and daily routines — which presumably excluded playing cards for long hours below decks — provided them with a systematically lower mortality rate, lower by a factor of three to five.
Another potentially useful lesson relates to what have (inexactly) been called “relapses.” Deaths among recovered patients were not necessarily caused by the flu itself, nor its secondary complications. The risk for newly recovered patients was that their immune systems were so exhausted that exposure to most any infectious agent at all in the four to six weeks following recovery from the flu could be fatal. The cause of death could be a tertiary factor, such as the sniffles.
There are other lessons, too, though they do not always apply to today’s world. It is clear, for example, that the flu could be avoided by total isolation. Eskimos were so severely affected by the epidemic that there had been talk of the possible disappearance of the entire people, but at least one Eskimo family who were living by themselves with no contact with others had had no incidences of disease.
One symptom of the pandemic of 1918-1920 may not have been given sufficient attention. In diverse countries around the world, flu patients complained of diarrhea (see Crosby, 2003, Ch. 9). Diarrhea is not “supposed” to accompany human flu — yet when stool tests for the usual bacterial culprits and for amoebas were carried out on U.S. military personnel, the results were systematically negative. Whether or not there is a useful lesson here, this anomaly should not be ignored, and it should be noted that in birds the flu virus normally infects the intestinal tract.
Another highly troubling issue was the impaired judgement and mental stability of many after recovering from severe cases of influenza — a matter which may not be specifically limited to the flu of 1918-1920. “Toxic involvement of the nervous system” was one term and ” slowed cerebration” was another. Individuals who were touched appear have included Woodrow Wilson who, according to one aide, had “manifested peculiarities” after coming down with typical symptoms of influenza plus severe diarrhea in early April 1919.
The good news is that the conditions in 1918 were a product of the times and are unlikely ever to be repeated. Although Creighton’s survey of historic epidemics shows that the flu can be very unpleasant indeed, a strain of influenza will probably never again be offered such a highly specific and frightfully dangerous niche within the human population. Barring bad luck, the 1918 epidemic will permanently retain its title as “The Deadliest Plague in History.”
http://www.tv.com/shows/tj-hooker/the-protectors-59219/
tv.com
T.J. Hooker Season 1 Episode 1
The Protectors
Aired Saturday 8:00 PM Mar 13, 1982 on ABC
AIRED: 3/13/82
http://community.seattletimes.nwsource.com/archive/?date=19980802&slug=2764257
The Seattle Times
Sunday, August 2, 1998
An Action-Packed Summer Read -- Tom Clancy's Latest Storms The Shores
By Melinda Bargreen
Seattle Times Staff Critic
------------------------------- "Rainbox Six" by Tom Clancy Putnam, $27.95 -------------------------------
Rumblings in the distance are growing louder, as a phalanx of trucks approaches local bookstores. There is a diesel storm rising.
Tom Clancy is back.
Yes, fans, the latest humongous Clancy doorstop of a book - at 752 pages, a veritable Cortez Kennedy among action-thrillers - officially hits stores tomorrow.
http://pqasb.pqarchiver.com/latimes/access/30913702.html?FMT=ABS&FMTS=ABS:FT&type=current&date=Jul+2%2C+1998&author=PAUL+D.+COLFORD&pub=Los+Angeles+Times&edition=&startpage=3&desc=Cornwall%2C+Clancy+Leading+Summer+Charge
Los Angeles Times ARCHIVES
L.A. Times Archives
Cornwall, Clancy Leading Summer Charge
Los Angeles Times - Los Angeles, Calif.
Author: PAUL D. COLFORD
Date: Jul 2, 1998
Abstract (Document Summary)
Tom Clancy's "Rainbow Six" (Putnam) will be available starting Aug. 3. Clancy, one of the heavyweight champs of commercial fiction and master of the techno-thriller, is delivering his first hardcover novel since 1996. He is bringing back John Clark, the former Navy SEAL from "Without Remorse," who takes on a maniacal bunch of terrorists this time around. First printing: around 2 million copies.
http://www.amazon.com/Rainbow-Six-Tom-Clancy/dp/0399143904/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1408391541&sr=1-2&keywords=tom+clancy+rainbow+six
amazon
Rainbow Six Hardcover – August 3, 1998
by Tom Clancy (Author)
Product Details
Hardcover: 738 pages
Publisher: Putnam Adult; First Edition edition (August 3, 1998)
http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=13226
The American Presidency Project
Harry S. Truman
XXXIII President of the United States: 1945 - 1953
139 - Special Message to the Congress Recommending Point 4 Legislation.
June 24, 1949
To the Congress of the United States:
In order to enable the United States, in cooperation with other countries, to assist the peoples of economically under-developed areas to raise their standards of living, I recommend the enactment of legislation to authorize an expanded program of technical assistance for such areas, and an experimental program for encouraging the outflow of private investment beneficial to their economic development. These measures are the essential first steps in an undertaking which will call upon private enterprise and voluntary organizations in the United States, as well as the Government, to take part in a constantly growing effort to improve economic conditions in the less developed regions of the world.
The grinding poverty and the lack of economic opportunity for many millions of people in the economically under-developed parts of Africa, the Near and Far East, and certain regions of Central and South America, constitute one of the greatest challenges of the world today. In spite of their age-old economic and social handicaps, the peoples in these areas have in recent decades been stirred and awakened. The spread of industrial civilization, the growing understanding of modern concepts of government, and the impact of two world wars have changed their lives and their outlook. They are eager to play a greater part in the community of nations.
All these areas have a common problem. They must create a firm economic base for the democratic aspirations of their citizens. Without such an economic base, they will be unable to meet the expectations which the modern world has aroused in their peoples. If they are frustrated and disappointed, they may turn to false doctrines which hold that the way of progress lies through tyranny.
For the United States the great awakening of these peoples holds tremendous promise. It is not only a promise that new and stronger nations will be associated with us in the cause of human freedom, it is also a promise of new economic strength and growth for ourselves.
With many of the economically underdeveloped areas of the world, we have long had ties of trade and commerce. In many instances today we greatly need the products of their labor and their resources. If the productivity and the purchasing power of these countries are expanded, our own industry and agriculture will benefit. Our experience shows that the volume of our foreign trade is far greater with highly developed countries than it is with countries having a low standard of living and inadequate industry. To increase the output and the national income of the less developed regions is to increase our own economic stability.
In addition, the development of these areas is of utmost importance to our efforts to restore the economies of the free European nations. As the economies of the under-developed areas expand, they will provide needed products for Europe and will offer a better market for European goods. Such expansion is an essential part of the growing system of world trade which is necessary for European recovery.
Furthermore, the development of these areas will strengthen the United Nations and the fabric of world peace. The preamble to the Charter of the United Nations states that the economic and social advancement of all people is an essential bulwark of peace. Under Article 56 of the Charter, we have promised to take separate action and to act jointly with other nations "to promote higher standards of living, full employment, and conditions of economic and social progress and development."
For these various masons, assistance in the development of the economically underdeveloped areas has become one of the major elements of our foreign policy. In my inaugural address, I outlined a program to help the peoples of these areas to attain greater production as a way to prosperity and peace.
The major effort in such a program must be local in character; it must be made by the people of the under-developed areas themselves. It is essential, however, to the success of their effort that there be help from abroad. In some cases, the peoples of these areas will be unable to begin their part of this great enterprise without initial aid from other countries.
The aid that is needed falls roughly into two categories. The first is the technical, scientific and managerial knowledge necessary to economic development. This category includes not only medical and educational knowledge, and assistance and advice in such basic fields as sanitation, communications, road building and governmental services, but also, and perhaps most important, assistance in the survey of resources and in planning for long-range economic development.
The second category is production goods--machinery and equipment--and financial assistance in the creation of productive enterprises. The under-developed areas need capital for port and harbor development, roads and communications, irrigation and drainage projects, as well as for public utilities and the whole range of extractive, processing and manufacturing industries. Much of the capital required can be provided by these areas themselves, in spite of their low standards of living. But much must come from abroad.
The two categories of aid are closely related. Technical assistance is necessary to lay the groundwork for productive investment. Investment, in turn, brings with it technical assistance. In general, however, technical surveys of resources and of the possibilities of economic development must precede substantial capital investment. Furthermore, in many of the areas concerned, technical assistance in improving sanitation, communications or education is required to create conditions in which capital investment can be fruitful.
This country, in recent years, has conducted relatively modest programs of technical cooperation with other countries. In the field of education, channels of exchange and communication have been opened between our citizens and those of other countries. To some extent, the expert assistance of a number of Federal agencies, such as the Public Health Service and the Department of Agriculture, has been made available to other countries. We have also participated in the activities of the United Nations, its specialized agencies, and other international organizations to disseminate useful techniques among nations.
Through these various activities, we have gained considerable experience in rendering technical assistance to other countries. What is needed now is to expand and integrate these activities and to concentrate them particularly on the economic development of underdeveloped areas.
Much of the aid that is needed can be provided most effectively through the United Nations. Shortly after my inaugural address, this government asked the Economic and Social Council of the United Nations to consider what the United Nations and the specialized international agencies could do in this program.
The Secretary General of the United Nations thereupon asked the United Nations secretariat and the secretariats of the specialized international agencies to draw up cooperative plans for technical assistance to under-developed areas. As a result, a survey was made of technical projects suitable for these agencies in such fields as industry, labor, agriculture, scientific research with respect to natural resources, and fiscal management. The total cost of the program submitted as a result of this survey was estimated to be about 35 million dollars for the first year. It is expected that the United Nations and the specialized international agencies will shortly adopt programs for carrying out projects of the type included in this survey.
In addition to our participation in this work of the United Nations, much of the technical assistance required can be provided directly by the United States to countries needing it. A careful examination of the existing information concerning the underdeveloped countries shows particular need for technicians and experts with United States training in plant and animal diseases, malaria and typhus control, water supply and sewer systems, metallurgy and mining, and nearly all phases of industry.
It has already been shown that experts in these fields can bring about tremendous improvements. For example, the health of the people of many foreign communities has been greatly improved by the work of United States sanitary engineers in setting up modern water supply systems. The food supply of many areas has been increased as the result of the advice of United States agricultural experts in the control of animal diseases and the improvement of crops. These are only examples of the wide range of benefits resulting from the careful application of modern techniques to local problems. The benefits which a comprehensive program of expert assistance will make possible can only be revealed by studies and surveys undertaken as a part of the program itself.
To inaugurate the program, I recommend a first year appropriation of not to exceed
45 million dollars. This includes 10 million dollars already requested in the 1950 Budget for activities of this character. The sum recommended will cover both our participation in the programs of the international agencies and the assistance to be provided directly by the United States.
In every case, whether the operation is conducted through the United Nations, the other international agencies, or directly by the United States, the country receiving the benefit of the aid will be required to bear a substantial portion of the expense.
The activities necessary to carry out our program of technical aid will be diverse in character and will have to be performed by a number of different government agencies and private instrumentalities. It will be necessary to utilize not only the resources of international agencies and the United States Government, but also the facilities and the experience of the private business and nonprofit organizations that have long been active in this work.
Since a number of Federal agencies will be involved in the program, I recommend that the administration of the program be vested in the President, with authority to delegate to the Secretary of State and to other government officers, as may be appropriate. With such administrative flexibility, it will be possible to modify the management of the program as it expands and to meet the practical problems that will arise in its administration in the future.
The second category of outside aid needed by the under-developed areas is the provision of capital for the creation of productive enterprises. The International Bank for Reconstruction and Development and the Export-Import Bank have provided some capital for under-developed areas, and, as the economic growth of these areas progresses, should be expected to provide a great deal more. In addition, private sources of funds must be encouraged to provide a major part of the capital required.
In view of the present troubled condition of the world--the distortion of world trade, the shortage of dollars, and other aftereffects of the war--the problem of substantially increasing the flow of American capital abroad presents serious difficulties. In all probability novel devices will have to be employed if the investment from this country is to reach proportions sufficient to carry out the objectives of our program.
All countries concerned with the program should work together to bring about conditions favorable to the flow of private capital. To this end we are negotiating agreements with other countries to protect the American investor from unwarranted or discriminatory treatment under the laws of the country in which he makes his investment.
In negotiating such treaties we do not, of course, ask privileges for American capital greater than those granted to other investors in under-developed countries or greater than we ourselves grant in this country. We believe that American enterprise should not waste local resources, should provide adequate wages and working conditions for local labor, and should bear an equitable share of the burden of local taxes. At the same time, we believe that investors will send their capital abroad on an increasing scale only if they are given assurance against risk of loss through expropriation without compensation, unfair or discriminatory treatment, destruction through war or rebellion, or the inability to convert their earnings into dollars.
Although our investment treaties will be directed at mitigating such risks, they cannot eliminate them entirely. With the best will in the world a foreign country, particularly an under-developed country, may not be able to obtain the dollar exchange necessary for the prompt remittance of earnings on dollar capital. Damage or loss resulting from internal and international violence may be beyond the power of our treaty signatories to control.
Many of these conditions of instability in under-developed areas which deter foreign investment are themselves a consequence of the lack of economic development which only foreign investment can cure. Therefore, to wait until stable conditions are assured before encouraging the outflow of capital to under-developed areas would defer the attainment of our objectives indefinitely. It is necessary to take vigorous action now to break out of this vicious circle.
Since the development of under-developed economic areas is of major importance in our foreign policy, it is appropriate to use the resources of the government to accelerate private efforts toward that end. I recommend, therefore, that the Export-Import Bank be authorized to guarantee United States private capital, invested in productive enterprises abroad which contribute to economic development in under-developed areas, against the risks peculiar to those investments.
This guarantee activity will at the outset be largely experimental. Some investments may require only a guarantee against the danger of inconvertibility, others may need protection against the danger of expropriation and other dangers as well. It is impossible at this time to write a standard guarantee. The Bank will, of course, be able to require the payment of premiums for such protection, but there is no way now to determine what premium rates will be most appropriate in the long run. Only experience can provide answers to these questions.
The Bank has sufficient resources at the present time to begin the guarantee program and to carry on its lending activities as well without any increase in its authorized funds. If the demand for guarantees should prove large, and lending activities continue on the scale expected, it will be necessary to request the Congress at a later date to increase the authorized funds of the Bank.
The enactment of these two legislative proposals, the first pertaining to technical assistance and the second to the encouragement of foreign investment, will constitute a national endorsement of a program of major importance in our efforts for world peace and economic stability. Nevertheless, these measures are only the first steps. We are here embarking on a venture that extends far into the future. We are at the beginning of a rising curve of activity, private, governmental and international, that will continue for many years to come. It is all the more important, therefore, that we start promptly.
In the economically under-developed areas of the world today there are new creative energies. We look forward to the time when these countries will be stronger and more independent than they are now, and yet more closely bound to us and to other nations by ties of friendship and commerce, and by kindred ideals. On the other hand, unless we aid the newly awakened spirit in these peoples to find the course of fruitful development, they may fall under the control of those whose philosophy is hostile to human freedom, thereby prolonging the unsettled state of the world and postponing the achievement of permanent peace.
Before the peoples of these areas we hold out the promise of a better future through the democratic way of life. It is vital that we move quickly to bring the meaning of that promise home to them in their daily lives.
HARRY S. TRUMAN
http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=13228
The American Presidency Project
Harry S. Truman
XXXIII President of the United States: 1945 - 1953
140 - Special Message to the Congress Recommending Further Reorganization of the Post Office Department.
June 24, 1949
To the Congress of the United States:
No Federal activity touches more closely the daily lives of the people of this nation than the postal service. It is not without reason that for many of our citizens the post office has come to symbolize the Federal Government. The manner in which the Government manages this service, one of the world's largest businesses, is necessarily a matter of direct and vital concern to every person in the United States.
We may justly take pride in the achievements of the Post Office Department. No other country furnishes a better or more varied postal service, and many other countries have used our postal service as a model. The magnitude of its operations may be seen from the fact that the Department in one year transports and delivers more than 40 billion pieces of mail and handles more than 800 million transactions in such special services as money orders, collect-on-delivery mail, and postal savings. The Department has done its vast job well and the effectiveness of its operations is a tribute to the loyalty and "know-how" of its more than 500,000 officers and employees.
The achievements of the Department are all the more remarkable when it is considered that they have been accomplished despite a number of serious handicaps. Many of these handicaps are enumerated in the report of the Commission on Organization of the Executive Branch of the Government. Among the more important obstacles to the efficient administration of the Department noted by the Commission are (1) the maze of out-moded laws which stifle proper administration, (2) the lack of freedom and flexibility essential to the conduct of a business operation, and (3) methods of budgeting and accounting which are entirely unsuited to a business of the size and character of the postal service.
The budget and accounting procedures prescribed by law are particularly cumbersome. Currently, the postal service is operated under 58 separate appropriation items, each of which must be independently justified by the Department officials, reviewed and approved by the Congress, and apportioned for each quarter by the Bureau of the Budget. These individual appropriation items range in amount from $3,000 to over $600,000,000. Every dollar spent must be charged against a specific appropriation, and transfers from one account to another are permitted only within certain narrow limits. The procedures prevent the Department from operating any office as a fiscal unit with the result that the postal management, the President and the Congress are unable to obtain a complete and accurate picture of postal operations.
The Post Office Department obviously can control its annual expenditures only within broad limits. As in the case of any other business, its expenses, and also its income, will vary in proportion to the demand for its services. However, unlike a private business, the Department cannot refuse to serve its customers. Consequently, attempts to place rigid and detailed limitations on specific activities constitutes a positive hindrance to sound management and efficient service to the public.
The Commission on Organization of the Executive Branch of the Government indicated that there are four principal objectives toward which improvements in the operations of the postal service should be directed. These are:
1. Accounting, budgeting and auditing procedures designed to improve management's control of the business.
2. Flexibility of expenditures to meet fluctuating demands for postal service and varying conditions of operation on a nationwide scale.
3. Reasonable freedom from restrictive laws and regulations governing contracts, purchases, and personnel practices.
4. Administrative authority commensurate with responsibility.
I am in wholehearted agreement with the objectives set forth by the Commission.
Several steps are essential if we are to accomplish the above goals. I recommend as one of the first steps that legislation be enacted by the Congress to place the Post Office Department under the Government Corporation Control Act of 1945 so that it will have the benefit of the business-type budget, audit and accounting procedures prescribed by that Act. These procedures were specifically devised by the Congress to provide more satisfactory control over Federal activities of a predominantly business nature. This action will strengthen greatly the accountability of the Department to the President and the Congress. This type of budget and audit arrangements will make available to the President and the Congress for the first time the kind of information which is required to appraise accurately the effectiveness of the postal service and to establish adequate controls over its operations.
It will not be sufficient, however, merely to extend the provisions of the Government Corporation Control Act to the Department. As a corollary, the legislation should give to the Department the same degree of financial and operating flexibility as is now possessed by most Federal business enterprises. Such legislation is essential if the postal service is to be conducted on a businesslike basis. It is an axiom of sound administration that authority should be commensurate with responsibility. No authority of management is more important than that of selecting the personnel who are to operate the business. If the Postmaster General is to be held responsible for the efficient conduct of the postal service, he should be given full authority to appoint postmasters and other postal employees subject only to the provisions of the Civil Service and Classification Acts. Legislation should be enacted which will give such authority to the Postmaster General.
In order to strengthen further the management of the Post Office Department, I have transmitted a reorganization plan to the Congress. This plan gives to the Postmaster General essential authority to organize and control his Department by transferring to him the functions of all subordinate officers and agencies of the Department. It also provides for the establishment of the position of Deputy Postmaster General, and an Advisory Board for the Post Office Department. These measures are essential to furnish the Postmaster General with much needed assistance and to make available to him the advice of outstanding private citizens.
Legislation is now before the Congress which would authorize the Postmaster General to establish a research and development program. The investigations and studies under this program would be for the purpose of improving and introducing new equipment, methods, and procedures in the postal service in order that the business of the Post Office Department may be more efficiently and economically handled. Such a research and development program will contribute significantly to the improved operation of the postal service. I urge that the Congress act favorably upon this legislation.
The postal deficit for the fiscal year 1950, on the basis of current postal rates, would be more than 400 million dollars. This deficit results primarily from the volume of postal business which is carried below cost. If the postal service is to be conducted on a businesslike basis, it is essential that the postal rates be brought in line with the increased costs of postal operations. I again strongly urge, as I have in previous messages during the past two years, that the Congress enact an adequate revision of the postal rate structure.
I believe that Reorganization Plan No. 3 of 1949, submitted earlier this week, together with legislation along the lines herein recommended, will enable the Government better to make substantial improvements in the existing organization and operations of the Post Office Department.
HARRY S. TRUMAN
Note: On August 16, 1949, the President approved a bill "to provide for a research and development program in the Post Office Department" (63 Stat. 608).
On August 17, 1950, the President approved the Post Office Department Financial Control Act of 1950 (64 Stat. 460).
For the President's special message to the Congress upon signing the Reorganization Act, see Item 127. For the President's message to the Congress transmitting Reorganization Plan 3 of 1949: Post Office Department, see Item 130.
Citation: Harry S. Truman: "Special Message to the Congress Recommending Further Reorganization of the Post Office Department.," June 24, 1949.
[ See also: http://hvom.blogspot.com/2015/04/the-americans_23.html ]
http://www.britannica.com/facts/10/40947607/September-18-2001-Anthrax-laced-letters-are-first-mailed
Encyclopædia Britannica
September 18, 2001 - Anthrax-laced letters are first mailed to U.S. media and political figures, resulting in several deaths. With growing fears of biological and chemical weapons, the U.S. government reassesses its vaccines against anthrax and smallpox.
https://www.fbi.gov/stats-services/publications/terror/terrorism-2000-2001
THE FBI FEDERAL BUREAU OF INVESTIGATION
Reports and Publications
Terrorism 2000/2001
U.S. Department of Justice
Federal Bureau of Investigation
exactly one week after the September 11 attacks
http://www.simpsonsarchive.com/episodes/BABF10.txt
Alone Again, Natura-Diddly [ The Simpsons ]
Original Airdate on FOX: 13-Feb-2000
Ned: [gasps]
http://www.springfieldspringfield.co.uk/view_episode_scripts.php?tv-show=the-simpsons&episode=s01e12
Springfield! Springfield!
The Simpsons
Krusty Gets Busted
- How do you figure we missed that?
[ Wiggum: ] Get off your duffs, boys. Get down to that studio!
http://www.tv.com/shows/the-simpsons/krusty-gets-busted-1297/trivia/
tv.com
The Simpsons Season 1 Episode 12
Krusty Gets Busted
Aired Sunday 8:00 PM Apr 29, 1990 on FOX
Quotes
Chief Wiggum: Ready, Mr. Simpson.
Homer: Yes, sir.
Chief Wiggum: Send in the clowns!
https://www.fbi.gov/stats-services/publications/terror/terrorism-2000-2001
THE FBI FEDERAL BUREAU OF INVESTIGATION
Reports and Publications
Terrorism 2000/2001
U.S. Department of Justice
Federal Bureau of Investigation
In September 2001, letters were mailed to The New York Post and to NBC News Anchor Tom Brokaw. The letters were postmarked in Trenton, New Jersey, on Tuesday, September, 18, 2001
http://www.tv.com/shows/the-americans-2013/the-rat-3367922/
tv.com
The Americans Season 4 Episode 6
The Rat
Aired Wednesday 10:00 PM Apr 20, 2016 on FX
Martha faces the truth and new developments surface in William's work, forcing Jennings to face the realities of a biological war.
AIRED: 4/20/16
http://transcripts.foreverdreaming.org/viewtopic.php?f=116&t=26746
F.D. » Transcripts » 0-9&A » The Americans
04x06 - The Rat
And does this look like Mr. Westerfeld?
Man: Not really.
Did he sign a lease?
(scoffs) This isn't a flophouse.
Aderholt: There's no answering machine tape.
No photos.
No mementos.
Nothing personal.
We should get forensics in here.
Let's have a look at that lease.
http://www.tv.com/shows/ncis-los-angeles/granger-o--3367406/
tv.com
NCIS: Los Angeles Season 7 Episode 22
Granger, O.
Aired Monday 10:00 PM Apr 18, 2016 on CBS
AIRED: 4/18/16
http://www.springfieldspringfield.co.uk/view_episode_scripts.php?tv-show=ncis-los-angeles&episode=s07e22
Springfield! Springfield!
NCIS Los Angeles
Granger, O.
(knocking) Hello? (rap music playing faintly) Hello? I-I got the, um Oh, what do you guys call yourselves? Federal agents.
We just have a few questions for you.
Hello? KENSI: Do you mind if we just take a look around? Captain's got to keep a schedule.
Have at it.
Just take a second, so if we, uh, could just Oh, wow.
She just (whistles) Got a punching bag in the living room.
I can do this.
You know, a little workout, watch a movie.
(hisses sharply) Yeah.
We could have a punching bag in the living room.
http://www.tv.com/shows/better-call-saul/klick-3367433/
tv.com
Better Call Saul Season 2 Episode 10
Klick
Aired Monday 10:00 PM Apr 18, 2016 on AMC
AIRED: 4/18/16
http://www.springfieldspringfield.co.uk/view_episode_scripts.php?tv-show=better-call-saul-2015&episode=s02e10
Springfield! Springfield!
Better Call Saul
Klick
Uh, one last thing. No offense.
None taken.
http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=64595
George W. Bush [ RACKETEER INFLUENCED AND CORRUPT ORGANIZATIONS US Title 18 ]
Statement on Signing the Authorization for Use of Military Force [ RACKETEER INFLUENCED AND CORRUPT ORGANIZATIONS US Title 18 ]
September 18, 2001
Today I am signing Senate Joint Resolution 23, the "Authorization for Use of Military Force." [ RACKETEER INFLUENCED AND CORRUPT ORGANIZATIONS US Title 18 ]
On September 11, 2001, terrorists committed treacherous and horrific acts of violence against innocent Americans and individuals from other countries. Civilized nations and people around the world have expressed outrage at, and have unequivocally condemned, these attacks. Those who plan, authorize, commit, or aid terrorist attacks against the United States and its interests—including those who harbor terrorists—threaten the national security of the United States. It is, therefore, necessary and appropriate that the United States exercise its rights to defend itself and protect United States citizens both at home and abroad.
In adopting this resolution in response to the latest terrorist acts committed against the United States and the continuing threat to the United States and its citizens from terrorist activities, both Houses of Congress have acted wisely, decisively, and in the finest traditions of our country. I thank the leadership of both Houses for their role in expeditiously passing this historic joint resolution. I have had the benefit of meaningful consultations with members of the Congress since the attacks of September 11, 2001, and I will continue to consult closely with them as our Nation responds to this threat to our peace and security.
Senate Joint Resolution 23 recognizes the seriousness of the terrorist threat to our Nation and the authority of the President under the Constitution to take action to deter and prevent acts of terrorism against the United States. In signing this resolution, I maintain the longstanding position of the executive branch regarding the President's constitutional authority to use force, including the Armed Forces of the United States and regarding the constitutionality of the War Powers Resolution.
Our whole Nation is unalterably committed to a direct, forceful, and comprehensive response to these terrorist attacks and the scourge of terrorism directed against the United States and its interests.
GEORGE W. BUSH
The White House, September 18, 2001.
NOTE: S.J. Res. 23, approved September 18, was assigned Public Law No. 107-40.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0701173/quotes
IMDb
The Simpsons (TV Series)
Marge vs. the Monorail (1993)
Quotes
Mayor Quimby: All right, I'm in charge here.
Chief Wiggum: Oh, run along, Quimby. I think they're dedicating a phone booth somewhere.
Mayor Quimby: Watch it, you talking tub of donut batter.
Chief Wiggum: Hey, I got pictures of you, Quimby.
Mayor Quimby: You don't scare me, that could be anyone's ass.
http://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/anthrax-fail-government-inspectors-warned-lab-lapses-years-n157271
NBC NEWS
Anthrax Fail: Government Inspectors Warned of Lab Lapses for Years
By Maggie Fox
First published July 16th 2014, 6:55 am
Government inspectors have been warning for years that labs used to handle dangerous agents such as anthrax have been poorly regulated and that the lack of oversight has put the public at risk, yet little has been done to heed their warnings, an official said Wednesday.
And no one’s listened to repeated calls for research to be done so that a cohesive national policy can help agencies do a better job of keeping lab workers and the public safe, a Government Accountability Office expert testified at a hearing.
They document equipment failures so severe that in one incident, air from a biosafety cabinet that was supposed to be sucked away and filtered instead vented right back into the lab. And there was a freezer full of anthrax that was locked — but the key was left in the lock.
Yet Centers for Disease Control and Prevention director Dr. Tom Frieden said several startling incidents involving anthrax, smallpox and other dangerous pathogens came as a “wake-up call” to his agency.
He said CDC was working to correct the errors, and one expert cautioned Congress against punishing scientists who made unintentional errors. But some members said they were not in a forgiving mood.
"Our investigation has uncovered that this was not CDC’s first wake-up call," Pennsylvania Republican Tim Murphy, who chairs the House Energy and Commerce oversight subcommittee, said in opening the hearing. "I am not sure that 'wake-up call' is the right statement."
"I just don't understand why they didn't heed those warnings."
The subcommittee opened a hearing Wednesday into the lapses, in which CDC workers were exposed to potential live anthrax bacteria, a USDA lab was sent a batch of avian influenza virus contaminated with highly pathogenic H5N1 bird flu, and a box full of glass vials full of live smallpox virus was discovered squirreled away in a lab on the National Institutes of Health campus.
Hours after the hearing ended, the Food and Drug Administration confirmed that staffers found 327 vials in the same area as six glass vessels labeled as smallpox. "The investigation found 12 boxes containing a total of 327 carefully packaged vials labeled with names of various biological agents such as dengue, influenza, Q fever, and rickettsia," FDA said in a statement.
CDC says it's cracking down. "I am overseeing sweeping measures to improve that culture of safety," Frieden testified. "If had it to do over again, I wish I had recognized the pattern."
But the GAO says the agency should not have been surprised.
“GAO’s past work has found a continued lack of national standards for designing, constructing, commissioning, and operating high-containment laboratories,” the GAO’s Nancy Kingsbury told the hearing in written, prepared testimony. “This deficiency may be more critical today than five years ago when we first reported on this concern.”
Sooner or later its luck will run out ... and someone will die."
Kingsbury attached a list of previous GAO reports going back to 2002, all containing warnings about a lack of strategy and oversight. They show the anthrax scare was nothing unique — in 2004, lab workers at Children’s Hospital Oakland Research Institute in California were accidentally exposed to live anthrax after staff did not follow procedure. The CDC said then that all research workers should operate on the assumption that anthrax samples are infectious unless confirmed otherwise.
“These recommendations are relevant to the June 2014 incident in Atlanta but were not followed,” she said.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) also issued cautionary reports, including one done jointly with CDC. “The APHIS reports show that in the 18 months prior to the June Anthrax release, inspectors identified numerous safety problems in CDC laboratories,” the Oversight Committee said in a statement.
“Equipment failures included broken or nonfunctioning machinery, the failure to use filters or replace filters on a regular basis, the use of equipment that was not sufficient to contain the select agent or toxin (e.g., equipment used on a laboratory bench top instead of in a biosafety cabinet), and biosafety cabinet grilles obstructed with pens or other items,” the memo reads.
“During one inspection, APHIS inspectors smoke-tested the exhaust flow on the biosafety cabinets in laboratory rooms and discovered the exhaust flowing into the laboratory instead of being safely sucked away.”
Just since 2013, APHIS inspectors say they saw 27 lab fails ranging from a failure to wash hands — something that should be biosafety 101 — to allowing unauthorized access to labs.
"Despite the number of red flags, these incidents keep happening," Murphy said. "This is not sound science and it will not be tolerated. It is inexcusable."
Later he added: "CDC should not assume that its luck with these near-miss events will continue. Sooner or later its luck will run out ... and someone will die."
"I just don't understand why they didn't heed those warnings," Colorado Democrat Diana DeGette agreed.
Frieden said he has cracked down on biosafety level 3 and 4 labs, those designed to contain the most dangerous pathogens.
"They cannot have the authority to regulate themselves."
"I have implemented a moratorium on transfer of any biological material out of any BSL-3 or BSL-4 laboratory at CDC until processes are reviewed and improved, and this moratorium will be lifted on a lab-by-lab basis once corrective actions have been taken and confirmed," he said.
The National Institutes of Health also scrambled to resuscitate a biosafety advisory panel that hasn't met in nearly two years.
Several experts said the federal governments needs independent oversight of lab safety. "CDC and USDA regulate their own biosafety and security," said Richard Ebright, who heads microbiology labs at Rutgers University. "They perform the work. They fund the work...They cannot have the authority to regulate themselves."
Frieden said he was working to change the culture at CDC to one where people feel free to report even the smallest lapses. "We need to encourage reporting. We need to encourage all staff to take responsibility," he said.
Safety expert Sean Kaufman agreed and cautioned Congress against punishing CDC.
"It’s well known that punishment does three things. It builds resentment. It teaches no new behavior. And it hides true behavior," he said.
Murphy countered with a dramatic end to the hearing. "Are you making excuses for these scientists?" he demanded. "It sounds like you are saying they need more training. Boo-hoo." He help up a plastic bag containing what everyone in the room hoped were mock-ups of growing anthrax cultures.
"You don't need training to know this is dangerous," he said.
http://www.tv.com/shows/lost/walkabout-350765/trivia/
tv.com
Lost Season 1 Episode 4
Walkabout
Aired Sunday 9:00 PM Oct 13, 2004 on ABC
Quotes
Tour Agent: You misrepresented yourself.
Locke: I never lied.
Tour Agent: By omission, Mr. Locke.
From 12/7/1998 ( my first day working at Microsoft Corporation as the known official United States Marshal Kerry Wayne Burgess and the active duty United States Marine Corps lieutenant colonel circa 1998 ) To 9/12/2000 is 645 days
From 11/2/1965 ( my birth date in Antlers Oklahoma USA and my birthdate as the known official United States Marshal Kerry Wayne Burgess and active duty United States Marine Corps officer ) To 8/9/1967 ( United States Marines launch Operation Cochise during United States involvement in the Vietnam War ) is 645 days
From 9/12/2000 To 9/11/2001 ( the scheduled terrorist attack by force of violence to destroy the New York City World Trade Center and the Headquarters of the United States Department of Defense "The Pentagon" by Bill Gates-Microsoft-Corbis-George Bush the cowardly violent criminal with massive fatalities and destruction ) is 364 days
364 = 182 + 182
From 11/2/1965 ( my birth date in Antlers Oklahoma USA and my birthdate as the known official United States Marshal Kerry Wayne Burgess and active duty United States Marine Corps officer ) To 5/3/1966 ( premiere US TV series episode "F Troop"::"The Day the Indians Won" ) is 182 days
From 4/14/1950 ( Francis Sellers Collins ) To 9/12/2000 is 18414 days
18414 = 9207 + 9207
From 11/2/1965 ( my birth date in Antlers Oklahoma USA and my birthdate as the known official United States Marshal Kerry Wayne Burgess and active duty United States Marine Corps officer ) To 1/17/1991 ( the date of record of my United States Navy Medal of Honor as Kerry Wayne Burgess chief warrant officer United States Marine Corps circa 1991 also known as Matthew Kline for official duty and also known as Wayne Newman for official duty ) is 9207 days
From 4/14/1950 ( Francis Sellers Collins ) To 9/12/2000 is 18414 days
18414 = 9207 + 9207
From 11/2/1965 ( my birth date in Antlers Oklahoma USA and my birthdate as the known official United States Marshal Kerry Wayne Burgess and active duty United States Marine Corps officer ) To 1/17/1991 ( RACKETEER INFLUENCED AND CORRUPT ORGANIZATIONS US Title 18 - the Persian Gulf War begins as scheduled severe criminal activity against the United States of America ) is 9207 days
From 9/23/1963 ( the King Fahd University of Petroleum and Minerals founded in Saudi Arabia ) To 8/3/1998 ( Tom Clancy "Rainbow Six" ) is 12733 days
From 11/2/1965 ( my birth date in Antlers Oklahoma USA and my birthdate as the known official United States Marshal Kerry Wayne Burgess and active duty United States Marine Corps officer ) To 9/12/2000 is 12733 days
[ See also: http://hvom.blogspot.com/2015/07/francis-sellers-collins.html ]
http://www.gatesfoundation.org/Media-Center/Speeches/2000/09/Bill-Gates-Global-Foundation
Bill & Melinda Gates foundation [ RACKETEER INFLUENCED AND CORRUPT ORGANIZATIONS US Title 18 ]
PRESS ROOM
SPEECHES
Bill Gates - Global Foundation Address
September 12, 2000
Remarks by Bill Gates, co-chair
Good evening. Thank you Gus, and thank you to the Excellencies and Ministers who are in attendance tonight, and to David Miles, the Chair of The Global Foundation, which made this evening possible.
It's great to be among so many people who care deeply about these important issues. This is actually the first talk I've ever given touching on the foundation and the health-giving that we've been doing.
All day long I've been talking about the wonders of new technology and software. That's a very familiar thing for me, because I feel it very passionately but no more passionately than I feel about the causes that we're talking about tonight.
It's great to be here in Australia. My wife and I will have a chance to take a few weeks off and see a week of the Games. We're very much looking forward to that. The Games were last here in Melbourne back in 1956. I was one year old at the time, the same age as my son is right now. But it's interesting to think how the world has changed since then, and it's changed in some very, very positive ways. If you think of health, if you think of the situation that women are in, if you think of access to technology that lets people pursue their curiosity, we have come a long ways.
http://www.tv.com/shows/dukes-of-hazzard/one-armed-bandits-38632/
tv.com
The Dukes of Hazzard Season 1 Episode 1
One Armed Bandits
Aired Friday 8:00 PM Jan 26, 1979 on CBS
AIRED: 1/26/79
http://www.tv.com/shows/hello-larry/how-to-not-to-123589/recap/
tv.com
Hello, Larry Season 1 Episode 1
How To Not To
Aired Friday 8:30 PM Jan 26, 1979 on NBC
EPISODE RECAP
Larry gives simplistic, 'just say no' type answers to daughter Diane's questions about how to deal with her boyfriend putting pressure on her to go all the way.
Meanwhile, at the radio station Morgan suggests that Larry "spice up" his bland talk show to improve ratings.
Diane calls into his talk show under an assumed name to get her father's unbiased opinion. Instead, she gets even worse "spiced up" advice which Larry regrets giving when he figures out his caller's true identity.
http://www.tv.com/shows/hello-larry/
tv.com
Hello, Larry
NBC (ended 1980)
SHOW SUMMARY
Following the breakup of his marriage, radio talk-show host Larry Alder moved from Los Angeles to Portland, to get a fresh start. He got a job at a radio station KLOW, where Morgan Winslow became the producer for his phone talk show.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0500297/releaseinfo
IMDb
$weepstake$ (TV Series)
Episode #1.1 (1979)
Release Info
USA 26 January 1979
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0500297/
IMDb
$weepstake$ (1979– )
1h Drama Episode aired 26 January 1979
Season 1 Episode 1
Release Date: 26 January 1979 (USA)
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0078088/releaseinfo
IMDb
Plague (1979)
Release Info
USA 26 January 1979
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0078088/plotsummary
IMDb
Plague (1979)
Plot Summary
An ambitious lab assistant carries out a forbidden experiment and accidentally creates a deadly bacteria which kills her and rapidly engulfs the city. The authorities order a curtain of secrecy and impose quarantine on all known contacts whilst embarking on a desperate search for a cure. Meanwhile one of the people in quarantine escapes and becomes the unwitting carrier of the disease. She spreads the plague wherever she goes and becomes a fugitive on the run eluding the police through subways and alleyways. In a gripping gripping built up of events, the full horror of the plague becomes public and the onslaught has to be stopped before all human life on Earth is destroyed.
http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=32790
The American Presidency Project
Jimmy Carter
XXXIX President of the United States: 1977 - 1981
National Security Information Order Designating an Official To Classify Information "Top Secret"
January 26, 1979
Pursuant to the provisions of Section 1201 of Executive Order 12065 of June 28, 1978, entitled "National Security Information," I hereby designate the Director of the White House Military Office to classify information originally as "Top Secret."
This Order shall be published in the FEDERAL REGISTER.
JIMMY CARTER
The White House,
January 26, 1979.
http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=32779
The American Presidency Project
Jimmy Carter
XXXIX President of the United States: 1977 - 1981
Proclamation 4634 - Implementation of Orderly Marketing Agreements and the Temporary Quantitative Limitation on the Importation Into the United States of Color Television Receivers and Certain Subassemblies Thereof
January 26, 1979
By the President of the United States of America
A Proclamation
1. On March 22, 1977, the United States International Trade Commission (USITC) reported to the President (USITC Publication 808) the results of its investigation under section 201 (b) of the Trade Act of 1974 (19 U.S.C. 2251(b)) (the Trade Act). The USITC determined that color television receivers assembled or not assembled, finished or not finished, provided for in item 685.20 of the Tariff Schedules of the United States (TSUS) (19 U.S.C. 1202) are being imported into the United States in such increased quantities as to be a substantial cause of serious injury to the domestic industry producing articles like or directly competitive with the imported articles. By an evenly divided vote, three USITC Commissioners determined serious injury to exist in the monochrome television receiver industry and three Commissioners made no determination of injury with respect to the monochrome receiver industry. The Commissioners also had an evenly divided determination on the question of injury to that portion of the industry producing subassemblies of color television receivers, also provided for in item 685.20 of the TSUS.
2. On June 24, 1977, in order to remedy the serious injury found to exist by the USITC, I proclaimed (Presidential Proclamation 4511) that the Government of the United States of America and the Government of Japan had entered into an orderly marketing agreement on May 20, 1977, pursuant to section 203(a)(4) of the Trade Act (19 U.S.C. 2253(a) (4)) limiting the export from Japan to the United States of color television receivers and certain subassemblies thereof, for a period of three years beginning July 1, 1977, to 1.75 million units in each annual restraint period.
3. In Proclamation 4511 I delegated my authority under section 203 (e) (3) of the Trade Act (19 U.S.C. 2253(e) (3)) to determine that any agreement negotiated pursuant to section 203(a) (4) of the Trade Act (19 U.S.C. 2253(a) (4)) is no longer effective to the Special Representative for Trade Negotiations (hereinafter referred to as the "Special Representative").
4. Pursuant to the authority delegated to the Special Representative in paragraphs 2 and 4 of Proclamation 4511, and after consultation with representatives of member agencies of the Trade Policy Staff Committee, the Special Representative has determined that imports of color television receivers and certain subassemblies thereof from Taiwan and the Republic of Korea have increased in such quantities so as to disrupt the effectiveness of the orderly marketing agreement with Japan with respect to such products and that for the purposes of section 203 (e)(3) of the Trade Act (19 U.S.C. 2253(e) (3)) the orderly marketing agreement with Japan does not continue to be effective. I concur with that determination.
5. Pursuant to the authority vested in the President by the Constitution and the statutes of the United States, including section 203(a)(5) and 203(e)(3) of the Trade Act (19 U.S.C. 2253(a)(5) and 2253(e) (3)), and in order to restore the effectiveness of the orderly marketing agreement with Japan, and to remedy the serious injury to the domestic industry producing color television receivers and certain subassemblies thereof found to exist by the USITC, orderly marketing agreements were concluded on December 14, 1978, and December 29, 1978, between the Government of the United States of America and the Government of the Republic of Korea and Taiwan respectively.
The orderly marketing agreements limit the export from the Republic of Korea and Taiwan to the United States of color television receivers and certain subassemblies thereof, for the period February 1, 1979, through June 30, 1980, and set forth conditions under which limitations will be placed on the importation into the United States of such articles by the Government of the United States through quantitative restrictions. These restrictions are to be implemented under the authority of sections 203(a) (5), (e)(3), and (g)(2) of the Trade Act (19 U.S.C. 2253(a) (5), (e) (3), and (g) (2)).
6. In accordance with section 203(d) (2) of the Trade Act (19 U.S.C. 2253 (d) (2)), I have determined that the level of import relief hereinafter proclaimed permits the importation into the United States of a quantity or value of articles which is not less than the average annual quantity or value of such articles imported into the United States, from the Republic of Korea and from Taiwan, in the 1972-75 period, which I have determined to be the most recent representative period for imports of such articles.
Now, Therefore, I, Jimmy Carter, President of the United States of America, acting under the authority vested in me by the Constitution and statutes of the United States, including sections 203 and 604 of the Trade Act ( 19 U.S.C. 2253 and 2483), and section 301 of Title 3 of the United States Code, do hereby proclaim:
(1) Orderly marketing agreements were entered into on December 14, 1978, and December 29, 1978, between the Government of the United States of America and the Government of the Republic of Korea and Taiwan, respectively, with respect to trade in color television receivers and certain subassemblies thereof, effective February 1, 1979. The orderly marketing agreements are to be implemented according to their terms and by quantitative restrictions as directed in this proclamation, including the Annex thereto.
(2) Subpart A, part 2 of the Appendix to the Tariff Schedules of the United States (19 U.S.C. 1202) is modified as set forth in the Annex to this proclamation.
(3) The President's authority under section 203(e) (2) of the Trade Act (19 U.S.C. 2253(e) (2)) to negotiate orderly marketing agreements with other foreign suppliers of articles subject to this proclamation after any import relief proclaimed pursuant to section 203(a) (1), (2), (3) or (5) of the Trade Act (19 U.S.C. 2253(a) (1), (2), (3) or (5)) takes effect, is hereby delegated to the Special Representative. The President's authority under section 203 (e) (3) of the Trade Act (19 U.S.C. 2253(e) (3)) to determine that any agreement negotiated pursuant to section 203(a) (4) or (5) or 203 (e) (2)) of the Trade Act (19 U.S.C. 2253(a) (4) or (5) or 2253(e)(2)) is no longer effective is hereby delegated to the Special Representative, to be exercised in conformity with paragraph (5) below. In the event of such a determination, the Special Representative shall prepare any proclamations that may be appropriate to implement import relief authorized by section 203(e)(3) of the Trade Act (19 U.S.C. 2253(e) (3)).
(4) The President's authority in section 203 (g) (1) and (2) of the Trade Act (19 U.S.C. 2253(g) (1) and (2)) to prescribe regulations governing the entry or withdrawal from warehouse of articles covered by the orderly marketing agreements and to issue rules and regulations governing entry, or withdrawal from warehouse, for consumption of like articles which are the product of countries not parties to such agreements, has been delegated to the Secretary of the Treasury pursuant to section 5(b) of Executive Order No. 11846. Such authority shall be exercised by the Secretary of the Treasury, upon direction by the Special Representative, on consultation with representatives of the member agencies of the Trade Policy Staff Committee.
(5) In exercising the authority delegated in paragraphs (3) and (4) above, the Special Representative shall, in addition to other necessary actions, institute the following actions.
(a) Statistics on imports from the Republic of Korea and Taiwan and from other sources of articles covered by the agreements shall be collected on a monthly basis. Should the effectiveness of the orderly marketing agreements be disrupted, the Special Representative, after consultation with representatives of member agencies of the Trade Policy Staff Committee, may make a determination that for the purposes of section 203(e) (3) of the Trade Act (19 U.S.C. 2253(e) (3)) the orderly marketing agreements do not continue to be effective.
(b) Beginning on February 1, 1979, if during any restraint period the quantity of imports of the articles covered by the agreements, from countries other than Taiwan and the Republic of Korea, appear likely to disrupt the effectiveness of the provisions of the orderly marketing agreements described in paragraph (1) above, the Special Representative may initiate consultations with those countries responsible for such disruptions and may prevent further entry of such articles for the remainder of that restraint period or may otherwise moderate or restrict imports of such articles from such countries pursuant to section 203(g)(2) of the Trade Act (19 U.S.C. 2253(g) (2)). Before exercising this authority, the Special Representative shall consult with representatives of the member agencies of the Trade Policy Staff Committee.
(c) Should the Special Representative determine, pursuant to this proclamation, to institute import restrictions on articles entered, or withdrawn from warehouse, for consumption from countries other than Taiwan or the Republic of Korea pursuant to this proclamation, such action shall be effective not less than eight days after such determination and any necessary changes in the TSUS have been published in the FEDERAL REGISTER.
(6) The Special Representative shall take such actions and perform such functions for the United States as may be necessary concerning the administration, implementation, modification, amendment or termination of the agreements described in paragraph (1) of this proclamation, and any actions and functions necessary to implement paragraphs (3), (4) and (5) of this proclamation. In carrying out his responsibilities under this paragraph the Special Representative is authorized to delegate to appropriate officials or agencies of the United States authority to perform any functions necessary for the administration and implementation of the agreements or actions. The Special Representative is authorized to make any changes in Part 2 of the Appendix to the TSUS which may be necessary to carry out the agreements or actions. Any such changes in the agreements shall be effective on and after their publication in the FEDERAL REGISTER.
(7) The Commissioner of Customs shall take such actions as the Special Representative shall determine are necessary to carry out the agreements described in paragraph (1) of this proclamation and to implement any import relief pursuant to paragraphs (3), (4) and (5) of this proclamation, or any modification thereof, with respect to the entry or withdrawal from warehouse, for consumption into the United States of products covered by such agreements or by such other import relief.
(8) This proclamation shall be effective as of February 1, 1979, and shall continue in force through June 30, 1980, unless the period of its effectiveness is earlier expressly modified or terminated.
In Witness Whereof, I have hereunto set my hand this twenty-sixth day of January, in the year of our Lord, nineteen hundred and seventy-nine, and of the Independence of the United States of America the two hundred and third.
JIMMY CARTER
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/biography/influenza-rupert-blue/
PBS KSPS
Biography: Rupert Blue
In 1918, the nation’s top medical specialists had not yet reached a consensus on exactly what influenza was. Before trying to define the disease for an alarmed citizenry, public health officials debated amongst themselves. A large part of the burden of informing and protecting the public fell to 50-year-old Rupert Blue, Surgeon General of the United States Public Health Service. Blue was in sole command of 180 health officers and 44 quarantine stations throughout the country. Blue’s 1918 advisory to the nation regarding how to recognize influenza stated:
“In most cases a person taken sick with influenza feels sick rather suddenly. He feels weak, has pains in the eyes, ears, head or back, abdomen, etc., and may be sore all over. Many patients feel dizzy… Ordinarily the fever lasts from three to four days and the patient recovers. But while the proportion of deaths is usually low, in some places the outbreak is severe and deaths are numerous…”
In the early autumn days of the outbreak, Blue was particularly concerned that military bases be prepared for an onslaught of illness. He issued urgent bulletins to camps on the dangers of making incorrect diagnoses:
“It is important that influenza be kept out of the camps as far as practicable. To this end it must be recognized as a disease which is distinct and separate from the so-called 'cold, bronchitis, laryngitis, coryza, or rhinitis and fever type,’ which are continually with us and from time to time become prevalent.”
By the time Blue delivered these guidelines, however, influenza had already established a foothold in military camps from Massachusetts to Louisiana and was starting to make its presence felt as far west as Camp Kearny in California.
Blue’s other concern was shoring up the nation’s ranks of medical professionals — depleted by World War I — to care for influenza victims. Using the influence of his office and relying on contacts he had made throughout his career, Blue summoned scores of doctors out of retirement, including those debilitated by old age, disfigurement, and in some cases, near-blindness. Somehow Rupert Blue was able to enlist 250 additional doctors to aid the Public Health Service. He also tried to impress upon civic leaders the severity of the influenza, and went on record as being in favor of closing “all gathering places if the community is threatened with the epidemic. This,” Blue contended, “will do much toward checking the spread of the disease.”
When claims of vaccines and folk cures tempted citizens to let their guard down, Blue warned:
“The Health Service urges the public to remember that there is as yet no specific cure for influenza and that many of the alleged cures and remedies now being recommended by neighbors, nostrum vendors and others do more harm than good.”
In the epidemic’s aftermath, Rupert Blue was among those calling for a more organized national approach to public health and proposed a “centralized national department of health with powers far greater than the U.S.P.H.S. had ever had before…”
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0097576/quotes
IMDb
Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (1989)
Quotes
Indiana Jones: Nazis. I hate these guys.
From 3/16/1991 ( my first successful major test of my ultraspace matter transportation device as Kerry Wayne Burgess the successful Ph.D. graduate Columbia South Carolina ) To 9/23/2015 is 8957 days
From 11/2/1965 ( my birth date in Antlers Oklahoma USA and my birthdate as the known official United States Marshal Kerry Wayne Burgess and active duty United States Marine Corps officer ) To 5/12/1990 ( George Bush - Remarks at the University of South Carolina Commencement Ceremony in Columbia ) is 8957 days
From 5/4/2005 ( the incident at the police department City of Kent Washington State after my voluntary approach to report material criminal activity directed against my person and I am secretly drugged against my consent ) To 9/23/2015 is 3794 days
3794 = 1897 + 1897
From 11/2/1965 ( my birth date in Antlers Oklahoma USA and my birthdate as the known official United States Marshal Kerry Wayne Burgess and active duty United States Marine Corps officer ) To 1/12/1971 ( premiere US TV series "All in the Family" ) is 1897 days
[ See also: http://hvom.blogspot.com/2016/03/damien_17.html ]
http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=110829
The American Presidency Project
Barack Obama [ RACKETEER INFLUENCED AND CORRUPT ORGANIZATIONS US Title 18 ]
XLIV President of the United States: 2009 - present [ RACKETEER INFLUENCED AND CORRUPT ORGANIZATIONS US Title 18 ]
638 - Remarks at a Welcoming Ceremony for Pope Francis
September 23, 2015
President Obama. Good morning.
Audience members. Good morning!
President Obama. What a beautiful day the Lord has made.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0884328/quotes
IMDb
The Mist (2007)
Quotes
Ollie: [Mrs. Carmody is preaching to her 'cult' and they're repeating expiation] Welcome to Sesame Street, kids. Today's word is 'expiation'.
2007 film "The Mist" DVD video:
01:31:07
Wayne Jessup: I didn't understand the half of it. It ain't my fault!
Mrs. Carmody: Oh. Ain't. His. Fault. No, no, no. Ain't nothin' ever anybody's fault. But he denies it. He points the finger, this Judas in our midst.
Crowd: Judas!
Mrs. Carmody: You! You! Don't you know by now? Don't you know the truth? We are being punished. For what? For going against the will of God! For going against His forbidden rules of old! Walking on the Moon! Yes! Yes!
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0884328/quotes
IMDb
The Mist (2007)
Quotes
Wayne Jessup: I heard stuff.
Mrs. Carmody: Stuff...
Wayne Jessup: Yeah, we all heard stuff! Like uh, how they... they thought that there were other dimensions. You know, other... other worlds all around us, and how they wanted to try to make a window, you know, so they can look through and see what's on the other side.
Mrs. Carmody: Well maybe your window turned out to be a door. Isn't it?
Wayne Jessup: Not my door! It's the scientists!
Mrs. Carmody: [sarcastically] Oh, the scientists.
Wayne Jessup: Yes, the scientists! They must've ripped a hole through by accident. That's how their world keeps on spilling through into ours. That's what Donaldson was saying right before he killed himself. I didn't understand half of it.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0884328/quotes
IMDb
The Mist (2007)
Quotes
Amanda Dunfrey: You don't have much faith in humanity, do you?
Dan Miller: None, whatsoever.
Amanda Dunfrey: I can't accept that. People are basically good; decent. My god, David, we're a civilized society.
David Drayton: Sure, as long as the machines are working and you can dial 911. But you take those things away, you throw people in the dark, you scare the shit out of them - no more rules.
http://www.e-reading.org.ua/bookreader.php/71211/Clancy_-_Rainbow_Six.html
Rainbow Six (1998)
Tom Clancy
CHAPTER 6
TRUE BELIEVERS
"So, what do you do, Mark?"
"Molecular biochemistry, Ph.D., in fact."
"What's that mean?"
"Oh, figuring out how life happens. Like how does a bear smell so well," he went on, lying. "It can be interesting, but my real life is coming out to places like this, hunting, meeting people who really understand the game better than I do. Guys like you," Mark concluded, with a salute of his glass. "What about you?"
"Ah, well, retired now. I made some of my own. Would you believe geologist for an oil company?"
"Where'd you work?"
"All over the world. I had a good nose for it, and the oil companies paid me a lot for finding the right stuff, y'know? But I had to give it up. Got to the point-well, you fly a lot, right?"
"I get around," Mark confirmed with a nod.
"The brown smudge," Foster said next.
"Huh?"
"Come on, you see it all over the damned world. Up around thirty thousand feet, that brown smudge. Complex hydrocarbons, mainly from passenger jets. One day I was flying back from Paris - connecting flight from Brunei, I came the wrong way 'round 'cuz I wanted to stop off in Europe and meet a friend. Anyway, there I was, in a fuckin'747, over the middle of the fucking Atlantic Ocean, like four hours from land, y'know? First-class window seat, sitting there drinking my drink, lookin' out the window, and there it was, the smudge - that goddamned brown shit, and I realized that I was helpin' make it happen, dirtyin' up the whole fuckin' atmosphere.
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/general-article/influenza-placing-blame/
PBS KSPS
General Article: Placing Blame
When influenza began to cut its deadly path across the U.S. in the autumn of 1918, it did so with such speed and fatal efficiency that some believed sinister forces to be at work. By the early 1900s, many Americans had lulled themselves into thinking that the wonders of medical science could vanquish any foe, no matter how microscopic. For over a century, after all, the booming science of medicine had gone from one triumph to the next. Researchers had developed vaccines for diseases ranging from anthrax to smallpox. Great advances in microbiology had eliminated the mystery from once fatal diseases. When it turned out that influenza was confounding even the most brilliant medical minds of the time, fear set in, and along with it, suspicion.
That America was engaged in a World War provided a convenient target upon which to heap suspicion: the reviled Kaiser and his German countrymen. As thousands of Bostonians fell under the flu’s deadly spell, rumors began to spread almost as fast as the flu itself. One widely accepted notion — outside of the medical profession, that is — had German spies deliberately seeding Boston Harbor with influenza-sprouting germs. Such innuendo was lent credence by statements of individuals who should have known better. On September 17, 1918, Lt. Col. Philip Doane, head of the Health and Sanitation Section of the Emergency Fleet Corporation, forcefully voiced his opinion that the epidemic might have been started by Germans put ashore from U-Boats. Said Doane, “It would be quite easy for one of these German agents to turn loose influenza germs in a theater or some other place where large numbers of persons are assembled. The Germans have started epidemics in Europe, and there is no reason why they should be particularly gentle with America.”
Other notions of this strain of influenza’s origin contained less-politically charged, but equally specious logic. According to one theory, poison gases used in the war, air charged with carbon dioxide from the trenches, and gases formed from decomposing bodies and exploding munitions had all fused to form a highly toxic vapor that flu victims had inhaled. Among the other causes advanced were air stagnation, coal dust, fleas, the distemper of cats and dogs, and dirty dishwater.
- posted by H.V.O.M - Kerry Wayne Burgess 12:37 AM Pacific Time Spokane Valley Washington USA Friday 22 April 2016
