Sep 30 2008
And editorial original to All Over the Board:
So bailout plan A failed. All well and good, but you know that there will be a bailout plan B, C, D, etc. until the bosses get what they want. My guess is it’ll take tomorrow’s session on the stock markets around the world and the failure of another big bank.
Sep 30 2008
And the sad truth of the matter is that they actually really and truly are doing it for my own good.
I could even die if they didn’t do this for my own good.
Which makes it all the more incomprehensible. How did we get to a point in this society where deception or outright lies are the automatic knee jerk unthinking solution to any situation that might produce resistance?
What the hell ever happened to telling the blunt honest truth.
Why couldn’t they just have said look, this is what you need to do or you will die? Why con me into it?
I’ve had what I thought was a chest cold for the past 3 weeks. Lungs are sore from all the coughing, and then this morning I woke up and coughed again, but this time with a bit of blood coming up.
Not being stupid, or a tough guy at my own expense, I got dressed and walked down the road to the clinic to ask the doctor what she thought. She hemmed and hawed and poked and prodded and sent me around the corner for an x-ray.
X-ray tech says hey, this looks like you’ve got pneumonia, but tuberculosis is a possibility, so we want you to go over to the TB Clinic at the Disease Control Centre and spit in a cup so they can analyze it.
Well, ok, makes sense I figure, so off I go to the TB Clinic where they have me spit in a cup, see a little blood too, and then say well look, just to be on the safe side we’d like to repeat this test 3 or 4 times a day for the next couple of days, so why don’t we get you a bed in the hospital across the street for those couple of days.
That way if you have TB and are contagious we can have you fixed up real quick. Just a couple of days. Or maybe three at most.
Sure I say, why not. Better to be safe than sorry.
Off to the hospital. Up the elevator to the 8th floor. Hisssss….pop. The doors open into a negative pressure lobby. No germs get out to the public that way, apparently.
Looks like a real nice place. Nice smiling friendly caring people.
Hey, two or three days in here shouldn’t be too bad, I think to myself.
Nice room too. Though it would be nicer if the windows opened. And I thought it was a little strange that the fire exit door I passed in the hallway had a lock on it.
A lock on a fire exit door? Hmmmm.
Oh well, it’s only two or three days.
Doctor knocks and comes in the room all smiley and friendly. Wonderful bedside manner. Taps on ribs, listens to lungs, nods sagely and makes sympathic noises.
Looks up and says he thinks he can have me to a non-contagious stage in about 4 to 6 weeks, and until then I’m in fucking quarantine.
Anybody feel like feeding Magic for me while I’m in jail?
Sep 30 2008
Some people are wondering what this whole fiscal crisis will mean for them: