Hemorrhagic swine flu in Ukraine….
We’ve “cycled through” our 3-month food supply by eating it all over the last few months. (Didja know that canned pork’n’beans tastes great with canned spaghetti? I didn’t either.) I’m gonna try to do a Costco run next week to get us back up to at least 30 days’ worth of supplies. Gotta do some juggling on the monthly budget/cash flow spreadsheet. And the spare gas cans are empty, and we used up much of our flu supplies over the summer with basic colds… still have three weeks’ worth of Tamiflu, though. But the time to restock the rest of it is right now.
I attended a national law firm’s Preparing the Workplace for Pandemic Flu seminar back in May. Have we implemented any of the recommendations at our workplace? We have not, and that’s basically my fault. Time to squeeze that into my workweek somehow….
Oh, California’s 10% tax hike withholding increase (to be “refunded” on next year’s tax return) isn’t helping. Saw my reduced paycheck hit the bank this afternoon and immediately decided the wife and I will be presenting our respective payroll departments with revised W-4s tomorrow. 9 exemptions here we come. Why? Because I fully expect that, just like this year, I will get a four-figure tax refund IOU from the state that I can’t redeem until October. Screw ’em.
* for the Captain Trips reference, see here.
I wouldn’t be too alarmed by the reports of hemorrhagic flu from Ukraine (unless you live in Ukraine!)
The influenza virus affects different people differently, and especially so if the diet is deficient, the population is vitamin-deficient, or smoking is prevalent. I would say that all three conditions are likely prevalent in Ukraine.
If you study the 1918 Spanish Flu, an H1N1 like today’s (mutated) Swine Flu, you will note similar severe conditions in the population. The war in Europe had been raging for 4 years, and food supplies were disrupted. Vitamin supplements were unknown there, and smoking prevailed in at least 80% of the adult population. Dwellings were small, cramped and crowded, and physical labor, often in crowded factory settings 12 hours per day was the norm for the working population.
Only slightly better conditions prevailed in the USA when our returning soldiers brought back the H1N1 virus. Note that the nutrition-maintained soldiers fared better: most got sick, but most survived. The population back home did not fare as well, as they didn’t eat as well as the soldiers, nor did they have the discipline on personal health matters which was drummed into the soldiers’ heads by the Army.
Good nutrition, which brings peak performance of the immune system, is the best defense against this flu, whatever we choose to call it now. Reduction of physical stresses is also the order of the day, and, harking back to the medieval era, the practice of quarantine works when a family member contracts the flu.
Creds of this writer: My father, an MD, held a diploma from the Harvard School of Public Health, and talked epidemiology to us kids for hours on end. My daughter has chosen that path, and is an MD in the latter stages of her residency in Emergency Medicine at the prestigious Oregon Health & Sciences University Hospital. My family, over two generations, has put more doctors into the Portland community than any other.
1) Why in the hell are you in Kaliporniataxnation? 2) Why not make it 24 exemptions? There is no penalty for NOT paying taxes early, I don’t think. YMMV, IANAL or an accountant. 3) Why in the hell are you STILL in Kaliporniataxnation? 4) My local grocery chain (Texas) has house brands that are cheaper than the stuff on amazon, even with the shipping. Is there a market?